Hal Duncan's Blog, page 14

A Stark Contrast

Tony Stark has just moved into his new multi-million dollar corporate headquarters cum bachelor pad. He's happy living the life of a drinking, womanising billionaire playboy who just happens to be the superhero by name of Iron Man too. Then one day, who should turn up on his doorstep but his distant cousin from some remote, backwards, vaguely European country... Ned Stark! Eight seasons of

Message From a Slave State

Just a wee signal boost for "Message From a Slave State", from my Caledonia Dreamin' cohort, Chris Kelso, just released on Wednesday there and available on Kindle for a mere two pounds and six new pence. Can't vouch for it meself, but by the power of that Look Inside malarkey, you'll see lots of people saying nice things about his writing--including Rhys Hughes, Andrew Raymond Drennan, Douglas

Saving Icarus

Over at Lethe Press, Steve Berman is finding it difficult to justify keeping Icarus going:


So, after reviewing Lethe Press's P & L statement, I noticed that I lost around four thousand dollars last year on Icarus, the Magazine of Gay Speculative Fiction. Now, I never expected to make
a bundle or even a profit. My goal was to provide a venue for stories
that some markets might consider "too

The Cowboy Saints & Other Lost Wonders

So I find out from Gary Gibson over at Brain in a Jar Books that The Cowboy Saints & Other Lost Wonders, a short story collection gathering together some of the fine collaborations of Phil Raines and Harvey Welles is now out on ebook:



Available now at Amazon UK or at Amazon US, it's more than worth the few bucks it's going for. I know because I've read it. Read it? Why, I wrote the intro,

Euthanise Your Novel: Letters from an Evil Book Doctor #3

The Paranoid Copyright Warning
Dear [REDACTED],
First off, we'd like to thank you very much for the chance to read your manuscript. We do appreciate--really, we do--the supreme ordeal you underwent in entrusting it to our care. Indeed, before going any further, we'd like to reassure you that while we're thankful to have been privileged with the opportunity to read the novel you obviously feel

Euthanise Your Novel: Letters from an Evil Book Doctor #2

And the Tagline Shall Die!

Dear [REDACTED],

I have to confess that I'm confused by your title page. It's not that the layout is a little off, with what seems to be a series title, "BOOK ONE OF THE CHRONICLES OF THE OBJECTS OF POWER," running along the bottom of the page rather than on the line directly below the title (with the byline subsequently dropped to the line below that.) It's

Euthanise Your Novel: Letters from an Evil Book Doctor #1

The Guessing Game Manuscript

Dear [REDACTED],

Congratulations! Of all the potential points of failure in the production of a marketable novel manuscript, you failed at the first hurdle by not including a title page. Well done, you. Whoever you are. No, really. Most aspiring writers take until at least the first sentence to inspire the head-desking and muttered imprecations that foreshadow the

The Immaculated Maculation

If you have read Anna Tambour's Crandolin, you will understand why this tickles me. If you haven't, WHY THE FUCK NOT? Go! Go get yerself a copy and read it now!

That is all.

Call for Submissions

Caledonia Dreamin'


Strange Fiction of Scottish Descent

Edited by Chris Kelso and Hal Duncan

Glaikit, mockit, droukit, drouthy, couthy, scunner, thrawn – the Scots language is rich with words too gallus not to glory in, dialect terms that deserve better than to be boxed away as precious oddities. For us, those words aren't quaint parochialisms of a past preserved in amber; they're wild wee

Story's End

Just a heads-up about the Story's End gig in February, to let yez all know that tickets are now available by way of the Glasgow Film Festival site.

Did I mention that the filmmaker involved, Johnny Barrington, was BAFTA-nominated for his short film, TUMULT?



No. No, I didn't. Because IT JUST HAPPENED. Cutting edge? Bleeding edge? No, screaming edge, mate! Screaming edge. We're ahead of the