First, on-the-shelf, bookstore sighting of Among the Shadows:
This was at indie bookseller, Leana’s Books. I thought I had something else in the picture, but I guess not: J. C. L. Faltot‘s new The Road to Mars is just visible at the extreme right.
To the first of many booksellers!
Nadine Brandes‘ third book in her dystopian Out of Time series, A Time to Rise is only days from release. If you haven’t been following the tale of Parvin Blackwater, read my reviews of book 1 and book 2. Sorry to see the series conclude, but can’t wait to see how it does end. Available for pre-order now.
Among the Shadows for Kindle now on sale for $2.99!
Among the Shadows is heading out on the show circuit, so I thought I’d throw a little special out there…plus a teaser for Volume 2 is coming soon.
Man is dissatisfied with his life. The never-ending, ever-repeating, events of daily life threaten to kill him with boredom
Then he finds himself on another world, in one peril after another. And nearly always, he encounters a woman that was meant for him and he must fight for her by conquering unimaginable dangers.
This is the classic foundation of the stories perfected by Edgar Rice Burroughs in lost worlds, hidden jungles and on faraway planets. He managed to keep each creation fresh and exciting, as did Otis Adelbert Kline who followed in his footsteps. Another is the underrated Lin Carter, who’s creation of Thongor we have already reviewed. Now, travel to a distant world in the Green Star series.
Here a crippled man finds a way to send his soul to a faraway world. There he enters the dead Chong the Mighty, and later Karn the Hunter, taking his place in this tropical world where the races live in towering forests. Soon he encounters Niamh the Fair, a princess, who he quickly falls in love with. However, and this is no surprise, before he can forever be her mate, five books full of death-at-every-turn adventure must be overcome.
Why have such stories, so often derisively called “pulp,” endured for decades? They all have the underlying theme of being fed-up with conformity, the status quo and what society has decided life should be like. Sure, they are often told from the perspectives of men, but the women they meet are not fragile flowers.
The desire to be better, to find one’s purpose, is a call that never goes quiet. These are tales of earthlings finding and doing what their own world won’t allow. As I have written before:
Read to be entertained. Read to get lost. Read to be inspired.
At this point, I have changed the synopsis for my novel Among the Shadows numerous times. Not to mention that there are different versions on various sites. Nor was I happy with the current one. I didn’t want to give away too much detail, but maybe it didn’t hint at the elements of the story enough: The contemporary time setting, a little more on two of the central characters and time travel (cool, right?). The premise of myth and legend not being so mythical is still there, as it is a core theme. So, at any rate, here is the latest iteration (and probably not the last):
Ethan and Milena Dietrich are two of the rare ones among us, gifted in using their supernatural self — their soul — to reach through the veil. After years of rooting out evil around the world, they attempt to live a normal life, all the while realizing they are meant for more. Their part in the Story is unfinished.
Now, what was locked in shadow stirs, and where darkness has laid dormant, evil awakes.
Once, when the world was new, the Fallen battled the Light for control over humankind. Civilization was left in flames, the Scourges turned back by the Watchers in the last hour. The Darkness, though, was not defeated. Malice not seen since ancient times, far worse than anything on the evening news, is preparing for a new Scourge across the Earth.
They seek lost relics that surge with power. Nightmarish creatures thought only to be myth and legend will leave the shadows once more. The Dark One’s Followers will travel through time and history, obtaining all they need to propel mankind into collapse and ruin.
There is one problem with their plan. Watchers like Ethan and Milena are not afraid to bring the Light to dark places. Nor are they alone.
A war of the worst sort that could end the age of man is about to begin.
Ray Bardbury’s classic dystopian tale, Fahrenheit 451, is well known as a cautionary tale on censorship and the suppressing of knowledge. It is not his only warning on this danger. In The Martian Chronicles, in the chapter “April 2005 – Usher II,” this scene unfolds:
How could I expect you to know blessed Mr. Poe? …All of his books were burned in the Great Fire…He and Lovecraft and Hawthorne and Ambrose Bierce and all the tales of terror and fantasy and horror and, for that matter, tales of the future were burned. They passed a law. Oh, it started very small…[like] a grain of sand. They began by controlling books of cartoons and then detective books and, of course, films, one way or another, one group or another…there was always a minority afraid of something, and a great majority afraid of the dark, afraid of the future, afraid of the past, afraid of the present, afraid of themselves and shadows of themselves.
These warnings, I think, must be taken seriously. Even now, I read of censorship on certain websites, politicians who openly call for suppression of certain views and venues, repeated attempts to control the internet. People who don’t think the suppression of their rights can occur in our age, need to wake up and listen to what Bradbury wrote decades ago.
It all can begin small. Like a grain of sand.
I have occasionally examined the appeal of speculative fiction such as sci-fi and fantasy. Here is what astronomer Fred Hoyle, in the Introduction to the 1963 edition of Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, wrote on the subject:
…the potentiality for the highest form of writing lies also in science fiction…When most men had little chance to travel, distant lands on Earth still gave a setting for stories that could be exotic, mysterious and exciting. Nowadays our lives resemble one another perhaps too much…Man as a person has never materially had it so good. Yet the technical world that makes us affluent also holds us captive. Our existence is ruled by the clocks, whose ticks subdivide the days into dull monotony. We revolt against this pattern of existence. The storyteller is here, and those who listen escape to new horizons.
So now, 53 years later, has our captivity decreased, or exponentially multiplied?
Fiction reminds us to wake up before it’s too late.
Darrick Dean 