“Grimdark” is a term that I only picked up on in the past year or so, mostly on Reddit and Goodreads. It is a descriptive, and increasingly pejorative, name for a subgenre of Science Fiction and Fantasy that is pervasively bleak in tone and dwells on the most negative...
Archive for category: News
Swords & Cowboys: Genre mash-up time!
This month’s cover art by Todd Sharp features the blood-red silhouettes of three men mounted on galloping horses. The curlicues of the art nouveau background, rendered in textured shades of brown, evoke the hand-tooled leather of western saddles. All three of the men are wearing broad-brimmed hats. Two of...
The Return of Gelgarth Arbekka – Chapter 7 is Live!
We can’t say that it was by popular demand since the first drafts of these stories were written years ago, but a character whom many readers have claimed as their favorite comes blazing back into the stories this month with Chapter 7, the full, glorious title of which is,...
Chapter 6 is NOW Available!
It is always exciting when a new month begins because that means there’s a new chapter to share! “Stone and Sword, or, The Insidious Influence of the Other” arrives today, and it marks a distinct turning point in our series, not only returning to the story of Father Saren...
Ready to Cross The Threshold?
Enjoying your summer? Us, too! If you’ve been taking your Kindle along to the beach or the pool or even just to your own comfy couch, we hope “The Elect Stories” has made it onto your summer reading list and provided a bit of escape. In the first 4...
Paint It Black
If nothing else, this month’s cover art – a dark portrait lit with unnatural neon colors, our standard background “frame” warped and washed in black and gray – should tip you off that there are changes afoot in the world of the Elect. From the first page of this...
Ever Get That Sync-ing Feeling? (Ch. 2 Gets An X-Ray)
One of the cool benefits of publishing via Amazon Kindle is that the work can be revised or corrected even after it has moved from our virtual shelf to yours. If we spot typos or grammatical errors, a corrected draft can be uploaded that will be swapped out for...
Unlocking Secret Knowledge: Chapter One Gets An X-RAY
Fantasy stories transport us to other worlds with the power of words. It is the nature of the genre that some of those words will be wholly new inventions of the author. We writers aren’t trying to be difficult, and (most of us) don’t enjoy forcing you to memorize...
I’m on Good Reads… Again! But Different!
I’ve started a new Author Profile on Good Reads! I’ve been on Good Reads for a while, though I honestly didn’t use it as much as would have liked. (I didn’t read as much as I would have liked, either.) Having the first installment of “The Elect Stories” published...
We’re Launching On The Kindle App. Why?
I’ve always thought it would be fun to publish serialized adventure stories like they did in the old pulp magazines. That’s how some of my favorite authors, like Fritz Leiber, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard, first spun their yarns. We’re talkin’ old school. The idea of publishing...