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Monday, April 09, 2012
Saturday, April 07, 2012
Pre-Order Bill Crider; Dave Zeltserman
Sheriff Dan Rhodes is called to The Beauty Shack, where the young and pretty Lynn Ashton has been found dead, bashed over the head with a hairdryer. The owner said she’d gone to the salon late to meet a client, but no one seems to know who that client was.
Lynn was a party girl and it’s possible an angry wife or girlfriend, or jilted lover, had something to do with her death. Or maybe the killer is a client who confided a secret to Lynn.
While he investigates the murder, Rhodes must also deal with the theft of copper and car batteries, not to mention a pregnant nanny goat that is terrorizing the town.
---------------------------------
Available August 2nd from Overlook Press. Pre-order your copy today! The supernatural, unmissable new novel by the ALA Best Horror award nominee. In nineteenth-century Germany, one young man counts down the days until he can marry his beloved . . . until she is found brutally murdered, and the young man is accused of the crime. Broken on the wheel and left for dead, he awakens on a lab table, transformed into an abomination. Friedrich must go far to take his revenge --only to find his tormentor, Victor Frankenstein, in league with the Marquis de Sade, creating something much more sinister deep in the mountains. Paranormal and gripping in the tradition of the best work of Stephen King and Justin Cronin, Monster is a gruesome parable of control and vengeance, and an ingenious tribute to one of literature's greatest.
Victor Frankenstein. Marquis de Sade. Witch burnings. Vampyres. Devil worshipers. Depraved London sex clubs. Street gangs. Vengeance. Obsession. Damnation.
------------------------------
Crime Wave (1954)
Ed Here: One of my favorite "little" bs. This is from NoIR of The Week.Crime Wave (1954)
Crime Wave.If this little policier from Warner Bros. (filmed in 1952, released in 1954) isn’t part of your vocabulary then it needs to be; and considering it was finally released on DVD a few years ago, there’s no excuse not to see it. Crime Wave doesn’t stand out from a narrative point of view (despite a bucket of writers); the plot is routine, like a million other second features cranked out during the fifties. Although the story and characters are heavily steeped in noir tropes, it’s André De Toth’s sharp direction that sets it apart from other low budget crime pictures and demands that it be seen by any enthusiast. It can be argued that no other film noir is as influential as it is unknown.
The story is old hat: Ex-con tries to go straight. His old crew breaks out of the Q and comes knocking. When he refuses to help, they hold his fresh new wife in order to force him to take part in one last caper. All the while, the cops are along for the ride, except they don’t believe for a second that our boy is on the up and up.
The cast here is special, and although Sterling Hayden isn’t (necessarily) the protagonist, he dominates the film. This is the sort of role the movie gods had in mind when they placed Hayden in front of a camera: LAPD Detective Lieutenant Sims, bigger and tougher than any hood in the mug book. For my money this is the role of Hayden’s career — not the meatiest or the most well known, but the one in which he leaves the impression of having been the part, rather than merely having played it. (Put it another way: during the DVD commentary, author James Ellroy asserts that Hayden in Crime Wave simply is Bud White.) There are those that prefer him in The Asphalt Jungle or The Killing, but Hayden has a distinct vibe as a cop that isn’t there when he’s playing a crook: you can cross to the other side of the street and dodge a hoodlum (and it isn’t like you won’t see Hayden coming from a mile away) but you can’t avoid the police. With the force of law behind him, the prospect of cop Hayden looking for you is scary as hell.
for the rest go here:(scroll down)
ht http://www.noiroftheweek.com/search?updated-min=2012-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&updated-max=2013-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&max-results=14 tp://www.noiroftheweek.com/search?updated-min=2012-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&updated-max=2013-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&max-results=14
Friday, April 06, 2012
Ruby Keeler by Jon Breen
Hi, Ed. It's a long time since I offered you anything for your blog, but when I saw your recent comment about not getting Ruby Keeler, I thought you might be interested in the following.
Ruby Keeler, star of several Warner Brothers musicals in the early 1930s, is a unique figure in movie history. The general consensus is that she was not a good actress, not a good singer, and when all is said and done, a somewhat clunky and graceless dancer. Obviously being married to Al Jolson didn't do her any harm professionally. But there are some things to be said in her favor. Based on interviews with her late in life, she obviously did not take herself too seriously, was very well aware of her limitations as a performer, was quick to point out all the things Ann Miller, Eleanor Powell, and others could do that she could not, and seemed to agree that there is no greater disappointment in the annals of cinema than the moment in FOOTLIGHT PARADE that the exotic Shanghai Lil, after elaborate Busby Berkeley-designed buildup, turns out to be Ruby Keeler. In recognizing her own limitations, she has something in common with other lucky show business personalities who landed in the right place at the right time. Victor Mature and Ringo Starr come to mind.
But watching FORTY-SECOND STREET for the first time in several years, I noticed something else. There is a scene where she goes to George Brent's apartment and has considerable apprehension about the purity of his intentions. Over several minutes, without speech, several conflicting emotions are played out on her surprisingly expressive face. For the first time I realized that Ruby Keeler could have been really good in silent pictures.
That's it, for what it's worth. Be well, Ed, and keep up the great work on all fronts.
Wednesday, April 04, 2012
Howard Browne
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2008
Howard Browne
Over on Rara-Avis there's a letter about the late writer and editor Howard Browne.
If you were an adolescant science fiction-fantasy reader in the Fifties Howard was likely one of your favorite people. He edited both Amazing and Fantastic, the Ziff-Davis publishing twins that offered the kind of adventure sf only a teenager could love. Early in the decade he edited Fantastic when it was upscale with stories by Ray Bradbury, John Collier, Shirley Jackson, etc. But nobody bought it so Ziff-Davis ordered it back to its gaudy past--action stories with purple Venusians, lots of rays guns, hard-boiled interstellar dudes and innumerable lovely interstellar babes. I loved it. For five years those were my two favorite magazines. Later I'd learn that most of the stories I especially liked were by Robert Silverberg. Some of them hold up pretty well today.
Late in my teens I started reading Howard's "Halo" series of mysteries. They owed a lot to Chandler (he insisted they owed a lot to James M. Cain too) but eventually they got rolling on their own entirely. They are well worth reading. He was a good writer line by line and a much better plotter than Chandler.
I mention all this because when I began editing Mystery Scene one of my goals was to get Howard in the magazine. He was somebody I'd always wanted to meet (via phone). He ended up writing three or four pieces of his autobiography for us. He was a great storyteller and a prescient judge of character.
I probably talked to him fifteen times over the years, sometimes at length. A lot of the talk was pretty funny and pretty cynical on both our parts. But then one night he called to say that he wouldn't be finishing his autobiography for the magazine as planned. His wife had died and he said he would never write again. He said that one night he'd gotten out of bed and gone to the bathroom and when he came back a few minutes later she was dead.
He spent his final days in a nursing home. California people put on a big birthday party for him. I'm sure he got a hell of a kick out of it. A great guy, a fine writer.
Here's a long obituary by Jack Adrian no less.
Independent, The (London), Nov 15, 1999 by Jack Adrian
HOWARD BROWNE was that unusual beast, a writer who not only succeeded on both sides of the editorial desk, but who was equally at home in two quite disparate genres, hardboiled detective fiction and SF/ Fantasy. His fantasy, in particular, was of the swashbuckling kind, a million miles - or rather, bowing to the genre, a million light years - from his tales of mean streets, mainly written under his pseudonym John Evans (one of many: others included Lawrence Chandler and Lee Francis).
He successfully jumped media, too, as well as genres, turning, when the pulp magazines began to wither and die in the early 1950s, from writing punchy, riveting prose to creating compelling screen- and tele-plays. And, like all able fictioneers, even at an advanced age he could still turn disaster into triumph - two rejected screenplays, "The Violent World of Jake Lingle" and "A Bowl of Cherries", upon which he had lavished much care and attention, he transformed into a brace of fine late (very late: he was then in his mid-eighties) novels, Pork City (1988) and the hilarious Scotch on the Rocks (1991).
Howard Browne was born in Omaha, Nebraska, the son of a baker, in 1908, and began his education in Lincoln, Nebraska. However, he dropped out of high school and rode the rails (i.e., hid in the boxcar) to Chicago to seek his fortune. He worked as a legman, or stringer, for a local newspaper before, at the age of 21, securing a post as department-store credit manager, a position he held for over a decade and which gave him an unparalleled insight into the psyche of his fellow men.
for the rest go here: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19991115/ai_n14274743
If you were an adolescant science fiction-fantasy reader in the Fifties Howard was likely one of your favorite people. He edited both Amazing and Fantastic, the Ziff-Davis publishing twins that offered the kind of adventure sf only a teenager could love. Early in the decade he edited Fantastic when it was upscale with stories by Ray Bradbury, John Collier, Shirley Jackson, etc. But nobody bought it so Ziff-Davis ordered it back to its gaudy past--action stories with purple Venusians, lots of rays guns, hard-boiled interstellar dudes and innumerable lovely interstellar babes. I loved it. For five years those were my two favorite magazines. Later I'd learn that most of the stories I especially liked were by Robert Silverberg. Some of them hold up pretty well today.
Late in my teens I started reading Howard's "Halo" series of mysteries. They owed a lot to Chandler (he insisted they owed a lot to James M. Cain too) but eventually they got rolling on their own entirely. They are well worth reading. He was a good writer line by line and a much better plotter than Chandler.
I mention all this because when I began editing Mystery Scene one of my goals was to get Howard in the magazine. He was somebody I'd always wanted to meet (via phone). He ended up writing three or four pieces of his autobiography for us. He was a great storyteller and a prescient judge of character.
I probably talked to him fifteen times over the years, sometimes at length. A lot of the talk was pretty funny and pretty cynical on both our parts. But then one night he called to say that he wouldn't be finishing his autobiography for the magazine as planned. His wife had died and he said he would never write again. He said that one night he'd gotten out of bed and gone to the bathroom and when he came back a few minutes later she was dead.
He spent his final days in a nursing home. California people put on a big birthday party for him. I'm sure he got a hell of a kick out of it. A great guy, a fine writer.
Here's a long obituary by Jack Adrian no less.
Independent, The (London), Nov 15, 1999 by Jack Adrian
HOWARD BROWNE was that unusual beast, a writer who not only succeeded on both sides of the editorial desk, but who was equally at home in two quite disparate genres, hardboiled detective fiction and SF/ Fantasy. His fantasy, in particular, was of the swashbuckling kind, a million miles - or rather, bowing to the genre, a million light years - from his tales of mean streets, mainly written under his pseudonym John Evans (one of many: others included Lawrence Chandler and Lee Francis).
He successfully jumped media, too, as well as genres, turning, when the pulp magazines began to wither and die in the early 1950s, from writing punchy, riveting prose to creating compelling screen- and tele-plays. And, like all able fictioneers, even at an advanced age he could still turn disaster into triumph - two rejected screenplays, "The Violent World of Jake Lingle" and "A Bowl of Cherries", upon which he had lavished much care and attention, he transformed into a brace of fine late (very late: he was then in his mid-eighties) novels, Pork City (1988) and the hilarious Scotch on the Rocks (1991).
Howard Browne was born in Omaha, Nebraska, the son of a baker, in 1908, and began his education in Lincoln, Nebraska. However, he dropped out of high school and rode the rails (i.e., hid in the boxcar) to Chicago to seek his fortune. He worked as a legman, or stringer, for a local newspaper before, at the age of 21, securing a post as department-store credit manager, a position he held for over a decade and which gave him an unparalleled insight into the psyche of his fellow men.
for the rest go here: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19991115/ai_n14274743
Monday, April 02, 2012
Collaborating with Max and Barb Collins
Ed here: I've always been fascinated by people who can collaborate on books and stories. I've always had trouble doing it. I don't think it's because I have such a big ego rather I think it's because many times writing for me is a process of torture. I backtrack, change, change again and this understandably drives my collaborator nuts. Here is how Max Collins and his very talented and lovely wife Barb work together. This is an excellent piece about writing itself from Max's blog.
Antiques Chop Talk
March 27th, 2012 by Max Allan CollinsRight now I am in the home stretch of my draft of ANTIQUES CHOP, the seventh “Trash ‘n’ Treasures” mystery that Barb and I have collaborated upon. I should finish this week (and I better, because April 1st is the deadline) (no fooling). Nate suggested that, while I’m in the midst of it, I provide a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the process.
Barb and I begin with a succession of business lunches where we first come up with the basic concept, and usually tie it to a title. The pattern of the titles are to have the word ANTIQUES followed by a punning word, and we have a list of these (continually growing). This time the title ANTIQUES CHOP sparked the premise (sometimes it’s the other way around), leading to the mystery revolving around an ax murder, an unusually gruesome crime for a supposed “cozy.”
We often look at “antique” crimes, which is to say crimes that occurred decades ago but are having latter-day ramifications. So I suggested we make an unsolved Lizzie Border-esque ax murder the centerpiece of the story, and wrote a faux entry about the crime for a non-existent true-crime encyclopedia. From there Barb and I began the back-and-forth process of coming up with a fairly detailed plot. We have to turn in a sample chapter and brief synopsis to our editor at Kensington (and get approval), so we have to have a firm idea of where we’re going before Barb gets started on her draft.
Barb works on that draft for probably six months, although that six months may stretch out to an entire year, because she isn’t always working on it – summers tend to be busy and that keeps her away from the work. Last year, for example, we went on a west coast book tour, plus there’s comic con and other distractions.
As Barb writes, I stay out of her way unless she has a problem or a concern about what she’s up to. Sometimes we discuss a plot point, and oftentimes we discuss it if she feels she has a need to deviate from the plot as originally conceived. Generally, though, I give her all the space she needs.
When Barb delivers her draft, it’s usually about 200 to 225 pages of doubled-spaced copy. My job is to expand and flesh out her draft, providing more dialogue and even more humor and generally apply what I laughingly think of as a more professional gloss. The end result will be 300 to 330 pages. I do my pass in a month or less, working hard and intensely, with Barb editing and suggesting revisions as I go (she reads it, and provides her notes, a chapter at a time). We do a lot of this over business lunches – just yesterday, on what was otherwise a day off, we discussed two plot points that needed shoring up in the chapter I just finished and the one that I will be doing today.
The final step is for me to spend a day or two re-reading the manuscript and marking up a hard copy with revisions, with Barb entering them in the chapter files. Then, common to all writers, we ship it (by e-mail these days) and hold our collective breath, hoping for a delighted response from the editor. On this series, we’ve been lucky to get that response pretty much every time. Occasionally there are rewrites, as on ANTIQUES MAUL where the editor felt the murder occurred too late in the mystery, and we reshaped the book so that it happened virtually on page one and then flashed back.
I said “final step” above, but of course there is much more to do – there will be a copy-edited manuscript to check, and at least one round of galley proofs. We tend to trade off on these assignments, with Barb doing the copy-edited manuscript and me reading the galley proofs. We divide the work that way because (a) I hate the copy-editing stage, since the Moriarty of my career is the Intrusive Copy Editor Who Stalks Me Under Various Names and Guises, and (b) Barb is thoroughly sick of the book by the galley proof stage and is content to leave that step to me.
Do we squabble? Not much. Hardly at all. I may get testy if, as I’m moving forward in my draft, Barb indicates (and she’s always right) that I need to go back and make a few fixes in a chapter that I had considered finished. This occurs, on the rare occasion that it does occur, early in the morning before I have had a chance to become fully human. Let’s just say, first thing in the morning, I’m more Quarry than Mallory.
So there you go. That’s how this particular flavor of sausage is made.
Sunday, April 01, 2012
New Books-Three A.M. Steven John
Steven John
3/30/12
My first novel, Three A.M., was published on March 27th. That was three days ago as I type these words. It still seems rather surreal to me, frankly. Three days ago I found myself addressing a few dozen people at a Barnes & Noble where heretofore I had frequently purchased books (and other sundries) but now was speaking about my own novel and seated between a poster of its cover and a stack of copies.
I had prepared a few remarks (for example I had thought through a comment that turned out to be fitting about sharing with those gathered a moment I knew I would never forget) but planned to speak mostly off the cuff. Which I did, and I believe I convinced people that I had done much more preparation than was the case.
In fact, within a few minutes of stepping up to the podium I felt quite at home talking about the book itself and the years of work and waiting that had come between my typing its first words in 2009 and the release date in 2012. Indeed there was only one moment when I found myself the proverbial deer in the headlights.
From the back of the audience, a gentleman (a man I did not know—much of those gathered were friends and family) raised his hand and asked: “What themes inform your writing?”
I nodded, a knowing smile on my pursed lips while thinking: “Oh… shit.” It was a simple yet astute question, and one which, I quickly realized, I had never really thought about. For what felt like a long while but what was likely only a few blinks (amazing how fast the mind can work, even if its labors are fruitless, no? This time I think I pulled through OK, though. You’ll see sometime after I end this protracted parenthetical) I stood silently, then I felt a breath coming in and then it was turning around and vocal chords were vibrating within me and I said “Good and evil.”
Then I paused again, weighing whether to run with it or cut my losses and take a different question. I ran with it. And despite never having consciously considered theme while writing Three A.M., I think just maybe good old Good and Evil was the right answer. I went on speaking and described how in many ways the book’s protagonist, Thomas Vale, is a perfect antihero-cum-hero when viewed through the lens of the hero’s journey, when compared to mythological figures, etc. He lives in a dark world (metaphorically and in practice) peopled by shady if not outright evil people and informed by self-service if not outright corruption. And when tested, Vale rises up and fights back against the evil, ready to prevail or die.
Is he not Theseus emerging from Hades? A Norseman of legend emerging from the depths of winter? Or… something more cogent? Don’t worry, I didn’t ramble on with specific examples. Rather I spoke of the simple yet universal concept of what happens when Good meets Evil and I explained how, at least on a subconscious level, that was the way in which this book and its protagonist came to life. I had an idea for a setting—a world enshrouded by thick, unending fog—and wanted to set a story in it. Once I had a character in mind and the loose arc of the story, I simply asked (repeatedly, in a variety of situations and in dealing with a range of people) “What would this man do?” Thus he became ever more “real” and thus he could navigate his way through the world, creating the story.
And as I thought about it while standing at that lectern on Tuesday and as I dwell on it at more length now, that simple question really is the most important one of all: When a given situation arises, What Will You Do?
In the case of Tom Vale and his experiences in Three A.M.—contrary to what Vale would likely have thought himself capable of doing—when evil (or adversity or corruption) confronts him, he fights back. We would all like to think of ourselves as ones who would do the same, but fortunately for us, we are seldom tested.
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