Author Archives: ogresan

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About ogresan

Richard Parks' stories have have appeared in Asimov's SF, Realms of Fantasy, Fantasy Magazine, Weird Tales, and numerous anthologies, including several Year's Bests. His first story collection, THE OGRE'S WIFE, was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award. He is the author of the Yamada Monogatari series from Prime Books.

One More, I think

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That was the first one. I can’t say yet what the last one is going to look like. Maybe before long. Anyway, I’m here to say I was wrong. What I thought was the final chapter is looking like the next to last. I finished Chapter 28 when I realized there was too much left to get it all done without a chapter bloated to a silly degree. Went on to Chapter 29. I’m close, but still not there.

If that’s frustrating for some of you, imagine how I feel. Regardless, what everything has been building to in the Laws of Power series comes to crisis in Chapter 29. After that it’s all over except the cleaning and tying up any loose ends. Of which there should not be many, mostly one big one named Tymon the Black, but I have plans for him.

I’m going to miss these characters, but the irony is I can’t wait to start.

Almost There

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I’m about to start what I believe is the final chapter of The Seventh Law of Power. There are three threads to tie up and I believe I can do them all there, with a short epilogue. Mostly because I like epilogues, and it’s my book so I can do one if I want. If I’m wrong about the threads, that’s only one extra chapter at most. Everything that came before has led to this point in the story. I know, took me long enough, but I’m getting there.

Almost as if I knew what I was doing. Almost, that is.

On a related subject, trying something a little different on YooToob. I took one of my favorite stories, “The Trickster’s Wife,” created illustrations for it, did the narration and put it up on my channel. If anyone wants to hear me reading one of my own, it’s there. That’s not my face at the end, though. That’s a character I call “The Presenter.” My alter ego.

A Memory of Old Songs

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One thing I like to do now and then is take a flash story, generate illustrations, and put it on YouTube with my own narration. Something separate from the folklore. This piece is called “A Memory of Old Songs.” I think I’ll put them in a separate playlist and just call it “Story Time.”

The Seventh Law of Power is nearly 81k in rough draft now. I think it’s going to end in a…no, on second thought I don’t think I’ll commit to that just yet. But I do see it coming back full circle to Book1, The Long Look. How we get there is the fun part.

Robots of the Gods

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Setting the stage for the almost final piece of the puzzle in The Seventh Law of Power. I only now realized that the section I just finished doesn’t go where I wrote it. Oh, well. That’s what re-writes are for. I’ll worry about moving it then. Especially considering how long it’s taking me to write it, TSLOP won’t be a long book. Likely somewhere between 80-85k. I’m about to cross the 80k boundary, if that tells you anything.

In the meantime, here’s another one of my YouTube videos on mythological subjects. Mainly Hephaestos’ habit of making fully functional automatons (read: robots) whenever somebody needed a favor. Amazing how long this concept has been around. Robots of the Gods

Progress Update

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I’ve been getting a familiar feeling during the last few writing sessions on The Seventh Law of Power. Even if I’m not entirely sure how much is left, I know I’m approaching the end. Events start falling into place. So do the right people. I get flashes of an epilogue conversation. It won’t be this week or the next, but it’s within sight. I should probably start working on the cover, but don’t want to jinx it.

In the meantime, here’s the latest mythology video on YooToob. On the surface, “Gods Gone Wild” (Not the title). Really just a meditation on the obvious fact that the Greek Gods, like so many other pantheons, are a direct reflection on the culture that created them. Gods Misbehaving.