David Lee Summers's Blog, page 117

Her Royal Majesty’s Steampunk Symposium – 2013

Next weekend I’m honored to be a literary guest at Her Royal Majesty’s Steampunk Symposium aboard the Queen Mary docked in Long Beach, California. Other guests include Bruce Boxleitner, Phil and Kaja Foglio, Unwoman, and Dino Staats. You can learn more about the convention at http://hrmsteam.com.

I was one of the guests last year and I had a fantastic time. The Queen Mary is a wonderful venue for a steampunk event. The grand old ship sets the scene and most of the attendees were in costume. Tourists visiting the Queen Mary wondered if they had fallen into a time warp.

At this point, I’m scheduled to be on several panels. I’ll be giving an updated version of my Victorian Astronomy presentation, plus I’ll be discussing Steampunk Poetry, writing steampunk in a shared world, and Dino Staats and I will once again delve the fine line between magic and science that existed in Victorian days.

Last year, one of the things I was asked most often is whether any of my steampunk books were available as ebooks. Unfortunately, at that point Owl Dance had just been released and was only available in paper. Now, there are several ebooks available that contain my steampunk tales. Here are a few of the ones that are available. Clicking the covers will take you to their pages at Amazon.com. Although Owl Dance is currently a Kindle exclusive ebook, both Revolution of Air and Rust and Gears and Levers can be purchased at other sites such as Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, and the Kobo ebook store.

I’ll have these and more in print and will be happy to autograph them for you at the convention! I hope to see you there.

2012 in review

Yesterday I shared the summary of my year with you. Today, WordPress sent their annual report of my blog stats. I enjoy reading these and seeing what topics struck a chord with people. Hope you enjoy the report as well. Happy New Year!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 4,600 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 8 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

Looking Back at 2012

It’s hard to believe that 2012 is almost over. As I look back at the year, I have to say that it’s been quite a ride. I published a novel, a novella, seven short stories, a non-fiction article, two poems, was co-author of a scientific paper, edited four issues of Tales of the Talisman Magazine and two novels, and published an award anthology of poetry. Here you can see me with a number of the shorter works. Since the novel’s an ebook, it gets its own place of honor to the right.

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Another important achievement this year was the publication of the ebook edition of my wild west steampunk adventure Owl Dance. If you haven’t already, this is the final day you can pick up your free copy in the five days of Owl Dance promotion. Just click the picture below. (If you don’t have a Kindle, no problem, just download one of the free apps from Amazon!)

Not only did I publish the stories, I was a speaker at Her Royal Majesty’s Steampunk Symposium, ConDor, Gaslight Gathering, Phoenix Comicon, Bubonicon, CopperCon and last but not least, I was fan guest of honor at TusCon.

On top of all that, I continued my full-time job helping astronomers explore the universe using the telescopes at Kitt Peak National Observatory. Just before Christmas, I learned that I was promoted from “Observing Assistant” to “Observing Associate.”

Through it all, I’ve done my best to keep you posted about my doings here at the Web Journal. As the year wraps up, I’m honored to be nominated for five amazing blog awards from the talented and dynamic Emily Guido, author of the “Light Bearer Series.” Over the course of this year, I have watched her go from being a self-published author to signing a five-book contract with a publisher. She’s now working her way through a Masters of Business Administration degree. Follow her at: authoremilyguido.com/.

She nominated me for Blog of the Year 2012, the Time Machine Award, the Reality Award, the Liebster Award, and the Very Inspirational Blogger Award. Wow! Here are just a couple of the award icons:

The true value of these awards is that they remind me that I could not have achieved any of this without my family, good friends at work, and in the writing world. Thank you all! Some of these people have blogs. Some don’t. Here’s a rundown of some of the people who have gone the extra mile and have blogs that you should check out:

Robert E. Vardeman
Jeff Mariotte
Marsheila Rockwell
Gini Koch
Ernest Hogan
Chris Malone
Marina Martindale
Jessica Frost

So will 2013 prove to be as awesome as 2012? Only time will tell. What I can tell you is that the next thing on my schedule is Her Royal Majesty’s Steampunk Symposium in Long Beach, California. Learn more about the convention at their website: www.hrmsteam.com. It’s a great way to kick off the year and I hope to see you there!

Owl Dance for your Kindle

One of my favorite things to do during the holidays is to settle into a cozy chair with a good book. Increasingly, that good book is on my Kindle. From what I’ve seen that’s also true of many of my readers. Because of that, it’s with great pleasure that I announce that my wild west steampunk adventure novel Owl Dance is now available for Kindle at: Amazon.com

Owl Dance is set in 1876. Sheriff Ramon Morales of Socorro, New Mexico, meets a beguiling woman named Fatemeh Karimi, who is looking to make a new start after escaping the oppression of her homeland. When an ancient life form called Legion comes to Earth, they are pulled into a series of events that will change the history of the world as we know it. In their journeys, Ramon and Fatemeh encounter mad inventors, dangerous outlaws and pirates. Their resources are Ramon’s fast draw and Fatemeh’s uncanny ability to communicate with owls. The question is, will that be enough to save them when airships from Czarist Russia invade the United States?

In honor of the holidays and the novel’s Kindle release, I thought it would be fun to share a Christmas excerpt from Owl Dance. This scene finds Ramon and Fatemeh in San Francisco.

Ramon returned to the room he shared with Fatemeh late on Christmas Eve. Fatemeh noticed that he was wearing a new pair of glasses. Like his old pair, they were round and gave his face an owlish appearance. He held his hands behind his back. Fatemeh stood and wrapped her arms around Ramon, but was surprised when he didn’t return the embrace. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” Ramon’s voice held a sly edge.

“It looks like you were successful in finding new glasses.”

Ramon smiled. “Yes, these are even better than the old ones.” He shrugged. “The optometrist thinks my eyes have been getting a little worse.”

“That’s too bad.” Fatemeh returned to her chair.

“However, I did have enough money left over to get you something.” He brought his arms out from behind his back. In his hand was a narrow box, about eight inches long. “Merry Christmas!” Just then he pulled the box back. “Do Bahá’ís celebrate Christmas?”

“Not normally,” said Fatemeh, “but as I’ve said, we respect the teachings of Jesus. I’m happy to celebrate his birth with you, Ramon.” She held out her hand and Ramon handed her the box. She opened it and saw a necklace. Adorning it was a hand-carved wooden bead in the shape of an owl.

“I bought the necklace. I carved the owl myself, though.”

“It’s very sweet.” Fatemeh smiled and put the necklace on. She stood and kissed Ramon, but held his hands as they parted. “How is our money doing?”

“I think I can find a job, but it’s not going to pay much,” admitted Ramon. “We could stay here about six more days and I could keep looking, or we could move on.”

“I like the idea of moving on.” Fatemeh returned to her chair. “I really didn’t like the reception we had on our first day and it’s loud here, even late at night.” She looked out the window at a saloon across the street.

“Where would you like to go?”

She pulled out a map and set it on the small table between the room’s two chairs. “What do you know about Los Angeles?”

“It’s a small town. There’s some farms and some industrial work.” Ramon shrugged.

“What does Los Angeles mean?”

“It means ‘belonging to the angels,’ The name’s short for something like town of the queen of angels.”

“Sounds lovely. Can we leave tomorrow?”

Ramon laughed. “Tomorrow’s Christmas. I doubt the trains are even running. What about the next day?”

“That sounds perfect.” Fatemeh put her hand to the new necklace. “I’m afraid I didn’t get you a present. What else do people do on Christmas?”

“We sing songs.” Ramon sat in the empty chair next to Fatemeh.

“Teach me a Christmas song worthy of the angels, Ramon.”

I have a special present for all of my readers this week. Follow me on Twitter (@davidleesummers) and keep an eye out for the Five Days of Owl Dance starting on Christmas Day.

In the meantime, I wish you Happy Holidays and a Terrific New Year!

How Do You Do Everything?

I have a full time job working at Kitt Peak National Observatory. I edit the science fiction and fantasy magazine Tales of the Talisman. I write books, short stories and the occasional poem. I’m vice president of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. I’m a parent of two wonderful kids. I usually make it to about a half-dozen conventions each year. Perhaps it’s not surprising that one of the questions I’m most frequently asked is “How do you do it all!”

Simply put, a lot of the credit goes to my wife, Kumie. She makes sure the kids get to school. She makes sure the taxes get paid. She reads many of the submissions that come in to Tales of the Talisman. She does more than her fair share of the cooking and the dishes. She does her best to keep me sane when it all seems overwhelming and all this while having her own full-time job. So, maybe a better question would be how does she do it all?

That noted, I’m the one who does the dusting and scrubs out the toilets. Generally, I’m the one out battling the jungle our yard becomes during monsoon season. I do my share of shuttling kids to events, too. In other words, we do our best to share the load of keeping our day-to-day lives going. Hadrosaur Productions, the publishing company behind Tales of the Talisman, is just part of our day-to-day lives and we do our best to split the responsibilities as necessary.

Working at the observatory also factors into my writing life. My schedule is approximately one week on and one week off. During the week off, I generally have big blocks of time during the day to focus on my writing. Of course, there are still the day-to-day chores to do, too. At the observatory, there’s a full-time kitchen staff and I don’t have to worry much about cooking and cleaning, but I work from sunset to sunrise. In the summer, that does allow me some writing time, but in winter, I don’t get much because the nights are so long.

So, beyond all that, what are some of the things I do to make it all happen? Here are a few tips that might be helpful to anyone.

I do my best to make use of the quiet times in the morning when Kumie is at work and the kids are in school to write. Find or make quiet times to focus on your writing.
I don’t watch a lot of television. We dumped cable years ago and pretty much just watch movies on DVD or the Internet.
I try not to bite off more than I can chew. Yeah, I do a lot, but if a project comes across my desk that I just can’t do, I do my best to say no.
If I’m not going to make a deadline, I try to be forthright with the person who set it, so we can make adjustments. It’s amazing how much trouble people get into just because they don’t communicate!

So, in the end, how do I do it all? I think the answer is one that’s true for anyone who has ever had any measure of success. When I start a project, I focus on the goal and I do my best to stay focused on it until I see it through.

Here’s wishing you success in all your writing endeavors!

Finding Markets

Probably the two most frequently asked questions I get are “how do you manage to do everything you do?” and “where do you find markets for your short stories and poems?” The first question deserves its own blog post and I’ll get back to that one of these days.

The last few years I’ve been very lucky and the answer to the second question has largely been I don’t find markets, they find me. Many of the stories I’ve sold during that time have been to editors who have requested material from me. Now, just because an editor requests a story from me doesn’t mean they’ll buy it. I’ve been fortunate that most have, but every now and then, someone requests a story but doesn’t feel like the story I sent them was among the best they had to choose from. When that happens, I don’t really sweat it. That just means I have a story I can send to other markets.

At this point, I have a list of editors whose tastes I’m pretty familiar with, so I don’t end up going to market lists very often. I typically go directly to the market’s website and check to make sure I’ve formatted everything according to the current requirements and send the story along. (Take special note, I ALWAYS check the guidelines even when I know the editor well!)

Despite that, every now and then I either have a story I want to try on a new market or I have a story that doesn’t fit one of the markets I know well. How do I find a market for such a story?

Typically the first place I’ll go is Ralan.com. The site is run by speculative fiction writer Ralan Conley and focuses on speculative and humor markets. He does a great job of keeping his market list up to date and the site is completely free.

If I’m looking for a poetry market, a great resource is the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s Market List. This site provides a list of links and some basic info about each market.

Duotrope.com is another great market list. They feature editor interviews, reports of response times, the list is easily searchable and it’s not limited to speculative markets. Duotrope has been a free site, but starting in January, you will have to pay a fee of $5.00 a month or $50.00 per year to access their best features. Note, you will still be able to access their basic list for free.

As an aside, Tales of the Talisman contributor Melinda Moore is running a monthly writing contest and the prizes include subscriptions to Duotrope.com. You can check out her current contest at: http://enchantedspark.com/blog.php?s=photo-flare-contest.

Of course, the granddaddy of all market lists is Writer’s Market, which used to exist exclusively as a thick book, but now exists on line as well. Like Duotrope, you have to pay to access the online features ($5.99 per month or $39.99 per year). Despite that, they still publish the big, thick book and most libraries still buy copies, so you can go there and browse it for free. (I often do!)

Whatever market list you use, there’s no substitute for actually going and visiting the market’s website and checking their most up-to-date guidelines. It’s the best way to assure that editors will remember you in a good way. Getting editors to remember you in a good way is one of the important steps to getting them to invite you to send them stuff in the future!

Here’s wishing you all the best in your search for good places to sell your stories!

Privateers in Space

This week I’ve been working on two new stories featuring my crew of space privateers led by the intrepid Captain Ellison Firebrandt aboard the Legacy. This crew has been with me for some time. I first created them in 1988 for a short story that ultimately became the first chapter of The Pirates of Sufiro. As it turns out, I crashed them on a planet and told the story about the colony world that grew up there. In the last few years, I’ve gone back and written some stories that tell about their adventures before they were stranded. So far these stories have appeared in the following anthologies. (Clicking the covers will take you to Amazon for more info):

As you can tell, several of these stories—but not all— have appeared in Flying Pen Press’s Full-Throttle Space Tales anthologies. Those anthologies have been a good home for these stories simply because they’re meant to be good action-adventure fun. The one exception so far was the story I wrote for Carol Hightshoe’s anthology, A Taste of Armageddon, which explores the question of whether warfare can become too clean.

What’s special to me about the stories I’ve been working on this week is that if they’re accepted, they’ll appear during the 25th anniversary year of Captain Firebrandt’s creation. I’ll keep you posted as I know more about the fate of the stories.

I can tell you that one of the stories I’m writing is for Hadrosaur’s forthcoming anthology A Kepler’s Dozen, which I’m co-editing with Dr. Steve Howell. It would be fair to ask how there’s a doubt that the story will be published if I’m co-editing the anthology. Simply put, my co-editor will reject the story if it isn’t up to the standards of the book—or can’t be brought up to the standards of the book through revisions.

Thing is, even Space Pirates, which doesn’t list a co-editor, worked much the same way. In the case of my story for that anthology, I submitted the story to the publisher and he worked with me to make sure my submission was right for the book.

What’s been fun for me about these stories is that I’ve been able to go back and get to know the crew of the Legacy. In The Pirates of Sufiro, only Firebrandt, his first mate Roberts, his lover Suki, and the enigmatic Computer appear. The rest of the crew was taken prisoner or killed in a trap set by an admiral from Alpha Coma Berenices. Writing these stories, I’ve gotten to know such characters as Kheir el-Din, the Legacy’s fearsome helmsman, Nicole Lowry, the ship’s resourceful quartermaster and Juan de Largo, the ship’s cook and sometimes doctor. Even though I’ve known Roberts and Suki for many years, I’ve gotten to know them much better.

Now that I’ve written several of these stories featuring this crew of space privateers, I’ve been thinking about collecting them up in a single volume. I still have a few more to write before then. In the meantime, I hope you take a moment and check out one or two of the anthologies that currently feature these characters. I think you’ll enjoy getting to know the pirates better and you’re bound to find some great stories by the other authors in the books as well.

Web log – November 24, 2012

First off, I hope all of my readers here in the United States had a Happy Thanksgiving this week. For me, this has been a pretty remarkable week. On Monday, my publisher emailed me to say they had reduced the price of Children of the Old Stars—the second novel of the Old Star/New Earth series—to 99 cents. They also said the novel was going to be featured in the Bookbub Newsletter.

Sales of the book picked up nicely at Amazon that day. Also, since it was book two of the series, people began downloading book one—The Pirates of Sufiro—which is free. The result was quite pleasant. For most of this week, I have been on Amazon’s list of the 100 bestselling authors in Science Fiction.

As I watched all this happen, I realized people who had downloaded the book, or discovered me from the bestselling author list, might want to learn more about me by visiting my website. As such, I took a good hard look at davidleesummers.com and realized that it had been far too long since I had updated some of the pages, including the front page, which is the first impression people will have.

Now, my website has been around for a while. It will be 20 years old next year. When I first built it, the “Information Superhighway” was a shiny, new concept. So, I dubbed my little stop on that highway as a “wrong turn” right from the outset, because often the most interesting stops are the ones you never intended to visit! I have taken the website through several upgrades in 20 years and done my best to keep it up to date, but it’s easy to get used to one’s own website. I needed to evaluate the site with a fresh eye, and that brings us to the subject of this week’s post.

The word blog is a contraction of the words “web log.” Web logs were the place where system administrators would record changes made to a web site. However, some system administrators would use the web log as a place to talk about philosophy, their favorite TV show, or their favorite game. Eventually other people began using this web logging software to post their own thoughts and thus modern blogging was born.

Today, I’m taking the blog back to its roots and recording the updates to my website!

First off, I took a good hard look at the first page. I realized that at first glance, it was not clear what kind of website you had landed on. It was too wordy. So, I streamlined and better organized the text. This allowed me to move the Amazon widget that displays my books into a better position. I also added a few of the reviews people have given my books to the first page. My goal has been to make it clear that you have landed on an author’s site while retaining the kind of retro-future look to the site that I believe characterizes much of my writing. I also wanted it to be welcoming and inviting, encouraging a visitor to look around.

I’ve done a pretty good job of maintaining my pages that tell about my novels, short stories, and show my events calendar, so I did very little work on those pages.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve realized people have taken a real interest in my astronomy work. To that end, I put a lot of attention into sprucing up the astronomy page. I added a couple of recent photos and made them clickable so you can see them full size. I also added more detail about my astronomy background including some links to places where I’ve worked. Finally, I updated my publication list with this year’s new supernova paper that I contributed to.

I then moved on to the bio page. Sadly, I had let that page get very outdated. I also realized that it was very clunky looking with three old photos of me. Those photos were fun to see, but they were a bit outdated. I updated the text, updated the photo, and included links where you can find me online and interact with me.

Finally, I took a look at the links page. I discovered a number of dead links and saw that the format was not really conducive to easy navigation. So, I cleaned up the page, removed the dead links, and added a few new ones. Just to note, I take this list of links very seriously. My goal is to link to people and organizations who my readers would also find appealing. Some friends were left off, for example, simply because I didn’t think we had a strong overlap in potential readers. I also wanted to keep the list manageably short so people could use it as a good jumping off point to explore more. So, if you’re a friend and don’t see yourself there, don’t take it personally. Ideally, I’ll come back in a few months and shuffle the list around and add some different links just to keep it fresh. We’ll see if I actually manage to do that!

You’ll likely notice that I kept much of the “highway” theme going as a tribute to the site’s history. After all, we’re coming up on the 20th anniversary. It would be a shame to dump it now. In 2014, I’ll take a fresh look at the site’s place on the Information Superhighway and decide if it needs another makeover.

So please, drop by davidleesummers.com, explore and let me know what you think. I’m hoping you’ll find some of these changes fun and informative.

TusCon 39 Report

Last weekend, I was fan guest of honor at TusCon 39 in Tucson, Arizona. Here I am in a photo taken by my friend Daniel Arthur, wearing my steampunk gear and showing off the fan I picked up for the occasion. I figured if one is to be fan guest of honor, one should have an appropriate fan!

The weekend was a real whirlwind. For me, the convention started out by setting up the Hadrosaur Productions dealer’s table. We’ve published enough books and picked up enough books for resale that we really need to get two dealer’s tables. Of course, even if we’re not at a convention, you can still shop our merchandise at http://www.hadrosaur.com

Once everything was set up, we then moved into opening ceremonies where toastmaster Ed Bryant introduced both the Literary Guest of Honor—S.M. Stirling—and me. Ed made a special point of noting S.M. Stirling’s love of Nantucket and announcing a contest for the best Nantucket limerick to be held during the weekend. Ed also cited me for bravery for commuting between Las Cruces, New Mexico and Tucson, Arizona in a Smart Car.

From opening ceremonies, I moved right into a busy series of panels. My first panel discussed writers finding their own unique voice. My take on this subject is simply that writers simply need to write, experiment, and not be afraid to try new things. The consensus of the panel was to look for those areas where you have something unique to say and engage you personally. That’s where your passion in writing will be. That panel was followed by a reading of bad poetry hosted by Larry Hammer. The challenge in that event was to get through as much of a terrible poem as you can without cracking a smile. Several of the participants did very well, but at my best, I could only make it about a verse without laughing outright.

Saturday, November 10 was a busy day for panels. I started out with two panels discussing Steampunk. The first was an attempt to define the genre for the audience. The second was a look at paranormal/steampunk cross-genre works. From there, I moved on to my fan guest of honor hour where I essentially told about how astronomy and writing have intertwined in my life so far and how one has influenced the other.

The fan guest of honor hour was followed by the TusCon mass autographing. I sat up in the front of the room with S.M. Stirling. We both signed several autographs over the course of the hour.

That evening, Marty Massoglia and I threw our annual birthday party. Lots of people dropped by with well wishes. Marty’s wife Alice brought three cakes, plus her deviled eggs and there was a good selection of fruit, meat, and veggies. Lots of people crowded into our small suite at the HotelTucson and we had a great time. My friend Vinnie put his artistic skills to use decorating balloons. Here my daughter holds up a few examples.

Even after the party wrapped up, I still had two more panels that night. I was on a panel that discussed how erotica has long been part of fantasy and science fiction. Later that night, I was on an interesting panel that discussed marriage and relationships and how far a parent might go in what they would allow, or at least advise, their children to avoid.

Somewhere after that last panel, I managed a little sleep. Sunday was a somewhat quieter day at the convention. Sunday morning started with a discussion of why married couples are so rare as heroes in science fiction and fantasy. Our conclusion was that they are actually becoming more common. More of a challenge than writing married couples though, is writing couples who have children.

My last official event of the convention was a reading. I read excerpts from both Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order and Revolution of Air and Rust. I had a good turn out and both pieces seemed well received.

The convention wound down all too soon after the reading. For me, the event ended with the traditional end-of-con chilli cooked by Bruce Wiley.

I want to say thanks to convention chair Sue Thing and all the members of the convention committee for having me as fan guest of honor this year. I always have a great time at TusCon, but this year will go down as one of the very special ones in my memory.

New and Forthcoming Books from Hadrosaur Productions

Hadrosaur Productions is the publishing company I founded with Kumie Wise and William Grother back in 1994. If you’re familiar with my work, you probably know Hadrosaur Productions best as the publishing company behind Tales of the Talisman Magazine. However, that’s not all that Hadrosaur does. Over the years, we have published story collections such as Wayne James’s When Only the Moon Rages and audio books such as Joy Smith’s Sugar Time.

Over the years, Hadrosaur has also worked in cooperation with other organizations and publishers to produce books. For many years, we worked with El Paso Community College to lay out their literary magazine Chrysalis. We also collaborated with LBF Books to publish such works as Shawn Oetzel’s Dying Moon and B.T. Robertson’s Alliances.

In this post, I want to introduce you to three books Hadrosaur has published or will soon be publishing.

The 2012 Rhysling Anthology

This year, we worked with the Science Fiction Poetry Association to bring out the 2012 Rhysling Anthology. Each year, the Science Fiction Poetry Association presents the Rhysling Award for the best speculative poems published in the previous year. Poems are nominated by the organization’s members and collected into the Rhysling Anthology which is sent to members so they may vote. The result is a collection of the year’s best science fiction, fantasy, and horror poems. The 2012 anthology features works by Megan Arkenberg, Albert Goldbarth, Shira Lipkin, Tim Pratt, Ann K. Schwader, Mary Turzillo and many more. The wonderful cover image was taken at the Kitt Peak 4-meter Telescope by Heidi Schweiker and Travis Rector. You can read more about it at the NOAO Image Gallery.

All profits from the sale of the 2012 Rhysling Anthology go to the Science Fiction Poetry Association to aid their mission of spreading the word about speculative poetry. Copies of the anthology may be ordered here: http://www.hadrosaur.com/collections.html#2012rhysling

Revolution of Air and Rust

When I was at Bubonicon in August, Robert E. Vardeman asked me if I’d be interested in writing a novella for a shared world steampunk series called Empires of Steam and Rust. In this world, it’s 1915. Queen Victoria is still on the throne…and getting younger. Teddy Roosevelt is still president of the United States. The Russian Revolution failed. Around the world holes have opened up that look into another world. In some cases, material oozes forth. In other cases, people travel through the portals. What really appealed to me about this series was it’s globe-spanning nature.

I decided I wanted to take a look at the Mexican Revolution of this world and find out what Pancho Villa was up to. The result is my entry in the series, a novella called Revolution of Air and Rust.

Authors of Empires of Steam and Rust Books are responsible for distributing the books themselves. So, mine will be coming out through Hadrosaur Productions. The plan is that Revolution of Air and Rust will be released as an ebook this coming week! I will also be creating a print chapbook that should be available soon afterward. Of course, I’ll let you know when the ebook and print book are available, but you can also check the catalog page for updates at: http://www.hadrosaur.com/bookstore.html#revolution.

A Kepler’s Dozen

Since its launch in March 2009, the Kepler Spacecraft has discovered over 100 confirmed planets around other stars. Hadrosaur Productions will be publishing an anthology of science fiction stories set around planets discovered by the Kepler Spacecraft entitled A Kepler’s Dozen. I have teamed up with Kepler’s Project Scientist, Dr. Steve Howell, to assemble this exciting anthology. We have a team of writers including some well known science fiction authors, Tales of the Talisman veterans, and astronomy professionals working on stories for the book. The first stories have already come in and this is shaping up to be an exciting collection. I’ll be sure to keep you posted as this project nears completion.

In the meantime, please drop in and visit the Hadrosaur Productions website at http://www.hadrosaur.com and see all the fine books we have to offer. If you like science fiction, fantasy or horror, I’ll bet you’ll find your next must-have book.