Douglas Smith's blog

Well, this is a nice start for my first novel. Kelly Jensen at SF Crowsnest has given The Wolf at the End of the World a five-star review over at SF Crowsnest. Here are some snippets from her review:

I don’t read a lot of paranormal stuff. … There are some interpretations of lore I like, though, and some authors I will read, almost regardless of what the story is. Douglas Smith and his debut novel, The Wolf At The End Of The World, fill both criteria.

… The last twenty pages were an emotional experience (read: messy), which is always what elevates a book from four to five stars for me. I love a story that hits all the emotional buttons from laughter to tears. When that happens, it goes without saying the writing is good and the story is engaging, the characters are deep enough to make me feel.

 

…  In his introduction, Charles de Lint touches on the same points and the same feeling. It’s the interweaving of lore and ideas that gives this novel so much substance. …

 

Given the number of awards Douglas has won for his short stories, it’s hardly surprising he’s written such a fabulous book and it’s lovely to be able to say so, unreservedly. I really enjoyed ‘The Wolf At The End Of The World’ and I’m happy to have a copy to put on my shelf. With adventure, intrigue, shape-shifters, family, a touch of romance and a lot of heart, this is a book I’d recommend for readers of all genres.

–Kelly Jensen, SF Crowsnest, October 2013

You can read Kelly's full review here.

Cool. Shortly after my Aurora Award win for "The Walker of the Shifting Borderland," I received a request from Luigi Petruzzelli, the editor of the relatively new Italian SF&F magazine, Quasar, to translate and publish the story in an upcoming issue. And they pay well, which is not always the case for foreign genre markets, many of which don't pay at all. This will be my fourth publication in Italy.

The story should appear in Quasar either in the next issue before the end of 2013 or in their March 2014 issue. I'll post the actual cover of the issue with "The Walker..." when it comes out.

If you want to read the story in English, it's available at all major retailers as an ebook.

Over two years ago, I'd posted about the sale of my story "Fiddleheads" to the anthology Chilling Tales 2: In Words, Alas, Drown I. Well, the book has finally been released and is now available.

This is only the second time I've sold to what I'd call a clear "horror" market, the other time being "By Her Hand, She Draws You Down." Horror is not a genre I generally aim at, but I write the stories that show up in my head, and this one came out that way.

Here's an excerpt from the back cover copy:

"Canada’s maestro of the macabre, Michael Kelly, brings you CHILLING TALES: In Words, Alas, Drown I, an all new collection of nightmares that will perturb and torment you. Tales that will leave a frisson of fear and raise a quiver of gooseflesh. A chill is in the air."

With an introduction by editor Michael Kelly, the book contains a fantastic representation of Canadian dark fantasy and horror writers. I'm proud to have a story in a book edited by Michael, and to be included in this amazing roster of authors. Here's the table of contents:

• In Libitina’s House by Camille Alexa
• Gingerbread People by Colleen Anderson
• Meteor Lake by Kevin Cockle
• Homebody by Gemma Files
• Snowglobes by Lisa L Hannett
• The Dog’s Paw by Derek Künsken
• The Flowers of Katrina by Claude Lalumière
• Goldmine by Daniel LeMoal
• The Salamander’s Waltz by Catherine MacLeod
• Weary, Bone Deep by Michael Matheson
• The Windemere by Susie Moloney
• Black Hen A La Ford by David Nickle
• Day Pass by Ian Rogers
• Fiddleheads by Douglas Smith
• Dwelling on the Past by Simon Strantzas
• Heart of Darkness by Edo van Belkom
• Fishfly Season by Halli Villegas
• Road Rage by Bev Vincent
• Crossroads Blues by Robert J. Wiersema
• Honesty by Rio Youers

Check it out here.

David Jón Fuller has kindly posted a short review along with an interview he did with me on The Wolf at the End of the World over at his "As You Were" website. The interview went live today as this week's entry for his recurring "Werewolf Wednesdays" feature on his site.

Here's an extract from his review:

Building on the world he created in previous short stories, Smith explores the Heroka — shapeshifting beings who can also control their totem animals — and their role in a world in which people’s relationship to nature is out of balance. He also confronts the clash of cultures between the dominant Canadian (read: white) interests and the rights of First Nations peoples such as the Cree and Ojibwe — and how this plays out in environmental policy and control over resources.

 

Aside from that, it’s also a gripping urban fantasy in which a voracious monster is targeting the inhabitants of Thunder Lake, a small town in Ontario, and even the combined power of the Heroka and ancient spiritual powers may not be enough to solve the mystery of the killings — and avert the end of the world.

David posed some very interesting questions in his interview, and I greatly enjoyed the discussion. I hope you'll check out the full interview here on David's site.

Derek Newman-Stille reviews THE WOLF AT THE END OF THE WORLD at his award-winning Speculative Canada site. Here are some highlights from his review:

"The Wolf at the End of the World is a tale that would resonate with the spirit of any environmentalist – the struggle of diverse species to survive, the conflict with human greed and capitalism, the invasiveness of the human presence on animal life…

As he often does, Douglas wields myth … to reveal truths that we ignore in our mundane world and teaches complexity through the poetics of language and potentials of symbols.

Smith’s work, as always, is full of potent ambiguities, the moral questions that fill us with the potential to interrogate our world and challenge the assumptions that have become part of living our lives. He does this through beautiful prose and an exciting and powerful story.

Smith tackles issues of huge importance for our understanding of modernity … The reader is carried along on this mythic tale, taught the potential of stories to challenge us and make us more aware."

You can read Derek's full review here.

Back in August (yes, I'm a little behind in posting), Derek Newman-Stille, recently a fellow Aurora Award winner for his wonderful Speculating Canada website, interviewed me on Trent University Radio.

Derek is an excellent interviewer, and we had a fun and lively discussion on a wide range of topics, all related in some way to my new novel, THE WOLF AT THE END OF THE WORLD, including werewolves, myths and legends, disability in SF, ecology, the power of SF to challenge social assumptions, representations of oppressed peoples in SF, writing short fiction, and blurring the boundaries between horror, science fiction, and fantasy.

I greatly enjoyed the discussion with Derek and hope that you will, too. You can check out the recorded interview here or jump directly to the podcast by clicking on the Trent Radio logo at the left.

Mark Lefebvre, Kobo Writing Life Director, interviewed me back in September prior to the release of my novel, THE WOLF AT THE END OF THE WORLD, for a Kobo Writing Life podcast. Outside of his day job, Mark is a talented writer himself, writing horror and other speculative fiction under the pen name of Mark Leslie. And as if all of that wasn't enough to keep Mark busy, he's also edited several anthologies, some of which I've been lucky enough to be in (Campus Chills, North of Infinity II) as well as writing a couple of non-fiction titles, Haunted Hamilton and the recent co-authored Haunted Sudbury.

Mark and I talked about a lot of things in a wide-ranging interview that you can check out here. Topics included:

• How I started writing
• My new novel The Wolf at the End of the World and how it grew out of my very first short story "Spirit Dance"
• My career as a short-fiction writer and the importance of taking advantage of reprint rights
• My foreign language sales in 25 languages in 30 countries
• Ebook publishing my backlist
• The adaptation of “By Her Hand She Draws You Down” into a short film
• My penchant for writing fiction that references Bruce Springsteen’s music

Here's the link to the interview. Enjoy!

As I explain in my afterword to my story "A Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase, by Van Gogh," I am a huge fan of the works of the Dutch artist, Vincent van Gogh. In that particular story, I tell the tale of an ex-CIA agent and a talented young remote viewer who use remote viewing to time travel and "locate" an undiscovered van Gogh. You'll have to read the story to understand the quotes around "locate."

Is my story coming true? Well, probably not. But a few weeks ago, experts at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam (which I visited, by the way, in May this year – absolutely wonderful) verified Sunset at Montmajour  as an authentic van Gogh. The painting had actually been discovered in the 1990's, moldering in an attic in Norway. At that time, the museum had rejected the work, but more modern testing over the last two years resulted in its recent authentication. Very cool. Click the article above to read more about the discovery and to see the painting. There's a neat little magnification viewer in the article so you can really examine the painting (okay, technically, so you can examine the image of the painting).

And if the correlation to "Bouquet of Flowers..." and time travel isn't science fiction-y enough for you, then while you're checking out the painting, focus on the top left area. See that little blue building in the distance? Look familiar? Some people noticed its strange resemblance to another blue structure. Personally, I think if Vincent was going to paint the TARDIS, he'd put it in the foreground. But it kind of cries out for a story called "Vincent and the Doctor," doesn't it? Oh, wait. They already did that episode.

Just came across this blog post about an end-cap display in The World's Biggest Bookstore in Toronto, showcasing books by Ontario-based science fiction and fantasy writers. Nice to see Chimerascope included in this impressive group of works (bottom left).

The winners of the 2013 Aurora Awards have just been announced at CanCon in Ottawa, and I am thrilled that my story "The Walker of the Shifting Borderland" won for Best Short Fiction! "The Walker..." first appeared in the wonderful Canadian speculative fiction magazine, On Spec, in their "Apocalypse" issue (cover at the right).

It's great to see so many of my friends on the winners list, too.The full list of winners is as follows:

• Novel: The Silvered – Tanya Huff
• YA Fiction: Under my Skin, The Wildlimgs – Charles de Lint
• Short Fiction: The Walker of the Shifting Borderland – Douglas Smith
• Poem / Song: A Sea Monster Tells His Story – David Clink
• Graphic Novel: Weregeek – Alina Pete
• Related Work: Hayden Trenholm – Blood and Water
• Artist: Erik Mohr – Cover Art for ChiZine Publications
• Fan Publication: Speculating Canada Blog – Derek Newman-Stille
• Fan Filk: Kari Maaren – Body of Work
• Fan Organizational: Randy McCharles – When Worlds Collide
• Fan Related Work: Ron Friedman – Aurora Awards Voter Package

Unfortunately, I missed this convention for family reasons. Derek Newman-Stille kindly accepted on my behalf. My acceptance speech that I'd sent Derek went as follows:

Thank you for this unexpected honour! My apologies for not being here in person, but my youngest son's birthday falls on this weekend and it's one of those ending in a zero, so I didn't want to miss that. First, thanks to Cliff Samuels and everyone involved with the Auroras this year for all of their dedication and hard work in making these awards happen. A nod to my fellow nominees--it was an honour just being on the ballot with each of you (but I'm glad I won). Thanks to everyone who voted for the story, and special thanks to Diane Walton and the editorial board at On Spec for publishing "The Walker...,"and to Susan MacGregor for her great editing job. And finally, thanks to Derek for accepting on my behalf.

"The Walker..." is available as an ebook if anyone is interested in reading it. Thanks to all of you who voted for the story! This is my third Aurora win, and I couldn't have won any of those without your interest in my writing and your support.