Six Sentence Sunday for May 29, 2011

The Assassin Chronicles follows the adventures of a grumpy Scottish Knight who happens to be the alchemist and assassin for the only remaining Order of the Poor Knights of Solomon's Temple. He is one of twelve semi-immortal members of the Ruling Council. On an ill-fated assassination assignment that took him to Central Texas, he meets and falls in love with a rather gullible young lady while suffering from the effects of a powerful alchemical concoction. He then becomes a target rather than an operative as his Brothers of the Order come after him after assuming him to be a traitor. This six sentence sample comes from near the beginning of the first novel wherein he is trying to understand what has happened to him.

“What do you know of Hattin?”

“Nothing!”

She looked up at him in surprise.

The mention mention of the ancient battle confused and confounded him. He could smell the burning brushfires and hear the screams of the soldiers as the enemy charged up the hillside, killing and hacking everything and everyone to bits, even the horses. Then the vision and the sounds were gone as suddenly as they had come.

The Knight of Death at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001J6ORUI

The Knight of Death at Smashwords:

5 Stars for the King of Terror (from a stranger)

It's strange how authors keep hoping that someone, somewhere will read their works, like them and write nice big reviews on Amazon and other places, but it seems that ill-will and procrastination are much stronger than good-will and enthusiasm. I know very well from my sells reports that there are people out there buying and reading (I assume) my Assassin Chronicles. And I know that they must have enjoyed them (or else the world is full of masochists) because I am selling copies of Book 15, Book 16 and so on. But where are the reviews? I see other authors on the Kindleboards, Amazon boards and Goodreads posting their latest and 63874th review on their works and yet, when I hazard a peek at my Amazon author pages and such, I see nothing but the same old reviews I've had for ages. (Some of which, I will admit came from family members. Not that I'm opposed to family members writing reviews... I mean what is a fella to say to a family member who posts a wonderful review after reading my book? Hey! WTF?! Stop trying to help me out! I'm an ungrateful, sorry bastard and you have to keep your nose out of my business!) Well, I'm not that kind of family member. I'm just glad that none of them did me any favors by giving me three stars on a review a few years ago that brought my four and five stars down and knocked me out of a competition completely simply because, as he later explained "I didn't actually get to read the book. I loaned it to a friend, but I wanted to get a review up for you." After which, while my jaw was sagging on the floor in disbelief, he smiled and said "I'm sure I'll like it." Please, please, please... what else can we say?

It's not that family and friends are out to get us (most of the time). It's just that they don't understand what it is we do. They don't understand the damage they can do to our reputations and our outlook on life. They don't understand that they can actually give us hernias, heart attacks and ulcers. To them (generally speaking) writing is just something that I 'fiddle' around with in my spare time. A hobby. They do not know that my writing is actually my life and without it, I am nothing.

Now, trolls of course are another breed altogether and I shall leave them for another blogpost.