The Ronin wields a remarkable quill

I just received an email from the poet, with his designs, layouts and preliminary selections for this December's book release RONIN IN THE TEMPLE OF APHRODITE.

First, let me thank his longtime friend and poetic collaborator Daniel S. McTaggart for suggesting the title of the book, from the poem of the same name. It was like a catheter into his soul, allowing him to tap an element of his he had resisted for some time placing to page (the lost 8th Panther Cycle would have certainly been up for inclusion in this book had it survived self-immolation).

That having been said: I do not see how we can keep people from killing themselves after reading this book, starting with some ex-lovers (Hell, if I thought I had inspired any of these I'd probably open a vein). The poet is fond of saying that there are three emotional colors to the palette: Love, rage and fear. I think he just created a new one: Anguish.

There isn't fear, there isn't hatred, in this volume, there is just anguish. In the movie "Crossroads" a character says the blues "ain't nothing but a good man feeling bad because he can't be with the woman he loves"...well, then poetry has left the realm of rock and headed into the blues. I am speechless at some of the works...and the design of the book is intended to intensify the sensation of having had your soul sucked out.

It is the battlecry of a lost soul, a dishonored warrior. A massive battlecry, though not as gargantuan as THE COMPLEAT PANTHER CYCLES, it is by any scale a thick, dense, extraordinary volume. My guess, the MSRP will be in the mid to upper twenties.

The market for this book might be limited: Most people don't like dealing with pain (that's why so many people self-medicate), but the sense of ennoblement that comes from the emotional purity and integrity of these works is undeniable. I don't think he could have written this books thirty years ago. The talent was there, and there were sparks of this in poems of his like "Ravenlight" and "reflections on the razor's edge". But, he had to love and lose and fight and win and fight and fall and heal and mourn and laugh and cry and live and die and find the hollow spaces in his soul. A young man lacks the maturity, the experience, the wisdom. This will be his greatest book yet, a litmus test for the maturity of the marketplace, a statement of the maturity and certainty of the artist.

December 14, 2006, mark it on your calendar (It is the festival day in Japan where they honor the Akoroshi, the 47 samurai).

The Amomancer reveals himself the Ronin in the Temple of Aphrodite, that day. I'm jazzed. Now I have to get back to copyediting the damn book.