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.

The Dragons Hour, Remembering Robert E. Howard

It's no secret that Robert E. Howard is my favorite author. This is his birthday so I'm dusting the blog off for the new year and giving him a toast as it were.

I'm writing this just after midnight, so I'm not sure yet what tale of his I will read later, but I surely will, of course not too much times goes by since the last time I read one. Recently, I revisited one of my favorite Conan yarns - People of the Black Circle and shortly before that Iron Shadows in the Moon.

Around Halloween as a family we listened to some of the audiobook of The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard and I was very pleasantly surprised that my son brought up In the Forest of Villefere just a few days ago. The boys have always loved Pigeons From Hell, my kids like creepy.

That's probably why I share it with them, because I am so amazed and taken with the stories. The tales light the fire of wonder in me and I want to share that with the kids.

I went to Howard Days in 2018 and meant to blog about it then and never did, that's when I kinda fell of the wagon blogging here, then I wasn't able to make it in 2019, but it is my plan to go this year again. Its an interesting feeling walking through his house and thinking about being where he was when he wrote - not just his desk but all over the house from what I have heard. It was like visiting a sacred shrine and I can't wait to go back. I have also been able to visit Hemingway's graveside but spending so much time in the Howard house had a lot more personal feel than just seeing Papa's stone and museum.
Meeting a bunch of online friends in person finally was a big plus too!

Not sure where I am going with this other than just expressing heartfelt appreciation to the man for countless hours of reading enjoyment, contemplative thought and the sheer love of the written word.

Wish you had been around a bit longer to write more, but I surely love what you did accomplish.

SKOAL!

This is a print I got at Howard Days, that is in my study.

My son, Mathias (14) made this Conan bust for me for Christmas.

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!

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.

What have You Been Working On?

Just realized I haven't blogged all year - whew and here we are on January 31st!

I've taken longer on getting to work on my sequel to BRUTAL - FIERCE though I am a good ways along, part of that is that I have taken way longer on a game novelization than I ever meant.

It still doesn't have a title, but it is part of the Super Dungeon Explore game, I'm doing the third book in the series taking place in the Glauerdoom Moor and Von Drakk Manor - but its off to the editor now and aside from a few things to flesh out  characters better and have it jive with the other books in the series I'm finally done. I believe it should be out in Mayish? Maybe a little longer.

Its a fun little pulpy action/ Dungeons and Dragons by way of Ravenloft type adventure.

Now ist back to my own overdue projects.


How about you guys?

Fantasy Noir or The Maltese Falcon with Monster Girls

I've always been a fan of noir, and the older I get the more I think I appreciate the grim attitude and sense of corruption bleeding around the edges of smoke filled back alleys and luxurious parties. It just makes good fiction. Among my favorite works are classics by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, and of course my introduction to them was through film and the amazing Humphrey Bogart first, I didn't read the books until quite a bit later.

So when my friend Jason King asked a few of his author pals if we would be interested in writing stories set in his world of Valcoria, I thought sure - IF - I can still do it my way.

As luck would have it, Jason was actually kind of hoping that we would take his premise and run with it and help him flesh it out a bit, as it turned out he was very happy with how we did things and especially with my novella - because my story kept growing - he changed up a bit for the next book he has coming. So this isn't just a bunch of screenshots of stories set in his world, these are integral points in the ongoing series, so I'm excited for that. Especially since I went all fantasy detective noir with my story - Jia  For Luck.

In the world of Valcoria, Jia is another name for magical power, people have a Jia of Strength, Intelligence, Power, Magic's etc etc
My world weary protagonist, Tam Zphinx, isn't so blessed with anything except perhaps an amazing amount of luck considering all the trouble he gets into, throw in some gorgeous dames and monstrous killers and you've got a winning combination.

Here is the Table of contents
Prologue
Ice Witch, James Wymore
Vaekra Take Me, D.J. Butler
A Dream of Clouds, Mathew Cox
Interlude 1
Tremors Within The Storm, Daniel Swenson
Thought Power, Sarah E. Seeley
By Blade & Blood, C.J. Workman
Interlude 11
Just Breathe, Holli Anderson
Jia For Luck, David J. West
Epilogue

Oh and just like I used Jia from Jason's stories my good friend Dave Butler used Vaekra Take Me as his title, that being one of the swears, Jason incorporated into the books, funny thing is, I actually thought about using that as my title, until realizing Butler already did!

Anyhow, check it out if you're so inclined, this 22K novella is my last release for 2017!
Available here

and if I had to do a one sentence description of my story, I think I'd go with
The Maltese Falcon with Monster Girls. 

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.

Pulp Stories Galore!

October has been pretty good to me so far, not too hot, not too cold and books and books and more books are coming!

So, quite a few short stories of mine came out this month and it was a surprise.

All right, I knew this one was coming, I just wasn't sure when it would drop but Story Hack #1 is here! It's full of great pulpy stories and the man behind it Bryce Beatty, is going all out on the art!

I could n't be more pleased with both the cover and the interior art. I love this rendition of Porter Rockwell he has for it! My tale is UNDER THE GUN a creepy weird western about a possessed gun. Check it out!

The next one was a big surprise as I thought the anthology had just vanished into thin air, but Rogues Blade Entertainment which put together some top notch Sword and Sorcery collections a few odd years ago kinda went into hibernation.

I'm very pleased to see that Jason Waltz has awoken and is putting out material again. This one is the Challenge: Discovery collection. This one was begun in 2010? and features quite a list of S&S and has my tale THE SERPENTS ROOT about a thief who will do anything to save her sister, even facing down the dreaded cockatrice!
This pic of the cover is sans text, and I really wanted to share it because all of our stories were supposed to be inspired by V. Shanes art work. So I added in panthers to a story that hadn't had them before.


And another surprise is the Pulp Rev Sampler this was a collection asking for short pieces in the pulp revolution vein.
All of them are supposed t be under 2,500 words so it is literally a sampler. I turned in one titled Wings in the Night, it does say from the forthcoming Walking Through Walls and that's my bad it should read Gods & Robbers, I screwed up but such is life. It is a never before released story, so that' cool.

Its a glimpse into the escape of a prisoner and ties into some things I had previously written in The Mad Song collection and its all part of a bigger work I have planned, set in the same world as BRUTAL albeit quite far away from that setting.

In any case, hope you'll check them out while you're waiting for more novels.

All the best
David

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.

At The Highways of Madness

I've been remiss in keeping up with the blog, letting things slide as I try to accomplish the "real" writing.

In any case, besides BRUTAL - which has been receiving some great reviews - Thanks Keith and Fantasia Reviews! I also put out At the Highways of Madness along with a few semi-related bonus stories - (all previously released) in part I just thought the story was long enough at 22k to warrant its own book and I loved my own idea for the cover which I commissioned the indomitable Carter Reid to do.

So I'm pretty stoked, yet - it hasn't been selling too well. Though I did have a great review by the Injustice Gamer, so that was cool. Maybe enough people already bought Redneck Eldritch or perhaps my sense of humor isn't too pc these days.

The fun for me was working on what is essentially the Dude and Walter from Big Lebowski as truckers who meddle with something that crashes beside the highway in the remote desert and then find themselves pursued by a host of Lovecraftian monsters and also get a beautiful hitchhiker who just happens to be the daughter of Nyarlathotep.

I had a so much fun writing this one (ore than I initially believed I could writing rednecks) while not making fun of them so much as showing the situational humor and the difference in how salt of the earth types might react as opposed to be maddened and going insane like stuffy types from Miskatonic. Check it out!

On the horizon.
I will have another Porter Rockwell weird western short story "Under the Gun" in the forthcoming Storyhack #1


Whenever they get round to it I have a short S&S tale "Stygian Black"  about Abdul Alhazared in a forthcoming Skelos mag - I was told either issue 3 or 4.

A Beowulf retelling is coming in a mythology anthology (no idea on its status)

And "Garden of Legion" a popular Porter Rockwell short of mine is getting reprinted in Mirages and Speculations, later this month.

Oh and another fantasy noir novella "Jia of Luck" is coming in October part of the the Valcoria Awakenings anthology - stories set in the world of Jason King's Valcoria - that was a lot of fun. I took a lot from Dashiell Hammett for that one too!

And of course I'm still working at cranking out novel's via pulp speed as best I can - but I'll have to see how that goes - it can be hard to tell sometime.

How goes your guys pace?

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!

FanX 2017 Recap

I'm a week late, that's life. But hey, in that last week, the dictation software = Dragon, I have talked about for years now - is actually working for me. So I'll do a post about that very soon.

Back to the Con. It went pretty well, I signed a lot of books and even sold out of my copies of Redneck Eldritch, The Mad Song and Weird Tales of Horror.

The Saturday panel I did with the Space Balrogs was a lot of fun. I was the Undead and while I had some super dedicated fans and really enjoyed my last minute art round of demonstrating how death works to people = its eerily similar to duck, duck, goose. - James Wymore was dragons and had a singalong with some friends that was awesomely bad yet Dave Butler won with a phenomenal round doing an audience induction to becoming an elemental sorcerer via the Hokey Pokey - maybe you just had to be there.

Oh and that's me, a confused dinosaur and my the friend up and coming movie star, Wren Barnes.

Looking forward to the next one this September. And of course, here are some pics of the con.

This was the Space Balrogs on the panel.

Twilight Zone classics.

Me and the fantastic fitness model Dana Tracy. I first met her as Red Sonja at FanX two years ago.

Awesome Willow cosplay.

I don't know who she was but she looked fantastic.

the Lone Ranger turned up!

Jedi

I told them I was Dave but they were confused.

Me and rising cosplay superstar Joanie Brosas.

My son Mathias and one of his favorite Dr. Who episode folks.

Swedish Chef!

Ragnar and Lagertha.

Amazing Spawn and Angela.

Agent Carter

Odin and Son.

Chewie Dude and Walter Solo.

Poison Ivy just as I first reached my signing table.

View from the Green Room

Got my Flash Gordon poster signed by the man himself! Sam J. Jones!

Sam J. Jones - such a cool dude. I got to talk with him for a bit. Awesome guy!