Greetings everyone! Just
a quick update to reveal the cover art for my upcoming sci-fi short story “Anomaly”
which, if all goes according to plan, should have its first draft done in the
next couple of days.
It will be available to purchase on Kindle sometime in July. Stay tuned for a publication date soon. Until next time, have a great beginning of summer and happy reading!
Greetings dear
readers! It’s been quite some time since my last update. Life happened, I got
busy, then got a bit of writer’s block and before you know it, it’s been six
weeks since I wrote a single word in my upcoming sci-fi short tale “Anomaly.” It’s
time to remedy that and I’ll be getting back to it this weekend. I’m about two
thirds of the way through and it should end up in the forty-something page range
by the time I’m done. To whet your appetite, here’s a sketch I did back in March
of the crew’s ship, The Orion. I’m
not an artist by any stretch of the imagination but sometimes I like to dabble
and I had this image in my head that I wanted to put on paper.
Hopefully I can get back on pace and have this story out on Kindle sometime in July. I’ll keep you posted in the weeks to come, and for the next update, I’ll reveal the cover art. Until next time, happy reading!
Greetings! Today is the day baseball fans have been waiting for: Opening Day! As a huge baseball fan, I’m stoked to watch my Cubbies get back in action (sure, we had the two games in Japan last week, but now baseball will be back for good). To celebrate the occasion, I’m publishing a Redux version of my 2018 baseball tale, “Scapegoat”, initially penned under the pseudonym Neal Vandar. It was only available as a free PDF in the past, but as of today, it’s now available on all Amazon markets on Kindle at the low price of $0.99 US / $1.42 CAD. I hadn’t read it since I first wrote it in 2018. Not to toot my own horn, but I’m just as proud of it now as when I wrote it. In fact, I’d say “Scapegoat” is one of my Top 3 best short stories. I polished it a bit and gave it a brand-new cover from a photo taken by yours truly at Chicago’s Wrigley Field. And it’s not just for baseball fans; I can promise you that even if you don’t know anything/or don’t care about baseball, if you like suspenseful time travel tales, then you’ll get a kick out of it. Here’s the official synopsis:
SCAPEGOAT is a short fantasy tale about baseball, the curse of the
Cubs, time travel, and a whole lot of nostalgia. Sam Burke is a die-hard
Chicago Cubs fan. He has a special gift—or curse—depending on how one looks at
it. If he concentrates hard enough and if the circumstances are just right, he
can time-shift to transport himself to a different time and location for a few
brief moments. More often than not, he fails and nothing happens. One afternoon
at Wrigley Field, he attempts to time-shift to a fateful Cubs game in October
2003. To his surprise, he succeeds, but something goes wrong and he seems to be
stuck there. He’ll soon realize that he’s in way over his head after he tries
to change History. Will Sam be able to fix things and return to his own
timeline?
You can purchase it through
this link on Amazon.com for folks in the U.S.
Or you can pick it up
via this link on Amazon.ca for my fellow Canuck readers.
Enjoy “Scapegoat” and the 2025 baseball season! I’ll keep you posted in the weeks to come on more updates about my sci-fi short story, “Anomaly”, including some artwork reveal. Until next time, happy reading!
AMOK THE POWERFUL has
been out for three months already. Have you purchased your copy yet? If you’re
into cinematic, dialogue-driven Sword & Sorcery tales with no extra fat,
then this is the book for you. You can scroll down to the previous blog entries
to read the book’s synopsis or if you want to jump in right away, you can
download the entire first episode of the book as a 30-page PDF right here. Or if listening to audiobooks is
more your thing, then you can head over to YouTube to listen to me do a live reading of the first episode. The book
is available exclusively through Amazon on Kindle and in print. Again, scroll
to the previous posts for all the links to buy.
And now for something
completely different! I’ve had an idea for a cool sci-fi short story ever since
last summer but wanted to be done writing and promoting Amok to give it my full
attention. I jotted down a plan for it back in January, including a short
outline with detailed character bios and got started writing last weekend. The
story is titled ANOMALY and is about a recon ship on a mission to salvage a vessel
on an expedition to collect samples that’s crashed on an ice planet. I won’t
divulge any more for the time being, but I’m hoping to be done writing it by
early May to make it available as a Kindle tale on Amazon. It’ll most likely be
within the 30 to 40-page range. It’s strongly inspired by the Alien and The Thing films, so fans of those movies will get a kick out of it.
This will be my first published sci-fi story; I’d begun writing a sci-fi novel
in 2010 but lost inspiration for it, abandoning it for good after several
months of hitting a wall and 60-something pages penned.
That’s it for me. I’ll keep you posted as ANOMALY progresses in the weeks to come and I’ll reveal the cover art for it at some point. Until next time, happy reading and Long Live Amok!
Happy New Year! I’ve
been procrastinating and taking some time off social media and my blog since
the beginning of the new year. I’ve got a long overdue update for you to celebrate
the first two months of AMOK’s Pub Day. First off, I received a starred review
from the wonderful folks at the Independent Book Review. You can read the
entire review right here.
Second, I said I’d do
a live reading of the first episode of the book, well, it’s finally done! I did
okay, but it’s not my best reading unfortunately. I messed up towards the end,
but it’s all part of the challenge of doing a reading in one-sitting and I get
a kick out of that. I used to do a lot of live readings back in the day on Blogtalk
Radio channels and podcasts. It’d been over six years since my last live
reading; being out of practice mixed with nerves resulted in me screwing up in
a few places. Aside from that, I’m happy with the overall result; I enjoy doing
various voices for the different characters—it adds a certain zest to the
performance. It clocks in at almost an hour, so if you’ve got an hour to kill,
head over to YouTube and give it a listen. Then like, subscribe, comment, and
all that stuff. You can find my live reading over here.
As a reminder, if you’d
like to read the first episode instead (or read along), you can download the
30-page PDF right here. If you dig what you read and want to know what happens
next to the red-maned barbarian, you can show some love by purchasing a copy of
the book on Kindle or as a beautiful 6” X 9” paperback. It features sixteen
interior illustrations depicting the wild cast of characters.
Here are the links to purchase the book from the three
main Amazon sites:
Amok the Powerful on Amazon.com
Amok the Powerful on Amazon.ca
Amok the Powerful on Amazon.co.uk
Last but not least, if you do buy a copy of AMOK THE POWERFUL and enjoy it, I’d be very grateful if you’d write a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads to help me spread the word to potential readers. Word of mouth has always been and will always be the best way to sell books. Until next time, happy reading and Long Live Amok!
AMOK THE POWERFUL has
been out for over ten days now and a couple of cool things have happened since.
I did some author interviews, two of which have been published over at Awesome Gang
and their sister site, Book Reader Magazine. The interview questions are
similar but there are some different questions/answers between the two, so
check them out. I had a lot of fun doing them!
My book promoter made
a book trailer for me so if you haven’t seen it yet, have a look-see on
YouTube. Speaking of YouTube, last weekend I decided to resurrect my YouTube
channel which had been dormant for over six years. I’ve created a playlist of
all my book-related media including previous book trailers going as far back as
2008 for the gothic anthology Sinister
Landscapes, which I edited. You’ll also find the virtual book launch
for my thriller Oblique from 2018 as
well as other vintage stuff like my very first public reading of my short story
“The Rattling Man” done for Dread Central’s Dreadtime
Stories back in October of 2007. It was recorded over the phone so the
sound quality isn’t optimal, but it was fun to revisit it to see how far I’ve
come as a narrator since then. It was first published in 2010 in the very first Horror Zine anthology, And Now the Nightmare Begins, and reprinted in my second short story collection, Spooky Showcase, in 2012. You can also download it as a free PDF right here to read along. I’d be very grateful if you subscribed to my
channel as I’ll be uploading readings of the first Amok tale and some other
stories of mine in the weeks and months to come as well as readings of public
domain tales from famous authors. I’m looking to grow my channel in a major way
in 2025 and will need an audience for that.
Last but not least, I’ve
removed the PDF titled “Amok - Two Tales” from the available downloads of my
previous blog posts dating back to the spring of 2023. Since those tales have
been revised/edited since, I now give you the final version of the first tale
found in AMOK THE POWERFUL, “Evil Soul, Evil Deed”, as a preview of the book.
You can download the 30-page PDF right here and if you like what you read, you
can show some love by purchasing a copy of the book on Kindle or as a beautiful
6” X 9” paperback.
Here are the links to purchase the book from the three
main Amazon sites:
Amok the Powerful on Amazon.com
Amok the Powerful on Amazon.ca
Amok the Powerful on Amazon.co.uk
If you pick up AMOK THE POWERFUL and enjoy it, I’d very much appreciate if you could take the time to leave a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads to help me spread the word to potential readers. Word of mouth is the best way to sell books, so tell your friends, family, and work colleagues about this book that is very near and dear to me. Stay tuned in the weeks to come for many more updates. Until next time, happy reading and Long Live Amok!
Greetings dear readers! The big day has finally arrived: Amok has been unleashed as a 6”X9” trade paperback and digitally on Kindle! Visit your country’s Amazon to purchase a copy of the book. Some Amazon sites may have a few days delay for the paperback to appear but I’m told it should show up on the entire Amazon network very soon. The reference price is $15.99 US for the paperback and $4.99 US for the Kindle. All other sites will adjust their price based on the exchange rate on the day of purchase in your respective country.
Here’s the book’s
synopsis:
From the Author of BITTERNEST and NOCTURNAL OFFERINGS Comes a
Collection of Eight Connected Sword & Sorcery Tales
Armed with his mystical sword, a young barbarian named Amok and
his friend Goyiir the sorceress embark on a quest to seek answers about his
forgotten past. As they head west toward the mythical province of Atlantia, the
road is long and fraught with peril.
They’ll battle a wide variety of foes ranging from ninjas,
spectres, and even aliens as they carve their way through the cycle of seasons.
Will Amok and his friends survive to face the nearly-indomitable evil of
Atlantia's tyrannical ruler, the Harbinger of Doom?
*** This book is for mature audiences only. It contains explicit
adult situations. Discretion is advised. ***
Here are the three
main Amazon sites’ Kindle links:
Amok the Powerful on Amazon.com
Amok the Powerful on Amazon.ca
Amok the Powerful on Amazon.co.uk
And for the trade
paperback:
Amok the Powerful on Amazon.com
Amok the Powerful on Amazon.ca
Amok the Powerful on Amazon.co.uk
In closing, the book received its first early review a few days ago and it’s a 5-star review! Check it out over at Goodreads. Hopefully many more reviews will follow soon. I’ll keep you updated whenever there are mentions or reviews that pop-up about the red-maned barbarian’s book. I’ll also post a sample of the book in the days to come. If you pick up AMOK THE POWERFUL and enjoy it, I’d be very grateful if you took the time to leave a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads to help me spread the word to other potential readers. Word of mouth is what works best to sell books, so tell your friends, family, and work colleagues about this book that is very dear to me. Until next time, happy reading and Long Live Amok!
Greetings dear
readers! My upcoming Sword & Sorcery book Amok the Powerful is now live on Goodreads and Amazon. It’s
currently only listed on Kindle at the moment, but I’m told the paperback
listing will go live on pub day, which is November 26th so be on the
lookout for that. You can find links to it below for the Amazon US, Canada, and
UK sites but it’s also available across all Amazon sites. To give you an idea, the
Kindle version is priced at $4.99 US and the paperback at $15.99 US. All other countries’
currencies will reflect that price point according to the exchange rate of the
day when you purchase the book. You can click on the wraparound cover art below
to enlarge it and read the synopsis of the book. I got my proof copy in the
mail this week and it’s absolutely gorgeous! I can’t wait for this book to be
unleashed upon the world! I’ll have some more news before pub day, so stay
tuned and happy reading!
Amok the Powerful on Goodreads
Pre-order your Kindle copy today:
Amok the Powerful on Amazon.com
Amok the Powerful on Amazon.ca
Amok the Powerful on Amazon.co.uk
Happy Friday! Another piece for my upcoming book, Amok the Powerful; this time around focusing on the back cover art and synopsis. I kept the synopsis short and sweet: it goes straight to the point. I left an empty spot for the UPC bar code on the bottom right. If you love Conan and Dungeons & Dragons with a weird twist, I’m pretty sure you’ll dig the adventures of my red-maned barbarian Amok. The book will be published on Tuesday, November 26, 2024 and will be available in print as a paperback and electronically on Kindle. Edits are going really well and I should be done by Halloween and ready to send out review copies into your realm. Stay tuned and long live Amok!
Happy October! At long last, I present to you the cover artwork for my upcoming Sword & Sorcery book, Amok the Powerful, to be published on Tuesday, November 26, 2024 if all goes according to plan. It’s a lovely oil painting by my girlfriend, 4IN.
The manuscript revisions are going well; I’m almost at the halfway mark. The book will be available in print as a paperback and electronically on Kindle. I’ll have a synopsis up and more details in the weeks to come as we get closer to pub date. Stay tuned!
