Are two bad calzones worth a blog post?
Not really. But those two calzones were just the beginning of a ridiculously annoying experience with Rocco’s NY Pizza at 2064 North Decatur Road, Decatur, GA, and ultimately I just had to share and warn the world about this place. Continue reading
Walking out of Reign of Fire in 2002, two years before casting for Batman Begins took place, I announced that Christian Bale should be Batman. When he was actually cast, I was naturally pleased, and have loved his performance as Bruce Wayne from the first frame.
Bale captures the surface of the character, the handsome, athletic leading man who can wear the costume well (and has a square enough jaw that he doesn’t need a prosthetic chin to look right in the mask, as Michael Keaton did). But he also masterfully portrays the complexity, and torment, of Bruce Wayne, and over the course of the films we see him struggle in very human ways with the life he has chosen. It’s not as simple as being tragic or sad or brooding, or dynamic and intense and implacable. Bale’s Batman is real.
In The Dark Knight Rises, Bale shows us something truly surprising for a big screen superhero movie: he shows us not only Bruce Wayne’s tragedy and pain, but his frailty. His Batman is a force of nature, but he is also a man who is scarred and beaten by his experiences and by his age. And that makes his battles, and his triumphs and defeats, resonate all the more. Continue reading
As most folks who know about my character Doc Wilde are aware, Dr. Spartacus Wilde was originally conceived as a contemporary homage to the classic pulp hero Doc Savage whose exploits I, and quite a few others, grew up on. I like to think that Doc Wilde is his own man though, with my fond memories of Doc Savage as the foundation on which I’m building something very much my own. Sort of the way that Robert B. Parker started writing his Spenser novels pretty much as an update of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, then let Spenser grow and become a distinctive character.
Doc Wilde isn’t the first Doc Savage-inspired hero, and he won’t be the last. Heck, Superman, Batman, and James Bond were all influenced by him in significant ways. Race Bannon on Jonny Quest was a Doc Savage ringer. And there have been many pastiche versions of him of varying levels of authorial ability. I’m currently rereading one I read in high school, A Feast Unknown by the great SF writer Philip Jose Farmer, which basically pits Doc Savage against Tarzan and is as over-the-top a piece of transgressive, pornographic fiction as I’ve ever seen (and a pretty rollicking tale, if you can take the content).
There’s a new take on Doc out now that you need to know about. I’ve mentioned the Old Man stories by William Preston before, and in the time since, I’ve gotten to know Bill online and consider him a friend. The stories have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction and he is now offering the first two as an ebook on Amazon.
These wonderful stories are great science fiction with pulp trappings, written in a smart, literate style that far transcends the more juvenile style of the original Doc Savage tales. And they are stories which explore some pretty hefty themes, like redemption and the place of heroes in the post 9/11 world. The ebook is a scant $3, and you really owe it to yourself to read it.
As we enter its final week, The Astonishing Adventures of Doc Wilde Kickstarter is at 141% of its original goal and (hopefully) still climbing. After building the project around three novels (all being published this year), in recent days I added an option allowing supporters to also get the 4th book, Doc Wilde and The Daughter of Darkness, which will be released in the first half of 2013.
The most popular option supporters are choosing gets all four novels in ebook format for only $20. Higher level rewards include trade paperback copies, signed limited editions, several additional short Doc Wilde adventures, and other cool stuff.
I also added a bonus reward that all supporters will get for free if we pass 200% of goal, which you can read about here.
Over the course of the Doc Wilde Kickstarter (which ends April 28th), I’m sharing a few of my favorite reviews that the first book, Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom, received when it was originally published by Putnam. Today’s is by novelist Bill Crider:
Looking for a Doc Savage pastiche and a Lovecraftian adventure all in one? Look no further. Tim Byrd has it for you right here. Doctor Spartacus Wilde and his two kids, Brian and Wren, are plunged into action almost from page one when they learn of the disappearance of Grandpa Wilde. They go from the top of what’s obviously the Empire State Building to the South American jungle, tangling with all kinds of weird frogs, not to mention frog-men, along the way.
Wilde is so much like Savage that I expected to him to start trilling on any page. He never did, but his shirt is always ripped. So is Grandpa Wilde’s, for that matter. Like their dad, the kids are fluent in many languages, know more science than a college prof, know more literature than your average English teacher, and are as agile as monkeys. Doc’s other companions are the ape-like Declan mac Coul and the cultivated Phineas Bartlett (he’s “good with quotations”). The whole crew speeds from one cliffhanger to the next so fast that you’ll hardly be able to keep up.
Byrd is clearly out to hook both the youngsters and the older folks who’ve read Doc Savage. Who else would he expect to get this joke: “The impact rattled the man of brawn’s skeleton, . . .” I’ll bet Byrd’s been waiting years to get that one into print.
It’s all in good fun, and you should know by now if this is your kind of thing. If it is, you’re probably already waiting for the sequels, which should come along very soon.
Looking for Adventure? GO WILDE!!!
The Astonishing Adventures of Doc Wilde Kickstarter is still doing well, currently at 123% of its original goal and (hopefully) still climbing. After building the project around three novels (all being published this year), in recent days I added an option allowing supporters to also get the 4th book, Doc Wilde and The Daughter of Darkness, which will be released in the first half of 2013.
The most popular option supporters are choosing gets all four novels in ebook format for only $20. Higher level rewards include trade paperback copies, signed limited editions, several additional short Doc Wilde adventures, and other cool stuff.
Yesterday I also added a bonus reward that all supporters will get for free if we pass 200% of goal, which you can read about here.
Over the course of the Doc Wilde Kickstarter (which ends April 28th), I’m sharing a few of my favorite reviews that the first book, Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom, received when it was originally published by Putnam. Todays, by novelist Barry Hunter, is from The Baryon Review:
Just a quick note about a new book. It has a May publication date and is a joy. If you remember the pulps and Doc Savage, you need to pick this one up. It’s a true delight and will be something your children will enjoy as well.
DOC WILDE AND THE FROGS OF DOOM by Tim Byrd, Putnam, reviewed by Barry Hunter.
Sometimes as you get older you think about some of the joys and memories you have accumulated over the years: your first comic book, your first trip to the library, or your first trip to the movie theatre. All these are fond memories, but another of mine stands out as well. It was the first time reading Doc Savage, The Shadow and The Spider in the original pulp appearance. They enjoyed a revival in the seventies, but what of the new readers that have come along since then?
This book helps to solve that problem. Tim Byrd has taken the basics from the pulps and the world spanning adventures they brought into our lives on a monthly basis. Doc Wilde is a descendant of those pulps and starts off with an adventure that is straight out of the thirties.
Doc Wilde has trained his two children, Brian and Wren, from an early age to be physically fit, mentally alert and to expect the unexpected at a moments notice.
In this adventure, their grandfather has disappeared, they are attacked by mutant frogs and mutated frog men, travel to Hidalgo on a rescue mission, and uncover the mystery and the master who is hoping to take over the world.
Byrd has taken Doc Savage, added in a pinch of Robert E. Howard, a liberal dose of H.P. Lovecraft, and mixed it all together in a well done, enchanting pastiche of the pulps that will appeal to the adult audience as well as the young adult readers. It is over the top at times, rip roaring adventure that returns us to the days of yesteryear and leaves us wanting more. I hope to see more from Tim Byrd and Doc Wilde in the future.
Looking for Adventure? GO WILDE!!!
Over the remaining three weeks of the Doc Wilde Adventures Kickstarter, I’m going to share a few of my favorite reviews the first book, Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom, received when it was originally published by Putnam. First up, the esteemed Ken Hite’s view…
Kenneth Hite is a smart man.
He’s a writer of various things, particularly in the roleplaying game field. He’s a true polymath, carrying vast stores of knowledge about a vast array of topics around in his brain. He’s one of the few human beings I have ever met who makes me feel kind of dumb.
He’s also a scholar of pulp fiction, particularly the works of H.P. Lovecraft. So it thrills me to share with you his review of my first book, Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom, which is of course an homage to both the pulp heroes of the 1930s and ’40s and to H.P. Lovecraft’s unspeakable horror tales. It’s my first review by someone I’m not only sure gets everything I tried to do in the book, but who I suspect gets stuff I don’t even realize is in there.
Here’s his review of the book from Flames Rising: Continue reading
My day is made, thanks to blogger/reader/lovely friend Nydia Macedo down in Rio:
Thank you, Nyd. :)
SF novelist Greg Bear has posted his review of John Carter, which is also a commentary on the treatment the film is getting from mainstream critics, as well as on pulp fiction’s place in our culture. I’ve spliced in a bit below. The whole thing is a very good read, so you should read it…click here to do so.
And y’know, much has been made of Disney not calling the flick John Carter of Mars, but I think they truly missed a bet by not calling it John Carter and The Princess of Mars. That would have captured its science fantasy elements, its romanticism, and the fact that it has an honest-to-Barsoom new Disney princess in it. And a truly capable, heroic princess at that. Of course, Disney completely flubbed the marketing on the film, and now they’re suffering for it.
Without “A Princess of Mars” there would be no “Star Wars” or “Avatar,” of course. There would be fewer names on the modern map of Mars–and likely far fewer engineers and scientists to build those space ships and shoot them into the outer void.
In 1911, Burroughs was happy to incorporate the latest speculations about Mars–derived from the work of the immensely popular astronomer Pervical Lowell, and not thoroughly discredited until the 1960s. To those speculations he added a bit of H. Rider Haggard, a bit of Kipling, and a bit of the then-popular Graustarkian romance, where a brave commoner is launched into royal complications in an exotic mythical land.
George Lucas, decades later, owed a tremendous debt to Burroughs. Tatooine is much like Mars, with wonderfully strange creatures, suspended racers, and huge flying barges with swiveling deck guns.
And no wonder. Leigh Brackett, co-screen-writer on The Empire Strikes Back, often wrote pulp tales herself–some set on Mars–and did it quite well.
In turn, she inspired Ray Bradbury to revisit and revise Burroughs’s Mars in The Martian Chronicles, an enduring classic. Brackett went on to craft screenplays based on the pulp tradition that the Times still finds so discreditable: The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. She co-wrote that screenplay with William Faulkner. Faulkner sold his first short story to a pulp magazine, Weird Tales. So did Tennessee Williams. And I strongly suspect they all read and enjoyed, in their younger years at least, A Princess of Mars.
We would all be the poorer for not allowing future generations of young readers a chance to fall into Burrough’s amazing pulp story of adventure and imagination, still powerful and fun after all these years.
Writer Dougie Brimson has a post up on the importance of online reader reviews for writers:
As a professional writer of ebooks, whenever I release something new onto the market the promotion of that book falls not to the publisher as it used to, but to me as the author. As a consequence the normal routine is to bombard media outlets, social media, related websites and blogs in the hope that someone will help by providing some publicity.
This, as you can imagine, is an extremely important part of the publishing process because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how good a book might be if no one knows about it no one will buy it! But this work can consume an extraordinary amount of time and whilst it can be fabulous fun, it can also prove to be both frustrating and soul destroying.
However, after a certain amount of time you have to get back to the actual process of writing which means that you have to let your latest stand on its merits and fend for itself. It’s at this point that all authors hope that their readers will kick in and take up the task of spreading the word on their behalf. Fundamental to that is the review.
Trust me, as a promotional tool online reviews really do work which is why all authors ask, plead and even beg their readers to post them. It isn’t that we want you to boost our self-esteem (nice though that is!) it’s because the simple truth of the matter is that nothing sells books like word of mouth and these days, that primarily means what readers have to say on the online outlets.
All this is very true. Even simply clicking the LIKE button on a book’s page on Amazon helps a bit, but reviews are essential. Even if a writer is published through a big publisher, that doesn’t mean their books are getting decent promotion, or any promotion at all (most often they’re not).
This is also a wonderful way to reward an author if you enjoy a book you didn’t actually buy, whether it’s checked out of the library, bought used, borrowed from a friend, or even pirated off the internet. They didn’t make anything off your read, but you may help sell a few more books for them, and that’s a pretty nice way of giving back.
You don’t even have to write a lengthy review. Just give it a star rating, write a few lines about what you thought of the book, and click LIKE if, indeed, you liked it.
Also, if you really like a book or an author, you may consider “rounding up” when you rate them, i.e if you figure the book is a 4.5 star book, give it the 5 star rating rather than the 4 star. This will help offset the people out there who will give a book 1 star because it has dirty words in it, or because Amazon sent them a damaged copy, or because it has characters whose politics don’t coincide with theirs, or who read a certain type of book and score it badly for being that type of book. You see these kind of reviews all the time: “I’m sure this is an excellent mystery, and it’s incredibly well-written with engaging characters. But I don’t like mysteries, so I’m giving it only 2 stars…”
I’m not asking you to misrepresent yourself. Just err on the side of kindness. That is someone’s baby you’re talking about…
Back in 2009, I reviewed a modern pulp adventure titled The Sting of the Scorpion. As I said then (review here), I enjoyed the hell out of it, and ever since I’ve been hoping to see new Scorpion adventures. A second book has been due for a while, and looks to finally be coming soon, but in the meantime, the author has released a short story featuring the hero, called “Past Imperfect.”
As I wrote before:
As for the hero, in classic pulp fashion, The Scorpion by day is a wealthy paragon, living in the tallest building in the city, assisted by a mysterious Asian woman, dedicated to his mission against evil…but he’s not just a hero with a dark past, he’s a hero with a really dark past. And he’s not really human, in some very interesting and dangerous ways. Richard Wentworth dressed as The Spider to scare criminals into thinking he was a monster; Kurt Reinhardt becomes The Scorpion because he is a monster.
Reinhardt is a compelling protagonist, the action frequent and brutal, the city a violent and noirish place, and the plot interesting. Not only that, but Stockholm can actually write very well…I do have to warn readers of delicate tastes away, however, because this is a very grim and blood-splashed work.
I just read it, and it’s understandably slighter than its longer predecessor, but still a lot of fun, and a good taste of Scorpion action and craziness. It needs a bit of editing (little things, like having a character “pouring” rather than “poring” over some documents), but is a sleek and clever read and easy to recommend at an ebook cost of 99¢.
You can buy it here. You can also buy The Sting of the Scorpion here for only $2.99 (and you should).
(Also, if you’re a fan of pulp adventure, make sure to check out the news about my Doc Wilde series!!!)
Conan the Barbarian is nowhere near as good as Conan the Barbarian, though Conan the Barbarian is better than Conan the Barbarian at being Conan the Barbarian.
Got that?
Let me further break it down for you. Continue reading
Halloween/Samhain has always been my favorite holiday. To celebrate, here’s Springsteen channeling the raging ghost of Howlin’ Wolf with a perfect Halloween song…
For the interested, here are some posts from back in my blog somewheres related to Halloweeny goodness…
…for those who might like to watch something scary and good, I figured I’d throw you a few bones. Collect ‘em all and you can build a skeleton.
These are just five classics, not my all time favorites or anything with that much thought behind it, not in any particular order. All of them are first rate.
Some more contemporary works that many people haven’t seen, and everybody who loves a good scare needs to.
A wonderful short animated film by UCLA student Joaquin Baldwin. It’s visually amazing, and the story is very moving.
My latest column at Inveterate Media Junkies is up. It’s part 2 of my look at pulp adventure films.
Two-Fisted Flickage (Pulp On The Big Screen, Part 2)
And if you missed part 1 or earlier columns:
Thousands of readers haven’t battered me with messages asking what happened to my reviews of DC Comics’s “New 52″ which I launched here. For those thousands, and the millions who also didn’t mention it, I figured an update was the least I could do.
Frankly, I burned out quickly. Writing even capsule reviews of all these comics proved a more tedious task than anticipated, especially as I started trying to read some of the bad ones. The first I read that I didn’t even remotely enjoy was Men of War, which was half a pound of machismo in a hundred pound box of don’t-know-what-manhood-is. It also tried to embrace the heroism of the military at the same time as it told us the best soldiers aren’t soldiers at all but bold individuals who ignore orders and thus always save the day. Crap.
But it wasn’t until I tried to read Legion Lost that I couldn’t even finish one of the comics. It wasn’t really bad, it was just there. Nothing about the thing, neither story nor art, was remotely compelling. It was basic, serviceable superhero fare, and I described it to a friend as “what people who have no respect for comics expect comics to be at their best.”
I lack the fortitude to force my way through all these books and bother saying anything about them. If you’re interested in reviews, though, the net is full of ‘em. I’ve been enjoying Erik Mona’s thoughtful reviews which put my paltry earlier offerings to shame (even though he enjoyed the war comic). You can find them at his blog.
Now don’t get me wrong, the New 52 isn’t a failure, either creatively or financially (as a publicity stunt, it boosted DC’s sales a great deal). There are a lot of problems with it, from really shaky chronological consistency to some really egregious institutionalized misogyny. Also, Rob Liefeld.
But there are some good ideas too, and I particularly enjoyed the treatment of the big three, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Each of their titles starts off strong, and I’ll be staying with those and a few others in the months ahead.
He knows.
My latest column on pulp adventure is up at Inveterate Media Junkies. This month I’m discussing pulp movies.
If Adventure Has A Name (Pulp On The Big Screen)
And if you missed the earlier columns:
As you may or may not know, this month DC Comics relaunched its entire line of superhero titles with a batch of 52 comics all starting at issue #1.
They’re doing this in a bid to increase their readership and market share in a time when comic sales are declining. They’re also fully embracing the digital market for the first time (something neither they nor Marvel have done previously), with every title available digitally on the day of release.
Creatively, they’ve decided to reset the timeline of the stories. The characters are (mostly) younger now, operating earlier in their careers. Some of the previous canon of events are still considered to have occurred (Barbara “Batgirl” Gordon was shot by the Joker, paralyzing her; Superman died and came back in that ludicrous Doomsday storyline used in a previous desperate bid for publicity), some did not (Superman hasn’t married Lois Lane). The mish-mash of what officially happened and didn’t happen, and when, is implicitly perilous to the goal of solid continuity for the DC universe, and could easily spin out of control as everything is juggled by the many creators involved.
The first batch of titles is out, and I’ve read them. Here are my impressions: Continue reading
Whoever you are, whether you’re a Batman fan or not, whether you’re a comic book fan or not, if you like to laugh, you should read the review of Batman: Odyssey at Comics Alliance.
Today, Editor-in-Chief Laura Hudson and contributor David Wolkin sit down and attempt the nigh-impossible task of figuring out exactly what happens in Odyssey, a book that has both challenged and redefined our notions of Batman, comics, and our tenuous grasp on sanity…
Neal Adams is one of the all-time great comic book artists, the man who truly defined the cool modern Batman. For many years as a kid, I had a huge poster of this Adams image on my wall:
Unfortunately, as is sometimes the case in comic publishing, someone at DC thought, “Hey, the man can draw, I bet that means he can write too!” Because after all, writing is easy, right? And they gave Neal no telling how much money to do a twelve issue epic series about Batman. The result seems to be one of the most completely batshit crazy comic book stories in history.
You need to read the review. Honestly. I laughed till I couldn’t breathe while I read it. I had to take breaks so I wouldn’t asphyxiate myself. It’s comedy gold, and I say that as someone who hasn’t even seen the comic book in question.
Deconstructing the Complete and Utter Insanity of Batman: Odyssey
After many travails, my second column at Inveterate Media Junkies is now finally online:
Writing has always been a questionable way to make a living.
Yeah, occasionally one of us gets lucky and makes millions, but you may as well plan around winning the lottery. It’s not even a matter of talent…while the bestseller lists are often ruled by writers whose output is an insult to paper and ink, ungodly talents struggle to pay the rent and have to work other jobs to support their families.
But you, as a reader, have the power to help writers you like. Your most basic use of this power, of course, is simply spending money on their work, which is a sacred act. You can take that further by buying additional copies as gifts for others. You can even make a point of actually buying books new, rather than nabbing used copies or reading them at the library.
(Neither of which, I have to tell you, I really have much issue with. As a writer, I write to be read, so the more people reading my work, wherever they get it, the happier I am, on a certain overarching level. And it’s true that someone who reads one of your books for free or cheap may like it so much that they’ll buy your next one fresh off the shelf, where the sale does you the most good. All the same, it’s indisputable that succeeding as a writer is tough, and as a reader your decision to buy new is a powerful act and can make all the difference. I want most of all to be read…but the more sales I get, the better able I am to stay in print and publish even more stuff and make a living at all.)
So yeah, buying is very important. But it’s not all you can do to help struggling scribes, and there are easy things you can do that don’t even cost you anything.
Back in April, author G.P. Ching (who apparently kicks patootie at Guitar Hero) blogged about this very topic, and did such a good job, I don’t think I can improve on it. Her full post is here. In it she offers five ways readers can help writers “that cost absolutely nothing but go a long way toward helping to foster their potential.”
As a struggling mid-lister, I assure you that if you do these things not only will they help, they will be enormously appreciated.
Here are G.P.’s suggestions on free ways to help writers:
5. Forward their pressWhether it is a tweet, post, or status message, someone who follows you might be interested. Retweeting or sharing a post only takes a second but could mean connecting a potential reader with an author they’ll love.4. Tell a friendIf you like someone’s work, there’s no better way than word of mouth to promote their cause. Even if you haven’t read the specific book yet, your comment can inform someone of the book’s availability. And, of course, if you have read the book, let others know you liked it. Indie authors don’t have large publicity budgets and rely on personal connections more than anything else for promotion.3. Tag and “like” their book on the bookseller’s siteAt the bottom of a book’s page on Amazon, there are check boxes to tag a book. When you check one, it strengthens the association between the book and that category. So, when someone else searches on the category, books with more tags appear higher in the search results. This increases exposure for the work.When you “like” a book on Amazon or Barnes and Noble, it adds a message on your Facebook newsfeed and is good promotion for the title.2. Add the author’s book to your To-Be-Read pile on GoodreadsAll of your Goodreads followers get a glimpse of the cover and can see that you added it. Plus, it increases the number of people associated with the book which can garner interest in the title.1. Write a reviewOften if your intention is to write a review, an author will provide you with a free copy of the book. Whether on a blog or on a bookseller’s site, reviews help authors sell more books and are greatly appreciated.
Recently I’ve blogged about my attempts to optimize my approach to writing day to day, to hopefully become more productive and prolific. A huge part of that, by necessity, is that I have to deal with my depression; if I can’t, I might as well throw in the towel.
This week, I start a course of ECT (electroconvulsive therapy), which will hopefully give me the edge in that fight. I’m assuming it will, so I’m working on setting the stage for the writing I plan once it’s over.
Kate gave me a book about writing for my birthday, Chapter By Chapter by Heather Sellers. Generally I find books about writing to be a waste of time for a writer; most of them say essentially the same things, and once you’ve read one, you’ve pretty much read the rest. If you’re trying to be a writer, your time is better spent writing than reading about writing. Till now, I’ve recommended only two books to writers looking for advice, The War of Art by Steven Pressfield and On Writing by Stephen King.
Chapter By Chapter is now on that list, and not just because it came to me via hot redhead. Kate chose well; Sellers has some fresh perspectives on the work, and her book has been useful to me as I try to figure these things out.
One chapter proved pertinent to this post, the one about “positioning.” Sellers defines positioning as preparing to do the work, mentally and physically, in advance, so that when it’s time to get to work you can just sit down and write. Part of this is making a routine of connecting with your project every evening, thinking about the next day’s writing, staying involved. The other part of it is making sure you’re physically set up in advance so you don’t have to waste time gathering materials and setting up when you sit down to write again. Continue reading
