Stygian Publications is pleased to announce a fantasy short story contest for the Abyss Walker Anthology, a new joint venture with the creator Shane Moore. All stories must take place in the Abyss Walker world. You can write a story about your favorite character or create a new one and they may be set in any time.


Half of the stories will be by established writers to include Shane Moore, the creator of the Abyss Walker series, but the other half will come from a writing contest sponsored by Quatrecon. The First Place winner will receive publication in the anthology, professional pay of 5 cents per word, and five contributor copies. The 5-8 runners up (depending on length of stories) will receive publication in the anthology, 1 cent per word, and two contributor copies.



Submission Guidelines:
• It will be important to be familiar with the Abyss Walker universe
• Stories will be selected on quality and consistency
• Stories should be between 3-7k words (Query before sending a longer or shorter piece)
• Use standard manuscript format
• Paste your story in the body of the email, no attachments
• Deadline is March 19th, 2010
• Paste your story in the body of the email, no attachments



What we want:
• If you choose an existing character, you must be completely accurate in your depiction
• We prefer new characters. Any race in the Abyss Walker world is acceptable-Including gods or demons
• We are looking for Dark Fantasy, Horror or Cross Genre
• Solid, character driven stories


For more information on the convention, go to Quatrecon.com

Here are some of the well known writers that your story (if selected) will appear with

Roy C Booth (world wide playwright and novelist)

Sean Taylor (Gene Simmon's Dominatrix)

Jon Klement (Tales of the Smerdiverse)

Shane Moore (Creator of the Abyss Walker world)

Paul Genesse (The Dragon Hunters)
and more to come

No simultaneous submissions, no multiple submission, but if rejected before the deadline you may submit again.

Submissions should be sent to:
abysswalker@necrotictissue.com






~Shane

Greetings,


I will be at the Belle-Clair expo center this weekend signing copies of my Abyss Walker series. If you live in the area and want to geta  copy for yourself, or a loved one, stop in. A signed book is often an original gift.

  If you already have all my books-stop in and say hey. It will be pretty lonely sitting there all weekend. LOL

I am still crackin' away at book six. I have about 25k  words completed.

Enjoy this little ditty from Skullvines.

~Shane

Hey all,

  For those in the IL/MO area-I will be having my hometown launch of "Birth of a Nation" in Carlinville IL on November 21st at the Bookshelf bookstore. There will be a fan dinner that night at 5pm.

  The bookshelf is located on the southeast side of the square in Carlinville IL. For you "map questers" the zip is 62626. I will be signing the last few WS copies of Abyss Walker books. So if you are a collector-get em while they last.

  At 5pm, I will be having a fan dinner at Reno's Pizza. There I will talk about the latest and greatest in the Abyss Walker franchise, take questions in regards to the current Abyss Walker books, and talk about projects that are yet to come. I will be selling some galley copies (copies with errors) at the fan dinner at a reduced rate. The fan dinner's address is below for you map questers."

Reno's Pizza
518 N Side Sq
Carlinville, IL 62626-1749
(217) 854-6655

  Be sure to stop in and say hey-even if you already have the books. It will be a relaxed atmosphere with REAL Italian pizza! (Reno is from Italy.)

Hope to see you there!

~Shane

...Not exactly.

  There seems to be a little confusion on this. Let me clear it up-

  The actor who played Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) has become an Abyss Walker chacater; "Petrovisk." In fact, his entire family were created as greyshalks-a tall furry canine race with a strong sense of family and tradition.

  Master Sculptor and Abyss Walker artist-Kendall Hart has recently sculpted a statue that is almost three feet tall of Petrovisk. The scene is from "Birth of a Nation" book five in the Abyss Walker saga.

  Petrovisk stands with the Beyklans as they defend one of their cities from the monster, Trinidy. Here, Petrovisk battles some ghouls.



  In April I will be in Sacramento with the following members of the Abyss Walker team;

Peter Mayhew
Kendall Hart
Billy Tackett
Terry Naughton.

  Go here for details

  For those in the IL/MO area-I will be having my hometown launch of "Birth of a Nation" in Carlinville IL on November 21st at the Bookshelf bookstore. There will be a fan dinner that night at 5pm at:

Reno's Pizza
518 N Side Sq
Carlinville, IL 62626-1749
(217) 854-6655

  Be sure to stop in and say hey-even if you already have the books. It will be a relaxed atmosphere with REAL Italian pizza! (Reno is from Italy.)

Hope to see you there!

~Shane

http://www.abysswalker.com

Hey all,

  I am the author guest of honor at a small convention in Fenton MO this weekend. If you happen to live near that area, stop in and say hey. This is a relaxed event-so I will have more time for visiting and goofing off.

Click here for Details

  Saturday night I will host a fan dinner for anyone that wants to come eat and bullshit over some drinks. I am not sure of the restaurant yet, I will pick something once I arrive at my hotel. Stop by my table for details.

  See ya there!

~Shane

Hey all,

  This is an undiscovered talent. I have hear a half dozens of his songs. I enjoy them all. I know they are bit rough. This is you tube-not a recording studio-but listen for the heart of the music!

"He is a diamond int eh rough, that has not been found.
He is an underground king, that has not been crowned."
                                 ~50-cent

~Shane





In the Faubourg-Marigny
If you can stand the stench
There’s a Klezmer beat in a smoky ol’ bar/
Gutter punks in the street
With guitars and Dirt Princess’/
Flea-dogs with mange/
Unpissable restrooms for the homeless deranged/

Vanishing streets under Carnival feet/
Disillusioned Jesus freaks/
Costumed cops where they just don’t belong/
Bud-Boys and So-Co girls
Huff big red balloons between parked cars/
And if you’re lucky enough to have such a friend
To hold your hair back ’til the upchucking ends/

So just kill me now/
Put a gun to my head/
squeeze the trigger ’til the Blue Nile’s running red/

In the Faubourg-Marigny
If you stand real still
The world circles around you/
Overkill/

Royal and Regal
Kings and Queens
Annoint all their subjects
With spew from their spleens/
Stilted companions of unicycled dandies
Step like Daddy Longlegs,
Shuffle to and fro/

Well I dreamed I was in the Faubourg-Marigny/
I was searching for ice for a brand new whiskey/
I turned around and all I could see
Was me seeing you and you seeing me/
And I ducked before those lasers could hit my skin/
I took a sharp breath, felt the clown deep within/
I connected the dots, used a slide-rule and all/
Now I’m just bouncing this Bedlam Ball/

So just kill me now/
Put a gun against my head/
Squeeze the trigger ’til the Blue Nile’s running red/

Skullvines Press is pleased to announce they’ve acquired the dark fantasy series, The Abyss Walker by Shane Moore. The Abyss Walker is foretold to open a portal to the Abyss, allowing hordes of demonic creatures to overtake the world. The six books of the series follow a cast of deep, compelling, and very believable characters ranging from elves, dragons, and dwarves to necromancers, gods, and the undead, as they struggle to either prevent or assist the prophecy, in addition to dealing with their own everyday challenges. The reader is exposed to love, war, humor, and torture, and is sure to be addicted from the very beginning.

The titles are currently available through Wandering Sage Press, who will still be producing hardcover collector’s editions in the near future. Skullvines Press, however, will be releasing trade paperback and digital editions in the following order and approximate times:

Book Five – Birth of a Nation in November ’09 (the most current release, so this will be first)

Book One – The Plea of Apollisian in December ‘09
Book Two – The Trial of Innocence in January ‘10
Book Three – Darrion-Quieness in February ‘10
Book Four – Death of Kings in March ‘10
Book Six – Return of the Father in August ’10 (Book launch at Gen Con, Indianapolis, IN)

In addition to the above series, Skullvines Press will release the first book of a new novella trilogy in April of 2010, A Wererat’s Tale, which goes back before the Abyss Walker events, to tell the story of the gorgeous wererat assassin, Kellacun.

The new Abyss Walker books will still sport the same artwork, created by the extremely talented Billy Tackett, while A Wererat’s Tale will have cover art by Terry Naughton (former Disney animator, involved with such films as The Lion King, Tarzan, The Little Mermaid, and more).

Furthermore, Birth of a Nation introduces characters patterned after Shane’s good friend, Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca on Star Wars) and family.

The launch of A Wererat’s Tale will take place at Quatre Con in Vallejo, CA, which holds the average attendance of 10-12,000 people. There will be media-covered events of Shane, including an appearance at the USS Hornet and swimming with dolphins. Abyss Walker artist Terry Naughton will be there in support of the book, as well as Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca). The event will also be advertised with the major media in the Oakland area, on the jumbo tron at Six Flags and Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, in front of 1.6 million viewers.

The Abyss Walker series has a huge following. There is a fan club based out of St. Clair, MO, there are four graphic novel spinoffs and role-playing games in the works, an upcoming fan site that will feature webisodes, and three franchise writers are working on more books to expand Shane’s world. And since the Abyss Walker team consists of people involved with such franchises as Star Trek, Star Wars, and Disney films, the series is already a force to be reckoned with.

Here’s what Shane Moore had to say: 

“I am elated that Skullvines acquired the Abyss Walker series. Combined with their fine attention to detail, willingness to grow, and standing track record, I would say this is a match made in heaven. I look forward to working with them and continuing to produce powerful and moving stories that have propelled me on my journey to success.”

   I wrote this blog shortly after giving up law enforcement to pursue a career in writing. Had I only known the success I would have, I would not have worried so much in the beginning.

I know following this writing career is foolish. I understand that it will be tougher before it gets better. I understand I will be judged by lesser men that lack the conviction to follow their dreams. These men hide under the pedestal of mediocrity that I will stand above. I have removed the safety net of failure so that success is my only option.

I will never wake up and wonder, will I be killed at work today? I will never again have lesser men question a decision that they cannot ever comprehend... This is my oath, this is my song.



Like the pine trees linin the windin road
Ive got a name, Ive got a name
Like the singin bird and the croakin toad
Ive got a name, Ive got a name
And I carry it with me like my daddy did
But Im livin the dream that he kept hid
Movin me down the highway
Rollin me down the highway
Movin ahead so life wont pass me by

Like the north wind whistlin down the sky
Ive got a song, Ive got a song
Like the whippoorwill and the babys cry
Ive got a song, Ive got a song
And I carry it with me and I sing it loud
If it gets me nowhere, Ill go there proud
Movin me down the highway
Rollin me down the highway
Movin ahead so life wont pass me by

And Im gonna go there free
Like the fool I am and Ill always be
Ive got a dream, Ive got a dream
They can change their minds but they cant change me
Ive got a dream, Ive got a dream
Oh, I know I could share it if you want me to
If youre going my way, Ill go with you
Movin me down the highway
Rollin me down the highway
Movin ahead so life wont pass me by

Hey all,

  Wandering Sage is going to offer a contract for an Abyss Walker Anthology. For those of you that do not know what an anthology is-it is a collection of short stories.

  So what is an Abyss Walker Anthology? It will be a collection of short stories written in the Abyss Walker world.

  Writers-
  If selected, your writing will be featured alongside;
Brian Keene collaborator; Roy C Booth
Author of "Tales of the Smerdiverse" Johnathon Klement.

  Two stories will be selected. The stories must be between 3-10k words and must feature any Abyss Walker character or the Abyss Walker world.

  You can submit as many stories as you like.

  Submissions should be sent to; s_moore_50@yahoo.com

  Stories will be judged on writing ability, Abyss Walker world/character consistencies. This is a professional submission. Keep your work as clean and error free as you can. Once your work is accepted, you will begin contract negotiations with the publisher.

  There are closing dates for submission-but I would look for them to close by January 1st 2010.

~Shane

Hey all,

  This weekend I attended a Science Fiction/Fantasy convention (Archon) as one of their professional writer guests. It was a great con and things went well. The con staff were wonderful and met every one of my needs.

  Attending the convention from the Abyss Walker family were;

Peter and Angie Mayhew
Kendall R Hart
Shane Moore (me)

  The Abyss Walker fan club (powered by GCHQ) picked us up in a bus limo from Presidential Limousine. Now I had never been in a "limo bus" but they are great! After a quick trip from the airport we arrived at the Hotel. We snapped a few snapshots with fans before getting settled in.

Me, Peter Mayhew, and Ryan Roach





The books that were pre-ordered came in a day late from shipping, but fortunately all made it to the readers.






Abyss Walker sculptor, Kendall Hart, created this AMAZING rendition of Peter Mayhew's character; "Petrovisk." Petrovisk made his debut appearance in Abyss Walker book five-"Birth of a Nation."






 After a long weekend of conventioning-we hung out at my house to wind down. Peter and Angie visited with my parents and answered a few questions about filming "Star Wars."


  For the party, a represenative was able to get some wonderful meat and fruit trays created on short notice from CARL'S IGA in Carlinville. Carl's is a small town grocery store, but provided us with some big chain service! If you live in the Carlinville area, and need something fast with great quality, Carl's is the place to go. No, I do not own Carl's, they did not give me anything free, no one I know works there, and I do not own stock of theirs. I just thought they performed marvelously! LOL



  The convention came to an end and good times with great friends came to a close. The limo swung by and whisked us away to the airport. We took a last photo from inside the limo before departing.



  If you have never been to Archon, I suggest you go. It is a great convention ran by wonderful people!

 Until next time!

~Shane

Hey all,


   Abyss Walker sculptor KENDALL HART will be unveiling his sculpture of Peter Mayhew's Abyss Walker character-"Petrovisk."

  The two and a half foot creation is based on a scene in book six of the Abyss Walker series "Return of the Father" where the mighty greyshalk is fighting hordes of undead in a last ditch effort to slow the march of Trinidy's army.



  If you are going to be in the St. Louis area this weekend, you need to stop by Archon at the Gateway Convention Center in Collinsville IL. You can meet with Peter, me, and Kendall. Not to mention see this marvelous creation and get a signed copy of any Abyss Walker book!

~Shane

Hey all,

  Have you been following this? The orphans works and google books settlement? If you are a vanity press writer you need to especially watch this! If

A Reversal of Copyright Law

Last Friday we summarized the basic details of the Google Book Search Settlement. Like the visual arts "databases" we opposed last year, this agreement would allow both Google and a yet-to-be-created Book Rights Registry to commercially profit from an author's work whenever they say they can't locate the author.

Both schemes would force authors to opt out of commercial operations that infringe their work - or to "protect" their work by opting-in to privately owned databases run by infringers. This Hobson's Choice for authors reverses the principle of copyright law.

The by-product of the Google settlement (again like the Orphan Works bill) would be to establish public access to private property as the default position in copyright law. In other words, it presumes:

    a.) that the public is entitled to use your work as a primary right,
    b.) that it's your legal obligation to make your work available, and
    c.) that if you fail to do so, you forfeit your exclusive right to control access to your work.
 
If you're an author and you wish to keep the book you write from becoming a potential orphan, you'd therefore have to register it with the Book Rights Registry run by the parties that settled with Google (and who will receive an award of $30 million for cutting themselves in).

Advocates of the deal try to justify it by saying it will make more books available to more people than at any other time in history - a claim that's no doubt true - but therefore they say, as  Andrew Albanese writes in Publishers Weekly, "the massive public good of the deal far outweigh[s] the individual greivances [sic] of rightsholders."

Yet it's in this very argument that the danger lies.

Once the Copy Left has established a legal precedent that the property rights of authors can be subordinated to the assertion of public interest, they can build on that principle to enact further statute and case laws to benefit commercial interests. To do this, they'll have to chip away further at the inherent property rights of individuals.

Orphan Works: "Half a Loaf"
An example of the agenda that underlies both the Google book search settlement and the Orphan Works bill came in May, 2008, at a time when the Orphan Works bill looked to be a shoo-in by early summer. Anticipating a quick mopping up operation, the bill's advocates were high-fiving one another. But as James V. DeLong of the Convergence Law Institute reminded them, there was still much work ahead.

Calling the Orphan Works bill just "half a loaf," he hinted at what it would take to permit commercial interests to take the whole loaf:

"These possibly-orphan, sort-of-orphan, and gray literature works simply cannot be made available if the digitizers are required to make one-by-one judgments and seek permission before copying. If they are to be retrieved in useful form, then sooner or later Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and some others must be permitted to digitize on a massive scale."

Of course he acknowledged that the new reverse copyright law should not deprive intellectual property owners of their "legitimate rights." But he reaffirmed the Copy Left's fundamental premise that intellectual property owners should not be entitled to legitimate rights except in situations where they've registered their works:

"At some point, some kind of grand grandfathering proceeding will probably be required, a window in which holders of existing rights must reaffirm them or lose them." (Italics added)
  
Again, this is the same premise we see at work in the Google book settlement. As Lynn Chu, a principal at Writers Representatives LLC, wrote in the Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2009:

"Under the settlement, every rights-owner in America is supposed to hand over all their private contract data, on every edition of every work they ever wrote -- and every excerpt permission ever granted to others -- at the peril of losing the money Google will be making on their backs. This is a massive burden on everyone in the book industry, making us all, in effect, Google's data-entry slaves. Indeed, in most cases such information about every permission ever granted is unlocatable. It opens a Pandora's box of disputes and mistaken claims about who actually owns what."  (Italics added)

This is identical to our warning last year about the Orphan Works bill:

"[The Orphan Works bill] would force artists either to entrust their entire life's work to privately owned commercial databases or see it exposed to widespread infringement. It would let giant image banks access our commercial inventory and metadata - and enter our commercial markets as clearinghouses to compete with us for our own clients. I can think of no other field where small business owners can be pressured to supply potential competitors with their content, business data and client contact information." - Brad Holland, Small Business Administration Roundtable, August  8, 2008

The War on Authors
Both the Google Book settlement and the Orphan Works bill have their intellectual rationale in the war on authors that began decades ago in the obscure theories of Postmodern literary critics. Their fundamental premise is that all creativity is communal and that authors are only the agents through which the community creates. This has led a handful of activist legal scholars to demand changes in the law requiring artists, writers and others to affirm and reaffirm the rights to use their own work by, in effect, licensing it from the public "commons."

This argument, Marxist in its origins, has found its unlikely champion in those large commercial Internet interests that hope to build Information Age empires supplying businesses and the public with creative "content."  By defining millions of works as orphans on the premise that some might be, both the Google Book settlement and the Orphan Works bill would allow these opportunists to profit by harvesting the work of others, providing their databases with content they could never afford to create themselves nor license from authors.

Next: Orphan Works and the Google Book Settlement /Part III: Compelling Arguments
The Register of the US Copyright Office has condemned the Google settlement in terms nearly identical to our condemnation last year of the Orphan Works bill. In Part III, we'll examine those similarities to see the patterns that are emerging from this insidious effort to change copyright law.

- Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership

Go here for a list of these messages to date.

~Shane

Hey all,

  I know many of you are aspiring to enter this professional arena that I, and many others, make our living out of.

  However, understand it is a BUSINESS! And unless you are able to refine your craft, divorce yourself from you work, and learn to write for your audience, you have nothing to look forward to but becoming this guy!

  I have encountered this tool in SOOOOO many writer forums. He is everywhere. He is the moron that pays for "Book Doctors," (like the "roto writer" I exposed in the past) or someone who PAYS to publish their work, or the kind of tool that will go to scams like Publish America or Author House.

  LMAO-Enjoy!


Black Books - Bernard's Letter

Hey all,

  It's your favorite fantasy writer chiming in! ...Nooooo, not Bob Salvatore. Try again. Noooooo, not Terry Goodkind. It's me!

  ...what do you mean you haven't read much of my work. *sigh* Well, I bet you HAVE seen Peter Mayhew's work. (Chewbacca from Star Wars)

  The Abyss Walker fan club powered by GCHQ is auctioning off a limo ride with the 7' 4" Actor and me! Hurry! The Auction expires on Sept 29th!

Click here for E-Bay Auction!

  The auction opened at $.99 and is at about twenty bucks now. Hurry and get your bid in! Once you get to the Limo you will ride to the airport to pick up Peter and I. From there, we will sip on fine drink and chat as we drive to the Gateway Convention Center in Collinsville IL for Archon (Sci-fi/fantasy convention).

  Questions? E-mail the Abyss Walker fan club powered by GCHQ president-Corey Phillips.
coreyaphillips@gmail.com

  I am excited to see which one of you wins the auction!

~Shane

Hey all,

  I have owned many dogs in my life. But let me tell you about three that have stood out.

Edge-a pit bull
Tank-a pit bull
Bronx-a pit bull

  All three dogs were adopted. Two were incredibly aggressive-and through training-attending dog shows with no muzzle and won awards.

  Wait! I know what you are thinking. These are vicious monsters! Horrible killing machines!

  Not true. They are victims of evil wicked people that have taken their natural talents and turned them into killing machines.

"We need laws banning these dogs!" This is bullshit. IL is a no BSL (Breed Specific Legislation) State. IL had three dog bite fatalities in 2009. NONE were by done by pitbulls. So if IL DOES go back to BSL, then they need to ban Labs, and Rots.

  In  my law enforcement career I responded to, or investigated hundreds of "pit bull" bites that turned out to be everything from rottweilers to labs. Less than 5% of bites reported to be pit bulls were actually pit bulls.

  People want to label every dog with a big head and cut ears as a pit bull.

  Can you find the pit bull? Unless you have owned one, I bet you can't on teh first try!
Find the pit bull game.

  Here is a compelling video that sheds a lot of light on the issue. There are several spelling and a dozen grammar errors, but watch the video for the message. If you don't feel the burn in your nose from a tear clawing to get out, then you need to do a gut check to find your humanity.



  Edge has been written into my novel series. He is a dog used for fighting that finds an unnatural kinship with a gladiator slave that had been suffering the same fate. Read about him the Abyss Walker book five; "Birth of a Nation."

~Shane