As I slowly put together the bibliography section of this web site, I decided to talk about some books up front here, as I did under the Schofield name. And I do mean slowly, especially when there are about eighty novels I can talk about and well over a hundred short stories. I won’t talk about them all up front, but every so often I have a book that I am fond of and proud of, so I’ll banter about it here before putting it over on the other page.

This book came back to mind yesterday when I found a tee-shirt I had never worn while cleaning out a drawer in my closet. It is bright red and has a picture of The Shadow Warrior cover on it, and on it the saying “Who want some Wang?” is printed in bold. I am still saving it to wear at a special workshop or something.

SHADOW WARRIOR #1. For Dead Eyes Only. Pocket Books. October 1997.

I don’t think there were many Shadow Warrior novels ever done after this first one, even though I left the very last scene on a cliff hanger like a pulp fiction novel for the next author. This was a complete voice novel because in the game, the Shadow Warrior has a real voice and attitude, and for some reason, I really got into the voice, walking around the house for a month while writing this novel sometimes breaking into Shadow Warrior talk. Drove Kris nuts.

And there is one line in here that got me a call from the editor at Pocket. He was laughing so hard, all I could manage to make out was, “Can’t believe you did that.” Now trust me, that’s a phone call you want from an editor when you are writing comedy.

I remember writing the first fight scene in the restaurant and then walking around for a day laughing and worrying that I had taken it too far. I just reread that first scene and it still makes me shake my head and laugh. I learned a number of years back that this book, because it had gone out of print after about 40,000 copies sold, had become a collector’s item on the secondary market. I doubt it is anymore, since the so much time has passed, but at conventions, I tend to sign a bunch of these and have great discussions with fans about the Shadow Warrior. However, make note if you want to talk to me about this, I never played the game and have no clue about it. I just listened to a few lines from it before writing and tried to nail the voice. Everyone tells me I got it.

A fun book. And someday soon I’ll sit in a workshop with a bunch of writers and I’ll be wearing the “Who want some Wang” tee shirt. After all, if you can’t have fun writing, what’s the point. And I had a blast writing this book.

Cheers, Dean