The View from The Keyboard: August 2023

Wednesday, August 23, 2023

A Tradition of Evil

I can hardly believe I didn't post in July, and that August is nearly out!

The big news is of course that my Sherlock Holmes novel A Tradition of Evil went on sale early this month (official release date was August 1^st) though even as we enter the last week of the month Amazon is still listing it as “temporarily out of stock.” Many folks have received their Kickstarter copies, and some have been able to order direct—Amazon UK, for instance, I believe has stock and ships promptly.

Here's the buy link for Amazon US:

https://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Holmes-Tradition-Mike-Adamson/dp/B0CD91X511

The book also has a Goodreads page, which you can find here:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/195503549-sherlock-holmes

Some weeks on there are no ratings or reviews, which is a bit disappointing as it seemed there was considerable interest at first, but it's not yet translated into feedback. Amazon looks for fifty reviews (good or bad makes no difference) before they begin to promote the product themselves, and that of course is the gateway to desirable extra sales.

It feels amazing to have a book out there, and to see copies in both hardback and paperback is quite the validation of one's efforts over so long. I'm looking forward very much to coming to grips with my second Sherlock Holmes adventure, once a couple of other projects are done and dusted.

In other news, NewMyths have picked op my “Middle Stars” story “Gaming Aquarius,” a sequel to “Wharf Rat” which they publish a couple of years ago. This is my fortieth placed story in the cycle, and I'm closing in on sixty on paper. Unfortunately, it will be 2025 before they can get the story out to readers, so keep an eye on their website about the end of next year.

Things have otherwise been quite. I'm bringing together an anthology of my vampire stories (they're receiving a pro edit at this time) and hopefully Hiraeth will be releasing this one in the not too distant future. Also, I'm working on my novel Venatrix again, with an eye to completing it before launching back into a full scale Holmesian outing.

Cheers, Mike Adamson

ABOUT ME

The content of this section vanished when I had a catastrophic login issue years back and I never got around to rebuilding it... Well, here we go! I've lived in Australia most of my life, and had aspirations for a career in the arts at a young age. I encountered no success at first and was somewhat gun-shy of trying again, but in the mid-80s I found myself a regular contributor to the long-gone Underwater Geographic magazine, on marine mammal issue, and indeed my first published fiction was a short story in that magazine. In the later 90s, when I had already worked up a Bachelor's Degree (double major in both Marine Biology and Archaeology) I placed a story or two with a website, which made me think more seriously about coming back to creative writing. But it was not until after I had completed my Doctorate in 2012 that I scored a few non-paying placements and decided to take a crack at the fiction markets. That choice has led directly to my current situation I'm a writer of short and long material, considered myself an artist when I was younger, am an enthusiastic photographer and have been in the hobby of building models for 55 years with barely a break. My pets of choice are cats and dogs, and long ago I qualified as a scuba diver, through I've not hand a tank on my back in half my life. This is one of a collection of blogs I run, the others being Digital Kosmos (a photography showcase) and The World in Miniature (my model blog, though this one has been sadly neglected for years now--too much writing going on to do much building!) I hope you'll enjoy the wealth of material to read on this blog!