Round two of Further Adventures has now begun! Please scroll down – two new stories await! A new cart interface should make buying multiple stories easier. Any teething issues should be reported to info (at) barbarahambly (dot) com. Thanks much, everyone, for making this such a success so far! (June 25, 2010): Purchase stories | Read Excerpts
This is an experiment. As pretty much everybody knows, fantasy serieses get dumped by publishers – and as pretty much every author knows, other publishers generally do not fall over themselves to pick up these abandoned serieses.
That doesn’t mean the author doesn’t want to write about those people anymore, or that fans of the series are not longer interested.
These people are very real to me. I like them.
I also like being able to pay my medical insurance.
Thus – at the urging of those who’ve loved my old Del Rey fantasy serieses – I will continue to write original short stories about the people and places in those serieses: Antryg and Joanna, Sun Wolf and Starhawk, the gang at the Keep of Dare, John and Jenny, the Sisters of the Raven… anyone whom I’ve written about in previous books.
As I said, this is an experiment. I don’t need to make a lot of money out of this, but I do need to make some in order to be able to go on writing at all. Thus, I’m charging $5 per story, paid through PayPal. I hope to be able to continue writing a story every few months, in between longer projects. (Actually, another publisher DID pick up the Benjamin January series AND the Asher-and-Ysidro vampire books, so who knew?)
Three of these first four stories have appeared elsewhere already. “There Shall Your Heart Be Also” and “Libre” are both Benjamin January stories, the former having first appeared in Julie Smith’s 2007 anthology New Orleans Noir, from Akashic Books, and “Libre” seeing print in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine’s 2007 New Orleans issue. The first concerns the very strange case of who would want to steal the Bible of the most notorious female saloon-keeper in the Swamp at the back of town (and what she’s doing with a Bible anyway?); the second, the disappearance of Zozo Rochier, the daughter of one of the demimondaine friends of Benjamin’s horrible mother.
“Quest For Glory” was written for the program-book of a convention – perhaps a NASFIC? – at which I was Guest of Honor, though I no longer recall where. It’s a sort of pastiche about the casting-call for characters in my next fantasy novel (which at that time was Sisters of the Raven), and includes – besides people you later meet in Sisters – James Asher, Don Simon Ysidro, and Ben January. It is both short and silly.
“Firemaggot” is my first new and original for this section of the site. Dead rock ‘n’ roll stars, deserted palatial ranchos in Ventura County, Los Angeles in the mid-80s, and strange tiny monster-spawn that Joanna Sheraton’s cat drags home to the house she and Antryg Windrose have just bought in Tarzana… Antryg has to be doing something while he’s hiding out in LA.
All these stories are copyrighted.
I hope you enjoy them.
If you want to pay more than $5, or donate money, I would love that, too. There’s a Donate button all for you!
Many, many thanks, my friends! I hope this all works!
And I very much hope, more to come.
Barbara
–If you’d like to read an excerpt of any of the stories before committing, please continue on down the page!–
—Note that stories are now in multiple formats! Please choose carefully!
Stories will be e-mailed to you once payment has been received!—
Formats available: mobi (for Kindle users), epub (nook, Sony Reader, Apple), and pdf (print out and read!)
Finished?
Pretty Polly
Pretty Polly was crying.
Though ice-winds scoured the bare mountains that surrounded the fortress-keep of Dare, in most of the Keep it was warm. Only in the outer chambers of the black fortress’s mazes did the huddled remnant of humanity have to build fires to fend off the creeping cold, and here in the complex of chambers and subdivided chamber-lets, niches, and nooks allotted to the Guards, the problem was more often stuffiness and the reek of cooking-smoke.
Yet in her dream, Gil Patterson felt the cold.
Though it was dark in her dream, she could see the white cat, and it cut her heart to see how thin Pretty Polly was; to see the blood on her dirty fur. Polly would lick her bleeding paw, stop, and mew in that tiny kitten-voice, though she would – Gil calculated even asleep – be nearly twelve now…
Damn her! she wanted to scream, through tears of rage and distress, God damn her for throwing Polly out…!
A Night With the Girls
“What’s the problem?” Starhawk of Wrynde swung down from her horse in front of Butchers infirmary tent. Though she hadn’t been in a mercenary camp in almost two years, she had a soul-deep sense of familiarity about the place, like the outhouse behind a familiar tavern: Are we back here again? Only the outhouse would have been quieter. Past the walls of Horran, the sun dipped toward the Inner Sea, red behind the squat black towers of siege engines. In front of tents the mercs sharpened swords and polished armor, repaired straps, chatted up the camp whores, or diced. Cook-fire smoke gritted in the eyes, profanity in the ears.
Be it ever so humble…
Butcher craned to look past Starhawk’s shoulder. “Where’s the Wolf?”
“And I’m so glad to see you, too,” replied Starhawk.
The troop physician laughed, embarrassed. “I’m sorry.” She made a show of checking her breeches pockets and the leathern purse at her belt. “I must have left my manners in my other clothes. I’m damn glad to see you, Hawk, but I meant it in my letter when I said we needed Sun Wolf here.”
Firemaggot
“Is that it?” The dry autumn moon was halfway to full; Joanna Sheraton could just make out a sprawl of buildings below the hillside where she stood. The plans in the Ventura County Assessor’s office indicated a complex of stables, garages, outdoor and indoor tennis courts, a disused generator-house and what had once been a formal garden.
Not a light shone. She wondered what it would look like by day.
Moonlight flashed across her companion’s round spectacle-lense, touched the long beak of his nose as he moved his head. “I can’t imagine there’d be two of them.”
“Are you kidding? There’s hundreds of these ‘ranches’ between here and Pismo Beach. It’s where rich people come so they can see for miles if someone’s coming after them.”
He said, “Hmmn.”
Libre
“If they fear she has been kidnapped, why not call the City Guard?” Benjamin January paused on the steps that led up to the gallery of the garçonnière, looking down at his mother in the narrow yard. He’d just returned from teaching his first piano-class of the winter – new students, Americans, in the suburb of St. Mary up-river – and had been hoping to get a few hours’ nap before he had to dress up again and play for a subscription ball over on Rue Orleans. There was a saying among the musicians of New Orleans, You can sleep during Lent.
There Shall Your Heart Be Also
“Kentucky Williams owns a Bible?” Benjamin January cast a doubtful glance cattycorner across the trampled muck of the Broadhorn Saloon’s yard to the shabby building’s open back door. The Broadhorn was a substantial building for this part of New Orleans, a neighborhood known quite accurately as The Swamp. Constructed of the lumber from dismantled flatboats, it stood a story and a half tall and boasted not only porches but a privy, though the four whores who worked out of it did so in a line of sheds that straggled away into the trees of the true swamp – the ciprière — beyond. Under the brilliant winter sunlight the bullet-pocked planks and unspeakably-puddled weeds looked every bit as grimy and rough-hewn as the establishment’s proprietress, who a few moments before had bellowed out the back door for January to come in: she needed his services.
Quest for Glory
FADE IN on Characters’ Locker Room #70-2418-ML. It’s a large gray concrete room with banks of dark-green lockers and wooden benches; there’s an open area in front furnished with a couple of round pink or gray melmac tables, some plastic chairs, and vending machines for coffee and snacks. On the tables are rumpled stacks of trade periodicals for Characters: Hero & Heroine, Plot Thickener, Archetype and Booked! A Handsome Golden-Haired Hero is sitting at the table reading Archetype, moving his strongly-chiseled lips slightly as he reads. A Noble Sword of High Lineage is propped at his side. A Handsome Vagabond is getting really bad coffee from one of the vending machines. At another table a Western Sheriff, a white-haired vampire, a black Hero-King, and an Unpreposessing Female Wizard are playing pinochle.
ENTER Handsome Dark-Haired Hero through the door from the hallway, looking around him uncertainly.
Handsome Dark-Haired Hero – Is this the place for the Hambly interview?
(all stories are copyright Barbara Hambly)
I was delighted to be able to buy Firemaggot. I loved all the Dog Wizard stories :)
love this idea – Ingold, Gil, and Rudy were long overdue!
made my afternoon.
I just found this page (I check the website every now and then to see what/if new books are out) and am thrilled with this idea. I have bought the Antryg and Joanna story and look forward to stories about Sun Wolf & StarHawk (they are my favourite of the books). If Barbara has any influence (I’m not sure what influence authors have in this), could everything of hers be released on the Kindle (available in Australia). I have all the paperbacks, and would buy them all again on the Kindle (I haven”t read the Benjamin January books yet, perhaps I should as they are the only ones currently being written (I understand why)). Thanks again
Thanks so much for the new stories. I just bought all 4 and am about to check my email to see if they have arrived. I look forward to more. It is nice to find out what has been happening to my old friends from her earlier series and to get more January stories. I think this is a great idea. I am going to look into sending the file to my Kindle as well. (I know there is a way to do this but I have not tried it yet. ) I have read everything that I know of that Ms. Hambley has written including the Quirell Affair which I finally found in a library and Dead and Buried which I happily just received from amazon. I eagerly await each new book whether historical fiction, mystery, fantasy or other. I would buy anything that she e-publishes. Thanks again Karen
One of the best ideas ever!
Love the fantasy books & can’t wait to read more about Ingold & Gil, Sun Wolf & StarHawk. Please please please more about Rhion.
Despite sounding like a deranged teenage Facebook addict I am in fact a 40 something bloke :)
Lol, great to hear from you; enthusiasm is always appreciated!
The next story will be about Ingold and Gil? Woot!
Any chance to see “Those Who Hunt the Night” on eBook any time soon? I remeber reading the book a long time ago. I still have it somewhere, I know, but I do not recall, where. LOL
If a Kindle version would be available I’d buy it in a heartbeat.
Thanks for all your great writing!
Guido
Sadly, TWHTN isn’t out there as an ebook. If this changes, I’ll post something about it – thanks for the suggestion. (Deb)
I stumbled over this, and am eagerly awaiting any further adventures set in the land of Darwath and amongst the peoples I’ve come to know therein. Shall keep checking back hopefully. (Short stories that pile up eventually into another novel, perhaps?)
Dj
The next short story will be about Ingold and Gil, so stay tuned!
Barb and Deb,
A quick “thank you” for this wonderful idea. Being able to revisit Antryg and Joanna, no matter how briefly, is a joy. It’s like seeing old friends, and realizing that they’re exactly how they should be. I had long ago given up ever reading any more of Antryg (or Sun Wolf and Starhawk–hint, hint), satisfying myself with rereading my old paperbacks (and hearing my wife sigh, “You’re reading that book again?!”) Being able to get a fresh (and regular?) dose of these wonderful characters is just about the best (literary) news I’ve heard in a long, long time.
Keep it up.
Michael
Thanks for the nice comments, Michael! Glad to hear that you enjoyed Firemaggot (I did, too!). Deb
What a WONDERFUL idea!
I think this is a great idea – to pay the author directly for her work. :-) As a longtime reader, I’m anxiously waiting for stories from some of the older series!
Got Firemaggot in recent email so I have ordered two more. AOL will behave from now on, I hope! REALLY looking forward to Dead and Buried….currently rereading the January series so I am primed for new stuff! :)
Hi, LM…your story was sent out. Do me a favor and check your spam filter for the e-mail…if you can’t find it there (or if you auto-delete spam), write me on info (at) barbarahambly (dot) com, and I’ll resend the pdf.
I ordered Firemaggot a few days ago and got a email receipt from Paypal but have not gotten an email with the story yet…..is there some bug in the system?
Have you considered working with Baen books and webscriptions?
they have the distribution and audience for SF and Fantasy ebooks
Also like a lot of people i read ebooks on my phone so pdf doesnt work , happy to buy rich text files though
I purchased all four yesterday, and three of the four worked just fine, but “There Shall Your Heart Be Also” doesn’t seem to be working–I tried all your suggestions about ’save as’ and ‘view HTML’, but it says ‘unable to retrieve the document for viewing’. And the Tech Boyfriend took a look at it, but thinks it’s a problem with the file, since the other three work perfectly and are fabulous. Do I need to just buy that one again, or is there something else to try?
Thanks!
I’ve just sent that one out to you – let me know if it comes through okay. For some reason, gmail sometimes barfs one of the stories (not always the same one!). Thanks for trying to troubleshoot, and I hope you enjoy all four stories. (Deb)
I got them! I read three of them! I beat my printer for not printing the last page of the three longer ones, once I got back to the house! (Once I realized it was doing that, I didn’t start on Firemaggot…)
Would there be, at any point, an option to send to a different email, if one wishes to gift someone with a purchase? Or shall I just get a second copy of the desired story(ies) and do a print-out (with the printer suitably watched) for the present-receiver (who doesn’t do email anyway)?
That’s a nice gift idea. :) In this case, I’d say get another copy and print it for your friend. When the next story gets set up, we’ll try to set up a separate “ship-to” email address.
Yay what a great idea. I love the internet, who needs publishers.
How much money would how many people need to donate for Barbara to write a whole book? I’d be happy to pre-buy any Joanna/Antryg Sunwolf/Starhawk story.
What about self publishing your own book with a free lance editor (if needed). I guess you’d sell fewer books, but your profit per book would be much higher.
What about self publishing the Quirnal Hill affair which is currently going for £20-£40 on amazon.co.uk. Or selling that pdf.
Keep up the good work.
Barbara’s looking into this, mostly in terms of re-releasing out-of-print works, and I agree that this seems like a really good time to foray into epublishing. Definitely we’ll post information here if/when anything like that goes forward.
I don’t think you should offer them through Amazon>Kindle because Amazon would reap the rewards. I downloaded them, and emailed them to my kindle account and they arrived immediately and were readable.
My only concern now is finding out when new material is available. Can’t wait!
Then, a suggestion: Some places have offered a button for those who want to send in a check or money order . . . (and of course, a PO box or something to send it to).
I totally understand people’s reluctance to use Paypal, but the beauty of the system in place now (for me and for Barbara, but also for readers) is that it’s automated and instant, not something that needs tending. Someone sees a story, says “Yay!”, buys it, and the pdf appears a minute later *poof* in their in-box. They’re happy. Barbara continues writing and teaching (and I continue doing science) while this happens in the background – we get an e-mail saying that this has occurred, and we’re happy. A PO box and checks is fine for a traditional store business model, but it requires a lot of tending. I’d rather have Barbara spend time writing more stories. I’m not sure how feasible something like Further Adventures would have been prior to the “Web 2.0″ paradigm, and I love that we’ve been able to foray into the e-only arena, if just in a small way. Cheers-Deb
I would love to see just a plain text format, which could then be easily converted by the user to whatever format they need for their reader. I personally use .lit quite a bit because I read on my pda (and pdfs are abysmal on a pda), but need plain text if I want make an ebook out of it for my amazingly stupid phone.
We could perhaps offer .lit in the future if there’s enough interest…text-only might be a bit tougher, because the formatting basically disappears (I know that sounds silly, but it looks so disorganized). If there are more people who would like .lit (or some other format), let me know, and I’ll try to set that up as an option for the next story.
Any recourse for those who Don’t Do Paypal?
Not at present, but we’re open to suggestions… Deb
A couple of people have reported having problems with gmail and the pdf story attachments. Several people have successfully received the stories through gmail, and I have tested all the Hambly stories on my own gmail account, so you definitely should be able to get them, too. Here are some workarounds you can try…
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=8822
This is a walk-through from google, it gives the basic things to try (clearing your cache and cookie settings), and helps you to identify potential conflicts between your security software and gmail.
Exiting the e-mail and re-opening it may allow the attachment to be shown, or you can click on “View as HTML” next to the attachment and then click on “Download the original attachment” at the top of the new page. You could also try right-clicking and do a “Save target as:”. Hope this helps!
Deb
Add my voice to those wishing for a “check box” or “buy all” option. Also, since these are in PDF format, I’ll be transferring them to my Kindle. Once I figure out how this is done and whether the results are properly formatted (Kindle has issues with some PDFs), I’ll share the steps so others can do the same.
Any thoughts to making these available directly through the Kindle Store at Amazon?
There’s now a buy-all-four button (yay!). Checkboxes are a good idea, but so far I haven’t found an easy way to make this work…it’s on the list. We don’t have any plans for the Kindle (or other readers) store at present, although if enough people are interested, the stories could be offered in a different format. Thanks for the suggstions! Deb
Barb & Deb, this new feature is great! Thank you so much for adding it. I’ve been looking forward to new Antryg stories for years, and I’m glad that technology and electronic publishing have made them possible… can we get a “yaaaayyy, Internet!”
I’d like to cast another vote for checkboxes. I wanted to buy two stories, but Paypal thought I was trying to do the same transaction twice and wouldn’t let me buy the 2nd story right away.
Wow, a fantastic number of people have ordered stories so far! I just sent story e-mails out to the first batch of story-receivers. If you have spam filtering enabled, please note that the e-mail will come from info-at-barbarahambly-dot-com.
Karl, if you’re out there – this note is meant for you!
Cheers all! Enjoy your story!
Deb
Bought! :-)))
Agree that a ‘buy all’ option or checkboxes could be very useful (checkboxes even better, considering the number of stories will grow).
New Antryg! Squeeee!
Oh, PLEASE do an “All of the above” button, or check boxes if there will be – pleasepleaseplease – more stories later.
Yay! Thanks for buying a story and letting me know that the button is working.
Just so people know, the stories will be e-mailed to you once payment has cleared through Paypal – this may take a day or so, depending on your method of payment. After that, the story flies to your in-box. It’s worth the wait, I promise.
(also – would it be helpful if there was a “buy all 4″ option? This is an experiment, so feedback is always welcome.)
I’ve tested the Buy Now Button, and it seems to be working fine! Can’t wait to read Firemaggot!
Okay, the “Buy Now” button is now working. The button code itself was fine, but Wordpress doesn’t handle the Paypal button code well, apparently. On a brighter note, if anyone has a similar problem, I can give you a very simple work-around. :)
Deb