Accidental Wizard and The 2nd Crusade

 

 Accidental Wizard released this week. From the back jacket:

Chris and Kenny wanted an adventure. They should have been more specific.

One step through an old fallen log and the twins are hurled into a kingdom at war--where a dying wizard has just spent his life summoning them. Now Chris is a blood mage, and every spell he casts tears his own skin. Kenny gets a sword that never loses and a shirt that turns blades aside. They'll need both.

A dragon-sorceress is coming. Her army is already crossing the desert, and the only thing that can stop her is a staff hidden since Merlin's time--guarded by blood wolves, trolls, and a traitor who wants the boys dead.

Two brothers. One impossible quest. No way home until it's finished.

It gives away a little more of the story than I would've, but it should arouse interest in the story.

You can get it here: ACCIDENTAL WIZARD is on sale this month. (Note this is an affiliate link whereby I or Rac Press or someone may receive some commission on qualifying purchases).

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FUN FACT: (From Chapter 14 of Crusaders by Dan Jones)

Edessa, one of the first Crusader states to be established, came under attack in the fall of 1144 by Imad al-dinn Zengi. The city fell to the besiegers on Christmas eve. Hugh, Bishop of Edessa, was trampled to death in the onslaught. Naturally, the Crusaders looked to Europe for aid.

Hugh, Bishop of Jabala, envoy for the Crusaders, found the papal state in turmoil. The newly elected pope, Bernardo Paganelli, had taken the name of Eugenius III; he needed something behind which Christendom could unite. Eugenius leaned heavily upon his mentor, Bernard of Clairvaux. December 1, 1146, Eugenius issued a call to the faithful to rescue their brethren in the Holy Land by a new crusade.

March 31, 1146, King Louis VII and Bernard of Clairvaux mounted a wooden platform outside Vezelay in northern Burgandy to stir the audience to righteous fervor. While the French King prepared for the crusade, Clairvaux went on to Brussels and elsewhere to spread the good word for action. He persuaded Conrad III of Germany and that king's greatest rival, Welf VI of Bavaria to join the crusade. 

Easter, 1147, fifty years after The First Crusade, and more than two years after the fall of Edessa, The Second Crusade set out for the Holy Land.

 

 

 

 

Ghost from the Past

 A ghost from the past formed in the smoke as the candles went out. A scene from Accidental Wizard - preorder now. Available September 11.

Twin brothers walk through a fallen log and land in a kingdom under siege. The wizard who pulled them across dies doing it, and Chris — the one with blood on his cheek — is handed the dead man's job. His first lesson is a knife across the palm and a chandelier he has never been taught to light.

For parents and teachers: roughly 48,000 words across 31 short chapters, first person, alternating between the two brothers. Book 2 of the Accidental Adventures series, and it opens with enough context to be read on its own. No romance, no crude language. Worth knowing going in: the magic system runs on the caster's own blood, and Chris carries wounds through most of the book.

ACCIDENTAL WIZARD is on sale this month. (Note this is an affiliate link whereby I or Rac Press may receive some commission on qualifying purchases).

The unpacking continues. The storage unit is emptied--thanks to some friends--and most of that stuff has found a place in Xanadu. Unfortunately, much of it remains boxed in the caves of ice, but all the bookcases are up and in the process of receiving designated contents. I also discovered these beauties that I hadn't been able to find for years and wondered if they were lost or stolen:

I also found three boxes of metal figures--two 12 packs of adventurers and one of twice that many monsters. Old school heavy metal figures that I painted in high school and gamed with for hundreds of hours. I can honestly say that my painting skills haven't improved.

In writing, I've paused Accidental Chessmen for a day or two in order to work out the details of the titular game, because it can't be regular chess our heroes must play. They must learn and succeed at a similar game on a different planet. I took inspiration from ERB's The Chessmen of Mars for this adventure, and naturally, there must be a fabulous chess game with living players as part of the high stakes conclusion. I have to play a few games to fine tune the relationships between the pieces. The first game revealed that the casualty rate is extremely high. The losing side was down to three pieces before conceding defeat, and the winning side was down to six survivors. The short moves and layout of the board and pieces necessitate trading of pieces in an effort to create an advantage or breakthrough opportunity. The balance of power can shift suddenly.

Here's a scene from Threading the Rude Eye in which Jonathan Knight makes an exit from a tavern in a more conspicuous manner than he had hoped. The knife is supposed to be pinning the malevolent sailor's palm to the bar, but apparently depicting that would violate some ill-defined standard.

The books in the series are on sale for 99 cents each. From Sept 4 to Sept 11 -- and then it's over, so don't miss out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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. 

 

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.