FREE SMOKING MIRROR BLUES ON DEAD DAZE!

Got a Kindle? Get Smoking Mirror Blues for FREE! $0.00!

Hurry, because this deal is only happening from October 31^st – Halloween – to November 3^rd – NOT the 4^th like I mistakingly said in a couple of postings (I really should catch some rest this weekend). This takes us through los Días de los Muertos, with an extra Saturday. Download early and often.

Yes, Dead Daze is alive and well . . .

SEXY SMOKING MIRROR BLUES GUEST POST ALERT

I've got a guest post over at the Sleeping Hedgehog telling the inside story of how the tantric sex scene in the beginning of Smoking Mirror Blues scared away a cover artist. It's called “Curse of the Glittering Vagina, Or, How Tantric Yoga Cost Me a Cover.”

This was the first edition of Smoking Mirror Blues, a trade paperback that's still available from Wordcraft of Oregon.

I didn't think I was writing a “dirty” book, but it's amazing how many of the reviewers thought to warn potential readers about the sex:

There are touches of erotica here too, which might offend some longtime SF readers . . . James Palmer, Strange Horizons 

Hogan comes right at you with graphic depictions of sex . . . Jack Mangan, SF Reader.Com 

. . . really brings the diversity in terms of ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation of the characters. SciFiLatino.com

. . . full of sex of many kinds, including tantric . . . Green Man Review

So, consider yourself warned.

CHICANONAUTICA ANNOUNCES THE SMOKING MIRROR BLUES/DEAD DAZE DEAL

Chicanonautica, over at La Bloga, is announcing a special Dead Daze deal: From October 31^st to November 4^th you'll be able to get my novel Smoking Mirror Blues for free! It's chock full of Sex! Violence! Religion! Politics! Brain-zapping music! An Aztec god running amok in a futuristic Hollywood! Just the thing to read on your Halloween/Días de los Muertos weekend!

To get you in the mood here's some Dead Daze-y videos:

Here's the traditional Días:

And the Dead Daze interface:

Megaofrendas are growing into marco-ofrendas:

And going wild in the streets:

PREHISTORY OF SMOKING MIRROR BLUES

Smoking Mirror Blues has a long prehistory, and went through some bizarre transformations before it became the novel it is today. An earlier, shorter version of it was published back in the July 1993 issue of Science Fiction Age thanks to editor Scott Edelman.

Here's a closer view of the corner with my name:

“Cybergod in L.A.” is headlinese for the actual title of the story, “Tezcatlipoca Blues.” According to Jamie Todd Rubin, "This was the first and only Ernest Hogan story that I have ever read and at first I didn't think I was going to like it but in the end I did."

I was struggling to sell it as a novel with that title. After a few phone calls in which I got to hear New Yorkers struggle to pronounce Tezcatlipoca, I decided to translate the wizard/warrior's name into English.

“Tezcatlipoca Blues” has a wonderful illustration by Fred DeVita

Fred called the painting “Beto.” I have a framed copy of it in my house. His electronic teponaztle and Beto are pretty much dead on.

Fred has dropped off the interweb radar. Anybody know what happened to him? I can't seem to take a few steps without running into another mystery.

Maybe it's me. Maybe it's Tezcatlipoca.

CHICANONAUTICA MEETS THE RETURN OF SMOKING MIRROR BLUES

This time Chicanonautica, over at La Bloga, is devoted to the return of Smoking Mirror Blues as an ebook on Kindle Select. Click over there for all the exciting details.

Have a good look at the mask of Tezcalipoca, the novel's “hero.” Yes, it is made out of a real human skull:

And here's a musical tribute to the Mirror That Smokes, and a few other Aztec gods:

Since it's all about the collision of Halloween and Día de los Muertos, fusing into Dead Daze:

Did you know about megaofrendas?

Getting sci-fi futuristic, how about ofrenda art out of recycled materials?

SMOKING MIRROR BLUES ON KINDLE!

Tezcatlipoca is smiling. Smoking Mirror Blues is back via Kindle KDP Select, so you can not only buy it, but Amazon Prime members can borrow it through the Kindle Owner's Lending Library, and I'll be doing a special Dead Daze giveaway promotion during the Halloween/Día de los Muertos weekend.

Though if you can't wait, go ahead and buy it. Tezcatlipoca and I will both smile.

This is an experiment to see how the KDP Select thing works. Everything is experimental these days – especially if you're a writer. I'll report on how it works out.

Meanwhile, I'll be doing some serious self-promotion. Or is that book promotion? Or Tezcatlipoca promotion?

Let the games begin!

RIDING WILD DOWN HIGHWAY 60

“She was such a pretty corpse that I kept her around for a while.”

Em was talking about a praying mantis she once saved from a black widow. After that, the mantis would ride around on her shoulder when she worked in the garden.  Eventually she died, and Em kept her body until it disintegrated.

We were zooming down Highway 60.

We passed a place that was freshly painted white with huge, bright red letters that said JESUS SALVA. “Jesus Saves” in Spanish. Or was it somebody's name? A religious retreat? A cult headquarters? Or the location for a horror movie?

When we arrived at the Nature Conservancy's Hassayampa River Preserve, I noticed a head stone with MURDERED on it. It was the final resting place of the Barney Martin, his wife, and two sons who were killed in 1886. A bit of bloody Wild West history.

In the preserve's visitor's center Em said,“What a pretty tarantula!”

We had to wait for a pair of cows to move on before we hit the trails. “It'll be okay, as long as you stay out of their line of sight,” a volunteer said. It got me thinking about the mechanics of bullfighting, as we passed the RATTLESNAKE ALERT sign.

I wasn't expecting to find datura here, but it was all over. At one point, it was a jungle with the devil's trumpet as far as the eye cold see. This is what the plant does in its natural habitat. Some of the flowers were as big as four inches across. Black insects crawled on the white petals.

There was also a marijuana-like scent in the air. And spectacular fungal colonization of certain trees. And lots of large ants, black and red, scrambling around the trails where a lot of the footprints were non-human.

There was place full of giant, rust-covered dinosaurs as we entered Wickenburg.

“We better not stop there,” said Em.

“Yeah, we may find something we want,” I agreed.

We were also greeted by an abandoned motel with a RE-ELECT SHERIFF JOE ARPIO sign, and a tire place with an inflatable Bigfoot.

In town, we kept mistaking painted statues in of Old West characters for real people. One was chained to Wickenburg's Jail Tree, where outlaws were chained “for lack of a hoosegow” from 1863 to 1890. They say no one ever escaped.

After chicken-fried steak sandwiches at the Golden Nugget Restaurant, we got back on Highway 60, and discovered that a section of it was adopted by The Doom Family. Could it be the Doctor Doom? We looked carefully, but there was no sign of Doctor, the Missus, and the little Doomies picking up roadside litter.

We had trouble finding Vulture Mine Road, and Vulture Peak Road, but eventually found the trailhead near the volcanic neck, were we got our tramping-through-the-desert fix before zigzagging our way back to Phoenix.

It was a pretty day.