The Way of the Rat

Volume five of the Aaron+Henna series:Dealings in the big city are nothing compared to infighting in small towns.A failed apprentice blasted by dragon magic and a (pregnant) tea-witch try to finish building a wizard's tower to live in;Inquisitors from the church, jealous rivals and meddling nobles all contribute to the fracas and fight over dragon magics.Harvey and the old witch deal with troll smugglers as Aaron tries to sell dragon-hoard treasures.And a new apprentice (healing) witch spells trouble for all. ANNOUNCEMENT.For my ten year anniversary here? New covers+ upgrades for everything!At a million words a week, I should be done by the end of feb.(Man! Had everything proofed before posting. Shoulda been after.)Oh, the AI rev? Bring it.Stealing market share, capturing a demographic, developing a fan-base?That's the game. Always has been.Unfortunately, so are goons, thieves and legislation. Luckers, people.Latest novels:The Finest Evil in the System Magic Traveling Book-store: The Falstaff Conjecture Jan 2025FANTASY Aaron+Henna: The Elfin Princess's Kiss may 2023SF: ESC: The Venice Tower (series) Aug 2024BOTH The Finest Evil in the System Magic Traveling Book-store: The Falstaff Conjecture Jan 2025Shorts : The Finest Evil in the System; Loons, goons + booms.Shorts 2025: Let Them Eat AIPosters: Covers, Posters, Art.Novels are usually 100,000 words: freebies vary.If you don't fall over laughing at least once while reading, the book is a failure.Other than that, SF is the lit/philosophy of western urbanization.Problem-solvingthe effect of techon peoplevia new mythology.Beware, you MAY learn something. Or think a bit here and there, even in the comics..Cartooning? Does-is-ought. Take a does, show what it is, (is is?) discuss the ought. (ie: table= work-server= that gossips)SF? what if, then what, so what?Fantasy? Any sufficiently advanced tech is indistinguishable from magic. (Characters in conflict over issues)***Readers are welcome to proof-read; if I think it's a good correction, it goes in. (just send an e-mail, book-name + quoted line) Thanks. (One long-suffering reader got a few books dedicated to him.)On a personal note; I've got nearly 2 million words published at smashwords.com now. SF + fantasy novels, cartoons + short-stories.Jeez, lemme see; This whole mess got started in grade school; shorts in HS; novels after. (first one done in pencil.)Dozen or so 80,000 word novelettes (mostly type-writer.); first computer stuff; novels+shorts.Years of zines, quarterlies, novels, cartoons; BBSing a shorts echo (rogue-bone), blogs and cartooning. I THINK I can add another million words there. Maybe. Most of them are lost unless some old CD backups turn up.2021: Dead tree? If you don't make the best-seller li... Aaron was a failed wizard's apprentice; Henna the herb-witch wanted out of the bandit camp before her brother married her off to one of his friends.true love, dragons, buffalos and cats.