Goblin Mire available for free kindle downloads from 26 - 30th November

Cover art: Joe Young

 My fantasy novel, Goblin Mire, will be available free on kindle from the 26th till the 30th November.
All I ask is that if you download this novel you give consideration to giving it a honest review on amazon afterwards, however brief.
Hope you enjoy it, though.

Kindle:

Amazon.co.uk free

Amazon.com free

Cover art: Joe Young

Free Downloads of Goblin Mire Friday 10th July to Sunday 12th July

My fantasy novel Goblin Mire will be available for free downloads on kindle from tomorrow, Friday, till midnight on Sunday. If anyone who takes up this offer then feels inclined to review it...

 trade paperback:

Amazon.co.uk  £8.99
Amazon.com   $12.00

ebook: 

Amazon.co.uk £1.99 - temporarily free from 10-12th July
Amazon.com $3.01 - temporarily free from 10-12th July

Price reduced for kindle version of Goblin Mire

The price to download kindle copies of my fantasy novel Goblin Mire have been reduced from £2.97 to £1.99 and from $4.50 to $3.01.

trade paperback:

Amazon.co.uk  £8.99
Amazon.com   $12.00

ebook: 

Amazon.co.uk £1.99
Amazon.com $3.01

Goblin Mire reviewed by Simon Ives on the British Fantasy Society website

There's an excellent review of Goblin Mire by Simon Ives on the British Fantasy Society website.

"Had enough of trying to get your brain round the latest sci-fi epic, chockfull of phantasmagoria?  The sort that leaves you, well, frankly confused about what you have just read?  Then jump aboard this roller coaster of a tale, firmly grounded in old style fantasy and primarily told from the viewpoint of goblins and elves."

Click on this - review - to read the full version.

 Trade paperback

Amazon.co.uk  £8.99

Amazon.com   $12.00

Kindle:

Amazon.co.uk £2.97

Amazon.com $4.50

Fifth and final day of free kindle downloads of Goblin Mire

Today is the fifth and final day of free kindle downloads of Goblin Mire.

trade paperback:

Amazon.co.uk  £6.99
Amazon.com   $12.00

ebook: 

Amazon.co.uk £0.00 from February 13th
Amazon.com $0.00 from February 13th

Day 2 of 5 Day Free Kindle Download of Goblin Mire

This is day two of a five-day free download period for my fantasy novel Goblin Mire.

trade paperback:

Amazon.co.uk  £6.99
Amazon.com   $12.00

ebook: 

Amazon.co.uk £0.00 from February 13th
Amazon.com $0.00 from February 13th

• Average Customer Review: Be the first to review this item
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,617 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)
  • #25 in Kindle Store > Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Sword & Sorcery

Day 1 of 5 Day Free Kindle Download of Goblin Mire

This is day one of a five-day free download period for my fantasy novel Goblin Mire.

trade paperback:

Amazon.co.uk  £6.99
Amazon.com   $12.00

ebook: 

Amazon.co.uk £0.00 from February 13th
Amazon.com $0.00 from February 13th

My fantasy novel Goblin Mire will be available free on Kindle for 5 days from Friday 13th February

My fantasy novel Goblin Mire will be available free on Kindle for 5 days from Friday the 13th February. I would add, though, that the trade paperback is a handsome looking book with a lovely wraparound cover by Joe Young - and very reasonably priced. Nudge nudge.

trade paperback:

Amazon.co.uk  £6.99
Amazon.com   $12.00

ebook: 

Amazon.co.uk £0.00 from February 13th
Amazon.com $0.00 from February 13th

Elves, Goblins and... Zombies

Is this the first time zombies have been used in a High Fantasy novel, albeit one which is deliberately earthy?

This is a small section from when this particular menace makes an appearance in Goblin Mire:

"There'll be wealth aplenty fer whoever finds him 'n' brings back his head," Mickle finished, glancing at his audience, most of them already fingering the edges of blades in grim anticipation. "When yer finds him, kill him as quick as yer can cause he's dangerous! Don't play around with him or he'll be doin' the killin' instead.  Kill him quick. Then cut off the bastard's head."

     Torches lit, grinning goblins eagerly set out in groups of twos and threes, some heading through the despoiled streets of the city, while others struck out for the nearest gates, intent on searching the countryside beyond.

     A hundred and four goblins set out, eager to complete their quest.

     These were the first of the host to find what had started in the unquiet dark in the city.

     Weapons clattering, Thurbo Ognash and Ombar Glostwiddle hurried as fast as their short legs would carry them past the plastered, bloodstained walls of the tall houses on their way to the nearest gate. En route they hastened across an open square with a stone fountain in the middle, where elves had regularly held an open market on the broad expanse of cobbles. Now, though, the pleasant square was piled with the bodies of slaughtered elves, ready to be taken and burnt on fires before they decayed. Leaping with ungainly agility across the corpses sprawled about the edge of the square, Thurbo Ognash was startled when a hand gripped his ankle, tripping him before he jerked himself upright again.

     "What're yer up to, yer stupid bastard?" he snarled, angrily grabbing the hilt of his sword before more hands gripped his legs. Cold hands. Hands that were hard and stiff. Hands that gripped so tight they hurt.

     Gulping in terror, Thurbo looked down as the bodies he had been carelessly leaping over a moment before started to move - bodies so badly cut about and chopped at with swords and axes only hours ago that they should have lain where they were till they were burned.

     Thurbo screamed, choking on the vomit that rose in his throat like a mouthful of acid as the bloodless faces of the elves - elf-men, elf-women and even elf-children - moved their heads to stare at him with bulging egg-white eyes. Bodies twisted into ungainly postures, the creatures were starting to climb to their feet, some of them clumsily falling over, yet each of them struggling to stand once more as soon as they fell.

     "Kill ‘em!" Thurbo's companion, Ombar Glostwiddle, shrieked, laying about with a long war-axe. Limbs and heads and bits of bodies flew through the air. "Kill ‘em, Thurbo! Kill ‘em, yer cowardly, cringing swine! KILL ‘em!"

     Too many, though, the dead moved in, their flesh absorbing the blows rained on them.

     Thurbo's face was purple as he choked on the vomit that spilled from his lips. Cold hands closed about his mouth, sealing his lips with icy fingers as he tottered on legs that had lost their strength as he fell in a faint. A faint that would never come to an end.

     "Die! Die, yer bastards! Die!" the less fortunate Ombar cried till dead hands tugged the axe from his grip. Other hands pulled his legs from under him, dragging him to the ground as a tall, pale elf, intestines hanging like a grotesque kilt about its waist, raised the goblin's war-axe high above its head, then brought it down, crushing deep into the goblin's face, spilling brains on the cobbles in a sundered mash which nothing - not even Adragor's sorcery - could call back to a semblance of life.

Trade paperback

Amazon.co.uk  £6.99

Amazon.com   $12.00

Kindle:

Amazon.co.uk £2.97

Amazon.com $4.50

Goblin Mire - temporary price reduction

For the next few weeks my fantasy novel Goblin Mire will be available for £6.99 in the UK and for $12 in the States.

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

A Sample Chapter from Goblin Mire

A sample chapter from Goblin Mire:

Dark shapes moved through the gloom.

            Goblin soldiers muttered, uneasy at the vile smells that wafted towards them as the Corrupted One gathered the goblin captains to the rear of his wagon. Crudely built from massive lengths of timber, its solid wheels had sunk into the muddy ground as it was dragged here days ago, drawn by manacled teams of slaves: maimed ogres, tortured into submission decades ago for work in the mire. Their sightless faces twitched as they crouched in their chains at the front of the wagon, squatting in their own filth like huge maggots.

            Torches burned from sconces fixed to poles in the ground as the goblin leaders watched the Corrupted One work. As he dragged out bodies from the depths of his wagon he laid them across the ground, muttering to himself a high-pitched litany.

            Standing with the rest of the Grand Council, Mickle Gorestab scowled as the air grew cold about him, knowing that this was sorcery of the darkest sort. Beside him, Ograff Bludrip shuffled his feet, his large hands gripping the hilt of his sword for reassurance. Ghosts of the dead elves lying before them seemed to whisper in their ears, while phantom fingers, as cold as ice, plucked at their arms. Mickle's eyes darted from side to side but he could see nothing, though their armed escort, watching from beyond the torchlight, seemed even further away than before. Mickle grunted, knowing they probably were.

            "I wish we had never needed his help," Ograff murmured, his large face sick with nausea.

            Mickle swallowed, though his throat felt dry as he steeled himself as firmly as he could against his fears. Vile though it was, they needed the Corrupted One's help. Without it they would never get past the city’s walls. And he knew - oh, he knew, with a twitching of his hands - that the burning of Cyramon and the wholesale slaughter of its pestilential citizens would be worth all of this.

            The air seemed to thicken, congealing about them. Mickle stared through the flickering, unreal gloom towards the elf. The bodies he had gathered from the slain lay at his feet as he raised his face and glared at the stars - at the harsh stars that burned intensely in the sky. He shrieked suddenly. Mickle involuntarily clamped his hands to his ears in a vain attempt to seal the awful, blood-chilling sound of the Corrupted One's cries from his head. The bodies before him seemed to glow, seemed to spread before his eyes, their outlines shifting and growing softer as if somehow they were starting to melt.

            Fascinated despite the nausea that made him want to be sick, Mickle stared as the elves were transformed from solidity to a liquid, then into a shimmering translucent gas like feeble, enthralled ghosts before the Corrupted One's arms. The shrieking ended and Adragor, exhausted, slumped to his knees, his head bowed onto his chest. As he fell, so the ghosts of the elves dispersed, floating and fading towards the goblins, who flinched away from them, dazed as the shapes disappeared inside them.

            Mickle removed his hands from his ears. It was then that he noticed the change that was taking place in his body - how his fingers were becoming paler and thinner and... elf-like!

            Startled, he turned to Ograff, the shock of what he saw, as his eyes bulged with disbelieving horror, paralyzing his throat.

trade paperback:

Amazon.co.uk  £9.50
Amazon.com   $13.30

ebook: 

Amazon.co.uk £2.97
Amazon.com $4.50

Parallel Universe Publications

Originally created to publish our science fiction/fantasy magazine, Beyond, in 1995, our imprint, Parallel Universe Publications, lay dormant for many years till it was revived in 2012 to publish Craig Herbertson's hardcover story collection The Heaven Maker and Other Gruesome Tales. It was only then that we, Linden and I, discussed the possibility of publishing further books at some time in the near future. We have now published three more books in the past few months: Black Ceremonies by Charles Black, a reprint (for the first time in actual print as opposed to an ebook) of my fantasy novel Goblin Mire, and a trade paperback version of Craig's hardcover short story collection.

In the coming months we have other books planned, including an anthology, Kitchen Sink Gothic.

A Big Thank You to Joe Young

I would like to give a big thank you to Joe Young, without whom I would not have considered republishing Goblin Mire.

After my one and only fantasy novel was originally published by Renaissance eBooks several years ago, I was so discouraged with the appallingly bad cover they slapped on it and by the total lack of help I got from them in promoting the book, I took it off the market as soon as my contract with them allowed. There the novel would have stayed until, out of the blue, Joe Young contacted me. On his own initiative, equally appalled by the original cover, he had designed a new one. His encouragement led me to rewriting the novel, shedding 8 or 9 thousand words and, finally, getting it published again as a trade paperback and ebook with Joe's wraparound cover.

Thanks, Joe. However well (or not) the book does, I am glad that it's properly available again - and this time with the kind of cover I hope it deserves!

Goblin Mire now available on kindle

My fantasy novel, Goblin Mire, is now available on kindle:

Amazon.co.uk £2.97

Amazon.com $4.50

Goblin Mire published by Parallel Universe Publications

Cover Art: Joe Young

Goblin Mire was originally published by Renaissance E-books. I was not very happy with how the book was promoted nor with the appalling cover the publisher gave it, which resulted with me ending my contract with them as soon as I could.

Goblin Mire is now available in trade paperback, published by Parallel Universe Publications. 318 pages long, it is £9.50 in the UK and $13.30 in the US.  European copes are 12. Euros. There is also be a kindle version.

Amazon.co.uk  £9.50

Amazon.com   $13.30


Reviewers can receive copies of this book either by contacting Parallel Universe Publications on Facebook or emailing rileybooks@ntlworld.com.

"Many years have passed since Elves defeated and killed the last Goblin king. Now the Goblins are growing stronger in their mire, and Mickle Gorestab, one of the few remaining veterans of that war, is determined they will fight once more, this time aided by a renegade Elf who has delved into forbidden sorcery and hates his kind even more than his Goblin allies. Murder, treachery and the darkest of all magics follow in a maelstrom of blood, violence and unexpected alliances. Facing up to the cold cruelty of the Elves, Mickle Gorestab stands out as the epitome of grim, barbaric heroism, determined to see the wrongs of his race avenged and a restoration of the Goblin King."

Two new titles to be available from Parallel Universe Publications this month

Two new titles will be available in paperback this month from Parallel Universe Publications: Charles Black's short story collection, Black Ceremonies, and David A. Riley's fantasy novel, Goblin Mire, which was originally published several years ago by Renaissance eBooks.

Cover by Paul Mudie

Cover by Joe Young

Black Ceremonies is168 pages and will cost £6.99 / $11.00 in the US / €9.00 in Europe

Goblin Mire is 318 pages and will cost £9.99 / $15.00 in the US / €12.50 in Europe

Goblin Mire cover

Joe Young has now completed the front and back covers and the spine of Goblin Mire, which will be published later this year. Other than some blurbs, etc., which I'll be adding later, this is the final version.

Goblin Mire has had a checkered history. It was first published by Renaissance eBooks, who gave it one of the worst covers I have ever seen. This was only ever published as an ebook, so its publication by Parallel Universe Publications will see it in hardback and paperback for the first time. I have also thoroughly revised it, shedding about 10,000 words. I intend to bring out an ebook version soon afterwards.


For a comparison, this was the original cover provided by Renaissance eBooks:

Revised cover for Goblin Mire from Joe Young

Joe Young has done some more work on the cover for my fantasy novel Goblin Mire, which was originally published several years ago by Renaissance eBooks. The cover commissioned then was possibly one of the worst ever put on a published book. Because of this and the utter failure of my publisher to help promote the book or even respond to my attempts to promote it myself, I finally withdrew it from them. After revising the text, I am now preparing to republish the book under the Parallel Universe Publications imprint.

Joe voluntarily took on the task of doing a brand new cover for the book. Below is the latest revision.

Goblin Mire - cover update

Artist Joe Young sent me an update on the artwork he's done for the cover of this fantasy novel:

This was the original:

Goblin Mire

This fantasy novel was first published a few years ago by Renaissance E Books with a different cover - a pretty terrible one actually!

I ended my contract with them a while ago, but for some reason the link to buy it through Amazon remained active. Anyway, with the assistance of Jean Marie Stine, that link has finally been ended and I am completely free to have it republished elsewhere.

Although I think the book has a lot of good points, it is overwritten and needs a complete overall with something like 10,000 words taking out of it. Which is what I'll be doing over the course of the rest of this year, making it available again in 2014, probably as both a paperback and an ebook.

Joe Young has kindly provided the above cover.