Free Giveaway of The Mask of Tamrel - July 20th to July 24th!

Greetings all! It delights me to announce that, from July 20th to July 24th, the 'Mask of Tamrel' is going to be absolutely, utterly, 100% free on Kindle. If you know anyone who you think would enjoy a dark/epic fantasy romp, please let them know - also taking out a Booksy ad to spread the word.

A colossal thanks to everyone who has already read 'Tamrel' and provided their insights; the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Work on 'In the House of Madame Heretia' is nearing completion - currently on the final read-through/edit. Expect the second volume of The Magistricide in late September or early October, in correspondence with the flaming of the leaves and the crow's plutonian flight.

Peace with the exception of generative conflagration,

~Scott J. Couturier

Judas Dangled

Judas dangled from his root

blood distending from his mouth

and pondered the complexities of fate -

Man dying for god and god dying for man

Immortal blood coursing in mortal veins

our every action is cursed -

The marble domes we erect for the dead

act as incubi for the coming birth -

The meaning is obscured because

The meaning must be obscured.

The final fundament of reality

cannot be preserved in a solution of formaldehyde.

The mind strays beyond the array of reality

and retrieves visions that manifest in waking life -

the base of sorcery

and poetry

and science

are one

The wand wiggles in desperate anticipation

of uncouth minds and froggish throats

to voice the crack in deception

until their gullets are ceremonially slit -

sacrifices to false order

garbed in glistening samite -

O you prophets and puppets

of old

come out from your vestibules

and twitch in the eternal dance

weave in my glands a song of stars

and transport flesh beyond flesh

to return with the flush of Faery.


Copyright Scott J. Couturier 2014

The Mask of Tamrel: Dark Fantasy and Beyond

As reader responses to the Mask of Tamrel have been trickling in (thanks all who have read it and provided their insights and interpretations) one thing seems quite clear: it's readily classifiable as dark fantasy. Some people have been disturbed by aspects of the work, which is incredibly gratifying; the author is in many ways a humble beast, and any emotion or vision I can stir is a vast compliment. I can say this: Thevin in a bleak world, teetering on the verge of transformation or demise. Its people are controlled like petty chattel. Currents of destruction are gathering, disruptions in the spiraling order. This will be explored more in The House of Madame Heretia, the second book in the series; betrayals and alliances are made, and the darkness gathers. Kelrob's world continues to crumble so that it may be rebuilt. I will say no more.

I find the interplay between darkness and divinity to be a very generative inspiration. My reading veers towards horror to fantasy to science-fiction to magical realism and back around the bend; what we assimilate gets ground up inside of us, gets recombined and reinterpreted and retransmitted. The concepts for the Magistricide came to me in segments over years - the worldbuilding caught up with the conceptualizations, which themselves evolved as the framework of Thevin solidified. Kelrob and Jacobson, characters that I'd first developed at 13, suddenly had a long, arduous adventure ahead of them, in which much was broken down and either lost or remade. It got me to thinking about narratives of degeneration and regeneration, of which Tolkien was exceedingly fond; I remember reading the final lines of The Silmarillion for the first time and having to digest them (don't worry, no major spoilers):

"Here ends the SILMARILLION. If it has passed from the high and the beautiful to darkness and ruin, that was of old the fate of Arda Marred; and if any change shall come and the Marring be amended, Manwë and Varda may know; but they have not revealed it, and it is not declared in the dooms of Mandos."

The decline and stagnation of cultures, the loss of craft, the decent into degeneracy of a fair race are all classic fantastical tropes, and intrigue the human imagination.  We feel ourselves to come from fairer times and finer ages, aspire to reattain the wisdom lost in the Library of Alexandria and mourn the fate of the crumbling papyrus scrolls sealed in the ash of Vesuvius. We are bound on an evolution that encompasses the deepest and most 'primitive' of mystical wisdoms, and so we seek in the past what he strive to manifest in the future. This is where fantasy and science-fiction come into play: the fantasist wields symbols and speaks in riddles, constantly beckoning the reader forward into an unending mutation of possibility. Things are extrapolated, things are warped, things are bent out of all discernible shape and recombined into images simultaneously familiar and foreign. In the process, reality (if we may so favorably term waking consciousness) is also changed; the power of visions to impact everyday life is reflected in every object crafted, in every flight of fancy that transports us away from the harsh practicalities of life. We long for escape from the cage of the NOW, of the HERE, long to shed our flesh wholesale and inhabit other worlds and other people. And always, it seems, something lost must be regained, or defeated, or revered, or banished from the world forever. Decay and darkness allow light and hope, but always the promise of evolution implies eventual devolution - without monstrous gods and black magicians and spirits thirsting for human blood we would have no work for our heroes, who are certainly often hard put by. Overcoming Entropy is another recurring theme of fantasy, though constant Order is also often the villain. Good can become evil and evil good in a flash.

What does all this mean? It means a good book is a reality-transformer. It means we yearn for times lost and times to come. It means we are fascinated by the stirrings in the dark as well as the all-consuming wholesomeness of the light. The Mask of Tamrel is a dark book; I made it that way. It is also, I hope, shot through with light. Things are going to get bumpy in the next book, and bumpier still beyond that, but I'm delighted that I get to share the teeth-jarring ride with all those who are reading along. Kelrob and Jacobson have much more to do, as do I. Please join us on the journey.

Book Signing - June 7th at Horizon books from 4-6 PM!

Hey all! Made it to Traverse City...slight update on the book signing. Due to various logistical errors, the signing will be happening at Horizon books on June 7th from 4 to 6, NOT from 2 to 4. Also, the signing will be held in front of the store, as a structural pillar collapsed several days ago and parts of the building have been deemed unsound. Yay! Looking incredibly forward to seeing everyone there...wear a hard-hat if you have one.

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.