Michael Patrick Hicks's Blog, page 57

CONSUMPTION Is An Award Nominee!

I’m a few days late in reporting this, but over the weekend I learned that Consumption has been nominated for a 2015 Independent eBook Award in the categories of Best Short Story and Best Horror in this year’s eFestival of Words.

You can check out the complete list of nominees here. This is a peer-nominated program, so if whoever nominated me is reading this, thank you so much for enjoying Consumption and thinking so highly of it. I’m glad the work stuck with you!

I know it’s probably a bit cheesy, but the phrase “it’s an honor just being nominated” is certainly apt, and I cannot even begin to express how incredible it is to find my name alongside a bunch of other writer’s whose work I enjoy and admire. Somehow I am getting lumped in with the likes of Hugh Howey, David Gatewood, Jason Gurley, William Meikle, Carol Davis, Joe Konrath, Joseph Nassise, Lindsay Buroker, Iain Rob Wright, Therin Knite, and so many others. This is a ridiculous thrill for me!

Award winners will be announced in August, which gives readers plenty of time to devour my ‘Chopped by way of Lovecraft’ culinary-horror aperitif. You can find it on Amazon for purchase or borrowing through Kindle Unlimited or the Kindle Owners Lending Library now.

Now Available: Weapons of Mass Deception by David Bruns

I had the pleasure of reading Weapons of Mass Deception earlier this month, and really enjoyed what David Bruns and J.R. Olson did here. It’s a finely-tuned military thriller on the bleeding-edge of today’s global politics. There’s a great deal of action, and most of all, heart, with solid characters across the board. You can read my review of this title here, check out their press release below, and order a copy of this just-released title at Amazon right now.

Happy weekend reading!

TWIN CITIES VETERANS RELEASE MILITARY THRILLER ABOUT NUCLEAR TERRORISM

Iranian nuclear program, rogue intelligence operatives, Navy SEALs – all with a Minnesota touch.

U.S. Navy veterans David Bruns and J. R. Olson have released their co-authored military thriller, Weapons of Mass Deception. Based on the premise that Saddam Hussein really did possess nuclear weapons–which he smuggled into Iran before the 2003 US invasion of Iraq–their story weaves historical fact and technical accuracy about military operations into a tale that could be ripped from today’s headlines. Both authors are long-time residents of the Twin Cities Metro and their novel features local landmarks in some of the key chapters.

Bruns, a former US Navy submarine officer and corporate executive with a science fiction series to his name, provided much of the writing, publishing, and marketing expertise to their creative joint venture. Olson’s 25-year career as a naval intelligence officer specializing in human intel or HUMINT, took him to war zones in Somalia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Afghanistan, and the Persian Gulf, as well as a stint as the US Naval Attaché to Finland. His experiences helped to build the plot for Weapons of Mass Deception and ensured technical realism in their storytelling.

Bob Mayer, West Point graduate, former Green Beret, and New York Times bestselling author, states: “These two Navy veterans have put together a ripping yarn about modern-day nuclear terrorism. I was hooked from the very first page.”

Both Bruns and Olson are graduates of the United States Naval Academy and the idea for their partnership grew out of an April 2014 speaking engagement to the Minnesota chapter of the Naval Academy Parent’s Association where they were invited to talk about their careers. At the conclusion of their respective stories, a member of the audience suggested the two collaborate on a novel.

Now, one year later, Weapons of Mass Deception is available in print and ebook at Amazon.com (http://bit.ly/buy-wmd) and at BN.com (http://bit.ly/WMD-on-BN). For more information, visit www.davidbruns.com.

Promo Postmortem

This post is going to look pretty heavily at the business end of my writing affairs, so if this is of no concern to you, feel free to move on (no hard feelings!).

               

Last week, my latest novel, Emergence, released. This one is a sequel to my prior novel, Convergence, and I thought I could use the nature of this series as a solid base to build my audience. So, my promotional efforts were largely focused on Convergence, since it’s Book 1, rather than the newly published sequel – although, Emergence did get some central attention in a few areas.

The Interviews

In order to ramp things up a bit, a few writer friends, some of whom were also collaborators on the No Way Home anthology, were kind enough to interview me for their blogs – and, by all means, check out their work as well!

Nadine Matheson at Spectrum Books: http://www.spectrumbooks.co.uk/#!Spectrum-Books-interviews-Michael-Patrick-Hicks/cu6k/55462a000cf24874170861ad

SW Fairbrother: http://swfairbrother.com/reading/author-interview-michael-patrick-hicks/

Ted Cross: http://tedacross.blogspot.com/2015/05/interview-with-author-michael-patrick.html

The ARC and Reviews

Here’s where things got a little more difficult.

I had hoped to launch Emergence with a handful of reviews (I had hoped for between 5 and 10), but the final ebook files came in a little bit later than I had anticipated and I was really itching to make my May 4 launch date. This only gave my reviewers and newsletter subscribers, who all got a free ARC, maybe an entire week to read and write their reviews. And that was if they all dropped everything to help me out, which is a pretty unfair and unrealistic expectation.

Next time around, I’ll plan on getting ARCs out sooner and shifting the release window if necessary. Although I didn’t hit my hoped-for numbers I did get four reviews pretty early on, which were spread out between May 6 – 8, and the early response has been very positive. I know there’s also at least one more on the way soon, too.

You can check out the reviews at Amazon and the blogs of Franklin Kendrick and Books & Such. I’m truly grateful for their kind sentiments and their help in spreading the word!

As an added bonus, Emergence even got picked up as Book of the Week (May 8 – 15) by SciFI365.net, an honor granted upon Convergence back in December. Very cool!

The Promotional Nitty-Gritty

In an effort to drive more readers toward these two books, I ran a week-long free run on Convergence and priced Emergence at 99c. A short while back, I made the decision to make Amazon my exclusive retailer so I could try out KDP Select.

One of the big perks of KDP is the Kindle Countdown, as well as the option of setting a free run. I also layered a few advertisements, kicking the week off with freebooksy on Monday, and bargainbooksy on Tuesday for Emergence. In between, there were ads in Book Barbarian, Betty BookFreak, SciFi365.net, and assorted others sites via eBookBooster.

The freebooksy advertisement on Convergence paid off immediately, with “sales” climbing throughout the day and hitting a peak of 2,889 downloads. The drop-off in sales from there was pretty steady as the week wore on, but the book was still getting downloaded for free into the early hours of Saturday morning before Amazon was able to revert the title back to its normal price in all regions.

I’m really happy with the results of the free promo, and by week’s end nearly 7,000 copies had been downloaded. The promo also helped push Convergence into some foreign territories for the very first time, with buyers popping up in Germany, France, India, Brazil, Australia, and even one in Italy and Japan! Safe to say, this is the largest reach my debut has enjoyed to date.

On the ranking end of things, these downloads pushed Convergence into the #44 slot in Amazon’s Top 100 Free store, and landed it in the #1 slot for both the Science Fiction category, as well as the Cyberpunk and Hard Science Fiction subcategories.

Emergence also performed above my expectations, which I admittedly tend to keep pretty low, particularly since I’m pretty new to the indie author game. Although the click-through rate between those who bought Convergence and also bought Emergence was very low, the sales were satisfactory enough. In fact, during this week-long release window, Emergence actually outsold the entire first year’s worth of Convergence sales.

Emergence started out strong on Monday with an even 60 sales. Tuesday, though, actually outperformed this, which I’m chalking up to the bargainbooksy ad. Unfortunately, sales had a pretty steep fall-off from there, dropping nearly by half every day following. Tuesday was the high-water mark with 69 paid sales, then 36, 20, 13, 6, and so on as the week continued.

Still, I can’t complain. Emergence made it into the Hot New Release charts for Cyberpunk titles and was even sitting at #1 there for a while (at the time of this writing, it’s #8), and has been pretty tenacious in holding on to its ranking in the Top 100 for the Cyberpunk subcategory. At one point it even broke into the Top 10 for its subgenre, and appeared on the subcategory of Genetic Engineering.

Another benefit of being enrolled in KDP is that it gives Kindle owners access to the Lending Library, and also makes it eligible for borrowing through Kindle Unlimited.

While these are not record-breaking numbers by any means, it does look like the promotion caught the attention of borrowers, particularly in the days following the sale’s end. This past week and early Monday morning (the time of this writing) has seen a handful of borrows for Emergence, and even a couple more sales for both titles.

As an added bonus, my perpetually under-performing short horror story, Consumption, even got a little bit of attention as a result of the promo and got a few borrows (five, to be precise). It’s been difficult to find an audience organically with that particular story, and I don’t do much in the way of advertising for it, so to see a little bit of activity surrounding it was a nice surprise. I’ve taken the liberty of raising the price point for this one and will be running a countdown deal on it next month (likely unadvertised, since much of my promo money went to scheduling ads for Convergence).

Furthermore, not only is Emergence still hanging on to its ranking in the Cyberpunk subcategory, but Convergence has even reappeared there in the wake of its return to the paid store. The borrows and post-sale purchases has put it (again, at the time of this writing) into the Top 50 Cyberpunk books in Amazon, and even caught an additional five-star review.

Final Thoughts

When I decided to enroll in KDP in March, it was in anticipation of the release of Emergence and my plans for promoting the DRMR novels. All in all, I’m pretty happy with the pay-off and am eager to see how the rest of the month goes. This was a solid release week, and the fairly steady growth in borrows gives me hope that there is an emerging audience (forgive the pun) that is finding and enjoying my work.

Now, back to writing my next novel, this one for the Apocalypse Weird line of books.

Review: Weapons of Mass Deception by David Bruns and J.R. Olson

About Weapons of Mass Deception

Publication Date: May 14, 2015

Patriot Games meets The Fourth Protocol in this riveting story of modern-day nuclear terrorism.

In 2003, the world watched as coalition forces toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, then searched—unsuccessfully—for the weapons of mass destruction they were certain existed.

None were ever found, but they do exist. On the eve of the invasion, a handful of nuclear weapons was smuggled out of Iraq and hidden in the most unlikely of places—Iran.

Now, as the threat of WMDs fades into a late-night punch line, a shadowy Iranian faction waits for the perfect moment to unleash Saddam Hussein’s nuclear legacy on the West.

Brendan McHugh, a Navy SEAL, meets a mysterious Iranian diplomat on a raid in Iraq. His former girlfriend and FBI linguist discovers a link to Iran among a group of captured jihadis. And pulling it all together is a CIA analyst who can’t forget about Saddam Hussein’s WMDs—even if it costs him his career.

My Thoughts

[Note: I received an ARC of this novel from the authors in exchange for an honest review.]

Weapons of Mass Deception, a collaborative effort between two Navy guys, is a top-notch military thriller and one that I hope is only the beginning of a new series.

The book is filled with as much heart as it is technical know-how and first-hand experience from the authors in the realm of naval operations and military intelligence.

There is a lot of depth and many moving pieces to the narrative, which concerns Iraq’s fabled weapons of mass destruction. In the story, Saddam’s nuclear arms were very much real and smuggled out of Iraq and into Iran just days before the US invasion in 2003. What follows is a sprawling narrative involving a trio of Naval Academy graduates that the writers track across more than a decade as they settle into their various career paths and remain united by the central terrorist operations of a rogue Iranian Quds Force agent.

Co-authors Bruns and Olson bring a lot of knowledge to the table, having operated in the trenches of the US Navy and Commander Olson’s twenty-one years as a naval intelligence officer and U.S. Naval Attaché to Finland. There’s definitely an “insiders” feel to the level of detail and machinations in both the US Armed Forces and intelligence community, as well as the global operations of a terrorist network hellbent on achieving nuclear Armageddon.

There is also an added layer of heart thanks to the interpersonal relationships between the trio of US Naval Academy graduates and the rocky on-again, off-again love story between Brendan and Liz, the former a SEAL and the latter now working for the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. As the authors chart the lives of these two, as well as fellow Academy classmate turned CIA analyst Don Riley, over more than a decade of their careers, we really get to know each of them very well. The authors also spend a considerable amount of time developing their terrorists as well, particular Rafiq, which helps prevent the bad guys from being overly-simplistic, one dimensional stock villains. There’s a great amount of character development and depth across the board, along with a healthy dose of honor and mission-driven purpose on both sides of the aisle.

Fans of Tom Clancy, Vince Flynn, or Nelson DeMille should feel right at home with this story of lost nukes, Navy SEALS, intelligence agency operatives, and up-to-minute global politics. This is a terrific addition to the line-up of military thrillers and should not be missed. Highly recommended.

Buy Weapons of Mass Deception At Amazon

Last Day To Buy Both Books For 99c!

  

Today is the last day to buy both of my cyberpunk thrillers for a grand total of 99c!

Buy CONVERGENCE (A DRMR Novel, Book 1) FOR FREE. amzn.to/1E2ZphG

Buy EMERGENCE (A DRMR Novel, Book 2) for only 99c: amzn.to/1GDsFx8

Emergent Thoughts, Or What I Learned About Writing While Writing EMERGENCE

Emergence finally released this week, and it’s looking like my hard work has paid off! The book is currently ranking near the top of the charts in Amazon’s Sci-Fi > Cyberpunk category, as well as that category’s Hot New Releases chart. To say I’m thrilled is a bit of an understatement!

But, man, getting to this release week? It’s been a bit of a slog. A good slog, but a slog nonetheless.

Now that I’ve come out on the other side of another finished product, here’s some random thoughts on the book, in no particular order.

1. Writing a sequel is fun!

Your mileage may vary. For me, writing was Emergence was, mostly, a lot of joy. This is a story I had in mind for quite a while, and one that, in order to get to, I had to write Convergence first. That book lays the basic groundwork for a lot of the things that happen in Emergence and sets up the characters. In Emergence, I’m able to take those characters and knock them around, manipulate them, leave them bruised and bloodied in a way that I couldn’t necessarily do in Book 1. Book 2 is where I get to go apeshit on everybody.

Emergence is also a lot more action-oriented, and the stakes are larger and more personal. I also wrote this one as more of a chase thriller, so it’s got a little bit of a different feel than the prior entry. It’s sort of like the Alien/Aliens dynamic to the sequel framework, and I wanted to push these characters into harsher directions with big, hard-hitting impacts.

2. Control Your Authorial Voice.

Every writer puts a bit of themselves into their characters, or puts pieces of themselves on the page (hopefully not literally). So while writing this book was fun, I also couldn’t get too comfortable, and I had to rein in a lot of my own influences that got laid down on the pages and in the character because those words weren’t necessarily true to the characters themselves. Sometimes my own personality worked its way into the story or thoughts of the leads, and it was a bit of corrupting influence.

When Emergence went through developmental edits, my editor, Laura, pointed out something to me that took me by a bit of a surprise. There’s a scene in the book where Mesa is going through a seedier part of Nevada, populated by gamblers and hookers, and she remarked that she could practically hear the crotch crickets. Laura noted, rightly, that isn’t really something that Mesa would say or think. It’s the kind of off-hand remark I might make, though. But not Mesa.

A little too much of me bled through. Yeah, I made Mesa, but she’s become very much her own person, separate from me, in my own mind. And while she can be foul-mouthed at times, I’m not so sure that she’s so blatantly vulgar.

So, there were a few instances where I needed to reign in my own peculiarities as an individual who was writing, and let the characters talk for themselves.

3. Writing Is Learning

Seems a bit like a given, but let me elaborate a little.

There’s certain rules to writing – things like tense shift and maintaining point of view. Convergence was a first-person work, and in that first draft I shit all over things like keeping it directed in first-person. Thus, there was a good amount of heavy lifting when it came time to edit. The editing experience with that book also gave me a huge list of no-no’s and things to avoid – phrases like “it was” or a list of crutch words, such as “like” or “just,” two massive crutch-words in my first drafts.

The editing process in Book 1, taken as a whole, paid off a lot when I was ready to get to work on draft two of Book 2. I could let the first draft be bad, because the writing was the most important part; just getting the work done was my primary focus. When it came time to edit, though, I felt a step ahead of the game, having gotten schooled on the ins and outs of content edits the prior time around. I was able to rewrite more effectively before the manuscript was sent off to my editors, which made their feedback all the more critical and necessary. I wasn’t hampering them with petty stuff, and they were able to focus on and scrutinize the more important things, like structure and content, and it helped make the line edits stronger.

4. Stick The Landing

Endings are important. Some books just kind of fizzle out, or come to an abrupt ending. In the first draft of Emergence, I really rushed the ending, which was stupid. It needed to have a proper come-down and a fitting resolution to what had come before.

Laura smartly suggested that I take the dual concepts that had formed the original ending and elaborate on them, giving them each their own chapter. And she was dead-on correct. The new finale is so much stronger, and such a better fit to the book itself. I’m really proud of how well this revision worked, and it prompted me to introduce a new character that could potentially have an impact once the dust settles a bit more and I start working on book 3.

5. Diversify!

While Emergence is book 2 in a series, one of the most crucial things I’ve done over the last year is getting involved with other projects. Writing, and the entire process that goes along with it on that path to publication, is time-consuming. Saying no to things – even beneficial things – can be awfully tempting. Let me tell you, though, that saying “yes” can be even far more rewarding.

The DRMR series is likely going to be the backbone of my early career, but I also want to have a number of other, smaller, strong works out there. The key to that is to dabble in other projects and dip your toes into unfamiliar waters.

When Lucas Bale approached me to take part in the No Way Home anthology that he was curating, saying yes was a no-brainer. I was enjoying Bale’s solo work and when I got word of what he was intending with the collection, I knew I had to take part. My story was a bit risky and has been largely well-received, if not a touch controversial given the current political winds in America. Taking part in Bale’s second curation, due out later this year, was an obvious and easy choice.

Last month I was invited to take part in another anthology, this time revolving around urban fantasy. I had a great idea for it, but unfortunately I absolutely did have to say no due to saying yes for another project – writing a book for the Apocalypse Weird series (you can read my announcement on that here).

The key, I think, is to make your name visible across a few different platforms and try to hook in various readers through a number of quality projects.

This is also important because it helps keep me from getting burnt out on writing the same characters in the same series time and time again. I need to do some non-series work in order to dive back into the DRMR books fully refreshed and recharged. And hopefully you, and plenty of others, will join me in these other adventures!

EMERGENCE eBook Launch Special: 

Buy CONVERGENCE (A DRMR Novel, Book 1) FOR FREE. amzn.to/1E2ZphG
Buy EMERGENCE (A DRMR Novel, Book 2) for 99c: amzn.to/1GDsFx8

Offer valid Mon., May 4 thru Fri., May 8. Normal price for each title is $3.99

EMERGENCE Now Available + A FREE Book

now available

Today is the big day, folks!

The sequel to last year’s Convergence is out today. Emergence has officially hit the virtual shelves in ebook and paperback formats. Here’s the synopsis:

Still recovering from the events that befell her in Los Angeles, Mesa Everitt is learning how to rebuild her life.

The murder of a memorialist enclave changes all of that and sets into motion a series of violence that forces her into hiding.

Hunted by a squad of corporate mercenaries, with the lives of her friends and family in danger, Mesa has no one to turn to, but she holds a dark secret inside her skull. She has no knowledge of that secret, but it is worth killing for.

The ghosts of her haunted, forgotten past are about to emerge.

Like it’s predecessor, Emergence is science fiction, largely of the cyberpunk variety. But, as with Convergence, I think it could have a lot broader appeal, as well. If you’re one of those readers who are a little bit timid of approaching sci-fi and worried that you’ll get stuck reading about space aliens with goofy names and overly-stuffy British captains at the helm pretending they’re French, then no worries! Let me put your fears at ease here.

While my books are categorically sci-fi, they also bleed pretty heavily into genres like mystery/thriller/suspense, action, noir, and technothrillers. Imagine if 24 was maybe a hundred years ahead of us and the gang at CTU had cybernetic implants in their head instead of running around with cellphones. I have a fondness for Earth-based, human-centric science fiction, the kind of stuff that’s on the cusp of what could actually happen a few decades down the road. If you’re looking for a crackling action/suspense thriller, then I think my books could do you well. I really think there’s a lot here for any reader to enjoy.

And if you’re looking for an intergalactic war with aliens and spaceships…well, I’m sorry to disappoint. But, I hope you’ll give my brand of sci-fi a shot, too. There’s plenty of terrorism, back-stabbing, kidnapping, violence, and mayhem to foot the bill.

Now, to kick off the launch of Emergence, I’m running a limited time promotion good for this week only.

Here’s the deal – if you haven’t read Convergence yet, you can buy the ebook for free!

To sweeten the deal, Emergence is only 99c.

You can buy both books for less than a buck. Bundle and save! And if you’re of a mind to, gift a copy to your friends and family. I like to think of this deal as low risk, high reward.

                               

But, this offer is only good for a few days, from May 4 to May 8, so get your copies early!

I’d also appreciate your thoughts on both these titles. Please spare a moment or two and leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads. You only need to say about twenty words, so it doesn’t have to be a groundbreaking essay – just let me and other readers know if you liked the books or not, and a brief statement about what was good and/or bad. Again, it can be as few as twenty words or so, but those words can have an enormous impact. Keep it simple and honest, and remember that a book without reviews is likely a book without readers. So if you got some entertainment for your time and money, let others know.

Personally, I hope you enjoy these works. Happy reading!

Review: The Dragon Chronicles: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction

About The Dragon Chronicles

Publication Date: April 30, 2015

Dragons. They are more than a memory from an age of wizards and heroes. These winged, fire-breathing beasts soar through the traditions of many lands, and through our dreams. In their many guises – Western or Eastern, reptile or lizard or serpent, wyvern, hydra, basilisk – dragons embody everything that we humans call magic.

In this volume of the acclaimed ‘Future Chronicles’ anthology series, twelve authors invite you to journey to very different worlds – lands of fire and fury, of legend and lore – but all worlds where dragons roam unshackled from myth, freed from the imagination, and real.

“The Dragon Chronicles” features stories by bestselling authors Elle Casey (War of the Fae), David Adams (Ren of Atikala), K.J. Colt (Klawdia), Terah Edun (Courtlight), and Daniel Arenson (Dragonlore) plus seven more of today’s most visionary authors in fantasy and speculative fiction.

My Thoughts

[Note: I received an advanced review copy of this book from a contributing author.]

The Dragon Chronicles is the latest in Samuel Peralta’s “The Future Chronicles” anthology series. As with the prior entries, he has assembled a strong collection of diverse voices in the fields of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Each anthology presents an overarching theme to unify the various short stories, and we’ve seen collections centered around robots, artificial intelligence, aliens, and telepaths. Now, we get dragons!

Although the Chinese zodiac calendar says 2015 is the year of the sheep, pop culture seems to think otherwise. And it’s a good thing, because I doubt as many intriguing stories could be told about sheep. This year seems to very much be the year of the dragon – Game of Thrones seems to have hit critical mass with the debut of season 5 and rampant speculation on when the sixth novel in George R.R. Martin’s beloved series will be released. Author Matthew Reilly put his own stamp on dragon lore with his theme park-centric story, The Great Zoo of China, earlier this year. Even the latest Apocalypse Weird novel, Genesis, by Stefan Bolz, hits on the element of dragons. While it may not be directly relevant, we’re even getting another ‘Dragon Tattoo’ novel later in the year, with Lisbeth Salander making a return under the helm of a new author.

Seems like dragons are everywhere these days. But, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Peralta collects here a group of authors who seem to love, respect, and admire these great mythical creatures, and who have some fun figuring out intriguing ways of presenting stories putting these winged fire-breathers front and center.

As with any anthology, not every story hit the mark for me, but the majority of the entries here work quite well. I’m also not a huge fantasy buff and have a hard time losing myself within this particular genre, so my hat is truly off to these writers for making it somewhat easy for me to find escapist entertainment within these covers. I’m not going to discuss all twelve stories in this collection, but what follows are some brief thoughts about those works that really stood out for me.

The Dragon Chronicles gets off to a very strong start with Ten Things You Should Know About Dragons by Elle Casey, who presents a story about a dragon-rider trainer named Ish. She captures his voice very well and pulls off the direct communication between narrator and reader very well, with some splashes of humor, particularly in relation to the name Ish. This is a very effective short story and a solid beginning to what follows. It’s also rather funny-ish!

Daniel Arenson’s Of Sand and Starlight takes a turn for a dark with an embittered protagonist who has turned to prostitution to make ends meet. She has the ability to transform into a dragon, but her powers are outlawed by the tyrannical empire ruling the land. Good characters, good ideas, and good world building, all wrapped up into a small story.

More whimsical is KJ Colt’s Tasty Dragon Meat, about a butcher who discovers the profits of selling dragon flesh for consumption, and who learns about the horrible aftereffects of such dining when his child begins growing scales. This one was a lot of fun, with much of the story driven by the butcher’s increasingly bad choices, all made in an effort to fix his many mistakes, while also being emotionally resonant.

Ted Cross does a beautiful a job with his tale of a treasure hunt gone horribly awry for a group of young Vikings trespassing upon a dragon’s lair. The youthful characters of Dragon Play are well done, and I couldn’t help but feel a little bit of The Goonies vibe in their doomed sojourn. Kim Wells gives an interesting spin on dragon mythos, and the history of life on Earth itself, with The Book of Safkhet, an ancient scroll that tells the tales of a doomed civilization. Grey, by Chris Pourteau, presents a stirring tale of friendship between a female human child and an ancient dragon who is the last of its kind. The emotion and turbulence on display between these two very different species is wonderfully authentic and may be my favorite of the bunch.

As I said before, not every anthology can please every reader. For my own tastes, this collection felt a little too long, and I was a bit surprised at the number of stories that relied on shape-shifting for its central conceit. It was an interesting approach at first, but one that became a bit dulled through repetition.

Still, those small caveats aside, I found The Dragon Chronicles to be a pretty solid collection overall, and a sturdy addition to Samuel Peralta’s ongoing Future Chronicles series. Dragon lovers should find a number of stories to enjoy here (in nicely digestible sizes at that).

Buy The Dragon Chronicles At Amazon

Announcement: I Am Destroying The World Effective Immediately.

Yes, you read the headline correctly. I am destroying the planet Earth and putting its pesky humans through a painful Armageddon and a number of trials and tribulations. And I will be doing so a in a grandly weird way.

You might have heard of the Apocalypse Weird brand across the crazy interwebs, or through the number of reviews I’ve done on the books released thus far (spoiler alert: they’re all pretty damn good entries). Maybe you saw Damien Walters’ article on the AW bookverse in The Guardian recently, or caught wind of it via Michael Bunker’s blog where he answers the question, “What is this Apocalypse Weird that everyone is talking about?“, or maybe you saw the series of blogs from Nick Cole on this very same subject. You might have heard one of several AW-related podcasts conducted by author Hank Garner (his latest features Stefan Bolz, who’s Apocalypse Weird book, Genesis, released earlier this week).

The gist of it is this: Apocalypse Weird is a massive undertaking, a series of prose novels connected under a single umbrella, embedded with the sense of fun and scope of Marvel or DC Comics. Both Marvel and DC have their core universe that all of their properties live in, with individual titles like X-Men or Batman living alongside of, but operating somewhat independently while still being interconnected to books like, The Avengers or Justice League respectively. And sometimes those books cross paths with alternate metaverse titles like Marvel’s Ultimate brand or DC’s Earth-2.

And that’s kind of like what’s going in Apocalypse Weird. There’s all these different book series, like Cole’s WYRD series or Chris Pourteau’s Serenity line and Stefan Bolz’s White Dragon books, each existing in their own metaverse, or their own version of Earth. Yet they are all connected by the AW umbrella and each story exists within a much larger 5-year story arc. There’s also a strong flavor of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower for good measure.

All of these apocalyptic stories books will begin intersecting to form a strange, bold new world…a Wyrd World.

I’ve been a comic book fan all my life, and writing for Marvel Comic was one of my humongous life-goals as a young lad. So, being able to get in on the whole Apocalypse Weird experience is a bit of a dream come true in some ways, big and small, professionally and personally.

When Nick Cole first released The Red King, the opening volume that kickstarted this whole bookverse into proper gear, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the series concept as a whole. Now, don’t get me wrong – I liked the book, but I just wasn’t sure how the overarching ideas were going to translate out of it and what shape this universe was going to take. I couldn’t quite see the forest for the trees. But, the more of these books that I read, the more I realized that it was a universe I wanted and needed to be a part of. And I really wanted my name attached to one of those awesome Mike Corley covers, damn it!

Getting accepted into the Apocalypse Weird world and be given the chance to run wild with my crazy, off-the-wall ideas for it is a tremendous honor. It’s also pretty damn cool to be creating a sandbox that other writers could be able to come in and use, either through canon spin-offs or fan-fiction. Like I said, this AW thing is big!

I started writing my book in between the pitch and acceptance, and have just begun scratching the surface of what I want to do with it. The ideas are coming fast and furious and I’m constantly itching to dive back into this developing world. I think it’s going to be a big and wild story, and if readers have even half as much fun reading it as I am writing it, then this could be a really special project.

If you have been following the Apocalypse Weird books, you’ve seen stories of violent and mystical storms ruining Louisiana, genetically modified killers raging through Texas, demonic biker gangs, an alien invasion in Arizona, and a Florida under tyrannical rule and populated by smugglers, zombies, and sea monsters.

Each author picks a region to play around with and wreak havoc in. There is already a number of established authors and works established to date, with more on the way. In addition to myself, there’s also a number of other authors who were revealed today that will soon be marking their territory destroying their own regions, including my friend, fellow sci-fi author, and No Way Home collaborator Lucas Bale, along with Angie Cavanaugh, Blue Cole, Eamon Ambrose, Bob Williams, and Alex Myers.

For my story, I’m taking the apocalypse to heights thus far unseen and much farther north than any of the stories currently on offer. I’m taking the end of the world straight up into orbit and ruining the lives of an international team of astronauts living aboard the International Space Station.

And, in case that weren’t cool enough, I’m also fucking up Montana big-time. Sorry, Montana, but you’ve just gotten too big for your britches and need to get taken down a peg or three!

While both of my DRMR novels, Convergence and Emergence, have a bit of dystopian elements, they are more cyberpunk mystery/thrillers. And Consumption, firmly rooted in Lovecraftian horror, has a bit of a bleak outlook in its themes, as well. Still, I haven’t gone full on apocalyptic, end of the world crazy until now.

Objects in Motion will be my first official foray into what will likely be The Worst Day Ever for some very nice fictional people. I will also be bringing a little bit of my own techno-flair to the table, as well, but in a completely bat-shit crazy kind of way.

I don’t want to say too much about Objects in Motion just yet, and I actually think I’ve said enough for the moment. You’ll get more details soon, so stayed tuned. Be aware though – The End Is Near!

If you haven’t dived into the Apocalypse Weird world yet, now is a good time to get started. Go download Nick Cole’s opening gambit, the book that set the ball for an entire metaverse rolling, The Red King for free.

And, if you’ve got a buck or two (or more!) to spare and can help this little-massive collective going, there’s a month-long IndieGoGo campaign running. There are various tiers of rewards and all sorts of goodies on offer, with even more coming soon! This fundraiser will help get more Apocalypse Weird books released and pay for cover design, artwork, and editors, all in an effort to make these books the best they can be. You can read all about the campaign and its goals and purpose over here.

For more information on Apocalypse Weird, visit http://apocalypseweird.com/

Review: Writer Emergency Pack

Back in November, I supported the Writer Emergency Pack as a Kickstarter project and received the final print deck in December. I was absolutely thrilled with the final card deck, and wrote about it a bit back then and posted a couple pieces of iPhoneography to go with it.

Tuesday night, I received the Kickstarter backer-exclusive Dark Mode deck, which is basically the same as the regular pack but printed on sleek all-black cards and a much darker box. It’s really nice looking and a fun little change of pace from the standard cards. The Emergency Pack crew even added the delightful little touch of wrapping the Dark Mode deck in black tissue paper, helping to emphasize the stygian nature of this updated deck.

Although these decks started out as a Kickstarter project, the Emergency crew is now making the standard decks available on a wider scale. Every writer can (and should!) now buy them via Amazon.

Here’s the review I posted on their product page:

This is a terrific and easy-to-use resource for writers both established and up-and-coming, designed to help storytellers get out of whatever corners they’ve written themselves into or to brainstorm ways of reinvigorating stalled ideas.

The Emergency Pack is designed to look and feel like your average deck of cards, like Bicycle playing cards, but for authors in a jam. Using these cards is very simple and is outlined on a 3-step “Emergency Procedures” card at the front of the deck: focus on your writing conundrum, draw an illustrated Idea card at random, read it and then read the corresponding Detail card. Maybe the ideas will help, or maybe they won’t, but the goal is get you asking “what if?” and to hopefully get you drifting back into the right territory. Some random cards might be “What Would Indy Do?”, “Switch Genres”, or “Kill The Hero.” The accompanying illustrations are well-drawn, detailed, and amusing (and sometimes even downright irreverent).

Shuffling through the deck during one of my own jams helped me brainstorm a finale to a recent short story that I had no idea how to finish. The writing had gone smoothly throughout, right up until the climax. And while the fix ended up being fairly simple, it wasn’t really until I’d played around with these cards that I realized how helpful the Emergency Pack truly was. It gave me a much-needed kick in the rear, helped me think my way through a muddled segment of story, and wrap up my project in a way that I found both useful, true to the story, and a worked as a satisfying finish.

The Writer Emergency Pack is a fun little tool for writers, and it’s small size – the same as your average deck of playing cards – makes it’s conveniently portable for authors on the go. If you’re the type to write while traveling or at your local coffee shop, you can easily incorporate this pack into your writing routine at any place, at any time. You might not always need it, but, then again, it is for emergencies, and you never know when it might come in handy. It very well could save your entire story, although some of your characters may never forgive you.

I’ll have a new short story printed in an upcoming anthology (currently slated for Aug./Sept. time-frame), and I absolutely did use these cards to drum up that piece’s finale. They were a total lifesaver (well, for me, as an author anyway. Less of a lifesaver for some poor fictional schmucks, but whatever). I’ll let you be the judge on how well I did with that story later this year, but as far as I’m concerned the Writer Emergency Pack has proved to be an excellent investment already. I’m keeping these cards handy and close to the keyboard when I write, just in case.

And if you want some more info on these cards, check out www.writeremergency.com/