25. Attila the Valley Girl (novelette - final draft)

Coming 2025 – Tiger Blues: a novel

2 transmen try to keep a Buddhist amulet out of Mao’s hands in 1940s Tibet. Those transmen (or genderqueer/nonbinary – not my place to say) are real life badasses Olive Yang (Burmese drug kingpin, 1927-2017) and Kawashima Yoshiko (Japanese war criminal, 1907-1948). Subscribe to my mailing list to stay updated, www.jasonmshannon.com/contact

This week we’re returning to my novelette, Attila the Valley Girl. First released in 2022, and featured in Episode 2, this version is now the final draft. Available in paperback, ebook and audiobook. This episode is only the first half of the audiobook (plus a preview of the bonus scene, Starshine Magic). To download the entire audiobook (and ebook) completely free, join my mailing list. For a signed copy of the paperback, email me at [e-mail]

Jason's next events:

-Newmarket Comic Con, Dec 7/24
(https://www.popculturecanada.ca)
-Port Perry Comic Con, Dec 8/24 (https://www.popculturecanada.ca)

Jason Shannon is an indie Canadian author of science fiction and more. He has published 6 novels - The Zimmer Insurgency, The Hounds of Harujin, The Moon Panther, Rain's Agenda, The Rise and Fall of Chaz Oregano, and Attila the Valley Girl - as well as several short stories. Visit www.jasonmshannon.com to read the short stories, as well as novel excerpts, or for links to download/buy. All novels are available in print and ebook. Chaz, Zimmer, Attila, and One Night in Ikh Khulan are available in audiobook.

Buy my ebooks/audiobooks https://www.jasonmshannon.com/store

Follow my social media @harujinshounds

Synopsis for Attila the Valley Girl:

AD 450, the late Roman Empire: Caesar Valentinian’s sister, the 31-year-old Princess Honoria, is desperate to be out from under her brother’s thumb. She concocts a daring plan: she has her ring secreted away in the dead of night and sent across the continent, hint-hinting at a marriage pact with a king in the east. That king is Attila the Hun, the self-proclaimed “Scourge of God”, the greatest threat the civilized world has known since Hannibal marched his elephants over the alps, and, in the coming year, he will invade and decimate Gaul, bringing the whole of the Western Roman Empire to its knees...

But before then, a tense summit is held to sort out the marriage proposal of this rebellious princess. Attila – blonde, flamboyant, and dressed in all pink – is invited to the Monteus Carleus Gambling House with his retinue of warriors and hangers-on. Also at the summit are world leaders from the Vandals and Visigoths, as well as advisers from Constantinople, plus Caesar Valentinian himself.

Quintus is a minor Roman land-owner, struggling to keep afloat the lavish casino his father had financed. Now he has world leaders from around the continent staying at his estate, threatening war and annihilation. Valentinian spends the entire week drunk and debauched, avoiding the Huns and shooting dice. The Vandal Prince was once wed to the Visigothic king’s daughter, but dissolved the marriage by slicing off her nose and ears, and Quintus now needs to keep Vandal and Visigoth at arm’s length from one another. Honoria is desperate to spread her legs to the barbarian at the gates. And Attila marches in like he owns the place, demands his bride, and the fate of the empire hangs in the balance...