Category: Thriller

Meet Me Off-Planet

The good folks at Federal Street Books in Greenfield, MA, invited me to take part in their sci-fi/fantasy book fair on Thursday, 13 Feb 2020, 7-9pmET.

There’ll be lots of folks there and I’ll have lots of books and a ready pen.

They say it so much better
“Join us Thursday, Feb 13, next door at 12 Federal Street for an out-of-this-world book fair! Participants include Far Cry Zine, @organdonorstudios, The Imaginary Bookshop, local author Joseph Carrabis, and more. Preview over 500 new (to us) sci-fi and fantasy titles: paperbacks for just $3.50. Meet other readers and enjoy light refreshments. Free to browse, items for purchase.”

 
And if that’s not enough…
“Our bookstore will be open until 7pm so if you’d like to browse our shelves beyond the book fair titles, come a little early! This will be a sober event — but The People’s Pint has great brews, and food, just two doors down from us.”

Come on! Have some fun!

See you there!

Three Offerings for #WorldReadingAloudDay 2020

Hello!

Sister Jamie Beth Cohen aka (@Jamie_Beth_S), author of Wasted Pretty, mentioned she’d done a reading for #WorldReadingAloudDay.

I, of course, never heard of #WorldReadingAloudDay.

The joys of mountaintop living.

But I love the idea, so here are three I hope you’ll enjoy.

The first two are from The Augmented Man, the last is from Those Wings Which Tire, They Have Upheld Me, one of the stories in my Tales Told ‘Round Celestial Campfires anthology.

Hope you enjoy!

(and let me know what you think)

 

 

 

The Augmented Man Booksigning at the Salem, NH, Barnes&Noble Saturday, 8 Feb 2020, noonET

I’ll be signing The Augmented Man at the Salem, NH, Barnes&Noble on Saturday, 8 Feb 2020, from noon-2pmET.

“What do you do with a deadly weapon when its no longer needed?” Nicholas Trailer is the last of The Augmented Men, beings created first by society and completed by a political group the public can’t even imagine exists! This is a masterful tale of how greed and power can corrupt the better judgement of man! If you like Enders game this is the book for you!

 
A bit about The Augmented Man
The US Military concedes that any kind of combat leaves soldiers psychologically damaged and makes reintegration to society difficult.

The solution is to find individuals who are already so psychologically damaged the most horrendous combat experience will seem trivial by comparison. Better, find individuals psychologically damaged who’ve also experienced massive physical insult and trauma. Best, individuals psychologically damaged, physically traumatized, and emotionally vacant.

But where to find such individuals?

Captain James Donaldson suggests using massively abused and traumatized children as the basis, arguing “…they’ve already experienced more at home than they’ll ever experience in the field. All we need to is help their bodies catch up to where their psyches and emotions already are.

Nine individuals are selected for Augmentation and entered into combat.

One survives.

And comes home.

Anecdote
I read the the Surface section and the first Apache helicopter gunship scene (pgs 228-230 in the print version) of The Augmented Man as my text.

I finished and looked up to see the audience staring at me, wide-eyed, deers caught in headlights. One fellow whispered, “Intense.” Everyone else nodded.

YES! Score one for the author!

About me
You can find out more than you need to know at my About page.

Meet Author Joseph Carrabis at the Portsmouth, NH, Barnes&Noble Sunday, 9 Feb 2020, 1pmET

“Bad Ass just got a new poster boy…in The Augmented Man” (and the author’s not bad, either)

I’ll be signing The Augmented Man at the Portsmouth, NH, Barnes&Noble on Sunday, 9 Feb 2020, from 1-3pmET.

FWIW, I received my first royalty check today. THANKEE TO EVERYONE BUYING THIS BOOK! Come on by and I’ll sign your copy for you! Come on by, buy half a dozen copies for your friends, and I’ll sign all of them, too!

 
A bit about The Augmented Man
The US Military concedes that any kind of combat leaves soldiers psychologically damaged and makes reintegration to society difficult.

The solution is to find individuals who are already so psychologically damaged the most horrendous combat experience will seem trivial by comparison. Better, find individuals psychologically damaged who’ve also experienced massive physical insult and trauma. Best, individuals psychologically damaged, physically traumatized, and emotionally vacant.

But where to find such individuals?

Captain James Donaldson suggests using massively abused and traumatized children as the basis, arguing “…they’ve already experienced more at home than they’ll ever experience in the field. All we need to is help their bodies catch up to where their psyches and emotions already are.

Nine individuals are selected for Augmentation and entered into combat.

One survives.

And comes home.

Anecdote
I read the the Surface section and the first Apache helicopter gunship scene (pgs 228-230 in the print version) of The Augmented Man as my text.

I finished and looked up to see the audience staring at me, wide-eyed, deers caught in headlights. One fellow whispered, “Intense.” Everyone else nodded.

YES! Score one for the author!

About me
You can find out more than you need to know at my About page.

Fantasy Horror Author A.F. Stewart and I talk Deviltry, Noveltry, Shipbuilding, Agony and Ecstasy

Watch, leave a comment, gain a friend!

A.F. Stewart, aka @Scribe77, did me.

Interviewed me, I mean.

 
We talked about

  • The differences between writing short stories and novels (not much from a crafting standpoint, me thinks)
  • Creating sympathetic villains (even the worst person has one humanizing detail)
  • Genre writing (I don’t believe I write in a genre. My regular readers tell me my genre is “Joseph”)
  • My incredible anthology, Tales Told ‘Round Celestial Campfires
  • Being able to do amazing things with words when you’re an author
  • The link between Satan and Hamilton Burger
  • Getting kudos from your readers
  • Ritchie and Phyl, my incredible work in progress
  • How writing Flash fiction is like building a ship in a bottle
  • Great Opening Lines
  • My incredible scifi/military/thriller, The Augmented Man
  • Writing about characters rather than genre (the story comes first, the genre comes second)
  • Empty Sky and my standing offer; read the book, leave a review, and I’ll send you an autographed copy of the rewrite when it’s published.
  • Children growing up
  • Stories that grew out of my anthropology studies – Mani He and The Goatmen of Aguirra
  • Getting kudos from editors and publishers
  • Writing almost fantastic fantasies (okay, the story’s fantastic. It uses almost fantasy elements – The Weight)

So, yeah, we covered a few things.

Enjoy!