For the past couple of months — since my interview with The Ginger Nuts of Horror, to be exact — I’ve received a few e-mails from people asking about my Weird Western novella, Deadstock.

In the interview I revealed that Deadstock is, in actuality, a Black Lands story, a fact that has confused some people as I’ve never mentioned this before.

The truth is, I only revealed this information because Jim Mcleod at Ginger Nuts of Horror happened to ask me, seemingly out of the blue, if there was a connection between Deadstock and the Black Lands. I’m not sure why he asked the question — perhaps Jim has some sort of psychic ability he hasn’t told me about — but I can tell you I gave serious thought to not answering it.

Why? Because while Deadstock is indeed a Black Lands story, it does not feature my supernatural detective Felix Renn and there are no overt references to the Black Lands.

The reason I never mentioned this before is because I wanted Deadstock to stand on its own without piggybacking on the success (however meager it may be) of the Felix Renn stories. I also didn’t want to take advantage of readers who might expect more of a connection to the Black Lands-verse than there actually is.

The connection is there, I can assure you, and it will become more apparent in the Deadstock prequel, Zero Fill, and especially in the sequel, Land of the Never-Rising Sun (a title that probably reveals more about the connection to the Black Lands than anything else).

So does that mean readers be left out of the Black Lands loop if they don’t read Deadstock? Absolutely not.

Of course, it is my opinion, extremely biased though it may be, that reading Deadstock will add to the overall enjoyment of the Black Lands series as a whole.