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New Releases: 5/29/18

Happy New Release Day! Here’s what went on sale today.

Arctic Gambit by Larry Bond

Poster Placeholder of - 57 Jerry Mitchell, now the commodore of submarine Development Squadron Five, is dismayed when USS Toledo is reported missing in Arctic waters, close to Russian territory. The vessel is captained by his former shipmate and close friend, Lenny Berg. Eager to investigate, Jerry convinces the Navy to redirect one of his squadron’s boats to find out what happened.

Twelve Days by Steven Barnes

Image Placeholder of - 68 Around the world, leaders and notorious criminals alike are mysteriously dying. A terrorist group promises a series of deaths within two months. And against the backdrop of the apocalypse, the lives of a small shattered family and a broken soldier are transformed in the bustling city of Atlanta.

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

Placeholder of  -25 Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong.

NEW IN PAPERBACK

Assassin’s Price by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.

Eve of Darkness by S. J. Day & Sylvia Day

NIGHTFLYERS: and Other Stories by George R.R. Martin

Putin’s Gambit by Lou Dobbs & James O. Born

The U.P. Trail and The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey

Venus by Ben Bova

NEW IN MANGA

The Ancient Magus’ Bride Official Guide Book Merkmal Based on the manga by Kore Yamazaki

Arpeggio of Blue Steel Vol. 13 Story and art by Ark Performance

Merman in My Tub Vol. 7 Story and art by Itokichi

Occultic;Nine Vol. 3 Story by Chiyomaru Shikura; Art by pako

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New Releases: 6/27/17

Happy New Release Day! Here’s what went on sale today.

Mad as Hell by George Noory

Place holder  of - 60 As the candidacies of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have proven, Americans are mad as hell about the problems facing our country. George Noory hears these problems every night, all night, and this is how he would deal with them. This is Mad as Hell.

 

The Queen of Swords by R.S. Belcher

Placeholder of  -58 1870. Maude Stapleton, late of Golgotha, Nevada, is a respectable widow raising a daughter on her own. Few know that Maude belongs to an ancient order of assassins, the Daughters of Lilith, and is as well the great-great-great-great-granddaughter of Anne Bonney, the legendary female pirate.

Leaving Golgotha in search of her daughter Constance, who has been taken from her, Maude travels to Charleston, South Carolina, only to find herself caught in the middle of a secret war between the Daughters of Lilith and their ancestral enemies, the monstrous Sons of Typhon.

Twelve Days by Steven Barnes

Poster Placeholder of - 36 A paranormal thriller from master storyteller Steven Barnes: A broken family struggles to hold itself together against a plot to unleash global genocide.

Around the world, leaders and notorious criminals alike are mysteriously dying. A terrorist group promises a series of deaths within two months. And against the backdrop of the apocalypse, the lives of a small shattered family and a broken soldier are transformed in the bustling city of Atlanta.

NEW IN PAPERBACK

Any Minute Now by Eric Van Lustbader

Eterna and Omega by Leanna Renee Hieber

Going Home and Downriver by Richard S. Wheeler

The Weaver’s Lament by Elizabeth Haydon

NEW IN MANGA:

Beasts of Abigaile Vol. 1 Story and art by Aoki Spica

Freezing Vol. 15-16 Story by Dall-Young Lim; Art by Kwang-Hyun Kim

Hour of the Zombie Vol. 5 Story and art by Tsukasa Saimura

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Rounding a Life’s Work

Placeholder of  -92Written by Steven Barnes

There used to be a bookstore in West Hollywood called The Bodhi Tree—a cornucopia of metaphysical books, worlds of wonder from every imaginable tradition. I spent countless hours in its cubby holes, drinking mint tea.

Amid the stories of immortal yogis and spinning energy wheels inside the human body, I noticed references to things I’d experienced…or glimpsed.

If poets seemed to hint that there were levels of creativity that began with the dissolved ego state and ended in the caverns measureless to man, beyond the shining sea…

If the world’s greatest athletes spoke of some union of mind, body, and spirit that birthed Olympic-level performance…

If the most legendary martial artists spoke of love rather than fear leading to the most magical combative skills…

If the furthest edge of what I had experienced was the nearest edge of these other disciplines…what would that mean?

My thought was that these masters were trying to communicate something that doesn’t quite fit into words. Something about, both the positive and negative potential of the forms of meditation, dance, physical and mental yoga, martial arts, chi gung and other energy systems, prayer, ceremony, spirit journeys, and much much more.

What if they were right? What if that truth had been splintered around the world, so that no one could put it back together again? And what if a single brilliant nerd put the whole thing back together again, taking advantage of computers and the ability to gather printed and video data from around the world. What might happen to this person?

My novel The Kundalini Equation (1986) was born. I always considered it a sort of modern “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” novel, and I wrote it at the absolute edge of my abilities, combining everything I knew or had experienced or could glean from the words of masters further along the path.

And something odd happened. After The Kundalini Equation was published, people started asking me where I’d learned about some of what I’d written about. Who had taught me. They were surprised that I’d created it without teachers or mentors, by connecting everything to that sense within me that this thread and this thread, from different areas of life, felt the same.

A few of them said: let me show you what comes next.

Over the next decades, I earned three black belts, studied NLP and Pancultural Shamanism, apprenticed to a medicine man, became a devotee of a genuine spiritual master, studied sexual magic, and wrote more than two million words of fiction. Lost both beloved parents and had two wonderful children.

At every step, I kept connecting what I learned with what I felt, with the sense of standing still in the midst of chaos, of balancing effort and ease. I went deeper and deeper, finding dead-ends but also open doors.

Some time later I picked up The Kundalini Equation and remembered the young man who had looked out at the world and tried to put his thoughts into a story of science and magic…and wondered if I could do something anywhere near as good, at this stage of my life. What would such a book look like? Feel like? Read like? Could I do honor to my teachers and my experiences? Present something entertaining but also honest?

I didn’t know, but I had to try. My new novel, Twelve Days, is the result of that effort. I do not know if I succeeded. It really isn’t my place to say. But damn, it’s going to be fascinating to see how people react to it.

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Follow Steven Barnes on Twitter, on Facebook, and on his website.

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Excerpt: Twelve Days by Steven Barnes

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Around the world, leaders and notorious criminals alike are mysteriously dying. A terrorist group promises a series of deaths within two months. And against the backdrop of the apocalypse, the lives of a small shattered family and a broken soldier are transformed in the bustling city of Atlanta.

Olympia Dorsey is a journalist and mother, with a cynical teenage daughter and an autistic son named Hannibal, all trying to heal from a personal tragedy. Across the street, Ex–Special Forces soldier Terry Nicolas and his wartime unit have reunited Stateside to carry out a risky heist that will not only right a terrible injustice, but also set them up for life—at the cost of their honor. Terry and the family’s visit to an unusual martial arts exhibition brings them into contact with Madame Gupta, a teacher of singular skill who offers not just a way for Terry to tap into mastery beyond his dreams, but also for Hannibal to transcend the limits of his condition. But to see these promises realized, Terry will need to betray those with whom he fought and bled.

Meanwhile, as the death toll gains momentum and society itself teeters on the edge of collapse, Olympia’s fragile clan is placed in jeopardy, and Terry comes to understand the terrible price he must pay to prevent catastrophe.

Twelve Days will become available June 27th. Please enjoy this excerpt.

CHAPTER ONE

The offices of television station XTRB were located in a two-story brick building nestled between a sleepy residential district and a commercial section of Mexico City known as El Corredor. The building had once been a carniceria, rebuilt in the 1990s during an uptick in the Mexican economy, responding to the needs of a society driven more by communication than consumption of fajitas.

The tide of XTRB technicians, artists, and office folk ebbed and flowed at all hours. At first this had seemed a remarkable thing, but in time the formerly sleepy neighborhood had grown to take its renaissance in stride.

Not today. Today the neighborhood was already abuzz, aware that something very special was about to occur.

Former governor of Chihuahua Ramone Quinones, a man not seen in public since his indictment for drug trafficking and murder, was on his way.

Death followed closely behind him.

Carlos Garcia had been a producer since the day he had learned it paid more than managing a publisher’s warehouse, or more specifically since his sister had married the owner of XTRB. As his mother had often told him, “Fortuna favorece a los que se casan de riqueza”: Fortune favors those who marry well.

And of course, their brothers.

Generally, Garcia considered his new position a decided improvement over the old, but today he realized that his ordinarily focused but intense mood could best be described as “flustered,” and that some other emotion lurked just beneath the surface. To his surprise, that emotion seemed to be fear.

As had become his habit in recent months, he vented his anxiety upon Sonia Torres, the tall, slender lovely who anchored the morning talk show. During seven months of their volcanic affair, it had often seemed to Garcia that her body was a husk filled with live coals. In many ways they were two of a kind. Sonia shared his own fierce ambition, as well as his amorality and political agnosticism, a general disinterest about anything except rungs on the ladder of success. There were times when there seemed nothing of softness or femininity about her at all. In comparison with Teresa, the slack, unresponsive wife who awaited him at home, Sonia was indeed firm. Sinewy. Possessed of that sort of feral strength a man needed to feel, a web of passion drawing him into her fire. At times, the memory was almost more visceral and immediate than he could bear.

But while at work, they could never acknowledge or suggest anything of the passion they had shared. That had been the arrangement when their affair began, and neither of them had ever violated it, regardless of how much he might have yearned to.

So instead of confessing that he wished he had been able to awaken next to her, even once, he barked complaint. “Get that damned shine off your cheeks, Sonia! Damn it! Makeup!” She arched one sculpted eyebrow at him, perhaps believing imperfection impossible for such a golden creature as she. Sonia nodded at the makeup girl who hovered at the side of her chair as she tested her mic, and read over her prepared statements.

Their director, Manny Vasquez, was a short, skinny guy whose major claim to fame was that, as a boy, he had brought coffee to the great Cantinflas on the set of his last movie, El Barrendero. How many times had they had to listen to that mess! Cabron!

Now, the little man was all nerves. “Have you heard from Quinones?” he asked. “Is this still happening?”

Garcia nodded. “They called me fifteen minutes ago. He’s on the way from Juárez International.”

Vasquez sighed hugely. “I don’t see how we’re going live if—”

Before he could finish, the studio’s double doors opened, and an intern whose name Garcia could never remember popped her head in. “Thirty seconds to convoy!” she said.

Despite his staff’s veneer of professionalism, the excitement was infectious. He sighed. Even the glacial Sonia seemed to ovulate at the very thought of meeting the drug lord. It was true: “El que no transa, no avanza”—loosely: You’re not going anywhere if you don’t cheat. His mother had said that as well, bless her mercenary heart.

Reluctantly, he sidled over to the street-side windows in time to see the black motorcycle procession pulling into the spaces marked off with red cones. A black limousine half the length of the block itself miraculously navigated the turn and slid into the underground garage.

He huffed and ran his fingers through his hair. With one last angry glance at Sonia, Carlos Garcia sprinted for the elevator.

Twenty-five seconds later the elevator opened on the underground level. Even before the steel slabs parted, Garcia felt the energy wash through the door. Despite his anxiety and thwarted lust for Sonia, he had to admit that XTRB had scored a tremendous coup. Quinones was scheduled to appear in court in just four hours, at ten o’clock. The morning news show created buzz, and Garcia reckoned that Quinones was doing everything in his power to poison the jury pool, tainting and confusing the narrative that he had abused the privileges of office to enrich himself in the business of narcotraficante. In a moment, the parking garage boiled with bodyguards and assistants. Steel and Kevlar-reinforced Mercedes-Benz SUVs with deeply tinted windows and police cars driven by off-duty officers crammed the garage. Bulky men with eyes like chips of black ice were positioned like a line of concrete slabs as the limo pulled along the wall, blocking ten parking spaces that had been set aside with red traffic cones.

The engine died. The door of the limo opened and a tall, elegantly handsome man exited.

With all his heart, Garcia yearned to despise Quinones. There were so many reasons to do so. From the crimes he had been accused of, to his hand-tailored Bijan Pakzad suits (identical to one worn by American actor Tom Cruise and Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto), to his perfect physical condition (said to be the result of three miles of daily ocean swimming under the view of snipers recruited from the Grupo Aeromóvil de Fuerzas Especiales, Mexican Special Forces soldiers. Perfectly competent to deal with rival narco traffickers but Garcia wondered how they were with sharks).

Quinones was perfectly dressed and coiffed, as if he had hosted a dinner party immediately before heading to the studio. The only concession to morning rust was the slight stretch he gave, a twist, almost a preparatory dance motion, as he stepped out of the limousine. His smile bristled with blindingly white teeth, except for one tooth on the left side, which was ever so slightly discolored.

And damned if that didn’t somehow increase his charm.

“Just in time,” Quinones said. The narco lord’s voice was higher, lighter than Carlos Garcia had expected. He took an absurd and childish pleasure in noticing that. He himself possessed a deep, manly voice. One of Quinones’ bodyguards interposed himself between the former governor and the producer, then stepped back when Quinones shook his head and extended his hand. “Mr. Garcia. Good to meet you again.”

“Again . . . ?” Garcia was taken aback. He had never met the governor.

“Yes.” A secret, perfect smile. “Some years ago. You delivered cartons of books to a signing. This was shortly after I became a councilman.”

Delivered books? A tiny memory wormed its way to conscious awareness. Perhaps fifteen years ago, when Garcia was managing the warehouse. An emergency call, extra cartons of first editions needed for an autographing by a councilman who had been married to a film star who had recently lost a battle with cancer. The story of their May-December romance, Quinones nursing the faded beauty through her heroic but ultimately futile struggle. The memoir had sold only moderately well, but had shaped public perception, and represented the beginning of Quinones’ rise. He had inherited her wealth . . . and that wealth had quite possibly funded his first major heroin purchase. Those profits had funded his expansion into cultivation and refinement.

Or so the rumors declared.

Was the man a gigolo? Garcia had totally forgotten the meeting. Had not read the book. Now he wished he had. The fact that Quinones remembered him, when they could only have possibly met for seconds, was intimidating. He began to reinterpret what he thought he knew about the governor.

In a phalanx, they headed toward the elevator.

XTRB would have Quinones for twenty minutes only, and ninety seconds of that was already evaporated. Sonia Torres punched the intercom button and announced: “All right! He’s on his way! Everybody get ready. Don’t fuck me up!”

The elevator doors opened, and two men the size of double-door refrigerators stepped out, followed by Quinones, strutting like a lord. As if he was ever on the verge of flipping a peso to the peasants. Carlos Garcia, an adequate lover and the toughest producer with whom she had ever worked, was following Quinones like a duckling waddling behind its mother. What in the hell had happened that could transform him from bull to steer in ninety seconds? Madre Dios. The interview had not yet begun, and already she was off balance.

“Ramone Quinones,” he said, extending a cool, flat hand.

“Governor Quinones, I’m so happy you could make it.”

“My pleasure,” he said. His smile was so intimate, so open, as if the two of them had just tumbled out of bed together. “Where would you have me?”

The sexual implication was obvious, and she hated the voice in her head that answered: here. There. Wherever you want. Whenever you want.

Oh my God.

What she said was, “We’re set up in studio three. Follow me, please.” As they walked, she contrived to brush the back of his hand with hers. The resulting spark was more than static electricity, she was quite certain.

She smiled up at him. He was tall enough that she had to look up to meet his eyes, even in heels. She liked that. “You have a flair for the dramatic, sir.”

“Essential in my line of work,” he said. Was he about to confess? Where was the damned camera? She fumbled out a question. “As . . . ?”

“A politician, of course.”

A trap. A joke. He was toying with her. She suspected that much of life was a game to him. The room was filled with assistants, and assistants to assistants.

“Everyone in their places! One minute!”

Quinones was not the sexiest man Torres had ever met, but he came disturbingly close. She protected her sense of attraction with emotional ice, a tactic that had worked in the past, and one with which he was probably very familiar indeed.

“So glad you could join us, Governor.”

“How could I stay away? I wished to see if you were as charming in person as you are on the television.”

Very nice. Standard flirtation response. “And?”

“I am seriously considering hiring you to read me the news every morning.” She wanted to ignore that, but when a man reputed to be worth over twelve billion pesos mentions employment, it was wise to pay attention. She felt the skin beneath her collar heating up, and in case her face was flushing, engaged in enough paper-shuffling to conceal it.

“Thirty seconds!” her assistant said.

Torres settled herself into the canvas chair emblazoned with her name. “I’ve been told to confine myself to the approved questions.” For a moment the query, which might have seemed utterly innocent, or even conciliatory, triggered something else in Quinones. Anger perhaps. Or fear?

“And,” she continued carefully, “just before I came on, I was informed of a death threat against you. Do you mind if we discuss that?”

“I heard of this list.” Annoyance tightened his voice. “The pope is also to be found upon it. Ordinarily I would be amused to be mentioned in such august company, but this is a bad joke, and the height of poor taste. We may speak of this after we conclude our interview.”

“But not on the air?”

He smiled. “That might be best.”

The makeup girl hovered around him, a hummingbird seeking nectar. He touched her arm. “Making me less hideous?”

She flushed at the contact and giggled.

Torres had to admire Quinones’ skill. He used his sex appeal as she did, and she had met few men who were as facile at that as the average woman. Such confidence stirred curiosity within her, triggering a warm, soft sensation between her thighs. Despite her control, she began to imagine the two of them together in bed. Wondering about the touches, tastes, rhythms, and scents.

Damnation.

“Ten, nine, eight, seven—stand by. And . . . we are live.” The monitors buzzed, and the titles scrolled.

Their announcer spoke, a ghostly voice booming from the corners of the studio. “Welcome to This Week, coming to you live tonight from Mexico City. And now our host, Angelina ‘Sonia’ Torres!”

The monitors cut to Torres. She flipped the switch in her head, conjuring a brilliant smile. “Welcome to This Week. On this morning’s live broadcast, we have a very special guest, former governor Ramone Quinones of Chihuahua. Governor, the first question I have is: you’ve been notoriously private since you left office. Why, after so long, have you finally agreed to be interviewed?”

Whatever momentary discomfort he had experienced had flown. “Ms. Torres, as you know, certain legal matters will soon commence. I thought that it would be best to give my side of the story.”

Something within her blossomed, warming. This was one of the greatest moments of her career. Torres barely noticed as the cameramen jockeyed about to find the right angles. “You won’t be tried in the court of public opinion, sir.”

“True. But I still want to present my story in my way, in my own time.”

“Then please,” she said. “Tell us your view of the charges.”

“Let’s have camera two,” the director whispered in her earpiece. Instantly, she adjusted her profile.

“As we know,” Quinones began, “the narcotics industry has long been a cause of friction between Mexico and the United States. When progress doesn’t match whatever is demanded in the editorial sections of their failing newspapers, when inept response to domestic catastrophes or the latest bedroom scandals necessitates a distraction, they need a . . . I believe the term is ‘fall guy.’”

She had anticipated that comment. “So you are maintaining total innocence?”

“Oh, no,” he said. “I’m guilty.” A pause for effect. “Guilty of accepting donations for my children’s charity. Guilty of paving roads and building bridges in flood-ravaged sections of rural Chihuahua.”

She wanted to laugh, but despite her doubts, he remained seductively sincere. “Governor . . .” she began, but he soldiered on.

“And guilty of having old friends who are rumored, rumored only I must insist, to be involved in narcotraficante. These three things: money, works, and associations, are all that some norteamericano journalists have to accuse me of being a notorious man.”

She decided to split hairs. The questions on her sheet were specific to his conflict with the Mexican legal system, but where the district attorney had limited authority to speculate upon things he could not prove, a journalist could go quite a bit further.

“What of the murders?”

He almost smiled. Almost. But the expression was concealed beneath a put-upon air. With irritation, Sonia realized that she was the one who had stepped into a trap.

“Our friends north of the border love their chemical entertainments. And are willing to pay almost any amount to obtain them. That amount of gold attracts greedy men. And where there is greed, violence often follows. It is I, and the citizens who entrusted me with their governance, who feel insulted that so much of this has happened in our state. But these men, these . . .”

He paused, shaking his fingers as if suffering a cramp. “Excuse me,” he said. Something different had crept into his voice. Unless she was mistaken, he was being authentic now, the play-games over. Had her question touched something she hadn’t anticipated? Excitement percolated. A predatory hunger within her, some relic of a once keen journalistic instinct shook itself to wakefulness and bared its teeth.

“I was saying. These men try to cast me as a villain in a drama they . . . they themselves . . .”

He blinked, flinched as if dealing with a sharp blow to the stomach, and shook his head hard, twice. His eyes were unfocused. Quinones cursed and tore off his microphone, stood up to stretch his left leg. He wasn’t looking at her, or at anything at all. Was the man sampling his own supply? Had he come to the studio high, for God’s sake?

“Governor? Are you—”

“I can’t . . . something . . .” His words died in a scream. “My head!” His teeth clamped on his tongue, and in an instant his lips were painted crimson. Fingers tensed into claws and he clapped his palms to his temples, howling pain.

Groaning, Quinones arched backward. The cables in the sides of his neck bunched and crawled, and his cheeks grew gaunt as those Olympic sprinters straining to the finish line, just membranes stretched across a bare skull.

The ex-governor screamed again, then straightened a final time and collapsed. He curled onto one shuddering side like a weeping child.

Torres ignored her director’s voice, or the uproar surrounding her and stood, tottering unsteadily. Sound and sight dissolved in her fog.

Quinones’ bodyguards rushed to him, rolled him over . . . and then sprang back in horror. His mouth stretched wide in a silent scream. His spine arched violently, a circus contortionist viewed in a fun-house mirror. His fingers splayed and then tensed into tight, clumsy fists. The governor’s muscles knotted and strained, producing muffled cracking sounds, like wooden slats splintering under pressure. Blood seeped from the cuffs of his perfectly tailored Bijan Pakzad pants.

Torres’ vision swam, then swirled, and she collapsed to the ground beside him.

“What is that thing we seek? We walk a line between birth and death, misremembering the one, seeking infinite postponement of the other. Is it any wonder our days are tasteless, our nights filled with restless slumber or furtive grasping? The true aspirant knows both birth and death, fearing neither. Seeks neither pain nor pleasure, clings to neither subject nor object. Seeks not happiness and deigns to avoid grief. It is only in embracing the All that the Nothing appears. And in the Nothing is Everything.”

Savagi, commentary on The Yama Sutra

Copyright © 2017 by Steven Barnes

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New Releases: 5/2/17

Here’s what went on sale today!

The Fallen by Eric Van Lustbader

Placeholder of  -71The End of Days has been predicted for the last two thousand years. Now, without warning, it is upon us. In a hidden cave in the mountains of Lebanon, a man makes a fateful discovery. He will bring what has been forbidden for thousands of years out of the darkness and into the light: the Testament of Lucifer.

Now an unfathomable danger has arisen: Lucifer’s advance guard, the Fallen. Humankind is in danger of being enslaved by the forces of evil.

The Distance Home by Orly Konig

Image Placeholder of - 67Sixteen years ago, a tragic accident cost Emma Metz her two best friends—one human and one equine. Now, following her father’s death, Emma has reluctantly returned to the Maryland hometown she’d left under a cloud of guilt.

Sorting through her father’s affairs, Emma uncovers a history of lies tying her broken family to the one place she thought she could never return—her girlhood sanctuary, Jumping Frog Farm.

The Guns Above by Robyn Bennis

Image Place holder  of - 16They say it’s not the fall that kills you.

For Josette Dupre, the Corps’ first female airship captain, it might just be a bullet in the back.

On top of patrolling the front lines, she must also contend with a crew who doubts her expertise, a new airship that is an untested deathtrap, and the foppish aristocrat Lord Bernat, a gambler and shameless flirt with the military know-how of a thimble.

High Stakes edited by George R.R. Martin & Melinda M. Snodgrass

Poster Placeholder of - 93Perfect for old fans and new readers alike, High Stakes (Wild Cards) delves deeper into the world of aces, jokers, and the hard-boiled men and women of the Fort Freak police precinct in a pulpy, page-turning novel of superheroics and Lovecraftian horror.

After the concluding events of Lowball, Officer Francis Black of Fort Freak, vigilante joker Marcus “The Infamous Black Tongue” Morgan, and ace thief Mollie “Tesseract” Steunenberg get stuck in Talas, Kazakhstan.

Pawn by Timothy Zahn

Place holder  of - 92Nicole Lee’s life is going nowhere. No family, no money, and stuck in a relationship with a thug named Bungie. But, after one of Bungie’s “deals” goes south, he and Nicole are whisked away by a mysterious moth-like humanoid to a strange ship called the Fyrantha.

Once aboard, life on the ship seems too good to be true. All she has to do is work on one of the ship’s many maintenance crews. However, she learned long ago that nothing comes without a catch. When she’s told to keep quiet and stop asking questions, she knows she is on to something.

NEW FROM TOR.COM:

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.

But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

NEW IN PAPERBACK: 

A Dog’s Journey by W. Bruce Cameron

Easy Pickings and the First Dance by Richard S. Wheeler

MEG: Nightstalkers by Steve Alten

Sacred Ground by Mercedes Lackey

The Seascape Tattoo by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes

NEW IN MANGA:

Arpeggio of Blue Steel Vol. 10 Story and art by Ark Performance

Dreamin’ Sun Vol. 1 Story and art by Ichigo Takano

Magical Girl Site Vol. 2 Story and art by Kentaro Sato

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New Releases: 6/28/16

Here’s what went on sale today!

The Damned of Petersburg by Ralph Peters

The Damned of Petersburg by Ralph PetersAs Grant pinned Lee to Petersburg and Richmond, the Confederacy’s stubborn Army of Northern Virginia struggled against a relentless Union behemoth, with breathtaking valor and sacrifice on both sides. That confrontation in the bloody summer and autumn of 1864 shaped the nation that we know today.

From the butchery of The Crater, where stunning success collapsed into a massacre, through near-constant battles fought by heat-stricken soldiers, to the crucial election of 1864, The Damned of Petersburg resurrects our Civil War’s hard reality, as plumes and sabers gave way to miles of trenches.

The Seascape Tattoo by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes

The Seascape Tattoo by Larry Niven and Steven BarnesAros of Azteca and Neoloth-Pteor are the deadliest of enemies: Swordsman and Sorcerer, locked in mortal combat, who have tried to kill each other more times than either can count. But when the princess Neoloth loves is kidnapped, there is only one plan that offers any hope of rescue . . . and that requires passing off the barbarian Aros as a lost princeling and infiltrating the deadliest cabal of necromancers the world has ever seen. They cannot trust each other. They will betray or kill each other the first chance they get. But they’re all each other has.

Shooting the Sphinx by Avram Noble Ludwig

Shooting the Sphinx by Avram Noble LudwigIn Hollywood, Ari Basher is the stuff of legends, the man who always gets the impossible-to-film shots. In Cairo, however, he faces the most difficult and dangerous challenge of his career: he must photograph, from mere feet away, the face of the imperishable Sphinx. The film depends on it, but if Ari damages the ancient Sphinx, he could end up in an Egyptian prison for life or even dead.

Wolf’s Empire: Gladiator by Claudia Christian and Morgan Grant

Wolf’s Empire: Gladiator by Claudia Christian and Morgan GrantA young gladiator fights for justice in a Galactic Roman Empire in Claudia Christian’s and Morgan Grant Buchanan’s Wolf’s Empire: Gladiator

When her mother and brother are murdered, young noblewoman Accala Viridius cries out for vengeance. But the empire is being torn apart by a galactic civil war, and her demands fall on deaf ears. Undeterred, Accala sacrifices privilege and status to train as a common gladiator. Mastering the one weapon available to her—a razor-sharp discus that always returns when thrown–she enters the deadly imperial games, the only arena where she can face her enemies.

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Elsewhens by Melanie Rawn

The First Confessor by Terry Goodkind

Forbidden by Cathy Clamp

Ghostbusters by Nancy Holder

Haze and The Hammer of Darkness by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.

And Not to Yield and Bowie by Randy Lee Eickhoff and Leonard C. Lewis

One Year After by William R. Forstchen

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A Certain Scientific Railgun Vol. 11 Story by Kazuma Kamachi; Art by Motoi Fuyukawa

Magika Swordsman and Summoner Vol. 4 Story by Mitsuki Mihara; Art by MonRin

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Sneak Peek: The Seascape Tattoo

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The Seascape Tattoo by Larry Niven and Steven BarnesAros of Azteca and Neoloth-Pteor are the deadliest of enemies: Swordsman and Sorcerer, locked in mortal combat, who have tried to kill each other more times than either can count. But when the princess Neoloth loves is kidnapped, there is only one plan that offers any hope of rescue . . . and that requires passing off the barbarian Aros as a lost princeling and infiltrating the deadliest cabal of necromancers the world has ever seen. They cannot trust each other. They will betray or kill each other the first chance they get. But they’re all each other has.

The Seascape Tattoo, the latest spellbinding adventure from Larry Niven and Steven Barnes, will be available June 28th. Please enjoy this excerpt.

ONE

The Taxman

Because their city sprawled out along a desert coastline, Manaheimians always seemed surprised and unprepared when water fell from the sky. They rarely cobbled their side streets and seemed not to know how to control their carts and horses in muddy thoroughfares.

Aros’s men grumbled in low voices as they straggled through the muck. Near the Happy Mermaid they gathered in little clumps, then one big clump. Each carried a bulging sack on his back or shoulders, each leaving a weapon hand free. They moved inside, found an empty table in the kitchen, and began dumping what they had. Fat Mal had a goat. Tor One-Eye had three kinds of potatoes. Aros the Aztec had brought finger-sized bananas, two great bunches.

Carpotet, the inn’s owner, came down the stairs grinning. “Aros! More free fare for my folk?”

“Free if you’ll serve us drink.”

“Your first round is free, taxman, and of course my clients will know who to thank.”

Aros nodded more or less happily. He’d get no better. It was a good exchange: taxmen needed friends.

Tor had picked them a table, a big one. Aros’s dozen men took benches and proceedings, for the accounting and dispersal of tax money.

Aros, once a thief, had become one of the five major tax collectors in the kingdom of Quillia. He was Azteca by birth. His bloodline had gifted him with swarthy skin, straight black hair, and piercingly direct black eyes. He was a tall, broad man, whose size and strength were often underestimated until it was too late to retreat. He was too obtrusive to pick a pocket, but when he scowled, more than one citizen had simply handed him their purse from an instinctive wish to avoid trouble. It was helpful in his new role.

He looked around once, as men left off drinking to raid Aros’s bananas. They’d know where those came from, and when Carpotet baked the potatoes and bell peppers and the goat, they’d know to thank the tax men. A good bargain. You couldn’t always collect coins; some families had to pay in kind, and Aros’s men let them get away with that. He’d seen to it.

Aros crouched on one of the Happy Mermaid’s rough-hewn benches, rubbing his muddied boots against a table leg. Damn boots were only a week old, and already filthy. As he drank, wondering which of several boot makers might clean his footwear without scalping him, he considered the bawdy conversation between the three rascals sharing his table and strove to conceal his annoyance.

In Aros’s educated opinion, the role of tax collector was more profitable than outright brigandry had ever been. So long as he and his men turned in the expected minima from each district, they were left pretty much to their own devices, and their devices were endless.

But while it would be dishonest to plead total virtue on his own part, his personal code prescribed limits his men often ignored. As a result he sometimes felt more lion tamer than leader of the pride.

“Pretty widows need comfortin’,” Tor One-Eye said in his weasel’s voice, continuing his discourse on a woman in the capital’s outskirts. He pounded his knife into the table and dragged the point an inch or two, raising a curl of wood. “I say I’m doing a public duty. A kindness, if you please. In exchange for … company, I ease her tax burden a coin or two.”

The others hooted agreement and seemed ready to begin their own tales of fiscally enabled debauchery. But they kept an eye on Aros, knowing the barbarian disapproved of such things, for reasons they did not entirely understand.

“No widows, even if they look like pigs,” he said, voice low and hard. “What you do with others is your business. But virgins and righteous widows are out of bounds, damn you.”

Tor glared at him from his one useful orb. “The dice are downright unfriendly these days. I got debts,” he said. “Some of us can’t afford to be so pure and pristine-like.” The others agreed, muttering. They were afraid of Aros, just enough to accept his odd rules. But sufficient greed would overcome caution one day—he knew it. And on that day, they would try him. While his back was turned of course.

Safely tucked into his leather tax purse was slightly more than the fifty gold pieces his employers demanded of him. When he combined that with the funds harvested by his associates, that would bring the total to just over a hundred. He’d had his heart set on a new suit of armor. But it could wait.

“Here,” he said, and threw a gold coin to each of them. “Just a little inducement to remember your jobs, not your diversions.”

They snatched the coins either from the air or as they rolled along the tabletop. Tor One-Eye bit his, as if uncertain it was genuine, then nodded. “Sure, Captain. We’ll be good boys.” And they laughed, as much at the barbarian’s odd ways as anything else.

No love was lost here: they’d cosh him, rob him, and frame him for the theft the first chance they got, and everyone knew it. It was up to him not to give them a chance.

Then it was down to business, dividing up the portion of the loot that might reasonably be considered “discretionary.” Five coins to Fat Mal the hairy one, five to Sailor Cree, the tall and skinny one. And five to Tor One-Eye, the small one who dressed in leather and spun his knife point-first on the table like a child’s toy.

They drank, jeering at a woman singing about the days when Merfolk swam off Quillian shores. Back when there was magic in the world.

Aros snorted to himself. These inbred city folk thought they were so much more sophisticated than Outlanders like him. They told themselves that there were no gods to judge them and that the magic was gone. They wouldn’t, if they’d seen what he’d seen.

Arto finished his drink just as five soldiers crowded through the swinging doors. A flying squad, sent to collect the taxes. The sergeant was a sloppy man with a quick blade, Arturo C’Vall, who sneered behind his smile and fancied that Aros wouldn’t notice. He noticed it, and also the fact that C’Vall’s loathsome appetites and habits made Tor One-Eye seem like a celibate monk.

C’Vall plopped into the chair heavily. “Damned rain,” he said. C’Vall always seemed to choose weather as his opening conversational gambit.

“Court’s in an uproar,” he said. “Big doings in the castle. Big doings.” He reached into the tray at the center of the table, popping a greasy bacon confection into his mouth. “The princess is traveling far, far away,” he whispered, as if he had been personally entrusted with her safety.

Aros swallowed a mouthful of grog. “What’s that to me?”

“Not a thing, not a thing. The only way you’re goin’ to the palace is gettin’ thrown in the dungeon! Har har!” The soldiers behind him chuckled themselves, perhaps hoping that if they did, he might buy them drinks.

Aros’s men, even Tor One-Eye, cracked no smiles. Aros slid his bag across the table. “Count it.”

C’Vall nodded and opened the bag, pouring a flood of gold, silver, and copper coins out into a tidy pile. At nearby tables, patrons tried to avoid being caught gawking. As Aros and his men watched, C’Vall counted the gold twice and the silver once. “I’ll trust you with the copper,” he said.

He scrawled matching notes on two scraps of parchment and signed them both. Aros signed them both with a symbol like a split heart. Then each man took one. Taxes were taken very seriously. “I’ll see you next month,” C’Vall said.

Aros nodded. The entire pub seemed to exhale as C’Vall and his men left the room, degrading the atmosphere no small degree.

“Well,” Tor One-Eye said. “Amusin’ as always.” They chuckled and commenced dividing up the copper coins, as well as the small sack of silver.

“Let’s have the rest,” Aros said. Accompanied by grumbles, a few more silver and gold coins hit the table. They divided those as well, Aros sweeping the last into his pouch with the side of his hand. He knew damned well that they’d held back a few jingles for themselves, but so had he—probably more than any of them.

“Well, then,” he said. “Stay, get drunk and laid, or take it back to your luckless wives and get drunk and laid there. Mal and Sailor Cree—I’ll see you again in two days. We’re off for Isney province.”

They hoisted their drinks to him, Tor One-Eye made an obscene toast, and they parted ways. As the others left the table, Aros felt a wind behind him, as if the door had opened and closed. He turned and scanned the room. No new faces had entered; someone must have left.

There had been twelve … fourteen people in the tavern, not counting his own crew. A clutch of sailors and their two girlfriends, all groping and whispering as if they were going to have an octopus evening. An old man in his cups. A pair of young lovers who looked as if they might be planning a getaway. A …

Wait.

The corner table, where the oldster had been seated, was empty now. Old man, in a hood, face shadowed. But Aros had had the clear impression of age. The ancient one hadn’t glanced up at the clink of gold. Aros hadn’t thought a thing about him before, but his instinct warned him that he had missed something.

Aros swept his coins into his bag and stood, the wisps of mead fog dissipated. Whence had come his sense of alarm? And why? Because an old man had vanished? Because C’Vall had irritated him, or Tor One-Eye? Because he had an intuition?

Irritated with himself, and more irritated that he couldn’t nail down the source of his irritation, Aros ordered another mead and smashed it down without lifting the flagon from his lips.

Then, cursing fluidly, he departed.

 

The old man, having spent the last hour nursing a drink and watching the barbarian in the clouded mirror behind the bar, had indeed just scuttled from the Happy Mermaid so that Aros would not pass him on the way out. And his old adversary’s damnably keen senses might have upset the game.

He hurried down the street, careful not to slip in the muck, to the alleyway where three hired brigands crouched waiting in the shadows.

“Well?” the largest of them breathed. He was the size of a redwood, with a rubbery, ruddy face, as if he was frostbit or sunburned.

“It was him,” the old man said. “He’ll be leaving soon, I think.”

The smallest of them was so broad as to be almost round. “Payment” he said, extending his hand.

The old man emptied a small purse into the waiting paw and waited as they counted the pile of gold and silver coins. Not one had even pretended to trust. What was the world coming to?

The skinniest of the three looked like a skeleton wrapped in patchy, hairy skin. “It’s good. His skull’s as good as cracked, C’Vall.” And the three oddly matched rogues set off down the street.

Neoloth-Pteor leaned back against the wall, shedding his cloak, then peeling away the false beard. Just a little gum, some llama hair, and a cloak … and his identity was safe. Not that any of the thugs he had just hired were likely to survive the evening, but if they did, they still couldn’t describe him properly.

But if one lived long enough to pass on a name, that would be even better.

It had been a long game, with several distinct phases over the years. In the most recent, he was certain that Aros had thought him dead, entombed with a colony of giant spiders on an island on the far side of the world. “What is it?” he whispered. Neoloth closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall. “What is it that draws us together, my old enemy?”

For a decade, he and the appalling Aros had crossed paths and often attempted to cause each other’s destruction. He had been shocked when here, in Quillia, the name had arisen on the foul breath of C’Vall, tax collector and blackmailer. C’Vall knew certain of Neoloth’s secrets and had incriminating documents, even though Neoloth’s sins had been committed far afield. He also knew where witnesses could be recruited. It would be inconvenient for them to come to light just now, when everything was going so well.

He had tried paying the man off, but the blackmail had grown onerous, and when Neoloth attempted to employ an agent of his own to acquire the documents, the nimble-fingered little elf had ended up floating in the river, his rear end pointing true north, as elf bottoms tended to do.

Well … C’Vall had named the stakes. Far be it from Neoloth-Pteor to deny him. C’Vall would expect a magical attack, of course, and there was no way to kill C’Vall with magic without leaving clues that another magician might use to impeach and supplant him at court.

He would try something so mundane that it would catch C’Vall by surprise. The fact that his old enemy Aros would be the instrument of his deliverance was a happy accident.

A carriage arrived, its wheels throwing off specks of mud from the recent rains. Neoloth flinched: in days not too long past, mud flecks used to veer past him. The cadaverous coachman stopped the vehicle, and Neoloth mounted the steps and swung in.

A belt-high, rounded elf crouched on the seat opposite. Fandy was a loyal follower, and, more important, he and the deceased elf had been more than friends.

“Was he there?” Fandy squeaked.

“He was,” Neoloth said. “He conducted his business and then left.”

They jounced down the streets a bit, wheels thumping in muddy potholes. From time to time, through gaps between houses, shops, and taverns, they could glimpse the castle, perched high on a hill. Symbol of power … and, in an unexpected and unaccustomed fashion, hope.

“And you did what you had to do?”

“Yes,” Neoloth said. “And my hired swords will do what they have to do. And Aros will do what he has to do. And, one way or the other, at least one old problem will be gone by morning.”

And if all went well, both might be gone. But all things going well was rare in this world, or any world he knew.

 

Barbarian’s instinct.

Aros knew he was being followed. The back of his neck had itched since shortly after he left the tavern. Had known something was wrong, something was … off. He had drained that last flagon of mead largely to make himself a more tempting target. If someone was going to try to kill or rob him, Aros would prefer to meet him while he had sense enough to act clearly, rather than in his sleep or encumbered by a frisky companion.

The streets were narrow here, and dark, but the ground was sturdier underfoot. Drier. And that would work very well for a man with confidence in his footwork.

Like Aros.

Who had that old man in the tavern been? The Aztec still couldn’t place him, and in fact the struggle to place the man might well get him killed. Your mind couldn’t be in the past and the future at the same time.

The sword that kills you isn’t yesterday’s, or tomorrow’s. It is the weapon at your throat right now. Now. Now was all that mattered, and his mind, while not as foggy as his lurching gait implied, was not focused on Now. He was starting to think of bed, and that could get him killed.

Well, one principle he’d learned long ago: when you are less than your best, it is even more critical that your opponents underestimate you. Blurry vision? Trick your opponents into thinking you are blind. Weakened? Make them think you are unconscious, or already dead.

What did they want? The tax money? He had to admit that there was a part of him that gave not a damn. He tried to be civilized, to constrain his savage heart. But even before Flaygod, his trusty Macuahuitl, left its sheathe, he felt the battle madness stir within him. The Macuahuitl balanced in his hand sweetly, a hybrid based on his people’s ancient bat-shaped, glass-toothed battle-ax, rendered not in hardwood but in lethal, razor-edged steel.

As he wound through the streets, the way narrowed, and that was for the good. While it was annoying to lose side-to-side motion, he moved backward better than most and attacked on a straight line before him with devastating speed and power.

Someone emptied the fetid contents of a chamber pot out of a window overhead, almost hitting him. He cursed up at the window, receiving a similar obscenity in reply. Then perhaps seeing the size of the man who was walking beneath his window, or the flat ugly demi-sword in his hand, the thrower mumbled what might have been a half-hearted apology and retreated.

There. The full moon above them shone its light into an alley just to his right, but the back of the alley was still deep shadow. He liked that.

Glancing back over his shoulder to be certain that his stalkers were still close enough to see him slip into the side street, Aros slid into the shadows and waited, Flaygod hungry in his hand.

He waited. For a time he began to wonder if he was wrong, if the men behind him had merely been out for a stroll. Along dark streets. With drawn swords.

Lovely evening for a stroll, he thought.

And then they were in the alleyway. Three of them, bulky but not clumsy, each with a fistful of sharp steel. One was cloaked, one wore partial armor of some kind, and one was one-handed, with a cleaver-like blade welded to the stump.

For a time they just looked at him, their outlines reduced to darkness, eyes burning in their faces. No one spoke.

“How did you lose your hand?” Aros asked. He was genuinely interested in such things, and, after all, in a few seconds either he’d be unable to ask the question, or Stumpy would be incapable of answering.

But that really didn’t matter, because Stumpy didn’t answer. Instead, two of the three split off, walking down the alley side by side. The one with the armor cocked his head a little to the side, as if trying to determine where Aros was.

The shadows were doing their job. Which was nice, because his enemies also didn’t notice when his left hand slipped the throwing knife from his belt, and the shadows were apparently too dark to see him hurl it underhand, such that none of the three had any idea what was happening until the knife sprouted from the armored man’s throat like a rose crafted entirely of thorns. Armored Man gave a wet groan and collapsed onto his side.

Stumpy turned to look at his friend and turned back just in time to avoid being beheaded by a lightning-fast swing, catching it on the cleaver welded to the stump of his left hand.

That was fine, because Aros was taking a step, setting his weight. He swung his left foot up in a short arc, planting it directly in Stumpy’s groin.

To his credit, the brigand made hardly any sound as he slid against the wall. Aros would have loved to gut him, but the third man was moving in, and this one was no slouch.

He was slightly shorter than Aros, but stocky, one of those rare, dangerous men who seemed constructed of bouncy muscle and lightning nerves. Fast! If they hadn’t stepped into the light, the blade would have disappeared entirely. As it was, dim moonlight still required careful attention to the swordsman’s shoulders and instinctive reaction to the sound of his footwork, music on the slimy tiles.

Fierce, rat-like eyes locked with his, and he knew his opponent had survived a dozen back-alley skirmishes. Dangerous.

But that was all right. Aros had survived a hundred. He backed up until even with Stumpy, and took a moment for Flaygod to hack down into the man’s right leg. Stumpy groaned and crumbled to the ground.

The tallest swordsman was, predictably, leaping forward. Aros slid back, found what he was looking for and then retreated again.

The swordsman came forward, into shadow …

And tripped over the armored guy, lying there in the shadows bleeding. To his credit, the swordsman recovered quickly, or would have, if Aros had not struck hard in his moment of unbalance.

The head tumbled one way, the body another.

Stumpy had lost his sword, but the cleaver on his left was still a threat. Aros looked into the man’s small, pig-like eyes. “I can cut off your right hand, and then see how your pet blacksmith will correct it. Would you like to see how that goes?”

Stumpy shook his head.

“Who hired you?” he asked.

To his credit, the man seemed to possess a smidgeon of loyalty. Aros swept his leg out from under him and planted his own foot on the cleaver. For some reason he didn’t want to kill the man. Perhaps he admired Stumpy’s fortitude in continuing to work after a debilitating injury, not resorting to begging or simple theft. Certainly there was something admirable to be found in that.

Stumpy tried to move, but when he did Aros did a little hop and planted his left foot on the wounded leg. Stumpy squealed, which was no surprise. That had to hurt.

“Tell me who hired you,” Aros said.

“C’Vall!” Stumpy hissed.

He should have known. “All right,” he said. “Don’t ever let me see you again.” Stumpy nodded emphatically, and Aros turned and walked away.

He heard the slither of steel against cobblestone, and turned just in time to deflect Stumpy’s blade and riposte, his sawtooth Macuahuitl cleaving Stumpy to the spine. The workman-like part of his mind appreciated the precision and economy of the motion. The animal part, the part he ordinarily sheathed when among city dwellers, bared its teeth. Blood had been spilled, awakening the barbarian’s ancient and feral hunger. There would be more.

Copyright © 2016 by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes

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Sorcery for Writers and Readers (and those who love them)

Place holder  of - 11By Steven Barnes

I recently attended a screening of director William Friedkin’s classic “Sorcerer”, a   1977 adventure film starring Roy Scheider as a man on an impossible mission. It is a gritty, nasty, impeccably made film doomed to obscurity probably for the sin of using a supernaturally suggestive title designed to sucker in fans of “The Exorcist.” Audiences resented the bait-and-switch, and a perfectly beautiful adventure film got exiled to the slag-heaps of history.

More on that later. But one thing that happened during the Q & A afterward (hosted by Oscar nominee Josh Olson, a lovely guy) was that Friedkin was asked what advice he has for young filmmakers. He didn’t hesitate a moment: “Watch Alfred Hitchcock” he said, and then went into a short lecture on the critical importance of modeling the expert work of the masters.

Aspiring writers might translate this to: “read the work of the masters.” The rest of the human race might simply say: “find people who are excellent at the arenas that interest you, and walk in their shoes.”

There is nothing sadder than talking to an amateur, unpublished writer who will not read, for fear that she will accidentally imitate this or that writer. This is so incredibly wrong-headed, almost exactly the opposite of the successful approach. Invariably, the “best” in any field have an encyclopedic knowledge of those who have come before. Listening to former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson talk about the vast library of fight films he studied as a teenager is a revelation: no, the man was not just a physical marvel and an emotional disaster area. He was also a scholar of his sport.

Perhaps the most critical arena to investigate and model is the beliefs of experts, masters, successful people in any field: I promise you that they are very different from the beliefs of the average folks.

What does the expert, the successful person believe about his craft or life? It’s importance? Meaning? The origin of his creativity and focus? What does the expert believe about the nature of human existence? The purpose of life? The worth of art and commerce?

What you are looking for is the DIFFERENCE between the beliefs of successful people, and the beliefs held by…well, not to put too fine a line on it, failures. And it doesn’t matter what the arena is…those who succeed have different beliefs from those who fail. Always. In business: failures don’t match their actions to their abilities. Try too much or too little. Blame external circumstances with beliefs like “it takes money to make money” and “money is the root of all evil” etc. Writers who fail blame the market, avoid submitting their stories for fear of rejection, and so forth.

In relationships, “failures” exhibit an inability to separate their specific and individual experiences from broad-based beliefs about an entire gender. These are women and men who harbor the worst kinds of negative stereotypes about each other, or resort to dishonesty in an attempt to get sex. Who, in other words, have no confidence that honesty and openness will be rewarded. They look at their past failures as meaning either that there is something wrong with the opposite sex, or there is something “unfixable” about themselves. Very unfortunate.

And physically, of course…well, I don’t want to go into some of the horribly self-defeating internal dialogue people have about their bodies. We store so much negative emotion here that it is rare someone will try to lose weight or gain muscle without a boatload of negative voices trying to convince you that body shifting is impossibly complex, or too risky, or too painful.

It is critical that you understand the impact of your belief systems on your behaviors.

And by the way: what could one learn about Hitchcock’s beliefs from his films? Look at the way he was both hypnotized by, and wary of, human sexuality. Study “Saboteur” or “North By NorthWest” for some clues about patriotism, social obligation, even romance and human psychology. Hitch worked with his writers deeply and carefully, and his influence can be felt in every line of dialogue, every frame of film. By studying Hitch, it is possible to sense the interaction of elements you may not have even considered. Specifically to the creation of film scripts, Hitch believed in creating the VISUAL IMAGE SYSTEMS of the work first, as if writing a silent film. Only then was dialogue added. This is a powerful technique, one that would save a beginner years of trial and error, if only he had investigated the methods of this master.

I repeat: if you want to increase your skill and success in a given arena, study the work and lives of people who are more successful than you. Associate with them, read interviews with them or biographies about them. Note what they talk about, how they speak of their arenas.

Then…if you have the stomach for it, specifically study the attitudes and work of those who fail in your chosen arena. I promise you: their emotional attitudes are very different, whether it is about relationships, fitness, or success.

Study your arena, and make your choice. For writers, readers, anyone interested in living or performing at a higher level. or simply getting more of the critical juice from life. I personally was blessed with the opportunity to observe a Master of the writing arts at very close range, over the course of decades.

When it comes to role models, I couldn’t have done better than Larry Niven. But if I hadn’t found him, I would have found someone else. It’s your life. Find your mentors and role models.

Life is too short to reinvent the wheel every day.

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