A New Black Raven Story is Out

I’m please to announce that a new Black Raven adventure has been released. The Vault of Sowdek is available at Heroic Fantasy Quarterly.

Miguel Santos illustrated it with this image, and it’s always a treat to see what an artist creates with my descriptions. Not only does it help me know how other people see the scenes, meaning how well I described them, but it’s also cool to finally get to see these scenes and characters for myself, instead of just in my head.

I do have some more Black Raven adventures planned, namely concerning some of what transpired in this adventure. But in the meantime, enjoy the Vault of Sowdek.

 

Read it HERE.

Black Raven Flies Again

Now that my 90-day separation with my old publisher has completed, I’m very pleased to announce that Tales of the Black Raven has been re-edited and released by Crossroad Press.

 

A huge thank you to David Wilson and David Dodd for all their support and help in bringing my little Sword & Sorcery adventures back to the public.

You can find the new Kindle editions here:

Mountain of Daggers – Book 1 (11 stories)

Sea of Quills – Book 2 (9 stories)

New paperbacks will soon follow.

As for my Valducan series, those will be returning again soon after a re-edit.  Stay tuned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Publishing Announcement: Valducan and Black Raven Return

I’m very excited to announce that Crossroad Press has picked up my Valducan Series and Tales of the Black Raven.

Currently, I’m finishing up the remainder of my 90-day separation from my previous publisher, which means ebooks aren’t available and they are still selling off the remaining inventory of printed books. Audio is still available. Crossroad Press will be running the titles through a fresh round of edits and then putting them back out there for readers to enjoy.

Future Valducan and Black Raven titles will be published through Crossroads as well.

Established in 2009, Crossroad’s authors include Clive Barker, Joe Lansdale, C.T. Phipps, and even the Stargate novels. I’m extremely honored to be among them.

Re-release dates are not set yet. We still have a month left before we can even release, but it should be soon.

Thank you, everyone. I look forward to getting them back out there.

 

Publishing Announcement: Redemptor is coming

For those of you wondering when you can get your hands on REDEMPTOR (Valducan #4), prepare your ear holes.  Audible Original Publishing has signed Redemptor for release. AOP will release the novel as a 6-month audio exclusive. After that, it will become available in print and ebook editions.

Release date is still unknown (we just signed it, so there’s still editing, recording, editing the recording, and a bunch of other steps somewhere in the middle). But it will happen. No idea yet if R.C. Bray will narrate it, as he has the other Valducan novels. I hope his schedule allows for it. I’ll post more as I learn more.

Now, as for paper and ebook editions of Redemptor and the rest of my Valducan and Black Raven books, which will no longer be carried by my former publisher, I have a second announcement coming soon.  We just need to make sure all the final steps are in place, but they have found a home. More to come.

 

Nine Facts About Sea of Quills

Sea of Quills RagnarokOne year ago, my second Black Raven collection Sea of Quills hit the shelves.  So in keeping with the tradition with Eleven Facts about Mountain of Daggers, I want to celebrate with a few bits of trivia about Ahren’s second collection. And being that there are nine stories, it deserves nine fun facts.

**Spoilers Below**

1:  Unlike most of the adventures that were written as stand-alones to be released one at a time, the first story, Temptation’s Proposal, was written specifically to be the opening for the second collection. It mirrors Birth of the Black Raven by taking place at a party, and offers a wide range of Ahren’s skills. It is my favorite story in Sea of Quills.

2:  Washed Ashore, The Gilded Noose, and The Raven’s Cage were originally intended to appear in Mountain of Daggers.  It was decided to split them off in order to release both collections back to back at 70,000 words each.

3:  Despite Ahren’s reputation as an assassin, The Blossom of Eternity is the only story where Ahren works as a willing assassin “on screen.”  It was originally requested and written for an assassin-themed anthology, but the antho never happened. The original version had Ahren make one additional attempt on the immortal Baron’s life by murdering him in his bedroom, but the story was beginning to feel too long, so we cut that scene to keep the plot moving.

4:  Both Washed Ashore and Treasure of Bogen Helm were inspired by a sailing trip I did through the Caribbean some years ago.  The island in Treasure of Bogen Helm was modeled after a small island we stopped at that was once covered with wild goats.

5:  The Gilded Noose was inspired by the story of how Michelangelo was conscripted into service by the popes. While Michelangelo’s circumstances were vastly different, I fell in love with the idea of a master artist forced against his will.Prison Hall

6:  The Raven’s Cage was inspired by the prison at the Doge’s Palace in Venice, most notably the graffiti and the passage window looking into Ahren’s cell. It was also my little nod to The Count of Monte Cristo, one of my favorite books. It was the fourth Black Raven story I ever wrote, penned in 2007.

7:  The Second Gift was a story requested for the Time in a Bottle anthology.  It was the first time I ever had an editor contact me to request a story and was a bit of a milestone for me. The stipulation was that it had to be about time.  The pun with using “second” in a story about time was completely unintentional on my part and I hadn’t even thought about it until someone pointed it out to me later.

8:  The Lunnisburg Undercity was inspired by the Seattle Underground. After the Great Seattle Fire, the city was raised, leaving sections hidden below ground. The design of the streets to handle drainage, with raised blocks to allow foot traffic to pass, was taken from the streets of Pompeii.

9:  One of the earliest ideas I had for a Black Raven story was the scene in The Noble Hunter where Ahren steals the jeweled eyes from a public statue, leaving feathers in the empty sockets. The entire story evolved from that specific mental image.

BONUS:  Because many writers ask me about cover art, here is the evolution of Sea of Quills’ cover art from the Rogue Blades Entertainment designs until the final Ragnarok Publications design.  For both, the only requests I had as the author was that Ahren’s face is not clearly visible while the Tyenee pendant is.  

 

 

soq-evolution
Evolution of Dider Normand’s cover concept design

 

Sea of Quills
Final wrap-around cover concept by Dider Normand

 

sea_of_quills_back
Final cover art by Alex Raspad

 

In the next few months I plan to announce Black Raven’s next adventure.  What?  You didn’t think he was done, did you?

If you want to give Ahren a gift for his birthday, please leave him a review on Amazon or Goodreads.

 

Eleven Facts About Mountain of Daggers

Mountain Cover FrontToday marks one year since Mountain of Daggers‘ release.

I’ve written before about the journey it took for it to finally hit print, as well as the various inspirations. But in honor of Black Raven’s birthday, I wanted to share a few bits about my roguish hero. And because there are eleven stories, I figure I should give eleven fun facts.

***Spoiler Warning***

1:  The first story, Birth of the Black Raven, was meant as a stand-alone with an open ending.  I’d never intended for it to have any sequels.  I nearly changed it to a flashback story where at the end a much older Ahren is recounting the tale to a new initiate into the Tyenee.  Thankfully, I decided against it.

2:  While most fantasy thieves are usually depicted in a cloak, Ahren always wears a wide-brimmed hat. I chose the hat because that’s what seemed the most practical for a sailor to wear. (Despite the cool appearance, cloaks murder peripheral vision.)

3:  A news article about diamond smugglers loading their goods into hollow crossbow bolts and firing them outside the perimeter of diamond mines to retrieve later is what inspired The Reluctant Assassin.

4:  Because the first story lacks any magic or fantastical elements, I wrote the The Porvov Switch to bring in demons, magic, and introduce Delakurn’s only obvious non-human race, quellens.

5:  The Ferrymaster’s Toll was originally slated to appear in Flashing Swords #13 as the featured story.  The magazine folded before it hit print. flashswordscovermockup13

6:  Originally, Mountain of Daggers was 14 stories and over 90,000 words.  When Rogue Blades wished to publish it, I was asked to cut that down to 60,000 words, add some newer stories I had already written, and release it as two 60,000-word collections. Three stories were cut and moved to Sea of Quills. Washed Ashore was originally set after Reluctant Assassin. The Gilded Noose was to take place after Darclyian Circus. The Raven’s Cage was the original closing story.

7:  The Seventh General came about after I had a new boss that immediately began pushing me out of a former job. It was also the last story written for the first collection.

8:  Dolch is inspired by the repeat villain Murdoc on MacGyver.

9:  While Ahren has a reputation as an assassin, he never actually murders anyone “on screen.” The people he’s shown killing are always armed and actively posing a threat to him or to his companions.  This was an intentional throwback to the old pulp heroes.  In The Ferrymaster’s Toll he does commit murder, but the reader only sees the bodies after the fact. He’s also shown murdering the unarmed villain in The Reluctant Assassin, but that guy was a dick and totally deserved it. 

10: Race for the Night Ruby was the second Black Raven adventure I wrote.  It’s also my favorite in the first collection.

11:  The Tyenee symbol is described as a mountain of upturned daggers.  I had no idea how that actually looked when I wrote it, but thought that it sounded cool.  When artist Dider Normand was commissioned to create the original cover art, we had to figure out what the symbol actually looked like.  It took several rounds before we had the final look.

BR - Concept MedallionsBR - Mountain Rough

Original concept sketches

Mountain Cover 1st Dr

Final Design

 Tyenee500pxGray

Actual medallion made by Campaign Coins
And you can buy one at my Store!

So there you have it. If you’d like to give Ahren a birthday present, he’s always happy to have a review or rating on Goodreads or on Amazon.

-Seth

 

 

2015 in Review

2015

This year has been incredible. In the 10 years since my first sale, 2015 was the first time I openly referred to myself as an author. Before that, it felt sort of weird, like I was some wanna-be pretending I was something that I wasn’t.  Even after Dämoren released in 2014, I was apprehensive about throwing that title out because I remembered some opinion piece that said to be called an author, one must have two published book.  It’s silly, I know, but I was never able to really put my chin up high, walk up to a total stranger and say, “I’m an author,” until this year.

Hounacier was released in March with a wonderful reception. I’d been very nervous about it because it was so drastically different than Dämoren. But for the most part, readers have loved the sequel.

After years of close calls and false starts, the Black Raven made his literary return with Mountain of Daggers in March and Sea of Quills in September.  Reception has been mixed, but most readers appear to enjoy it.  We always knew it was going to be a niche-market, but Black Raven is my baby.  They’re my popcorn adventure fiction and I couldn’t be more proud to have him out there.

RC. BrayDämoren was an Audie Finalist for Best Paranormal Audiobook.  It was my first major award nomination and while we lost to M.R. Carey’s The Girl With All the Gifts, I’m honored that my little debut got to rub elbows with so many great works. I got to go to my first award ceremony and meet R.C. Bray in person.  He’s now narrated four of my books, and I’m terribly proud to get to work with a narrator of his caliber, and he’s also a great guy, which makes it even better.

My first anthology release in five years happened with The Serpent’s Army.  I have two more coming in 2016.TCC

I gave my first Guest Author presentation at All-Con 2015, soon followed by FenCon 2015 and the TCC Library.  Evidently those went very well because I was contacted by the DFW Witers Conference and asked to come speak as a Guest Author for 2016.  It’s a huge honor. The last time I attended the conference I was an unpublished author desperate to sell Dämoren. 

I enjoyed many great books this year. In fact, I read more in 2015 than in any other year.  My favorites include:

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. I loved this series so much that I have a blog about it.

The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey. After losing the Audie to it, I had to check it out.  Great book.  It’s also the only book told in Present Tense that I didn’t find distracting or awkward. 

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Fantastic and fun book. The audiobook was read by Wil Wheaton, who not only gave a perfect performance, but was beautifully appropriate as the narrator of the greatest nerd-culture book I’ve ever found.

The Martian by Andy Weir.  Absolutely lived up to the hype.  And while my opinion of R.C. Bray might seem biased, believe me when I say that he absolutely killed it with this performance. Awesome audio book.

The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris.  I listened to the audiobook read by the late, great Frank Muller.  Muller was hands-down my favorite narrator ever and I picked this book up just as much for him as I did in my interest in the novel itself.  As someone who has seen the movie-version uncounted times, I was amazed to see how wonderful the source material was.  Highly recommend it.

In addition to book releases and a ton of reading, I wrote Ibenus.  While we’ll have a lot of editing and polishing to do, it feels so good to finally have that story out of my head.

With one novel release, two short story releases (and a likely third that I’m just waiting on the contract for), and Ragnarok’s recent distribution deal, 2016 is poised to be another great year.

Thank you, everyone, for you support.  May you all have a healthy and prosperous New Year.

 

Sea of Quills is on Audible

 SOQ AudibleAudiobook lovers can now find Sea of Quills on Audible, narrated by R.C. Bray.  While I haven’t finished my initial listen (I’m halfway through City Beneath the Kaisers right now), I can safely say that R.C. has done another fantastic job bringing Ahren to life.  It’s been ten years since I penned my first Black Raven adventure and I’m very happy to finally have both books fully out.

In other news, I’ve finished the first draft of Ibenus and am making a few final edits before sending it off to Ragnarok for approval.  I hope to have it in their hands by Christmas.  For those asking what Ibenus is about, here’s a little about it:

After surviving a demon attack, disgraced police detective Victoria Martin tracks down the Valducans in search for answers. Recognizing her potential, and despite the warnings of the other knights, Allan Havlock, protector of Ibenus, takes her in as his apprentice.

As the Valducans travel to Paris to destroy a demon nest infesting the catacombs, the knights find themselves hunted by an Internet group intent on exposing them. Victoria, who belongs this group, must desperately play both sides to not only protect herself, but Allan whom she has begun to love. Ibenus, however, has other plans.

Currently, it’s the longest of the Valducan Series so far, beating Dämoren by about 4,000 words.  Aside from Allan and Ibenus, we will also get to see Luc, Schmidt, Sam, Orlovski, Luiza, and other characters from the first two novels.  We’ll also meet a few new hunters as the Order has been replenishing their ranks after the events in Dämoren.  There’s a lot I’m excited about, but even on the fastest foreseeable timeline, it’ll be many months before Ibenus would release, so I’ll share more the closer we get to then.

In the meantime, please enjoy Sea of Quills.

 

 

Sea of Quills is Out

Sea of Quills RagnarokOnce again, a lunar eclipse had heralded a book release. My second Black Raven collection, Sea of Quills is out on Kindle today. Other formats, including Audible, will be available shortly. Needless to say, I’m very excited. I want to thank Tim Marquitz, Joe Martin, and Jason Waltz for making this happen.

In honor of the release, I have a guest Blog over at The Quillery, discussing why we love fictional thieves. I also have an interview over at Galleywampus where I discuss Black Raven as well as some info about Ibenus (Valducan #3)

My long-time friend, Clay Sanger from Blackguards, has been running a series of posts leading up to to today where he recounts the years spent waiting for this, and give some fun accounts of things like Dämoren, Hounacier, Mountain of Daggers, and just some adventures we’ve had since we first met staffing a massive paintball game. You can read about it all here.

There are a few more guest blogs that will be coming out over the next few days, so I’ll post those up as they happen. You’ll also be able to find them all at my Interviews and Guest Blogs page.

So in honor of Sea of Quills’ big day, I want to give a little trivia about each of the stories included. Some of which I’ve said before, but most I haven’t.

1: Temptation’s Proposal – Unlike many of the other stories in this collection and most of those in Mountain of Daggers, Temptations’ Proposal was never intended to be published in a magazine or anthology as a stand-alone. It was written with the sole purpose of being the first story in the second collection.  I wanted a bit of symmetry with Mountain of Daggers by having both collections begin at a party.  I also wanted to show a little of everything that Ahren could do.

2: Washed Ashore – This story was originally slated for Mountain of Daggers, set between the Reluctant Assassin and Race for the Night Ruby.  The idea for it came when my wife and I spent a week sailing the Caribbean and I was watching the surf pound a jagged rock.  I imagined Ahren bleeding and trying to climb up the face, and rest of the story just grew from there.

3: Treasure of Bogen Helm – As with many stories, Treasure of Bogen Helm was several unrelated story ideas that came together.  Among them, was on that same Caribbean trip, we stopped and explored this desert island that once held a massive wild goat population. Mixing that with a cave I saw on another island, and a really cool documentary on cephlalopods, I had a story.

Caribbean Cruise 024

4: City Beneath the Kaisers – Again, many small ideas came together to form this tale.  The two most notable came from the Seattle Underground as well as this lone tower that I saw in Florence that was erected in the middle of a street.  

Tower

5: The Noble Hunter – I wrote this simultaneously with City Beneath the Kaisers, so they have many of the same themes and inspirations. The biggest difference is that I wanted Ahren to steal the jeweled eyes from a statue erected in a public square.  That idea came from the the bronze Triumphal Quadriga in Venice that once had ruby eyes. 

6: The Blossom of Eternity – I was asked to write this for an assassins anthology. While I’d referred to Ahren as being an assassin before, I’d never actually shown him commit outright murder.  Once I had come up with the story, the original version clocked in at about 12,000 words.  It was way too long and dragged at parts, so we made some surgical edits. Sadly, the anthology fell through before it was printed.

7:  The Second Gift – I was asked to write this story for the Time in a Bottle Anthology and it was the first time I was approached to submit for a project. As you might guess from the title, the theme was time.  I’d originally envisioned it being much longer, but once it was done, it ended up being one of the shortest Black Raven adventures.

8:  The Gilded Noose – The inspiration for enslaved artist came when I learned how Michelangelo was forced to work for the church. This story was originally slated for Mountain of Daggers, taking place between Darclyian Circus and Born of Darkness.  When we split and reorganized the tales between two volumes instead of one huge one, I was very disappointed since I’ve always liked it. I’m very happy to see it out now.

9:  The Raven’s Cage – The story came about after I toured the prison at the Doge’s Palace in Venice.  In fact, it was the fifth Black Raven story to be written.  Originally it was going to serve as the end for Mountain of Daggers, but with the shuffle, I decided that I’d rather end Sea of Quills with it.

Prison Hall

 

I hope you all enjoy Sea of Quills, and found these little bits of trivia as much fun as I had recounting them.

-Seth

 

Mountain of Daggers is on Audible

Audible MODMountain of Daggers is now available on Audible, narrated by R.C. Bray. Once again, R.C. has done a fantastic job.

I’ve said before how scary, yet exciting, it is to hear your story for the first time. Ahren has been with me for a long while, and getting to not only hear his voice, but also Volker, Polncoh, and all the others, is simply amazing.  I hope everyone enjoys his adventures.

While listening the the first story, “Birth of the Black Raven”, I started wondering how long ago it was that I first came up with him.  Ahren was originally supposed to be the hero of a single stand-alone tale with no intention of becoming a pulp serial.  I checked an Old Drafts folder on my computer and found the original rough draft (at the time titled “The Black Raven’s Revenge”) that was written in August 2005.

Ten years.

Raven 2005

If anyone had told me then that one day that little short story was going to spawn a series, and that it would be narrated by an award-winning voice actor, I wouldn’t have believed it.   Funny how plans change, isn’t it?

Speaking of series, we’ve completed edits on Book II, Sea of Quills, and everything looks to be in order for its release this fall.  Audible will also be releasing the audio version, though I don’t know yet when that will be.  In the meantime, I’m still plugging away at Ibenus, and once some things settle down I promise I’ll be posting some more blogs about important topics like Conan Movies and other fun stuff.

-Seth