Cog by K. Ceres Wright

Another honor I had recently was the opportunity to pen a foreword to K. Ceres Wright's fantastic new cyberpunk thriller, Cog. The novel is a debut for both Wright and Dog Star Books (the hot new SF imprint of Raw Dog Screaming Press), and I have a feeling it's going to make some significant splashes among readers as well as in the field. There's some real depth in Cog that I find truly exciting, and I can hardly wait to see what the author will set her considerable talents on next.

Cog is due out in July and is available for preorder direct from the publisher here. Seriously, don't miss it.

Tribute essay in Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life

Cover art to the 1973 Doubleday first edition

Farmer's fictional biography Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life was a huge influence on me way back when, and believe me when I say I'm truly honored to have a tribute essay—titled "An Archaeology of Dreams"—in the forthcoming deluxe hardcover edition that's coming out in July from Meteor House. The deep emotions that were churned up while writing the essay kind of took me by surprise. Some books really leave their marks. This was one of those for me, and even now, after all these years, the book is still clanging around inside my subconscious, or perhaps roaring gleefully like Monk Mayfair in a scrap.

Copies signed by a number of the contributors (including me) can be preordered through June 30, 2013. After that date, the book can still be ordered, though not the signed edition. The book will debut in July at FarmerCon VIII/Pulpfest 2013. If you're interested in the book, you can order it direct from the publisher here.

Gods of Opar is [almost] SOLD OUT and new story in the works

Nine months after it was released, the trade edition of Gods of Opar: Tales of Lost Khokarsa is now sold out at the publisher. As of this post, Amazon still has copies, though I don't expect them to have it in stock much longer since B&N and the major US distributors have now run out of the book.

Now is probably a good time to point out that Titan Books has published Hadon of Ancient Opar, the first book of the Khokarsa trilogy, in paperback and ebook editions. They have not yet acquired the other two books in the trilogy, so if you'd like to see Flight to Opar and The Song of Kwasin in nicely affordable paperback and ebook editions, the surest way to cast your vote is to pick up Titan's new edition of Hadon of Ancient Opar.

UPDATE (3/21/2013): Apparently Subterranean has found some more copies of Gods of Opar in their warehouse! As of this update, the trade edition is still available through their website, so what are you waiting for?!

Meanwhile, a writing update...

I'm still plugging away at writing the historical dark fantasy novel, though I have many miles to go before sleep. In the meantime, I just started a new short story, set in the same continuity as the novel but with different characters, which I hope to finish in the next few weeks. The story is titled "With Dust Their Glittering Towers," and I have a venue tentatively lined up where it will appear, hopefully later this year. I'll keep you posted when I have more information I can announce about that.

Tales of the Wold Newton Universe

Win Scott Eckert broke the news yesterday about the table of contents for the upcoming anthology Tales of the Wold Newton Universe, due out from Titan Books in October 2013. I'm honored to be collaborating on the book's introduction with Win, and that the anthology will include "Kwasin and the Bear God," my 20,000-word novella with Philip José Farmer that's set between the first two chapters of The Song of Kwasin. I will note that this is the first-ever Wold Newton fiction anthology, so if you like Farmer's Wold Newton mythos, you're going to want to pick up this one. The book is now available to preorder at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Here are the full contents:

Contents

Introduction by Win Scott Eckert and Christopher Paul Carey

The Great Detective and Others

"The Problem of the Sore Bridge--Among Others" by Harry Manders (Philip José Farmer)
"A Scarletin Study" by Jonathan Swift Somers III (Philip José Farmer)
"The Doge Whose Barque Was Worse Than His Bight" by Jonathan Swift Somers III (Philip José Farmer)

Pulp Inspirations

"Skinburn" by Philip José Farmer
"The Freshman" by Philip José Farmer
"After King Kong Fell" by Philip José Farmer

Wold Newton Prehistory: The Khokarsa Series

"Kwasin and the Bear God" by Philip José Farmer and Christopher Paul Carey

Wold Newton Prehistory: John Gribardsun & Time's Last Gift

"Into Time's Abyss" by John Allen Small
"The Last of the Guaranys" by Octavio Aragão & Carlos Orsi

Wold Newton Origins / Secrets of the Nine

"The Wild Huntsman" by Win Scott Eckert

Hadon of Ancient Opar comps

My comp copies of the new Titan Books edition of Hadon of Ancient Opar arrived in the mail yesterday. The book looks fantastic, and I'm very happy to see this novel once again in an affordable paperback edition (and now for the first time in an ebook edition). The new edition, which features an introduction by me ("The Literary Archaeology of Khokarsa") as well as bonus addenda "A Guide to Khokarsa"), can be purchased here.

Kindle edition: The Avenger: The Justice, Inc. Files

My story "Devil's Dark Harvest" is now also available in the Kindle ebook edition of The Avenger: The Justice, Inc. Files edited by Joe Gentile and Howard Hopkins. (You can nab the print edition here.)

From the publisher:

From the Flames of Tragedy, a Hero Rises In the roaring heart of the crucible, steel is made. In the raging flame of personal tragedy, men are sometimes forged into something more than human. Life was bliss for millionaire adventurer Richard Henry Benson until the fateful day crime and greed took away his wife and younger daughter and turned him into something more than human.

Driven by loss, compelled by grief, he becomes a chilled impersonal force of justice, more machine than man, dedicated to the destruction of evildoers everywhere. A figure of ice and steel, more pitiless than both, Benson has been forged into an avatar of vengeance, possessed of superhuman genius and supernormal power. His frozen face and pale eyes, like ice in a polar dawn, only hint at the terrible force the underworld heedlessly invoked upon itself the day they created...

The Avenger! Now, the greatest crime-fighter of the 40s returns in a stunning collection of original action-packed tales of adventure, intrigue and revenge and even a chilling showdown with the Lord of Vampires himself!

Purchase the Kindle edition of The Avenger: The Justice, Inc. Files here.

New novel in the works

I'm finally moving ahead with my historical dark fantasy novel that I've been planning for quite some time. This will be set in 1888 New York, London, and rural Ireland and, as it stands now, will be steeped in both mythology and the supernatural. More info to follow as I make headway.