Literature Dramatized

On his 13th birthday, foster child Alcatraz Smedry gets a bag of sand in the mail - his only inheritance from his father and mother. He soon learns that this is no ordinary bag of sand. It is quickly stolen by the cult of evil Librarians who are taking over the world by spreading misinformation and suppressing truth. Alcatraz must stop them, using the only weapon he has: an incredible talent for breaking things.

Notes from the author: The following is a short story I wrote in the Elantris world back in January of 2006. There were always a few holes in Elantris where I decided not to include viewpoints or sections of explanation in the name of streamlining, particularly at the end. In the back of my mind, I knew what happened. This story talks about one of those holes; it is meant to be heard after you’ve finished the novel and takes place during the events of the climax.

Warbreaker is the story of two sisters, who happen to be princesses, the God King one of them has to marry, the lesser god who doesn’t like his job, and the immortal who’s still trying to undo the mistakes he made hundreds of years ago. Their world is one in which those who die in glory return as gods to live confined to a pantheon in Hallandren’s capital city and where a power known as BioChromatic magic is based on an essence known as breath that can only be collected one unit at a time from individual people.

The city of the gods. Elantris once stood as the symbol of all that is beautiful. A sprawling metropolis of unrivaled grandeur, it was a symbol of power and strength, built to be as imposing as it was magnificent. The only thing more glorious than the city itself was its inhabitants, Godlike beings, with silvery skin and hair of the purest, flowing white. Able to create powerful magics with a mere wave of their hands, the Elantrians were able to heal mortal wounds and create any object they desired. To be an Elantrian was to be without sickness, without pain and without want.

The city of the gods. Elantris once stood as the symbol of all that is beautiful. A sprawling metropolis of unrivaled grandeur, it was a symbol of power and strength, built to be as imposing as it was magnificent. The only thing more glorious than the city itself was its inhabitants, Godlike beings, with silvery skin and hair of the purest flowing white. Able to create powerful magics with a mere wave of their hands, the Elantrians were able to heal mortal wounds and create any object they desired. But Elantris fell...10 years ago.

During a trip back east for a family reunion, Preacher learns that even the civilized Midwest can attract a motherlode of trouble...especially when a gang of local bully boys decide to pick a fight. Now wealthy landowner Elam Parks lies dead - and there's a $5,000 reward on the head of the man accused: the first mountain man. The fortune in blood money has dispatched a small army of bounty hunters after Preacher. Now, back in his once-peaceful homestead in the High Lonesome, as he sights down the barrel of his '33 Hall North breechloader, Preacher is ready for target practice.

Mankind has ceded the night to the corelings, demons that rise up out of the ground each day at dusk, killing and destroying at will until dawn, when the sun banishes them back to the Core. As darkness falls, the world’s few surviving humans hide behind magical wards, praying the magic can see them through another night. As years pass, the distances between each tiny village seem longer and longer. It seems nothing can harm the corelings, or bring humanity back together.

Mankind has ceded the night to the corelings, demons that rise up out of the ground each day at dusk, killing and destroying at will until dawn, when the sun banishes them back to the Core. As darkness falls, the world’s few surviving humans hide behind magical wards, praying the magic can see them through another night. As years pass, the distances between each tiny village seem longer and longer. It seems nothing can harm the corelings, or bring humanity back together.

The city of the gods. Elantris once stood as the symbol of all that is beautiful. A sprawling metropolis of unrivaled grandeur, it was a symbol of power and strength, built to be as imposing as it was magnificent. The only thing more glorious than the city itself was its inhabitants, Godlike beings, with silvery skin and hair of the purest flowing white. Able to create powerful magics with a mere wave of their hands, the Elantrians were able to heal mortal wounds and create any object they desired. But Elantris fell...10 years ago.

On the planet of Taldain, the legendary Sand Masters harness arcane powers to manipulate sand in spectacular ways. But when they are slaughtered in a sinister conspiracy, the weakest of their number, Kenton, believes himself to be the only survivor. With enemies closing in on all sides, Kenton forges an unlikely partnership with Khriss - a mysterious Darksider who hides secrets of her own.

Sherlock Holmes is an unparalleled genius. Warlock Holmes is an idiot. A font of arcane power, certainly. But he’s brilliantly dim. Frankly, he couldn’t deduce his way out of a paper bag. The only thing he has really got going for him are the might of a thousand demons and his stalwart companion. Thankfully, Dr. Watson is always there to aid him through the treacherous shoals of Victorian propriety...and save him from a gruesome death every now and again.

It is the fall of 1867. Twenty-two years have passed since Tim Colter and his family were ambushed on the Oregon Trail, forcing the young boy to grow up, forge ahead, and find an unlikely ally in one-eyed mountain man Jed Reno. Now a widowed deputy, US marshal, and Civil War veteran, Colter is finally ready to remarry and settle down - until a dangerous new assignment becomes a life-or-death struggle for the soul of a town and the heart of its people....

Police Chief Delaney Reed thinks she knows all of Ordinary, Oregon’s secrets. Gods on vacation, lovelorn ghosts, friendly neighborhood monsters? Check. But some secrets run deeper than even she knows. To take down an ancient vampire hell-bent on revenge, she will have to make the hardest decision of her life: give up the book of dark magic that can destroy them all, or surrender her mortal soul.

Police Chief Delaney Reed is good at keeping secrets for the beach town of Ordinary Oregon - just ask the vacationing gods or supernatural creatures who live there. But with the first annual Cake and Skate fundraiser coming up, the only secret Delaney really wants to know is how to stop the unseasonable rain storms. When all the god powers are stolen, a vampire is murdered, and her childhood crush turns out to be keeping deadly secrets of his own, rainy days are the least of her worries.

Police Chief Delaney Reed can handle the Valkyries, werewolves, gill-men and other paranormal creatures who call the small beach town of Ordinary, Oregon their home. It’s the vacationing gods who keep her up at night. With the famous rhubarb festival right around the corner, small-town tensions, tempers, and godly tantrums are at an all-time high. The last thing Delaney needs is her ex-boyfriend reappearing just when she's finally caught the attention of Ryder Bailey, the one man she should never love.

It's fur trapping season and Preacher is about to discover the Rocky Mountain trail holds more than wild game - it's also infested with murderers and trail trash quick to deceive, steal, and hunt Preacher down. Among them are Jebediah Druke, his ruthless band of killers, and most terrifying of all, the barbaric renegade Crow warrior known as Blood Eye. When Preacher shows up and gets on their bad side, he stirs up a clash that could lead to a brutal and bloody battle.

In 1812, 12-year-old Art is a boy filled with wanderlust and raw courage. He runs away from home to begin a journey from Ohio westward. Along the way, he’ll run up against badlands and bad men. He’ll lose his freedom, gain his freedom, fight in the bloody Battle of New Orleans and learn the first rule of the frontier: do whatever it takes to survive. With ruthless enemies after him - both white men and Indians - Art will head for a place as brutal as it is beautiful - the wilderness of the Rocky Mountains.

A wagon train of pioneers is struggling Westward toward Oregon through the howling winter and a band of Arikara warriors are hot on their trail. Little do the Arikaras suspect that they're about to come face-to-face and gun-to-gun with a ferocious fight they never expected, courtesy of the wily mountain man called Preacher. As Preacher struggles to bring the settlers to safety, he learns the real reason they were attacked and begins to suspect that the secrets they've been keeping equal a worse kind of danger.

Gaelan Starfire is a farmer, happy to be a husband and a father; a careful, quiet, simple man. He’s also an immortal, peerless in the arts of war. Over the centuries, he’s worn many faces to hide his gift, but he is a man ill-fit for obscurity and all too often he’s become a hero, his very names passing into legend: Acaelus Thorne, Yric the Black, Hrothan Steelbender, Tal Drakkan, Rebus Nimble.

Ten years ago, the legendary mountain man Preacher taught a violent lesson to eastern bad man Ezra Pease when he ran the outlaw out of town. But Pease and his trail-scum are back - shooting up the Big Empty to nail Preacher’s hide to a tree. Preacher’s riding to teach Pease one final deadly lesson. But he may be too late - because Pease’s vicious dealings have fired up an all-out Indian War. Now, with hard-riding death on both sides, Preacher, along with his old friends Beartooth, Dupre and Nighthawk, are heading straight into lead-flying scalp-smashing hell!