Nuclear Suitcase Sale!

I just realized that it has been over three weeks since I've last posted, but in that time I've been making excellent headway on a number of projects.

A) Pulpwork Press has received the final interior illustrations for a children's book I've been working on.

B) I've finished up a short story and submitted it to the editor of the upcoming Amazing Alternity anthology. This Amazing alternate universe story includes such historical figures as Amelia Earheart, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Eva Braun, and Errol Flynn, a lost city, a fleet of war zeppelins, and a secret weapon that is the key to Hitler's blitzkreig.

C) Work has commenced on Lost Tribes of the Dire Planet and Garvey Dire and his newly-expanded family are going to be in for one wild ride. The first three Dire Planet books can be purchased at Amazon.com, pulpworkpress.com, or in digital formats at fictionwise.com and BarnesandNoble.com.

D) Pulpwork Press has just announced that it has Nuclear Suitcases for sale! Now, they are not selling actual nuclear suitcases--the sale of such nuclear suitcases is what got the Gantlet Brothers (erstwhile rockstars and guns for hire) into trouble in the first place. Pulpwork Press is accepting pre-orders for my novel, The Nuclear Suitcase, at PulpworkPress.com. The advantage to being an early buyer is they are on sale for only $9.95! Once the pre-order sale is over they go up to $12.95. Pulpwork Press is having The Nuclear Suitcase printed by a different company than printed its previous titles and they have been able to knock three dollars off the standard Pulpwork cover price for a 300 page book ($15.95). That three dollar savings translates into a six dollar savings if you purchase a pre-order! Don't delay. (Also you can check out the first chapter of Nuclear Suitcase at the Pulpwork.com website)

Dark Worlds turns Red

Though I don't have a story in the latest issue of Dark Worlds this happens to be the first issue to carry a story by Derrick Ferguson who has nabbed the cover slot for issue number four.

Tale of the Baron's Tribute is a mouthful of a title, but it's a great read and tells the story of Sebastian Red, a dread-locked bounty hunter armored with juju and armed with a well worn .45 Leone Nightmaster pistol and a nasty sword forged for the Lords of Burning Iron.

Red rides the weird west on his bronze stallion Ra, and runs into a lot of trouble--often of the supernatural variety. This tale finds him hunting down bank robbers and murderers Madman McGee and Christopher Ix.

You can pick up a digital or hard copy here.

Devil Take the Hindmost at Barnes and Noble

The electronic versions of the Pulpwork Press catalog has formerly (and still is) been available at Fictionwise.com. Recently Barnes and Noble has kicked off their own proprietary E-Reader which allows books to be read on the Iphone, Ipod Touch, Blackberry, and of course the PC and Mac. This E-Reader is available as a free download from Barnes and Noble.

The exciting thing for us authors at Pulpwork is that Barnes and Noble has also picked up the complete line of Pulpwork Press books and are carrying them in this new electronic format. It's easy enough to find the titles by me, just type 'Joel Jenkins' into the search box at the Barnes and Noble ebook site. To find Derrick Ferguson's movie review notebooks or his excellent Diamondback novella just type in his name.

Hunting down books by Pulpwork Press's resident horror-meister Joshua Reynolds is a little trickier since he shares his name with Lord Joshua Reynolds who seems to have written some equally horrific books critiquing art. Instead, you'll need to type in his specific titles: Bury Me Deep, Born Under a Bad Sign, and Wake the Dead.

Devil's Head in the Bargain Basement

PA Press, the publisher for Escape from Devil's Head has announced a very brief sale and on the 22nd and 23rd you can pick up a copy for only $8.99. This isn't bad, because regularly they retail this sucker for the outrageous price of $28.00.

If you haven't picked up a copy yet, now is the time to grab one. Once you've read it you'll be all set for the sequel, Through the Groaning Earth, which is coming out from the much more reasonable PulpWork Press later this year.

At the PA Press website type in 'Escape from Devil's Head' or 'Joel Jenkins' and that will get you to the sale.

Pulpwork Print Ad

Here's a new black and white print ad from Pulpwork Press which features several titles by yours truly and a couple by the most excellent Derrick Ferguson. Those following such things will note that both The Nuclear Suitcase and Derrick's Dillon and the Golden Bell have yet to be released. Both are on the docket for release this year and The Nuclear Suitcase should be out sooner than later.

Amazing Alternity

Thomas Deja, formerly of Fangoria magazine, is putting together an anthology for Pulpwork Press and has released the following author guidelines. I find the concept quite intriguing and hope to be able to place a story in the anthology. The ideas are already percolating...


AMAZING ALTERNITY STORIES is a new anthology from Pulpwork Press. It purports to be an average issue of the flagship title from pulp magazine publisher Alternity Publishing, and features a rotating series of what Publisher George H.W. Bush proudly calls 'The Greatest Action Heroes On Earth'... ....wait a minute....Publisher WHO? The trick is that Alternity Publishing is a magazine publisher from an alternate reality where many of our real life personages exist only as fictitious characters in the most lurid of popular fiction. In this reality, for example, Nikola Tesla could be a 'science spy' who uses advanced technology to save the world, Albert Einstein could be a Flash Gordon-like swashbuckler, and George Washington could be a maritime adventurer. (Note that the above are just examples; I'm not looking specifically for these concepts) What we are looking for is stories in the pulp tradition with an adventure component of 5-12K in length with a central character based on a real-life personage. We want a wide variety of pulp genres represented; if this book is successful we'll release future volumes that focus on specific genres. Fun should be the most important element in these tales--the oddity of seeing a real-life person in a different setting should be secondary to the excitement of reading a fast paced adventure tale.

Original concepts will net you extra points--we've seen H.G. Wells as a time traveler or H.P. Lovecraft as a psychic detective several times already, but Wells as a mercenary with a heart of gold or Lovecraft as the courageous major of The French Foreign Legion, however..... Keep in mind that while you should give us enough to make the real life person recognizable as that person, you don't have to hew 100% close to their bio; to expand upon one of the earlier example, it's sufficient that you mention that Major Lovecraft joined the Legion to forget his lost love Sarah and that he's from Providence; we don't need chapter and verse.

The important thing is to give us verve, give us style, give us true blood-and-thunder...in short, a real pulp fiction reading experience. Have fun writing the tale; if you're having fun, the reader will have fun. Keep in mind that, given that these are supposed to be 'genuine' pulp stories, you should refrain from profanity.

Because of the unique nature of the anthology, we will require authors to submit a story outline of two to three pages. This is to assure that we won't end up with two stories about different versions of the same real-life figure, and also to assure that we have as wide a variety of genres represented. Once we choose a good line-up, we'll give the authors picked the go-ahead to write up their tales.

Please send outlines to nywisdom@hotmail.com. Deadline for outlines is August 31st, 2009. Deadline for completed stories will be announced to chosen writers shortly after the deadline proper.

Good luck, and if you have any questions, contact me at the above e-mail!

Thomas Deja
Editor, AMAZING ALTERNITY STORIES

Through with the Groaning Earth

Or rather I should say that I'm through with the first draft of Through the Groaning Earth. It weighs in at a healthy 110,000 words, and I've commenced a second pass at it. Of course, a small portion of the novel has already appeared in the pages of Dark Worlds #2, so anyone interested can preview it there.

Although there are quite a few new rogues and denizens of Bathos showing their faces in Through the Groaning Earth a few of the survivors of Escape from Devil's Head show up and throw the status quo of the guilds' power structure into turmoil by daring to buck the system.