Back to the Chateau

 

 I started off the weekend by traveling across the state. I knew I would get hungry along the way, and refuse to compromise when it comes to nutrition. I walked out of the gas station with the priceless gems pictured below. Actually, they were priced at a little over five dollars -- which I thought was a good deal when compared with the package of six of these beauties for which they were asking almost three dollars.

 

 

Of course, I already had a bottle of pop in the car to keep myself properly hydrated. The traffic got worse as the day wore on, but I completed the journey without notable incident. Mowing and replacing a check valve broke the monotony of packing stuff. Fortunately, a good friend was able to give me a hand with one of those tasks. 

I did get two welcome breaks. First, Les Freres Corses came to pick up the feline from which Le Chateau au Chat Gris derives its nomenclature--our place in Byzantium isn't appropriate for her wild nature--and we stopped by the local shake shop for shakes and fries. The second distraction came in the form of a football game that I had to watch as I was too exhausted to do anything else. Although not terribly exciting, I found the 69-0 score completely satisfying. It may be the only time I get to watch that team play this year.

After our return to the eastern empire, I was invited for some gaming fun and passed this afternoon playing the rescue at the ruins scenario three times. The green men came away victorious twice, and the red men successfully rescued the princess and slayed the green men once. Unfortunately, the great white ape didn't make an appearance, so we did not get to experience martian red men being clubbed, rent, and flung against the ruins. I also forgot to take any pictures of the event.

 

Nick Nethery

 Interview with Nick Nethery

Author of

Relics of the Fallen

 

Please tell me a little about your new book published by Raconteur Press.

            Relics of the Fallen.  Dan Kelly, an Army bomb technician getting close to retirement, is recruited into a secret unit dealing with highly advanced, dangerous artifacts and devices scattered around Earth by…who?  Aliens?  A human civilization that predated our known history?  We find out as Dan finds out.

            I think of Relics of the Fallen as military science fiction, but it could also be called military fantasy or military thriller.

            I wrote most of it on lunch breaks when I was stationed in the Netherlands working for NATO.  My boss knew I was retiring soon and was gracious enough to let me shut my office door and just write during my lunch hour.  (Thanks, Ralph!)

            You can enjoy it as a standalone book, but I’ve got four more ideated and the next two outlined.  I’m starting on the next book as soon as I’m done with my current project, which will be very soon.

 

Where did you get the idea for this book or series?

            My own career as a bomb technician and my love of science fiction combined to inspire the idea.  I was deeply steeped in ordnance from different countries and was struck by how much they vary.  Logically, a howitzer round or a landmine should look the same no matter who makes it, right?  But no, they’re wildly different.  The Soviets and Chinese don’t care about their soldiers, so their ordnance is made with many fewer safety features.  The Italians, of all people, make the best landmines in the world.  GREAT landmines, just head and shoulders above anyone else.  There are lots of little examples like that.  The wide range of both quality and philosophy of ordnance intrigued me, so I started wondering what ordnance made be an alien race would look like.

I also love “alien archaeology” or “alien artifact” themed fiction like The Fifth Element, the books of Jack McDevitt, The Expanse, Halo, Escape Velocity…I could go on.  Many of those stories inspired me as well.

 

Do you write in more than one genre?

            Yes!  I lean toward SF/F because it’s what I prefer to read, but I’ve written short stories that are westerns, mysteries, and just conventional military thriller.  I’ve had some nonfiction articles in various professional magazines like Proceedings, the in-house magazine for the US Naval Institute, and a couple of other places.  I wrote for Duffel Blog (military satire) for years.  I’m also nearing completion of a fantasy novel.

Tell me about something that you believe makes your writing unique or worthy of attention.

            I try to have a love for my characters, and I hope it shines through.  Almost all my characters are based on or strongly resemble people I’ve been lucky enough to work or serve with over my adult life, or interesting people I grew up around in my crazy little Southern small town.  My hope is that my characters are all rich in their own way, and feel like they’re living their own lives that the reader might only glimpse narrowly.  My favorite games and movies make me believe that we’re only getting a smidgen of the full picture.  I vividly remember playing one of the Fallout games, I can’t remember if it was 3 or New Vegas, but it was night, pitch black, and I came over a ridge and saw muzzle flashes and lasers out in the dark.  I used the scope on my rifle to look at what was going on.  There was a whole huge battle playing out between some Super Mutants on one side and some bandits on the other, and it went on for several minutes.  None of them knew I was there watching them, and I just let them kill each other while I watched.  Once the fight was over, I just wandered off.  It made the world of the game feel so rich, like I was just a tiny part of it.  I love the idea of the world my characters live in just carrying on around and without them.  I want to bring that to my writing.

 

Is there anything about your personal history or personality that manifests strongly in your writing?

            My dark humor and complete lack of seriousness in all situations.  People who take themselves too seriously amuse me, so I enjoy deflating them a little, and gallows humor is great for that.  My characters frequently whistle past the graveyard, because they’re in terrible situations, and what else is there to do but joke?  If you’re in a hopeless situation, you might as well make the people around you laugh one last time.

 

What would be helpful for readers to know about you? Or something that might surprise to know them about you?

            I don’t know about helpful or surprising, but a lot of my writing is drawn not just from my experiences in the military but with my kids.  The older boys and I have a long-running game of Gloomhaven that we’ve had going for a couple of years now (we’re going slowly!), and all of them, once they reach about seven years old, get to play through all the Halo games with me.  Up to Halo 4, that is.  Everything after it isn’t worth it.  It’s one of the great disappointments of my life that first person shooters have started to get away from split-screen co-op.  No explanation justifies this.  Anyway, playing through Halo with Dad has become a sort of rite of passage for the kids.  I’m most of the way through the first Halo with my third, and he’s loving it.  I can’t wait to get to the later ones before 4, like ODST and Reach.

Last year I also got to hike Hadrian’s Wall with my oldest son.  That was truly an experience I will remember for life.  I like the idea of reinforcing for my kids that if you’re tired, or the going gets tough, we still have to march.  We still have to do the job.  I’ve got the knees of a guy forty years older because of my time in the army, but I walked every step of that damn wall, and along the way we got to share some amazing moments together.  I am proud that I demonstrated for my boy that no matter how tired or sore you are, you don’t call a cab or give up.  You keep putting one foot in front of the other.  I also owe a lot to the scoutmaster (we did it with our Boy Scout troop) for lending me one of his hiking sticks.  Pro tip: hiking sticks REALLY help if you have bad knees.

Of course it was a good time that not many people ever get to experience, shared with my oldest boy, but it was also incredibly inspiring to me as an aspiring writer.  We visited an unearthed Mithras temple, six or eight Roman forts and a very large Roman bathhouse, and the scenery was almost always breathtaking.  You can’t beat doing challenging things that you’re not sure you can finish.  It forces you to dig deep and find toughness you didn’t know you had, and it’s inspiring as hell.

 

Excluding your own work, what underrated author or book would you recommend that more people read? Why?

            Wallace Breem was a librarian at a law school library (I think, if I’ve understood his bio correctly) and only wrote a handful of works of fiction, all about the Roman Empire.  One of them was The Legate’s Daughter, a fantastic book about a hopeless mission with little hope of success.  Another is maybe my favorite book of all time, Eagle in the Snow, about the doomed efforts to stop the barbarians from crossing the Rhine in 406, which ended up being the beginning of the end of the Western empire.  Both books are dark without being hopeless, and cynical enough that they remind me that no matter what time or place, a soldier is a soldier.

            I’d recommend Neal Asher here, but he’s already pretty popular, so I’ll just say, his Prador alien species, the crab analogues whose culture is ultra-violent and prizes selfishness and betrayal above all else, are the most terrifying alien species I’ve encountered in fiction.  The Quarn from In Fury Born are great (radial symmetry!), and David Gerrold’s Chtorr species may be scary as well, but the Prador take the cake.

            My favorite writer, though, is Tim Powers.  He specializes in speculative fiction about real historical figures and imagines a supernatural explanation for unexplained things in their lives or gaps in our historical knowledge of their actions.  Powers also does great science fiction, but he truly excels at the historical fantasy stuff.  I wrote a review of his latest, My Brother’s Keeper, for the Raconteur substack.

            I also would recommend some writers we at Raconteur have published this last year, like Fred Phillips, Wally Waltner, and J. Kenton Pierce.  All of them write such good stuff but with a unique voice.  I have loved everything I’ve read from them.  I knew them from short story submissions, and they’re so good at that you won’t believe it, but the novels from all three are just…they’re just so good.  I’m jealous of their creativity and talent.  I’m sitting here as a bomb tech writing a story about a bomb tech, playing small ball, but they’re on the varsity team smacking homers out of the park with incredible rich worldbuilding in fantasy and science fiction.  I’m a little in awe to be in such amazing company.

 

Which of your books do you most highly recommend? Why?

            I only have the one out, so for the moment I recommend Relics of the Fallen!

What would you hope a reader would take away from experiencing that book?

            A wonder about things we are not yet able to understand and explain.  The strong bonds that I’ve only ever seen form quickly and deeply in small units of highly-trained professionals doing important, rewarding work.  Hopefully, some rumination on whether the “magical” artifacts in our own mythologies and folklores are really any different for us than, say, Wifi or the iPhone would be for someone living in 1925.

 

How did you get involved with Raconteur Press?

            The DOD has a program for servicemembers departing the military called Skillbridge.  (The Army calls it CSP, Career Skills Program, but it’s the same thing.)  For a few months before you’re discharged, you still draw your paycheck, but instead of reporting for duty, you work with a private industry partner as an intern.  I approached several publishers to ask about interning with them, but no one seemed that enthusiastic about it when I said I was primarily interested in writing.  My goal was not to be a gopher or a mailroom guy.  I didn’t mind getting my hands dirty—editing, social media, layout, submissions reader, whatever—but I wanted to write as well.  Raconteur was the first publisher which agreed to at least look at what I wrote for possible inclusion in anthologies.

            Not long into the Raconteur internship, some scheduling conflicts arose and an anthology was left without an editor, and I volunteered to take over.  That was Space Marines III, and I’ve done several anthologies since then.  I’ve also learned about editing, putting together a well-sequenced collection, doing layouts for print and eBooks, social media…what am I leaving out?  I’ve learned a lot, and much of it has helped me develop as a writer as well.  One of the best pieces of advice I would give aspiring writers is to edit an anthology.  You gain a ton of knowledge very quickly.  I think it’s made me a much better writer.

You’ve edited some anthologies at Raconteur, do you have a favorite of those?

            I don’t have a favorite, but I have a habit of thinking my “best” one is the one I’ve done most recently.  Each one teaches me something else about pacing, consistency and variety, coordination, or even just engaging with submitting writers.  My next one is Mercs and Mayhem, so ask me after that one is out!

 

 What short stories have you had published?

            Let me see.  Crowdfunded, which I co-wrote with Spearman Burke and which won a short fiction contest sponsored by Proceedings, the Navy’s professional magazine.  Current Affairs, a story about a mermaid for hire.  Several stories in various Raconteur anthologies.  You can find links to all of these on my website, and my nonfiction work as well.

            I can also share here, for the first time, that I’ve got a story in the upcoming Monster Hunter Files volume 2, an anthology set in Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter International universe.  I wrote it with my writing partner, Mike Burke, and I’m pretty proud of it.  Like a lot of my writing, it’s informed by our experiences.  I lived and worked in Stuttgart, so I know the setting a little more than most; and Mike is like a genius at tactical tracking, so he was able to write the tracking scenes really well.  I’m looking forward to seeing it published in March of 2026.  The name of the story is Monsterkommando.  It was a blast to write.  Mike’s about the best writing partner I could ask for, other than his brutal and efficient hatred of double spaces between sentences.  Get over it, Mike!

 

Is there a character in the works of your favorite authors that you would enjoy being, or a place in those works where you would enjoy going?

            I would absolutely love to be an AI or augmented human in Neal Asher’s Polity universe.  The possibilities seem endless to me, in a world where anyone can effectively sidestep the natural aging process and expand his mind to allow much higher thinking.  I’m not sure if his most recent work explores it, because I’ve been so busy I haven’t read the last couple, but after the Prador War in his Polity series, a bunch of the AIs created to fight the war just go off on their own into uncharted space.  They’re effectively immortal, so time isn’t a concern for them, so they just point their ships toward somewhere nobody has ever been, and that’s the last humanity ever hears from them.  What must they be experiencing in the new territory they find?  The potential is almost too much for me to comprehend.  I would love to be one of them, and I hope Asher writes about them someday.

 

With reference to your own works, is there a character or place you particularly like?

            I like the Dungeon, the facility in Relics of the Fallen where the Wormwood organization tests and analyzes the various artifacts that have been recovered from around the world.  It seems like a place that would never be boring and where I could spend years learning and being amazed.

            As far as characters, I like Kat, the wife in Relics.  I like Namura, the novice accompanying the main character in the fantasy book I’m currently writing.  There’s a girlfriend character who is named but whom we have not met (yet) in a couple of short stories I have written about a rural “county wizard,” one of which appeared in the second Wyrd West collection.  The people who motivate my main characters intrigue me sometimes more than the protagonists themselves.  A hero does what he does because he loves someone.  He puts his own mortal body in between danger and the people he loves.  Sometimes those people are no longer with him, just a memory, but he still does what he does from love or affection.  Someone recharges his batteries and gives him a rock to ground himself upon.  That someone is his One Thing he can rely on—and is exponentially more damaging to him if they betray him, seem to lose interest in him, treat him poorly or let him down.  For all these reasons, I find spouses, children and significant others intriguing as characters.

 

What question do you wish you would get asked more often?

            “You want to come housesit at my villa on the Aegean?  Or Ibiza?  Or Malibu?”

 

Do you have a catch-phrase or quote that you like? What is it? And why do you choose it?

            “Fear not, for I am with you.”  From the book of Isaiah.  I wore that on a chain for much of my adult life and prior career.  It reminds me that fear, like despair, is a sin.  No cause is ever truly lost, although your part in it might end.  Even if you don’t have a faith, I think it’s a good sentiment to remember.  Take risks.  Ask for the raise, volunteer for the interesting missions (God knows I did, and had possibly the most interesting career of anyone I know), dye your hair that weird color you’ve been thinking about, wear that loud shirt.  Go chat up that gorgeous girl!  I wish more than anything that I had somebody when I was twelve or so to tell me to stop being shy and just go talk to the girl.

One of the founders of Khan Academy put it a different way: “What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?”  I think that’s a good philosophy.  Take leaps.  Do the scary thing.  Get outside your comfort zone.  For the awkward, introverted nerd I was as a kid, and who still occupies much of my soul, it reminds and encourages me to take risks.

 

Do you have a nickname? How did you get it?

            Just Nick.  Nicholas sounds so formal to me.  I’m not Father Christmas. 

 _________________________

Thanks to Nick for Participating. I walked right into that last one, didn't I? I should've revised that  question.

 I had a weekend traveling, digging, packing, and hauling. Zero stars given. Would not recommend - especially the digging. At least the ground wasn't too hard and the associated repair bears the fruits of apparent success. Also, during the traveling part, I did get to finish listening to The Great American Novel - by which I mean The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The narrator was great. I give it 5 out of 5 stars and do highly recommend. I wish I had time to delve into that book again and share thoughts both profound and goofy. The language and expressions used by Huck really struck me this time; that  alone makes reading the book a delight and deserves its own separate study.

 

Drown Melancholy

 

Drown Melancholy
By STANLEY WHEELER
An old sea shanty, a reminder of a curse, drives a pirate captain to the brink of madness… Can the crew make their final score, or will the curse destroy them all?!
It's in Cirsova issue 24 which you can pre-order now. 

 I taught Sunday School again today. It happens twice a month and I try not to miss it. It's a good gig that provides a lot of satisfaction both in trying to learn enough to be prepared to lead a discussion and then actually discussing the material with the class. Today's material was totally awesome, but rather than try to expound on the awesomeness, elaborate on the mind-expanding connections, and share all the cool stuff I experienced in studying myself and getting insights from others with more expertise than myself, I divided the material into chunks and asked volunteers to talk about something from each chunk that appealed to them. It turned out pretty well. One constant seems to be that great things happen when I'm not talking. 

On the writing front, I'm editing a book for submission. I wrote it a year ago, I think, but it does fit a call for submissions I discovered a while back. I was going to submit it, but I changed my mind, and then, after some months of not thinking about it, I reconsidered. What's to lose by trying? Winston Churchill is credit with saying, "Success consists in going from failure to failure without the loss of enthusiasm." - Or something like that. Almost no one belittles my enthusiasm more than I do, so no one's stopping me but me. I would hate to be barred from success by declaring myself too much of a failure to try. Babe Ruth is credited with saying that whenever he struck out it wasn't a failure, it was an effort toward success. I could turn that to, "What baseball player would simply declare himself out without even taking a turn at bat?" There's the rub. Am I a baseball player? Am I a writer? 

What makes a baseball player? What makes a writer? Playing baseball and writing, respectively, I guess. What makes a successful player or writer? Well, if the player strikes out every time, he's not a successful batter; he could still be great in the field. As for the writer, what is the measure of success, or the lack thereof? Getting published? Making money? Every writer must make his own call on that. However, I do know that every completed story and novel is a victory. If that result of sweat and inspiration finds acceptance by a publisher and readers, maybe it's a home run rather than merely a base hit. When you think about it, a .300 or higher is an excellent batting average. That's only a success rate of about one hit for every three times at bat--if I understand correctly. I don't know what chance there is of getting this novel accepted by this particular publisher, but completing it and submitting it is some measure of success in itself. I can always self-publish it or submit it somewhere else if this up is a strikeout.

On the other hand, wrestling may be a better analogy than baseball. Wrestling almost always provides better lessons than those sports that are bound to a ball. Writers grapple with their subject, struggling to bring finite order and creation to the infinite chaos of the blank page/screen, using tropes and techniques to subdue the opponent: the half-nelson sentence, the double-paragraph take-down, the chapter reversal, and cliff-hanger arm-bar, just to name a few. Sometimes the writer overcomes the chaos on points; sometimes it's a technical fall, or an outright pin; and sometimes the infinite chaos cannot be contained. How does that relate to actually getting a piece published? 

Perhaps we should combine the analogies. Trying to get a story or novel accepted is like walking up to home plate and attempting to get a hit by using your wrestling opponent as a bat. Completing the story is a two-point take-down. Submitting the story is three near-fall points. Getting published is a home run.

 

 

 

Carnival of Fun

 

We had a manifold mission for the weekend that took us to Le Chateau au Chat Gris and to the home of olden days. 99 and I loaded the compact white whale and began our voyage. On our arrival au chateau, we immediately commenced the festivities, beginning with celebratory weed-pulling. We harvested three wagon loads or more of the cursed crop, both getting pricked multiple times by the dried stickers that congregated at the base of the foul flora. On the plus side, we had arrived in time to execute our vile vegetation eviction revelry during the hottest part of the day.

After we had disposed of the verdant corpses, I analyzed the next scheduled event in our carnival of fun. There had been a storm and the old maple tree, exuberantly cavorting like a featured performer in Cirque du Soleil, became apprised of the fact that her limbs were no longer suited for the gymnastics of a sapling and thus broke a hip. The said fracture was over 20 feet off the ground. The limb had not broken cleanly and the old girl refused to release the useless appendage. A dose of pushing, pulling, and shaking failed to convince her to set it free. I was going to have to perform surgery.

 My original estimate placed the fracture higher than my mightiest ladder would reach. Nevertheless, I brought out the ladder and my bow saw. I also tried ascending via the patient's own form, but soon abandoned that course because of the obstacles she placed in my way. Finally, I extended the ladder to its fullest length and 99 and I and raised it to penetrate the protective foliage to discover that it just reached the injured limb. I jammed the ladder beneath the limb and contemplated the wisdom of ascending to perform the surgery. 

Initially, a little voice suggested that it would be extremely unwise to trust my life and health to the slender aluminum projection held aloft only by the friction of its top rung against the branch. I agreed with the little voice because it was the same thing my gut was telling me. I've seen enough videos of people getting hurt in trees to know that once I cut away the damaged part, the limb would rise without the extra weight holding it down. If the limb rose, my ladder would tumble, and down would come baby, cradle and all.

The whole situation annoyed me, so I decided to ignore the little voice. That proved difficult because 99 kept talking, telling me that I couldn't and shouldn't try it. I tried a little binding to silence the voice. It wasn't entirely successful, but I did get the top of the ladder bound to the limb so the aluminum trail-to-the-sky couldn't collapse for lack of support. I also attached a rope to the broken appendage and gave instructions to 99 on how to pull so the branch wouldn't scrape me from the ladder or knock me unconscious as it plummeted from directly over my head.

The plan was pure genius, in a Maxwell Smart or Wiley Coyote sort of way, but actually worked to perfection--surprising wife, me, and the tree. Neither KAOS nor the Road Runner is safe from my keen intellect and sharp saw.

We resumed the carnival of fun the next day, mowing, moving obstacles, and tracking down and removing weeds that had failed to comply with verbal notices to vacate the premises. 

An hour or two after we left for part two of our mission, I remembered that I had forgotten to shut off the sprinkler. Fortunately, I was able to track down a good friend who was suffering from early onset retirement to turn off the water for me.

The second half of the mission went off successfully. It was the second reception for child 5 and was helped immeasurably by the fact that there was ice cream.

 

Writers Cantina 2025

I think I captured the photo above from Jay Barnson's presentation on writing pulp. I attended another presentation he did on monsters from North American myths. I let him know that I was already using some of them in my Tomahawks and Dragon Fire Series. However, I get ahead of myself. Let me back up.

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. It was Writers Cantina time and my third consecutive weekend on the road. Things got interesting when I discovered that the hotel I had booked was not the pleasant place at which I had stayed the two previous years. That could be because I waited so long to make the reservation, not being certain whether I would be able to attend the cantina this year.

There was no signage on the hotel and men in lift worked on a big blank space over the entrance. Once inside, a young man with ties to India greeted me at the counter and assigned me a room on the third floor. It took a couple trips for me to get my stuff to the room and I decided I should send an email to a colleague about a matter we had discussed the day before. Problem. There wasn't any internet.

I went down again to the lobby and the the guy talked about some problem with the internet, but I had my laptop with me and was able to connect there. I headed back to the room, but the information superhighway refused to follow. Back in the lobby, the guy repeated the matter of some problem with the internet reaching the third floor. I suggested that he move me down to the second floor where I could enjoy the pleasant embrace of cyberspace. He said that would take some time and he would have to call someone about the internet issue. I sat down in the lobby and typed out my email and sent it--just before the world wide web terminated its relationship with my computer. 

Fortunately, the web reached back to ensnare me again, and hotel guy gave me a room on the second floor. I moved my stuff down in two trips. I should mention that I did encounter a few other people who were apparently guests at the hotel and even tried to speak with them--one instance being the couple who got off the elevator on the 2nd floor where I was waiting to get on. I noticed that the third floor button was still illuminated and called to them to let them know they were on the wrong floor. The only words they seemed to understand were the numbers two and three, but they did come back and we all rode up to the third floor. At breakfast there were several people who were speaking an Eastern European language, by my best guess. No one except the hotel guy at the desk spoke English to me.

During one trip back to the new room, I noticed that water dripped steadily from a metal box in the hallway ceiling outside my room. I reported that to the desk and he reported it to another guy coming from the pool. Later, I heard some activity outside the room door and I didn't see any more leaking. Also, the room across from mine had the door blocked by a big X of caution tape. 

Later, I learned that the toilet would continue to run after every flush if I didn't remove the tank lid and reach into the water to adjust the flapper. Additionally, the faucet on the bathroom sink would drizzle water back down the faucet and onto the bathroom counter whenever it was in use.

The night before the conference began, some of the presenters and panelists met for dinner. I sat with Lyn Worthen, editor at Camden Press, and Jim Curtis. The later edited the Space Cowboys anthology that contains my short story "Love under a purple Sky." The wings I had weren't great, but the sweet potato fried were pretty good.

I arrived early enough at the conference, where Nate recognized and greeted me, to help carry in comestibles before taking a seat in the lobby where I chatted briefly with Dave Butler. I didn't get to go to any panels or presentations he was on because I was scheduled to be on other panels at the same time. Dave West was there and we conversed, but again, I didn't get to see any of his panels.

I sat on panels about how to handle exposition, what to do about writer's block, and how to make the most of your writing time; I moderated a panel on writing short stories (what with that being almost all I've written during the preceding year).

Several of the Raconteur Press gang were there, including Jonna Hayden, Mike Burke, Rich Cutler, Nick Nethery, Wally Waltner, and others. Nick provided the highlight of the conference for me when he told me how much he enjoyed my Whip and Truth stories in the Wyrd West anthologies he edited. His dad particularly liked the characters. I hadn't been aware that he edited all three of those anthologies. I did not punch Wally, although I told him I should, for rejecting my submission for the Magic Malfunction anthology.

 The other memorable highlight was signing the contract with Raconteur Press for my adventure book for boys and finalizing the title. If all goes as planned, it should come out in November. Jonna assured me that the contract paragraph requiring loss of a digit for missing deadlines in the process was purely for shock effect and only seldom enforced.

 I had the most fun with the panel on making the most of your writing time. At one point, the lady moderating the panel held my paper nameplate in front of my face and told me I was done talking--I wasn't. I think it was during the time I was advising the young male writers on the importance of finding a wife who was devoted to them and their children and who would support them in setting aside undisturbed time for writing that she tried to cut me off. Later, she did tell me that I was fun to work with. I think she was sincere because we did laugh a lot, and I had to agree with her.

I attended some good presentations and panels, but the time spent meeting and visiting informally with other authors was an even better investment of time. I had nice conversations with Herman Hunter, Jared Garrett, and James Totten--among others. The only dark spot on the event was that I didn't get invited to a dinner or gaming session at the conclusion of the conference. Maybe I'm not as fun as I think.

 

 

Fred Phillips

 Interview with Fred Phillips

Author of

The Gold and Fire Series and more

Please tell me a little about your current work in progress.

I have two projects that I hope to get across the finish line before the end of the year. One is the second book in the "Gold and Fire" series, which will be launching with "Dreams of Gold and Fire" from Raconteur Press on July 30. I think I have the title for the sequel in my head, but I'm not quite ready to commit yet. Things are always subject to change in the writing process, but I can say for sure that it will involve gold and fire. I plan to write the third book in 2026, and I'm pretty certain that it will be titled "Knight of Gold and Fire." That's as far as I have things planned, and that plan is only loose at this point. After that, we'll see where the story goes. Of course, it will be up to Raconteur when or if the others will be published.

The second project is a western fantasy for adults titled "No Man's Son." It features my magic wielding gunslinger Bartimaeus, who you can read about in "Blackhand" from the Rac Press Wyrd West: Cursed Canyon anthology. The first draft is done, and I'm currently letting it rest a bit before the second draft, which is my usual process.

There's also another fantasy novel that I finished in late 2024 that's making its rounds to potential publishers now. It's part "Monster Hunter"-style urban fantasy and part portal fantasy. Fingers crossed, I'll have some good news to report on that, too. If not, I'll likely go the self-pub route somewhere down the road. Sequels to it are planned, but on the backburner for now as I'm more focused on Gold and Fire for the immediate future.

Where did you get the idea for this book or series?
The idea for "Dreams of Gold and Fire" goes back to my teenage years in the 1980s. It was originally written as a short story called "Golden Rewards." I never really liked that title, but those have always been a challenge for me. It was a much simpler tale then, about a boy who runs away from home and meets a dragon, a mythical creature that he's been teased and chastised for dreaming about. It was the first story that I ever felt comfortable submitting for publication. It got rejected, a lot.
The novel version started life around 2012 and was inspired by my own son. He was about six or seven, and he had this game he would play where he would ask really silly questions. When you would tell him that what he was asking about couldn't happen, he'd always respond with, "but what if it did?" That optimism found its way into the main character Aron, and the theme of the book became more about following your dreams no matter what the obstacles were. In earlier versions of the novel, I actually used my son's name for the character, but in the end, I didn't think it fit with the world, so I went back to the original name of Aron from the short story. (There's now a character in another of my worlds named after my son, so he still gets his moment, too.)

When Raconteur Press opened their call for boys' adventure books last year, I thought that the book was a perfect fit, so I pulled it out, polished it up and sent it in. Luckily, they thought it was a good fit, too.

Do you write in more than one genre?

Yes, I do. I've published stories in fantasy, science fiction, horror, horror comedy, and – believe it or not – the first story I sold back in 1998 was a romance. I'd say fantasy is my primary genre, with horror secondary (and it's usually closer to dark fantasy). The other genres are more rare, and I doubt that I'll ever write another romance since that one was kind of accidental. But never say never.

Tell me about something that you believe makes your writing unique or worthy of attention.

I spent about 20 years in the newspaper business, and over that time, I talked to a lot of people from a lot of different backgrounds with many different perspectives. Translating what was often an hour or more's worth of conversation into a relatively short and digestible article that still managed to show who they were brought a focus to my fiction writing as well. I don't think there are many wasted words in what I write. The story is constantly moving forward.
I think it also gave me an ear for conversation, which makes the dialogue a little more natural and helps me bring a voice to my characters.
The downside to that, of course, is the "just the facts" approach that was ingrained in journalism sometimes spills over  a bit too much into what I write, so I have to work to see the places where maybe a little more description is needed or where I might need to dive a little deeper into the details.

Is there anything about your personal history or personality that manifests strongly in your writing?

I've always been very passionate about music, in particular heavy metal. I play guitar (very poorly) myself and at one time had rock star dreams. Luckily, I'm a better writer than musician. I'm the kind of guy who gets annoyed when people try to talk to me while a favorite song is playing or when I go to a concert and the people behind me try to continue their conversation over the music.

A lot of my inspiration for writing comes from music. I often find the seed of a story, or even a novel, in a random song lyric. The end story usually has no connection whatsoever to the song. The lyric sparks the idea, which takes on a life of its own and leads me down another path.

That said, for those who know, there are always some musical Easter eggs hidden in my stories. Sometimes they're fairly obvious, other times you have to put two and two together, but they're almost always there.  

What else would be helpful for readers to know about you?

I spend a lot of quiet time in the woods or on the water, which is often where my stories take shape. That's where I twist and turn the ideas and try to mold them into something interesting. Some of those ideas hang around for a long time. Obviously, the idea behind "Dreams of Gold and Fire" was born in the late 1980s. "No Man's Son" has been kicking around in my head for at least six or seven years. I have one idea that I'm about 25,000 words into that I've been playing around with for about 35 years. It will absolutely be finished and published one day, even if I have to do it myself.

Excluding your own work, what underrated author or book would you recommend that more people read? Why?
I'm not sure that he's necessarily underrated in the grand scheme of things, but at least in the U.S., I rarely hear people talk about the late great David Gemmell. He was a big influence on me, and I think his name belongs in the conversation with the greats of the fantasy genre. If you read my stories about Bartimaeus and you've read Gemmell's Stones of Power books, you'll definitely see the shadow of Jon Shannow looming large in the background.

The thing that I love about Gemmell is his heroes are gritty, but at the same time, they don't really cross over into grimdark territory. He also understood that real heroes don't go on adventure after adventure for 25 or 30 books. For most, there are only a few moments of often-reluctant heroism, and I think he captured that well.

Which of your books do you most highly recommend? Why?

The only one that's out there right now that's all mine is "Dreams of Gold and Fire." I'd recommend it because it's a simple, classic adventure tale. It's filled with action and fueled by hopes and dreams. My only goal when I sit down to write something is to tell a good story, and this book is a perfect example of that. It's fun, and it's the kind of thing that I would have loved to read when I was a kid. I think it can be enjoyed by the eight-year-old who is looking for something magical and exciting or the 50-year-old who is an adventure and dragon-loving kid at heart.

Which break, event, decision, or fortuitous circumstance has helped you or your writing career the most?

After writing for most of my life, I actually gave up on it for about a decade. The short version of the story is that I finished my fourth book around 2000. It was, at the time, far and away the best thing I'd ever written, and I was convinced it was "the one." I sent it to hundreds of publishers and agents, and it was soundly rejected by every single one. It crushed me, and I decided that I just wasn't very good at this.

I returned to writing about 10 years later, but even then, it was just because I needed it. I wasn't that interested in submitting to publishers and didn't for another 10 or 11 years. In 2021, I saw an open call for dragon stories from Wolfsinger Publications. It turned out that I knew the editor from one of the early online writing groups I'd been in. I had a story titled "Domestic Dispute" that had been accepted by three different publications back in the late 1990s, and every single one of them had gone out of business before the story was published. I polished it, sent it in (with a tongue-in-cheek warning about its history), and it got accepted for a collection called "Crunchy with Chocolate." That inspired me to write a story for another anthology, and while it got rejected for that one, it was picked up by a different publisher. That really got the ball rolling for me again.
Around the same time, I discovered the WriterDojo Facebook group, which was fairly new, and found inspiration among the folks there. It was also where I first heard about Raconteur Press. Once I got published with Rac Press, it was off to the races, and I've been writing and submitting like crazy again ever since.

What’s it like being a Raconteur Press author? What can you tell us about the process involved in getting published by Rac Press?

When I found Raconteur Press, I really felt like I found my literary home. They have been fantastic with the short stories that I've had accepted in their anthologies, and everyone that I've worked with has been absolutely amazing through the process of publishing my first novel. They care about their authors and are willing to invest time and effort into making them successful, which is something that's become kind of rare in publishing these days. Where a lot of people are looking for the next big thing, they're willing to put in the time to try to develop you into the next big thing.
I've also never seen a publisher that's as honest and open with their authors. Sales and royalties are an open book, and you can view them any time. The contracts are simple and straightforward with no heavy legalese, and if you have a question, you can get a straight answer quickly.
They're growing like wildfire, and there's a cool community of writers and editors behind the scenes. If you have something that fits one of their open calls, I can't recommend them more highly.  

What question do you wish you would get asked more often?

Would you like this million dollars that I have laying around? I think that would be a fantastic question to hear at least once.

Seriously, though, I think it would be around finally finding some success at writing later in life. Just recently, I talked to a writer on social media who was saying that she just turned 50 and hadn't been able to sell a book yet. She was asking the community if she should just give it up. The answer to that, for me, is a resounding no. I gave it up for a long time, and it was a huge mistake. I often wonder where my career might be if I had continued to write with the same drive that I had before that failure. It's one of the greatest regrets of my life.

On the other hand, getting the initial note from Cedar Sanderson at Raconteur earlier this year telling me that they were interested in publishing "Dreams of Gold and Fire" was one of the highest points in my life. I never would have experienced that if I'd given it up forever.
If being a writer is really your dream, I can promise that if you give up, you will look back on it with regret. I had my most successful year as a writer at the age of 51, and I'll be 52 when my first novel comes out. I don't care if you're 70 or 80 or 90, it's worth it for that shining moment that an editor says to you, "this is really good, and we want to publish it."

Do you have a catch-phrase or quote that you like? What is it? And why do you choose it?

I don't really have a catch phrase or a go-to quote, but I often speak in quotes from "The Princess Bride," "Star Wars," and "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," among others. It's amazing how often they have something perfect for the situation. Inconceivable, you might say.

People can find Fred at https://fredwritesfantasy.com and https://fredwphillips.substack.com. 

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Thanks to Fred for participating. I'm happy to point out that the two Raconteur Press anthologies he chose to include in the pictures to accompany his interview both contain stories by me. Fred and I have more in common than he knows, and perhaps we're about to have more in common.

I'm at Writers Cantina. It's Pioneer Day in this country, and fireworks are going off all around tonight as I write this. Earlier, I attended an informal dinner get together not far from my hotel. There were no casualties, as far as I know. I also got to chat with a couple authors, including the editor of the anthology pictured below. He even remembered that it also included one of my stories.

As far as writing goes, I've got a new story in the works. I sent off a story this week and will send off another next week.