UPDATE: Smashwords is back up. Hooray!

At least in the northern hemisphere, February is officially the worst month (no offense to those born during it). It’s cold and grey and dark, there aren’t any big holidays to get excited about, and spring is still so far away the it seems like it will never get here. With that in mind, I have an offering that will hopefully make your February a little less crappy!

How about two full chapters from The Children of the Sun, more than fifteen THOUSAND words, that are completely free of spoilers because they are set in ancient Egypt and tell the story of how Ashayt came to be Ashayt-Sa. Interested? I hope so, because that’s what I’ve got for you, and the best news is that it’s totally free!

Well, OK, it’s totally free if you get it through Smashwords. If you got through Amazon or Barnes & Noble it’ll cost 99 cents. Please note that Smashwords offers formats that are supported by both the Kindle and the Nook, so the ONLY reason to get it from anywhere other than Smashwords is if you feel it’s super-convenient to just go through the other website and not have to manually transfer it to your device, and you therefore find it worth a buck for that convenience.

Anyway, enough with the talking. Here is where to get Amun Sa and the Girl from the Desert:

• Get it free from Smashwords – works with Kindle, Nook, iPhone, iPad, iPod, Sony Reader, Kobo, and pretty much any other device ever.
• Get it for 99 cents from Amazon (Kindle only)
• Get it for 99 cents from Amazon UK (Kindle only)
• Get it for 99 cents from Barnes & Noble (Nook only)

That’s all there is to it! Big thanks to Karla Ortiz for providing the kickass artwork that you see above (and in the book). She comes up with amazing visuals of my characters. Thanks also to Lauren for once again helping me dot the I’s, cross the T’s, and kill about a million unnecessary commas.

Remember to drop me a line on Twitter or on my Facebook Page and let me know what you thought!

My short Sci-Fi story Watchers has been picked up and published by the good folks over at Aurora Wolf, a literary journal of science fiction and fantasy. It’s free to read online, and will be available in an upcoming print anthology as well.

Watchers is set in the relatively near future, a time when mankind has mastered space travel within the solar system, but has not yet branched out into other galaxies.

Here’s an excerpt!

Stef sighed, adjusted the feeding tube at her side, glanced over at him with her big, grey-green eyes and asked, “Can they cure it?”

“It’s not going well,” he replied, and she rolled those lovely eyes at him, looking back out the port window.

“Well, no kidding. What does that mean?”

“It mutates faster than anything we’ve ever seen. By the time the body even figures out how to attack it, it’s changed.”

Stef made a noise: psssshhh, and rested her forehead against her hand. “It’s almost worse that it didn’t come from us.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, from Earth. We managed to avoid all that stuff down there, disease and global warming and war, for what? So some rock could crash-land in a field somewhere … bam. That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Stef shook her head. “Jesus Christ.”

“Lots of people calling for Him, down there,” he told her. “I don’t think He’s going to show.”

Stef looked up at him again, eyelids tinted red at their edges. Her cheeks were mottled pink, her brow pinched, her whole face twisted. Dark brown curls of hair were plastered against her forehead; others stuck out at odd angles from around her headset. He thought about the last time they had been naked together, seventeen days ago, making love standing up in the steam and heat of the shower.

He met her gaze, waiting, and her voice trembled just a little when she spoke.

“Was that a joke? We’re going to die up here.”

“It’s better here,” he said.

…

You can read the whole story at Aurora Wolf!

Why look, there are buds on the trees. Spring is here, and with it I’ve brought some very exciting (I think) updates on my projects!

Blood Hunt

I’ve decided to go ahead and move forward with getting Blood Hunt ready for eBook and print formats. I’ve hired an editor, Lauren, who did the first editing pass on The Blood That Bonds way back in the day, and am working with Adrian again on a cover, which should be more complex than the cover for TBTB. I’m about to send the draft off to Lauren so she can start on her end of things, which should take 8-10 weeks. Meanwhile I’ll be incorporating her edits into BH as she sends them in. The result of all of this is that, while I don’t have anything close to an exact date for Blood Hunt yet, I’m pretty comfy saying it will be available as an eBook at LEAST on Amazon, B&N, the iBookStore and Smashwords sometime this summer! There’s a very good chance that I’ll actually be able to do a simultaneous print and ebook launch.

The eBook version of Blood Hunt will be priced at $2.99. The print book price isn’t determined yet. The Blood That Bonds eBook will remain free, but the print edition may come down a bit in price. I’m looking into ways I can shave off the cost.

The Children of the Sun

The Children of the Sun, or TCS for short, is the final chapter of Two’s adventures. Will it be a happy ending? I’m not exactly sure, yet. Two’s world, like the real world, has its share of sadness, misery and despair. Two’s pretty fiesty, though. I wouldn’t bet against her!

I’ve started on the first draft of TCS. Not much written yet, but it’s a start. I’m also working on its entries in the master time-line I keep for the II AM saga, which extends all the way back to about 5000 BC! When all of the books are out, I’ll probably publish it on this here website for people who are interested in it.

The Broken God Machine

I had meant to go from BH to the second draft of The Broken God Machine, but the truth of the matter is that the demand for Two and her adventures is so great right now that I don’t feel comfortable putting them off to work on another novel. So it’s in a holding pattern for the moment. When I finish the first draft of TCS and send it off to my trusted readers for their thoughts and comments, I will try to squeeze the second draft of TBGM into that time.

Short Stories

My Sci-Fi short story “Watchers”  — which Lauren also edited — has made it through three rounds of critique from the readers for Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine and is now short-listed, which means there’s a good chance they’ll publish it. Should hear about that in the next couple of months. I’m also working on a short-story about a serial killer set in the early months of 1918. More on that as it develops!

That’s about it for now. Stay tuned.

It's been there for a long time.

I’ve posted a new item in the Short Stories section. I don’t differentiate between fiction and non-fiction on that page, which mostly isn’t a problem because I’ve never written a non-fiction short story until now. 200 Willoughby Avenue, however, is entirely true, and it poured out of me the other night as I was thinking about the passage of time, and the way we view ourselves.

I don’t know if it’s any good, this one — I’m better at werewolves and far-future dystopia than I am at introspection — but I’m going to go ahead and post it anyway. I’m curious what people will think of it, especially those who’ve never stood there, and looked around, and thought that they knew who it was they were.

Hat tip to Brooklyn Before Now for the image.