An Open Letter to Chuck Wendig

Posted on June 9, 2018 by

Editor’s Note: If you are unaware of it, Star Wars author Chuck Wendig went on an extended tirade online against Star Wars fans for being racist, bigoted, white supremacist, misogynistic, illiterate, masculinist, mediocre, and possessing an overabundance of earwax. Okay, that last part was made up, but it and the kitchen sink was probably in there somewhere. 

Ann Lewis, of pre-Disney canon, decided to weigh in. Ann is also the author of the excellent Sherlock Holmes book Murder in the Vatican (which you should read), among other titles. ~ MB

An Open letter to Chuck Wendig
by Ann Margaret Lewis

Dear Chuck,
This isn’t a bashing letter, just a thoughtful one. I wanted to state that at the outset, so you don’t skip over it. You’re in a rather peevish mood lately, and I’m hoping to start off my discussion here with a calm base. Further, this is going to be longer than your average blog post, so I beg you to bear with me as I make my way through this. Continue reading →

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Dragon (Award) Fire

Posted on May 10, 2018 by
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Please remember, everything eligible for nomination is first published between July 1, 2017 and June 30, 2018. You can the click the above photo in order to start voting.

Technically, I’ve got a single book that is eligible: Good to the Last Drop, book 4 of Love at First Bite.…

This, of course, will be a problem with having Silver Empire rerelease Love at First Bite: Good to the Last Drop will not be available for purchase until the votes are already in.

We’ll see what happens. Anyone who has read the book and thinks it deserves another Dragon nomination, feel free. Fire for effect.

If you have not yet read Good to the Last Drop …. sorry about that.

If you want my thoughts on the Dragons, I’ve only got a few items here and there. I’m in so many anthologies, and releasing so many novels, my reading speed this year has been severely compromised.

Last year, I asked everyone to please leave suggestions in the comments. Trust me, I need the reminders.

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The Dragon Award nominated Honor at Stake is Undead Once More

Posted on May 8, 2018 by
HAS Silver EmpireYou’d think with all my experience on Twitter, I’d have more pithy titles.
Anyway, yes, Honor at Stake is back. The Award nominated book is possibly the best thing I’ve ever done. If you don’t believe me, look at the sixty-seven customer reviews.  That’s right, sixty-seven. Screw you, Goodreads.
This is, of course, just the beginning as we build up to the release of Good to the Last Drop in August, to (hopefully) dovetail with the Dragon Award nomination.

I figure that after book one got nominated, and book three got nominated, book four is a shoe-in. But here’s hoping. (You can make that a reality by clicking here and filling out the nominations ballot).

If you’re new here and you’re wondering “What the heck is he boasting about?” …

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Writing “Death March of Cambreadth” for Mars

Posted on April 26, 2018 by
When Superversive announced the Planetary Anthology, you’d have to figure that Mars was right up my alley.I’ve only broken, destroyed, trashed, and blown up any number of vehicles, places and people that I take one look at John Wick and see it as a challenge.

So Mars, god of War?

Blow crap up?

Count me in.

Strangely enough, I went small for this one. Don’t ask me why I did. But there was still plenty of violence. Don’t worry about that. Because if I have any message in any of my books, it’s Orwell’s “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

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Signal Boost: Mars

Posted on April 25, 2018 by
 

Three down, 8 more to go.

Mars, the red planet and our closest neighbor. It has haunted our imaginations for centuries, inspiring tales of heroic deeds and courage. . Mars is also the god of war and the father of fear and panic. Here are 18 tales of war and adventure set in and around the red planet. 

Planetary Fiction explores the themes associated with these heavenly bodies as well as their astronomical, mythological, and in some cases even alchemical significance.

Featuring stories from

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The Murder of Alfie Evans

Posted on April 25, 2018 by
The more I look at Europe, the more I think it would look pretty whilst on fire.For the past twenty years, I’ve watched Europe fall apart. I saw the EU throw their entire Christian history under the bus in the vain hope of some bright sparkling secularist future. I’ve seen Europe disrespect their elders to death. I’ve seen them disrespect the dead by either turning them to fertilizer or just keeping them on ice while the family went on vacation. I’ve watched Muslims drive Jews out of Europe and have their own pogrom of gays.

I figured that there was always some measure of hope for them. It’s not like they were going to murder people, right? There were no boxcars.

Then there’s Alfie Evans.

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Posted in Commentary, Culture, Health, History, Rants | 5 Comments

Tales of the Pius Trilogy

Posted on April 24, 2018 by

My collection of shorts for The Pius Trilogy is coming back. 

Originally when I wrote these shorts, they were basically meant to promote the series. Usually when I design characters, shorts like these gave me background material to work with.

The characters evolved enough during the short stories that I actually had to rewrite parts of the novels in the Trilogy itself. Scott Murphy’s origins shifted around a little. I was able to show off Matthew Kovach a bit more without needing to write the novels I’ve had outlined for him since 2000. Background characters ended up in the Trilogy, even though I had never planned for them to be there when I finished the first few drafts.

There is even a good chunk of the novel that used to be in A Pius Man. One bit on the first months of Pope Pius XIII, because it was ten pages of background material. I also cut out an example of Father Frank Williams’ operating in the field. I really wanted to use them, and they worked. Who knew?

The stories?

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