Letters From the Labyrinth 301

If you read all the way to the end of last week’s newsletter, then you know that I managed to get Josey Wales and all eight kittens into the house. They are currently residing on our second floor, which is composed of my office, Mary’s office, our library, game room, and second floor bathroom.

Chaos has since ensued. This is the face of pure anarchy (or perhaps purr anarchy).

Good morning. I’m Brian Keene and this is the 301st issue of Letters From the Labyrinth, a weekly newsletter for friends, family and fans of my work. And for people who believe the internet was invented as a repository for cat pictures.

I’m on the waiting list for three different No-Kill shelters. I’m hoping one of them gets some openings this coming week, because working under these conditions is an exercise in futility. Josey adjusted very easily to being indoors, and the kittens are fine. But the kittens are also very… active. They get up on the lower shelves and into the books. They seem to be particularly fond of the section of the library ranging from Tom Piccirilli and Hailey Piper to Clark Ashton Smith and Bryan Smith. They knocked my American flag, flown in my honor over Kabul, Afghanistan, onto the floor and decided it would make a fine bed. My comic book long boxes have become an obstacle course. The glass top of my humidor gets warm in the afternoon sunlight and they all try to lay on it together, except they can’t all fit, so some invariably fall off and knock my pipes to the floor. They figured out how to access Mary’s My Little Pony collection and turn each one into a cat toy. To distract them from all of this, I finally took about 50 of the pens Todd Keisling tried to prank me with and tossed them onto the floor, and then all day I typed to the sound of kittens chasing pens across a hardwood floor. Joey does nothing to prevent them from this, happy instead to lounge atop the table in the game room or on top of the shelves. (She particularly likes to nestle in between Stephen King and T.E.D. Klein).

One particularly adorable little girl will not stop perching on my shoulder. To do this, she scales my legs like they are Himalayan mountain slopes. Last Thursday, I made the mistake of wearing shorts, and now my legs look like I got in a fight with a bag of tiny razors. No matter how many times I tell her “No” and put her down, she turns around and begins the climb again. Over and over and over. And here is the culmination of her incessant determination.

I love each and every one of these little furry fosters, but they are just that. Fosters. If you live in Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, or Virginia, and you would like a free kitten, please reach out. They are flea free, disease free, weaned from their mother, and litter trained. All are very loving. Some are more rambunctious than others. All need good homes. We cannot keep them.

We cannot keep them…

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As the signed hardcover edition of SUBMERGED: THE LABYRINTH Book 2 continues to ship to customers, I spent some of this week finalizing production on the paperback, eBook and audiobook editions. The paperback and eBook are all laid out. I just need the finalized cover design. And production on the audiobook has begin, as well. It is my hope that the paperback and eBook might be available for preorder as early as this time next week. All three editions should be available in time for the holidays.

ISLAND OF THE DEAD will wrap up this coming week. I’ve only a few chapters of that left to write. Many have asked me about Kindle Vella and if I’d use it again. The concept itself is timely and much-in-demand. Readers these days love shorter fiction and serialized fiction. Novella, novelettes, and serials are very popular right now. But Amazon’s rollout of Vella has been a textbook example of how a corporation jumps on a bandwagon without taking the time to understand why that thing is a bandwagon and what consumers will actually want from it. Despite the product’s name of Kindle Vella, serials still aren’t available on Kinde. Consumers can only read them on web browsers. And the purchase of tokens to unlock and read episodes creates an unnecessary barrier. Like anything else purchased from Amazon, unlocking the next chapter of a Vella serial should be quick and easy. Instead, readers have to purchase digital tokens, and use them to unlock it, rather than just paying for it with one click like they do for everything else. Am I happy with Vella? I mean, I’m happy that I’ve made money with ISLAND OF THE DEAD. But I’m not happy with the delivery system, and will probably just stick with Patreon for future serials, unless Amazon overhauls the Vella program entirely.

I’d hoped to get a massive Lifetime Subscriber shipment out the door this week, but the kittens made that impossible. I’m going to tackle it in stages next week, when they are sleeping.

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Reader Recession Relief Week 8: SCHOOL'S OUT - a novella for both middle-grade and adult readers - is 99 cents on Kindle and Nook!

Sale ends Monday night, at which point a new title will take its place.

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Sorry. I got up to look outside at the rain, as the remnants of Hurricane Ian stroll leisurely through Central Pennsylvania, and while I was gone, one of the kittens typed the above message. I’m leaving it in, because if I have to live through this inanity, then you do, too.

Anyway, those links again are Kindle and Nook.

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The Perfectly Fine House by Stephen Kozeniewski and Wile E. Young is my favorite of the new crop of haunted house novels. It’s a very clever, fresh take on ghosts and hauntings. It’s entertaining and invigorating and wonderfully engaging.

I bring that up because there’s gong to be an anthology of other stories based on the novel, and I’m going to be in it, but before any of that can happen, their Kickstarter needs to succeed. So go here, and have a look, and donate what you can.

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Long-time reader Anthony Naylor is participating in this Face of Horror fundraiser for pediatric cancer. Help him out with a vote, if you can!

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Here’s a sneak peek at the signature sheets for the signed hardcover of WITH TEETH (coming soon).

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Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania:

A reminder that Richard Chizmar, Ronald Malfi and I will be signing in just a few weeks — October 15 — at Barnes and Noble 2516 Solomons Island Road, Annapolis, MD from noon until 4:00pm.

Mary and I will be signing — along with a dozen other authors — on November 4th and 5th at Barnes and Noble 5501 West Broad Street, Richmond, VA.

And we’ll be signing with a different dozen authors on November 20 from noon to 6:00pm at Lovedraft’s Brewing Company 165 Gateway Drive, Mechanicsburg, PA.

These are the last three signings of the year, and as I’ve said before, I’m definitely cutting back on signings for next year. At the very least, I’m cutting back on conventions, other than AuthorCon and the Bram Stoker Awards, of course.

So yeah, if you can, consider coming to one of these. All three are close to airports and hotels. We’ll make it a party!

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Currently Reading: Three Dark Windows by Bryan Smith and We Came From An Island by Cynthia Pelayo.

Currently Watching: The Rings of Power (Prime), The Patient (Hulu), Survivor (Paramount Plus)

Currently Listening: Brian Keene Radio

My radio station is pretty much the only thing I’m listening to now, which was kind of the whole idea behind it. Curate and gather all of the music I like into one place, train the A.I. to mix it properly, and then have it on in the background 24/7 — and make it available for free in case other people want to listen, as well. And they seem to. There’s a small but regular listening audience tuning in every day.

I now make it a point to go live every morning around 8:30 and read the morning news. And I’ll hop on the mic at random times throughout the day, as well, if there’s enough of an audience. Mary hosts a Heavy Metal Workout program every day from noon to 1 (all of these are East Coast times). It’s a lot of free fun.

The Thunderstorm Books edition of Cynthia Pelayo’s We Came From An Island is just about the nicest hardcover chapbook I’ve seen in a long, long time. The presentation and production values are just eye-popping. And the stories themselves are pretty darned awesome, as well.

As far as The Rings of Power goes, as I said on Twitter, having watched a few episodes, I think it is perfectly serviceable fan fiction, but it’s no more Tolkien than Disney’s Star Wars is Lucas. It’s great that others enjoy it, but it’s not for me. I’ll hold out for an adaptation of the more accessible parts of The Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales. And before anyone jumps my shit, it has nothing to do with “hobbits of color”, the focus on Galadriel, or any of the other things pinheads complain about on the internet. It’s just not for me, because it’s not Tolkien. It’s a media tie-in inspired by Tolkien. Some media tie-ins are great, but this one just doesn’t hold my interest. It’s like Tom Bombadil is the show runner and Amazon has paid him to write a song that lasts five seasons. I feel the same way about all of the Disney Star Wars stuff. It’s like they made shows about each and every one of those minor action figures we used to collect as kids — the ones who were on screen for exactly 1.2 nanoseconds, but the suits at Disney said, “Let’s give that character their own series!” I’ve grown weary of franchises and their upkeep. I find myself craving new things and new characters and new ideas, unbeholden to corporate-owned IP.

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Okay, I guess it’s time to wrap this up. Mary and I are heading out to Stephen Kozeniewski’s birthday party today, and tomorrow (when you are reading this) I’ll be taking my youngest son to play Laser Tag with Somer Canon’s sons (no word yet on whether we adults will be allowed to play, too, but I am hopeful).

Speaking of the boys, the two of them and another friend of theirs have launched a new podcast, exclusively on Spotify. It’s called the LFJG Gamescast, and as you might expect from a podcast hosted by three teenaged boys ages 13, 14 and 15, it’s about video games. I’m very proud of my son (who on the show goes by the public moniker of Firelord), as he tries his hand at yet another creative endeavor. If you’d like to support these kids, give them a follow. <3

As always, thanks for reading. I’ll see you back here next week, unless the kittens kill me between now and then…

— Brian Keene