Blankeanism concerto for Flageolet and Spinrel

I feel every bullet entering every body-

every shattered tine of heart bleeding beneath the soldier's tread

What is art? This variation

in the microscopic macroscopic

this vacillation of the lighthouse soul

The faeries in the garden titter and do not fret

for their time will come again and again.

The slender phallus of an arrow-shaft gliding through flesh and organ

the soldiers lie in untidy heaps

and the world weeps, and beats its breast,

but where is the scion of justice?

Where is the justly-won prize?

Rotting flesh yields to the hunger of flies

and the sky is darkened from east to west.

What cataclysm will end us?

Strange plagues awakened from arctic ice

or specially prepared by some winsome government

a gradual poisoning by nuclear waste

and flooding

a sudden act of self-destructive zeal

rockets arching like tender buds

to greet the sun of fusion?

O petty beautiful beings

these human chattel

rammed through meat-grinders

and soaked in angelic vision

the frail bread of Christ touches my lips

and I am made unholy

What is the beast and why do his horns number seven?

The steps leading to the temple of wisdom

are seven in number

the steps and stages

are quantified for the solidification

of a revelatory framework

We build our own conceptual stairways

to the gods

But is this too obvious?

Symbols fade in opiate smoke

and become the indistinct caricature of demons.

The wings of the angels intersect

with the brining-pits of hell

Hell is pickling

Hell is preservation

True base crawling wretched whimpering uncouth unsound Hell

Is the clinging to things long after they decay.

We lie with the corpse of ancient ideas

Mouth maggots, tongue the dead

and venerate embalmed mysteries.

The cocoon is ripe with corruption.

The squirming potential writhes and dies

to yield blessed fruit.

We are more than we seem.

More than we say.

More than we know.

More than we believe.

More than we conceive.

More than we fear.

We are legion. Lesion. The maggot imbues purification. The energy of the apocalypse is merely another tool. The wielding hand determines intent. 

Copyright Scott J. Couturier 2014

Another Day, Another Tireless Investigation

Hey all!

have just concluded a long, informative day promoting the book. I've been sending out review requests to various online magazines - it seems there is a thriving culture based around the reviewing and sharing of ebooks, and while you risk negative reviews (many of the sites go out of the way to state their incredibly high standards, I suspect as a means of weeding out authors who are uncertain or embarrassed by their work) a review is a review, the necessary element to ACTUALLY selling your product. I was fortunate enough to stumble across Indie SF Reviews and The Indie Book review, both great resources for figuring out where to send your work for review. Here are the links:

Indie SF Reviewers

The Indie Book Reviewers List

Check them out if you happen to be an up-and-coming self-published author of any stripe. Also, today I made my first foray into goodreads, and am overwhelmed by the communities I've found there. There are entire groups dedicated to helping each other with promotion, places to post links to your book, and (most importantly) a sympathetic gathering of like-minded writers all bent on that most daunting of tasks: self-publishing your work and finding a means of making it both visible and profitable. I'm definitely a newb (not the greatest adapter to new internet mediums of social interaction) but I can tell I'll be spending a great deal of time over there. Check it out if you are an aspiring author, or if you just love books so much you can't stand it.

Next promotion is still pending: keep an eye here. Thanks and blessings on all!

Giveaways, Reviews, and A Tremendous Thank-You

Greetings all,

Just wanted to extend a huge thank-you to everyone involved in the May 18th giveaway. It was a great success, and I'm currently awed to think of my work being read on small electronic tablets around the globe. Thank you, friends, for radiating the word out to the remotest corners of this interconnected Earth! There's going to be another grander giveaway early next month: four days of free downloads and a Freebooksy ad. Once all the details are concretized I'll post them here and begin sounding the claxons!

Please, if you read the book and it delights (or confounds) you in any way, leave a review on Amazon. Tell the world what you think, the good and the bad. Create a discourse, ramble, praise, vent your spleen, whatever your inclination may be, but please review! I am willing to write books the rest of my life; if people are willing to read them all the better. Reviews = visibility in the howling echo-chamber that is Amazon.

One more time, thank you all. Keep an eye on this space for further updates and random pluckings from the Abyss.

The Mask of Tamrel now available on Kindle - free giveaway on May 18th!

Greetings all,

After a few minor delays The Mask of Tamrel is now available on Kindle. Price of the book is currently $2.99, but there will be a free giveaway on May 18th (tell your friends, your enemies, your dog and cat)!

The Mask of Tamrel - Buy it now on Kindle or get it for free on May 18th!

An immense thanks to everyone who has ordered a hard copy from Amazon. I can now say, for the very first time in my life, that I have been paid for writing, and the feeling is unreal. Creating a work of art and presenting it to the wider human race is an act of intense trust, and many authors have kept their own work from entering circulation rather than risk the possibility of their efforts being either ignored or derided. Overcoming the fear of rejection and having an innate faith in your work (which very well could be mocked, dismissed, and/or ignored) are both key elements - so much great art has been either created for the drawer (many Soviet-era novels were written to be published in the future rather than the present, with the result that many great authors died before seeing their life's work recognized in any way) or is completely overlooked in the present only to have impact in the distant future. H.P. Lovecraft died in 1937 at the age of 46, impoverished and so stung by amalgamated rejection that he had ceased submitting his work for publication. Over seventy years later, his writing has manifested in our deepest subconscious (from which it sprang) and established a living mythology, to the extent that many people are in doubt as to whether the Necronomicon (or any of the other fiendish texts described by Lovecraft) actually exists.  We cannot know the true outcome of an act of creativity; gambling with monstrous success and monstrous failure is part of the game. What truly matters is that we manifest art regardless, allowing our expression to occur without the fear of judgement (which can neuter a work of art like nothing else).

So again, thank you all. A book is an interpretive object: everyone who reads it perceives a different thing, is differently stimulated or repelled by it. I hope that your personal experience of reading The Mask of Tamrel is fun and transportative (supposedly a made-up word, but I enjoy made-up words and would point out that all words were made-up before we had the wherewithal to to codify them in dictionaries). Kelrob and Jacobson are wonderful companions, and walking with them these last years has been infinitely rewarding to me. I have seen strange lands and visions, listened to many stories by many crackling firesides, and recorded it all to the best of my ability. Please come join me - but more importantly them - on the quest.

The Mask of Tamrel - available today!

 The Mask of Tamrel emerges! Unfortunately there were a few kinks getting the ebook out (aren't there always a few kinks?) and it won't be available until Monday, but the print copy is now on sale at Amazon.

 The Mask of Tamrel - Available on Amazon!

The Mask of Tamrel coming May 10th; Book signing at Horizon Books in Traverse City on June 7th

Greetings all! Just yesterday I completed my final run-through of The Mask of Tamrel, checking for any last-minute formatting errors and like. Everything is set and ready for the release...excessive thanks to my editor Heather Shaw, for her tireless work and the incredible map she drew up. Thevin is now real, and the adventure is set to begin. I'd also like to thank my friends who participated in the editing process; a word to all potential self-publishers. I can't stress enough how important it is for multiple people to read your text with an eye peeled for spelling and formatting errors. Every individual who read the book noted different errors, and their collective perception went into the final draft. Also included in the book are the first two chapters from the second novel in the Magistricide, In the House of Madame Heretia - currently working on the final draft, which will be seeing release in early September. The third book has been taking inchoate form in my head...in my first post on this site I referred to the series as a tetralogy, but it could very well blossom into a five-or-six book series, depending upon whence the narrative chooses to go. I stand by humbly prepared to journey with Kelrob and Jacobson into the depths of the abyss or to whatever paradisial height their quest may reach; you can join them by checking out The Mask of Tamrel, which will be simultaneously available on this site and on Amazon.com come May 10th.

On June 7th I'll be in my hometown of Traverse City MI signing copies of Mask at Horizon books from 2-4 PM. Looking forward to seeing plenty of old friends and a plethora of new faces. Please stop by for a copy of the book or simply to say 'hello!'