Rise of Azraea (and Its Sequel)

I uploaded Rise of Azraea: Book I to Amazon last June, with the intention of posting the sequel last month, and investing in some advertising once both books were up there. The sequel has been (essentially) finished for a long time now, except for a final pass through copy-editing. I'm having a hard time sitting down and doing that; an author copy-editing his or her own writing is never an optimal situation (if you saw the original title of this blog entry, you see what I mean).

However, having the past six months to watch how everything has worked out, I've learned a couple of things.

First, I've learned that there are details to my writing that I'm capable of improving on - word choice, etc., so although I wanted Book I to be done and finalized, I can look back now and see certain places where I have to say, "well, that sucked." That being the case, there's a compelling argument for updating the book. Calling it a "revised edition" wouldn't be accurate, as there'd be no real changes to the characters or events, but it would be worth updating it just so I don't obviously sound like a clueless white guy.

Second, I've learned that Amazon is not an ideal platform for self-publication, regardless of your motives. I already knew that, unless you could spare a minimum ~$400/month on advertising, it's impossible to translate self-publication on Amazon into a livelihood. I was fine with that, as I was mostly just trying to get my name out there so that agents might recognize it when I submitted other things. However, the barriers imposed by the $3.99 sales tag and the hassle of dealing with Amazon e-pubs, have limited my readership to nine people. Ultimately, I'm not too surprise - I mean, I thought I'd get twice that many readers in 6 months, but still, I didn't expect much.

Third, I've learned that (by comparison) blogs are a decent platform for self-publication. I don't know if more than 1 or 2 people 'follow' this blog - I'd be surprised if anyone really does; I update it irregularly, sometimes with obnoxious rants. Yet my readership on some posts exceeds 100 people. While that's orders of magnitude below what would define a successful blogger, the fact remains that my individual blog posts are typically read by 5 to 10 times the number of people who've looked at my novel.

Knowing what I know now, I have a couple of options.

One option is to update Book I on Amazon with the tweaks that need to be made, and then drop the price to make it more accessible. Unfortunately, I think that the inconvenience of clicking the "buy" button probably dissuades more people than the $3.99 price tag. Another option is to pull Book I off of Amazon, and post it somewhere that's more generally accessible - specifically, a blog, posting a bit at a time while I make the edits to Book I and Book II. My concern here is that the 9 people who've paid to read the book may be annoyed to find it gone and posted free elsewhere.

However, after reviewing Amazon's regulations, I'm leaning towards a middle course. Provided you aren't working through KDP Select, Amazon doesn't bar you from posting your work elsewhere. Legally, it's entirely cool for me to have the book on Amazon and on a publicly visible blog. Now, that might seem redundant, but either medium has some distinct advantages for the readers.

The blog will be posting the books a little bit at a time - actually, I've already programmed most of the publication dates, so it's set up to release about 1/3rd to 1/4th of a chapter every day, Monday through Thursday. Going by that schedule, the epilogue to Book I would go online at the end of April. Then there'd be a short break filled by the appendices, and then Book II would start to go up - I'm not sure how long Book II would take to finish on the blog. Book II is no more than 10 pages longer than Book I, but it's divided into more chapters because it's structured a bit differently. Still, it'd probably be done by the end of the summer.

Some readers will find that slow pace appealing, but others will find that intolerable, and want to finish the book immediately. Fortunately, the latter will be able to access a complete and nearly identical copy of the book already available on Amazon, and I intend to have the sequel also posted there long before it begins being published on the blog - though I may run with a lower price tag, since you'd be paying for 'early access' rather than 'exclusive content'.

And speaking of exclusive content, for people who will have read and finished the book, there'll still be some reason to check out the blog publications once and a while. I've set the blog's publishing schedule up so that a new chapter will start every Monday. However, depending on the length and pace of the chapter, that sometimes leaves a dead spot on Thursdays. Rather than have the publication schedule varying unpredictable from week to week, I intend to fill those shortfalls with bonus stuff - writer's notes covering various things.

I've been asked to explain how the names are pronounced, so there'll be a Thursday blog post that explains the pronunciation, and even says a little about the real-world etymology and rationale for the names. I've also got some of my own not-so-great-but-I-have-to-use-it-somewhere sketches to post, with notes about character design and such. I've got maps to post, and various notes - unnecessary details for following the story, but fun additional stuff in case someone comes across the book and wants to use Caelia for a D&D session. I'll also be moving some of the drier reference material (history, geography, etc.) over to the new blog, where it will be available alongside the book.

I hope this will sit well with everyone.

The new book-blog will be available here at https://azraea.blogspot.com/ The foreword is scheduled to go up on Sunday.

I put a content warning on the blog because of the violence in the novel. That's probably unnecessary, but I don't want anyone going into it thinking they're getting a romance novel, and being surprised when a giant centipede consumes a horse like a meat slurpee.

P.S. I believe a blog has to run at least 6 months with a certain readership with advertising to be possible, so unless it's very successful, and I miraculously produce a third book by the end of the summer to keep the blog rolling, I won't be making any income from the blog-posted book. Many thanks to the nine people who have read the book on Amazon - you know who you are, and for the most part so do I. :-p

Wild Justice Teaser for #TalkLikeAPirateDay

Seein' as it be Talk Like a Pirate Day I couldn't resist teasin' a piece o' the novel I've been tryin' to get published. 

Wild Justice is my second completed novel (95,809 words), and is an urban fantasy/historical fantasy story set in Boston in the fall of 1773. The central character is Anne McCormac, an immortal Banshee better known to history as the pirate Anne Bonny. Decades after her disappearance from the history books, Anne returns to the Americas in search of her estranged son and discovers that British vampires are plotting to poison Anne's kind so that they can freely harvest the colonies' most valued resource: its people. Anne's allies intercept the poisoned goods at the docks, but when one shipment is left unaccounted for, Anne commandeers a ship, assembles a crew, and sets to sea once again.

Excerpt from Chapter 21 - "Raise the Colors and Beat to Quarters"

Aboard the privateering vessel Wild Justice, Atlantic Ocean; Thursday, December 9, 1773

[...]

I give the order, "Bring all hands on deck and put us wind over starboard, two points on the quarter to pursue the William.” Turning even a bit into the wind will cost us some speed, but we need to bear south by southwest if we want to intercept our target rather than simply chase its rudder across this storm front.

“And our mystery ship?”

“We’ll have time to deal with her if we have to. Our target’s got big sails but she’s running low in the water; she’s got too much drag to outrun us. I know it looks close, but even with a delay we can chase down the William long before she makes port.” I try to sound more certain of that than I am.

“Aye captain,” Mr. Jacobs nods and gives the orders. The men immediately move into action. The resting crew runs up from below deck to lend their hands to the pulling of the ropes. The ship swings starboard, and we cruise along the storm front.

“Quartermaster,” I shout, “I think we should inform them of our intentions.”

“Aye captain; Mr. Winter!” he shouts, “Raise the colors!”

Winter retrieves the banner Jack had gifted to me before we left, and affixes it to the brig’s forward mast. With strength that belies his scrawny frame, he runs it quickly up the mast. It unfurls in the wind for the first time as it rises above us. The banner sports the nine vertical stripes of the Sons of Liberty, but the white bars have been replaced with black, and laid over the black and red stripes is a bone white, smiling skull and crossed cutlasses – the Jolly Roger I sailed under five decades ago.

The men cheer as the flag raises and snaps in the wind.

“If you ever wanted to sail under a black flag,” I shout, “You are now, lads!”

Though it would be nearly a century before pirates achieved the romance they have now, every one of these men played the part at some point in their boyhood, just like my own son. They holler and shout, and begin to sing.[i]

Come join hand in hand, brave American’s all,

And rouse your bold hearts at fair liberty’s call.

No tyrannous acts shall suppress your just claim,

Or stain with dishonor America’s name!

[i] End Note: This is “The Liberty song.” Its lyrics were penned by John Dickinson, and printed in Gill & Edes’ paper in 1768. The tune comes from “Here’s a Health to the Company,” an older Irish song. 

I realize at that moment that music has gotten decidedly more pretentious since I sailed the Caribbean, but what the hell – if it makes them happy.

The William evidently spots us, and Captain Loring seems inclined to run. The William turns port, putting wind over starboard, four points large, and picks up speed headed southeast. Our mystery ship, however, does the opposite, she puts herself wind over port on the beam. It slows her down, but it puts her on an aggressive angle to intercept our course towards the William. If we maintain speed, we’ll probably beat her interception and pass right ahead of her bow, but if we do that, we’ll get a full round from her cannons, emptied right into our stern.

The challenge has been made.

“Beat to quarters!” I shout, “Quartermaster, hard to starboard, put us wind on the beam! Master gunner, are our cannon ready?!”

“Ready to be manned and loaded, Captain!” the man shouts back. At the quartermaster’s behest, the crewmen re-rig the sails, bringing our course perpendicular to the wind. We’re now getting more wind from the side than the back, which slows us considerably. Fortunately, our opponent’s moving slow too, and it buys time for the crewmen rigging the sails to get to their gunning stations.   

“Broad gunners, load port cannon, double shot, and prepare to fire broadside! Pivot gunners, lay forward and prepare for axial fire!” the crewmen scramble to their posts and begin hammering shot and powder into the big bronze barrels. “Sharpshooters, take position!” I add. This is a little bit of unconventional warfare proposed by my men before we left port. Three of Cassie’s friends who volunteered were brothers from Pennsylvania with no naval experience, but who were claimed to be deadly with their handmade, long hunting rifles. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t see much use in small arms until we were at boarding distance, but Cassie claimed they could hit a moving target at three hundred yards. “Remember,” I shout to them, “we want to take the William with as few casualties as possible, but right now, we’re not fightin’ the William!” I shout, “If you see an officer, shoot to kill!”

I’m skeptical that they’ll contribute much – they barely have their sea legs, and with the wind whipping in from the storm their bullets seem likely to miss the enemy ship altogether. I’ve been assured that I underestimate the virtues of a rifle over a musket, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

“And for God’s sakes,” I remind them as they take positon between the gunnery stations to aim across the railing, “Stand clear when the cannon fire!”

There’s a bright flash, and a loud crack and boom – for a moment I think someone must have set off a cannon prematurely, but I quickly realize it’s the storm behind us. Snowflakes are blowing in, far preferable to rain, certainly, but they’re bringing thunder and lightning with them. The captain of the William would have been wise to turn south even if we weren’t giving chase.

At last I see our mystery ship’s name emblazoned on its prow, “Mr. Winter! What does Pallas mean? With an s at the end?!”

Winter leaps up onto the rigging and hangs off the side of the ship to get a better look, “It’s a reference to Athena, the Greek goddess of War!” He shouts back, “Pallas was the name of a titan she killed, and took his name for her own!”

I’ll admit, I think it’s probably classier than Wild Justice, but it’s not as intimidating. As if reading my mind, the crew begins to chant the name of our ship again.  

Winter bounds over to where I’m standing, “Peut-être une coïncidence,” he says, “But Pallas is usually applied to sculptures of Athena cast from white marble.”

I’m legitimately tired of that name, “Oh, fuck me.”

“If we survive this, oui,” Winter winks.

“I’m going to hold you to that!” I shout as he picks up a musket and runs to the foredeck.

We’re now right upon them. The Pallas fires a pair of chase guns – stronger forward weapons by far than our pivot guns, but thanks to the bucking of the waves and a bit of over-caution on the part of the Pallas’s helmsman, her bow jukes at the last moment and the shots miss wide.

“Pivot gunners!” I shout, “Show them size doesn’t matter! Sharpshooters, make sure they remember it!”

The men laugh as the small pivot guns fire. They haven’t the power of proper chase guns, but they don’t miss. The golf ball-size iron shells whiz over the wood railings of the Pallas and strike a pair of her crewmen, basically splattering them across her deck, and leaving one of her top-deck guns momentarily under-manned.  The sharpshooters open fire. One I know misses, another one clips a man, but the third strikes a man straight in the side of his skull, interrupting his orders and sending someone else scurrying to take his place.

Even wind over beam, it feels like we’re rushing towards each other. We’re squared off for a proper broadside, which makes the outcome of the next few minutes a matter of timing and firepower. If we fire too soon we’ll miss them; too late, we may not fire at all. If we both fire on cue, whoever has the most guns will win. Only one deck of our brigantine is cannoned – she’s bigger and better armed than the Revenge was, but she’s still so under-powered that the British navy wouldn’t even rate it. So far, the lower hull hatches of the Pallas have also stayed shut, so I hope that they are – figuratively speaking – in the same boat. In calmer waters I’d do a hard starboard turn and fire all port guns into their bow, but even if the sudden shift against the wind wouldn’t put us on our beam ends and threaten to capsize us, it’d pitch us far enough forward that our cannons would fire into the water.

The pivot guns and the sharpshooters manage one more shot in the darkening chaos, but from there it’s a matter of waiting what seems like an eternity for our opening.

I pick up singing the men’s song where they left off. Any human voice would be lost in the gale, but I weave my words into the wind, to make sure not only my crew, but the men on the Pallas, can hear me.

Our worthy forefathers, let's give them a cheer,

To climates unknown did courageously steer;

Thro' oceans to deserts for Freedom they came,

And dying, bequeath'd us their freedom and fame.

Our bows pass one another, and then as our masts begin to pass, I give the order to fire. An instant later, cannons on both ships vomit fire and smoke with a bone rattling boom that puts even the thunder to shame. Red hot iron balls I can’t even touch when stored on a cold brass monkey fill the air.

I half expect a significant portion of our crew to be dead from that volley, but while most of our rounds batter their hull, most of theirs go high, ripping through our sails and rigging but missing our heads. Fortunately they fire no guns from their lower deck; they’re probably too afraid of the high waves to open their hatches.

Some of the rigging snaps, and the rear mast is grazed, unleashing a storm of wood splinters on a man who falls to the deck in pain. Someone drags the man out of the way as Quartermaster Jacobs shouts orders to secure the loose rigging and reload the cannons.

The Pennsylvania huntsmen take their own initiative and run to aft behind me, where they line up and start firing behind us at the Pallas. They get off only a handful of shots – the cold wind stiffens their fingers and tightens their rifle barrels, slowing their reloading, and soon the Pallas is out of range in the darkness.

I’m something of an adrenaline junkie, but I’m not a fool. We got lucky with that broadside, and I’m not keen for a second one. Those chase guns alone could do us some serious damage if we go head to head again, and the William is slipping away faster than I expected.

“Quartermaster!” I shout, “Turn us port for speed. Bring us wind over starboard, six points large.”

“Aye captain!” Mr. Jacobs relays the order, sending the men from their gunning stations back to the rigging. That would put us back on the William’s tail; the Pallas would have to make a full about turn before it could pursue and it would be wind over beam going into and out of that turn. She’d catch up, but it might take her a while.

“The Pallas has turned and is pursuing us!” One of the riflemen shouts over the aft wind, confirming my expectation.

“Master gunner! I shout, ready our port guns to fire again!” the man relays the order, and crewmen once again scramble to the gunnery stations to reload the weapons and ready them.

“The Pallas is wind over starboard, on the beam,” another sailor elaborates from behind me, “Looks like she’s re-rigging for speed… four, no… three points large.”

That takes me off guard. We’re bearing south-southeast on a bit of an arc; I expected the Pallas to go hard for southeast, and try to close the distance by making as straight a line as possible through the storm tossed waters. Instead, she’s headed east-southeast, putting her on our starboard side. I can’t imagine a maneuver that would bring her along our starboard side, but I order the master gunner to have our starboard cannons readied in case.

We continue sailing after the William, and finally come across its course. I’m ready to give the order to turn starboard and make this a proper chase, when our ship suddenly lags a little.

“The Pallas has turned!” one of the men shouts, “wind over starboard, six points large!” The Pallas is matching the Wild Justice’s course from upwind.

“What’s she doing?” Mr. Jacobs shouts to me.

“She’s trying to overbear us,” I shout back, “She intends to shadow us and steal our wind. We’ll slow and she’ll speed up. It doesn’t seem like much of a difference now, but it’ll be enough for our prize to outrun us.”

“Captain!” Winter shouts running back from the bow, “The William is changing course; she’s wind over starboard, on the beam.”

Just when the Pallas had given her the chance to escape, the William had decided to slow down. That was unexpected.

“The Pallas is gaining ground!” one of the men behind me shouts, “wind over starboard, three points large.”

She’s out of our wind now but she’s in line with us. She would definitely catch up to us now, and with those chase guns on her that could be a problem.

Another update comes from the bow, “The William’s made a hard turn, she’s wind over port, on the beam!”

“She’s bearing straight down on us, Captain!” Jacobs shouts, “Is she making to ram us?”

The William is heavier than the Wild Justice, due to her cargo, but she is still small as transatlantic ships go, lacks a ram, and is now sailing back into an already violent storm. I hadn’t been told much about Captain Loring, but I certainly didn’t have the impression he was suicidal. It is a shocking (literal) change of direction for the American sailors who’d so eagerly fled the storm moments before. Evidently, there’s someone on that ship that frightens them more than the prospect of sinking in freezing waters.

“Quartermaster!” I shout, “Wind over starboard, on the beam!”

“Captain?”

“Make it so, quartermaster!”

“Aye captain!” the men re-rig the ship, bringing us at a right angle to the gale again. Gusts of wind and high waves rock the ship violently. If it gets any worse I’ll need to turn us away just to keep us from being drowned. The maneuver slows us down, and lines us up with the oncoming William for a game of naval chicken.

I look back to see the Pallas’s silhouette in a flash of lightning. It’s hard to gauge something’s speed like that, but she is coming on fast, and even with the shifting winds of the tempest around us, it’s evident we are slowing down.

“Master gunner, are the port cannon still ready to fire?” I ask for confirmation.

“Touchholes might be wet!” He shouts back.

“Get them clean and ready to fire. No more crew than you need to fire what’s already loaded. Mr. Clasky, Mr. Jordan!” I shout to the two nearest hands on the deck below me, “I need two barrels of powder, still sealed, on the aft deck, now.”

“Aye captain!” they shout and begin rushing about.

“Quartermaster, take the helm and get every idle hand to be ready for a hard course change!”

“Our heading, captain?!” Mr. Jacobs asks as he relieves the helmsman and sends him to the deck.

“Hard port, before the wind, and it needs to be the fastest rigging change in the history of the high seas.”

“Aye captain,” Mr. Jacobs barks the orders but he looks pale; he seems to have figured out where this is going. 

“Mr. Clasky, Mr. Jordan toss your kegs overboard! Riflemen, don’t let those powder kegs out of your sight, and get ready to make us proud!”

The Pennsylvania boys shout and stamp the stocks of their long guns on the deck.

“Mr. Winter, watch aft and call the range for me!”

Winter scrambles over to stand alongside the riflemen and watch the powder kegs bounce and toss in the violent waves. “One hundred yards between the Pallas and the kegs!” he estimates.

“Quartermaster, are we prepared to turn?”

“As we’ll ever be, Captain!” Mr. Jacobs shouts.

“90 yards!” Winter shouts.

“You’ll know when; don’t wait for my order!”

“Aye captain!”

“70 yards!”

“Are the port guns ready to fire?!” I shout.

“50 yards!”

“Aye captain,” the master gunner cries back, “on your command.”

“30 yards!” Winter continues.

“Brace for a hard turn!” I shout back, “The order will be yours to give master gunner!” I can’t afford the delay that would come from my own deliberation, hesitation, and command.

“20 yards”

“Riflemen, fire!” I shout as I rush to the stern railing. I’d banked this maneuver on the assumption that shooting a barrel of naval grade black powder with a rifle would set it off, either by impact or heat. Nowadays, if you fired a tracer round from a modern sniper rifle into a steel keg you’d get a hell of a boom, but back in the 18^th century a lead ball is a couple hundred degrees too cool and not quite fast enough to set off a wooden barrel of powder. The lead balls pop off the barrels without effect.

“10 yards!” Winter shouts.

Okay, time for plan B. There was a trick I used to do in the taverns in London. If I hit the right pitch and intensity with my voice I could create bubbles and sparks in a bottle of beer. I even turned a bottle of gin into a shrapnel grenade once by accident. I met a physicist a few centuries later who explained it to me – apparently it’s called sonoluminescence; the sound creates bubbles of gas which compress into plasma at the center. With the right sound and the right liquid, you can create sparks as hot as 20,000 Kelvins – it’s literally lightning in a bottle. I didn’t know that at the time of course, but I did know that this… this would be in a whole different league from my usual barroom tricks.

I concentrate on one of the barrels as the Pallas runs upon it and I screech at the top of my lungs. I make it as shrill as possible, and use every bit of will I have to give it as much oomph as possible. The riflemen fall to the deck clutching their ears. Winter was evidently braced for what was coming, and even though I can tell the sound is probably tying his guts in knots, he’s got one hand on the railing and his other arm looped around my waist, to keep me on my feet as I wail.

The seawater behind us lights up with a thousand sparks, a wave that races back to the Pallas at the speed of sound and strikes the barrel I’m concentrating on. It explodes right under the Pallas’s bow, and the shockwave carried through the water sets off the second barrel. It’s like punching the Pallas hard in the nose, twice.

Jacobs hauls the wheel hard left and shouts for the rigging change. The bosun formally relays the order, but the men are already in action. The metal blocks groan and screech as the men throw every bit of strength they have into fighting the wind. The ship bears hard to port, and just as I feared, the wind and inertia cause the whole ship to lean hard starboard. If we hadn’t already been slowed down so much by the Pallas stealing our wind, we surely would have capsized. Gear slides hard starboard, and one man loses his grip and slides overboard into the freezing water. There’s no hope of rescuing the man – the cold will claim him in minutes, even if the crushing waves don’t pulverize him against our hull.

The William is headed straight toward our starboard hull as we right ourselves like a cork. Our deck levels, and the master gunner gives the order to fire the port guns as our sails catch the wind. The cannons fire in almost perfect unison an instant before the Wild Justice launches forward with the full force of the storm pushing her.

[... And if you want to find out what happens next, help me get this book published by sharing this post anywhere publishers, editors, or agents are likely to see it. Thanks mates!]

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James N. McDonald is a "liberal academic" born and raised in Missouri and residing in Tennessee. He holds one degree in history, two degrees in psychology, but loves writing fiction. His first, completed novel, The Rise of Azraea, Book I, is a high fantasy story with elements of comic fantasy and satire targeting present day, real world issues such as economic inequity, and sexual and racial discrimination. It is currently available on Amazon.

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Update: Rise of Azraea, Book II

Last night I (hopefully) finished revisions to the sequel to my first book, Rise of Azraea: Book I. It started out as the ending of the first book, but that ending felt very rushed, and anticlimactic (after what is now the ending of the first book). So, I separated it, made it more in-depth, more character interaction, and a lot more action in general. After two revisions, it's grown to 90,017 words, nearly as long as the first novel. I hope to proofread it while traveling this weekend.

Book II is, hopefully, a meaningful story - especially in the context of recent events - but still funny and exciting (with maybe a few sweet, romantic moments). Some highlights from the hopefully soon-to-be new book:

Some technomagic geekery from the chapter, "We're Under Hill and On Air"

“Octaves,” Ochsner suddenly realized, “The numbers represent octaves. The system is translating between one set of spells and the other using bardic casting as a universal language. The numbers it’s assigned to each of your gnoman spells tell us the composition for each one based on musical notes…” 

Vicki studied the numbers and broke out a big grin as she understood what Ochsner meant. She whistled the first sequence in the list, and when she finished there was a soft chime, and then a voice came from the tablet in her hands. 

“This is scout two,” the gnoman voice said, “What’s going on? I heard this thing make a dinging noise or something.” 

Ochsner and the two gnomans whooped and cheered over the success. 

“Seriously, is everything okay?” the voice said again. 

“Yes scout two,” Vicki said, “Base is just revolutionizing the art of remote communication.”

Some moralizing, from the chapter, "You Never Really Go Home Again"

Azraea sighed and shook her head. She took Kaira’s hand and squeezed it, “I’m sorry. I know what you meant and there’s nothing wrong about being worried about those closest to us. The problem isn’t that we callously devalue the lives of the rest, it’s that we’ve accepted that the slaughter of a hundred people in the street is just something that can happen, and we believe that if it had to happen, then we should be thankful that at least it didn’t happen to someone close to us.” 

Some colorful side characters, from the chapter, "And Things Went South from There"

“Salmon roll!” the little grey haired woman never remembered names, but she could remember her regulars by their orders, “I thought you graduated?! Come in, come in! Who is your friend? Where are Mammoth Steak and Chicken Fingers?” 

“Samantha, this is Lily. Lily, this is Samantha,” Azraea said, “She helped me out of some trouble this morning.” 

“What sort of trouble?” Lily said suspiciously. 

“A dicksack got handsy with Salmon Roll and caught on fire. It was a debacle, ma’am.” 

“I see. I always knew that would happen eventually.”

Some reflections on the 2016 election, from the chapter, "Black and White and Dead All Over"

For Syliva, it was simply amazing to watch; she’d crafted a complex strategy to place herself in power, but most of it had become unnecessary – her base was unwavering, sustained not by personal interest or welfare, but simply by the spite they felt for the segments of the population that reviled her. All she had to do to keep them happy was to act like a monster.

A little orc/elf romance from the chapter, "A Fair to Remember"

“Now tell me, have you ever eaten anything deep fried?” Thrakaduhl asked. 

“I don’t even know what that is.” 

“Well, that explains your delicate dimensions.” 

Kaira raised an eyebrow, “Delicate?” 

“In much the same way a rapier is, of course.”

Two male characters passing a Reverse Bechdel Test, from the chapter, "Retaliation"

“A lot of the guard has gone away without leave, and what’s left is straining to maintain some semblance of peace in the countryside. Technically the men you see here are on vacation.” 

“Hell of a vacation.” 

“You know what they say, ‘come to the city, see the lights, kill the fascists,’ and all that,” Jericho nailed a rushing Firebrand in the head with one of his arrows. 

“Fascists?” 

“Or anarchists? Honestly, I don’t give a shit what they are at this point. I’ll call them bad guys and have my moral introspection after this is over."

Wild Justice Playlist

Since posting the very unofficial music for Rise of Azraea was fun, I decided to write up the same for one of my works in progress, Wild Justice.

Unlike Rise of Azraea, which is set in the fictional kingdom of Caelia, Wild Justice is a fantasy novel set primarily in Boston, in the fall of 1773, with the story being told by the now 319 year old pirate, Anne Bonny. Although it includes multiple pieces of period music within the story, the music I heard in my head while writing it was predominantly modern (much like with Rise of Azraea).

How far off is Wild Justice from being available? Probably a good ways. I need one more review of the non-english dialogue to feel comfortable with it, and then it will be DONE, which considering the amount of time and energy invested in historical research, that's saying quite a lot. Unfortunately, I would like to not have to self-publish this one, so who knows? This may someday become a historical curiosity on the internet.

Main Theme 

• "Wake Me Up When September Ends" (Green Day)

Chapter 1 – Eighty Three Years Old and Born Yesterday 

• “The Litter and the Leaves” (Enter the Haggis)

-         Chapter 2 – Bon Voyage

• “Blood, Sex, and Booze” (Green Day)

Chapter 3 - Welcome to Boston

• “Another Saturday Night” (Sam Cooke)

Chapter 4 – Investigating Journalism

• “American Woman” (Lenny Kravitz Cover)

Chapter 5 – Next of Kin

• “Heathens” (Twenty One Pilots) {Patriots' Theme}

Chapter 6 – Trust Me, I’ve Done this Before (More or Less)

• "Bailamos"  (Enrique Iglesias) {Box's Theme}

Chapter 7 – The Burden Hardest to Bear

• “Party at a Rich Dude’s House” (Ke$ha)
• “The Parting Glass” (Sarah Greene)        

Chapter 8 – Divine Intervention

• “Look at Me Now” (Reveille)
• “One Last Drink” (Enter the Haggis)

Chapter 10 – The Old Men of Tomorrow and the Dead Men of Yesterday

• “Chicks Dig It” (Chris Cagle) {Ben Franklin’s Theme}

Chapter 11 – The Strange Case of Elizabeth Lowe

• "Sweet Dreams" (Emily Browning)

Chapter 12 – Is It Getting Cold out Here or is It Just You?

• “Renegade” (Styx) {Anne Bonny's Theme}
• “Down with the Sickness” (Disturbed) {The Rugaru's Theme}

Chapter 13 – Tale of the Rugaru

• "Ghost" (Ella Henderson) {Winter's Theme (Feminine)}
• "Hazard" (Richard Marx) {Winter's Theme (Masculine)}
• Winter is gender fluid, shifting his/her self-presentation according to the context. Ideally, Winter's 'theme' would be a mashup/medley of these two songs, where they blend smoothly together. I can't do that. 

Chapter 14 – Say, What’s in this Drink?

• "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" (Lorde)

Chapter 15 – Memory Lane

• “Y’ Banks and Braes o’ Bonnie Doon” (Holly Tomas)

Chapter 16 – Welcome to the Club

• "Tik Tok" (Ke$ha)

Chapter 17 – Grand Theft Person

• “Beast” (Nico Vega, Folk Blues Version)

Chapter 18 – The Isanusi’s Tale

• “Fortunate Son” (CCR) {Bhekembuso's Theme}

Chapter 19 – Hunter’s Moon

• “Bad Moon Rising" (CCR)

Chapter 20 – Once a Pirate…

• “Back in Black” (AC/DC) {Christening of the Wild Justice}

Chapter 21 – Raise the Colors and Beat to Quarters

• “Highway to Hell” (AC/DC) {The Wild Justice's Theme} 
• “No Leaf Clover” (Metallica) {Battle with the Pallas & the William} 

Chapter 22 – Old Wounds

• “Disease” (Sevendust) {Edward Lowe's Theme}
• "Search and Destroy" (Skunk Anansie)

-         Chapter 23 – Sorry We Missed the Party

• “Minority” (Greenday) {Theme for Sam Adams and the Sons of Liberty}

Chapter 24 – Happily Enough for a While

• “Bitch” (Meredith Brooks) {Anne & Winter's Theme} 

The Rise of Azraea, Book I

Just a reminder that this is currently available on Amazon:

The Rise of Azraea, Book I
A work of historical fiction based on three years of academic research into the life and reign of Caelia’s most controversial ruling woman.

The kingdom of Caelia fractures and crumbles beneath the weight of a dragon whose spiteful greed and silver tongue have sowed desperation and resentment across the country; for a college graduate, it’s the sort of hopeless job market that makes strolling into a dark forest to face a vicious monster seem like the least-objectionable option available. 

Three college friends, Azraea (a human necromancer), Kaira (an elf who wants to be an orc), and Ochsner (a dwarf who wants a job), have finished their studies in Caelia’s capital city, and are faced with a seemingly hopeless future. The three women agree to spend one more summer together, and accept a contract to kill the Scolopendrae of the Dark Dweller’s Forest. Their post-graduation road trip leads them through far more danger than they’d anticipated, as they’re forced to deal with corrupt highway guardsmen, orc survivalists, ancient automatons, gnoman spies, and werewolves perpetrating insurance fraud. Fortunately, as they say, "What doesn't kill you..."

The Rise of Azraea, Book I, is a high fantasy story with elements of comic fantasy and satire targeting present day, real world issues such as economic inequity, and sexual and racial discrimination.

History of Kaleida V: The Establishment of Caelia

Even after the  Great Orc Rebellion toppled Feguncia's Second Kingdom, the elves in what is now Caelia retained control of the mountain-ringed plateau for quite a long time. However, after the rebellion, there was no shortage of men and orcs who wished to keep fighting. One among them, veteran commander Caelus Ravencroft, took his human and orc warriors from northern Feguncia up the Gygian and laid siege to the last great holdout of the Second Kingdom elves.

Although the elves initially put up a fierce fight, it was no more than a few years into their war with Caelus that the elves' orc soldiers rebelled and toppled the kingdom from within, This resulted in intense internal strife, as orc commanders declared themselves chieftains, carved the realm into holds, and vied for control of the plateau. With their unified defense broken, however, they were unable to resist the conquerors from the south. Caelus's army broke through the southern defenses and quickly laid claim to what has become Kingstown. From there, his forces pushed outward to the coasts, seizing control over what people came to call the Caelian Kingdom, and eventually, Caelia.

Owing to Caelus's intervention, the elves were not slain or driven out of Kingstown as they were elsewhere, and many were able to evade the wrath of the orcs in other portions of the country by cutting deals with their land's new ruler. Caelus's relatively light-handed treatment of the elves sat poorly with the orcs who'd overthrown them, making them even less inclined to sacrifice any measure of their newly won freedom. Having many orcs already within his command, Caelus offered governorships and commissions to any of the self-declared chieftains prepared to swear loyalty to him, but most refused.

There was no formal conclusion to the orc resistance in Caelia, but historians generally agree that after three generations it could no longer be considered as such. The orc military that had served under the elves splintered into warring clans after their masters were overthrown. Never unifying into a true resistance force, the clans turned to guerrilla warfare when they proved unable to face Caelus's armies in open battle. The orc guerrillas were succeeded by orc raiders, who plundered Caelia's countryside while dodging Caelus's armies, and fanatical orc terrorists, who attacked 'soft targets' with no real plan or strategy. Eventually all but the most zealous terror cells sold-out; they initially engaged in mercenary work to finance their aimless rebellion but finally ended up renting themselves out as career thugs and enforcers.

Ironically, many of these profit-minded orcs sold their services to elvish families who had survived the turmoil with their coin-purses largely intact. Three elvish families, the Biahnkarosas in Kingstown, the Cherneshypas on the west coast, and the Shirbaymunzas on the east coast, actually gained influence and power when their brethren were deposed. They sank deep roots through much of Caelia's economy, ensuring that they could never be easily dislodged, even by the considerable efforts of Caelus I's successors.

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Interested in reading more about Caelia? The Rise of Azraea, Book I,  is a high fantasy story with elements of comic fantasy and satire targeting present day, real world issues such as economic inequity, and sexual and racial discrimination. It is currently available on Amazon. 

History of Kaleida IV: Antelven Caelia

Though overshadowed by the Gnoman Empire to its south, Caelia is a reasonably sized kingdom, hundreds of miles across at its widest point. Of course, Caelia was likely once much larger, but like Fugencia, much of it was claimed by the rising seas that followed the Star Shift. Now the ocean laps at the edges of its most prominent geographic feature - a concave plateau that stretches across nearly the entire kingdom. Dwarven geologists I have studied with suggest that the formation is a blast crater resulting from a massive volcanic eruption; there is considerable volcanic activity in the mountains north of Caelia, and there are some ancient structures in the Gnoma Range which historians believe are evidence that those mountains also hosted volcanic activity at one time,

Due to the encroaching seas, Caelia is now a geographic bottleneck between Fugencia and Quinox, Fugencia's northern neighbor. The entire country is effectively a landbridge between the two continents. Because of its concave topography, the country's most notable river, the Gygian, does not flow to either of Caelia's coastlines; instead, it runs from its headwaters in northern Caelia, through the center of the kingdom to the massive artificial lake formed by the Old Wall in southern Caelia. From there, the Gygian flows through the River Gate, cuts through the northern end of the Gnoma Range, and crosses northern Fugencia, finally emptying into the Facian Sea. In all of the known world, the Gygian is the only river known to have its headwaters and mouth on separate continents.

At some point before the decline of Fugencia's First Kingdom, the dwarven mines in the ring of mountains surrounding the area went rogue, separating from the First Kingdom and becoming small subterranean city-states. The renegade dwarves built a series of massive walls through the plateau's southern mountains, turning the plateau into a single, massive fortress. During that same time, they carved passes through the mountains on the eastern and western edges of the plateau, permitting easy travel from the interior to either coastline.

The city states lacked powerful offensive armies, and most of their inhabitants were leery of the surface world, but the densely populated dwarven cities were dependent on the crops grown in the basin and fish pulled in from the sea. As a result, the greatest power in the region was wielded by the dwarven rulers able and willing to fight for the world above ground. The dwarven history of Caelia is a dynamic and exciting topic in its own right, simply because the dwarves struggled to manage their conflicts with one another, while still contending with assaults from the South.

The last great dwarven power in the region was the Bhatt Dynasty. The Bhatt's emerged not from one of the old mines, but from the massive above ground city in which their First Kingdom masters once dwelt. More accustomed to life above ground, mingling with other peoples, the Bhatt's were eventually able to seize and maintain control over most of the river basin, and all the food grown within it. The Bhatt Dynasty formally began when Irir Bhatt shrewdly negotiated a union between his territory and the surrounding dwarven cities. People often refer to the Bhatt's as kings ruling over vassal cities, but that's inaccurate. The union functioned less as a system of government and more as business arrangement. The consortium that was created ensured that the Bhatt's would be able to trade freely with all of their neighbors, and the consortium controlled prices and capped consumption in order to guarantee that the Bhatts would trade with all of their neighbors fairly.

After the fall of Feguncia's First Kingdom, the consortium prospered. Over time, the Bhatt's gained more power within the consortium but, oddly, the trade between the Bhatts and the dwarven cities became increasingly lop-sided, until the Bhatt's were effectively paying the cities to maintain their alliance. When the elves of Feguncia's Second Kingdom came north with their orc armies, the last ruler of the Bhatt Dynasty, Rheyger Bhatt, was already straining to make payments to all of the allied cities. Because of this, the southern cities eventually abandoned the alliance. They withdrew their support from the consortium and made peace with the elves. Rheyger, of course, was forced to abandon the city which had, for so long, been the seat of power for his family. He retreated north, to the cities which were still loyal, but it was a hopeless endeavor - eventually Rheyger's forces were overrun, and the land fell under the control of the elves.

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Interested in reading more about Caelia? The Rise of Azraea, Book I,  is a high fantasy story with elements of comic fantasy and satire targeting present day, real world issues such as economic inequity, and sexual and racial discrimination. It is currently available on Amazon.