Archive for the ‘promotional news’ Category

RAVEN CALLS contest winners!

The cemurphy.net winners of the RAVEN CALLS giveway are izzybot, uofmdragon, and willowblade!

All of you please email me at cemurphyauthor AT gmail DOT com with your snail mail addresses, your username if that’s what you’ve won under so I know who you are, and whatever name I should sign the books to. :)

Crowdfunding: “No Dominion”

It’s that time of year again: The Rose & Bay Crowdfunding Award is open for nominations, and part of the process is making certain nominees have a landing page for people to go read about their crowdfunding efforts in 2011. I’ll be doing two landing pages for 2011: the “No Dominion” Kickstarter campaign, and the Old Races Short Story Project.

First up: “No Dominion”!

Project Proposal: I set out with a goal to raise $4000 through Kickstarter.com to fund the writing of a Walker Papers tie-in novella about Gary Muldoon, Joanne Walker’s septuagenarian sidekick:

Recently widowed after nearly fifty years of marriage, Gary Muldoon had given up on adventure. Then shaman Joanne Walker climbed into the back seat of his cab, and since then, Gary has trifled with gods, met mystics, slain zombies and ridden with the Wild Hunt.

But now he must leave Joanne’s side to face a battle only he can win. Because as their long battle against a dark magic-user races toward its climax, it becomes clear that it was not illness that took Annie’s life, but their enemy’s long and deadly touch.

Though lovers be lost, love shall not…

     …AND DEATH SHALL HAVE NO DOMINION.

Project Conclusion: Over 500 patrons contributed over $20,500 to the “No Dominion” campaign, earning them the following:

3 novellas
5 short stories
3 chapters of a book that doesn’t exist
& 1 CE Murphy photographic calendar

…which, frankly, was rather more than I expected. :)

Proof of Fiction Committed: There are two pieces of free fiction associated with the “No Dominion” campaign. Neither is actually from the “No Dominion” novella, because that novella begins in the middle of RAVEN CALLS, the 7th book of the Walker Papers series, which isn’t due out until March 2012, and I didn’t want to spoil anything. Instead, I’m offering up the following:

Magic Hath An Element, the first chapters of URBAN SHAMAN, as seen through Gary’s eyes instead of Joanne’s, and Forgotten But By A Few, the first “No Dominion” campaign short story.

Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

Kickstarter update

Wow.

Kickstarter says that 70% of projects that are 30% funded in the first 48 hours will succeed.

“No Dominion” currently stands at just shy of 150% funded after 48 hours. Presumably if we extrapolate from this, there’s a fair chance of reaching the astounding $12K mark which would get a limited edition trade paperback for the Kickstarter backers. That would be very cool, and I’m very interested to see how it goes. :)

At the moment, backers have commissioned the following:

- “No Dominion”, a novella about Gary Muldoon, due April 15

- a “thank you for supporting this Kickstarter campaign, here’s something to tide you over til April 15″ Gary short story, due November 15

- a totally unplanned bonus short story for funding the campaign in the first 24 hours, due, um, between November 15 and April 15 O.O

The campaign is less than $200 away from earning a second Gary story for all backers subscribing at $10 or more.

Nevermind in terms of dollar amount, which is obviously already a runaway success: this is also the most successful crowdfund I’ve run in terms of number of backers. 192 people have supported this campaign in the first 48 hours, which is 5 more than bought into the “Year of Miracles” crowdfund event–which ran for six weeks, and it’s something like 50 more than the Old Races Short Story Project, which has been running since January of this year. It seems there’s something to the Kickstarter aspect of getting the word out. (Either that or the Walker Papers are really much, much more popular than the Old Races…)

Anyway, thank you. This is really cool, and I’m really excited about it!

New York Times

Sadly, no, this is not a post saying I’ve hit the NYT. Not exactly, anyway. There is, however, a pretty cool article about AmberMUSH players, myself included, who grew up to be professional writers. Jim Butcher is, of course, the lead story, but Cameron Banks, Angela Beegle, and the Evil Hat lads are name-checked as well. Pretty nifty! And a nice way to start the weekend. :)

Kickstarter teaser: “Magic Hath an Element”

Okay, so the thing about the upcoming Kickstarter campaign (launching October 1!) is that I really *can’t* use a teaser from the actual story as part of the incentive text, because it starts with a scene from RAVEN CALLS and no way no how am I spoiling that scene. :) So I’ve written the first couple chapters of URBAN SHAMAN from Gary’s point of view for a bit of flavor text as to what kind of voice the novella will be in. Enjoy!

Three days after my 73rd birthday, a leggy brunette climbed into my cab and changed my life.

She was rude, snapping, “Drive,” without even lookin’ at me. That kinda fare always set my teeth on edge, superior and holier-than-thou. Never judge somebody by how they treat you, judge ‘em by how they treat the cabbie.

Still, drivin’ paid the rent. “Where to?”

“I don’t know. Northwest.”

I eyed her in the mirror. There was me, pretty hale for a guy that age, with all my hair and teeth I wasn’t sayin’ either way about, and there was her, twenty-six and pretty in the way women who don’t know how well they’re put together can be. She wore her hair real short, which I thought most dames should. What with her doin’ something on a notepad, scribbling and muttering, I couldn’t see her eyes to tell the color. She looked tired, though, like she’d come off a European flight, not just something continental. I said, “Northwest, the airline? It’s just a couple feet up the term–”

She snarled, “To the northwest.” I glared at her and drove. A minute later, as if she hadn’t started out rude, she asked a favor: “You got a map?”

No self-respecting cabbie would admit it if he did. “What for?”

“So I can figure out where we’re going.”

I turned around and stared at her.

“Watch the road!”

Watching the road was for sissies. I twitched the steering wheel and cars merged around us, safe as houses. The fare slumped in her seat, green eyes wide, and got politer: “Do you have a map, please?”

“Yeah, yeah, all right.” I threw a city guide over the seat and listened to pages rattle as she shuffled through them. A couple minutes later she said, “Okay, we’re going to Aurora.”

“You sure? That ain’t such a good neighborhood, lady.”

“I’m sure. I’m trying to find somebody who’s in trouble.”

I lifted my eyebrows at her in the mirror. “Good place to start.”

She scowled at me. I smiled back, my best patented seen-it-all smile that told pretty young things not to mess with me, and instead of messing, she asked if I
had a cigarette. I shook my head. “Those things’ll kill you, sweetheart. My wife died of emphysema on our forty-eighth wedding anniversary. You want a smoke, kid, find it somewhere else.”

She looked embarrassed, but didn’t have the smarts to quit while she was ahead. She muttered, “I’m not a kid,” and I eyed her in the mirror again.

“You’re twenty-six, doll. From where I’m sittin’ anybody less than fifty is a kid.”

Her jaw dropped. “Nobody ever guesses my age right.”

“It’s a gift. I can tell how old people are.”

“Some gift.”

“Gets me good tips, especially with women in their forties. I give ‘em a big story ’bout how I always get ages right, and then I lie. Works like a charm.”

“You guessed my age right.”

“No point in lying. I never met anybody who didn’t want to be in their twenties. Look, why’re you headin’ to Aurora, doll? Nothing there but trouble, and you don’t look like the type.”

“I told you.” She put her head against the window. “Somebody’s in trouble. I saw her from the plane.”

That made my life a lot more interesting. I put my arm over the passenger seatback and twisted to stare at the fare. “You’re trying to save somebody you saw from an airplane? What the hell, you got some kinda hero complex? How the hell’re you gonna find one dame you saw from the air?”

“It’s basic math, for God’s sake. I got the approximate height and speed we were traveling from the pilot, so figuring out the distance wasn’t that hard, and I saw a modern church on a street with only one amber streetlight. If I can find it before the lights go out–”

“Then you’ll be the first one on a murder scene.” My day was gettin’ a lot more interesting. The guys back at dispatch would love this one. I was gonna get free coffee for a week off this story. Couldn’t let her know I was lookin’ forward to whatever came next, though, and it was only God’s own truth when I said, “You’re nuts, lady, and desperate for thrills.”

She snapped, “Like it could possibly be any of your business,” which was true enough, but I never met a cabbie who didn’t think everything his fares did was his business.

“Relax, sweetheart. A pretty girl like you oughta be on her way home to her sweetie, not–”

“I don’t have one.”

“With your personality, I can’t figure why not.”

The fare put her face in her hands. “Haven’t you ever just really felt like you had to do something?”

“Yeah, sure. I really felt like I had to marry my old lady when she got knocked up.” It wasn’t true, but the fare had gotten in my cab, not the other way around. She got whatever story I felt like tellin’ today. That was the beauty of driving fares. Them, me, we were all different every time. “I never felt like I had to go chasing broads I saw from airplanes, though. I got troubles of my own.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I’ve got enough that I need somebody else’s to make the load seem lighter.”

I grunted, surprised. Usually kids in their twenties were way too young to realize that helpin’ somebody else eased their own burdens. I warmed up to the fare even if she was rude, and nodded at the rear-view mirror. “Arright, lady. Let’s go find your corpse.”

Read the rest of this entry »

ORSSP: Saint George & the Dragons

The Old Races Short Story Project patronage window is now closed.

I’m doing an Old Races short story project throughout 2011. This project will deliver 6 Old Races short stories to its patrons. This story of Janx, “Saint George & the Dragons,” is the second story in the project, and has now been delivered to the patrons who have thus far subscribed. I’m pleased to offer the rest of you a teaser for it.

Saint George & the Dragons

At the heart of the River Seine, a dragon. Spoiling waters, fed on sheep, but in thrall to maidens fair. Daughters, never wives; a treasure trove, until the daughter is the daughter of a king, and a kingdom is bereft.

A saint with sword and cross: a princess saved, and a dragon slain. He is Quirinus, he was Perseus, Marduk, Tahrun and Thor; and his dragons Cetus, Tiamat, Illuyankas and Jormungandr. He has slain dragons for a thousand years, and will slay them a thousand more.

#

“He is a menace!” Outrage, rumbling like thunder through caverns near a shore. Well enough, that: there was little thunder to be had in this land, and the roar of a dragon’s fury might at least be mistaken for heavy seas. Or they could be if the seas were heavy at all, but beyond the cavern mouth they lay serene and calm, cerulean skies reflecting on still waters.

“He is a mortal.” Insouciance, uncaring; even boredom. Not at all the desired emotions, when the question at hand is the survival of a species. But the water was very blue, a jewel in itself, and there should have been a way to claim it.

“He has murdered one of us!”

“It happens from time to time.” Hardly the right answer: new outrage rose from some twenty throats. Janx sighed and turned from the view. Mediterranean blue could neither be equaled nor captured, and the beasts at his back were losing patience. “For the third time, will you not take human form to hold this discussion? How do you think they find us, these dragonslayers? They listen for storms where the sea is calm, they follow stories to cities of gold, they come to where legend claims virgins are sacrificed to mighty wyrms, and there we are, awaiting them in all our ancient, vulnerable glory. Humanity’s guise may be distasteful, but it will also save your lives.”

He had made the argument countless times over countless years, and it had fallen on countless deaf ears. He, at least, took his own advice: lanky with red hair cropped close to his skull, and a beard too tidy and sharply pointed to meet the approval of Roman matrons. There were, after all, limits: he couldn’t bear the thought of his own fine features hidden behind one of the curly monstrosities worn by the wealthy. But details of fashion aside, with his skin warmed to gold by the sun’s caressing touch and jade eyes, Janx was by all immediate appearances human. His brethren knew better; they could sense his dragonly mass, shuffled to some unreachable spot until it was needed. That he chose to wear a human shape did nothing to undermine his presence.

But they, all of them, kept to their serpent forms. It had taken months to find caves large enough to hold them when they would not shift, and even so there was sinuous life to the walls as one dragon shifted and made minute way for another. They did not, as a whole, bear each other’s presences well; dragons were large, and largely solitary because of it.

Large and greedy, and all the more solitary for that. “Virginity,” Janx muttered, “is a stupid thing to treasure anyway. It doesn’t last, you know.”

The Old Races Short Story Project patronage window is now closed.

EASY PICKINGS: Teaser #3!

Welcome to the third and final teaser from EASY PICKINGS, the Jane Yellowrock-Joanne Walker crossover story! Part one is here and part two is here!

Please note, for those of you already trying to figure out where it fits into the continuity: it doesn’t. This is a world that wasn’t; essentially fan fiction by the authors themselves. Faith’s world and mine have a lot of similarities, but not enough to pretend even for a moment that they’re actually the same world. So while I hope the story will provide a great introduction to both characters, it doesn’t actually belong in either of our universes.

Don’t forget to come back tomorrow to find out who’s won the magnificent prizes being given away (details at the bottom of this post)! And now, enjoy!

We got a good six feet or so before I noticed the crowd was parting before us. Not that I blamed them. I would part before us too, because my newfound buddy looked like a badass, which gave automatic street cred to anybody hanging with her. Skinwalker. I hadn’t encountered that one before. I hadn’t encountered much with the kind of confidence she exuded, either. I’d fallen in beside her like we’d been practicing our whole lives. I wasn’t often enthusiastic about going to see what was causing obvious magical awfulness, but Ms. Tall Dark and Yellowrock looked so obviously prepared for anything, the whole idea sort of sounded like fun.

We got about six more feet before I saw the name of the bar we were passing by and let out an amused snort. “Vamp Mojo, huh? I kind of thought New Orleans would shy away from embracing the whole Anne Rice motif.”

Jane slid a look at me. Yellow-eyed look that sent creepies crawling down my spine. No wonder the guys back at my garage in Seattle had stopped talking to me once I went all magic and woo-woo. The golden gaze was just plain unnatural. I was relieved when she answered, because it gave me an excuse to stop meeting her eyes.

Well, it did for half a second anyway, because she said, “In my world it used to be dance club owned by a vampire. Now it’s a vampire bar.” She sniffed indelicately. “A blood bordello.”

I laughed. She didn’t. All the rich delicious smells in the air suddenly turned my stomach, and I swallowed bile. “There’s no such thing as vampires.”

This time Jane did laugh, but it wasn’t a particularly delightful sound. “I think I’d like to come from wherever you did. Vamps are at the top of the food chain, here. Literally.”

My feet lost their enthusiasm for heading toward the magical block party. Jane surged on a few steps ahead of me, only turning back when the crowd started closing in again. They didn’t matter; we could still see each other easily, what with the height advantage over two-thirds of the population. I swallowed. “There are really vampires here?”

Jane came back, planted herself in front of me, and nodded. The whole action was an emphatic statement. I, much less emphatic, pinched the bridge of my nose. “Okay. Look, before we go rushing in where angels fear to tread, maybe we should try to get some tiny idea of what we could possibly be facing. I don’t have vampires,” I said. “Werewolves?”

“And werecats. Of the African variety. Lions in prides, Leopards in small groups, though they tend to be solitary hunters. Wolves. All predators. No were-gazelles or were-bovines. Witches. Shamans. You?”

My eyes bugged. I felt them. Another quarter inch and they’d pop right out of my head. “You’re joking. Werecats? Isn’t that, I don’t know, very teenage girl wish fulfillment?”

Jane grunted. The sound was weirdly cat-like, and I got the nervous feeling I probably should have shut up about fifteen words earlier. Instead, I rushed on, answering her question. “Witches, yeah. Shamans, obviously. Sorcerers. The occasional demon. Gods of various sizes.”

“Gods?”

I wet my lips. “I take it you don’t truck with them. That’s probably just as well. Probably that means whatever’s down there,” I said with a nod toward the frothing light of doom, “is coming from something that meets us in the middle. Witches. Shamans.” Except I didn’t have vampires, which probably meant we were already in over my head. I didn’t see the need to mention that just yet.

Jane jerked her head in a way that might have meant “Probably” or it might have meant “Stop wasting time, let’s get a move on.” The latter interpretation was buoyed by her turning on her heel and leading the way forward again. “Come on, Dorothy. Let’s see what Big Bad Uglies this world has to offer us.”

I let her take point again. This was her city more than mine, assuming it was anybody’s city at all, tonight. She did the head-jerk thing again, pointing left. “That used to be a jewelry store. Yesterday. And that was an art gallery, not a restaurant. Not my world, not anymore.”

Her words sent more creepies down my spine. Around us, partygoers, some in feathered masks, danced, screamed, showed their breasts in return for a twenty-five-cent strand of beads, drank, vomited on the sidewalks, and swayed into and out of danger of collision like zombies. I took a moment to make sure they weren’t zombies, and came away satisfied they were just stoned. The smell of marijuana was ripe on the air, and mixed with the other scents it was both heady and rank.

Not as rank, though, as a rotted-meat stench that didn’t so much waft as thunder down the street. I automatically held my breath, and somehow the smell got worse, burning my eyes with its power. I coughed, wiped my eyes, and glanced over peoples’ heads in search of the smell’s source.

Sadly, it wasn’t all that hard to find. Something taller than we were was coming up on our right, and I say something, not someone, because it had horns. I knew at least one guy with horns, and he was a someone, but this fellow also had gills. And scales. And a spreading hood, like velociraptors had. A demon velociraptor. Great. I’d gotten yanked into another world where vampires were real and demon velociraptors stalked the streets. Not just demon velociraptors, but demon velociraptors who hadn’t had a fashion update since the 1980s, because the thing’s flared hood was streaked in vibrant neon shades of red, green, blue, and yellow.

It saw us at the same time we saw it.

Don’t forget there’s a contest running all week! Comment either here on CEMurphy.Net or over on FaithHunter.Net and be eligible to win one of the following prizes:

- a complete set of the Walker Papers (Urban Shaman, Winter Moon, Thunderbird Falls, Coyote Dreams, Walking Dead, Demon Hunts, and Spirit Dances).

- a complete set of the Jane Yellowrock books (Skinwalker, BloodCross, and Mercy Blade {Raven Cursed will be out in January 2012, but it’s not part of the prize package!}).

- an electronic edition of the (tentatively entitled) EASY PICKINGS, a Jane Yellowrock/Joanne Walker crossover story, out sometime this summer!

EASY PICKINGS: Teaser #2!

The second, all-new teaser for EASY PICKINGS is now up at Faith’s site! Go check it out–and make sure to read the first teaser if you haven’t already!

(Holy cow this is fun!)

EASY PICKINGS: Teaser #1

Some of you will have seen this before–it’s the start of a crossover story I wrote in the flush of delight after reading the first two of Faith Hunter‘s Jane Yellowrock novels. But here’s the cool thing: Faith and I have decided to go ahead and write the whole story! Over the next couple days we’ll be posting more of it until there’s quite a substantial teaser for you, and sometime this summer we’ll release what I’m tentatively titling EASY PICKINGS: A Jane Yellowrock-Joanne Walker Crossover Story.

Please note, for those of you already trying to figure out where it fits into the continuity: it doesn’t. This is a world that wasn’t; essentially fan fiction by the authors themselves. Faith’s world and mine have a lot of similarities, but not enough to pretend even for a moment that they’re actually the same world. So while I hope the story will provide a great introduction to both characters, it doesn’t actually belong in either of our universes.

That said, please enjoy this excerpt from EASY PICKINGS!

There was something weird about crossing the city lines into New Orleans. Not just that the Big Easy was by anybody’s standards–in fiction, anyway–the center of all things supernatural in the States. It was bigger than that, a nasty jolt that wrenched everything a couple steps to the left. Even the city’s aura looked different from inside than it had from a few miles out, and I had absolutely no clue why.

The exciting thing about my life was that I’d probably find out.

For all my traveling around as a kid, I’d never gone through New Orleans. N’awlins, the way the natives said it. I loved that sound, like it was a word to be rolled around in and licked off the skin. So I did what any tourist would do upon arriving in the heartland of American Weird.

I hit the French Quarter.

Three days before Mardi Gras, the Quarter was hopping. It was probably the worst time of year to visit if I actually wanted to see New Orleans, but it was the best time if I wanted to throw myself eyeball-deep into beads, streamers, costumes, half-naked girls–Gary was going to deeply regret not having come along–parades, parties, obscene amounts of incredibly good food, and bourbon. I’d never actually tried bourbon and was kind of looking forward to it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t indulge right away, because the fish-hook sensation in my belly, the one that had been hauling me around ever since my shamanic powers had awakened, was getting tighter and more uncomfortable the deeper I got into the Quarter. I didn’t think my magic would give me an even break–let me heal up from a hangover, in other words–if I ignored it in favor of tying one on.

The city was a veritable teeming mass of humanity. Scent bombarded me from every direction: booze, perfume, pot, food, oh, God, the food, and the pervasive stink of sweat that no amount of deodorant or cologne was going to drown. Voices rose and fell in shrieks of laughter, joy, dismay; shouting was the only way to be heard, even if you were talking to the guy standing next to you. Everyone was beautiful in that flush-of-life way, though here in the heart of the city, so close to Mardi Gras, there were an unnatural number of genuinely beautiful people. They ran the color spectrum from rich blue-black all the way through to translucent white, with me thrown in on the whiter end, though when one of those really white girls stumbled into my arms, the skin tone comparison made me look rich and gold beside her. It was only back in Qualla Boundary, surrounded by others of Cherokee descent, that I felt stand-out pale. I pushed the girl to her feet and watched her trotter drunkenly away.

Maybe it was thinking about North Carolina and the life I’d left behind there that made me notice her. There were too many people to explain it otherwise, though the fish-hooks in my gut pulled so hard and sharp that they might’ve been an explanation on their own. It didn’t matter: she was half a block away and visible for about five seconds through a break in the crowd. She wore black leather damned near head to toe, all of it so snug against her body it had to be custom-made. Silver sparkled all over it, zippers and guns and blades and silver stakes in her hair like an Oriental fan of death. She looked hot, both literally and figuratively, and I thought the reason I’d glimpsed her at all was everybody else thought so too, and was backing up to get a better look at her.

She had to be at least my height, just a hair under six feet tall, even without the shit-stomping motorcycle boots she wore. And speaking of hair, if you took my crop cut and her four foot braid and divvied them out, we would both end up with what society considered a normal amount of hair for a woman. She was even built a lot like I was, rangy long limbs, though I thought I carried more muscle across the chest and shoulder from years of working on my car. Her skin tones were darker than mine, more pure Indian, but if somebody’d told me we were sisters, I’d have been inclined to believe them.

Particularly when she glanced my way and a flash of light caught the color of her amber eyes.

In my world, yellow eyes meant magic user. I should know: my own eyes were probably gold as sunrise just then, as the Sight kicked in to study one of the most complex, gorgeous auras I’d ever seen. Earthy colors tangled with something absolutely inhuman: dark, sleek, sentient and dangerous. A hunter, sharing body and soul with a human, and just ever so slightly bubbling with resentment over it.

I sure as hell knew what had brought me to New Orleans, now.

Don’t forget there’s a contest running all week! Comment either here on CEMurphy.Net or over on FaithHunter.Net and be eligible to win one of the following prizes:

- a complete set of the Walker Papers (Urban Shaman, Winter Moon, Thunderbird Falls, Coyote Dreams, Walking Dead, Demon Hunts, and Spirit Dances).

- a complete set of the Jane Yellowrock books (Skinwalker, BloodCross, and Mercy Blade {Raven Cursed will be out in January 2012, but it’s not part of the prize package!}).

- an electronic edition of the (tentatively entitled) EASY PICKINGS, a Jane Yellowrock/Joanne Walker crossover story, out sometime this summer!

SPIRIT DANCES giveaway!

SPIRIT DANCES, Book Six of the Walker Papers, is out in just a couple of weeks! In celebration, I’m giving away three copies here on the blog. Just leave a comment and I’ll draw names from a hat on Monday, March 7th, and do my best to get the winners’ copies in the mail the very next day!

Good luck to you!

Read an excerpt from SPIRIT DANCES!

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