Who is this guy anyway?

The completion of a project gives a guy a chance to stop and take a deep breath. As the world awaits Tuesday's release of the Myke Phoenix compilation Year of the Dinosaur, I find myself taking a deep breath and contemplating what the bibliography so far means.

Since I was 10 years old and found a copy of Amazing Spider-Man #4 at the old IGA in Milton, Vermont, I have enjoyed superhero stories. Well, even before that - I do remember enjoying a Legion of Super-Heroes story or two before the summer of 1963 - but Spider-Man and Marvel Comics made me a fan. A few years later I heard about a series of 1930s pulp hero reprints of a superhero named Doc Savage, and Cold Death started me on the path that would lead me to Myke Phoenix.

My Myke stories are designed to take you about an hour to read, approximating the comic book experience or perhaps a TV show. Year of the Dinosaur collects the 12 stories I've written in the past year or so, with a bonus short called "A Myke Phoenix Christmas."

I first conceived of Myke when I was a late-30s radio news reporter. I finished four stories and started several others, but the lack of a practical outlet to share them with the world led me to set the project aside. The indie publishing movement provided that outlet, and those earlier stories have been available since 2008 as The Adventures of Myke Phoenix.

But of course, my world view goes beyond the confines of the superhero adventure. (That is not to say we couldn't have a lengthy conversation about the superiority of Marvel's The Avengers to any Superman or Batman movie ever made.)

I've always thought war was stupid, and I've come to think of states as counterproductive to individual human endeavor. That led me to write The Imaginary Revolution, the memoirs of the man who led the planet Sirius IV to independence from Earth and beyond to a commonwealth that had no state government apparatus. As discussion raged over what form of government to establish for the newly free world, protagonist, Ray Kaliber, asked the simple question, "Why do we need a government at all?"

The story is a sequel of sorts, or at least set in the same universe, as The Imaginary Bomb, a space opera perhaps best known as a series of podcasts I voiced in 2006. The universe is based sometime in the future from now, when humanity has discovered how to tap the power of the imagination as an energy source. As too often happens with new technology, someone has considered the implications of weaponized imaginary power, and my interplanetary truck drivers get tangled up in stopping the imaginary bomb before it hurts someone.

I also have a collection of short stories, Wildflower Man, anchored by the story that has gained quite a following in its podcast form, if I may say so. I haven't transferred that book to digital form because, to be honest, I wish it was a little longer. I keep meaning to write a few more short stories to pad it out. One of these days.

I've also collected some of my essays on a couple of themes. Refuse to be Afraid is about empowering yourself to battle through the fears and impulses that keep us from the greatness we could accomplish: Refuse to be afraid. Free yourself. Dream.

And A Scream of Consciousness discusses ways to fight past the distractions of everyday life and concentrate on the needs of this moment, right now. These two books, and the "What I Believe" section of The Imaginary Revolution, probably sum up what I might pretentiously describe as my life philosophy.

So there are seven books, five fiction and two non-fiction, that hopefully will entertain you, perhaps could change your life, and at least will tell you a bit about who this guy is anyway.

If you're reading this on Friday, Nov. 14, 2014, the day I wrote this, you have until tonight to get a free download of Firespiders Unleashed, the pivotal Myke Phoenix story that opens the trilogy that also includes March of the Alien Dead, Claws of Death and Talons of Justice. Yes, it's a four-part trilogy. I blame Hollywood. Or perhaps Douglas Adams.

Starting Saturday I'll be devoting most of my shameless self-promotion to the collection that climaxes with those four stories, Year of the Dinosaur. But I really do like the way the saga ends, so if you want to cut to the chase and save a couple of bucks, buying the individual stories is a pretty good investment.

In any case, those are the motivations that drove the bookshelf of my stuff to date. So now you know.

The daughter of Mychus

Back in the second story in my Myke Phoenix magnum opus that is about to become Year of the Dinosaur, I introduced a father-daughter scientist team, Jacob and Terri Travers, who were based rather obviously on the characters played by Edmund Gwenn and Joan Weldon in the 1954 giant-monster thriller Them! More than one Easter egg await in that original story, Firespiders.

I also inserted a bit of intentionally heavy-handed foreshadowing as we introduced them and Dr. Jacob Travers sang the praises of his brilliant arachnologist daughter:

"Stop it, Dad, he's going to think I'm Wonder Woman or something," his daughter said. (If you think this is not a throwaway line but a foreshadowing of a plot element that I'm tucking away for years from now, you may be right. But it works as a throwaway line, too.)

Here in the ninth episode, Firespiders Unleashed (available through Friday for FREE at Amazon.com - free, free, free, download it now, limited time only, act now!), we get the payoff on that line as we discover Mychus had a daughter.

Mychus, of course, is the ancient warrior with amazing powers whose body Paul Phillips borrows when he goes into action as Myke Phoenix, as the Phoenix and the Soulkeeper of Kiribati have explained over the years. What they never got around to mentioning was that there was another ancient body available in case the forces of evil in the world got too much for one superhero to handle alone.

Dr. Terri Travers would be aghast if I referred to her alter ego as Myke Phoenix's sidekick, but it is safe to say that in Firespiders Unleashed we complete the little team that will work together to combat the great menaces that face Astor City in the concluding episodes of Year of the Dinosaur: March of the Alien Dead, Claws of Death, and Talons of Justice.

I'd love to entertain you with these four stories, and even more so with the entire 12-story arc that will be collected next week, but first things first: Get a taste for the adventure for free this week by downloading Firespiders Unleashed at Amazon.com. We can talk after you finish reading.

What a Year of the Dinosaur it has been

And so it is finished. My 12-story Myke Phoenix series -- quantity-wise the most ambitious writing project I've ever undertaken -- is out there ready to be consumed in small bites or in one ginormous collection.

For those of you who've been waiting for an enticement to get on the Myke Phoenix bandwagon, now through Friday you can sample Firespiders Unleashed, Chapter 9 of the dodecology, for free. My hope, of course, is that you will be sufficiently motivated to jump into chapters 10-12 for a breathtaking 99 cents each, but even if you don't, I hope you'll take advantage of this chance to check it out for nada.

It's all collected in Year of the Dinosaur, which you can pre-order now for download into your Kindle app on Nov. 18. The $4.99 cover price is less than half what you'd pay for all 12 episodes separately, plus you get the short-short story "A Myke Phoenix Christmas" and some other DVD extras. The downside is you have to wait an extra week, and the big finale is here now.

Paul Phillips, Quincy Quackenbos and the denizens of Astor City have been wandering around in my mind for 25 years, and the indie publishing revolution allowed me to bring those early stories to the rest of the world in 2008. It has been a hoot expanding that little universe over the past year or so, and though the wheels fell off my "write a new adventure every month" goal last spring, I did manage to make my "in your Kindle for the Christmas 2014 shopping season" deadline.

The writer breathes a sigh of relief, releases his work to the world, and thinks, what next?

The market will decide if the hints of future fun that I've sprinkled through the denouement of this project are sufficient to warrant another round of Myke Phoenix Adventures. In the meantime I have other things on my mind, stories and projects and observations that have settled on the back burner while I have put Myke and his friends through their paces. I am Ray Bradbury at the beginning of his TV episodes, looking around the cluttered attic to decide what story to tell next.

In the meantime I hope you'll take advantage of this opportunity to sample the Myke Phoenix phenomenon risk-free (ends after Friday, Nov. 14). My whimsical soul believes you'll have a good time, but only you can answer that question. Bon appetit!