Thursday Afternoon

I took a break from the longer project to write half of a new story today. At least, it feels like half. These things tend to grow in the writing and are then usually chopped down in the editing. My writing time will be almost non-existent tomorrow and Saturday. I hope I can finish it on Sunday.

It's very different from the kind of fiction I usually write and I have no idea if there's any sort of market for it. Which is fine. It's one of those things that feels right when I'm getting it down, and sometimes that's the best reward. 

I may post it here or I may shelve it until I have a new collection of stories. That will happen one day. I have a long list of stories I need to write, including a funny one that sprang from a recent dream about science fiction writers in the 1970s and stolen starships and a daring rescue out past Pluto.

As for the longer project, I hope to have some positive news on that around mid-July. 

I also need to post a brief review of Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King. That should happen sometime Sunday, too.

Rocket Power

Here's the United Kingdom trailer for Marvel's Guardian's of the Galaxy. New and improved with more Rocket Raccoon!

FaceOff

Before MR. MERCEDES arrived today, FACEOFF downloaded to my Kindle. I'd forgotten I'd ordered it. Edited by David Baldacci, the book teams up thriller writers to pit their best-known characters against each other. Lee Child's Jack Reacher vs Joseph Finder's Nick Heller, Heather Graham's Michael Quinn vs. F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack, plus Michael Connelly vs Dennis Lehane, James Rollins vs. Steve Berry, Jeffrey Deaver vs John Sanford, and a bunch more. Best of all, R.L. Stine's Slappy the Ventriloquist Dummy vs Preston and Child's Pendergast. This looks like a blast.

What I'll Be Doing The Next Few Days

Yep. Just sitting here holding this book.

Happy Birthday, Norma Kay

My beautiful wife, the gal of my dreams, has a birthday today. She is simply the best person I know. I'll save the rest for another 30 days. That's when we celebrate out 32nd wedding anniversary.

Now Reading

Godzilla's Witnesses

Pulp Friction

I love pulp fiction.

Maybe I should rephrase that. I love the idea of pulp fiction. Let’s face it: a lot of the stuff we call pulp fiction was pretty bad, cranked out to meet a tight deadline and earn a low wage.

But there were a lot of gems hidden in that mountain of turds, especially if you’re in the right frame of mind when you read the stuff. I know this because I’ve had quite a few friends say, “What’s the big deal with The Shadow/Doc Savage/The Spider, etc.?” I pass along some samples. Occasionally, the new reader becomes a fan. Often, they do not. In fact, they sometimes violently do not become a fan. So take what I’m saying with a big grain of salt. I’m a fan. I love the stuff.  Your mileage may vary.

New Pulp is the genre of current pulp fiction, written to emulate the tone or style or campiness of the original pulp. I’ve read a lot of it. Heck, I’ve written some of it (I even have a pulp project on my to-do list). Some of the New Pulp is great. Some of it is not. The New Pulp I’ve read includes its fair share of bad writing and bad editing (or, I suspect, no editing).

Having said that, this caught my eye today.

Here’s the link to read more or to order.
 
The editors have a good pedigree and that may be enough for me to check it out. If that happens. I’ll review it here. On the other hand, I have a lot of old pulp fiction left to be read, and I plan to knock out some of that over the summer. For some reason summer time always means pulp time for me.

Catching Up (Part 1)

Hey. Long time, no blog. Things have been busy, as usual. But a recent renovation job at the house threw the schedule waaaay off. It’s amazing how construction at a small house like ours can become all-encompassing. But it’s over now and we have beautiful new floor to ceiling bookshelves, which will finally help organize our out-of-control book collection. This will make it far easier to see what we have, what we want to keep, and what we want to discard, probably through Goodwill. Here’s one of the shelves, partly stocked.

Here’s another, with our cat Callie in the background, holding the bed down.

Over the Memorial Day weekend, between stints at work, I read the new Steve Berry novel The Lincoln Myth. Berry writes a fast-paced thriller, with a plot drawn from American history, in this case a deal between Brigham Young and Abraham Lincoln to keep the Union intact during the Civil War. In the present day, former intelligence agent Cotton Malone has to stop the centerpiece of the Lincoln deal from becoming public and destroying America. I always think of Berry’s novels as “Da Vinci Code-lite”. And, as Martha Stewart wisely puts it, that’s a good thing.

For those who are politically inclined, here’s an article from Damon Linker where he examines why he’s not a Republican anymore (but he’s not really a Democrat, either).

The Incredible Bulk VS Agents of S.H.E.M.P.

The carnage takes place in this week's Ashland Beacon. It's on page 2. You can read it here.

Tuesday Afternoon

First, my apologies to anyone who has received spam email from my AOL account.  No, I haven’t been hacked. I wish it was just something I could fix with a change of password. Actually, I–and around 1% of AOL customers– have been spoofed.

I always thought being part of the 1% would be more fun.

 A hacker stole contact lists from AOL accounts,  including accounts that have been inactive for years, and is using them to send out spam email from what is jiggered to appear as an AOL account. It doesn’t originate from my account and I can’t stop it. Apparently, neither can AOL, although they promise to do just that.

AOL’s help page suggests that account holders change their passwords. It won’t help with this spoofing, they tell us. I guess it’s supposed to be comforting.

If you want to read more about the situation, you can check out this article.

As with any email, if you don’t know the sender or there’s an oddly phrased message and a link, delete it without clicking on the link.                                             

***

I’m in a Doc Savage frame of mind this week. I’ve plowed through two Will Murray novels–Horror in Gold and The Forgotten Realm–and I’m starting on a third, Phantom Lagoon. Two or three novels in a row from any genre are usually my limit before I have to turn to something else. I’ll let you know how it goes.

 
***

I’ve been dealing with a recurrence of the gout, and merry malady that I have enjoyed since 1991. This gout bout has not been as serious as the first go-around, and I hope I caught it early enough. Just as he did 23 years ago, the doc put me on Allopurinal, a drug which seems to work well on me. While gout limited some of my activity for a few days, it did force me to get some reading done, and things seem to be getting back to normal, so I hope to resume daily walks soon.

Holiday Greetings From The Easter Duck

Whether you celebrate the holiday or not, have a great day.

New Doc

This amazingly cool cover was recently unveiled at the Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Facebook page. The book isn't out yet, but since the Joe DeVito cover blew me away, I wanted to share it here.

I'll review it when it's released. As detailed here, I've become a fan of Will Murray's novels.

Oh, look, another 90s Doc is being re-released, too.

Innocence by Dean Koontz

I’ve been reading Dean Koontz for a lot of years, starting in my youth when I knew I wanted to be a writer. My local library had a book called Writing Popular Fiction by Dean R. Koontz (I believe the book was later released under the title Writing Bestselling Fiction , once Koontz was actually a bestseller). The author’s photo showed a long-haired young man with a mustache. Cool, I thought. Unlike most jobs, writing let you grow your hair as long as you liked.

I must have checked out that book 10 times while I was in high school, trying to memorize its secrets.

A few years later, when I was looking for another author to fill the gap between releases by my new favorite, Stephen King, I discovered the fiction of Koontz (I recall searching for his work after reading the non-fiction book, but Koontz’s science fiction novels were hard to find in this part of Kentucky).  I think the first Koontz I read was Whispers. After that, I was hooked. While Koontz didn’t seem to dig into his characters’s heads as deeply as King did, his plots were outstanding and the premise of each novel was imaginative and original. Since then, I’ve grabbed everything he’s released. That doesn’t mean I’ve loved every book, but even the least of them were enjoyable.

Over the years, Koontz has introduced more spirituality into his novels. I hope it isn’t too much of a spoiler to say that Innocence is his most overt expression of this.

Innocence concerns a boy named Addison, who must remain hidden from the world. If he’s spotted and someone looks at his face or into his eyes, that person tries to kill him. So Addison only goes out at night, and only with his face hidden. One night he meets a girl named Gwyneth, who can’t stand to be touched. They bond, and we’re off on another Koontzian adventure.

At times, the book’s pace slows down, but the ultimate revelation of Addison’s “condition” is quite unique and offers a payoff that makes up for any of the novel’s shortcomings.

There are a few unanswered question, though, and that’s unusual for a Koontz novel. Those include the presence of spooky marionettes and a confrontation with an archbishop, both of which almost read like plot threads that were meant to be expanded upon.

I’ll give Innocence a grade of a solid B. We’ll see what Koontz comes up with for The City, due out in July.

Batman Turns 75

Artist and producer Bruce Timm, who brought us Batman: The Animated Series, returns to the character with this short cartoon. Enjoy!

Evil Update

From today's walk, the evil Flatwoods tree is still bringing the creepy.

Still Stinky After All These Years

Check out the story of the human waste that still smells as fresh as when it was excreted in the 1300s.

Who knew 14th Century Denmark had a Taco Bell?

Odd Thomas and Other Sunday Morning Musings

Dean Koontz, a writer I’ve enjoyed for nearly 30 years, has a series of books about a young fry cook named Odd Thomas. Odd can see the silent spirits of the dead, who linger on Earth due to unresolved issues. Those issues usually involve murder. Odd is aided in his mission by his girlfriend, Stormy. They have been a couple since childhood, when a card from a gypsy fortune telling machine revealed Odd and Stormy were destined to be together forever.

Koontz, like many writers, has not exactly hit the jackpot when his work has been adapted for movies and TV. Watchers 3, anyone? However, several months ago, Koontz praised the adaptation of Odd Thomas, written and directed by Stephen Sommers, the man behind the Brendan Fraser Mummy movies. The movie briefly appeared in theaters and was recently released to DVD and Blu-Ray. We just watched it and here are a few thoughts.
 
* Anton Yelchin, from Hearts in Atlantis and the guy who plays Chekov in the Star Trek reboot, is perfect as Odd. He manages to embody a mix of optimism, dread and a sense of heavy responsibility. Humor is a big part of Koontz’s Odd Thomas books, and Yelchin and Addison Timlin as Stormy, do a fine job delivering one liners and keeping the mood as light as needed.

* The plot of the novel has been compressed and changed to work as a film. At least there’s a nod to Elvis, who is a character in the book.

* At times, Odd Thomas has the look of a TV movie, due, I’m sure, to budget constraints. On the other hand, the effect are impressive, particularly the bodachs and a scene inside the house of Fungus Bob.

* The story has a lot of heart, and it stayed with me. There aren’t many days when I wake up thinking of the movie I watched the night before. In this case, I did.

All in all, it’s a solid representation of Koontz’s work, and I would recommend it for fans of the book.

We also watched Last Vegas, which has been predictably referred to as The Hangover for seniors. Four old friends go to Vegas for a bachelor party and hijinks ensue. The big takeaway? Michael Douglas looks more like his dad than ever. The performances are good, the script has some solid jokes and Mary Steenburgen can sing. Who knew? It’s was an enjoyable couple of hours. Definitely a rental, not an owner.

While writing this weekend, I realized what the title to the third Dead Sheriff book needed to be. For fans of the first book, I realize this news might be slightly ironic and perhaps even frustrating, since I haven’t finished writing the second book yet.
 
No one has been more disappointed than me at my lack of productivity. The last couple of years have been tumultuous and that’s all I’m inclined to say. I may be the only person on the Internet who doesn’t feel an obligation to share every personal detail of my life with the world, but I’ve never been one of the cool kids, so why start now?

The good news is that my writing is returning to something resembling a normal schedule.

And it feels good.

In addition to the next Dead Sheriff book (which involves masked vigilantes, cannibals and a vampire bordello, so, you know, booyah), I have several other projects in the works for this year and I’m anxious to see some results. Now it’s a party.

The Guardians of the Kitty Cave

I woke up to this today. It's kind of interesting to me because I didn't leave the shoes there. They were next to the cave, not in front of it. I did see Sabrina rolling on my shoes last night, one of her favorite leisure activities. If Norma didn't move them, then Sabrina put a lot of effort into that arrangement. I hate to move them now.

How Superman Would Have Made Gravity A Much Shorter Movie