July 2008 Blog Posts (167)

Issue #4 of Astonishing Adventures has arrived at last!

Pulp is back and the fourth issue of Astonish Adventures is here.

Click here at the Issu site, if you would like to view it online.…

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Added by Cormac Brown on July 19, 2008 at 5:00pm — No Comments

More books...

I just finished 2 more from the Hard Case Crime series;

Shooting Star by Robert Bloch is a good natured and witty tale of Hardboiled Hollywood. A great read.

I love the Hard Case Crime series. I feel like I'm on an archaeological dig every time I pick one up, discovering rare gems and new authors. Like, Christa Faust and her novel Money Shot. Faust takes Hardboiled Hollywood and knocks it on its ass! Porn and pistols are a deadly combo.

Also reread The High… Continue

Added by Paul Greenberg on July 19, 2008 at 12:09pm — No Comments

Not Quite Crime, but...

Charles Ardai, our fearless leader at Hard Case Crime, is launching a new pulp adventure series called THE ADVENTURES OF GABRIEL HUNT. Here’s what he has to say about it:

"These books are for anyone who grew up reading H. Rider Haggard and Edgar Rice Burroughs or watching Harrison Ford wield his bullwhip at the movies," said Ardai. "We're talking classic adventure fiction, complete with… Continue

Added by Christa Faust on July 19, 2008 at 6:12am — 2 Comments

Released!

Today -- July 18th -- is the official release day of my debut book, NOX DORMIENDA. Still feels unreal to me ... and a little like a deep-sea diver with the bends. :) Physical copies still won't be available for about a week, but this is a rite of passage, a marking of time and a culmination of a lot of teamwork.

I'm celebrating by writing, but I wanted to thank Crimespace for being the first and one of the best places to meet people. I've made friends here I plan to have for a… Continue

Added by Kelli Stanley on July 19, 2008 at 5:31am — 3 Comments

Does That Scanner Make My Butt Look Fat?

Reading in the Chicago Tribune today about the full body scanner the government will soon have in place at O'Hare to check travelers more completely for hidden weapons and/or explosives. Fully body scanner. Wow. Sounds like something out of Star Trek, doesn't it?

The writer describes the machine's function as providing a "virtual strip-search," of passengers, though he says the face of the person being scanned will not be visible, nor will the images be retained in the system. From… Continue

Added by Doug M. Cummings on July 19, 2008 at 2:30am — No Comments

Best Tag Line

I already told you I'm signing at Borders in Ronald Reagan National Airport this afternoon, but now I want to tell you about one of the Advance Reader Copies (ARCs) I picked up at Thrillerfest.

In the world of thrillers, almost every book has a good tag line. My pick for best of the year is on the front cover of the ARC of "Angel's Tip" by Alafair Burke. How could any thriller or mystery fan pass up a book… Continue

Added by Austin S. Camacho on July 18, 2008 at 11:16pm — 2 Comments

Mend Your (Writing), Lest You Mar Your Fortune

It's a line from Shakespeare, and correctly done it's "Mend your speech ..." As writers, we communicate on paper, but we still need to consider words, individually and collectively.

I used to teach high school, and often a student would object to my request that they clarify a sentence like "Mr. Jones saw several worms looking over his tomato plants." Invariably the cry would be, "But people know what I mean."

Possibly. But as a writer, your job is to make the job as easy… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on July 18, 2008 at 9:30pm — No Comments

Good Nineteenth Century Fiction

Hi, Everyone. I've pretty much read all of Anne Perry's Victiorian era novels. Anyone have any suggestions for new authors or series I could try out, please? I don't like novels with graphic sex or really bad language, which is why I prefer to read historicals. Or is there someone in the network who writes these type of novels? Regency, Victorian, Gothic, Romantic Age: anytime in the 19th would interest me. I'm not too fond of Westerns, however, although I love horses.--I cannot say… Continue

Added by Dawn M. Kravagna on July 18, 2008 at 12:14pm — No Comments

Publishers Weekly Review

It's too hot to think today (90 degrees, and I wilt at 80), so I'm going to take the easy way and post Publishers Weekly's review of Black Ship (due in Sept):

Black Ship: A Daisy Dalrymple Mystery Carola Dunn. St. Martin's Minotaur, $24.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-312-36307-9

At the start of Dunn's diverting 17th Daisy Dalrymple 1920s mystery (after 2007's The Bloody Tower), Daisy and her Scotland Yard detective husband, Alec Fletcher, have inherited a large house from Alec's… Continue

Added by Carola Dunn on July 18, 2008 at 9:30am — No Comments

Serious Editing

If you read my blog very often, you've read this before: the first step in editing is time. When your first draft is done, you get a feeling of relief. There. It's down on paper. It's done. However great that feeling may be, don't let it lead you to the mailbox. This is NOT the time to send your work to an editor, an agent, or even a friend. First it needs to sit for a while.

Walking away from a piece of writing is essential. I'm not sure how long it takes to be able to look at it… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on July 17, 2008 at 10:41pm — No Comments

Meet Me tomorrow in DC

Tomorrow afternoon I greet the folks going into or dropping out of the friendly skies at Ronald Reagan National Airport. From 1 pm to 3 pm I'll sit in at the Borders Booksellers in the airport. Departing folks know the Washington National airport is really in Virginia. Those landing there don't really care. But either way, if you're traveling Friday in our area, stop by and get a book signed and I'll tell you where to get a great meal while you're here.

Added by Austin S. Camacho on July 17, 2008 at 10:23pm — No Comments

From PowerPoint to Paperback

Yesterday I was invited to talk at a businesswomen’s networking lunch sponsored by the legal firm, Warner Goodman in aid of the magnificent and worthwhile charity, Kids. My talk was on my unusual route from businesswoman to best selling crime writer and how I apply my marketing and PR skills to the business of being an author. For many years I ran a marketing agency, have been a professional trainer and public speaker and publisher, all of which come… Continue

Added by Pauline Rowson on July 17, 2008 at 5:08pm — No Comments

Just Whose Fault Is It?

Just because I nearly came close to doing the same thing when I was a brand new deppitty sherf, the headline of an AP story this morning caught my eye.

"Officer Wrecks Squad Car 20 Minutes into Job."

The A.P story, however, didn't match the headline. Turns out the car was parked in the hapless officer's own driveway when some goofball who "tested positive for drugs" ran into it and then hit a tree. The now car-less copper was not behind the wheel.

Reminds me of… Continue

Added by Doug M. Cummings on July 17, 2008 at 7:00am — 4 Comments

Writing Dark

There are times when you walk a really strange road as a writer, going down some dark paths and scary, twisty highways. As authors we do things to our characters we’d never dream of doing in real life. We make them suffer in a myriad of ways--from the agony of emotional wringers we hope never to experience ourselves to very physical torments.

I kill people…in my books, anyway. I’ve had my characters kidnapped, beaten, burned, cut, threatened, tortured and just about any and every… Continue

Added by Karen McCullough on July 17, 2008 at 2:49am — 4 Comments

A Great Book I Didn't Write

Lately I’ve been exploring crossover fiction (at the suggestion of my agent who says these books are hot) and I must admit I’ve enjoyed what I found. This week I want to share a lost classic that I found in my local used book store (Burke Used Books if you live near me.)

A couple decades before Jim Butcher introduced us to Harry Dresden, Mike Resnick put New York private eye John Justin Mallory into a supernatural setting. “… Continue

Added by Austin S. Camacho on July 16, 2008 at 10:43pm — No Comments

Atmosphere (R)

How is it that some authors grab you by the sleeve and won't let you go, while others only provide a pleasant diversion that can be set down at any moment to do something more pressing?

Laura Lippman does it; Barry Eisler too. It could be in Lippman's case that she writes as I think, pulling up details that seem like they came from my own brain, but in Eisler's work I have no frame of reference, being neither Asian nor a hired assassin. So it must be something else, and I call it… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on July 16, 2008 at 9:53pm — No Comments

Crime Always Pays

This week on Crime Always Pays: is crime fiction recession-proof?; the ‘Irish mysteries’ issue of the Mystery Readers Journal; free copies of Tony Black’s PAYING FOR IT; what did Aeschylus (right) ever do for us?; Martin Edwards Q&A’d; Adrian McKinty on Jim Thompson’s Okalahoma; THE IRISH WAR ON DRUGS; Tana French’s THE LIKENESS and John Connolly’s THE REAPERS reviewed; Patrick Shawn Bagley writes crime fiction poetry; and the Grand Vizier… Continue

Added by Declan Burke on July 16, 2008 at 8:44pm — No Comments

Publishing News to cease

PUBLISHING NEWS, THE UK book trade weekly magazine, is to cease publication. The news has just popped into my in box. The statement says that the publication, founded in 1979, has been hit by the same problems that have affected all magazines and newspapers, as advertisers have shifted increasing proportions of their spend to online and direct sales. Being in the 'book business' I have worked with Publishing News for about the last ten years and will miss them. Good luck to the editorial staff… Continue

Added by Pauline Rowson on July 16, 2008 at 5:14pm — No Comments

Update on the Writer's Life

Thrillerfest was an almost impossibly good time. I got to talk to all the names: Sandra Brown, Harlan Coben, Kathy Reichs, Barry Eisler, Patterson, Baldacci, Von Lustbader... there isn’t space. The panels were wonderful, including the one I got to be on. The interviews instructive and the banquet top notch. But I must admit that the best part for me – even above the weapons demo given by the ATF - was chatting with my agent, who happens to be married to an editor at Tor. I also spent some time… Continue

Added by Austin S. Camacho on July 16, 2008 at 12:16pm — No Comments

Confessions of a History B(L)uff

When I was in school, my favorite subjects, not surprisingly, were literature and creative writing, followed by assorted languages (all modern). On the flipside, I hated history. Not because I had a hard time memorizing all the names and dates, because I didn’t. And as a child of parents coming of age in occupied Europe, I even understood the importance of learning from the past so we avoid making the same mistakes in the future. But really, did I have to know the exact day Marie Antoinette was… Continue

Added by Jennie Bentley/Bente Gallagher on July 16, 2008 at 12:47am — No Comments