Pat Murphy's Blog

I just did an interview with Armed with a Book, an excellent blog that does author interviews, recommends books, and provides excerpts. Check my interview out at https://armedwithabook.com/pat-murphy/

I just wrote a post for John Scalzi's "The Big Idea" blog. If you want to know more about the thinking behind my new novel, The Adventures of Mary Darling, check it out!

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/05/0...

Hi, folks,

Just in case you missed it, Goodreads is having a giveaway on my book, The Adventures of Mary Darling, from now until May 6. Don't miss your chance to score a free ebook!

I'm delighted to report that the novel has great reviews in Publishers Weekly and the Library Journal (where it was the SFF pick of the month!).

And it just got a great review in Booklist. Here's the last line of that one:
"This fantastical romp features pirates and fairies and adventure, explores the ill effects of gender roles and colonialism, and is a lot of fun."

My latest novel, The Adventures of MaryDarling, just got a wonderful review in Library Journal. I’m so thrilled that I just have to share it!

Here's the review that has me dancing around the house.

Library Journal wrote: “Everyone thinks they know the stories of supposed heroes Peter Pan and Sherlock Holmes, but Mary Darling knows them better than most, because once upon a time she and her brother were the children Peter enticed with promises of adventure that turned out to be feckless and reckless for everyone but him. Intelligent, practical, even piratical, Mary made a plan to escape and did. Now, Peter has enchanted her children with the same promises, and Mary plans a journey back to Neverland to stage yet another daring escape. But Mary’s well-planned trip is followed by well-meaning, meddling men who are certain she needs their help: her husband George, her uncle John Watson, and Watson’s famous friend Sherlock Holmes. VERDICT Mary’s story is a dangerous and delightful adventure that turns the bigotry and misogyny of Victorian England on its head as she takes charge of her own life and rescues everyone with the help of her friends. Murphy’s (Women Up to No Good) latest is highly recommended for readers caught up in the recent trend of feminist retellings of well-known tales.”



A Public Service Announcement – Why Early Reviews Matter

The Adventures of Mary Darling will be coming out in May. That’s still months away. But this early review encourages libraries, bookstores, and readers to preorder books. And those preorders let publishers know that there’s a demand for a book – which can affect the book’s print run and the publisher’s marketing effort.

If you are like me and you have a limited book buying budget, you can support authors by suggesting your local library preorder the book and requesting it for checkout as soon as it becomes available. You can do that for ebooks or for physical books! My library uses both Libby and Hoopla for checking out ebooks, and I request books on both platforms.

It's also worth knowing that preorders improve the book’s prospects for getting on a bestseller list. “Best seller” means that the book sold best during a one-week period. Since the first week of a book’s sales counts all the preorders as part of the week, that’s when a book has the best shot at getting on a bestseller list.

If you want more information on why preorders matter, check out this excellent article on Book Riot: https://bookriot.com/what-are-preorders/

Oh, and I guess I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that , The Adventures of Mary Darling is available for preorder at Tachyon here. https://tachyonpublications.com/produ... .

OK, now I’ll go back to dancing around the house!

My latest short story, "Not Alone," just went up on Reactor Magazine. Check it out here: https://reactormag.com/not-alone-pat-...

The story is set at a roadside attraction in Florida that the protagonist describes like this: “It’s a park filled with science exhibits created by people who believe in fairy tales. My mom and dad believed in science, believed in fairy tales, and believed in happy endings. I suppose you have to believe in happy endings to buy swampland in Florida, build life-sized dinosaurs, and assume people will pay to visit.I'm a big fan of strange roadside attractions."

As you can probably tell, I'm a big fan of roadside attractions, the stranger the better. This story was inspired, in part, by the Trees of Mystery, a now defunct roadside attraction in Scotts Valley, California created by a farmer who began grafting and shaping trees as a hobby and created a collection of what he called "the World's Strangest Trees."

Hi, all,

I just joined Goodreads, and I’m delighted to be here. I’ll be blundering about for a while as I try to figure out how it all works.

Right now, I want to let everyone know that my short story collection, Points of Departure, is available as part of an ebook StoryBundle of Philip K. Dick Award winners and finalists (available until October 15 at https://storybundle.com/pkdaward, and then gone forever.

I hadn’t heard of the StoryBundle concept before this, but it seems like a great way to try a bunch of books. For the next 3 weeks, folks can go to Storybundle and buy my collection -- along with five other books. You set your own price — it’s a sliding scale starting at $5. If you spring for more than $15, you get five more PKD winners or finalists.

This is a wonderful thing, but I’ll confess that it’s giving me a strange sense of having come unstuck in time.

Points of Departure came out back in 1989. To put that in perspective, most of the stories in it were written on a typewriter. I distinctly remember finishing one of them on a manual typewriter while I was on an archeological dig. And now the stories are out on a medium that would not exist for another decade when I wrote them.

Like I said — unstuck in time. But my disorientation is your gain, if you’re in the market for some reading material. Pretty cool. Pretty strange.



The basic bundle of books includes:
* Æstival Tide by Elizabeth Hand (PKD Finalist)
* Life by Gwyneth Jones (PKD Winner)
* The Cipher by Kathe Koja (PKD Finalist)
* Points of Departure by Pat Murphy (PKD Winner)
* Dark Seekerby K. W. Jeter (PKD Finalist)
* Summer of Love: A Time Travel by Lisa Mason (PKD Finalist)

If you pay more than $15, you receive five more books:
* Frontera by Lewis Shiner (PKD Finalist)
* Acts of Conscience by William Barton (PKD Special Citation)
* Maximum Ice by Kay Kenyon (PKD Finalist)
* Knight Moves by Walter Jon Williams (PKD Finalist)
* Reclamation by Sarah Zettel (PKD Finalist)

Here's the link: https://storybundle.com/pkdaward