I write ADVENTURE

I write adventure.

Happy 2017 We're going to have a good year, folks, regardless of anything else you hear. You can make it great. You can.

Here's what I've done to keep MY MACHINE, myself, going forward: following a passion I've had since I was a little kid.

Writing.

Writing tales of adventure.

Here's what I've done to date, as far as published and available works:
(Click on title to be brought to book store.)

Self-Published (ebook only)

A PARTING AT SUNSET
One of my first short Fantasy yarns. Saw publication in a few different anthologies way back in the day. Someone said it is very "purple prosey." Yup. Okay. I painted this one in broad swipes of color and detail and emotion.

Oh, and it is FREE.

Obliteration of the Blind

My blind Viking mercenary, Boldolf Andersson, in his first adventure. A bit of historical fiction laced with fantasy and intrigue and an ancient Lovecraftian beast from the dark ocean depths.

This was written during the time I was writing the BEDLAM UNLEASHED material with Steven Shrewsbury so I was quite submersed in Viking and ancient history lore.

This great little yarn is only 0.99 cents USD.

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Below via various publishers (paperback and ebook)

HISTORICAL FANTASY FICTION

BEDLAM UNLEASHED

Staying on the epic and fantastical, heaped in historical real lands, mixed with the supernatural, turning some Fantasy tropes on their head, I bring you BEDLAM UNLEASHED. A truly epic Viking adventure featuring Erik Bedlam and his traveling companion, Alanis Johansson.

Written with larger-than-life and the very talented Steven L. Shrewsbury, if you like your adventuring big, raw and bloody action-packed, BEDLAM is for you.

This is the first book in a series of four.

Cover by the very talented Tim Holtrop 

Editor: Scott Sandridge

Publisher: Seventh Star Press

POST-APOC ADVENTURE FICTION
(paperback and ebook)

Science Fiction

RETURN TO STRANGE HOME
If you enjoy a action-packed romp with a adventure hero from the depths of space, arriving back on Earth and finding his home not quite the way he left it...STRANGE HOME is for you.

Cover: Tim Holtrop
Editor: Julie Williams-Bonner
Publisher: Peninsulam Publishing

Post-Zompocalypse Adventure

My TRANSPORT "universe" and story lines grew from a desire to write epic adventures in the very real place of my birth: Grand Rapids, Michigan. This fictional universe and characters, with some real locations peppered within, has been slapped down in a POST post-zombie apocalypse world. All the initial viral and zombie-eating-your-face insanity has come to pass and Humankind is re-building and moving forward. The Living are still here. The Undead are still here. Which group make the place a bit hellish, you can decide.

TRANSPORT
Travel with Captain Jacob Billet and crew and their 72-ton armored transport, the HURON, as they venture through West Michigan on a covert mission to bring the much-hated William Lettner back to his lake shore base of operations. The Living and Unliving dog their every step. The events outside the HURON are furious and fiery enough, however Captain Billet must maintain himself and keep his firearm from blasting what he carries within the HURON. Though Lettner doesn't realize it, he is being transported across the land by a angst-filled soldier, Billet, who knows Lettner is responsible for the horrible death of the Captain's wife and young son.

Cover: Jason C Conley

Editor: Rodney Carlstrom

Interior art: Tim Holtrop 

Publisher: Seventh Star Press

TRANSPORT: HUNT FOR THE FALLEN
Captain Billet and crew must pursue a rogue tank commander and his 68-ton very deadly Abrams through the flooded wasteland of West Michigan. With communications down, a group of local Undead washed downstream and wanted by the city (and possible unsavory people) and Billet struggling with some form of ailment, can a Heavy Transport Vehicle with a 25mm gun survive against a Main Battle Tank with a 120mm cannon ta boot?

Heavy duty action and adventure awaits.

Cover: Jason C Conley

Editor: Rodney Carlstrom

Interior art: Tim Holtrop 

Publisher: Seventh Star Press

TRANSPORT: UNCIVIL WAR
After a "heart attack," Captain Billet comes out a coma to find the world more upside down than when he fell prey to his ailing body. Mercenaries hired by a corrupt city official have infiltrated Grand Rapids and the city's military outfit. The said-corrupt city official has gone AWOL and run to a small town, Reganshire, governed by a tyrannical overseer and his insane and partially Undead daughter. The Grand Rapids mayor is on his way back from lake shore trade negotiations and is targeted to die. And William Lettner seemingly has come back to life to dog Billet's every step as the good captain tries to derail all of the above.

An epic conclusion to a epic series.

L. Andrew Cooper of Horrific Scribblings: "...a fascinating sign of where zombie narrative, road narrative, and narrative in general might be moving."

Cover: Jason C Conley

Editor: Scott Sandridge

Interior art: Tim Holtrop 

Publisher: Seventh Star Press

On the heels of TRANSPORT comes a stand-alone character, JOE CROSS: URBAN SALVAGE ENGINEER...

RUNNING WITH THE DEVIL
Joe Cross is a Urban Salvage Engineer, a collector of items and resources from the wastelands outside barricaded cities and towns and villas in the post-zompoc lands of West Michigan. In this first story, Joe Cross and his traveling companion, the stuffed toy bear ALBERT, run afoul of Reganshire, ruled by a tyrannical overseer, Silas Regan, and his insane and partially Undead daughter, Rebecca. Joe will have to prove his worth to survive in this upside-down world and his mantra as being: the best salvager in the Midwest.

Cover: Peter Welmerink / Jordan Richardson
Interior art: Tim Holtrop
Publisher: Peninsulam Publishing

BULL

Galloping from the pages of TRANSPORT into Joe Cross's world, Joe will find himself pitted against a mechanized thug and his henchman, a Reganshire scout hellbent on finding his colleague, and a massive mutated experiment-gone-wrong of the bovine variety stomping through the wilderness...and a small group of dangerous Feral zombies ta boot.

Never a dull day for Joe and his fuzzy brown traveling companion, Albert.

Painted Cover: Russ Colter
Editor: Scott Sandridge
Interior art: Tim Holtrop
Publisher: Peninsulam Publishing

Short Adventure Stories of Horror and Intrigue 

in a fictional West Michigan

FACES IN PERDITION

Join a young woman haunted by faces of her past, fighting a future she is no longer sure she wants to be part of in the title story: Faces in Perdition. Find out why you don't want to be out near the destroyed Valley State University genetics campus on a dark and stormy night in Revenge of the Roadkill. In a alt-history America after the Korean War find out the fate of Humankind and what rests 900 feet below Lake Michigan's surface in the haunting and powerful Signal in the Distance. Find strength and courage in a young man fighting for his city, his life and the fate of his sister and her young son as final night falls across the land in the nail-biting Final Rights.

Cover: Peter Welmerink
Editors: Various
Publisher: Peninsulam Publishing

An Anthology of Awesome Authors

The Middletown Apocalypse series is on its second book. I was fortunate enough to have an opportunity to write a story for the second anthology that has some very talented authors and very awesome stories between its covers.

The premise of the anthology: the setting, events and characters are very close to being the same, but it is each author's voice and how they take the gist of the pre-prescribed tale to make the book a truly interesting and entertaining piece.

MIDDLETOWN 2: MIDTOWN APOCALYPSE

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I write adventure.

And will continue to do so.

Thank you for reading, and stay tuned...there is definitely more to come. 

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Peter Welmerink writes action-adventure tales, thrown into different genres: Horror, SciFi, etc. But at their heart, they are about Humankind facing some sort of hurtle, and trying to overcome it. His first collaborative novel, BEDLAM UNLEASHED, with Steven Shrewsbury, is available via Seventh Star Press in 2016. TRANSPORT is his first solo novel series, and JOE CROSS, via Peninsulam Publishing, is a standalone character from that “universe.” He’s written, and is continuing to write, high-octane adventure stories and books related to the area he lives and loves: Grand Rapids and West Michigan. He is married with a small barbarian horde of three boys.

Absolutely Some Cool Sh*t

I am usually very low key about tooting my own horn when it comes to my literary work, but I have to say I am very proud of these two newest West Michigan-based works.

BULL is a continuation of the JOE CROSS: URBAN SALVAGE ENGINEER series started with RUNNING WITH THE DEVIL via Peninsulam Publishing.

FACES IN PERDITION is a collection of four short stories/novellas of material either published and out of print, or submitted-for-publication, almost-made-the-grade, never-before-in-print work. All the stories are locally-based, featuring a fictional future with characters fighting the good fight and sometimes winning and sometimes...not so much.

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What's BULL about?
Note: You do NOT have to have read the TRANSPORT Series to enjoy this book. But I won't complain if you do. :)

Joe Cross is part of the Reganshire community during the events of TRANSPORT (Book One). He knows some bad sh*t happened to a entourage of Reganites who ventured out to the sprawling Valley State University campus where a commune of crazed geneticists had created something...not-so-good for them or the surrounding countryside...and IT got loose and stomped the bejeezuz out of everything and everybody.

The creature, a giant, mutated, undead (??) bull had been run off by a local military transport and her stalwart crew. (As seen in TRANSPORT Book One)

A year later, Joe is heading out of town on a special salvaging trip, after the events of TRANSPORT: UNCIVIL WAR. He happens across two Reganshire soldiers who are considering going AWOL. They hold Joe at gun point, tell him he WILL take them out of town, they run into another soldier--this one bloodied, torn and half-crazed--and things get chaotically amped-up from there.

Joe always enjoys being a pull-toy behind a gigantic, raging creature of POST post-apoc West Michigan.

Umm, yeah. Not so much.

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What is reflected in FACES?
(See what I did there. LOL)

Four main short stories and some commentary about what and why I do (write) what I do. The four stories are:

FACES IN PERDITION
A young woman, trying to survive in post-apoc West Michigan, starts to have issues with her current "job" with collecting and distributing drug-toting zombies. As her close peers see her potentially going soft, she gets tested in the field one final time. The odds are against her but with the eyes of past victims haunting her, she won't go down without a fight.

FINAL RIGHTS
A far-flung future Grand Rapids is fighting for survival as the lights are going out all over the globe and dark, ferocious creatures stalk along the lines of shadows waiting to consume Humankind. A young sharpshooter, battling cancer, must rush to New Holland on the lake shore to bring his remaining sister and her son back to the city... before the ebon tide and death swallows them whole.

REVENGE OF THE ROADKILL
The crazed geneticists from Valley State University have been dumping the carcasses of their failed (and grossly successful) experiments into the Grand River valley. A small group of GRCC troops (Grand Rapids Central Command) find out first hand that sometimes you shouldn't stop to inspect the mooshed rabbit-thingie on the side of the road. Oops.

SIGNAL IN THE DISTANCE
A 1950-esque, post-Korean War alt-history story. An ex-soldier comes out of his underground bunker on Grand Rapid's West Side to find what he believes to be the Chinese Red Army infiltrating his wartorn city. His path leads him out to Grand Haven, to the Lake Michigan lakeshore, where he gets to be the first living human to witness the rise of a Cthulhu-esque Old One from the 900 foot depths of the big lake.

NOTE: I don't write doom and gloom to write doom and gloom. Hell, my main goal isn't to write doom and gloom at all. I write stories of strong characters facing survival and often impossible confrontations, BUT they keep moving forward no matter the odds. It is a goal I believe in...KEEP MOVING FORWARD AGAINST ALL ODDS...and it is what I try to instill in these stories of intrigue, action and adventure.

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Anyway, I am proud as hell of these two new books because, simply, they kick ass and in the style the Midwest hasn't seen or been part of...and now, they...YOU...are!

You can order the books online through Peninsulam Publishing or Amazon, or ask for them by name via your favorite bookstore. Or you can come see me and say hello and grab a copy or two at any upcoming book gig (B&N Muskegon Oct 28 6-9 and Comic Signal Nov 12 11-2).

This is exciting and cool stuff. It is.

Thanks for your time.

--Peter

JOE CROSS: URBAN SALVAGE ENGINEER copyright 2015-2016 Peter Welmerink

Cover art by Russ Colter

Cover art by Peter Welmerink & Peninsulam Publishing

Other illustrations by Tim Holtrop, Jason C Conley

Editing credits: Julie Bonner-Williams, Scott Sandridge, Rodney Carlstrom

MICHIGAN SPACE EXPLORER RETURNS TO A STRANGE STATE

By Peter Welmerink

Captain Paul Wells, aka Space Voyager, has returned home from ten years in deep space. He finds his beloved state of Michigan, and his home on the shore line of Lake Michigan, not how he had left it.

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In my new SciFi Michigan-based series, I drop the main character into his homeland that has become barely the place he recognizes or remembers. 90% of the inhabitants of Michigan (at least the lower peninsula) have vacated the Mitten state after a man-made disaster, disagreements between the government and the mega-corporations who rule the roost, and a incursion of robotic beings, spawned from a rogue AI system in Grand Rapids, change the landscape of the place.

After the robotic Synth-Units, or Sues, attack and destroy his lake shore home and base, and curious about this "strange home" he's returned to, Captain Wells decides to venture deeper inland to the source of the Sues and the massive AI system called RAS. (rass)

His wanderings will get him into a heap of adventure... and trouble.

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An excerpt from RETURN TO STRANGE HOME:

"From the data I had reviewed upon descent, the Earth was the same as I had left it. The United States was still in turmoil over a power struggle between the government and the megacorporations. I could never keep up with every merger and dissolution of businesses into one huge company. Most big business moved south of the border and overseas, making the Tri-State area an industrial dead zone.

Michigan was still a forest realm, except on the east side of the state in what remained of Lansing and Detroit. West Michigan had returned almost fully to nature, the government keeping the area quarantined ever since a madman bathed it in a lethal cloud of bioagents over a decade ago. Last I’d heard the state was clean, but the government had struggled through innumerable lawsuits over the tragic incident, refusing to let people repopulate the area; which led to more lawsuits. The military kept it free from curious folk who wanted to venture into its reacquired natural state..."

Photo with enhancements by APW Productions copyright 2015

Photo with enhancements by APW Productions copyright 2015

 

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Q&A with Peter Welmerink

Q: Why, in these currents stories and books, do you write Michigan as some sort of post-apoc No Man's land? 

A: Because it's fun. Seriously, ever since I was little and could venture out into the "wilds" of my surrounding neighborhood, in my mind, there was always ADVENTURE there. Fictional and non-fic alike. I simply put my crazy writer's idea hat on, and came up with several challenging "doomsday" scenarios for the city and state I love.

 

Why should New York City, LA, Tokyo and Atlanta GA have all the fun?

Oh, and really, I am an upbeat, positive person.

Q: When did your Space Voyager character come to life? Are there any differences between the character from back-when to now?

A: Space Voyager came into being roughly 1978-1979. I did over 100 "issues" of a "comic book" drawing him as a stick figure. His ship, The Wild Blue, was part of his storyline even back then. His adventures were mostly cosmic, off-earth and very, very strange. He did have some planet-side adventures, though these meandered into tales with dinosaurs and other oddities. I was 14-15 after all.

The current rendition of Captain Paul Wells/Space Voyager was done by the talented Tim Holtrop. Not a stick figure any more, Captain Wells is a fully fleshed out character. No comics done of him though... for now.

The current Space Voyager tales have the character on Earth, fighting the good fight, trying to right things if possible. And the tone is much more serious.

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 RETURN TO STRANGE HOME

Author: Peter Welmerink

Publisher: Peninsulam Publishing

Art: Tim Holtrop

paperback

ebook