A promotional video for Curse of Souls.

Boom. Blam. Pow. Zap. Curse of Wolf is now available on Amazon for a special release price for National Superhero Day. If you like vampires vs werewolves vs humans powered by spiritual energy vs ghosts vs humans wearing advanced armor vs invaders from other realms vs...well, you get the point.

Book Two of the Warrior of Souls series is with the editor now. It's looking like a late April release date. I'm shooting for 4/28, which is National Superhero Day.  Why National Superhero Day? Because I consider the series to be a cross of the superhero and urban fantasy genres. Think Hellboy, or Blade, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Most series dealing with demons, vampires and shifters have humans as the hapless heroes. I wanted to create universe where the humans used technology, magic and special abilities to fight back. They aren't powerless. They also aren't always the good guys.

Keep an eye out in the coming weeks, I plan on doing a cover reveal and when the book releases I'll probably run a few Amazon giveaways like I always do on a book release.

Okay, so like I said in a previous blog post, you can't talk about books all of the time. And since I have a platform, I'm going to talk about whatever.

I'm a big fan of Alien and Aliens 2. I rarely watch movies more than once, but I've watched these movies many times. Alien is the epitome of space horror, and Alien 2 is the epitome of space action/adventure (and is also very good at horror). Most the following movies were forgettable, but I'll give some props to Alien 3 for being unique. I couldn't even tell you which movie was watch concerning the following Alien movies. I thought Alien V Predator was decent, but you didn't care one bit about the humans, yet the movie focused on...the humans.

Prometheus was an...okay movie. I didn't loathe it like some people. If you treat it like a sci fi exploration film, it is fine. The problems start when you get involved in the "man vs creator" questions. Most people don't watch Alien movies to ponder who created us, or how life comes about, etc. The "alien" feels tacked-on, as if someone said "we need to link the Alien franchise to this movie so we get more moviegoers in the theaters!"

Now, I'm sure there is all kinds of blog posts explaining who the giants are and lore and mythos, but I'm not concerned about it. I'm just going by what I saw in the movies.

So this brings us to Alien:  Covenant. Another sci fi movie that felt like the Xenomorphs were added just to sell tickets. This movie once again wants to be a message about the chicken and the egg or God versus Man. The entire concept of the movie bothers me. Xenomorphs were created by David? That is extremely...lame. This whole time I was operating under the impression they were some unknown species that was the scourge of the universe, and frequently wiped out whole alien civilizations (and bumped heads with Predators). Now *this* is a movie that could ruin your childhood. It's like if someone woke up at the end of a Michael Bay movie and there were no Transformers...it was all just a dream.

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1. It felt odd that we keep hearing about the colonists but never see them.
2. They go down to the planet immediately without analyzing it at all. The ion storms were obviously a huge problem that no one bothered accounting for. No drones or scanners launched? There could be microbes on the planet that could wipe out everyone on the ship (and hey, that sort of happened).
3. The "white" aliens were more durable than xenomorphs. It took a lot of firepower to put them down. I'm going to assume the weapons used were not nearly as good as the ones employed by the marines in Aliens. Maybe civilian models.
4. No one seems very impressed by an alien ship. "Hmm, what's this?" "Looks like an alien ship, I guess." Have humans already made contact with alien races in this universe?
5. Did it bother anyone else that Tennessee was willing to crash the ship into the planet because he was worried about his wife? Also, he took the ship below the tolerance level, and everything was fine. Guess Mother is terrible at calculations. Also, the rest of the crew goes along with it far too quickly.
6. No one really seems impressed by the massive blue man group piles of bodies outside.
7. Shaw's death. Flashbacks to Newt's and Hick's throwaway deaths from Alien 3.
8. They are willing to throw away all of their equipment in the storage bay, just to get rid of the Xenomorph. They are still going to need that stuff when they get to their new planet. Why not just put on those suits and go into an airlock? The "open certain doors while locking others" was working well (yeah, I know, you need a big finish, so that would have been a boring ending).
9. Was not a fan of how the white xenomorphs emerged from their hosts (this one is just nitpicking).
10. Was not a fan of how the xenomorphs erupted from their hosts as mini-mes. What happened to chestburster form? It's just like a tiny adorable alien that somehow grows into adult form in 5 minutes. The xenomorph in Alien evolved quickly, but not THAT fast.

11. Of course the David reveal wasn't very shocking. But David sure can change clothes fast.

As much as I'd like to see more Alien movies, at this point I think it's futile. Alien was the epitome of horror. You aren't going to top it. Aliens covered the action aspect to perfection. What's going on now seems to be trying to fill in backstory that didn't need to be filled, and coming up with new ways for people to die. But if they keep making them, I'll keep watching. I'm just that much of a sucker for the concept.

I haven't given any updates in a while, so I figured it was time. Even though I don't have much to post. I released Curse of Souls in September of 2017. Sword of Order followed in December. So where is Book Two, everyone asks? Well, some people ask. Why write the prequel before the sequel? Yeah, I probably shouldn't have done that, but I was already about twenty five percent done with Sword when Curse was released. Originally it was just going to be a short story or novelette that I gave away for free to my mailing list subscribers, but then Sword grew and grew until it became a real book.

So now I'm working on Book Two in earnest. How far? I'm about halfway done. "ONLY HALF??" you shout, grabbing a shovel. Yes, sorry. See, I also quit my old job in December. I had worked at this business for FOURTEEN years. "Holy crap! How are you still alive?" you say, setting the shovel down. I started a new job in January, and it involved a little bit of travel for training, then a bit more training, and now I'm working on a daily basis at it. Unfortunately, that's meant I've had to put in more hours at my new job, and with the training and all that, I haven't been writing. But my new job is really cool on every single imaginable level. I just don't deal with change very well. I'm like an old bear who is set in his ways. So it's been a stressful period for me.

But GOOD NEWS EVERYONE, now I'm really writing again. I think at my current pace I can finish the next book in March, then get it edited, formatted, etc. for maybe a late March or mid April release. So just be patient...the next book is turning out rather well so far. New characters, new powers, new problems and higher stakes.

Thanks for your patience and interest,
S Mays

2017 has come and gone. 2018 is going to be a whole new chapter.

September contained the release of Curse of Souls, the first book in a new series. It was very well received, and it made me happy to see so many people interested in it. Now, it obviously wasn't for everyone, as it focuses more on the action and adventure instead of the touchy-feelies, but that's fine. There are a million touchy-feely books out there, but not so many hardcore, bone-crunching, death-defying, comedy, horror, adventure, superhero, supernatural books!

December held the release of Sword of Order (Book 0), which focuses on Jessica Luvkrafft. Some people didn't care for Jessica in book one. This is by design. Her arc is just beginning, but I felt the need to show her past before we could begin her journey into the future. Jessica has a tragic past, and I wanted the book to reflect that.

I'm currently around 30% done with Book 2. I predict I will have it ready around March of this year (hopefully). Sorry, I'm just not one of those people who can churn out a book every month. Every 3-4 months is a bit more realistic at this point in my life.

I wanted to thank everyone for their support, comments and feedback. When I see someone say they loved reading a story, and they can't wait for book two, that really motivates me to keep going and work hard. Feel free to email me or leave a comment, review or what have you, saying what you like or don't like. I love hearing from readers.