Tag Archives: pulp heroes

Wilde Success! (But The Adventure Continues…)

Looking for Adventure? GO WILDE!!!

YAHOO! Today, one week after it began, the Doc Wilde Adventures Kickstarter project hit (and passed) its $3,000 goal!

But that doesn’t mean it’s over. The goal was our minimum target we needed to hit in order for the Kickstarter to succeed; had we not reached it, the project would have failed and no funding would have occurred. But now, the sky is the limit. People can continue to jump on board and contribute, and the more funds we get, the better we can make these books.

Thank you to all our great friends who have given their support to the project thus far! And a special call-out to the guys at Inveterate Media Junkies, who’ve been featuring the Doc Wilde Kickstarter on their site all week and who also made a big pledge that brought us to goal!

To celebrate today’s success, I’d like to dedicate the following tune to all our supporters…

DOC WILDE ADVENTURES: Tim Byrd has “the keen eye for the plausible impossibility shared by many of the pulp greats”

 

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…

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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 →

The Warrior (Song of the Week, 4/3/2012)

Because The Astonishing Adventures of Doc Wilde happens to be kickin’ ass on Kickstarter so far…0 to 62% of our funding goal in four days flat. (That’s our minimum goal to succeed, mind you; once we reach it, we’re still not done).

(A huge thank you to you folks who’ve pledged your support!)

Free Fiction Friday: Rapiers In The Rain In SKULLDUGGERY!!!

 Because of things I explained this morning, this week’s Friday falls on Saturday.

Of course, the very week I started doing this, I did say that Friday usually falls on Friday. I did foresee the need for flexibility. I’m very wise.

Just a token taste of free fiction this week, chapter 14 of my serialized hardboiled fantasy novel, SKULLDUGGERY, A TALE OF THIEVES, in which Darton squares off with another swordsman for some frantic combat in the rain…

SKULLDUGGERY, A TALE OF THIEVES

As always, keep in mind that this is a first draft of a novel that I wrote nearly thirty years ago. I’m proud of it, and think it’s loaded with cool stuff, but it is a tad rough hewn.

Also, the Kickstarter project relaunching my Doc Wilde pulp adventure series (which I had been publishing with Putnam, but have now taken independent) is now LIVE!.  It will run until midnight (PST, because I wanted to give the left coasters a fair shot) Saturday, April 28th; it encompasses three books which will be released by the end of the year, in fully illustrated editions available both as ebooks and trade paperbacks.

It’s been only about thirty hours since the project launched and we’re already at 46% of our minimum goal. And the very highest pledge level, which  was limited to only three people because it offers three one-of-a-kind collectibles, already has two pledges. So if you’re at all interested in getting the maximum rewards we have to offer, you might take a look over there soon. (The second highest level, which is limited to four slots, is still open, and there are no limitations on how many folks can pledge at all the other levels).

I hope you’ll get Wilde with us…

The Astonishing Adventures Of Doc Wilde Kickstarter Is Now LIVE!!!

Click The Pic To Go To Kickstarter!

And, we’re flyin‘…

The Doc Wilde Kickstarter has officially begun:

The Astonishing Adventures of Doc Wilde

I invite you to click the link above and take a look at the cool rewards we came up with for each pledge level. Watch the amazing video, in which I seem subtly unable to wear a shirt correctly and show, once and for all, that, videogenically speaking, I have a great face for literature.

Kickstarter is a system created to make it possible for people all over the world to help creators fund cool projects; in exchange, the supporters get cool stuff and opportunities to interact in assorted ways with the creators. The creator posts a funding goal, and if the goal is met then the project succeeds and the pledge money goes to the creator. But if the goal is not met, the project fails and no money is exchanged. It’s an all-or-nothing system.

I’ve set the project goal at $3,000, basically a grand each for the three novels the Kickstarter is meant to launch. But please understand that this is a minimum goal; once it’s met, the project is a success, but people can still join in (and hopefully will) at any point during the time the project is active. The more the merrier, and the more funds we raise the  easier it will be to produce not only these first three volumes but more books in the series.

The project will run until Saturday, April 28th, at midnight PST.

If you plan to pledge, please do it as early as you’re able. Launching strong is very important for a project because many possible supporters look for projects to support with a high probability of success. If the project is already well on its way to hitting its funding target early, that’s a good sign it will succeed.

If you pledge, we sincerely thank you. Welcome to the pulpy, perilous world of Doc Wilde and his amazing family!

The Big Reveal: The New Cover Art For DOC WILDE AND THE FROGS OF DOOM!!!

 

With just under twenty-four hours before the Doc Wilde Kickstarter project goes live (and I have to tell you, I keep feeling like clicking that launch button early), I’ve decided to go ahead and let you see the great new cover Gary Chaloner has designed for the new, much-improved edition of the first novel.

It incorporates elements from his original mock-up, but does so much more…these are the Wildes I’ve always seen in my head.

Back In The Saddle (Song of the Week, 3/28/2012)

After lots of scrambling and last minute concerns, the Doc Wilde Kickstarter project is ready. Now I just have to click the launch button at noon on Friday and we’ll be live.

Year of the Dragon, baby.

The Doc Wilde Adventures Kickstarter Begins This Friday (3/30/12)

It’s getting down to the wire, folks…

This Friday, “The Astonishing Adventures of Doc Wilde” project will go live on Kickstarter.

“In a young adult book market crowded with the depressing and the dour, Tim Byrd’s Doc Wilde swings in on a jungle vine to raise the flag high for adventure. Infused with pace, fun, and all the two-fisted action a reader could ask for, Wilde lovingly riffs on situations straight out of the old pulps, even while making them fresh for a new generation.”
— Zack Stentz, screenwriter, Thor, X-Men: First Class

The Doc Wilde stories are my tribute to the pulp stories I loved growing up, and still love today. Like The Incredibles or the Indiana Jones films, they are suitable for kids and adults both,  full of action and humor and weird science and occult menace and lots of derring-do.

I published the first book, Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom, with Penguin/Putnam in 2009; it did very well both critically and commercially, so they asked for more books. But in the three years since, the digital publishing revolution has opened up many opportunities for an author that traditional publishing doesn’t offer, and I decided to go independent with the series.

The Kickstarter project will encompass three Doc Wilde novels, all to be released by year’s end. The books will be available in trade paperback and ebook formats. They will all have gorgeous covers and interior illustrations by the great Aussie comic book artist Gary Chaloner. (At the top of this post you can see the new logo he’s designed — he’s still painting the rest of the cover, which will hopefully be ready in time to debut when the Kickstarter begins).

I’ve regained my rights to Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom and it will reappear in a much improved new edition in June, featuring not only the new artwork inside and out by Gary, but my “author’s cut” preferred edit and a new short Doc Wilde adventure.

In August, we’ll release Doc Wilde and The Mad Skull, the long-awaited second book, in which the Wildes face a mind-blowing mystery and a truly bizarre villain.

In November the third adventure will appear, Doc Wilde and The Dance of the Werewolf, a dark tale featuring lycanthropes and witchcraft. At least two more Doc Wilde adventures will follow in 2013.

(If you follow the links above you can read excerpts from each of the books).

For those who may not be familiar with Kickstarter, it’s a modern patronage system for creators in which they present something they’d like to do and supporters are able to pledge funds to help them do it, in return for rewards varying from big thank yous to copies of the items created to interactions of various sorts with the creators. The creator posts his intentions and a target amount of money he is trying to raise; if, within the time the Kickstarter runs, enough money is pledged to hit that target, then the Kickstarter succeeds. If the target amount is not met, the Kickstarter has failed and no money is exchanged.

The target I’m setting for this project is $3,000. But that’s a minimum goal, not a maximum; once it’s reached, the Kickstarter continues and new people can continue to get involved. The funds will go toward art and book design and editing, as well as paying for the writing. Any extra funds will be applied to producing more books down the line.

I’ve come up with reward levels for pledges ranging from $5 for an ebook copy of one of the novels and the supporter’s name on the book’s acknowledgments page, up to $400 for signed limited editions of the books along with a bunch more cool stuff. There are only three slots available at the highest level, and four at the second highest, because they include exclusive one-of-a-kind rewards, so those are first come, first served.

I plan to launch the Kickstarter at noon EST this Friday, March 30th.

If you’re looking for adventure…it’s time to GO WILDE!

“It’s a true delight…Tim 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 an over the top at times, rip-roaring adventure that returns us to the days of yesteryear and leaves us wanting more.”
                                                          —The Baryon Review

Are There Werewolves In Your Werewolf Book?

See that awesome Doc Savage cover up there, painted by the incredible James Bama? As a kid who loved Doc Savage stories and also loved werewolves more than any other monster, this cover grabbed me by the very soul when I saw the slender paperback on the rack.

And it’s a pretty good tale. It’s even an important tale in the Doc Savage canon because it’s the story that introduces Doc’s gorgeous and scrappy cousin, Pat Savage. (Who writer Lester Dent intended to start her own detective agency, but his editors thought that was a bit much for a girl, so she got to run a beauty salon instead, though she did go adventuring with her cousin and his crew).

There is one big, annoying, pain-in-the-ass thing about Brand of the Werewolf, though. You know that savage beast throttling Doc in the image at the top of this post? You know, the werewolf? Not actually in the book. There are no lycanthropes of any sort in this book. The “brand” from the title is actually a wolf-head symbol marking some crates, if I remember right. Exciting.

It’s my understanding that, because of that cover up there, this book became the bestselling Doc Savage novel Bantam ever printed. And I’m pretty sure many of the folks who bought it on the strength of that painting were as disappointed as I was to reach the last page and never actually encounter a werewolf.

This year, I’m relaunching my Doc Wilde adventure series, which pays strong tribute to the Doc Savage stories I grew up on. We’re coming out with three books by the end of the year (a Kickstarter so folks can help us with the project and get cool stuff will start next Friday, March 30th), and the third book is titled Doc Wilde and The Dance of the Werewolf. And yes, I have already had Doc Savage fans ask me if there will actually be werewolves in my werewolf book.

Hell yes there are gonna be werewolves in my werewolf book.

Free Fiction Friday: A Gypsy Girl Faces A Tough Choice In SKULLDUGGERY! Doc Wilde Finds Murder In The Woods!

Just a taste of free fiction this week, chapter 13 of my serialized hardboiled fantasy novel, SKULLDUGGERY, A TALE OF THIEVES, in which Aubrey faces a hard choice after the supernatural storm that resulted the last time she tried a tarot reading…

SKULLDUGGERY, A TALE OF THIEVES

Also, we are now only one week away from the start of the Kickstarter project relaunching my Doc Wilde pulp adventure series (which I had been publishing with Putnam, but have now taken independent).  The Kickstarter will run from Friday, March 30th through Saturday, April 28th; it encompasses three books which will be released by the end of the year, in fully illustrated editions available both as ebooks and trade paperbacks.

The past three weeks I have posted excerpts from each novel, and you can read them at the links below.

I hope you’ll join me on my Kickstarter adventure…

DOC WILDE AND THE FROGS OF DOOM

DOC WILDE AND THE MAD SKULL

DOC WILDE AND THE DANCE OF THE WEREWOLF

The JOHN CARTER You’d Have Wanted To See

There’s an excellent column here exploring the many insipid and wrongheaded ways that Disney dropped the ball, or flat-out abandoned the ball, with John Carter and ultimately fucked over its filmmakers as well as the many fans who would have gotten to enjoy sequels to the film that will now never be made. I definitely recommend it.

I think one of the biggest contributing factors was that the executives who started the project had all been canned by the time it came to actually prepare it for release. And the new executives, in no way responsible for the material and not wanting the guys they replaced to have a hit, threw it under the bus. Now they can point to John Carter as a huge flop and say, “See? Aren’t you glad  we’re in charge now?” This kind of pettiness is all too common in Hollywood (and in publishing, for that matter).

One of the results of this crappy attitude was a marketing campaign that hit no high points, that did nothing to capitalize on any of the selling points of the film (Two-time Academy Award winning Pixar director! Pulitzer/Hugo/Nebula-winning novelist as screenwriter! From the creator of Tarzan! A classic book which inspired many classics in turn finally on the big screen!). Even removing the “Of Mars” from the title stripped it of cool; aside from SF fans, who the fuck knows who John Carter is, these days, except maybe the boyish doctor on ER? As I’ve said before, it should have been called John Carter and The Princess of Mars, which incorporates the title of the original book, captures the pulpish science fantasy romanticism of the piece, and indicates that the film offers up not just a dashing hero but a cool new Disney princess who can actually kick ass.

Anyway. They blew it. But if you want to see what the marketing department could have done, check out this trailer put together by a freaking fan, who didn’t have Disney’s millions and supposed marketing savvy to draw on…then watch the cheestastic trailer actually released by Disney (which, among its many sins, stupidly shows Carter engaging in over-the-top physical feats that look ridiculous because they give them no fucking context).

Kind Words From Brazil…

My day is made, thanks to blogger/reader/lovely friend Nydia Macedo down in Rio:

When a great author comes to our bookshelf to stay

Thank you, Nyd. :)

Greg Bear Reviews JOHN CARTER

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.

Free Fiction Friday: More SKULLDUGGERY!!! More WILDE Action!!!

This week’s free fiction is chapters 11 and 12 of my serialized hardboiled fantasy novel, SKULLDUGGERY, A TALE OF THIEVES. ‘Tis a tangled web I’m starting to weave…

SKULLDUGGERY, A TALE OF THIEVES

Also, we are now exactly two weeks away from the start of the Kickstarter project I’m putting together to relaunch my Doc Wilde pulp adventure series (which I had been publishing with Putnam, but have now taken independent).  The Kickstarter encompasses three books which will be released by the end of the year, in fully illustrated editions available both as ebooks and trade paperbacks.

As part of the run up to the actual project (which will run from Friday, March 30th thru Saturday, April 28th), I’m posting excerpts from the three novels. Last week, I  posted part of Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom, then followed it this week with the opening chapters of Doc Wilde and The Mad Skull. Monday I’ll post some of Doc Wilde and The Dance of the Werewolf. In the meantime, click below to check out the first two excerpts.

I hope you’ll join me on my Kickstarter adventure…

DOC WILDE AND THE FROGS OF DOOM

DOC WILDE AND THE MAD SKULL

Sex And The Single Pulp Hero

My pulp brother Barry Reese (author of The Rook series, among other things) has started a conversation at his blog on the subject of sex (and romance) in the pulps…

In the classic hero pulps, there wasn’t a whole lot of sex. You’d have the occasional lurid cover, with some scantily clad woman (usually with stockings showing) in distress while our hero moved to protect her but for the most part, guys like Doc Savage, The Shadow and The Avenger were not very interested in knocking boots. Doc occasionally in later years would display a kind of boyish interest in the fairer sex and The Avenger’s love for his wife was constantly being referenced but even in the first book where you see The Avenger alongside his wife and daughter, you didn’t exactly get the image that they were passionate lovers. They were partners, friends and spouses, yes, but there was no sign of “heat” in the relationship.

There were some exceptions, of course. Jim Anthony was basically Doc Savage with a sex drive but by today’s standards, he was still a bit tame. In fact, the idea of Anthony was racier than the truth — he liked to lounge around at home in a speedo while working in the lab. Hell, what guy doesn’t?

The fantasy pulps (like Conan) got a lot of mileage out of ladies whipping one another and there was no doubt that Conan and others got into lusty embraces. But I’m focusing on the hero pulps because those were my favorites and that’s where most of the New Pulp writings out today fall into place.

So…

Now we’re in the age of New Pulp. Writers are now bringing in more modern ideas about race, gender relations, etc. into their pulp-inspired writings.

But we still don’t have much in the way of S-E-X. I’m not saying we *need* it, I’m just surprised there’s not more variety out there.

Sex and pulp fiction (in that order) are two topics I spend quite a bit of time thinking about, and I’ve given some thought to their interaction too. I commented on Barry’s post:

I’m with you 100%.

One of the things I enjoy about The Spider is the fact that you get the sense that not only are Dick and Nina  rabidly loyal and utterly romantically enraptured with each other, they’re fucking like bunnies. I was bugged by Doc Savage’s apparent pre-adolescent state even when I was reading the books as a kid, and it bugs me even more now.

In my Doc Wilde series, Doc is a widower, but over the course of the stories he will start to develop romantic connections again (indeed, we’ll see some of it in the second book). But he’s already a warmer, in every way more emotional, hero than his literary ancestor. And his parents are very old but still quite youthful, and enjoying each other just as much as The Spider and his lady. (And I’ve already made reference to the fact that the elder Wilde, the “original” Doc Wilde from the pulp era, used to be very stoic and humorless, but his wife opened him up emotionally, making him more loving and playful, and, frankly, human).

Making my characters as human as possible is very important to me, and the stolid sexlessness of heroes like Doc Savage (and even the skirt-chasing antics of his sidekicks, who acted like horny thirteen year olds) is, to me, one of the unfortunate failings of those tales I love so much. (It reached its nadir in the terrible seventies Doc Savage movie, in which the most romantic thing Doc says to the gorgeous jungle princess is “Monja, you’re a brick.”)  Sex, romance, emotion in general, are all very interesting to readers because they’re human themselves. And it’s hard to take a hero completely seriously if he’s unable to function fully as a grown-up in the emotional world.

Granted, with Doc Savage’s background as essentially a cloistered lab experiment, it does make sense that he may not be emotionally mature, though it would have been nice to see him undergo an emotional puberty through the years and become more fully adult.

Of course, this literary neutering of the heroes resulted from an attempt to pander to young readers, just as through editorial edict Doc Savage very early on stopped killing bad guys on his adventures. In his earliest exploits, he was a lot more pragmatic, taking down mooks when he had to, but very quickly they made it so that he never killed anyone, relying heavily on non-lethal methods and gear, though many a villain did bring on their own demise and Doc didn’t shed a tear for them. They did this for the kids. But in those early stories, there is a jagged vibrancy that goes away when Doc gets too pacifistic, and as a horny thirteen year old (and as a horny much older year old) I missed that.

Just as I kept wishing Doc would actually bed one of these perky beauties who threw themselves at him all the time. Didn’t have to see it in detail. Coulda happened off-screen. But it would have been nice to know, for instance, that he was getting his ashes hauled by Princess Monja every time he got down to Hidalgo…

Far as I’m concerned, maybe he didn’t let Lester Dent know, but that’s exactly what was happening.

Don’t Fear…The Banjo? (Song of the Week, 3/12/2012)

In honor of Doc Wilde and The Mad Skull (the second of the three pulp adventure novels encompassed in my upcoming Kickstarter project), which I will be posting an excerpt from today at 2 pm EST, here’s some deathly bluegrass, Cornbread Red covering Blue Oyster Cult’s classic “Don’t Fear The Reaper…”

Free Fiction Friday: SKULLDUGGERY, A TALE OF THIEVES (Prologue thru Chapter 10)

Welcome to Free Fiction Friday. This is a day, usually Friday, when I will post some free fiction for you, if time and energy allows. I’m going to try to post as close to weekly as I can.

Today, and for a while, Free Fiction Friday will focus on the second novel I ever wrote, way back when I was a callow-yet-dashing twenty-one, a gritty and dark fantasy epic titled Skullduggery, A Tale of Thieves. I started to post it a couple of years ago and didn’t get very far, but this time I’m going to make it a priority. (For the interesting history of the novel, you can read my original blog post or the Introduction page at the site I’ve built to give the book a home).

Drogarth.

The name alone conjures dark images of spilling blood, of blackest magiks, of lawlessness and chaos. Throughout the kingdom children hear stories of this evil city and are told they must never go there — and they wish with all their hearts that one day they will. For children are the custodians of wishes, of dreams; they know in their hearts, in their souls, that only in the darkest of pits can the brightest adventures be found…

As of today, the prologue (called “Exploratory”) and the first ten chapters of Skullduggery are posted. Click below to find yourself in the violent streets of Drogarth, the City of Thieves…

SKULLDUGGERY

While we’re talking about free fiction, you might also check out the excerpt I posted yesterday from my novel Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom. This is the first book of a series of adventures that I had been publishing with Penguin/Putnam, but have now taken independent and will be launching a Kickstarter project soon to restart the series in nicer, fully-illustrated editions (for more on that, go here). You can read the beginning of Frogs at the link below, and I’ll be posting excerpts from the two novels that follow it (Doc Wilde and The Mad Skull and Doc Wilde and The Dance of the Werewolf) in the next couple of weeks as we get closer to the March 30th beginning of the Kickstarter.

DOC WILDE AND THE FROGS OF DOOM

Read Some Of DOC WILDE AND THE FROGS OF DOOM

As promised earlier, here is the opening of my pulp adventure novel Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom, the first adventure of Dr. Spartacus Wilde and his swashbuckling kids Brian and Wren. As you read this, understand that the book is currently going through a polish and extra edit, so neither this nor the original text of the edition published earlier by Putnam is exactly as it will appear in the improved, fully-illustrated re-release  of the book this June.

In April, I’ll be running a Kickstarter project encompassing this novel and its two follow-ups (which I’d originally contracted to Putnam, but now am publishing independently for reasons detailed here), all of which will be released this year. Next week I’ll post the first peek anyone has seen of the long-awaited second book, Doc Wilde and The Mad Skull, and the week after a glimpse of Doc Wilde and The Dance of the Werewolf, which Putnam thought too scary in its original form. I like scary and won’t be changing it.

The art you’ll see below (as well as the early draft cover above) was done by comic book artist Gary Chaloner before I’d even sold the first book to Putnam, in the hopes the book would be illustrated by him when published. That didn’t work out originally, but now Gary’s wonderful take on the Wildes will be an integral part of the series. This isn’t finished art, or necessarily images that will make it into the final book, but it will give you a taste of what’s to come… Continue reading →

KICKSTARTER NEWS: DOC WILDE ADVENTURES

The fun with this book starts with the front cover and does not stop until the very last page!…It was perfect. Fast paced, fun, entertaining…There was also a touching family quality to the whole thing that was priceless. It was one of those rare books that leaves you feeling really good once it is done.    —Old Bat’s Belfry on Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom

As I announced last month, I am no longer with G.P. Putnam’s Sons, and am instead taking my Doc Wilde adventure series independent (I go into the reasons and a lot more detail here). I have regained all rights to the work and will be relaunching the series with great new covers and interior art by comic book great Gary Chaloner. The first book, Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom, will see its re-release in improved form in June, the long-awaited Doc Wilde and The Mad Skull will follow in August, and Doc Wilde and The Dance of the Werewolf will appear in November or early December. More books will follow next year. The books will all be fully illustrated and available in both ebook and trade paperback formats.

I’m putting together a Kickstarter project which will allow supporters to get in on the ground floor and be a part of the Doc Wilde relaunch, and will be offering rewards ranging from a thank you on the acknowledgement pages of the books to signed and numbered limited editions to new additional Doc Wilde stories in exclusive editions. I’m still working out the details, but the plan is to begin the Kickstarter on Friday, March 30th and have it end on Saturday, April 28th.

Daring adventure! Dastardly villains! Climactic cliffhangers!…Byrd updates the old movie serials genre, populates his story with an adventure-seeking family that brings to mind superhero versions of Steve Irwin and his children, and dusts the whole thing with Indiana Jones–style searches for magical artifacts. Oh, and he adds frogs, lots and lots of frogs…     —Booklist on Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom

For the unfamiliar, the Doc Wilde stories depict the adventures of a modern day pulp hero and his swashbuckling kids. They draw on my lifelong love of pulp fiction and are full of humor and action and literary allusion. They are meant for kids and grown-ups alike, in the vein of something like The Incredibles or Raiders of the Lost Ark.

As we approach the Kickstarter start at the end of this month, I’ll keep you updated, and will give you a taste of each of the three books. (To make sure you get the latest, you can click the “Follow” button in the sidebar to the right).  Later today, watch for an excerpt from Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom…

This is good, heady stuff. The writing flows beautifully, with occasional forays into laugh-out-loudness…The science is artfully articulated and seamlessly stitched into the fabric of the story. There are good guys and bad guys, car chases, cliffhangers, betrayals, action sequences to rival Indiana Jones, and an explosion of frogs that defies taxonomy…    —Ideomancer Speculative Fiction on Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom

Pulp Hero Spotlight: Bill Barnes, Air Adventurer