News & Blog

The Skiffy and Fanty Show is a popular weekly fan podcast run by two science fiction and fantasy enthusiasts. They also have a fun website and blog with a regular guest column where authors talk about what their superpower is. Not what they wish it was — like flying, invisibility, Wolverine claws, etc. — but what it actually is. As you might imagine, a lot of authors talk about their superpower being a way with words, a mastery of metaphor, or an ability to completely lock out the world while they write.

Not mine. When Skiffy and Fanty asked me to write about my superpower, I took a different tack. My guest column is up on their site now. Here’s a teaser:

It’s hard for me to pinpoint exactly which of my innate mutant abilities is my true superpower. Is it my unerring talent for arriving on the subway platform at the exact moment the train I need is pulling away? Is it my almost creepy aptitude in recalling all manner of trivia related to Doctor Who, the classic series? (Go on, ask me who knit the Fourth Doctor’s scarf, or why the Fifth Doctor keeps a stalk of celery on his lapel, or how Davros lost his only remaining functioning hand. I dare you. How many hours do you have?) Or perhaps my superpower is actually a curse in the form of a last name that is almost constantly misspelled, sometimes even in print by professional publications.

Click through the check out the column and see what I chose as my superpower. The answer may surprise you! (Or not. I don’t really know you that well.)

Mike Ferrante over at King of the Nerds!!! has some very nice things to say about the Trent series in a double-review of Dying Is My Business and Die and Stay Dead, including this lovely bit:

Kaufmann once again demonstrates an adept ability to insert wonderful character-driven moments into the middle of huge epic scenes of magic and mayhem. All in all Die and Stay Dead doubles down on the action of the first novel going so far as to end on a bit of a cliffhanger that seems to promise a third novel that pulls out all of the stops. If you are looking for a new urban fantasy series to try I highly recommend giving Nicholas Kaufmann’s Trent novels a shot. I can’t wait to see how events play out in the third novel.

It turns out Mike is also a big fan of Chasing the Dragon, which is pretty cool:

I first encountered Nicholas Kaufmann’s fiction reading Chasing the Dragon a wonderful novella put out by the fine folks over at Chizine; it’s a wonderful little fantasy allegory about addiction that I highly highly recommend.

You know, I love hearing what readers think of my books, and to be honest I wish more readers would blog or post their thoughts about them. I know they won’t all be as positive as Mike’s, but often we authors feel like we’re just sending books out into the void with no idea if they’re resonating with readers or not. So it’s nice to hear about it when people enjoy our books. It reminds us why we’re doing this in the first place.

Celebrate the new year with another chance to win a free, signed copy of Die and Stay Dead from Goodreads! Click here for details. (You have to join Goodreads to enter, but it’s harmless and free.) The giveaway is going until February 1st and is open to readers from the U.S. and Canada.

In other fun news, I’m a guest judge on All Things Urban Fantasy‘s Cover Art Coverage this week! I’ve loved Cover Art Coverage for a long time now and always dreamed of being asked to be a guest judge. Many thanks to Kristina and Megan for having me. Go on and click through. It’s fun, and you’ll get to see which book cover I call “the Geocities of covers”!

Amazing author and wise man with impeccable taste Ian Rogers has named Dying Is My Business one of his favorite reads of 2014! (So what if it came out in 2013? Some people wait to read books, Dr. Judgmental!)

You can see his full list here.

Haven’t picked up a copy yet? Time to remedy that immediately! (Also, the Kindle e-book is on currently sale for a under $9 for you e-book reader types.)

And if you read and loved Dying Is My Business, why not check out the sequel, Die and Stay Dead?