Hunted (Part 2 of 4)

The boy thought back to the dreams he had about the man who whisked his sister away and how happy she seemed. He guessed that Avelice ran away with the man, because she loved him, but somehow that did not feel like the answer his father was searching for. Sane shook his head. “Why did she run away?”

“Your mother and I hid the truth from you and now I think maybe we were wrong to do that.” Sane’s father swallowed deeply and his voice was nearly caught in his throat as he forced the words out, “Avelice was a magician and so was the young man she left with- Xander was his name. He said that he could feel her drawing on magic power subconsciously and offered to take her away before the Kenzai discovered her.

“You can imagine what I thought of his offer. I threw him out of this very shop, but he seemed to take it all in stride as if he knew that he would win out eventually.

“Avelice heard us arguing and wished to seek out the man, but I forbid it. I declared him a crook and a charlatan.” Sane remembered those fights between his parents and his sister. His father continued, “Eventually Avelice gave in and for a time it seemed like the whole thing was behind us.

“Then came the day the hunters arrived. They knocked on our door like any good, decent folk would, but they were far from decent. Avelice and I were the only ones home at the time. When I opened the door, a pair of them identified themselves as Kenzai hunters and forced their way in asking to see your sister. They had Constable Ragnit with them, so I knew they were telling the truth about who they were. I did not know what to do. I did not want them to take my little girl.” Sane’s father suppressed his feelings of sorrow and resentment for fear that he might not be able to continue. After a long moment, he did, “I yelled for her! ‘Avelice, the hunters have come for you!’ I shouted. ‘Run, girl!’ They ran past me and kicked in the door to her room. They knew exactly which room it was too. It did not occur to me before then that they had been watching her.”

“They took her?” the boy asked breathlessly.

“No, she was gone. I didn’t know it then, but the house had been surrounded by the hunters in case she tried to escape and they knew she was there. Near as I can tell that magician, Xander, had come for her and they vanished into thin air. We lied to you then, because we thought the truth would be too painful.”

The boy thought about what his father told him letting the information slowly sink in. After a long silence he finally asked, “Then why are you telling me this now? It has something to do with that man that just left, doesn’t it? He is one of them.”

Sane’s father nodded. “Since your sister is a magician, he said that there would be a chance that you would be one too. They have been watching you for signs of magic ever since Avelice vanished.”

Beef and bread fell from the dropped sack the boy had been carrying, but he did not care despite his rumbling hunger. “How could you let them spy on me and say nothing?!” the boy accused.

“Easy, son,” Sane’s father put his arms around the boy, “I did not know until just now. That man that came in here- the hunter wanted to buy you. He said it was to compensate me for the loss of my apprentice and to encourage me to turn you over without difficulty.” The boy’s father placed five gold coins in his still too small hands. It was enough for him to start a new life. “This is the money that the hunter gave me. He said he would pay half now and half tonight when they retrieved you, but I am leaving it up to you. You can take the money and run or you can go with them peacefully to one of the magician cities, but no matter what you decide this life will be closed off to you.”

The boy looked out the shop’s front door and saw the flutter of a brown cloak disappear into the shadows about a half block away on the opposite side of the street. The hunters already had him. He was in their net. It was just a matter of time until they reeled him in.

“They are watching even now,” the boy whispered. He placed the coins back on the counter.

Hunted (Part 1 of 4)

This story takes place about fifty years before the events in Rogue Magician. It is split into four parts, so be sure to check back in one week for part 2 of "Hunted."

Hunted (Part 1)



            The boy’s days were spent at his father’s feet in a very literal sense fore he was the son of a cordwainer and now that his eldest sister had run off with some hooligan leaving him the only child and heir to the family business it was the boy’s lot in life to learn all he could about crafting the fanciful shoes of the wealthy and their repair. It was a terribly dull profession, but the boy put his heart into learning it. After all, he did not want to disappoint his parents.

His father would become dispirited like when his sister left and take to the bottle again. He had only recently begun to sober up though it was more than a year since she left.

The boy’s mother was in some ways far worse. Ever since his sister left she would sit huddled in a chair with her knees up to her chin and whimper or cry openly. In the winter, she was covered with a blanket and in the summer, she was not. This was at the best of times. At the worst she would begin sobbing uncontrollably usually triggered by the boy walking in the room and he learned to avoid the poor woman and the unexplained guilt this caused him.

So he studied his father’s work for hours on end and learned his craft and at the ripe age of thirteen the boy decided that he knew all he could about making fine shoes and was ready to set out on his own, but he did not. He could not abandon his parents. Despite the difficulties at home, they needed him and loved him.

Every night he stared out of his window as he drifted off to sleep thinking of his sister and wondering where she might be. Was she happy with the lout who stole her away? Were they married now? He hoped so. His eyelids would grow heavy and sleep would take him to a land of dreams that could be blindingly bright. He would see his sister there sometimes. She would be sitting or cooking and the hoodlum would come up behind her and hug her lovingly. Then, he would kiss her neck or her lips. They would laugh often- much more often than the boy ever saw her laugh before.

At other times the dreams were darker than any moonless night. Men cloaked in shadows would come for him and bang at his window. The boy would hide under his blanket hoping that they would go away, but they never did. They would break through the latched window with a sword radiating a soft blue shine that illuminated their faces revealing contorted features and eyes that hungered after the boy. The house would then explode with noise as the house became overran with the cloaked men. They would pull his covers, his only form of protection, away leaving him completely vulnerable. Then one of the men would reach for him…

He was always startled awake at that point. His body would be covered in sweat and his breathing would be weighty and loud.

It was following one of these dreams that he caught his first glimpse of one of these men. He had gone out to fetch some lunch for his father and himself after they had spent most of the morning cobbling old, but well crafted shoes or cutting strips of leather for some new creations. The boy had worked up quite a hunger and was quick to return with their cut of beef and bread. As he rounded a corner, he saw a hooded man dressed in drab browns leaving his father’s shop. The hooded one started a little as he almost ran into the boy turning the corner. His cloak whipped up as he shifted his weight to avoid the boy revealing a sword belted at his waste.

The boy hurried into the shop and found his father glowering at the wall.

“What is wrong, father?”

“Nothing, Sane,” he paused as if he had something else say, but only repeated, “It’s nothing.” He absent-mindedly clunk some coins together under his palm. He would lift them up and let them fall again producing the light clink sound. Eventually, he asked, “Do you know why Avelice ran away?” His eyes were bloodshot.



And the Reviews Are Not In

Recently, I've been trying to find someplace that does indie fantasy reviews with no luck. Most sites that do specialize in fantasy reviews either flat out refuse to do indie reviews or may review indies, but have no activity on their site within the last year or so.

The main reasons that I have heard from the sites that don't cover indie books is, because they don't want to be deluged with mounds of poorly written garbage in the hopes of finding a gem, which is understandable if somewhat short sighted on their part as more authors (including some who have been established for years) choose to go indie every day, but that is another rant for another day.

So to all my fantasy brethren- authors and readers alike- where do you go to get/read reviews on fantasy novels by indie authors, or if you are like me and can't even find any reviewers for indies what factors do you take into consideration when plunking down your hard earned coin on an indie?


Also, if you are a fellow fantasy author feel free to plug your book in the comments to this post.

Rogue Magician Promo Video

Check out the promotional video for Rogue Magician. I think you will agree that it is bad ass.

http://tinyurl.com/cz8bro2

Back and ready for more...

As of now my hiatus is at an end.

Over the last two months I have been working on two projects. Of course, I have been working on Book 2 of the Magician Rebellion series. As of this writing I am about 40% done with the first draft and am ahead of schedule for the next release.

The second project is a promotional video for Rogue Magician that should be on Youtube in the coming weeks. This video will include a teaser for the book and features artwork and a song written for Rogue Magician.

I have also decided to make a few changes to the blog. I am going to do reviews less. As an author I know how critical reviews are especially for the indies out there. So I tend to only want to review books that have left a favorable impression on me. That being said I will give recomendations from time to time if I read something particularly enjoyable.

Instead I plan to focus more on delivering original content. Most of which will be short or in pieces as my main focus is completing Book 2. Some of these stories will feature characters from Rogue Magician and some may be stand alones completely unrelated to the series.

 Here is where things get interesting- I have so much backstory for most of the characters that did not get to come out in the book. If there is a character of particular interest to you let me know and I will write a short story revealing some of the backstory. It's kind of like writing fanfiction, but having the author do it for you instead.

I will also provide rants or a look behind the curtain as the mood suits me or I think something particularly interesting is happening.

Temporary Hiatus

Hi all,

I have decided to take a temporary break from my blog to focus more on my next novel, Rise of the Necromancer. The progress has become slower than I would like lately and I want to get back on track with Book 2 of The Magician Rebellion before resuming the blog.

In the meanwhile I am also working on a special multimedia promotion for my first novel, Rogue Magician. For now I am being a little hush-hush on what it will be exactly, but I think it will be something that people will enjoy.

With any luck I will have new reviews and stories back up on the blog within a month or so and hope to see you then.

Magician: Apprentice Review

            For my first book review, I chose a book that is three decades old (technically, it’s three decades since the original book, Magician, but that one is much harder to find now), but one that I discovered recently and have found it to be a very entertaining series. Magician: Apprentice by Raymond E Feist is the first volume in the four part Rift War Saga and is also the first book in a much larger overall series spanning more than thirty books and still growing.

            Magician: Apprentice focuses on Pug, a young orphan boy who becomes the apprentice to a master magician, but finds that he has little aptitude for the magical arts. Pug is the main character of the series, but he is surrounded by an interesting cast of characters including his best friend Tomas, Squire Roland, Prince Arutha, and Pug’s love interest, the headstrong Princess Carline. At first these characters appear as secondary characters to Pug’s adventures, but about halfway through there is a shift in the story as they face an invasion by the Tsurani, a noble race of off-worlders determined to take over the world and these secondary characters come to the forefront of the story. At first, I was miffed, because I wanted to get back to Pug’s story, but I begrudgingly grew to enjoy these other characters just as much.

            Up to this point, I have given you very little information beyond what you could get off of the back cover and that is intentional, because I don’t want to ruin any of the surprise or suspense in this well-crafted story for you. There is nothing I hate more than having an interesting story or plot twist ruined for me and I assume that you feel the same way.

Raymond E Feist develops an intricate world filled with elves, dwarves, magic and adventure. His writing style is a brilliant balance of description and action that immerses the reader the world of Midkemia while still driving the story along. In many ways it reminds me of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series and that is not a bad thing. However, one thing that I really enjoy about this book that is a departure from Tolkien’s middle-earth and something that I try to incorporate into my own writing is that although there is a conflict between the races of Midkemia and the Tsurani no one is inherently evil (except, perhaps, for the dark elves and goblins, but their intentions are never made clear). There are people who have their own agendas and are in opposition to the heroes, to be sure, but no one is inherently evil in that they just want to destroy the world. Even the Tsurani who want to take over the world have the best of intentions believing that their way of life is superior to Midkemia’s “savages.”

The one possible drawback is that if you read Magician: Apprentice, then you will need to read the follow-up Magician: Master as well to get the feeling of the complete story. Originally the two books were one book titled Magician and was a shortened combination of these two books. For this reason the first book just kind of ends, but the second book has a very satisfying conclusion. Of course, I usually prefer trilogies and series to stand alone titles, so this did not bother me at all.

Overall, I highly recommend Magician: Apprentice to anyone looking for an excellent fantasy read with a classic feel. The world of Midkemia is detailed and lends itself well to the engaging storyline. The characters are likeable and developed so that even the minor characters feel like they have a life beyond the limits of their place in the story.