Dragon's Game: Book Three of the Dragon's Game Trilogy: Volume 3 - Softcover

Two worlds in jeopardy. Two great civilizations on the verge of utter subjugation. One handful of talented misfits with one incredibly longshot chance to stand defiant in the face of amoral tyranny and maybe...just maybe...make some sort of a difference. On distant Gavelin Roman and Nikala face the daunting prospect of taking on the consolidated powers of most of Gavelin’s Howling Wind-infected tyrants without the aid of their Dragon Child friend Chalice Rayne. Meanwhile here on Earth renegade conservative mouthpiece Carl Morrow’s stolen super-stealth blimp is quickly running out of corners to hide in as “Charlie Tomorrow” and his high-tech rebels work to put together a plan to expose the true darkness that has all but overtaken their society. But Charlie and his crew – featuring a sultry Russian spy turncoat, a good old boy with a homebuilt personal UFO, a teenage prodigy whose zapper safely neutralizes injected nanotech devices and other outcasts from around the world – have no idea how truly outmatched they are by the incomparably shrewd and ever-scheming Shadow Master Veil.

Dragon's Game Trilogy creator Kevin Candela lives with his hero, wife Jackie, and a number of cat sentinels in the Land of the Piasa Bird, otherwise known as Godfrey, Illinois. A devotee of all things paranormal, supernatural and/or conspiratorial, he just might believe in a lot of the "truths" he puts forth in the trilogy. Or not, you gotta ask him. Engineer, physics instructor, rock music addict/player, devotee of sf and fantasy, Candela infuses his narratives with plenty of humor to offset the often dark matters at hand. Inspired by a wide variety of ground breakers and innovative "rebels" from Nikola Tesla, Edgar Cayce and H.G. Wells to Keith Richards, Joss Whedon and Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, he crafts his stories with an eye for the power of the character as well as the conflict. To this end he credits Gary Gygax' wonderful game Dungeons and Dragons, which he says has definitely served to hone his perception of character nuances and deeper motives. "You just can't get that yet with a video game," he says. "Although they do make the whole bookkeeping thing a lot easier." Of The Ballad of Chalice Rayne he says: "The brakes are off. Not much time for deep philosophical discourse in this one because once you've poked the tiger he's not too inclined to sit and chat. With Mushroom Summer I attempted to capture the feel of the late 1990s, particularly the euphoric possibility that was in the air in 1999. Ballad is attuned to the vibe of what came after that: fear, uncertainty and untruth. Dragon's Game, the third book, has yet a third sensibility to it (thus three different artists are doing the cover art for the trilogy.) The Ballad of Chalice Rayne sets the stage for the momentous final confrontation in Dragon's Game, where the fates of two worlds will be decided." Candela has several other new works in progress including A Year in the Borderlands, a collection of short stories mixing sf, horror and fantasy genres with healthy doses of wry to warped humor; Blood Ridge, which he calls a "ghost western"; Terra Forma, a tale of caretakers on a world terraformed by none other than Earth itself; and The Piper Gods, a multi-tale epic about the return of the kids the Piper took away. His grit-with-humor short story Emerald City Confidential is to be featured in an upcoming collection of tales based on Frank L. Baum's timeless characters and his apocalyptic short story Weedeaters will appear in Kent Hill's Straight to Video, a tribute to B-movies.