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Post by williemeikle on Feb 28, 2011 21:08:01 GMT
Patty Doyle holds the secret to eternal life, but it may only bring her an early death. THE CONCORDANCES OF THE RED SERPENT - Now only 70p Patty is a cataloguer of rare manuscripts, working on part of a newly discovered journal of a 14th Century alchemist. Just another dull day on the job. But after mentioning it in her blog she gets to the office to find everyone brutally murdered. Now she's on the run with the incomplete journal, trying to find the rest, pursued by a killer who wants the secret of eternal life it contains. The quest leads her halfway across the world to the castles and misty history of Scotland. She thinks she's looking for a manuscript. But the things she learns on the journey all point to the 14th Century alchemist himself, a man who is still very much alive. The Concordances of the Red Serpent is a thriller set in the USA, Canada and Scotland and is my attempt at one of those glossy caper movies Hitchcock used to make back in the day with a blonde in peril. Mix that with a bit of Da Vinci Code type musings on alchemical secrets and stir well.
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Post by Dreadlocksmile on Mar 1, 2011 11:43:52 GMT
The first print proof arrived at the publisher's today - he's as excited as I am. It's almost time to FLIPIT. The Invasion / ʎǝllɐΛ ǝɥ┴ and The Valley / uoısɐʌuI ǝɥ┴ coming soon Mr Meikle - A few questions to hurtle at you...When's this likely to go on sale? Where can we order them from (for the best price innit!)? Is this h/copy version of 'The Invasion' the full extended version (as per the updated Kindle version)? P.S. Excellent recent blog entry on "Why I like apocalyptic fiction" BTW. Top darts!
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Post by williemeikle on Mar 2, 2011 21:15:07 GMT
The first print proof arrived at the publisher's today - he's as excited as I am. It's almost time to FLIPIT. The Invasion / ʎǝllɐΛ ǝɥ┴ and The Valley / uoısɐʌuI ǝɥ┴ coming soon Mr Meikle - A few questions to hurtle at you...When's this likely to go on sale? Where can we order them from (for the best price innit!)? Is this h/copy version of 'The Invasion' the full extended version (as per the updated Kindle version)? P.S. Excellent recent blog entry on "Why I like apocalyptic fiction" BTW. Top darts! >When's this likely to go on sale? Around 1st of April at a guess -- I'll keep you posted >Where can we order them from (for the best price innit!)? All the usual places -- Book Depository generally seems to do the best deal all round on my books coming out of the States as the shipping is free from them. I'm trying to get some UK bookstores interested. No takers yet but I live in hope. >Is this h/copy version of 'The Invasion' the full extended version (as per the updated Kindle version)? Yep. :-)
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Post by williemeikle on Mar 10, 2011 16:17:55 GMT
New today for the Kindle Derek Adams is on the lam, framed for a strange murder and chased by a cult intent on getting their hands on the skin belt that writhes in Derek's pocket. When a firm of lawyers offers him a way out, he grabs it with both hands. Then things really go to the dogs! www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004R9Q7MUwww.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004R9Q7MUThe origins of Derek Adams, The Midnight Eye I read widely, both in the crime and horror genres, but my crime fiction in particular keeps returning to older, pulpier, bases. My series character, Glasgow PI Derek Adams, is a Bogart and Chandler fan, and it is the movies and Americana of the '40s that I find a lot of my inspiration for him, rather than in the modern procedural. That, and the old city, are the two main drivers for the Midnight Eye stories. When I was a lad, back in the early 1960s, we lived in a town 20 miles south of Glasgow, and it was an adventure to the big city when I went with my family on shopping trips. Back then the city was a Victorian giant going slowly to seed. It is often said that the British Empire was built in Glasgow on the banks of the river Clyde. Back when I was young, the shipyards were still going strong, and the city centre itself still held on to some of its past glories. It was a warren of tall sandstone buildings and narrow streets, with Edwardian trams still running through them. The big stores still had pneumatic delivery systems for billing, every man wore a hat, collar and tie, and steam trains ran into grand vaulted railway stations filled with smoke. To a young boy from the sticks it seemed like a grand place. It was only later that I learned about the knife gangs that terrorized the dance halls, and the serial killer, Bible John, who frequented the same dance floors, quoting scripture as he lured teenage girls to a violent end. Fast forward fifteen years, and I was at University in the city, and getting an education into the real heart of the place. I learned about bars, and religious divides. Glasgow is split along tribal royalties. Back in the Victorian era, shiploads of Irishmen came to Glasgow for work. The protestants went to one side of the city, the catholics to the other. There they set up homes... and football teams. Now these teams are the biggest sporting giants in Scotland, two behemoths that attract bigots like bees to honey. As a student I soon learned how to avoid giving away my religion in bars, and which ones to stay out of on match days. Also by the time I was a student, a lot of the tall sandstone buildings had been pulled down to make way for tower blocks. Back then they were the new shiny future, taking the people out of the Victorian ghettos and into the present day. Fast forward to the present day and there are all new ghettos. The tower blocks are ruled by drug gangs and pimps. Meanwhile there have been many attempts to gentrify the city centre, with designer shops being built in old warehouses, with docklands developments building expensive apartments where sailors used to get services from hard faced girls, and with shiny, trendy bars full of glossy expensively dressed bankers. And underneath it all, the old Glasgow still lies, slumbering, a dreaming god waiting for the stars to be right again. Derek Adams, The Midnight Eye, knows the ways of the old city. And, if truth be told, he prefers them to the new. Plus, there are antecedents - occult detectives who may seem to use the trappings of crime solvers, but get involved in the supernatural. William Hjortsberg's Falling Angel (the book that led to the movie Angel Heart) is a fine example, an expert blending of gumshoe and deviltry that is one of my favorite books. Likewise, in the movies, we have cops facing a demon in Denzel Washington's Fallen that plays like a police procedural taken to a very dark place. But I think it's the people that influence me most. Everybody in Scotland's got stories to tell, and once you get them going, you can't stop them. I love chatting to people, (usually in pubs) and finding out the -weird- sh** they've experienced. Derek is mainly based on a bloke I met years ago in a bar in Partick, and quite a few of the characters that turn up and talk too much in my books can be found in real life in bars in Glasgow, Edinburgh and St Andrews.
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Post by williemeikle on Mar 10, 2011 19:22:43 GMT
I've become a convert in recent years to the idea of aiming for the highest markets you can. For much of my early career I stuck to small press markets, paying in copies or token amounts. This was more to do with a lack of confidence in my own ability than from any desire to stay in the "trenches". And that became the problem. I got cosy down there, and racked up large numbers of stories in print in small mags.
My Road to Damascus moment came in 2005 when I appeared in a Scottish anthology alongside the likes of Charlie Stross, Jane Yolen and Hal Duncan. I got to stand beside them all at a mass signing, and I thought "I can do this."
Since then I've been aiming higher. There are more misses now, but the hits are so much more satisfying.
Which brings me back to the payment issue. I -thought- I was happy down in the small presses, but I was deluding myself. The real feelings of achievement come when you feel you are getting a decent reward for the job. Sometimes that comes with money, other times with exposure and kudos, but all the time it comes from setting your sights as high as you can and aiming for the gold ring.
And just this week, I've sold a short story to NATURE FUTURES, one of my "target" markets.
Onwards and upwards.
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Post by williemeikle on Mar 11, 2011 19:22:25 GMT
Pleased to see my story (with Graeme Hurry) from Something Wicked magazine "THE BLUE HAG" get an Honorable Mention in the 2010 Best Horror of the Year volume.
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Post by williemeikle on Mar 11, 2011 19:33:53 GMT
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Post by williemeikle on Mar 12, 2011 15:33:18 GMT
It's here! Two shorts novels, 384 pages. One of my earlest forays on my own into a second-hand bookstore, sometime around 1968 I guess, resulted in me finding an ACE double, a book you read both ways up, one short novel each way. The 1st one I got had John Brunner one way and Samuel Delaney the other -- my first introduction to two writers who are still among my favorites. Over my teenage years the ACE double series introduced me to many other writers, people like Jack Vance, H Beam Piper, Fritz Lieber and a youngster who went by Dean R Koontz. I have a lot of reading to thank them for. That's one of the reasons it gives me great delight to see two of my novels appear in the same format. THE INVASION / THE VALLEY - two pulp adventure novels, ons Sci-Fi, one Lost World, both Amazon Bestsellers in their Kindle format. THE INVASION reached #2 in the Sci-Fi chart, #4 in Horror and #1 in Occult and THE VALLEY hit #1 in Historical Fantasy. See the cover(s) here: Invasion up front The Valley up front And buy it here: www.amazon.com/dp/0983279217Paperback: 384 pages Publisher: Generation Next Publications ISBN-10: 0983279217 ISBN-13: 978-0983279211 Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
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Post by williemeikle on Mar 21, 2011 16:06:38 GMT
If anyone would like to review THE MIDNIGHT EYE FILES: THE AMULET, drop me a line - I have it in mobi, kindle or pdf
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Post by williemeikle on Mar 23, 2011 13:35:26 GMT
Now in print at Amazon UK - two popular ebooks in one FLIPIT paperback The first FLIPIT book contains my novels The Invasion and The Valley. Both novels are digital best-sellers and have graced the top 2 on the best-sellers list in their respective categories on Amazon. www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0983279217
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Post by williemeikle on Mar 25, 2011 15:58:13 GMT
Out today for the Kindle on Amazon .COM and CO.UK www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004THZ5GOwww.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004THZ5GOTom wants to see a dragon. And his Grandad wants to make one. But neither of them are prepared for the consequences when they accidentally spill Grandad's special growth formula on the ground. Insects, grown to giant-size, start to emerge, a few only at first, then more and more...a huge, swarming, mass of them. Now Tom, along with farmer's daughter, Kate, must battle against the giant bugs to save Kate's parents. They need help...big help. The kind of help a dragon can provide... A homage to big bug movies for the children in all of us -- a mad scientist, plucky kids, giant ants, huge blobs, a pony, mass destruction.... and a dragon.
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Post by williemeikle on Mar 28, 2011 15:34:44 GMT
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Post by williemeikle on Mar 28, 2011 22:44:00 GMT
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Post by williemeikle on Apr 5, 2011 13:02:58 GMT
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Post by williemeikle on Apr 11, 2011 17:07:15 GMT
I've now talked to Steve Price on the phone, at an Arkansas number, and can state categorically that he is most definitely not Neil Jackson.
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