The Quest

It is the year 1994. The Grand Mage Merdemus, commander of the vast, powerful forces of nature, has just spent his 1000^th year in self-imposed exile atop a mountain trying unsuccessfully to burn a small twig. Betrayed by his simpering apprentice, he is flung from the mountaintop, and straight into the perils and wonders of modern day San Francisco.

Now, together with his friends-- Drek, the luckiest mage alive and owner of McDrekky's International, Max, a towering Australian mage who accidentially tunes into other people's past lives and is too stupid to die, Biclaxaltonian, a sort of Kung-Fu Magus with an ego the size of a small planet, Miranda, a Computer-hacking Federal Agent, her 8 year old nephew Al, feared by the mafia and demons alike, and Krag, a once mighty dragon now the size of a small dog, he must discover why an evil force called MEFISTO is out to destroy the world using child-mages whose idea of offensive magics include fire-breathing gryphons made out of chocolate, gigantic adamantium-coated movie prop dragons and a mage whose sole claim to fame was having the first ever donkey cart with pinstripes-- a quest recorded in the pages of a novel entitled Kick the Dragon and Run.

So let it be written. So let it be read.

Unfortunately, Kick the Dragon and Run! is in what I like to call the Publisher's Vortex-- a nasty little place where logic runs something like this:

Supplicant: Verily, I shouldst like to be published, good Publisher.
Publisher: Forsooth, thou Shalt not be Published unless thou hast been published Before.
Supplicant: Pray, good Publisher, but I am a new author, and wouldst like this to be my first publication.
Publisher: Ye canst be published lest ye be published before!
Supplicant: So, ye cannot publish me unless I be published-- but to become so by you, I must have already been published?
Publisher: Aye, now you've got it!
Supplicant: So either I was always published, or never, then?
Publisher: Something like that.
Supplicant: Something is rotten in the state of Publishdom.

To hopefully aid in my escape from this evil vortex, I have placed the first three chapters of the book online for your reading pleasure, in the vain hope that someone, somewhere knows a publisher willing to give some humourous fantasy a try...

The Chapters

Chapter One- The Chessboard
Chapter Two- Set into Motion
Chapter Three- Opening Gambit

The Future