On the Burner for 2013

I've got three books scheduled for release in 2013.  The first up, One Foot in My Grave, is a very personal project about a friend of mine who suffered from an affliction called cystic fibrosis, and lived a very colorful life--as you can see by the book cover.  This should be out sometime next month.

Second up is The Weird Worlds of Joel Jenkins which is a collection of difficult to find previously published stories as well as a number of never before published tales that are heavy on the weird and heavy on the action.

Third to the plate will be The Gantlet Brothers: Sold Out, which is the third in the guns and guitars genre series and takes the Gantlet Brothers on the trail of justice and vengeance from Puerto Rico to Czechoslovakia in search of Vietnamese crimelord who killed one of their own.

2012: What I've Done

Here's a quick review of writings that I managed to get published in 2012:

The fifth of my Dire Planet series recounting the adventures of marooned astronaut Garvey Dire was published in March from PulpWork Press. Available at Pulpwork.com, Amazon in hard copy, and Kindle, and Barnes and Noble in Epub.

In April Five Disciples was published in Low Noon, an anthology of Weird West tales.  Five Disciples is a Lone Crow story.  Lone Crow is an infamous Native American gunslinger who roamed the West (and a number of other places) and here we find him on the Barbary Coast hunting Shotgun Ferguson, a wanted killer.  Throw in a witch and the Five Disciples of the Immortals and you get havoc and destruction on San Francisco's Telegraph Hill.  Low Noon is available on Amazon in both hard copy and Kindle formats.

In August an 'All Martian Spectacular' of Science Fiction Trails contained yet another Lone Crow story, The Vanishing City.  Crow accompanies Doctor Sylvia Conrad on an archeological expedition to Mount Shasta, investigating claims that an outpost of lost Lemuria has been discovered there.  In the meantime, the infamous bounty hunters known as the Grim Brothers have gathered a motley crew of cutthroats and killers and are dogging his trail.  This story has some loose tie-ins with my Dire Planet series.

This issue of Science Fiction Trails is available on Amazon in hard copy at $8.00 or for a $1.99 Kindle download.  You can a 40% discount on a hard copy of Science Fiction Trails #9 by going to this link and entering the discount code of RMYAE97U.

In September my first foray into the land of Camelot was published. The brother knights Balin and Balan of North Umberland are only given a handful of pages in Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur, but shamelessly pillaging the works of Malory I expanded their adventures into a full length novel. Some purists might complain that Merlin and Arthur aren't cast in the most favorable light in these pages (even as the villains of the piece) but I contend that a careful reading of Le Morte D'Arthur will confirm that they are less than virtuous and even downright despicable.  Copies are available at Amazon (kindle $2.99, $13.95 hard copy), Barnes and Noble or direct from PulpWork Press (hard copy only) at a 20% discount if you punch in the semi-secret code of 5YRZ6A8W.  

Also in September, after languishing for seven years at a less than desirable publishing house, the rights for my dark fantasy novel, Escape from Devil's Head, reverted to me.  PulpWork Press put it back in print.  This is the first of the Tales from the City of Bathos novels, the story which is told in a series of interconnecting short stories and novellas taking viewpoints of various denizens of the City of Corruption, where you'll find cutthroats, criminals, nameless cults, dire gods, alien entities and strangling politics--much like today. You can find this at Amazon in hard copy or digital or at Barnes and Noble in hard copy or digital.  Find the hard copy at a 20% discount direct from PulpWork Press if you punch in the savings code of 5YRZ6A8W.

In November a third Lone Crow story was published in Gunslingers and Ghost Stories from Sci-Fi Trails. Old Mother Hennessy follows Lone Crow and his erstwhile companion-in-arms Six-Gun Susannah Johnson, the fastest (though perhaps not the most accurate) gun in the West. While running down some bounties they get caught between the vengeful dead and the murderous Hennessy Brothers who aim on adding Crow and Johnson to their graveyard of victims. You can find this at Amazon and Barnes and Noble in hard copy, Kindle and Ebook formats for just $3.55.

Rounding out the year is Lair of the White Apes, a Dire Planet short story, which is included in the December 2nd Annual PulpWork Christmas Special.  You can find this at Amazon.com for $7.95. If you have an Amazon Prime membership the Kindle version is currently available at no charge, or if you don't have a membership the price is $2.99.

So in retrospect, it looks like I may have accomplished more writing than I thought.  On a slightly different note, through no instigation of my own, I (or alter egos of myself) managed to appear in two different tales by two of the coolest pulp-writers alive.  Yes, I'm talking about Josh Reynolds and Derrick Ferguson.

The first is The Matryoshka Affair featuring a pair of my favorite characters: The Ameriquetzlan ambassador Ulrich Popoca and, agent for the infamous Diogenes Club, the Countess Francesca Felluci. Another agent of the Diogenes Club named Jenkins narrowly escapes being killed. This is the second time that agent Jenkins has appeared in a Popoca story.

And on page 207 and 208 of Dillon and the Pirates of Xonira, by Derrick Ferguson, a roguish fellow by the name of Jenkins mouths off to Dillon's right hand man, Eli, when he's ordered to remove some limpet mines from the submarine Morgan Adams. Pick up a copy of Dillon and the Pirates of Xonira at the PulpWork Press website and get 20% off by using the 5YRZ6A8W code.

These appearances in Reynolds' and Ferguson's stories may be the closest I get to pulp immortality.

I wish you all a happy and productive 2013!