The Liebster Awards
January 29, 2013
I was nominated by my fellow author, the amazingly talented Chantal Boudreau, for the Leibster Award. “What is that?” I asked.
“Dunno,” she said. “Just do it, `kay.” Actually, she didn’t say that, but I just can’t help but tell stories. As you continue reading, I’m clearly one of the must boring humans on the planet.
So, here we go.
The rules:
1. Thank the person who nominated you. Thanks, Chantal!
2. Post eleven random facts about yourself.
3. You answer the eleven questions asked by the person who nominated you.
4. You think of a new set of eleven questions and nominate eleven others to answer them.
ELEVEN RANDOM FACTS ABOUT REN (and these are all true)
1)–My folks thought I was “Mentally Challenged” as a lad for my inability to keep up with my studies. My teachers agreed and suggested DRUGS to fix my issues. After two years of mind-altering DRUGS, Darth Vader finally discovered my problem. I came out of the theater crying: “I couldn’t see anything!” I babbled. A trip to the eye-doctor and a pair of glasses later, I was fixed.
2)–I used to play ice hockey, goal tender. I’ve been knocked unconscious three times and the one-and-only time I’ve been in a hockey fight … was with a girl.
3)–A trip to a Turkish Brothel was one of the coolest experiences of my life–not to mention one of the most expensive.
4)–During my time in the Air National Guard, I was inches away from being sucked into the intake of a running F16.
5)–I’ve had a loaded gun shoved into my face twice in my life: once by the FBI and once by the Body Guard of the Prince of Saudi Arabia.
6)–I barely missed the following catastrophic events: The F5 Super-Break-out Tornado of Xenia, Ohio (1 Day), the 1989 Loma-Prieta earthquake: (3 Weeks), and 9/11 (1 Month).
7)–In an abandoned YMCA, I managed to dodge metal girders falling from the crumbling ceiling only to fall into the drained swimming pool in the center of the room.
8)–I was once engaged to a woman 20+ years my senior.
9)–I have a mortal fear of spiders, yet I have a recurring dream of sticking my hand into a tank with a tarantula and letting it bite me.
10)–While cutting through a field on my way home from school, I was chased by an Arabian Horse and bitten in the rear-end as I scrambled under the fence to get away from him. I haven’t liked horses much since.
11)–I’ve been to five places the Ghost Adventurers have been, and I haven’t experienced a thing.
Ok, that was embarrassing, now to Chantal’s questions:
1. What was your favourite childhood show? Gilligan’s Island. Still one of my favs.
2. If you could be a bird, what bird would you be and why? Common Nighthawk–just because the name is cool.
3. What is the best dessert you’ve ever eaten? I’m pretty boring when it comes to deserts. Simple yellow cake with creamy chocolate frosting–or, if I’m feeling frisky, strawberry frosting.
4. If you could pick band line-up for your ultimate concert, who would you have open, follow and headline? I’m totally not into concerts. If I had to pick–Lady Gaga would open for Adam Ant.
5. What would you say is your favourite book outside of your preferred genres? I hate to say it, but I loooove Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I just love it.
6. If you had to sit through the goriest of horror movies of the sappiest of chick-flicks, which would you pick? Gory horror films actually bore me. Probably the goriest film I’ve seen that I enjoyed was John Carpenter’s “The Thing”. My fav Chick’s Flick must be Moulin Rouge by Baz Luhrmann. I actually named the planet Bazz after him.
7. Kirk or Picard? Kirk. Picard’s a $%^^&
8. What is your favourite board game? Talisman by Game’s Workshop. I have all the expansions and they’re worth a fair amount of money these days.
9. If you had your choice, quiet night at home or rowdy night out? Home. I’m not much a of Bar-Guy.
10. What are the top three colours in your wardrobe? Blue, green and white.
11. Have you ever read anything you were expecting to dislike but to your surprise you loved it? Not that I can think of. If I think I’m not going to like something, I pretty much always don’t.
Now comes the hard part–I’m supposed to forward this to 11 more bloggers. Problem is, Chantal knows pretty much the same list of bloggers that I do. I can’t think of 11 more to send to.
Ah me…
2012 in review
December 30, 2012
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 6,100 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 10 years to get that many views.
Carahil’s Busy Morning
December 3, 2012
As the LoE Universe has expanded, Carahil has become one of my more popular characters. Smiling and affable, his pure soul and innocent spirit just tends to make people happy.
Carahil and his family, by Felipe Montecinos
I did a show in Cleveland last year. A question that kept coming up: “Do you have anything for kids?” Of course, the answer to that question was a resounding “NO!” As the rest of the day progressed I thought about it and, slowly, ideas entered my head.
A children’s story?
Should such a thing exist, the clear candidate for such a story immediately presented himself: Carahil, as he is basically a big kid himself. I had written in a small sub-story in the Temple Trilogy about Carahil, that he had taken up with Mabsornath, the Cat Goddess , and that Mabs was pregnant. I decided to develop Carahil and Mabs’ children, coming up with seven of them. In a sort of Lady and the Tramp, moment, all of their sons are seal-type creatures and all of their daughters are cats, except for one: Atha. I saw Atha in my head as the youngest of the group and the most chaotic. Of all of them she is the only one who prefers to appear as a goggle-wearing human child instead of in their usual animal shapes. In the novels, Atha is a seductive, rather unpredictable siren, for the children’s book, she is simply an innocent, precocious kid who, unlike her brothers and sisters, isn’t afraid to make use of her goddess-like power.
For the first book, Carahil’s Busy Morning, Chilean artist Felipe Montecinos will be doing the drawing. It should be ready by June, 2013
copyright 2012, Ren Garcia
ATD: Book VII Cover Completed
December 1, 2012
It’s always a great event when the cover to a new book is completed. Its like Christmas.
“Against the Druries” by Carol Phillips
Ahh, so much to do.
Book VII, Against the Druries is the epic conclusion to the Belmont Saga begun in Book VI. There’s a lot of exciting things going on in the book and deciding on a subject for the cover was difficult–there was so much to choose from. In a departure from previous LoE books, we decided to go with a scene that doesn’t include the main characters of the story: Paymaster Stenstrom, Lord A-Ram and Private Taara. We thought this particular scene had a lot of cool things going on and the Beta Readers developed a strong liking for the Pilgrims of Merian that are depicted. This cover also has the least amount of Nixies of all the books so far.
Look for LoE Book VII: Against the Druries January 2013
Copyright 2012, Ren Garcia and Carol Phillips
ATD Characters: Morgan-Jeterix
November 9, 2012
“Morgan Jeterix” by Eve Ventrue
She is a lady of the House of Thompson, a family of Hala stock. Being a Hala, her family were well-known farmers owning vast tracts of fertile land in the central Hala-lands about three hundred miles east of the Killbane River. The Thompsons are publicly acknowledged and certified by the Sisterhood of Light as being Empathic. As such, all Thompsons are registered and painted with a 4-D tattoo marking them as empaths that only the Sisters can see. Among the House’s various empathic talents is the ability to see through complex illusions.
Morgan was the twelfth of fifteen Thompson children. She is typically of sturdy build with tanned, swarthy skin and burnished blonde hair that she most-often wears braided. When she was thirteen, a fire broke out in the Thompson manor which eventually burned the structure to the ground. Morgan was rescued and carried to safety by her father, though he suffered terrible burns in the process. Seeing her father suffering from his wounds, Morgan decided to join the Grand Order of Hospitalers and become a healer.
Morgan Jeterix in her Hospitaler uniform (painting by Eve Ventrue)
After nearly being killed in the fire as a girl, Morgan decided that life is precious and was determined to live it by following her heart no matter where it might lead. Her behavior afterwards was shocking by conservative Hala standards, earning her the epithet “Jeterix” which means Unmarried and Unprincipled in Hala. The “Jeterix” tag was normally a mark of shame for a woman in Hala society, but Morgan wore it with pride, officially adding it to her name. Morgan was well-known for her steamy and rather messy love affairs. She was constantly beginning a new relationship and ending an old one: her brief love affair with fellow Hospitaler and ex-Black Hat Bethrael of Moane was an A-List scandal in the city of Bern. Morgan did not confine herself to class, age, station or gender–any who caught her eye was a potential lover. Morgan was seductive and charming, and she had secretly learned the art of Xaphan Tropism (the art of inducing a sexual climax using minimal touches on non-erogenous parts of the body such as the wrists). Her touch was said to be “electric”.
Morgan would eventually teach Private Taara how to fight like a Hospitaler and the secrets of Xaphan Tropism (painting by Fantasio)
When Morgan met Paymaster Stenstrom and his friends Private Taara and Lord A-Ram, that’s when things really got interesting.
copyright 2012, Ren Garcia, Fantasio and Eve Ventrue
World’s Worst Blurbist, Part III
October 19, 2012
Time to come up with the back cover Blurb for LoE Book VII: Against the Druries. Blurbing is without a doubt the thing I dislike most during the cover creation process–I’m not very good at being brief, I guess. Anyway, here it is. I added the text to the amazing painting of Lady Alesta by Kayla Woodside because I currently don’t have a paint wash of the Book VII cover yet. Carol Phillips is going to start painting it this weekend, she said.
Sorry if the text is a little small–just expand the pic and it reads just fine.
Copyright 2012, Ren Garcia and Kayla Woodside.
TOTSE: The Pilgrims of Merian
September 2, 2012
Sketch of the cover to LoE Book VII “Against the Druries” featuring a Merian ship attempting to rescue the wreck of the Demophalon John (Carol Phillips)
The chief tenet of their teachings is that the Elders of Old are not gone, only relocated. They believe in the Star of Merian, the astral presence of the Elder Merian thought to be long dead. They say those with clear sight can see the Star of Merian as a great yellow star, easily visible in broad daylight, and that it is wreathed in a twisting red cloud. A prerequisite to joining the order is to be able to see the star.
The Merians travel the countryside by way of floatwagons covered with tarpaulins. They have no known permanent headquarters and make a meager living selling hand-made trinkets and cloth and performing calligraphy (see below). When asked where they come from, the Merians always say “Westwood“, though such a place has never been located. Occasionally, the Merians will stop and settle in one place for a year or two. They often ask the local Lord or Lady permission to settle, and, when granted, build a temporary village called a Hermitage. The estate of Belmont-South Tyrol resides on the grounds of an old Merian Heritage. Though they are impoverished in the extreme, those who enter a Merian Hermitage are welcome to share in anything they have.
“Lady Alesta of Dare and Pilgrim of Merian” by Eve Ventrue
Though threadbare and impoverished, it is said in some quarters that the Merians are much more capable and advanced than they let on. Some say that their belts allow them to pass unseen if they wish, and their beaded necklaces shield the wearer’s mind from attacks and illusion. There is also the various tales that the Merians may travel virtually anywhere they wish at the blink on an eye via an arcane bridge called The Merian’s Road. Xaphan Traders often tell tales of selfless, green-robed people who walk into peril to rescue those in need and that they travel by way of a “Road” wreathed in fog.
Such tales have never been verified and the Merians themselves never speak of such things.
copyright 2012, Ren Garcia, Eve Ventrue and Carol Phillips.
Book VI Around the Corner
July 25, 2012
LoE Book VI, The Sands of the Solar Empire, is finally just around the corner in time for the summer convention season. I should have it in my hand in time for Gencon in August. We will also be doing a few free giveaways on Kindle Select, something I’ve not tried before.
Now that the Book is nearly ready, the hard part comes: Marketing. Writing a book is easy, marketing it is hard, and it never ends.We’re going to try a few new avenue this time to get the word out. Most of my past sales are direct POS–conventions, shows, flea markets and other such places where I can set my table up and place my fanny. Of course, we’re going to do the standard Facebook/twitter rounds, and I might even try diving into avenues such as Smashwords. One avenue, though a little expensive, is Publisher’s Weekly. We’re thinking about doing a mass ad from Loconeal advertising a number of upcoming titles.
Oh …. this is so complicated and tiring. I just wanna’ write the books, somebody else do this!!
Sands of the Solar Empire from be out August 2012 from Loconeal Publishing.
Bowl Naked
RG
copyright 2012, Ren Garcia
This is a post from last year, though it’s one of my favorite postings. I still pursue the Gray Note with greater or lesser success.
Perhaps you’ll understand what I’m about to share with you, and perhaps you won’t.
I often seek something I call The Gray Note. What is it?? It’s a sound that, when you hear, it takes you away, time forgotten, and your mind begins working at an incredible pace and in a rare harmony. My mentor at Ohio State told me about the existence of the Gray Note–that it was something he experienced once years before and had sought it out ever since. You never simply hear the Gray Note, it pulls you inside, like the embrace of an ancestor, and once you’re there conception is unbound and you’ve access to places in your own imagination never visited before–places you didn’t know existed. It’s like unlocking a hidden floor in a department store, full of treasures, where the public normally isn’t permitted to see.
I encountered it once on the Roebling…
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The Fiend of Calvert
July 9, 2012
The mass murderer and psychopath who came to be known as the Fiend of Calvert terrorized the southern portion of Kana for well over thirty years. The Calvertlands of Kana have always been considered the lowest and meanest on the planet and the specter of a mad killer loose amid the crooked streets and seedy wharves wasn’t surprising to both the Sisterhood of Light and the League Ex-Commons–why they assumed such things were common in Calvert.
Map of the Calvert region of Kana
Coming of the Fiend
The murders began quietly enough, with various stumblebums and drunken sailors falling victim to the killer, sometimes out in the alleys and docks, sometimes in their modest rented rooms. The usual method of death: strangulation. The occasional death of a bum or sailor wasn’t unheard of in Calvert and not much attention was paid. But then more and more sailors and bums turned up dead, turned up missing. The Night of Unheard Cries in the city of St. Edmunds officially began the hysteria when ten sailors were found strangled to death in various sections of the city. The posts proclaimed: A Fiend Walks The Streets Of Calvert. The faceless killer now had a name.
There were plenty of clues to follow and it was assumed a simple genetic scan would bring the killer’s reign to a swift end. But, while the Fiend left a tantalizing abundance of clues: bits of cloth, shoe prints, partial fingerprints, his genetics were never found, not once in over a hundred murders. Another aspect of the Fiend’s work: he never harmed a single woman in thirty years, only men.
Lord Plaid, one of the Fiend’s more well-known victims
The Spirit of Calvert Dies
When the investigators from Calvert found the case too daunting, they brought in Gifted investigators from the west and the North, from Remnath and Vithland. Even they, however, could not stem the growing tide of death and mayhem and one of them, Lord Plaid, fell victim to the Fiend himself, found strangled to death in his room.
A result of all this was a pronounced change in Calvert. The locals began locking their doors at night, they began walking the streets with eyes down-cast and refusing a strangers’ needs. The greatest victim of the Fiend of Calvert was the spirit of the region itself.
The Mad Lord of Walther eventually put an end to the Fiend’s reign of terror
The City of the Dead
With the Mad Lord’s help, the rate of murders in Calvert plummeted. His presence appeared to hinder the Fiend and kept him in check in the final five years of his reign. The Mad Lord eventually made a key discovery. He located a vault near the Ruins of Woodward where a great many men from Calvert, assumed to be victims of the Fiend, were imprisoned. They seemed to be in a trance of some sort from which they could not be roused, and the posts called the vault the City of the Dead.
Harvesting a trove of clues from the Woodward vault, the Mad Lord successfully engaged the Fiend in St. Edmund’s and defeated him in battle. Wounded, the Fiend fled across the rooftops of St. Edmund’s with the Mad Lord in close pursuit, and he was not seen again.
And so passed the Fiend of Calvert.
Grand Dame Miranda of Rosel is a noted historian on the Fiend of Calvert
The Mad Lord, the man who stopped the Fiend, often wrote about him in his memoirs. The Mad Lord was always known to spin a good tale and his claims regarding the Fiend were particularly spectacular. He claimed that he saw the Fiend not as a man, but as a powerful woman dressed in gray.
None took the Mad Lord too seriously.
See the Fiend of Calvert in LoE Book VI: the Sands of the Solar Empire, coming July 2012
copyright 2012, Ren Garcia and Carol Phillips
The Temple of the Exploding Head 