Links and Such

Posted on September 28, 2020 by ogresan

First thing, The Ghost War and A Warrior of Dreams are now and finally available in print editions. Also, for those who missed it, “A Minor Exorcism,” is now online and free to read at Beneath Ceaseless Skies #313, 12th Anniversary edition. This is the most recent Goji Yamada story. There will be one more, plus a short original to cap the (final?) Yamada Monogatari book. I’ll make an announcement at the appropriate time, which will likely be a year or so from now. Wish us all luck getting there.

Next up, I realize some people just don’t like that Mighty River online book portal. So, for those who fall into that category, here are a few links to alternative sources for the Bergstryker ebook. I can’t do this for every edition, but I have plans for at least one more formerly exclusive work, probably next month.

I apologize for the commercial interruption. I normally try to keep such things to a minimum, but lately these keep piling up, and I’m egotistical enough to think that at least some of you might want to know. So if you do, now you know.

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Bergstryker U and Backlist

Posted on September 21, 2020 by ogresan

As I mentioned last week, the Bergstryker U stories are getting a new edition and cover without the pseudonym. I acknowledge they’re mine, and I take full responsibility. In atonement, there are now two stories, a novelette and short story, for the price of one of the original editions…which are now off-sale forever. Cheap AND fun. What more could you ask?

Right now I can only link to the Azon edition, but iBooks and Kobo are in the works.

As people in my Newsletter already know, as time permits I’m adding print editions to those of my backlist which never had them. Little Fire & Fog was the test case and is now available in print chapbook format. I thought it turned out pretty nice. I’ll be working through most of the others, at least novella length and above until everything that should have a print edition, does. I’m currently working on The Ghost War, and expect to have it online next.

If you were signed up for the Newsletter, you’d know most of this already. There’s free stuff, too.

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Always in Motion, the Future

Posted on September 14, 2020 by ogresan

This is now the cover to The Long Look, first in The Laws of Power series. Those following the series might recall that the first cover was a bit different. It used the same artwork as the original Five Star hardcover which I still like, but subsequent books in the series went in a different direction by necessity, making the first book appear less and less like it belonged with the others. Which it does, even if there is a 500 year disconnect between the first and second. Thus the change. It also connects nicely with The Collected Tymon the Black, so that’s a plus.

The cover for the eventual release of The Seventh Law of Power should coordinate with the first three. So that, you know, it does sort of look like a series.

A few years ago I wrote a couple of stories about a fictional University attended by mythical creatures, monsters, and the occasional human. I thought they were fun. Other people whose opinion I respected thought I could certainly sell them but they were too different from what I was writing at the time (there is a strong element of the romantic) and best not put them out under my own name. I listened. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I did. Since I was adverse to shopping them around under a pseudonym, I just put them on Azon myself…under a pseudonym. There they rested until someone who knows my work outed me as the author.

I’m not upset about it. Rather the opposite. I’m glad the secret’s out because I don’t think I did right by them. Both were available as short reads and I have since de-listed them. My plan is to re-list them with a better cover, revised text, and together as a two-fer, under my own name this time. Tales of Bergstryker U, or something of the sort. Maybe I’ll even continue the series. You know, in my abundant free time.

I’m also pondering the future of this blog I’ve been doing since my Livejournal days. I said earlier that the blog will continue and I stand by that, but in planning revisions to this web site I’ve been considering a slight change in emphasis, which might entail moving the blog to an occasional subject of the Newsletter while the web site shifts to other duties. Still considering, but if ya’ll have an opinion I’d love to hear it.

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Memory Lane Needs a Touch-Up

Posted on September 7, 2020 by ogresan

I was saddened to hear of the passing of Charles R. Saunders, best known in the sf/f community as the creator of the Imaro series. This was back when Sword & Sorcery was the hottest ticket in fantasy town, and Saunders’ series was unique at the time for having a black hero as the star. He was a pioneer.

For my own part I never met him, the closest I ever came to that was being a fellow contributor to Gene Day’s old print fanzine Dark Fantasy, but I do owe Saunders a special debt, which I would like to here and now acknowledge–he was responsible for the second novel I ever wrote (hubris alone was the cause of the first). At the time he was editing a small-press project called Dragonbane that I had submitted a story to. Or at least in my naivete I thought it was a story. Saunders wrote me a very polite rejection stating what was obvious to him and less so to me: it wasn’t a story at all.

It was the opening chapter of a novel.

It did take me a while to realize he was right. When I say “a while” I mean it literally took me five years to write the book he already knew was there. Now, to be fair and accurate, it was not a book which will ever see the light of day (and that was on me, not him) but it was indeed a book. One that needed to be written so I could learn from it and move on. I still remember it fondly and my only regrets are I couldn’t do right by it, and that I didn’t listen to Charles’ advice sooner.

RIP.

P.S. I had to take a look back through some submission records that had miraculously survived a few moves to find the name of the project. A list full of stories now lost and magazines that no longer exist, but fun memories all the same. Now, forward.