Archive for the ‘News’ Category
Welcome to the March 2019 issue of my newsletter, “News from the Crypt,” and please visit Carter’s Crypt, devoted to my horror, fantasy, and paranormal romance work, especially focusing on vampires and shapeshifting beasties. If you have a particular fondness for vampires, check out the chronology of my series in the link labeled “Vanishing Breed Vampire Universe.” For my recommendations of “must read” classic and modern vampire fiction, explore the Realm of the Vampires:
Realm of the Vampires
Also, check out the multi-author Alien Romances Blog
The long-time distributor of THE VAMPIRE’S CRYPT has closed its website. If you would like to read any issue of this fanzine, which contains fiction, interviews, and a detailed book review column, e-mail me to request the desired issue, and I’ll send you a free PDF of it. My e-mail address is at the end of this newsletter. Find information about the contents of each issue on this page of my website:
A complete list of my available works, arranged roughly by genre, with purchase links (gradually being updated as the Amber Quill and Ellora’s Cave works are being republished):
This is my Facebook author page. Please visit!
Facebook
Here’s my page in Barnes and Noble’s Nook store. These items include some of the short stories that used to be on Fictionwise:
Barnes and Noble
Go here and scroll down to “Available Short Fiction” for a list of those stories with their Amazon links:
Kindle Works
Here’s the list of my Kindle books on Amazon. (The final page, however, includes some Ellora’s Cave anthologies in which I don’t have stories):
Carter Kindle Books
Here’s a shortcut URL to my author page on Amazon:
Amazon
In March, The Romance Reviews website is celebrating its eighth anniversary with contests and giveaways. I’m participating, and my featured day will be March 19. I’m giving away a PDF of my vampire novel DARK CHANGELING:
The excerpt below comprises the opening scene of “Cracked Portal,” one of the fantasy stories reprinted in my collection HARVEST OF MAGIC:
This month I’m interviewing mystery, suspense, and paranormal author Julie M. Howard.
*****
Interview with Julie M. Howard:
What inspired you to begin writing?
I started reading very early and just absolutely, completely and fanatically fell in love with stories of all types. At first, it was fairy tales and Dr. Seuss, then the Brothers Grimm, and then onto all genres, from memoir to horror to historical fiction. I was jealous from the start that people created these stories, and knew I wanted to do this too. I became a reporter and editor for a career, and so wrote lots of non-fiction per se, but my first love has always been fiction. I feel so incredibly lucky I get to spend my time writing books now. It’s the best job in the world!
What genres do you work in?
Primarily mystery, but I do have an unpublished historical fiction manuscript in my desk drawer. My first two books are mystery/suspense and the most recent book, Spirited Quest, is a paranormal mystery.
Do you outline, “wing it,” or something in between?
I start with a good outline, so I have the general plot and story arc in place. I’ll jot down some key scenes I want to cover. From there, I basically wing it. My outline changes and stretches in places, but I don’t stress out about that. Once the characters come alive on the pages, I let them direct the story.
What have been the major influences on your writing (favorite authors, life experiences, or whatever)?
One of my favorite authors is John Steinbeck. I love how he could take a serious subject and create interesting characters to teach readers about it. Good and evil. The haves and have-nots. Human frailties. In the back of my mind, I’m always wondering “What is it I’m trying to say with my story?”
You’ve ghost-written a nonfiction book—what was that process like?
Ghost-writing “Making my Own Luck,” a memoir by a Hewlett-Packard executive, was amazing for a couple of reasons. First, I was able to spend time with Ray Smelek, who knew both Bill Hewlett and David Packard. He was one of the early employees with HP and later started HP’s printing business. So, from a historical perspective, the project was fascinating. I also had a great time learning how to build a story over the course of a book – quite different than writing a newspaper article. I learned a book is not just a longer story – there’s a story arc to be developed. That’s when I decided to take a couple of classes to hone my book-writing skills.
Please tell us about your Wild Crime series. Your website mentions “domestic suspense”; how would you define that subgenre?
Ah, aren’t all relationships a story of domestic suspense? Love me, don’t love me? Who’s making dinner? Will we make it to twenty years?
All kidding aside, my books take on the marriage of a woman who comes to realize she’s in an abusive relationship. Not all abuse is violent or overt. Her abuse creeps up so slowly until, one day, she starts fantasizing about killing her husband. Things get worse from there.
The series picks at the scab of a wounded marriage, and brings healing to my main character.
What are you working on now?
I’m finishing up the last book in the Wild Crime series. This one is simply called “Wild Crime.” I hope to send it to my publisher, The Wild Rose Press, sometime this spring. I’ve also started developing a new mystery series that I’ll start just as soon as my current project is finished.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Never give up. And never stop believing in yourself. This is a competitive business, but that has nothing to do with your value and the value of the story you want to tell. Keep at it. Expect rejection. And write some more.
What’s the URL of your website? Your blog? Where else can we find you on the web?
I’m also on Goodreads, Facebook and Twitter
Facebook: @JulieMHowardAuthor
Twitter: @_JulieMHoward
*****
Some Books I’ve Read Lately:
MISTRESS OF THE WIND, by E. Rose Sabin. Book One of the Arucadi series. Kyla, a windspeaker, serves her fellow townsfolk by communing with the wind to predict weather and warn of dangers that might threaten the village. The most dire of those are mindstealers, quasi-humanoid monsters that leave their victims mindless or dead. At the age of twelve, Kyla lost her parents to these creatures. Now, as a young woman, she receives only grudging respect from her neighbors, who often express doubts that the service she performs justifies the material support they give her. Her life changes when she rescues a man who has been attacked by mindstealers and left mindless. With the coerced help of a mindstealer she captures, she restores the victim to his senses. The magnetically attractive young man identifies himself as a famous mage, Alair. He seems strangely ungrateful for his rescue and impatient to find someone called Claid. Claid turns out to be his capricious familiar, in the form of a preteen boy. As a “reward” for Kyla’s help, Alair gives Claid to her. Her troubles begin when she takes the boy home with her. Misfortunes befall her neighbors, for which they blame Kyla. It doesn’t help that Claid seems to think she’s a mage, although she insists the windspeaking gift is not magic. He keeps referring to a “chain” that binds him to Alair and expects Kyla to free him. His only redeeming trait seems to be his reverence for the books she has inherited from her father. When Kyla and Claid are driven out of the village, they go to Alair’s home. At first Kyla thinks of the mage as a cruel master mistreating Claid, although Alair repeatedly tells her the boy is not what he seems. Unwillingly fascinated by Alair, despite the fact that (according to the tradition she has been taught) a windspeaker should have no lover but the wind, she wavers back and forth between distrust of Alair and uncertainty about Claid. When she eventually leaves the valley with Claid, she discovers the outside world to be radically different from her home. They find themselves in a sort of Victorian-level, nonmagical steampunk world. Kyla gets picked up as a vagabond and sent to a Dickensian workhouse, with Claid (now shapeshifted into the form of a baby) consigned to an orphanage. Kyla makes a friend at the workhouse and eventually learns secrets of her world, her own heritage, Claid’s true nature, and the value of her father’s books. Other than a feeling that the people outside the valley are overly quick to condemn Kyla on little evidence, I found the story engaging and satisfying. The author skillfully keeps the reader uncertain, for most of the book, whether to trust Alair or Claid and which one (if either) is more or less telling the truth. While this story reaches a conclusion with no frustrating cliffhanger elements, it has a strong sequel hook.
ORIGINS OF THE SPECIOUS, by Patricia O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman. An exploration and debunking of “myths and misconceptions” about the English language, published in 2009. The first chapter begins the book with an overview of some ways British and American English differ, the reasons for the divergences, and evidence that American English may legitimately be considered the “purer” of the two. Chapter Two, “Grammar Moses,” deconstructs “rules” that are no longer valid, many of which never were, such as the taboo on splitting infinitives. Other sections expose allegedly French-based words that aren’t and tackle the supposed origins of various proverbial expressions such as “the whole nine yards.” The authors discuss changes in pronunciation and the furor over words that have been condemned as ugly innovations (even some that have been around for centuries). The text unfolds the history of “ain’t,” which fills a need with a contraction that, unfortunately, has no grammatically “correct” equivalent. Widely believed linguistic “facts” are disproved (e.g., the vulgar term for excrement isn’t an abbreviation of “Ship High in Transit”). Chapter Eight, “Sense and Sensitivity,” delves into politically correct and incorrect vocabulary. The chapter on “Sex Education: Cleaning Up Dirty Words” debunks many erroneous beliefs about words that used to be designated as unprintable. No, the F-word, actually of venerable antiquity, does not derive from “Fornication Under Consent of the King” or any other farfetched acronym. O’Conner and Kellerman advance reasons why some fights should continue to be fought, such as reserving “unique” to mean “one of a kind” (no “quite unique” or “most unique” allowed). The book supports its points with exhaustive footnotes and includes a two-and-a-half-page bibliography. Very entertaining and informative.
SNOW WHITE LEARNS WITCHCRAFT, by Theodora Goss. A collection of thirty-one stories and poems based on or inspired by fairy tales, some reprints, most original to this volume. All these works question “What if. . .?” or “What comes next. . .?” They make the familiar tales new and strange by switching viewpoints from “hero” to “villain” or changing time and/or place to a different milieu. To mention only a few: The poem “The Ogress Queen” offers the perspective of the prince’s cannibalistic mother from the second part of “Sleeping Beauty,” the follow-up that never seems to get into children’s books and movies. “The Rose in Twelve Petals” explores “Sleeping Beauty” from a variety of viewpoints, including that of the witch who casts the “curse”; beginning in what appears to be a nineteenth-century setting, it concludes a century later, when the “prince” breaks through the thorn hedge on a bulldozer instead of a horse. The poem “The Clever Serving Maid” reflects on the exchange of identities between the princess / goose girl and her maid from the viewpoint of the maid, who doesn’t want to marry a prince anyway. In “The Other Thea,” the heroine has to visit the castle of Mother Night in the Other Country to reunite with her lost shadow. The poem “Goldilocks and the Bear” portrays Goldilocks and the young bear as childhood friends who grow up to get married, while “Sleeping with Bears,” a comedy-of-manners story, features a wedding between a human girl and the scion of a wealthy bear family. In the poem “The Gold-Spinner,” the miller’s daughter, who actually spun straw into gold on her own, makes up the tale of a strange little man to get out of marrying the king. In the story “Red as Blood and White as Bone,” set in an imaginary central European country in the first half of the twentieth century, the narrator, an orphaned kitchen-maid in a nobleman’s castle, befriends a strange woman she believes—under the influence of fairy tales—to be a princess in disguise. The “princess” turns out to be something quite different but equally mysterious, on a mission that doesn’t involve marrying the prince. A witch tells the heroine of “Seven Shoes” that she will get what she wants after wearing through seven pairs of shoes; the poem follows her through successive stages of her life to the point where, having worn out many types of shoes, she attains her dream of becoming a writer. A must-read for fans of re-imagined fairy tales.
*****
Excerpt from “Cracked Portal”:
A pale glow from no visible source etched the silhouettes of gnarled, leafless trees against a silver and steel-blue landscape. Glenys trudged through an earthbound cloud of gray mist that swirled around her bare feet and ankles. What she glimpsed of the dark sky showed neither moon nor stars. Something shrieked in the distance.
From above, a winged creature with a barbed tail swooped at her. She crouched, covering her head. The flying thing’s talons clawed her arms, and its tail whipped her in passing. Rolling away from the attack, she cast a lightning bolt at the flyer. With a shrill cry, it veered skyward. Glenys scrambled to her feet and staggered toward an oval of violet light she could barely see between the trees. Vines looped around her legs and scratched her with their thorns.
The same as the night before, she reached the violet beacon just as a hot blast of wind with an odor of charred meat hit her from behind. A high-pitched whine drilled into her skull. She glanced back to catch sight of a smoke-hued, serpentine form as big around as her own body and so long she couldn’t see its other end. It charged toward her. She plunged through the portal…
#
Glenys slammed onto the workroom floor. Sitting up, she saw by the moonlight shining through the window that she’d again landed inside the ritual circle painted on the polished wood. She brushed at her dust-streaked night shift and rubbed the fresh bruises on her knees.
I never sleepwalk, and these are definitely not dreams. I’ve been…elsewhere.
She shoved herself upright and limped into the bedroom where she’d lain down to sleep a few hours earlier. After washing her scrapes and cuts, she spread healing salve on them, augmented by a murmured spell. If nothing else, the wounds proved the reality of her experience. She stretched out on the bed, drawing slow, deep breaths to force herself to relax.
No wonder the town council of Willowford had offered her the old wizard’s vacant house during her visit. Doubtless nobody else would want to spend a night here. Why would he have cast a portal spell and left it running wild? Something must have gone wrong with his magic. Whatever it was, she’d have to fix it or cut her stay short. She’d come here to treat injuries and ailments beyond the scope of the village healer, scry for lost trinkets or wandering livestock, and predict the chances of success for harried business-folk or desperate lovers. She hadn’t counted on getting repeatedly dragged into a pocket dimension infested with monsters.
-end of excerpt-
My Publishers:
Writers Exchange E-Publishing: Writers Exchange
Harlequin: Harlequin
Hard Shell Word Factory: Hard Shell
Whiskey Creek: Whiskey Creek
Wild Rose Press: Wild Rose Press
You can contact me at: MLCVamp@aol.com
“Beast” wishes until next time—
Margaret L. Carter
Welcome to the February 2019 issue of my newsletter, “News from the Crypt,” and please visit Carter’s Crypt, devoted to my horror, fantasy, and paranormal romance work, especially focusing on vampires and shapeshifting beasties. If you have a particular fondness for vampires, check out the chronology of my series in the link labeled “Vanishing Breed Vampire Universe.” For my recommendations of “must read” classic and modern vampire fiction, explore the Realm of the Vampires:
Realm of the Vampires
Also, check out the multi-author Alien Romances Blog
The long-time distributor of THE VAMPIRE’S CRYPT has closed its website. If you would like to read any issue of this fanzine, which contains fiction, interviews, and a detailed book review column, e-mail me to request the desired issue, and I’ll send you a free PDF of it. My e-mail address is at the end of this newsletter. Find information about the contents of each issue on this page of my website:
A complete list of my available works, arranged roughly by genre, with purchase links (gradually being updated as the Amber Quill and Ellora’s Cave works are being republished):
This is my Facebook author page. Please visit!
Facebook
Here’s my page in Barnes and Noble’s Nook store. These items include some of the short stories that used to be on Fictionwise:
Barnes and Noble
Go here and scroll down to “Available Short Fiction” for a list of those stories with their Amazon links:
Kindle Works
Here’s the list of my Kindle books on Amazon. (The final page, however, includes some Ellora’s Cave anthologies in which I don’t have stories):
Carter Kindle Books
Here’s a shortcut URL to my author page on Amazon:
Amazon
My annual vampire fiction bibliography update is now available. If you’d like to receive a copy of the file, you can request it by e-mail: MLCVamp@aol.com
Below is another short excerpt from my new paranormal romance novella “Yokai Magic,” which you can find here:
The current scene occurs immediately after Val’s cat, Toby, chases a barely-glimpsed, unidentified creature out of the living room.
This month I’m interviewing Australian thriller writer Stephen B. King.
*****
Interview with Stephen B. King:
What inspired you to begin writing?
I’ve written all my life, starting with poems and short stories in my youth, then I left school and got involved with the music business as a guitarist and had a ball writing songs. But then real life popped its head up, so along came marriage and children, and working for a living – a guy can’t have fun all his life, can he?
I spoke about writing a book for so long, it drove my wife nuts. Then out of the blue I heard a song, “Nevermind,” by Leonard Cohen (theme song for True Detective 2) and suddenly inspiration hit me like a lightning bolt. My wife, to shut me up, bought me a laptop, and told me no more excuses write the damn book. Now as I approach book number 10, I think maybe she regrets that.
Inspiration for stories comes in many ways. Coming up with ideas isn’t my problem, It’s finding the time to write them, then re-write them five times (my minimum) then the editing rounds……..
What genres do you work in?
Call me morbid, by all means, but the world of serial killers has always fascinated me. It must run in my family because my daughter is in her last year of university studying criminal psychology. A good friend is also a psychologist, and his wife is a renowned sport psychologist, and they have all been a good source of research.
When I write a story about a killer, I like to ‘get inside’ their head and show the reader how and why they became that way. Let’s face it, it doesn’t just happen that a ‘normal’ person wakes up one day and decides to kill people. While I don’t like to glamorize it, I do like to show the human side, and get the reader to invest in the character. If I can do that – watch out, we’re going on a roller coaster ride.
I’ve also written Thirty-Three Days, a romantic thriller using time travel. When inspiration hits, I will write anything. I’m also working up some ideas for a series of comedy stories involving a large car dealership (I work in one myself) An author, I believe, should be able to write anything, rather than get stuck in one genre – says he as he begins yet another thriller……..
Do you outline, “wing it,” or something in between?
Mostly my stories come from a spark of an idea, and for me to explore that I write it. I then write chronologically from that point on and see where it leads. Once I start I do not plan the ending, I work my way towards it, and I find that often I’m surprised myself at what I write. I also think it makes it fresher if I don’t know what’s coming.
For me, writing is all about bringing to life characters, getting the reader to invest in them, and even care for them. And, if I achieve that, then I can put those ordinary characters into extraordinary situations. My new release Glimpse Series, at its core is about desire. The effect that sexual desire can have on the marriages of the protagonists, it’s also about Pat’s desire to use her abilities on the front line of a major police investigation to catch a murderer. Also, of course it’s about the skewed desire that a serial killer has, to murder his victims.
What have been the major influences on your writing (favorite authors, life experiences, or whatever)?
Authors, there are a few: my famous namesake is right up there for putting characters you love in harm’s way. Of recent times I’ve fallen in literary love with Scandinavian writers and two are the finest authors I’ve ever read; both now deceased, unfortunately. Stieg Larsen and Henning Mankell. The former penned The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, and the latter the brilliant Wallander series. Two TV shows made me sit up and take notice and realize how good TV can be, a British one called Wire in the Blood, and the second was American: True Detective. A really good thriller/police procedural I think is the best there is, so I try to emulate what I like to read and see.
Your website includes an essay on why people are fascinated with murder. Could you give us a brief summary of your answer to that question?
As I alluded to in that article, I think it’s because we yearn to know why. Why would someone do hideous things to other human beings yet appear outwardly normal? In my latest trilogy, I explored that extensively with three different killers, with three different motivations and each are radically different to the other. Of course in my case, it’s fiction, but I try to get the psychology aspect as close as I can to factual because I think its important to try to show the answer to that question: Why?
What kind of research have you done for your fiction about serial killers?
I’ve read extensively, and talked to people in the field of mental health, in my attempts to try to portray sufferers in the right light. We must remember that often they don’t think they have a problem; it’s us ‘normal’ people who do. Some ailments are born from physical causes; electrical impulses short circuiting from a blow on the head as a child etc. Other problems are often caused by a series of events and the psyche has created personas to protect the sufferer – these are the most tragic of all. I read an article that said we only use 10% of our brain consciously, which begs the question: What’s the other 90% for? The human brain is capable of great good – think Einstein, Stephen Hawkins, but also great evil- Jack the Ripper, Son of Sam. Most of us thankfully live in the middle ground.
Please tell us a bit about your experience in having your work adapted to audiobook format.
So far only 1, called Thirty-Three Days. But Glimpse, Memoir of a Serial Killer is in production now. I can only say it is an incredible experience and one I would recommend to any author if you get the chance. To hear my words performed by an actor was one of the highlights of my life, which still gives me goosebumps when I think of it now. When it was finished and released, I bought a copy, and listened to it without trying to edit or find fault, and it was amazing.
What are you working on now?
There is an urban myth that the ACDC song called Highway to Hell, was written by Bon Scott (RIP) about the highway which runs between Perth (where I live) and our port city of Fremantle (where we defended the America’s cup from the first time it left America). It’s a, to use an Aussie slang term, a mongrel of a road at any time, but in rush hour, it’s dreadful. So, I’m working on a thriller called Breakdown on the Highway to Hell, about three women who go missing after breaking down in rush hour traffic…….
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
I have two pieces of advice: 1….. Never give up. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do it – you can. Rejections will come by the bucket full, but treat each one as a stepping stone to success. 2…. Write from your heart, and edit with your head.
What’s the URL of your website? Your blog? Where else can we find you on the web?
All my books are available via Amazon, Goodreads, itunes etc And I always respond to comments and reviews – email me, tell me what you think of any of my books.
Stephen B King
Stephen B. King
twitter: @stephenBKing1
Facebook: @stephenbkingauthor
Thank you for hosting me, and letting me ramble on
*****
Some Books I’ve Read Lately:
IN AN ABSENT DREAM, by Seanan McGuire. The fourth book in the “Wayward Children” series, which began with EVERY HEART A DOORWAY. That novel takes place in a boarding school for children and teenagers who have returned to our reality after time spent in another world accessed through a magic portal. Each of the following books deals with the individual experiences of various characters. IN AN ABSENT DREAM stands perfectly well on its own. In fact, it’s almost better not to have read the original novel first, because that one reveals the ultimate fate of this newest story’s protagonist. Katherine Lundy is “ordinary enough to have become remarkable entirely without noticing it.” A quiet child who follows the rules and keeps her thoughts to herself, she prefers to spend most of her time reading. In 1964, at the age of eight, she stumbles upon a door in a tree. On the door are the words “Be sure.” When she enters, the door vanishes, leaving her in a long, curved hallway. Signs on the walls proclaim five rules: Ask for nothing. Names have power. Always give fair value. Take what is offered and be grateful. Remember the curfew. At last she emerges into the Goblin Market, a combination of a carnival, a farmer’s market, and a craft fair, thronged by people many of whom don’t look human. Lundy (as she decides to call herself to avoid giving away the power of her first name) quickly finds a friend in Moon, an owl-eyed girl with feathers in her hair. Moon introduces her to a woman called the Archivist, a mentor figure who impresses on Lundy the importance of giving fair value and not accumulating debts. Feathers like Moon’s symbolize what happens to people who fall too deeply into debt; if they don’t balance accounts, they eventually lose their humanity altogether. Unlike most worlds where magic portals lead, the Goblin Market allows multiple visits. Lundy goes back and forth, torn between the faerie realm she considers her true home and mundane life with her family. She loves her parents and sister but can’t imagine being content with this life. Her father, having visited the Goblin Market in his own childhood, sympathizes but of course wants her to stay in the “real” world. The “curfew” looms, her eighteenth birthday, by which she must choose to live permanently in one world or the other. This anguished dilemma remains in the foreground. Dramatic events such as her heroic battle against the Wasp Queen and the death of a friend happen offstage. IN AN ABSENT DREAM is a story of inexorable choice, with no unambiguously “happy ending” possible.
THE WICKED KING, by Holly Black. Sequel to THE CRUEL PRINCE. The prince of the first book (who wasn’t quite so cruel as he appeared) has become the king of the present novel. Whether he’s truly “wicked” remains an open question. Jude, the mortal girl brought up in Elfhame as a foster daughter by the elven warrior who murdered her parents, again narrates the story (in present tense, annoyingly). The new king, Cardan, has bound himself to obey her commands for a year and a day. He resents this obligation, of course, and she tries to exercise her power only when absolutely unavoidable. She also carefully prevents anyone else from knowing she holds this control over the king. She has enemies, one of whom tries to poison her. Meanwhile, her secret role as a spy complicates her life. Court intrigue makes every choice open to her hazardous. When the Queen of Undersea demands that the King of Elfhame marry her daughter, Jude strives to save Cardan and his realm despite her ambivalent relationship with him. Like the previous novel, THE WICKED KING highlights the perilous existence of a mortal in the elven world. The unexpected conclusion could be the end of Jude’s story, but I suspect there’s more to come.
THE LIGHT BETWEEN WORLDS, by Laura E. Weymouth. This portal fantasy, like EVERY HEART A DOORWAY but with a very different approach, explores how the protagonists cope with the aftermath of returning to our world from a sojourn in a magical realm. Incidents from their life in the other world and the six years between their return and the story’s present are framed as flashbacks. (The first-person accounts, both now and then, are narrated in present tense, and, still more annoyingly, all the flashbacks appear in italics.) During a bombing raid in World-War-II London, siblings James, Philippa, and Evelyn disappear from their backyard shelter and appear in a place called the Woodlands. The lordly stag Corvus, Guardian of the Woodlands, in response to Evelyn’s desperate plea to be “anywhere but here,” has transported them between universes. Evelyn longs to stay, but Philippa wants to go home and agrees to remain for a while only when Corvus promises that no time will pass back in London. Their parents will be safe and never know the children were gone. James, eager to play a significant role in this world that he can’t in Earth’s war, gladly accepts Corvus’s invitation. Beautiful and peaceful though this country is, it’s threatened by invasion from the Empire, whose ruler demands submission and tribute from the Woodlanders, including freedom to cut down sentient trees for the Empire’s war resources. Corvus, although magical, doesn’t have the godlike power of Aslan in Narnia. The war wreaks devastation on the Woodlands before victory is finally achieved. Even so, Evelyn is happy there. When Corvus keeps his promise to send the three children (now young adults) home, James and Philippa welcome the return, while Evelyn is essentially dragged along against her will. In one important factor glossed over by Lewis in THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE, Evelyn suffers wrenching dislocation at suddenly being thirteen again after having grown into a young woman in the Woodlands. She has to live through the ages between thirteen and eighteen twice. (That DOES sound to me like a fate almost worse than death.) As the novel begins in the story’s present day, she’s at a boarding school as the British equivalent of an American high school senior. James attends Oxford, and Philippa has gone away to Harvard. Although Evelyn tries to fit in as her family and schoolmates expect her to, she yearns for “home” and continues to feel disconnected from her mundane life. Philippa, on the other hand, embracing normality, armors herself in “powder and pumps,” the conventional persona of a bright, attractive young woman. In Narnian terms, Evelyn corresponds to Lucy and Philippa to Susan, except that Philippa never denies the reality of the Woodlands. After almost six years back in the “real” world, Evelyn becomes close to a boy her own age and begins to feel almost at home in this universe. This change, however, feels to her like a betrayal of her true home, the Woodlands. The second half of the book, narrated by Philippa, begins with Evelyn’s disappearance. Philippa goes back to England, struggling with guilt over having, as she sees it, abandoned her sister. Her anguish over not knowing what has happened to Evelyn is vividly rendered. Is Evelyn dead, possibly by suicide, as generally assumed, or has she found her way back to the Woodlands? The story comes to a satisfying conclusion, but it’s bittersweet, not an unequivocally “happy” ending.
*****
Excerpt from “Yokai Magic”:
“Way to go,” she said to the cat. “You flushed out some kind of creepy-crawly and then lost it. Now I have to spend all night worrying if it’s loose in the house.” He sat down and licked his front paws, each in turn, with his ears twitching as if he acknowledged her scolding but couldn’t bother with a response. “Best case, it was just a big, white moth. I could live with that.”
After one more scan of the kitchen and a survey of the dining room, just in case, she succumbed to second thoughts and checked the den and laundry room as well. Nothing. In the den, she did notice that the high-backed, rattan papasan chair, another souvenir her grandfather had picked up in Japan, sat in the middle of the floor instead of where it belonged. She’d taken photos of it the evening before to compare with online images of furniture of similar origin and age, in case it might be valuable enough to bother selling. Probably she’d repositioned it for better lighting and absentmindedly neglected to move it back. She shrugged at her own flakiness and tugged the chair into its usual corner.
After pouring herself a glass of Riesling, she settled on the living-room couch to watch a nature program she’d recorded earlier in the week. Toby curled up next to her with his plumed tail over his nose. She stroked him to calm herself.
Halfway through the life cycle of dolphins, she glimpsed movement from the corner of her eye. Is it back? She glanced up and located the disturbance above the fireplace. The two ivory figurines on the mantel, which her grandfather had bought in Japan, the ones she’d been seeking documentation for, twitched their limbs. The dragon spread its lacy batwings and glided to the edge of the hearth. The octopus stretched its tentacles and crept down the fire-guard screen. Toby uncurled his long, fluffy body, flexed his claws, and hissed.
Val slowly pulled herself to her feet, clutching the wing-backed end of the couch. “You see that?” she whispered. Maybe that’s what happened to the cat statuette. It got up and walked away, too.
The dragon and octopus scrabbled onto the carpet, their respective legs and tentacles clicking like a handful of dice. The cat lashed his tail and hissed again. Her breath caught in her throat. This is not happening. She flapped both hands at the animated figurines. They halted, the dragon’s wings vibrating and four of the octopus’s limbs suspended off the floor. Toby sprang at them. They both skittered up the screen to their places on the mantel.
Val collapsed onto the couch, trembling, with her face in her hands.
When her pulse slowed, she peeked between her fingers. The dragon and octopus sat in the positions they’d occupied ever since her family had bought the house. Toby jumped onto the cushion beside her and licked his tail. “That didn’t happen, right?” she asked him. He blinked at her. “I dozed off and had a really weird dream.” After her hands stopped shaking, she gulped the rest of her wine, turned off the TV, and went up to bed.
-end of excerpt-
*****
My Publishers:
Writers Exchange E-Publishing: Writers Exchange
Harlequin: Harlequin
Hard Shell Word Factory: Hard Shell
Whiskey Creek: Whiskey Creek
Wild Rose Press: Wild Rose Press
You can contact me at: MLCVamp@aol.com
“Beast” wishes until next time—
Margaret L. Carter
Welcome to the January 2019 issue of my newsletter, “News from the Crypt,” and please visit Carter’s Crypt, devoted to my horror, fantasy, and paranormal romance work, especially focusing on vampires and shapeshifting beasties. If you have a particular fondness for vampires, check out the chronology of my series in the link labeled “Vanishing Breed Vampire Universe.” For my recommendations of “must read” classic and modern vampire fiction, explore the Realm of the Vampires:
Realm of the Vampires
Also, check out the multi-author Alien Romances Blog
The long-time distributor of THE VAMPIRE’S CRYPT has closed its website. If you would like to read any issue of this fanzine, which contains fiction, interviews, and a detailed book review column, e-mail me to request the desired issue, and I’ll send you a free PDF of it. My e-mail address is at the end of this newsletter. Find information about the contents of each issue on this page of my website:
A complete list of my available works, arranged roughly by genre, with purchase links (gradually being updated as the Amber Quill and Ellora’s Cave works are being republished):
This is my Facebook author page. Please visit!
Facebook
Here’s my page in Barnes and Noble’s Nook store. These items include some of the short stories that used to be on Fictionwise:
Barnes and Noble
Go here and scroll down to “Available Short Fiction” for a list of those stories with their Amazon links:
Kindle Works
Here’s the list of my Kindle books on Amazon. (The final page, however, includes some Ellora’s Cave anthologies in which I don’t have stories):
Carter Kindle Books
Here’s a shortcut URL to my author page on Amazon:
Amazon
Happy New Year!
My light paranormal romance novella “Yokai Magic,” inspired by Japanese folklore, will be published by the Wild Rose Press on January 7. Here’s the blurb:
When Val unearths a Japanese scroll and a cat figurine inherited from her grandfather, magic invades her world. The statuette, actually a cat spirit named Yuki—a yokai—enchanted into that form for her own protection, comes to life. Over a century ago, an evil magician cast a curse on her, and a wolf-like demon conjured by the curse still hunts her. Because Val is the one who broke the protective spell, that dark magic endangers her, too. She must turn for help to the last person she wants to get involved with, her former high-school boyfriend, now an officer in the Navy. Together they search for a way to vanquish the threat from the spirit realm, while facing the attraction they thought they’d long since put behind them.
The story will be on sale here:
https://catalog.thewildrosepress.com/all-titles/6412-yokai-magic.html
In the excerpt below, Val investigates mysterious noises in the bathroom in the middle of the night.
To begin the year, I’m interviewing self-published SF and fantasy author Peter Sartucci.
*****
Interview with Peter Sartucci:
What inspired you to begin writing?
I toyed with it from an early age, with creative writing classes in school and so forth. What actually got me started trying to do it for real was breaking my foot in four places in 1982. It was two days before the summer program at Colorado State University (CSU) in Fort Collins, CO, where I was going to do a Master’s Degree. I was brand new in town, had arrived the previous evening and moved into a four-bedroom apartment in Palmer House, the grad student housing on campus. Next morning I went to the gym to get registered, and while asking directions of a student worker rolling a volleyball-pole base down the hall, he accidently dropped that massive hunk of metal on my foot. Instead of taking classes, I spent two months of the summer in bed with my foot propped on a pillow, barely able to hobble to the bathroom and back. If my new roommates hadn’t taken pity on me and fed me, I’d have starved. Instead I propped myself up in bed, put my little Silver-Reed manual typewriter on my lap, and began banging out a story. Of course it was wretched, but I still have it, just to remind me of how far I’ve come. 😊
What genres do you work in?
Speculative fiction and fantasy, with occasional dashes of romance and/or horror. Sometimes I combine all four. Madame Ymera (a secondary character in my Kirin & Terrell stories) is a no-doubt-about-it vampire who has found a tolerated niche in their world; a beta reader described her as “one of the most horrifying yet sympathetic figures I’ve ever read in fantasy”. In contrast, Will Tynford is an undeniable engineer in the Heinleinesque vein of hard-science SF.
Do you outline, “Wing it”, or somewhere in between?
I normally write toward a climactic scene or event in the story, because that’s the germ of the tale that usually appears in my brain first. When I wrote “Fire”, my Emberverse fanfiction, I had in mind the swordfight between Sam and Catron on Highway 36 at the top of the Meadowdale Ranch before the long steep descent into the Estes Valley. It took me most of three books to get to that point, but I did it. Other times I just have an idea for something, jot it down, and it sits on my hard drive for years before I realize where I should put it. Very rarely I try to outline a whole story in advance, but I usually change the tale so much along the way that outlining seems pointless. Your Mileage May Vary.
What have been the major influences on your writing (favorite authors, life experiences, or whatever)?
Many and varied. I was raised in an ordinary middle-class Italian-Irish Catholic family in New England, where the ghosts of the Yankee Puritans rest unquiet and haunt society and politics to this day. We lived inland when I was young – forest and creeks and fields and muddy places for a kid to run around it. Then we moved to the coast south of Boston where I discovered the ocean and fell madly in love with sailing ships (this shows in my forthcoming trilogy, “Shadow Divided” where about half the story takes place aboard various ships). Then I moved to Colorado to go to college and stayed – the mountain trail in “Shadow, Lion, Dragon” came from some real places I have hiked, only slightly exaggerated. People shaped me too, of course – I got a Jesuit education at Boston College High School and Regis College, it is not an accident that one of the viewpoint characters in “Fire” is a priest. As far as authors go, Poul Anderson and then Robert Heinlein were probably the strongest, but John Christopher’s “Tripods” trilogy figured in there too, and many many others. In college I met Robert Asprin’s Thieves World series and for the first time seriously tried to write some stories. I got sidetracked by D&D in Grad School and then by IFGS for several years, eventually serving as President and then later Treasurer of the national organization. I finally stopped writing LARP games and started writing stories seriously again, just in time to be introduced to Ed Bryant at Denver’s Mile High Con. He recruited me into his Northern Colorado Writers Workshop (NCWW), where I am still involved to this day. About the same time I read “Dies the Fire,” the first of Steve Stirling’s Emberverse stories, and discovered his fan web page. Kier Salmon, who ran his fanfiction site, encouraged me to write, and I was off!
Please tell us about your two series, the Wrecked World and The World of Shadow and Light.
My forthcoming novel “Shadow and Light” is a descendant of that initial story I wrote with my broken foot propped on a pillow in 1982. Its genesis was in Thieves World, but it rapidly mutated beyond that into something quite different, although if you look very closely you can see the ghost of Hanse Shadowspawn behind my character Kirin DiUmbra.
Nuts and bolts first – the World on which Kirin and his people live pours out magical power from its interior wherever there is volcanic activity. Hot springs there sometimes really do have healing properties! (Or if a malicious mage has been at them, they could be treacherously dangerous too.) A big outflow of magic (known as a ‘node’), such as may typically be found on top of a dead volcano, is a great treasure, and mages and kings will fight to control it. (If Devils Tower were in Silbar rather than Wyoming, it would be the heart of a sprawling castle and would power thousands of spells.) All this magic must go somewhere; when upwelling magic has been used, it sinks back down into the World, often through special places known as Shadows. These are metaphorical sinkholes hungry for spells and magic of all kinds. Nodes are not movable, and neither are Shadows, except that they can manifest as black mist that _reaches_ for nearby magic and drinks it. Shadows subsist mostly on the degraded rags of used magic floating in the air after use by mages elsewhere, but they will also draw on any active spells that come their way, if they can. And living beings have magic in their bodies. So Shadows are dangerous and feared, but readily avoided, most of the time. Powerful realms have many strong nodes of magic, weak ones have few or none and must buy silver or sulfur (the two substances that best catch and hold upwelling magic) from places that export it. The city of Aretzo, capital of the realm of Silbar (about the size of California and Nevada on a continent bigger than Eurasia) has the biggest node in their known world. Silbar also has mines of silver and sulfur, and live volcanos which belch out wild magic too strong for any human to use without being fried, plus vast deserts with no magic at all. Thus, Silbar also has many, many Shadows to drink all that loose magic back down again. It is a vast, sere, achingly beautiful country of soaring mountains, winding rivers, rich farms, storm-wracked deserts, and jungle seacoast, filled with power, mystery, and danger.
My main characters, Kirin DiUmbra and Terrell DuRillin DiGwythlo, are young men from very different backgrounds. Kirin is an orphaned (and presumed bastard) halfbreed abandoned in a slum in Aretzo, adopted by acrobats, and just entering adulthood. Terrell is a Prince of the Royal House that has ruled Silbar for two thousand years, with a good chance of becoming Silbar’s next king. Terrell has an extraordinary birth-feature, an upwelling of magic _inside his chest_ that is as portable as he is. But he’s not a mage, he has no spellcasting ability, so the feature that could have made him hugely powerful is instead a burden. Kirin has the opposite – a Shadow lives inside him, and he can use it to devour spells, drain stored magic, or even kill living things (like bedbugs – or men) by taking their body’s magic – which is so close to what demons are reputed to do that he fears he is one. You would have a hard time finding two young men in their world who are farther apart in status, ability, and experience. Fate throws them together in a nearly impossible situation where they desperately need each other to survive, and they discover that they can help each other cope with their unique abilities. Then they learn something else that may make them mortal enemies, and the _ real _ struggle begins.
The Wrecked World is science fiction, it had its genesis in a debate on Steve Stirling’s fan website, www.stirling.groups-io. What if an alien species, non-oxygen breathing and so immensely powerful that we have little to no basis for a relationship, visited Earth and wanted something we had?
In this series a hydrogen-breathing species of spacefarers in a giant spaceship decides to mine Earth’s surface for the only thing we have that they want – sub-uranic and transuranic substances in our nuke plants, bombs, and waste sites. They do not ask permission, and they cause considerable damage. When desperate humans find a way to strike back, we finally get their attention – and they apply what they clearly consider ‘discipline’ to unruly humanity. After their ship departs we are a long time recovering, for they also left us subject to a net of orbiting satellites that suppress certain technologies, and inflicted robots on us to work mines where rich troves of uranium and such can still be found. The robots are building stockpiles, so their masters must intend to come back. Will we be ready when they do?
“Golden Hoard” is the name of the first book set there. I wrote this one with a lighter touch, partly because the subject matter is a tad depressing – aliens have knocked us down and then kicked us, how do we get up again? My main character, Will Tynford, is a young British engineer assigned to a pioneering salvage operation in one of the badly wrecked cities of the fabled past, the mysterious and ruined New York. What he finds there will upend his world, and either give humanity new hope – or destroy us utterly.
Do you have any tips for people aspiring to write alternate history and/or post-apocalyptic fiction?
Always do your homework, unless you like being embarrassed. A-H fans are among the most knowledgeable people in fandom, and Wikipedia and other sources put the world’s libraries at their fingertips – and yours. If you are using something real, whether it be a place or a fact or whatever, get it right. When you segue from reality to something else, make sure the transition is seamless yet clear – and if you don’t know how to do that, keep reading in the genre until you see how.
Why did you decide to distribute your fiction (the story “Golden Hoard”) through a Patreon page, and how does that work?
It is an experiment, and one that has taught me some humbling things about my limits. I thought I could write a chapter a month of “Golden Hoard” and post them for my fans while also completing the final novel (“Shadow Exalted”) in my fantasy trilogy, “Shadow Divided”. But this proved to be optimistic and I’m going to have to devise some alternatives for my Patreon fans, because the real world has demanded so much time to keep my family afloat financially that I don’t have enough to work on two different books every month. So right now I’m trying to complete the third book of the fantasy before I go back to the science fiction, at which point I’ll probably flood the fans with extra goodies to make up for my delay.
What advice would you give to other creators who’d like to use that process?
Plan ahead and have a comfortable buffer of completed work ready before you ever start the Patreon. That way when illness or finances intervene, you don’t end up shorting your fans and embarrassing yourself, as I have done.
Do you have any plans for more conventional publishing in the future?
Yes, when I complete or am close to completing “Shadow Exalted”, the third book of the “Shadow Divided” trilogy. (The first two books, “Shadow Devoted” and “Shadow Confounded”, are already written.) I will be submitting the three to regular publishers for a while to see if that route works for me.
I am also going to self-publish “Shadow and Light”, the first book about my characters Kirin and Terrell, on Amazon, any day now. I have a cover and am getting all the details done, slowly. I hope to have that out around Christmas.
What are you working on now?
The final book of the “Shadow Divided” trilogy, mentioned above. Also a short story about an adventure that Kirin has with a vampire – that one’s a bit of a horror story, or maybe just a horrific story. And a short story about a young Healer in Silbar who has to solve a knotty problem that has nothing to do with either Kirin or Terrell, but a lot to do with consequences that they previously set in motion. I’m considering a short story about a secondary character in Kirin & Terrell’s story, the vampire mistress of the Red Street, Madame Ymera, and her early years, but it’ll be kind of horrific – vampires don’t have happy early years, not when they are trying to find a balance with their power. I am also considering revising a stalled novel into another Wrecked World story, tentatively titled “The Year the Aliens Came” – that’s about the kicked-down stage of the visit, with a light at the end of the tunnel (because I refuse to write something hopeless). I have been asked by a couple fans to write a fanfiction set in Steve Stirling’s Emberverse, tentatively called “Twenty-Four Tragedies and a Triumph”, but it is awfully dark, and besides, I don’t make any money from fanfiction. So I will probably do something else with that story.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Write. Write as often as you can but at least every week, write until it’s finished and don’t stop before that, then send it out and start writing something new. Don’t stop writing. Write!
What’s the URL of your website? Where else can we find you on the web?
Peter Sartucci, Author, and I’m on Facebook and Patreon too as Peter Sartucci. I’m moderately active on SM Stirling’s fan listserve, www.sm stirling.com, and I answer my own email, psartucci@aol.com.
*****
Some Books I’ve Read Lately:
CROSSROADS OF DARKOVER, edited by Deborah J. Ross. This, alas, will be the next-to-last Darkover anthology, followed by the final one, CITADELS OF DARKOVER, in May, since the Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust has decided to stop producing both this series and SWORD AND SORCERESS. (Worse, all editions of older anthologies in both series will ceased to be published, a severe disappointment; one vital advantage of e-books is that they can remain available forever at no additional cost to the publisher.) Several familiar names from past volumes appear in the contents, including Rosemary Edghill, Diana Paxson, Leslie Fish, and Ross herself. Stories range widely over the long history of Darkover, from the Ages of Chaos to the post-Terran-contact era. A few that especially impressed me: “The Short, Inglorious War,” by Rebecca Fox, features a Terran expedition to find out whether the temple at Hali really hides weapons of vast power that should be impossible for the technology of such a “barbaric” planet. “A Plague of Aunts,” by Jane M. H. Bigelow, reminds me a bit of P. G. Wodehouse, with its funny portrayal of family conflict over an engagement between a Darkovan woman and a Terran man. In “Quevrailleth’s Sister,” Leslie Fish explores the telepathic and emotional bond forged between a Terran girl rescued from the repressive environment of her immigrant starship and the chieri whose mind touches hers across light years of space. The young heroine of “A Game of Kings,” by Shariann Lewitt, rebuts accusations of cheating at cards—with laran she doesn’t have—by proving that she achieves her wins through her preternatural-seeming mathematical talent. “Night of Masks,” by Diana Paxson, deals with the delicate quandary of a transgender Free Amazon. In “The Cobbler to His Last,” by Rosemary and India Edghill, a female Terran anthropologist travels with a group of skeptical Free Amazon guides to study the cultures of Darkover, including the rigidly patriarchal Dry Towns. Like all the anthologies, this volume would provide an accessible introduction to the world of Darkover for a new reader while also offering many delights for long-time fans.
THE LATE GREAT WIZARD, by Sara Hanover. The narrator, Tessa, a college student, lives with her mother in an old house belonging to the aunt of Tessa’s missing father. After gambling away most of the family’s assets, he vanished a couple of years earlier in suspicious circumstances. As “payment” in lieu of rent, Tessa delivers meals to the elderly and infirm. When she gets a cryptic call for help from one of her clients, reclusive old Professor Brandard, she rushes to his house. Immediately after it catches fire and burns almost completely, Tessa runs into a nude man, about her age or a little younger, who appears dazed and disoriented. She takes him home with her and soon learns that he’s allegedly Professor Brandard rejuvenated. The professor was a phoenix wizard, who had his youth restored by being incinerated. Although dubious about this claim, Tessa and her mother shelter the young man, whom Tessa names Brian and passes off as the professor’s visiting nephew. He remembers little of his previous lifetime, and his personality alternates between his new self and the old professor. In order to stabilize himself, he must perform a ritual before it’s too late. He and Tessa have help from his long-time friend, an Iron Dwarf, plus Steptoe and Remy, a man and woman with supernatural powers, allies of questionable reliability. They fight demons and other dangerous forces while discovering what actually happened to Tessa’s father. At first I expected a romance between her and Brian, but her potential love interest turns out to be a police detective only a few years older than she, who knows more about magic than she could have suspected. As far as the protagonist’s reaction to the magical events is concerned, Hanover deftly handles the balance between gullibility and bullheaded skepticism. Tessa provisionally accepts that the supernatural has invaded her life without swallowing it whole at first glance. The story reaches a satisfactory conclusion for the moment but leaves a clear sequel hook.
*****
Excerpt from “Yokai Magic”:
A screech burst from her. She stumbled backward and collapsed on the bath mat, with a jarring thump to her rear end. “What the holy hell is that?”
A hunchbacked creature about two feet tall huddled in the tub. Brick-red, naked except for a ragged loincloth of the same color, it had a mop of stringy, black hair and elongated fingers and toes with nails like claws. It was licking the tile walls with a long, sinuous tongue like a frog’s. Its saucer-like, black eyes stared at her. With a stifled “eep!” it blinked out of existence.
Trembling, Val clutched the edge of the sink and hoisted herself upright. She scurried into the bedroom and dove under the covers like a child fleeing the boogeyman.
She lay there with her lids squeezed shut until her pulse slowed to normal. I did not see that, I did not. She opened her eyes and gazed into the darkness, softened only by the night light from the open bathroom door. “What is with these crazy dreams all of a sudden?”
“You are not dreaming.” The feminine voice sounded as if it came from somewhere in the middle of the room.
Val sat up with the sheet pulled to her neck. “Who’s there?” She switched on the bedside light.
A slender, white cat leaped onto the end of the bed. The animal had emerald-green eyes and wore a red scarf around her neck. “Greetings and profound thanks for your hospitality. I assure you this is not a dream.”
Val bent her knees to keep her feet out of the phantom feline’s reach. “Is too. I must be still asleep. If not, how did you get in the house?”
Demurely seated at the foot of the bed, the cat curled her tail around her paws. “I have always been here. I was bound to the magic of the scroll, and your blood released that magic.”
“You were in the scroll?”
“I was the statue. The scroll’s enchantment locked me in that shape.”
So the figurine did walk away by itself. Perfect dream logic. “Why?”
“I was enchanted for my own protection.”
“Protection from what?” It couldn’t hurt to have a polite chat with this figment of her imagination, even if her brain had concocted the whole scene. Her mouth movements look like meows, but she speaks English. More dream logic, I guess.
For a couple of seconds, the cat’s shape wavered and became translucent. “I cannot remember.”
“Not that it matters, because you aren’t here. I’m dreaming.” The cat vanished. Val said with a shaky laugh, “See, I told you so.”
-end of excerpt-
*****
My Publishers:
Writers Exchange E-Publishing: Writers Exchange
Harlequin: Harlequin
Hard Shell Word Factory: Hard Shell
Whiskey Creek: Whiskey Creek
Wild Rose Press: Wild Rose Press
You can contact me at: MLCVamp@aol.com
“Beast” wishes until next time—
Margaret L. Carter