iBook and Nook

STG will be coming out soon as an iBook and in Nook format. Yay.
The publisher also went through and reedited the manuscript. So all future copies (as of today) should be cleaner copies, Also Yay.

I had two reveiwers that commented on the quality of the eiditing- great book too bad it wasn't edited better. Now, before I point fingers at the publisher, these errors were in the original manuscript I sent in. One would expect them corrected, but it's hard to point to someone else for not fixing what I broke in the first place. But no more. All future editions are clean....

The Gift of the Bouda, the Novel

The novelization of my short story, 'The Gift of the Bouda', named imaginatively enough by the same name, has been sold to Salvo Press!

Yes, very cool.

I received the first .pdf proof of the edits and did another line edit. It was fun, after not having looked at the manuscript for six or eight months to go through it again. Like visiting an old friend. (I did spend a year writing it, after all, and got to know the characters rather well.) This book tells the story of John Rogers, a GWOT SF Officer bitten by a were-hyena (Bouda) and now back in the states dealing with his affliction. He drifts up to reno where he works as a part-time bouncer at a strip joint and runs afoul of a werewolf pack. Great fun. I wrote it as a noirish horror story (not crime-noir, but noir in the tight prose, but events for the MC keep deteriorating out of control) and hope you will all enjoy and buy many copies.

The novel is my second, following STG. Salvo is also a small press (like the press STG went to). Been around longer, better distribution, some books have made it big, so cross your fingers.

Beast Within 2- The Beast Unleashed

I just heard from the anthology editor today that my short story, 'The Long Road to Sanctum' has been accepted for inclusion in the Beast Within 2- the Beast Unleashed. Yay.

This is a slightly unconventional werewolf story, written as a postapocolyptic western. I had originally written this for the first Beast Within, but they accepted the Gift of the Bouda first and don't ussually accept two stories by the same author. So I shopped it around a bit, improved it with each rejection and when Beast within 2 posted, submitted again.

It will be worth the wait, as this will be a good anthology. Jenn Brozak is the editor (and top drawer), and the anthology was all invites (me too).

New Review

Well, I have certainly been neglecting this blog, haven't I?

Work has been a Lot-O-Busy, the holidays, the War College (I'm doing a Masters in Strategic Studies through the US Army War college as an Army Reservist), family obligations, and of course farm chores. Oh, and I have a host of other lame excuses, if you'd care to hear them.

In the past two months I've continued to flesh out the WIP (work in progress) a little, okay barely, but I have scratched away at it. I finish the masters in July and plan to begin writing again in earnest, after that, promise.

But what I really wanted to tell you about was my new review from the Deepening. (Click on Deepening) Overall it's pretty positive, but there is a negative about the editing. And of course the editor takes time to underscore that negative, but he's right. No excuse for writing a good story and then editing it poorly.

Military Sci Fi

I posted earlier that my current WIP was a Military Science Fiction story. One of the things an author must do when writing genre fiction is to respect the conventions of the genre. By this I mean that people who read a certain genre have expectations. If you are reading a gothic romance novel you need a certain setting (preferably a moor) a strong male lead (preferably a brooding sort) and a plucky female (it wouldn't hurt if she were a bookish sort that could give way to her passions). You don't want to write such a book that violates the conventions of the genre unknowingly. You can bend the rules, be iconoclastic, but it's better if you know what your doing wrong rather than just stumble along. As I have said before, I don't feel constrained, but at the same time I try not to be blatant (like calling Twilight 'Horror' fiction- argghhh!)

For this reason I thought to have a look at some of the premier Military Scifi out there and I came away with this short list (if you think I've missed one please speak up).

1. Starship Troopers, Heinlein (Clearly the all time best of the genre-read it loved, still love it)
2. The Forever War (a Vietnam ere anti-warish sort, but great)
3. Old Man's War, Scalzi (I've read the third in the series and wasn't blown away- good but not terribly realistic from a military perspective)
4. Anvil of the Stars, Bear
5. Exultant, Destiny's Children, Baxter
6. The Kinsman Saga, Bova (Have this to read but haven't yet)
7. The Man-Kzin Wars, Niven (Inspired a whole slew of books, and made it into the star trek cartoons of the 70s- read a few, liked them but not very militarily strong)
8. Armor, Steakly
9. A Hymn Before Battle, Ringo (Read it, liked it, Ringo's first novel, clearly written from the perspective of a junior NCO-even though the Main character is a junior officer, but these are the young men that fight our nation's wars)

What do you think? Have I missed a good one?

"Succumbing to Gravity" is a riveting read that will be hard to put down.

My Midwest Book Review review came in, and they liked it. About 20 book reviews down in the fiction review section [here]. They were also kind enough to five star me on their companion Amazon post.

The Sacrifices of Automated Tabulation - Again

My Steampunk-ified story, The Sacrifices of Automated Tabulation is now out in the 'Cover of Darkness', a biannual digest [trade paperback-anthology] of darker fiction, by Sam's Dot publishing. Yay.

I've commented on the story before (it was first in Steampunk Tales).

My first second sale, and since it's a rewrite of a previous tale that I sold can I count this as a trifecta?

Three British authors and one not

I knocked out books by three British Author in quick succession.
The first was Ukridge by PG Wodehouse. If you haven't read any Wodehouse, you're missing out (if you like stuffy, dated British Humor- which I do). He is often held up as an example of how to write sympathetic characters, humor, timing. These books are antiques, but timeless.

The next was Agincourt by Bernard Cornwell. I've spoken of him before- he writes great Historic/Military fiction. This one was the fictionalized account of one of the most famous battles in history. A British force outnumbered ten to one (or so), prevails. I think some famous deadguy wrote a play about it.

The last was With One Lousy Free Packet of Seeds, by Lynn Truss. Truss is the author of the best selling 'Eats Shoots and Leaves', a cute little book about punctuation. The book was fine, a sort of Britsh Comedy of errors. When I picked it up I didn't realize it was an early 90s book, as her ESandL was quite recent.

After all this Britishness I had to cleanse my palate with a good old fashioned dose o SciFi. I read Scalzi's 'The Last Colony'. I went to my favorite used book store looking for Old Man's War, or Ghost Brigades, but neither was available, Stand alone it felt like I was missing somthing with this one (some books are like that, if you like the earlier books in the series you are 'on board' with the characters, but if you haven't you don't buy in so readily- this one was like that for me).

Interview on Horroview

(No, I'm not trying my hand at poetry, the title just worked out that way.)

I recently did an interview via email with 'Catwalk' (not his real name) at Horrorview. And if you go to the main horrorview page you'll see my scary mug!

Horrorview Article (click and all will be revealed).

Stoker?

My book Succumbing to Gravity has made the list for best first novel in the Bram Stoker Award Recommendations for 2010. Yay.

The Stoker is like the Emmey of horror fiction. Very cool. The recommendations are winnowed down to the final ballot, the winner gets a cool statue, the losers get a letter saying they are a 'stoker finalist'.

If you're an HWA member remember to vote early and vote often...