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July 2023 Sale!

Comments Off on July 2023 Sale! Written on July 7th, 2023 by
Categories: Plugs

“Put down the buffalo dog and step away from the bar!”

That simple sentence set in motion a universe. And not just any universe, no, the Conroyverse!

The Conroyverse is a sampler containing the short story that started the entire fictional universe as well as the first novels from each of the three series that share that common, alien-rich setting. It’s a taste — appropriate given the emphasis on food across the books — of what awaits you in the ongoing adventures and humorous romps of each series.

Conroyverse

Buffalito Destiny – The Amazing Conroy is a stage hypnotist working third-rate venues on alien worlds, gets talked into being a courier of an Arconi buffalito — an adorable alien creature that can eat anything and farts oxygen. If he can avoid being executed for smuggling, his world will be forever changed.

Ace of Corpses – Angela Colson only appears to be a seemingly ordinary Humann teenager, but she’s actually a mutant variant from a race of teleporting aliens who have hidden in plain sight for millennia. They don’t believe she can keep their secret. If she doesn’t convince them otherwise, they’ll resolve the problem by putting her to death!

Slice of Entropy – Melody Wilder just needs to complete her doctorate and life will be perfect. But the downside of a university on a space station orbiting Neptune is that an assortment of aliens keeps showing up, imposing their own agendas on her, with no concern for her dissertation on sentient, non-Human memory.

Hypnosis, Teleportation, and Alien Academia, Oh My!

From July 9th to the 15th, you can pick it up for just 99¢ (and 99p in the UK), a nice savings over the regular ebook price of $8.99.

Call to action:
Buy the Book! If you’ve already done that, Post a Review! Failing that, please tell a friend about the sale.

B.W.O.P. made the ballot!

No Comments » Written on July 7th, 2023 by
Categories: Plugs

So, this happened:

Buffalito World Outreach Project

Yesterday morning the Hugo Administer for the 2023 Worldcon released the list of award finalists. My book Buffalito World Outreach Project appears to have made the cut in the Best Related Work category.

My thanks to all of you who included it on your nominating ballot. I would not be writing this post if you hadn’t.
Thanks also to the many translators I worked with and the various magazines who provided translations in exchange for being permitted to print “Buffalo Dogs” in their venues.

And huge appreciation to the Kickstarter supporters who made this project possible, not just in terms of funding, but also distraction. The Kickstarter had been scheduled months in advance, but it started two weeks after my surprise Leukemia diagnosis, and the timing helped keep my mind from the intense treatments of that first month.

As I type this I am actually at the hospital. I have just reviewed the findings of the latest bone marrow biopsy with my oncologist. No indication of the Multiple Myeloma that has been with me for the past four years and no sign of the Leukemia that has defined so much of my existence since October.

TL;DR – Hugo nom and cancer free.

Yeah, it’s a great day to be alive.

June 2023 Sale!

Comments Off on June 2023 Sale! Written on June 11th, 2023 by
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Melody Wilder just needs to complete her dissertation and life will be perfect. Alas, that’s not going to happen.

She hasn’t picked a topic yet, her undergraduate loans have been “un-forgiven” with a vengeance, the university is about to strip her of her stipend, her job, and her apartment, and a pirate-priest minotaur is systematically destroying her hopes and dreams.

Meanwhile, alien bear cub physicists are trying to extradite her best friend on charges of violating the laws of conservation of matter every time he makes a pizza!

And things are just getting started.

Slice of Entropy

From now through Saturday, June 17th, my novel Slice of Entropy (Book One in my PIZZA IN SPACE series) will be on sale for a mere 99¢ in the U.S. and 99p in the U.K. via an Amazon Countdown Deal.

Alas, Amazon only has countdown deals in those two countries. I think that sucks. So I have manually gone in and altered the price of the book to the lowest allowable dollar amount at every other Amazon site in the world!

So, c’mon Australia, show me some love in return. Germany, I’m looking at you, too. Canada, I don’t know why Amazon hates you, but I don’t (I’m coming to visit next month). Mexico, this is your moment.

Call to action:
Buy the Book! If you’ve already done that, Post a Review! Failing that, please tell a friend about the sale.

The Past Five Years

3 comments Written on June 6th, 2023 by
Categories: Plugs

On the sixth of June, 2018, my comfy DayJob of nearly seventeen years went away. I think it was a Wednesday.

I was called into the office of the newly promoted CEO. My supervisor accompanied me. I knew what was coming. I had been the Director of Research for a small medical center for all those years. We focused on treating individuals with substance abuse issues and mental health issues throughout Philadelphia. None of the other providers in the city had a Director of Research, and the new administration decided that the perks of having me do the work did not outweigh the costs.

I was given a week to finish up paperwork and pack my office. I was also given a very generous severance package. The following Tuesday was my last day. On Wednesday I flew to China, the second of what would be three trips, to hang out others from around the world and be part of a workshop sponsored by an agency trying to bring education to some very rural regions. It was an incredible experience. All of the authors wrote a piece of fiction inspired by the experience. Mine, “The Rule of Three,” went on to be nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novelette.

Seventeen years at a job can make you complacent. Honestly, the work had stopped being fun a few years earlier and I’d repeatedly considered quitting, but the money was simply too good to walk away from. That, and as it was only a half-time job, I had plenty of time to write. I’d typically show up in the early morning when the maintenance crew unlocked the building, work for four or five hours, and then head off to lunch at KFC, and then settle in at my booth and write for the next several hours.

Having my job vanish basically changed my status to “full time author,” which as it turned out took me more than a year to really get comfortable with. And too, the Universe began to unveil its plans for me.

In the five years that followed I released 40 books (twelve with co-authors). Some of these were re-releases with new publishers so the number isn’t quite as impressive. I was nominated for four awards (and won two of them). I had my third trip to China where I was one of several authors who were Guests of Honor at a national convention (as part of which I spent a wonderful time talking about Klingon to a group of high school students). Soon after returning to the USA, I was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, an incurable form of cancer. I had the first of what would become many hospital stays as a surgeon shoved a titanium rod into my leg to shore up my left femur. I had my cells harvested and received an autologous bone marrow transplant (and went into sepsis and nearly died). The transplant gave me a new immune system, which in turn pushed my cancer into remission, where it was kept for most of four years by means of daily chemotherapy. I shut down the small press I’d started in 2006, as well as nearly all other time sinks so I could focus on just three things while I fought MM: my wife, my dog, my writing. More slowly, I began limiting my involvement with the Klingon Language Institute (an international organization I’d created back in 1992), transitioning it to a new Board of Directors to take the reins. In October of 2022, I was diagnosed with Leukemia. I began an extremely aggressive treatment (and included another nearly fatal round of sepsis and my first experience of delirium) that after six months culminated in an autologous stem cell transplant with an anonymous 27 year old donor in Israel with whom I amazingly matched with on 12 of 12 genetic markers. I named his cells “Dave.”

As type this, I’ve been home from my last hospital stay for two months. I have weekly (originally twice-weekly) outpatient visits to check on how things are going (quite well), if my body is attempting to reject the donated cells (it’s not), or if the cells are attempting to attack my body (one small flare up, but otherwise great). I’ve spent a lot of that time being stupidly tired, frustratingly weak, and struggling with some cognitive limitations and brain fog. In the last ten days, these issues have greatly receded and I find myself able to take long walks and to write again. A bone marrow biopsy performed a month ago found no sign of either cancer.

What will the next five years bring? I don’t know, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was stranger than fiction.

LOW PORT & CATS IN SPACE Giveaway!

No Comments » Written on March 20th, 2023 by
Categories: News, Plugs
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Calling Australia, Canada, and India!

No Comments » Written on March 2nd, 2023 by
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Conroyverse

Most months I’ll put a book on sale for a week and share the specifics via my newsletter (and hey, maybe you should subscribe so you don’t have to read about these things on my website).

I manage this using a tool called the Amazon Countdown. Currently, these countdowns are only available in the US and the UK. Everyone else is just out of luck. This annoys me. It’s like Amazon doesn’t want me to give readers in other countries a break. How do they expect me to further my plans for World Domination™?

This month I am fighting back. In an effort to reach more readers in other English-speaking countries, from March 5th through the 11th I’ll be manually reducing the price of my three book sampler Conroyverse in Australia, Canada, and India.

For the span of this one week, the normal prices — $11.99 in Australia / $9.99 in Canada / ₹449 in India — will drop to $3.99, $2.99, and ₹99, respectively. If this manages to spread word of the Amazing Conroy, Angela (Gel) Colson, and Melody Wilder to even a handful of readers in other parts of the world, I’ll consider this effort a success.

March 2023 Sale!

No Comments » Written on March 1st, 2023 by
Categories: Plugs
Galactic Capers of the Amazing Conroy

Back when I was a kid, March was the windiest of months and everyone flew kites. The local electric company even put out a little booklet on making your own kite and specifying proper safe kite-flying behavior (i.e., away from power lines). The booklet featured a cartoon character whose body and limbs were jagged lightning bolts and whose head was a glowing light bulb. But I digress.

This month I’m exited to share two different sales. First up, from March 13th through the 19th, my publisher at LMBPN is putting the box set of the entire Adrenaline Rush trilogy on sale for just 99¢. So, if you haven’t yet sampled how Brian Thorne and I write action SF, this is your opportunity!

And later, it’s time for Nebula-nominated novellas to go on sale, and I happen to have four of them all bound together in a single ebook. That’s right, from March 25th through the 31st, Galactic Capers of the Amazing Conroy — which includes Barry’s Tale, Calendrical Regression, Barry’s Deal, and Trial of the Century — will also be available for just 99¢ (or 99p in the UK) via an Amazon Countdown Deal.

You’re welcome. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to construct a kite.

Klingon HAMLET Giveaway!

No Comments » Written on February 13th, 2023 by
Categories: Plugs