The timeline of the Quadrant Universe! (updated March 2018)

It is time. After producing dozens of stories set in one shared universe, I felt it was time to share a timeline of those events. I have tried to limit spoilers as much as possible, but some are necessary to the narrative and must be included. All of the works listed here are available on Smashwords, Amazon and/or Wattpad. If you have any questions, be sure to ask them in the comments below.

75,000,000 B.C.: Mad Maddie recruits a unit of dromaeosaurs to be her new army. (Mad Maddie.)

1817 May: Lester Champion and Montgomery Rivers found River City.

1838 October: Montgomery Rivers is murdered by order of Jedidiah Finch, who takes control of the burgeoning River City.

1844 February: The monster created by Victor Frankenstein stumbles upon a mysterious monastery. They help him find a semblance of peace and a name: Caine. (The Monastery: Not a Monster.)

1862 September: After Jedidiah Finch is murdered by segregationists, his daughter Esther leads a group of women known as Finch’s Fury in the wholesale killing of every man involved with the crime.

1865 December: An unknown scientist implants brain matter from Abraham Lincoln into a mountain gorilla he names Aperaham. (Ape Lincoln.)

1885 August: The mysterious Hawks gathers a  group of Western heroes: the mysterious Hawks, Bin Yang (known to most as Yin Yang), Firehair, American Eagle, Bat Masterson, Billy the Kid, Black Phantom, the Cisco Kid, Pecos Bill, Presto Kid, Redmask, the White Rider and Virgil & Wyatt Earp. Together they face down their generation’s incarnation of The Wild Hunt, though at the cost of the lives of Redmask and Eagle. (The Wild Hunt.)

1898: The Murphy Mob forms under the leadership of “Happy” Harry Murphy.

1908 June: In the wake of the explosion in Tunguska, Citrine and Doctor Cosmic travel to the site. Their investigation uncovers a newborn metahuman whose birth caused the event. They take the child to St. Louis, Missouri, to leave him in the care of William and Maude Carson. (Citrine in Tunguska.)

1909 February: His family murdered, newsman Silas Fitzpatrick has his throat slit and his body dumped in the river by the Murphy mob. He survives with the aid of Dr. Koga, though his vocal cords are irreparably damaged. Koga trains him in the martial arts and he starts to interrupt Happy Harry’s criminal enterprises first as Silence Dogood and later as Silent Silas.

1915 August: After discovering Harry’s hideout with the aide of Meredith Mann, Silent Silas and Happy Harry face off on Harry’s riverboat headquarters. Both die in the explosion that sinks the riverboat into the harbor.

1921: With the rise of crime in the wake of Prohibition, Merry Mann takes justice into her own hands and forms a team of vigilantes that all serve as the masked crimefighter The Hood.

1934: The Regal Hand of Gold and his Ten Fingers organization quickly take over the River City underworld. They hunt down, torture and murder the Hoods.

1935-?: Richard Irons becomes Federation’s first costumed defender, the non-powered Pugilist.

1937 March: Diamondstone the Magician and Absalom encounter the supremacist group turned cult The White Light and break up a local organization, unaware of the group’s wider membership. (The New Adventures of Diamondstone the Magician, “The White Light.”)

1937 August: Armless O’Neil serves aboard the Heart as it travels into Africa at the behest of Harold Prynne. There it discovers the legendary Palladium, an artifact that protects an army—or a ship—from attack. O’Neil helps the Heart and Harold’s daughter Genevieve escape from a Nazi strike force and Mahdist rebels by using the Palladium’s power. (Blood Price of the Missionary’s Gold, “The Palladium.”)

Cover copyright
Pro Se Press.

1938 February: In one of his earliest adventures, Thunder Jim Wade, Red Argyle and Dirk Marat team with marine biologist Doris Nixson to investigate the disappearance of the Seaspray. They uncover an army of shark-men led by Tidakada, an aging sub-mariner kept alive by a suit of armor. (The New Adventures of Thunder Jim Wade, “The Invisible Pirates.”)

1939 February: The individual that would become Mister Haunt is trained in mystic arts from a young age. (Mister Haunt: Out of the Shadows.)

1941 April: The Regal Hand of Gold ends the threats of the Hood against his organization, as he kills Merry Mann himself, by burying one of his golden daggers in her back.

1941 August: Merry Mann’s estranged daughter Gloria Travers returns to the city to find her mother’s killer. Alongside the secret agent known as X, they brought down the Regal Hand’s operation, though the criminal fled to Asia. X recruited Gloria into the Pacific theater special operations force known as the Rangers of Freedom.

1942 January: Albrecht Stein succeeds in creating an artificial man to serve as the hero of the United States, but died before the man could awake at the hands of attacking Fifth Columnists. His son Andy consumes part of the same formula that created the artifical man. Together they become the city’s new defenders Yankee Doodle Jones and Dandy. Under the auspices of spymaster Uncle Sam, they battle an organized Fifth Column known as MEDUSA.

1943 July: Dandy, annoyed by the increasing paranoia of Yankee Doddle Jones, leaves River City to work full time as part of the Young Americans with Johnny Rebel and Yankee Boy.

1944 April: Deciding the entire government of River City were MEDUSA agents, Yankee Doodle Jones removed them from office and took control of the city. The other local superheroes The Enchanted Dagger, The Echo, The Dragon and the visiting Californian hero Barry Kuda worked together to stop Jones, but the resulting explosion damaged much of City Hall and left the Dagger and Echo dead alongside Jones.

1944 October: A time lost Cent Bryant meets Raymond Gunn, the Golden Age Lightweight. Alongside several heroes including Ape Lincoln, they battle Boss Cross and keep him from using future tech to take control of the country. (Lightweight: Beyond.)

1944 November: Pilot Jacob Redhawk Moore returned from the Pacific theater and aligned himself with crime boss Duke Angelosetti. He quickly manipulated the Duke and helped him take control of the entire city.

1946 June: Jane Dodge crashes her plane in the African jungle. Rescued by the witch doctor Tembo, she transforms from a normal pilot into the Jungle Goddess known as Rulah. (“The Rise of Rulah.”)

1949 January: Duke Angelosetti dies of an apparent heart attack brought on by a drug given to him by Redhawk. Redhawk takes complete control of River City’s underworld.

1950 April: Reporter Gail Porter is targeted for death by Redhawk after seeing an execution carried out by Redhawk and his men. She seeks the aid of private investigator Jonathan Jones, nicknamed the Crime Crusader, to keep her alive. The teenage vigilante Tomboy helps them escape death at the hands of corrupt police. She leads them to Redhawk’s penthouse home. Jones and Redhawk ultimately tumbled from a twentieth story window, both dying to end Redhawk’s reign of terror.

1950 August: Transformed into a werecat by a mysterious witch known as Lizette, Nita Dell fakes her death and uses her powers to unite the warring gangs under her leadership. Her werewolf henchman Brett Hannigan serves as a front to her operation.

1954: Keith Spencer is transformed into the atomic hero Captain Flash. He uses his powers to battle criminals, even as Nita Dell sends costumed villains after him. He would defeat all of them, but Nita seduced him. On a Christmas holiday retreat in Colorado, she slit his throat and abandoned his body in a remote area.  

1954 May: Mister Haunt encounters an old training partner turned killer, Nikola. (Mister Haunt: Out of the Shadows.)

1955 - 1963: Tired of being treated as a lesser being, Ape Lincoln embarks on a life of crime. He’s finally captured by the first incarnation of the Defenders of Democracy. (Ape Lincoln.)
1956: Trapeze artist Lulabelle Rose Jensen barely escapes with her life from a cultist of Tiamat. (Big Top Tales, "Deadly Triangle.")

1962 April: Will Walden stumbles on an experiment that activates his powers. Shortly after he discovers the flying saucer and dubs himself UFO. With the help of the Challenge Squad, he defeats Stonecold before he can destroy the city of Federation. (UFO: A Timeline Story.)

1963 May: Davy Daniels first encounters Jackson Landon, the Atomic Werewolf. He helps the Werewolf escape his government pursuers and begins to journey with the monster and man. (The Atomic Werewolf.)

1964 - 1971: Daniel Barnes serves as an agent for Project Stargate, a black ops unit of the CIA focused on individuals with psychic abilities.

1966 May: The Challenge Squad first meet the Westar Kid. They join forces with the space cowboy to prevent the alien destroyer known as the Manchurian from destroying the Earth. (The Arrival: A Timeline Story.)

1967 February - May: Freed from prison, Ape Lincoln costars in the film Rulah, Jungle Goddess, but pulls his name off the film in disgust before its release. (Ape Lincoln.)

1967 July: The anti-war movement causes divisiveness in the ranks of the Defenders of Democracy, but they are manipulated even more by the arrival of the goddess Aphrodite. (Summer of Love.)

1971 November: Under the alias of Dan Cooper, Barnes hijacks a 727 and extorts money from the government before parachuting out over Washington state. He immediately went into hiding.  

Art by Nik Poliwko.

1982 March: Airboy is freed from the Airtomb, where he’s been entrapped but still alive for decades. Saves Japan. (Pulpsploitation, “Airboy: Time Enough For Love.”)

1982 April: Rasputin pays a visit to Coop in Key West and warns him of the return of an old threat. Coop battles Romero and barely escapes with his life. (The Good Fight 2: Villains, “The Second Life of D.B. Cooper.”)

1983 May: Ape Lincoln joins the Defenders of Democracy. (Ape Lincoln.)

1982 October: Coop is forced to team with the assassin Valentina to transport the remains of The Heap across Miami. Airboy arrives to retrieve them.  (Legends of New Pulp Fiction, “Miami Heist.”)

1988 August: The American Arsenal breaks his government programming while hunting down the criminal enterprise of the villain known as Second Coming. (The American Arsenal.)

1990 January: Months after the Defenders of Democracy split, Ape Lincoln is given official American citizenship and named special advisor to George H.W. Bush’s Department of Metahuman Affairs. (Ape Lincoln.)

1992 July: Ape Lincoln opens technology innovation firm GorillaTech (Ape Lincoln.)

1998 June: Still only 14, Therese Waters’ metagene activation leads her to become a metahero for the city of Detroit, Go Girl.

1998 July: Kanu Ashanti meets the entity known as Veldt after discovering a village in his home country of Axion were murdered. She leaves him to discover the mystic spear and become Sagai. He uses his new weapon and powers to hunt down and kill the marauders before they reached Axion’s capital of Zimba Wei. (The Spear.)

1999 October: Karate Keith Morgan dies while rescuing four young boys from a horrible testing facility. His essence is combined with an alien entity in order to escape. The hybrid Keith raises the boys in his partially disabled starship buried beneath the Mississippi River. (Quadrant 1: The Hidden Demon.)

2001 September: Freedom Patton inherits the American Legacy. His life in Illinois is ruined by the thousands of dead souls speaking constantly to him. He travels to New York in hope of finding answers. (A Dangerous Place to Live.)

2002 January-February: Arriving as a vagrant in New York, Freedom Patton stumbles into a relationship with social worker Iniri Granatella. After rescuing exotic dancers Eriko and Renet from Vin’s hit squad, he has a one night stand with both. They’re attacked by Vin again later and Eriko is killed before Freedom stops Vin once and for all. Able to read his guilt with her psychic abilities, Iniri kicks Freedom out. Freedom starts back on his travels of the streets of America. (A Dangerous Place to Live.)

2002 July: The hero Legend first becomes active as the true defender of Federation.

2004 January: After learning she was seven weeks pregnant with her new husband Jake Brooks’s son, Go Girl retires and leaves Baltimore in the charge of The Constellation, a new hero. She gives birth to Jaden three months later, the pregnancy sped up by her powers.

2004 April: Jenny Evers-Werth meets an alternate version of herself, that reveals her shifting powers. Dubbing herself Jenny Everywhere she starts shifting between dimensions and times. (Jenny Everywhere: Past Prologue.)

2005 July: During a party on an alternate Earth, Jenny Everywhere comes under an attack by a massive troll. While shifting it away, she stumbles on to the alternate realm of Anywhere, where she is arrested. (Troll-Hunted: A Jenny Everywhere Story.)

2008 April: The lost 40s era meta-heroes nicknamed The Living Legends by the press appear in the middle of Times Square during a live performance by the pop star Leila. They are quickly taken into custody by ACTION and helped to return to life in the 21st century. (Living Legends: Old Soldiers.)

2008 October: Daredevil is discovered in Riccapoor. After decades of torture at the hands of The Claw, he renames himself The Coward. (Living Legends: Old Soldiers.)

2010 June: The small community of Hunter, Texas, is transported into an alternate dimension. (The Road to Tornado Town.)

2010 October: John Sprouse merges with a sentient alien biosuit and becomes Cyber.

2011 February: After his girlfriend Lisbeth tells him she’s pregnant, Cyber rushes off and encounters Fever, another biosuit-hybrid. The biosuits encourage the two to mate, a decision Cyber soon comes to regret when he learns Fever is a dangerous criminal. (F.O.R.C.E. 4: Cyber.)

2011 April: Fiona Hazzard inherits the name of the Domino Lady as she uses her traceur skills to uncover the identity of her parents’ murderer. (Modern Pulp Heroes, “Domino Reborn.”)

2012 May: Nicholette Burton inherits the Doc Tesla name after the death of her father Stanislaw Tesla. She battles and destroys the invading Alvatron robot. (F.O.R.C.E. 2: Doc Tesla.)

2012 May: Following the death of The Constellation at the hands of Max Power, Go Girl dons her costume again to defeat Max Power. She continues as an adventurer part-time for several months until recruited by F.O.R.C.E. (F.O.R.C.E. 3: Go Girl.)

2012 October: After leaving Federation in the wake of Supergeneration’s criminal ties being revealed, Freedom Patton stumbles into hunting down the young Annabelle Montalvo in small town Iowa. He encounters ex-girlfriend Iniri Granatella and together they stop a planned secession led by Atlas. (A Dangerous Place to Live.)

2012 November: In the wake of Powerhouse’s defeat and Backoff’s death, Legend rethinks his career until he meets Looker. (F.O.R.C.E. 1: Legend.)

2013 January-May: Athena rebuilds the Epsilon team in the wake of the near destruction of Seaside City. They face down the machinations of Rubicon, ACTION, Nephthys and betrayal from within. (Epsilon.)

2013 June: Artemis awakens in the Nevada desert after over a thousand years’ rest. She encounters and battles the disfigured Adonis, a man that hates the gods’ fickle ways. (Modern Gods: “Deserted.”) Along with her vassal Kimani, she travels to Las Vegas to confront Adonis’ boss, but he’s already left the city. She learns of his plans however when her new recruit Naomi leads her to the disguised god Ploutus. (Modern Gods II: “What Happens in Vegas.”)

2013 April: During an attempt to steal a time machine at the EAGLE storage facility The Hole, Mad Maddie escapes Ebony Edwards with the device but is sent millions of years into the past. (Mad Maddie.)

2013 September: In the wake of the Long Hot Summer, Legend leads F.O.R.C.E. in its first official mission against Thun-Dar the Living Hurricane. (F.O.R.C.E. 1: Legend.)

2013 October: Donna McAvoy is exposed to an experimental vampire blood formula. It transforms her into a vampire hybrid. She takes the costumed name Dracula after a battle with the Man in Black that created her. (Horror Heroes, “Dracula: Half-Life.”)

-Doc Tesla leads a F.O.R.C.E. unit to the Seaside Island of Sacagawea as they confront a dangerous metahuman setting off alphium deposits as major explosions. (F.O.R.C.E. 2: Doc Tesla.)

2014 January: With dead things rising up from the sewers of New York City during an unseasonably warm week, Go Girl and new F.O.R.C.E. recruit Pegasus encounter and barely survive a battle with Lord Hex. (F.O.R.C.E. 3: Go Girl.)

2014 February: Marie Malis, The Editor, kills a crime boss known for his ties to human trafficking. (The Editor.)

2014 March: Ophidian arrives on Earth and is put in F.O.R.C.E.’s care. Fever infiltrates F.O.R.C.E. Headquarters the same night along with a strike force of Sirian troops. Ophidian aids Cyber in defeating the dangerous aliens, but Cyber lets Fever go when she reveals the existence of his son. (F.O.R.C.E. 4: Cyber.)

Art by Brent Sprecher.

2014 September: Kevin Mathis becomes the costumed hero Lightweight. Over the next several months he learns to use his gravity powers in battle and meets his future girlfriend, Howl. (Lightweight: Senior Year)

-The unit known as Quadrant first goes public to rescue Emma Briscoe from the ninja organization known as Hidden Demon (Quadrant: Attack of the Demon.)

-Ian Page escapes from a GENESIS facility. He gathers up other metahumans on the group’s watchlist. Together they battle Doppelganger and continue a loose affiliation over the days and weeks ahead. (Walking Shadows Book One.)

2014 October: Cyrus Kanakarides and Marilyn are kidnapped by Melinoe and brought to be judged by the gods Pluto and Persephone. Garrett “Stomp” Vos apparently dies saving civilians during the explosion at Whitey’s. (Walking Shadows Book Two.)

-In search of answers about the Hidden Demon’s true loyalties, Cinder travels to New York. Lucien Moon is killed before he can be questioned, but alongside Vijaya Kulkarni, heir to the Gandiva, they stop the assassin Shadow Fire before he can escape. (Quadrant 2: Life in the Big City.)

2014 November: Kodiak travels to Islington, a ciudad máscara, on the border of Texas and Mexico. He encounters the legendary hero Jaguar Maximo, Furia and Asesino Azteca. Together they battle an infestation of Deep Ones under the control of Pisces. (Quadrant 3: The Creeping Horror from South of the Border.)

2015 February: While investigating a figure with ties to their origins, Quadrant and the entire city suddenly pause in time. Only Enigma escapes the time-stop. After a brief visit to the mysterious entity known as Veldt, he uses his psychic powers to stop Tempus Dux from destroying the city. (Quadrant 4: The Future Shock.)

2015 April: Ape Lincoln is pulled back into adventures when he’s attacked by the Sons of Booth during a TED Talk. (Ape Lincoln.)

2015 May: After months embroiled in the conflict between the Eloi and the Morlocks, Lightweight apparently dies in the destruction of both units. (Lightweight: Black Death)

2015 June: Lynda Adams meets Ben Browning at Arnold Cove. Their whirlwind romance is complicated by the ancient scientist Akhenaten as he seeks to dissect Ben for his unique Deep One hybrid heritage. (Horror Heroes 2, “The Beach House.”)

2015 May-?: Lost on the alien world of Nill, Kevin Mathis scrambles to survive among warring alien factions. (Lightweight: Beyond.)

2015 October: While investigating Lightweight’s disappearance, Millicent Bryant and a new Lightweight encounter a revived Carolyn Bates. Cent is transported into the past while the new Lightweight is captured. (Lightweight: Beyond.)

2017 April: Kazuhiro Kojima meets Loli and first gets the mystic weapons he uses to defend Neo-Tokyo from kumori. (I Was a Teenage Metahuman, “Neo-Tokyo Twin: Kaz’s Story.”)
2017 November: Annabelle Montalvo, now a college student, meets a revived Backoff. They join forces to battle the Steel Master. (The Good Fight 3: Sidekicks, "Heroes Don't Retire.")

Work-in-progress Wednesday: September 2016

And look, Metahuman Press got itself a new logo
over the weekend! Woohoo!

It's been an interesting couple of weeks. I've been busy with the day job, which will only get busier in the next couple weeks. Because of this, most of my time has been devoted to editing. I have been prepping the last few chapters of F.O.R.C.E. while also trying to wrap up another anthology in the wings. I'm hoping to have both out in the next to two months, and those will wrap my releases for the year 2016.

Work is continuing on Walking Shadows as always. I am working towards the end of Book Three now. Most likely that end will bring a hiatus for the serial, but that hiatus might also come with the debut of a new weekly serial in 2017, though I'm not going to share details on that quite yet.

Plans for the next few weeks are to wrap the current edits, write the final chapter of F.O.R.C.E. before it gets a name change (more on that in November) and hopefully wrap the last few pages of that current Walking Shadows volume. Of course with 50 hour work weeks ahead of me for the next month, we will see if I can actually succeed in making that happen.

Time is never a strong commodity around these parts!

Wish me luck!

Support Super Powered Fiction on Patreon!

Patreon may be the most important platform of our time. It allows for immediate support of creative minds. Usually it comes with exclusive content by said creator. A number of great creators survive through Patreon: whether they be comic creators, musicians, photographers or some kind of multimedia pioneer.

Others are like me, and seek out patrons that might help Super Powered Fiction become a full time reality as a writer. I want to continue to have the time to produce all the great stories I currently have in various states of reality. Many will start appearing in just a few weeks, but I would love to devote more and more time to this site and my writing in 2017 and beyond. 

I am serious about this. I have grand plans to expand Walking Shadows and Lightweight should the fund-raising become more successful. I have eleven goals listed on the site should monthly funds continue to rise. They range from a dedicated domain name for Walking Shadows to paid spot art to the debut of a book tentatively titled Cosmic! as a second web serial. Higher tiers would turn Lightweight into an online for everyone serial as well, gain Walking Shadows a devoted server and beyond. I've actually crafted several more goals should I ever reach that elusive final mark. 

I'm a long way from there at Patreon.

I've got exclusive content over there though. As I'll talk about when the newsletter hits in a couple days, I plan to expand a ton of creative force in the next few months on creating new and interesting ideas, even as I expand upon Walking Shadows, Lightweight and F.O.R.C.E. 

You can help. As little as a dollar a month will get you access to the hidden blog which contains hidden content related to Walking Shadows as well as behind the scene details of the book's corner of the Quadrant Universe. Higher pledges can get you ebooks, website links and advertisements on site. 

If you have ever enjoyed any of my work, the Patreon is now the first and best place to access more of it. Give it a look and please if you can, consider a patronage. Only with your help can creatives like mine move onto the next level of great work in the year's ahead. 

Reminder: Get your Super Powered Fiction Bundle today!

Just a reminder that the Super Powered Fiction Bundle remains available until August 31st. While the finances of the Ahlhelm family are in better shape than they were in late June and July, we still have a long way to go. Fans can now pick up over two dozen novels and short stories at a low price with ease as we continue to make an effort to raise more money to keep things on the upswing.

All you have to do to pick up a copy is donate at least $20 to the GoFundMe. I'll send a link to the books within a day. Click the button below to donate.

Help needed, books given! Introducing the Super Powered Fiction Bundle!

I am going to be honest. My family is still anything but financially well. While many folks have been incredibly generous, we still have a lot of bills waiting to be paid. In fact, while we sit at over 75% of our goal on the GoFundMe, the initial goal is at least $500 short of what we really need at this point.

So I'm going to sweeten the deal. Everyone that donates at least $20 will now get what I am calling the Super Powered Fiction Bundle. It contains all six of my published novels as well as an additional fifteen short stories, including the debut stories of both F.O.R.C.E. and Quadrant, all in the format of your choice. You can find the complete list at the bottom of this post.

All you have to do to pick up a copy is donate at least $20 to the GoFundMe. I'll send a link to the books within a day. Click the button below to donate.

River City History returns to Walking Shadows

A new River City History takes the stage at Walking Shadows today. Give it a look and consider supporting the Patreon for the project as well.

Prepare for the secret origin of Marilyn in today's Walking Shadows!

After months of building up to the revelation of Marilyn's very nature, it all comes to a head this week over at my serialized novel, Walking Shadows. 

Marilyn takes a trip into her past, but it is also a trip into the 50s era Then segments we've been seeing for months. What happened to Meredith Munro and what is her relationship to Marilyn? Find out as Chapter 21 kicks off today!

Head over to Walking Shadows and read today's chapter!

Or go back to the beginning and check out the whole saga!

Melinoe is back in a new chapter of Walking Shadows!

Book Three of Walking Shadows continues today as Melinoe again takes the lead. The goddess turned exotic dancer is at the center of a killing spree as the chapter starts, and things start to go bad for her very quickly.

Every page of Walking Shadows is available online to read, and Melinoe is only one of a diverse set of characters. Check out the new chapter today or start from the beginning!

Rosa takes the lead in today's Walking Shadows!

Rosa by Brian Middleton.

A new chapter of Walking Shadows is now up! Rosa has been wrapped up with Keith as she tries to make it through the recent death of her closest friend in River City. Having accepted an invitation to the adult club Lumber Jacks, Rosa is in for an experience unlike anything she's seen before!

Today's chapter kicks off more with Rosa, Keith and Melinoe as much of the setup from previous chapters finally leads to major action in the days ahead!

As always all of Walking Shadows Book Three and the previous two volumes are available for your reading pleasure on the Walking Shadows site.

Walking Shadows and Super Powered Fiction - now on Patreon!

Walking Shadows is a passion project of mine. The six young heroes I've created in the series have tons of importance to me and I still have a lot of story to tell about them. But unfortunately, I only have so much time and because of that I need to ask fans to show their support for the site.

It doesn't take much to keep the site alive in its current form, but it is still not free. Because of that, Patreon is the sensible solution to allow fans to directly support Walking Shadows. Every supporter gets bonus content through the Patreon every month. Higher levels unlock digital copies of Lightweight, access to the entire Metahuman Press digital library and even print editions of Metahuman Press titles. Patreon is the go-to source to get every ounce of new Quadrant Universe and Metahuman Press content.

The cool thing about Patreon is that the more backing I get, the more access I have to adding cool features to the site, from a dedicated domain name to new serials to even the return of the SuperPowerCast podcast.

The full details on backing levels and unlockable goals can be found on the Patreon page.

To be clear, Walking Shadows will continue for free for months to come, available from the beginning for anyone and everyone to read online. But fans of the serial and of Super Powered Fiction can now directly support what this site is all about: great super powered fiction.

Thanks in advance to everyone that takes the plunge.

Progress report for the end of October 2015

It's been awhile since I have updated folks reading this on what I am working on while I am also posting all these lovely blog entries. Considering the Kickstarter just funded a few short weeks ago, it should be no surprise I am working hard on Lightweight: Beyond.

While I am still working on the second chapter of that book, it is now a much longer chapter than in my previous plans. Since the second and third books for the next year failed to fund as part of the campaign, I actually changed my plans for where to leave off with Lightweight's third adventure to give a more satisfying conclusion to the readers. Without saying too much, this means I will actually be writing longer chapters for the second and third ones I originally planned to conclude Lightweight: Beyond. I will also add two more chapters after that in order to give a satisfying conclusion to Millie's time travel adventure and Kevin's battle to survive on Nill.

My current plan is to finish the bottom three quarters of Lightweight: Beyond as my NaNoWriMo project, coupled with the new ending I have planned for the Vengeance saga as mentioned a couple days ago. The two books will actually have a chapter that links the two corners of the Quadrant Universe as Vengeance's tale will find him leaving his home turf of New Salem for Lightweight's city of Federation. This should form some interesting connective tissue for folks interested in both books.

As I prep for NaNoWriMo, I am also hard at work at building a larger buffer for my online serial Walking Shadows. Regular readers know we moved into a bit more eerie territory in Hallo-week as Marilyn and Cyrus found themselves visited by strange shades. Today, the Casting Call feature debuted, featuring my thoughts on who would make a great Ian Page should a Walking Shadows movie ever be made.

Future chapters will develop Ian and Phoebe's friendship, reveal Kaihime's history and mission and introduce a new pair of super-villains to trouble our cast. I have more exciting news about Walking Shadows in the days ahead, so stay tuned for details on that in the near future.

The Spirit Cop takes charge in today's Walking Shadows

The always beautiful Finch
Linden inspired Alli's last name.
Image credit: Aaron Durand.

A new (albeit shorter) chapter takes off again over at Walking Shadows this time centering around our resident Spirit Cop, Alli Finch. She's still stuck towing around the mysterious Kaihime who is being none too forthcoming about her origins as they seek out the rest of the crew.

One of my goals when I created the initial six members of the Walking Shadows cast was to give them all different powers and origins. In the process, Alli turned out to be the one that doesn't really have super powers at all, just a deep connection to the mystic. She can communicate with ghosts and see into their realm on occasion. It is a power I have only used sparingly in previous chapters of Walking Shadows, but it will come into greater play as Book Three continues. The mysteries surrounding the cast will take a decidedly supernatural twist as the back stories of two more of our cast come out in the weeks ahead.

I conceived of my Spirit Cop long before an all female Ghostbusters reboot was announced, but now she seems almost obvious. But Alli was also my take on a fully realized female lead able to stand on her own far more than the much more vulnerable Marilyn or Rosa. Inspired by a handful of punky females I have met over the years, her last name came from the gorgeous model Finch Linden, just one of several beautiful women that inspired my creation of Alli. I am sure I will cover several more in the weeks ahead, especially as I debut the Casting Call feature on Walking Shadows in the near future.

So go check out Alli at Walking Shadows, or if you haven't been reading, go back to the beginning and get started on the entire saga.

Sex and Violence in Super Powered Fiction

Today I wanted to write something on the two big subjects of modern genre literature. I am of course talking about sex and violence, two factors that play a weird twisted pattern in modern English writing.

Most people pretty much consider it impossible to write super powered fiction without the second half of that equation, although not impossible. Big powers often imply slugfests between two super powered beings. But characters with powers could just use those powers for the common good. Or even their own self interest. Even with two or more characters with powers, no one says they should have to get into great big fights. Walter Mosley’s Blue Light fits the bill perfectly for this. While the book does not shy away from uncomfortable situations (including murder) it is not built around the kind of battle one expects when they know a story has super-powers.

Sex on the other hand often seems taboo in modern super powered fiction. Obviously most modern Marvel & DC superhero comics run on a strange system where they aim for a PG-13 style rating scheme for their titles. Rarely do they feature more than the hint of sex. Prose super powered fiction often follows this lead. I certainly do with my Lightweight series of serialized stories. Numerous other tales both large and small press seem to aim for that same level. But the history of the super powered prose space makes that a strange choice.

So much of super powered prose stems from George R. R. Martin’s Wild Cards series. From the first book, authors like Lewis Shiner and Stephen Leigh introduced sexually explicit content into their tales. In many ways Wild Cards is the godfather of all super powered prose, yet still so many titles shy away from its lead. Meanwhile the ever-growing urban fantasy field often dives head-long into explicit storytelling.

I am by no means saying that anyone writing super powered prose should immediately add an explicit sex scene to their stories. But I do think that if we are acceptable to extremes of violence, we should also not be afraid of writing sex as well.

My web serial Walking Shadows has shown several of its leads in sexual situations and will continue to do so. The series was built around the concept of following the lives of young men and women with powers that do not want to be heroes. And when you right about young adults, sex will come into play.

Let’s not be afraid of it.

Today’s image is from issue two of Peter David & George Perez’s Sachs & Violens, simply because I enjoy name puns.

Reblogged from the classic site.

Melinoe takes over Walking Shadows today!

Image copyright
Renato Caria.

The goddess of nightmares made her first appearance in Walking Shadows Book Two, but as Book Three got under way she was forced into a life among mortals. Today for the first time she takes center stage as one of the main cast members.

Melinoe is a fascinating figure from Roman mythology with incredibly little written about her. She appears in one text from one mysterious religion, but is the daughter of Persephone by her own father Zeus (because Greek/Roman gods are odd like that.) While her mother was cursed with damage to her flesh for the transgression of becoming pregnant, it is often Melinoe that is displayed as having half her skin corrupted or turned black, as in the amazing accompanying image by Renato Caria.

While my take on Melinoe has yet to display the visible duality of her nature, the mix of Olympus and Hades that is his birthright, she's certainly a character with light and dark sides. Her dark side was quite visible in Book Two, but how much light she shows in Book Three remains to be seen.

Check out the new chapter of Walking Shadows today for Melinoe’s solo debut.

Learn more about the Walking Shadows through ICONS!

I am a big fan of the ICONS superhero role playing game. So when I set out to give biographies to the cast of Walking Shadows, I decided it was the system I used to present my characters to the world.

As I write this, all six of the initial cast members of Walking Shadows are now up at the site. Fans can learn about Rosa, Marilyn, Alli, Cyrus, Stomp and Ian at the ICONS Profile page. It also conveniently gives me an excuse to post public domain pictures of Marilyn’s namesake or to show the great shot of Rosa by Brian Middleton.

So if you have yet to give Walking Shadows a shot, get in on the ground floor by learning a bit more about its leads!