Darke Pygmalion

The Chronicles of a Mad Lab Assistant: Darke Pygmalion by Lynn McCrary takes place circa 1930 in a world of the Cthulhu Mythos as created by H.P. Lovecraft but steeped with Steampunk technology. The protagonist is Ed, a senior at Miskatonic University. His father owns an airship manufacturing company and expects Ed to follow him into the family business. However, Ed has dreams of building human-like automata. He raises money to live off campus by working in the local morgue where he often hangs out with his good friend, a lovelorn ghoul named Cedric. Ed decides to build a girlfriend for Cedric and succeeds. The only problem is that the automaton has a penchant for murder and Ed must find a way to stop her without destroying himself in the process. At 67-pages, this was a nice, quick read. Overall, I came away feeling like I spent some months in the twisted life of a Mikatonic University student.

The Chronicles of a Mad Lab Assistant was sent to me by its publisher-of-record Dorrance Publishing. Dorrance is a publishing services company that has been around for a while. A quick glance at their website suggests that they not only print your book, but offer some services such as line editing and publicity. My copy of the book came with a nice, professional-looking press release. Still, Dorrance is a publishing services company and not a publisher in its own right.

One of the things I’ve enjoyed about working with publishers is my interaction with editors. I suspect when most people think about editors, they think about people who do their best to catch all the spelling and grammar mistakes in a manuscript. In effect, this is line or copy-editing. That’s important and a good publisher will do that, but another aspect of editing is content editing and sometimes good content editing is just a matter of asking questions and then letting the author tackle those questions. Admittedly, it’s not always necessary to answer every question an editor might have, but it’s often good to address the questions and acknowledge that answers exists, even if the author or the point-of-view character doesn’t actually answer.

Overall, I found The Chronicles of a Mad Lab Assistant an enjoyable book, but I still read it with content editor’s brain and I did come away with a few questions. I wanted to better understand why Ed is friends with Cedric. It seemed clear that Cedric gets to hang out at the morgue for a few snacks while Ed is taking his turn as caretaker, but I wanted to know what Ed got out of this relationship. I also wanted to know more about what Ed actually gained from building the automaton, Millie. Was this an exercise for experience? Did he put it to use in his classes? What’s more, it was clear from the story that Ed wanted to go to graduate school after graduation to the chagrin of his father. That said, I never quite understood what Ed wanted to get out of his additional graduate school experience. It seemed like Ed had the opportunity to go to work for his father at the airship manufacturing company, but I didn’t really see what, specifically Ed wanted to do instead of that or in addition to that.

Admittedly, none of these questions were necessarily plot-critical, but I think they would have presented opportunities for the author to explore the characters and make a book I enjoyed even better. I could see some of these questions being answered in a sequel, but it would also be fun to see a second edition that expanded on some of the ideas raised in the first edition. If you would like to check out the book, it’s available at: https://www.amazon.com/Chronicles-Mad-Lab-Assistant-Pygmalion-ebook/dp/B0BQH2DR7R/

2061: Odyssey Three

I first saw the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey at my local library in San Bernardino, California. I’m pretty certain it would have been in 1978 and the screening was a celebration of the film’s 10th anniversary. I would have been about 12 years old and very much still in the thrall of Star Wars, which debuted just a year earlier. The movie captivated me with it’s plausible depiction of space travel and it challenged me with the idea that aliens could have tinkered with life on Earth. I still remember Heywood Floyd making a video call to his daughter from orbit and I still find it amazing that by 2008, I would be making video calls regularly home from the remote observatory where I work. The movie’s ending baffled me. Sure, I got that it was the aliens continuing their experiment on humans, but I was a very literal-minded kid and found the psychedelic imagery a little much for my taste. I wanted to know what the aliens were subjecting David Bowman to. So, almost immediately, I turned to Arthur C. Clarke’s novel, written more-or-less in conjunction with the movie. The novel didn’t really give me any clear-cut answers, but I felt more satisfied that I understood what the movie had shown me. Over the next year or so, the book and movie took on special meaning for me. Their plausible depiction of science, helped to start me on the path to actually being a scientist.

Because the book and film together held a special place for me, I ran right out and bought the hardcover of 2010: Odyssey Two when it came out in hardcover in 1982 and I saw the 1984 film almost immediately upon release. While neither sequel quite had the gravitas of the original, I still enjoyed both. By 1987, when 2061: Odyssey Three came out, I was well on my way to an undergraduate physics degree with little time for new novels, so I let it pass me by. Over the next year, some friends told me they didn’t like it as well as the previous two novels, so it never really became a priority for my reading list. A couple of weeks ago, though, I happened to notice that the ebook was available at a discount and decided to see what I had missed.

If one views 2001: A Space Odyssey as the story of humans discovering that aliens had a hand in their evolution and 2010: Odyssey Two as the story of what actually happened to astronaut David Bowman and what the aliens next had up their collective sleeves, then 2061: Odyssey Three is basically an adventure story about humans living in the world set up in the previous novels. While we don’t get a lot of new information about the aliens, we do get some interesting speculation about them.

In 2061: Odyssey Three, Heywood Floyd is still alive and has the opportunity to travel to Comet Halley as it makes its next sojourn through the inner solar system. Meanwhile, Floyd’s grandson is serving as second officer aboard a ship exploring the moons around the star Lucifer, which was formerly the planet Jupiter. As they approach the moon Europa, which now has liquid water on its surface, the purser hijacks the ship and forces them to land. In the process, the ship crashes into the Europan ocean. The danger here is that the aliens warned humans not to land on Europa at the end of 2010: Odyssey Two. As it turns out, the ship Heywood Floyd is on, is the ship in the best position to rescue the ship on Europa. All in all, I found it a fine adventure tale with some interesting speculation about comets, planets, and the life we might find on Jovian moons. There was one annoying detail in that the purser who hijacks the ship is given two different last names without explanation and I suspect Clarke just changed her name and the editor didn’t catch it. Beyond this simple error, this book again lacked the gravitas of the original film and novel, but it was still fun to revisit this world and read this adventure story with its roots in real science. Also, now that 2001 and 2010 are both in the past, it was fun to look forward again to a year that hasn’t happened yet. Hopefully, I’ll get to see 2061 and see what the world is like when Comet Halley returns for real.

Clarke’s Space Odyssey series captivated me with the idea of humans crossing the solar system to solve a mystery. That basic idea served as a template for my novel The Solar Sea about humans traveling to Titan to find the source of particles that can apparently manipulate time. You can learn more about my novel at: http://davidleesummers.com/solar_sea.html

The Return of Hungur

One of my favorite vampire magazine was Hungur, edited by Terrie Leigh Relf. During its run, Hungur featured three of my vampire stories including “Jiang Shi,” which gave Chinese vampires a frightening, alien twist, “Lufgeist, which told the story of the Scarlet Order’s Lord Draco escaping Nazis aboard the Hindenburg, and “Dark Matter,” which imagined a possible future for the Scarlet Order vampire Jane as a space explorer. The magazine went on hiatus and now it’s back as The Hungur Chronicles edited by Terrie Leigh Relf and Robert Bellam. The first issue features a reprint of my story “Anemia” which first appeared in the Full-Throttle Space Tales anthology Space Horrors.

The Hungur Chronicles has a strong interest in vampires from outer space, but also includes stories of vampires encountered on Earth. The magazine is published twice each year, on Walpurgisnacht and Samhain. The first issue of The Hungur Chronicles features eight short stories, seventeen poems, and two articles. There were stories, poems, and art by several people who have appeared in Tales of the Talisman and Hadrosaur Productions anthologies, such as Lee Clark Zumpe, Marcia A. Borell, WC Roberts, Tyree Campbell, Gary Davis, Terrie Leigh Relf, and K.S. Hardy. Marge Simon, whose poetry appeared in Tales of the Talisman is the featured poet in the first issue of The Hungur Chronicles. What’s more, Laura Givens who has long been Hadrosaur’s cover artist and Tales of the Talisman art director designed the cover for this new issue featuring Marge Simon’s beautiful art. You can see more of Marge and Laura’s art working together in the book Blood Sampler, which I wrote in collaboration with Lee Clark Zumpe.

One of the joys of getting a contributor copy of a new magazine or anthology is reading the works by the other contributors. I enjoyed them all. Standout stories for me included “Coffin Shopping?” by Marcia A. Borell about a vampire needed to navigate the internet to shop for a new coffin, “The Will of the Forest” by Melody F. McIntyre” about a vampire turning up in a new development who drank fluids through the victims eyes, and “Reverse Vampire” by John Kiste, which tackled the theme of space vampires through a story of an investigator on an alien planet investigating a murder where the victim had been overloaded on bodily fluids. Lee Clark Zumpe’s poem “Ripky” felt topical being set in Ukraine. K.S. Hardy’s poem “In a Cold Crypt” gave the brooding vampire an interesting twist.

My story, “Anemia” was another space-based vampire tale. It expanded on a piece of flash fiction called “On the Ramjet,” which is part of the Blood Sampler collection I mentioned. “Anemia” is set aboard a colony ship bound for a nearby star system. An engineer discovers that from time to time, different colonists test as anemic for while. The systems compensate and they soon return to normal. As the engineer investigates, she discovers there’s a vampire stowing away on the ship. The ship in the story is a Bussard Ramjet, a type of space vessel theorized by physicist Robert Bussard. As it turns out, I wrote the original flash piece while staying as a guest in Bussard’s Santa Fe home a few years ago!

A few years ago, when the editors of the Full-Throttle Space Tales series got together to put together the anthology Maximum Velocity: The Best of the Full-Throttle Space Tales, the editors read and voted for the best story in anthologies they didn’t edit. I was very honored when two of my stories were considered among the best three stories of their respective anthologies. Those stories were “Hijacking the Legacy” which does appear in Maximum Velocity and “Anemia.” We decided no author should have two stories in the best-of antho. Most of my stories in the Full-Throttle Space Tales series featured my space pirate crew. “Anemia” was the one story in that series set in a different universe. I decided not to use it because it wasn’t as representative of my work throughout the series. So, it’s gratifying to see “Anemia” back in print now.

You can find the first issue of The Hungur Chronicles at: https://www.hiraethsffh.com/product-page/hungur-chronicles-walpurgisnacht-edited-by-terrie-leigh-relf-and-robert-bellam

You can find Blood Sampler at: https://www.hiraethsffh.com/product-page/blood-sampler-by-david-lee-summers-lee-clark-zumpe

And finally, you can find Maximum Velocity at: https://www.amazon.com/Maximum-Velocity-Full-Throttle-Space-Tales-ebook/dp/B074FHCJXG/

Deal on Science Fiction Novels

The annual Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale is underway. It gets its name because where I live in the northern hemisphere, readers are loading up their e-readers for great beach reading and vacations. In the southern hemisphere, it’s the middle of winter and people are spending time in a warm and cozy place reading. All of Hadrosaur’s titles are available at deep discounts this month and I’ll be highlighting them all month long here at the Web Journal. If you’re looking for a specific title, you don’t have to wait for me to highlight it, just visit http://www.hadrosaur.com/bookstore.php and click on the book you’re interested in. On its page is a link to Smashwords if its available there. The coupon codes for these discounts are automatically applied at checkout. One of the things I love about Smashwords is that they provide ebooks in all popular formats and they’re DRM free, so you can download them to your favorite device.

Today I wish to present a pair of science fiction novels. The first is a thought-provoking novel I was pleased to edit written by Don Braden. The second is my story set in the near future which imagines a voyage to Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn aboard a solar sail spacecraft, especially apt since the Planetary Society’s LightSail 2 craft has just celebrated its third anniversary.

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On its way to a distant colony world, the space vessel Marco P loses all power and an unknown force convinces the navigator that a distant, dead world is the vessel’s true destination. Commander Malcolm Carpenter orders the crew to abandon ship to protect them and to learn how to defeat whatever force has intercepted his ship. The crew discovers a small group of inhabitants, the only people on the planet who were not uploaded into a vast computer network—a computer network captivated by upstart humans and their imaginations. To free his crew and his navigator from the planetary network’s grip, Commander Carpenter must face a moral dilemma. Can he save his crew without condemning a planet’s inhabitants and their digital ancestors to death?

Get Upstart Mystique for 75% off the cover price at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1010602

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In The Solar Sea, whales around the world changed their songs the day scientists announced the discovery of powerful new particles around Saturn’s largest moon which could solve Earth’s energy needs. The Quinn Corporation rushes to build a solar sail space craft to unlock the secrets of these strange new particles. They gather the best and brightest to pilot the ship: Jonathan Jefferson, an aging astronaut known as the last man on Mars; Natalie Freeman, a distinguished Navy captain; Myra Lee, a biologist who believes the whales are communicating with Saturn; and John O’Connell, the technician who first discovered the particles. Charting the course is the mysterious Pilot who seems determined to keep secrets from the rest of the crew. Together they make a grand tour of the solar system and discover not only wonders but dangers beyond their imagination.

T. Jackson King, the author of Battlestar and Star Glory says, “This story follows the private space industry exploration of the Moon and becomes a kind of Voyage of the Beagle as the solar sail ship Aristarchus visits Mars, Jupiter, then Saturn and its giant moon Titan … Highly enjoyable read. Highly recommended.”

Get the book for 75% off the cover price at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/805692

Finding the Groove Again

“Write every day” is a common mantra you’ll hear from writers. Writing every day will give you practice. If you’re honest as you evaluate your writing and work with people who will give you honest feedback, you’ll grow as a writer. Writing every day keeps you in the groove. The more you do it, the easier writing becomes. However, I understand quite well how life can throw challenges to this ideal in a person’s path.

This past year is a case in point. It’s actually been rather busy on several writing-related fronts. I edited the novels Hybrid and Hybrid: Forced Vengeance for Greg Ballan. I edited the short story collection The Way-Out Wild West by Lyn McConchie. I completed re-editing my novel Heirs of the New Earth and brought out new editions of my first three Clockwork Legion novels. The fourth one is in process now. I’ve also been working on a project I can’t discuss yet. Of course, I’ve been doing all this while operating telescopes at Kitt Peak National Observatory. What I haven’t done as much as I’d like is write new fiction.

This is not to say that I’ve eschewed writing altogether during this period. I’ve kept this blog going. Typically that means composing a roughly 500-word post twice a week. That has helped a great deal because it helps me think about topics and gives me practice composing articles. I’ve also written and revised scenes as part of my editorial work and the secret project I alluded to. Even if you can’t write every day, I highly recommend making some time to write each week, even if it doesn’t contribute to a project. Even journaling can help.

Daniel, the Vampire Astronomer – illustration by Chaz Kemp

I think the hardest part for me getting back into the writing groove is that I find it far too easy to be distracted by tasks such as work around the house and yard, emails, and even books to read. The first thing I did to get back into the groove was decide what story I wanted to write. In effect, this story is something of a warm-up for the vampire novel I outlined. What’s more, I have some markets in mind for the new story. Without giving too much away, I’d realized that the vampire Daniel in Vampires of the Scarlet Order was very much defined by being a vampire and an astronomer for over a century. I wanted to know more about who he was before he became either a vampire or an astronomer. Once I defined the idea, I spent some time doing some research into schools he might have attended and what was going on in the world at the time of the story, which I planned to set in 1899, and how those events might impact his life. I then went for a walk. I find walks provide a great opportunity to clear my head and I am often able to put my research together with my character and come up with a story.

Once I returned from the walk, I gave myself permission to tune out the world. I turned off my email, turned off my phone’s sound, logged out of Facebook messenger, closed the door to my writing office and told myself I would stay in place until I wrote 500 words. I did that within half an hour but once the story started flowing, I wanted to write more. I got a drink (hydration is important!) and went back to work. Next thing I knew, I had almost 3000 words. The whole process felt a lot like riding a bicycle. Now, I’m in the process of editing and revising the story. Overall, I’m feeling pretty good about it and I hope I’ll have some news about it soon.

So, the keys for me were that even though I had taken a brief hiatus from writing new fiction, I had not given up writing altogether. I had kept a routine. I also had kept a reading routine, which kept my imagination stimulated. When I chose to sit down and write some new fiction, I started with a character I wanted to know, which propelled me through the writing and I gave myself permission to spend uninterrupted time with that character so they could speak to me. If you take a break from writing, you may find a whole different process will help you get into the groove, but maybe some of these experiences will help.

This weekend, I am at El Paso Comic Con. I have two panels today where I discuss writing. If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll come to the con, sit in on one or both panels and visit me at my booth in the vendor’s area. You can learn more about Daniel the vampire astronomer in Vampires of the Scarlet Order. More information at: http://davidleesummers.com/VSO.html

Hybrid: Forced Vengeance

Around the end of 2015, my editor at Lachesis Publishing urged me to read the novel Hybrid: Forced Vengeance by Greg Ballan. I really enjoyed this fun thrill-ride of a novel. A little over three years later, Lachesis announced it would not be publishing new novels and Greg mentioned he had two new Hybrid novels. I knew I wanted them for Hadrosaur Productions. More recently, the rights for Greg’s two novels with Lachesis reverted to him and he asked if I would be interested. There was no question I wanted the complete set of adventures featuring Erik Knight. I published Hybrid back in June. Today, I’m proud to announce I’ve come full circle with the sequel and the Hadrosaur Productions edition of Hybrid: Forced Vengeance is now available.

Detective Erik Knight has both human and Esper DNA. The Espers are an alien race which lived on Earth in the distant past. Now in the present, Erik has kept his bargain with the US government by functioning as an undercover operative and CIA Cooler for more than two years. But while away on assignment, Erik’s life is shattered when he finds out his wife has been killed in a car accident. After attending her funeral, Erik can still feel a subtle trace of his beloved in his mind even as he throws himself back into his work to cope with her death. When the daughter of the French president begins getting death threats, Knight is assigned to protect her. After he foils two attempts on her life, he discovers that the radical group accused of the act is not involved. Joining forces with the group’s leader, Knight discovers that the plot originated from inside his own government — and that the connection between the assassination attempts and his wife’s death goes beyond anything he’s ever faced.

Here’s what I wrote on Goodreads after reading the first edition of the novel: “Through the course of the novel, Knight gets caught up in a web of intrigue, suspense, and government conspiracy. Ballan introduces us to many characters, each with their own agendas. Most important of all, Hybrid: Forced Vengeance never forgets to be a fun-filled, action-packed ride. At times, Ballan threatens to go over the top with some of the situations he presents, but superhero stories are supposed to be morality plays that pit the best heroes against the worst villains in the most extreme circumstances. Forced Vengeance delivers just that.” That still sums up my opinion in a nutshell. I think we’ve strengthened the novel for this new edition and added a touch of veracity to those points where I think Greg threatened to go over-the-top. In the process, I don’t believe we took away any of the fun. If anything, I think we smoothed out the language just a little bit so the fun comes through even better.

You can get Hybrid: Forced Vengeance in a beautiful print edition at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09SP6GQHX/

Hybrid: Forced Vengeance is available for Kindle at: https://www.amazon.com/Hybrid-Forced-Vengeance-Greg-Ballan-ebook/dp/B09SYGMCVJ/

The novel is also available for Kindle, and just about every other e-reader device and app imaginable at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1133832

Copies will be coming soon to the Hadrosaur Productions store and to other online retailers in both print and ebook formats.

The Way-Out Wild West

I am excited to announce the publication of Hadrosaur Productions’ latest short story collection, The Way-Out Wild West by Lyn McConchie. I’ve been publishing Lyn’s work since Tales of the Talisman volume 8 in 2013. Ever since she started submitting to me, I’ve found it difficult to resist her tales. Our stories have also appeared together in the tables of contents of several anthologies and magazines including Six-Guns Straight From Hell, The Vampire’s Crypt, and Science Fiction Trails. I’ve been familiar with her writing since 2002 and I’m delighted to publish her latest book, which is a collection of twenty-two weird western tales, many of which are set in Bodie, Arizona.

Bodie, Arizona can be a difficult place to locate on a map. Some say it’s because Bodie has been home to inventors who meddled in things humans weren’t meant to know. Others say it’s the visitors from the stars who seem to frequent Bodie. It’s just possible Bodie has become unstuck in time, making it a difficult place to pinpoint. Being unstuck in time, Bodie may have drifted close to the boundaries between life and afterlife. Whatever the case, Bodie is a wild place. In this collection, Lyn McConchie chronicles the adventures of Bodie’s denizens and those of nearby towns, counties and states from the nineteenth century to the present and beyond. Saddle up for this collection of tales where you will glimpse the way-out, wild west.

In this collection, you’ll find tales of ghosts and tales of magic. You’ll also find science fictional tales. In some stories, aliens visit the wild west. In others, we see the wild west’s sensibility move out into the stars or even across universes. Lyn’s stories often focus on strong women, and many of these characters remind me of the women in my family who homesteaded in Texas and New Mexico. What’s more, Lyn has a strong connection the animals who were so important to the Western experience. Horses are almost ubiquitous in Western tales, but she also remembers the importance of cattle, sheep, chickens along with cats and dogs. When I acquire a book for publication, I know I’m going to read it many times over during the editorial process, so I always look for books that will be a delight to read. I saw something new and exciting in each of these tales every time I read the book. The Way-Out Wild West is a page-turning, magical collection.

Lyn McConchie started writing professionally in 1990, since then she has seen fifty of her books published and over three hundred short stories. She has written SF/F, but also true-life humor about her farm and animals (7 books known as the ‘Daze’ series), children’s books, a YA quartet set in her own New Zealand, a western, a dozen Sherlock Holmes pastiches, half a dozen post-apocalyptics, and one non-fiction. Lyn says her imagination is related to the Energizer Bunny, and she hopes to be writing for many years to come.

The Way Out Wild-West is available in print at:

• Amazon

The collection is available as an ebook at:

• Amazon (Kindle Format)
• Smashwords (Multiple formats)

More online retailers will have the book soon! We will have copies of the book available for our dealer’s table at Wild Wild West Con in March.

2021 Holiday Season

As we kick off the 2021 holiday season, it strikes me that I’ve been back to my “new normal” work cycle for a little over a year now. Kitt Peak National Observatory had been closed from mid-March 2020 through the end of October 2020. During that time, I worked from home on upgrades to our operation manuals and served on a committee, which developed a plan for safely reopening the observatory. Since November 2020, I’ve been at work following that plan. When I’m at work, I’m alone in a control room interacting with others over video conferencing software.

The New Normal: Alone in the Console Room

We’ve also been minimally staffed for nighttime operations in the year since the telescopes have been back online. One member of our team found a new job and moved on while we were closed. Fortunately, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, we were able to find and hire a new first-rate operator. It’s been a challenge training a new person while maintaining physical distance, but we’ve managed. However, it has meant that I haven’t had a proper vacation in that time. I did take some vacation time to help move my daughter into her dorm room at the beginning of the semester, but I took advantage of a period when the telescopes were closed for maintenance.

Making Dinner in a Tiny Kitchen

Over Thanksgiving weekend, my wife and I decided rather than have our daughter travel home for the holiday, we would take the holiday to her. It was a nice time. We prepared a lot of the Thanksgiving meal in advance and finished it off in our daughter’s tiny dorm kitchen. The food itself proved very good and we had fun enjoying a card game with our daughter and one of her friends. While traveling, we see lots of front line workers, from the staff at our hotel, to gas station attendants, to grocery store clerks. It’s occurred to me that, like me, lots of these folks have also been going full-tilt for much of the last year and a half and I wonder how many have been able to take some time off. These people remind me to do my best to be kind and patient this holiday season.

While on the Thanksgiving trip, I found myself, as usual, being inundated by Black Friday ads. As a business owner, I considered whether or not to make some Black Friday specials available this year through hadrosaur.com. I ultimately decided not to make a big push. In part, I know there are plenty of people looking for your dollars at this time of year. Also, because my wife and I were both on the road, I knew we couldn’t fulfill orders right away. What’s more, I have several editing projects in process this holiday season and wanted to focus on getting them done right, but also wanted to leave some time for family at the end of the year. As I noted, it’s been a busy year and time has been at a premium. Still, I hope you’ll consider shopping at hadrosaur.com this holiday season. Even at regular price, indie books are inexpensive, yet unique gifts and when you buy them, you’re contributing to the royalty stream of some great authors, who will be encouraged to write more awesome things for you in the future. I appreciate and am thankful to all of you that have supported our publishing ventures in the last year and look forward to bringing you more great stuff in the weeks and months to come!

Publishing Update, Autumn 2021

This autumn finds me in full-out editing and layout mode. I’m working on some of my own titles along with some books by other authors, all to be released through Hadrosaur Productions. I thought I’d take this opportunity to glimpse at the books that will be appearing in the coming months. Note, links in this post will take you to pages where you can learn more about the books I mention.

Greg Ballan should be no stranger to fans of Hadrosaur Productions. We recently published the second edition of his novel Hybrid featuring detective Erik Knight who learns he carries the DNA of an ancient warrior race and can literally transform into a super-powered being to protect the Earth. We also published Armageddon’s Son and Battle Lines, which form the Ethereal War duology in which Erik Knight literally battles forces of heaven and hell. I’m currently editing Greg’s novel Hybrid: Forced Vengence which bridges the gap between Hybrid and Armageddon’s Son. While Erik is on assignment overseas, his wife is killed. Erik is soon sent on another assignment to guard the daughter of France’s president from a suspected terrorist plot. While there, he starts picking up hints that his wife may not be dead after all. Instead, she might have been abducted for a sinister purpose.

Also in the wings is another book by Greg Ballan called Lost Sons: The Battle for Manhattan. While Greg’s Hybrid novels present his take on superheroes, the Lost Sons series combines elements of mythology, folktales and kaiju.

I’m also excited to be editing a new collection of short stories by Lyn McConchie called the Way Out Wild West. Like Greg, Lyn should be no stranger to Hadrosaur fans. Her stories have appeared in both Hadrosaur Tales and Tales of the Talisman. As you might imagine from the title, this is a wild assortment of weird western tales. If you like tales of ghosts, strange inventions, and mysterious happenings in the old west, you won’t want to miss this book, which should be available in early 2022.

While we’re talking about the weird and wild west, I can now announce that new editions of my Clockwork Legion novels will be appearing soon from Hadrosaur Productions. Sky Warrior Publishing has released the rights to me. As of this writing, I’ve completed typesetting of the new edition of Owl Dance and I just have a few finishing touches to put on Lightning Wolves. As soon as we’ve worked out a few behind-the-scenes details, I’ll be uploading the new editions to ebook and print vendors. I expect the new editions will be available by the end of the year and will make an announcement as soon as they’re available. New editions of The Brazen Shark and Owl Riders will also be forthcoming, but they will happen after I get a few of these other projects caught up.

For a while, I’ve also been working on revising and reissuing my Space Pirates’ Legacy novels. I’m currently working on the final novel in that series, Heirs of the New Earth. As with the other novels in this series, I’ve been sharing my analysis of the books and updated chapters with my patrons at https://www.patreon.com/davidleesummers. I was expecting Heirs to be complete by the end of the year, but these additional projects have slowed me down a little. Still, I’m making progress and expect to release updated edition in early 2022. If you want to help make any of these novels happen, be sure to visit my Patreon site. The money I earn there goes to pay cover artists and pay for expenses. One of those recent expenses did actually represent an exciting milestone. Way back in 1994 when we started Hadrosaur Productions, we purchased a block of 100 International Standard Book Numbers. We are coming to the end of the original set of numbers and actually had to purchase ten more to accommodate our forthcoming books!

Finally, there’s yet one more project in the wings. I can’t say much about it yet. What I can say is that in 1995, we started Hadrosaur Tales as a way to showcase the talents of authors. In 2005, we added beautiful artwork and a stronger sense of presentation to the mix and created Tales of the Talisman. This new project is a next step on the journey.

If you’ve kept count through this list, you’ll see we have nine books in various stages of production. I hope the first two of these will be out within the month and the rest should follow in the coming months. Watch this space to learn more about each of these projects as they’re released.

Marvel Comics in Oz

While reading L. Frank Baum’s original Oz novels, I discovered that Marvel Comics ran an Oz series from 2009 through 2012. Written by Eric Shanower with art by Skottie Young, the series adapted the first six Oz novels into comic format. Shanower is a long-time Oz fan and knows the books and characters well. He’s also an artist in his own right and I first discovered his work by finding his illustrations of Oz characters, which are strongly inspired by John R. Neill’s illustrations for the original novels.

Skottie Young started at Marvel drawing such titles as Spider-Man: Legend of the Spider Clan, Human Torch, and Venom. He was soon tapped to take on the Oz series. I have to admit, when I first encountered these adaptations the art almost kept me from diving in. It was a little more stylized and, well, cartoonish than my taste in comic book art. However, the more I looked at the art, the more I was reminded of the surreal illustrations Tim Burton drew while imagining The Nightmare Before Christmas. There’s something about the illustrations that’s warm and loving, but just a little creepy, which actually suits the material nicely. I warmed to Young’s style even more after watching a video where he told how Oz helped him find his preferred artistic style. I really love his take on Dorothy, the Wizard, and the Tin Woodsman, along with characters like General Jinjur and Professor H.M. Wogglebug T.E. from the later books. He also does real justice to scary characters like the Wicked Witch of the West and Road to Oz’s terrifying Scoodlers.

The comics are almost word-for-word adaptations of the novels, which means the adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has many notable differences from the famous MGM movie. That said, I noticed that Eric Shanower didn’t slavishly adapt the Oz novels when writing these comics. In his adaptation of Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, Shanower actually corrects a logic problem in the novel. Where L. Frank Baum gave us a deus ex machina ending, Shanower tweaks the resolution slightly and foreshadows it giving us some plot tension along the way. Yes, Shanower changes Baum, but he shows us how someone who knows and loves an author’s work can make it better. I suspect Baum would have approved.

After reading the six adapted novels, my primary complaint is that they didn’t continue to adapt the rest of Baum’s canon. Still, if you’re looking for a way to quickly see what the larger Oz universe has to offer, the Marvel Oz comics are a good place to jump in. They helped to refresh my memory of the first three novels, which I’d read several years ago. I then had fun seeing Shanower and Skottie’s adaptation of the three novels that began my current journey through Baum’s fantasy series. In 2020, Marvel brought the series out in three digest-sized volumes under the title Oz: The Complete Collection. Copies were available at both my local comic store and my local Barnes and Noble.