Pulpmaster extraordinaire Ron Fortier has written a great review of The Myth Hunter! Go check it out!
Here’s a bit about Ron had to say about it: “From the opening action sequence to the last climatic battle with a cruel and vicious assassin, ‘The Myth Hunter’ is a super charged thriller that never lets up…a solid, masterful thriller by a young writer realizing his tremendous potential.”
So just who is Elisa Hill, the star of The Myth Hunter?
Elisa is the daughter of Robert and Tanya Hill. Both of them were myth hunters as well. From a young age, Elisa was groomed for her future profession. She was home schooled for most of her life, and the myths and legends we grow up with, knowing they’re just stories? What we didn’t know, what we weren’t raised knowing, is that they’re all based on fact.
Elisa’s parents knew better than ours. And they raised their daughter with that knowledge as well. She was schooled in the legends as well as the methods to pursue the truth behind the legends. From a young age, Elisa was taught not only the legends, but various languages. She’s fluent in a number of languages, and has at least a rudimentary knowledge of many others, as well as a fair bit of combat training.
A child prodigy, when Elisa was sixteen, she was accepted to Burroughs University. She pursued degrees in mythology and archaeology, and in her time away from school, she accompanied her parents on some of their adventures. But after she finished school, Elisa chose to travel the world a bit on her own.
It was during these travels in her early twenties that she became acquainted with Lucas Davalos, who was a rogue myth hunter (more on him later). A rogue in myth hunter circles is one who pursues the legends not for knowledge but profit. Elisa was attracted to Lucas’ rogue nature and she joined him in his missions. Like him, she became a rogue. This didn’t sit so well with her parents and their relationship became strained.
After the Hills’ demise, Elisa regretted the way things went down between them. She tried to push Lucas into joining her in changing their paths, but he refused and betrayed her on a job. With nowhere else to go, Elisa sought out an old family friend, Maxwell Finch. He took an active part in her upbringing but retired shortly before Robert and Tanya died.
Seeing her desire to redeem herself, Max took Elisa under his wing and now aids her in her quests. As the head of the mythological studies department at Burroughs, he also helped her secure a teaching position. Although she mostly works there as a part time professor, the job provides her with supplementary income and access to a wealth of materials.
As mentioned before, Elisa is skilled in various forms of armed and unarmed combat. Although she has some skill with firearms, she prefers not to use them. Instead, Elisa relies on weaponry from various cultures. Her preferred weapon is the kukri, a Nepalese dagger. She carries a pair of them on her at all times, and she’s able to use them both at close range and also as throwing weapons. However, she also has a collection of other weapons that she’ll rely on as the mission calls for.
Despite her knowledge and experience, Elisa is still a bit brash and has some of the rogue nature in her even now. This has brought her into conflict with some of her associates and some of her colleagues think of her as a bit too brash. She toes the line between rogue and legit, sometimes relying on her contacts from her old life.
In The Myth Hunter, Elisa uncovers evidence that opens a path to the one quest her parents never managed to complete, that of the truth behind the supposed lost continent of Lemuria.The question then becomes, where will this knowledge lead her? And elements from her past, including Lucas and the secret society known as the Order, as well as another vicious myth hunter named Seth, are also after Lemuria’s secrets.
Can Elisa beat them to those secrets? For that, you’ll have to check out the book! You can buy your own copy of The Myth Hunter, both in print ($11.99) or electronic ($2.99) formats. You should also be able to find them at your preferred online retailer or by request at your local bookstore.
The first image above was drawn by Marcus Jackson. The second image was drawn by Jonathan Reincke. Both were attached at different points to a possible Myth Hunter comic book which unfortunately never materialized.
The fine folks over at All Pulp have taken it upon themselves to help get the word out concerning The Myth Hunter! First up, Tommy Hancock has given four out of five tips of his hat to the book! In his review, he says, “This book is full of vivid descriptions, fantastically crafted narrative, intriguing and engaging dialogue, but its biggest star is the characterization. Constantine brings each and every character to life, not just with vivid details, but with emotions and passions. Even the characters we are meant to like leave us feeling a little divided on just how much we like them, and that’s a sign of humanity granted to a written creation, a skill many writers never ever develop.”
Want to read more? Check out the review!
And once you’ve finished reading the review, you get a look at some of my own thoughts when All Pulp puts me in the hot seat for an interview! The questions were really well-crafted, focusing on the way I write heroines, the choices for supporting characters, and my thoughts on the New Pulp movement.
Interested yet? Go check it out here!
The wait is over! The Myth Hunter is now available for purchase on Amazon.com! You can also purchase an ebook version over at Smashwords (soon to be available on Amazon as well).
From the back cover:
Ancient civilizations. Gods and monsters. All the legends of the world have elements of truth to them. And to track down those legends, there are the myth hunters. Some of them, like Elisa Hill, are explorers, trying to learn more about the world we live in. And some are soldiers of fortune, whose only goal is to profit off them. When evidence proving the existence of the lost continent of Lemuria, Elisa embarks on a journey for the truth. And her quest will take her from the oceans of the Caribbean to the temples of India and the Ryukyu Islands of Japan. But it’s a race against time, because the mysterious sect known as the Order and a ruthless myth hunter named Seth are also after the secrets of Lemuria!
And for an added bonus, if you order a print version of The Myth Hunter before July 1st, you will receive a free ebook of Love & Bullets, my previous novel for free! What’s Love & Bullets? Check out the description below:
Beautiful. Cunning. Deadly. These are just a few of the words that describe Angela Lockhart, former operative of the mysterious Agency. Now working as an assassin for an international syndicate called Infernum, led by a mysterious power broker known only as Dante, Lockhart has become the ‘Most Wanted’ for every major law enforcement agency in the world. But when Agency operative Christian Pierce begins a dangerous game of deception to try and bring her back into the fold, Angela will find herself torn between her old life and her new one…
This book is the first in the Infernum series, with the second book due for a release later this year, so you’ll want to make sure you’re caught up before then!
So you may be asking yourself how do you take advantage of this offer? All you have to do is take a screenshot of the order confirmation you receive, the part that lists The Myth Hunter as a purchase. On a PC you do this by holding Alt + PrintScreen and on a Mac you do it by holding Command + Control + Shift + 3. This will save an image of your computer screen to the clipboard and then you just go into an image editing program (such as Photoshop or even MS Paint will be fine), paste the image, and then black out any personal details (address, order number, credit card information, etc). Then save it and e-mail the image to percival.constantine@gmail.com with TMH PROMO written in the subject field. You’ll receive a response with information on where and how you can obtain your FREE digital copy of Love & Bullets!
To the left, you’ll see the revised cover for The Myth Hunter. This change came about after a friend pointed out that the font I had used for the previous design, which was Papyrus, was a big mistake.
You’d think being a guy who cut his teeth in the publishing world by doing comic book lettering and logo design, I would have known better than to use one of the five terrible fonts you shouldn’t use in print design.
Anyway, realizing the mistake I made in what was otherwise probably the best cover I’ve designed to date, I went ahead and changed the logo to what you now see on the left. If you remember the old design, or if you search through this site to find it, I think you’ll agree.
Strange thing is this is a font I already have in my library to begin with, so I’m not sure why I didn’t go with it instead of Papyrus. Just one of those brain farts I’ve been known to have on occasion, I suppose.
The book itself is moving closer and closer to production. I’ve gotten some good comments on how to tighten it up and help improve the pacing. Right now, we’re looking at a release date of May or June, so more information to follow with that.
While we’re on the subject of The Myth Hunter, I’ve also begun work on the sequel, Dragon Kings of the Orient. I got the idea for it while I was doing research on the first book, stumbled upon some concepts that I thought were awesome, and decided to save them for the sequel. Glad I did, because the more research I’ve done, the more I’ve found stuff I really wanted to use.
The Myth Hunter focuses on the legend of the lost continent of Lemuria, which is also known as Mu. It’ll take the protagonist, Elisa Hill, from the waters of the Caribbean to the temples of India and the Ryukyu Islands of Japan.
Also for some more added goodness, I’ve done several revisions on Outlaw Blues, the follow-up to Love & Bullets. That book is due for a release either at the end of this year or at the beginning of 2012.
And Tommy Hancock of Pro Se Productions and I have recently decided to team up on a project called The Adventures of Nicholas Saint. If you read Tommy’s “Ideas Like Bullets” column over at All Pulp, you’ll already have heard of this concept. If you haven’t, I’ll make it easy for you — imagine a character who’s a cross between Doc Savage and…Santa Claus. Oh yeah, it’s gonna be fun.
And last but certainly not least is Airship 27’s All Star Pulp Comics. This all started out when Ron Fortier of Airship 27 did an interview where he expressed an interest in releasing more comics. Several years earlier, I had attempted to self-publish a pulp anthology featuring separate creative teams doing eight-page stories featuring public domain pulp characters. Unfortunately, only two teams completed their stories and the project fell through. So I contacted Ron and said, “hey, I’ve got these stories here that some guys did and I’d like to see them get their work recognized. You have any interest?”
Well, Ron loved them and used them as the basis for All Star Pulp Comics and gathered a bunch of other talented guys to contribute their own stories. The project is still a way’s off to completion, but since again it was announced on The Book Cave, I feel I can mention it here. So I’m really excited about that project as well.