Mel Keegan: The Winds of Chance ... launching now!

Welcome to the launch of

LEGENDS: The Fall of the Atlantean Empire

Book One: The Winds of Chance

At last ... fully edited, impeccably proofread, perfectly formatted for your ebook reader, desktop, laptop or netbook ... no typos, no shuffling from one blog post to another ... just read and enjoy, as a fully-featured ebook from DreamCraft!

In an era of storm and chaos, One will be born who will command the Power, but the ancient magic that flows in his veins like blood is his curse as well as his gift.

In this time of cataclysm and ordeal, the upstart Empire of Vayal has placed a bounty on the heads of all scions of the lineage of Diomedas, for the oracle foretold the doom of Vayal, and it rides on the shoulders of the One.

He lives and breathes already, hiding the old city of Zeheft and in the slowly drowning outlands. He is Faunos Phinneas Aeson, still dangerously young -- and he has one dread: the witchfinders of Vayal, who are charged with the hunting of those like himself.

Twenty years, Faunos has hidden and learned, until the gods of sea, storm and earth destroy Zeheft --and one night destiny brings Vayal's young witchfinder to the camps of the water gypsies, where a youth like Faunos should never have been. Galen lies dying; the City of the Sun is celebrating the coming of age of Soran -- althlete, hunter, beautiful as the night,  Vayal's heir and greatest witchfinder ...

The Empire of the Atlantan has one slender chance to survive, and its struggle will begin on this night.

Read the first four chapters, on GLBT Booshelf!

See the Legends art gallery -- art by Jade...

And save 30% ... indulge yourself in the "blog special," right on this page!

• Published by DreamCraft
• Ebook edition: July 2009
• 98,370 words
• For PC, Mac, Laptop, desktop, netbook, BeBook, iLiad, Sony Reader, Palm Pilot, Kindle, iPhone, Blackberry, Microsoft Reader, smartphones.
  

Download the PDF for BeBook, Iliad, PC, Mac, desktop, laptop, netbook: $6.95 -- save $3!

Download the Mobi, PDB, epub and LRF files, for  Palm Pilot, Sony Reader, Kindle, iPhone, Blackberry etc., for $10.50

Like to see more of the Mel Keegan novels? Start here:

Read more...

Epic gay fantasy: The Lords of Harbendane

This novel should carry a warning: do not start reading when you get home from work at 7:00pm, even if the book is sitting on your doorstep ... because you're going to look like a zombie tomorrow, after having read till four in the a.m. to finish!

There's a certain "something" we've all come to expect from a Keegan novel. I'm still not entirely sure what it is but I should think scientific research could quantify it. Whatever it is, The Lords of Harbendane has it by the truckload. This one is Keegan pure and simple, with qualities that remind you of Fortunes of War and The Swordsman, Nocturne and Dangerous Moonlight. What qualities? Truth. Passion. Intelligence. Vision. Lyricism. And the "A-list" quality of a writer who's been on top of this game for two decades.

Picture this: it's a dark, dirty night, bucketing down, muddy, cold. The quintessential tall, dark, handsome warrior (he's a knockout -- trust me) is on a mission, and when he gets waylaid in a nasty little town, and aided by one of the most enigmatic and irresistible of Keegan's heroes, well, the story explodes from a chance event to the fantasy-scenario equivalent of world war three.

"Tall, dark and smoldering" is Rogan Dahl, who's been a prince, a hostage, a soldier, a cavalry colonel. "Drop dead gorgeous" is Tristan Carlin, who's been a peasant, a warrior, a scribe, and a wedlocked husband. Life is a rocky road for each of these guys; put them together, and you get a inferno waiting to go up --

And Keegan is going to make you wait! Everything you can imagine (and a bunch of plot twists you absolutely can't!) gets between these two guys, and when they finally get it together it's as exhausting for the reader as for the characters. And Mel Keegan manages to do this while staying on "this side of the line" that divides Legitimate Fiction from erotica. Harbendane will stand your hair on end -- at the same time as being absolutely legit.

The backstory is huge. It spans centuries of history and generations of the Halloran family. The Hallorans are Rogan's adoptive clan. He was sent to them as a hostage when he was a small child (in the traditional sense of the word "hostage," which meant the guarantee of someone's good behaviour). The Hallorans are the clan at the head of the great kingdom of Harbendane -- and as the story opens, Harbendane is up for grabs. They're beleaguered, surrounded by enemies on three sides, with nowhere to run and no one to turn to. They're fighting at capacity in the north, and when the ambitious, murderous chief from the next neighboring "superpower" in this land takes them on, they're hanging by a thread. The freedom of a whole people depends on tactics, strategy, and the willingness to take outrageous risks.

And that's the backstory, the scenario, not the plot! Against this monster backdrop, Mel Keegan's story is about individuals, how their lives are being twisted by duty, how their dreams and desires are being wrenched away, how they're still struggling to make something of themselves, how they all interact as they play their parts in a strategy that just might keep Harbendane out of the hands of its enemies.

I can't say much about the details of those personal stories, because I'm in plot spoilers instantly, and most readers absolutely hate to be told, "Tristan's real problem is..." and "Rogan's plan is..." I can tell you that the book is written with a great lyricism, imagery that comes to life, characters you're going to love, others you're going to hate. Obviously I adored Rogan and Tristan. (It's huge fun "casting the parts" as if Harbendane were a movie. I play this game with almost every book I read. Adds to the fun.) But I also loved Damiel and Morgan Halloran, which is a bit unusual for me. I don't usually "identify" very strongly with the female characters. These two are just amazing -- particularly Morgan ... the character blew me away.

The book is thrilling in many places, intriguing in others ... and keep the Kleekex handy, because there's a couple of places where you might need them. Fair warning: one of the major characters gets killed. (NOT Rogan or Tristan; but MK will make you care a lot about most of these characters, and one of them at least doesn't make it through to the end.)

Does the book have a downside? If it does, I didn't find it. The cover art is the best DreamCraft has ever done. Jade must have been absolutely inspired. (You get used to digital "art" ... but this is a painting, the way books used to have real artwork covers years ago. You feel kind of spoiled at the luxury.) The production values are very high throughout, and CreateSpace does a fantastic job with the paperbacks.

You can get it from Amazon.com in paperback. The Kindle version should be available by the weekend (it's been stuck in "publishing" for days now, and an email was just sent to technical support to get it "unstuck"). You can order the Mobipocket format for your Kindle, smartphone, Blackberry, Palm Pilot, and many other devices. It's available as a PDF for your iLiad, Palm, PC and Mac. And if you're reading on an iPhone, get the Kindle for iPhone applet. A hardcover version is being planned, and will be available from Lulu -- it'll make a great Chrissy pressie when the silly season comes back around.

Highly recommended. AG's rating: 5 out of 5 stars, and a gold sticker added on for excellence of presentation: the cover is amazing.



PC/Mac ebook:
$9.95 -- and identical in every way to the paperback.298pp. (Permissions: no editing, printing, text or image copy/paste.)

Screenreader ebook:
US$9.95 -- properly formatted, complete with cover art and map; over 430pp.(Permissions: no editing, printing, text or image copy/paste.)

and,
BUY THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE FROM MOBIPOCKET

Read more...

Gay fantasy from the pen of the wizard

This is not a book review, but rather, something of a Service Message ... you could say I'm blogging to tell you why I'm not blogging!

The reasons are numerous and I can't get around any of them. In the first week of February it was HOT, and then HOTTER, and after that everything else was just a blur. I couldn't work, so the work piled up around me, and how that it's "only" low-90s in the shade I have to catch up. I'm about to review JUMPING OFF THE PLANET, THE HUSTLER, THE JADE OWL, and a couple of others, plus --

I had wanted to take part in the book launch for THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE ... I missed out on that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity ... and the second launch, for the digital novel, LEGENDS. I missed that too, through having to work.

There's not much I can do to make up for either one, but I can certainly get my review of HARBENDANE online as soon as possible, and I can give a powerful "plug" to the digital novel right here.

This is the first Keegan book in a long time I haven't been a "proofie" on ... because it's going direct from MK to you, via the gorgeous webpage (designed by Jade at DreamCraft). Haven't seen it yet? Don't delay:

LEGENDS: The fall of the Atlantean Empire, a digital novel by Mel Keegan.

What's absolutely great for me about this project is that it's as new to me as it is to everybody else as I read it online. I never saw any of this before ... I don't know what's going to happen next. I'm back every day for my "next installment" and loving it. The idea is brilliant ... and incidentally, so is the novel -- which we expect from MK. If it wasn't brilliant, you'd wonder what was going on.

I can give you the "blurb" right here:

"In an era of storm and chaos, One will be born who will command the Power, but the ancient magic that flows in his veins like blood is his curse as well as his gift. In this time of cataclysm and ordeal, the upstart Empire of Vayal has placed a bounty on the heads of all scions of the lineage of Diomedas, for the oracle foretold the doom of Vayal, and it rides on the shoulders of the One. He lives and breathes already, hiding the old city of Zeheft and in the slowly drowning outlands. He is Faunos, still dangerously young -- and he has one dread: the witchfinders of Vayal, who are charged with the hunting of those like himself. Twenty years, Faunos has hidden and learned,until the gods of sea, storm and earth take Zeheft; and one night destiny brings Vayal's young witchfinder to the camps of the water gypsies, where Faunos should not have been. The Empire of the Atlantan has one slender chance to survive, and its struggle will begin on this night."

And after that, all I can do is encourage you to git on over there and download the parts that are online right now! It comes out daily, seven days a week, at a good-sized chunk each upload.

Better yet, it's FREE. You probably think you misread that, so I'll say it again, and elaborate a little! Free online gay fiction. Free Mel Keegan books. Free for the download ... save it to your device, print it out, go for it.

Right now your getting dizzy, wondering how in the heck this works, right? There's a message on the LEGENDS site, and I'll quote you a little bit of it right here.

Like the idea of free fiction, like free TV?

Then, simply “support your local” – and here’s how:

1. Tell your friends, get them on board … if you’re enjoying a great gay read with LEGENDS, then recommend it to others. Send the url to friends you know will enjoy the read and appreciate the pricetag! (For the same of sheer simplicity -- forward this whole message.)

And,

2. Notice the ads. Keep in mind that MK has bills to pay too, and … hey, you know how it works, right? You’re free to download, copy the novel to any device you like and read at your leisure; print it out, if you prefer. But –

Don’t just send the files to your friends. Send the the url! For the advertising to pay for the writer’s time, your friends have to actually be on the page – sending them the files will defeat the object. Just forward this whole message, and …

Enjoy!

There it is in a nutshell: get your friends in, help yourselves, understand that advertising on the site is paying MK's bills. That's all there is to it. Personally, I hope this works 100%, because I can't imagine anything better than being able to download the absolute best work from the really good writers who can make it available to me (free gay novels online!) at a price I can really, seriously afford. Uh, free.

I want to interview Mel Keegan about this (also about HARBENDANE) for my blog here, but it's tough getting enough of MK's time to do a proper interview, so ... it'll happen when it happens.

In the meantime, let me also give you the link to the booklaunch of THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE ... which is in my "top five Keegans" but please don't make me choose a favorite. It would change every day. Here is the link:

WELCOME TO THE BOOK LAUNCH.

Best I can do do, belatedly, folks, and my apologies to all for missing this.

Back tomorrow with another review!

Read more...

The gay SF trilogy that maps the future of all mankind: Wraethu

It's impossible to believe that it's over 20 years since this book came out. It was the first of a trilogy ... and a debut novel ... and created quite a stir in the late 1980s. Even today it's one of the "weird ones," but it's also the best of the first-published Wraethu Trilogy. The second one (The Bewitchment of Love and Hate) was good too, and then the story somehow trailed away, didn't end with the wallop we'd all expected from The Fulfilments of Fate and Desire. You can actually ready this first one as a stand-alone novel without getting into the other two, and it has a lot to recommend it, without having to tow the rest of the trilogy behind it.

Storm Constantine looked like one of her characters, at the time: sort of goth-punk with electrocuted hair. 20 years on, she has the look of a wiccan practitioner -- which is close to accurate, since she's a Reiki master and publishes magic books. She's also written loads of SF and fantasy, but it all started right here with the first of the Wraethu books... which remains my favorite of her writings. The trilogy has been reprinted, but I'm lucky enough to have the whole thing in the original editions. It came out from Tor between 1988 and 1991, and as I said, raised quite a stir.

There's some disagreement even now, about whether these novels are actually gay SF or not. I'm not going to pass judgment! They're often listed as, and with, "Queer SF," so, what the heck? In fact, the characters are more of what you'd call androgynes. The Wraethu seem to be the next evolution of humans, where individuals have the characteristics of male and female, and can swing either way. At least, that's how it seemed to me ... it's complicated!

The story is post-apocalyptic. The blurb says, "the cities of the industrial north have become a wasteland," and there seems to have been a breakdown in the climate. We've caused a kind of runaway greenhouse effect, and mankind is evolving again, in order to survive.

There's no map in Enchantments... but if you stick around till the third book the map there centralizes on a land-locked sea, and anybody who knows a bit about the map of the globe goes "aha!" because you can easily recognize the Black Sea and the little Sea of Azov just to the north. In the Wraethu books, they're known as the Sea of Shadows and the Sea of Arel.

So the stage is close to set here. The world is a hothouse, the story takes place in eastern Europe, and concerns a new evolution of mankind ... and magic, sorcery, psychic powers, the foundation of a new race, new cities, the troubles between the Wraethu and the old humans from which they evolved.

The story follows several characters. You'll like Pellaz, a young man -- this is his "coming of age" or even "coming out" story. He and his strange new friend Calanthe trek south to find the Wreaethe and join them. They meet the tribe known as the Gelaming, who are peaceful and sophisticated. Other Wraethu are warlike -- it's said that they would exterminate humankind if they could -- but these are artistic and diplomatic. Calanthe is Wraethu already ... Pell will become Wraethu.

They're superhuman in many ways, and are probably some kind of mutation. Nobody seems to know when or how the mutation started, except that it began among young people ... and specifically young male gays, if I read the hints right.

Down in the south these new Wraethu have gathered to build their city. Cal is heading there to join them, since his own tribe has been wiped out in the fighting, in the north. Pell runs away from a village of huts where dirt-farmers manage to pound a living out of the sand and dust...

But what's he running toward?

There's a glossary of the alien language in the first book, but the map is in the third. You'll be glad of the glossary! I didn't have trouble remembering all the terms, but a lot of them are pronounced differently than you'd think ... which starts to make sense when you run into the map in Fulfilments... and you realize what part of the world this is.

The trilogy is huge. At 300pp of very small type, Enchantments is the smallest book. Both the others are about 400pp, so you have 1,000 pages of mind-blowing, gender-bending SF ahead of you! Storm Constantine has recently returned to this world and written another trilogy, which I believe is a prequel set, Wraiths of Will and Pleasure, Shades of Time and Memory and Ghosts of Bood and Inncence. I believe these were also done by Tor, but I've not yet managed to get them.

As far as I know, the Tor editions are out of print (nobody carries a backlist or warehouse stock anymore ... I did hear that it has something to do with rules regarding the "depreciation in value of warehoused goods" ... but this is OT), but you can get them from Amazon -- either the old edition as used books, or the POD reprints of the backlist direct from SCs company, Immanion Press.

Very recommended, but be warned these books are dark, intense and can be a bit weird! AG's rating, 4 out of 5 stars.

Here is Storm Constantine's website: a href="http://www.stormconstantine.com

Read more...

Gay romance and fantasy come alive: The Swordsman

If I had a wishlist, one thing that would definitely be on it is this: "Mel Keegan decides to write a sequel to The Swordsman." Because if there was ever a book that was crying out (screaming pitifully) for a sequel, this is it.

A few times across the years I've asked MK if there are any plans to write the book and I get the same answer. "A definite maybe." I've had thoughts about organizing a letter campaign, or a petition. Or maybe, if 250 red-eyed readers showed up on MK's driveway and made vague threats while waving their arms around ... pitch torches optional.

It's not that the story of The Swordsman ends unfinished or that The End is not satisfying. It ends beautifully. You just want more. There's so much that lies ahead of these guys, and as a reader I want those stories. So write to Mel and complain, people.

The book was put out by DreamCraft in 2002, with one of the best covers that's ever appeared on an MK book. The artwork was repainted for the version that is now printed in the USA, but nothing else was changed ... for which I'm glad. You don't change what's perfect already. (If it ain't broke, don't fix it.)

The story is a romance -- in fact it's two romances in one. On the cover you see Seb and Jack (Jack being the swordsman of the title), but there's a second couple, Janos and Luc ... the gypsy shaman and the captain of the guard. And unlike a number of other gay romances and fantasies, this one has some spice! At least enough to steam up your reading glasses -- though you could give The Swordsman as a gift to a coming-out late teen, without anxiety. In other words, when you get to the love scenes, they're real ones. Gay ones. [evil grin]

Jack Leigh arrives in the Riverlands of Rhondia as a soldier of fortune. He fights for money, which he needs to rescue his imprisoned father. The pickings are rich in Rhondia ... but street fighting (dueling) is illegal, so Jack has to be careful.

Meanwhile, almost a prisoner in the citadel, Michael Sebastien d'Astaghir is in mortal danger. Somebody's trying to kill him, and they come so close to succeeding that his friend, Luc Redmayne, reckons he needs a bodyguard. So, when Luc is privileged to see Jack fighting -- and is amazed by the swordsman's skill -- he recruits Jack as the bodyguard. It's Jack's job to see that no harm comes to Seb ... which means Jack is going to get very close to Seb.

Are you drooling yet?! Don't drool too soon, because MK makes you wait for it. Seb starts out as a gorgeous, haunted, troubled, hurting ... bastard, you'd like to kick his shins. Till you realize what's going on. How he has been, and is being, abused. It takes Jack to get through his armor, and then it all happens at once.

The love story runs side by side with a tale of dark magic, horrifying revenge, and mythical creatures that turn out to be real. It's very hard to say anything about the plot without blowing it. I can tell you, it's intricate, fully developed in the Mel Keegan style ... nothing left begging, everything rich as technicolor.

The landscape of The Swordsman is dark forests, stone castles, deep caverns and the river, the canals. This fantasy world is filled out with a history, even a kind of genealogy. The one thing it doesn't have that I wish it did is a map. (I like fantasy maps. Call me weird.) The action of The Swordsman is Gothic and intense: it's like being inside a place, and you know something is out to get you, but ... what? And I really, seriously can't even hint at what it is without telling you the plot, for which Mel Keegan and DreamCraft will excommunicate me!

Does the book have a downside? Only the fact there isn't a second one! As I said before, let's get up a petition.

Highly recommended, and then some! AG's rating: 5 out of 5 stars.

You can read the first part of the book online as a PDF. I'll link you through right here:
http://www.dream-craft.com/melkeegan/swordsman_samp.pdf

And the book is currently available from Amazon:




You can also buy it in hardcover, from the Lulu Online store:

Order the hardcover


And you can get it as an eBook from Payloadz:


Download size: 1282k / 1886k

Permissions:
Save: yes
Copy: no
Extract text/images: no
Printout: no
Share password: no
Read the end-user agreement?


For PC and Mac, Desktop/Laptop:

Add to Cart

For Pocket PC, iLiad, Sony Reader, Palm:

Add to Cart

Read more...

Gay fantasy: Swordspoint

Here's another very good read that came out in the mainstream press in the late 1980s. It was published by Arbor House in 1987. Ellen Kushner was out on a limb ... her bio says she was very well connected in the industry she could probably afford the risk. Also, Ann Rice had "broken trail" with the vampire stories and Cry to Heaven, but EK was going in different directions. Gay fantasy fiction.

There's a real shortage. Have you ever tried to track down something like Lord of the Rings, but where the book's love interest is between the two heroes? It's hard to find a book like this. Like a gay version of Conan the Barbarian, or Ladyhawke, or similar. You'll have a long search!

(I can only think of a few gay fantasy novels. It's as if professional gay writers have no affinity with fantasy worlds. (Though, if you get on the internet and look around, you'll find loads of amateur fiction written by fans of the LOTR movies, where the characters are "paired." It's often poorly written, and sometimes looks like it hasn't been edited ... but at least it's something!)

So, Swordspoint was unique in two ways when it came out. It has overt gay relationships -- gasp! In a book released my a mainstream publisher! -- and its story is set in a fantasy realm.

(Other gay fantasy novels I'm thinking of are The Swordsman, by Mel Keegan; The Last Herald Mage series by Mercedes Lackey; the Nightrunner series by Lynn Flewelling ... and so on. You can get a lot of these at Amazon ... but you soon get into SF, weird, erotica, vampires, anything but "real" fantasy.)

So it was a nice surprise when Swordspoint came out. It's a "literary" kind of fantasy, so if you were hoping for a "down and dirty, raunchy, sword-swinging, dragon-slaying gay romp", this isn't the book you want. Swordspoint is like Sixteenth Century Europe (court of the Medici kind of thing), with Oscar Wilde style dialog, and a sophisticated fantasy backdrop, and characters whose sexual preference leans toward the m/m.

It's not explicit, but it is delightful. The plot is all about intrigue, courtly characters, menace and danger. The central character is the gorgeous Richard St. Vier, who's a duellist, and there's enough action, drama and derring do to satisfy someone whose guilty pleasure is, uh, Errol Flynn. (In fact, Gene Wolf said in his review of the book that this is "the book we might have had if Noel Coward had written a vehicle for Errol Flynn." Cool.)

If the book has a downside, it's that it's sometimes inclined to get a bit too clever with the repartee and witty, Coward/Wilde style dialog ... and in today's world that tends to make the book sound "stilted" -- people just don't talk like that. (You wonder if they ever did.) This can make the book hard to get through in patches, and can also make it hard to identify with the characters, who sometimes seem a bit "artificial."

If you can get past this (the problem being, if you skip over whole pages you'll miss the details that drive the plot), the book has some great characters -- like Richard's boyfriend, Alec, and Lord Horn, who loves to party. The story will hold you, from the real, honest, "once upon a time" beginning to the "feet on the fender" comfortable ending.

The book is literary; and if you were hoping for some steamy scenes -- sorry to disappoint. However, Swordspoint is delightful as well as subtle, and if you like Oscar Wilde and Noel Coward, the dialog does sparkle.

Recommended. AG's taing: 4 out of 5 stars.

Read more...