DOUGLAS SMITH | Writing the Fantastic

My short story, "The Red Bird," a martial arts fantasy romance story set in 15th century Japan, will be reprinted in the upcoming anthology, Excalibur 2020. "The Red Bird" was a finalist for Canada's Aurora Award when it appeared in 2001.

The antho will feature stories about the Olympics or Japan (or both). Originally planned for release to coincide with the now deferred Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics, the book will come out this fall.

John Paul Catton, editor for the anthology, kindly interviewed me about my writing projects, my approach to writing and research, and my urban fantasy novel, The Wolf at the End of the World. You can read the interview here.

Watching writers practice their craft would not rank high on anyone's list of spectator sports. Writer stares at screen. Screen stares back. Writer hits some keys. Stares at screen again. Hits backspace ever so many times and starts over. Rinse and repeat.

That's what I first thought when a San Diego writer friend, Tone Milazzo, reached out to the authors in the current (but soon-to-be-gone) exclusive Dark Fantasy & SF bundle, asking if anyone would like to collaborate on outlining an entire novel online in real time for his YouTube channel, Cyclops Road.

But Tone assured us it would be both fun to do and fun to watch. So I and another writer friend, Ottawa-based Matt Moore, raised our hands, and together with Tone, we started to outline an urban fantasy novel about what happens when magic suddenly disappears from a fantastical Toronto (yeah, I got to pick the city).

I'm not sure if it's fun to watch (I think so but you can be the judge), but it was fun to do. We make use of very cool software designed specifically to support this type of collaboration. Matt described the experience as combining breaking a story with D&D-like rules plus that 'Yes, and...' type of cooperation essential to performing improv. We obviously enjoyed the experience, because we came back for more, with more sessions planned.

You can watch the first two sessions here and here. Feel free to post comments there, as we are all interested in the viewer's experience. And a reminder: the exclusive Dark Fantasy & SF bundle ends this Thursday, September 10 at midnight EDT. Don't miss your chance to get eleven incredible books for an incredible price.

This is the final interview in my series on the authors included in the soon-to-be-gone *Exclusive* Dark Fantasy & SF Bundle I'm curating for StoryBundle.com. The bundle is the culmination of a nine-month project to help authors whose excellent books were orphaned by the sudden collapse of ChiZine Publications in 2019.

Plus you can direct a portion of your bundle purchase to Black Lives Matter (Canada). So here's your chance to help out a critical social cause and to help authors recover from this derailment.

Today's interview is with Derryl Murphy. I've known Derryl since shortly after I started writing in the late 90's, and am proud to call this talented writer a friend. Derryl has two titles in the bundle. Both are collections of short stories that showcase the breadth of his writing talent: Wasps at the Speed of Sound and Over the Darkened Landscape.

The stories in Wasps at the Speed of Sound are, in this era of human-driven climate change, even more relevant today than when first written. They show us, to quote Peter Watts in the introduction, "eleven ways for the planet to die." I read the title story of this powerful collection almost two decades ago when Derryl and I each had tales in the now defunct magazine Oceans of the Mind. Two decades—and I still remember that story. That is the kind of writer he is. Here's your chance to read these wonderfully crafted and thought-provoking tales.

The stories in Over the Darkened Landscape, which include an award nominee, span Derryl's short fiction career, from fantasy to science fiction, all written in his tight clean prose. This collection also collects for the first time all four of his "Magic Canada" stories, which look at key events in Canada's past through a fantastical lens.

And now for that interview…

Doug: Regardless of whether you write stand-alone books or series, what themes do you think recur in your work or connect the stories you tell? How do those themes appear in this book?

Derryl: I have a solid lack of faith in humanity, which is certainly more prevalent in the ecoSF of Wasps at the Speed of Sound. As of late, though, I've noticed I tend to lean hard into ghosts, spirits, resurrection and body change, even in my science fiction. I think of the story "Summer's Humans" in Wasps, or "Ancients of the Earth" in Over the Darkened Landscape, and how they, along with others, explore how our nature can shift and how those changes can, in some cases literally, haunt us.

Doug: If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?

Derryl: It won't get easier. Keep those sights low and sensible.

Doug: How has your writing process changed over the years?

Derryl: It adjusts depending on the needs of my family, my job, and my personal mental health. I long ago realized that, unless lightning struck, I wasn't going to be a full-time author, and I made peace with that.

Doug: What was an early experience where you learned that language had power?

Derryl: Being so engrossed in a book at age 8 that, when I went to pee after wiggling around for ages trying to put it off, I instead found my way to the kitchen garbage and relieved myself there, only realizing what was happening when it was too late. Happily, Mom thought this was hilarious. Also, happily, I was a boy and therefore, this was an easier mistake to follow through on.

Doug: As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal, and why?

Derryl: Well, I'm a dog person, and while at first that seems the easy answer, it takes a bit of thinking to agree that it's the right one. Indeed, probably I should narrow it down and say a beagle or any other dog that lets its nose get the better of it. Research can be a (figurative) bear for me, sniffing out one thing and suddenly chasing off after another. But I enjoy these trips, even if they lead me places where the research will not give up what I want or need for the story.

Doug: What's the most difficult thing for you about writing characters from the opposite sex?

Derryl: Avoid the male gaze. I've lived long enough with a wonderful woman to know much about her approach to the world (and I am old enough to know her approach is not part of a generic female take on things), but the 57-year-old me has to remember to NOT take lessons from older books I've read, life "lessons" that set in place when I was much younger, and think of my female characters as objects for men, either within the story or for those reading it. It's something I take very seriously these days.

Doug: If you couldn't write, what form of creativity would you pursue?

Today, I talk to Canadian author, Chadwick Ginther, in my interview series around the new *Exclusive* Dark Fantasy & SF Bundle I'm curating for StoryBundle.com.

Before we get to Chadwick's interview, just a reminder that this is an *excellent* selection of titles by bestselling authors and rising stars. The bundle is the culmination of a nine-month project to help authors with books orphaned by the sudden collapse of ChiZine Publications in 2019.

Plus you can direct a portion of your bundle purchase to Black Lives Matter (Canada). So here's your chance to help out a critical social cause and to help authors recover from this derailment. Now for that interview.

I will admit to a weakness for Norse mythology and have written a couple of Norse myth stories myself ("The Boys Are Back in Town" and "The Last Ride," both of which are in Chimerascope, also in this bundle).

So, when I had a chance with this project to include not just one, but two titles from Chadwick Ginther's excellent Thunder Road urban fantasy series, I jumped at it.

Tombstone Blues is the second in the trilogy, and if you pick up the bonus titles in this bundle, you'll also get the third book, Too Far Gone. The Thunder Road trilogy is that rare beast—a series that starts out strong, then only gets stronger with each subsequent entry. Come on. Norse gods on the Canadian prairies—what's not to love? Plus, how could you resist a series that takes its titles from Springsteen, Dylan, and Neil Young tunes?

Doug: Regardless of whether you write stand-alone books or series, what themes do you think recur in your work or connect the stories you tell? How do those themes appear in this book?

Chadwick: The theme of “found family” is probably the one that crops up the most in my work, often when I don’t plan to include it. It’s definitely present in the Thunder Road trilogy, as Ted Callan leaves his old life behind at the beginning of the series, creating a new, if unintended life and family in the Norse mythological world, but it’s there in Graveyard Mind, and a lot of my short stories too. I was fortunate enough to make some amazing friends during university who’ve become like brothers and sisters, and still play D&D with my old high school group after more than thirty years (to say nothing of my love of the Uncanny X-Men comic books), so it’s no surprise that this theme sneaks into my work.

Doug: What did you edit out of this book?

Chadwick: The excised piece that got closest to publication in Tombstone Blues, while still being cut from the book was a short interlude in Hel (the realm) with Hel (the goddess) and some of her undead valkyrie servants. I really enjoyed the scene on its own, but within the book, it proved to be a bit extraneous and slowed the pacing. In the original draft of Tombstone Blues, a minor character played a much larger role, but in revisions for Thunder Road, I’d punched up Ted and Tilda’s relationship, so Tilda subsumed a lot of that character’s page time. Not a lot ended up cut, but it required alterations to roughly half the book.

In Too Far Gone, there were even more drastic changes from original vision and draft to the final book. I lost the prologue in Iceland (it’s the only book in the series without a prologue) and cut a bunch of scenes featuring other characters’ POV during the climactic final battle. As with the interlude I cut from Tombstone Blues, loved all the scenes individually, but they stole momentum from the story’s ending. The biggest cut though, was jettisoning how I thought the book would end. As I was drafting it, I sensed it wasn’t working, but stubbornly hung on. I had to pitch almost 20,000 words, but the book and the series was better for it. Those cut scenes will hopefully become their own novella someday.

Doug: If you couldn’t write, what form of creativity would you pursue?

Chadwick: I used to draw a lot before writing became my creative outlet. Mostly it was limited to my characters from roleplaying games, but I think if I hadn’t gotten into prose I probably would’ve tried to become a comic book artist. Comics were what got me into reading, and I still love them today. Those drawing skills have sadly long since atrophied though!

Doug: What was your hardest scene in this book to write?

Chadwick: The hardest scene I had to write in Tombstone Blues is also probably the most difficult scene I’ve ever had to write. However, it’s a pretty big spoiler, so fair warning.

Tilda losing her baby and the aftermath was incredibly tough to write. I’m not a parent. I’ve never lost a child. I do have some generous friends who helped me by sharing their own experiences, and I did a lot of reading to keep it from just being their tragedies transcribed for the page and something that belonged to my characters. I hope I got it right enough.

It may sound a bit maudlin to say, but the hardest thing to write in Too Far Gone was the last scene I needed to finish, which was the final chapter (the epilogue was already done, and I had a blast writing that). The final chapter meant saying goodbye, and the series had been a big part of my life. Still is. I guess I’m not great at goodbyes though, because I keep coming back to the world in short stories and imagining what life might be like for Ted, Tilda, and Loki on the other side of the series.

Doug: What were the early influences on your writing, and how do you think they manifest in your work?

Chadwick: Probably the earliest influences on my writing were my great-great-uncle and my great-great-great-uncle who kept me entertained as a boy with pulpy Lone Ranger and Tarzan stories mixed amongst tales of their time working on the Canadian prairies in their youth. Adventure and the prairie seems to be a mix I can’t shake!

Chris Claremont’s run on Uncanny X-Men made me care about long form storytelling, and Roger Zelazny was the first author that made me say “I wish I could write like that” when I read his Amber books. I think some of Corwin’s earthy personality has infiltrated into the types of protagonists I like to write about—you know, assholes.

More recently, I discovered my love of the Urban Fantasy genre as I began to pursue my own writing career. Authors like Kelley Armstrong, Carrie Vaughn, and Patricia Briggs did a lot to shape how I wanted to create with their excellent long form series.

~~~

Thanks, Chadwick! We share the impact that Roger Zelazny's writing had on us. His writing, and specifically his too-early passing, finally convinced me it was time to start chasing the writing dream.

You can pick up Tombstone Blues and Too Far Gone, along with nine other excellent titles, by getting the *Exclusive* Dark Fantasy & SF Bundle from StoryBundle.com before it disappears on September 9.

I continue my interview series with the authors in the new *Exclusive* Dark Fantasy & SF Bundle I'm curating for StoryBundle.com, an excellent selection of titles by bestselling authors and rising stars, and the culmination of a nine-month project to help authors with books orphaned by the sudden collapse of ChiZine Publications in 2019.

Today I talk with Ottawa-based writer, Matt Moore, whose excellent collection, It's Not the End and Other Lies, appears in the bundle

Doug: Regardless of whether you write stand-alone books or series, what themes do you think recur in your work or connect the stories you tell? How do those themes appear in this book?

Matt: A recurring theme is what I call "personal apocalypses." It’s not that the entire world is ending, just yours—your marriage, your sobriety, your values system, your very identity.

In "Brief Candles," a young couple living in a time of turmoil and social change are forbidden from having children by the tenets of their faith, and come to question their own belief in how a religion meant to accomplish good can be so cruel.

"The Weak Son" has a young man trying to solve the mystery of his own death, but only able to access others’ memories, as his own are gone. A famed monster hunter in "Of the Endangered" comes to realize the town he is protecting may be more dangerous than the monster he is chasing, and the forces he secretly serves may be the biggest threat of all.

Doug: What was an early experience where you learned that language had power?

Matt: In a high school creative writing class, I wrote a one-act play. I had never written one before nor since, but my creative writing teacher (to whom my book is dedicated) urged me to submit it to the school’s drama department as one of four student-written plays to be performed at a festival.

It was selected. The two plays before mine were romantic comedies about how hard love can be for teenagers. My play was about a haunted typewriter slowly killing a teenaged aspiring writer. Sitting in the audience that first night, watching the performance, I sensed a growing unease in the audience as they had been expecting more of the same and got something different.

But the power of the experience was at the very end, which is a cliffhanger confrontation that ends with the stage lights going out. There was a good three seconds of silence in that darkness. No applause, no shifting feet, no one coughing. Three seconds of What-the-f**k-was-that? silence. And I remember thinking "I got ya."

Doug: What was your hardest scene in this book to write?

Matt: In "While Gabriel Slept," the narrator learns the child he thought was his is the result of his wife’s infidelity. He imagines revenge as smothering someone, but whether it’s his wife or the child is unclear as is if he’s thinking about doing it or he actually does—both in the prose and to me as the writer.

It’s a scene I actually regret writing, but had some feedback praising it for pushing taboos when it was first published, so decided to not remove it from its appearance in It’s Not The End and Other Lies.

Doug: What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?

Matt: Editing, which is when I discover what the story is really about. I’ve had people say my writing it "tight", "taut" and "clean." I’d say it’s overly complicated with way too many moving parts, so I need to remove anything that is not one of those moving parts, but also ensure I have all the gears and pulleys and belts that remain properly calibrated for the story to turn. Sometimes it takes 15 or 20 drafts.

Doug: What character in your book are you least likely to get along with and why?

Matt: Hooper from "But It’s Not The End". In the story, the zombie apocalypse ended when the zombies stopped their violent attacks and began to speak, claiming they were the same people as before they died and demanding to be allowed to live their lives. Hooper, a cop who fought back the zombie horde, doesn’t trust them.

While I sympathize with Hooper as he is a victim of PTSD and has to endure a bureaucracy that has little understanding of on-the-ground reality, he was a cruel bully before the dead rose, and remains so.

Doug: What is something memorable you have heard from your readers/fans?

Matt: Following a panel discussion at a convention, someone asked if I was the author of "Touch The Sky, They Say," which is the final story in this collection. I said I was, and this person said "Thank you for that story. I read it at a time in my life when I needed to read it, and it saved me" (or words to that effect). If I win numerous prizes and regularly appear on best seller lists, nothing will be more meaningful as an author than that.

~~~

Thanks, Matt! You can pick up It's Not the End and Other Lies along with ten other excellent titles by getting the *Exclusive* Dark Fantasy & SF Bundle from StoryBundle.com before it disappears on September 9.

#SFWApro

I continue today with another interview with an author whose work appears in the new *Exclusive* Dark Fantasy & SF Bundle I'm curating for StoryBundle.com, an excellent collection of titles by bestselling authors and rising stars. The bundle is the result of a nine-month project to help authors who had books orphaned because of the sudden collapse of ChiZine Publications in late 2019.

Today I talk with Claude Lalumière.

I've known Claude since shortly after I started writing in the late 90's, and am proud to call this talented writer a friend. We first met at a Toronto café during one of his visits from Montreal. I'd recently read his short story "The Ethical Treatment of Meat" (which is included in Objects of Worship), and had been so impressed that I was a little intimidated at first. I remember being struck by his intensity, an intensity that I realized came from his passion for writing and for the short story in particular.

Objects of Worship was one of the first titles published by CZP, a key reason why I published my collection, Chimerascope, with them as well. Several tales in Objects of Worship are taught in writing courses. Here's your chance to learn why: pick up the bundle today before it disappears. The bundle also includes Claude's collection, The Door to Lost Pages.

Doug: How has your writing process changed over the years?

Claude: Mornings used to be my best writing time, but recently I’ve been tending toward overnight binges. Tough on my schedule, but it’s what seems to be working.

Doug:What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel?

Claude: There are so many... Here are the ones that are occurring to me now:

The Devil Is Dead, by R.A. Lafferty. A Suspension of Mercy, by Patricia Highsmith. Blackburn, by Bradley Denton. Agathe et Béatrice, Claire et Dorothée, by Jacques Sternberg. Memoirs of a Gnostic Dwarf, by David Madsen. Ciphers, by Paul Di Filippo. Unquenchable Fire, by Rachel Pollack. The Warrior Who Carried Life, by Geoff Ryman. A Choir of Ill Children, by Tom Piccirilli. Malignos, by Richard Calder. The Stone God Awakens, by Philp José Farmer. The Coffee Trader, by David Liss. Green Eyes, by Lucius Shepard. The Virgin Suicides, by Jeffrey Eugenides. As Simple as Snow, by Gregory Galloway ...

None of these have received the acclaim they deserve. (My two actual favourite novels, though, have earned a permanent place in the cultural pantheon: Crash, by J.G Ballard, and The Secret History, by Donna Tart.)

Doug: What’s the most difficult thing for you about writing characters from the opposite sex?

Claude: I don’t find it difficult at all, or, more precisely, not any more difficult than creating any believable characters. After all, I have spent and spend most of my time thinking about women. And I typically spend most of my time with my girlfriend/spouse of the moment. Observing. Conversing. Trying to understand. Empathizing. Playing. Laughing.

My protagonists are often women. See, for example, “The Object of Worship” (the semi-title story of my collection Objects of Worship), which unfurls in a world where there are only women.

For me it’s important to write about characters who are different from myself. To make a leap of empathy. To imagine experiencing life from a completely different perspective. To bridge the gap between my interior world and the external world. For me, art – any art form – without that essential leap of empathy is dead and sterile.

Doug: Have you read anything that made you think differently about fiction and what role it can play in the world?

Claude: For me, the greatest illustration of the impact fiction can have on the world is Paul Di Filippo’s masterful “Campbell’s World” – which depicts a world where Joseph Campbell, and not John W. Campbell, became the editor of Astounding, birthing a very different future from the one we now live in.

Doug: What creative artist who is not a writer (film writer or director, painter, music lyricist / composer, sculptor, whatever) do you think would best identify with your writing and see parallels with their own work?

Claude: Whether or not they would see the affinity is a complete mystery to me, but very definitely my work has been greatly influenced by the film directors David Lynch and Todd Haynes and by the cartoonists Jack Kirby and Bernie Mireault.

~~~

Thanks, Claude! You can pick up Objects of Worship *and* The Door to Lost Pages along with nine other excellent titles by getting the *Exclusive* Dark Fantasy & SF Bundle from StoryBundle.com before it disappears on September 9.

#SFWApro

I wrote a few months ago of the project I was putting together to help authors who had books orphaned because of the sudden collapse of ChiZine Publications.

That project is now live in the form of the new *Exclusive* Dark Fantasy & SF Bundle I'm curating for StoryBundle.com. This bundle is a remarkable set of eleven titles by bestselling authors and rising stars. Over the course of the bundle, I'm posting interviews here with each of the bundle authors. Well, except for me, because that would be weird.

Today we get to meet Tone Milazzo.

I first met Tone in 2012 at a room party at the World Fantasy convention in Toronto, shortly after he had become a fellow ChiZine author with the release of Picking Up the Ghost (which is featured in the bundle).

My first impressions, hazed no doubt by eight years of passing time were, more or less in order: he's very tall, scary smart, and looks at the world from a slightly different angle than most people—no doubt why he's such an impressive writer and why I was thrilled to include Picking up the Ghost in this bundle.

I also remember that, somewhere over the course of that World Fantasy party, he helped answer the age-old question: how many authors can you fit into one of those big bathtubs in a hotel suite? The answer is ten (we all were fully clothed). And yes, I have pictures.

And now for that interview…

Doug: What is your writing Kryptonite?

Tone: Marketing. As authors we’re all expected to self-market our books and I can’t say that anything I’ve tried has worked. Still trying though...

Doug: Regardless of whether you write stand-alone books or series, what themes do you think recur in your work or connect the stories you tell? How do those themes appear in this book?

Tone: Religion and mental disorders. Particularly in Picking Up the Ghost, Cinque is a neophyte shaman who possesses schizotypal personality disorder, a form of schizophrenia.

I’d come across an article comparing the behaviors of people with schizophrenia in the US versus in Africa. In the US, their hallucinations took the form of paranoid delusions. ‘The government is watching me’ being a common example.

But in Africa, people with schizophrenia tended to fall back on their traditional belief systems and often ended up as shaman. There’s a strong correlation between schizophrenic behavior and shamanistic beliefs; magical thinking, hallucinatory beings, peculiar speech patterns, and on.

Perhaps, if we had such a social structure in the West, one where people with schizophrenia felt like they belonged, they’d have less anxiety associated with their conditions.

Doug: What did you edit out of this book?

Tone: The whole second half. My initial group of three beta readers didn’t agree on everything, but they all agreed that bringing Cinque out of the real world and into an empty world with just him and the spirits was a mistake.

I’d underestimated how much the readers liked Cinque’s family and the rest of the supporting cast. Taking him into another world like that meant starting over with a new supporting cast that had no particular relationship with Cinque.

So I bit the bullet and started again from page 180.

Doug: If you couldn’t write, what form of creativity would you pursue?

Tone: Table top role-playing game design. Maybe not so much the rules themselves (there are enough RPG rules out there) but setting books and adventures for existing systems.

I’ve written an RPG based on all the world building I did for my second novel, The Faith Machine, a psychic espionage thriller. My agent had me write outlines for two sequels so she could try to sell it as “a stand-alone novel with series potential.” That’s two more sets of adversaries, supporting casts, and settings. Plus all the notes I have on other story elements that haven’t found a home yet.

It was so easy to pour all of that into a setting book for an existing rules-set called the Fate system. It only took two weeks, and during the process or organizing all this information, I discovered a number of inconsistencies and discontinuities to fix.

Doug: What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?

Tone: Getting that first draft out. I much prefer rewriting to writing. Rewriting is like playing with clay, writing is like passing clay.

~~~

Thanks, Tone! Check out Picking Up the Ghost by picking up (see what I did there?) the *Exclusive* Dark Fantasy & SF Bundle from StoryBundle.com before it disappears on September 9.

As part of the new *Exclusive* Dark Fantasy & SF Bundle that I'm curating for StoryBundle.com, a remarkable set of eleven titles by bestselling authors and rising stars, I'll be posting an interview here on my blog with each of the bundle authors. Well, except for me, because that would be weird.

Today, we start with the first of those interviews: Paul Di Filippo.

I have not had the pleasure of making Paul's acquaintance personally, but I certainly, like most fans of the genre, know his name. So, I was thrilled when I had a chance to include a Di Filippo title, Wikiworld, in this bundle.

Paul has a stunningly impressive body of work, with a dozen novels and hundreds of published pieces of short fiction. I know Paul's work primarily through his short stories, so it's a special treat to be able to offer one of his best and most recent collections in this bundle, which includes the title story.

If you enjoy the work of Rudy Rucker, Bruce Sterling, Neal Stephenson, William Gibson, Charles Stross, Paulo Bacigalupi, or Cory Doctorow, you need to read Di Filippo. And now you can!

And now for that interview…

Doug: Regardless of whether you write stand-alone books or series, what themes do you think recur in your work or connect the stories you tell? How do those themes appear in this book?

Paul: It seems that as a child of the rebellious Sixties, I am always doomed to write about loners and rebels working either against established institutions or to subvert them from within. It’s evident in the titles story of this collection, where the hero reluctantly has to serve as head of state, and then topples the whole apparatus. But as I get older, I’m starting to see the value in traditions and established institutions, so maybe someday soon I’ll switch to writing about people who loyally and faithfully serve long-time organizations! Maybe like Poul Anderson’s Flandry.

Doug: How has your writing process changed over the years?

Paul: I used to strive for at least 1000 words of good clean text per day, but now I’m happy with however little or much I do on any given day, so long as it moves the story along. It’s a matter both of having less energy and of being less angsty!

Doug: What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel?

Paul: WHERE THE BLUE BEGINS, by Christopher Morley, a brilliant and touching animal fable about a canine philosopher and seeker after wisdom. It should remain perpetually in print. Whenever I see a used copy, I buy it to give away.

Doug: If you couldn’t write, what form of creativity would you pursue?

Paul: For decades now I have perpetrated “mail art,” the decoration by collage of my envelopes and packages that go through the US postal system. It’s slapdash fun with little artistic merit. But maybe if I had more time, I could turn out some really first-rate collages—without having to attach them to envelopes first!

Doug: What is your favorite childhood book and why?

Paul: I really loved IT’S LIKE THIS, CAT, by Emily Neville, which won the Newbery Award in 1964—probably the same year I read it. It told of a sensitive young boy seeking his place in the world, who had only his cat to confide in. Man, that’s the template for every fanboy alive! Plus it featured an exciting urban environment different from my suburban home town. I reread it a few years ago, and it holds up brilliantly—not true of every childhood fave!

~~~

Thanks, Paul! Check out Wikiworld by picking up the *Exclusive* Dark Fantasy & SF Bundle from StoryBundle.com before it disappears on September 9.

#SFWApro

2020 has been a scary year. Like some dark fantasy or horror story. Or a dystopian tale about the end of the world.

So…

Why not embrace that spirit? Show this year from hell that you can take whatever it dishes out, because you know what dark fantasies and horror stories are really like. And you've seen more ends of the world than 2020 could even dream of.

Because you've read the stories in this amazing and exclusive bundle.

Read about curses and ghosts, about Norse gods on the Canadian prairies and what happens after Ragnarök and the end of the world. Read how life on Earth may end if we don't stop killing our planet. Read twenty-one tales of personal apocalypses (because someone's world is always ending), and stories from a very special and very strange bookstore. Read about post-human biopunk and day-after-tomorrow climate change adventure. Read about the boy who is either a scrawny, bullied, neglected son of insane parents or the imprisoned leader of a death cult dedicated to the goddess of discord.

I'm curating a new *Exclusive* Dark Fantasy & SF Bundle for StoryBundle.com, a remarkable set of eleven titles by bestselling authors and rising stars. As always, at StoryBundle, you name your own price—whatever you feel the books are worth, and a portion of the proceeds goes to charity (in this case, Black Lives Matter (Canada)).

It is only fitting that this Dark Fantasy & SF bundle was born from a dark event. In late 2019, the award-winning Canadian small press, ChiZine Publications, imploded under the weight of multiple complaints over non-payment of royalties and other issues.

Some good came from the collapse, as the publisher agreed to revert all rights for any title requested by an author. But that meant those titles were no longer available for readers like you to buy and enjoy from your favorite retailer.

So this bundle was born, containing several titles originally published by ChiZine but now independently published exclusively for this bundle. Right now, this bundle is the ONLY place you can buy these former CZP titles. The bundle also features other titles by former CZP authors, including books 2 and 3 in Chadwick Ginther's critically-acclaimed Thunder Road trilogy.

This exclusive bundle runs for three weeks only. This is a fantastic deal and a great way to pick up a batch of wonderful stories, most of which are not currently available anywhere else, all for one low price. – Douglas Smith

For StoryBundle, you decide what price you want to pay. For $5 (or more, if you're feeling generous), you'll get the basic bundle of four books in any ebook format—WORLDWIDE.

• Picking Up the Ghost by Tone Milazzo (StoryBundle Exclusive!)
• Wasps at the Speed of Sound by Derryl Murphy (StoryBundle Exclusive!)
• The Door to Lost Pages by Claude Lalumière (StoryBundle Exclusive!)
• Tombstone Blues by Chadwick Ginther

If you pay at least the bonus price of just $15, you get all four of the regular books, plus SEVEN more books, for a total of eleven!

• Wikiworld by Paul Di Filippo (StoryBundle Exclusive!)
• Bullettime by Nick Mamatas (StoryBundle Exclusive!)
• It's Not the End and Other Lies by Matt Moore (StoryBundle Exclusive!)
• Chimerascope by Douglas Smith
• Over the Darkened Landscape by Derryl Murphy (StoryBundle Exclusive!)
• Objects of Worship by Claude Lalumière (StoryBundle Exclusive!)
• Too Far Gone by Chadwick Ginther

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My SF story, "Symphony," appears in the new anthology, Time We Left, from The EXAGGERATED Press and edited by Terry Grimwood, a collection of stories about humanity leaving Earth and venturing into space.

"Symphony" was a finalist for the Aurora award and first appeared in the Canadian literary magazine, Prairie Fire, in 1999. In it, the colony ship, The Last Chance, has fled a plague-poisoned Earth with the remnants of the human race. Yes, even over twenty years ago, I was warning about pandemics ;-)

Launched before completion of its biosphere, the ship is only partly self-sustaining. Humanity has to find a new home—and time is running out. It isn’t called The Last Chance for nothing.

When they find the planet, it seems a dream come true. Earth-like, a breathable atmosphere, unpopulated. They name it Aurora, for the beauty that dances in its skies. At least, it had seemed beautiful at the time. Now they aren’t so sure. Now people are dying.

Gar Franck is the ship’s communication expert. When signs point to a non-human intelligence on the planet, Gar becomes the key to communicating with it.

But how can he communicate with an alien being when he can’t even talk to his autistic son, Anton, or his increasingly distant wife, Clara?

"There are two stories in "Symphony"...both converge in a spectacular, explosive finale. Smith's prose is poetic and evocative. He creates an intricate fabric of light, color, and sound with effortless flair. The story’s fluid style and the abundance of complex, wrenching emotions [make this] another recommended story." —Eugie Foster and Marsha Sisolak, Tangent Online

"A strong SF-nal story about a 'sentient light symphony' that objects to humans colonizing 'its planet.' How would you communicate with such and how would it react to a baby who lacks all 'human baggage' are some of the issues addressed here. (A+)" —Fantasy Book Critic

Time We Left is available in hardcover here, and an ebook edition will be released soon. "Symphony" is available also as a standalone ebook, and also appeared in my collection, Chimerascope. Both are available in my online store or from your favourite retailer.