Author Archives: Peter Darbyshire
Everyone is dead!
I went to grab a link for The Dead Hamlets the other day and this made me smile. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is one of my favourite plays. Glad to be in that company, even if we were introduced by an algorithm.
Get all of ChiZine’s 2015 books for just $99
I got a message today that people who take advantage of ChiZine’s subscription service are receiving their copies of The Dead Hamlets early. It’s worth checking out if you love ChiZine books — and who doesn’t love ChiZine books? For just $99 you can get ebooks of all 36 titles they’re releasing this year. That’s less than $3 per book! You can’t get a coffee that cheap, unless it’s gas station coffee, which we all know isn’t really coffee anyway. But hurry — the price goes up to $139 in March. Nearly $4 for a book? Outrageous!
Check out the books included in the subscription:
- Imaginarium 3: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing edited by Sandra Kasturi and Helen Marshall [anthology]
- The Yellow Wood by Melanie Tem (novel)
- Angels & Exiles by Yves Meynard (novel)
- The Dead Hamlets by Peter Roman (novel)
- A Telling of Stars by Caitlin Sweet (eBook only; novel)
- The Silences of Home by Caitlin Sweet (eBook only; novel)
- Probably Monsters by Ray Cluley (collection)
- Point Hollow by Rio Youers (novel)
- Quaternity by Kenneth Mark Hoover (novel)
- Against a Darkening Sky by Lauren B. Davis (novel)
- The Acolyte by Nick Cutter (novel)
- The House of War and Witness by Mike Carey, Linda Carey, and Louise Carey (novel)
- The H.M.S. Bad Idea by Peter Chiykowski (ChiGraphic; graphic humour collection)
- Infinitum by GMB Chomichuk (ChiGraphic; graphic novel)
- Dead Girls Don’t by Mags Storey (ChiTeen; novel)
- The Good Brother by E.L. Chen (ChiTeen; novel)
- What We Salvage by David Baillie (novel)
- Lament for the Afterlife by Lisa L. Hannett (novel)
- Imaginarium 4: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing edited by Sandra Kasturi and Jerome Stueart (anthology)
- Almost Dark by Letitia Trent (novel)
- The Worm in Every Heart by Gemma Files (eBook only; collection)
- Kissing Carrion by Gemma Files (eBook only; collection)
- The Book of David by Robert Boyczuk (novel)
- The Flame in the Maze by Caitlin Sweet (novel)
- Wrapped in Skin by Mark Morris (collection)
- The Humanity of Monsters edited by Michael Matheson (anthology)
- The Lady Paranorma by Vincent Marcone (ChiGraphic; graphic short story)
- Northern Frights: Volumes 1–5 edited by Don Hutchison (eBook only; anthologies)
- Experimental Film by Gemma Files (novel)
- One Nation Under Gods by Jerome Stueart (novel)
- Licence Expired: The Unauthorized James Bond edited by Madeline Ashby and David Nickle (ChiDunnit; anthology)
- Derby Cavendish Stories by Don Bassingthwaite (eBook only; collection)
I hate you! Wait, why are you getting so upset?
I lost some of my precious writing hours today because I got pulled in by a thread on reddit about when to tell writers you don’t like their work. My first thought was “never,” but then I realized I have taken the odd positive thing out a negative comment. So I wrote the following in response:
I’ll acknowledge that I’ve taken readers’ criticism to heart and changed things about my writing because of it. But so much depends on the nature of that criticism. There’s a huge difference between “This book had a magic sword and magic swords are stupid. ONE STAR!” and “I didn’t really understand how that rib from the dead god became a magic sword, so I had trouble believing any of the scenes with that sword.” The first comment just kind of ruins my day. The second makes me pause and think about what I wrote. (“Ah damn it, I forgot to write the scene with the dragon blacksmith! Better get that in the sequel.”)
Receiving a message like the creator of HE did would be nothing but hurtful. I mean, that’s the direction Watson wants to be taking with his comic. I wouldn’t respond like he did — I’d probably reply with a “sorry to hear that but thanks for writing” or ignore it if I were having a really bad day — but there’s no way that doesn’t hurt. It makes your day when someone tells you they like your work. But it can also wreck your day when someone goes out of their way to tell you they don’t like what you do.
I really appreciate social media for the way it connects me with readers. Those connections really make a difference to me, and they keep me writing some days when I’m down on myself. But it’s a double-edged sword, etc. A writer I know recently had someone tweet a negative review of his book to him several times in a week — “Hey, just in case you didn’t see this yesterday…” Nothing good comes out of that.
If I find something I love, I let the creator know. If I don’t love it, I spend my time finding something else to love.
There’s a lot more I could say on the subject, but I’ll have to leave it at that for the moment. I’ve got a book to finish!
I was trying to break the genre, but I wasn’t strong enough
Further to my last post about charming product placement, I see The Dead Hamlets has made the Genre-Bender list over at Tor.com. Which, now that I think about it, is the perfect way to describe my writing. Can we please start a petition to include “genre-bender” in the list of official genre categories in bookstores and Amazon and such?
Also, The Dead Hamlets is in some pretty fine company on that list.
That immortality game
In a lovely moment of product placement, my new book, The Dead Hamlets, and The Lazarus Game by Stephen J. Valentine are listed side by side over at SF Signal’s February releases roundup. Anyone who’s familiar with Cross will get why this is charming.
Also, great representation by ChiZine!
Books brawl breaks out online
The other day I noticed a bit of controversy growing online after Vancouver writer Raziel Reid’s book Everything Feels Like the Movies was announced as a contestant for the 2015 Canada Reads. National Post columnist Barbara Kay attacked the book for being void of values, and a petition was launched asking the Canada Council to rescind the book’s 2014 Governor General’s award for children’s literature. Vancouver writer and international bestseller Steven Galloway stepped into the fray, and things started to get heated, so I decided to write about it.
Then things got crazy.
The Dead Hamlets are alive!
It’s alive! My new Cross novel, The Dead Hamlets, is shipping. ChiZine wasn’t just pranking me when they said they’d publish it!
I’ll have more details about launches, blog tours, reviews and so forth soon. But right now I’m just going to crack these open and breathe deep of that new book smell.
And then get back to working on the third Cross book.
This is how they hook you
My publisher ChiZine is giving away books for Family Literacy Day.
TORONTO, Ontario (January 26, 2015) — To celebrate Family Literacy Day, January 27, ChiZine Publications (CZP) will be giving away copies of its young adult books. Trade paperbacks will be distributed at select bookstores across Canada while PDF versions will be available for free for a limited time from the ChiZine website.
CZP will be giving out copies of its first two titles printed under its young adult ChiTeen imprint: Floating Boy and the Girl Who Couldn’t Fly by P.T. Jones (a.k.a. Stephen Graham Jones and Paul Tremblay), and The Door in the Mountain by Caitlin Sweet. Giveaways or contests will take place at Bakka Phoenix Books in Toronto, McNally Robinson Booksellers in Winnipeg, and BookShelf in Guelph.
In addition, PDF versions of titles with young adult themes will be available for free download from the CZP site for a limited time on January 27. Titles that will be available include:
Picking Up the Ghost by Tone Milazzo
The Choir Boats and The Indigo Pheasant by Daniel A. Rabuzzi
Westlake Soul by Rio Youers
Napier’s Bones by Derryl Murphy
a ChiTeen sampler of upcoming books: Dead Girls Don’t by Mags Storey, The Good Brother by E.L. (Elaine) Chen and The Flame in the Maze by Caitlin Sweet
“The love of reading is something that runs strong in everyone at ChiZine Publications,” says Sandra Kasturi, co-publisher. “And literacy is more than just enjoying books; it’s an essential skill for success in life. We’re hoping to help raise a new generation of readers and book lovers.”
Details of when and how to download the free ebooks will be posted to the social media channels of CZP and the dedicated ChiTeen Twitter and Facebook page a few days before the event.
Contact
Sandra Kasturi, Co-Publisher, ChiZine Publications
http://www.chizinepub.com
sandra@chizinepub.com
About ChiZine Publications
ChiZine Publications (CZP) is British Fantasy Award-winning and three-time World Fantasy Award-nominated independent publisher of surreal, subtle, and disturbing dark literary fiction hand-picked by co-publishers Brett Alexander Savory and Sandra Kasturi, Bram Stoker Award-winning editors.
Roll a d20 for appearances
If you follow this blog, you know that I’m a big fan of the Storm Crow Tavern in Vancouver. Where else can you eat an Elvish Burger while rolling a d20 for random shots — Critical Hit! — while playing one of their many board games — who’s in for a quick game of Arkham Horror in front of the giant Cthulhu head?
On very special nights, such as when the Known Planets align with the Unknown Ones, or certain Thursdays, you can also hear writers such as myself read from their works.
I held the Vancouver launch for The Mona Lisa Sacrifice at the Storm Crow Tavern, and it was a great success, aside from that Curse of Typo Terror cast by the wait staff. Now I’ll be returning to the Storm Crow to read from The Dead Hamlets, the sequel to The Mona Lisa Sacrifice, at 7 p.m. on Thursday, April 16.
My reading will be part of the Storm Crow Tavern Reading Series – Season Two. Other readers will include James McCann, Kristi Charish, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Claude Lalumiere and Heather Haley. I’m thrilled to be part of such a great lineup.
I already have a special surprise in mind for the reading. But you’ll have to be there to experience it. Book your time away from work and your family now!
Day job linkage
The day job kept me busy today. First, I wrote a little piece about the Exploding Kittens Kickstarter blowing up the Internet. Seriously. For a while I just sat there, staring at my screen and watching the dollar figures multiply in real time. Clearly, I am working in the wrong business. I need to be getting drunk with friends and coming up with crazy card games.
Second, I wrote an article about the Canada Council, the arts funding agency in my little nation, deciding to completely overhaul its funding model. It’s a decision that will affect artists of all stripes in major ways, but no one yet knows what those major ways are. Yes, that plan of getting drunk and making games is looking more attractive by the minute.
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