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New Treasures: We Are Not Good People by Jeff Somers

New Treasures: We Are Not Good People by Jeff Somers

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We are not Good People-smallJeff Somers has made quite a name for himself as an SF writer. His first novel, The Electric Church (2007), launched what eventually became know as the Avery Cates series (five volumes, including the most recent, The Final Evolution in 2011.) He’s less well known as a fantasy writer. His first fantasy novel, Trickster, published by Pocket Books last year, introduced Lem and Mags, two unlikely heroes in an underground world of blood magic. But Trickster was only the first half of the tale, and now it has been re-packaged with the second half and re-released by a new publisher as We Are Not Good People.

Ethics in the world of blood magic is gray at best. Unbeknownst to most, powerful mages have orchestrated disasters — plane crashes, floods, wars — for centuries to fuel their spells with blood. Lesser practitioners, Tricksters like Lem Vonnegan, work smaller magical grifts to eke out a living using only their own gas. For refusing to bleed innocents for his spells, Lem has pretty much condemned himself and his massive, dumb sidekick, Mags, to a life of transient poverty. So when the pair finds Claire Mannice, marked with runes of deep magic and stuffed inside the trunk of a car, Lem knows the rescuing her may be noble or may be infatuation disguised as redemption. Either way, it is most definitely fatal.

For the world’s most powerful mage, Mika Renar, has earth-shattering plans for Claire — and the old woman has noticed their interference. Hopelessly outclassed, and both intrigued by the mysterious girl and devoted to protecting the pet-like Mags, Lem engages his Trickster knack for misdirection and survival to follow the trail of ling cons that Renar and the other archmages have going.

But even if Lem and Mags win, they can still lose. Dealing with the kind of power that doesn’t heed mercy — or death — the duo is fighting for nothing less than reality itself. For magic is nothing but cons all the way down.

We last covered Jeff Somers when we linked to his Huffington Post article, Fantasy Series Better Than Harry Potter. We Are Not Good People was published by Gallery Books on October 7, 2014. It is 514 pages, priced at $16.99 in trade paperback and $12.99 for the digital edition.

Selling Short Fantasy, Science Fiction and Horror Fiction, Part II

Selling Short Fantasy, Science Fiction and Horror Fiction, Part II

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Superman004
Don’t sell your copyright. Superman smash!!

Hey everybody. Welcome to the second of a three-post series on selling short fiction. Last time, I talked about knowing the markets and how your own writing fits into them. This week, I want to talk about sales, contracts, payments, and what rights you’re selling when you sell short fiction. This blog post is in no way a sleep-aid, despite the fact that the last sentence included the words sales, contracts, and rights.

To snap you awake, let’s assume you’re new and you’ve written something. What’s your second worry, after worrying about backing up your masterpiece of short fiction? That nobody steals your shit! You’ve heard about Siegel and Shuster. DC owns Superman. Same with Batman. They sold the copyrights.

You’ve probably heard some variant of “brilliant-but-shy-artist-shows-his-genius-to-a-Hollywood-producer-who-says-no-and-three-years-later-sees-his-magnum-opus-on-the-big-screen-with-all-the-names-changed.” I’ve felt that fear. I’ve written stuff I thought was genius. Hahahahaha. No, seriously. People are worried about losing what they created.

So, first thing: You own it. Only you can sell the rights. And the rights you sell are always described in a contract, that you can choose to either sign or not sign. So, sigh of relief. Let me explain what you are being offered by way of example.

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Sax Rohmer at Towers of London

Sax Rohmer at Towers of London

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51xCPS2lXQL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_190px-FaceoffumanchuA couple weeks ago, I finally read Mr. Towers of London, the posthumously published memoirs of Harry Alan Towers, the unflappable veteran British radio/TV/film writer-producer with well over a hundred works to his credit. It wasn’t Towers’s first stab at writing his memoirs, but this final work was notable as his most personal.

Anyone who actually knows major figures in the entertainment industry is likely aware of some of the salacious stories of debauchery, sometimes even criminal activity, that are never far from the surface. Towers’s memoirs are unique for being perhaps the most honest ever committed to print. If he pulls any punches or whitewashes any parts of his adventures, he can surely be forgiven for what he does dish out about himself and others.

That said, the most disappointing part of the book for me is that he tells the reader very little about his experiences as a writer. I would have loved to have understood more about the more private side of his profession as the book places all of the emphasis on his role as a producer. Today, he is unfairly remembered as the producer of genre films and exploitation fare. While that accounted for much of his output after 1960, he was also a respected writer-producer of family drama who frequently cast some of the biggest stars in Hollywood in his radio, TV, and film productions.

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Firefly Friday: Serenity: Those Left Behind

Firefly Friday: Serenity: Those Left Behind

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SerenityLeftBehindFan passion for more Firefly stories led to the rare (unprecedented?) move of turning a failed television series into a feature length film, in the form of 2005 film Serenity (Amazon). As an attempt to bridge the narrative gap between the end of the series and the start of the film, Joss Whedon collaborated with Dark Horse comics to produce the three-issue comic limited series Serenity: Those Left Behind (Amazon). This review is based on the original hardcover collection of the series, published in 2007. (They’ve since published a 2nd edition.)

Here are the major jumps between the end of Firefly and the beginning of Serenity, which the comic series seeks to explain:

  • Inara is no longer on the Serenity
  • Shepherd Book is no longer on the Serenity
  • Instead of the mysterious blue-handed agents in the series, the film introduces the operative as the key person hunting down River Tam

Serenity: Those Left Behind covers all three of these elements, and also brings back a villain from the television series who would have been recurring had it continued. I won’t ruin it by saying which one. As a hint, though, it’s someone who feels that they were wronged in their last interaction with Malcolm Reynolds, so that should narrow it down. This individual joins forces with the blue-handed operatives to move against the folks on Serenity. In addition to the mysterious recurring villain, there’s also a nice cameo by Mal’s contact Badger, who assigns them a job that doesn’t go exactly as intended. (Or at least not as intended by Mal and the crew.)

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Judges Guild Premium Editions Coming

Judges Guild Premium Editions Coming

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JudgesGuild_KelnoreWhen I began playing Dungeons and Dragons in the late seventies, I was a Judges Guild fan. My friend, who had more money, would buy shiny TSR modules. And I would get the cheaper-covered Judges Guild products. F’Dech Fo’s Tomb, Ravenscrag, Inferno (with a real cover), City State of the World Emperor, Wraith Overlord… I loved reading those things.

Frontier Forts of Kelnore guarded the border of my kingdom of Troya, ruled by the great warrior, Astyannax (I got more creative over the years). I even subscribed to Pegasus magazine, right up to the day it was discontinued.

Now, I liked those Judges Guild modules and supplements, but looking back, many did not age well (though a few did). Gaming has changed a lot over the years and reading them is kind of like watching an early talkie from the thirties. They’re out of place.

Having said that, they can still be interesting. I recently considered updating Glory Hole Dwarven Mine to work with Forge of Fury as a Pathfinder dwarven adventure. However, converting those old AD&D/Universal modules would take a LOT of work.

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Find the Conflict: Unblocking (or Actually Planning!) your NaNoWriMo Novel

Find the Conflict: Unblocking (or Actually Planning!) your NaNoWriMo Novel

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Pulp-O-Mizer_Cover_Image
Let’s imagine I’m my 20-something self and this is my NaNoWriMo project

Last week, I did a kind of public service announcement about “pantsing”, the “just write” school of  writing — discovery writing — applied to your NaNoWriMo novel.

Truth is, I hate pantsing. Pantsing is why my old hard drive had a dozen first three chapters gathering bitrot. The only thing I discovered in several years of writing this way was the need to outline.

OK, there are pros who do pants. However, there are lots of other pros who swear by planning. Not just minor writers like yours truly (bows), but rising stars like my mate Hannu, who is very much a planner and an outliner (though he drafts by hand — hello, the 17th century called ).

Now, NaNoWriMo is all about literary elan; “Get the words down, doesn’t matter how bad.” And if you’re all about the word count, then it’s probably asking a bit much to get you to metaphorically sit on your hands and sketch out your story before pushing out the paragraphs. Even so, there’s a good chance that you’ll write yourself into a corner, or get stuck, run out of plot. Get blocked. So I thought you might find it useful if I shared an approach I used last year when writing novels to order — professionally, my 2013 was like NaNoWriMo does Groundhog Day.

Just to keep me honest, I went over to the Thrilling Tales Derange-O-Lab, generated random pulp titles, picked one that jumped out and built a cover for it (right).

Let’s imagine I’m my 20-something self and this is my NaNoWriMo project, The Eternal Dome of the Unknowable.

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New Treasures: Radiant by Karina Sumner-Smith

New Treasures: Radiant by Karina Sumner-Smith

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Radiant Karina Sumner-Smith-smallThe surest way to get my attention these days is with an original setting. And I was struck by the darkly imaginative setting of Karina Sumner-Smith’s debut novel Radiant immediately.

Sumner-Smith is a Canadian author of fantasy, science fiction, and young adult fiction. Her short fiction has been nominated for the Nebula award and has appeared in The Living Dead 2, The Best Horror of the Year Volume Three, and other places. Radiant is the first book of the Towers Trilogy.

Xhea has no magic. Born without the power that everyone else takes for granted, Xhea is an outcast—no way to earn a living, buy food, or change the life that fate has dealt her. Yet she has a unique talent: the ability to see ghosts and the tethers that bind them to the living world, which she uses to scratch out a bare existence in the ruins beneath the City’s floating Towers.

When a rich City man comes to her with a young woman’s ghost tethered to his chest, Xhea has no idea that this ghost will change everything. The ghost, Shai, is a Radiant, a rare person who generates so much power that the Towers use it to fuel their magic, heedless of the pain such use causes. Shai’s home Tower is desperate to get the ghost back and force her into a body — any body — so that it can regain its position, while the Tower’s rivals seek the ghost to use her magic for their own ends. Caught between a multitude of enemies and desperate to save Shai, Xhea thinks herself powerless — until a strange magic wakes within her. Magic dark and slow, like rising smoke, like seeping oil. A magic whose very touch brings death.

Radiant was published by Talos Press on October 7, 2014. It is 400 pages, priced at $15.99 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital version.

Nab the Trafficking in Magic, Magicking in Traffic Anthology for Just $4.35 at Amazon.com

Nab the Trafficking in Magic, Magicking in Traffic Anthology for Just $4.35 at Amazon.com

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Trafficking in Magic Magicking in Traffic-smallBlack Gate author, blogger, and roving correspondent Sarah Avery reports in with some unexpected news: Amazon.com has discounted her acclaimed new anthology Trafficking in Magic, Magicking in Traffic to just $4.35, a steep 73% savings off the $15 cover price.

Sarah and her publisher are not sure how long the sale will last, however, so act fast. Of special interest to Black Gate fans, it contains a brand new story from James Enge — as well as fiction from Elizabeth Bear, Darrell Schweitzer, Pauline J. Alama, and many others. Here’s the complete description.

What do you seek at the end of this road? What have you brought to pay your way? The road is full of hazards, and the marketplace can cost more than you expect.

In Trafficking in Magic, Magicking in Traffic, editors David Sklar and Sarah Avery bring you 18 magical tales of travel and transactions, ranging from busking in a train station to walking between the worlds, from doppelgangers for hire to capturing the remnants of the dead.

Ideal to read on your vacation, commute, or flight from vengeful ghosts, this collection features classic stories by Elizabeth Bear, Daniel Braum, George R. Galuschak and Darrell Schweitzer, as well as new work by Pauline J. Alama, Megan Arkenberg, D.W. Carlson, Joyce Chng, M.C. DeMarco, E. Grace Diehl, James Enge, Manny Frishberg, Sara M. Harvey, Scott Hungerford, Deborah Grabien, Deirdre M. Murphy, Rhonda Parrish, Richard Rider, and Heather Stearns.

Trafficking in Magic, Magicking in Traffic was edited by David Sklar and Sarah Avery, and published by Fantastic Books on May 23, 2014. It is 264 pages, regularly priced at $15.99 in paperback. There is no digital edition. Order online from Amazon.com.

Game Review: Dead of Winter from Plaid Hat Games

Game Review: Dead of Winter from Plaid Hat Games

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dead-of-winter-boxColor me rotting-flesh green and call me thunderstruck. I believe I’ve been playing the best board game in my thirty years of dice rolling this week: the Plaid Hat Games survival horror magnificence that is Dead of Winter.

Ron Burgundy “That’s No Lie” seal of approval. I know I often write here with tongue probing my cheek, but this time I’m undeadly serious. Maybe it was just the subject matter, or how dark the game can get as desperation builds, but I found it my most enjoyable gaming session in memory.

I’m not just trying to squeeze in another gore-dripped Zombie-related post before Halloween, either. I was perfectly willing to let my one sad little movie post for the month be my fall contribution, but honestly, this game has taken over my brain like a Venusian virus brought back to Earth and I must write about it.

Like tabletop gaming with friends? Like Zombies? If either of these conditions = TRUE, you can read through all my blah blah questionable-humor blah blah blah, or you can get off the Internet, utilize your preferred mode of transport (I don’t care about your hair, that’s why God created baseball hats), go to your Friendly Local Game Store and grab this jewel so you can read the rules and play it over the course of Halloween all the more quickly.

You’re welcome.

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See Westeros the Way George R.R. Martin Intended in The World of Ice & Fire

See Westeros the Way George R.R. Martin Intended in The World of Ice & Fire

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Dragonstone
Dragonstone

If you’ve been watching HBO’s Game of Thrones, then you’ve already been treated to some spectacular sights.

It seems George R.R. Martin is not content to let HBO be the final word on the visual splendor of Westeros, however. His new book The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones, released this week, gives Game of Thrones fans the chance to see visions of Martin’s world that are much closer to what he intended.

In an interview at The Huffington Post, Martin explains why there are so many pictures of castles:

I wanted accurate versions of these castles. We’ve had a number of different artists draw them on covers and on the fantasy like cards and games, and some of them have been beautiful images but not necessarily accurate to what I described.

The World of Ice & Fire, co-authored with Elio M. García, Jr. and Linda Antonsson, who run the site Westeros.org, isn’t just an art book, however. It’s a comprehensive history of the Seven Kingdoms — all the battles, betrayals, and back-room deals that lead to the events of Martin’s novels. It includes full family trees for Houses Stark, Lannister, and Targaryen; detailed histories of the cultures of Westeros; and more than 170 pieces of original art and maps, many in full-color.

See five high-resolution images from the book at The Huffington Post article here. The World of Ice & Fire was published on October 28 by Bantam Books. It is 336 pages, priced at $50 in hardcover and $19.99 for the digital edition.