The Fantastical Visions IV anthology is now available from Fantasist Enterprises, featuring my short story, “Dragonfly Savior”. These anthologies always contain wonderful stories and are beautifully illustrated inside and out, so I’m very pleased to have a story of mine included. Mine is one of 18 fantasy stories included in the book. This small press works very hard to produce high-quality fiction books and still make a profit, so I hope many fantasy lovers among you will pick up a copy. You will soon be able to order from Amazon, or you can order directly from Fantasist Enterprises.
I’m especially looking forward to this book coming out, because this is the first time my children will be able to enjoy reading one of my published works. They’re too young for Terminal Mind or most of my short stories, but “Dragonfly Savior”, about little people interacting with animals in a wood, is something they’ll be able to appreciate. Here’s a short excerpt to whet your appetite:
Dewdrop, astride his mantis, was leading the snake away from the river, dodging its lunges and slashing out with his mount’s spiked forelegs. There was no hope he could hurt it. Hickory wondered why he didn’t just try to escape. Then he saw the other mantis behind the snake, its body crushed, and beside it, a slumped, motionless form. Marigold. Dewdrop was leading the monster away from her, making himself the target of an enemy many times his size.
The snake moved with deadly grace, as smooth and fast as the water falling from the rocks behind it. The battle could not have been raging for long, or Dewdrop would have been dead. The snake lunged again, just as Dewdrop was slashing forward, and he was thrown from his mount. The snake opened its mouth, fangs bared, to finish him, but at that moment the weasels attacked. They tore into its unprotected throat; the snake writhed, ripping itself away, but fell twitching, belly up, onto the sand. By the time Hickory and Cori arrived, it was dead.
The soldiers helped Dewdrop to his feet, clapping him on the back. They draped Marigold, still alive but unconscious, over one of the weasels to send her back to the fielding.
“That girl will kill somebody one of these days.” Cori kicked at the ground so hard that Hickory jumped a step back. She relaxed just as suddenly, though, laughing a little at her own emotion. “I’m just glad it wasn’t today,” she said.
The classic Walton story “All The Rage This Year” is now available in audio form at the Dunesteef podcast. This story was originally printed in the third anthology from Phobos Books, also titled “All The Rage This Year”. Enjoy!
I’m writing this from Seattle, where I just WON the Philip K. Dick Award! The award is given every year at Norwescon (the Northwest Science Fiction Convention) for the best science fiction novel of the year originally printed in paperback. The competition is tough (see the post below this one for a description of the New York Times bestsellers and internationally published authors I was competing against). For Terminal Mind to win was a tremendous upset.
It was an Academy Award-like event: six nominated books and none of the nominees knowing which of us would win until the award was announced. Just being nominated was a huge thrill, so I was trying not to hope. I sat in the ballroom, barely eating, while the award administrators intentionally dragged things out to add to the suspense. My editor from Meadowhawk Press, Jackie Gamber, was there as well for moral support. And then the announcement… !
Traditionally, there is both a Winner and a Special Citation awarded, but this year the judges couldn’t decide which was which, so both my book and Adam-Troy Castro’s book, Emissaries for the Dead, were jointly given the award. This is an amazing honor (especially for a first novel!), and means my work can forever be emblazoned with “Philip K. Dick Award Winning Author”.
Here I am with Jackie and the award:
In only ten days, I will be at Norwescon in Seattle to hear which of the six finalists will be the winner of the Philip K. Dick award. Of course, I’m rooting for Terminal Mind, but the competition is pretty fierce. Check out the other authors with novels in the running:
Karen Traviss is a full-time novelist from England whose first published novel, City of Pearl, made her a finalist for the Campbell Award. The novel under consideration for the award, Judge, is the sixth and last book in that series. In addition, Traviss is a New York Times #1 bestselling author for her Star Wars novels.
Adam-Troy Castro has published sixteen books and almost eighty short stories, for which he has been nominated for the Nebula, the Hugo, and the Stoker. His contribution is Emissaries for the Dead, a novel in his series about futuristic homicide detective Andrea Cort.
Jeff Carlson’s novel Plague War is the second book of a trilogy from Ace that has already been picked up by German-, Spanish- and Romanian-language publishers. The first book is in its third edition and came out in audio form from Recorded Books. He has a double chance of winning the contest, since he also wrote one of the short stories in the finalist anthology Fast Forward 2, edited by Lou Anders.
K. A. Bedford lives in Australia, and his last four books have all been finalists for the Aurealis, Australia’s award for the best science fiction, fantasy, or horror published in that country, including this year’s Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait.
These are some pretty talented authors! I’m honored just to be associated with them. Wish me luck!
This long-awaited anthology features one of my stories, “Dragonfly Savior”, and I’m excited to see the book finally come out! This is the fourth in this anthology series (the fifth will feature one of my stories as well), and they always feature gorgeous artwork inside and out. The artist is Stephanie Pui-Mun Law, and here is what the book will look like:
Check out the interview that John Joseph Adams did with me, posted today on Tor.com. Tor is the largest publisher of science fiction and fantasy books in the world, and John Joseph Adams is the assistant editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, as well as several Tor anthologies. The interview is about the writing of my novel, Terminal Mind, and I’m quite pleased with how it went.
Big news about Terminal Mind! I just got word that my book has been nominated for the Philip K. Dick award, which is given each year by the Philip K. Dick Memorial Trust and the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society for the best original paperback science fiction novel of the year. Now, as you know, most Big Authors publish their books in hardback first, and so wouldn’t be eligible for this award. But it’s not limited to first-time authors by any means, and has been won in the past by well-known writers like William Gibson, Tim Powers, Rudy Rucker, Robert Charles Wilson, Stephen Baxter, David Farland, Jack McDevitt, and Kim Stanley Robinson. So I’m pretty psyched! But I haven’t won yet…
Being “nominated” means the book was one of the top six vote-getters in the initial round… kind of like it works for the Academy Awards. The winner won’t be announced until April 10, at a science fiction convention in Seattle (Norwescon). So keep your fingers crossed!
Welcome to my newly designed website! I’m a science fiction and fantasy author with a lot of short stories and one novel in publication. My short fiction has won a few contests and awards, and my novel has been nominated for this year’s Philip K. Dick award. I hope you enjoy looking around.
