Genre Author: writings and musings by A.J. Walker

From now through October 8, my fantasy novel Roots Run Deep is on sale for only $2.99!

This novel came out back in 2011 and got some good reviews, but old novels sometimes sink into obscurity, so my publisher Double Dragon has decided to put it on sale to breathe some life into it. Here's the blurb:

She fought her way up from a shanty town to a palace in order to change the world, but her hardest challenge was to change herself.
When a small-time goblin gambler falls in love with a deposed human king, the least of her worries is his vengeful usurper. Kip Itxaron has to follow religious visions despite having lost her faith, unite her squabbling people, find the fabled Lost Tribe of Goblinkin, overcome her fear of battle, and somehow be a leader to a people who have never had one.
But that’s nothing compared with loving someone who reminds her of every man she’s ever hated. Human men can barely be called male. Pasty skin, weak bodies. . .they don’t even have tusks! Not to mention that when he was in power he treated her people just as badly as the rest of them. Kip can see he’s changed, but has he changed enough? Can she change enough?

While this is a standalone novel, I have continued the story of this world with The Maze of Mist, which is permanently priced at $3.99.

I'm guest blogging over at Sean McLachlan's blog today about Using Real Cultures in Fantasy Fiction. Hop on over and check out that post, and also the rest of his blog, which focuses on writing, the Civil War, Wild West, and travel.

No Medieval Mondays today, but I'll be back on Wednesday with a post for the Norse Gods blogfest. See you then!

Well, it's finally here. The Maze of Mist, my latest fantasy novel, is for sale in the Kindle store! For the first month I've priced it at only $3.99, and it's free for Prime members.

Here's the blurb:

When the heir to the throne is treated as an outcast, he has to prove himself before he can rule.

Prince Metis Itxaron is the son of a human father and a goblin mother. As heir to the Twin Thrones, he will some day bear the responsibility of ruling two peoples while protecting the kingdom from the vicious armies of the Bandit Queen and the Elves of the Great Forest.

Instead he spends his time getting drunk and sleeping with the few women willing to look beyond his mixed heritage.

In a desperate attempt to make a man out of him, his parents send him on a secret diplomatic mission to prepare for an upcoming war. What they don't expect is that he will come upon visitors from an unknown land beyond the Sea of Mist, a strange labyrinth of fog that has baffled navigators for all of recorded history.

Metis sees a visit to these new lands as an opportunity to escape his responsibilities and prove himself on his own terms.

Then he discovers that representatives from his kingdom's enemies are coming along for the voyage. . .

This is the second book in the Chronicles of the House of Itxaron series. The first volume is Roots Run Deep. While set in the same world, each title is a standalone novel.

Thanks for everyone who helped me on the cover and blurb. Much appreciated!

Hey folks! Here's version 2.0 of the cover and blurb for my next book, The Maze of Mist, which is part of the Chronicles of the House of Itxaron series. It's set in the same world as my novel Roots Run Deep but it's not a sequel. Both are standalone books.

WHich cover do you prefer? Any tweaks? How about the blurb? Any input will be highly appreciated!
When the heir to the throne is treated as an outcast, he has to prove himself before he can rule.

Prince Metis Itxaron is the son of a human father and a goblin mother. As heir to the Twin Thrones, he will some day bear the responsibility of ruling two peoples while protecting the kingdom from the vicious armies of the Bandit Queen and the Elves of the Great Forest.

Instead he spends his time getting drunk and sleeping with the few women willing to look beyond his mixed heritage.

In a desperate attempt to make a man out of him, his parents send him on a secret diplomatic mission to prepare for an upcoming war. What they don't expect is that he will come upon visitors from an unknown land beyond the Sea of Mist, a strange labrynthe of fog that has baffled navigators for all of recorded history. Metis sees a visit to these new lands as an opportunity to escape his responsibilities and prove himself on his own terms.

Then he discovers that representatives from his kingdom's enemies are coming along for the voyage. . .

Last month I finished my latest fantasy novel, The Maze of Mist, a sequel to my fantasy novel Roots Run Deep. The action takes place twenty years later and follows the adventures of Metis Itxaron, son of the human King Roderick and goblin Queen Kip, as he discovers an unknown continent and struggles with accepting his mixed heritage.

I've been busy with edits and beta reads for several weeks now. The book should be ready to go up on Kindle, Smashwords, etc, in late July. I'm still looking for cover art, though. If anyone out there knows of a good Creative Commons or inexpensive image of an old-style sailing ship sailing through the mist, please mention it here.

This sequel is a standalone novel and you don't have to read the first book to understand the second, although I certainly won't complain if you do! I like loosely knit series like that.

Time to celebrate! This morning I finished The Maze of Mist, a sequel to my fantasy novel Roots Run Deep. The action takes place twenty years later and follows the adventures of Metis Itxaron, son of the human King Roderick and goblin Queen Kip. This sequel is a standalone novel and you don't have to read the first book to understand the second. I like loosely knit series like that.

Since I've been revising as I've been going along, this one is just about ready to send off. In the meantime, I'm dancing like the peasants painted by Pieter Bruegel the Younger!

And now that I'm done, I can get back to Medieval Mondays. Stay tuned!

Hello everyone! I've been a bit remiss with my Medieval Mondays posts. I'm working on The Maze of Mist, a sequel to my fantasy novel Roots Run Deep. For those of you familiar with the first book, the action takes place twenty years later and follows the adventures of Metis Itxaron, son of the human King Roderick and goblin Queen Kip. Those two, of course, were the protagonists in Roots Run Deep, but now they're aging and busy with affairs of state, so it's their son who gets all the fun!

This sequel is a standalone novel and you don't have to read the first book to understand the second. I like loosely knit series like that.

Anyway, as you can see from the word count meter on the righthand column, and getting close to being done. Once I passed 80% my productivity really picked up and I don't want any interference from other projects. I should be done by the end of the month and back to regular posts.

In the first chapter of my fantasy novel Roots Run Deep, a team of goblinkin are preparing for a raid on a human city.
 
Like anyone who lived on the Reservation, Kip went armed at all times. Not that she had much. Her tattered leather jerkin gave scant protection, and for weapons she carried a flint knife and a tfaa, a traditional goblin fighting stick. A balanced, two foot-long rod carved from ironwood, the tfaa didn’t look like much, but in skilled hands it could disarm and cripple a swordsman. Prenta had gotten rid of her showy clothes and dressed in a more practical leather jerkin similar to Kip’s.

These impoverished goblinkin are wearing leather armor because they can't afford anything better and their human rulers forbid them from bearing metal weapons and armor. (This ban doesn't last, but that comes later in the story. . .) Leather armor is a staple of fantasy fiction and roleplaying games, yet many people don't realize just how common it was in medieval warfare. Even knights wore it.

Leather armor goes back to ancient times and continued in use through the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. This picture shows the shoulder and upper arm portions of an elegant suit of leather dating to the Italian Renaissance, courtesy of the Schola Forum. As you can see, it looks much like regular metal armor, and many historians believe that it was worn as much as or even more than metal armor. A suit of plate was hot and heavy, so on the march or during a friendly tournament the knight may choose to weather cooler leather. The rank and file would also be fitted with leather and perhaps some portions of metal armor for vulnerable places such as the head and chest.

While leather was much cheaper, it provided pretty good protection. Regular soft leather wasn't much help, but combined with quilted padding provided some protection, especially against blunt weapons such as maces.

More effective was cuir bouilli--boiled leather. If you soak leather in water and then place it in boiling water, it becomes elastic and pliable. It soon begins to shrink, thicken, and harden. As it's hardening, the leather is hammered onto shaped blocks to create breastplates, greaves, vambraces, and anything else. A full suit of armor could be made in this way.

The 14th century French chronicler Jean Froissart claimed that it was "leather that no iron can pierce" and while that may be overstating the case, leather armor certainly gave good protection. Games such as D&D probably undervalue its effectiveness. Modern experiments show that the average sword blow wouldn't get through, although a good English longbow would make short work of a leather breastplate! This basic article (PDF) explains the technique. Also check out this thread from Schola Forum for some more insights and pictures.

The picture below from The Historians' History of the World shows some improvements on leather armor, with overlapping metal scales, discs, and rings. These were all cheaper yet pretty effective alternatives to full plate and variants of these were used from ancient times into the Renaissance.

Croft Fantasy Book Reviews has done a nice review of my fantasy novel Roots Run Deep. Here's a snippet:

"What attracted me to this story was that it focused on a Goblin character, which was nice for a change. I really liked the descriptive passages of the Kip’s world.  Vibrant scenes that build a dark and realistic world. Kip is a good strong character. She takes the reader through the story and I found her an engaging believable character."

Woohoo! Several reviewers have commented how they liked Kip, a smart-mouthed goblin in a world run by humans. A big part of her appeal, I think, is that's shes an ordinary person who rises to do extraordinary things. She's a small-time thief, mediocre sorceress, and bad gambler who is cornered into a position of having to be the leader of her people.

The reviewer also had this to say: "I did feel the plot shot forward a bit fast at times, this left me feeling a little disorientated."

Hmmm. Yes, this isn't the first time I've heard this. Something to watch out for. A good writer learns from his reviews. 


Well, off to write the All the Gods are Human, Book Three of the Timeless Empire series!

My fantasy novel Roots Run Deep has received its third five-star review. Under the title "Can't We All Just Get Along?" reviewer Antony Chow writes:

"Runs Run Deep is an original story where goblins live in a section of a human kingdom, as despised slaves and servants. Kip Itxaron is a goblin mage who lives in destitute on the Reservation, where goblinkin live.

"Kip's world is turned upside down when she takes on a job helping some humans cross a river and into elven territory. When she discovers that the deposed King Roderick is among the refugees she becomes embroiled in a fight amongst two brothers for control over the human kingdom.

"Putting aside her hatred for humans, Kip is forced to choose the lesser of two evils. That means an alliance with Roderick and help him regain his kingdom. In the process, Kip becomes the General over the goblin army and learns what it means to rule.

"The author sets up two conflicts nicely: the human-goblinkin and the intragoblin. These plots are resolved to my satisfaction and I commend the author on this refreshingly original fantasy novel."

A good review always makes my day!

Here's one for all you fantasy romance fans. This unusual looking polearm is called a man-catcher. It's not so much a weapon as a rather nasty police enforcement tool.

A quick jab would catch someone in the spring action and the spikes would discourage them from moving around.This would be very effective for catching criminals without killing them. It would certainly hurt them, but curbing police brutality was even less of a priority in the Middle Ages than it is now. While it would have been of little use against armored targets in a battlefield situation, it would prove effective in pulling a rider off his horse.

This type of weapon was long lived. There are examples from the Middle Ages (although like the flail, its origins are unclear), the Venetian police used a type of man-catcher in the Renaissance with hinged blades, and police in New Guinea used a rather nasty type right into the twentieth century.

The New Guinea example was a loop of rattan with a spike at the end of the pole. The loop would go around the fleeing culprit's neck, and a quick jerk brought his neck up against the spike. A strong enough pull would save a lot of paperwork back at the station.

Photo courtesy Jeremy Hunsinger.

In the past few weeks the number of places to buy my books has dramatically expanded. My fantasy novel Roots Run Deep has always been available directly from Double Dragon Publishing, and the various Amazon incarnations such as Amazon and Amazon UK. It's also available at Barnes & Noble, and 8for those of you who like using Paypal) Fictionwise.

My mystery/thriller Murder at Mcmurdo is available direct from LL-Publications, Amazon, Amazon UK, all the other Amazons, and Barnes and Noble.

My latest book, a short story collection of RPG-inspired tales called Down in the Dungeon, was released by Writers Exchange Ebooks, and is now available at Amazon, Amazon UK, all those other Amazons, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.

So now there are more ways to read the stuff by yours truly! More books coming soon!

My fantasy novel Roots Run Deep is enjoying only modest sales, but it is getting good reviews. Two readers have posted five-star reviews on Amazon.

"Ima Kindler" (I HOPE that's not her real name!) says, "This is an incrediable book. "Roots Run Deep" is not only a wonderful romance it sweeps the reader into a world that is unigue yet familiar.

"This is a world of many races, the Fae, elves, humans, and Goblinkin. What struck me was how the treatment the Goblinkin mirrored that of native cultures--Native Americans--and the idea of slavery. (The poor Goblinkin lived on reservations and were slaves.) I loved the juxtapose of those on the reservation and the Goblinkin who had escaped to the mountains walk with their heads up and with pride. Wonderful story of freedom, power, and the use of power to destory or rebuild. It is also a wonderful love story between the human king on the run and the female Goblinkin who saves his life."


Joshua Wachter (real name!) just posted a review this month: "I loved this book. We follow a goblin woman with minor powers as she struggles to make her way in the world. Swept up in events she rises to the occasion and finds the love of a troubled king. Can she save her people and find a way to be with the man of her choice

So if you haven't checked out Roots Run Deep, do yourself and my Amazon rating a favor!

This picture shows the oldest condom in the world. It dates to 1640 and was found in Lund, Sweden. It's made of pig intestine. Before latex, condoms were often made of sheepskin or intestine. These natural condoms survived into the latex age because some people are allergic to latex, but they've all but died out since they don't protect against HIV.

This condom was reusable and came with an owner's manual written in Latin. The instructions recommend washing the condom in warm milk to stop from catching a disease. This is an interesting detail because it shows the manufacturer realized sheepskin condoms weren't very good at stopping sexually transmitted diseases. Apparently in the 17th century condoms were only seen as a way to avoid pregnancy.

By 1640 condoms had been around for some time. They may have been used in the ancient world, and they were certainly in use in the 16th century. In 1564, Gabriello Fallopio wrote a treatise on syphilis and advocated using a linen condom of his own design to prevent the spread of the disease. He claims to have run a clinical test of 1100 men who used his condom and didn't catch syphilis. Considering that no condom is 100% proof against STDs, his test subjects were pretty lucky, or made good choices in their sexual partners.

In my fantasy novel Roots Run Deep, the heroine, Kip Itxaron, uses a concoction of herbs to keep from getting pregnant. This was common in ancient times. There was a plant related to Queen Anne's Lace that when ingested worked as a relatively safe and effective abortificant. The Greeks and Romans used so much of it, however, that they made the plant go extinct!

I got a nice review of my fantasy novel Roots Run Deep over at Croft Fantasy reads.
Go check it out!

You can also judge the book for yourself by nabbing it at Amazon or Double Dragon Publishing.

Today we have a guest post from A.J. Maguire, a fellow Double Dragon author.

Color me geeky, but I loved the video game Arcanum. In fact, when I was world-building for Witch-Born, I did a little tip of the hat to the game when I named the world “Magnellum”. It was originally going to be called Magnella, but in a purely capricious mood I changed it to add the “-um” at the end. If you’ve ever seen the game, you know the general feel, where magic and steam-generated technology are at odds. While I loved this concept, what I loved more was the steampunk involved and the fun details that came from it.

When I first set out to write Witch-Born, I became frustrated because I didn’t want to make a replica of the world of Dyngannon, which was the setting of my first novel, Sedition.  A very patient friend of mine, who always listens when I start ranting about writing frustrations--even though he's never written a novel and never will--challenged me to make Witch-Born a steampunk world. I’d never tried that before, so I took the challenge.  

Because I was writing Witch-Born for the National Novel Writing Month in 2008, I took all of October to outline the book and play with world-building and research. For those unfamiliar with steampunk, a very basic explanation is that you take modern technology and swap it with steam power. Jared, the friend who issued the steampunk challenged, laid out specific items that I had to put in. Firstly, there needed to be a train. Locomotives are the essence of steam-powered technology, and thus I had to have one in my book.

Chugga-chugga-Easy, I even put a depot in the first chapter.

Then he said there had to be a lot of brass and copper. (Yes, he really was that vague.) And at this point I sort of gave up on his directives and started researching steampunk myself. The first place I went (and the first place I always go when I’m researching something) was How Stuff Works.com. It’s an eclectic compendium of information to just about everything imaginable. They even have podcasts. Personally, I’m looking forward to listening to the “How Shrunken Heads Work” podcast.

How Stuff Works threw me several specific directions. At first, “steampunk” was used to define any author of speculative fiction who based their world on an alternate 19th Century Earth. More specifically, an Earth where technology is defined more by iron and copper and metals, rather than the plastic contraptions we have in stock today. Nowadays, steampunk is a style and an art form. A good example is Wild, Wild West. You see the steam-powered, iron spider crawling through the desert, or the steam-aided wheelchair. But if you want to get really specific, read The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. By the time you’re done reading that, you’ll have a feel for what steampunk means.

By the time November hit, I had a boat load of information and research that I absolutely could not get through.  Because you have to write 50 thousand words in the thirty days of November in order to win National Novel Writing Month, I had all of this information in a file on my computer that I accessed only when I got really stuck.

Can they have a steam-powered generator? (Dive into the file and look.)

I absolutely must have a dirigible, can I have a dirigible? (Rifle through file again.)

Good lord, he’s dressed like a dandy, is that right? (Eyeball several pictures in the file.)

I’m happy to say that I did actually win National Novel Writing Month that year, but the greater portion of my research came about during the editing process. I made the mistake of making the main character a seamstress, which I knew nothing about, and ended up with double the research just to make sure the girl didn’t mismatch colors or use the wrong kind of fabric. Although it was a fictional world, I didn’t want to make some egregious error that would have a real seamstress grouching at me.

That being said, Witch-Born is a fantasy with steampunk flavor. I don’t go into the “how’s” of the way the pieces work and I don’t really elaborate on a lot of them. The reason being, is that the point of view characters who were in the book were primarily the race known as “witch-born” and these magically inclined people can’t fully understand the technology around them. They don’t hate it, in fact they appreciate it, but if you asked them how the gears worked in a clock they couldn’t tell you. There is a sequel currently in the works where I have point of view characters that are not “witch-born”, so I’m getting to play more with the research still sitting in my hard drive.

A reader has given my fantasy novel Roots Run Deep a five-star review on Amazon and Goodreads. The review is below:

This is an incredible book. "Roots Run Deep" is not only a wonderful romance it sweeps the reader into a world that is unique yet familiar.

This is a world of many races, the Fae, elves, humans, and Goblinkin. What struck me was how the treatment the Goblinkin mirrored that of native cultures--Native Americans--and the idea of slavery. (The poor Goblinkin lived on reservations and were slaves.) I loved the juxtapose of those on the reservation and the Goblinkin who had escaped to the mountains walk with their heads up and with pride. Wonderful story of freedom, power, and the use of power to destroy or rebuild. It is also a wonderful love story between the human king on the run and the female Goblinkin who saves his life

Thank you so much, L.J. DeLeon! It's always nice for a first-time novelist to hear a kind word from a reader. 

Today we have an interesting guest post by Theresa Crater, who writes urban fantasy and mysteries, and teaches writing, British literature, and meditation.

My Power Places series starts in Egypt with Under the Stone Paw. Egypt is filled with mythological sites—as is Glastonbury, the location of the second book in the series, Beneath the Hallowed Hill. The Tor and the twin springs form the center of much of the mythology of ancient Avalon.

Red Spring, or Blood Spring as it is sometimes called, is now the centerpiece of Chalice Well Gardens, a beautiful, peaceful site well worth several visits. No one is certain where the water rises from—perhaps from the Mendip Hills or beyond, or it could be from deep within the earth.

Whatever its source, Red Spring carries a lot of iron, creating the red color. Most followers of the Old Tradition see Red Spring as the blood of the Mother Earth, giving to us healing and vision. Indeed, next to the well shaft is a polygonal chamber which many think was used by the Druids for initiation rituals.

Christians have claimed the well began to run when Joseph of Arimathea buried the Holy Grail below Chalice Hill. The spring to them is the blood of Christ. Today people come to this well to meditate, pray, and ask for guidance and healing. Many hang prayer ties in the trees surrounding the well, so many that the Chalice Well keepers are hard pressed to keep up with them. They also have in their possession a blue cup that many claim is the grail itself.

White Spring is the sister of Red Spring, just across a stone wall and Well House Lane. Now housed in a stone building that I’ve been told used to be a restaurant, the building was built by the Victorians to provide clean water during a cholera outbreak. The public protested the destruction of the natural wells and lime encrusted areas the natural flow of White Spring had created. For a time, White Spring was almost unnoticed compared to her more famous sister, but now thanks to Glastonbury residents, it has been refurbished and made into a temple. White Spring belongs to Brigid, the Celtic fire goddess who is guardian of sacred springs. Later, she became a Christian saint.

The water of White Spring is filled with calcium from the abundant limestone in the area. It flows from what were caves and tunnels deep in the Tor. The water is clear and tastes wonderful. It is said to bring healing and all the powers of Brigid—poetic eloquence, wisdom, smithery skills, and healing abilities. In Beneath the Hallowed Hill, several characters follow the tunnels into deep, magical caverns beneath the Tor—and even into the land of the Fae where they encounter Gwyn ap Nudd, King of the Faeries.

The heroine from my fantasy novel Roots Run Deep (published by Double Dragon) has been interviewed by crime beat reporter Mitch Malone. Mitch is a pretty arrogant guy, but Kip is a goblin who's used to bad attitude from humans. See how they get along over at W.G. Gager's blog!

For the third stop on my virtual book tour for Roots Run Deep, I'm talking about what the goblins in my world cook up for dinner. Stop on by to learn all about what these poor, disadvantaged goblins have to survive on. Guaranteed to get your kids to shut up about oatmeal and liver.

http://petenew.com/blog/2011/05/04/rat-on-a-stick-and-mule-meat-soup/