Sidney Williams's Blog, page 9

Sonya Clark gave me a great opportunity to talk about the e-book release of Gnelfs and Blood Hunter.

The interview is posted today on her blog

Drop by and check it out when you have a second, and check out Sonya's e-books as well.

I was pleasantly surprised recently to discover:

a.) The Big Finish Podcast

b.) That Big Finish is doing Sherlock Holmes stories

c.) You can now download from the Big Finish website

d.) Downloads are less expensive than CDs

I've been under a rock two years, so I'm still catching up on a lot of things.

Of course when I gained all this knowledge, starting with the podcast, a natural choice for a birthday gift request was "Holmes and the Ripper," an installment based on a stage play by Brian Clemens of The Avengers fame and scores of other TV shows and movies.

The story's core stems from the conspiracy theorized in...

Read the full post here

I put a free sample .pdf of the first chapter of Blood Hunter on my website.

Blood Hunter is the first of my early books to be brought into the e-universe by Crossroad Press and it's available on Kindle from Amazon.

Now and then a novel comes along that's so subtly eerie it generates fear that seems to affect your central nervous system. The Haunting of Hill House is that way, as are some of the novels of Charles L. Grant.

To me, The Red Tree achieves similar results, with its sense of unease and its gradual, ambiguous journey into the supernatural. It's a true don't-read-this-too-late-at-night experience.

As I followed Sarah Crowe, the protagonist and chief narrator, through her strange experiences, the little creaks and groans of my house, and the sounds of insects or pine needles thumping the window made me look twice or turn on an extra light.

It's the kind of terror that's hard to achieve, but The Red Tree author Caitlin R. Kiernan does it so well Crowe's journal seems like the real chronicle of experiences--both mundane and incredible--hammered out on a battered manual typewriter.

Read the full post.

I hate self promotion.

I'm a shy, retiring and modest type, so I don't like having to proclaim my own virtues, but for the new e-book editions of my novels, such as Blood Hunter and the upcoming Gnelfs, I'm mustering my courage and tenacity and doing interviews and what I can to get the word out.

It's pretty much a necessity. I've noticed about a million books out there. Most are written by James Patterson, but not all, so you've kinda gotta wave your arms and shout.

All of this is making me recall a lesson in self promotion I got at the opening session of a science fiction convention a few years ago.

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A brief interview with me is up on Kip Poe's blog. It's a discussion on writing habits.

You can check it out here.

Kip has a book of short horror fiction called Closing My Eyes Helps Me See Clearly that's available as an e-book.

They really had me at "small coastal town," when the announcement from Dark Regions press hit my in-box.

Ouroboros, co-written by Michael Kelly and Carol Weekes, is coming out in trade paper soon, and it's going on my wish list.

It's set in said small coastal town, and revolves around "an ancient force" that "stirs, drawn by the cumulative power of life and death, grief and sorrow, and ultimately, endless love."

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When I did a creative writing teaching practicum last fall, I was always in search of writing prompts. I pulled story starters from writing textbooks and magazines, and I looked around for other ideas to stimulate creativity and imagination. I didn’t have a room full of speculative fiction writers, but one of my more successful prompts involved a surreal painting.

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My novel, Blood Hunter, which blends thriller and supernatural suspense elements, is now available in e-book form from Crossroad Press. While I'm working on new projects, it's exciting to have previous work available in this new, digital era.

BH, the story of a young reporter drawn into the investigation of strange disappearances and stranger creatures, can be found on Amazon for the Kindle, on Smashwords in multiple formats with an excerpt and also on the Crossroad Press Site.

Read a post about the creation of the original story with a few notes about the new edition on my blog.