Kindle Giveaway — April 10, 11, 12

It’s all set up now! The previous 3 books (and the Christmas Story) in the Raven of Iskandar Series and the short story book (which has a couple of stories related to the series), will be an Amazon Kindle Giveaway on April 10, 11 & 12.

Book 4 of the Series, Raven: Necris, is now a pre-order and will be released on April 10th.

Raven: Necris to arrive April 10th!

The fourth book of the Raven of Iskandar Series, Raven: Necris, is now on pre-order at Amazon here:

While those who’ve been reading the series will see the typical hi-jinks, something much darker happens at the end.

Unlike Book 3, this one is much shorter but you’ll realize why when you see how it ends.

Here’s the synopsis:

Raven can handle any opponent in deathmatch but can she handle…vacation?

The Tournament Champions, Iskandar Prime, have returned to their home planet, Central, to the applause of nearly the whole planet.  Everyone wants to congratulate the ‘Heroes of Triballi’.  However, after all the ceremonies are over, it’s time for the break between seasons and the Iskandar Prime building empties out with players and staff scattering to the various planets of the Alliance.  Raven heads home to Necris and while Chaoschick, her mid-fielder and best friend heads off to her new-found family, she invites another team member who will definitely cause gossip. 

They arrive to find Raven’s childhood home morphed into a multi-million-dollar business.  Has everything Raven known as a child been removed in so short a time?  Just as Raven is melding her past and present, her teammate drags her off on a whirlwind tour of Necris with jungle temples, deserts and cetaceans swimming among ice floes.  Then, when a local ‘superstar’ challenges them to Bombing Run, they quickly train a team and devastate the competition.

Then everything changes….the two experience a nearly tragic event whose ramifications extend across the Alliance of Planets and threaten the new season.  But…but…who is behind it?

Finally (if you’ve read this far there is a reward!), on April 10-11-12 I will be running a give-away on the previous books in the series so that you can catch up.

I remember at one point I had said that there would be at least 5 books in the series. Correction, let’s make that at least 6.

It’s Nearly Here – Raven: Necris Status

The fourth book of the Raven of Iskandar series, Raven:  Necris is on the final edit.  I’m going to opt for listing it on Amazon for pre-release. 

I’ve gotten an old friend from a previous job, Jonathan Sears to write the Foreword.

I had not originally intended for the series arc to explode during this book, but that is what happened.

Teasers:

  • More about Raven’s family
  • One character only mentioned in the previous books, appears
  • The return of a minor character from Book 1
  • Grabby’s and Soria’s backstory is revealed
  • A tourist’s view of the planet Necris
  • And, a character will die by the end of the book.

Note that although every book has had a preface dealing with Raven in her 100th plus years of life, this book will also have an epilogue. The preface of this book ends with ‘She opened the letter.’ and I didn’t want to have everyone wait until the next book to find out what was in the letter.

So when you read that, hang on! You’ll find out at the end of the book.

What’s with the ‘E J’?

When my first book was published (Raven:  The Call from Central), I opted for the name ‘Stephen E J Tomporowski’, first because it is my name, second to distinguish myself from another Steve Tomporowski.

The E is for Edward, my birth middle name while the J is for Joseph, which was a confirmation name.  That name came in handy, because otherwise my initials would have spelled a word (SET) and caused confusion on documents.  When initialing, I always use four initials, SEJT, not just because I want to be unique (don’t we all?) but to avoid the confusion of my initials with a word.

Now you would think that with a name like ‘Tomporowski’ it would be a cinch that I’d have a unique name.  Nope, didn’t happen, but it only fell short by one similarity and the habit of search engines of making sure that Stephen, Steven and Steve are equivalent and all show up in the results.

And there’s the problem.  There is a Steven M. Tomporowski out there, or rather in there, in jail.  Here’s a link to one of the articles on him from 2004:

https://www.wave3.com/story/1648898/three-found-dead-at-wisconsin-farmhouse-suspect-arrested-in-kentucky/

In short, Steven M. Tomporowski killed his parents and his uncle, and was convicted. 

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2004-11-19-0411190276-story.html

He got life in prison without hope of parole with the judge calling his crimes “vile, vicious, premeditated and cold-blooded”.

Needless to say, that’s not me and you can understand that I really want to distance myself from this guy with a similar name.

Apparently this guy was also a stand-up comedian of the foul-mouthed kind, probably just a local Illinois phenomenon.  I had originally thought that there were two of them out there that I needed to be disassociated from.  Subsequently I found out that the killer and the comedian were the same person.  Phew!

In a bit of irony, once I was contacted by this guy via email.  He was probably 11 or 12 at the time and as you would have guessed (this was the mid-90’s), his email was via AOL and in all caps.