TBR: Spotlight: Eric Diehl

Friday, January 11, 2013

Spotlight: Eric Diehl

Water Harvest

The Great Houses of Kast'ar have grown complacent. Technological adaptation bolsters a fragile biosphere, but one quandary remains unattended. Lunar-based harvest vessels orbit continuously, extracting their toll of moisture from the upper atmosphere.

Over time, the planet dries.

Now the Rules are caught unawares when a lunar enclave launches an invasion intended to seize control of the Harvest. House Alar, the greatest of the bloodline Keeps, falls before the predatory warlord. The invader’s technology is strong and they are aided by the Guild; wizard-like practitioners whose hallucinogen-induced evocations bend fate to their will.

It falls to Cairn, Legion pilot and displaced heir to Alar, to persuade the House Alliance to intercede. His father and his love Neilai are held hostage, and a battered Cairn is dispatched to carry the vile interloper’s edict. With few resources at hand, Cairn and boisterous comrade Dirc Cutter are thrust into a changed world. The Alliance falters and Cairn, son of House Alar, learns how little he knows of his home world.

Guild of the Viizar

A nemesis long thought finished returns from exile, all the more powerful for his transformation. The Viizar work to reshape their vision of reality through the channeling of loosely controlled dementia, and they have learned to amplify their drug-induced Works by combining sorcery with a forgotten crystal technology. Grande Maester Ott intends to bleed away the energy of the planet to achieve his dark purpose, and the consequent imbalance triggers a series of events that threaten a dark finality. Young Airen sa’n Alar, Son of House Alar, is defeated and taken captive in his attempt to deter the Guild, and he must now band with sisters Andra and Leah to take the fight back to the lunar coven.

24:01 One Minute After

Can you imagine what your world might be like, One Minute After?

A blurring of reality that transcends rational bounds; where every frame of reference has been turned on its head, and visuals are but fleeting reflections in a hall of mirrors?

Venture, then, if you dare, into this anthology of horror, science fiction and fantasy; some dark and some light, but all a challenge to your imagination. We will begin with an experiment in nano-biotechnology gone very wrong, and, if you do not perish in transit, end in a desperate alternate reality on Olde Aearth; emerging with a glimmer of hope ~ justified or not.

In between, in those shadowy alcoves and interstitial chambers throughout, you might experience dragons, wizards, hurricanes, or even misadventures in space.

Author’s Whimsography

A student of many things, master of none…

A questionable turn on a time-worn cliché but fairly apt—a jack of many trades.

Perhaps it began with the custom van built in the long-haired days of the early 70’s—an old school bus with an engine salvaged from a junk yard. Or with the dozens of motorcycles ridden, broken, repaired and ridden again. Eric has built furniture and guitars, he’s screen-printed t-shirts and created package design for bottled soap. He’s thrown newspapers and he’s written software for corporations large and small— for a time working from the wandering RV he and Sue called home. He does website design and he’s published motorcycle and RV travel articles. He earned a pilot’s license and built and flew a gyro-copter over the cane-fields and beaches of Florida. He’s penned tunes and published Sci-Fi/Fantasy short stories and two novels; Water Harvest, with Double Dragon Publishing in September 2011, and Guild of the Viizar, self-published in early 2012.

After more than three decades in south Florida, Eric and his lovely wife Susan moved to the Upstate region of South Carolina, where the nearby Appalachians beckon two-wheeled leisure. When cranky knees allow it, bicycling is a favored indulgence—more often, these days, on a recumbent. Motorcycling remains a serious passion, justified at least in part by instructing a course in motorcycle safety.

He was likely a cat in a previous life, as there’s an undeniable affinity. He looks odd, and children sometimes call out Hi Mister Ski Man! when he hikes by weilding his pair of walking sticks.

The truth is, Eric is still working out what it is that he’ll do—after he grows up.

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