Featured
Books
Welcome to iSoftwerks. Thank you for visiting! Learn about me on the About page, or view my author page on Amazon. I hope you take time to browse a few of the book pages. Use the scroll buttons on the right to review descriptions of the books. Hover on the image and a banner button will pop up. Clicking on the button will link to the book page. Select the Library image, which will direct you to the library page which features links to all novels by Steve Croy. Enjoy your stay at iSoftwerks. Thanks! - SC
Library Page
All BooksClick on the library button to visit the library page, a catalog of all titles by Steve Croy. Western novels, Science-Fiction novels, and thrillers, offer hours of reading enjoyment. Browse the individual book pages to learn about the story. You can even take a peek inside the book--previews are available. In the library, there is also a feature that demonstrates how the text will appear in e-Book format. Happy reading!
Broken:Genesis
Science FictionDavid Castillo hears voices in his head. It could be the results of PTSD or the AI chip implanted in his brain. David isn't sure if he can trust his own senses. He can't be absolutley certain of his sanity, or even his humanity. Is the voice an auditory hallucination or a sentient, silocon-based lifeform communicating with him? The Company holding him prisoner wants to know, as well. David's only chance for survival is escape! His only ally might be the voice he hears in his head!
Outlaw Brand
WesternDeputy Keene had very little experience as a lawman investigating crimes. He had more experience robbing banks. One robbery gone bad was why he hadn’t stayed in Arizona Territory. However, having pinned on a star, Brand figured he ought to do the job he was paid for. His mentor, a paid assassin named Maximilian von Rheinhardt, taught him once you accept a job, you have an obligation as a professional to fulfill the contract. Brandon Keene had left his outlaw past behind. However, as events unfold in Animas Forks, Brand learns the past has a way of resurfacing. Upholding the law in San Juan County and bringing the perpetrators to justice could mean going to prison. Life is full of tough choices--especially for an ex-outlaw turned lawman!
Killing Time
WesternTrey Connelly was a top cow hand, tired of eating trail dust, looking to try his hand at prospecting. It was just bad luck that his search for a rich claim put him in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Trey Connelly is hanged by a vigilante mob who called him a rustler. Swinging from a hemp rope was not an uncommon ending for many a rustler. Thus the hanging in the small town of Magdalena might not have been particularly noteworthy at all; if the attorney for the defense, Benton Hull, had stayed drunk and the accused, Trey Connelly had just stayed dead!
Anasazi Trail
WesternAnasazi Trail is a fast moving novel of greed, treachery, and hard-time, set against a backdrop of the myths and legends of the Navajo people. Aided by a Navajo warrior, two graduates of Yuma Territorial prison, Belle Townsend and Jackson Deveraux, search for a stolen treasure guarded by a skin-walker in a city abandoned hundreds of years before the coming of the conquistadors.
A Child of the Wind
WesternArizona Territory 1879 was an untamed frontier. It was a harsh land, high plains desert, sprinkled with cactus, mesquite, rattlesnakes, and Apache. The territory was an unforgiving land where settlers eked out a living and miners chased dreams of gold. It was a wild land, where legal decisions were often a matter of who had the faster gun.
Broken:Symbiosis
Science FictionDavid Castillo is severely injured during his escape from confinement in a secret government facility. His recovery is aided by reconstructive help from AI implants in his body; his symbiote. He must try to establish a new life while attempting to stay ahead of the dogged pursuit of his nemeses; a director of covert operations, and a doctor intent on seeing his name go down in the annals of biogenetic science. The director wants him dead because of David's knowledge of a failed clandestine operation. The doctor wants David to serve as his human laboratory--a case study of the interaction between carbon-based life and silicon-based intelligence. To survive, David Castillo must find a way to avoid assassination and escape being captured. It could be a tall order for a man already listed as dead.
Dane's Law
WesternColorado Territory is in the midst of a struggle for statehood in 1876; at a time when the United States is in the midst of a Presidential Election, perhaps the most corrupt election in U.S. history. Politics makes for strange bedfellows and few partnerships could be stranger than that of the ex-butcher from the mean streets of Chicago, Dane Larsen, and the aging Cheyenne Dog Soldier, Red Elk, a member of the Reservation Police.
The Resurrection of Cain
WesternIn February 1864, the Confederate States of America opened a POW camp that originally covered about 16.5 acres. It was enclosed by a 15-foot high stockade made of rough-hewn logs. A fence known as "the dead line" was erected approximately 19 feet within the borders of the grim stockade walls. It demarcated a no-man's land designed to keep prisoners away from the stockade wall. Any man crossing or even touching this "dead line" was shot without warning by sentries in the watch towers. Before the conflict ended, nearly 13,000 men died at Andersonville.
Velvet Green
ThrillerAgent Lynn Moody calls on Mason Powell to track an elusive killer in terrain where there is sufficient cover to hide a small army, let alone a single killer. In the swamps and heavily wooded hills the advantage was to the hunted, not the hunter. Reluctantly, he resorts to stalking the killer alone, on the killer's home ground, while tying to avoid becoming the hunted himself. In the shadows beneath the velvet green forest canopy, Mason Powell learns a grim lesson--there may be a very good reason to fear things that go bump in the night!
Track of the Wolf
WesternThe Oregon Trail passed through territory that was anything but settled. Stretches of the 2,100 mile journey were nearly desolate—from Fort Leavenworth, the next place to stop for supplies was nearly 800 miles distant. Cholera, smallpox and other diseases could run unchecked through a group of travelers. Wild animals were a threat: coyotes, wolves, mountain lions and massive bears that feared nothing, could prey on livestock and humans as well. The plains were not deserted; some tribes were willing to trade, some tribes were hostile; few welcomed any permanent settlement on traditional tribal lands.
Broken: Morphosis
Science FictionDavid Castillo was human before he was broken. A part of him still is but a silicon-based lifeform shares his body. As long as he lives so does his symbiont, SARACEN. The numerous changes made to his basic physiology force him to accept he is not the same man he once was. Despite the changes, he still has the same unrelenting enemies. David and SARACEN will never be free of pursuit as long as they live. He bitterly acknowledges, in a sense, David Castillo is already dead; officially, he no longer exists. David Saracen, a synthesis of two separate entities, one carbon-based lifeform, the other silicon-based, is no longer broken. His tormentors have yet to realize the full extent of what he has become. But they soon will!
Behold a Pale Horse
WesternIndian Territory was an unforgiving, hard land, filled with men, just as hard and just as merciless. It was the birth place of a slight, pale, boy named Boone Marlowe. He learned early in life not to expect too much from any one. Once he learned how to use a gun, he didn't take too much from anyone, either. Hired gun, bounty-hunter, and scout, big-game guide; Boone Marlowe was a restless spirit never staying in one place too long. As a scout for the US Cavalry, Boone honed his fighting skills against the Sioux through a bitter winter on the Great Plains. He polished them as a scout for the Transvaal Rangers under the blazing sun of Africa against the Zulu.
Night of the Beast
Science FictionThe small town of Oakwood, Missouri, had enjoyed a tranquil way of life for many decades. Crimes that had grown to plague major metropolitan areas such as Kansas City and St. Louis seemed remote events in the small town; only something to be seen on television or heard on the radio. Residents watched with mixed emotions at changes wrought by their new neighbors, a large research facility, run by a corporate conglomerate, which had provided jobs and spurred modest growth in the area. Two local residents hunting are caught unaware as an experiment in transgenic splicing leaves the confines of its controlled laboratory environment for a walk on the wild side!
Recent
Projects
Upcoming in September, Friends of the Library in Decatur, Tennessee will be hosting a book event featuring my Western novel, Outlaw Brand. I've started a new Western. I have always had a certain fascination with fossils. Not many people realize, fossils and paleontology were a significant part of the Old West. The Bone Wars, a fractious contest between Othniel C. Marsh and Edward D. Cope, provided American museums with world-class dinosaur and mammal fossils from 1876 to 1892. I decided to use the Bone Wars as a backdrop for my new Western, tentatively titled, Bones of the Earth. O.C. Marsh's expedition in 1877 uncovered the giant sauropod, Apatosaurus, near Medicine Bow Wyoming. E.D. Cope's team, digging in the same Como Bluff area, uncovered the remains of the theropod, Allosaurus. The rivalry was intense: sabotage, intrigue, betrayal, and gun play all were a part of the contest to see who could discover and name the most extinct species. I am fast becoming a fossil as well. If you are interested in my efforts in digital art, and photography, you can review some of my artwork on Deviant Art, an on-line artist community.
This is an iSoftwerks presentation.
Outlaw Brand will be the featured event September 30, 2023, in Decatur, Tennessee. Outlaws and lawmen were often one and the same in the Old West. The image of Marshal Dillon (James Arness) of Gunsmoke fame, presented a stoic and heroic figure. Such wasn't always the case.Texan John King Fisher was sentenced to prison for horse theft when he was only fifteen years old. He was known to have committed multiple murders. However, in 1883 he became a sheriff in Uvalde County, Texas. The idea of an outlaw becoming a agent of law enforcement provided the spark to write the novel. I hope people will enjoy the tale.
Click on a button to go to the book page.
Blog
Entries
You can keep track of publications and projects by checking the tabs below.
Upcoming events will be posted as they are scheduled.
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Book Event!
Sep 1 2023Upcoming this month, September 30th, 2023, the Friends of the Library in Decatur, Tennessee have invited me to give a presentation on my Western, Outlaw Brand. Currently, the planned date is Saturday, September 30, starting at 1:00 PM.I'm looking forward to seeing friends, and hopefully a spirited Q & A session after the presentation. Stay tuned for more information! In September, I will post a map with directions to the library and further information on the presentation.
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Book Event!
Aug 17 2023Upcoming in September, the Friends of the Library in Decatur, Tennessee have invited me to give a presentation on my Western, Outlaw Brand. Currently, the planned date is Saturday, September 30, starting at 1:00 PM.I'm looking forward to seeing friends, and hopefully a spirited Q & A session after the presentation. Stay tuned for more information! In September, I will post a map with directions to the library and further information on the presentation.
Bones of the Earth
Aug 14 2023With Judgment Rendered published a new Western novel is underway, titled, Bones of the Earth. Dinosaurs aren't something considered 'Western', however the Bone Wars of the 19th Century were very much a part of Western lore. Noted professor, O. C. Marsh and his bitter rival E. D. Cope competed feverishly to find and name the most fossils from North America's richest fossil formations. Como Bluff Wyoming, near Medicine Bow became a treasure trove of Jurassic-age fossils. And the two camps fought bitterly over the rights to claim the bones buried there. But they weren't the only ones fighting in 1877. Dull Knife and his band of Northern Cheyenne still skirmished with the Army. Crazy Horse and the Sioux still rode the war trail. The competing bone hunters weren't at peace, and neither was the whole of the Wyoming Territory. Stay tuned for updates!
Judgment Rendered
Aug 1 2023Judgment Rendered my latest Western project has been published. Feedback from the beta readers was positive. I think the novel contains some compelling characters as well as some vivid word pictures of the mining communities of the 1800s in Arizona Territory. The novel is available on Kindle and paperback from Amazon. Look for it on my Amazon Author Central page. Converting the document to ePub, it will be available later this month for Nook readers, at Barnes & Noble Press. The front cover art was created from a photo I took at the Booth Museum of Western Art in Cartersville, Georgia. If you haven't visited, I highly recommend a trip to the museum. There are brilliant examples of both traditional and contemporary art--sculptures, paintings, and multi-media presentations.
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Bones of the Earth
Jul 12 2023With Judgment Rendered (see below) in the hands of beta readers, I have started researching a new Western nove, tentatvely titled, Bones of the Earth. Dinosaurs aren't something considered 'Western', however the Bone Wars of the 19th Century were very much a part of Western lore. Noted professor, O. C. Marsh and his bitter rival E. D. Cope competed feverishly to find and name the most fossils from North America's richest fossil formations. The Morrison Formation proved to be one of the world's best repository of Jurassic Age fossils. The two paleontologists, Marsh & Cope fought tooth and nail to claim the lion's share of the bones and the glory. Stay tuned for updates!
Judgment Rendered
Jul 1 2023Judgment Rendered my latest Western project is complete (but not necessarily finished). I think I have created some compelling characters as well as some vivid word pictures of the mining communities of the 1800s in Arizona Territory. Since the rough draft of the story is complete, I hope to hand off the manuscript to a few beta readers by the end of July. Hopefully, the beta readers will have positive feedback, and changes to the manuscript won't be extensive. Of course, I will probably revise the original document after several passes through the story. It's hard to resist tweaking! However, I think most writers go through the process of re-writing--adding to the character, smoothing the flow, or sharpening a particular element of the story. With good reviews and a little luck, I hope to have a manuscript ready for pulication by the third quarter of this year.
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Judgment Rendered
Jun 15 2023Judgment Rendered my latest Western project is coming along nicely. I think I have created some compelling characters as well as some vivid word pictures of the mining communities of the 1800s in Arizona Territory. A rough draft of the story is nearly complete. I hope to have it in the hands of beta readers by the end of July. with luck, I may have a manuscript ready for pulication by the third quarter of this year.
Price increase?
Jun 01 2023I just recieved notice that Amazon is raising the cost of producing my novels, effective June 20, 2023. I am not sure what this means for my readers. I will have to evalute how this affects the printing cost. It wasn't exactly clear on the amount of increase. I am sure, with inflation the cost of paper has increased and of course, labor. I am not sure if this will impact the Kindle product--yes, they do charge me a distribution fee for Kindle downloads. If it is a modest increase, I hope I can keep the price of the Kindle books and the paperbacks at the current level (fingers crossed). - SC
Contact
iSoftwerksContact iSoftwerks if you have questions about a novel or how to order the books or send a note just to say hello!
Links
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