Category Archives: Stranger Bird

Exit Black launches Tuesday!

18 Sunday Feb 2024

Posted by in Advertising, Exit Black, Lit News, My Fiction, Science Fiction, Stranger Bird

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My newest book, Exit Black, launches on Tuesday. That would have been my father’s 88th birthday–I would give a lot to be able to hand him a copy.

Right now, the strangest and loveliest part of the process has been watching the fine team at Blackstone, my publisher, promoting the book. They are way better at it than I would have been, thank goodness.

I self-published my first novel, Stranger Bird. That was an experience that I will always treasure: the feeling of putting a book together with a tiny group of friends and family, mostly newbies, doing our own copy editing and picking typefaces and buying ISBNs and learning how expensive it is to publish a book. I imagine the feeling is analogous to playing in an independent-label band, driving around the country in a van and playing a hundred bars and grange halls. And I know that even now, with a traditional publisher putting my book out, I am still a tiny fish in the big publishing ocean–I’m not the kind of writer who is ever going to win a Hugo (good thing, maybe, considering the latest scandal) or be on Reese’s book club list. But, even though I am most definitely small potatoes, I’m still a potato. And it is a sweet and oddly disorienting experience to have a team of people from a publishing house supporting your book. I couldn’t be happier with Blackstone, and I will have a good word for the folks there for as long as I live. Thanks to them, I am orbiting your reading list.

Towards 100 Readers

19 Thursday Apr 2018

Posted by in Book reviews, Literary criticism, My Fiction, Stranger Bird

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It was a lovely surprise to see that someone new has given my book a review on Amazon. It was doubly surprising that the reviewer compared my work to Ursula Le Guin’s–for a fantasy writer, that’s like having your guitar solo likened to Jimmy Page’s work.

And triply surprising was that this review came from someone I don’t know personally. I’ve gotten several sweet and glowing reviews from friends and family who have read Stranger Bird, but it’s a different kind of cool feeling to get a review from someone who has no friendship with me to maintain. (I consider her a friend anyway).

reading sb

When I set out to self-publish Stranger Bird, I hoped out loud on this blog that I would find 100 readers for the book. A number of people–represented most vociferously by my wife–found that a preposterous and too-modest goal. I always answered that I like goals that I have some reasonable hope of meeting. What I didn’t consider when I made my rash pronouncement, however, is that it’s a lot easier for me to know how many books I’ve sold or given away than it is to know how many people have actually read the book.

I do know that I’ve moved 100 books into people’s hands. More than 100, actually. I feel increasingly optimistic that 100 people will, sooner or later, read Stranger Bird. But even sweeter than knowing how many copies are out there is that someone I don’t know at all has read the book and liked it.

Back at the Keyboard

11 Saturday Nov 2017

Posted by in fantasy, My Fiction, Stranger Bird, YA fantasy

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A couple of months ago, in a flash of youthful optimism, I predicted that I would be able to publish my first book, Stranger Bird, while posting regular musings and ponderation to this blog. Ah, how naïve I was at the tender age of 46…

Today, the grizzled 47 year-old me realizes what a fool’s errand it was to try and publish a book “in my spare time.” Luckily, I had fantastic people–Erica Thomas, Lauren Moran, Jeff Simmons, Gracetopher Kirk–who did practically all the publishing work for me. But even with their heroic efforts, I found that publishing Stranger Bird sucked up all of my blogging time and more.

Now I am back at The Subway Test at last.  I’ll be making a plug for the book from time to time (like now, for instance: Stranger Bird is available here on Amazon and already has a couple of sweet positive reviews! The Kindle version is coming soon!)–but my hope is to return to the musing and the pondering about the topics that have always motivated The Subway Test: science fiction, fantasy, civil society, SETI, the republic’s Trumpist infection, AI, ecology, and mythic themes in children’s cartoons. See you again soon!

 

Potosi Picked Up!

18 Monday Sep 2017

Posted by in Advertising, Beta Readers, Musings and ponderation, My Fiction, Science Fiction, Stories, Stranger Bird, The Time of Troubles, YA fantasy

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I’m happy to announce that the great science fiction magazine Analog has picked up my story “Potosí” for publication. “Potosí” will be the fifth story I’ve had appear in Analog, and by far the longest story (nearly 10,000 words) I’ve ever placed in a professional market.

As I wrote elsewhere, “Potosí” is set in a near future where corporations and countries squabble over the solar system’s vast mineral rights. It’s also a meditation on white supremacy and terrorism, an attempt to explain today’s world in new and striking clothes–much the same way that Star Trek explains the Cold War and Forbidden Planet explores World War II survivors’ guilt.

It’s been a good (and busy) week for my writerly life. One of my recent stories (another Analog pick-up called “Proteus”) is getting some very nice attention, and my quest to publish my first young adult fantasy novel, Stranger Bird, continues apace. I’m hoping for a publication date of November 3–keep watching the transom for that.

There’s also much more that I want to share here on The Subway Test, and I’m sure I’ll have some longer musings and ponderations here soon, but for now I’m pretty busy just keeping on top of my sci fi and fantasy writing.

The Penultimate Stranger Bird

04 Tuesday Jul 2017

Posted by in Beta Readers, fantasy, Journeys, My Fiction, Stranger Bird

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As followers of The Subway Test have read before, I’m publishing a fantasy novel called Stranger Bird this year. Working with my estimable friend Erica Thomas at Works Progress Agency, we’ve landed on a launch date of mid-October. And so begins my final editing slog, getting the manuscript ready for layout. I’m surprised at how many little things (and even a couple of big things) I’m changing in response to the feedback of my beta readers and my awesome copy-editor, Ann Eames. Thanks, beta buddies!

If you’re reading this, I’m grateful that you’re reading. And if you like fantasy, I hope you’ll take a look at Stranger Bird when it’s ready.

Seeking Beta Readers!

09 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by in Beta Readers, fantasy, My Fiction, Stranger Bird

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beta--gillie rhodes

Photo credit: Gillie Rhodes

If you’ve spent much time at TheSubwayTest, you know that I have a novel coming out this year. And as I’ve learned recently in my mystical journey into novel publishing, finding readers for your first novel is an adventure in self-promotion. With that in mind, I’d love to find some beta readers for the book here in the forest of fantasy & science fiction blogolalia.

If you like fantasy, if you like young adult lit, or if you just like me, I’d love to send you a pre-publication draft of the manuscript. Young adult and tween readers are especially welcome, though I would like to find a few adult adult readers (i.e. old adults) as well. What’s Stranger Bird about? Well, without giving away too much, it’s the story of a young misfit who is summoned to the service of a great and distant emperor. On his journey, the boy is awakened to his own gift, the talent for understanding the speech of animals, and he comes into contact with many who would use his abilities for their own ends. Yet after arduous travel, the boy arrives at the capital and the emperor’s palace, only to find that the land is held together by a dark secret. How the boy navigates this secret marks his passage from the powerlessness of childhood to adult realization, to the knowledge that, of all creatures, only people can choose what they become. As I say elsewhere on this blog, “The book is an homage to the fantasy authors of [my] youth—Ursula Le Guin, Richard Adams, Lloyd Alexander—and a nostalgic look back at the dark and mythical tales of an earlier generation.”

What’s in it for you, you may well ask? Precious little, but maybe something of value to some of you: your name in the Acknowledgments section of the book, an opportunity to influence the development of this story, a chance to see Stranger Bird before anyone else does.

If you’re interested, you can give me your name and email address by clicking on this link. I will send a draft copy of Stranger Bird to up to 20 people that volunteer. The file is an MS-Word file–feel free to append comments or turn on “Track Changes” to make your suggestions.

Some of you know that I’m a community college English teacher and an old school grammarian–don’t let that scare you away from telling me about things in the book that aren’t working for you grammatically, syntactically, punctuationally, characterologically, or otherwisely. It’s impossible (for me, anyway) to write an 85,000 word story without making some mistakes. My editor, the estimable Ann Eames, has already found a lot of them. But she and I both know there are more.