Kickin' The Willy Bobo With: CHUCK MILLER

Derrick Ferguson: Who is Chuck Miller?

Chuck Miller: Someone who can make the best of a bad situation, and the worst of a good one.

DF: Where do you live and what do you do to keep yourself in cheese and crackers?

CM: I live in Norman, Oklahoma, and I have worked as a paralegal and in various capacities with a couple of different newspapers.

DF: Give us as much about your background as you’re legally able to tell us.

CM: Let me think a minute and see what isn't prohibited by the court order...

I was born in Ohio, and moved to Alabama when I was 10. I've got a BA in creative writing from the University of South Alabama, the only one that's ever been awarded from there. It was when I graduated, anyhow, and it may still be. They didn't offer creative writing as a degree major, but the chair of the English department decided that since I had been there for 11 years and none of us were getting any younger, they could go ahead and make an exception.

A few years ago, I was in a serious accident-- several broken bones, a collapsed lung, and other things. My recuperation was slow. That left me with a lot of time on my hands, and a glaring reminder of my own mortality to go with it. I decided that if I was ever going to get serious about writing, it was time to do it. That's sort of what brought this whole thing on.

DF: What is your philosophy about writing?

CM: The narrative voice is the most important thing. Whatever I might have to say, nobody's going to know about, unless I give them reason to enjoy it and engage with it.

DF: I describe your style of writing as what I imagine David Lynch would be writing if he were a New Pulp writer. How would you describe it?

CM: That's pretty good. I don't really know what I'd call it. I knew I wanted to do something different, something that hadn't been seen before, so I just kind of let my imagination wander. I bring a lot of different influences into it, and I can't name any particular one that stands out above the others. I draw on pulps, comics, and classic mysteries, as well as a few things you don't usually see in this genre, I think. Lots of movies. Writers like William S. Burroughs, Flannery O'Connor, Hunter S. Thompson, Joe Lansdale, Walter Mosley, Rex Stout, and quite a few more. "Kolchak: The Night Stalker," various sitcoms, and Little Lulu comics. I'm serious about that. The influence of John Stanley's Lulu stories is profound, particularly in the Vionna Valis & Mary Jane Kelly stories, but it's present with the Centipede as well, in the way some of the characters interact with one another.

DF: I first came across your website featuring THE BLACK CENTIPEDE a couple of years before your brought the character to Pro Se. When did you first create The Black Centipede and his universe?

CM: The whole thing started about twenty years ago. Some friends of mine and I wanted to do our own comic books, and I came up with several characters and situations. That whole thing never got off the ground. A few years later, I revived the idea and wrote a script. That was The Optimist, the story of Jack Christian, a former kid sidekick to a deceased superhero. That never went anywhere, either, but I held on to all the notes I made about the characters. The Black Centipede was originally conceived as a minor character in that series, a weird holdover from the age of the pulp heroes. What I had in mind was a sort of cross between William S. Burroughs and the Shadow.

More time passed, and when I finally decided to get serious about the writing, I naturally wondered what the heck I was going to write about. So I dug into my old notes and turned The Optimist into a short novel. I had no idea what to do with it, so I just posted it online for anybody to read for free. Very few did. A friend of mine suggested that people might be more likely to read a short story online than a whole novel, so I decided to give that a try. The main character didn't really lend himself to that, though, so I picked one of the supporting cast-- The Black Centipede. I did a short story called "Wisconsin Death Trip," in which our hero becomes embroiled in some bizarre events surrounding a peculiar little man named Ed Gein.

I was pleased with it, so I did some more, and posted them as well. The next one I did was a Black Centipede novella called Gasp, Choke, Good Lord! It's a tribute to the old EC horror comics, and the historical guest stars are Dr. Frederic Wertham and William M. Gaines. That one is still free and can be seen here:

http://theblackcentipede.blogspot.com/2013/12/hey-kids-whole-free-black-centipede.html

Then I did one featuring Vionna Valis and Mary Kelly. The stuff accumulated on my blog and people started paying attention to it. One of them was Tommy Hancock at Pro Se. He asked me if I thought I was ready to do a whole novel for them. I wasn't sure, but I said I was, and I did. That was Creeping Dawn: The Rise of the Black Centipede.

It was well-received, as was the follow-up, Blood of the Centipede. Both of them garnered a lot of positive reviews and comments, and I am now striving to bring The Centipede to the attention of even more readers in the wider world. I know there is a vast potential audience out there, and I'd love to connect with them and take a little of their money now and again. I think it's a good deal for both parties. Of course, it's always been more about ego than money with me, but money can do an ego a powerful lot of good. It's a tangible expression of admiration. I am working on totally revamping The Optimist for Pro Se.

DF: Who is The Black Centipede?

CM: The way I really see him is that he is me, if all restraints were removed. He behaves the way I would if I could get away with it. In some ways, he's kind of a shallow character-- he never indulges in self-doubt or self-recrimination. He is absolutely certain of himself at all times, and if he does make a mistake, he quickly corrects it and dismisses it from his mind.  He would rather die than pass up an opportunity to make a smart remark to someone. Frankly, he's more than a little unbalanced, but through sheer moxie he forces the world to accept him on his own terms. The former is certainly true of me, though the latter has been very problematical. So the Centipede is my fantasy-fulfillment in that regard. All of my major characters have been cobbled together out of bits and pieces I found lying around in my psyche. Jack Christian is closer to me as I actually am, while Vionna Valis could be called the "inner child," if you use terms like that. It's all psycho-drama, to a degree.

DF: The universe of The Black Centipede is populated with many colorful characters. Tell us about them.

CM: I have two other series that are part of my work for Pro Se Press, and both of them splinter off of The Optimist. Doctor Unknown Junior, the daughter of the Centipede's old sorcerer pal Doctor Unknown, has appeared in an issue of Pro Se Presents, and a novel is in the works. The first installment of The Incredible Adventures of Vionna Valis and Mary Jane Kelly will be out in the near future. I've seen the cover art, and I'm impressed. "Vionna and the Vampires" is also the first part of the "Moriarty, Lord of the Vampires" trilogy, which will continue in Black Centipede Confidential and the first Doctor Unknown Junior novel, The Return of Little Precious.

Vionna is a quirky and eccentric young woman whose past is something of a mystery. Mary Jane Kelly was, as some people will be aware, the last known victim of Jack the Ripper in 1888. She was resurrected in The Optimist, and ended up forming a partnership with Vionna. Together, they are the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee Psychic Detective Agency, specializing in unusual investigations involving paranormal phenomena.

Dr. Dana Marie Laveau Unknown, PhD, a/k/a Doctor Unknown Junior is a very powerful and nearsighted sorceress. She functions in the same capacity as pretty much any good-guy magic-user in the comics, defending the earth against all manner of supernatural threats. During the events recounted in The Optimist, she sustains a serious psychic injury and finds herself seriously de-powered. Jack Christian has become her assistant for the duration, and serves as her "Watson," producing first-person accounts of her adventures. Actually, he's more like Archie Goodwin than Watson. There are some personality clashes that go on between them, but they're working those out.

DF: What are your future plans for The Black Centipede?

CM: I'd like to keep him going for as long as I can. I have more than enough ideas to last for the remainder of my life and then some. He's been active for more than 80 years, so there's a lot to work with. I've been doing the novels in chronological order, and the third one only goes up to the end of 1933. I have a rather sketchy history worked out for him from then until the present day, and I may start skipping forward a lot more in the books. A major turning point in his life comes in 1972, when he falls from grace with a huge thud, and ends up becoming a wanted criminal once again. His long-standing feud with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover reaches a crisis point when the Centipede is accused of murdering him. Nixon is also an antagonist, and the Centipede goes underground to wage a covert war, which culminates in the Watergate scandal. That's all I have for that at present. At the rate I'm going, I won't have to worry about it until I'm 100.

DF: You seem to get a real kick out of mixing historical figures in with your fiction. Where does that come from?

CM: I've always been interested in history, and I really got a big kick out of Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld novels, in which everyone who ever lived was transported to this mysterious alien world. Various historical figures mix freely and have adventures as they try to unravel the riddle of the Riverworld. I also enjoyed Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series, where  "real" history is usurped and overlaid with this alien invasion scenario. So I thought about the kind of people someone like The Black Centipede would be likely to come into contact with.

I figured he'd have to have some excellent PR in order to avoid being arrested any time he showed himself in public, so I hooked him up with newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. Hearst is a rather shady character anyhow, and through a liberal application of bribes and wildly distorted news stories, he has made The Centipede into one of America's most beloved heroes. I also put him together with Amelia Earhart, whom I've always admired. She tries to act as a sort of moral compass for The Centipede, dissuading him from giving in to his more violent impulses-- sometimes through reasoning or nagging, sometimes at gunpoint, as she does during their first encounter in Blood of the Centipede. They form a sort of unofficial partnership. 

Amelia returns in the next book, Black Centipede Confidential, along with two new supporting cast members that I snatched out of the Public Domain: Gregor Samsa, the giant verminous protagonist from Franz Kafka's “The Metamorphosis”, and J. Alfred Prufrock, from the poem by T.S. Eliot. These two actually show up in the ongoing web serial, The Return of Doctor Reverso, as does another major new character, the faceless Russian assassin called Anonymoushka. She has quite a history, including some very interesting parentage, which is revealed in Confidential.

F. Scott Fitzgerald is the main historical guest star in the next novel, along with his wife, Zelda. Frank Nitti, who was a major character in Creeping Dawn, returns, as does Hearst. Lester Dent and Walter B. Gibson are also on hand, helping The Centipede bring down Professor James Moriarty, Lord of the Vampires. A certain beekeeper who lives on the Sussex Downs also plays a part in the proceedings. I won't give away any of the plot, except to mention that Moriarty's nefarious organization, the Order of the Sunless Circle, includes such luminaries as John Dillinger, Bonnie Parker, Clyde Barrow, Dr. Hawley Crippen, Stagger Lee, Pretty Boy Floyd, Doctor Herbert West, the Bell Witch and the Loch Ness Monster.

I'm also interested in crime history, so there's a lot of that. The Centipede's origin involves Lizzie Borden, and Jack the Ripper is a recurring character in the series. In fact, his arch-enemy (I call her that, though I've never shown them fighting-- usually quite the opposite), "Bloody" Mary Jane Gallows is the supernaturally-generated daughter of Lizzie and the Ripper. Mary Jane has become a much more sympathetic character than I originally intended for her to be, and appears as more friend than foe. But I've come up with a gimmick in Confidential that will give us the best of both worlds, and allow her to realize her full potential in both directions. That's all I'll say about that for now.

DF: You’ve recently introduced a new character, The Bay Phantom. What’s his deal?

CM: A couple years ago, I wrote a short story for a magazine that ended up never being published. It involved a 94-year-old former masked hero called The Bay Phantom, and what happens to him when his arch-nemesis, the 98-year-old Doctor Piranha, is released after spending 75 years in prison. It was a comedy with a fairly heartwarming ending. The publication I was writing it for had a sort of nautical theme, so I put the Phantom in a seaport town-- Mobile, Alabama, where I lived for many years. Janie Colson is an original character I salvaged from a fan fiction thing I did years ago. (The father whose name she never mentions is Carl Kolchak) It's too bad I can't use her in the current project, because I'm very fond of her. Of course, there's always time travel... As I say, that fell through, and the story languished. Eventually, I got the idea to do the same thing I did with The Black Centipede--go back in time to the character's heyday and present tales of some of his early experiences.

If you're interested, the original story can be enjoyed (or not) for free at this link:

http://theblackcentipede.blogspot.com/2013/03/introducing-bay-phantom.html

I'm working now on the first novel. I don't have a title yet. This is completely separate from The Black Centipede's world, and I'm working with a different publisher. The Phantom is almost the polar opposite of The Centipede, in fact-- very prim and strait-laced, he doesn't even say "damn" or "hell," and he gets rather pedantic at times, but he has an extremely dry sense of humor. I've been putting together a supporting cast, and it has four members so far, individuals who aid The Phantom in one way or another. 

The most important of these is Mirabelle Darcy, one of the nine most intelligent human beings in the world. I don't really know what that means, or who the other eight are-- the phrase just popped into my head and I liked the way it sounded. Her early years were not easy for her. Growing up black in the Deep South of the 1920s and 30s, she had to hide her light under a bushel to avoid trouble. But Joe Perrone-- The Bay Phantom-- had enough sense to appreciate her potential. By day, she is Perrone's housekeeper; by night, she is The Bay Phantom's most trusted confidante-- his "Alfred," and sometimes his "Kato" as well. In her spare time, she builds electron microscopes and helps Sigmund Freud fine-tune the science of psychoanalysis.

The Phantom has an excruciatingly strict moral code, and is a little bit naive about how the world really works. Mirabelle and his other helpers often do underhanded and illegal things behind his back to help him solve his cases. While there are not many overtly occult elements in the story, The Phantom does have a keen interest in unexplained phenomena, and is good friends with Charles Fort. The house he buys in Mobile to use as a headquarters is haunted by at least four ghosts, one of whom claims to be the emperor Caligula. In the first novel, The Bay Phantom faces a couple of bizarre criminals called the Werewolf and the Black Embalmer-- and the shadowy mastermind who pulls their strings. One thing this series has in common with The Black Centipede is the fact that virtually nothing is what it seems to be, and anything can happen.

DF: What’s A Day In The Life of Chuck Miller like?

CM: I usually rise at about one in the afternoon-- or later, depending on the extent of the previous night's hedonistic excesses-- and breakfast on caviar and champagne. Then it's off to the links for a few holes of golf and a few more martinis. After a late lunch at the Drones Club, I may take in an opera or a Broadway show.

Derrick Ferguson: Anything else we need to know?

Chuck Miller: I just had a Sherlock Holmes story published in Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective Vol. 5 from Airship 27, and I was very pleased about that, because it's been an ambition of mine for a while.

Just stay tuned, because I've got a lot going on in the coming year. I would like to encourage everyone to visit my blog or connect with me on Facebook:

http://theblackcentipede.blogspot.com/

https://www.facebook.com/chuckmillerauthor?ref=hl--

Derrick Ferguson Boxes With BAREFOOT BONES

File Size: 469 KB

Print Length: 110 pages

Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited

Publisher: Fight Card Books (August 14, 2013)

Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.

Language: English

ASIN: B00EKTX9MI

If the daytime Soap Opera ever makes a comeback, Bobby Nash could give up writing thrillers, New Pulp action adventures, science fiction and make a good living writing for them. Before you laugh yourself into a heart attack, let me explain. Soap Operas were excellent at making sure their characters were constantly miserable and unhappy with their lot in life. If anybody in a Soap Opera had so much as a minute of happiness, you knew it wasn’t going to last long.

Now, I don’t mean to call BAREFOOT BONES a Soap Opera at all. But what I am saying is that Bobby Nash (writing as Jack Tunney) does an outstanding job of making his hero miserable. Matter of fact, the first half of the book the protagonist is hit with one emotional sucker punch after another. This is a guy who’s life is so bad that it actually gets better when he enlists to fight in the Korean War.

James Mason is a broomstick thin kid living on the wrong side of the tracks in a small Georgia town. He and his mama are so poor he can’t even afford shoes. That and his painfully thin appearance earns him the nickname of “Barefoot Bones” and it’s a name the town bullies love to yell in his ears as they’re beating the living daylights out of him.

Things change when James is taken under the wing of Old Man Winters who teaches him how to box and control his temper, make it work for him in a fight. previously, James had thought of Old Man Winters as being just the town recluse who kept to himself. But James soon learns that there is far more to him. James and Old Man Winters even become friends and since James is now able to successfully defend himself against the bullies, his life starts to look a little better.

But that’s before James experiences several devastating tragedies and is forced to go on the run, living as best he can by stealing and begging until making his way to Chicago. And it’s when he meets Father Tim Brophy, the Battling Priest of St. Vincent’s Asylum For Boys that his story really gets going.

Bobby spends a considerable amount of wordage dealing with the sad childhood of James Mason and that might disappoint those who want to see more action in the ring. Oh, there’s plenty of that, don’t worry that you won’t get your share of boxing action in the ring. This is a Fight Card book after all and when it comes to depicting fight scenes in the ring, Bobby Nash delivers the goods. But what I think he’s going for here is telling the story of a young man whose real opponent is the crummy life he’s been given, a life that he fights every day. Compared to that, stepping into the ring with a flesh and blood opponent is gravy.

And to tell this story, Bobby does it in simple, uncomplicated prose. Since BAREFOOT BONES is told in first person, Bobby tells it in simple sentences, using simple words. It’s a very appropriate storytelling technique as our narrator is a boy/young man of limited education.

So should you read BAREFOOT BONES? Sure you should. If you’ve been reading the Fight Card series of books then you don’t have to be sold on this one. If you’ve never read a Fight Card book, this is a good one to start with. If you’re a fan of Bobby Nash who has read his other books then by all means read this. One of the pleasures of reading a Fight Card book is that you get to read a story by a writer like Bobby Nash who might never have written a boxing novel, or even thought about writing one. It’s a win-win situation all the way around for both the writer and the reader. He gets to stretch his creative muscles in a new direction and we get to read the results. Enjoy.

Kickin' The Willy Bobo With: PERCIVAL CONSTANTINE

Derrick Ferguson: Who is Percival Constantine?

Percival Constantine: I was born in Illinois and lived in the northwest suburbs of Chicago until shortly before my 25th birthday. While growing up, I subsisted on a pretty consistent diet of superhero comics, action movies, TV shows and video games, which I have to thank for warping my mind into its current state.

DF: Where do you currently reside and what do you do for a living?

PC: Currently I live in Japan’s Kagoshima prefecture. Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of it, most people outside of Japan haven’t. The claim to fame of this place is that it’s home to Shinmoe-Dake, which was used for the exterior shots of Blofeld’s volcano base in “You Only Live Twice”. At the moment, I teach English lessons in several elementary schools, but that will hopefully change in the near-future as I’ve been speaking with some local colleges about job prospects. I also write and edit, and I do the occasional comic book lettering job, all while pursuing my masters degree online. I’ve also started doing some cover design and book formatting, since apparently I’m not busy enough.

DF: How does it happen that a nice boy from the Midwestern U.S. finds himself teaching English in Japan?

PC: I always had an interest in Japanese culture, probably first caused by shows like “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “Power Rangers” that I watched while growing up, plus dubbed anime like “Dragonball Z” and video games like “Final Fantasy VII”. But what really cinched it was when I was in college, I became really interested in live-action Japanese movies—films by guys like Akira Kurosawa, Takashi Miike, Seijin Suzuki, Takeshi Kitano, Kinji Fukusaku, and others, plus the novels of Haruki Murakami. Around this same time, I discovered the JET (Japan Exchange & Teaching) Program, which invites people from native speaking countries to work in Japan as assistant language teachers in Japanese public schools for 1-5 years. I applied for the program, hoping to end up in a bustling metropolis like Tokyo or Osaka, but instead I got sent out to Kagoshima. At first I didn’t like it, and the plan was to return to the States after my first-year contract was up, but one year turned into three, then three into five, and now I’m in my sixth year in Kagoshima.

DF: Tell us as much about your background as you’re legally able to.

PC: Well, if it’s only stuff I’m legally able to discuss, that’s going to be a short story. As a kid, I fell in love with the “X-Men” animated series, and that led me to collecting comics—first X-Men, then later Avengers, and more and more titles, primarily Marvel. When I was around 10 years old, I had a few teachers who had us write stories as assignments, and I would write superhero stories, some of them featuring characters I was a fan of, some of them featuring my friends and I becoming superheroes. And that’s really what led to my desire to be a writer.

DF: What is your philosophy of writing?

PC: Don’t bore yourself or your readers. I’m very much from the school of thought of guys like Elmore Leonard, where it’s focused on characters and dialogue over description. My favorite rule from Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing is “avoid the parts readers tend to skip.” And not boring yourself also applies to what you’re writing in addition to how you write it. Write what you enjoy, regardless of whether it’s popular or marketable, and to hell with anyone who tells you otherwise.

DF: You actually intended to be a comic book writer and not a novelist. True?

PC: Absolutely true. Ever since I started writing, the goal was always to become a comic book writer. Outside of the stuff I created as a kid, my first serious attempts at writing my own original characters and ideas were written as comic book scripts, not novels. Many of them later became novels, but comics were always my first love.

But being a poor college student when I started writing meant my options for paying artists page rates were limited. I hooked up with a number of different artists for a number of different projects, but something always got in the way. Sometimes it was as simple as the artist getting offered a paying job, which naturally is fine—if you get offered a project for money as opposed to royalty sharing, then you should take that project. But what became really frustrating were the artists who would just plain stop answering emails. After about two or three instances where that happened, I decided to focus instead on prose.

I would still love to do more comics work, particularly for Marvel or DC. Those are the characters I grew up with, so getting the chance to write them professionally would be a dream come true. Don’t get me wrong, I also love doing my own thing, but it would be a lot of fun to work on my favorite characters.

DF: You enjoyed an extensive and successful career in writing DC and Marvel fan fiction. What are the benefits of writing fan fiction and what are the drawbacks?

PC: The biggest benefit is, provided you hook up with a constructive community, it’s one of the best training grounds you could ask for. It’s a lot easier to jump into a world and characters you grew up with and know inside and out than it is to come up with your own from scratch. I would not be the writer I am today if I didn’t spend my teenage and college years writing fanfic, that much I can guarantee. In that time, I learned a lot about characterization, description, dialogue, plot, and even editing. It also gave me confidence to eventually move beyond into original fiction.

The drawback is, of course, you won’t be able to make any money off it, nor do you own these characters you’re writing about. Fanfic is still frowned upon by a lot of people as a waste of time and energy. Of course, if you’re willing to put in the effort, you can take a story that began life as fanfic and turn it into something that’s all your own creation. I did that with my second novel, Chasing The Dragon, and it’s been done by other writers as well.

DF: You’ve done work for professional comic book companies as a letterer, haven’t you?

PC: I have. When I was initially putting together Love & Bullets as a comic book, I had found an artist, but a letterer was still out of reach, until the day I found the Ninja Lettering website. I followed their tutorials for using Adobe Illustrator to letter comics, did a number of practice pages, and then began lettering the first issue of Love & Bullets. To my surprise, I actually really enjoyed lettering, and so I began seeking out work. I lettered a number of submissions that were never picked up, and also did work for a few independent companies, most notably AC Comics. While lettering stories for their Femforce anthology comic, I developed a very good relationship with Mark and Stephanie Heike, the editors on that comic. That relationship led to my first published work-for-hire in the form of a finishing off the final two parts of a three-part story featuring their character of Threeta.

I still keep an eye on the various job boards for letterers, and if there’s something that catches my interest (and I have an opening in my schedule), then I’ll apply for it. I would like to do more of it, though.

DF: You’ve also tried your hand at screenwriting and film directing, correct?

PC: Also true. Screenwriting and comic writing are very closely related in a lot of ways, so I found it pretty easy to switch between the two, and movies were and still are a huge influence on me. During my undergraduate years, my minor was in mass media with a heavy focus on film studies and it was during that period that I did some directing work on some short student films. Only one was ever completed, and that was a short film called Russian Roulette, based on a short story written by a friend of mine named Anastasia Peters. 

She had asked me to critique the story and I thought it was incredible and while reading it, I kept picturing it playing out as a film and so I asked her if she’d let me adapt it. I had several friends who were skilled in different areas of film, so we came up with a script and shot the film in three days.

The masters degree I’m pursuing involves a screenwriting concentration, and I’d love to write and/or direct another project at some point in the future. It’s just a matter of finding the right idea for a script and all the necessary elements to translate the script into a movie.

DF: Your output is diverse. You’ve written Fantasy, Espionage Thrillers, Science Fiction, Pulp Action/Adventures. Is the diversity to keep your readers from getting bored or you?

PC: More to keep me from getting bored. The nice thing about New Pulp is that we’re not restricted by genre. We don’t have to stick to Horror or Crime or Sci-Fi or Fantasy. We can play in all these different areas, sometimes all at once. If I get the inkling to write a Horror novel, I can just do it. If I want to write a Western, I can just do it. It’s a nice way to keep me from getting bored, but it’s also a great way to challenge myself. Recently, I wrote a Western story, and it was the first time I ever wrote a Western. It was just an idea that came to me one day, it coincided nicely with an anthology that was in the works, so I pitched it and was given the greenlight to write it. Even if I didn’t get the greenlight, I probably would have written it anyway and figured out something else to do with it.

DF: Tell us about The Infernum series.

Infernum began life as a film project, initially titled Codename: Black Widow, if I recall correctly. It was the brainchild of a very good friend of mine, Kyle Shire, who wanted to direct it as a student film. He came up with a basic outline and asked me if I’d be willing to write a screenplay, and of course I was more than happy to do that. The film never happened, but Kyle gave me his blessing to write it as a novel.

Infernum is an organization of assassins run by a mysterious and charming power broker known as Dante. In Codename: Black Widow, which later became Love & Bullets, the main character is named Angela Lockhart, a former operative of a government organization called the Agency. After the death of her husband, she goes rogue and gets recruited by Dante as an assassin, the deal between them being that Dante will use his resources to help her find her husband’s killer.

Love & Bullets was followed up by Outlaw Blues, which involves a lot of the same characters, but in different roles. The protagonist in Outlaw Blues is a retired hitman named Carl Flint, who gets brought out of retirement by Dante for one final job. It ties into Love & Bullets in several ways, but is also its own story—whereas Love & Bullets was more of an espionage spy vs. spy novel, Outlaw Blues is more of an urban western.

I do have plans for future books. I’ve been kicking around ideas for the next book, tentatively titled Gentleman Rogue, for a while, but have had other projects I wanted to focus on first.

DF: I’m a big fan of The Myth Hunter, Elisa Hill. Tell us about her.

Elisa Hill is my attempt to try my hand at a more pulpy adventure story. I came up with the character a while ago, initially as a pitch for the now-defunct original fiction website, Frontier. In initial form, Elisa was a vampire hunter, but that morphed over time into what she is now. Initially I tried to do it as a comic, but when that fell through, I decided to try it as a novel.

The basic premise is that all the various mythologies of the world are rooted in fact. Pursuing these legends are people called myth hunters. Some are mercenaries, some are knowledge-seekers, some are treasure hunters. Elisa is the daughter of two myth hunters and she initially became one of the rogue myth hunters, working with a mercenary named Lucas Davalos. But after the death of her parents, she came back to their way of thinking, attempting to continue their research with the help of their good friend and her mentor, a retired myth hunter named Max Finch.

In the first book, The Myth Hunter, Elisa and Max pursue the myth of the lost continent of Lemuria, while also trying to avoid the reach of the mysterious Order and a vicious mercenary named Seth. During the course of that book, Elisa ran into Asami, a kitsune or Japanese fox spirit, who can change between fox and human forms and possesses some degree of magical abilities.

The sequel, Dragon Kings of the Orient, has Asami seeking out Elisa’s help to protect the Dragon Kings of China from Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, a powerful demigod who sought revenge on the Dragon Kings for imprisoning him. The lives of the Dragon Kings are tied to the oceans of Asia, and so if they die, that could mean chaos for the continent. Of course, things aren’t what they seem.

There’s been another addition to the Myth Hunter series in the form of “The Wild Hunt,” a short story featured in the PulpWork Christmas Special 2013, which is now available in digital and print formats. “The Wild Hunt” has Asami traveling to Hokkaido in Japan where she runs across a yuki-onna, or snow woman. But there’s something else, something far larger at play.

DF: What are your future plans for Elisa Hill?

PC: Elisa will be back. Dragon Kings of the Orient ended on something of a cliffhanger, and that will lead into the third book. The ending of “The Wild Hunt” also hints at something else coming down the road for Elisa and her allies. At some point in the future, I’d also like to invite other writers to contribute stories about Elisa and her allies and put out an anthology of those stories, but I haven’t put that into action just yet.

Also sometime in the near-future, probably before I have the chance to write the third book, Elisa will be appearing in another story written by someone other than me and featuring her teaming up with one ofthe biggest New Pulp characters! So keep an eye out for that.

DF: You’ve got a new novel out. Tell us about SOULQUEST.

PC: SoulQuest, like almost everything I’ve done, began life as a comic book pitch. It never went anywhere and some time later, I pitched it as a serial for the Revenance original fiction site. The first chapter was posted, but Revenance went down shortly after that. I had already written several pages and continued it for a bit, but ultimately got distracted by other projects.

Then last year, I was struggling with a project for NaNoWriMo and I started looking through abandoned manuscripts (of which I have more than a few). One of those was SoulQuest. I began jotting down notes and found myself quickly sucked back into that world.

SoulQuest is basically my love letter to the Final Fantasy series, in particular Final Fantasy VII, which is my all-time favorite video game. The book focuses on Zarim, who is a pirate along with Ekala, Zarim’s lover and a consummate thief, and Swul, a hard-drinking exile of the faerie kingdom. From the airship Excalibur, they live the lives of mercenaries, traveling wherever the money is. But when the legendary Soulstones surface, they’re tasked with locating them. Also pursuing the Soulstones is Lord Vortai, a powerful sorcerer who basically controls the empire. With the Soulstones, Vortai could have the power to remake the world as he sees fit.

It’s part fantasy, part science fiction, part steampunk, with a lot of action thrown in. This book was me really pushing myself out of my comfort zone, especially after a very long dry spell when I came close to quitting writing altogether. And it’s out now in print and for Kindle.

DF: Is SOULQUEST going to be a series? And if so, what can we expect in future books?

PC: I had considered making it into a series, but for now, it’s just this one book. Given what happens in this book, I think a follow-up where the stakes are the same or even higher would be very difficult to pull off. I might consider revisiting the characters in short stories set at different points in their lives, because it is a big, ensemble cast, and there’s a lot that can be done with the different characters. But there are other projects that I really want to work on at the moment, and so I’d like to focus on those.

DF: What’s A Day In The Life of Percival Constantine like?

PC: My work schedule is kind of all over the place, so if it’s a day when I have classes, then I’ll usually get up around 6 and drive anywhere from 40-90 minutes to which of the eleven elementary schools I teach at. If I have free periods during the day, I have my laptop with me and I’ll work on whatever projects are on my docket, be it formatting, editing, lettering, studying, or writing. If I have a day off from work, I might be recording or editing episodes for the two podcasts I’m part of, working on the aforementioned projects I have to work on, or just relaxing in front of the TV or reading comics or books.

Derrick Ferguson: Anything else we should know?

Percival Constantine: I’m a writer for WhatCulture and a contributor and regional partner at JapanTourist. As mentioned, I also produce two podcasts. One is The Exploding Typewriter, a podcast that features me and a member of the New Pulp community discussing whatever aspect of pulp that creator wants to talk about. To date, I’ve done interviews with Tommy Hancock, Ron Fortier, Barry Reese, Derrick Ferguson, Jim Beard, and Richard Lee Byers, with other interviews planned. It’s great fun talking with these various guys and getting their insight on the world of New Pulp.

The other podcast is called The Geek Screen, and I co-host that with one of my good friends from Chicago, Juan Bracich. We talk about geeky movies and TV shows, focusing on a different film or show each episode as the main portion and also touching on different news and whatever other tangents we might find ourselves on.

Other than that, please pick up a copy of SoulQuest and the PulpWork Christmas Special 2013. Those and all my other books are available at various places all over the net, and if you head over to my website, PercivalConstantine.com, you can find out where you can buy all those books and in what formats.

And also, thank you for the interview! It’s always a good time when you and I get to sit down and chat a little.

Percival Constantine
Writer, Editor, Letterer
pc@percivalconstantine.com
percivalconstantine.com

16 Months Later With MARK BOUSQUET

It’s been a while since the original Kickin’ The Willy Bobo interview with Mark so I thought it about time we caught up with what he’s all about and what he’s doing 16 MONTHS LATER…

Derrick Ferguson: Any major changes in your life since we last talked?

Mark Bousquet: Nope. Life is going well. I love living in Reno and I love my job. There's some uncertainty lurking on the horizon - my contract is up in June and won't be renewed for various departmental regulations (basically, a person is only allowed to hold my position for 3 years and then they have to leave - it doesn't matter how good or poor they have performed the position) so I don't know where I'll be living or what I'll be doing seven months from now, but that will take care of itself when the time comes. Maybe I'll still be in academics, or maybe I won't, but that's a question for the future. Right now, I'm happy to be doing what I'm doing where I'm doing it.

DF: How’s Darwin doing?

MB: He loves living in Reno even more than I do. Reno sits at the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and we live far enough away from downtown that we're in the hills almost every day. He couldn't ask for a better situation. I hope wherever we end up has the hiking possibilities it does here. Even after almost 2.5 years here we're still finding new paths and trails to hike within an hour's walk of our front door. He'll be 7 in December but whenever we head outside he's still as active as a pup.

DF: As a writer, in what ways do you feel you’ve grown and developed?

MB: I think I've developed a better sense of layering my stories and grown more comfortable with letting the story dictate itself instead of forcing it into a pre-determined box. THE HAUNTING OF KRAKEN MOOR was a huge positive in this regard. That novel (which takes place in the Gunfighter Gothic universe, though on the other side of the Atlantic) introduced a whole lotta new firsts for me: first horror novel, first first-person novel, first time writing as a female character, first time structuring the novel as a journal. I wrote the novel in "real time" as much as possible. Which is to say that even though the story is taking place in 1864, I wrote the January 1 entry on January 1 and so on. I even tried to match the time of day as much as possible. It was a fascinating experiment, given that writing in a journal is completely different act than writing a story, so there are moments in the book where the reader is frustrated by Beatrice's reluctance to include certain details, or her unwillingness to see every subplot through to the end, or her being contradictory. All of these elements are very human, I think, but it's not a standard way to write a novel.

I found it very liberating, and that led to two of my best pieces: "Why Grant Jannen Can'tHave Sex," available for free at my Atomic Anxiety site  and "The Pretty Girl with the Ugly Name," published in the PsychopompPunk Special from Artifice Comics. Both of these works show off a new narrative voice for me. Usually, I favor keeping the "me" parts of writing simple and neutral and I let the characters provide all the personality, but in these two pieces, just as in KRAKEN MOOR, I'm letting the author have a bit more say about the story's style.

DF: Have any of your attitudes about your work or your style of writing changed completely or modified in any way?

MB: I think all of us who write and publish in the Print on Demand area go through the cauldron when it comes to sales. There have been times when I've been really focused on how many copies I sell. Right now, though, I'm at the opposite end. I'm back where I started, just trying to tell the best stories I can in my own voice and letting the sales fall where they may. Finding a creative outlet with the various Artifice Comics publications (of which my contributions are all prose and not comics) has been a huge blessing. When I look at KRAKEN MOOR, "Grant Jannen," and "Pretty Girl," I can see a different voice than I usually use emerging and that's exciting. It's just more arrows in the quiver.

DF: In what direction do you think your work is heading in now as opposed to 16 months ago? Or is it going in the same direction?

MB: It's a much darker direction now than it was 16 months ago. KRAKEN MOOR stars a runaway American girl who goes to work at a castle estate in England where demons torture, kill, and sex everyone they can. There's nothing fun in that story. People die. People have sex with werewolves who turn around and eviscerate them. People make huge sacrifices.

The answer to the title of "Why Grant Jannen Can't Have Sex" is because he has the power to make people do what he wants. He's not aware of it for a very long time, but I wanted to examine the idea of what happens to a man when he finds out that all of the women he's ever had sex with only did so because of his superpower of influence. And if you can't stop your power, then how can you actually ever have sex again without knowing you might actually be getting someone to do something they wouldn't normally do? Check out the opening to the story, and you can see an example of a different voice than I usually use:

"By the time Grant was 24 years old, he had raped 47 women.

None of these rapes occurred in dark alleys. None of them involved stalking. Or violence. No woman had ever bit him or clawed him or struggled with him. No woman had ever said No. No woman had ever said Stop. No woman had ever complained in any way. There were no files on him in police stations, save for a marijuana bust last winter. Neither the state of New Hampshire, where he was born, nor the state of Minnesota, where he went to college, nor the state of Montana, where he now lives, nor the federal government of the United States considered Grant to be anything except an upstanding citizen who paid his taxes, always voted, had never married, and liked to travel alone.

Grant liked to travel alone because that had prevented him from raping anyone.

Two years, eight months, and a pocket full of days for change had passed since he raped Martha Teagarden. She did not complain. She does not regret what happened. She still calls every now and then.”

Not happy fun time.

I'm also writing less reviews but more travel writing which is a genre I very much enjoy working in.

DF: Update us on GUNFIGHTER GOTHIC: BLOOD OF THE UNIVERSE. What has been the feedback on that? Do you have a sequel in the works?

MB: Feedback has been very positive on GUNFIGHTER GOTHIC, which is good because Hanna and Jill are two of my favorite creations and I plan on releasing two or even three GOTHIC collections in 2014. I love how flawed they are - they fight, they bicker, they're grown-ups who sometimes still act like they did when they were kids, and they make plenty of mistakes. Yet, through it all, they can give each other crap in even the most ridiculous circumstances. I love that.

They have a complicated history - while they grew up in the same house, Jill is the merchant's daughter while Hanna was a servant's daughter. They got in all sorts of mischief, and Hanna eventually fell in love with Jill, and Jill returned that love only when it was convenient for her. Now, they're partners and on the same level and that allows for a whole lot of fun exchanges.

The sequel to BLOOD is done. It's called UNDER ZEPPELIN SKIES and it picks up where BLOOD left off, with Hanna and Jill on a zeppelin undergoing a zombie outbreak. 

There are four short stories (maybe 6 if I decide to include two reprints). As much as I love Hanna and Jill, ZEPPELIN was a hard book to write because the story kept spinning away from me. Or rather, the tone kept spinning away from me. It's a weird western, but it kept wanting to be ridiculous and fun, too, and it took a while for me to let it be what it wanted to be, which was to pepper UNFORGIVEN with a good heavy dose of BRISCO COUNTY, JR. The first story, "Waltzing Zombies Prefer Dixie," gives a bit of a different spin on the zombie story, as post-Civil War Confederates release a virus aboard a zeppelin that turns supporters of the Northern cause into zombies. People can slow, retard, or even stop that virus by acting in a pro-Confederate manner. People on board were pro-Union and the zombie infestation puts those ideals to the test. 

The other stories are "The Vampires of Jesus Christ," "Colorado Kaiju," and "Demon Winter," and I kept going back and forth between making ZEPPELIN a novel or a collection. There's an overall story of Jill and Hanna tracking down Jill's ex-fiance, but in the end I decided to go the short story route and minimize Dotson's direct involvement until the final story.

I have also just released a Kindle exclusive short story entitled "Thanksgiving at theHouse of Absinthe & Steam," which has Hanna and Jill fighting the weird in London. It's a very dark story but Hanna and Jill keep things fun - for the reader and for me. They're far from perfect, and end up getting drunk alongside the woman they're supposed to protect and one of them ends up getting buried alive. The story takes place after ZEPPELIN, yet is going to be published first, but it's designed to work as a stand-alone story. Eventually, "House of Absinthe" will wind up in GUNFIGHTER GOTHIC VOLUME 2: EUROPEAN HOLIDAY. It's interesting to me that the further I take Hanna and Jill away from the "western," the "weird" increases.

DF: I really loved THE HAUNTING OF KRAKEN MOOR. In what wonderfully diseased recess of your mind did that story come from and are you going to write any more stories in that style?

MB: First, thanks. KRAKEN MOOR has been a huge influence on GUNFIGHTER GOTHIC; the darker direction of "The House of Absinthe & Steam" is because of KRAKEN MOOR. In fact, the final story of ZEPPELIN is a sequel of sorts to KRAKEN MOOR, as it takes Hanna and Jill into the castle.

As to where it came from - I was sitting in my apartment last New Year's Eve, and around 1 or 2 PM I decided I wanted to do something new. I like being able to look at my bookshelf and say, "That's my western, that's my kids' book, that's my cosmic pulp, that's my urban fantasy," and I realized I couldn't point at anything and say, "That's my horror novel." I decided to take a bunch of the various things I wanted to try (horror, first person narration, writing in a woman's voice, etc.) and put them together. When I wrote the first entry, I had no real idea of what the story was going to be other than there was going to be a young American woman working in a haunted castle. From there, I let things progress rather organically. I was writing and posting the story online nearly every single day, so there was no time to go back and change things (though I did relent on this point a time or two) - most everything had to be done on the fly and I let my own reader response guide me. If I felt the story was getting a little boring, I introduced something exciting. Because I wanted a creepy horror story, that usually involved demonic sex. There are a few moments in the novel where this gets away from me, but on the whole I am tremendously pleased with how it turned out and I think it's my best full-length work.

DF: And then you can switch gears and do children’s books that are equally as imaginative and captivating to read such as STUFFED ANIMALS FOR HIRE and ADVENTURES OF THE FIVE. Do you have to consciously switch on a part of your brain to write children’s books or does it all come from the same place?

MB: Honestly, one is therapy for the other. When I spend too much time writing dark stories, it's nice to be able to go write some bright, shiny kids' stories for a while, and vice versa. As an academic, one of the things I look for are the intertextual connections between books. You can take any two stories and see what one says about the other one, and I like to do that when I'm writing. So if I'm writing a western, I'm not watching or reading other westerns. I'm watching Hercule Poirot movies, and when I write a detective story, I'm not watching POIROT, but I might be watching a bunch of spaghetti westerns. When I go write a detective story (as Idid for Artifice's Halloween special, resurrecting my old, briefly seenFrontier Publishing stomping grounds, Chalifax, the City of Dying Magic ) I knew I was going to hear Agatha Christie and David Suchet and Hugh Fraser anyway, so watching other genres helps me make sure I'm doing more than aping their style.

DF: I think it’s really exciting that you have opened up the DREAMER’S SYNDROME universe to other writers. Can you first explain DREAMER’S SYNDROME to those not familiar with the concept?

MB: Sure thing. God goes into hiding and sends an order back to the angels to remake the world so that everyone is transformed, overnight, into their childhood dream. If you wanted to be a pirate, you're a pirate. If you wanted to be an astronaut, you're an astronaut. The world is transformed, too, so the modern American southwest is largely reconfigured as the Wild West and New York is remade as a place for superheroes.

DF: Why did you decide to open it up to other writers?

MB: Over on Facebook, Greg Rosa asked when I was going to do it. I said, "I'd do it right now if there was interest" and he assured me he could line up a handful of writers to participate and between his writers and those responding to the Call for Proposals it looks like there might be enough for two collections. There's still time to submit, too, so if anyone out there is moved, send me a proposal. The majority of submissions, so far, are from people with very few publications and that's very exciting.

DF: You’ve taken a break from writing movie reviews. Can you tell us why and will there be another collection of your movie reviews coming?

MB: There's 700-800 reviews at Atomic Anxiety and I was getting burned out. I love writing DOCTOR WHO reviews and when I couldn't bring myself to keep up with the latest season (which I really liked), I knew it was time to step back for awhile. I've got enough reviews for a solid sci-fi collection, but there such a random collection of movie reviews, I'm wondering how to arrange them, and if I should wait until I get a few more classics reviewed. I've got the Marvel Comics on Film book out and it covers every Marvel movie I could watch through last year's AVENGERS (including the old '70s TV movies, of which DOCTOR STRANGE is a real standout). I'd like to go ahead and tackle DC's movies, at some point, too.

DF: Hollywood calls you up and says that they’re going to spend $500 million to make a movie out of one of your books and let you pick the director. Which book do you let them have and which director do you choose?

MB: Man, I've been pondering this question all week and I'm still not sure. I'm tempted to offer up combinations of GUNFIGHTER GOTHIC and J.T. Petty (director of the excellent and largely unseen THE BURROWERS) or DREAMER'S SYNDROME and Joe Cornish (director of the excellent and largely unseen ATTACK THE BLOCK or HARPSICHORD & THE WORMHOLE WITCHES and Matt Reeves (director of CLOVERFIELD) or STUFFED ANIMALS FOR HIRE (which is basically The A-Team for kids) and Gore Verbinski, but I think if we're gonna roll with a big budget, I'd pair ADVENTURES OF THE FIVE with Andrew Stanton. I think Stanton has demonstrated a fine ability to balance good humor with big emotions, and that's what THE FIVE is about.

DF: Recommend a movie, a book and a TV show.

MB: Movie: THE HOBBIT. We live in such a jaded age that people can't wait to turn on the things tomorrow that they loved yesterday. There's a certain segment of fandom that seems to be in a race to declare something awful. It's like there's a whole tribe of Dennis Millers, always with a cynical, snarky putdown at the ready. I get not liking a movie, but I do not understand when people decide to mount their own personal campaign against a movie whose only crime is that other people like it. THE HOBBIT is a big, fun movie. Is it as good as the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy? No, but that doesn't mean it ain't a really good film.

Book: I'm reading two books right now that are both fantastic: David Shoemaker's THE SQUARED CIRCLE, a history of professional wrestling, and Hal Needham's STUNTMAN!, an autobiography of his time in Hollywood. I'm in the beginning stages of both, but Needham's story is told very conversationally. I feel like he's sitting with me at a bar and telling stories about John Wayne and Burt Reynolds. I've been enjoying Shoemaker's writing on wrestling for years (he was the author of the "Dead Wrestler of the Week" feature at Deadspin, and he now writes for Grantland) and SQUARED CIRCLE sees him at the top of his game; he has a unique talent to always talk about the present in the context of the past that gives his writing some real power.

TV Show: MISS FISHER'S MURDER MYSTERIES. Netflix has finally started streaming POIROT, but they only have the first 6 seasons, which I devoured in a couple weeks. I went looking for another mystery to fill the void and stumbled onto FISHER'S. It's set in post-WWI Australia, and it's one of those shows where they set it in the past but fill it with a whole bunch of modern sensibilities. It's nothing deep, but like POIROT it's a whole lot of fun watching Phryne Fisher solve some really nasty crimes.

Derrick Ferguson: Anything else we should know?

Mark Bousquet: Until the end of 2013, anyone who wants a free .pdf copy of "Thanksgiving at the House of Absinthe & Steam" can have one by sending me an email at bousquet.mark@gmail.com. No strings attached - you don't have to write a review and you won't be put on a mailing list. 2014 is going to be a big year for GUNFIGHTER GOTHIC (time willing, I'm going to try and get Hanna and Jill in as many different anthologies as would be appropriate) and I think "House of Absinthe" is a really good intro into this world. Volume 1 will be out in late January or early February, so now is a good time to jump on board.

ADVENTURES OF THE FIVE: THE CHRISTMAS ENGINE will be out before Christmas, so anyone looking for a fun book for kids might find it to their liking.

I'm on the web at my personal website (themarkbousquet.com), my review site (atomicanxiety.wordpress.com), and on Twitter (@mark_bousquet), and all my published works can be found at my Author Central site (http://www.amazon.com/Mark-Bousquet/e/B004WWUTNU).

That covers it. Thanks, as always, for the chat, Derrick.

Derrick Ferguson Gets Stung By SKORPIO

File Size: 1534 KB

Print Length: 337 pages

Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited

Publisher: WordFire Press (October 14, 2013)

Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.

Language: English

ASIN: B00FWG9CLA

If you’re as well read as I think you are (and you must be…why else are you reading book reviews? You’re looking for something good to read, right?) then you should have some familiarity with the name Mike Baron. Mr. Baron first landed on my radar when I discovered his innovative science fiction comic book “Nexus” which he co-created with Mike Rude. Much like other great comic book pairings like Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers or Marv Wolfman and Gene Colon, the two of them made magic together and if you haven’t read “Nexus” yet then you should correct that at your earliest opportunity.

Mr. Baron has also written many other comic book titles but in recent years he’s been working in prose, writing some really compelling novels such as “Helmet Head” which I really enjoyed. That’s a book you really ought to pick up as it reads like the lost novelization of a John Carpenter movie. Yeah, it’s that good.

SKORPIO is almost as good. It’s not a roller coaster ride like “Helmet Head’ which reads like a runaway train going downhill from start to finish. Mr. Baron takes his time setting up the situation and the characters before he gets to the guts of his story but I appreciate a writer who has the confidence to take his time to take us where we need to go so he can most effectively deliver the goods later on and yeah, SKORPIO delivers.

Vaughan Beadles is a Professor of Anthropology at Creighton University in Illinois where he enjoys a near rock star status. He’s too handsome for his own good with a gorgeous wife and beautiful baby boy. Beadles is riding high due to his acquisition of relics belonging to a previously lost Southwestern Indian tribe, the Azuma. But all that comes to a screeching halt when Beadles is framed for stealing some of the artifacts. And if that wasn’t enough, one of his students dies from a scorpion sting that he got when Beadles lets the kid get an unauthorized sneak peek at the artifacts.

His life rapidly falls into ruin. His wife leaves him, he loses his job and all of his money goes toward his legal fees. The only way Beadles can see to salvage his life is to find where the Azuma actually lived and prove his theories to be true. In his quest to find the birthplace, Beadles runs into a truly amazing diverse cast of characters. Some of them you’ll wonder what the hell they’re doing in the book but trust me, part of the enjoyment of reading SKORPIO is seeing just how Mike Baron pulls all of these characters together and makes them integral components of the story.

It takes a while for the title character to show up but when it does it’s worth the wait. Skorpio is a vengeful ghost of hideous power who appears in the sunlight, which is a nice twist as ghosts are usually associated with the nighttime. I also liked Mr. Baron’s choice of protagonist. Vaughan Beadles isn’t exactly squeaky clean in his dealings and he’s a bit of an opportunist, always actively looking for an angle to advance his career and fatten his bank account.

In fact, most of the characters in SKORPIO are a little more on the gray side than you might expect but I enjoyed that as it gave the book an unpredictability I found refreshing. There’s never any way to tell what these characters are going to do or say and for me, that’s always welcome in my fiction.

Mike Baron’s prose is as uncomplicated and straightforward as the word “No.”  He doesn’t go in for flowery purple prose. He’s a born storyteller who is concerned with only one thing: telling you a good story. He’s not interested in showing off his vocabulary or trying to impress you with his cleverness in turning a pithy phrase. He just wants you to have a good time and I certainly did have a good time reading SKORPIO.