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SPIRIT DANCES release day!

ce_murphy — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 19:48:45 +0000

As of today, bold explorers of bookstores everywhere should be able to find copies of SPIRIT DANCES in its native habitat (pending, of course, their purchase so they can go to loving homes). Just in case you’ve missed the earlier posts and don’t know what you should be looking for, here it is:

Read an excerpt!

Tomorrow I will post a couple of Walker-Papers-related goodies, including an interview with Joanne done by Jane Yellowrock of the eponymous Jane Yellowrock novels. If I hadn’t been busy trying to finish writing a novel, I’d be posting them today, but I sorta fell behind on that because, well, trying to finish a novel.

But lo! I have finished the novel! RAVEN CALLS, book *seven* of the Walker Papers, has just been wrapped up. And no, I don’t know when it’ll be out

and the books go to…

ce_murphy — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 08:39:07 +0000

All right, the numbers have come out of a hat, and the copies of SPIRIT DANCES go to:

Dawn R. @ #5 on the comments list

Pam Hatler @ #32 on the comments list

Amy in Australia @ #55 on the comments list

If the three of you will please email me your snailmail addresses to cemurphyauthor AT gmail DOT com, I’ll get those books in the mail post-haste!

How to Write Magical Words

ce_murphy — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 13:07:44 +0000

Editor and writer Edmund Schubert has put together a writing how-to book gleaned from the posts my fellow bloggers and I have done at Magical Words. It’s called HOW TO WRITE MAGICAL WORDS, and it is frankly awesome.

Seriously, that sounds all tooting our own horn (and it is), but the only thing I had to do with it at all was page proofs for my essays, so I hardly have a horse in this race. I did, though, end up skimming through everybody’s essays and information, and holy moly, we have some really, really good advice in there. I mean, really truly good stuff. Things that I wished I’d known when I was getting started. Things that are still insanely useful to learn now. I mean, like, I have a copy of this book and I want a copy of this book. That’s how awesome it is.

HOW TO WRITE MAGICAL WORDS is now available for pre-order through the publishers, and *believe* me, the writer in your life wants a copy. Plus, if you order it now, the publisher will ship it to you for a nickel, so the total cost of the book, including shipping, is $18.00 even.

They believe orders placed now *should* get to you by Christmas, and if not by Christmas by New Year’s at the latest, and what better gift for a writer than some brilliant and inspiring advice to usher in the new year and all those resolutions with? :)

Release Day!

ce_murphy — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 21:43:32 +0000

Today is the official release date for TRUTHSEEKER! It is my fifteenth published novel. o.O Go forth to yonder bookstores and see if you can find it! Buy a copy! Buy many copies, so that there will be sixteenth and seventeenth and so on published novels*! :)

ACROSS TWO EXTRAORDINARY WORLDS, TRUTH IS THE DEADLIEST MAGIC

Gifted with an uncanny intuition, Lara Jansen nonetheless thinks there is nothing particularly special about her. All that changes when a handsome but mysterious man enters her quiet Boston tailor shop and reveals himself to be a prince of Faerie. What’s more, Dafydd ap Caerwyn claims that Lara is a truthseeker, a person with the rare talent of being able to tell truth from falsehood. Dafydd begs Lara to help solve his brother’s murder, of which Dafydd himself is the only suspect.

Acting against her practical nature, Lara agrees to step through a window into another world. Caught between bitterly opposed Seelie forces and Dafydd’s secrets, which are as perilous as he is irresistible, Lara finds that her abilities are increasing in unexpected and uncontrollable ways. With the fate of two worlds at stake and a malevolent entity wielding the darkest of magic, Lara and Dafydd will risk everything on a love that may be their salvation—or the most treacherous illusion of all.

A teaser chapter is posted here. I think this one’s a charming little story. A fairy tale, in fact, although being merely the writer, I didn’t actually realize that until I was nearly done writing its sequel. :)

Today I’m blogging over at Suvudu, about what happens when an editor asks a writer (or at least this writer) to do a blog on a specific topic. Tomorrow I will start a month of being the Featured Author at Drey’s Library, which should be fun, and later in the month I’ll be blogging at Bitten By Books. I’ll link to those things as they come up, but there’ll be chances to win copies of TRUTHSEEKER at both those locations during the month.

*ok, technically, the 16th and 17th novels are already done and dusted, as those are SPIRIT DANCES, the 6th Walker Papers novel, and WAYFINDER, the sequel to TRUTHSEEKER, both of which are out in 2011. Let us not get hung up on details. :)

The Five Year Shelf

ce_murphy — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 09:33:13 +0000

On June 1, 2005, my first novel, URBAN SHAMAN, hit the shelves.

On June 1, 2010, my 13th novel and 19th published work, DEMON HUNTS, hit the shelves.

If anybody asks what I was doing during the Oughts, this is mostly the answer:

Go me. :)

Anthologies ho!

ce_murphy — Fri, 14 May 2010 19:31:49 +0000

Two new anthologies are now available!

DRAGON’S LURE, featuring “Perchance to Dream”, a post-Negotiator Janx story:

The mask was nearly as beautiful as the woman bearing it.

They were both dark: it of ironwood so old its chocolate hues had aged to black; she with lustrous skin that said no white men had bred into her aboriginal stock. She was small but strong; had to be to lift the mask’s weight so gracefully, when it was more than half her size. It was never meant to be worn: its fist-sized opal eyes couldn’t be seen through, nor were its interior struts intended to be placed over shoulders. It was to carried, danced with, thrust forward so its size and exaggerated features could bring watchers into a world beyond their own.

Janx knew a thing or two about worlds that went unseen.

and

RUNNING WITH THE PACK, featuring “Blended”, a Regency-era werewolf romance:

The pack had been born savages and had, almost to a man, died that way.

Almost: almost. She had been a whelp the day the hunters came, dozens of them on their thundering black horses with the pack fleeing before them. Her mother had thrown her beneath a long-dead tree, and she’d watched dark legs flash by, dangerous broad hooves kicking up the snow.

She had seen the blood, from her hiding place. Had seen it when the hunters rode back, triumphant despite their own losses. Stripped skins still steamed in the cold, making their horses toss their heads at the scent of death. She hadn’t known, then, that it was her family, her cousins and her friends, who lay strewn across saddles and stuffed into saddlebags. Not until she was much older did she come to understand what had happened. That her family had run until they could run no more, and then had turned to fight. Beasts, turning tooth and claw against the men who hunted them. Horses died; men died.

But mostly, wolves died.

And just in case you missed it, THE PHANTOM QUEEN AWAKES, featuring “Cairn Dancer”, a story of the Morrigan, has been available since March:

It was not, in the end, the river which waited, not at all. It was instead the cairns, rough tall stone piles which housed the dead, and honored them. It was their song that called her down the length of the river, inviting them to their sacred place.

“I didn’t know,” she said, that first night amongst the tall stone cairns. “I didn’t know they sang to us.”

“Most don’t. It’s easier to let them go if you don’t know,” Aine replied. “Easier to think the spirit goes on, joins the world again, and almost no one hears the song. I don’t,” she added, and Mairaed turned from the cairns in surprise. “My aunt did, and when no one in my generation heard the call, she taught me the dances so they might not be lost. My own daughter knows them for the same reasons, but it’s yourself they’re meant for.”

A fist made itself known around Mairaed’s heart: a squeeze that took her breath and sent an ache through her body. Her palms cramped; the soles of her feet shuddered, and she sipped barely enough air to whisper, “The dances.”

Go forth! Buy! Enjoy! :)

Cate Dermody novels available again!

ce_murphy — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:04:57 +0000

I was going to make a posting saying “Look, so I’ve got about ten copies of THE FIREBIRD DECEPTION and about twenty-five copies of THE PHOENIX LAW, and I’d really kind of like to move them out of my closet and into somebody’s bookshelf. If you’re interested, I’ll sell ‘em for $5 each, plus S&H (which would be $7 for 1 or $13 for both) and yes of course I’ll sign them, let me know in comments or email me.”

Only, because those are the second and third books in the Strongbox Chronicles, and because I don’t have enough copies of THE CARDINAL RULE left to sell any, I went to Amazon so I could get a URL to point people at used copies, and instead found this:

Kindle editions of THE CARDINAL RULE, THE FIREBIRD DECEPTION, and THE PHOENIX LAW, all available as of Monday, February 15th.

And then I went to Barnes & Noble.com and discovered they will be available as of Monday, Feb 15 there, too!

Possibly this makes the physical book offer somewhat moot. However, look: they’re cheap on the Kindle and they’re really fun, fast reads, and I practically guarantee you’ll like them. Anybody know how to launch a massive e-book campaign to get people to go buy those? :)

ETA: All sold out of my copies of the Strongbox Chronicles! Thanks!

Welcome to 2010!

ce_murphy — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:50:59 +0000

Happy New Year!

I’m guest blogging over at Temple Library Reviews about some of the differences between writing comics and novels. Thanks very much to Harry for inviting me to come play at his review site!

As reminded by several persons, THE PRETENDER’S CROWN has been nominated for the 2009 David Gemmell LEGEND Award for Fantasy. It’s on the long list, which is incredibly flattering, and it would be even more flattering to make it to the short list. My understanding is that voting between now and March will winnow the list down, so if you’ve any inclination, here’s the voting page.

And here’s this year’s publication schedule:

February: THE PHANTOM QUEEN AWAKES (anthology with a story of the Morrigan)

May: DRAGON LURE (anthology with a post-Negotiator-trilogy Janx story)

May 29: RUNNING WITH THE PACK (anthology with a Regency werewolf story)

June 1: DEMON HUNTS (book 5 of the Walker Papers. Birthday release date!)

August 31: TRUTHSEEKER (book 1 of the Worldwalker Duology)

ce_murphy — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:45:57 +0000

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.

For once, Joanne Walker’s not out to save the world. She’s come to terms with the host of shamanic powers she’s been given, her job as a police detective has been relatively calm, and she’s got a love life for the first time in memory. Not bad for a woman who started out the year mostly dead.

But it’s Halloween, and the undead have just crashed Joanne’s party. Now she has to figure out how to break the spell that lets ghosts, zombies and even the Wild Hunt come back. Unfortunately, there’s no shamanic handbook explaining how to deal with the walking dead.

And if they have anything to say about it–which they do–

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. :)

Free Comic Book Day

ce_murphy — Fri, 01 May 2009 21:26:56 +0000

Tomorrow, the first Saturday of May, is Free Comic Book Day!

The Dabel Brothers bring you three original, never-before-seen tales for FCBD09, including the Dresden Files “Restoration of Faith”; “The Calm Before,” the prelude story to adaptation of the classic film, The Warriors; and “Previously, on Take A Chance,” which steps back in time to the day a gene-altering virus was released into the world. All this, plus a sneak preview of Del Rey’s forthcoming novel, Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi – Outcast by Aaron Allston, a bold new adventure for Luke, Han, and your favorite Star Wars characters!