FanX 2016 Recap

I had a lot of fun this last weekend at the jr. spring version of Salt Lake Comic Con = FanX

They cap it at 50k people instead of the 150K for Septembers SLCC. Ina lot of ways this can be nicer, the crowds arent wall to wall and you can have more interactions etc.

I was on several panels that a couple writing tracks and some fan oriented ones about Tolkien and Lovecraft.

This top pic is from the I've written a book - Now What? With me, my friend Dave Butler, Richard Paul Evans and a romance writer,  an agent, and an acquisitions editor. It was fun, there was almost an argument between pro-self-publishing Richard Paul Evans and the agent, but sadly it didn't quite get that far. ;)
Before that I was on another panel about Pantsing and Plotting and it was funny how all of the writers you see pictured below started pantsing and have been gradually moving to plotting.

I got to meet quite a few people just running around, these are the guys from the ongoing fantasy movie series Mythica. Adam Johnson (the one on my right) has been a friend of my wife for years and if we go back far enough is partially responsible for Melissa and I getting together.

I really liked this version of Goser the Goserian.

AZPowergirl, I enjoyed talking to her all three days. She is funny and I love that she is running for the AZ House of Representatives.

I chatted with Stewart Petersen a few moments (this was his first Comic Con) I take it you all have seen Where the Red Fern Grows among others.

This is an up and coming actress/producer friend of mine Wren Barnes. I didn't realize I was making a gif at the time.

I thought this was one of the best cosplay's I saw at the whole con an Alien family.

Rising cosplay star Joanie Brosas in an incognito moment

 My sons in the Green Room, I'm not sure they understand the exclusivity yet that they are privileged with.

This Black Cat requested my son pose with her - he made his own Anti-Venom costume - he was the only Anti-Venom I saw at the con.

And finally I'll share one of my darkest moments. The Space Balrogs do a Choose Your Own Apocalypse audience participation comedy game at most cons we got to (Emerald City next month!) and this one was based on the TV show Supernatural - I was at a loss considering I've never watched it so I did my best to fake it as Death one of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse. I did pretty good but ultimately Craig Nybo won as Crowley. And as usual I think Jason is the funniest - here is a six-minute highlight.

All in all it was good, made some new friends and had a good time with old ones. Sold a few books and met  some great fans. Looking forward to the next one!

FANX 2016!

I'm pumped for this one the Fan Xperience - the spring version of Salt Lake Comic Con! I'm on five panels (as of yesterday) it was still 3 on Monday.

Here is the schedule.

My first panel at 1:00 pm today is a writing track on Pantsing vs Plotting.

I've always been a pantsing guy, but recently I have worked with outlines a bit more and I would have to admit it has made me faster.


At 5:00 pm today, I'll be a part of the Choose Your Own Apocalypse, audience participation game. Supernatural edition. I may be a t a loss here since I've never watched the show, but I did school myself on it a bit last night.


Friday, I have another writers track at 10:00 am on How we (or you) get published - again it will be with writer friends of mine and I think I have some interesting bits to add to the discussion so it will
be fun.

Saturday will be my favorite panels. At Noon, I'll be on a All Things Tolkien panel and then the last panel of the night at 8:00 pm is the Lovecraft: Not Meant to Voyage Far panel.

I've also got a booth with friends (the Space Balrogs) and I think its gotta be in the most prime con real estate we've ever had. Right in the center beside a main thoroughfare = Green 16.

I'll post some pics to Twitter, Facebook and such but will do a recap blog post soon too.


Oh and I almost forgot, the latest issue #10 of Utah Geek will be release there too and I must say I think omy ongoing fantasy serial is just getting better with each issue - this time its "The Hammer of Witches"! and I love this cover! I forget who the artist is, but I was told its the Guest of Honor artist at World Horror Con that I'll be at the end of next month.

Well I'll Be a Son of a Black Sword!

Son of the Black Sword, by Larry Correia

I had opportunity to talk with Larry about fantasy at Fantasycon/Westercon a good year and a half ago. I heard a few hints at what he was planning for this but I still had no idea.
 I even read the short story of his that opens the Shattered Shields anthology and still feel like I had no idea to the extent of world-building and great backstory he has going on in SotBS.

It opens with Ashok Vadal hunting down a demon on the coast, now these aren't inter-dimensional beings such as we might picture from legend or magical ceremonies, these are beings that fell from the heavens, were banished to the sea but return to raid the dry-landers every now and again and are they ever bad! Their very skin will cut you open like a shark but worse.
Very few men can stand up to these worst of monsters and of the Order of Protectors, Ashok is the best.
A champion of Law and order, Ashok thinks he knows his place in the world but when more is revealed to him, a complicated conspiracy takes root and he becomes a hunted man.

This is the beginning of a new series, this doesn't pull punches and the action moves. As much as I have enjoyed the Monster Hunter series I am looking forward to more of this one.

Valcoria and then some...

Valcoria by Jason King

I've had my copy since Tree City ComicCon - that was October of 2014 and I finally got around to reading it. In part because of something else I'll tell you all about in a few.

But I apologize or my reading/review pile being kept up with so terribly. Jason is a friend of mine and I never meant to take so long getting to it but life...

Valcoria is an epic fantasy world that is strangely enough devoid of a lot of the tropes we expect with epic fantasy and that helps make it so interesting. Instead of rampant magic and monsters we have a mysticism that is finding its way back into the world as old legends are found to have truths worming their way to the surface. Buried ancient forgotten technology is coming back with horrific consequences.

King weaves great characters together across the countryside and we get to see a lot of that epic side of fantasy wherein the plots and struggles are told from various sides. Kings prose and pace is exciting and fun.

I liked that King has so many cinematic type scenes and we feel for different characters in different ways: You have the noble hero Sitrell, the coward Yuiv, the honorable solider Jalek, and the conniving villain Rayome and even the duty-bound princess Ashra - yet all in fresh new lighting. This is a great take on epic fantasy that is quite a bit different from King's other series (which I also greatly enjoyed the Lure of Fools)
I am reminded of the old Indian tales of great technology in the distant past like Vimana's and the like (stuff that gets referenced on Ancient Aliens a lot) The technological aspect along with the mysticism brings new flavor to this fantasy.

Highly recommended.

Now about that other news: Valcoria 2 is being written and polished right now and among the projects King has going, there is going to be an anthology of fantasy stories bridging books 1 and 2.
I am contributing a tale and thusly had to hurry up and read. Most of the Space Balrogs (my writing guild) will have new tales set within the Valcoria world and right now I am in the process of finishing up my own pulpy offering. I haven't settled on a title yet but the premise, while still fantasy, is very detective noir. I'm quite enjoying it. Hopefully it will be published by the end of the year.


Get Valcoria  here

Life, The Universe and Everything

This weekend Thursday the 11th, Friday the 12th and Saturday the 13th are LTUE
a supremely awesome genre centered writing conference. Held in the Provo Marriott, its conveniently close to home (and where I'll be for World Horror Con this April). I don't know of any other writers con where you can rub shoulders with so many greats at one time, and of course I am also a guest and speaking at 8 different panels myself.

I linked the schedule above but for clarity here is my own

Thursday
from 1pm to 2pm - Non-Tolkien-derivatives, Beyond noble elves and burly dwarves in the Amphitheater
and from 6pm to 8pm I'll be co-hosting Sibyl’s Scriptorium Contests Award Ceremony

Friday
from 10am to 11am Sympathy for the Devil (writing great villains)
from 12pm to 1 pm Screenwriting (which will be more of me faking it til I make it)
from 3pm to 4 pm Horror Games: Incorporating Theme Effectively
from 4pm to 5 pm Conan the Barbarian and the adventure fiction of Robert E Howard (finally one I feel pretty damn confident about!!!)

Saturday
from 1pm to 2pm Greek Mythology in the Modern Day
from 2 pm to 3 pm Coffee, Tea, and Revolutions


These are all writing related so I can use writing related chops, but I was surprised I was flagged for the Horror Games and Screenwriting tracks, I've read and researched both but I sure don't want to come off as a clown who doesn't know his stuff on these two.

And what I like most of all on these type things is the camaraderie of hanging with other cool writers who Ii consider friends. In this day and age its hard to get together with people anymore and I don't see old friends like I did way back when so these events are nice to mingle and laugh in person with folks.

One fine day, I'd like to make it out where you my regular blog readers are at! Til next time.

YOR: The Hunter From the Future

I saw this when I was a kid and because it was part of that 80's craptastic fantasy revival its always been in the back of my head to see it again and the other night, Amazon Prime obliged me.

Opening with a theme song about Yor, that sounds like it was a rejected Yes track, I was sure that they chose a place with the most phallic looking rocks possible. Took me awhile to find a screen shot online, that still doesn't do it disturbing justice.

Yor played by Reb Brown (70's Captain America, Space Mutiny-which I just watched via Mystery Science Theater 3000) oh and he was Blaster, in Uncommon Valor - a movie I actually like.

Anyhow he shows up just in time to save the damsel in distress and her dad? from an enraged triceratops. After he kills it with a few good whacks in the head with his ax, he tells them to help him with the best cuts of meat. All in a days work for our hero.

Later the bad caveman attack and take the girl, so Yor and her dad go after them. Rather conveniently Yor kills a bat/pteranadon some winged beastie I never got a good look at and he hang glides into the bad cavemen's open cavern. Unbelievable as that was it is still better than Ator's similar maneuver in Cave Dwellers. Then he has to run with the girl - I'm spacing her name but she was a Bond girl in Moonraker (so she has done better movies)  and they cross a defile
and then run up the cavern past the death god altar and LO! There is a dam at the top of the cavern so that Yor can break it down and flood out the pursuing baddies. Pretty damn convenient.

Later he gets word that there is a goddess who has a similar medallion to his, so he goes in search of her to learn who he is.
Of course its not that hard to find said blonde wench and she tells him the little that she knows before she lets him and the girl and her dad know they are to be sacrificed. And then they escape, not much to go on here it is a sad movie.

Moving along they go to a beach and rescue some peaceful villagers there from some monster then discover that the people had to deal with some kind of futuristic attack and left behind technology nobody understands and say it comes from some kinda forbidden island and so of course Yor is going there.

So moving along, they go to the island, get attacked by some black wannabe Darth Vader bots, find out a guy named the Overlord is behind it and that he = Yor now, is actually one of these futuristic peoples and that his father took him and crash landed in the barbaric wastes. So after a brief incarceration and struggle against the Overlord, Yor triumphs and flies away and the movie ends on the question of will Yor be able to save the remaining members of humanity from destroying themselves through nuclear annihilation?

In hindsight, my memory of watching it on video with my Dad when I was maybe 10 made it a better movie than it really was, but whadaya do? Also, its funny how most of these movie posters make for better entertainment than the actual movie, the story you think you will see always tops what yu get with these = Deathstalker, Barbarian Queen etc etc.

I also watched Fire and Ice with my boys recently and they loved it.

I thought it had its moments but sure wasn't profound by any stretch, I can only hope the upcoming live action one is a little better. I still have hope for S&S cinema.

Doing the Work or Status Report

I had a goal to try and get something in to the Angry Robot open door, and I almost made it. (It closed yesterday)

I guess I did make it as far as the writing goal is concerned but I wasn't satisfied with my edits yet and didn't want to rush something out there that wasn't up to par yet.

Angry Robot would be a great company to get published with, but I'm going to finish my edits etc and start pitching the book to agents.

The book itself is In My Time of Dying. I started it this last summer, only intending a novella or a short novel and it grew and grew, and my wife and I talked about the commercial appeal and so I put it on hold to do another pet project Whispers Out of the Dust but now I'm back at it and I'm going to make this one helluva fun action adventure novel, with a little bit of Steampunk and whole lot of occultic magicks. I was born out of jamming to Led zeppelin and thinking of my own story to go with it.

I think if it as True Grit meets The Prestige. I need to come up a great synopsis and pitch and all but in a nutshell, its has dueling sorcerers, I'll hold ff on you the reader knowing which one would be the good or bad guy. Our heroine, Eliza Dee gets recruited in San Francisco 1875 to valet or transport one of them, she also gets Porter Rockwell to be her muscle (as my regular readers may know, I've done a lot with Porter in weird westerns and this touches on that but he is a supporting character here) I utilize a  lot of real 1875 historical persons and events, which for me is fun.

It is kind of a road trip action adventure book and I'm excited for it, but when it comes out who knows?

Also I've spent a good bit of time this year so far on my tale for the forthcoming Redneck Eldritch, a twisted companion to the earlier Space Eldritch books. At first I was like what? I don't wanna do that, but then I thought about how much I loved Sam Peckinpah's CONVOY when I was a kid, so I'm running with that and doing a twisted Trucker in the Dreamlands tale. Its bigger than I planned it is a full blown novella, so IF for some reason, Nathan Shumate of Cold Fusion Media does't like it/doesn't fit the theme well enough, I'll self pub it and give him a shorter darker tale.
Because I did have an awful lot of fun with this one too, my two main characters channeled a lot from the Big Lebowski and that's just the way it came.

That's just a promo cover, I expect we'll have the fabulous Carter Reid do another but I don't know much other than I have read a few of my co-authors tales and they are top notch!