Bewildering Stories welcomes...

Julian Lawler III

You’d think it would be high time to offer an official welcome to one of our most prolific authors. At last we can finally extend Julian proper thanks in return for his stories of the past year.

The Prophet of Dreams appears in 13 chapters and an epilogue between issues 78 and 91; you can find the index in Special Features. The Prophet of Dreams is classified as a novel only for lack of a better term; it’s a fantasy epic. And we might advise readers that it’s in a kind of outline form: the chapters don’t necessarily follow one another chronologically and aren’t numbered sequentially towards the end; and the conclusion goes back to the beginning of the story. The actual Prophet of Dreams remains a mysterious figure. However, none of that takes away from our appreciation of Julian’s artistry. Every chapter is a carefully crafted tableau set in a larger framework with a wonderful title.

As you can tell from Battle Seer, currently in progress, Julian excels in creating characters, conflicts and settings. And he’s so at home with the characters’ thoughts and feelings that — one suspects — he really does not want the story to end or even to progress very rapidly. Readers will appreciate Battle Seer all the more as they adjust to the pacing of the story: after nine chapters, only a few days have passed in the time of the characters.

As for Julian himself, we can surmise that he’s been actively involved in civic improvement and may be fluent in Spanish. He has about a year and a half to go toward a degree in creative writing at the University of Texas - El Paso. However, he’s no callow sophomore: he’s put in a few very interesting years in Hollywood working as a screenwriter. And he has managed his own comic-book publishing company, Broken Trees Publishing, for the past four years.

As fellow editors we encourage you to keep up the good work and send you our best wishes for success!

Julian Lawler’s CV and bibliography can be linked to here.