Joshua Reynolds's Blog, page 64

WIP Wednesday (February Edition)

Another month, another project. That’s how it feels sometimes. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good feeling, but man…it’s only February, and my schedule is chock full of interesting things, all demanding my attention. If you’re interested in hearing about that sort of thing, by all means read on.

At the end of January, I finished what is likely to be my last Executioner novel, which sees Mack Bolan face off against Somali pirates, mercenaries and the representatives of a number of criminal organizations aboard a solar-powered super yacht in the Gulf of Aden. I had a lot of fun writing this one, for all that it was a bittersweet experience. I greatly enjoyed writing my other entries in the series–#408:��Border Offensive, #429: Arctic Kill��and #441:��Murder Island–and I’m more than a bit sad that I won’t get to write the others I was contracted for. Still, I got to write four books in one of the longest running men’s adventure series in the history of the genre, and that’s more than most folks.

When February rolled around, I started a my second novel-length project of 2015, this one for Black Library. Unfortunately, I can’t say anything about this one, other than it’s BIG and that I’m still working on it.

Once that’s finished, I’ll be endeavoring to complete the third Royal Occultist novel,��The Infernal Express.��This one is pretty much done, bar the climactic final sequence, which is a nice change of pace from last year, when work on��The Jade Suit of Death��started late and ran two months longer than I had hoped. Granted, the latter was��mostly��due to the extensive rewrites (something I may, or may not, write about later) that book required, but still.

At any rate, when the contracted projects are wrapped up, I’m hoping to squeeze out a few months to work on��The Sea Leopard,��a fantasy novel I’ve had bubbling away in the back of my head for a few years now. It’s a second world fantasy novel, with a setting analogous to Renaissance Italy, and the Mediterranean, full of mercenaries, pirates, skulduggery and espionage. More about this later, hopefully.

On the short fiction front, I’ve made a number of submissions so far this year–fourteen, as a matter of fact. Of those, four stories have been accepted, and another four have been rejected, if you were curious. Three were submitted in the past week, and I have another five anthology invitations to get to before the year’s end.

And as far as works-in-progress on the go, that’s the lot.

Shark-Peek

Last year, editor (and Steampunk maestro) Jonathan Green contacted me about contributing a story to his anthology,��Sharkpunk, coming later this year from Snow Books. Intrigued by the idea of writing something shark-related, I dashed off a story called “Deep Red Bells” which sees the Royal Occultist, Charles St. Cyprian and his assistant, Ebe Gallowglass, confront a ghostly menace at the seaside. Much to my delight, the editor accepted my tale of prehistoric selachiian possession.

From the blurb:

Sharks ��� the ultimate predators, masters of their watery domain, a world that is entirely alien and inhospitable to man. So many aspects of the shark are associated with humankind���s most primal fears. The tell-tale dorsal fin slicing through the water, the dead eyed-stare, the gaping jaws full to unforgiving teeth, the remorseless drive to kill and feed���

Inspired by such classic pulp movies as��Jaws��and��Deep Blue Sea����� as well as such ludicrous delights as��Sharknado��and��Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus����� the stories contained within are rip-roaring page-turners and slow-build chillers that celebrate all things savage, pulp and selachian.

Covering the whole range of speculative fiction genres, from horror and Steampunk, through to SF and WTF, these are stories with bite!

It you’re on Twitter, feel free to��follow @Sharkpunked and share the handle on #ff Follow Friday. Also, if you ever happen to Tweet about Sharkpunk, please use the hashtag��#Sharkpunk.��Sharkpunk also has its own Facebook page, which you can access here. The anthology will be out in 2015.

An Ill Considered Expedition

I’m pleased to announce that I’ve sold a short story, “An Incident at the Plateau of Tsang”, to��Ill-Considered Expeditions, a forthcoming anthology from April Moon Books (publishers of��Dark Rites of Cthulhu). ��“An Incident…” is a grim little story, with a singularly horrific protagonist, on an equally horrific journey to the eponymous plateau. I won’t go into the why’s and wherefores of that journey, save to say that it is, like many things I have written of late, Lovecraftian in nature.��

“An Incident…” is set in Outer Mongolia in the 1920s. It’s loosely based on the atrocious career of Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, an anti-Bolshevik Russian officer-turned-warlord, who rose to power in the aftermath of the Russian Civil War and ran riot across Mongolia for a few bloody years until his death at the hands of his own officers. While the protagonist of my story isn’t Ungern-Sternberg, they’re of a type: brutal men, determined to achieve their ends by any means necessary…even if that means bargaining with the devilish inhabitants of a hidden city.

Ill-Considered Expeditions��will be available from April Moon Books in Spring 2015.

 

Weird Heroes

My second fictive offering of 2015, “Hairy Shanks”, is now available for all interested parties thanks to the good people at Pro Se Press. It’s the first installment in the ‘WEIRD HEROES’ series–a series which I hope will prove to be a very successful entry in Pro Se’s Single Shot Signatures line.

From the blurb:

When a worker is savagely attacked in the Thames section of the London Tunnel Authority, Charles St. Cyprian, in his role as Royal Occultist, is summoned. He, along with his apprentice Ebe Gallowglass, are no strangers to the unusual and terrifying, but find themselves tackling something neither expected. A phantom of such savage power that it absolutely in no way is or was ever human. Charles St. Cyprian faces a haunting most primal when he faces Hairy Shanks!

As mentioned above, “Hairy Shanks” is the first installment in the WEIRD HEROES series, and it features the Royal Occultist, Charles St. Cyprian. Further installments will feature different protagonists, including old favorites like the American Automaton, Mr. Brass, the Ghost Breaker, John Bass as well as a few new, never before seen heroes,��all of whom fit the sobriquet ‘weird’, all written by yours truly. There’ll be a new installment every three months or thereabouts, making for four all new, never before published short stories a year.

“Hairy Shanks” is available to download via Amazon.com and Smashwords.

Murder Island

I love that title. No lie.

Murder Island��will be my third Executioner novel (writing under the aegis of Don Pendleton), and that title could not be more appropriate. Lots of murder, one island, this August.��

From the blurb:

On an uncharted island in the Indian Ocean, a psychotic hunter stalks the most dangerous prey: man. His newest target is an international arms dealer, a criminal who was in CIA custody when his plane was shot down. Sent in to locate the missing prisoner, Mack Bolan finds himself caught in the same trap.

But Bolan isn’t the only one trying to secure the arms dealer. A team of mercenaries has joined the game, and they’re playing to win. Hunted by the mercs, a psychopath’s army and the island’s deadly animal life, Bolan will need every tactic in his arsenal to recapture the prisoner and put an end to a maniac’s big game hunt.

I’m going to be honest here–this one was a lot of fun to write. Mack Bolan fights a tiger AND a saltwater crocodile (not at the same time…though now that I think about it, that was a missed opportunity), as well as the most hard luck mercenaries in the world.

I may also have taken a few liberties with the laws of man and physics.

Anyway, Murder Island��will be out in August, available in all finer bookstores and online retailers, including Amazon.

And the First Story of 2015 is…

Drum roll please…

“Evil Fruit”, appearing in the��Monk Punk/Shadow of the Unknown��Omnibus, courtesy of Hazardous Press and editor Aaron J. French.

“Evil Fruit”��sees the soldier-turned-monk (and time-traveler) Bartolomeo Corsi descending into the depths of a cursed monastery in order to confront a horror out of black eons. The story itself is an homage to some of my favorite writers, including Ellis Peters, Brian Lumley, and William Hope Hodgson.

It’s also yet another tie-in to one of my favorite Lovecraftian stories, “The Shadow Out of Time”. I’ve written three other stories with a similar connection–“The Pnakotic Puzzle”, “The Romero Transference” and “Time’s Black Gulf”. All of those stories (including “Evil Fruit”) take place in the same shared universe, by the by. If you were keeping track of that sort of thing, I mean.

The book is available via Amazon, in both print and Kindle format.

STATION IDENTIFICATION 2015

Welcome to my little corner of the internet. My name is Josh Reynolds and I’m a freelance author, which is to say that I make things up for a living. It’s not a bad way to make a buck, all things considered.

I have been a professional author since 2007, and I have written and sold a number of novels in that time, some relating to media tie-in franchises, including Gold Eagle’s Executioner line and Games Workshop’s Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000 lines.  I have also written and sold a number of shorter fiction pieces, including short stories and novellas. An up-to-date list of my published work can be found on this very site.

Said site is a way station of sorts-a central hub for shameless self-promotion, if you will. While in my past attempts at maintaining a regular social media presence I endeavored to update daily, or weekly, the truth of the matter is, I simply don’t have that much to say, and I’d rather spend my time writing about dragons and space marines than writing about the latest hot topic. I make it a point not to talk politics or religion (unless it’s in a pub, and you’ve bought me a beer), and I try not to comment on matters that don’t concern me directly (unless it’s in a pub, and you’ve bought me a beer). This isn’t to say that I won’t occasionally share an unasked for opinion here (or in a pub, after you’ve…you get the idea.), but it’ll be a rare thing, I’m afraid. Still, if you want to know more about me, I have been interviewed several times.

Should you wish to contact me for whatever reason, I can be reached via a number of social media outlets, including About.me, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Goodreads, and Linkedin. I can also be reached via the comments section of this site, and I encourage you to do so.

Too, I’m more than happy to answer any questions you might have about something I’ve written. Unfortunately I cannot read your fan-fiction, unpublished novel or short story. I also cannot give you writing advice, put you in touch with my editor or introduce you to another author.

All that said, I hope you visit often, go safely, and leave behind some of the happiness you bring.

Dare You Solve…The Pnakotic Puzzle?

As 2014 comes to a close, what better way to celebrate than with some Yogsothery? Issue 33 of the Lovecraft eZine is now available, courtesy of its editor, Mike Davis, and features work by a whole host of names, including Peter Rawlik, Robert M. Price and myself. 

My story, “The Pnakotic Puzzle”, sees Charles St. Cyprian, the Royal Occultist, and his assistant, Ebe Gallowglass, do battle with a sinister man in black as well as a horror out of the darkest reaches of deep time. The story has connections to several other stories of mine, including “The Yoth Protocols”, “Time’s Black Gulf” and “The Romero Transference”, the latter two of which will be published in 2015.

Issue 33 of the Lovecraft eZine is available to read for free on the site. Kindle and print versions are soon to follow, but why not stop by and read the stories when you have a moment this holiday, and maybe leave a comment or two? Both the editor and the authors and artists would appreciate it.

The Hairy Hands of Bento (Box)

The newest issue of Mysteria Press’ free semi-regular anthology, Bento Box, is now available for download, and, among a wealth of other stories, it includes “Hairy Hands”, a new (sort of) Royal Occultist story. Keen-eyed fans might recognize this story as the prologue for the new Royal Occultist novel, Jade Suit of Death, just cleaned up a bit for singles competition, so to speak. Regardless, why not go grab a copy of Bento Box today?

Two New (Advent) Reviews

Over at the Track of Words review blog, Michael Dodd has kindly taken it into his head to review this year’s Advent offerings from Black Library, including my two entries. 

From the review of “Repairer of Ruin”:

…it’s a twenty-minute slab of pure fun, the ever-impressive voice cast bringing Fabius to maniacal, egotistical life as he chatters away more or less to himself even while he’s busy killing Sons of Horus.

From the review of “Enyalius, In Memoriam”:

Short, sweet and standalone, this shows a slightly different side to the World Eaters to how they’re usually portrayed.

Why not go check out those, as well as the rest of the Advent reviews? And if you liked what you read, why not pop over to the Black Library site and download one or both?