Psst? Wanna free chapbook? Of course you do! Everyone loves a free chapbook, especially one chock full of weird-ass fantasy stories set in fictional lands collected in a dictionary of imaginary places. I mean, that's almost more Borges than Borges!

From the introduction:

"Welcome to the second Homeless Moon chapbook. This year, each story draws its inspiration from a different fictional land collected in Alberto Manguel and Gianni Guadalupi’s Dictionary of Imaginary Places . . . The result is a new patchwork map of old parts unknown. We hope you enjoy the journey."

So, here is the dealio:

Download the free PDF of The Homeless Moon Chapbook Deux: Imaginary Places.
http://homelessmoon.joskinandlob.com/

Read the stories, and write a review for your LJ, Blog, whatever. Be the first person to post your review and we will send you a FREE meat space copy of both chapbooks I and II! Be the second or third person to post a review and we will send you Chapbook II! Free is the new black, so you can't lose!

Send me an email via this LJ when your post is done.

And thanks for reading our stuff!

JSR

Another very positive review of my short story “Ebb” that’s in Space and Time #107, this time on the SF/F review site Tangent Online. Reviewer Steve Fahnestalk calls “Ebb” a “wonderful story, wonderfully told.” Visit their site to read his full review.

As I noted in a previous post about the equally glowing review of “Ebb” on SFReader.com last May, “Ebb” had a long and difficult path to publication. I’m delighted to see that my vision for that story, that world, and that character is resonating with so many people.

- I have a new Tor.com post about architects finding inspiration in science fiction. It reads like a Best of BLDGBLOG anthology. If anything you should check out the links to Victory City(TM). That's a whole new level of crazy. The next one I promise will be about comics or D & D or something serious like that.

- My short and depressing auto-bio story "Sympathy Bouquet" is available for download at Ruthless Peoples Magazine. It's all about death, depression, and flowers. Enjoy!

- Finally, my fellow Homeless Lunartic Michael J. Deluca has a story in the latest issue of Abyss & Apex called "Starlings". At one point, this story had mutant raccoons in it. Mike claims I suggested he take them out. Yeah, I don't know what I was smoking either.

My near-future-apocalyptic magic realist short story “Starlings” is now live in Abyss & Apex #31. (Which issue also happens to feature a very cool poem by LCRW author Daniel A. Rabuzzi—lucky me!)

“Starlings” is a story about climate change, tech withdrawal, and memory—themes all very near to my heart. With the possible exception of “Construction-Paper Moon”, in no other story of mine have I laid my own emotional evolution so open on the page.

Please go read it, and enjoy!

I finished another Charles Willeford novel. It was an accident really. I bought it Wednesday and didn't plan on reading it until next decade, but then I started it and... well, I couldn't stop.

It's the fourth "Hoke Moseley" novel, The Way We Die Now. (I've only read one other.) Hoke is a forty-somethingish Homicide detective who works cold cases. He's divorced and lives with his two teenage daughters and his former partner and her infant son. There's nothing going on between his former partner and he, but she serves as a mother/older sister for the daughters. Hoke's a bit of a mess, and much of the pleasure comes from Willeford sneaking up to the tough guy cop genre hero and pulling a knife out and puncturing his tires.


The plot goes like this: Heinous Crime is committed in first chapter. Call this plot A. Meanwhile, Hoke is enmeshed in subplots X, Y, Z. One is a cold case he is working on. One is a recent smoking ban in the police station, and one is a new neighbor who moves in across the street from his house. None of these subplots are related to Heinous Crime, but each slowly escalates. No mention is made of Heinous Crime for a hundred pages. Then Hoke is sent to investigate Heinous Crime. This investigation builds tension quickly and then resolves itself just as quickly with a bout of explosive violence. Then it's over. Subplots X, Y, and Z return, and each of their resolutions is in some way affected by the investigation of the Heinous Crime.

I don't know whether this is a bait and switch plot, or simply the classic show the fuse lit in the first chapter and wait for the explosion method. What's great is how much of the novel felt inconsequential but absolutely vital to the overall structure. You have to read it to see what I'm talking about.

The other great thing is how many times Willeford describes his characters eating. The most succinct piece of writing advice I ever got was to always, always, always show your characters eating. It's the best way of showing relationships between them, without too much contrivance.

This along with the Spaghetti Western secret of "Costume is character" keep churning around in my head as the greatest pieces of writing advice I've ever heard.

Of course, YMMV.

is tonight, at the Barnes & Noble on 1741 Willow Street in Manchester, NH. Four of the five writers who make up the Homeless Moon will be there, plus a whole bunch of other clever and hilarious people, each of whom will tell a story in five minutes or less. It’s great, silly fun.

And I’ll be reading a new William-O story. Woo!

William-O the Pirate King, if you are unfamiliar, is my swashbuckling, one-eyed cat hero, who battles foes both real and supernatural in defense of his farm and family.

If you can’t make it, fear not, I’ll probably post an mp3 of the new story here in a couple of weeks.

- New Tor.com post up about vespertilio-homo, the lunar man-bat, and Matthew Goodman's The Sun and The Moon: the Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York. .

- My parents got my email, but they are still trying to figure out how to reply. Email is a whole new world to them. No use rushing them on this one.

- The Homelessmoon Chapbook is now available for free and easy download. 5 stories, 80 pages. My story, "Signature Days", is all new weird and depressing with copious amounts of OCD thrown in for giggles. It's also quite short.

- My wife makes aesthetic decisions when she chops onions.

- I received my contributor's copy of CinemaSpec: Tales of Hollywood and Fantasy. The Edgar A. Poe stamp was a nice touch.

- Ack Ack Ack Ack

I had a great time at ReaderCon last weekend! Met lots of very cool folks, many of whom had very nice things to say about Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Hosted the reading for the magazine on Sunday afternoon, which went quite well. Got lots of very insightful advice on magazine things, talking shop with helpful people like Neil Clarke. Heard lots of neat writerly tidbits by listening to people like Gene Wolfe. Picked up lots of reading recommendations. Had more than a few pints of the regional Sam Adams Brick Red Ale. :)

All in all, a great weekend. Will definitely plan to return next year!

There’s a review and discussion of my story “Colonized,” from last year’s Homeless Moon chapbook, posted on the blog of my writer colleague Shara Saunsaucie. It’s a weird story, for certain, so if you’re curious about what I was trying to do, please take a look.  Thanks to Shara for reviewing the chapbook and all her LJ readers for taking the time to comment.

At ReaderCon this weekend, my writer cohorts from the Homeless Moon and I will be premiering our second chapbook of all-original short fiction. This one is called Homeless Moon: Imaginary Places.

My story, “Adrift in Ishtakar,” is about a young doctor in a medieval Arabian world who is facing a terrible plague for the first time without her mentor, who disappeared the previous summer. But she receives an indication where he might be:

“I’ve seen that pendant,” Rifiq said, “decades ago. Didn’t it belong to–”

“Yes. That bombastic traveler says Al-Atibba sent him.”

“And you believe it?”

“His account does seem outlandish. But this pendant is the only sign in the last three months. The only sign at all.”

“His Radiance will be delighted to hear of this,” Rifiq said. “He’ll have soldiers in the saddle within the hour.”

But it was her duty to do every possible thing to cure these patients. She wasn’t needed here in Samarah, yet. And Al-Atibba had sent this messenger for her. She lifted the pendant close. It even smelled of him, of that crumbly, dry-parchment scent that had always lingered behind him as he paced.

She must go herself. And without asking the caliph for soldiers, or telling him at all–he would never let his Chief Healer journey so far from his own ill daughter. She would go alone.

If you’d like to read more, including the other four stories, look for a copy of the chapbook at ReaderCon or visit Homeless Moon: Imaginary Places to learn how you can order a paper copy or download a free electronic one.