Nicolas Wilson's Blog: News about the novels and writing of Nicolas Wilson - Posts Tagged "new-release"

Dag follows Dagney Morgan, a sarcastic Department of Agriculture employee with an affinity for paperwork, has a chance run-in with a farmer covered in toxic chemicals, and walks away with a genetically modified baby, along with the seeds of a military-industrial conspiracy. Dagney and her makeshift family scramble to stay ahead of artificial soldiers and megalomaniacal businessmen long enough to reap the truths behind an international web of corruption and intrigue. They also stop for pie, at one point.​




Check back as it gets close to release, for excerpts.

From April 22nd-26th(Earth Day through Arbor Day), Dag will be available for $.99, normally $1.99.

Lots of big news this week. Ghost Dust, a collection containing 15 short stories, and Dag, my first full-length novel are now available.

Check nicolaswilson.com for an updated list of e-tailers carrying my books. Dag hasn't quite made it to Kobo, B & N, etc.

Stay tuned this week for a pile of authorly conversations, while I run down the last of my social energy. I'll probably be pretty cloistered on Nexus for the next few months.

Dag on Amazon
Dag on Smashwords


Ghost Dust on Amazon
Ghost Dust on Smashwords
Ghost Dust on Kobo

Dag is $.99 through April 26th, so grab it while it's cheap! Ghost Dust is as free as I can make it. Feel free to tell Amazon there's lower prices elsewhere, or to grab it from Smashwords or Kobo instead.

Available at his blog. Lots of fun stuff on my favorite parts of writing (including my embarrassing revision habits)

Though anything can inspire the concept, the story and the drive to finish it comes from my characters. Although I write a lot of absurd stuff (I pitched a novel to my wife as "werewolves in space"), it has to be focused on the people living through that concept. It's not just about the big scary werewolf attacking people; it's about the man trapped in a can with a big scary werewolf attacking his friends, with only a ding dong wrapper between him and the vacuum of space, and it's about his friends' claustrophobia as they flee through the confines of the shuttle, their confusion over whether it's right to kill the beast, knowing their friend is still inside it... That monster has to be as real to me as it is to them, or it's just the literary equivalent of a Roger Corman flick- which doesn't sound too bad, actually, but I think without cheesy special effects, Corman just wouldn't be Corman. But I really enjoy getting in their heads. When I'm writing the crisis out, I don't want to stop.

Selected Short Stories Featuring Cinderella Shoes is now available, exclusively from Amazon.

Cinderella Shoes contains 15 short stories, covering several genres and styles. Here's a few of the stories therein:

Stiletto: An exotic dancer struggles to make a living after encountering a murder-in-progress on the job.

Cast: The world is increasingly run by robots, which grow increasingly human.

Analog: An ex-Air Force pilot subsists after a weapon disables all modern technology.

Reformatory: A juvenile delinquent and her roommate mature in the aftermath of a devastating assault.

Capricorn: A man wrecks his life and chases fairy tales, while dealing with his young daughter's impending illness.

It will be free tomorrow, (5/16/13), and $.99 normally. Feel free to share news of the free day, to get it out to people. Anyone who sends me the link to their share, tweet, rt, facebook post, or other reference to it, along with their email and preferred file format, will receive a free copy of an unpublished novella, Dogs of War. Help me get the word out, and score some new reading material!

So if you haven't gotten it from one of the other e-tailers, you can now snag Ghost Dust for free here. So glad Amazon caught up to the rest of us!

Enjoy!

Update: There seems to be an issue with the international Amazon stores' prices, and this price change. International readers, feel free to email me at nicwilson.writer at gmail.com (You know what to do with the at). I'll send you a free copy. Hopefully they'll be able to sort it out, but in the meantime, you can still get it free from other e-tailers, or contact me for a copy.

New Corpse Smell is now available, exclusively from Amazon.

New Corpse Smell features fifteen short stories, including Shades of Cray, Blood Falls, Murder Your Darlings, and the titular New Corpse Smell. Most of the stories are science fiction or action/adventure.

Shades of Cray: The story of the first transracial individual.

Blood Falls: An expedition to the Antarctic goes south, after a rock wall collapses.

Murder Your Darlings: A writer finds himself convinced one of his characters is trying to kill him, after his loved ones start getting hurt.

New Corpse Smell: Observing decomposition.

Enjoy!

Selected Short Stories Featuring Cockfight is now available on Amazon, exclusively. Get it here.


A little about Cockfight:

Cockfight contains fifteen of my earlier short stories. Most of them are pretty dark, quirky, and violent. Genres include horror, mystery, and science fiction. Here's synopses for a few of the stories therein.

Jahannam: A young man pays a ransom for his kidnapped father, and waits at the morgue for news.
Four Degrees Above Freezing: A detective questions a man who found a chilled corpse.
DID Have: Four personalities in the same body reflect on the death of the fifth.
PWI: An astronaut fights with his ship's computer about his habit of getting drunk while piloting.
Cockfight: A rooster, irresistible to hens and humans alike, upsets the pecking order.

It feels great getting the short stories off my "to do" list. Only a few more collections to go, while I work on Nexus. Stay tuned for more quick reading material!

For my second time interviewing with VWI, we focused on Dag, my second novel. Here's a taste.

I tend not to be an author who thinks about themes, which is weird to admit. But I think the themes are never self-evident to me in a story until I’m a draft or two into it....

It’s basically a story at its core about how people need each other, because people who don’t allow themselves to need each other and to help each other become terrible, selfish, basically mutated imitations of human beings.

Read the full interview here.

We're moving right along through Chapter 1! Here's our third installment.

Same as always, this is only a preview. Some of the writing may change after its final visit with the editor.

Expect the full novel around August. Hopefully a bit earlier.

Previously:
Chapter 1, Part 1

Chapter 1, Part 2

Happy reading!

Nexus: Chapter 1, Part 3
We'd been out of the worm-gate a few weeks. The corridors still had that plasticky new ship smell. I killed lots of time walking the halls, because we were weeks away from having anything to do.
I got an incoming message on my HUD, from SecDiv. Her image, name and rank popped up on my eyescreen, Lieutenant Louise Templeton. It was strange seeing her at that rank. She'd been a sergeant when I was worked with her in SecDiv, what felt like several lifetimes ago. We’d been in love, as madly as two people ever were. It ended… incompletely. I hadn't seen her in years before the voyage. She didn't know I was up for a spot on the Nexus, and I hadn't known about her. It was a coincidence she ended up my head of SecDiv- unless it was somebody in the company’s idea of a sick joke.
I pulled her into the corner of my eyescreen. Her dark hair was pulled back in a bun in a way that made her seem more severe than she was- though she could be severe.
She was first on my personality compatibility matrix, and seventh for genetic compatibility; since it was a generational ship, they built those matrices during crew selection to make sure we wouldn’t get out past Jupiter before everybody realized they had no intention of boning anybody else. I hadn't had the computer build a composite, but I suspected we would have beautiful, disturbingly brilliant children- though I wasn’t sure if either of us wanted that.
“LT? What's happening?” I realized only after answering that I'd called her by her initials, LT like 'melty,' like I used to, and hoped she could confuse it with a recitation of her rank- we were still a ways away from being back to friendly.
“I've got a situation developing. An ensign's setting off the decibel sensors in the corridor, trying to blow the drums out of one of my SecOff's ears. I'm on the bridge, or I'd handle it myself.”
“And SecDiv's gone a whole week without bloodying a crew member.”
“That, too,” she said with a smile. “Just down the hall from your twenty- location.” I wasn’t far enough out of the security services I’d forgotten my ten codes, but it had probably been a while since she’d worked security for someone with my background.


Check back next week for another excerpt or join my mailing list

We're half done with Chapter 1! Here's the fourth installment.

Same as always, this is only a preview. Some of the writing may change after its final visit with the editor.

Expect the full novel in August.

Previously:
Chapter 1, Part 1

Chapter 1, Part 2

Chapter 1, Part 3
Happy reading!

Nexus: Chapter 1, Part 4


I adjusted my cochlear implant, just enough to eavesdrop. “Yeah, I hear him now. Jesus. That's some Paleolithic caveman shit he's flinging. Are we sure it isn’t a particularly nasty chimpanzee someone released out of SciDiv?”
“…maybe if you'd allowed the baby's daddy to be in the picture, but you chose to be a single mother…” I rounded the corner, and he was there, looming over the SecOff, spittle suspended in the air before it smacked across the wall and the woman.
I stepped between them, and puffed out my chest to be sure the augmented reality sensors in his HUD would pull up my name and rank so he knew who he was dealing with. “Do I have to explain this situation to you, son?” His lip curled into a snarl he failed to hide. “You're being a dick; worse, you're being a misogynistic, irrational dick, and it's fucking with my morale. First off, you're going to apologize.”
“Like fuck I will.”
“You will apologize, or I will fire you out the nearest airlock for insubordination.” My HUD mapped the direct route to the airlock, and I shared it with his HUD.
Anger and surprise flashed across his eyes, and for a second I thought he'd take a swing at me. But he'd heard the stories, and realized that I was likely more trouble than the SecOff, so he mumbled a quiet, “Sorry.”
I turned to SecOff Santiago. My HUD pulled up too much of her psychological history; I hadn’t acclimated to having executive clearances, or maybe I hadn’t set my preferences properly. Before I could stop myself, I read the words, “abusive father.” I thought that it put her reaction to being screamed at by this chauvinist prick in perspective, but I’ve known enough people with that history to know better than to think it’s that linear a correlation. “You’re dismissed,” I told her.
“I can handle this, sir,” she said, defiant.
“It’s not a security issue any more. It’s an administrative one.” Her eyes went wide. His didn’t, because he hadn’t the sense to be afraid.
She glanced at the Ensign, and I saw that for a moment I was sharing his file with her. He had no combat experience to speak of. She knew enough of my reputation that she didn’t query my files before deciding I could handle him myself, and walked away.
“Now I don't care if mommy was a bad lady with a weakness for swallowing the seed of the wrong kind of men, I don't care if the love of your life decided to get a sex change and start dating farm animals. The particular why behind your numbfuckery is beyond my purview, but you're going to have a nice long talk with the therapists about why you're such a fuckstick. Toddle on down to PsychDiv, or the next meet-up you have with SecDiv will include the press of boots in your neck.”
He gave the weakest salute I'd ever seen and spun on his heels. “Impressive as always,” SecDiv said over my implant. I'd forgotten she was still on the line.
“I should get a hold of PsychDiv, let them know to expect the 1400s knocking on their door.” There was the hint of a smile on her face, then a click as she ended the conversation and disappeared from my eyescreen.
The SecOff had made it around the corner and was leaning against the wall, trying to compose herself. “You all right?” I asked.
“I was handling it, sir,” she said. She wanted to punch me as bad as the Ensign.
“It's not your job to suffer fools.” She sighed, then noticed the tension in my jaw, and realized what I meant by that. She nodded, and kicked off the wall. I might have been worried, if she'd been heading towards the Ensign, but he was going the other way, scurrying back to PsychDiv.


Check back next week for another excerpt or join my mailing list to be notified when Nexus is available for purchase.