New Release: "Someone is Aiming for You & Other Adventures"

Find it Here!

It's been a long time coming, but my next book, Someone is Aiming for You & Other Adventures is out today!

My seven stories of madness in the dark city is finally ready to be unleashed on the world. Pick up your copy right now to get it on it.

The official description is as follows:

SEVEN TALES OF MAYHEM IN THE MAGIC CITY! 

Vigilantes fight from the shadows. In Summerside, Dark Magic poisons the dying city of cultists and gangsters. This is where heroes are made. 

A man with a deadly touch, an ex-hitman, a concrete teenager, an invisible myth, and an indestructible knight, are but a few of those who stalk the midnight hour. 

In these seven stories you will meet those fighting for the soul of the city, and those hoping to bring it to a brighter future. But is there anything left worth saving in a world of death? 

Powers or Magic. Only one will win this war.

Featuring stories that were in the Crossover Alliance Vol. 3, Silver Empire's Paragons, and the PulpRev Sampler, as well as brand new tales written just for this collection, readers are in for an onslaught of short stories and novelettes featuring hot blooded action and weird adventure. You're not going to read anything else like this!

For the full story behind each piece, I've started a series on the blog called Story Sheets. You can read them all here on the site. The most recent post was on the longest tale in the collection, Knives in the Night. As you can tell my the post lengths I put quite a lot into them!

The full story selection includes:

1. Someone is Aiming for You

2. Endless Nights in Villain City

3. Under Suspicion in Summerside

4. Knives in the Night

5. Last Exit to Shadow City

6. Lucky Spider's Last Stand

7. When the Sunset Turns Red  

What you are looking at here is a set of seven stories that all take place in the same world and city, in roughly the same time period, and feature an interlocking overarching story and a cast of characters that all have their own tales to tell. This is not a fix-up novel or random collection of short stories: this is a single piece and was made to be read as a whole, just as a typical book would be. In fact, word count wise it is my longest book released so far, as long as a typical novel.

I grew up with superhero stories and adventure tales, but with these seven stories of mayhem, I wanted to take them back further to their pulp roots while moving beyond simple modern superhero tropes that we've been stuck in for far too long. I wanted to be rooted in the past and the future at the same time.

This is even further away from a traditional "superhero" story than Gemini Warrior was, and that was closer to old school Burroughs-influenced Isekai than any comic book from the big corporations. Someone is Aiming for You & Other Adventures is filled with hard hitting noir-influenced hero stories that grip at the throat and don't stop squeezing until the end. You want action? I supply it without apology or regret.

I can't leave my readers with anything less! They know what they want.

As for what said readers think? Here are some impressions from early reviews:

"Conflict abounds, between powers and dark magic, between good and evil, between rivals just squabbling for turf. If you want to know what happens, you are just going to have to pick up this volume. I suspect you’ll have a hard time putting it down."

 and

"The novel greatly entertained me and I was completely hooked on the plot and characters. The villains were bad guys who rationally and conscientiously chose to do evil by embracing unnatural powers via magic? Deals with the devil? The authour again leaves the choices to the readers. The heros are equally complex and face moral dilemmas while combatting villains and facing a hostile indifference of the very inhabitants the former defend everyday."

I'm ecstatic of the reception, and that my readers are so geared into what I'm writing. These stories took a long time to write and cobble together (over two years!) and to see readers enjoying them as much as I did writing them is such a pleasure.

You can be one of them!

At the same time I managed to get the paperback out on day one, too! Us dead tree Luddites have got to stick together, after all. I made extra care to make sure it looked the best it could. You can get the 370 page behemoth here. I told you it was a big book!

If you wish to see what the full physical version looks like, here is a reminder:

This is the final version!

Enjoy the slightly different design. I wanted to give physical owners something different since it does cost more to own a printed version, and I think the torn page design looks better in person like this. And with a 370 page book you definitely get a lot for the price. I know it's going to look great on the shelf! Once again, you can find the paperback here.

But while you're here, why don't I share some goofy pictures I made for fun to support the book? We do live for the weird here at Wasteland & Sky.

While constructing the cover for this book using the great Kukuruyo's art, I began to learn Inkscape and very quickly found myself having fun with it. So what better way to learn to use the thing than to create crazy pictures in the program? Since I was already working on the cover I figured why not make some goofy ads with it? Let it never be said that my brain works as it should.

Because I am a music hipster, I even went out of my way to create CD art for it using images I found online. Why did I do this? Why NOT do this? I did write Grey Cat Blues and stuffed it with obscure musical references, after all. This is right up my alley.

The only question is: what section of a music store (remember THOSE?) would these show up in?

Be sure to leave your guesses in the comments.

Here's the front:

Can you hear the overbearing power chords?

Here's the back. I made this one to look more like a standard ad would:

Once again, the images in the pictures are not mine

Here's the full sleeve with track numbers:

Not going to lie, this picture is the nerdiest thing I've ever cobbled together

You can just imagine this sitting on the new release shelf next to the new Black Keys and Decemberists albums, can't you? Is there a connection between the story titles to the colors used, or am I just being needlessly obtuse like a typical indie rocker? You be the judge.

I'm not a subtle guy.

On top of this weirdness, I made some more standard advertisements, such as these:

Which, again, comes across like it's a poster for a show tonight. I seem to have a knack for mimicking late '90s musical art trends for some reason or another. Come in and join me. First drink's on me.

The last one I made was this:

I went a bit further with this one, but I wanted it to look like an old fashion poster ad, so here we are. It's easily the most normal of all this madness.

As you can see, I am very excited to get this book out to you, the readers. The post might have gotten a bit silly but this is a release party! What other time can a writer celebrate than with a book release? Someone is Aiming for You & Other Adventures is here!

So strap in and enjoy yourself. This is an adventure worth taking, and you'll never be quite the same again once you reach the end. You're going to have a blast.

Thanks for reading!

Out Now!