On Honesty In Advertising

Deep Thoughts on Marketing

Explaining things can get tricky. Here in California, we have Prop 65 warnings everywhere. These signs say something to the effect of: "Chemicals in this building may cause birth defects."

That sounds scary, but it doesn't mean anything. Most of us ignore these warnings because they normally mean something like: there is a bottle of cleaner tucked away in a cupboard, and, if you were to drink an entire bottle of this cleaner for weeks on end when you just conceived, your kid might be bald. But no one else is in any danger.

These signs are too vague to convey useful information. Their presence is a bigger hindrance than help, but they come from a desire for transparency. You would want to know this if you were planning on drinking cleaner.

I can get behind transparency. If our world is to work, we do have to be able to trust each other at least a little bit. As the forgoing demonstrates, though, it matters how we do this. With that in mind, I will try to supply information that is sufficiently detailed for you to know if you want

Genre?

My series grew willy-nilly, with no plan except to keep writing. As a result, the genre can be a little wobbly. I feel confident in calling them mysteries, even when some veer more into action-thriller territory. 'Seed of A Lord' and 'The First Charge' don't have a central crime. In fact, 'Seed of A Lord' is more of a growing-up novel with a big castle fight at the end. 'The First Charge' is almost pure spy-thriller.

The hard part is the world it is set in. Augston, Fliedes, Ducta, and Luronia aren't real countries, and the geography is pulled from my nether regions. This may technically make it fantasy. However, Draft2Digital and Amazon don't have fantasy mystery subcategories, and Augston is ripped from the Holy Roman Empire in the 1200's. It's a good thing history can't sue over trademark, because a lot the book, from the emperor vs king war to the road tolls to the religion, is just warmed-over medieval Germany. I was about to say that no one solves anything by casting a spell, and then I remembered that 'Family and War' has a couple of scenes where a guy tries to use the Picatrix (a real book of spells from the 900's that was translated into Latin in the late 1200's.) Look, the spells don't do anything, and, even though everyone in the setting definitely believes in kobolds and werewolves, there aren't any.

Listen, we live in a world where people believe the earth is flat and that you should drink your own pee. People believe in weird things. Can't keep the dumb monkey brain from monkeying around, I guess.

Content Warning

It's only fair that I mention the cat sacrifice in 'A Negotiable Death' and the horse death in 'The First Charge.' There are a lot of mom deaths and miscarriages sprinkled throughout, both on page and off. It's a major plot point of both 'Seed of A Lord' and 'Family and War,' in fact. It's a series where the corpses can get graphic, but the sex won't be, might even be summed up in three sentences. I'm a bit morbid that way, and it meets the genre expectations of mysteries.

So, that's this series in a nutshell. Hope this helps you decide whether you want to mainline my books.