The Circle of Light is now available at Amazon.com as of May 10, 2012.
My modern day superhero fantasy story, The Circle of Light, is finally available at Amazon.com, the 310-page paperback selling for $13.99 there. I intend for it to be sold as a Kindle Edition soon. The front cover is at your left and depicts the reborn team with their main adversary in the background looming over them. I liken my work to a non-illustrated comic book series and am obviously hinting at the future possibility some talented artist could turn my creation into a graphic novel (sadly, I lack necessary great artistic skills - having first discovered that limitation when I was 12 when wanting to become a cartoonist) as a tie-in project down the road. It concerns a 21st Century superhero team from South Florida responding to a meteor crash disaster on Georgia's Jekyll Island and discovering that impact has deposited a large hairless monster destroying property and threatening lives (labeled by media reports as The Great Terror). The Circle of Light is ultimately about that hero team's destruction and later rebirth due to a secret conspiracy by its only former member intending to not only gain revenge on his former comrades but also slowly demonize and eventually outlaw all US costumed crime fighting vigilantes. The front cover depicts the new Circle (with the former member and ex-hero turned villain Shining Light in the background) and the rear cover (not shown here) will feature an illustration of The Circle at the story's beginning. The novel about a seven-member Christian superhero team of 2012 features one central character, the new superhero Overman - son of two earlier members Mr. Amazing and Mighty Woman, learning virtues of teamwork and having allies as one of its central themes, along with the fallen superhero turned villain Shining Light's failure to realize how his desire for revenge would consume him and everything he still values. The link to my newest novel's Amazon.com page can be found here.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Circle-Light-John-Grey/dp/1475195710/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1336968716&sr=1-1
Obviously a novel aimed at comic book fans and followers of series like George R. R. Martin's Wild Cards series, and even those who know the Champions Superhero Role Playing Game, and I hope those folks will find familiar yet new adveture reading about The Circle of Light
http://www.amazon.com/The-Circle-Light-John-Grey/dp/1475195710/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1336968716&sr=1-1
Obviously a novel aimed at comic book fans and followers of series like George R. R. Martin's Wild Cards series, and even those who know the Champions Superhero Role Playing Game, and I hope those folks will find familiar yet new adveture reading about The Circle of Light
My two Kindle Editions are now reduced to $3.99 each.
Realizing other titles available in paperback and on Kindle are cheaper as electronic book versions, after reducing both books on Kindle to $9.99 each lower than the paperback prices of $11.99 (Worldjumpers) and $12.99 (A Legacy of Blood), and then cutting the Kindle prices to $5.99 (Worldjumpers) and $6.49 (A Legacy of Blood), today I cut the prices on both books to $3.99. I would advise any interested buyers to wait about 1-2 days before checking for these new prices, as the changes take some time They can be found and purchased at the following Amazon.com pages by then.
Worldjumpers: An amazing Journey to Parallel Worlds on Kindle (cover at left).
http://www.amazon.com/Worldjumpers-ebook/dp/B0072PMYI2/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1329089103&sr=1-1
A Legacy of Blood - Jack Petrov: Private Investigator/Vampire Hunter on Kindle.
http://www.amazon.com/A-Legacy-of-Blood-ebook/dp/B00728BWV4/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1328462770&sr=1-3
Since electronic books are easier to acquire than paperbacks, and after some welcome advice from other writers on the subject, I hope this move will increase interest and boost sales for the novels. So, far only one copy of the second e-book sold, but this may encourage additional readers looking for an easy gift to buy.
Worldjumpers: An amazing Journey to Parallel Worlds on Kindle (cover at left).
http://www.amazon.com/Worldjumpers-ebook/dp/B0072PMYI2/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1329089103&sr=1-1
A Legacy of Blood - Jack Petrov: Private Investigator/Vampire Hunter on Kindle.
http://www.amazon.com/A-Legacy-of-Blood-ebook/dp/B00728BWV4/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1328462770&sr=1-3
Since electronic books are easier to acquire than paperbacks, and after some welcome advice from other writers on the subject, I hope this move will increase interest and boost sales for the novels. So, far only one copy of the second e-book sold, but this may encourage additional readers looking for an easy gift to buy.
That's all folks - the book giveaway is officially ended and I've successfully mailed out twenty copies of A Legacy of Blood.
Just thought I would officially announce here, and on other sites where the offer was made, that the 20-copy free book giveaway for A Legacy of Blood has concluded with two final requests I received on April 9, 2012. For those who missed out on getting one, I wish it was possible for me to give out more copies. The book is still available at Amazon.com and CreateSpace in paperback format ($12.99) and on Amazon.com as a Kindle edition ($6.49). I have already posted links elsewhere on this site, so it seems too redundant repeating them here. Just scroll down to another post on this book for more information. I enjoyed spreading my writing work through this offer and wonder what the overall impression of my work will be. I hope I'm prepared for the reactions that might be forthcoming eventually. Until then, I must return to proofreading The Circle of Light one final time and adding some end pages advertising my earlier books and inserting the About the Author page.
Some other Jack Petrov Private Investigator/Vampire Hunter fiction and where it appears or will appear soon.
For those who have read my December 2011 self-published novel A Legacy of Blood and liked it, the book's main character has appeared in some short fiction I wrote in 2010 and 2011, all published or accepted for eventual publication in some short story collections from Pill Hill Press and Static Movement. Here is a list of those anthologies where the stories appear (in order of each book's release date) or should someday appear (hopefully during 2012).
"Case of the Green Vampire," Weird City (March 27, 2011 - Static Movement), pp. 72-88.
"The Vampire Hunter's Requiem," Leather, Denim & Silver: Legends of the Monster Hunter (April 13, 2011 - Pill Hill Press), pp. 71-82.
"The Blood Legacy," Ruby Red Cravings (June 7, 2011 - Static Movement) pp.214-221 (partially excerpted from A Legacy of Blood with some additional material added).
"Silver Bullet Honeymoon," Twisted Love (August 8, 2011 - Static Movement) pp. 211-239.
"The Christmas Murders" and "Undying Love Lost," Weird City 2 (August 11, 2011 - Static Movement) pp. 192-208, 8-19.
"The Night that panicked Gotham, New Jersey," Halloween Frights Volume 2 (September 20, 2011 - Static Movement) pp. 207-228. Set against the historical event of Orson Wells' War of the Worlds radio drama broadcast.
"Immortality in Clay and Wax" and "The Idiotic Medium,"Weird City 3 (TBA - Static Movement) - this anthology has not yet become available on Amazon.com as of May 2012 for some unknown reason. It will contain a third non-Jack Petrov short story of mine entitled "Murder on Poppy Street" about a non-human detective on the trail of someone or something murdering his own kind.
"Return to Angel Beach," The Evil Twin: Doppelganger Stories (TBA - Static Movement).
"The Blackout Hunters," A to Z: Cities of Death (TBA - Static Movement).
"The Night Fightin' Jack Petrov came to Town," Fightin' Jack: A Horror History (TBA - Static Movement).
"Undead out of the Past," Noir! (TBA - Static Movement) - this anthology is closing to submissions soon.
The published stories and their respective anthologies are now available as paperbacks at Amazon.com. The others will also be there for sale once in print.
"Case of the Green Vampire," Weird City (March 27, 2011 - Static Movement), pp. 72-88.
"The Vampire Hunter's Requiem," Leather, Denim & Silver: Legends of the Monster Hunter (April 13, 2011 - Pill Hill Press), pp. 71-82.
"The Blood Legacy," Ruby Red Cravings (June 7, 2011 - Static Movement) pp.214-221 (partially excerpted from A Legacy of Blood with some additional material added).
"Silver Bullet Honeymoon," Twisted Love (August 8, 2011 - Static Movement) pp. 211-239.
"The Christmas Murders" and "Undying Love Lost," Weird City 2 (August 11, 2011 - Static Movement) pp. 192-208, 8-19.
"The Night that panicked Gotham, New Jersey," Halloween Frights Volume 2 (September 20, 2011 - Static Movement) pp. 207-228. Set against the historical event of Orson Wells' War of the Worlds radio drama broadcast.
"Immortality in Clay and Wax" and "The Idiotic Medium,"Weird City 3 (TBA - Static Movement) - this anthology has not yet become available on Amazon.com as of May 2012 for some unknown reason. It will contain a third non-Jack Petrov short story of mine entitled "Murder on Poppy Street" about a non-human detective on the trail of someone or something murdering his own kind.
"Return to Angel Beach," The Evil Twin: Doppelganger Stories (TBA - Static Movement).
"The Blackout Hunters," A to Z: Cities of Death (TBA - Static Movement).
"The Night Fightin' Jack Petrov came to Town," Fightin' Jack: A Horror History (TBA - Static Movement).
"Undead out of the Past," Noir! (TBA - Static Movement) - this anthology is closing to submissions soon.
The published stories and their respective anthologies are now available as paperbacks at Amazon.com. The others will also be there for sale once in print.
My online interview from author Shells Walter is now available for viewing at the Walter Rhein blogspot site.
Posted today at the Walter Rhein blogspot site, the recent interview given me by writer Shells Walter is now available for your reading edification, telling more about me than perhaps my Amazon.com author page or anything here does. It was a pleasure to answer Shells' questions about my work and the reasons behind it. Certainly the questions were inciteful enough to require my thinking and reflecting on them before providing answers, since I knew the answers on an instinctive level in most cases if not consciously, but perhaps had not thought too deeply about such subjects. All in all, I was pleased with the result and hope anyone stopping here out of curiousity will head on over to that blog. I'm not all that great at self-promotion (shameless or otherwise), so I hope this great interview will provide another piece to the ongoing puzzle of my burgeoning career. Here is the link to that page.
http://walterrhein.blogspot.com/2012/01/shells-chats-with-author-john-x-grey.html
Now that I've had my first interview as an author, maybe the future ones will go as smoothly.
http://walterrhein.blogspot.com/2012/01/shells-chats-with-author-john-x-grey.html
Now that I've had my first interview as an author, maybe the future ones will go as smoothly.
Coming Attractions - soon some of my unpublished short fiction will appear published on a new page here for visitors to read and comment about.
Although I've been fortunate to see a number of my 113 short stories written since 2000 published between November 2009 and December 2011, there are certain stories that never seem to find any home to market them, some of them among my personal favorites (which makes the rejections even more heartbreaking to receive). Until I become widely-read and name-recognized enough for publishing all of them together in what I would title The Orphaned Stories of John X. Grey, after some recent advice from a Facebook Friend I intend publishing some of those stories for the first time here and let visitors to my site judge their quality (possibly also offering some minor constructive criticism about what makes them rejected so often by every market I've ever submitted them - I could use the insight). I will probably begin with some of my all-time unpubilshed favorites, such as "Maze's - The Biggest Little Convenience Store" or "The Avatar House on Eternity Road," those and others rejected by some big and small time short fiction publications (especially ones that pay good rates). I'm desperate to figure out why some of what I consider my best work gets no respect from editors out there (especially the pro publications). Any feedback and help will be appreciated, even as I read the comments with white-knuckled apprehension sometimes. Thank you in advance.
Not a resolution for the new year, just starting over in some ways.
Greetings, visitors, to my webpage and blog. I hope my toxic negativity of December 2010 - December 2011 did not put off too many people from ever wanting to stop by ever again. Yes, I was a bad boy last year in my own puny-minded manner, but all that bad blogging is archived somewhere far away from cyberspace now and should best be forgotten. I'm through with broken-hearted rantings for something obviously God never meant to be, even as I still occasionally dream of or wish for the cosmic do-over for the past 30-31 years of mistakes that only happens to characters in movies, TV shows, plays or fiction, never in real life (unless someone admits to getting that sort of second chance - but they would probably be considered crazy). I suppose that's one reason I've often been attracted to the alternate history fiction genre (the modern era's examples beginning in 1953 with Ward Moore's "Bring the Jubilee"). As interesting news about my ongoing career or new publications occurs, I will post announcements here. Stay tuned, dear readers.
