Category Archives: Books

2 Days Until Release and Satanic Panic

My science-fiction noir mash-up of a novel Vulcan’s Forge will be published the day after tomorrow. I will be taking Thursday off from work to spend time online interacting and promoting the book.

Sunday Night after a year of waiting my sweetie-wife and I finally got to see the horror comedy Satanic Panic on the streaming services Shudder.

I first heard about Satanic Panic last year when it played the opening night at 2019’s Horrible Imaginings Film Festival but due that night being a holiday and my low seniority at my day job I was unable to get the day of and drive to Orange county. I made the rest of the festival, saw great films, made new friends, but I also regretted I could not see the opening night feature. Last week the movie came to Shudder and it was our weekend movie.

Satanic Panic, directed by Chelsea Stardust and written by Grady Hendrix is about Sam, a young woman who has taken a job as a pizza delivery person working for sub-minimum wages and tips. Taking a delivery to the wealthy side of town instead of a generous tip Sam finds herself captive to a satanic cult with plans for a human sacrifice. With over the top gore and broad characters Satanic Panic is a satire in the manner that The Hunt failed to be with a point of view and something to say about class divides in America.

Not for the squeamish and while avoiding the Lucio Fulci perchance for things going into people’s eyes, though not by much, Satanic Panic is not for everyone but those who enjoy practical gore effects with social commentary this film should find its mark.

 

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3 Days Until Release and The Blog Tour Begins

This Thursday Vulcan’s Forge will be available from all your usual and favorite booksellers and as of today the link for the e-book went live.

The publisher, Flametree Press, organizes a week of book bloggers reviews the book around each book’s publications date and today my blog tour kicked off with a review at The Bookwormery.

Here’s my pull quote from the review but read the entire thing yourself.

“Wow…..the world building in Vulcan’s Forge is just so well done, the feeling of almost claustrophobic tension is felt throughout. “

In other news my sweetie-wife and I are handling the shelter in place order imposed on California rather well. We get along fabulously, part of why we’re married and all that, and we each have plenty of activities to keep us engaged. Her employer has instituted a work from home policy while I continue to go into the office at my day job, but the office staff is reduced there as many are being sent to work from home as well. A few others and I have volunteered to maintain the critical office roles for as long as possible. I am fortunate to have a job that is critical to helping people get medical care so not only do I still have work and pay but I am also helping people directly during this crisis.

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4 Days until Release & Game Review: Thanos Rising

The novel Vulcan’s Forge will be unleased upon a world clamming for reading material in just 4 more days.

 

My sweetie-wife and I enjoy a good board game and last week I finally got a copy of a game that I had only played at conventions, Thanos Rising: Infinity Wara media tie-in game associated with Avengers: Infinity War.

Thanos Rising a cooperative game for 2 to 4 players who take on the roles of various teams of heroes from the Marvel Cinematic Universe in their bid to prevent the mad Titan Thanos from acquiring all six Infinity Stones and destroying half of all life in the universe.

Each turn a player rolls dice and assigns them towards heroes to recruit onto their team or to villains to damage and eventually eliminate. The players win if they eliminate 7 villains from Thanos’ forces while Thanos has three paths to victory.

  • acquire all six Infinity Stones.
  • eliminate an entire hero (player’s) team
  • eliminate 10 or more heroes

Media tie-in games have a terrible reputation as games that are poorly thought out, designed, and generally as cheap cash grabs riding the tails of something else’s greater popularity but that is not the case with Thanos Rising.this game is well balanced and challenging to play. My group of experiences board gamers is currently running a success rate of about 50% playing the game without enhancing its difficulty at all. All in all, this is a fun game and one that is well worth acquiring.

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5 Days Until Release & The Hunt

Only 5 more days until Vulcan’s Forge is published and a gentle reminder that pre-orders count more than post publication orders for ranking and sales numbers.

Movie Review: The Hunt

Last night a friend and I split the cost to rent The Hunt a film more cursed with it release than my own novel’s trouble path to publication. Originally scheduled for release last year The Hunt is a graphic violent satire of the current political climate forged with the classic story The Deadliest Game. The overt and over-the-top political bent of the characters created a controversy last year and the title was pulled from distribution. Now the release has been thrown into chaos by the COVID-19 pandemic and the studio moved it to on-line rentals to recoup at least some of the production cost.

Betty Gilpin plays Crystal, one of nearly a dozen conservative characters who are kidnapped and awaken in a forest lethally hunted by cultural elites for sport. With a modest budget of 14 million dollars and released by horror studio Blumhouse The Hunt is over all an unsatisfying picture. None of the characters are fully developed and the yet are also not broad enough for over the top satire. The film takes too long to connect with its main character and I found that distancing and prevented me from becoming emotionally engaged in her struggle. Perhaps the greatest failing of The Hunt is as satire. Satire requires a point, an argument, it needs to stand for something and to say something. While it is far from necessary for the film to ‘pick a side’ in the liberal/conservative cultural war it satirizes it is necessary that the film say something, make some sort of point. The classic film Doctor Strangelove is satire with broad characters and does not pick a side in the US vs USSR cold War but does make a point about the madness of mutually assured destruction and living on a knife’s edge. The Hunt makes no statement, exhibits no point of view, but simple moves caricature of characters through cartoony chaos. While my friend enjoyed the movie, I find it is not one I can recommend.

 

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6 Days Until Release

It is now 6 days, less than a week, until Flametree Press publishes my first novel, Vulcan’s Forge.

First novel is such a strange term. Certainly, from the point of view of reviews and the public this is number one but from the point of view of the author it is far from my first, merely the first to survive until publication.

The very first novel I ever write was way way back in 1979 during my senior year of high school. Freeeholder was a post-apocalyptic adventure novel centered on a culture of liberal pacifist survivalists.

After my tour in the U.S. Navy there was a significant period of time when I did no writing whatsoever and even following that years long dry period what I attempted to write were screenplays.

It really wasn’t until the late 90s that I returned to prose writing and then it was short stories as I was quite fearful of the commitment required for a novel. During the 2000s I started writing novels again when a particular idea seized my and would not let go until had committed it to prose.

Several novels were then written over the years, some are destined to be re-written and some are going to be forever abandoned but all were learning experiences that extended my abilities as a writer.

Vulcan’s Forge started prior to 2015 when I first wrote it as a novella but that was far too brief for the world building required for this SF noir. The novel version was written and completed in 2017. At the time I had an agent and I turned the manuscript in to him and it sat on his desk unread for year until our association was dissolved.

2019 I submitted it to Flametree Press and they bought the book. My time with them has been fantastic. I couldn’t ask for better partners in traditional publishing.

The COVID-19 pandemic is terrible. I live in California and we are today 20 March 2020, under a stay at home order, though I work in an essential area of health care and will still be going to my day job. My signing and launch event were canceled, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of one little debut author, but books are still being delivered and you can still order it from your local bookstores, so all is not bleak.

‘First’ novels are rarely the first ones written but just as with ‘overnight’ successes perception doesn’t match reality.

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BOOK SIGNING CANCELED

BOOK SIGNING CANCELED

Due to the continuing Corona Crisis, not even a pandemic will stop my alliterations, the signing event for my first novel is now canceled.

With gatherings of 10 or more people highly discouraged the store, Mysterious Galaxy, has closed to foot and in-person traffic until at least April 1st. There are discussions of possibly rescheduling the event for later in the year but I am sure slots will be limited and I am not the only author impacted so a reschedule would be nice but I am not counting on it.

If you were planning to attend the event, or if independent bookstores are important to you, I suggest that you buy the book from Mysterious Galaxy anyway. They are taking orders and fulfilling them by mail. Bezos and Amazon will weather this storm with literally billions in cash but local businesses will not be so lucky.

Mysterious Galaxy is a critical factor in the existence of my novel Vulcan’s Forge. For ten years I have met there with my writing group and that has certainly leveled me up as a writer and their staff are always helpful, friendly, supportive, and knowledgeable. From Mysterious Galaxy and stores like them you get those personal recommendation that can lead you to a new favorite author, not something simply pushed by an algorithm.

Vulcan’s Forge is my first novel and I certainly hope it is not my last. Having your debut event canceled is tough but COVID-19 is tougher and we can weather this if we do the right things. So, I will be sad to not have that signing but I hope that instead people stay safe, healthy, and order the book online even if they can’t have my illegible scribbling defacing it.

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This Feels Wrong

This will be a quick post.

So, I am revising my military SF about an American serving in the European Union’s Star Forces set in a future in which America took a wrong turn in the early 21st century and became a second-rate power. Honest, I was cooking this idea back in the early 90s.

This is the manuscript that originally clocked in at 115 thousand words and on advice from an agency was trimmed to around 98 thousand.

As I review the original longer work, a version I had preferred, I find that I am really enjoying this book. It has been a few years since I have read it carefully, line by line, word by word, as once I send a project off to editors for consideration, I protect my sanity by moving on to the next project. So, this return to the origi9nal manuscript is a, pardon the pun, novel experience.

It feels wrong just how much I am enjoying this read. But this speaks to the truism I hold to in writing, write the book you want to read. There is your vision, there is voice, there is what makes it yours.

 

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Movies Better Than Their Books

It’s a sentiment accepted by many a bibliophile that the novel is always better than the film version, but I content such a broad and all-encompassing statement cannot be universally true. Here are a few examples of where I think the films version of the stories exceeded what the novel presented.

Jaws

The iconic terrifying film from Steven Spielberg sent a generation scrambling for the shore fearful of the water is based upon a novel by Peter Benchley. For the screenplay two major sub-plots were omitted, the affair between Chief Brody’s wife and the young expert Hooper and Amity’s Mayor’s debt to local organized crime that made the mayor fearful of closing the beaches and being unable to repay what he owed. Both sub-plots are melodramatic and easily the most forgettable aspects of the novel. While Hooper’s and Ellen’s affair makes both of these characters less sympathetic than the cinematic characters.

The Hunt for Red October

Tom Clancy’s first novel of a Soviet super-sub’s defection to the west produced a terrific film directed by John McTernan and gave us the best on-screen Jack Ryan with Alec Baldwin. The novel suffered from American Uber Alles with everything done by the U.S. Military being exemplary over the far less capable Soviet forces. Reducing this produced a tighter and more tense conflict.

The Prestige

Not as well-know or as beloved as many other films by Christopher Nolan The Prestige took the great liberties with its source material a prize-winning fantasy novel of the same name by Christopher Priest. The novel spans time between the modern day, 1995 for the publication date, and the later 1800 with the feud between the rival stage magicians, introducing concepts as far afield as ghost into its narrative. Nolan’s script simplified the scope, restricting to its time setting, but retaining the multiple points of view and non-linear narrative but most importantly his gave a better motivation for why the feus turned murderous. In the novel it spirals out from one character performing seances, a common practice for stage magician’s, and being exposed for his fraud by his rival, also a common activity for stage magicians of the period. Having an on-stage death for which one is responsible made for a more compelling and acceptable motivation for the feud’s terrible escalation.

 

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It Begins Again

Yesterday I moved beyond notes, character design, and outlines with actual prose written on my next novel. I will admit that I did not get as much written on day one of the novel as I had hoped but words are on the page and the project has at least a little momentum.

Sunday night for whatever reason turned out to be a poor sleep night. I awoke after about 3 and a half hours of sleep with a parched throat and after cool water to deal with that issue I spent the rest of the evening in a sleep/wake cycle that precluded any real rest. While I did get writing done on my lunch break at the day job, in the evening I was simply too exhausted for anything more strenuous than watching the final episode of season two of The Crown. There wasn’t enough Princess Anne in the season, she’s clearly become my new favorite character.

I would love to get my novel’s first draft completed by the end of May. That would mean about 20,000 words per month or about 5,000 words per week. That’s is a doable goal despite this halting start from yesterday.

I am also working out the design for a Newsletter that will come out monthly. In the final week of each month I plan to release an email newsletter with defined content to help promote myself as an author. I am also thinking about releasing, also on a monthly schedule, previously published short stories of mine in an audio format.

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The Good News Post

So, there are several bits of new news to share this chilly December morning.

First off: Because I have a minor surgery scheduled this week and then a week off from my day job for recovery that mean I will not be working any more overtime. The money is nice, and I love chipping in and helping out my team at Kaiser Permanente but it’s really nice to get back to a normal schedule that allows for writing.

Second, pivoting of the subject of writing, our favorite local bookstore Mysterious Galaxy is saved! They have new owners and a new location so the store will not have to shutter depriving San Diego book readers, un-employing its staff, or leaving its various book, gaming, and writing groups homeless. Truly this had made this season festive.

And HBO’s Watchmen reached the season one finale and for once I am not disappointed by a project associate with showrunner Damon Lindelof. Quite the contrary, this series was fantastic. Every element plays perfectly in tune with the themes that grounded this version of the story and all the major points and developments were well established. The characters both as written and as performed simply captivated and for those that are the older versions of ones from the sources material managed to be true to their natures while exploring logical and consistent change from the thirty years that had passed. While Angela Abar (Regina Hill) may have been the protagonist of the story Laurie Blake (Jean Smart) took home favorite character prize from this viewer. Where the original graphic novel Watchmen centered thematically on the Cold War and the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation with those ideas and terrors informing not just the plot but the look and feel of the story this Watchmen explored the lingering horror, hate, and trauma of racial injustice and bigotry. Starting off with the slaughter and destruction of ‘Black Wall Street’ in Tulsa Oklahoma in 1921 and ending with crisis from Tulsa that threatens the world, Watchmen 2019 explores justice and the thorny issues confusing that concept with its petty cousin vengeance. Best off the season did not end with a plot cliffhanger. While the final shots left a terribly large question unanswered it did not fail to resolve the essential conflict or theme of the series. If there is never a season two the show is still full resolved and satisfying. Thank you, Mr. Lindelof, I do so hate cliffhangers.

 

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