Category: Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Jake Bible

Erin Penn

Z Burbia Amazon Cover

Book Cover from Amazon

If one combined all the energy of a four year-old, the charming arrogance of a sixteen year-old, and the plain crazy of an eighty year-old paranoid dementia patient and sprinkled in some ADHD, mech zombies, and medieval space stations, you may begin to understand who is Jake Bible. He writes from middle grade to adults, horror to fantasy, thriller to science fiction. Whatever comes out of his blender mind gets put on paper. A lot of it – the man publishes six (or more) heart-pounding books a year.

I am not kidding about the mech zombies, the Apex Trilogy starting with Book 1: Dead Mech. The blurb reads: “Hundreds of years after the zombie apocalypse decimates the world, human civilization has put itself back together again. Their secret weapon against the zombie hordes: the Mechs. Massive robotic battle machines. But what happens when a mech pilot dies in his mech and becomes a zombie?”

And the medieval space station can be seen in the Reign of Four. Other series include Dead Team Alpha, Z-Burbia, and ScareScapes (middle grade), just to name a few. Mr. Bible nails the horror, the gooshy, pus-flowing, zombie-filled horror, even if the bodies don’t stay down – you think the creatures had claw hammers to dig those nails out. 

He presently resides in North Carolina and can be seen at various conventions in the area. If asked on a panel how to fix a dragging portion of a book, his response is always “Blow something up.” with a gleeful grin.

His website is: Jake Bible Fiction and his podcast is Writing in Suburbia (unscripted, NSFW – has very mellow voice, tends to have rants about writing).

Author Spotlight: Eve Langlais

Erin Penn

Book cover for Hell's Geek

Book Cover from Amazon

In November 2015 I had a book-reading binge on Eve Langlais – devouring a dozen of her humorous paranormal erotica-leaning romances.  Ms. Langlais voice is funny, her woman are brash and strong, and her man are without-a-doubt alphas. And the romance is hot-hot!

The problem I usually have with reading a lot from the same author did not occur; most of the time the language and characters get repetitive. This is not the case. For example in one book series (Freakin’ Shifters), Ms. Langlais managed to have five different primary female characters and eight different male characters between the four stories. In addition, all the sex scenes were as unique as the characters in them – and that had to be hard; the four erotica books had a lot of sex scenes. Pretty awesome skill set to pull that off. In addition all four books have an element of danger in them; never the forefront, that is reserved for the sex and family humor, but a nice undertone often associated with a battle to prove the Alpha males of the story are Alpha.

If you want your romances with a bit of boom-chicka-boom, she is your woman. A prolific writer she has several multi-volume series out. Some involve menage-a-trois  (where her ability to create unique character is essential – you never mix up which man is flirting with the woman). The paranormal flavor changes from series to series:

  • Welcome to Hell – where Lucifer plays matchmaker to his demons to keep them happy and hardworking
  • Alien Abduction – alien purple skinned male with a taste for pink earth females
  • Furry United Coalition – Even shapeshifters need governmental agencies. Be prepared to be F.U.C.ed

Twelve series so far with over 80 books released. …. I still have so many to read!

Author Spotlight: Calandra Usher

Erin Penn

 "The Book of Dean" Cover

Book Cover from Amazon

Calandra Usher has fiery intensity, sometimes warm and comforting and sometimes a protective wall of  light and heat. An amazing author and artist, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know her through a writer’s group and seeing her as a panelist at conventions. When I read her books, I can hear her voice reading directly to me.

Her first series, entitled The Gospels of Cal’ela, focused on the Four Horsemen and has supporting short stories. One of the short stories is available on her website: Pestilence (11/6/2022 note: the website seems to have been discontinued). The series had a lot of rough edges, especially the first self-published book, but, as she learned the craft and found her voice, her intensity came through pitch perfect. By the middle of the second book, I really started believing the pseudo autobiographical presentation. I tried to pace myself in the reading, really I did; I ended up reading the urban fantasy series in about a week.

She is working a new series on Selkies and should have that out sometime in early 2017 knowing her. It’s in the editing phase, all 200K of it. She may be at it a while. Umm, not that I stalk her on Facebook to find out when the next book is coming out or anything. The nice thing is she wrote it all at once, so the books should be released in quick order as editing is completed. 

 

Author Spotlight: Sharon Lee and Steven Miller

Erin Penn

Book Cover for Necessity's Child

Book Cover from Amazon

In the mood for Romantic Science Fiction with the feel of Victorian England? Then head on over to Sharon Lee and Steve Miller’s Liad Universe where everyone is polite and most people end up with a happily-ever-after. The stories combine action and love stories with spaceships and aliens (you have to meet the Turtles and their version of Space Travel!). The writing team has been together since the 1980’s and work best in the long form. They have a lot of short stories out as well, and I have read most of them.

One of their biggest challenges in making a living through writing has been publishers. But it seems like they finally found a good home with Baen and are producing at the volume level they had always wanted to. I do prefer their earlier manuscripts where the editing trimmed them down to a crisp pace. Their more recent manuscripts follow the current “vogue” of wide-ranging stories with multiple story lines; more of an epic fantasy feel for their new century stories rather than the old century of space opera. It takes a while to get up-to-speed if you haven’t read the previous books. Some of the recent books work as stand-alones and others do not.

They have other universes they have created and one needs to be careful not to go down those rabbit holes unless you really want to read the material. I found the first book of the Fey Duology book off-putting. I expected another sweet romance, and this is anything but. But with over a dozen novels and scores of short stories (get the Omnibuses, they are cheaper) you can live in the Liad Universe for some time.

So if you see Liad Universe on the cover, you are all good. If you see anything else, double-check by reading the Amazon teaser to make certain the format is to your taste.

You can follow them through their multiple websites:

Sharon Lee’s website – http://sharonleewriter.com/

Clan Korval’s (from the Liaden Universe) – http://korval.com/

The Splinter Universe, a genre fiction site where some of their unpublished works are available – http://splinteruniverse.com

 

Author Spotlight: John Hartness

Erin Penn

Book Cover for Stone Cold Crazy

Cover from Amazon

John G. Hartness is a … personality. His podcast, Literate Liquors where he pairs good books with good booze, is NSFW (not safe for work), and the language on his blog has vocabulary not allowed in G movies. But he is passionate about writing and is willing to help those willing to help themselves. Not satisfied with helping new authors through organizing a few anthologies (The Big Bad and The Big Bad II, for example), he has gone on to start Falstaff Publishing. In addition he regularly contributes at Gail Z Martin’s meetup about how the publishing industry works.

Series he’s written include: The Black Knight Chronicles (published by Bell Bridge Books), Bubba the Monster Hunter (self-published – and yes it is EXACTLY as wild as it sounds), and Quincy Harker (self-published). Plus he had tons of short stories and other material out there.

Highly educated, he man can talk theater, electrical, and wiring. He works as a publisher, marketer, content editor, and with a dozen of other skills beyond his formidable sales ability.

And when the Interweb posts self-published are silly, ineffectual people, gloves come off.

If you want to know what self-writing is about, the schedule you keep, the blood you will bleed – read this blog published April 26, 2016: Ros Barber may not be an elitist assclown, but she sure comes off as one.

Biggest takeaway for me was: 
“…if you want it, it’s out there. But you have to want it. And you have to be willing to work harder than anyone else, because that’s what small business owners do. And if you don’t look at your writing career as being a small business owner, then you’re not ready to have a writing career, no matter how you plan to publish.” (John Hartness, 2016)