A Spectre in the Stream is the result of three and a half years of creative toil from debut author Simon Tull. It is the first book in a series heavily inspired by The Matrix and Altered Carbon.
It’s an answer to the question: what would vampires do once they’d killed all of humanity?
These aren’t the vampires you know. They’re not gorgeous. They don’t sparkle. They’re vile. And without access to blood, they Thirst.
But not Prisma. Prisma doesn’t remember the last 200 years, and her Thirst never awakened. So when a strange boy appears with a cryptic message about Prisma’s past, she needs to find out more.
Except, her alter ego, Eo, wants the past left behind. And when Eo takes control, things tend to get . . . bloody.
Here I am, starting over on my own. I’ve been co-writing with someone for over seven years now, but it was time for me to step out front. This is my first trilogy in my backlist and Lasair is book 2 from Queen of the Flightless Dragons that just went live on Kickstarter. So far so good. It funded in under 30 minutes and has a Project We Love sticker.
I’ve been writing for over 30 years as a writer for The Washington Post, a national columnist and somehow that added up to landing as an author who loves magic. Makes a kind of sense. I used to be the magician at my little brother’s birthday parties when we were young.
Books are all about magic for me. They can tell me about things I didn’t even know existed a little while ago, or take me on really creative, wild rides tills I forget where I’m sitting and all I can see are the colorful images in my head weaving an adventure.
I love this story about a girl gamer in a taco truck who finds dragons in Austin, Texas because for one, I’m a girl gamer and I never read stories with us front and center. She’s also a witch and more, of course, but it’s her gaming skills that will also take her far. Of course, there’s a little romance. I mean, come on, Harry the Borrower is there too.
Lately, I’ve also really become interested in the natural magic that’s all around us. Trees are always sharing water and helping sicker trees for miles. Birds communicate about danger and share supplies. The best kind of magic and I used all of that in both Eamon, book 1 and in Lasair. Frankly, for me, Urban Fantasy is all about the idea that magic is everywhere, maybe we’re even magical, and we just don’t know it yet. The discover of our true potential and our ability to come together and create something bigger and better inspired this story.
Willow will discover the truth about her family lineage and her own abilities. It’s just in time, too because she’s the last of her kind and the only one who can truly fight off what’s coming. The enemy knows it too and will be looking for her. But can she do it alone? Just because we’re special doesn’t mean we need to go it alone. A life lesson I’ve been learning. Everything is better with friends along. Thanks for letting me share. Enjoy! More adventures to follow
The story continues about a girl gamer in a taco truck, dragons and interdimensional demons. Willow Jenkins has found her true magic but is it enough?How do you hide three large dragons in plain sight? Turns out chicken nuggets and a really large barn helps.
Willow thought her biggest problem was getting the taco truck in a good parking spot, not disappointing her mother again, and hiding her magic. But then lizards became dragons on a ranch in Austin, Texas, agents from another world started hunting her down, a gamer is dead, and a toaster can act as a portal. And there’s Harry the Borrower.
Her grandfather is missing, the agents have found her truck, a dragon is her familiar, and a motley crew of gamers are the heroes.
Do they stand a chance against the Regime? Save the alchemist, save the world. Want to know more? Get the box wine and Pepsi, and pour yourself another kalimotxo, but put it in a to-go cup. This time, Willow is taking the fight to them.
I started in traditional publishing twenty years ago, with three non-fiction contracts, after writing for most of my life: poetry, articles, essays, half-finished novels… Finally, fiction came knocking again around ten years ago, and I dove headlong into studying the craft of writing. I began seriously indie publishing in the summer of 2017.
After a few years of grappling with advice from expensive “experts” that just was not working for me, I threw that all out and doubled down on my weird, both in writing and in business. Amazingly, I started having some success! I began connecting directly with my readers instead of random people, and began making money. Over the course of a few years, my writing revenue increased until I was firmly in middle class, midlist author territory!
I did this during the eight most challenging years of my adult life, which led me to believe a lot of other people could do this, too.
You see, my author business turned itself around when I decided to invoke as much curiosity about business and marketing as I did about my characters and their worlds. I learned how to cultivate multiple streams of writing income, taking the pressure off book production. I explored marketing as connection instead of just advertising, sowing good will, support, and excitement about my projects.
I wrote what I wanted to write, even though it was off trend, or didn’t follow genre rules.Readers loved it, responding to the joy I felt when writing. They liked my voice. They embraced my weird.
Another thing that helped? Moving away from complaining, toxic outside voices while slowly quieting my own inner critics. In the Midlist Indie Author I ask, “What supports your desires?” And “How are you backing up your dreams with solid action?”
The joy of being an independently published author is the autonomy. Is it a lot of work? Sure. But for me, the benefit far outweighs the cost.
Despite what the industry experts tell us, I have found that we can build a successful author business in ways that bring us joy. We can reach readers our way. We can get off the hustle train and embrace a slow, sustainable build.
The Midlist Indie Author Mindset is filled with ideas to help us shift into a possibility mindset and includes practical action items to facilitate the changes we need to grow the career we want. Writing this book was my way to give back to the indie author community that has given me so much support. We are all in this together! We can help each other toward success.
The world needs more creativity, desperately. And writers are just the ones to offer that. I believe in us.
I’ve always been fascinated by the King Arthur legend, and I will admit, I was hooked on BBC’s Merlin. Drawn in by Morgana’s character arc and how if not for prejudice, she could have been Arthur’s ally, it sparked the question: what if she was good? What if Morgan le Fey, the most powerful witch in Camelot, was actually destined to be queen?
Along the way, Guardians of Camelot became bigger than just a retelling of the Arthur legend. It became a new story in its own right, one of a woman who has been in the wrong place her whole life, and wondered why nothing went quite right for her.
A ONE TIME printing of this saga of LOVE and VENGEANCE in an Deluxe ILLUSTRATED Special Edition.
THE SUN SERPENT SAGA propels readers on an unforgettable adventure, filled with immersive worlds, intense romance, and breathtaking magic. This thrilling saga will captivate fans of epic fantasy series like “From Blood and Ash,” “Fourth Wing,” and “Throne of Glass.”
One fun thing about Kickstarters is that every one I’ve done has prompted me to write something in addition to what I already have. Usually this comes in the form of a stretch goal.
With my current campaign, I’m putting together a little document about the villains in Sword of Cho Nisi. I’ll be doing some simple sketches of them, and writing a little profile for them. I just finished writing the introduction if you’d like to read it. If we make the next goal ($8000) I’ll be creating a saddle stitch from these writings and including the cities, names, pronunciations. I invite you to take a look.
About Villains
Beasts and Oddities of the Sword of Cho Nisi World
Everyone loves a hero. But heroes aren’t heroes unless there’s a villain of some sort, be it something within their own souls, something in the environment, or another man or creature they must overcome.
In the Sword of Cho Nisi we have more than one villain. We have a young king wrestling with his inner soul. We have a princess wrestling with guilt, we have twin sisters struggling to find a valuable place in their father’s kingdom, and we have a prince wrestling with a curse.
We have an evil wizard who’s been haunting mankind since the beginning of time and we have the monsters he created as they kill, maim, and destroy.
We also have a man who is influenced by the evil wizard who would otherwise be a good person were it not for the threat made against his best friend. This man is a what we call a grey character – someone who means well but does evil.
One of the more despised villains of our story is a man influenced by his greed for power and I think as you read the books you’ll realize who this man is. The ending will surely give it away.
As I write this particular short little appendices on villains of Sword of Cho Nisi, I do so with the wicked wizard and his army in mind, for volumes could be written about the others, and indeed the story itself becomes that volume.
Enjoy the little character profiles as we learn a bit about Skotadi’s minions.
So if you’re into the spy, mystery stories, here’s an anthology that is sure to whet your palette! this looks like a fun one.
Sherlock & Friends: Eldritch Investigations” – An anthology of Lovecraftian detection. Nine adventures featuring Holmes’s friends & rivals as they pit their investigative skills against cosmic horrors.
Stories and authors:
Derrick Belanger: “The Slithering Vistas of Carlos Varga” with ghost-chaser, Psychic Doctor John Silence.
Gustavo Bondoni: “A Time for Haste” featuring Mr. Sherlock Holmes & Dr. John Watson.
Mike Chinn: “The Return of Madame Sara” pursued by private detective Dixon Druce and Inspector Eric Vandeleur.
Vonnie Winslow Crist: “Bramblestone and Brook” featuring Miss Hagar Stanley, a plucky Romany pawn shop owner.
Steve Doyle: “Deadly Dreams” with Bernard Sutton, Jeweler to the Royal Court, his assistant Abel, and Inspector Illingworth.
Elana Gomel: “The Watchers” involving occult detective Thomas Carnacki and his close friend Henry Dodgson.
Stephen Herczeg: “The Adventure of the Cats of Ulthar” with Miss Lois Cayley, a spirited young bicycling adventuress.
Naching T. Kassa: “The Sinister Spells of Louis Carcosa” featuring the famous Lady Molly of Scotland Yard.
David A. Riley: “The Adventure of the Mouldy Book” with blind detective Max Carrados and his friend Mr. Carlyle.
Whenever I start a new story, the first thing I ask myself is “what if?”
That “what if” can be anything. Anything at all. That’s what’s great about science fiction. It lets you ask crazy, off-the-wall questions and then build a whole world to find the answer. At least, that’s how I see it.
And the “what if” for my current series was… what if general artificial intelligence, real artificial life, is nothing we’ve expected it to be?
It’s been an interesting time to ask that question. With the explosion of generative AI over the past year, everything’s gotten a little crazy around the subject. But I’ve found it fascinating; the more we use it, the more possibilities and pitfalls seem to appear.
That’s not to say that the Abiota Series is some dry analysis of real world AI. It’s not. Not at all. We have AIs who project themselves as dragons, AI who host their own art shows, AI struggling to manage their emotions and AI who don’t bother talking to us at all. But it has been fun to weave in some real world details, pulling the threads of what is into what could be.
Blurb and excerpt link
Daelia Hall has a mission.
Self-imposed. Of course. She might work for the Air Guard, but just as a contractor. She doesn’t wear a uniform. And good thing too right now. They can’t order her to back off.
Because she’s seen the truth behind the aliens, behind their Envoy, behind the entire concept of Unity. The grand promise to lift humanity up is hollow. But it’s only left her with more questions.
Why lie about this? And more importantly, how?
Now, she’ll risk everything to uncover the truth. But her involvement isn’t a mere product of chance, and what she uncovers threatens to shake not just the world, but her own sense of who, and what, she is.
You’re seeing me add a few Kickstarter campaigns lately and you might be wondering what this is all about? Why crowdfunding for books?
Not that Kickstarter and Backerkit have pretty much opened the door for Indie and self published authors, but that we have found open arms with the reading, and collecting public!
Unlike retailers who simply put our book covers, a blurb, and review up for our books on their sites, and then add a host of paid-for ads on the pages they allot us, Kickstarter gives us an entire unlimited open book page for us to talk about our stories, our process, our collaborators, and anything we can think of – why we wrote the book, our thoughts, our trials, our fears, and our tribulations.
I love that they give us that much space to introduce our books, and us as authors to the world.
And they leave that page up. Forever. Along with a link after the campaign is done to send the curious to our websites.
Add to that, people looking for something new, something creative, something to put on their shelves, readily comb through the campaigns and add their pledges. Superbackers we’re called (yes I humbly admit I’ve been given that title too).
So you’ll be seeing more campaigns by friends here. More musings about why we write what we write, more introductions to authors who want to go wide and who want to take a step out of the box and show off their hard work.
And yes, writing a book and publishing it IS hard work. Thank you for following!
Signed & illustrated hardcover collector’s edition of the first book in the bestselling fantasy series, celebrating the 5th anniversary
Check out this pretty fantastic best selling fantasy book. The base book features acid-free paper, smyth-sewn binding and gold gilded page edges. Additionally, it has an embossed and foiled satin silk-bound case with art from Ambi Sun and a reversible, double-sided dust jacket featuring custom art from Daxiong and typography by Sarah Anderson Designs.
12 new illustrations all in color.
Making Believe 