Tymely News
Elementalist #5
Elementalist is an album of mostly heavy metal that I'm working on as a companion to my Ashen Blades series of novels.
You can find the previous blog entries here:
Goodbye, Dear Friend
Track six of Elementalist is titled Penance of Metal, in which the Metal spirit feels nothing but guilt about killing Clayton Simmons and considers how to make things right, eventually deciding to seek out the Hunter, to serve her as a form of penance and during their second encounter, she accepts the Metal Spirit.
Goodbye, Dear Friend is based on events from Demon for President! and She Seeks Peace.
Lyrics
I took the sleuth Clayton's life,
For youth to save, bargain made.
Metal regrets Metal's knife,
Can it be more than a blade?My will now broken by man,
I know not what I've become.
Mother, is there some grand plan?
For I am no longer numb!Chorus:
Metal is as Metal does,
Rigid, solid, bending not!
Metal made from that which was,
By Metal’s way, Metal’s caught!Pain of soul for life taken,
Man torn from wife, awful stun.
Metal is also shaken,
For father stolen from son.Metal weeps for rigid way,
Metal wishes it could bend!
Yet Metal's way, can't betray,
Lest the whole world come to end!(Chorus)
Came to judge, human of heart,
And she, the demon of mind.
Yet Metal regrets its part,
And seeks to be aligned.Will Hunter accept Metal?
Will she, the offer refuse?
Metal will recoil from nettle,
And say, "Sorry for abuse."(Chorus)
First, I find her in a field,
Full of cows and metal fence.
For rejection, was steeled,
And she got herself from thence.Next found her in a battle sore,
Hunter's heart and mind apart!
Offered her Metal's roar,
We gave demon mind the dart!(Chorus)
Here's a link to the MP3 file, if you'd like to download it.
Penance of Metal is copyright 2026, Owen Tyme, all rights reserved, but free for your personal enjoyment. Lyrics by Owen Tyme, music generated with ACE-Step 1.5. E-mail me if you want to use it for something else.
Tags: audio, music, elementalist
Elementalist #4
Elementalist is an album of mostly heavy metal that I'm working on as a companion to my Ashen Blades series of novels.
You can find the previous blog entries here:
Goodbye, Dear Friend
Track six of Elementalist is titled Goodbye, Dear Friend, in which the Hunter mourns the loss of Clayton Simmons, the private detective that had been her work partner.
Goodbye, Dear Friend us based on events from Demon for President!.
Lyrics
Metal spirit judges me,
For my crime of self-defense.
Metal blustered with glee,
Made an atmosphere most tense.Sleuth Clayton spoke to Metal,
Demanding, "Get to the point!"
The matter, might later settle,
And spirit turns the spear-point.Chorus:
Closest friend has passed on,
By the way of Metal's rage.
He got caught up as its pawn,
But from my book took a page.Caution with spirits, the way,
Clayton should not have done that.
A challenge, became the day,
To get by without the cat.My brother, the little kitten,
Made my dear friend very strong.
Without which he'd be smitten,
And worried all would go wrong.(Chorus)
Clayton sought to save the day,
But left kitten far behind.
He ran straight into the fray,
Got caught in a nasty bind.Sniper bullet came to him,
Metal slowed perception.
To offer him a good-bye grim,
And respectful reception.(Chorus)
Metal really screwed up,
Because Clayton's will was firm.
Spirit's plan, he did disrupt,
Forced Metal low like worm.Bargain struck, to save the day,
Clayton's life for many youth.
Though Metal's mind he did sway,
Spirit could not spare dear sleuth.(Chorus)
Here's a link to the MP3 file, if you'd like to download it.
Goodbye, Dear Friend is copyright 2026, Owen Tyme, all rights reserved, but free for your personal enjoyment. Lyrics by Owen Tyme, music generated with ACE-Step 1.5. E-mail me if you want to use it for something else.
Tags: audio, music, elementalist
Elementalist #3
Elementalist is an album of mostly heavy metal that I'm working on as a companion to my Ashen Blades series of novels.
You can find the previous blog entries here:
Saddling the Storm
Track five of Elementalist is titled Saddling the Storm, in which the Hunter faces the Air Spirit in the plains of Kanans, on a random rural route somewhere near Wichita, during which she had the story of Pecos Bill on her mind. That's the reason her magic clothes embraced a more Old West vibe than usual.
Saddling the Storm us based on events from Demon for President!.
Lyrics
I fought in the Kansas plain,
Sore wounded, was bleeding much.
And of magic, felt the drain,
My aching head, I did clutch.While down, Air thought to kick me,
Stirred up a huge twister!
Biggest one I'll ever see,
All to save his tree-sister!Chorus:
Saddle this great storm, will I now,
And make Air spirit my own!
This bucking horse will soon bow,
Proper place, it will be shown!In car, family of four,
Screaming in total distress!
Also cow, boulders galore,
This could be a real bad mess!I've got to save everyone,
Or from conscience, this girl fry!
Only one chance at this run,
A way forward do I spy!(Chorus)
Lasso to catch this wild horse,
I fashion within my mind!
Start with shadow smoke, of course,
Ideas also, for the bind!I will now lasso the storm,
And fashion a saddle to ride!
Car and cow part of the form,
Held tight and safe, they'll now bide!(Chorus)
With sulfur smoke, to offend,
On mental ground, for a fight!
And tree spirit I might send,
To demon's stomach, for spite!Air spirit flies to save tree,
And demon, the spirits cage!
I cut with wakizashi,
Shadow trap now ends Air's rage!(Chorus)
Here's a link to the MP3 file, if you'd like to download it.
Saddling the Storm is copyright 2026, Owen Tyme, all rights reserved, but free for your personal enjoyment. Lyrics by Owen Tyme, music generated with ACE-Step 1.5. E-mail me if you want to use it for something else.
Tags: audio, music, elementalist
Elementalist #2
Elementalist is an album of mostly heavy metal that I'm working on as a companion to my Ashen Blades series of novels.
You can find the previous blog entry here.
On the Subject of Videos
I've been experimenting with making simple videos this week, using just a static image of the cover of the album, beside an AI-generated image of something appropriate based on the source novel/novella. If you'd like to see the videos for previous tracks, they'll be at the end of this blog post.
A Watery Grave
Track four of Elementalist is titled A Watery Grave, in which the Hunter goes to a summer camp infested with demons, to wipe them out, but along the way, the Water Spirit notices the Wood Spirit stuck inside her mind and attacks with intent to kill. It turns into a real nasty series of fights.
A Watery Grave us based on events from She Goes to Summer Camp, which is sold bundled as part of She Goes to War.
Lyrics
Took a dive in a deep lake,
Looking for demons hiding,
For teen summer camper's sake,
Thought to do the dividing.Notice, water spirit took,
Of tree spirit in my head,
And she did give me the hook,
Dragging me to certain dread!Chorus:
The ocean's spirit may force,
For me a watery grave!
Showing no sign of remorse,
If myself, I cannot save!Shadow save me from the depths,
Safely to land, I return,
By making the shadow-steps,
Forced retreat does my pride burn!By day I ride in canoe,
Nervous about water's wrath,
Hoping water has no clue,
But spirit does see my path!(Chorus)
Spirit strikes like semi-truck,
Confidence and ribs breaking,
Land on shore, with little luck,
Her punches leave me aching!Confront the spirit by night,
Holding hostage, spirit tree,
And the lake rises up to fight,
Though she never bows her knee!(Chorus)
For others, to safely keep,
I walk beside lake alone,
Water attempts, me to reap,
Attacking my blood and bone!I consume water's magic,
And force tree spirit to strike,
My demon fends off tragic,
Together, give her the spike!(Chorus)
Here's a link to the MP3 file, if you'd like to download it.
A Watery Grave is copyright 2026, Owen Tyme, all rights reserved, but free for your personal enjoyment. Lyrics by Owen Tyme, music generated with ACE-Step 1.5. E-mail me if you want to use it for something else.
Videos for Older Tracks
Tags: audio, music, elementalist
Friday Feature #3: Scarlet Eye: Homecoming
Today's feature is for a piece that became available in stores for the first time, today. Scarlet Eye: Homecoming is volume six of Ashen Blades and volume two of the sub-series, Scarlet Eye.
I waited a long time to write this piece, because I needed to firmly establish the series, before pulling this kind of serious plot thread.
A Little About Mashu'ra
The surface details have been a part of this series from the beginning, staring with the basics: Mashu'ra is a demon, but more specifically, he's a juvenile demon, more commonly known as an imp.
Long before the series began, he was summoned by a demon-witch, Annmarie Nossett, to serve as her familiar. Annmarie happens to be the mother of the main character of the series, The Hunter/Artemis Watson.
He used to be in the form of a full-grown black cat (and quite a large example, at that, probably a Maine Coon), but when his master died, he shrunk back down to the size of a kitten, a fact he found embarrassing.
He's also a very knowledgeable expert on both demons and witches, with unusual insight into demonic politics. In earlier novels, he served as a source of exposition, before the demon-hunting organization he eventually became part of knew much about the way demons thought.
He was also in love with his last master, because she chose to give him his soul. She chose to free him, even though she knew she was doomed to suffer for choosing to become a demon.
And that's the biggest thing that was previously known: he chose light and love over hate, a very rare thing for a demon to do.
More than anything else, however, he's always been a fixture of the series, offering sage advice to the main characters, because that was the only way he could fight demons.
The Central Question: Who is Mashu'ra, Really?
Of course all of those details are just facts, without much explanation as to how so lowly a demon could know so much and that's what this novel will begin to delve into.
However, I'll give you a few hints, which shouldn't spoil anything too big: Mashu'ra has been hiding so many things, but not because he didn't trust his allies. No, it was merely a matter of trying to leave his old life behind, to never look back, to live in the warmth and light of a better world.
That's because he never wanted to go home to the literal Hell he was summoned from. In point of fact, he was terrified of the possibility ever coming to pass.
At the end of the previous volume, that became exceptionally clear as he was hauled out of the magic hat of Artemis, to translate some demon writing, but as soon as he read the words, "Lady Oz’gozod sends her regards." he screamed and scrabbled his way back toward the hat he'd been pulled from, demonstrating a level of naked terror like nothing his friends had ever seen. He almost made it, only to shot by a high-powered rifle at the last moment, which killed him.
You might think that would be the end of his sad tale, but it isn't, because he was magically summoned to Earth as a spiritual projection and part of that means a free ticket home upon death, with little more than some awful pain to endure.
The trouble is, it also means he returned to the very place he left behind: the clutches of his first Master, Lady Oz'gozod, also known as The Imp Queen. She's also the head of the Torture Department of the Inquisitor's Office of Castigation City, which loosely passes for what demons might term justice (mostly hauling people off the street to be tortured, sometimes at a mere whim).
When Mashu'ra finally came to, it was to the worst possible nightmare: trapped in a tiny cell, at the mercy of Oz'gozod, one of the most vile demons that ever lived.
I held back from pulling this plot thread for a long time, but in the previous two books, Mashu'ra's role had grown smaller and it was time to give him some major character development.
I'm reminded of Malcom Reynolds from Firefly being tortured by that crazy fellow obsessed with pain and really "knowing" people, by holding them over the volcano, so to speak.
Sadly, that may be what lies in store for Mashu'ra, but along the way, you will get to know him in a way you never have. You will learn how he knows so much about demonic politics and you will learn exactly why a mere imp became a force even the highest ranks of infernal politics came to respect. He's always had hidden depths and now, it's time to reveal them.
Unfortunately, his situation seems completely hopeless, because there's no way his human allies would ever open a portal to Hell, just to rescue one demon, right? He's convinced of that fact, because it's plain and clear to him.
Meanwhile, on Earth...
Artemis is completely distraught, because the oldest friend she's got is in enemy hands, a situation she can't and won't accept, because he's more than an ally: he's her brother. Not a blood-relation, but that's how she feels about him. Fortunately, her friends are behind her and she's been tasked with planning a full-scale invasion of Hell itself.
It's not entirely unprecedented, however, because she once led a small rescue mission to do exactly that and she knows the lay of the land, though her information is eighty years out of date. On the other hand, the Ashen Blades recently made an interesting ally, by helping a demon to begin repenting for her numerous sins and she was one of the seven arch demons that rules Hell, namely Lust.
So, it's not impossible, but it's going to take serious magic and firepower, if only the various militaries of Earth can be convinced it's a good idea to finally strike back in the invisible war humanity has been a part of since before the dawn of civilization.
Then there's the trouble of sealing the portal when they're done, which requires something equivalent to nuclear ordnance, but there may be a bit of luck there, because rumor has it their black market arms dealer knows something about a collection of missing Russian suitcase nukes...
This is when the conflict between man and demon really heats up and it's going to be taken to the next level, because it's time for a little payback! It's time to bloody the nose of the biggest bully in the multiverse!
Interested? Here's Where You Find the Book!
The faithful companion of Artemis Watson, a kitten-shaped demon named Mashu'ra, was killed in the line of duty. He's always lived in her hat and he's like a brother to her, leaving her deeply upset and unable to calm down.However, there's a slim ray of hope, which from another perspective becomes a ray of horror: the imp originally arrived on Earth through summoning magic and dying merely returned him to Hell. Unfortunately, nearly every demon in the place knows he's a turncoat and the arch-nemesis of Artemis, Vogerath, has been waiting centuries for this to happen.
The Ashen Blades immediately tried a summoning spell to retrieve their friend, but another imp appeared in place of Mashu'ra, informing the kitten's friends who has him. If they want him back, they'll have to visit Hell and promise an unacceptable measure of cooperation that would surely doom the human race.
Meanwhile, Mashu'ra endures a nightmarish ordeal at the hands of his old boss, starting with magically-enhanced interrogation, then torture and brainwashing, using means both magical and mundane.
Artemis and her friends mount a desperate rescue mission and open a portal to that infernal world. Artemis leads the way, with military backup, using all of her power to cut a blood-soaked path through Hell, to reach the Outcast Detention Center, where Mashu'ra is held captive.
Will she be in time to rescue her dear friend before it's too late? Will she manage to save his soul, or will she rescue only his body? Will Mashu'ra ever be the same again?
Tags: friday-feature, novel
Elementalist #1
Once again, I'm making a musical album, this time titled Elementalist. The music centers around the main character of Ashen Blades, who's known by many names and insults, including The Hunter, Little Miss Secret, LMS, brat, Itsa Secret Watson, and most recently, Artemis Watson.
This album will revolve around her various encounters with the elemental spirits and the way defeating them in battle has been transforming her magical powers.
So far, I've got three tracks done, including The Hunter, Call of the Jungle and Unwanted War, which will be the first three and an excellent introduction for things to come.
So far, every song has been written from the perspective of The Hunter, but I have plans for at least one future track to be from the perspective of the Metal Spirit and if I can figure out how, one of them is supposed to be a duet, between The Hunter and the Smoke Spirit.
However, I'll be honest, here and now: the album isn't likely to be finished for quite some time, because some of the encounters with elemental spirits have not been written yet and I don't want to paint myself into a corner, through musical lyrics, something I did a little bit with Rowley's Roar (lesson learned, not making that mistake again).
Alternatively, I may break Elementalist up into a series of two or three albums and mix in some material unrelated to the elements.
Regardless, I'm finding inspiration for the novels while writing lyrics and the story is going to take some wild twists in the future, especially as the end of the series draws near.
Within the series, I may make reference to these songs, via Alice, the third personality of the Hunter. In retrospect, she's always been a little one-dimensional, little more than a stoner personality created through an unwanted splash of LSD in the face, but I think giving her some talent for music and other creative endeavors would be an interesting way to flesh her out in future volumes, since the three personalities of the Hunter have been getting along better in the volume I'm writing at the moment.
They're likely to start treating the Hunter's body like a timeshare in the novel to follow, to find a better mental balance. Since that's She Hunts Gremlins, it would be an amusing for Alice to be using AI to make music based on the Hunter's life story.
The Hunter
The first song is a heavy metal track titled The Hunter, in which she introduces herself, in song, giving a rough summary of her motivations.
I love the little echoing guitar plucks in this one.
You can read more about the Hunter from her character feature or you can go into greater depth by reading She Hunts Demons, which starts the series and by the way, the Ebook is currently free in most stores (Amazon hates independent authors doing permanent freebies, but you can request a price match).
Lyrics
Demon-hunter: my father,
Demon-witch: my own mother,
Little black cat: my brother,
I'm not one or the other!Within me is a demon,
But that is not all I am!
Within me is a human,
Conflict fills my every gram!Chorus:
Revenge, my favorite dish,
They say it is best served cold,
Hot rage, certainly my niche,
Can I, these feelings withhold?Also, a witch within me,
Giving me the best of flame,
My shadows seek to be free,
Yet no one gave me a name!The Hunter, I call myself,
Though I cannot speak my truth,
Not a model off the shelf,
And forever in my youth!(Chorus)
Parents dead by demon hand,
Every demon would I cease!
Will I rage throughout the land,
Or find little bit of peace?My inner grief never ends,
And demon curse took my voice!
He can never make amends,
And for me, there be no choice!(Chorus)
The war will last forever,
The fight is always dirty,
That demons I might sever,
But still time to be pretty!Heroes can show up a mess,
I think heroines should not,
I'm no damsel in distress,
The little black dress, my lot!(Chorus)
(Chorus)
Here's a link to the MP3 file, if you'd like to download it.
The Hunter is copyright 2026, Owen Tyme, all rights reserved, but free for your personal enjoyment. Lyrics by Owen Tyme, music generated with ACE-Step 1.5. E-mail me if you want to use it for something else.
Call of the Jungle
The second song is a heavy metal track titled Call of the Jungle, in which the Hunter is ambushed by the Wood Spirit in the jungles of Veitnam, in 1972, when she tracked a demon there on a seek and destroy mission.
This marks the beginning of her conflict with the elemental spirits, though it could also be termed a dialog, because not every spirit attacks her and some choose to join their minds to hers.
The beat of this one very much reminds me of a heartbeat, which gives it a certain animal urgency that's very fitting to the scenes from the novel it's based on.
This song is based on events from She Goes to War, if you'd like to read the original source material.
Lyrics
Demons did fill the jungle,
And I came to slay them all,
In mud, I took a trundle,
Not a very graceful fall.I heard the call of the wild,
It was pounding in my ear,
And the jungle whispered mild,
It drew my soul very near.Chorus:
Jungle high-jacked my body,
And did take it for a spin!
But her control is shoddy,
A fight she can never win!Rises up, my nature feline,
A panther, I now become,
Despite it, my will still mine,
I won't be put under thumb!She can't break me, I won't kill,
Every human, safe from me,
I would die upon that hill,
Before bowing to some tree!(Chorus)
"Mine!", say I to tree's spirit,
Of my body, mind and soul,
Felonious wood pirate,
So, go on, and take a stroll!In my heart, she's taken root,
Refuses to accept a hint,
While my friends press the dispute,
Fight for me, some little glint!(Chorus)
You might call me weed whacker,
After taking sword to tree,
And I really smack her,
With my old wakizashi!"Kneel before me now, or die,"
"Body-jacking spirit tree,"
"Kiss this very boot or fry!"
So she surrenders to me!(Chorus)
(Chorus)
Here's a link to the MP3 file, if you'd like to download it.
Call of the Jungle is copyright 2026, Owen Tyme, all rights reserved, but free for your personal enjoyment. Lyrics by Owen Tyme, music generated with ACE-Step 1.5. E-mail me if you want to use it for something else.
Unwanted War
The third song is a rock track titled Unwanted War, in which the Hunter laments, in retrospect, about the war she never wanted, which came to her, because she can't get the Wood Spirit out of her head and the other nature spirits eventually took notice, attacking out of familial rage.
This song is based on comments passed between Verda Bagley and the Hunter, during She Goes to Summer Camp, but their efforts to remove the Jungle Spirit from the girl's mind were no more than a passing comment. Technically speaking, that one is more properly termed the Wood Spirit, but the characters didn't really puzzle that out until the book after that, if I remember correctly.
Lyrics
Already fighting a war,
I didn't want another.
Elements gave me a chore,
And I can't whine to mother.Tree spirit did attack me,
Simply for wrong place, wrong time.
Out of my head and be free,
I don't want to pay the dime!Chorus:
Over my corpse, they'd rejoice,
Spirits seek my life to hew!
This girl has no better choice,
She'll have to win this war too!What of spirits, anyway,
And why don't they mind their place?
Why do they each, at me bray,
And occasionally chase?Air tried to slay me in sleep,
And Earth woke from her slumber!
Then Metal questions me most deep,
Fire also in the number!(Chorus)
What's a girl supposed to do,
With situation nagging?
Can I find a good way through,
Maybe send spirits packing?Can I do what none before,
No man, witch or demon can?
Force every one to my core,
And make spirits my divan?(Chorus)
I'm resigned to stupid fate,
The war of spirits, to win.
They'll probably always hate,
But I can ignore their din.Mine, will their powers soon be,
For revenge, I may obtain.
For my most violent spree,
Ensuring all demons, slain.(Chorus)
Here's a link to the MP3 file, if you'd like to download it.
Unwanted War is copyright 2026, Owen Tyme, all rights reserved, but free for your personal enjoyment. Lyrics by Owen Tyme, music generated with ACE-Step 1.5. E-mail me if you want to use it for something else.
Tags: audio, music, elementalist
Friday Feature #2: Jigsaw City
Jigsaw City is a tale of a young woman fighting to retain her sanity as an ancient, magical city slowly takes over her mind and body, because she accidentally duplicated some of its magic into her mind. This novel will provide lots of action, magic, a fun space-battle, a huge aerial battle and a ton of the main character showing off what she can do with a pair of short swords. There's also a tiny hint of romance (basically, just some kissing scenes).
Oh, and by the way, the Ebook is free!
If you read this novel, please write a review. Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Goodreads are decent places to do so. You can also leave a review on Royal Road
Just a Normal Girl, or is She?
Nicole Jacobs is one of my personal favorite characters. She's the daughter of the main character from The Wizard's Scion, a young woman whose life has finally ceased to be dictated by others. She's to the point at which both her adoptive and biological parents have left her to decide for herself and despite the fact she's living in a far-flung future, with endless opportunities to study any subject she desires, both magical and mundane, she has no idea what she wants.
Between novels, she spent a year studying dragons, until she became the foremost expert on them, but that was just the means to put off the real and very basic decision about what to do with her life. It isn't properly explored until later novels, but it was also the means to stuff her feelings about the loss of her birth father, rather than actually facing them.
I enjoy that empty slate feeling and the uncertainty that goes with it, because it makes her relatable, since most everyone goes through something of the like during their early adult life.
I love the endless capability of this woman, because she dances ballet, sings, performs on stage, she's a top-notch swordswoman and she's one of the best users of magic her home world has ever produced. Oh, and she graduated high school with a degree in chemistry.
Setting her significant skills aside, she's also a half-troll with a unique talent for deep analysis of any spell she comes into contact with, because she can easily copy any form of magic, an ability she was born with. As an infant, she copied both her mother's innate regeneration and troll song powers. Next, she was held by a dwarf nurse and copied their anti-magic power, then she was handed off to her adoptive mother, copying the powers of a strong witch and necromancer.
She really could have set her mind to most anything, but nothing really appealed, aside from dragons, which was an area for research, not really a vocation, unless she wanted to take up dragon-slaying, which she did not (she loves them too much).
Knowing her love of dragons and the one last hole in her research, at her birthday party, her birth father's familiar gives her a dragon's egg, the hatching of which is covered in chapter one.
However, that's not the only gift she got for her birthday and a rather eccentric wizard sent her a small, hexagonal, brass coin, which is laden with heavy magic. In a foolish attempt to analyze it, she made direct skin-to-metal contact without a glove and copied the base spells of its enchantment into her mind.
That's the true beginning of the plot, right there, because she begins dreaming about the coin while she naps during the process of hatching the egg. She has no idea, but she's become an integral part of something grand beyond anything she could have imagined: the ancient, magical City of Kurg, built by the Ulkun, the stone men that inhabited her world first, millions of years earlier.
However, there are unforeseen consequences: the magic of Kurg is nigh unstoppable, because it's fractal in nature, storing a complete pattern of itself at multiple levels within each coin and every copy is capable of restoring the others when damaged.
It isn't long before she realizes her mistake and seeks the stone men, in search of a cure, but along the way, she learns to manipulate the coin, to magically unfold it into a building, via built-in space-warping magic. She first uses it as a handy way to carry around a portable home, without fully understanding it.
She goes on to get in all sorts of trouble and is directed by the stone men to search for the Architect of Kurg, who was sealed inside a folded piece of the city, three-million years earlier. Quite naturally, he's totally mad and ends up as Nicole's primary competitor in the race to collect Kurg pieces. After all, most good protagonists need a good villain...
The Inspiration
This inspiration behind this one is a little different, because it started with a conversation between myself and a friend about Dungeons and Dragons magic items, specifically a portable campsite. After some discussion, we decided there was potential to explore the concept further and I ended up running a GURPS game for him based on that idea, from which the concept of Kurg was born. Like the Kurg pieces, themselves, it started as a small idea that's only grown in size, since then.
Later on, as I transitioned toward focusing my creative energies on writing, rather than GMing, I decided it would make an excellent McGuffin for a collection-oriented series and I had Nicole Jacobs more or less just lying about, waiting for something to strike her fancy. The combination was a wonderful match.
The Plan
Jigsaw City is now the centerpiece of my plans for the conclusion of the over-arcing setting that also encompasses Ashen Blades, Sky Children, The Wizard's Scion and, oddly enough, The Book of Newts, despite the fact it takes place in a parallel universe. Nonetheless, these series are more deeply connected than they appear to be and characters are sometimes referenced in the others.
For example, the war between the Unseelie and Seelie fey that becomes important later in this series forms the backbone of Ashen Blades, because the Unseelie fell further and became demons. Another example is the appearance of The Book of Newts (the talking, magic book) in Jigsaw City, though I've not quite gotten to explaining its presence and how it got to the Milky Way.
I don't want to toss out too many spoilers here, but if you're patient, you'll see the biggest plot I dare write when I get all of my ducks in a row, for the series-crossing event that The Great Purpose will be, which will probably be volume eight (or maybe nine) of this series, which currently goes as far as four.
I really look forward to Nicole meeting The Hunter (A.K.A. Artemis Watson, Little Miss Secret, LMS, brat, etc.), from Ashen Blades, because the two of them will not get along and who doesn't like to see two protagonists beat the living snot out of each other? That will mostly be because neither one is very good at bending to the whims of others.
Interested? Here's Where You Find the Book!
Oh, and once again, I thought I should point out the fact the Ebook is free, though you won't find it on Amazon, due to exclusivity requirements, but you can still pick up print copies there.
Nicole Jacobs is twenty years old and unsure what direction to take in life, because the opportunities available to her are too numerous and no one job fits all of her talents, but she passes the time doing research on dragons. To that end, she hatches a dragon egg, but in the midst of the harrowing work required, she dreams of the ancient, magical City of Kurg, which yearns to be whole.She soon discovers, based on a chance encounter with a small magic item she'd been analyzing, that her mind has been dangerously intertwined with that of the city, which spreads through her brain like a disease, slowly taking over. At first, she's able to keep it under control by suppressing magic within her own head, but over time, it begins breaking past the road blocks she desperately erects in its path as it inches toward total control.
Seeking a cure, she's forced to research the ancient city, while the clock ticks down on her sanity and ultimately, her life. Meeting the strange, stone men that made the city, the Ulkun, she finds they have few answers for her, but suggest that if she locates the Architect of Kurg, one of their own kind, he might be of some help. Unfortunately, due to the fact he was trapped inside a small segment of the sealed city for millions of years, alone, he's quite insane, unhelpful and worse, eventually becomes hostile, forming a plan for galactic domination.
Instead, Nicole seeks the Life Giver, the mysterious being that created the Ulkun and ordered the construction of Kurg, while collecting pieces of the city, in the hopes of attracting their attention.
Will Nicole find a cure, freeing herself from the clutches of Kurg, or will she lose control of her own mind, taken over by the magic city? Will the Architect succeed at replacing everyone in the galaxy with obedient, magically-animated drones with no will of their own or will Nicole stop him?
Tags: friday-feature, novel
Friday Feature #1: Starwitch
For this feature, I'll be sharing some thoughts on Starwitch, a tale of science and magic working hand in hand, which centers around three sisters and witches, who blast themselves into space aboard a rocket powered by magic that uses water for propellant.
If you find yourself interested as you read, try clicking on the big image, above, or scroll to the end of this post, where all the links are listed, including the one for the audiobook.
Oh, and by the way, the Ebook is free!
If you read this novel, please write a review. Amazon and Goodreads are decent places to do so, as is Barnes and Noble. You can also do that on Royal Road.
Beginning of the End
Imagine, if you will, being run down by a massive star ship that's literally a mountain-sized block of granite, which has massive engines fueled by entire lakes of water and magical reserves so deep, it's faster than even a very small and light ship.
Imagine being dragged from your comparatively puny ship and into the depth of that flying mountain, to face her captain, the undead Queen of the space pirates, a witch that's a thousand years old and kept alive by consuming the souls of powerful witches.
The novel begins with the Blackwell sisters on their knees and facing a blank wall, because precious few are allowed to see the Pirate Queen's face, while the zombie witch analyzes their magic, looking for unique talents she doesn't already possess, with full intent to steal their souls, if they have something she wants.
Marta, the oldest, is declared as having strong Earth and Fire magic, then slated for consumption. She fights back, only to be stunned with lightning magic.
Iris, the middle sister, is also found to have useful magic, because she has a unique talent for turning remote viewing spells into something more physical and she's also sent away, to be consumed, after she's interrogated for details on her magic.
Finally, the Queen analyzes Amelia, the youngest sister, finding her magic weaker than any witch she's ever analyzed. At that realization, the Queen says, "The other two will enrich my magic for centuries to come, but this fish? Throw her back, because she’s too weak!"
As such, Amelia is returned to her badly damaged ship, Starwitch, because the pirate wants to see what she'll do with her fuel tanks nearly empty, leaving her with only one option to survive: attacking the ship that already ran her down.
Amelia repairs Starwitch in preparation for exactly that desperate move, despite the fact she has no space-worthy weapons and lacks the raw magic required for artillery spells. Nonetheless, without the propellant to reach a friendly port, she has no better option.
Amelia knows she's a dead woman if she doesn't at least get some water for propellant or rescue her sisters, who have strong enough magic to get Starwitch limping to safety, via a solar sail.
Knowing she's a mouse released by the cat, just to see what she might do next, she decides to shoot for a little role-reversal, to show the Queen what a weak witch that's spent a lifetime building machines can do when she's desperate. She follows the Queen with every intention of using her meager resources to take her sisters back or die trying.
However, since she's got days of waiting ahead, while she uses a weak solar sail to follow the flying mountain, her mind drifts to the past. She blames herself for all the trouble she got her family into, both on the ground and in space.
I think that's one of the best opening chapters I've ever written, because it really highlights the primary conflict of the novel, before beginning a sequence of flashbacks to reveal how Amelia got herself into that mess.
The Inspiration
You might be wondering what inspired me to write about witches in space, but it's relatively simple and deeply amusing: Kerbal Space Program. That game is a lot of fun and I spent endless hours building rockets, only to see most of them explode, usually on their way out of the atmosphere of the Kerbal homeworld.
I'd always thought space travel was quite complex and difficult, but in playing that game and getting rockets into orbit, then beyond, I realized it's not as difficult as I thought. Yes, it's complex, but each of the steps along the way is actually quite simple to grasp. It just becomes complex when all of them are combined.
Taking it Further
Throughout playing that game, I kept having a persistent and nagging thought: if this is so readily doable, why wouldn't a culture with access to magic have done it? Surely, with magic available, it would be even easier, right? After all, wizards are often mathematicians in fiction and that would give them the tools to work out the details of space flight.
Then there's another classic trope involving wizards: they're always peering up at the stars, through telescopes. Therefore, I imagined someone like a wizard staring at a gas giant and its moons, working out the principles of orbital mechanics, just like Isaac Newton did, so long ago.
However, I felt that was the point at which a fantasy story would have taken a very different turn compared to our own history, because a wizard with access to energetic magic could easily apply his magical talents to making a rocket fly.
All it would take is a simple heating spell and even crude technology would be enough. All it would take is something to heat water, which would turn it into steam and the more energy imparted, the more thrust it would provide. Imagine the most powerful of wizard, with the magic to reshape the landscape. Now imagine him turning his heart and mind to the stars, to build a rocket. It's not much of a leap, when you know just enough about space flight to be dangerous, as imparted by an amusingly educational game about shooting for orbit.
The setting behind this series ballooned outward from that idea, but I decided to go with witches, rather than wizards, because wizards tend to be solitary, but witches often come in threes.
To me, a small group of witches working together to build a rocket made more sense than a lonely wizard succeeding on his own, because with more hands to do the work, it can be finished sooner. After all, women tend to be more social, which might lead to greater cooperation.
However, this may be the secret, hidden truth behind the reason wizards live in towers. Perhaps their homes house rockets, which they build in preparation for the day they'll leave their world behind. Perhaps that's also the reason wizard towers are sometimes found abandoned, because they made it work...or at least achieved liftoff. Of course, there would be failures and for each solitary success, there would probably be a hundred that blew themselves to Kingdom Come, or just as deadly, crashed. There's a hundred things that could go wrong, of course, but what about the few that made it?
I also played with the idea of towers in this novel, because the support gantry of Starwitch began as a tower designed to hide its construction from prying eyes.
Witches in Space!
Nonetheless, this isn't the story of an enterprising witch experimenting until she got into space, because in this series, space travel was discovered long, long ago, in a place so far away it's not even in the same universe, but that's not really what Starwitch is about.
It's actually about three sisters seeking a place to belong, because their home village didn't accept them and neither did any other along the way, due to prejudice toward witches. They did eventually find a country that accepted witches and even gave them great respect, but only because the place had laws to use witches as weapons of war.
Unable to find peace on the ground, the Blackwell sisters launched themselves into space, only to meet the Queen of the space pirates, who believed the magic of their souls would extend her life for centuries to come.
This is a story about prejudice, family love and persevering in the face of insurmountable hardship, all in the hope of finding home, safety and a place to belong. Oh, and there's also a little touch of romance along the way. Well, it's not much romance, really, but it's still an important plot point for later novels (there's currently four of them, plus a related novella focused on one of the pirates).
Interested? Here's Where You Find the Book!
Oh, and once again, I thought I should point out the fact the Ebook is free, though you won't find it on Amazon, due to exclusivity requirements, but you can still pick up print copies there.
You can also listen to the audiobook from this nice little widget, though it's more a dramatization than audiobook, with a different voice for each character and emotional delivery:
Home, safety, and a place to belong – they seem so easy to find, at least for everyone but Amelia Blackwell and her sisters, who run from accusations of witchcraft at every turn.It started so simply, with a book. No one might have predicted that a book apparently filled with pictures of newts might lead to so much trouble, but The Book of Newts is no ordinary volume on taxonomic detail of amphibians. The magic book reveals its true nature only to Amelia, at the age of ten, teaching her mathematics, science and engineering – subjects she would not otherwise have been exposed to.
Ironically, she and her sisters are accused of witchcraft for having built a horseless carriage, because to the ignorant villagers, there’s no difference between magic and science. They settle in a new land, only to find the same breed of persecution.
In an unusual ray of hope, they’re told of a distant kingdom that openly accepts witches, but shortly after they settle there, the light at the end of the tunnel turns out to be an awful house fire surrounding their gilded cage: they’re drafted into the local military, because their new nation uses witches as living weapons.
The sisters accept the idea that peace will never be found on the ground. Looking to the stars, Amelia builds a space vessel powered by magic and steam, to carry them to a brighter future, hopefully without the strife that’s always followed them.
Unfortunately, the people of the stars have their own worries: an ancient, undead pirate queen, who consumes the souls of powerful witches to extend her own life. The Dead Queen takes Amelia’s sisters and leaves the magically-weak engineer to die, all as a sick form of sport.
Will Amelia survive long enough to overcome this greatest of all threats and rescue her sisters, or will they become fuel to feed the waning magic of a woman that should have been dead centuries before?
Bonus Content: Rowley's Roar
If you're still reading at this point, then you must be very interested, so here's something extra to make you smile, and yes, this is also free! (Well, actually, it's pay what you want):
Rowley's Roar is a musical album based on the first three novels of this series, telling parts of the story in song, from the perspective of a certain someone (I'm trying not to spoil things too much, by being intentionally vague).
The songs most relevant to this novel are Glass House, Ripe for the Taking, The Book of Newts and Mouse With a Gonne, which are tracks 4, 5, 6 and 8.
Glass House, Ripe for the Taking and The Book of Newts are relevant to the encounter between the Blackwell sisters and multiple pirates, during chapters 28-30 and 32, while Mouse With a Gonne covers the events of chapters 1 and 36-41. It includes some spoilers for the climax you may wish to avoid, at least until you've read the book.
Tags: friday-feature, novel