Maybe I've Been Slacking

 Maybe, I've been slacking, but I've got an excuse, any of you heard about Covid? Well, I got it a few months back and while I only had things taste off and I only really felt couch-ridden a few days, the brain fog has lingered. So writing has been a slog and I lost out on being part of a Sword & Planet anthology that my friend Christopher Ruocchio is putting together. 

That was a blow because I was really excited about being able to have a story in there with my friends like Chris and Dave Butler for example - who I'm already in about a dozen antho's with. 

Anyhow, my wife sent me to the witch doctor she likes to get me on a regimen of minerals, vitamins and other supplements to get me back on track. At the same time, I'm pushing to get the responsible author system moving, so getting my newsletters up and running for me and the pen name = James Alderdice. 

Speaking of which, there is a giveaway going on now with Butler for multiple copies of several books - sign up now and you've got a great chance for some signed print books! Click HERE

And I'm gonna make a supreme effort to be better at the responsible author thing and post here sooner than a whole year!

Pulp Speed = 4 Books in a month!

I truly meant to spend some more time here at the blog and try to do weekly posts, and that fell pretty hard.

But on the plus side I have been able to keep writing even though I feel busier than ever despite the Corona. I'm finally starting to feel Pulp Rev speed flowing.


Between March 29th and April 22nd, I released 4 books - count them 4 books.
In my #SAVANT series of weird western/gaslamp fantasy Memento Mori, with Porter Rockwell and Elizabeth Dee (John Dee's descendant and heir to his magical legacy)

I got the rights back to my first novel Heroes of the Fallen so I have rereleased it with a new cover, slight edits and a big old glossary in the back that I always wanted included. Its sequel is coming sooner than later - I'm hoping to have Blood Of Our Fathers out in a couple months.

The eighth book in the Brutal saga WRATH is out and I'm pretty stoked for it.

and trying out a new attempt at the beginning of the series, I went and put a new book at the beginning of the Brutal saga THE USURPER which has already made #1 in the Western Science Fiction category on Amazon.


Now granted these weren't all done in a month, Heroes was completed years ago, but got new edits this month, formatting and a new cover by the phenomenal J Caleb Design (he also did WRATH's cover)

Memento Mori was written this year but despite the shortest of these books at a mere 32K it took me the longest.

Wrath is around 55K and went real quick but I did have some of t written and waiting in the sidelines for awhile now.

The Usurper is 102k and that's where I think I really shine at the pulp speed. A few of the chapters were previously written, but considering its almost all new material and was written in January 2020 and April 2020 (not between those months when I was doing the others) that is some serious speed.

In any case, felt like I needed to keep the neglected blog updated and I will try to do better soon.

A Mighty Fortress

I've got a short weird western tale in the newly released A Mighty Fortress anthology.

It is a Porter Rockwell short titled, The Tears of Nephi.

Its a little light on steampunk, but I put in a little - the collection as a whole has the unexpected grouping of being Mormon Steampunk tales, and was initially inspired by the incredibly awesome Dave Butler. He wrote City of the Saints which I highly recommend, and then later down the road put forth the idea for a collection of more tales set in a semi-similar vein and there were so many submissions that was to be one antho became two and then as of today 4!!!

I have the honor of having the closing tale of this collection.

Thanks as always to my editor and friend Holli Anderson.

Check it out if you have a mind too.

Release the FURY

Its that Day! Book 6 in the BRUTAL Saga FURY is live here! Grab it and leave a review!

We follow Gathelaus on his way to reclaim his kingdom, and along the way he finds a out of the way territory plagued by a terrible monster named Fiendal.

This is a twist on Beowulf and I've wanted to do this for a long time, Beowulf was something I read in the first grade (I'm sure it was a watered down version but all the important elements were there) and obviously I've been hooked on Heroic fantasy ever since.

Love the cover by J Caleb Design, the man is amazing.

Below is the amazon blurb.

When you face a dragon, better a stout heart than a sharp sword… 

Gathelaus the Sellsword returns to his stolen kingdom, only to find himself on a bleak and barren shore, far from the capitol. Rumors abound of a dragon terrorizing the land and he is determined to deal with the legendary monster.

But after assassins waylay him, he is forced off course through a haunted wood, where more monsters haunt in the dark places. To save the noble few, spells, blades and dragons won’t stop the Sellsword from leaving a swath of righteous carnage in his wake…

FURY is an action-packed heroic fantasy in the vein of classic pulp fiction meets Ragnarok. If you like dragons, larger-than-life characters, and witty humor, then you’ll love James Alderdice’s gritty tale.

Buy FURY to get lost in a bloody sword and sorcery adventure today!

Farewell Bani

I'm dumbfounded and dismayed that my longtime online friend Bani Kinnison passed away unexpectedly this last Wednesday morning. I had been friends with Bani for about the last eight + years. I met her on tumblr first where she was really active, sharing her artwork, selfies, memes and vintage pics. She had a great sense of humor.

She created so many pulp inspired pieces and she loved doing vintage and comic inspired art. I have bought a few of her pieces down through the years, and with the exception of a Frazetta Atlantis phone cover, as long as I have had smart-phones, it was her artwork that I used through one of the sites she sold materials on like Redbubble or Society 6. If you see something you like this would be a good time to snag it to help out her loved ones.

I had intended on commissioning her to do a pulpy type book cover for me one day, but we never got beyond just talking about ideas.

Something that strikes me like thunder now, is that I had liked some of her Memento Mori work - she had taken some old cemetery stones and done designs with them that I liked. That theme was one that has been striking a chord with me lately, as I have a book coming soon with that title, but even more so it has had a synchronicity for me lately( with old friends younger than me passing away) and I've just gotta say to everyone, cherish and

value the time you do have.

The theme of the phone she designed - I'm guessing it had to be among her last commissions, made me feel uncomfortable sharing it with more of her fanbase at large, but I figure my blog is quiet enough and just has my usual friends that I was ok posting it here.


So it was only a week ago I was chatting with Bani and told her I would like a Memento Mori phone case, she offered to get to work on some new designs and let me pick my favorite. She got to it and soon was showing off her work. I picked my favorite and she said it was her favorite of the designs too.

That I had only spoken to her a week before just stunned me, there was no warning that she was sick. I read that she thought she had a fever, but then passed out and was unable to be revived by the time she was taken to the emergency room. She was just about a month shy of her 45th birthday.

I miss her sense of humor and vitality and it is a stark reminder to appreciate life and loved one.

Farewell Bani, you were something else entire and the world was a brighter place with you in it.

The Brutal Saga and more moving on...

I've been remiss in keeping up with things, ah life.

Last time I was here, I meant to tell you all about how I went to Howard Days for the first time, then I released another book, FIERCE, then Savage, then I took it down cuz it sucked, then I went canoeing down the Green River with my sons - that was awesome and I think I will revisit some of those times and post more here later to fill in the gaps and have a sort of a live journal, but for now I'm playing catch up so here is the deal.

I released FIERCE in July of last year, rewrote SAVAGE and released that in April of this year, and then adjusted an older story - Whispers of the Goddess and added a little bit to make a new novella in the BRUTAL saga - VICIOUS.

The next one WRATH is coming along - I hope to have it out in a month or two.

Storyhack 2!!!

All right, all right, all right! Storyhack 2 is here - actually the third one so far but who's counting?

My tale this time around is a sword and sorcerous novelette "The Crawlers Beneath Avaris" I was purposefully going for one of those old school pulp sounding titles. It is set in the same world as BRUTAL but is a long way away - how far away, you might ask? Well, good thing I've got a map coming with the next installment FIERCE.

My story involves a renegade general hiding out in one of the far flung cities on the lower continent, but things start to get heavy and he must move on. Here is a pic from the upcoming issue, with said Crawler.

Check out all the pulpy tales inside from a swath of great new authors!

BRUTAL gets the Audio Treatment

My first audiobook is under the pen name. It beats out Scavengers which I am assured is close on its heels.

But I am pleased to announce that
BRUTAL goes audio as of tomorrow thanks to Tantor audio which approached me at the close of the year. I am stoked and sincerely hope you guys will check it out HERE

And of course all the reviews you guys can throw my way are much appreciated. They make a bigger difference than most people know.

Farewell Jc Johnson

My friend and brilliant crypto researcher Jc Johnson passed away this last week from complications with pneumonia. I'm saddened and feel for his family and friends. He had so many amazing experiences that he freely shared with others and he was a giving, spiritual human being even though he liked to bill himself as a foul mouthed, hard drinking, lecherous, adventure man.

He shared a lot of interesting strange things about the southwest specifically the 4 corners area and he was the founder of Crypto 4 Corners. There are a load of interesting YouTube videos he has posted if you are into that kind of thing. He also shared some interesting things here and there which have found their way into some of my works, such as the very real "L" shaped fortress in Crazy Horses.

Its hard, I always wanted to be able to go camping with him and share stories around the fire and it just wont happen, but I'm truly grateful for his friendship and legacy. I was also working on a book of which the main character was going to be based on him. When I talked to him about the name, he said I could just use his so I'm like all right I will.

That work is probably a ways off, but I hope to give him a little pulp immortality in my own way. Thanks for everything JC, you were definitely One in a Million.

Progress Report

Wow! November came and went!
While I did not officially join the NANO club, I did hammer out more than 50K words in November, but sometimes its a little hard to tell.

I'm still tinkering with a project - it is not yet titled, but it is a novelization within a series of a popular game. It is supposed to be out next May - but I don't know more than that really. 


When it comes to my own stuff, I had an 80k (very) rough draft for what was going to be the sequel to BRUTAL titled FIERCE and I decided I didn't like where it was going, it was a fine story but it was not the next step in the progression of the overall saga, so that has been shelved and restarted fresh. 44K so far and i'm hoping to finish by the end of December so I can have a January release. I'm really planning on going big guns for 2018.

2017 has been so successful for me and I want to keep all that moving on the uptick.

I am also behind on at least two Porter projects - Book 3 in the Dark Trails saga - You Only Hang Once and a shorter Lovecraftian standalone Let Sleeping Gods Lie.

Both covers are done - along with a mess of others I'm still writing, but those are priorities along with the Brutal trilogy.

But of course I can never just stick to one thing and finish it, can I? I also did 5k on a piece I'm calling Wine Dark Sea = imagine Hunter S. Thompson going to the vanishing Aral Sea hunting for evidence of vampires in the wake of the collapsed Soviet Union - its just weird wild fun. Unknown when I'll finish it, but so far its been a blast.

Grimtoberfest Has Arrived

Grimtoberfest is here and I have joined the dark horde of grimdark fantasy writers in doing an siege on our own pocketbooks with this joint slashing of prices on our respective books.

I've got my own novel BRUTAL cut down to .99 cents for the next few days. Check out the rest of the catalog from these rogues HERE


p.s.

I should also mention I've re-released a collection under the pen name that some of you may already be familiar with - what was Whispers of the Goddess has been rebooted under the James Alderdice banner as The Slayer

I just wanted that to be clear, so nobody grabbed the book twice. I meant to add another Tyr story to the collection but just didn't quite get around to it - this has been a hard month for writing and I'm still way behind.

Til next time

David

Mirages and Speculations

A short weird western of mine has just been reprinted in Mirages and Speculations: Science Fiction and Fantasy from the Desert - available here

Many of you are likely as not, already familiar with it - Garden of Legion - a weird western about Porter Rockwell dealing with the evil spirits of Legion inhabiting an ocean of tumbleweeds.

It is a favorite of mine and I'm pleased to see it out in another collection of local authors. Thanks to Jay Barnson for recommending me to the editor and thanks to the editor Lyn Worthen for enjoying it enough to include it.

Thus far, I think the only other tale I have read yet is Dave Butler's, SEVEN STARS because I got  to read it at least two years ago, when we were talking about stories for a Western Eldritch collection that still has not happened - poke, poke, poke at Nathan Shumate.

Its delightfully weird and creepy, and I highly recomend it to any and all who like a little Lovecraft in the american west.

I personally know at least half of the other authors but haven't read any of the others as yet. I'll remedy that soon.

Til next time.

It's Gonna Get BRUTAL

My latest book BRUTAL is out now!

So I decided to try my hand at a pen name - I'm not too worried about the secretiveness of it because either you all are gonna know anyway or you're the type of person that doesn't care who wrote the book.

MY biggest motivation was to see how it might affect my work with the Amazon algorithm. BECAUSE

David J. West is known for writing weird westerns, Lovecraftian horror, viking historical's, action-adventure, weird LDS tales and fantasy. That kinda messes with all the things the algorithm is supposed to do to help me sell more books.

So I thought I'd experiment and see if James Alderdice - my dad's first name and my maternal grandmother's maiden name. (And no one is using it on Amazon and hey its an "A" name - West is always at the end of the list, bottom of the bookshelf)

That also brings me to doing "Pulp Speed" to write this latest book. I wrote about 78K in about 6 weeks. I did follow the plot of RED HARVEST pretty footloose and fancy free and there are loads of other inspirations in the book. A whole lot of Robert E. Howard, Karl Edward Wagner, Dashiell Hammett, Sergio Leone's - Fistful of Dollars and Akira Kurasawa's - Yojimbo in here. I was also pretty inspired by a recent Hawaii trip to Maui too - that's where the whole dark goddess thing came from.

Hammett's book took place in a mining city called Personville/Poisonville by the locals and I found out it was based on Butte, Montana - guess who is pretty darn familiar with Butte - me - my Dad grew up there, I have been there many, many times. I used a lot of real Butte in the book too - albeit fashioning it to fit a medieval fantasy landscape.

Much thanks to editor Jana Brown for keeping the pace flowing on this one and doing a great job with my breakneck writing goal.

Here is the Description etc:

A man of violence. A duchess with dangerous desires. Two warring wizards. Things in Aldreth are going to get Brutal.

A man known only as the Sellsword has come to the border city of Aldreth, where rival wizards struggle for control of a weak-willed duke. Amidst murderous conspiracies and a scandal plagued dynasty, the Sellsword plays all sides to his advantage, bringing about a full-scale gang war between the two ambitious and unscrupulous men, while wooing the reckless and willful duchess.

Though corrupt paladins, demonic adepts, and a surprisingly formidable assassin stand between the Sellsword and the unwholesome truth, spells and blades might not be what take the Sellsword down. It could be plain old bad luck...

BRUTAL is an powerful sword and sorcery tale with colorful characters and wit straight out of a 80's flick. If you like humor in your pulp, gritty heroes, despicable villains and grimdark fantasy then you'll love this riveting debut by James Alderdice.
Grab a copy now!


This was a lot of fun and I think I need to keep pushing myself and getting out a lot more of these quick reads.

Posting over at On An Underwood 5

In case you missed it, I did a guest post over at the On An Underwood 5 blog

Talking about my affinity and kinship to Robert E. Howard.
 Thanks to Todd Vick for inviting me over.

States of Deseret

I love alternate history. And of course I love my peculiar faith, so I have to be all about a bizarre mixing of the two whenever possible. So, just like he was a driving force behind Monsters and Mormons - William Morris put together this alternate history collection States of Deseret featuring tales of what if featuring the Mormon Church.

I wanted to do something different than the usual - so no Porter Rockwell tale this time. (though one is hinted at) I let my mind wander when the call for submissions asked for different ways of telling alternate history. I was struck with the idea of an obituary as a framing device and luckily - William and Theric liked it enough to include The Electric Apostle.

I've always been fascinated with Nikola Tesla, so this was a good place to mess around with a What IF. I even found out a bit more interesting history while I was in the middle of double checking my research.

I'm sharing the table of contents with some great writers including my good friend Dave Butler, here is the TOC.

Forwrd by Theric Jepson

The Guns of Perdition by D. J. Butler

Latter Day Confederacy of Nations by Lori Taylor

Richard Meets the Missionaries by Anneke Garcia

Not Even the Names Have Been Changed by Marion Jensen

Another Meadow by Eric A. Eliason

The Father by Inari Porkka

The Electric Apostle by yours truly

Subject to Kings by Lee Allred

Cover by Casey Jex Smith

If you get a hankering for some weird fiction by a peculiar people - Check it out!

Crazy Horses Riding Everywhere

Crazy Horses is LIVE!

And get this - I set it up on pre-order - in part to push myself to hurry up and finish = pulp speed don't you know, and it worked. Just really glad I found a great editor who works fast - thanks Jana.

But as I was saying, it was on pre-order and STILL hit #1 already in the Old West category - I'm stoked! That's a first for me a #1 before anyone can even read it!

As always much thanks to everyone who has helped me out - you are acknowledged in the back. ;)

here is the back cover description.

A kidnapped girl. A desperate father. A murderous slaver bound for old Mexico. And a certain untouchable gunslinger. Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.

Infamous gunslinger, Porter Rockwell made a blood oath with the Ute War Chief, Redbone, to help him no matter what. Now that the Chief's daughter has been kidnapped by the desperado Matamoros, and that favor is getting called in at a most inopportune time. Of course, Porter's closest friends--buffalo soldier Quincy Cuthbert Jackson and card sharp Roxy LeJuene--are coming along too. Too late, they learn that chasing down the kidnapper is only the beginning of a deadly path.

As they follow the Old Spanish Trail, secrets threaten to tear the rescuer's bond apart and an unexpected stowaway increases the danger. Clues to a more sinister plot quickly unfold, and dark native magics breath terrible spells over their mission. Can Porter and his friends resolve their differences and save the girl or will they sacrifice more than life somewhere along the dark trail?

Crazy Horses is a Western with colorful characters and wit straight out of an Eastwood flick. If you like strong, admirable heroes, surprising action and eerie weird Westerns, then you'll love the second book in David J. West's Porter Rockwell series.

Buy Crazy Horses to ride the trail today!

I am so happy with artist Anna Stansfield's cover for me and as a bonus here is a the new cover for Cold Slither she did too - and I am so excited to see what she comes up with for the next one in this series - YOU ONLY HANG ONCE! It is gonna be epic!

Pulp Revolution with STORYHACK! JACK!

Bryce Beatty contacted me on twitter awhile back and came over to my palatial office and interviewed me back here (I just looked it up for the link - that was June of last year! Wow! Time flies)

Anyhow, when I heard Bryce wanted to put together a pulp themed mag, I was like OH Yeah! I need to be in on that. So I sent him a story and then tweeted the hell out of it - I wanted to be first in line for that massive submission pile!

So I finished off a pulp S&S story that had been sitting on my drive for a little while and viola - Bryce accepted it into Storyhack vol 0.

Guys! This first issue is only a buck for some top notch pulp ridden action tales! don't just grab it for mine you need to read all of these. The Pulp Revolution is live!

I think Bryce found a great cover for the issue - spotlighting Alexandru Constantin's tale.

So proud to be a part of this one! Many more to come I hope Bryce!?

I've got my copy now and am gonna dig in!

FanX 2017!!!

I'm a guest at my pseudo-hometown Comic con = Salt Lake's Comic Con .2 Fan X.

It's always a little smaller, a little more intimate - and thats only in comparison to the September comic con which is huge. FanX is still bigger than most I'd imagine at 50K+ attendee's.

I'll be signing books with some of my writer friends at table Gold 2 -its pretty close to the entrance - which can be both a blessing and a curse. You're the first and last person they see.

I'm going to be doing another improv audience participation game/panel with the other Space Balrog's. I get to be The Undead vs Dragons vs Elementals. I think I'm going to do a suave vampire thing or I might go for broke with an evil Ash persona. Its always a lot of fun.

I watched What We Do in the Shadows again to think about character but now maybe I'll rewatch Army of Darkness again too.

On the home/writing front. I have not quite been able to keep up the pulp speed I would have hoped for, but progress is being made nonetheless. I can talk about these plans within plans more sooner than later. I'm excited for the possibilities.

Oh, I'm stoked! I'm going to see Flash Gordon in theaters tonight with Sam Jones - who is a guest of FanX. It's been one of my favorite pulpy sci-fi movies since I was in the second grade.

I wanted to be Flash when I was a kid, but genetics deemed me Ming.

I'll have more to report soon!

LTUE Late Night Follow Up

I was so busy chatting with friends - new and old, that I didn't take very many pics, nor record too much of what went on for those three days last month.

It was a blast, I love talking and hanging with other writers.

I was on a bunch of panels on Thursday and on some I felt a little out of my element. Like the one about the Hottest Women Writers of Sci-Fi. Luckily Jana Brown more than made up for my ineptitude. I had tried to catch up on more women writers before hand - I did a lot of cramming thanks to Audible, but still felt I was the weak link on that panel.

I'm kinda irritated I didn't get to be on the Pulp panel, and I didn't see it - just heard about it afterward, sounds like I should have been there to tell some people that they don't know what they're talking about but cest la vie.

The Art of the Hook with Larry Correia and Andrea Pearson was great - always got to love Larry dropping his wisdom. In a nutshell - Larry says who cares about defining genre or anything so cerebral = write what people want! Make them come back for more and you'll get paid.

I'm working on that.

In the meantime I have been very pleased at Scavengers and Six-Gun Serenades sales numbers on Amazon. I'm not breaking the bank but it is nice to actually be making hundreds of dollars a month. I need to do better but its a hell of a good start.


My friends the Space Balrogs had a great Choose Your Own Apocalypse panel, and the mass book signing was very cool too.

Oh and it was a great feeling to be recognized by other literati - for the sake of an anthology that isn't even out yet - made me feel good just to know there are at least a few people paying attention to that kind of thing.

I did get a load of new books abut I still love grabbing old favorites from an ancient dealer that shows up to this every year.

All in all it was great seeing everybody, and now I gotta wait til FanX to do it all over again. - Granted That will be a little more hectic and won't deliver as much quality time - but then that's what makes LTUE so great.

Get Hexed with Witchy Eye

My good friend Dave Butler's big epic flintlock fantasy Witchy Eye is out today!

Here is the description:
Sarah Calhoun is the fifteen-year-old daughter of the Elector Andrew Calhoun, one of Appalachee’s military heroes and one of the electors who gets to decide who will next ascend as the Emperor of the New World. None of that matters to Sarah. She has a natural talent for hexing and one bad eye, and all she wants is to be left alone—especially by outsiders.

But Sarah’s world gets turned on its head at the Nashville Tobacco Fair when a Yankee wizard-priest tries to kidnap her. Sarah fights back with the aid of a mysterious monk named Thalanes, who is one of the not-quite-human Firstborn, the Moundbuilders of the Ohio. It is Thalanes who reveals to Sarah a secret heritage she never dreamed could be hers.

Now on a desperate quest with Thalanes to claim this heritage, she is hunted by the Emperor’s bodyguard of elite dragoons, as well as by darker things—shapeshifting Mockers and undead Lazars, and behind them a power more sinister still. If Sarah cannot claim her heritage, it may mean the end to her, her family—and to the world where she is just beginning to find her place.

***
Her Mother was a Queen
Her Father was a Hero
Her Uncle wants her Dead

I got to read an early version of Witchy Eye and as always whatever Butler touches turns to gold. He is a writing Midas with an imagination, wry sense of humor and depth to rival anyone.

Witchy Eye is a bold re-imagined American crossroads of empire with various magical characters all in a place that might have been. Maybe should have been.

Something I think is great is that we get to go somewhere outside of the usual psuedo-European fantasy and encounter a mythos that is decidedly American, including the fae, mound-builders and beast-men while also acknowledging the magic and legends of the newcomers from the old world - which are a major source of conflict. I had to chuckle to myself over Oliver Cromwell, (who gets a bad rap about everywhere) because once he becomes a necromancer it gets serious. Full of action and surprises this is not to be missed.

This is also one of those books where I know I'll want to read it again because there are dozens of references and in jokes, that I may have missed. Butler just has so much knowledge and wit to share that it's impossible to get it all in one go round. Its the book that keeps on giving. Good thing my hard copy is coming today.

He also has a prologue of sorts available at the Baen website that tells a key moment in the Witchy Eye backstory, in which John Churchill takes England pagan, for arcane defensive reasons. So check out,
DEI BRITANNICI
A Prologue to Witchy Eye