Dire Chapters

The Pulpwork Press website has posted the first chapters of Dire Planet, Exiles of the Dire Planet, and Into the Dire Planet. So run on over to Pulpwork and give 'em a read!

It's the Dire Planet Calling

Usually I'm slightly behind the curve when it comes to technology. I tend to wait until the bugs have been worked out and the price comes down. However, there are many fearlessly forging into the new technological frontiers, and one of these has brought to my attention a new application for the iphone and ipod touch.

Stanza is a free application that can be downloaded to your iphone or ipod touch and it allows you to download books (from a selection of over 100,000) and read them on your iphone.

I've been told that readers are downloading the Pulpwork Press books available in electronic format at Fictionwise.com and reading the books on their iphones. Since I have five different titles available at Fictionwise (Dire Planet, Exiles of the Dire Planet, Into the Dire Planet, Escape from Devil's Head, and Devil Take the Hindmost) I think that's pretty amazing.

Tying up the Loose Ends

I do like to leave a few loose story threads hanging in a novel length work, because they give me something to pick up and run with at a later time. Also, if one ties up things too firmly, it all seems a little too neat. A few ragged edges lend some reality.

However, In finishing up this round of editing on the Nuclear Suitcase I find that the ending is a bit abrupt. Sure, I wrap up all the major plotlines in The Nuclear Suitcase, but there are a few niggling details and threads that are lingering in my mind. Some of these will tie up nicely in an epilogue, but inevitably some of these will just create a few more loose threads--fodder for future Gantlet tales, perhaps.

Guess, I'd better get to work on that epilogue.

Jim Anthony, Super Detective

You may have noticed my postings have been rather scant as of late. Primarily, this is because I've been using every spare moment of time editing the manuscript for The Nuclear Suitcase, recording a studio demo with my band Voice of Reason (VOR) and working on a project for the Airship 27 publishing company.

Editor, Ron Fortier, of Airship 27 has asked me to contribute a story for an anthology of Jim Anthony, Super Detective stories. They have already released one anthology, and are planning a second and even a third anthology.



Who is Jim Anthony, you might ask? Jim Anthony is a classic pulp character whose stories were published in the early 1940's. He's a half Irish, half Comanche with a brain as sharp as Sherlock Holmes and a Herculean physique, to boot.

He's obviously modeled after Doc Savage to some extent--though the writing of the original stories tends toward the mediocre and there were some different editorial approaches toward Jim Anthony (see the Somebody Dies blog for a review of a pair of the original tales). One approach was to make Jim Anthony very much a superman in the tradition of the Doc Savage tales. The other approach was to make Jim Anthony a hard-boiled style of detective.

In writing my Jim Anthony tale, entitled The Scream Hammer, I opted for a mix of the two. Jim Anthony is both a man of amazing abilities and a fallible human being.

As always, I'll provide you more information about my Jim Anthony project as it comes closer to fruition. In the meantime, the best way to get familiar with Jim Anthony is to pick up a copy of the Airship 27 anthology.

The Spirit Movie Review

Check out the Pulpwork Press website for a Derrick Ferguson movie review of the recent Frank Miller directed The Spirit. If you find Derrick's review intriguing, enlightening, or just plain entertaining consider picking up a copy of his movie review notebooks.

Comic Prices Going Up

From an article in the New York Times--Comics Prices are going up...again.

The timing may seem odd since the U.S. and, indeed, the entire World is well into a recession, but

Dan Buckley, The President of Print and Digital Media for Marvel cites rising costs in everything from travel and entertainment expenses to paper, ink and distribution. My first reaction to this is that perhaps Marvel Employees should consider cutting their travel and entertainment expenses in order to stay competitive in an economy with less available disposable income. Also, I happen to know that pulp mills have fallen on hard times and are sitting on a surplus of materials, cutting back hours, and laying off employees because the demand is so low. Low demand means lower prices for paper, not higher prices. So Marvel's claims of rising costs don't ring true. (At least at the moment-once production is cut back and the low value dollars from the economic stimulus are dumped into the economy we will eventually see rampant inflation. Maybe Marvel is gearing up for that?)

The other thought provoking item from the New York Times article is Buckley's statement that Marvel plans to raise its prices on some of the books with the highest circulation — Hulk, Thor, Dark Avengers and New Avengers — to stave off an increase across the line.

Now, generally, if we see an increase of one dollar per book (they are slated to go from $2.99 to $3.99) we would like to see an increase in quality or content, and indeed, their competitor, DC has plans to include an 8 page back up feature in the books that they post an increase on. Marvel, apparently, has no such plans. In fact, the Hulk is currently one of the quickest reads of Marvel's line-up. Jeff Loeb is laughing all the way to the bank, because he's figured out how to write a comic book in a third the time, by including not one, not two, not three, not four, but five double page spreads and a full page spread in the latest issue of the Hulk.

Now if this artwork were Perez-style masterpieces with hundreds of figures then I might understand, but this is pretty standard stuff that most artists are able to pack into smaller frames. It is visually appealing, but very little story gets told in the course of an issue. To substantiate my complaint I've included a few scans below:

Dark Worlds Issue #4

The line-up for Dark Worlds issue #4 has been announced and unfortunately this is the first issue in which I don't have a story. However, my good friend Derrick Ferguson has snagged the feature cover slot with his weird west story, Tale of the Baron's Tribute, starring the inimitable Sebastian Red.

In the meantime, copies of Dark Worlds 1,2, and 3 are still available and contain the sci-fi tale The Investment (issue #1), Lords of the Bitter Dark--an excerpt from my upcoming fantasy sequel to Escape from Devil's Head (issue #2), and the fantasy pirate tale Immortals of the Cannibal Coast (issue #3).