Pleased to announce Soul Cache has joined the ranks of my audio book offerings.
The seventh of my spec-fiction shorts available for your listening pleasure, the story of an aging homicide detective’s hunt for an elusive serial killer in a sci fi mega city is deftly narrated by Justin Hyler. Coming in just over two hours (normal speed) it’s the perfect way to make your daily commute more interesting or liven up a stretch of drudge work.
Available at Audible/Amazon, you can pick it up here at Audible or from the full list here at Amazon.
If you’re partial to the heft and smell of a paperback, Soul Cache is also available as part of the short story collection, Fits and Orisons.
First off, I want to thank everyone who still follows HSSJ and drops by. It’s been a hectic and strange couple months on top of a year-plus of the same, and I’m grateful for people’s support and encouragement.
Next, I apologize for recent lack of content on my part. Not my intention but Real Life business has picked up on top of everything else I was juggling. Out of my control, but I genuinely enjoy writing and the writing community.
So, to give an update:
Things must be tough at the Williams homestead..
The legal snafu over the word ‘hardwired’ is getting settled. I think. Unfortunately, not reasonably. I know there was no IP infringement or market confusion. My attorney knows. Anyone moderately familiar with the cyberpunk genre and the war game hobby knows. But that’s not how this is getting played, so there are changes coming. I’ll release details as lawyers finalize and specifics resolve. Timeline is vague though, because… lawyers.
For those unfamiliar with the situation, early this past March I was contacted by lawyers claiming my self-published table top war game HARDWIRED – offered free online in 2018, commercially released in 2019 – infringed on a trademark and caused market confusion with a 1989 RPG supplement co-written by their client, Walter Jon Williams. It was the usual C&D, along with threats, demands, and several ridiculous claims. (he practically invented cyberpunk, the new PC game is based on his 1986 novel… ) Also, they contacted Amazon and initiated a take down of two of my Hardwired game supplements: The Tsim Sha Tsui Expansion, and the latest, Hostile Takeover. But not the first, core book, Hardwired Cyberpunk Espionage and Mayhem. Make sense? No. Then again, this experience has been a little surreal.
More lawyers, some legal back and forth, a genuine effort to be reasonable all came to naught. At the end of the day, it would cost too much for me to go to court to prove the obvious. (my miniature war game has no reference or relation to Mr. William’s work, the out-of-print 1989 supplement, or the now outdated version of the RPG it was written for.) So, I’m getting shaken down for cash on a technicality.
Welcome to the Big Time.
The Miniature Post-Apocalypse continues, however
Pressing past that steaming pile, my latest miniature war game, KONTRABAND, is coming into it’s final stretch. The illustrator has promised me the images by the end of the month. (today, right?) Once I have them in hand, it’s another couple weeks for proofreading and layout, then I’m kicking it out the door. This will be a Solo/Cooperative supplement for Zona Alfa, the war game I hammered out for Osprey Publishing.
On the Spec Fiction Front
Several fiction projects that were abruptly shoved to back burners are coming around, slowly. My goal is to finish the TechNoir short , Soul Cache, next. (You can read the first ten chapters here.)
Next, I plan to move back to the Shattered Worlds series. Part One, Broken Moon, is available at Amazon. Part Two, Scorned Lands, will follow with a Kindle release before the end of the year. To put spurs to the project, I had some cover art made for a combined, part 1 and 2 printed version.
If you’re interested in the story of a half-breed outcast journeying through a weird and fractured world after a war between gods, then this post-apocalyptic fantasy might be the thing for you. Think ‘Lord of the Rings’ meets ‘The Road’, you’ll be in the right neighborhood. Again, the journey starts here.
That’s it for now. Thanks for reading. Thanks for your patience. Appreciate all of you.
Got a newsletter recently from one of the Indie Writer groups I lurk around, asking if/how the Covid-19 lock down affected my writing. Have to say ‘Quite a bit” if I’m being honest.
It’s not just the Covid-19 though. That was tough. Weird. But do-able.
Nope. In short order, global pandemic was at the bottom of a pig pile of deaths, crises in leadership, international strife, economic uncertainly, racism, political and social animosity, demonstrations, looting*… and then I got sick and spent a month in an out of the hospital.
It felt like I was breathing smog. Gasping, every time I sat down at the computer. It was hard to think straight, let alone relax and get creative. “Flow Space, anyone?“
I pushed on. No props to me, really. It was some combination of prayer, grace, and mule-headed desperation. Had to keep busy with something and I didn’t have the energy for anything new, so I stuck with the familiar.
Felt like I was clawing at granite with my fingernails but things got done.
At the top of the fiction list, the first portion of my post-apocalyptic fantasy saga was polished and kicked out the door. Finally. Beneath the Broken Moon. Shattered Worlds, Book One is currently available as an ebook at Amazon.
Rachelle Stewart Ramirez of the Story Grid and Leonora Bulbeck over at Reedsy were both invaluable. A debt of eternal gratitude to them both. I can only hope I did justice to their hard work and excellent advice.
While we’re getting post-apocalyptic, I should mention my writing for the table top wargame hobby is still going strong. Zona Alfa has been available since late January, courtesy of Osprey Publishing. (Thanks, guys) The S7 Facebook Group is approaching 800 members and is filled with some very cool, creative, and inspiring war game comrades. I’m quite grateful.
It’s not limited to a Soviet-style apocalypse either. Gamers from all sorts of interesting places also seem to enjoy my solo/cooperative cyberpunk skirmish game, Hardwired, and the expansion, Tsim Sha Tsui Expansion.
I was encouraged enough by the support to build on the same game mechanics to hammer out a set of Fantasy-genre, monster hunting rules. Titled, Nightwatch: Terror and Treasure in the Dark Corners of the World, it’s nearing completion and should (God willing) be out in August, 2020.
It’s been a slog, I have to admit. I feel like I’ve been tunneling out of a POW Camp with a soup spoon; cramped, sweating, panting in the dark, measuring progress inches at a time. Not quite the artist’s life I imagined, buoyed by a supportive community of like-minded creatives and a brisk, tail wind of the Spirit.
Erm… nope.
Still, stuff got done. There’s more stuff to do. Forward motion – even in inches – is still progress. We’re all going though it, getting through it. That’s the season we’re in. It’ll turn. Until then, we persevere and keep doing the next right thing.
Dissonance is produced by any landscape that enchants in the present but has been a site of violence in the past. But to read such a place only for its dark histories is to disallow its possibilities for future life, to deny reparation or hope – and this is another kind of oppression. If there is a way of seeing such landscapes, it might be thought of as ‘occulting’: the nautical term for a light that flashes on and off, and in which the periods of illumination are longer than the periods of darkness.
That’s all for now. I hope and pray you are all safe and well.
Until next time, take care.
***
*what happened to the Murder Hornets? Are they still around?
I hope you’re safe and well in the midst of what increasingly resembles a plot from a dystopian sci fi novel. Despite this present strangeness, I’m pleased to announce Shattered Worlds Book One, Beneath the Broken Moon is now available.
“Took long enough,” you say. Yes, it did. There’s a story behind that too, but I’ll spare you. It’s done now and the ball is rolling again.
Book Two, Into the Scorned Lands is slated for release later this year, also as an ebook. If sales merit, I’ll combine both in a print version.
In other writing news, the table top war games , Hardwired, the TST Expansion, and Zona Alfa all continue to do well. In fact, the Stalker7 Facebook Group for Zona Alfa has grown to nearly 550 members since its inception in January, 2020. If you’re a miniature painter, table top gamer, or interested in narrative war games, feel free to drop by the Stalker7.com site for more information. If you’re into those things already and the idea of cyberpunk or Russian-flavored post-apocalyptic skirmish wargames appeals to you, request to join the group and mention you saw it here.
Thank you all for your patience and support. More news as it comes.
For those who enjoy their post-apocalypse flavored with AK-47s, vodka and salo, my latest short story, ‘Strange Treasure’ is available at Amazon.
Written with my upcoming war game rules – ZONA ALFA – in mind, Strange Treasure follows Zone Guide, Yuri Bonyev as he leads Russian mobsters on a search for prime real estate inside the world’s largest and most mysterious quarantined area.
Kindle only for now, I’ll add it to a print collection once I’ve accumulated several more shorts. Thank you all for your support. It’s very much appreciated.
HARDWIRED – a table top war game set during the Corporate Wars of 2069 in the mega-city of New Kowloon. Miniatures agnostic. 1 – 6 Players, Co-op or Solo Mode. Made for 15mm – 28mm miniatures. Grab your friends, create a team of elite Agents, and select a mission. It’s time to put all those cool, random sci fi miniatures to work.
***
For those of you who don’t know, I’m a long-time table top war gamer. (4 + decades) HARDWIRED is a set of simple, war game rules that allows players to reenact the desperate missions and frantic firefights from their favorite cyberpunk books, games, graphic novels, and movies. Select a mission, create your team of Agents, and gear up for a run-n-gun.
In discussing cover art for the upcoming Z6 ‘Enemy of my Enemy’ novella, I mentioned to the graphic artist I had a couple more ideas for the team/setting. Not only did he do an excellent job for ‘EomE’, he worked up a quick Z6 team logo – For when Z6 comes around in the fiction queue again.
There is more fiction in the pipeline but my latest short story is now available at Amazon. For those familiar with the STALKER or METRO 2033 video games, this should feel familiar – like the worn stock on your trusty AK-47, or the snug, sweat-soaked bands on your respirator.
Release date is 16 December. You can pre-order now if you like.
Finished edits on part one of The Shattered Worlds and decided to play around in GIMP. I like the way this turned out. I think people are going to enjoy this story.
Someone asked about ‘Dead Saints’ the other day. Well, it’s on the back burner until the election is over. It’s been a stop and go project from the beginning, with the first scenes and outline sitting on my computer for several years. The current delay is due in part by my malaise and general frustration as well as an eerie resemblance between the current political situation and several key plot points.
For example, the story’s antagonist is a corrupt politician demonically inspired to boost their career trajectory toward the White House by deliberately allowing a terrorist attack and then playing the hero in the aftermath. Evidence of this conspiracy is contained in emails thought deleted by the politician’s staff but uncovered by the protagonist while battling both natural (terrorist) and supernatural (demonic) forces in an attempt to stop the imminent terrorist threat.
First in a series of Guest Posts for 2016. First up, the founder of the Crossover Alliance, a small press specializing in gritty Christian fiction. I asked him to address the viability of faith-based fiction and its ability to impact secular, non/other-believing readers. Here are his thoughts.
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It was only a few years ago that I decided to write a short story for NaNoWriMo entitled Black Earth. It was supposed to take a look at the universe of my Expired Reality series long before humans colonized another planet in the universe, back when the Earth was busy being destroyed by a vile alien force. Little did I know at the time that I was penning the basis for a four-book series that would determine the course of my writing – and even my career.
When I wrote the first book of the series, I realized the thing that made it unique was that it was science fiction, it was Christian fiction, and it was filled with real-world content. The first chapter contains a rape scene, and from there the book dives into areas that still are not acceptable in the fiction that the main Christian publishing houses put out. It was at that point that a new genre was born: edgy Christian speculative fiction. The birth of the genre eventually turned into the birth of the publishing company that I currently run: The Crossover Alliance. We specialize in this special type of fiction.
But publishing – even writing – this type of fiction is not without its hurdles. Besides having to overcome the stigma attached to Christian fiction, there are many who believe edgy Christian fiction is simply Christian fiction rife with F-bombs, sexual scenes, and gratuitous violence – essentially a PG-13 or Rated R Christian movie.
I would argue against that point. As much as I am a writer, I am also a reader. And I’ve read un-compelling fiction on both sides of the fence – Christian and non. I’ve read secular fiction that tried to stay sanitized and ‘safe’, and ended up being drab and unconvincing. I’ve read Christian fiction that tried to mask itself as fantasy, and ‘trick’ readers in the end by plugging Jesus Christ and salvation at the end of a very boring, very clique story.
When I wrote the first book in my Black Earth series, the rape scene found in my first chapter came naturally. My character, Cynthia Ruin, is considered the school whore because she bases her status on who she sleeps with. It isn’t until she is raped the night of her high school graduation that she begins questioning her actions. Her rape needed to happen, and the way I described it – from her point of view, drugged – couldn’t have had the same impact if I had just said that she was carried around a corner and then ended the chapter.
There’s a strange habit that Christian writers have adapted over the years where they believe their fiction has to be clean, pressed, and folded before it can be presented to the rest of the world. Or are they actually just trying to present it to other Christians? Maybe that’s the problem. Who are we writing for? Does that question really even matter? If we’re writing to Christians or non-Christians, don’t we all struggle with the same things? The only difference is that Christians have accepted salvation – well, supposed to have accepted salvation. So if it doesn’t matter to whom we are writing, does it matter why we are writing? If we’re trying to write to a dark world to show them the light of Jesus, wouldn’t it make sense to set the light of Jesus against a dark world within our stories?
This isn’t to say there isn’t an audience for straight up, Rated-G Christian fiction. But I don’t believe that type of Christian fiction is necessarily aimed at trying to show the light of Jesus to a dark world. I think those stories are meant to be sanitized fiction for a Christian-reading audience because the Christian-reading audience doesn’t want to read secular content. The problem with that is that we’re not reaching a non-Christian world. But that’s why the ‘why’ of what we write is important to figure out.
I think any good writer who involves themselves in this unique genre isn’t trying to be edgy just to be edgy. We’re trying to write authentic fiction that shows the world – the people in this world and the sins in this world – for what they truly are and how the light can both reveal the darkness and in the end chase it away. What is edgy anyway? Is it some foul language, some lewd scenes, some blood splatters? I think it’s simply content that pushes the real world into our writing, filling it with real issues: slavery, depression, mayhem, chaos, anger, promiscuity, lust. Good versus evil. Gray versus grey. There’s an undercurrent of tension that tugs at the reader’s heart and mind, that nudges and sometimes pushes them out of their comfort zone. It forces them to ask the hard question: Would you sacrifice ten for ten thousand? It forces the reader to face their own demons, the demons that live with them day to day. And then once the reader is brought to a place where they can no longer deny the darkness, the evil, then they are shown the light of the world, the salvation that is made available to everyone.
How do we know what is good unless we have seen or experienced what is evil? I think that’s what it boils down to. We shine the spotlight on the dark deeds to expose them for what they are. And that, my friends, is a scary way to write. It’s a scary way to read. But it’s the realest Christian fiction you will ever experience in your life.
Hot Space Station Justice 