Loren Rhoads's Blog, page 22
July 19, 2019
Sale on Lost Angels
Right now, my succubus/angel novel (written with Brian Thomas) is on sale at Smashwords. You can try it out in any ebook format for $2.99. Just follow this link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/624284
In the days before the Flood, Azaziel had been a Watcher, sent down to help God’s creatures on Earth. He fell in love with one of Cain’s granddaughters and he rescued her from the Flood. They passed her mortal life in bliss. Now he’s imprisoned in the Los Angeles basin. His angelic brethren, Heaven’s misfits, don’t understand the longing Aza feels: once he had been loved entirely for himself.
The succubus Lorelei doesn’t know any of this when she sets her sights on Azaziel in her boss’s bar. All she knows is that the angel’s fall will bring glory to Hell and acclaim to any succubus who accomplishes it.
Of course, it never occurs to Lorelei that Azaziel might try to tame her by possessing her with a mortal girl’s soul.
Can the succubus find an exorcist before the fury of Hell is unleashed?
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Get the paperback at Amazon: https://amzn.to/2SpCJs6
Get a mobi, epub, pdf or text at Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/624284
July 15, 2019
5 Questions for Tim Prasil
In fact, Tim Prasil writes fiction, plays, and the occasional limerick. He also researches quirky genres of fiction from the 1800s and early 1900s, from occult detective fiction to tales of sinister hypnotists. From this research, Tim edits entertaining and informative anthologies. In 2017, he started Brom Bones Books as a publishing “cottage” for his work. Visit brombonesbooks.com to learn about Tim’s upcoming projects.
One more thing. Tim Prasil rhymes with “grim fossil.” Flattering, ain’t it?
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Guilt Is a Ghost: A Vera Van Slyke Ghostly Mystery:
In 1899, a séance was held at the Morley Mansion in Boston, Massachusetts. The millionaire Roderick Morley was desperate to contact his murdered friend. He hoped to clear himself of suspicion by identifying the true killer. The séance went horribly wrong, though, and Morley left the room—to commit suicide.
By 1903, the Morley Mansion was deemed haunted! The new owner hired Vera Van Slyke, an odd but brilliant ghost hunter. With her assistant, Lucille Parsell, Vera quickly realized that, to banish the ghost, the two would have to solve the murder.
But a fugitive murderer wasn’t the only shadow cast over the Morley Mansion. A fake medium had performed at that séance, a shame-ridden woman who called herself “Lucille Parsell.”
Sometimes, guilt is a ghost that can never be banished.
Did something in the real world inspire Guilt Is a Ghost: A Vera Van Slyke Ghostly Mystery?
There was nothing specific in terms of the main plotline, but one key story event involves a Spiritualist medium being debunked. Of course, that really happened from time to time in the late 1800s/early 1900s, which is when the novel is set. In addition, there are two main characters who were real people: William James, the Harvard Psychology professor who also pursued “psychical research” (now known as paranormal investigation) and William B. Watts, the Chief Inspector at Boston’s Criminal Investigation Bureau. I mention actual cases handled by Watts—from Jack the Slugger, a street thug who killed some of his victims, to Francis Truth, a faith healer who conned people on a national scale. I also used a 1903 map of Boston to get names and places right.
What is your favorite scene in the book?
I’m torn between two scenes. Guilt Is a Ghost is more a mystery than a spooky ghost story, but I did include a scene that’s pretty eerie. One character recounts living alone in the novel’s haunted house and having a series of encounters with a crouching phantom, one with dark splotches instead of eyes. (I tried to represent this apparition on the book’s cover.) The other scene involves my ragtag team of crime-fighters, introduced one by one throughout the novel. Toward the end, they assemble at a tavern called The Pitcher and Coach to discuss how they’re going to expose the criminal mastermind—and the terrible dangers that go with their plan. Partly, I like these characters a lot, so it’s fun seeing them join forces. Partly, I like that The Pitcher and Coach is a sideways reference to Cheers, the Boston bar in the TV series. (Yes, my tavern gets its name from a pitcher for serving beverages and a horse-drawn coach—but in Cheers, the bartenders are Sam Malone, who had been a pitcher for the Red Sox, and Coach, who had served as a his coach.) Similarly, I tossed in nods to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and even The Great Gatsby.
What was your writing process like as you wrote the book?This novel has a slightly crazy history. In 2012, I outlined a stage play. It was titled Guilt Is a Ghost and introduced a ghost hunter named Vera Van Slyke. I sent the outline to a theatre troupe in Dallas. Turned out, they weren’t interested in developing/producing it because it wasn’t strictly linear. There were flashbacks, in other words. So I said, “Well, maybe it’s a novel and Vera Van Slyke is a series character!”
To test whether or not Vera could sustain interest and evolve through several adventures—and to make sure I wouldn’t wind up repeating myself—I wrote Help for the Haunted: A Decade of Vera Van Slyke Ghostly Mysteries. It’s a composite novel/short story cycle that includes thirteen discreet yet interwoven supernatural investigations. The many positive reviews at Amazon assured me that Vera could easily sustain a series.
Having discovered that, I then went back and wrote Guilt Is a Ghost as a novel, which I realized it was probably meant to be all along.
What was the best thing that happened during your promotion of the book?I really enjoyed hearing from the readers who had fallen in love with Vera when reading Help for the Haunted discuss how much they were looking forward to reading Guilt Is a Ghost. And hearing from fans who had completed Guilt say they felt it very much seemed to be in keeping with the previous book.
That said, I’d like to mention that readers can start with either book. Help covers 1899-1909; Guilt opens in 1899 and then jumps to 1903. Timewise, they overlap—and each book fills in some details of the other. If you prefer traditional novels, you might start with Guilt Is a Ghost, which delves deeply into Vera’s first meeting with Lucille Parsell, who becomes her “Dr. Watson,” and then presents their investigation of a complex haunting that, in important ways, resulted from that meeting. If you’re partial to short stories, you might begin with Help for the Haunted. They’re very much companion books.
What do you have planned next?
Right now, I’m editing an anthology called Ghostly Clients and Demonic Culprits: The Roots of Occult Detective Fiction. Vera Van Slyke is in the occult detective tradition, along with characters such as Agents Mulder and Scully of The X-Files or Sam and Dean Winchester of Supernatural. The book I’m currently working on traces the deep roots of this narrative tradition and, along the way, presents some interesting challenges to the standard history of mystery fiction.
Further down the line, I’ll add more novels to the Vera Van Slyke series.
Learn more about Tim’s books at https://brombonesbooks.com/ or at his Amazon page: https://amzn.to/2JpEimT.
You can order a copy of Guilt is a Ghost from Amazon: https://amzn.to/2YLtrJl.
July 12, 2019
Shallow Waters
[image error]I have a very short story in this new horror anthology by Crystal Lake Publishing. It’s for sale on Amazon for the Kindle for only 99 cents: https://amzn.to/2XBKg81
The amazing cover is by Ben Baldwin.
In this volume…
• Taunted by a cactus, a man copes with grief after the loss of his wife.
• Alondra DeCourval visits Franz Kafka’s grave to think about death.
• A lovestruck woman strives to connect with a man she’s convinced is The One.
• The perfect funeral for a child—all according to a Mother’s well-crafted plan. The exception is one small, unexpected development no one could have ever prepared for.
• A short meditation on the haunting nature of love and loss, and the aftermath of both.
• Victor’s sanity has been threaded together by the memory of his daughter’s voice, until now, when her laughter falls silent.
• An adrenaline junkie believes he can take on the ultimate challenge—coming back from the dead.
• Sisters share everything. The good…and the bad.
• Sometimes being a hoarder is dangerous…
• In our ever-changing world, what we view as a monster is constantly evolving…but at what cost?
• Buddy’s heart aches for his family’s arrival.
• Bright colors may be beautiful, but sometimes they can be dangerous.
• Sometimes the darkness we harbor within is best left behind closed doors.
• Rats scratch in the children’s ward.
• A surprise wedding present from daughter to father, built over a lifetime, reveals his true nature to all his guests.
• Can a mourning Mallory find comfort before she loses her mind?
• While coming to terms with the death of his mother a man learns that he harbours a strange ability, one that could threaten to tear his reality apart.
• A woman’s last letter to her abusive ex-husband returns the favor of his tutelage.
• Lillian’s search for her daughter’s doll leads her on a journey through tragedy, loss, and madness.
• The brutal murder a man’s only child leaves him burdened with a question only he can answer.
Here’s that Table of Contents:
“Closure on a Bed of Nails” by Chad Lutzke
“Fast Car” by Tracy Fahey
“Tears of Buddy” by Patrick R. McDonough
“Puzzle Pieces” by Armand Rosamilia
“Pretty Like Butterflies” by Tim Waggoner
“S1:E7” by Robert Ford
“Pain is Your Teacher” by Michael Harris Cohen
“Memory Lane” by Red Lagoe
“The Silence of the Sirens” by Loren Rhoads
“It’s Me Not You” by Jonathan Winn
“Sisters of Loss” by Mark Allan Gunnells
“Talisman” by Jezzy Wolfe
“The Melting of Your Gods” by Mercedes M. Yardley
“Charms” by Dino Parenti
“Not Your Average Monster” by Kenneth W. Cain
“Where the Children Run in Darkness” by Guy Medley
“Tunnels” by Tom Over (winner)
“The Truth about Dani” by Joe Mercer
“Baby Savannah” by M.J. Sydney
“Rats Scratched in the Linen Cupboard” by Dani Brown
“Raining” by John Boden
“The Death Experience” by L.A. Story
Proudly brought to you by Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales from the Darkest Depths.
July 8, 2019
5 Questions for John Linwood Grant
[image error]I met John Linwood Grant through his work as editor at Occult Detective Quarterly magazine. (I was lucky enough to sell him an Alondra story for issue #5.) I learned more about his own writing when I interviewed Alan M. Clark in November last year. When John’s newest editing project was announced, I was fascinated.
John Linwood Grant is a professional writer/editor from Yorkshire who lives with a pack of lurchers and a beard. Widely published in anthologies and magazines such as Weirdbook, Vastarien and Lackington’s, he writes contemporary weird fiction, plus stories of murder, madness and the supernatural for his Tales of the Last Edwardian series. His latest novel is The Assassin’s Coin, featuring Mr. Dry, whose exploits also turn up in the new collection, A Persistence of Geraniums. He is editor of the magazine Occult Detective Quarterly, plus anthologies such as ODQ Presents and Hell’s Empire. Find him on Facebook or at his popular greydogtales.com.
John describes Hell’s Empire:
[image error]HELL’S EMPIRE: Tales of the Incursion. Being an account of the Incursion of the Inferno into Victoria’s Britain, as Hell seeks a foothold on Earth.
“Each local victory was matched by utter defeat elsewhere. Faith and resolve strengthened in some, but weakened in many others, who saw no end to this fight except death or servitude. Clergy faltered and died; supply lines failed. Surviving towns and cities struggled with refugees, becoming unwilling enclaves of resistance rather than mighty fortresses against the brimstone.
“Many waited with hope for returning troop-ships, particularly from South Africa, but with the loss of HMS Camforth off the Isle of Wight, that hope was dashed. Witnesses in Ventnor saw the brave vessel torn open as it hove in sight, grasped by tendrils of a monstrous size which carried weeping sores upon their mottled length. Hell was determined that there would be no relief…”
A unique anthology of two Thrones at war, told in fourteen tales of horror, victory, and defeat. 300 pages of brand new stories, edited by John Linwood Grant, for Ulthar Press.
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Did something in the real world inspire Hell’s Empire?
Better to say something from the real historical world (if history is indeed real). A chunky third or more of my writing, and often my editing, concerns the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. And I do a lot of research – to the point where I forget I’m supposed to be writing. Rather than just steal quick incidents as story fodder, I like to disappear into the biographical, social, and political detail of the periods. One of my favourite books is one entirely about Edwardian trawlermen and their practices, which makes me sound either studious or tragic. Or both.
In that research process, you become entangled with people’s genuine lives and experiences. So part of the inspiration for Hell’s Empire were those folk at home in Britain and Ireland during the period. I’d been looking at how they responded to disasters, to news of British military defeats in other lands including the colonies, to civil disturbance and bombings at home, and so forth. And that’s why I made it clear when I wrote the guidelines that I didn’t want steampunk or alternate history stories. The question was: How would a range of often quite ordinary people in late Victorian Britain face up to something generally beyond comprehension?
There was always the underlying fear that writers would respond to the concept with nothing but tales of brave British soldiers being slaughtered or triumphing across the fields of the home counties. In fact, I was delighted when I found I had a very different kettle of donkeys on my hands. The majority of submissions included many examples of – drum roll – basically quite ordinary people facing catastrophe. Look at some of our protagonists: an inexperienced ship’s lad; a Welsh village lass; two troubled Fenians; a working-class bloke in London; an aspiring stage girl, a young Army private, and more like them.
In short, I sought human responses to a nightmare, and got them. These characters and their friends and families react in different ways, of course – some rise to heroic deeds, others plod through with determination, and some simply suffer. Crucial to the anthology is that each story is quite different, not just in style, but in tone, perspective, and outcome.
We’ve included military disasters, personal tragedies, occult challenges, and both psychological and physical horror in these pages. A number of stories also have a folk horror feel, which is rather neat. So it’s not the sort of anthology where you can read one story, and then say this book’s not for me. The contents range from wry and curious to very dark. I hope that readers will dip in and out at their leisure.
What is your favorite scene in the book?
That’s almost impossible to answer – and in many cases, might spoil the stories for those who haven’t read them. There are a LOT of twists and turns in some of the tales – and some very powerful moments. But I’ll give a taste of three ‘episodes’ I like which might intrigue different kinds of readers. I’ll also apologise to the authors I don’t mention – it would be a very long answer otherwise.
Part One, “Opening Shots,” contains a lovely story by Charlotte Bond called “The Singing Stones,” which comes from the perspective of a minor demon supposed to help scout out the path for the Incursion. It’s a perfect contrast to some of the other, bleaker tales, yet contains its own threats, and is entirely in keeping with the theme.
In Part Two, “The Struggle,” I surprised myself by taking a tale – “Reinforcements” by Frank Coffman – with Arthurian roots. I would have thought the Arthurian stuff pretty much done to death by now, but Frank managed to produce a voice, that of an impressionable young soldier in the face of combat, which gave it fresh life.
And to go down a far harsher road, in Part Three, “Days of Doubt,” we have Jack Deel’s “Profaned by Feelings Dark,” a story of the real situation in Ireland at the time and of men who conceive of a desperate response to political actuality. It’s harrowing and fine.
What was your editing process like as you assembled the book?
This one was a bit different. The guidelines I laid out were fairly comprehensive. Although the anthology was open to anyone, I encouraged pitches so that I could say if the writer was anywhere near what we were after. I also had the invaluable help of writers Matthew Willis and Charles R. Rutledge, who were asked to write an opening story and a closing one respectively. They provided the anchors, but none of the other writers saw these beforehand. We wanted imaginations to run fairly wild, which turned out to be the right move.
I then looked at the most interesting or innovative stories, sadly having to lose a few which might just have fitted. It soon became apparent that the final selection could be presented not as a general tapestry, but in a defined order, and so the three sections came into shape. After that, and a little editorial revision and polishing of the submissions, I wrote five or six thousand words of linking text, providing a framework and additional background on the progress of the Incursion.
The single ‘deviation’ from the plan was that the talented British poet Phil Breach volunteered two substantial pieces of verse. I had no plans to use any poetry, but these were too appropriate and delightful not to include, so I split the sections with his wonderful new piece “The Nowl of Tubal-Qayin” and his Tennysonian satire “The Charge of the Wight Brigade.”
We had produced, in effect, one long, sequential narrative from many different viewpoints: Tales of the Incursion from start to finish (or so the Victorians hoped). A themed anthology which also told a single grand story. Weird how things turn out.
What was the best thing that happened during your promotion of the book?
Well, promotion is underway. The only thing I can say at this point is how good the writers themselves have been, sharing posts, images and so forth on social media. That’s the sort of backing you need for word of mouth to do its work. They’re a talented crew.
What do you have planned next?
Too much. I’m currently going through submissions for an anthology I’m editing for Belanger Books, Holmes and the Occult Detectives. I have another anthology almost done, Their Coats All Red for 18thWall Productions, a range of weird Imperial tales from outside Britain – some new, some unusual period pieces – and plans completed for an anthology Room Enough for Fear, collecting classic stories of haunted rooms, which will again have some little known tales in it alongside the standards. And Dave Brzeski and I are putting Occult Detective Quarterly #6 together for Ulthar Press, due this Summer.
Mind you, I’m actually primarily a weird fiction writer. The editing was a bit of an accident, so I should be focusing on writing again soon. My expanded collection of Edwardian murder, madness, and the supernatural A Persistence of Geraniums came out not long ago, and I have a number of new weird stories due out over the year in various anthologies, with settings from the 1970s to contemporary. Another collection is also entirely possible, if I concentrate hard enough.
Order your copy of Hell’s Empire: Tales of the Incursion from Amazon: https://amzn.to/31Lrmii
Check out all of John Linwood Grant’s books: https://amzn.to/31HW9MZ
Or follow John on his blog at http://greydogtales.com/blog/
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July 7, 2019
The Dangerous Type
[image error]Today is The Dangerous Type’s 4th birthday. Four years ago today, the book came out from Night Shade Books.
There were things I loved about the book release: that cover image is one. It captures the attitude of the main character, the sense of danger in the books, the amount of violence. I loved working with my editor, who pushed me to up the level of tech in the story, which led to some of my favorite bits. Even though it was brutal to write under those conditions, I loved having all three books out in the same year, so people could binge through them.
Unfortunately, the publisher (an imprint of Skyhorse Books) didn’t support the books very well. They didn’t put any emphasis on the binge-ability of the series. There was no promotion that all three would all be out in a six-month span. They didn’t put ads in the back of the first book, touting the second one would be out two months later. They didn’t even list the other two books’ titles in any of the trilogy. In other words, I worked myself into pneumonia to get the books written on time, then the publisher simply put them out without comment.
Over the 18 months I worked with Skyhorse, I had four publicists. That made it hard to get any momentum going with any of them, but they did score me a guest shot on Mary Robinette Kowal’s blog, which got my book in front of more people than I’d ever reached before. I wrote about my experiments in persona for her My Favorite Bit blog feature: http://maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/my-favorite-bit-loren-rhoads-talks-about-the-dangerous-type/
Related to that, I wrote on Lisa Lane’s Cerebral Writer blog about how point of view affects The Dangerous Type: http://www.cerebralwriter.com/blog/loren-rhoads-shaping-your-story-through-point-of-view
At Tracie McBride’s Exquisite Corpse, I answered Publishers Weekly’s charge that I’m trying to bring grimdark to space opera: https://traciemcbridewriter.wordpress.com/2015/07/24/guest-post-grimdark-and-the-dangerous-type-by-loren-rhoads/
HorrorAddicts.net invited me to talk about where my claustrophobia came from and how it inspired The Dangerous Type: https://horroraddicts.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/claustrophobia-and-the-dangerous-type/
The Dangerous Type also made a couple of must-read lists:
9 Space Operas to Read while you’re waiting for Ancillary Mercy: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/9-space-operas-to-read-while-you-wait-for-ancillary-mercy/
io9’s Must-Read Science Fiction for July 2015: http://io9.com/there-are-too-many-must-read-science-fiction-and-fantas-1715535068
B&N Bookseller’s Picks for July 2015: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/bn-booksellers-picks-for-july-2015/
The Dangerous Type is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indie Bound, or at Borderlands Books in San Francisco. The audibook is available from Amazon or on Audible.
You can read a sample of the book here. I hope you’ll check it out.
July 1, 2019
5 Questions for Selah Janel
[image error]Selah is another member of the Ladies of Horror group on Facebook. I asked her to come by to tell me about her most recent book.
Selah Janel was blessed with a giant imagination, even if it made her gullible enough as a child to believe fairies lurked in the woods and vampires waited in abandoned barns outside of town. As an adult, she writes in various genres, including horror and dark fantasy. She has three e-books with Mocha Memoirs Press (Mooner, Holly and Ivy, The Other Man), and has shorts in the collection Lost in the Shadows, published with S.H. Roddey. Her work has appeared in the anthologies The Big Bad 1&2, The Grotesquerie, Curious Incidents: More Improbable Adventures, and Thunder on the Battlefield: Sorcery. She likes her music to rock, her vampires lethal, her faeries to play mind games, and her princesses to have adventures and hold their own.
She describes her book, Mooner:
[image error]Like many young men at the end of the 1800s, Bill signed on to work in a logging camp. The work is brutal, but it promised a fast paycheck, with which he can start his life. Unfortunately, his role model is Big John. Not only is he the camp’s hero, but he’s known for spending his pay as fast as he makes it. On a cold Saturday night, they enter Red’s Saloon to forget the work that takes the lives of so many men their age. Red may have plans for their whiskey money, but something else lurks in the shadows. It badly wants a drink that has nothing to do with alcohol. Can Bill make it back out the shabby door, or does someone else have plans for his future?
Did something in the real world inspire Mooner?
I’ve always had an interest in history, cultivated by my parents from a young age. They thought it was important to know the background of where we lived. A lot of our vacations involved museums or historical sites. As I got older, I developed an interest in what everyday life was like for people in any given period. I think we tend to forget or romanticize a lot of those aspects, especially in American history. We like the image of people pulling themselves up by their bootstraps to do whatever, but the fact is a lot of people suffered and died and struggled in anonymity right beside all those other examples. There’s a lot of moments in time that we take for granted and still are reflected in our lives today.
I’d been a big fan of Lilian Jackson Braun, who uses a lot of historical-based anecdotes in her mysteries. A few of her books urged me to start researching lumber camps. I knew enough about pioneers, but since I’ve never really lived in the region, I was unfamiliar with the lumberjack lifestyle. The things they had to do to make a living were intense. The overall lifestyle provided this beautiful, rowdy backdrop. Somewhere in there I decided it would be fun to put different types of modalities against each other, including a vampire-type creature. I found the term “mooner,” which was defined as a thing that haunted lumber camps. I couldn’t resist mashing all that up into a story.
What is your favorite scene in the book?
I’m really proud of the ending sequence, because I think it adds a different twist to an otherwise straight horror piece. I also really love the introduction of the paranormal character and all the interplay between him, the lumber camp golden boy, and the naive rookie. It was loads of fun delving into those three reacting off each other and playing one another. I also love the chance to revel in description. This piece definitely gave me that opportunity.
What was your writing process like as you wrote the book?
The story came together very fast. I basically knew the direction I wanted it to go toward. When I have an end goal in mind, it makes things easier, even if I don’t have things mapped out beat by beat. Everything up through the betting sequence between three of the characters was set in my mind, but it was a framework until I saw what I needed to flesh things out a bit. Then I researched based on that need. For me, that targeting also speeds things up, because I get fascinated with everything and don’t need to be falling down a rabbit hole if I’m supposed to be writing.
The second big vignette where there’s a fairly big reveal was not planned at all. I thought the story still needed something and two of the characters kept lingering on my mind, so I went back and played more there. That took a little longer, because it changed the tone a bit and I wanted to make sure that it fit overall. I think it helps to make the story feel a little deeper, though, and reflects that period of history and the actual people who lived day to day. Beyond that, a lot of it was just wanting things to feel plausible and realistic. I looked at a lot of university websites, found a great website of lumberjack words, and really tried to dive into that lifestyle without it overwhelming the story I wanted to tell.
There was a lot of back and forth. Things changed again when it was reprinted by Mocha Memoirs Press, who has it now. We made the decision to add my own version of a vocab list at the end, since a lot of the terminology is unusual today but was such a big part of that time. Overall, it was brought more into focus than the original version, so I’m pretty pleased.
What was the best thing that happened during your promotion of the book?
The re-vamp was reviewed by Horror Addicts.net, a group I just love anyway. It was amazing, because the reviewer really got the different aspects of the piece, how much research went into it, and compared it to something that reminded him of Tales From the Crypt. I love anthology horror shows and came of age when that one was really popular, so that made my day!
What do you have planned next?
I’m focused on writing more and finding my voice at the moment, so while there’s not a lot out right now, I’ve definitely got a lot in the works!
Pick up your own copy of Mooner from Amazon: https://amzn.to/2Xo9Wcj
Check out all her books: https://amzn.to/31HP9Qw
Or follow her on social media:
Twitter: www.Twitter.com/SelahJanel
June 24, 2019
5 Questions for J. Scott Coatsworth
[image error]I “met” Scott through his work at the Queer Sci Fi group on Facebook while I was promoting The Dangerous Type. The group holds robust discussions among writers and with readers, as well as publishing a yearly flash fiction anthology.
Scott lives with his husband Mark in a yellow bungalow in Sacramento. He was indoctrinated into fantasy and sci fi by his mother at the tender age of nine. He devoured her library, but as he grew up, he wondered where all the people like him were. He decided that if there weren’t gay characters in his favorite genres, he would remake them.
A Rainbow Award-winning author, he runs sites that celebrate fiction reflecting queer reality — Queer Sci Fi, QueeRomance Ink, and Other Worlds Ink — with Mark.
Scott’s newest book is Ithani:
[image error]Time is running out.
After saving the world twice, Xander, Jameson, and friends plunge headlong into a new crisis. The ithani—the aliens who broke the world—have awakened from their hundred millennia-long slumber. When Xander and Jameson disappear in a flash, an already fractured world is thrown into chaos.
The ithani plans threaten all life on Erro. Venin and Alix go on a desperate search for their missing and find more than they bargained for. And Quince, Robin, and Jessa discover a secret as old as the skythane themselves.
Will alien technology, unexpected help from the distant past, destiny, and some good old-fashioned firepower be enough to defeat an enemy with the ability to split a world? The final battle of the epic science fiction adventure that began in Skythane will decide the fate of lander and skythane alike. And in the north, the ithani rise….
Did something in the real world inspire Ithani?
Not exactly? It’s the third in the Oberon series; the overall series started with a few short scenes I wrote in the mid-nineties, shortly after coming out. Xander was my first gay character. In a way, the whole series was inspired by my coming out.
What is your favorite scene in the book?
There’s a scene that will mean nothing to anyone who hasn’t read my other series, Liminal Sky. A cross is discovered in a cave on Oberon, which is a major Easter Egg/crossover for the two series. It was really fun to add that teaser.
What was your writing process like as you wrote Ithani?
Pretty much nose to the grindstone. When I’m good, I write for an hour or hour and a half each day and can do 1000-2000 words at a go. But I am a little ADD (at least unofficially) so I also sneak in bits here and there: in line at the post office, in the bathroom… though that may be a little TMI.
I pretty much plow straight through, not stopping to rewrite on first draft. There’s always a point about two-thirds through where I pretty much decide I’m a total hack, the writing is shit, and that I will never finish the book.
Then I make it to the end, and it’s all okay.
In second draft, I usually layer in a lot of world-building detail and smooth out the text. Then it goes to my beta readers. When I get their feedback, I incorporate it into the final draft and send it in.
What was the best thing that happened during your promotion of the book?
Some of the reviews were amazing: people who really got what I was trying to do. But the best part was when someone recognized one of the Easter Eggs I included and wrote me to express their amazement. That alone was worth all the effort.
What do you have planned next?
The last book in my Liminal Sky series – The Shoreless Sea – comes out in October. And I am currently hard at work on a follow-up that shows what happened on Earth after the Collapse. It’s titled The Long Redemption. It’s been hella fun to write.
I am also working on a series of shorts to help me break into the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America.
Get a copy of Ithani for yourself on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2Ip92nD
See all Scott’s books on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2IpnXy6
Or visit Scott’s homepage and find out what he’s up to next: https://www.jscottcoatsworth.com
June 23, 2019
Five Science Fiction Novels that Center on Bisexuality
I grew up thinking that everyone was bisexual. When I came out in the 1980s, I believed that all people were, in varying degrees of self-awareness, lying to themselves about being straight or gay. They just hadn’t met the right person to sway their compass. I believed that, despite all the evidence in books that men were men and women were women and the differences were as clear as the ends of magnets.
Of course, as you do, I came to accept everyone as they are, whomever they love. Still, I continued to look for reflections of my own loves in the fiction I read.
Before I share the books that were important to me, let me say that I’ve limited my list purely to science fiction. There are many worthy books like Octavia Butler’s Fledgling, Pat Murphy’s Nadya, Tanya Huff’s Sing the Four Quarters, and many volumes of paranormal/queer genre romance, but those didn’t fit my parameters for this list.
Also, this list can’t claim to be the definitive list of all science fiction with bisexual main characters. As in life, bisexual characters aren’t easy to identify unless they announce themselves. Please add to my reading in the comments.
THE LEFT-HAND OF DARKNESS by Ursula K. LeGuin
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Order a copy from Amazon: https://amzn.to/2IA8NX0
Genly Ai is a human envoy from the Ekumen, an 83-world collective that’s striving to broker peace in the galaxy. Genly is sent to Winter, where the inhabitants can choose to alter their gender in order to have sex and bear children. Poor misogynist Genly despises everything womanly he sees in the Gethenians, even as he is politically outmaneuvered and has to rely on Estraven to survive. The book was published in 1969.
When I read this award-winning novel for the first time at university, I was enraged that the main character couldn’t get over his physical repulsion to connect with Estraven, who seemed to be the perfect bisexual, completely unconcerned by the gender of his/her lovers. (Pronoun usage is complicated, because the Gethenians are a neutral gender — designated by Genly as he — until they choose to manifest male or female attributes.) I read the novel differently when I finally got up the courage to face it again. In fact, it demonstrates that love transcends the need for sex. I wonder how I’ll read it in another 30 years.
DHALGREN by Samuel R. Delany
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Six years after LeGuin’s book was published and won the Hugo and Nebula for best novel, Samuel Delany’s main character had crazy bisexual sex in the trippy masterpiece Dhalgren. The Midwestern city of Bellona has survived some unknown catastrophe that cuts it off from the rest of the world. Gangs roam the streets in holographic drag. Even the sun and moon are out of whack. Through the chaos moves the Kid, suffering from amnesia as least and schizophrenia at worst, writing poetry and having sex with anyone who shows an interest.
The sex remains surprisingly raw, 40 years after the book’s publication. What’s remarkable about Dhalgren, beyond how graphic it is, is the way that while Kid makes sure to get his, he also makes sure that everyone else gets theirs, too. He’s been compared to the god Pan, which makes total sense to me. Gender is no thing to Kid, who prefers young men but isn’t the least bit picky. The sex has a gritty, slightly Burroughsian roughness to it, but the fluidity of Kid’s appetites is remarkable. I found the book fascinating and liberating, but I can see how it might be too much for others.
BURNING BRIGHT by Melissa Scott
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Order a copy from Amazon: https://amzn.to/2WXESRr
Jumping forward into the 1990s, Melissa Scott’s space opera novel of games players was recommended to me by members of Facebook’s Queer Sci Fi community. The book opens with apprentice pilot Quinn Lioe, who is eager to show her prowess at the virtual reality game that is the central draw for tourists to the city and planet of Burning Bright. Of course Lioe is unaware that the planet is caught between the human-led Republic and the alien Hsaioi-An — and the game she’s playing will enmesh her in the conflict.
I was thrilled to discover a civilization where everyone is bisexual and same-sex relationships are so commonplace that no one blinks. Relationships merely display facets of the characters, not the sole determinant of how they get along in society or a mark of class or an expression of personal politics. People have relationships with whomever they choose and no one judges. I was amazed to discover the future I have wanted to live in all along.
THE THIRD CLAW OF GOD by Adam-Troy Castro
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Andrea Cort is an investigator for humanity’s Diplomatic Corps, traveling from planet to planet to sort out murder mysteries that could lead to interplanetary incidents. In this, the second book of the series, Andrea is trapped in a locked-room mystery in space and must unravel the machinations of the conscience-free Bettelhine family, arms merchants whose destructive impulses threaten life throughout the galaxy.
By 2009, when this second Andrea Cort novel was published, bisexuality had had its own flag for 10 years. It had been an accepted part of the LGBT rainbow for 17 years. Despite that, debates still continued about whether bisexuals were experimenting, lying to themselves, or simply indecisive.
So it was refreshing to me to meet Skye and Oscin Porrinyard, a woman and man who have been cylinked into a single person with two bodies. Porrinyard falls in love with Andrea Cort and, before long, she wakes up to her attraction to them, loving each individually and both as a pair. The relationship is complicated — or enhanced — because whatever Andrea does to one of their bodies, it’s experienced by both. Their relationship is the highlight of the series for me.
GENTLEMAN JOLE AND THE RED QUEEN by Lois McMaster Bujold
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Bujold’s Vorkosigan saga began in 1986 with Shards of Honor and has survived the death of one of its main characters with Gentleman Jole, which was published in February 2016. Admiral Oliver Jole is still grieving the death of Aral Vorkosigan, his commander and true love, when the Vorkosigan’s widow offers a proposition: she and Aral had frozen some of their genetic material in hopes of having more children some day — and she would like to give Jole the possibility of fathering posthumous sons with Aral. As he considers the pros and cons, he falls deeper in love with Cordelia herself.
Several authors I respect have mentioned that the Vorkosigan novels — particularly this one — are their favorite depictions of bisexuality. I’d been meaning to read the series eventually, but the buzz was strong enough that I started at the end. I enjoyed this book immensely. For one thing, the characters are adults making conscious, considered choices about their lives and their futures. Jole’s exploration of his bisexuality is tender, thoughtful, and beautiful. It makes a good place for me to end this list.
As I said in the beginning, I welcome additions to my reading list. What other novels have thought-provoking depictions of bisexuality?
Loren Rhoads is the author of the space opera trilogy In the Wake of the Templars, which features bisexual assassin Raena Zacari.
June 17, 2019
5 Questions for Fran Wilde
[image error] Last month at the Nebula Conference, I had the honor of filling an hour of Fran Wilde’s time with questions about everything from how to celebrate successes in a writing career (her rewards sometimes involve socks) to the minutiae of social media to juggling work and family, which she does with grace.
As if she hadn’t been generous enough, I thanked her by asking if I could interview her for this blog. I’m so very glad she said yes.
Fran Wilde’s novels and short stories have been finalists for four Nebula Awards, a World Fantasy Award, and two Hugo Awards, and include her Nebula- and Compton-Crook-winning debut novel Updraft, its sequels Cloudbound, and Horizon, her 2019 debut Middle Grade novel Riverland, and the Nebula-, Hugo-, and Locus-nominated novelette The Jewel and Her Lapidary. Her short stories have appeared in Asimov’s, Tor.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Shimmer, Nature, and the 2017 Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror.
She writes for publications including The Washington Post, Tor.com, iO9.com, Clarkesworld, and GeekMom.com.
You can find her on Twitter, Facebook, and at franwilde.net.
Her newest book is Riverland:
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Riverland: When things go bad at home, sisters Eleanor and Mike hide in a secret place under Eleanor’s bed, telling monster stories. Often, it seems those stories and their mother’s house magic are all that keep them safe from both busybodies and their dad’s temper. But when their father breaks a family heirloom, a glass witch ball, a river suddenly appears beneath the bed, and Eleanor and Mike fall into a world where dreams are born, nightmares struggle to break into the real world, and secrets have big consequences. Full of both adventure and heart, Riverland is a story about the bond between two sisters and how they must make their own magic to protect each other and save the ones they love.
You can pick up a copy of Riverland from Amazon: https://amzn.to/2EJTrwR
Did something in the real world inspire Riverland?
Riverland is a portal fantasy — and like most portal fantasies, it exists so that the main characters — Eleanor and Mike — can work something out in a place that is (frighteningly) safer than their own world. It’s about magic, real and not, and family. What inspired it was the sense that many stories, especially on television and in movies, talk about children living through violent households as if they have no agency, no ability to participate in their own lives, and their own rescue. (You can see that a lot in the shorthand that shows like Law & Order uses.) I wanted to write a book where young girls get to be — in no particular order — angry, wrong, right, strong, weak, and heroes.
I think everything in the current world inspired that need.
What is your favorite scene in the book?
My favorite scenes are when Eleanor begins to tell her story, when Pendra follows Eleanor, and when Dishrag gets his heart’s desire. That last one is a rush of hooves pounding and smoke curling and utter, total determination to live up to your dreams, even if you’ve always been told you couldn’t.
What was your writing process like as you wrote the book?
Two parts panic, one part determination, and a lot of terrible drafts, with puns everywhere. There was also a heap of lying about on furniture worrying that I wasn’t good enough to finish this one. And many supportive phone calls and emails from friends that I was and could.
What was the best thing that happened during your promotion of the book?
The letters from readers thanking me for writing it, in exactly the way I wrote it.
What do you have planned next?
Classroom visits (in person and on Skype) to talk about Riverland. A second middle-grade book that’s almost entirely contemporary. A book of poetry. The final novella in the gemworld series. And several more novels.
The Fire Opal Mechanism, the second gemworld book after The Jewel and Her Lapidary, came out from Tor.com on June 4. I’m also taking over the position of Director of the Genre Writing MFA Program at Western Colorado University this summer — which is very exciting!
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The Fire Opal Mechanism: Jewels and their lapidaries and have all but passed into myth.
Jorit, broke and branded a thief, just wants to escape the Far Reaches for something better. Ania, a rumpled librarian, is trying to protect her books from the Pressmen, who value knowledge but none of the humanity that generates it. When they stumble upon a mysterious clock powered by an ancient jewel, they may discover secrets in the past that will change the future forever.
June 14, 2019
How Collaboration Worked for Lost Angels
[image error]I’m doing the final push to finish the sequel to our succubus/angel novel, so I was thinking about how Brian and I wrote the original manuscript that would become Lost Angels and the upcoming Angelus Rose.
Brian and I tried to get together in person once a month or so to write. I would fly in and out of Burbank or Brian would fly in and out of SFO, but our process was pretty much the same: Brian would pace and I would type and the story just poured out of us.
One of the most intense experiences was the weekend we wrote the chapter where Lorelei is dropped off by some fiends beside the LA River. I’d written the stuff where Lorelei crosses the trickle of water and climbs down into a storm drain to confront Asmodeus, her boss and the prince of LA.
I remember sitting on Brian’s enormous rock-hard futon with my laptop across my legs. I read the unfinished scene to him, up to Asmodeus’s attempt to exorcise the mortal girl’s soul from Lorelei’s infernal flesh.
“I don’t know what to do next,” I told him. “The exorcism can’t work yet, because we’re only halfway through the book. But I don’t know why someone so powerful couldn’t do something as simple as exorcize a human girl from a devil.”
“Okay. Let me think.” Brian started pacing around the room. Slowly, but with increasing speed, he began to dictate.
It was amazing. I’m a pretty fast typist, but I couldn’t keep up. It all came out: description, action, dialogue. He had to wait for me to catch up. At times, we debated events. I snarked and added asides, punctuation, paragraph breaks.
We’d go until Brian got stuck, then I’d read back what we’d written. We took breaks to walk over to Billy’s Deli for a pastrami sandwich and a chocolate egg creme, or to poke around Brand Books, or to run up to Griffith Observatory to watch the sunset.
Eventually we’d end up back in his room, the laptop open, hammering out more of that chapter.
I’m not sure how many thousands of words we wrote that weekend. We got out of the botched exorcism through Lorelei and Ashleigh running across the 5 to the two of them climbing the hill up toward Dodger Stadium.
We wrote stuff where Lorelei and Ashleigh confront Yasmina. The elder temptress offers Ashleigh elevation to succubus, if only she’ll betray Lorelei. It’s the turning point of all three characters.
The whole experience felt incredible. We seemed to be channeling lightning.
[image error]There’s no possible way I could have written those scenes myself. They relied entirely on Brian’s familiarity with LA’s geography, flora, and history. I don’t know that he’d actually walked the path our girls took — minus the jog across the freeway — but I know he’d explored thoroughly enough that I could rely on his research.
And that was pretty much our pattern as we hammered out that massive first draft. I’d write us into a corner — say, LAPD pulling Lorelei and Tuan over on the highway — and then Brian would dictate us out.
I don’t know if the process would ever work for collaborating with anyone else, but it was magic for us.
Angelus Rose will be out in August.
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