Monday, March 10, 2014
Three Gloomy SeaEhorses
The first three Gloomy Seahorse titles are now also available as ebooks. They are as follows:
More Than a Feline: an illustrated collection of cat-themed fiction and poetry.
£1.23 from the British Amazon
$2.06 from the American Amazon
The Gloomy Seahorse: poems
£0.77 from the British Amazon
$1.29 from the American Amazon
Flash in the Pantheon: 123 flash fictions
£2.46 from the British Amazon
$4.12 from the American Amazon
Des Lewis has started one of his 'real time' reviews of Flash in the Pantheon, reviewing one story every day. Click here to read what he has written so far. It's going to take him a long long time...Other Gloomy Seahorse titles will follow as ebooks as they are published. Future titles include Journeys Beyond Advice, The Less Lonely Planet, Twisthorn Bellow, Mirrors in the Deluge, Tellmenow Isitsöornot, My Rabbits Shadow Looks like a Hand, The Crystal Cosmos, etc.
All these books will be available as paperbacks and ebooks soon, soon, soon!
Monday, March 03, 2014
Rhysop's Fables Film
Well, I made the film I said I was going to make! It features my very first attempt at stop-motion animation and needless to say it's like Bagpuss gone bad. But it was fun to make and at the end of the day that's what counts.
The film is basically me reciting a small selection of the fables that can be found in the book. The book is currently available from Lulu here and soon will be available from Amazon too.
Click on the arrow in the centre of the above image to play the film. Hope you enjoy!
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Absolutely Fabulous!
But anyway, it is done to my satisfaction now. I think it has come out the best of the five Gloomy Seahorse books so far. This one consists of 207 fables and also includes the parable of a homeless fable. My fables are a lot less helpful than traditionally is considered desirable in this genre...
This picture shows the book as a physical object at last with the animals and the painting that I used to design the cover.
I am currently in the process of making a short film featuring a selection of these fables and with luck that will be done in a couple of days. I am slightly hampered by the fact I know almost nothing about film making. Ah well! In the meantime, here is one of the fables so you can get a fair idea what they are like:
A king once ordered a messenger to deliver a sealed envelope to another king. The messenger set off on the dangerous journey and he was never tempted to open the envelope and read the message within.
After months of hard travelling, he finally reached the palace of the second king, who opened the envelope in front of him and read the letter with a frown that grew deeper and deeper. Finally he reached for a loaded blunderbuss and pointed it at the messenger’s head.
“Clearly you have received some bad news,” said the messenger, “but I’m not responsible for what has happened, so don’t shoot the messenger! I simply completed my given task.”
Silently, but with a grim expression, the king handed the letter to the messenger, who began sweating as he read it. The message said simply, “Please shoot the messenger who delivers this to you.” The king pulled the trigger of the gun and it went off.
¶ Go on, shoot the messenger!
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Zwicky Fingers Book
This is the fourth book to be published by my own Gloomy Seahorse Press. I intend to publish exactly 10 of my own books, no more, and then I will concentrate on publishing material by other writers. I have, for instance, just accepted a novel by a new writer for publication this summer.
With a cover by the marvellous artist Chris Harrendence, the ten adventures of Zwicky Fingers can be purchased from Lulu here, and soon it will be available on Amazon and other online bookstories.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Flash in the Pantheon for Real
My collection of flash fiction, which has only been an ebook until now, has finally become a real book too... And the paper book is bigger and better than the ebook was... 123 stories, none longer than 999 words and some of them only one sentence long... The cover was done by the genuinely amazing Brankica Bozinovska from Macedonia. And the awesome Ian Watson, genius wordsmith and doyen of the gedanken, gave it a nice blurb too, as you can see above, which delighted me profoundly...
The book will be available from Amazon soon, but in the meantime it can be ordered here.
The book is surprisingly beautiful and I am hugely indebted to the talented Brankica, who did this cover for me way back in 2007. Not everything is a flash in the pan: some things burn for a long time before exploding!
Saturday, February 08, 2014
Poetry in Undersea Motion
The cover of my poetry collection wasn't quite right and the contents needed to be very slightly adjusted. So I made the required changes and the revised copy with the mildly tweaked cover and contents arrived today. I am very pleased!
I will be sending out review copies next week. Watch it get reviewed abroad but not in any publications in Wales! The Welsh 'literary' establishment seem to have me on some sort of blacklist.
I will be sending out review copies next week. Watch it get reviewed abroad but not in any publications in Wales! The Welsh 'literary' establishment seem to have me on some sort of blacklist.
Anyway... that doesn't matter. The book exists and is available; and poems that have been sitting in boxes or on floppy discs or in the pages of very obscure small-press magazines for twenty years have finally been liberated and now are gathered together in one place. Yay!
Click on this link for more information or for the chance to purchase the book.
Saturday, February 01, 2014
My Twenty-Eighth Book
Steady! / My first poetry book ever / is now ready / and that's the truth / Forsooth!
Anyway... some of these poems were published in obscure 'journals' a couple of decades ago. Most weren't. They aren't like normal poems, though, so do be warned!
The book is priced at £3.99 but post and packing is £2, which is a bit cheeky. Make sure you select the 'standard delivery' option and not the more expensive one with tracking. If you click on this link and choose the 'preview' button under the cover you can read the first five poems for free... Just so you can see what to expect if you buy it...
My one and only poetry book ever, including poems that have been lying idle for twenty years... Rejoice you ten or eleven people who are likely to buy it!
Friday, January 24, 2014
Gloomy Seahorse Press
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| The Gloomy Seahorse by Adele Whittle |
The second book will be my one and only poetry collection. I have been planning this volume for a long time. Originally it was going to be called The Knight of Whatever and the cover was going to depict a lazy knight, but when I asked the artist Adele Whittle to design a logo for my company I liked the image she produced so much that I decided to use it as the cover instead, which necessitated changing the title of the book to The Gloomy Seahorse and writing a new poem to represent the cover.
This picture is the painting in question... The Gloomy Seahorse Press won't just be publishing my own work. In the future I hope to publish other authors. My dream would be to publish brilliant authors who have gone out of print or who haven't been translated into English, for instance W.E. Bowman, Shinichi Hoshi and Jacques Sternberg.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Strange Tales IV
Tartarus Press really have cracked the presentation lark: it is impossible to mistake their books for those of any other publisher, but they don't stain for the effect of uniqueness; it seems a natural quality embedded in every aspect of their design process. It's a beautiful book, simple as that...
I am delighted and honoured to have a story included in this anthology and it's a story I am especially pleased with called 'The Secret Passage'. Re-reading it, I kept saying things to myself like, "Puppets! Mazes! Hypercubes! Ooh!" which gives an idea of what it's about without giving too much away...
Monday, January 13, 2014
Stories From a Lost Anthology is an Ebook
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In the meantime, my three existing collections have been turned into ebooks. The original hardbacks are often tricky to find and expensive too. So I am pleased that readers new to my work will now have the chance to read these collections. Worming the Harpy has been available as an ebook for two years; The Smell of Telescopes was made available in this form one month ago. And now comes the third volume, Stories From a Lost Anthology... Michael Moorcock wrote the Introduction to this collection, a fact that delighted me then and still delights me, especially considering the fact that I have probably read more fiction by him than any other writer.
Wednesday, January 08, 2014
First Acceptance of 2014
This morning I had my first acceptance of the new year. I'm pleased to announce that it's a novel. I haven't actually signed a contract yet, so I won't say too much more at this stage. It's a novel I am very happy with, but that's hardly a surprise: I am happy with nearly everything I write. Is that wrong? Probably. This particular novel is a journey from fairly conventional science fiction and steampunk beginnings to something much more odd. The publishing company that accepted it is very good at promotion and marketing strategy, so I should get to do some proper book-launches again. About time!
I have a strong feeling that my output of wordage for 2014 is going to be even lower than it was last year. But that doesn't matter. Quality is always more important than quantity. This year I will be concentrating first on writing new material for a future collection, New Milesian Tales, including the resumption and completion of a couple of novelettes I started many years ago (primarily two pieces entitled '500 Eyes' and 'In Trance'). I also want to finally finish writing The Clown of The New Eternities. Every year I make a resolution to return to that novel and complete it. This year I really must do so!
Thursday, January 02, 2014
Telescopes is an Ebook
Telescopes remains one of my best books, I think. The second edition was published by Eibonvale Press in 2007. The original Tartarus edition is now worth a fair bit of money. I am therefore hugely delighted to begin the new year with an announcement that the book is now finally available as an ebook more than thirteen years after it first appeared. It can be obtained directly from Tartarus here.
It is also available on Amazon and elsewhere...
Saturday, December 28, 2013
A Cat Called Tufty
A photo of the cat Tufty with the illustrated book of cat stories and poems that features Tufty on the front cover... The artist I had lined up for the cover was too busy to produce any work so I just used a photo I had already taken of my favourite cat; and when the book was published I showed it to the real cat. I think he was impressed but I can't be sure.
More Than a Feline is available from Lulu (the printing company, not the female singer) by clicking on this link and the book is currently, er... the 11,922nd most popular book on the sales rank there!
Monday, December 23, 2013
Literary Review of 2013
Last year (2012) was my best writing year ever; and this year was my best reading year ever. I discovered more great authors unknown to me this year than in the previous five years combined. Admittedly, some of those authors have been sitting on my shelves (or tucked away in boxes) for a long time, decades in a few cases. But the point is that I finally got round to reading them and they generally exceeded my expectations.
I read some books that weren't so great, of course, but let's not concentrate on those. Every time I finish a fiction book I tend to add it to my Goodreads page with a brief comment; feel free to add me as a friend on that site, if you like. My page can be found here.
And yet despite all this excellence, there was another author waiting for me who I regard as my greatest discovery of the year. Andrei Platonov. I picked up Soul and Other Stories at random when I was in the library and I am glad I did! I liked it so much that I instantly ordered Happy Moscow and The Foundation Pit too. Platonov fills me with the same enthusiasm I used to have when I was young and literature was an unexplored world for me; an enthusiasm that gradually faded over the decades but now is back. I can't recommend the short novel 'Soul' highly enough.
Friday, December 20, 2013
My Twenty-Seventh Book
More Than a Feline is my first self-published book. I don't intend to make a habit of self-publishing (just two or three books in total) and I don't expect this collection to do well; it's more a gift to myself than anything else. I did enjoy having complete control over the contents, layout and design though! Such total control might not actually be a good idea in general, but hey, it's a collection of stories and poems about cats. Like cats themselves, it's not really going to go far...
I designed the cover myself. It's a photo I took of Tufty, a cat I regularly look after. The book is dedicated to Koshka, the cat I once 'owned'. The collection is illustrated and eight artists contributed a drawing. Not knowing anything about printing and image resolution, I didn't expect the illustrations to come out especially well, but to my delight they are very clear. I am very happy with the look of the book. More information, including how to buy it, can be found on the relevant link here.
Meeow!
Thursday, December 12, 2013
More Than a Feline
I don't intend to make a habit of self-publishing, but I have just dipped a toe into those murky waters; and so my next book will be a self-published one, a collection of cat themed stories and poems called More Than a Feline. I am a confessed cat lover and decided to put together all (or most) of the cat stories and poems I have written over the past 20 years into a single document. Then I asked various artists to submit drawings of cats and eight of them obliged.
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| Lunar Love Cats by Adele Whittle |
I wanted this book to be inexpensive, so I set a low price for it of only £4.99. But I have also arranged for a 20% discount, so for the next month it will be only £3.99. It should be on Amazon soon. I don't expect this book to sell well, but I enjoyed writing the stories and poems and that's the main thing that counts. Cats are great!
The illustration above is a painting on a pebble that is one of the pictures included in the book. It was done by the artist Adele Whittle and other examples of her work (paintings and jewellery) can be viewed and purchased by clicking on this link.
Wednesday, December 04, 2013
Online Bishopping
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| Nebula Award Winner Michael Bishop |
Michael Bishop has recently said nice things about my most recent story collection and I am hugely delighted that such an eminent and wonderful author likes my work. Moments like this make the hard work worthwhile... Mr Bishop is one of the finest writers of modern fantasy and SF. His work has a depth and richness and emotional punch that very few of his contemporaries can aspire to.
The Just Not So Stories is my lowest priced collection still available and can be purchased by visiting the relevant webpage here.
Several years ago, Michael Bishop wrote the introduction for my novella The Crystal Cosmos (which is also available as an ebook together with several of my other SF stories) and he was generous enough to ensure that his introduction was also a piece of fiction,a short story which we agreed would be my hypothetical 612th story... That was long before I had reached the number #612 in my scheme of writing exactly 1000 stories.
When I did eventually reach that number I decided to return the favour (as best I could) by writing a tribute story to Michael Bishop called 'Transmigrating the Bishop', which as well as being available to read online will be one of the stories in my forthcoming book of tribute stories to authors I admire, The Senile Pagodas, due out next year from Centipede Press... Anyway, on the chess board of modern literature I dearly want to be a Knight, but compared with Mr Bishop I am probably only a Pawn.
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Young Dictator Audio Sample
The publisher of my most recent novel has made a short film which includes a brief reading of the opening of the first chapter. I'm going to fib and say that the extract is read aloud by Dylan Moran because that's who it sounds like and also because I'm not actually sure who 'Thaddeus Lovecraft' really is. He might be Mark Lloyd, who runs Pillar International Publishing, or he might not be. Anyway I am thinking that my novel might make a rather nice audio book and the publisher agrees with me. Watch this space.
The Young Dictator is available from Amazon here and other online bookshops and hopefully soon will be on the shelves of real bookshops too.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Book Bigamy!
How does one promote two books AT THE SAME TIME?
The only answer is to duplicate yourself and promote them both equally... So here we go. I closed my eyes and strained and eventually popped into two individuals this morning! It wasn't easy...
THE JUST NOT SO STORIES on the left; THE YOUNG DICTATOR on the right. (And yes, she is mainly on the right, even if not always in the right)
The Just Not So Stories can be purchased by clicking on this link.
The Young Dictator can be purchased by clicking on this link.
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Publishing Schedule
I have been so productive in the past five years that things are starting to get a bit confusing... In an attempt to get matters clear in my own mind I have made the following list of my books that are due out in the near (or reasonably near) future:
(1) More Than a Feline (a book of cat stories, poems and drawings)
(2) The Lunar Tickle (the complete adventures of Thornton Excelsior)
(3) The Senile Pagodas (a book of tribute stories to authors I admire)
(4) The Million Word Storybook (365 stories and exactly 1,000,000 words; it will be the longest single author collection ever published and only available as an ebook)
(5) Sangria in the Sangraal (updated second edition)
(6) Bone Idle in the Charnel-House (a collection of gothicky stories)
(7) Modern Milesian Tales (a collection of dark fantasy stories)
(8) The Knight of Whatever (poetry collection)
(9) Tintin in Oz (a novel that I haven't actually written yet but that has been commissioned)
This list may be subject to changes, of course; projects might be added (for instance The Impossible Inferno collection) or subtracted from it. The world might end first, etc. But this is a rough schedule. I do have the feeling I've left something off though!
I am supposed to be promoting my new most recent books, The Just Not So Stories and The Young Dictator, instead of talking about forthcoming books; I'll return to doing that imminently!
Friday, November 08, 2013
Young Dictators
Just a photo of a few copies of my new book...
It's always nice when a concept turns itself into words and those words are actually printed and gathered together into a physical object...
Friday, November 01, 2013
My Twenty-Sixth Book
Many years ago I tried to write a children's story but I never completed it. Then back in 2010 the editor Mike Ashley asked me to write a YA (young Adults) story for an anthology he was compiling. I dusted off the story I had started long before and finished it for him. As it happened, his anthology was cancelled so I decided to make my story the first chapter of a novel. The result was The Young Dictator. It's not really a YA novel, though I do think it can be easily read by anyone from the age of 12 onward.
That first chapter was published as a stand-alone story in the Spring issue of the BFS (British Fantasy Society) journal last year and was received well by readers. I sent the finished novel to my agent but he didn't like it very much. He felt that the main character, Jenny, a young girl, was too vicious. But that's the point. The novel is a comedy about dictatorship and nice dictators aren't much fun in fiction, are they? My agent also didn't enjoy the fact that the novel often uses lateral logic rather than the logic of everyday events.
Luckily there was a publisher out there who was willing to embrace absurdity and humorous darkness. Pillar International Publishing was founded in Ireland in the 1930s by Victor Lloyd and named after Nelson's Pillar, a structure that stood in the middle of O'Connell Street in Dublin until it was blown up by the IRA in 1966 (it had already survived an earlier attack in 1955 in which nine students had tried to melt it with flamethrowers). The original press issued many murder mysteries of the Death Carries a Coffin and She Died of Death type...
Victor's grandson, Mark Lloyd, refounded the press last year and by happy chance I learned of its existence thanks to the writer Sara Crowe. I submitted the book and it was accepted, and now it is a physical object and an ebook. I am proud of all my books but this one has increased the width of my grin by an unprecedented magnitude. It can be purchased online from Amazon here. All hail The Young Dictator! All hail her Gran too!
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Happy Halloween!
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Crystal Skulls and Throwing Swords
I have been in London for the past week. I haven't been doing as much work as I ought to and that needs to change. But anyway... London. The Big Smoke. I actually lived here for six months back in 1989 and it has changed a lot since then. But you don't want to hear about that...A couple of days ago I went to the theatre in the West End to watch a play about the singer Paul Robeson. Very good it was too. If I had more money I would go to the theatre more often, but I don't so I shan't. I tend to stick to free activities. The British Museum is a free activity and one of the best museums in the world.
This photo shows me with one of the famous 'crystal skulls' that were supposedly made by the ancient inhabitants of Atlantis or the Aztecs. With this skull you can channel the cosmic powers of the ages, mages and sages. Unfortunately it doesn't really work. This is because it's not really an antediluvian artefact but was made by craftsmen in 19th Century Brazil. Even if it was an antediluvian artefact it wouldn't work, because supernatural powers don't exist. No matter! It's still impressive. The crystal skull is the object in the foreground, by the way...
Back in 2009 I wrote a novel called Twisthorn Bellow that features a golem who uses a kpinga. A kpinga is an African throwing sword. Here is a display case of genuine kpingas and fearsome weapons they are too! Imagine facing an oncoming barrage of these! Unfortunately this novel is unavailable as a physical object: the first edition sold out and hasn't yet been reprinted. But the kindle version is still available and maybe one day there will be a proper reprint.Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Am I a Mystery?
Here's a short film about my 'career' made by the excellent fellow Paulo Brito.
The most exciting event in this career for ages and ages is the forthcoming publication of my novel The Young Dictator... Watch here for updates!
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Just Not So Kindle Version
If you follow the link to the relevant Amazon page and then click to "Look Inside" you can read the first two stories -- 'The Mistake' and 'The Pastel Whimsy' -- for free! Incidentally, 'The Mistake' was the story I read aloud in the only SF convention I've ever been to (Eastercon back in 2010). But anyway, the entire book can be downloaded from Amazon here for $5.66. I think that's very good value!
Monday, October 14, 2013
Facets of Faraway is Back
My set of self-published ebooks is being adjusted and reordered. Recently I took down some of them. A few will be reinstated in improved form! For instance, I have added new stories to Facets of Faraway and lowered the price. It is now only $0.99 on Smashwords. That's about 62p. I am lowering the prices of nearly all of them. I won't be adding many more new ebooks to the set, just a collection of cat stories and then the biggie, the monumental Million Word Storybook. And that will be it! Finito!
I also want the contents of a few of these ebooks to be slightly different in their Smashwords and Amazon editions. I tend to sell more of them on Amazon, for some reason but the Smashwords editions will often be better value for money, more stories for less cash. Facets of Faraway is almost the same in both editions but not quite. I don't want people to buy both editions: the point is to make a choice. This makes it a little more interesting and variable in my view.
The Smashwords editions of my self-published ebooks can be purchased here.
The Amazon editions of my self-published ebooks can be purchased here.
If you do purchase any I will be grateful!! Sunday, October 06, 2013
My Twenty-Fifth Book
I've had a proof copy for several months but only now is my new book available for general consumption. The Just Not So Stories features no less than 30 of my most absurdist-flavoured tales, including some of my personal favourites such as 'The Leveller of Neptune', 'How to Lose Friends and Alienate People', 'Message to Rosita', 'My Crow Nation', 'The Blue Jewel Fruit' and 'The Sun Trap'.
This collection is dedicated to Nebula Award winner Michael Bishop because the final story in the book was one he graciously consented to contribute to. 'My Own Worse Anemone' is partly set in the Land of Oz and partly in our world; and Michael is a character who gets to speak dialogue he wrote himself. It's always a joy when an author as renowned as he is shows himself willing to involve himself in such playful experiments!
The Just Not So Stories is published by The Exaggerated Press (a relatively new British small-press) and can be purchased here for the sum of £7.99, making it one of my cheapest ever books!
Tuesday, October 01, 2013
Draw a Monster!
A fine Portuguese fellow by the name of Paulo Brito has decided to create an extremely limited edition deluxe book of my story 'Monsters of the Victorian Age'. That particular story (in thrall to my literary hero Donald Barthelme) consists of drawings and text in equal measure. I can't draw very well but I didn't let that fact hold me back!
Now here's the thing. Paulo wants more monsters in the book than the original six, so he is asking for contributions. People are already sending in pictures and I did another too (see above). Do you have any inclination to draw a monster for this project? The closing date is October 15th. Email them to me at the following address: rhysaurus@gmail.com
Now here's the thing. Paulo wants more monsters in the book than the original six, so he is asking for contributions. People are already sending in pictures and I did another too (see above). Do you have any inclination to draw a monster for this project? The closing date is October 15th. Email them to me at the following address: rhysaurus@gmail.com
Monsters, monsters, give me monsters!
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Cardboard Wars
My friend Fiona has come down from London to stay with me for 10 days. I rarely have visitors because my flat is so small and my lifestyle is rather too spartan for most people. I shall have to wear her out with outdoors activities so that she doesn't notice the lack of luxuries! Yesterday we went to Cardboard Wars in Singelton Park. We had to make suits of armour and weapons out of cardboard and then bash each other on the noggin and elsewhere in a properly organised tourney. I think that this event has something to do with the Art Across the City programme of public art works and happenings. Incidentally I lost my fight in the first round.
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