The Twentieth Delusion
New online store, Broth House pre-orders and more!
In an attempt to have these newsletters written early enough that I’m not scrambling on Sunday when I like to release them, I am sitting here Monday morning after finalizing the big news item. I plan to go on to Facebook Live this evening and announce it. Mind you, I have never done Facebook Live and I am nervous about it, figuring there might not be much interest. I hope I am wrong. We’ll see.
Welcome to the twentieth edition of Confusions, Delusions, and Formidable Impressions.
Update on Saturday. I chickened out doing the FB live stream. That doesn’t surprise me. To everyone who preordered signed copies, a big THANK YOU goes out to each and every one of you. I couldn’t be more pleased with the interest in this book.
News
I launched my own online bookstore for your one-stop shop to get signed copies of my books. I was and still am nervous about the whole thing. I’d been told by several authors that I needed to do this, so here we are. With the announcement of the online store, I also announced preorders for Broth House. The preorder is for signed copies that come with a Broth House bookmark and sticker. The proof of the book looks great, so my plan is to launch it on February 2nd.
You can also preorder Broth House on Amazon for just $1.99. The price will go up once the book is published later this week.
The sixth edition of Infected Voices is now available on Godless. For those taking notes, each edition goes live on the 23rd. This story is called “Back for More”.
Recent Reads from Hell
I haven’t finished any books since the last newsletter. I’ve been spending my idle time working on publishing stuff. I have been reading A Bouquet of Viscera by Bridgett Nelson. Great stories in here. The buzz around this book is well deserved. Also reading Dreadful Tales by Richard Laymon. So far so good. I like Laymon, but I find his work mixed. Some books are great, and others are just not my thing. These stories are very representative of that. And I’m also reading Plastic Monsters by Daniel Volpe. Very good so far.
Spotlight On:
Monsters Come Out. This book came out late last year and has sort of sat stagnant. It has only received one rating so far, and that was only two stars. That’s really not a big deal. Not every book is for everyone, but I sure would like this one to find its audience. I had heard from a couple of readers that they were enjoying it, but this title seems to have flown under the radar.
When I first wrote this book, my intention was to start an urban fantasy series in the vein of Simon R. Green’s Nightside books or Tim Waggoner’s Nekropolis series. This first book was to be the launching pad for such a series. The original title was Depraved New World. The story features Veronica Hensley, who makes her first appearance in Broth House (despite Broth House having been published later). She’s one of my favorite characters to write.
In Monsters Come Out, the world is stricken by a wave of spontaneous human mutation. Some of the mutations are slight, and others horrific in nature. And some people don’t mutate at all. In this new world, lines are drawn as lawlessness sweeps over the land like a second coming of the wild west. The creatures begin to take over big cities, fighting to survive something they have no choice but to accept. Only there are plenty of people who didn’t change. People with hatred in their hearts for things of which they do not understand.
I had hoped to continue this series of books in a new vision of the world where the mutants lived under their own governance in the big cities. Veronica Hensley, who is an investigative reporter, would handle mysteries concerning ties between the monster-dominated big cities and the “human” cities surrounding them. But I don’t see that happening. My heart isn’t in it. Outside of my Evil Awakens trilogy, of which I was contracted to write, I will not write a sequel unless there is an audience for it. I don’t see the point in writing a second book if the first one doesn’t have a decent readership to begin with. I have sequels in mind for Salpsan (no one read that one), Mojave Mud Caves, and Death Obsessed. But for now, I will continue to write new stories. Maybe one of those books will take off and I can write the sequel. I’d particularly like to write the Mojave Mud Caves sequel.
In Closing
The horror community is a great community. I won’t, and I urge others not to, allow a few people to bring it down. Fuck ‘em. There isn’t one community in the entire world that is without garbage. We just have to do our best at taking out the trash.
That being said, I have enjoyed the fiction of Tom Monteleone. It has been difficult to watch the dumpster fire Facebook posts as they unfolded this week. I have submitted to previous Borderlands anthologies and was given very encouraging rejection letters. I submitted to the current Borderlands anthology and received a rejection that suggested reading volumes of Borderlands, and even included specific stories I should read . . . well, I’d already read three volumes of that series and had already read each story that was suggested. The rejection wasn’t really condescending, or was it? Whatever. I really don’t give a shit. I was going to send another story, but I’ve decided not to. I’m sure you can understand why.
Until next time, keep the horror community the awesome place I know it is.