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…

As previously mentioned, this past long weekend I was up in Burlington, MA at Readercon and I had a wonderful time. Most of my time was spent seeing old friends and meeting new people. I won’t post a list as I’d be certain to leave someone out, but if you were there, and I saw you, it was wonderful to see you.

Some personal highlights were seeing Zombies: Shambling Through the Ages at both the Prime and Lethe Press tables in the Dealer’s Room. It helped convince me to read my story from the zombies anthology, “Hauntings and Hungers on the Banks of the Vipasa” in the Altered Fluid reading on Saturday. It just so happened that the timing of the story worked out really well.

I also got a look at the ARC of Suffered from the Night, the other upcoming anthology I’m in coming out from Lethe Press.

Then there were all the great readings, the great beer, the parties, and all the writing inspiration. I always come back from the con feeling energized (at least creatively). Case in point, last night, while exhausted and trying to fall asleep, my fatigued brain combined two disparate concepts that I had been considering into one project that I have decided to start writing. Not that I need another novel in the queue, but, hey, I’ll take the inspiration.

Now to catch up on sleep and settle back into a more regular rhythm…

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.

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…

Back to me again. My story, “Quantum Entanglement” which went out to Daily Science Fiction subscribers last week is now available to read, for free, on the internet. Having a story appear in January is such a great start to the year.

Hope you enjoy it!