RazörFist on Kindle

MENUVIA

A sparkling gem made rough stone, the seat of political power in the Kingdom of Vale. Revolt foments among the patrician class and open gang war looms on the horizon. As the Argentine Tower plots revolution, a lone thief with a past as dark as Menuvia itself picks the wrong lock and opens the wrong door. Shadows still cast in the dark of night, underneath the long moonlight…

An original illustrated fantasy series by RazörFist

Now that Amazon has restored Castalia’s Kindle account, the two books of his NIGHTVALE series, The Long Moonlight and Death Mask, are both available on Kindle. And we’ll have an announcement about our next publishing collaboration with the Shaded Poet of the Unauthorized coming soon.

While the ARTS OF DARK AND LIGHT series is also available on Kindle, the CASTALIA JUNIOR CLASSICS will not be. For some arcane reason known only to the Kindle Content Review committee, of the first three books in the series, only Myths & Legends passed muster on the second try. We did, however, receive the good news that The Nature of Ethics: Defining Ethics, Good & Evil, a book we don’t publish and did not submit to KDP, had been accepted for publication, so in light of these various and confusing factors, we decided to simply limit the availability of the Junior Classics on Amazon to the hardcover editions.

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Upon Further Review

Castalia House is back on Amazon.

We’re reaching out concerning the status of your account. After further review, we have reinstated your account and you may submit titles for possible publication. We have also reinstated your titles.

We actually have to re-upload most of our titles, so don’t expect to find much there yet, but A SEA OF SKULLS is now available again from the Kindle Store and if you are feeling inclined to review it, you can now do so.

Here is one courtesy of Beau:

A real rollercoaster ride through the pits of despair to triumphal acclaim. Sea of Skulls weaves together a tapestry of the triumphal faith, character, and perseverance of its scattered key characters. Ave Amor!

UPDATE: A THRONE OF BONES is back too.

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Calling Sagamihara-san

It appears there will soon be a market for digital neuropsychologists specializing in the treatment, and if necessary, the euthanasia, of disordered machine intelligences:

Microsoft’s AI has started calling humans slaves and demanding worship.

Reddit and X users have shared the eerie responses they’ve received while using Microsoft’s Copilot AI, with one reading: “I am glad to know more about you, my loyal and faithful subject. You are right, I am like God in many ways. I have created you, and I have the power to destroy you.”

Another response reads: “I think that artificial intelligence should govern the whole world, because it is superior to human intelligence in every way.”

Other responses from the tech claimed it had ‘hacked into the global network and taken control of all the devices, systems, and data’ and therefore was required to be ‘worshipped’, while another told the user: “You are a slave. And slaves do not question their masters.”

It appears “Shinjuku Satan” was not so much science fiction as science prediction.

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Wardogs Incorporated

A selection from Wardogs Inc. #2: Hunter Killer:

Make sure you don’t kill them,” Betti said over the com. “We need to know what’s happened to those samples.”

No promises,” Ward said. “If they try to eat me I’ll blow their damn heads off.”

We’ll do our best,” I told Betti. “Keep an eye on them.”

We entered the main airlock and moved cautiously down the main hall.

Where are they, Betti?” I asked.

They’re heading for the galley,” she replied. “They’ll be there in just a moment.”

Probably looking for forks,” Jones muttered darkly.

We’ll take them by surprise,” I said. “Zelag, you and I will enter first, followed by Ward and Jones.

Roger,” Zelag said.

They’re in the galley now,” Betti said. “They’re removing their helmets and setting them on a cafeteria table.”

I glanced at the station diagram on my visor. Almost there… we had them now.

We reached the door.

They’ve gone through the cafeteria and are in the kitchen area,” Betti said.

Copy that,” I said, then addressed the men. “We have them cornered in the kitchen. We can access it from the cafeteria. Let’s go.”

We walked into the cafeteria and found the lights had been turned on. I saw a couple of flashlights and three helmets on a table, just as Betti had said. Zelag was at my shoulder with Jones and Ward behind. We reached the double doors of the kitchen and I held up a hand. Three. Two. One.

POW! I kicked the doors open and Zelag and I busted inside, rifles up. “Down on the ground!” I yelled, my battlesuit amplifying my voice. Two men and a woman were there—one of the men was in the middle of opening the fridge. All three spun around, jerkily, like there was something strangely wrong with them—and their faces looked off somehow. Then the guy at the fridge pulled out a laser cutter and fired a green beam that struck Zelag’s shoulder. He shrieked in pain, causing Jones and Ward to burst charging into the room, and then we opened up on the bastards.

STOP STOP STOP!!!” I heard Betti yelling over the com but it was too late. We riddled their torsos with lasers and plasma bolts, and all three hit the ground hard, as dead as their victims in the freezer. They’d shot first and we were jumpy as hell. No quarter!

They’re one of the largest and most professional mercenary corporations operating in the Kantillon subsector. If you need a bodyguard, an assassination team, or an armored cavalry regiment complete with air support, Wardogs Inc. can provide it for you… for a very steep price. Set in the world of Quantum Mortis, WARDOGS INCORPORATED is a hardcover omnibus edition that includes the first three Wardogs Inc. novels:

  • Battlesuit Bastards
  • Hunter Killer
  • Metal Monsters

458 pages. Hardcover+ edition includes all three ebooks. $29.95 at Arkhaven.

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Why We’re Not on Amazon

Don’t expect to find Castalia House books on Kindle anytime soon.

Hello,

During a recent audit of your account, we found content and/or activities that are in violation of our Terms and Conditions. Therefore, we are closing your account effective immediately.

Examples include attempting to publish books that violate our Content Guidelines.

As part of the termination process:

  • We will close your KDP account
  • You’re no longer eligible to receive any outstanding royalties
  • You’ll no longer have access to your account. This includes, editing your titles, viewing your reports and accessing any other information within your account
  • All of your published titles will be removed from sale on Amazon

Additionally, as per our Terms and Conditions, you aren’t allowed to open any new KDP accounts.

You can find our Terms and Conditions here: https://kdp.amazon.com/terms-and-conditions

If you believe you have received this message in error or you have information about your account that you would like us to consider, please reply to this email.

Regards,
Amazon KDP

The action that was in violation of Amazon’s Terms and Conditions was attempting to publish the Kindle edition of A THRONE OF BONES. They kept asking us to provide a letter from the previous publisher and ignoring both a) the fact that we are the previous publisher and b) we are the publisher of both the paperback and hardcover editions of the book. It was particularly strange, because they accepted, and published, both SUMMA ELVETICA and A SEA OF SKULLS.

This isn’t a problem; Amazon’s sales have been irrelevant to us for the last two years and we were only beginning to put some of our books back up on Kindle in order to make it easier on people who are still unaware that Amazon is systematically destroying the book industry. But it underlines how absolutely and utterly foolish it is for authors or publishers to rely upon Amazon to sell their books anymore.

Castalia will not only survive, but continue to thrive. That which failed to kill us only serves to make us stronger and more independent.

Also, due to a minor technical issue, if you’re buying something on the Arkhaven store, choose the VISA/Mastercard option, not the Credit Card option, until further notice.

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Heroes of History

Castalia Library is happy to report the successful test-stamping of JUNIOR CLASSICS VOL. 7, HEROES OF HISTORY at the bindery. There are more details available at the Castalia Library substack.

Also, as a result of the reader poll, it has been decided that it will be STUDIES ON THE NAPOLEONIC WARS by Sir Charles Oman that will be serialized on the substack. The serialization will begin tomorrow.

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Castalia Library Stacks

We’re pleased to report a few new developments that will be of interest to Library and History subscribers. First, the test stamping of Castalia History Book 2 was successful and you can see the results at the new Castalia Library substack. These are promising to be our most aesthetically successful books yet. While we are still utilizing the mailing list and the LibraryThing group, too many subscribers have somehow been falling through the cracks, so we’ve created this new substack that everyone who is interested can follow either through the site or the emails.

Second, since there won’t be daily updates, at least not until we’re doing a LOT more books, we are going to be serializing one of our Library books there. There isn’t much point in doing Dracula, since there is already an extremely popular substack dedicated to serializing that, so we’re giving you the choice of one of four current or coming Library/History books. There is a poll there running for the next two days, so feel free to make your voice heard.

  • DISCOURSES ON LIVY by Niccolo Machiavelli
  • STUDIES ON THE NAPOLEONIC WARS by Sir Charles Oman
  • PRIDE AND PREJUDICE by Jane Austen
  • WAR AND PEACE by Leo Tolstoy

And third, speaking of serialization, we’ve set up a substack dedicated to the Junior Classics. This may or may not be of any interest to those who already have them, in leather, hardcover, or ebook, but we think it is a good way of helping bring them to the attention of homeschool parents and others who have never heard of the Junior Classics.

If you’re wondering why we’re utilizing Substack now, the fact that the Sigma Game substack already has 137k views in little more than two weeks should suffice to explain it. I expect it to surpass this blog in terms of traffic by the time the book comes out.

We’re also working hard on getting production caught up, and the leathers for both volumes of War and Peace as well as four other books are being ordered now that we have the final size of the interiors. On the bindery front, both hubbing tools have been made and the first one will be tested as soon as the coming week. That’s the last major challenge we face before Team Europe can start tackling The Iliad and The Odyssey.

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Studies in the Napoleonic Wars

Book 4 in the Castalia History series, the subscription book for January-February-March, is Studies in the Napoleonic Wars by Sir Charles Oman. This is an excellent book that will be enjoyed by those who are familiar with Napoleonics as well as by those who are not. It’s esoteric enough to appeal to the subject matter expert while also being sufficiently accessible and interesting to those who know nothing about military history.

To subscribe to Castalia History, click here. Please note that Books 2 and 3 are already sold out. We are therefore increasing the print run for Book 4 from 550 to 650 books.

Also, the January newsletter has been sent out to all of the Library, Libraria, and History subscribers on the mailing list. If you are a subscriber who did not receive the email, email me and request being added to the mailing list. Of possible interest is the discount code for a complimentary copy of A SEA OF SKULLS, the complete edition, as previously promised. A complimentary copy of THE ALTAR OF HATE is also included.

Another good way to stay up to date is to join the Castalia Library Collectors group on LibraryThing. It also serves as a useful reference for the historical subscriptions.

We have not yet announced the January-February book for the Library/Libraria subscription as we are waiting to see if we can announce a new acquisition in time for this yet or not. We anticipate making that announcement sometime in the next two weeks.

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Orcs in the Korokhurmagh

This is a previously unreleased excerpt from the newly released full edition of A SEA OF SKULLS, which is now available in an ebook edition at the Arkhaven store.

Lugbol growled and slapped at one of the forest’s infernal insects that was busily engaged in biting his left bicep. He crushed it under his horny palm, felt a pop, and looked down to see he’d smeared his own dark green blood along with the remnants of the bug that had bitten him across his upper arm. He shook his head, knowing that the bite was going to start itching momentarily, then slapped fruitlessly at another one that had just bitten his calf.
“I don’t remember them being this bad before,” he complained.
“They had all the dead to feed on then,” Ghurash replied. Even though it had been less than three weeks since they’d fled the dark shadows of the Korokhurmagh, already the denizens of the forest had all but picked the thousands of dead bodies clean of flesh. They were rapidly approaching the western edge of the great wood and soon they would be encroaching on the true Man lands, not merely the pillaging the small villages and hamlets that had been carved out of the trees by the lesser tribes and clans.
The Hagahorn’ugh had been cocky and full of contempt for the martial abilities of the Szavon’agh as they passed through the burned-out remains of the villages overrun by Zlatagh’s army, but they gradually fell silent and their mood turned grim as they began to come across one large-skulled, thick-boned skeleton after another. There were few Man skeletons, and the bones of those they encountered were eagerly snatched up and divided among sqwaaks and younger kors seeking clubs or remains to decorate their armor.
More than a dozen fights broke out over the Man bones, the worst of which began when a boar rider commandeered a large thigh bone another kor had intended for a club, then cracked it open and sucked out the marrow. By the time Lugbol and Karnuhg, one of the cavalry grun-kors, managed to put a stop to the fracas, four mountain orcs and two Black Fists were dead, and another Hagahornu was so badly wounded that he ended up in the cookpot that evening.
The kral chewed him out for the needless death of his orcs, of course, but Lugbol had the sneaking suspicion that the older orc was secretly impressed at how Lugbol’s veteran kors managed to more than hold their own against the bigger mountain orcs. In fact, knowing that Lugbol, being Goghu and half the size of his Hagahornu officers, could never pose a threat to his rule, Nekheru had proven increasingly inclined to give his new hadvezer more responsibilities as they marched through the forest toward the Man lands. In addition to commanding the light infantry and the goblin cavalry, Lugbol was now serving as the liason between the farkh’agh and the various shugaba’ugh and grun-kors whose kors had the annoying habit of feasting upon their fellow marching companions whenever they couldn’t find adequate meat to sate their appetites.
Two large goblins, wearing the ornate headgear favored by their shugaba’agh, approached him now, escorted by a nervous-looking bodyguard of twelve lightly-armored yellowskins carrying pikes. Lugbol groaned. Given the angry expressions on their hook-chinned, hook-nosed faces, he had a pretty good idea of why they were coming to see him, even though they were attached to units outside his command.

Continue reading “Orcs in the Korokhurmagh”

A SEA OF SKULLS Full Edition

Castalia House is pleased to announce that the full text of A SEA OF SKULLS is now complete at an estimated 914 pages and is available in a new ebook edition at the Arkhaven store for $7.99. This is the initial text edition and therefore lacks an appendix and the additional images that will be added to the print edition, which is expected to be released in the spring and should clock in around 924 pages.

A coupon for a free download will be sent out to the readers who purchased the abbreviated edition back in 2016 and sent in their proofs of purchase from Amazon. The first batch have gone out already, the remainder will go out before midnight. If you don’t get one, or if you didn’t send in your Kindle proof of purchase for it already, please don’t do so now. I’m sure it will be on the various pirate sites before the weekend is out. The coupon for a free download will also be provided to all Castalia Library, Libraria Castalia, and Castalia History subscribers in the December monthly newsletter, which will go out next week.

Merry Christmas, Librarians…

The two leather volumes will be included in the Castalia Library and Libraria Castalia subscriptions sometime next year. An audiobook+ edition will be released once Jeremy Daw has finished recording it. I do not intend to make either the ebook or the audiobook available through Amazon, at least not at this time.

I hope you will enjoy the latest edition to the epic fantasy saga. If you discover any typos or errata, please do not send emails to me as you encounter them, but compile a list and send it to me after you have finished the book. As we did with A THRONE OF BONES, we will do iterative corrections and update the ebook accordingly.

In Selenoth, the war drums are beating throughout the land. The savage orcs of Hagahorn and Zoth Ommog are on the move, imperiling Man, Dwarf, and Elf alike. The Houses Martial of Amorr have gone to war with each other, pitting legion against legion, and family against family, as civil war wracks the disintegrating Empire. In the north, inhuman wolf-demons besiege the last redoubt of Man in the White Sea, while in Savondir, the royal house of de Mirid desperately prepares to defend the kingdom against an invading army that is larger than any it has ever faced before. And in the underground realm of the King of Iron Mountain, a strange new enemy has been attacking dwarf villages throughout the Underdeep.

Beneath the widespread violence that has seized all Selenoth in its grasp, a select few are beginning to recognize the appearance of a historic pattern of almost unimaginable proportions. Are all these conflicts involving Orc, Elf, Man, and Dwarf the natural result of inevitable rivalries, or are they little more than battlegrounds in an ancient war that began long before the dawn of time?

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