With Sword And Pistol from Crossroad Press

Hot on the heels of my Random House novel Andersonville is With Sword And Pistol, my first fiction collection.

With Sword And Pistol assembles four dark adventure novellas.

First up is the long out of print Red Sails, a horror themed pirate adventure in which a British marine and a Dominican Blackfriar are captured by a cruel vampire captain and marooned on a cannibal isle to be hunted under the full moon by his crew of savage werewolves.

Second is Night of The Jikininki, which originally appeared in Comet Press’ DEADCORE anthology. Three disparate men, a casteless bandit, a sadistic samurai sword tester, and a vile, mad child killer band together to fight their way out of a feudal Japanese prison as it fills with the walking dead.

Next is Sinbad And The Sword Of Solomon, a high fantasy Arabian Nights style sword and soul adventure in which the titular sailor and his motley crew undertake a mission from the Caliph of Baghdad to retrieve a magic sword from a demon on an enchanted island. This one first appeared in Sinbad: The New Voyages Volume 2 from Airship 27.

Finally, my dark urban horror novella Gully Gods, first printed in Four In The Morning, about a young South Houston gangster who joins up with a seemingly unstoppable clique of Liberian ex-child soldiers to take over a Chicago neighborhood from their Latino rivals, and learns the malicious source of their terrible power.

Here’s a peek at the killer cover from Shawn King.

A Quick One From The Hip

Just a quick post to let you all know I’m not dead or anything.

Truth tell I was hard at work on the third Merkabah Rider installment, Have Glyphs Will Travel, when my laptop locked up and crashed on me with the novel on the desktop (don’t bother telling me to back up – I’m doing it now regularly, but I guarantee in a month I’ll be back to the bad old habits – and yes, I know about Carbonite and the like).

I told myself I could resume the book from the point I left off, but I guess I just don’t work that way. Wound up taking a two week hiatus while the files were recovered and the mo-chine was patched up.  Outlined a lighthearted fantasy novel about a Chinese cook that I’ll probably jump into after I wrap up the adventures of the Rider. Need to take a break from the dark stuff and whip up something my kids can read, particularly as there’s going to be a new one soon.

Yep, no new stories seeing print just yet, but I’ll be adding a boy to my brood in July or August, hot on the heels of my still shiny daughter Willow Anne, who just turned a year in the beginning of March.  August Victoriano will likely be his moniker, after my earliest known ancestor and my wife’s grandfather, though I’ve toyed with Atticus as a name since I read To Kill A Mockingbird in high school.

Before that, Texas Review Press will be putting out my straight-no-demons-no-ghosts western novel Buff Tea pretty soon. I’ll write a bigger announcement on that when it’s available.

I’ll be doing a couple appearances in the next two months as well, so stay tuned for those.

In the meantime, if you just can’t cross your legs long enough to read something by me, don’t forget to take a look at The Crawlin’ Chaos Blues, my Lovecraftian blues southern gothic story – you can pick that up for the e-reader on Amazon (see the link to it under ‘Look On My Works’ on the right). You can also read an excerpt right here – https://emerdelac.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/meet-me-in-the-bottom-the-crawlin-chaos-blues/

Night Shade Books is putting out a pretty similar book in a couple months, but ignore that one. I did it first. 🙂

Red Sails, my pirate horror adventure novella, about a vampire captain sailing with a crew of werewolves and the two luckless castaways they put on an island to hunt down is also still out there from Amazon and Lyrical.

I'm not particularly happy with the tag line.

Comet Press’ DEADCORE anthology can be picked up on Amazon or from their site. That one has Night of the Jikininki, my Akira Kurosawa-inspired zombie novella, with a mad child eating monk, a casteless bandit, and a sadistic samurai decapitator joining forces against a prison full of undying gutmunchers. It’s a nice book (well, not nice like your grandmother would say, I mean it looks nice on the shelf).

My boy and his man-eating horse story The Blood Bay is on the cover of The Midnight Diner #3. You can get that in paper on Amazon.

My debut novella Dubaku, with its titular African shaman enacting a sorcerous revenge on the crew of a 1700’s British slaver can be gotten on Amazon or from Damnation Books. That one’s in e or print.

And of course Tales of a High Planes Drifter and The Mensch With No Name are in print or e on Amazon as well.

Anyway, the links are all to the right, so don’t say you don’t know where to get ’em.

-Hasta pronto!