Michael McClung's Blog, page 19

Villette & Vampires

For those of you fortunate enough never to have been forced to read Charlotte Bronte's Villette, it's um, boring. Really, really boring. I say this not because I am spiteful, but because it is true. It's not bad. It's not awful. It's just really, really boring.

Don't worry, though, because I've decided to fix that for you. In the grand (?) tradition of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, Android

Today I Am Lucky

I like to spend time on other writer's blogs - this should come as no surprise, really. One site I especially like is the Night Shade Books blog, The Night Bazaar, as the blog entries aren't churned out by some underpaid junior editor or unpaid intern, but by Night Shade's author's themselves.

So when Thomas Roche put up a meditative post about zombies, I left a comment. I do that sometimes. I

My new, new favorite number: 10,154

According to the numbers available to me, Thagoth's record low ranking on Amazon was #428,352 back on July 15th. Now I know it has been lower than that; the book's been around a good long while, and there were vast stretches of time - months - where not a single copy was sold. But the data made available to me only goes back to June 16th.

Last night I visited Belinda Frisch's blog (an excellent

The Big Book of New Short Horror is almost here

I received my galley for BBNSH (seriously, I'm not gonna type 'the Big Book of New Short Horror' more than I have to, ok?), and it really is big: 58 stories. 354 pages.

Luckily I only had to proofread the six pages of my story.

So I have to admit, I'm a little nervous about this anthology. The first story, ('Twilight' by Ron Koppelberger) is a fine flash fiction story- just a

TOC (Table of Contents) for 'The Trigger Reflex':

From editor Mile Boothe:
28 Stories * 13 Returning to the Hunt * 15 New BloodThe Trigger Reflex1. Night and Day by Michael McClung
2. Hunting Vengence by Steven Gepp
3. Iron Bells by *Joshua Reynolds
4. The Pretty Ones by Angel Propps
5. The Shomer Express by Edward Erdlac
6. Rancho Diablo by *John Whalen
7. Blood Red by *Thom Brannan.
8. 'Til the Sun is in the Sky by *Rob Pegler. 
9. Alpha by *

I've no idea what it means

...but 'The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye' has been downloaded 108 times on Smashwords, and 97 times on Scribd. At least one person whom I have never met read it and liked it (hi Julia!) so I can already call the experiment a success.

Of course I've no real idea if it has bumped sales for Thagoth, as I don't get sales info until Random House sees fit to send me a sales statement (supposedly

Just in case you're interested

I know I said I was out of office, but I decided to do some more writing-related work (not actual writing, mind you, but still).

I have been avoiding doing anything on smashwords because of the formatting and uploading process, affectionately (?) called, both by those who created it and those who use it, 'the meatgrinder'. It just sounded like  a lot of bother for someone as short on patience

Out of Office

I'll be going offline for a few days (until Wednesday latest), as I try to finish up some writing.

I've been trying to do some promotion for my writing, and have made some concrete steps (Joined Goodreads, set up an author facebook page, got Thagoth featured on the-cheap.net's facebook page, set up a twitter acount). But this is a marathon, not a sprint, and the most important thing is writing.

Free Fantasy/Sci Fi Friday

Here are a few free fantasy/sci fi ebooks available from the kindle store. Please note, unless I mention otherwise, I've no  idea if the are stellar or if they stink up the joint :)

Swashbuckling Fantasy: 10 Thrilling Tales of Magical Adventure(Except I believe it's not all 10, just a sampler)
Bright of the Sky (Book 1 of the Entire and the Rose)(Lots of good reviews...)
The Unsuspecting Mage (

Oh, how I wanted to like you

It was free. One shouldn't complain about free, right?

Wrong.

If someone gives you a gift, and you open up the box, and there's a steaming turd inside, you are allowed to complain.

I'm not saying David Dalglish's The Weight of Blood is a steaming turd. It's not. It's just not very good, and it has some serious problems.

Top three reasons I won't finish reading it:

3. When someone in an epic