David W. Landrum
THE BOOKS
I write paranomal fiction. My world is filled with ghosts, vampires, and superantural elements. One of the distictives of my books, though, is that in my paranormal world, good is stronger than evil. In speculative fiction, at least as I understand the term, evil does not rule. Speculative fiction, as I understand it at least, allows for the predominance of good. In speculative fiction (as distinguished from horror) there will be an ending in which the good will come out on top. It may emerge bruised and bleeding. Its victory may be purchased with blood and pain, but good will prevail. The monsters are subdued. Order is restored. At the end of the story there is reconciliation.
Oscar Wilde has a character in one of his plays quip, “The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.” To me, at least, that is what speculative fiction means. Endings are happy or are somewhat happy. They are at least hopeful. The demons will not return and “get” Carrie and Millie. The Father will not come back to life and wreak vengeance on them. In horror this would happen. Not in speculative fiction as I understand it.
So speculative fiction involves a view of the world where good prevails and is stronger than evil. This is not a Pollyanna world. It is not a world of easy answers. Yet it is a world where one might hope that the right can prevail and, as Wilde said, the good end happily, the bad unhappily.
Strange Brew
A successful rock singer in the 1970s meets a girl he thinks is a groupie. Not so. She is Lybecca, the most powerful witch in England--and, due to drug use from sorrow, the most degranged. She demands his love, will not take no for an answer, and has some very strong persuasive ways to convince Andrew Cabot that he had better obey her. Can anything come of such a relationship. But as he understands her better, he travels time with her to find a cure for her infirmity. A trip to the pre-civil rights South, a meeting with blues singer Robert Johnson, and a pact with a HooDoo magician all work together to bring about the changes they both know Lybecca needs. Does love lie in this picture as well?
The Gallery
Martin Rollins meets Siobhan O'Conner. They are both artists, he a musician, she a painter. As their relationship grows, however, Martin encounters someone who does not want her to sell her art. At first he thinks he the man is an obsessed stalking, but begins to realize he possesses supernatural powers. But Sihoban, who suffers from partial amnesia may also have a supernatural being who lurks and hides in the empty recesses of her brain. As Siobhan prepares her first major sale, and as she plans to sell off a trove of art her family has owned, the man who has seemed to live for genereations and seems to draw life from her art, tries to stop her. As his attempts to halt the sale grow increasingly violent, Martin tries to figure out who he is and the reason for his opposition--and how to stop the intruder!
The Prophetess
Drusilla, a young woman in Philipi, Greece, is sold as a slave to pay a debt. She is taken to Delphi and possessed by a spirit of divination, who gives her the power to tell fortures. She is able to make a great deal of money for her master--until a group of itenerant Jewish preachers come to her town and begin to preach a new religion
The story, taken from the Book of Acts in the New Testament, illustrates the drama, the dangers, and the choices of a transitional time; and a window into the struggles and determinations we all must sometimes make.
The Sorceress of the Northern Seas
Lybecca of Dunwood grows up in a family of sorceresses. Though her mother does not want her to follow in the footsteps of her grandmother and great-grandmother, the girl begins to naturally accure considerable power on her own. Her acquisition of power makes enemies. As she grows in skill and in magical prowess, she sets her sights on claiming a title no one has claimed for hundreds of years--a title that carries enchantments and spell that will make her the most powerful witch in the world--The Sorceress of the Northern Seas.
The Kingdom where Brendálynn lives has fallen under the spell of the evil goddess Morrigan. Her darkness has taken many people, including Brendálynn's mother. The goddess Adrwinna sends her on a quest to free her mother and the other captives. Brendálynn is not a warrior and knows no magic. But she soon discovers that music is a powerful weapon and possesses magic even a goddess is helpless before.