The Rat Killer and other Weird War Tales out now!

My latest short story collection, The Rat Killer and other Weird War Tales, is out now on Amazon and Smashwords. It's going through the Smashwords system of Premium distribution and will soon be available in all major online retailers. The cover is, as usual, done by my talented brother-in-law Andrés. It looks a bit different form his regular stuff and I think it works well. The book retails for $2.99. A blurb is below.

A rat hunter on the Western Front suspects his prey are plotting against him…
A routine trip through the trenches leads to an unexpected insight…
A soldier discovers the most dangerous enemy can't be killed…
A bereaved woman performs a forbidden ritual to avenge her father’s murder…
A doomed militia is offered a path to victory that leads to damnation…

Here are five tales of war from the pen of military historian and novelist Sean McLachlan. From the bushwhackers of the American Civil War to the trenches of WWI, these stories walk the line from the strange and paranormal to the frighteningly real.

Get my ebooks for 50% off!

Over at Smashwords I'm participating in their great summer/winter sale. Whether you're sweltering in the summer of the Northern Hemisphere, or chilling out somewhere south of the Equator, it's always a good time to read an ebook. Through July 31, all my ebooks at Smashwords are 50% off. You can see an entire list on my Smashwords page.

The books include my Trench Raiders World War One action series, each now $1.50; older works such as the short story collection The Night the Nazis came to Dinner and the historical fantasy The Quintessence of Absence, both $1.50; and my Civil War horror novels A Fine Likeness and The River of Desperation.

Use the coupon code SSW50 at checkout to save 50%!

A new Civil War horror novel, and a bargain on an old one!

I've just released my latest Civil War horror novel, The River of Desperation. It's the sequel to A Fine Likeness. While the first book in the House Divided series stands on its own, The River of Desperation continued the story of the primeval struggle between Order and Chaos. A blurb is below.

In the waning days of the Civil War, a secret conflict still rages. . .
Lieutenant Allen Addison of the USS Essex is looking forward to the South's defeat so he can build the life he's always wanted. Love and a promising business await him in St. Louis, but he is swept up in a primeval war between the forces of Order and Chaos, a struggle he doesn't understand and can barely believe in. Soon he is fighting to keep a grip on his sanity as he tries to save St. Louis from destruction.
The long-awaited sequel to A Fine Likeness continues the story of two opposing forces that threaten to tear the world apart.
Length: 103,000 words (356 pages)

It's available as an ebook on Amazon, all Amazon affiliates, Smashwords, and soon to come to Barnes & Noble, the Apple store, and more.

In order to celebrate the release, I'm discounting A Fine Likeness. It's only 99 cents until April 26, the 150th anniversary of General Joe Johnston surrendering the Army of Tennessee. It will then be $2.99 until May 21, the 150th anniversary of the surrender of Jesse James, who makes an appearance in both of these books. A Fine Likeness is available on Amazon, all Amazon affiliates, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, and almost everywhere else ebooks are sold.

Helping out a writer in need

Some of you may be familiar with the blog Writing in the Crosshairs, written by author Roland Yeomans. If you don't read Roland's blog regularly you might have missed the fact that he's going into cancer surgery today.

I was trying to think of a way to cheer him up all the way over here in Spain and hit upon a buy-a-thon for his books. I've been reading Her Bones are in the Badlands and enjoying it immensely since it's set on a silent film set and I'm a fan of early movies. Today I bought French Quarter Nocturne, in which some strange beasts arise in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. This one should be interesting because Roland is not only a cancer survivor, but also a Katrina survivor.

So if you'd like to read some interesting speculative fiction and make a writer's day, check out his Amazon page. What could cheer a writer up more than coming out of surgery and finding his Amazon rankings have shot up?

Got my author's copies of Spirits of St. Louis!

A nice little package from Rocking Horse Publishing arrived here in Spain, containing my author's copies of Spirits of St. Louis: Missouri Ghost Stories.

It includes my story "After the Raid", an offshoot of my Civil War horror novel A Fine Likeness. For those who have read the novel, it follows the story of Helena, the daughter of the German photographer who gets killed by the bushwhacker band, and how she takes a terrible revenge. Of course a terrible revenge comes at a terrible price. . .

The story also stands on its own in case you haven't read the book (ahem).

There are lots of good stories in here. I especially liked "Ghost in Celestial Blue" by Donna Volkenannt, which is set in Bissell Mansion in St. Louis. Since I know you read this blog, Donna, could you tell me if there's really a ghost there? I suppose I could Google it, but where's the fun in that?

Spirits of St. Louis Anthology out now!

Missouri publisher Rocking Horse Publishing has just come out with Spirits of St. Louis, an anthology of ghost stories set in Missouri.

It includes my story "After the Raid", an offshoot of my Civil War horror novel A Fine Likeness. For those who have read the novel, it follows the story of Helena, the daughter of the German photographer who gets killed by the bushwhacker band, and how she takes a terrible revenge. Of course a terrible revenge comes at a terrible price. . .

The story also stands on its own in case you haven't read the book (ahem).

Here's the back cover blurb.

Lonely Hitchhikers. Dirt Roads. Tired Soldiers. Strange Children. Mysterious Ladies. Dark Houses. What do they have in common? 

They all haunt the pages of this book.

From the Lemp Mansion to The Exorcist, from the 1904 World's Fair to Jefferson Barracks, the history of St. Louis, Missouri and its surrounding river towns is filled with stories of haunts and the supernatural.

Spirits of St. Louis: Missouri Ghost Stories is a collection of over thirty stories from authors across the globe, celebrating these ghosts, banshees, and shadows.

Do you believe in ghosts? If you believe or not, this collection of dark tales of the dead and disturbed is sure to keep you awake at night. Lock the doors, turn down the lights, and prepare to be terrified.

Finished my next novel!

Whew! I just finished the sequel to A Fine Likeness, tentatively called The River of Despair and the next in the House Divided series of Civil War horror novels. While A Fine Likeness is a standalone novel, I wanted to explore the world a bit more.

The River of Despair came in at 107,000 words, 12,000 more than the first book. It will probably get trimmed some, and will be off to beta readers soon. I have to hurry, though, because next Friday is the beginning of National Novel Writing Month, when I change my tune and start writing a post-apocalyptic novel called Radio Hope.

Oh, and Jack Badelaire over at the Post-Modern Pulp blog just gave A Fine Likeness a nice review. My favorite part is when he says "I think the only weakness of A Fine Likeness, if there is one, is that I'd be hard-pressed to pin this book down in any sense of a traditional genre. I don't really consider it traditional horror, but the supernatural elements definitely take it out of the realm of historical fiction. I think the author was actually very smart in independently publishing this book, because I can't imagine a traditional publishing house attempting to market this book."

That's exactly what several publishers said in their rejection slips!

Broke the 100,000 word mark on my next novel!

Yesterday I broke the 100,000 word mark on my next Civil War horror novel, tentatively titled The River of Despair. I think I have about 5,000 more words to go and I hope to be done by the end of the week. I got a real kick in the pants by a crit partner. Over beers one evening we agreed to get our books to each other by the end of the month. He's already given me his so I need to get going!

The book is sort of a sequel to A Fine Likeness but can stand on its own. One of the protagonists is Allen Addison, the son of Richard Addison, who was one of the protagonists in A Fine Likeness. Allen is Richard’s only surviving son, yet is generally ignored by his father. Several characters from the first book including Jimmy and Rufus also appear in this volume. Much of the action takes place on the USS Essex, shown here.

Like the new background?

I've decided to change the blog a bit. You may not have noticed that I widened the center a tad to make for easier reading and larger photos. I've also added my Twitter feed on the righthand column. The biggest change, of course, is that I've replaced the templates bookshelf background with a photo of Civil War soldiers shooting down a pterodactyl!

I've written a few posts on the mythological Thunderbird and the various soldiers and frontiersmen who claimed to have bagged one. My hard drive contains a small collection of these photos and I might make a tiled background of them when I get the time. I certainly would have to include this charming photo of a Globster!

The end is in sight for my next Civil War horror novel!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been forging ahead with the sequel to A Fine Likeness. I had more than 60% done, had the ending written, but didn't know how to get there. It was coming in little 1000-word bursts. This is different than my usual method which is to have the entire story arc in my head and I'm really only filling in details.

Now I'm happy to say I know exactly where I'm going. That last span of the story arc is in place in my head and cone again my writing is essentially filling in the little blank spots, like that crusty old riverboat captain that makes a certain scene but didn't exist until my fingertips surprised my mind by putting him on the page.

So I'm hoping to get this sucker done by the end of this week. We shall see!

I got a short story accepted!

I recently signed a contract with Rocking Horse Publishing, a Missouri-based small press, for one of my short stories to appear in an anthology. The anthology is called Spirits of St. Louis: Missouri Ghost Stories, and will be available next month in print and electronic formats.

My story, "After the Raid", is a spinoff of my Civil War novel A Fine Likeness. It tells the story of Helena, who sees her father gunned down by bushwhackers in front of their home and wreaks a terrible revenge. . .

I never got to fully tell Helena's story in the novel so this was a good chance!

Talking about historical horror over at Amlokiblogs

Hey all! I'm over at Amlokiblogs today chatting about my historical horror novel A Fine Likeness and having a conversation in the comments section about horror and history writing.

Drop on by and join the conversation!

Reader News for July 17, 2013

Welcome to another Reader News! Two big announcements this time around.

David Lee Summers, who recently did a guest post here on Researching Alternate History, is an astronomer and writer/publisher. Now he's brought his two careers together by publishing a science fiction anthology of stories set on planets discovered by the Kepler Space Telescope.

A Kepler's Dozen: Thirteen Stories About Distant Worlds That Really Exist is out in paperback and ebook on Amazon, Smashwords, B&N, and direct from Summers' publisher Hadrosaur Press. This is probably the first such anthology. As astronomers find more and more exoplanets, as planets outside our solar system are called, I suspect it won't be the last.

Lexa Cain has just signed a book contract. Her book SOUL CUTTER is about a teen who outs fake psychics on YouTube and overcomes her skepticism when she confronts a legendary Soul Cutter in Egypt. It's going to be published by MuseItUp Publishing in December 2013.

Congratulations David and Lexa!

Help me pick my next ebook cover!

Next week I'll be releasing a dark fantasy novella titled The Quintessence of Absence, a reprint that originally appeared in Black Gate magazine. Set in an alternative 18th century Germany, it deals with a struggle between good magic and the darkest regions of the occult.

I decided to try designing my own cover for a change and used the free template software at Copysafe. Here are some I've come up with. Which do you like?

Cover #1

The templates are a bit rigid. For example, I can't center this byline. But hey, it's free!

Cover #2

Cover #3

Cover #4

So which one do you prefer, numbers 1, 2, 3, or 4? (Oh, and those white boundaries are a product of blogger. They won't be on the actual covers)

Reader News for April 20, 2013

My friends in the blogosphere have been busy lately! For today's Reader News we have two exciting new books and a Kickstarter campaign.

Jack Badelaire over at the Post Modern Pulp blog has just released COMMANDO: Operation Bedlam. This is the second in his action series about a crack British Commando team in WWII. I loved the first book (read my review here) and was lucky enough to be a beta reader for the second. Both are fast-moving books with lots of action, a huge body count, and an eye for historical accuracy.

David Lee Summers and I go way back. For some two decades now he's written a steady output of quality stories and novels ranging from horror to science fiction to steampunk. His latest is Dragon's Fall: Rise Of The Scarlet Order, a vampire novel that came out last month and I somehow missed. (Sorry David!)

Last but not least, Eric over at the Civil War Daily Gazette is getting married and his honeymoon will be a drive along the entire length of Route 66! He and his bride-to-be have launched a Kickstarter campaign called the Route 66 Polaroid Project. They'll be taking Polaroid shots of the sights along The Mother Road. Supporters can get unique old-fashioned print photos sent to them, complete with description of the view. This is a project worth supporting!

Pterodactyl sightings in America

Let's descend into a bit of silliness. This is, after all, a fiction blog as well as a history blog.

We all remember the pterodactyl from when we were kids, that weird birdlike creature with the funky head. It died out with the dinosaurs, right?

Wrong, say some true believers. Pterodactyls have been spotted all over the world, especially in Texas, which has had several waves of pterodactyl sightings. Pterodactyls have landed on mobile homes, buzzed schoolteachers on their way to work, and generally caused mayhem across the state.

Native Americans believed in the Thunderbird, a giant bird seen in the skies of the American Southwest. Cryptozoologists (people who study unexplained animal sightings) claim the Thunderbird legend may be evidence of pterodactyl sightings. Of course the legend recounts a big feathered bird and not a reptile, but whatever.

Creationists have also gotten into the game. Many of the "pterodactyls are alive" websites use the sightings as evidence that the Earth couldn't be millions of years old, otherwise these creatures would have died out.

The sightings have been happening for some time now and even the Tombstone Epitaph got into the game back in 1890, claiming that some cowboys bagged one. Many photos of the supposed creature have arisen. This is just one of them.

While I have a hard time believing in the Thunderbird/living pterodactyl, I do find the idea charming. Perhaps I'll write a story about it one day!


I took this photo from the Texas Cryptid Hunter blog, which has a refreshingly skeptical take on the phenomenon. The image is not original to them. While I'm careful to use only public domain photos in this blog, I'm not sure this one is. If it's really as old as it appears, then it's public domain. It could simply be an old fake. If it's modern, then I'm in breach of copyright, but the only way the creator could sue me is if they admitted faking the photo! I'll take that chance. :-)

Globsters! Mysterious giant lumps of flesh washed up on beaches

The A to Z blogfest continues, and the letter G can only mean one thing--the globster!

What's a globster, you ask? It's an unidentified blob of flesh washed up on the beach. It's smelly, decaying, and generally nasty. People used to think they were some type of sea monster or unidentified species of giant squid or octopus.

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for globsters. Perhaps it's the name, or their irresistible cuteness. Perhaps it's because I always root for the underdog, and you can't get much lower than being a rotting hunk of unidentifiable meat on the beach being gawked at by local yokels.

The above photo is of the St. Augustine Monster, which washed ashore near St. Augustine, Florida, in 1896. Needless to say it caused quite a stir. A scientist who saw it thought it was an octopus because of the arm-like appendages you can see here. Journalists, of course, immediately labeled it a sea monster.

Maybe the journalists were right for once. Maybe in the unexplored depths of the ocean there are colonies of globsters, perhaps with a highly evolved civilization to hide themselves from our advancing technology. They're only spotted when one dies and floats to the surface!

Alas, I've never seen a globster. My closest brush with the unknown was "seeing" the infamous Thunderbird photo. I have to be content reading about them at Globhome.

This photo is of the Chilean Blob. It washed up on the shore of Chile back in 2003. At first it couldn't be identified, but then some party poopers at a biological laboratory checked the DNA and found it came from a sperm whale. Part of the blubber layer separated from the rest of the decaying animal and eventually made it to the beach and into the newspapers. The researchers theorize that most or all globsters may also be whale blubber.

But hey, DNA samples can be wrong, just ask anyone on death row! There's still a chance that the Lost Civilization of the Globsters will rise from the deep to reclaim their dead. . .

[Photos of the St. Augustine Monster and Chilean Blob courtesy Wikimedia Commons]

Ectoplasm! or, "I sneeze dead people"

This unfortunate woman is Mary Marshall, who had the poor manners to let spirits of the dead dribble out of her nostrils like mucous during flu season. She was part of a family of Canadian spiritualists who during the early 1900s held seances in their home.

That gunky stuff was known as ectoplasm, a paranormal Goo From Beyond. Ectoplasm appeared in seances and spiritualist photographs around the turn of the century. This Goo From Beyond is, of course, a parlor trick. This photo seems to show tissue paper with photos cut from magazines.

Ectoplasm would issue from the bodily orifices of the medium during the seance. It normally came from the nose or mouth, but could also come out the ears, eyes, nipples, and, as the photo below suggests, regions further to the South.

Ectoplasm has an aversion to light and thus only appears in the darkened rooms of the seance. This is convenient in that it keeps observers from getting to close a look, although these flash photos must have turned at least a few people into skeptics.

Spiritualism really kicked off in the United States due to the appalling loss of life during the Civil War. For more on that, check out my article Spiritualism during the American Civil War. It still exists as a movement today, although ectoplasm has fallen out of favor. A pity. I really like to see people sneeze up spirits.

Top photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons. Bottom photo from the fun Fortean blog Who Forted?, which has a lengthy quote from a Spiritualist "explaining" ectoplasm.

A good book review and a strange one

Last week my Civil War novel A Fine Likeness received to more reviews. A new four-star review on the novel's Goodreads page says that while the reader isn't into paranormal, "The author does an excellent job in incorporating accurate Civil War and Missouri history and handles the military action sequences with ease. The tale reads smoothly and is a very easy read. The motivations of the main protagonists on both sides of the conflict are realistically developed."

He goes on to say: "A Fine Likeness is one of those novels that falls between genres: American historical fiction with a regional focus, paranormal, a bit of the "Western." That may limit the readership, but the writing shouldn't be penalized for that."

Yeah, that's one of the reasons I couldn't find a regular publisher. The rejection letters kept saying how they didn't know how to market it. So I'm marketing it myself!

The second review is from the Indie Book Review. It was positive ("intriguing" "timely") yet odd in places. While I'm not the kind of person who bites the hand that feeds him, I'm wondering why Captain Addison is referred to as "General Captain Addison" and how exactly my background as an archaeologist informs the novel.

But what the hey, don't look a good review in the details!

A Fine Likeness named "Favorite novel of 2012"!

It's always nice to receive acclamation from a fellow writer, especially one as talented as G.R. Yeates. On his blog he did a roundup of favorites for 2012 and had this to say about my novel:

"I’ve chosen a writer who has followed a similar path to myself – that of historical horror. A Fine Likeness by Sean McLachlan is set during the American Civil War and deals with Confederate rebels and Union soldiers facing off against a black magic cult that are seeking to use the war-time strife to their own ends. A thoroughly immersive read written by someone with a real passion for the period the story is set in. The level of detail is as impressive as the well-drawn and convincing characterisation. I also liked the touch of including real historical characters in amongst the mayhem to add to the tone of authenticity that resounds throughout the book."

Thanks, G.R.! Check out the guest blog he did for me about his World War One fiction here.