Darien Connors and the Planet of Sorrows

Hi folks, with all the crazy fast info coming on Star Mage #1, I forgot to mention that we are indeed continuing the novella series begun in July with Darien Connors and the Necromancy of Eridu (written under my pen name, Jason Dawson).

The new novella will be called Darien Connors and the Planet of Sorrows. This one picks up where Eridu left off, as Darien leaves Lambdu Kishpu to look for his father but instead discovers a planet that makes him face his darkest fears. The evil Orasmas returns but we also will be introducing some new villains and allies into the fray…and we ask the question – are the Sarru Kishpu truly the defenders of peace and justice throughout the galaxy as they claim to be or is it all a ruse to hide their true goal of conquering the galaxy?

New monsters, alien races, spells and lessons learned by our hero and his friends. Is Dalidor alive? What is Arylos’ darkest secret? We will get definitive answers in this installment.

In support of the StarMage project as well as the new Darien novella, we’ve done some enhancements to the http://darienconnors.com site to include more detailed character profiles as well as more information on the Lambdu Kishpu school, the politics of Eridu and Darien’s spell book (coming soon). Please note – the character profile pictures listed ARE NOT the comic book characters.

Don’t forget, every Darien novella is only 99 cents – why wait? Get started on Eridu today!

Finally, let me close by revealing the cover of Darien Connors and the Planet of Sorrows.

Holiday Wishes and an outlook for 2012

Greetings to my defenders of the realm!

Before we get too far into the discussion, I’d like to wish you all a very happy holiday season.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Yule, Festivus (for the rest of us), Saturnalia, Winter Solstice, Pancha Ganapati and any other I missed (apparently Ramadan was in August this year).

This year was an interesting one to say the least. I joined SB Nation Tampa Bay as a columnist for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Lightning and University of Florida Gators athletics.

I’m now co-editor for the Bucs and editor for the Gators.

I’ve also set up our internet radio station SB Nation Tampa Bay Live and host two shows, Blue Thunder – a Tampa Bay Lightning based sports talk show on Wednesday Nights and The Big Show – a show dedicated to the biggest stories on the mothership.

In addition to my sports writing career (which I’m very excited about, by the way), I’ve also launched the 99 Centers line of e-books. Now, it hasn’t exactly gone as I’ve planned as my sports writing seemed to take over every aspect of my free time.  My original vision was to have a new 99 centers book coming out every month of the year – alternating between the three lines.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

However, now that the football season is winding to a close (and the Buccaneers return to the cellar is just about complete), I’ll finally have more time to focus on my fiction.

There’s also some other developments that I’ll reveal later down the line that will enable me to fulfill my promise to you, my dedicated fan base.

In the next couple weeks, you’ll start to see action pick up on the three 99 center lines:

Updated news on the next installments of each of the series as well as a complete redesign of the Darien site that will plunge you even further within the mythology of the interstellar necromancer.

Serial, Continuum Force and Darien will each have installments released in the first quarter of 2012 and hopefully that will allow me to begin fulfilling the promise I began with the 99 center books.

As an apology to all my readers for the delay in the second installments – I will offer each second installment of all the series for free for at least one week of its initial release (on Amazon and Smashwords).

Stay tuned for that and definitely subscribe to this RSS feed, because I will be updating this blog before anywhere else.

Thank you for all of your support in 2011. It was a fun year and I saw a lot of growth in myself, my desires and my fiction.

I believe that 2012 is going to be the best year yet!

Feliz Navidad and Happy Holidays!

Your faithful servant,

JC De La Torre

 

How Harry Potter Changed the World

It’s amazing isn’t it? One four hour train ride from Manchester to London changed so many lives. I’m sure when Jo Rowling first conceived of Harry Potter, she had no idea what she was getting herself into. Who could?

The world before Harry was a wasteland for young adult fiction. Sure, there were a few moderate successes. Doctor Seuss and J.R.R Tolkien will walk with Rowling throughout history. C.S. Lewis certainly made an impact and who could ever forget Charlotte’s Web?

Yet despite these significant and equally beautiful contributions, no children’s book before or since has had the impact of Harry Potter but Harry didn’t limit his reach to just children’s books. He also introduced a new world of readers to fantasy and magic. Many faced the tragic pain of losing someone you care about through Harry. It was Harry who showed many youngsters that everyone has just a little tinge of darkness within them. It was Harry who showed them the wonder of imagination.

“How did Harry Potter change your life?” I once asked my wife, a rabid Potterhead.

“It didn’t, I’m still the same,” She quickly replied without thinking.

I glanced around at our office, which she has attempted to turn into a replica of the Gryffindor common room.

“Well, before Harry – all I would read were romance novels,” she smiled, “It was Harry that expanded my love for reading. After Harry, I was searching for more fantasy. I picked up Anne McCaffrey, Eoin Colfer, and Rick Riordan. I read Christopher Paolini and Mercedes Lackey. These were authors I would have never read had it not been for Harry.”

It’s that way for so many readers. I can tell you as an author of Horror and Science Fiction, I would never have envisioned myself writing children’s fiction. I began writing Darien Connors and the Necromancy of Eridu (written under the name Jason Dawson, only 99 cents on Amazon Kindle and wherever e-books are sold) because I needed something to fill the void left by Harry’s massive shadow.

Jo’s ability to build worlds and breathe life into characters inspired me to create my own magical world, my own hero dealing with original stories of discovery and pain. I know I can never create a world like Jo has, she’s a once in a lifetime author.

My work isn’t the only impact. Before Harry, I don’t think there would be much buzz for Percy Jackson or Artemis Fowl. Eragon certainly wouldn’t have developed the following it has. Would Twilight even have been allowed to see the light of day if not for Harry? Okay, we’ll forgive the boy who lived for that one.

So many worlds have come alive for millions of readers thanks to Harry’s impact. Will it last? Well, I’ve had a sneek peak and Pottermore certainly gives life to the Big Three and immerses the fans deeper into the the nirvana of the Potter world. Still, it’s not like a new book. There’s a big wide hole in the hearts of every Potter fan that the countless number of hours playing around on Pottermore simply won’t fill.

Jo has to do another book, right? Maybe not – she ended everything pretty well. Maybe there’s not much more to say about Harry and his friends. They defeated What’s His Face and that’s that (sorry for the spoiler if you didn’t read Deathly Hallows – assumed the whole world has either read the book or seen the movie by now).

No, it’s time for others to try and step into the very large shoes. I don’t pretend to tell you my Darien is the guy to do it, after all, I’m no Jo Rowling.

I can only add my contribution to amazingly long list of things directly impacted from what she created – the wonderful wizarding world of Harry Potter.

Find out more information about Darien at http://www.darienconnors.com and JC De La Torre at http://www.jcdelatorre.com

On this Fourth of July, A Major Announcement!

Happy Independence Day to all my fellow Americans! While I know there are divides on politics, we’re fighting two and a half wars overseas and a struggling economy at home I can easily say there’s no country in the world that I’d rather live in than right here in the good ole U.S. of A.

Freedom is something that’s taken for granted in our country. When Socialism, Communism, and all the other ‘isms seem to try to tear us down, we still are free.

It’s funny, today I was talking to my mother-in-law, who is a U.S. citizen that was born in Cuba, and she was telling me a story about her late brother.

When she was young girl and Castro was taking power, she had no idea what the meaning of the word Communism.

She asked her brother, who himself was only 17, “What does this word, Communism, mean?”

“Hunger.” Her brother replied.

“What do you mean ‘hunger’?”

“I mean physical hunger,” he continued, “Not just for food. But for Freedom. For the right to be whatever it is you want to be. Hunger for the right to speak your mind and decide your own path for yourself and your family. Hunger to be part of the political process, to decide who represents you. Hunger for life. ”

A 17-year old Cuban boy described freedom better than most of us Americans can do today. Unfortunately, he would never live to see that type of freedom as he tragically died a short time later in a motorcycle accident.

Do you cherish your freedom, your right to not be hungry? Maybe you are struggling, down on your luck, out of work or alone in the world. There’s something that you have that many around the world would die for and that’s for the right to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

That’s special, unique among countries around the world. It’s what the Arab spring is about. It’s what small countries around the world try to emulate. It’s difficult, it can be chaos, as it was in the early days of our country’s founding. Democracy can be maddening at times.

Sometimes I think our political process is for the birds. The Republicans are crooks working for the rich and the Democrats are socialists trying to put government into every aspect of our lives – but the truth is we need both, as seemingly ineffective and idiotic as it may be – to counterbalance one another.

For every Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh there must be a Bill Maher or Keith Obermann.

Can things be better? Certainly. But they can also be a hell of a lot worse. Think about that when you’re setting off your fireworks and burning your hot dogs tonight.

And with that, I’m going take advantage of my contitutional right to tell you about my new endeavor into independent fiction. I call it 99 centers.  It had to be 99 centers because Amazon won’t let me charge less than 99 cents for a work…or it would have been 50 centers.

When you see this logo –  

You are reading a 99 Center story.

So what are they? Well, they’re stories for the Twitter and Kindle generation. They can range from as short as 1,200 words to 50,000 and they will always lead into the next one of the series.

This month, I will launch two series that my fans demanded I expand upon. Rather than make them wait one or two years for the next chapter in the saga, I elected to create this new medium.

Every 30-to-60 days, you will get your new serialized 99 center story. Through the series, you’ll learn about these characters, the events in their lives and most importantly – what happens next.

Best of all, as long as you keep reading, the story will keep going. I’m writing this specifically for you, my most dedicated followers. As much as I love these characters I love you even more. In our time, we don’t like waiting…we want our information in short, concise bites that gets to the point of the matter.

That’s what you’ll get in these stories friends.

My time travel thriller, Continuum Force, will take you back in time to worlds you couldn’t possibly imagine.

My vampire saga, Serial, will curl your toes, have you looking over your shoulder and turning on the light.

There’s a third series that will be coming at the end of this month…and it’s what I’m most proud of.

I’m writing a new Y/A Science Fiction and Fantasy series called Darien Connors – the first of which will be Darien Connors and the Necromancy of Eridu.  This story will be written under my pen name, Jason Dawson, as so the younger readers don’t sample my more adult fiction.

What is Darien Connors? Well, the best way I can describe it is the old movie relational venacular – the Last Starfighter meets Harry Potter.

So there it is, folks, my big announcement on independent publishing on independence day.

If you’re interested in these stories, drop me a line via the contact page on my various websites or subscribe to this blog.  This will be the first place I’ll announce anything of consequence.

God bless America and I hope you enjoy the rest of your Independence day.