Dark Worlds Five

Here's the cover of Dark Worlds #5 with another awesome M.D. Jackson cover. This will be coming at you this summer chock full o' cool stories.

One of those cool stories will be Against the Gathering Darkness, recounting the story where famed Native American gunslinger Lone Crow meets up with Wyatt Earp in Alaska while searching for a missing archeologist doing field work for Miskatonic University.

I've had one previous Lone Crow story published in How the West was Weird. If you haven't picked up a copy of that you can grab one here.

Dire News for the Dire Planet

Sometimes when a writer gets caught in the muddle and muck of battling through the writing process strange things happen. In this case the strange thing results in both good news and bad news for fans of the Dire Planet tales.

I was hoping that the latest (fourth in the series) Dire Planet, which I tentatively titled Lost Tribes of the Dire Planet, would see print by the end of this year. However, it will not see print this year, but has been rescheduled for 2011. Also, the name of the novel has been retitled to Strange Gods of the Dire Planet.

The good news is that hot on the heels of Strange Gods of the Dire Planet will be a fifth Dire Planet novel entitled Lost Tribes of the Dire Planet. This is projected for release in 2012.

How far along are these projects, you might ask? I've finished the first draft of Strange Gods of the Dire Planet and am about 20,000 words (approximately 1/5 of the way) into Lost Tribes of the Dire Planet.

Beyond 2012 I'm not making any promises or predictions. However, I can see the possibility of a sixth (and maybe final) Dire Planet novel: Immortals of the Dire Planet.

Devil Take the Kindle

My hard-boiled horror thriller, Devil Take the Hindmost, is now available on Kindle for less than a buck! If you've got a Kindle pick up a digital copy now. Heck, at that price even if you don't have a Kindle you may want to pick up a copy.

The Secret Life of Love and Bullets

By now, perhaps, you've heard about the latest PulpWork Press release, Love and Bullets. Maybe you haven't heard about its secret origins. Before it became a full length prose novel it was originally developed as a comic book entitled Code Name: Black Widow, and I've prevailed upon author Percival Constantine to share some of that artwork with me and also a copy of that original comic book script, which you can download here.

Dire Kindle

Dire Planet and Exiles of the Dire Planet are now available on Kindle at the amazing prices of only 99 measly cents for Dire Planet and $1.99 for Exiles. Download them at Amazon.com.

Dire Planet Compendium #6: The Wings of Mars

The wings used by the Martian Tribes are constructed from hollow wooden tubes stretched tightly with elastic fungal membranes harvested from dank caverns beneath Mars which grow thick with stuff. They are sometimes stretched with arshen skin, which is actually preferable to the fungal membranes--but harvesting arshen skin is a difficult task. The framework for these wings are generally constructed from a bamboo-like species of wood, called Gejassoas, the cane of which is sealed with arshen pitch. The Gejassoas wood is hollow and very strong. Though it is the reduced gravity of Mars that makes flight possible, the buoyancy of the flyer is often increased by pumping these pitch-sealed tubes with a buoyant gas.

The Galbran Tribes are known to stud the edges of their wings with razors. When they attack their foes they swoop low and slice them down with the edges of their wings. This tactic hasn't widely been adopted by other tribes, since the maneuver is nigh on suicidal. If the wings become entangled or the momentum of the flyer is abruptly halted it usually means injury or death for the galbran strapped into the wings.

Mothers Day Madness

This weekend at the Toronto Comics Art Festival artist Noel Tuazon will be on hand to premiere two new book projects which he and myself (Joel Jenkins) were involved with.

The first is a promotional chapbook, The Blood Vault, which contains the fully-illustrated short story which was the precursor to my novel, Devil Take the Hindmost. This story features Damon St. Cloud as he hunts down a missing congressional intern and uncovers an unholy alliance of the undead and politics (really a natural mix, when you think about it). There will be a limited number of copies available, but these will be free at Noel's table.

Also, you'll find copies of The Pirates of Mirror Land--which is my debut in the field of children's literature. At night the stuffed animals in Chase and Destiny's bedroom come to life and Imo, the gopher, and Floppy, the bunny, chase an errant hamster into the lost realm of Mirror Land in an effort to find her. Noel did a fantastic job on the illustrations and he'll have copies of hand in Toronto.

So what if you aren't in the neighborhood of Toronto this coming weekend? Well, it so happens that Amazon has jumped the gun and Pirates of Mirror Land and The Blood Vault chapbook (which also contains sample chapters of other novels) are available via their website. If you order now, just perhaps, you'll be able to get your hands on these books by Mothers Day.