Like a bad penny [writing]

Posted by Gary W. Olson on September 28, 2023

And so goes by another year and a month…

I’m determined to post here more often. At least enough to flush entries from previous years and… er… decades off the front page of this here blog. Thus, I am typing this now. Hello!

Hello.

It has been an eventful year since the previous post (August 2022). I’ve stopped and started on the novel rather a lot, amidst moving from one city to another and other assorted interruptive events. The novel not being, for the record, Redscale: Severance (though I may revisit and retool what I did get done with that one someday), and not (yet) the collection of short fiction I had in the works.

What it is, is Tropic of Madness, a comic mad science thriller set on a South Seas island home to all manner of weird and ill-considered experimentation. I’m up to 68.8k in verbage on my first-ish draft, and it looks like it’ll end up in the 120k range by the end, though a vigorous editing will likely claw it back to the 100k range. I’m letting my freak flag fly with this one, and am really looking forward to unleashing it on anyone standing still long enough to read it. Though I don’t know when that will be yet, so you’ve got a good head start.

In other news, I went back to the previous post and removed the AI-generated artwork that once graced that entry. It was a fun novelty when it first came along, but I soured on it on learning about all the stolen bits that went into it. I do promise that any art that turns up here in the future will either be by my hand, or purchased/licensed for use here (as is this blog’s title bar art).

It’s good to be back. Again. And again. And again. And…

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Gary W. Olson is the author of the dark fantasy novel Brutal Light and a contributor to the dark fiction anthologies Fairly Wicked Tales and The C.A.M. Charity Anthology: Horror and Science Fiction #1. His blog originates here.

The Prodigal Author… Returns? [it burns! it burns!]

Posted by Gary W. Olson on August 18, 2022

The Prodigal Author Returns or Something

Am I back? Did I leave? Was I ever really here?

Still trying to figure that one out. More to come on that and the new novel soon. And by soon, I mean, ‘in less than 5 years this time.’ Probably.

In the meantime, there is the above artwork, created via Midjourney AI. It has hints in it, as to the nature of the new work — a much less self-serious one than what I’ve had published in the past. But that’s for later. Hope everyone reading this is in fine fettle.

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Gary W. Olson is the author of the dark fantasy novel Brutal Light and a contributor to the dark fiction anthologies Fairly Wicked Tales and The C.A.M. Charity Anthology: Horror and Science Fiction #1. His blog originates here.

Brutal Light back in print! [brutal light]

Posted by Gary W. Olson on August 30, 2017

“When the light comes… pray for darkness. All Kagami Takeda wants is to be left alone, so that no one else can be destroyed by the madness she keeps at bay. Her connection to the Radiance–a merciless and godlike sea of light–has driven her family insane and given her lover strange abilities and terrible visions. However, the occult forces who covet her access to the Radiance are relentless in their pursuit. Worse, the Radiance itself has created an enemy who can kill her–a fate which would unleash its brutal light on a defenseless city.”

About nine months ago, my first and so far only novel, Brutal Light went out of print and e-print after I regained the rights from its former publisher. I’d meant to bring it back sooner, but, between moving and family drama and my secret life of fighting crime in spandex, there just wasn’t time.

Until… waiiiiit for it… riiight about… now!

Brutal Light is now back, and… well, still the same book as before. Only now it’s available only from Amazon, in e-book and in print. I’ve improved the formatting on both–the Kindle edition now doesn’t have spaces between paragraphs, and the print edition has less tiny print (and the title is actually visible on the spine). The prices are down to somewhere in the vicinity of reasonable: $2.99 for the Kindle edition, and $9.99 for the print edition.

For more, including an excerpt of the prologue, check out my Brutal Light page.

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The C.A.M. Charity Anthologies now available! [c.a.m. anthology]

Posted by Gary W. Olson on June 8, 2017

“All of the CAM Charity Anthologies are made up of donated short fiction stories. Some of these tales are written by well-known authors, others by ordinary people who just want to try and make a difference. 100% of the profits from these collections will go to charity as explained below.

“Michael Robb Mathias Jr. aka M. R. Mathias, owner of Mathias Publishing, is producing the C.A.M anthologies in honor of his mother, Carol Ann Mathias, who passed away in 2017 after a grueling five year battle with cancer. The profits of these collections will be divided equally, each year, between three of her favorite charities.

“A collection of Fantasy stories is also available and we hope there are more volumes to come.”

The C.A.M. Charity Anthology: Horror & Science Fiction #1 is an anthology of science fiction and horror originally published June 8th, 2017, by Mathias Publishing, with cover art by Jack Hoyle and interior art by Gideon Deschain, and includes my horror short story The Path of Needles. It’s available as a Kindle e-book from Amazon.

While you’re at it, get The C.A.M. Charity Anthology: Fantasy #1 as well! More great fiction, more cancer-fighting donations — this one too is available from Amazon.

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Table of Contents:
“The Uninvited Guest” by Brian Barr
“Giving It Fourteen Percent” by Ani Fox
“Autumn’s Breath” by Michael Robb
“Inbound” by J.T. Arralle
“The Devil & Klaus Kristiansen” by Jeremy Hicks
“The Path of Needles” by Gary W. Olson
“Star Dragon 13” by Michael Ender
“Ozymandias Revisited” by Ani Fox
“They Thought the Brain Would Be the Hardest Part” by Michael Pogach
“Brainwaves” by Ed Faunce
“Upgrade” by J.T. Arralle
“Demons” by J.T. Arralle
“The Bungen-Strausse” by Matt Broadway

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the long way ’round again, again [it burns! it burns!, writing]

Posted by Gary W. Olson on June 6, 2017

Look, I didn’t mean to be gone for so long. I took a wrong turn on the expressway, and next thing I knew, I was in Tijuana, herding llamas and putting worms in those little bottles. You know how it is. I only just now got back.

Well, ok, maybe not. Maybe I just took an ill-advised two-and-a-half-year detour into buying, owning, and then ultimately selling a house someplace I shouldn’t have considered in the first place. Maybe I made a few starts at writing during that time, but couldn’t keep it going because of the constant distractions and pressure. Maybe there were llamas, but they were herding me.

Whatever the case, all those maybes are in the past. I’m in a new place, the lessons are learned, the pressures are lessened, the llamas are on their way to Hollywood, and I’ve carved out a regular block of time when I can just write (or edit, or blog, or whatever). I’m finally back to writing.

I’ve revamped the blog, and this site–added a new picture of my meaty mug, and cut down on the clutter of the sidebars. I also added a mobile theme for people viewing the site on their magic rectangles, figuring it was about time the site joined this decade.

As far as my books go… I regained the rights to my novel Brutal Light at the start of this year, and plan on self-publishing a new edition later this summer. I took down all my self-published short stories at the same time, and am planning on publishing my first collection in the spring of 2018.

Writing-wise, my top goal for the last seven months of this year is to finish my next novel, Redscale: Severance, though I’ll likely do a couple short stories in that time as well.

Finally, I do have a new short story, “The Path of Needles,” that will soon be published, in The C.A.M. Charity Anthology: Horror & Science Fiction #1 in a couple days. I’ll ramble on about that in another entry.

It’s good to be back! Watch out for llamas!

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Fairly Wicked Tales reissued by Ragnarok Publications [Fairly Wicked Tales]

Posted by Gary W. Olson on April 28, 2015

Fairly Wicked Tales, the anthology of twisted fairy tales (including my contribution, “Sweetheart, the Dream is Not Ended”) which was published by Angelic Knight Press last summer, only to go out of print at the end of the year when Ragnarok Publications bought AKP, has now been reissued by Ragnarok (under its AKP imprint). To your left is the hella-awesome new cover art by Shawn T. King.

The e-book is available from Amazon only at the moment, though I expect it will be arriving at other fine sellers of e-consumables soon. The print edition with the new cover isn’t available yet, but should be soon.

For more information on FWT, check out my Fairly Wicked Tales page, which includes links to reviews as well as buy links, and will be updated as un-irregularly as I can manage given that my brain got changed out for a whack-a-mole game last year and I keep eating the replacements I order.

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Gary W. Olson is the author of the dark fantasy novel Brutal Light and a contributor to the dark fiction anthology Fairly Wicked Tales. His blog originates here. Fairly Wicked Tales cover art: Shawn T. King.