Michael Bailey's Blog, page 13
October 23, 2018
CHIRAL MAD 4: An Anthology of Collaborations is now available!
Today is the official release date of Chiral Mad 4: An Anthology of Collaborations, now available around the world in hardcover, trade paperback, and eBook. This is perhaps the most ambitious project ever imagined by Written Backwards. The entire book is one giant collaboration: co-editing by Michael Bailey & Lucy A. Snyder, a co-introduction by Gary A. Braunbeck & Janet Harriet, and 16 original works by 36 different contributors, all collaborations. 424 pages!
20,000-word novellas by Bracken MacLeod & Paul Michael Anderson, F. Paul Wilson & Erinn L. Kemper, Emily B. Cataneo & Gwendolyn Kiste, Sarah Monette & Elizabeth Bear.
10,000-word novelettes by Chesya Burke & LH Moore, P. Gardner Goldsmith & Valerie Marcley, Kristopher Triana & Chad Stroup, and a four-way collaboration by Kristi DeMeester, Richard Thomas, Damien Angelica Walters & Michael Wehunt.
5,000-word short stories by Elizabeth Massie & Marge Simon, Maurice Broaddus & Anthony R. Cardno, Erik T. Johnson & J Daniel Stone, Seanan McGuire & Jennifer Brozek.
And 52 pages of graphic adaptions, including drool-enticing work by Daniele Serra & Brian Keene, Orion Zangara, Glen Krisch & Matt Stockwell, James Chambers, Jason Whitley & Christopher Mills, and a bitter-sweet first and final collaboration of “Firedance” between longtime friends Glenn Chadbourne & Jack Ketchum that spans over 26 pages.
Now available around the world:
US: https://goo.gl/KAw84x
UK: https://goo.gl/dT2tgH
CAN: https://goo.gl/4uznY9
IT: https://goo.gl/hGFfmA
AUS: https://goo.gl/DcwgWm
JP: https://goo.gl/wtzK25
DE: https://goo.gl/gnauxY
Need to catch up on past volumes? Chiral Mad, Chiral Mad 2, and Chiral Mad 3 are also available. Simply click the images below to get started.
Chiral Mad 3, an anthology of psychological horror nominated for the Bram Stoker Award in Superior Achievement in an Anthology, is available in trade paperback for $14.95, or eBook for $6.95. Fiction/poetry; 361 pages; 9×6 format; illustrations by Glenn Chadbourne; introduction by Chuck Palahniuk.
The third act in the critically-acclaimed series contains 45 illustrations by Glenn Chadbourne, over 20 stories by the likes of Stephen King, Jack Ketchum, Ramsey Campbell, Gary A. Braunbeck, Mort Castle, Josh Malerman, Scott Edelman, Richard Thomas, Richard Chizmar and Gene O’Neill, and with 20 intertwined poems by the likes of Elizabeth Massie, Marge Simon, Bruce Boston, Erik T. Johnson, Stephanie M. Wytovich.
Chiral Mad 2 is available in trade paperback for $14.95, or eBook for $6.95. Fiction; 424 pages; 9×6 format.
An anthology of psychological horror containing twenty-eight short stories by established authors and newcomers from around the world. Featuring the imaginations of David Morrell, Mort Castle, P. Gardner Goldsmith, Ramsey Campbell, Jack Ketchum, Ann K. Boyer, John Skipp, Gary McMahon, Lucy A. Snyder, Thomas F. Monteleone, and many others, with an intro and outro by Michael Bailey. Also features the Bram Stoker Award winning novelette by Gary A. Braunbeck.
Chiral Mad is available in trade paperback for $14.95, or eBook for $6.95. Fiction; 374 pages; 9×6 format.
An anthology of psychological horror containing twenty-eight short stories by established authors and newcomers from around the world. Featuring the imaginations of Gord Rollo, Monica J. O’Rourke, Jon Michael Kelly, Meghan Arcuri, Christian A. Larsen, Jeff Strand, Gary McMahon, John Palisano, Jack Ketchum, and many others, with an introduction by Thomas F. Monteleone.
October 19, 2018
CHIRAL M4D!
The fourth volume in the critically-acclaimed and ever-evolving Chiral Mad Series is finally here, and quite different than its predecessors. The official release date is 10/23/18, but you can now pre-order the trade paperback for a sale price of $14.95 (returns to $19.95 on 11/01/18!), or the eBook for $9.95.
Chiral Mad 4: An Anthology of Collaborations includes 4 novella, 4 novelettes, 4 short stories, and 4 graphic adaptations. 424 pages! But here’s the catch: Every single story in this anthology is a collaboration. Bram Stoker Award winners Michael Bailey and Lucy A. Snyder even co-edited the anthology to bring you an incredibly diverse and entirely collaborative dark fiction experience, including a co-introduction by Gary A. Braunbeck and Janet Harriett, and a few other surprises.
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The original Chiral Mad was meant to be an only child, and featured mostly short fiction, a few novelettes, and an introduction by Thomas F. Monteleone. The book was a charity project, and raised over $5,000 for Down syndrome awareness ($3,000 of that going to the Down Syndrome Information Alliance). But soon after publication, there was already high demand for a Chiral Mad 2. The second volume contained a few novellas, and an introduction by the book itself. And then Gary A. Braunbeck went and won himself a Bram Stoker Award for his long fiction piece “The Great Pity,” sparking even higher demand for a Chiral Mad 3. Always evolving, the third volume included poetry, illustrations throughout by Glenn Chadbourne, and an introduction by Chuck Palahniuk. And for the first time, the series was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in an Anthology, with Scott Edelman’s “That Perilous Stuff” nominated for Long Fiction, and Hal Bodner’s “A Rift in Reflection” nominated for Short Fiction, thus sparking an insane amount of demand for a Chiral Mad 4.
And so again, the series evolved.
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The idea for collaborations originated during a bad time for both the horror and science fiction writing communities. Everyone pointing fingers, not really getting along. Everyone seemingly mad at each other and unfriending each other and taking jabs whenever possible. Chiral Mad, perhaps it could help bring people together …
Chiral Mad 4, you want it to happen? Then fucking start holding hands and start singing “Kumbaya” and get along already. Something like that. And since the series is one to ever-evolve, more insane ideas took shape. Why not make the entire anthology a collaborative effort? Why not havea co-editor? And since it’s #4 in the series, why not have 4 different forms of storytelling, with 4 collaborations of each? Why not include graphic adaptations this time, along with novellas, novelettes, and short stories? Why not have a co-introduction? Every single part of the book collaborative … why not?
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The book, it’s huge in both scope and in physical form. 52 pages of graphic adaptations. Something like 120,000 words of new fiction. It’s a tome. So, what can you expect with the fourth (and perhaps final) volume of Chiral Mad? A little bigger price tag, unfortunately: $19.95 for the trade paperback, $9.95 for the eBook, and at some point there will be a hardback edition available for $29.95. It’s worth it. That much is promised. The full insanity? Here’s the final Table of Contents:
“Somewhere Between the Mundane and the Miraculous” (introduction) – Gary A. Braunbeck & Janet Harriett
[ part one ]
“How We Broke” – Bracken MacLeod & Paul Michael Anderson
“Fade to Null” – Brian Keene & Daniele Serra
“Asperitas” – Kristopher Triana & Chad Stroup
“Home and Hope Both Sound a Little Bit Like ‘Hunger'” – Seanan McGuire & Jennifer Brozek
“Golden Sun” – Richard Thomas, Kristi DeMeester, Damien Angelica Walters & Michael Wehunt
“The Substance of Belief” – Elizabeth Massie & Marge Simon
“The Ghost of the Bayou Piténn” – James Chambers, Jason Whitley & Christopher Mills
“The Long and the Short of It” – Erinn L. Kemper & F. Paul Wilson
[ part two ]
“The Wreck of the Charles Dexter Ward” – Sarah Monette & Elizabeth Bear
“Sudden Sanctuary” – Glen Krisch, Orion Zangara & Matt Stockwell
“Peregrination” – Chesya Burke & LH Moore
“Ghost Drawl” – Erik T. Johnson & J. Daniel Stone
“Detritus Girl” – P. Gardner Goldsmith & Valerie Marcley
“Wolf at the Door” – Anthony R. Cardno & Maurice Broaddus
“Firedance” – Jack Ketchum & Glenn Chadbourne
“In Her Flightless Wings, a Fire” – Emily B. Cataneo & Gwendolyn Kiste
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Quite the line-up, no? And, as you can see from the above image, Chiral Mad 4 includes a final collaboration with long-time friend Dallas Mayr / Jack Ketchum. The adaptation of “Firedance” is worth the price of admission alone, and runs 26 pages. Dallas, Glenn and yours truly worked our fingers to the bones to bring you something special, something to remember him by.
So, once again, crack the spine, dig your claws deep into these pages, sit back, and enjoy a new kind of chirality.
Pre-order the trade paperback for a limited time for only $14.95 (returns to it’s non-sale price of $19.95 on 11/01/18), and the eBook for $9.95.
October 8, 2018
THE FIRE
Some anniversaries suck …
It’s been a year since the night of the fire, so I thought I’d finally share a few of the details from that night / morning, at least in the form of an incredibly long series of haiku (about 1,500 words total, which I wrote a few months ago just to get it out of me). A few of the hours of the stuff that happened, anyway. National poetry day, or month, or something.
I may use this poem as part of the memoir I’m writing about the California wildfires, Seven Minutes, but I’m not entirely sure. I’ve written close to 75,000 words about the fire in a matter of two weeks. “Seven minutes” is all the time we had to escape (no evacuation given, other than flames). Those seven minutes are summarized in the poem below, and marked in bold.
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[ the night of / 10:00 p.m. ]
Power flickers out
Candlelight, dancing shadows
The night is silent
“Is that smoke?” you say
But I can’t smell it just yet
Muted sirens wail
[ 10:30 p.m. ]
Outside the air’s thick
The animals unsettled
Eerily quiet
“Seems closer,” I say
We decide to stay awake
The children, sleeping
[ 11:00 p.m. ]
Distant mountains glow
Soft orange, miles away
Should we be worried?
“Let me check,” you say
The internet or the news
Fire, far away
[ 11:30 p.m. ]
The light is intense
A disturbance of neighbors
Everyone’s awake
“Pack a bag,” I say
Haven’t we done this before?
The firetrucks scream
[ 12:00 a.m. ]
Just a precaution
And then we hear the crackle
Black leaves flutter down
“Should be fine,” he says
When you call someone for help
No, nothing urgent
[ 12:30 a.m. ]
The wind is brutal
An ash-swirling tornado
Throats scratchy and sore
“Stay inside,” I say
Frightened, the kids want to see
Flashlights cut the night
[ 1:00 a.m. ]
This is serious
Red embers like cigarettes
Tumbling firebugs
“It’s so close,” I say
Shouldn’t we expect a call?
Sheriff or police?
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[ 1:30 a.m. ]
Evacuation
We aren’t given a warning
The yard is on fire
“In the car!” you say
We make a pass through the house
Grabbing what we can
[ 1:31 a.m. ]
All we need is us
The kids first, and then ourselves
We will be okay …
“What about—” we say
Instantly understanding
The children have pets
[ 1:32 a.m. ]
Other lives to save
I grab the cat by her scruff
Throw her in the car
“Hold her tight,” I say
The boy pulls her close, eyes wide
“Stay inside the car!”
[ 1:33 a.m. ]
The garage opens
Cat number two runs out, scared
Toward the fire
“I’ve got her,” you say
Meaning the girl, hugging her
She follows your lead
[ 1:34 a.m. ]
We stand there, confused
Contemplating the horses
The chickens, bunny
“What should we—” I say
There is nothing left to do
Flip open the coop
[ 1:35 a.m. ]
Surrounded by dirt
The pasture just might save them
In chaos, they’ll die
“I can’t breathe,” you say
Visibility, ten feet
It’s now or never
[ 1:36 a.m. ]
Just once more inside
One final pass through the house
To blow out candles
“They need us,” you say
And I know you mean the kids
So we go to them
[ 1:37 a.m. ]
A last kiss goodbye
You take the truck, me the car
We each have a child
“I love you,” we say
Will we make it out of this?
The fire rages
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[ 1:38 a.m. ]
Looking at my watch
A seven clicks to an eight
Time waits for no one
“You all right?” I ask
Behind us, a firestorm
The boy nods, unsure
[ 1:39 a.m. ]
Firetrucks pass us
Sixty miles per hour
Down the windy road
“That was close,” I say
You follow us no longer
Drive over debris
[ 1:40 a.m. ]
Swerve around branches
Fallen limbs, things afire
Horns blare, tanks explode
“Where are they?” I say
Ahead of us are new flames
Crashed trucks block the way
[ 1:41 a.m. ]
The shoulder, the road
We wait, but you’re not coming
Sixty seconds tick
“See you there,” I say
My call, it doesn’t go through
So I try again …
[ 1:42 a.m. ]
Again, and again
Until we get to the store
Where we planned to meet
“I am here,” I say
You’re a few miles away
They turned you around
[ 1:43 a.m. ]
Back through the fire
I can’t even imagine
Returning that way
“Be there soon,” you say
Time decides to take itself
The longest minute
[ 1:44 a.m. ]
Patiently, we wait
And we wait and wait and wait
Biting fingernails
“My lungs burn,” I say
I wonder about the boy
And long-term effects
[ 1:45 a.m. ]
The line rings busy
We want to hear your voices
To know you’re okay
“Where are they?” he says
The boy, finally awake
Taking it all in
[ 1:46 a.m. ]
It’s coming closer
The raging fire pursues
Fast down the mountain
“Almost there,” you say
This time, I won’t let you go
Until you are here
[ 1:47 a.m. ]
Forever, it seems
Will this madness ever end?
Where did it begin?
“We’re alive,” you say
Through choked breath, your voice so hoarse
At last, you are here!
[ 1:48 a.m. ]
We sound like strangers
Chain-smokers for years, coughing
Holding each other
A family hug
Rapid, adrenaline rush
Death swirling round us
[ 1:49 a.m. ]
We both look around
Hot wind whipping wet faces
A blizzard of ash
“Come here,” a friend says
She heard about the fire
And thought of us first
[ 1:50 a.m. ]
Orange-red-orange
Flames stretch across the highway
Nowhere else to go
“Thanks,” you say in tears
A place to stay for the night
But will it be safe?
[ 1:51 a.m. ]
We can’t stay here long
Emergency vehicles
Cry into the night
“I love you,” we say
Once again separating
Hands trembling, quaking
[ 1:52 a.m. ]
The glow is endless
We cross the bridge, see it all
Flames licking the stars
“Look at that,” I say
Pointing to the mountainside
Everything, gone
[ 1:53 a.m. ]
It rolls like magma
Lava, flowing volcanic
A beautiful sight
“Thirsty?” I ask him
The boy stares out the window
I’ve nothing to drink
[ 1:54 a.m. ]
Roads close behind us
Probably the last ones through
Dodging power lines
“This is nuts,” I say
People driving erratic
Bumper to bumper
[ 1:55 a.m. ]
I follow this time
Run through stop signs and dead lights
Nearly crash; once, twice
“Almost there?” he asks
The roads lost in embers, ash
I am forced to lie
[ 1:56 a.m. ]
Roads become foreign
Disguised by insanity
Anxiety, shock
“It’s all gone,” I say
Under a breath, to myself
Hope, now a mirage
[ 1:57 a.m. ]
We follow red eyes
Taillights guiding through a gray
Much thicker than smog
“Is that home?” he says
‘It was,’ I want to explain
The verb turned past tense
[ 1:58 a.m. ]
We run over limbs
Fiery fingers, curled hands
Crushed under tire
“What was that?” he says
A branch, a head-sized ember
Things fallen aground
[ 1:59 a.m. ]
My heart palpitates
White knuckles grasping the wheel
A harrowing drive
“We made it,” I say
Even surprising myself
A held breath lets out
[ 2:00 a.m. ]
Again we embrace
The four of us, still in shock
Wondering what’s lost
“It’s just stuff,” we say
Replaceable memories
What matters is us
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[ 2:30 a.m. ]
Radio scanners
Texts, social media tweets
Friends plague-spreading news
“We are safe,” we say
A broadcast message to all
Phones endlessly buzz
[ 3:00 a.m. ]
Middle of the night
Early morning, whatever
It doesn’t matter
Sleep, will it bring death?
Did you hear did you hear did—
“You okay?” they say
[ 3:30 a.m. ]
How many homes lost?
How many buildings have burned?
How can we ever—?
“You should sleep,” we say
Impossibly-flat smiles
There’s no way in hell
[ 4:00 a.m. ]
Curled under blankets
We sit outside, breathing smoke
Inhaling the dead
“Think it’s there?” you ask
Meaning the house, rhetoric
‘Gone,’ I cannot say
[ 4:30 a.m. ]
The boy, he gets sick
Curled around the toilet, pale
One cat is with him
“It’s okay,” you say
Rubbing the back of his head
The girl rubs her eyes
[ 5:00 a.m. ]
She stays up with us
Unable to sleep, to cry
Her eyes dry, bloodshot
“Are we safe?” she asks
How can we lie to children?
We somehow manage
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[ the day after ]
Fallen power poles
Our past, our town, a war zone
A nuclear blast
Chimneys pierce the haze
The only things left, unfazed
Home tombstones, relics
Flat charred skeletons
Metal melted to the ground
Cars still smoldering
We break through roadblocks
Some wave us through, most routes closed
Past devastation
Everything black
Everything smoking. burnt
Everything trashed
A lunar landscape
Ruin, annihilation
Utter destruction
Then we find our street
Drive over downed power lines
Hop out of the car
Shoes melt underfoot
Where did it—? Where has it gone?
A campfire stench
Our two-story home
Reduced to a foundation
Walls nothing but dust
We knew what we’d lost
Nothing could have prepared us
For what we’d then find
We couldn’t save them
Reduced to outlines, morbid
Farm animals, gone
Mummified corpses
Some lay peaceful, some mid-stride
Others simply bone
The pastures, empty
The coop, reduced to ghost frames
The horses, where did—?
“The horses!” you say
How did they ever survive?
Burnt, singed, but alive
We find them on grass
An untouched patch of once-green
Their eyes give us hope
We call for our cat
Lost, the one we couldn’t save
Could he be alive?
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Thanks for reading. It’s rough, I know, and incredibly condensed, but some words need to be written. And yes, we eventually found our second cat. After twenty-three days on his own, running from the fire, and through sheer determination and a lot of luck, we found him (pictured left). He is now reunited with his sister (pictured right).
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WOR(L)DS DISSOLVE
With a length of aluminum
Melted tire rim
Resolidified
You prod a block
Flash-fired
Thousands of degrees
Books alongside books
Once trapped in a box
Unsold novels, collections
Wherein seemingly nothing’s written
The metal pushes through
Softly separates the mass
One side falls away, crumbles
Type still there
Sentences
Paragraphs
Characters
Imaginary people
Autobiographical plot
You are a god
And you read the words
Recognize passages
“I wrote that,” you say
“I gave that story life
“I created—”
The words dissolve
As you touch them, gloved
Pages turn to powder
Worlds ruined
Stardust
The aluminum snaps
Brittle, like hard candy
You toss it away
Put your boot through the past
September 19, 2018
PHOENIX ROSE
Recipient of the Kirkus Star and described as “Poe-like phantasmagoria amid Stephen King–style naturalism that results in a fictive world that’s familiar yet eerily strange—and plenty scary,” Phoenix Rose, the second novel by Michael Bailey, is back in print in a new second edition format.
This composite novel is available in trade paperback for $12.95, or eBook for $6.95. Fiction; 372 pages; 8×5 format; cover artwork by Michael Ian Bateson.
A family is torn apart after a horse foaling goes terribly wrong; a sickly man recounts getting mauled by his neighbor’s dog; an undead priest is reborn into the world a hundred-fifty years after his untimely death; two brothers run for their lives through a dead field of wheat. Holding all of this together is a young boy named Todd, whose survival pivots on the balance of life and death, and a deranged mental patient with a burnt rose tattoo, whose reality is paradoxical.
“An engrossing blend of creepy atmospherics, gory jolts and mind-bending conundrums.”
While Phoenix Rose works as a standalone, it weaves in and out of the events of its predecessor, Palindrome Hannah, which is also now available in a similarly packaged trade paperback for $12.95, or eBook for $6.95. Fiction; 334 pages; 8×5 format; illustrations by Michael Ian Bateson.
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September 14, 2018
FREE EBOOK WEEKEND (9/15-9/16)
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As a thank you for helping with the Written Backwards eBook Sale, three e-Books will be available for free this weekend only, Saturday through Sunday: three firsts by Michael Bailey: Palindrome Hannah (1st novel), Scales and Petals (1st collection), and Our Children, Our Teachers (1st standalone novelette).
Amazon will list these for $0.00 / £0.00 starting at 12:00am on the 15th until 11:59pm on the 16th. All other e-Book titles part of the Written Backwards eBook Sale are still available for $0.99 / £0.99 through midnight on the 18th.
Enter a cruel palindrome world: a symmetric place where disturbing situations displace the common; where good acts transmute to evil ones; where windows and mirrors are interchangeable. Within, characters influence each other through macabre arrangements of involuntary happenstance, and learn the inevitabilities of coincidence. A segmented story of a mother and daughter intertwines the others. This hidden sixth story, assembled from the five separate narratives, uncovers the sad life of a child who carries a palindrome name, and her struggling teenage mother. With five stories heading one direction, and Hannah traveling the opposite, the story unfolds like a palindrome. A puzzle within a puzzle.
Between writing the novels Palindrome Hannah and Phoenix Rose, Michael Bailey penned and published a number of these dark short fiction and poetry pieces, some of which can be found in literary magazines and anthologies around the world. A few of these fallen dragon scales and flower petals, as he likes to call them, are reprinted here, while others are seeing print for the first time, hand selected and arranged by the author. Once you crack the spine, there’s no going back.
Children are often our greatest teachers, but what happens if the lesson is too heavy to hold? In Our Children, Our Teachers, a high school in rural Brenden, Washington is taken hostage by a gathering of unlikely students trying to teach the world a new lesson … a foreshadowing, perhaps, to darker times ahead for the American education system, if gun control is not addressed properly.
All other Written Backwards titles listed below will continue to run for only $0.99 / £0.99 until midnight, September 18th.
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September 6, 2018
$0.99 / £0.99 EBOOK SALE (9/11-9/18)
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To celebrate the soon-to-be released Chiral Mad 4: Collaborations & Adaptations (aka, Chir4l Mad), Written Backwards is running a sale on eBooks simultaneously in the US and the UK, from midnight September 11th through midnight September 18th.
During this time, choose from the original Chiral Mad, Chiral Mad 2, Chiral Mad 3, Pellucid Lunacy (the first anthology by Written Backwards), You Human, Adam’s Ladder, Bones Are Made to Be Broken (the debut fiction collection by Paul Michael Anderson), and / or The Library of the Dead (winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in an Anthology).
All titles are either $0.99 or £0.99, available on Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk. If you are a member of Kindle Unlimited, these titles are free. If you have previously purchased the trade paperback, you can get the eBook edition for free. All we ask is that you consider leaving an honest review after giving these books a read.
If you need to catch up on past Written Backwards titles, this is a great opportunity to snag 8 books for under 8 bucks, or pounds, or whatever. To make things easier, here are links to each. From September 11th through September 18th, the price will drop to $0.99 or £0.99. Simply click the book you want and add it to your cart, or just scroll and check out their awesome covers.
September 4, 2018
PALINDROME HANNAH
Palindrome Hannah is back in print! If you are new to the fiction of Michael Bailey, this is where to start. The debut composite novel, first published April 1, 2005 by Unlimited Publishing, is now available through Written Backwards in a second trade paperback and eBook edition, featuring interior artwork by Michael Ian Bateson, and completely redesigned.
Available now in trade paperback for $12.95 (newer 8×5 format, matte finish, 334 pages) and in eBook for $6.95, or free if you have Kindle Unlimited.
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And coming very soon, a re-release of the follow-up novel, Phoenix Rose, which will be made available in the same formats and for the same new prices.
August 30, 2018
ARTIFACTS
Come meet Eru, the two-trunked telepathic elephant!
Yes, Darren Speegle’s second novel, Artifacts, is now available. This is science-fantasy at its greatest, and the third book in the Allevon series of original illustrated trade paperbacks by Written Backwards. The book features black and white illustrations throughout by L.A. Spooner (see below for color variants) and an introduction by Gene O’Neill. Currently available on Amazon at the following links for easy finding, or simply search “Artifacts” and/or “Darren Speegle.”
In a far future Europe, following a four-thousand-year Dark Age, of which man retains little record or memory, a scroll is found in a train car deep within the snow and ice of Scandinavia, buried since the cataclysmic end of the First Age. The document, which contains a cryptic message meant for the world before it died, finds its way into the hands of Rein, an outpost bar hand who journeys across the continent seeking the relic’s translation.
Canada: https://goo.gl/qHRpki
Artifacts is only available in trade paperback; 290 pages; 8×5 format; priced reasonably at $10.95, or similar, depending on your currency.
August 20, 2018
OTHER MUSIC
Down the rabbit hole and out the other side …
Other Music, the debut solo novel by Marc Levinthal, is back in print! This edition, published by Written Backwards, features an introduction by John Skpp, and cover artwork by George C. Cotronis. The trade paperback is reasonably priced at $9.95 (US) / £9.95 (UK), the eBook only $3.95 (US) / £3.95 (UK), or free if you have Kindle Unlimited.
With the discovery of the Thompson Corridors, the universe has been opened up, connecting humankind with a vast network of sentient species. Xenosociologist Jesse Suzuki, a nanotech-rejuvenated “oldster,” has joined the forced exodus of the newly young, mandated by law to ship out through the Corridors after his 80th birthday. Jesse finds his way to Eastlink, a sprawling human habitat orbiting Shjodathz, home to a race of regenerating beings who maintain direct memory of all their past incarnations. While studying the Shjodathí and their planetary biomachine guardian Kedel, he discovers a strange anomaly within the AI’s mind that leads him on a perilous, mind-blowing adventure …
Fans of David Marusek, William Gibson, R.A. Wilson and Philip K. Dick will find common ground here – it’s hard SF adventure with an eye toward metaphysics.
August 7, 2018
WEBSITE UPDATES
The Written Backwards website (www.nettirw.com or www.writtenbackwards.com, whichever you prefer) is now updated with the most current book titles, information, cover designs, and purchase links for all past, present, and future releases. Check out the tabs on the top right of the page for NOVELS, COLLECTIONS, ANTHOLOGIES, and the ALLEVON series. More exiting projects coming soon!
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* Dragon illustration by Daniele Serra (for Psychotropic Dragon)
