Eric Lewis's Blog

I think I’m done buying swords for awhile. It’s just getting too unwieldy an obsession (heh). But that doesn’t mean I can’t upgrade what I already have. I’ve had the Hanwei Renaissance Sidesword for years. It’s actually a pretty decent little blade, but I never liked the hilt furniture. Not really a fan of how wire feels, and the grip was plastic. Plus the guard looks and feels clunky to me.

Recently (actually last year; I’m just too lazy to post often) I commissioned Jesse Belsky to make a new hilt for it, and this is what came back. Jesse mostly does custom work for weddings, graduations and other events, sometimes fencers or stage and film production. This guard design pops up a lot on his site and I really liked it, especially cause it’s ambidextrous so lefties can wield it. It feels even better in the hand than the original did, and there’s no apparent change in balance or anything. This is actually a plainer version compared to the incredible designs he usually does, but it’s still way fancier that anything else I own, so I’m very pleased with it! His pictures are much better than mine, so I’ll just link to his:

This job cost me about $1300 in total and took a few months beginning to end. Jesse was very easy and pleasant to work with, was upfront about prices and designs, and I moved up his wait list faster than I expected. He provided multiple design options and recommendations, and accommodated my fussy requests without extra time or cost to the job. I’d definitely endorse his work for your event, stage production or whatever purpose!

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It’s been a while since I’ve posted, because there hasn’t been much to post about. And also I’m lazy. Sales of The Artificer’s Knot have been predictably nil, as with all my books, and it currently has a paltry nine ratings on Scamazon. I set the Ebook to free and got some downloads during the Narratess Indie Sale, but no new reviews. If you’d care to help increase that tally, dear reader, please do so. I’ve been putting a lot of time into my Dishonored lore videos on my YouTube channel, and the one on the Whales seems to have done alright, nearing 100K views so far. The others less so, but I’ve built up 4000 subscribers anyway. It hasn’t resulted in many more sales of my books, but it’s something I guess.

I’ve kind of neglected work on my latest story, While We Bleed, but I’ve gotten back into it a bit. This story started with an idea that worked well as a novella, but I’m too insecure to try publishing something only 35K words, and I don’t know how to market that any more than a full-length novel, so I’ve been fleshing it out as much as I can. I finished a rough draft a few months ago, and now also what I’m calling the first draft, though these are largely arbitrary distinctions. It now stands at almost 70K words, with more to go as I add another POV character and expand on scenes. I suppose the premise of a bad guy who loses his memory, then becomes a good guy, then regains his memory and has to deal with his bloody past is well-trodden at this point. But as time goes by it gets harder and harder to come up with novel ideas, so I’m doing the best I can. Or the best I’m willing to do for a hobby that costs me money rather than makes it for me.

This story concerns an infamous mercenary, Ardana Sul, who will do any dirty job for the right price. When his latest job obtaining plague dust for the Baroness of Tramontio goes bad, he escapes with his life but not his memory. Rescued from the river by a kind fisherman and his son, he has no recollection of his past or deeds, and in living with them gains something all his ill-gotten fortune could never buy- a measure of peace. But when the Baroness’ goons come to finish the job, his hands remember how to use a sword even if he doesn’t. Finally remembering his dark past, he resolves to stop the Baroness from unleashing the weapon he brought her on an unsuspecting city. The only question is how much of his old self he’ll have to resurrect in order to do it.

I had intended this book to be my return to more grimdark fantasy, but I find it just isn’t as brutal or bloody as what I’ve written in the past. It takes place in a different country in the same world as The Heron Kings, sometime between books 2 and 3 in an Italian Renaissance-like setting with rapiers and flintlocks. It was also my intent to try and write a character-driven story, as opposed to the more conventional plot-driven, so I’m dealing a lot more with the character’s conflict over who he is and how much of his old self he has to revive in order to stop the villain. This leaves less room for wallowing in gore, so who knows what the final result will be. Labels are just for marketing purposes anyway, and it’s clear I’m not good at that! But I am enjoying the crafting of the story, so there’s that.

In other, slightly amusing news, Assemble Media has renewed the option on my sci-fi short story “First Ship.” This has been a continuing source of amazement to me. I submitted this story in 2022 to their ezine/audiozine Assemble Artifacts, which looks for “high-concept” SFF, whatever that means. The story, about the captain of the first ship to reach another star system who sees her legacy threatened by another contender, took me a couple weeks to write, and another couple to edit and polish. It’s under 6000 words. They accepted it, bought the rights “in perpetuity throughout the universe” (actual words of the contract) and paid me something like 500 bucks. Nice. And, if that weren’t enough, they freakin’ optioned it for development for two years for an additional 750! Then, just a few months ago, they renewed the option for another two years and paid me ANOTHER 750! So this short story that took me almost no time to bang out has earned me more money than anything else I’ve ever written. Very few things that get optioned ever actually get developed and I’m sure this won’t either, but it just amazes me how much money is involved in doing nothing in actual industries, while I’m over here banging my head against the wall just trying to get someone to read my books FOR FREE and leave a goddam review. Crazy.

Finally, I sent one of my old sword blades in to a bladesmith for a custom rehilt. Jesse Belsky does mainly rapiers for stage combat, fencing and weddings, and I commissioned a new hilt for my sidesword. I recently received the first progress pic for the central section of the guard, and it looks pretty awesome! So excited for that, though it will still be a few more months until it’s done…

Anyway, check out my lore videos:

The post First Draft of While We Bleed Finished appeared first on Eric Lewis.

The Artificer’s Knot releases today! Please go buy it. The Kindle Ebook is just 99 cents. You can also get hardcover and paperback, and for those I recommend the B&N editions. Also available through various Draft2Digital platforms. That’s it. That’s the post.

Here’s a trailer:

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It’s been a looong time since my last post. Mostly because I know no one is reading them, but also cause I’ve been busy finishing up edits for The Artificer’s Knot. The developmental editor I ‘hired’ turned out mostly to be a bust–I got basically two pages of critique, and none of it new. On the other hand, my beta reader Caroline provided a wealth of valuable feedback for which I’m grateful. I was also fortunate enough to win a charity auction for a short critique by Pete McLean, author of the astounding Priest of Bones and sequels. I’ve spent way too much time hoping for his attention and approval, so I couldn’t pass up the chance to get him to read my stuff, even if it’s just a snippet that I paid for.

The cover art is the work of the very talented Jake Caleb Clark of JCalebDesign.com, and I couldn’t be happier with it! I strongly recommend his services if you’re looking for a book cover. I decided to do the title text myself, since I had already done a temporary placeholder cover and put a good amount of work into it. It’s supposed to give the impression of drafting lines on an engineering blueprint.

The book has been formatted for hardcover, paperback and Ebook, and files uploaded to scAmazon, B&N, and Draft2Digital which has merged with Smashwords. I did send out 85 queries, but the even worse response rate for this compared to The Heron Kings, and my lingering trauma of that experience caused me quickly to leave that nonsense behind.

The book is available for pre-order for 99 measly cents on multiple platforms, and ARCs are available from both Booksprout and BookSirens. Anyone who wants a FREE copy can download one as long as they promise to write a review, so grab yours today! The book is set for a May 1 release. And yes, I am working on a trailer video. In the meantime, you can read my deleted first chapter, which I was advised to cut since it just shows events that the main character relates anyway.

I’ve finished a rough draft for my next work, While We Bleed, so I’ll be focusing on that more now. By the way, if you were subscribed to my very occasional newsletter you would already know all of this

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Giulia Degarno is out for revenge. But that’s only half the story.

Up To The Throne is the first in Toby Frost’s ‘Dark Renaissance’ fantasy series, which takes place in, oddly enough, a dark fantasy version of the Renaissance. Published in 2018, it’s set in what could easily be an alternate sixteenth-century Italian city-state, where crossbows and muskets pair with airships, clockwork weapons and magical enchantments. If Guy Gavriel Kay’s work is our world with a ‘quarter-turn toward the fantastic,’ here is almost a full turn, but with all the Machiavellian machinations you’d expect from the Borgias or Medicis.

The lead character Giulia is a thief…or a thief catcher, or a bodyguard or whatever any particular job requires. Six years after a powerful gangster left her lover dead and her scarred inside and out, she’s ready to return to the city where it all went down to exact vengeance. The first chapter lays it all out in vivid exposition-through-action that reminds me of a Thief or Dishonored game.

(By the way, if you like Dishonored, watch my playthrough & lore commentary of the whole game!)

But what seems at first a simple revenge plot expands almost from the start. Pagalia is a thriving city ostensibly ruled by a scheming chancellor and an aging Prince everyone thinks feeble, but who just might have one more trick up his bloody sleeve. It’s populated by humans of all stripes, as well as various species of ‘fey folk’ who play the part of an oppressed underclass, confined to certain quarters and subject to harassment from the church authorities. Exactly the types Giulia has befriended in her quest, especially the hammer-wielding, honor-obsessed dwarrow priest Grodrin. The hunt for her targets is set amid the backdrop of a power struggle between nobles, assassins, zealots ready to bring the axe down on any convenient ‘heretics,’ and gang bosses (or guild bosses, depending on who you ask). And it just so happens that her main target, Publius Severra, is one of those bosses, having risen from the streets to something approximating respectability. The question is not just can Giulia get to him, but who will get to him first?

This is an excellently written tale that starts off seeming to fall into the expected grimdark fantasy tropes, but turns them around in delightful ways. Giulia is a tough bitch, but she’s not a one-note edgelord. She is often quite kind and polite if she’s not aiming to kill you, and her non-relationship with adorably naive student Marcellus is touching, though sad in its impossibility. As she works her way through targets, starting from easy to harder to the final boss almost in a LitRPG kind of way, the traumatic effects of her past and present become more and more pronounced. Dark fantasy characters that actually have to deal with trauma and depression are a refreshing change of pace. Don’t worry, though—it never gets sappy or has characters make unrealistic changes of heart to push a message. The question of what happens after revenge is brought up more than once. I actually don’t think Giulia would be very good friends with Monza Murcatto, though I’m sure others would disagree.

Speaking of pace, it starts off as a bit of a slow burn, then picks up and accelerates toward an explosive finale where multiple plot lines intertwine, in a Dune-like sort of way. Some may find this a challenge to tackle, but I enjoy this type of construction as long as it’s done well, and I think it is here. I will say that it could do with a few less named evil henchmen, as they can sometimes meld together. There were a couple characters at the beginning that I got confused, but they eventually grew distinct enough I had no trouble. One thing I always love reading is the seemingly minor side character who turns out to be much more significant, either as pro or antagonist, than you ever guessed even though the signs were there the whole time!

I won’t spoil the ending but I hope it’s not too much to say that although this is the first in a series, the story here stands pretty much on its own, with the next volume, Blood Under Water, being a wholly new tale. I would recommend Up To The Throne to readers who would like a break from the absolute darkest of grimdark and who don’t mind obvious real history stand-ins in their fantasy.

Toby Frost’s website: https://www.tobyfrostauthor.co.uk/

Pairs well with: Zero Gravity Pisolino Italian Pilsner

Since Up To The Throne takes place in a fantasy Renaissance Italy, I thought I’d pair it with an Italian style Pilsner. I don’t have any Pilsner glasses, but I have this lab beaker with a similar shape! Don’t worry, it’s clean. This 5.5% ABV lager, which is actually from Zero Gravity in Vermont but uses Eraclea ‘terroir pilsner malt grown near the Adriatic Sea,’ is light golden in color. It pours with a hefty head that dissipates slowly. It has light floral and citrusy aromas almost reminiscent of an IPA, but those all pull back to stand equal with a light malty bread flavor with medium carbonation, almost like lemon bread or lemon crackers. The 26 IBUs are all on the finish, where the light sweetness is countered by just a bit of bitterness. This is an easy drinking beer, kind of like a session lager’s big brother. The name ‘Pisolino’ means afternoon nap, so that makes sense. Clean, crisp and refreshing, nothing really stands out as exceptional but just all-around chill. Probably more appropriate to spring or summer rather than October, but it still satisfies. A couple reviews say it goes well with pizza, which I can easily believe. Cent’anni!

The post Up To The Throne by T.A. Frost appeared first on Eric Lewis.

I may have mentioned once or twice that I’m more than a little bit obsessed with Dishonored, the 2012 masterpiece from Arkane Studios. So much so that in addition to some fanfiction, the setting of my third and fourth novels is heavily inspired by it, and at least one character in particular. I’ve just finished up a lore-centric playthrough of the game that I’ve posted on my tiny YouTube Channel.

One of the hobbies that I’ve chosen to fill up my time until the sweet release of death is the recreation of some artifacts found in the game. This includes artwork that I’ve had printed on canvas to adorn my lair, chalkboard diagrams, and even some physical props. One that I attempted previously was the mana potion container. In the first game it’s called Piero’s Spiritual Remedy. In the second it’s Addermire Solution, which is the same model but with a supporting base included. My first version of this was  cobbled together from bits and pieces I assembled and without any power tools or fabrication whatsoever. The result was predictably awful. I knew I could do better, some day.

I didn’t want a cheap plastic thing you can get on Etsy. Glass and metal, that’s my requirement. I looked into professional services to make this damn thing, including quotes from metal 3D printing and fabrication shops. The costs were prohibitive to put it mildly. So I decided to have another go at it myself. Here is the second attempt I’ve made, doing some research on the available starting materials and with the help of a new toy- a combo bench grinder and belt sander.

I can’t tell you how much I love aluminum. I mean, I knew it was soft, but I didn’t know it was this soft. It’s like metallic clay. I started with a tube I bought from McMaster-Carr. These guys are great for fast shipping, though you will pay for it. I ordered a tube that would fit around a glass vacuum trap like you can find on Ebay, similar to the one I used for my previous attempt, but thinner.

I cut the diagonal using a hacksaw, and smoothed it with the sander. It fit perfectly.

For the bottom piece I ordered a stainless steel half-sphere about the right diameter. I had to cut a bit off then smooth that with the grinder. Sparks!

To complete the bottom piece I went to the craft store and bought some soft aluminum strips intended for bracelets and cut them to shape, and got some brass ribbon as well.

The top piece was always going to be tough, and I spent a long time searching for the right source. I looked at a lot of lamp and curtain rod finials, punk and body mod spikes and other weird stuff, until I found these acorn-shaped fence post caps from Plum Fittings. They only came in packs of 10, so I have a lot of these. I cut the bottom part off and smoothed it out with the sander. The top isn’t quite sharp enough but they’re the closest I’ve been able to find.

I ordered some triangular wire for the diagonal bits where the metal tube diameter changes. Unfortunately I could only find silver, so it was very expensive.

For the stopper I got a black rubber plug that was a little too small, then shimmed it with gaffer tape to fit. On top of that was an aluminum disc.

The top neck and bottom pieces, painted with black metallic paint and wrapped in brass strips.

To assemble the top piece I used a small drawer knob and the collar from a doorstop, which was a bit too big but it was by far the closest I could find in shape. I looked at a bunch of curtain grommets but the shape just wasn’t right.

I sanded down the knob at both ends and attached it to the aluminum disc which was to serve as the base for the stopper, with some washers as risers.

Here’s the top part assembled and painted.

For the decorative embellishments on the top part I got some thicker brass strips and cut them to size, then glued them to rolls of brass ribbon underneath

The fully assembled and painted mana vial.

I still have the stand from my previous attempt, so here it is standing up. At some point I might redo the stand to make an Addermire Solution Version 2, but that will be a project all its own I think.

And just because I like the picture, here’s the glamor shot once again. The only thing I might go back and change is making the bottom part of the finial smaller. If I find a better piece I can just wrench the glue apart and reassemble, or perhaps grind the existing one down some more. But later, for now I’m tired.

This project was a labor of both love and hate, and I raged at my failures along the way as I usually do because I’m an overgrown child. But I’m happy with the results, and I hope this little photo log was at least a little amusing.

Should we gather for whiskey and cigars tonight? Indeed, I believe so.

The post Piero’s Spiritual Remedy Mana Potion from Dishonored, Version 2 appeared first on Eric Lewis.

I’ve completed a first-pass edit of my fourth novel, titled The Artificer’s Knot. I wrote this one as completely stand-alone though it takes place in the same world as my Heron Kings books, about a dozen years after The Heron Kings Rampant. I still have a lot of rewriting yet to do, but I think it’s far enough along to share some bits. I’ve posted the first three chapters on Royal Road, as well as a shorter section here.

Here’s the blurb!

Randyll Tephius was looking forward to earning his Journeyman Artificer’s rank, a respectable pillar of the new industrial age. But when his University thesis concerning newly-discovered oil deposits inadvertently challenges the energy monopoly of the elite Alchemists and their semi-magical Vril, he’s expelled in disgrace.

He’s rescued at his most desperate moment by an unlikely benefactor: aging mob boss Gouger Nebb. Ran puts his skills to work for the gang, turning machines and technology into profit. He rises in favor until learning Nebb’s true plan: to break into the fledgling oil industry using Ran’s revolutionary designs and retire a ‘legitimate businessman.’ Small crimes become larger ones as Ran falls deeper into the mob world, but he won’t abandon the work that could restore his shattered career.

Ran’s efforts are soon sabotaged by a syndicate of Alchemists, the same people who ruined his reputation. Emerging from the shadows, they now promise the prestige he craves in exchange for joining them and helping them seize total power. It’s a tempting offer that would mean betraying the very man who saved him.

Several readers enjoyed my gangster character Gouger Nebb from Rampant, and I certainly enjoyed writing him. But he’s only in two scenes, so in this book he’s a major but not main character.

I had to throw together a quick and dirty pro-tem cover to post it on RR, and I was already playing around with possible fonts, so this is what I came up with:

I added some extra lines and elements to make it look like an engineering schematic or draft, since the main character is an engineering student. For a real cover I’m excited to say that I’ve booked a spot with J Caleb Design, a professional cover artist who’s done some amazing work on books such as The Hellborn King and The Trail To Retribution. We’ve already had some initial discussions and there were a couple ideas we both felt positive about, so I’m hoping for a really kickass cover! But for now, it’s the grind of revisions…

The post First and Second Drafts of The Artificer’s Knot Finished appeared first on Eric Lewis.

LAUNCH DAY! The Heron Kings Rampant, the final (finally!) adventure in the Heron Kings saga trilogy, is out today. Physical copies are only from scAmazon unfortunately. You can get Hardcover and Paperback both. I wouldn’t really recommend the hardcover, it’s case laminate only, meaning no dust jacket. But that’s the best you can hope for with KDP.

The Kindle Ebook is 99 cents right now, but I’ll have to raise it soon so that I can “discount” it in the unlikely event I can score a BookBub deal, so grab it now.

The Ebook is also available (DRM-free!) from Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and other retailers Smashwords distributes to. All 99 freakin’ cents!

I’ve been spamming all the ‘social’ media I can all month, trying to hussle as many pre-orders as possible. And I actually, quite by accident, released the paperback a few weeks ago when I accidentally hit ‘submit’ instead of ‘save.’ But I wonder if this might have a psychological advantage: you can wait and get the 99 cent book, or buy the paperback for $9 right now. Which do you really want??? Who knows, maybe it doesn’t matter. But ultimately I was able to wrangle enough orders that on Day One Rampant has already sold more copies on amazon than Flight has in the whole year since release combined. Plus three commitments to ARC reviews. Who needs publishers, eh?

My next project is already well underway, which you’d know if you read the progress widget on the sidebar. The Artificer’s Knot is a separate story from the Heron Kings trilogy but is set in the same world about a dozen years after Rampant. It follows Randyll Tephius, a young engineering student who is thrown out of the University on false charges. At his lowest moment he’s rescued by Gouger Nebb, the notorious gang boss from Rampant. Nebb plans to use Ran’s skills to break into the burgeoning petroleum business and retire a ‘legitimate’ businessman. But the new oil industry threatens the energy monopoly of the mysterious Vril controlled by the aristocratic Royal Archalchemist Berqhard and his cronies, and his syndicate sabotages Ran’s efforts. When the same people who ruined his reputation offer Ran wealth and redemption to join their side, he’ll have to decide whether to betray the very man who saved him.

The first draft is finished at about 95,000 words, but there’s lots of rewriting and editing to do, so don’t expect anything of it for awhile. But I am relieved to lay down the burden of the Heron Kings and move on.

As always, you can read the first chapter of Rampant here. And you can view a brief trailer below:

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It doesn’t seem that long ago I was putting titles and phrases from my fiction into that Wombo Dream AI app and getting out some very abstract, very hot pink AI-generated images. Now in the blink of an eye you can get more or less realistic portraits. I tried Midjourney, which is incredible but I ran out of credits before I figured out how to upscale the images. Then someone recommended NightCafe and Starryai. Not nearly as powerful, but mostly free. I put some descriptions of some of the characters and locations from my upcoming novel The Heron Kings Rampant just to see what they came up with. Then I made some tweaks and did a little (okay, a lot) of trial and error, and got out these pictures. They’re not exact depictions of the characters as I imagined them, but some are pretty close, with varying levels of realism. Take a look!

Carsolan

Cast’s Lab

Murento

Thoriglyn

As you can see, some look realistic, some look cartoonish, and some are a blend of both. I’m not skilled enough to know how to control this, though, and I’m not really motivated to learn. It was just a fun exercise to see how closely these algorithms could get to bringing my work to life. Some are annoyingly close but not quite there. I didn’t imagine Cast with a beard until later in the book, and then it’d be ragged and unkempt. I didn’t imagine Jensine with glasses, though I think it works. Gouger Nebb was very tricky, getting it to put that bandana over his eye. Clothing was tough too. I really like how good it is at these rain-slickened Victorian city streets with gaslit buildings, but getting anything close to accurate for the Thoriglyn docks was infuriating.

I know many people have a lot of disdain for AI-generated images. Some say it’s not art and it threatens the livelihood of real artists. Well I’m not calling this art. Just the insane amount of difficulty I’ve had getting these programs to make very simple, specific changes to images proves that. But as someone with zero artistic talent whatsoever, anything that helps me visualize the people and places from my work is a useful tool, and I’m gonna use it.

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Last year I began the process of commissioning new cover art for my fantasy trilogy The Heron Kings. I had always hated the generic covers my former publisher had stuck me with, and I partially blame them for the books’ failure to sell. I was hoping I could, at some point, get them to change it if I paid for the work.

Well, that turned out to be more necessary that I thought, because they unceremoniously rejected the third and final entry in the trilogy, solely due to their own inability to sell the second book. Now I’m in the process of self-publishing the last book, The Heron Kings Rampant. In fact the freelance editor I’ve contracted should be contacting me soon to start work. I went ahead and commissioned new covers for all three books in hopes of recovering my rights to them one day and republishing on my own terms, but the third one will be coming out first it seems. Here are the covers as they stand now. The art is the work of Ukrainian artist Yulia Zhuchkova, and I did the cover design myself.

I am particularly fond of the chipped white beveled marble look of the title text, which can be hard to see at lower resolutions:

Since the third book will be coming out first, I created a full cover for the paperback. The back cover image is the work of Joe McAllister, who did the cover art for my short story collection As It Seems.

I also created a trailer video for the book, using some stock images, AI-generated images, and some home-made video. I edited it using OpenShot, which is very buggy on Linux. Please take a look!

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