Why Authors Use Pseudonyms: Part 4

Here’s part 4, and our last installment of, Why Authors Use Pseudonyms. I hope you enjoy.

4. One of the major reasons why writers write under pseudonyms is because the publisher wants it and they are paying for the writer’s work. For example, publishers of western series books tend to use a “house name” for all books in a particular series, even though the individual volumes may be written by various authors. Using the house name ensures a certain uniformity to the series that makes it easy for fans of the series to find the next volume, perhaps written by a different author. This is the primary reason why I’ve written under pseudonyms. This often aids the author greatly in sales as well. For example, say there’s a house name like “Jake Logan,” which there is. The first three are written by Joe Smith and sell well, and then the fourth is written by Bob Jones. Changing the name in mid series would cause all kinds of havoc in the way the books were shelved or listed, and create confusion for the readers.

Some publishers insist that the individual authors of books within a series do not reveal that “they” wrote any one particular book, although often they ease up on this constraint as time progresses. I know quite a few authors who have written, for example, in various western series such as “The Trailsman,” which is published under the name Jon Sharp, or “Longarm,” which is published as by Tabor Evans. In many cases these authors were not to reveal their particular involvement at the time of writing, though that constraint has since been eased and many of them will now reveal which particular books they wrote. This is great for me because I tend to collect certain writers’ works more than I care about getting every volume of the Longarm (well into the 400s for individual volumes) or Trailsman series (past 300 volumes).  

Most of the pseudonymous books I’ve written have been for Wolfpack Publishing under the house name of A. W. Hart. For example, I wrote book seven of their Avenging Angels series (The Wine of Violence), and book 3 of their Legend of the Black Rose series (Vengeance of the Black Rose.) Although these were published under the name A. W. Hart to represent a certain kind of action-adventure tale, I was credited as author in the “About the Author” section at the end of the book. I certainly appreciate Wolfpack for doing that, and I’m certain these books sold more under the Hart name than they ever would have under my name because other excellent writers coming along before me had already established the quality of the A. W. Hart Brand.

The “House Name” concept is actually very widespread in publishing, much more than most readers realize. Not only is it used on Western series, but often on SF and Fantasy series as well, such as The “Richard Blade” series, the “Casca” series, the “Traveler” series, and many more. In fact, I could easily do a lengthy series of blog posts on such series, but for now I’m done with Pseudonyms. Thank you very much for reading.

Why Authors Use Pseudonyms: Part 3

Welcome to part 3 of our series: Why Authors Use Pseudonyms. Let’s get right to it.

3. Writers who write across different genres may use pseudonyms to avoid potentially alienating certain readers. Quite a few people tend to read in only one genre—say Westerns. And this can be a problem for a writer who works in other fields. Say a reader who likes my western stories recognizes my name on a horror novel and decides to read it, thinking he’s going to get the same kind of tale. He soon finds himself...well, horrified. He doesn’t like the blood and gore. He’s not going to read anymore horror novels under my name and he may well push my westerns away as well.

This has happened to me and is one reason I decided to start writing westerns under the name Tyler Boone. My westerns, although often violent and bloody, have nowhere near the gore that appears in many of my horror stories. Nor are my westerns populated by topes like vampires and werewolves. (I’m not sure what I’m going to do if I ever decide to write in the subgenre called “Horror-Western.” I did one flash fiction like that and it caused some issues with readers who wanted more straightforward western tales.)

With likely even more dramatic results, imagine readers of a particular western author picking up a romance novel by him—under the same name. I bet he’d lose readers. True, he might possibly gain some other readers, but if they are romance readers they’re not going to want his straight action adventure westerns.

This use of a pseudonym does have the potential to backfire. Dean Koontz wrote under pseudonyms in his early days for this kind of reason and he later said he regretted it and it cost him momentum. But, for the most part, Koontz was not writing in as dramatically different genres as romance and horror, and since we can’t rerun the experiment we’ll never know whether it actually hurt his career length sales. I do know that I’ve also had a few readers who liked my work under the Gramlich name not recognize me as a modern western author under a different name. So, it’s not a simple matter.

 Part 4 is up next:

Why Authors Use Pseudonyms Part 2

Welcome to part 2 of why authors might use pseudonyms instead of their real names. Let’s not waste any time:

2. Whether we like it or not. Whether it’s fair or not. Some of our given names are going to work against selling our product, without having anything to do with the quality. In the 1940s, 50s and 60s, (and sometimes even today), women who were writing SF used male names to publish under. Andre Norton and James Tiptree, Jr are two examples. I didn’t know Tiptree was a woman until I was in my 30s. Others just used initials so they wouldn’t clearly be identified as women, such as C. L. Moore or—more closely to the modern day—J. K. Rowling.

It wasn’t all one way. Robert Jordan, of Wheel of Time fame, wrote romantic fiction under a female name (Reagan O’Neal) because it seemed that women were less likely to buy romance by a male author, just as male readers of SF often wouldn’t take a chance on a female author. It made good sense for authors trying to sell in those markets to use names that would not bias potential readers against them. Of course, this isn’t fair. But it’s real.

And, just like actors have often changed their names to make them more easily pronounced (Rock Hudson) and to avoid prejudice, some writers with very long or foreign sounding names may use pseudonyms to help sales. This brings us back to Robert Jordan, whose real name was James Oliver Rigney Jr. Would he have been as successful under the Rigney Jr name? We’ll never know, but you have to admit that for most English speakers, Jordan rolls off the tongue easier than Rigney and is likely more memorable.

Name recognition is an incredibly important thing in writing and publishing. The British author known as Lee Child, of “Jack Reacher” fame, is actually James Dover Grant. Grant isn’t hard to pronounce or remember for English speakers, but “Lee Child” has a certain flair that James Grant lacks. The first letter of the last name is even important for how things get shelved. “Jordan” would be shelved before “Rigney” in the SF section of bookstores, “Child” before “Grant” in the thriller section. I’ve seen research that suggests that names beginning with “C” through about “L” seem to get the best positioning in bookstores, close to the eye height of most browsers and either toward the beginning of the display area or right in the center. I don’t personally know that to be true but consider some of our best-selling authors—Mary Higgins Clark, Harlan Coben, John Grisham, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Charles Gramlich. Uh, wait, how did that last name get in there? Please ignore that typo! Unless, that is, you really want to read some Gramlich.

Please stay tuned for installment 3 of Why Authors Use Pseudonyms. 

Why Authors Use Pseudonyms: Part 1

I get asked quite often why I’ve had work published under names other than my own. A thought that often accompanies this question is: “don’t you want to see your name in print?”  Well, there are numerous reasons why someone might use a pseudonym in publishing. The topic is complex enough that I’ve decided to do a short series of blog posts about it. Here’s the first one, with more to follow.

First, I’ll address the “name in print” point. When I first aspired to write and publish, I definitely did want to see my name in print. And it was very exciting and ego pleasing and confidence building when it happened. But, I’ve actually had my name in print hundreds of times now and my goals have changed. What I want more than anything today is to see my “work” in print, and to have it read, and to see how people respond to it. And sometimes, the best way to get these three things is to publish under a pseudonym. Here are the reasons why:

1. The material you’re writing may get you into trouble with family, friends, coworkers, or a job. I’m not specifically talking about writing porn, but that’s in there. When I was growing up in rural Arkansas, and even in some places today, writing science fiction or fantasy was frowned upon, dismissed, and even banned. And the people who wrote such material were gossiped about and sometimes even harassed for doing the Devil’s work.

My own mother wouldn’t display the books I gave her when I first started getting published, and I’m pretty sure it was because she didn’t like the content and the covers. None of this was pornographic, mind you. In fact, my fantasy and SF works firmly honored the good over the bad and upheld all the moral thinking I was taught growing up. It’s just that it often did so beneath the trappings of aliens and monsters and strange settings.

If your writing is going to cause fights and problems with your family, or conflicts with jobs and coworkers, and you’re not fully ready to handle the emotional turmoil, write under a pseudonym and don’t tell anyone.

There are plenty more reasons why authors might use pseudonyms. We haven’t even gotten to the reasons why I’ve used them yet. But more is to come in installment 2 of this series. I hope you enjoy.

The Crows Abide

 

January 1, 2022. Beneath a warm wind that rocks the pines, I walk through the aftermath of the war. I watched last night as 2021 fought a desperate last stand battle against the descent of 2022. The defenders failed. As they always do. The New Year arrived and now licks its wounds and plots revenge. Of course, it will fall soon enough itself, though now it feels its vigor and does not doubt it will last forever.

Those of us who have been through many such wars, know better. And the crows abide.

Remembering Du Bois

Yolande Du Bois Irvin has died. She was 89. Almost always when her name was mentioned someone added that she was the granddaughter of W.E.B Du Bois. And that is true. But she was far more than her connection to her historic grandfather.

She was warm, kind, witty, trenchant, thoughtful, practical. She was a supportive and loyal friend, a compassionate yet demanding teacher, a scholar of life. I never knew her in her role as a therapist but I’m sure she was excellent in that role as well because she never did anything with less than 100% commitment.

I knew her as a faculty member at Xavier University of Louisiana, in the Psychology Department. I was chair of the department when she was hired and it was a real coup for us to get her. Despite being Du Bois’s chair for much of her time at Xavier, she was—in fact—my mentor. And I was already 28 when I met her. She taught me many things, which I continue to pass on to my own students to this day, and which I use as guides in my day-to-day life.

She was so very much alive that it’s hard for me to believe now that she is not. She left Xavier after Hurricane Katrina and relocated to Colorado. For the first ten years or so after that, we spoke at least once a year on the phone. That frequency gradually decreased, as is common in such cases.

Even though I had not talked to her for several years, she was always a background presence for me. I thought of her many times throughout the year, most often during the school semesters when I’d be passing on a bit of her wisdom to my brand-new classes of fresh-faced students. I will continue to pass that wisdom on, as long as I’m around to do so.

Du Bois, it is an honor to have known you. And an honor to remember you. Godspeed!

 

Narrative Drive

I’ve been thinking a lot this last week about narrative drive. What it is. How it works. And why it works. Every story I’ve read has been fodder for my thoughts on the topic.

First, what is narrative drive? It’s different from characters and setting. Many people say it means a tale is “plot driven,” but I don’t think so. I believe it means: “that element of a story that keeps you turning pages and wanting to know what happens next.” This is most often tied to plot but is not identical with it and also includes aspects of character and setting.

Narrative drive is about information, specifically, the release of information to the reader. The biggest tool writers have is that they know what’s going to happen in a story ahead of readers. Information is the energy that drives a tale, and the writers own all that information. To begin with, at least.

A story with narrative drive releases that hoarded information to the reader in dribs and drabs, giving only that information to the reader that the he or she wants and must have to understand what is happening. Just that much information. And no more.

Recently, for example, I read The Outsider by Stephen King. It begins with a murder and a suspect who just doesn’t seem capable of doing it. Yet, the evidence is against him. As a reader, I want to know how this situation can be explained, and King does a masterful job of releasing the information I want in little bits at a time. You might say, he ‘milks’ the situation for all he can get, and that kept me turning the pages, looking for the next tidbit. That’s narrative drive.

In contrast, I just finished an SF novella that failed the narrative drive test. This story was written by an author I admire, who is gone now, and who I’ve enjoyed plenty of stuff from in the past. The writing itself was excellent, better than King’s prose, but the problem was that halfway through the author telegraphed the ending and for the rest of the way the tale felt like a paint by numbers piece.

With King’s story, I was too absorbed to look ahead and see how many pages were left. With the SF story, I looked ahead just to see how many pages were left. Meaning, how many pages did I need to read before I could move on to something with greater narrative drive.

 

The Silas Shoes

Who could have thought that one of my favorite memories of all time would involve tennis shoes. Here’s a picture of mine. I love the Velcro straps, a real boon to an old man like me. But that’s not the memory. 

A few months back we were babysitting our beautiful grandson, Silas. I’ve mentioned before how sweet he is. On this day, he wanted to play in the backyard so I slipped on my shoes. But it’s not easy for me to bend all the way over from a standing position to fasten the straps. Silas, on his own, without any prompting, bent down and fastened the straps on both shoes for me. Of course, he’s a lot closer to the ground than I am. But he wasn’t even two years old yet.

 I told Lana this morning that I was never going to be able to get rid of these shoes. Every time I put them on I get a big grin on my face as I remember Silas helping out his grandpa. Below is a picture of the little cutey, taken by his mom, Heidi. Sure am glad I’m still around to see him growing.

Writing the Ranger Series

Have to admit I was a little scared when Paul Bishop of Wolfpack Publishing offered me a chance to write the first book in The Ranger: Concho series, as A. W. Hart. I’d written books for the Avenging Angels and the Black Rose, but to “begin” a series was something else again. However, the character outline he gave me was intriguing, and challenging. There seemed to be lots of interesting possibilities. Within an hour of talking to Paul and asking for a little time to think, I knew I wanted to do it. The ideas were already spinning in my head.

                                                    
Now, I’m three books in (with a 4^th manuscript just turned in), and it’s like learning a language. I’ve started to dream in Ranger. Even after just finishing a book, I keep thinking about what Concho Ten-Wolves is up to and what might happen next. It’s a lot of fun, if a bit all consuming.

                                                    
Outside of the action sequences, which I’ve either based purely on my imagination or on historical events, the character of Concho comes from the real life of either myself or people I know. I’m neither black nor Kickapoo, and Concho is, but I’m human, and one thing I’ve learned in my life is that the hopes and dreams and desires of humans are mostly universal. People are more alike than they are different.

I’m not as good of a person as Concho, but a few of his characteristics and mannerisms come straight out of me: the foods he enjoys, his love of reading, even his inability to arch an eyebrow. The fact that he is a talker. I didn’t want to create another laconic Texas Ranger hero. Concho talks, jokes, laughs. He likes words, as I do.

                                                     
I’m not sure where the Ranger series will go next. I certainly hope to write more books about Concho. An idea is already percolating for a fifth book. And I can probably go on as long as there are readers. I’ve sure been happy that the first two books seem to have attracted quite a few readers, and I’ve loved the great reviews. I don’t know about other writers but it is certainly a thrill for me to hear that someone enjoyed a work that I’ve written, or that it touched them in some way. Maybe that’s a human characteristic too. If you want to check the books out, here's the link:

 Thank YOU for reading!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Power of Coincidence

I was working on book 4 in the Concho: Texas Ranger series this morning when an odd event occurred. Concho is half Kickapoo and there's a fair amount of Native American lore in the series. Since I did not grow up in that culture, I've had to do a lot of research. And it's been both fun and enlightening. I do not want to use what I've learned as a mere "leavening" in the stories. And I haven't. I've tried to incorporate all such information in a respectful manner. 

Concho, for example, is a modern, educated man. He starts the series not having any belief in spiritual forces. But as the books continued I wanted him to have some experiences that force him to rethink. Many of these experiences are connected to a character named Meskwaa, an elder of the Kickapoo who is a friend and something of a mentor to Concho--as well as providing some biting but often humorous dialogue. 

I was writing a Meskwaa scene this morning where Meskwaa encounters what the Kickapoo refer to as the Thunder Beings. I was reading about the Thunder Beings and had just highlighted a piece of text giving the name of a Thunder Being in preparation of copying it into the manuscript--to get the spelling right--when a tremendous cannon shot of thunder boomed directly outside my window.  The house shuddered but the lights didn't even flicker. 

I've heard thunder boomers before, of course. And it was raining here. However, there'd been no previous thunder this morning, and none after  until much later in the day. And that single boom was the loudest one I'd ever heard. I'm not afraid of storms but I jumped at that boom. 

Coincidence? Almost certainly. But such a coincidence! It changed my day. For a while, at least, I felt the power of the numinous. 

Bruce Boston: Gallimaufry

GALLIMAUFRY: By Bruce Boston. Plum White Press, 2021, 134 pages.

Bruce Boston is a Bram Stoker Award winner, but that says little about the breadth and depth of his talent. As others have remarked on his work, you’ll find facets of language and story that resonate with the art of Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, Franz Kafka, George Orwell, Dylan Thomas, and Oscar Wilde in his offerings.  But all of his work is uniquely “Boston,” and I hope that someday, someone will remark that they see a little of Bruce Boston in my work. It would be a high honor.

This is a collection of Boston’s short stories that span some fifty years of his life. Every single one of these is a small jewel of effort and art, from the profound sadness of “Cold Finale,” written with Marge Simon, to the absolute hilarity of “An Unrecognized Masterwork,” to the peyote-like stream of images in “Surreal Chess (which I desperately wish I’d written.)

Let Boston tell you where luck comes from in “Tales of the Dead Wizard,” or scratch an itch with “The Infernal Itch.” I highly recommend this collection. I loved it.

You can find it here!

Review: The Lost Empire of Sol

 Here is my review of The Lost Empire of Sol anthology, which was a labor of many years and at least 2 incarnations. The initial discussion from Scott Oden regarding this project must have happened on Facebook as far back as early 2012. A facebook group for the concept/anthology was created on May 17, 2012—so, nine years ago today. A number of people were excited about the project, including me. I wrote a story a little later in 2012 for the book called “The Machineries of Mars.” I know that Tom Doolan also wrote a tale for it, because after the initial plans fell through and the stories were released back to us, both Tom and I self-published ours on Amazon. I’m not sure if other writers involved at that time completed their stories or not. If they’re reading this, they can let me know.

In 2015, the anthology stirred to life again. Since I’d self-published my original story, and the new concept was subtly different than the original, I wrote a fresh story in 2016 called “A Sandship of Mars.” Scott brought Fletcher Vredenburgh aboard as editor and cat herder for the authors, and soon most of the stories were actually completed, edited, and ready to go. Things languished for want of a publisher.

Only when Jason M. Waltz joined the group and suggested that he’d like to publish the anthology did things really start moving. However, Covid hit and various other real-world events intervened so that the work finally appeared only in April of 2021. That’s certainly the longest developmental period for any anthology I’ve ever been involved in.

The idea was for ten shared world stories, with a story for each planet (including Pluto), and for the supposed planet that used to exist where the asteroid belt is now. When I wrote “Sandship,” the background concept was that there had once been a planet-spanning human empire ruling within the solar system but that the empire had fallen. The planets were now largely isolated, although some high tech space travel remained in a few places. In other places, the planetary populations had fallen back into a kind of Sword and Planet level technology, meaning lots of sword-fighting and a little bit of advanced tech.

To make matters worse, an alien entity was invading the solar system to pick up the pieces of the old empire. My understanding was that the entity was moving slowly and employing a variety of means to try and “take over” the lost empire of Sol. I wrote a fairly small world, self-contained tale about Mars being invaded by parasites that could turn their victims essentially into zombies under their control. I was pretty happy with it.

The final book contained not only the ten stories, but an introduction, forward, prologue and epilog. Here’s the TOC (Thanks to Joe Bonadonna).

Foreword, by Fletcher Vredenburgh

Sword & Planet is the Genre We Need, by John O'Neill

Prologue, by Scott Oden

To Save Hermesia, by Joe Bonadonna & David C. Smith

The Lost Princess of Themos, by Tom Doolan

What Really Happened at the Center of the World, by Christopher M. Blanchard

A Sand-Ship of Mars, by Charles Allen Gramlich

Whispers of the Serpent, by Howard Andrew Jones

Outcasts of Jov, by Mark Finn

Written in Lightning, by Keith J. Taylor

Survivors of Ulthula, by E.E. Knight

Hunters of Ice and Sky, by David Hardy

A Gate In Darkness, by Paul R. McNamee

Epilogue, by Scott Oden

To Save Hermesia, by Joe Bonadonna & David C. Smith is set on Mercury and did a bang-up job evoking the feel—for me at least—of the early Eric John Stark stories by Leigh Brackett. Stark was born on Mercury.

The Lost Princess of Themos, by Tom Doolan is set on Venus. Although not described in detail, the world brings to mind ERB’s jungle Venus. And the lost princess, Tamarra, follows in a long line of Sword and Planet Princesses, although much younger and less experienced than ERB’s Dejah Thoris. She finds her own hidden strengths, of course.

What Really Happened at the Center of the World, by Christopher M. Blanchard is a Pellucidar inspired piece with a little Journey to the Center of the Earth vibe.

A Sand-Ship of Mars, by Charles Allen Gramlich is my entry. It’s a little bit of a Dune meets the Ice Schooner meets The Puppet Masters. I really enjoyed creating the setting for this and might some day revisit it.

Whispers of the Serpent, by Howard Andrew Jones takes place on the planet that became our modern solar system’s asteroid belt. This is the first of the tales to have more of a Space Opera feel than Sword and Planet. Given the concept of the collection, you’d expect there to be all kinds of tech levels existing in the solar system so it makes sense.

Outcasts of Jov, by Mark Finn is set on Jupiter. Another Space Operish tale. It was good to see the Great Red Spot play a role!

Written in Lightning, by Keith J. Taylor is our Saturn tale. Very much a Sword and Planet work, although our heroes come from Venus rather than Earth.

Survivors of Ulthula, by E.E. Knight brings us to Uranus, or Ulthula in this story. This one also has a Space Opera feel, maybe a kind of E. E. Doc Smith and Edmond Hamilton meets Event Horizon.

Hunters of Ice and Sky, by David Hardy brings us to Neptune. The sky cities of Star Wars and Star Trek become low tech and are melded with the tale of Moby Dick! Great setting for many adventures.

A Gate In Darkness, by Paul R. McNamee is set on lonely, lost Pluto. The airships of Barsoom and Kregen meet slow decay as portions of the planet are lost to darkness and war.

So there you have it, ten imaginative tales that remember the shared history of Sword and Planet and Space Opera but take things in new directions and work in surprising connections from other realms of literature. I highly recommend it, and not just because I have a story contained within.

The Lost Empire of Sol

I cut my teeth on Sword and Planet fiction, first reading the Barsoom stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and then the many tales by those ERB influenced, such as Gardner Fox, Alan Burt Akers (Ken Bulmer), and many others. I consider S & P to be the purest form of adventure fantasy, and I've always wanted to write my own tales in the genre.

The first publishable book I wrote was Sword and Planet. That was Swords of Talera. I wrote four others in that series, and I've also written some S & P short stories. I'd say that, in general, I've never had more fun writing anything than writing this kind of tale.

A few years back, author Scott Oden had an idea for a shared world S & P anthology set in the era of the "Lost Empire of Sol." A number of writers got a chance to choose a world of our solar system to tell a story in this connected universe. I got my choice in early, and I picked Mars! What else would I have chosen?

That book is now available for preorder at this link. This is a kindle version but there are plans for a print edition as well. I'm very excited to be part of this collection with my story, "A Sand Ship of Mars." I'm looking forward soon to reading all the other tales. 

Guns of the West

I'm thrilled to have my very first full-length western novel included in this handsome box set of 8 action packed novels of the west. Mine is "The Scarred One," under the Tyler Boone penname. 

Published through Sundown Press, this collection is available on Kindle for only 99 cents. That's a lot of good reading for the money. 

Here's the link to the books on Amazon. 

And if you'd like to learn more about the other authors involved, check out Sundown Press's blog. 

The Withering, By Ashley Dioses

 

The Withering, by Ashley Dioses: Jackanapes Press, 135 pages. Poetry.

I picked up a signed copy of this book from the author and read it over about a week to savor the poetry inside. There are 55 poems, divided into 4 sections entitled: A Luminous Darkness, Pale Radiance, Night Cries, and A is for Axe Murderer. In an Afterword, the author tells us a little about her genesis as a poet and about the pieces in the collection. She indicates that these are primarily pieces from early in her writing career, dating back even to high school.  (She has actually had a previous collection of poetry published called Diary of a Sorceress, which contains poems from later in her career.)

The collection is impressive for a writer of such youth. I also wrote some poetry at a young age but nothing as erudite as these. They are definitely not juvenilia, but fully realized and articulate pieces. They are rhyming poems, written around horror themes, and often with a formal structure. It’s a difficult style to master but Dioses moves through them with verve and confidence.

My favorites in the collection are “Obliterate,” “Hollow King,” and  “I am the most Beautiful Angel.” Here’s a quatrain from “Obliterate.”

The stones erode away,

And tales evaporate.

All memories decay,

The years obliterate.

There are also many other wonderful lines in other pieces, such as “My heart and soul are sparrow-black” and “Then scents of smoke, of myrrh, of rum,…”

There’s an outstanding cover by Mutartis Boswell, whose work I don’t remember seeing before but which I imagine I’ll see a lot of in the future. Boswell also did numerous interior illustrations for the book, which are set beautifully to really enhance the presentation of the poetry.

All in all, The Withering is a very professional package filled with some lovingly crafted and memorable poems. If you’re into dark poetry, this is an excellent reading choice.

A Dream of Crows

I dreamt of crows last night, millions of them swirling like black blades in an apocalyptic sky full of flames and clouds. I was a teenager walking with two friends along a highway where cars lay wrecked to either side. The cries of the crows were deafening, and occasionally a dead bird smashed like a kamikaze into the asphalt near us. 

We reached a temporary refuge, the penthouse apartment of one of my friends. She was rich. One friend went to a chair where she huddled in confusion and fear. I sat on the couch with the rich girl. Cell phones worked. She got a call. I heard the speaker through the phone. The “signal” was given.

The girl didn’t know I’d overheard. She made an excuse and left the room. I knew she was going downstairs to be picked up by someone, and that she’d be taken with other rich people to escape the coming destruction. I walked over to my second friend, to comfort her.

The rich girl returned. She said she couldn’t leave us, that she wanted us to come with her. We refused, knowing that even if she wanted us along, we’d never be allowed, and that we'd certainly be killed to keep the secret.

Better to chance the dangers of the apocalypse then to be led to certain death. 

What I Did during the Lockdown

I don’t need to tell you about 2020 in general. We lived through it. Except for those of us who didn’t. And there were far too many who didn’t. Personally, I started the year excited about some writing projects I had going. I also started my 34^th year teaching, just as I’d started 33 years before. It had become routine—until March 10, a Tuesday, which was my last normal day. We had face to face classes on Wednesday the 11^th but already knew we were going fully online as a University on Monday. I’d never taught an online course; most of our students had never taken one. Panic ensued on every front, including mine. I had about three days to master Zoom and get a ton of notes up on Brightspace, our web-based backup for our classes. I don’t know how I accomplished it. I didn’t sleep much.

Without a doubt, this was the hardest teaching year of my life, including my very first year when I had to teach three brand new classes I’d never taught before. And I was also a lot older to boot. One of the worst parts of it all was missing out on the personal interactions with students, both in class and in my advising capacity. I didn’t realize how important those interactions were to me. Somehow, I made it through, and I know I’m very lucky to have a job that 1) continued, 2) paid me a decent wage, and 3) allowed me considerable flexibility in how I did my work.

As for the lockdown, not being able to go to restaurants, or to movies, or to festivals, or out to visit folks, well, for the most part it was a piece of cake. Those of you who thrive on social activities may not want to hear that, but I’m intensely introverted and it just didn’t bother me. Sure, I missed going out to eat on occasion, and I didn’t like wearing a mask to do groceries or to get take-out, but—for me—these were minor frustrations. I missed, much more, not being able to hang out with friends, to hit the bar for a beer, or have a meal out with my son and his family. Overall, though, the lockdown was not much of a problem for me and gave me more time to fiddle around with my books, which is always a great pleasure.

As for writing, 2020 would have to rank as very good for me, at least in my top three years ever. I had two novels published, both under pseudonyms for Wolfpack Publishing. And I wrote three complete novels, as well as various short stories. I completed over 230,000 words of fiction for publication, which bettered my previous best production by about 50,000 words. One of the three novels I wrote has already been published, “Vengeance of the Black Rose,” and the other two are scheduled for publication in 2021. I won’t talk more about those until they’re hatched.

As of the start of 2021, I’m beginning a new novel today, which is under contract. And other contracts are looming so if I can keep up the writing it should be another good year. I hope most sincerely that we can get past the Covid Pandemic and return to a more normal world. I want to be back in the classroom without a mask on, able to get up close to speak to students, able to see clearly their facial expressions, and their smiles. I want to get back to hanging out more with my son and seeing my grandson more. I’m looking forward to an easier time shopping for groceries and visiting doctors and eating out, and going to bookstores. And I’m hoping that all of you will have a better year, too, and will see recovery from the tribulations of 2020. 

The Princess Bride, By William Goldman

 

30^th anniversary edition, 414 pages: Harcourt, INC

It took me a long time to watch the movie, The Princess Bride. I was put off by the title, which doesn’t sound like something most youngish men would be attracted to. When I finally watched it with my wife, I loved it. I’m also not a big market for humor but the humor of the movie was subtle and struck just the proper cord with me (other than the Billy Crystal sequence, which I’m not a fan of).

In 2020, again because of my wife, I read a book by Cary Elwes called “As You Wish,” about the making of the movie. He emphasized the respect that director Carl Reiner had for the original book and how almost all of the dialogue that I’d found funny in the movie came directly from the book. So, I ordered the book myself, the 30^th anniversary edition, which contains a section of a potential sequel that was never written called “Buttercup’s Baby.” Here is my report.

First and foremost, I liked it. Indeed, all the best dialogue and scenes from the movie appeared in the book first. The one scene in the movie that was most heavily altered was the Billy Crystal/ Miracle Max scene, and that is the only one I don’t care for. That being said, I have to admit I think the movie is better than the book. And I almost never say that. The movie The Outlaw Josey Wales is better than the book it came from. I consider the movie Jaws and the book Jaws to be about even. Other than that, the book is better—always.

So why is The Princess Bride an exception? Please don’t get me wrong, the book is quite good and without it the movie wouldn’t exist. The book can stand on its own and needs make no apologies for what it is. But, the movie is better because of an interesting irony, which is not quite an irony when you look closely!

Throughout the book, William Goldman, the author, maintains a fiction within a fiction that he is not the original writer of the story, that he only abridged a much older classic work by a fellow named S. Morgenstern. He states that what he did is take out everything but the “good parts.” There’s a lengthy section at the front of the book where Goldman sets this inside joke up, and he continues the fiction throughout, with frequent asides (printed in italics) within the body of the book to describe what he left out (supposedly).

Although this was funny initially, it felt to me as if it went on too long, especially with the inserts and asides within the book proper. To me, the joke eventually became a little stale, while the material within the actual story kept moving forward with fresh humor. The movie left most of this material out. Thus the irony. The movie kept only the “good parts” of the book. However, since Goldman wrote the screenplay, too, what we really have is a case of the writer revising his previously work and realizing that certain original bits weren’t necessary.

Anyway, was it worth a read? Absolutely. And if I’d read it before seeing the movie, especially if I’d read it at a young age, I imagine it would have had a far greater impact on me and I probably would have liked it even better!

 

 

 

Six of my favorite hardboiled detective heroes:

Guest Post, By Sidney Williams:

(Thanks to Charles for letting me drop by and chat here a bit.)

I have a new hardboiled novel called Fool’s Run from the Gordian Knot mystery imprint on the horizon. It releases Nov. 22. That means of late, I’m getting asked about favorite fictional detectives.

If I’m pressed to pick a favorite, I have to say all of ‘em because I’ve read and enjoyed detective novels since I was in high school, and I’ve sampled for years.

All are influences of course, though I tried to make my hero, Si Reardon fresh and different. His adventure is a bit of a caper and a bit of mystery at the same time. It’s also a bit noir and a bit hardboiled as well. If you’re in the camp that draws a line, the noir protagonist’s usually an anti-hero. Si’s a bit of that and accepts a dirty job from my hopefully modern variation on a femme fatale. She’s a lawyer working as a “special counsel” who helps fix things, a bit on the dark side, confident and in control. Si’s journey leads him from darkness to a battle for survival.

I guess above all the hardboiled school is about an individual on a tough journey, a matter of quests and questions.

 So, favorites? Well, I can name a few, some you’ll expect, some that might not be as familiar.

Mitchell Tobin created by Tucker Coe (Donald E. Westlake)

Many tend to think of Donald E. Westlake as a comic caper writer because of his Dortmunder books, but he wrote a lot of hardboiled fiction along with the comic and not just as Richard Stark focusing on the thief Parker. Mitch Tobin’s a cop booted from the force because he was busy with an extramarital affair when he should have been on the job. As he works to repair his life and symbolically build a wall around his back yard, he gets roped into some powerful tales with interesting mystery plots, starting with Kind of Love, Kinds of Death. In that one, he’s hired by a mob boss. I discovered that book as a kid when it was reissued by Charter, and happily all the Tobin ebooks are readily available these days.

Matthew Scudder created by Lawrence Block

I read Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine as a kid as well. I first encountered Matt Scudder, another cop who’d left the force, in A Candle for the Bag Lady, a novella. In that tale, Scudder took it upon himself to solve the murder of the titular character. Responsible for a death on the job, Scudder drank and lit candles in Catholic churches, ever seeking rebirth. That story was a great introduction, and later I connected the dots between it and Block’s Writer’s Digest column and other work. The Scudder tales are a powerful character study as Scudder copes with alcoholism, and the tales are great hardboiled novels as well. The flashback entry When the Sacred Ginmill Closes is a standout.

Ed Noon created by Michael Avallone

Writer’s Digest—again—released an audio tape on mystery writing when I was young. It featured Michael Avallone who made mention of his TV tie-in work, and of course his hero Ed Noon. I had to scour used paperback shops to find early ones, but I got a kick out of Noon’s breezy voice. I like the early, traditional hardboiled Noons best including The Tall Dolores, but the spy-era books are fun too. Ed goes to work for the president. Avallone’s son, David, has reissued most of the novels as ebooks these days, usually nicely priced.

 Philip Marlowe created by Raymond Chandler

Of course Marlowe’s a favorite. I started with Farewell, My Lovely and followed Marlowe from there. The Marlowe tales, to me, are the ultimate in romanticized private eye fare. Chandler pretty much defined noir language and offered up a tough sleuth with a soul, and I loved what he was doing.

The Continental Op created by Dashiell Hammett

I read The Maltese Falcon early on in my reading life and when a TV miniseries happened along, I picked up The Dain Curse. That’s a later tale featuring Hammett’s unnamed operative from the Continental Detective Agency. I think he considered Dain a lesser entry. It’s interesting, but above all it was a gateway to the short stories in The Big Knockover including “The Gutting of Couffignal” in which The Op battles heavily robbers on an island that’s home to the very rich. Red Harverst came my way as well, and in later years, I’ve come to like Hammett more and more and to understand what he was doing with The Op’s gritty, pragmatic problem-solving.

 Lew Archer created by Ross Macdonald (Kenneth Millar)

Around the time I discovered Marlowe, I ran across The Drowning Pool by MacDonald in the tie-in edition with the Paul Newman film. Archer clicked with me the most of all the detective heroes. There’s something spiritual in Archer’s encounters with troubled family and reverberations from the past. I segued from The Drowning Pool to the later works, perhaps not fully appreciating the texture early on. But one summer, I devoured The Moving Target, The Goodbye Look, The Blue Hammer and the rest and waited for more that would sadly never come.

 I could go on and on, of course. I love the early Mac novels from Thomas B. Dewey, Kinsey Millhone from Sue Grafton, Spenser from Robert B. Parker and a host of newer heroes who’ve come down the pike, but I’ll stop here.

Since it’s a bit different of a different novel for me, there’s a Fool’s Run giveaway going on Goodreads. You might win a free signed copy and get to sample it for free.

 

Giveaway  Link: 

Visit Sid online at SidisAlive.com

Thomas McNulty's Book Corral

I just discovered Thomas McNulty's Book Corral. Thomas is a lifelong reader, a collector, and a writer himself. He seems to have a particular love for westerns. I haven't met Thomas but he has a lot of interesting stuff to say about his love of reading and about books.

Thomas does some video blogs as well and below I link to one that a friend of mine turned me onto yesterday. Thomas reviews some westerns, both older and newer books. He mentions James Reasoner and Jory Sherman, two fine authors that I read regularly. At about 5:03 in, he also talks about a newer book called "The Scarred One" by Tyler Boone (That would be me).

Thomas's comments made my day.  I recommend them highly. 😉

Check it out!

The Scarred One at Amazon