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Category: BG Staff

Making the Clock Your Friend

Making the Clock Your Friend

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Howard's haunted clockI’m busy.

I know, I know, a lot of us are busy, and I’ve been busy for a long time. But I mean I’m busier than I’ve ever been in my entire life.

So busy that if I don’t figure out a way to manage the busy-ness I’m mortified that I’m putting my dream job at risk. It took me decades of hard work to make it to the point where writing is actually my day job, so I’m fighting like tooth and nail to keep it that way.

In brief, here’s what’s been happening over the last months, in the order that the events began to impact the household.

  1. I’m promoting the second Dabir and Asim novel, The Bones of the Old Ones, which will appear in print on December 11;
  2. I’m writing my next Paizo Pathfinder novel, and the deadline’s creeping ever closer;
  3. We’re undergoing a big bathroom/master bedroom remodel — we’ve been saving up for it for years, and there are constant interruptions and some consulting that has to take place;
  4. My mother had a heart attack followed by a triple bypass and is moving into my office until she’s well enough to move into the basement;
  5. The basement is currently unfinished, and I have to organize, clean, and trash what doesn’t need saving prior to it being turned into a small apartment for my mother; and
  6. Mom’s house has to cleared out and readied for sale.

Now I’m not complaining that we’re in a good enough financial position that we can afford to do some remodeling, and I’m not complaining that I have two separate series to work on, and I’m not sharing any of that because I need extra hugs. I’m just explaining what I mean by busy. I’ve got to take care of my mom, who was wonderful and supportive my whole life long, and I’ve got to keep my job going.

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Black Gate Online Fiction: “A Phoenix in Darkness” by Donald S. Crankshaw, Part III

Black Gate Online Fiction: “A Phoenix in Darkness” by Donald S. Crankshaw, Part III

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donald-crankshaw-smallThis week, we present the epic conclusion of Donald S. Crankshaw’s short novel, A Phoenix in Darkness, as Seth, Aulus, and Nathan discover the breathtaking scope of the Necromancer’s plans, hidden for generations in their underground lair in the Hollow Hills.

Nathan shivered. He was trying to figure out whether it was the threat in Kulsin’s eyes or the chill air, when he realized it was neither. The chill came from inside, like an icicle impaling his chest. Aulus and Kulsin both looked around, feeling the same thing and searching for the source, but Nathan knew. He didn’t know how a sensation he’d never felt before could seem so familiar, or how he could understand its meaning so instinctively, but he did.

Nathan straightened up, trying to get their attention, and felt a weight slap against his chest. That thing the Necromancers had placed around his neck was still there. He could feel the chain now, but there were more urgent matters to worry about. “Wraiths!” he managed in a hoarse whisper.

They were coming.

Donald S. Crankshaw has published short stories in Daily Science Fiction, Aoife’s Kiss, and Coach’s Midnight Diner. He lives in Boston. Author photo by Kristin Janz.

You can see the complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by Aaron Bradford Starr, Sean McLachlan, Harry Connolly, and Jason E. Thummel, here.

A Phoenix in Darkness is a complete 50,000-word short novel of dark fantasy offered free of charge, published in three parts. The story began with Part One, here.

Read Part Three of “A Phoenix in Darkness” here.

Popular Marketing Mistakes: Cannibalism

Popular Marketing Mistakes: Cannibalism

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the-inferior-small

1. The Sadness — It is too Much!

When my first book, The Inferior, came squalling into the light back in 2007 it received absolutely wonderful reviews.

“Read this and remember why Science Fiction lit your fire in the first place!”

“An exhilarating read, highly recommended and an incredible first novel in what is going to end up an incredible career.”

It made several “Best of the Year” lists. Foreign editors snapped up the rights. An agent in Hollywood got excited about the idea of a movie. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, for a start, nobody bought it.

By nobody, I don’t just mean sweaty little nerds like myself with fistfuls of notes or book vouchers. No, the shops didn’t want to buy it either. They failed to stock it, or did so in small quantities. They were right too, because the few copies that made it into stores gathered dust or wept quietly in the back of warehouses.

After “Best of the Year” lists, The Inferior began turning up in other places, such as “most underrated book” lists and — now that I have two novels in print — “most underrated series.” That’s a gentle way of saying “loserville.”

Yes, this depressed me and I whined to whoever would listen until I bored my friends to sleep with it. I didn’t understand back then that both myself and my publishers had made some interesting mistakes in our marketing of the book.

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Black Gate Online Fiction: “A Phoenix in Darkness” by Donald S. Crankshaw, Part II

Black Gate Online Fiction: “A Phoenix in Darkness” by Donald S. Crankshaw, Part II

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donald-crankshaw-smallThis week, we bring you Part II of Donald S. Crankshaw’s epic short novel, as young members of a secretive Order of wizards track a sinister group of Necromancers to their underground lair.

The corridor opened into a wide, circular room, the smooth, polished stone of the walls gleaming from the light that hung from the ceiling on a chain. It was like no lamp that Seth had ever seen; it appeared to be a sphere filled with an steady, harsh white light. Someone moved across the wide floor with a sluggish limp.

It took Seth a moment to realize what he was looking at. The man wore dark pants and a black, short-sleeved shirt, leaving pale skin visible. Unnaturally pale, even for someone who lived in this darkness. Patches of it showed through where clumps of his limp black hair had fallen out. His hands hung slack at his sides, and his feet dragged forward step by lurching step. His whole mode of movement hinted at some terrible deformity hidden just beneath the skin. The mouth was sewn shut, and the wide-open, glassy eyes stared straight ahead.

Seth tightened his grip on his sword. “What the Shol is that? We should kill it.”

“It’s already dead,” said Aulus.

Donald S. Crankshaw has published short stories in Daily Science Fiction, Aoife’s Kiss, and Coach’s Midnight Diner. He lives in Boston. Author photo by Kristin Janz.

You can see the complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by Aaron Bradford Starr, Sean McLachlan, Harry Connolly, and Jason E. Thummel, here.

“A Phoenix in Darkness” is a complete 50,000-word short novel of dark fantasy offered free of charge. It will be published in three parts. The story began last week with Part One, here.

Read Part Two of “A Phoenix in Darkness” here.

Discover the Secret History of World War Two in Achtung! Cthulhu

Discover the Secret History of World War Two in Achtung! Cthulhu

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achtung-cthulhu-smallOn Tuesday, I talked about the latest crop of exciting fantasy games I’ve discovered, with the help of The Paris Fashion Week of Fantasy Games. They included recent supplements for CthulhuTech, the game of Cthulhu versus giant robots, and Incursion, an intriguing mash-up of BattleTech and Squad Leader.

Cthulhu, zombies, Nazi super-science, occult experiments… you’d think these two games alone would keep me completely content for the next decade. And they might have, too, if I hadn’t just discovered Modiphius Entertainment’s Achtung! Cthulhu.

Before you accuse me of having the attention span of a three-year-old, I’d like to point out that Achtung! Cthulhu combines all that stuff in one game.

Did you ever want to see what would happen if Sgt. Rock went toe-toe-toe with the minions of Nyarlathotep in Nazi Germany? If Indiana Jones stumbled on a nest of shuggoths in Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest at Berchtesgaden?

These are rhetorical questions; of course you did.

Achtung! Cthulhu is a tabletop roleplaying campaign that pits elite Allied soldiers against Chthonians, Deep Ones, Dimensional Shamblers, the Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath, and other creatures from H.P. Lovercraft’s Cthulhu mythos. It is fully compatible with Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu, and versions are in the works for Realms of Cthulhu (for Savage Worlds), Pelgrane Press’s Trail of Cthulhu, and the PDQ Core Rules from Atomic Sock Monkey.

The first series of adventures is called “Zero Point,” and so far two chapters have been published: Three Kings and Heroes of the Sea, both written by Black Gate‘s own Sarah Newton. The overall series is under the direction of Chris Birch.

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Black Gate Online Fiction: “A Phoenix in Darkness” by Donald S. Crankshaw

Black Gate Online Fiction: “A Phoenix in Darkness” by Donald S. Crankshaw

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donald-crankshaw-smallYoung members of a secretive Order of wizards investigate a series of strange kidnappings, and discover a sinister and ancient conspiracy:

“Nathan, who do you think has the ability to turn a person into a puppet like that?” Aulus asked.

“I don’t know. I can’t think of anyone in the Order — ”

“Exactly. In the Order. What about outside the Order?”

Nathan looked at Aulus hard. “You’re not talking about a renegade Dominus, are you?”

“No, I’m not. I’m talking about a different society altogether.”

“But the only other society would be the Necromancers. We wiped them out centuries ago!” Nathan said.

“What if the Order is wrong about their fate?” Aulus stood up and began pacing in the tiny room. “What if there were more of them, and better hidden, than we thought? Nathan, that man today was dead and walking. He was undead, a Soulless.”

Nathan did not want to admit that the Necromancers might still be around. If they were, the world was a lot more dangerous than he wanted to believe. “But, Aulus, how have they remained hidden all these years? They would have died out years ago… unless you think they’ve finally discovered the secrets of immortality.”

“Who says they haven’t?”

Donald S. Crankshaw has published short stories in Daily Science Fiction, Aoife’s Kiss, and Coach’s Midnight Diner. He lives in Boston. Author photo by Kristin Janz.

You can see the complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by Aaron Bradford Starr, Sean McLachlan, Harry Connolly, and Jason E. Thummel, here.

“A Phoenix in Darkness” is a complete 50,000-word short novel of dark fantasy offered free of charge. It will be published in three parts.

Read Part One of “A Phoenix in Darkness” here.

Apex Magazine Subscription Drive

Apex Magazine Subscription Drive

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Apex Magazine is having a subscription drive from now until November 15th. Featuring the work of folks such as Catherynne M. Valente, Mary Robinette Kowal, Sarah Monette, Ken Liu, Elizabeth Bear, Rachel Swirsky, Jennifer Pelland,  Kij Johnson, Geoff Ryman, and Maureen McHugh, Apex Magazine earned a Hugo Nomination for Best Semiprozine in 2012. Here’s the pitch:

image012_largeYearly subscriptions are available through the Apex website and Weightless Books. For $17.95, $2.00 off the normal subscription rate, you can have 12 months of Apex Magazine delivered to you in the file format of your choice: ePub, mobi, or PDF.  That’s at least 24 brand new short stories dropped into your eager little hands for the price of an anthology. Plus, you get the reprints, poetry, nonfiction and interviews. Quite a deal, right?

Subscribe via Weightless Books
Subscribe via Kindle
Subscribe via Apex

Not convinced you want to commit to a whole year or (I like this scenario better) don’t want the hassle of having to renew your subscription each year, Amazon can help you out.  For only a $1.99 a month, Apex Magazine will be auto-delivered straight to your Kindle. You never have to think about it again. On the first Tuesday of every month the new issue will be right there waiting for you, ready to go with you wherever you want to take it, no more need for a clunky computer or an internet connection once it’s downloaded.

A Starred Review from Publisher’s Weekly for The Bones of the Old Ones

A Starred Review from Publisher’s Weekly for The Bones of the Old Ones

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bones-of-the-old-onesI’ve been anxiously awaiting the arrival of Howard Andrew Jones’s The Bones of the Old Ones, the sequel to my favorite novel from last year, The Desert of Souls.

Publisher’s Weekly isn’t making that wait any easier. In a starred review just last week, the magazine raved:

This rousing sequel to The Desert of Souls offers a mélange of ancient adventure myths populated by convincing, endearing characters… Asim el Abbas and scholar Dabir ibn Khalil rescue alluring and aristocratic Najya binta Alimah from her kidnappers, the Sebitti, seven sinister wizards from the remote past. In Asim and Dabir’s subsequent quest to find and destroy the ancient and powerful bone-weapons also sought by the Sebitti and free Najya from the weapons’ soul-threatening spell, the friends experience one fearful ordeal after another, while brave Asim falls more and more for Najya’s wit, courage, and charms. As intricately woven as the magic carpet of Greek sorceress Lydia, Jones’s tale incorporates real historical personages and settings like Mosul of “haggard beauty” from the early days of Islam, and fills the pages with gallantry and glamour to provide a thrilling spectacle.

You can read the complete review at Publisher’s Weekly‘s website here.

Like I didn’t want this book enough already. Now I know why publishers want us to wait until the month a title is published before we blab about it on the blog. I want this book right now.

We first reported on The Bones of the Old Ones in August. It will be released in hardcover and eBook by Thomas Dunne Books on December 11. If you’ve got an advance proof you’re willing to part with, we should talk.

Black Gate Online Fiction: “The Daughter’s Dowry” by Aaron Bradford Starr

Black Gate Online Fiction: “The Daughter’s Dowry” by Aaron Bradford Starr

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daughters-dowry-cropA famous explorer relates one of his earliest adventures, an exciting sea journey to a sunken tower where a legendary treasure awaits:

I inserted the key into the lock, amazed at how free of corrosion or accumulated grit the inner mechanism was. Yr Neh cocked his ears forward in surprise as well. Our eyes met, and we smiled to each other as I turned the key.

It didn’t open. I felt the tension in the key, then its complete freedom of movement. Puzzled, I put an ear to the side. It was ticking softly. Yr Neh backed away warily, and I had begun to do the same when the box jumped into the air before me.

Flashing and turning, the box changed shape as it fell, landing again on the floor completely transformed. It was now a complex faceted spike of brightest gold. The point pounded into the floor and continued through the stone.

I lunged for the rope, diving through the shallow water on the floor. There followed a moment of silence, broken only by the squeak of the rope from which I still clung, soaked to the skin. Yr Neh sighed in relief, and I joined him. Then the shattered floor collapsed.

Aaron’s first published story was “Mortal Star” in Black Gate 8, which SF Site called “complex and fascinating in design… A very fine story that is impossible to predict.”

You can read the complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including last week’s 25,000-word novella of dark fantasy “The Quintessence of Absence” by Sean McLachlan, and Jason E. Thummel’s adventure fantasy novelette “The Duelist,” here.

“The Daughter’s Dowry” is a complete 9,000-word novelette of heroic fantasy offered at no cost, with original art by Aaron Bradford Starr.

Read the complete story here.

Black Gate Online Fiction: “The Whoremaster of Pald” by Harry Connolly

Black Gate Online Fiction: “The Whoremaster of Pald” by Harry Connolly

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w-master2One of the most popular pieces of short fiction we’ve published in Black Gate magazine was Harry Connolly’s first fiction sale, “The Whoremaster of Pald,” which originally appeared in Black Gate 2.

Since that early sale, Harry has become a celebrated fantasy novelist, with titles including the Twenty Palaces novels Child of Fire and Game of Games. Featuring a brilliant and resourceful merchant in a corrupt and violent port city, “The Whoremaster of Pald” has all the hallmarks of his later fiction, and is filled with mystery, surprising twists, and great characters. Here are the opening paragraphs:

My prison cell stank like a bird cage. It was terribly dark, and I listened for the sound of rats. I despise rats. I lay down on the wooden plank that would serve as my bed for the night. My bruised back throbbed, but at least I could still breathe. It’s always nice to breathe after a beating.

In the morning a sweet little sparrow of a girl would testify against me. The charge was murder, and she had seen me do it. It had started only the evening before, when I decided that something had to be done about the new Warden.

RPGNet called the story “remarkably rich and textured,” and Locus magazine said:

[“The Whoremaster of Pald”] was one of my favorites. Harry James Connolly’s unlikely hero is a fat master of a whorehouse who cringes before bullies; not your usual fantasy hero at all. His story is told with smooth, vivid prose that is strongly reminiscent of Jack Vance, Connolly’s Zed gradually engages reader sympathy as he veers between bullying protection racketeers, a new worker who decides she can’t really stick to prostitution, a conniving rival, and the mayor’s lout of a nephew… an unputdownable tale. Connolly works the twists and turns so cleverly it’s impossible to guess what will happen. It’s hard to believe this is Connolly’s first published story.

Several years ago, we published the story in its entirety on the Black Gate website; we’re proud to offer it again here as part of the new line up of Black Gate weekly Online Fiction.

Read the complete story here, and the complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including the adventure fantasy novelette “The Duelist” by Jason E. Thummel and Sean McLachlan’s novella of dark fantasy, “The Quintessence of Absence,” here.

Art by Chris Pepper.