New Covers done!

15 December, 20211 May, 2022 ~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

So I have a little bit of a back catalogue with some, well, let’s say ‘not so great’ covers. Best I could do at the time, but I’ve learned a little in the meantime. Taken some courses. Listened to some advice. Looked at other people’s covers.

I’m slowly working my way through my novels. In between writing, and getting new things published. It’s a little bit of a job. Patience is my friend.

A few years back I started a series set in the distant future, in a distant planet:

Battle weary after years of interstellar war, Flis Kupe returns home to the quiet peaceful Karnish canal lands on Paulding, her home world. Turns out, times change. The turmoil of pirates, brigands and low lives shatters the peace. All too often.

The first was Arlchip Burnout. It was fun to write, and I knew there were more stories to tell. I noticed (later, believe me it wasn’t intentional) that the title’s initials were A.B. I’d read some of English writer Toby Litt‘s books, where each starts with the next letter of the alphabet (Adventures in Capitalism, Beatniks, Corpsing, deadkidsongs, Exhibitionism, etc). I think his next book is called Quiche.

Figuring, in my naivety I could try something similar, I embarked upon Canal Days. Then my order got mixed up. I got my titles all over. Technically the books can be read in any order (though Arlchip Burnout is the origin story), but what happened was I got to the end of Tombs Under Vaile and got distracted writing other things. I’d left some gaps.

A full page with all the description is on a page on my website here.

I like Amazon’s description of series being ordered (like Lord of the Rings – should be read in order), or unordered (like Sherlock Holmes – read them any old which way). Karnish River Navigations is like Sherlock Holmes – read them in any order. Trouble is I’ve given them ordered names. Second trouble is, I’ve left gaps. Many readers like to know a series is complete before embarking on it.

Guess I need to embark on filling those gaps then.

What’s cool with working on updating the covers, is that I’ve found a new energy to complete the series. I even made a cover for Jackpot Kingdom, though it only exists in rough draft form. Hope to knock it into shape to be out later next year. Then the L.M. book and the R.S. book in 2023. W.X. and Y.Z. can wait a little while. Thinking of some of the titles makes my head spin a little.

Six of the seven books reuse the original art, but in new ways. I like the font, I like the background and I had fun with the colors. I’m no expert designer by any means, but let me tell you, these are way better than they were before.

See the series on Smashwords or at Amazon

Ecosystem 8 – new Venus Vulture album out on Zenapolae

11 December, 2021 ~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

New release – Zen240 – Venus Vulture – Ecosystem 8

Mostly here I’m talking about my writing – after all that’s my main focus. In the background, though, I’m an amateur electronic musician (good to have hobbies, right?). I record and release under the ‘band’ name Venus Vulture. Ambient electronica. I’ve written elsewhere about coming to make ambient music – enjoying listening to it while writing, but having trouble finding it… that’s changed with the advent of the internet, but in the meantime, I found I enjoyed it, so kept making music.

Some of my albums appear on my bandcamp page. Some have come out on netlabels (Resting Bell, Testtube, Zenapolae), and I collaborate with Kendall of December Nightskies as an actual band – Shadows on the Snow, and we have a bunch of releases both independently and on netlabels.

My thanks to arnd from Zenapolae for his patience and back and forth with me while I put together this release. I like his description – “a delicate ambience made with modular synthesis”. That’s what I’m aiming for – delicate ambience.

I’ll write again about the ‘modular synthesis’ side of it – a shift over the last couple of years from computer-based composition to building a modular synth rig. arnd’s put an image of my rig there on the release page.

Ecosystem 8 is free to download.

Goldie – my new novella coming in the January/February issue of Asimov’s

9 December, 20218 December, 2021 ~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

My longer novella “Goldie” will appear in the January/February issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction, available from the middle of December. Look at that amazing cover. I’m so honored to appear in Asimov’s, but to have such a wonderful cover, with the illustration by Dominic Harman, is overwhelming.

He’s captured the story so well.

Two preorders for November and December

30 October, 2021 ~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

For the last couple of years, I’ve released a new book on the 20th of each month. Sometimes a novel, sometimes a collection, and sometimes a standalone shorter piece.

Keeping that up, I’m releasing the final two for the year as preorders already. Might as well. Also, I will be starting the release schedule of a new thriller series for next year, so it’s good to get these out in the world now to give me a moment to focus a little planning for the thrillers and get ready for the first one on January 20th. More on those soon.

Both these new ones are novella length science fiction tales, albiet with very different focuses (as the covers hint, I hope), one very Earth-bound, and the other set in deep space.

Dangerous Machines – November 20th – $2.99 ebook, $5.99 print – available here – cover by Chepko Elelna

Gina Parker explores the underground alien tubes. The mystery of their existence draws her. Deeper and deeper. But the tubes hold more than mysteries. And Gina might just find more than the answers she so desperately seeks.

Load Bearing Member – December 20th – $2.99 ebook, $5.99 print – available here – cover by info793925

Coral Daimeer lugs her wrench around deep space vessel the Derlater. Sensors tell her what to fix. Coral fixes it. Coral’s intuition makes her great at her job. Mostly. A story that explores the question of what can a single crew member do when faced with impossible odds millions of miles from the nearest hardware store.

If you enjoy slightly longer sci fi stories with a heart, you’ll like these ones. Preorders up now, print available a few days before the ebook release date.

More news on the thrillers soon.

Right now I’m deep in the heart of writing the seventh Captain Arlon Stoddard book. It’s crossed the 200 page mark, with still plenty to go. Usually, as with most of my novels, these come in between 300 and 350 page marks, so enough left that I still don’t know the ending, but enough written that it’s feeling like it has some substance.

Hoping to have that out around early next year, depending on various factors. Then on to write a sequel to The Ergs, some more short stories, finish up the fifth of the new thriller series, then see where my writing goes. Feeling like another Captain Arlon Stoddard book might be fun. It had been a while since I’d written one, and I’m having a blast with this one. They really are a lot of fun.

Thanks for reading. Take care out there in the big wild world.

My First Hardback

25 October, 20214 July, 2024 ~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

Amazon have started offering hardback publishing alongside paperback (and ebook, and audio), so, yay. That’s pretty cool. It’s some extra work to get there, and of course they retail for a bit more, but they look great. Better than I expected, honestly. Quick snapshot here doesn’t do it justice.

Quite a feeling, after all these years of ebooks and paperbacks, to hold a hardback of one of my books in my hand. Feel like a real writer, you know (not that I had any doubt, but, well).

And, it only works out to cost a couple of dollars more than the paperback, which is pretty remarkable. $19.99 – here at Amazon.

The paperback is $17.99 and the ebook is $5.99. Same link for Amazon. The ebook is also available at the UBL here, the universal book link taking you on to the retailer of your choice.

Cover art by Brian Vectorartist | Dreamstime. Original post on the release is here.

If writing is fun, go ahead and write

18 October, 202116 October, 2021 ~ Sean Monaghan ~ 2 Comments

Year after year I railed against the Sunday Star Times short story contest for their clause in the T&C which is a simple rights-grab. I even contacted them directly, receiving a ‘thanks, we’ll consider that point next time’, and resulting in no change at all. I’ve given up discussing it, though, with the contest active, my posts from years back suddenly jump up into my stats list. I hope some of those people read it and consider what writers do – licence intellectual property – and reconsider any thoughts of entering the contest.

I won’t enter.

Now, that out of the way, I can rant about something else, in a way related.

Someone passed to me an article from the Sunday Star Times, from October 10 this year. It’s about one of the judges of the contest (shame on you for exploiting writers), and the headline is “If you hate writing and it’s torture, you might be a writer”

Ah, no. There’s just so much wrong with that. If something’s torture, people, don’t do it. Go do something fun. For example, some members of my family love hiking. They go off on these fabulous trips and return weary and exhilarated and with collections of photos of some truly stunning sights. Snow, bush, views forever. I’m envious of some of those experiences. Look at Connor there, in the snow. Loving it.

But me hiking? For hours? In the rain, to reach the hut?

For me, that would be torture. So guess, what? I’m not a hiker. Guess what? When they go hiking, I stay home and write. I stay home and write because writing is a joy. Writing is fun. So I would revise that headline to be more like:

If you love writing and it’s a joy, you might be a writer.

There.

Strata, and a performance

16 October, 2021 ~ Sean Monaghan ~ 2 Comments

strata 1 Taking a leap into the unknown, going, as they say ‘out of my comfort zone’, tonight marks the first Venus Vulture live performance. This is at Swampfest, the Palmerston North annual event showcasing local musicians (and, this year, hosting me).

In about five hours. Hmm! I’ve written here before about the fun I have making music and seeing what I can come up with. Ambient soundscapes and drones and quiet minimal stuff.

But this is a different thing. Live. Performance.

Erp.

Now, I do make music using a modular synthesizer, so there’s an element of just turning it on and sound comes out. Quite distinct from having to hold the chords on a guitar as the player strums, or, well, actually playing any kind of non-electronic instrument.

I’m using my Unpredictability Machine – which you can see here on Modulargrid. Performing a piece called “Strata”

So, yeah, I do need to turn the knobs at the right time, and cue up the samples in the right order. All while standing in front of people. Actual people. You know, real musicians, who tend to be the people who come to Swampfest.

Fifteen minutes is all. Not long, right. Should be fine. Heh. Do I seem intimidate? Nah.

Anyway, in the lead up and preparing for the night, I’ve recorded some of my sessions and released them on Bandcamp. Pay what you like, or just have a listen online.

With focus, the show might even sound pretty close to this.

And thanks to so many people for their encouragement in taking this leap.

New standalone SF story coming soon

26 September, 2021 ~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

After publishing a several novels this year, I’m going round out things with a few short stories, before kicking off with more novels again next year, still working to keep up the business of having something new out on the 20th of every month.

“A Cultural Exchange” is a sci-fi action story which I think reflects some growing interest in hunter-gatherer societies and how very straightforward that seems compared to our increasingly busy, noisy and complex world.

That cover? I am a definite fan of Grandfailure’s artwork – it’s featured on several of my books. I suspect that I could get something more ‘sci-fi’ for these, but I find the images very evocative.

Blurb:

Arriving in the deep alien forests of Corrul, Tim Maxter and his crew hardly expect instant hostility from the locals.

Sixty light years from Earth to find someone pounding on the spaceship’s door. Welcome to a planet filled with surprises.

Surprises that will cut Maxter to his core.

A story from Sean Monaghan, author of Lydia’s Mollusk and The Ergs.

Available from the usual retailers as an ebook ($2.99): click the universal link, and from Amazon and others in real hold-it-in-your-hands print ($5.99). Print out now, ebook from October 20th, but available for preorder. 10,000 words, more or less, about 50 pages.

I’m enjoying this little period of working on formatting to get something of a consistent look. I’ve been going back and redoing covers – some of the thrillers will start looking more like each other instead of random hurled-together agglomerations. I like the kind of SF font look on the last three books:

As you can see, I’ve discovered that I can push my name a little bigger on the latest one – I do get paranoid about the bleed and so on with Amazon print books, so end up being too conservative.

In other news – The Ergs (as above) is now also available in hardback from Amazon. I’ve yet to receive my copy, but it’s my first hardback, so that’s exciting. Amazon have just started offering this service, so going forward, I’ll likely be putting all of my novels into hardback (tougher to justify for standalone short stories) and, time-willing, will try to get some earlier novels into hardback too. The Captain Arlon Stoddard series? That might deserve it, I think.

Release Day – The Ergs

19 September, 20218 February, 2022 ~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

My SF adventure novel The Ergs is out now, from the usual retailers.

$5.99 ebook, $16.99 print

Click/tap here to go to the universal book link and then on to your favourite retailer.

Essaline loves exploring the old hidden relics out on the erg. Tolesse has many secrets. A history dating back to the earliest times when humans first inhabited the planet.

But do humans belong?

A twisted tale of hidden destiny and people who will stop at nothing to get what they need.

Even from the innocent.

The Ergs – new SF adventure novel out September 21

11 September, 20218 February, 2022 ~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

I have always liked the raw elemental nature of deserts. In New Zealand we have little in the way of desert. There are some wonderful dune fields way up north (I even considered working with a photograph I’d taken earlier this year for the new cover – left that in favour of Joshua Woroniecki’s wonderful illustration – see below), and there is the Rangipo desert, though this is a high-plateau area, most of which is army reserve, so not accessible to the public. Nor is it anything like that classic endless dune sea that you might think of when you imagine the Sahara, nor wide open hot lands as you would find in Australia, Chile and Peru, or even the Western U.S.

I have been lucky enough to travel to some of those places. The dry, hot wind whipping across a dune crest is something to experience.

I have written a few books and stories set in deserts – it’s fun to go play in these desolate places – both Raphael Marooned and Desert Creepers (part of the Captain Arlon Stoddard series) came out earlier this year. Set on distant worlds, where the rules of deserts may be a little different to here.

One thing I try to avoid with my SF worlds, is making a planet have all one environments. I have the feeling that there would be at least some variety. My new world, Tolesse, does have ice caps. It has some flora that thrives in tough ecosystems, closer to the the ice caps. But mostly, it’s desert. Bare rock. Sand. Barchan dunes. A few salt pans around, maybe. Certainly some local fauna. Oases with fruit palms. A culture of nomads, and feudal lords (I suppose) and some conflict (well, a fair bit of conflict).

I am looking forward to the movie Dune, coming out in October. I loved the first three Dune books. Transported to that wonderful place.

It may seem opportunistic to release this book so close to the movie’s release. For a moment I was even tempted to name it just “Erg”, but that would have been a little much, perhaps.

So, yes, why not put it out now? It’s ready, I think it’s a fun read (at least, I had fun writing it), and it’s not Dune. There are no sandworms or stillsuits. No spice, nor anything like the Bene Gesserit. There is technology, though it’s unequally distributed. There are ancient ruins and a megalomanic ruler.

Here’s how I describe the book in the blurb:

Essaline loves exploring the old hidden relics out on the erg. Tolesse has many secrets. A history dating back to the earliest times when humans first inhabited the planet.

But do humans belong?

A twisted tale of hidden destiny and people who will stop at nothing to get what they need.

Even from the innocent.

The Ergs – available from September 21st from your friendly online retailer, in both print ($17.99) and as an ebook ($5.99).

I think there’s space here for some more books too. I know some writers plan out their series and get the all neatly scheduled up (I do have thriller series coming out like that next year – with three and a half books written and the fifth in the back of my mind), but in general I tend to let my inner writing child just write whatever it feels like, and then I put things out.

Of course, I should write some more of those Captain Arlon Stoddard books. And some more of the Karnish River Navigation series. And there’s a sequel to Hunting Shellot around somewhere. So many things to write and only 168 hours in the week.

And I also need to tidy up this site to make it actually something vaguely close to up to date (sidebar, I’m looking at you). And I have a bunch of cover updates to do. I did manage to update the two Emily Jade thriller covers recently, making something that looks closer to professional, and more on point for genre. And I have to get that mailing list going. Did I mention that there are only 168 hours in the week?

Thanks for reading. Take care in these challenging times.