Archive for the ‘old races’ Category

DEMON HUNTS teaser!

First, I’d like to thank all of you who bought copies of “Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight”. The novella is now unavailable until I sell it to a traditional publisher, so I hope you’ve enjoyed it!

Second, I was asked recently to put up a page for my works in progress and my upcoming publications, so I’ve done that: 2010 Publication Schedule. It’s linked at the top of the page and in the inner sidebar, so hopefully people will be able to find it when they go looking, in the future.

Third–and I know this is what you’re all really here for–I’ve posted a teaser chapter for DEMON HUNTS, book five of the Walker Papers, due out in June 2010! Enjoy! :)

“Hot Time” novella for sale!

“Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight” was and is an experiment in direct-market story sales and sustainable income models for writers. Commissioned in June 2009 by some fifty contributors, the planned 7500 word short story grew to a 23,000 word novella centered around Janx and Daisani, two of the most popular characters from my Negotiator Trilogy. It’s also a sequel to the online short story Five Card Draw, and part of a longer sequence of planned short stories and novellas.

For a minimum $10 buy-in, patrons received exclusive access to the novella in September 2009. A second opportunity to become a patron for the same minimum $10 buy-in is now available through the month of February, 2010. At the end of February, “Hot Time” will be off the market until such a time as it finds a traditional publisher.

Cover art by Lanny Liu.

February 28, 2010:: “Hot Time” is no longer for sale. Thanks to all who bought it!

an excerpt from “Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight”:

    She was too young, even for a man with no age, but she caught his eye. Slim, dark-haired, with long fingers caught in the skirt of a shapeless dress, she was clearly not a child of wealth. She no doubt belonged to the riverboat upon which she stood, a shabby thing that had seen better days. Even so, in the fire’s light they both bent toward beauty.

    It was her gaze, fixed on the sky, which arrested him. Others watched the fire, drawn in by its glow and movement, but she looked upward as though she could see what soared above the smoke. That was quite impossible: even knowing who danced there, Daisani could barely see them himself, but the girl watched as if she knew. Such seeing eyes were enough that he might have gone to her then, despite her youth, but tonight; tonight Chicago was burning.

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Today is the official release day for WALKING DEAD, book four of the Walker Papers! As far as I can tell, everybody I know bought it two weeks ago, but still, today is the official release day!

Seattle’s a great place to live…if it weren’t for the undead.

No one’s getting out of there alive.

To go along with WALKING DEAD’s release, my web guru, Laura Denson, recently did a recording of “Rabbit Tricks”, the Walker Papers short story that fits chronologically between COYOTE DREAMS and WALKING DEAD.

My longtime friend and writing partner Sarah Palmero did a two-minute voice recording from THE QUEEN’S BASTARD. I think both of these are pretty damned cool (if utterly bizarre, because wow, really weird to hear someone else reading my words!), and would like to thank them both profusely for doing these and letting me post them publicly!

Fifth, I’m terribly smug to show off the (tiny–if you want to see it full sized you’ll have to buy the story) cover for “Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight”, which was painted by manga artist Lanny Liu.

Along those same lines, “Hot Time” has debuted amongst its patrons today. (I wasn’t thinking, when I changed its due date to September 1st, that that was also the release date for WALKING DEAD. Oh well, everybody got WD early anyway, so “Hot Time” still gets to be a little bit special.) For those who didn’t join the fundable commission the first time through, the novella will be available to purchase in February 2010, after which it’ll go off the market permanently until it finds a traditional publisher.

And I just noticed several of my books have been nominated as contenders for 101 Best Fantasy novels. I have to admit that given some of the company (which ranges from Lloyd Alexander to Diana Wynne Jones with all points between), I feel my presence there is a bit ludicrous, but also quite wonderful and I wouldn’t mind making it onto somebody’s top 100 list, so if you wanted, you could go vote. :) And my thanks to whomever nominated me, how cool of you. :)

Old Races short story commission

She was too young, even for a man with no age, but she caught his eye. Slim, dark-haired, with long fingers caught in the skirt of a shapeless dress, she was clearly not a child of wealth. She no doubt belonged to the riverboat upon which she stood, a shabby thing that had seen better days. Even so, in the fire’s light they both bent toward beauty.

It was her gaze, fixed on the sky, which arrested him. Others watched the fire, drawn in by its glow and movement, but she looked upward as though she could see what soared above the smoke. That was quite impossible: even knowing who danced there, Daisani could barely see them himself, but the girl watched as if she knew. Such seeing eyes were enough that he might have gone to her then, despite her youth, but tonight; tonight Chicago was burning.

Want more? This short story is up for commission through fundable.com. Fundable is a site which takes pledges for financing a project. If the project reaches its financing goal–in this case a base of $750 with paypal fees included, so a total of $826–then fundable accepts the pledges and the project goes forward. If the goal isn’t reached within 25 days of the first donation, then the project is canceled and no one pays anything. There’s a $10 minimum donation fee, which is fundable.com’s idea, not mine; I’d have probably set it at $5. Sorry about that.

“Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight” will be a 7500 word Janx and Daisani story. Contributors will have exclusive access to the story for at least three months before it’s produced anywhere else.

A FANTASY MEDLEY winner

I have to say this was a great deal of fun for me. Some of the story suggestions were perfectly wonderful, things I wouldn’t have thought of myself but which were terribly obvious as soon as they were suggested. Obviously not everybody can win the anthology, but *many* of these ideas will, I think, end up as the root idea for stories. Thank you all!

The winner is /blythe025, who said I would love to see a story told from the point of view of a priest.

For some reason this idea really caught me. Possibly because I like the priest in the Negotiator trilogy so much, but somehow there’s just a real romanticism to that idea for me. I actually feel like I could build a book around the idea of a priest dealing with the Old Races, though I’m already terribly torn on *when* I would set that story. Or whether it would have to be a longer story, a series of its own, just trying to deal with the religious and spiritual connotations of the Old Races’ existence, from a Western theology’s point of view. I’m just utterly enamored of this idea!

Other ideas, including exceedingly moderate spoilers, are behind the cut.

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