The 2013 Scorecard

2013 was an interesting year for me on the writing front, mostly because I followed the lead of Shane Jiraiya Cummings and Hugh Howey, and tried self-publishing through Amazon and Smashwords with far greater success than I could have imagined when I first set out.

Despite the naysayers of the established pros and the fear self-publishing is generating in the world today, I think it is a great opportunity for writers, offering more than one path to success in the industry. I've been able to release collections of my science fiction, weird fiction and reboot my Harrison Peel spies versus the Cthulhu Mythos series, as well as working with various authors to develop sampler books of our works. I've also been able to work with Albedo One to get their magazine out in Kindle and ePub versions too. The reach to my audience has dramatically improved and I'm getting more positive reviews than I've ever had.

If you are sitting on the fence with self-publishing, I'd suggest the worst that will happen if you do is that no one will read your book or review it, and that's no worse of than where you are right now. Even if you only get bad reviews they help, because readers disagree with reviewers and buy it anyway. Reviewers, if you don't want a book to sell, say nothing.

The other fantastic news this year was that I was asked to become Art Editor with Albedo One magazine, and was able to help the team now led by Robert Neilson and Frank Ludlow to produce issue 44, with some very excellent tales included within. Robert, Frank and the rest of the team have been very supportive of my writing over the years, and it is an honour to join the team in a more senior capacity, after years as a reviewer.

Okay, here are the publications. The following ebooks were released this year:

• The Entropy Conflict (SF)
• The Uncertainty Bridge (SF)
• The Nightmare Dimension (Horror and Weird Fiction)
• The Impossible Object: The Harrison Peel Files Book 1 (Cthulhu Mythos)
• The Weaponized Puzzle: The Harrison Peel Files Book 2 (Cthulhu Mythos)

New stories published this year include:

• "Driven Underground" in The Impossible Object (Amazon Direct Publishing)
• "The Weaponized Puzzle" in The Weaponized Puzzle (Amazon Direct Publishing)
• "The Entropy Conflict" in The Entropy Conflict (Amazon Direct Publishing)
• "The Road to Afghanistan" in What Scares the Boogeyman? anthology
• "Playgrounds of Angolaland" in Eldritch Chrome edited by Brian M Sammons and Glynn Barrass (Chaosium)
• "Romero 2.0" in Undead & Unbound with Brian M Sammons
• "The Dream Quest of a Thousand Cats" in The Nightmare Dimension (Amazon Direct Publishing)

The following books I edited and were released this year:

• Undead & Unbound with Brian M. Sammons and published by Chaosium
• Extreme Planets with David Kernot and Jeff Harris is at the printers but won't be out until 2014, so it doesn't yet make the list.

I had lots of reprints for 2013 most in my ebooks, but of note was "Subtle Invasion" appearing in
Best Tales of the Apocalypse edited by D.L. Snell and Bobbie Metevier, which makes this the third time the story has appeared in a "Best of" collection. The other was "The Masked Messenger" with John Goodrich appearing in issue 22 of Lovecraft eZine.

As I said before, I contributed to launching the Australian Horror Writers Sampler 2013 and the Cthulhu Mythos Writers Sampler 2013, both of which have been a great success in promoting all the authors involved. I was also Art Editor for Albedo One #44. I also wrote "The Jermyn Horror" and with Peter Gilham "The Crystal of Chaos" appearing in the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game book, The House of R'lyeh.

2014 will see my short stories in the anthology Extreme Planets, and the magazines Albedo One and Lovecraft eZine, and a chapter in the forthcoming reprint of the classic role-playing game, Horror on the Orient Express. I will also be releasing more Harrison Peel collections starting with Book 3: The Elder Codex.

Thanks to everyone who has supported my writing this year, especially to reviewers who go a long way in making a writer become noticed. Special thanks to David Kernot, who as always has been a great sounding board on my writing.

Cthulhu Mythos Writers Sampler 2013

A late post but this year I appeared in the Cthulhu Mythos Writers Sampler 2013, available for 99c from Amazon, which I assisted in pulling together.

 

The book has proved to be rather successful considering the number of downloads and positive reviews. My contribution included a sample from my Harrison Peel series. Here is the blurb:

Inside this book you’ll find a taste of some of today’s top Cthulhu Mythos and Lovecraftian writers.

“The Great White Bed” – A senile old man makes a deal with a strange being for a new lease on life. What happens when a book reads you?

“The Cellar Gods” – In the 1940s, a young medical student protects a beautiful Asian woman from prejudiced townsfolk, only to discover she is connected to mysterious entities from an unholy dimension.

“The Locked Door” – The visions of a psychic threatens the existence of a secret order.

“In the Gyre” – A research vessel investigating a growing pollution problem in the ocean finds that something else has discovered a use for our waste material—something designed for building, and growing, and multiplying.

“The Gate and the Way” – Poking around the local spook house for redeemable cans and bottles, two brothers stumble upon cosmic horrors from beyond space and time.

“I Cannot Begin To Tell You” – A desperate father kidnaps his infant son and flees to a remote cabin to wait out an apocalypse only he can perceive. Is the man psychotic? Or is the boy a conduit for an ancient malevolence from the depths of Time?

“Cutter” – A man and boy are trapped in an abandoned house by plague of bizarre monsters.

“Graveyard Orbit” – In the future, the deep space exploration vessel Wellington encounters the unthinkable orbiting the uncharted planet Osiris II. Amid the debris of a trillion alien corpses, the Wellington’s Captain Walker will stumble upon an unlikely ally—and potentially, the secrets of the universe.

“The Weaponized Puzzle” – A Russian spy steals an alien artifact from the Australian Government which soon transforms into a prison, and Australian spy Harrison Peel must solve its various puzzles and confront its captive horrors to escape again.

Fiction by Don Webb, Jeffrey Thomas, Brian M, Sammons, Peter Rawlik, William Meikle, Kevin Lucia, David Kernot, Scott R. Jones, C.J. Henderson, Cody Goodfellow, David Dunwoody, Shane Jiraiya Cummings and David Conyers. Cover illustration by Paul Mudie.

This sampler collection provides links to the various author’s works, personal interviews, and further information on their e-books.

Step inside, and discover the newest horror releases lurking in the nightmare lands of Lovecraft…

Albedo One (Issue 44) Released on Kindle

Out now on Amazon Kindle.

A race with hounds across Europe to seek true love, a dying world plagued by invading jelly, a soulful train journey through the wastelands of purgatory, and an angry father who might have saved the wrong daughter.

Issue 44 of Ireland’s longest running science fiction, fantasy and horror magazine, Albedo One, features new fiction from Ian Wild, James Carney, Steve Billings, Alexandra Fleetwood, Dave Siddall and Eric M. Witchey; an in-depth review with Philip K. Dick award winning author Simon Morden; cover art from Charlie Terrell; and reviews from Juliet E. McKenna, John Kenny, Peter Loftus and David Conyers.

Print and ebup copies not far away. I was Art Editor on this one, so very proud of the  outcome. Check out Albedo One for more news on this issue.

Australian Horror Writers Sampler 2013

A group of Aussie authors got together and produced this sampler, featuring seven authors and one Australian artist. I'm one of them, and here is the blurb:

Inside this book you’ll find a taste of some of Australia’s top horror writers.

“The Grief School” by Matthew Tait – as a man of chance, Myles Lacey understood all too well the whims of the universe, and that meant death was a constant in life.

“Harry's Dead Poodle” by David Kernot – tells us there is more to people than what you see on the outside, like ex-butcher Harry Mills, who is good with a knife.

“Hear No Evil” by Shane Jiraiya Cummings – Blaine wakes in hospital after an accident. Although deaf, only he can hear a distant, desperate scream. What evil will he face when he answers the call?

“The Nightmare Dimension” by David Conyers – modern day mage Gordon McColley might not have sold his soul to the demons of hell, but they still have work for him to do, and he can’t refuse.

“The End of Ever” by Troy Barnes – In a world where nightmares reign, an unlikely group of friends must face the unknown and travel through the sinister heart of Ever in search of a way home. Friendships will be torn apart. Lives will be lost. Will anyone live happy after Ever?

This sampler collection provides links to the various author’s works, personal interviews, and further information on their e-books.

Step inside, and discover the horror lurking in the Land of Oz…

Here is the Amazon.com review of my story:

"The Nightmare Dimension is another rollicking good novella from David Conyers. Take a pinch of Clive Barker, a drop of Hellblazer, a good glug of quality writing, a handful of magic and demonology and shake vigorously and you have this heady brew of a story. Conyers never fails to impress with the sheer fun that he conveys through his writing."

Download it here from Amazon.com for only 99c.

Best Tales of the Apocalypse featuring "Subtle Invasion"

Best Tales of the Apocalypse edited by D.L. Snell and Bobbie Metevier is now released. It took a while to be released, considering the manuscript was completed more than 5 years ago, but I'm excited nonetheless mostly because of the authors I'm sharing space with.

In these 14 shattering tales by some of the genre’s first and final scribes, the world doesn’t just end once. These are the horsemen, the trumpeting angels. Their words are the bowls of wrath, dumped again and again. This is the book that’s been centuries in the making. The Final Book. And the choir’s singing one last Psalm:

The End is the best part.

BEST TALES OF THE APOCALYPSE

Joe McKinney - Tim Curran - J.F. Gonzalez - Michael Oliveri = David Conyers - Lee Moan - Rebecca Day - Derek J. Goodman - Lyn C.A. Gardner - Ian Randal Strock - Michael Sellars - Dario Ciriello - Daniel R. Robichaud - Ian Rogers - Patrice Sarath

My story is "Sublte Invasion", which first appeared in The Black Book of Horror, was shortlisted for the Australian Shadows Award and appeared in Australian Dark Fantasy & Horror Volume 3, and now in my collection The Nightmare Dimension. Yes, a very successful story.

Available from Permuted Press and Amazon.com.

The Weaponized Puzzle: The Harrison Peel Files Book 2 Released

Harrison Peel is back in the second in my rebooted series of spies versus the horrors of the Cthulhu Mythos. If geometry, the five perfect solids, shoggoths, Elder Things, military action and weird science fiction is your thing, then check it out, from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Smashwords (epub version).

Here is the opening scene:

McMurdo Station, Ross Island, Antarctica, June 1995

The South Pole mid-winter was a world enveloped in both ice and darkness, and Coaldale hated everything about it.

McMurdo was the largest official bastion of human settlement in the great white continent, the only location for hundreds, if not thousands of miles where the lights were on. It was two in the afternoon, base time, but only stars shone beyond the settlement. US SEALs and Rangers newly deployed to the ice were being inducted in the temporary facilities recently commandeered by the US Department of Defense. 

One of those Rangers was Captain Byrd Coaldale. He was late arriving, having been delayed by another briefing, but he also didn’t care that he was late. His only show of respect was to enter the building quietly, to sit towards the back where he rubbed his hands together warming them. Listening to the inducting officer drone on had to be preferable than enduring the bitter outside cold.

A silent black and white film ran through a digital projector at the far end of the briefing room. The footage was circa 1950s. A man in a fur coat with UN insignia stood adjacent to what resembled a gigantic cucumber with a starfish on its apex and five vine-like appendages emerging from its mid-section. Then it moved. As Coaldale recovered from his shock he realized he was staring at a living entity.

It was one of those alien’s everyone in the Pole had talked of so often since his arrival, spoken of in tones that painted the creatures in reverence and awe. The projected black and white UN man played a pipe, although there was no sound with the footage. The monster presumably responded with piping of its own. Coaldale had thought it some kind of put up, until this very moment. Like a switch had been turned on inside him and suddenly he was interested in everything the inducting officer was saying.

“This,” spoke up Robert Lynch, the Navy SEAL Lieutenant leading the briefing, “is a Pentapod.”

Lynch gave the crowd a moment to let the words sink in. If the officer was expecting awe, they gave none. They were silent like corpses.

“Any questions so far?”

No one answered.

Standing half in the light of the projector and half hidden by it, Lynch pointed to the cucumber shape like he had seen one every day for a year, and perhaps he had.

“This is project RESOLUTION ZERO archive footage. The man you are looking at is Colonel Doctor Wingate Peaslee, who was a legend in our circles. Back then we had limited communications with the ‘Visitors’, as the RZ guys like to refer to them, and Peaslee led much of our work. The Pentapods taught us a thing or too. Things we really didn’t want to know…”

Coaldale shuddered and not from the cold. He had heard all about the Pentapods, read all the reports, but he had yet to see one in the flesh. Film footage was the next best thing, and had proved more disturbing than he had expected. The problem was it didn’t look fake, despite his recently marveling at the digital special effects in the Jurassic Park movie a few years back. Anything could be doctored, and yet an undefined and very sinister element captured in the footage made it genuine. 

“These days we rarely see the Pentapods, yet we continue to carry on the tasks they burdened us with all those decades ago. The Pentapods however,” Lynch emphasized, “are not our problem.”

He changed video files. New footage from the same era was of an icy desert seen from an airplane. At first Coaldale didn’t know what he was looking at until he identified men on the ground, tiny individuals filmed from an airplane high above the fields of Antarctic snow. They were running, fast and away from a threat Coaldale could not see. He looked for the pursuer, until he realized his mind wasn’t imaging a hunter much bigger than the men. When he spotted the amorphous shape the size of a mining dump truck, all white and tentacles and eyes and mouths that seemed to shift in and out of a jelly-like consistency, he squirmed. The pulsating shape rolled over one man crushing him without slowing an iota. It was like watching a tsunami engulf unsuspecting bathers on a populated beach.

Lynch let the film roll, as one by one each fleeing man was crushed. They had no hope, but they all ran regardless, until the very end.

“That,” explained Lynch, “is a shoggoth.”

A private up the front puked. The acidic smell quickly filled the room, and he puked again. No one said a word and all left the young soldier to soak in his mostly digested lunch. The private quickly excused himself until Lynch told him to sit down. There was more learning to do.

“This shoggoth was spotted in 1961,” the inducting officer explained. “It disappeared shortly after this footage was taken. We haven’t seen another one this big since, but we know they are many more in the depths of Pentapod City.”

A young Navy officer raised her arm. “Sir, how do we fight them?”

Lynch laughed unkindly. “You don’t. You run as fast as you can, and you hope you can run faster than your buddies.”

Coaldale laughed too, understanding the sick joke he had signed up for. All the men in the footage had run. It proved only that the advantage of speed was in being crushed last. It would be him running soon, for it was his mission to lead a team of US Rangers into the depths of the Pentapod City and map it, and that was where the shoggoths presumably still existed.

“How did you survive?” Coaldale demanded of Lynch, from the back and in the shadows.

The SEAL officer was all seriousness when he said, “I ran the fastest.”

“So the ‘shoggoth’ gave up?”

“No. I was in a team of a hundred men. Only three of us got away because we ran in the opposite direction, away from the largest flock of fleeing men.”

Flock.

Coaldale snorted. He knew then why he had been sent to Antarctica. He was just another sheep being led to the slaughter.

The Entropy Conflict and The Impossible Object e-Pub Editions

The Entropy Conflict and The Impossible Object are now both available as epub editions, for those of you who don't own Kindles. The Nightmare Dimension and The Uncertainty Bridge to follow.

New Review of The Impossible Object

I was rather pleased to see this review go up the other day, of the first my connected novella series The Impossible Object. at Best Science Fiction Stories.

"The Impossible Object is what I have been waiting to read of Lovecraftian fiction since pretty much forever. It delves into the specifics of the entities of the Mythos, presents horrifying sights and hints at a far greater mystery (and threat) in quick succession, making the reader dive head-first into the horrifying world that is the world of Harisson Peel."

So if you are sitting on the fence about whether  or not to read my book, the rest of the  review by Konstantine Paradias might sway you one way or the other.

Well, I better hurry up and get the sequel, The Weaponized Puzzle, up on Kindle soon.

Two Honourable Mentions for "The R'lyeh Singularity"

"The R'lyeh Singularity" which appeared in Permuted Press's Cthulhu Unbound 3 has gathered numerous positive reviews has now received honour mentions in two Year's Best collections.

The first is in Best Horror of the Year Vol. 5 edited Ellen Datlow and the second in The Year's Best Australian Fantasy & Horror, 2012 edited by Liz Grzyb and Talie Helene.

Some reviews on "The R'lyeh Singularity" on Amazon.com:

"Conyers has an elegant grasp on quantum physics, while Sammons knows how to get all the "big military toys" in the sandbox. They both fuse together to create some kind of mad orchestrator that doles out awesomeness by the handfuls."

"For those interested in seeing how the American government might handle national security threats of the Cthulhu-kind, I would say this one is worth the price of admission on its own."

"I devoured "The R'lyeh Singularity" in a single sitting, turned back to the opening page and did it again. This is a big budget Hollywood summer movie in novella form, though far smarter than anything Michael Bay would bring to theaters."

"The story was high energy spy thriller that integrates the horror of the Cthulhu mythos effortlessly."

Undead & Unbound on the Shelves

My latest anthology edited with Brian M. Sammons, Undead & Unbound, has just been released on Amazon.com.

 



 

 

Undead & Unbound  celebrates those who have returned from the grave — in all their glory and in whatever form they take. You will find the famous blood-drinkers and flesh eaters here, but also ghosts, patched-together reanimates, fiends of myth and folklore, and some not-so-easily-identifiable creatures from beyond the grave.

Nineteen tales take the undead to their limits. From the distant past to the far-flung future, and to all corners of the Earth, the undead are eternal and everywhere: symbiotes, parasites, monster mash-ups and ghoulish grins, bleak tales of inescapable dread, an ancient evil from a far-away land with unspeakable dietary needs, a boy and his…well, it’s not a dog. History is brought to (un)life. Ghosts, specters, phantoms and haunts of every sort. Not-so-easily-classifiable stories that do new things with the basic premise of what’s alive, what’s dead, and what’s neither.

And yes, you lovers of all things zombie—fear-not, for your favorite flesh eaters are here but, thankfully, not exactly as you would expect them.

Undead & Unbound celebrates all things from beyond the grave, the different, and no matter how old the bones, new life can always be found.

Selected and edited by Brian M. Sammons and David Conyers. Cover art by Paul Mudie. 288 pages. Trade Paperback.

The Tales Included:

• Blind Item by Cody Goodfellow
• Dead Baby Keychain Blues by Gary McMahon
• A Personal Apocalypse by Mercedes M. Yardley
• The Unexpectedby Mark Allan Gunnells
• Incarnate by David Dunwoody
• Marionettes by Robert Neilson
• Undead Night of the Undeadest Undead by C.J. Henderson
• I Am Legion by Robert M. Price
• When Dark Things Sleep by Damien Walters Grintalis
• Descanse En Paz by William Meikle
• Thunder in Old Kilpatrick by Gustavo Bondoni
• Phallus Incarnate by Glynn Owen Barrass
• Wreckers by Tom Lynch
• Scavenger by Oscar Rios
• In the House of Millions of Years by John Goodrich
• Romero 2.0 by Brian M. Sammons and David Conyers
• Mother Blood by Scott David Aniolowski
• The Unforgiving Court by David Schembri
• North of the Arctic Circle by Peter Rawlik

New Kindle Book: The Nightmare Dimension

My latest collection, The Nightmare Dimension, is now available on Kindle.

"David Conyers is like the physicist who is all too happy to remind us that the solid world is only an illusion. Time and again, Conyers rips open the universe for us, to show us how empty it is, and how dark." - D.L. Snell, author of Pavlov's Dogs

Collected together for the first time are thirteen tales of the best Cthulhu Mythos horror and weird short stories written by award-winning Australia speculative fiction author, David Conyers.
A wartime spy rescues a woman from the Sahara who has walked unscathed from a massacre of a thousand men. A mother sailing the ocean on a family holiday finds herself lost on a cargo ship where all the crew are made of paper. A business man becomes trapped in his hotel room because gravity has unexpectedly reversed for him. A reckless driver commits a serious crime and is forced to see out his twenty year sentence as a dog. Every story is a nightmare from which the victims cannot escape.

The collection includes the following stories: "Dream Machine" (Australian Shadows Finalist), "The Nightmare Dimension", "Cactus", "The Lord of the Law" (Australian Horror Writers Fiction Award Finalist), "Sister of the Sands", "The Dream Quest of a Thousand Cats", "Winds of Nzambi" with David Kernot (Australian Horror Writers Fiction Award Winner), "Sweet as Decay" with David Witteveen, "The Swelling", "From The Sick Trees", "Homo Canis" (Australian Horror Writers Fiction Award Winner), "Six-Legged Shadows" with Brian M Sammons and "Subtle Invasion" (Australian Shadows Finalist).

Win Copies of The Eye of Infinity

Lovecraft eZine has a competition going on at their site at the moment, where you can win one of three signed copies of my Harrison Peel novella, The Eye of Infinity, published by Perilous Press and illustrated by Nick Gucker.

In the same competition you can win one of three signed copies of William Holloway's The Immortal Body.

Issue 24 of The Lovecraft eZine is now online. To be entered into the random drawing, all you have to do is comment on one or more of the stories or essays in the issue. 

Iain Banks (1954-2013)

The great Iain Banks as died, a fantastic author who was a huge influence on my writing. I was particularly fond of Consider Phlebas, which I still consider one of my top 10 favourite books of all time. To me it remains one of the best space operas ever written.

He wrote consistently good novels, in both science fiction and literary fiction, Use of Weapons, The Player of Games, Surface Detail, The Wasp Factory, Walking on Glass, The Bridge, Crow Road and Complicity to name my favourites. He will be missed.

I interviewed Iain a couple of years ago for Albedo One issue 41. The editorial team there say that interview will be up on site soon. I'll post when it is.

New Kindle Book: The Entropy Conflict

My latest e-book, The Entropy Conflict has just gone up on line at Amazon around the world, with more of my science fiction short stories, including the never before publisher titular story.

"Conyers delivers inventive SF with a unique perspective on society and the human condition-well worth the read." - Jay Caselberg, author of Wyrmhole

"Emergency Rebuild" - on the frozen surface of Mars, Liam Richter barely survives a horrific accident, but does he deserve to live?

"The Advertising Imperative" - in a marketing-saturated Solar System, Natalya Serov seeks to distinguish her product, but is her solution also the problem?

"Soft Viscosity" - deep in the jungles of South America, Gloria McKenzie seeks to avenge a brother's death, but does retribution make her the terrorist?

"Three Shots" - in a corporate dominated future, Casey wants nothing more than to get ahead, but will falling in love jeopardize more than just her career?

"The Entropy Conflict" - on a distant world, Donna Kettner battles an alien invader she cannot defeat, but is it the universe that is her real enemy?

In the vein of Iain M Banks, Alastair Reynolds, Peter F Hamilton and Neal Asher, THE ENTROPY CONFLICT features five short stories from Australian science fiction author, David Conyers.

New Kindle Book: The Uncertainty Bridge

Following on from the last post, I've also released some of my 'cyberpunk' near future Earth tales on one collection on Amazon Kindle, The Uncertainty Bridge.

This will be the first of several of my science fiction works collected again, and my foray into the world on online publishing.

Here is the blurb:

Black Water — in a poverty stricken Africa, water specialist Joseph Nuwangi hopes to scam a corporation, but will his conscience be his own undoing?

Aftermath — in a continent at war with itself, Donna Young is forced by a neural implant to obey every command of her superior, but can she protect herself from him?

The Uncertainty Bridge — a world decimated by plagues, Geoff Harbin finds he has gained sudden and unexpected encyclopaedic knowledge, but what price does the information demand?

In the vein of Iain M Banks, Alastair Reynolds, Peter F Hamilton and Neal Asher, The Uncertainty Bridge features three novellas from Australian science fiction author, David Conyers.Click to add text, images, and other content.

New Kindle Book: The Impossible Object

I've rebooted the Harrison Peel stories, with the first release The Impossible Object on Amazon Kindle. I want to revisit the series, and tighten it, add more tales, and basically build an overall story arc to develop Peel and his place in the Cthulhu Mythos. Think Lovecraft meets Clive Barker meets Ian Flemming meets Robert Ludlum, as Peter Clines nicely summed it up in his wonderful testimonial for the book.

Here is the blurb:

In a blend of cosmic horror with weird science fiction and action spy adventure, THE IMPOSSIBLE OBJECT recounts the adventures of Army Intelligence Officer, Major Harrison Peel, who travels the globe fighting the good fight against alien monsters wherever they appear threatening to destroy humanity.

Harrison Peel's first adventures are collected in four novellas:

"Made of Meat" - Terrorists hiding out amongst the hill tribes of Cambodia have accurate intelligence on Western covert operations, and Peel works to break the network before more agents are killed in the line of duty.

"Driven Underground" - An ancient alien city is unearthed in the deserts of Outback Australia, and Peel leads a team of soldiers into its catacombs where no living thing has existed for millions of years, or so they believe.

"Impossible Object" - Peel is assigned to a top secret facility studying an alien artifact, an object that cannot be measured or recorded by any means, that promises to offer up the secrets of the universe, or destroy it.

"False Containment" - After witnessing a mass grave of fused human bones, Peel travels to California to investigate a zero waste technology program using wormholes to dispose of rubbish in alien dimensions.

More in the rebooted series will follow.

Cthulhu Unbound 3 Australian Shadows Finalist

I am pleased to announce that Brian M Sammons and I have made the finalist list for Australia's top horror fiction award, the Australian Shadows in the Edited Publication category. This is the fourth time I've been nominated for the award, and maybe this year I might win, but I'm up against some strong competition with Surviving to the End by Craig Bezant and The Year's Best Australian Fantasy & Horror 2011 by LizGrzyb and Talie Helene, so I don't think it is likely.

On related news, Cthulhu Unound 3 is now available in paperback from Amazon. If you are looking for a reason to buy this book, here is a recent review from Hellnotes:

"All in all, I highly recommend CTHULHU UNBOUND 3: it’s a great collection of recent novellas that blend traditional Lovecraftian themes with other genres."

"The Masked Messenger" in Lovecraft eZine #22

My Harrison Peel collaboration, written with John Goodrich, is now available to read online at Lovecarft eZine.

Better still, it is also available on Amazon as a Kindle edition or as a Podcast from the Lovecraft eZine site, read by Chaz Engan of Beyond the Mountains of Madness fame. The very cool image of the Masked Messenger is by Adam Baker. I hope you enjoy, and if you do drop a line on the story and I'll respond as soon as I can.

Cthulhu Unbound 3 and "The R'lyeh Singularity" Reviews

Cthulhu Unbound 3, and my Brian M. Sammons co-authored novella in the anthology "The R'lyeh Singularity", has been receiving some positive reviews of late and its sales figures on Amazon.com are rocketing up the sales list. Here are excerpts some of them that I thought I might share if you are thinking about purchasing this anthology and are undecided:

CTHULHU UNBOUND 3

Cthulhu Unbound 3 is a collection of four novellas, marrying Lovecraft’s vision to another genre. Beyond the connections to the Cthulhu Mythos, there is no other underlying theme, excepting that each story seems to climax in feces-against-rotating-blades insanity. Each story is penned by great talents in the weird-fiction realm and it shows. - Bruce Priddy, Horror Novel Reviews

These guys form into the "Avengerspendables" and deal out quite a bit of "literary punishment" through the course of the four novellas on display here. - David Anderson, Amazon.com

THE R'LYEH SINGULARITY

I devoured “The R’lyeh Singularity” in a single sitting, turned back to the opening page and did it again. This is a big budget Hollywood summer movie in novella form, though far smarter than anything Michael Bay would bring to theaters. Lovecraft’s most famous creation makes an appearance here; as told by Conyers and Sammons, the Great Old One warps reality by Its very presence. How they handle this in the story is brilliant. To say more would ruin it for you. I would love to see this translated to the big screen. - Bruce Priddy, Horror Novel Reviews

Conyers has an elegant grasp on quantum physics, while Sammons knows how to get all the "big military toys" in the sandbox. They both fuse together to create some kind of mad orchestrator that doles out awesomeness by the handfuls. - David Anderson, Amazon.com

The pace is excellent. For those interested in seeing how the American government might handle national security threats of the Cthulhu-kind, I would say this one is worth the price of admission on its own - Historicool, Amazon.com

New Harrison Peel tale “The Road to Afghanistan”

My latest Harrison Peel adventure, “The Road to Afghanistan” has just been released in the anthology What Scares the Boogeyman? Edited by John Manning and published by Perseid Press. This story takes Peel to Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan in his hunt to track down Taliban controlled weapons of mass destruction of the otherworldly kind.

Here is the line-up for What Scares the Boogeyman?:

• “Boogeyman Blues” by Janet Morris
• “The Boogeyman’s Wife” by Nancy Asire
• “The Road to Afghanistan” by David Conyers
• “The Fear of the Lord” by Robert M. Price
• “The River Witch” by J.D. Fritz
• “The Cold” by Jason Cordova
• “Blood and Ochre” by Thomas Barczak
• “Testament of Tuff” by C. Dean Andersson
• “Night of the Bettys” by Beverly Hale
• “Jack the Raptor” by Chris Morris
• “Failure to Comply” by Michael H. Hanson
• “The Shadow of a Doubt” by Larry Atchley, Jr.
• “L’Uomo Nero” by Richard Groller
• “Bad Mustard” by Bill Snider
• “Grandma” by Wayne Borean
• “Breaking Up is Hard to Do” by John Manning
• “Apis Primatus” by Bettina Meister
• “Under the Bed” by Shirley Meier

 Here is an excerpt from “The Road to Afghanistan”:

THE ROAD TO AFGHANISTAN

David Conyers

 The three days it took Harrison to flee the black desert of western Pakistan, he barely slept. When the saw the dusk lights of Rawalpindi he felt relief; street lights meant normalcy and a safe place to rest.

When Peel drove into the city’s heart he was forcibly slowed, melded with the busy evening traffic. Despite the late hour, he passed busy bazaars and crowded alleys. Hindu temples and Muslim shrines were clean and complete compared to cheaply constructed apartment blocks and government offices, with their rusting reo jutting from upper unfinished levels. Mounds of stinking garbage piled against chipped walls. Woman’s faces on billboards were ‘veiled’ with black paint while men were left untouched.

Peel reached the Hoodbhoy Orphanage as it was closing. Identified by his National Security Agency employers three days earlier, he had been assured the institution’s reputation was sound. Foreign and local journalists’ accounts spoke highly of their director, a Muslim who accepted all wards, regardless of their religion, gender or ethnicity.

Peel parked in the courtyard. His aching muscles protested as he clambered from the old Soviet Army truck. As he unlatched the rear door, two dozen red and blinking eyes stared back. It took the first child several minutes to shuffle forward and step into their new home, and into a new life.

“Mr. Peel?”

“Yes Sir?” he snapped in a moment of disorientation. Embarrassed, he scratched at the dirt caked to his millimeter thick hair. He felt drunk. He wasn’t. He was dead tired.

“Thank you for saving these children, Mr. Peel.” Rashid Hoodbhoy spoke softly, with a formal and precise command of the English language. He watched, with a gentle smile, his volunteers aid the children as they clambered from the stolen truck. Many had to be carried. All needed water. A few with infected wounds were attended to with bandages and disinfectant.

Lynn Willis

It was sad news to hear that Lynn Wills at Chaosium recently died. Lynn was Chaosium's editor in chief and instrumental in making Call of Cthulhu the game on 18 January 2013. He will be greatly missed. I found him to be an excellent editor. He was the first editor I worked with, and he was instrumental in making my books Secrets of Kenya, Cthulhu’s Dark Cults and The Spiraling Worm, amongst my other early Chaosium projects, what they became today.

Here are what several key contributors to the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game, which Lynn directed for many decades, had to say about him:

“He was incredibly smart, astonishingly widely read, detail oriented, and capable. He is largely responsible for the high quality, playability, and popularity of the leading horror RPG in our field.” – Charlie Krank, President of Chaosium Inc.

“Lynn was always a great guy to work for, an all around good guy, and I'm very sorry to hear of his passing.” – Brian M. Sammons, author of Secrets and editor of Atomic Age Cthulhu, Steampunk Cthulhu and Eldritch Chrome.

“Lynn very graciously bought the first book I ever pitched, right out of college. And by the time he put it out (12 years later), we'd developed a real(ly weird) friendship. I'll truly miss (arguing with) him.” – Cody Goodfellow, author of Secrets of San Francisco.

“He was a gentleman and a scholar; I learned so much from him - indeed, I honestly would not be the writer I am today were it not for Lynn's guiding hand.” – Richard Watts, author of “Love’s Lonely Children”, “Tatterdemallion” and “Behold the Mother”

“Lynn was the editor of the 1991 edition of Horror on the Orient Express (and many other Chaosium books besides), and every page is rich with his love of history and detail. We miss him, and do our best to honour the work he left behind.” – Mark Morrison, author of Terror Australis and Horror on the Orient Express.

Extreme Planets Line-up

Here it is, the blurb and line-up to Extreme Planets.

Two decades ago astronomers confirmed the existence of planets orbiting stars other than our Sun. Today more than 800 such worlds have been identified, and scientists now estimate that at least 160 billion star-bound planets are to be found in the Milky Way Galaxy alone. But more surprising is just how diverse and bizarre those worlds are.

Extreme Planets is a science fiction anthology of stories set on alien worlds that push the limits of what we once believed possible in a planetary environment. Visit the bizarre moons, dwarf planets and asteroids of our own Solar Systems, and in the deeper reaches of space encounter super-Earths with extreme gravity fields, carbon planets featuring mountain ranges of pure diamond, and ocean worlds shrouded by seas hundreds of kilometres thick. The challenges these environments present to the humans that explore and colonise them are many, and are the subject matter of these tales.

The anthology features 15 tales from leading science fiction authors and rising stars in the genre:

• “Banner of the Angels” by David Brin and Gregory Benford
• “Brood” by Stephen Gaskell
• “Haumea” by G. David Nordley
• “A Perfect Day off the Farm” by Patty Jansen
• “Daybreak” by Jeff Hecht
• “Giants” by Peter Watts
• “Maelstrom” by Kevin Ikenberry
• “Murder on Centauri” by Robert J. Mendenhall
• “The Flight of the Salamander” by Violet Addison and David Smith
• “Petrochemical Skies” by David Conyers and David Kernot
• “The Hyphal Layer” by Meryl Ferguson
• “Colloidal Suspension” by Geoff Nelder
• “Super-Earth Mother” by Guy Immega
• “Lightime” by Jay Caselberg
• “The Seventh Generation” by Brian Stableford

Extreme Planets is scheduled for release in late 2013 in both trade paperback and online e-reader formats. Cover illustration by Paul Drummond. More details here.

Thank you to everyone who supported and submitted to this anthology, including Julie Czerneda and Sean Williams. I'm very proud of what we achieve here, and I'm looking forward to its release.

Scorecard 2012

Every year I like to compile a summary of my writing, editing and publishing for the year that was. 2012 unfortunately wasn’t as productive as past years for me, at least not in terms of publications. It was the year of collaborations too. That said I do have A LOT of projects under development that I can’t talk about yet, but hopefully I will soon.

I had two new stories published in 2012, “Expectant Green” with John Kenny, a science fiction novella appearing in Jupiter 35 and “The R’lyeh Singularity” with Brian M. Sammons appearing in Cthulhu Unbound 3, from Permuted Press which was released as an e-book. This anthology I also co-edited Brian and featured Cthulhu Mythos novellas from Cody Goodfellow, D.L. Snell and Tim Curran, as well as our contribution. I’ve been informed the print version will be released in 2013.

On the reprint front, “Winds of Nzambi”, a Cthulhu Mythos horror novella concerning the Portuguese slave trade in the Congo which I co-wrote with David Kernot, appeared in two ‘Best of’ collections, The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2011, edited by Liz Grzyb and Talie Helene, and Award Winning Australian Writing 2012. My other reprint was “The Swelling” which appeared in Innsmouth Magazine Collection Issues 1-4 making it one of my most reprinted stories.

My illustrations appeared on the cover of Jupiter 38: Pasithee and Jupiter 36: Spond. “The Masked Messenger” co-authored with John Goodrich that appeared in Andromeda Spaceways last year, received an honourable mention from Ellen Datlow in Best Horror of the Year Volume 4. Midnight Echo 6 which I co-edited last year received another honourable mention in the Australian Shadows Awards. I also interviewed Iain M. Banks for Albedo One Issue 41.

Anthologies that I have been editing this year are Undead & Unbound (horror) with Brian M. Sammons, Extreme Planets (science fiction) with David Kernot and Jeff Harris, and Cthulhu’s Dark Cults II (Cthulhu Mythos). None are yet released. I’m also editing a sourcebook for the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game.

Publications coming out next year are all in anthologies and include “The Road to Afghanistan” (What Scares the Bogeyman?), “Romero 2.0” with Brian M. Sammons (Undead & Unbound) and “Playgrounds of Angolaland” (Eldritch Chrome).

That’s it. Thanks especially to David Kernot, Brian M Sammons, Jeff Harris, Cody Goodfellow, Paul Drummond, Jeffrey Thomas, CJ Henderson, David Brin, Julie Czerneda, Glynn Own Barrass and the team at Albedo One for their support this year.