Category Archives: Writing

El Paso Comic Con 2026

This coming weekend, May 1-3, I’ll be vending at El Paso Comic Con. I’ll have all the novels I’ve written, books I’ve edited, and collections featuring my work including my newest releases. Also, my daughters will be selling their craft items at the booth, so you’ll be sure to find something fun. You’ll be able to find us in the vendor hall at booth A15, as indicated on the map below.

El Paso Comic Con is the Borderland’s ultimate celebration of pop culture, comics, anime, sci-fi, and all things geeky! Held annually in the convention center located in the heart of El Paso, this fan-favorite event brings together celebrities, comic creators, cosplayers, and passionate fans for an unforgettable weekend of panels, autographs, photo ops, shopping, gaming, and more.

Whether you’re a hardcore collector, a casual fan, or just looking for a fun, family-friendly event, El Paso Comic Con offers something for everyone. From the latest comic book releases to retro memorabilia, artist alley to cosplay contests, it’s the perfect place to let your fandom flag fly.

Come meet your favorite stars, discover new obsessions, and be part of the thriving geek community at El Paso Comic Con — where fandom comes to life!

What’s more, attending the convention on Friday will be absolutely free, thanks to a sponsorship by Mango Superstore!

That’s right, you can kick off your comic con weekend FOR FREE. Just fill out the quick application and you’ll receive a QR code for complimentary entry on Friday thanks to the good people at Mango. You can find the application along with more information about the show at https://elpasocomicon.com

It’s the perfect chance to explore the show floor, check out amazing vendors, meet featured guests, and soak in the fandom before the weekend crowds arrive.

Among this year’s featured guests are Cheech Marin, Tommy Chong, Jenette Goldstein, Pam Grier, and Sam Jones.

Cheech Marin is an American comedian and actor. He gained recognition as part of the comedy act Cheech & Chong during the 1970s and early 1980s with Tommy Chong, and as Don Johnson’s partner, Inspector Joe Dominguez, on Nash Bridges. He has also voiced characters in several Disney films, including Oliver & Company, The Lion King, The Lion King 1½, the Cars franchise, Coco, and Beverly Hills Chihuahua.

Tommy Chong is a comedian, actor, musician, and activist. He is an actor and writer, known for Up in Smoke (1978), Zootopia (2016), and Cheech & Chong’s: The Corsican Brothers (1984). He is also known for his role and inspiration in the marijuana industry.

Jenette Goldstein is know for an impressive list of science fiction, horror, and action films, including her iconic role as Vasquez in Aliens, as well as her roles in Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Near Dark. You can also see Jenette in pivotal roles in Lethal Weapon 2, Star Trek Generations, Star Trek: Short Treks, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Titanic. She is also the voice of Jean Grey/Phoenix in X-Men: New Dimensions.

Pamela Grier is an American actress, singer, and martial artist. She achieved fame for her starring roles in a string of 1970s action, blaxploitation, and women-in-prison films. Her accolades include nominations for an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Satellite Award and a Saturn Award. Grier came to prominence with her titular roles in the films Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974).

Sam Jones has over 80 films and numerous television shows to his credit. He is best known for portraying the iconic superheroes Flash Gordon, The Spirit, The Highwayman, and SG-1: Deadman Switch (“The Bounty Hunter”), as well as for his memorable comedic performances in Ted and Ted 2.

If you’re in the area this coming weekend, I really hope I’ll see you at El Paso Comic Con! Be sure to come by booth A15, say “hi” and learn about my latest projects!

Automatic Noodle

I grew up in Southern California. There’s no doubt the state is an economic powerhouse in its own right with industries ranging from agriculture to film and computers to transportation. I’ve heard it suggested more than once that if California left the United States, it would still be one of the richest countries in the world. In the recent novella, Automatic Noodle, Annalee Newitz has imaged a world where California recently fought a bitter war of independence from the United States and is now trying to settle into normalcy. Set roughly 40 years in the future, Newitz’s point-of-view characters are a group of sentient, AI-powered robots finding their way in a world that hasn’t quite decided whether or not to grant them the same rights as humans.

The novella opens when our team of four robots wakes up almost six months after they were unceremoniously deactivated. They’d been working at a San Francisco fast food joint. Sometime near the end of the war between California and the United States, the owners had vanished. As the robots awaken, they discover the restaurant partially flooded and there’s no power. They also realize that since the owners have fled, they are at risk for being claimed as scrap. At best they may be reprogrammed. At worst, they could find themselves used for spare parts. To avoid their fate, they have to find a way to get power and make money fast.

Power is easily solved. The robots quickly appropriate a water-powered generator from a nearby hardware store and set it up down in the sewars below the shop. Money is a trickier problem. What’s a robot got to do to earn a few bucks? As their backstories are revealed, we learn that they’d come together in food service and discovered they actually enjoyed their work. They also realized that their owners did not take pride in making good food, they just made the cheapest food that would sell. So, the robots set out to make food that they both want to make and that humans will pay good money to enjoy and keep coming back for more. When the lead cook, Hands, comes across a box of ramen noodles, he feels challenged to make something better. A online search leads him to Chinese biang biang noodles and after a visit across town, he’s decided that with practice he can make his own.

They clean up the old shop, find the intelligent, autonomous lease contract on the web and assume payments. They open their doors and advertise on the web and soon find customers and good reviews. It looks like the robots may have found a way to a safe, autonomous life until first one really terrible review comes in and then a whole lot more follow. It starts to look like the bad reviewer is someone who has it out for robots making food for humans, but the challenge is getting proof and attempting to thrive despite that.

At its heart, Automatic Noodle is a fun, cozy science fiction novel about a group of robots who just want to find their place in the world and they do that by creating the best noodle shop they can. However, there’s a lot of subtext about the rights of individuals to make the best lives they can for themselves and find their most true identities. Newitz also presents interesting and considered opinions on technical and artistic possibilities. As an author, there’s no doubt Annalee Newitz knows the importance of online reviews and the horror of online bullies who seem to have nothing better to do than drag you down. I spend enough time in the world of contracts and agreements that I was intrigued by the idea of AI contracts that essentially exist as “living” agreements and can interpret themselves and make sure requested amendments have enforceable language. That would certainly be a lot easier than drafting contracts by hand!

Will autonomous AI robots appear in only 40 years? I’m not sure, but if they do, I hope at least a few decide to open a really good noodle shop.

Heading Down the Rabbit Hole!

This coming weekend, I’ll be traveling an hour north of Baltimore, Maryland to York, Pennsylvania for the Fourth Annual Tell-Tale Steampunk Festival, where clockwork meets curiosity in a world inspired by Alice in Wonderland! This year, the festival is trading ravens for rabbits and madness for marvels in a brand new location.

The festival will be held Friday April 17 through Sunday April 19 at the Wyndam Garden York. If you attend, you’ll be in for a weekend of fantastical frippery and marvelous mayhem, including: Live Steampunk music and performances, hands-on craft workshops and maker demos, curated handmade vendors and artisan wares, madcap tea parties and dapper happy hours, interactive games and expert panel discussions, curious characters, costume contests and so much more!

Don your goggles, tip your top hat, and tumble down the gear-driven rabbit hole. Adventure, imagination, and absurdity await! You can get all the details about the event at the website: https://telltalesteampunk.com/

Of course, I’ll be there to join several of my fellow authors as we unveil our brand-new anthology, A Curiosity of Cats, featuring steampunk tales inspired by the writings of Lewis Carroll. Curiouser and Curiouser, Wouldn’t You Say?

When the world goes topsy turvy, and you aren’t sure which way is which, there are no observers so keen as cats. Peering through the steam and crouched among the gears, they know how to pick their way safely through the most madcap of adventures. Best you should follow them! Don’t forget your grin as you dip into these fifteen frabjous tales inspired by the master of whimsy, Lewis Carroll, paying tribute to his flare for the fantastic. If you aren’t able to join us at the Tell-Tale Steampunk Festival, you can still pick up the book at: https://www.amazon.com/Curiosity-Cats-Keith-R-DeCandido/dp/1965266150/

My story in the anthology is inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Sylvie and Bruno novels, which were an experiment on his part to write fiction that would appeal to all ages. My story is set in the late 1800s in the Mesilla Valley of New Mexico where John Newbrough established a Utopian colony and envisioned a better world. The problem is that real world problems can get in the way of Utopian dreams and Professor Maravilla hopes to find a way to eliminate the colony’s mouse problem before the fall harvest!

Other authors and contributors from the anthology who will be at the convention are Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Christine Norris, John French, Dana Fraedrich, and Jessica Lucci. We will be presenting the following events:

Saturday, April 18

11-12pm – Executive Room – Past or Future? The Steampunk Timeline. Some see it as a post-apocalyptic future, while others revisit the past and offer an alternate history. Still others set their worlds outside history. Authors of the Tell-Tale Convention’s anthology discuss the many settings of steampunk.

3:30-4:30pm – Susquehana Room – Worldbuilding. Do you have an idea for your own steampunk or fantasy adventure? Listen to this panel of award-winning steampunk and fantasy authors discuss the process behind creating these fantastic worlds.

7-9pm – Susquehana Room – The Forgotten Lore Launch Party. You are cordially invited by the editor and authors of A Curiosity of Cats to join them in celebrating the release in this fourth volume in the Forgotten Lore anthology series. There will be food, fun, authors, books, and prizes!

Sunday, April 19

11-12pm – Executive Room – The Facts Behind the Fiction. Some of the best steampunk makes use of historical and scientific facts, notable figures, and the gritty details of life on the streets in a Victorian (or pseudo-Victorian) age. Contributing authors for the Tell-Tale Festival’s anthologies discuss how they go about researching and using the facts and historical details that inspire and color their vision.

Here’s hoping you can join us for a weekend of wonder and whimsy in York, Pennsylvania!

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/

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

Wild Wild West Con 14

The Wild Wild West Con Steampunk convention will be running from Thursday, March 19 through Sunday, March 22 at the Westward Look Resort in Tucson, Arizona.You can find all the details or buy tickets online at: https://www.wildwestcon.com/

War on the frontier!
Magic marches with the Clockwork Kingdom,
but the Rust Rebels will not bow.
At WWWC14, the frontier fractures and two legends rise, locked in epic conflict.

From gilded towers and spellbound halls, the Clockwork Kingdom rules with arcane grace. Nobles wield enchanted engines, mythical beasts stalk polished courtyards, and every tick of the clock hums with ancient magic.

But across the rust-choked wilds, the Rust Rebels surge: fierce, fearless, and free. They scavenge the wreckage, bend science to their will, and forge broken steel into revolution.

Two forces. One world on the brink. The choice is yours!

The Clockwork Kingdom vs. The Rust Rebels — Where Steampunk fairy tales collide with post-apocalyptic dystopia!

The Westward Look Resort is a beautiful place for this event. Nestled on 80 acres of the Sonoran Desert foothills, the historic Westward Look, originally a 1912 hacienda, offers steampunk-styled sanctuary with modern indulgences. Sip handcrafted cocktails by lush citrus and hummingbird gardens, unwind in sparkling pools or soak in hot tubs after a day of adventure, and relax in spacious casitas featuring private balconies overlooking Titan-like saguaros and the Catalina Mountains. With its full-service Sonoran Spa, eight tennis and pickleball courts, guided horseback and hiking trails, and over 30,000 ft of gathering spaces, this oasis becomes our Clockwork Kingdom’s grand stronghold – or the perfect hideout for the Rust Rebels!

Of course I’ll be involved in some events related to this year’s epic theme. My schedule is as follows:

Thursday, March 19

1pm – Mesa Room – Rebels of Astronomy. The 19th century was a time when astronomers were pushing boundaries and trying new things. Women were even getting into the act. Learn about the rebellious astronomers of the Victorian age and how they transformed our understanding of the planets and even the universe.

4pm – Canyon Room – The Author’s Panel. The authors of Wild Wild West Con gather and tell you about their latest work and answer your questions about being a writer.

5:30pm – Mesa Room – Drake & McTrowell’s Hot Potato School of Writing™. Join Chief Inspector Erasmus Drake and Dr. Sparky McTrowell as they host this gameshow where audience members and celebrity authors get together and cobble together an impromptu story based on fun story prompts. You can never tell where those prompts will lead!

Saturday, March 21

1pm – Canyon Room – Fairy Tales Revisited. Join Chief Inspector Erasmus Drake, Dr. Sparky McTrowell and I as we discuss our favorite fairy tales. We also look at approaches to steampunking them. How much work does this take to do it organically?

Of course, I will also have a vendor space at Wild Wild West Con where I’ll have my new collection of Vampire short stories, Vermillion Highways, the special collector’s USB Card of Museum of the Omniverse: Dragon Exhibit, and copies of Lyn McConchie’s The City – Sideways. You’ll find the booth in the Sonoran Room. I hope you’ll drop by so I can introduce you to your next favorite read!

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

Ciara’s Song

I’ve started off this year discussing works by one of the first Grand Master of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Jack Williamson. Today, I’m turning my attention, at least in part, to another early Grand Master, Andre Norton. I remember Andre Norton’s books being staples of bookstore and supermarket book shelves when I was growing up. However, it wasn’t until I was in high school that I would learn that Andre Norton was a pen name for Alice Mary Norton. She would be named a Grand Master of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America the year I graduated from high school. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America would further honor Norton by naming their award for best Young Adult novel after her. Even before I was born, she would write the novel Witch World, which was nominated for the Hugo Award.

Meanwhile, back in 2001, when I made my first professional short story sale to Realms of Fantasy Magazine, I also sold a story to a magazine called the Vampire’s Crypt. One of my fellow authors in that issue was Lyn McConchie. Over the next few years, I would notice that Lyn would turn up in several of the same magazines I sold stories to. Around the time I noticed that, Lyn began sending stories to the magazine I edited, Tales of the Talisman. What I didn’t know at the time was that Lyn McConchie had written in worlds created by Andre Norton. Given that I have edited Lyn’s work and given how much Andre Norton’s work was part of my formative reading years, I thought it would be fun to take a look at one of these books. For my first foray, I delved into the first book Lyn wrote set in Norton’s Witch World series, Ciara’s Song.

The novel opens when Ciara of Elmsgarth is a young girl living on a remote farm. An edict goes out from the ruler of the land to kill all those of witch blood, which includes Ciara’s mother. As one might expect, men soon arrive to carry out the edict and Ciara is sent to hide in a remote cave. Even so, she’s still close enough when the men appear on the scene to see her mother killed. She seeks refuge with a wise and kindly lord named Tarnoor, who has a keep not far from her family’s farm. Unlike the duke who issued the edict, Tarnoor refuses to fear those of witch blood and he soon adopts Ciara and raises her alongside his son Trovagh. As the years pass, Ciara and Trovaugh have adventures such as the time they save a farm from bandits. They grow closer and ultimately fall in love. Meanwhile, Ciara discovers she has some witch magic of her own and has inherited some of her mother’s gifts as a healer.

The years pass. Ciara and Trovaugh have children, then grandchildren. Different factions rise and fall in the lands to the north of Tarnoor’s holdings. Wise ruler that he is, he fortified his keep well and earned the trust and loyalty of his people so that they withstand those ambitious and jealous rulers who attempt to take his keep. All of the events finally build toward a climactic confrontation between Ciara and Trovaugh’s grandchildren, Kirion, Keelan, and Aisling. Kirion was given everything he wanted as a child and grew up both spoiled and mean-tempered. His brother, Keelan, mostly tries to be quiet and keep out of the way. Their sister Aisling is often the victim of Kirion’s bullying and is taken in by Ciara and Trovaugh. When she is, she begins to show that she might have stronger witch powers than her grandmother. Once he figures it out, Kirion hopes to control his sister so he can have those powers too.

What really delighted me reading this book was how much I recognized Lyn McConchie’s voice in the storytelling. I was reminded of many great stories I’ve read by her in other magazines along with stories she’s sent to me over the years. Although Ciara’s Song is marketed as a collaboration, I gather Lyn did write the entire novel. Still, I don’t think this minimizes Andre Norton’s contribution building Witch World and in fact, I think it’s great that she encouraged new writers by allowing them free reign in her world. You can find Ciara’s Song at: https://www.amazon.com/Ciaras-Song-Chronicle-Witch-Chronicles/dp/0446606448

Not only have I edited several of Lyn’s stories, I have edited three collections of short stories written by Lyn. Two of these have been published by Hadrosaur Productions: The Way-Out Wild West and Far Side of the Wild West. Of course, you can click on the links to learn more about those books. The third book will be released this coming Tuesday. Check back then to learn about The City—Sideways.

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