I hope I'm not violating a TOS by posting this, but since several have asked me about this and I didn't see this posted by anyone else, I thought I'd mention that Jim Bernheimer (jbern) has just published an anthology of fantasy stories, Horror, Humor, and Heroes, Vol 2: New Faces of Fantasy (available on Kindle and paperback) that contains fantasy-themed original fiction short stories by a number of DLP authors, including jbern, Joe, Shezza, Heather Sinclair, and me (under pseudonym Brian James, in case you care). It's a $3 Kindle purchase on Amazon; $12 for a paperback.

My favorite stories in the mix were Shezza's and Joe's, which, I believe, are themselves worth the Kindle price. I'd like to thank Jim for his hard work on this project and the rest of the authors, for having written an anthology to which I'm proud to have contributed.

Edit: Seems a worthy 2000th post.

 

I enjoyed all of them. Your story was excellent and has the makings of a longer story. I hope you consider pursuing in.

If I had to pick favorites, I'd go with Blot's story that opens it and Heather's story that closes out the antho. One of the best bits of advice I ever got came from Nonjon (I wish he had been able to get something together for this one). He told me that the last part of the chapter is the last impression the reader has and will generally determine whether or not the reader reviews.

Applying this logic to the antho, finishing with Heather's story should leave readers with a smile on their face.

 

PS. You can't buy the anthology in Canada or the UK

 

You can. You just have to download Amazon's Kindle software for the PC (free) then buy it off amazon.co.uk for around £2.50.

Have read Joe and Heather's stories so far. Both are pretty good. Definitely recommend buying it. Now going to read Pers'.

 

I'll have it on Smashwords.com by next weekend and maybe Payloadz.com as well.

 

Just purchased the Kindle version as a small repayment for the many hours of free entertainment the authors provided me with.

Fellow lurkers, you should follow my example.

 

I'll purchase it after the holidays. I owe to the DLP authors for all of the fanfiction of theirs that I've read. The fact that these are some of my favorite authors just makes it even better.

 

Just curious, how'd you guys get this published? Self-publishing? The cover art is pretty epic.

I'll try to buy it after the holidays if I can.

 

jbern did the majority of the work in this regard (read: all of it), as he has some experience with his prior anthology.

The cover art is original - Jim paid an artist and everything. Here's a few details:

Title: Horror, Humor, and Heroes - New Faces of Fantasy

Summary: Inside are thirteen stories handpicked to entertain, amuse, and
provoke from the editor who brought you the original Horror, Humor, and Heroes.

Follow the exploits of a young man bent on avenging his murdered brother on the eve of destruction. Visit a magical competition where no one can be trusted. Watch as reluctant heroes, such as a warrior faced with a cursed heritage and a high school graduate, whose summer job becomes much more than he imagined, grapple with their unfortunate circumstances.

Travel with a Russian polianitsa, obliged to escort a nobleman through dangerous lands. See a detective investigating persons who are missing for reasons that should never come to light. Interview the world's first immortal. Quest through the eyes of a miniature dragon as he suffers the foolishness of his hairy and odorous companions.'

This mix of traditional and urban fantasy will appeal to fans of both genres.

You may recognise some of the contributing fanfic names:

jbern
Clell
Perspicacity
Shezza
Blot
Kinsfire
Joe
Heather Sinclair

I'll be the first to say the stories are awesome. Pers' is particularly clever, and extremely well written.

If anyone has a few moments, reviews on Amazon are appreciated.

 

Why the hell did you include that guy?

 

His story is actually quite readable. While his fanfiction stories aren't to a lot of people's tastes (including mine), he is a competent writer and his story in the anthology isn't like his fanfiction.

When the anthology was planned, Jim invited his fellow fanficauthors.net authors to participate, along with several others. He, S'TarKan/Viridian, Kinsfire, WhyDoYouNeedToKnow and Clell65619/Deluded Musings (and possibly one or two others whose by-lines I don't recognize) from fanficauthors.net contributed to the anthology. A few others from the site started a story, but didn't finish, or else realized early on (Jeconais) that they didn't have the time or inclination to do one.

I think most would agree that it's quite a bit harder to write original fiction than fanfiction. I thought the fraction of authors who agreed to write one and then did was surprisingly high.

 

I used Createspace under the umbrella of my side business. I now do network consulting and small press publishing. I broached the original idea on the fanficauthors yahoo group that we create an anthology and use all the authors on that site as contributors and publish through Abraxan's Whimsy Hill Imprint. There was a surge of interest that petered out after a couple of months.

I went on to do the original HHH and then my two novels. Last year, while I was finishing up the original draft of Spirals, I started looking for the next project I wanted to do. I contacted a whole slew of authors in various parts of the fandom. Some politely declined. Some wanted to do it, but hit a brick wall when it came to writing original stories. In the end, I was looking for something at least 80 thousand words.

This was supposed to be done last March, but I'd bitten off more than I could chew. Eventually, I got back to it and had my story plus 12 others. I wanted to bring it to my publisher (Gryphonwood), but his interest was lukewarm. So, I opted to do the publishing through my company.

The cover artist is the same young woman who did the Spirals cover. I found her on Deviant Art. She's actually a senior in high school and very talented. (There was a guy who was also a fanfic writer that I was originally going to use, but I was alerted to some skeletons - or quite possibly a small graveyard in his closet.)

As for why someone like Kinsfire, Whydoyouevenneedtoknow, or Arsinoe de Blassenville, they have pretty big followings that don't necessarily overlap with mine. People who like my style, like Joe's style, Perspicacity's style, and Shezza's and so on. My goal was to diversify and tap into as much as I could. The big names that I asked, but didn't end up getting ... Jeconais, Nonjon, and Melindaleo. Hell, I even went outside the HP fandom and asked that ridiculously successful TaraSueMe who does Twilight stuff (with like 17 thousand reviews). She (I assume) would've liked to do it, but it turned out she writes smut and didn't want to reveal her real name to the world.

I also went with writers who didn't have huge followings, but I really liked their style. Clell, Heather, Meteoric Shipyards fell into this category.

Still, I had to like the stories I put into it. So, I worked with the authors and asked them to work with each other on a writing forum that was set up for this purpose. Hell, I had to redesign my story (orginally about a young warrior with a cursed axe) when someone was nice enough to bring a series about a character named Druss the Legend to my attention. So, I had to change it to a mace (didn't want to do a sword and be compared to Moorcock, the axe was now out of the question ... all the cool kid weapons were already taken!)

So that's the really basic backstory of how this happened. If you have any other questions, I'd be glad to answer them.

 

Other than that I'm very pleased this came together, that I look forward to purchasing a copy, and that I would very much like to be included in your third installment of the series (hint, jbern ), I really don't have much to say.

Nice work, guys.

 

Bought the paperback, can't wait for it to arrive. If it sucks though, I will personally shit on all of you DLPers.

 

This is incredibly awesome. I was doubtful anything would come out of it in the last thread about it, but you guys came through. I'm seriously impressed.

How can I buy the book without a Kindle/Mail post? Is there a eReader option available?

 

There's a kindle for PC program that you can use IIRC. It's never worked for me personally(network/permission issues), but it should suffice in lieu of buying a kindle.

 

Click this link

This it the link to the Kindle version. To the right of the page, you'll see the Check Out link... just scroll down about five inches and you'll see this:

"Read books on your computer or other mobile devices" and various download links below that.

Chose which one you wish to use, download, etc. and then you can buy the Kindle version and read it through that program.

Tada!

 

This looks awesome, definitely buying it when I get home.

 

I just finished reading the whole thing, and I can safely say I'm impressed overall and that I liked the variety of the stories. I'll work on a bigger review for Amazon, but here I'll just keep things vague - Pers's, Shezza's and Joe's stories were probably my favourites (and this is coming from a guy who hasn't read Dagger and Rose or Wastelands of Time, and still hasn't finished the Denarian Series), Heather's was a solid and humorous way to cap off the book, and Clell's surprised me the most (He's a decent writer when he's not mindlessly bashing HP characters). Jbern's was good fun, but felt rather abrupt and unfinished at the end - a continuation in the future, maybe?

If I had to pick a least favourite, that honour has to go to Scarecrow, which, while serviceable, was pretty much a do-over of the Supernatural episode of the same name, and one of the main characters was pretty much Bela from season three.

Each story had their ups and downs, but most if not all still had their memorable moments and some good world-building or little twists. It was a good read and I'll be happy to read another anthology like this one in the future. And if there is another one, definitely don't shy away from dipping into DLP's talent pool - Calz and enembee, for example.

 

I am impressed. Will buy as soon as I can. Nice to see people you "know" moving beyond the fandom and, in some cases, taking the first steps to a possible career in writing. Are there going to be sequels, follow ups, second volumes, whatever?

It'd be cool if next time you let DLP know with some anticipation and hold a sort of contest. The panel of judges could very well be those authors that contributed to this anthology and are DLP members, too. I'm pretty sure many author's on this site can do excellent work in original fiction.

Congratulations!