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 Mad Song is LIVE!

My latest collection of Sword & Sorcery is live! and today only I'm pushing the kindle version like a street hustler for .99
tomorrow I'm getting it bumped up to 2.99. Get it here!

Yes, its all about those rankings.

A few of these are previously published stories that some of you may have read, but a lot of them are new that I hope you enjoy - including the first 3 chapters of my Walking Through Walls which is currently running in UGEEK magazine.

Check it out!

and...Whispers of the Goddess is out!

So, it is available here at Smashwords and here on Amazon

This has been a long time coming, I wrote Whispers of the Goddess in a white heat back in January of 2010. It was a combination of all kinds of things that fire my imagination. Templars, the Crusades, the Holy Grail, Varangian Guard of Byzantium (Viking mercenaries), Greek and Norse Gods, all told in a proper Sword and Sorcery style. 


I was even more thrilled to have the tale accepted into RBE's Roar of the Crowd anthology, but that died the slow death with some misphaps  and the tale was returned. So I have edited it, added in a couple other short tales starring Tyr (the main character) that have been published elsewhere and got the wonderful Carter Reid (Space Eldritch 1 and 2 covers, his ow Zombie Nation comic along with a slew of others for some great spec fic authors) to do a a cover for me.

My description:
"From the wrath of the Northmen, O Lord deliver us." -- Old French Prayer 

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 marshalled against their mission. The old gods of multiple nations war with the New. 

And Ragnarok is coming to Greece. 

Plus two more short sword and sorcery tales of Tyr: Hel Awaits and Sailing to Valhalla 

What the critics are saying about David J. West's writing! 
"Brutal, gory and depressing," - Jennie Hansen, Meridian Magazine 
"I was afraid to read this book." - Marissa Walker, Timpanogos Times 
"And he just keeps getting better," - Keith West, Amazing Stories 
"One of the most well-written fight scenes I've ever had the opportunity to read." - Darkeva, Hellnotes

Roar of the Crowd ~ R.I.P.

After waiting a couple of years for something to come of a tale that I was particularly fond of, I recieved the email that Rogue Blades Entertainment had to concede that Roar of the Crowd is dead. The Editor Jason Waltz has been overwhelmed with a number of issues and could not keep the project on hold continually.

(Ironic I posted this was still forthcoming last week on my birthday.)

So I now have Whispers of the Goddess back.

Looking it over and giving it a reread after sitting for so long, I definetly want to polish it up, not a lot but some. I am proud of what I put together in a white heat weekend to make the deadline for the antho and I was excited to be sharing the TOC with quite a few of people I call friends now among them...

Mbogo Returns ~ Milton Davis

Carcass and Mallet ~ Ty Johnston

Race to Dragonhead Rock ~ Bill Ward

For the Light ~ Gustavo Bondoni

Spirit of the Maya ~ Robert Waters
Winter’s Game ~ Kate Martin
The Last Refuge of Piyamaradu ~ Ryan Harvey
Up the Gladiators! ~ David Bischoff
Panathenaic ~ Bruce Durham
Naumachia Magic ~ Alva Roberts
Hard Crossing at Luhinmov Ford ~ Adrian Simmons
Love and Revolution ~ Jeff Draper
The Turul Spreads its Wings ~ Boglárka Takács
Whispers of the Goddess ~ David J. West
Ulemet’s Wager ~ Lyn Perry
The Dream Horn ~ Howard Andrew Jones
Shini-tai ~ C.L. Werner
Foreword ~ Michael Ehart

I'm thinking now that I'll likely throw my hat into the eRing and release the novella as an ebook. That means polish, polish, edit, edit, edit and a fantastic cover to boot. I'm gonna make a goal of september, just to have plenty of time to get some good help on all facets of this project.

Reading the Horror's Lately

My wife is home now-but she was in the hospital for days. We're out of the woods now but it was a little sketchy there for a bit.
I spent too much time in waiting rooms-long enough one day that the kindle ran out of power, but I read a bit...so

The Great God Pan, by Arthur Machen

This was one of those classic old Gothic horror's that I had meant to read for ages and never got around to. It is indeed gripping and disturbing on multiple levels-and to me so much more horrific than your typical slasher tale of today. The primeval and esoteric taint of something lingering into the modern world and bewitching across space and time is haunting. I understand its influence on so many other works of today. I recently watched the film Ghost Story (which I read Pan was a major influence) and now can't help but feel that Straub's Ghost Story was a very inferior retelling. Pan is very much so worth a read.

Styrbiorn the Strong, by E. R. Eddison

I liked Eddison's fanciful tale of a real historical viking, though it seemed a little slow getting going. As with everything of Eddison's its all about the prose, meter and timbre and you either like it or you don't. While I didn't enjoy it overall as much as I did The Worm Ourobourous, I still probably got into it better than most of Poul Anderson's works save The Broken Sword (there's no topping that).

B.P.R.D. The Universal Machine, by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi

This might be my favorite B.P.R.D. yet. I have enjoyed most everything Mignola has done, but B.P.R.D. while good still seemed to suffer from not having Hellboy, every tale I read made me wish Hellboy was in it-and while I still kinda feel that way-this tale was great even without him. The cleverness the twists were so enjoyable.

America's Secret War, by George Friedman

The only non-fiction I consumed just lately. This was written in 2004 by the founder of the intelligence think-tank Stratfor and deals primarily with America's involvement with a post 9/11 world. It does a marvelous job on explaining how we got where we are, why it will continue (because we won't change our foreign policy in way's that matter) and in my mind it lays out what is going to happen.

Now here is the frightening part (to me)

Everything that Stratfor says Al Qaeda wants to happen (destabilizing the middle east/world economies etc etc)-luckily they have not been able to bring about. But this was written in 2004.

Fast forward to 2011 and everything that has been happening is exactly what Stratfor says Al Qaeda wants to happen-it just took a little bit longer, but its going that way.

Buckle up. Very worth a read IF you are interested in geopolitics.

The King in Yellow, by Robert Chambers

Again an old book of Gothic horror. Some of the plots and tropes in these tales all revolving about the mysterious book about the King in Yellow may seem dated or even overdone but its because they were done here first. While I will admit that at times I thought I knew where the story was going and it gave some very bizarre interesting twists - with truly original (and haunting) characters, I can't see that the terror and horror was quite the same as the Great God Pan, still very worthwhile to peruse if such is your interest.

Prince Valiant

I took a break after yard work/writing work/wife in the hospital (she's doing very well) etc etc and saw coming up on HBO (which I have for Game of Thrones) that a Prince Valiant movie was coming up in an hour.

I watched a Prince Valiant movie when I was a kid-I remember that I liked it-but don't know that I could actually recall much of anything about it-I barely followed the daily comics-but as much as I like love comics I found the medium of a daily strip tedious-and Lord help you if you miss a few days.

But I flipped to the channel and LO! Ron Perlman looking as scruffy as ever-this Prince was filmed in 97'!

How did I miss this? I thought I had seen every old fantasy movie there was to see-at least everything predating the millennium-(still haven't watched Name of the King). I honestly thought well it must be because it sucked-but I still want to watch it. So I did, and I was pleasantly surprised.

It has breaks which feature Hal Foster's original art-but I didn't find that technique disturbing, if anything it just speeds us along to get to the action. I thought the cinematography was fine and the costumes were most excellent-often making me feel like some characters looked so grand that when you didn't see them in action you felt disappointed-there was actually a female viking packing some kind of dragons head flame thrower-AND she was clearly wearing some type of medieval garter beneath her armor-WHAT?!?

Don't get me wrong-this is a romanticized fantasy movie, it is not meant to take itself too seriously-it has Joanna Lumley as Morgan LeFay for crying out loud (my wife knows who that is-AB FAb and a Bond Girl) and that Arthurian romantic ideal is probably what made me like it so much-daring heroes and dastardly villains are a nice break from some of the grimmer things of late. This was exactly the type of enjoyable Sword & Sorcery movie that I am inclined to think most of my regular readers/commentators will enjoy.

The director Anthony Hickox (also plays Sir Gwain) typically does horror films (Waxwork, Warlock, one of the Hellraisers) maybe that's why he had a few good spots of tension and some interesting homages. In the beginning when Morgan LeFay and the bad vikings are digging up Merlin-his shriveled body looks like Nicol Williamson-bizarre shiny steel headplate and all. One of the marauding vikings is clearly wearing one of the elongated skull helms that Halfdan the Black's (John Cleese's character) guardsmen wear in Eric the Viking.

Starring Stephen Moyer (I don't really know who that is) Katherine Heigel, Udo Kier, Warwick Davis, and Ron Perlman I was pretty happy with the performances and fight scenes-with the exception of Prince Valiant, for being a good fighter he made a lot of very clumsy moves that should have gotten him killed.

So aside from thinking some characters were underutilized Warwick Davis for one-and that it had a forgettable soundtrack-this was a pretty decent movie. Light on any blood or gore despite the violence and some sensuality but nothing I'm worried about having my kids watch with me again later (I DVRed it).

I recommend checking it out for what it is.

And its funny because I was just recently lamenting that they don't make fantasy movies like they used to in the 80's-but apparently they still did in 97'.

Movie-ing Perceptions

I like what I like and I'm sure you do too, whats funny is when you are so sure you won't like something but you do anyway and vice versa.

I was so sure I was going to love Valhalla Rising with Mads Mikkelsen. Mads is an awesome actor-he was brilliant as Le Chiffre in Casino Royale and equally wonderful as Tristram in King Arthur (I liked it though I never had the impression anyone else did) and he was my favorite character Draco in the new Clash of the Titans.

Here's what I know going in- Valhalla Rising is about a strange somewhat supernatural Viking fighter named One-Eye (Odin perhaps?) I could also tell that somewhere along the tripped out journey of the movie the characters who think they are going to hell end up in North America.

I love this-I wish so bad someone could do Vikings and Indians right - (Cuz we all know Pathfinder did not) I read online that Valhalla Rising was weird and arty, I can deal with all that, I love a lot of foreign strange arty films that you have to think about etc etc.

SO...I thought by all rights, I would love Valhalla Rising. But no. It has to be one of the dullest, what the hell is going on and why should I care movies I have bothered to watch in years. I literally fell asleep-then I rewound to see if I missed something and...NO I didn't.

Right when I thought it might redeem itself at the end, it tanked...hard. Now reading the premise above I can imagine there might be some of you who think, "Oh that's sounds like a good premise, it can't be as bad as all that can it?"

Yes, it is that dull.

And now on the other end of the hammer, I really didn't expect much out of Wrath of the Titans. I find the lead actor Sam Worthington hardly qualifies as an actor, his acting is fencepost worthy. Avatar made me want to gag-but I also thought it was a stupid, unoriginal storyline, "Unobtainium"=Uncreative. With Terminator Salvation I almost bought his performance because he was supposed to be a damn robot! And Clash of the Titans? Let me just say now I hate reluctant hero's who are forced to react to everything instead of acting-its just a lame storytelling device in my arrogant opinion.

So I went into Wrath of the Titans without much in the way expectations and guess what? I liked it. It wasn't mind blowing, it wasn't the best film I've ever seen, but it was enjoyable for what it is. Granted, I still don't like his reluctant hero shtick - its still there and I didn't like the shaky camera to make me feel like I'm really there style that seems so prevalent these days but it is a fun movie. Predictable? Sure. But for a serious Sword  & Sorcery fan, it was a good movie.

I am sure I'll see it again eventually with my kids because that magic that thrill of fantasy is infectious. I look forward to their being excited over the cyclops and all the other (underutilized) monsters.

I had better add as an afterthought-just like the first, the supporting characters are where the humanity, characterization and fun are-some leads just cannot lead.

"Hel Awaits" in Sword & Sorcery Magazine

My short yarn "Hel Awaits" is posted now at the Sword & Sorcery Magazine a rather new little Ezine I recently found.

My tale involves revenge and a chase with Tyr, a Swedish mercenary. It takes place in or about 1215 Moorish Spain. I take some liberties of course and perhaps even a homage or two.

So I'd appreciate your checking it and the other featured tales out. Thanks

The Viking Payoff