Hey, fans of reading! If you’re like those of us at ’Warp Central, then you know that today is Book Lovers Day, a worldwide event celebrated every August 9th. If you’re looking for the right book on this special day, here are a few StarWarp Concepts titles you might want to consider adding to your reading list!
Dark Urban Fantasy
Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1 is my young adult novel that’s perfect for lovers of dark urban fantasy. It introduces readers to Pandora Zwieback, a 16-year-old Goth girl who’s spent the last decade being treated for mental health problems because she can see monsters. It’s only after she meets professional monster hunter Sebastienne “Annie” Mazarin that Pan discovers she’s never been ill—her so-called “monstervision” is actually a supernatural gift that allows her to see into Gothopolis, the not-so-mythical shadow world that exists right alongside the human world. In Blood Feud, Pan, her parents and friends, and Annie are drawn into a conflict among 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!
Chasing Danger: The Case Files of Theron Chase, by bestselling fantasy author Richard C. White (Gauntlet: Dark Legacy: Paths of Evil, The Chronicles of the Sea Dragon Special), is a pulp-fiction-styled collection of noir-fantasy novellas starring a private eye working the supernatural beat in the city of Calasia. From a sexy chanteuse who literally turns into a beast when the moon is full to a string of pearls that kills its owners, and from the ghost of a dead woman seeking justice to the Grim Reaper’s little girl seeking her stolen chicken, Theron Chase certainly has his hands full—of danger, death, and dames!
Fantasy Adventure
Harbinger of Darkness, also by Richard C. White, is a novel that’s perfect for book lovers. It stars Perrin, the daughter of a bookstore owner in a land of magic and adventure. Quiet and unassuming, Perrin harbors a special secret: with the aid of a mystical talisman, she can transform into Raven, a swashbuckling thief who’s number one on the king’s list of most-wanted criminals. 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! It’s sword-swinging adventure at its finest!
For a Few Gold Pieces More collects Richard C. White’s fantasy short stories about 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). It’s “entertaining, old-school sword and sorcery, in the tradition of [Fritz Lieber’s] Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser,” according to author Jim C. Hines of the Magic ex Libris book series, and we at SWC couldn’t agree more!
Illustrated Classics
A Princess of Mars: Originally published in 1912, this is the first in author Edgar Rice Burroughs’s “John Carter of Mars” ten-novel series about a post–Civil War era American who suddenly finds himself on the Red Planet, battling to stay alive against all sorts of alien threats while falling in love with a beautiful Martian princess. It served as the basis for Disney’s 2012 film adaptation, John Carter, and inspired a century’s worth of SF works, including Flash Gordon, Star Wars, and James Cameron’s Avatar. The special StarWarp Concepts edition—available in both print and digital formats—features six incredible illustrations by SWC artist supreme Eliseu Gouveia (Carmilla, 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.
Carmilla is J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s 19th-century classic vampiric tale of love gone wrong. Laura is so desperate for a friend that when a young woman named Carmilla practically turns up on the doorstep of the castle owned by Laura’s father, she thinks her prayers for companionship have been answered. But as she comes to realize, Carmilla isn’t as interested in making friends as she is in spilling blood. Regarded as the one of the earliest female 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. Just like with A Princess of Mars, our edition contains six original illustrations done especially for StarWarp Concepts by the super-talented Eliseu Gouveia.
Nonfiction
Terra Incognito: A Guide to Building the Worlds of Your Imagination is our popular how-to book for writers and roleplaying game masters in which Richard C. White 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. In fact, the book is so popular that it’s currently being used as a textbook in the Interactive Media Design program at Becker College in Worchester, Massachusetts!
From the Stars…a Vampiress: An Unauthorized Guide to Vampirella’s Classic Horror Adventures is Steven A. Roman’s nonfiction history of the queen of the comic book bad girls. In its pages you’ll find a breakdown of every Vampirella story that appeared during her Warren Publishing days from July 1969 to December 1982 (plus a list of the modern-day books that reprinted them); a checklist of every Warren Era appearance she made; a look at the six-book novelization series written by sci-fi and pulp-adventure author Ron Goulart and published by Warner Books in the 1970s; an examination of the awful 1996 movie that starred Talisa Soto as Vampi and featured a scenery-gulping performance from rock-god Roger Daltrey (lead singer of the legendary band The Who) as Dracula; and a pretty extensive look at the history of Hammer Films’ Vampirella movie, announced in 1975 with model/actress Barbara Leigh and Hammer legend Peter Cushing as its stars, but which was never produced. Plus little-seen photos and other material pulled straight from the vaults of the Ackermonster by the Official Vampirella Historian, Sean Fernald, who also wrote the foreword. If you’re a Vampi fan, this will definitely be a book you need to pick up!
All titles are available in print and digital formats, so visit their respective product pages for ordering information. And while you’re at it, be sure to check out all the other books, comics, and graphic novels we offer. Happy reading!
