NEW SHORT STORY ANTHOLOGY EBOOKS

While I’m working at finding a literary agent to handle my books, I’ve decided to test the self-publishing waters with some collections of stories. If you’ve wanted to read some of my science fiction, here’s your chance. There are two anthologies of three short stories each.

The first is Body Of Opinion and other stories which features some rather dark stories with a kind of noir feel to them. It totals about 10,000 words. It’s available from Kobo and Amazon as well as other online sellers for $2.99 CDN (may be less in USD).

            No Walls: When a man discovers that he has the ability to pass through walls, he thinks it’s more of a curse than a gift, only useful for petty crime. Until a secret intelligence organization gets its hooks into him. Then his real troubles begin. (First published in “Neo-opsis” Issue #18, 2009).

            Lockdown: In a future society, criminals on parole don’t even dare to think about committing a crime or their bodies could go into complete lockdown. So how does a guy get revenge on those who’ve wronged him?

            Body of Opinion: For a dying man, a replacement body is a godsend. Unless the body turns out to be a used model with some serious glitches, and the only solution is to discover what happened to its first owner.

The second is Disastrous!: Three Stories of the End of the World which pretty much tells you what it’s about. The total length is about 16,000 words. You can find it at Kobo and Amazon and elsewhere. Also $2.99 CDN (may be less in USD).

            Tartarus Rising: The most critical business centres of the world are suddenly swallowed into the ground, a chemical explosion devastates New Jersey, and survivors flee the rumours of invaders from beneath the Earth. (First published in the anthology "Doomology" from Library of Science Fiction & Fantasy Press, 2010).

            Saviour: A killer asteroid is headed for the Earth and the defence against it depends on one man. But what if he’s the wrong choice?

            The Cleansing: The people of a far-future pastoral Earth discover that their forbears genetically modified their crops to be protected from mutations by occasional die-offs. Except no-one has a plan when all of the crops start to die at the same time.

No Walls and Saviour have previously been available on my web page, but they fit the themes of the anthologies.

I had a lot of fun writing all of the stories and I hope you’ll enjoy reading them.

DEAD AIR BOOK TRAILER

"Dammit, Jim, I'm a writer, not a web programmer."

OK, so I'm still stumbling my way through this new world of author promotion. And maybe I'm a little bit slow off the mark in producing a book trailer for a novel that's been out for a couple of years. But I figured "better late than never", so here's the new trailer for my mystery/thriller novel Dead Air.

Of course you can find out a lot more plus read reviews and a sample chapter here.

Enjoy!

ON SPEC--GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS

Good news this week is the release of the anthology Casserole Diplomacy and Other Stories: An On Spec 25^th Anniversary Retrospective by Tyche Books. It includes my story “A Taste Of Time” (in fact, the blueberries in the bottom right corner of the cover would be mine, I believe). To have a story chosen as one of the best representatives of such a high quality magazine from the past twenty-five years is an incredible honour. Once I’ve had a chance to read the anthology, I’ll certainly put a detailed review on my Goodreads page, but frankly, as a reader, I wouldn’t hesitate to buy this book sight unseen. It’s guaranteed to be a showcase of Canadian speculative fiction without many equals, and that means a juicy read, to say the least.

That brings me to the bad news of the past week, the news that the Canada Council for the Arts has turned down On Spec’s application for funding for 2015. This means a loss of up to $25,000 to cover production costs (including paying writers). Certainly a shock to the Canadian SF community (and very unfortunate timing, to have the elation over the launch of the anthology punctured by such a disappointing decision). But even harder to understand was the jury’s criticism of the magazine’s quality of writing and production values.

On Spec holds a special place in my heart because my very first short story sale was to them, a story called “The Wind Man”. That was a tremendous validation because I had great respect for the quality of writing that On Spec consistently displayed. In fact, “The Wind Man” didn’t end up being my first published story because On Spec’s commitment to thorough proofing and editing took more time than other publications. On Spec doesn’t just supply the mind-expanding ideas and lustrously-imagined landscapes of good science fiction and fantasy, but also the richness of literary prose. For the Canada Council jury to criticize the quality of writing in the magazine is mystifying. Some of my compatriots in Canadian science fiction have suggested it’s because of an age-old prejudice that genre writing of any kind cannot rise to the level of “literary fiction”. I hope it isn’t that. One would think that in light of work by David Mitchell, Michael Chabon, Margaret Atwood, and so many others, such a bias would once and for all have been put to rest.

I haven’t submitted to On Spec in some time because I’m concentrating on long fiction these days, but I would do so again in a heartbeat, and my subscription to the magazine is my best endorsement. If you’re not familiar with On Spec or Canadian SF in general, give it a try. A year’s subscription is a bargain. Or buy the anthology. Or both.

I don’t want to envision a future without On Spec.

LESS THAN A WEEK LEFT TO GET DEAD AIR FOR $3.99

There’s less than a week left to take advantage of the discount offer from my publisher for ebook versions of my novel Dead Air. It’s a rich mystery thriller about the radio business (which I’ve inhabited all my life).

What would you do if you learned that someone wanted you dead, and was taking action to make it happen? That’s what radio morning man Lee Garrett faces in Dead Air, and you can read about his trials for just $3.99 if you buy an ebook version of Dead Air before the end of June.

Read the first chapter here and follow the links to buy your copy.

SOME NEW READING FOR YOU

I've been kind of lax in keeping the content of my STORIES page fresh. So this week I took down a couple of stories that had been available for a long time and posted two new ones for you to enjoy.

"Sand From A Broken Hourglass" is about a man who wants to find someone else to blame for his alcoholism, and turns to a radical experimental method for retrieving repressed memories. But the walk down memory lane is a lot more hazardous than he bargained for.

How does a man exist in two realities at once? In "Shakedown" a prototype nanomachine is being developed to perform medical miracles within living bloodstreams using a Virtual Reality control system that will demand all the skill its gaming champion pilot can muster. Then the government comes calling with an urgent mission far into untested territory, and this "Shakedown" will be anything but smooth.

ALSO remember that through the month of June the e-book of my radio industry mystery/thriller novel Dead Air has been reduced from $7.99 to just $3.99, available from Kobo, Amazon, the iTunes Book Store, and Barnes & Noble. Read the first chapter here.

DEAD AIR IN EBOOK FORMAT

Through a new arrangement with my publisher, I’ve now been able to make my novel Dead Air available as an ebook on more platforms. As of now, Dead Air is available in paperback and Kindle at Amazon (or your local Amazon outlet), as well as in epub format through Kobo and Barnes & Noble. It should soon appear in the Apple iBooks store, too. I hope this will make the book more accessible for those of you who’ve been coming to my web page all these months.

You can read the detailed blurb about Dead Air at its dedicated page here.

I’m a career radio broadcaster and I’ve hosted a morning show for nearly thirty years. It struck me that radio personalities are small ‘c’ celebrities—people feel they know us, and it’s a personal relationship to them. The dark side is that we, like other celebrities, are vulnerable. Hence the novel Dead Air, a story about a morning show host who finds his life threatened by persons unknown, and must find his own way to survive another day. It’s a mystery thriller, but it’s also an earnest attempt to get inside the head of an average man faced with an unthinkable circumstance.

Response to the print book has been great (there’s a sampling of reviews on Amazon), with most readers complaining that I’ve kept them up way too late into the early hours of the morning, a complaint I’ll gladly accept.

Although Dead Air isn’t science fiction I hope you’ll check it out. It’ll give you a rare glimpse into the world of professional radio from an insider, and a read I think you’ll remember for a long time to come.

BOOKS BY CANADIAN AUTHORS

As a member of the Canadian Authors Association I’m glad to see that the CAA has produced a new catalogue. The Bookshelf 2013: A catalogue of books by members of the Canadian Authors Association. There are some very talented writers in Canada and a lot of variety in the catalogue. There are weblinks to help you buy the books, too. My own novel Dead Air is on page two, though you can read more about here on my site. It can also be bought through my publisher Scrivener Press, as well as from Amazon, Chapters-Indigo, and Kobo books

A SPECIAL OFFER

If you’ve been coming to this page regularly but haven’t read my mystery/thriller novel Dead Air yet you can learn all about it here.

If you have read it, I could really use your help in the form of a review of the book at Amazon. So here’s a special time-limited offer: If you post a review of Dead Air at Amazon.com before November 18, 2013 send me an email and I’ll give you the link to a free sampler of my work. The ebook sampler includes two of my best published stories plus a sneak preview of my next novel, a techno-thriller called The Primus Labyrinth.

I’m not hoping to bribe you into giving a good review. I want honest reviews—online shoppers can smell a fake—so write what you really thought. But please do the review. It could really help shorten the time until you can have my next novel in your hands.

ON SPEC'S SILVER JUBILEE ANTHOLOGY

The official announcement has been made, so I can finally mention that my short story “A Taste Of Time” has been chosen for On Spec magazine’s Silver Jubilee anthology. I was happy enough to have it published in the magazine last year, but to be chosen from among 25 years of past issues is quite an honour. Unfortunately, the anthology won’t be published until August 2014! Here’s the link for the table of contents.

THE NOVEL DEAD AIR IS ON THE WAY

Good news on the publishing front these days. My radio-industry thriller novel “Dead Air” is at the printers and will be available in early October. It’s already available for pre-order through Amazon and Chapters-Indigo online. It’s the story of a morning radio guy whose life is already in a shambles when he realizes that someone wants him dead. Marked for death by an unknown enemy, he’s forced to examine what still makes life worth living.

I’ve been a broadcaster for more than 30 years, so the novel has a lot of insider knowledge.

The story’s set in my home city of Sudbury and I’ll be doing book signings here, then rolling the novel out across the country.

In the meantime, Tesseracts Sixteen has just been published and I’m thrilled to be a part of it (see some of the notable writers also included in my last posting below). Although I likely can’t make it, a number of the authors will be doing a book signing at the Bakka-Phoenix book store in Toronto on Saturday September 29^th at 3:00 pm. At least I’ll be able to do a book-signing and reading event in Sudbury along with editor Mark Leslie and writer Sean Costello October 4^th at the Vale Living With Lakes Centre.