Balticon 50

This weekend I’m at Balticon 50, which is being held at the Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel in Baltimore, Maryland. This is especially exciting, since it’s my first convention on the East Coast and I’ll finally get the opportunity to meet several people I’ve corresponded and worked with over the years including Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Christine Norris, and Patrick Thomas. As the name implies, this marks Balticon’s 50th anniversary and the guest of honor is none other than George R.R. Martin. Not only that, many past guests of honor will be attending including Jody Lynn Nye, Kaja and Phil Foglio, John Varley, Larry Niven and more. You can learn more by visiting the Balticon 50 Website.

Here’s my schedule:

Saturday, May 28

8:30-9:50pm – Tortuga Readings – Pride of Baltimore. Authors will present their short stories of the high seas and those daring opportunists that call the ocean blue their home. Costumes are encouraged for a special prize from the authors. I’ll be sharing a reading from my Captain Firebrandt adventures. Reading with me are: Laura Nicole, Alan Spencer, Jack Campbell, and Misty Massey.

Sunday, May 29

9:30-10:20am – Finding Balance (Tentative) – Pride of Baltimore. Do you wear more than one literary hat? Having trouble divvying your time between your editing duties and your need to write? The Pros share their tips on how to do it all. I’ve labeled this as “Tentative” because I’m listed on this panel on one schedule, but not on the other. Since I don’t have any apparent conflicts, I’m planning to at least be in the audience, so it’ll be a place you can find me.

11:00-11:50am – The Biggest Mistakes by Beginning Writers – Parlor 9059. The panel will discuss (from a reader’s point of view) not only writing mistakes but also promotional mistakes: How writers have screwed themselves over and killed their chances of making it in the publishing world after doing easily preventable things! On the panel with me are Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Michael Ventrella, David Wood, and Christine Rake.

7:00-9:00pm – Gaslight and Grimm Launch Party – MD Salon B. Help us celebrate the launch of Gaslight and Grimm. Kirkus Reviews says, “in this tasty short fiction anthology, the editors have combined two appealing genres into something greater than the sum of its parts.” Most of the contributors to the anthology will be on hand including Jody Lynn Nye, Gail Z. Martin, Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Christine Norris, Jean Marie Ward, Jeff Young and more. Come hang out with the authors and editors, eat great food (and my mouth has been watering watching the planned items on Facebook!), and win awesome door prizes, including one of my wife’s hand-crocheted airships!

Just a note, the official convention schedule shows me at an autographing from 1:30pm to 2:20pm on Saturday. Unfortunately, my plane isn’t scheduled to land until 3:05pm That said, when I’m not on a panel, there’s a very good chance you can find me in the dealer’s room at the eSpec Books table. They’re the publishers of Gaslight and Grimm and many of my novels will be available for sale there. I’ll be more than happy to sign for you anytime you see me. Looking forward to making lots of new friends in Baltimore!

Forgotten Tales of the Weird West

Next weekend, I’ll be at Balticon 50 in Baltimore for the release of Gaslight and Grimm! I’m looking forward to that. As of this writing, I haven’t yet seen my full schedule, but for those in Baltimore, the release party will be Sunday, May 29 from 7pm to 9pm.

This week marks the release of another book featuring a steampunk story. The book is Lost Trails 2: Forgotten Tales of the Weird West and includes a story where members of the Clockwork Legion encounter a Lovecraftian horror from another world. Here’s the blurb for the book:

If you’ve gained your knowledge of the Wild West from Hollywood and history textbooks, your mage of the Western frontier is simple and clear: White men winning the West and saving helpless white future wives from outlaws or hostile Indians or Mexican bandidos.

You won’t find that here.

Here you’ll find: U.S. Marshal Frederick Douglass fighting invaders from outer space. A Navajo girl who must thwart the god who threatens all she holds dear. A Hasidic high planes drifter who faces New World bandits and Old Testament demons. A Catholic priest who contends with a magic-wielding half-breed—or is she an indigenous spirit?—as the fate of the Canadian Métis province of Assiniboia hangs in the balance. Outcast women who enter the Southwestern desert to die…or win their lady loves and great mecha steeds. A lost gunman who may find himself in a Chinese gold miner’s maze of mist and magic. Roving spirits and Civil War survivors and runaway factory slaves losing or finding family or love in uncanny new guises. Hoboes robbing a train of myth and dream. An Eastern city slicker who may outsmart only himself in a contest with Old West magic. A black homesteader who fights fae in defense of land and family. A werewolf-hunting frontier shapeshifter shattering every expectation. Steampunk airships that may unite West and East—or leave them forever apart. The ascendant Aztec facing endless destruction if the god of war triumphs. The South rising again at the Alamo—if it can gain eerie otherworldly assistance.

This anthology, like its predecessor, Lost Trails: Volume One, exists to recognize and celebrate the diverse realities of the historical West with excellent and entertaining Weird West stories.

Welcome to the Weird West more realistic than many a mundane Western!

The anthology features stories by: Rie Sheridan Rose, Tobias S. Buckell, Ken Liu, Don Webb, Nicole Givens Kurtz, Rebecca McFarland Kyle, Gemma Files, Ernest Hogan, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, Aliette de Bodard and many more.

In my story, Marshal Larissa Seaton, Professor Maravilla, and Billy McCarty travel to San Antonio to track down the inventor of the lightning gun who has teamed up with a Confederate Major who wants the South to rise again and will seek the help of frightening forces from other worlds to make it happen! I actually wrote the first version of this story several years ago. When I went to the World Science Fiction Convention in San Antonio in 2013, I finally had the opportunity to visit the Alamo. I was pleased to see I got the details of the location right for my story, but I did do a rewrite and of course editor Cynthia Ward did an amazing job helping me to polish the story to a true shine.

Lost Trails 2: Forgotten Trails of the Weird West is available at:

• Amazon
• Smashwords

Note: Although this is volume 2, the stories stand on their own and volume 1 is not required reading, however it is recommended just because it also has good stories. Volume 1 is also available at Amazon and Smashwords.