Smashwords Sale End of 2025

[Quoth]

Smashwords Solstice Sale (it's summer in southern Africa, South America, Australia and Aotearoa AKA N.Z.)

I'm not a huge fan, but it helps to raise the Smashwords profile vs Amazon, Kobo and Apple (and Nook in USA).

Some of Ray McCarthy's novels are at sale prices right now (Link has all published ones):
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/RayMcCarthy

All are DRM free.

Back in mid November we reduced the price of "Hero Genesis" and "No Silver Lining". Those reductions are still live.

The reduction depends on retailer and which of their marketplaces.
$4.99 -> $3.99 in USA marketplaces
Maybe 50p off in the UK.

https://www.corvidspress.com/fiction.../hero-genesis/
Urban fantasy mostly in Worcestershire, also called Wychavon. Four teenagers doing A Levels get sucked into a strange situation with superheroes and aliens.
Originally inspired by the movie Mystery Men and a discussion about how silly USA Super Hero Comics were getting (about 12 years ago). Changed from a separate Superhero spoof story to something else halfway through initial version. The author spent nearly 6 months in the Evesham area in the mid 1970s.

Retail sellers for the ebook
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/716440
https://books.apple.com/us/book/x/id1223646512
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940154100196
https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/Se...=9781370351596
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FD94RZV2
https://play.google.com/store/books/...d=oNIBEAAAQBAJ

and
https://www.corvidspress.com/fiction...silver-lining/
Originally to be a standalone dystopian post-apocalyptic story with death and destruction in your face. Inspired by working in R&D a floor above various data centre suites (2006 - 2009). The characters in Hero Genesis are now at the University in Limerick City.

Urban fantasy set mostly in Limerick, Ireland.

Alice (Eilis) joins the four English teenagers going to the University of Limerick, but senses a Horseman of the Apocalypse. Kate finds that Eilis is a strange friend with many surprises. This is the sequel to “Hero Genesis” and fifth in the Celtic Otherworld series, though the books can be read as pair or even on their own. The first three books of the series are a trilogy covering Alice’s magical development for her most critical three years.

“If an in-house system fails, only one bank, or one retailer or one supplier is affected,” insisted Louise. “If everything is outsourced to the Cloud, even if it’s a hundred times more reliable it’s an apocalyptically bad event because you lose everything at once. There are too few cloud providers, who are too similar and too big.”

There are some over arching story arcs in the Celtic Otherworld series. I'm not sure how much anyone needs to understand rural Irish culture today, or the old stories of Tuath De. It's entirely natural there should also be Arthurian references as these started as Welsh Legend. The popular versions are actually French stories. There is a long tradition of interaction between Scandinavians, Scotland and Ireland. Irish & Scottish Celts are ancestors of some Icelandic people and the Celtic language affected it. Written Norse legends are about 500 years younger than oldest Irish manuscripts! Most of it is from one Icelandic person.

Tuath De means Tribe of God (maybe some are 2500 y old stories), and renamed by monks as the Tuatha De Dannan = Tribe of Goddess Danu because the Hebrews were the Tribe of God. But Danu is the River Goddess of the Danube. Celtic Culture, before the Romans tried to destroy it was from Northern Turkey to Ireland. Not Irish Celts.

The Irish Iron age was late, about 500 BC. Ireland & Cornwall traded with Greeks and Romans in ancient times. Copper and Tin for Bronze.

Tolkien's Elves are based on Irish Sidhe (Scotland = Sì) pronounced shee. A kind of fairy (Fay or Fae). Sióg in Irish literally means young fairy.

His dwarves are more Scandinavian and Germanic. The leprechaun is a 17th to 19th C idea influenced by Germanic Gnomes. "Little people" is a very late idea in Irish folklore. See Shakespeare's Midsummer Night, partially based on Welsh Celtic traditions, which is the start of "Tiny" fairies (Atom)


Celtic Otherworld

* means not yet published, but completed unless otherwise stated.

First three are about Alice/Eilis "coming of age", though she only turns up 1/2 way through 1st book (1975 when she leaves Co. Limerick Ireland)

1. Under the Stone of Destiny

2. Carrying the Shining Sword

3. Seeking the Flaming Spear



These next two are same characters and inspired by Mystery Men, a take-off of Superhero genre. But I wasn't happy with it as a spoof so changed it to fit the Celtic Otherworld. Alice briefly in 1st and dominates 2nd which imagines our world with the internet failing.

4. Hero Genesis

5. No Silver Lining



These next four have interleaved timelines. Marion & rooks in two and Alice and other Fay in the other two

6. Exiles and Rooks (Episodic in nature)

7. Fairy Godmothers

8. Conspiracies and Rooks (Inspired by Brexit)

9. The Fay Child



These next seven are about Marion, though not as much in the book about young Tom. Rooks don't feature after "Jewels and Rooks" The #12 is last currently published, the others ready or final proof.

10. Artists and Rooks

11. Dwarves and Rooks

12. Goths and Rooks

13. Jewels and Rooks *

14. Tom Óg and the Firebirds *

15. The Wooing of Marion *

16. The Ending of Marion *



These next are from the present day and also flashbacks to past in some cases. The #17, #19 & #20 need a lot more work. 18, 20 & 21 completed long ago.

17. Macha and Hy Brasil *

18. The Ensorcelled Maid *

19. Eskandar and Teroan (draft half completed) *

20. Hamlet is a Place (early draft) *

21. Four Kids, One Foxe *

22. Geena and the Prince *


The #21 & #22 are a two part single story with a natural break and #22 has a sub story about a Faerie Prince exiled maybe before Sumer was founded.

Possibly #22 is the end of the series.


Talents Universe

The published SF is "The Talent Universe" series. The last book in that is set 2025 on "Earth", so is a WIP. Like Michael Moorcock it's got history that never happened, such as aliens arriving in 1997 approx.
It's Alternate History from 1997 to 2026 approximately. The series was started as a contemporary themed First Contact story, though parts were written in 1988.

Blurb of The Apprentice's Talent
Mei Zhen Kelly was a twenty-three year old computer programmer from Belfast working in Dublin for nearly three years. She’s talented and very dedicated to her work. People think she’ll go far, now that she’s had her second major promotion. Only her Chinese mother called her Mei Zhen, her official name. Her parents died while she was at university and now everyone calls her Maisie. Wrapped up in her personal issues, she doesn’t pay a huge amount of attention to the news of the alien starship appearing at the edge of the Solar system.

The UN and the governments are confused. While it’s wonderful that the aliens hope to explain how the interstellar Jump Drive works, they aren’t even going to orbit. They want to send a team to talk to an unspecified European woman and leave.

The aliens want Maisie to attend a special college about 80,000 light years away. Very little is really explained till she arrives.

Reading Order
1. The Apprentice’s Talent

2. The Journeyman’s Talent

3. The Solar Alliance

4. Starship Chief

5. The Master’s Talent

6. The Legal Talent

7. The Mission’s Talent

8. Tellus’s Last Talent * (Provisional title, draft complete. Set during 2025 mostly here on "Earth")


“The Apprentice’s Talent”, “The Journeyman’s Talent” and “The Master’s Talent” are a trilogy, but work stand-alone; they follow Maisie’s career. “The Solar Alliance” is about parallel events on Earth to the first two books. “Starship Chief” is a prequel and can be read directly after “The Apprentice’s Talent” though before “The Master’s Talent”.

Trader’s Isle
The first book was written as an outline for a click & point adventure game in 1991. It's a more traditional kind of fantasy on a fictional world with no "black powder" weapons.

1. The Seven Talismans

2. The White Fire Stones *