The Meaning of Life: You Read It Here First!

I recently discovered the meaning of life.

And you think I’m going to tell you?

Well okay I will.  This is the edited version of course.  I have thousands of pages of rough workings but this is the short version.  The meaning of life is this: 42. 

Yes, I appreciate that you already knew that.  As a card-carrying science fiction fan (actually, are there cards you can carry to say you’re a science fiction fan? and where do I get one?) you will have known for many years that the meaning of life, according to the great guru Douglas Adams, is 42. 

The question to the answer, however, is; why? (more…)

Kaiju Boogie

Tonight, I watched Godzilla 2000 on the local Spanish TV station.  Despite my last name, I don’t speak Spanish.  Turns out you’re not born knowing it, and I never really got the chance to learn.

It didn’t matter.  Godzilla speaks the universal language of butt-kicking, city-stomping action.  I’d seen the movie before, of course.  Several times.  Even if I hadn’t though it would’ve been easy to follow.

That’s something I love about Godzilla flicks.  They don’t need complicated plots to be exciting.  They just need Monster A to fight Monster B until one of them is defeated.  The why is largely unimportant.
(more…)

The Week That Was, As It Was

This week has already gotten off to a wild start with Jesse Bullington’s concluding post re: the history of the Grossbart Brothers, appearing coincidentally with the publication TODAY of his debut novel from Orbit (US | UK), The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart — but before we get too far along, a quick rundown on what you might have missed, last week.

The first two parts of Jesse Bullington’s History of the History;

A. Lee Martinez pointing out the ugly truth about fictional protagonists;

Forthcoming covers of the mass market edition of Joe Abercrombie’s Best Served Cold and Tom Holt’s Blonde Bombshell;

And, Nicole Peeler’s blood-curdling rundown of the Shreveport Smackdown between herself and fellow Orbit author Jaye Wells. Including, photos of the chair.

A History of the Reality of the History of the Grossbarts: Part 3 (The End of History)

“Follow our lead,” Ardanuy had told me just before we infiltrated the underground conference. “And save any accusations for the Q and A no matter what slander they sling. Better to take it on the chin than come off as amateur.”

This advice seemed at odds with the example they set, Ardanuy and Dunn both leaping from their seats with canes brandished as soon as Tanzer issued her proclamation. Before I could, as Ardanuy had instructed, follow their lead, both men were swarmed by members of the audience packing truncheons of their own. I stood, resolute in that moment to save my mentors, when something bit my hand and I dropped the pistol Dunn had given me. Staring down in horror, I saw a fat weasel dangling from my palm, blood running down the beast’s greedy throat, and when I moved to tear it away with my free hand I felt tiny, sharp claws settle on my shoulder. I froze. (more…)

A History of the Reality of the History of the Grossbarts: Part 2

Dunn’s flight had arrived late and so we drove through the night, past Pensacola, past New Orleans, arriving in Baton Rouge just after daybreak. Both professors sat in the backseat, which did not put me any more at ease, and only the throbbing pain in my legs from the drubbing Dunn had administered kept me awake. Ardanuy directed me to a ramshackle motel on the edge of the bayou called the SoCo Inn. The carpets were damp and the mattress smelled like an overfull ashtray someone had urinated on but I was beyond caring, and as Dunn and Ardanuy sat down at the warped card table in one corner of the room I passed out. (more…)

The Ugly Truth (part 2)

Just a day or two ago, I posted about how nearly every novel written in the mainstream or genre category features attractive protagonists.  I added that I find this especially galling in fantasy / sci fi because mine is a genre of limitless possibilities. i09.com picked up the post, and a great slew of comments were left.  I love a good debate, but reading through these, I feel it’s time for a clarification. (more…)

Cover Launch: BEST SERVED COLD

PrintNow in bite-sized format: the mass market edition of Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie. Now even more bad-ass.

I may have gone over this before, but you may ask, “Why would you change the cover from Hardcover to Paperback?” and my answer usually is “Why not?!” — there’s always more than one way to portray the story in a book, and why not take the opportunity to do something new and maybe even attract a few new readers that you may have missed the first time around. There’s some seriously publishing-geeky conversations over here between Editorial and Art about audience, readers, how people browse in bookstores vs. airports vs. bog box chains, etc. but in my book I will usually always go for reshuffling the elements at least — keeping the art, but playing with the crop, size, order, type on a cover. (That is, unless the Creative Director hasn’t had a lot of sleep that week, or some other art emergency is draining manpower when the cover change comes up for discussion, so don’t go back thru the backlist and nitpick me, ok? Ha.) (more…)

The Shreveport Smackdown: The True Story

Shreveport Herald Police Blotter
November 11, 2009

Shreveport police are still sorting through statements after urban fantasists Nicole Peeler and Jaye Wells allegedly attacked one another at their mutual signing, according to witnesses and bookstore staff.

As stated by one bystander, Mary Lois White, also of Shreveport, “It was all going along fine, when suddenly Nicole said something about how vampires are ‘played out,’ and Jaye said, ‘I’ll play you out, you seal-lover,’ and then Nicole told Jaye to ‘Bring it!’ and Jaye grabbed her by the hair.”

hair pulling

“It was brutal,” interrupted White’s husband, Douglas. “She struck like an adder. Nicole didn’t have a chance.”
(more…)

A History of the Reality of the History of the Grossbarts: Part 1

Bullington_Sad Tale Bros. Grossbart (TP)I first encountered Hegel and Manfried Grossbart as a child in an old book my parents picked up at a garage sale—Trevor Caleb Walker’s Enter the Nexus, Black Monolith. Not realizing what a rare find this century-old edition was, my parents gave me the glorified chapbook, thinking that Walker’s thrashing, inept verse was intended as limericks for children, a bit like the copy of Wilhelm Busch’s Max and Moritz that I so adored. At that age I did not even realize Walker was intending poetry and thought it was simply a bizarrely written series of short stories about graverobbing brothers being unkind to man, woman, and beast. I certainly did not appreciate the volume’s value, and so it went the way of so many old horror comics and paperbacks—worn out and abandoned after a few summers, and entirely forgotten by the time University beckoned. (more…)