DESCENT INTO LIGHT: Mike Allen’s Home Page

I’m pleased to report that Strange Horizons is buying my new poem “The Paper Boy,” a grim meditation on a crime’s aftermath. Thanks go to Romie Stott for accepting it and to Dominik Parisien for motivating me to write it. #SFWApro   I’m also pleased

The reviewer behind the Just Book Reading blog just came out with a review of The Black Fire Concerto. Not all reviews are like surprise presents, but this one is.   I listened to the first part of this book when it was featured on

Locus Magazine short fiction review Rich Horton has some really cool things to say about my short story “Still Life With Skull” in his just-published review of Solaris Rising 2.   Mike Allen’s “Still Life With Skull”, set in the same very strange world as

  The snarky redhead behind the Little Red Reviewer blog takes on my first novel, The Black Fire Concerto, and has some really kind and downright awesome things to say about it:   Exploding with magic, music, and violence, this short novel has the magical

So a year ago today, more or less, I launched my first Kickstarter, to make Clockwork Phoenix 4. And thanks to amazing support from this community, that ended up going really, really well. Today, my second and much smaller Kickstarter is less than $300 away

This review of Clockwork Phoenix 4 at Strange Horizons pulls no punches. But here’s how it ends: … this anthology, and this anthology series, are serious about working on the edge of commercially viable fiction. There is room here for the confusing, intentionally or otherwise;

The anthology Kickstarter built is available for everyone to buy. Kindle Price $4.99 Canada $5.07 UK £3.28 Watch Weightless Books for e-book editions in alternate formats. Trade Paperback $15.95 (Discounted at some stores) Amazon.com Amazon.ca Amazon.com.uk Barnes & Noble Powell’s Indiebound Don’t see it on

See? I write things too!   Pic by Anita, who knows how to make me look less ugly. ;-p #SFWApro The Black Fire Concerto is not available for sale just yet, unless you buy one from me. But it won’t be long now. (UPDATE: I

The latest edition of Tales to Terrify contains a new “Tour of the Abattoir” column from me, in which I discuss why I’m not a Scott Sigler junkie. And I’ve been so swamped these past couple months that I completely neglected in this space to

I’m still too busy for my own good — in other words, nothing new under the sun. The writing life isn’t the only reason why I’m busy … but it’s reason enough! So all but a handful of the Clockwork Phoenix 4 Kickstarter rewards have