The Good Fight returns... to the past!

I've proudly been a member of the Pen and Cape Society for several years now as the group of superhero fiction writers have put together four great anthologies and worked together in all kinds of unique and fun ways. Now the fine folks at Local Hero Press have prepped the fifth edition of our shared anthology series The Good Fight and this one takes us back a few years. Previous themes have wrapped around villains, "the homefront" (supporting cast) and sidekicks. This time around, the series goes back a few years as the focus turns to "The Golden Age."

Twelve writers answered the call for new stories of World War II superheroes, pulp age adventurers and everything in between. For those that have followed my previous The Good Fight contributions, you know that I like to make my focus a new tale in my "The Second Life of D.B. Cooper" series of short stories.

How do I place a story about the later life of a 70s era plane hijackers into a thirties era setting? I will reveal that in a couple more weeks, but be reassured that the story's title does start with "The Second Life of."

And I'm not alone. I have a mega-talented eleven other creators in this book with me: Leonard Apa, Stephen T. Brophy, David Court, Jeff Deischer, Adrienne Dellwo, Psychopomp Gecko, Ian Thomas Healy, James Hudnall, T. Mike McCurley, Scott A. Story, and Tom Warin! If you're interested in supporting great new fiction, be sure to head over to Amazon or Smashwords and pre-order your copy! The book launches on April 30!

A few words on the origins of Dino Force

Dino Force started as a concept among dozens of others I came up with as a teenager. I can trace that earliest incarnations' origins to my frustration with the kind of kids shows currently running on television right around my fifteenth birthday. I looked at shows like Power Rangers and Captain Planet, or even older fare at that time like Voltron and the Mighty Orbots with frustration. Here were great concepts at their heart that were filtered by awful children's television standards into claptrap that at best was mindless and at worst talked to its young viewers like morons. It always annoyed me as a child and it annoyed me even more as a teen. So I created a team of five young heroes with the idea they would fill the holes I saw in all those concepts.

I created a reason for their powers, a brief back history and even the saurid threat the initial team would face. But I never set out to really plot their adventures.

Fast forward twenty years. While going through old files and putting together some of the background material for Quadrant, I stumbled upon the old micro-plots I made for the "issues" of Dino Force I wanted to create. I dusted them off, and thought back to all the Godzilla, Ultraman and Super Sentai stuff I'd seen since, even later Power Rangers shows I enjoyed like Dino Thunder and In Space. I realized in those plot points, I had something that might be interesting to develop as a shared world anthology.

Super Kaiju Battle Squadron Dino Force was born. I recruited five other writers to help bring the concept of an international contingent of young heroes coming together to save the world. Two later dropped away from the project and I moved my prologues and epilogues into forming the tale of the team's leader rather than a sixth member. I then took up Dino Green's story in Brazil as well, setting up a full contingent of warriors by the book's end. Along with T. Mike McCurley, Don Gates and Travis Hiltz, we created a novel length anthology introducing our characters to the world.

That anthology is now funding on Kickstarter.

This is one of those weird ideas that came from a place of love and I hope you'll join me in helping making it a reality.

Get your copy of The Good Fight 3: Sidekicks!

I talked about my contributions to the new Pen & Cape Society anthology a couple weeks back. It is now available on Amazon and Smashwords, so go get yourself a copy already!

It features my Annabelle Montalvo / Backoff story, plus new stuff by Samantha Bryant, Stephen T. Brophy, Marion G. Harmon, Ian Thomas Healy,
Michael Ivan Lowell, Landon Porter, Jim Zoetewey and Metahuman Press contributors T. Mike McCurley & Caine Dorr

Kickstart Lightweight 3: How you can help!

The last week has been very weak for supporters on the Lightweight: Beyond Kickstarter. We still are sitting at under 50%, not far from where we were a weak ago.

I am not giving up hope though. I recently did an interview with T. Mike McCurley to talk about the project. Feel free to share the interview around your social media.

I have started to go directly to previous backers to make sure they are aware of the project, but I would appreciate every share on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Tumblr or wherever. The more expansive the range of views on the project, the better we can do funding wise.

If you have any questions or concerns about the project, please let me know. Thanks for your support and let's make Lightweight: Beyond happen!