Cover Reveal: Extricate by Graham Wynd

extricate ebook 72ppi

Va-va-va-voom! Here’s the fabulous cover art for the forthcoming noir novella by Graham Wynd, Extricate. Isn’t that Sarah Anne Langton something? I hear the author has been inspired to get right to work on a new novella just to get another gorgeous cover! I’m not saying you can tell everything about a publisher by the great cover artists they pull, but you can sure tell a lot!

‘EXTRICATE is a twisty- turny noir tale of dishonor amongst thieves that is skewered with hot lust and cold blooded murder.’

~ Paul D. Brazill, author of Guns Of Brixton and Gumshoe

‘Crime meets erotica in a fevered novella. Graham Wynd has written a fluid and tight story with vivid characters in situations that are inextricably charged with a sexuality from which you will find it hard to extricate yourself.’

~ Richard Godwin, author of One Lost Summer, Apostle Rising and Mr Glamour

Extricate will be out early in 2014.

Shapeshifters, Sword Play and Industrial Horror

Nearly at the end of November and Fox and Fae just has a couple more minor processes to go through before we get it out to you at long last.

In the mean time the Second Fox Pocket ‘Shapeshifter’ has been released. It’s a dark little volume full of grim twisty tales. Grab it now at lulu!

FS Shapeshifters3 72

 

We’ve also released our first Vulpes publication, ‘The Lost Second Book of Giganti’ which is available from amazon for an absolute bargain price. There are also a few of the hand leather bound limited editions available over at Spacewitch. We will be able to show you the gorgeous cover going on those very soon.

giganti final cover

 

 

We also wanted to draw attention to a submission call over at Spectral Press. Spectral create gorgeous books that are a joy to own and read and we thought this one might be right up your street as writers and readers. After all, who can resist Industrial Horror!

‘You know how chance remarks made by someone often spark off ideas? This is just such a case. Over the weekend, horror writer extraordinaire Adam Nevill posited the idea of industrial horror, which set off a chain-reaction in the sparking brain matter of Simon Marshall-Jones and, after his twitching, writhing body had stilled, he proclaimed that he was going to put together and publish an anthology of such stories. ‘ Read more over at the Spectral site.

spectral-logo-23

 

Not The Fox News: World FantasyCon 2013

As my friend Saxon Bullock says, always open on a song. This played in my head for four straight days in Brighton and Hugh Laurie in spats became my unofficial spirit animal. That combination of jovial, charming and slightly intense served me very well during my Redcoat week.

The problem is, conventions are impossible to write about. They’re the ultimate embodiment of the ‘come in alone’ response to media, with everyone’s experiences being different, often contradictory to, but never less valid than, everyone else’s.

World Fantasycon 2013 is a perfect example of this. Go take a look at the numerous blogs that have been published about the con and you’ll see that first hand. From parades of photos of the same people who took photos together last year to detailed breakdowns of why the con’s programming was great/awful/indifferent/delete as applicable, there’s two things these blogs all agree on; their authors were present.

So was I. Here’s my take on it, including special guest starts Hugh Laurie, Jan Hammer, Jed Bartlet and Urdnot Wrex.

*

One of my very first experiences on arrival is seeing someone asking a female colleague of mine a question. She answers him and he repeats the question. She answers him again, slightly differently, and he repeats the question. She answers him a third time, and he repeats the question. It’s like she’s speaking Teflon.

She catches my eye and introduces me, the question is asked a fourth time and this time, between the two of us, it sticks. After he’s gone I ask how many times she has to repeat her answers in any given conversation. The average is three

*

I am wearing my jacket for the first time. It’s red and dapper and magnificent. It’s also completely huge, to the point where it’s slightly baggy even on me and I am by far the broadest shouldered, largest Redcoat. Several of my colleagues look like they’re wearing tents. One, Ewa, looks like she’s just stepped out of a particularly great 1980s cyberpunk fashion shoot. We all roll the sleeves up. The concept of Brighton Vice is born and this plays in my head for five straight days.


*

I’m working the reading rooms. It’s a good job, make sure the authors are in place, give them a five minute wrap up signal and hang around if you’re interested. I am, as Guy Adams is reading. Guy is an old friend, a fiercely talented author and a former guide with the same ghost tour my Dad works for. He’s also a former customer, and once memorably pursued an unpleasant card gaming customer out of the store yelling ‘EXCHANGE THOSE CARDS FOR PUBERTY!’

He’s reading a Holmes story and it’s absolutely brilliant. Watson is invited out for dinner by Holmes and a case unfolds across the three courses. It’s smart and funny, a rigidly paced, beautifully designed engine of a story and I almost lose track of time.

But, the 5 minute warning has to be given, and so it is and… Guy keeps going.

Four minutes.

They’re not quite at dessert.

Two minutes.

Almost there.

Forty seconds.

He brings the story in like a Russian gymnast, landing perfectly, precisely on time and with a killer final line. Then looks at me, chuckles and says ‘Blimey that was close.’ Doesn’t matter. It’s an amazing piece and he nailed it.

*

Standing guard at the back of the main hall, during the mass signing, my brain full of bad wiring from earlier. There was a seating plan for the signing but, much like no plan survives contact with the enemy, no seating plan survives contact with authors. So we’ve got people sitting with their mates, sitting with people the same nationality, or who have the same agent, or the same publishing company.  The crowd find their way to who they need, and I stand watch over crates of books and try very hard to not be angry about what I saw earlier today.

*

Terry Pratchett did a one off panel for the con, and Andrew, Pixie and I were the three redcoats asked to help security get him in and out of the building. It was, make no mistake, an honour. My own emotional connection to Pratchett’s work has never been especially high but his intelligence and talent, the endless years he’s put into popularizing and legitimizing multiple genres of fiction, can’t be overstated. He’s a titan. Without him, the current idea of Geek as cultural default, would be a good five years less developed than it is.

But he’s dying and there’s no getting around that and we saw it up close. He’s still him, still vital, still fiercely clever but he’s getting further away. I saw that up close as we walked him in, and out of the con. He’s still working and has a great team of people around him but seeing him as reduced as he is was difficult.

Seeing people choosing not to notice it was worse. On the way out of the con, someone came up and asked for a picture. We said no as he was very tired and had to leave and she smiled, nodded and said ‘Oh I’ll just take it surreptitiously then.’

Just a little photo.

Earlier we’d stood at the back of the con hall waiting for his panel to start. A crowd had formed about twenty feet away, all taking pictures, no one approaching him.

Just a little photo. Nothing much. Don’t engage, don’t ask, just take the shot from a distance.

I left. I left and I came apart at the seams for a minute or two. Lou Morgan, the head Redcoat, put me back together and apologized but she had nothing to apologize for. I got to help get one of the greatest genre writers of the last thirty years in and out of the building. I got to help a man whose work helped me and others. That’s something I cherish, even under the ghoulish elements of the audience, even under the organizational snafus that the redcoats had to both deal with and bear the brunt of.

No, the problem was embodied by a moment I didn’t see. The panel was hijacked by someone who gave Pratchett a Grand Master award from the European Science Fiction Association.  He did this because they’d decided Pratchett needed the award ‘before he died’. His words.

Just a little photo. Just a little plaque. You know, before…

*

Back in the hall,  I am not in the best of moods as I watch people get books signed, it seems, by the yard. I wonder darkly how many are actually being read, how many are treasured possessions and how much of this is just increasing the value of an investment. I’m thirsty, I’m hungry, I’m grumpy. I am, as a friend of mine would say, embracing my Inner Krogan.


On Tuchanka, Slam Poetry involves actual Slamming. Of Rocks. Into Other Poets.

I’m watching a pink book crate wheel up to me. The switch flips, I talk, I’m charming, I’m professional and I can feel every cog turn as I do it. You see, I’m at the back of the hall guarding these crates because we can’t have them on the aisles. Authors can sit where they like but some of these crates and cases are so big it would get ugly. Like, ‘Ben Hur, with sharpened copies of Atlas Shrugged on the hubcaps levels of ugly’. So I guard the book crates and chat to the lady with the pink one. Lucy Coats is completely friendly, completely grateful for me being there and hugely fun to talk to. Slowly, I feel better.  Ashley, a Pseudopod listener asks me to sign her Kindle (I’m on a Kindle! That’s got my book on it! That’s weird and cool!), Joan De La Haye and friends bring me an emergency baklava transfusion and Andrew, Lou, Ewa, Naz and I help bring the event into land.  It’s a bit like crawling from the wreckage, but a win’s a win.

*

I’m late. Lou’s doing a reading and she asked me to introduce her. Part of me, the part that sees fat but not muscle, failure but never success tells me it’s because she knows I had a bad day and wants to throw me a bone. The rest of me politely tells it to get fucked. She asked me because she’s a friend, and I used to be her editor, and it’s awesome and I’m late.

But I have something many people in this hotel do not; a red coat, and the strange architectural wisdoms that come with it. Or, to put it another way, I know where the staff lifts are and they come out right by the reading rooms.

Where I should have been.

Five minutes ago.

Because I’m late.

The lift doors open, I walk out and Martel, who’s running the reading rooms, looks at me and nods and…something odd happens.

This plays in my head.

 

 

The frustration of the last day or so stills and lowers and I know exactly what needs to happen next.

I am going to run for re election. And win.

But first…

I open the door, walk in, start talking as I move. It’s cheap theater but Mick Foley never met a cheap pop he didn’t love. I go up to the stage, explain how I was the editor of Hub and what was bad, and good about that and freelancer life. The good, I say, was most definitely in giving authors like Lou, and Joan De La Haye and Danie Ware, a turn in the spotlight. I’m articulate and funny and I make people smile and I never, ever hesitate or ‘umm’ once.

I finish, take the red jacket off, sit down and watch as one of my dearest friends reads one of the best short stories I’ve heard all year.

*

I sit and watch Joan De La Haye nail a reading from Oasis, and marvel that she’s been able to find something genuinely new to say about zombies.

*

I have a long, two part conversation with Saxon Bullock in which we fill each other in on the various things that have happened in our lives over the last two years, the scars they’ve left and what we’ve learned. Also about Star Wars. And bookshops. And writing.

*

Applauding my friend Nad, who’s Halloween costume (Corpse Bride meets ’50s bopper complete with full facial make up) blows every other costume on Halloween out of the water.

*

I get the most polite trash talk ever from an American author. I walk her to her reading and as we chat, she mentions she lives in the Bay Area. I mention I lived in Fremont in 2012 and she says ‘Never mind dear, I’m sure you had fun when you got to the Bay Area.’

*

I narrowly miss a party and, reveling in my Manx ability to walk along Brighton seafront in a gale and not die, refuse to let myself go back to the hotel room. Instead, I go find a party and, in short order, run into Jayson Utz and Nina Niskanen, both Pseudopod fans. I hang out with them, and spend three very happy hours chatting in the international language of geek.

*

On Sunday we launch Tales of Eve, the new Fox Spirit anthology. I suddenly find myself on the opposite side of tables I’ve been helping run all week. I’m not there as a Redcoat, I’m there as an author.

And people are coming to see me, and the other authors. Several of them are clearly people we don’t know! And they’re giving us money for books!

For close to an hour, we sign books. We shift 27 copies of the anthology, including several author ones. I sign each one with ‘THANK YOU’ and try not to look incredulous.

It’s official. I’m an author now. Which means I maybe need a bibliography…

*

Conventions are impossible to write about. They’re the ultimate embodiment of the ‘come in alone’ response to media, with everyone’s experiences being different, often contradictory to, but never less valid than, everyone else’s.

World Fantasycon 2013 was a perfect example of that and if you want very different perspectives on the convention, check any of the numerous other reports. I’d recommend starting with ALittleBriton not only because her work’s great, it is, but because she’s done a couple of really good round ups of other posts.

For me though, these are the moments, and the people, who mattered.

. So to Lou, Andrew, Ewa, Naz, Jen, Boo,  Joely, Joan, Vinny, Den, Lucy, Jayson, Nina, Ashley, Mhairi,  KT, Moses, Saxon, Emma, James, Guy, Paul , Sullivan and friends, Anne, the unknown techie who I officially became bros with and all the others, thank you.  My red coat is handed in, and I’m back in civilian life.

Until next year….

 

Great Expectations

A quick update as we fall inexorably towards November.

It is our plan to get three titles out this November. The first ever Vulpes publication, a translation of Giganti’s 1608 manual on fencing is due on the 15th. In addition both the second volume of Bushy Tales ‘Tales of the Fox and Fae’ and the second Fox Pocket ‘Shapeshifters’ are due out next month.

It’s going to be a busy few weeks at Fox HQ and all being well by the end of November we will be feeling a bit like this.

firewors

 

Fox Spirit Introduces ‘Vulpes’ and the Lost Giganti

Today we are proud to launch

Vulpes logo

 

and to launch it we have an incredible  first book…..

Secret libraries, lost volumes, sword fighting and an Italian master. For a publisher, it doesn’t get much more exciting than a story like this.

Nicoletto Giganti, famous for his treatise of 1606, is recognised as one of the great Italian fencing masters:

The entirety of Giganti’s treatise is a wonderful masterwork of the art of fencing. Giganti’s ready, clear and complete intuition; the fantastic simplicity of his actions and the spontaneity of the various movements; the refined artistic feel which reveals itself in every detail of the extraordinary work, are qualities that place Giganti in the most elect rank of writers on arms.
Jacopo Gelli (1890)

However his promise to write a second book appeared unfulfilled:

… we should not make promises [we can’t keep] to the curious … Nicoletto Giganti promised to publish a second book, but it cannot be found.

Giuseppe Morsicato Pallavicini (1673)

Or else this work seemed lost to history:

… according to Gelli, Giganti did fulfill his promise to write a subsequent book on single sword and sword with a variety of companion weapons … To my knowledge, this work has not yet resurfaced.

Tom Leoni (2010)

After centuries of waiting, Nicoletto Giganti’s ‘lost’ second book, written in 1608, has been rediscovered, verified and lovingly translated by Piermarco Terminiello and Joshua Pendragon.

The discovery of an apparently unique extant copy of Giganti’s legendary second book is certainly a remarkable achievement … The release of a body of work from a great Renaissance master, thought lost (or never to have existed) for hundreds of years, is very exciting indeed, and a major new contribution to the modern effort to rediscover the lost arts of defence.
Tobias Capwell (2013)

It may be a little late for Mr Pallavicini, but one of this generation’s most exciting HEMA finds will be available this year, as a paperback and limited edition leather bound hardback.

giganti final cover

 

The paperback will be available on demand via Amazon. Publication of the paperback is expected on 15th November 2013, pricing TBC.

Limited edition hardcovers are by pre-order only, as they will be individually prepared for each customer by Black Orchard Books. Please allow up to six weeks from the publication date for these to arrive. Limited edition hardbacks are available to pre-order from SpaceWitch http://www.spacewitch.com/ at £75. A maximum of 50 of these will be produced with embossed leather covers, made by hand.

An ebook is being considered for future distribution.

Breaking out the second whiteboard!

cover_toe03Yes, it’s come to that, I’m so busy I’m using TWO whiteboards.

Sadly I am not attending World Fantasy Con, however Mhairi Simpson who edited the fabulous Tales of Eve and a whole bunch of the skulk will be there. find them, they are lovely and very approachable and will be happy to talk about stuff.

Mhairi is also having a launch for the book at 10am on the Sunday. Plenty of FS will be in attendance and she should have copies of some of the other titles in our range too, so you can pick those up and get them signed.

Our own Alasdair Stuart will also be at WFC as red coat, seek him out he’ll be easy to spot at over six foot and in a red coat.

Additionally Vulpes launches at 8:30 am on Monday, so be here for that, it’s extremely exciting!

Now I have to go back and fill out the other whiteboard.

 

(Not The) Fox News: The Convention TwoStep

Conventions are one of those things, a little like dental work, that everyone is just expected to do. However, the best case scenario tends to be a lot higher than ‘No cavities!’ or ‘Mum, he only used the crowbar once!’. Conventions are safe spaces, the places where we can go to let our hair down, be ourselves, network, schmooze, drink, do bad karaoke, sign the odd deal and argue in Klingon over whether Peter Parker should have organic or mechanical webshooters.

That’s a tall order. And here’s the thing; it sets conventions up as the peak of the geek calendar and in doing so, all they’re set up to do is let you down. I’ll never forget attending my first FantasyCon, stepping through the door of what one of my best friends had described as one of the most welcoming conventions in the country and…being confronted by 300 people who clearly knew one another, chatting away and getting drunk together.There was no welcome booth, there was no one on duty to ease newbies in. There was just me and a bunch of already mostly drunk authors. It looked, and felt, like every ghastly clichéd high school lunch hall dream given form.

I didn’t turn and run, much as part of me wanted to.  I persevered, enjoyed a good deal of it and talked to almost no one. I attended another couple of times and, gradually, found myself moving in the same orbits as people who are now some of my closest friends. One of them is Adele, our feral leader here at Fox Spirit Towers. She had a similar track to me through the UK convention circuit, moving from member to guest to sleepless podcast tech goddess to leader of the pack in a little under three years. She was also completely rebooting her life as this was going on which, to my mind, is probably the only plausible reason why it took that long.

So, largely left to our own devices, people like Adele, myself, the Cheesecakes, Sam, Andrew, Lisa, Vick, Vicky and the others all slowly began to form our own social circles. It took a while and by a while I mean years, but I can now walk into any convention in the UK and, chances are, have a friend or two already there. It feels nice. It feels earned because believe me, it was. There are very few lonelier places than the bar at a FantasyCon when everyone’s talking to everyone but you.

Here’s the truth; no convention, on Earth, is going to answer every single one of your geek prayers because nothing ever does and nothing ever will. Make no mistake, you’ll have fun but the sky will not shower book contracts and meaningful discussion down upon you.  At least not without you rigging some bizarre publishing/weather dominator hybrid.

Yeah, Destro. You BETTER run.

 

For someone who doesn’t like or ‘do’ conventions, it turns out I’m going to a couple of big ones in the closing stages of 2013. In November I’m off to Leeds for Thought Bubble, which is always a very rewarding and immensely strange experience. Thought Bubble, or ThoBubs as its affectionately known, was founded by the comic store I worked for straight out of University. That’s the same comic store that made me redundant some years later and catapulted me into a period of sustained, constant change and near unbearable psychological stress. That period of my life meant that when I went to Thought Bubble for the first time, back in 2011, it’s fair to say I was not in the best of frames of mind. It’s a very weird experience spending time inside something that was so nearly built with your help. It simultaneously makes you proud and desperately sad. You get glimpses of the next life over, the one that was almost yours. You don’t regret it, certainly, but you do find yourself wishing it wasn’t in your eye line quite so much.

That being said, Thought Bubble is a desperately friendly show and, because I’m working for the company’s website (Freelancer tip: Never burn bridges. Ever. You never know when you’ll be able to cross back over them) I’m on the guest list. So, two days of wandering around Leeds Armouries, chatting to small press and big press alike and coming home with a metric kilo of review copies looks set to be on the cards.

Before all that though, I’m off to World FantasyCon.

This year FantasyCon has combined, Voltron like, with WorldCon to create a colossal robot that will stomp across Brighton and…

Sorry, I seem to have turned over multiple pages there.

This year, FantasyCon has combined with World FantasyCon and the end result has been a complaint storm the likes of which we haven’t seen since Doctor Who fans discovered the internet, keyboards and Twitter. There’s been, on average, one ‘thing’ about WFC 2013 every five or six days. I’m not going to repeat any of the well documented issues a lot of people have with the convention set up here, firstly because I don’t have the word count and secondly I really don’t want to. Make no mistake there are absolutely legitimate problems with some aspects of the con that have been expressed forcefully and eloquently by some of the best writers in the field. Them, I don’t have a problem with.

The internet hordes crowding around them yelling ‘FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!’? They’re the problem.

At this point, WFC 2013 could transform the entire hotel into gold, provide everyone with unlimited chocolate and alcohol, premiere all the missing Doctor Who episodes still left and odds are someone would still sniff and go ‘Huh. Well apparently all the rooms smelt of wee.’

I saw people complaining about the free book policy earlier today.

How do you do that?

How do you express serious concerns about the giveaway policy at a con? It’s free books! You’ll be allowed a set amount, odds are you can swap them around maybe and maybe even read some before you pick up even more at the next convention! Like usual!

There’s such an accretion disk of negativity around the con that at times the real issues some people have and the efforts to address those issues by the organizers are being obscured by the stampede of people struggling to be the first on the soapbox and the first to lead the next charge. That’s awful for two reasons; firstly because the real issues people have with aspects of the programming are being obscured. On a more personal level, honestly, I’m slightly nervous going.

I’m attending as a redshirt (Although apparently we’ll get jackets which sounds dapper and AWESOME) and part of me is sincerely apprehensive. I’m going to be part of the Con’s face (FaceCons! That combine to form…I am on an ‘80s cartoon kick this month aren’t I?) and a lot of people seem eager to explain exactly why the con sucks, possibly to its face, that I am part of.

 

Oh and just for giggles, I’m also at my first ever book launch as an author! Which I may also be red jacketing at! Which may mean I’m technically cosplaying as either postmodernism or the entire industry… Anyway Fox Spirit’s Tales of Eve anthology has an officially official launch on Sunday at 10am.  The launches are being held in the space between the art show and Hall 8 and this should be really fun. Tales of Eve is a great book, Mhairi Simpson did a kick ass job as editor and a bunch of Fox Spirit authors will all be there to sign the book and launch it out into the world.

 

So, let’s review; I’m going to be a volunteer at a convention where a measurable proportion of the attendees aren’t especially happy and I’m also going to be attending my first ever book launch as an author.

No pressure then.

Now, take my basic apprehension and apply it to people attending a con for the first time. The needle’s buried in the red.

Or it would be, because on this one the convention has a plan. Full details are here:

http://www.wfc2013.org/prog-newbies01.html

Go, read, and go say hi. It’s a great idea and exactly the sort of thing I wish someone had thought of during my first couple of FantasyCons. It would have saved me a fortune in J20 and crippling social anxiety.

 

As for me, well, I have a plan too. The redjackets have all been asked what events they’d especially like to attend and wherever possible we’ll be scheduled to either work those events or be free for them. The book launch aside, I’ve asked for a range of diverse events and also said if I get none of them? That’s fine. If I go where I’m needed, rather than where I think I should be, I’m bound to see and hear new and interesting viewpoints.  I’ll be challenged. I’ll learn new things. I’ll engage, and in doing so be too busy to get nervous.

So why don’t you try the same thing?  Also, feel free to say hi if you see me. You can’t miss me, I’m the guy who looks exactly like the photo of me on this website. Let’s chat for a bit, assuming I’m not wrapping a panel up or helping disappear the flocks of taxidermied and yet somehow living ravens that always seem to apport into existence if Ramsey Campbell stays in one place too long. Because, underneath the groupthink, the communications failures on both sides and the vast helpings of schadenfreude people seem to be relishing, we’re all fans. This aspect of popular culture makes us all happy, hits us all right in the feels, and that sense of unity? That’s the one place every convention lives up to our expectations. Sounds like fun. Hopefully I’ll see you there.

 

Why Pirates lead to Pockets

Yesterday was international talk like a pirate day and I said on twitter i’d explain the story of what happened last year and how it lead to pockets.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then we shall begin.

On last years international talk like a pirate day we launched a flash fiction competition for stories about pirates. The three winners would be posted on the site (you can find them under ‘books/free fiction’) and would receive a prize, a book if I recall correctly.

So that was simple enough but after a little while it seemed a shame to have such good stories just on the site and especially as the close running fourth story would never be seen. I talked it over with my copy editor and we decided a small volume of flash fiction might be fun. We could get in some additional stories and put it out cheap and call it Piracy’. It would have no restrictions of interpretation or genre other than the title. Also while we are at it, if we are going to do a pocket book like that why not do a bunch of them, on different loose subjects, that’ll be fun right?

And so it went. So you see a bunch of people going ‘arr’ on the internet is how we got to Fox Pockets. By next international talk like a pirate day almost all of them will have been released so we shall perhaps do another competition to celebrate.

pockets

Fifty Shades of ME!

After doing the ‘finding the femmes’ article for Fifty Shades of Geek they have kindly allowed me to become a semi regular columnist. What this means is all the things I can’t help myself commenting on but really don’t feel are appropriate as Fox Spirit formal statements will now appear on Fifty Shades (as long as Greg doesn’t nix them because i’m being an ass). So do visit the site because it is excellent and also because I will be giving vent to my spleen or something like that (sounds unpleasant actually so perhaps i’ll just rant and stuff) over there from time to time.