Ritualistic child murders bring FBI profiler GABRIEL STREET and occultist SIR ARTHUR MAGUS to the town of Junction, Alabama, just as a young woman seeks shelter on her estranged father's farm. REBECCA CALIBAN is pregnant, tormented by the belief her dead husband came to her in the night, leaving her with child. She descends into madness as the investigators battle the killer, an ageless shapeshifter preying upon the innocent in service to a forgotten god.
... Darkness haunts young Tom Caliban, who grows up in the shadow of his mother’s mysterious death, raised by his grandfather. Unaware of Tom or his connection to their shapeshifting enemy, Magus meets each year with the men who helped him battle the Changeling — but distrust begins to grow between them.
... A traveling preacher walks into Junction one summer day, shouldering a rugged cross and promising souls to his unseen Lord. And as Becca’s child reaches his 18th birthday, a new church rises on the site of the Changeling's pyre — and a girl goes missing in Junction. The souleater rises, its hungry call stirring the restless souls haunting the tiny town — including one spirit who has been searching the halls of the hospital for her lost child these past 18 years.
Previously serialized as three novellas, GIANTS IN THE EARTH is the first volume in an ongoing series, The Caliban Cycle. This edition, gathering the entire tale together, includes never-before-published bonus material that includes notes from the author about the origins of the tale and a sneak preview excerpt from the sequel story, AND THE MOON INTO BLOOD, which will be published in early 2016.
In the third and final chapter of "Giants in the Earth," the ancient souleater has risen, and its hungry call stirs up all the restless souls haunting the tiny town of Junction, Alabama — including one spirit who has been searching the halls of the hospital for her lost child these past 18 years.
Having barely survived the creature's rebirth, Sir Arthur Magus delves into the tunnel below the ruined church, seeking the prison that held the souleater all these centuries. Down in the dark, he discovers a legacy tying it to Tom Caliban and the hilltop grove where only truth may be spoken.
Tom’s spirit has separated from his gravely injured body, just as Magus and his few remaining allies must stage a desperate last stand against the Great Old One on the sacred hilltop — and not all of them will survive the encounter.
I've experimented with serializing this novel, the first book in my ongoing series, The Caliban Cycle, to see if it helps the book get traction that my previous efforts haven't enjoyed. So far, it seems like it's working — but the flipside of that is that so am I, constantly working to get the word out about this series, consistently working to ready the next installment.
The book will be released on Kindle in its entirety — with added bonus content! — on Oct. 1, and it will be published in paperback format Nov. 1. I hope to make a hardback edition available in time for Christmas, maybe on the heels of releasing a standalone story of young Arthur Magus to Kindle on Dec. 1.
The final chapters of the sequel novel, "AND THE MOON INTO BLOOD," are currently in the hands of my critique group, and I will begin the editing process on that book ASAP.
...And I can't wait to get going on my next project, a steampunk adventure unrelated to The Caliban Cycle! ...And then start work on the third Caliban novel. ...And then...
PANAMA CITY BEACH — My son, Nathan, turned 27
earlier this week. I don’t know about how you respond to the passage of such
dates, but that day made me look back at myself at 27 and try to imagine where
I thought life would take me then.
I turned 27 in 1991, just a month after Nathan’s
third birthday and couple of months before my daughter was born. I was back in
college after several years of working for a retail outlet — on my way to a
degree in Journalism, finally, and working freelance for a couple of local
publications to help cover the bills.
Two years later, I would be hired by The News Herald
and move my little family to Panama City. But in ’91, we had a spitz puppy
named Everest and lived in a house owned by my mother, and I had dreams of
making it as a reporter and novelist.
I still do.
Looking at my 51st birthday looming now, it would be
easy to say the best days are in the past and to worry what the future holds.
But I have to say, we (as a family) have weathered some dark days in the
interim, and we hope for some great ones still to come.
As I sit here, writing this on the day my latest novel begins its serialized release on Amazon Kindle, I know that there are
still stories to tell — indeed, more than I will ever have time to write down —
still milestones to reach and wonders to witness. The marriage of children and
birth of grandchildren, for instance. The next laugh at a lunch table.
I have more close friends today than at any time
since high school. I have great expectations for my children, and a certain
assurance that they have acquired the skills and strengths they will need to
flourish even when I’m gone.
At 27, things were just getting started and I was
struggling to find my way. At nearly 51, though some days can make me feel my
age, I still have a sense that things are just getting started. I still
struggle, still have worries. But most days the path is there, if I take a
moment to see it.
How about you? Are you finding your path? Can you
look back and see the trajectory that brought you here?
Tonight at midnight, the first installment of The Caliban Cycle goes live on Amazon Kindle. Just 99 cents for more than 30,000 words of mystery, Lovecraftian horror, occult detectives, Southern Gothic generational drama, ghosts, shapeshifters, Creek Indian and Christian belief systems, all intermingled into a page-turning and vivid adventure.
The Caliban Cycle is what I'm calling an ongoing series of novels about Tom Caliban, who doesn't get properly introduced until the beginning of Part 2, which will go live on Kindle Aug. 1. The first book is titled "Giants in the Earth," and will be serialized (in three segments released a month apart) through Sept. 1. Part One is "The Changeling."
My latest manuscript was entered into this spring's Amazon/CreateSpace Breakthrough Novel competition, and has made it through the first two cuts (it's a quarter-finalist!). Which means you can now read the first 5,000 or so words for free by downloading the Kindle file (you don't have to own a Kindle device to read it; you can get a Kindle app for your smartphone or laptop or pad or desktop system for free from Amazon).
I'm really thrilled by the reception it got from the judges so far. Two reviews by "expert reviewers" were posted to my CreateSpace account, and here are some of their notes:
"Beautiful writing, really terrific. Love the description of the car crash and its immediate aftermath.
Sweet character-building for Arthur Magus. ... Super beginning to what promises to be a great story. Really looking forward to reading it."
"The writing is great, it really shines. It seems like someone put a lot of time into perfecting it and it felt like part of a finished novel. ... I'm stumped. I can't find anything weak about it. ... This is a very well written piece. As long as the rest of the book is as strong as this excerpt, it could go to print right now and I'd want to read it. From the use of italics to the unhurried pacing and switching of story back and forth between characters, the whole thing is quite a treat."
Some 10,000 entries (so I understand) were trimmed to 2,000 on the first cut, which is now at 500 (100 in each of five categories). The next cut will determine 25 semi-finalists, which will be announced on or about May 23. I'm holding on to hope that the tale will make the next cut. The final level will call for voting by Amazon users to determine a grand prize winner, so I'll let you know if that ever becomes a concern for me. The grand prize is $50,000 and a book contract; the four second-place winners will receive $15,000 and book contracts.
It's been an honor just to make this far. Seriously. "Caliban" is in the world now. People are reading it. That's something I dreamed about since I was a teenager. I hope they like him and root for him as much as I do. I hope you will too.
PANAMA CITY— Lightning and
driving rain kept the “blood moon” at bay early Tuesday morning, though a power
outage brought the full effect of a lunar eclipse to life in the night.
Our ancestors quaked in fear on nights when the moon
turned dark and red, interpreting the event as a warning of evil times or the
anger of their gods. For me, at least, the reaction was mild disappointment at
a natural spectacle passing invisibly beyond the cloud cover.
But now I have to wonder if it’s worse to know what
you’re missing than to discover that you miss something only after it’s gone?
… Bear with me here as I search for the metaphor
that will tie these concepts together.
Me, reading from 'Caliban'
Tuesday night, I participated at Writers Gallery, a monthly gathering of local
writers at Chez Amavida coffee shop in Panama
City. The event is an open mic night, with writers
reading their recent work — poems, short stories, excerpts. In past months, the event filled
the venue to capacity, but this week few people read or attended to listen.
A young woman remarked that Writers Gallery should
be packed because the area is home to a number of writers in all genres, not to
mention people who love to read. But Michael
Lowe, a poet and fiction writer who has tried to promote the event, said he
expected Writers Gallery to fade away soon because of flagging attendance.
“I’m no Nick May …” Michael suggested, referring to
the young author who established Writers Gallery a few years ago, moving it
from Joey’s Java Juice to other venues until settling at Chez Amavida; Nick and
his wife, Kayla, moved to Pensacola recently to
support a branch of Northstar Church,
placing the fate of Writers Gallery in the hands of its participants.
Attendance has steadily declined since then, Michael
said. With only three readers on Tuesday, the handwriting was on the wall.
From Wikipedia
About that time, the shop’s sound system — the
background soundtrack for our conversation — began playing “Bring on the
Dancing Horses” by Echo and the Bunnymen, a song that always seemed to be more
about the end of an era than simple self-destruction.
(In retrospect, I’m wondering if it referred to
those of us who nervously stood up to read as being little more diverting than
dancing horses. “Shiver and say the words of every lie you’ve ever heard,” the
song continues.)
But at that moment, I thought about signs and
portents, which made me reconsider the eclipse. The “blood moon.” Harbinger of the end
times. In case we didn’t get the message the first time around (or, as happened
locally, the eclipse was called on account of rain) the gods have decreed four
blood moons between last Tuesday and September of 2015.
From Space.com
These events are caused, scientists will tell you,
because the orbit of the full moon takes it through the Earth’s umbral shadow,
cast because the sun is at the opposite side of the planet at just the right
angle for us to see the shadow envelope our heavenly orb. The red coloration appears
because the faint ring of sunlight passing through the Earth’s atmosphere falls
on the lunar surface like the crimson glow of a sunset.
There will be other chances to see these eclipses in
months to
come, just as there will be other chances to listen or share at Writers Gallery
in months to
come.
You know what you’re missing now. If you miss it in
the future, it’s on you — or perhaps you can blame it on the weather. In either
case, it likely won’t mean the end of the world, just the eventual absence of
something some of us think is special.
Wednesday, I took a vacation day from my job. It was my 49th birthday. It was also a personal deadline.
Several months ago, inspired by a prompt Mark Boss gave at a writers' conference, I was finally able to get back to my lifelong writing project, collectively referred to as "Caliban."
With the help of a group of local writers (Mark, Ruth Corley, Rich Kevan, Carole Lapensohn, Marty Sirmons and Milinda Stephenson, otherwise known as "The Cheshires") I have taken my 1994-era version of the tale and brought it into 2013.
Wednesday, I wrote somewhere around 3,500 words, finishing the last segment of the story that remained.
I've been in a daze ever since. (Mark told me at lunch on Thursday that I had that "1,000-yard stare.")
I'm now working my way through the book using the Cheshire's notes on early chapters to weave together dangling threads, enhance descriptions and motivations, explain the inexplicable, and otherwise polish this thing to a glowing sheen.
I'm calling it "Giants in the Earth: Book One of the Caliban Chronicles."
When I complete this part of the final edit, I will be sending it to a friend who is considering representing me as a literary agent. And I will write a novella (or maybe just a long short-story) about one of the supporting characters in this story (Working title: "The Case of the Invisible Vampires")
And post a collection of my zombie short stories to Amazon just in time for Halloween and the return of The Walking Dead on TV.
And begin work on the direct sequel to this story. (Working title: "The Moon Made Blood")
With more to follow.
I was floating in the neighborhood pool yesterday as the sun set, and I had the most pleasant positive mental state wash over me. I felt like I had crossed a threshold of some kind. Reached a personal plateau that revealed a clear path to even higher elevations.
It was a trick of the mind, of course, but I'll take it.
Hope is a good thing to have, especially when you doubt yourself as much as I do. And finally having a sense that you've accomplished something worthwhile -- and that more good things are ahead -- is such a wonderful new experience that I can't even quite grasp the enormity of it.
Thanks to Lou Columbus for shooting and editing this chat between me and Michael Lister. It's a bit long, but if you have the time, we both read from our work in the second half; Michael reads from his newly released novel, The Big Beyond, and I read from a work-in-progress, Giants in the Earth.
Got to sit down and chat with my friend Michael Listeron Sunday at the Bay County Public Library. It was an event to launch his new novel, and we talked about the writing life: seeking inspiration, struggling with story, moments when everything comes together, that kind of thing. I read from Chapter 2 of "Giants in the Earth," my current fiction project in my "Caliban" series.
I'll be writing more about the talk later this week.
For now, here's a photo by our mutual friend, Lou Columbus, who recorded the event (I'll post the video when he makes it available).
It has been a busy time in the life of the Simmons family. A new home still being moved into/fixed up/maintained, a new job for Debra, school for Jess and work/band responsibilities for Nathan, trying to fit a new church home into that, and still trying to make room for creative endeavors and friends and maybe meeting my obligations with a group of local writers (i.e., reading and commenting on their work as conscientiously as they are on mine).
I've taken to having lunch at least once a week at St. Andrews Coffee House, often with friends like Lou Columbus, Mark Boss, and/or Jayson Kretzer. Yesterday, shared a table and sandwiches with Lou and Michael Lister, and we talked about Michael's new novel, "The Big Beyond," which has one of the best first sentences I've seen; I'm looking forward to reading the rest of it.
Meanwhile, I also have several books, magazines, and/or comics I'm reading at the same time. Right now, besides trying to make my subscription to WIRED worthwhile by actually reading some of it, I'm partway through these: "The Long Man" by Steve Englehart (sequel to his excellent "The Point Man"), "Bicycle Diaries" by David Byrne (essays on the personality of cities observed from bike seats), "Warp" (a comic series from the 80s that I found all the issues to in a discount bin), and "Cthulu: The Mythos and Kindred Horrors" by Robert E. Howard.
Also, writing proceeds on my long-gestating "Caliban" series, with a focus on a rewrite of Book 1, now titled "Giants in the Earth." I have written my way to the end with a leap over the "muddle" chapters in the middle. Now, I'm back in the difficult part of making the beginning line up with the ending.
And in my free time (hyuk-yuk) I've begun serious writing alongside that of a memoir that explores the impact and weird parallels with my life of 1970s TV scifi. Yep, chew on that one a while. You would not believe the craziness my brain gets up to when I'm not paying attention (which seems to happen a lot), and then it demands that I do something about it.
I've been teasing Facebook folks with sentences from my current project. I'm trying (somewhat desperately, if the truth be told) to rid myself of a character who has followed me around (in my brainspace) since I was a teenager. >>I wrote more at length about him here.<<
So, on Facebook, I have released the following teasers:
Opening line of Chapter 1: "My mother’s black hair was long then, before the accident that changed everything, and it shimmered like silk in the light of day."
Closing line of chapter 1: "There you are. I am such a meddlesome bastard."
Second line of Chapter 2: "Junction lay nestled in a wide hollow between rolling hills covered in tall stands of pine and oak, cuddled by the soft curves of the earth, and embraced by the fast-moving, tannin waters of Big Escambia Creek." Second to last line of Chapt. 2: "And by the time his enemies had linked him to this place, he would have killed again."
Third line of Chapter 3: "The steering wheel bucked in his grip like a tiller in hard earth, but God heard his prayers and kept him firmly on course."
Third from last line of Chapt. 3: " 'I would hesitate to throw that word out where the press might get hold of it,' Street said." Fourth line of Chapter 4: "She felt as if she was suffocating in the humidity, and her nightgown stuck unevenly to her body like a skin in the process of being shed." Fourth from last line of Chapt. 4: "She looked up at him, expecting a kiss or something, so he kissed her once, gently, on the lips."
What's fun about this is that none of these lines refer to the same character. Tthe "meddlesome bastard" is not the guy talking about his mother's hair, for instance. The "she" suffocating in the humidity at the beginning of Chapter 4 is not the same "she" getting kissed at the end of the chapter.
Also, if you're familiar with my previous novel, "The Book of Gabriel," the last name "Street" in Chapter 3 may be familiar. It is there for a reason, though it is not the same main character you met in the previous book. Some version of "Street" existed in infinite parallel worlds. This is one of them.
Anyway, I'm glad to be (re)writing this. Maybe I'll take it all the way to print this time. (Of that, you can rest assured.)
When I was 14, I started writing a story, like many back then, that was little more than a bald reworking of comicbook ideas. The main character was named Magus, and he was my version of Doctor Strange, the mighty Marvel Comics master of the mystic arts.
The work evolved over time. I became less interested in writing about Magus and more interested in writing about a young man (Tom Caliban) who worked at a hospital in the small town of Junction, Ala., and whose life got mixed up in horror from beyond this realm. I was 16 or 17 by now, and I was working as an orderly at Century Memorial Hospital. But no doubt about it, this time I was also under the influence of a horror film called The Manitou, which takes place in a hospital.
Awesome, right? I saw this edited for TV and thought, "I can do that."
But that didn't quite work, either. By the time I was 18, it was time to try again. I was really into H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard at the time, and I was attending Pensacola Junior College and hanging out, when I could, at used book stores, searching the stacks for treasures. I was also into Native American history (which resulted in my first serialized fiction appearing in the PJC paper). I began to incorporate the old book store ideas and ancient grimoires of magic, like the Necronomicon, into the storyline, along with Indian legends, serial killings, and an old wizard called Magus.Various iterations of that held on for several years, as I moved from school to school, eventually married and started jobs, had kids, and entered a career.
In 1992-93, I got serious about the story again and wrote a complete novel. I asked a few people to read it, including Lynn Wallace and Carole Lapensohn, both of whom I was at the time participating with in a novel writing workshop. While they had some positive things to say, I kind of got the feeling it wasn't their cup of bubbling potion. An editor at my day-job asked to see the book, read it and liked it (although he also said it made him see me in a different light), and forwarded it to a friend of his that was starting a literary agency. The guy didn't like it. At all. Said it was too mixed up (the narrative was non-linear as characters became immersed in each other's memories).
I did a rewrite that brought it into a more linear configuration, but the guy wasn't interested in reading it again. I put it away.
Over the years, I have revisited the characters in the book. I wrote a novella about Magus that tells of one of his early adventures and how he met his wife. I wrote most of a sequel featuring an old Caliban faced with destroying his world in order to save other worlds. I wrote most of another sequel I pitched to an agent at a writers conference as "Constantine meets Payback set in the Big Easy." (I really liked this one, but couldn't make it stand alone without first telling — i.e., publishing — the earlier stories.) I wrote part of another story about one of Caliban's distant cousins set in the Civil War, and part of yet another story that brought the two together to fight the progenitor of all vampires (this would have been the second in the Caliban series, as he comes under the tutelage of Magus).
And I put them all away and chased other rabbits for a while. I wrote most of a zombie novel. I wrote and published two very different novels, two short story collections, many short stories in anthologies here and there, made some videos, wrote lots of things that few (or none) have ever read, painted some pictures. Lived a life like I never expected. Laughed some and cried some. Kept writing into the night and kept getting up in the mornings. Breathing.
And this month, I have returned to revisit Tom and Magus, and the changeling and the soul eater. I have set myself a goal of finishing a rewrite on this book for once and all, and sending it into the world while I follow up with Tom's further adventures as if they too might have some kind of future in print.
I know his stories, as he's told them all to me as each of us have grown up. He's been through some shit over the years, let me tell you.
