At the Starting Line
In which I enumerate the reasons why my 2025 writing life is gonna be nuts.
Okay, here we go. It’s 2025.
This year is going to be crazy on the writing front, and that’s okay, because it’s going to be fun. As we kick 2024 to the curb and welcome in 2025 to the party, I’m starting to plan for conventions and story publications and book launches. I want to attend more book signings. I want to connect more with readers and other writers in the community as we all celebrate our love of horror, fantasy, and everything weird.
Oh yeah, and I need to write some new stuff too.
But before all that, I wanted to offer a quick peek at my upcoming publications. Two books, three stories, and hopefully more to come:
The Unkillable Frank Lightning
A whole bunch of you liked my last Tachyon Publications novel, The Legend of Charlie Fish. And quite a few of you asked about the fate of a certain young gunslinger. The Unkillable Frank Lightning is a direct follow up to Charlie Fish, and let’s just say, one of the characters from the first book still has adventures ahead of him.
For a few years now, I’ve been writing monster stories set in the Old West, or at least the edge of the Old West where the modern world is starting to creep in. A number of those stories can be found in my various short story collections, and The Legend of Charlie Fish played with the idea of a Creature From the Black Lagoon type character, dropped in the middle of a killer Texas hurricane. The Unkillable Frank Lightning takes Frankenstein as it’s inspiration, and its not the last movie monster I plan to explore.
Here's the back cover copy from the publisher:
From the acclaimed author of The Legend of Charlie Fish comes this engrossing retelling of Frankenstein in the Wild West―a horrific tale of gut-wrenching loss, undead monsters, shifting loyalties.
With The Unkillable Frank Lightning, Rountree solidifies himself as not only one of the best writers working today, but makes the case for being the best Western writer of our present century.”
―C. S. Humble, author of That Light Sublime trilogy
Catherine Coldbridge is a complicated woman: a doctor, an occultist, and, briefly, a widow.
In 1879, Catherine's husband, Private Frank Humble, was killed in a Sioux attack. Consumed by grief, she used her formidable skills to resurrect her husband. But after the reanimation, Frank lost his soul, becoming a vicious undead monster.
Twenty-five years later, Catherine has decided she must make things right. She travels to Texas with a pair of hired killers. But Frank is no longer a monster. He has remade himself as the Unkillable Frank Lightning, traveling with the Wild West Show.
With his signature lean, clean prose reminiscent of Raymond Chandler, Josh Rountree (The Legend of Charlie Fish) has penned a Frankenstein-inspired tale unlike any other. With equal parts Cormac McCarthy and Stephen Graham Jones, Rountree coalesces myth and legend into a dramatic tale of love, death, and its terrible aftermath.
The Unkillable Frank Lightning is scheduled for release in July, but it’s already available for pre-order!
Summer in the House of the Departed
I’m excited to have a new novella coming this summer from the awesome folks at Psychopomp. In addition to their wonderful book lineup, you may recognize Psychopomp as the publisher behind one of my favorite short fiction magazines, The Deadlands. I’ve been lucky enough to have two of my stories published there: “Their Blood Smells of Blood and Terror” and “Till the Greenteeth Draw Us Down.”
Summer in the House of the Departed is a book close to my heart. My grandmother was a supernatural researcher in the late seventies / early eighties, and I’ve wanted to write something about her for quite some time. This book is entirely a work of fiction. But it does mine my memories of her from when I was a small child, and a lot of the stories I remember her telling went into this as well.
There’s no cover for this one yet, but here’s a quick snippet of what it’s about:
A boy and his dying grandmother spend the summer of 1982 in a haunted house, communing with ghosts and searching for occult answers to the afterlife. Years later, the boy is facing his own mortality, and revisiting that old house may be the only way to solve the mysteries that have haunted him for a lifetime.
Once this one is available to pre-order, I’ll be sure to make the announcement.
Short Stories
I have three short stories pending publication in 2025. Details are still pending on a couple of these, but here’s what I can say:
“Black Goat Parade” - This one’s a grim and bloody Christmas folk horror tale, and you won’t have to wait long. It’s scheduled to appear in the new issue of Grimdark Magazine, within the next few days!
“Bluebonnet” - Can’t say a whole lot about this one yet, but it will appear in a future issue of the kick ass literary magazine, F(r)iction. And it’s about a cow.
“Now We Sing the Killing Song” - I sold this story to an upcoming themed anthology. The book is still under wraps, but I think the expected publication date is this coming October.
Just a Few More Bites:
- I’ve said it elsewhere, but the new album from The Cure is one of the best records they’ve ever released, and it’s astonishing to me that they remain this badass forty-plus years into their career. Do not miss Songs of a Lost World.
- Lately I’m rereading short fiction collections from a few long-time favorites – Laird Barron, John Langan, Annie Proulx, David J. Schow, A.C Wise, Flannery O’Connor – and have been reenforced in my belief that the short story is the single best medium for fiction.
- I’m excited for the summer release of The Peregrine Estate trilogy, the next three books in C.S. Humble’s That Light Sublime universe. I’ve read all three, and you’re in for something special. If you haven’t preordered those from Shortwave Publishing yet, you should. I’m also excited to have some new, unpublished words from Humble in my inbox. He’s working on something entirely different, and it’s all sorts of awesome.
- RIP to Slim Dunlap, late era guitar player for one of the best rock bands in the history of the world.
- I am desperate to read The Buffalo Hunter Hunter from Stephen Graham Jones. All you people showing off your ARCs online are making me jealous.
- I Can Fix Her by Rae Wilde is a bite size nightmare. One of the best things I’ve read in quite a while. It’s due out this summer, but you can hit that preorder button now.
- My publisher Tachyon Publications is giving away a free e-book every month in 2025. That’s 12 FREE BOOKS and all you have to do is sign up for their newsletter.
- What if I wrote a super bloody fantasy book?
And One More Thing…
Thanks to all of you who’ve read my stories and books, shouted them out to friends, showed up for a book signing, or have been genuinely awesome members of the book community! I’m grateful. If things go according to plan, my travels this year should take me all over Texas, to the West Coast, and maybe up to Stoker Con in Connecticut. Hope to see a whole bunch of you out there in the real world.