Anaxagology for August 2024

Hello Anaxagologists! I have Big News this month, but first a few small updates…

Recent Sales

• “Five Dispatches from Conflict Zone W-924/B Regarding Post-battle Deployment of A. Thanatensis,” my SF flash fiction piece about global gun violence against children and our inclination for memory-holing such trauma, will appear in Lightspeed.

• “Your Dasher Has Accidentally Awakened the Crawling Chaos by Gazing into the Loathsome Geometry of the Taco Pup Mega-muncher Meal Box” will be reprinted in Connoisseur Vol 1., an anthology collecting Stoker longlist horror stories.

Speaking of “Your Dasher,” a couple months ago the story got a nice mention in the Fiction to Features newsletter, a roundup of short stories that the editor feels have strong potential for film adaptation:

And now, the Big News….

My Debut Middle Grade Novel Is Coming This Fall as an Audiobook Original!

Narrated by Christopher Gebauer, The Tower is a horror mystery for upper middle grade readers…and adults too!

When 12-year-old Kolby finds himself captive in the penthouse of a 75-story skyscraper with no memory of who he is or how he got there, he must work together with other young captives to unravel the mysteries of the tower before its ultimate, terrifying purpose can be fulfilled.

I’m super excited to announce the debut of my first novel, The Tower, coming this fall! Yes, that soon!

The Tower will be published as an audiobook original and will be available wherever you buy your favorite audiobooks—including Amazon, Audible, B&N, Apple and more.

This one is special to me and has been a long time coming. The basic idea for the book evolved slowly. I first had the idea for what would become the The Tower nearly ten years ago when, as a new TV writer, I found myself taking meetings in downtown LA among some very tall buildings. The skyscrapers had a strangely anonymous quality about them. They looked similar—tall rectangles of glass. People walked or drove right by, but for all I knew, no one actually ever went inside one.

What was really going on in those towers? What if there was one tower stuck in among many that was…different? One that held a dark secret? It could be hiding in plain sight. No one would ever notice it or think about it.

The idea was a puzzle box that I toyed with between other projects. After leaving LA for Texas and “retiring” from TV writing a few years ago, the puzzle box finally revealed enough of itself that I started writing The Tower.

I had a lot of fun writing this book. I’m especially thrilled everyone will get to experience this as an audiobook.

There’s so much more to talk about! Follow me now on Bluesky for news and updates about The Tower as it happens, including the cover reveal and pre-order info (coming soon)!

ICYMI

If you’re just joining the party, here’s a rundown of what I’ve been up to and where you can find my work.

I am the author of the middle grade horror/mystery novel, The Tower (Recorded Books, 2024) coming this fall.

I was a recently a guest on the Shining Moon podcast and discussed YA and middle grade speculative fiction.

My short story, “Under a Star, Bright as Morning” is free to read at Lightspeed. Other recent fiction includes “We Shall Not Be Bitter at the End of the World” and “The Boy Who Ran from his Faerie Heart.” Visit my Bibliography for a full list of short stories and other works. You can also check out my ISFDb page.

I wrote for Nickelodeon’s Glitch Techs, an animated sci-fi adventure about teens who hunt video game monsters that have broken out into the real world. I also created and co-executive produced Amazon Studio’s first live-action kids and family series, Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street, about three kids whose life is anything but normal.

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About this Newsletter

Anaxagology is a free monthly(ish) newsletter from TV writer, SFF author and novelist David Anaxagoras. Subscribe now! You can find more about Dave at his website, or follow him on Bluesky.