D. G. D. Davidson on the ‘Blasters and Blades’ Podcast

My interview with the Blasters and Blades podcast is now live. You can listen to it on Anchor FM or on YouTube:

My wife listened to it earlier and said to me, “You talk too much,” which is true. I was nervous during this interview, and when I get nervous, I talk.

During the interview, we mostly talked about Rags and Muffin, which, it just so happens, would make a nice Christmas gift for the geek in your life.

Interview in ‘Book Reader Magazine’

Check out my author interview in Book Reader Magazine, where I discuss Rags and Muffin:

Although I don’t like the term, the book is a “deconstruction” of the trope of the child hero who goes to school during the day and saves the world at night. Although almost invulnerable both physically and emotionally, Rags has surrounded herself with other children who aid her crime-fighting efforts. Unlike Rags, those children get the full brunt of their enemies’ brutality. In most stories of child heroes, the villains are buffoons, foolish adults who are so silly that even children can beat them. I wanted to change that formula by pitting kids against genuinely evil and ruthless adults who are perfectly willing to do the most atrocious things to children. For that reason, Rags and Muffin is not only a story with a lot of action and excitement but also a tale of horrifying abuse. Balancing those elements, being careful about what is shown and what is not, and being tasteful, was extremely difficult.

Artisan Book Reviews and ‘Rags and Muffin’

Artisan Book Reviews has this to say about my novel Rags and Muffin:

In the imaginative and exhilarating young adult fantasy novel, Rags and Muffin (Deus ex Magical Girl Book 1) by D. G. D. Davidson, a team of young friends fight to free a young girl from a ruthless pimp.

Though mystic and majestic with its centuries-old temples, Godtown is also a city fraught with criminals, warring gangs, and a history marred by consistent war. In the city which is now occupied by the powerful Elysian Empire, criminality and skirmishes are still rampant. Among the city’s residents are hybrids who have special, mystical powers. Rags is one of these and is intent on fighting off criminals within the short time she has left.

The novel builds a believable world complete with its own language, political and religious scene, and landscape. Striking descriptions of the city’s splendor and detailed accounts that paint lifelike images of the city’s underbelly are included. As the Ragtag army moves through slums to execute their plan, the novel includes precise details that depict the city’s filth and various ruins. Its elaborate coverage also extends to its characters. Members of the Ragtag Army are described in depth with details that flesh them out as some of the main characters in the book. Their extensive backgrounds are included and their friendships are covered. The book is packed with fierce action scenes which involve numerous fights between the team and the criminals they encounter. In a city that is rife with dangerous clashes, other exciting confrontations also appear. The novel’s paranormal elements enhance the story. Mystical events such as when Rags, being a hybrid, is able to subdue her opponents through her supernatural powers generate suspense. Explanations about other hybrid abilities and weaknesses are also captivating. The Ragtag team’s clandestine operations are unknown to their parents which adds tension and excitement to their escapades. Some of their activities and experiences are light-hearted and they balance the novel’s more harrowing scenes.

The immersive descriptions, fascinating scenes and heroic, compelling characters make Rags and Muffin by D. G. D. Davidson an engaging story. The novel will be a delightful read for fans of urban fantasy looking for a creative novel set in a dynamic, absorbing world. Rags and Muffin (Deus ex Magical Girl Book 1) by D. G. D. Davidson comes highly recommended by Artisan Book Reviews.

‘Rags and Muffin’ Reviewed on Reedsy

Excellent for fans of dark fantasy anime and manga, though perhaps jarring to those who only read western fantasy.

Jennifer deBie at Reedsy Discovery praises Rags and Muffin:

Broadly speaking, in western literature authors tend to populate their novels with characters the age of their intended audience. A novel full of teenagers going on adventures is meant for the YA market. A chapter-book full of pre-teens is aimed at middle grade readers. A novel full of women in their 30s and 40s is largely geared towards women in their 30s and 40s, and any readers from outside that demographic who buy and enjoy the book are a nice bonus for the author, publisher, and bookseller.

This is a book almost entirely populated by children, but please do not give it to children. These are child soldiers fighting a graphic war in a city waiting to swallow, exploit, and destroy all of the children it can sink teeth into.

This is not a book for children, or the faint of heart.

That said, D. G. D. Davidson’s Rags and Muffin, the first entry in his Deus ex Magical Girl series, is a complex sequence of interlinking narratives, following various members of the titular Rags’ gang as they go through a particularly perilous few days. While the kids’ adventures unfold, Davidson takes readers through a whirlwind tour of Godtown itself and the complex native religion, centered almost entirely on maintaining caste and worshiping powerful girls born from the union of a human and the native marjara, a race of cat people. These daughters, or hybrids, the only viable offspring from such couplings as far as we are told, are born with an innate connection to the Goddess and thus her power and are destined by their genetics to die before they reach adulthood, preferably after spending the majority of their short lives being worshiped in a temple as an incarnation of their Goddess on earth.

Rags, the Ragamuffin to her enemies and Miss Anne to adults, along with her gang of child-disciples, is on a mission to save her fellow hybrids from those who would exploit or enslave them for their power through a combination of acrobatic hand-to-hand combat and heavy artillery. This never-ending battle for the soul of Godtown is further complicated by the soldiers of the occupying Elysian Empire, would-be colonizers who enforce their laws with war machines called runebots, and an iron fist.

If all of that sounds complicated and potentially violent, the answers are yes, and very.

Luckily, Davidson is an able storyteller with a knack for describing his chosen world and crafting his characters. Sights, smells, and sounds are brought to life with startling clarity, as are every bruise, broken bone, and bleeding wound the children experience. The children themselves are drawn with unerring precision, each characterized by their own linguistic quirks and subconscious drives. This is an author with a true talent for bringing his work to life, even if the results are potentially jarring to an audience accustomed to western narratives, novels, and tropes.

However, readers with experience in eastern media, particularly manga and anime from Japan, will notice a more than passing resemblance between Rags and Muffin and several franchises from that quarter. Most notably certain “girls with guns” properties, like Shikabane Hime and Black Lagoon, as well as dark fantasy/urban fantasy series like Soul Eater/Soul Eater Not, Dance in the Vampire Bund, and Blood-C.

Head over to Reedsy Discovery to upvote the review, which will help me promote the novel! And buy your copy here.

Reedsy Review of ‘Rags and Muffin’: A Preview

I just received a book review from Reedsy Discovery for Rags and Muffin. The review won’t be live until February 8th, at which time I will link to it, quote it in its entirely, and also add it to the book’s metadata on Amazon and other locations.

This is an official, professional review, not as presitigious as, say, Kirkus, but more affordable (yes, I paid for it and yes, that’s a legitimate practice).

For now, I’ll just say that the review is quite flattering. It has a few minor but understandable errors, but it correctly perceives the influence of manga and anime, though the reviewer suggests, as comparisons, titles I’m wholly unfamiliar with. In fact, Cardcaptor Sakura is its most immediate inspiration from manga, but that’s hardly obvious. Most of the story’s elements are ones I developed independently, before I knew much about manga or anime at all, so many of the resemblances are coincidental.

I’ll give a teaser quote:

Luckily, Davidson is an able storyteller with a knack for describing his chosen world and crafting his characters. Sights, smells, and sounds are brought to life with startling clarity, as are every bruise, broken bone, and bleeding wound the children experience.

The reviewer correctly notes that this is a niche title—that it’s unusual to have child protagonists in a story aimed at an older audience. But so it goes; I have my niche and like it even if it’s a tiny one.

Speaking of which, I have a collection of Rags and Muffin short stories underway. I’d like to get that done before writing my planetary romance, circling back to Jake and the Dynamo, and continuing with Rags. An author’s work is never done.

Return of the ‘Rags and Muffin’ Hardcover

I earlier reported that an Amazon order of my novel Rags and Muffin resulted in a delivery of the volume printed by IngramSpark. I had no explanation for this and still don’t.

I needed some additional copies recently and ordered them, again from Amazon. What I got this time resembled the test printing I originally got from Amazon, which in my opinion is superior to the IngramSpark version.

I do not know why I got IngramSpark books before. I do not know what will arrive in the mail if you order a hardcover.

However, the difference between the two versions might not be noticeable to most readers. The Amazon version appears to have sturdier binding, though whether it actually holds up better over time or whether that’s merely a cosmetic difference, I can’t say. The image on its cover is also clearer, but only slightly.

Rags and Muffin back cover.

I think this is a good-looking book. Amazon only recently began offering hardcovers through Kindle Direct Printing, but the product they produce is of high quality. The printing is clear, the paper is bright but not too bright, the cover is good, and the book overall is solid, with a lot of heft.

It happens that Vellum, which I use for formatting, updated right before this book went live on Amazon, so I was able to give the internal formatting some slight improvements over what I originally planned to release. Because the cover was already made, I couldn’t change the page count, so it was too late to use some of Vellum’s newer, more creative layout options. But you nonetheless get a fine-looking interior with large, clear type.

Rags and Muffin interior.

Vellum is expensive, but it’s one purchase I definitely don’t regret: I can format my books myself without hiring a pro, which means I can instantly correct any lingering typos if I become aware of them. This novel did (yet again) get an additional proofread recently from a generous reviewer, and all he found was a missing quotation mark—which has now been added where it belongs. I can’t claim it’s perfect, but it is a very clean manuscript, unusually so for either indie or tradpub.

The only downside to the hardback is that Amazon forces a starting price that’s decidedly high for an indie book. Naturally, I make most of my sales in eBooks, so I’m debating whether continuing to offer hardcovers for my future titles is worth the expense.

Amazon KDP vs. IngramSpark Hardcovers

Depicted at the top of this post is the author copy of the hardcover edition of Rags and Muffin, which I received from Amazon KDP before the book went live (hence the “Not for Resale” stripe across the middle). My initial thought was that it looked really good, very professional and well put-together. The cover art is printed directly onto the case, and it came out crisp.

Recently, my wife, unaware that I could order additional copies at cost, ordered a few of these from Amazon in order to give them as Christmas gifts. When her copies arrived, I immediately noticed that they looked markedly different from what I had originally received from Amazon. Here is a side-by-side comparison:

Amazon and IngramSpark hardcovers.
The two hardcovers, compared.

My author copy is a thicker book, and a little better looking. You can also see that, in the copies my wife ordered, the title is not quite centered but shifted to the right. Even more baffling, if you look closely, you can see that my name overlaps Rags’s sneaker in the author copy but not in the ordered copy. I at first had no idea how that was even possible since I uploaded the cover as a single PDF file.

My first thought was that I had inadvertently uploaded the wrong cover image to Amazon KDP at some point. I have been shuffling a lot of files around to get this book published, so that would be likely—except the book should have failed to publish if that were the case, since Amazon has exact specifications for covers and will automatically reject anything that doesn’t fit.

After hunting through my files, I finally found the answer: The cover art on my wife’s copies is the cover for IngramSpark, the print-on-demand service that more or less holds a monopoly on distribution to libraries and brick-and-mortar stores.

Since Amazon KDP has only just recently begun offering hardcovers as an option, this may be a new discovery: Apparently, Amazon shipped IngramSpark hardcovers to my wife instead of its own hardcovers. That may indicate that Amazon outsources printing whenever possible. I have not tested if this is also true of paperbacks.

I’m not entirely happy with this. Amazon appears to be turning out a better product, as their version of the hardcover looks better in every significant way, including the binding (both are glued, but Amazon’s at least has a cloth backing). Not only that, but I can correct the contents of the Amazon version instantly and for free if necessary, whereas the contents of the IngramSpark printing are locked in by IngramSpark’s prohibitive pricing.

This has got me to thinking—is IngramSpark actually worth it? Their distribution is better, but since I’m small fry, my chance of being picked up by booksellers is remote anyway, especially since I can’t afford to buy back unsold copies. Almost all of my sales are certain to come from Amazon anyway, and if Amazon is willing to sell an inferior product in lieu of its own better product … maybe I should just kill the IngramSpark version and sell exclusively on Amazon. For this reason, I am already enrolled in Kindle Unlimited: It forces me to offer eBook versions on Amazon exclusively, but I know from indie authors with much greater reach than I have that eBook sales on other platforms are negligible.

Last Chance to Get ‘Jake and the Dynamo’ for Free

We are right down to the wire on the free book promotion for Jake and the Dynamo. You will never have a better opportunity to get yourself a copy, and there is literally nothing to lose.

Also, we are coming to the end of the 99-cent offer on Rags and Muffin. A richer and darker story but still loaded with action, it will give you a different experience from Jake while keeping within the theme of child heroes.

If you read either book, consider taking the time to leave a brief review. It is enormously helpful to an indie author.

‘Rags and Muffin’ Is Here!

The time has come! Today is the release day of Rags and Muffin! This is, I am sure, my best works so far. I don’t mind saying I am proud of this novel. If you like cute girls and gruesome violence, this is the book for you.

To celebrate the release, I have two sales to offer you: First, Rags and Muffin will be available for only 99 cents. If the price hasn’t shifted by the time you read this post, check back later in the day.

Second, Jake and the Dynamo is available for free during the five days of our release party. You heard that right: Free. If you’ve been wondering whether to check out some madcap horror-humor magical-girl action, now is the time. The book will never be cheaper.

Both novels are available as eBooks, in print, and on Kindle Unlimited. The eBook versions are DRM-free with lending enabled because I believe you should own what you buy.

Get them here:

Rags and Muffin

Jake and the Dynamo

The First Review of ‘Rags and Muffin’

We are just days away from the December 10th release of Rags and Muffin, and the first review has just arrived.

Over at Scripts and Reviews, I have given an author interview, and they have had the following things to say about the book:

I have to say, this is the best book I’ve read in a while. Usually, depending on the book, I fly through them. This book was so richly worded and heavy in world-building and creativity it took me a little longer to get through but was totally worth it.

Rags and Muffin is filled with epic fights and detailed landscapes. The ragtag group of heroes is each unique with their lifestyles and struggles. Seeing glimpses into their past and their lives tugs at your heart, but then other scenes are riddled with comic relief. So while you’re reading, you get a full range of emotions that keep you hooked and turning pages until the very end.

This story was incredible to read, filled with Gods and intrigue. This is a book you won’t want to put down. This book is easily one of the top 5 books I’ve read all year!