A cowboy separated from his wife visits an ambassador's gala above an active volcano. Magical terrorists attack. Separated from his clothes and family, he must wield a lightning wand against an invading army in hopes to set the fantastic world's diplomats free.

Will he make it out clothed, reunited, and unsinged?

Conceived as a genre-bending - even Nabokovian - satire of Die Hard, one Canadian bookseller believes this fantasy novella will start a new genre named Die Bard:

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"This is an author indulging in some pretty amazing tongue-and-cheek metatextual analysis - in one short text, they've recognized that Die Hard is a Western, that Westerns have solid story beats that can be abstracted into any genre, and then kneaded those story beats into a fantasy narrative that has more to say about family, growth, and excitement than any of the original material. This feels like Moorcock's Second Ether series, or even Jasper Fforde's stuff. Either way, I feel like this is really more genre-bending fiction than fantasy, but will excite fiction enthusiasts who need a familiar story to finally understand the appeal in the fantasy genre.

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"One of the best atmospheric elements in the text is the clear reverence the author has for the inspirational material. The addition of a family-life, loving daughter, personal history and internal monologue for our Jack Dawes/Mclean/jackdaw character adds a lot of depth to the frame of the plot. I would love to see more action movies chopped and remixed in this manner, I think it could be a whole new genre: Die Bard.

"I'm going to handsell this, but not as fantasy, and suggest customers ignore cover summaries."

• a bookseller from Canada, ????? (5/5)

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"[Schaubert's work] is a hoot."

• Publisher's Weekly

"Lancelot Schaubert is an entertaining and intelligent writer with a flair for world-building. His work is full of good surprises."

• Juliet Marillier, Aurelius award winning author of the Blackthorn & Grim and Warrior Bards series

"Schaubert is a powerful fantasist, a multi-layered thinker and a pure craftsperson with words. This is a writer who will make waves, break boundaries and be heard."

• Kaaron Warren, Aurelius + Stoker award-winning author and Guest of Honor at the World Fantasy Convention

"Schaubert's complex stories weave together sly humor, subtle satire, and heightened language to push fantasy into unexpected places: sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes perplexing, but always intriguing."

-LJ Cohen, author of Derelict

"I f**_ing love this entire synopsis. I didn't read the book, but the synopsis is b_tchin'."

• Alin, editor of The Dread Machine

"Schaubert's words have an immediacy, a potency, an intimacy that grab the reader by the collar and say, 'Listen, this is important!' Probing the bones and gristle of humanity, Lancelot's subjects challenge, but also offer insights into redemption if only we will stop and pay attention."

• Erika Robuck, national bestselling author of Hemingway's Girl