Dave Butler Writes

Seshnelans

Posted on October 27, 2020 by David

The fantasy gaming world of Glorantha has a land on the western shores of its northern continent called Seshnela, which one of the realms dominated by “Western” or “Malkioni” culture. How this culture has been represented has changed over various games and editions of games: they were knights in plate mail in the 1980s, and then in the oughts they started to look interestingly Indic, and in the current edition of RuneQuest, it’s not yet clear what they’ll look like.

But I want them to have some sort of coherent look as I set about representing the action with miniatures, so I’ve decided to use “Sea Peoples” and “Sherden” miniatures from various sources to represent them. And here is a batch of Seshnegi warriors I finished last night, defending the writings of the great English statesman, Edmund Burke.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Glorantha, Miniatures, RuneQuest, Sea Peoples, Seshnela, Sherden | Leave a comment

World Fantasy: Query Workshop

Posted on October 26, 2020 by David

This Wednesday, at the World Fantasy Convention, I’ll be presenting a two-hour workshop on writing query letters. I did this same workshop at LTUE in February, and it was very well received. February’s class was in person, of course, and this week I’ll be teaching via Zoom.

This is not a theory course or a lecture, participants should come with writing material and expect that they will emerge from the two hours with a written query letter and a knowledge of what to do with it next.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Conventions, Query Letters, World Fantasy | Leave a comment

Camouflage

Posted on October 24, 2020 by David

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Camouflage, Song, Stan Ridgway | Leave a comment

Barbecue Sauce

Posted on October 23, 2020 by David

Elder Nick Benson, from Blackfoot, Idaho, introduced me to the idea that you could make your own barbecue sauce. We were in Brescia, Italy, in 1993, and barbecue wasn’t exactly to be found on the shelves at the time. On the other hand, you could find Coca-Cola. Also, we had ketchup — I don’t remember whether that came from the local grocery store, or if someone had picked it up at the Air Force base nearby and given it to us. In any case, those two ingredients became the sauce that we basted over chicken and thick-cut, oven-roasted potatoes, to feed to our congregation. I’ve been making BBQ sauce that way since, when I want to slow-cook meat, except now I also add rum.

Add pepper, boil a long time. Pro tip: the Coke pours out a lot faster if you punch a second hole in the top.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Barbecue, Italy | Leave a comment

My Own Private Idaho

Posted on October 22, 2020 by David

There are places and institutions that exist persistently in my dreams, in significantly different form from how I actually experienced them. One of them is our house in Idaho. In my dreams, but only in my dreams, we remodeled the house, switching the master bedroom from one end of the house to the other and then extending the house out the back.

I am thinking of this because I dreamed of that house last night. In my dream, I was in the area, so Emily messaged me that she had realized he had left a quilt at the Idaho house, so I should go ask to get it back from the new owners. I met one of the new owners (the husband of the couple), and he was willing to give me back the quilt–for a price. I negotiated hard and got him down from $50 to $9.

But because he insisted I pay him for what was mine, I decided not to tell him the secrets about the house that I had planned to share… like the secret rooms over the master bedroom, which they still had not discovered.

I’ve dreamed of the Idaho house before. The dreams are different, but in the dreams, we always expanded that house, which in real life, we never did.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Dreams, Idaho, Memories | 5 Comments

ANTHOLOGY UPDATE — MORMON STEAMPUNK

Posted on April 2, 2018 by David

The OFFICIAL deadline for submissions has passed.

If you and I already talked about having extra time or a later deadline, no worries, keep working.

If you’re close, and still want to submit, message me and let me know. We’ll give you a few more days, no problem.

But the main update is this: we received a huge number of excellent submissions. We’re very excited.

Posted in Steampunk | Tagged Beautiful Zion Built Above, Immortal Works, James Wymore, Mormon Steampunk, Press Forward Saints, Steampunk | Leave a comment

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS – ANTHOLOGY OF MORMON STEAMPUNK

Posted on January 2, 2018 by David

As you may know, my novel CITY OF THE SAINTS is an action adventure steampunk romp set in a steam-powered Kingdom of Deseret in the year 1859. Someday, I will revisit that specific setting. In the meantime, I’m happy to announce that I’ll be co-editing with James Wymore an Immortal Works anthology of Mormon Steampunk. See below:

PRESS FORWARD, SAINTS
Call for Submissions

Immortal Works (editors James Wymore and D.J. Butler) hereby call for submissions for an anthology of MORMON STEAMPUNK to be called PRESS FORWARD, SAINTS.

Here is the deal:

1. The writer’s religious affiliation is completely irrelevant. We don’t care; we don’t even want to know. I really want to emphasize this point. This is not an anthology for Mormon writers only.
2. The story does not have to be set in any particular world. The story must be in some sense “Mormon” and in some sense “Steampunk.” We’ll try to interpret those categories both broadly.
3. If your story is faith-promoting (Mormonism is “true” in the story), we’ll stop reading it. If it is mean-spirited (Mormons are all idiots), we’ll also stop reading it.
4. Stories should be at least 2,000 words long and generally no more than 8,000 words.
5. The deadline for submissions is April 1, 2018.
6. Authors will not receive up-front payments. Authors will share in the revenues from sales of the book over time and will receive one (1) complimentary author copy.
7. Send submissions to david.john.butler (at) hotmail.com. Include the words “PRESS FORWARD SAINTS SUBMISSION” in the subject line.

Posted in News, Steampunk | Tagged Anthology, City of the Saints, Immortal Works, James Wymore, Mormon Steampunk, Steampunk | 6 Comments

I Am a Folksinger Now

Posted on October 5, 2017 by David

If you watch my Twitter or Facebook feeds at all, you know that back in August and September I recorded a music CD. This is me (mostly), performing the songs and other music in my epic fantasy novel WITCHY EYE. Jumping through the Createspace / Amazon hoops to get this album available has been surprisingly tedious, but it is now done!

Here, first of all, are the “onliner notes” (yeah, I slay myself) for the the album, including lyrics and even guitar chords!

Here is the Amazon page. Man, is that not the most low-frills landing page you have ever seen? I’ll have to figure out how to get a cover image there, at least.

Here is the Createspace page, if for any reason you prefer to buy through them.

Oh, and yeah, I added it to my LinkedIn profile. I am a folksinger now.

A word about price. The minimum list price I could set for the CD and still distribute through Amazon is $9. I chose $10, because Dan Dos Santos, the cover artist, let me use the Witchy Eye cover art on the album, and didn’t charge me for it up front. But we agreed if I sold a bunch of copies, I’d pay him for the rights out of the profits… so it’d be a cheat to sell it for no profit.

Frankly, I’m not trying to make more money for me with this CD… I’m trying to give you more Witchy Eye. Plus, it’s fun!

Posted in Music, News | Tagged Baen, Folk Music, To Anacreon in Heaven, Witchy Eye | Leave a comment

Delicious

Posted on August 11, 2017 by David

The crone fixed her yellow eyes on Gnat, and suddenly she spoke in English. “Baroness De Minimis,” she croaked, in a voice that sounded clogged with mud and twigs. “My young men will give you safe passage. You should not expect that this means peace between our peoples.”

Gnat showed no reaction to this sudden speech, though Sal took two steps back in surprise. “Your folk are relentless and hungry.”

“And your folk are delicious.” The old ghoul laughed suddenly, showing yellowed and broken teeth, but still enough sharp points to tear flesh when she needed to.

(From my WIP, THE LIBRARY MACHINE (third and last book in The Extraordinary Journeys of Clockwork Charlie)).

Posted in Writing Sample | Tagged Clockwork Charlie, Ghouls, Knopf, Pixies, The Library Machine | Leave a comment

Texas Wants Me, Anyway

Posted on July 31, 2017 by David

I’ve been in Houston and in Fort Worth in the last two weeks, hitting a variety of bookstores to meet staff and sign stock. This week, I finish my tour of Texas by tagging along with Larry Correia as his opening act for the signings of his most recent Monster Hunter International book. Come see me at any of the following:

August 1, 5:30 pm – THE TWIG, San Antonio (with Larry)