Archive for Guest Post

Kaiju Boogie

Tonight, I watched Godzilla 2000 on the local Spanish TV station.  Despite my last name, I don’t speak Spanish.  Turns out you’re not born knowing it, and I never really got the chance to learn.

It didn’t matter.  Godzilla speaks the universal language of butt-kicking, city-stomping action.  I’d seen the movie before, of course.  Several times.  Even if I hadn’t though it would’ve been easy to follow.

That’s something I love about Godzilla flicks.  They don’t need complicated plots to be exciting.  They just need Monster A to fight Monster B until one of them is defeated.  The why is largely unimportant.
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A History of the Reality of the History of the Grossbarts: Part 3 (The End of History)

“Follow our lead,” Ardanuy had told me just before we infiltrated the underground conference. “And save any accusations for the Q and A no matter what slander they sling. Better to take it on the chin than come off as amateur.”

This advice seemed at odds with the example they set, Ardanuy and Dunn both leaping from their seats with canes brandished as soon as Tanzer issued her proclamation. Before I could, as Ardanuy had instructed, follow their lead, both men were swarmed by members of the audience packing truncheons of their own. I stood, resolute in that moment to save my mentors, when something bit my hand and I dropped the pistol Dunn had given me. Staring down in horror, I saw a fat weasel dangling from my palm, blood running down the beast’s greedy throat, and when I moved to tear it away with my free hand I felt tiny, sharp claws settle on my shoulder. I froze. (more…)

A History of the Reality of the History of the Grossbarts: Part 2

Dunn’s flight had arrived late and so we drove through the night, past Pensacola, past New Orleans, arriving in Baton Rouge just after daybreak. Both professors sat in the backseat, which did not put me any more at ease, and only the throbbing pain in my legs from the drubbing Dunn had administered kept me awake. Ardanuy directed me to a ramshackle motel on the edge of the bayou called the SoCo Inn. The carpets were damp and the mattress smelled like an overfull ashtray someone had urinated on but I was beyond caring, and as Dunn and Ardanuy sat down at the warped card table in one corner of the room I passed out. (more…)

The Ugly Truth (part 2)

Just a day or two ago, I posted about how nearly every novel written in the mainstream or genre category features attractive protagonists.  I added that I find this especially galling in fantasy / sci fi because mine is a genre of limitless possibilities. i09.com picked up the post, and a great slew of comments were left.  I love a good debate, but reading through these, I feel it’s time for a clarification. (more…)

The Shreveport Smackdown: The True Story

Shreveport Herald Police Blotter
November 11, 2009

Shreveport police are still sorting through statements after urban fantasists Nicole Peeler and Jaye Wells allegedly attacked one another at their mutual signing, according to witnesses and bookstore staff.

As stated by one bystander, Mary Lois White, also of Shreveport, “It was all going along fine, when suddenly Nicole said something about how vampires are ‘played out,’ and Jaye said, ‘I’ll play you out, you seal-lover,’ and then Nicole told Jaye to ‘Bring it!’ and Jaye grabbed her by the hair.”

hair pulling

“It was brutal,” interrupted White’s husband, Douglas. “She struck like an adder. Nicole didn’t have a chance.”
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A History of the Reality of the History of the Grossbarts: Part 1

Bullington_Sad Tale Bros. Grossbart (TP)I first encountered Hegel and Manfried Grossbart as a child in an old book my parents picked up at a garage sale—Trevor Caleb Walker’s Enter the Nexus, Black Monolith. Not realizing what a rare find this century-old edition was, my parents gave me the glorified chapbook, thinking that Walker’s thrashing, inept verse was intended as limericks for children, a bit like the copy of Wilhelm Busch’s Max and Moritz that I so adored. At that age I did not even realize Walker was intending poetry and thought it was simply a bizarrely written series of short stories about graverobbing brothers being unkind to man, woman, and beast. I certainly did not appreciate the volume’s value, and so it went the way of so many old horror comics and paperbacks—worn out and abandoned after a few summers, and entirely forgotten by the time University beckoned. (more…)

The Ugly Truth

If you ask me, there are way too many good-looking people in fiction.

I get why attractive people dominate film and television.  That’s no mystery.  People like looking at pretty people.  It’s built into us.  I’m not being judgmental here because, heck, I love looking at pretty people as much as anybody.  I’ve enjoyed sub-standard entertainment far more than I should because of a pretty face.  Anything with Kate Beckinsdale will usually win me over, even if ninjas or dinosaurs aren’t involved.  Strangely, this doesn’t apply to the Underworld films, even though they do have some awesome werewolves in them.  Still, every rule has its exception. (more…)

Day in the Life

Hello, Orbiteers! For my first post here, I thought I’d share with you a day in my life as an urban fantasy author. Brace yourself. The reality ain’t pretty. (more…)

Going home.

I am no longer sure why I am writing this blog. I don’t know who I’m writing it to, or who it’s for. It isn’t for me. I know that. I suppose it’s so that someone knows what happened, but that means nothing to me, either. Who are all of you, anyway? Who am I to you, or you to me? I have lost all perspective to say whether it matters or not.

My wife and I have been fighting nearly constantly in the past days. I’ve been sleeping on the couch. We’d fight about things I don’t even understand. She would talk of events and times that had no meaning to me. And when I tried to talk about better times, times I want things to be like again, she’d stare at me as though I was insane.

Then today I got several voicemails from Dan. His voice was raspy and strange and distant, as though the call was coming from far, far away. On the other side of the world, maybe. It was hard to tell what he was saying, and often it sounded like he was trying to keep his voice down. At the start of the first one it sounded like he was running, maybe running from something. (more…)

Random Lovable Things

I love it when aliens with giant veiny foreheads come down to tell us how inferior we are and how they’re going to blast us into dust because of their superiority.

I love it when someone spontaneously evolves into a future being with a giant veiny forehead, and then proceeds to threaten humanity with his awesome future intellect.

I love atomic brains from outer space.  Y’know the kind I’m talking about.  They’ve grown beyond the need for a body and just float around, causing all sorts of cosmic mischief.

I love radiation.  Radiation is always sure to be fun.  If it doesn’t kill you, then maybe you’ll get superpowers!  Isn’t that swell?
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