Antonio in the rigging and a book review

  

 Those of you who have read Threading the Rude Eye may recognize this scene in which Antonio dares the British to do their worst. He, of course, has great confidence in his enchanted ward against British ball--as well as his personal charm with women.

Earlier today, I spent a short time Les Freres Corses, and we did one of our talking adventures. (These adventures don't use dice or abilities etc; each participant makes a suggestion of what happens next in the adventure--like being spotted by dinosaurs, making it the ruins, suffering a fall, or what happens when the single lit button in the ancient UFO is pushed--and then everyone votes by playing one of three cards dealt to them to start the game. The suggestion that receives the high card is what happens; and the players each draw another card). Anyway, I'll spare you the turn by turn, but in less than an hour, the heroes escaped dinosaurs, discovered a secret passage into the ruins, activated an ancient starship and survived the crash thereof, were attacked by a giant spider and dinosaurs, did some highly cinematic battle sequences, and completed the mission while suffering some serious wounds.

One of the things we talked about was the imminent release of Accidental Wizard - the sequel to Accidental Pirates. (Amazon Associate link acknowledgement: I, or someone else, may receive some kind of remuneration or commission when the link is used). Let me share with you something about the new book before we get to the book review for this week:

Chris and his twin brother Kenny step into a fallen log on a hike with their grandfather and come out on a grassy hill in a kingdom at war. The court mage who summoned them is dying on the spot from the cost of the spell. Within the hour, Chris has been handed a cut palm and an order to produce fire.

The magic in this book is not free. Every spell Chris casts opens a wound somewhere on his own body — the book calls it the mulct — and it never stops being true. Power costs something and he is the one who pays it.

There is no romance subplot and no crude language. What there is: two brothers who refuse to be separated, and a grandfather who sends them off expecting them to come back having learned something.

ACCIDENTAL WIZARD is on sale this month.

Check out the cover: 

 

Book Review:

 

I finished reading Rick Cutler's excellent book, Colt Ostergaard: Man with a Gun. I've already sent him a note of appreciation for writing the book. It's a rip-roaring good time and a rootin' tootin' shootin' read. Colt's a man of honor surrounded by dishonorable people from both sides of a war, the wounds from which have never healed. Colt is the man in the middle, the honorable man who is therefore a target and scapegoat for those carrying the wounds. Speaking of wounds, Colt's not the white knight hero who never gets a wound. In fact, if there is something that is opposite of the guy who never gets a scratch, it would be Colt. Get his book on your list to be read immediately.

I could tell you more about this book, the planet Fenris, the war with the Alphies, the fur snakes, the 40 year winter, the exoskeletons, etc., but I won't ruin the delightful discovery of these things for yourself. 

 

The Oracle

 

I was able to spend some time with Les Freres Corses last week. In addition to having pizza, we found time to bust out some tabletop gaming. Above is the picture of the board they prepared for their two adventurers. I called it The Oracle, because of the crystal ball in the center. The T-Rex on the hill was the guardian of the oracle and the plastic army men were another group coming to seize the oracle for their warlord.

What do you use to measure movement when you don't have your red, blue, and green gaming measurement sticks? You use the Bunny System, of course. Everything moved in increments of one, two, or three bunnies. The ghost was some mysterious creature that only activated on an 11 or 12 on a d12, and if active, would go dormant on a 1 on the d12. It was not a big factor in the game.

The oracle activated whenever anyone came into contact with it. Naturally, that attracted the attention of the guardian.

 As it turned out, I think T-Rex gobbled one soldier and the adventurers killed one soldier while taking little or no damage themselves--not counting the incident. The incident involved K-man's character getting to the oracle and activating it and stating his wish. On a wild fluke (a 1 on a d20), the oracle took a sudden and intense dislike to the character and struck him with a bold of lightning--probably not unlike Apollo striking Scotty with lightning in that Star Trek episode--which proved fatal to this character.

RC's character was not dissuaded and made his way to the oracle to get his one wish. He was not struck dead and his wish was granted. Unfortunately, his wish was not for his brother's character to return to life, but he was able to restore him with some particular magic power he had from an earlier adventure. Thus the K-man was also able to live and get a wish. Meanwhile, the surviving soldiers decided to ignore their orders and each used his wish to make himself a super soldier who had no need to follow the directions of the warlord. 

Meanwhile, the adventurers found a teleportation device that took them to town--from which they were soon chased. I forget the reasons.

On a second scenario, after being chased from town, they had to take the tunnel beneath a mountain and find some kind of treasure. After uncooperative dice prevented them from finding the treasure at any of the locations indicated on their map, they had to search the base of the mountain, and eventually found it. They escaped the dinosaurs stalking them by causing a cave-in on one of their pursuers.

In a third scenario, they had to return to and find a passage through the collapsed cave and get off the far side of the board. 

We departed from the usual rules in favor of a "story adventure" in which we used no dice. Instead of measuring movement and rolling dice, we each stated what we thought would happen next. After everyone had made their statements, we voted on the statements by playing one of the three cards we held in our hands. Whichever possibility received the highest card in its favor was adopted. Of course, once a card was played it had to be discarded and a new card drawn to replace it. The system made for a faster game and gave the boys a chance to state possibilities, so there was never a time when nothing really happened. It did seem like one of them always drew better cards than the rest of us, but we did have some close calls and some injuries.

We may have even played a fourth scenario because the "story adventure" system finished quickly enough that we had time for another game under the usual house rules.

______________________ 

Also, this is still happening: 

When island warriors capture Kenny and Court in a net trap, Chris is the one who stays free — hidden in the stream, watching. He could run. Instead, he follows them at a distance, alone in unfamiliar territory, determined to find a way to help.

It's a quiet but powerful character moment: an ordinary kid choosing to stay close to danger because his brother needs him, without any superpowers to make it easy.

Accidental Pirates is on sale this month

 

 

 

 

Accidental Pirates - and more

 

The Court of Peers

Chris and Kenny step through a crack in a cave wall and come out somewhere else entirely — a place where a man named Court Barnes is fighting for his life against a knife-wielding attacker.

The boys help him bandage the wound, and Court leads them back to his hidden camp: a lean-to cave stocked with pistols, a sword, and a warning that this isn't the Caribbean they'd recognize from any map.

It's the moment the book stops being an ordinary cave hike and becomes something else — and Court becomes the closest thing the boys have to a trustworthy adult in a very dangerous place.

Accidental Pirates is on sale this month

The sale ends by the end of the month. 

Speaking of Accidental Pirates, the sequel, Accidental Wizard comes out next month. I don't know if I'm allowed to give any tidbits to whet your appetite for this rip-roaring sequel, but I'm going to do so. I'm doing final edits. I would love to see some renderings of the scene surrounding this sentence:

All three of us were down, struggling in the pale moonlight on the bloody ground against the survivors of the blood pack.--From Chapter 12 of Accidental Wizard.

I'm dying to tell you more about it, but I'll have to restrain myself. I can say that the story is pure adventure from chapter one to chapter 31. The boys find themselves in a hostile environment where even those who profess to be their allies treat them terribly. Magic is in the air and it has a bite.

Grab Accidental Pirates now and be ready to snatch Accidental Wizard next month.

I'm also more than half done writing book three. 

Fun Fact:

The Mamelukes of Egypt replenished their numbers by buying boys from the Caucasus who were eight to ten years old and training them up to be warriors. They formed the nobility and learned nothing but the art of war. The Beys and their 10,000 warriors lived in relative luxury off the beaten down populace of Egypt. They kept the appointed Pasha, the nominal ruler, confined in the Citadel in Cairo. Murad Bey and Ibrahim Bey ruled at the time Napoleon and his troops landed near Alexandria.

Bonaparte divided his infantry into five divisions under Desaix, Kleber, d'Hilliers (replaced by Menou), Reynier, and Bon. General Donmartin commanded the artillery. General Caffarelli supervised the engineers and the scientific expedition. General Alexandre Dumas commanded the cavalry. Naturally, Berthier was Bonaparte's chief of staff. During the landing, 19 men drowned. 

After landing, Bonaparte ordered 3 divisions, those of Kleber, Menou, and Bon, to march on Alexandria. (I note with interest that his first objective in Egypt was Alexandria. In 1800, he would move on Alessandria in Italy. Desaix would be killed in battle near Marengo and Kleber would be slain by an assassin in Egypt on the same day). There was no road to Alexandria and neither water nor food. The French troops would have to take the city to find water, as they had not been provided with canteens.

Bonaparte, Caffarelli (with one wooden leg), Donmartin, and Dumas all led the way--on foot. By eight in the morning, they came near the outer fortifications of Alexandria. Bonaparte ordered his troops to attack.

--The above is condensed from Herold J. Christopher's Bonaparte in Egypt.