Dispatches from the Flying M

Harper Lee

According to Publisher's Weekly, Harper Lee will be a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Monday for her outstanding contribution to American literature, To Kill A Mockingbird.  It's well-deserved--it's one of the best novels ever written, in our language or any other, and is deservedly the best selling novel of all time, with 30 million copies sold, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

Hearty congratulations to Ms. Lee, and to President Bush for bestowing this honor upon her.

Happy Halloween

We love Halloween, here at the Flying M.  Sadly, we're so far out of town that we don't get trick-or-treaters here.  But one doesn't have to read very far in my books to get the sense that I'm drawn to the dark side, the supernatural, ghosties and ghoulies and things that might try to eat your brains.

Tonight, though, we'll be spending Halloween at a hotel near the airport, because our flight for Saratoga Springs, NY, leaves at 6:30 in the morning, and the airport is two hours from home. It seems unlikely we'll get door-to-door trick-or-treaters at the airport, but maybe we'll see some en route.  The ranch and dogs will have plenty of company while we're gone, so they won't get lonely.

Tomorrow night, we'll be at the World Fantasy Convention.  I have a handful of meetings, meals, etc., the annual black tie dinner my agent throws for his esteemed clients, a  mass signing Saturday evening, and the World Fantasy Awards banquet, at which the awards that the other judges and I spent so much time and effort on earlier this year, reading and arguing about somewhere around 200-250 books, plus short stories, magazines, art, etc.  We did our best, and came up with winners who truly represent the finest fantasy accomplishments of the year.  After the banquet on Sunday is the annual Judges' Panel, the only panel I'm on this year, at which we defend our decisions against everyone who thinks we're idiots.  Should be fun.

If you happen to be at the con (hi, Cousin Maria!) look me up.  And have a delicious, spooky Halloween!

Featured blog

So it's late in the day, but I've been out of the house.  I wanted to let loyal readers know that Dispatches from the Flying M is TypePad's featured blog for the day.  It's a great honor, and much appreciated.  And to new readers, welcome aboard--I hope you'll keep coming back and join the Flying M community.

To see the feature, click where it says Powered by TypePad over there on the left of the page.  But hurry...!

Speaking of reviews

As I was in the Supernatural post, below, and earlier in reference to Graveslinger, it occurred to me that I didn't link to Missing White Girl reviews, of which there are a few online.

Two were posted at Mysterious Galaxy, and appeared in the store's print newsletter.  That's a friendly source, obviously, but they were written by guest reviewers, not staff.  And regular readers of this blog know that I don't shy away from sharing the bad reviews as well as the good.  If you want pure promotion, that's what my official website is for, but this blog is a little more open and direct.

On this page is a review by Friend O' the Flying M and fine thriller writer J. Carson Black. Among other things, she says, "Missing White Girl is one of the best books I’ve read this year."

Here's one by friend and long-time MG customer Anne Cox, a serious horror fan.  Anne began her review by writing, " I loved this book! I found myself getting lost in the story and, like most of us who read more than one book at a time, I had to finish Missing White Girl before anything else because it kept invading what I was reading."

There are a couple of reviews on Amazon, too.  Friend O' the Blog Johnny Crow wrote, "There is quite a bit of history packed in these pages, as well as wonderful information about the southwest. The book gives you a real look at an area rarely written about in novels and does so with no apologies and with well researched information. The book makes me smile, at times, because it reminds me of the southwest (a part of the country I grew up in) not only in its descriptiveness but also its language unique to the environment." But April Bishop didn't care for it: "The author's website regarding this book was what drew my attention to it; however, now I feel disappointed and irritated that I wasted my time reading it."

Well, we never want anyone's time to be wasted here at the old Flying M Ranch.  That's why I show you where to find the reviews I know are online, and leave it up to you to make up your own mind. Give the book a read, if you haven't yet, and let the world know what you think.

Supernatural: Witch's Canyon

Supernatural: Witch's Canyon, my tie-in novel to the CW TV series, goes on sale today, theoretically "everywhere" (as long as that's defined as within the continental U.S.).  If you're a horror fan or a fan of the show, look for it wherever you buy books.

Here's what it says on the back of the book:

"Sam and Dean have set out on a road trip to the Grand Canyon, but this is no vacation for the brothers. On a stretch of deserted ranchland just beyond the canyon's stunning vistas, mysterious murder sprees have occurred every forty years. The area's inhabitants have been few and far between in years past, but a nearby mega-mall is about to celebrate its grand opening--and attract thousands of fresh victims.

"The Winchester boys are determined to protect locals and shoppers alike, but they never anticipated they'd be fighting a group of killers this vicious, this vindictive, this . . . dead. A deadly horde of animal spirits and human ghosts has arisen to terrorize this tiny corner of the Arizona desert. If Sam and Dean can't figure out why, the wide-open spaces of the West will once again become a desolate frontier . . . and the witch's canyon will be the brothers' final resting place."

Here's the cover, so you know what you're looking for (and yes, those are Joshua trees, found in the Mojave desert--not near the Grand Canyon, behind the boys).  Authors don't make these decisions...

When there are reviews, I'll let you know.

UPDATE 8:55 pm: After a quick perusal of some area bookstores, it looks like the book may not have hit stores everywhere today after all--but it should be showing up soon.  Keep your eyes peeled...

River Runs Red

Today I turned in the manuscript of supernatural thriller/horror novel River Runs Red to my editor at Berkley/Penguin. I assume it'll be published under the Jove imprint, as Missing White Girl was, but I don't know that for a fact yet.  It's somewhat longer than MWG--this draft is 110,000 words, as opposed to MWG's 91,000.  I tend to like novels that immerse me into a new and different world and keep me there for a while, so I guess that's what I'm writing, too.

According to my computer, I started the book on June 4, 2006.  I didn't work straight through on it, of course.  That was when I first created a document to keep notes and thoughts that eventually became an outline.  I began the actual first chapter on November 27, 2006, wrote three chapters and a detailed outline, and my agent sold the book on the basis of those chapters.  I wrote several other novels during the course of working on RRR, but have been on it almost exclusively for the past several months.

Now that it's gone, I'll be devoting my full attention, instead of my scattered attention, to the third 30 Days of Night novel.

Here's the first line (and first paragraph) of RRR:

Lawrence Ingersoll intended to take the night off from death.

You can read the rest sometime next year.

Spider-Man

I'll be writing a Spider-Man novel early next year, after I wrap up the third 30 Days of Night novel with Steve Niles.  I've been doing lots of Spidey reading and research, and am delighted that my friend Steve Saffel's long-awaited Spider-Man nonfiction book is out (although I don't have my copy yet).  It's called Spider-Man: The Icon, and you can learn much more about the book at its website.  If you're a webhead, you've got to have a copy!

Today's Ranch Rescue

When there were no bunnies in the dog corral this morning (yesterday there were two that had to be chased out before the dogs could go in) I should have known something else would come up.  The rule of country living is that something new and different happens almost every day.

As I've mentioned here before, we leave a back gate to our back pasture open so that livestock can graze it at will, since we don't have any that do, and it gets seriously out of control if not munched down from time to time.  A couple of days ago, we had a cow back there.  This morning, as I was working outside, the same cow was out mooing up a storm.  When it had gone on for a couple of hours, I finally went to see what was troubling her (and maybe to score some instant fertilizer while I was there, for a planting project of Maryelizabeth's). 

I got close and found that she was actually outside the pasture fence instead of inside, this time.  But as I neared her, she didn't move away, which is very unusual.  Closer still, I found the reason for the commotion.  Her calf--a very young one--was inside the fence.  The calf was adorable, but none too bright, and failed to understand that if it couldn't get through the barbed wire fence in one spot, it wouldn't be able to a couple of feet away, either.

Which left it up to me.  I got behind it and started herding it along the fence, toward the open gate, through amaranth and cockleburrs and other thorny vegetation no one had yet eaten.  I had to continually pull its head back out of the fence, when it tried yet again to go through, and keep pushing its haunches to keep it moving.  Yelling "Git along, little dogie" didn't actually seem to help.  And whenever it decided I was too close to it, it would kick me with its back legs.  Not that smart or appreciative.

Finally, only ten feet of clear space separated it from the gate, and its mother, who had kept pace with us outside the fence.  The calf started running.  To the fence, where it once again stuck its head between the strands.  I moved it away and herded it through the gate.  Finally, it rushed to Mom's side and nuzzled her, and after a minute the two bovines wandered away.

Having wrangled my dogie, I waded back through the stabby, thorny stuff and got my shovel so I could scoop up my only reward, other than the satisfaction of not having Mom cow mooing anymore.

One has to wonder what tomorrow might bring...

Graveslinger #1 Reviews

Reviews are showing up for Graveslinger #1, the first issue of the new comic book series I'm writing with Shannon Eric Denton.  For the most part, the critics are kind.  Here's a sampling:

This book is so good, you'll be shakin' the trail sweat off you after you read it!
secret identity podcast.com

Graveslinger is a very cool comic, and better yet it's smoothly written, superbly rendered, and, because it's Image, appears a higher quality product than any DC or Marvel book on the shelf.  Zombies and gunslingers: "How can you top that?" most would likely say, as if these two elements were enough to promote a book.  But seriously, in this day and age, with zombie-this and western-that; with six-gun samurai and zombies in space; with high-noon showdowns between bionic beings and undead comic book universes…can the mere existence of horror and western genres really be enough to suggest a work as worthwhile anymore?  We're a little inundated with the stuff these days, and with so much to therefore choose from, we can—perhaps for the first time in fanboy history—indeed be choosey ("I don't want that zombie-western book, I want that one!"  Did you ever think the day would come?).  Well, that day is here, and what can be said about Graveslinger is this: it is the zombie-western book you want, and not whatever other zombie and/or westen that's competing for your time.

Dave Baxter, Broken Frontier

But because writers Shannon Eric Denton and Jeff Mariotte have grounded themselves fully in Western conventions, they’re able to riff off them in unusual ways, without ever losing the story’s direction, adding layers of mystery to Timmons.
Rack Raids

Of course, not everyone likes anything...

You really don't need to bother with this one, despite the fact that it does tackle the genre from a slightly fresh angle. Wait for the next promising concept and see if that one takes off.
Richard George, IGN

If you haven't picked up the first issue yet, now's the time to do so--and then you can decide for yourself which one's right!

Give some rice

Watching the news about the disaster in southern California, I was reminded how good most of us have it most of the time.  We have homes in which to watch the news, and TVs to watch it on, and books and music and other good things around us.

Suddenly, for some of our friends in San Diego, that's no longer true.

And while there's certainly too much poverty in the United States, there are other countries in which great percentages of the population have never had those things, and probably never will.

Here's a fun way to improve your vocabulary and donate rice to hungry people around the world.

And if you'd like to make a donation to help those in southern California, you can do so through the Red Cross.