Radio Hope Post-Apocalyptic Novel is a Free Download!

For the next five days, through March 14, my post-apocalyptic science fiction novel Radio Hope is free on Amazon. This is the first of the Toxic World series, which has three books and a spin-off novella. Book Four is coming out in the early summer. Radio Hope, however, can also be read as a standalone novel. I'm not pulling you into some sort of crack dealer arrangement. :-) A blurb is below.

In a world shattered by war, pollution and disease. . .
A gunslinging mother longs to find a safe refuge for her son.
A frustrated revolutionary delivers water to villagers living on a toxic waste dump.
The assistant mayor of humanity's last city hopes he will never have to take command.
One thing gives them the promise of a better future--Radio Hope, a mysterious station that broadcasts vital information about surviving in a blighted world. But when a mad prophet and his army of fanatics march out of the wildlands on a crusade to purify the land with blood and fire, all three will find their lives intertwining, and changing forever.

Radio Hope is available on Amazon, Amazon UK, and all the other Amazons. Enjoy and please spread the word!

My latest post-apocalyptic novel out now!

We Had Flags, the third in my Toxic World series of post-apocalyptic novels, is out now. The series starts with Radio Hope and continues with Refugees from the Righteous Horde. The Scavenger is a novelette in the same world.

In We Had Flags, the residents of New City face their biggest challenges yet. For those of you familiar with the series, the main characters in this volume are the Doctor, Pablo Cruz, and someone you haven't met yet. A blurb is below.

A law doesn't work if everyone breaks it.
For forty years, New City has been a bastion of order in a fallen world. One crucial law has maintained the peace--it is illegal to place responsibility for the collapse of civilization on any one group. Anyone found guilty of Blaming is branded and stripped of citizenship.
But when some unwelcome visitors arrive from across the sea, old wounds break open, and no one is safe from Blame.

We Had Flags is available via Kindle's Prime program, so if you're a member you can read it for free!

The Rat Killer and other Weird War Tales out now!

My latest short story collection, The Rat Killer and other Weird War Tales, is out now on Amazon and Smashwords. It's going through the Smashwords system of Premium distribution and will soon be available in all major online retailers. The cover is, as usual, done by my talented brother-in-law Andrés. It looks a bit different form his regular stuff and I think it works well. The book retails for $2.99. A blurb is below.

A rat hunter on the Western Front suspects his prey are plotting against him…
A routine trip through the trenches leads to an unexpected insight…
A soldier discovers the most dangerous enemy can't be killed…
A bereaved woman performs a forbidden ritual to avenge her father’s murder…
A doomed militia is offered a path to victory that leads to damnation…

Here are five tales of war from the pen of military historian and novelist Sean McLachlan. From the bushwhackers of the American Civil War to the trenches of WWI, these stories walk the line from the strange and paranormal to the frighteningly real.

A new Civil War horror novel, and a bargain on an old one!

I've just released my latest Civil War horror novel, The River of Desperation. It's the sequel to A Fine Likeness. While the first book in the House Divided series stands on its own, The River of Desperation continued the story of the primeval struggle between Order and Chaos. A blurb is below.

In the waning days of the Civil War, a secret conflict still rages. . .
Lieutenant Allen Addison of the USS Essex is looking forward to the South's defeat so he can build the life he's always wanted. Love and a promising business await him in St. Louis, but he is swept up in a primeval war between the forces of Order and Chaos, a struggle he doesn't understand and can barely believe in. Soon he is fighting to keep a grip on his sanity as he tries to save St. Louis from destruction.
The long-awaited sequel to A Fine Likeness continues the story of two opposing forces that threaten to tear the world apart.
Length: 103,000 words (356 pages)

It's available as an ebook on Amazon, all Amazon affiliates, Smashwords, and soon to come to Barnes & Noble, the Apple store, and more.

In order to celebrate the release, I'm discounting A Fine Likeness. It's only 99 cents until April 26, the 150th anniversary of General Joe Johnston surrendering the Army of Tennessee. It will then be $2.99 until May 21, the 150th anniversary of the surrender of Jesse James, who makes an appearance in both of these books. A Fine Likeness is available on Amazon, all Amazon affiliates, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, and almost everywhere else ebooks are sold.

My new WWI novel now available for preorder!

My latest World War One action novel, Digging In, is coming out December 5 and is available for preorder. The story takes up where Trench Raiders left off and continues the adventures of Crawford, Willoughby, and Thompson, while introducing some interesting new characters. Here's the blurb.

October 1914: The British line is about to break.
 
After two months of hard fighting, the British Expeditionary Force is short of men, ammunition, and ideas. With their line stretched to the breaking point, aerial reconnaissance spots German reinforcements massing for the big push. As their trenches are hammered by a German artillery battery, the men of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry come up with a desperate plan--a daring raid behind enemy lines to destroy the enemy guns, and give the British a chance to stop the German army from breaking through.
 
Digging In is the second in a new series of World War One action novels that will follow the brave men of the BEF through the major battles of the First World War a hundred years after they happened. The Battle of Ypres was the first of many great slaughters on the Western Front, and it was there that both sides learned the true horror of the world's first global conflict.

It's now available on Amazon, Amazon UK, and all the other Amazons. It's also available on Smashwords and will soon be at all other major ebook outlets.

(By the way, if you're still following this blog, head on over to Midlist Writer, that's far more active)

Trench Raiders now available!

Just in time for the WWI centenary, I've come out with Trench Raiders, the first in a series of World War one action novels. Here's the blurb:

September 1914: The British Expeditionary Force has the Germans on the run, or so they think.
After a month of bitter fighting, the British are battered, exhausted, and down to half their strength, yet they’ve helped save Paris and are pushing toward Berlin. Then the retreating Germans decide to make a stand. Holding a steep slope beside the River Aisne, the entrenched Germans mow down the advancing British with machine gun fire. Soon the British dig in too, and it looks like the war might grind down into deadly stalemate.
Searching through No-Man’s Land in the darkness, Private Timothy Crawford of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry finds a chink in the German armor. But can this lowly private, who spends as much time in the battalion guardhouse as he does on the parade ground, convince his commanding officer to risk everything for a chance to break through?
Trench Raiders is the first in a new series of World War One action novels that will follow the brave men of the British Expeditionary Force through the major battles of the First World War a hundred years after they happened. The Battle of the Aisne was the start of trench warfare on the Western Front, and it was there that the British and Germans first honed their skills at a new, vicious brand of fighting.

Trench Raiders is available at Amazon, Smashwords, and within a few days will be available at all other online outlets.

Reader News for October 6, 2013

A couple of new books from blogger buddies this time around! Have some news you want to share? Drop me a line!

The Maze of Mist, the latest fantasy novel from A.J. Walker, is for sale in the Kindle store. For the first month he's priced it at only $3.99, and it's free for Prime members.

Here's the blurb:

When the heir to the throne is treated as an outcast, he has to prove himself before he can rule.

Prince Metis Itxaron is the son of a human father and a goblin mother. As heir to the Twin Thrones, he will some day bear the responsibility of ruling two peoples while protecting the kingdom from the vicious armies of the Bandit Queen and the Elves of the Great Forest.

Instead he spends his time getting drunk and sleeping with the few women willing to look beyond his mixed heritage.

In a desperate attempt to make a man out of him, his parents send him on a secret diplomatic mission to prepare for an upcoming war. What they don't expect is that he will come upon visitors from an unknown land beyond the Sea of Mist, a strange labyrinth of fog that has baffled navigators for all of recorded history.

Metis sees a visit to these new lands as an opportunity to escape his responsibilities and prove himself on his own terms.

Then he discovers that representatives from his kingdom's enemies are coming along for the voyage. . .

This is the second book in the Chronicles of the House of Itxaron series. The first volume is Roots Run Deep. While set in the same world, each title is a standalone novel.

Missouri historian Larry Wood also has a new book out. Murder and Mayhem in Missouri tells the story of some of Missouri's toughest outlaws.

Desperadoes like Frank and Jesse James earned Missouri the nickname of the "Outlaw State" after the Civil War, and that reputation followed the region into the Prohibition era through the feverish criminal activity of Bonnie and Clyde, the Barkers and Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd.

Duck into the Slicker War of the 1840s, a vigilante movement that devolved into a lingering feud in which the two sides sometimes meted out whippings, called slickings, on each other. Or witness the Kansas City Massacre of 1933, a shootout between law enforcement officers and criminal gang members who were trying to free Frank Nash, a notorious gang leader being escorted to federal prison.

Book Review: Nanok and the Tower of Sorrows by Jack Badelaire

Nanok and The Tower of Sorrows by Jack Badelaire
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This novella is by Jack Badelaire, better known for his excellent Commando series of war novels. Here the author takes on a different subject--old school pulp fantasy in the vein of Robert E. Howard.

There are far, far too many Conan pastiches circulating these days, but fortunately Badelaire takes a lighthearted approach. There are lots of jokes and pratfalls mixed in with Badelaire's signature fight scenes.

I especially enjoyed all the references to fantasy fiction and movies. In his adventures Nanok even meets The Beastmaster (oh, sorry, The Master of Beasts!), one of the more embarrassing fantasy films of our youth. There could have been more, though. What? No reference to The Barbarians or Willow? I would have loved seeing mighty-thewed Nanok cleaving Willow's head in with his massive sword.

Anyway, this is a fun little read, nothing Earth shattering, nothing you'll be tempted to read again, but an amusing way to spend an hour or so. If you want something meatier, check out his Commando books. Those are more serious, and seriously good.


View all my reviews

The Apocalypse is here! Yippee!!!

Today is "The World Ends How?" blogfest to celebrate Hart Johnson's latest book. More on that below. But first she's asked fellow bloggers how they think the world will end.

My answer? Slowly, painfully, and through our own ignorance. We will keep poisoning the air and seas, keep fighting each other, keep increasing our population, until it all begins to fall apart. And we won't change even then.

For more, check out my personal vision of the apocalypse. For Hart's vision, read on!

Deadliest virus in a century, or a social experiment gone awry?

Every year they warned about the flu and more often than not, it amounted to nothing. Sidney Knight, a young freelance reporter had certainly never written on it. But a trip to Lincoln City, Oregon, cut short by a beach full of dead seagulls and a panicked warning from her brother the scientist catch her attention.

This batch is different. Deadlier. And the vaccine doesn't seem to be helping. It almost looks like it's making it worse...

A Flock of Ill Omens: Part I is the first episode of A Shot in the Light, an Apocalypse Conspiracy Tale about what happens when people play God for fun and profit. There will be approximately ten episodes, each the equivalent of about 100 pages. Good Reads has a sneak peak posted. You can find the purchase link and more information about the book here. And if you want it FOR FREE, I will be offering it free on the release dates of at least the next two in the serial: September 19 and October 10.

Hart Johnson writes books from her bathtub and can be found at Confessions of a Watery Tart, though be warned. She is likely to lead you into shenanigans.

Indie Life: Let's Stop Review Inflation

Anyone who has been to university is familiar with the phenomenon of grade inflation: students are given better grades than they deserve in order to make the department or university look good. There's a similar process going on in indie publishing that I call review inflation.

It's simple: an indie writer gets her friends to give the book five-star reviews, lavishing praise on the book. Sometimes it's quite obvious. I've seen books that have only been published for a day that somehow have half a dozen reviews, all of them five stars. The idea is that this will help sales.

In the end, this hurts the author and indie writers in general. When real readers buy the book, they're often disappointed and take out their sense of betrayal with especially bad reviews. Readers are also getting more sophisticated. I've seen more than one review on Amazon or B&N which complains there are too many fake reviews for a book.

It's also just plain dishonest, and trying to pull one over on your readership is not going to help your career in the long term. I have never asked my friends for reviews. For my Civil War novel A Fine Likeness, only one reviewer is someone I know. ACLopez is a friend of mine. I didn't ask her to write a review, but she did anyway and gave it five stars. I'd think she really enjoyed the book and was probably tickled that much of the action took place in her county, but would she have given it five stars if she didn't know me? Probably not.

The only other unsolicited review from a friend was for The Night the Nazis Came to Dinner and other Dark Tales. On Amazon UK, Critch gave me only three stars and said, "He needs to improve if his fiction is to equal his non-fiction, but there are glimpses of potential in this collection."

Well, no review inflation with that guy!

Guest Post: Researching a Shared World Alternate History

Today we have an interesting guest post from an old writing buddy of mine from my Tucson days. I first met David Lee Summers at Tuscon, a great local f/sf/h con. I was immediately struck by his boundless enthusiasm and dedication to the fan community. He's such a nice guy I even forgave him when he rejected one of my short stories for his magazine!

He's come out with several books over the years and is here to talk about his latest.


Last year, Robert E. Vardeman asked me to write a novella in a steampunk shared world he created called Empires of Steam and Rust.  As a steampunk author who has read and admired Bob's work since before my career began, I leapt at the opportunity.

The concept of the world is that it's an alternate 1915.  Queen Victoria is still on the throne and getting younger.  The Russian Revolution failed and the Czar is still on the throne.  The Meiji Restoration never happened and there are still Samurai in Japan.  Teddy Roosevelt is still president of the United States and has ambitions of creating an American Empire.  In the meantime, holes are opening up in the fabric of reality.  Strange substances leak out of these holes, such as gasses that defy description.  In some cases, the holes serve as portals to another alternate world.  My first challenge was to decide what story to tell in this alternate world.

A few days later, I happened upon a T-shirt my wife brought me from Palomas, Mexico with a photo of Pancho Villa dressed jauntily in a pith helmet and cravat, very similar to the public domain photo shown here.  This was virtually a steampunk vision of Pancho Villa.  I realized I could tell the story of Pancho Villa in this world.

This project essentially required three stages of research.  The first stage of research involved getting to know the Pancho Villa of history.  I watched some documentaries, looked up some history on the web and at my local library.  Villa clearly was a larger-than-life figure.  He was a man who loved beautiful women and liked to overwhelm his opponents with the speed of cavalry charges.  I did my best to understand the motivations of the men who surrounded Pancho Villa such as Álvaro Obregón, Rodolfo Fierro, and John J. Pershing.


The second stage of research involved getting to know the alternate world Bob Vardeman had developed.  Bob, with input from several of the Empires of Steam and Rust authors, including Steve Sullivan assembled a "bible" explaining what was going on in different parts of the world.  The bible mentioned two things of interest to my story.  The United States had invaded Mexico and no one had yet invented airplanes.  Only airships had been developed.  I knew that Pancho Villa would seize any opportunity he could to create a "cavalry of the air" to go after invading American airships.  Of course, I also read Bob Vardmeman's novella Gateway to Rust and Ruin and Stephen D. Sullivan's novella Heart of Steam and Rust, both set in this alternate world to understand the world better.


Finally, I decided to set a large portion of the conflict on the U.S./Mexican border at the towns of Douglas, Arizona and Agua Prieta, Mexico, a place Pancho Villa was known to have been.  One of the landmarks of Douglas is the Hotel Gadsden.  It was a classic old hotel used by ranchers in the area at the time of Pancho Villa.  I was fortunate enough to be invited down for a book signing in Douglas at the hotel, which allowed me to do the third stage of research, which was a visit to the location of the story.

Inside the lobby of the Hotel Gadsden is a beautiful marble staircase.  There are two chips in the marble halfway up the first flight.  In the photo, you see my daughters posing with the chips in question.  A sign in the lobby claims the chips were made when Pancho Villa rode his horse up the staircase.  Later research has since cast some doubt on whether this really happened, particularly since the Hotel Gadsden suffered a bad fire after Pancho Villa died.  The hotel owners claim the staircase survived the fire.  Whatever the truth, it was too good a story not to use in my novella, especially since I had a scene that would allow Pancho Villa to ride up the staircase, guns blazing!

For me, part of the fun of writing alternate history is to gain new insights into the people and places of history by imagining them in circumstances that weren't the same as the ones we're familiar with.  Even though the events are different than those of history, it still means getting to know the characters involved well enough that you can imagine how they would react in new circumstances.

My novella of Pancho Villa in an alternate 1915 is Revolution of Air and Rust.  I'd love to hear what you think of this alternate Pancho Villa and his comrades.  The novella is available at Amazon and Smashwords.

My fantasy novella gets its first review, and it's five stars!

My fantasy novella The Quintessence of Absence has been out barely a week and it's already garnered its first review.

Kathleen Keenan gave it five stars and said:

"The Quintessence of Absence" features a seriously flawed protagonist--Lothar, a wizard who is addicted to nepenthe (a bit like opium). Lothar is reluctantly drawn into a mission to rescue his former employer's daughter, who has mysteriously disappeared. Lothar's addiction threatens to waylay him, but no more than an assorted cast of wizards, evil nobles, and other nepenthe addicts.

"The action is nonstop, and the author skillfully draws the reader into an alternate history that might have been our own if magic were real. The only real flaw in this lively fantasy is that it is too short. I was disappointed when I reached the end, which is my criterion for an excellent read."

That just made my day!

My latest fantasy novella is out now!

I'm proud to announce that my latest fantasy novella, The Quintessence of Absence, is out now on Amazon, Smashwords, and will soon be at other outlets as well. This 25,000 word story originally appeared in Black Gate magazine. A blurb is below:

Can a drug-addicted sorcerer sober up long enough to save a kidnapped girl and his own Duchy?

In an alternate 18th century Germany where magic is real and paganism never died, Lothar is in the bonds of nepenthe, a powerful drug that gives him ecstatic visions. It has also taken his job, his friends, and his self-respect. Now his old employer has rehired Lothar to find the man's daughter, who is in the grip of her own addiction to nepenthe.

As Lothar digs deeper into the girl's disappearance, he uncovers a plot that threatens the entire Duchy of Anhalt, and finds the only way to stop it is to face his own weakness.


The cover is by fellow indie writer Jack Badelaire, author of the awesome Commando series. He saw my struggles with designing a cover and sent me this one to me out of the blue. Now that's the indie spirit!  You can read his take on the indie life in an interview here.

I'd love to have some help getting the word out. Please tweet, share, and blog about this release. But if you're considering buying it, please jump the cut.

Help me pick my next ebook cover!

Next week I'll be releasing a dark fantasy novella titled The Quintessence of Absence, a reprint that originally appeared in Black Gate magazine. Set in an alternative 18th century Germany, it deals with a struggle between good magic and the darkest regions of the occult.

I decided to try designing my own cover for a change and used the free template software at Copysafe. Here are some I've come up with. Which do you like?

Cover #1

The templates are a bit rigid. For example, I can't center this byline. But hey, it's free!

Cover #2

Cover #3

Cover #4

So which one do you prefer, numbers 1, 2, 3, or 4? (Oh, and those white boundaries are a product of blogger. They won't be on the actual covers)

Ten things I learned from Lousy Book Covers

Welcome to this month's Indie Life post, where indie writers talk about life in the cold, harsh world of independent publishing.

I have no talent in the visual arts, so when it came time to publish A Fine Likeness and The Night the Nazis Came to Dinner I got someone who knew what they were doing to design my covers. It's important to know your limitations.

Not everyone does, however, and there's a site dedicated to them. Lousy Book Covers is a daily dose of the worst covers out there today. If you haven't seen this site before, go check it out. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you might even spit blood. Besides the comedic value, the site is an educational one. Here are ten things I've learned from it. I knew most of them before, but they bear repeating.

1. Just because you CAN design your own cover doesn't mean you SHOULD. This is the site's motto. Words to live by.

2. Be honest with yourself about your talent. See above.

3. Make your fonts readable. See here for an example of what not to do.

4. If you draw like a high schooler, don't design your cover. If you are a high schooler, get an adult to help you. See here for an example of what not to do.

5. Comic sans never makes a good cover font. See here for an example of what not to do.

6. The cover should actually be related to the content. See here for an example of what not to do.

7. Layering isn't always your friend. See here for an example of what not to do.

8. For the love of all that is holy, check your damn spelling. See here for an example of what not to do.

9. Know what an aspect ratio is. See here for an example of what not to do.

10. Don't make your cover too busy. See here for an example of what not to do

I'm not saying I can do any better. Quite to opposite. The important thing is I know I can't do any better. These folks obviously don't, and are cursed with overly supportive friends and family who don't tell them the truth. As indie authors, we should seek honest feedback, not back scratching. Otherwise we may end up with lousy book covers.

I thought of illustrating this post with examples, but the guy over at Lousy Book Covers has been threatened by angry authors, even though posting covers for the sake of criticism comes under fair use. I don't have time to deal with that sort of inanity.

Reader News for March 12, 2013

More of my writer friends are getting published! As you probably already know by now, M. Pax has come out with Book 3 of her Backworlds science fiction series. Boomtown Craze is available now in ebook and paperback.

Friend and fellow expat in Spain Andrew Leon Hudson has gotten two of his short stories published this past week. "Tear Drops" is out now in the Mythaxis science fiction webzine. "Easy as ABC", a short story about bullying, is out in the latest issue of Young Adult webzine. For the second one you have to register at the site.

Do you have any news to share? It doesn't have to be related to writing as long as it would be of interest to my readership. Drop me a line at the email on the lefthand column.

My Writing Year: A Look Back and a Look Forward

It's a new year, the traditional time to take stock of what you've done and what you're planning on doing. Yes, it's completely arbitrary, but it's good to do these things every now and then.

The year 2012 was so-so for me. I only had one nonfiction book come out: The Last Ride of the James-Younger Gang, Jesse James & The Northfield Raid 1876. I also came out with the print version of my Civil War novel A Fine Likeness. Both have gotten good reviews, although I wouldn't mind better sales on the novel. I did get some nice attention when the city of Madrid paid me to give a reading at their annual Noche del Libro festival. Considering the state of the Spanish economy, I doubt I'll get to do that again!

Another milestone was seeing my fantasy novella The Quintessence of Absence come out in Black Gate Magazine. It's free online, so click that link!

For my travel writing, check out this Gadling post about my year in adventure travel and what to expect from me in 2013. I'm much more satisfied with that part of my career, with popular series on Iraq and the Orkney Islands. Lebanon won the "where to send Sean next" poll, so it looks like I'm going there, editor willing!

So what's up for 2013? I'm making fiction a priority. My dream has always been to divide my time evenly between fiction and nonfiction. My history and travel writing careers are humming along nicely, while fiction still lags behind. I wanted to finish the sequal to A Fine Likeness in 2012 but didn't. I'm also way behind on a story I promised A.J. Walker for an anthology we're doing. Several other fiction projects got nowhere fast.

It's time to get cracking. My goal this year is to write 200,000 words of fiction. While that sounds like a lot, it's actually only 550 words a day. Quite doable. Some days I'll write more, and some days I'll write none because I'll be traveling. When I'm on the road I need to focus on what I'm seeing and how I'm going to communicate that to my readers.

To keep myself honest I've put a word count bar at the bottom of this blog. I'll be updating it once a week or so. Light a fire under my ass if I'm not writing enough.

I'll also be ramping up this blog, reaching out to other bloggers for guest posts and to guest post on their own blogs. You'll see me participating in more blogfests too. This blog started the year with only 100 hits a day and finished with almost 300 daily hits. I'm going to see how much I can raise that.

It's going to be a fun and challenging year!

Book Review: COMMANDO OPERATION ARROWHEAD

COMMANDO: Operation Arrowhead by Jack Badelaire
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Jack Badelaire loves the men's adventure fiction of the 70s and 80s. He has a blog and an ezine both dedicated to the genre. Now he's turned his hand to writing and the influence is obvious.

Commando: Operation Arrowhead reads like those cheap potboilers I read in high school back in the day, and I don't mean that in a bad way at all. There's action aplenty as a team Commandos blasts their way through hordes of Germans in occupied France. It's good versus evil with lots of gunfights, explosions, and blood spraying everywhere.

Badelaire's fight scenes are awesome. He's also good at describing the political and strategic situation of the early war years and the rivalries, petty and no-so-petty, that trouble any group of men in a high-stress situation.

I could have used some more fleshing out of the characters. This style of fiction has always relied a bit more on archetypes than deep characterization. Since this is the first in a series, I suspect we'll be getting into the characters' heads a bit more in later volumes. Well, at least those who survive. Badeliare isn't afraid of killing off characters.

People who aren't World War Two buffs might have a bit of trouble with some of the equipment descriptions. Being a Civil War and Colonial war buff myself, my knowledge of weaponry drops significantly after the invention of smokeless powder. Bren gun and the MP-38? I got you. The MAS-36? I had to look that one up!

All in all, a damn good read for anyone who likes fast-paced adventure fiction and wants to Nazis get blown away in large numbers. I predict Jack Badelaire is going to make a major name for himself in this reemerging genre.

View all my reviews

New indie titles coming out thick and fast!

A couple of my blogger buddies have come out with books lately. First off, occasional guest blogger A.J. Walker over at the Genre Author blog has come out with At the Gates, Book Two of his timeless Empire series. He's offering it at an introductory price of $2.99 and has temporarily slashed the price of Book one, Hard Winter, to 99 cents! A.J. sent over a blurb for At the Gates.

In the thirtieth year of my life, I find I am a soldier in two armies about to go to war with each other, and already at war with a third.

We march across an endless plain, we soldiers of the Baron, loyal human subjects of the Dragonkin and their Timeless Empire. Loyal, I say, but only in name. For within that great army intent on crushing the rebellious cities of Haadsted and Ryksierde marches another army, a secret army, the army to which I owe my true allegiance.

Over at Post-Modern Pulps, Jack Badelaire has published Commando: Operation Arrowhead under his own PMP imprint. Jack loves all the classic men's adventure books from the Seventies and Eighties and judging from the blurb below, they certainly inspire him!

Corporal Thomas Lynch won fame at the Battle of Arras, and felt the shame of defeat at Dunkirk. A year later, as a member of Britain's elite No. 3 Commando, Lynch wants nothing more than to go back over the Channel and kick open Hitler's Fortress Europe, guns blazing.

Introduced by his commanding officer to the enigmatic Lord Pembroke, Lynch is offered a chance to be part of a special team of hand-picked Commandos. Their assignment: sneak into occupied France and ally with the French partisans to fight back against the Nazis.

Lynch readily accepts the challenge, but when the mission goes awry from the very beginning, and the motives of the partisan leader become suspect, the Commandos begin to wonder about their role in the mission: trusted allies with the partisans, or worms dangling as bait for a hungry fish?

COMMANDO: Operation Arrowhead is a military action - adventure novel written in the spirit of classic war movies such as The Guns of Navarone, The Dirty Dozen, and Where Eagles Dare, mixed with military adventure fiction such as Len Levinson’s The Sergeant and The Rat Bastards series.

Do you have a publication you'd like to appear on Civil War Horror? Drop me a line! All I ask is that it is at least vaguely associated with the subject of this blog. Military fantasy, local history, Westerns, horror novels. . .sure! Erotica, coloring books, investment guides. . .sorry, not my readership.

Author Interview: fantasy novelist A.J. Walker

I've decided to take a note from uber-blogger Alex Cavanaugh and announce new releases from my followers. If you've been reading my blogs for a while, you'll recognize the name of writer and medievalist A.J. Walker. I've done guest posts for him on such subjects as medieval weapons in the Civil War. He's returned the favor by writing a very popular guest post on leather armor. Now he has a fantasy novel out called Hard Winter and he's joined us to talk about it.


Hi A.J.! First, give us the skinny on Hard Winter.

Hi Sean! Thanks for having me. Hard Winter is the first book in the Timeless Empire series of military fantasy novels. The best summary I can give you is the blurb.

His past has been erased, his future is uncertain, but he knows one thing—in the coming revolution he must choose which friend to support and which to betray.

The Dragonkin have ruled the human race for centuries, but now the eastern territories have broken away and a blight has left thousands of humans destitute. Assassinations and riots plague the cities.

While the empire’s future is in peril, one man struggles to reclaim his past. Recorro lost his wife to the Gatherers, shadowy beings that prowl the streets on moonless nights. Those who witness their passing are forever changed. Recorro can remember nothing about his wife beyond the fact that she existed.

Aimless and struggling with despair, Recorro joins the army gathering to crush the rebels. What he discovers there may answer all his questions, and topple the empire he swore to uphold.


Military fantasy? Tell us more about that subgenre.

Military fantasy isn't a term that's used much, although many books fit into the category. One of my main influences is Glen Cook's Black Company series, especially the grittier early novels where it's a bunch of soldiers just trying to survive. The later books get a bit more elaborate and political. I prefer the common man's view. The same with the Thieves World series. It started out with thieves doing what thieves do, and turned into world-shaking politics. I'm not knocking the later numbers of either series, I just prefer the earlier ones.

Military fantasy is the experience of soldiers in a fantasy setting. Dealing with how magic affects strategy and tactics is a lot of fun and requires some serious thought.