Blogs, Blogs & Blogs

Check it out: some friends of mine - all of them fantastic writers - have just launched new blogs:

Jason Rubis - who I can't say enough good things about as a writer as well a friend - has started Pulp Transcendence: "a one-stop source for all things Rubis." His recent publications include stories in Drollerie Press’s Needles & Bones and Circlet Press’s Like Clockwork

My brother, s.a., has launched Omnibus, which is about "Lost Art, Design, Culture, Food"

And lastly, but certainly not least-ly, my wonderful friend Billierosie has begun her billierosie blog. Here's what she says about it: "The blog is for fun. My wandering thoughts. I like satire and positive thinking. My interests are in the Arts; theatre, literature, painting, sculpture. Erotica and fetish."

LOVE WITHOUT GUN CONTROL - Out Now!

While I put together a format announcement I just had to share that my collection of science fiction and horror stories, Love Without Gun Control, just went live on Renaissance E Books!
Here's the blurb about this very fun bunch of - for once - non-erotic stories:

"Unique and truly fascinating," writes Mike Resnick! M. Christian isn't as good as his peers say - he's better! This "best of" collection, featuring the cream of his fantasy, horror, and science fiction stories, is a dazzling achievement.

Only M. Christian could have imagined what happens when a boy's uncle blows Tibetan days powder in his face, or when a woman gave birth to a new species … but not one of flesh and blood, or when the Goddess of the Road gave the gift of beauty to a mortal man.

You will find these and eleven other unforgettable tales from the man Stephen Dedman, author of The Art of Arrow Cutting and Shadows Bite, hails as "A chimera, an amazing combination of tour guide and magician. Whether he's writing science fiction, horror or fantasy, he can take you to places you've never imagined, show you sights no-one else will get to see, introduce you to some fascinating people, and guarantee that the trip will be memorable from start to finish."

Among the contemporary classics featured in this stellar collection are:

Some Assembly Required
The Rich Man's Ghost
Medicine Man
Wanderlust
Buried & Dead
Nothing So Dangerous
Shallow Fathoms
Constantine in Love.

M. Christian's fantasy and science fiction has appeared in Talebones, Space & Time Magazine, Skull Full Of Spurs, Graven Images, Horror Garage, Song of Cthulhu, and other science fantasy publications.

• "Speaks with a totally unique and truly fascinating voice. There are a lot of writers out there who'd better protect their markets: M. Christian has arrived!" - Mike Resnick, Hugo and Nebula Award winning science fiction author
  
  
• "M. Christian's stories squat at the intersection of Primal Urges Avenue and Hi-Tech Parkway like a feral-eyed, half-naked Karen Black leering and stabbing her fractal machete into the tarmac. Truly an author for our post-everything 21st century." - Paul Di Filippo, author of the Steampunk Trilo
  
  
• "An amazing combination of tour guide and magician. He can take you to places you've never imagined, show you sights no-one else will get to see, introduce you to some fascinating people, and guarantee that the trip will be memorable from start to finish. Buy a ticket and fasten your seat belt: you're in for a wild ride!" -- Stephen Dedman, author of Shadows Bite
  
  
• "Writes like dream whether he's creating fantastic visions or ghastly nightmares. With this collection, you get both!" -- Paula Guran, DarkEcho

Amanda Young Talks to Me

I'm excited to have been interviewed by the wonderful Amanda Young. Here's a teaser - the rest is on Amanda's site.
Q: How long did you write before you received your first contract for publication?

A: I first decided I wanted to be a writer back in high school, but it took me close to ten years before my first story appeared in print (FutureSex Magazine, if you want to know). But ten years after THAT I have 300+ stories in print, five collections, five novels, and have edited over 20 anthologies. Making up for lost time you could say.

Q: So, if you don’t mind sharing, would you tell us about your latest work in progress?

A:I’m a very hard working writer and so I have oodles of things in the works right now. And, yes, ‘oodles’ is a technical term. Let’s see: a new novel (a gay thriller), a new collection (Licks & Promises) new editions of two of my favorite short story collections (Bachelor Machine, and Dirty Words), a film that should be shooting soon, a comic project, two new anthologies (Best S/M Erotica 3 and Sex In San Francisco), my regular column on writing smut (”Confessions of a Literary Streetwalker” for the Erotica Readers and Writers site) and other stuff that’s slipped my mind ….

Q: Out of all the stories you’ve written, which is your favorite?

A:While I have some that I think came out rather well I don’t really have a favorite because … well, because that means looking back, which is something I try not to do. So I’d say that my favorite is the story I haven’t written yet.

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LICKS & PROMISES - Out Now From M.Christian

Phaze Books is proud to announce the publication of a brand new collection of M.Christian's erotic fiction:

Licks & Promises

Licks & Promises is a new erotic short story collection from a master of the genre. If you like your sexy stories sweet, silly, scary or simply outrageous, this is the book for you!

Featuring classic M.Christian stories plus some tales that have never been seen before - as well as an introduction by the wonderful Sage Vivant - this is an erotica collection you'll read, re-read, and remember for a very long time!

Featuring the stories -

The Train They Call the City of New Orleans
Dead Letter
Dust
The House of the Rising Sun
In Control
Kiss, Kiss, Hug, Hug
Mile After Mile
The Naked Supper
Nighthawks
Regrets
The Tinkling of Tiny Silver Bells
Water of Life
The Will of Dr. Mabuse
The Waters of Biscayne Bay
The World Game
One After Another
Her First Thursday Evening

Here's what people are saying about M.Christian:

Reading M. Christian is like climbing on for a sexual magic carpet ride through different times and places, diverse bodies, and infinite possibilities.
- Carol Queen, Sex writer, speaker, educator and activist

M. Christian is the chameleon of modern erotica. One day punk, another romantic; one day straight, another totally perverse and polyamorous. But always sexy and gripping
- Maxim Jakubowksi, Editor, Mammoth Book of Erotica series

M. Christian is a literary stylist of the highest caliber: smart, funny, frightening, sexy -- there's nothing he can't write about ... and brilliantly.
- Tristan Taormino, Sex educator, author, columnist

M. Christian speaks with a totally unique and truly fascinating voice. There are a lot of writers out there who'd better protect their markets -- M. Christian has arrived!
- Mike Resnick, Hugo and Nebula Award winning science fiction author

M. Christian's stories squat at the intersection of Primal Urges Avenue and Hi-Tech Parkway like a feral-eyed, half-naked Karen Black leering and stabbing her fractal machete into the tarmac. Portraying a world where erotic life has spilled from the bedroom into the street, and been shattered into a million sharp shards, these tales undercut and mutate the old verities concerning memory, desire and loyalty. Truly an author for our post-everything 21st century.
- Paul Di Filippo, author of The Steampunk Trilogy

With his amazing versatility and silky smooth prose, M. Christian helped forge the erotica revolution of the 1990s and he’s still going strong
- Donna George Storey, author of An Amorous Woman

Order A Copy Today:

Phaze Books
Paperback: $11.95
Kindle: $4.80
Fictionwise: $5.40
ISBN-978-1606591840

If you're interested in reviewing Licks & Promises please email M.Christian:

zobop@aol.com
mchristianzobop@gmail.com

Speaking of -

- my Confessions of a Literary Streetwalker column (and now the book), a brand new installment just went up on the always-great the Erotica Readers and Writers site. Here's a tease - and here's where you can read the rest.

… in our last installment, Professor Ghostly and the Wildly Gesticulating Windup Sparrows from Tomorrow's Spain were facing off against the Whimpering Menace of the Cutout Dolls while the Perpetually Perky Percy Pureheart and the Men from Boy's Own Adventure, Ltd raced against time to get the Pearl of Solvency back to the Citadel of Missing Keys and end of the reign of the Tuneless Dogs once and for all …

Ooops—sorry: wrong story. What was I talking about? Oh, yes: e- books. Though I have to admit the story of Professor Ghostly does sound kind of interesting ….

Anyway, I mentioned in my last installment that choosing a publisher—or more than one, which I'll get to in a sec—is a subjective thing. What you like, or want, in an e-book publisher might not be what someone else wants. So just what criteria should you use in selecting the e-book publisher for you?

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Confessions of a Literary Streetwalker - THE BOOK!

Now this is the very definition of cool: not only are the great folks at Renaissance E Books going to be publishing a collection of my Confessions of a Literary Streetwalker columns (plus never-before-seen special content) but the always-fantastic Wynn Ryder did the cover. Check it out:

Apologies -

- to all the people who've submitted to Sex in San Francisco and/or Best S/M Erotica Vol. 3. Alas, life - in all its various facets, both good and bad - has gotten a tad in the way of me reading through the stories. But, rest assured, I plan on going through them all in the next month or so. As always, if you have any questions, or just want to chat, please feel free to write me at zobop@aol.com or mchristianzobop@gmail.com.

Love Without Gun Control - The Cover

Here's a treat: the cover of my collection of my non-erotic science fiction - as opposed to my collection of erotic science fiction, The Bachelor Machine, the re-release coming soon from Circlet Books - Love Without Gun Control, coming from Renaissance E Books. The art is by the always-fantastic Wynn Ryder.

Masquerade: Page 4

As I've mentioned, here's another preview of a very special project: Masquerade was illustrated by my great pal, and a fantastic artist, Wynn Ryder, from a story by ... well, me ... for an upcoming graphic novel anthology called Legendary.

I'll be putting up more pages from the final over the next few months ... or you can read the entire thing on Wynn's Deviantart pages.

Amos Lassen Likes Dirty Words

Here's a wonderful review of Dirty Words, compliments of the always-great Amos Lassen:

Eureka Pride:

I love reading M. Christian. I remember when I read him for the first time about two years ago, I thought to myself that this was an author whose work I wanted to keep up with and I have done just that. He is a brilliant writer with a wonderful streak of darkness that is delightful. I love his irreverence and his inventiveness and reading “Dirty Words” is like taking a trip to places unknown.

This collection is sometimes funny, sometimes scary, sometimes fantastic and always interesting. The writing is smart and clever and edgy and dark. It is hard to put a name on it because the writing transcends all labels and genre. All of us love good stories and these are some of the best. I have often said that writing goof erotica is difficult because it has to engage the minds and the senses. Christian manages to do this and with style. The stories capture the reader and he tells us strange stories that at times are very disturbing. Joy and horror are combined along with the lust of the flesh and the lust of the language.

There is sex in all of the stories but Christian does not make us work to understand what he has to say; he says it all but with magnificent care and beautiful style. Fourteen stories that reflect the author’s mind is what we have here.

I deliberately did not go into individual stories because I want you to have the experience of enjoying each and every one. You will not forget the stories or the experience that you will have reading them.

Dark Roasted M.Christian

Head over to Dark Roasted Blend if you want to read my little piece about how to keep out the Joneses - in other word, Great Walled Cities.


It’d be so nice if it was true, but the fact is it ain’t: the first settlements – before bronze age, before iron age, even probably before the stone age – didn’t happen because folks liked each other’s company.

As the old saying goes: there really is safety in numbers … and fortifications.

If you have any doubt about how wood -- and then stone and later even steel – walls helped shape human civilization, all you need to do is take a close look at most of our cities, especially the older ones.

Sometimes it’s easy to see where the boundaries between “Us In Here And You Out There” once were. Just look at the lovely city of Utrecht, in the Netherlands: a picture postcard of lovely homes, sparkling waterways, brilliantly green parks, and meandering walkways – a true jewel of civilization. Except that Utrecht, and a huge number of other cities throughout Europe, were built as walled fortresses. In the case of Utrecht that’s pretty obvious when you look at the city from either the air or at the old city plans. With other cities, like London and Paris, their urban growth has completely overrun the original walls and fortifications – though they’re there if you look hard enough.


If you want real defensive architecture you have go step back to Medieval times, and away from Europe. Sure, cities like Utrecht, Amsterdam, Berlin, Lucerne, Winchester, and so many others have their fortifications – either still visible or all-but invisible – from their Medieval, or even Roman, roots. But it wasn’t long before these separate city/states looked out from their battlements and discovered that instead of keeping themselves safe they were keeping their good neighbors out.

Another reason why the battlements in Europe crumbled was because of a force even more powerful that the weapons of the time: money. As trade increased and financial empires bloomed war became a bad investment. Then there was the fact that as cities expanded far out beyond their old protective walls it became simply impossible to defend them without constantly building and rebuilding fortifications which, money again, was just too darned expensive.

But when you step before the relative comfort of Western Europe and out towards the rocky cruelty of Eastern Europe – and beyond – you find some cities were the walls went up, and stayed up, for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

One of the jewels of the Adriatic is the (now) Croatian city of Dubrovnik. Beyond it’s current beauty and charm, the city is also considered to be one of the greatest, and best preserved, of the great walled cities. Even looking at it today you can see ghosts of it’s ancient strength: the specters of magnificent walls and towers surrounding a modern city.

A truly spectacular walled city is actually part of Europe, though at the bottom of it. Recently declared a Unesco World Heritage site, the Spanish city of Cuenca is mostly a monstrously huge citadel – a stone maze of ancient fortifications, churches, famous ‘hanging houses’ and other delightfully unique architectural treasures. Walking the streets of Cuenca is like stepping back in time, becoming a Medieval citizen who knows that no matter the danger your stalwart city will protect you.

Stepping away from Europe again, another beautiful example of a walled city is another Unesco site: the Azerbaijan city of Baku. Again, what makes Baku so wonderful is the juxtaposition between the ancient fortifications with the modern world: the way you can stand on a immaculately paved street, with your iphone in your hand, and look up at walls that were constructed … well, let’s just say a very, very long time ago. What’s sad, however, about this one particular walled city is that while the fortifications may have held back legions of threats, generations of hostiles, the ancient ramparts and defenses may finally crumble and fall – partially because of earthquake damage but also because people simply don’t care enough to preserve them.

While it might be a bit of stretch, it’s interesting to look at how – as recent as the last century– some people still thought about defense as a fort, a fortress. While it didn’t surround Paris, the French military – aching from the First World War – tried to prevent the same kind of invasion of their homeland by creating what they hoped would be the wall to end all walls: an immense network of tunnels, bunkers, gun emplacements, gas-proof chambers, and even a carefully-protected narrow-gauge railway connecting a large percentage of it. Colloquially called the Maginot Line, the fortifications were – and are – a staggering achievement of military planning and architecture.

There’s only one problem: it didn’t work – or it didn’t work that well (depending on who you talk to). The fact is that while the Maginot Line was well planned and executed it was an artifact of the past – it simply didn’t have much of a chance against the kind of war the 20th century brought against it.

Like with the ancient cities all around it, the Maginot Line proved that the idea of hiding behind walls is, in the end, futile.

Pauline Loves Dirty Words

My fantastic pal, Pauline, just sent me this great review for Dirty Words ... thanks, sweetie!

What is it about M.Christian’s DIRTY WORDS, that has me thinking of tapestry? In particular the Bayeux Tapestry, in Northern France? DIRTY WORDS is M.Christian’s collection of erotic, if not pornographic stories, displaying human sexuality at its most raw and crude. The Bayeux Tapestry, as I remember it, has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with Queen Matilda and her refined Ladies in Waiting, stitching away in chilly castles in Normandy, France, while their men folk sail off to conquer the unrefined British.

I think in my muddled way, my brain is drawing comparisons between two wonderful forms of story telling. I’ve been privileged to see the Bayeux Tapestry, three, maybe four times. And each time I’ve wandered around that museum in France, going from panel to panel, I’ve been struck by the tiny stories that it carefully tells. The journey across what we now call the English Channel. The logistics of transportation. The battle itself and the death of poor King Harold. Even a panel dedicated to those lonely ladies, stitching away at home. And there’s the little people. Those who don’t get noticed.

In DIRTY WORDS, M.Christian weaves us stories, that challenge and inspire. Stories of the little people; the dirty people. The people we try not to notice. In SPIKE, Christian gives us narcissism at its most extreme. Identical twin brothers sucking on each other’s cocks. No way! Shocking. But Christian doesn’t shy away from the truth about the two Spikes. Their self love is all consuming; dangerous; overwhelmingly passionate. It’s uncontrolled. The only control here, is finding out who is in control. Finally, carving out one’s own identity.

The wonderful HOW COYOTE STOLE THE SUN, gives us a drifter. A life without purpose. Or is it? The dog will cheat you, turn you over. Seduce you; rape you, steal your lover. Why? Just because he can. The odds are against dog. Even the elements are against him. The cruel sun pounds down on him and still dog wins. He doesn’t even want his prize and throws it away. But he still leaves with a smile on his face.

So who’s got the biggest cock? Mammoth or Monster? Ask Pup; he knows. THE HARLEY tells of biker culture. But not a biker culture like you’ve ever imagined it. Mammoth and Monster are crude, ugly, without any endearing features. They ride bikes and they fuck. Mostly Pup. There’s a competition going on for the Harley. Who gets it? Who deserves it? Perhaps Pup should decide.

The brilliant ECHOES is worthy of Edgar Allen Poe, at his most gruesome. Sex and Death, and all the horrors of beyond the grave. Guilt, and secrets coming back to haunt us. The sort of story that reminds me of why I check under the bed, on those dark nights.

I seem to have drifted a long way from the ladies stitching the Bayeux Tapestry. It’s about the excellence of great story telling. M.Christian weaves his exquisite words. The tapestry is another art form entirely. It tells a big story and lots of little ones. Moments in time. DIRTY WORDS tells the big story of sexuality. It also tells the little stories of those small people. Again. Moments in time.