Welcome to Your New Worlds

I create worlds full of heroes. I’d like to think it’s because the world needs heroes and I’m just helping out, but the truth is, my characters often take control of the keyboard and write themselves. It just happens that they tend toward the heroic.

I’d like to invite you to their worlds as they evolve.

Whether you like to participate in beta reads or just want to be someone who says, “Yeah, I read that novel before it was published and before it blew away all the Harry Potter sales records,” (shoot for the stars!) you’ll be happy here. Like short stories? Read them for free here. Like writing tips? You’ll find those here, too.

If you subscribe to my newsletter's free tier, you’ll have access to an ever-growing library of free short stories and the occasional beta read.

If you subscribe to the paid tier, you’ll get frequent updates to my current novel, Restive Souls, which has been in development for three years.

You’ll also get first looks into the next book in the MagicLand series, tentatively titled Journey to Gath.

Jade Mourning, the protagonist in my novel Psalm of Vampires, will also be making appearances here before he bothers other people.

Continue?

Paid subscribers will also participate in a unique feature called "Continue?"

This will be short stories, novellas, or novels I've started asking a simple question: Should I continue?

Since Ghost does not yet do polls, I'll simply review the comments to help me decide. I have so many works in progress, I'll need help from paid subscribers to prioritize.

More on Fiction

I have two novels currently in development. You’ll see excerpts and sometimes full versions of them here.

One of them is a sequel to MagicLand. These days, we all call books like this part of a series. So in that case, the new novel, tentatively titled MagicLand: Journey to Gath, is Book Two of the Magicland series.

About MagicLand

MagicLand, my debut novel, was a finalist in the 2023 Feathered Quill Awards.

From the original Feathered Quill review:

Bastille's deftly-wrought prose is nothing short of sublime. The vivid world-building of artificial intelligence and magical creatures is breathtaking.

Publishers Weekly wrote:

Bastille’s debut artfully combines magic, technology, and romance.

BookTrib said MagicLand features “complex world building” and adds:

While the plot and tropes in the novel are intricate and layered, the basic themes are immediately recognizable. Characters in MagicLand are working through the issues inherent in our own world: technology and science versus spirituality, racial relations and shared ancestry, the concepts of power and love and ultimately good versus evil. The internal, and more interesting, struggle for Belex and Aurilena is recognizing where their beliefs lie when it comes to these social yet moral issues and how they need to change to become better people in order to save their world.

When I dove into MagicLand I had no idea what to expect. But as I sank deeper into it, I recognized several references from not only fantasy but sci-fi worlds that many enthusiasts will readily know. MagicLand features a mashup of names, settings, and character references from fantasies like The Hobbit, sci-fi pop cultural icons like Star Trek and even the Bible. Like most great fantasies, this one also has an element of fatalistic romance.

Kirkus Reviews said of MagicLand:

A bracing dystopian tale that deftly mixes magic, evolution, and romance.

If you don’t like purchasing from Amazon, you can find MagicLand at all your favorite online bookstores.

Psalm of Vampires

I wrote Psalm of Vampires, which is what you might call a page-turning potboiler, as part of a brief break from Restive Souls. Unlike MagicLand, it is self-published, so it’s only available on Amazon. It’s a dark terror comedy.

Psalm of Vampires was released in December 2023. I’ll post reviews as they come in.

Restive Souls

My plans for Restive Souls, still in development, will include anyone who wants to help build a new world.

The first book of the series is currently in late-stage editing. I plan several more. I am hoping to invite other writers to help write future books in the series. Restive Souls is an alternative history novel that asks the question: What if American slaves had been emancipated in 1776 by a victorious British King?

You can find several excerpts of the novel on Ruminato. Note that these may change or get pulled at any time.

Paid subscribers will see newer versions first.

“Foundation” members are like people who award endowments to writers. The endowments help raise funds for book promotion, editors, and the like. When you purchase a Foundation subscription, you are helping produce a novel that dares us to ask profound questions about the American experience.

Nothing could be more vital given America's current political crisis.