Jason Franks's Blog, page 4
May 12, 2021
Heart of Iron
So I wrote a story for The Only One in the World anthology, featuring alt-versions of Sherlock Holmes and Watson.
My story, “Sharaku Homura and the Heart of Iron”, is about a Japanese Holmes visiting apartheid South Africa in the 1970s as an Honorary White, where he is assisted by a Jewish Dr Watson in solving a mystery related to a missing shipment of iron.
Cover art by Judy RossellEditor Narrelle Harris wrote this very kind post about my story:
https://narrellemharris.com/short-stories/narrelle-m-harris-on-jason-franks/
… his (Franks’) story reflected his personal experiences of both the South African and Japanese cultures that influence these characters, ensuring they were nuanced and whole and not, as he mentions in his Clan Destine Press interview, the Western stereotypes of those nationalities.
And here’s an interview I did about the piece, so you can hear it in my own words:
This was a tough piece to write and I’m really proud of it. I hope you’ll check it out–it’s available in hardcover, softcover, and in your favourite ebook format direct from Clan Destine Press or from all the usual etailers.
The Only One in the World
March 13, 2021
2021 Doorways
Somehow, dear readers, it is the year 2021.
I haven’t posted much on here lately. I’ve been busy finishing university and dealing with lockdowns with a small child, and now we are looking to sell the house. But I’ve also hit some milestones amongst all of that, and it has me in a reflective mood.
It’s just over 20 years since I sold (and was paid for) my first short story, the Third Sigil, to the long defunct website deathlings.com. It’s 10 years since that story was reprinted in Devil Dolls and Duplicates. It’s still my worst published story, but it’s a story that has opened a lot of doors.
It’s just over 10 years since my most widely read work, the first Sixsmiths graphjc novel, was published. I sometimes wonder if that was the apogee of my career. I made exactly zero dollars from that widely distributed first edition, and, while I thought it would open doors for me, they turned out to be windows that I wasn’t agile enough to climb through. I didn’t manage to follow that book up well, and then I got married and acquired a mortgage. Having less free time and disposable income, I shifted my focus back to prose, and that was going well… and then we spawned a child and then I went back to school. Now it’s 2021 and, yeah. My writing career is still not where I hoped I would be.
The publishing world has changed through that whole time, also, and, if I am honest, it’s not where I’d like it to be either. Traditional publishing is a lot more competitive now than it was in 2006, when I was close to landing a literary agent and thought Bloody Waters would get a mainstream publishing deal. As successful as the indie-published book has been for me, I feel like it never got the shot it deserved. And that’s my fault. In this age where you need to be able to build your own platform across traditional and social media, and project manage everything, and also still produce amazing work, it’s all feeling a bit Hunger Games. Although I admit I always preferred Battle Royale. (I’ll have the sickle, please.)
A couple of years ago now I was lamenting that I have never been a prolific writer of short stories. Trying to build a career in both longform prose and comics has meant I just haven’t had the time for short works. But. I’ve published more short stories in the last two years than in any other similar period. 3 shorts, with another coming soon and a fifth commissioned work I have yet to start on. This is partly due to having won the trust of some editors who know that I can deliver. It’s also partly due to the fact that I’ve only had bandwidth to to work on shorter pieces, and these have mostly come with deadlines that have forced me to turn them in, because I have finally, after 20 years, started to think of myself as a professional. Opportunity plus motivation.
I’m really proud of my recent short work and I think the newest couple of pieces are my best shorts to date. Previously the stories I thought were my best were the ones I could never quite sell. I’ve become a better short story writer in spite of myself, and that has led to further opportunities. Best of all, I’m proud of the work I’ve been doing in a way that I haven’t felt for years.
University is done now. It certainly had its cost, but it’s lead to a huge step up for me at my day job. Now that the decks are clearing, I’m trying to get my creative works back on track. X-Dimensional Assassin Zai is coming out next year from IFWG Australia. I have two new novels underway, a graphic novella that’s been languishing in an almost complete state for a couple of years, another comic… let’s see what doors these open, and where they lead.
Another good couple of decades, I hope.
December 22, 2020
Bleeding Out of 2020
Well, 2020 was a year, huh? Bushfires. Murder hornets. A pandemic. 100 days in lockdown. The US presidential election. We’re in the home stretch now and… well, looks like Christmas is cancelled in Australia’s biggest city, so I guess it’s not done with us yet. I was sick of hearing about all of this six months ago, so I won’t drone on about it.
Despite all the pain and death and aggravation, 2020 was a pretty good year for me and I have no cause to complain. I was very lucky to be in a position where I was already working from home a couple of days a week. I have worked remotely, on and off, for a dozen years, so it was no hardship at all. Working from home gave me more time to work on my Masters thesis and more time to spend with my son. I listened to a lot of new music, trapped in my office for months on end. I didn’t read nearly enough books–turns out that losing my commuting time also wrecked my reading habits–but I hope to rectify that next year.
It was a very busy year, with school and work taking up a lot of time. I published only one piece this year–a horror short called “Tolerance to Iron” in Midnight Echo #15–but I signed contracts for two other shorts (a reimagined Sherlock Holmes piece and a reimagined Dracula piece), as well as my fourth novel, X-Dimensional Assassin Zai through the Unfolded Earth. The two new shorts should be out next year and the novel in 2022.
2021 was also the year that my pard Jason Fischer and I signed a distribution deal with Novella Distribution, which saw the books in our Argonautica line available in actual bricks-and-mortar stores, which was pretty cool. While our publishing plans are a bit delayed due to 2020 being… what 2020 was… next year we will be rolling out at least one new title: GO TO HELL, the sequel to Fisch’s beloved novel QUIVER. I’ve read it and I promise you ain’t seen a zombie novel like this one before.
Also, my graphic novel Gourmand Go is complete, and I’ll soon have the second issue of my villain anthology, Smiling Damned, ready to roll. Here’s the naked cover art, illustrated by the excellent Cristian Roux. It’s going to be a gorgeous book, containing three Yakuza stories illustrated by Cristian, Henry Pop and Mike Athey, all coloured by Simon Robins, and I think you’ll like it. If you’re a murdering psychopathic gangster.
Smiling Damned #2 cover by Cristian RouxWhat’s in store for 2021? Well, I dunno. More writing, more reading, and less school, I’ll hazard. Maybe even a holiday.
Speaking of which, I hope you have a good break and a happy new year. You bloody deserve it.
Cheers,
— Jason Franks
2020 – Is it over yet?
Well, 2020 was a year, huh? Bushfires. Murder hornets. A pandemic. 100 days in lockdown. The US presidential election. We’re in the home stretch now and… well, looks like Christmas is cancelled in Australia’s biggest city, so I guess it’s not done with us yet. I was sick of hearing about all of this six months ago, so I won’t drone on about it.
Despite all the pain and death and aggravation, 2020 was a pretty good year for me and I have no cause to complain. I was very lucky to be in a position where I was already working from home a couple of days a week. I have worked remotely, on and off, for a dozen years, so it was no hardship at all. Working from home gave me more time to work on my Masters thesis and more time to spend with my son. I listened to a lot of new music, trapped in my office for months on end. I didn’t read nearly enough books–turns out that losing my commuting time also wrecked my reading habits–but I hope to rectify that next year.
It was a very busy year, with school and work taking up a lot of time. I published only one piece this year–a horror short called “Tolerance to Iron” in Midnight Echo #15–but I signed contracts for two other shorts (a reimagined Sherlock Holmes piece and a reimagined Dracula piece), as well as my fourth novel, X-Dimensional Assassin Zai through the Unfolded Earth. The two new shorts should be out next year and the novel in 2022.
2021 was also the year that my pard Jason Fischer and I signed a distribution deal with Novella Distribution, which saw the books in our Argonautica line available in actual bricks-and-mortar stores, which was pretty cool. While our publishing plans are a bit delayed due to 2020 being… what 2020 was… next year we will be rolling out at least one new title: GO TO HELL, the sequel to Fisch’s beloved novel QUIVER. I’ve read it and I promise you ain’t seen a zombie novel like this one before.
Also, my graphic novel Gourmand Go is complete, and I’ll soon have the second issue of my villain anthology, Smiling Damned, ready to roll. Here’s the naked cover art, illustrated by the excellent Cristian Roux. It’s going to be a gorgeous book, containing three Yakuza stories illustrated by Cristian, Henry Pop and Mike Athey, all coloured by Simon Robins, and I think you’ll like it. If you’re a murdering psychopathic gangster.
Smiling Damned #2 cover by Cristian RouxWhat’s in store for 2021? Well, I dunno. More writing, more reading, and less school, I’ll hazard. Maybe even a holiday.
Speaking of which, I hope you have a good break and a happy new year. You bloody deserve it.
Cheers,
— Jason Franks
December 1, 2020
Midnight Echo #15 Showcase
Editor Lee Murray interviewed me about my new story, “Tolerance to Iron”, which is out now in Midnight Echo #15.
Click on through to listen to see rabbit on about the story, the important of horror, and my wardrobe choices. I had a bit more fun with this one than usual, so if you only read one interview with me this year, this is probably the one to check out.
https://www.leemurray.info/post/midnight-echo-15-showcase-jason-franks
October 20, 2020
Children of the Dragon
I have a story in this upcoming parallel universe Dracula anthology, along with… Ramsay Campbell, Nancy Holder, Steve Rasnic Tem, Chris Ryall, Jim Krueger, Lee Murray, Christopher Sequeira, Julie Ditrich… I think I need to go and lie down.
Then I better rise from my immortal slumber and write the story.
It’s a story about Dracula… if he wasn’t a vampire. Click on through for more!
Dracula Unfanged: Anthology Announcement & TOC Reveal
September 12, 2020
Tolerance to Iron
I have a new horror short story, “Tolerance to Iron”, coming out in Midnight Echo #15; a piece about a father who takes issue with a Little Man he finds terrorizing his daughter.
This is my first horror piece in quite a long time and it feels a bit like coming home. I have really enjoyed returning to the pages of Midnight Echo and working with editor Lee Murray to really sharpen the teeth on this one. It’s an honour to share space with the likes of Jo Anderton, Bec Fraser, Martin Livings, Anthony Ferguson, David Schembri, Deb Sheldon and the others. That gorgeous cover is by Greg Chapman.
Also as I write this post I realize that that is two stories in a row with the word ‘iron’ in the title. What can I say? Sharaku Homura was a tough act to follow.
Midnight Echo #15 will be available in print and online on November 30th, I believe.
Cheers!
August 27, 2020
Heart of Iron
I have a story coming out in this newly announced awesome new Sherlock Holmes anthology from Clan Destine Press, THE ONLY ONE IN THE WORLD.
My story, “Sharaku Homura and the Heart of Iron”, is set in South Africa in 1974 and features a Japanese Holmes and a Jewish Watson. This is my second published story about Holmes and Watson, and my first time writing about South Africa, where I was born. This story touches on both apartheid and Japanese imperial history. Also, Jimi Hendrix.
It’s an absolute pleasure to share space with the likes of Raymond Gates, Lucy Sussex, L J M Owen, Kerry Greenwood & David Greagg, Natalie Conyer and all the others.
Big thanks to editor Narrelle Harris for picking up the story, and Lindy Cameron for making this project real. More details as they come to light.
August 12, 2020
Book Announcement: X-Dimensional Assassin Zai Through the Unfolded Earth
With great pleasure I can share the news that IFWG Publishing Australia has acquired my new novel, X-Dimensional Assassin Zai Through the Unfolded Earth, a fantasy/SF/crime novel about tourism and murder.
There’s a few things I wanted to do with this book,which I think probably doesn’t read like you think it does. In this project one of the key things I wanted to do was to have an Asian protagonist who isn’t a martial arts hero. I also wanted also to look at both the joys and the miseries of travel. Might even be some politics hiding in there, too.
This is my second time publishing with Gerry Huntman and the IFWG team and I’m delighted to be working with them again.
[image error]IFWG Australia
The book should be out in 2022 and will be distributed in Australiasia, North America, and Europe. More details here: https://ifwgaustralia.com/2020/08/12/book-deal-x-dimensional-assassin-zai-through-the-unfolded-earth/
July 17, 2020
WorldCon 2020 – Zoom on NZ
Alrighty, I’ve got my WorldCon program information now. If you’re coming, you can find me in the following panels:
Sandman at 30: The Enduring Influence of Neil Gaiman’s Creation
30 Jul 2020, Thursday 16:00 – 16:50, Programme Room 1
With: Matthew S. Rotundo, Jane Routley, and Claire Bartlett.
and:Comics and Manga in the 21st Century
2 Aug 2020, Sunday 12:00 – 12:50, Programme Room 3
With: R.W.W. Greene, Ada Palmer, Scott Edelman, and Queenie Chan.
I will also be doing a reading (I have what, or even why) on 31 Jul 2020, Friday 14:00 – 14:25, in Reading Room 1.
See you kreeps and killers there!
Programme
