Author Archives: Peter Darbyshire
The Dead Hamlets has a trailer
The Dead Hamlets is alive! It’s crawled from the open grave of my office, where dreams go to die, and is now lurching into our world. See it lurking on bookstore shelves near you! Read about its exploits in the reviews! Watch it terrorize the innocent on YouTube!
That’s right, YouTube. The Dead Hamlets has one of those eerie videos, with words and ghostly covers and more words. Watch it here and then share it if you want to avoid the curse!
(Curse not available in your viewing area.)
A tiny reminder
I just sent out my latest author update via the TinyLetter service. If you’re interested in getting updates by email as well as reading this blog, or maybe even instead of reading this blog — insert crushed author emoticon here — then feel free to sign up.
I only send out updates whenever I have a new project to announce, so don’t worry about getting spammed — think of it as an alert service. You can check out the archive of letters here if you’re nervous and not sure you want to commit.
Go have a look. I’ll be here waiting. I should be writing the new book, but I’m waiting for you. No pressure.
Whistles tunelessly.
Let me tell you about the Underdark
Is geeksplaining a thing? Because I made a thread about it over at reddit.
It’s not too late to sacrifice!
My new Cross novel, The Dead Hamlets, is making its way into the world. The official date when it’s available for purchase is Feb. 17, but some of the people who pre-ordered it have already received their copies. It’s not too late to read the first book in the series, The Mona Lisa Sacrifice. Here’s a little trailer I made to help convince you.
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.
peter darbyshire 