Category Archives: eBooks

Be Bold, Be Bold

I have a complicated relationship with arachnids. Working on a mountaintop in the Arizona desert, late at night, I see a lot of them ranging from grotesque orb-weaver spiders to tarantulas to scorpions. I have learned, for the most part, that if I leave them alone they’ll leave me alone. That doesn’t mean I haven’t had memorable encounters. In particular, I remember cleaning the bathtub at one point, feeling a pinch, lifting my hand and seeing a rather large wolf spider clamped onto my finger by its mandibles. Another time, I felt a sharp, momentary poke on my leg. A few seconds later, I discovered a scorpion under my chair. It seemed the scorpion had stung me through my jeans. Fortunately, it was such a momentary sting it just hurt for a few days. In a more pleasant encounter, last summer an orb weaver spider set up her residence on the overhang over the door of my room at the observatory. I watched her create her elaborate web over the summer and was saddened when she reached the end of her life in the autumn. I find it fascinating how these little creatures who generally keep to themselves demand such respect from us humans. It’s perhaps no surprise that many cultures around the world have stories about powerful spider beings. Examples include the tsuchigumo of Japan, Iktome the Lakota trickster spirit, and, of course, Arachne, the mythological weaver from Greece.

I suspect that it’s my own complicated relationship with spiders that led me to the novella But Not Too Bold by Hache Pueyo. Set in a mansion known as the Capricious House, the novella opens as one of the servants, Dalía is summoned before the house’s mistress, a giant spider-like being known as Anatema. Anatema has just devoured Matilde, the household’s Keeper of the Keys, and Dalía is being promoted to the new Keeper of the Keys. We soon learn that Anatema is an Ancient One who has been looking for a suitable bride over her years in the mansion. Every time she selects one, she ends up devouring the bride on the wedding night. Each time this happens, Anatema weaves an elaborate “memory” of her bride from her own silk. The memory is a diorama of the bride in a favorite setting. However, the memory of Anatema’s most recent bride has gone missing. As Keeper of the Keys, Matilde was held responsible. However, Anatema realizes she has not caught the true thief. As the new Keeper of the Keys, this is Dalía’s job. As Dalía goes about her task, an attraction grows between her and Anatema. Will Dalía solve the mystery? Will romance bloom between Dalía and her employer? Will Dalía find herself on the menu?

Argentine-Brazillian author Hache Pueyo weaves a tale that intertwines Gothic horror, mystery and romance. At the heart of this tale is Dalía’s journey of self-discovery. She’s been a servant in Anatema’s house since she was a little girl, so she knows nothing but being a servant. Anatema challenges her to learn what she really wants from life. She encourages Dalía to “Be bold, be bold, but not too bold.” The beauty of this story is that as it unfolds, Anatema also learns what it is she’s really been seeking by courting brides over the years and the object of her quest is both simple and profound. You can find But Not Too Bold wherever fine books are sold.

My complicated relationship with spiders has also led me to create an alien being who has a form much like Anatema’s who calls himself Iktome after the Lakota trickster. I have a story about Iktome set in Japan in the collection Vermillion Highways. You can learn more about the collection at: https://www.amazon.com/Vermillion-Highways-David-Lee-Summers/dp/B0GHDTMVZ3/

Gemini Rising

When my mom was a teenager, her family moved to Olympia, Washington. Her oldest brother, my Uncle Dan, had already graduated from high school and had volunteered for the army. Her other brother, my Uncle Jim, was near the end of high school. Soon after the family moved to Olympia, Uncle Dan came home for his last leave before he’d wrap up his enlistment and go look for a job. The day he came home was Saturday, December 6, 1941. Of course, they woke up the next morning to the new of the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor. Dan had to return to his base. He would remain in the army for the rest of his career. During the Pacific Campaign, he received a battlefield commission. As a result, he retired as a colonel. Uncle Jim would also enlist and have a career in the army, however, he remained an enlisted man for his entire service. At one point, I remember Uncle Jim discussing his career. He’d had opportunities to serve with Uncle Dan, but always declined them, especially after Dan became an officer. Even though Dan was not the kind of man who would give special treatment to family members, he never wanted the impression of such special treatment to exist. I was reminded of this and my uncles’ service when I read Jonathan P. Brazee’s fine young adult novel Gemini Rising.

In the novel, Nika and Rika Ingersoll are twin sisters living in the distant future. They’re daughters of a well known Marine colonel who started as an enlisted man and worked his way up through the ranks to become an officer much like my uncle did. They’ve just received appointments to the Regency Uniform Services Academy and the novel tells the story of their voyage aboard a starliner from their planet to the school. As their voyage begins, they soon meet other academy-bound students and strike up friendships. In this future, Brazee imagines that the rate of twin births has significantly declined, so the sisters are something of a rarity and do attract attention.

A short time into their voyage, Rika and Nika take some time to explore the ship on their own, planning to meet up with the other midshipmen. When they reach the part of the ship with their staterooms they overhear the other students talking about them. They soon realize that the other midshipmen suspect they received their appointments because of their father and speculate that the twins won’t make it through the academy. Among other things, Rika stumbled when she boarded the liner. What the other cadets don’t know is that the “stumble” was part of a ruse, allowing Rika to sneak a beloved family artifact aboard, a so-called Kri-blade that had belonged to her father that she wants to keep close. Of course, passengers aren’t allowed to have weapons aboard.

Despite their hurt feelings at overhearing the conversation among the other midshipmen, they do their best to take it in stride, understanding how people could get the impressions they did. Nika and Rika attempt to hang out with the other midshipmen and make friends. Even so, one night Nika decides she’d rather hang out with her sister, watching a holovid than spend time with the others. Rika still wants to spend time with the others, so they go their separate ways. That night is when the problems begin.

During the night, all the doors are suddenly sealed and they get a notice from the shipboard computer that there’s a problem and the crew are looking into it. A while later, the shipboard comms die. Nika decides to investigate. She takes out the Kri-blade she smuggled aboard and breaks out of her cabin. A short time later, she finds out that enemy combatants have taken over the ship. At first, it looks like these may be pirates. However, it turns out they’re human mercenaries working for an alien race called the Krackles, which are imposing beings with four arms and no sense of sight. Instead they have the ability to echolocate. When they send out their signal, humans feel a static-like sensation on their skin, which is where they get the name. However, the echo signals they send out can be increased in strength and used to stun humans.

Separated, the two twins have to make the best of their circumstances to see if they can help the crew and their fellow midshipmen retake the starliner. This means these young women must earn the trust of their peers even as they face great odds. I liked how Brazee showed us their journey as they struggled to retake the ship and how Nika and Rika used their brains to overcome the overpowering physical strength and weapons of their adversaries. I liked that this “young adult” novel presented an adventure with actual young adults who are newly on their own and not teens or children still at home with parents. I also liked how Nika and Rika came to understand that they had to earn the trust of their peers through their actions. Gemini Rising is available at Amazon.

I gather Jonathan P. Brazee is, himself, a retired colonel, so it’s no wonder he can write convincing military fiction. I’ve not served in the military, however the stories told my uncles who served in the Army in World War II and my dad in the Marine Corps at the very end of the war have helped me to bring veracity to my stories that involve the military. Their experiences helped to inspire my tale, Breaking the Code, which involves a Skinwalker preventing Marines from recruiting Navajo Code Talkers at the beginning of the war. You can learn more about that novella at: https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Code-Systema-Paradoxa-Book-ebook/dp/B08RW4CMR8/

Establishing a New Dominion

It’s been a while since I’d read one of Fred Saberhagen’s Dracula novels, which I had been enjoying, so I decided to dive into the fifth book of the series, Dominion. Saberhagen casts Dracula in a heroic light and the first novel in the series, The Dracula Tape, is a retelling of Bram Stoker’s famous novel from Dracula’s point of view. In the second novel, Dracula teams up with Sherlock Holmes to solve a mystery. Starting with the third book, the series finds itself in the present day where some members of Dracula’s extended family have settled in Chicago. Dominion opens with a familiar face from the modern-era books, police detective Joe Keogh has been brought in to see if he can learn something about a rash of homeless people being murdered. This isn’t Joe’s regular beat, but he’s established a reputation for having informants who give him good insights. Sometimes it pays to have a vampire in your extended family!

Soon afterward, said vampire asks to meet with Joe. Currently Dracula is using the name Talisman and he asks Joe for help finding a missing sword. Next, we meet magician Simon Hill and his assistant Margie Hilbert, who are especially known for their mentalist act. Simon finds himself invited out into the country where a rich family has moved a castle stone-by-stone from France. The current generation has taken over the castle and is moving in. Simon’s invited to provide the entertainment for the housewarming. Although he’s convinced it’s a coincidence, we learn that Simon is distantly related to the family and spent time growing up around the grounds. He makes plans to sneak into the castle’s hidden passageways and secure Margie in a good location to make a surprise appearance at a key point during his performance.

The people who inherited the castle are Saul Littlewood and his wife Hildy. Also on the scene at the castle is Saul and Simon’s cousin Vivian, which is especially notable as she and Simon had something of a romantic fling years before. Meanwhile, a suspect has been identified in the murders. It turns out a serial killer from New Orleans named Carados, has been spotted in Chicago. We now meet a homeless man who calls himself Feather. Carados drugs Feather and takes him away for his nefarious aims.

With the weekend of the housewarming upon them, Simon and Margie drive out to the castle and secretly set their plans in motion. Without telling anyone in advance, they sneak into the secret passages from a hidden entrance on the grounds and make plans. Simon leaves Margie to wait for his signal, while he takes a little time to explore more of the passages. Soon Simon stumbles onto an old torture chamber where he finds Feathers tied up. Simon is quickly taken out of the picture for a time. Growing board while waiting for Simon, Margie also explores and finds the torture chamber. Carados and his henchmen give chase. Margie makes it outside and encounters Talisman, whose own research has brought him to the spot. Talisman and Margie are captured and brought back to the chamber. At that point, Feathers comes awake, becomes lucid and in a magical burst of energy sends both Margie and Talisman back in time to Arthurian Britain shortly before the Battle of Camlan where Artos will battle his son, the traitor Medraut. Fortunately, Feather also gives Margie the ability to understand the ancient speech of the time.

Not knowing that any of this has happened, Simon wakes up in a guest bedroom. After he gets his bearings, not certain how he got from the torture chamber to the room, he plans to go on with the performance as planned. However, as events unfold, he begins to realize that his cousin Vivian not only commands real magic, but is much, much older than he believed. It turns out that she’s also known as Nimue, the Lady of the Lake, and she’s out to establish a new dominion in the modern world.

Back in the past, Talisman and Margie must find clues about what happened to the missing sword and find their way back to the present. I enjoyed the idea of the magical figures from Arthurian legend clashing in the modern day and Saberhagen uses their magic effectively to tie the past into the present. That noted, Saberhagen wove a very intricate plot with many characters in a relatively short book. Unfortunately, this meant that many of the characterizations suffered and we didn’t really get to know many of the characters as well as I would have liked. Still, if you’re a fan of Arthurian fiction and are content for such fiction to include Dracula, this is a worthwhile read. The novel is readily available online at the most retailers.

Of course, this was also fascinating to me because my Scarlet Order vampires also have connections to the Arthurian story. Desmond Drake, the leader of the Scarlet Order mercenaries was a rival of King Arthur before he became a vampire. You can read their story in my novel Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order Vampires. Learn more about the novel and read the first chapter at: http://davidleesummers.com/dragons_fall.html

A League of the Extraordinary

This weekend finds me at Wild Wild West Con in Tucson, Arizona. If you’re in town and able to come to the event, please drop in to the dealer’s room or see me on one of my panels. This is one of those rare conventions I have been fortunate enough to attend every year it’s been held and this will be the final year. I’m looking forward to this being an event to remember. One of the things I have loved about this convention is that it’s a very immersive steampunk convention where people really get into the spirit of the event and dress up. Over the years, both at this convention and at other events, we have delved into the question of what steampunk is and where it started. At its heart, I’ve long felt that steampunk celebrates science fiction’s eighteenth and nineteenth century roots. It looks to works like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds and tells stories in a similar milieu. Of course, those works are just early science fiction. Who told the first steampunk stories which looked back at the past and told stories in the style of those earlier works? I once heard an interesting case made that Edgar Rice Burroughs could be considered the father of steampunk. After all, in Burroughs’ first novel, John Carter was a post-Civil War soldier who finds himself transported to a very retrofuturistic Mars. Meanwhile, At the Earth’s Core also has very steampunkish Victorian elements.

One truly standout work of steampunk literature is the graphic novel The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill. This book literally brought many of the great heroes from Victorian adventure fiction together to battle a seemingly insurmountable menace. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bill Willingham took some inspiration from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen when he realized that the Edgar Rice Burroughs canon consists of a rather extraordinary group of heroes and villains who could be brought together for a truly epic team-up against some rather implacable foes. His graphic novel The Greatest Adventure, released by Dynamite Publishing in 2017 did just that.

Featuring art by Cezar Razek, The Greatest Adventure imagines that Tarzan villain Count Rokoff and a band of Black Martians have captured a fabulous space vessel from the planet Poloda. Rokoff has also captured Jason Gridley, whose Gridley Wave has been used to communicate with many of Burroughs’ worlds including Pellucidar, Mars, and Venus. He wants Gridley to use the technology of several worlds to build the ultimate weapon, which will give him and his battleship almost Death Star-like powers. Fortunately Gridley escapes in a fighter craft before Rokoff can find the one piece he needs to complete his weapon, a legendary crystal which can only be found on a lost island inhabited by dinosaurs.

Although Gridley hopes to make it home to California, he finds that his craft will make it no further than Africa, so he seeks out Tarzan and his wife, Jane Porter. Willingham is well acquainted with the Tarzan canon and knows that Lord Graystoke has considerable resources and is a leader to be reckoned with. Lord and Lady Graystoke summon their children and head to New Mexico to build team of heroes culled from the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Among them are Ulysses Paxton who brings a sky ship from Mars and the team sets out to seek the missing crystal before Rokoff can lay his hands on it. When they reach the island, they find the crystal has been taken to Pellucidar at the center of the Earth. Our heroes follow only to find that Rokoff has beaten them to it and departed for Mars.

Of course our heroes are hot on the villain’s tail. When they reach Mars, it doesn’t take long for Tarzan, Jane, and Gridley to team up with John Carter and Dejah Thoris. All in all, I found this a satisfying and fun adventure that honored the heroes of Edgar Rice Burroughs. I didn’t know all of the characters, but the graphic novel made me want to get to know them better through the source material. I’ll be certain to seek out more of the adventures of Carson of Venus, Tarzan and Jane, and Jason Gridley Was this collection steampunk? I certainly think it had the retrofuturistic, steampunk-like vibe many of Burroughs’ stories maintained.

My own Clockwork Legion steampunk series is about a group of unlikely heroes banding together to thwart an emperor’s ambitions to capture the United States. In many ways, my series owes a strong debt of gratitude to adventure stories such as those written by Edgar Rice Burroughs. You can learn more about my series at: http://davidleesummers.com/books.html#clockwork_legion

From Revelation to Genesis

Last month, I discussed Paul Darrow’s novelized sequel to the television series Blakes 7 titled Lucifer. In the TV series, Darrow played Kerr Avon, a computer genius who was recruited from a prison ship by the series’ title character Roj Blake to fight against the oppression of the oppressive Earth Federation. By the time the series reached the end of its fourth and final season in 1981, Avon was one of the two characters who appeared in the largest number of episodes. Perhaps surprisingly, Garreth Thomas’s Blake was not the other one. Instead the other was talented thief Vila Restal played by Michael Keating.

As noted in my review of the novel Lucifer, we learn that Avon is the only member of Blake’s band of freedom fighters to have survived the series. At the end of that novel, Avon was reunited with the supercomputer Orac and had confronted his nemesis and one-time Federation President Servalan. As the sequel opens, Avon and Orac are on the run from just about every power faction in the known galaxy, including mercenaries sent by the leaders of the Federation and Chinese agents who are seeking to take power when the Federation inevitably falls. Both power factions want to get their hands on Orac for their own purposes. However, Orac is exactly the thing that gives Avon an edge with so many people after him. Orac helps him infiltrate a pirate stronghold to get fuel for his ship, which doesn’t endear him to the pirates at all.

In effect, the first of the sequels is the story of Avon and Orac on the run while the galaxy’s powerful and elite conduct their machinations to see who will ultimately control the galaxy and exercise control over the vast panoply of humanity. The machinations feel like the stuff of Shakespearean drama as the rich and powerful unleash plots to take down their rivals and send assassins against each other. Meanwhile, Avon does what he can to stay out of anyone’s crosshairs while ultimately trying to figure out what his ultimate objective really is.

All of this really sets up the final and best book of the trilogy, Lucifer: Genesis. The final novel picks up where the second one left off. Avon is on the run and those who survived the political maneuverings of the previous book want to get their hands on Orac. Of those in power, only the Chinese seem to take the philosophical perspective that they might ultimately build an even better computer given time. Still, they don’t want Orac to fall in anyone else’s hands before they can accomplish that feat. At this point, the novel steps back in time to the beginning of Blakes 7.

Now we’re taken back before the beginning of the series. We learn how a young girl is born to a band of pirates. The band is destroyed by the president of the Europa Federation Kyril Alan and his daughter takes the girl to raise as her own. She’s named Seraph Alan but comes to be known as Servalan. Of course the Europa Federation becomes an integral part of what will be the Terran Federation. Meanwhile, Blake recruits his freedom fighters, including Avon. As the book proceeds, we are treated to scenes not shown on the series. We have conversations between Blake and Avon that examine their relationship. Later, when Blake is gone, Vila and the others try to decide if they’re still even in the freedom-fighting business under Avon. Of course, Avon and Servalan confront one another and realize they are two sides of a similar coin.

At last the book returns to where it started. Avon decides the only thing left for him to do is return to Earth. Of course, given all that’s happened, Avon is unlikely to be welcomed as a hero and we soon realize that in the end, his only friend and companion is none other than the AI, Orac.

All in all, I found Darrow’s novels a fitting and satisfying end to the tale of Blakes 7. That said, it’s certainly not the only possible ending and if I explore others, I might find there are others I would enjoy more. Still, if you’re a fan of the series, I think this trilogy is worth a look. If anyone reading this has read them and perhaps other sequels, I’d enjoy hearing what you thought and what other sequels you might recommend.

This journey of a heroic outlaw growing old and then returning to Earth reminded me of my Space Pirates’ Legacy series. In the first volume we meet pirate Ellison Firebrandt and his crew. In The Pirates of Sufiro, he’s marooned on a planet and builds a life there. As events in the galaxy transpire around him, he ultimately must act to save the Earth that abandoned him. You can learn more about my series at http://davidleesummers.com/books.html#pirate_legacy

Dating Dracula

I love the feel of a good book in my hands. However, I have also come to appreciate my Kindle because I can carry around a library in a single device. Inside the Kindle app itself, Amazon decided to create “challenges.” You get kudos if you read in your app if you meet certain milestones, such as reading every day for a week. It’s pretty clear the whole thing is designed to encourage you to keep reading and then buy more ebooks. To be honest, I don’t need much encouragement to read, so I don’t always pay these challenges much mind. Still, every now and then they’re fun to look at. Every three months they present a set of mystery challenges and usually at least one of those is designed to get you to read a book in a certain genre. Being February, last month’s challenge revolved around Valentine’s Day and encouraged the reader to go read a romance book from a selection of some 8,800 books. Now, one of the pieces of advice I regularly give is to read widely and read outside your normal genres. You often pick up tricks you might have missed sticking to your own genre. While I don’t tend to read a lot of romance, I do tend to have romantic subplots in my science fiction and horror. After all, romance is part of life. So, I browsed the list until I found something I thought would be fun to read, which is how I came upon Dating Dracula by Kinsley Adams.

As the novel opens, vampires have just announced their existence to the world. The Queen of Vampires, Genevieve, is negotiating with the President of the United States about vampire rights and how vampires can feed openly without causing undo distress. As this is happening, vlogger Anna Perish and her friend Lucy travel to New Orleans. Anna hopes to infiltrate one of the Crescent City’s biggest vampire hot spots to prove that vampires are taking blood illegally. She spots a guarded room and gets Lucy to cause a distraction so she can get inside. This all goes amazingly well and Anna finds herself facing a vampire orgy. Literally, she finds vampires and humans having sex and vampires drinking blood from them. Just as she starts to capture this on her cell phone, a vampire swoops in, takes her out to a back alley and drains her dry.

Fortunately, Vlad Dracula was nearby for reasons that will be made clear as the novel progresses. He finds Anna out in the alley and gives her his vampire blood in time to turn her into a vampire. She wakes up in Vlad’s house three days later. As it turns out, Vlad is breathtakingly handsome and a real gentleman, albeit a bit old-fashioned. Adams does make a point of noting that although he is the real Dracula “immortalized” by Bram Stoker, he is not the human Vlad the Impaler. I thought was an interesting idea since I had the similar notion in my Scarlet Order Vampire novels, but she does give the idea her own spin.

As Anna’s sire, it’s Vlad’s responsibility to show her the vampire ropes, so to speak. He needs to teach her to drink blood. Young vampires in this series are almost uncontrollably ravenous – another concept I use in my fiction. In her version this leads to Anna attacking Vlad’s human butler. Fortunately tragedy is averted and Anna is relegated to drinking blood from bags until her appetite gets under control – again vampires drinking from blood bags is an idea I use regularly in my books. It turns out that in this world, most vampires keep “harems” of humans to drink a little from each day. The humans find the feeding pleasurable and the vampires don’t take enough to kill them. As such, Anna realizes she wouldn’t have uncovered very much in her quest to expose vampires as fiendish monsters.

Just as Anna is coming to terms with being a vampire, she realizes someone is stalking her. It turns out the vampire who drained her dry is actually something of a serial killer and he’s angry that Anna didn’t actually die. He wants to finish the job. Normally, Dracula and the other vampires might just bring him to justice. However, it turns out that this vampire is the queen’s own sire and is older than Dracula himself.

All in all, I found Dating Dracula an engaging vampire novel. I especially liked that Kinsley Adams tells the story with a very tongue-in-cheek voice. The romance between Vlad and Anna is definitely the focus, and we do have several of the romance tropes, such as Anna being unsure of herself at times and wondering if Vlad really finds her attractive. Fortunately, Adams does just enough of this to make Anna feel believable and not so much that it gets tiresome as I’ve found in some romance novels. I liked the exploration of what it meant for Anna’s relationships with her family and her friend Lucy now that she’s a vampire. I also liked that Adams doesn’t give her vampires retractable fangs – again, this is the same as my books. I did it partly because most creatures with fangs can’t retract them and it makes it a challenge for vampires to keep their nature hidden. Adams also does this, and like me, uses it to some humorous effect.

Now, I’ve made a point of noting several similarities between the world of Dating Dracula and my Scarlet Order Vampire novels. None of these bothered me because Ms. Adams used them in her own unique way and – aside from my choice to say that Vlad the Impaler was human and most definitely not the vampire Dracula – I’ve seen plenty of other authors use these ideas as well. It just struck me that I don’t remember seeing so many of these ideas in one place. As it turns out, there’s a scene in the novel where the characters visit Boutique du Vampyre in New Orleans. Dating Dracula was released in 2021, after I’ve done signings in that very shop. As such, I couldn’t help but wonder if Kinsley Adams had been there and read one or two of my novels and took some inspiration. If so, that would be fun to know.

I found Dating Dracula on Amazon. If you’d like to visit Boutique du Vampyre’s website and explore the world of the Scarlet Order Vampires, you can do so at: https://www.feelthebite.com/collections/vampire-library-books-for-sale

The City – Sideways

As I promised on Saturday, today marks the release of Lyn McConchie’s latest short story collection from Hadrosaur Productions entitled The City—Sideways. The first two collections I edited, The Way-Out Wild West and Far Side of the Wild West, explored the weird side of the Western United States, imagining lawmen, teachers, and ranchers dealing with mad scientists, ghosts, and aliens largely in the nineteenth century. That said, Lyn has never been a writer to be pigeonholed and some of the stories were set in the present day. Unlike her earlier collections for Hadrosaur, The City—Sideways is set in Wellington, New Zealand and most of the stories are set in the near past or the present, but as the title implies, not everything is it appears at first glance. Sometimes if you view the city sideways, you see things you might have missed the first time. Here’s the cover and the official description:

Cities can seem like living, breathing organisms. They have networks of roads, power, and plumbing. They can have their own personalities. They can grow and change with time. And yet, cities can also seem timeless. It’s possible a city can hold all of the times and all of the places it has ever been, and that if you look sideways in just the right way, sometimes you can see those other times and places. And sometimes, if you need to do it badly enough, you can see a time and a place that is yet to come.

Through these fifteen short stories you’ll travel with Lyn McConchie to Wellington, New Zealand, where she will take you to places that might not be on the tourist maps. She’ll introduce you to statues that defend the innocent. She’ll take you to penthouse rooftops where birds thought extinct might reappear. She’ll show us the doorways in the subway that can take us to other times and places. She’ll even show you websites that you can only find when you really need them. But you can only make this trip if you’re willing to look at the city—sideways.

This was a fun collection to edit. Lyn largely focuses on a couple of families who cross paths in their journey through the city and across the years. I’m sure you’ll enjoy getting to know Nerida Paiwai, Granny Ngaire, Tina Salton, and Icarus, the Haast’s Eagle as much as I did. I was reminded of some of Ray Bradbury’s collections, which could almost be read as novels. I was also reminded of many Twilight Zone stories set in the present day but where somewhat unexpected things happen.

The cover art is courtesy Luca Oleastri and shows a mysterious back alley in a big city. I felt it captured the mystery of the city and the ways that time doesn’t always flow in a straight line in this collection.

You can find the collection at the following locations:

Paperback

Ebook

Presenting Lost Sons

I first had the privilege of reading the novel Lost Sons by Greg Ballan when Lachesis Publishing presented it in 2017. The novel debuted with a cover by my friend Laura Givens and it told the story of Duncan Kord, a Nordic warrior who was granted immortality and the ability to transform into a dragon by the people of Atlantis over 1500 years ago. When Lachesis announced they would no longer publish new novels, I published the sequel Lost Sons: The Battle of Manhattan through my company, Hadrosaur Productions. Once Greg’s contract with Lachesis came to an end, he offered the first book in the series to me. I readily agreed and made plans for Laura to create a new cover. Sadly, Laura passed away last year and I had to find a new cover artist. Fortunately, Brian Malachy Quinn who created the beautiful cover for my vampire story collection Vermillion Highways was available and created Hadrosaur’s cover for Lost Sons. Here’s a peek at the cover and the description of the novel:

Alaskan Destiny

He’s an immortal drifter.

Duncan Kord has traveled the world for many lifetimes. The thousand-year-old Viking warrior was given immortality by an advanced race of beings who literally snatched him from the brink of death on a battlefield in Norway centuries ago. Not only did they save him, they infused his body and mind with the essence of a powerful dragon. Despite his powers, Kord has lived the life of a recluse, keeping mostly to himself, wandering the world, guarding his secrets. Kord’s life changes when he discovers the invader responsible for killing his wife and family and destroying his village all those years ago, is alive and well, and living in New York. Kord is determined to confront Sagahr and after so many lost centuries, he now has one purpose: revenge.

He’s an evil corporate mogul.

William Jefferson Sagahr has amassed a fortune over many lifetimes. Now living in Manhattan, the powerful magnate is head of a multi-national oil company. The thousand-year-old mercenary warrior was also given immortality and special powers by the same beings who gifted Kord. But Sagahr is nothing like Kord. In fact, he was the one responsible for destroying Kord’s life all those centuries ago. When Sagahr finds out that Kord is alive and well and wreaking havoc on Sagahr’s oil refineries in Alaska, his fury knows no bounds and a twisted hunger begins to grow inside him. He unleashes an evil in the city of New York, the likes of which no one has ever seen. After so many lost centuries, he knows there is only one man who can stop him. One man he must avoid at all cost: Duncan Kord.

Back when I first read Lost Sons, I wrote: “One of the challenges of writing a character who can transform into a dragon is to hint at the abilities without overusing them. Also, we need a good reason why he doesn’t turn into a dragon at every opportunity it could possibly be an advantage. Greg does a great job of this and roots it to Kord’s underlying humanity giving us a reason to care about him. Lost Sons kept me turning pages and I look forward to seeing what happens in the second installment of this series. As it stands, this book is a great new addition to the lore of people who can transform into dragons.” As the book’s new editor, I had to read it several more times and it kept me turning pages each time. If you like fantasy in a modern setting, I hope you’ll give this novel a try. You can find Lost Sons in the following formats at the following locations:

Paperback

Ebook

The Stonehenge Gate

I’ve been spending the last few weeks exploring some of the works of fellow New Mexico author Jack Williamson, who I was fortunate enough to meet before he passed away in 2006. Today, I’m taking a look at his last novel, which was published in 2005. This one opens in Portales, New Mexico, where Williamson taught English at Eastern New Mexico University for many years. In fact, the book’s point-of-view character and narrator is an English Professor at Eastern named Will Sloane, who enjoys Friday night poker sessions with three fellow professors, linguist and historian Ram Chenji, archeologist Lupe Vargas, and physicist Derek Ironcraft.

The novel opens on one of those poker nights when Ironcraft brings along a puzzling result from some orbital imaging he was involved in. By all appearances, it seems his team may have found a gigantic Stonehenge-like trilithon structure buried under the sands of the Sahara Desert. He suggests that the four of them might be well suited to make a preliminary investigation to see if this really is something of archeological import, or if it’s just a curious rock formation. After some discussion and considerable planning and logistical work, they make their way to this very remote part of the Sahara. As they dig, they quickly find ancient bones, which show people had been in the area and they also uncover granite-like black rocks with green striations, unlike any rocks in the area.

As it turns out, Chenji’s grandmother had stories of fleeing a Hellish place and came from the same part of Africa where they’re excavating. He wears a medallion she had left to him and he has an odd pattern of pale starlike freckles on his forehead he calls a birthmark. However, they match freckles on his grandmother’s forehead. As the team continues their dig, Chenji disappears at one point. When he reappears, he’s not well. He seems to walked through the trilithon into a dark place where he was noticeably heavier and couldn’t breathe. It was as though he’d entered a new world and had barely escaped.

Ironcraft theorizes that Chenji literally went through a portal to another planet. Either way, they conclude this needs to be investigated. Sloane and Ironcraft travel to Tunis to get some survival gear while Chenji and Vargas continue working at the site. As they do, an enormous grasshopper-like automaton appears from the trilithon, grabs Vargas, and disappears through the portal. As soon as Ironcraft and Sloane return with survival gear, the three follow and begin an odyssey that takes them first to a desolate world and then to world where holograms memorialize human-like people who apparently had destroyed themselves in war. It appears that Chenji’s medallion works as a kind of key on the trilithon gates to new worlds. However, it seems the key only allows them to pass one way. They can’t go back the way they came. As the novel progresses, Ironcraft is also abducted by one of the automata.

Pressing on, Sloane and Chenji come to a world populated by humans. White people are dominant and have built an agrarian economy using black people as slave labor. The black people have a prophecy about a savior god with a mark like the one Chenji has on his forehead who will liberate them and this is where the majority of the novel’s action takes place before Sloane and Chenji are able to continue their quest for their missing colleagues and more answers.

The novel presents many fascinating science fictional ideas. Of course, the speed of light as a hard limit has long been a bane of science fiction writers. Williamson imagines portals built by extremely ancient human-like beings to connect worlds. He doesn’t explain them other than to suggest that they’re the result of science far beyond what we have yet uncovered. This idea that Williamson wrote over two decades ago is reminiscent of David Gerrold’s recent Praxis novels. Also, Williamson suggests that these human-like beings are at least partly responsible for the rise of humanity itself on Earth in an idea that reminds me of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Perhaps my favorite twist on an Arthur C. Clarke-like idea is that our intrepid explorers come across two phase locked worlds and discover that the inhabitants built a tramway between them, much like Clarke’s idea of the space elevator. On the whole, the book maintains much the sense of wonder found in the great Golden Age science fiction novels.

And that’s what’s really interesting looking back at Williamson’s career. He was one of those Golden Age writers and he wrote this novel when he was 97-years-old. Even with the Golden Age sensibility, it’s clear Williamson kept up with the times as attested by the presence of the Internet and e-books in the novel. I hope my mind is still as imaginative and I’m still lucid enough to spin such an entertaining yarn when I’m 97.

Golden Age writers strongly influenced me while I was growing up. I suspect you’d see some of that influence if you investigated my books such as The Solar Sea or The Space Pirates’ Legacy series. You can learn more about them at http://www.davidleesummers.com.

The Aftermath of Blake’s 7

Back in 2024 while recovering from prostate cancer surgery, I watched all four seasons of the British science fiction series Blake’s 7. The show originally ran from 1978 through 1981 and told the story of a band of freedom fighters who stood up against an oppressive human Federation that had been colonizing the galaxy. The leader of the freedom fighters, Roj Blake, was portrayed by Gareth Thomas. His primary nemesis was an ambitious councilor who ultimately became Federation President named Servalan, portrayed by Jacqueline Pearce. The show was created by Terry Nation, who also created the alien race known as the Daleks for Doctor Who. One of the hallmarks of Blake’s 7 was that no one was safe. Heroes could die or move on. In fact, when it looked like his ship was doomed, Blake himself escaped to fight battles in other parts of the Federation, leaving the more ruthless Kerr Avon, played by Paul Darrow, to lead the freedom fighters for the next two seasons.

At the risk of spoilers for a TV series that ended nearly a quarter of a century ago, the series ended on a rather bleak note. It looked like out band of freedom fighters had met their match. Of course, the fight against oppressive regimes does not end and at least three characters had fates not set in stone. One of those characters was Kerr Avon and in 2013, actor Paul Darrow wrote a series of novels that tell how his character survived the events of the final episode and what happened to the Federation in the twenty years after that.

The first of those novels is titled Lucifer. As the novel opens, we find Avon stranded on an “island planet.” Apparently this is a moon-sized chunk of a planet that had been knocked from a larger world after a collision with another world. Of course, the astronomer in me questions how this island has an atmosphere left and how anyone survived the catastrophe that created the “island” but we’ll let that slide for the moment. The point is that Avon is trapped and when the Federation lands on this world to explore, he sees an opportunity to escape and reunite with one of the other lost members of the crew, the artificial intelligence known as Orac, voiced by Peter Tuddenham. The thing is, Orac is so advanced compared to other computers that whoever possesses him could be the most powerful person in the galaxy.

Meanwhile, we learn that President Servalan has been deposed and replaced by a council of four known as the Quartet. However, Servalan has not gone away entirely. She’s been under house arrest and pulls the strings of one of the members of the Quartet and is busily working to install a second puppet. When she learns that Avon is alive and trying to escape his island prison, she reasons that he must be trying to reunite with Orac, who had been presumed lost. For her, Orac could be a way for her to reclaim lost glory.

The book is told in three parts. The first part is set in the “present” of twenty years after the series ended. The second part takes us back to the end of the series and tells how Avon ended up on the island planet in a grand adventure that involves mercenaries, aliens, and a second major Earth faction, competing with the Federation. Finally, the book wraps up in the “present” as Avon and Servalan have their inevitable confrontation.

For me, the most interesting part of this book is that it gave us a more in-depth look at Earth’s political structure than the series ever did. It posits that there are still Western and Eastern power blocs. The Western bloc largely moved out into space as a colonial power and became the Federation. The Eastern bloc largely took over Earth itself. However, the Eastern bloc now has designs on moving out into space to gain its own resources. Both blocs have designs on Orac, which means they both want Avon to lead them to him. However, Avon has always had his own agenda and wants little to do with either bloc.

Blake’s 7, like many science fiction novels and series of its time, recognized that artificial intelligence would eventually become something to be reconned with. Orac was always portrayed as a willful machine, but one ultimately at the control of the humans he serves. The characterization is especially interesting given that human society is shown to still have servant classes.

If you’ve watched Blake’s 7 and want to know what happened after the end of the series, this novel presents interesting possibilities as imagined by one of the shows stars, who also talked to those who might have written revivals of the show. As I note, the science seems dubious at points and some of the technology seems dated. Still, it’s the characters that made me a fan of the series and Darrow handles them well. I look forward to seeing where the series goes in the second novel of his trilogy, Lucifer: Revelation.

If you would like to explore my own foray into the worlds of galactic politics, you might enjoy my Space Pirates’ Legacy series. you can learn more about it at: http://davidleesummers.com/books.html#pirate_legacy