James Lowder has been active as a writer and editor sine the 1980s, most famous perhaps for authoring the novel Knight of the Black Rose for TSR, and for editing the All Flesh Must Be Eaten fiction anthologies Book of All Flesh, Book of More Flesh and Book of Final Flesh. More recently, he edited the essay collection Family Games: The 100 Best, and fiction anthologies Curse of the Full Moon and The Best of All Flesh.
I chatted recently with Jim via email about some of his most recently completed projects: Triumph of The Walking Dead – a collection of essays on the longrunning comics series and AMC network’s successful TV series – and Silent Knife and Strangeness in the Proportion, two novels from White Wolf publishing currently being serialized on the White Wolf web site and awaiting print publication.
Flames Rising is pleased to announce the latest release in the Instant Antagonists line. The Creepy Cottontail author, Monica Valentinelli (and Flames Rising project Manager) shares some notes on the design and writing process that went into this product.
Having conducted a lot of occult research for my writing — both game-and-story-related — there’s a particular concept that always stands out in my mind. Performing a ritual (both real and/or imagined) is work, but the end result of that “job” doesn’t always yield the same results every time. Take a basic love potion for example. Do you have any idea how many different types of love potions there are? In many cases, not only do you have to get the ritual down pat, but you also have to worry about backlash, timing and the integrity of the materials. Even then, there’s no guarantee that magic will function the same way twice because there’s one-too-many factors that you cannot control.
The “cost” of doing magic is something I feel is often overlooked because some view it as an obstacle that gets in the way of a story or a game. I look at it as a characterization of a protagonist or… in this case… Instant Antagonist.
FlamesRising.com is pleased to present you with an excerpt from Night Veil, the second novel in the new Indigo Court series written by Yasmine Galenorn. This dark fantasy story debuts on Tuesday, July 5th. In this preview, you’ll read a brief introduction to the world and a part of the first chapter.
Night Veil: The Beginning
Myst led her people into the shadows and ice, and there they hid, sheltered in the depths of lore. The Vampiric Fae were pariah, kept a dirty secret, shamefully debasing the entire realm of Faerie. And so in furtive silence, the Host fed and drank deep and did rend the flesh of its victims and feast. But their thirst was unquenchable, and it was then that Myst discovered one of their newfound powers: Members of the Indigo Court could drink from the souls of the magic-born…
For those of you who love Vampire: the Masquerade as much as I do, you’re probably aware that its hitting a twenty year anniversary milestone this year. My old favorites like Gangrels and Toreadors were already on my mind — then I started re-reading Dork Tower.
And I groaned. A lot. Then smiled… Then secretly wished I, too, was headed to The Grand Masquerade.
Before I get to my experience reading Clanbook Perky, here’s the information on the sale:
FlamesRising.com is pleased to present a behind-the-scenes look at the birth of the Pathfinder novel Plague of Shadows. This novel, which was written by Howard Andrew Jones, is about a race against time set against a backdrop of treachery, magic and nightmares. Jones dives into the process of writing a tie-in novel with both feet. In his own words, you can read how this talented author came to be a part of the popular Pathfinder setting.
Round about the time James Sutter was given the greenlight to start up the new Pathfinder line word got around that I’d signed a two book contract with St. Martin’s Thomas Dunne Books for some Arabian fantasy swashbucklers. The first one, The Desert of Souls, was on its way through editorial when James contacted me to see if he could look at some writing samples. He must have liked what he saw, for he then asked me to shoot some proposals his way.
ANYA SOBCZEK (SUB-CHECK) is a snarling science major with an arm full of Darwin tattoos. Her brother OWEN is a sensitive young thing in a coven of teenage occultists. The Sobczek sibs have always been brutally competitive, but now that Owen’s blood has started BUBBLING with ancient tentacled abominations, their rivalry’s about to enter a vast new dimension of cosmic terror…
In 2010 Artists DREW RAUSCH and AARON ALEXOVICH hurled their infectious horror/comedy hybrid ELDRITCH! into blazing combat in DC Comics’ final Zuda webcomic competition. After several centuries it emerged, dazed and confused, with the word WINNER indelibly etched on its forehead.
FlamesRising.com is pleased to present you with a preview of The Crimson Pact Volume One. Twenty-six authors wrote stories in this demon-themed eBook anthology and samples of three of them are available for you to read below.
The Failed Crusade Written by Patrick M. Tracy and Paul Genesse
News of our victory came not in the happy shouts of the freed multitudes, but in the groaning voices of the animate dead. Ours was a victory that none would confuse with triumph. The best half of us lay broken within the Rusted Vale, the rear guard left to puzzle out the events that had been no more than far-off echoes within the smoke and crashing iron. We knew only that we had finally won, that the Crimson Pact was redeemed, that we could all go home. Tired as we were, no man lifted a fist to celebrate. No Blessed Woman smiled. No church Catechist recounted the litany of our good fortunes. The cost had been too high, the wager of battle too awful. In that moment, winning didn’t seem to matter. It would not be long before we found that even the brief illusion of victory would tear away like fog before the wind.
FlamesRising.com is pleased to announce a fun comic caption contest for Skullkickers, an action fantasy comic drawn by Jim Zubkavich that debuted with image comics last fall. We will be giving away a signed copy of the first hardcover collected trade dubbed Skullkickers: 1000 Opas and a Dead Body with an introduction by Robin D. Laws. For those of you who follow Jim’s work, you may recall his artistic and writing style from the popular series of Exalted comics, which are availalbe from UDON.
Skullkickers follows the action adventures of two iconic heroes. One of them is an unruly dwarf with red hair named Shorty; the other a warrior with a little more common sense named Baldy. Up until Issue Number 7 that is…
FlamesRising.com is pleased to present you with a preview of The Zombie Feed Volume One. Several authors penned stories in this zombie anthology. Three of the stories you’ll find in this debut anthology from The Zombie Feed are available for you to read below.
Zombie fiction from many sub-genres are represented here: zombie apocalypse, zombie survival, zombies in human society, zombie hunters, and more. And the one thread interlocking these disparate groups-ZOMBIE MAYHEM! This action packed anthology takes a syringe full of contaminated adrenaline-laced undead and slams 1000 CCs directly into your chest cavity.
To celebrate the 114th anniversary of the publication of Dracula, we here at FlamesRising.com would like to recommend your day is filled with blood and fangs. Over the years, we’ve offered reviews, interviews and recommendations of several vampire-related stories, comics and games. Today, we’d like to share with you a couple of new recommendations as well as a few from our archives either directly inspired by or based upon Dracula himself.
For starters, Top Cow has a comics series called Impaler, which is a re-imagining of the vampire tale. If non-fiction is more your thing, we recommend checking out Actual Factual: Dracula, which is a great resource for anyone who needs a compendium of reference material on the topic.
Born of the U.S. government’s 1928 raid on the degenerate coastal town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts, the covert agency known as Delta Green spent four decades opposing the forces of darkness with honor, but without glory. Stripped of sanction after a disastrous 1969 operation in Cambodia, Delta Green’s leaders made a secret pact: to continue their work without authority, without support, and without fear. Delta Green agents slip through the system, manipulating the federal bureaucracy while pushing the darkness back for another day-but often at a shattering personal cost.
Ten years ago, everything changed. It’s time you found out how.
It’s January 2001. The Delta Green agents code-named Cyrus and Charlie get the call: A young boy dead and buried for years has reappeared, healthy and happy, as if no time at all had passed and the disease that killed him had never been. The family thinks it’s a miracle, but Delta Green has seen too many miracles turn to madness. Cyrus and Charlie must discover what horrors lurk behind this one. The mission brings them to the brink of apocalypse-to the edge of the revelation and destruction of Delta Green-to secrets and terrors at the heart of reality itself.
Delta Green: Through a Glass, Darkly is a new novel written by Delta Green co-creator Dennis Detwiller. The book is finished. It’s been reviewed, revised and edited. Now Arc Dream Publishing is holding a Kickstarter project to raise the funds to publish it.
We have a new design essay from David Hill Jr. In this essay David tells us about developing the Forsaken Chronicler’s Guide, which is the latest supplement for the Werewolf: the Forsaken RPG from White Wolf.
We’re coming up on the release of the fourth volume of Forsaken Chronicler’s Guide, so I thought I’d give a bit of insight into the development process for this particular project.
A couple of years ago, I pitched the idea of a Chronicler’s Guide for Werewolf: the Forsaken to Eddy Webb. I knew Forsaken was a bit more of a niche game, so the Alternative Publishing model might fit a bit better than a traditional, full release.
Delta Green: Intelligences is a new short story by Dennis Detwiller in the award-winning Delta Green setting.
Dennis’ company Arc Dream Publishing is holding a fundraiser for a new Delta Green novel, Through a Glass, Darkly. As the fundraiser hits milestones towards its goal, Arc Dream will release all-new Delta Green short stories to go along with it — starting with "Intelligences."
On the heels of his new release from Apex Book Company, the multi-talented Guy Hasson drops by FlamesRising.com to tell us why he writes about women. This particular essay gives us insight into his intent behind writing three, distinct novellas and collecting them into a single collection called “Secret Thoughts.” For more about this author, playwright and filmmaker, be sure to visit Guy Hasson’s website. If you’re interested in checking out Hasson’s new release, you can pick up the Secret Thoughts e-book at DriveThruSciFi.com, or visit the publisher’s website for previews, reviews, additional formats and more!
Pelgrane Week continues with a new design essay by The Big Hoodoo author by Bill White. Bill discusses writing an adventure in 1950s California and other details for Trail of Cthulhu.
I’ve written two adventures for Trail of Cthulhu, a game of Lovecraftian investigation written by Kenneth Hite using Robin Laws’ GUMSHOE system. Both are unusual in that they are set in the 1950s, rather than TOC’s usual 1930s setting (itself one of the features that distinguishes Trail of Cthulhu from its more venerable cousin, Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu, which takes the 1920s as its canonical milieu). The first, called Castle Bravo, is set aboard an aircraft carrier in the South Pacific during nuclear bomb testing at Bikini Atoll. Its appeal is, I think, straightforward: an atomic bomb goes off and the PCs, as the naval and scientific personnel involved, must deal with monstrous emergences in its aftermath.
Pelgrane Week continues here at Flames Rising with a new design essay by Matthew Sanderson. Matthew tells us about writing the forthcoming The Love of Money scenario for the Esoterrorists RPG.
Looking back now, I think that best describes how the creative process began for me with The Love of Money. It all started with the hunt for an initial concept, a small seed, which then germinated and continued to expand into the final work. That hunt began with me asking myself one question: what would make this an Esoterrorist game? I’ve been playing roleplaying games now for about eleven years and in this time I’ve played in a great many games where I’ve thought it could work really well in another game’s setting. However, when I set about writing an adventure myself, I generally ask myself the question “why this game?” I like to feel that the story has a meaning, that it’s not a square peg trying to fit into a round hole.
I first met Mr. Braunbeck when I was a grunt at the Borderlands Writers Boot Camp. To Each Their Darkness is his guide for writers and in some ways it expands upon many of the gems he gave to those of us at the workshop. As one of the newest writing manuals on the market it is undoubtedly one of the best, using the personal to impart the practical. Comparable to Stephen King’s On Writing, To Each Their Darkness takes writers on a journey to discovering how to use their own dark experiences in their work, without becoming a slave to that same darkness that can hold one hostage.
But it is more than just a writing guide. And it should be read by more than just those working professionally as writers or those aiming to. Anyone that is interested in the sweat that goes into creating their favorite horror novels, short stories, or movies; anyone that is interested in the process that the writer must often go through before getting the words from his or her head-space and onto the page; anyone in a personal relationship of any kind with a writer — especially a writer of darker works — should read this book.
FlamesRising.com is pleased to present an essay from author Paul Jessup, who wrote a novella entitled Open Your Eyes, published by Apex Book Company. In this surrealist space opera tale that takes place on a ship with a mind of its own, Jessup explores the unusual, the weird and the bizarre. Today he’ll discuss what space opera means to him and his motivation behind Open Your Eyes.
Open Your Eyes
I’m a huge fan of Space Opera, wait, no, scratch that– I’m a huge fan of what I was told was Space Opera when I was a kid. Which was primarily one thing- Star Wars. Which was more like the monomyth in Space, with Samurais, but I digress for a bit. If you’re a kid from the 80’s, you know the score. This kind of Space Opera was everywhere, not just in Star Wars, but in cartoons, on the back of cereal boxes, in toys (and knock off toys), in books, all that fun stuff.
Explore the world of writing horror from a Bram Stoker and International Horror Guild award-winning author’s point of view. Gary Braunbeck uses film, fiction and life experience to elucidate the finer points of storytelling, both in and out of genre. This part-autobiographical, always analytical book looks at how stories develop and what makes them work-or not work-when they’re told.
Be warned: reality is as brutal as fiction. Rob Zombie, police shootings, William Goldman and human misery are all teachers to the horror neophyte, and Braunbeck uses their lessons to make To Each Their Darkness a whirlwind of horror and hope for the aspiring writer.
Flames Rising is pleased to present the introduction to this book by Gary Braunbeck.
The first part of the highly anticipated Cthulhu Apocalypse series.
The Investigators are rendered unconscious by a train crash. When they wake they discover the world has died. White flowers cover the ground and they see, beneath the delicate petals, the faces of the dead. No other human is in sight, everyone is gone.
The struggle to survive the apocalypse takes the Investigators through Britain, across the sea to America and beyond the veils of reality.
James Lowder has been active as a writer and editor sine the 1980s, most famous perhaps for authoring the novel Knight of the Black Rose for TSR, and for editing the All Flesh Must Be Eaten fiction anthologies Book of All Flesh, Book of More Flesh and Book of Final Flesh. More recently, he edited the essay collection Family Games: The 100 Best, and fiction anthologies Curse of the Full Moon and The Best of All Flesh.
FlamesRising.com is pleased to present you with a preview of 
Delta Green: Intelligences is a new short story by Dennis Detwiller in the award-winning Delta Green setting.
I first met Mr. Braunbeck when I was a grunt at the Borderlands Writers Boot Camp. 
