Tag Archives: steven a. roman

Blood Reign: Read the Sneak Preview

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BloodReign_FreebieBlood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2, the highly anticipated second part of Goth adventuress Pandora Zwieback’s debut adventure, is scheduled to make its debut on February 2, 2015. But why wait until then to learn how things turned out for Pan after the shocking cliffhanger ending of her first novel, Blood Feud?

Available right now for your reading pleasure is a special Blood Reign preview, which you can download for free from the website of Pan’s publisher, StarWarp Concepts. If you thought Pan suffered a major setback at the end of Blood Feud…well, matters only worsen for her as she finds herself in a brand-new predicament. Then again, it wouldn’t be much of an adventure series if the threats to the protagonist didn’t get bigger along the way, now would it?

Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2 is written by me: Steven A. Roman, the bestselling author of the novels X-Men: The Chaos Engine Trilogy (based on the mega-successful Marvel Comics franchise) and Final Destination: Dead Man’s Hand (based on the popular horror film series). And when it comes to horror credentials, in addition to Blood Feud and Blood Reign I wrote the critically acclaimed Mature Readers graphic novel Lorelei: Sects and the City (about a succubus fighting a cult of Elder God worshippers), and contributed well-received short stories to the anthologies Best New Zombies Tales 2, The Dead Walk Again!, Tales of the Shadowmen 4: Lords of Terror, and The Almanac of Vampires. So, yes, I know horror. Besides, where do you think Pan got her love of the genre from (other than her fictional dad, David Zwieback, of course)?

Read the Blood Reign preview now, and then get ready for Ms. Zwieback’s triumphant return on February 2, 2015!

Eternal Con 2014 is This Saturday

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eternal-con-2014-logo

The second annual Eternal Con starts on June 14, and StarWarp Concepts will be there! Artists alley is where you’ll find me promoting The ’Warp; as always, just look for the Pandora Zwieback banner. Also scheduled to appear, at his own table, is art legend Bob Larkin, cover painter of my Saga of Pandora Zwieback novels and spotlight artist of The Bob Larkin Sketchbook.

Eternal Con is being held at the Cradle of Aviation Museum, located on Charles Lindbergh Boulevard, in Garden City, Long Island. Show-floor hours are:

Saturday: 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM

Sunday: 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM

For more information, including directions and how to order tickets, head over to the Eternal Con Web site.

SWC Backlist: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1

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pan_annual_lgContinuing our review of SWC’s backlist, today we look at our young adult dark-urban-fantasy comic book The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1, written by Steven A. Roman and Sholly Fisch, and illustrated by Eliseu Gouveia, Ernie Colon, and Elizabeth Watasin, with cover art by Henar Torinos. Here’s the synopsis:

Pan’s first full-length comic book adventure! Chasing monsters can be a lot of hard work, and Pan tries to get her chaotic life back in order by attending a family picnic hosted by the parents of her boyfriend, Javier. But relaxing becomes impossible when one of Javi’s ex-girlfriends arrives to complicate things. Stupid mythological siren…

“Song of the Siren” features a script by Saga of Pandora Zwieback novelist Steven A. Roman and full-color art by Eliseu Gouveia (The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0). This king-size special also includes:

“After Hours,” a short tale of the “Paniverse” by writer Sholly Fisch (Action Comics, Scooby-Doo! Team-Up) and comics-art legend Ernie Colon (Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld).

“Shopping Maul,” a Pan short story by Steven A. Roman, about (blood) red-tag sales and Elegant Gothic Lolita vampires, with title page art and color by Elizabeth Watasin (Charm School).

“Roman demonstrates yet again his ability to write in the voice of a teenage girl without resorting to the petty whining and needless angst that seem to plague a lot of the female teenage characters in books today…. I would readily and heartily recommend this comic to anybody.”—Word of the Nerd

“Roman mixes young adult fantasy with some themes like ‘young love’ but also with equal parts of ‘female empowerment’ and lets Pandora be a real and true voice. The art by Eliseu Gouveia is just stellar and makes a perfect match for the main story.”—Comics For Sinners

The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1 is on sale in print ($7.99 US) at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The e-book ($3.99) is available from DriveThru Fiction. Both print and e-book formats can be purchased from the StarWarp Concepts webstore.

Visit The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1 product page for the sales links.

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

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!

My First Published Story

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At every comic book convention and book festival I attend, I meet young writers—some middle schoolers, but mostly teenagers—who want to hone their craft, but are either embarrassed by what they’ve written, or frustrated that the words aren’t coming fast enough. And they want to give up.

As writers, we all know about frustration. It’s sitting at your laptop or desktop computer, staring at the screen, trying to will the next words to form so you can get down to business—and they won’t show up. And sure, we all get embarrassed by stuff we’ve written—we see the mistakes and the clunky sentence structure and the stilted dialogue that everyone fails to notice while they’re telling us how brilliant the prose is.

But that, as the saying goes, is all part of the game. You accept the frustrations and the embarrassments and move on. There’s no reason to just give up.

Want an example?

Here, presented for the first time anywhere, are scans of my first published work, “Again: He Who Stalks”—a space-fantasy story I wrote in my junior year at Loyola School in NYC; I would’ve been 16 or so. (I’ve updated the title treatment so not everything about this thing is embarrassing.) Even though it wears its Star Wars influence not just on its sleeve but on the whole damn coat (I was a major SW fan back then), even though every moment I spent re-reading it for this post made me cringe—because no creator likes to examine their early works—it reinforces the adage I’m constantly telling young writers: Everybody’s Gotta Start Somewhere. You just have to keep at it.

Looking at “Stalks” today…yeah, it’s pretty embarrassing—to me, at least. The clunky sentence structure and stilted dialogue? They’re all there—and more. I mean, nerdy author notes within the story explaining sci-fi terms I’d made up? Really? I even provided the sad illustration on page 4. Even worse, it was meant to tie-in to an 8mm sci-fi movie I’d tried my hand at writing and directing (Star Knights? Seriously? Ugh.), but never got past the first couple of days of shooting—before the brand-new camera broke. (That’s what I get for attempting double exposures on film by taping over one of the gears inside the camera housing—damn you for your bad advice, Cinemagic magazine!)

And yet, warts and all, this little gem won The Loyola Magazine!’s contest for Best Short Story—which came as a complete surprise to me. It also led to the teacher who oversaw the magazine asking me the next year if I’d like to become the fiction editor (thanks again, Mr. Moylan!); I said yes. So, maybe “Stalks” was better than I thought…at the time. And maybe if I hadn’t written it I wouldn’t have started down the path that has me entertaining you today with the adventures of a teenaged Goth named Pandora Zwieback.

Everybody’s Gotta Start Somewhere. So keep writing!

“Again: He Who Stalks” copyright © 1979, 2014 Steven A. Roman. All rights reserved.

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!

 

13 Days of Pan-demonium: Subtlety? Not Really Her Strong Suit

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The Pan-demonium reaches its penultimate moment as we continue celebrating the publication of my novel BLOOD FEUD: THE SAGA OF PANDORA ZWIEBACK, Book 1, on sale right now from StarWarp Concepts and all fine online bookstores.

Say hello to…ME!

That’s right, on rare occasions I actually will pick up a pencil and draw something, although not as often as I used to. (Hey, somebody’s gotta write these Pan novels!) Back in the day, I did my share of convention sketches, usually involving superheroines and cartoon characters—or a combination of both. Once I even crossed Ariel, the Little Mermaid, with Catwoman and created…CATFISH-WOMAN!

These days, however, I tend to focus on my writing and let the professionals do the art. In fact, the only reason I did this particular Pan drawing was because I realized I was one artist short for the 13 Days promotion. Still, it was fun to try my hand at drawing Pan and Annie; maybe I do it again one day!

In the meantime—look! I have my own DeviantArt page, where I post some of my drawings, along with sample pieces by other artists that tie into my various projects. So, feel free to take a look at the gallery I set up—after you buy Blood Feud, that is!

Tomorrow, the “13 Days of Pan-demonium” reach their senses-shattering conclusion! Be there, effendi! Excelsior!

(Hey, who let Stan Lee in here…?)

Welcome, Boils and Ghouls, Fiends and Nayboars!

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Hey, there! Welcome to the Interwebs home of fictional full-time horror fangirl and part-time monster hunter Pandora Zwieback.

I’m author Steve Roman, and THE SAGA OF PANDORA ZWIEBACK is my first attempt at a dark-urban-fantasy book series. This isn’t my first time writing, however—if you check out the author section you’ll get all the background on my novel, short story, and comic book writing credits. (X-Men, Final Destination, zombies, succubi—I’m a reg’lar idea factory!)

 

 

As for the star of this book series…

Pandora Zwieback is a 16-year-old Goth who’s just discovered the world is brimming over with monsters, and a lot of them are fixed on either ruling humanity… or eating it! But with the help of an immortal, shape-shifting monster hunter named Sebastienne Mazarin—Annie, to her friends—Pan will learn how to stop them…hopefully. That’s the idea, at least…

(FYI, it’s pronounced ZWY-back, not “zwee-back.” Yes, both pronunciations are correct, but I prefer the long-I sound. In fact, at last year’s New York Comic Con I met two women with that very name—and that’s how they pronounce it, too.)

Pan’s story kicks off with BLOOD FEUD: THE SAGA OF PANDORA ZWIEBACK, Book 1, in which competing vampire clans seek the key to unleashing hell on earth—and the only people who can stop them are a teen Goth and her monster-hunting mentor. (And trust me, not one of these vampires is of the sparkly variety!) Click on the Blood Feud book cover at the top of the sidebar for more information.

The print edition of BLOOD FEUD will be available through the Starwarp Concepts webstore, as well as online stores Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, WH Smith in the UK, and Angus & Robertson in Australia, among others. And I (and everyone at Starwarp Concepts) would certainly appreciate it if you helped spread the word and got your local indie bookstore to order it, too.

And don’t worry, e-readers! There are PDF, Kindle, Kobo, Nook, and iPad editions in the works, as well. I’ll keep you updated as each version becomes available.

But that’s not all the good news! To whet your appetite for my Goth girl’s weirdsome tales, check out the online schwag:

• The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0! It’s a full-color e-comic—with sample chapters from Blood Feud—in which Pan herself gives you the lowdown on her book series. Story by me, art and color by Eliseu “Zeu” Gouveia, the extremely talented artist of such comics as The Phantom and Infiniteens. You’ll find the comic link in the sidebar.

• Downloads! Give your computer the fiendish makeover it’s always wanted with action-packed wallpapers of Pan and Annie, and print out your very own copy of the Pan bookmark that I hand out at conventions. Just visit the Downloads page to get started, and you’re sure to become the envy of every ghoul in the nayboarhood!

• A Blood Feud trailer! Animated by Web designer extraordinaire Dave De Mond, using Zeu’s artwork from the Pan e-comic, it’s a fun little intro to Pan’s world.

And starting next week, we’ll be unleashing The 13 Days of Pan-demonium! It’s an artistic celebration of Blood Feud’s release in which thirteen artists present their unique interpretations of our resident Goth girl, with a new piece of art posted each day on this blog. More news on that in the next blog post!

That’s all for now. Thanks for stopping by, and…pleasant screams!