I am honored to have on my blog today
R.L. Kiser
and his book The Twelve Tablets
About the Author
R.L. Kiser has authored several books available as eBooks and Paperbacks, including the Tales of the Crystal Trilogy (Crystal Fire, The Last Battle, The Twelve Tablets), The Prophecy of Tara (A Mystical fantasy), the Educated Injun series (Educated Injun, Chicago Chase), and Exile-A SciFi Adventure, which garnered a 5 star review and made the first cut in the 2013 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.
Born in Idaho, raised in Arizona, grew up in Los Angeles, he’s a Vietnam Veteran, been a musician, a Hollywood taxi driver, a computer programmer, a single parent, ran his own Internet marketing business, and is an avid (novice) bicyclist. He does his own bicycle maintenance and repair. He holds an associate’s degree in computer science.
R.L. currently resides in Sparks, Nevada with three computers, three bicycles, and a 12 year old Mercedes SUV (no, that does not stand for Small Ugly Vehicle). He’s currently hiding from the ATF, CIA, DEA, DMV, DOD, DOT, ICE, IRS, HLS, HUD, ONI, and FBI, but the NSA knows where he is.
Links to Follow:
Author’s website: http://www.rlkiser.com/twelve-tablets.html
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Twelve-Tablets/245956785588014
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GreyWriter712
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/rlkiser6/the-twelve-tablets/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18781097-the-twelve-tablets
Title: The Twelve Tablets
Synopsis:
An epic tale of an ancient goddess, magic, and warriors, flawed human beings overcoming their greatest challenge and tremendous odds.
Deep beneath the earth was a stirring, a movement toward consciousness like a massive giant rolling over in its sleep. But this was something much larger than a giant. An evil that permeated the earth, took no specific form, or all forms. An evil so thick with the rancid decay of ages it was beyond most people’s comprehension.
With this stirring waves rolled across the shifting sands of the deep desert as if it were an ocean. The hard packed ground and sand coverings of the civilized desert far to the east felt the stirrings as though a herd of camels stampeded through. The vibrations were underfoot, yet a feeling of foreboding settled in the gut.
Far to the north in Crystal City the Crystal, a man sized magical creation of pure crystal inhabited by a thousand souls pure of spirit glowed red turning to bright white as it felt the vibrations of the stirring thousands of miles away. The acolytes and senior tenders of the self-suspended Crystal, a focal point for the good of all magic, stared at each other, themselves feeling that gut wrenching foreboding.
Only a few streets away from the special chamber housing the Crystal an old crystal warrior holding his arms tightly around his middle called out to his son, “It is time. We’ve dallied long enough. The deep desert calls us.
Thousands of miles to the south in the deep desert, tend of hundreds of miles from civilization, a young scholar touched fingers to heart, lips, and forehead excusing himself from the rest of his family. While they all felt the stirring and passed it off to various natural elements or superstitions Mahmud knew of its true origin. He said, “Excuse me, I must go and prepare. The Goddess Narine calls.”
In a temple as old as the sand itself, buried deep beneath the sand sixty days journey from where Mahmud prepared at a point directly above the center of the stirring, the pitch black interior of the ancient temple glowed brightly for a moment, light glittering off ancient weapons. As the light faded words in an ancient text etched deep in twelve standing stones showed brightly in sequence left to right, top to bottom, one stone to the next. Then all was darkness again, but not as it had been before.
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AT5AEE8
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/268538 (15% discount coupon RP27P)
Barnes & Noble:http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-twelve-tablets-rl-kiser/1114071708?ean=2940044214934
Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/the-twelve-tablets
Apple iBookstore: http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/isbn9781301662081
Paperback:
Createspace: https://www.createspace.com/4111460
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Twelve-Tablets-Tales-Book-Three/dp/1481849697
I had the honor of chatting with R.L Kiser
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Well. I could, but then I’d have to wipe your memory. That aside, I started writing science fiction when I was 14 but didn’t publish until decades later. Life got in the way—Vietnam, rock n’ roll (musician in the late 60’s), single parenthood, basic survival. There came a point where I had lots of time on my hands and used that to good end. I was inspired by an anthology by Robert Aspirin (Myth Conceptions, Another Fine Myth). I wrote a western/detective novel. Totally unrelated genres but the inspiration was there, the muse struck, I wrote a tale called Educated Injun. It turned out rather well. From there came a second western, a scifi, and four fantasy novels.
Tell us about your book?
The Twelve Tablets is the third in the Tales of the Crystal series, yet each one is stand-alone and can be read in any order. This is the longest book I’ve ever written—365 printed pages—and was both fun and exhausting.
In the second book (Last Battle) young Crystal Warrior Darian discovered the thousand year old temple of the forgotten goddess Narine buried in the deep desert wastelands. But before he and his desert dweller friends could find the third obelisk he was called away. In Twelve Tablets he returns, they find the third obelisk amid thousands of miles of shifting sands, and gain entrance into the temple of The Twelve Tablets. The reading of those tablets brings forth the mystical Lady Mist, but also unleashes an ancient and powerful evil upon the land. Their task is to overcome the many forces controlled by that evil before Lady Mist can bring it back into balance.
Do you have a favorite character from your book?
I strive for good character development and I like them all, good and evil, but I think Tarina known as Awiel of the Dance is probably my favorite in all three books. She has it all. A sexy, buxom and talented Crystal Seeress with intellect, beauty, and better than most with a sword.
When you start writing a book do you know it will be a series or does that happen as you write?
My writing style and method is kind of unique. I guess you could call it freeform. I just write. I make notes as I go along and refer back to them, but it has no specific pattern. The most important part is getting the idea from head to paper (or screen). With the first book (Crystal Fire) there were a lot of questions left unanswered. So book two is a prequel in the timeline and sets up book three. The Twelve Tablets takes up where Crystal Fire (1) left off, but ties right in with The Last Battle (2). It all fits. I had no idea when I started writing this was going to be a series, it just happened.
How long does/did it take you to write a/this book?
Oh, wow, I worked on this from 2004 to Christmas Day 2012, the day of publication. Editing and proofing took twelve minutes beyond forever. Fortunately I had invaluable assistance from a fellow author—Patricia Hamill—a friend I met on Goodreads.
Can you share a little of your current work with my readers?
Currently I’m working on a completely different genre, a tuff guy adventure. St. Intrepid, the kind of guy you don’t want to mess with. I recently won a blurb contest on Goodreads:
It should have been terrifying. When the tall handsome man came jogging up beside her asked what she
was investigating that would make someone want to kill her she stopped and asked, “Why would you say that?”
Very casually he said, “Because someone tried to hire me to kill you.”
I won a place as book-of-the-month so I guess I’d better finish the book, huh? I’ve been trying to do that for months but it’s not the kind of thing you can force. Either the muse is or isn’t. I’ve managed about three pages in the past three months. But it’s a grabber of a story so I’ll get there.
Thank you for stopping by my blog today to check out this amazing author and his book!
Hope you all have a great day and Happy Reading
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