New Further Adventures!

 

 

Finally, I've had the time (and the mental energy) to thrash through the tiring and complicated process of uploading two new further adventures onto Amazon Kindle! I will upload them onto Smashwords (or its new twin, Draft-2-Digital) in a few days. It's been a very stressful couple of years, between tight deadlines, a summer of travel, assorted pressures from the Outside World, and some necessary house and car repairs. (I feel like I'm just starting to come out of the first phase of grief over my mother's passing, almost three years ago, and that slows everything down.)

But, the stories are up on Kindle and people tell me they've downloaded them successfully, so I didn't screw that up. There have been a couple of changes to the Amazon-Kindle system in the past couple of years and I wasn't sure I was doing the upload properly, but evidently even the Table of Contents in Cat's Paw works. (I had my doubts).

Cat's Paw is John Aversin and Jenny Waynest, summoned (or pushed) by a succession of horrible prophetic dreams to journey to the realm of Teruvar to find... nothing at all unusual going on. No horrible monster - only sinister machinations surrounding the Heir's bride, who is being used as a tool - a cats-paw - by her family. The ruler of the kingdom is a dragon-slayer who already killed a bizarre and horrible monster 25 years previously; legend has it that there is a supernatural Guardian watching over the Kingdom. So why, John asks, did somebody obviously expend a great deal of magical energy getting US here?

Temporary Quarters has Joanna's cousin Robyn swearing that her newly-wed husband has been possessed by a evil spirit - who is actually more pleasant, civilized, and polite than the jerk she married the previous week, but still... Antryg and Joanna are called to investigate, in one of those quaint little resort towns on the California Coast that specializes in occult bookshops, hot tubs, and antique malls. There is, of course, more going on than meets the eye.

I have also just turned in what I hope will be the final round of revisions on "Murder in the Trembling Lands," the 21st Benjamin January mystery, which involves (among other things) investigating events which took place twenty-six years before, surrounding the so-called Battle of New Orleans. (There were in fact FOUR battles in the British invasion of Louisiana in 1814-15. The last one, the Battle of Chalmette, nine miles down-river from New Orleans itself, is the one generally known as the Battle of New Orleans. That's the one that took place after the treaty was signed and the War of 1812 was officially over). Benjamin gets hired to assist the middle-aged son of his mother's former protector, who is conducting the investigation: Ben just needs the money. So Ben gets to be Watson in this one, to the world's least competent Holmes. ("You did WHAT? You told WHO where we were going?")

It let me do more research into Mardi Gras, and into the geography of New Orleans before the advent of modern flood-control technology ("the Trembling Lands" was one of the names for the back-swamp that lay behind both the town and the battlefield at Chalmette). (Things like, when DID they start having Mardi Gras parades? And what were the popular costumes in 1841? And if you happened to live at the Back of Town, did you have to walk all the way to the river to buy your groceries?)

I also lost a couple of days driving down to LosCon - LA's local science fiction convention - just after Thanksgiving, a very pleasant convention. (Do people still talk about a relax-a-con?) It was their 50th convention. I started attending LosCon's at about LosCon # 5 or 6. Good to see old friends.

I am over 10 miles from the Franklin Fire, and up-wind of it. (And the ferocious winds have quit blowing). 

Everybody have a happy holiday.