Tag Archives: automata

Searching for Auntie Em in Dreadful Poetry

Wizard Kadmeion has just brought his Auntie Em over to say hello to us at the Dreadful Poetry book release party.

Previously: Welcome to the Dreadful Poetry Book Release Party

Auntie Em Wears Fine Fescue Today

Wizard Kadmeion’s aunt, Sorceress Emily (“Em”), is a renowned magical horticulture practitioner. Her specialty is growing root vegetables into human shapes. Magicians seek out her wares so they can animate the tubers with minor demons. These flora homunculi are popular as garden workers.

Lita: Em, we are so pleased you could join us today at Kadmeion’s affair.

Auntie Em: I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Who is this lovely person you’re with, Lita?

Lita: This is Gentle Reader.

Auntie Em: Enchanted to meet you. Did you two hear that Kadmeion searched for me during much of his Dreadful Poetry story? I was quite the star, and I wasn’t even there.

Lita: I know all about it, Em. Remember that I am Kadmeion’s scribe, and he natters at me using mind voice. The wizard and I have coffee together in the early morning, and I transcribe what he says while we chat. Gentle Reader will learn about your part in the story the normal way by reading the book.

As Daft as Sitting on Stilts While Knitting

Gentle Reader: [Methinks Auntie Em is as daft as sitting on stilts while doing some knitting. Ask her why she has grass for hair.]

Lita: Love your new hair style, darling. Usually, you wear mushrooms and leaves on your head. Is that Kentucky Bluegrass you have on today?

Auntie Em: This is Fine Fescue. [Auntie Em pats her head with a manicured hand. The elegant long fingernails are painted pine-tree green.] I don’t need as much water now when I shampoo, because the grass is drought resistant.

Kadmeion and his Auntie Em excuse themselves. They step away to talk with the other guests. Sir Bright comes over, and invites us to join him. We follow him across the room to the buffet table. Hungry? Time to eat something.

Next time: The Dreadful Poetry Cake

Welcome to the Dreadful Poetry Book Release Party

3 Replies

Watch your step on the gangplank as you come aboard Wizard Kadmeion’s airship.

Disregard the Somewhat Frightful Face

Glad You Came

Love your beautiful hair and outfit, my dear. Is that big purple and white flower on your dress enchanted? Oh, it giggles, and smells like good luck. Yes then, it’s the perfect thing to wear today to the wizard’s affair.

See that homunculus with the three legs standing just inside the door? That is one of Sir Bright’s clockworks creations. Disregard Marty’s somewhat frightful face that looks like a metal triangle. Hand your cloak to him. Marty will remove the snow with a brush made of dragon eyelashes, and hold your garment in the atrium until it is time to go.

The rest of the guests are gathering in the forward lounge. Kadmeion, his elf assistant Bright, and the wizard’s cynanthrope familiar Furgo are here. The woodland fairies flit about, are always ready to perch on your hand, and talk about their naughty ways. Wizard Morton from the university arrived earlier, along with a few Magic Guild cronies.

Before you go inside, take a moment please, and step to the display table over here. This will take only a moment.

Spells Transport Your Copy to You

Get your very own copy of our wizard’s latest story, Dreadful Poetry. Today is release day!

Dreadful Poetry tells about the wee bit of trouble the boys had while at the university. Bright was not always a mage, and Kadmeion had quite the time of it with his field study. For a while, it seemed that both of them would land in magician’s prison.

Thank you for the small amount it takes for the wizards at Amazon to fuel the transport spells that whisk an eBook immediately to you. Their clever enchantments will deliver your book to these magical locations around the world: US, UK, CA, AU, and IN.

Look Who Just Arrived

Kadmeion’s Auntie Em just stepped in. Let’s give her a few minutes to greet her favorite nephew. Oh, look. The wizard is bringing her over to say hello to us.

Next post: Searching for Auntie Em in Dreadful Poetry

Bestiarum Vocabulum: Rig Monkey

Leave a reply

The Bestiarum Vocabulum is the wizard’s encyclopedia of faerie beasties and mundane crossovers living in the lake and forest near Lita’s castle.

Rig Monkey

rig monkey [rig muhng kee] noun, c.1520; < LowGer moneke, equivalent mone- (obsolete Fr monne she-ape) + -ke diminutive suffix; also airship rigger

Denizen of the Clockpunk Wizard world.
A type of small homunculus inhabited by a minor demon, shaped like a miniature fur-covered human, that attends the sails, lines, and superstructure of an airship.
A human or magical hybrid (e.g. a harpy, or the half-human and half-elf narfleet), that performs the heavier tasks of airship rigging that cannot be done by the homunculus rig monkey.
Personages: Sir Bright worked at the Agatha Island zeppelin yard as a Rig Monkey before becoming Wizard Kadmeion’s assistant.
See “Dramatis Personæ: Bright,” “Twice-Seventh Son Elf Magic” and “Monkey Business About Old Bony Blue Eyes”

True. Monkeys Do the Cooking in Death’s Castle

Leave a reply

Lita takes Gentle Reader to the land of Clockpunk Wizard today, with an excerpt from Old Bony Blue Eyes.

Sir Death’s Castle on Undying Island, at Rim’s Edge

Wizard Kadmeion and his assistant Sir Bright have arrived at Death’s castle. The wizard went to The Library to seek out Charon and his resident magician, Wizard Mephistopheles. Because Death is notorious for setting a poor dinner table, Bright went to the kitchen to fix dinner for himself and the two wizards. He is doing an inventory the pantry. Behind him, three entities shuffle in through the open kitchen door. Without needing to turn around, his magical sense tells Bright that his visitors are demons inhabiting homunculus bodies.

Bright turned and sucked in a breath. The narfleet was a clockworks magician who assembled metal automata to house the minor demons that Kadmeion summoned. Bright’s magical profession had counterparts who prepared plants or animal bodies for the same purpose. Here were three examples of a Meat-Man’s dreadful artistry.

Kadmeion went to The Library to seek out Charon and his resident magician, Wizard Mephistopheles.

An orangutan, a chimpanzee, and a tiny Capuchin monkey waited at the doorway. These homunculi wore miniature versions of Sir Death’s livery. The orangutan cracked his knuckles and looked everywhere but at Bright. The other two regarded him with large, awe-filled brown eyes.

“Good day, Sir Magician,” the chimpanzee said. “I am Theodore. The large fellow is Rupert. The wee one is Miss Constantinople. We are pleased to make your acquaintance.”

They looked at Bright with large, awe-filled brown eyes.

The demons’ respectful salutation required Bright to respond in kind. “Greetings, madam and gentlemen demons. I am Wolverhampton Brighton, the twice-seventh son of Elf-Lord M’Choakenchilde, and assistant to Wizard Kadmeion. You may call me Sir Bright.”

The three simians exchanged nods and grins. Rupert let out a happy screech. Miss Constantinople hopped in a circle and clapped her hands.

“Delighted to make your acquaintance, sir,” Theodore said. “You and your wizard’s reputations are known in the Nether Plains. Our master ordered us to help with your dinner preparations. We know nothing of cookery, but will do as you ask.”

Read Chapter 1 of Old Bony Blue Eyes for FREE

Old Bony Blue Eyes on Amazon US

Old Bony Blue Eyes on Amazon UK

Old Bony Blue Eyes on Smashwords

Old Bony Blue Eyes on Barnes & Noble

Bestiarum Vocabulum: Mandrake

Leave a reply

The Bestiarum Vocabulum is the wizard’s encyclopedia of faerie beasties and mundane crossovers living in the lake and forest near Lita’s castle.

Mandrake

mandrake [man drāk] noun, c.1200; Gr < mandragoras L < OE < ME mandragora; also nightshade, mayapple.

Denizen of the Clockpunk Wizard world.
A vegetable-based homunculus inhabited by a minor demon. Only mandrake plants cultivated in soil underneath gallows and other places of execution will produce inhabitable roots (wizards can find abandoned gallows fields by consulting with the local carrion crows). The mandrake-summoning spell requires a blood sacrifice, which the minor demon claims with a deadly shriek. The minor demon uses the life energy of the sacrifice to animate the mandrake plant’s human-shaped root.
Personages: Go Fer’s demon in Forever Boy.
See: “Lita’s Magic Show: Mandrakes and Minor Demons” and “Dig Dog, and Die”

Bestiarum Vocabulum: Homunculus

1 Reply

The Bestiarum Vocabulum is the wizard’s encyclopedia of faerie beasties and mundane crossovers living in the lake and forest near Lita’s castle.

Homunculus

homunculus [hoh-muhng-kyuh-luh us] noun, c.1650; < L, homun- homin- homō man + -culus; also automation, automata, homunculi, bantam, metal-man

Denizen of the Clockpunk Wizard world.
A magical sentient creature made of metal or wooden clockworks. A wizard summons a minor demon from the nether planes that animates the homunculus body and gives it consciousness. See demon in the Bestiarum Vocabulum.
Personages: Copernicus, Wizard Kadmeion’s airship pilot in Forever Boy and Old Bony Blue Eyes.
See “Copernicus, One of the Minor Demons” and “Potential Energy: Curse of the Metal-Man”

New: Book Trailer for Old Bony Blue Eyes

Leave a reply

Enter a Fantasy World Stuffed with Wizardry, Clockwork Gadgets, and the Mechanisms of da Vinci

Visit a 16th century world filled with the technology of Leonardo da Vinci and ~twisty~ wizard’s magic.

Lita is pleased to invite Gentle Reader onto the Clockpunk Wizard airship to view the book trailer for Old Bony Blue Eyes.

Along the way to Sir Death’s castle, watch for the lurking monsters and opportunistic beauties. Talk with a cranky dragon, see the lovely Lady Luck, then guard the wizard’s back during his battleground visit with the bickering egos of Lord and Madam War. All of that before we arrive at Undying Island and endure the deadly trials on the Longest Mile Road.

Airship Leaves Now for the Clockpunk Wizard World

Be sure to bring your own lunch–wizards say that Old Bony sets a poor table. The reason why might surprise you.

A must-see at the castle is The Library. The tomes hold all the magical wisdom from Wizard Kadmeion’s plate-shaped, ocean world. But beware of the madness in some of Sir Death’s books.

Wait no longer. Watch your step on the gangplank. Come see the Old Bony Blue Eyes book trailer on YouTube now, before the airship sails away.

Announcing the Release of Old Bony Blue Eyes

Leave a reply

Clockpunk Wizard World is a Land of Airships, Automata Powered by Minor Demons, and the Technology of Da Vinci

It is time to buy your ticket and take your seat. The airship leaves now for another trip to the Clockpunk Wizard fantasy world of Lita Burke. All aboard!

Old Bony Blue Eyes, the next story in the Clockpunk Wizard series, was released in all eBook formats today. Instant gratification is available now for Gentle Reader’s Kindle, iPad/iPhone, or Nook.

In Old Bony, Wizard Kadmeion faces a peril-filled journey to Sir Death’s castle to win a powerful spell book for a love-starved dragon. Along the way, he gets questionable help from Lady Luck and the bickering duo of Lord and Madam War.

A wizard faces a peril-filled journey to Sir Death’s castle to win a powerful spell book for a love-starved dragon.

Kadmeion’s half-elf assistant Sir Bright, and the wizard’s weredog familiar Furgo, go with him on his trip. They learn that Sir Death is a wizard with a curious shortcoming, plus he owns a wonderful library stuffed with all of their world’s magical knowledge.

This trip, we visit the airship pilot Copernicus and learn the differences among minor demons that inhabit homunculi. Fairy Izlyesende coaches Kadmeion about girlfriends. And Sir Death shows Kadmeion the dangers that powerful wizards weave when they laugh themselves silly.

Enjoy your trip to Lita’s Clockpunk Wizard world. Old Bony Blue Eyes available now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.

Just Dying to Visit Sir Death’s Castle

1 Reply

Warning to all Wizards Visiting Sir Death’s Castle–You Must Do the Cooking

Magicians in the Clockpunk Wizard world gossip about the reclusive Sir Death, whose wizardry began long before their world created the Magic Guild.

In this coming Saturday, August 31st release of Old Bony Blue Eyes, Wizard Kadmeion has endured the morality tales of Death’s hobbies and suffered a profound loss to his magical ability on his journey to Sir Death’s castle. And those aren’t the worst parts of the trip.

A humiliating game with the threat of years of magical servitude to Old Bony Blue Eyes await Kadmeion if he loses. All this because of his promise to a love-starved dragon. At least he doesn’t have to do any magical chores during his visit–just the cooking.

Why endure these insults? Because all the world’s magical knowledge await in Sir Death’s library. If Kadmeion wins the day, his prize is what matters most to wizards. Access to powerful spells. A step-by-step book that explains women. And most important of all, he learns what happens when powerful wizards tell really, really good jokes.

In just a couple of days, Gentle Reader can get a copy of Old Bony Blue Eyes and learn these answers, too. Here is how Kadmeion’s journey to Sir Death’s castle begins in Chapter 1 of Old Bony Blue Eyes.

Luck is Not a Lady

2 Replies

Lady Luck lives in the Upper Wager Meadows on Fluke Isle in the Clockpunk Wizard world. No wizard can resist wooing her auspicious magic.

Lady Luck, the patron magician of gamblers and jaywalkers. Fickle? Definitely. Lovely? Of course. Wizards of all ilk, beware of her ~twisty~ clockpunk magic!

Where does she live? Why, Lady Luck lives on floating Fluke Isle, about halfway between the hub and rim of the plate-shaped ocean world in Clockpunk Wizard.

Does she weave spells? Oh yes. Wizard Kadmeion needs Lady Luck’s help to win a rare magic book from Sir Death. Problem is, when it comes to women’s magic, even wizards cannot calculate the odds.

Would you like to meet her? Lita introduces Gentle Reader to Ms. Luck in the upcoming story Old Bony Blue Eyes. Old Bony release date is this coming Saturday, August 31st.

Read Chapter 1 of Old Bony Blue Eyes to see how Kadmeion and Bright’s lucky troubles begin. Along the way, they hear Lady Luck’s shocking news about a lost wager, a very long trip, and Sir Death’s weakness.