Marcher Lord Press New Releases

Run for cover! The third set of original Christian speculative fiction from Marcher Lord Press has been unleased. Set loose. Escaped all efforts to restrain it.

These are some mean space invaders too, so really, find your nearest bomb shelter, take lots of beef jerky, and prepare to sit out the invasion.

We did try to fight. And we had some limited successes. We were able to form a new online store to spread out their onslought somewhat. And we clustered some of their assaults into launch party bundles that helped stem the speed of their spread.

We fought bravely, but in the end we were no match for their superior technology. Imagine the power of three science fiction epics bearing down on us! The horror..the horror.

Read on to find out more of what happened at the Battle of Release Season 3.
Jeff Gerke
Publisher
Marcher Lord Press
The Power of the Third List

Someone has advised that I keep these missives short, so that's exactly what I'm going to do.

Mainly because I've been working virtually non-stop for the last six weeks getting ready for this day. There was the blitz to get the books ready on time plus the unexpected bomb that I had to completely and suddenly build an entirely new online store three days before launch. I'm pooped, baby. But by the grace of God it all got done!

List 3 Covers--GreyThe three new books are amazing, as are their authors. If you love Christian speculative fiction, and I know you do, you will find these novels quickly climbing to the top of your favorites list.

If you're a fan of fantasy and you think there's nothing here for you, I hope you'll reconsider. These books are among the best Christian fiction I've ever read in any genre. You won't be sorry you read these.

And to sweeten the deal for you, I have created some must-have launch party bundles.

Want free shipping? I've got the bundle for you. Want a free Marcher Lord Press wall poster or awesome T-shirt? Gotcha covered. Want all the science fiction novels ever produced by MLP? They're in a bundle. Ready to take the plunge and write your own fiction? I've even got a bundle or two for you.

The one thing all the bundles have in common is that you'll save money if you purchase them. You can certainly buy the items individually and pay more. I'll let you! But I thought you might appreciate some free swag as you launch into these tremendous SF novels.

The bundles will be available from October 1 through October 4. Then they're blasting off back to the mother ship. So don't get left behind.

News for October 1st, 2009

Tony Lavoie says:
My short story "Wind Farm Annie" has been accepted at MLP-offshoot new e-zine "The Cross and the Cosmos"!
This acceptance is actually a milestone for me. I set a goal earlier this year to have no less than four stories published by year's end, and Annie is number four. So that big sigh you heard this morning was me.

http://crossandcosmos.com if you want to see what they're all about over there. I am thrilled and blessed to have this chance to be a part of this new venue.

I credit many of you in some respect (and with much respect!) for this story, because being a part of this group has really gotten my sci-fi blood flowing this past year or so. So thanks, guys! You're the best!

Here's a great quote from D.G.D. Davidson, the Sci Fi Catholic:
“Be suspicious of any apocalyptic notions that fail the coolness test. Since we don’t know exactly what’s going to happen anyway, our useless speculations on the subject should at least be cool.” – DGD Davidson

And a note from your global blog editor: I'm still in France dodging from one internet café to the next - and let me tell you, it ain't easy, especially with this French keyboard layout! - so bear with me if blog posts are a little sparse or even misspelled. But I'm still watching for the news, even if I'm reduced to hunt-and-peck!

News from Marcher Lord Press

Special Joint Message from WhereTheMapEnds and Marcher Lord Press

Greetings, faithful fan of Christian speculative fiction.

Marcher Lord Press is pleased to announce the impending release of our third season of original Christian speculative novels.

In just two days! On October 1, the books will officially be available.

And what a lineup we have this time. I'm so excited about these books, their covers, and these new authors.

Please Add Your Prayers

I'm writing you this note not only to whet your appetite for the books, but also to ask you to enter with me in prayer.

Two days ago, I discovered a problem with the shopping cart software I've been using for my online store. When I got that resolved, I found another problem: the admin area had been hacked.

So, with mere days left before the release of the new season, I found myself in the midst of creating a new online store. Yikes!

I had already been intending to change from the shopping cart system I'd been using--but four days before a new release would not have been the time of my choosing. However, God is always faithful.

I have recruited two of my authors (and their wives) to help me get this store up and running in time. Stuart Vaughn Stockton (Starfire) and Kerry Nietz (A Star Curiously Singing) and their gracious and talented wives have gotten into the yoke with me and are working to get the store up and running by October 1.

As you might expect, there are a number of glitches to work out and software interactions to troubleshoot--not to mention the more than 30 new html pages that must be created, with all the information migrated over from the other store.

I would greatly value your prayers in this endeavor. And, perhaps, your patience if all is not perfectly flowing on game day.

Launch Day Specials

As always, I am planning some very cool launch day goodies and specials. In this case, they will be extended launch weekend goodies and specials.

From Thursday, October 1, through Sunday, October 4, you will be able to take advantage of some way wonderful bundles and specials.

And what will those be...? Um, I'm still hammering that out. [grin]

I'm working on several bundles that will offer free shipping.* I'm working on some that come with a free Marcher Lord Press poster or T-shirt of your choice. I'm even toying with a few that would let you get a free MLP book.

So I'm in "Trust me, it will be great!" mode. But if you've been around for the previous release launches, you know I'm telling no fib.

Thank you for your support--in all ways--of Christian speculative fiction in general and of Marcher Lord Press specifically.

See you on Thursday!

Sincerely,

Jeff Gerke

Marcher Lord Press

WhereTheMapEnds

The Anomaly

* I can offer free shipping in the continental U.S. only.

Guild Member Spotlight: G.K. Fields

Welcome to our ongoing series of conversations with Lost Genre Guild members. Catch them here on Mondays!

G.K. Fields (aka: Walt Staples among many other aliases)

When did you join the LGG? How did you make the connection?

I joined in March of 2009. Frank Creed invited me after I took part in a workshop he ran at the Catholic Writers Conference Online.

What’s the first thing you remember that happened in the Guild?

Actually, it was half-way between the outside and the Guild. It took Frank three days of emailing invitations before one that worked came through. An omen?

Tell us some good things that have transpired from belonging.

I learned that I’m not the only author whose work doesn’t fit publishers’ classifications (“Will it sell? Priscella Goodbody’s novels sell. Her twenty-fourth volume of the Vampire Adolescence Angst Series sold very well. Is this author’s book just like it? No? Okay, rejection slip pile then.”). Note: If you are Priscilla Goodbody or you are writing the twenty-fourth volume of the Vampire Adolescence Angst Series, you have my apologies.

What’s your genre and subgenre? Why do you think this is?

I’m afraid I’m rather one dimensional. I write mystery. Everything I write turns out to be mystery; science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, modern fiction. They all turn into blasted mysteries! The household budget even turns into mystery (“Okay, who the heck bought $25 worth of chopsticks? We ain’t even had Chinese food this quarter!”). I suppose it might have something to do with my Dad throwing out the instruction sheet that came with me before I could read it.

Do you like to read the same genre as you write? What other genres interest you? Favorite authors?

I prefer to read deceased authors usually. There tend to be fewer plagiarism suits filed by them when it is discovered that (A) a murder occurs in your book and (B) the story is set in North America. My favorite authors (who, I think, are safely dead) are Jack Douglas [Shutup and Eat Your Snowshoes], Poul Anderson [The High Crusade], Douglas Adams [The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy], Eric Frank Russell [The Space Willies], Gordon Dickson [Space Paw], Murray Leinster [The Pirates of Ersatz], Robert Asprin [Another Fine Myth], Theodore Cogswell [The Spectre General], Giovanni Guareschi [The Little World of Don Camillo], Hans Hellmut Kirst [The Adventures of Private Faust], and Robert Vaughan [Brandywine’s War] (who, if he isn’t a daisy-pusher yet, I hope doesn’t see this) .

Tell us about your published work, and where we can go to find out more.

I wrote Dinosaurs of Eastern North America while at the Virginia Museum of Natural History (out of print, naturally), a series of radio plays – “Chops: The Tiger’s Teeth,” “Chops: The Sacrament of Murder,” “Sanctuary,” and “The Passionate Pink Virgin” – produced and broadcast by WYEP-FM in Pittsburgh (if you want to catch them, the signals should be passing Epsilon Eridani about now), the comic book “Crossways” some of which was published by Antarctic Press (old comic shops or email me – I have no shame), and articles in The Roanoker magazine and Strategic Review (they’re a little old, but if your Latin is up to it, you shouldn’t have much problem). I also edited The Allegheny View newspaper and, way the heck back there, a science fiction/fantasy fanzine called Nebulous.

What are you working on right now? How’s progress?

At the moment, I’m working on Chapter 12 of a mystery set in 1941 Libya entitled Chained Dogs. Someone has murdered an officer in Rommel’s headquarters, and the Party sure doesn’t love the ex-homicide detective from Upper Bavaria who is investigating. I’m also pre-writing a police procedural set in present day Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. The working title is A Shenandoah Farewell. Yesterday, I began pulling together research for a science fiction story that involves Airborne operations, horse cavalry, and, with my luck, murder.

How has the LGG helped you in your work?

It’s given me someplace to talk other writers who are going through the same exasperations involved with writing. As I was telling my imaginary friend, a green and pink cow, this morning; it helps me keep my head straight.

What are your dreams for the future of Christian speculative fiction, and for yourself within that?

Seriously, I’d like to see it get out of its ghetto and become just speculative fiction that happens to have characters who approach life from a worldview that is formed by their experience of religion. This was not uncommon in science fiction a generation ago. Publishers billing themselves as “Christian” can make speculative fiction available to the readers. If we write good enough fiction, it will sell and the secular publishers will jump on the bandwagon through self-interest. Being who I am and where I’ve been, I tend to accept people of good faith who demonstrate that faith. I think Jesus said something about “those who are not against me…” But, as one of my characters said, “Enough, I talk too damn much.”

Your best writing tip?

(1) Get out and eavesdrop. Ride the bus, eat at the diner with your ears open, hang around where people are shopping. Nothing will teach you about dialogue like just listening to people speaking to each other in public. Bull-sessions in the barracks or berthing spaces weren’t wasting time, they were research.

(2) a lot of the information you can use for science fiction is available online free or at a low price. NASA, the various DOD agencies, and state websites have a ton of useful things. In my own writing, most of the non-sensitive military manuals are available online for download as a PDF. The few that aren’t, don’t cost that much (as an example, I bought the FM manual on air-cavalry operations from Amazon.com for my Kindle last night for 99 cents). I was able to buy a 2006 copy of the handbook used by all law enforcement officers in the Commonwealth of Virginia for $5 from a used book dealer down there through Amazon.com (at about a thousand pages, it is not only useful for research, it can double for weight-lifting or be thrown in front of a speeding car instead of stop-strips).

(3) If the action in your story isn’t taking place out in your front yard, read the local newspapers of the setting online. I do a Google search on every place I write about. I also read four newspapers from my settlings each morning (three cost me $5 per month, the fourth is free – at least until the publisher gets wise). It can save you from boneheaded mistakes. Ray Bradbury used to complain that at every science fiction convention he attended, a kid would come up and point out that Bradbury had the moons of Mars orbiting in the wrong direction in one of his stories.

What else are you up to that our readers would find interesting?

Outside of parting the Red Sea each morning, balancing the federal budget, and explaining what girls wearing bikinis in a snowstorm have to do with beer, I can’t think of a thing.

Something you reckon not many people know about you?

I can wiggle my ears and pick up and manipulate objects with my toes.

Your website or social media profile? Until there’s some content, what’s the point?