Alan Baxter's Blog, page 14

2020 Awards eligibility post

It’s that time of year again. I know people are thinking about Awards, the Stoker Awards Recommended Reading List is up, and so on. I think it’s always worth reminding people of what you’ve had published in any given year, so here’s my post to that effect. In all honesty, I’ve been pretty busy this year, but not had a great deal of work published. It’s the first year in a while that I haven’t had a novel-length work published, but I have had three novellas out. That’s about one novel. And there have been 5 short stories published this year.

So here’s what I’ve done in 2020:

THE ROO – a gonzo creature feature novella (self-published, March 2020)

SANCTUM (Jake Crowley Adventures 0) (Adrenaline Press, March 2020) – Action/adventure thriller (prequel novella).

RECALL NIGHT – Eli Carver 2 – a supernatural crime noir novella (Grey Matter Press, August 2020)

These are all eligible in the Long Fiction category of awards – 17,500 and 40,000 words, EXCEPT SANCTUM which is technically a novel, but only around 44,000 words.

As for Short Stories (up to 7,500 words), I’ve published the following in 2020:

“Liminal” – One of Us: A Tribute to Frank Michaels Errington (ed. Kenneth W Cain) Bloodshot Books (November 2020)

“The Normandy Curse” – Does the Dog Die in This (June 2020)

“Yellow Dog” – Black Dogs, Black Tales: A Mental Health Charity Anthology (ed. Tabatha Wood) Things in the Well Publications (May 2020)

“A Star Has Died” (A Silhouette Story) – self-published on my Curious Fictions page (May 2020)

“The Demon Locke”  – SNAFU: Medivac (A Charity Anthology for James A Moore), ed. A J Spedding (Cohesion Press, February 2020)

If you think any of these are award-worthy or nomination-worthy, thank you so much in advance! Awards don’t always equal sales, of course (I’d always much rather get more sales and fewer awards), but they certainly do help to raise an author’s profile, and they sure are a nice boost in this often thankless business. If you are able to get involved in any awards voting, please do. The more people involved, the more awards reflect the actual opinion of the reading public.

 

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Welcome to The Gulp!

If you follow me on social media it’s entirely possible you’re already sick of hearing about this book, but I hope not, because I’m really fucking proud of it. I thought I’d talk a bit about what it is and how it came about. In many ways, The Gulp is the culmination of many things, the meeting point of several paths in my writing career thus far. I’ve always written dark, weird, fantastical stuff. With The Balance books and The Alex Caine Series, that manifested in a kind of gritty, black urban fantasy. With Hidden City, I pushed harder into the horror while keeping the urban fantasy high in the mix. With Devouring Dark, I pushed harder still into horror while letting the fantasy sit back a bit. To be honest, all those things are on a sliding scale and trying to categorise them is a dark tunnel that ends in madness. They’re all Alan Baxter books. Let’s hope that’s starting to mean something.

Along with those novels, I’ve always loved to write short stories. My two collections, Crow Shine and Served Cold, are both award-winners. And I love longer short stories, that wonderful novella length that lends itself so well to genre fiction, especially horror. My stuff like The Book Club and Manifest Recall really took advantage of the novella format and I think they’re some of my best books. And the came The Roo.

A lot of my stories are set in my home country of Australia, but none of them were so unashamedly Australian as the gonzo splatterpunk carnival that is The Roo. And for whatever reason, no doubt a combination of talent, luck, and timing like all publishing, The Roo has been by far my most popular book. Honestly, I wish all my stuff sold as well as The Roo sold (and is still selling!) If you’ve only read The Roo so far, and that’s how you’ve found me, I implore you to check out some of the stuff listed above. You’ll dig it, I promise. You’ll find everything under the Books By Alan link in the menu at the top of this page.

When I saw the success of The Roo, and saw how much people were enjoying this fucked up, fully Aussie horror yarn, I realised something. For a long time, I’ve had the urge to write stories set in a fictional town that I can revisit again and again. A lot of authors do it – Stephen King revisits Derry and Castle Rock a lot, for example – but I’d never done it yet myself. The city of Cleveport in Hidden City is a great fictional location and I’d love to write more stories there, but that’s fictional America. My urge was to write something in a quintessentially Australian town, but I thought maybe it was too niche. Maybe there was no market for it. The Roo proved that to be absolute bollocks. Of course, the appeal of a giant rampaging killer roo is more the cause of that book’s success than anything else, but it proved people from all over the world loved a true blue Aussie yarn. So maybe I should write those stories I’d been toying with.

I live near a regional harbour town. That combination of country Australia and the sea is delicious to me. It’s like Innsmouth and Wake In Fright and Wolf Creek all rolled up together. Of course, the town I live in isn’t anything like that remote, but the seed of the idea came from there. I thought I could create the coolest gestalt entity rural town – isolated, surrounded by bush, right on the ocean. I could play with all those weird and wonderful country town archetypes. In The Roo I’d done the dry and dusty outback town. I may do more of that, it’s so appealing and so good for horror. I’ve set several short stories out there. But now I get to do the coastal weirdness that appeals to me so much. Thereby the town of Gulpepper was born. But only outsiders use the full name. Locals call it The Gulp, because the place has a habit of swallowing people.

It’s no surprise to anyone who knows my work that I love a weird, cosmic, dark fantastique vibe in stories. With The Gulp I let off the brakes and dove headlong into that sandpit. There are five novellas in the The Gulp. I’ve had all kinds of ideas floating around for these stories for a long time, but two in particular were quite well-formed in my mind. As soon as I started working more seriously on this book, I realised I would need a story to frame the idea, and then I could let loose. I realised the ideas were interconnected, and that was exciting. While each of the five stories in The Gulp works perfectly as a standalone, there are lots of crossovers. As you read through you’ll get easter eggs galore where characters or situations from one story appear in another. I bloody love nerdy stuff like that. And the whole book is also a kind of mosaic novel as a result. The sum of the parts is greater than those parts themselves. And I’m billing it as “Tales From The Gulp Volume One”, because I have so many more stories to tell in this cool and creepy place. I really hope people get behind it and enjoy the book so I get to justify writing another set of stories. I can already visualise a second novella collection. And there’s the possibility of novel-length stories set here as well. The Gulp can be my Castle Rock, and that fills me with joy and the urge to write.

Of course, there’s something unique about any place. A good story can take place anywhere, but a good location adds something indefinable to a story that makes it far more, far better, than it could otherwise be. You could write exactly the same story, for example, and set it in New York or Hong Kong or Sydney. Potentially, it could remain unchanged, as the essence of the story might be the same wherever it happened. But for me, that’s not enough. The setting is a character in every story I write and if that’s ignored, the story suffers for it. When it’s embraced, the story is improved by orders of magnitude. In some ways, the stories in The Gulp could happen anywhere. I could have set them in any generic location and they would still be good stories. But they’re not generic. These tales take place in Gulpepper, in regional New South Wales, Australia, and that matters. More than most of my other stuff, the fact that they take place there is fundamental to what happens. And each story contributes to the myth and history of Gulpepper. Every future story I set there will feed of these that have come before. And I can’t wait to write more.

Here’s the blurb for the first five stories from The Gulp.

Strange things happen in The Gulp. The residents have grown used to it.

 

The isolated Australian harbour town of Gulpepper is not like other places. Some maps don’t even show it. And only outsiders use the full name. Everyone who lives there calls it The Gulp. The place has a habit of swallowing people.

 

A truck driver thinks the stories about The Gulp are made up to scare him. Until he gets there.

Teenage siblings try to cover up the death of their mother, but their plans go drastically awry.

A rock band invite four backpackers to a party at their house, where things get dangerously out of hand.

A young man loses a drug shipment and his boss gives him 48 hours to make good on his mistake.

Under the blinking eye of the old lighthouse, a rock fisher makes the strangest catch of his life.

 

Five novellas. Five descents into darkness. Welcome to The Gulp, where nothing is as it seems.

On the subject of quintessentially Australian horror, I recently hosted a panel for the virtual convention, InCONceivable,  about exactly that subject, with horror legends Robert Hood, Aaron Dries and Joseph Ashley-Smith. You can watch that panel on YouTube – I’ll embed the video at the end of this post.

I genuinely think The Gulp is one of the best books I’ve written, and I hope you’ll give it a try. Pre-orders for the paperback and ebook are live now* (all the links can be found here), you can find it on Goodreads, and it comes out in just a few weeks, on January 12th, 2021. (*Some Amazon stores are being dicks and showing it as unavailable. Hopefully that’ll change soon, but if nothing else it will become available on publication day, January 12th, so don’t worry if you can’ t pre-order. Follow me on Twitter, etc. and I’ll be sure to sing out when the book is available.)

Welcome to The Gulp, where nothing is as it seems.

Here’s that Aussie Horror panel:

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Signed books for Christmas

Christmas is coming around again, whether we like it or not. I’m probably quite well known by now for my disdain of the whole thing, but I do my best to get into the spirit. To be honest, seeing Christmas through my son’s eyes these last few years has given it a new perspective that I quite enjoy. And the excuse to gather with friends and family to eat and drink is always a winner. But of course, this year is not like other years in so many ways, most especially in the way that travelling to be together is potentially deadly. I mean, even by Christmas standards, that fucking sucks. I hope everyone is able to stay safe.

The other side of Christmas, of course, is the gift-giving. And that’s something we can hopefully keep largely unaffected by plagues and political upheaval. Naturally, we can’t literally hand over gifts like we normally do, but we can send them. Or have them sent. And here’s my offer to you. Books are a great gift – giving someone a reading experience that you’ve enjoyed is a unique present. You get to talk about it and have something to share beyond the book itself. Or you get to give someone an experience you think they’ll enjoy. It’s not just an object – it’s hours of escape, a mental journey they will always have. Sending them that experience signed by the person who wrote it is an extra bonus, and another layer of specialness in the gift. Especially if that author writes a personalised dedication. And that’s what I’m offering you. I’ll even gift-wrap the book/s and send the parcel directly to the recipient if you like, so you don’t have to receive it and then post it on.

So that’s a signed book (or books), personally dedicated, gift-wrapped, and sent directly to your friend or loved one. I can do this anywhere in the world, but I would warn that postal rates outside Australia are pretty brutal. Regardless, the process is now very easy as you can order via my online Eventeny store. Shipping is calculated based on your location and you can check that before you even add a book to your cart if you want. If you do decide to go ahead, you add the book/s to your cart, then there’s an option to “Add a note to Alan Baxter” (right under the cover image) and there you can let me know who to sign it to and any other dedication or gift-wrapping requests you have. All prices in the store are in Australian dollars. Currently available are:

Novels

The Alex Caine Trilogy – BOUND, OBSIDIAN and ABDUCTION – $60 for all three

DEVOURING DARK – $25

HIDDEN CITY – $25

Short Story Collections

SERVED COLD – $25

CROW SHINE – $25

Novellas

MANIFEST RECALL – $16.95

RECALL NIGHT – $16.95

THE ROO – $16.95

(Click on the image for a bigger version)

I only have a few copies of some books, so get in quick.

So that’s it. If you’re keen, head over to my online Eventeny store and make your order. At the moment I’m pretty sure we can get stuff anywhere before Christmas, but for overseas orders I would move fast as I can’t guarantee how well the postal service will manage that. Within Australia, there’s plenty of time, but get your orders in sooner rather than later to make sure you get the books you want and to make sure I have time to get them posted well before Christmas.

If you have any problems or questions, give me a shout and we’ll figure stuff out. And happy Christmas to you all. Let’s hope 2021 is a vast improvement on 2020.

.

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Excerpt from THE GULP

My new book, THE GULP, is out on January 19th 2021. That awesome cover art is by my incredibly talented wife, Halinka Orszulok, by the way. You can find her at www.halinka.com.au

THE GULP is a novella collection, with five standalone but interconnected novellas making a kind of mosaic novel. To whet your appetites, I’ve posted the opening of the first story from THE GULP, called “Out On a Rim”, on my Curious Fictions page. You can find it here: https://curiousfictions.com/stories/3620-alan-baxter-out-on-a-rim-from-the-gulp

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Signed books for sale!

These are indeed weird-ass times. We’re living through an unprecedented global event and we’re all struggling to find our way. A lot of people are doing it way tougher than me, but I still have bills coming in (so many bills) and I’m trying to navigate the new paradigm. One big problem for me is that every in-person event this year since March has been cancelled (signings, conventions, workshops, etc.) That’s a large part of an author’s career, and a lot of lost book sales. I’m trying to make up for that loss. I’ve managed to get a bunch of event stock back to sell direct, so copies of the books listed below, signed and personalised, posted anywhere in Australia, are available until I run out. (I’m happy to post overseas, but shipping costs are brutal. For anyone overseas, I can instead post you signed book plates to stick in copies you buy from your local Amazon, or wherever you prefer to shop. Signed book plates are just $5 for as many as you want.) So, the currently available books are:

Devouring Dark – urban horror novel, finalist in the Aurealis, Ditmar, and Australian Shadows Awards.

A genre-smashing supernatural thriller that masterfully blends elements of crime and horror in an adrenaline-fueled, life-or-death rollercoaster ride.

Hidden City – urban fantasy/horror novel.

A grim and gritty fantasy noir with razor-sharp humor.

The Alex Caine Trilogy – dark urban fantasy trilogy.

Bound (Finalist for the Ditmar Award)

Obsidian (Finalist for the Aurealis Award)

Abduction

A relentless whirlwind of magic, sex, and violence… a rollercoaster of gritty magic, evocative settings, and brutal action.

Served Cold – short story collection, winner of the Australian Shadows Award.

16 provocative and intensely chilling tales blending horror, fantasy, and the weird.

All the above are $20 each plus postage (see below for postage).

The Roo – gonzo horror creature feature novella

Manifest Recall (Eli Carver 1) – supernatural crime/noir novella

Recall Night (Eli Carver 2) – supernatural crime/noir novella

These three novellas are $15 each plus postage.

Postage is a flat $10, anywhere in Australia, whether you buy one book or several.

Payment by PayPal to alan@warriorscribe.com or email me (same address) for bank transfer details or with any queries.

(Again, I’m happy to post overseas, but shipping costs are killer. If you want signed book plates to stick in copies you buy locally, I can send those for $5 for as many as you want.)

If you want to gift any of these things to someone else, I’m happy to sign and post them wherever you like, and I’ll gift wrap them for free if you like.

Hit me up with any questions or if you want anything else, and we’ll make it happen. I also have a few bits of Alan Baxter merch available via my Redbubble store here. You can find a few cool things there.

If you do buy any of these, I can’t thank you enough. Book sales themselves are obviously good for me to make a living, but new readers are also a huge ongoing boost to an author, so please consider buying gifts for people too. With Christmas fast approaching, signed books make a great present. If you have enjoyed my work, please do help me spread the word – your honest reader recommendation is gold, so thank you!

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RECALL NIGHT is out now!

Just a quick post to let you know that the second Eli Carver book, Recall Night, is out now. It’s the direct sequel to Manifest Recall, and I plan to start writing book 3 very soon.

When people were so supportive of Manifest Recall and asking for more of Eli Carver’s story, I got chatting to Grey Matter Press about it and we thought perhaps this could be an ongoing novella series. GMP said, “Well, you write book 2, we’ll publish it, and see how it goes from there.” So I did. And here it is. Recall Night picks up soon after Manifest Recall left off and is more of the same high-octane, hyper-violent mayhem with Eli and his peanut gallery of hateful ghosts. I’m really pleased with how it came out and the early response has been great. Brian Keene (yes, THAT Brian Keene, the absolute horror legend) was kind enough to read it and he said:

“Eli Carver is back with a vengeance! That’s bad news for some but good news for readers. RECALL NIGHT is brutal, gritty fun and a phenomenal follow-up to MANIFEST RECALL.” — Brian Keene, author of The Complex

So that’s just fucking amazing. Thank you, Brian!

You can learn all about Recall Night here. You can read an excerpt here.

You can find the first book, Manifest Recall, here. It’s currently only 99c in ebook!

Please add Recall Night to your Goodreads shelves if you hang out there.

And here’s a set of Amazon links to get you started. The book is out on August 25th and you can pre-order right now.

Amazon US

Amazon AUS

Amazon UK

Of course, you can shop anywhere you prefer to buy books or order from your local store or library. And thank you in advance for any of those things.

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Night Falls – my latest newsletter

My email newsletter goes out infrequently, but usually once every month or two. Here’s the last one. If you want them delivered to your inbox, sign up here.

Hi friend

It’s here that I would usually say “How are you?” or “Are these strange times or what?” but it’s all starting to seem repetitious. I hope you are well and this newsletter finds you navigating the shitshow of modern life with aplomb.

I’m doing okay, for a given value of okay. While Victoria is seeing a crushing wave of COVID, we here in NSW aren’t doing too badly at the moment and my classes are back on for the time being. I do get mild anxiety attacks every time I have to get ready to go and put myself in a room full of people to teach a class, but we’re taking all reasonable precautions. I’ve honestly never wished for a bigger readership more, though. I will always teach kung fu and qi gong, as it’s a passion and has been all my life, but it would be nice to make enough from writing that I didn’t HAVE to teach. I would gladly suspend my school for a few months if that was feasible. So please tell your friends and colleagues about my books!

On that front, let’s get to the book news, shall we? First and foremost, the second Eli Carver book is imminent!

I love that cover so much! When people were so supportive of Manifest Recall and asking for more of Eli Carver’s story, I got chatting to Grey Matter Press about it and we thought perhaps this could be an ongoing novella series. GMP said, “Well, you write book 2, we’ll publish it, and see how it goes from there.” So I did. And here it is. Recall Night picks up soon after Manifest Recall left off and is more of the same high-octane, hyper-violent mayhem with Eli and his peanut gallery of hateful ghosts. I’m really pleased with how it came out and the early response has been great. Brian Keene (yes, THAT Brian Keene, the absolute horror legend) was kind enough to read it and he said:

“Eli Carver is back with a vengeance! That’s bad news for some but good news for readers. RECALL NIGHT is brutal, gritty fun and a phenomenal follow-up to MANIFEST RECALL.” — Brian Keene, author of The Complex

So that’s just fucking amazing. Thank you, Brian!

You can learn all about Recall Night here. You can read an excerpt here.

You can find the first book, Manifest Recall, here.

Please add Recall Night to your Goodreads shelves if you hang out there.

And here’s a set of Amazon links to get you started. The book is out on August 25th and you can pre-order right now.

Amazon US

Amazon AUS

Amazon UK

Of course, you can shop anywhere you prefer to buy books or order from your local store or library. And thank you in advance for any of those things.

In other news, I had the absolute honour recently of winning another Australian Shadows Award. It’s my fourth now, and that just blows my mind. My second collection of short stories, Served Cold, won in the Best Collected Works category. That also means that both volumes of my collected short stories are Shadows Award winners, as Crow Shine also won back in 2016. Massive thanks to the judges and everyone involved. You can find Served Cold here.

Lastly in book news, I’m currently working on something that I think is coming together really well. I had the idea to write a collection of long stories all set in the same fictional Australian country town. Rather than the dusty outback like in The Roo (which is still going gangbusters, so thanks to everyone who’s got behind that crazy gonzo book) I thought it would be fun to set it in a remote harbour town, which is not based on where I live at all I promise what do you mean my fingers are crossed behind my back?

I love weird horror and old pulp horror and that’s what I’m putting together here, with a distinctly regional Australian angle. The book will be five novellas, all between 15,000 and 20,000 words. Each story is entirely its own thing, but all five have overlaps and easter eggs from each other in them. In the finish, all five will make something of a mosaic novel. I’m having so much fun with it and have totally creeped myself out a few times, which is always a good sign. I’m working on the last of the five stories now, so hopefully I’ll have it finished soon and out around the end of this year or early next. Also, my wife said I could use one of her paintings for the cover and that’s starting to look incredible. Title, cover reveal and all that stuff coming soon.

So, what else have I been up to? Well, I like to share the art I’ve been consuming because I’m all about shouting out the good stuff. On that front, I’ve been watching a Netflix show called Ozark. I’m about halfway through season 3 and I just heard that season 4 will be out soon and that will be the last one. I like it when a thing is complete, so that’s good to hear. And I have to say, Ozark is compelling and anxiety-inducing television. It’s brilliantly written, the actors are all outstanding and the story is some of the most twisted and clever crime writing I’ve ever seen. No way could I live under the kind of stress these characters put themselves under, but shit man, I can’t look away!

When it comes to reading, I’ve enjoyed some amazing books lately. Christina Henry wrote a horror adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, called Alice, and it’s incredible. Definitely not what you expect and it blew me away. I read a novella by Sara Tantlinger called To Be Devoured, and that is some twisted and messed up stuff that I greatly enjoyed. Lisa Hannett has a new collection out called Songs For Dark Seasons that is well worth your time. But the standout read for me recently was Blacktop Wasteland by S A Cosby. Cosby isn’t an author I’d come across before, but this book kept showing up in my social media feeds, so I bought it and read it and holy shit am I glad I did. It’s a fantastic crime novel from an angle we don’t see much of, and it’s also an incredible study of family, especially fatherhood. It rockets along and is just fantastic. I blitzed through in only two or three sittings. Oh, and one last thing – last time I mentioned the new Laird Barron novel, Worse Angels. I read that and it’s brilliant. He takes this crime series way deeper into horror territory with this third book in the series and each book just gets better and better.

That’s about all I have to share right now. This is the part of the newsletter where I normally talk about signings and events, but all that is royally fucked at the moment. In fact, at this very moment I should be in new Zealand enjoying Worldcon. Fuck COVID. But we still have digital media, so stay in touch and now is a great time to read books!

Last thing, Aussies don’t forget you can order signed paperbacks direct from me if you’re keen, I still have a few left of:

The Alex Caine Trilogy (Bound, Obsidian & Abduction) – $50 for all three plus postage.

Devouring Dark – $20 plus postage.

Hidden City – $20 plus postage.

Manifest Recall – $15 plus postage.

The Roo – $15 plus postage.

And

Recall Night will also be $15 plus postage, available after August 25th.

Postage is $10 for one book, $15 for two or more books. All prices Australian dollars and available in Australia only, I’m afraid. Sorry about that. International postage is killer. But remember, if you want to buy my books in your country and get some signed book plates from me to stick in them, I can arrange that. Email me alan@warriorscribe.com and we’ll sort that out.

Lots of people are doing it really tough right now, especially in the arts sector. If you can, support the arts you love whenever and wherever you can. That includes book stores. A lot of them are really struggling, but they’re also doing their best with mail order, so that’s something to consider too. And just talking about and sharing the stuff you love helps more than you might realise. People can’t buy books they’ve never heard of!

That’s all for now. I hope you’re all safe and sound.

Stay wicked, all you witches, warlocks, and wargs.

Peace

Alan

I have a Ko-fi page if you’d like to buy me a virtual coffee.

www.alanbaxteronline.com

Contact me at alan@warriorscribe.com

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An open letter to the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) and to Norman Cates as the Chair of the 2020 WorldCon

I didn’t hesitate to add my name to this as a signatory, and the letter is being shared widely, so I’m putting it here as well.

An open letter to the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) and to Norman Cates as the Chair of the 2020 WorldCon

As writers, publishers and readers of science fiction and fantasy, we are writing to express our concern that Saudi Arabia has been accepted as a potential host site for the 2022 World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon).

SFF is the great genre of possibilities and pluralities. As readers, writers and publishers of SFF our task is to inspire wonder: we look up at the stars to seek out other ways of being, we look down at the earth around us to find enchantment, beauty, romance, horror, hope. We create new worlds because we believe that in doing so we can make this world a better and intellectually richer place. A Jeddah WorldCon would allow fandom a chance to visit a breathtakingly beautiful city, Jeddah. It would break new ground for SFF Fandom, open up a new world to fans who may otherwise never have an opportunity to travel there, and show solidarity with creative communities within Saudi Arabia and other Arab states. It’s therefore with great sadness that we must face reality for what it is, that the Saudi regime is antithetical to everything SFF stands for.

The most recent Amnesty International report on Saudi Arabia states that in 2019 the Saudi government ‘escalated repression of the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly. They harassed, arbitrarily detained and prosecuted dozens of government critics, human rights defenders, including women’s rights activists, members of the Shi’a minority and family members of activists. […] Some people, most of them members of the country’s Shi’a minority, were executed following grossly unfair trials.’ Saudi women face systematic legal discrimination, while identifying as LGBQT+ is illegal and can be punishable with corporal punishment and even execution. Saudi Arabia is a key player in the war in Yemen that has left 80% of the Yemeni population in need of humanitarian aid, and has been accused of war crimes in the region . The UN concluded last year that it was ‘creditable’ that the Saudi Crown Prince personally ordered the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi for the crime of writing words . It cannot and must not be acceptable to stage an international event against this backdrop. Indeed, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi alone should be enough to render the concept of a literary convention in the country an absurdity.

On a personal level, we note that many of us would ourselves not be able to write or to live freely under Saudi law. We refuse to attend an event if those staffing it cannot have the same basic freedoms. We express deep concern that many members of the SFF community would be excluded from attending an event because of their sexuality, nationality or religious beliefs.

We stand in solidarity with those who seek change in the country. And we write in protest but also in hope – that by raising awareness of the political situation in Saudi Arabia a WorldCon SA will one day be possible.

Yours sincerely,

Anna Smith Spark (organiser), Andrew Angel, Helen Armfield, Allen Ashley, Graham Austin-King, Ali Baker Brooks, Andrew Bannister, RJ Barker, Alan Baxter, Donna Bond, James Brogden, Angela Cleland, Tom Clews, Adrian Collins, Lee Conley, Emily Cornell, Sarah Doyle, Margaret Eve, Mike Everest Evans, The Fantasy Hive, Fantasy Faction, Nick Ferguson, Karen Fishwick, Carol Goodwin, T. L. Greylock, Joanne Hall, Patricia Hawkes-Reed, Bethan May Hindmarsh, Stewart Hotson, Shellie Horst, Steve D. Howarth, Humber SFF, Barbara James, Cameron Johnston, Daniel Kelly, Simon Kewin, Alex Khlopenko, Shona Kinsella, Alex Knight, David Lascelles, Ulff Lehmann, Dale Lucas, Eloise Mac, Steve McHugh, Juliette McKenna, Peter McLean, Kevin McVeigh, Kareem Mahfouz, Masimba Musodza, Andy Marsden, GR Matthews, Simon Morden, Alistair Morley, T. O. Munro, Stan Nicholls, Chris Nuttall, Scott Oden, Graeme Penman, Peter Philpott, Steven Poore, Robert V.S Redick, Ian Richardson, Courtney Schaffer, S. Naomi Scott, Ian Segal, Mike Shackle, Steve J Shaw, Sheffield Science Fiction and Fantasy Society, , Rita Sloan, Sammy HK Smith, Vaughan Stanger, Mark Stay, Charlie Stross, Allen Stroud, Amanda M Suver Justice, Clayton Synder, Sue Tingey, Three Crows Magazine, Catriona Ward, Matthew Ward, David Watkins, RB Watkinson, Adam Weller, Graeme Williams, Phil Williams, Deborah A Wolf.

 

The post An open letter to the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) and to Norman Cates as the Chair of the 2020 WorldCon appeared first on Alan Baxter - Warrior Scribe.

RECALL NIGHT cover and release date.

I am so excited to be revisiting the ghost-infused world of Eli Carver in RECALL NIGHT, the second supernatural noir novella in what we hope will be an ongoing series. And here’s the cover. I love it! Click for a bigger version. This book is a direct sequel to 2018’s MANIFEST RECALL. Here’s the blurb:

Back from self-imposed exile in Canada where he fled to avoid the law following the blood-stained events in Manifest Recall–the first installment of award-winning author Alan Baxter’s latest supernatural thriller series–Eli Carver returns to the states with thoughts of starting over. But an accidental encounter on a train with a mysterious woman, one he soon learns has her own dangerous past, threatens to unravel his well-intended plans.

Upon their arrival in New York, the duo quickly find themselves entangled in an ongoing war between two rival crime syndicates. And with the ghosts of his own past continuing to torment him, Eli finds himself taking the darkest of turns as he’s drawn down a perilous path into a world of ancient religion and deadly occult rituals.

Living legend of horror, Brian Keene, read an advanced copy and had this to say:

“Eli Carver is back with a vengeance! That’s bad news for some but good news for readers. RECALL NIGHT is brutal, gritty fun and a phenomenal follow-up to MANIFEST RECALL.” — Brian Keene, author of The Complex

This second instalment of gritty, high-octane supernatural crime noir drops on August 25th, and the pre-order will be up soon. Huge thanks to Grey Matter Press for bringing this book to the world.

“If you like crime/noir horror hybrids do check out Alan Baxter’s MANIFEST RECALL. It’s a fast, gritty, mind-f*ck.” – Paul Tremblay, author of Cabin at the End of the World

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One Of Us, a tribute anthology to Frank Michaels Errington.

Frank Michaels Errington was a great guy, taken too soon. He was a tireless supporter of horror and would always hit me up the moment he heard I had a new book coming out, asking for a copy to review. He did the same for so many of us. I’m honoured to have my original story, “Liminal”, in this anthology in his memory, coming soon. Keep up with the details of who’s in it and release dates, etc. here: https://www.facebook.com/One-of-Us-A-Tribute-to-Frank-Michaels-Errington-114062960321771/

Here’s Frank’s site where you can see all the amazing reviews he wrote.

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