For All Their Wars Are Merry, THIS SUNDAY

First, since I haven't mentioned it all that often, please go, look into The Dragon Awards, register, and vote.  And please, but all means, vote for me. If you wouldn't mind. It's under "Horror."

Back to business.

I've mentioned For All Their Wars Are Merry a few times. It's a book about Irish Rebel Songs. It's going to be one of those that's a little drier than my usual fair. Little will blow up in grand fashion, though there will be quite a few train wrecks along the way.

There's a reason that the full quote from GK Chesterton is

“The great Gaels of Ireland
Are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry,
And all their songs are sad.”

Except, of course, for some of their songs about war. And trust me, if you lost as many engagements as the Irish did, most of the after action songs would be depressing as hell....But they're not. Not all of them, anyway. There are at least two hero songs where the hero ends BADLY, and they're still generally bright, upbeat songs, even in the lyrics.

If you don't believe me, look up a song of "Father Murphy, of County Wexford." Father Murphy was a badass.

For All Their Songs Are Merry comes out this Sunday, just as I said it would. (I said it would be this past Sunday or this upcoming Sunday....well, it's this upcoming Sunday.)

Once more into the description: 

"For all Their Wars Are Merry" is an examination of the uses and implications of songs in Irish terrorist organizations such as the IRA and all of their various and sundry splinter factions. Basically, it will examine why the Irish have these songs as such a widespread phenomenon, and what the songs tell us about these Irish terrorists.

From songs like “My Little Armalite” to “Come out Ye Black and Tans,” one gets the feeling that the IRA doesn't quite take their British opponents as seriously as one would think, given the amount of bombs and firepower the IRA and all of its mutations has thrown at them in their fight to have Northern Ireland united with the Republic of Ireland, or at least independent of the United Kingdom.

Along the way, it will cover why the Irish terrorists have such songs, why they apologize for their atrocities, how Catholic they thing they are. It will trace these traditions going back back to the days of the Druidic Bards-Irish poets-of the early Celts some three thousand years ago, up to and including the poet Patrick Pearse in the 1916 Easter Uprising in Dublin.

The book will come out in Kindle and in Paperback, and it will be strangely priced.  How so?

Well, I did something strange, and I priced it according to Amazon Guidelines. Yes, Kindle now has a program where it takes your book, everything you say about the book (genre, categories, keywords) and puts together an algorithm for how it should be priced as a Kindle copy.

And so the Kindle Edition of For All Their Wars Are Merry is $3.49.  Why that and not $2.99? I have no idea. It's not like I get that much more, but I'm going to something really odd and trust that Amazon knows how to sell Amazon books.

The price of the paperback will be .... the usual price of a paperback. Yes, Sorry, but for the dimensions of the book, $14.95 is still the most reasonable. I swear that the cut Createspace takes is getting bigger as we go along.

Anyway, that's it. The Kindle and Print editions are already in the works. They'll be up on Sunday, and I'll send a letter to Amazon to make sure that the pages are linked sometime before Hell freezes over this time. It took a week and direct action to make Pius History linked up.

Have a good weekend, all, and remember to vote for Honor at Stake in the Dragon Awards.

And if you haven't read it yet....click here, that'll get you started. It's a speedy read. Most people can't put it down. So it'll be done in time for the Dragon vote.