from the surface world, Krista and her only friend, Darkwing,
struggle to remain alive. The pair of reptilian street scum live in
their newfound home, the City of Renasence, dictated by a fascist
military known as the Renasence Guard. The two find themselves at
odds when Krista puts her faith in the Five Guardians’ goal of
unification, while Darkwing chooses to stand with a notorious gang,
the Blood Hounds, who are known for their anarchist views
Five Guardians become crazed from an unknown disease – Mental
Damnation. After their infection, the Guardians develop a bizarre
interest in her, claiming they must reap her innocence for their
newfound master, the Weaver.
infected and on a hunt for her, Krista has limited options for
survival: Does she fend for her life in the City of Renascence,
against menacing forces, or risk leaving everything behind and enter
the uncharted realm of the underworld?
his Mental Damnation series. The second book, Dream, reached the
Edmonton Journal’s top five selling fictional books list. He
started writing fantasy stories at a very young age while being home
schooled. It wasn’t until graduating college that he began
professionally pursuing his work with his first release, Reality.
Since then he has continued to write works of fiction ranging from
fantasy to horror.
runs his own graphic design and website development business under
the title Reveal Design. These skills have been transcribed into the
formatting and artwork found within his publications supporting his
fascination of transmedia storytelling.
The strange male and Krista paused simultaneously, listening to the noise. Once the roar faded, the Corrupt continued to squirm. Krista suddenly realized that he was trying to crawl off of her, but his hands and feet had been cut off. Blood oozed from his limbs and smeared onto Krista. The Corrupt was essentially defenseless, so she calmed down – a little bit – and tried to work with him to get him off her.
Krista managed to roll the Corrupt to the side and he attempted to scurry away, but without hands and feet, he stumbled back to the ground whining, moving like a newborn calf.
A second male leaped from the higher rocks and landed with a heavy thud, raising dust. He threw a spear at the bleeding Corrupt. The weapon soared into the air, piercing through his victim’s skull and pinning the Corrupt to the ground.
Krista looked at the newcomer, mesmerized by his physical appearance. Muscles bulged on his shirtless torso. His skin was peach-toned, something Krista had never seen before.
What is he? she wondered, eyeing the male from his feet to his head.
The male’s five-toed feet were clad in sandals, with leather wrapped around his ankles. He wore a green kilt and several sheathed weapons strapped to his bare chest, which was marred by numerous jagged scars. His right hand had a cloth wrapped around it, and a ring flashed on his left.
He had a tail similar to Krista’s but with no scales. His brown scalp-feathers were plucked on the sides, leaving the remaining long feathers tied into a ponytail running down to his shoulder blades. Like hers, his eyes glowed, but they were bright white, not nearly as vibrant, and had green irises.
The male’s light skin and unusually flat facial structure called up flashbacks to the human raiders of Krista’s childhood.
He’s like a cross of humans and my people. I’ve never seen anything like it before!
The male walked over to the dead Corrupt and pulled his spear free from the body, then kicked it over the rocky edge. He kept his gaze on the rocks, watching the corpse fall into the fog.
Krista could hear the body tumble down the mountain, until the sound faded. Now that his back was facing her, she could see his spine was covered in light grey scales that came up to his neck. Krista was frightened by the peach-skinned male and kept motionless. She was uncertain whether he was a friend or a foe, or what she should do.
He’s going to notice me eventually. She waved nervously. “Hi.”
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I am from Toledo, Ohio. [Jamie’s note: When I hear Toledo, my mind immediately jumps to Clinger on MASH. Does that date me?] I enjoy reading, cooking and playing video games in addition to writing. I am a sucker for a good story—regardless of genre. I love music. I sing a little. In addition to writing, I work a 9-5. I’ve been writing since my youth but only seriously considered putting the work in mid 2000s. In 2012, after much encouragement and support from my spouse, I published Birth of Light. From there it’s been a crazy whirlwind of creativity, self-publishing, and a crash course in marketing.
Maeseloria: Birth of Light
I never recall a time when my life goal was anything other than being a writer. When I was as young as six, I began writing stories about the man from Mars for my older sister. I continued to write throughout high school and had finished a novel before I graduated (not that it was any good). My parents, however, were practical people, and while they never told me that I couldn’t be a writer, they insisted I have a back-up plan. When I was looking into college majors, my only true consideration was how would this help me become a writer. I ended up as an English major, which allowed me to read a great deal of literature (every writer needs to first be a reader). Since a bachelor’s degree in English isn’t really an employable degree, I went on to get a Ph.D. in American literature.
In the process of attaining an advanced degree, I stopped writing fiction. I forgot that the Ph.D. and a university professorship was merely the back-up plan. I wrote the literary criticism that was necessary to advance myself in academia, and I was absolutely miserable. As I now tell my creative writing students, a writer has to write in order to be happy. I believe that being a writer, or an artist of any kind, is part of a person’s soul, and if that part isn’t nurtured, the soul withers.
Of course, I want as many people as possible to read my books, but even if they were never read by anyone but me, writing them was the only possible decision for me to live a fulfilled life. Writing makes me happy. Writing feeds my soul.
As every novelist knows, a well developed character is in some sense alive. This sounds weird to someone who is not a writer, but characters come to exist in a space of their own, which isn’t entire identical to the author’s imagination. These characters can become insistent, down right bossy, in letting an author know that there is more to their stories that needs telling. I had several of these bossy characters in The Goddess’s Choice, but the bossiest of them was Darhour, a former assassin. While some of my other characters were content with short stories of their own, Darhour insisted I write an entire novel about him.
Arriving on the scene in 2012 with the publication of The Ruins Of Mars, Dylan James Quarles is one of Amazon’s brightest Kindle Authors.
Santana young grew up watching science fiction and fantasy, her favorite being Babylon 5. She began writing at a young age for fun.
Earth is gone…