If this is a flick you haven’t seen, you should watch it!  Listen to the podcast and we’ll tell you why.

And it’s not just because of Christopher Lee & Peter Cushing (which should be reason enough for you, anyway).

Enjoy!

“TL,” you may remember, is a knock-down, drag-out brawl between our red-tressed heroine and the mythical God of Thunder.  It’s sure to tickle the fancy of mythology fans, fight fans, fans of warrior women, and (naturally) fans of Crimson herself.

You can buy it separately on Amazon or Smashwords, or get it along with six other stories in The Crimson Collection – all for less than the price of three individual stories!  And don’t forget to check out the trailer.

Thor Loser – Crimson

In solidarity with the other protests, I will not be interacting online for the day of Wednesday, January 18, 2011.  That means no e-mails, no Facebook, no Twitter — no contact at all.  If I were better at this technology, I’d actually turn my page off for the day.  But if I did that, I’m not entirely sure I could get the page right back up on the following day.  So, this post acknowledging the protest will have to do.  (Though it breaks my heart not to have a picture — which is part of the point —  for my post today.)  Edit: I’ve found a black out plugin. Hopefully, I can turn it back off, if it fails to do so itself.

Here’s a salient bit from Wikipedia about why this is being done:

“Although the bills have been amended since their introduction, they are still deeply problematic. Among other serious problems in the current draft of the bills, the requirement exists for US-based sites to actively police links to purported infringing sites. These kinds of self-policing activities are non-sustainable for large, global sites – including ones like Wikipedia. The legislative language is ambiguous and overly broad, even though it touches on protected speech. Congress says it’s trying to protect the rights of copyright owners, but the “cure” that SOPA and PIPA represent is worse than the disease.”

I suggest you click this link and get the full story.

Heck, you might join the protest and disconnect for a day yourself.  (And those of you who really need me, you should know my phone number by now anyway.)

See you back online on Thursday.

Y’all may know that I’m something of a hermit. It’ s not that I don’t like leaving the house, hanging out with people, doing conventions, etc.  It’s just that being a writer and artist is not something one normally does with other people (aside from the occasional bullpen/studio situation, like we had at TSR).  So, in order to churn out books and art, it’s kindof necessary to hole up in my studio and be alone.

Last year, I managed to get out to a number of conventions/events, and I’ll be doing a few this year as well.  However, the  easiest way to find me out and about will probably be to attend the movie series I’m hosting at our church.  (Yes, I can go into a church without bursting into flames, and you probably can, too.)  Plymouth Congregational UCC has a wonderful sound and projection system, and I’m taking advantage of it by running films there on the 3rd Friday (usually) of every month, starting on January 20th (next week as I write this).

We’re kicking off this year’s schedule with Jackie Chan’s First Strike.  (Notice the clever “kicking off” pun?)  And I hope you’ll consider joining us — especially if you’ve never seen a man defend himself with a folding ladder (in one of the great action fights of all time).  This is the one place you can be sure I’ll be showing myself in public on a regular basis this year.

Hope to see you at the movies!

For those of you keeping track that means that the book contains:

Forever Crimson
The Gates of Paradise
Crash of the Titans
Crimson & Dragons
Time War
Thor Loser
Crimson the Barbarian

Previously, “Time War” had only been available in Stalking the Wild Hare, the 1st Gen Con Anthology, and “Crimson the Barbarian” (long form) appears in this collection for the first time anywhere.  Though a print edition will follow in 2012, the complete book is available right now for Kindle.

So, what are you waiting for?  Click here, go to Amazon, and pick up a copy for the new Kindle that Santa brought you!

All the Crimson short stories to date, now in one book!

Frost Harrow
The Twilight Empire
Dungeons & Dinosaurs

In the coming days and weeks, the pages will probably grow, but for now, at least there’s a place for search engines (and fans) to hang their hats.  And don’t forget that the Posts Banner (below the Stephen D. Sullivan logo) contains links to all the posts related to these new pages and all my other products as well.

Enjoy!

Cover to Frost Harrow #1.

John Hebert's great Twilight Empire cover. (Colors by Steve.)

The first D&Dinos story cover.

Grant Winslow at the lake shore.

Grant Winslow didn’t expect to be a millionaire.  For years, he was the family’s black sheep, the teenager more interested in ecology than in the business of Winslow Construction.  No wonder, then, that at age eighteen he lit out from Frosthaven for Europe and parts unknown.  But a strange twist of fate has brought the twenty-two-year-old home as sole heir to his miserly uncle’s fortune.  Now Grant finds himself enormously wealthy and unexpectedly caught in a generations-old feud with the powerful Frost family of Frost Harrow.

Join Grant, Ivy Frost, and the other members of the strange and sinister Frost family as they struggle against supernatural menaces and each other in the Frost Harrow series, coming soon from Walkabout Publishing and Stephen D. Sullivan.  Fans of Dark Shadows and the works of Stephen King are bound to love it!

MS is an Umira the Accursed short story, the first one I’ve written, though — perhaps ironically — not the first one I planned or did a cover for.  Umira originally appeared in Tournament of Death, the free online novel.  She’s an accursed triton starwatcher, which means that she can live on land and she’s a lot freakier looking than your average mermaid.  After creating her, I became intrigued by her … er … fish-out-of-water character.  Thus, MS and the other stories I’ve planned for her, as well as a couple of pretty cool free wallpapers.

With MS selling briskly, perhaps I should move her other stories up on my schedule.  Or perhaps, if you’re reading this, you can leave a comment and tell me what you think of the story.  If you’re commenting, though, please be specific enough that I won’t think you’re spam.  (You’d be surprised how many messages of vague praise I discard every month because the spam-guard tells me to.)

And if you haven’t read “Monster Shark,” what are you waiting for?  You can find it here for Kindle and here for all e-reader formats (including Kindle).  You could even sign up here to get my free newsletter and find out when the next Umira story (or the next monster shark story) arrives.

In any case, I hope you enjoy MS, TOD, and the stories to come!

The Accursed Triton named Umira in a tough spot.

Bonus Tip 2 - Make a list. Yeah, it seems old fashioned, but not if you use Google Docs or some other spreadsheet-type program.  I use this to list the family & friends I buy for every year (and sometimes others, too).  I used to keep paper lists, but I would lose them from year to year — and part of the point of list keeping is to keep track of what you’ve given and not give that same present again.  So, now my list is stored in the cloud.

Bonus Tip 3 - Check your inventory.  When you’re buying all year long, you tend to forget what you’ve accumulated.  So, before you go out this year, check what you’ve got at hand.  Much to my delight, I discovered I had more than 50% of my shopping already done.

Bonus Tip 4 - Check the sale hours.  Since you’re not going at the crack of dawn, you should find out when the deals that you’re angling for end.  Many stores run certain sales all day or even all weekend.  Some, though, have cut-offs during the day.  This year, I got caught in a cut-off at the cash register, where all my $4 videos suddenly went up to $10.  I literally missed the sale by 2 minutes — after spending the 15 previous minutes browsing “for fun.”  Thing is, I knew when that store’s specials ended from last year.  I just managed to forget it until 2 minutes too late.  Good thing the things I missed getting were “spare” presents I was planning to stockpile, not something vital.

That’s it for this year.  Happy Shopping & Happy Holidays!

The BK, for those of you who don’t know, is a fantasy world that Jean Rabe and I created together for use in our book and game settings.  Nearly all of my recent fantasy writing has been set in the Blue Kingdoms universe (and my wife and I play D&D in the setting at Jean’s house once a month).

We’ve also done number of anthologies set in the world — and you can find pages for those book (and other cool stuff) in the navigation bar along the very top of my website.  Here’s a link to the landing page.

At the moment, it seems very unlikely that we’ll have a new BK anthology out this year.  Jean and I have both been extremely busy (me with Frost Harrow, among other things), and we just haven’t had time to send out a call, gather authors, and do the editing.  A 2012 collection, themed around swords & sorcery, seems likely though.

So, keep your eyes peeled, check out the books on this site, buy them on Amazon, and have a great time!