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.

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.

My contributor copy of the (massive) Short Trips Re:Collections turned up the other day, and looks very smart indeed. It’s supposed to present some of the best Doctor Who short fiction published in the Short Trips range since 2002 (which must be a pool of three or four hundred tales, at least, and includes my own contribution ‘Lonely’. Lovely looking book, and I’m looking forward to reading the other twenty-seven stories while I’m stuck in hotels over the next few weeks. If you haven’t already done so, you can grab a copy from the publisher right now, and I’m sure it will turn up on Amazon and the usual outlets shortly.

I can also now look forward to wading through William Shatner’s memoir Up Till Now, presented to me by a proud daughter this morning for Father’s Day. I’m quite looking forward to it, although I feel strongly that a better title would simply have been SHAT! He’s a curious fellow, so I’m looking forward to being entertained.

But today, I’m on the move again, packing up for the first of three weeks of hotel living in the South. It’s quite a nice hotel, but as it’s day job stuff instead of a vacation, that’s the best I can say about what awaits. If I have wi-fi in my room, I may be in touch, but if you’re waiting for emails, that will be the reason for any delays.

Firstly, issue five of Shroud magazine, the Hiram Grange special edition, is now shipping. It features a hefty and exclusive excerpt from my forthcoming novella Hiram Grange and the Nymphs of Krakow. If you pre-ordered a copy, you should be receiving it soon, but Shroud warn that orders are a little backed up, and there may be a small delay getting it to you (I’m waiting for mine… pesky Atlantic ocean). If you do have it, what do you think? If you’re tempted to dip into Hiram’s world ahead of the novella series, this is where you need to go.

Secondly, Short Trips – Re:Collections, the new Doctor Who anthology from Big Finish, licenced by the BBC, is also now shipping. It reprints some of the very best of the short stories featured in the previous twenty-eight volumes in the Short Trips range, including my tale ‘Lonely’ (dead chuffed to have made that cut). Since announcing that this will be the final such anthology, Big Finish seem to have been swamped with orders for the whole range, and so are also reporting shipping delays. Again, if you pre-ordered but haven’t seen the book yet, bear with them, it will be with you soon. I’m in the same boat, having not yet seen a contributor’s copy. No special privileges for authors, I’m afraid. If you haven’t ordered a copy yet, go here and do so. It’s a bumper crop of great stories, all with the Doctor in them. Can’t say fairer than that.

It’s May. That means you can grab the hardback anthology Short Trips: Transmissions for half the cover price, £7.50, direct from the publisher. It contains my story ‘Lonely’, and is just about to go out of print – the sale runs for exactly as long as stocks last. Don’t hang about, if you want one.

It won’t be the very last appearance of the story, as it’s been selected to appear in the ‘Best Of’ final volume of the Short Trips range later this month, cover price £20. After that though… well, because I don’t own the rights to Doctor Who, I won’t be able to publish the story anywhere else. Read it in one of these books, or be left forever wondering what I did to the Eighth Doctor in a chatroom…

Go on. You know you want to.

Official announcements have now been made by the right and proper people, so I can finally pass you the details of the ‘mystery’ anthology I’ll be in at the end of May. To the dismay of many, Big Finish productions are about to cease publishing their Short Trips series of short story anthologies featuring the Doctor (from Doctor Who – do keep up). To celebrate the range, they’re putting out one final, mammoth hardback volume in May, featuring one story from each of the previous twenty-eight volumes (published regularly since 2002). These stories are intended to represent the best of each book, as selected by the editors of each.

‘Lonely’, my contribution to the 2008 anthology Doctor Who: Short Trips – Transmissions, has been picked out by editor Richard Salter to represent his book, which is very flattering indeed, particularly given the stories and authors he had at his disposal.

I’m a little sad to see the range end, as it was the last bastion of official Doctor Who fiction in written form that was not marketed squarely at kids (writers had to bear in mind that a lot of kids might be reading, but had flexibility within that remit to tell some sophisticated, mature fiction if they chose to), but delighted to be featured in this celebration of what the books achieved.

If you’re a fan of the Doctor, but have never sampled the Short Trips range, then grab this monster collection, as it promises the best there was. It’s out at the end of May, priced £19.99, and you can pre-order it here.

There’s also some good news for those of you who might be less interested in Doctor Who per se, but do want to get a copy of ‘Lonely’ while you can (or indeed, those feeling the credit crunch a little). From the 1st of May, the remaining copies of the previous anthologies that Big Finish have in stock will go on sale for £7.50 – about half the original price. That means you’ll be able to get the original Doctor Who: Short Trips – Transmissions for a steal, while stocks last. It’s a really, really good book. Really. I’m prepared to bet that the editor, Richard Salter, agonised long and hard about which story he wanted to put forward for Recollections, because there are some very juicy tales in there (indeed, when he told me he was putting ‘Lonely’ forward, I had to fight the urge to decline in embarrassment, and recommend one of the others instead).

Whichever you choose, if you’re at all interested in reading ‘Lonely’ you need to get one or the other while you can. As I don’t own the rights to Doctor Who(you can tell by my lack of conspicuous wealth), I can’t do anything else with this story. Ever. Even if I’m ever fortunate enough to have my short fiction professionally collected by a publisher, ‘Lonely’ won’t be there. It’s a shame. I’m proud of the story, a creepy tale set entirely within an internet (really!) chatroom, and it would otherwise sit proudly between those hypothetical future pages. As that can’t happen, this is your one shot.

Go to it!

Buying the magazine gets you a sneak preview of each of the Hiram novellas, each excerpt being short story sized. From Krakow, you get the whole first section of the book. In true pulp style, this is almost a self-contained story in itself, the tail end of a mostly unseen escapade, which leads into the action proper. Like the start of an Indiana Jones movie, but with something huge, and slavering, with wings. It is, I hope, a lot of fun, and a cheap way to find out if the book’s going to be for you when it comes out.

Do go and order a copy. From issue 6, Shroud is going to be distributed nationally in the US, and will be pretty easy to get hold of from B&N among others. Issue 5 is still going to be a bit of a well kept secret though, available to those in the know. People like you.

Go to it.