This post first appeared in my August 12th newsletter. If you haven’t yet signed up for my newsletter, you really, really should. It’s fun, it’s once every four weeks (with an occasional special issue), and it’s the best way to stay in touch. Sign up here.

I think of my Puzzle Land novels as grimdark fiction. Wikipedia defines grimdark as “a subgenre of speculative fiction with a tone, style, or setting that is particularly dystopian, amoral, or violent.” Stories of the Puzzle Lands probably falls at the lighter end of the grimdark spectrum. It’s meant to be darkly humorous. Nevertheless, there is a lot of spontaneous killing going on, among other things.

So what is the appeal of truly violent stories? Part of it’s the action, sure. And maybe there’s some satisfaction in seeing a protagonist ruthlessly take down anyone standing in the way. But it’s one thing for an author to set up bad guys/enemies/antagonists for the hero to mow down, and something else when the protagonist starts slaughtering innocent bystanders because it’s convenient. It’s as if no one’s life has value except the protagonist…or do I take my fiction too seriously? 🙂

Two titles have inspired these thoughts. The first is an Amazon Prime TV series called Hanna. I watched the first episode because I was bored. Honestly, it didn’t sound like something I would like—a teenage girl with extraordinary abilities is being hunted down by nefarious government forces—but from the first episode, I was hooked.

The show is brutal. It’s a coming-of-age science fiction thriller in which teenage Hanna fights (literally) to find a place for herself in the world. The character of Hanna is often emotionally flat, which feels appropriate, given her upbringing and experience.

The series is well-written, well-acted, and has a startlingly high body count. It’s usually guards and soldiers who die and no one stops to ask if they deserve it. But it’s that kind of show. If you’re into this sort of thing, I recommend it.

The second title is a debut novel, The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu by Tom Lin. I think it’s fair to say this is a literary novel. It’s beautifully written, with fantastic descriptive passages of both nature and people. It’s set in the American west, as the transcontinental railroad is being built. The protagonist, Ming Tsu, is on a quest to kill everyone involved in the destruction of his marriage. Call it a grimdark western revenge fantasy.

The story follows Ming Tsu through three parts. In the first he’s traveling with a mysterious old man who is endowed with a supernatural ability that is very useful to a revenge-seeking gunfighter. In the second part Ming Tsu hooks up with more very strange characters with special abilities of their own, and in the third he is on his own again and experiences additional supernatural episodes. I don’t think the story entirely hangs together, and the ending is not what I would have chosen. Nevertheless, I recommend The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu as something different and fascinating. I’m looking forward to seeing what Tom Lin does next.

The new ebook boxset edition of Stories of the Puzzle Lands is now available, for the introductory price of just $2.99.

Or, if you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited, you can read the ebook for free.

The boxset includes two gritty fantasy novels—The Dread Hammer and Hepen the Watcher—plus the short story, “A Moment Before It Struck,” originally published in Lightspeed Magazine.

These books are dark—and darkly humorous. I wrote them when I was returning to fiction after a long hiatus, and I had a lot of fun with them. They’re very different from anything else I’ve written. I do hope you’ll give them a try.

Here’s the blurb for the duology:

His name is Smoke, though some know him as the Demon Dismay. He’s a charming, well-armed young murderer who is not altogether human. Smoke’s purpose in life is to mete out the stern justice of a vindictive goddess, and he is pleased to do it—that is, until he finds other things to live for. A woman, a child, a quiet home deep in the forest. He is so far from anywhere he can no longer hear the haunting prayers of those who would ask him to deliver them vengeance. But the quiet life is not Smoke’s fate.

Stories of the Puzzle Lands is available only at Amazon.

Get it now! The introductory price ends June 10, 2020.

If you subscribe to my newsletter, you’ve already seen the cover to the forthcoming edition of Stories of the Puzzle Lands — and if not? Well, here it is!

Artist is Agata Broncel of Bukovero.com

click to see it big

Stories of the Puzzle Lands is a boxset edition of one of my existing series. It includes the two novels The Dread Hammer and Hepen the Watcher, along with a prequel short story, “A Moment Before It Struck,” originally published in Lightspeed Magazine.

For at least the first three months, the new boxset will be available only at Amazon. If you’re a Kindle Unlimited reader, you’ll be able to pick it up through your subscription. If not, you can just buy the ebook.

The ebook is available now as a preorder at a 50%-off promotional price of just $2.99! The publication date is June 2.

Here’s the cover copy:

Two gritty dark fantasy novels and a bonus short story:
His name is Smoke, though some know him as the Demon Dismay. He’s a charming, well-armed young murderer who is not altogether human. Smoke’s purpose in life is to mete out the stern justice of a vindictive goddess, and he is pleased to do it—that is, until he finds other things to live for. A woman, a child, a quiet home deep in the forest. He is so far from anywhere he can no longer hear the haunting prayers of those who would ask him to deliver them vengeance. But the quiet life is not Smoke’s fate.

Right now, there’s only an ebook edition, but a print edition will follow, possibly in late summer.

Follow this link to find it at Amazon.

Oh! And please subscribe to my newsletter if you don’t already. Sign-up form is over there -> in the right column.

Do you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited?

Kindle Unlimited is a subscription service offered by Amazon, in which readers pay a set fee each month to read as many “Kindle Unlimited” books as they want.

My impression is that the majority of indie writers make most of their income through KU, but despite this, I’ve long kept my books out of the program because it requires exclusivity. To participate in KU, the ebook edition of a title can only be sold through Amazon — and in the past, it’s been my preference to keep my books “wide,” offering them through several vendors so readers can choose.

But in November I decided to experiment with KU. Two of my books — The Dread Hammer and Hepen the Watcher (The Puzzle Lands fantasy duology) sell almost nothing outside of Amazon, so I pulled the ebook editions down from other vendors and enrolled both titles in KU. I didn’t advertise this at all and I haven’t updated the covers yet, which is something I want to do. Instead, I kept everything the same, except that the books are now available to KU subscribers.

The results? Well, they weren’t extraordinary, but they were intriguing. I suspect I made a few dollars more than I would have otherwise and I look forward to further experimentation.

If you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited, I encourage you to try the books. They are short, violent, darkly humorous fantasies — a variety of grim-dark, I suppose.

For those who prefer to avoid the Amazon ecosystem, the books are still available elsewhere in print editions.

I’ve participated in “Book Quote Wednesday” on Twitter for the past several weeks. Though the activity was created as a promotional tool, my experience shows it to be ineffective in that regard. I haven’t seen any effect on sales. Nevertheless, it’s kind of fun.

The idea is that a group of writers are given the same, simple word. They find an example of the use of that word somewhere in their work, and post the snippet on Twitter.

I’ve collected all my quotes from one novel — Hepen the Watcher — book 2 of my under-read and overlooked fantasy duology, Stories of the Puzzle Lands. The two books in this set are totally unlike anything else I’ve written. They’re straight up fantasies with magic — sardonic, violent, and darkly humorous. Sword-and-sorcery maybe. Of the first book in the duology, Fantasy Review Barn said:

“…It is the amount of heart this book has that really sells it for me. It is a book that falls into the gritty fantasy label for sure, but with a certain amount of sweetness. I will be reading the second of the duo in the near future, and have no problems recommending this one.”

So, back to Book Quote Wednesday. Each participating writer is asked to include the hashtag #bookqw in their tweet, so readers can check out other participating writers. Since I couldn’t fit a decent-sized quote within Twitter’s character limit, I started by posting simple screenshots of text.

(more…)

For no particular reason, I’m putting The Dread Hammer ebook on sale for $2.99 until the end of the week — but only at my webstore.

The Dread Hammer is a fantasy novel, but it’s not “fat.” The print version comes in at a spare 214 pages, so no long-term commitments here! But if you like this one, there is a second book, Hepen The Watcher.

Here’s one reviewer’s conclusion about The Dread Hammer:
“It is the amount of heart this book has that really sells it for me. It is a book that falls into the gritty fantasy label for sure, but with a certain amount of sweetness.” —Fantasy Review Barn

And from an enthusiastic reader:
“Richly developed characters drive the action of the novel and lend it the feel of an epic fantasy without the page count. The book’s hero, Smoke, is an almost mythic figure: complex, powerful, and conflicted. Smoke’s relationships are filled with turmoil, passion, and deeply human moments. Smoke’s vulnerability serves as an excellent contrast to his power.” –Jared Nelson

Find the book on sale here. Scroll down to read the opening.

Nathan, at Fantasy Review Barn, posts a detailed and positive review of my “scoundrel-lit” novel The Dread Hammer:

Smoke is the core of the story, a wonderful flawed character. His love for Ketty is pure but it may be the only thing about him that is. A perfect killer with atrocities tied to him, he is feared by all. Alone among the Bidden he is unloved by the people, and shows them no love in return. If not for Ketty he may not have any cares in the world, yet hears the prayers of many in trouble and often answers them. Intriguing and hard to pin down is our Smoke, but a whole lot of fun to read about.

Read the entire review here.

I just finished reading my first Joe Abercrombie novel, Best Served Cold, including an interview at the end of the book in which the author is asked about the genre of “scoundrel lit”:

“I tend to think of it as ‘unheroic fantasy,’ but certainly there seems to be a real current within epic fantasy lately toward darker, grittier, more morally ambiguous, more character-centered writing.”

Suddenly I have a subgenre in which to place the Puzzle Land books–The Dread Hammer and Hepen the Watcher–with their murderous protagonist, Smoke.

I do have to admit that Smoke is not entirely bereft of qualms and affections. Still, “scoundrel lit” is a pretty good description.

Well, there’s no time like the present, because for a limited time you can get $2 off The Dread Hammer‘s ebook edition, by using the promo code PUZZLELANDS1. Only at Book View Café!

A coupon system is one of the cool new features of our revamped ebook store, and The Dread Hammer gets to be our first test specimen. You can buy either the epub (Nook) or mobi (Kindle) version. The ebook won’t load automatically onto your e-reader, but being DRM-free, you can either drag and drop it from your computer, email it to your e-reader if you’re set up for that or, if you have one of those flashy new tablets, you can probably just save it directly.

So if you haven’t read The Dread Hammer yet, now’s the time. And feel free to share the coupon code. We’d love more people to come check out the new store.