SHE RIDES!

After writing 12,234 words, the first draft of “The Gorvangin Rampages: A Dragon Precinct Story” — which I crowdfunded on Indie GoGo, and which you can still support — is done!

I’m gonna let the story marinate for a day and then read it over, then send it to both The Mom and The Wife (professional editors, both) for the Mighty Red Pen Of Doom, then again to The Wife for formatting, and then it will go off to supporters.

Next up is to write the second story in that crowdfund, “Ragnarok and a Hard Place: A Tale of Cassie Zukav, Weirdness Magnet.”

Cha cha cha….

 

read my stuff while you’re stuck at home, part 6: worlds of my own creation

So many of us are kinda stuck staying home a lot, and that means more reading time! Or, at least, time spent reading so you don’t go batshit because you’re stuck staying at home a lot……

As one possible thing to read, how about my writing? I’ve already posted about my various writings based on TV shows — including my Star Trek work and my work based on other shows — work based on movies, work based on games and gaming, and stuff based on comic books. Now we take a look at worlds of my own creation, including the “Precinct” series; tales of Cassie Zukav, weirdness magnet; “The Adventures of Bram Gold”; “Super City Cops”; Connie de la Vega stories; Shirley Holmes & Jack Watson stories; and assorted other bits and bobs.

The “Precinct” series

Novels

• Dragon Precinct — the members of a heroic quest start dying one by one and Lieutenants Danthres Tresyllione and Torin ban Wyvald of the Cliff’s End Castle Guard must find the killer before more heroes are killed
• Unicorn Precinct — the scion of a wealthy family is killed under mysterious circumstances and Danthres and Torin must navigate the fraught waters of the upper classes to learn the truth
• Goblin Precinct — a new magick-enhanced designer drug is working its way through Cliff’s End, and the Brotherhood of Wizards wants the rogue wizard responsible stopped
• Gryphon Precinct — Lord Albin’s death sends shockwaves through Cliff’s End, as the Castle Guard must find out the truth about his death while dealing with the wholesale changes made by his son
• Mermaid Precinct — the legendary Pirate Queen has died, and Danthres and Torin are tasked with finding the killer, an investigation that will lead all the way to the king and queen of the realm!

Short story collections:

• Tales from Dragon Precinct — collects ten stories of the Cliff’s End Castle Guard as we see Danthres and Torin’s first case together, plus the death of a wizard who animated his furniture, a family seemingly killed by a demon of which there is no actual sign, a vampire hunter gone missing, the dragon that appears every midsummer suddenly going berserk, a closet that spews filth, interrogations of a house fae and the brother of a murder victim, and old cases of Danthres and Iaian both come back to haunt the Castle Guard. Plus a look in at the surviving heroes from Dragon Precinct. (Collects “When the Magick Goes Away,” “Getting the Chair,” “Crime of Passion,” “Blood on the Water,” “Fire in the Hole,” “A Clean Getaway,” “House Arrest,” “Brotherly Love,” “Catch and Release,” and “Heroes Welcome.”)

Short stories

• “Gan Brightblade vs. Mitos the Mighty” in the eSpec Books edition of Dragon Precinct — a bard tries to tell the story of Gan Brightblade and his friends’ final battle against a mighty wizard, but the participants keep correcting him
• “Partners in Crime” in Without a License: The Fantastic Worlds of Keith R.A. DeCandido — Danthres and Aleta lothLathna must put aside their differences to work together to solve the murder of an elf
• “Baker’s Dozen” in the eSpec Books edition of Goblin Precinct — Danthres and Torin’s second case together as they try to determine why several bakeries around Cliff’s End are being vandalized
• “Chaos Theory” in the eSpec Books edition of Gryphon Precinct — several murders are committed by people in Cliff’s End who have no memory of doing so, yet every murder has the exact same MO
• “The Midwinter of Our Discontent” in Release the Virgins! — a locked-room mystery as a priest is found dead when he was in a room with several acolytes and several virgin sacrifices — one of whom is also a murderer
• “Used To Be” in Across the Universe: Tales of Alternative Beatles — the Castle Guard arrests Jahn the Bard, a member of the Fabulous Foursome, great heroes of Flingaria of the past who must reunite now

Tales of Cassie Zukav, weirdness magnet

Short story collection:

• Ragnarok and Roll: Tales of Cassie Zukav, Weirdness Magnet — nine stories involving Cassie, who learns she is a Dís, a Norse fate goddess, and faces off against Loki, a soul-stealing musician, a water fae, a brutal collective spirit, Thor, and plenty more (includes “Ragnarok and Roll,” “I Believe I’m Sinkin’ Down,” “Undine the Boardwalk,” the three-part story “Cayo Hueso,” “Love Over and Over,” “God of Blunder,” and “How You Can Prevent Forest Fires…”)

Short stories:

• “Fish Out of Water” in Out of Tune — a mermaid is trying to get back home, and Loki may hold the key to her salvation
• “Down to the Waterline” in Buzzy Mag — people are turning up dead and naked in bodies of water, and Cassie has to figure out how before the creature responsible claims another victim
• “Seven Mile Race” in Without a License: The Fantastic Worlds of Keith R.A. DeCandido — Tyr and Thor’s sibling rivalry expresses itself in a most peculiar car race
• “William Did It” in A Baker’s Dozen of Magic — after visiting the eerie William the Doll exhibit, one of Cassie’s new friends starts acting very strangely
• “Behind the Wheel” in TV Gods: Summer Programming — a sports-cast is a little too interested in Jamie McIntyre’s life, and Cassie has to stop them from finding out he’s really the Norse god Tyr
• “Rán for Your Life” in Unearthed — a container found in the Gulf of Mexico may hold the key to a missing Norse god

The Adventures of Bram Gold

Novels:

• A Furnace Sealed — first book in the New York City-based urban fantasy series that has Bram Gold, who is a Courser — a supernatural hunter for hire — having to wrangle unicorns, mind werewolves, and figure out why immortals in the Bronx are being murdered

Short stories:

• “Under the King’s Bridge” in Liar Liar — Bram is hired to find out why the people of the Marble Hill neighborhood have all become strangely lethargic, and he uncovers a hundred-year-old mystery…

Super City Cops

Novels:

• The Case of the Claw — a spree killer who appears every few years is back, and Detectives Kristin Milewski and Peter MacAvoy must figure out who he really is before he kills again; plus the Super City Police Department must deal with numerous other issues from domestic situations gone bad thanks to a purloined ray gun to a hole blown in the drunk tank by a super-villain who sobered up to an alien invasion

Novellas:

• Avenging Amethyst — the mysterious Amethyst is found dead on a rooftop, but everything Detective Milewski and her new partner Detective Jorge Alvarado turn up just raises more questions
• Undercover Blues — an undercover operation to capture the mad villain Apollo goes horribly wrong thanks to the Cowboy’s unwitting interference, putting a detective in grave danger
• Secret Identities — Lieutenant Therese Zimmerman is shocked to see Spectacular Man unconscious on her patio, and that’s just the first of many devastating revelations as Milewski and Alvarado try to solve the murder of several homeless people

Short stories:

• “Stone Cold Whodunit” in With Great Power — Milewski and Alvarado have absolutely no clues why a woman died in an alley, nor why her brain is several degrees colder than the rest of her corpse
• “Send in the Clones” in The Side of Good/The Side of Evil — one of the Clone Master’s many clones has gone rogue and actually wishes to confess

Connie de la Vega

Short stories:

• “The Silent Dust” in Brave New Girls: Adventures of Gals and Gizmos — Connie de la Vega — a technician on the moon who’s got the brains to be an engineer, but not the money to afford the qualifying exams — finds herself in a position to save five people stuck in an airlock, assuming anyone actually listens to her
• “The Puzzle” in Footprints in the Stars — while doing maintenance work, Connie makes an amazing discovery that could indicate alien life

Shirley Holmes & Jack Watson

Short stories:

• “Identity” in Baker Street Irregulars — Jack Watson, a medical student, agrees to be the companion for a difficult young woman named Shirley Holmes, and he helps her determine why a friend’s fiancé has gone missing
• “Six Red Dragons” in Baker Street Irregulars: The Game is Afoot — several matching dragon figurines have been stolen and smashed, and Shirley and Jack must figure out why

Miscellaneous other original fiction

Short story collections:

• Without a License: The Fantastic Worlds of Keith R.A. DeCandido — a representative sampling of my original fiction, including a “Precinct” story (“Partners in Crime”), a Cassie Zukav story (“Seven Mile Race”), a Bram Gold story (“Under the King’s Bridge”), a V-Wars story (“The Ballad of Big Charlie”), a thriller (“-30-“), a mystery (“Editorial Interference”), a science fiction story (“The Stone of the First High Pontiff”), a funny animal story (“Sunday in the Park with Spot”), and three very short stories (“A Vampire and a Vampire Hunter Walk Into a Bar,” “Wild Bill Got Shot,” and “Behold a White Tricycle”),

Short stories:

• “Editorial Interference” in Circles in the Hair — Special Agent D.B. Annichiarico must find the connection among a series of murders all across the country where everyone has been strangled by a printer cord
• “Sunday in the Park with Spot” in Furry Fantastic — the great cat Mittens tells a fable about dogs, cats, and squirrels
• “The Stone of the First High Pontiff” in The Best of Defending the Future — the “human finder” Jin is hired to find something that can’t be found — except she does actually find it, much to her client’s chagrin
• “We Seceded Where Others Failed” in Altered States of the Union — the story of the Conch Republic of the Florida Keys, which seceded from the Union in 1925
• “House Hunting” in They Keep Killing Glenn — trying to find a house you like when you’re more than six-and-a-half feet tall and you just want to fit in the place you plan to live in for the rest of your life…
• “Alien Invasion of Earth!” in Thrilling Adventure Yarns — aliens have invaded — can American ingenuity and science save the day???

you can still support my crowdfund for new Precinct & Cassie stories!

So cool thing about Indie Go Go — if your project funds on time, then they let you continue to take pledges after the funding period ends. Which is awesome, especially since every time I do one of these, somebody says, “Oh no, I missed this!” even though I’d been talking about it online for a month.

But that’s not an issue here! If you want to support “The Gorvangin Rampages: A Dragon Precinct Story” (about an event that happened in the year between Gryphon Precinct and Mermaid Precinct) and “Ragnarok and a Hard Place: A Tale of Cassie Zukav, Weirdness Magnet” (in which Loki and Odin make a surprise return to Key West and bring the end of the world with them), you still can!

Just click this link and support it! All the perks save for the tuckerizations (which were all bought up before the funding period ended) are still available, too!

we got stretch goals!!!!!

We’ve made our funding goal for “The Gorvangin Rampages: A Dragon Precinct Story” and “Ragnarok and a Hard Place: A Tale of Cassie Zukav, Weirdness Magnet,” but that just means we got stretch goals!

If we hit $2000, which we’re only $130 shy of right now, folks who get the story bundle along with the two stories will also get my Super City Police Department novel The Case of the Claw. And there are more for further goals, so please consider supporting the crowdfund!

 

halfway home, ish

Hey folks! So my crowdfund on Indie Go Go for “The Gorvangin Rampages: A Dragon Precinct Story” and “Ragnarok and a Hard Place: A Tale of Cassie Zukav, Weirdness Magnet” is going a bit slowly. We’re 11 days into a 20-day crowdfund and only at 52% of the goal. This is way slower than previous crowdfunds, which were only for one story, and I’m a little concerned. I suspect part of it is due to it being on IGG instead of Kickstarter, which is for a number of reasons, but it’s still concerning.

So I ask all my faithful blog readers (you know who you are) to please not just consider supporting the crowdfund, but also pimping it on your own social media — or just like and share the Facebook posts and/or like and retweet the Twitter posts, I’d be excessively grateful.

This has been a difficult year financially speaking, and we kinda need this to get ourselves over the hump to the end of the year. Any help you can provide is hugely appreciated.

Thanks!

eSpec eBook backlist on sale for 99 cents!

eSpec Books is having a sale on the eBook editions of their backlist, which includes my “Precinct” series and Without a License and a bunch of anthologies. Here’s the whole list of my stuff you can get for cheapsies:

• Dragon Precinct (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo)
• Unicorn Precinct (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo)
• Goblin Precinct (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo)
• Gryphon Precinct (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo)
• Tales from Dragon Precinct (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo)
• Without a License: The Fantastic Worlds of Keith R.A. DeCandido (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo)
• The Best of Bad-Ass Faeries with my “Precinct” story “House Arrest” (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo)
• The Best of Defending the Future with my “Human Finder” story “The Stone of the First High Pontiff” (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo)
• The Side of Good/The Side of Evil with my “Super City Cops” story “Send in the Clones” (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo)

Get ’em while they’re hot!

 

gratuitous cover post

Been a while since I did one of these. Here are the covers to my 2018 and 2019 releases (at least those that have covers — at least two projects I’ve got that are coming out this year haven’t released their final covers into the wild yet):

 

Alien: Isolation:

 

Baker Street Irregulars: The Game is Afoot (with my story “Six Red Dragons”):

 

Batman: Quotes from Gotham City (compiled by me):

 

Brave New Girls: Adventures of Gals and Gizmos (with my story “The Silent Dust”):

 

Children of Time: The Companions of Doctor Who (with my essay on Tegan Jovanka):

 

Farscape Omnibus Volume 1 (collecting several comics I scripted and/or wrote):

 

Footprints in the Stars (with my story “Puzzle Box”):

 

A Furnace Sealed:

 

Mermaid Precinct:

 

Outside In Takes a Stab: 139 New Perspectives on 139 Buffy Stories by 139 Writers (with my essay on “Fool for Love”):

 

Poison Ivy Hardcover Ruled Journal:

 

Release the Virgins! (with my story “The Midwinter of Our Discontent”):

 

They Keep Killing Glenn (with my story “House Hunting”):

 

Thrilling Adventure Yarns (with my story “Alien Invasion of Earth!”):

 

Unearthed (with my story “Rán for Your Life”):

talkin’ Mermaid Precinct and A Furnace Sealed On The Write Stuff

I’m on Raymond Bolton’s “The Write Stuff” feature discussing my two new releases, A Furnace Sealed and Mermaid Precinct. Check it out!

An excerpt:

What is your writing routine?

BWAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH! “Routine.” That’s funny…

Do you create an outline before you write?

Always. I started out doing tie-in work, and an outline is required for licensed fiction, as the plot has to be approved by the copyright-holder before you can write a single word. That habit has carried over into my other fiction, as I find it’s much easier and smoother to write the book if I already know the plot.

Why do you write?

I can’t possibly not write. I’ve been doing it since I was six, I can’t imagine any circumstance under which I would stop. (Actually, I can imagine a few, but they’re all really awful, so I don’t particularly want to dwell on them.)

Publishers Weekly likes Mermaid Precinct

Publishers Weekly has a very nice review of Mermaid Precinct up! Check it out…..

A smattering of Scooby Doo mixes with a liberal pinch of police procedural in DeCandido’s fun and carefree fifth novel (after Gryphon Precinct) set in a fantasy world where the beings of Cliff’s End Castle Guard keep the peace. The city of Cliff’s End in the kingdom of Flingaria is home to all manner of people, including a massive influx of refugees from Barlin, a sister city recovering from a massive fire. The devastation is undeniable, but many in Cliff’s End regard the refugees with suspicion. When the Pirate Queen’s ship arrives and she’s found dead on board, the crew insists that Lt. Danthres Tresyllione of the Castle Guard investigate her death. Danthres, who once lived in a community served by the Pirate Queen, and her partner, Lt. Torin ban Wyvald, are more than up to the challenge of tackling the mystery, but they’re stymied by the tight-knit loyalty of the Pirate Queen’s crew and the lack of outside suspects. Then their investigation uncovers something terrifying that could threaten the entire kingdom. This energetic romp is light on the surface, but it tackles the issue of xenophobia head-on with surprising grace.

I’m iffy on the Scooby Doo comparison, but overall, I’ll definitely take that. 🙂

(Detailed info on Mermaid Precinct can be found here.)

special advance copies of Mermaid Precinct at Farpoint!!!!!!

I’m pleased to announce that the UPS gods have smiled on us, and eSpec Books will have a limited number of copies of Mermaid Precinct available at Farpoint 26 this weekend! I’ll have them at the Book Fair Friday night, and if there are any left after that, eSpec will have them at their booth in the dealer room Saturday and Sunday.

(If you supported the book on Kickstarter and are entitled to a trade paperback, those are en route to me, and will be shipped out in the next couple of weeks.)