Guest Author: Kevin James Breaux

Kevin James BreauxToday, I am excited to welcome Kevin James Breaux, author of the fabulous novel, Soul Born.

All Opal wanted was to be respected as a wielder of magic, but her teachers passed her over time and time again. When a mysterious warlord embarks on a conquest to destroy the lands of Illyia Opal seizes an opportunity to step out from the shadows of her instructors and take her rightful spot among them.

Tala, an alluring young elf, was banished from her tribe, hunted and nearly killed by the beasts that dwell in the deep forests, but more than anything else she is a survivor. Joining forces with an ancient elemental power Tala finds herself in the center of an unrelenting human war.

Flesh like leather and bone as strong as steel Karn, a veteran from the first kingdom to fall, is fueled by vengeance. While pushing ever headlong into battle Karn begins to recall memories of another life; ghosts that haunt his dreams.

Through death of soul, their world is born..

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The “I don’t want to buy something I already own” blues

One of my biggest fears is having to re-buy all my DVD’s in another “New Gen” form of media. It’s a nightmarish notion I refer to as the “Mediapocalypse!”

Remember when we all had cassette tapes? I had maybe thirty tapes in my collection and I really drug my feet over to CDs. I think I had to re-buy maybe fifteen of my albums again. Even at the young age of 19 years old I felt a very clear sense of wrongness in that act. Dude, I paid $8 for that Metallica Master of Puppets tape and now I got to pay another $12 for the CD! That’s bullshit!

Oh, but I have done much worse since…

Back in the early and mid 90’s there was a monthly comic book convention that I attended in King of Prussia, PA. I almost always drove up with my friends Chris and Sean. We mostly went to meet comic book artists and hold rounds of witty banter with them while getting sketches, but Chris and I were also into Japanese Animation.

This little comic convention, held in the basement of a Holiday Inn, was perfect for just that. They always had a bunch of different vendors blaring clips from movies, so it was easy to get an idea of you might like by just standing near a vendor’s table for five minutes.

One day I bought something like seven VHS tapes. All of a fantasy anime called Record of Lodoss War. They were bad copies, and get this, they were subtitled by fans. FOR FANS BY FANS, the title screen would say. What that meant was: missing words, wrong words, and different names for different characters. It was a year before I knew the main character’s name was Parn, not Pern or Pan. I mean I kinda thought it was Parn, from the Japanese men and women screaming it, but when you read Pern enough on screen, it sinks in.

Anyway, for as bad as these copies were, my friends and I loved them and watched them a bunch of times. Six months or so later I was at the convention again and guess what, these two guys who we bought most of your videos from had NEW copies that were crystal clear, but with no subtitles and no dubbing. Yep, I bought them all. Now we could at least watch this awesome epic fantasy series in good quality.

Soul BornYou might think that was enough, right? Nope, some years later I saw that the Record of Lodoss War was being released in America, with real official subtitles! Score, I ordered it! So now I had three full versions of the show.

I would love to say that is the end of this tale, but it’s not. Couple years passed, and one day I was looking in a catalogue and wouldn’t you know, a Record of Lodoss War box set… and… wait for it…. wait for it…. DUBBED!!! OMG! Dubbed? Really? So I ordered that bad boy post-haste. Now my friends and I could watch it in crystal clear VHS quality and hear the lines spoke in English. No more bad subtitles for us! And holy crap the main character’s name was Parn! Confirmed!

So here is where I get my sick fear of another change in media. Maybe five years ago, and ten years after my first purchase of the series I found a DVD set of Record of Lodoss War on Amazon.com and of course, I ordered it.

Recap!

—bad quality version with homemade subtitles on VHS. Check!

—good quality version with no subtitles, pure Japanese on VHS. Check!

—official version with subtitles on VHS. Check!

—official version with dubbing on VHS (box set). Check!

—good quality version with English dubbing on DVD. Check!

Yes, I have owned five versions of the Lodoss War. I only own the DVD set now, but sure, I guess at one point I had like 30-35 VHS tapes of the show.

Now can you blame me for fearing a future media change? Not counting my forty or more box sets of shows like Buffy, Angel, Rome, True Blood and all the GI JOES… I must have like 200 DVDs. And I for damn sure don’t want to buy them all… all over again. Hell no! Do you know what a season of Star Trek on DVD used to cost??? Seriously, the thought of having to do that makes my skin all red and splotchy… I think I might be getting some sort of weird, “I don’t want to purchase something I already own” hive.

So um hey… did you get World War Z [by Max Brooks] for the Kindle yet? I have my hardback copy up safely tucked away on my bookcase for display and don’t want to break the spine so yeah…?

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Meet Kevin James Breaux!

Kevin James Breaux is an award-winning author and artist. He is a member of the HWA and EAA. Along with having many short stories published, Kevin’s first novel SOUL BORN, an epic fantasy, will be released 11/30/2010. Soul Born is book one in a three book series, that runs over 110,000 words. For more information about Soul Born go to www.soulborn.net. Kevin lives outside of Portland, Oregon.

Contact Info
Website: www.kevinbreaux.com and www.soulborn.net
Blog: www.kevinjamesbreaux.blogspot.com/
Social Media: Facebook / Twitter

Want to purchase Kevin’s novels?
Soul Born at Amazon or at the Book Depository
Blood Divided at Amazon or at the Book Depository
Dead History: A Zombie Anthology at Amazon
Dark Water: Beaming Smile at Amazon
Anthology of Ichor III: Gears of Damnation at Amazon

About Jackie 3282 Articles
I am a 30-something SAHM with two adorable boys and a supportive husband who is very tolerant of my reading addiction. I love to read and easily go through about a dozen books a month – well I did before I had kids. Now, not so much. After my first son was born, I began to take my hobby of reviewing a little more serious and started Literary Escapism to help with my sanity. I love to discuss the fabulous novels I’ve read and meeting all the wonderful people in the book blogging community has been amazing.

9 Comments

  1. Hi Kevin!!

    Funny post. I often think about this too, I have a stack of VHS that I keep shifting around, unsure what to do with them. As for music, who knows what will be next, but often, like books, I like the hard cover rather than the digital copy. Maybe someday they will be nonexistent. I guess in the long run it will be more environmentally friendly (though I don’t support that arguement 100%). There is something, I don’t know, maybe romantic about a book, that essence seems lost on digital formats.

    Congrats on your book, you are one of the coolest authors around.

  2. I have the same fear, Kevin! I own around the same amount of DVDs you do and if things change so much that they are replaced I will be that lady who owns 1000 DVDs and watches them on her old creaky player. :)

    Your cover looks cool – the chick looks like Anna Paquin around the eyes. Congrats on the book!

  3. Boy, do I know that feeling! I had hundreds of VHS videos and it pained me to have to replace them. I’ve had my kindle 3 months and already I have some electronic versions of my hardcopy books! But there’s always something tempting to get the new version…:)

  4. Hi :)
    Thank you for the fun post Kevin!
    I’ve been through that Cassette Tape, LP, CD to Digital for music.
    And VHS to DVD to… BluRay (for now?)
    :)
    All the best,
    RKCharron

  5. Before I moved from PA to OR about 2 years ago, I had to make a hard decision to throw out all my VHS tapes. A lot of them were things I recorded through the years. I came to the realization that I probably would not hook up my VCR and I didn’t. When I look back its like-wow… all that work setting the VCR’s schedule to tape my shows, record a few minutes before and after them to be safe, and I threw it all out. That hurts more than the actual lose of the shows I think.

    Kevin James Breaux

  6. This past summer, on my annual girls weekend, my friends and I brought all of our old mix tapes. You cannot get any better than this. Variance in volume, pauses, Radio DJ’s cutting in, classic! We loved every second of memory lane. THe titles where even funnier…Slow Songs 1, Slows Songs 2, Songs for Jimmy, Cool Jams, Slow Jams, Bon Jovi (A heart above the i of course) the list goes on…

    Thanks for the flashback.

  7. Ooooh, I’m in the dregs of this as we speak! When I was a kid, I had nothing but VHS tapes. I watched those suckers like crazy, recorded my favorite shows, and they’re still around with my trusty VCR/DVD combo player. Unfortunately, I like deleted scenes and I like watching stuff on my PS2 rather than lugging the monster machine around to school. So now I have to buy all of my Disney movies again…with special edition changes and all that extra stuff. It’s a pain. Thank God my favorite books do not need an electric player and if taken care of will last me a heck of a lot longer than my VHS tapes. :D E-books…I hope they aren’t the DVD’s of the publishing world. Can we have both?

    But yes, very insightful article on the subject. You’re preaching to the choir.

  8. I feel your pain. I’ve bought Star Wars more times than I can count already and guess what–it’s just now coming out on blu-ray. A little late Mr. Lucas don’t you think? Everything I read lately talks about the end of discs period and everything will solely exist in the digital realm. Will I buy it anyway though? Of course I will because I want to be able to see Leia in the slave girl outfit in high definition quality right now!

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