'Sibyl' in Catalonia

I'm very pleased to see my story 'Sibyl' published in Catalan translation in Catarsi 

For English readers you can read the story at Nature's Futures here. And yesterday, I sold another story to Nature's Futures. That's the kind of coincidence I like.

Writing Productivity

Are you as productive as you want to be? My latest post at the Science Writers of America blog, looks at how you can up your game.  Find it here.

A Nature Dozen

So wonderful to report that I've had my 12th story published at Nature's Future. This is my favourite venue.

I really am very fond of flash. It can be a joy to right (it can also be like pulling tiny teeth, but let's gloss over that.)

You can read 'Contagion in Tranquil Shades of Grey' online, and in the back of Nature magazine. As a bonus, I get a years supply of Nature. So I'm looking forward to that.

You can also find out what inspired this story in this story behind the story post

Three Translation Sales

This has been a great week for translation news for me.

Pure and Without Savour' has been accepted for translation into Spanish and published in Axxón. 

And 'Face in the Dark' will appear in translation in the next issue of Axxón.

'Sibyl' has been accepted for translation into Catalan and publication in Catarsi. 

Time Waits for No Woman

I've very pleased to announce my story 'Siby' will be appearing in 'Timeshift' with these fine folk:

It's an anthology of time and time travel stories. A subject that comes up from time to time in my own work.

I'm very thrilled to be front cover hobnobbing with Robert Silverberg,

The anthology is on Kickstarter until Sunday 7th June 2018 if you'd like to check that out, please go here. 

Calleva Atrebatum sold to Nameless

I'm very pleased to announce the sale of Calleva Atrebatum to Nameless Magazine. This will be Kelda's second appearance in the magazine. 

'Captain Clone' and 'Looking Good' on Apple

I'm very pleased to see my stories 'Captain Clone' and 'Looking Good' are now available in New Accelerator in Apple's Newstand app.

I'm hoping for a contributors copy/access, so I can investigate.

Three Short Story Sales

I'm very pleased to announce the following sales:

'Becoming Private Block-Head' to Spectacle Magazine
'Calleva Artebatum' by Kelda Crich to Nameless Magazine
'Love in a Lonely City' in Chinese Translation to Business China

Space Opera Novel Published Today

I'm so happy to announce that my book has been officially released.

Klyve Ganthe is a Kyoti, a race of liars, tricksters and con artists. As the Corona Corporation abandons the planet Nimbas, suddenly Klyve finds himself in charge. Armed with his wits, a telepathic advisor, and a nagging mother-in-law, Klyve must struggle to bring together the disgruntled factions and keep Nimbas from being overrun by the Logorasch swarm.

A planet on the edge of chaos. Can Klyve make Nimbas As Good as Bad Can Get?

The book is available in print and as an ebook at the following places.

Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/As-Good-Bad-Can-Get/dp/1542444365/

Barnes and Noble
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/as-good-as-bad-can-get-deborah-j-walker/1125904943

Saleage of a Triple Variety

My reprint story 'The Depredators Club' will appear in Lupine Lunes which is open to kickstarter and to submissions. This is a fun project that runs every year, just in time for Halloween.

My reprint stories: 'The Unmovable Sky' and 'Pure and Without Savour' will appear in the Sky Castles anthology

Both these venues are currently open (8/10/2016) but closing soon, so you better get your skates on if you want to be my TOC buddy.

edited to add: 'Rattle the Wolf's Teeth' and 'They Call Me the Red Hood' and 'Doorstepping' and hte 'Sea is in My Blood' also accepted by Lupine Lunes

The Rebirth of Mr Scratchy Claws

I'm pleased to announced my story 'The Rebirth of Mr Scratchy Claws' has been published in Lazarus Risen. 

Dreams of immortality and eternal youth are almost as old as human culture itself. But what would the world look like if everyone could live and be young forever? What would it look like if only some of us had that privilege? Lazarus Risen presents sixteen stories from around the world that explore the economic, political, social and psychological consequences of life extension, human cloning, the hard upload and other forms of the biological singularity. 

Stories by Brent Nichols, Sean McMullen, Teri Babcock, Nancy SM Waldman, Brad C. Anderson, Fiona Moore, Felice Picano, Matthew Shean, Matt Moore, Suzanne Church, Peter Wendt, Holly Schofield, Deborah Walker, Kevin Edwin Stadt, Leigh Kimmel, and Andrew Barton

Kyu, The Unknown: A Book Birthday

I am so pleased to have Paul Magnan on my blog to talk about his debut novel, 'Kyu, The Unknown' I first met Paul when I was a wide-eyed newbie, and since then I've followed his career with great interest. And now a  novel! A storty decades in the making. Bravo, Paul!

First off, I want to thank Deborah for her invitation to post on her blog. It is appreciated. 

Anyway, on to my debut novel, "Kyu, The Unknown, Book 1: The Coming of Dis", released on the 9th of September by the wonderful people at Writers AMuse Me Publishing, who publish an eclectic variety of books, many of them award winners.

In a nutshell: Kyu is a famous and popular arena fighter in a world that has a few traditional fantasy elements, but has been allowed to evolve technologically (While I enjoy straight-up fantasy stories, I never understood how technological advances never happened in them. Sure, they have "magic", but 3000 or more years with no basic inventions even considered, like a printing press or even firearms? I could never buy that, so I made sure my book didn't have that issue).  Kyu's world is a mega-continent called the Territories, the last human land on a planet almost completely engulfed by the Disian Curtain. Behind the Curtain are creatures called Infernals, ruled by Diaboli Domini, who not only want, but need, to feed on human souls. And the Curtain is creeping ever closer to the human land.

The humans, sadly true to form, are ignoring this greater threat to plot among themselves, split between political and religious differences. Kyu discovers he has a connection to both realities, and, with a determined but novice politician named Erenia, must convince the population of the Territories to band together, militarily and spiritually, to fight off the coming invasion, or lose everything forever.

"Kyu" is not a recent idea of mine. Actually, he's been with me under one form/name or another since 1980. He didn't even start out as prose. He came into being as a comic strip character I created as part of a project for my high school art class. I drew him as wearing a heavy black cloak, with his face hidden inside the darkness of a hood. As now, he had claws for hands and was an arena fighter.

His name then was The Unknown Flurg, and he was an instant hit with my classmates, who encouraged me to create more strips. My teacher, though appreciative of my efforts, thought Flurg was a bit too violent, which was undoubtedly true. 

I had already written a few basic stories at this stage, so it wasn't exactly a giant leap of logic to start writing instead of drawing Flurg. When I graduated in 1981, I still hadn't finished this novel-in-the-making. Next to my picture in my high school yearbook is the message "To those who knew him, remember the Unknown Flurg; to those who didn't, well, perhaps you'll read his story in the future."

Thirty-five years later, with his name changed for a variety of reasons, they now have that chance.

It took three years for me to finish that first novel. It was rough and undisciplined, to be sure, but I think it had a certain charm, and many of the main characters (who also have undergone a lot of changes since then) in the present novel were introduced. 

Then I took a twenty year hiatus.

Why? It's hard to say. I just put my life on cruise-control, pushing past things I should have dealt with, but didn't. I went to work after high school in a factory, and didn't go to college until two years later, and even then it was part-time. Eventually I earned a Bachelor degree in Marketing, which collects dust to this day. Maybe it was because I was told by more than one person that pursuing a degree in English was worthless unless I wanted to become an English teacher, which I knew I didn't want to be. Maybe it was because I was told that fiction writing was a thankless, barren field, where to make a name for oneself was almost impossible. Maybe it was nascent depression, which has plagued me most of my life, making itself at home and comfortable within me, encouraging self-doubt and apathy to come in as roommates.

Then, around 2005 or so, I lost a lot of weight and my creativity came back. I started writing short fiction. I made like-minded friends on the Internet, who helped teach me how to write. And I looked back on Flurg and brainstormed. And brainstormed. And brainstormed again. I started making notes, building the world in which he lives, making changes to him and other characters, and introducing new characters, main ones of importance. A year later I had a rough, 120,000-word manuscript. I dove right back in and wrote two sequels of similar length. 

Then I took another hiatus, but this time it was to polish my craft with short stories and learn from the critiques of various established authors I had met and befriended in various writing forums. Over the next couple of years I worked at my craft, and started to sell stories to non-paying and token-paying venues, working my way up to semi-pro and pro markets.

I turned back to Flurg. I did a ton of editing, slashing away several thousand words. Once I felt it looked halfway decent I looked into independent publishers, as I had no luck in finding an agent. 

Writers AMuse Me Publishing is the brainchild of someone who runs a fantastic writing forum called The Writers Block. Her name is Mary, and she accepted my book. 

Then we went to work...and work...and work...and more work. Mary and her team were instrumental in knocking away much that was unneeded and inhibiting in the book, teaching me so much as we went along. She sent back chapters with a LOT of red to be acted upon. There were times when I wanted to run and hide. I persevered, and after a few months of slashing and learning (on my part), and name changing (Flurg to Kyu), the novel was finally ready for publication, and here it is. It is also available for purchase in both Kindle and print form though Amazon and as a NOOK book through Barnes&Noble.com. 

Once again, thank you, Deborah, for allowing me this opportunity to write on your blog! 

#

Paul, you're welcome, and I'm looking foward to the read. 

Happy Book Birthday, Breath of Fire

Happy Book Birthday to my writing friend, Beth Cato

In an alternate 1906, the United States and Japan have forged a powerful confederation—the Unified Pacific—in an attempt to dominate the world. Their first target is a vulnerable China. In San Francisco, headstrong Ingrid Carmichael is assisting a group of powerful geomancer wardens who have no idea of the depth of her power—or that she is the only woman to possess such skills.

When assassins kill the wardens, Ingrid and her mentor are protected by her incredible magic. But the pair is far from safe. Without its full force of guardian geomancers, the city is on the brink of a cataclysmic earthquake that will expose Earth’s powers to masterminds determined to control the energy for their own dark ends. The danger escalates when Chinese refugees, preparing to fight the encroaching American and Japanese, fracture the uneasy alliance between the Pacific allies, transforming the city into a veritable powder keg. And the slightest tremor will set it off. . . .

Forced on the run, Ingrid makes some shocking discoveries about herself. Her powerful magic has grown even more fearsome . . . and she may be the fulcrum on which the balance of world power rests.

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This excerpt from chapter 1 offers an introduction to geomancy.

Whimpers and moans welcomed Ingrid to the junior classroom. Nearest to the door, a dozen boys half sprawled over their desks. A blue mist overlay their skin, and beneath that mist were the sure signs of power sickness—skin flushed by high fever, thick sweat, dull eyes. The rest of the class stared, their expressions ranging from curiosity to horror. Some of them still showed signs of very recent recovery in their bloodshot eyes. None of these boys was older than ten; the youngest was a pudgy-faced eight.

"There you are!" The teacher scowled, as if it were Ingrid’s

fault he’d been so inept with his accounting. Biting her lip, she held out the bag. He snatched it from her fingertips.

The chalkboard laid out the terminology of the lesson, one

Ingrid had seen taught dozens of times: hyperthermia, hypothermia, and the quick timeline to a geomancer’s death. These young boys experienced the hard lesson of hyperthermia. The last earthquake noticeable by the wardens had taken place

three days before. These students had been directly exposed to the current and hadn’t been allowed access to any kermanite. As a result, they spent the past few days bed-bound in misery as though gripped by influenza.

Thank God none of them were as sensitive as Ingrid. Another direct tremor would cause their temperatures to spike even more, and could even lead to death.

The teacher adept pressed a piece of kermanite to a boy’s skin. He gasped at the contact. Blue mist eddied over his body, the color evaporating as it was pulled inside the rock.

If she could see the kermanite in the adept’s hand, the clear crystal would be filling with a permanent smoky swirl. It took a trained mechanic to rig an electrical current to tap the trapped magic as a battery. When the energy within was exhausted, a crystal turned dull and dark. Once that happened, kermanite became a useless rock.

The young boy sat up straighter. "Thank you, sir," he whispered,

voice still ragged. It would take him hours to fully recover.

Ingrid looked away, that familiar anger heavy in her chest.

Wardens and boys in training carried kermanite openly from

watch fobs and cuff links, or most any other accessory where

stones could be easily switched out once they were full.

She had to be far more subtle. Her kermanite chunks clinked together in her dress pocket. She had to take care not to touch them today, or the energy she held would be siphoned away.

Ingrid loved this slight flush of power, because that’s what it was — power. It sizzled just beneath her skin, intoxicated her

with how it prickled at her nerves. Certainly, if she absorbed

any more energy, she’d use the kermanite. She didn’t want to feel sick, though she could hold much more power than these boys, or even the wardens. Mr. Sakaguchi said she took after

Papa — that she stored power like a bank vault, while most

everyone else had the capacity of a private safe.

When it came to her natural skill, Ingrid often regarded herself as a rare fantastic or yokai — not like garden ornamentals like the kappas or naiads sold to the stuffed shirts on Market Street — but like the geomantic Hidden Ones Mr. Sakaguchi so loved to research. She was a creature relegated to idle fancy and obscure mythology, and aggravating shoes.

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Amazon  Barnes & Noble 

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Beth Cato is the author of the Clockwork Dagger series from Harper Voyager, which includes her Nebula-nominated novella WINGS OF SORROW AND BONE. Her newest novel is BREATH OF EARTH. She’s a Hanford, California native transplanted to the Arizona desert, where she lives with her husband, son, and requisite cat. Follow her at BethCato.com and on Twitter at @BethCato.