Ruminato Recommends! The Ultimate Book Lovers' Holiday Gift Guide
Mine, of course
I get so many emails containing this headline that I couldn’t possibly track them all. If I bought all the books, I could start my own Library of Congress. If you get a lot, too, this is the one that matters. Why? Because these are books I’ve written and I’m betting that you like promoting what the industry calls indie writers (also known as writers who make about $100 per month in a very good year).
If you don’t get a lot of emails like this, it’s probably because you’re not a big reader of books or you’ve successfully silenced the bots that think you are. But this is still a good source for you because we all know book lovers, and there’s something for (almost) everybody here.
You may be familiar with all these and sick of seeing the titles. Welcome to modern book marketing (he said with cruel intent). Something I’m frankly not too good at, as a few of you know. Without further ado:
MagicLand
(Available in trade paperback and ebook)
First up is my debut novel, MagicLand. MagicLand is set 2,000 years in the future when humans have splintered into two different species: magicians and augmented humans. They’ve been at war for 2,000 years. MagicLand is a Romeo and Juliet type of story involving a young priestess and a cybernetic dude who crashlands in her people’s territory.
It turned into a novel that will seem geared by most to a young adult and teen crowd, but I’m told normal adults like it, too. Writing for a young adult crowd wasn’t the original intent. It just turned out that way. My characters boss me around sometimes. MagicLand is also an expletive-free zone, so it’s great for the kids unless you’ve raised them to swear a lot, in which case I recommend my novel Psalm of Vampires.
MagicLand has received good reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, Feathered Quill (where it was a finalist for a 2023 Feathered Quill award), and BookTrib (those are the ones I know of). There’s also a kind review on Medium by my Medium friend, Katharine Valentino, but I don’t think she was biased, so I’ll include it here, too.
But my favorite review came from a reader via email:
“Wonderful, clean, thoughtful and thought provoking. I will read this to my grandchildren ages 12, 8 and 4 and I know they will love it!!! I found your book in the city library and now I just have to get a copy for myself. Your book is of the same caliber as the writings of CS Lewis. I look forward to more from you.”
I would never make that comparison, but if a reader does, I won’t complain. And yes, I do still have the email. (Who wouldn't keep one like that?!)
Here’s a cheesy video I made when it was first released1:
MagicLand is available in paperback and eBook formats. I don’t control the pricing on Amazon, so the price of both the paperback version and the ebook varies there, depending on the whims of our corporate masters.
If you hate Amazon, it should still be available at several other booksellers. You can check out my website for those:
https://charles-bastille.com/index.php/magicland/
Psalm of Vampires
(Available in hardcover, trade paperback and ebook)
I self-published Psalm of Vampires under my real name. There’s a story behind all that — the publisher of MagicLand was concerned about SEO on such a common name as my real one. So “Charles Bastille” was invented (my birthday falls on Bastille Day). I’ve pretty much decided that this doesn’t matter, so my third novel, Restive Souls, will probably also be published under my real name. If so, after that, I’ll transition my online presence to that real name, too. This is one reason I call my Substack “Ruminato,” so that my Substack presence can survive the name change. I also called it “Ruminato” because I like making up words.
Psalm of Vampires is sort of a potboiler. I wrote it during a three-month break from Restive Souls, which was a three-year project and made me feel like I was working on a PhD because of all the research.
I’ll let the one reviewer on Amazon (so far — I’m not great at soliciting reviews) sum it up for you. It’s close enough:
Psalm of Vampires is an exciting journey through vampire history. Jade is the vampire "hero" of the band of modern day internet "influencers". It's a motley crew, for sure.
Who knew that vampires and homicide cops could work together to solve homicides?
The dialogue is strong and well-crafted. The story puts a new spin on vampires and monsters, giving them some modern interpretations. If you are a fan of vampire tales plus police procedural, you will enjoy this book!
There are multiple chapters of the novel here on Ruminato:
Free to all subscribers, of course.
The Amazon version comes in trade paperback format and hardcover. I recommend getting the hardcover for Christmas because your gift recipient will think you’re cool. Also, some future survivor of our climate apocalypse will appreciate running into a dusty, old book about vampires descended from Alexander the Great.
Sorry, it’s only available on Amazon this holiday season. You can get the hardcover here:
You can also get trade paperback and eBook versions.
I’ve had reports of reviews not getting posted on Amazon for this book. If I get another report or two, I’ll see if I can get an answer from them.
Quantum Blues
(Available in ebook)
If your lucky gift recipient loves eBooks and doesn’t mind PDF versions, you can give them a copy of my book of short stories, “Quantum Blues.” Several of them are available here on Ruminato (click/tap the “Fiction” tab or just search for “Fiction.”) if you want to see what you’re getting yourself and your gift recipient into. Download the book here and send it off to your sci-fi and fantasy loving book lover:
This eBook is free for all subscribers.
If you don’t like the short stories, there’s still value here. Send the PDF to someone you don’t like.
Thank you for tolerating my holiday gift promotion. I will try not to do this again, but I try not to make promises I can’t keep. If you don’t much like books but know people who do, please give this a restack. If you do love books, I hope you’ll give it a restack and a push on BlueSky, too.
It was mostly an excuse to play with video software, and now you get to be a victim of the results. Please don’t yell at me.