My Spider-Man novel, Requiem, doesn't come out until around Hallowe'en (which is appropriate, given the nature of the book) but the cover's in. It's by J.H. Williams III, a fine artist I used to edit on Promethea, in my WildStorm days. I think it's amazing.
Theoretically, my new novel CSI: Miami: Right to Die goes on sale today. I don't have any copies yet so can't even confirm that it's printed, but today's the date I was given. Obviously, it's a book based on the most-watched dramatic TV series in the world. It's also, I'm told, the last CSI: Miami novel, so be sure you pick it up!
Also, I did get copies yesterday of anthology Tales of Zorro (the trade paperback edition--the limited hardcover isn't out yet). I don't know if it's actually in stores yet, but it should be showing up any day now. If you like Zorro--and who doesn't?--you're going to need this anthology, which includes an introduction by Guy Williams, Jr., an afterword by Isabel Allende, and stories by Nancy Holder, Ed Gorman, Loren D. Estleman, Elizabeth Massie, Max Allan Collins, and many more luminaries! In addition to my story, of course, "Mission Gold," which I'm proud to say is the lead story in the book.
According to the official, one-of-a-kind Jeff Mariotte photo calendar on my wall:
Dorothy Parker (1893) and Ray Bradbury (1920). Happy birthday, Ray!
H.P. Lovecraft, 1890.
If you don't own a copy of Library of America's H.P. Lovecraft: Tales, selected and with notes by Peter Straub, you're missing out on an amazing collection of stories.
Iä-R'lyeh! Cthulhu fhtagn! Iä! Iä!
The big news of the day is that the website for supernatural thriller River Runs Red is up!
River Runs Red goes on sale at the end of September from Penguin/Jove. It’s a very loose follow-up to Missing White Girl, and a precursor to next year’s Cold Black Hearts, but they are linked only by their border southwest settings (MWG in Arizona, RRR in Texas, and CBH bridging them in New Mexico) and the fact that they all contain at least some thriller elements along with supernatural horror.
In River Runs Red, the thriller elements come from the world of espionage—specifically, real-life CIA psychic research programs, and the CIA agent, James Livingston Truly, who has been forced to head one such program as a kind of intra-agency punishment. Also involved are Wade Scheiner, a CNN reporter kidnapped while covering the war in Iraq, and his best friends Molly McCall, a journalist for an independent newspaper in El Paso, and Molly’s brother Byrd, dying of a rapidly evolving case of leukemia. These three experienced something terrifying in a network of caves under the Rio Grande, twenty years ago, and that something has consequences today. Finally, anthropologist Ginny Tupper is looking for clues to her father’s disappearance, in the vicinity of those same caves. What they all find there will change them all, making them combatants in a supernatural war spanning space and time.
On the website you’ll find character studies, location photos, a downloadable PDF of the first three chapters, blurbs from authors David Morrell, Christopher Golden, Don Winslow, Norman Partridge, Andrew Klavan, and Scott Nicholson, a link to buy the book, and more. As soon as my appearance schedule around the book’s release is firmed up, that’ll be up there too.
Check out the website today!
To Robert Harris (The Ghost: Best Novel), Joe Hill (Heart-Shaped Box: Best First Novel)--side note, I'll be on a panel with Joe at Comic-Con--and my pal Tom Piccirilli (The Midnight Road: Best Paperback Original) on their Thriller Awards, presented at last night's International Thriller Writers banquet!
So after years of thinking about it, I believe this Saturday, July 5, will be the day that I finally set up a space at the Bisbee Farmer's Market with a selection of my books and comics. The goal isn't to make a lot of money, but to have fun and maybe meet some local people who haven't become aware of the work through other means. Plus we're usually there on Saturdays anyway, if we're not otherwise occupied, so this will give us an excuse to get there early, before our friends run out of the stuff we really want.
If you're a reader in the area and you want to track me down to get something signed or pick up something you can't find elsewhere, here's a chance to do it! The market hours are 8 to noon.
The third 30 Days of Night novel that I wrote with Steve Niles, Eternal Damnation, will make its debut at Comic-Con next month. There's an interview with me about the book at Comicon Pulse, and you can see it by clicking the link, if you're so inclined.
Today the Barnes & Noble exclusive edition of Witch Season 2, the specially bound edition that contains the two teen horror novels Winter and Spring, goes on sale at B&Ns everywhere and online.
It's 584 pages of witchy, creepy goodness for a low, low $6.95. To learn more about the Bram Stoker-award nominated Witch Season series, you can go here.
And so you know what the cover looks like in the stores, here it is.
These days most of the news about independent bookstores seems to be bad. Stores close, forced out of business by the difficulties of competing with giant national chains, discounters, and online merchants. Troubles in the economy hit independent businesses harder than the better capitalized giants.
But not all the news is bad. Mysterious Galaxy turns 15 years old this month--15 years of providing books of mystery, science fiction, fantasy, horror and more to a local audience in San Diego and a wider audience around the world. When we started the store, it was at the tail end of the first Bush recession, before the boom times of the later Clinton years, and it was a gamble. Through the years of good economy and bad, through times of terrible national tragedy and righteous rejoicing, the store has churned along, thanks to a staff that knows their genres inside and out and an unwillingness to ever settle with doing things the way they've always been done when their might be a new approach out there that can put more books into the hands of more happy readers.
Saturday, May 10, we're celebrating that milestone with a full day of author appearances and other festivities. You can read the details of the day at the Mysterious Galaxy website. I'm kicking off the day's signing slate at 10:30 am, signing Supernatural: Witch's Canyon, and of course Missing White Girl and whatever else comes up. I haven't decided yet if I'll read a little of River Runs Red, or just talk about it and Cold Black Hearts and the rest of the books on the way.
I'll be followed by Savannah Russe, Susan Hubbard, Charlaine Harris, Robert Tanenbaum, Jeri Smith-Ready, Samantha Somersby, and Timothy Zahn. A little something for everyone. There will also be cake, prizes, and other fun.
If you can make it to the bash, do so--you won't regret it. If not, you can still order signed books via the store's website or toll-free number. With the help of our dedicated readers and fans, these first 15 years will just be the beginning of a much longer story.
