Richard Wright

Withersin 3 collects three planned issues of the eclectic magazine (Turpentine, Iodine, Arsenic) into one bumper, digest sized volume.  Features the short story Hermanesha, by Richard Wright (2010).

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Withersin

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New Delhi is one of those cities where a car becomes important.  Not having one makes the city daunting and inaccessible.  While it’s possible to do ordinary things like taking your child to school and popping to the shop without one, six months of taxis becomes a gruelling haul.  Another two and a half years of the same was pretty much unthinkable.  Now we have this big, boxy, beautifully air conditioned thing, complete with driver, and the city is suddenly easier.

I wanted to have it written into the driver’s terms and conditions that I could call him James, particularly when asking to be driven home, but wiser heads prevailed.

Have I convinced you to buy a copy of the Dark Faith anthology yet?  This review might help.  Apex Books are also running a daily devotion of mini-interviews with contributors right up to the release on May 1st.  Whether you’re making up your mind, or have already ordered and want a taste of what you’re buying into, it’s worth a read (because, you know, it’s not all about me…).  Alethea Kontis, Mary Robinette Kowal, D.T. Friedman, and Tom Piccirilli have all had a go.  At some point, I probably will too.

Some crazy fool has put it in my head that I should perhaps venture over to the 2011 World Horror Convention in Austin, Texas, this time next year.  It’s a hell of a way to go, but I’m tempted, expense be damned.  I thought if I mentioned it here, you might be of a mind to talk me out of it.  What do you think?

I woke up the other morning, rolled over in bed, and checked my email (on my iPhone, docked next to me in an alarm clock widget).  I was pleased, and a bit surprised, to find that one of the two pitches I made when I got back from Thailand in January has been commissioned.  Nothing has been publicly announced yet, so far be it for me to jump the gun, but it’s a piece for an anthology, and is left-field of my usual fictional territory.  I’ll let you know more when I can, but it’s going to be fun…

That means that 2010 should see four books published with my work between the covers.  With the slight mid-season break in the Hiram series, it looks like the first could well be the super-anthology from Apex Books, Dark Faith, which contains among others my new short story ‘Sandboys’.  Check out the link, the contributors, and the Publisher’s Weekly review at the bottom of the page.  It’s due on May 1st, and if you order from that page (ie, direct from the publisher), you’ll also get an exclusive, limited run promotional chapbook of extra stories, called Dark Faith: Last Rites.  The gorgeous cover art for the additional volume can be seen at the bottom of the page, after the reviews and blurbs.

Shortly after that should see Hiram Grange and the Nymphs of Krakow, which I’ve been banging on about for months, for good reason.  Have you read the first two books in the series yet?  Enjoying them?  If not, go search them out on Amazon.  Hiram’s waiting…

Over the summer sometime, I’m also expecting to see Withersin 3: Turpentine, Iodine, and Arsenic, which features my short story ‘Hermanesha’, and will ship with three variant covers (you get to choose which one when you order).

And around about November, mystery anthology project should be ready to go, just in time for Christmas.  Not a bad year, and it’s only April, so there’s time to add to the list.

Honestly.  This is your very last chance to take a Short Trip.  On the first of January 2010, Big Finish lose the right not only to publish, but also to sell, their Short Trips range of hardback Doctor Who anthologies, featuring various original adventures of the first eight incarnations of Doctor Who.  Basically, the BBC have not renewed Big Finish’s licence to produce these collections based on the suddenly-successful-all-over-again science fiction character (they issued the licence back when there was no new Doctor Who being produced for television, before the current revival).  It’s pure speculation on my part, but I guess this is because they plan to do some of their own story collections through their own publishing wing.

This is important to you, potentially, because it’s the last chance you have of being able to read my short story ‘Lonely’, featuring the Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann, on the tellybox and radiophone), an Internet chatroom, and the lost and lonely souls who wander in there.  The story was first published in the anthology Short Trips – Transmissions, and this year was reprinted in Big Finish’s final Short Trips book, which gathered the best tales in the range into one massive volume called Short Trips – Re:Collections.

Short Trips – Transmissions is probably the better of the two books.  Twenty-fifth in the Short Trips range, it’s among the best the series produced, thanks to the careful thought editor Richard Salter puts into the theme (communication) and the resultant selection of stories.  It hangs together really well, basically, and contains several stories which stand out as excellent bits of storytelling, in any genre.  At the moment, you can get it on sale direct from Big Finish, for a fiver.

Short Trips – Re:Collections collects the ‘best’ story from each of the previous twenty-eight volumes in the range (as chosen by the editor of each book) in a frankly massive volume.  The stories are individually excellent, as you’d hope, but the book perhaps hangs a little awkwardly together.  You do get a lot for your money though, and will enjoy what you find in there.  At the moment, this one is on sale too, for a tenner.

Last chance.  These books are about to become much harder to find, on the secondary market, where they’ll probably sell for increasingly silly amounts of money when you can find them at all.  Buy them now instead, while they’re cheap.  Get them for your Doctor Who loving loved one.  As I’ve said before, I won’t be able to resell my story ‘Lonely’, because the BBC owns the character, not me.

Last chance.  Buy it now.  Don’t decide you want it in eighteen months time, when you can’t find a copy for love nor sensible amounts of money, and then say I didn’t warn you.  That’s what I’m doing here, you see?

You know what you must do.

The astute among you will have already noticed that I’ve now updated my website with the full details and ordering in for the for The Anthology of Dark Wisdom.  The book isn’t actually released for another week yet, but as that’s going to overlap with the flight to India, after which I don’t know how long it will take to get regular web access again, I thought I’d better jump the gun by a few days.  Feel free to order now, and your copy will be with you presently.  Oh, if the cover style looks vaguely familiar, it’s because it’s by the fabulous Malcolm McClinton, creator of the definitive Hiram Grange look…

The antho collects a handful of the best stories previously printed in the (highly regarded) Dark Wisdom magazine, mixed in with stories bought specifically for the book.  I fall into the latter category with my original story ‘Mopleoli’, about a university lecturer whose specialism comes back to haunt him in the least expected way.  Other contributors include Peter Straub, Alan Dean Foster, Tom Piccirilli, John Pelan, Richard A. Lupoff, John Shirley, Patricia Lee Macomber, David Niall Wilson, and many others.  Names I’m excited to appear alongside (Straub, for feck’s sake!), and others I’m looking forward to reading for the first time.  I don’t think this is a book that will disappoint.

In other news, with the wedding over, Kirsty and I are devoting our time to pulling our life in the UK apart, choosing what to keep and what to toss.  We have a lot more life than I had previously thought.