Gods in Darkness

I met my goal of releasing 12 projects in 12 months - one exactly every month in 2015.

The final one was my new anthology of new and previously released sci-fi horror materia titled Gods in Darkness - get it HERE

Some of these stories might be familiar - the titular novella was released just over three years ago in Space Eldritch, and several new tales follow that same strange semi-lovecraftian vein. I also wrote some dark poetry that I put in as some spacers between the short stories. Some of it is pretty weird and I sometimes wondered what was running through my head when I wrote those lines and yet, I also felt like letting the Muse take me where she would. So in some respects it makes me feel vulnerable putting that kinda weird out there - so I haven't promoted it all that much by comparison to earlier books like Whispers Out of the Dust, and LO what to my surprise do I find as I'm putting this blog post together but Gods in Darkness is already in the top 100 Anthologies on Amazon!

Makes a writer who does struggle with - nobody cares about what I write feel pretty good.

Thanks to whomever you are out there getting a copy. I do suspect its some of you guys (My handful of blog readers)

As for just a little more of my motivations for this antho: granted at least half of it is previously released and I wanted to meet my goal for the year, but also I love those old pulp collections with a variety of stuff like Wolfshead  and the Cthulhu Mythos. I have several stories kicking around but decided to keep them all on a science fiction kick and am saving my weird western and fantasy type tales for some other project - (one weird western/aliens tale did go into Gods in Darkness- but I decided I no Porter Rockwell tales would make it into this one - so it was rewritten).

So I had this one keep to a theme as it were. Thanks again and Happy New Year!

5 BLADES is out and FREE

 5 Blades an anthology I contributed four! previously released tales is out and for free for the next couple days.

My tales may be familiar to my regular blog followers, -

Fangs of the Dragon: Blessed by a holy man, Porter Rockwell was promised that if he never cut his hair he would not be harmed by bullet nor blade . . .
But what if monsters strike with tooth and claw? This might be Port's last ride . . .
Or will he send them crawling back to the abyss? Either way it's gonna be a helluva fight!

The Serpents Root: A quest for a dangerous item to cure the sick may not be as simple a delivery as a thief expects. Love can be a killer.

The Dig: An archaeologist struggles with the semantics of who is the real grave robber with a rogue Italian captain in WW2 when they find something buried that should not be.

The King in the Wood: Music and mythology merge as a young woman buys a strange instrument in a curiosity shop and things will never be the same.

The other four blades are 

Jason King - fantasy author extraordinaire who recently released book 2 in his Age of the Infinite series.

Drew Briney - lawyer and all around nice guy, with a some great fantasy tales.

Jaime Buckley, acclaimed comic artist with some of his tale spinning.

and newcomer Lewis Strassburg with a great fantasy tale of revenge and giant worms.

Catch it while its hot and free here


P.S. should have had you wait a day Paul! I owe you!

Interview at Dagan Books

An interview with me has been updated and posted at Dagan Books for myself and the other contributors of the IN SITU anthology.

Those contributors being ~
7/17 - Ken Liu
7/18 - KV Taylor
7/19 - David West
7/20 - Kelly Stiles
7/21 - Rebecca Lloyd
7/22 - Robert Hunter
7/23 - Sarah Hendrix
7/24 - Alex Shvartsman
7/25 - Paul Dixon
7/26 - Jason Andrew
7/27 - Bear Weiter
7/28 - Dawn Vogel
7/29 - Greg Burch
7/30 - Mae Empson
7/31 - Graham Storrs

I have IN SITU on the Kindle and as backed up as I have been lately (dealing with my computer crashing and some files coming through hideously deranged and murderous), I have only yet read editor Carrie Quinn's afterword. I'll never be able to read and write as fast as I would like.

The Dig: IN SITU

Like the things in the "tomb" of my tale The Dig, the anthology IN SITU has been a long time coming and its finally here.

There are also a couple of copies for giveaways on Goodreads,  here.

The backcover blurb ~ From independent publisher Dagan Books, IN SITU is a new anthology of science fiction stories featuring alien archeology, hidden mysteries, and things that are better off left buried.


A quiet man finds more than he bargained for when he sets out with his metal detector on a lonely hill ... A soldier meets a new kind of enemy fighting an altogether different kind of war ... On a distant swamp planet, a woman questions what kind of human she's becoming ... a pregnant archaeologist finds a connection with a long-dead alien child ... while deep space scavengers wonder what it ever meant to be human at all.

These fifteen evocative science fiction stories will take you from dusty archaeologists digging up our alien past into a distant future where we've become the relics. Thought-provoking and entertaining, IN SITU explores science, theology, preservation, and the art of alien finance, in a whole new way.

Edited by Carrie Cuinn. Contains stories by Ken Liu, KV Taylor, Paul A. Dixon, Bear Weiter, Mae Empson, Jason Andrew, Greg Burch, Sarah Hendrix, R.S. Hunter, Rebecca Lloyd, Alex Shvartsman, Kelly C. Stiles, Graham Storrs, David J. West, and Dawn Vogel.

The Dig is a story that had a wide variety of influences for me and is a bit out of the ordinary in comparison to what I usually write, gone are the heroics and instead I have a female lead countered by a philosophical and psychotic Italian capitano during the early days of World War Two. I'm happy to say that it is a tale I was quite pleased with during a rereading after having been away for so long. I look forward to reading the rest of collection.

News of My Stuff in Print

I received word that the delayed Sci-Fi/Archeology antho from Dagan Books IN-SITU featuring my tale "The Dig" is about to be released (email said March). I'm glad, I've been anxious to get feedback on that tale for awhile now.

"The Dig" is placed in the early days of World War II and features a (at that time rare) female archaeologist, and a run-in with Axis Italian forces at a dig, wherein they find something that should not be there. I borrowed the place name of Keshan from Robert E. Howard's "Jewels of Gwahlur".

AND

I have the final galley for the Wandering Weed's antho featuring my tale "Garden of Legion" another weird western with Porter Rockwell. This was again a lot of fun to write, Porter being whom my wife thinks I can put my writer shoes into the best.

And lastly, my publisher WiDo and Amazon are doing another free promotion of my novel Heroes of the Fallen so you can grab it again here

Interview at Dagan Books

Yours truly gets interviewed at the brilliantly Lovecraftian Dagan Books website in relation to my eerie short story "The Dig" coming soon in the IN SITU anthology.


It was inspired in part by female archaeologists struggling for recognition earlier last century, a couple of mummies that were supposedly found in nearby San Pete county, the pseudo-Egyptian architecture of the Nubian kingdoms along the upper Nile, and while I'm at it-why not throw in some fascist's during World War II as well?

It made for an eclectic story and I'm grateful Dagan Books liked it too. I believe the IN SITU anthology will be available July 15th.