Tag Archives: Breaking the Code

The Ghost Ship

Now that I’ve finally caught up with my long-term project of getting all my books back into print, I’m starting to set my sights on some new writing projects. I’ve had an idea for a steampunk short story sitting on the back burner for some time now and hope I can work on it this week. To get my mind focused on steampunk again, I decided to listen to an audio steampunk story on my long commute to work last week. The story I listened to is The Ghost Ship by Madeleine Holly-Rosing and it’s set in the world of her wonderful comic, The Boston Metaphysical Society.

The comic and the audio book are set in an 1895 that’s just a little different than the one we know from history. You’ll find rudimentary steam-driven computers, airships, and a United States ruled by the wealthy of “the great houses.” In the Boston of this world, ex-Pinkerton Detective Samuel Hunter, medium and spirit photographer Caitlin O’Sullivan, and scientist Granville Woods investigate supernatural mysteries. I’ve been reading the comic since it began and I was excited when Madeleine Holly-Rosing announced that she planned to release a long-form audio story set in the world of the comic.

In the audio story, a mysterious, derelict ship sails into Boston Harbor. Anyone who tries to board is attacked by spirits and soon meets their end. Samuel, Caitlin, and Granville are brought in to try to find a way to end the menace of the mysterious ship. To do so, they must first find out what ship has actually arrived. When getting aboard the ship proves too perilous, they turn to Boston’s new library where Caitlin discovers more restless spirits and a young man who bears an uncanny resemblance to one of the spirits on the ship. It soon becomes clear that the ghost ship’s very presence may create a scandal for at least one of the great houses. The audio drama is told in eight half-hour episodes and features the voice talents of Emily C.A. Snyder as Caitlin O’Sullivan, Ryan Philbrook as Samuel Hunter, and Martin Davis as Granville Woods.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when hearing a favorite comic translated into audio. I was pleased to say that all the main characters sounded very much like I imagined they would sound. The supporting characters had distinct voices and the action was easy to follow. The serial nature of the audio story felt very much like an adapted comic adventure, even though this story only appears in audio. The piece was well produced by Eddie Louise and Chip Michael. It would be delightful if Madeleine was able to bring us more audio adventures set in her world. At this point, it appears that the best way to order your own copy of The Ghost Ship is to pre-order a copy through the Backerkit site set up for the recent Kickstarter campaign. It’s at: https://the-ghost-ship-audio-drama.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders/396663 and you can get updates on the audio book at at https://bostonmetaphysicalsociety.com/the-ghost-ship-audio-drama/

I’m happy to say that her story has, indeed, put me in the mood to work on a story in one of my own worlds. I’m already plotting my own machinations. My story won’t have ghosts, but I do have some automata and at least one airship disaster planned. Now, it may be a little while before you get to read that story, but I do have something planned for tomorrow. Sheriff Chuck Davis from my novella Breaking the Code finds himself in the world of the fae, paying an unexpected visit to Queen Titania’s Court. Learn more about him and the novella tomorrow, June 8, at Deby Fredericks’ blog: https://wyrmflight.wordpress.com/

Breaking the Code Now Available

Yesterday was release day for my novella, Breaking the Code, published by NeoParadoxa Press, an imprint of eSpec Books. My copies have arrived as seen below, and I think they look wonderful. If you pre-ordered a copy, I hope it’s been seamlessly delivered to your e-reader or on its way by means of a reliable delivery service.

Breaking the Code print copies

As it turns out, I celebrated the release of the book while operating the WIYN 3.5-meter telescope at Kitt Peak on a blustery, windy night. The telescopes can only be used on sky when the wind is below 45 miles per hour. It was above that for at least some of the night. When it gets that windy, we hear the building rattle and thump in the wind. In fact, one of the scariest experiences I had working at the observatory was on a very windy morning. I was in the dome with the telescope doing maintenance and the wind was howling. I was tired after being up all night and the thumping and rumbling and wild howling made me think something was tromping over the land and if I didn’t finish my work fast, I would be at the mercy of a mountain spirit.

In fact, Kitt Peak National Observatory is on the land of the Tohono O’Odham and it’s believed powerful spirits and even gods inhabit the land. Working on this mountain for nearly 20 years, I’ve always respected those beliefs, but on that scary morning, the notion that spirits live on the mountain seemed much less abstract. I brought that sense of respect to my work on Breaking the Code.

Even though the observatory is in Southern Arizona, it’s high enough that it gets snow in the winter and just like that fierce wind storm, I’ve spent some fierce snowy nights on the mountain as well. Those conditions helped to influence the opening of my novella.

The novella is set in early 1942, right at the beginning of World War II in New Mexico as Marines are recruiting Navajo youth. As it turns out, I have a personal connection to that aspect of the novella as well. My parents were raised in New Mexico and my dad went to high school during the World War II years. When he graduated, he joined the Marine Corps. After the war, he went to work for the Santa Fe railroad and soon met my mom. I thought about his stories a lot while writing the novella. Although the characters in my novella experienced different specific events than my mom and dad, I tried to be true to the emotional experience they conveyed to me.

You can read the novella’s first chapter and learn where you can get a copy by visiting http://www.davidleesummers.com/Breaking-the-Code.html

eSPEC EXCERPTS – BREAKING THE CODE — eSpec Books

My novella, Breaking the Code, will be released in ten days. I thought this would be a good time to share another post from my publisher, NeoParadoxa, which is an imprint of eSpec Books. In this post, you can read Chapter One in it’s entirety absolutely free. I hope it hooks you enough to want to read the whole thing!

As it turns out, I pitched this novella while taking my youngest child to college. In a normal year, I would have been exploring places around the beautiful city of Flagstaff, Arizona and may even have paid a visit to Lowell Observatory, which is one of my favorite places in the area. Lowell had been closed due to the pandemic and when I wasn’t moving boxes into a dorm room, I was largely sitting in a motel room maintaining a careful social distance from others. I found myself thinking back to my own early college days when I first moved to New Mexico and friends from those days. I thought about stories they told me about one of New Mexico’s very own mysterious creatures, the skinwalker. As I looked through the history of the part of the state where most skinwalker sightings occur, I realized there was a very interesting story to tell. My story is fiction, but it takes inspiration from real events.

You can find all the places to order the book at my website: http://davidleesummers.com/Breaking-the-Code.html

With that, I invite you to step over to eSpec’s blog so you can read the first chapter of my novella.

We have another Systema Paradoxa title for you, Breaking the Code by David Lee Summers, a part of the Systema Paradoxa series created in conjunction with Cryptid Crate. It releases May 21, but you can pre-order it now via the link. Chapter One Friday, February 20, 1942 Cheryl Davis parked her Ford Coup in the […]

eSPEC EXCERPTS – BREAKING THE CODE — eSpec Books

COVER REVEAL – BREAKING THE CODE — eSpec Books

Happy Star Wars day! May the Fourth be with you! One of the things I’ve always loved about the Star Wars Universe were all the creatures George Lucas and his team dreamed up. Whether it be the Bith who played mean jazz in the first movie’s cantina scene, the Mon Calamari fish people who fought for the Rebel Alliance, or the Wookies, like Chewbacca who was Han Solo’s best friend, there was something about these creatures that made me want to believe they were real.

Around the same time as Star Wars, there was a television series hosted by Leonard Nimoy called In Search Of…. That show introduced me to strange creatures purported to exist in the shadows of our own planet. Among these creatures were the Sasquatch, the Loch Ness monster and the Yeti. I’ll admit, now that I’m older, I’m skeptical of many of these stories. And yet, I have heard stories from friends and people I’ve met that make me wonder if there could be some truth to these tales of cryptids. Friends who have lived in Gallup, New Mexico have told me stories about the Skinwalker and that helped to inspire my tale, Breaking the Code, which comes out later this month from NeoParadoxa Press, an imprint of eSpec Books.

Breaking the Code is volume 3 of the Systema Paradoxa series. Just because it’s volume 3 doesn’t mean you need to read volumes 1 and 2 to understand my story. Each volume tells its own story of a cryptid. That said, I know many of the contributing authors and you’ll definitely want to read every volume in the series.

I have updated my website to include a page for Breaking the Code. Just visit http://www.davidleesummers.com/Breaking-the-Code.html to be updated with all the places where the book is currently available. Or better yet, subscribe to https://www.cryptidcrate.com where you’ll not only receive the book later this year, you’ll also get all kinds of goodies and many of the other books in the series. With that, I’ll let you take a look at the eSpec Books post.

A part of the Systema Paradoxa series under eSpec’s new NeoParadoxa imprint, this is Breaking the Code by David Lee Summers. A cryptid novella based on the skinwalker. There are creatures lurking in our world. Obscure creatures long relegated to myth and legend. They have been sighted by a lucky—or unlucky—few, some have even been […]

COVER REVEAL – BREAKING THE CODE — eSpec Books

Two New Readings

Back in September, I shared two readings from the eSpec Books Author Reading series. I recently had the opportunity to record two new readings for eSpec Books. One comes from my story “The Steampowered Dragon” which appears in the anthology Gaslight and Grimm. The other is from Breaking the Code, my forthcoming novella.

My German Grimm collection.

The anthology Gaslight and Grimm presents thirteen steampunked fairy tales by authors like Jody Lynn Nye, Jeff Young, Christine Norris, Gail Z. and Larry N. Martin. As you might expect from the title, most tales in the volume are reimaginings of stories originally collected by the Brothers Grimm over two centuries ago. The project fascinated me a great deal in part because I studied the Grimm Brothers as part of a German literature class at New Mexico Tech. One of our projects was even to translate “Schneewittchen,” or “Little Snow White” into English.

Since that time, I picked up a copy of the Grimm tales published in Germany. One of the fascinating things about this collection is that it includes some notes by the Grimm brothers about the tales and variants they had heard. I have translated a few of the stories over the years for my own amusement with a particular interest in some of the lesser known tales, such as “The Griffin” and “The Dragon and his Grandmother.”

The story I wrote for Gaslight and Grimm, is a reimagining of “The Dragon and his Grandmother.” The original is set during a nameless war and three soldiers desert the battlefield. A dragon (or is it the devil, depends on how you translate it!) appears and offers the soldiers unlimited wealth. The catch is, the dragon will return after a few years and, unless the soldiers can answer some riddles, they will be the dragon’s servants for the rest of their lives. To give this story its steampunk twist, I made the villain a mechanical, steam-powered dragon. I also set the story in Afghanistan during the period of the “Great Game” when Britain and Russia vied for control of central Asia. Here’s my reading from the beginning of “The Steampowered Dragon.”

David Lee Summers reads from “The Steampowered Dragon”

You can learn what happens in “The Steampowered Dragon” by buying a copy from Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, or wherever fine books are sold.

My other new reading is something of a sneak peek at a forthcoming work. I recently shared the cover and the description from my novella, Breaking the Code. This excerpt comes from chapter one of the novella. Set in 1942, two Marine sergeants are in Gallup, New Mexico recruiting soldiers for the war effort. One of the young men they recruit is a Jerry Begay. In this scene, he returns home from the recruitment rally at his high school and tells his parents what happened.

David Lee Summers reads from Breaking the Code.

The very best way to get a copy of the novella is by subscribing to Cryptid Crate at: https://www.cryptidcrate.com. Not only will you get my novella and the goodies that come with it, you’ll get the other novellas in the series as they’re released.

If you would rather just get the book by itself, it is available for pre-order at fine bookstores including:

If you enjoyed these readings and want to listen to more, go over and subscribe to eSpec’s YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/c/DanielleAckleyMcPhail/videos. Not only will you find a whole bunch of great readings, Danielle Ackley-McPhail has an unboxing video for the Cryptid Crate, which will give you an idea of what you’ll get when you subscribe!

Sneak Peek at Breaking the Code

Last autumn, my friends at eSpec Books asked me to submit a novella for their NeoParadoxa imprint, which features books about cryptids. Many of these titles will be featured in Box Mountain’s monthly Cryptid Crate subscription boxes which include cryptid themed art and decor for your home in addition to the books.

What are cryptids? They are creatures lurking in our world. Obscure creatures long relegated to myth and legend. They have been sighted by a lucky-or unlucky-few, some have even been photographed, but their existence remains unproven and unrecognized by the scientific community.

These creatures, long thought gone, have somehow survived; creatures from our nightmares haunting the dark places. They swim in our lakes and bays, they soar the night skies, they hunt in the woods. Some are from our past, and some from other worlds, and others that have always been with us—watching us, fearing us, hunting us.

These are the cryptids, and the Systema Paradoxa books tell their tales.

Because the book will be featured in the Cryptid Crates, the folks at eSpec Books have asked me not to give away too much of the surprise of what’s inside. So I’m limiting myself to sharing the cover and a short book book description.

1942. Gallup, New Mexico. Marine recruiters have come to town looking to fill their ranks with a secret weapon against the Axis powers-what would become Navajo Code Talkers—but not everyone supports the prospect of young native men going off to war.

When one new recruit is found dead, and a rancher’s cattle are mutilated, whispers of witchcraft and skinwalker filter through the town, and interest in enlisting wanes. Is there evil afoot, or is that just what opponents to the cause want everyone to think?

Whether guided by magic, mischief, or malevolence, without a doubt, nothing is as it seems…

If you’re excited for the release of the novella, the very best way to get a copy is by subscribing to Cryptid Crate at: https://www.cryptidcrate.com. Not only will you get my novella and the goodies that come with it, you’ll get the other novellas in the series as they’re released.

If you would rather just get the book by itself, it is available for pre-order at fine bookstores including: