by Ernest Hogan
Praise the gods! After years as an out-of-print, hard to find, underground cult classic, High Aztech, my novel of mind-altering viruses running amok in a futuristic Mexico City -- renamed Tenochtitlán -- is available again.It’s only $0.99 from Amazon for your Kindle. $0.99 also can get it to you just about any e-format you want from Smashwords.
And, until August 2, 2013, if you use the coupon code TV57H at Smashwords, you can get it for free.
Some may ask, why the low price? Why the freebie deal? Well, back when High Aztech was first published, some muy misterioso things happened, that I told Rudy Ch. Garcia in an interview:
The ad in Locus had no text, just the cover. There were no reviews. Later I kept hearing, “Your book is out? We got the box from Tor, but it wasn’t in it.” People had to call them and cuss them out to get review copies. I did my best to promote it, doing bookstore signings until I was informed, “We don’t have any more copies in the warehouse.” When my agent called to ask if they were going to print more, she was told that, “No, because it didn’t sell.” When the Mexican science fiction magazine Umbrales did a positive review, I sent letters to my editor and the publisher, telling them to make sure it was stocked along the Border. Both letters came back unopened, stamped “Address Unknown.” I checked the address with my agent, I had it right. “Gremlins?” she pondered when I asked what could have happened. After all that, they rejected the proposal for Smoking Mirror Blues, which no other Nueva York publisher would touch. I haven’t been able to sell anything to Nueva York book publishers since.Fortunately, there were reviews in offbeat venues by people who loved High Aztech. They keep popping up. This book just refuses to die, cabrónes!
More reviews, not just in Amazon and Goodreads, but where ever possible, would be a big help. So use the code, tell the world.
Or as they say in High Aztech:
¡TICMOTRAPASARHUILILIS!
Ernest Hogan did not die when Nueva York turned its back on him. He was not the model for the Dell Harris painting on the ebook cover.