Anaxilea Gladiatrix (Amazon Gladiator Book 2)

New this week!

Hungry Panther Publishing is proud to announce the release of Anaxilea: Gladiatrix! This novel marks the continuation of the GLBT oriented young adult series in book 2 of the Amazon Gladiator. Whether you're young or just young at heart, Anaxilea offers a young adult reading experience for the GLBT community. Anaxilea is the lesbian sister and gay BFF The Hunger Games never knew it had!

Anaxilea: Gladiatrix

Alex Potvin and Rebecca Murphy

Book 2 of 4 in the Amazon Gladiator series

Genres: Young Adult / Alternative History / Greek, Roman Mythology

  Price $2.99 ebook / $11.99 paperback

Available on Amazon, Nook, Kobo

Extras: map drawn by the authors and glossary of gladiator terms 

Contact Rebecca and Alex at PluckingCupidsBow@Gmail.com 

follow them on Twitter @Alex_and_Becky

and check out their web comic Cupid's Chaos

Praise for Anaxilea:

"Sharp, sharp, sharp, funny and new. Has the potential to breathe some fresh air into a saturated market.  I hope people love this as much as I did." ~Adam Sass author of Stay on Fountain: A Look at the Great Gay Tipping Point and Stay On Fountain Online Magazine

"Enjoyed it immensely--hurry up on the sequel!" ~Jean Lamb author of Dead Man's Hand

Synopsis:

Blood, sweat, and death: the currency of a Gladiatrix. Anaxilea believed she’d bargained well to save the life of her beloved Kasiani, trading what little wealth she’d earned in the arena. Treachery and rebellion within the Empire set the entire ludus down a dangerous path, across oceans and over mountains led by the enigmatic new Ludi Magister, Felixa the Royal Bastard and her insatiable thirst for glory. Each step brings them closer to freedom or death.

Milo, the fabled Olympian, promised salvation awaits them in Athens where a band of Hellenic rebels rises against the Imperium. But first the ludus must survive almost certain death within the fiercest gladiatorial games found on the outskirts of the Empire where Imperial law barely holds sway over savage civilizations and barbaric combat.

Anaxilea's tribe of gladiators threatens to tear itself apart as the flames of love, jealousy, and hatred are fanned by the winds of war.

**Disclaimer: substantial violence, mild sexuality, little language--recommended age 14 and above**

Sample Chapter 1:

Chapter 1

A breeze at the top of the pyramid blew strong with the rich, earthy scent of agriculture along the great river to the east. Even with the gentle wind it was the hottest place Anaxilea had ever been. The sun beat down on her as though the height of the pyramid brought her close enough to reach out and touch the fiery orb. Below her, the arena at Delphi wrapped around the corner of the pyramid she stood at the pinnacle of. The point at the base jutted into the center of the arena floor as if the coliseum were a ring piercing the pyramid’s nose.

The pyramid was older than the Imperium by two-thousand years. Justinus, the renowned Head Praeceptor of Ludus Dacicus and former Bull Centurion, had explained the history of the pyramid when his gladiators stood in awe of the massive structure. When the Imperium conquered the upper and lower River Kingdoms they built their coliseum to encompass part of the pyramid that housed the ancient Queen Neferukayt. Anaxilea only knew this because she was meant to portray the scholar queen in the reenactment that would open the games at Delphi.

The process of being transformed into the long-dead queen was an unpleasant one. She’d been asked for by name after her success at Neapolis. To turn her into a likeness of Neferukayt, she was dressed in short robes of a light, golden material common only to the River Kingdoms. Her head was adorned in a heavy headdress made of bronze in the shape of snakes and false black hair to conceal Anaxilea’s naturally sandy blond locks. The clothing, while strange, was not the worst of it. They’d used twisted bits of thread to pluck out all the hairs on her arms and a process called sugaring to rip the hair from her legs. They then coated her hairless body in a golden color paint that dried into a brilliant sheen. Finally, they outlined her eyes with a dark substance called kohl that framed her eyes in ornate black designs. Applying the kohl was a struggle as she was from a people who spent a good deal of time training their daughters to blind their enemies; Anaxilea still had a violent defensive reflex when anyone tried to get near her eyes and she eventually had to be held down by two large men to keep from harming the makeup artist.

She perched atop the pyramid, armed with Scyleia’s bow, surrounded by a spiked platform that positively bristled with arrows for her to fire. The bow was the last piece of Scyleia she had, her beloved childhood friend and first love who was slain trying to protect Anaxilea from the Imperial invasion. Down the sloped face of the sandstone pyramid, three gladiators of the over games stood as representatives of other ancient heroes of the lower River Kingdom. They were from different ludi than her and were all adults while she was barely sixteen summers old, so she hadn’t seen them in the arena before and she wasn’t likely to again anytime soon. The pomp of the Delphi opening ceremony was tedious and historically heavy compared to Neapolis.

One of the dark-skinned Delphinians shouted the announcements through a giant brass cone used to amplify his voice. Despite the reenactment being a celebration of a River Kingdom victory that took place thousands of years before the Imperium even existed, all the announcements were made in the Imperial tongue.

“In the twentieth year of construction on the pyramids of Delphi, a great slave rebellion arose among the workers.” The announcer gestured grandly to the small army of slaves that stood on the floor of the arena at the base of the pyramid. They were the murderers, rapists, thieves, and traitors gathered from all over the River Kingdoms and held for the sole purpose of being slain during the reenactment at Delphi. From her lofty vantage point, Anaxilea guessed there were at least two-hundred men dressed in ragged loin cloths and armed only with a smattering of sticks, although most were unarmed and some even lacked a hand—the thieves who had been caught once already, Anaxilea guessed. “After the Pharaoh was slain, the great Queen Neferukayt personally led the heroes of Delphi in defense of the city, falling back to the unfinished pyramids for a valiant last stand that finally broke the rebellion.” At this, the announcer gestured to Anaxilea, who dutifully held her bow above her head as if to gather the cheers of the crowd in its curve. A slow chant of her name rippled through the audience along with a new word: gladiatrix. The announcer waited for the chanting to subside before continuing. “If any of the condemned representing the traitors of old should crest the pyramid, their reward shall be freedom with the queen’s own pardon.”

And this was why Anaxilea was at the summit while the other three gladiators stood below her on the slope. She was the last line to prevent the convicted criminals from escaping into the city. It was a position of honor afforded to her by her success at Neapolis and her royal blood, but it was also a position of immense pressure and danger. Not that she had a choice in the matter once Ludi Magister Eligius contracted her for the opening of the games. She had her own reasons; the surviving gladiators of the reenactment received personal rewards of gold, which Anaxilea needed to continue her payments on Kasiani—her paramour, closest friend, and a remarkable murmillo gladiatrix in her own right. She would not only need to survive, she would need to thrive to collect the largest of these prizes since she’d paid nothing on her debt since Neapolis.

The sloped corner of the pyramid barred the slaves from spilling over into the edges of the coliseum with a fence of metal topped in curved spikes pointing down into the pyramid side to prevent climbing. Once the top of the coliseum ring ended a dozen or so feet below where Anaxilea stood, there were no other impediments to escape besides Anaxilea’s arrows.

On the three similar platforms along the sheer face, the trio of over games gladiators readied themselves for the charge of convicted felons. Nearest to the base of the pyramid stood a massive man, a samnite without a shield, armed with a pole as long as himself that had a hammer head on one end and an axe blade upon the other. Up the pyramid from this man was a murmillo with a throwing hoplite and a hand axe. He was armed similarly to Kasiani, but he was huge by comparison and a good deal faster in the twirling of his axe and facing of his shield. Directly below Anaxilea, at the platform in the narrowest point where the coliseum edges connected to the pyramid, stood a female dimachaerus armed with twin bronze swords shaped like forward facing hooks. Anaxilea guessed the woman to be a Scythian, although it looked as though she too had been plucked of body hair and painted gold. None of the gladiators were armored as none of the slaves attempting to escape held edged weapons; Anaxilea actually felt a little naked without the steel scales and purple leather armor that typically covered her left side.

The gladiators looked like the heroes of old and stood grandly against the horde, but what the audience couldn’t see in the spectacle was the truth of the situation. The condemned masses on the arena floor had a slim chance at freedom while the gladiators that faced them did not. Anaxilea was the Queen Neferukayt in every appearance except the manacle around her right ankle that anchored her to the platform. From the top of the pyramid, she could see similar bonds on the other gladiators, but she doubted the people within the arena could see the chains binding the gladiators to their fate.

She’d trained for months since Neapolis. She could always fire quickly, but now she could fire more accurately. Certainly she was chained while her enemy was not, but she hoped she could fill the air with enough arrows to prevent any of them from learning how vulnerable she truly was while tethered and unarmored.

The horns bellowed along the sides of the coliseum. The hard men on the arena floor charged up the side of the pyramid like a waterfall of humanity flowing against gravity. The slope of the pyramid slowed them some and offered poor footing for the climb. Some attempted to swamp the first gladiator in the row while others moved to skirt around him. The massive man with the strange hammer and axe combination cut a huge, bloody swath of destruction with every swing. He twirled his colossal weapon with straining, powerful muscles in his arms and shoulders, smashing skulls and cleaving limbs whenever a convict blundered into his range.

The swarm seemed endless and while the first gladiator killed many with his twirling hammer and axe combination, the vast majority of the condemned slaves slipped by him on the outside of the pyramid’s widest point. A few broke away from the stream in an attempt to attack the murmillo. He threw his shield as Anaxilea had seen Kasiani do. The bronze disk shaped like the fiery face of the sun shot out with far more speed and force than Anaxilea had ever seen a shield thrown. The disk cut easily through two men before reaching the end of its tether. The murmillo yanked the shield back, catching a third man with the bladed edge on the shield’s return trip. The shield spent less than a heartbeat in the murmillo’s hand before he whipped it out again to the other side with the same brutal result of cleaving limbs and cutting necks.

The slaves were finally in easy range of her bow. Anaxilea tore her focus from the gladiators below to pick targets. She drew arrow after arrow from the quivers lined up in front of her and fired again and again into the approaching rush. She had become far more accurate with practice, but she didn’t need to be that day. Every arrow she loosed found flesh as if she were firing into an ocean of humanity.

The dimachaerus woman below her met the rush of murderers and rapists with a flurry of bladed attacks when the rising tide of condemned slaves reached her. She danced away from clubs and punches, slashed with her swords at the numerous open targets around her, and added an occasional kick from her free leg. The woman had a longer chain on her manacle than any of the other gladiators, but she also seemed to be struggling more with the fettering. Her fighting style appeared to require a freedom of movement the chain wouldn’t allow and even with Anaxilea’s added help of a few well-placed arrows, it became a losing proposition of too many dead bodies around her to continue her sword dance.

Anaxilea’s heart thundered as she attempted to pour even more arrows into the flood of murderous men encircling the dimachaerus. A couple of the slaves slipped around the side, stumbling through the blood, limbs, and bodies coating the face of the pyramid to finally grab the chain holding the swordswoman. They yanked at the bloody chain, staggering her just enough for a few of the larger men with clubs to gain the advantage. They struck the dimachaerus along the arms and shoulders, knocked her swords from her hands, and dove upon her. Anaxilea fired an arrow through the skull of the first man to wrap his hands around the dimachaerus’s throat, but she could not fell them all. One of the slaves came away with a sword. Anaxilea put two arrows in this man’s chest. She lost track of the other sword in the crush of humanity. The men washed over the fallen woman below her and struggled to continue their trek to the top of the pyramid where Anaxilea stood. Above the sound of men shouting, the crowd cheering, and battle still being waged by the other two gladiators, Anaxilea thought she heard the woman screaming.

A dozen dirty, angry men, blood splattered and armed with clubs, broke from the pack to charge her platform. She felled most of them as they struggled at the top of the steeply sloped sides where the sun and wind made the stones brittle and crumbly. Two reached the edge of her platform uninjured. She swung the upper arm of Scyleia’s bow hard at the first man’s face, caving the side of his skull with the ironwood weapon. Anaxilea had not known that hope could become crazed, but that was what the man’s face had displayed the moment before she killed him. The other man rushed from her blind side, making an awkward swing of his club. She saw the attack coming in the shadow he cast across her platform. She ducked under the truncheon aimed at the back of her head and lunged at her attacker. He was too close to strike with her bow, but her right hand was as much of a weapon as any dagger. She raked her hand across his face, nearly popping out his left eye with her middle finger. He made a clumsy grab for her arm when she brought it back around for another attack. She let him grasp her elbow even as her fingers enclosed his left ear. When he tried to pull her hand away, her grip tightened and pulled in the same direction, feeling the ear tearing under her hand as he practically helped her pull the ear from his head. The man shrieked and grabbed at the bleeding hole behind his temple. Anaxilea drove her knee into his groin and used her bow to lever him off the platform. The man bounced and rolled down the face of the pyramid.

Anaxilea tossed aside the man’s ear and reached for another arrow. The pyramid, formerly beautiful and golden in the desert sun, was blood-stained and covered in more foulness than most Imperial sewers would see in a month. The transition was so fast that Anaxilea had to marvel at it. She picked off the handful of men still trying to escape over the sides below her, but the majority of the men didn’t seem interested in cresting the pyramid anymore. The handful of slaves still trying to rush over the top made for easy targets in their slow, awkward climb. They were close at hand, desperately blundering forward, and didn’t have the faintest clue how to make themselves harder to hit. Anaxilea almost felt bad for them until she remembered the chain on her ankle. They did not deserve the chance at freedom that should rightly be hers and so she would deny it to them as they had committed crimes while she had not.

The wave of slaves had moved entirely beyond the lowest gladiator who stood at the ready, covered in blood and gore, yelling taunts for them to come to him. The majority of the horde of slaves had stopped in the center of the pyramid’s face, but weren’t attacking the murmillo holding the middle gap. In fact, the men looked organized, using the bodies of their fallen to shield others from the thrown, bladed shield that kept darting out toward them like a deadly viper’s tongue. Anaxilea saw what they were doing, but couldn’t make sense of their actions until it was too late to do anything about it.

The cluster of slaves broke from the edge of the fence they were pushing at and suddenly a string of dead slaves, bound together by a crude rope, went rolling down the face of the pyramid. The weight of limp bodies tugged once at the end of the string and then came away with a section of the spiked fence keeping the slaves away from the audience. The wall guarding the citizenry was apparently stout against being pushed in, but not against being pulled out. The surviving slaves abandoned their efforts of going over the top of the pyramid past Anaxilea and instead flooded into the arena seating. Anaxilea stood for a moment, too shocked to even fire anymore. By the time she regained her senses, the remaining hundred or so slaves had pushed entirely off the pyramid and were rampaging through the audience, well out of her range to do anything.

Anaxilea couldn’t decide if she would have helped at that point even if she could. The arena patrons came to see blood, and they were certainly getting their money’s worth when the slaughter came directly to their seats. Guards struggled through the panicked audience, attempting to sort out the slaves from the patrons. Everyone was running, some to escape, some to regain order, and others to kill. Anaxilea’s eyes sweeping over the audience caught on the lone man in the entire arena who was not running. He was tall, slender, and bronze of skin. He looked Imperian with his auburn hair cut short and swept forward, but his face looked more like Caio’s. He had the sharp, hawkish features of a Gaul despite everything else about him saying he was a northern Imperian like Kasiani. The man was not directing the chaos perpetrated by the slaves that had escaped into the coliseum seating, but nor was he fleeing it or being attacked by it.

Anaxilea remained focused on the tall man even as the guards gained control of the arena section the slaves flooded into. The tall man walked with no more concern required of a stroll through a garden, exiting via one of the vomitorium arches. Without the man to stare at any longer, Anaxilea studied the rest of the arena. Only one section, an eighth of the total, had been invaded, but that hadn’t contained the panic. People in sections on the far end of the amphitheater rioted, trampled, and fled, creating far more havoc than the lone incursion warranted.

The sun dipped low in the west behind her before the coliseum was fully delivered and the slave handlers of Delphi scrambled up to release her from her chain. She didn’t think any of the slaves escaped, at least not past her they hadn’t, but none of the arena staff that came to escort her from the pyramid seemed jubilant about that success.

Justinus awaited her at the mouth of the passage leading back down into the gladiator pits. Slave handlers from the Delphi coliseum and guards from Ludus Dacicus escorted her through the labyrinth of dark hallways toward the enclosed pits outside the arena that held the gladiators waiting to compete.

“The entire complex is under lockdown while they contain and account for all the slaves,” Justinus said.

“I thought any escaped slaves would be granted freedom during the reenactment,” Anaxilea said. She thought specifically of the second man who reached her platform. The first likely died from the skull fracture delivered by her bow, but the other man, despite losing an ear and suffering two very sore testicles probably survived his first encounter with an Amazon.

“Only if they made it over the top,” Justinus said. “Any taken alive now will know torture to find out who planned this attack. The pull-down technique used on the fences was one I have seen before and certainly wasn’t accidental.”

“You saw it in Gaul,” Anaxilea mused.

“Yes, how did you know?”

“A guess only.” It was a stretch to connect the calm man in the midst of the madness to the rebellion. She also had to admit that she wasn’t the best judge of male features. Just because he looked like a Gaul to her did not mean he was one. Still, she was in possession of information that might be interconnected and important. She would need help in figuring out what to do with it.

Broken Vamp: The Chronicles of Cami Cupid

New this week!

Hungry Panther Publishing is proud to announce the release of Broken Vamp just in time for Halloween! This collection containing 3 full novels and 2 novellas encompasses the entire Cupid Project to this point and saves the reader more than 30% off retail price. A 1,200 page paranormal / urban fantasy collection filled with bisexual vampires, lesbian witches, queer identified demons, and an Undead United Nations of beautiful gay men!

Broken Vamp: The Chronicles of Cami Cupid

Alex Potvin and Rebecca Murphy

Books included in the collection:
Plucking Cupid's Bow
Blood, Bart, and Beyond
Half-Pipe to Hell
The Ghosts of Coyote Ridge
Cupid's Broken Wings

Genres: Paranormal Romance / Humorous / Horror and Supernatural / Urban Fantasy

  Price $9.99 on ebook only

Available on Kindle and Kobo

Contact Rebecca and Alex at PluckingCupidsBow@Gmail.com 

follow them on Twitter @Alex_and_Becky

and check out their web comic Cupid's Chaos

Praise for the books of Broken Vamp:

"Half-Pipe to Hell is a creepy avalanche of accelerating horror and suspense." --James P. Blaylock, author and winner of the Philip K. Dick Award and World Fantasy Award

"This has to be one of the most unique vampire books I have ever read, and I have read a lot...It isn't often you read a vampire book that makes you laugh out loud. You get more than your money’s worth in this book." --Linda Tonis reviewer for Paranormal Romance Guild

"If you're ever in the mood for something completely different that twists (but never betrays) the genre conventions, get yourself a comfy couch, grab a glass of wine (or two) and settle in for a fun read." --Sally Bend founder of Bending the Bookshelf

Synopsis:

The ultimate urban fantasy collection from the mad literary scientists of Alex Potvin and Rebecca Murphy includes the entire Cupid Project to this point. Three full-length novels and two novellas take the reader from Cami’s early days of discovering her vampirism, through Jameson Ryan’s epic battles with the undead, and into the coming apocalypse with all the romance and demon shenanigans between!

This collection follows the chronological order of the series, starting with the novel Plucking Cupid’s Bow, followed by the novella Blood, Bart, and Beyond, into the zombie adventure book Half-Pipe to Hell, then the novella The Ghosts of Coyote Ridge, finally concluding with Cami’s latest novel: Cupid’s Broken Wings.

The rich, vibrant urban fantasy world created by Potvin and Murphy teems with vampires, zombies, ghosts, demons, witches, evil spirits, necromancers, and werewolves aplenty! Do you dare step into the darkest nights of a vampire’s life with this 1,200 page collection?

Plucking Cupid's Bow:
Cami has spent the last 80 years trying to kill herself. She might even have succeeded if she weren’t a vampire. Aside from being undead, Cami has a little problem with being schizophrenic, which allows her to catch glimpses of the future, but also complicates the little things in life like talking (or knowing she is a vampire). Every night, she walks the streets of Washington D.C. while Barry and Melvin, her two inept demon companions, try to convince her to wreak as much havoc on the city as possible. The night she is hit by a car, driven by the last pure hearted priest in the city, her un-life is changed in ways she never thought possible. When her world is thrown into upheaval with people trying to kill her, hearts being broken, kidnappings, torture, and Shakespearian plays, Cami’s desire to kill herself fades to an afterthought as more important aspects of life, love, and vampire politics take over.

Caught in the middle of an undead power struggle, Cami is coming of age...a century after her death.

Blood, Bart, and Beyond:
Love is in the air and Brianna’s uncle is in the ground…but only temporarily.

Cami and Brianna’s romantic beach getaway hits a snag when Brianna’s wayward Uncle Pazito dies. Cami, the schizophrenic vampire extraordinaire, must brave the familial awkwardness of cleaning out a relative’s house, the strangely difficult task of ordering a pizza, and avert a zombie apocalypse brought about by undead gangsters.

Cami and Brianna’s six month anniversary must survive an undead motorcycle with an ulterior motive, an obstructive demon sidekick that shouldn’t even be there, and a thoroughly disapproving mother or their relationship (and a lot of other people) will join Uncle Pazito six feet under.

Half-Pipe to Hell:
Deep in the Rocky Mountains, an ancient evil has awoken. The town of New Pandora, a ski mecca for the ultra wealthy created atop the ruins of a crumbling mining town, recently received a new center piece. In the middle of the roundabout, a replica of an Assyrian death cult obelisk was just delivered. The town paid little attention to the macabre artwork when the new extreme winter sports competition arrived, setting up at the base of Hunter’s Peak. The coming competition is even distraction enough for the local Sheriff to cover up a few werewolf attacks, but when the dead begin rising from their graves, the half-pipe runs are postponed. The local used bookstore owner / powerful techno-pagan, and a mysterious stranger to town seem to be the only ones who know the true threat of the obelisk.

Marcus the fearless snowboarder, Jaimia the Polynesian werewolf, and Jameson the Australian soldier of fortune must unravel the mystery of how a six-thousand year old Assyrian artifact found its way into the Colorado Rockies or be consumed by the horde of living dead drawn to it.

The Ghosts of Coyote Ridge:
Powerful necromancers, practitioners of dead magic who draw their magic from the space between life and death, walk among the living and the dead, carrying out nefarious plans. Jameson Ryan, soldier of misfortune, famed vampire hunter, and slayer of all things supernatural is blighted by a necromancer whose primary goal seems be to making him miserable. All his strength and cunning are worth nothing when it comes to Anna, the second most powerful necromancer in the world, since he is and likely always will be, completely in love with her.

Deep in the New Mexico desert, Anna is playing with powerful magic to set right years of injustice and murder in hopes of laying to rest hundreds of wandering spirits. Jameson is called into the wilds to protect the woman he loves, but soon he discovers he’ll be protecting her as much from herself as the evil undead rising to stop her.

Cupid's Broken Wings:
Cami’s life was going great! She had a lovely girlfriend, a beautiful mansion, was about to graduate from community college with an associates degree in general studies, and her demon companions hadn’t tried to convince her to kill herself in months…which was why she probably should have seen the apocalypse coming.

In the months following her graduation, Cami suffers the first great death of a loved one, followed shortly by the death of a not-so-loved one, her house burns down, she keeps waking up during the day, strange visions haunt her formerly dreamless sleep, a psychotic gang leader befriends her, she discovers exactly how difficult it is to fit in in Los Angeles without a boob job, and then she accidentally helps an ancient evil bring about Armageddon.

With all the sex, drugs, and drop-ins by distant relatives, Cami begins to regret her decision to go away to college…especially after discovering vampire college doesn’t even exist!

Sexism and Sexuality in Video Games

Show me on the doll where the dialog option wheel touched you.

There's a cool video floating around the deep internet of a talk given by the lead writer at Bioware called Sexism and Sexuality in the Gaming Industry. You can find it here: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/194571/Video_Sexism_and_sexuality_in_games.php

It's long. Like an episode of Breaking Bad long. But it covers a whole lot more than just sexuality and sexism and it branches outside the gaming industry to cover a few societal points of importance. It also has one of the best definitions of privilege I've ever heard. I encourage everyone to set aside 45 minutes or so and watch the whole thing, especially if you're a Bioware fan.

In Dragon Age 2, the option to have a romance storyline with any character was opened up to any gender. People freaked out more about the apparent "bisexuality" of the characters more than the insanely retreaded dungeon maps. First off, it wasn't bisexuality because the NPCs only respond to the protagonist, so if the protagonist was female and romanced the males, Fenris and Anders were straight or if you made your character male and romanced them, they were gay. And if you didn't romance a character, their sexuality wasn't even noted. There are two exceptions to this: Isabela who was defined as probably pansexual more than bisexual, and Anders having a single conversation point of initiating a flirtation with the protagonist. Isabela is an overly sexualized pirate porn star, so it was no surprise the straight male gaming population didn't have any problems with her being into everyone aside from some strange, prudish comments about her being too slutty, which struck me as an ironic and hilarious complaint coming from straight male gamers.

The Anders initiation of flirtation apparently scared the living shit out of a small portion of the straight male population who couldn't believe some guy in a game might make a really vague pass at them! For one thing, I've played through the game several times now, and the comment is so innocuous, I actually missed it until my most recent play through, and when I did finally notice it I was more irritated that there wasn't a "let him down easy" option. I mentioned this whole thing to Becky, who doesn't like the Dragon Age games because they talk too much. She prefers the Dead Island games where you spend most of your time smashing skulls with flaming shovels and all the conversations are short and lead to more smashing of skulls.

Her reaction:
"Aww, poor babies. That's just called life for women."

We had fun talking about the craziness of people being offended by a seriously unobtrusive (I didn't even notice it until play through #4) in a game with slavery, murder, blood splatters everywhere, and an elf child rape/murder serial killer. But her point here was something I hadn't even thought about. Getting hit on by people you aren't interested in is pretty much a normal state of being for women from the age of 12 or 13 until...well...death. In one video game, straight male gamers had to deal with one conversation in which they were very lightly hit on by someone they weren't interested in, and they flipped the fuck out.

Dragon Age 2 wasn't a very good video game and it's a little on the old side now, but the way it exposed straight male privilege was fairly amazing. The option to go through life and not be approached sexually by people you don't want to be approached by is something entirely unique to straight males. It's such an inborn privilege that straight males apparently cannot fathom a world in which they would have to deal with unwanted sexual advances. Losing this privilege even for a second, even to a per-programmed video game character, was so horrible they wanted an option to turn this feature off. Seriously, they asked for a toggle in the option menu to prevent that one line from Anders from occurring. Ironically, I imagine most of the women straight male gamers harass, especially online/xbox live/playstation network, would love a toggle to shut off the unwanted sexual advances perpetrated by straight male gamers.

It's one of those things where I didn't feel one shred of sympathy for the whining, possibly sexually confused young men who felt emotionally violated by a video game character making a benign pass at them. And I couldn't put my finger on exactly why I didn't give a shit about their pathetic plight until Becky pointed out how hypocritical their complaints were.

I, for one, am glad Bioware took the time to violate the privilege of straight male gamers. I wish they'd spent as much time on unique dungeon maps and timeline continuity as they did tweaking the noses of people who have never had their noses tweaked.

Anaxilea: Amazon Princess

New this week!

Hungry Panther Publishing is proud to announce the release of Anaxilea: Amazon Princess! This novel marks the launch of a GLBT oriented young adult series. Whether you're young or just young at heart, Anaxilea offers a young adult reading experience for the GLBT community. Anaxilea is the lesbian sister and gay BFF The Hunger Games never knew it had!

Anaxilea: Amazon Princess

Alex Potvin and Rebecca Murphy

Book 1 of 4 in the Amazon Gladiator series

Genres: Young Adult / Alternative History / Greek, Roman Mythology

  Price $2.99 ebook / $11.99 paperback

Available on Amazon, Nook, Kobo

Extras: map drawn by the authors and glossary of gladiator terms 

Contact Rebecca and Alex at PluckingCupidsBow@Gmail.com 

follow them on Twitter @Alex_and_Becky

and check out their web comic Cupid's Chaos

Praise for Anaxilea:

"Sharp, sharp, sharp, funny and new. Has the potential to breathe some fresh air into a saturated market.  I hope people love this as much as I did." ~Adam Sass author of Stay on Fountain: A Look at the Great Gay Tipping Point and Stay On Fountain Online Magazine

"Enjoyed it immensely--hurry up on the sequel!" ~Jean Lamb author of Dead Man's Hand

Synopsis:

The Amazons of the steppes have conquered since a time before recorded history. The kingdom of the proud women warriors is threatened by a vast invading force of men in metal armor who invade out of the western mountains at the edge of the Amazon domain. Anaxilea, the youngest daughter of War Queen Lysippe, is taken hostage by the invading force and sold into slavery.

Anaxilea finds herself in a bizarre new world where women are beneath men, cows are valued more than horses, and everyone desires the worthless metal gold. A shepherd boy, from a tribe long ago subjugated by the Amazons, is her only guide to the new world, but his motives are suspicious and his loyalties are constantly changing.

After she is sold to the ancient Ludus Dacicus, a gladiator training school founded by the first Caesar, she must learn to fight within the arena to prove her worth or suffer a fate worse than death. Romance blossoms within the walls of the ludus, and Anaxilea finds herself within a love triangle, caught between a pure-hearted slave girl and a charming Olympic champion. The games at Neapolis will determine if she survives to claim her birthright as an Amazon Princess or fall to betrayal.

**Disclaimer: substantial violence, mild sexuality, little language--recommended age 14 and above**

Sample Chapter 1:

Chapter 1

Cool spring winds swept down off the craggy mountains ringing in the northern edge of the steppe grass sea. The exposed, rocky peaks of the mountains were still crowned in the white snows of winter even as the sky behind them was vibrant blue, portending of warmer seasons to come. The flat grasslands of the steppes washed over in the wind, waving like a great ocean of green and tan water. Only the distant sound of the wind through the valleys along the edges of the mountains covered the silence.

From her perch atop the Lonely Rock Mother, a strange island of boulders in the midst of the plains, Anaxilea believed she could smell the mountain snow on the wind and hear the hoof-beats of a thousand horses riding into the west. She was the youngest of three daughters and thus third in the line of succession for the Antiope Crown. The wind could not touch her within her furs of winter. She wore a warm hide jerkin over her torso while her arms were covered in the gray fuzzy pelts of raccoons harvested after their winter coats were grown.

As the old Amazon proverb went: the vastness of the steppes swallows up most things. The sounds of battle would be so far away that even a trained and familiar ear like Anaxilea’s wouldn’t be able to hear her mother and sisters destroying the men who wore metal. Her mother, Queen Lysippe, was mighty in battle, wise in her rule, and had expanded the borders of the Amazon people from the eastern edge of the steppes north to the saltwater and as far west into the empty grasses as anyone cared to ride. The men who wore metal that came out of the western mountains were weak in their strategies as they needed metal armor to fight and were foolish in their use of horses, hooking them to tiny, two-wheel wagons rather than riding them. Queen Lysippe and her mounted archers would drive them from the steppes as she had in the past, as she had with the Thracian tribes who made claims to the grazing and hunting lands that rightfully belonged to the Amazons. When the men who wore metal were defeated, the Amazons would take their horses, melt their armor into thousands of arrowheads, and use both to finish the conquest of the grasslands all the way to the western mountains. The vastness of the steppes would then swallow up even the memory of the defeated men.

Anaxilea could hear the thundering of Scyleia’s horse coming out of the south. Even as she heard her best friend, her moon sister, and she hoped one day her betrothed, she could feel Scyleia in her heart. Breeding only took place among the Amazons at specific times of the year when a crop of captured men had proven themselves worthy of passing their life on. Only the tallest, strongest, and smartest men were kept from the knife when the Amazons raided the many tribes throughout the steppes. It took months to determine the best of the stock. The men were tested in combat, horsemanship, endurance, and ability to learn the Amazon language and customs. Those who failed died in their trials or were gelded and traded to the men who crossed the saltwater seeking slaves. Those who survived were used in thrice yearly breeding rituals by the Amazon women who had earned the right to carry children. The daughters born to the tribes three times a year were known as moon sisters, bound to one another by their generation and the blessings of the shared rituals that marked their conception. Anaxilea and Scyleia were moon sisters of one of the most promising summer generations born in years. At fifteen cycles old, they were nearly to the point of womanhood where they would be allowed to fight in raids, hunt the great cats of the steppes, earn the right to breed if they so chose, and take a life mate. Anaxilea already had her heart set on Scyleia for the bonding ritual.

Anaxilea slipped down from the peak of the rocks, descending quickly in practiced hops that even mountain goats would envy. She was a superb climber without fear of heights or falls from them. It was an unusual skill for an Amazon to display, although they celebrated strength in any form, and gave her the nickname of “Sure-Foot.”

Scyleia’s massive, tan mare rumbled across the flat grasslands toward the rocky outcropping. Scyleia sat tall, riding bareback with her bow slung across her back and her sky-blessed blond hair trailing behind her. She was beautiful in the leathers of the spring season, abandoning the warmer furs still worn by most Amazons as winter’s hold on the steppes hadn’t entirely receded. Scyleia’s long limbs were protected by light deerskin bracers bound to her with crisscross lacing and a thicker protective girdle of horse hide with a loin cloth. The clothing of spring and summer guarded only what might be harmed by the brush while riding and thus left much of Scyleia’s skin defiantly exposed to the elements.

Increasingly, her friend was also exposed to Anaxilea’s gaze. The Princess had begun to notice the blossoming of womanhood in her friend and looked upon it with an appreciative eye. The girl she had loved as a friend her entire life was becoming something more, and Anaxilea could feel the shifting of her feelings in response to Scyleia’s maturation. Bonded pairs did not always share a physical relationship. A third of Amazons did not enter into a coupling with another Amazon at all, and of the two thirds that did, only about half shared intimate relations as part of the arrangement. Anaxilea had not known what she wished for from her bonding with Scyleia until very recently, and she was not sure how her friend might react to the request. It was a terrible feeling to yearn for something as she did and yet be just as frightened of not getting it.

Scyleia leapt from the back of her horse and up onto the lowest rocks, never letting her sandaled feet touch the waist-deep grass of the steppes. She embraced Anaxilea with their right arms locked hand to forearm, and then they kissed one another on the forehead in turn.

“I brought paint,” Scyleia said.

“Red?” Anaxilea asked.

Scyleia shook her head. “Black.”

“We can wash it off before we go back in the morning,” Anaxilea said.

Scyleia nodded and they scaled the Lonely Rock Mother to where a natural spring bubbled up between the enormous stones. Scyleia mixed the powdered elements of the paint in a worn groove on one of the rocks, dipping her hand into the tiny trickle of water to drop just enough of the spring to mix the paint. They were un-bloodied in battle yet, and thus not worthy of any but the red paint of the rust-colored clay dug from the eastern river banks. Black paint was meant only for warriors who had killed a human enemy in combat or a huntress who had killed a plains cat armed only with spear and knife. Scyleia and Anaxilea had done neither. Painting one another with the marks of a warrior beneath the full moon was a game they’d shared since childhood. It was playing at what they one day hoped to become, and, with any luck, it would be the last year they would simply play at it.

Anaxilea sat cross-legged while Scyleia chose a reed to paint the figures and patterns on the Princess’s skin. The daylight was fading above the western mountains that were so far away as to only be visible at the end of the day. Anaxilea removed her hide jerkin with her back to her friend. For a moment she wondered if Scyleia looked upon her body and felt the same growing hunger that Anaxilea felt when she saw her friend.

“Would you ride to the western mountains for me?” Anaxilea asked.

“If my princess asked, I would ride without stopping until I reached the stones, claim a rock from the bed of the swiftest river, and return with it held high above my head,” Scyleia replied. She began applying the cool, gritty paint along Anaxilea’s exposed arms and shoulders.

“Would you kill a plains cat for me?” Anaxilea asked.

“If my princess asked, I would track the greatest pride lord to his lair and brave his pit of bones to bring back the striped mane pelt my princess deserves.” Scyleia brushed aside Anaxilea’s long, sandy braid to paint the space between her shoulders with the looping vines she favored. It tickled, but Anaxilea only let herself grin as she didn’t want to spoil the artwork that she wouldn’t even be able to see.

“Would you scale the Stormy Peak to tell me what you saw beyond the grass sea?” Anaxilea asked.

“If my princess asked, I would likely fall and break my neck in the attempt,” Scyleia teased. “I should ask you if you would climb the mountains for me since you are the only Amazon in memory who would survive.”

“If my moon sister asked, I would climb the mountain and bring her back a handful of the snow from the highest point to taste the top of the mountain,” Anaxilea said.

“How would you keep it from melting?”

“I would blow on it.”

“That would not work.”

“Do you want the snow or not?”

“I do.”

“Then do not question your princess.”

“As she commands.” Scyleia tickled Anaxilea’s ribs with her free hand.

They changed places, and Anaxilea took the offered reed to paint Scyleia’s skin. Her moon sister was a little taller, a little stronger, and a little darker of skin. Anaxilea envied Scyleia’s prowess as a rider and archer. There would be no crown for Anaxilea, both her elder sisters were capable and healthy, and so she felt she had little to offer Scyleia in return for their future bonding. It was often said among those who knew such things that Scyleia would become a celebrated huntress or a great warrior cloaked in glory, whichever path she chose. A huntress needed to be tall enough to spot the plains cats within the grasses at a distance and a warrior needed to have the strength to grip a horse with her legs and draw a bow with a heavy enough pull to fire an arrow capable of killing a man; Anaxilea had neither of these things, at least, not in the vast quantities that Scyleia did. The Princess painted well and knew plants—she thought she might make a decent shaman, which would mean the position of their future family would have to come from Scyleia. A shaman simply didn’t command enough respect for a decent selection from the male herds.

Anaxilea traced large swaths of darkness across Scyleia’s skin and then plucked out small points from the blackness to create a starry night across her moon sister’s shoulders and arms. Beneath a crescent moon drawn from the dark paint, Anaxilea drew a small herd of wild horses.

“Do you think there will be any worthy males found in the ranks of the men who wore metal?” Anaxilea asked. Admiring of male herds was something young Amazon girls did on occasion. Anaxilea seldom saw anything to catch her eye within the Thracian tribesmen they took. She’d seen Scyleia send approving glances to certain types of men in the past, although her friend was just as likely to hurl scorn at the men.

Scyleia snorted. “They know nothing. They speak no language worth knowing, cannot ride a horse, and know to fight only when they are told to. What Amazon with the right to breed would select such pathetic stock?”

“What male would you select?” Anaxilea asked.

“Tall, of course,” Scyleia said. “Large hands like stone hammers. Perhaps one who had a history of fathering daughters.”

Anaxilea scoffed. “Any tribesman caught knows to lie about the number of daughters they’ve fathered and no one beneath the height of a hut beam is allowed to be considered. Large hands was all you told me.”

“This is why I would cut out their lying tongue first.”

Anaxilea laughed and shook her head. “What would you have us do with them after?” She could tell from the tense muscles along the back of Scyleia’s neck that the question, which wasn’t one they’d discussed before, made her friend nervous.

“If they provided daughters and knew horses well enough to be of value, they could work our herd, which I am certain will be large enough to require many attendants,” Scyleia said.

The demand of daughters was another avoidance of answering the question. Four out of every five children born to an Amazon was female. If an Amazon had two sons in a row, they lost their right to breed. The real answer Anaxilea was after was whether or not Scyleia expected a male consort to join their bed permanently once they were bonded. It was a difficult question to give voice to though, so Anaxilea asked a different one.

“What would you do with them if they provided sons?”

“Geld the father and give both of them to whatever supplicant tribe would take them,” Scyleia said.

It was the answer Anaxilea expected. Her friend was a true follower of the old ways in that regard: whatever was not valuable to the Amazonian people should be cast off to the conquered peoples of the steppes. More spiritually zealous Amazons would offer the father and son to the gods of the sky and mountains upon great bonfires in hopes of purifying the mistake. Anaxilea was glad Scyleia did not hold this extreme view.

Before Anaxilea could ask another secondary question to further avoid the weightier question, Scyleia asked her first. “If a man should provide daughters and not be offensive to the eyes, nose, or ears, would you wish him to remain in our hut?”

Anaxilea set aside her painting reed as the black paint was already dried too much to continue. It was easier to answer the back of Scyleia’s head than look her in the face and say the potentially embarrassing words. “No,” Anaxilea said. “I would share our home only with you and our daughters if we should be so fortunate.”

It was a far more interesting question passing from Scyleia to Anaxilea. The Queen, Anaxilea’s mother, kept a male consort for her bed, called him by his name, and rarely struck him for his insolence. Anaxilea knew the man was not the same who had sired her—that man had died while defending their village when Anaxilea was still a small child. She couldn’t remember much of the man who had sired her. Only that his eyes were green like hers and he had a joyous humor to him. Scyleia’s mothers were bonded from a very young age and raised a household of only daughters, refusing to let any male energy on their property. They made their selections for breeding partners at the sacred stones, did their breeding there as well, and then left the sires to whatever fates the tribe decided for the remaining male stock. Scyleia’s sire was unknown and unimportant while people still remembered the name of Anaxilea’s. As far as Anaxilea knew, Scyleia’s mothers did not share in carnal pleasures with one another, but she hoped that tradition wasn’t something Scyleia would emulate.

“That is what I would have as well,” Scyleia finally said.

Subterfuge was not Scyleia’s way, but appeasing Anaxilea was. Still, Anaxilea got what she wanted from the conversation whether or not Scyleia meant what she said. “Then it is decided.”

With their war paint dry, they laid upon the rocks in the sheltered crux of the Lonely Stone Mother. The wind calmed and a faint trickle of clouds passed in front of the moon on an otherwise clear night. Anaxilea shared her furs with Scyleia and they fell asleep holding one another close as they had thousands of times over the years.

Battle of the Sexes: Archery

From time to time, Becky and I revive our time honored tradition of donut-shop discussions where we sat around in Puck's Donuts and debated the trivialities of the universe during dead week of college. The topic for this particular donut-shop discussion is whether or not bow and arrows are a predominantly female or male weapon. As we've written two book series together that feature a female protagonist archer (Cami in Plucking Cupid's Bow and Anaxilea in Anaxilea: Amazon Princess) we've agreed we will not use our own creative processes as part of the debate. I, Alex, will choose green to mark my half of the discussion because I got to pick first and I know how much Becky likes green. Becky will get to go first and she  chose pink because it compliments green.

Amazons.

You can't have a one word opening argument.

Okay, fine, Amazons and Athena.

Apollo was just as known for archery as Athena, and ancient Greek mythology is hardly the gold standard anymore. J.R.R. Tolkien said the bow was a male weapon and nobody made it sing like Legolas, but even if you're going to stick to the oldest of old schools, there's also Paris who killed Achilles with a bow.

Is there anyone else Orlando Bloom played that you'd like to list?

Maybe, but I can't think of any other movies he was in. Behold the incredible badassery that is Legolas killing an Oliphant!

He had a bunch of friends watching his back and crazy elf skills. Plus, I think Legolas was a thousand years old or something. His awesomness is qualified by extreme amounts of time to become amazing and the fact that he was played by such a mediocre actor. Katniss Everdeen was only 15 when she had to pick up the bow to save her sister, feed her family, and fight to the death all alone.

She wasn't alone. She had that baker guy throwing himself on every other landmine she walked past. Even you aren't Team Peeta.

Gale was hotter.

And Gale hunted using...?

He wasn't as good as Katniss with a bow. The questions isn't whether or not archery or baking made a guy hotter. It is whether or not the bow and arrow is a male or female weapon, and Katniss was better.

You know what, even though Katniss killed maybe four people with her bow, I'll give you that she was better than Gale, because I"m about to win this thing.

Artemis was Apollo's sister and she used a bow too.

Deep background mythology won't save you now, Murphy. We've got Hawkeye, even you liked The Avengers, and Rambo.

Okay, Hawkeye was the least Avengery guy in that entire movie. Most people probably thought it was actually the character from the Hurt Locker. And didn't Rambo help the Taliban in one of his movies? I think he did and I think you even linked the poster to that movie as your example.

I think one of the guys in the movie was actually named Osama.

I've got two for you though. Princess Merida and Lady Sylvanas.

Invoking Pixar and World of Warcraft? Fine, have bows, but we're keeping crossbows.

What about Buffy? She used a crossbow all the time.

Yeah, but she missed half the time. I've got two words for you: Daryl Dixon.

Just wait until we talk about swords.

To continue the battle of the sexes or add to it, there's a comment section.