Well, done

Can’t help but notice that I haven’t posted in a century or so. Sorry much. Am trying.

Lots of things going on, this side of the screen. I’ve undertaken to produce a new anthology, to benefit author/editor Joe Pulver and his wife, who are having a tough time of things due to illnesses, and that’s going great guns, with a ToC to die for and early days still. We have about 90K of material on hand and every indication that there will be twice that at least.

Nightmares in Yellow, it’s called. The cover will be decorated with work by artist Derek Pegritz, and it should be out in time for Christmas.

The three chapbooks are soon to debut. All three are set in the CRAZYTOWN universe… two of them are part of the book, and one takes place shortly before the events in the book and the short novel THE FORGOTTEN GOD, which is set to appear next spring.

GREEN will be first,

Bone Sequence second,

and the former Pizza story NARANJA SOUL should be out by Hallowe’en.

Caravans Awry

We’re at it again…Planet X publications and I, that is. We’ve embarked on another book-length project that developed from a casual discussion, as the Test Patterns books have. I’ve just about finished the editing and proofing of the Creature Features volume and dove right into heading up Caravans Awry, a series of teals and poems about traveling circuses on Rt 66 in the mid-sixties, the heyday of those marvelous carnivals.

As per usual, we’re doing pre-orders via GoFundMe, and we have a Facebook page. Ebooks are 2.00. TPBs are 15.00, and an ebook is included. HCs are 25.00.

Caravans Awry . Fourteen tales and poems of carnival knowledge in the 1960s
from the folks who bring you Test Patterns — and — Creature Features , Planet X Publications .

Contributors:

Michael Adams, Adam Bolivar, Scott Couturier, Ashley Dioses,
Sam L Edwards, John Paul Fitch, Maxwell Gold, John Linwood Grant,
Jill Hand, Ted Morgan, KA Opperman, Duane Pesice, Peter Rawlik,
Jayaprakash Satyamurthy, Russell Smeaton, William Tea, Sarah Walker, and Can Wiggins are creating content.

JB Lee and Derek Pegritz are creating art.

Coming Hallowe’en 2018.

Thanks for your time and attention! Happy reading!

Test Patterns: Creature Features revealed

The ToC:

1. Danger Slater-Frankenstein’s Monster’s Monster

2. Cody Goodfellow-The Greedy Grave

3. Erica Ruppert-Pretty in the Dark

4. Robert Guffey-The Eye Doctor

5. Alistair Rey-Regeneration

6. Farah Rose Smith-In the Room of Red Night

7. James Fallweather-Little House in the Suburbs

8. Ashley Dioses-Amadis the Enchantress

9. James Russell-Spirit of Place

10. John Paul Fitch-Signals

11. Brenda Kezar-From Little Acorns Grow

12. SL Edwards-With All Her Troubles Behind Her

13. Debra Robinson-Chaos and Void

14. Calvin Demmer-The River Ran Red

15. Kurt Fawver-Extinction In Green

16. Aaron French-Chosen

17. Duane Pesice-Bone Sequence

18. Buzz Dixon-The Bride of the Astounding Gigantic Monster

19. Natasha Smith-Underground Rose

20. Orrin Grey-The Pepys Lake Monster

21. Jill Hand-The Bride of Castle Frankenstein

22. Jayaprakash Satyamurthy-No More Iron Cross

23. Dominique Lamssies-Admitted Inhabitants

24. Daniel Brock-Bitter Waters

25. Lana Cooper-Mrs. Doogan

26. John Linwood Grant-For Whom There is No Journey

27. John Claude Smith-Normal

28. Aksel Dadswell-Something Hungrier Than Love

29. Jeffrey Thomas-E

Coming soon!

Drilling a little deeper down

Exploring the cord-cutting experience a little more:

The Sling Channel…a caveat. Your seven-day trial starts the moment you open it. Explore online first. I got a surprise 39.98 charge today. I mulled calling to bitch about that, but I’m gonna let it ride and check it out for a month. I’ve already changed the lineup some so I get more of the stuff I actually watch for five bucks less…if I’m not pleased I’ll explore DirecTv Now next month (it has my precious MLB Network and none of those wonderful two-year contracts that DTV is so notorious for).

All of the horror channels have the same movies, give or take one or two. But there’s no penalty for keeping them in the event that they have something that Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, or Shudder (or ScreamBox — I’m trying that, maybe, next month. I wouldn’t mind keeping both if they have enough unique content, at 3.00/month each) don’t have. Same for the other ‘category’ channels. They all have the same four commercials repeated endlessly…

Despondent saith not

I gave up blogging in favor of Facebook posting years ago, but I’ve come full circle and am back to blogging instead. This form has a little more permanence, I think, and if I’m gonna be ignored, I may as well own it.

Though my first published story was in 1977, I’ve been a full-time writer for just a couple of years. I attempted to go full-time just after coming hope from the illness that caused my disability, with a big backlog of material that I fondly imagined was ‘good enough’ and a lot of ‘belief’.

Didn’t work out that way — one, I didn’t have the energy or stamina I had been used to and couldn’t maintain that schedule, and two, the material desperately needed reworking — which I’m still doing, six years later.

Hard to keep going in the face of such massive apathy. I haven’t written anything that has galvanized people into talking about it for years, though that doesn’t stop stuff from getting pirated. I’ve sold more than 5000 kindle-copies of my chapbook, mostly through direct sales. But I have four reviews on Goodreads/Amazon.

Gotta trust in the process though. I know my stuff is good enough. No editor has ever returned a piece saying “This really sucks.” Instead, “this really doesn’t fit what we’re trying to accomplish here. But good luck with this story. I’m sure you can sell it — somewhere else” is the common response.

I resist comparisons…and some of this is sour grapes probably, but I see people whose work isn’t real good selling consistently, and it chaps my ass. But I’m a middle-aged white male, and I guess I should just get used to being marginal. Isn’t like my imagination is inclined to the mainstream.

And I’m not gonna stop, though it gives me pause (and yeah, there are times when I want to stop because working in a vacuum sucks). Friends and even some objective critics have told me they enjoy the work…it’s just that it doesn’t reach enough people. And I don’t know how to get that to happen, other than to keep throwing spaghetti.

I’m not alone. There are lots of us pasta-throwers.

But I ask you — if you’ve read a thing of mine, how about some feedback? Just “I liked it” would be fine. I think you have to write a couple more words than that, but it doesn’t have to be in-depth…that’s the point. People who write for themselves rarely try to get public.

Yeah. I’m having a minor crisis. Not ‘impostor syndrome’, but ‘invisible man’ syndrome…brought on by lack of success of worthwhile material. Help a brother out if you can.

Thanks for reading.

Cordcutting?

I’ve joined the Roku generation, as of last Tuesday. A week of discovering and winnowing down, much like the first week of being on the net back in the mid-to-late 90s. Streaming media absolutely brings that to mind — it’s clearly in its infancy as a service, and will likely mushroom as more and more sponsors jump on board.

No doubt the Firestick and other streaming utilities are similar. There are probably small degrees of difference but it’s the same stuff, conceptually. I have a Roku Ultra, which cost me 75 bucks on boxing day.
Definitely going to thin the cord a strand or two, maybe unbraid it, but not cut it completely. I need to talk to my cable guy about price, as I want to keep the Contour boxes if within reason cost-wise, as local stations are not well-represented on this system and through Cox cable. May add a sports package, for reasons discussed below.

 

Pros:

 

The Midnight Pulp channel, for one. It’s my favorite so far. It has a LOT of commercials (there’s an ad-free paid version, which I might spring for if they rotate content often) but there’s everything from ANTS to ZARDOZ on that channel. 

Has lots of the stuff I like and plenty of it and it’s mostly free. The number of sci-fi, noir, and horror channels in general is fantastic. Grindhouse (my actual favorite genre) is especially well-represented. Each channel has at least some unique content. There are westerns and romance and war channels, and paranormal/ufo/conspiracy channels, and lots of indie offerings and stuff like belly-dancing and yoga and fashion channels…and metric tonnes of international streaming. Many educational channels, though some of them are paid services. Still, they’re available. A host of (ssssh) private channels, with everything from Bill O’Reilly to softcore porn. Yeah, there’s pr0n too.

The streaming service itself is great. Crystal-clear HD everydamnthing and it streams content from my various hard drives wonderfully. Links seamlessly within my chain.

 

Cons:

Little dinky remote.

Redundancy. Lots of channels are owned by the same people and it takes a while to winnow them down. The BEST content is still on Netflix/Amazon/Hulu or other paid services.

Local channel access is spotty. Sling is too expensive for what it is. It depends on the cost of basic cable being even more expensive for its existence. Lots of channels depend on your having a cable host.

When there are commercials, they’re the same ones, over and over and over and over, and then.

There’s very little sports coverage or coverage of the coverage. There is a watchESPN app, but ESPN sucks. I need me some MLB Network. I do write for a baseball blog…

 

Lately it occurs to me

OprahBros are just recycled BernieBros. I can’t believe that people take that stuff seriously. But apparently they do.

“You’re in the Cabinet! You’re in the Cabinet! And You’re in the Cabinet!”

Ugh. Thanks, Jill. Some images that brings up.

Stuff I did recently:

Reviewed:
The Croning by Laird Barron

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Look, this is effing great. It starts out like a standard matriarchal triumph thing, with the weird witchy wife trope happening and the half-the-man-I-used-to-be protagonist. So it has that ring of familiarity, and those changes are adroitly rung by the author, who then turns everything sideways as he goes cosmic Hidden allofasudden and everything gets the worm’s-eye-view gone slaunchwise until the literally mind-expanding climax.
Killer stuff. It should be a movie. It’d be a million times better than The Void. I’d watch it 167 times. This is my 3rd read-through. I own the tpb and the ebook.

View all my reviews

Edited:

Test Patterns

Instagram (mostly cats)

RIP Edgar.

Patreonage

I’ve finally broken down and put together a Patreon page. It’s just a beginning — I don’t know exactly what to do yet…so I’m offering a story or a piece of a wip each week, plus access to music that then public won’t see for a while and the opportunity to have me write something from your story prompt.
Just part of an overall effort to organize and focus. I’d welcome participation and suggestions. Thanks for reading!

The Furking Leer

Gillian’s Marsh by Michael Faun

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Blood in the water, blood in the land. Southern Gothic crossed with B-Movie, like John Farris and Flannery O’Connor wrote a script to be directed by Jim and Artie Mitchell. Lurid and mesmerizing, festooned with horrors taken for granted flowing into each other like water under the mangrove trees overhung with Spanish moss in little old New Alabama…the narrator’s camera eye does not shrink from depicting each gross and engrossing incident in this catalogue of terror.
It’s just past the Civil War in the American south. Luann Lee escapes the preacher only to be “rescued” by Red, who should probably be played by Rory Calhoun if you can’t get Kurtwood Smith, in the movie, when someone like Brian Yuzna or Stuart Gordon directs it.
I can just imagine Red’s face, with a furking leer on it and the blood running from his mouth. Michael Faun depicts him so expertly, draws the environment so clearly, evokes crawling horror so well, that you’ll never get the taste out of your mouth.

View all my reviews

Highly recommended. Also recommended-Drugula, by the same author.

No Longer VagueBook

TEST PATTERNS is the name of the book. We’re collecting the money to get the thing out to the public.

“When the regular programming ends, the Test Patterns begin…

The concept; a collection of short speculative fictions written with classic television shows such as The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, and The Night Gallery, in mind. These will be the dreams and nightmares one finds themselves waking from after watching that eerie midnight movie, only to find themselves bathed in the gray glow of the test pattern on the TV screen. A collection richly varied stories which might impart a moral, inspire thought, offer meaning, inspire hope, or instill dread. Tales told in unique ways, employing provocative twists and surprises, and exploring the universal themes of humanity and self-discovery through the lenses of horror, fantasy, and science fiction.

This will be the premier publication and flagship anthology of Planet X Publications, a new press founded in California in 2017 by Michael Adams. Author and musician Duane Pesice of Planet Moderan Press is serving as editor-in-chief of this volume, bringing in diverse talent from (literally) around the world to delight and disturb our readers with brand new tales of the weird and otherworldly. If successful, we hope to make Test Patterns an annual series, showcasing the best and brightest writers working in weird fiction today, and the emerging talents who will become household names in the years to come.

This volume of Test Patterns is currently slated to include new works by:
Arinn Dembo,
Ashley Dioses,
Jordan Krall,
J.B. Lee,
Frederick J. Mayer,
K.A. Opperman,
Duane Pesice,
Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.,
Christopher Ropes,
John Claude Smith,
Jeffrey Thomas,
Scott Thomas,
Sarah Walker,
Can Wiggins
(TOC is subject to change)

The proceeds of this Go Fund Me campaign will go directly to the publication of this book by providing funds to pay our authors, cover artist, and printing costs.

Rewards for donors will be as follows;

Those who make a contribution of $5 will receive an eBook, in the format of your choice, Mobi, ePub, or PDF, of Test Patterns when it is available.

Those who make a contribution of $20 will receive a paperback copy of Test Patterns, plus an eBook version.

Those who make a contribution of $40 will receive a limited edition hardcover edition of Test Patterns, plus an eBook version.

Anyone seeking multiple copies or combinations of rewards, may donate the amount covering multiple rewards and email planetxpublications@gmail.com to specify reward types.

We hope to fulfill rewards and publish Test Patterns by Fall 2017, in time for Halloween.

Help spread the word!”