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The Misenchanted Page
The Misenchanted Page
These are things I've started, but am not currently seriously working on. I do hope to get back to them all eventually. I'm not listing short stories because there are simply too many of them; only longer works. I'm also not listing more than one volume per new series; I'm not going to write a sequel to, say, The Dragon's Price before I write The Dragon's Price.
And there are several I'm not listing because I don't think I'm likely to ever get to them, or because they're still very vague.
If any of them looks especially interesting, and you'd really like to see it get a higher priority, it couldn't hurt to let me know.
Latest update: August 8, 2011
He lives in the Restored Lands, a realm that was poisoned and almost destroyed long ago by magical wars, and which survives only through divine intervention. A higher power sent dragons to provide magic that would heal the land, at least in theory -- but it's been centuries, all the dragons but one have died of old age and exhaustion, and that one survivor is old and ill.
The Dragon's Breath still causes certain children, like Malborn, to be born with Signs of Power -- birthmarks that indicate magical abilities. These abilities are supposed to be the means by which the Restored Lands can be cleansed once and for all, but that cleansing hasn't happened yet.
Malborn doesn't care about that stuff, though; he's just trying to find his way in a hostile world.
When the old king dies, Prince Dalvos is named heir to the throne, and to the surprise of both, his best friend, Lord Burren, is named as his Royal Executor. Alas, Burren gradually comes to realize that his friend, his childhood playmate and lifelong companion, is a very bad king...
Set in a future where Earth has very strict immigration laws, journalism grad student Amelia Hand puts her Earthright, her right to live on Earth, up as collateral on the loan she needs to finish researching her thesis. She has a very limited time to track down her subject, get everything she needs from him, and get back to Earth.
It really doesn't help matters when she gets tangled up in investigating a corporate colonization scheme gone wrong.
During an interstellar war, the warship Nadezhda Durova is flung into distant space with her jump drive still functional, but all her computers fried. The crew tries to find the way home by locating stars in the right general direction that have about the right spectrum.
They find about a hundred and begin to check them out, one by one, and find things they didn't expect.
There are certain people who can enter the afterlife and bring things back. Donnie Mudgett's Uncle Jerry says Donnie is one of them, and wants to hire him. The on-the-job training doesn't go entirely smoothly...
George Pinkerton, monster-hunting librarian, was originally created as the star of a long series of bedtime stories I told my kids. He became the hero of three short stories, in Bruce Coville's Book of Aliens II, Bruce Coville's Book of Monsters II, and Bruce Coville's Book of Ghosts II. Now I'm thinking of putting him in a middle-grades novel.
George Pinkerton never intended to be a hero; he's a small-town librarian in Indiana who happens to know a lot of folklore, and who happens to be in the right place at the right time when a deranged houngan unleashes an entire graveyard of the walking dead on the town. Saving Springfield, Indiana from the zombies is what gets him a reputation as a monster-hunter.
Intended to be a "Young Adult" novel.
In the world of the Extermination, the wizards and magicians who made life so very difficult and interesting for everyone else finally killed themselves off a few centuries back, but there's still plenty of old magic lying around, causing trouble. This world was the setting for the short story "Arms and the Woman," but hasn't appeared elsewhere.
An old prophecy says that at an appropriate time, two children will be born with a certain birthmark -- one male, one female. They, in turn, will produce a child who will save the world from a horrible menace created by a long-dead wizard. It's all been magically predetermined by a couple of ancient magicians.
However, they couldn't know exactly what the world would be like so far from their own time, so there was no way to determine exactly which infants would bear the marks. There was no way to predict that one would be a refined and fastidious princess, the other a rowdy, uncouth peasant -- and that they wouldn't like each other.
Another "Young Adult" novel.
Sixteen-year-old Steve Everett knows he's adopted, and thinks it's mildly peculiar that the government is still sending social workers to check on him after fourteen years; he also knows there's apparently something a little odd about how he looks at the world.
Until his Aunt Lucy shows up, though, he has no idea that his real name is Jason Turner, that he was born into a family that can see and move in more dimensions than normal people, that the government saw this ability as a security threat, that his parents were murdered by the government, and that he's been watched all these years because he's bait, intended to lure the other Turners out of hiding...
I do intend to keep writing Ethshar stories, but due to their low market value, they'll only happen when I can afford to waste enough time to write one, and they'll probably all be done as reader-supported serials.
For more details about my plans (though it's in need of an update), see Unwritten Ethshar Novels.
The never-written third volume of the "War Surplus" series, following The Cyborg and the Sorcerers and The Wizard and the War Machine. At the end of The Wizard and the War Machine, Sam Turner was going into exile, fleeing the wizards of Praunce. This third volume would follow him to a final resolution. To be honest, I never had this one outlined in detail; it's still a bit vague. After seeing the weak reception Realms of Light got, I very much doubt I'll ever write this.
Sequel to Shining Steel, this follows the adventures of John Mercy-of-Christ in trying to reclaim a planet even more barbaric than Godsworld. Again, I very much doubt I'll ever write this.
A prequel to Denner's Wreck, I actually started writing this one back in the 1970s -- not sure whether I was in high school or college. It's the account of a previous attempt at conquest by Thaddeus the Black, on a planet very different from Denner's Wreck.
Many years ago, I wanted to break into comics. Specifically, I wanted to write Blackhawk for DC. In 1985 I submitted a proposal to an editor who'd expressed interest; it was rejected because they'd just handed the Blackhawks to Howard Chaykin to be revamped for a mini-series.
Years later I told Kurt Busiek about this, and he said, "So take all the stuff you like about the Blackhawks, throw out everything DC's done with the characters that you didn't like, and use it to create something new."
Which is not what I actually did, because hey, if it wasn't going to be the Blackhawks then I could really mess around with the premise. Which I did.
The result wound up having very little resemblance to the Blackhawks beyond involving a bunch of pilots; if anything, it came out more like "G-8 and His Battle Aces." (If any of you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry about it. Old stuff. Not important.) I named it Pentagram Squadron and pitched it to Dark Horse Comics.
They didn't buy it, but I've never completely abandoned the idea. It doesn't need to be comics; it could be novels, or an online serial, or something else entirely. It's got classic fighter planes and dinosaurs and lost colonies and the Bermuda Triangle and pirates and castles and evil masterminds and all sorts of stuff, but I can't really give you a lot of details because it's structured to have a series of revelations, so I can't say much of anything without blowing surprises.
I've made a very brief start on writing it, as prose, but it hasn't gotten very far. If I ever write the rest, it'll be fun.
10/12/07:2246
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