Read a Horror eBook

Mar7

Happy Read an Ebook Week! You can find my horror novels available now at @Smashwords at a promotional price to help you celebrate. Find my books and many more at https://www.smashwords.com/ebookweek from March 5-11! As I’ve mentioned here at the Web Journal, I’ve been working on a third volume of my Scarlet Order vampire series. The first two volumes are just 99 cents this week. I’ve also added in my novel The Astronomer’s Crypt for some extra-spooky goodness.

Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order Vampires

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 Woywod Crande, author of New Orleans Vampires—History and Legend describes Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order Vampires as, “A journey into the time of lords, battles, sailing the seas, and vampires. A wonderful escape into historical adventure.”

You can get Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order Vampires this week for just 99 cents at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1025606

Vampires of the Scarlet Order

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.

Neal Asher, author of Gridlinked and The Skinner, describes Vampires of the Scarlet Order as “A novel with bite. An amalgam of Blade and The Name of the Rose with a touch of X-Files thrown in for good measure.”

You can get Vampires of the Scarlet Order this week for just 99 cents at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1038560

The Astronomer’s Crypt

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 Wozny 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.”

You can get a copy of The Astronomer’s Crypt this week for just 99 cents at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1025608

Revisiting Dune

Nov19

Back in October, at MileHiCon, I picked up a copy of the Dune graphic novel scripted by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, based on Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel. As I prepared to revisit the world of the first novel, I realized it had been some thirty-eight years since I’d read the novel. The first time I read the novel was during the summer of 1984 around the same time as David Lynch’s movie adaptation came out. Since adapting a chapter of my novel Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order Vampires into comic book format, I’ve been interested in seeing how other novel adaptations are handled. So, I decided to reread Dune and then read the graphic novel. Because Dune has recently been adapted to the big screen again, I also decided to see how the new movie compared to the book.

The novel Dune is divided into three parts titled “Dune,” “Muad’Dib,” and “The Prophet.” The graphic novel is a faithful adaptation of part 1, which takes us roughly through a third of the novel. The character and machine designs were developed by the artists Raúl Allén and Patricia Martín. They used their own interpretation and didn’t base the art on designs used for either of the movies or the SyFy Channel’s miniseries. I found most of the characters – including our young protagonist Paul Atreides, along with his parents Duke Leto and the Lady Jessica, and Baron Harkonnen – were a good match for the way I pictured those characters when I read. Overall, I liked the way they visualized machines such as the spice harvesters on the planet Arrakis. They imagined quite bird-like ornithopters in their novel, which seemed almost closer to how I picture my steampunk ornithopters in the Clockwork Legion series than how I pictured the more high tech versions of Dune. Still, it proved a valid interpretation. I was impressed by how closely the graphic novel stuck to the novel’s plot. I didn’t notice any cut scenes. Of course, description was pared down and the art was allowed to show the settings and action while the characters spoke their dialog. I haven’t checked to see if the dialogue was word-for-word, but certainly the most memorable lines were repeated in the graphic novel. I likely will add volume 2, “Muad’Dib” to my collection as well.

Denis Villeneuve’s 2021 movie adaptation of Dune is also “part 1.” In this case, the movie includes all of “Dune” and most of “Muad’Dib.” By my reckoning the movie covers a little over sixty percent of the novel, ending around the close of Chapter 33. The movie adds some scenes not in the novel, such as the scene where a contingent arrives from the emperor to notify Duke Leto that he’s been granted stewardship of the planet Arrakis. The scene cleverly shows us many important story elements without them needing to be explained, such as the importance of the Duke’s signet ring and the political power wielded by the Bene Gesserit sisterhood. The movie also does a nice job casting characters who, for the most part, resemble characters as I imagine them. In particular, I really liked Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck and Dave Bautista as Glossu Rabban. I especially liked Stephen McKinley Henderson as the Mentat Thufir Hawat, because he reminded me of my uncle. Like Hawat, my uncle had a distinguished military career and while he was very loving to me, I always detected that there was a fierce commander underneath. As for the tech, I really liked the movie’s depiction of the ornithopters. These machines captured almost exactly what I pictured when I read the book. Given that the movie didn’t try to cover the entire novel and that the graphic novel did a very good job of including scenes of political intrigue, I was a little disappointed that many scenes from the novel were cut from the movie. Overall, the movie did a good job of telling the novel’s story, but it felt like it favored action over the complex machinations of many parties shown in the novel.

Overall, I enjoyed both the graphic novel adaptation and the movie, but I’m especially glad the two gave me an excuse to reread Frank Herbert’s classic novel. If you want to read my comic adaptation of a chapter from Dragon’s Fall, visit http://davidleesummers.com/Tales-of-the-Scarlet-Order.html to learn how to get a copy for yourself. If you want to see a scene from my novel The Astronomer’s Crypt adapted for the screen for free, visit http://davidleesummers.com/Astronomers-Crypt.html

Arthur: King of Britain

Oct25

Earlier this year, I discovered Caliber Publishing’s updates of L. Frank Baum’s Oz and H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. A couple of weeks ago, I discovered Caliber Publishing had also published a comic book adaptation of the King Arthur story in the early 1990s. Unlike Oz and War of the Worlds, which were effectively continuations of their respective tales, Caliber’s Arthur: King of Britain is a straightforward adaptation of the Arthur story as it appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain. This adaptation is written and features black and white artwork by Michael Fraley, who started his career as a newspaper sketch artist, but soon moved into graphic design and honed his writing skills to the point of earning a regular newspaper tech column.

Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain is an important work. Written circa 1136 AD, Geoffrey’s work endeavors to combine aspects of Arthurian folklore and the fragmentary bits of history that suggest Arthur was a real figure into a single narrative of Arthur’s life. Later, more famous versions of the King Arthur story, such as Sir Thomas Mallory’s Le Morte d’Arthur are arguably built on Geoffrey’s framework. Geoffrey’s version tells the story of how Merlin helped Arthur’s father Uther Pendragon take the form of Gorlois of Cornwall, to seduce Gorlois’ wife, Igerne. From that union, Arthur is born. He would go on to be trained as a knight and assume the throne upon the death of his father.

According to Geoffrey, Arthur goes on to unite the British people to confront the Saxon invaders who have begun to take over much of Britain. Once the Saxons are defeated, Arthur marries Guinevere and then begins a series of military campaigns in the lands surrounding Britain. When Roman envoys come to Arthur to demand tribute, Arthur decides to use the forces he’s assembled from the British Isles and Western Europe to conquer Rome itself. He leaves Britain in the care of his nephew, Modred. While on the Roman campaign, Arthur learns that Modred has married Guinevere and claimed the throne of Britain for himself, setting up the final tragic battle at Camlan.

Fraley’s comic adaptation includes notes about the story, which I found interesting. He points out that Geoffrey would have been steeped in Biblical tradition and he tells a story that eschews the more magical aspects of Celtic lore in favor of a story that reads like it could have been part of the Bible. The giants in the History of the Kings of Britain resemble Goliath more than Ysbaddaden Chief Giant of the Celtic Arthurian tale Culhwch and Olwen. Fraley also suggests that Arthur’s conquest of Rome may have been inspired by Geoffrey’s desire to give Arthur a story as epic as Charlemagne’s. Fraley talks about this European quest moving into the background of later stories. I’ve long suspected that later writers, who didn’t see a Roman conquest by Britain in any other history and who wanted to tell a moral tale, transformed much of that quest into the quest for the Holy Grail.

I thought Fraley’s book Arthur: King of Britain was a good adaptation of Geoffrey of Monmouth. The black and white art supported the story well and his notes gave me new insight into the story. If you’re a fan of comics and Arthurian legend, you can find the five-issue series collected as a graphic novel in both digital and print formats at Amazon.

When I wrote my novel, Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order Vampires, I planned to set part of the story in Arthurian times right from the beginning. I decided to use Geoffrey’s version of the story as my template for my story’s background. You can learn more about Dragon’s Fall at: http://davidleesummers.com/dragons_fall.html

Geoffrey’s version of the Arthur story has also influenced my science fiction. His version of Arthur’s final battle with Modred, inspired the final confrontation between Manuel Raton and Mary Hill in my novel The Pirates of Sufiro. There’s a reason the strategic pass where the novel’s climactic scene happens is called Camlan. You can learn more about The Pirates of Sufiro at: http://davidleesummers.com/pirates_of_sufiro.html

Finally, if you’re interested in those early Welsh Arthurian folktales, I recorded my own retelling of Culhwch and Olwen. You can learn more here: http://davidleesummers.com/cando.html

A Deal on the Scarlet Order Vampire Novels

Jul9

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’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.

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.

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

Guinevere and the Stranger Cover Reveal

Apr24

Back in March, I teased the comic Guinevere and the Stranger that I had been working on in collaboration with artist Michael Ellis. The project is now far enough along that I can give a few more details about the release. The first people who will get to read the comic in its entirety are my Patreon supporters. I plan to present the pages of the comic over a two-week span in June, essentially sharing a page per day after I’ve finished sharing the work I’m doing on the twentieth anniversary edition of my novel Children of the Old Stars. If you want to be one of the first people to read the comic, be sure to sign up for my Patreon at https://patreon.com/davidleesummers by June 1. You don’t have to wait to see the cover, though. I’ll share that today. The cover features art by Michael Ellis. The layout is by Bram Meehan who was responsible for lettering the interior.

Inside the front cover, I set up the story. It reads: “In the sixth century, the vampire Desmond persuaded King Arthur to seek the lost Book of Jesus and the Holy Grail. While Arthur’s knights sought these artifacts, the king’s son began a campaign to usurp the throne. It’s said Guinevere went to a convent after King Arthur’s final battle. What happened to her has long been a mystery. At last, this book tells a lost tale from Queen Guinevere’s final years.” As you can see, Dragon’s Fall elaborates on Arthurian legend. I first started delving into the early tales of Arthur in college. Of course, my Scarlet Order vampires are mercenaries involved with the highest level of government, so there was never any doubt that some of them would have known King Arthur. The involvement with the grail legend came from the realization that vampires would no doubt find an artifact so connected with the “blood of Christ” and forgiveness irresistible.

As I mentioned before, this is a retelling of a chapter from my novel Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order Vampires. I had several goals for this project when I started. First and foremost, I’m a longtime fan of the comic book medium and I’ve long wanted to try my hand at scripting a comic. I have sat in on some online courses and some panels given by the group 7000 BC, based in Albuquerque and had learned some of the basics, but realized the only way I would learn more about the process would be to actually dive in, write a script, and hire someone to illustrate it.

When I set out to create this comic, I thought it would be something I would share here at my blog as a fun way to introduce new readers to my novel. In effect, it would serve as a comic book “trailer” for the novel. If I liked how it turned out, I thought I might print some copies to give away at conventions.

The thing is, much as I enjoyed the work at Michael’s online portfolio, it really didn’t prepare me for how well he could capture the images I had in my head. As I saw the quality of the work he delivered, I realized it deserved better distribution than I had originally planned. In fact, if you go over to his page, you’ll see several of the pages from Guinevere and the Stranger without dialogue. What’s more, I realized I didn’t want this one 8-page experiment to be the end of our collaboration. Dragon’s Fall contains four short self-contained stories like Guinevere and the Stranger. each one is a brief look into the lives of the Scarlet Order vampires providing insight into who they are. What’s more, I’ve written numerous vignettes about the Scarlet Order vampires. If I can raise sufficient funds to keep paying Michael and Bram what they deserve for their work, I’d love to create more of these books.

As a first step toward this goal, I’m releasing the comic as an exclusive for those people who are signed up for my Patreon. Supporting me there will not only give you a first look at this comic, but you’ll help support the artists I’m collaborating with. After the comic is released on Patreon, a print edition will be released that I will sell at conventions and at hadrosaur.com. Look for that to appear by the middle of June. I’ll likely approach some of my friends in retail about carrying this as well. The print edition will give you the opportunity to hold a copy of the comic in your hand. Finally, I have taken the time to learn how to submit the comic to the Comixology platform for distribution, which I’ve discussed in other comic book reviews. Presuming they accept the book, I’ll share when it’s available there. Out of necessity, the print edition will be the most expensive and most of the income will go to printing costs. Likewise, much as I like Comixology, they will take a large cut of the sales. For now, supporting me on Patreon will be the least expensive way for readers to support this project, but also the way that allows most of the funds to actually go to the artists who created it. Click on the button below to go to my site and sign up.

Sneak Peek: Guinevere and the Stranger

Mar13

I’ve been a fan of comics as long as I can remember and I’ve long wanted to try my hand at scripting a comic book. Over the years, I’ve also had artists say they thought many of my stories would make good comics. The question has always been, what should I try to adapt?

Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order Vampires has four “interludes” between the novel’s main sections. These are, essentially, little self-contained short stories that give added insight into the novel’s characters. Often when I’m asked to read from the novel, I’ll pick one of the interludes because they’re short, pack a punch, and are self-contained. It occurred to me that one of these might make a great short comic.

So, I adapted the interlude “Guinevere and the Stranger” into a comic script, and showed it to my friend Bram Meehan, an indie comic creator I’ve long admired. Also, I figure if you’re going to work on a vampire comic, you can’t go wrong talking to guy named Bram! He gave me some pointers to improve my script and introduced me to an Albuquerque artist named Michael Ellis. Michael enjoyed the script and he’s now drawing the comic. It’s been exciting to see his pages come in. He’s been doing some great work and I can’t wait to share the finished product with you. The pictures in the slideshow below are some of his preliminary sketches of Guinevere, the mysterious stranger, and Roquelaure, one of the main characters of Dragon’s Fall.

Arthurian legend features heavily in Dragon’s Fall, and Guinevere plays a pivotal role in the story. In many versions of the King Arthur story, Queen Guinevere’s story ends with her going to a convent. In some versions, she seeks refuge from Mordred. In others, she does this as penance for her infidelity with Lancelot. Still, it’s rare for us to know much about Guinevere’s story after she entered the convent. “Guinevere and the Stranger” tells about an important incident from that period in Guinevere’s story that has a major impact on the rest of the novel.

I hope you’re excited for this comic. Once finished, I plan to print copies of the comic which I’ll sell through the Hadrosaur Productions online store and at conventions when those happen again. I’m also considering a Kickstarter to fund additional comic adaptations. If that happens, comics will be available as a Kickstarter perk. The comic will be available online as an exclusive Patreon subscriber benefit once it’s complete, so if you want get updates on this project and read the story right as its released, be sure to sign up at https://www.patreon.com/davidleesummers

Dracula, motherf**ker!

Mar6

One challenge of the pandemic is that its kept me from spending quality time at my favorite bookstores and comic shops. I’ve still been patronizing them when I can, but I have missed spending a luxurious hour just wandering the shelves looking for new things to catch my eye. With that in mind, about two weeks ago, I started browsing some lists of the best comics and graphic novels of 2020 just to see if I missed something I would want to know about. One graphic novel that popped up on several of those lists was Dracula, motherf**ker! written by Alex de Campi with art by Erica Henderson. I was already well acquainted with Erica Henderson’s art from her work on Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and Jughead. Also, she’s one of those artists I’ve known of from way back when, since I used to do a lot of work with her father, C.J. Henderson. Between Erica’s work and the description of the graphic novel as a grindhouse-inspired Dracula story set in 1970s Los Angeles, I knew this was something I needed to read. A quick search of my local comic shop’s website revealed they had the book on the shelf.

Nosferatu recommends *Dracula, motherf**ker!*

Dracula, motherf**ker! opens in 1889 Vienna. Dracula’s brides capture the count and nail him into his coffin. The action then jumps ahead to 1974 Los Angeles where Hollywood star Bebe Beauland opens his crypt. A short time later, photographer Quincy Harker appears on the scene to take photos of the carnage that results. We soon learn that Bebe Beauland is not as dead as she first appeared and, of course, Dracula is on the loose again. Dracula’s brides from the opening of the story appear and begin helping Quincy.

The story is told largely through the visuals. Many pages are nighttime dark cut through with bright neon-like colors. The graphic novel format gives Henderson the freedom to design the story around two-page visual spreads. Even when there are two discrete pages of narrative panels, there’s a visual cohesion across the two-page spreads. Dracula himself seems inspired by Nosferatu but ratcheted up a few notches. He’s a monstrous creature of eyes and teeth with an old man’s arms and a cape of night. The story’s stars, though, are the brides and Quincy. Henderson does a great job of conveying emotion through the characters’ facial expressions and body language.

This was the rare graphic novel that I actually read three times back-to-back. I kept seeing things in the art and picking up things from de Campi’s minimalist, but effective dialogue. I recommend this volume for fans of vampires and good comic books. I picked up my copy at Zia Comics in Las Cruces.

Some of my interest in this graphic novel came from the fact that I’m collaborating on a vampire book project based on a short episode in my novel Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order Vampires. It was fascinating to see so many of the lessons I’ve been learning applied effectively in Dracula, motherf**cker! Next week, I’ll be back with a little sneak peek at the project I’m working on.

2020 Hindsight

Jan5

Soon after the year 2020 began, I wrote a post called “2020 Foresight,” as a play on the old saw, “Hindsight is 20/20.” The post looked at my publishing plans for the first part of 2020 and, for the most part, those plans ticked off just as I expected they would. Through Hadrosaur Productions, I released Sheila Hartney’s anthology Exchange Students at the end of February, which imagined exchange students traveling between worlds and times. In April, Hadrosaur released Don Braden’s novel Upstart Mystique, which imagined a colony ship from Earth encountering a civilization that had attempted to upload its collective consciousness into a computer. I released the new, revised edition of my first novel, The Pirates of Sufiro, in July. I’m happy to look back at the year and see all of these plans actually came about as expected.

The novels Hadrosaur expected to release in 2020

As we entered 2020, one thing I knew was that the contracts for three of my novels would be up for renewal in March. I knew the publisher had scaled back operations and I suspected they would want to revert the rights to me. I didn’t discuss this in the blog at the time because I didn’t think it would be professional of me to talk about it before my publisher and I discussed the fate of these books. As it turns out, the publishing rights for these books did revert to me right as much of the world began to shut down for the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. The upshot was that I spent much of the spring and early summer working on new editions. I made fairly minor changes to The Astronomer’s Crypt and Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order Vampires. I decided to re-order the chapters of Vampires of the Scarlet Order, which helped to tighten the novel’s focus. I’m pleased with how these novels turned out and I was especially gratified by the good reaction I received to the new edition of Vampires of the Scarlet Order when it was a featured selection of Boutique du Vampyre’s Vampyre Library Book Club in November.

As we moved from summer into fall, my attention turned to some new writing projects. I wrote a novelette and a novella, both of which have been accepted by their respective publishers. In fact, I spent the last week of 2020 working on edits my publisher requested for the novella. I’m really excited for its release in 2021 and plan to share details about it as soon as I can. I have also continued my work revising the Space Pirates’ Legacy novels. I’m rapidly approaching the halfway point on Children of the Old Stars. You can follow the progress of the Space Pirates’ Legacy project and I’ve been told I can provide an early sneak peek of the novella project if you sign up at my Patreon site.

It seems as each year ends, I hear a chorus of voices bemoaning the terrible year ending and hoping for better times in the new year. The transition from 2020 to 2021 is no different and, arguably, the chorus is more justified this year than they have been in many recent years. That noted, I was pleased to attend a virtual Tohono O’Odham storytelling hosted by the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum on December 30. One of the storytellers shared a traditional song that reminds us, even in darkness, there is light from the moon and stars to guide our way. My readers who have stuck with me have been a bright point of light in the year just past. Thank you. If you haven’t discovered the books I write and publish yet, I invite you to browse the selection at http://hadrosaur.com/bookstore.php and http://davidleesummers.com/.

Scary Books for Long Winter Nights

Dec22

The annual Smashwords End of Year Sale is underway. Many of Hadrosaur’s titles are available at deep discounts and I’ll be highlighting them over the course of the sale here at the Web Journal. 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 or gift them to friends without worrying about what e-reader they prefer. If you are shopping for those last-minute gifts, just click “Give as a Gift” when you visit the Smashwords links!

Today, I’m highlighting my horror novels at Smashwords. These include The Astronomer’s Crypt about astronomers, ghosts, drug dealers, and a monster from the beginning of time colliding at a remote observatory during a violent thunderstorm. The Scarlet Order Vampire novels tell the story of vampire mercenaries who fight evil through the ages.

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 just $1.00 this month at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1025608

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.

Buy Dragon’s Fall for just $1.00 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.

By Vampires of the Scarlet Order for just $1.00 this month at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1038560

NaNoWriMo-ish

Nov28

November is the National Novel Writing Month, otherwise known as NaNoWriMo. During the month, many authors endeavor to write 50,000 words. While that won’t count as a complete novel for most publishers these days, it’s a large chunk of a novel. To reach 50,000 words in one month, you have to write about 1,667 words per day. You can even sign up to participate at nanowrimo.org and to find tools, structure, community, and encouragement to help you succeed. My daughter has signed up and participated for the last couple of years. Although I didn’t officially sign up to participate in NaNoWriMo, I wrote two novels as NaNoWriMo challenges when LBF Books was publishing my novels.

The first of my NaNoWriMo novels was The Solar Sea, which I wrote in 2004. This is a novel I’d tried to write twice before, but abandoned both times partway through. The first time I abandoned the novel, it was because I was a young writer who lacked the discipline to see the story through. The second time, I had a sense of the plot, but hadn’t really nailed down the themes I wanted to explore. Between that and not being really certain what I audience I was writing for, the novel bogged itself down. In 2004, I had two young daughters who I wanted to excite about math and science. That and the 50,000-word goal of NaNoWriMo encouraged me to write The Solar Sea as an adventure story primarily for a young adult audience. I calculated my daily word goal and set myself a time to write each day after my daughters went to bed. Once I got into the routine, I found I could meet my writing goals pretty well each day. It taught me the value of writing each day at a set schedule. You can learn more about the novel at: http://davidleesummers.com/solar_sea.html

*Dragon’s Fall:*
*Rise of the Scarlet Order Vampires*

I wrote my second NaNoWriMo novel in 2005. This was intended to be a prequel to my novel Vampires of the Scarlet Order which had recently been published by LBF. In this case, I knew 50,000 words would only be a little more than half the novel. When I wrote The Solar Sea, I had a clear idea of the plot and I had been thinking about certain story elements for almost fifteen years before I started NaNoWriMo. When I wrote Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order Vampires, I had a one-page synopsis. So, my 50,000 words were much more stream-of-consciousness than The Solar Sea. At the end of the month, I really liked the beginning of what I wrote, but felt the stuff I wrote at the end of the month lacked focus. Still, this gave me a solid core that I could work on and develop. It took about two years, but the novel did take shape. I added a few chapters before the original opening and then tightened the latter sections and added a solid ending. This experience helped me see that I could be disciplined while writing by the seat of my pants, and I was ultimately happy with my tale of three vampires who come form a band of mercenaries. You can learn more about Dragon’s Fall at: http://davidleesummers.com/dragons_fall.html

This year, NaNoWriMo occurred right as Kitt Peak National Observatory reopened from being shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. So I haven’t participated in NaNoWriMo this year. That said, I was given the assignment of writing a novella in early September. At the time, I knew Kitt Peak would likely reopen around mid-October to early November, so I wanted to get as much of the novella written as possible before work resumed and I had to settle into a regular work routine at the observatory again. To accomplish the task, I used the skills I had gained in NaNoWriMo. In this case, I wrote a detailed outline and I set myself a clear word-count goal for each day. Even though I had an outline, my characters did their own thing at parts of the story and I did have to re-outline, but I’m used to this. I managed to finish my novella by the time I returned to work at Kitt Peak. I have since turned it in to the publisher who assigned me the project. Just this past week, the publisher sent me the contract for the story. I’ll share more details about this novella soon.

Although I haven’t participated in NaNoWriMo this month, I did assign myself the project of writing my first comic book script. In honor of being NaNoWriMo, it’s an adaptation of one of the scenes from Dragon’s Fall. I’m currently working with an artist to bring “Guinevere and the Stranger” to life and hope we’ll have something to show off by spring 2021.

David Lee Summers’ Web Journal

Science Fiction, Fantasy, and More!

Tag Archives: Dragon's Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order Vampires

Read a Horror eBook

Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order Vampires

Vampires of the Scarlet Order

The Astronomer’s Crypt

Revisiting Dune

Arthur: King of Britain

A Deal on the Scarlet Order Vampire Novels

Guinevere and the Stranger Cover Reveal

Sneak Peek: Guinevere and the Stranger

Dracula, motherf**ker!

2020 Hindsight

Scary Books for Long Winter Nights

NaNoWriMo-ish