Last Week for Superhero Bundle Deal!

This is the FINAL WEEK for the teenaged superhero bundle deal!  You can get 13 books for as little as $9.99.  Just click any of this to go there now!

Superhero Season Sale: 5 Days Only

Captain America: Civil War and Batman v Superman have made truly made this summer a Superhero Season.  And I'm feeling festive...

Now through Saturday May 7th, you can score both my superhero e-novels for cheap, exclusively via Smashwords coupon code.  Not a Smashwords member yet?  No problem, it's free and easy to join, and you can get ebooks formatted to Kindle, Nook, PDF, whatever you prefer.

So first up: Invasion.  Click here to go to it's home page and enter this coupon code at purchase: KK67N.  Instead of paying $3.99, you'll get it for $0.99.

Next: Hungry Gods.  Click this line to go to it's SW page and enter JG56E as a coupon code.  You'll get it for $1.99 instead of $5.99.

Five days.  That's it.

And feel free to tell your friends. :)

UPDATE, 15 OCTOBER 2016:
Somehow, for some reason, this post is suddenly very popular.  Unfortunately, it's become popular 5 MONTHS too late.  But there is hope!

I've decided to start giving away one ebook to everyone who subscribes to my Conspiracy Newsletter.  Any book from my library, whichever you want.  My hope is that you'll like it and post a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or some other site.  And that you'll like it enough to tell your friends about it.

To score your free read, just click here (or on the link on the right-hand bar) and sign-up with your email address.  Once you do, I'll write you back and ask what book you'd like and we'll make it happen.

You can also subscribe to my new website at BrinksChaosTheory.com.  (No free book with that, but you'll stay up to date on my work and anything else that comes down the pike.)

Lightning Strikes: New Superhero Novel Started

I have been struggling with Twilight of the Gods, a prequel to Hungry Gods starring the Phen Five.  It's going to be pretty long and jumps around with a lot of characters.  What I have so far is actually a lot of fun, but the further I've gotten, the more it's felt like pulling teeth.  Part of the problem is I don't know exactly what's going to happen.  I generally know what's going to happen with some characters, but it's like a "fog of war" video game situation, where I see certain events on the map but how we get to them is hidden from me.

For the record, I don't outline.  Not really.  I generally know the gist of the story and only "outline" a few chapters ahead from where I'm at at a time.  But with this story, it's just so big that it intimidates me. And it's been a bummer trying to force myself to sit down and work on it.  Once I'm into what I'm doing, it flows nicely.  I have some great material so far.  About 21,000 words of it.  But I'm just not feeling it.  I'm not excited.  It feels like work.  That's the best way I can describe it: it feels like work.

So I sat down today with a coffee in a Japanese coffee shop and started browsing through my huge list of projects waiting in the wings.  Fix up this old novel?  Revise that?  Go ahead and write the D&D-like adventure fantasy I've been jonesing to do?  But that would mean starting ANOTHER series before moving forward into one of the ones I have already.

I stared out the window.  This was the second story, seated at a nice little wooden table all my own, looking out the front of the building into the city intersection below.  Crosswalks.  Traffic lights.  Glass-fronted convenience stores.  People and cars and busses coming and going.

And I thought, This is my opening scene.  Right here.

And there's a 15-foot tall slime monster raging around right there in the intersection where people are crossing.

I opened a new, blank document and started to type.

And I wrote nearly the entire first chapter in one sitting, powered by raw inspiration, a little bit of desperation, and a jolt of caffeine.

I'm therefore 2300 words into Deus Ex Machina, the sequel to Hungry Gods, starring everyone's favorite smart-ass speedster, Spitball.   This book will go way faster than Twilight would.  And I do want to write that one before moving into Book Three of Spitball's adventures, because a lot of background will come from it.  But for now, I'm finally jazzed again about writing instead of afraid of the huge task of it.  Someday will be the right day for writing Twilight, but today just isn't it.

In fact…  Get this.

I started reading a book about the I Ching today, getting back to my Taoist roots I've forgotten about for 10 or 12 years.  (Also doing it in preparation for reworking a story 14 years old.)  I was reading on a picnic table in the park and suddenly noticed a dime was lying there right in front of my book.  Didn't see it when I sat down, didn't see it for the first several pages.  But there it was, just as I was thinking I could use a coin to flip in order to use the I Ching like an oracle right about then.  Just for fun.  But here was this cosmic coin from nowhere.

So I flipped it 6 times, for six lines of yin or yang, forming the Gua of Mountain above, Heaven below, which equated to Firm Restraint in the text.  (See you get two symbols based on 3 lines each of yin/yang.  Ever noticed those lines on Snake-eyes's shoulder?  That's what that is.)

It's kind of like a fortune cookie kind of thing.  Two of the lines for Firm Restraint read like this: "When your efforts to proceed are strongly thwarted, wait.  Remain calm and collected until the way is clear."  Then, "There should not be the slightest doubt that your way is completely blocked.  Do not even contemplate moving ahead."

Well damn.  That sure seemed fitting, considering my constant conflict about writing Twilight of the Gods.

But not really cheerful or what I wanted to hear.  Maybe I'll flip out a new one, I thought.

I flipped the coin with my thumb for the first line and launched it clear over the edge of the picnic table.  It landed silently in the grass, and when I looked for it, it was gone.

There would be no second fortune.  This was it, my one and only.  The cosmic coin had done its work and had then disappeared as mysteriously as it had come.

Not kidding.  Really happened.

Therefore, I'm going with DXM!  Twilight, you'll have to wait (probably until next year).

Superheroes vs Alien Invasion

My short novel Invasion is now available.  Again.

Let me explain.  Invasion first appeared in Dreams of Flying, but the way it ended I realized that the story had to go on.  Invasion is now the first of a series that I hope to complete in the next few years.  (Dreams of Flying, then, will be republished with some new material to take Invasion's place later on.)

Here's the description:

The future of the Identity Crisis Universe hangs in the balance.

A swarm of biomechanical monsters attack the Volans Space Station during a test of its artificial gravity system.  Two of the station’s engineers, however, are more than just astronauts. 

The Earth’s Apex superheroes—a physicist turned nuclear colossus, a hyper-intelligent silverback gorilla, and an otherworldly gladiator —are all that stand between an alien beachhead and the billions of innocent lives below.  Adam Smasher, Symian, and Ballista must fight off an insectoid infestation with one foot in the airlock, and the other kicking inorganic butt back into space.

But repelling the first wave may not be enough.  In order to safeguard the Earth, the trio volunteer to leave this world behind and venture into deep space, where the void—and the mission—may be darker and colder than they ever expected.

Fifteen years after the events of Hungry Gods, the superhero lineup is very different, and about to change even more.  J. D. Brink’s mature brand of spandex adventure comes to a new series for grownup fanboys and fangirls of every timeline. 

*  *  *

This puppy is only available as an ebook right now, paperback coming soon (weighs in at 160 pages).  Here's a few places you can find it, but there are others.  Try your favorite ebook outlet, chances are it'll be there:

Amazon  

B&N  

iBooks  

Kobo  

Smashwords  

New Superhero Fiction: Dreams of Flying

I've been sitting on this for a few days (or has it been a week already?), waiting for the ebook to be up on more sites.  Well, I'm tired of waiting, so here it is!

The Identity Crisis Universe is filled with heroes, horrors, and hard won victories.  Spandex, after all, isn’t just a fashion statement, and it’s not for the faint of heart.  This first trio of IDCU stories both explores and defies the conventions of the superhero genre.

     “Invasion” – A swarm of biomechanical monsters attack the Volans Space Station during a test of its artificial gravity system.  Two of the station’s engineers, however, are more than just astronauts...  But repelling this invasion may not be enough.  In order to safeguard the Earth and rescue a benevolent alien planet from oppression, Adam Smasher, Symian, and Ballista volunteer to leave this world behind and venture into deep space, where the void—and the mission—may be darker and colder than they ever expected.

     “Puppet Theatre” – In Mesa City, there’s one hero you can count on to defend justice. Okay, there’s two: the mysterious Shadow Puppet and that show-off, Mr. Wonderful. After his last tragic encounter with the villainess Kitty Kat, the Shadow Puppet is thought to be dead. And the man behind the mask would almost prefer that, but he can’t let the Mr. Wonderfuls of the world get the best of him. Tonight, he returns from the grave!

     “Dreams of Flying” – Herb Collins doesn’t just dream about flying, he takes to the skies.  And as soon as this self-conscious grocery store manager can figure out a proper secret identity, he’ll be the biggest superhero Cleveland has ever seen!  His first encounter with real thugs, however, and a chance meeting with his idol teach him that his ambitious dreams may be misplaced.

Superheroic adventure for adults.

This is the first book of my newest series.  (Yes, I've started too many series.)  This particular run of stories and novels will come from far and wide across the superhero universe that I started with Hungry Gods.  That series (Identity Crisis) will focus on the Phenomenal Five, while the books of the Identity Crisis Universe will star different characters and even different timelines.  

Where can you find this fun and exciting triple feature?  Here's a couple links as of now, but look for it on your other favorite ebook sites as well:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Smashwords

Apple iBooks

I am working on the paperback edition and it will eventually be produced in audio as well.  But all these things take time, which I have so little of (and less all the time).  

Series Reveal: New Identity Crisis Super Hero Universe

Series Reveal: IDC versus IDCU

Because there’s too much superheroic adventure for just one series!

The IDENTITY CRISIS series centers on events and characters surrounding the Phenomenal Five, past, present, and future.  This will consist of at least the original IDC Trilogy.  (Did you catch that at least in there…?)

Hungry Gods:  Third-string superhero Spitball is recruited by the Army to save a small Midwestern town from the zombie apocalypse.

The IDENTITY CRISIS UNIVERSE is a free-flowing series of individual stories and novels peripheral the IDC storyline, featuring heroes and villains across the breadth of time and space within this rich spandex-sporting universe.  Some tales will interconnect like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, while other will be completely free-standing stories in their own right.  In the IDCU, the possibilities are endless!

Dreams of Flying:  Three tales exploring the past, present, and future of the Identity Crisis Universe.

“Invasion” – A trio of heroes go into space in a preemptive strike against an alien attack.

“Puppet Theatre” – A different kind of vigilante fights for justice from his recliner. 

“Dreams of Flying” – A grocery store manager has special gifts and fantastic ambitions, but his first encounter with real thugs teaches him a life lesson.

Both series may expand beyond all boundaries in the years to come.  So strap on your capes, adjust your goggles, and enjoy the ride!

2016 UPDATE: The info in this post is now dated.  Dreams of Flying has been taken down and will return in 2017 with a few new stories.  I pulled Invasion out and made it its own stand-alone book.  The ending that developed naturally through story evolution demanded another book. It will eventually be the first in a series of three.  (And as I am still a slave to the 50+ hour-a-week day job, "eventually" cannot be yet defined.)

KICKSTARTER UPDATE: A Box of Books has Arrived!

The box full of paperbacks has arrived!  And they look MARVELOUS!  The matte covers are REALLY nice.  Classy, definitely classy.

The box only took ten days after printing to reach Japan, which is pretty amazing.

Hopefully in the next week or two I'll have all the paperbacks mailed out.  Bear with me, my work schedule is kind of a monster. (In fact, I'm currently attending day-time training and then doing two 12-hour night shifts over the weekend, no break in between...)

When I send these out I'll include any bonus books you have as well (based on your reward level and survey responses).

I'll still plan on sending out ebook versions to everyone who's got an ebook of Hungry Gods or a paperback coming to fill the time gap, just as I promised.  That should happen in the next few days too. 

At that point we'll have what I'll call the Standard Round all wrapped up!  Yeah, we did it!

Which will just leave the Bonus Round, which, if you'll recall, is the collection that is replacing the short story "sidekick".  My hope is to have that published by June of this year.  I still have quite a ways to go on the two big stories in it, plus proofing, cover design, publication, etc.  It'd be nice to have it ready before then, but June is a pretty realistic goal right now.  

I just have one more favor to ask, as if you haven't already done enough to make this project a reality.  After you've read the book, please tell people about it.  Whether you're bad mouthing it or singing its praises, spread the word.  One great way to do that is topost a review, like on Amazon, B&N, Goodreads, your blog, wherever you find and talk about books.  Word of mouth and evidence that someone has actually read (and hopefully enjoyed) the book goes a long way to bringing more potential readers to consider it for themselves.  THANK YOU.

Superhero Dentistry

Writing this new story is like pulling teeth!  Barely getting anything out.  Actually, I've been managing about 800 words each session (x3 so far), which isn't terrible but not my standard (usually at least 1000), and it's been a struggle each time.  Just not in-tune with this story or characters yet.  But "mood is a thing for cattle, or love play, not for writing."  (Actually, it's not for "fighting," but I adopted it long ago to say "writing".  Anyone know the quote?!)

It's easier to write this blog post than to write the damn story, so out of cowardice and laziness, that's what I'm doing.  Here's some teaser images I stole off the internet to give vague hints.