Various Blurbs and Marketing

Amazon Author

The road to The Heater and the Hack wasn’t straight. For decades, I studied history, heraldry, philosophy, and myth, fascinated by how people have always sought to name and balance the forces that shape our lives. My years abroad in the U.S. Armed Forces deepened that fascination — the clash of chaos and order, freedom and restraint, legacy and choice.

When I finally put pen to paper, I wanted more than a tale of swords and sorcery. I wanted to write a story where magic is not a trick of wands and words, but the reflection of truths we have yet to understand. As I often say: science, without understanding, is indistinguishable from magic. Every wonder has its law, every myth its root.

So I built a world where companionship is as important as conflict, where language and memory matter as much as battles, and where destiny is never imposed but must be chosen. It is a world that asks readers not only to follow the journey, but to wrestle with its questions: What does it mean to inherit a broken legacy? What does it take to be worthy of the burdens handed down?

I write not just to entertain, but to expand the frame of epic fantasy — to offer stories that feel timeless and mythic, yet grounded in human choices. If you step into the Dance, I hope you’ll find both wonder and reflection: a reminder that even in a cosmos torn between Chaos and Order, balance can still be found.

~200-word synopsis for The Heater and the Hack

Emanrasu sets out with a simple duty: return his late father’s sword and shield to a grandfather he has never met. But the road bends into destiny. With Rezua, his towering childhood friend, the enigmatic Serrah, and the sharp-tongued mentor Tarlis, he learns that loyalty and sacrifice weigh more heavily than steel.

When visions of swirling colors draw him into the Dance—the ancient balance between Chaos and Order—Emanrasu discovers that the relics he carries are more than heirlooms. They are keys to a legacy that threads through kingdoms, gods, and the very fabric of creation. Bren, a small town caught in brigand terror, becomes the crucible of his awakening. Here, his choices will forge not only a fighting force, but also the bonds of a Cadre destined to embody the six entities of the Dance itself: Sky, Earth, Dragon, Phoenix, Sun and Tree.

As love deepens, secrets unravel, and comrades fall, Emanrasu learns that his worth lies not in strength alone, but in the courage to lead. The Heater and the Hack is the first movement of a mythic saga—where mortal sacrifice and cosmic fate entwine, and where every choice carries the weight of worlds.

Punchier logline (≈35 words)

Sent to return his father’s legacy to a grandfather he’s never met, Emanrasu is drawn into a widening war of Black and White, where every choice remakes him—and where proving his worth may cost more than his life.

Two-sentence hook with teaser

What begins as a simple delivery to a long-lost grandfather becomes an epic reckoning, as Emanrasu, Rezua, Tarlis, and Serrah are swept into the designs of the Black and the judgment of the Captains of the White. To keep the balance, he must decide whether the legacy he carries will define him—or be defined by him.

Back Cover Burbs

Top hook (italic, larger font):
A boy’s duty becomes a people’s hope. A relic’s weight becomes a world’s fate.

Blurb (150–170 words):

Emanrasu intends only to return his father’s sword and shield to a grandfather he has never met. But the road bends toward destiny. With Rezua, his steadfast childhood friend, Serrah, a woman with secrets of her own, and Tarlis, a mentor as cryptic as he is fierce, a simple errand becomes the forging of legend.

Drawn into the Dance—the eternal balance of Chaos and Order—Emanrasu discovers the relics he carries are more than heirlooms. They are keys to a Cadre bound by fate: Sky, Earth, Dragon, Phoenix, Chronicler… and Conduit.

As brigands descend upon the town of Bren, and as dreams reveal truths older than kingdoms, Emanrasu must lead where others falter. To falter himself could unravel not only Bren’s survival, but the Balance of the Dance itself.

Advertising comparison blubs

For fans of Stephen R. Donaldson

  • When conviction collides with consequence, only character endures. Step into a tale where every choice has a cost—and paying it just might save a city.
  • Grim resolve, hard mercy: a leader forged by loss learns to bear what others can’t.
  • If you want epic that stares back, unblinking—this is the book that meets your gaze.

For fans of Piers Anthony (Incarnations era)

  • Cosmic forces, mortal hearts: when the Dance nudges fate, mortals answer.
  • Wry wit meets weighty destiny—where talismans aren’t trinkets and choices echo.
  • Playful banter, mythic stakes, a world that keeps surprising you at every turn.

For fans of Charles Dickens

  • A whole town on the brink—rough hands, warm kitchens, and stubborn hope.
  • The cost of looking away vs. the courage to stand together—choose your side.
  • If you love communities that feel lived-in and worth fighting for—welcome.

For fans of Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

  • Tactical brains, improvised tech, and problems solved by grit not miracles.
  • Logistics matter; so do people—watch a plan tighten like a well-tied knot.
  • For readers who thrive on competence and consequences under pressure.

For fans of Marion Zimmer Bradley

  • Sacred symbols, intimate loyalties, and a power that’s ritual as much as steel.
  • The Dance remembers: lineage, oaths, and the quiet revolutions of the heart.
  • Courtly tension and fireside tenderness inside a vast, numinous world.

For fans of Roger Zelazny (Amber enjoyers)

  • Razor banter, lethal grace: a mentor who smiles while he wins the duel.
  • Heritage is a riddle—answered at sword-point and with a wink.
  • If you like stylish feints and mysteries wrapped in lineage, step in.

For fans of Frank Herbert

  • Duty vs. desire, politics vs. principle—leadership is ecology of the soul.
  • Symbols, strategy, and the slow math of culture change.
  • A destiny accepted not because it is written, but because others will pay if it isn’t.

For fans of J.R.R. Tolkien

  • Fellowship first: a small band, a vast road, and the courage to make it home.
  • Ancient blades, newer hearts, and the everyday decency that wins wars.
  • A world you’ll believe in; a stand you’ll feel in your bones.

For fans of Robert A. Heinlein

  • “Because someone has to.” Training, duty, and choosing the hard right.
  • Build a militia from farmers? Watch it happen—one drill at a time.
  • If competence-porn with heart is your thing, this one salutes you.

For fans of Stephen King (The Stand readers)

  • A community gathers, darkness presses, and ordinary people do extraordinary things.
  • Not horror—human stakes: grief, courage, and the stubborn will to rebuild.
  • When the world gets small and the danger gets close, every choice matters.

For fans of Jonathan Swift

  • A clear eye for power’s absurdities—answered with craft, not cruelty.
  • Laugh, wince, then cheer as pretension meets practical justice.
  • Satire’s edge; a hero’s spine.

For fans of Wilmar H. Shiras

  • Younger courage, older wisdom—what we nurture changes everything.
  • Gifts are responsibilities; responsibility is its own gift.
  • Quiet kids, big choices, real consequence.

For fans of Bram Stoker

  • Shadowed roads, whispered names, and a peril that hunts by rumor first.
  • Torches, steel, and the old courage nobody thought they still had.
  • That candlelit, late-watch feeling—then the door creaks.

For fans of Victor Hugo

  • Justice and mercy argue in every heart—sometimes with swords.
  • Uprising energy, street-level valor, and grief transfigured into resolve.
  • If you read to feel changed, here’s your book.

For fans of Jules Verne

  • Overland wonders, craft in the details, and the thrill of earned discovery.
  • Maps, meals, and makeshift gear—the romance of going anyway.
  • Adventure that smells like leather tack and wood smoke.

For fans of Homer (Iliad/Odyssey)

  • War’s weight, hearth’s pull—glory and home in constant conversation.
  • Names worth singing; losses that teach the living how to live.
  • Shield up. Sword ready. Story timeless.

For fans of Joseph Heller

  • Darkly funny, dead serious: leadership in a maze of nonsense and need.
  • Orders, egos, and the one thing that cuts through: results.
  • Laugh so you don’t break; stand so you don’t fall.

For fans of Carl Sagan

  • Wonder threaded through action: meaning written in stars and choices.
  • The cosmos doesn’t pick sides; people do.
  • Awe, ethics, and the long view—without losing the present moment.

For fans of Michael Moorcock (Elric readers)

  • Ancient steel with a name—and a price expectation attached to it.
  • A hero who learns the blade isn’t the only thing that cuts.
  • Tragic grandeur, fierce loyalty, beautiful ruin.

For fans of Michael Crichton

  • Clear stakes, relentless pacing, and problems that punish sloppy thinking.
  • Systems under stress—from supply lines to human limits.
  • A page-turner that respects your brain.

For fans of Alexandre Dumas

  • Swordplay with panache, loyalty with teeth, and conspiracies with style.
  • “All for one” until it hurts—and then again.
  • Toasts in the tavern, steel in the alley, honor on the line.

For fans of Herman Melville

  • Obsessions, oaths, and the weather of a man’s soul.
  • Duty’s undertow vs. freedom’s horizon—choose your current.
  • Language that works, images that linger.

For fans of Philip K. Dick

  • What you think you know vs. what symbols say you are.
  • Fate nudges; agency pushes back—reality blinks.
  • If you love reality puzzles with a heartbeat, you’re home.

For fans of Anne McCaffrey (Pern readers)

  • Bonded with flame and sky: dragons, duty, and songs you can almost hear.
  • Community isn’t crowd—it’s covenant.
  • If “holdfast” makes your pulse jump, saddle up.

For fans of Orson Scott Card (Ender readers)

  • Strategy drills turn to real stakes—fast.
  • A reluctant leader learns to value every life he risks.
  • War-room brains, battlefield heart.

For fans of Ray Bradbury

  • Autumn smoke, aching memory, and the warmth that survives the cold.
  • Lyrical lines wrapped around flint-hard choices.
  • Wonder and sorrow holding hands.

For fans of Isaac Asimov (Foundation readers)

  • Small moves, big arcs: culture as chessboard, people as players—not pieces.
  • Patterns, probabilities, and the one brave outlier.
  • If you love plans that actually plan, come see.

For fans of George Orwell

  • Plainspoken truth vs. the bullies who count on silence.
  • Clear eyes, steady hands—no slogans, just standing.
  • Freedom looks like neighbors drilling in a dusty yard.

For fans of Greg Bear

  • Transformation with consequence—bodies, beliefs, and bonds reshaped.
  • The unknown isn’t an enemy; apathy is.
  • Big ideas that still bleed when cut.

For fans of Joe Haldeman

  • The price of the fight, paid in time, pain, and people.
  • Training scars and field scars—and why you keep going anyway.
  • Quiet after the battle, louder than any charge.

For fans of Arthur Conan Doyle

  • Clues in wood grain, meaning in metalwork: the world is talking—listen.
  • A puzzle of pendants, a pattern of power, a truth that won’t hide.
  • Investigation threaded through action—deduction with a heartbeat.

For fans of Mark Twain

  • Frontier humor, back-pocket wisdom, and two friends you’ll want to follow.
  • Tall-tale flavor with real-world stakes.
  • A grin, a jab, and a hand up.

For fans of H.G. Wells

  • Progress tested: what do we build when fear is loudest?
  • Invention, adaptation, and the future made by stubborn people.
  • Ideas on the march—with mud on their boots.

For fans of Robert Louis Stevenson

  • Road dust, rough maps, hidden blades, and hard choices.
  • Treasure isn’t always coin; sometimes it’s who rides beside you.
  • Classic adventure energy with modern heart.

For fans of E.B. White

  • Friendship rendered simply, beautifully—and it matters.
  • Small kindnesses that change big days.
  • Hope that doesn’t feel cheap.

For fans of Anna Sewell

  • Horses aren’t props—they’re partners. Respect earns miles.
  • Travel that remembers every animal that carried the load.
  • Gentle hearts, steady hooves.

For fans of Washington Irving

  • Fireside tales, roadside dread—the old world whispering in a new one.
  • Lantern-light courage when the road bends dark.
  • Folk-soul fantasy with teeth.

For fans of Robert E. Howard (Conan)

  • Steel-on-steel, grit-on-grit, and a grin in the face of odds.
  • Melee that feels like bruises and victory that tastes like smoke.
  • Raw nerve, clean cuts.

For fans of John Steinbeck

  • Work, worry, and the stubborn decency of ordinary people.
  • The dignity of showing up when it counts.
  • Tenderness that refuses to apologize.

For fans of Douglas Adams

  • Cosmic winks amid chaos—humor that sneaks in and sticks.
  • Banter that breaks tension; choices that make it again.
  • A grin between gut-punches.

For fans of William Goldman (The Princess Bride)

  • Fencing, fighting, true hearts, and jokes that actually land.
  • “As you wish” energy with “now do the hard thing” stakes.
  • Swashbuckle plus feels—yes, both.

For fans of Edgar Allan Poe

  • Tight rooms, tighter breaths, and the echo of what can’t be undone.
  • Mood like a drumbeat before the door opens.
  • Beauty edged with dread.