Time for some Dark God voting

ByJohn Brown

Folks, I’m trying to decide between 2 book descriptions for SERVANT. Tell me which one appeals to you more.

OPTION A

The spirited blacksmith’s daughter accused of using the dark and terrifying sleth magic.

The young man who hunts her. 

And the ferocious monster who only wants to be free.

Trapped in a web of lies and ancient secrets, of right becoming wrong, the three must struggle not only against each other, but also a being of irresistible powers. A creature who is gathering her servants to usher in the impending human harvest.

If the three succeed, they will save those they love the most. If they fail, the clans of the land fall with them.

OPTION B

Sugar, the blacksmith’s daughter, is on the run, accused of using the chilling sleth magic.

Talen is determined to catch her, not only to get the bounty on her head, but to clear his people from her guilt.

But his plans go awry when a terrifying creature of grass and stone begins to stalk the clan lands. A creature that is somehow tied to those both Sugar and Talen hold dear. A creature sent by the dark Mother, the true master of the land, to both find the seed she planted in a woman’s womb a number of years ago and kill all those who might oppose her. 

At odds and trapped in a web of ancient secrets, lies, and lore, Talen and Sugar must struggle to find the truth. But will they be able to uncover a way to fight back and save their loved ones before the Mother finds the one she bred to be her scepter and return her to power? The one bred to become lord and usher in the impending human harvest.

Let the voting begin.

Share

Similar Posts

  • Servant of a Dark God in Italian!

    ByJohn Brown

    For all you Italian speakers, SERVANT OF A DARK GOD was published in Italy by Gruppo Editoriale Armenia for the 2011 holiday season. Here’s the cover.

     

    Don’t mess with the man in black!

    If you speak Italian, here’s the publisher’s page for it: http://www.armenia.it/libri/984/Fantasy/I-classici-del-fantasy/Servo-di-un-Dio-oscuro.html

    Do you know how cool it is to think somebody in Italy is reading about Hunger and Sugar and the gang?

    Viva Italia!

    Share

  • David Morrell Workshop, June 6, 2008, Boise

    ByJohn Brown

    One of the things I love about writing is that there’s always something new to learn. There’s always new content and, therefore, lots of cool research, but there’s also a lot to learn about the craft. I have no illusion that because I now have a contract I’ve suddenly arrived as a master craftsman. This art is just too big.

    So you can imagine my delight when I saw that David Morrell is going to be giving a day-long workshop in my own backyard (out West, 5-8 hours is still in your backyard). I’ve signed up for Morrell’s workshop on June 6, 2008.

    He’s the guy who wrote Rambo and started Thrillers Inc. He was also a professor for many years.
    More on the Conference
    http://www.murderinthegrove.com/index.htm

    More on Morrell.
    http://www.shotsmag.co.uk/shots21/intvus_21/dmorrell1.html
    http://www.davidmorrell.net/
    http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/oct02/morrell.htm

    This was interesting.

    Ali: As a Professor of Literature at Iowa, what were your experiences in academia like? Did you tutor any students who became prominent in the fiction field?


    David : I have a Ph.D. in American literature and taught academic courses: the American Novel of the 19th Century, the American Novel of the 20th Century, American Realism, Hemingway and Faulkner, Hawthorne and Melville, that sort of thing. The University of Iowa has the famous Writers Workshop, but I had nothing to do with it. In fact, they hated the sort of books I wrote and hated even more that I earned money as a novelist. That was the official line. But in secret, students snuck to my office and asked me technical questions about craft or asked me to read contracts they’d been offered (to see if the contracts were reasonable). Sometimes they showed me their manuscripts. The most productive association of that sort was with Jon Jackson who later published a series of police novels about Detroit. My most gifted student was T. C. Boyle. He writes humorous literary novels and short stories that critics love. His latest is DROP CITY. I taught him nothing about writing – he was a genius. But he did ask me to direct an individual reading course that he needed in order to graduate. We had a lot of interesting discussions, and I’m thrilled by his distinguished career.

    Interestingly enough, T.C. Boyle was one of the writers that made life bearable for me while I was getting my BA in English. His novels, well, I never finished one of them. But his short work sings. Heck, his long work sings, but there’s not enough plot for my tastes.

    Share

  • Curse update: March 15, 2014

    ByJohn Brown

    CurseV2FinalV1I’ve been diligently moving forward with CURSE.

    However, it’s not been in a straight line. While working on the ending last week, I realized that I no longer had the word limit constraints I had with Tor.

    Of course, I knew that, but I hadn’t gone back to my previous draft that had been written to meet Tor’s limits and asked: should I put  back in anything that I was forced to cut?

    But while writing the ending last week I realized that in the last revision I had removed an awesome sequence that introduces the villain of the tale. I’d done it to save the word count. I’d written another entrance. It was good given the constraints, but it didn’t have the cool wattage that this one did.

    Not even close.

    I love great character entrances. Could I put it back it?

    The answer was a resounding yes!

    So this week was spent rewriting that entrance (and now it’s even better than it was) and fitting it into the story (and slid in so smoothly and made it so much better).

    Folks, you will now get to see the naked orange-eyed priest of Mungo.

    Share

  • Free audio version of “Bright Waters” available April 7th!

    ByJohn Brown

    Mark your calendars. Just got word from the folks at PodCastle. The audio version of “Bright Waters” is set for release on April 7th! You’ll be able to get it then. Remember: Everything on PodCastle is free.

    Again, this is my story about a fearsome Dutch trapper, a spunky Irish woman stolen as a girl in an Abenaki raid, and a small Iroquois tattoo…

    Just go to the PodCastle site. Enjoy!

    Share

  • New Release Sale for Curse!

    ByJohn Brown

    CurseCoverEbook1600x2400Curse’s long and crooked path to publication is now over!

    And there was much rejoicing. To celebrate, we’re putting the book on a huge discount today and Saturday.

    Big trade paperback, plus free ebook: $9.99!
    (normally $18.98 if purchased separately)
    Amazon

    Ebook: $.99 cents!
    (normally $3.99)
    Amazon
    Nook
    iTunes
    Kobo
    Smashwords

    I want to thank all of you who emailed and posted comments on the website expressing your anticipation for this book. I really hope you enjoy the story as much as I have.

    Happy reading!

    John

    PS To get the free ebook with your purchase of the big paperback, purchase the paperback, then go to the Kindle store and click on “Kindle MatchBook” in the left sidebar. That will take you to your personal list of books you can get with the MatchBook program. Curse will appear there AFTER  you make the purchase.

    PPS Look for a similar sale for Raveler soon!

    Share

14 Comments

  7. Votes counted! Thanks.

    ND, it’s coming. Everything is ready. It would have been out last week but I ran into InDesign issues.

  8. I actually prefer the first two lines of B, but the final paragraphs of A? I prefer names, but I think the lack of detail in the final paragraphs of A work better. Maybe use three sentences from B, then finish with the last two paragraphs of A.

  9. Vote coutned, Mike. Sorry for the slow comment approval. Thanks for the interesting suggestion.

  10. I vote B. More descriptive and I prefer the use of names. It also has a more impactful ending; the ending of A seems a bit lacking by comparison – we don’t know the clans so why should we care about them? I agree with Ben though, that B could still be tightened up a bit. In particular the last sentence of the third paragraph. I’d lose ‘both’, ‘a number of years go’, and ‘all’.
    Hope that helps John, and that I’m not too late!

  11. Tim,

    Never too late. This is a description and can be easily changed 🙂 Thanks so much for voting! And the suggestions. Those are good cuts.

    I will say that the total voting here and from a couple of other places has been in favor of the shorter version by a margin of almost 2 to 1. It was neck and neck in the beginning, but the shorter one is winning out.

  13. Lol! Ha. Black Friday is indeed a good day. I’m just waiting to review the proof of the paperback. That’s the last thing. I was hoping to have it today. The ebook is up on Amazon, but I didn’t want to announce until everything was ready because that’s when I’ll be doing my big Black Friday sale price. If you can’t wait, go get it now. But if you can keep yourself from eating the marshmellow, you’ll get a better price next week.

    BTW, we’ve started the cover for Curse. I also hope to have the final for Bad Penny early next week. This first time through has taken me longer than I estimated it would. But it should be smoother sailing now that we know what we’re doing on the publishing end.

  14. I could not wait, I just bought Servant for $2.99. It was nice to see your beautiful new cover art on amazon.com !

    Now, here’s hoping Curse is out in time for Christmas!

Comments are closed.