James Maxey

Welcome to my world!

I'm James Maxey, the author of the Bitterwood fantasy trilogy composed of Bitterwood, Dragonforge, and Dragonseed, a pair of superhero novels, Nobody Gets the Girl and Burn Baby Burn, plus my new Dragon Apocalypse series. I've also published numerous short stories, the best of which are reprinted in my collection, There is No Wheel. This website is focused exclusively on my published fiction. At my second blog, Jawbone of an Ass, I serve up loudmouthed blathering about politics, religion, money, and other topic polite people have the sense to avoid.

If you're a fan of dragon-centric sword and sorcery with a touch of superheroics, the Dragon Apocalypse is being written for you! In fact, even if you're not a fan of fantasy, you might want to check out the books, since my approach to this series is to strip out everything I find boring about epic fantasy and focus on the fun stuff, like larger than life characters bravely throwing themselves into battle with dragons, and the dragons eating them. Greatshadow, Hush, and Witchbreaker are now available. The next book, Soulless, should be out in late 2013/early 2014.

Definitely coming out in 2013 will be my next superhero novel, tentatively titled "The Adventures of Cut-Up Girl." Watch this space for further news!

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Anthology Builder Contest

There's been an interesting print-on-demand project helmed by Nancy Fulda called "Anthology Builder." She's collected a large catalog of short stories by some of today's best speculative fiction authors. Visitors to the site can build an anthology by picking stories from their favorite authors. The site has been in a beta testing phase for about a year now, but now she's taking it live.

To celebrate the launch, she's holding a contest. Anthology Builder has a collection of pre-designed covers; she's inviting writers to write a story based on their favorite cover. The winner of the contest will win $200 and publication in the Anthology Builder database. Full details of the contest can be found here.

I've got a both of my Asimov's stories available there. Final Flight of the Blue Bee is a superhero tale; To the East, a Bright Star is a "last-day-of-earth" story about a former circus aerialist. Now that the site is no longer in beta, I'll probably expand my offerings there in the near future.