Category Archives: Publishing

New interview at SFFWorld, and what’s next at the Qwillery (with giveaway!)

TVG-cover-finalCouple of new items came out today in the parade of all things having to do with The Venusian Gambit.

Over at SFFWorld, Dag Rambraut interviewed me about the series, publishing and writing — there was a great question about sensibility in writing that particularly caught my attention. When I first started, I tended to err on the side of characters making sensible decisions. While characters should, of course, behave according to their personalities and internal logic, the demands of the story often call for a bit more mayhem. Striking that balance is one of many things I’ve learned to do. Check out the full interview here.

And over at the Qwillery, I wrote a guest post on wrapping up the Daedalus series, and what might be next. I’ve had a few folks remark that they’re sad the series is over — which, really, warms my black writer’s heart to no small degree — but for me, it’s kind of been over now for a few months. So I got to riff a bit on what that means, and what’s next. Here’s the post; my thanks to Sally and the gang for having me on.

Speaking of the Qwillery, they’re giving away a signed copy of The Enceladus Crisis as part of that post; you have until May 28 to enter, so get clicking!

Finally, for those attending Phoenix Comicon, I wanted to point out that the now-traditional Drinks With Authors is a go. It’s happening Saturday, May 30, at 6 p.m. at the Sheraton in the Valley of the Sun room — which is possibly the best name a room could possibly have. There will be door prizes and raffles (including, perhaps, some books by yours truly), with all proceeds to benefit the Kids Need to Read charity. Come see authors in their natural habitat — i.e. where drinks are served — and help kids get books. No brainer, right?

 #SFWApro

Leave a comment

Filed under Books, Charity, Events, Publishing, Writing

Interview on Publishers Weekly radio, plus Gambit Audible pre-orders

Yesterday I had the distinct pleasure of returning to Publishers Weekly Radio to talk once more with Rose Fox and Mark Rotella. We had a great chat about getting the Daedalus series published, writing, community…you name it. You can listen to it here, or download it from iTunes. They interview so many awesome authors on the show (Ken Liu! Brandon Sanderson! Gay Talese! Joyce Carol Oates!), so it’s a real honor to do this one. My thanks to Rose and Mark for having me on again,

And here’s a bit of good news for audiobook fans — the Audible edition of The Venusian Gambit is now available for pre-order. It’ll be available on June 23. Why then, as opposed to, say, now? No idea. But it’s coming, and it has the same awesome narrators, Kristin Kalbli and Bernard Sotero Clark, that did the first two books. So get it queued up!

Finally, it’s been a busy couple of weeks, and there’s been a lot of stuff out there on The Venusian Gambit and yours truly — interviews, guest posts, podcasts, reviews, etc. Yes, we basically wallpapered the Internet with the book, if only to remove the chance of anybody being unaware it exists. The good people at Night Shade Books created a handy-dandy blog post with everything done so far — and what’s coming up.

And with that, I segue into a weekend of domestic bliss, including helping out at the 5th grade car wash fundraiser and running a 5K with the family, plus celebrating Mother’s Day. Next week: More stuff, plus my r/Fantasy Reddit AMA on Thursday, May 14. And as a reminder, there’s just nine days left to win a signed copy of The Daedalus Incident in the Qwillery’s giveaway.

Have a good weekend, gang.

#SFWApro

Leave a comment

Filed under Books, Publishing, Writing

A new Gambit review, plus interviews on publishing and editing

First off, thanks to everyone who’s been so supportive of The Venusian Gambit this week. Your blog posts and Twitterings and reviews mean a lot. I appreciate it!

I also appreciate this review from Tracey “TrinityTwo” of the Qwillery, who had this to say about the final book of the Daedalus trilogy:

Part of the beauty of this series is that it’s not simply sci-fi, it’s also daring exploits, nail-biting espionage, brilliant war tactics, and mortal danger experienced by characters the reader truly cares about. In short, it’s kick-ass action with great human drama…. The conclusion of the series is very satisfying; the conflict is resolved in an explosive burst of action with results that made me a bit emotional. I was honestly sad to reach the last page. I will definitely miss reading about Jain and Weatherby’s exploits. The Venusian Gambit is truly sci-fi magic that you won’t want to miss.

That’s pretty much the definition of an awesome review. Thanks to Tracey and Sally for all the good stuff the Qwillery does. The Qwillery is doing a giveaway of a signed copy of The Daedalus Incident, by the way — click here and sign up by May 17 to win!

A couple interviews landed today as well:

  • Over at Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing, I talked with Robert Junker about, well…my adventures in sci-fi publishing. We talked about the writing and editing, self-publishing vs. traditional, and which beers I’m geeking out on at the moment. Great interview, Robert!
  • And the illustrious Dan Hanks had me on his site 10:07 to talk about editing. Dan’s a fellow writer and we had a good deep dive on how the books came together, my writing process, the contributions of my fantastic agent and editors — you name it. Check it out!

Finally, an early heads-up for everyone. I’m going to be doing a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) over on r/Fantasy on Thursday, May 14. Basically, you stop by in the morning, lay down a question or two in the as-yet-unposted-thread, and I’ll swing back in the evening to answer. (You do need to be a registered Reddit user to chime in, but it’s an easy thing to do.) Really looking forward to this one, as r/Fantasy is a pretty awesome community.

#SFWApro

2 Comments

Filed under Books, Publishing, Writing

Launch day! SF Signal reviews The Venusian Gambit, plus My Favorite Bit

TVG-cover-finalWell, the day has come, and the final installment of the Daedalus series has set sail. All the great reviews and fan anticipation around The Venusian Gambit have made me feel very proud, more than a little humbled…and, I’ll happily admit, somewhat relieved! I’m quite happy it’s been so well received, and grateful to everyone who’s been reading the series.

Today, SF Signal published its full review of The Venusian Gambit. We put a snippet of Paul Weimer’s review on the back cover, but here he goes into more detail. Such as:

Exciting action and strong diverse characters; good use of asynchronous time streams in character development…. A fine end to the trilogy that has grown along with the author…. The Daedalus series is a fun and entertaining science fantasy series that is compulsively readable. With a clear maturing of the author’s characterizations, in addition to his refinement of his sense of plotting and action in the concluding volume,  I look forward to what Martinez’s pen will bring us next.

To be fair, I write in Word, because a pen would be prohibitively time-consuming! But I wholeheartedly appreciate the sentiment, and I’m very grateful to Paul for all his support for the series.

Also today, I wrote a guest post for Mary Robinette Kowal’s blog: My Favorite Bit about The Venusian Gambit. There were a lot of favorites in this book, from the grand battle between Englishmen and French zombies (and Venusian lizard-aliens and 22nd century mech-explorers) to the various characters that I grew attached to as they evolved through the series. But my favorite bit ended up being…well, read the guest post!

The release also warranted a very nice blog post over at KT Literary, and made the new release page over at Locus. It’s been a good day.

Later tonight: The now-traditional celebratory fancy beer! Because that’s how I roll. Later this week: More interesting stuff!

 #SFWApro

Leave a comment

Filed under Books, Publishing

The Venusian Gambit featured in ITW’s The Big Thrill and BuzzFeed Community

I recently joined International Thriller Writers, an organization for authors who write thrillers and the various sub-genres associated with them. Yes, I’m very much a science fiction/fantasy writer, but I think my work does share some DNA with more conventional thrillers — and a lot of other SF/F books do, too.

(Plus, I’m looking to do something a bit more closely aligned with the thriller genre at some point, so stay tuned there.)

Anyway, as a member of ITW, I got to do a write-up about thrilling SF/F — including The Venusian Gambit — for the latest edition of The Big Thrill, ITW’s monthly newsletter. Here’s hoping we get some traditional spy/crime thriller readers to take a walk on the weird side. Give it a click and check it out.

Also, Gambit was featured by Andrew Liptak in his “30 Science Fiction, Fantasy And Horror Books To Pick Up In May 2015” posting on BuzzFeed Community. As always, I’m delighted to be in such fine literary company, and my thanks to Andrew for seeing fit to include the book.

I know Amazon has already started delivering print editions of The Venusian Gambit, but everyone else still has to wait until Tuesday, May 5, to get it downloaded or buy it in a bookstore. But hey, that’s just four days away. Have a good weekend, go see Avengers: Age of Ultron (I know you already planned that) and then start reading Tuesday!

#SFWApro

2 Comments

Filed under Books, Publishing

The cover of Cthulhu Fhtagn! looks awesome. Pre-order now!

Like the Deep Ones slowly crawling up from the depths of the sea, more details have come to light regarding Cthulhu Fhtagn!, the Word Horde anthology of Lovecraft-inspired tales — which includes one of mine, “On a Kansas Plain.”

First off, here’s the cover:

Delightfully creepy and fun, isn’t it? Well done, Word Horde!

Also, the stars will be right on August 15, when Cthulhu Fhtagn! will be released upon an unsuspecting world. You can pre-order both the print version — signed by editor Ross E. Lockhart — and the ePub ebook in a bundle direct from Word Horde for $19.99 — which would be a very cool thing to do, as it would help Ross put out even more great fiction.

The anthology roster can be found here, and it’s a pretty fantastic bunch of writers. We’re talking 19 tales of unnerving goodness. You want this one, folks. Go pre-order it!

#SFWApro

Leave a comment

Filed under Books, Publishing

The Venusian Gambit makes Library Journal‘s monthly SF/F roundup

TVG-cover-finalI’m very happy to see that The Venusian Gambit made it into Library Journal‘s recent roundup of forthcoming SF/F titles. There’s only a handful of books mentioned out of the several dozen coming out in May, so I was pretty excited to see Gambit in there. My thanks to Megan McCardle and the whole Library Journal crew for once again showing the Daedalus series some love.

Also worth noting within the LJ roundup: A quote from The Clockwork Crown by Beth Cato (she who blurbed Gambit so nicely), and a mention of The Rebirths of Tao by all-around great guy Wes Chu.

And congratulation to Molly Tanzer for her debut novel, Vermilion, named the LJ debut of the month in that same roundup. Fun fact: The Daedalus Incident was the SF/F debut of the month in LJ two years ago. The editor of my debut? Ross Lockhart. The editor of Molly’s debut? Ross Lockhart.

The editor of the Cthulhu Fhtagn! anthology coming out in August with my short story in it? Ross Lockhart.

Ross is now the proprietor of Word Horde and has continued kicking ass and taking names, as you can plainly see. He’s a fantastic editor and all his kudos are well deserved indeed. And I can’t wait to read Vermillion as well — it sounds amazing. Way to go, Molly!

#SFWApro

Leave a comment

Filed under Books, Publishing

The table of contents for the Cthulhu Fhtagn! anthology

The stars are slowly drifting into alignment, and the eldritch forces behind Word Horde are emitting nigh-incomprehensible gibberings of darkness and madness, waiting for the time, this August, when the Old Ones return.

In other words: Ross Lockhart over at Word Horde has released the table of conents for the upcoming Cthulhu Fhtagn! anthology! And, of course, it’s awesome.

Here’s the list:

Introduction: In His House at R’lyeh… – Ross E. Lockhart
The Lightning Splitter – Walter Greatshell
Dead Canyons – Ann K. Schwader
Delirium Sings at the Maelstrom Window – Michael Griffin
Into Ye Smoke-Wreath’d World of Dream – W. H. Pugmire
The Lurker In the Shadows – Nathan Carson
The Insectivore – Orrin Grey
The Body Shop – Richard Lee Byers
On a Kansas Plain – Michael J. Martinez
The Prince of Lyghes – Anya Martin
The Curious Death of Sir Arthur Turnbridge – G. D. Falksen
Aerkheim’s Horror – Christine Morgan
Return of the Prodigy – T.E. Grau
The Curse of the Old Ones – Molly Tanzer and Jesse Bullington
Love Will Save You – Cameron Pierce
Assemblage Point – Scott R. Jones
The Return of Sarnath – Gord Sellar
The Long Dark – Wendy N. Wagner
Green Revolution – Cody Goodfellow
Don’t Make Me Assume My Ultimate Form – Laird Barron

I’m excited to be in an anthology with so many talented folks, some of whom I’ve met before and some of whom I’m simply a fan. The titles themselves are pretty cool, and I’m particularly looking forward to reading Laird Barron’s piece, as it sounds like something I’d say to my kid after she’s had too much sugar.

We don’t have a cover or release date yet (beyond the fact that it’s in August), but this one looks to be something special regardless. Head on over to Word Horde for more, and do check out the other books on offer while you’re there.

#SFWApro

Leave a comment

Filed under Books, Publishing

The Venusian Gambit gets a starred review from Publishers Weekly

TVG-cover-finalI’ve known about this one for a little over a week now, but it’s still just absolutely amazing and leaves me dazed every time I read it. Publishers Weekly saw fit to give The Venusian Gambit a starred review! And they said such incredibly nice things, such as:

Overflowing with complexity and eloquence, the conclusion to Martinez’s Daedalus Trilogy (following The Enceladus Crisis) seamlessly blends popular elements from science fiction and fantasy, producing a work that raises the bar for both.

It then goes on to give a summary of Gambit, which proves to me that, yes, they are indeed talking about my book. I mean, it’s always good to check, right? And they sum it up by saying:

[Martinez] skillfully handles the intricacies of characterization and the many moving parts, building to the trilogy’s utterly satisfying and quite epic finale.

There’s more at the link, of course, including that very shiny star next to the title. I know we’re supposed to act like we’ve been there, done that — and indeed, The Daedalus Incident received a starred review and year-end honors from Library Journal when it came out, which was amazing — but this was exceedingly special and I am mighty grateful for it.

My thanks to the folks at Publishers Weekly for giving The Venusian Gambit a shot — they get a LOT of books to review and can’t always get to all of them. And FYI, I’ll be returning to the PW Radio podcast in May to talk about the Daedalus trilogy and whatever else I got going on, so stay tuned for that.

The Venusian Gambit comes out May 5. Click here for pre-order info and more. Can’t wait to see this one out there!

#SFWApro

1 Comment

Filed under Books, Publishing

I have a short story in the upcoming Cthulhu Fhtagn! anthology!

Don't worry...the final cover will be slightly more scary.

Don’t worry…the final cover will be slightly more scary.

I am exceptionally pleased and outright stoked to make my first short-story sale announcement, and doubly so because of the topic.

My story, “On a Kansas Plain,” will be included in Cthulhu Fhtagn! from Word Horde, due out in August. The anthology is edited by none other than Ross Lockhart, who did a fantastic job editing The Daedalus Incident for Night Shade Books. So make that triply pleased, because I get to work with Ross again.

This is a bit of a departure for me, as the Daedalus trilogy is very much four-color adventure, but I’ve been a Cthulhu fan ever since I first read Lovecraft’s works in college (and played some pretty intense Call of Cthulhu sessions). Having a go at Lovecraft story was very much on my authorial wish list, so naturally I’m thrilled to put a check mark next to it. I get to do a little homage, I get to stretch my skills a bit…it’s just a win all around.

As Ross put it, “the stars will be right this August” — i.e., that’s when the book comes out, but I don’t have a firm date yet. I’ve seen the list of authors, and while that hasn’t been released publicly, suffice it to say I’m honored to be among them. And the cover art is still preliminary, but I promise it’s suitably dark and foreboding and tentacle-y and has nothing to do with the image above.

I’ll be posting more about the anthology as the stars align and the time draws near….! Fhtagn!

#SFWApro

Leave a comment

Filed under Books, Publishing, Writing