Bryan Thomas Schmidt asked me to do a guest post at his blog, and I got to say a few words about my writing process. Check it out!
Also, I’ll be attending a few conventions in the next few months. Watch this space; if you catch me at a signing, make sure you get a city-sigil.
One last thing; the book’s cover has been updated, so there’ll be a version 1.5 available before too long. What do you think?
Empty Cradle is now available through just about every online retailer, and as an eBook from Amazon as well. Now that it’s out there and for real, I’m headed out to tell people about it. I am planning some home-town events some time in late September or early October, once I’m sure my local stores have EC in stock, but in the meantime I’ll be attending Con*Stellation XXX in Huntsville, AL, on September 16-18. It’ll be my first convention as a participant rather than a costumed spectator. I wonder if I should dress like a scav? In any case, please stop by my table in the dealer room (yes, there should be a real live Empty Cradle; TUDoCS selling table!) and say hello. Don’t worry; I am probably more afraid of you than you are of me.
As a point of pride, I said I was going to publish a book before a certain age, and I managed to do it literally two days before that particular birthday. It wasn’t a serious goal, more of a personal challenge. Maybe it was a present to myself. Maybe it was a present to everyone else. I haven’t decided yet, but I’m pretty happy about, all things considered.
Want to read it? It’s available here, and soon via Amazon.com as well.
Artwork by Kevin Steele
No more than ten minutes after they let Kroni out, Ivy came around a tight bend and slammed on the brakes, because there was a man standing in the middle of the road. He wore a kilt like Kroni’s, and had antlers on his head. In one hand, he carried a rifle with a long blade strapped to the barrel. The butt was a single carved piece of wood almost three feet long, so the weapon could be used as a walking stick as well. As the rig came to a stop, he began walking slowly toward them.
“Is that the cervie?” Swan asked. “He’s making us stop?”
Why was she asking about what was obvious? Corey had to bite his tongue before making a sarcastic comment; thankfully Ivy answered before he could ask if she was blind. “He’s in the road. Armed. And it looks as though he’s strapped a pair of antlers to his head.”
“Arrogant bambi,” Swan said. “You ever dealt with a woodsy cervid before?”
“No,” Ivy replied.
“He’s probably going to paw at you. At both of us. He won’t try to fight Pinkie or the Puppy as long as they’re not bigger than he is, and they keep their mouths shut. Pinkie, don’t ask him any questions because he’s gonna be lookin’ for an excuse to fight you.”
“Thank you for the warning,” Marcus said.
“Should I shut down?” Ivy asked. “He’s approaching.”
“Yeh, go quiet. He wants us to be scared, but if he knows you are it’s worse. He might want to see your tits. Best just to show him. If he goes after your snevvie, kill him.”
“My what?” Read more…
Lex Machina photo
Coming in the summer of 2011, this post-apocalyptic urban fantasy novel is the first of three. Empty Cradle: The Untimely Death of Corey Sanderson introduces readers to a richly imagined vision of the future after a slow-motion cataclysm that puts an end to modern society. Read more…
When Clover excused herself to go and call Matt, to tell him to make his own dinner, Dori realized that it was her first moment alone with Nikki all day. She half-expected a big outburst from Nikki, but there was only a sigh, once Clover was out of earshot.
She still recognized the sigh, even though she hadn’t seen Nikki much in the past two years. “Sorry,” Dori said. “I know she can be kind of annoying. But she means well. Sometimes she’s pretty helpful.”
Nikki shook her head slightly. “I can deal,” she said. She picked up a piece of pasta on the end of her fork and looked at it without really concentrating on it. “We should talk later about furniture, though.”
“Okay.”
“Do you still want to go look for that girl? Taylor?”
Dori nodded. “I was hoping Clover wouldn’t piss you off so much you’d want to leave, because I wanted your help.”
“She’s coming,” Nikki said. It wasn’t a question. “Fucking great.”
“Sorry,” Dori said again.
Nikki responded with a ghostly smile. “I’ve suffered worse,” she said. T Read more…
Dori spent the night partly awake. Once the Advil wore off for good, she didn’t sleep much, and instead looked around her darkened room, feeling like it wasn’t really hers.
She thought about Smile a lot. He had either been bailed out by Khalid, in which case he was probably getting the tongue-lashing of a lifetime and dying inside, or he was sitting in jail and hopefully not being gang-raped by the other prisoners. Rationally Dori doubted that the Ypsilanti lock-up was that bad, but you never knew. She was worried about him regardless. If her head didn’t hurt so much, she might be feeling good enough to try to get out there and find out if he was okay. She was pretty sure that he had punched her for something that had nothing to do with her at all. Which didn’t absolve him, of course, but she could forgive and forget. Smile just wasn’t abusive.
Oh, but he is, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Clover’s said. They all are. You can never trust him again. If they hit you once, they can hit you again. It’s the first time that’s the hardest! Read more…
Daniel fretted over Dori until she was honestly getting annoyed about it. He sat her in the office, gave her an ice pack, offered to call an ambulance, offered to call a lawyer and did call the police. She didn’t want to press charges, but when Daniel told the cops about Smile’s wreck the week before, they ran him through their computer, found that his license was suspended, and went looking for him anyway. She imagined that the cops were getting kind of sick of seeing her name pop up every few days, but what could she say? It was being a really weird month. Read more…
The thing that would replay itself over and over in Smile’s head, the thing that eventually made him so sick he actually vomited, kneeling humiliated over the stainless steel toilet of his jail cell, was that it was so easy. His first thought had nothing to do with shock or shame or horror, but more awe, at how easy it was to knock a girl down. He had just swung, and Dori had gone down. He’d seen twelve year-olds take harder hits than that. He hadn’t even hurt his hand. The realization went through Smile’s brain and was gone before Dori even hit the floor. Read more…
Smile was at Pandora’s when Dori arrived, cached quietly at a corner table and nursing a Coke. He was wearing a gray coverall she’d never seen before, and his hair was tied back. “Hey,” she said, swinging past the table before she punched in. “How’d you get here?”
“Khalid rented a car,” he replied, all but spitting the name out.
Dori made a sad-face, sympathetic to the upset in his voice. “He’s holding all of this over you, isn’t he?”
Smile shook his head, looking over Dori’s shoulder at one of the ceiling fans. “Go clock in,” he said.
“What did you want to talk to me about?”
“Nothing. Go clock in.” Read more…
