FanX Recap

 Had a real good time hanging with my writer pals and making some new friends. I didn't sell as many books as I might have liked - specifically the new THE MAD SONG - but it did very well online getting as high as #1 on kindles Norse/Viking category and I completely sold out of my other collection Weird Tales of Horror - if I had had a few more copies Saturday night I would have sold them too.

I was on one panel Thursday night the Super villain Presidential debate - we ran out of time and the audience didn't get a chance to vote - due to some mishaps we did it again the next day and Michael-Brent Collings Ghost party won. But I know a lot of people were rooting for Ming the Merciless. I was on three panels Friday and none Saturday, but I had some sales because of my speaking on writing magic and talking GIJOE too.

This con I didn't bump into any celebrities unlike the last one but no big whoop there. Took a few pics to share though.

Met Ireland Reid, a very nice star cosplayer.

Friends forever

the Stig

Me and my oldest, he made the Venom costume himself.

Torgo, he even gave me a coupon for his pizza, I did not take him up on it.

Pretty good Goblin King

Even Teeghra's get thirsty

Five Nights at Freddys some video game thing my kids like.

Harley Quinn SLC a twitter friend

A fantastic Black Cat

The only Red Sonja I saw.

The Mad Song is LIVE!

My latest collection of Sword & Sorcery is live! and today only I'm pushing the kindle version like a street hustler for .99
tomorrow I'm getting it bumped up to 2.99. Get it here!

Yes, its all about those rankings.

A few of these are previously published stories that some of you may have read, but a lot of them are new that I hope you enjoy - including the first 3 chapters of my Walking Through Walls which is currently running in UGEEK magazine.

Check it out!

Coming UP!

I've got a few things coming up shortly that I'll mention again when they drop. But for now...

I'm a special guest at the 2015 Salt Lake Fan Xperience. Thursday nigh the 29th at 7:30 pm, in the Grand Ballroom no less! me and fellow cohorts the Space Balrogs will be putting on a Supervillain presidential debate. I am Ming The Merciless. I know my usual blog readers are out of state and we will be taping it for the improv comedy sake.


Also at this con (an off season part of Salt Lake Comic Con) I will also have two brand new for this year selections of my writings. The third edition of UGEK magazine with the third installment of Walking Through Walls an action fantasy following my character Kenaz ~

The story so far:

Kenaz, an information broker, can step outside his own body to gather secrets. He has been blackmailed by multiple sinister parties. If he doesn’t give them what they want—a powerful artifact known as the Reliliqy—many lives besides his own will pay the price. He has less than a day to get it all together… 

And finally as I get off my hands, (been taking waaaaaay too long on this) I will have copies of my sword and sorcery collection The Mad Song available for sale. I will post about that again as I plan on having my launch on thursday the 29th just because I can have copies at Comic Con to sign in person. I suspect that will be a collection of my tales that my regular readers will like best, some you may have already read ~ The Mad Song itself from Artifacts and Relics and Weird Tales of Horror but others will be brand new, and a few were only published in obscure collections and the rights have reverted back to me. 

I'm hoping to kick off one hell of a year and m grateful for you all!

Fantasycon & Westercon Recap

I've shared a lot of these already but just going to put them here too for fun and a little more comment.

The Westercon 67 logo a Barsoomian landscape complete with a Thark and steampunk Porter Rockwell was done by the fantastic William Stout! More on him in a little bit...

Here I am signing books and having some good laughs with friends, Carter Reid (Artist extraordinaire of my Whispers of the Goddess cover, Space Eldritch 1 and 2, and the forthcoming The Mad Song and other Tales of Sword & Sorcery! I was on a couple of panels with him at Westercon and he is hilarious! Next is Dave Butler a phenominal writer and friend!, Nathan Shumate standing - he is behind Space Eldritch and designing my Bless the Child and Weird Tales of Horror cover, Seated is new fantasy writer and myth master B. Daniel Blatt, he does a wonderful reading of Beowulf in the original Old English!

 I met Peter S. Beagle, author of The Last Unicorn, very nice guy, I got to spend a bit of time with him in the morning before panels, talking writing craft etc. He has some great stories...

Had real good times with Larry Correia, dinner etc talking shop and all sorts of hilarity ensued. His fans seem to think of me as a mini-me ---- That I could do without. But in relation, I was asked last minute to go and guest speak at a fantasy comparison panel at Fantasycon across the street from Westercon (two cons going on side by side at the same time) I wasn't on the guest list so when I went over there I told them I was Larry Correia and the old lady at security beamed happy that I had shown up. Larry laughed when I told him how I got through security, and asked if I would be interested in completing the next three weeks of his book tour for Monster Hunter Nemesis!

Met Ksenia Solo (Sy-Fy's LOST GIRL) She was very nice. I've met starlets who felt like they were doing you a favor -she was very down to earth, I've only watched the first season, but always enjoyed her on the program. I asked what her next projects were coming up and she said she couldn't say, hope its something cool.

My wife was excited about the Regency Dance Recital at Westercon hosted by Mary Robinette Kowal, I'm more of a Sword & Sensibility kind of guy but my wife had a lot of fun.

I've been a fan of Donato Giancola for a long time, love his work, I got a small print of the cover I have for an edition of Lord of the Rings and had him sign a pair of Red Sonja cards. He even showed me a new Red Sonja in progress!

Brom is another artist I have been a fan of for a good long time, so excited to meet him and get Snakeheart! I've been enchanted by this painting, but didn't want to buy And Their Memory Was A Bitter Tree, so much better to have a limited edition signed print!

 There were an awful lot of cosplayers, here is one of the better ones I saw.

 Huge smoking dragon in the central hall.

I finally got a big signed print of all the Space Eldritch contributors! Thanks Carter!

Another great artwork I grabbed by the phenomenal Eric Velhagen of Morgoth vs Fingolfin.

 And now some William Stout who I realized after seeing him around the con, quite a few times - that I love his art and made it a point to get the Kong print and his book titled Inspirations, he did a custome signature and it is full of pulpy goodness!

I got a copy of my friend Nathan Shumates cartoon book, and he customized the front of all them with different cartoons, he did a pic of Dave Butler riding Larry Correia in Dave's,(Larry signed that one too!) when I asked what I wanted, I was still gushing over William Stouts pinups and dinosaurs so he merged them for my copy.

And Carter Reids, Undeath and Taxes has become my kids favorite book I brought home out of all of them including signed books by Larry Correia, Dave Butler, Carter Reid, Nathan Shumate, Sara Seeley, Peter Beagle, Mark Ryan and Peter J. Wacks- Bloodletting,    I sold a few books, made a lot of new friends - too numerous to mention everyone, it was a blast of a weekend - can't wait for September's Salt Lake Comicon!

'The Mad Song' in Artifacts & Relics: Extreme Sorcery

I'm very pleased to announce that my novella "The Mad Song" has been accepted into Heathen Oracle's next anthology Artifacts and Relics: Extreme Sorcery

I get to share a table of contents with ~

Fred C. Adams

Collen Anderson

James Beaman

Joe Bonadonna

Steve Goble

Jonah Lissner

David C. Smith

Bill Ward

and

John M. Whalen


This promises to be a great Heroic Fantasy collection, and I will update when I know of an imminent release.


My tale is based off a cursed musical instrument known as the Pipe of Mahmackrah and thusly the Mad Song it plays....

I based the look of the pipe upon one played by John Two-Hawks a Native American musician that I became aware of through his work recording with one of my other favorite groups - Nightwish.

In the concert DVD of Nightwish's: End of an Era
Mr. Two-Hawks plays upon a double barreled pipe, the look was so distinct and unusual that when I thought about what kind of cursed instrument to use for my story his pipe was the only thing that came to mind. Though the cursed pipe of Mahmackrah is crafted of black onyx and covered with swirling eldritch runes.

I was able to find one great pic to share so you can see what I'm thinking of. Of course my tale has nothing to do with Mr. Two-Hawks apart from that, and the song incidentally that I listened to constantly while writing the Mad Song was actually every possible interpretation of Led Zeppelin's Kashmir.

The story is set in a desert wasteland, pregnant with foreboding spirit and legend, ripe for panic and dissolution, it awaits the traveling magic caravan or reader with hungry anticipation.

Read Just Lately

I have not made it through my regularly scheduled book reading as of this last month-too much work on polishing a pair of novella's Gods in Darkness and The Mad Song but I did read a good number of short stories.

I started out doing my sci-fi research with The Cold Equations, by Tom Goodwin.

The foreword and afterword in the collection of Goodwins other tales extolled the virtues of his story and why many believe it to be the best sci-fi short story ever written.

If that is truly the case, no wonder I lean so far to the fantasy aisle.

It is a good story, but it lacks a certain amount of wonderment, awe, and  even terror. It does not have any of those. It is just what the title says, Cold Equations. This is not a story that I think I will ever read again for enjoyment. It does have something to say about the nature of the universe. It does give a twist on what you expect (spoiler* you do expect a rescue of sorts) and you don't get that rescue.

But best sci-fi story ever? please

Conan and the Witch-Queen of Acheron, by Don Kraar, Gary Kwapisz and Art Nichols

Has the dubious honor of being just about the worst Conan comic I have read yet. Its a shame because I like that title and thusly expect something more out of a Conan story. I actually ordered this from Alibris quite awhile ago, just so I could read/have a copy and when I finally get around to it, we have a story that makes Conan the Destroyer seem deep and well thought out. At no time did the lead character really act like himself and the logic in the story was weak. Early on Conan fights off half the town guard in some idiotic standoff because he paid a tavern girl with Acheron gold.
Then is quickly felled with the old hit from behind trick=lame.
Of course he must go on a quest to show some stupid petty ass king where he found the Acheronian gold.
This all could not be more unlike Conan. Also I can forgive a bad story sometimes with great art-we don't get that either, pretty sub-par art throughout. Any given Savage Sword of Conan has better art and a better story.

The Doom that Came to Sarnath, by H. P. Lovecraft

This is a collection of older Lovecraft tales, many that somewhat predate the usual mythos, and as such are generally regarded as not quite as good.
It does however have some gems, this is where Nyarlathotep dwells and The Nameless City and his Houdini ghost written piece Imprisoned with the Pharaohs.

While perhaps not as good as later tales, this still contained many that I did enjoy and that Lovecraft ambiance is throughout, Some tales like The Other Gods actually struck me as very unlike Lovecraft, but I think it has to do with their being written before he truly found his voice.




The Science Fiction Century, edited by David G.Hartwell

Considering that this is a massive tome (that I have read some stories in) with stories by all the greats of 20th century sci-fi, I doubt there could have been much editing at all in comparison to just sheer selection. I'll bet this has to be the single biggest volume of short stories I own. Many of them I had already read from other collections, but some like Frank Belnap Long's The Hounds of Tindalos were a first.
It was an interesting story that at least hints at horror, wonder, mystery, and terror as opposed to Cold Equations but it did leave me wishing for a little more of something, if anything I would have greatly enjoyed the tale continuing.
Many other writers such as Bradbury and H.G. Wells, C.S. Lewis and Poul Anderson will be readily familiar in the collection and those are some tales that I skipped as I skimmed this collection. But this is a comprehensive collection. No doubt I will be returning again soon.

The Craft of Writing Science Fiction that Sells, by Ben Bova

I have owned this book for months having found it in a thrift store and I had not intent of moving it into the TBR pile, but I pulled it out when a friend on facebook said he had been hunting for a Ben Bova writing book and he would pay handsomely for it.

It turned out to be the wrong Bova book, but since I was working on a sci-fi tale I read it. It does have a lot of tips but many are outdated or I had already learned (hard way or not) I did like that it broke up what could be a certain sterility by having some of Bova's tales intermingled as examples of what works-and while I found them somewhat interesting, it isn't going to make me run out and buy more of Bova's work either.

Seems that for me, a lot of the advice was just too late and that's on me not Bova, it probably would be a great book for a writer just starting out.



I am also reading my fellow Space Eldritch contributors tales and it is going to be a great collection-coming October 29th.