In the past couple of weeks I’ve noticed some positive reviews coming in for Dead Man’s Hand and for my story, “Second Hand,” specifically.

Over here M. J. Starling says “I love Rajan Khanna’s card sharp stories” among other wonderful things and let me tell you I will be flying high on those comments for weeks.

Also, at The Book Plank, they single out my story along with those by Tad Williams, Joe Lansdale, Christie Yant and Seanan McGuire. The “Second Hand” review ends with “Rajan Khanna has started to build a great premise in Second Hand that will hopefully be featured in more stories or a full length book!” which is encouraging (and I am definitely writing more). 

Feedback, positive or negative, is sometimes so hard to come by with short fiction that it’s nice to get some. Especially when it’s so positive. Knowing that people are enjoying my fiction makes the writing all the more worthwhile. It also helps to keep going when things get tough.

Now, to work on the next story…

I am very happy to say that my story, “Second Hand,” is currently up to read, for free, at Lightspeed Magazine. This is my first appearance as an author at Lightspeed (I’ve narrated and edited podcasts for them before) and it’s a market I’ve long wanted to appear in. “Second Hand” is a weird western and a sequel of sorts to my story, “Card Sharp,” which appeared in the anthology The Way of the Wizard. “Card Sharp” isn’t available to read online at the moment but the story was podcast over at Podcastle if you’d like to get the full story so far.

“Second Hand” also appears in the anthology, Dead Man’s Hand, which also releases today. It’s an anthology full of weird western tales featuring authors like Tad Williams, Joe R. Lansdale, Ken Liu, Jeffrey Ford, and Christie Yant. Here’s the full Table of Contents. You can also find a list of free reads from the anthology (and related tales) here.

Sound interesting? Why not buy the book?

I am thrilled to see that editor John Joseph Adams announced Dead Man’s Hand, a weird western anthology coming from Titan Books. My story, “Second Hand,” will be in the anthology, a continuation of the story begun in my Way of the Wizard story, “Card Sharp.”

I am even more excited to see all the amazing and talented writers who I’m sharing a TOC with. I have no idea how I ended up in this one to be honest. (Jeffrey Ford! Tad Williams!).

it’s not out for another year, but I can’t wait to see it in its finished form.

Also, I may be writing a related novel to the story in this one…

It’s been a little while since I spoke about current or past projects here, so I thought I would list a few things that I have out in the world or soon to be out in the world right now:

Fermented Adventures – this is a website I created to talk about beer and wine and drinking culture. I realize this isn’t as interesting for some, but it’s something that I enjoy. I’ve been making more of an effort to keep this updated and have recently started blogging about my homebrewing adventures. If you’re at all interested, stop by, take a look, comment if you like.

Sales! – I recently discovered that I had a story accepted by the soon to be relaunched Dreams of Decadence. DoD was formerly a magazine of vampire fiction, but in its new incarnation it will be focusing on urban fantasy and paranormal romance. I’m looking forward to seeing the mag in its new form. I also had another acceptance that I won’t give details about until I get the contract. But both stories were stories I wrote as holiday stories, my version of Xmas cards where instead of sending a card, I send people an original story.

Recent Publications – the following are recent publications of mine, along with some nice words that people have said about them. They are all still available if you’re interested. Listed in reverse order of publication.

Skulls & Crossbones: An anthology of fiction about women pirates, containing my story, “The Furies”, which received Honorable Mention in the Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror. Now available at Amazon.com and at Bedazzled Ink.

Shimmer’s Clockwork Jungle issue: containing Steampunk animal fables including my story, “The Emperor’s Gift”. The Mad Hatter’s Bookshelf and Book Review had some nice things to say about the issue. Not if You Were the Last Short Story on Earth picks my story as a favorite. And Rich Horton mentions me as well in his year-end roundup of Shimmer. Finally, SF Revu calls the story “touching”.

Steampunk Tales #4: Just as the title suggests, steampunk stories including my zeppelin adventure, “The Juggernaut”. Available in digital formats and as an app for the iPhone/iPod Touch and now the iPad. For $1.99 it’s incredible value.

Shadows of the Emerald City: weird Oz stories (that’s the Wizard of Oz, not Australia which is weird in its own way) containing my story, “Pumpkinhead”. The Amazon review in the previous link lists my story in the top 3. Brandon Bell at M-BRANE SF likes the anthology. Innsmouth Free Press calls the story, “a fine effort”.

Articles –  I continue to participate in weekly Lost Round Tables at Tor.com, leading up to the finale. I also will have some other posts coming up soon on some fantasy favorites. All of my articles there can be found via this link.

Additionally, I should have a few more announcements to make in the coming months, one of them being my story, “Doors”, appearing in GUD’s next issue.

Enough about me, now. How are you?

It looks like the print version of the Skulls & Crossbones anthology is now out, containing my reprint story, “The Furies”. The full table of contents can be seen in the previous entry.

If you order directly from Bedazzled Ink Publishing, you can get 10% off the list price. The print version goes for 16.95 USD (15.26 with the discount), with the PDF and Mobipocket versions going for 9.95 USD (8.96 with discount).

272 pages of female pirate stories await you…