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The Rules of War Are Changing. It’s Time for a New Kind of Soldier.
I haven’t written a book in my Vitalis setting in a while – at least not compared to the other books I’ve been pumping out. If you’re wondering what the Vitalis setting is, it’s science fiction done right. Futuristic stuff that pits a struggling humanity at odds with the limited resources they’re finding as they expand across the solar system. Limited until they find the planet Vitalis. Unfortunately, Vitalis isn’t willing to give up those resources… at least not without a price.
If you are familiar with Vitalis, then let me offer this new release, Vitalis: Commandos, as an apology for taking so long. But it’s far more than an apology, it’s a story filled with excitement, action, and a new kind of soldier. Whether these commandos have to go commando or not… well, you’ll have to read the book! Now here’s the skinny on Vitalis: Commandos:
Humanity fears change. Earth has been lost to the spreading alien infection from Vitalis – an infection that mutates and enhances everything it touches all the way down to the genetic level. The infection is contained, but at the cost of quarantining the entire planet of Earth and millions of faultless people that are desperate for a cure.
But it’s a cure the best scientists are nowhere near to finding. That leaves one option. Containment and control, and that’s why Lance Corporal Carmin Mendez is being given her last chance to avoid throwing her life away. The Terran Coalition of Systems is putting together a top secret unit of unique special operators intended to learn about the contagion and find a way to deal with it.
For a group of people with no future, the only way is forward. If they can survive the training and learn to get along with each other. And when they think they’re finally ready, the real test will begin. Vitalis is waiting.
| Vitalis | Vitalis: Resurrection | Vitalis: Provenance |
| Amazon Amazon UK Barnes and Noble iTunes Kobo Scribd Page Foundry / Inktera |
Amazon Amazon UK Barnes and Noble iTunes Kobo Scribd Page Foundry / Inktera |
Amazon Amazon UK Barnes and Noble iTunes Kobo Scribd Page Foundry / Inktera |
| Vitalis: Genesis | Vitalis: Invasion | Vitalis: Chrysalis |
| Amazon Amazon UK Barnes and Noble iTunes Kobo Scribd Page Foundry / Inktera |
Amazon Amazon UK Barnes and Noble iTunes Kobo Scribd Page Foundry / Inktera |
Amazon Amazon UK Barnes and Noble iTunes Kobo Scribd Page Foundry / Inktera |
| Vitalis: Communion | Vitalis: Commandos | |
| Amazon Amazon UK Barnes and Noble iTunes Kobo Scribd Page Foundry / Inktera |
Amazon Amazon UK Barnes and Noble iTunes Kobo Scribd Page Foundry / Inktera |
What’s next? Well, that’s where I have to hang my head. I just moved and it ate up two weeks of my life. No writing in that time, but while we’re still unpacking and I’m fixing up the house to allow for all of our stuff, I managed to both find a title and write another chapter on my next book. Shades of Dark, which is the fifth book in the Dark Universe setting. I’m hoping Shades of Dark helps wrap up the Dark Universe story for a bit so I can focus on some other things. Voidhawk needs another story, for example. And I can’t leave Vitalis out of the mix – Commandos opens up a whole new story line to pursue!
To learn more about Jason Halstead visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.
The aliens have landed…
…They are among us. They are us.
Vitalis: Communion is my 7th book in the Vitalis series. It takes up the story left hanging in Vitalis: Invasion, after the transport ship Independence crashed on earth loaded full of aliens and alien technology. And led by a human couple, one power hungry and the other clinically insane. And they’ve got guns.
The good news is the good guys from Invasion are back to fight for the confused people of Earth. Astra, the superstar pop singer with a self-admitted addictive personality, and Leona, a reserve duty police officer with a complicated past. And they’ve got guns too.
The alien biology and radiation is wreaking havoc on the earth though. People are changing and evolving. The geography is shifting and even the climate is reverting back to what Kimber has desired all along, an Earth that disappeared hundreds of thousands of years ago. Kimber’s willing to sacrifice whatever she has to in order to get what she wants, even the lives of the humans she once wanted to help restore to their former glory.
That’s only the beginning. New characters and old characters reunite. Worlds are connected and new possibilities introduced. The Vitalis universe continues to grow and expand, promising limitless potential for what might come next. The only thing I’m worried about is whether humanity is going to survive to see the possibilities…
One last thing, then I’ll turn you loose. Vitalis: Communion (all my Vitalis books, in fact) are only available on Amazon for the next three months. An experiment with the KDP Select / Kindle Unlimited program has me locked in. I sincerely apologize to non-Kindle owners – if you want it and can’t get it shoot me an email, I’ll find a way to make it happen.
If you are a Kindle owner and you’re part of the Kindle Unlimited program, grab a copy and start reading! It’s free to you. Or at least advance 10% of the way in so Amazon marks it off as a borrow for me. 😉
What’s next? Back to helping Dawn Michelle finishing off a really cool new story she’s been invited to add to a holiday bundle. Then I’ll return and probably start a new fantasy series in the world of Kroth. Dawn’s getting more and more demanding about me helping her with her stories – she’s been brainstorming and I have to admit, with my help they turn out some pretty cool stories. But I’ll never let my story lines go! Keep checking, there’s going to be more as soon as I can get back to them.
To learn more about Jason Halstead visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.
Vengeance, Vegas Style
I’m cheating here – this article is one I posted on a fellow writer’s blog a week or two back. Leah Rhyne, writer and zombie afficionado, was the lovely young lady to host it for me. She’s a talented writer and a classy lady, I encourage anyone interested to head over and check out her blog at http://www.leahrhyne.com/. Last I checked she and her husband were working hard on raising money for a charity, St. Jude’s, I believe, and her hubby offered to shave his head if they reached their goal.
Now then, on to the blog post, it’s a blatant attempt on my part to promote my latest book, Bounty. But amidst all that promotion I think it’s got some interesting bits and a touch of humor. Definitely worth the sixty seconds it takes to read the blog, not to mention the minimal cost of buying the novel and enjoying Carl, Jessie, Tanya, Sarah, and Allison’s exploits!
Sin City has a history of organized crime and preying on the weak and innocent. Bounty, the third book in the Wanted trilogy, lives up to that legacy.
Writing Wanted was a strike of luck for me. It seemed like a great idea but I found myself hung up from time to time figuring out what came next. It deviated drastically from my original plans but thanks to a moment of inspiration I was able to turn that deviation into a great book. I didn’t realize how great a book it was until it became a bestseller and topped multiple Amazon charts.
My readers called for a sequel, they weren’t happy with the story of Carl, Jessie, and Tanya ending so soon. That allowed me to write Ice Princess, but it was even more of a trial than the first one was. I was very happy with the finished product, thanks to a few more random bubbles of creativity along the way. As a matter of fact, with the end of Ice Princess I felt myself getting choked up as I identified with a couple of the characters personally. In particular Jiri Kurkova, the father of Tanya, Miss Ice Princess herself.
After Ice Princess I was spent. There was nothing more I could do with these characters. They’d done it all. They’d been dragged through the mud. They’d been shot, beaten, stabbed and worse. What more pain could I inflict? Well that’s a stupid thing to ask a writer, especially one with an occasionally macabre sense of humor! The concept came to me out of nowhere one day on my way into to work at 6:30 in the morning. What concept? I won’t spoil it, but I will say it involves an incredible fear of loss that all of us experience at one point or another. Here’s one of the tweets I’m using to promote it as well: “My new release, Bounty, focuses on family values and why you shouldn’t try to kidnap Carl Water’s family.”
Check out Wanted, it’s a free ebook, and then once you’re hooked look up Ice Princess and then Bounty, the incredible conclusion to the trilogy.
To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.
Bounty Posted!
There are so many cheesy ways I can have fun with the titles of my sci-fi trilogy, Wanted. So of course, I’ve been doing my best to maximize the corniness for my own amusement! Take the title of this blog article, I’m specifically talking about how I just released it this morning in a print version available on Amazon or Createspace. That makes the entire trilogy available. Hmm, makes me wonder if I should make an omnibus out of it? That’d be a doozy of a book though.
In the meantime, I’m working hard on Victim of Fate, book two in my Blades of Leander fantasy series. Simultaneously I’m hunting for a new day job. That’s tying up a lot of time, I have to admit. I’ve had a few interviews and I’ve got more coming. I wonder how many I have to go through until I get a free set of steak knives?
Worth mentioning for my fellow computer programming geeks out there – I spent some time this weekend and this morning teaching myself hyperthreading. It’s pretty cool and I really wish I’d learned it earlier. So many windows and web applications I’ve written in the past could have benefited from it! C’est la vie, at least I’ve got the basics down now and I can boost it for the future – and talk about it intelligently during an interview!
Now enough about me, time for you to get yours! Here’s the links to Bounty:
Bounty on iTunes (coming soon)
Bounty on Sony (coming soon)
Bounty in print
To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.
A Soldier, a Porn Star, and a Coed Walk into a Bar…
The subject might be a great lead in for a dirty joke or the next book in the 50 Shades series, but I just used it to pique your interest. Although to be fair, the book I finally released has all three of those characters in it. More importantly, it’s a book that people have been wanting me to write for over a year now. Bounty, book three in my Wanted series, has been released!
It was a close call, I admit. Writing the book, once the idea came to me, was the easiest part. It kept stretching out longer and longer as more great details and ideas emerged, but it never creeped so far out of scope that it became too long. Then I had problems with my content editor hitting my schedule, but those eventually sorted themselves out. Finally I ended up losing my job a couple of days before my copy editor finished with the book, preventing a timely payment – she was great and offered to give me a little leeway, due in part to her and her husband both enjoying my writing so much. Finally there was the issue with Amazon – they published it but the link wouldn’t open! I emailed them my concerns on December 2nd and they promised they’d look into it and have an answer by December 7th. 5 days?! Thankfully when I checked this morning it was finally cleared up and released. YAY!
So, without delaying any further, here’s the blurb, cover, and links so you can get your Bounty!
The U.S. government has reclaimed the abandoned western states but the law remains the province of whoever has the biggest gun. Life was good, if boring, for retired special forces operator Carl Waters and his wife Jessie until she received an offer to reprise her acting career and star in a new role. When a hired gun tries to kill Jessie on the set of her new movie they discover that their new found fame is not the blessing they’d hoped for.
Carl has to defend his family from the loose ends of their old lives. That, or avenge them.
Bounty on iTunes (coming soon)
Bounty on Sony (coming soon)
Bounty in print (coming soon)
To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.
The Grass Really Is Greener Over Here
The only problem – most of the grass in Las Vegas is artificial. Today’s the first full day of my vacation here in Vegas and I’m doing a great job of enjoying myself. I have every intention of keeping that up and forgetting all about my day job while I’m here, but the writing sticks with me.
To that point, I’ve got a promo campaign going right now centered around my Vitalis series. It just started on the 22nd of September and it’s ramping up slowly. One cool thing the marketing gurus I’m working with came up with was a very snazzy press release for the book. In the interest of ‘there’s no such thing as too much exposure’, I’m pasting it into this blog to share just how cool it is. And please note that I had several inappropriate jokes about being exposed in Sin City that I removed before finally posting this. 🙂
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Penny Sansevieri, CEO
penny@amarketingexpert.com
(858) 560-0121
Popular Sci-Fi Series Now Available In One Collection
Christmas has come early for Sci-Fi fans with seven books packaged into a single edition.
(WARREN, OH) Due to popular demand, author Jason Halstead has released the Vitalis Omnibus edition to include the first seven Vitalis stories in one edition.
In Vitalis Omnibus, Part I of the Vitalis series, Mysterious blackouts left Kira with precious few memories of events in her life, never mind those worth sharing. Somewhere in those blank spots she acquired skills – skills she was hard pressed to explain. But those skills got her a job as the new navigator for the Rented Mule, a transport ship that plied the Rim Systems at the very edge of human civilization.
When their ship is set upon by pirates Kira’s skills allow her and the crew to escape, only to find themselves stranded in deep space with only one chance for survival, an undiscovered planet teeming with life that is light years beyond the borders of the Terran Coalition of Systems.
Forced to crash land, the crew of the Rented Mule learns immediately that the key to surviving on Vitalis is a closely guarded secret. Vitalis has a way of getting inside the mind, body, and soul of a person and once it’s got them, it doesn’t let them go.
“This book (series) keeps you riveted from the beginning to the end. What people really appreciate is a hero who takes what is given them and excels in spite of everything. Because of our present sedate society we need heroes today more than ever. This series takes you from your dull every day life and lets you experience something which keeps you blood flowing, at least for a little while. When finished I felt saddened that I needed to wait to experience more. This series takes you into a life that most of us would give anything to live.” – Amazon reviewer
And Halstead continues to deliver – when readers are done with Part I they can purchase newly released Part II, Vitalis: Resurrection via Amazon.
Learn more at www.booksbyjason.com.
Title: Vitalis Omnibus
Author: Jason Halstead
Published: 2012
ASIN: B0089MZ09M
Publisher: Novel Concept Publishing LLC
To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to learn about him, his books, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.
Can’t Keep a Good Book Down
As a fellow reader I’m sure we’re all aware of the books that we have a hard time putting down. I can think of quite a few over the years, ranging from authors like Dean Koontz, Michael Crichton, Terry Goodkind, and Raymond Feist to many others. As a writer I can’t tell you how much it thrills me to have received feedback from readers who claimed they had the same “problem” with my books.
As much as I’m happy to boast about my books, there’s more to it than just being a reader who can’t put a book down. For me when I’m writing I get so sucked in to the book that I can’t put it down either, and that’s from a writing perspective! How else could I crank out 3000 to 8000 words a day? Certain doctors might insist it’s an escape mechanism designed to help me cope with reality, but I don’t buy that – wouldn’t alcohol be a lot easier?
When there’s something about a book that just has to come out of me it’s burning in my brain and it needs to be released. I’ve had characters over the years that demanded emancipation and they turned into great books. In other cases, like my Vitalis series, I had something terrible happen to more than a few characters, but they wouldn’t accept their fates. They couldn’t accept them. And so the next book in the series was born. Vitalis: Resurrection, is a full novel length book released today that continues the story of Vitalis six months after then end of the Vitalis Omnibus. New characters join the fold and old characters are redefined and reintroduced. Relationships are expanded and explained and there’s a lot of time spent in a complex of dark caves fighting Vitalian monsters that draws people closer together.
Vitalis: Resurrection is a story about surviving impossible odds and proving that nothing can quench the human spirit – even when the very essence of the world is pitted against them.
Here’s the blurb:
Vitalis is more than just a new world outside the fringes of Terran space, Vitalis is greater than anything humanity has ever encountered. And it’s getting fed up.
The time has come for humans living on the world to be judged. What better way to understand the colonists than to become one of them and see how they live, fight, and love?
Vitalis: Resurrection on Amazon
Vitalis: Resurrection on Amazon UK
Vitalis: Resurrection on Kobo (coming soon)
Vitalis: Resurrection on Barnes and Noble
Vitalis: Resurrection on Smashwords
Print version Vitalis: Resurrection (coming soon)
To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to learn about him, his books, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.
I Love it When a Story Comes Together
I gave up smoking cigars years ago, but if it helps the title of this post, feel free to imagine me with one in hand. If you have no idea where that image comes from…um, never mind, I’m just showing my age.
The point of the post is that I’ve decided to honor the requests of so many negative reviewers regarding my Vitalis series. Every one of them states they really enjoyed the story but they grew frustrated with the length of the individual stories – or lack thereof. They felt they were only chapters in a larger story. Sorry folks, that just ain’t the way of it! A chapter is generally less than 5000 words, although I’ve seen them grow to a rare 10,000 on occasion (e.g. my Voidhawk novel has multiple 10k+ chapters, but it’s basically an omnibus of Voidhawk adventures). The Vitalis stories are all well over 10k words, and even over 20k in some instances.
Now that I’m done defending myself, let me move on to the point of this. The Vitalis Omnibus book has just been released on Amazon and Smashwords! Barnes and Noble soon to follow. I’ll have the links up on my website tomorrow sometime (if not sooner). Until then, look below for a direct link to it if you’re interested. The appeal to this book over the others is that it’s cheaper than buying all 7 of the existing books. Outside of that, it’s just a combination of the first seven stories. My recommendation, for those not familiar with Vitalis, is to drop $.99 on the first book (New Beginnings) to see if you like it. Then if you do, buy the omnibus and you’re still saving money or buying all 7 of the individual stories. Did I mention it’s available in print too? Yeah, pretty cool, isn’t it? See below for the print links.
Oh, and not to worry, I’ve many more planned – I just haven’t gotten to writing them yet.
Until then, here’s the cover and the links!
To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to learn about him, his books, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.
Matriarch Has Me Up Early On A Weekend
Technically my daughter woke me up way too early this Saturday morning. But if she hadn’t I’d probably have woken up on my own soon anyhow – I’m excited about an early release of my latest Vitalis book: Matriarch. Unfortunately the caffeine hasn’t kicked in yet so I’m having a heck of a time coming up with anything witty to say to try and sway the massed to rush out and check it out. I will say that some extremely unexpected things happened in this one – unexpected even to me. The characters spoke to me and then Vitalis itself guided me a few times. Sometimes the world overrode the characters, much to their dismay.
As for a message hidden within the science fiction, I like to think Matriarch shows the characters struggling to improve themselves and searching for what matters most to them, all the while learning to accept what fate has in store for them and making the best out of it. In short, the same sort of thing we all have to deal with. The Vitalis characters just get to do it on a very cool, if a bit hostile, planet.
Here’s the blurb for it! Now it’s time for me to get working on the next chapter of Betrayal’s Hands to post for the weekend. Enjoy!
Vitalis possesses deadly beauty and unlimited possibilities. In order to survive both the human survivors must learn to put their differences aside.
In their darkest hour since they crash landed on the planet the unlikely colonists are faced with a choice: will salvation come from the Terran Coalition ships in orbit or by embracing the natural evolution of Vitalis?
To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to learn about him, his books, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.
The Evolution of Lucky Number 20
Mord of that damned word play, I’m afraid. “Evolution” is the title of the book I released today. Vitalis part 6, Evolution, is available at Amazon, Smashwords, and in a matter of days Barnes and Noble, Sony, and other retailers. I mentioned the number 20 because Vitalis: Evolution is my 20th published book. Why is it lucky? That’s an easy one – I’m doing something I love and the interest and feedback I’m getting my readers tells me they love it too. How much luckier can I get than that?
Speaking of Vitalis and good things, each book in the series is ranked on multiple bestselling lists on Amazon (with the exception of Evolution, but that was just released so it’s not there yet). The overall ranking for each one is near the top of the overall charts as well. That, to me, is incredible. I can’t begin to thank all the readers out there who have helped propel this series and my other books along the way. I try though. Just ask any of the readers who’ve sent me feedback, even when they’ve got an issue with something.
Just the other day I had a reader send me an email thanking me for coming up with Vitalis and sharing both his thoughts and a few questions. He’d been hesitant to write, fearing it wouldn’t be received or bothered with. I was his first attempt at ever contacting a writer. I replied as soon as I could (the next morning), letting him know that he was important to me and that I appreciated his feedback very much. I answered his questions and shared some fun trivia about Vitalis that isn’t found in the books. He was ecstatic at my quick response. To my fellow writers out there I encourage you to treat your readers with as much respect as I do. After all, without them all the talent in the world doesn’t do us a bit of good.
But enough about me! Back to Vitalis. I should warn the fans of the series there’s a lot going on in book six. It’s longer than most of the others and there’s a good reason for it, it’s got some amazing things taking place in it. Amazing and, by the time you finish it you’re going to ask yourself, “Holy ^$#@! Did he really just go there?” Yes I did, and there’s plenty more of that to come in book seven (which I expect to release on June 1st). Until then, here’s the blurb, cover, and links for Vitalis: Evolution!
When a highly adaptive native species merges human DNA with its own, the results are enough to threaten the existence of everything in its path. The small colony of human survivors has to decide how they’ll deal with the newest menace Vitalis has pitted against them.
Fear turns to terror when the residents of Treetown learn that the new breed isn’t trying to destroy them, it’s stealing them away in the dark of the night and exposing them to horrors so terrifying madness is the only escape.
Vitalis – Evolution on Amazon UK
To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to learn about him, his books, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.
Books by Jason 