Hot off the press

My newest book is now officially hot off the Castalia House press… er, electronically speaking, anyhow.

Heretics of St. Possenti is the story of the founding of the monastic order of St. Possenti, the “Gun Saint”, by Bishop Thomas Cranberry. The order was originally introduced in TSCB, and a few of my readers were very curious how it came into existence. So, after some research and writing, and a bit of re-writing, and some feedback from people more knowledgeable than I about certain aspects of Catholicism, monks, etc., and who knows how much editorial work by the good people of the internationally-acclaimed publisher Castalia House, it’s finally ready. Available at Amazon, of course.

A brief bit of universe background –The Stars Came Back takes place circa 2650 AD.  Heretics takes place in the unspecified but not too distant future – before 2050, in any case, likely around 2040 for my mental reasoning. Far enough out that things are different, near enough that far too many things are still the same, and linear extrapolation isn’t unreasonable. The US hasn’t blown up yet, we’re still getting involved in overseas military adventurism, SJWs still infest HR, Christian religious faith is largely mocked in pop culture, etc. In this environment, Thomas Cranberry has a few unexpected events that cascade together and inspire him to see an entirely different approach to outreach, to meet a badly under-served group, one that most kick while they are down.

It is a didactic book rather than action / adventure, and quite unlike the space-opera that is TSCB. However, I hope it is also a worthwhile read.

The cover is totally different than I expected, but it’s classic in-genre.
Larger image of the cover:

14 thoughts on “Hot off the press

    1. Thanks much, Mr. Atom 🙂

      If you got a pre-release copy to read and review, it’ll show up as “unverified” unless you buy it first (ran into this myself a time or two on accident).

      1. Nope. Saw the release e-mail from Castalia, went to Amazon, read the teaser, and bought it then and there. Packed it into lunch + 4 vacation hours off work.

        Yeah, you got some of my vacation time … and it was worth it!

  1. Excellent book. I was writing a while back on another site that something like this is needed. A place where men can be men and thrive.

    I’d like to read more about the monks. More stories please!

    1. Thank you.
      Had not planned on any/many more, it’s not my strongest suit. But I’m open to the idea of opening it up to other writers to create short stories in, like some of the collaborative series of yesteryear: Asprin’s “Thieve’s world” for instance. And, depending on the inspiration, I might do other related stories as well.

      1. That would be cool as well. With thousands of monks over so many years and so much territory there has to be great stories waiting to be told.

      2. I’d be happy to buy more books either following Heretics or on either end of The Stars Come Back.

        If you are looking for another author to follow Heretics, Peter Grant might be a good choice. He has a good background in weapons and religion. Another plus he uses Castalia House too.

        1. Thanks. I’d like to sell them to you 🙂
          I can only write so much – many time commitments. So I have to focus on what will sell better. Based on what I know so far, I’ll mostly write more space opera. I’ve considered opening the universe other writers to crowd-source short stories about individual “monks’ tales,” and then write one myself, and bundle them all.

  2. OK, I now have all three books, what order should I be reading them in?

    Heretics of St. Possenti
    Back From the Dead
    The Stars Came Back

    1. TSCB is in screenplay format, and it’s the whole initial story.
      BFTD is the first half of TSCB, written in more ordinary prose format. Some people like one, hate the other. YMMV.
      HoSP could be read first or second, before or after TSCB. The “Easter eggs” simply appear in reverse order 🙂 Perhaps TSCB would be better first – that way it raises the questions first, answers them later, rather than explaining something first which would then appear to be much less mysterious when seen through the reader’s eyes.

      1. I almost always recommend reading an author’s work in publication order, not internal chronology, and this is no exception.

        1. In this case it doesn’t really matter; the connection is tenuous enough. The later book fully stands on its own.
          One other consideration is that the first book is SF while this one isn’t. There are likely to be people who for that reason would read only one of the two. And that will work just fine.

  3. A St. Possenti short story bundle sounds good, if you have time to knock out something short between other projects, doing a Kindle Unlimited short could bring in a few bucks. Each one you do will also sell the others in the series as well as the main book in a lot of cases.

    You should check with Vox Day about getting Cryptofashion to do you a St. Possenti T shirt, or better a nice brown hoodie.

    Maybe a St. Possenti challenge coin too. You wouldn’t have to sell a lot of either to make it worth the effort and they would be profitable advertising too.

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