Lancelot Schaubert – författare

The Greenwood Poet spent two years spelunking the archive, grounds, and barrows of Greenwood Cemetery - America''s oldest and greatest rural cemetery. While there, he uncovered stories of love and loss, stories of shipwreck and tragedy. And he met several Fae creatures who had something to say about New York city. Written mostly in heroic meter with a couple breaks for spoken word and Renaissance meters, The Greenwood Poet calls us to return to the Arcadia in our own neighborhood.

PRANKS. OIL. PROTEST. JOKES BETWEEN NEWLYWEDS.AND ONE HILARIOUS SIEGE OF A MAJOR CORPORATION.Remmy grows up with Beth in Bellhammer, Illinois as oil and coal companies rob the land of everything that made it paradise. Under his Grandad, he learns how to properly prank his neighbors, friends, and foes. Beth tries to fix Remmy by taking him to church. Under his Daddy, Remmy starts the Bell Hammer Construction Company, which depends on contracts from Texarco Oil. And Beth argues with him about how to build a better business. Together, Remmy and Beth start to build a great neighborhood of "merry men" carpenters: a paradise of s’mores, porch furniture, newborn babies, and summer trips to Branson where their boys pop the tops of off the neighborhood’s two hundred soda bottles. Their witty banter builds a kind of castle among a growing nostalgia.Then one of Jim Johnstone’s faulty Texarco oil derricks falls down on their house and poisons their neighborhood's well.Poisoned wells escalate to torched dog houses. Torched dog houses escalate to stolen carpentry tools and cancelled contracts. Cancelled contracts escalate to eminent domain. Sick of the attacks from Texaco Oil on his neighborhood, Remmy assembles his merry men:"We need the world's greatest prank. One grand glorious jest that'll bloody the nose of that tyrant. Besides, pranks and jokes don't got no consequences, right?"

It unsettles me that Jesus never specified on the second time he said it. The verse fills us with dread in general: where have we overlooked the hungry, the sick, the undocumented refugee or person experiencing homelessness, the naked, the prisoner? When have we neglected to quench, feed, heal, host, and visit? And when - specifically - have we done so to Jesus himself?

The dread grows.

For Jesus, the second time - in the judgment passage, says the least of these. These what?

These prisoners. These naked. These hungry. These thirsty. These migrants or homeless. It seems to me there are all kinds of ways to come in last place. And not just the most hungry, most thirsty, most naked, most unhomed, most imprisoned. It''s least socially. Least financially. Least in terms of quality of thought or emotional stability. Most lost spiritually. Least attractive. Most obscure. The one who brings the clearest shame. Poorest, most uninfluential, of lowest repute. It means the one who deserves it the least in every single category.

That. Is wild.

Some of the hungry did it to themselves. Some are dehydrating themselves and poisoning the water holes of their community. Some are naked cause they''re nudists or in the BDSM voyeur crowd or because they''re selling their clothes for drugs. Some are undocumented migrants because they''re escaping crimes they committed, because they''re running from their calling like Jonah, because they''re running drugs, or homeless because they love the adventure of sleeping rough. Some are in prison because they''re guilty. They''re the least. They deserved it.

Jesus says that''s him. What have you done for him through those you have every right to hate, shame, mistrust, avoid, or resent?

That should bother you.

A cowboy separated from his wife visits an ambassador''s gala above an active volcano. Magical terrorists attack. Separated from his clothes and family, he must wield a lightning wand against an invading army in hopes to set the fantastic world''s diplomats free.

Will he make it out clothed, reunited, and unsinged?

Conceived as a genre-bending - even Nabokovian - satire of Die Hard, one Canadian bookseller believes this fantasy novella will start a new genre named Die Bard:

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"This is an author indulging in some pretty amazing tongue-and-cheek metatextual analysis - in one short text, they''ve recognized that Die Hard is a Western, that Westerns have solid story beats that can be abstracted into any genre, and then kneaded those story beats into a fantasy narrative that has more to say about family, growth, and excitement than any of the original material. This feels like Moorcock''s Second Ether series, or even Jasper Fforde''s stuff. Either way, I feel like this is really more genre-bending fiction than fantasy, but will excite fiction enthusiasts who need a familiar story to finally understand the appeal in the fantasy genre. 

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"One of the best atmospheric elements in the text is the clear reverence the author has for the inspirational material. The addition of a family-life, loving daughter, personal history and internal monologue for our Jack Dawes/Mclean/jackdaw character adds a lot of depth to the frame of the plot. I would love to see more action movies chopped and remixed in this manner, I think it could be a whole new genre: Die Bard.

"I''m going to handsell this, but not as fantasy, and suggest customers ignore cover summaries."

- a bookseller from Canada, ★★★★★ (5/5)

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"[Schaubert''s work] is a hoot."

- Publisher''s Weekly

"Lancelot Schaubert is an entertaining and intelligent writer with a flair for world-building. His work is full of good surprises."

- Juliet Marillier, Aurelius award winning author of the Blackthorn & Grim and Warrior Bards series

"Schaubert is a powerful fantasist, a multi-layered thinker and a pure craftsperson with words. This is a writer who will make waves, break boundaries and be heard."

- Kaaron Warren, Aurelius + Stoker award-winning author and Guest of Honor at the World Fantasy Convention

"Schaubert''s complex stories weave together sly humor, subtle satire, and heightened language to push fantasy into unexpected places: sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes perplexing, but always intriguing."

-LJ Cohen, author of Derelict

"I f***ing love this entire synopsis. I didn''t read the book, but the synopsis is b*tchin''."

- Alin, editor of The Dread Machine

"Schaubert''s words have an immediacy, a potency, an intimacy that grab the reader by the collar and say, ''Listen, this is important!'' Probing the bones and gristle of humanity, Lancelot''s subjects challenge, but also offer insights into redemption if only we will stop and pay attention."

- Erika Robuck, national bestselling author of Hemingway''s Girl

OF GODS AND GLOBES, the award-winning anthology, returns with over 20 speculative stories based on the world''s astronomical myths. 

We know that the moon holds sway over the ocean tide and the almost universal testimony of the effect of a full moon on people. Are planetary effects more mysterious than we have discovered?

Science has a very different view of energy than when astrology was rejected. Can we study our relationship to the cosmos while avoiding pseudoscience?

Can Of Gods and Globes III speculate on it with fantasy and sci fi stories?

Stories by Juliet Marillier, Chris Edwards, Michaele Jordan, Donna J. W. Munro, Benjamin Brinks, Andrew Najberg, Shashi Kadapa, Teel James Glenn, Victory Witherkeigh, Helen Venn, F.C. Shultz, Dan Henriksen, Anthony G. Cirilla, Evangeline Gianconia, Chuck Boeheim, Benjamin Chandler, Emily Munro, Artemis Crow, Carol Ryles, Gordon Linzner, Gabriel Kellman, Zoe Kaplan, Alexander Sirkman, and Lancelot Schaubert.