Artifacts and Relics: Extreme Sorcery

 Artifacts and Relics: Extreme Sorcery


is now available here. This promises to be quite the sword and sorcery collection. I'm honored to be included in these ranks.

Inside the table of contents...
Fred C. Adams
Colleen Anderson
James Beaman
Joe Bonadonna
Steve Goble
Jonah Lissner
David C. Smith
Bill Ward
David J. West
John M. Whalen

as well as a tale by Clark Ashton Smith!

In the Works...

Life has made my blogging this year incredibly erratic (did I completely miss February?)

But projects are coming along, The Mad Song in Artifacts & Relics shouldn't be too far off, and The Dogs of War in Thunder on the Battlefield will be shortly behind that I think, Rolling in the Deep in A Flame in the Dark: Monsters should be out anytime as will Make A Monkey Outta Me in Heavy Metal Horror and The Problem with Magick in Another 100 Horrors. Wish I knew something more on the Rogue Blades Entertainment Challenge antho = The Serpents Root and the rumored Sword & Sorcery League collection which supposedly has accepted Sailing to Valhalla, but alas I know nothing on either project.

I still need to format Whispers of the Goddess, so that delay is all on me and I did finally receive the edits on Bless the Child, so I will absolutely have a sword & sandals novel out this year - I'm hoping in the next few weeks but can't promise anything since I honestly don't know what I'm doing with formatting yet.

Bring the Fire (tentative title) for The Barbarian Coast is coming along nicely = almost done. And I have dreamt up my story for Space Eldritch 2 I just have to write it now.

Two more projects demand near immediate attention, one is a Sci-Fi sure thing, the other is a limited invitational Fantasy submission, best 10 out of 25 (good odds), and both MIGHT get published through Baen, so that's cool.

I'm also sitting on a half dozen finished spec tales that I need to just get off my butt and submit somewhere - and then there are the fifty plus starts to tales I need to finish...and then there are the books I need to finish, I wish I was half as prolific as I sound.

Part of the writing problem has been the busy family life and drama but it seems the Muse has returned ~

Storming the Gates of Troy

 

One thousand ships launched astern
For you, the flames they burn
Scarlet lips and hands to hold
Passion unfurled and courage bold
Swords are raised as bridges crossed
One thousand moments count and lost
Two for the neck, one for the heart
Hopes blaze that we may never part
All for you my queen, so regal
I shall be cloaked dark with eagle
Stricken in the heart and the heel
I write to forge what I feel
To be with you again I hope and pray
And win but a kiss today
No tears, no pain, no sorrow
All so I may win the war tomorrow
With sacred horse and a tour deforce
The gates will fall and I’ll tear down your wall
Chariots race and dooms embrace
Will open the path to proceed
And truly fulfill that primal need
To be as one and never ever come undone

Also, it seems I am getting 5 times the hits to this blog from Iran than I am from the usual suspects = The US of A, Canada, Germany and the UK - What the Hell? Can I be so interesting to the Persians? Or is it just the Spartan thing??? I've barely been posting this year - what's so interesting???

Whispers of the Goddess is Coming

I haven't been around, all my regular readers know why, but finally my first project of the year is almost here.

I need to figure out all the nuances and get it put together but WHISPERS OF THE GODDESS my novella from the departed Roar of the Crowd is coming soon.

Here is the back cover blurb I recently put together, (and thanks to Angie Lofthouse for helping polish it)

"Warships of the Fourth Crusade surround Constantinople threatening murder, rapine and worse.
The only option left the impotent Emperor to avoid the sacking of the great city, is to secretly give away a sacred relic.
Enter Tyr a red-handed Swedish mercenary and Wolfram von Eschenbach the Templar poet, together charged with retrieving the holy artifact and escaping the city.
What they don’t know is that arcane forces, old as myth, are marshaled against their mission. The old gods of multiple nations war with the New.
And Ragnarok is coming to Greece."


Here is the cover by the talented Carter Reid - he also did the SPACE ELDRITCH cover.


In other news, the prequel of sorts for Whispers of the Goddess, The Dogs of War, has been accepted into the Thunder on the Battlefield, Sword & Sorcery collection edited by James R. Tuck, so if you like one tale I hope you will like the other and we can get some cross-pollination going.

'The Mad Song' in Artifacts & Relics: Extreme Sorcery

I'm very pleased to announce that my novella "The Mad Song" has been accepted into Heathen Oracle's next anthology Artifacts and Relics: Extreme Sorcery

I get to share a table of contents with ~

Fred C. Adams

Collen Anderson

James Beaman

Joe Bonadonna

Steve Goble

Jonah Lissner

David C. Smith

Bill Ward

and

John M. Whalen


This promises to be a great Heroic Fantasy collection, and I will update when I know of an imminent release.


My tale is based off a cursed musical instrument known as the Pipe of Mahmackrah and thusly the Mad Song it plays....

I based the look of the pipe upon one played by John Two-Hawks a Native American musician that I became aware of through his work recording with one of my other favorite groups - Nightwish.

In the concert DVD of Nightwish's: End of an Era
Mr. Two-Hawks plays upon a double barreled pipe, the look was so distinct and unusual that when I thought about what kind of cursed instrument to use for my story his pipe was the only thing that came to mind. Though the cursed pipe of Mahmackrah is crafted of black onyx and covered with swirling eldritch runes.

I was able to find one great pic to share so you can see what I'm thinking of. Of course my tale has nothing to do with Mr. Two-Hawks apart from that, and the song incidentally that I listened to constantly while writing the Mad Song was actually every possible interpretation of Led Zeppelin's Kashmir.

The story is set in a desert wasteland, pregnant with foreboding spirit and legend, ripe for panic and dissolution, it awaits the traveling magic caravan or reader with hungry anticipation.