Steven R. Boyett's Blog, page 4

Launch Party in San Francisco!

Join me & Ken at Borderlands Bookstore in San Francisco tomorrow, June 10, at the launch party for our new novel, Fata Morgana!

This is Ken’s first novel, and we’ll be signing, reading, schmoozing, and grinning a whole lot.

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Ken Mitchroney: Have a Cigar!

Ken Mitchroney, proud poppa

Ken Mitchroney and I have been friends for well over 30 years. We’ve worked on a lot of projects together — comic books, animated shorts, screenplays, feature films. We’ve created catalog copy and bubblegum cards together. Hell, I once made a didgeridoo that Ken pinstriped and Ed “Big Daddy” Roth auctioned.

These are gigs that came Ken’s way that he included me on. Even the original screenplays we’ve done have tended to be in areas I wouldn’t have ventured (baseball, NASCAR racing) without Ken’s involvement. Until I began to DJ and podcast, my work had always been fiction — pretty much a solo endeavor, and not easy to involve Ken with.

Which is why, all these many years later, it’s a source of great joy to me to see Ken — who has drawn, managed, directed, or supervised for Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks, Spielberg, Marvel, Archie, Cartoon Network, and tons more places — light up like a kid at a Christmas tree when he got his author copies of the published hardcover of Fata Morgana, our first novel together.

However much you envision that finished book — and we had an amazing amount of input on the look & feel of the final product, thanks to the amazingly collaborative approach of our publisher, Blackstone — nothing prepares you for finally holding the thing in your hands. Ken was babbling when he got it.

So, congratulations to my friend Ken. Here’s to another first in our friendship and long collaboration. Cheers, mate!

FATA MORGANA Signings & Readings

Fata Morgana will be out in a few weeks, and Ken Mitchroney & I will be doing signings & readings in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego in the coming month.

We’ll probably add some events, but here’s our schedule so far:

June 10, 2017

SAN FRANCISCO, CA

Borderlands Books

3:00 PM (map)

The official Fata Morgana Launch Party! Reading, signing, interview, and atrocious jokes galore.

June 11, 2017

SAN FRANCISCO, CA

SF in SF

Reading, interview by Terri Bisson. A wonderful series at a great venue.

American Bookbinders Museum

6:30 PM (map)

June 15, 2017

BURBANK, CA

Burbank Library Buena Vista Branch

Reading, signing, discussion

7:00 PM (map)

June 17, 2017

SAN DIEGO, CA

Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore

Signing & discussion

2:00 PM (map)

June 18, 2017

BURBANK, CA

Dark Delicacies Bookstore

Signing

4:00 PM (map)

July 20-23, 2017

SAN DIEGO, CA

San Diego Comic Con

Signing

THURSDAY: 10:00 AM – 2:30 PM

FRIDAY: 10:00 AM – 2:30 PM

SATURDAY: 2:30 PM – 7:00 PM

Location TBA

Photo by Jon Tucker / B-17G courtesy March Field Air Museum

Borderlands Bookstore window

The wonderful folks at Borderlands Bookstore in San Francisco put the very nice poster for Fata Morgana in their front window, looking out on Valencia Street. Thank you, guys!

If you’re in San Francisco and read fantasy, science fiction, or horror, I can’t recommend Borderlands enough. The store itself is pleasant and well-stocked; the adjoining Borderlands Cafe serves outstanding coffee and pastries; staff is amazingly nice, helpful, and knowledgeable; and owner Alan Beatts is one of the most considerate hosts I’ve ever met. (Seriously. He makes me think I was raised wrong, or something.)

Even cooler (well, to me), Borderlands is hosting the Fata Morgana Launch party on June 10 at 3:00 PM.  That’s a full three days before the official release date, so you can get your book — and get it signed by me & my co-author, Ken Mitchroney — before any other bookstore even has it for sale.

So come on down — I’d love to see you!

Goodreads FATA MORGANA Giveaway!

Goodreads is giving away 10 Advance Reader Copies (ARCs) of Fata Morgana, my upcoming novel with Ken Mitchroney.

The giveaway ends May 15, so hurry!

Goodreads Fata Morgana giveaway

 

Name Your Price for ARIEL + 3 Novels – One Week Left!

 

 

I’m delighted that my first novel, Ariel, has been included in a unicorn-themed Humble Bundle curated by Peter S. Beagle, author of the classic The Last Unicorn.

Humble Bundle’s innovative, DRM-free ebook bundles let you name your own price and choose how your money is allocated.  As little as $1.00 gets you  Ariel; Unicorn Mountain, by Michael Bishop; Homeward Bound, by Bruce Coville; and Unicorn Triangle, by Patricia McKillip.

For $8.00 you get five more books, and  $15.00 gets you five more. That’s 14 books for as little as $15.

Proceeds will benefit the World Wide Fund for Nature and Fauna & Flora International., so you can elect to pay more than the minimum prices and still get a fantastic deal while knowing that your money is going to a good cause.

The offer ends Wednesday, May 3, so don’t delay!

Fata Morgana – Sample Audiobook Chapters

For those who like to hear their books, below are the Prologue and first two chapters of the Fata Morgana audiobook, which will be released on June 13, same time as the hardcover & e-book.

Hugely talented, award-winning, and unfairly good-looking actor MacLeod Andrews does the narration (my account of our visit to the recording session at the truly wonderful Deyan Audio is here, and the audio was already listed among Library Journal‘s Notable Releases for June. Yay, Library Journal!

Prologue: download

Chapter One: download

Chapter Two: download

Name Your Price for ARIEL Humble Bundle

The e-book version of my first novel, Ariel, is available on a unicorn-themed Humble Bundle! Proceeds will benefit the World Wide Fund for Nature and Fauna & Flora International

Humble Bundle is an innovative, DRM-free bundle of ebooks you can buy by naming your own price — and you can choose how your money is allocated.

For as little as $1.00, you can get Ariel; Unicorn Mountain, by Michael Bishop; Homeward Bound, by Bruce Coville; and Unicorn Triangle, by Patricia McKillip.

$8.00 gets you five more books. $15.00 gets you five more than that — 14 books for as little as $15. You can elect to pay more than that and still get a fantastic deal while knowing that your money is going to a good cause.

The Humble Bundle offer ends Wednesday, May 3.

I Buzzed My Neighborhood in a B-17

Sometimes my luck is just ridiculous.

Last week my friend (and Fata Morgana co-author) Ken Mitchroney mentioned that his wife, Beth, the Last of the Old School Reporters, would be taking a media flight on a visiting B-17G bomber, the Aluminum Overcast. There are literally only 12 of these still flying, and opportunities to go gallivanting in one aren’t hugely common. Especially for free, and especially for writers who have a novel about one coming out in three months.

So I was totally joking, only I wasn’t, but I was, really (not), when I said, “Well, heck, Beth’s gonna need a photographer, then, won’t she?”

“I’ll call you back,” Ken said.

An hour and a couple of email exchanges later: “Okay, you’re in. You’ll be taking shots for Beth’s story.”

Next day I tightened my vintage military seatbelt and felt the runway drop away as the Aluminum Overcast took to the air and flew along the Carquinez Strait — where I live. I shot pix like a madman and headed straight for the bombardier station in the nose. A camera operator from Channel 2 news took this shot with my phone. My house isn’t in the background — but  it’s close.

The weirdest thing about my bomber flight was how familiar it felt.

I have been living, breathing, eating,  and dreaming B-17F bombers and World War II for four friggin years. History books, self-published crew accounts, pilot & belly gunner manuals;  period documentaries, newsreels, and movies; photographs; talks with vets; endless talks and notes and sketches with Ken — everything I could do to make you feel as if you really are on board the B-17F Flying Fortress Fata Morgana along with ten brave scared wisecracking guys for their epic little mission into the unknown.

So even as my heart was pounding and I was thinking omigodthisisthecoolestthing ever, part of the thrill I felt was a sense of vindication. Holy shit, I got it right.

Well, there was one thing.

Those bombers were as analog as it gets. The control cables for the rudder and ailerons run along the fuselage, right by your head. When the bomber hits turbulence, your reflex is to grab the wires to hold yourself steady.  Don’t do that. The pilot needs those for things like turning and going higher and lower.

I wish I’d known about that reflex when the book was being written. It’s just one of those you-are-there details.

This adventure also marked my first-ever newspaper photo credit. Thank you, Ken! Thank you, Beth! Thank you, Experimental Aircraft Association and crew of the Aluminum Overcast!

A gentle reminder

“No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.”

—Stanislaw Jerz