Chart / September

So my little-known existentialist dystopian post-apocalyptic climate fiction road novel By the Feet of Men has been out in the world for all to buy and read and review for a month now. Sales have been above expectations according to the publisher, which is fine, but how does Grant Price feel, is more the burning question. ‘Twas a difficult couple of weeks after it came out. You work for three years on a project and you complete it and the anticlimactic abyss stares back at you. I had virtually no desire to write, and I was a little demotivated by how quickly the novel had its week in the sun and then disappeared from all charts forevermore. But such is life. I managed to get over the dip just as autumn turned its piercing gaze onto Berlin. I’ve also started working on a fourth novel. Eco-fiction. My bread and butter. We’ll see how that goes over the coming months.

Roundup: As stated at the beginning of September, I wrote a piece about flashbacks for Mary Robinette Kowal, which kept popping up on strange websites all over the Internet. Over at The Qwillery, I answered some questions about why I bother writing, how I bother writing and who I bother while writing. What about reviews? Well, Mr Joseph D’Lacey, author of MEAT who counts Stephen King among his fans, decided that my book was worth a read, which is great. Another author, Terry Tyler, said it was “inventive and well-researched”, which vindicates my hours of watching YouTube videos about trucks, while YET ANOTHER AUTHOR, Dennis Stephan (who just had Und in mir ein Ozean published), made me laugh by describing the story as “a futuristic Western where post-apocalyptic cowboys ride their vehicles searching for a reason to live on”. In non-novel news, Allegory Ridge published an essay I wrote about Oman called, fittingly, The Solitude of Oman, on its lovely Marie Kondo-esque website. Happy about that.

Fill my autummy:

1. Four Tet - Anna Painting

2. Rival Consoles - Memory Arc

3. Tonnovelle - Four Force

4. Susumu Yokota - Kodomotachi

5. Biosphere - Chukhung

6. Windy & Carl - Undercurrent

7. Trentemøller - Foggy Figures

8. Thurston Moore - 8 Spring Street

hit the lights

By the Feet of Men - Mood Photos

Whenever I write, I storyboard the scenes in my mind so I can see exactly where the characters are and the landscapes they inhabit. I think this is why people have said my writing is a little like a movie in novel form. Below are a few photos that reflect some of the settings and themes in By the Feet of Men.

The Watched Road.

The great lagoons in the north.

The mountains of the Zuisudra.

A bridge in the Alps.

Tyre tracks on the mud flats.

The junkyards of Prestige.

Abandoned posts en route.

Nature reclaiming the Earth.

Piece on Mary Robinette Kowal's website

Some months ago I was clicking around the Internet wondering what else I could do to promote By the Feet of Men besides coming up with some kind of interpretive dance for it when, for whatever reason, I went on the website of Mary Robinette Kowal, President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and recipient of the Hugo, Locus and Nebula awards (jeez). Ms Kowal has a section on her website where she invites non-award-winning authors like myself to talk about their favourite bit in their recently published work. I fired off an email, never expecting to hear back, but I did actually hear back, and now my piece about using flashbacks in fiction is there for the world to see.

On the website of a Hugo, Locus and Nebula award-winner.

Here’s a link to the piece: CLICK ME.

i want a cover like this.

Chart / August

So it’s out, then. The book. My ruminations on what the future may hold. My raison d’être for the past three years. That’s the end of that. File it under funky.

Except it isn’t, of course. Sales are doing well, but I’ll still be trying to push out articles about the apocalypse and the anthropocene and Armageddon. This is uncharted territory for me once again. How long do I keep up the promotional efforts? How much do I try to have the book submitted for awards? How often will I be checking Goodreads in the hope of beautiful new reviews? All questions I guess I’ll be answering over the next few months.

Roundup: Ginger Nuts of Horror gave me a sparkling review (“This book is one of those rare examples where you enjoy it and at the same time feel excited about the notion of reading it again”) and did a five-minute interview with me, during which I use the term ‘economical staccato’ to describe my writing style. My God. Over at Lauren’s Bookshelf, I generously offer a few tips on channelling your inner Hemingway and rewriting the end of a novel. I also wrote a piece for The Bibliophagist titled Opportunity in Crisis that disappeared from view almost as soon as it arrived. The things I do for book.

Paperbacks and Pinot was especially effusive with the praise, stating that By the Feet of Men is “immersive, thoughtful, gritty and as realistic an interpretation as you’re likely to get of a dystopian future”. Over at Mad Hatter Reviews in the UK (scroll down), I received an in-depth critique of the novel, with the conclusion that I’ve created “an intelligent action thriller”. What else? Sincerely Karenjo called the book thrilling, gritty and haunting, Lizbie’s Nerdy World enjoyed the economical staccato writing style, and Between the Shelves appreciated it for scratching a dystopian itch. Finally, the good Bill Halpin, author of The Cult of Eden (out in October), was kind enough to say the novel was “phenomenally written”.

Not bad.

Music this month….was scarce. I was kind of busy. So we’ll go for a victory dance:

1. Alice in Chains - I Stay Away

2. Radio Birdman - T.V. Eye

3. Minutemen - Corona

4. Boards of Canada - 1969

5. Floating Points - King Bromeliad

6. Radiohead - Optimistic

7. Slowdive - Souvlaki Space Station

peel here to rejuvenate.