Considered one of the most prolific writers working in modern fiction, with more than 30 million books sold, writer Dean Wesley Smith published far more than a hundred novels in forty years, and hundreds of short stories across many genres.

At the moment he produces novels in several major series, including the time travel Thunder Mountain novels set in the Old West, the galaxy-spanning Seeders Universe series, the urban fantasy Ghost of a Chance series, a superhero series starring Poker Boy, a mystery series featuring the retired detectives of the Cold Poker Gang, and the Mary Jo Assassin series.

His monthly magazine, Smith's Monthly, which consists of only his own fiction, premiered in October 2013 and offers readers more than 70,000 words per issue, including a new and original novel every month.

During his career, Dean also wrote a couple dozen Star Trek novels, the only two original Men in Black novels, Spider-Man and X-Men novels, plus novels set in gaming and television worlds. Writing with his wife Kristine Kathryn Rusch under the name Kathryn Wesley, he wrote the novel for the NBC miniseries The Tenth Kingdom and other books for Hallmark Hall of Fame movies.

He wrote novels under dozens of pen names in the worlds of comic books and movies, including novelizations of almost a dozen films, from The Final Fantasy to Steel to Rundown.

Dean also worked as a fiction editor off and on, starting at Pulphouse Publishing, then at VB Tech Journal, then Pocket Books, and now at WMG Publishing, where he and Kristine Kathryn Rusch serve as series editors for the acclaimed Fiction River anthology series.

For more information about Dean's books and ongoing projects, please visit his website at www.deanwesleysmith.com.

The Slots of Saturn by Dean Wesley Smith

USA Today bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith brings you his first full-length novel featuring the origin story of his most popular character, the superhero Poker Boy.

The year: 2004, the last year the World Series of Poker takes place at Binions Horseshoe Casino in downtown Las Vegas.

Poker Boy meets the love of his life and forms the team of superheroes and gods that will save the world many times over in the coming years.

But first, he and his new team must save all of gambling, and more than fifty lives, from the evil ghost slots. And not get killed in the process.

The Slots of Saturn introduces the captivating and clever Gambling Universe, where Lady Luck actually exists, the gods employ superheroes, and high-stakes humor often saves the day

CURATOR'S NOTE

Dean Wesley Smith has sold over 35 million books in his career, but his most popular creation is a character known only as Poker Boy. Poker Boy lives in Las Vegas, but not the Las Vegas the rest of us know. He and a wide-ranging cast of gods—including Lady Luck—save the world daily. Thank heavens. – Kristine Kathryn Rusch

 

REVIEWS

  • "[The Poker Boy] series is unlike anything else out there. It's quirky and a lot of fun."

    – Amazing Stories
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Excerpt

The Slots of Saturn

A Poker Boy Novel

By Dean Wesley Smith

Chapter One

A Superhero Arrives

I LOVE CASINOS. Always have.

I mean I truly love them, like some people enjoy sitting beside a calm mountain lake. Walking into a casino, it feels like I have stepped on an ocean beach on a warm evening with no wind, combined with the at-home feel of sitting by a fire, under a nice reading light, with a warm drink and a good book.

I admit, casinos are loud, with both machine and people noises, and are designed by experts to take a person's money. Yet every time I step through the door into a casino, either in Vegas, Atlantic City, or in timbuck-six North Dakota, I know I am home, that I am safe, that I am in control of my surroundings.

As Poker Boy, when I am in a casino, I also have my superpowers. I have to be honest that I love that feeling as well.

My superpowers, which are needed by definition to be a superhero, are varied. I have still not explored them all. Sometimes even I am surprised at what I can do.

As I stepped through the side door of Binion's Horseshoe Casino and Hotel in downtown Las Vegas, I walked right into the center of at least forty poker tables. I knew I had once again found my own little slice of heaven. I could feel the power flowing through me. My muscles, tense and tight from the long cab ride, relaxed as if rubbed by a Swedish hot-rub expert.

And trust me, Heidi, my Swedish hot-rub expert from two Vegas trips back, could relax the man of steel down into a pool of metal. Those fingers of hers were secret weapons and, I know for a fact and from wonderful memory, that she turned Poker Boy into Go Fish Man in two minutes.

I stopped and just took a deep breath of the smoke-tainted air of the old casino, filling my lungs with the poisons that killed others, but gave me strength.

Stopping just inside a casino front door was a habit of mine. Every time I went into a new casino, or an old one like the Horseshoe, I would just stop inside the door and look around, giving myself a few seconds to enjoy the feel. As Poker Boy, I get a lot of good feelings, especially when I have helped someone, but there are never enough of those good feelings in life, so I take my joys where I can get them. And stopping inside a casino door and just looking around was one of my joys in life.

Today, everything around me looked like a standard day in casino world.

On my right were some of the live poker games, on my left the overflow part of the tournament area, now with all the tables empty. The main desk for the hotel was beyond all the tables, and I had to get there by sort of following the yellow brick road of the pattern on the carpet, through the tables, down between the railings along the poker tables, and then through the ropes in the open area in front of the hotel desk.

Those ropes that guard the front desks of most hotels always made me feel like a cow being herded to the guy with the hammer who would hit me, put me out of my misery, and turn my body into prime rib and flank steaks. Some hotels had almost done that to me in the past.

There wasn't even anyone waiting in line to check in. Maybe I could avoid the ropes altogether and just go for the hammer.

I put my head down and moved toward the front desk, following the pattern on the carpet, hoping I could get checked in and to my room before anyone knew I was here. Even superheroes needed time to unwind from the traveling and the cab ride from the airport.

Actually, I was looking forward to taking a nap.

I somehow made it all the way to the front desk without being recognized. Granted, I am really not that famous, in a strict sense of the word. But I am often recognized across a crowded casino by someone who wants my help, like a dog in need to pee spotting a tree. I was the tree, and thankfully, at the moment, there were no dogs.

"Good afternoon, sir," the nice-looking woman behind the front desk said as I stepped up to the polished wood counter.

I had cut inside the ropes like I knew what I was doing, and was actually feeling a little proud of myself at that moment. Avoiding front desk rope lines, combined with the flowing power of a casino around me, could sometimes be a heady experience. I savored the moment, then looked up at the woman who had greeted me.

Her smile actually included her eyes as she leaned forward a little. And what eyes they were. I had an out-of-body experience as I studied them.

Brown, large, and round, with the light over the front desk giving them a little twinkle. I could stare into those eyes forever, but I knew I shouldn't.

Yet I wanted to.

I knew I shouldn't.