Tag: Books

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Starship Librarians reviewed in the Ottawa Review of Books

Starship Librarians, edited by JR Campbell and Shannon Allen, recently received a glowing review in the Ottawa Review of Books.
Overall, the reviewer, Robert Runte, an awesome guy who I first met when he was working as an editor for 5 Rivers Publishing had this to say about the review:

Overall, Starship Librarians is a first-rate collection with some standout stories. I’m willing to bet at least some of these turn up again in ‘best-of-year’ collections. Kudos to editors Allan and Campbell. I hope we can look forward to more themed anthologies from them.

Mr. Runte was kind enough to go through the stories and provide comments on most of them. It’s always awesome when someone takes the time to get into that level of detail. Here is what he had to say about my story, “The Revolution will Not Be Fertilized”:

In contrast, “The Revolution Will Not Be Fertilized”, follows a group of guerilla gardeners led by a rebel librarian. I dreaded reading this one! First, it’s written in the second person, which rarely works. Second, it’s by horror writer, J. W. Schnarr. Schnarr is one of the gentlest people I’ve ever met, but his writing . . … Years after first discovering his stories, I’m still trying to excise a couple of the nightmares he’s given me. So, throughout this story, I found myself reluctant to turn the next page as things got progressively darker. But . . . it’s wonderful! Inspired. A rare example of the perfect use of second person, and a truly unique take on resistance to dystopia.

You really couldn’t ask for a better review, could you?

Please read the full review here.

You can pick up a copy of Starship Librarians on Amazon!

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Grandecon 2025 in the books

Last weekend my girl and I went down to Grande Prairie for our first Grandecon and what a great time!

The format of the event is great, and there was a ton of stuff to check out. I spent way too much money. Sold some books and met some awesome people, so it was all well worth it. I haven’t had a convention table in a few years. It was so good to get back to it. I’ve really missed hanging out at these events. Selling books online is fun I guess, but there is nothing like being able to meet people directly to talk to them about what you love and what you have done. If you haven’t done that, I suggest you do so!

The table we had was at the back of Artist’s Alley, so I was surrounded by my people all weekend. As always, I made sure to stop by and grab books from every other writer there – gotta support the troops, right? There were some really interesting stories there. I may have to hand some of these over to my daughter to write reviews for them on her blog, https://mutatedlibrary.wordpress.com/. If you haven’t seen it, you should check it out. And if you have a book coming out that you think would fit the site, by all means, reach out to her!

It was the first Grandecon for both my girlfriend and myself.

I was halfway to GP when I realized I had forgotten a box of books I was bringing – The Astronaut Always Rings Twice (Tyche Books) and Negative Spaces 2: A Return to Survival Horror (Dark Peninsula Press). I have one or maybe 2 more local events scheduled for this year, and then we will start looking at next year’s schedule. I have a couple more places I’d like to add. I’ll have those books and everything else I had at Grandecon at my next event – The High Level Night Market! It’s an awesome local market that takes place October 4 in the park behind the Town building, and the stalls are all decorated with lights. It is by far the most Ray Bradbury Autumnesque thing you have ever experienced, and if you haven’t been, it’s well worth the visit.

Hopefully we’ll see some of you out there. I’ll be sharing a table with my daughter, who crochet’s stars and paints all kinds of amazing things. Can’t wait!

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Hymn of the Hollow God

Hymn of the Hollow God – Book III of the Amberblight Quintet – is now live in digital format on the Dungeon Master’s Guild.

The adventure picks up a short time after The Hexen Temple. Ellarion and Lirael, the elves the elves on opposite sides of the race to the Temple, partners in life and in death – have both disappeared, taking the Heartspire seed with them.

It is known they have headed into Maralenth Fen – the great swamp north of Riverrock. Reports from rangers scouting the area say the swamp has come under the spell of an amber malady, and creatures horrific and unknown are now found in the deep parts of the region. It is the home to ancient elven ruins, the place where the Heartspire Tree once grew and spread its magic from.

Following the elves into the swamps is no small feat. It will take courage, and it will take the help of the dwarves and elves working together in an uneasy alliance. But what horrors lie in wait at the centre of the swamp, the forgotten Vael’shara, elven centre of Heartspire worship?

Here is the teaser text for the module:

The crypt is behind them.
The artifact is no longer safe.
And deep in the swamp, voices have started singing again.

Ellarion and Lirael have vanished, carrying the unstable Heartspire with them. To Vael’shara, the Sanctum of the First Root.

Pursuing them through the drowned temple and amber-laced ruins, something stirs beneath the muck and stone. Dreams bloom in unnatural patterns. The trees lean too closely. Reflections twitch when no one moves.

At the heart of it all, a pool of golden resin, perfectly still. And a song, as old as the stones, yet new as birth. Calling to you. Singing of doom.

Check it out at the Dungeon Master’s Guild.

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Starship Librarians Cover Reveal

Here is the cover for Tyche Books’ anthology, “Starship Librarians”. The anthology features a story of mine called “The Revolution Will Not Be Fertilized”.

Shannon Allen and JR Campbell are awesome at what they do, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what they have in store for us this time around!

Tyche was kind enough to send along a Kindle preorder link for those of you who love their paper pixelized – and really, who doesn’t?

So support small press, support Canadian writing, support great people. I’m sure you know all this, and I don’t have to remind you.

Starship Librarians preorder link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FD4ZKNHX

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Cover Teaser for Starship Librarians

The amazing folks over at Tyche books have sent out a cover teaser for their upcoming anthology, “Starship Librarians” edited by Shannon Allen and JR Campbell. The cover art is by Lorna Antoniazzi, according to Tyche’s Facebook post with this exact image.

The full reveal will be on June 17, but until then… here is a little teaser.

In other news, I have stepped once more into the shadow realm that exists behind every Dungeon Master screen and will be running a heavily modified 3.5e version of Tyranny of Dragons for my new group. It’s a mix of experienced Grogs and new 5e players, so there should be lots of help at the table.

We held a session 0 earlier this week and laid out some ground rules. Then we have a couple weeks off before our first game. I’ll keep you posted on this and other stuff as it happens. In all honesty, probably like a week or two after it happens 😉

If you haven’t checked out my printed adventures over on Amazon, please feel free to do so at your convenience. I have another one coming soon. And copies of my newly rebirthed short story collection, A Quiet Place (cover by the amazing Erin MacCallum, who will be at When Words Collide in August if you want to bug her for commissions) is also available.

Later days!

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When Words Collide

In August, I’ll be heading down to When Words Collide in Calgary, and it’s been a while since I did that. I’m excited to see some friends I have missed, drink some beer, commiserate with fellow writers, drink some more, and possibly even learn a thing or two.

This year’s guest is Stephen Graham Jones, which is awesome because horror writers don’t often get a ton of love in the genre world – they are the creepy, deformed sisters that get locked in the basement and only come out when someone forgets to secure the lock after feeding them.

So that is going to be awesome! I’m also looking forward to possibly seeing some family while I’m down there, so if you are in the area the weekend of August 15, stop in and say hi!

In other news, I’m working on lining up some convention tables for my new releases this year – the re-release of my fiction collection A Quiet Place and a handful of D&D adventures that are slowly making their round. There is some little stuff up here. I’d love to get up to Yellowknife at some point, but to be honest, I don’t trust my car to drive for hours without a single gas station in sight.

In a short time, I am going to be running a Tyranny of Dragons campaign – my DM break is over! Since every single 5e campaign book is hot garbage (organizationally, the ideas are very good!) this means a ton of homebrewing on my part. It’s really one of my favourite things about D&D.

This campaign is going to be extra awesome because we’ve finally convinced our 5e players to try out 3.5 – the best version of D&D and if you disagree, well, in the words of Conan the Barbarian, “DEN TO HALL WITCHOO!”

I have a plan for this game that I think will really put it over the top for my players. More to come on that.

Did I mention it’s fuckin’ hot up here? Well, it is.

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The Crypt of the Four in print!

Just a quick note here announcing an adventure I wrote a few months ago – “The Crypt of the Four” is now available in print, for those of you – like myself – prefer the persistence of paper over the cold efficiency of pixels.

Also, and I may be a little biased here, but these little adventures look great on a bookshelf.

Here is the back cover for The Crypt of the Four:

They were heroes lost to time. But they bore a dark secret…
Beneath the earth, where history is buried and forgotten, something stirs. The
Crypt of the Four, once a monument to legendary heroes, has been defiled,
twisted by a presence long erased.

The Fifth has returned.

Shadows stretch unnaturally, whispers claw at the edges of thought, and the
past refuses to stay dead. A name, chiseled from stone, lingers. Waiting to be
spoken. Mockeries of the past writhe in stitched flesh, torches flicker with
spectral flame, and sorrow thickens the air.
Uncover the truth. Face what was lost.

But beware… some names were meant to be forgotten.

A 5e Compatible Horror Story for levels 7-10

You can find it in print on all the relevant Amazons, such as here:
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0F89F2Q2R
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F89F2Q2R

And of course, the digital version is available up on the Dungeon Masters Guild:
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/511792/The-Crypt-of-the-Four

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Winter Hearts on Dungeon Masters Guild

I’ve recently released a new first-tier adventure on Dungeon Masters Guild, and will be releasing it soon as a print release on Amazon (stay tuned for news on that!)

Winter Hearts takes place near Mourningbridge, the same community I built for The Crypt of the Four, for those of you keeping track. If you can’t tell by the name, this adventure takes place during the winter.

In winter hearts, your adventurers can investigate the disappearance of a family on their way to Mourningbridge who were seemingly attacked and taken. An ancient elven keep that sits in ruins nearby is the likely location.

Some say the keep is haunted; of late, there have been strange lights seen in the upper reaches of the keep, and even stranger things heard.

Here is the teaser for Winter Hearts:

In the dead of winter, an ancient elven keep lies in ruin, its walls besieged by gnolls driven mad by visions of a sacred child hidden within. Inside, an elven couple guards their newborn, while a desperate human family lies captive beneath their feet.
As hunger, bloodlust, and divine prophecy converge, the walls won’t hold for long… and what waits below hungers for more than just flesh.
Break the siege, save the innocent, and cleanse the desecrated magic of the Bleeding Watch –  before winter’s heart devours you…

Before you go any further, read this!!!

This story contains themes of imprisonment, childbirth under duress, starvation, siege warfare, religious zealotry, torture, and threats to families.

Readers may also encounter unsettling depictions of predatory violence, emotional manipulation, gnoll rituals, and moral dilemmas involving desperate survival. Please proceed with caution if you are sensitive to these themes.

For some of you, this is exactly why you have purchased this adventure. For others…

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Check it out at the DMs Guild!

https://www.dmsguild.com/product/521265/Winter-Hearts

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WrestleMania Weekend Update

Things are finally starting to warm up in the north, meaning the snow is just about gone and I’m able to sit on my back deck again. We’re in that sweet spot between winter and bugs, and I’m taking full advantage of it.

It’s awesome my job recognizes WrestleMania as the universal centre of the wrestling world, and I’ve gotten a few days off work disguised as something called “Easter”… I have no idea what that is, but I imagine it’s just a fancy non-English word for WRESTLEMANIA BAYYYYY BEEEEEE.

So anyway, with four days off, I’ve had a chance to really dig into some of my catch-up work in terms of my 5e adventures. I’m expecting some proof copies of “The Crypt of the Four” from Amazon early next week, and my second installment of The Amberblight Quintet is in the books. I’ll be putting it up on Dungeon Master’s Guild in the next few days, but if you are waiting for a paper copy, I’ll probably have that ready to go on Amazon next week sometime.

So that’s good news! It means I’ll be working on some new adventures soon. I’ve been paying my daughter to colour some of the many, many Dyson Logos maps I bought commercial licenses for, and she’s decided to use that money to get shots for her dog. As you can imagine, that means I have a pile of them just waiting for something to come and take them over.

My reprint of “A Quiet Place” is in the middle of a soft release; I’m trying to line up some conventions for this year to get out and meet people and hawk my wares. I DO have a ticket for When Words Collide in Calgary in August, so at the very least, if you are headed that way, stop by and say hi! If I’m not checking out a panel, I will likely be in the pub. Writers write, and when they aren’t writing, they are usually drinking.

Oh. And LET’S GO CENA!
(Cena sucks)

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The Amberblight Quintet

It’s finally here!

Well. The first installment, anyway.

The Amberblight Quintet, a five-part adventure path exploring the potential birth of a god, has officially kicked off. The first adventure, Amberblight, is available now on the Dungeon Master’s Guild.

My plan here is to have each of these adventures include their own capstone feature that will make them feel very different from the other adventures in the series, while retaining the storyline and driving toward the ultimate goal. This means these adventures will all be very different from one another and may include mechanics you have never seen before in D&D 5e. I’m a homebrew addict from way, way, WAY back, and I can’t resist a chance to twist and mutate the rules. If you’ve played some of my other adventures, you might have a bit of an idea what I mean.

In Amberblight, the players are introduced to a sleepy little town known as Riverrock. The Town is a place where dwarves and humans live together peacefully. Of course, that is about to change, because if it didn’t, well, we wouldn’t really have an adventure, would we?

Here is the teaser for Amberblight:

Riverrock’s peaceful days are over.

Villagers vanish, livestock roam strangely, and whispers of glowing veins in
the hills spread like wildfire. Deep within the abandoned dwarven outpost of
Rockshield, an ancient amber vein pulsates with life, harbouring grotesque
parasites and an artifact of elven origin. As the corruption spreads, twisted
creatures crawl from the depths.

Will your party face the hive’s horrors and unravel its secrets…

or fall to the amber’s insidious grasp?

Hang on to your butts, kids, it’s gonna be a ride.

You can find Amberblight at the Dungeon Master’s Guild here.