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AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT, Cool stuff, Editing, publishing, Ramblings, SNAFU, Writing

SNAFU: CONTAGION AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT – RPL JOHNSON

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We’re edging close to halfway with our Author Spotlights, with me wanting to spotlight every two days before print publication (ebook and Audible are already available)… which means I’m gonna have to ramp up the blog frequency – the math just ain’t mathing (if you know me, that will come as no surprise).

So, moving on from my clear lack of numeric aptitude…  We’ve another Aussie stepping onto Cohesion Press’ stage for Author Spotlight #7, and he’s someone you’ve likely read before. Richard has been in a number of SNAFU editions – the man knows how to freak us the fuck out, and his tale for SNAFU: Contagion is no different.

But let him tell you a little about himself while I skulk off and cry into my calculator…

Richard Johnson is an award-winning short story writer and independent novelist. He won the Gold Award at Writers of the Future in 2011 and the Jim Baen Memorial Award in 2012 and has been a finalist in the Aurealis  Awards with one of his many stories for the SNAFU series of military horror anthologies from Cohesion Press.

In addition to his novels and short stories, Richard has also worked closely with Blur Studios in the USA on the Amazon Prime TV show Secret Level, the video game Exodus, and an as yet undisclosed feature for Warner Bros.

He lives in Melbourne, Australia with his wife and two sons.

For SNAFU: Contagion, Richard showed us the fragility of reality with: CONSENSUS BREAK: The hospital wasn’t an asylum, it was a prison for those who—

(See what I did there? 😏)

You can find Richard on his website, Facebook, and Twitter.  

If you want to read more of Richard’s work (you really should!) he has a YA sci-fi novel The View from Infinity Beach (I’ve read it, it’s excellent!), and a short story collection, Skull Candy.

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT, Cool stuff, Editing, publishing, Reading, SNAFU

SNAFU: CONTAGION AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT – L.J. VISSER

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FOUR!

That’s the Author Spotlight number we’re up to for Cohesion Press‘ SNAFU: Contagion, and we’re kicking this Spotlight off with our second Aussie in the series, he of the very cool name: Loki (L.J.) Visser!

Now, before we go any further, there’s been a bit of an update on the publishing side for this edition, with Audible currently available for listeners, the ebook being released tomorrow (October 8), and print on Halloween. This means we can now reveal that Loki’s tale is our opening story for SNAFU: Contagion.

All that being said, I’ll now pass the microphone over to LJ so he can tell you a little somethin’ somethin’ about himself.

L. J. Visser is a Melbourne-based author who writes at the edge of psychological suspense, dystopian noir, and science fiction horror. His stories unravel in the shadows where control, obsession, and survival collide – whether through the eyes of haunted paramedics, grieving fathers chasing conspiracies, or soldiers battling horrors in corporate research facilities. A lifelong Dean Koontz devotee and collector of vintage sci-fi paperbacks, he lives with his partner, two daughters, and the family ragdoll, Dixie. When he’s not writing, he dives into open-world RPGs, supports local charities through Freemasonry, and advocates for child protection and mental health. His work draws equally from a fascination with the strange and the scars of his own past, offering readers dark, immersive worlds where nothing is ever as it seems.

For SNAFU: Contagion, LJ Visser sliced and diced for us: IRON ROT: When an ice-world research outpost goes dark, a catastrophic containment breach changes the game.

You can find LJ on Facebook, and via is Amazon page.

He also has a science fiction thriller short-story, Future Shadows, where a grieving father, obsessed with uncovering the truth behind his daughter’s death while infiltrating a powerful corporation, is pulled into a conspiracy that blurs the line between memory, identity, and the machinery of control. Which is out-now on Kindle.

Whispers of a paramedic thriller have also been drifting our way, so keep an eye out (or both eyes – you do you!) for LJ Visser’s imaginings!

Ramblings, Reading, Reviews

Review: The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E Harrow

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There are books that sneak up on you, teasing you with glimpses of the fantastique, of possibilities within possibilities, shaded with darkness and radiating light. The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E Harrow is a tale that defies expectation, folds in on itself in a compelling origami, creating shapes and stories and Doors both beautiful and terrible.

I didn’t know what to expect from the book; I had little idea of the plot or the characters or the path the story would take… and that discovery as I turned each page was the best way to step through the Door Alix Harrow opened into January’s world.

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My partner, who’s had to put up with me reading to the wee hours while he’s trying to sleep, asked me what it was about. I explained it woefully of course, because words – my words – don’t do it justice. A book within a book within a book, and magic and love and adventure and Doors and self-discovery and self-belief. It breaks the fourth wall and fifth wall… and god, all the walls. It shows the good in people and the evil, the struggle of trying to find your place in the world and of the worlds. It’s knowing you’re different, that you don’t quite fit, that an in-between girl has a foot in each world but stands in none. Defiantly so.

It’s words. Not just words upon the page (although the narrative is divine) but the power of them, the way they twist and turn and shape themselves and those around them and those who gaze upon them.

January Scaller would have the right words, and they would be beautiful. It’s her story… and the story of beginnings and middles and not-quite-ends. Even thinking of it now, I’m smiling. There’s hope, even in the darkest lines of the pages, and that spark lights January’s way… with her ever-faithful dog (I love him).

The Ten Thousand Doors of January goes onto the top shelf of my bookcase, alongside other tales that will stay with me for a very long time, and each time I walk past, I will think of Doors and magical places… and oh the possibilities.

GET THIS BOOK IN YOUR EYES!

Ahem.

Eleventy stars out of five.

 

(Oh, and a special shout-out for the cover — much pretty, such sigh.)