Category Archives: eBooks

Against the Day – Part 4

At around 367 pages, Part 4 of Against the Day is the novel’s longest section. This part, which is the length of many novels, shares its title with the novel itself. The title is taken from 2 Peter 3:7 in the Bible. In the King James Version, that verse reads “But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” Even though this is the longest section, I found it easier to follow the novel’s many plot threads. Some of this is because I’ve now spent enough time with the characters that they’re familiar and some of this is because Pynchon is now bringing his novel to a conclusion. In Part 2, we heard a lot about Kit Traverse’s fascination with mathematics and vectors. Now, in part 4, our characters who are scattered around the world all begin to find their way onto a vector that will carry them through World War I, effectively the novel’s day of judgement, and convergence in Southern California at the beginning of the 1920s.

The 1908 Tunguska Event, a real-life 12-megaton explosion that happened in Siberia, possibly from a comet hitting the Earth proves to be a major event in the lives of many of the characters ranging from Kit Traverse to the Chums of Chance and their Russian counterparts, the crew of the Bolsha’ia Igra. Pynchon notes that the Tunguska Event was so powerful it sent some reindeer flying and even caused some of their noses to glow red. More seriously, it proves to be a transformative event that heralds the coming world war.

Much of part 4 follows Yashmeen Halfcourt, Reef Traverse, and Cyprian Latewood as they form a three-way romance. Over the course of that romance, Yashmeen becomes pregnant. In part because of that, stopping the oncoming war in Europe becomes a priority for her. Reef’s family has fought for unions and in this section, he uses his skills to attempt to prevent the war. Unfortunately, the oncoming storm is too powerful and their efforts are doomed to failure.

Meanwhile, Reef and Kit’s brother Frank is in Mexico caught among the tides of revolution ahead of World War I. He becomes a freedom fighter and is nearly killed before tending to the machinery on a coffee plantation. Eventually he escapes Mexico and finds his way back home to Colorado where he witnesses the death of Scarsdale Vibe, the man who was ultimately responsible for his father’s death.

We spend World War I itself with the Chums of Chance aboard their airship, the Inconvenience. Initially, they’re sent to find the Bolsha’ia Igra, which has vanished. When they find the Russian airship, they discover the crew are helping people weather the storm of war. The Chums abandon their mission and help the Russians on their mission of mercy, delivering food to people in need and carrying wounded soldiers to safety. After the war, they receive a job offer in California. While the offer itself proves to be a sham, they encounter Merle Rideout, the photographer and inventor from the beginning of the book who has found his way to Hollywood. Rideout has not only learned about motion pictures, but he’s learned that he can extrapolate information from photographs to find out what happened before and after those pictures were taken. The one catch is that he doesn’t always see what happens in our timeline. Sometimes he sees different possible futures.

We close out part 4 as Merle catches up with his daughter Dally using an old photograph. What we don’t know yet is whether this is Dally as she is, or whether this is Dally as she might be. It’s like the Iceland Spar and Bilocation of earlier sections. People have choices and different choices make different realities.

I’ll have one last post after I finish part 5 to discuss final thoughts about this expansive novel along with my takeaways.

A Quest for Good Coffee

In 1977, I sat spellbound in the theater watching Star Wars. Afterwards, I read and reread the Marvel comics adaptations of the movies until they fell apart. I was spellbound with the adventure, following Luke Skywalker on a quest to the stars to fight the Galactic Empire and rescue Princess Leia. It wouldn’t be long before I would be drawn to similar types of adventures in the pages of fantasy novels. Eventually, friends introduced me to the world of role-playing games and I was delighted that growing into adolescence didn’t mean I had to give up imaginary adventures through deep space or long ago kingdoms.

Later, as an adult, I remember watching one of the later Star Wars films and wondering what it would like to live in this world where you had your choice between living under the thumb of an evil empire or in service to a crime lord. Were the only choices rising up against tyranny or living in poverty? In The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien gave us some hint of what it was like during the quiet times and why Frodo went on such a difficult and perilous quest. That said, many fantasy novels drop you into the midst of trouble and then don’t let up until the problem is solved. Like with the Star Wars world, I found myself wondering what it’s like to live day-to-day in such a world. Does anyone ever just go on a quest for good coffee?

That’s where Travis Baldree’s Legends and Lattes comes in. Viv is a powerful but battle-weary orc, a warrior you might find in any role-playing game. She arrives in the town of Thune with a dream She wants to open a coffee shop. She discovered coffee on one of her adventures in a gnomish village after a particularly grueling fight and fell in love with sitting at a table and just enjoying a rich hearty beverage. She wants to give other folks the opportunity to do the same. Fortunately, she has a magical artifact that she believes will bring her good fortune. Sure enough she finds a great location and begins making her dreams a reality. She meets a hob named Cal who is handy with a tool kit and helps her convert an old stable into her shop. She hires a succubus named Tandri who proves to be her ideal partner and when they realize they could use baked goods to lure people into their shop, they meet a rattkin named Thimble who is a literal wizard of cinnamon rolls and chocolate-filled croissants.

Viv’s quest to open a coffee shop is not without challenges, though. She has to contend with a local boss who wants collection money and a former partner who thinks Viv cheated the adventuring party when she left with the artifact. There’s fun in seeing how Viv contends with these challenges and adapts to life as a shopkeeper after spending years on the road as an adventurer. This is less a novel of swordplay and more one exploring the quiet times in a world where high adventure happens. What makes this work is that Baldree gives us characters we care about and taking a light-hearted approach to the challenges they face and overcome in their world.

I also loved reading in the back that this book was a self-publishing success story. Authors and book store owners who loved the book rallied around it and recommended it to people they knew, which drew it to the attention of a bigger publisher and eventually it became a well-deserved Nebula-award nominee. All of this goes to show how important it is, when you find a book you love, to tell people about it.

Like Viv, I love a good cup of coffee. I made sure Ellison Firebrandt had coffee aboard the Legacy. Fatemeh Karimi makes a great coffee in my Clockwork Legion novels. Even the vampire Daniel might be tempted away from some blood for a good cup of coffee. You can learn more about my many coffee-loving characters at http://www.davidleesummers.com. And if you find one you really like, please do tell your friends!

Faith Hunter’s Skinwalker

I recently finished the first draft of my latest vampire novel Ordeal of the Scarlet Order. In my novel, the vampires have scattered around the world to avoid retribution from destroying a secret military project, only to find themselves pulled back into it whether they want to be or not. Portions of the novel are set in France, Colorado, and New Orleans. After wrapping up my novel, I decided I was in the mood for another vampire novel set in New Orleans. I’d heard about Faith Hunter’s novel Skinwalker before, but hadn’t read it. Since my Scarlet Order world also touches on skinwalker legends, and since I have a novella inspired by skinwalker stories, I thought I would take a look.

The skinwalker of Faith Hunter’s title is a Cherokee woman named Jane Yellowrock who can shapeshift into a mountain lion. What’s more, the mountain lion appears to be its own individual living within Jane’s consciousness. Jane doesn’t know much about her history or where her powers came from, but she has been trained to fight and works as a professional bounty hunter. In New Orleans, a rogue vampire is on the loose killing both humans and other vampires indiscriminately. However, the vampires can’t seem to trap it or catch it. They hire Jane to do the job for them. The novel opens as Jane arrives in New Orleans and meets with her contact, a vampire madame named Katherine Fontaneau. She soon finds her search complicated by the interplay of vampire family politics and police interest in the case. Despite that, Jane begins to gather clues while making allies and enemies among the human and vampire populations of the Crescent City. Fortunately, one of her best friends is a powerful witch who has given her powerful tools to use in the hunt.

Authors who write about vampires have a lot of choices when they establish their rules about these creatures. There are many sources in folklore and fiction writers have just built on that. If there are real vampires, they’ve remained hidden in the shadows and haven’t yet appeared to tell us what we’ve gotten right or wrong in our depictions. Witches can be a little trickier since there are wiccans and a long, dark history of people accused of witchcraft. Faith Hunter clearly builds her own witch lore, where magical power is passed along genetically. In Diné lore, skinwalkers have a strong association with witchcraft. Again, Hunter builds her own skinwalker lore, separate from that of the Diné. Once I understood that Hunter had built her own self-contained lore, I was able to sit back and enjoy the ride.

Skinwalker was a solid thrill ride of a novel with lots of action. She gives lush descriptions of the locations around New Orleans that I’ve visited including the French Quarter, Jean Lafitte National Park, and the Garden District. She also gives us several characters we really care about, and it’s not always clear who the good guys and bad guys are. There were a few things in the novel that didn’t quite work for me such as Jane’s almost magical hair that let her store enough weaponry to push my willing suspension of disbelief. That said, I did like the witch-enchanted magical saddlebags on her motorcycle which allow her to store many items.

Die Hard with Vampires

While in the final days of drafting my novel Ordeal of the Scarlet Order, I had the opportunity to read Kim Newman’s novel Anno Dracula 1999: Daikaiju. To date, this is his sixth and final Anno Dracula novel. Set in Japan on December 31, 1999, we learn that the vampire Christina Light, also known as the Princess Casamassima, is throwing a party for New Year’s Eve in her Tokyo office building, built in the shape of a dragon. Of course, in Japan big monsters are kaiju and really big monsters are daikaiju, hence the book’s title. At the stroke of midnight, the princess plans to “ascend” and she’s invited everyone who is anyone to be there for the event. One of Christina’s vampire powers is to literally become light and her ascension will take the form of becoming a permanent part of the electromagnetic spectrum, which would allow her to become part of the whole information superstructure of the world.

Among the attendees are Richard Jeperson of British Intelligence and his bodyguard, Nezumi, who had been made a vampire around a thousand years earlier when only 13-years old. The party looks as though it’s going to be a splendid success until a group of terrorists, Yakuza assassins and Transylvanian mercenaries crash the party all led by a member of Dracula’s family who has visions of “ascending” in Christina Light’s place. The terrorists aren’t the only unwelcome guests. On the 44th floor of the Daikaiju building. Hal Takayama wakes up, not remembering his history or why he’s there. What’s more, his left hand has been replaced by a computerized glass hand called “Lefty” that seems to have an agenda of its own. Lefty effectively convinces Hal that he was Jun Zero, the most notorious cyber-terrorist of the age. Meanwhile, looming in the background of the novel is the infamous Y2K bug, which many people feared would be disastrous as the calendar rolled over from 1999 to 2000.

So far, the Anno Dracula books have tended to tell stories set over weeks and even decades, but this one is a taut action-thriller jumping character to character as Jeperson, Nezumi, and Takayama work together to stop the terrorists and understand the implications of Christina Light’s ascension. Christina Light’s story arc began in the graphic novel Seven Days in Mayhem, then continued in the novel One Thousand Monsters. Daikaiju proves to be a thrilling conclusion to the arc. Even though Daikaiju is the final novel so far, I still have one more Anno Dracula volume to go. Kim Newman has a short story collection called Anno Dracula 1899 and Other Stories which I will likely dive into while hoping he has other stories in the works for the series.

As I say, I recently finished the first pass of a new Scarlet Order vampire novel. I’m at the point where I’m setting it aside and then I’ll take a fresh look at it in a couple of weeks. I’m sure I’ll be tearing it apart and putting it back together again before handing it off to beta readers and an editor. Meanwhile, you can learn about the first two novels in the series and read the opening chapters at: http://davidleesummers.com/books.html#scarlet_order.

Against the Day – Part 3

As Part 3 of Against the Day opens, we find the Chums of Chance aboard subdesertine frigate Saksaul under the command of Captain Toadflax. They’re searching for the lost city of Shambhala. The Chums learn that Iceland spar allows them to use the Sfiuncino Itinerary as a map. They can go inside the map where the distances are marked in the dimension of time. Along the way, they stop at the city of Nuevo Rialto, where they encounter sand fleas the size of camels. The chums also learn that the lost city of Shambhala may not be the main objective of the Saksaul. It’s possible, they’re after oil instead of adventure.

We then return to Colorado briefly where Merle Rideout misses his daughter Dally. He begins a journey to places east and develops a fascination for movies. In particular, he’s caught up in how they manipulate time through the use of light. Meanwhile Frank Traverse has returned to the United States and is looking for his girlfriend Estrella in Nochechita. When he gets there, he has the feeling she’s in town, but somehow can’t see her. The reason Frank had left the United States is that he killed Sloat Fresno to avenge his father. Sloat’s partner, Deuce, who has married Frank’s sister Lake, is afraid of meeting the ghost of Webb Traverse. This fear forces him to admit his part in Webb’s murder to his wife.

We jump from Colorado to London and return to the adventures of the True Worshipers of the Ineffable Tetractys – the TWIT – along with Yashmeen Halfcourt and Lew Basignight. Yashmeen has been obsessed with Riemann’s Zeta Function decides to go to Göttingen. Her professor Renfrew wants her to be on the lookout for a professor called Werfner.

From here we join the steamship Stupendica where Dally Rideout is crossing the Atlantic with her mother Erlys Zombini. Kit Traverse is also there. When he and Dally meet, they remember their time in Colorado and they begin flirting with each other. Their romance is doomed as a result of the bilocation of this section’s title. The Stupendica is also the Battleship Emperor Maximillian with its own destiny. Kit finds himself working below decks on the Emperor Maximillian. After several adventures, he finds his way to Belgium. As Kit tries to figure out how he’s going to get to Göttingen, he is pegged as a nihilist outlaw. He begins to see that Belgium is a pawn of international affairs just as his home state of Colorado is.

The Chums of Chance are now in Brussels where handyman Miles Blundell encounters one of the Trespassers, who are voyagers through time. It’s pointed out that any study of time is ultimately a study of mortality. The Trespassers don’t voyage through time because of any technical knowhow. Rather they became time travelers when time was ripped open. The Chums hope the Trespassers might be able to help them find eternal youth, but Miles points out that the Trespassers don’t have that power.

Meanwhile, Kit Traverse falls in with a group of arms dealers while also falling in love with a woman named Umeki Tsurigane from Japan. The arms dealers realize the Chums’ airship, the Inconvenience is rarely seen. Only the Chums are seen and it seems to be a property of light. Umeki is working on using light as a weapon, splitting it into rays that are ordinary and extraordinary. Kit dreams about the weapon’s power, then tells Umeki about it. Ultimately, she leaves him to go to Japan.

Dally, aboard the Stupendica, arrived in Europe as expected and she travels with the Zombini family of performers across Europe. Eventually, she decides she must make her own way and asks to stay in Venice. Dally becomes associated with Hunter Penfallow, who we last saw associated with the Vormance Expedition in the last part. He tells her a story from the Gospel of Thomas that leads her to realize that one might find order when one expected chaos.

Back in London, private investigator Lew Basnight is put on the trail of an antique dealer named Lamont Replevin who supposedly has a map of the lost city of Shambhala. Lew is able to photograph it. Now, Kit Traverse and Yashmeen Halfcourt have converged in Göttingen. Kit’s funds from the millionaire Scarsdale Vibe are cut off, but Kit also realizes that Yashmeen has an incredible power. She can step outside of time itself. Yashmeen offers to help Kit find employment with TWIT. She also reveals that her father might be another person seeking the lost city of Shambhala. Kit meets with Yashmeen’s father and learns: “As for what lies beneath those sands, you’ve got your choice – either Shambhala, as close to the Heavenly City as Earth has known, or Baku and Johannesburg all over again, unexplored reserves of gold, oil, Plutonian wealth, and the prospect of creating yet another subhuman class of workers to extract it.”

In the United States, we follow Frank Traverse as he’s hired to run arms into Mexico. Frank begins to have dreams about his father Webb. At the same time, Frank’s brother Reef has been working as a dynamiter in Europe. He now knows that the millionaire Scarsdale Vibe is connected to his father’s murder and Reef feels compelled to hunt down Vibe. Reef ends up connecting with his brother Kit along with Yashmeen. Kit wants to go to Venice on Scarsdale Vibe’s trail. Kit and Reef attend a séance where the “speak” with their father, Webb, who tries to dissuade them from chasing down Scarsdale Vibe.

This part of the novel wraps up with Lew Basnight in London. He thinks he runs into Professor Renfrew, but it turns out it’s Professor Werfner. After consulting with his friends Nigel and Neville, Lew realizes Renfrew and Werfner are the same person, somehow separated through bilocation.

Keeping track of all these plot threads is definitely a challenge, but it helps to focus on the thematic threads. The Traverse brothers are seeking justice for their father, but justice may find itself tied to international politics. There’s the quest for Shambhala, which might be a quest through time as much as through space. There’s also the very notion of “bilocation.” People and places that may be two things at once, each with different fates. As Dally discovered in Venice, the world appears to be in chaos, but we may find order yet. In part 4, we’ll literally turn “Against the Day.”

As I’ve noted before, I see echoes of Pynchon’s steampunk experiment in my own writing. I see the exploration of the Wild West. I see the worldwide saga and I appreciate Pynchon’s fascination with math and science. To learn more about my steampunk saga, visit: http://davidleesummers.com/books.html#clockwork_legion

The Dracula Tape

I first met Fred Saberhagen in 1986. He was sitting outside of the Waldenbooks in Albuquerque’s Coronado Center Mall signing copies of his new book, The Frankenstein Papers. In effect, the book told the story of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein from the monster’s point of view. I was well aware of Saberhagen’s reputation as a science fiction author and a good friend from high school was a particular fan of his Berserker series, so I decided to give the book a try. Saberhagen kindly signed the book to me. I came to know him a little better once my wife and I began selling books at Albuquerque’s science fiction convention, Bubonicon, where I listened to him on several panels. Unfortunately, he passed away in 2007.

Recently, a friend asked if I’d ever read Saberhagen’s 1975 novel, The Dracula Tape. It occurred to me that was a serious omission. After I’d read and enjoyed The Frankenstein Papers, I’d always meant to seek out a copy of The Dracula Tape. However, in 1986, I hadn’t yet read the original Dracula and I thought it would be more enjoyable if I had some background. Unfortunately, by the time I actually read Dracula in the mid-1990s, Saberhagen’s novel had fallen off my radar. Fortunately, Fred’s wife, Joan Saberhagen, has made certain that The Dracula Tape is still available in ebook and audio formats, so I was finally able to pick up a copy and dive into a book I’d long meant to read.

The Dracula Tape opens in 1975 England. Arthur Harker and his wife Janet arrive in a hospital after their car dies on a remote road. In the back seat is a tape recorder. On the tape within, is the voice of a man purporting to be Count Dracula. He relates the events of Bram Stoker’s novel from his point of view. It turns out that Arthur and Janet Harker are descendants of Jonathan and Mina Harker of Stoker’s novel and Dracula is on a mission which will be revealed at the end of the novel. Saberhagen’s approach works well, since Dracula is an epistolary novel told from several points of view. The one point of view we never heard in the novel was Dracula’s own. Of course, Count Dracula sees himself as the hero of the story and endeavors to paint himself as such by presenting alternate versions of the accounts as presented by Stoker’s characters without outright contradicting them. The effect is that he paints Stoker’s characters as unreliable narrators and yet, readers familiar with Dracula may wonder if the count is a reliable narrator himself.

Over the years, numerous authors have speculated about Mina Harker’s fate in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. For example, in Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s League of Extraordinary gentlemen series, she’s granted at least some vampire-like powers, including apparent immortality. I especially like the way Saberhagen addresses both Dracula and Mina’s fate after the events of the novel. I also really enjoyed Saberhagen’s version of Lucy Westenra’s story. I recommend The Dracula Tape to fans of Stoker’s novel who want to see a respectful and believable version of the events from the Count’s perspective.

You can learn about my epistolary vampire novel and also learn why Rae Lori recommends it at by clicking the image below:

Against the Day – Part 2

Today finds me at El Paso Comic Con. If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll drop into the convention center and visit me at Booth A15. Also today, I continue my look at Thomas Pynchon’s steampunk novel Against the Day. Part 2: Iceland Spar is nearly three times as long as Part 1 with an elaborate plot ranging the American continent and even the world. Since I want to tackle this part of the novel in one post, I’ll do my best to limit my summary to the highlights. Part 1 opened in 1893. Part 2 moves ahead to 1899 and opens up with the young airship adventurers, the Chums of Chance. The Chums have been sent to find the Voromance Expedition which has found a meteorite harboring a consciousness and a purpose. I found myself reminded of Legion from my Clockwork Legion novels. What’s more we meet an airship crewed by Russians, who are rivals of the Chums. We ultimately learn that the Voromance Expedition is being funded by the industrialist Scarsdale Vibe.

We then join Kit Traverse at Yale. Kit is the son of Webb Traverse, the anarchist and miner from Colorado in part 1. It turns out that Kit’s education is being funded by Scarsdale Vibe and that the industrialist sees Traverse as a better potential heir than his own children.

Jumping forward to 1900, we find private investigator Lew Basnight in Denver on the trail of a dynamiter called the Kieselghur Kid. During his quest, Basnight accidently ingests cyclomite dynamite, which proves to be a hallucinogen. Basnight become addicted and eventually teams up with a pair of Englishmen who take him back to the United Kingdom where he’ll get involved with a group called the True Worshipers of the Ineffable Tetractys, or TWIT. The Tetractys is a numerical pattern with spiritual significance and they want Basnight to join as a sort of psychic detective, believing he’s gained special sight from his ingestion of cyclomite.

Meanwhile, we return to the Chums of Chance, who are now in Venice looking for a map called the Sfinciuno Itinerary which dates from just after the time of Marco Polo. As they continue their quest, they find the Itinerary may not be a literal map but a guide to a spiritual quest. One of the keys is the Iceland Spar, which proves to be a lens made from calcite which has many strange properties explored by characters through this section of the novel. In particular, calcite has the property of “double refraction” as shown in the photo I took of a calcite crystal from my home state of New Mexico at the Smithsonian Institution earlier this month.

From here we move ahead to the period from 1903-4, about a decade after the novel’s start. We have an extended sequence out in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado following the family of the anarchist Webb Traverse and people connected to him. We learn about hired guns who kill Webb. Those same men end up getting involved with Webb’s estranged daughter, Lake. Meanwhile, Webb’s sons Frank and Reef vow to avenge their father. All through this section, there are hints that Webb or his son Frank may be none other than the famed Kieselghur Kid.

In the course of their quest, Frank Traverse meets Merle Rideout, the photographer from Part 1, who is now working as a chemist in the mines. Merle points out that Iceland Spar is useful to people engaged in alchemy. While they’re meeting, Frank finds out people are gunning for him. Merle’s daughter Dahlia helps him get away, then decides to make her fortune in New York. She ultimately becomes an actress for a sleezy vaudeville company run by Scarsdale Vibe’s brother and finds her mother Erlys who had run off with the magician Luca Zomboni. He uses Iceland Spar to help create optical illusions, but it also has the danger of creating duplicate people.

Also in New York, Frank and Reef’s brother Kit meets with Nikola Tesla and Dr. Vanderjuice. Kit begins to realize that Scarsdale Vibe may have been responsible for hiring his father’s killers. Kit looks for a way to get out from under Vibe’s thumb and asks to go to Germany to continue his study in mathematics. Vibe, who seems a bit relieved not to have Kit nearby agrees to pay for his journey.

At this point we return west and follow Reef Traverse, who has become fascinated with dynamite and finds himself associated with the Kieselghur Kid. After someone tries to kill him with an avalanche, he heads east and finds himself in New Orleans. Once again, I find a fun parallel with my Clockwork Legion series. We leave Reef traveling to Genoa, Italy with a group of anarchists.

It’s now 1904 and we return once again to Colorado to follow the adventures of Reef’s brother Frank who is on the run from the people trying to kill him. Frank flees to Mexico and finds himself arrested on political crimes. He’s eventually able to break out of prison and meets up with three Tarahumare people who lead him on a spiritual quest worthy of Carlos Castaneda. During this episode, he learns that Iceland Spar has the property of duplicating places. Frank goes off on his own again and catches up with Sloat Fresno, one of the men who killed his father. Frank succeeds in killing him, but the other killer is nowhere to be found.

Finally, while the Chums of Chance are taking a vacation in New York, they learn about a professor who has built a time machine. Following up on that, two of the boys take a trip to a frightening apocalyptic future and then seek more information about time travel. They find themselves at a conference of professors interested in time travel in the Midwest. After this adventure, the chums are sent to Asia to continue their search for the Sfinciuno Itinerary. Along the way, they discover a device that can allow them to travel through sand the way a ship travels through water, which was funded by Scarsdale Vibe.

Whew! All that and I’m not even halfway through the novel! Since I’m writing these posts as I read, it’s distinctly possible that I’m not covering things that will prove to be important and giving too much emphasis to minor plot points. Still, it continues to be an interesting, if challenging read. In part 2, we see more women taking an active role. I love the way Pynchon weaves together all these disparate plot elements and it’s fascinating to see how he sets a lot of the novel in locations I would later visit in the Clockwork Legion series. You can learn more about my series at: http://davidleesummers.com/books.html#clockwork_legion

The Sci-Fi Exploration StoryBundle

I’m proud to announce that my novel Firebrandt’s Legacy has been selected for the The Sci-Fi Exploration Bundle curated by Adam Gaffen. In the novel, Ellison Firebrandt and his crew of space pirates visit worlds discovered by NASA’s Kepler mission, learn the fate of lost Earth colonies and even explore a wrecked starship which has crashed into an asteroid in our solar system. All the while, they’re learning the capabilities of a new drive that … uh … came into their possession. With that, I’m going to turn the post over to Adam, who will tell you how you can obtain a pirate’s treasure chest worth of great science fiction novels for one low price. But don’t wait, this bundle will only be available until May 4.

Exploration.

It’s hardwired into humanity’s genes.

As far back into history you want to go, there have always been people who want to push the boundaries of what we know. Whether that was looking to the stars and wondering where those twinkling lights came from, or what was across that intimidating-looking ocean, or what the purpose of all that red stuff inside the human body, the questions never seemed to end.

That spirit of exploration has never stopped. It’s alive today, as we push boundaries in space, on the planet, and into the dreams of cyberspace.

We’ve gathered ten notable authors to give you their takes on where humanity’s endless curiosity might take us.

Come with us as our voyage of exploration begins!

“Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it we go nowhere.” – Carl Sagan

Here’s a FEW of the books in this bundle!

OVER THE MOON

Ding Dong, the Technowitch is dead.

As an illegal clone of the murdered galactic princess, Dora’s face would get her killed the minute she steps off her dull farming moon. She spends her days tinkering with gadgets and gears, with Tau, her kitchen-timer-bot, for company. But when forces close in and threaten her family, her escape attempt lands her deep in the Outer Zone — and on top of the Technowitch of Night, crushing her in the process.

Now a fugitive in two solar systems, Dora’s only chance of survival is to find her way to the mysterious Technomage on his Emerald moon. In a place where science has advanced to be indistinguishable from magic, she must accept the help of an unlikely trio: a cryogenically preserved girl with no memory, an obsolete theme park droid, and a bioengineered beast with a penchant for the dramatic.

As Dora realizes there’s more to the princess’s death than what the universe has been told, she must choose — save her family, or risk everything to right a centuries-old wrong.

INTREPID LEGACY

Right after she finishes her BLT, disgraced Major Tanis Richards is off to save the day one more time.

Tanis is looking forward to a long journey in stasis before arriving at the newly terraformed world of New Eden. New Life. New Start. Getting a berth on the Intrepid is her ticket out of the Sol System.

But nothing proves easy for Major Tanis Richards. Nothing is at it seems. What should be a simple trip is fraught with danger and filled with adventure. An array of forces seek to stop the Intrepid—no matter the cost, or lives lost. From competing corporations, to stellar eco-terrorists, no one wants the Intrepid to arrive at New Eden.

Through their journey, the crew of the Intrepid will face rival stellar governments, civil war, and the most wanted serial killer known to the galaxy. Pivoting their role from colonists to saviors.

Perhaps it’s because the Intrepid carries the most valuable secret known to humanity. Or maybe it’s just Tanis’s luck.

ALTERNITECH

“Alternitech” is a company that sends prospectors into alternate but similar timelines where tiny differences yield significant changes: a world where the Beatles never broke up, or where Lee Harvey Oswald wasn’t gunned down after the Kennedy assassination, where an accidental medical breakthrough offers the cure to a certain disease, where a struggling author really did write the great American novel, or where a freak accident reveals the existence of a serial killer. Alternitech finds those differences—and profits from them.

THE GHOSTS OF TANTOR

They think they’re ready for this mission. They’re wrong.

The Terran Federation is finally at peace and ready to begin serious exploration. The TFS Pike is the newest ship in the Fleet, purpose-built for deep space missions. Four kilometers long, with a crew of four thousand, she’s well-equipped for the years ahead. If only the crew was as prepared.

Ensign Nicole Crozier, the former Premier of the Luna Free State, has left politics behind to pursue a career in the Fleet. But her stint as the Artemis Minister of War has landed her in Tactical instead of Science, her passion, and she’s not happy about it.

Everything changes when Nicole discovers a rogue planet, and she’s given command of the landing party. On the surface, an ancient alien artifact emerges from the ice. As Nicole and her team explore the interior, the planet and her team vanish. The crew of the Pike must use all the tricks and tools available to get their missing people back.

When they finally do, Nicole brings aboard a discovery which could change the course of history.

Or end it.

If you’re a fan of Star Trek: Voyager, Battlestar Galactica 2003, Interstellar, or 2001: A Space Odyssey, then this is for you.

All these books – and six more! – available for you in the Exploration StoryBundle.

But don’t delay! This bundle has places to be, and once it leaves orbit, it’s gone for good!

For StoryBundle, you decide what price you want to pay. For $5 (or more, if you’re feeling generous), you’ll get the basic bundle of four books in .epub format—WORLDWIDE.

  • Over the Moon by S.E. Anderson
  • Intrepid Legacy – The Extended Trilogy by M. D. Cooper
  • The Apprentice Storyteller by Astrid V.J.
  • Alpha Centauri: Vol. 1 – First Landing by Alastair Mayer

If you pay at least the bonus price of just $20, you get all four of the regular books, plus six more books for a total of 10!

  • Firebrandt’s Legacy by David Lee Summers
  • The Meaning Wars by Michelle Patricia Browne
  • Alternitech by Kevin J. Anderson
  • The Oberon Cycle – Complete Box Set by J. Scott Coatsworth
  • Mindstorm by Becca Lee Gardner
  • The Ghosts of Tantor by Adam Gaffen

This bundle is available only for a limited time via http://www.storybundle.com. It allows easy reading on computers, smartphones, and tablets as well as Kindle and other ereaders via file transfer, email, and other methods. You get a DRM-free .epub for all books!

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StoryBundle was created to give a platform for independent authors to showcase their work, and a source of quality titles for thirsty readers. StoryBundle works with authors to create bundles of ebooks that can be purchased by readers at their desired price. Before starting StoryBundle, Founder Jason Chen covered technology and software as an editor for Gizmodo.com and Lifehacker.com.

For more information, visit our website at storybundle.com, tweet us at @storybundle and like us on Facebook. For press inquiries, please email press@storybundle.com.

Revisiting King Arthur

Back in my university days, after watching John Boorman’s film Excalibur, several friends discussed how much the film resembled true Arthurian legend. This set me on a personal quest to discover what true Arthurian legend actually is. One of my early finds in that quest was a used copy of Richard Brengle’s fine compilation Arthur: King of Britain. The book opens with excerpts from early histories that mentioned Arthur or events that would become associated with Arthur. It then went on to present excerpts from the Mabinogion, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, Thomas Mallory’s Le Morte d’Arthur and other canonical Arthurian tales. Another book I found in this quest was Warriors of Arthur by Bob Stewart and Richard Hook. This last book endeavored to discuss Britain from the time Arthur would have lived if he had been a real historical figure. The book also included retellings of some of the early legends I first encountered in Brengle’s book along with some memorable illustrations. One of those was a telling of the story of Peredur, a young man raised by his mother in the woods who encounters Arthur’s men and decides to prove himself worthy of joining their company. I loved the story and it has stuck with me over many years. As a character, Peredur is also known as Peredurus, Percival, Parzival and more.

It’s from this background that I discovered Nicola Griffith’s novel Spear. Based on the notes at the end of the book, it seems clear that like me, Nicola Griffith has long been a fan of the expansive Arthurian canon. In the book, she weaves several different versions of the Peredur and Arthur story into a single narrative. In this case, a young woman is raised by her mother in the woods. They possess a prized chalice but little else. The young woman learns to hunt from the animals of the forest and she encounters nearby human villages where she learns their language. One day thieves set upon a band of knights. Stealthily, the young woman helps the knights overcome the bandits. She’s impressed by the bravery of the knights and wants to join them. She also wants to learn more about the world. When she leaves her mother, she’s called spear or Peretur. Griffith tells her story in a way that retains the lyricism of the classic Arthurian texts, but yet is still accessible to the modern reader. By making Peretur a woman, we hear the echoes of many women throughout history who took up arms for causes they believed in, from Grace O’Malley to Tomoe Gozen and from Mulan to Ada Carnutt. I enjoyed the fact that Griffith included notes at the back of the novel to discuss her literary and historical inspirations and how she blended them together into a satisfying new take on the Arthurian legend.

Back when I was first delving into the Arthurian canon, I thought it would be cool to create my own version of the story based on the stories that resonated most with me and the history of post-Roman Britain. I soon discovered that many talented authors had already presented their own takes on the idea. Still, I folded some of those story ideas and that historical research into my novel Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order Vampires. You can find out more about that novel at: http://davidleesummers.com/dragons_fall.html

Sleepless in Marine City

The first time I flew on an airplane, I was in the third grade. My parents and I flew to Seattle to visit my brother who had moved there for college. My most vivid memory of that trip was visiting the Pacific Science Center and the Space Needle at the Seattle Center. I was especially excited to see a Gemini space capsule at the Pacific Science Center. Not only could you look at it, but you could sit inside and flip the switches and pretend you were on a real space mission. I had already read all about the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions, so I had a very good sense of how special this display was. I would later learn that the capsule in Seattle was an unflown mockup, but it still had been built for the Gemini program and it helped to ingrain my love of space exploration.

The Seattle Center as we know it today started as the fairgrounds for the Century 21 Exposition of 1962. Among the exposition’s notable visitors was Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov. This real history along with the Cuban Missile Crisis serve as the inspirations for the fourth volume of Keisuke Makino’s Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut, which was recently translated into English and released in the United States.

In this volume, computer engineers Kaye Scarlet and Bart Fifield are sent to a space conference at the Exposition in a Seattle fictionalized as Marine City. Kaye is a dhampir, a person descended from both humans and vampires. Bart is human. In the previous volume, they marched for dhampir rights in the United Kingdom, which is this alternate world’s version of the United States. They soon learn that their heroes, cosmonauts Lev Leps and Irina Luminesk, are scheduled to speak at the conference. Like Bart, Lev is human. Irina is a vampire.

The goal of the conference is basically twofold. The first objective is to hash out two competing plans to land people on the Moon. The second is to discuss cooperation between the space programs of the United Kingdom and the “Zinitra Union.” Bart and Kaye have studied the two competing plans for lunar landing and have come to the conclusion that neither will work. There’s a third plan rejected early on due to a technicality they think can work, but they have to sell it to their bosses. While all of this is going on, the United Kingdom discovers that the Zinitra Union has been building missile silos on a small island not far from the UK’s shores. This world’s version of the Cuban Missile Crisis threatens to shut down the conference and our engineers and cosmonauts begin to despair for the future of space travel and the fate of the world. As all of this is going on, Bart and Kaye begin to understand the feelings they have for each other.

All in all, Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut continues to be a satisfying retelling of the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. Aside from changed names and slightly changed dates, this volume tends to stick close to the historical events. That said, events at the ending suggest that this world’s history may diverge from the history we know. This world’s Nikita Krushchev isn’t removed from power in 1964 and a would-be assassin fails to kill this world’s John F. Kennedy. So author Keisuke Makino has now neatly set up a world as it might have been. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next.

Vampires navigating interpersonal relationships and working to understand their place in the universe are hallmarks of my Scarlet Order Vampire series. You can learn more about those books by visiting: http://davidleesummers.com/books.html#scarlet_order