The Sixth Sense

Nomadic Delirium Press has just released The Sixth Sense, a collection of three of James Baker's books. You can find it at https://books2read.com/u/mgddGz

The reason this book is important to me is because James Baker was the first editor to take a chance on my writing. He was also the one who brought me into editing.

My first ever published story, the horribly titled "Trek for Life" appeared in the June 1997 issue of The Sixth Sense...yes, the book was named after one of the zines that Jim published. That was a long time ago, probably before many of you were born, but that zine launched my career, and while it has been a difficult road, I will forever be grateful to Jim.

The book features two of Jim's novels, Goatherds & Gods, which was recently re-released with me as the co-author, trying to clean up some of the issues with the original book. You have to understand, Jim loved to write...he didn't love rewriting, so there was some work to be done. The other novel is The Poet, which has a surreal style of writing that I never would have dared to touch...even if it can be a bit difficult to understand at times. The Sixth Sense also features Just Because, which was a collection of his stories, poems, and essays that I put together many years ago.

Jim helped to launch the careers of many writers. If memory serves, he published five different magazines at different times. There was The Sixth Sense and Just Because, which were the influence of the two collections mentioned here. There was also The Fifth Di... and The Martian Wave, two zines which have endured for years. NDP recently brought TFD back, and they're working on the possibility of bringing TMW back as well. The final zine was Star*Anthology. I guess I'll have to come up with a way to use that title as well.

I would strongly recommend this book. Jim was a huge influence on me, and on many other authors. I won't go into a list of authors that he helped, but many of them have gone on to large publishing companies, and some have even been nominated for major awards.