Review of Old Albert

Old Albert -- a limited edition book written by my pal Brian Showers, published by Ex Occidente Press in Romania, and for which I provided a couple of illustrations (including the one on the cover that is depicted) -- is now reviewed very nicely at Speculative Fiction Junkie.

PulpFest 2011 reading

I had a blast at PulpFest 2011.

You can see a fuller report at my PulpRack blog.

I gave the first of four readings at the 'Fest. I read from three of my works in progress: an excerpt from Space Detective, an alternative-1950s SF/hard-boiled detective novel I'm working on with British artist Mike Fyles; a chapter from Shalimar Bang, about a contemporary pulp-styled action-adventure team; and a short chapter from a western novel, The Express Agent.  The audience was interested, the Q&A lively, and the experience overall was very enjoyable. The pieces I read prompted laughs in the appropriate places, and no one laughed during the passages that were meant to be exciting action scenes, so everything seems to be working in the narrative as intended. I look forward to doing another reading someday. 


I'd read excerpts from the first two novels -- Shalimar Bang and Space Detective -- and after some Q&A had enough time left to read from The Express Agent. I first asked if anyone in the room read westerns. Only one person raised a hand out of thirty or so attendees, and I was surprised to see the only person who responded was a woman. Maybe I'm narrow minded in thinking that most western readers are male, but there were fewer women in the room than men, so statistically speaking, I expected at least one male to raise a hand. On the other hand, I know the western genre isn't the most robust sales-wise in the book industry, so I half expected to see no one respond. But I was pleased to see at least one brave western reader among the bunch.


The audience all seemed to enjoy the chapter from The Express Agent as much (or, in the case of some folks, more than) as the other pieces. This reaction pleased me quite a bit. Maybe I converted some non-western readers to try out the genre. I hope so.

Reading at PulpFest

I'll be reading excerpts from two works in progress at this year's PulpFest, an annual convention for fans and collectors of pulp fiction and pulp magazines. The working titles of the pieces I'll be reading from are Shalimar Bang and the Bad Luck Baedeker and The Space Detective at Hell Gate. I'll be reading July 29^th at 1 p.m.  The convention is in Columbus, Ohio. You can learn more at the PulpFest site, thanks to Mike Chomko.


By the way, the accompanying Space Detective illustration is by my pal and collaborator, Mike Fyles. Check out his site for some cool retro-style illustration. Mike's done some nice work for Marvel Comics, producing some covers for Iron Man and Spider-Man titles.


I haven't been very consistent in communicating here lately. My apologies. I've been super-duper busy the past three months. I think I'll get a little more breathing space after the next few weeks. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Artwork for Old Albert: An Epilogue

Over on Facebook, Brian J. Showers has posted some photos from Ex Occidente Press of the assembling of Brian's new book, Old Albert: An Epilogue. An illustration I did for this ghost story--of a face carved onto a keystone in an arch--is being foil-stamped onto the paper wrapper for the book. A photo of the foil stamping accompanies this post.

The foil-stamped version certainly looks different from the original b&w line drawing, which I've also posted here. The contrast between the light-colored foil and the paper color makes for an interesting appearance.

The story, "Old Albert," is a ghost story in the manner of those stories in The Bleeding Horse and Other Ghost Stories. In fact, it originally was meant to be included in that book, but some editorial decisions by the publisher determined that "Old Albert" wasn't in the final version. Brian expanded the story, and it had been slated for inclusion in a periodical for a little more than a year. But the publication's next issue has yet to appear, so Brian withdrew it and Ex Occidente Press picked it up. This small press operates out of Bucharest, and specializes in limited editions. Old Albert is limited to 60 copies. I'm not sure that I'll manage to snag one, but Cold Tonnage Books is offering pre-publication ordering, so I've put in a request.

Ex Occidente has some photos of its recent and works-in-progress at its blog. All are very nice looking books.

Apparently a different image that I drew will be stamped on the book's cover boards. I may post that later if I can located a scan.

More info as I learn it.

James Reasoner's Diamondback

A couple of pals say undeservedly nice things about me on their blogs: James Reasoner at his Rough Edges page and Juri Nummelin at Pulpetti.  It's all about James' novel, Diamondback, and an itsy-bitsy part I played in its twisty publishing history.  Thank you, guys! But the real kudos go to Juri, who worked hard to get the book published (you can read the details at Pulpetti), and to James, who wrote a very entertaining action novel. Diamondback would have made a great Gold Medal paperback novel back in the 1960s, the glory days of paperback originals. Lucky us, we get to read it these days as an eBook! Recommended reading.


Accompanying this post is a cover photo of the illo I produced for Juri's project. I may have another version of the art that I can post here later, if I can dig it up, that allows some comparisons for before-and-after the typography is added.

A Quiet Night in the Dark in La Plata, Missouri, 1942

My story for the Two-Fisted Tales of LaPlata, Missouri--a print anthology published by Mark Lambert for the 2007 Doc Con in Lester Dent's town--is now available for both Amazon's Kindle and Barnes & Noble's Nook.

Lester Dent is known today among pulp magazine and popular culture fans as the primary creator and writer of the character Doc Savage, hero of a monthly magazine published by Street & Smith from 1933 to 1949. Doc Savage -- Clark Savage, Jr. -- was the precursor to later popular heroes like Superman, Batman, James Bond, and Dirk Pitt. Dent's energetic prose for the Doc Savage stories always was published under a Street & Smith house name: Kenneth Robeson. So he was surprised when his editor informed him that Kenneth Robeson was the name of an actual person. And in "A Quiet Night in the Dark in La Plata, Missouri, 1942," a surprise visitor shares with Dent an astonishing story that leads to deadly consequences in his quiet rural home.

My buddy, Chuck Welch, who runs some web sites devoted to Doc Savage, wrote: "A fun story that captures the signature snappy prose style of Lester Dent."  I take that as high praise.

You can find the Kindle version here.

You can find the Nook version here.

For those folks who have other eReaders, I plan on having the story available at SmashWords soon.

Meanwhile, enjoy!  Thanks for your patronage. Feel free to post comments. And if you like this story (or Pretty Polly), please post a review at Amazon to let other folks know. (I don't think you can post reviews at B&N, but I may have simply overlooked that feature.)

Scott Hampton and Mike Mignola

I'm in the process of posting news about some new work of my own in the next few days. In the meantime, I'll promote some recent work by a Bleeding Horse buddy, Scott Hampton. Scott provided the painting for the dust jacket of Brian Showers' The Bleeding Horse and Other Ghost Stories, for which I provided interior black-and-white illustrations. Scott recently performed art chores for a two-part Hellboy tale scripted by creator Mike Mignola and published by Dark Horse, The Sleeping and the Dead. Neat little tale about vampires.  I've posted the cover image here that Scott drew.  There's another version with Mignola's drawing on the cover, which you can view by clicking here.