Blog | StarWarp Concepts | Publisher of Dark Fantasy and Horror

Holiday Gifts for Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans

Posted on December 17, 2018 by Steven

Looking for the right book that would make a perfect gift for the science fiction or fantasy fan in your life? Then allow us to make a few suggestions, straight from the SWC catalog!

A Princess of Mars is the classic science-fantasy novel written in 1912 by Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs that served as the basis for Disney’s 2012 film adaptation, John Carter, and inspired numerous SF works, from Flash Gordon to Star Wars to James Cameron’s Avatar. It’s the story of John Carter, a post–Civil War soldier who’s suddenly transported to the red planet, where he’s plunged into a war between two Martian races—and where he finds love in the form of Dejah Thoris, princess of the city-state Helium. The special StarWarp Concepts edition of A Princess of Mars features six incredible illustrations by SWC artist supreme Eliseu Gouveia (Carmilla, Lorelei: Sects and the City, The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0, The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1), and a special introduction by Mars-fiction expert John Gosling, author of Waging the War of the Worlds.

For a Few Gold Pieces More: This collection of ten critically acclaimed short stories by author Richard C. White stars a Rogue With No Name who travels a world of epic-fantasy adventure, looking for treasure—and revenge against the woman who sent him to prison for a crime he didn’t commit (but she did). Think Lord of the Rings meets the “spaghetti Westerns” of director Sergio Leone (A Fistful of Dollars; The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly), with a healthy dose of monsters, magic, and swordplay mixed in. Weighing in at a hefty 420 pages, it sports a cover painting and a frontispiece illustration by fantasy artist Shane Braithwaite, who also provided the cover art for Rich’s most popular SWC release, the writer’s reference book Terra Incognito: A Guide to Building the Worlds of Your Imagination.

Harbinger of Darkness: Rich White’s follow-up to Gold Pieces is a full-length novel perfect for fans of swashbuckling adventure and strong female protagonists. A thief named Perrin steals an extremely valuable—and magical—gem from the evil king ruling her home country. With thugs and fellow thieves and the king’s assassins hot on her trail, Perrin finds just staying alive is becoming a full-time occupation, which directly conflict with her secret life—and identity—as a humble bookseller’s daughter.

The Chronicles of the Sea Dragon Special is a digital pirate-fantasy comic created and written by Rich White. Drawn by Bill Bryan (artist of Caliber Press’ Dark Oz and DC Comics’ House of Mystery), and featuring cover art and color by Eliseu Gouveia (SWC’s The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual), it’s 48 pages of high-seas adventure perfect for fans of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise, as well as classics like The Crimson Pirate, Against All Flags, Captain Blood, and The Sea Hawk—and it’s available for download for just 99¢!

A Princess of Mars, For a Few Gold Pieces More, and Harbinger of Darkness are available in print and digital formats. The Chronicles of the Sea Dragon Special is a digital exclusive. Visit their respective product pages for ordering information.

Posted in Holidays | Tagged fantasy and science fiction, holiday shopping, holidays | Comments Off

DriveThru’s 2018 Teach Your Kids to Game Sale Is Underway!

Posted on December 15, 2018 by Steven

terra_ingoc_lg_cover The holiday shopping season is in full swing, and with it comes the annual “Teach Your Kids to Game” Holiday Sale at e-book gaming retailer DriveThru RPG. From now until the end of the year, DTRPG and its sister site Dungeon Masters Guild—a webstore dedicated to Dungeons & Dragons fans—will be offering a multitude of titles for parents hoping to introduce their children to the joys of role-playing games.

And it just so happens that StarWarp Concepts has a book that’s part of the sale and that’s perfect for budding gamemasters!

Terra Incognito: A Guide to Building the Worlds of Your Imagination is our popular how-to book for writers and gamers in which bestselling fantasy author Richard C. White (For a Few Gold Pieces More, Gauntlet: Dark Legacy: Paths of Evil, The Chronicles of the Sea Dragon Special, Troubleshooters, Incorporated: Night Stalkings) takes you through the step-by-step process of constructing a world for your characters, from societies and governments to currency and religion. Included is an interview with New York Times bestselling author Tracy Hickman (Dragonlance) that discusses his methods of world building, as well as his creative experiences during his time as a designer for gaming company TSR, the original home of Dungeons & Dragons.

What you’ll find in its pages is information that’s vital for just about any writer, especially when it comes to world building, and Rich shows you how to do it:

Avoiding the pitfalls of naming characters, regions, and countries
Applying the technique of “outside in” to develop and then refine ideas for your world
Creating a world your readers can relate to, regardless of its technological levels
Identify how to create backstories and conflict by observing how your world comes together
Adding details to make your story richer without overwhelming your readers
Identifying useful resources for research

Bonus! Because Rich’s interview with Hickman was so lengthy, and touched upon some topics that didn’t pertain to the world-building focus of Terra Incognito, I made the editorial decision to cut those parts from the final version of the book. However, if you want to discover what else Rich and Hickman discussed—including their shared experiences in the licensed-publishing writers market—then head over to Richard C. White’s blog and read all about it!

From its first publication, the book has been a hit with not just fantasy writers, but role-playing gamers as well. When it debuted in October 2015 at the e-book distributor DriveThru Fiction and its sister sites DriveThru RPG and RPGNow, it immediately shot to the #1 position on all three as their top-selling title, and then remained for weeks as DriveThru Fiction’s #1 Hottest Nonfiction Book and#1 Hottest How-To for Writers! If you’re a writer or gamer, you might just want to check it out. In fact, it’s currently being used as a textbook in the Interactive Media Design (i.e., game design) program at Becker College in Worchester, Massachusetts!

“I think Terra Incognito is a solid introduction to the subject of world building. The book succeeds in helping the aspiring writer in creating a skeletal framework for which to hang the moving parts required of a believable fictional setting.”—The Gaming Gang

Terra Incognito: A Guide to Building the Worlds of Your Imagination is available at a special discount during the “Teach Your Kids to Game” Holiday Sale, so visit its product page at DriveThru RPG and order a copy today!

Posted in e-books, e-tailers, Publishing, Writing Reference Books | Tagged drivethru rpg, e-books, e-tailers, richard c. white, teach your kids to game holiday sale, terra incognito: a guide to building the worlds of your imagination, world building, writers reference | Comments Off

Holiday Gifts for Horror Fans

Posted on December 6, 2018 by Steven

As the song says, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year!” The holidays are in full swing, and that means it’s present-buying time. Have a horror fan in your life? Then allow us to recommend some books that might grab their attention—by the throat, of course!

Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1: This critically acclaimed novel by yours truly explainshow teenaged Goth girl Pandora Zwieback, along with her parents and friends, are drawn into a conflict between an immortal, shape-shifting monster hunter named Annie and warring vampire clans searching for the key to an ultimate weapon (or so the legend goes)—a key that just so happens to have been delivered to the horror-themed museum owned by Pan’s father! It’s a character-driven action-fest featuring the kind of gun-toting vampires that would make Selene from the Underworld movies feel right at home, and it leads immediately into the second novel:

Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2: Pan faces even greater challenges as the vampire clans draw up plans to go to war with humanity. Leading the charge is a fallen angel named Zaqiel, whose previous attempt at subjugating the world was stopped by Annie—who, back in the day, was Zaqiel’s lover! But Pan isn’t about to let some ancient monster win the day, not when the lives of her parents and friends—along with those of every human on the planet—are at stake, so she leads a charge of her own. Yes, there’s more vampire gunplay involved—the undead sure do like their firearms—but that’s only part of the dangers Pan has to contend with, as her adventures take her to a mysterious South Pacific island where monsters dwell!

Carmilla: The blood-drenched temptress of this 19th-century novella by author J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla Karnstein is a vampiress who desires not just blood but love from her victims, and when she enters the life of a young woman named Laura, Carmilla decides that her new friend will become her next great love—and won’t take no for an answer. Regarded as the one of the earliest lesbian vampire tales—if not the first—Carmilla was an influence on author Bram Stoker in the creation of the vampire brides in his seminal novel, Dracula, and remains a popular character in fiction to this day. The StarWarp Concepts edition features six all-new illustrations by artist Eliseu Gouveia.

King Kong: The ultimate version of Beauty and the Beast (with killer biplanes—and dinosaurs!) celebrates its 85th anniversary this year, is currently a hit musical on Broadway, and has its star getting ready for his upcoming bout with the King of the Monsters in 2020’s Godzilla vs. Kong. Know a Kong fan or a devotee of the Great White Way? Then they’ll definitely enjoy this digital-exclusive Illustrated Classic: the 1932 novelization of the original Kong movie! Written by Delos W. Lovelace, based on the screenplay by James A. Creelman and Ruth Rose, it includes scenes cut from the final print and, as a bonus, our edition features six exclusive illustrations by pulp-influenced artist Paul Tuma.

White Fell—The Werewolf: Looking for a tale of female empowerment? Then how about this SWC Horror Bite by renowned author, artist, and suffragette Clemence Annie Housman that’s regarded by scholars as the first feminist werewolf story ever published! Abeautiful woman wanders into a snowbound village—and into the hearts of twin brothers, one of whom immediately becomes smitten by her. The other brother, however, soon grows suspicious of the enigmatic White Fell. Where did she come from? And is her sudden appearance somehow related to the recent sightings of a bloodthirsty wolf in the area?

Blood Feud, Blood Reign, Carmilla, and White Fell are available in print and digital formats. King Kong is a digital exclusive. Visit their respective product pages for ordering information, as well as sample pages and chapters.

Posted in Holidays | Tagged holiday shopping, holidays, horror fiction | Comments Off

It’s Turkey Day!

Posted on November 22, 2018 by Steven

SWC-Thanksgiving-TurPumpkin

We all knew the day would come when science found a way to combine main courses with desserts in an unholy marriage of sweet and savory—and thus is born the Turpumpkin™! All we can say is…

Happy Fearsgiving!

Posted in Holidays | Tagged holidays, thanksgiving day | Comments Off

DriveThru’s 2018 Cyber Sale Is Underway!

Posted on November 21, 2018 by Steven

DTFiction-BlackFridaySale Beating the rush before the post-Thanksgiving shopping season goes into overdrive this weekend, e-book distributor DriveThru Fiction—along with its sister sites DriveThru Comics and DriveThru RPG—has launched its annual Black Friday and Cyber Monday Sale, during which you can purchase a ton of digital books and comics at special prices! It runs from now to November 26—and yes, you’ll need to set up an account (it’s free) to take advantage of this promotion.

Included among the many participating publishers is StarWarp Concepts (of course), which means you can take advantage of some sweet discounts while the sale’s running. So head on over there now and get to shopping!

Posted in e-books, e-tailers, Publishing | Tagged black friday, cyber monday, digital comic books, drivethru fiction, e-books, e-tailers | Comments Off

A Movie Treat for Monster Fans

Posted on November 19, 2018 by Steven

frankenstein-edison If you’re a fan of classic monsters like Dracula, the Wolfman, and Frankenstein’s Monster, then you’re probably aware that 2018 is the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s iconic novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, first unleashed on the public in January 1818.

With that in mind, the timing couldn’t be better for the U.S. Library of Congress to make available a restored print of world-famous inventor Thomas Edison’s 1910 silent-movie adaptation—the first time Frankenstein’s Monster stalked the silver screen!

Frankenstein was a self-described “liberal adaptation of Mrs. Shelley’s famous story” by writer/director J. Searle Dawley that was produced by Edison and starred Augustus Phillips as Frankenstein (no first name of Victor given; he even signs a love letter “Frankenstein”!); Mary Fuller as his bride-to-be Elizabeth; and Charles Ogle as the monster. It runs just over 13 minutes but packs in a lot of melodrama—and scenery chewing—in that short time. (Well, overacting was a staple of silent movies.)

It’s also surprisingly gruesome in one scene. Although Frankenstein doesn’t dig up graves and sew corpses together but instead uses chemical magic to “grow” his monster in cauldron-like pot—one of those liberties taken by Dawley in his screenplay—the transformation of the creature from smoking chemical vapors to full-size horror involves a stage when it bubbles up into a gore-covered skeleton whose twitchy right hand seems to be grasping for the audience—I’m sure it scared the crap out of moviegoers back in the day!

Do yourself a favor and check it out!

Posted in movies | Tagged frankenstein, horror movies, library of congress, mary shelley, thomas edison | Comments Off

Stan Lee (1922–2018)

Posted on November 13, 2018 by Steven

Stan Lee-Vegas2 Stan “The Man” Lee passed away on Monday at the age of 95, and I’ve gotta say this one actually hurts.

Sure, there have been celebrities and creators I’ve greatly admired who’ve passed away—Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Robin Williams, John Belushi, Steve Gerber, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko—but Stan Lee was my first writing influence; the mastermind who understood there was more to comics than people in costumes bashing the crap out of each other; that heroes could have feet of clay and suffer crises of conscience and stumble through bad days and worry about paying the bills, just like any real person, but through sheer willpower and fierce determination they could overcome those obstacles—so long as they never did it at the cost of other people.

After all, “with great power there must also come…great responsibility.”

StanLee_HulkNote Back in my editing days at indie publisher ibooks, inc., I had two occasions to work with Stan Lee—not closely, but close enough for a nerdy fan to say he’d been involved in a few projects headlined by a living legend:

In 1998, I was tasked with editing The Ultimate Hulk, an anthology of Hulk short stories by various writers; Stan Lee and Peter David were credited as its editors on the cover. At one point I contacted Stan about an intro he needed to write for the book; when it showed up in the mail, the note you see here was attached to it.

Oh, that Stan!

Then in 2005, I was hired to write captions and dialogue for Stan Lee’s Alexa, a comic loosely based on a novel series called Stan Lee’s Riftworld, about a comic artist who can open portals to other dimensions (the publisher she worked for was based on Stan).

Alexa_ibooks I tried to write it like The Man (since the conceit was that Stan plotted it), but one day he called me and yelled, “What is it with this script?! It’s like every third word is boldfaced! Where did you ever learn to write like that?!”

I paused—I mean, Stan Lee was yelling at me!—and then said, “Uhhh…from you.”

There was one other comic project I was supposed to be the writer for, in those ibooks, inc. days, that involved adapting/updating The Inmates, a film treatment that Stan wrote in 1971 for a planned collaboration with French director Alain Resnais. From what I remember, the update was about a space princess arriving on Earth and being locked away in an asylum; she escapes and eventually falls in love with the man who helps hide her from the authorities. (Something like that; I can’t remember the exact details. I think the title changed to The Visitor.) What scuttled the project, as well as the concluding two issues of Alexa, was the death of ibooks, inc. publisher Byron Preiss in 2005, shortly after Alexa #1 came out.

Stan Lee—Stanley Martin Lieber—always wanted to be a literary icon; to write The Great American Novel. In a way, he accomplished both goals—it just took hundreds of characters and thousands of pages and a ton of illustrations to tell the story. And we’ll never get tired of re-reading it.

Thanks, Mr. Lee, for everything.

Posted in Events | Tagged stan lee | Comments Off

Unraveling the Recent Boom in Mummysploitation

Posted on November 12, 2018 by Steven

sisterhood-mummy

Hey, Lorelei fans! If you enjoy our soul-stealing femme fatale, then you should check out Sisterhood: The Mystery Unravels, a Kickstarter comic project from SWC friend Richard Boom, for whom I did a ton of comic reviews at his Comics for Sinners site. To quote Richard’s pitch for the series:

For several centuries the ancient order of Justice has laid dormant, but the magical power of the Justice Gems have been released during an Egyptian archeological dig and now all over the world the mummified Priestesses of Justice come back to life. As supernatural evils threaten human society through the next decades, the Sisterhood will be there to guard and protect.

Currently, four issues have already been completed, with another four in the works. If you’d like to support Richard’s dream project, you have until December 3 to join his growing number of backers, so head on over there now and check it out.

Geez—who knew ancient mummies could be so sexy!

Posted in Publishing | Tagged kickstarter, mummies, richard boom, sisterhood: the mystery unravels | Comments Off

Happy Love Your Bookstore Week!

Posted on November 10, 2018 by Steven

love-your-bookstore Today is the launch of the Love Your Bookstore Initiative, a collaboration between industry magazine Publishers Weekly and Sourcebooks in which they make a pretty simple and easy challenge to all lovers of literature in exchange for the chance to win free books:

“Celebrate your favorite bookstore by posting a photo from inside the store with a favorite book (or bookseller!) and use #loveyourbookstore in the caption to share the love!”

Now, it’s a given you probably won’t find any of our titles in your local bookstores—either indie or mainstream—since most shops won’t stock a book unless they’re certain they can move copies and indie titles are too risky an investment, but that doesn’t mean SWC doesn’t support this initiative; hell, bookstores are some of our favorite places!

Love Your Bookstore Week runs November 10–16. For more information, visit the Love Your Bookstore website.

Posted in Events | Tagged love your bookstore week | Comments Off

King Kong Lives—Again!

Posted on November 8, 2018 by Steven

KingKongAlive-OllyMoss It’s true! Not only did the original king of the monsters celebrate his 85th anniversary back in March, but he’s returned to the Broadway stages of New York City where producer Carl Denham made the mistake of trying to exploit a giant gorilla with no acting experience who wouldn’t take direction. Hopefully, this time it’ll go better!

Tonight is the opening night for King Kong, a mega-budgeted musical stage adaptation of the creation of Merian C. Cooper and Edgar Wallace. According to the Broadway magazine Playbill, it features a one-ton, six-meter-tall silverback gorilla puppet as its star, and is written by Olivier Award-winning book writer Jack Thorne (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) with a score by Marius de Vries (Moulin Rouge) and songs by Eddie Perfect. It follows a 2013 world premiere in Melbourne, Australia. Sounds exciting, right?

But Kong hasn’t influenced only a Broadway musical—he also inspired all of us at StarWarp Concepts to add the story of the king of the simian monsters to our line of Illustrated Classics!

King Kong is an e-book-only republication of the 1932 novelization of the original movie classic. Written by Delos W. Lovelace, based on the story by Edgar Wallace and Merian C. Cooper and the screenplay by James A. Creelman and Ruth Rose, it includes scenes that didn’t appear in the final cut of the film—including the notorious “spider pit” sequence in which Kong’s human pursuers are attacked by horrific arachnids and insects. Our version features six original black-and-white illustrations by comics artist Paul Tuma, whose pulp-influenced style has appeared in the pages of The Twilight Avenger, Flare, and Dan Turner: Hollywood Detective.

Not familiar with the beauty-and-the-beast story of Kong and his “love interest,” Ann Darrow (who was played in the 1933 original by the queen of the scream queens, Fay Wray)? Well, here’s our edition’s back-cover copy to bring you up-to-date:

Ann Darrow was a down-on-her-luck actress struggling to survive in Depression-era New York when she met moviemaker Carl Denham. He offered her the starring role in his latest film: a documentary about a long-lost island—and the godlike ape named Kong rumored to live there. Denham needed a beauty as a counterpart to the beast he hoped to find, and Ann was the answer to his prayers.

Mystery, romance, a chance to turn her life around, even the possibility of stardom—to Ann, it sounded like the adventure of a lifetime! But what she didn’t count on were the horrific dangers that awaited her on Skull Island—including the affections of a love-struck monster…

King Kong (the 1932 novelization) is available directly from the SWC webstore, so visit its product page for ordering information.

And break a leg tonight, Kong! Just not for real, okay?

Posted in e-books, Illustrated Classics | Tagged e-books, illustrated classics, king kong, shameless plugs | Comments Off