Dispatches from the Flying M

Digital to Print

Last year I started experimenting with self-published e-books, in part spurred by the success of friends and acquaintances like J. Carson Black, Scott Nicholson, Lee Goldberg, and the godfather of e, Joe Konrath.

My experience has not been like theirs. There are lots of possible reasons for that, one of which is that I have a lot of books out there from various publishers, most of whom put out their own e-books, priced approximately the same as their print editions. If someone is interested in my e-books and searches them out, they'll find lots many, many books, at varying prices and in different formats. It's not as easy as just looking at the list of my books and picking the self-pubbed cheap e-books (which, for the record, are the digital edition of The Slab, the short horror fiction collection Nine Frights, short story Long Road Home, and original thriller The Devil's Bait.

The purpose of posting now is to let everybody know that The Devil's Bait, which I didn't initially submit to the traditional publishers because I wanted to test the e-book waters with a new novel, as well as a reprint and a story collection, will now be joining the ranks of my print books. It's coming from a small, L.A.-based publisher called Malevolent Books. It'll make its world debut at this year's Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, and it'll be available from some bookstores (signed copies from Mysterious Galaxy) and online via Indiebound.

The cover's below. If you've been waiting because, like me, you simply prefer physical books printed on paper, wait no more. It's a nice trade paperback edition, retailing for $14.95.

And just as a reminder, here are excerpts some of its reviews:

"I’m not much into the banking world, no matter that I have a degree in Business Management and have taken lots of Accounting courses, I still don’t get stocks, bonds, etc… No worries, The Devil’s Bait isn’t “stuffy”. It is a fast paced, exciting, funny, suspenseful read!" and "With a not seen coming turn of events closing the book out, The Devil’s Bait is a thriller that will not disappoint.  I can’t wait to read this novel again, I enjoyed it that much!!"  --Jennifer at Can't Put it Down!

"The entire book was intense.  I felt scared for Jessie because she was forced to hide.  She was on her own.  She had no one to trust.  She had to hide from her life, her job, the government, and everything important to her.  Her bosses, the government, and Richard Steele were all after her, they wanted her dead.  She had to rely on herself to find safety.  This book reminds me that evil does not win.  If you like mystery and suspense, you will enjoy The Devil’s Bait."  --Stephanie at BeautyBrite.

And the first review was from regular blog reader and commenter Randy Johnson--thanks, Randy!--who wrote in part: "What we have here is a fast-paced thriller. Jessie, while unused to violence, is a capable young woman in the world of banking. She’s willing to learn though. Her mercenary handles that end for awhile. The pair decide to take a pro-active approach to dealing with Steele and his hired killers. You get a lot of exotic locals as they move around, one step, though not always, ahead of an army of Steele’s killers, working Jessie’s magic in finance.

"All she wants is her normal life back.

"Nice, tight thriller, with several twists thrown in along the way. One perhaps I should have figured, though Mariotte disguised it nicely as the story flows along. I was surprised and pleased with this one."

The e-book will remain available, too, at its regular low, low price. So if you haven't read it, order yourself an e-book, a paperback, or both. Tell a friend. Write a review at whatever bookstore site you bought it. Spread the word!

Because, really, some authors are getting rich. Wouldn't it be nice if I was, too?

 

Arizona at 100, John Severin at 90

 

Years before I moved to southeastern Arizona, I set a western/horror comic book miniseries called Desperadoes: Quiet of the Grave there. The characters in the Desperadoes series had come together in New Mexico, but they were on the run and moved around a lot. In an Arizona town called Luttrell, on the Mexican border, they found peace for a little while. Luttrell was a real place, though it only had that name for a while and was more commonly known as Lochiel. Now it’s a ghost town, and Lochiel is still the name on the maps. During the course of Quiet of the Grave, some of the characters travel from Luttrell to the town (also a ghost town, now) of Shakespeare, New Mexico. I didn’t know then that one of the routes they might take to get to Shakespeare would lead them right past our beloved Flying M.

Quiet of the Grave was illustrated by an artist named John Severin, back in 2002—shortly after his 80^th birthday. His work was stunning: gorgeously drawn, incredibly detailed, with exquisite craftsmanship and storytelling. He had been drawing westerns (and other genres, including war comics, humor, and fantasy) since the 1940s. Still, he did the research he needed to do, and he was sufficiently detail-oriented that he once asked if it was okay if he gave one of the characters a different gun than a previous artist had used, because it suited the character better.

The way it came about was this. For around 20 years, John (who was one of the original artists on MAD Magazine) had been doing humor art for a MAD-type magazine called Cracked. During that time, he had pretty much quit the mainstream comics business. But one day he was on the phone with an editor at WildStorm Productions named Scott Dunbier, and he said he’d like to get back into doing comic book work. I happened to pass by Scott’s office around the time he finished the call, and Scott told me the gist of the conversation. By then, WildStorm imprint Homage Comics had published a 5-issue Desperadoes miniseries and a 44-page one-shot, and I said something like, “Wouldn’t it be cool to have a Desperadoes story by Severin?” To which Scott’s reply was something like, “That’s what I was thinking.”

We had to act quickly, because if John was coming back onto the market, he would surely have some offers soon. We overnighted him the existing Desperadoes stories. I went home that night, plotted a 4-issue miniseries, and wrote it up. The next day, we faxed that document to John. He read through the outline and the comics and said yes.

I was, can I just say, over the moon. John Severin had been a lifelong favorite. Because he’d been out of the business, I never thought there was a ghost of a chance of working with him. Suddenly, it all came together, and every six weeks, he delivered a full issue, penciled and inked, as good as anything he had ever done. Simply beautiful comic book art.

Fast forward. We moved to southeastern Arizona and discovered that the places I had been writing about were now the place we lived. John went on to do more great work, including a terrific Bat Lash miniseries written by my compadre Peter Brandvold.

Fast forward again. Today, February 14, 2012, is the 100^th birthday of our adopted state. How often in a lifetime does one get to experience his or her state’s Centennial? Here’s a hint—if you haven’t done it yet, move to Alaska or Hawaii before 2059, because those will be your last chances.

Yes, yes, it’s also Valentine’s Day. But that comes every year. So does Statehood Day. But the Centennial? Once. Only once.

Only, on top of that joy comes heartbreak, because word came today that John Severin has died, at the age of 90, surrounded by his family.

John was one of the best the medium has ever known, with an immediately identifiable style and a work ethic that never wavered. His work was, to the very end, an example of how good comics can be.

Working with John was the thrill of a lifetime, an experience that will never be matched or forgotten. I have rarely been so proud. But today, today...

The state I have come to love is 100, and congratulations to it, and to us. Arizona made 100, and goes on.

John only made 90, but his art will live forever.

The Confluences of Creativity

So, yesterday I went to see new movie The Grey, largely because I wanted to see how closely its story veered to the plot of a horror novel that I recently pitched (with a positive response from an editor at a very cool house) that also happens to include wolves as a major element. My story is one I've been kicking around for years and years--it originally began as a comic book pitch, but eventually I decided that it would work better as a novel. Now--in the next few weeks--I will finally begin writing it.

And of course, that's when a studio finally releases a wolf-oriented horror movie.

Sometimes, that's just how it goes. Ideas float out there in the ether, and eventually they're picked up and developed, and it doesn't mean anybody stole anything from anybody else. It just happens that way.

Which makes it doubly strange that, at The Grey, I saw a preview for something called Lockout.

Now, backtrack to 2002. I was asked to contibute a novella to a Star Trek e-book line called Starfleet Corps of Engineers (SCE). This was the first project I wrote as an original e-book, and it was later collected in a paperback with some other tales (and named after my novella: Star Trek SCE: No Surrender). In the novella, the crew of the SCE ship Da Vinci is sent to deal with a situation on an orbital prison, which has come loose of its moorings and appears to be dropping toward the planet below. At the same time, a team of Federation diplomats, and the daughter of a convicted terrorist (who was once a close friend of Da Vinci captain David Gold--in fact, he was the daughter's godfather) are visiting the prison. And the prisoners have escaped their cells and taken over the orbital platform.

Here's IMDB's brief plot synopsis of Lockout: "A man wrongly convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage against the U.S. is offered his freedom if he can rescue the president's daughter from an outer space prison taken over by violent inmates."

There are definite similarities, judging by the trailer. There's an innocent daughter on board an orbital prison that has been taken over by its inmates. The prison appears to be dropping toward the nearest planet. The solution is to send in someone from outside, who first has to figure out how to get past a highly secure prison's defenses, then to try to rescue the innocent. Of course, there are also obvious similarities to Escape from New York, etc.

I'm not saying someone in Hollywood read No Surrender and decided to adapt it into a movie, without paying for it (and of course, it belongs to Paramount, so even if they had paid for it I wouldn't necessarily know). I think that happens far less often than what I described above--similar ideas, floating about (or suspended on those theoretical strings of string theory fame). When my novel comes out, it won't have stolen from The Grey. Lockout didn't steal from me. Ideas happen, and convergence happens.

Plus, in the Lockout preview, somebody literally says, "He's the best there is. But he's a loose cannon."

I would never write such a cliched line. And even if I had, I wouldn't put it in the trailer. That's where you want your best stuff!

 

All You Need to Know About Jan Brewer

Arizona's governor, Jan Brewer, has been in the headlines a lot lately, because of a picture circulating through the media showing her blatantly disrespecting the President of the United States, and the office of the presidency.

This happened, apparently, because Brewer had a meeting with the president a while back, which, when it happened, she described as "very cordial." Then, when she decided to "write" a book--and quotations are used because anyone who's listened to Brewer speak for more than two minutes knows that she and the English language are not on amicable terms--she changed her tune, describing the president as "condescending" and "patronizing." According to her version of events, she met him on the airport tarmac when he arrived in Arizona recently, to give him a hand-written letter inviting him to go to the border with her, and he jumped all over her about the description of their meeting in her book. Or she asked him if he read it--her version of events changed multiple times during her subsequent retellings of it. Which is pretty much the point of this post--to introduce her fact-free reign to those who might not be fortunate enough to live in Arizona and have only seen her from a distance.

Basically, Jan Brewer is a seemingly pathological liar, the kind who won't tell the truth even if it serves her best to do so. Nor can she admit to her lies, so she always sends staff out to "explain" what she really mean.

About the tarmac incident, Brewer said that she felt "threatened," and that the president walked away while she was in the middle of a sentence. Now, I've seen her leave gaps in the middle of her sentences that stretch on unbearably, so that doesn't seem too unreasonable. But in fact, there were two other people present at the scene, the Republican mayor of Mesa and the Democratic mayor of Phoenix, and they both say it didn't happen that way. According to Talking Points Memo.com:

"'There was no sense that he was running to or from anything,' Smith [Mayor Scott Smith of Mesa] told TPM. In fact, he said, the president stayed and had a pleasant conversation with Smith, who’s a Republican, and Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton, a Democrat."

Brewer said the president was "tense to say the least." But Greg Stanton says, "He wasn’t tense at all. The guy’s a pro.”

The interviews she gave did wonders for her book sales, though. And apparently that's very important to her. So important, in fact, that last October she formed a PAC, which she said would raise money to battle illegal immigration, and to take on other causes she believes in. So far, according to the PAC's financial statements, she's raised about $22,000, and all she has done with the money is buy her own book from Amazon (not even from local bookstores, which would keep her money and taxes in her own state). She also made a trip to Florida, and spent $624 for a single night in a swank hotel room, in a city that she spells as "Orlanda."

There are plenty of little lies in Brewer's recent history. She cynically uses the border issue for political purposes, claiming that people near the border live in fear (I live near the border, and that's flatly not true), making dishonest claims of "headless bodies" being discovered in Arizona's deserts (in her words, "Our law enforcement agencies have found bodies in the desert, either buried or just lying out there, that have been beheaded.”) and using the murder of a local rancher--probably by drug smugglers, but almost certainly not by random border crossers, since after the murder the killer raced right back across the border) to push for votes for her signature legislation, SB1070, a bill written by the private prison industry to benefit the private prison industry (who just happen to be major Brewer backers and associates). She fired the "independent" head of Arizona's redistricting commission because she didn't like the results that were coming from the commission--and when asked about it, couldn't even come up with a single reason for the firing. "I wish I had the letter I wrote," she said--because, since someone else no doubt wrote it, she could have checked it for reasons that were, at least, in English if not sensible. At any rate, the courts quickly decided the firing had no basis whatsoever and was illegal, and the commissioner was restored to her post.

But her most egregious lie to date has to be her disgusting use of her own father's death to support her political goals. After she signed SB1070, protestors sometimes compared her to a Nazi. That's unpleasant rhetoric, but since the bill basically requires law enforcement to round up people because of suspicions about their national origins, it's not that far from the mark. But Brewer objected to the characterization, saying, "The Nazi comments . . . they are awful. Knowing that my father died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany, that I lost him when I was 11 because of that . . . and then to have them call me Hitler's daughter. It hurts. It's ugliness beyond anything I've ever experienced."

In fact, her father died in 1955, in California, of a lung disease. Sent out to explain this most horrible of lies, her staff explained that she believes he developed the lung disease while working at a munitions depot during the war. Which is, you know, exactly the same thing as dying while fighting Nazis in Germany.

So, lying about murdering, beheading hordes of illegal immigrants, about the President of the United States, about how she'll spend her own PAC money--not to mention all the policy issues she's forced on Arizona while telling us it's for our own good, like slashing public education and colleges--aren't enough for her, but this woman will actually lie about her own father's death if she can score a momentary political point.

Her term as governer ends in 2014, which is a long time to wait.With luck, she'll never run for another political office as long as she lives. Any vote for her is a vote in favor of blatant dishonesty and the most repulsive and cycnical revulsion to the facts. Not to mention plain, old-fashioned idiocy.

Please...can't someone make her retire? She could "write" some more books and become fabulously wealthy, and stop destroying our state from within!

 

 

Westward Weird, Coming Soon

The anthology Westward Weird, edited by Kerrie Hughes and the late Marty Greenberg, goes on sale Feb. 7 at better bookstores across the US (I have no idea what its international rights situation is, but I'm hoping it'll be on sale everywhere).

It's discussed briefly in this article on Tor.com, which also describes several other genre-bending books coming out next month. Give it a read! And be sure you get your copy of Westward Weird right away, and let me know what you think of my story "Black Train."

 

Deadlands: Black Water Reviews

As I mentioned recently, my latest comic book to hit the stands is the one-shot Deadlands: Black Water, based on the popular Wester/horror/steampunk RPG.

Some reviews have shown up online, some positive and some negative. I've never heard of any of the reviewers, but here they are (with brief excerpts--click the links for the whole things):

"First taste of Deadlands and it tasted real good!

I like the one shots to get a bit of a feel for what a series is about.  I really liked this one and the character of Lyle Crumbfine.  A cowpoke guide who knows his way around the Maze.  The Maze is a place of wild and danger.  Lots of folks go in and never come out. Weird things like Maze dragons and whirlpools make travel hard but those are just a start."

http://www.comicbooknewbie.com/index.php/deadlands-black-water-shot-review/

"When I saw that Jeff Mariotte was doing a supernatural western I had to check it out. I loved Desperadoes, and miss it. I don’t know anything about Deadlands, except it’s a supernatural themed western RPG. So this was something had to check out.

I’m not disapointed.

But I am."

http://www.kittyspryde.com/?p=33419

"Then there are those times I read comics like Deadlands: Black Water and opine the sad fate often befalling the One Shot: not enough space to tell the story fully, no followup issues to spell out the obtuse into clarity."

http://www.zomboscloset.com/zombos_closet_of_horror_b/2012/01/deadlands-black-water.html

And finally, the inexplicable:

"Its no surprise that this book was created. The weird western genre, boosted by recent steampunk influences, has made a minor comeback in comics. It’s also no surprise that, as a licensed product, it mostly falls short. Licenses that start their lives as tabletop games rarely make a splash in other media.

Image’s site calls the creative teams behind these Deadlands books “comics superstars.” It’s clear from reading the books that, while these talented writers and artists know how to get paid to create licensed property tie-ins, superstars they are not. Even Mariotte’s Wikipedia page states he “is best known for writing novels and comic books based on licensed properties.'"

http://rationsmag.com/2012/01/12/deadlands-black-water/

 

The Devil's Bait--News and Reviews

There's a brand-new review of The Devil's Bait online today. The reviewer, Jennifer, calls the book "a fast paced, exciting, funny, suspenseful read," and concludes, "The Devil’s Bait is a thriller that will not disappoint.  I can’t wait to read this novel again, I enjoyed it that much!!"

The full review is here. Give it a read.

And soon, news about the print edition of The Devil's Bait--coming this spring, with some travel in the works to promote it!

NPR Visits THE SLAB

Every now and then, some other reporter discovers Slab City and brings it up. Those of us who love the place never tire of the stories, but we wish that every now and then they'd also dig deeply enough into the subject to report that it's been featured in  books (like The Slab) and movies and TV shows. Now it's NPR's turn.

Jesse Kelly: Stupid Is As Stupid Duhs

In 2010, in the heat of the Tea Party wave that swept such world-class geniuses as Rand Paul and Alan West into Washington, there were a few politicians who were just too extreme or too mentally incompetent to win election. One of those, running against Gabrielle Giffords, here in southeastern Arizona, was a guy named Jesse Kelly.

Now, I would never say that Jesse Kelly is too dumb to hold political office. The Texas Governor's mansion has some incredibly low intellectual standards, for instance. But Jesse Kelly is, by far, the dumbest politician I've ever seen open his mouth in person.

If he ever had a chance of winning national office, that Tea Party wave was it. But Jesse couldn't cut it, even then. Now that Gabby is leaving Congress to focus on her recovery, he has announced his intention to run again.

For those not "fortunate" enough to have seen Jesse in action, I can only give you some examples, and maybe a metaphor or two. Jesse's intellectual role model is Moose, from the Archie comics--and I don't mean if Moose was a real guy. I mean some lines and blobs of color on a piece of paper.

I saw Jesse in a debate with Gabrielle Giffords, though "debate" isn't really the right word for an event at which one person was talking about the real world and one about a world that never existed outside his imagination. On the stage of a public high school in a military town, Jesse delivered his best zinger--and you could see how proud he was of getting the words in the right order: "The government has never created a single job!"

Now, this was in a city called Sierra Vista, home to Fort Huachuca. Fifteen thousand people iin this city of 50-60,000 are employed directly by the fort. Those who aren't are largely employed by the various local and state schools, county government, or Border Patrol, or they're employed in industries that serve those government employees. 99% of the households in the city contain someone in them who works for the government directly or indirectly, and of the other 1%, the households on each side of them do.

And Jesse himself has never, as an adult, collected a paycheck that didn't come from the government. He was a US Marine (and an Iraq War vet, and I salute his government-employed service there), and then he came home and went to work for the family business, which is a construction company that builds and repairs sewer lines. You know who buys sewer lines, don't you? Jesse doesn't.

But he's not just stupid, he's also hateful. Jesse warned us, as election day neared, that the Democrats were planning to bus people in from Mexico to vote. Now, where he got that idea, nobody knows, because the Democrats certainly hadn't thought of it. In fact, it would be impossible for a Mexican to just walk up to a polling place and vote, and even more impossible for him to step off a bus of other Mexicans and vote. Now, it is possible that Jesse was too stupid to understand the realities, but it's more likely that he just  wanted to stir up distrust of any American citizens of Hispanic descent (of whom there are many in southern Arizona) who might have showed up at the polls.

So Jesse is barely intellectually capable of tying a shoe, but he's going to run for Congress again. In a year that definitely will NOT see a Tea Party wave. That might just be his worst decision yet.

In the meantime, Gabby and her friend, Republican congressman Jeff Flake, have just introduced what will be Gabby's final bill, to increase penalties on drug smugglers who use small aircraft to bring drugs across the border. Like the one that dropped a load on the property next to mine, a couple of years ago. Because Gabby and Mr. Flake know what kinds of vehicles bring what kinds of objects across borders--unlike Mr. Kelly.

If you know Jesse, tell him to give up his pipe dream and stay home. His moment came, he wasn't up to it, and he lost. Going out in public again will only embarrass the teachers who allowed him to pass second grade.

 

 

The Slab is Free

For a limited time only, you can pick up The Slab as a free e-book.

As I mentioned a few days ago, I enrolled The Slab in the Kindle Select program, so people can check it out, as in a library. Part of the deal is that Amazon allows you to offer any Kindle Select book for free, for five days during the 90-day window. My five days start now.

I've always been up front with my readers, so I have to say this. Giving away multiple copies of a book that I worked on for a long time, writing and rewriting and revising and polishing, sweating and giving myself finger cramps, is not an easy thing to do. I'm a professional writer, and part of that deal is that the writer should be paid for the work. And The Slab is a big book, a little over 123,000 words.

But the idea, as I understand it, is that by giving the book away for free for a limited time, lots more people will give it a try than otherwise might have. Some of them will like it, will write reviews, will tell friends. So, ideally, at the end of the five days, the book will be in greater demand than it was at the beginning. I hope that's the case.

Since its initial publication in the illustrated trade paperback, it has received a great deal of praise from many different sources. It has inspired people to go check out Slab City and the Salton Sea for themselves (and in at least one case, inspired another book--my pal Weston Ochse set his horror novel Empire of Salt there after he visited).

Here are some other excerpts from reviews, in case you're not yet convinced:

"If you lived through the aftermath of 9/11, you'll recognize the tense confusion of the period immediately following. If you've loved someone with Alzheimer's, you'll appreciate the full-fledged characterization of someone dealing with its limitations on a day-to-day basis. If you've ever lost a loved one and grieved deeply, and if you've ever had a change of heart about what's right and what's wrong, this book will hit you where you live--and take you on a thrill ride through space and time (and a cave filled with man-eating mushrooms), each in good time." -- Red Tash

"This is a must read for all horror/thriller lovers" -- Brittany Carrigan

"I found The Slab to be an entertaining, thought-provoking and gripping read." -- Paul Dail

Note: there's also a brand new, Slab-Centric interview with me at Paul's blog. Give it a read.

"If you have ever read and enjoyed those epic horror novels from the 70's and 80's (think Dan Simmons work) where you were immersed in a sprawling world of rich characterization, smart plotting, and enough sub plotting where the horror was deliberately episodic and horrifying, The Slab will be the perfect read for you." -- TT Zuma at HorrorWorld.org

"The Slab is one of those books that transports back to a time when you first started to fall in love the genre. It reminds of some of the great horror novels of the '80's. That's not to say the novel feels dated, not by any means. What I'm trying to say, remember those books that had a a roller-coaster fun heart, with a huge cast of characters, that kept you turning each page undr the covers long after your parents told you to go to sleep." -- Ginger Nuts of Horror blog

"Mariotte manages both thought-provoking juxtaposition and lizard-brain satisfaction as he plays out the large cast of characters across this hard and relentless landscape. His serial killers are just original enough to catch readers by surprise and he neatly ties together the threads of random magic, post-traumatic stress syndrome, a subtle supernatural invasion and an upper-class attack on a lower class landscape." -- Rick Kleffel

And, not reviews but blurbs upon the original publication:

"In The Slab, Mariotte grabs the reader's mind bare-handed and drags you through the unraveling of human interactions. It's insightful, potent, powerful--and downright creepy. Not only is The Slab a microcosm of the dark side of human nature, it's also a ripping good thriller." -- Kevin J. Anderson, bestselling author of Terra Incognita, The Saga of Seven Suns, and the Dune books.

"Mariotte is an author with vision. His prose is striking, his plots involving, his characters identifiable. He knows how to move an audience--and how to strike absolute terror in their hearts. If you're not reading his work, you should be. I highly recommend The Slab."
--Scott Ciencin, bestselling author of The Vampire Odyssey

So if for some reason you haven't yet read this classic of contemporary horror, there'll never be a better (cheaper) time.

And, as they say on TV:

But wait, there's more!

If you want to take advantage of the offer but you don't have a Kindle or the free Kindle-for-PC software, forward your Amazon receipt to me at jmariotte@aol.com and tell me how you'd like it. I can supply it in ePub or PDF. And one person who sends me their receipt, chosen by me at random, will receive a free signed copy of the original illustrated trade paperback.

Tell a friend. Spread the word.

And thanks.