Tagged: novel

NIGHTMARE AT THE EARTH’S CORE!

Art: Jamie Chase

Sequential Pulp Comics has shared a grisly glimpse into the nightmarish inner world of Pellucidar, as conceived by artist Jamie Chase for the upcoming graphic novel of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic sci-fi adventure, AT THE EARTH’S CORE.

At The Earth’s Core is written by Martin Powell with artwork by Jamie Chase. This project is authorized by ERB, Inc., and published by Sequential Pulp/Dark Horse Comics.

You can learn more about Sequential Pulp Comics at www.SequentialPulpComics.com.
You can learn more about Dark Horse Comics at www.darkhorse.com.

REVIEW: Bones the Complete Seventh Season

Bones has carefully straddled the line between light-hearted crime drama, ala Hart to Hart and taut melodrama. Over the seven seasons, showrunner Hart Hanson has carefully brought the main characters, Special Agent Seely Booth (David Boreanaz) and Dr. Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel), together, nicely balancing the “will they or won’t they?” romantic tension until finally, in the last season, they finally became a couple. Probably quicker than anticipated, thanks to a real life pregnancy, Brennan was with child.

The seventh season of Bones, now out on Blu-ray from 20th Century Home Entertainment, is a shorter than normal thirteen episodes because of the circumstances, but Hanson did not slow down the pacing, setting things up for a dramatic cliffhanger that left fans really hanging for the spring and summer.

Along the way, the supporting cast at the Jeffersonian Institute Forensic Sciences Department was also given their moments in the spotlight, proving they are one of the richest, most interesting ensembles on prime time. With all the personal issues surrounding the cast, it’s pretty impressive they still manage to fit in unique corpse of the week stories. Things kicked off with a body at a paintball event and continued forward. The forensic testing results remain ridiculously fast in arriving and Angela (Michaela Conlin) never meets a challenge whose butt she can’t kick so there are definite stretches of credulity, moreso this season than in the past. Sweets (John Frances Daley) lost some of his boyish charm as he grew deadly accurate with his service revolver.

The series nicely rotated the usual interns, freshening the group dynamic with regularity and the addition of southern gentleman Finn Abernathy (Luke Kleintank) was a nice addition. His flirtation and dating of Cam’s (Tamara Taylor) daughter was an interesting development that ultimately went nowhere.

The most unusual episode of the season has to be “The Suit on the Set” where Booth and Brennan travel to watch a film based on one of her books is being made. They skewer Hollywood’s inability to faithfully adapt a novel, going for busts and pyrotechnics over plot and characterization. A little silly but a refreshing change of pace.

The finale sees the return of criminal Christopher Pellant who goes out of his way to frame Brennan, turning her into a wanted felon. The problem here is that the circumstantial evidence mounts so high so fast, at least one of the characters should have at least questioned the absurdity of all this damning information pouring out at once. But nope, never happened. Instead, Brennan and her dad (Ryan O’Neal) take the baby and go on the run, leaving Booth behind.

Given the shortened season, one would have expected either additional special features to compensate or fewer given the dearth of material to work with. We get more of the latter than the former with two deleted scenes, commentary on one episode, a four minute Gag Reel, and two small pieces on the Hollywood episode. First, there’s Creating The Suit on the Set (10:59) on how the episode was made then a fun, fake Bone of Contention: On the Red Carpet (3:18)

I was late to the series and was able to plow through the first five seasons to jump on board but you cannot start cold with this season. It’s too involved in its continuity and character relationships to be totally accessible to a newcomer. But for those of us who are fans of this show, adapted from the novels by Kathy Reichs, it was a slid if flawed season and worth a second look.

BLACKTHORN: THE SPIRES OF MARS – COMPLETE!

New Pulp Author I.A. Watson has announced that his episodic novel, Blackthorn: The Spires of Mars is now complete with chapter 30.

From I.A. Watson:
The thirtieth and final part of my serial novel over on the BLACKTHORN website is now out. There’s now a complete 80,000 word novel waiting there for those who prefer their episodic adventures to be, um, not episodic.

THE SPIRES OF MARS

“A young man desperate to save his sister from the raiders who kidnapped her to slavery – an ancient undead released after half a millennium – four sorcerous First Men who will kill half a world to keep their darkest secret – and three champions who will stand for Mars against horror and tyranny – or die trying!

Award-winning author I.A Watson’s online novel set in the futuristic Martian world of Van Allen Plexico’s BLACKTHORN offers readers a serial adventure in the tradition of old-time pulps, showcasing the vibrant characters and lush settings of this popular and successful series.

Join Earth General John Blackthorn, Aria, Princess of Mars, Oglok the Mock-Man and an ever-expanding cast of rebels, monsters, magicians, and villains as the mystery of the ancient Harmony Spires is explored.”

Find it online via www.whiterocketbooks.com/blackthorn or direct at http://www.chillwater.org.uk/writing/blackthorn/spires.htm

Comments are welcome and we’ll put all the non-swearing ones on the letters page.
Blackthorn: Thunder on Mars and Blackthorn: Dynasty of Mars are also still available.

Review: Mike Baron’s Helmet Head

Helmut Head • Mike Baron • Amazon Kindle book, available in all e-book formats • 206 pages • $4.99 download

The premise of Helmet Head is simple: Young Jewish motorcycle cop Peter Fagan inadvertently stumbles into the path of someone or something that stalks bikers and leaves them headless. Although there are plenty of outlaw bikers in the story, the killer targets anyone on a motorcycle. Right after he dispatches a member of the local southern Illinois biker gang, he pursues Fagan with frightening singleness of purpose. He pursues Fagan all the way to the biker hangout, a rundown, out of the way bar, where Helmet Head doesn’t kill anyone. Instead, he orders a drink. When the bartender refuses to serve him, he leaves. This sets the tone for a rather long stretch.

The action kicks into high gear again in the last third of the story, and if you can get past the mad scientist angle and the obligatory damsel in distress, it’s a fairly entertaining ride. The climactic conflagration is a smorgasbord of horror movie clichés – which might have worked, despite the rather offhanded way one of the main characters dies, if it weren’t for the rather anti-climactic (and inevitable) scene in which the villain meets his end.

Mike Baron is a good writer, and that shows early on in Helmet Head – and based on my extremely limited sample of self-published works of fiction, Helmet Head is the best-written one so far. The first few chapters are tightly paced, with just enough colorful metaphor to give the narrative depth. But good writing and good storytelling are not the same thing.

Helmet Head apparently started as an idea for a “slasher film,” and that unfortunately also shows. Unlike a non-stop action film, a good novel, even a slasher/horror/thriller novel, requires some characters with depth. Even if you don’t like the characters, you need to have some sense that they are real. For good or ill, you need to care what happens to them; otherwise you won’t keep reading to find out. This can be accomplished in a number of ways, but interspersing the main story with unrelated stories from the characters’ pasts only works if it gives the characters more depth or motivation or something that gives the reader a sense of empathy. In the case of Helmet Head, it just gives the characters … well … pasts. Fagan’s early life and Jewish heritage are apparently supposed to be significant in some way. As it turns out, not so much.

Helmet Head reads like a screenplay padded out to make a novel. The pieces just don’t fit together very well. The pacing is uneven. Aside from the occasional overly long asides into the various characters’ back stories, some scenes just don’t seem to make any sense at all. What does Fagan do after the biker gang takes off in pursuit of the monster that has just chopped off the head of their friend and tossed it through the bar window like a basketball? He goes in the back room of the bar and … takes a shower. Freshly showered, he “… stood in the doorway and scanned the room as he’d been trained to do.” This is because the entire bar is a potential crime scene … one in which he’s just taken a shower. And only after that does it occur to him that maybe he should find a vehicle and get the hell out of there and do something, anything.

To be fair, maybe I expected too much. I’m a big fan of Baron’s work on the comic book Nexus, which seamlessly weaves action, drama, humor, and moral conflict into compelling storylines. The most enjoyable aspect of my brief tenure in the comics industry was working with Mike on that book. Unfortunately, those qualities are sadly lacking in Helmet Head.

 

Emily S. Whitten: NYCC – The Good, The Bad, and The Slightly Sad

The New York Comic Con has come and gone like a whirlwind, leaving me, as always, gasping for breath (and craving a week of sleep) as I recover from the huge crushes of people, hectic dashes to see friends or get places on time, and general excitement. No con is perfect but I am pretty fond of NYCC, in part because the sheer size of it means every moment can be filled with something fun (if you have the energy and aren’t afraid of crowds) and in part because I love visiting New York City. Even if you’re in town for the con, it’s not a bad idea to leave the Javits Center at least once or twice to experience a bit of the rest of New York.

In keeping with the spirit of what my brain feels like after three to four days of non-stop excitement and unable to remember in what order anything happened and/or to form coherent sentences, I feel like it’s proper to talk about the highs and lows of my NYCC/NYC experience in a randomly ordered bullet-point list. Ready? Let’s go!

Highs

• Terry Pratchett is in town! Terry was here to promote his newest novel, a non-Discworld book called [[[Dodger]]], and it was, as always, delightful to see him. While he was at NYCC, for me the high was not his NYCC appearance (we’ll get to that in a second!) but his appearance at the Barnes & Noble in nearby Union Square. Despite a pretty full house, the store was so quiet you could hear a pin drop (or Terry and his business manager Rob bantering with each other on stage) as everyone listened to an excerpt from the book and a fun Q&A.

We learned that Dodger (which came out in the US on September 25th, so you can go get it now!), is a young adult book in which, among other things, Charles Dickens meets the boy who will inspire him to write about The Artful Dodger. Terry and Rob talked about researching the history of Victorian London, including the fact that the streets of London at that time were so terrifyingly bad that “they made Gangs of New York look like kindergarten.” They also talked about locating the oldest gentlemen’s outfitters in London, and discovering that the shop had not only provided Sir Robert Peel with his personal clothing, but also designed the original police uniforms – a fact which made its way into the story. From the excerpt and talk, the book (which I have but have not yet read!) sounds great.

Other information shared with the crowd is that Terry fully intends that there be a sequel to Dodger; that he has been working on the second Long Earth book with co-author Stephen Baxter; and that (as some may have heard already) he has formed a production company with business manager Rob Wilkins, Managing Director and producer Rod Brown, and daughter and fellow writer Rhianna Pratchett. Upcoming projects include The Watch series (a 13 episode series described in a nutshell as “CSI: Ankh-Morpork”) and the Good Omens miniseries, along with more upcoming Discworld adaptations. Yay!

• Happening upon awesomeness while randomly wandering the show floor. This included running into and geeking out about the con with the super-nice Dan Slott, Amazing Spider-man writer; walking through the DC booth at just the right time to snap a picture of Stephen Amell and the rest of the Arrow cast and crew (though sadly I did not have a signing ticket); discovering the terrifyingly lifelike (and life-sized) Chris Hemsworth Thor at the Midtown Comics booth (a Madame Tussaud’s figure); and spotting and snagging the last signed copy of The Nao of Brown by Glyn Dillon at the Abrams ComicArts booth (which I’d been meaning to pick up after reading a great review and seeing some of the beautiful art).

• Joe Kelly cheerfully signing his way through half of my Joe Kelly Deadpool issues. For some reason, at the last con where I saw Joe, I’d only brought along half of the run for him to sign (well, okay, I know the reason – those books get heavy; or, as Joe said, “you’re basically carrying around a block of wood”). So this time I brought the other half, and had a great time chatting with Joe as he signed and signed. Not only is Joe tied with Fabian Nicieza as my all-time favorite Deadpool writer, but he’s also done a lot of awesome things since then, so it was great to catch up with him at the Man of Action booth (and he mentioned that Deadpool appears in his Ultimate Spider-Man animated series, which I did not know. Ooh!).

• Attending the fantastic book launch for Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling’s newest anthology, After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia. Like I said, it’s nice to get out in NYC a little bit even at con-time, so when I heard that Ellen was having a book launch on Thursday, I had to pull myself away from the show floor and go. The event, at Books of Wonder, was great, with about nine of the authors reading from or discussing their stories, and a signing afterwards. After includes stories from a host of previously published authors, including Gregory Maguire, who also wrote Wicked, so I picked that up for him to sign as well. The stories sound great and have been getting excellent reviews, so I’m looking forward to reading my copy (which now features a sad-looking “dystopian flower” as drawn by author N.K. Jemisin at my request, and further graffiti’d by Genevieve Valentine).

• Snagging some con merch and freebies, including two adorable new t-shirts (one of which is a sad-looking hedgehog holding a “free hugs” sign, and how can you possibly not love that?), and the Cable/Deadpool Heroclix figure, which I hadn’t been able to find for anything under $25 and got for $3 at the con. Score! I also got several ARCs and a free Phantom Tollbooth poster – and I love that book. Yay!

• The joys of Artist Alley. Artist Alley is really my favorite part of any con, and I rarely manage to spend as much time there as I would like. I had a lot of fun while I was there this year, though, catching up with friends, chatting with the ever-amusing Bill Willingham; finally meeting Ed McGuinness (a favorite Deadpool artist who had not been at any of the cons I’ve previously attended, but was happy to be at this one and mentioned he’d love to get back on the Deadpool book. I approve of this idea!); and talking with V for Vendetta co-creator David Lloyd about his newest project, Aces Weekly (check out the ComicMix review here). Aces Weekly is “an exclusively digital comic art magazine which features some of the world’s finest sequential art creators” from all over the world, and sounds really interesting. It just launched at the beginning of October, so it’s easy to check it out now and catch up on the first couple of issues. David also kindly drew me a V sketch, which made me ever so happy. I also had fun hanging out with Reilly Brown, particularly since I was actually costuming as his and Kurt Christenson’s character the Ice Queen from their fantastic digital comic Power Play (available on ComiXology – check it out!) on Friday. Another character from the comic, Gowanus Pete, mysteriously showed up to be in a picture with me (who was that man behind the mask?), which was pretty fun as well.

• Attending cool panels like the Marvel prose novels panel, in which Axel Alonso, Stuart Moore, Peter David, Alisa Kwitney, and Marie Javins talked with moderator James Viscardi and the audience about the popular storylines they are adapting as almost a hybrid of the comics and movie worlds. I really liked the Civil War adaptation by Stuart Moore, and am super-excited about the upcoming ones, which include “New Avengers: Breakout” (Alisa Kwitney), “Astonishing X-Men: Gifted” (Peter David), and “Iron Man: Extremis” (Marie Javins). Alisa talked about her research into things like how the Helicarrier actually works and how to make an impossible feat of archery seem plausible, also noting that one change she’s made from the comics is that in the prose timeline, Hawkeye is still alive and appearing in the story. Peter talked about his use of Kitty Pryde as a means of sharing new information with the reader, and how through this she really became the heart of the story and his favorite character to write. Marie noted that, like the movie storyline, in her novel Iron Man’s identity will be public, and that she’s having fun trying to channel “Warren Ellis mixed with Robert Downey Jr.” for her work, which she finds “very funny and very disturbing.”

Lows

• The placement of Terry Pratchett’s NYCC panel. Don’t get me wrong – Terry and Rob were as entertaining as always, and I was delighted to see them. But for the first time in my experience, NYCC committed a major error in planning when they stuck the best-selling adult fiction author in the UK in a giant echo-y hallway next to a music stage (which started playing loud music half-way through) for his event. I can’t even imagine what they were thinking, and can only assume it was done in complete ignorance by someone who has mysteriously never heard of Terry and couldn’t be bothered to look up whether his panel was likely to be popular or anything else about him. Even if they didn’t realize that Terry’s Alzheimer’s necessitates that he have a lavaliere microphone rather than a hand-held, or that he often speaks rather softly and so a loud hall is not the best venue for him, such placement is unforgiveable, and I hope NYCC never makes such an asinine mistake again. Honestly, I doubt they’ll get a chance, since I’m sure nobody presenting on this stage would have been happy to be put there or want to come back. Also, I will note that the seating of that stage looked to be similar to the prose novel panel seating, which was in a nice quiet room and about 2/3 full. Terry’s panel, on the other hand, was overflowing with people sitting and standing in the back, straining to hear, some of whom, I am sure, had not had an opportunity to see him before and were forced to miss out on part of what is a wonderful experience when it can be heard. For shame, NYCC!

• The broken escalators and bottlenecks. I know there’s only so much one can do when working with a set layout, but due to broken escalators, the wait to get from one floor to the next, particularly on Sunday, was claustrophobic and glacially slow. Also, the placement of the TMNT tunnel display, I am told, created a huge bottleneck and traffic jam. Very frustrating.

• The lack of cell service. It’s become a known fact and common complaint around the Javits Center that the cell service from location to location is spotty and unpredictable. It makes it almost impossible to meet up with friends and coordinate with people, even if you try to do so before going inside. Lousy cell service caused me to miss at least two or three friends I’d have liked to see, and almost made me entirely miss seeing a good friend who miraculously found me after I’d unsuccessfully looked for him for two days in a row (and had my calls not go through to his phone). The Javits is a big and popular convention center; they should look into improving this service ASAP.

• Con funk OMG. Seriously, people. Deodorant. Showers. Perfume or cologne or a constant spray bath, whatever it takes. Please, stop stinking up the con and causing me to accidentally inhale all of your nasty B.O. when I take a breath. I’d really, really appreciate it.

Well! Despite the few low points (of which the placement of the Pratchett panel was the most egregious), I had a great time at the con, and am already looking forward to next year’s. I do have a little request, though – my camera memory card is giving me error messages, and so, tragically, I may have lost 2/3 of my photos from the con (which would make me soooo sad). If you did happen to see me and take a picture, and are reading this, please feel free to send any photos to emily@comicmix.com. Thanks!!

And until next time, Servo Lectio!

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis’s Escape From France!

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold’s Escape From New York!

 

Mike Baron’s Helmet Head of Horror

Our pal and (very) occasional ComicMix contributor. high-energy comics writer Mike Baron (Nexus, Badger, Punisher, Deadman), has written us a novel and has taken it into the ether.

Helmet Head has been published as an Amazon e-book, available via the Kindle app on all computers, smartphones and tablets. It costs $4.99, which is pretty good for a full-length novel. Helmet Head is a horror piece that started out as a movie concept developed for movie director Ian Fischer about a monstrous motorcyclist who rides around the Little Egypt area in central America lobbing off the heads of other bikers and, one supposes, the occasional saluki, all expressed with the subtlety and sensitivity we have come to expect from the talented Mr. Baron.

For example, Mike refers to Helmet Head as containing “scenes of graphic violence that would gag a dog off a gut wagon.” It’s got plenty of bikers, high-holy-horror and senses-shattering action that certainly will thrill his many fans. Clearly, this is a date-night kinda novel.

Baron’s tome is the first of a trilogy – Whack Job comes out later this month and Banshees winds up this arc after the first of the year. And can a comic book adaptation be far behind?

Did I mention there’s Nazis in the story? There’s Nazis in the story. How can you go wrong?

You can gawk at Helmet Head’s interior or actually purchase the book by merely clicking on this link.

Emily S. Whitten: Neil Gaiman, Michael Chabon, and Awards Aplenty

Neil Gaiman and Michael Chabon have numerous things in common. They’re both fantastic writers; they’ve both written for (and about) comics; they’ve both won Hugos, Nebulas, and a slew of other impressive awards; they’ve both penned Sherlockian-style tales; they’ve both had novels adapted for the big screen; and they both have great hair.* Another thing they have in common is that last weekend they were both at George Mason University in Virginia, receiving awards at the annual Fall for the Book festival. I was fortunate enough to attend both ceremonies.

Both evenings started out with a nice VIP reception in which ticket-holders could mix and mingle and chat with the authors while having a drink and some hors d’oeuvres. Both authors signed books and made it a point to try to have a personal word or chat with as many attending fans as possible, and everyone had a great time.

On Friday, Neil Gaiman was on hand to accept The Mason Award, presented to authors who have made extraordinary contributions to bringing literature to a wide reading public. Joining the impressive ranks of past winners Dave Eggers, Jonathan Letham, Chinua Achebe, Sherman Alexie, Greg Mortenson, and Stephen King, Neil took the stage in front of 1,800 enthusiastic fans prior to the award presentation to read from a couple of his newest works and to answer questions.

His first reading was a selection from his just-now-this-very-second finished new adult novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which will be published “sometime next year” (possibly July-ish). The intriguing snippet of story we heard centered around a seven-year-old boy and began with an ominously sinister morning, in which said boy and his father have their ordinary breakfast routine interrupted by the discovery that the family car is mysteriously not in the driveway where it ought to be, but instead down at the end of a nearby lane. A death and the introduction of an odd family with three generations of women who clearly know things quickly follows…”and then it gets weird,” says Neil. From what I heard, I don’t doubt it, nor do I doubt his word when he says he didn’t start out to write a scary book, but now thinks this is the scariest thing he’s ever written. Despite my propensity for needing to hide under the covers while reading scary stories, I can’t wait to read more.

Neil followed the reading by answering a number of audience questions with his customary slightly mischievous sense of humor, including the question of “Why?” to which he answered, “Why not?” Why not, indeed. More substantive information we gleaned included that the books he enjoys writing the most are those with the “huge highs and terrible lows” in which he gets to “stomp around and phone my agent to go, ‘Why do you let me do this?? I could have been a gardener!’“ (To which she replies, “No you couldn’t. Just write the book.” It’s good to have a sensible agent.) In further discussing writing, Neil’s extremely complicated advice to those who want to be writers was to “Sit down. Start. Write. Keep writing.” However, he then admitted that if you truly want to become a real writer, you will receive a postcard in the mail, which you must then burn with a black match at midnight, and then there will be a knock on the door, and he and all of the other Mason Award winners will arrive wearing robes, and surround you, and then they will say: “Now you learn.” And then you will be a real writer.

I am expecting my postcard any day now.

In little known facts, Neil shared something he wasn’t sure he’d ever mentioned before, which is that in American Gods, the farm with an ash tree which is an hour south of Blackburg is based on an old decaying family farm belonging to Tori Amos, which he visited with her years ago and decided to adapt for the book. He also shared that his writing gazebo, which he’s mentioned several times on his journal, was built for him by some Renaissance Faire friends (and that writers should never be let near tools because they wouldn’t know what to do with them). Neil declared that the gazebo was perfect except for the mice – who nibbled on the drafts of The Doctor’s Wife script which he’d planned to send to the Library of Congress! I’m usually a big fan of small furry creatures, but in this case: for shame, tiny cute rodents!

Neil finished his talk by reading an unpublished spooky short story called “Click Clack, The Rattle Bag,” prefacing it by sharing his love of the spooky month we’ve entered. “We are getting into what Ray Bradbury called ‘The October Country,’” he said, “that one time of year when I can look around at all the shop windows and see the kinds of things I like, and go, ‘Oh gosh! Giant spiders and dead things! How cool is this??’” His love of scary things well noted, he then proceeded to scare the wits out of all of us with the new story. Thanks, Neil.

As always, it was a delight to listen to Neil, and I’m looking forward to his upcoming works, which include children’s’ books Chu’s Day and Fortunately, The Milk (which will feature art by comics artist Skottie Young ); the adult novel The Ocean at the End of the Lane; and his new Sandman story.

Moving on to Sunday, Michael Chabon was awarded The Fairfax Prize, which honors outstanding writers for their literary achievements and has previously been awarded to Tobias Wolff, Joyce Carol Oates, Norman Mailer, Mitch Albom, Michael Cunningham, E.L. Doctorow, Ann Patchett, and Amy Tan. Prior to accepting the award, Michael, an amazing wordsmith and storyteller in person as in his prose, took the stage to answer questions from a very tough interviewer: himself.

In discussing his writing, Michael asked Michael, “What’s up with all the similes?” …and then answered his own question using three similes; before admitting that really, it’s just “something in the wiring” that causes him to see likeness in two unlike things and include it in his works. He also gave several answers to the question of where he gets his ideas: 1) “I have no idea!” 2) “The book just appears in my brain, whole and inexplicable.” and 3) (the most truthful one) “Ideas are the easiest; swarming, ubiquitous, chronic. The hard part is sticking with the ideas when they start to lose their luster.”

In discussing his opinion of the value of MFA programs, Michael said that the MFA program he was a part of “made a man out of me,” by giving him a seriousness of purpose, inspired in part by observing all of the hard-working women in the program and their resolute determination to take advantage of the opportunity that feminism had brought with it. The MFA program taught Michael the discipline of actually sitting in his chair for long periods of time, typing and re-typing and editing and re-editing his work.  It also taught him much about the craft of writing, including having to ask himself a hard question after a critique of his first, very character-intensive story by his advisor, i.e. “How could I have forgotten to tell a goddamned story??

In telling a story, Michael recommended that even if pulling from personal experience, one can’t just record each thing that has happened, as real life tends to have pockets of tedium throughout. Instead, “you need to edit your life, and shape it; but most of all, you need to lie – to compress people, leave out events, and thus make things more interesting.” He also shared that his favorite characters to write are “the assholes – the ones who’d have ready comebacks and fun dialogue,” such as Inspector Dick of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.

Despite his enjoyment in writing the dickish characters in his novels, Michael is a very nice guy who looks at readers as friends to share with. And he does want to share with as many people as possible, stating his desire to “produce popular art, which is unreservedly and unmistakably both.” Being this year’s recipient of The Fairfax Prize speaks to his success in achieving this goal.

It was a real pleasure to hear Michael speak, and I am looking forward to reading his newest novel, Telegraph Avenue, which was published in July of this year and is now sitting on my bookshelf in hopeful anticipation of my having a free moment or two sometime soon.

That’s all the news from me this week, but I’m off to New York Comic Con tomorrow, so there’s sure to be more coming up!

Feel free to say hi if you see me in New York, and until next time, Servo Lectio!

* Oh yes, and there is also this.

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis Doesn’t See London, But He Does See France

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Gold… Mike Gold. And Doctor Know.