Ralph's Rants interviews Mark Bousquet!

 

Hello everyone and welcome to another installment of Ralph’s Rant’s does Interviews! This week we welcome Mark Bousquet. Hello Mark how are you today?

 

I'm doing great, thanks, Ralph! My teaching semester is almost over which means I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and that light is the summer sun!

 

 

Mark, what was your first involvement in writing? Was it during your early school years? Or did it come later on?

 

I can distinctly remember an assignment when I was in elementary school, probably first or second grade, where we had to write a story. It was called “Crazy Street” or something like that and I absolutely fell in love with writing right then and there. It wasn't until early high school where I seriously started writing actual stories, but from the moment I wrote “Crazy Street” I was always writing them in my head when I was playing with toys or reading comics.

 

 

We first met during the MV-1 days, were you writing fanfic before that?

 

Sort of. I wanted to write for Marvel when I was a kid and so I'd construct vague stories for their characters, but I never sat down and wrote a beginning, middle, and end. I'd come up with ideas – wouldn't it be cool if the Avengers fought Magneto? - and sometimes I'd jot the idea down, and on a few occasions I event sent them in to Marvel, but it wasn't until MV1 came along that I actually started writing actual stories.

I loved doing it, and writing fanfic is a great way to get both experience and feedback. If I wrote a story about “Captain Freedom,” no one was going to read that and tell me what they thought, but by being involved in a shared universe and writing characters other people knew and loved, I was getting tons of feedback every month. If you want to be a writer, it's important to write and it's important to read, but it's also important to get feedback so you can start learning how to properly critique your own work. It's doesn't matter if the feedback you get is positive or negative, as long as you're told WHY the reader did or didn't like it.

 

 

You’ve written a wide gamut of stories and books at this point, how many actual books have you had published?

 

I've published eight full books, which seems unbelievable and awesome at the same time. Thank Odin I live in a print on demand world where I don't need a major publisher to get my books out, and where I'm not dependent on them to get my friends' books out. My latest is a horror novel, The Haunting of Kraken Moor, which someone told me was like watching Downton Abbey as written by H.P. Lovecraft. I love that description. Kraken Moor is set in 1865 and stars Beatrice Sharper, a rich American girl from Mississippi who ran away from home because of the Civil War. It's now a year and a half later and she's completely out of money, so she takes a job as a housekeeper at Kraken Moor, a castle in the east of England where spooky stuff happens. The idea of the book is that it's not a novel, but Beatrice's actual journal, so we read the story as it unfolds for Beatrice on a daily basis – she goes to Kraken Moor thinking she's going to dust and sweep, but she ends up meeting werewolves who want to kill her, goat-headed demons who want to impregnate her, dead would-be-husbands who are being tortured in Hell, giant snakes who steal children, and other people who are fun like that.

 

 

Beyond Kraken Moor, I've written a weird western (Gunfighter Gothic), a cosmic pulp (Harpsichord & the Wormhole Witches), two kids' books (Adventures of the Five: The Coming of Frost and Stufffed Animals for Hire: The Christmas Operation), two modern fantasies (Dreamer's Syndrome: Into the New World and DS: Rise of the First Woman), and a book of reviews that covers every Marvel movie ever released (Atomic Reactions: Marvel Comics on Film).

 

 

 

I noticed you have written children’s books as well which is very interesting, how’d you get involved in that?

 

I've always liked kids' books. I was a voracious reader as a kid, tearing through Tolkien, Lewis, Lloyd Alexander, the Hardy Boys, The Three Investigators, and Encyclopedia Brown, but the books that held the most special place in my heart was Thornton W. Burgess' Old Mother West Wind stories, about a forest full of animals who had adventures.

I wrote Adventures of the Five as both an ode to Burgess and as a challenge to myself. I had recently read the first Harry Potter book and liked it, but heard myself saying things like, “It's good, but anyone could write that.” So after I published Dreamer's Syndrome and was looking for my next project, I dared myself to try and write a kid's book. Truth is, J.K. Rowling is a really good writer. She improved massively over the course of the 7 Potter books, but even at her most derivative and simplistic, she still just tells a good story. Five tells the story of five animal kids who live in the Meadow and have fantastic adventures, including teaming up with human-sized Nutcrackers against Frost, who used to be a kid actor on a Saturday morning superhero show and is now an inter-dimensional criminal.

With Stuffed Animals for Hire, I wanted to try and do a “kid's pulp” book, so there's tons of action. There's a group of stuffed animals who find themselves trapped in Los Angeles at Christmas time and have to stop the bad guys from finding a map that can transport them back to the some-say-mythical original homeworld of stuffed animals. It's short and fast and it was a lot of fun to write.

 

 

Is there something to be said for writing children’s stories over more adult themed books?

 

I get bored really quickly and so it helps to keep changing the kind of story I'm writing. I could never be “just” a kids' author or “just” a sci-fi author or “just” a weird western author because I get too bored. What I like about kids' books is that it allows me to write stories for the 10-year old me. I think one of the reasons why the reaction to the Star Wars prequels is so negative is that Lucas' fans grew up and he never did. He was still making movies for the kids that loved Star Wars the first time, not the adults they had become by then. This isn't to say I think the prequels are as good, of course, because they're not, but just to point out that it seems to me Lucas was still essentially making a movie 10-year old George Lucas wanted to see. I can respect that, even if I'm not a huge fan of the result.

 

 

 

What is your greatest satisfaction as a writer?

 

I'm one of those jerks who never gets too satisfied. It's always a thrill when I see my latest book in print, but once the proof is approved, that book goes on the shelf and I'm off to the next one. What I appreciate the most is when someone takes the time to write me and tell me they enjoyed a story. Whether someone pays $15 to buy your book or $0 to read a freely available story, those people are spending their time to read your work. I don't want to waste their time, so if someone feels that time was well spent, that makes me happy.

 

 

 

What would you say is your favorite piece you have written? The one you’re most proud of or the most satisfied with?

 

I've recently had a story accepted for inclusion in an upcoming Psychopomp anthology called “The Pretty Girl with the Ugly Name” that I like a whole lot. It involves World War II and space and a girl who fell in love with a soldier and killed her parents for him. The reason that I like it so much isn't that I think it's necessarily a whole lot better than other stories, but that it feels like I'm finding my own voice as a writer. Neil Gaiman said something once about how all writers start out mimicking someone else's voice and then eventually we find our own. I think “Pretty Girl” is my first story where I've struck on something akin to an original voice. There are still plenty of influences in there, of course, but when I was writing it I felt like I was cooking my own meal instead of preparing someone else's recipe, if you catch the meaning.

I just released a new story called “Why Grant Jannen Can't Have Sex” (available for free at my website: http://atomicanxiety.wordpress.com/2013/05/18/superheroes-are-stupid-why-grant-jannen-cant-have-sex/ ) that's part of set of stories I'm writing under the working title of Superheroes are Stupid, and it's got the same kind of voice as “Pretty Girl.” Now, I love superheroes, but the idea here is to concentrate on people who live in a superhero world and who have superpowers, but not the kind of superpowers that lend themselves to putting on a costume and saving/conquering the world. I love basketball, but I'm short and slow so I'm never going to make the NBA. (Heck, I only made my high school team because we never had more than 10 people try out.) When I see a guy in the NBA who's wasting his talent, I get furious at him. Those are the people I want to focus on.

I will say this, though – I feel very protective of Harpsichord & the Wormhole Witches. It's an action-packed cosmic pulp story about a university cadet who gets kidnapped and deported to the far reaches of space. It's the most pulp thing I've written (Mark Beaulieu calls it “Buffy in Space” and I think that's a pretty accurate high concept pitch) and no one reads it. It's my worst selling book and I almost never hear anything from anyone about it. Adventures of the Five never sold many copies, either, but the people who did read it all seem to love it. What's weird is that Harpsichord gets the most clicks on my website, too, in terms of driving traffic to the book's Amazon page, but just no one wants to buy it. For whatever reason, people just don't find the book all that appealing. People are free to buy and like or hate whatever they want, of course, but it does make me more protective of that book than any other story.

 

 

 

You’ve written some stories that take place in the west (Weird westerns) do they require a lot of research? Or are you already a history buff?

 

There's probably more research for the Gunfighter Gothic stories than anything else, but it's not an incredible amount and I don't feel bound by history. I use it when it helps and ignore it when it doesn't. I'll give you an example: I wanted zeppelins, but there were no zeppelins in the Old West. I don't care. I'm having zeppelins in my Old West. What I found when doing my research, though, was that Ferdinand von Zeppelin was in America during the Civil War as an observer of the Army of the Potomac, during which time he took a balloon ride that is alleged to have inspired him to later create the zeppelin. That I can use, so I incorporate into the story the idea that von Zeppelin stayed in the United States and developed the zeppelin sooner.

 

 

Was there any characters you wish you could return to that you killed off and regretted that later on?

 

Ha! I tend to not kill very many characters and when I do, it's when their story is over. Now, there is one exception to that. I killed one character whose story is most definitely not over, but instead of regretting that I killed her, I actually kinda like that I did. Her death has resonated with readers and even though my plan all along was to bring her back, I'm warming to the idea that she's not coming back.

 

 

What type of books do you read? New Pulp? Sci-Fi? Westerns?

 

Most of my reading time is devoted to my career, which is as a Literature professor. (Technically, right now I'm a writing professor but I hope to make the move back to a Lit professor in the near future.) Most of my reading time is spent in the 19^th century with Twain, Melville, Hawthorne, Dickinson, Emerson, Crane, and the like. Beyond that, I'm a big fan of writers like Nick Hornby, Elmore Leonard, and Kurt Vonnegut so I try to squeeze them in when and where I can.

 

 

 

Do you consider yourself a writer or a New pulp writer and are they different from each other?

 

Labels are tricky things. If I say I'm a New Pulp writer, then people who don't consider my work to be New Pulp are going to be offended, and if I say I'm a writer, then New Pulp people might be offended that I'm trying to say I'm something else. I just like to write and I like to try new things and in looking at my body of work, I think the evidence says I just have to call myself a writer. I like New Pulp and some of what I've written clearly fits under the New Pulp umbrella, but just as much doesn't.

 

 

Mark, how do you write? Do you frame out a story beforehand, intricately laying out details and then following that ‘roadmap’ or do you just get a general idea and write as you go, starting at point A and ending at point B?

 

I usually know how a story starts and how a story ends and usually have an idea on a few scenes that I'd like to include, but the big thing for me isn't about creating a road map to follow. It's about creating characters that I feel are real, and then putting them in a situation and seeing what happens. I find characters will usually lead the way and stories will tell you what they need. Now, I have done full road mapping, too, but it's less enjoyable for me. I've got an entire Adventures of the Five novel mapped out, for instance, but I've had it mapped out for four or five years and haven't written it as a novel, yet. Part of that is because once I've figured everything out, I get a little bored and want to make something new.

When road mapping works for me is mid-stream. If I'm writing a novel and get stuck, then I like to stop, map out what I've already written and then figure out the best way to get to the end.

 

So what can we expect to see from you in the coming months?

 

I mentioned “Pretty Girl” up above and I think that Psychopomp special should be out this summer. I'll be posting new stories every so often at my website (http://atomicanxiety.wordpress.com/ ), alongside reviews of whatever summer movies I see.

I have five books that I'd like to see hit print before the end of the year, but that is likely not going to happen. This summer should see the release of Gunfighter Gothic: Under Zeppelin Skies and Atomic Reactions: Sci-Fi Films Volume 1, a collection of my sci-fi reviews from Atomic Anxiety. Those are all but definite.

Beyond that, I'd like to get the next Adventures of the Five and Stuffed Animals for Hire books out this year, too. The Five's book is a Christmas story and the Animals' book is a New Year's story, and they're both half-written so I'm hopeful at least one of them will be out at the end of the year.

The other project I'm working on that I hope will see print this year is a collection called The Everything, which is my name for the multiverse/time-steam continuum. It's a concept I introduced back in my MV1 days, as a matter of fact. It's an anthology that's going to contain a story from all of my universes – so there will be a Gunfighter Gothic story and a Harpsichord story and a Dreamer's Syndrome story, etc. The idea is that one story's reality is another reality's story; meaning, I'll be introducing a character called Gunfighter Everlasting and he's having his adventure, he'll watch a cartoon which will actually be a new Adventures of the Five story, or he'll watch a movie that will actually be a Harpsichord tale. It's a way to write a sequel to everything. Like most of us who write, I have way more stories to tell than I will ever have time to write. It's been a few years since I've worked on some of my characters and I miss them. The Everything will be a way to go back to them without having to commit to writing an entire novel.

All of that being said, I never intended to write The Haunting of Kraken Moor until I was writing it. That book, literally, was not in my head in any shape or form at noon on December 31, 2012, and then at 2 PM I got the idea to write a story in the form of a journal, and then by 7 PM I had the idea sketched out and I spent almost all of my creative writing time over the next two months working on that book at the expense of everything else. I'm making a concerted effort to get more short stories out in more places this year, too, so if some publishers drop the right opportunities in my lap, that's what I'll work on.

 

 

Mark, feel free to plug whatever book or series you would like in this space, let us know what you feel of yours everyone should be reading and why?

 

Instead of pushing one book or story, I want to send the following invitation: as a thank you from me to you and your readers, anyone reading this can have a free .PDF of any one (just one) of my published books of fiction that I have the rights to:

1. Gunfighter Gothic: Blood of the Universe (weird western)

2. Harpsichord & the Wormhole Witches (cosmic pulp)

3. The Haunting of Kraken Moor (adult horror – gotta be 18 to read this one)

4. Adventures of the Five: The Coming of Frost (kids' book)

5. Stuffed Animals for Hire: The Christmas Operation (kids' book)

6. Dreamer's Syndrome: Into the New World (modern fantasy)

7. Rise of the First Woman: A Dreamer's Syndrome Anthology (modern fantasy).

Simply send me an email at bousquet.mark@gmail.com between now and the end of June 2013, and tell me which book you'd like to read and I'll send the PDF back to you. I'm not going to pester you for your grandma's favorite apple crisp recipe in return or bug you to write a review at Amazon or hope that you send me a Christmas card. I make this offer every so often at the Anxiety as a way to spread the word about my projects to people who haven't read my work, yet.

My main place of residence on the web is my Atomic Anxiety blog, which now contains well over 800 reviews and information on all my books. It's at http://atomicanxiety.wordpress.com/ . It's always fun to talk movies with people so if you see something this summer, check out the site and join the conversation.

My Amazon author page is at: http://www.amazon.com/Mark-Bousquet/e/B004WWUTNU/ .

And my Twitter home is found at: https://twitter.com/mark_bousquet .

 

 

I want to thank Mark Bousquet for joining us this week here in Ralph’s Rants does Interviews. It was a pleasure talking to you Mark, and good luck in all your future endeavors! 

Thanks, Ralph! Always a pleasure to talk to you and thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about my work. If your readers don't already know, be sure to send them to: http://atomicanxiety.wordpress.com/2013/05/07/atomic-interview-10-talking-redemption-of-the-sorcerer-with-ralph-angelo-jr/  where they can read my interview with you.

Thanks for reading, everyone!

 

 

Ralph's Rants interviews James Mullaney!

James Mullaney interview!

Ralph’s Rants welcomes James Mullaney! Co-Author of many ‘Destroyer’ novels, ‘The Craig Banyon Mysteries’, as well as his new original series ‘Red Menace’. James, thanks for joining us here at ‘Ralph’s Rants does interviews’ It’s an honor and a pleasure to speak with someone who has written some of my favorite novels!


So let’s jump right in, Jim, when did you start writing? How old were you?

Since I compulsively can’t resist the smart-alecky answer, I started writing in first grade. That’s probably a big surprise for all the kids out there nowadays who don’t learn to read or write until high school (if then) because they’re too busy learning to plant trees, so they don’t know like we did by age six that the round one is O and the one on Superman’s chest is S. As for fiction writing, I always credit Sr. Eileen’s fourth grade English class. She used to give us lists of spelling words to memorize every week. Other teachers made you use each word in a sentence, but she had the brilliant idea to make us incorporate all the words into a weekly story. It forced us -- or at least me -- to be more creative since we had to come up with whole stories. I became a writer wannabe in Sr. Eileen’s class.


What was your first inspiration to write? Was it a certain book or a certain author’s work? Or was it something you just felt you could do as well as anyone else?

Who knows where the weird drive to write comes from? My parents probably deserve the most credit or, if you hate my work, blame. They sacrificed to put us all through Catholic school, so I never would have been in that particular fourth grade class without them. Most important, they were both readers. My dad was a long-haul truck driver, so when he was home his hours were often like Dracula’s. He’d sit up all night at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a book. My mom was always busy all day doing the stuff you don’t appreciate as a kid (how did that clean underwear magically appear in that drawer every day while we were at school?), but after supper, after she got finished mopping up after six ungrateful kids, she’d read the paper front page to back and then move on to a couple of chapters in a book. She also read to me as a kid, which I’m sure helped enormously. I don’t know about most writers, but the greatest influence for me was probably the gift of parents who read and valued reading.


What are some of your favorite fictional characters and how did they hone your interests?

I wrote The Destroyer series for a number of years, which I started reading in sixth grade. You’ve got to love the main characters Remo and Chiun. I was always a huge fan of Harold Smith, their boss, which is why Smith features so prominently in so many of my books. As for early inspiration, I read all the Hardy Boys books by third grade. I remember, because I had to move on to Nancy Drew, which were basically the same books but with skirts (although who knows what Chet Morton paraded around in when Frank and Joe weren’t looking?). The Hardy Boys were all ghostwritten and put out pretty much by the literary equivalent of a Third World sweatshop, but they were quick reads with simple plots and they must have taught me something about structure, characters and plotting.

I’m a big fan of your Destroyer work, as I’ve followed that series since I believe it was 1970, if I remember correctly. I still have first editions of most of the early books my father would buy. I actually lost my first edition of ‘Created the Destroyer’ and had to replace it with a later edition. When did you become aware of that series and how did you become a co-writer on it?

The Destroyer was big with truck drivers. I know this because I got lots of mail over the years from truck drivers who used to find them in racks at truck stops. I don’t know if that’s where my dad initially found them, but he was the one who brought them home and got me started reading them.

When I decided I wanted to write, I wrote a note to Dick Sapir and asked if I could take a shot at writing a Destroyer. I was eighteen or nineteen at the time, and Dick actually called my house. My dad was so thrilled that he came to my job at the supermarket to tell me. Dick and I talked a few times and I’m not sure if he thought my ideas stunk or not because, sadly, he died before we worked something out. I think it was a decade or more before the writing job opened up. It was my brother-in-law who works in magazine publishing who put the call in to the publisher at the time and got that ball rolling.


How many years were you co-writing ‘Destroyer’ novels with Warren Murphy?

I wrote 21 of the books for Gold Eagle. I’m credited in the front, although not on the covers. I’m told that the series kind of hit the skids after I left. I didn’t read any of the books after my last one for Gold Eagle, so I can’t say that from my own experience. I am aware of some of the plot and character choices, and they weren’t where I or any of the other ghostwriters would have gone with the series. When the contract was up with Gold Eagle, Warren brought it to Tor. That’s when I came back as coauthor. We did four books together over the course of a year or two. I’m proud of all of them.


How many ‘Destroyer’ novels have you co-written?

I had my hand in a total of 26 novels in the regular series. Also the companion guide, The Assassin’s Handbook 2. I’ve got some unpublished Destroyer material lying around as well. I kept writing up material because I never thought the series would end. That’s because I never planned on the interesting approach Tor was going to take with promotion and distribution: namely “throw nothing at the wall and make sure that none of it sticks.” It was pretty much over when I kept getting notes from fans complaining that the brand-new books couldn’t be found anywhere around the country. But by then I already had plots and partial books written up in anticipation of continuing the series. I recently converted an unpublished Destroyer novella into the fourth novel in one of my own series (more on that below). I suppose I’ll do that more as I go along.

Now recently you started your own series entitled ‘The Red Menace’, tell us a little bit about it?

The Red Menace is actually Patrick “Podge” Becket, a wealthy American patriot who travels the globe secretly battling the nation’s enemies. I thought it might be interesting to write a character who is a sort of bridge between the old pulp fiction heroes like Doc Savage and the Shadow and the newer men’s adventure heroes like Remo Williams and Mack Bolan. A lot of the older guys tended to wear masks while the newer guys didn’t. So Podge spends most of the books unmasked, investigating stuff in James Bond mode before having to don the mask and cloak. He’s aided by his friend, genius inventor Dr. Thaddeus Wainwright, who is devoted to keeping Podge alive even though he hates the fact that Podge keeps putting his life at risk. Dr. Wainwright is long-lived and patterned somewhat after my paternal grandmother who, when she got old, didn’t give a crap what she said to or about anyone. It’s a liberating way to live, but the rest of us can’t do it because we’d get punched too often. Wainwright can get away with it.

How different from your previous works is ‘The Red Menace’ in style and approach?

I’d written a novella for inclusion in a third Destroyer companion guide. It was pretty long for a novella, maybe 200 pages. It was called Shattered Records and was basically a “lost” Remo and Chiun adventure that took place in the 1970s. The idea was a good one, and I thought when it came time to write my fourth Red Menace novel that I’d dust off that novella, rewrite it a little, and basically take a vacation. Fat chance. It was only when I started rewriting that novella that I realized how different The Red Menace is from The Destroyer. That’s good, actually. The Destroyer can exist over there, The Executioner somewhere else, and The Red Menace can carve out its own little niche over here. I still use humor and satire in my Menace books, but it’s less broad and exists in a world that’s a little more real. But then things happen that change the real world into something different from what we know. For instance, although the series takes place back in 1972, in the first book there’s an event that might have changed the world greatly and for the better had it taken place in the real world. I’m sort of rewriting history as I go along. And wiping out bad guys.

Is ‘The Red Menace’ set completely in the cold war era? I see part of the first book takes place in 1958 and another part in 1972.

The 1958 stuff in the first book is just to establish the age where the hero came from and was most at home. We flash forward pretty quickly to 1972 and have stayed there since book #1, Red and Buried. Each book takes place not long after the preceding one, so we started in something like August of 1972 but by book #4, A Red Letter Day, have only gotten up to autumn of the same year. I can see using flashbacks as I go along, because there must be stories of baddies or events from the past having an impact on events in the Seventies, but for the most part the series has and will for the foreseeable future be rooted in the early 1970s.

You also have another series out there already called the ‘Crag Banyon Mysteries’ Tell us a little bit about those books?

Ah, Crag Banyon. If I had a heart and I weren’t a cold, calculating robot created by the combined efforts of Dow Chemical and the Rand Corporation, of all my work thus far Banyon would be nearest and dearest to my human heart. The first Banyon was supposed to be a quickie little lark. I’d written up a short story many years ago that I thought was a good idea but was poorly executed. It was about a newspaperman who goes to Santa’s workshop and uncovers a murder plot. I found it a couple of months before Christmas two years ago, and while the writing was terrible I thought the story was pretty solid. So I sat down and chucked the whole thing, but kept the same basic story structure. My reporter didn’t work as a character so I made him a typical P.I. Banyon’s got all the same problems every private eye always has in fiction, but in his world there can be monsters and demons and Santa Claus. I was very happy with the first one, which I thought would be a one-off, but I couldn’t leave the world I’d created alone. I’m now up to four Crag Banyon Mysteries and I love every one of them.


Between these two series of yours you seem to have a lot on your plate, what new editions can we expect to see forthcoming from those series and when?

We should have the newest Banyon out soon. That one is titled Sea No Evil. Banyon has two types of clients he won’t take: no ghosts, no gods. He reluctantly breaks the latter rule in this one. After that, I’ve got to start working on the fifth Red Menace. I’ve got an idea I’ve been massaging in my head, which I’ll have to turn into an outline soon. Only when I have an outline can I write the book, so I’m going to have to hurry up and get cracking. I also have another idea for Menace #6 as well as four or five more Banyons. I’ve got two full-length novels written up that are different from my usual stuff, and I’ll have to rewrite them one of these days. At some point I’ve got to maybe work on that screenplay I’ve been thinking about for the past five years. It’s a great premise so I want to get that done someday. There isn’t enough time.


Is there anything else you’d like to add or plug about your writing? Any upcoming projects or even a push for ones that were released already that you feel people may have missed out on?

I’d encourage folks to just read the Amazon excerpts. That “look inside” function is a great help to readers. They’ll tell you pretty much if the Menace and Banyon are for you. But, hey, what’s $2.99? Forgo that gallon of generic ice cream and download a copy of Royal Flush, the Banyon mystery that was released in January. It’s great fun, and so far I’m very happy that no one online has blabbed the big shocking surprise.

http://www.amazon.com/Royal-Flush-Banyon-Mystery-ebook/dp/B00B0GHMC2/ref=pd_sim_kstore_1

Do you have a web site that has information about your upcoming projects or a twitter or facebook page that you want readers to know about?

The Web site is www.jamesmullaney.com. I’m on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/JamesMullaneyAuthor
and Twitter here https://twitter.com/JamesMullaney . I’m probably a million other places online. How can anyone but Skynet and Colonel Sanders keep track of all this stuff anymore?

Jim, thank you very much for taking this time to join us here at ‘Ralph’s Rants does Interviews’. It was great hearing from you and learning just a bit about your writing and your projects.

Thanks for the chance. Anything that keeps me from working is A-okay with me.

“I want my Twenty Dollars back!”

“I want my Twenty Dollars back!”

In response to popular demand (No lie, people HAVE been asking me about this!)

My Review of Iron Man 3!

 

So a week ago I go on opening night to see the most anticipated movie of the year for me, Iron Man 3. I’ve been awaiting this one for a year. I was psyched, the previews looked fantastic! The action sequences looked awesome! This was going to be the BIG Movie of the year for me!

And the first half hour or 45 minutes of the flick lived up to that excitement, right up until Stark’s house got blown up. See, when that happened I fully expected Iron Man to swing into action and wreck helicopters with repulser rays, uni-beam blasts, and mighty fists. Instead I got a half functional suit of armor that after wrecking a couple of helicopters by hurling things at them, Iron Man/Stark flies off and disappears. I could even excuse and live with that, if it led to a great battle later.

He lands in Tennessee; somehow out of power, but wait, I thought the suit was powered by the arc reactor in his chest also keeping him alive? Huh? What? So how can the suit have run out of juice? That hasn’t happened in the comics since I think 1968!

Anyway Stark literally drags the armor to a garage that he breaks into, and then starts tinkering. Some kid shows up (Someone just explain to me why this kid with a sad story was important to the film, I’m trying to figure that out yet and Stark was basically a prick to him throughout the movie anyway.)  So Stark, sans armor is now doing this pseudo James Bond thing investigating a site where a bomb went off but it was really an extremis powered terrorist who blew himself up. Stark goes through another episode of shortness of breath and anxiety (PTSD supposedly dating back to the alien invasion of the Avengers movie.)

Meanwhile, Rhodey as ‘Iron Patriot’ (A douche name when compared with the mighty ‘War Machine’.) is running around the middle east looking for the Mandarin who has been making terrorist strikes in the U.S. as well as blowing up Tony’s house when Tony threatened him over another bombing he had caused that put Happy Hogan, Tony’s former chauffeur and now head of security in the hospital. Which brings us back to why Tony’s house was bombed in the first place by the helicopters sent by the Mandarin.

All of this sounds pretty good right? Except…THERE IS NO MANDARIN!!! The so-called Mandarin in this movie, Iron Man’s biggest and most powerful nemesis, a man who has almost conquered the world on several occasions throughout Iron Man’s fifty year history is, in this movie at least, an out of work British actor playing a role for a guy named Aldrich Killian, who is also the head of AIM, a villainous group of super-scientists in the comics who wear yellow bee-keeper-like suits. Here they just wore suits and ties and looked and acted like common thugs, unless they were Extremis powered, then they acted like super-powered thugs.

But wait, it gets better! So Rhodey somehow is captured, (Someone explain to me how his suit was depowered and him taken captive within it?) and Tony himself gets captured in a convoluted scene involving Maya Hansen an old flame of his who also happened to create the extremis formula or virus or whatever the hell it really is where we find out she’s really a bad girl and was working for AIM all along (Sorta paralleling recent events in the real Iron Man title.) Tony is taken captive along with Rhodey again, after they had broken out doing the pseudo James Bond thing once again, and we get a supposedly humorous and action packed moment with Tony flying around with one boot on and one glove that flew through the air at his mental command from the garage he had them stored in, in Tennessee. But again it is a half assed scene with Tony NOT in an Iron Man suit, just a couple of pieces of it.

After he is done here the rest of the suit arrives and he takes off in pursuit of the Iron Patriot suit which is now housing Aldrich Killian (I think) which is going after Air Force One and the President. Iron Man gets there in time to start battling extremis powered terrorists who were placed on the plane in disguise ( I think, again it was a week ago, so I just remember a mess of a scene.) Tony kills the main extremis terrorist who we’ve been watching this entire movie blow people up. Meanwhile the War Ma- Wait I mean Iron Patriot armor disappears as does the President. There is a huge hole blown in the side of the plane and people are flying out of it to their deaths. Tony flies out after them, and catches them all, making them all lock hands, before he releases them gently into a harbor somewhere. Why he couldn’t just fly to a nearby dock and let them down is beyond me. He’s Iron Man, he should have been able to catch the plane and fly it safely to the ground, if it hadn’t exploded already.

Now he lands on a bridge and is promptly hit by a truck, exploding into pieces. The camera pulls back from Stark’s view and it’s revealed he was controlling the armor with his telepresence unit remotely. Why? Why wasn’t he inside the armor flying it? There is no good reason given for this? And what kind of a piece of crap was it that a truck hitting it blows it apart?

Let’s step back and look at this, in the Avengers, Iron Man stood toe to toe with Thor, God of Thunder and traded blows with him. The armor did not fall apart then at all. But a truck hitting it turns it into scrap metal. Okay…

Stark and Rhodey make their way to a huge shipping dock where they fight to free Pepper who has now been infected with the extremis formula (Virus? Whatever?) and along the way Stark calls on all his suits of armor to come to his aid. They all fly in remotely, but all seem to be made of tinfoil as they continually fall apart when battling the extremis powered villains. Pepper supposedly falls to her death from about 200’ up, Stark dons suit after suit that is then wrecked by Killian who is the most powerful of the extremis enhanced terrorists in a pitched battle. Rhodey gets his ‘Iron Patriot Machine’ suit back and flies off with the president who they have succeeded in rescuing. Stark encases Killian in one of his armors and forces it to blow up, but Killian survives, seemingly with little damage and closes in for the kill against a totally defenseless Stark, but then… SUPRRISE! Pepper appears totally unscathed from her 200’ fall and punches out the bad guy, saving Stark’s life, Thank God for extremis girl! Oh wait that’s not politically correct, I have to call her extremis woman, or is it person? Then the big moment of the movie! Stark destroys all his armor at once in a fireworks display that would do the Grucci’s proud! Huh? What?

The wrap up is Stark figures out a way to remove the extremis bug from Pepper; the drunken ass of an actor who portrayed the Mandarin to the world is taken into custody. Tony finally figures out a way to remove the arc reactor from his own chest as well as the shrapnel threatening his heart. The final scene is him driving away from his destroyed home with one of his robotic helpers on a trailer as he throws the arc reactor that formally resided in his chest into the sea, proclaiming that he is Iron Man.

 

So let’s recap, Tony is having PTSD episodes throughout the movie, his armor is now made of foil as it keeps getting destroyed, he needs some twelve year olds help for the most annoying part of the film, his armor now needs to be charged on car batteries (No lie that’s what was hooked up to in in the garage he left it in.) Mandarin, his most powerful enemy, a guy who is on par with Dr. Doom or Lex Luthor is reduced to a joke, and Tony is almost killed if not for the intervention of his girlfriend who, oh thank God, saved his ass at the last minute, wearing a sports bra. Then in response to her mewling about his crazy life, he blows up every suit he had just to make her happy. So a guy who could save thousands of lives at any given moment because of his mighty suits of armor (Not in this movie, but, you know, previously) decides to give it all up to live happily ever after with his girlfriend.

I don’t know what this movie was. To me, it was a crap fest. There was two thirds of the movie with him as Stark, and the few scenes he had as Iron Man were shitty, hampered scenes with either weakened armor or were him just running around carrying people to safety. The mess at the end was ridiculous. If he had called the other suits there to fight alongside him against the extremis powered army I could have lived with that, but instead he kept getting the crap kicked out of him and had to change suits repeatedly.

But remember according to Shane Black, director of this disaster, we can’t have a Chinese person playing the Mandarin because it’s not politically correct and someone might get insulted. Really??? How about the millions of comic fans who were insulted by this poor excuse for an Iron Man film?

One star out of as many as you’d like, minimum five. As I said before, I want my $20 back.

A Review of "Doc Savage: Skull Island"

Doc Savage: Skull Island
By Will Murray


Will Murray’s newest Doc Savage book is a different take on one of the world’s first superheroes. This book is more of an never before seen origin story for Doc, and it includes three generations of his family as well as Doc’s first post WWI adventure where he actually met the Mighty King Kong!
Yes, THAT King Kong. This story takes place mere months after Doc and friends begin to take up residence in the Empire State Building in 1933. Doc’s father has already passed away at this point, so this takes place after ‘The Man of Bronze’. Doc returns to the Empire State Building and finds Kong’s corpse at his door step. Sadly he recounts to Monk and Ham how he knew the creature and then he aids New York in removing the body back to the island it came from for burial.
At this point Doc begins recounting his first adventure with Kong in a flashback sequence that lasts the rest of the book up until the last few pages.
What follows is perhaps Will Murrays BEST Doc Savage novel to date (Though his ‘Forgotten Realm’ MAY still hold that distinction for me) this is a rousing adventure wherein Doc and his father actually have some bloody conflicts with not only headhunters but prehistoric monsters as well. Doc is barely twenty in this tale and freshly back from WWI. We learn a lot about him within these pages, including his rather strange relationship with his father. We even get to meet his grandfather, the towering ‘Stormalong’ Savage, a sort of ancient mariner type who pines for the days of tall ships with a great love of the sea.
Without giving too much more away I can wholeheartedly endorse reading this great adventure novel. It’s a Doc we’ve never really seen before, one who is fresh out of his training and a war and is only now beginning to seek and understand his place in the world. Also we get the unique perspective of Doc having to follow another man’s lead, his fathers. And then there is the mighty King Kong. Will conveys all the sympathy and empathy movie goers have had for the great ape over the years masterfully in this tale. Kong, the lonely creature who despite his great size is less monster than those who hunt him for a trophy. The last of his kind creature who is master of his domain, and all who live on that island know this and bow to his sovereignty.
This Doc Savage story is a welcome addition to the collection of all things ‘Doc’. Will Murray knows the character well, and reading his novels always leaves me with a feeling that I am reading a TRUE Doc Savage story as opposed to one that could be considered simple fanfiction, as most properties that have fallen out of the original creators hands and into another’s have.
I only hope that now that there is talk of a Doc Savage movie again that they consult Will Murray and hopefully have him write the story.
Five stars out of five. I absolutely liked this novel! It was great!

Billy Craig Interview!

Billy Craig Interview

 

Hi and welcome to another edition of Ralph’s Rants does Interviews. This week we welcome Billy Craig, author of oh, just about a million things, including The Jack Riley Adventures: Valley of Death, Mayan Gold, Dead Run, Pirate's Blood, The Child Stealers, and The Mummy's Tomb; as well as, The Fantastic Adventures of Hardluck Hannigan among others.

Billy, welcome, how are you today?

Well. I’m just getting over a bad bout of stomach flu so I could be feeling better!

 

Sorry to hear that Billy, hope you feel better soon.

 

 

Let’s jump in feet first shall we? What made you decide to write? Was it something you saw that you thought was fantastic, something you looked at and thought ‘Hey, I can do better than that!’ or did you just have a story to tell?

Well, I taught myself to read by age four and by age six I was already reading stories that I thought I could do a better job of writing.

 

 

What was your first written story and how old were you when you wrote it?

My first story was a mystery titled Thing in the swamp that was part of a first grade anthology called Tales to sleep on.

 

 

 

What genre drew you to writing and why?

I have always been a huge fan of “high-adventure” or pulp fiction and mysteries.  I grew up reading Doc Savage and the Shadow as well as The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew.  I was reading Raymond Chandler by the time I was twelve along with the Tarzaan books, so I guess it is no surprise really that those two genres is where most of my body of work fits.

 

 

Where did you grow up Billy? What city/state and did that play a hand in getting you into the writing game? I grew up and still live in New Castle, Indiana, best known for turning out basketball greats Kent Benson and Steve Alford.  It is the sort of town where very little if anything out of the ordinary happens.  Writing became my way of escaping from the boredom much like reading does.

 

 

Do you write year round or is it season specific?

I write year round, and I write every day, even though some days such as the past couple where I have been sick it may not be more than a sentence or two.

 

 

Who is your favorite character to write and was he one you created yourself or was it an existing pulp hero?  Sam Decker is probably my favorite character to write and he would fit into the pulp detective genre.  He’s a wise-cracking Former DEA agent turned Private Investigator in the Florida Keys.

 

 

Was there ever a character you killed in a story that you felt afterwards you’d like to write again?

There was one, Harlan Esterhaus the main villain from my first book Valley of Death.  Jack Riley faced off against him again in The Child Stealers.  The other one who be Dr. Chi Pei, a Fu Manchu type that appeared in the Jack Riley book Pirates’ Blood, and then The Mummy’s Tomb.  He has also appeared as a villain for my 1940’s pulp Hero Hardluck Hannigan as a much younger villain of course.

 

What environment makes you the most creative? Nights? Rainy afternoons?

I usually write at night after I have put my 7-yr old son Jack to bed.  But rainy nights when I can have the patio door open and listen to the rain beating down on the tin roof over the patio give me the most inspiration.

 

 

How fast do you write normally? How many words per day?

Well my first book, Valley of Death I wrote in a month.  But I was single and lived alone then.  I just completed my latest mystery novel for Absolutely Amazing E-Books, Marlow: Indigo Tide in about 2 months.  I started it right before Dad went into the nursing home and finished it just this past week after dad had gotten home.  I usually do about a thousand words per day.  On a good day that is.  Others not so much.

 

What is your favorite novel or story that you have written so far, the one that when you finished you thought “This is MY book, the one that I’ll be always associated to as the writer of.”  That would be Marlow: Indigo Tide

 

 

 

What do you read? Who are your favorite authors?

Among my favorites, Robert B. Parker, Kenneth Robeson(both Lester Dent and Will Murray), Donald Hamilton, Jerry Ahern, Don Pendleton, Louis, L’Amour, Max Brand and Zane Gray to name a few.

 

 

 

In line with the previous question, as an author who inspired you the most?  That would be a toss up between Jerry Ahern and Don Pendleton, both men were friends and mentors.

 

 

What can we expect to see as upcoming releases from Billy Craig this year? Well my second Joe Collins Mystery Paradise Lost should be released the second week of April, then Marlow: Indigo Tide, then Decker P.I. Best Served Cold, Sabre and the Temple of the Sun, The third Joe Collins Mystery, Freetrader Orion: Meteor Raiders, and hopefully the second Jericho Walls, Texas Ranger western.

 

 

Any projects you want to push here, feel free, whether past or upcoming, let the readers know what you think they should have read from you

Well that depends on what the readers are looking for Ralph.  For modern pulp adventure, any of the Jack Riley Books, for traditional pulp the Fantastic adventures of Hardluck Hannigan which I am now bringing out some omnibus editions of.  For mystery lovers The Joe Collins Mysteries and The Decker P.I. mysteries and of course Marlow: Indigo Tide.

 

 

Billy, thanks for playing along it’s deeply appreciated. I’m sure many of my readers will enjoy reading what you had to say, thanks again and have a great day.

 

 

 

Ralph's Rants Interviews Andrew Salmon!

Andrew Salmon Interview

Hello and welcome to another edition of Ralph’s rants does Interviews. Today we have the pleasure of interviewing Andrew Salmon, author of THE NEW ADVENTURES OF THUNDER JIM WADE and The recent award winning ‘The Ruby Files’ among many others.

Hi Andrew and welcome, it’s a pleasure to have to you here answering some questions for us.

My pleasure! Thanks for inviting me.

First up, what made you decide to try your hand at writing? Was it some writer who inspired you or just something you felt you could do?

Oddly enough it was a movie. Star Trek II to be precise. Up until that June morning in 1982 I read comics exclusively. I wouldn't read a book if you paid me. Even for school, I would ask my friends what an assigned book was about or skim through the Coles (the Canadian version of Cliff) notes. Then I sat down to watch Wrath of Khan. And the movie changed my life. I didn't come out of the theater wanting to read Star Trek. No, I staggered out into the hot sun wanting the WRITE what I had just seen. Somehow, watching the movie, the machinery of storytelling revealed itself to me. I could see how the foreshadowing, themes, action and character worked together for the first time. So naive was I that I thought these things were exclusive to Star Trek and learned to spot them in the series reruns afterwards. The movie also introduced me to Dickens and a lifelong devotion to reading began that day as well. What followed were many stops and starts, then 12 years researching/writing THE LIGHT OF MEN, reading voraciously all the while, until I discovered hardboiled fiction, noir and, eventually, the classic pulp heroes.

You’ve developed quite a collection of novels and stories that you’ve either authored on your own or had a hand in. What draws you to a project?

It can vary, but the main thing is that either the character or premise has to grab me. For something like Holmes and Watson that allure is obvious. Same goes for the Moon Man or Secret Agent X. For others like Dan Fowler, Thunder Jim Wade or Jim Anthony it's the overall set up that gets my creative juices going. As a Doc Savage fan, just about any of his clones will do it for me. I immerse myself into the worlds of these characters. I'm a research fanatic.

When you write, do you stay with only one project from start to finish? Or do you work on several at a time. Leaving one for a while and going to another as inspiration strikes?

I used to be able to stick with one project until it was completed. And still do for the most part. However, I do keep my ears and eyes open for ideas as they flit through my mind or pass by the eye. In this way I can often do prep work on a project while finishing the writing on another. This way I can hit the ground running on something new after writing "The End" on whatever I'm currently working on. With so much New Pulp being released these days, I like to keep a steady stream of work flowing so as not to get lost in the torrent of stuff so many great publishers are cranking out.


What is your favorite era to write in? The here and now? The 30’s and 40’s? The far flung future?

I love the 30s and 40s! I love the research and the colorful characters. Writing Holmes tales has dropped me into Victorian London and I can't tell you how much fun it's been to wallow in research for that time period. I've only made a handful of forays in to the far flung future with MARS MCCOY and a short story or two. My novel, THE DARK LAND, is set in the year 2049 and that's really as far as I like to go. So that 100 year span from the 1930s to the 2040s is my stomping grounds. I like being able to put characters in situation that readers today can relate to and, although I don't mind reading high sci-fi, writing it hasn't interested me as yet. But, hey, anything is possible.

Is there a favorite character you created that you love going back to and writing new adventures for?

I've not created that many original characters although that is about to change. THE DARK LAND was always meant to be the first of a trilogy and the lead, a cloned police office named C-Peter Reilly, is never far from my thoughts - especially with the rough plots of the next two books rattling around in my head. I co-created the GHOST SQUAD with Ron Fortier and their debut adventure was very well received by readers. Ron is kicking around an idea for a follow-up and it would be a blast to work on a sequel. Recently I've spent the last two years researching a novel that will feature German pulp heroes and it's been a blast rounding out this group of intense individuals. I'm all for giving the reader what he or she wants so if any of the characters I've created strike a nerve with readers out there, then by all means get the word out to me directly or the publisher and we'll make something happen.

Where do you do your best writing? At home or away from the maddening crowd somewhere?

I write at home, usually late at night. I'm a true night owl and my energy peaks while the world sleeps. Also the distractions of the day can be left behind and I can really get those creative juices a-bubbling. I once churned out 11,000 words in one three-hour session that ended with the sunrise. Honestly, when I'm in the throes of a tale, I can write anywhere as the story will not be denied.


An addendum to the last question, do you require peace and quiet to write or does background noise have no effect on you?

At the beginning of a tale, quiet is essential as you need to let it reveal itself to your mind. Same goes for the intense concentration required for revisions. But once that tale is cooking, then it's easy to ignore the distractions.

I noticed you seemed to write as part of several anthologies, do you prefer this to writing solo novels and if so why?

Although I still love being part of anthologies (phew! I've been in a lot of 'em!), these days I'm more drawn to novels and other longer forms. With 18 or so published books under my belt, most of them anthologies - and more on the way - I'm starting to feel a little hemmed in by the shorter form and want to try out expanded ideas and concepts on the bigger stage. That said, I'm always open to shorter work if I find the character irresistible. Expect longer works from me though in the future.


Was there ever one character you killed off and then afterwards when all was said and done you wished you hadn’t?

Writing pulp, one doesn't often get to kill off important characters so I don't think I can answer that question. The best example I can come up with is a dynamic duo of evil in my second Sherlock Holmes tale. Although I didn't kill them off, I introduced them in a tale set right at the end of Holmes's career, which makes further clashes with the great detective difficult. I'll figure out something to do with then though.

What new material can we expect to read from you this year?

I've got quite a bit in the hopper these days. I've written Lynn Lash and Major Lacy tales for Pulp Obscura and they should debut before the year is out. Bobby Nash invited me to do a Lance Star yarn for Volume 4 of that series, which is scheduled for 2013. Also my first-ever comic script will appear in All-Star Pulp Comics #2 in the not too distant future. It's a Ki-Gor adventure with art by the ever-talented Kelly Everaert. Readers can also expect more Holmes and Moon Man from me but I can't go into detail about those at the moment.


Anything you want to plug right now that’s out there? Feel free, even if it’s not on the market yet.

I'm super excited that more and more of the pulp books I've been a part of have been released for KINDLE! Both THE LIGHT OF MEN and GHOST SQUAD have been released as well as Airship 27's most recent SHERLOCK HOLMES in which I have a tale. A new hero, GHOST BOY, has burst on the scene for KINDLE and in print. I was fortunate enough to get a tale in there. Even the award-winning RUBY FILES is now an ebook. Also, the two SECRET AGENT X anthologies I contributed to have been KINDLE-ized and all of the above join the NEW ADVENTURES OF THUNDER JIM WADE as part of my ebook library. Sure, everyone is doing ebooks these days but some of the above titles like LIGHT and GHOST SQUAD have received a lot of interest over the last year or so from readers wanting to read them but awaiting e-versions. Airship 27 delivered! And, of course, all of the above are available in print as well. Pop on over to my amazon page and you can see everything I've got out there.


Big thank you to Andrew Salmon for joining us this week, hope you enjoyed his interview, I know I did! We’ll see you next week for a new ‘Ralph’s Rants Does Interviews’ Until then, go read something from one of the great authors I’ve interviewed here, heck start with something Andrew has done.

Free 'Redemption of the Sorcerer' April 5th and 6th!

Free 'Redemption of the Sorcerer!' Starting on friday April 5th and ending at midnight on Saturday April 6th Redemption of the Sorcerer will be free in the Kindle version on Amazon.com. This will not happen again anytime soon, so if you want a free kindle version, save the date! I'll even provide you with a link! And if you love it, please leave me a review on Amazon and Goodreads, Thanks! http://tinyurl.com/coc9cyh