The Dracula Tape

Apr25

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:

What Lies Inside?

Nov22

I enjoy collecting action figures and statues based on some of my favorite science fiction and fantasy universes. I especially like ones that take inspiration from sources other than movies or TV. One manufacturer I especially liked was Eaglemoss, which made spaceship models based not only on the Star Trek television series, but also occasionally from novels and video games. Eaglemoss also made figures from comic books and other science fiction franchises. I was saddened to hear that they went out of business at the end of this past summer. Shortly after they went out of business, I learned they had made some figures based on the Doctor Who audio adventures from Big Finish Productions. I have loved these audio stories, and I decided to see if I could get a set before they disappeared into the hands of collectors forever. I lucked out and found a nice set featuring Paul McGann as the eighth Doctor and Nicola Walker as his companion Liv Chenka. Paul McGann did play the Doctor in the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie, but Big Finish designed a new look for the Doctor as he appears on the audio book covers, also Liv has never appeared on screen. Even the Dalek’s paint scheme is unique to the audio book covers.

I’ve long appreciated that Big Finish productions have given us a nice run of Paul McGann as the Doctor. He’s only appeared on screen three times in the role. First in the TV movie, where he was introduced. Second in a TV short called “Night of the Doctor” where we learned how his incarnation met its end. Most recently, he appeared in the episode called “Power of the Doctor” where Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor meets the “spirits” of several earlier incarnations. It always felt like a shame he didn’t have more stories. While I have listened to several Big Finish audio productions featuring Paul McGann as the Doctor, I hadn’t yet listened to any featuring Liv, nor have I listened to any after the eighth Doctor started sporting his leather jacket look as shown in the action figure. That said, I did listen to the pivotal stories “Lucie Miller” and “To the Death,” which effectively show us how the Doctor went from a more breezy, lighthearted personality to a more reserved, careful personality, reflected in the change of outfit. So, I decided I should rectify that. The hard part was deciding where to start. Right after “To the Death,” Big Finish produced several epic-length episodes featuring the eighth Doctor that span several volumes each. I wasn’t quite ready to commit that much time to a story. That said, this year, Big Finish has released two sets of more episodic adventures featuring Paul McGann. The first was “What Lies Inside?”

“What Lies Inside?” is, itself, composed of two different stories. The first is “Paradox of the Daleks.” As this story starts, it looks like it’s going to be a very traditional story of the Doctor facing his old nemesis the daleks. The Doctor, Liv, and Helen Sinclair arrive on a space station where the inhabitants are conducting experiments on time travel. It turns out, the daleks have also invaded, preparing to establish a temporal beachhead in some war they’re fighting. As the Doctor tries to foil the daleks’ plans, one of the space station’s inhabitants tricks Liv and Helen into hiding in a time capsule. The capsule sends them back in time to before they all arrived and sets a chain of events into action. On the whole, the story reminded me of Back to the Future, but where the stakes could be the universe itself!

The second story was “The Dalby Spook.” In this story, the Doctor, Helen, and Liv visit the Isle of Man in 1933. They go to see a stage psychic perform and encounter the real-life skeptic Harry Price. It turns out that Price is on the island to investigate reports of an invisible, talking mongoose said to haunt the Irving family home. I was delighted to learn that Harry Price’s investigation of Gef the Talking Mongoose really happened. I love it when real events are given a science fictional or fantastic twist and this story doesn’t disappoint. The Doctor, Liv, and Helen soon learn that something sinister is indeed going on around the Irving home, but it may not be as simple as young Voirrey Irving trying to get people to believe in an imaginary friend. She may be in real danger and Helen and Liv have to convince the Doctor to help.

While I’m disappointed that Eaglemoss has gone out of business, I’m happy that events came together to get me to listen to more Big Finish Doctor Who adventures. You can learn about their full range of adventures at https://bigfinish.com

Of course, if you like audiobooks, don’t miss the audiobook adaptations of my novels Owl Dance and Lightning Wolves. You can find them at:

ParaNorman

Oct29

The stop-motion animated film ParaNorman celebrated its tenth anniversary around the same time as my wife and I attended Bubonicon in Albuquerque, New Mexico. As it turns out, someone placed a DVD copy of the movie on the convention’s freebie table and my wife picked it up. Somehow, we missed this movie when it was released. It was produced by Laika, the same studio that adapted Neil Gaiman’s Coraline and made Kubo and the Two Strings, both films that have a valued place in our collection. We figured it would be worth watching. In the worst case scenario, we could turn the DVD into our local used bookstore for trade credit.

As it turns out, I spent the first twenty minutes or so of the movie wondering if I would indeed be turning in for trade credit. There was nothing wrong with the film and, as I’ve come to expect from Laika, the animation was brilliant, but the tropes felt just a little too familiar. We had an outcast kid who’s bullied at school. His only friend is the overweight kid with allergies. His dad doesn’t understand him and he has a weird uncle. Still, Norman’s ability to speak with ghosts and the fact that he seemed to live in a little New England town, which seemed a little too obsessed with a legendary witch in its past made me want to see what would happen.

The movie turned a corner for me when the weird uncle dies and makes Norman promise to maintain a ritual, which is supposed to keep the witch’s ghost at bay. Norman proceeds with the plan and discovers the ritual involves reading from a book of fairy tales. What’s more, he doesn’t subdue the ghost, but raises a batch of zombies, who set out for town while the witch’s ghost begins stirring things up. The mystery of what was happening suddenly became much more interesting. Along the way to solving the mystery, we also find that the bully isn’t a simple antagonist. I don’t want to spoil things, but the writing revealed new layers to the character without resorting to the simplistic “misunderstood bad guy” trope. When Norman finally learns the truth behind the witch’s ghost, we meet a character both scarier and more sympathetic than I was expecting.

Western animation tends to be marketed to children and it’s clear the producers of ParaNorman were aware they would have many children in their audience. What I appreciated was that they respected the intelligence of both the kids and the adults in the audience. In a movie where people can become ghosts after they die, the movie gave us no pat answers about what happens when the ghosts “move on.” The parents do their best, but they don’t always do what’s best. They had sly references to both famous horror films and Scooby-Doo. They allowed themselves to engage in some dark humor without feeling like they did anything inappropriate for kids. They also invited us to understand the characters without always insisting that we like those characters. In the end, ParaNorman found its way onto my shelf next to Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings. My only regret is that I hadn’t discovered the film sooner.

Doc Holliday’s Faro Table

Oct8

This weekend finds me in the midst of a long shift at Kitt Peak National Observatory. I’m working fifteen nights out of twenty-one with two three-night breaks. After the fire at Kitt Peak, we have a real risk of landslides if there’s rain. Because of that, those of us on staff have to convoy up the mountain at either 8:00am or 2:30pm and we can only leave the mountain at 3:45pm. So, if I finish a shift on Friday night, I can’t actually leave until 3:45pm on Saturday. The upshot is that three-day breaks are actually closer to two-day breaks and given that I have a five-hour drive home, a two day break rapidly becomes one day.

Because of this, and because I’m working on some short stories, my wife suggested a weekend a little closer to Tucson. So, we spent the first of my two breaks in Tombstone, Arizona, site of the famous gunfight at the OK Corral. I’ve been to Tombstone on other occasions and I enjoy the Old West ambience and the saloons that serve up a nice range of burgers and local beer. She found a new bed and breakfast in town called “The Dragon’s Keep Inn.” It seemed clear from the description that the owners were science fiction and fantasy fans near and dear to our heart. Currently the inn has two rooms and two RV spaces. They hope to open a small shop in the near future and it’s a nice change of pace from the usual Tombstone establishment that names everything after Wyatt Earp or Ike Clanton.

Kumie and I at The Dragon’s Keep in Tombstone

My goal for the weekend was mostly to write. I’m working on a story set on a railroad among the mining towns of Colorado, so being in a mining town in Arizona seemed like good ambience. The Dragon’s Keep proved a nice place to write and I made good progress on my story. Still, being in Tombstone, we wanted to see some of the sights. One place I hadn’t visited before was the Bird Cage Theatre, which is one of the few buildings in Tombstone that actually dates back to the time of the famous gunfight.

The Bird Cage Theatre also has a reputation as a very haunted place, so they offer nightly ghost tours. Since The Dragon’s Keep Inn is on the south end of Allen Street, not far from the Bird Cage, we decided to go on the ghost tour. One thing that made the ghost tour worthwhile is that it’s a small group. We were on the 9:30pm tour and we only had four people in our group. The tour guide was quite knowledgeable and I enjoyed learning about the history of the Bird Cage. You get to see the small rooms where bordello girls plied their trade. There are bullet holes in the ceiling where rowdy cowboys fired off their weapons during shows. They also have some artifacts from early Tombstone such as this Black Mariah hearse, which carried many of Tombstone’s residents on their last ride to Boot Hill.

Admittedly, I’m something of a skeptic when it comes to ghosts. If the Bird Cage is haunted, the ghosts were rather quiet that night. The one odd occurrence I experienced happened while standing near the Black Mariah. I could swear I felt someone touching the back of my head. I looked around and no one was there. It was a very light touch, almost like I’d walked into a spider web, but I saw nothing to account for it. Perhaps my favorite artifact at the Bird Cage Theatre was the faro table used by Doc Holliday.

I had a special connection to this faro table because when I wrote my novel Owl Riders, I made a point of writing in a couple of scenes where Doc Holliday and Ramon Morales play faro on an airship ride from New Orleans to Tucson. Of course, Doc couldn’t bring the full table along, but he had his shoe for shuffling cards and a mat for laying out the hands. I found it great fun to actually see a piece of history directly connected with something I had written about. You can learn more about Owl Riders at: http://davidleesummers.com/owl_riders.html

Lovecraft Country

Sep10

I first became aware of the TV series Lovecraft Country when it turned up on the Nebula Award Ballot for the 2020 Ray Bradbury Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. The show looked interesting, so I watched a few episodes and was impressed enough to go out and buy the complete series on Blu-Ray. I finally had the chance to watch the whole thing and I’m pleased to say it lived up to my expectations.

**Cthulhu thinks you should watch Lovecraft Country**

Lovecraft Country is a TV series that blends Lovecraftian science fiction and horror with the all-too-real horror that is the experience of black people in Jim Crow America. In the first episode, Atticus Freeman joins up with his friend Leticia Lewis and his Uncle George on a road trip from Chicago to Massachusetts to search for his missing father. Set in the 1950s, Atticus has just returned from serving in Korea. He’s a fan of good books, including science fiction and horror. In the first episode, Atticus learns that his father disappeared in the vicinity of a small town called Ardham. As the series progresses, we learn that Atticus is descended from a slave and her owner. The owner, a member of the Braithwhite family, was a leader in a secret society known as the Order of the Ancient Dawn. Because he’s descended from the Braithwhites, Atticus has the ability to summon the magic his ancestors could. A distant cousin of Atticus, Christina Braithwhite, has already mastered the magical arts but has plans to use Atticus in a nefarious scheme. There are lots of puzzle pieces on the road to Atticus understanding his magical legacy and Christina trying to put her plan into action, which lead to individual episodes which take us back and forth through time and space.

In the midst of this story about secret societies and magic, we are taken on a tour of the all-too-real racism of 1950s America along with a time-travel sequence to the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. H.P. Lovecraft himself was a master of weird storytelling, who introduced us to unforgettable monsters from shoggoths to the mi-go to Great Cthulhu. He was also an avid amateur astronomer who conveyed both the wonders and the terrors of the cosmos. Unfortunately, he was also a racist. He wasn’t simply a casual of-his-times, misguided white person, but actually someone who wrote letters supporting Hitler’s ideas and poetry about the inferiority of black people. So, I found it interesting to see a story that placed black people front and center in a Lovecraftian world, seeking to understand it and keep it from destroying them even as they’re dealing with real world problems.

My favorite character in Lovecraft Country proved to be Atticus’s Aunt Hippolyta. Hippolyta is a woman who wants to be an astronomer, but lives in times when being black and a woman are both serious impediments to her desires. About midway through the series, she finds an orrery built by the Order of Ancient Dawn. Because of her interest in astronomy, she’s able to unlock secrets about the orrery that elude others. She travels to an observatory and goes on truly fantastic journey.

I was sorry to see that Lovecraft Country wasn’t renewed for a second season. Although the first season ends at a satisfying point, I would enjoy following these characters on more adventures.

Witch Hunter Robin

Aug13

Many years ago, my wife was shopping at Hastings, a book and music chain now long gone, and she found an interesting box on the clearance shelf. It was a promo pack for an anime series called Witch Hunter Robin. It contained a DVD of the first five episodes, the soundtrack album, a shot glass, and a T-shirt. It seemed worth a look.

Witch Hunter Robin DVD set, T-shirt, and shot glass

I remember watching the episodes back when she purchased the pack. The series seemed promising. It told the story of the Japanese chapter of a worldwide organization that hunted dangerous witches. Robin was a new hunter. While born in Japan, she had been educated in Italy and had just returned. Robin was a “craft user” who could shoot fire at opponents. It seemed the main difference between a “craft user” and a “witch” was whether you used your powers for good or evil. The series had a very episodic approach. Each week, an organization known as the STN-J would be called out to find and deal with a witch. The STN-J’s mandate was not to kill witches, but capture them. STN-J is basically a Japanese acronym, which means Solomon Toukatsu Nin’idantai – Japan. Roughly translated, that’s the Solomon Executive Organization. What exactly happened to the captured witches was never made clear in those early episodes. Over the course of the first five episodes we mostly saw Robin learn her new job and better earn the trust of her teammates. We enjoyed the show, but not quite enough to follow up and watch more of the series.

Fast forward to last summer, when we were shopping in Bookmans, a very nice used books, movie, and music chain in Arizona. While browsing through their anime section, I happened upon a few copies of the complete series of Witch Hunter Robin for a nice price. We decided it was time to finally discover what happened in the rest of the series. I will note that they had several editions of the series and we did a little research to decide which one to buy. We purchased the Bandai Entertainment edition from the early 2000s pictured above because it included cast interviews and a few more special features than the later Funimation release.

We have now watched the entire series and enjoyed it. Witch Hunter Robin continued its episodic approach until about the series’ mid-point when soldiers break into STN-J headquarters and Robin goes on the run. During the second half, the series takes on more of an arc format where Robin learns more about her past, her family, and what STN-J does with the captured witches. We learned there are factions within the worldwide STN with somewhat conflicting objectives. In tone, the show reminded me of the X-files where we learn there are layers of truths behind conspiracies and paranormal phenomena. One thing I especially enjoyed is that we learn there’s a scientific explanation for the rise of witches in this world.

On reflection, I think it does the show something of a disservice to regard it as a show broken into two distinct halves. The first half took its time giving us information and clues which paid off in the second half. You would make a mistake to skip the earlier episodes. In fact, I want to go back now and watch the series over again and see what hints about the ultimate resolution I might have missed. The show is a little slower and quieter than some anime. It lingers on some scenes, giving the series a classic cinematic quality. My one criticism is that we could have used a few more light or humorous scenes, especially early on, to break the tension and allow us to relate to the characters just a little more.

Still, if you like the idea of a serious supernatural-themed drama that has elements of a police procedural and a detective show, Witch Hunter Robin is worth checking out. If you don’t want to seek out DVDs, the show is available to stream at funimation.com. The first four episodes are free. After that, you have to subscribe to watch.

You can also see my take on a supernatural mystery told in two parts by reading my novel The Astronomer’s Crypt. Watch the trailer and learn more about the book at: http://davidleesummers.com/Astronomers-Crypt.html

Last Call for the 2022 Summer/Winter Sale

Jul30

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 is last call before the sale wraps up at the end of the week. I’m featuring two of my books today. The first is The Astronomer’s Crypt, a contemporary novel about astronomers, drug dealers, Apache spirits, and ghosts colliding on a mountaintop observatory on a terrible night and you can grab a copy absolutely free of charge. Consider this my gift for all these promotional posts in July! The second is my novella, Revolution of Air and Rust, set in an alternate 1915 where Pancho Villa is being pursued by American airships. Their lightning guns open a rift to an alternate Earth where Villa finds a weapon that might even the score! This novella is half off the cover price.

Two years ago on a stormy night, in the dead of winter, Mike Teter experienced something that would change his life forever. Mike was a telescope operator at the world renowned Carson Peak Observatory in New Mexico. We won’t tell you what he saw that night on the mountain nor what happened afterward on a dark stretch of highway, because it would haunt you just as it has haunted Mike. But what we will tell you is that Mike is back at Carson Peak. And what he witnessed that night two years ago is about to become a reality…

Chris Wozney of The Nameless Zine says, “In the best tradition of horror fiction, we have courageous protagonists, characters who cross the line of good and evil in both directions, unspeakable evil from a forgotten age, and a villain behind the scenes who is attempting to bring back dark powers in the (no doubt mistaken) belief that he can control them … Strongly recommended to all who enjoy Stephen King’s novels.”

My novel, The Astronomer’s Crypt, is pulled from over twenty years experience operating telescopes at observatories around the Southwest. You can make this journey into the dark side of astronomy for free this month at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1025608

Revolution of Air and Rust is a stand-alone novella set in the Empires of Steam and Rust world created by Robert E. Vardeman and Stephen D. Sullivan. A story filled with military action, espionage and gadgetry that’s sure to satisfy fans of steampunk and alternate history.

1915. Teddy Roosevelt is building an empire. Only Pancho Villa stands in his way.

The American Expeditionary Force under the command of General “Black Jack” Pershing has invaded Northern Mexico. Pancho Villa leads his revolutionary army in a desperate raid against the American force only to be outflanked. Just as Pershing’s airships prepare to deliver the death blow, Pancho Villa is transported to a parallel Earth where he finds an unexpected ally and the technology that might just turn defeat into victory.

“This novella takes place in 1915 in a steampunk world where the Mexican rebel Pancho Villa is the good guy and his arch-enemy Black Jack Pershing is about to crush the Villa revolution. Pershing has a fleet of airships and an invading army and seems certain to win … That’s the basic situation in this fast moving and gripping story by David Lee Summers.” Neal Wilgus, The Supplement.

Revolution of Air and Rust is available for half off the cover price this month at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/25462

Dealing Out Great Weird Westerns

Jul12

Today, I’m featuring three of our Weird Western titles. The first is a short story collection by veteran author Lyn McConchie. Next up is the standalone novella, Fallen Angel by the late David B. Riley. Last but not least is Legends of the Dragon Cowboys, which contains a pair of novellas, one by David and the other by long-time Hadrosaur Productions cover artist Laura Givens. She created the cover image as well!

Lyn McConchie’s The Way-Out Wild West is a short story collection set in Bodie, Arizona along with a handful of other western locales.

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. Saddle up for this collection of twenty-two tales where you will glimpse the way-out, wild west.

The Way-Out Wild West is available for half off the cover price at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1125221

Fallen Angel is the story of Mabel, an angel from Hell, who accompanies General Grant’s army during the last days of the Civil War only to discover that Martians are watching the Earth with envious eyes and slowly drawing their plans against us. Not only that, but Mabel has to contend with her evil sister, who wants to have humans for dinner. Although Mabel and Grant get the upper hand before the war ends, the battle of good against evil isn’t won so quickly. Several years later, in San Francisco, Mabel just wants to have fun with her friend Miles O’Malley, when she discovers her sister and the Martians have joined forces with a college fraternity and humanity may be on the dinner menu.

Christine Wald-Hopkins of The Arizona Daily Star writes, “This quirky new novel by Tucsonan David B. Riley is a cross-genre romp, religious fantasy meets historical fiction, science fiction, zombie ‘Animal House.’”

Get the book for 50% off at: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/924099

Legends of the Dragon Cowboys brings you two weird western adventures by authors David B. Riley and Laura Givens. Their heroes ride boldly out of the Far East to find their way in a mythic land of danger, romance, and adventure.

In “The Venerable Travels of Ling Fung” by David B. Riley, a wandering businessman encounters a Mayan god, crooked enterprises and Yeti, the Abominable Snowman, when all he really wants is to open a gun store. Ling Fung is not any ordinary Chinese entrepreneur–he’s highly skilled in Kung Fu and he can shoot good, too. While his heart is set on business, providence seems to have other plans for him.

Laura Givens brings wily acrobat Chin Song Ping to the Wild West in search of adventure and fortune. He finds little fortune, but plenty of adventure. Chin Song Ping is a scoundrel, a gambler and a trouble magnet. His heart of gold lands him in schemes to outwit would-be gods, cannibal ghosts, insane robots, Voodoo despots and the ultimate evil–bureaucrats. But he is a romantic, and the love of his life is the true treasure he seeks. The odds are always against him but if he survives he will become the Western legend he always was in his own mind.

The Wild West just got a lot wilder!

Midwest Book Review says, “These two Western novellas are seasoned a dash of exotic adventure, featuring cowboy protagonists who hail from the Far East and pursue their dreams in the tough-as-nails frontier. Riveting from first page to last, Legends of the Dragon Cowboys is enthusiastically recommended for public library collections and connoisseurs of the genre!”

Get the book for 50% off at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/751811

A Deal on the Scarlet Order Vampire Novels

Jul9

Today, I’m featuring my Scarlet Order Vampire novels, which tell the tale of a band of vampire mercenaries who use their powers to fight for human nations, until humans are in danger of succumbing to darkness themselves. The books are just 99 cents each this month, which means you can get both books for half the price of just one book at regular price!

Three vampires. Three lives. Three stories intertwined.

Bearing the guilt of destroying the holiest of books after becoming a vampire, the Dragon, Lord Desmond searches the world for lost knowledge, but instead, discovers truth in love.

Born a slave in Ancient Greece, Alexandra craves freedom above all else, until a vampire sets her free, and then, she must pay the highest price of all … her human soul.

An assassin who lives in the shadows, Roquelaure is cloaked even from himself, until he discovers the power of friendship and loyalty.

Three vampires, traveling the world by moonlight—one woman and two men who forge a bond made in love and blood. Together they form a band of mercenaries called the Scarlet Order, and recruit others who are like them. Their mission is to protect kings and emperors against marauders, invaders, and rogue vampires as the world descends into the chaos of the Dark Ages.

Marita Wowod Crandle, author of New Orleans Vampires—History and Legend calls the novel, “A journey into the time of lords, battles, sailing the seas, and vampires. A wonderful escape into historical adventure.”

Get Dragon’s Fall for 99 cents this month at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1025606

A new generation of vampires embarks on a quest to save humanity.

Opening a forgotten crypt during a military exercise, Dr. Jane Heckman is made a vampire and begins a journey to unlock the secret origins of her new kindred.

Elsewhere, solitary vampire Marcella DuBois emerges from the shadows and uncovers a government plot to create vampire-like super soldiers.

Daniel McKee, a vampire working as an astronomer, moves to a new town where he’s adopted by a family, only to have government agents strip those he loves away from him.

All three vampires discover the government is dabbling in technologies so advanced they’ll tap into realms and dimensions they don’t understand. To save humans and vampires alike, Jane, Marcella, and Daniel must seek out the legendary master vampire Desmond, Lord Draco and encourage him to resurrect his band of mercenaries, the Scarlet Order.

Get Vampires of the Scarlet Order for just 99 cents this month at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1038560

Remembering Anne Rice

Dec14

I was saddened over the weekend to hear about Anne Rice’s passing. Her writing entertained me, provided food for thought, and even inspired me. I’m afraid I never had the opportunity to meet her in person, but I was fortunate enough to find a signed copy of Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis at the Garden District Book Shop in New Orleans a few years ago and while I’ll admit it’s not my favorite entry in the Vampire Chronicles, it’s still a treasured part of my collection. In the photo with my signed copy is another treasured part of my book collection. It’s an early copy of Interview with the Vampire. I especially like the back cover where actors posed as Lestat, Louis, and Claudia.

I discovered Anne Rice’s writing in the early 1990s while working at Kitt Peak National Observatory. Those of us who worked nights at the telescope were often referred to as the vampires of the observatory because we generally weren’t seen when the sun was up. One of my fellow telescope operators was a fan of Anne Rice and encouraged me to give Interview with the Vampire a try. At the time, boxed sets were widely available with all the Vampire Chronicles in print at the time, which were Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, Queen of the Damned, and Tale of the Body Thief. I breezed through all four novels in rapid succession. I especially enjoyed Rice’s take on the vampire as protagonist and even misunderstood hero. Soon after reading the books, I read an interview with Rice and learned that she wrote Interview with the Vampire as part of dealing with the grief of the loss of her daughter. Having lost my father at a young age, I’d long been oversensitive to the notion of my own mortality and I began to think about what I would do if I ever decided to create a vampire hero.

Those thoughts coalesced just a few short years later when I moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico and a friend wondered what a vampire would make of “the City of Crosses.” This led me to my first vampire short story. After a few more, I felt I understood my characters well enough to write the novel Vampires of the Scarlet Order.

Of course, even as I wrote, Rice continued to write. Her next Vampire Chronicle was Memnoch the Devil. One of the things that began to appeal to me about vampire stories was how you could view large swaths of history from a single character’s point of view. In the fifth vampire chronicle, not only did Rice look at Biblical history but considered theology through Lestat’s vantage point. I’ve never quite questioned my faith in the ways that Rice questioned her own, but I have had questions about my faith and the interplay of that faith with dimly viewed moments in history, such as Arthurian legend. Her open and frank approach to Memnoch the Devil would inspire me when I wrote Dragon’s Fall, the prequel to Vampires of the Scarlet Order.

I’ve continued to enjoy Anne Rice’s vampire chronicles and other novels. I wrote some reviews of her later novels, which I was pleased to see her share on social media. While I’m sorry I never had the opportunity to meet Anne Rice in person, I’m glad to have been able to share how her work had touched me. While I thought some of her novels were much stronger than others, all of her novels entertained me. I’ve been starting to think about a third Scarlet Order vampire novel. I’m sure Rice’s works will continue to speak to me as I think and plot and plan. Like her own hero, Lestat, I’m pretty sure Anne Rice will live forever.

David Lee Summers’ Web Journal

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