About The Author
Eric Carver’s
Eric Carver is a retired hospital pharmacist with a lifelong passion for dark fantasy, satire, and morally complex storytelling. During his medical career, he worked closely with doctors and healthcare teams, co-authoring professional articles on pain management, infection control, and ethics in pharmaceutical care. Though his background lies in science and medicine, Carver has “always written stories for myself,” drawing inspiration from both the human condition and the absurdities of modern life.
Bloodstone Redemption is his first published novel, a bold leap from clinical writing into the surreal, satirical realms of speculative fiction. A meticulous researcher and lover of layered narratives, Carver writes with intellectual precision and a dark sense of humor, creating worlds where ancient evil collides with modern absurdity.
Now a widower, Eric lives in the scenic Finger Lakes region of New York State. When he isn’t writing or worldbuilding, he runs Kelley’s Korner Antiques and Collectibles, a seasonal shop founded by his late wife, Kelley. He is currently working on a prequel, Bloodstone Genesis, which delves deeper into the origins of his dark, daemon-filled universe. With sharp wit and emotional depth, Carver’s fiction explores power, madness, and the thin line between horror and hilarity.
New Releases
Author’s Introduction: Hanikoto’s Dream
The little mini-bio “about the author” that appears in the back of my books says that I have “always written stories for myself.” Hanikoto’s Dream was written over 20 years ago. I came across a printout of it when I was cleaning out my old desk. I wrote it on a beat up old laptop that died and took a few other stories with it. When I found that printout, I couldn’t remember what it was about. I had to read my own story before I could recall anything that was in it.
It might have been a stand-alone chapter from a sci/fi-fantasy trilogy that I was working on or just a novella set in the same world. In any case, it contains a magic modality that is the basis of that which appears in The Bloodstone Cycle books. Levels of consciousness equate to simultaneous separate individual thoughts.
I did tweak it just a little and revised the ending, but most of it is just as I wrote it way back when my wife was alive and acting as my proof-reading and loving-but-blunt critic.
The lead story, Akthalbaal’s Impasse, is a recent addition added to fill out the tale. While this book is neither explicitly nor implicitly part of my Bloodstone Cycle, the first sentence hints that it could have taken place on Master’s birth world – just long before the events recorded in any of those novels.
And the last stories, So You Want to be a Witch, and The Meeting were inspired on Christmas Day 2025 by a phone call from my brother. We were both complaining about having writers block. I suggested that he try writing something else, “Maybe one of the short stories you told me about.” Well, he didn’t, but I got to thinking and the title for You Want popped up into my head. So you all get a couple little bonus stories.
Author’s Introduction: Bloodstone Genesis
This book is the unplanned, and unexpected by me, Prequel to Bloodstone Redemption. While writing that novel I had no intention of putting Master’s otherworldly history to paper. Redemption, in my mind was a stand-alone book. However, about half way through that book, I realized that it leaned heavily on his previous life. There were too many things that required, or should, or could, be explained. I inserted a few short flashbacks, where I felt they were necessary. (Like Malodorous’ summoning.) But the story was so long that the insertions would have become burdensome.
One can read the two books in any order, though perhaps reading them in the order written may be best. It was difficult to write Genesis as though Redemption did not exist. In fact, Genesis could be thought of as an adjunct to Redemption. Hopefully you will read them both and decide for yourself.
The two are very much different in many ways. And not just in the settings and the cultures. While Redemption has (possibly) more than its fair share of Social Commentary, Genesis is (mainly) just a straightforward Fantasy story. Wizards, daemons, monsters, and magical battles abound; but politics, religion, and intrigue do not. In fact, it may be that readers who love one book will find the other not to their taste at all. I can hear some now, “Are you sure the same guy wrote both of these?”
Yes, I did. And while I enjoyed writing each, Genesis had more “fun to write” sections, and more personally tragic ones for Master. Genesis is the story of how he came to be the man he is in Redemption. And, hopefully, it explains why he is in need of that Redemption.
Author’s Introduction to Gods, Mortals, and Demons
What you hold in your hands is a Book of interrelated short stories and vignettes set in the same world as my previous book Hanikoto’s Dream. It is a companion book and an experiment in storytelling. (And possibly in reading. All the blanks are not filled in, the reader may have to decide what happened between stories.)
At the time of writing, I was re-reading John Londow’s excellent book, Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs. It is a fascinating compilation of information (Though it was probably aimed at academics rather than casual readers.) And Gods, Mortals, and Demons was heavily influenced by it. Not the stories so much as the storytelling. Norse myths came to us from what is referred to as “an oral tradition.” That is, they were told and re-told and probably revised countless times before anyone actually wrote them down. It may help the readers of this book to think of the stories in it (and in Hanikoto’s Dream) as coming from a similar oral tradition and me as the foolish academic who undertook to translate and transcribe them. (That would explain the gaps, various spellings, and name changes that occur as well as the vague time-line.)
It is not the book that I set out to write. That book was to be centered around the “Rainbow Witches.” I planned to tell of their births, training, and experiences and what brought them together to challenge the might of Glazthek , the country’s, army.
I did manage to get a few stories along those lines written before I had the “brilliant idea” to write the stories in a variety of formats. So, some will be first person and others third person. There is one made up of diary entries and another of letters to and from father to daughter. One is written as a scene from a play. And perhaps the strangest is an excerpt from an Edda.
About the same time as the idea for variety came to me, something else happened. The book, as I said above was supposed to be all about the witches. But then Durlonel (the Elven god of Magic, Music, and Mischief) trickster that he is, somehow insinuated his way into the position of primary protagonist. And when that happened, other characters (old and new) began to demand attention. So, our old friends Xelaznie, Akthalbaal and Creed made appearances. Next, the world’s tallest Dwarf, a fellow with a strange part Scots part Welch name showed up and bullied his way in.
What resulted was a weird variety of stories all linked together but not written in sequence. Some stories are quite short, others cover long periods that overlap previous ones. If you are looking for a strictly linear story, you will be disappointed. I spent several hours piecing together (with literal pieces of paper bearing each story’s title and shuffling them about) a time line. But with so many protagonists and antagonists doing things all over the land, some concurrently… Well, this is the best that I can do. Read the stories in the order printed in this book and if you have Hanikoto’s Dream (if you don’t then go get it – now!) insert those four stories in where so instructed.
The last three stories are not from the same continuity.
Justice, Retribution, and A One Sided Affair are short stories written for a projected book of my brother’s. He intends (some day) to write some short stories featuring the secondary characters from his Destiny’s Gambit series. And since that series features some characters from our defunct (never published) Comic Books, he thought I should write stories about my characters. I did so, gladly. But, alas, these stories did not fit his intended continuity. I almost threw them out. However, I got to thinking (always a dangerous thing)… since his stories take place in a mega-multiverse… then just because they didn’t take place on one of his planets… that doesn’t mean that in an infinite multiverse with infinite planets in each… perhaps they could have happened elsewhere. So, you get some teaser stories featuring some people from his books.