If you’ve never read a Felix Renn story before, this is your chance.

To celebrate the forthcoming publication of SuperNOIRtural Tales, Burning Effigy Press has published the first Felix Renn novella, “Temporary Monsters,” as a free eBook!

I’m really excited about this, not just because it helps promote the collection, but also because it gives people who have never read a Felix Renn story before a free preview of the world of the Black Lands. Here’s a bit more about the story:

Felix Renn is a private investigator in a supernatural world, an alternate reality where a dark dimension called The Black Lands co-exists alongside our own. Travelling to and from The Black Lands is dangerous – and illegal – but that doesn`t stop some of the creatures that reside there from crossing over into our world from time to time.

After a man goes berserk in a posh Toronto restaurant, Felix suddenly finds himself torn between both worlds as he is drawn into a deadly game of movies, murder and monsters.

The “Temporary Monsters” eBook can be downloaded at the following locations:

• Smashwords (Kindle, iBooks, Nook, Kobo, HTML, PDF)
• Wattpad
• Scribd

So if you enjoy “Temporary Monsters” and you’d like to take another trip to the Black Lands, then you should definitely pre-order SuperNOIRtural Tales.

Okay, folks, it’s time to get your Felix fix! SuperNOIRtural Tales, the first collection of Felix Renn stories, is now available for pre-order!

Featuring all three Felix Renn chapbooks — “Temporary Monsters,” “The Ash Angels,” “Black-Eyed Kids” — as well the short story “My Body,” and a brand-new, 50,000-word novella called “The Brick.”

With an introduction by Mike Carey, author of the Felix Castor novels and writer for the DC/Vertigo comic book series Lucifer, Hellblazer, and The Unwritten.

Pre-order it now!

Supernatural Tales #22 is now available for sale! Featuring new fiction from some very fine writers, including my bud Michael Kelly. It also includes a new Felix Renn story called “Midnight Blonde.” It’s got vampires! And blondes! Order it now!

Also, the website Speculating Canada has reviewed all three Felix Renn chapbooks. Derek Newman-Stille, who runs the site, writes some of the most intelligent, thoughtful reviews I’ve ever read. It really says something when the reviewer points out something in your work that you’ve never seen before. And he likes it, too, which is definitely a plus!

Here’s an excerpt from his review of “Temporary Monsters”:

“Rogers’ first book in the Felix Renn series is fundamentally about change and impermanence and that makes it an exciting beginning to a new set of books. There is nothing predictable and the reader, like the characters, are placed on uncertain, shaky ground and feel the need to read through the book to have some sense of permanence to grasp onto at the end.”

Read the full review

From his review of “The Ash Angels”:

“This novel is truly terrifying because it deals with the lack of control that comes with depression; the lack of agency and internal chaos that comes when one is submerged in one’s own shadows. These monsters, although external in the novel, are internal for many people and serve as a reminder of the lurking dangers within one’s own soul and the slight change that is needed to plunge a person into darkness.”

Read the full review

From his review of “Black-Eyed Kids”:

“Good horror takes the familiar and makes it strange and embodies lingering fears, and this is certainly horror of the best kind. Rogers takes the image of innocence in our society, the child, and makes it something that evokes horror. He takes us into a realm of fear where even the most innocuous and normal thing can be an object of utter difference. And, he knows enough about fear to present his audience with the idea that sometimes people would rather die than live in continuing, ever-present fear. Fear of things is scary, but Fear itself is a terror that cannot be escaped from.”

Read the full review

The interview I did with Derek for Speculating Canada is still online, as well, and worth checking out, along with everything else on his excellent website.

There’s a lot of Felix Renn stuff going on over the next few months, enough that I’ve declared this the Fall of Felix! (To be spoken in the same boisterous tone as George Constanza saying “The Summer of George!”)

Here’s the rundown:

In the next week or so, Supernatural Tales #22 will be out, featuring the Felix Renn vampire story, “Midnight Blonde.” (Speaking of vampires, swing over to Speculating Canada and read an article I wrote on Black Lands vampires called “Vamping Things Up.”)

On October 1st, SuperNOIRtural Tales will be available for pre-order from Burning Effigy Press. A very cool preview will be available for electronic download at the same time (more on that later). SuperNOIRtural Tales will include the three Felix Renn novellas (“Temporary Monsters,” “The Ash Angels,” and “Black-Eyed Kids”), the short story “My Body” (featured in the Chilling Tales anthology), and a brand-new, 50,000-word novella called “The Brick.” Other extras include story notes, a history of the Black Lands, and an introduction by Mike Carey. The book will be out in November, just in time for the World Fantasy Convention in Richmond Hill, which I will be attending.

And finally, coming out in December (yeah, technically it’s winter not fall, so sue me), the anthology Fungi will include the story “Out of the Blue,” which features Felix Renn and his haunted real-estate selling foil Jerry Baldwin.

There’s some other cool stuff coming later this year and early next year — a new Black Lands story in Chilling Tales 2, as well as Felix’s first foray into electronic self-publishing — but this should be enough to hold you for the time being.

Thanks to everyone for their continued support of my work. There’s going to be a lot going on this fall (“The Fall of Felix!”), in terms of book launches, readings, and conventions. If you live in the area, I hope you’ll come out and say hello.

Coming this November from Burning Effigy Press…

Felix Renn is a private investigator in a supernatural world, an alternate reality where a dark dimension called The Black Lands co-exists alongside our own. Travelling to and from The Black Lands is dangerous — and illegal — but that doesn’t stop some of the creatures that reside there from crossing over into our world from time to time.

In this collection of stories, Felix encounters a variety of terrifying entities, including ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and the dreaded Black-Eyed Kids.

In a world where paranormal has become the norm, each new case may be his last.

* * *

SuperNOIRtural Tales collects all of the Felix Renn stories published to date, as well as a brand-new 50,000-word novella, “The Brick.”

Featuring an introduction by Mike Carey, author of the Felix Castor novels and writer for the DC/Vertigo comic book series Lucifer, Hellblazer, and The Unwritten.

Praise for the Felix Renn Series:

“Wry and stylishly bizarre… Felix Renn has entered the weird and wild urban fantasy front; I hope he’s on the job for years to come.”
— Laird Barron, author of The Croning and Occultation

“…an evocation of the classic, hardboiled detective that skirts the edge of parody without ever falling into it.”
— John Langan, author of House of Windows

“…a fast-paced entertaining story that gleefully mashes up all-things-supernatural with his hardboiled PI.”
— Paul Tremblay, author of Swallowing a Donkey’s Eye

“…there’s a lot of shading to Renn — the humour, the regrets, the resourcefulness… the chilly isolation of the human soul is felt throughout… Truly, this is one of the most chilling horror stories I’ve read in years. Make that, that I’ve read period.”
— Jeffrey Thomas, author of Punktown

“[Rogers] understands the rat-a-tat-tat language of the best noir, and uses it to explore the interpersonal relationships of his characters… Felix Renn has a lot of life in him, and a lot of distance to travel.”
— Simon Strantzas, author of Nightingale Songs

PRE-ORDER INFORMATION TO COME

It’s been so long since I’ve posted here I expected to find tumbleweeds rolling around the place! With one book in the can and another that I’m waiting to get edits back on, I find myself enjoying an unexpected break from writing. So I thought I’d take the opportunity to provide a few updates on some of my projects.

First, the Fungi anthology, which will include a new Felix Renn story, “Out of the Blue,” has a release date of December 2012. The publisher has created a very cool website for the book with all kinds of groovy fungi-related info, as well as the table of contents and pricing on the various editions.

An interview I did with Mike Carey, Linda Carey, and Louise Carey about their collaborative novel, The Steel Seraglio was posted on the HarperCollins book blog, The Savvy Reader. The Careys are an extremely kind and talented family, and I was fortunate enough to meet Mike and Linda last year when they were in town for the SpecFic Colloquium. The interview was very informative and a lot of fun.

The Canadian “best of” anthology, Imaginarium 2012, is popping up in bookstores and various online venues. If it’s not available at your favourite outlet, it should be by the end of the month. The book includes my story, “The Candle.”

A new short story, “I Hate Needles,” will be published in September in the eBook anthology Strange World. This is the first book from BIFF BAM POP, the pop culture website where I wrote articles on TV’s Lost as well as the occasional book review.

I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention that there is now less than one moth to order the hardcover limited edition of my forthcoming collection, Every House Is Haunted. The hardcover will contain bonus material not included in the trade paperback or the eBook, including a full-colour frontispiece and an extra short story, “The Secret Door.” The hardcover won’t be available in bookstores, so be sure to order soon if you want to snag a copy.

I think that’s everything that’s going on right now. Hopefully it’s enough to tide you over while I prep for my favourite time of the year. Shark Week! Time to put on my shark jersey, slip into my shark slippers, and cue up the Jaws theme.

I’m very happy to announce that my story, “The Candle,” which appeared in Michael Kelly’s excellent journal Shadows & Tall Trees, has been selected for inclusion in Imaginarium 2012, an anthology coming out next month from ChiZine Publications.

This is the first time one of my stories has been chosen to appear in a “year’s best” collection, and I’m pretty freaking excited about it. I was also informed that two of my Felix Renn stories, “My Body” (which originally appeared in the anthology Chilling Tales) and Black-Eyed Kids (a chapbook from Burning Effigy Press) both received honourable mentions in the book.

If you’re interested in checking out Imaginarium 2012 — where my story will appear alongside others by Kelley Armstrong, Cory Doctorow, Rio Youers, Gemma Files, and many more — the pre-order links are already up at ChiZine Publications.

I’ve been out of the loop the last couple of weeks. Wizard World Comic Con was great, our table was about ten feet away from Amy Acker’s, I met a lot of really nice people, sold a bunch of books, was even interviewed a couple of times. Unfortunately, during all of my glad-handing, I picked up an extremely unpleasant flu virus that hit me with five days of fever. Even now, a week later, I’m on the mend but still very weak.

It’s taken me a little while but I’m finally starting to catch up on things. Pictures from Comic Con are now available on my Facebook page. One of the two interviews I gave is now online, over at Press +1. The two best things about this con: seeing people come up to the table and pointing at one of the Felix Renn chapbooks and saying, “I already have that one!” And a couple of people who bought chapbooks coming back to the table later in the day to say they already started reading them and couldn’t put them down.

I found out that my Felix Renn story, “My Body,” and another short story, “The Candle” (that appeared in Shadows & Tall Trees), received honourable mentions in Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year, Volume 4.

I also came upon a review of the three Felix Renn chapbooks by Robert Morrish. Here’s an excerpt:

“…I’m usually not a fan of horror/comedy mash-ups. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that I do enjoy horror-comedy when it’s done well, but more often than not I find attempts to combine the two genres fall flat. So when I say that I really enjoyed Ian Rogers’ three darkly humorous Felix Renn novelettes, understand that I’m a tough critic when it comes to these types of tales.”

Read the full review.

In other news, I have seen the almost-final draft of the cover artwork for my forthcoming ChiZine collection, Every House Is Haunted, and it is absolutely fantastic. Ever since my book was accepted, I’ve been imagining what my cover was going to look like, because the CZP covers are always so incredible. Artist Erik Mohr didn’t disappoint, and I think you’re really going to dig his take on haunted houses. I should be able to post it here in the next day or two, and the pre-order info for the limited edition hardcover should be online around the same time.