Tag Archives: blood feud: the saga of pandora zwieback book 1

Blood Reign: Pandora Zwieback 2 E-book On Sale at Amazon

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Blood-Reign-FinalCvrGood news, Panatics! At last the day has arrived, when you can find the e-book edition of Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2—my young adult, dark-urban-fantasy novel—available at Amazon.com! Here’s the synopsis:

She was stabbed in the heart with an ancient mystical spear. Her mother was kidnapped by a band of vampires led by a fallen angel—their goal: unleashing hell on earth. And every living creature on the planet faces extinction at the hands of a race of biblical monsters. But for Pandora Zwieback, the worst may be yet to come.

In this terrifying next chapter of the story begun in the critically acclaimed novel Blood Feud, join the teenaged Goth adventuress as she discovers that death is only the beginning of her saga…

You’ll find Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2 here for $2.99 US at the Kindle Store. Order it today!

And don’t forget: the first Pandora Zwieback novel, Blood Feud, is also available for $2.99 from the Kindle Store. Want to know how Pan begins her saga? Then purchase Blood Feud and Blood Reign and get started reading!

Bob Larkin at New York Comic Con 2014

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SWC_Larkin_SketchbookNew York Comic Con 2014 starts today, October 9th, and runs through Sunday, October 12th. And although the StarWarp Concepts crew won’t be attending (we’ll be at the Collingswood Book Festival on Saturday), Bob Larkin—cover painter of my Saga of Pandora Zwieback novel Blood Feud, and featured artist of his own Bob Larkin Sketchbook—will be tucked behind Table C4 in Artists Alley, signing autographs, taking commissions, and selling prints of his well-known cover paintings for Marvel Comics, Bantam Books, and other publishers. If you can’t remember the number, you’ll probably have to look no farther than the growing line of Doc Savage and Dazzler fans at his table.

New York Comic Con is being held at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, on Manhattan’s West Side. For more information, head over to the NYCC site.

By the way, have you purchased a copy of The Bob Larkin Sketchbook yet? If not, you’re missing out on spectacular pencil drawings of Doc Savage, Spider-Man, Batman, the X-Men, and other subjects, and features a special, full-color cover drawing of a certain Goth adventuress. It’s 24 pages of artistic goodness, available exclusively from the StarWarp Concepts webstore. Visit the Bob Larkin Sketchbook product page at StarWarp Concepts for all the ordering information, as well as sample pages.

Son of Summer Reading Suggestions

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A couple of years ago I made a few suggestions for books that Panatics might be interested in checking out: Stephen King’s ’Salem’s Lot, Cycle of the Werewolf, and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon; Charles Portis’s True Grit; Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes; Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange; and Giorman Berchard’s The Second Greatest Story Ever Told. You can read my mini-reviews here.

Well, with summer 2014 officially starting tomorrow, what better time for a new list of books you might want to consider? This one’s a little shorter, but they’re still good choices (in my humble opinion).

Day-of-the-TriffidsThe Day of the Triffids, by John Wyndham: First published in 1951, it’s a fast-paced, enjoyable science fiction adventure that would seem to have been an influence on the quasi-zombie apocalypse film 28 Days Later (a patient in a hospital wakes up to find himself apparently the only unaffected person in a ravaged London). Except instead of zombies, you have carnivorous plants hunting a human population that’s been mostly stricken blind by the light of a passing comet. But as the lead characters quickly learn, it’s not the Triffids that pose the greatest threat, but the other unaffected humans…

rosemarys_babyRosemary’s Baby, by Ira Levin: The 1968 Mia Farrow–starring film adaptation is a horror masterpiece, and Zoe (Guardians of the Galaxy) Saldana starred in a 2014 television miniseries remake that was well received, but Ira Levin’s 1967 source novel is a brisk, entertaining masterpiece of its own. Rosemary and Guy Woodward move into an NYC apartment building with a long history of witchcraft and devil worship—and the current residents have plans for Rosemary… Apart from cultural references that firmly set the story in 1960s New York, the story remains as enjoyably horrific and humorously macabre as it did almost fifty years ago.

king_in_yellowThe King in Yellow, by Robert W. Chambers: This 1895 short story collection influenced not only writers like H. P. Lovecraft, Grant Morrison, and Stephen King, but also served as a major plot point in the first season of HBO’s acclaimed series True Detective, starring Matthew McConaghey and Woody Harrelson. The conceit is that The King in Yellow, a fictitious two-act play, drives people mad when they read the second act (which is never reproduced in the book). The first four stories in the collection are linked to the play. Download The King in Yellow e-book for free from ManyBooks.net.

And of course…

blood_feudBlood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1: What, I shouldn’t plug my first Pan novel—on the very site dedicated to the series it’s part of? 😉 With its sequel, Blood Reign, soon to make its long-awaited appearance, this is the perfect time to catch up on the start of Pan’s debut adventure (if you or your book-loving friends haven’t already read it, that is). Warring vampire clans! Fallen angels! Monster hunters! Romance! Danger! Pick up a copy and find out why HorrorNews.net called Blood Feud “far and away one of the best young adult supernatural fantasy novels released in the last few years.”

So get to reading—and have a great summer!

Angels and Monster Hunters

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blood_feudHey, there, lovers of genre television! You may be aware that tonight is the broadcast debut of Dominion on the SyFy Channel. A sequel of sorts to the 2010 Paul Bettany–starring film Legion, the series stars Christopher Egan and Anthony Stewart Head and takes place 25 years into an ongoing war between humanity and God’s army of angels. Well, if angels—either arch or fallen—are your thing, then perhaps we here at ’Warp Central can interest you in a tale of our own that involves those heavenly—and not so heavenly—messengers…

Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1 is the first novel in a series of adventures starring a teenaged Goth who has the power to see past the human disguises worn by the ever-growing community of monsters (vampires, werewolves, sirens, etc.) that exist in her world, and especially in her New York City hometown. Blood Feud sees Pan, along with her family and friends, get drawn into a war among rival vampire clans for possession of a rare antiquity: the remains of Zaqiel, a fallen angel who once tried to take over the world!

blood_reign-coverBlood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2 (on sale later this summer) is the second part of Pan’s epic adventure. Zaqiel is back among the living, badder than ever, and it’s up to Pan and her small band of angel busters—which includes her boyfriend, her best friend, and Zaqiel’s ex-lover, the immortal monster hunter Sebastienne “Annie” Mazarin—to stop the fallen angel from leading his armies of horrors in an all-out assault on humanity.

Visit the Blood Feud and Blood Reign product pages for more information, including sales links and sample chapters.

Welcome, Eternal Con 2014 Attendees!

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Thanks for stopping by the StarWarp Concepts booth this weekend, and for your interest in my Goth adventuress, Pandora Zwieback. If you’re here because you spoke with me, then go ahead and download the Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0 digital comic that I showed you; just click on the cover in the right-hand sidebar and save it as a PDF. Not only is it an introduction to Pan and her world, hosted by Pan herself, but it contains two sample chapters from her first novel, Blood Feud. Give it a read.

blood_feudThe Saga of Pandora Zwieback is the critically acclaimed story of a 16-year-old Goth girl who’s spent the last decade being treated for mental health problems because she can see monsters. It’s only after she meets a shape-shifting monster hunter named Sebastienne “Annie” Mazarin, in the first novel, Blood Feud, that Pan discovers she’s never been ill—her so-called “monstervision” is actually a supernatural gift that allows her to see into Gothopolis, the not-so-mythical shadow world that exists right alongside the human world. But before Annie can explain further, Pan and her parents are drawn into a conflict between warring vampire clans that are searching for the key to an ultimate weapon (or so the legend goes)—a key that just so happens to have been delivered to the horror-themed museum owned by Pan’s father.

Pan’s adventure continues in the upcoming second novel, Blood Reign, in which she and Annie face challenges from not just vampires but legions of monsters led by a fallen angel—who happens to be one of Annie’s ex-lovers!

Also on sale right now is The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1, which features two brand-new adventures of Pan and her friends that are separate from the novels: a full-color comic story, in which Pan and her boyfriend, Javier, run into one of his ex-girlfriends…whom Pan can see is really a mythological siren that can enrapture men with its voice; and a short story that pits Pan, Annie, and Javier against a trio of Elegant Gothic Lolita vampires—in a shopping mall!

Carmilla_CoverAnd please keep in mind that Pan’s publisher, StarWarp Concepts, is not just a YA fiction house. It also publishes illustrated classics (including J. Sheridan’s Le Fanu’s vampire romance Carmilla, the Brothers Grimm’s Snow White, and Edgar Rice Burroughs’s A Princess of Mars); graphic novels for superhero fans and adult horror aficionados; digital and print comic books; and artist sketchbooks. Give them a visit and check out all they have to offer.

Hopefully I’ll see you again on September 21, at the Brooklyn Book Festival. See you there!

SWC Backlist: Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1

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blood_feudAs a follow-up to this past weekend’s first BookCon, I thought it would be a good time to introduce first-time visitors to our StarWarp Concepts and Pandora Zwieback sites, and new readers of StarWarp Concepts’ titles, to the SWC backlist (and to remind old ’Warp fans of the wide range of our offerings). So while you’ll find the majority of listings appear on the SWC blog, I figured it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to duplicate the entries relating to Pan and the “Paniverse.”

To kick things off, today we look at our young adult dark-urban-fantasy novel Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1, written by Steven A. Roman (that’s me). Here’s the synopsis:

Pandora Zwieback is a 16-year-old Goth girl who’s just discovered that her New York City hometown is the stalking ground for every creature of the night out to raise a little hell (literally!). Problem is, she thinks she’s the only one who can see them, which means she can’t tell her friends or family about the dangers around them—not unless she wants to spend the rest of her life locked up in a psychiatric ward.

But before Pan has a chance to make sense of her increasingly weird life, she finds herself in the middle of a war among rival vampire clans. Elegant Gothic Lolitas from Japan on one side, silk-suited Euro-vamps on the other, leather-clad hunters from Eastern Europe in the middle, and all after the same prize: a mysterious crate recently delivered to the horror-themed museum owned by Pan’s dad. What is its terrifying secret—and will Pan survive long enough to find out?

“Far and away one of the best young adult supernatural fantasy novels released in the last few years.”—HorrorNews.net

“A fun and very much recommended read that shouldn’t be overlooked.”—Midwest Book Reviews

“A big-style cinematic vampire and monster hunter shoot-’em-up with a very human kid caught in the crossfire… but her relationship with her parents and close friends makes the story gold.”—Goodreads

Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1 is on sale in print ($14.95 US) and e-book ($2.99) formats at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, and the StarWarp Concepts webstore. The e-book is also available from iBooks, Smashwords, Kobo, DriveThru Fiction, Scribd, and Oyster.

Visit the Blood Feud product page for the sales links.

Please support StarWarp Concepts by purchasing one of our books. Thanks!

Pandora Zwieback: Blood Feud On Sale at Oyster Books

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blood_feud_largeFollowing the recent deal between e-book distributor Smashwords and online subscription library Scribd, comes exciting news that my young adult, dark-urban-fantasy novel Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1 is available at yet another digital subscription library: Oyster Books! To quote their Web site:

Oyster offers unlimited access to over 500,000 books for $9.95 a month, with new titles added all the time.

We created Oyster to evolve the way people read and to create more of the special moments that only books can offer. From anywhere a mobile device can go—a bustling subway car, a quiet coffee shop, or lost at sea with a Bengal tiger—our mission is to build the best reading experience, one that is both communal and personal, anytime, anywhere.

Smashwords has further distribution deals in the works, most recently with German e-book retailer TXTR and with Overdrive, the world’s largest library e-book platform—and Zwieback Nation will use them to expand our world domination of dark-fantasy publishing. 😉

You’ll find Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1 here at Oyster. Start your subscription today!

Pandora Zwieback: Blood Feud On Sale at Scribd

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blood_feud_largeThanks to a recent deal negotiated by e-book distributor Smashwords, my young adult, dark-urban-fantasy novel Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1 is now available at digital subscription library Scribd! To quote their Web site:

Scribd is your personal digital library, where you have unlimited access to the world’s largest collection of e-books and written works. Our premium subscription service offers over 300,000 books from over 900 publishers, including New York Times bestsellers, literary classics, groundbreaking non-fiction, and reader favorites in every genre.

For those unfamiliar with this critically acclaimed novel, here’s the synopsis:

Pandora Zwieback is a 16-year-old Goth girl who’s just discovered that her New York City hometown is the stalking ground for every creature of the night out to raise a little hell (literally!). Problem is, she thinks she’s the only one who can see them, which means she can’t tell her friends or family about the dangers around them—not unless she wants to spend the rest of her life locked up in a psychiatric ward.

But before Pan has a chance to make sense of her increasingly weird life, she finds herself in the middle of a war among rival vampire clans. Elegant Gothic Lolitas from Japan on one side, silk-suited Euro-vamps on the other, leather-clad hunters from Eastern Europe in the middle, and all after the same prize: a mysterious crate recently delivered to the horror-themed museum owned by Pan’s dad. What is its terrifying secret—and will Pan survive long enough to find out?

And here’s what critics have had to say about it:

“Far and away one of the best young adult supernatural fantasy novels released in the last few years.”—HorrorNews.net

“A fun and very much recommended read that shouldn’t be overlooked.”—Midwest Book Reviews

“Blood Feud is a roller-coaster read; the action never lets up. Author Steven A. Roman has an incredible gift for running lateral plotlines that intersect with a glorious crash…. Highly recommended for ages 15 and up for complexity of plot, and violence.”
—Monster Librarian

You’ll find Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1 here at Scribd. Get started reading today!

 

Guerrilla Marketing

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Usually letting people know about your book can be an expensive venture—advertising, mailing copies to reviewers, etc. Sometimes, though, it can be as easy and inexpensive as writing the title on a card in a public setting…

The main branch of the New York Public Library (the famous one with the stone lions out front) is currently posting, on the windows of its gift shop, the titles of books people are reading. It’s part of their latest literacy promotion, NYPL Reads 2013—just fill out a card and they’ll put it up for all to see.

So given the opportunity to let more folks know about Blood Feud, the first Pandora Zwieback novel, and considering it cost absolutely nothing to do it, how could I pass up such a chance for free advertising…? 😉

Nerd is the Word for Pandora Zwieback Fans

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I don’t know about you, but I never get tired of receiving positive reviews of Blood Feud, the first Pandora Zwieback novel—and here’s the latest! This time, the praise comes from Aida Jacobs, the Girly Geek of the comic news Web site Word of the Nerd:

 

“Roman continues to prove his skill with the English language all throughout the pages of this tome by painting vivid pictures with words that you normally would not put together…but once your eyes glance over them, you can’t stop yourself from imagining the image they create at length within your mind…”

Read the entire review by clicking on the logo above.