Tagged: Stephen King

HANCOCK TIPS HIS HAT TO LANSDALE’S ‘EDGE OF DARK WATER’

  • News
  • October 24, 2012

TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT- Reviews of All Things Pulp by Tommy Hancock

EDGE OF DARK WATER
by Joe R. Lansdale
Published by Mulholland Books

There are several names that get bandied about today, and when I say names I don’t necessarily refer to those of us considered firmly under the New Pulp umbrella, but I mean writers that have some notoriety in other ways but clearly also have Pulp sensibilities in their work.   One that is coming up like that more and more frequently, and rightfully so, is Joe R. Lansdale.

Apparently able to tackle just about any genre and any character, from Tarzan to two of my favorites of his own creating (Hap and Leonard), Lansdale is not only an accomplished writer and master of the craft.  He is someone who clearly enjoys the process of creating, the firestorm of breathing life into figments and words.   That is clearly evident in EDGE OF DARK WATER.

EDGE OF DARK WATER, according to the back cover is ‘Mark Twain meets classic Stephen King.’ Although that is a good mash up comparison, I see some other qualities in this work.  

Set in East Texas, EDGE follows Sue Ellen, a teenage girl who has an abusive father, a mother who seems to care about nothing, and, as the book opens, a dead friend.  A dead friend who had aspirations to be a Hollywood starlet.   Disturbed by the fact that this dream is gone for the departed, Sue Ellen determines to dig up her friend, burn the body, and transport the ashes to Hollywood.  Teaming up with her only two friends, each having their own reasons for wanting to leave, Sue Ellen sets off downriver on a journey that will forever alter her as well as those closest…and farthest from her.

EDGE OF DARK WATER definitely harkens back to Twain’s Huck Finn and has that rural eeriness that permeates King’s early work.  But it has so much more.  This is a classic quest story, heroes off on a journey to take a friend to her final resting place.  It’s also a chase story as a Villain of sorts almost ripped from the pages of a Pulp it seems joins the journey, out to make sure Sue Ellen never finishes it.  But even beyond all that, this is a study of people, a varied wide expanse of humanity laid open and filleted for the reader to ingest, enjoy, and even be appropriately disturbed by.

FIVE OUT OF FIVE TIPS OF THE HAT-EDGE OF DARK WATER is most definitely a multifaceted story that touches every button a Pulp fan might have and goes far beyond that.

STEPHEN KING BRINGS JOYLAND TO HARD CASE CRIME

  • Uncategorized
  • September 21, 2012

Press Release:

NEW STEPHEN KING NOVEL COMING FROM HARD CASE CRIME
JOYLAND to be published in June 2013

New York, NY; London, UK (May 30, 2012)—Hard Case Crime, the award-winning line of pulp-styled crime novels published by Titan Books, today announced it will publish JOYLAND, a new novel by Stephen King, in June 2013. Set in a small-town North Carolina amusement park in 1973, JOYLAND tells the story of the summer in which college student Devin Jones comes to work as a carny and confronts the legacy of a vicious murder, the fate of a dying child, and the ways both will change his life forever.

JOYLAND is a brand-new book and has never previously been published.

One of the most beloved storytellers of all time, Stephen King is the world’s best-selling novelist, with more than 300 million books in print.

Called “the best new American publisher to appear in the last decade” by Neal Pollack in The Stranger, Hard Case Crime revives the storytelling and visual style of the pulp paperbacks of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. The line features an exciting mix of lost pulp masterpieces from some of the most acclaimed crime writers of all time and gripping new novels from the next generation of great hardboiled authors, all with new painted covers in the grand pulp style. Authors range from modern-day bestsellers such as Pete Hamill, Donald E. Westlake, Lawrence Block and Ed McBain to Golden Age stars like Mickey Spillane (creator of “Mike Hammer”), Erle Stanley Gardner (creator of “Perry Mason”), Wade Miller (author of Touch of Evil), and Cornell Woolrich (author of Rear Window).
Stephen King commented, “I love crime, I love mysteries, and I love ghosts. That combo made Hard Case Crime the perfect venue for this book, which is one of my favorites. I also loved the paperbacks I grew up with as a kid, and for that reason, we’re going to hold off on e-publishing this one for the time being. Joyland will be coming out in paperback, and folks who want to read it will have to buy the actual book.”

King’s previous Hard Case Crime novel, The Colorado Kid, became a national bestseller and inspired the television series “Haven,” now going into its third season on SyFy.

“Joyland is a breathtaking, beautiful, heartbreaking book,” said Charles Ardai, Edgar- and Shamus Award-winning editor of Hard Case Crime. “It’s a whodunit, it’s a carny novel, it’s a story about growing up and growing old, and about those who don’t get to do either because death comes for them before their time. Even the most hardboiled readers will find themselves moved. When I finished it, I sent a note saying, ‘Goddamn it, Steve, you made me cry.’ “

Nick Landau, Titan Publisher, added: “Stephen King is one of the fiction greats, and I am tremendously proud and excited to be publishing a brand-new book of his under the Hard Case Crime imprint.”

JOYLAND will feature new painted cover art by the legendary Robert McGinnis, the artist behind the posters for the original Sean Connery James Bond movies and “Breakfast At Tiffany’s,” and by Glen Orbik, the painter of more than a dozen of Hard Case Crime’s most popular covers, including the cover for The Colorado Kid.
Since its debut in 2004, Hard Case Crime has been the subject of enthusiastic coverage by a wide range of publications including The New York Times, USA Today, Time, Playboy, U.S. News & World Report, BusinessWeek, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Houston Chronicle, New York magazine, the New York Post and Daily News, Salon, Reader’s Digest, Parade and USA Weekend, as well as numerous other magazines, newspapers, and online media outlets. The Chicago Sun-Times wrote, “Hard Case Crime is doing a wonderful job publishing both classic and contemporary ‘pulp’ novels in a crisp new format with beautiful, period-style covers. These modern ‘penny dreadfuls’ are worth every dime.” Playboy praised Hard Case Crime’s “lost masterpieces,” writing “They put to shame the work of modern mystery writers whose plots rely on cell phones and terrorists.” And the Philadelphia City Paper wrote, “Tired of overblown, doorstop-sized thrillers…? You’ve come to the right place. Hard Case novels are as spare and as honest as a sock in the jaw.”

Other upcoming Hard Case Crime titles include THE COCKTAIL WAITRESS, a never-before-published novel by James M. Cain, author of THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE, MILDRED PIERCE, and DOUBLE INDEMNITY, and an epic first novel called THE TWENTY-YEAR DEATH by Ariel S. Winter that has won advance raves from authors such as Peter Straub, James Frey, Alice Sebold, John Banville, David Morrell and Stephen King.

About Hard Case Crime
Founded in 2004 by award-winning novelists Charles Ardai and Max Phillips, Hard Case Crime has been nominated for or won numerous honors since its inception including the Edgar, the Shamus, the Anthony, the Barry, and the Spinetingler Award. The series’ books have been adapted for television and film, with two features currently in development at Universal Pictures and the TV series “Haven” going into its third season this fall on SyFy. Hard Case Crime is published through a collaboration between Winterfall LLC and Titan Publishing Group. www.hardcasecrime.com

About Titan Publishing Group
Titan Publishing Group is an independently owned publishing company, established in 1981, comprising three divisions: Titan Books, Titan Magazines/Comics and Titan Merchandise. Titan Books, recently nominated as Independent Publisher of the Year 2011, has a rapidly growing fiction list encompassing original fiction and reissues, primarily in the areas of science fiction, fantasy, horror, steampunk and crime. Recent crime and thriller acquisitions include Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins’ all-new Mike Hammer novels, the Matt Helm series by Donald Hamilton and the entire backlist of the Queen of Spy Writers, Helen MacInnes. Titan Books also has an extensive line of media and pop culture-related non-fiction, graphic novels, art and music books. The company is based at offices in London, but operates worldwide, with sales and distribution in the US and Canada being handled by Random House. www.titanbooks.com

JOYLAND
Stephen King
Published by Hard Case Crime
June 2013
ISBN: 978-1-78116-264-4
Cover art by Robert McGinnis, Glen Orbik

Read a sample chapter here.

World Fantasy Award Nominees

  • News
  • August 28, 2012

English: George R.R. Martin signing books in a...

I am a bad SFnal blogger, since these nominees were announced a good two weeks ago. (Perhaps I delayed because I believe, based on my own WFA judge experience, that the winners in all categories have already been determined, and so most of the nominees are doomed to forlorn hopes.)

Anyway, congratulations to all of the nominees, and good luck to them. I leave the annual exercise of determining which two entries in each category were voted on by the convention membership and which were picked by the judges to fandom assembled.
(more…)

MARTHA THOMASES: Time, Travel, and Me

Over the weekend I started to read Stephen King’s new book, 11/22/63: A Novel. I’m not very far into it, as King writes long and I like to luxuriate in his enjoyment at having a story to tell and his great affection for his characters. And also, I have things to do.

It’s a time-travel story, and so far it’s set in 1958. I was five years old then (King was 11), and some of my memories of that time are clear. As he describes children playing in Maine, I remember what it was like for me in Ohio.

We played Cowboys and Indians, Cops and Robbers. We played House, and School. None of us had Barbies yet, but we had stuffed animals so we could play Zoo. We made mud pies. We played Kick the Can and had squirt gun fights (see above re: Cowboys and Indians, etc.).

What we didn’t have, in our fantasies, was fantasy. Nobody did any time-traveling. No one went into outer space. There were no Ninja Turtles (or ninjas), no Transformers. There were hardly any Princesses.

When I was a bit older and could read, I liked Greek mythology and fairy tales and comic books, but hardly any of my friends did. Like them, I enjoyed Nancy Drew and The Bobbsey Twins and Cherry Ames, but I wanted more. My mom had some of her storybooks from when she was a girl, and I loved them, with their old illustrations. She introduced me to the works of Edith Nesbit,and I discovered a new way to imagine. Instead of gods and goddesses, nymphs and demons, or royalty protected by fairies, this was fantasy rooted in the real world.

Until I read his Books of Magic in which Neil Gaiman thanks E. Nesbit, I’d never met another person – besides my mom – who had read those stories. If you haven’t read The Railway Children, you’re in for a treat.

From there, my local librarian introduced me to Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. Not knowing it was a classic, I took it for science fiction and read the short story anthology, Tomorrow’s Children and from there I discovered Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein and others.

Again, none of my friends were into these books. We might have shared a love of Salinger because by this point we were going through puberty and no one else could understand our intense psychic and spiritual pain. Still, I was the only one mesmerized by the explicitly alternate realities of science fiction writers.

Things are different now. There are involved fantasies for every age group. HBO offers Game of Thrones for adults, and J.K. Rowling has sold hundreds of millions of copies of the Harry Potter books. Star Wars and Star Trek and Doctor Who are cultural milestones, something every culturally literate person is expected to reference. The Avengers movie and the new Batman movie are expected to dominate next year’s box office. Sometimes it seems like half the bookstore shelves are devoted to vampires and/or zombies. And then there’s that Stephen King fellow.

I’d like to think it’s because we’ve become a more tolerant culture, one open to more different perspectives. I only know that genre fiction has brought me a lot of joy. I hope it has the same effect on the rest of the world, especially as we time-travel into the future.

Editor’s Note: That’s Ms. Nesbit up there, looking back at you.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

FORTIER TAKES ON CLIVE CUSSLER (?) AND ‘WRECKER’

  • News
  • September 4, 2011

ALL PULP REVIEWS by Ron Fortier
THE WRECKER
By Justin Scott (& Clive Cussler)
Berkley Books
562 pages

Several years ago best selling writer Clive Cussler created a new turn of the century hero in Isaac Bell, an operative for the Van Dorn Detective Agency in the early 1900s. Bell appeared in Cussler’s excellent novel, “The Chase.” It is the one and only Isaac Bell adventure Cussler has ever written, although there are two more currently on the market with a fourth on the way all bearing his name on the covers. But then again, as most book lovers know, covers do lie.

So here’s more pulp history. Publishers would create characters then hire writers to spin their adventures. Aware their demands for monthly stories would be too much of any one scribe to produce, they would hire several and print their work under a house pseudonym. That’s why all of Walter Gibson’s great Shadow novels were published under the by-line of Maxwell Grant, because he did not write all the Shadow adventures. Likewise, even though Lester Dent did write the majority of Doc Savage tales, he did not write them all. But they were published under the bogus house name of Kenneth Robeson. This was an established practice of the times and as long as their checks didn’t bounce, most pulp writers never quibbled about such aesthetics as fame and glory.

Jump ahead to the early 1980s and this established deceitful tradition was suddenly given a new spin by the publishers’ marketing departments when they realized certain bestselling authors’ names have what is commonly referred in the advertising game as Brand Recognition. That simply means that over a period of time these writers (Stephen King, Dean Koontz, John Grisham, Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler to name a few) have created, via their books, an army of loyal fans numbering in the thousands. Fans who will buy anything with their names on it, regardless of the plots, themes, genres etc. If it says Clive Cussler on the cover, X number of thousands of copies are guaranteed to sell. Thus for Cussler’s publisher the logical next step was to get him to write more books every year to keep those sales coming in on an annual basis. After all the book business is no different than any other, the bottom line isn’t art, its profits.

Unfortunately they soon discovered that poor Cussler didn’t want to be chained to his PC twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The guy very much wanted to eat, drink, sleep, spend time with his loved ones and actually have a life. What’s the point of making all this money if he couldn’t have time to enjoy it? Such an awful dilemma to have. So what’s was the solution that placated both the writer and the publisher’s needs at the same? The answer, most likely first originated by some truly ingenious marketing manager, was to use the famous author’s name but hire someone else to do the actual writing. We are not talking about co-writing here, although that is what these money hungry publishers would like you to assume. Oh, no, they went out and hired other writers to take over the series created by the big name authors and then let them write them solo.

Of course not being privy to these inside machinations, we can only speculate. As a reviewer who does enjoy Cussler’s work, I’d like to believe that when he first began whipping up all these spin-off series from his Dirk Pitt books, he did take some time in overseeing the creation of these new concepts and did investigate, as much as time would allow him, who these new writers would be. He may even have contributed an occasional plot or two in the beginning. But that’s it, readers. At present Cussler has his name on a total of five on-going series and the I’m guessing the only one he actually any writing on are the Dirk Pitt books which he now co-authors with his son Dirk Cussler.

The Kurt Austin adventures, the Fargo Adventures, the Oregon Files and now the Isaac Bell adventures are handled entirely by hired guns. If the books are still good, is this a bad thing? Not necessarily. But it remains a deceitful trade practice this reviewer is getting more and more tired of because it does rob the real authors from the full praise they deserve. Thus, I for one, will from this point on list the names of the true writers over those of the “brand name” celebrity. That said, let’s look at “The Wrecker” by Justin Scott.

The year is 1907 and Southern Pacific Railroad is on the verge of completing the last section of its Cascades express line. It is a project the company is heavily invested in and should it fail would mean their ruin. When a brilliant saboteur known as the Wrecker is wreaking havoc and destruction on the line, causing multiple deaths in the process, the company is thrown into turmoil. Finally the president and owner, Osgood Hennessy, hires the famous Van Dorn Detective agency to hunt down Wrecker and bring him to justice before he totally destroys their operations. Because of the prestige status of his client, Joe Van Dorn assigns his best agent, Isaac Bell, to the case and thus the hunt is on.

This book is a fast paced thriller pitting two cunning intellects against each other, with the Wrecker having the advantage as his true identity is unknown to the determined investigator. From one end of the sprawling continent to the other, Bell and the Wrecker play a deadly cat and mouse game like Grandmasters at a chess tournament, each moving his pieces skillfully with deadly intent. Soon both are aware there can only be one victor in this contest; only to who will survive their final conflict. “The Wrecker” is a truly magnificent historical adventure with a relentless pace as speedy as the trains it describes populated by noble heroes and dastardly villains. If you enjoy solid adventure with an authentic historical background, this is one book you do not want to miss. Kudos to Mr.Justin Scott, we can’t wait to read the next book in this entertaining series.

A Clockwork Orange

What Literature Should Become Comics?

A Clockwork OrangeBookExpo America, the largest industry convention for publishers, booksellers, librarians, and other folks in the industry, runs at the Javits Center in New York this week. It’s often used as a stalking ground for movie and TV studios to snap up properties for adaptations, so one wonders– what books should be adapted into comics form, and by who?

There have been a number of interesting translations over the years. The biggest success story of the past few years have included Darwyn Cooke’s adaptations of Richard Stark’s [[[The Hunter]]] and [[[The Outfit]]] and Marvel’s adaptations of Stephen King’s [[[The Dark Tower]]] by Peter David and Jae Lee, but there have been many others, from the recent adaptations of Ayn Rand’s [[[Anthem]]], Marvel’s [[[Wizard of Oz]]] and [[[Ender’s Game]]], Dynamite’s adaptations of Robert Jordan’s [[[The Wheel Of Time]]], BOOM!’s [[[Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep]]], longevity champion [[[Conan The Barbarian]]] which has been adapted and extended for over forty years, and reaching all the way back to [[[Classics Illustrated]]], which was your parents’ version of Cliffs Notes and Sesame Street.

More tantalizing are the versions that haven’t been made yet. Phil Foglio and Matt Howarth did their own version of the introduction to Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s [[[Good Omens]]], and Phil had already adapted the first book of [[[Myth Adventures]]] by Robert Asprin. Now we have Kevin Colden ([[[Fishtown]]]) showing his proof-of-concept for his version of Anthony Burgess’s [[[A Clockwork Orange]]]. Click through to see the first few pages.

What adaptations would you like to see? And by who? [[[American Psycho]]] by Bill Sienkiewicz, or maybe Howard Chaykin? [[[Catcher In The Rye]]] by Dean Haspiel or Evan Dorkin? [[[The Great Gatsby]]] by P. Craig Russell? John Ostrander writing [[[The Thin Man]]], or Mike W. Barr writing [[[Ellery Queen]]]? Personally, I’d love to see Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely take a crack at [[[Brave New World]]]…

2009 Stoker Nominees Announced

2009 Stoker Nominees Announced

  • News
  • February 21, 2010

The Horror Writers Association has announced the nominees for the 2009 Bram Stoker Award, honoring superior achievement in horror literature:

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN A NOVEL

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN A FIRST NOVEL

  • Breathers by S. G. Browne (Broadway Books)
  • Solomon’s Grave by Daniel G. Keohane (Dragon Moon Press)
  • Damnable by Hank Schwaeble (Jove)
  • The Little Sleep by Paul Tremblay (Henry Holt)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN LONG FICTION

  • “Dreaming Robot Monster” by Mort Castle (Mighty Unclean)
  • The Hunger of Empty Vessels by Scott Edelman (Bad Moon Books)
  • The Lucid Dreaming by Lisa Morton (Bad Moon Books)
  • Doc Good’s Traveling Show by Gene O’Neill (Bad Moon Books)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN SHORT FICTION

  • “Keeping Watch” by Nate Kenyon (Monstrous: 20 Tales of Giant Creature Terror)
  • “The Crossing of Aldo Ray” by Weston Ochse (The Dead That Walk)
  • “In the Porches of My Ears” by Norman Prentiss (Postscripts #18)
  • “The Night Nurse” by Harry Shannon (Horror Drive-in)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN FICTION COLLECTION

  • Martyrs and Monsters by Robert Dunbar (DarkHart Press)
  • Got to Kill Them All and Other Stories by Dennis Etchison (Cemetery Dance)
  • A Taste of Tenderloin by Gene O’Neill (Apex Book Company)
  • In the Closet, Under the Bed by Lee Thomas (Dark Scribe Press)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN ANTHOLOGY (EDITING)

  • He is Legend: An Anthology Celebrating Richard Matheson edited by Christopher Conlon (Gauntlet Press)
  • Lovecraft Unbound edited by Ellen Datlow (Dark Horse Books)
  • Poe edited by Ellen Datlow (Solaris) [See SF Signal review]
  • Midnight Walk edited by Lisa Morton (Darkhouse Publishing)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN NONFICTION

  • Writers Workshop of Horror by Michael Knost (Woodland Press)
  • Cinema Knife Fight by L. L. Soares and Michael Arruda (Fearzone)
  • The Stephen King Illustrated Companion by Bev Vincent (Fall River Press)
  • Stephen King: The Non-fiction by Rocky Wood and Justin Brook (Cemetery Dance)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN POETRY COLLECTION

  • Double Visions by Bruce Boston (Dark Regions)
  • North Left of Earth by Bruce Boston (Sam’s Dot)
  • Barfodder by Rain Graves (Cemetery Dance)
  • Chimeric Machines by Lucy A. Snyder (Creative Guy Publishing)

Congratulations to all the nominees!

UPDATED: And a belated hat tip to John DeNardo at SFSignal, who took the time to format the list of nominees and which we dropped in here. Thank you!

‘The Dark Tower’: J.J. Abrams out, new novel coming

‘The Dark Tower’: J.J. Abrams out, new novel coming

  • News
  • November 14, 2009

J.J, Abrams has left The Dark Tower according to comments made on MTV. During an interview, the producer said,” You’ll be hard-pressed to find a huger fan of The Dark Tower than me, but that’s probably the reason that I shouldn’t be the one to adapt it. After working six years on Lost, the last thing I want to do is spend the next seven years adapting one of my favorite books of all time. I’m such a massive Stephen King fan that I’m terrified of screwing it up. I’d do anything to see those movies written by someone else. My guess is they will get made because they’re so incredible. But not by me.”

King, now on the road in support of the well-received Under the Dome, has said he wishes to write one more book set between Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla. Over at his message board, the moderator posted, “Stephen has given me permission to pass along that he has an idea for a new Dark Tower book, the working title of which will be The Wind Through the Keyhole. He has not yet started this book and anticipates that it will be a minimum of eight months before he is able to begin writing it.”

The author continues to oversee the adaptations of The Dark Tower cycle at Marvel Comics and will be writing an original vampire tale for Vertigo in 2010.

Jack Kamen: 1920-2008

Jack Kamen: 1920-2008

  • News
  • August 7, 2008

Mark Evanier reports that Jack Kamen, best known for his work at EC Comics, died yesterday at the age of 88. The cause of death is being reported as cancer.

Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1920, Jack Kamen studied at the Art Students League and the Grand Central Art School and actually got his start in sculpture—his first professional job was on the Texas Centenniel.

His illustration career was just beginning when he was called up to the Army in 1942. After World War II, Kamen began drawing comics for Fiction House and Iger Associates, then started working for EC Comics in 1950. He quickly became one of their most prolific artists, particularly on their horror lines though he also worked on crime/suspense and weird science/fantasy books. After EC’s line of comics fell victim to industry censorship in 1954-55, it was Kamen who suggested to the publisher that the company could avoid the newly-imposed Comics Code Authority strictures with a pricier magazine format, which Kamen dubbed "Picto-Fiction" and included titles like his favorite, Psychoanalysis.

Kamen left comics in 1954 and did advertising art and supplemental illustrations for a wide variety of other clients— when Stephen King and George Romero created the horror anthology film Creepshow, an homage to EC’s horror comics, they tapped Kamen to do the artwork. He also illustrated the cover of the graphic novel adaptation.

In recent years, Kamen basked in the spotlight of his sons’ accomplishments. Dean Kamen invented the Segway and the iBOT Mobility System; he recently contributed a foreword about his father published in Gemstone’s Shock SuspenStories Archives volume 2. Another son, Barton, is a doctor who is now the Chief Medical Officer of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

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