Hypnerotomachiapet

“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.

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 cover art by Dawne Dominique.

Mirrored from Gary W. Olson.

(Edit 4/24/15: Updated buy links)

Reeling from a breakup with his girlfriend Jean, Paul Miller encounters Cyane, a wealthy model who wants to hire him to create disturbing paintings for nameless clients. But that work is only the start of what she wants from him. With her seductive song, she lures both he and Jean past desires for flesh, into a hallucinatory hunger for ecstasy and transcendence. To save Jean, himself, and his unborn child, he must learn who and what Cyane really is, and make a harrowing choice.

Here’s an excerpt of the start of the story:

The ropes that held me to the mast of the ship were loose. I found that as frightening as the dark shapes that thrashed just over the side. The men around me rowed on, ears stopped with wax, oblivious to the howls that rose above the roiling waters. I pitied them, for they wouldn’t know what they missed–voices sharp enough to cut thought and honeyed enough to clot the wound.

Though I could have easily freed myself, I remained still. In this place, I could hear the song. If I moved, it would dissolve into feral noise. My understanding of this grew with every change of the vast and beautiful voices that wove through the near-liquid air.

My ropes fell to the deck with the fading of the last octave. The men stopped rowing and stared with fearful eyes at the sea.

I walked toward the bow. The rush of her feathers came as a gasp of hungry breath that voided every other sound.

“Not this way.”

Her voice held a quiver from the song.

The wooden deck barked my knees when I slumped. She landed before me, dark brown wings in angelic spread, eyes locked with mine. Her human face could have been real, though my instincts whispered that it was not. Her sinuous body moved in ways more reptilian than avian. Her sharp red lips drew back into a grin.

Talons flashed. Blood ran down my neck.

“There is no easy way,” she said. “If you want it, it will hurt.”

(continued…)

Gary W. Olson is the author of the dark fantasy novel Brutal Light and a contributor to the dark fiction anthology Fading Light. His blog originates here. Fabulous Beasts cover art: Sergey Nivens/BigStock.com.

Mirrored from Gary W. Olson.

It’s been about two weeks now since Fading Light: An Anthology of the Monstrous (which includes my short story “Goldilocks Zone”) dropped on readers like Godzilla on Tokyo, and it seems to be doing pretty well in sales so far. There was an issue with the manufacture of the print version of the books (e-books were not affected) due to some snafu by CreateSpace (the print was riddled with boxes with x’s in them). So if you got this print version via Amazon, you can either return it to Amazon for a refund, or return it to Amazon and get a corrected copy back. In addition, by way of apology (even though the fault was not on their end) Angelic Knight Press will gift you any two books from their library of titles (print or e-book).

There’s a giveaway of a couple of those (corrected) paperback copies going on over on Goodreads. Enter by October 1st for your chance to win one!

Reviews have been coming in for FL, by and large very positive. The Horror Fiction Review gave FL a very good review. Another good one popped up on Fantasy Book Critic. Plus more reader reviews have been coming in for the main volume and the companion on Amazon. Also, Goodreads.

Editor Tim Marquitz was interviewed by Lee Mather on his Livejournal about FL, his upcoming publications from Genius Book Publishing, what’s next in the Blood War trilogy, and more.

On Fantasy Book Review, contributor Gef Fox talks about where the idea for his story, “Where Coyotes Fear to Tread” came from. He also talks about the anthology in general on his own site.

Gary W. Olson is the author of the dark fantasy novel Brutal Light and a contributor to the dark fiction anthology Fading Light. His blog originates here. Fading Light cover by Jessy Lucero.

Mirrored from Gary W. Olson.

The Stepsister Scheme by Jim C. Hines

What happens after the ‘happily ever after’? In the case of the Princess Danielle (aka Cinderella), it involves learning to live with getting what she thought she wanted… and rescuing her prince when he ends up being the one in jeopardy. Hines’ take on the fairy tale worlds of Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty mixes the darker nuances of the early versions of the tales with humor–not the ‘wokka wokka’ kind, but the more trenchant and wise kind that relies on fully-realized and nuanced characters and their observations and decisions. I enjoyed this first book in the ‘Princess Series,’ and look forward to the next.

Afterlife by Naomi Clark

Yasmin Stoker, a ghost tour guide who also happens to be a 600-year old wraith who feeds on the souls of revenants, sees a man get pulled into the netherworld by a ghost. Soon, she’s both investigating the incident and trying to deflect someone else in their investigation, while the complications pile up. Afterlife serves up a potent urban fantasy story that weaves plots and subplots without ever getting tangled up. P.I. Ethan Banning, a secondary character in this one, steals just about every scene he’s in. Shoregrave, the fictional setting of the novel, had a subtly dangerous feel that crept in and lingered.

Four in the Morning by Malon Edwards, Edward M. Erdelac, Lincoln Crisler, and Tim Marquitz

Four in the Morning is an unusual anthology, in that instead of collecting a lot of short stories, it is made up of four novellas, loosely based on different stages of life (youth, early adulthood, middle age, and old age). The genres and styles of these dark tales vary as well, from steampunk (“Half Dark” by Malon Edwards) to urban fantasy (“Gully Gods” by Edward M. Erdelac) to science fiction (“Queen” by Lincoln Crisler) to horror (“Cenotaph” by Tim Marquitz). I enjoyed all four offerings, though it took me a bit to warm up to “Gully Gods”. Malon Edwards’ “Half Dark” was my favorite of the quartet, though, by turns dark, strange, charming, and memorable–qualities I only sometimes find in steampunk stories.

The Noctuary by Greg Chapman

In The Noctuary, a dark fiction writer is given a tempting offer–the ability to make his words become reality, if he becomes a scribe for underworld creatures known as the Dark Muses. He can write things out of existence, and rewrite the tragic elements of his past… but at a price. This novella is the kind of horror that appeals to me most–the slippery, chaotic kind where the fear comes from seeing how thin and easily torn reality could be, and being forced to face what is left–if anything–when all that defines us to ourselves is stripped away. Which isn’t to say it’s not gruesome and bloody–it certainly is. It’s also a lot more than that, and worth a look for supernatural horror fans.

Gary W. Olson is the author of the dark fantasy novel Brutal Light and a contributor to the dark fiction anthology Fading Light. His blog originates here. Photo: silver-john/Bigstock.com.

Mirrored from Gary W. Olson.