Birthdays are great with or without presents, but let’s face it, presents are pretty great, too! Here are some of the fun birthday presents I received this year:
(with commentary by Tim Lucas!)
(in non-wrist-breaking ebook format!)
(hundreds of rare & classic images from the golden age of horror comics in one handy little book!)
(30 full-color postcards of lurid horror comics covers!)
I think my friends and loved ones know me very well, don’t you?
Forty-four is the new twenty-four — except I’m tired all the time and everything is too loud. Also, kids today dress weird, their music sucks, and I can’t even understand what they’re saying.
Yesterday I wrote an appreciation of one of my favorite authors for the Readercon 24 souvenir book — Roger Zelazny! I’m so excited! Zelazny is one of my favorite authors of all time. It was such an honor to write this for him. I only wish I could have met the man in person to tell him how much his work means to me.
My forthcoming novel Dying Is My Business has a pub date of October 15, but it’s already available for pre-order on Amazon! Retail is $15.99, but right now you can pre-order it for a mere $10.87. That’s 32% off! Such a deal! (Also fun: Dying Is My Business has a preliminary Goodreads page, too!)
There’s no official synopsis of the book on either Amazon or Goodreads yet, so maybe this will tide you over until one appears: Publishers Marketplace described it as a novel “in which the felonious protagonist’s inability to stay dead wreaks mayhem over the five boroughs of New York.” Want more? I originally pitched it as similar to The Lord of the Rings, except instead of questing through a fictitious kingdom our heroes are questing through the Upper West Side. So I guess, in my mind, it’s kind of like Chandler meets Tolkien by way of Woody Allen.
Dying Is My Business has been getting some great advance blurbs from some of the best authors around, too. Check out what they have to say:
“Nicholas Kaufmann’s Dying Is My Business is urban fantasy-noir at its finest, full of marvelous imagination, snarky humor, Whedonesque romance, inventive mythology, and badass monsters! Fans of Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim will love it.” — Christopher Golden, New York Times bestselling co-author of Father Gaetano’s Puppet Catechism
“Kaufmann spins his yarn with relish and a gift for making the fantastical seem completely plausible – the perfect combination for an author of urban fantasy.” — Charles Ardai, Edgar and Shamus Award-winning author, editor of Hard Case Crime, and Consulting Producer of Haven
“There’s crazy, dark inventiveness on every page. Reminiscent of Roger Zelazny’s Amber books.” — Mike Carey, New York Times bestselling author of The Devil You Know and X-Men: Legacy
“Nicholas Kaufmann takes us into (and even under) the gritty streets to show us a New York City beyond anything we’ve seen. As we race to a truly apocalyptic conclusion you’ll root for the very human protagonists of this very inhuman world.” — David Wellington, author of 13 Bullets
“With Dying Is My Business, Nicholas Kaufmann reinvents the urban fantasy genre. And he gives us Trent — a complex, damaged and thoroughly badass new hero to save us from the forces of darkness.” — Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of Dead Of Night and Extinction Machine
“Engrossing from the first page, Dying Is My Business is tremendous fun, packed with magic, plot twists, and thrills. Nicholas Kaufmann is an author to keep an eye on.” — Harry Connolly, author of the Twenty Palaces novels
“Dying Is My Business is hot-paced adventure mixing the criminal underworld with otherworldy magic, and introducing a hero who is both cold-blooded and compassionately heroic.” – Laura Anne Gilman, author of Dragon Justice
“Surprising, thoughtful, and brilliantly conceived, Dying Is My Business kept me enthralled from the first page to the last.” — Tim Lebbon, New York Times bestselling author of Coldbrook
“Nicholas Kaufmann is the Christopher Moore of urban fantasy. Dying Is My Business is a smart, gleeful page-turner by an expert in the genre.” — Sarah Langan, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Audrey’s Door
So what are you waiting for, an engraved invitation? Pre-order your copy today!
