Fantasy books with fierce action, broad imagination, and a cutting sense of humor.
“Every page is filled with the unexpected and hilariously funny and dark at the same time.”
– Amazon customer
ABOUT MY BOOKS
My books are an uncommon mix of fantasy adventure, action, introspection, romance, and humor. That didn’t come from nowhere. In fact, these stories are heavily influenced by three writers: Roger Zelazny, Michael Moorcock, and Harry Harrison.
Zelazny’s Corwin of Amber is cynical, capable, and knowledgeable in a way that only millenia of living can make him. We follow the story from inside his head, which lets us identify with this tough guy who might never share his plans, challenges, and weaknesses with another person. It also makes it easier to describe the book’s fantastical, universe-shaking setting. Maybe most important, the hero of this vast fantasy thinks and talks like we folks from plain old Earth.
Nobody can create intimate suffering on a mythic scale like Michael Moorcock. His hero, Elric, is downright operatic in the best sense of the word. But it’s not random suffering. It comes from who the hero is, what he does, what he fails to do, and how he makes the best of many bad choices. He did it to himself, so he ought to live with it, thrive, or die… knowing that he’s just a man and will be defeated by the universe in the end. By universe, I mean the “gods” in Elric’s world, a cruel, nasty lot too involved in mens’ lives.
I think Harry Harrison is as funny as all get out, particularly in his Stainless Steel Rat series. The hero, Jim DiGriz, makes his own rules, tweaks the noses of the powerful, steals everything in sight, and dares to fall in love. He does all that and sleeps at night like a sociopathic baby. He has a core of optimism that can’t be destroyed (even by the 82nd Airborne).
My hero, Bib the sorcerer, strives and suffers, knowing that in the end he’ll fail. We see that from inside his cynical, plain-talking head. Frankly, that might be too much darkness to stand if he didn’t also have the humor, optimism, and pain-in-the-ass irreverence of an ill behaved teenager.
So, gentlemen, thank you sincerely.