Straggletaggle

Appearing at stores, then, a little earlier than planned, and the eBook coming out on the 17th, and hopefully spreading out all over, my new novel, Straggletaggle, is here.

Inspired by anime, other steampunk novels, and the horror of corpocracy, a sheen of genre rides over the top of my great fears, and I hope it is enjoyable and inspires others to create and to fight against the forces of unchecked organization.

Check your preferred bookstore, folks.

eBooks will be out on the 17th. Pre-order today!

Year's best not done

I have been working on a year's best list and it isnt done.

Overlooked books of the year, though:

Spider in a Tree by Susan Stinson is absolutely beautiful and it hasn't been mentioned enough around about town.

Revolutions by Felix Gilman is another reminder why he is some kind of monster, here to reshape and invent the literary duology. If duologies ever truly become a "thing" it will be because Gilman keeps writing such fantastic duologies and people will point and say, "That is how they should be done! See! Like that!". Each book is distinct, yet clearly related. Each world seen twice, is seen fully and left for other worlds.

Elysium by Jenn Brissett is out from a small press and could easily be overlooked. Please, don't. It is fabulous, and makes me feel like I am not alone in genre with my fractured and fragmented impulses. People who like my books will love Jenn's.

No links, yet, but you know how to find books in stores, right?

Fox in the Fields out today in 3-Lobed Burning Eye!

1. Every Father Will Protect his Chickens

High growing season is no time for running around in the dark. Going out after dark, there are wild dogs, badgers, all kinds of hungry things. The bugs alone can drink a quart of red liquor and leave welts all over. The ticks lounge in the grass, just waiting, bobbing like divers on a board, for all us walking by.

High country, when darkness comes, we stay inside. We watch TV, if we must remain awake. I clean my rifle once a week by the flickering television screen. The moths flitter against the mosquito netting, and the girls are in bed by eight, before even the bats come out.

We got in the habit of locking them in, too. They were such restless horses in the dark, wandering to the kitchen, flipping on lights, and seeking out their toys when they should be in bed. My wife had a sister that did that and got killed back in England when a wild animal took her in the night and she was wandering around late and no one knew. She instituted the rule. We tuck the girls in. We close the door. We lock it from the outside. The screen is unchanged. There isn’t a way to get the screen out without pulling them off the nails that hold them down.

So, how did their shoes get so dirty at night?

Read the rest?  (http://www.3lobedmag.com/)