It’s the start of a new year! Yes, I know, it’s the end of April as I write this, and 2019 is speeding toward the halfway point, but I see this as the beginning of what will hopefully be a good writing year. After a bit of a break, long needed after writing three novels back to back, I sold a story. My science fiction story, “Binary”, will be appearing in an upcoming issue of Analog. When I first started thinking about writing professionally, it was always the Big 3 genre magazines that I imagined one day being in — Asimov’s, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Analog. They’ve been on “the list” ever since. And now I get to cross one of them off. I’m really impressed with what Trevor Quachri has been doing with the magazine and I’m proud to be a part of it with him as editor.

I should mention that this story came out of the Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop that I attended back in 2015. I attended (despite having a terrible case of bronchitis) because I wanted to write more science fiction and I thought learning more about space and astronomy would help, and I’m happy to say that it did. Yes, it took a few years to get the story right, but I’m glad I was able to finish it and sell it and I can’t wait to see it in print. I’m hoping it’s the first of a string of science fiction stories from me.

I’ll post an update when I have an idea of when it will be out, but in the meantime you should check out the current issue (March/April 2019), particularly the story “The Walk to Distant Suns” by fellow Altered Fluid members Matthew Kressel and David Mercurio Rivera. It’s a great story and I’m happy to follow in their footsteps.

As usual, it’s been a long time since I posted here. And as usual, a lot has happened in the interim, so it’s a good excuse to dust off the blog and mention the most recent events.

One of the big writer items is that I sold a story to Lightspeed Magazine. “All In” is the third story in my Card Sharp series of weird western short stories, after “Card Sharp” and “Second Hand” and wraps up that storyline. I don’t know when the story will go up on the site, but I will update this site and shout about it on social media when I know more.

Working with the Lightspeed team is always a pleasure and I’m happy that I get to finish this series of stories (for now — there may be more down the road).

I’m a little late in announcing this here, but I’m happy to say that there will be a third book in the series that started with Falling Sky and Rising Tide. The third book, currently titled Raining Fire, will be out from Pyr next year. I’m looking forward to putting an end to Ben’s story and bringing the series to a close (if only because all stories should have endings). I’m working on the novel now and all I can say is that it’s fun to continue to put Ben through his paces, especially after hitting rock bottom.

That being said, if you’re on the fence about the series or always wanted to pick it up but didn’t get around to it, or have friends you might be interested, Barnes and Noble is having a Start a Series sale and Falling Sky is one of the books featured. That means that the ebook version is selling for only $2.99 — not just at BarnesandNoble.com but everywhere that ebooks are sold. So grab it if you want, or tell your friends, or hell, even your enemies. And if you do read it, I’d appreciate it if you could leave a review wherever you got it from. Whatever you think. Links below:

Falling Sky at Barnes & Noble

Falling Sky at Amazon

Falling Sky at Kobo

Many of you have seen this by now, but I can announce now that Pyr has decided to publish my SF novel, Falling Sky. This is what went out to Publisher’s Marketplace:

Rajan Khanna’s FALLING SKY, set on the west coast of North America years after a deadly plague has turned much of humanity into Ferals, survivors have taken to the air living in floating cities and traveling by airship, scavenging, but one team of scientists, protected by a scavenger turned mercenary, may have found a genetic breakthrough, to Lou Anders at Pyr, for publication in Fall 2014, by Joe Monti at Barry Goldblatt Literary (NA).

Publishing a novel has been a lifelong dream of mine, and I’m still processing the fact that it’s going to happen. Huge thanks go to my agent, Joe Monti and to Lou Anders of Pyr. I feel like I’m in great hands and I can’t wait to see the finished product.

Also huge thanks to my Clarion West classmates (CW ’08) who were the first people to suggest I take a short story I wrote there and expand it into a novel. Mary Rosenblum, Paul Park, and Cory Doctorow, too.

Someone pinch me…

Has it really been a month since I last posted? I suppose it has. It’s not that I don’t enjoy updating the blog, it’s just that it usually takes a back seat to fiction writing and article writing and the reading I have to do for articles and reviews and, well, I’m going to try to be better about it in the future.

But first I have a few updates that I thought I should mention:

LitReactor

Some of you may know that I’m the fantasy columnist over at LitReactor, but as of last month I began tackling science fiction as well. For the most part I’ll be writing four columns for them every month, 2 each of F & SF, covering a variety of topics and books. My most recent columns were a Post-Apocalyptic Top 10, and a Primer on Dune. Coming up in July I have two posts inspired by Pacific Rim (Giant Monsters and Robots), a post about the Sandman Slim series, and a post about Alfred Bester’s novels. I’m always looking for new topics to cover, so if there’s something you think would be interesting, let me know.

Sales

I don’t believe I’ve mentioned it here, but I recently sold two stories to Steve Berman. The first is for an anthology coming from Prime Books — Zombies: Shambling Through the Ages (see cover above).  My story is set in India during the time of Alexander the Great’s invasion. The anthology looks like it should be out in August and you can pre-order it here if you like. There are some great writers in this one, including my friends, Mercurio D. Rivera and Paul Berger.

The other story will be appearing in the Queering Stoker anthology, Suffered From the Night.This one picks up a little while after the events of Dracula, tackling both Dracula’s and Van Helsing’s legacies. I’m not sure when it will be released, but I’m happy to be in another of Lethe Press’s anthologies (after A Study in Lavender, the Sherlock Holmes anthology).

I have a few other things in the works, hopefully with some surprises, but I will talk about them when I have more to say. Hope everyone out there is doing well.