The Storyteller and Other Tales has just come out as an ebook for Kobo and other epub file readers. Published back in 2008, The Storyteller is a collection of four pieces, one of which is a foretale to Blackdog. (What’s a foretale? It’s a word I like better than prequel — perhaps it will catch on!) The others pieces include a Bronze Age secondary world fantasy, a story about Merlin’s daughter and the fall of Roman Britain, which I think is one of my best short pieces ever, and a prose-poem on the Battle of Maldon. The eponymous story is, of course, the one Connie and I are adapting as a graphic novel (details on the mangasaga blog). As the back-cover description says, “The Storyteller” itself is about Ulfleif, “a warrior-princess who would rather carry a lyre than a sword … drawn into an unfinished tale by the storyteller Moth,” as “old lays of vengeance and betrayal wake into bloody new life around her.” There wasn’t all that much about the bear-demon Mikki in Blackdog, but he’s one of my favourite characters; I think “The Storyteller” is as much about him as Moth.
I see there are links to a few of the bookstores carrying the new ebook down at the bottom of the Storyteller page on my website but I think the webmaster is still updating that. It’s also available through Kobo and in the US, Powell’s, Diesel E-books, Books on Board, Pages E-books, and in Australia, Angus Robertson and Borders. Those in the know, i.e. the publisher’s people in charge of such things, tell me it will also be available in the UK through the Book Depository and W.H. Smith, though it isn’t yet.
P.s. The collection, which has had some reviews I’m very proud of, is still available as a physical book, too.