Long-term readers may have noticed that I like slamming together genres.
In Honor at Stake, I was using microbiology to explain vampirism as a metaphysical virus. While the virus itself was neutral, it would heighten vices and lower inhibitions.
With Honeymoon from Hell, I touch on that again, creating a source for the virus that I had considered, but never really introduced. It’s a small point of The Neck Romancer, but it’s there.
In Honeymoon from Hell, it’s a starting point.
I don’t know what it is, but I’ve been a fan of slamming science and magic together. Less because of Clarke’s Law, and more because … well, my father was a medical educator, and my mother was a microbiologist. I grew up with this stuff. I knew that I wouldn’t touch any COVID medication with a 30 yard pole because pharmacy has a saying: It takes 20 years to figure out what a medication will do for you, and another 20 to figure out what it will do to you. I figure we’re almost at the point of seeing what long-term Molly and E abuse will do to you, and another ten years before we see long-term effects of marijuana use.
Yes, I’m getting off topic.
With Honeymoon from Hell, I drift a little harder into magic and science coming together. I’ve waited years to figure out how to use cremation diamonds1 in a novel.
Since I know lasers are created by running light through a prism, like a diamond, I knew that weaponizing them would have to lead to something creepy as Hell.
In this case, I gave the lasers to gangbangers so that they could create zombies out of the people they gun down in the street.
Obviously.
This doesn’t even touch on everything that happens in book two, Blood Country, where we meet the man who sells weapons like these. He is the infamous Roland Li… no, that’s not a spoiler, unless you can guess the story behind the name. Yes, there will be Triads. Yes, it will be in California. Those are all the hints you’re getting.
The funny thing is, I wrote a short story once called The Boys from Transylvania. It was a standalone short for Amanda in the 1960s, at Fort Dietrich. If you don’t know what that means, you’ll find out soon enough.
But that short story became the basis for, well, the series.
Never underestimate the power of short stories, folks. Especially if you write enough of them. After a while, you get a whole book when you string them together. Heh heh.
That’s actually a different series. I only have five shorts scattered throughout the five books of Honeymoon from Hell, and only one of them was ever published.
So this series will have cyborg zombies and drones that create dragons (why, yes, one of these did show up in Infernal Affairs. Funny that), vampire nest destroying clothing and hopping vampires. There will be Triads and Yazuka, magic swords, and evil wizards looking for a green-eyed girl to sacrifice in order to… no, wait, that’s Big Trouble In Little China.
And some of that is just book two.
Yeah. I had some fun with these.
Buy The Neck Romancer
My other books
Burn body. Use the carbon in the cremains to create a lab made diamond. Wear your loved one on your body FOREVER…
