Got A Short Story Published!

A short story of mine, "The Witch Bottle" has just been published in the Hero Lost anthology. This anthology, published by Dancing Lemur Press, brings together twelve authors of fantasy on the theme of lost heroes. Here's the blurb.

What if Death himself wanted to die? Can deliverance be found on a bloody battlefield? Could the gift of silvering become a prison for those who possessed it? Will an ancient warrior be forever the caretaker of a house of mystery?

Delving into the depths of the tortured hero, twelve authors explore the realms of fantasy in this enthralling and thought-provoking collection. Featuring the talents of Jen Chandler, L. Nahay, Renee Cheung, Roland Yeomans, Elizabeth Seckman, Olga Godim, Yvonne Ventresca, Ellen Jacobson, Sean McLachlan, Erika Beebe, Tyrean Martinson, and Sarah Foster.

Hand-picked by a panel of agents and authors, these twelve tales will take you into the heart of heroes who have fallen from grace. Join the journey and discover a hero's redemption!

You can get it at Amazon, Smashwords, and various other outlets. The ebook is $4.99 and the print paperback is $13.99.

Insecure Writers Support Group: Making Readers Cry

Welcome to the Insecure Writers Support Group, where on the first Wednesday of every month we expose our foibles to a cruel world! The subject this month is a little more positive than usual: What's the best thing anyone has ever said about your writing?

For me, it's when someone said my writing made them cry. I blogged about it way back in 2008. Here's the post:

I've been busy editing my second fantasy novel these past few weeks. My first novel got rejected by an editor at a major publishing house, but she wants to see my second one. I sent out a panicked email to a couple of my writing newsgroups asking for critiques. It was kind of a tall order--read and critique a 87,000 word novel in less than a month. Nonetheless, seven people replied.

That's one of the great things about the writing community, most writers support one another. Oh, I've met some notable exceptions, usually writers who have recently become successful and have gotten a swelled head, but all in all we're a pretty supportive bunch.

The critiques were quite helpful. Besides catching some typos (you can never catch them all yourself) they had some good suggestions for fleshing out the supporting characters, and clearing up a few scenes. They were also very complimentary. One even said the nicest thing anyone has ever said about my writing--that one scene made her cry.

Wow. I've never been happy about making someone cry since breaking up with a certain deserving ex-girlfriend in college. The scene was designed to make the reader cry, but I didn't think it actually would.

I can only hope it will make the editor cry

NOTE: It didn't. That novel, like my first one, got rejected. I was at the beginning of my fiction writing career and didn't know as much as I do now. Hopefully I can now make readers cry more reliably than in those early days.

Working on the next Toxic World novel

You might have noticed that on the right-hand column I keep a running tally of my word count for various projects. Things have been changing over there because I finally got my Tangier novel, The Last Hotel Room, to beta readers and started on Book Four of my Toxic World post-apocalyptic series, Emergency Transmission.
It's always fun to get back to the folks in New City and the Burbs as they desperately try to keep the last remnant of civilization alive. As usual with this series, the action shifts between three characters. Song Yu-Jin is back after being introduced in Book Three; Roy Jones, the owner of everyone's favorite bar, finally becomes a major character; and a certain gentleman from the Righteous Horde also makes an appearance. You didn't those crazies were gone, did you?
People might be wondering about that other book, The Saga of Egil Thorfinnsson and the Weaklings. The more observant among you will have noticed that the word count never seems to go up. Yeah, this was a project I started a couple of years ago and it stalled. I'll get it done this year. I promise. Really. It's a historical fantasy set in Norse Greenland. The Norse called the Inuit skraeling, which means "weakling". Not very nice, especially considering who survived and who didn't! It's going to be a fun novella with a really nasty critter straight out of Inuit mythology. Stay tuned.
The meter I use comes from the NaNo page and is a good way to keep tabs on my various books. The final word counts are estimates, of course, but I'm almost always within five percent.
Back to writing!

Get my ebooks for half off!

Over at Smashwords I'm participating in their great summer/winter sale. Whether you're sweltering in the summer of the Northern Hemisphere, or chilling out somewhere south of the Equator, it's always a good time to read an ebook. Through July 31, all my ebooks at Smashwords are 50% off. You can see an entire list on my Smashwords page.

The books include my Trench Raiders World War One action series, each now $1.50; older works such as the short story collection The Night the Nazis came to Dinner and the historical fantasy The Quintessence of Absence, both $1.50; and my Civil War horror novels A Fine Likeness and The River of Desperation.

Use the coupon code SSW50 at checkout to save 50%!

Book Review: The Incorruptibles by John Hornor Jacobs

The Incorruptibles by John Hornor Jacobs
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked this up for free from Gollancz at the 2014 Eastercon. Like Barricade, another freebie from the same publisher that I reviewed here earlier, I found it to be a well-written novel that ended up disappointing me.

The setting is an alternative Wild West colonized by the Rumans, an alternative Roman Empire that gets its strength from Hellfire--captured imps and demons that are made to power steamboats, weapons, and other devices. So yeah, you have fantasy, steampunk, and Weird West all wrapped into one. Variants on the Chinese and Spanish are also mentioned.

The action centers around Shoe and Fisk, two scouts employed by a Ruman senator to clear the way for his steamboat as it carries a very important cargo--a captured Spanish princess. Shoe is half dvergar, a dwarf-like race native to the continent. Shoe narrates the plot but does very little, the story mostly being about Fisk, a typical Western hero, a Lone Ranger to Shoe's Tonto.

And this is the first major stumbling block to my enjoyment of the book. The only other dvergar in the book is also in a servile role. The other native race are the vaettir, elf-like savages that scalp, kill babies, carry off women, and burn settlements. Instead of developing some interesting cultures based on, say, the Navajo or Iroquois, Jacobs cops out and reverts to the simplistic Good, Servile Indian vs. Savage, Hostile Indian trope.

This is the 21st century. Do better.

The senatorial family that Shoe and Fisk are guarding are similarly cartoonish. They are so backbiting and clueless as to be unbelievable, and their stupidity extends to putting their captive, upon whom the future of the Ruman Empire rests, into unnecessary danger. This furthers the plot but could have been handled in a more convincing manner. Add a few clichés (black fire, Infernal Combustion Engines) and I was left struggling to finish it.

And that's a real shame. Jacobs is an excellent writer, his prose always flowing well and presenting some beautiful descriptions. His creativity and obvious talent should have resulted in a better novel. I will probably try out one of Jacobs' other works, but I will not be reading the sequel to The Incorruptibles.

View all my reviews

Book Review: The Betrayed

The Betrayed by Igor Ljubuncic
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
The Betrayed is the start of a promising grimdark fantasy series. There are multiple POV characters who provide different viewpoints on an escalating religious war. As you'd expect with grimdark, there's a lot of violence and a fair amount of gore, although it's never gratuitous. The world is nicely fleshed out and the various cultures are drawn in a distinct manner and really come alive.
My one problem with this book was that the characters are a bit superficial. We never get deep inside their heads to find out their motivations and how they made it to where they are. This is especially true of Adam the Butcher, who goes from being a male prostitute to Pol Pot without batting an eye. The monk character is drawn better than the others, but even he at times seems to be going through the motions. It reminded me a bit of Game of Thrones (the show, not the books) where too many characters were hardened warrior/political types who rarely showed much personality beyond a knack for survival.
Still, this is a good read and a bodes well for the author's career. If you like grimdark fantasy, consider picking this up.

View all my reviews

Forgotten Masters of Fantasy and Science Fiction Silent Film

Satan at Play, bu Segundo de Chomón, 1907.

As you may know, I blog every Wednesday over at Black Gate. For the past two weeks I've been delving into my love of silent film. Ever since I was a kid I've been captivated by these early movies and as an adult I've been doing some research into them. Two early directors who have been all but forgotten are the subject of my recent posts.

Segundo de Chomón was a Spanish director who in the first decade of the twentieth century made some two hundred films, mostly fantasy and horror. Walter R. Booth of England was another early pioneer, starting in films in 1899. He created the first science fiction film trilogy with his Airship Destroyer series from 1909-11.

Both directors used techniques such as animation, split screen, jump cuts, superimposition, multiple exposures, and stop motion animation to make their special effects. Even though their films are more than a century old, many of these effects hold up surprisingly well. Check out the links to the articles and you'll find more links to their best films. Most early films were less than six minutes long so they make a perfect break from work. Enjoy!

Back from Worldcon!

As regular readers of this blog know, this week I was at Loncon3, aka the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention. I made lots of friends and ended up on the Iron Throne! It's good to finally get the recognition I'm due.
It was a great five days of panels, parties, readings, and meeting fellow fans. I did a signing of Radio Hope and A Fine Likeness on the 16th (my 45th brirhday) and was on a panel on refugees in fiction. For more on the con, check out the Worldcon report I did for the Black Gate blog.

Thanks for Jerome Finn for the photo!

Helping out a writer in need

Some of you may be familiar with the blog Writing in the Crosshairs, written by author Roland Yeomans. If you don't read Roland's blog regularly you might have missed the fact that he's going into cancer surgery today.

I was trying to think of a way to cheer him up all the way over here in Spain and hit upon a buy-a-thon for his books. I've been reading Her Bones are in the Badlands and enjoying it immensely since it's set on a silent film set and I'm a fan of early movies. Today I bought French Quarter Nocturne, in which some strange beasts arise in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. This one should be interesting because Roland is not only a cancer survivor, but also a Katrina survivor.

So if you'd like to read some interesting speculative fiction and make a writer's day, check out his Amazon page. What could cheer a writer up more than coming out of surgery and finding his Amazon rankings have shot up?

The Night the Nazis came to Dinner, and other dark tales

My short story collection, The Night the Nazis came to Dinner, and other dark tales, is out now as an ebook.

A spectral dinner party goes horribly wrong. . .
An immortal warrior hopes a final battle will set him free. . .
A big-game hunter preys on endangered species to supply an illicit restaurant. . .
A new technology soothes First World guilt. . .

Here are four dark tales that straddle the boundary between reality and speculation. You better hope they don’t come true. 

These genre-bending tales mix fantasy, science fiction, horror, and a dose of satire. I've priced it at 99 cents in order to entice readers, and hopefully get them to move on and buy my Civil War novel. A special thanks goes to Dale Roberts, author of Irrefutable, for doing the excellent cover art.

The Night the Nazis came to Dinner is available at Amazon, Amazon UK, and all other Amazon outlets. Coming soon to Smashwords too!

Guest Post: Leather armour

Today I'm trading blogs with A.J. Walker, a medievalist and novelist who's just starting a virtual book tour for his first fantasy novel, Roots Run Deep, epublished by Double Dragon. He has a series called Medieval Mondays over at his blog and today I'm blogging over there about Medieval handgonnes. So without further ado. . .


In the first chapter of my fantasy novel Roots Run Deep, a team of goblinkin are preparing for a raid on a human city.

Kip was as prepared as she could be. Like anyone who lived on the Reservation, she went armed at all times. Not that she had much. Her tattered leather jerkin gave scant protection, and for weapons she carried a flint knife and a tfaa, a traditional goblin fighting stick. A balanced, two foot-long rod carved from ironwood, the tfaa didn’t look like much, but in skilled hands it could disarm and cripple a swordsman. Prenta had gotten rid of her showy clothes and dressed in a more practical leather jerkin similar to Kip’s.

These impoverished goblinkin are wearing leather armour because they can't afford anything better and their human rulers forbid them from bearing metal weapons and armor. (This ban doesn't last, but that comes later in the story. . .) Leather armour is a staple of fantasy fiction and roleplaying games, yet many people don't realize just how common it was in medieval warfare. Even knights wore it.

Leather armour goes back to ancient times and continued in use through the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. This picture shows the shoulder and upper arm portions of an elegant suit of leather dating to the Italian Renaissance, courtesy of the Schola Forum. As you can see, it looks much like regular metal armour, and many historians believe that it was worn as much as or even more than metal armour. A suit of plate was hot and heavy, so on the march or during a friendly tournament the knight may choose to weather cooler leather. The rank and file would also be fitted with leather and perhaps some portions of metal armour for vulnerable places such as the head and chest.

While leather was much cheaper, it provided pretty good protection. Regular soft leather wasn't much help, but combined with quilted padding provided some protection, especially against blunt weapons such as maces.

More effective was cuir bouilli--boiled leather. If you soak leather in water and then place it in boiling water, it becomes elastic and pliable. It soon begins to shrink, thicken, and harden. As it's hardening the leather is hammered onto shaped blocks to create breastplates, greaves, vambraces, and anything else. A full suit of armour could be made in this way. The 14th century French chronicler Jean Froissart claimed that it was "leather that no iron can pierce" and while that may be overstating the case, leather armour certainly gave good protection. Games such as D&D probably undervalue its effectiveness. Modern experiments show that the average sword blow wouldn't get through, although a good English longbow would make short work of a leather breastplate! This basic article (PDF) explains the technique. Also check out this thread from Schola Forum for some more insights and pictures.

The picture below from The Historians' History of the World shows some improvements on leather armour, with overlapping metal scales, discs, and rings. These were all cheaper yet pretty effective alternatives to full plate and variants of these were used from ancient times into the Renaissance.

Interview with fantasy author A.J. Walker

It's nice to meet fellow writers who share your interests. I met A.J. Walker on an archaeology discussion group and discovered he's just published a novel with Double Dragon Publishing, one of the top two ebook publishers that does something other than erotica. His work is called Roots Run Deep and that's what we're talking about here today.

So, how does it feel to have your first novel published?
Exciting and exhausting. It's been six years in the making and it's a thrill to see it finally out there. That said, I'm learning that publishing isn't the last step. There's a lot of promo work to do for an unknown writer to get noticed. So many ebooks come out every week it's easy to get lost in the flood.

Tell us a bit about Roots Run Deep
This is the tale of Kip Itxaron, a goblin thief and sorceress trying to make her way as a second-class citizen in a kingdom dominated by humans. When the human King Roderick is deposed, they are thrown together by fate. Roderick offers her people equality if Kip rallies an army to help him take his throne back. Kip must struggle with her own self doubts, her mistrust of humankind, her fear of battle, and the divisions among her people in order to lead them to a better future.

One thing that's interesting about Kip is that she isn't really good at anything except getting into trouble.
I like having flawed characters. Yes, she's a bit of a mess at the beginning of the book, but she gets better!

I've noticed Roots Run Deep has a lot of anthropological detail. I had fun playing "spot the reference". You seem to put a lot of your academic research into your work. What are your main inspirations?
I am a Medievalist by profession and so my writing is deeply rooted in that era. My archaeological training exposed me to lots of different cultures. Readers of Roots Run Deep will find aspects of Native American, Pacific Island, Neolithic Switzerland, and contemporary American culture in my work. And yes Sean, your email is right, those statues were inspired by the Kurgan culture!

Why did you choose to epublish rather than going the traditional route?
Impatience with the traditional houses, mostly. They take a year to get back to you and don't want you to simultaneously submit. Now with all the belt tightening they are taking fewer books, far fewer from first-timers like me. I really feel that epublishers are the way to go to establish a fan base.

What's next for you?
I'm working on a sequel to Roots Run Deep called The Maze of Mist. It follows the adventures of Kip and Roderick's biracial son as he tries to deal with being part of neither race while being expected to rule both. I also have a couple of other books in the works, including a mystery/thriller and a collection of fantasy short stories. Check out my writing blog to keep up to date on what's happening!


Thanks for being here, A.J., and be sure to check out his blog for an interesting feature he's doing called Medieval Mondays. I learned something about Viking navigation!

Books for the bus

I just finished a very enjoyable book from one of my favorite authors, and it only took me a year to do it!

Why so long? Because it was my bus book. My son's school is a 15-minute ride away. When I take him to school I don't read, of course. Plus when I'm going to pick him up or coming back after dropping him off, I generally walk. So I should say my book was my "taking the bus because I'm feeling lazy and/or it's raining" book. That's why it took a year to read 204 pages.

As you can see from the illustration, the book was Ghost Towns of the American West by Robert Silverberg. Better known as a science fiction author, Silverberg has written it all, from fantasy to erotica to history. I enjoyed this book and found it to be a perfect bus companion. It follows the development of boom-and-bust mining towns in the West. Since it hops from town to town, from amusing anecdote to amusing anecdote, it's very easy to read in short bursts without losing the overall thread. A perfect bus book, in other words.

As writers we need to think about all the ways people may use our work. Not everyone sits down for an hour or two to get through a big chunk of text. I used to do that a lot more than I do now, but work and fatherhood has limited that. I bet I'm not the only one!

Five things I learned at Clarion: Science Fiction writers speak out

Clarion Writers' Workshop for fantasy and science fiction writers has launched many careers, including that of friend and fellow Madrid writer Sue Burke. Sue has had many short stories and poems published in top magazines like Asimov's and Interzone, and recently signed her first book contract with Edge. Clarion asked alumni to list five things they learned from the workshop. Here's what Sue had to say.

"Established in 1968, the Clarion Writers' Workshop is the oldest workshop of its kind and is widely recognized as a premier proving and training ground for aspiring writers of fantasy and science fiction. I attended in 1996, and James Patrick Kelly, one of my writers-in-residence, has challenged alumni to write about the five things we learned at Clarion to encourage applicants. Here are mine:

1. How to critique. I'm still using Maureen F. McHugh's format in my local critique group. As a corollary, why to critique: Because seeing how to strengthen someone else's work is a fast way to learn how to strengthen your own work.

2. Only one miracle per story, and the first sentence should point to it.

3. The person (or thing) that hurts the most is usually the best perspective for a story.

4. Landscape reflects character, and different characters will experience the same setting differently.

5. The first draft may have everything you need, but you might need to change it all. A good time to outline of your story might be after the first draft to identify these changes."

Some very good advice from a very good writer. You can read what other writers learned here. And don't forget to check out Sue's excellent blog! Clarion is accepting applications until March 1 for Clarion 2011.

[Photo courtesy user AdamBMorgan via Wikimedia Commons]

Websites for Writers: Piers Anthony

It's Monday, so it's time for another website for writers. Today we're looking at Hi Piers, the official homepage of Piers Anthony.

In the unlikely event you haven't heard of him, Piers Anthony is a longtime author in many genres. He's most famous for the Xanth series of humorous fantasy, but he's also written science fiction, horror, and an increasing amount of erotica.

Piers has seen it all, and luckily for us tells it all. He's famous in the writing community for tangling with editors and even suing when he felt he was being wronged. Because of this, he's been blacklisted by many publishers. He says that no major house is interested in his work except for the bestselling Xanth series. To make sure his several novels a year see the light of day, he has resorted to various small presses and epublishers.

Of greatest practical use to aspiring writers is his no-holds-barred review of epublishers and vanity presses that he updates every month. Cheated writers often tell him their stories, which he then posts online, although he's always fair-handed when it appears the writer has unrealistic expectations of their publisher.

For inspiration, check out the section on books by Piers Anthony. He's published more than 140 in the past 50 years! This is what persistence and a solid work ethic will get you.

Also of interest is his newsletter, where he talks about his life, what he's reading, and his views on publishing. At times his views of the publishing industry seem to me to be overly negative, but then again he's been in this crazy business forty years more than I have, so maybe I'll feel that way some day. He's also a strong advocate of self-publishing, once being a co-owner of Xlibris. In his latest newsletter he states, "I think of mutation, wherein 99% of the changes may be deleterious, even lethal, but the 1% that survive power the forward evolution of all living things. We would not be here today without mutation. Editors reject 99%, but the 1% they accept is not necessarily the best; natural selection operates imperfectly in publishing. So yes, we need self publishing, even if it is 99% bad, for the sake of the 1% that may otherwise be lost."

Good point, but I think that for most writers self-publishing is a bad idea.

While I don't always agree with what Piers has to say, I always check out his newsletter and value his insights. It's rare to find a writer so brutally honest about the business.

The Indie Press: Saviors of the Midlist?

It's tough being a midlist author these days. The big six New York publishers are cutting back and demanding every publication be a hit. They no longer want to invest in an author who can only sell 10,000 copies in the hopes that she'll either become famous with time or (horrors!) keep a loyal following that ensures she'll sell 10,000 copies of each of her next dozen books. It's feast or famine with the big boys these days.

But now small and independent presses are stepping up the the plate. Publishers Weekly has had some interesting articles about how midlist authors are being saved by the smaller guys.

An article titled Smaller Presses, Bigger Authors reveals the big six want 20,000-30,000 sales per book or you'll get dropped. Established writers, even famous writers, are having a tough time selling books that are a bit out of the box, a bit too experimental. Alice Walker went to indie press New World Library to publish a collection of her poems. It sold out its 7,500 copy first printing. Great sales for an indie, a financial flop for a big publisher.

Oh great. I have a hard enough time getting my books published even at indie presses, and now I have to compete with Alice Walker!?

But seriously, this is good news for the midlist too. Small and indie presses are more open to unestablished authors and experimental work. If they think a book can sell 5,000 copies they'll give it a shot. Some really small presses are happy with less than that. Your advance will be much lower, but you'll generally get a bigger percentage of the royalties and you'll be under less pressure to become a big name. It appears the smaller houses have a more realistic view of the marketplace. That's why they're blossoming right now.

Indie presses report seeing more manuscripts from established authors, as well as debut literary fiction from unknowns. This has been going on for some time. Back in 2007 PW profiled Night Shade Books. In that article they tell how the company has done well with good choices of authors, good distribution, and taking on sf/f books that are cool but not bestseller material. Even successful sf author Liz Williams moved from Bantam to Night Shade after her sales weren't good enough for such a large publisher.

Night Shade has a solid reputation, pays an advance, and can sell thousands of copies. Not hundreds of thousands, or even tens of thousands, but thousands. That's realistic, and they won't dump you if you "only" sell 7,000 copies. I met the owners at World Fantasy Con a few years back and they're very approachable and down to earth. That's a big plus too.

So maybe this isn't such a bad time to be a midlister after all.

Websites for Writers: The Lionel Fanthorpe Appreciation Page

I wrote a 1,000 words today!

Big deal. Even if I had written twice that it would be nothing compared to the average workday of Lionel Fanthorpe.

Never heard of him? Neither had I until a few months ago when I went to a writing convention and picked up the odd little paperback pictured here by "Bron Fane", one of Fanthorpe's numerous pen names. Turns out he's the most prolific science fiction author ever, with more than 180 novels. He's also written dozens of nonfiction books, countless short stories, and God knows what else.

God should know, because he's an Anglican minister too.

The Lionel Fanthorpe Appreciation Page celebrates the career of a truly dedicated writer. Back in the 1950s, Badger Books flooded the market with cheap novels to tap into the burgeoning paperback market. They only offered writers 25 pounds a pop, and while that bought far more back than than it does today, it was still a crap wage. But that didn't dissuade Mr. Fanthorpe. He calculated that if he wrote a novel a week, he'd make a hundred quid a month--not much but better than the dole.

So that's exactly what he did. He had no time for complex plots, deep characterization, or elaborate ideas, he simply drew from his wide reading in the occult and paranormal to make wild tales of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

Badger Books provided him a reel-to-reel recorder, and covering himself with a blanket to help his concentration, he told the machine whatever came into his head. When he thought he was done, he'd send the recording off to a typist who would hammer it out and tell him how close he was to the 158-page target. Sometimes he'd discover he only had a few pages left, and suddenly our heroes would solve all their problems with a brilliant plan, or no plan at all, or sometimes the story would simply stop. If he came up short, his amazing talent for padding would come to the fore and characters would yammer on about random topics for a few pages before the plot would continue. Just check out his agonizingly long description of a character brushing her teeth.

The amazing thing is with this rush to production is that Fanthorpe never fell into cliche. Clunkiness often, incoherence sometimes, but never a tired line. What other writer would describe a hand as a "cluster of leathery bananas"?

Because of this Fanthorpe's novels are never boring. I'm not saying they're good literature, but they are certainly fun. So give him a try, and remember that with enough concentration, you too can write a crazily bad yet entertaining novel in a week.

Websites for Writers: Northern Earth

After a deadline-induced hiccup last week, we're back to our regular Monday post of Websites for Writers, a look at websites that can inform and inspire writers in unexpected ways.

This week's pick is Northern Earth, the site for the UK magazine of the same name and one of the main neo-antiquarian magazines. Neo-antiquarianism is the study of the ancient landscape from a spiritual perspective, an attempt to understand how ancient civilizations perceived the world. It's a broad field, encompassing a range of disciplines from academic archaeology to fringe studies such as UFOs and ley lines.

For neo-antiquarians, belief or disbelief is of secondary importance to interpretation. These folks love their land, and want to understand how it was used and appreciated by generations past. A little creative academia is OK too. Being British, they generally don't take themselves too seriously!

So how is this site useful for writers? First off, the articles from the back issues are a treasure trove of ideas, from rare nuggets of folklore to overwrought systems of magic. Some articles are stories in the making, like the Corpse Watcher and the Legend of Mayburgh Henge.

Fantasy and historical writers will find this site especially interesting. SF, horror, and gothic writers will get a lot out of it too. Plus the various competing theories show how the same information can be interpreted in widely different ways. Anyone dealing with a host of characters will come up against this phenomenon!

Websites for Writers: Fanac.org

Science fiction is a rare bird. I don't know of any genre that has created such a loyal and active fan base. Since Amazing Stories started a letters column back in the early 1920s, sf fans have been corresponding, arguing, publishing fanzines, and organizing meetings and conventions. Fans of other genres do this too, but not with the energy and longevity that sf fans do.

This is why this week's Website for Writers is The Fanac Fan History Project. "Fanac" is fanspeak for "fan activity", and a dictionary of fannish terminology is just one of the many goodies you'll find here. You'll also find various histories of fandom, photos from old gatherings and conventions, and lots of info on Worldcon, the granddaddy of all sf conventions that's been going since 1939.

My favorite section is for fanzines, with many rarities scanned in their entirety. I did a zine of my own back in the Nineties and I've always loved them, so I come back to this section regularly. Some famous names crop up in their pages, but they weren't famous back then!

Dedicated science fiction fans and writers will already know about this website. I'm really suggesting this to writers not in the community, so they can see what's possible. The world of sf fandom is a warm and welcoming place, and other genres need to encourage their own communities. A lot of great writers have risen from the ranks of fandom, and it's always nice to be in a network of folks with the same interests.

Small Press Profile: Atomic Fez, pt. 2

Yesterday I posted the first part of an interview with Ian Martin, the publisher of Atomic Fez, a new Canadian publishing company. Today Ian talks about what he wants to see in a submission, what it's like to work with Kobo, and what's coming up next for Atomic Fez!

Of course any potential author should read your submissions guidelines, but beyond what it says there, what really brings the Atomic Fez to critical mass?

This one's tough to answer. Do you mean 'what should a writer include in their pitch to ensure they get the best chance of being published?' If that's it, then the answer is "single malt whiskey is a damned good start; failing that, a case of wine."

If there's anything I won't publish, it's probably poetry, as I'm the wrong guy to be marketing it. There's huge chunks of Ray Bradbury's writing that's verging on prose poetry, especially in Something Wicked This Way Comes, and that very much affects me when I'm reading it. But 'actual poetry' is something that doesn't seem to move me. I can analyze it, or read it aloud, or recognize and respect the influences in it; but emotionally it doesn't do enough for me that I can be enthusiastic about it and sell it to people. Obviously I'm not the right person to be publishing someone's poetry if I can't get behind it enough to promote it. Put those words to music and I'm all over it! But Joe Jackson hasn't e-mailed me about doing a collection of his lyrics yet. Also, no teenage vampire romances. Please. No. Really, I mean it. Go away now or I will take a knife and stab you in the face. Don't make me come over there. . .

What three books would you have really liked to have published if you had been given the chance?

Golly. . .I could point to every book on my shelf and say it would have been great to publish it.
There are some specific authors' works I'd probably want to have had the initial release of, and none of them due to their sales figures.

Ray Bradbury's stuff is so very finely written and thought provoking, it would have been great to have been releasing that sort of material right at the start when it was so very 'edgy'.
Christopher Fowler's work is the same in some ways to Bradbury's, certainly with early titles like Roofworld, Psychoville, and Soho Black. Although they're far less political in nature, they certainly take the ordinary quality of every-day life and introduce an outside force, or foreign aspect to things, which really is effective. He's also a dear friend, so I'm likely biased as a result. He's got a wonderful handle on telling a story that mixes historical facts and legends into settings that are 'today' without being too specific to their year of release, so they have lasting appeal. It's like any good writing: it has to be about characters and human nature, and that is always something people can connect with.

Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days is a favourite of mine that would have been grand to have published, just due to its romantic presentation of travel in general, as well as the vast block of information it provides about world cultures as well as the attitudes of the west about 'foreigners'.

Ngaio Marsh's series of classic English mysteries would be nice as well, just so that I could have a complete set as a result. I'd also have been tempted to encourage a broader range of structure to her writing. There are a bunch of them which, if read in succession, demonstrate a sameness that almost makes things too predictable. I love them, and they're great reading, but they might have had a bit more variety than they did, and this may be why she's not quite as widely known than she is.

Terry Pratchett's 'Discworld' series is phenomenal as well, and the new Transworld / Corgi covers finally present the books with the class they deserve, especially as the images on the covers add an ominous frisson of what may occur inside the book. Just to work with someone writing stories as entertaining and intelligently funny as that would be awesome. They're also a great 'gateway drug' to get people to re-think their attitudes about what 'fantasy' is like, so that's attractive as well. Jasper Fforde's stuff is the same thing to my mind: although his alternate universes are considerably different in nature to Pratchett's, he's got the same knack for the satire and absurdity which life presents, and that's fantastic stuff.

You’re offering your books through Kobo. What’s it like working with the new kid on the block?

All of the books Atomic Fez publishes are released through Kobo, as well as in 'dead tree' format, and will continue to be so. Having signed up with them when they were called "Shortcovers", this is something I've approached thoughtfully. I've also set-up ZIP-files with multiple formats of e-book files for purchase on the web-site if people would rather manage their own e-books, instead of using the Kobo platform.

Don't get me wrong, I'm fully committed to both the traditional and 'space-age' versions of books, because there's no chance of paperback and hard-cover books disappearing anytime soon; there's far too much infrastructure invested in their distribution and ownership, for one thing. That said, there's no denying the convenience of e-books is much the same as the true 'pocket books' of the 1940s and '50s had, and who could deny the inherent ecological approach to having books without the killing of trees, wasteful packaging and shipping, and the ease of getting the authors' words into the brain-pans of readers?

Working with Kobo is great. Honestly, I've not got a single complaint. Their splitting away from Chapters/Indigo Books and Music so they can be their own, autonomous company was smart, and they did it in a very intelligent way: by making Indigo a parent company along with Borders in the USA, the antipodean REDgroup Retail, and Cheung Kong Holdings owned by Li Ka-shing. With those industry leaders behind them, they're getting doors opened that most companies wouldn't get near. Kobo's approach of making electronic books available on any device you happen to be using — smart-phone, Kindle, iPad, Sony Reader, Kooler Reader, Blackberry, Palm — and making it possible for you to switch between any of those you're using and not lose your place, is so very intelligent. Buy a book from the iBookstore, and you can read that on your iPad and that's about it. The Kindle is pretty-much the same again: buy the e-book from Amazon in Kindle format, read it on your Kindle, and you're stuck. With Kobo, you can mix and match to your heart's content, always syncing with the account, and now you can even add their wildly inexpensive e-reader to the mix.

Okay, I'm starting to sound like a commercial now, but honestly Kobo is the bomb! If they had been running about five years ago, people wouldn't be talking about the iPad being a 'Kindle killer', the Apple boys would be marketing it as the 'Kobo killer'. One of the basic needs anyone has with electronic books over paper books is "what happens to all of my books if I lose my reader?" If you invest hundreds of dollars in e-books, you don't want lose all of it just because your cat knocked the device onto the floor, shattering the screen. The way Kobo is set up, your device has a copy of the book's file, but you also have constant access to another copy on their site; so if you lose your device, that's all you're going to have to replace, not the content as well. Brilliant!

I predict really good things will happen for Kobo. They've got a smart approach to things, because they're making it easy for the readers to get what they want without any technological hassles, as well as keeping things fair for the authors and publishers. Other outfits will end up using Kobo as the model to shift to, I'm certain of it.

What’s coming up next for Atomic Fez?
Only the finest of experts' made-up stuff! Prepare yourselves for lots of really yummy book goodness! At the moment I'm working on a few things in the back room, but until things are set in stone, any specifics will remain there. It's important to get publishing dates, titles, and the rest of it fully locked-down before announcing any of it. I can safely say that there will be many more books to come over quite a long time, however. I'm working on a long schedule basis, and will not be disappearing for the foreseeable future.

Unless I get hit by a bus. That would probably be tough to overcome.