Do You Wanna Talk To Me Live And Other Updates

Hey, again, my fellow travelers, and Happy New Year!  Sorry for the radio silence.  Here's what's going down....

First off, just a reminder if you haven’t picked it up yet, but New Roads To Hell is still available through Amazon  and direct from Airship27.com.  I hope those of you who bought it enjoyed the first adventure of The Shadow Legion, and rest assured there’s lots more where that came from.

...like The Shadow Legion Casebook: The Shape of Fears To Come!  The book has been finished pending a polish of the last story, ‘A Prayer For The Toy God.’  This is a collection of four short stories, each one highlighting a different hero from the novel.  When you buy this amazing book, you’ll witness The Ferryman fighting a bizarre figure over the fate of a young girl; The Nightbreaker learning about the legacy of super-heroes in Nocturne as an old enemy comes looking for his mentor; The Black Talon facing a cult devoted to destroying the protectors of The City That Lives By Night; and The Dreamcatcher trying to unravel a mystery involving a young boy...and encountering the macabre protector of the city’s children.  If you’re looking for a preview, be sure to pick up Mystery Men and Women V. 4, which features stories by my good friend Derrick Ferguson and Joel Jenkins, and the first appearance of ‘A Waltz In Scarlet,’ the Ferryman story that will appear in The Casebook.

Before that comes out, we should see the appearance of Monster Earth 2 from Mechanoid Press, the anthology about an alternative Earth were the super powers wield giant monsters instead of nuclear weapons.  This book takes place in the 80‘s and 90‘s, and my contribution, “Giants of Industry,” witnesses an attempt to utilize a genetically created monster fabricated by a corporation to manipulate the affairs of a foreign country.  I had the most fun doing research for this story, and I hope you have a much fun reading it.

Also coming up is ‘Sit By The Fire,’ the new El Cuevo story that will appear in the third and final volume of How The West Was Weird from Pulpworks Press.  My hope is to write some more stories featuring my frontier exorcist and his beautiful assistant, with an eye towards producing a new collection in 2015.  If you like westerns with a touch of the strange, be sure to pick up the first two volumes of Russ Anderson’s excellent series, which features stories about El Cuevo and the steampunk scientist Doc Thunder.

And speaking of collections, I have started editing Amazing Alternity Stories, a collection featuring stories about historical personages in unusual roles.  This has been on my desk for literally years, and I am glad that it will finally see print from Pulpworks Press.

I bet some of you might have questions about The Shadow Legion, El Cuevo and the other denizens of The Chimera Falls Universe--and this Wednesday, February 12th, you’ll get the chance!  I’ll be appearing on my friend Viktor Aurelius’ podcast Whispers In The Dark, and I’ll be taking live calls from fans and readers.  The show will be live at 9pm, and if you want to call in, do so at (347) 884-9923.  I can’t wait to talk to some of you readers and find out what you think of my babies.

There’s other stuff in the pipeline, including new characters and adventures, but there’ll be more on that as soon as I know.  So keep watching this space, and be ready for more from The Chimera Falls Universe!

Meet The Shadow Legion Part Two: The Nightbreaker

It's time to look at another one of Michelle Scuito's excellent character designs, and learn a little more about the heroes of the first book in The Shadow Legion series, New Roads To Hell.

This week we're going to look at this bust of The Striker From The Shadows, The Nightbreaker!

The Nightbreaker is one of two characters whose origin we'll experience in the pages of this novel....and he starts out as a fictitious character! The Nightbreaker is the hero of Nocturne, fighting crime and inspiring children once a week on WDSK...and Isaiah Copper, the actor who portrays The Daredevil In Darkness, knows a thing or two about hiding behind masks. But on a fateful Halloween night, Isaiah and the hero he portrays will merge into one...and Isaiah will find himself fighting to be the man he always hid from the public.

The Nightbreaker on the radio is a talented athlete and fighter with a number of high-tech gadgets. The Nightbreaker who haunts the streets of Nocturne isn't just so quick he looks like he appears and disappears at will--he literally seems to melt into the shadows to strike out at his enemies from nowhere. He is a man who dwells in the space between days, allowing him to move silently through our world to get the job done. As we'll see, Isaiah becomes The Nightbreaker and uses his fame as this character to re-assert his existence in a world that has forgotten him...and ends up becoming the protector of a world he tried to forget.

The other thing that's interesting about The Nightbreaker is that he's going to be the hero of a short story for an upcoming volume of Mystery Men and Women, an anthology series from Airship 27.  I'm using that story, called 'The Tick Tock Men,' as a way to bridge between Books One and Two.  While I'm writing it as a stand-alone, the goal is to show how Isaiah (and the city of Nocturne itself) goes from where it is in 1941 to where it is in 1966, when The Devil's Toybox takes place. I'll be writing stories featuring individual Shadow Legion characters as a way to filling in the details between the larger novels.

Feel free to ask any questions about this dashing hero--or the dastardly baddie you met last week. And come back soon to see another of the Defenders of The City That Lives By Night!