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!

Let Sleeping Gods Lie

I've had plans for this one for years, but finally got down to business finishing up the ideas that had been percolating for a long time, ever since I read that Orrin Porter Rockwell, my real life-yet fictitious weird western character did actually spend time during the gold rush in a boom town named Murderer's Bar.

He even opened up a saloon and did all kinds of things to make money, like shooting contests! I have already written another story set in these days based on a real incident, though I'm not sure when BAD MEDICINE will see print as the publisher failed in their western kickstarter recently, so who knows, it might be awhile. In any case, LET SLEEPING GODS LIE is out there on amazon with a print copy coming soonish.

I had so much fun writing this, one of the best times ever, just living in the moment with all the action, laughs and creepy Lovecraftian vibes shaking out. I was chuckling to myself quite often with some of the supporting characters among whom is Black Bart - yes that Black Bart who also makes a casual appearance in IN MY TIME OF DYING.

It was fun to reread some old Louis L'amour books and even a couple Lovecraft stories I had missed like The Strange High House in the Mist - because I have a hardly touched Lovecraftian god = Nodens making an appearance.

Oh yeah, also gotta love this cover by the fantastic Carter Reid.

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.

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. 

Walking Through Walls

A writing experiment I did across 2014-2016 was  Walking Through Walls, an ongoing fantasy noir serial that ran in Utah Geek Magazine. My tale ran for the first 13 issues and came out to just about 30K words. Not too long, not too short.

I was sitting on it for awhile but with the relative success of BRUTAL and my pen name of James Alderdice, I decided I might as well release Walking Through Walls too just to build up a backlist for the fantasy based pen name.

It is set in the same secondary world as BRUTAL but is centrally based in Tolburn, the biggest dirtiest city in that world, whereas BRUTAL is taking place in a dirty backwater far removed from the rest of the goings on. There are no character crossovers or mentions yet, maybe just some very simple geographic references - And I don't even have an official map made up yet.

In my mind it is a prequel of sorts to something I have been working on for ages and brainstorming that I'm calling GODS & ROBBERS.

I looked at the project as a writing exercise since I had to come up with a quick tale of around 2,000 to 2,500 words an issue and hook the reader each time, have a wrap-up but also a cliffhanger for the next chapter. It was fun but perhaps lacks the flow of a novel. Most of it is first person featuring a character named Kenaz, who is no secret prince, no chosen one waiting to be called forth, no great fighter, no man of means or anything special, but he can travel outside his body and gather information. So that's his semi-criminal profession, but then he gets wrapped up in a job for multiple employers that all conflict with one another and that's where he gets smacked with a fistful of trouble.

Toward the end though I really wanted some scenes with a side character so the narrative drifts from first person to third and back again. Probably not the best format and definitely something I won't do for the continuation of the Gods & Robbers saga.

I've been having it available at 2.99 but think I'll do a promotion to .99  for Walking Through Walls by the weekend just to give it a little more traction. So if any of you feel like checking it out, that'd be great. And as always reviews are forever appreciated.

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?

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!