The Kennedy Curse releases 10/1/13!

The Kennedy Curse, the new anthology from Big Pulp, is scheduled to be released on October 1.  I'm excited, of course, because my story, "The Cuban Exile Crisis," is included.  And even more exited, because it marks the first time a Space Corps story is published by someone other than me.

Of course, it's not just Space Corps, my sprawling space opera epic, that interests me about the story or the anthology, but my long interest in JFK and his whole family, something I picked up from my mother and I've enthusiastically continued.  I'm one of those people who believes in the conspiracy theory, that the events that will be commemorated for their fiftieth anniversary this coming November may not be exactly how history remembers them.

But my story isn't about that.  It's set in the future, actually, and as the title suggests occurs in Cuba, where a descendant has ended up.  She finds herself entangled in another international incident, although this one unlike the other one comes in the midst of a full-blown war the whole world is facing.  In the Space Corps universe this is humanity's introduction to the Danab menace.  The story doesn't worry too much about this war so much as the main character's troubles as she attempts to figure out where she stands and what if anything she can do about it.

And other people contribute other stories, too!  Here's the Amazon link.

The Complete Yoshimi comes to paperback

That would be the cover for The Whole Bloody Affair, a.k.a. The Complete Yoshimi.

Available here in paperback!

For those unfamiliar with Yoshimi and her fictional and well as publishing history, here's a brief recap: The warrior orphan was originally conceived at the behest of a friend's budding publishing label.  They were just getting into the business of releasing novels at the time, and I saw this as an opportunity.  I don't tend to write terrifically straightforward fiction (in other words, I'm more of a literary guy than James Patterson, or in other other words I'm not usually very commercial in the traditional sense).  Yoshimi's story was immediately cast in the vein of things I'd enjoyed, in books and film (and her name taken from a Flaming Lips album), the revenge plot.

The complete story is very similar to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the third in that series, while it borrows significantly from Quentin Tarantino and Uma Thurman's Kill Bill.  The truth isn't always what it seems, and Yoshimi has a lot of people to defeat along the way.  (So, she's also similar to Scott Pilgrim!)

The small publisher folded in the midst of the planning stages for the book's release.  

Earlier this year I started and intended to release each of the book's three volumes separately.  Then a lot of things very rapidly changed for me, and I lost the original schedule.  When things finally settled down again, I had the impulse to release the whole story in a single volume, as I had intended to at the conclusion of the serialization.  And so here we are.

As for the cover, I've pretty much been sticking to the available templates at CreateSpace, and that's true again here.  The color scheme is an homage to the iconic posters for Kill Bill, Vol. 1 while also evoking the red pattern for the second (here it takes the shape of an ominous field of blood).

As to whether or not I'm trying to trick unsuspecting consumers into buying my book by using a phrase closely associated with Kill Bill, well, as far as I figure, Tarantino is in no rush to use it, and it has a nice ring.  Why not?  (Then again, perhaps I'll find out.)

...Of course, it's my fervent wish that this is the very last book I'll ever have to release myself, and I hope I'm going out with a bang.

CassaStorm brewing...

Today's the release of Alex J. Cavanaugh's CassaStorm!

...Although I suspect that if you're visiting this blog you probably know about it already!

The Complete Yoshimi comes to Kindle

This is the lovely listing for the Kindle edition of The Whole Bloody Affair!

The Whole Bloody Affair

Friday night I undertook another marathon session with Amazon's CreateSpace to put together the release of The Whole Bloody Affair, a.k.a. The Complete Yoshimi.

And you can thank Miley Cyrus for that.  You may have heard a thing or two about Miley recently.  I finally had a look at the VMA performance, and it struck me that she wasn't giving a performance so much as having a good time.  Clearly trying really hard to be who she wants to be, and as such she's become a bona fide rock personality, the new Mick Jagger if you will (she's got the moves).

Anyway, and so I've had Yoshimi sitting around since 2011, and earlier this year I released the first volume of her adventures.  I recently completed a move back to Maine, and I had computer files sitting there and I saw Miley twerk, and I thought, why not?  So I put the package together and prepared The Whole Bloody Affair for release.  It's not perfect.  These self-made releases rarely are, and after Miley I guess I kind of decided it was okay.  If I'm going to release something myself, I shouldn't stress so much about that.

So there it is.  Once the book goes through the full release, I'll have a bunch of links, but here's one to start with.  The cover, once you see it, is pretty simple, an homage to one of the inspirations for Yoshimi's story, Kill Bill, which I've been loving for a decade now.

If you want, help me spread the word, or wait for the Amazon and Kindle listings.  Either way, I'm just glad that I've finally gotten the whole bloody thing out there.