Cathode Angel

A Haunting Explained...

2012-01-27T06:00:00.000-06:00

I’ve been a ghost. Here’s why:

The Simon Rip Novella
Four or five years ago, I wrote a novel called The Paperback Girl, a period P.I. story set in Las Vegas. I sent it off, had some nice things said about it, but no one took it...because it was terrible—just fucking awful. When I got the last rejection, I realized I needed to put longer things aside for a while. There was a lot I knew I needed to work on before I would be ready to tackle something so lengthy again and be more successful.

After writing "Darkling In The Eternal Space" and "The Last Painting of Hawley Exton," I knew I wasn’t finished yet with Simon Rip. Returning to science fiction/fantasy—my first love—would help break me of some of those lazy short-cuts I felt I had been taking with my crime fiction. More than that, there were exciting stories still to be told about David Cranmer’s time cop. I believed in those stories enough that I knew I wanted Rip’s next adventure to be the work I really pushed myself on.

In The Clear Black Fields of Night is the longest piece of fiction I’ve written since I typed: THE END on the last page of The Paperback Girl. Humility aside, I think it’s probably my best work to date. When you read it, I hope you agree.

Sekret Projekt #1
I’m pleased with “Somewhere Beyond The Pavement,” my contribution to Sekret Projekt #1. This weekend I’ll finish my own edits, then send it off for review. It’s a little more in line with the type of fiction you’d expect from me, but it’s still something different.

Plague Kisses
This crime/horror hybrid will be “part” of someone else’s ongoing series. It’s not due for a while, but I’ve already written a good bit of it. Besides, I’ve got the entire thing in my noggin. When something comes to you that clearly and that completely, you don’t let it lie.

Shane Stevens
Work goes on. Right now, I’m trying to raise funds for a research trip. If I can get the money together, it should provide me with the last bits of info I’ll need to put together a full portrait of Stevens.

Still To Come
There’s a thriller on the horizon, three crime stories already plotted, and my next attempt at a novel.

J.W. Rider

2012-01-21T10:48:00.000-06:00

My copy of Hot Tickets.

Shane Stevens wrote two pseudonymous novels under the name J.W. Rider. Jersey Tomatoes and Hot Tickets feature a private investigator named Malone, an ex-seminarian and ex-F.B.I. agent now in business for himself in Jersey City. They’re both decent novels, but despite the awards and the praise, including a cover-blurb from Frank Sinatra, they’re my least favorite of Stevens’ work.

Yes, the first person narrative is engaging. Malone’s an interesting protagonist. Unlike a lot of his characters, Malone is funny and could have easily carried the series for several more books.

Yes, even in such an uncharacteristic work as a humorous P.I. novel, Shane is still skilled at setting and brings Jersey City to life on the page.

Yes, all his themes are still there: the bullshit that keeps us from connecting to another human being, a strong sense of moral justice, and the twisted shadow of the American Dream.

But--

The problem is Stevens builds each book along the same lines and seems to have written them by the numbers. In the Shamus-winning first novel, a shady real estate developer hires Malone to find who’s been making threats on his life while an anti-religious activist wants him to investigate her mother’s apparent suicide. The follow-up finds Shane’s detective trying to help out a stripper who’s studying to be an Episcopalian minister and, again, investigating death threats--this time against a pro wrestler named Samson. Each time the two separate cases prove to be connected and wind together to violent conclusion.

You could make the argument that Stevens is following genre formula. Sometimes, there's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes, you want to read something familiar--a book you know what you're going to get from the beginning. The problem is his formula, even with all his strengths as a writer, produces only a convoluted and complicated plot mess mired in poor transitions and unbroken stretches of hard-to-follow dialogue. It’s just a poor effort from a writer capable of far better.

What sticks with me about both Malone novels is a single question. It's what I've come to think of as Stevens' question--

Why?

Here's Your Second Clue

2012-01-20T11:27:00.001-06:00

Here's your second clue to the plot of Simon Rip's next adventure:

Snakes In The Briar Patch

2012-01-16T10:06:00.002-06:00

Last night I opened the fridge in search of a snack and saw the carton of blackberries I bought at the grocery. I washed a handful and ate them standing at the kitchen sink while staring out our old casement window. The security light hadn’t kicked on yet, so it was dark outside and lonely. As I stood there eating the tart fruit and feeling the seed grit between my teeth, I remembered a briar patch of berries once grew next to the tin-roofed barn at my parents house.

In late June or early July, we’d walk through the old farm gate and across the field, all of us together, to pick blackberries in the summer heat. My mother warned constantly of snakes, but my brothers and I didn’t care. We just tried not to prick our fingers on the thorns as we each raced to be the first to fill our baskets.

I remembered my stomach usually hurt by the time we were done. I ate more berries than I picked, though I knew once in the kitchen my mother would rinse them off and give us a bowl of sugar and we’d sit at the table and roll the berries across our little white mountain and they tasted even better than what we ate off the vine. And I remembered my brothers’ stained fingers and the dark purple wounds on their clothes. My parents had all boys and being boys they looked at berries and saw little grenades, perfect for throwing and exploding on clean white T-shirts.

But that’s all gone now.

My father hacked the blackberry bush down after Nathan died. He doused the vines in motor oil and burned them way out in the field, past the pond and the thick line of trees. From the porch, I watched the black smoke curl over treetops and, for a moment or two when the wind shifted direction, it looked like my tree-house was on fire.

My mother told me it was because of the snakes nesting in the briar patch.

The next year my other brother was back in prison. At the start of summer my father got rid of the barn. I watched that too from the back porch, watched him fasten the log chains and pull it down with his truck. It took them all day to haul off the blue-grey tin and burn the timber out there in the field, in the blackberry ashes.

I hadn’t thought of any of that in years. Didn’t realize those memories were still there, waiting for something to pull them up again in a chain of thought as strong as the chain that tore them down. It all seems sad, I suppose, but I’m okay with those memories--at least for today, right now, this moment as I write this. I think I've come to understand a little about life and our attachments and our fears. I just hope I don’t spend my life trying to kill the snakes nesting in the briar patch.

You can't get rid of them with a scythe and a black-smoked fire in field you can't see from the house.

Here's Your Clue

2012-01-14T12:34:00.003-06:00

A Rip Through Time is now available for the Kindle. A week ago, I sent David a 35K novella called In The Clear Black Fields of Night. If you're curious about the plot for Simon Rip's next adventure, here's your clue:

Manhunter's Mountain

2012-01-05T10:49:00.000-06:00

Early last month I had the pleasure of reading Heath Lowrance’s Miles To Little Ridge. It was the first story written by another author using characters from Edward A. Grainger’s western series. Any fears about other writers using Cash and Gideon were put to rest by Lowrance’s superb effort.

Well, today marks the release of the first novel featuring The Outlaw Marshall. The news of a full-length adventure gets even better when you see who wrote it. Manhunter’s Mountain comes from none other than Wayne Dundee.

Man, does the product description on Amazon entice:

Manhunter's Mountain shows a powerful side to Cash Laramie as he makes his way down the side of a mountain with a prisoner in tow, and two prostitutes eager to flee a mining town that's gone bust, looking to make a new life for themselves. An early winter storm promises to make the journey more than a normal struggle. And, leaving town with two of its most precious gems, the prostitutes, puts Cash in the crosshairs of an angry gang of men who are willing to keep the women in town ... at any cost.

"A fast, hardboiled Western that continues the Cash Laramie legend with swagger and good, solid writing. Wayne Dundee brings his masterful voice to the Western and tells a Cash Laramie story in perfect pitch. Manhunter's Mountain should be on every Western fiction reader's bookshelf."
--Larry D. Sweazy, Spur Award-winning author of The Coyote Tracker.

Zulu Night

2012-01-04T07:01:00.003-06:00

Shane Stevens's novel Way Uptown In Another World is one of the most beautifully written books I've ever read. Every now and again, I'll pick up my very battered and very old copy from the shelf and re-read a chapter.

This morning I, again, came across one of my favorite passages:

“Soon the sun will shoot itself full of holes and lay down dead in thewest, while Zulu night comes to suck out my eyeballs, leaving me only the softslurp of black blood to tell me I’m alive. I stand up, trying to see myself inthe windowpane but there’s no reflection. I’m invisible. I’ve got shape andmass but I don’t cast a reflection. People see me but they don’t really seeme.”

Vacation

2012-01-02T11:38:00.002-06:00

Killer The Pug understands relaxing.

Not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow (I've been off since the 23rd of December). I really need to figured out how I can stay home and still get paid...but, seriously, I needed this break. Between personal stuff and work stress, I was feeling pretty damn beat.

I took it easy during my vacation. I caught up on a lot of sleep and managed to sneak a few naps in here and there. Spent some time with friends from out of town. Read five Christopher Pike books (I still enjoy those--I admit it). Watched a good bit of Sons of Anarchy and re-watched the early 1990s Dark Shadows revival on Netflix streaming.

However, I also did some writing. Yesterday, I finished the Simon Rip novella and sent the 35K adventure off to David Cranmer. I'm pretty happy with it. I wrote it with two specific goals in mind. First, I wanted to it be fun and exciting. It needed to move like a summer blockbuster. And, second, I wanted it to be full of interesting ideas. I wanted to try to capture a small bit of that sense of awe I felt when I discovered Tim Powers, Michael Moorcock, and Grant Morrison.

I don't know if I succeeded in those--I'm looking forward to what David has to say and his suggestions. If what I did works and people buy it, I think Simon Rip can really be a series with a long life.

Also, started plotting two other things you'll be seeing soon. The first, I know I can't talk about. The second will be part of a currently ongoing horror series. I've very excited about both this projects. I appreciate the chance to flex my muscles in different areas. I haven't given up crime fiction, but I think these excursions are what keeps a writer's work from stagnating.

Work on the Shane Stevens biography/search continues. Currently, I'm trying to figure how to get the cash together for a research trip that should provide the mother lode.

By Reason of Insanity

2011-12-15T18:51:00.000-06:00

This is a picture of my well-worn copy of By Reason of Insanity. I should replace it with the newer version published by University of Chicago Press in 2007, but I'm attached to this copy. Finding this and Dead City at the library book sale when I came to college were hugely influential in my development as a writer.

Stevens' book not only predates Thomas Harris's novels but also the term "serial killer" itself and it's a better novel.

Despite the chilling appeal of Hannibal the Cannibal, he is ultimately the equivalent of a comic book villain...without the cape. With his genius level intelligence, photographic memory, artistic ability and capacity for physical violence, I'm always surprised we've never seen Lecter cackling maniacally as he prepares to unleash a death cloud over New York City. His exploits over the successive and less engaging novels are directly responsible for the serial killer sub-genre still wasting valuable shelf-space.

Stevens's killer is a much different beast. Thomas Bishop is a real monster. The kind only humans can make. And his victims are living, breathing people. Sad and lonely and vulnerable. Not just meat awaiting the carving knife.

If you've never read it, I suggest you pick up a copy. If you're a Stevens fan and multilingual, there have been some very nice editions released recently in France and Italy.

Miles To Little Ridge

2011-12-10T11:13:00.001-06:00

My exposure to Westerns was mainly limited to films and television until Edward A. Grainger. His stories changed my perceptions of what the genre had to offer. Fueled by superb writing, the continuing adventures of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles provide the same excitement of the films I’ve enjoyed while confronting all those big things about existence the literary types like to claim as theirs and theirs alone.

I was nervous when I heard other authors were going to be writing tales featuring Grainger’s two heroes. Would it feel...right? Could they pull it off? Would these new stories have the same mix of action and humanity?

Heath Lowrance’s does.

With clear and direct prose, he tells the story of Gideon Miles’ arrival in the town of Little Ridge, Montana where the Marshal tracks down a fugitive who’s raising his daughter on his own following his wife’s death. Despite his claims of innocence, the wanted man is reluctant to leave his fate up to a jury and his daughter in someone else’s care. Miles’job is further complicated by a foe from his past, hellbent on getting revenge for the death of his friend in a robbery.

“Miles to Little Ridge” is a startling testament to Lowrance’s abilities as a writer. He’s captured everything you’ve come to expect from Grainger’s Westerns without resorting to pastiche. It’s well-paced and exciting without sacrificing any of the humanity as it confronts the tricky boundary between duty and justice.

"Miles To Little Ridge" Is Available Now.

The Best Black American Novelist Writing Today by Shane Stevens

2011-12-09T07:13:00.001-06:00

Curious Shane Stevens fans looking for some of his non-fiction to read might check out The Critical Response to Chester Himes. Included in Charles L. P. Silet's compilation of reviews and essays is a Stevens piece called: "The Best Black America Novelist Writing Today."

Originally published in The Washington Post and Times Herald in 1969, Stevens' essay offers more than just a review of Blind Man With A Pistol. In only a few short pages, Shane uses the publication of Blind Man to discuss the importance of Himes' entire body of work, its relation to the American dilemna of race and his own opinions on the "moral" responsibilities of the novelist. If nothing else, Stevens fans may enjoy the tiny bit of personal reminiscence when Shane recalls living in Harlem, working on his own first novel and discovering the work of Chester Himes.

Regrettably, The Critical Response to Chester Himes is over priced. Amazon's new copy is currently available for $110. However, at least here, it seems to be readily available from a number of libraries.

A Rip Through Time Review

2011-12-07T07:28:00.001-06:00

A couple of days ago, I learned from David that James Reasoner reviewed the Rip Through Time e-book on his Rough Edges blog. Despite my cool and detached demeanor, it's always nice to see pleasant things about your work. Especially when they come from a talented and seasoned veteran like James.

Read his thoughts here.

Claudia Sensi Contugi's The Climb

2011-12-04T07:45:00.001-06:00

One of Christopher Pimental's students has her first published story up now at The Flash Fiction Offensive. You should really go check it out. Claudia Sensi Contugi's The Climb is impressive for such a young writer: great dialogue, nice crisp lines, tension and desperation that rises as the character makes a literal ascent, all building to a sharp ending.

My Shane Stevens Materials

2011-12-02T18:21:00.001-06:00

My Shane Stevens materials: books, articles, letters, reviews, and photographs. Below Black Review #1 is the current draft.

Editing

2011-11-30T17:48:00.001-06:00

In case you needed another reason to order the e-book:

I'm currently editing Simon Rip's next adventure. (Hopefully, this will be my final one before sending it David.)

Grift Magazine Reviews First Shift

2011-11-29T09:27:00.001-06:00

Over at Grift Magazine, John reviews Crime Factory: The First Shift. Incredibly stoked to have garnered a mention for my story, The Method.

A Rip Through Time E-Book

2011-11-29T05:55:00.001-06:00

A Rip Through Time E-Book is now available from Smashwords:

Description:

Dr. Robert Berlin has created The Baryon Core, a powerful device with the ability to predict the future and retrodict the past by tracking the position and vector of every particle in the universe. Berlin swipes his own creation from The Company and disappears into history. The Company's time-cop Simon Rip and the sexy, brilliant Dr. Serena Ludwig join together to track Berlin and return the device. Their pursuit will take them back to the ice age and forward to the end of time.

A Rip through Time follows the time-cop's travels in a series of five short stories written by several of today's top pulp writers. Chris F. Holm opens the collection with the fast-paced "The Dame, the Doctor and the Device." Charles A. Gramlich's "Battles, Broadswords, and Bad Girls" and Garnett Elliott's "Chaos in the Stream" breath new life into the time travel story. Bringing the saga to a gripping conclusion in "Darkling in the Eternal Space" is Chad Eagleton, who then takes it a step further with a mesmerizing coda, "The Final Painting of Hawley Exton." And for all the time-traveling enthusiasts, Ron Scheer provides an insightful essay, "Are We Then Yet," which explores the mechanics of time travel in popular fiction.

Order it now for only .99 cents!

If that's not enough--in about a week or so, I'll announce a contest where one lucky and astute reader has a chance to win a free copy of the forthcoming Simon Rip novella by yours truly.

Smooth Criminals

2011-11-24T17:41:00.000-06:00

At his Dead End Follies site, Benoit Lelievre recently posted the details of his Smooth Criminals challenge. It’s pretty simple really: you have a year to read a book within eight categories and write a review of it.

I haven’t been reading as much as I would like recently. Between my own writing, the day job’s stress, and Maria’s health issues, I just haven’t had much time. When I do have time, my patience for reading material is very small: if the book doesn’t grab me in some way by X number of pages then I move on. I’ve put down more books over the last several months than I can count. Hopefully, the challenge will spur me onward toward finishing something.

My choices (so far) are:

Hardboiled Classic:

I, The Jury--I know Thomas Pluck is reading this too. Great minds think alike, I guess. Honestly, mostly, it’s because I tried reading Spillane years ago and hated it. I know that’s a statement that will probably get me beat and I’m sure Max Allan Collins is probably now plotting my death somewhere, but I thought I’d try again. See if I felt the same.

Noir Classic:

Build My Gallows High by Geoffrey Homes--the basis for the Robert Mitchum film Out of The Past. For some reason it’s sat unread on my shelf.

Prison Book:

On The Yard by Malcom Braly--I’ve been wanting to read this for a while. Originally published in 1967, Braly wrote this book while doing time in San Quentin. It’s a classic of “prison lit,” known for it’s sharp dialogue and large cast of characters.

Book Written By A Writer Who Did Time:

You Can’t Win by Jack Black--No, not that Jack Black. This one was a turn of the century thief who wrote only one book, his memoirs. It was William Burroughs’ favorite book and the stylistic inspiration for Junky.

Book With A Psychopath As Protagonist:

Blackburn by Bradley Denton--I read this years ago. I’ve been wanting to read it again to see if I still believe there are only two books worth reading about serial killers: Blackburn and Shane Stevens’ By Reason Of Insanity.

Gothic Novel:

Carmilla by J. Sheridan LeFanu--the vampire classic I can’t believe I've never actually read. This one may be cheating just a little since I think it’s technically considered a novella. If so, blame Ingrid Pitt.

Classic Where The Plot Revolves Around A Crime:

Haven’t decided on this one yet. Maybe the Moonstone by Wilkie Collins?

The Why The Hell Am I Doing This To Myself Book:

Same with this category.

Zombie Plague

2011-11-17T07:46:00.001-06:00

ZP Pin-up To Whet Your Appetite

Ten years ago, my friends Brian Roe and Skott Kilander created a free print-n-play game called Zombie Plague. People still download it and people still play it. It's gotten a lot of positive feedback in a decade and even been translated into multiple languages.

Yesterday on Facebook, Brian revealed the next step for Zombie Plague with a link to a Kickstarter page for a project "to create a forty-five page Zombie Plague comic that will also include revamped game rules."

For full details, and to pledge, go here.

A Rip Through Time: Things To Come

2011-11-14T13:06:00.001-06:00

A Rip Through Time will soon be available in e-book format. Besides featuring the original serial, the collection will also include two unpublished extras: an essay by Ron Scheer on time travel in books and film, and a brand new story by me.

The Last Painting of Hawley Exton is a look into the world of Simon Rip through a very different window. When an unnamed narrator finds himself near the village of Blackledge, he dares venture onward to the shadows of Henthorn Forest and the home of Hawley Exton. Hoping to see an infamous painting commissioned by Lord Byron, he has no idea the horrors awaiting him among the rotting timbers of Quaritch Hall or the terrible burden he will be forced to bear.

This first collection will easily be a bargain at 99 cents.

A bargain and a hint of things to come...

Shane Stevens & Gil Cates

2011-11-10T09:02:00.000-06:00

"The News of the Screen" column in the February 24, 1974, issue of The New York Times discusses Shane Stevens' involvement in the film adaptation of The Me Nobody Knows and reveals another doomed Hollywood project.

Gil Cates

Gil Cates was scheduled to direct Stevens' screenplay of the socially conscious musical. Cates was the well-known director of films like I Never Sang For My Father and Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams. Now, he's probably best known as the producer of the Academy Awards shows, former Dean of the UCLA Film School, and the uncle of Phoebe Cates.

In the column, Cates talks briefly about Me and then mentions his next scheduled project — a film version of Way Uptown In Another World adapted by Shane.

Neither of the duo's projects went anywhere.

In early September, I e-mailed Cates at The Geffen Playhouse where he served as Producing Director. I introduced myself, explained my research and asked if he remembered anything about Shane Stevens.

I received a response back on October 29. Cates apologized for the delay, said he remembered Stevens only dimly. The Me Nobody Knows and Way Uptown In Another World were "projects that just didn't happen." He wished me well and I thought that was that.

A couple of days later, Cates was dead.

He was a stranger to me, but it was still unsettling. He was a busy man who took the time to answer a question about Shane Stevens (a man he probably hadn’t thought about in 40 years) for a random guy in Indiana.

Now, he was dead.

The main enemy I face in constructing a portrait of Shane Stevens remainains the most ruthless — Time.

Darkling In The Eternal Space

2011-11-06T12:45:00.000-06:00

For over a year Beat To A Pulp has been tantalizing us with chapters from Simon Rip's adventures. This sci-fi serial has everything you could want: a dashing hero, a brilliant scientist, a beautiful woman, travels across time and space, monsters, and some fantastic action-packed writing by Chris F. Holm, Charles Gramlich, and Garnett Elliott.

David Cranmer asked me to contribute the 4th installment. I have to admit that I was a little intimidated stepping into this playground. The writers that came before are some fantastic creators; they're the guys whose work I always try to catch no matter where they're appearing. But I wanted to give it a shot. This sort of fiction was my first love and something I don't get the opportunity to write very much. Plus, anytime you get a chance to work with David on a project, you'd be a fool to refuse. He's a first-class writer, a brilliant editor, and an honorable man. That's a rare combination, not only in this "business", but in life.

I'm pleased with Darkling In The Eternal Space. I hope you will be too.

Feel the wash of chronal energies:

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV

Musings on First Shift

2011-11-03T05:23:00.001-05:00

Over at her excellent site, Musings Of An All Purpose Monkey, Elizabeth White talks Crime Factory: The First Shift. Stoked to have made her highlights--especially considering everyone else who graces the pages of Crime Factory's first collection.

Arkham City

2011-10-30T17:20:00.000-05:00

After playingthe first game together, the wife and I were excited to play Batman: ArkhamCity. She was especially stoked for this sequel since Catwoman is a playablecharacter. So as soon as we could, we pre-ordered it from Game Stop and Ipicked it up on my way home from work the day it was released.

In a lot ofways, it’s almost a fantastic game.

Almost, eventhough it’s gorgeous. The city is beautifully rendered. You could easily spendhours just wandering around and looking at the environment. Sometimes to yourdetriment. You’ll find, or at least we did, yourself getting lost a lot in thebeginning “levels” of the story until you learn the landmarks and how to maneuvereasily and quickly around the crowded, gothic skyline.

Almost, eventhough Kevin Conroy returns as Batman and Mark Hamill reprises his role asJoker. Virtually every character from the Batman universe shows up at leastonce. All are well-acted. The voice-over work is excellent, easily up there asthe best I’ve ever heard.

Almost, eventhough the plot is engaging. It takes off from the first game, but isn’t sotied together to lose you if you never played Arkham Asylum. There are a coupleof big twists. One will come as no surprise and the other will probably throwyou for a loop, leaving you to wonder, “How the hell did I miss that clue?”

Almost, eventhough it plays well. With a little practice you’ll get the controls down. Thereare some nice VR training missions to help you fine-tune. Some of the levelsare challenging, almost annoyingly so. While there is a valid plot explanationfor the difficult situations, I still sometimes felt like throwing the controlleragainst the wall.

No, it’s analmost game. Almost, because of Catwoman.

Not her costume.I didn’t mind the cheesecake factor. Honestly, I would have been surprised ifshe wasn’t showing some cleavage. It’s not even her playability as a character.Except for the lack of equipment, she’s more fun than Batman. She’s quicker,more acrobatic, and not as a strong as the Caped Crusader—which means, once youget the combat down, she’s capable of these long chains of attacks that areboth fun to do and fun to watch.

What disappointsme about Catwoman is the way’s she treated.

In caseyou don’t know the premise of the game, a section of Gotham has been walled offand turned into a prison a la Escape From New York and the No Man’s Landstoryline for years ago. All prisoners from both Arkham Asylum andBlackgate are dumped into the new Arkham City and left pretty much to their owndevices.

I think you cansee where this is going.

Every thug andevery villain calls her a bitch. Constantly. It’s bitch this and bitch that.When they’re not calling her bitch they’re insinuating that they’re going torape her. When they’re not calling her a bitch and they’re not insinuating thatthey’re going to rape her, then they’re calling her a bitch while insinuating that they’re going torape her.

I know, realism,right?

“But she’s awoman,” you say. “These are all men. They haven’t seen a woman in years. Ithink they even say that.”

Well, they do,but—

“She kicks theirass though,” you say. “That’s what they’re there for. To call her a bitch andthen get kneed in the balls.”

Maybe, but Istill call bullshit. If it’s realistic for them to react that way, how come noone insinuates they’re going to anally rape Batman? That does happen in prison,you know, and this is supposed to be realistic, right?

Also, why doesn’tanyone call Batman profane names? Huh? Where’s the asshole, dick, prick,bastard, or son of a bitch when you’re playing the Dark Knight and confrontinga group of thugs?

It’s a shame. Itreally is because it makes everything that wouldn’t have bothered me feelglaringly sexist, further lessens my faith in DC to ever present a femalecharacter in a positive light and makes Arkham City an almost game.

Dispatches from Mu

2011-10-28T10:50:00.002-05:00

Mu is a mythical continent that began as vaguely convincing pseudo-science and morphed into full blown silliness. Depending on how nutty you like your peanut butter, Mu was: the source of Mayan civilization, a colony founded by survivors of Atlantis, home of the Secret Masters, or under control of fascist lizard people who still direct the New World Order and psychically eat your brain.

Mu exists in multi-genre dimensions, rising from the waves as fantasy, science fiction, and ancient occult gobbledygook. The dead civilization ghosts through comics, short stories, novels, cartoons, anime, and music. Even Led Zepplin conjures the mystical spirit of Mu—Robert Plant’s feather symbol is supposedly one of the "sacred glyphs."

Mu is here.

I don't just read crime fiction. I certainly don't just watch cop shows or heist films. I couldn't image resigning myself to one particular genre for my entertainment any more than I could imagine listening to a single style of music. Most of what I write is crime fiction.

But not all of it.

Like I said in my Spinetingler interview, my style is evolving. Excursions into new territory are how I push myself as a writer. How I ward off complacency. I never want to write by rote. These excursions are now collected under the Dispatches from Mu tab at the top of the page.

In a few weeks you'll understand why.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled murder...

The Letter

2011-10-17T22:57:00.003-05:00

Patti Abbott sponsored a flash fiction challenge based on the paintings of Reginald Marsh. Every story written earns $5 for charity. For complete details of the challenge go here. For a list of entries go here. For mine, keep reading.

The Letter

Two Girls On Boardwalk

The fighting wasn’t done but they sent home three and a half weeks ago with a ruined leg. He’s spent the last two on the boardwalk with the letter that arrived the day the machinegun nest cut his squad to chunks of meat in some city he can’t even pronounce. Just sitting there with her letter in his front pocket and his gun in his back, watching the children and the girls and the women and men to old to fight walk by. Watching and waiting for her. Sometimes wishing his head would stop hurting, but mostly waiting and wondering if her hair was still dark or if she had finally turned blonde.

She had talked about it before he shipped out. She was in love with the actress. The one everyone seemed to like but him. Her friend, Whats-her-name, thought they looked alike. He just didn’t see it and he never cared for blondes.

Catching up to her, he touches her back with one hand. The other, the one he thought was on the gun he was going to use on her for leaving him like that, leaving him by letter, isn’t on the gun at all. It’s clutching the letter.

She turns. “Hello. Can I help you?” Whats-her-name doesn’t realize and keeps walking, keeps talking for two, three, and four clicks of heels on boardwalk board. He realizes then she's not a Rican or a tanned Jew. She's Italian. Isn't she? She's So-and-so, right?

He starts to speak, but nothing comes. “Are you okay? You alright mister?” She asks. He thinks this isn’t her. Is it?

It's not. Just the same, he wants to tell her that she shouldn't have left like that. When she did, it's like she robbed him of some sort of protection and that's why everyone got cut down. He wants to give her the letter back, give it back like it'll make everything go away. But he can't he just clutches his pocket, the pocket with the letter, and his lips move like a fish trying to breathe on land.

Again, she asks, “You okay?”

He wants to tell her no, that he’s not. Not okay. Nothign will move though. Nothign but his leg. It shakes and when it shakes, his head starts hurting again and he just stands there until So-and-so grabs her arm. "Come on Martha," she says. "Let's go.

And they do while he shuffles back to his place and sits down in his spot. Wasn’t her was it? No, her hair is black. Black like dead eyes,

He sits even though the sun is at just that certain height. The bright bullet pierces his eye and his brain hurts. He doesn’t mind. That he understands. That’s something. Something more than a letter he doesn’t remember is his or not.

Sometimes, during the two weeks on the boardwalk, when the light is really bright and the sun is at just that certain height, it sends a single ray like a sniper’s bullet straight through his eye and he has a waking nightmare that her hair is red. Red with blood and pulpy with brains. He closes his eyes then and the dark inside his skull is all smoke and blood.

He’s closing his eyes when she walks by. Almost misses her. Barely catches her when the smoke and blood finally clears, the machinegun cools and quiets, and he returns, again, from that day. If she hadn’t turned and looked over her shoulder, he might not have caught sight of her. But he does.

She’s carrying a red bag and wearing a white bathing suit. High-heeling it down the boardwalk with Whats-her-name who’s in yellow and looking like a Rican or a tanned Jew.

She is blonde.

He stands quickly. Wants to run, but can’t. Moves down the walk, each creak feeling like the bones in his ruined leg are shattering, but he moves, catching sight of her and Whats-her-name over shoulders and around backs.

Memories of her flood his mind. Intimate, but distant. Almost like something he read. Something that used to be his. Something he doesn’t have any more. Does he? He can't remember.

All The Pissing

2011-10-13T10:35:00.000-05:00

I'm finally setting down to read George R.R. Martin's A Dance With Dragons, the fifth book in his seven part (please, let it only be seven) A Song of Ice and Fire series.

I write mostly crime fiction, but fantasy was my first love. As a kid I devoured fantasy novels, reading the good stuff (Fritz Leiber, Michael Moorcock) and the shit (the Dragonlance series and R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt Do'Urden books). I played a lot of Dungeons & Dragons. I made maps of make-believe worlds and played amateur linguist.

I grew out of fantasy. Discovering Andrew Vachss and Shane Stevens helped, but it was also because as I matured I realized that 99% of the fantasy genre is utter and complete shit. Just badly-written Tokien rehash after rehash. Very little of it is imaginative. And there's a subtext to "high fantasy" that I find repellant, much like the vast majority of "military SF". Whenever I thought I had found a new savior for the genre, they always disappointed me.

Like Robert Jordan.

I remember reading the first three books in the Wheel of Time series and being excited. Here we go, I thought, here's something a little different. Here's something that's got some character focus! Holy hell, there's female point of view characters and they're not just hot chicks in chainmail bikinis! And there's no elves or dwarves or goblins! This is awesome!

Then it started...

The number of planned books lept growing and growing and growing. From 3 to 5 to 10 to whatever the hell it is now even though Jordan is dead. Next came the fantasy writer bloat--800 pages and wait for it...nothing happens. That's right, you just read 800 pages and you could count all the plot events on one hand. (Only if you're generous with your definition of "plot events.") Oh, and those female points of view you were excited about? Yeah, well, turns out the female characters are all the same and will spend the remainder of the series acting like 16 year old girls fighting over the same cute boy.

I stopped reading those books years ago. At this point, I don't really care whether Rand Al-Thor goes crazy or which woman he hooks up with. I don't care who's writing it now. Even if Tor hired a group of necromancers to summon Jordan's spirit from beyond the grave to finish the series himself, I wouldn't care. I told myself when I turned my back on Jordan that I wouldn't pick up another series. (Why is it always a series? Why can't fantasy authors write a single novel with a self-contained narrative?)

Then came Martin...

Everyone kept telling me I needed to read this Game of Thrones series. I don't want to, I told them. No, no, they said, it's so good. It's fantasy for adults! It's character driven! It's exciting, well-plotted and it's only supposed to be like three books and two of them are out already!

I thought about it...Well, fantasy for adults, huh? Only three books? And I do like Martin. His Wild Cards series was pretty cool and Beauty & The Beast was one of my favorite television shows. Why the hell not?

They were right.

There's a lot to like in the first three books. Good writing. Engaging characters. Strong women. Lots of schemes and machinations instead of a single big, epic quest to drop some item in some cave/chasm/volcano. Multiple view points connected to a larger, single plot arc that left you excited to see how everything would come crashing together. War protrayed as hellish and terrible without any of the whitewash most fantasy writers give it. And, thank god, none of that annoying info dumping: Yes, I know you really want to see our intrepid heroes reach the Castle of Nevermore, but instead I will give you 50 pages of landscape descriptions and 75 pages of history lessons on the line of Tramaldian Kings...

I was excited reading those books. I was! This was a genre I used to love and here was someone doing it right. It doesn't get any better than that.

Until Martin started doing what every other fantasy writer does...

Book I came out in 1996. Book II came out in 1998. Book III came out in 2000. A two year gap between books is a little longer than I'd like, but still not too annoying. Besides, there's only supposed to be three books--scratch that--now it's seven books. Because you know, the story just can't be told in three, and so Book IV comes after a five year wait.

I remember thinking, Are you serious? Five years? There are people who could write ten novels in five years...Well, maybe it's just a really badass and complex book? You know, it'll be where the shit hits the fan and just so fucking awesome you won't care you waited five years and had to re-read the previous books to remember who's who in the constantly growing number of POV characters.

Nope.

With Book IV, Martin shifts to a different part of the world and spends most of the book focusing on a whole new series of POV characters. Even after five years you'll still have to wait to see what happens to all the people you've grown attached to over the course of the series...and you'll have to wait for anything to really, you know, actually happen.

I tried to tell myself that, well, five years between books will mean the next one should come pretty quick and we'll get back to the people we know and we'll get some plot events that will move things forward.

Nope.

At least not so far.

Instead: six years between books four and five have gotten me a travelogue, info dumping, description after description of food, at least one POV chapter from a character I don't remember anything about, and lots of inner thoughts with very little dialogue or action. Oh, and pissing. Let's not forget the pissing. There are lots and lots of descriptions of people pissing. It seems like when people aren't eating, they're pissing, which is just the icing on the cake, isn't it? A six year wait for multiple paragraphs of people pissing.

Woot!

You know, watching the first season of the HBO adaptation I was wondering how they were going to adapt the later novels in the series, the 800 pagers. Returning to Westeros and reading the new book answered my question--easily. I mean, what's four actual plot points in a 12 episode season? Plus, it's HBO, so maybe if we're lucky we'll get to see all that pissing.

The Cool Dead

2011-10-07T13:55:00.000-05:00

Back in September, I mentioned Warren Miller's 1959 novel, The Cool World. It's long out of print, but my university library dug their 1st Edition copy from the vaults. I got it a couple weeks ago and it's a surprisingly beautiful copy: light-blue hardback, title written in hep-cool-kat font, spine's sharp and switchblade straight.

Been considering writing an essay connecting Miller's The Cool World with Shane Steven's Go Down Dead. Both novels share a similiar premise and structure. Both novels are written by white authors about the "black experience" in Harlem. But more importantly to me, each book is social commentary hidden in crime fiction's bloody clothing.

Still from 1964 film version. Never released on DVD.

Nearly finished with Cool and it hasn't disappointed. It's an engaging book with excellent pacing. Miller manages to switch between plot-chapter and memory-chapter without bogging the narrative. He's an excellent prose stylist. Writing Cool from the point of view of a young and poorly education gang member, he crafts a language that feels "real" and "street" and "urban," but still approachable and understandable and shockingly poetic.

If Cool trumps Dead, it's the prose...

I've already filed a request for another novel by Miller: The Siege of Harlem.

Especially From Me.

2011-10-06T15:48:00.001-05:00

I've been quiet lately.

It's due to a lot of things: work has been one stressful thing after another, issues with Maria's sighted eye continue, and a few short days ago it was my birthday. I try not to do anything on my birthday.

One of the biggest reasons for going dark and the radio silence is I've been working on finishing up a project. (No, it's not the Shane Stevens book--though I have made a find recently that, assuming all the pieces fall into line, should prove to be quite the spotlight on our secretive author.) I haven't discussed the project yet and I'm still not quite ready for it. I want to get just a little bit closer to completion before the big reveal.

I will say, it's something you probably didn't see coming.

Especially from me.

My Dark Pages

2011-10-01T08:52:00.000-05:00

Over at Dead End Follies, you can check out My Dark Pages where I talk about discovering Andrew Vachss and Shane Stevens.

Big thanks to Benoit for having me.

September Updates

2011-09-27T15:31:00.001-05:00

The first issue of Pulp Modern is now available. I've very excited about this. Everything I've seen Alec Cizak attach his name to has been nothing less than stunning. Plus, my friend Brian Roe contributed the interior artwork.

Waste no time and ORDER NOW!

_______________

Patti Abbott is hosting another flash fiction challenge. For details and to throw your hat in the ring, head over to her blog. If you've never participated in one of her challenges or even just taken the time to read the entries, you're missing out. Her prompts and challenges have coaxed some of the best fiction I've ever read online from a such a disparate group of writers.

If that's not enough to convince you, for every entry Patti will donate $5 to Union Settlement

_______________

Preparing

2011-09-17T07:13:00.000-05:00

It's early here. I'm drinking coffee and going over my notes for my phone conversation with Barnaby Conrad. Hopefully, he remembers Shane Stevens and can shine some more insight on the most secretive man in crime fiction.

I'm not holding my breath, however.

Sometimes, inspite of everything I've found, I feel like I'm on a fool's quest.

Shane Stevens' The Warriors...?

2011-09-10T08:06:00.000-05:00

I'm still working on my Shane Stevens piece...though I guess I should call it a book now. I dug up some more letters and found a couple more people who actually knew him. Also happened to come across a few interesting tidbits about things he wrote that never went anywhere. One of them, I thought I would actually share:

It appears that long before the project went to Walter Hill, Shane Stevens was hired to adapt Sol Yurick's The Warriors into a screenplay. Yurick's novel was written in 1965. Hill's film version was released in 1979. But Hollywood was trying to make a film version as far back as 1969.

From The Movie Call Sheet column of The Los Angeles Times, April 25, 1969:

American International has signed Shane Stevens to work on the screenplay of "The Warriors," based on the book by Sol Yurick. Robert Fresco and Denis Sanders will produce with Sanders scheduled to direct.

How different would the movie have been with a screenplay by Shane Stevens and direction by Denis Sanders?

Warren Miller's The Cool World

2011-09-09T15:12:00.000-05:00

I've been reading a number of historical pieces of criticism on white authors who wrote about "black" characters and the "black experience." Warren Miller's name appears frequently, usually mentioned in the same line as Shane Stevens.

I'm unfamiliar with Miller's name or his work. Google has turned up little and his Wikipedia entry, like Stevens', is fascinating in its brevity:

Warren Miller (1921–1966) was an American writer. Although he gained some notoriety for his books dealing with issues of race, as in The Cool World and The Siege of Harlem, and for his more political books such as Looking for The General and Flush Times, because of his early death due to lung cancer and his outspoken political views he has remained relatively unknown.

From what I can tell, everything of Miller's is out of print. I've put in requests at our university library and they're pulling 1st edition copies of The Cool World and The Siege of Harlem for me to read. In the meantime, is there anyone out there who's familiar with Miller and his work? Or is he as forgotten and mysterious as Shane Stevens?

Crime Factory: The First Shift Available For Pre-Order

2011-09-03T09:13:00.000-05:00

I'm in a print anthology with a lot of other badass writers. It's official release isn't until later this month, but Crime Factory: The First Shift is available for pre-order from both Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Neither of the entries includes a list of contributors yet, but I can assure you that you won't be disappointed.

Order From Amazon

Order From Barnes & Noble

I'm not going to bash Amazon, because I order things from there, but if you're feeling really motivated and want to be helpful you could even go into your local bookstore and order a copy. It's far more beneficial than you can imagine. Or you could go to your local library's webpage and fill out an order request.

Whatever you decide to do, I hope you check it out.

Closed on Account of the Plague

2011-08-30T12:53:00.000-05:00

Probably won't hear much from me anywhere this week. This is the start of classes at the university and, typically, one of our busiest times of year. To complicate things even more, I currently have what I'm hoping is just a summer cold.

I usually don't get sick. I really don't. Despite presisting with smoking cigarettes, I stay in decent health and keep in good shape. The problem is: when I do get sick, it knocks me on my ass.

I'm hoping to kick this thing before the weekend, but, either way, don't think I'm going to be communicating very much the rest of the week. There are a couple of people that I owe e-mails. I haven't forgotten you, honestly.

Fright Night

2011-08-26T15:01:00.000-05:00

Last Saturday, we went to see Fright Night.

Normally I try to avoid remakes, especially if I like the original but the trailer sold me on giving this one a chance. The new version actually looked promising, like an interesting remake that didn’t seem hell-bent on murdering another pleasant memory from my youth.

Okay, well, that’s not entirely true. It was the trailer…and David Tennant. I’m a huge Doctor Who fan. Tennant is easily my favorite Doctor of the current run. Besides being my favorite Doctor, he’s one of Maria’s biggest crushes. So it was win-win.

I was surprised how much the new film retains the premise of the original. Briefly:

Charley Brewster, a high school kid, watches his neighbor out the window. Brewster learns the neighbor is a vampire responsible for a recent rash of disappearances. No one believes Brewster so he tries to enlist the aid of someone he thinks knows about vampires and can help his battle against the undead. Complications ensue when the vampire catches on to Brewster’s meddling and we build toward a horrific confrontation.

Both then and now, it’s basically a retooling of Rear Window. Unlike Distubria, it’s a clever one. The original Fright Night was funny with bits of straight-up humor and some wonderful moments of dark comedy. The comedic bits were nicely balanced against some spooky and genuinely tense moments with special effects that still hold up pretty okay. If there is a problem at all with the original film, it’s the horribly dated clothes and hair.

The important thing about the original Fright Night is that it came along in the middle of the first slasher/gore porn boom and offered a more fulfilling alternative to hockey masks and jiggling breasts hacked off by meat cleavers. Watching the film, it was clear that this was a movie that understood the horror genre in all its permutations. Fright Night knew succinctly what it was trying to do with its nods and allusions and, truthfully, it’s role as a throwback film focusing more on tension than chainsaws.

In the original, Peter Vincent was once the star of a number of Hammer style films, playing a fearless vampire hunter a la Peter Cushing. Now he’s the host of a late night horror show called Fright Night. (I believe a nod to Larry Vincent and his horror program produced by KTLA). His ratings have dropped and he’s about to be fired. No one wants him or his style of film anymore.

Or so he’s been told.

Through the course of the film, Vincent learns he still has a purpose. In a way, his character is a reflection of the movie itself, representing a level of self awareness that I believe contributed to the film's success.

Well, the horror film has come full circle again. This new version of Fright Night arrives in the midst of another torture porn explosion and, like the original, offers a successful and fulfilling alternative.

This new version of Fright Night is fast paced. Thanks to a very smart script by Marti Noxon (Buffy, Prison Break, Point Pleasant, Mad Men, Gray’s Anatomy) we start in right away with no wasted movements. Characters are introduced, we learn the neighbor is a vampire and we’re off for 120 minutes that doesn’t feel like anywhere near 2 hours.

Sure, lots of films have good pacing. However, a couple things really impressed me about Fright Night and its pacing. First, character is not sacrificed. Noxon manages to keep things rolling, but doesn't turn everyone in to cardboard cutouts. These people have personalities and identities. They’re not just there to move through the action sequences and offer a one-liner now and then. Noxon understands that part of fright, a genuine sense of terror and fear for a character, can only come through knowing and caring about that character. Sure, bits and pieces feel a little teenyboppery (Charley and Amy and Evil Ed’s relationship) and there's a later unnecessary explanation for Vincent's vampire knowledge that never really goes anywhere, but it all works. When everything is said and done, I know far more about these characters, all of them—even the vampire, than their counterparts in the original.

Not only does the film keep a quick pace without sacrificing character, but it retains the same beats and a lot of the same scenes and nuances of the original despite being a much "faster" film. You’ll love all these scenes and nods when you see them. This isn’t a mindless reshoot like Gus Van Sant’s pointless Psycho remake. The scenes are there out of respect for the material and the fans, but are tweaked to good effect.

I think a good example is the club scene.

Near the climax in the original film, the vampire is chasing Charley and his girlfriend through town. They take shelter in a dance club thinking the crowd will offer them safety.

It doesn’t.

Jerry follows. He hunts and seduces Charley’s girlfriend in the smoky, throbbing interior.

The scene is meant to be tense and a little sexy, but I always found it jarring and a little silly. The club is unexpected and out of place. The town you’ve seen up to that point in the original film doesn’t seem like it would have a dance club at all, let alone a huge, happening hot-spot.

This same scene is far more successful in the new film. Their arrival in the club is more natural and makes sense as a progression of the scene before it. It’s still not quite sexy, but it’s tense and it’s as clever as the rest of the changes and the updates.

The action in this modern version moves the story from an undisclosed suburb to Las Vegas (the original novelization by horror team Skipp & Spector names the town as Rancho Corvallis). Whether conscious or not, the move to Sin City is a nice nod to The Nightstalker. It also allows for a wonderful twist on Charley’s neighborhood. Our protagonist now lives in one of those tract housing subdivisions that Malvina Reynolds sang about. It’s modern and it’s anonymous.

It’s also unfinished and literally in the middle of the desert with nothing else around.

Anonymity and seclusion are horror’s chocolate and peanut butter.

Peter Vincent has gotten a tweak too. He’s no longer a former B-movie actor reduced to hosting a show on the local public access channel—which is for the best. I doubt if a younger audience would even know what he was supposed to be. Instead Vincent is now a big-name Las Vegas illusionist whose stage show features his “mock” battles against “vampires.” This Vincent is one part Criss Angel (tattoos and leather pants) and one part David Copperfield (a massive collection of occult/mystical artifacts). And it works.

Thanks to David Tennant. He just shines in the film. He’s everything he needs to be when he needs to be it: over the top, a little cheesy, drunk and vulgar, sad, cowardly and then brave.

I’ve never been a huge Colin Farrell fan, but he handles his role as the vampire neighbor well. He manages to walk a nice line between sexy and sleazy. His Jerry Dandridge is that douchebag you know in real life and you hate because every woman falls for his bullshit, time and time again. Farrell does give his douchebag an chilling undercurrent of menace.

Anton Yelchin is good as Charley. He’s likeable and relatable.He manages to play the geek and the popular kid believably. When Charley has no choice but to face the monster next door, he plays it with a nice sense of determine resignation.

The lovely Sandra Vergara plays Vincent’s assistant/girlfriend Ginger and she’s a dream. Her and Tennant have great chemistry together. Their scenes were some of the funniest of the entire picture.

Christopher Mintz-Plasse is this new film’s Evil Ed. I have to admit I was a little disappointed in transforming Evil Ed from socially awkward kid who likes weird shit to…well, the same role that Mintz-Plasse will be playing for the rest of his life—McLovin. He is funny, though.

The main women characters don’t have much to work with. Toni Collette stars as Charley’s mom and she’s there mostly for exposition and to stress the broad appeal of Jerry’s sexiness. The unfortunately named Imogen Poots is passable as Amy. Any young actress between 16 and 22 could have played that part and it wouldn’t have mattered—which may be purposeful. There’s a subtext to this film, that’s all about pussy: what a man will do for it and how he will protect it...and even find it scary.

Really, however those are all just minor quips though. This new version of Fright Night was excellent. Easily the best horror film I’ve seen in a long time.

Shane Stevens Update

2011-08-16T12:06:00.000-05:00

Work continues on my Shane Stevens biographical investigation. It's currently at 40+ k and includes twenty photographs. I've recently come across some new sources of information that I've been looking into. I know a few people, some fellow Shane Stevens fans, are a little frustrated by the delay. I can, however, assure you no one wants to see this finished and circulating more than I do.

Shane wrapped himself in a lot of shadows and I'm still learning to see in the dark.

Riddick

2011-08-13T08:24:00.003-05:00

A transport ship crashes on a distant planet after being struck by debris from a comet’s tail. Most of the people onboard die. Only one crewman survives, a woman named Carolyn Fry who panics during the landing and almost kills everyone. A few passengers crawl out of the wreckage: a runaway, a holy man and his charges, an antiquities dealer, and two settlers.

Then there’s the bounty hunter. A man named Johns, a merc with a drug habit he feeds by shooting spikes of morphine into his eyeballs.

Most of the cargo is destroyed. However, the most important cargo? The most valuable and dangerous piece is missing.

Riddick.

Riddick is Johns’ prisoner. He’s an escaped convict, a murderer with a large bounty on his head. Johns tells the survivors that Riddick is a human predator who can see in the dark and he’s capable of anything. Like skull-fucking you in your sleep.

Luckily, Johns recaptures Riddick before anyone needs a nap.

While Johns is tracking Riddick, the others survey the ship and realize it’s mostly beyond salvaging. They know then that if anyone is going to get off this desolate planet, they need to find some outpost of civilization. For that, they all need to work together.

All of them—even Riddick.

After trekking across the barren landscape and through a massive bone-yard of some now extinct species, the group finds a geological research outpost abandoned to the harsh glare of the planet’s three suns. There’s water there and even a ship. The ship is in good shape. It’s missing fuel cells, but those can be taken from their own transport. It seems like a boon, a godsend.

But still, there are no people. None.

The group investigates further and makes a chilling discovery: there’s a life-form living below ground, at home in the dark and hungry for human flesh.

It seems simple enough to avoid them on a planet with three suns. Too bad there’s a solar eclipse coming....

Last night we watched Pitch Black again. I hadn’t seen the film in a long time and had forgotten how much I loved it. It’s such a great movie--a gritty sci-fi flick, a cool horror-thriller with elements of crime fiction and it does everything so well.

It establishes a dark mood and feel in frame one with Vin Diesel’s opening voice-over, “They say most of your brain shuts down in cryosleep. All but the primitive side... the animal side. No wonder I'm still awake.” It’s shot beautifully and simply with different light filters and uses only a minimum of computer effects. The cast is great with Vin Diesel, Cole Hauser, Radha Mitchell, the lovely Claudia Black, and Keith David. There are nonstop bits of quotable dialogue and it’s incredibly tense and suspenseful and scary without going the cheap buckets of gore route.

It’s a shame the sequel is so awful.

I remember being excited when I first heard they were making a sequel to Pitch Black. The world created in the first film is a dark and dirty future of cramped, poorly lit ships and massive dark prisons. It’s a Blade Runner future, an Alien future, an Escape From New York future. A human-centric universe with all those human centric problems that people want desperately to escape from, signing up to be settlers on distant and hardscrabble worlds but none of them have money so they travel the lonely ghostlanes.

Riddick is a character from crime fiction. He’s a very human monster. Abandoned at birth and tossed in a dumpster, you know he grew up hard and growing up hard removed him from any connection to the human race. He exists apart and not among.

The first film establishes this. It establishes this through dialogue:

“And then you get sent to a prison where they tell you you'll never see daylight again. So you dig up a doctor, pay him twenty menthol Kools to do a surgical shine job on your eyes …”

“You think someone could spend half their life in a slam with a horse bit in their mouth and not believe? You think he could start out in some … liquor store trash bin with an umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and not believe in God? You got it all wrong, holy man. I absolutely believe in God … and I absolutely hate the fucker”

Johns: Doctors decide who lives and dies on the battlefield. It's called Triage.

Riddick: Kept calling it murder when I did it.

The only survivor Riddick doesn’t fuck with is “Jack.” Everyone else he talks shit to. Everyone else he intimidates. But not Jack.

You see, Jack is a runaway. A girl pretending to be a boy. (I think you can read between the lines here and see Jack's life, can't you?). And only Riddick knows it straight off. This creates a connection--Riddick sees himself. Sees another abandoned one.

But that doesn’t automatically bring a full, human connection. Near the end of the film Riddick is fully prepared to abandon the survivors to the planet of monsters. It’s only when Fry says she’ll die for them that he agrees to go back and help.

Riddick goes back not because his heart grew three sizes that day, but because he’s intrigued. He’s never seen this before. What he’s experienced of humanity is not this. It’s not selfless. It’s not caring. It’s not love. It’s just you and your own survival.

He wants to know, I think, how this is going to play out.

I dug the film and I had these visions of what the sequel would be like. I do that with things that speak to me, with things I like. I imagine being a part of this created world and what I would do with it, how I would contribute...

Their ship lands in some planet-wide megaopolis. A massive, futuristic urban hell. Riddick abandons the girl named Jack, leaving her in the care of hoodoo holy man. He thinks that maybe this way, she won’t have to become like him.

Jump forward a few years. Riddick lives in the alleways and the tunnels and trash-strewn streets lit with neon and slick with blood. The girl Jack comes to find him. She needs his help. He agrees, because he’s intrigued. Maybe she helps save his life from some bounty hunters and he goes with her because he owes her a debt?

Jack takes him to a group of other cast-offs, a hidden undercity of forgotten people, the abandoned people--people like Riddick that no one wanted, not even their mothers. This group is in danger.

Complications ensue...

Finally, Riddick agrees to help them because he realizes he’s found his tribe. His people. His family of choice.

With the sequel I thought I’d get Andrew Vachss in space with a little bit of Hollywood badass thrown-in. Instead, I got Conan in space with a whole lot of lazy and generic fantasy trappings.

I remember being confused at first--This is the sequel to Pitch Black, right?

Yeah.

Then why is it generic fantasy in a shitty space-opera wrapper? Why are their generic fantasy names like Necromongers? Why are there Elementals and weird ~~super~~ alien powers? Why is Riddick suddenly the last ~~Cimmerian~~ Furyian destined to be a king?

Why is the only decent bit of dialogue, “Did you know you grind your teeth in your sleep... sexy.”?

And why is the rest awful fantasy dialogue that you'd expect from a Syfy Pictures Original:

“Consider this: if you fall here, now, you will never rise. But if you choose another way, the Necromonger way, you will die in due time, and rise again in the Underverse.”

“He's not a man. He's the Holy Half-Dead who has seen the Underverse and returned with powers you can't imagine.”

Did I miss something? Did we all watch the same movie?

Yeah.

These are the same guys doing this film, right? I mean, the people behind the first one. It's not the guys responsible for Highlander II: ~~The Shitting~~ The Quickening, is it?

Yeah, same guys. No, not the Highlander II guys.

Damn!

Well, I remember telling myself, at least I have the first film.

The first film and my imagination.

I've Never Been Able To Put My Finger On It Until Now

2011-08-12T09:12:00.001-05:00

For a short time there's a great essay on CSI over at Smart Pop Books. The always insightful and immensely talented Nick Mamatas managed to explain in a single paragraphy why I never liked CSI:

"CSI and the inevitable knock-offs (Bones, Crossing Jordan, and to a lesser extent the medical mystery show House) are the ultimate in wish-fulfillment. For all of us good American taxpayers, there is a nanny police state that uses nothing but objective and infallible means to keep society from falling into chaos. With infinite resources at its command, but no special demands made upon anyone except for the guilty, the nanny police state (staffed not by evil storm troopers or soulless technocrats, but sexy, if flawed, individuals) keeps us safe."

Read "You Care Who Killed Roger Ackroyd" before it's gone.

Where Do You Get Your Ideas: Spam Phishing

2011-08-11T07:47:00.001-05:00

I don't think there's anyone who hasn't received a "Nigerian Letter" at least once. I get them delivered frequently to my work e-mail.

Yesterday, I received an interesting one. It was a nice variation on the letter's conventions with the additions of shady business partners, murder by poison, and a young girl desperate for a savior. Below is the text of the spam/phishing attempt. The only thing I've done is truncate the sender's name to its first letters.

Greetings from S-- K--

With all due respect, I want you to read my letter with one mind and help me. I am S-- K--, The only child of late Mr. and Mrs. K--, My Late father was a very wealthy cocoa dealer in in Lome Togo before he was poisoned to death by his business associates on one of their outing to discuss on a business deal.

When my mother died when she was given birth to me, my father took me so special because I am motherless. Before the death of my father on 22nd September, 2010 in a private hospital here in Lome Togo. He secretly called me on his bedside and told me that he has a sum of USD10, 000,000.00 Ten million United States dollars left in a suspense account in a local bank here in Lome Togo, that he used my name as his only daughter for the next of kin in deposit of the fund.

He also explained to me that it was because of this wealth that he was poisoned by his business associates that I should seek for a foreign partner in a country of my choice where I will transfer this money and use it for investment purpose, such real estate agent,

I am 17year old. Dear I am honorably seeking your assistance in the following ways.

1) To provide any bank account where this money would be transferred into.
2) To serve as the guardian of this fund.
3) To make arrangement for me to come over to your country to further my education and to secure a residential permit for me in your country.

Moreover, I am willing to offer you 20 percent of the total sum as compensation for your effort input after the successful transfer of this fund to your nominated account overseas.

I want you to help me not because of the 20 percent I want to offer you but to take me as your adoptive child and take good care of my life. Please save my life.

Hope to hear from you soonest.
Thanks and God Bless.
Best regards,
S-- K--

Yesterday, I received this, reported it to the sender's provider, and then starting thinking about it in terms of story. What if it were real? What if someone got one of these 419 Fraud letters in their e-mail and it turned out to be genuine and there really was a young girl in a foreign country with a huge sum of money fleeing from her dead father's murdering business partners?

As writers we all get the ideas question. This is a prime example of what people who aren't writers will never understand. Ideas come from anywhere and everywhere.

Left To Memory

2011-08-10T10:52:00.001-05:00

I’ve been re-reading a bunch of The Destroyer books to get in the correct headspace for something I’ve been working on.

The Destroyer books, in case you’re not familiar with them, was an action adventure series that ran for a number of years and authors. The main character is a man named Remo Williams. He’s a NYC cop when he’s forcibly recruited into CURE, a secret organization that answers only to the president. You see, Remo grew up an orphan and as an adult he still has no family of his own, so he's the perfect target. CURE fakes his death and hands the unwilling Williams over to Chiun, the Master of Sinanju (the source of all martial arts; the art of which all others are but shadows), to be trained as their newest weapon—The Destroyer.

During the course of the series, Remo and Chiun travel the globe and fight evil geniuses, maniacal warlords, masters of mind control and other deadly assassins. The books have tons of action, some sex, and a good bit of comedy (mostly from Chiun).

The series was adapted into a fun but terrible film starring Fred Ward as Remo and (yes, this is as offensive as it sounds) non-Asian Joel Grey as Master Chiun. After the Hollywood flop, they gave it a go as a pilot for a television series. I thought that pilot was a little better. At least they bothered to hire a real martial artist for Remo (Jeffrey Meeks). However, they insisted on keeping up the disgusting "yellow face" by casting Roddy McDowell as Chiun. I haven’t checked, but I would be surprised if you couldn’t stream one or both on Netflix.

I remembered loving the books as a kid. I thought they would be the perfect to gear switch my brain. Besides, I remembered them being a whole lot of fun.

And they still are…just not quite as much.

I mean there’s still pulpy goodness. All that wonderful, wonderful cheese—like death rays, ninja magic, and hot voodoo priestess.

The first thing I noticed was what a lot of people refer to as the books' "politcal uncorrectness". I'd go a little further and say that there's a political bent and a general societal opinion that differs a lot from my own. That's been a little of a turnoff for me, but I've been able to live with it through a couple books by keeping in mind when these were written and maintaining the mental distance I'll use when reading something like Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu or one of H.P. Lovecraft's rascist rants in the middle of an otherwise excellent weird tale.

However, the main thing that's bugged me? The thing that's really kept me from enjoying the books? A lot of the martial arts scenes?

Just fucking blow.

I read the first Destroyer book back in 1985 when I was nine years old. I didn’t know much about martial arts then.

Now, I have black belts in Taekwondo and Hapkido. I studied Wing Chun in Germany. I practiced 9 Animal Style Kung-fu and Shaolin-do in college. I even tried my hand at Capoeria. In addition, I’ve watched a hell of a lot of martial arts movies (not just Hong Kong films, but movies from Japan, Korea, Thailand, and India), quite a bit of boxing, and a lot of MMA matches.

I know a little bit about martial arts now.

I understand Murphy and Sapir wrote a lot of these books and wrote them quick. I understand they wrote some of them with other writers. I understand that other writers wrote a lot of them alone.

I get that.

And I even understand that the two hardest things to write are:

Sex Scenes
Fight Scenes

Like pretty much everything in fiction, sex and violence should feel real, but be better than actual reality. Doing either one well enough that it’s exciting and engaging, rather than just silly, overly technical or unappealing vulgar takes real talent.

I understand what I’m reading when I pick up a book like The Destroyer. I really do. I’ve always believed there is an unspoken agreement between writer and reader. Certain things you agree to accept as reality as long as there’s still a consistency maintained within the fictional world itself. So, I have no problem with something like, “Master Han focused his chi and then punctured the steel door with two fingers.” Or even the occasional, “The Black Ninja moved through the horde of goons like a silent whirlwind of death.”

Why?

Because those are things that can happen within that particular fictional world.

Yet, a couple of things struck me re-reading The Destroyer books and have really been a letdown:

1.) I have absolutely no idea how Sinanju looks, stylistically.

Yes, I understand it’s supposed to be the origin of all martial arts. So, it may be indescribable in typical terms like hard or soft, internal or external. But, as the origin of all martial arts, shouldn’t that make Sinanju descriptions easy for any writer? You don’t have to learn about every martial art completely. You can describe a karate style kick, some wing chun style trapping maneuver, an aikido throw, and a jujitsu joint lock.

2.) At least in the early books I own, Murphy and Sapir apparently never bothered to learn anything about the martial arts or were just writing these books too quick to care.

A lot of fight scenes are blown through quickly. Chiun or Remo dispatches a goon in a single sentence. Or we’re treated to some just plain silly nonsense like the judo chop to the neck. (I’m serious--A “judo chop”). Or worst still are the fight descriptions that make no sense when you attempt to visualize it in your mind.

Ugh.

Re-reading them has been a reminder that some things should just be left to memory. Re-discovery often brings disappointment.

F. Paul Wilson Interview in Crime Factory # 7

2011-08-01T07:17:00.002-05:00

Crime Factory # 7 is now live. It's a massive issue. So large you'll be thankful it's in electronic format, thus sparing you the back trouble. It's full of a lot of good stuff, tons of fiction and feature by writers like Sean Doolittle, Todd Robinson, Matthew C. Funk, Derek Kelly, The Nerd of Noir, Richard Thomas, Don Lafferty, Joelle Charbonneau, and Edward Grainger.

It also includes an interview I did with F. Paul Wilson, the author of the long-running Repairman Jack series (one of my favorites). I conducted the interview a while ago, but its appearance was, understandably, delayed due to the computer theft that led to Cam cancelling the planned Horror Factory issue. The delay, I don't think, in no way makes the interview less relevant or timely.

It was a treat to speak to Mr. Wilson. I can honestly say he was one of the nicest and most understanding people I've ever met. If there is anything awkward with the interview, I can assure you--it's my fault and my fault alone.

Read it here.

What's Going On

2011-07-29T12:35:00.002-05:00

Been working on a secret project. I'm almost finished with two of the three parts.

I'm not really sure if I can talk about it just yet, other than to say it's going to be something a little bit different than what I usually produce and I'm very excited about it.

I think you're going to like it when it comes out.

_______________

Still hard at work on my Shane Stevens piece. I've made two really exciting discoveries in the last two weeks. Those I definately cannot talk about. All I can say is that it's poured gasoline on my fire.

_______________

We finally watched the True Grit remake.

I liked it quite a bit and have since gone back to work on "The Plum Thicket".

_______________

My Amazon order came yesterday. It included the twelve movies Andy Sidaris' made in his Bullets, Babes, and Bombs series. I got the baker's dozen for a mere $6 bucks and plan on writing about Sidaris over at Jimmy Callaway's Let's Fuck Everybody site.

_______________

Been re-reading a number of The Destroyer books.

_______________

Finished Ga-Rei: Zero yesterday. I enjoyed it a great deal. Nice animation. Good voice-over work (for once there wasn't a character I hated because of the bad dubbing). The story was engaging: a nice combination of drama, action and comedy.

It seems to either be the set-up for another series or maybe a prequel of something already existing. If anyone knows, I'd appreciate the info. Of all the anime I've discovered via Netflix, it's definately proven to be one of my favorites.

The Last Bus To Rockaway

2011-07-23T07:56:00.004-05:00

About a month ago, Dan O'Shea issued a challenge. For the details and additional stories go here. For my story, keep reading.

The Last Bus To Rockaway

Last bus from Brooklyn College Station. The Q35 all the way down Flatbush and cross the Marine Parkway, over Jamaica Bay and then—the Rockaways. The Ave is packed. Everybody out tonight. Everybody who not out is on this bus. S’okay. Nobody paying me attention. Nobody looking at me or what all over my coat or what I gots inside it. Just sitting here, head pressed against the glass, hand cupped over a cigarette, watching the lights go by.

First time I remember the Irish Riviera, my father took me. This back before the Playland closed. We’re there early in the morning, soon as it opened. Rides and hotdogs and cotton candy all day. That was some good times.

Course then it was mostly Irish. Now, it’s a lotta Russians and a Russian dude is the last man I gots to see tonite to try to keep things that way they is. You see, Dad been dead less than a week and the wolves already circling. Comin’ for what he always took care of. Comin’ for us like we all up for grabs.

Day after the state buried him way over there in the potter’s field, some Eye-talian cats tried to play grab ass with my sis on the bus. She’s just thirteen but she’s already got titties like a woman and most a her baby fat done melted off. Two days later Moms was on her way home from the store and when she came out somebody taken a shit on the hood a her car and popped one of the tires. When Big Tommy never came by yesterday with the money he always bring oncet a month outta respect, I knew things was gonna be fucked less I did something about it.

‘Cuz see that’s the thing about Dad, he weren’t around much. He been in prison most of what I remember but even when he was away he always kept us fed and safe. He always did what he have to do. Even the crimes. He knew what was what. He knew we wasn't never gonna have nothing that he didn't take. And I knew with him being dead, I gots to move quick. Just like he did when those Jew kids bashed my brother’s head with a brick and made him retarded.

See, after my dad went back inside for this last long stretch, my brother took me out there to the Rockaways all the time. He used to surf out there. No one believes you you say that. Surfing in New York? Shit, surfing is Cali or Hawaii or Australia with the girls that look like they from Cali but talk prettier. It’s true though. Beaches and everything. I remember, he’d say, “Hey kid, let’s head out to Rockapulco.” Sound like something from the Flintstones, don’t it? Yeah, I’d smile and we’d drive over there when the sea was right and the big waves came in over the ocean and play that Ramones song.

Everything was cool till he went by himself oncet. I didn’t go, see, ‘cuz there was this girl used to live over in Queens. Real pretty girl built like you don’t think regular people are, in real life, I mean. Like in movies and shit. She was that fine and I was trying to get with her at the time’s why I didn’t go. Dad had been in for about a year again at this point and some peoples was forgetting who he was and what was his. Some Jew kids tried fuckin’ with my big bro aand he got mouthy and they stomped him down and finished it off with a brick upside the back of his head.

Dad called the next day and he told me, he told me over all the noise echoing there in big room where you go to make the phone calls that makes it so hard to hear, he told me real soft in that way he had of talking, he told me it was taken care of and it was.

Jew kid got hit by a car crossing the street from Luca’s Pizza. Another got shived on the subway just 'round midnight. Some black kids fishing off the Rockaway pier found the last one. After that no one fuck with us at all. They remember and when peoples forget, he make sure it wasn’t long.

I gets off the bus now and I’m footin’ it over to the beach. Head down and hands loose. I’m doing the crack head shuffle. Most folks don’t bother crack heads none. Just look the other way.

That’s how I started tonite off. Did the shuffle when I popped K-Roc. No, he’s not that dude from New Orleans that runs all the womens over in Brooklyn. He’s that black dude with the bad skin who sells all the college kids weed. He’s got that condition that make it all lined and scaly looking like a lizard. I got him over in the b-ball courts by the Boy’s Club. Clipped him and his girl too, which is a shame ‘cuz she was so nice looking.

I’ve gots four of them tonight. All over town. Boom boom boom, motherfuckers. Easier than I thought too. ‘Cept for that hillbilly they called Methistopheles. Dude was fucking psychic. Shoulda been on meds.

I ain’t ashamed to say that I a little scared about what’s gonna go down when I top the last dune. Russian dude always gots his men with him at night when he’s swimming the cold, cold water. But what choice I got? Motherfuckers didn’t leave me none.

It’s like they expected Dad to leave a will or something.

Camelot

2011-07-17T09:39:00.003-05:00

Netflix just added Camelot, one of Starz's new programs. Currently, we get Starz (it was given to us by our satellite provider as a thank you), but I always seemed to miss it when it was airing week to week. Honestly, I think I prefer watching programs this way, having it all in front of me and being able to watch as much or as little as I want at my leisure.

So far, three episodes in, it's okay. A couple of things are really keeping the show from being better. First, it's obvious they've retooled their retelling of King Arthur to feel more like A Game of Thrones with a dead king, several warring factions, and political and personal machinations. Most of the sets and the locations shoots are quite good and believable, but every now and then there is a set that just looks incredibly fake. The worst offense, however, is the casting of King Arthur. It's the thing I'm not sure I'm going to be able to get past. It's not that I think Arthur should look like Conan the Barbarian, but the actor in Camelot looks like a CK One model, one of those scrawny, androgynous man-boys. It's difficult to believe him as the future King and a fearsome warrior. It's especially difficult in the second episode when he gets Excalibur, called the Sword of Mars in the show. The sword looks to be a hand-and-a-half or a bastard. The thought of the man-boy model wielding it is just laughable.

It's a shame because there are some nice things about the show. The rest of the cast is fairly decent. It's nice to see Claire Forlani in something again, Vera Green isn't bad as Morgan (even though I've never found her attractive--not even in Casino Royale) though she does have a tendency to chew scenery just a little less than Jeremy Irons in the Dungeons & Dragons film, Joseph Fiennes is great as Merlin, and there's an arc with James Purefoy. Their version of the legends actually has magic in it, something that's been lacking from a lot of recent re-tellings. And they've been running with the implication that there's actually nothing special, nothing mystically foretold about Arthur, that it's all just a manipulation of the collective unconscious by Merlin to provide the people with the king he believes they should have.

I'm willing to give it a chance based on it's strengths, even though I worry I'll never be able to get past the casting of Arthur. Starz programs do seem to take several episodes before they find their stride--I know Spartacus did for me. The only show I've watched of theirs that has started out strong from the beginning is the joint BBC production of Torchwood: Miracle Day.

Frustration

2011-07-16T11:33:00.000-05:00

I'm working on the Stevens piece again, polishing it while waiting to get another round of edits and hopefully hear from a few new sources of information. Managed to find a whole cache of photos. Hope to hear back about those in a couple of days.

Man, it's rough.

It fires me up. It gets me excited. The writing. The acknowledgement of one of my literary idiols. Stevens got me into crime. When I feel like just saying fuck it or writing the easy shit, the mindless dark shit that's just about something awful happening because awful is hip and edgy and easy and it seems like that's what people want to read, Stevens reminds me of my purpose as a writer.

I owe him.

He should not be forgotten that's what I want fom this. I want people to remember him. I want people to discover him for the first time. I want some writers out there to read him and think, "Oh, shit, that's what I'm supposed to be doing with crime fiction."

But it's frustrating.

So many dead ends. So many cold trails. So many edits and refinements. It's taken over my life and my writing in ways I didn't imagine. And the whole thing is still at novella length--about 34k. That's a tough placement, too many words for a magazine, too little for your average book. I have some ideas though and if everything comes through, lengthening shouldn't be a problem.

But it's still frustrating; especially when my life is frustrating enough right now with my wife's health, with the day job, with my own writing.

Close, But No Cigar

2011-07-08T09:47:00.000-05:00

Wow.

Someone found this blog by searching for: "tennis girls skimpy outfits showing sex".

I just tried it myself. That particular search string brings up the post I did on the upcoming NBC show, The Playboy Club. In the post I use the words: girls, skimpy outfits, and sexual. This blog comes up as the second result. I really don't think a review of a television show and a feminist rant is what they had in mind.

Talk about close, but no cigar.

A Rip Through Time

2011-07-06T07:55:00.000-05:00

Are you a fan of the good old stuff? Doc Savage? The Shadow? The Avenger? Perry Rhodan? Analog Science Fiction and Fact? Amazing Stories?

Have you read all the classic pulps you can get your hands on and want more?

Do you miss bold and exciting prose? Quick pacing? Adventure? Excitement?

And danger!

Then why aren't you reading A Rip Through Time?

For over a year Beat To A Pulp has been tantalizing us with chapters from Simon Rip's adventures. This sci-fi serial has everything you could want: a dashing hero, a brilliant scientist, a beautiful woman, travels across time and space, monsters, and some fantastic action-packed writing by Chris F. Holm, Charles Gramlich, and Garnett Elliott.

Feel the wash of chronal energies:

Part I
Part II
Part III

Happenings

2011-07-05T07:41:00.009-05:00

Finished Blue World last night. I had forgotten how much I loved that book. I'm still surprised no one as ever adapted the like-named novella into a movie.

_______________

The second episode of the new season of True Blood, "You Smell Like Dinner", was fantastic. Worth watching for no other reason than the flashback to London in 1982.

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Started Elegy For April. Read the first chapter. Kind of bland so far and the prose reads like writing.

_______________

"The Silence of Untranslated Stars" is stalled out. As well as the western I had been working on. I suspect those two may be damned to the hard drive.

_______________

Have been busy working on an undisclosed project that won't see the light of day for many months and a horror piece for Christopher Grant's other site, Eaten Alive.

_______________

Here's the link to an old story, Maiden's Prayer. The follow-up story, "The Method", features the same characters and will appear in Crime Factory: The First Shift.

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Question: Why is dubbed my only option for watching anime on Netflix?

They've finally added some Bleach episodes, but I refuse to watch that dubbed. When Maria and I first started Bleach, she was tired and didn't feel like reading subtitles. We watched the first two episodes dubbed. It was days before we had the chance to watch more, so when we did she wanted to start over.

This time we watched them subtitled. When we did, I discovered they still change a lot in translation. Too much in my opinion, but America is only now, thanks to Pixar, getting over the notion that animated programs are only for little kids.

The lack of subtitled options on Netflix disappoints me.

I've always really liked anime. I never bought any for years. It was too expensive to buy here in America unless you were willing to drop hundreds of dollars on a single series. The few anime distributors that released anything here used to have a terrible habit of double and triple-dipping their customers. I usually just rented it when I found it. You were less likely to get burned. Plus, back then, it was difficult to know what exactly you were going to end up watching, how heavily edited it was, or whether it was outright reworked into something else (Robotech, Voltron, Battle of the Planets/G-Force).

Prices have come down a lot now. The internet has made it far easier to research a program so you don't accidently find yourself watching something you may find offensive, like lolicon. And it's much much easier to discern now how edited or watered down an American release is. I think a much wider array of people are far more familiar with Japanese animation now and realize the genre is a lot bigger than just Robotech, G-Force/Battle of the Planets, Voltron, Ghost in the Shell, Ninja Scroll, and Demon City Shinjuku. So then, why do I have to watch everything dubbed? Is it just laziness on Netflix's part?

It's especially a shame since I've seen some fantastic anime since we started Netflix.

The real standouts have been:

Sekirei
Claymore
Ga-rei: Zero
Fruits Basket
Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid
Full Metal Alchemist
Soul Eater

I really wanted to like Darker Than Black, but the first couple of episodes left me cold inspite of an interesting premise.

True Blood

2011-07-01T10:31:00.007-05:00

This past Sunday was the Season Four premiere of True Blood.

We just finished watched Season 3 on DVD only a couple of weeks ago. When I saw the new season was starting, I checked to see how much it was to add HBO for a couple months since the DVD wait is lengthy. The cost wasn’t bad, so I added it. For some time now, we’ve been talking about getting rid of cable all together and just using Netflix.I mean, comparing the amount of things we actually watch on cable to how much we’re paying, it’s just not worth it. I think of this as my last cable hurrah.

Besides that, some friends of ours recently moved back into town and one of them is a huge fan. True Blood is a show that lends itself to group viewing, I think, so she came over. We made snacks and sat down for premiere night.

As the opening riff of “Bad Things" played over the credits, it struck me as a little funny that I was this excited. I remember when Maria suggested watching True Blood, I wasn’t too keen on it. In fact, I’m pretty sure I groaned.

Aloud.

A lot.

I had these terrible visions of what I would be in for: Twillight for adults, cheesy special effects, bad writing—even if Alan Ball, the man behind Six Feet Under and American Beauty was the one adapting it. Oh, and all the shit I hate about romances whether paranormal or mundane.

But, I relented. It was Maria’s turn to pick what we watched next and she assured me the vampires in Bon Temps didn’t sparkle.

I was pleasantly surprised by the first season. The effects are good. The switchblade noise during the fang popping is an interesting and bold choice, even if it takes a bit of getting used to. The rough spots in acting, like the accents, improve through the course of the first thirteen episodes. It finds its dialogue voice fairly quickly after some early awkwardness. The pacing is good. The characters are interesting (True Blood has probably one of the strongest “secondary” casts on television). It’s well shot. The soundtrack is great.

And the show is just plain sexy as hell.

Plus, no one told me this—it’s funny.

I got it into. Watching it, I found myself really liking Sookie and Bill. (I do like love stories—I just hate “romances”.) The two of them work. It’s engaging. She’s not my type, but Anna Paquinn is pretty and fresh faced with big doe eyes. Stephen Moyer has the lonesome brood down pat without falling into the smugness that always put me off Tom Cruise. Paquinn and Moyer have great chemistry together (They ended up getting married in real life). Their character backgrounds mesh well; mutual loneliness and a dash of the old fashioned, coupled with an open mind. It makes sense that they’d find each other—hell, you even want them to find each other.

I could see possibilities for their relationship. I could see things thrown in their way, interesting things—dramatic situations and conflict. So, we surged through the first 10 episodes and I admit it, I was really hooked. I wanted to know what happened.

Then we hit episode 11 and I groaned. Character motivations and behaviors suddenly flip-flopped. People did things that made no sense based on what had been established. There was some convenient manipulation of the plot. Plus, the serial killer mystery, the overarching plot of that first season, was just plain piss-poor.

Now, someone did tell us when we first talked about watching True Blood, “You need to turn your brain off and not expect too much.” I can do that—I’ve read pulp that requires that from word one, page one. I would have done it for True Blood but the show was good in so many other ways that I actually cared about the characters, their relationships, and even the damned plot. My brain stayed on and that made the chump parts all the worse.

However, there was enough there for us to decide to stick it out through Season 2, a season with some big improvements. Better acting—top-notch all around. Soundtrack is A-1 bluesy without straying into white-washed BB King/Eric Clapton territory.

It’s chocked full of lots of great subplots. Jason Stackhouse and The Church of the Sun plot is genius. A wonderful character driven plot that’s funny, exciting, tense and sexy. Ryan Kwanten just shines in those moments. Also, Eric’s backstory is great. His search for his maker adds depth to his character, reveals more about vampire society, eventually connects to other subplots and complicates the Sookie/Bill relationship in a believable way. A way that’s interesting and doesn’t just feel like lazy writing. And the Jessica Hambly plot is one of my favorites. I absolutely hated that character when she first shows up, but the writers elevated the poor, little church girl getting turned into a vampire into one of the best bits of the show. So, many great moments with her: talking Sookie into taking her to see her parents, meeting Hoyt at the bar, dominating the guy at the airport and then at the hotel.

I liked seeing more of the out-of-the-coffin vampire society, things like Anubis Air and Hotel Carmilla. It’s that sort of world building and theorizing that still draws me to horror, fantasy, and science-fiction, even if I don’t write it so much anymore.

There are drawbacks. Some character inconsistencies, a couple of jarring what-the-fuck moments and an absolutely terrible overarching plot for the season. Just awful and dull and cheesy and unnecessary. It did nothing but muck things up and provide bathroom breaks without the necessity of hitting pause.

With Season Two being both better and worse (hard to believe that’s possible, but true), I was a little unsure how Season Three would be.

I’ll tell you—it’s the best season so far, very exciting and very sexy. It was plot focused and character driven. Easily, I think, the most cohesive season of the show. Denis O’Hare is absolutely stunning as the Vampire King of Mississippi. I mean, you didn’t want to miss a single moment when he was on the screen. And it was incredibly refreshing to watch something on television for once that had twists and surprises that actually made sense in terms of both narrative and character.

During the premiere, our friend commented on several things they changed in the first couple of minutes. After the premiere, I saw a lot of posts full of complaints. Another friend of ours, the one who really convinced us to give the show a try, has read the books too. The two of them like both the books and the show, though one freely admits the books are terrible.

I realized after the premiere and our conversations that I like the show the more it deviates from the books. That’s so weird for me to say… I had always thought books were better than their adaptations? But, shortly after we finished Season 2, I tried reading a couple and I knew that isn’t always true.

You see, every couple of weeks, my wife and her friend, Vanessa, get their nails done. I hang out in the local used bookstore until they’re finished, then we meet up with Vanessa’s boyfriend and we have dinner or some drinks.

Milling around the overstocked shelves, I noticed they had had several of the Sookie Stackhouse books. I didn’t have anything else to do and I liked the show, so I thought I’d give it a try. I grabbed all the books they had and sat down in one of the chairs nestled in the backroom and started reading.

They’re a fast read. I was able to plow through a good chunk of the first book, skim several others and read a couple of pages in the rest.

Dear Lord, they’re abysmal…

The dialogue is just terrible. I mean easily some of the worst I’ve ever read. It’s so bad that if I were teaching a creative writing class, I’d make students read it and just say, “Don’t do that. Don’t write that way.”

The characters aren’t much better. Stiff cardboard, they’re there only to propel us from sex scene to silly plot point. Character behaviors are just weird and kind of...off. Even characters I love in the series are barely mentioned. I mean, I knew Lafayette (one of the best characters on the show) gets killed off in the first book, but damn.

Oh, and the sex scenes are bad. Awkward and kind of smutty in a unappealing, juvenile way.

Sookie in the novels is just repellant. She’s vapid, emotionally stunted, shallow and really just an idiot. She blithely moves through life, loves, events, and plot points seemingly unaffected by much of anything.

And even Bill, one of my favorite characters from the show, is just dull and kind of there. He's massively unappealing.

There’s so many supernatural creatures (vampires, fairies, werewolve, werepanthers, weretigers) and junk thrown in as the series goes on, it just feels like a mess, a really bad role-playing chronicle your buddy would run in the basement during junior high. There’s enough punch in the vampires coming out of the coffin idea, the rest of it is unnecessary.

From what I read, what I skimmed through, and conversations with our friends, it seems to me the show deviates more and more from the books as it goes along—which is a good thing.

The whole thing is fascinating to me.

I understand the appeal of romance novels, I do. I'm fully aware there’s a whole contingent of vampire fans out there who will read and buy anything with a blood sucker. Likewise, no problem with the notion that people like their spray-cheese in different flavors.

All that is understandable.

What I can’t understand is how the fuck these things have sold as well as they have?!?! How do you not reach a point when you expect just a little more from your fun entertainment?

Not only that, how does something so blah, produce something so good? I can think of very few works whose adaptation outshines the source material, in my opinion. Maybe two—Showtime’s Dexter series (those books are terrible too) and Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies (those books put me to sleep).

What do you think?

Roadblock

2011-06-27T08:00:00.002-05:00

I've been working on two stories that I'm excited about. Think both are good ideas. Think I've executed what I was trying to do fairly well. The problem is: I'm stuck.

Stuck on plotting.

I had no idea how either one would end when I started writing them. I hoped as I wrote I'd figure all that out, answer all the unanswered questions. I bounced back and forth between them whenever I came to a tough spot and they were just flying along.

Now both are grounded and I have absolutely no idea how to bring either one to a close. This is especially frustrating because one of them is a mystery—not a crime story, an actual mystery with clues and a puzzle to unravel.

What do you do? How do you get through this? How do you move forward? Sometimes, I think it would be easier if I were an outliner or hardcore plotter who knew exactly what was going to happen before I ever sat down at the keyboard. Neither of those work for me. I think, I mull over, and then I go. Usually, it all works out.

Elegy for April

2011-06-25T23:16:00.001-05:00

Found this at the library booksale this past Thursday. I'm not familiar with Black's work or the work he does under his real name, John Banville. I love the cover image and the title. The premise appeals to me: a man helping his daughter search for her missing friend. It seems, at first glance anyway, to be a crime novel that's not just about the crime.

Those are my favorite kind and I'm looking forward to starting it next week.

Anyone out there read Black before?

The Playboy Club

2011-06-22T10:51:00.003-05:00

The obvious inspiration from Mad Men.

NBC has been running a trailer for a new fall show called The Playboy Club. Set in Chicago during the early 1960s, it centers on the employees of, you guessed it, The Playboy Club. It vibes Mad Men—slick hair, thin ties, neat suits, drinks, cigarettes, coifed girls. A vibe even more blatant thanks to the Mad Men episode that featured the New York Playboy Club and introed Lane Price’s “chocolate bunny”— a plot that just sort of trailed away (Mad Men always lets the racial plotlines peter out). NBC’s teaser trailer suggests big money, easy cash, murder, girls in skimpy outfits and illicit sex—as tawdry as network television can get away with.

NBC is desperate to try to recapture viewers after the Leno debacle and this makes it clear. It’s like they’re screaming—

“Look! It’s like Mad Men!”

“There are hot girls in skimpy outfits! Bunny outfits!”

“Look! It’s different than Mad Men! There’s crime! Maybe even murder!”

I realize I haven’t actually seen the show yet, but it irks me. Not for being tawdry or even being connected to a “porno” mag. Not even for how blatantly it’s attempting to draw the audience of AMC’s big gun.

This show bothers me for two connected reasons:

It’s blatant advertising for Playboy. I’m certain the use of the club was approved by Heffner and all scripts will be screened by Playboy Execs just like the scripts to their so-called “reality show,” The Girls Next Door. As desperate as NBC is for viewers, Heffner is more desperate to keep his over-priced and dull magazine featuring his decades long obsession with young blonde girls relevant in a society that now has naked women at their fingertips thanks to the world's largest porno-emporium—the internet.
It’s not going to deal in any way, shape, or form with what it was really like to work at a Playboy Club (see 1).

I think it’s sad when corporate ass-kissing dictates entertainment—not just sad, it pisses me off. Am I the only one who ever read Gloria Steinem’s article “I Was A Playboy Bunny”?

If you haven’t, you should. You’ll quickly see what I’m referring to. Regrettably, I couldn’t find the article online, so, I’ll settle for this excerpt from Gloria Steinem: A Biography by Patricia Cronin Marcello, “…she wrote in diary form that her feet ached like rotten teeth and were swollen so much that she could not get her shoes on. Each night that she served her own station, she traveled between tables and bar 16 times an hour on average, and on the first night alone had had three drinks spilled down her back. She had lost 10 pounds and was paid for the nights she had waited a station, but not for her work in the checkroom, as the club considered that part of her unpaid training. Her first week’s wages amounted to $35.90 after taxes.”

$35.90 after taxes? There’s some glamour for you and that’s just the dull, working grind part of it. For a glimpse at the misogyny, the racism and the unfair treatment, look at this youtube clip as Steinem recalls her experiences.

Now, go read, the Bunny Manual for a detailed explanation of how the club ran your life if you were “good enough” to be chosen as a Bunny.

Okay, finished?

Now, go to your local library and check out a copy of Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions to read the full text of what she went through when she worked for Playboy.

Does this look like a "drama" to you?

I doubt we’ll see any of that in this so-called “period drama confronting society’s changing sexuality” — usually bullshit tv code for soap operaesque affairs, sexy lipstick lesbians, and maybe some hot swingers. It’s a shame because I think it would be fairly easy to keep this same premise and truly deal with some things like sexuality, actual changing societal norms, misogyny, and racism while still managing to be entertaining.

There is a place for pure fun and escapism, for lite fair. That’s fine. I do like that too; I really do. There’s nothing wrong with watching some hot people do bad things. I just find it abhorrent when you knowing turn away from the opportunity for more depth and then don’t even have the nerve to cop to what kind of show your making.

Most of all, I guess, it’s a little disappointing to see another instance of women being reduced to meat. This isn't me being a prude. I'm not afraid of sexuality. (In fact, I think it's just as repulsive that a Salt Lake City affiliate of NBC is refusing to air the show because of its "sexual content" — not the type of sexual content, mind you, but sexual content in general.) I don't think a woman has to pretend she's not an attractive and sexual being to be a "strong woman." I just think our portrait of women in entertainment has been very piss-poor of late with the prevalence of reality shows. Those programs not only aggrandize the worst in human behaviors, but they giving an entire generation the idea that women are either drunk, dumb whores or manipulative, dumb whores, I'd like to see some strong, female characters on television; vibrant women in charge of their lives and their bodies and their sexuality.

Full Gallop

2011-06-20T11:54:00.000-05:00

The winning stories in this year's Watery Grave Invitational have all been posted now:

To read mine, go here

To read Eric Beetner's 2nd place story, go here

To read Chris La Tray's 1st place story, go here

Again, for a full list of entries, go here

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Also, today, you can find my contribution to Patti Abbott's How I Came To Write This Story series. I tell you more than you ever wanted to know about how I came up with the idea behind "Six Bullets For John Carter." If you're interested, you can find that here.

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Watery Grave Invitational Winners

2011-06-19T08:45:00.001-05:00

The Watery Grave Invitational Winners were announced today.

The Winners

Congrats to Chris and Eric on first and second place. I managed third for the second year in a row. I am, if nothing else, consistent.

Blue World

2011-06-17T12:07:00.000-05:00

See what I mean?

I’ve been re-reading Robert McCammon’s Blue World. It collects twelve short stories and a lengthy novella for which the collection is named. It’s not even close to compiling all his short works, but what it lacks in quantity, it makes up for in quality, representing the amazing breadth of his fiction. Sure, there’s some horror standards here and a couple of straightforward terror tales, but McCammon’s ability to write engaging introspection and tap into our shared human experience elevates even his most trite plots.

However, the true standouts are when he abandons familiar horror territory and finds his own path.

“Nightcrawlers” opens in rural Alabama during a raging thunderstorm. A Vietnam Vet stops at a roadside diner for a few moments of shelter and a cup of coffee to keep him awake. Staying awake is very important. Bad things happen when he falls asleep—terrible and unbelievable things.

“Chico” is a sad tale of a special needs child’s quiet revenge against his mother’s boyfriend, the latest in a string of abusers.

“Night Calls The Green Falcon” is an adventure story broken into ten chapters, each with a daring cliffhanger. Years ago, Cray Flint was an all-star athlete recruited by the Hollywood serials to play a masked avenger named The Green Falcon. Now, he’s a nobody, a has-been who lives in a flophouse. His only friend is the young girl next door, a runaway who prostitutes herself to feed her drug addiction. When he witnesses her murder, he knows no one else will care about her death. Cray does the only thing he can think of—he dons his faded costume and sets out into the heart of the crime-ridden city to find her killer.

“Blue World” is a character-driven, crime thriller. Father John Lancaster understood life and his place in it until a porn star came to his confessional. Lancaster falls in love with the tragic beauty and to save her from a deranged killer intent on carving her up, he must battle his baser desires and descend into world darker than he ever imagined.

There’s some good stuff here and some great stuff. My only complaint about the book is the cover: a full moon and clouds above a cemetery, ugly grave stones, and a gargoyle statue come to life. The title and author are written in spoooooky script. Everything is tinged blue and the gargoyle looks like a deformed midget.

It's a shame. I hope it doesn't turn you off from giving the collection a try if you've never read McCammon. I'm not certain whether it's still in print, but I would be surprised if it wasn't readily available on the cheap from somewhere like Amazon. If nothing else, you can visit his website: http://www.robertmccammon.com/. There you can read both "Nightcrawlers" and "Night Calls The Green Falcon" for free.

Fear and Old Friends

2011-06-14T23:05:00.002-05:00

Until a couple of months ago, I was a voracious reader who devoured up to two novels a week. Recently, I’ve been lucky to eek out a book a month. There’s just too much going on. Some of it, I’ve talked about. Some of it, I haven’t. Some of it, I can’t. All of it, however, has left me tired and with very little free time. The extra grains I wring from the hourglass go to either writing or sleep.

I have a confession to make. I actually don’t buy a lot of brand-new books. I don’t. I think they’re too expensive in pretty much every format. The only new books I buy are from authors I know I like. Instead, for new fiction I rely on the library.

The problem is—I’ve had to return things before getting to finish them or I’ve kept them out too long. Both of which make me feel bad. It’s silly, I know, but it’s the way it is. Part of it is my over-developed sense of fairness—which often gets me in trouble. Another part of it is just the nature of suffering. I'll skip a large part of the Buddhist philosophying and just focus on the role of fear. Krishnamurti said,

"Fear is always in relation to something; it does not exist by itself. There is fear of what happened yesterday in relation to the possibility of its repetition tomorrow; there is always a fixed point from which relationship takes place. How does fear come into this? I had pain yesterday; there is the memory of it and I do not want it again tomorrow."

Fear of the other things I've been going through was turning something that should be no big deal into another source of stress. I should recognize that my reading slowing down was nothing to worry about. It wasn't indictative of anything other than a lack of time and being tired. It too, like everything else, is transient.

Sometimes it's easier said than done. Since I have absolutely no control over either Maria's health or my job stress, I decided to exercise control over this. To combat it, to regain control of my thoughts, I decided not to pick up anything new from the library. I own a ton of books. These are books I know I like, that I’ll enjoy reading again, and won’t have to finish or return by a certain date.

Stress eliminated.

The question was—what do I read?

I scanned my shelves. That’s when I remembered Robert McCammon.

Robert McCammon

I don’t know if you do. McCammon was a part of the horror boom that gave us Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Clive Barker, and a host of others now mostly forgotten now. McCammon’s first horror novel, Baal, was published in 1978. It sold well and he followed it up with two more books, both written and published in 1980—The Night Boat and Bethany’s Sin. Those three set him off on a very successful career.

McCammon was always my favorite from that period. His fiction always felt far more human and genuine than the aw-shucks act King drags out over hundreds of bloated pages; not to mention, he’s a much better plotter. His Bram Stoker winning novel, Swan Song, is often compared to The Stand, but McCammon's is a better book. Both the good and the evil feel far more real than King's heroes and villains. Plus, there's no literal hand of God coming down to save the day.

I realized a long time ago that Koontz just keeps confronting the same theme over and over again with the same characters dressed in new skins. His attempts at nostalgia and introspection, at all those big things literary fiction attempts to claim as its sole possession (love, hope, loyalty, despair, death, regret), don’t compare to the briefest of McCammon’s genuinely moving passages.

And Barker? While Barker is capable of works of stunning and imaginative brilliance, he’s also capable of writing some dull and long-winded, pseudo-intellectual garbage that’s about as appealing as giving yourself papercuts on your tongue before drinking fresh-squeezed lemonade. McCammon’s never written a bad book. Not all of them are brilliant, but none of them are bad.

The extraordinary thing about McCammon, besides writing and publishing two well-written horror novels in a year, was that his first book published was the first book he ever wrote. (Take a minute to let that sink in—the first book he ever wrote was the first book he ever published. No trunk full of failed attempts. No boxes of rejected manuscripts. He decided to write a book and it was published—done deal.) If you read those first four books you can see him figuring out how to focus his raw talent…while getting paid.

Yeah, I know.

The sad thing is talent proved to be his downfall.

You see, as McCammon learned to control and focus those gifts, his work drifted away from straight horror. I would never call Mine a horror novel, even though I remember it being billed as one. Boy’s Life (one of my all time favorites and a book that every father should read to his son) is a genre onto itself—unless Dandelion Wine is a genre. In 1992, after the publication of Gone South, McCammon fully turned his attention to something different. He began researching and writing a lengthy historical mystery called Speaks The Nightbird. It should have been his best book to date, instead it was the first book no one wanted. He was supposed to be the horror guy. The horror guy shouldn’t be writing historical mysteries set during Colonial times.

So, that was it. He retired. He was done with being told what he should be writing. It’s my understanding, too, he was exhausted and burned out. He missed spending time with friends and, most importantly of all, his family. McCammon wanted to assume a more active role in raising his daughter.

Thankfully, it wasn’t forever. Almost ten years after he wrote it, Speaks the Nightbird finally saw publication; first in limited edition, then in a larger mass-market run. It sold well. Well enough there is now a series featuring Matthew Corbett, apprentice problem solver in Colonial America.

The Corbett books are good. Like I said, McCammon hasn’t written a bad book ever; they’re just not my thing. I can’t say there's anything wrong about them. I can’t. I just don’t really care for that sort of fiction. If you like richly detailed, character-driven historical mysteries than you need to go read them.

He's back now and last month, McCammon released a modern novel, The Five. But I don't need to worry about that now. I've got Baal, The Night Boat, Bethany's Sin, Mystery Walk, Usher's Passing, Swan Song, Stinger, The Wolf's Hour, Blue World, Mine, Boy's Life, and Gone South. They're old friends. And old friends never let you down.

Crime Factory: The First Shift

2011-06-09T05:42:00.000-05:00

I'm in this.

Looking forward to this finally hitting the shelves.

Though it's been a long time since I wrote or read "The Method." Hopefully, it's not too embarassing.

Ideas Are Like Girls

2011-06-08T12:41:00.003-05:00

These girls are catty.

Just got back from my lunch break.

What I do is: I cut through the alley across the street from People's Park, stop in the little co-op grocery store that hides back there, and head over to the Public Library. There's some stone benches in the northeast corner with a decent amount of shade, depending on the time of day. I camp out, eat, read, smoke a cigarette (I'll quit soon I promise—it's the one vice I have left) and attempt to unclutter the brain mess.

After finishing and sending off my entry for the Watery Grave Invitational, I quickly went back to work on two pieces I had started just prior. Alternating between the two has worked out well so far. I hit a wall on one and I jump to the other. I've been producing a decent word count on something every day without getting bogged down in my own headspace, angsting about word choice, plot points, or structure.

The problem hit yesterday. I was mulling some things over and smack-boom-bang—a brand-spanking new idea!

It's a good idea. It's clever. It offers some mileage and I think more than a little bit of originality. I'm excited about starting work on it, but I'm already working on something—two somethings—and I'm resisting the urge to jump ship and hop on board the shiny, new one.

It's hard.

Does this happen to you? To everybody? And if so, why?

Why are ideas like girls? You like them. You want them around even if you don't really know what to do with them. You certaintly don't understand them and, worst of all, they don't want anything to do with you until they see you with another one.

Stalled

2011-06-07T08:32:00.002-05:00

I’m certain we all have stalled pieces. Stories that never went anywhere. Unfinished novellas. Maybe two or three first acts of a novel. You know what I’m talking about—those great ideas you could never get to gel no matter how hard you tried and how many times you wrote and rewrote.

Do they ever go anywhere? For you, I mean. Has anyone ever gone back to one of those promising but unfortunate false starts and picked it up again and started writing and everything just clicks and you’re thinking, Holy shit, why didn’t I think of this the first time?

This morning I was paging through the file folder where I keep all the stillborns. I read a couple here and there (they still frustrate) and it occurred to me—I don’t think I ever have gone back to one of these successfully. I couldn't think of a single thing I’ve consigned to that region of hard drive hell that's ever made it back out for another breath. I usually chalk it up to my own inexperience; the idea is great but I’m just not the writer I need to be to pull it off successfully—yet.

Now I wonder if maybe it’s not that at all, if some things just never come to fruitition.

Excerpts From A Fractured Mind

2011-06-03T14:44:00.001-05:00

For better or for worse, my Watery Grave Invitational story, went out today after a final read through. We'll see what happens. I have mixed feelings about it, honestly. I usually do about pretty much everything I write, so that's nothing new.

However, what really struck me this time as I waited for that little attachment bar is how strange it actually feels when you send something out. I'd never really thought about it before. All these conflicting emotions: excitement, fear, pride, relief, apathy, worry...

It's one of those moments I don't think they really talk about in creative writing courses or how-to books.

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Anyone else think China "not" hacking Google has anything do with all the problems people have had with Blogger and Gmail?

__________________________________________________

I really appreciate everyone's thoughts and well wishes on yesterday's post. I do, I really do. I don't share those type of things often. Despite being here on Blogger, over on Facebook, and showing up on Twitter, I've really never been a social butterfly. I tend to keep things to myself.

But, at the risk of starting a trend or giving away too much of my politics/religion/philosophy/code--it's nice to be reminded that we are, in fact, all in this together.

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A Noiseless Patient Spider
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

A NOISELESS, patient spider,
I mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;
Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;
Ever unreeling them—ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you, O my Soul, where you stand,
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,—seeking the spheres, to connect them;
Till the bridge you will need, be form’d—till the ductile anchor hold;
Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul.

A Personal Post

2011-06-02T13:28:00.003-05:00

My wife is blind in her left eye.

She’s been that way since she was a little girl when she lost her sight due to an illness. The procedure to save the eye itself left the pupil misshapen. I don’t think you notice it unless you look close. Even then the difference is so slight most people just think she has really interesting eyes.

I still do and I know the truth.

About two years ago, she started having terrible headaches. The headaches were centered on her left eye. Eventually the eye began to hurt. We went to see a specialist in Bloomington. He examined her, ran a number of tests and discovered the pressure was off the charts. High enough that if it kept rising her eye would burst. The doctor prescribed a retinue of eye drops and referred us to another specialist in Indianapolis.

It was expensive. We didn’t have insurance. At the job I had, insurance was so cost prohibitive that I would have been working just to pay for it. I didn’t care about the money though. I just wanted my wife to be healthy.

Finally, after more visits and more tests and even more eye drops, her pressure finally came down. Along the way, we discovered why she had lost her sight in her left eye. Both her parents are dead, have been for some time, so we never knew the culprit. Turns out, her mother gave her an infection in the womb that eventually attacked her eye.

For some time now, she’s been okay. She sees the specialist in Bloomington several times a year to ensure the pressure doesn’t get out of hand. I have another job now, a better job, one with insurance I can actually afford. The cost is not longer a burden.

Everything was fine until a month ago.

Her right eye, her good eye, the one with sight, began to hurt. Then it was headaches and feeling dizzy a lot. Finally, came the floaters—little swirling motes of black that blurred her vision.

The Bloomington doctor got her in quick, ran a host of tests and couldn’t find a cause.

Back to the specialist in Indy. He examined her good eye and he couldn’t find anything wrong. He couldn’t discern a single reason for this eye to sudden start troubling her. He suspected a return of the original infection, but prescribed a whole range of new tests for her to have done at the hospital.

I’d never heard of most of them. Apparently, the hospital hadn’t either. They had to look them up before beginning the blood work and running the scans.

The worst part was the waiting. For some things, I have the patience of Job. I shit you not. I can wait out almost anything with a calmness that’s often alarming. But this? Waiting on tests results to come back? This was a fucking nightmare.

Last week, my wife called me in tears. The doctor had called. The results had come back. She tested positive for some form of Vasculitis. Now that he knew what to look for, the specialist scheduled a follow-up appointment for this week.

On Tuesday, I worked a half-day and drove her up to Indy. They took her eye pressure and injected her with a dye so they could look at the entire eyescape in detail. Thankfully, her eye appears to be healing. He couldn’t see any lasting damage or anything that would require surgery. She’s to continue her current prescriptions for the next 6 weeks and then follow-up with her doctor here in town.

The bad news is that the most likely culprit is Behcet’s disease. Sometimes referred to as “The Silk Road Disease” due to its prevalence in areas surrounding the ancient trade routes and its rarity here in the United States, it carries a whole host of terrible symptoms she has not experienced. We won't know if she will until she’s able to see the rheumatologist.

My wife has been devastated. She’s frightened and scared. She’s afraid of becoming very sick. She’s afraid of hurting. She’s afraid of dying.

Last night she was mad at me. She didn’t think I was taking this seriously. She didn’t think I was worried. She didn’t think I was scared.

But I am.

Research

2011-05-31T10:56:00.000-05:00

Does anyone else do research for their fiction? And if so, how much?

I seem to do it an awfully lot and it ends up being both a blessing and a burden. I think the blessings are pretty obvious: flavor, historical facts, realism, a source of new ideas, and putting me in the right headspace. But it's so easy to get bogged down and allow your "research time" to turn into days wasted bouncing around the Internet. Once those days build up, for me as my worst critic and chief naysayer, they become a convenient excuse for not writing.

Or is it just me? If not, then how do you deal with it.

What I'm Working On

2011-05-16T20:59:00.002-05:00

My entry for the Watery Grave Invitational.

Another sci-fi/noir mash-up set in the same world as "Six Bullets For John Carter." This one is called, "The Silence of Untranslated Stars." It's slow going.

A Western tale called, "The Plum Thicket." Really hoping David Cranmer will take a look at this one when I'm done. Dialogue feels off to me right now--trying to go from realism but not stray into Deadwood territory (you know, Shakespeare if he coined the word cocksucker)

And Shane Stevens edits. Endless Stevens edits. That's the thing that worries about someday doing this for a living and getting paid. I don't know how you could ever manage to look at your work when it's finally done and printed without wanting to put a pencil through your left eye....

Gun Mantra...

2011-05-09T08:55:00.000-05:00

Shotgun Honey has been publishing some first-rate fiction since it burst onto the scene a couple of months ago. I'm honored to now have one of my own stories hosted there. "Gun Manta" is probably one of the quickest and easiest bits of fiction I've ever written; hopefully, it doesn't show. I have a love/hate relationship with flash. It's not my favorite format--at all. But I'm very proud of this story and I don't think it'll be the last appearance of the unnamed Inspector with the tattoo of Ganesha on his hand.

***

My Shane Stevens piece is undergoing edits and running into some hang-ups. As it stands now, the piece clocks in at 33k. Not exactly a size condusive to easy printing. With the extraordinary help of Matthew Funk, we've cut it done to a one issue version at just a little over 5K. It works (which I attribute to Funkster's skill), but it's fucking painful to look at. Really fucking painful. So, I'm not sure what the final form will be, but for those who are interested, I plan on keeping you posted. Meanwhile, my internal debate on whether or not to start a Shane Stevens Facebook group continues.

Tornado Relief Flash Fiction Challenge: Have You Ever Seen The Rain?

2011-05-06T15:40:00.001-05:00

A week ago, Daniel O'Shea offered a flash fiction challenge. A 1,000 word story with rain playing a pivotal role in the narrative.

But there's more.

For every entry, O'Shea will donate $5 to The Red Cross. A Lincoln to help out those devasted by the recent tornados.

So, here's mine.

Smart Girl

You have to understand—she’s a smart girl.

She doesn’t see the boy she met yesterday, the first day it stopped raining. Unfortunately, enough daylight remained to steam the air to a sick swelter as college students swelled the streets. Nightfall, when it came, offered no relief from heat and eager crowds.

It was the first night she had really been out, but she didn’t make it long. It was too much—too loud, too packed, too hot, and too…gross. The few hours before she decided to walk back, she spent wondering why she bothered. Graduation was only months away. This money could’ve taken her to Europe.

When she left the bar, the boy fell in behind her, following her for five blocks in an uncomfortable coincidence of direction and pacing that seemed like stalking until he said, “I’m really not following you, I swear.” She looked back and he smiled. His front teeth were chipped and had never been fixed.

She liked that.

She thought he was cute, but not too pretty. Funny, but not too mean. Mostly, she liked the way he looked at her. Held her with his eyes—her, not just her tits. She loved the way he talked to her. He was the first guy that didn’t treat her like a carnival game—how many drinks will it take before her legs open! Come one, come all!

When he texted her twenty minutes ago, there was no question. Didn’t matter that it was raining again, that she thought she might be getting a summer cold, that the weather app on her phone kept beeping alerts.

She wanted a moment, an experience, something before life buried her under work and bills and distant unfriendly cities chosen for job rumors. She wanted to meet a boy before everything…settled. She wanted something she could hold inside for the rest of her life no matter how life went. A secret and private moment. A Nicholas Sparks’ moment of romance and longing and even heartbroken separation. She had thought college would give her that.

It hadn’t.

It and this were more Jersey Shore than Jane Eyre.

The wind picks up, wets her hair and whips it across her eyes. The temperature plummets and thunder rumbles, silencing the ocean’s cries as lighting furrows the sky. The rain hurts now. Thick drops that sting like plastic pellets shot by little brothers at big sisters. A chill runs up bare legs. Her feet are cold. She curls toes and presses polish into wet, spongy soles. She wonders if she should go back. She’s smarter than this.

She is, just not right now as she brushes damp hair from her mouth and thumbs her phone open to text, “wru@?”

A moment and then response. She wipes the screen clear and reads before it blurs: “undR lyfgard st8N.” She steps off the boardwalk and walks, head down, straight for the lifeguard shack and into the rain and the storm coming off the ocean.

Soaked and cold, she sits next to him in the damp sand. She touches his arm. His clothes are wet and thin. Her tummy feels warm. Her toes tingle as he looks at her and his eyes are night and darkness and storm. “It’s cold,” she says, not knowing what else to say and suddenly fearful she’s doing something silly with her mouth, she adds, too quickly, “Is this safe?”

“I think I did something wrong.”

“What?”

“I think I might have killed someone.” His words stab and confuse. She almost says what even though she heard him perfectly. She starts to feel sick and incredibly small and alone sitting next to him, under the lifeguard station and in the middle of a storm, but he says, “Earlier…” That one word, the way he pauses, licks his lips and swallows like there’s something there that doesn’t want to go down, stops her. Stills her thoughts.

He continues, “I was heading over to your motel. I didn’t know if you were home or would want to see me or anything. But I thought I would stop by and maybe take the chance because I wanted to see you again and I had been thinking about you all night and through most of the day. I would have dreamed about you, but I don’t dream. At least I don’t remember them if I do, but if I did I think I would have dreamt you.”

What he said a few seconds ago—I think I might have killed someone—is gone.

“I was walking that way to your place. I saw them. A guy and a girl. Chick was trashed. Already. This early and she’s plowed. Couldn’t stand. Head rolling. Eyes glazed. Dude holding her, man…I could see he didn’t fucking know her. You know when it’s someone you know, you hold them differently.”

“Totally,” she says and in her head it comes out, kiss me.

“So, I said something to him, right. Cause as I’m walking by I could have swore he said something awful about her. I…don’t really know what happened from there. It was all just so fast. He said something to me. Go fuck myself or something. And I said something back. I hit him. I think—I think he fell and hit his head. Hard. There was a lot of blood.”

“Where.”

“Over there.” He points through the cross-hatching of beams and it’s nothing but black wind and cold rain. “I don’t know what to do,” he tells her.

She looks into his eyes and then kisses him. He lips are soft and wet.

“I don’t know what to do,” he says again when she stops.

“The ocean is right there.” A rope of saliva stretches between their lips like a spider’s web.
“Okay,” he says.

She kisses him again before they climb from under the shack and into the storm, because things like this? They don’t have anything to do with smarts.

Shane Stevens Saturday: A Final Question

2011-04-30T09:07:00.007-05:00

Originally, I had thought to do these posts on Shane Stevens until my critical/investigative work actually saw print. However, I think this will be my last post for a long while.

Shane Stevens has long been an influence on my own writing. Researching his life, re-reading his work with a critical eye, and preparing my article have deepened that influence. I believe his novels stand as a testament to the true strength of crime fiction as a genre with a purpose and a voice, not merely entertainment and a celebration of the worst humanity has to offer. In his novels, Stevens confronted rascism, poverty, greed, inequality and injustice. Like Warren Ellis recently said, crime fiction is social fiction.

Or, at least it should be.

Remembering this has empowered my own writing. You see, for the longest time, when I wrote it was only under artistic pretensions. I started getting somewhere when I finally put those aside, told the muse to go fuck herself, and hit this thing hard like it was work. And writing is work. It takes thought and it takes time and it takes effort

But re-reading Shane Stevens, it reminded me that writing is, also, art. Art must confront. Art must challenge. Otherwise, all this is just typing.

All of which, has made Stevens' neglect all the more difficult to stomach.

I wrote my piece on Stevens in the hope it might encourage people to seek out his work. He deserves to be remembered as more than, "that guy Stephen King talked about in The Dark Half." With the explosion of e-books, Stevens could easily undergo a literary resurrection without fear of anyone loosing money on a costly print-run. But I think for that to happen, there has to be a great deal more awareness of the man--which is why I’ve been toying around with the idea of starting a Facebook group dedicated to his work. A place where fans could gather. A place to discuss his work. A place of discovery.

When I was researching Stevens, it quickly became clear to me that the true source of information on the man and his life would have to come from actual people. I spent a lot of my research time attempting to track down people who knew him, people who remembered him. There just isn't anything else out there. Time is too great of an enemy. A Facebook group/fan page could unearth more details. A Facebook group/fan page could bring the people to me, to us, the fans, instead of trying to find them.

What do you think?

Is it worth it?

I honestly don't know and I honestly don't know if I want to dedicate more of my time to this. Sure, I would like to come back to researching Stevens someday, when I'm backed by cash and time. Stevens is important to me, to my writing. I owe him a debt for the entertainment, I owe him a debt for reminding me what the purpose of crime fiction is. What the purpose of an artist is. I can actually say something in my writing. I think the only way I can repay that is by forging ahead in my own way because it is my writing. I sort of feel like I need to move on. That I need to take the inspiration he's given me and run with it.

Love The Wrong Way

2011-04-23T12:41:00.000-05:00

Since my wife is such a big fan, we streamed an Adrien Brody movie neither one of us had ever seen. Love The Hard Way is a little-known indie that sat on the shelf for a couple years until Brody won his Oscar.

We almost didn’t make it very far. We’ve never had a complaint about anything we’ve watched through Netflix until this film. The audio was fucking awful. A far-off whisper until I cranked the volume up to about 50.

But we persevered. After Hollywoodland, Adrien Brody in a crime drama was enough for both of us to see it through.

In the film, Brody plays Jack, a chain-smoking hustler who secretly wants to be a writer. Jack and his roommate, Charlie, run an illegal betting operation for college students, but score real cash with the help of two “actresses” and a front desk man who looks like a reject from a Bauhaus video. As a group, they run a badger game scheme out of a fancy hotel downtown. The two roommates dress as cops to blackmail businessmen before the "actresses" actually have to put out.

Charlotte Ayanna plays Claire, a pretty young college student from a small town in Maine. She’s a smart girl who's studying to be a scientist. She meets Jack at her part-time job and then, later, on campus when he’s collecting vig from her boyfriend's buddy. Jack convinces her to meet him at the Staten Island Ferry.

She does. They hit a nice restaurant. He flirts. She flirts back and falls for him even though Jack warns her. He’s bad, you see. He only likes things that give him kicks. He’ll just hurt her…

Now, up to this point, I’m digging the movie even if it’s a little rough. Some groan bits of dialogue. Overly staged blocking. Self-consciously arty shots now and again. But in spite of that, there are some flashes of brilliance.

Mostly, the power comes from the two leads. Sure, Brody’s character comes off more as a smug, young prick rather than a weary, streetwise hood but it works. Along with his secret room in a storage unit, it helps contribute to the idea that maybe there is something real underneath the pleather snakeskin jacket. Brody has enough charisma to power through some of the awful bits of dialogue. He manages menace fairly well. And, honestly, I don't think there's an actor around who can emote anguish and sorrow the way he can. As my wife says, no one cries on screen like Brody.

Charlotte Ayanna is just painfully pretty and fresh-faced and unconsciously sexy. Next to Brody’s tall, thin frame, she looks tiny. She manages to convey innocence beautifully with an almost purposeful naivete. Together, her and Brody have some amazing chemistry. Their moments of intimacy manage to be both touching and sexy without feeling vulgar.

Wonderful things can be done with very simple plots, with very familiar plots. It’s easy to forget that. I know, as a writer, for a long time I thought "stunning" and "memorable" required complexity. Intricacies upon intricacies. It doesn't. The things which carry punch are the simple things. The things like love and hate and regret and sorrow and betrayal. The things we all know. Everything else is just window-dressing.

Besides, believe it or not, I’m a fucking sucker for a love story. For a boy meets girl story. I wanted to know what happened. How did this version play out? I knew pain was coming. I was prepared for it. I knew Jack and Claire wouldn’t have an easy time.

The sad thing is? When it came? That's when the film lost me…

So, Claire returns early from a trip to another university and catches Jack in bed with one of the badger game girls. Claire has a breakdown. Jack tells her not to cry, that he “doesn’t deserve tears.”

She leaves. Wanders the streets. Gets mistaken for a prostitute by a man on the street. So, what does she do? She lets him fuck her—bareback—for $50 bucks.

Riiiight.

Then she goes and sees the Bauhaus clerk. Asks for a place to stay and tells him she wants in on the badger game scam. Of course, the next scene is Jack and Charlie in their cop uniforms busting into a new motel room only to find Claire riding some fat, old dude.

Riiight.

But it doesn't end there. It keeps spiraling straight down the gutter. Character inconsistencies. Contrived plot points. Forced actions. Confusing behavior. And just all around nastiness until it careens to a ridiculous, bullshit, pseudo-intellectual ending full of ridiculous dialogue and exposition.

Here's the thing--there's nothing wrong with grit. There's nothing wrong with dark. But there has to be something else there. The grit has to come with a purpose, with a fucking meaning. Because I have news for you, okay? Simply piling on heinous action after heinous action? It accomplishes nothing.

You got that?

Nothing.

"Grit" alone does not automatically equal depth.

Ever.

Shane Stevens Saturday: Privacy and The Writer

2011-04-23T08:33:00.000-05:00

The one thing that can't be disputed about Shane Stevens is that he is a private man.

I think that's a difficult idea to process. We live in a different world now. Today, information on anyone is much easier to find. Not so in Stevens day. You could go through life without leaving much of a trace. And when you combine that period with someone who is as naturally secretive as Stevens, you get...nothing. You get his meager Wikipedia entry.

Yet, beyond how our world has changed, the writing game has shifted. The nature of the industry now seems to require every writer, whether established or just beginning, to be on Facebook and Twitter, maintain a blog, sign fans up for their mail list and hold contests.

Shane Stevens didn't have to do any of that. At all.

Is this a good thing?

I mean, for us, as writers? Wouldn't we all be writing more if we didn't have to do this? Does are visibility make it more difficult to separate the writer from the writer's work?

And what about a writer like Shane Stevens? A man who values his privacy beyond anything else? How would he make it today? Could he?

Dispatches from a Dead Brain

2011-04-21T10:45:00.001-05:00

We’ve had one less person at work. I’ve being doing the job of two people during one of the busiest times of the year. For months now, I’ve been working on my investigative/critical piece on forgotten author, Shane Stevens. I finished it up a couple of weeks ago and it’s currently being looked over by someone whose opinion I value.

Consequently, my brain has been fried. I’m lucky I still remember how to type. I fully expect my brain to remain offline for the next couple of weeks. But I plan on going do swinging until April dies the death it deserves.

So, updates—

Head over to Spinetingler where I’m featured as part of their Conversations with the Bookless series. I probably run my mouth too much, but I believe everything I say and at least I'm saying something.

Shotgun Honey has only been around for a couple of weeks, but they’ve burst on the scene with the force of an 8-gauge blowing through clapboard. In a couple weeks my own voice will add to the boom.

In roughly two months, The Crime Factory print anthology will appear and remind everyone again why Keith, Cameron, and Liam kick so much ass.

Shane Stevens Saturday: Author Photo

2011-04-09T06:37:00.002-05:00

There is only one thing that's harder to find than information on Shane Stevens.

His photograph.

And I have one.

John Legg wrote a book almost 15 years ago called Collecting Shane Stevens. The slim volume included a tad bit of biographical info and a short bibliography while focusing on tips and ideas, pre-Amazon and internet explosion, for collecting copies of Shane Stevens' novels. I spoke to Legg and he sent me a scan of the author photo from the back cover of the hardback printing of Way Uptown In Another World.

That photo was taken by a man called Alan Caruba. I spoke to Caruba and obtained his permission to include the photo with my own article.

When it appears, you'll finally see a photograph of the most elusive man in crime fiction.

Faster

2011-04-08T18:42:00.006-05:00

A botched bank job gets his brother killed and the Driver thrown into prison. For the last ten years he's planned his revenge. On the day of his release, he foots it to a junkyard where a car and a gun are waiting for him. He hits the road in fifth gear, ready to make the crew that murdered his brother pay in blood.

Two men follow. One a junkie cop hoping to fumble his way through the case and into retirement. The other an unbalanced hit man with his therapist on speed dial. They chase the trail of bodies and burnt rubber as the Driver unravels the mystery of who set him up.

Faster is almost a perfect piece of hardboiled noir. It's beautifully paced. Plot constantly moving forward. Revealing bits of backstory and new clues to the doublecross with no wasted movement or dialogue. The film strikes a very nice balance between gritty realism and Hollywood escapism with very little of the over-the-top frills most audiences have come to expect.

The cast is good. Carla Gugino makes the most of a lightweight role. I didn't recognize Moon Bloodgood as Billy Bob's ex-wife. Thornton is perfect as the burned out Cop giving it one last shot. But the real standout is Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. He dominates the screen from that first opening shot of Driver pacing in his cell like a caged animal ready to explode with vicious violence. Johnson moves through the film without just relying on his imposing, physical presence. He invests Driver with a sense of sadness and regret, while at the same time conjuring this incredible aura of unstoppable force.

The problem is that the last third of the movie just fizzles. It's like the writers give up. Instead of remaining true to the story, they force an ending of awkward expositions and unfulfilling resolutions--all to hammer home a half-assed theme of redemption that I don't think the rest of the movie supports.

Faster is a film worth watching even with the chump ending. Two-thirds of the movie is brilliant. When The Rock made his transition from the squared circle to the big screen, that two-thirds is what I thought I could look forward to. Instead I got films like The Tooth Fairy. I hope this movie will be a turning point in his career.

Shane Stevens Saturday: Ellery Queen

2011-04-02T08:42:00.000-05:00

Shane Stevens didn't write very many short stories. He limited his shorter works to nonfiction pieces, essays, and book reviews. However, I do know of one short story publication I desperately wish I could find since it's a surprising one.

The February 1969 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine includes a rare short by Stevens. It's a story called "The Final Adventure" and it's about Sherlock Holmes.

That's right, Shane Stevens wrote a Sherlock Holmes story.

Of course, he wrote it on his own terms. An issue of The Baker Street Journal called Shane's Holmes pastiche, "sacrilegious and rather gruesome". An impressive feat to accomplish in a mere 5 pages of fiction.

Voting Opens Today

2011-04-01T08:20:00.005-05:00

No relation.

Voting for the Spinetingler Awards opens today.

The categories are all stacked with quality nominations. I voted already, first thing is the morning. I had a hard time deciding...well, except for one category.

The Spinetingler Awards

Shane Stevens Saturday: In the City

2011-03-26T10:55:00.001-05:00

Shane Stevens' novels were all published from the mid 60s through the late 80s (the J.W. Rider books). In my piece on Stevens I quote a good deal from his letters. Much like with the opening dedication of his second novel, Way Uptown in Another World, Stevens speaks a lot about the violence happened all around him. This obviously had an affect on his work, on his opinions of the world, and his own behavior. It's easy to dismiss all of those words as just being posturing or exaggeration or, worst of all, just a reference to his time in Harlem.

But it's not.

For those of us from my generation, it's difficult, I think, to put the time that Stevens was writing into perspective. I know I wasn't alive then. However, I think it's important to be aware of what was going and it's something I didn't really have the space to go into with as much detail as I would have liked in my piece.

The Vietnam War was underway, giving birth to the radical actions of The Weathermen. City streets flooded with flower children looking for meaning beyond their own suburban lives. The inner cities saw an explosion of drug use, first heroin and then, as we moved into the 80s, crack cocaine. The Civil Rights movement fanned the flames of already strained racial tensions; not only from the more passive resistance of Dr. King and his followers but the leftist and militant factions that made up The Black Panthers and The Black Liberation Army (most famous for their Brinks Robbery and the shootout with State Troopers on the New Jersey Turnpike). The Son of Sam stalked lover's lanes. The corrupt actions of police officers led to the Supreme Court's Miranda Rights decision while the Knapp Commission investigation sent shock waves through the NYPD.

Right in the middle of it all, lived Shane Stevens.

For a greater understanding of Shane Stevens' New York and what was going on, you might check out The Savage City, the most recent book from the always excellent T.J. English

Short Story on the Web Nominees

2011-03-24T08:21:00.000-05:00

For me writing is a solitary sort of madness...

However, regardless of my own imbalances, it does my misanthropic little heart good to get some recognition--especially when that recognition comes alongside such an extraordinary list of my peers whose work I constantly admire:

Spinetingler Award: Short Story on the Web Nominees

Shane Stevens Saturday: The Crime Writer as Political Activist

2011-03-19T10:45:00.001-05:00

On December 3, 1970, The New York Review of Books ran a letter from Shane Stevens in response to an article called "The Dark Night of the Soul." The article was about the Berrigans. The names probably mean nothing to you, but back then Daniel and his brother Phillip were fairly well known. The Berrigans were poets, political activists and priests. They served several terms in jail for their Vietnam protests, helped with the release of the first wave of POWs, napalmed draft records, and spent time on the FBI's Most Wanted.

In Stevens' letter, he addresses the fact that serving time in a federal prison prevents the Berrigans from publishing anything they write during their sentence. Shane closes his letter, "Because so many of us writers today face the possibility of federal imprisonment for exercising our constitutional rights, it becomes mandatory that we have the regulation changed. Father Berrigan is merely the latest to fall victim to this inhuman bit of indecency. There have been many others. There will be many more."

Dashiell Hammett

What's happened to our writers? Especially our crime writers? We owe our hard boiled/noir tradition to Dashiel Hammett, a leftist who willing served jail time for his beliefs. Crime writing should be boldly confronting all the inequalities under which crime itself thrives. Are we shirking our responsibilities? Where is our Writers and Editors War Tax Protest Pledge?

Easy A

2011-03-17T09:03:00.008-05:00

Easy A opens with Olive Penderghast using a fake date with a fake boy to get out of a weekend camping trip with her best friend, Rhiannon, and her weird, hippie, nudist parents. When they return to school, Rhi presses Olive to dish the details. Olive gets carried away with her lie and tells Rhi that she lost her virginity—but it’s not that big of a deal since she doesn’t even plan on seeing the boy again. Unfortunately, all this is overhead by Marianne, the school’s Evangelical zealot and moralizing fascist. The story goes viral and Olive is suddenly the school skank.

Several days later, during a discussion of The Scarlet Letter, one of the Christian girls makes a rude comment in class. Olive’s comeback gets her sent to the principal’s office. During her labor intensive detention she admits to the gay and constantly bullied Brandon that she made the whole thing up.

Olive’s confession gives Brandon an idea that sets up the rest of movie. He’s tired of getting bullied. If Olive will pretend to sleep with him then maybe everyone will leave him alone. She agrees and concocts a hilarious scheme they execute perfectly at a popular girl’s house party.

Again, the story goes viral.

The other kids stop bullying Brandon and start paying Olive attention. For all her intelligence and self-assurance, Olive has never had this much notice before. Not wanting it to end, she starts dressing sexier and wearing a large A on her chest.

Meanwhile, the actual truth of the party sexcapades spreads through the nerd-vine. Soon, every geek, dweeb and high school untouchable beats a path to Olive’s door. They want the Brandon treament and they'll pay for it.

Olive agrees and that's when everything starts to get out of hand...

Easy A was all surprises for me. First and foremost, the film actually has a plot, a plot with acts, a plot with structure, a plot with all those things a plot is supposed to have. And for once, it's not the lazy go-to plot former Saturday Night Live members have beat into the ground and use to frame a series of random and unconnected sketches about the same character—save, stop, finish, win at/for X before X is sold, closed down, moves away, remarries.

It's a genuinely funny film. It relies on dialogue and situational humor without resorting to the crass dick/fart/gross-out idiocy that's dominated comedy for years. There's none of those awkward moments where a bit goes on and on even though it stopped being funny 5 minutes ago and the director should have trimmed it during editing but is too much of a pussy to say anything to Will Ferrell/Mike Myers/Adam Sandler. For once, it was nice to watch something that wasn't nonsensical, farcical or absurdist. Something that didn't reek of the college level aren't-I-so-smart humor of Adult Swim's "original programming" that mostly makes me want to change the channel. You know, I mean those sort of truly unfunny things that Sarah Silverman has based her career around while convinced herself she's actually humorous and that men don't just go to see her just because she's kinda cute and when do cute girls say random things like, "poop" anyway?

Screenwriter Bert V. Royal wrote a film that's modern and timely on one hand, but steeped in the films that I loved as a teenager—Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Can't Buy Me Love, Say Anything, and John Hughes' entire body of work.

The cast is exceptinal. Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson shine. The two of them have maybe 10 minutes of screentime, but are unforgettable as Olive's parents. Even in smaller parts Thomas Hayden Church continues to bury Lowell Mather with solid acting. For once I almost forgot that Lisa Kudrow was on Friends. Malcolm McDowell continues to chew scenery and sleep his way through menace-by-rote, but it's all perfect for a school principal. And, finally, Emma Stone is a dream as Olive. For someone her age, she's incredibly comfortable with both the comedic and the dramatic. She has a wonderful husky voice and exudes an appealing combination of understated cool and overstated dork.

If I were 14, I'd buy copies of Tiger Beat for her.

Easy A isn't a perfect film. For all it's honesty and it's modernity, it stops just sort of satisfyingly confronting some of the big topics it raises: the hypocrisy of religion, the sheer cruelty of high school, our society's twisted issues with sex. Most of all, and this is where it actually disappoints, it pussies out on examining why a smart and self-assured girl would feel so desperate for attention that she'd willingly pretend to be a whore.

But Easy A is the best comedy I've seen in a long time.

Shane Stevens Saturday: The Me Nobody Knows

2011-03-12T08:56:00.000-06:00

I've been able to verify that Shane Stevens wrote two different screenplays for Hollywood. The first was the planned adaptation of the musical The Me Nobody Knows. Essentially a series of connected vignettes about being poor, the musical was itself adapated from an anthology that collected the writings of New York City school children. On one hand, it seems a little strange, even with the subject matter, that Shane Stevens would be writing the screenplay for a musical. On the other, it is called "The Me Nobody Knows."

Finally, as part of the massive deal surrounding By Reason of Insanity, Stevens wrote the screen adaption of his novel for Columbia Pictures. Neither one of the two screenplays were ever produced. I've heard rumors that Stevens did other work in Hollywood, but I've never been able to verify that and, if he did, it must have been uncredited re-writes and polishes of someone else's work.

Kung Fu Factory

2011-03-11T12:56:00.004-06:00

Rina Takeda in the film, High-Kick Girl

The special issue of Crime Factory is now available in print, .pdf, and, as soon as a some technical details are fixed, Kindle format.

As a writer and a martial artist, I was honored to be invited to participate. A couple of weeks ago when I was sent a version for final edits, it blew me away. The roster of writers was impressive. But the finished product is even more astonishing thanks to the quality work put in by Keith, Cameron, and Liam. Crime Factory is obviously a labor of love and it's never been clearer than with this special edition.

So, dig if you will:

From the far East-to-the backwoods of the American Nightmare - Crimefactory Magazine Presents: Kung Fu Factory! Crimefactory's hardest hitting pulpfest to date! Featuring new fiction and features by Christa Faust, Anthony Neil Smith, Frank Bill, Cameron Ashley, Duane Swiercynski, Chad Eagleton, Chris La Tray, Matthew McBride, Liam Jose, Jimmy Callaway, Garnett Elliot, Bryon Quertermous, the Nerd Of Noir, Michael S. Chong, and Joshua Reynolds!

Head over now and check out Kung Fu Factory!

When you finish, let me know what you think of my face-brusing, bone-shattering tale, "Down By The Water". Fans of The Dogfight should be sure not to miss it. My story reveals more about Johnny So Long and his Sayonara Boys while shining light on the longterm effects of Heckler and Doyle's actions.

Shane Stevens Saturday: Acid Trip in the East Village...

2011-03-05T08:59:00.001-06:00

While re-reading Way Uptown In Another World lots of things struck me. This is one of them. Marcus Garvey Black, the main character, young African-American conman, asks an East Villiage dealer named Super Spade about this new "acid thing" going around. Garvey wants to know if Super Spade is worried about what's gonna go down when the heavies try to take over.

Super Spade isn't worried about that. He knows it'll never happen. Acid, he tells, Marcus is too dangerous.

Marcus wants to know for whom. Super Spade tells him:

'"For whoever ain't taking it. Listen, baby, this acid ain't like the hard stuff. Society don't care nothing about the junkies cause they ain't no threat really. They just got a job like everyone else. Their job is taking junk. They steal and kill sometimes but that gives the po-lice something to do. And everybody's happy, you dig? But acid's a whole other thing. It lets you see what life oughtta be like. It makes you a revolutionary. Not for one stupid fuckin' country over another, that's just a game. But for a whole diff'rent kinda life where there's no power shit at all. You dig?"

I nodded.

"Now society ain't about to let go of the golden apple. Too many power junkies got their teeth in it. And they already getting hip to the acid message. Soon they gonna come down and wipe out all the acid freaks like they was some kinda disease, man. And if they don't do that, they'll get some science shit out front to scare everybody off. But whatever they do, they ain't gonne let love take over 'cause that'd be the end of the world."'

It's about the power trip. And like always, Stevens is telling us it doesn't have to be.

Karate Kids

2011-03-03T10:04:00.002-06:00

Recently we watched both versions of The Karate Kid.

The original was airing on television the other day. I’ve always liked that movie and hadn’t seen it for a long time. While the clothes and the soundtrack do date the film horribly in spots, I was pleased to see that it held up well.

Until then I didn’t really have any desire to see the remake. First of all, I generally loathe remakes. I can’t think of too many examples where a remake has improved on the source material. And besides that it really annoyed me they called the Jaden Smith/Jackie Chan version The Karate Kid. There’s no karate in the film. They practice kung-fu.

But anyway…

The basic plot of both films is the same. Kid moves to a new place with his mom. He crushes on a rich girl. Doesn’t fit in. He gets bullied and beaten up by some other kids who learn martial arts from some dickhead. Kid befriends the maintenance man. Turns out the maintenance man knows how to fight. Maintenance man teaches kid martial arts and some life lessons. Kid and maintenance man become close. Kid has showdown with the bullies at a martial arts tournament and wins.

The Macchio/Morita Karate Kid works because of the ability to identify with the character of Daniel LaRusso. Daniel’s a gangly and goofy teenager. His dad has just died. He and his mother are forced to move from one coast to another due to a job opportunity. Daniel’s the odd man out in the new school. He looks different from the other students—he’s swarthy and everyone else seems to be Aryan poster children; he’s poor and they’re all rich; he talks with an accent they don’t have and uses slang they don’t know. He ends up crushing on the popular girl that’s way out of his league. And now he’s the target of the school dickheads.

But Dre Parker, as played by Jaden Smith, is a little kid. He’s every bit a little kid and, worst of all, he seems cooler as a little kid than any of us do as adults. The new film never really addresses him being the odd man out. There’s never an issue of him looking, talking or acting differently from everyone else. And there absolutely no mention at all of him and his mother being the only African-Americans we ever see on screen. The bullies tormenting Dre are also little kids. So, not only do we never get any sort of real sense of why they’re bullying him, especially when they seem to leave everyone else alone, they have no air of menace. When you’re a 17 year old teenager, physically you’re pretty much a grown man. As a grown man you pose a threat an 11 year old just can’t, even if the 11 year old is making his widdle grimacy maaad faace at chu.

The teenager is the eternal outsider.

A little kid is just a little kid.

I remember what being a teenager is like. I remember what it felt like to not fit in and think no one else understood that. I remember wanting to talk to the pretty, rich girl at school and not being able to. I remember getting teased and I remember being bullied. I remembered trying to fumble my way through all those big life events.

The only thing I remember about being 12 is the huge internal debate of: Do I play with my G.I. Joe or Star Wars' action figures?

But Dre’s age ruins something even more important. If you’re going to acknowledge the Karate Kid as having any emotional resonance and power beyond entertaining you for 90 minutes, it comes from the relationship of the two main characters. Miyagi fills the gap left by Daniel’s dead father. Daniel fills the hole left by Miyagi’s dead family. Their relationship operates on multiple levels, father and son, teacher and student, and friends. That dynamic shifts and changes throughout the film as Miyagi helps Daniel along on his journey into manhood and he’s confronted by all those big life questions: what does it means to be a man, what is honor, and what is friendship?That's a relationship a grown man can't have, on the same level, with a child.

The only thing Mr. Han does is teach Dre kung-fu.

The Double-D...Reissued

2011-03-02T10:25:00.003-06:00

Christopher Pimental accepted the second story I ever sent out, “The Double-D.” It’s a twisted piece about John Dillinger’s pickled penis. In the story a nameless narrator is working for a rich eccentric who likes to collect seedy and one-of-a-kind memorabilia from figures involved in crime. You see, according to legend, Dillinger had a monster schlong. Supposedly, after the gangster's death by cop, J. Edgar Hoover had his manhood amputated and put in a jar he kept on his desk.

The idea came to me after details of the Marilyn Monroe sex film surfaced. If I remember correctly, the footage was purchased by an individual working for an unnamed private collector. I thought the whole thing was fascinating. How do you find out something like that exists? Who do you send after it and why? Monroe’s fellatio performance sent my imagination working in overdrive.

I was proud of this story when I sent it out.

When it saw the light of day, I was even more proud of it—thanks to Christopher Pimental. I owe him a debt I can probably never repay. He was an amazing and thought-provoking editor who took an interesting story with tons of promise and helped me turn it into something stunning. Pimental not only taught me more about writing than anyone, but he was the one to finally break through all the bullshit to show me how to think about writing as a process.

Recently, Christopher has morphed what used to be his Bad Things Pulp Pages into a slicker, streamlined and visually appealing site. I suggest you go check out. Not only can you read some of the best stories from back in the day, but there are links to Pimentals’ own noir and hard boiled writings.

Pimental: Pulp & Hard Boiled | True Modern Noir

Scarry Night Challenge

2011-02-27T08:32:00.003-06:00

Below is my entry for Patti Abbott's Scarry Night Challenge. For details go here. For the other entries, go here

For my story, keep reading...

The Pit

The tall man with the weak shoulders raised the hatchback, stooped into the car, caught her dark eyes in the rearview and said, “You sure about this?”

“Is there a problem? I filled out the paperwork and passed the home inspection.”

“There’s no problem.” He shook his head and then stopped abruptly. “If you’re sure. I mean, you’ve seen him though, right?”

“I paid the money didn’t I?”

“Alright, then.” He straightened and whistled. The rear door to the vet’s office opened and two techs lead the pit bull outside. One held the thick, mesh leash taunt while the other put himself between animal and parking lot. When they reached the car, the tall man giddy-upped. After the pit jumped into the back, he slammed the hatch.

She lowered the window. “We done?”

All three nodded.

“Thanks,” she said. The pit pressed his scarred muzzle against the glass, watching them as she pulled away.

She waited for 3E to unlock her door and grocery-bag home before opening the entrance. The dog followed, walking slowly by her side, pacing her down the hallway. He sniffed the door while she unlocked her three locks. When she pushed it open, he looked up at her for the first time since the vet. His black eyes were expressionless. Hollow.

She breathed quietly and said, “Go on.” Make sure it's safe, she thought.

He did and she followed.

She shut the door, locked it, and unhooked the leash from his wide collar. Once free, he sat with rump pressed against the door. He made a noise she didn’t understand. She draped his lead on the coat rack.

She clucked her tongue. The dog didn’t move. She watched him for some sign of fear or aggression. Nothing.

She chanced a touch. It was slight. Just a brief brush against a ragged ear nub. His jowls raised and revealed sharp, yellow teeth. The brindle fur rippled down his broad, meaty back. Her hand hovered. The dog’s nose quivered. He stilled and she petted him again, firmer, running her hand up and down his back, over fur, skin, thick scars, and uneven muscle bulge.

“You hungry?”

The dog stood, stacked and entered the living room. She resisted the urge to watch, to follow, to make sure. Instead, she entered the cramped kitchen to prepare his food. Yesterday, she had divided the 40 lbs bag into individual servings. She filled the deep, metal bowl with kibble and opened one of the cans. She spooned the wet pungent mass on top of the dry food, mixing both before sitting the bowl down on the puckered linoleum.

She turned and found the dog watching. “Food,” she said.

The pit sniffed.

She sat at the kitchen table and opened her purse. She lit a cigarette. Reached over and closed the long vertical blinds that hung over the backdoor. When she looked back, the dog stood over the bowl. “Go ahead,” she said.

He looked at her, at his food, then back at her. His eyes narrowed. She nodded. He lowered his head and ate loudly.

She worked the mace out of her pocket, sat it by the cigarettes, and removed the gun from her purse. She checked the safety. Still locked. She dragged twice and dropped her cigarette into her breakfast Coke can.

The dog twitched and growled when she walked around him. She ignored him and went down the hall to the bathroom. The pit’s feeding echoed through the small apartment like some ancient beast in a distant cave.

She sat the gun on top of the toilet, turned on the water and fished for a clean towel under the sink. She hung it over the shower and pushed the door closed with her foot. She waited for the mirror to steam over before she undressed.

She stared at the white towel rack as she stripped, avoiding sight of her own body.

The dog nosed the door open.

Breath caught in her chest. Her tummy tightened and quivered, gooseflesh raising with the light, downy hair on her arms.

The pit didn’t seem bothered by what he saw. He wagged his tail stump and cautiously, paw by paw, nail click by nail click, entered.

She reached over him and pushed the door closed. He sniffed her foot. Slowly, she lowered her hand. He licked her arm, rough tongue against her own raised scar. She said, very quietly, “I really don’t mind the scars.”

His head tilted in reply.

“Yours, I mean.”

He tilted the other direction.

“Do you?”

The pit blinked and brushed past her, circling the rug twice before collapsing with a heavy sigh. She took that as a yes. For once, for the first time in a long time, it was enough and brought some comfort.

Shane Stevens Saturday: Tending Bar

2011-02-26T11:11:00.000-06:00

The Corner Bistro is still standing. In 1973-1974, you could find Shane Stevens there at night, tending bar. It still looks rough, but my understanding from the person I spoke with, is that back then it was even rougher.

I wonder if he's been back? The Bistro's claim to fame is that it's supposed to have the best hamburgers in New York City.

Shane Stevens Saturday: The Anvil Chorus

2011-02-19T14:10:00.000-06:00

The Anvil Chorus is a chilling police procedural set in Paris and the final novel to appear under his own name. It's a brilliantly paced study of obsession and revenge as Inspector Cesar Dreyfus investigates the brutal murder of a former Nazi war-criminal and confronts the true face of evil.

Coming off the big payday of By Reason of Insanity, Stevens researched the book in Paris, working closely with members of The Criminal Investigation Department to keep the police work authentic and interviewing several famous Nazi Hunters in his unending quest to understand evil and the price of power.

Paris has been the one place I haven't been able to track him.

Maybe someday.

Drapes vs. Squares

2011-02-18T08:41:00.002-06:00

This past Saturday, one of our favorite local bands performed at The Player’s Pub. I’ve dug the
Swingrays and their rockabilly sound for years. The guys have tremendous stage presence, know how to get a crowd energized and play a nice mixture of original material and covers. Long before Maria and I were ever married we spent many a Monday at The Bluebird during Cigartini Night.

Maria has always taken going out seriously, especially when weather and other circumstances prevent her from going anywhere other than the grocery store for almost two weeks. Preparing to go out is a ritualized process that takes a good deal of time and preparation. Saturday, while she was getting ready, we streamed the John Waters’ film, Cry-Baby.

Cry-Baby is Waters’ spoof of 50s era teenage rocksploitation flicks. Johnny Depp plays Wade “Cry-Baby” Walker, a bad boy greaser (called Drapes in the film) who’s been raised by his aunt and uncle after both his parents were sent to the electric chair. One day at school, Walker falls for Alison Vernon-Williams, a cute Square girl. Somehow Walker convinces Alison’s grandmother to let Alison accompany him back to Turkey Point. This enrages Alison’s boyfriend, Baldwin. He descends on the Drape’s hangout spot with a gang of Squares. A massive brawl ensues that, of course, ends up sending Walker to prison.

Further complications keep our couple apart before everyone sings their way to a happy ending. A jealous Drape girl pretends she’s having a Walker’s baby. Alison goes back to Baldwin before realizing how much she loves Cry-baby. There’s a jailbreak and a dangerous game of chicken with Walker and Baldwin rooftop riding on hotrods.

I’ve never particularly cared for musicals. Something about breaking into song at random intervals has always bugged me. It ruins any sense of immersion I have in the narrative. And yes, I know that’s the point. Musicals operate in a reality where singing is the norm and the songs are as integral to the narrative as the dialogue. I know that; it just doesn’t work for me.

But I don’t mind it in Cry-Baby for some reason. Maybe it’s because of the types of songs. I’ve always liked rockabilly. To me it’s the epitome of cool and one of the few things my father and I have in common. Though, I suppose it could be the comedic aspects. I’m more than familiar with the type of films Waters’ is spoofing and know that I’m not expected to accept the musical world of Drapes vs. Squares with any sort of conviction.

There is one thing that I’ve never understood about the film. Sure, I know girls like bad boys and you can't help who you love. But why does Cry-Baby Walker fall for Alison Vernon Williams when he could easily date fellow Drape gangmember, Wanda Woodward?

I mean sure, Alison Vernon-Williams is cute and all. Who doesn't like ponytails and bobby socks.

But I mean, come on now. Wouldn't you choose Wanda Woodward over a poodle skirt? Is just me? Is it?

The Personal Lives of Authors

2011-02-13T10:15:00.000-06:00

It's no secret that I've been working on a lengthy non-fiction piece about Shane Stevens. I'm finally nearing the close and trying to sum up my thoughts on what I've learned about one of my favorite writers.

This got me wandering something. You see, the more I've learned about Shane Stevens, as a person, the more I've grown to like him and respect him. What about you?

Is there an author you liked even more when you learned about about them as an individual?

An author you liked less?

Shane Stevens Saturday: All Power To All The People

2011-02-12T08:45:00.002-06:00

Shane Stevens' signature on the letter where he finally addresses his view of race, politics, and the perception that he pretends to be black.

"All power to all the people"

New Coat of Paint

2011-02-11T14:37:00.000-06:00

In preparation for "Down By The Water" appearing in Kung-fu Factory, I've done some re-tooling over at The Dogfight.

You should check it out and maybe even re-read what's come previous in preparation for the 13th chapter.

The Dogfight

Blame Netflix For My Tina Fey Obsession

2011-02-09T15:51:00.001-06:00

Maria had been trying to convince me to accept the free trial of Netflix for months. “They give you a month free,” she’d tell me. “You can stream moves instantly across the Playstation and its only $8 a month to keep it.”

It all sounded good, but I kept putting her off. Since we live in the boonies I was expecting a long download time, poor picture quality, and sputtering playback. All for a poor collection of viewing options.

When the weathermen predicated the Great Snowpocalypse of 2011, knowing we’d be homebound for a while, I finally caved and discovered my expectations were unnecessarily low. Netflix “retrieves” your pick fairly quickly. The picture quality has been good. Every now and again, it’s been a little pixilated during the first few seconds, but it clears up quickly (probably our poor internet connection). The playback has never been jumpy.

The big surprise has been the options of things I can watch. Currently, and much to Maria’s chagrin, I have things like Hickey & Boggs, Breakheart Pass, The Bodyguard (the Thai Action/Comedy, not the Kevin Costner movie), classic episodes of Doctor Who in my part of the instant queue.

And all the ~~Tina Fey~~ 30 Rock I can find
Because Netflix has been feeding this tendency I have to obsess over things. Oh do they have that movie? What about that movie? I almost forgot about that movie, do they have it? For the last two days, I've been obsessed over ~~Tina Fey~~ 30 Rock. ~~She's cute~~ It's funny. ~~She librarian sexy~~ Its such a quirky show. Luckily, there aren't that many seasons of the show, so I should be over my ~~Tina Fey~~ 30 Rock obsession shortly.

As soon as I'm done, I think I'll try to write something.

Maybe something about a woman who wears glasses...?

Shane Stevens Saturday: Harlem

2011-02-05T10:36:00.002-06:00

With the lack of readily available information about Shane Stevens, I've been looking for clues in his books themselves. One of the main things I wanted to know is why a white guy grew up in Harlem.

Does this passage from Go Down Dead offer a clue:

Nobody here like the whites. They was a white family move in over on Fifth avenue over Stevens bar.

Spartacus: Blood and Sand

2011-02-03T14:51:00.001-06:00

The wife and I have been watching Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Created by Steven S. DeKnight and produced by Sam Rami, the show is a Starz’s attempt to compete with the original programming consistently drawing viewers to HBO and SHOWTIME.

The first series focuses on the early life of Spartacus, prior to the more “documented” events surrounding his slave rebellion against the Roman Empire. The show opens with Spartacus as an unnamed Thracian allied with Roman forces to push back the invading Getae. When the commanding officer, Legatus Glaber, breaks the promises he made to secure Thracian aid and orders his combined forces toward an entirely different war on an entirely different front, Spartacus refuses.

His refusal ignites the rest of the Thracians. They turn on their Roman masters, attack Glaber and retreat back to their lands, hoping to return before the Getae can rape and pillage with abandon. Spartacus arrives in enough time to save his wife, Sura, but not their home. His village burns. His people’s blood wets the surrounding earth.

Desperate, he and his wife flee.

They outrun the Getae hordes, but cannot escape Glaber. As punishment, the Legatus sentences Sura to slavery and Spartacus to execution. The Thracian "traitor" will face four gladiators in the Arena. Death by spectacle.

And so, Glaber unknowingly sets a man on his path to becoming a legend.

On first impression, the show was…okay. The first two episodes were shallow. The writing was weak. The focus was all gore and sex. Fighters spit blood and teeth. Severed limbs flail while stumps gush. Blades split heads wide, revealing quivering skull-meat. The sexual content is just as explicit with full frontal nudity from both sexes and frequent simulated-sex shot from “tasteful foreign film angles”. I don’t mind either one of those as long as there’s enough depth in the material to give them the punch they should carry.

The cinematography and the acting were really the two things that kept us watching. The show obviously doesn’t have the budget of a blockbuster film and for some reason American productions never allot enough time for action choreography. Spartacus gets around that. The show is shot with a nice mixture of real sets and digital effects. The fight scenes are heavily stylized and visually stunning. 300 is probably the closest comparison, but I think Spartacus succeeds where the big screen Frank Miller adaptation failed.

The cast is exceptional. John Hannah is wonderful as Batiatus, the owner of the gladiator school with dreams of greater glory. He relishes his role and stops just sort of chewing scenery while delivering easily the best lines of the entire series. Lucy Lawless sheds Xena for good, delivering a nuanced performance as Lucretia, Batiatius’s wife. She’s a regal woman who supports her husband by any means necessary, yet she’s desperately in the love with one of the gladiators and underneath her polished exterior she's terrified that she will remain childless as middle age approaches. Somehow, Andy Whitfield manages to be a vulnerable badass, a naive and world weary Spartacus.

This may not sound like enough reason to keep watching, but I’m glad I stuck with it. The writing finds its voice around episode three and the show never lets up. The dialogue improves. The characterization remains solid and consistent, nothing wish-washy in order to artificially create drama. The pacing is always perfect. The plotting ingenuous.

After finishing Season 1, if I had to fault the show with anything at all, it would be the continued reliance on gore and sex. Even with stellar writing, at times, it feels a little forced as if inserted by rote and mandated by producer edict. One particular episode, "The Thing in the Pit", almost carried the gore a little too far. But overall, it's a minor quip compared to everything else.

You can purchase it fairly reasonably on Amazon or stream it on Netflix like we did while trapped in the Snowpocalypse of 2011.

Pow! Right In The Mush!

2011-01-31T13:39:00.000-06:00

Another Contest:
In yesterday's post, I mentioned The Lincoln Lawyer Giveaway hosted by Crimefactory. Now, Keith is also hosting a contest at his personal site, Bloody Knuckles, Callused Fignertips. Head on over and check it out.

Dogfight:
You've probably forgotten about Dogfight, the serial I had been writing with Brian S. Roe of R Squared Studios. It has been a while, but the grudge between Heckler and Doyle is far from finished. Our schedules have lightened a bit, so we're discussing the final chapter now.

When the 13th Chapter hits, that's not the end.

Next, there's the upcoming, special kung-fu issue of Crimefactory with my story, "Down By The Water". Echo, my kung-fu heroine, has her own individual story, separate from Heckler and Doyle, but her tale does offer a surprise for readers of our two-fisted, bullet-fueled grudge match.

After that, you'll just have to wait and see...

The Lincoln Lawyer Giveaway

2011-01-30T12:01:00.000-06:00

To celebrate the upcoming theatrical release of The Lincoln Lawyer, the Crimefactory masterminds are giving away free stuff. For your chance to win either a copy of the movie poster or a copy of Michael Connelly's novel, head over toDay Labor now. All you have to do is leave a comment with your e-mail address and it could be you who gets some free swag.

Shane Stevens Saturday: Waiting on the Mailman

2011-01-29T08:48:00.000-06:00

I mailed this a couple of weeks ago.

Now, I'm waiting.

The Road I Walk

2011-01-28T18:40:00.001-06:00

Writing is solitary.

At the computer, it's just you and whatever it is you can manage to charm, bribe, or beat out of the goddamn ether. Chances are when you send it out into the world, you're not doing it in person. It's just a mouseclick or an envelope drop. Then waiting. Alone.

Most of us aren't outgoing. We're not that guy you invite to the party because you know, we'll be the one to keep it going, lively and rocking until dawn or the cops. We're not the one you run into constantly on the street, heading to the big concert, the art show, the grand opening of that trendy restuarant downtown and right in the middle of it all.

We're not there, because we don't get out much. After our paying gigs gorge on the day and all those little things (dinner, cleaning, mowing the lawn, cleaning the gutters, the occasional shower), we take those minutes that are left and we seize them for ourselves. Hoping for a sentence or two. Maybe a paragraph. Praying for an entire page. Just one single page.

Or so it seems.

Today, I was going to talk about myself. Again.

But I realized something that sometimes is easy to forget. The road I walk, I don't walk alone.

You know me or, at least, you're starting to. But you don't know her. So, I'm going to tell you about her for a minute. So listen.

She's my wife.

If you like anything I've written, you should probably thank her. She makes it possible. Those precious minutes I spoke of earlier? She gives those to me. She doesn't complain when I come home tired because I set the alarm hours early, well before I need to leave for work in an attempt to coax an extra hundred or so words onto the page. She keeps me from burning everythign I write. She watches television shows and movies she has no interest in, because she knows I'll dig it and this, this other cop show, this weird British mystery program will recharge my creative batteries and set my mind spinning with new ideas of my own. She smiles when I tell her about a novel I'm reading that just pisses me off and I know I could have done it better and she doesn't even ask why the hell I'm still reading the damn thing. She listens while I talk at her, working through plots and characters that may never live beyond that single moment. She reads everything I write and she urges me onward.

So, when you see us out, when you see us across the restuarant having dinner or standing in line, waiting for the doors to open, going to see that band everyone wants to see, thank her. For me. You see, I owe her that too. I owe her for not letting me be that bearded, crazy-eyed guy you see now and then wandering down the dark alleyways, mumbling to himself while smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and gestictulating wildly with a foot-thick, stained manuscript.

A Fearsome Threesome

2011-01-28T15:33:00.000-06:00

For stories 600-700 at A Twist of Noir, Christopher Grant issued a challenge. The number of your story is the number of words you have to tell it.

After some unfortunate delays, The Death March resumed today with stories from Liam Jose, Kelley Whitley, and R.S. Bohn. Head on over there now for a fearsome threesome of hardboiled.

Shane Stevens Saturday: Across 110th Street

2011-01-22T12:07:00.004-06:00

Go Down Dead, Way Uptown In Another World, and The Rat Pack all center on the lives of young, African-American characters pushed to the edges of society by poverty, the illusions of the American Dream, and the lure of crime-fueled exchanges of power. In addition to his novels, Stevens reviewed a number of books by African-American authors and frequently wrote about race relations as the Civil Rights movement flared and flamed to life.

A number of people assumed that Stevens was an African-American writer.

He's not.

He's white.

A number of African-American writers and critics didn't appreciate Stevens, as a white man, offering his opinions on either "their" literature in particular or race relations in general. Ishmael Reed expressed his distate of Stevens' opinion in a poem called "White Hope".

Read it here.

For more on Stevens, the African-American cultural identity, and Chester Himes defense of Shane's writing, you'll have to wait for my piece.