The Dragon Tempest anthology

Dragon Tempest Synopsis (1)

The Dragon Tempest offers a collection of short stories in a variety of fantasy genres, including dark, light, adventure, and epic. Creatures from all worlds abound: dragons, angels, centaurs, witches, gods and goddesses, and those lurking below the water’s surface. Whether you’re moved by tales of battle and bloodshed, suspense, humor, or enlightenment, The Dragon Tempest will leave you craving more from each author. Such a diversity of great fantasy tales to enjoy will leave no room for disappointment. 

Judges:

• Allison D. Reid
• KJ Hawkins
• D.B. Mauldin
• Joshua Robertson

1^st Place Winners

• Christine King
• Katie Roxberry
• Winter Bayne
• Jane Dougherty
• Wilson F. Engel, III

2^nd Place Winners

• Christine Haggerty
• Randall Lemon
• Deborah Jean Anderson
• Abram Barneck
• Louise Findlay

3^rd Place Winners

• Samuel Milner
• Karen Brown

Ebook Buy Links:

• Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Dragon-Tempest-Fantasy-Adventure-Anthology-ebook/dp/B0105JE02O/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1436399998&sr=1-1&keywords=the+dragon+tempest+tales+of+fantasy+%26+adventure
• Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/552304
• Itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/dragon-tempest-tales-fantasy/id1009713116?mt=11
• Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-dragon-tempest-dragon-knight-chronicles/1122188936?ean=2940151986038
• Paperback Buy Link:

Createspace: https://www.createspace.com/5586901

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Author Name  –  Joshua Robertson
Author Bio.  –  Joshua began crafting the world for the dark fantasy series, Thrice Nine Legends, in 1999. Melkorka, the first book of The Kaelandur Series, was published in 2015. The sequel is due to be released in 2016. In October 2015, a standalone novel in the same world [80 years prior to the events in Melkorka], called Anaerfell, will be available. Joshua currently lives in Alaska with his wife and children

Author’s Website URL/Blog  –  www.crimsonedgepress.com
Author’s Social Media & Additional Links

• Amazon
• Goodreads
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Crimson Edge

Author’s previously published works Melkorka A Midwinter Sellsword Gladiators and Thieves Grimsdalr

Purchasing links for author’s publications, specifying which belongs to which

BUY: Melkorka BUY: A Midwinter Sellsword BUY: Gladiators and Thieves BUY: Grimsdalr

Excerpt *******************************************************************************************

The Old Oak and the Witch

By: Joshua Robertson

“Hello?” she fervently whispered, not sure whether she should be frightened or amazed at the sight before her. Her eyes were shining in the radiance of the crystal that brightened the cavern and many tunnels that stretched in all directions.

At the sound of her voice, hissing echoed from the tunnels. In a moment’s time, slithering snakes of many lengths and colors slinked and slunk into the cavern. Their swarming bodies etched over one another by the hundreds, swirling around poor Julia.

Julia swallowed the scream that crawled up her throat; tears touched the ducts of her eyes. The piercing black eyes of every reptilian monstrosity seemed to be fully locked upon the young girl, hungrily advancing, but not daring to touch her. Instead, the snakes simply circled her, keeping her trapped within the framework of their slimy, boneless frames.

“Hello, dear Julia,” a lady said from behind her.

“Hello,” Julia responded back quickly, as a good child would do, spinning around to see who had spoken to her. Sitting atop the snakes with an evil grin upon her face was the witch!

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The nice folks at Dragon Knight Chronicles very much want me to use my blog to help promote sales of The Dragon Tempest anthology.  I have a story in this anthology entitled “The Tears of Regas” which basically explores the idea that life as a god has its problems as well.  They want me to talk about other authors from the anthology in my blog so i may have more to say on this subject in future postings.

Since I last posted here.  I have had varied success and failures.  I had high hopes that my being included in the anthology, Dance Like a Monkey would kick open some doors for me.  I had a story in that anthology called, “Gathering Flowers in the Garden of Fermey”.  It was one of my longer stories at about 3500 words and dealt with women warriors who played a key element in saving their kingdom.  This anthology was published by Silence in the Library and edited by the truly excellent Jean Rabe.  What really psyched me about this volume is that my story was in there with a number of industry professionals who are bog names in the genres of science fiction and fantasy.  I thought if people happened to ready my story alongside of some of the greats, I might receive some invitations to write in other professional anthologies.  sadly, it was a much smaller printing than I had hoped for and if anyone ever even read my story, I have received no feedback.

To date, I have published one shared novel, Gryffon Master:  Curse of the Lich King which I made a little money from.  I sometimes hear that it is being shopped around as a screenplay for a movie.  That would be exciting if it ever happened but I am not holding my breath for that.

I have published the following stories:

“A Mouser, a Keg of Rum and a Gunnery Mate” in World of Pirates.

“Mercy Killing” in Lava Storm.

“Heavy Hangs the Head…” and “Taking Liberties” in Dangerous Days.

“Acceptable Losses” in Final Ships.

“Hat Trick” and “Victory or Death?” in Aspiring Writers 2013 Winners Anthology.

“Flames of Red Make Violet Blue” in Violet Hopes.

“The Treasure of Freedom” in Trash to Treasure.

“Someone Told Me, It’s All Happening…” in Of Past and Future.

“After-Life” in Visions: Leaving Earth.

“A Less-than-Perfect Date,” “One Cannot Lose a Mother’s Love,” “Knock-Knock: Who’s There?” and “White Demons” in Aspiring Writers 2014 Winners Anthology.

“A Lighter Philosophy” in One-Minute Stories from Around the World.

I also had a story, “Bobby Darwin’s Lucky Day”  published in the June, 2014 issue of the ezine The News in Books.

I’ve also had a story, “Tomato Surprise” accepted for publication in an anthology called Tomato Slices that has yet to come out.

Many of my other stories have places well in numerous small contests, but there have been some disappointments as well.  I submitted a story, “Extermination” to the Weird West Anthology but it was rejected at the last minute.  That was definitely a bigger deal-type anthology I was hoping to get into.

I have submitted a story to the Cricket Magazine group for consideration in Cicada.  That would be a feather in my hat if I could get in there.  I am currently working on a horror story for another professional anthology.

Wish me luck.  I can use all that I can get.

My editor says to make my Blog fan-friendly.  So here it goes:

 

Hi!!  How the heck are you?  Welcome to LemonLand!  So glad you decided to take a couple of minutes to come by and check me out.  

 

I would love to show you lots of exciting pictures and videos and music and colors, you know all the bells and whistles.  Unfortunately, I don’t know how to do any of that stuff.  I just barely know how to use a computer, that’s my fault, of course, and not yours.  I’ll try to learn some things along the way. But for now, you’re just stuck listening to my ramblings so here goes:

 

I love to listen to music while I write.  For many of you, that’s going to be like:  “Duh!”  but believe it or not, there is quite a controversy on writer’s websites where people argue if listening to music is a good idea or not.  For me, I love all kinds of music.  I was listening to some Pule Simon when I started to this and now I’m listening to Cyndi Lauper.  However it’s just as likely that I’ll have on New Age or Country or Folk or Jazz or Show Music, or …?

 

I have spent my life involved in music, theater and writing.  I sang, I wrote, I directed, I acted.  Unfortunately like most normal people, I made practically no money at any of that so I became a high school teacher to pay the bills.  Believe it or not, I loved the kids and even (most of) the parents.

 

Sadly state legislators seem to spend most of there time trying to figure out how to make education completely meaningless.  Good teachers want to concentrate on helping students to find a way to think that is meaningful to them.  Then we want to expose them to great ideas to allow them to think about them and make judgments.  This way when they are on their own in the cold, cruel world ; they will have a system of logic to deal with things.  We want to expose them to the concept of morality as reflected in logic, history and literature.  Hopefully parents expose them to a more personal morality.  That way students can make decisions about what is right or wrong for them and the world in general.

 

Legislators and their lackeys (most school administrators, sadly) are only interested in whether students can pass ridiculous standardized tests.  They use these not to really measure student abilities, but as a means of publicizing in newspapers and other media that they are doing things “right” in their school district and are better than the school districts next to them.  That way, they can justify giving themselves raises.

 

I became disgusted with these politics after 34 years and finally quit to pursue my writing.

 

What do i write?  Good question!  Whatever pops into my crazy imagination.  I originally assumed I was an adult fantasy author.  (Think Tolkein or Game of Thrones, or The Wheel of Time.”

 

I spent a couple decades as a role-playing gamer on the competitive circuit and was the Number 1 player in the world for a couple years and in over 2 dacades, I never fell lower than third in the world.  If you are unfamiliar with roleplaying, think “Dungeons & Dragons.”  This is just one game of hundreds and I have played the majority of them in competition or with friends.  Although I no longer compete, I still play with friends about once/week.  

 

So between the games I play and the stories and novels I read, I just assumed I would be a fantasy author.  I started a novel and I still peck away at it, but while I have written only 32 pages of the novel, I have written about 250 pages of short fiction and poetry and most of it had nothing to do with fantasy.  It is Winter here in Indiana now and the snow is falling outside my window.  It is beautiful to look at (like a snowglobe turned upside down), but I am anxious for warmer weather to melt it all away.  I have decided that Winter is a young person’s season and I am no longer young.  I appreciate it aesthetically, but Lord!  I don’t want to drive in it.

 

So if this was your first visit to Lemonland, I hope you enjoyed your brief visit.  I will try yo write more crazy stuff here, maybe give you an insight into how my mind works, if you care.

 

As all us ex-hippies tend to say,  “Peace, out, Dudes!”

for my afterword

Recently I was contacted by the nice lady who edits and puts together the anthologies at the 750  word flash fiction site and the 2K short story site.  She says she need my preferred blog address or website for the afterword to my space elevator story.  I guess this will be it.

I sent off 3 stories of varying length to a Valparaiso U. literary magazine only to find it was actually a class project for some students and not the REAL lit magazine.

Also sent off 2 stories one on Northwest Indiana the other a scifi story to another “publisher,”  I’ll have to see if anything comes of all this.

pioneer

“One small step for a writer, one giant step for would-be-authorkind.”

 

This is my first effort at blogging.  I am not sure what it will turn out to be anymore than I am ever sure what I will turn out to be.  Each time I write something new, I feel like a pioneer stepping into the exotic landscape of my imagination.  What adventures will I encounter?  What dangers lurk around the next bend in the river?  What treasures may be found in this hopefully fertile plane.  I invite you to seek out these treasures with me.  We will mine for gold in my ramblings and as often as not, we may wind up with only pyrite (fool’s gold.)

 

But even fool’s gold has a pleasant shine to it and so though it may not make you any richer, perhaps it will serve to lighten you day and bring a smile to your face as it reflects back the sun of those truly great authors who have come before.  Those authors who I aspire to be like.  A small warning is, perhaps, in order.  I am not very “computer savvy”  I know next to nothing about how to create pretty graphic or upload pictures, so most of what you find here will be all I have to share with you:  WORDS.  Words I will give you aplenty, and if there is a way for you to give me words (that embody your thoughts) back, I would appreciate hearing what you have to say.

 

Thank you!  Randall Lemon 2/10/2013