Tag: books

An old-school YA adventure from an author friend of Castalia House: Pirates of the Electromagnetic Waves.

A young radio engineer travels across an alt-history America, encountering primeval gods, mythical beasts, and tall tales come to life, in a quest to build a radio transmitter that can reach the stars.

It all starts in the mountain town of Porterville. Twelve-year-old Philo starts a pirate radio station with his friends, and learns that the world is a stranger place than he ever imagined. The Ancient Marauder, the Bright and Terrible Birds, the Mishipeshu, and other creatures of myth and legend populate this enchanting mixture of science and fantasy.

YANKEE REPUBLIC is an old-school adventure series with traditional values and down-to-earth heroes. Escape from the pessimism and propaganda of modern fiction, and take a journey through a mythic America that might have been.

We’re not doing YA right now, but we want to support right-wing authors like Fenton Wood who are.

A reader has a theory:

1. Ebooks are introduced, everyone who reads gets a Kindle or reader, and fills it up. Many books are free and classics. The problem is that there are more books than you can read in a lifetime.

2. KU shows up. The Super-Readers end up on KU as for the money it is the best deal going. Books become a complete commodity on it. 

3. Regular, but not super readers still have too many eBooks to ever read but still pick up a few. 

4. So many forms of entertainment exist from on-demand videos, YouTube, Twitch, games, the world is filled with immediately accessible amusements. Reading slackens for Regular Readers. 

5. KU continues to grow, and more and more Super Readers flock to it, causing a drop in regular eBook sales.

6. Regular Readers realize the ephemeral nature of eBooks. There’s nothing to pass on, nothing to see or savor like the printed page and they don’t have the time nor inclination to read dozens of books a month like the Super Readers. (I stopped using an eBible and no only take notes in a printed one)

7. Regular Readers instead opt to buy printed books for the ones they truly love. They can pass on hardback, leather bound, and beautiful books which stand the test of time. Pulp Fiction and casual reading are left to the occasional eBook. 

8. Super Readers continue to devour KU.

I did an analysis of our ebook sales and was surprised to discover that with 7 exceptions, Kindle Unlimited is simply not worth it even without taking potential non-Amazon sales into account. So, we’re going to be removing most of our books from KU and returning them to the Castalia House store over the next three months. By the start of the new year, most of our books will be available from all the major ebook platforms as well as our online store.

Remember, every dollar in the KU pool represents about THREE dollars removed from the ebook sales pool. And because the overall market is not growing, it is a zero-sum game.

We’re also going to reduce the number of new fiction authors we publish. Because repeated experiments have demonstrated that even the very best-selling KU novelists don’t sell very well in print, and because the success of KU puts us in a catch-22 situation with them regardless of whether they sell well through us or not, we are going to focus our efforts on strategic properties that we create, own and develop rather than those that we merely publish.

Because non-fiction a) sells well in print and b) is not popular on KU, our non-fiction publishing will continue without any change in focus or strategy.

A witness to the abuses committed by Walter Breen, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and their evil coterie of sex criminals backs up the events chronicled by Moira Greyland in The Last Closet in an email sent to Moira.

I remember reading Mists of Avalon when it came out, and it was already known by all the kids what your family did. I remember lots of us kids reading that book in context, because we knew and were creeped out… I remember one thing about it that was ugly was that “a bunch of this is about being really mean to Dorothy”.

We didn’t like that about it. I remember wanting to tell authorities of some kind. The kids made damn sure I didn’t do that- they were afraid they’d be in trouble because they seduced these adults and got drugs from them.

The big thing was, that if we told, then you and your brother would end up in foster. The kids involved sexually and otherwise swore that they didn’t do this to their own kids, just other people’s, so it would be hurting you for no good reason. They didn’t think they were a good enough reason.

It’s all so sad, with that regret as far as I go. I could have told but absolutely nobody would have backed me up – I wasn’t “in it”, so I was useless as any sort of witness. I swear to anyone that disbelieves Moira, for whatever reason, that the scenario she speaks about is absolutely true, it really did happen, with a ton of people involved.

I can’t vouch for details, I wasn’t involved. Although I  came close. I was put in uncomfortable sexual situations with the Breens and pals. I chickened out and and threatened to tell. Telling was NOT welcome, to say the least. I know many who did not chicken out, and even made fun of those who did. The kids being preyed on were more “grown up”, more cool, and in the scene.

Moira is telling the truth.

Keep this in mind if you ever find yourself thinking that reconciliation, negotiation, and compromise is a viable option, or that the situation isn’t actually worse than the conspiracy theorists tell you.

Dr. Hallpike spent his first ten years as an anthropologist living with mountain tribes in Ethiopia and Papua New Guinea and writing up his research for publication. He learned that primitive societies are very different from our modern industrialised societies and that it takes a considerable amount study to understand how they work.

But since all Man’s ancestors used to live in a similar manner, understanding these societies is essential to understanding the human race itself, especially when speculating about our prehistoric ancestors in East Africa. Unfortunately a wide variety of journalists and science writers, historians, linguists, biologists, and especially evolutionary psychologists erroneously believe they are qualified to write about primitive societies without knowing much about them.

The result is that many of their superficial speculations have about as much scientific credibility as The Flintstones. The various critical studies contained in Ship of Fools: An Anthology of Learned Nonsense About Primitive Society examine some of the most popular of these speculations and evaluate their scientific merit.

Among the learned fools whose works are critiqued are:

• Yuval Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
• Emma Byrne’s Swearing is Good For You
• René Girard’s theory of learned behavior
• William Arens’s The Man-Eating Myth
• Noam Chomsky’s theory of universal grammar

Castalia House is pleased to announce Richard Cain’s latest book, VESSEL OF VENUS, the second in the Diary of an Ex-Angel series.

Mark is a down-and-out IT professional with a secret. When he discovers a sorcery app that gives him incredible powers, he sets out to win his ex-girlfriend’s love and start a new life – until Venusians show up, sharing the story of how their civilization was destroyed by global warming and giving Mark the chance to fight climate change. All he has to do is offers them a sacrifice once in a while.

Will he get the girl? Will everyone finally realize that he’s the most amazing person ever? And will that damn talking locust ever shut up and leave him alone?

You’ll find out in the hilarious VESSEL OF VENUS: The Diary of an Ex-Angel.

From the reviews of GOD HATES ME, the first in the Diary of an Ex-Angel series.

• Read this to find out the real story behind: The clean up after the the deluge to eliminate evidence of the prior civilization, such as air conditioning and the Nephilim. Pixies. Haunted houses. Crop circles. Aliens.
• The demon’s name is Malach. He doesn’t consider himself evil. Sure, he was part of the rebellion, but he was there because of some really cool music the “Choir Director” was playing. He tries not to be too evil, although he keeps getting roped in. But he wants to get back into Heaven, so he keeps looking for ways to get their attention by doing good. But, he keeps messing things up.
• Please, God, let them come up with some different cover art.
• It’s a zippy tale, told in a lively style that gets the reader leaning into the narrative. It’s a quirky faux memoir like something we might read if C.S. Lewis’s Wormwood had corresponded with Salinger’s Holden Caulfield. A few sections made me honestly laugh aloud, something I never expected to happen when cracking a book about a fallen angel. It’s as if Frank Peretti actually had a sense of humor…as if Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins actually knew how to jettison the proselytizing, cut the brake lines, and just let the story run.

Nick Cole fans and book collectors will be pleased to know that we have figured out how to provide a SIGNED AUTHOR EDITION of the Soda Pop Soldier paperback.

To obtain one, simply place an order at the Castalia House store. Once placed, we will send you an email to confirm a) the mailing address at which you want the book to go, and b) the inscription, if any, that you would like Nick Cole to write. We’ve already arranged for him to have the books on hand. You can also elect to sign up for the Castalia Book Club to receive notifications of future Signed Author Editions from Nick and other Castalia House authors if you’re not already a subscriber.

We will send the relevant information to Nick, who will sign the book accordingly and send it to you by post. The price of the Signed Author Edition includes the shipping price to you; we anticipate that the book will arrive via US post in about one week. Signed Author Editions are only available in the USA right now, and Soda Pop Soldier by Nick Cole is the first book for which we are offering a Signed Author Edition.

If you’re interested in us providing Signed Author Editions for other authors, please let us know which authors and works are of particular interest to you. However, please don’t even bother asking about my books, since this process is not viable in Europe, although we MIGHT be able to do it for Owen Stanley fans in the UK.

The Signed Author Edition of Soda Pop Soldier by Nick Cole is available for $34.99.

Call of Duty meets Diablo in this fast-paced, action-packed LitRPG novel from the author of GALAXY’S EDGE.

Gamer PerfectQuestion fights for ColaCorp in WarWorld, an online combat sport arena where mega-corporations field entire armies in the battle for real world global advertising-space dominance. Within the immense virtual battlefield, players and bots are high-tech grunts, using drop-ships and state-of-the-art weaponry to wipe each other out.

But times are tough and the rent is due, and when players need extra dough, there’s always the Black, an illegal open source tournament where the sick and twisted desires of the future are given free rein in the Wastehavens, a gothic dungeon fantasy world.

And all too soon, the real and virtual worlds collide when PerfectQuestion refuses to become the tool of a mad man intent on hacking the global economy for himself.

Soda Pop Soldier is available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited. A Castalia House paperback will be available from Castalia Books Direct later today.

From the reviews:

• I half-expected a light-hearted romp through modern video games. What I got was something completely different. Something telling about how many of us live our lives online and the anonymity that we expect…. Throughout it all, we see the real world, but in many ways Cole presents this as almost more fantastic and ridiculous than the online worlds that PerfectQuestion plays in. There are scientific advancements that take humans to other planets and planes that seemingly traverse around the world without stopping, but most of that is unavailable to the average person. The more the book explores those areas – the areas inhabited by the rich and powerful – the more the reader finds themselves in foreign territory. In many ways PerfectQuestion is more at home in the war and fantasy of his online games than in the real world.
• This is a seriously well-crafted book, full of twists, loads of pop culture references, and a remarkable treatise on integrity, conviction, good versus evil, hero versus villain and several other themes. He picks up on everything that was (and is) fun about gaming, problem-solving and the creativity and story-telling that great games AND books have in common, and lectures in a good way about the joy of reading. This is a great story. If you played Pong and other games up to the current genre of first-person shooters, and enjoy a good story, with characters that you can identify with, buy this book. Read it. Share it. If you aren’t a gamer, but rather a well read bookworm, buy this book. Lose yourself in it, and enjoy something that is exceptional.
• This book blew me away. I went into it expecting little, because it’s from an indie publisher. Big mistake. It feels like a blend between Catcher In The Rye, Blade Runner, and Warhammer 40K. It started off a bit slow and I wasn’t sure where it was going, but it morphs into a compelling story that I could not get enough of. I’d think about this book while I was working, waiting to get home. I went out and bought three more of his books just so I’d have some ready when I finished this one.
• I love Cole’s work and SPS is probably my favorite one to date. 
• It’s in my top ten favorite novels of all time, and it’s just wonderfully good.

This book is an absolute must-read for any gamer. People not unreasonably tend to think of Nick Cole as a pulp author due to the success of Galaxy’s Edge, but he is actually one of the better science fiction authors around, and there is no one currently writing who is more adept at playing on the emotions of the reader.

LitRPG has been around since Joel Rosenberg created it in Guardians of the Flame; my abortive first attempt at a novel was a Guardians imitation that very cleverly utilized Traveller instead of D&D. But the invention of the MMO and subsequent blurring of reality and game reality in the real world has transformed and popularized the genre, and Soda Pop Soldier represents the very best of it. If you haven’t read it, I would highly recommend that you pick up a copy and do so.

Castalia House will also be publishing the next two books in the Soda Pop Soldier series.

In case you’re interested, we’ve got THREE new print editions out this week that may be of interest.

First is CHUCK DIXON’S AVALON #1: THE STREET RULES, which is available in a gold logo edition for $2.99. We very nearly got it out as fast as the digital version thanks to our new production process, which cuts 4-5 days off the previous pre-print routine. This means that all of our new print editions will only be available on Castalia Books Direct for a week or two, before they eventually show up on Amazon.

Second is the brilliant SUPERLUMINARY trilogy by John C. Wright. It contains The Lords of Creation, The Space Vampires, and The World Armada and is a 482-page paperback. Although it retails for $27.99, we’re able to offer it at $19.99.

And third is Vol. II of my Collected Columns. Crisis & Conceit 2006-2009 is a 756-page hardcover that is available for 34.99.

Castalia House is extremely pleased to announce that SUPERLUMINARY: THE WORLD ARMADA by John C. Wright is now available for Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.

Although the Lords of Creation survived the awesome onslaught of the world-killing space vampires, there is nowhere in the lifeless galaxy that they can hope to hide their planets and people forever. How can they hope to destroy what is already dead?

The vampiric necroforms are a massive empire of anti-life, terrible beyond all imagining, ruling a vast network of dead stars and planets they have drained of all life. Aeneas, the Emperor of Man, realizes that if the human race is going to survive, he is going to have to find a way to re-seed the entire galaxy with life while burning down the interstellar undead empire with the precious light it cannot bear. And not only does Aeneas have to do the impossible, he is going to have to do it while keeping a wary eye out for the ruthless betrayer at his back.

SUPERLUMINARY is the latest and most brilliant creation of science fiction grandmaster John C. Wright, the Dragon-award winning author of THE UNWITHERING REALM, THE GOLDEN AGE, MOTH & COBWEB, and AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND. THE WORLD ARMADA is the third and final book in the trilogy.

Rather like Awake in the Night Land, you cannot appreciate the full brilliance of Superluminary until you have read the whole thing and see how John C. Wright manages to pull the whole thing together on multiple levels. In my opinion, with Superluminary, John C. Wright firmly establishes himself as the greatest science fiction writer of his generation and one of the all-time greats. It’s the combination of brilliance, originality, and consistency that serves to elevate him beyond the likes of Neal Stephenson and China Mieville, both of whom are indubitably great SF writers, but unlike Mr. Wright, they simply do not manage to scale the literary heights again and again with such magnificent reliability.

I initially thought Superluminary was over-the-top fun, John C. Wright amusing himself by seeing if he could go the notorious Worldkiller one better. Then, when I reached the part about why faster-than-light travel is a very bad idea and why there has been such a mysterious lack of alien contact with the solar system, I realized that it was something deeper and darker than that. But not until finishing THE WORLD ARMADA did I grasp just how uniquely astounding is the work as a whole. And it is not a coincidence that every single one of the 41 reviews for the first two books in the series rate them both 5 stars.

From the earlier reviews:

• Grand design space opera turned up to 11! For everyone who liked The Golden Age but thought it might have been just a bit too talky, this has the same over the top world building but starts off with the main character’s assassination…and then things start to get really wild.
• What an amazing mind to think up this story (with all its intricate and entangled details) and then make it understandable!
• Seriously, WAR DYSONS? I didn’t think he could do it. I didn’t think Mr Wright could take the already delightfully extravagant story begun in The Lords of Creation and make it bigger and wilder…. Oh ye of little faith, how wrong I was.
• Spectacular classic space opera. If you know your classical SciFi and loved the family politics of Nine Princes in Amber, the weird super science of The World of Null-A, the immense galactic war of the Lensmen series, then you need to buy and read this book right away. 
• His best work since Awake in the Night Land.

Bishop Thomas Cranberry finds himself at a loss when he is confronted by a thief and realizes some disturbing truths about himself. The experience sends him in search of the men who are increasingly absent from the Church, who find themselves at a loss in a world that has gone increasingly feral, and who feel that they have nowhere to go and no one to whom they can turn for support. In listening to them and attempting to understand their plight, he finds an unexpected mission.

The Heretics of St. Possenti is for listeners who want the backstory of the story and for those who want to know how one inspired man can make a difference in a fallen world. It is a novel for those who need inspiration to get them though the day and those who look for unusual ways to accomplish the mission. It is for people who understand and respect the old ways but know that sometimes a seed cannot grow without splitting the pavement.

Narrated by Wade Schoenemann The Heretics of St. Possenti is 12 hours and 2 minutes long.