Click on book covers for reviews, previews and purchase options.
RealmShift
A race against time and the Devil
"RealmShift is phenomenal. If it’s not already on your bookshelf it should be."
MageSign
Believe in the blood 
"a gritty tale of blood rituals, mystery, and mysticism… grabs hold of the reader and doesn’t let go"
The Darkest Shade Of Grey
You can tell the story.
"...stunning supernatural noir..."
Ghost Of The Black
"Everything about it is bang on"
Write The Fight Right
“The best way for a writer to learn what’s really involved in brawling, short of going down the pub and starting something.”
The recent volcanic eruption in Iceland is awesome in so many ways, but it seems to me that no one is drawing enough attention to the coolest thing about it. The name of the volcano is Eyjafjallajokul. Seriously, how cool is that? If I wrote a name like that into a fictional fantasy people...
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I picked this up over on S F Signal and liked it. See what you think. .
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This has very little to do with this blog, other than there are dragons in many of my stories. And the spec fic stories of others. Fuck it, that’s all the excuse I need. Frankly, I just want this totally awesome dragon on my website. .
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Colour me seriously impressed. Sometimes the evil internet is used for good, even when it’s used by the Access Of Evil. I know, I’m making no sense. Chuck McKenzie threw out an idea to the interwebz about getting US and UK books into Australia which are otherwise unavailable due to parallel importation restrictions, or...
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I found this TED Talk via m1k3y over at grinding and it blew me away. Basically, suspended animation (the reduction of metabolic rate to near death for extended periods of time) is not just science fiction any more. It’s real, and they’re busy with human trials. As the guy says at the start of...
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I am extremely pleased to announce that my dark fantasy thriller novels, RealmShift and MageSign, have been acquired by Gryphonwood Press in the US. This marks a move from the books being indie published through my own press to being “traditionally” published by a small press in the US that is really going places....
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I love Twitter. The things that happen there are great, especially when the big stars show themselves up to be geeks like the rest of us. A conversation between Simon Pegg and Nathan Fillion this morning cracked me up. For those not versed in geekery, Simon Pegg is the British comic genius behind TV...
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Can you believe there’s such a thing as a horror photographer? I had no idea, but this guy is simply awesome. Not only does he make horror into a photographic artwork, he does it all for real. Well, not actually real, but with sets, special effect make-up and so on. Like this: “Lady Bathory”...
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As the alt-text for this cartoon says: “That card holds a refrigerator carton’s worth of floppy discs, and a soda can full of those cards could hold the entire iTunes store’s music library. Mmmm.” I share that fear and reverence. It’s amazing that so much can be held in such a tiny space. Everything...
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I’ve been using a fitball at my desk for years. It was an attempt to keep some kind of decent posture during all the hours I spend at my computer. What it actually did, however, was subsconciously teach me numerous ways to slump and slouch on a fitball. Bugger this, I thought. So I’ve...
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I have to thank Michael over at aNadder for this one. I’m a big fan of collective nouns. There are the old favourites like a murder of crows or a parliament of owls. But what about collective nouns for supernatural creatures? We’ve all heard of a host of angels. Well, thanks to Michael pointing...
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I’ve been away for the last week, enjoying the peace and quiet of the Bega Valley with Halinka and Penry the Spacklehound. We did all kinds of sight seeing, visited cool little towns and gardens, went horse rising with friends and generally had a ball. It was very relaxing. However, the highlight of the...
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I’m sitting here a little bit stunned at the moment. Apparently I have cultural significance to my country. A few days ago I got an email from the Digital Archiving Section of the National Library of Australia. At the top of the email it said: Request for permission to archive The Word : the...
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No, I won’t be at over two thousand conventions. I wanted to let you all know about a few convention appearances that are coming up in the remaining months of this year. It’s wonderful when people treat me like a real writer and invite me to be a part of these things. The first...
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A little while back I posted this video, which plays a very clever game with words. Reading that caused regular reader and all round IT guru here at The Word, James Frost, to seek out others like it. He came up with this, which is, quite frankly, a brilliant example of wordsmithery. Doppelganger by...
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Welcome to the website of author Alan Baxter.
I write dark fantasy, sci fi and horror, ride a motorcycle and love my dog. I also teach Kung Fu, hence the Warrior Scribe tag above. A friend once referred to me that way and I liked it, so it stuck. Learn all about me and my work by clicking About Alan just below the header.
Our world is built on language and storytelling. Without stories, we are nothing.
The Word is a place to learn more about me, my stories and the words of others. Click the links along the top for all kinds of stuff, search the sidebars for loads of other stuff, click on book covers for reviews and previews, enjoy the blog and don't be shy to share your words, in comments or send me an email:
alan [at]alanbaxteronline[dot]com
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