It’s been an eventful few months, and instead of spreading myself thin across a veritable barrage of social media sites (so scattered I often forget which one I’ve harassed), I decided to bite the bullet and kick-start this author-specific website. It may be temporary; I’m not quite sure at this point in time. Probably the best way to keep up-to-date (if you’re somehow so inclined!) is via my Facebook thing.
Anyway, just to get around to the title of this meandering monologue – the update! OK, so at the beginning of April (the morning of April Fool’s Day, to be precise) I finished my second novel One Hundred Years of Vicissitude, which was then accepted as the flagship release for new publisher Perfect Edge Books.
We since edited and did the cover art, etc, etc, and the publication date was confirmed last week as 26 October 2012.
I had a good chat last week with Katy O’Dowd about the new novel, and she gave it a wunderbar review – as did author Chris Rhatigan just yesterday, for his site Death By Killing. So the feedback is starting to roll in and it’s (again) a fascinating, at times edgy process since I’d internalized One Hundred Years of Vicissitude from start to pretty much finish. Marcus Baumgart’s analysis in The Flawed Mind also knocked me out.
There’s more feedback on the improvised website for One Hundred Years of Vicissitude here – with huge thanks to Jack @ Bare*Bones, Stefan Blitz @ Forces of Geek, Jacob @ Drying Ink, Olivia @ Nerdy Book Reviews, Mieneke @ A Fantastical Librarian, & Charles Pitter @ Zouch Magazine. Elizabeth A. White assessed that the novel is “A wildly enchanting journey down the rabbit hole,” which (obviously) made me happy. You’ll find background guff about how the story’s concept developed from two real-life identical twin centenarians over at Paradragon Dan‘s site.
Also online is a rather extensive interview I did a couple of weeks ago with N.E. White at The Atheist’s Quill; this one’s more of a wayward diatribe about politics, editing and Japanese cinema.
Meanwhile, it’s great to see Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat still getting some notice a year after it was published. Authors Paul D. Brazill and John Rickards/Sean Cregan had extremely nice things to say this month, as did Read2Review, who gave it 5/5, last month. Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat has been nominated for a Ned Kelly Award, but I’m unsure when they’ll decide the winner there, the odds are long, and the competition stiff!
I’ve started work – having barely scratched the surface, really – on two new novels called The Mercury Drinkers and Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa?, and am lucky enough to have a swag of short stories coming out in coming months through Crime Factory, Snubnose Press, Shotgun Honey, Pulp Ink 2, Off the Record 2, and Solarcide.
Floyd and Laurel from Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat will be appearing in some of these.
Finally, there’s an anthology in the works, based on the noir/dystopic world of Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat. Called The Tobacco-Stained Sky, it will also be coming out through Another Sky Press, probably in 2013.
We already have great stories and comic art from Josh Stallings, Tony Pacitti, Chris Rhatigan, Drezz Rodriguez, Guy Salvidge, Kristopher Young, Nigel Bird, Chad Rohrbacher, Paul D. Brazill, Gerard Brennan, Jay Slayton-Joslin, Michael Grills and Nathan St. John. Others are on the way, as the deadline is almost here.
Otherwise I’m re-reading old school writers like Raymond Chandler, Joseph Heller, Philip K. Dick, Ryu Murakami, James Ellroy, Yasunari Kawabata and Dashiell Hammett, as well as discovering a host of new(ish), very talented scribes out there, people like Heath Lowrance, Shuichi Yoshida, Adam Christopher, Tony Black, Julia Madeleine, Matthew C. Funk, McDroll, Grank Jerkins, Chuck Wendig, Matthew McBride, Gordon Highland, Yuko Matsumoto, Chris F. Holm, the LitReactor crew, and all the people I asked to be involved in The Tobacco-Stained Sky (see above).
These people have solid inroads and miles more experience than me, and they’re breathing new life into the print word. Most of them are also not above helping out a new kid on the block such as myself.
Lastly, cinema itself – in all its guises – can never, ever be overrated. Go watch a movie or DVD today.
Anyway, that’s it for now. I’m hungry and I need brekky and a strong cuppa coffee. Waffling and propaganda bomb out.
Andrez Bergen / Little Nobody 