From Brooks’ website:

Dear Readers,

Most of you know that Shawn, our faithful Web Druid, has been battling a re-occurrence of cancer that surfaced some months back. Thankfully, he is well on the way to a full recovery thanks to chemotherapy treatments and doctor care. Less happily, the result of all this is a huge medical bill he has no hope of being able to pay back in the time frame the hospital has set.

Because we all love Shawn and value his friendship – no one more than me – we all want to do what we can to see him through this. So I am announcing effective today that I am giving Shawn the use of my short story IMAGINARY FRIENDS for an exclusive download for a period of 90 days. During this time, readers who have never read the story or would like to read it again and obtain an ebook copy in the process can do so. IMAGINARY FRIENDS was a story I wrote 20 years ago for Lester del Rey for inclusion in a coffee table book of stories by Del Rey authors called ONCE UPON A TIME. That book has been out of print for years, and the story has not been used since. The story is about a boy named Jack who discovers that he is dying of cancer. I won’t reveal any more except to tell you that this was the story which served as the jumping off point half-a-dozen years later for RUNNING WITH THE DEMON.

So I am putting it up for sale for 90 days at $2.99 to help Shawn pay off his medical bills. All of the proceeds of sales of the story will go to him for that purpose. Here is a chance for all of us to show Shawn we support him. Goodness knows, he has supported me over the years. I know many of you have become friends with him, and maybe you’ve thought now and then about how you might let him know what that friendship has meant.

Here is a really good opportunity. Order the download, read and enjoy your copy of the story, and know you are helping someone who really needs it. Then drop a note to the website, if you are so moved. I can promise you that by helping Shawn you will be doing me a real favor.

Always your friend, Terry

For years, I’ve been on the hunt for a copy of Once Upon a Time, the short story anthology that originally contained ‘Imaginary Friends.’ Unfortunately, it’s been out of print for years and is hard to find. To now be able to read the story and support a good friend of mine, Shawn Speakman, is a wonderful opportunity.

The short story is available on Kindle and Nook for $2.99 (USD).

Doctor Adoulla Makhslood, the last real ghul hunter in the great city of Dhamsawaat, sighed as he read the lines. His own case, it seemed, was the opposite. He often felt tired of life, but he was not quite done with Dhamsawaat. After threescore and more years on God’s great earth, Adoulla found that his beloved birth city was one of the few things he was not tired of. The poetry of Ismi Shihab was another.

To be reading the familiar lines early in the morning in this newly crafted book made Adoulla feel younger—a welcome feeling. The smallish tome was bound with brown sheepleather, and Ismi Shihab’s Leaves of Palm was etched into the cover with good golden acid. It was a very expensive book, but Hafi the bookbinder had given it to Adoulla free of charge. It had been two years since Adoulla saved the man’s wife from a cruel magus’s water ghuls, but Hafi was still effusively thankful.

Adoulla closed the book gently and set it aside. He sat outside of Yehyeh’s, his favorite teahouse in the world, alone at a long stone table.

His dreams last night had been grisly and vivid—blood-rivers, burning corpses, horrible voices—but the edge of their details had dulled upon waking. Sitting in this favorite place, face over a bowl of cardamom tea, reading Ismi Shihab, Adoulla almost managed to forget his nightmares entirely.

The table was hard against Dhamsawaat’s great Mainway, the broadest and busiest thoroughfare in all the Crescent Moon Kingdoms. Even at this early hour, people half-crowded the Mainway. A few of them glanced at Adoulla’s impossibly white kaftan as they passed, but most took no notice of him. Nor did he pay them much mind. He was focused on something more important.

Tea.

Upon announcement, Saladin Ahmed’s debut novel, Throne of the Crescent Moon shot to the top of my most anticipated books. It’s been perched up there leering at me ever since. If you’re a fan of old school Sword & Sorcery, or you’re looking for Fantasy that steps away from the traditional faux-European setting, give Ahmed’s work a look.

For further introduction to Doctor Adoulla Makhslood and the setting from Throne of the Crescent Moon, be sure to read some of Ahmed’s award-nominated short fiction. I enjoyed ‘Where Virtue Lives’ (Beneath Ceaseless Skies #15) most particularly.

Click to embiggen. Read the whole thing. Become bigger than Jesus. Enjoy.

Continuing the impressive debut fantasy series from author Peter V. Brett, The DAYLIGHT WAR is book three of the Demon cycle, pulling the reader into a world of demons, darkness and heroes.

Humanity is fighting back. Although the night still belongs to the demons that arise as the sun sets, new wards and weapons are giving those willing to fight in the darkness a chance to retaliate against their core-spawned enemies.

But, as humanity is about to learn, not all monsters are confined to the dark.

Civil war ravages the north and south, battles fought between those who should be working together. It is up to Arlen – the Painted Man – and Jardir – the self-proclaimed Shar’Dama Ka, the Deliverer – to put aside their differences and bring their people to terms if they are to have any chance of saving their civilisation from demon-rule.

Not a lot to go on, especially for fans of the series who’re familiar with where the story left off at the end of The Desert Spear, but it’s encouraging nonetheless. There are a lot of eager people waiting for this novel. It should be interesting to see Jardir and Arlen forced work together as they had wonderful chemistry in The Desert Spear. Because of the common misconception, it’s also worth noting that this is the third volume in the cycle, but it’s not the final book. As far as I know, we’re looking at five volumes at the low end and likely more, given the success of the series and Brett’s comments about the potential length:

I have a rough outline planned for book three, which will be titled The Daylight War, and will focus further on humanity’s tendency to fight amongst ourselves even when demons are clawing at the door. I have many, many pages of notes for what comes next, but I haven’t yet arranged them into the final story arcs.

Given my feelings that The Desert Spear was meandering and somewhat self-absorbed, I wouldn’t be surprised if, down the road, The Daylight Road winds up being an early-to-middle volume of a long story (of potentially interconnecting stories featuring a large cast of characters.) I just hope that The Daylight War has more in common with The Painted Man and the first third of The Desert Spear than it does with the majority of the second novel. One thing is certain, though, and that’s great cover art.