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Latest update October 3, 2008
Long time, no update. Sorry. But I come bearing a reasonable reason.
Mostly, for many months, sometimes to the exclusion of too many other things, I’ve tended to keep my head jammed firmly up the latest novel-in-progress. About which I’m not yet saying much in the way of specifics. Just that it’s long. And a near-constant challenge. And not like anything I’ve done before. And the list of research books currently stands at 82 titles and keeps growing.
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Yes, Mad Dogs Is Still The Most Recent Book
How do you say all there is to say about a 578-page crime novel involving a case of mistaken identity gone tragicomically wrong in a couple of skimpy paragraphs on the main News page?
You don’t.
You don’t even try.
Which is why we’ve whipped up the special Mad Dogs page, for a quick plot rundown, the opening chapter, an interview covering aspects of the novel’s background and its stupefyingly twisted path to publication, order links, and review excerpts. |
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This Year’s Non-Book Passion
Early this year I took up the practice of Krav Maga, and recently graduated from newbie status to Level 2. A staple of the Israeli Defense Forces, Krav Maga loosely translates as “close combat” or “contact combat,” and since the instructors all stress that it isn’t a martial art, I just call it a martial art without the art.
Now, what does this have to do with writing? Not a lot, on the surface … until you factor in #3 of the Reasons Why:
(1) Monstrously excellent workouts
(2) Learning lots of practical skills
(3) Will undoubtedly show up in future crime/suspense fiction
And while I didn’t consider this one until Sean Doolittle brought it up, he’s right:
(4) Sounds way more badass than telling people I’m going to a scrapbooking class
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Storytellers Unplugged
Are you just nosy enough to be interested in what makes writers tick?
Wearing my nonfiction hat — actually more of a helmet with horns and dual drinking straws — I’ve been holding down the 9th of each month at Storytellers Unplugged. It’s a daily blog (discounting the occasional no-shows) in which roughly 30 writers and fellow travelers expound upon the art, craft, business, and soul of the world’s real oldest profession.
Dark Advent Revisited: Dead As A Parrot
For a timeframe beyond tallying there was a plan, always seemingly on the verge of being finalized, to bring this early post-apocalyptic novel into a hardcover edition.
Sad to say, courtesy of 2008’s economic picture and internal rejiggering at the publisher involved, this plan is no more. It has ceased to be. It is bereft of life and its metabolic processes are now history. It is an ex-plan.
Thus the quest continues for an edition with (A) type that doesn’t require an electron microscope to read, and (B) a cover that doesn’t perennially make someone’s list of The Most Inappropriately Silly Covers Ever.
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Short Stories … Now Out, Or Near Enough
- Finally getting its long-overdue second life in mass-market paperback is The Many Faces of Van Helsing, from 2004. My story, “Brushed In Blackest Silence,” which involves Francisco Goya’s “black paintings,” marks the first time I’ve worked with editor Jeanne Cavelos since the Dell/Abyss years.
- “And They Will Come in the Hour of Our Greatest Need,” set in the aftermath of the Allied firebombing of Dresden, in is the World War II-themed anthology A Dark And Deadly Valley.
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If the title “The Passion of the Beast” sounds somewhat familiar, that’s surely just a coincidence. Look for it in Midnight Premier, Tom Piccirilli’s homage to movies.
Consume on-the-spot, download for later, forward to exploitative organizations headquartered in third-world back-alleys … the choice is yours. New freebies will appear here on no known schedule.
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Extract
A short-short audio story I did for the podcast version of my October 2007 Storytellers Unplugged blog, although it’s been pruned of the SU intro theme. (5.8 MB)
On the Music page, ambient aficionados can check out a separate mix of the atmospheres, music, and effects that comprise the story’s soundtrack. |
Download MP3 now |
When The Bough Doesn’t Break
Many readers of the Misbegotten story cycle — World of Hurt was the fourth and, so far, longest installment — have asked where they can find this story, the third in the sequence. In contrast to the first two, which have been widely published in Poppy Z. Brite’s Love In Vein anthologies, plus my own collections and elsewhere, this piece appeared in a limited edition anthology that instantly went out of print.
So here ya go. This is a PDF file of the galley proof, and shows the story as it appeared in Damned: An Anthology of the Lost, edited by David G. Barnett for his own Necro Publications. It’s a direct outgrowth of story #2, “The Dripping of Sundered Wineskins.” |
View PDF now |
Newsletter
The first issue of the second incarnation of the As Above, So Below newsletter went out in February. You missed it? What were you thinking?
To sign up in time for the second issue of the second incarnation,
and/or send questions for answers so thoughtful you can almost see me
stroking my chin, visit the Contact page.
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