Brian Keene's Blog, page 142

KILL WHITEY for .99 cents

That’s right. My supernatural hard-boiled crime novel, KILL WHITEY, is currently just .99 cents on Kindle, Nook, and iBooks.

CLICK HERE for one stop purchasing.

This is a limited time offer, so download it now!

Don’t like e-books? You can buy it in paperback, as well.

THE HOGBEN CHRONICLES

Long-time readers know I’m a big proponent of readers and writers knowing the genre’s history in order to enjoy and create the genre’s future. One of the biggest pleasures of my now fifteen-year career is the number of teens and twenty-somethings who’ve come up to me at conventions, signings, or online and told me they’ve discovered William Hope Hodgson, Fritz Lieber, Richard Laymon, Karl Edward Wagner, Skipp & Spector, Manly Wade Wellman, etc. through my writing about them. 

Henry Kuttner is another of those authors on my required reading list, especially his “Hogben” series of stories. Some friends of mine have finally collected all of these seminal tales in one volume, with all proceeds going to Kuttner’s estate. The project is on Kickstarter right now. I strongly urge you to take part in this, even if you can only donate a dollar. This is an important book and vital history. But don’t take my word for it. Here are Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore to help twist your arm:

THE HOGBEN CHRONICLES

edited by Pierce Watters and F. Paul Wilson
Introduction by Neil Gaiman
with Art by Steve Parkhouse


The editors and Mr. Gaiman have agreed to sign 600 copies of the various editions.


Beginning today, Borderlands Press is celebrating its first project with Kickstarter! We would like to give you a chance to participate before we advertise to the general public on April 13th.

Thanks you for all your support over the years. This one will be something you will treasure.



Our book is a celebration of a superbly talented writer, highlighting some of the most unique and memorable tales in the SF/fantasy genres. He died WAY too young at the age of 43, and we’ve made sure to gain the full cooperation of the Kuttner estate so that his heirs will share in the proceeds.



He was a very special writer. Here’s what Alan Moore ( From Hell, Watchmen, V for Vendetta, The League of Extraordinary Gentleman)  says of him:

“Henry Kuttner was one of fantasy and science fiction’s most accomplished and intelligent voices, as well as one of its least celebrated. His Hogben family stories are among the most original and certainly the funniest works in the genre, and to have them all finally collected in one volume is nothing short of a dream come true for genuine devotees of imaginative literature. Read this at once, and if you’ve read it already, then read it again. A masterpiece.”

—Alan Moore

To learn more, click this link.

RIDING WITH DAVID SILVA – Guest Blog by Robert Swartwood

I’ve never been a fan of collaboration.

I’m not sure why.

Maybe it’s the fact I’m an only child. If I create something, I want to be in full control. I want to have the final say. I want to be the one and only author.

At least, that’s how it used to be.

Years ago, a friend of mine asked if I wanted to collaborate on a story. I offered up a hesitant maybe. He sent me a few very short stories of his, telling me to read them over and expand or rewrite or do whatever with them if something caught my eye. One story in particular did catch my eye, and I ended up using the basis of the story — the protagonist is an alcoholic who sees monsters, and the more he drinks, the more the monsters go away — and created a completely different story. Seriously, what I ended up with was almost nothing like my friend’s story, but still, we both put our names on it.

That, I thought, was the last time I would ever collaborate.

But then, years later, another opportunity to collaborate came my way. This time it was with David B. Silva, and as he was one of my favorite horror short story writers, there was just no way to pass it up.

It was my idea, actually. I’d been friends with Dave for a while. He had read my stuff and liked it. He had begun putting his backlist on Kindle, and while he was having some success, none of it was earth-shattering. His web presence wasn’t very large. He had a website and blogged every once in a while, but nothing to bring traffic his way.

So I proposed an idea.

What if we collaborated on a novella or short novel, a sort of blog-to-blog serialization? We would come up with a basic storyline. The first week, I would write the first chapter and post it on my website, say on Friday. Then the following week Dave would write his chapter and post it on his website. We would do this back and forth until the story was done. The idea was each writer would not know what the next chapter would be until that following Friday, and then they would have a week to come up with the next chapter. The fun would be that, while there was a basic storyline, there would be no outline. We would literally be making it up as we went along.

As it turned out, Dave was all for the idea of collaboration, but he wasn’t so enthusiastic about the blog-to-blog serialization. At least not until we’d had enough of an idea where we wanted to take the story. He didn’t want to commit to a project he wasn’t sure he could continue (even then, over a year ago, he knew his health was failing), and suggested we at least get a few chapters written and out of the way. You know, a nice head start.

Dave, of course, was a very wise man. While initially I wanted to have fun with the project, Dave wanted to take it a little more seriously. Which, as it turned out, was for the best.

I’ve never been one for outlining. All my outlining gets down in my head before I start a new book. I know where I’m going to start and I know where I’m going to end, but the other stuff — you know, the meat of the story — usually presents itself to me as I go along.

Here, though, I needed to create an outline. Or at the very least sketch a rough map. So here’s what we did:

I wrote the first chapter and sent it to Dave along with a brief outline for the next chapter.

Dave gave me notes on the first chapter, wrote the second chapter, and sent everything back to me.

I incorporated his notes, made notes on his chapter, wrote my chapter, and then sent the new chapter along with an outline for the next chapter.

It went like this more or less for over a year. Which is a pretty long time, considering the end result ended up being just under 40,000 words. But this was far from being our main project. I was working on stuff. Dave was working on stuff. We worked on the book when we had free time. In fact, there were times when weeks would go by without getting any work done. One time, Dave set his chapter aside to come back to later, and nearly a month went by before I asked him if everything was okay, and he said oops, sorry, and sent his chapter along.

Could we have had a better collaborating routine? Certainly. Brian collaborates with many different writers. In fact, a lot of my writer friends collaborate. I’m sure that there’s no set rule on how to do it. I always find it fascinating to hear the different ways writers collaborate on their projects. No two is ever alike. So I can’t say Dave and I were doing it wrong. We were just doing it our way.

While the story was primarily mine, Dave still brought his own sensibilities to the project. In an early chapter, one of the men on the run leaves a ten-dollar gold piece at the mercantile in a deserted town. He and his friend were taking supplies from the mercantile, and the character was leaving the gold piece as payment.

I asked Dave why this character would do this, when he could easily just take the supplies.

Dave said he believed the character was honest enough to want to pay despite there being no one around.

I said, okay, fair enough. And you know what? The gold piece came into play later in the book.

That isn’t the only example of Dave’s hand in the story, of course, but it’s the first one that comes to mind.

Dave and I had many conversations about not only the book, but writing in general. He noted something in my writing that I had been doing — what, he said, was probably unconscious — and it opened my eyes and helped me become a stronger writer. Even Dave, after all these years of writing and editing, admitted he was still learning as we worked on the project.

And yet, when we were done, we still weren’t done.

We received great feedback from others, like Jack Ketchum and Paul Goblirsch of Thunderstorm Books, which helped us make the book stronger and be the best book it could be.

As most of you know, Dave passed last month. I’m happy that he was still alive when the limited edition of Walk the Sky was released. Unfortunately, he never got a chance to see the ebook or paperback.

While we were working on Walk the Sky, I told Dave I planned to put his name first on the byline. He said absolutely not. The story was mainly mine, and he was just along for the ride.

Well, I don’t know about him, but I had a great time working with Dave on this project.

It was, in fact, an honor and privilege to ride with him.

* * *

Walk the Sky is now available as a paperback and as an ebook in the Kindle store (and the UK Kindle store) at a special introductory price of 99 cents.

EXTREME ZOMBIES

Paula Guran edits this new zombie anthology, which, in my honest opinion, is probably the best, most representative reprint collection of zombie stories in the last decade.

Includes my story “Captive Hearts, as well as classics by Joe R. Lansdale, Elizabeth Massie, Brian Hodge, Edward Lee, George R.R. Martin, Nancy Collins, David Schow, Yvonne Navarro, Cody Goodfellow, Tim Waggoner, Norman Partridge, and many more.

$11 in paperback. Or download to your Kindle for just $6.99.

The Slow Death of the American Author

“It seems almost every player — publishers, search engines, libraries, pirates and even some scholars — is vying for position at authors’ expense… The value of copyrights is being quickly depreciated, a crisis that hits hardest not best-selling authors like me, who have benefited from most of the recent changes in bookselling, but new and so-called midlist writers.“

Things To Come

Update on works in progress, lifetimers, manuscript submissions, etc. 

FINISHED BUT NOT YET PUBLISHED: Masters of the Universe: The Origin of Hordak, and all five issues of The Last Zombie: The End. Also,The Rising: Uncut Anniversary Edition is in the hands of my pre-readers. As soon as they are done with it, I’ll incorporate their edits and then send it off to Deadite Press (who will be publishing the paperback and digital editions) and Thunderstorm Books (who will be publishing the hardcover edition as part of this year’s Maelstrom set). Pre-reader Tod Clark already turned his edits in. I’m just waiting on Stephen ‘Macker’ McDornell and Mark ‘Dezm’ Sylva. So blame them.  

WORKS CURRENTLY IN PROGRESS (in various stages of completion, but being actively worked on): The Lost Level, Hole In The World, and Blood On The Page: The Complete Short Fiction of Brian Keene Volume One. I’m also currently co-writing an as-yet-untitled novel with Jack Ketchum, Edward Lee, Bryan Smith, Wrath James White, J.F. Gonzalez, Nate Southard, Shane McKenzie, and Ryan Harding.

WORKS ON THE BACK-BURNER (to be completed once the works mentioned above are finished): Suburban Gothic, The Labyrinth, Book One: The Seven, High Plains Clickers, a top secret ongoing comic series for one of the Big Two, and two untitled Levi Stolzfus novellas.

LIFETIME SUBSCRIBERS: Expect another shipment next month (May).

MANUSCRIPT CRITIQUES: Most have been sent back and received. Writers still waiting on their manuscript critiques should see those over the next few weeks. Am spending this weekend and next weekend typing up the commentary for those.

24 Hours After Kindle

I own somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 books. Hardcover, paperback, trade paperback, and graphic novels. I’m a book snob. I love the smell, the feel, the experience. I like sitting in my chair, sipping bourbon and smoking a cigar and reading a book — and then looking up at all my other books. As a result, although my books are sold across digital platforms, I’ve always resisted taking the e-book plunge.

24 hours ago, I received a Kindle Paperwhite as a gift . . .

. . . and I may have to reconsider this book snob thing.

I’m not a tech-guy. Ask anyone. I still type my novels using Microsoft Word 2003 because I’m afraid to upgrade. I have to call Mike Oliveri or Russ Dickerson just to post a Blog update. I’ve gone through four iPhones in three years. My five-year old son has to show me how to turn on my DVD player and my twenty-two year old son had to set up my X-Box avatar.

So, my first question upon un-boxing my Kindle was how hard would it be to set up? The answer: so easy, even Brian Keene could do it. I simply took the Kindle out of the box, turned it on, and it did the rest. Within five minutes I’d linked to my Wi-Fi network (which my 5-year old helped me install last year) and registered the device with Amazon.

As soon as my account was active, the Kindle gave me a quick tutorial. After that, I bought some books. Now, in the past, I got books in one of three ways: 1. Drive to a bookstore and buy them. 2. Order them online and wait for my inept mailman to deliver them. Maybe. Unless it’s one of those days when he delivers them into the bottom of the river. 3. Get them as gifts from publishers or authors. All three methods are fine, but the Kindle offers a different experience. Literally, in less than five minutes, I’d purchased three books — The Vaccinator by Michael Marshall Smith, Hyenas by Joe Lansdale, and Quicksilver by John Urbancik. All three were easy to find. All three were simple to purchase. And all three took less than a minute to appear on my device. I can’t help but mention that I have complete collections for all three of those gentlemen, so if the book is available in hardcover or paperback, it’s a safe bet that sooner or later, I’ll buy that edition, too.

Five minutes to shop. That gave me extra time to read. And that was when I truly fell in love with my Kindle. I wear bifocals. I am also blind as a fruit-bat. Over the last year, I’ve struggled with headaches that come upon me only when I’m reading. Doesn’t matter if I take my glasses on or off — anytime I read a book or comic or even a newspaper, my head hurts. With the Kindle, I was easily able to adjust the font (and remember, I’m a Luddite so when I say easily, I mean easily). By the time I’d finished Michael Marshall Smith’s book (because I read it in one sitting) there was still no sign of a headache. (I did wake up with one in the middle of the night, but that was due to seasonal allergies and had nothing to do with reading).

I was halfway through Hyenas — just after the bit where Hap and Leonard get a love note from Smoke Stack — when I glanced at the clock and realized it was after midnight. I fell asleep, forgetting to plug in my Kindle to charge, and this morning, there was still plenty of battery life left. Unlike my laptop of my iPhone, which seem to plummet to 5% battery capacity if I leave them on for more than five minutes.

I guess none of this will be news to folks who’ve already taken the digital plunge, but it might be good information for those who, like me, have resisted the e-book revolution. I’ve had a pleasant, easy experience so far, and I can’t wait to finish typing this Blog entry so I can get back to finishing that Lansdale book tonight.

THE LAST ZOMBIE Final Issue Pre-orders

Twitter blew up last week when people read the cliffhanger finale to The Last Zombie: Before the After #5. It blew up again earlier this week when I posted four sneak peeks at The Last Zombie: The End #1 (including the return of Frankie from The Rising series). But those are all just precursors to this, the final issue in the saga. Pre-order now.

The series reaches its horrific conclusion as the surviving team members at long last reach their destination, only to face threats from within and without their ranks. The fate of Ian’s fiancee Jen and the bunker staff is revealed, but will Ian live long enough to learn it?

Welcome Back – (plus Night Shade, and the new Keenedom’s early death) UPDATED

So, this is the new website. New host. New look. New design. New features at both the top of the page and in the sidebar to your right. Let us know what you think (and thanks to Mike Oliveri for all of his hard work).

While the site was down, I received word from the folks at Branch that they are shutting down their Groups feature, which means that The Keenedom 2.0 will be gone next week. But it was fun in the brief time it lasted. If you were a participant, and you enjoyed the discussions, you might want to save a copy of them this weekend. I’m told they’ll be gone on Monday.

Also, while the site was down, the news broke about Night Shade Books. Many of you have asked if I’ll be covering the story here since a) it echoes of what went down with Dorchester, b) I always cover industry news here, and c) Nick Mamatas is taking his genre retirement seriously and hasn’t Blogged about it yet. My answer is no. I won’t be covering it in detail. I may at a later point. But not right now, and my reasons are two-fold. 1. I am overwhelmed with deadlines. Seriously. I’ve been doing this professionally almost 15 years, and I’ve never been busier than I am at this moment. 2. I’ve known Jason and Jeremy for almost 15 years, as well. I was there when they had their first release party for their first book. And I know myself well-enough to know that there’s no way I can be an impartial observer on this story. While I do think it’s a shitty situation overall, and that Skyhorse’s offer is laughably bad, I don’t believe that Jason and Jeremy acted with the calculated malfeasance and fuckery that Dorchester’s higher-ups engaged in. I think they just got caught in that symphony of destruction that took place in publishing a few years back (the closure of Borders, etc.), and now they’re between a rock and a very hard place. I’ll also admit that I could be wrong about this.* (See update below) I don’t have all the facts, and am simply going with my gut. It’s a terrible situation all around — for the authors, the publisher, and the readers caught in-between. I wish everyone the best. And as someone who had to fight Dorchester for his rights tooth and nail, and went bankrupt in the process, I hope there is a speedy resolution. But yeah, fuck that Skyhorse offer.

Okay, I guess I commented on it a little bit after all.

UPDATE: I was wrong after all. A few hours after posting this, I’ve been shown some things and given access to things from multiple sources that seems to verify that this was more than just a case of the same trials and tribulations that impacted so many other publishers. Which makes this suck all the more.

And now, I guess Night Shade’s authors are looking at a long and drawn out rights battle, regardless of whether it’s Skyhorse or bankruptcy. I managed to get my rights back from Dorchester by waiving all money they owed me in exchange for a complete and immediate reversion of my rights. A few other authors did the same thing. Our reasoning was that Dorchester was so far in debt, they’d never be able to pay us anyway. And it allowed us to start re-selling our work while many of our peers were still stuck in limbo. I don’t know if such an arrangement would work for any of the authors involved here. But I can certainly empathize with their authors, having gone through this exact same scenario, and knowing how livid and gutted and demoralized and bitter I feel about it still, even to this day.

Never get a job writing fiction professionally, kids. Stay in school. Learn Systems Administration or Accounting or HVAC Repair instead.

 

 

Moving

We are switching web-hosting providers and redesigning the site in the process. Please pardon any hiccups or dust over the next few days.