Derrick Ferguson Hires HUGH MONN, PRIVATE DETECTIVE

 

Publication Date: Oct 27 2011

ISBN/EAN13: 1466481900 / 9781466481909

Page Count: 184

Binding Type: US Trade Paper

Trim Size: 6" x 9"

Language: English

Color: Black and White

Related Categories: Fiction / Mystery & Detective / Short Stories

The hard-boiled private eye genre is one I dearly love.  The trench-coated shamus with a cigarette dangling from his lip, .45 automatic or .38 revolver in a well-worn shoulder holster, fedora pulled down low over his forehead, the faithful gum-chewing secretary and even more faithful fifth of scotch in the desk drawer…it’s a genre I never get enough of.  And since television and movies have apparently abandoned the P.I. it’s up to writers like Lee Houston, Jr. and books like HUGH MONN, PRIVATE DETECTIVE to give me my fix.

Let me explain; even though Hugh Monn lives and works on the far distant planet of Frontera interacting with many different species and using advanced technology, the tone and feel of the character and the eight stories in the book are pure 1950’s.  Lee drops in a mention here and there of some bit of sci-fi such as a character having green or purple skin or Hugh’s weapon of choice being a Nuke 653 Rechargeable but that’s just throwaways Lee lobs at us once in a while to remind us that we’re not on Earth.  But he doesn’t go into any real detail as to how this future civilization operates or how the technology works.  When the subject of detective stories crossed with science fiction comes up, I usually mention Larry Niven’s stories and novels about Gil The Arm or Roger Zelazny’s “My Name Is Legion” since in those stories, the science fiction is integral to the story.  Take out the science fiction and you wouldn’t have a story.  Not so with Lee’s Hugh Monn stories.  They could easily have been set in 1950’s Los Angeles or New York with a little rewriting.  But I digress…let’s take HUGH MONN, PRIVATE DETECTIVE for what it is, not for what it isn’t.

Hugh Monn is a Human and yes, he freely admits to his clients that his name is a gag.  But one he prefers to use as he’s got some pretty big secrets in his past he’d prefer to keep to himself.  As a detective, Hugh is capable, sharp, principled and dogged in his determination to solve his cases and get to the truth.  Hugh isn’t a pain-in-the-ass who rebels against authority and isn’t a lone wolf who doesn’t play by the rules.  Matter of fact, Hugh conducts himself as a total professional.  He doesn’t shoot when he doesn’t have to, he’s polite to everybody he meets and he co-operates with the authorities.  In particular, Lawbot 714 who he runs into in a couple of stories and who I wouldn’t mind seeing become a regular if Lee gives us more Hugh Monn cases.  He doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink, he likes kids; he holds open the doors for old ladies.  I think you can tell where I’m going with this.  Hugh’s a fine detective but as a character I found myself wishing that once in a while he’d haul off and slug a suspect for no good reason other than he doesn’t like the fact the guy has eight eyes.  Hugh could stand to be a little rougher and not so polite.

The story “Shortages” is a good example of how Hugh Monn solves a case using his understanding of both humans and aliens and his powers of observation.  It also introduces the character of Big Louie, a Primoid.  Big Louie is the main suspect in a series of thefts being committed at a high security pier.  It’s a pretty good locked room mystery and the relationship between Hugh and Big Louie is the primary attraction in this story, as in “At What Price Gloria?”  Hugh and Big Louie have to rescue Big Louie’s wife Gloria and stop an assassination attempt.  I only wish more of the stories had been as suspenseful as this one.  In some of them, the mystery really isn’t that hard to figure out as there’s a lack of suspects so the solution comes down to either being this one or that one.  And I never got a sense of Hugh being in any real danger in any of these stories.  But Lee should be commended for trying different types of stories such as “For The Benefit of Master Tyke” which hinges more on the healing of a family than the solving of any real crime.  I picked up halfway through “Where Can I Get A Witness?” is intended as a homage to the 1944 film noir “Laura” and I enjoyed it until the very last paragraph where it felt to me as if the writer had stepped in to give his opinion of his own story and didn’t allow his character to do so.

So should you read HUGH MONN, PRIVATE DETECTIVE?  As a first book from a new writer, I’m inclined to give Lee a pat on the back.  There’s a lot to like in his writing style.  He does know how to keep a story moving but he shouldn’t shy away from rolling in the dirt and giving his characters some sharp edges.  I wouldn’t mind seeing Hugh Monn tackle some more cases but I also wouldn’t mind seeing Lee Houston, Jr. strip away the political correctness and explore the real darkness of Frontera.

Derrick Ferguson Listens To The Tales of The GRIOTS

 

·  Paperback: 294 pages

·  Publisher: MVmedia, LLC (August 7, 2011)

·  Language: English

·  ISBN-10: 0980084288

·  ISBN-13: 978-0980084283

Before we get into the meat-n-potatoes of this review, it’s necessary that Sherman set the Wayback Machine for 1970’s so we can indulge in a brief history lesson for context: Charles R. Saunders is a writer who like most of you reading this review fell in love with the work of Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan, King Kull and Solomon Kane.  REH is credited with being the creator of “sword and sorcery” a sub-genre of epic fantasy.  Sword and sorcery concerns itself with stories driven by action, healthy doses of sex and violence and strong supernatural/magical elements.

So in love with sword and sorcery is he that Mr. Saunders sets about writing his own stories.  And in doing so he determines to expand the genre by creating a black heroic fantasy character and set his adventures in a mythical Africa just as fabulous and dangerous as Howard’s Hyborian Age.  And with his stories of Imaro, Charles Saunders gives birth to what is now known as “sword and soul” which are fantasy stories with an African connection or featuring African characters 

I’ve been a fan of Mr. Saunders and his work ever since I was a high school student back in the 70’s and devouring heroic fiction at an appalling rate.  And as the Wayback Machine brings us back to the present we can begin this review proper with the good news that sword-and-soul is not only thriving here and now, it is giving voice to a new generation of African American fantasy writers eager to explore the genre and continue to nourish it with their talents.

GRIOTS is an anthology of sword and soul stories co-edited by Mr. Saunders and Milton J. Davis who himself has long carved out his own territory in the genre.  The fourteen stories in the book are:

“Captured Beauty” by Milton Davis.  It’s a great action story to lead off the book with.  It’s a simple plot having to do with rescuing a beautiful damsel in distress from the clutches of a vile villain.  But what made this story stand out for me were the characterizations of the protagonist Changa and his employer, the merchant Belay and their relationship.

“Awakening” by Valjeanne Jeffers.  It starts out with a little girl who has no desire to spend her adult days sitting around being ladylike and raising squalling brats while the men have all the fun being warriors. The girl, Nandi, grows up and finds out that there’s a supernatural force in her life who also thinks that yeah, her being a warrior is a pretty good idea.

“Lost Son” by Maurice Broaddus is a story I wanted to like a lot more than I do as I like Mr. Broaddus’ style of writing.  But the story just seemed to end without resolution or even much of a point.

“In The Wake of Mist” by Kirk A. Johnson is another story I didn’t get.  Although I liked the imagery the writer evokes, that’s all the impression the story made on me.  A series of wonderfully described images that really didn’t seem to go anywhere or evoke any sort of feeling in me.

“Skin Magic” by Djeli A. Clark kicks the anthology back into action mode with a story that has a healthy heap of horror.  The main character is a thief on the run who has living tattoos on his skin that are portals to a nightmarish limbo through which Cthulhuian creatures can emerge into our world.  The thief, barely able to control this horrible ability is pursued by the fearsome minions of a consortium of dark magicians who desire this power for their own purposes.  As soon as I finished this story, I wanted to read a sequel right away.

“The Demon In The Wall” by Stafford L. Battle is one of my favorite stories in this anthology.  Equal parts high adventure and comedy, it’s an entertaining near parody of the genre.  The sorceress Makhulu and her grandson, the warrior Zende are characters I’d love to see more of.  The banter between them alone is worth reading the story for.

“The Belly of The Crocodile” by Minister Faust is a tale of sibling rivalry.  And that’s all I’ll say about it because it’s not a long story and its emotional punch is best served by reading it yourself.

“Changeling” by Carole McDonnell is a story that works just the way it is but if it were twice as long I wouldn’t kick.  This is about three sisters destined to marry and become queens of their own kingdoms.  But the real prize is their native kingdom only one of them will inherit when their mother dies.  It’s got that ‘Once Upon A Time” feeling as it unfolds it’s ultimately sorrowful tale.  It’s a story of Shakespearean tragedy that has a lot to say about human nature and the ugly power of jealousy. 

“The General’s Daughter” by Anthony Nana Kwamu is a good choice to follow “Changeling” as they have something in common.  Both of them have more than their share of action but they also dig deeper into the emotional core of their characters to reveal who these people really are and why we should care about what happens to them.  I really liked the emotional resonance I felt in both these stories after I finished them.

“Sekadi’s Koan” by Geoffrey Thorne is another story I immediately wanted a sequel to as soon as I finished reading it.  I got a very strong Roger Zelazny vibe in this tale of a gifted martial artist studying her deadly art at a school located…well, I’m not sure where it’s located but I was so entertained I didn’t care.  And unlike some other stories where I got the impression that the writers themselves weren’t sure of where their stories were happening, I didn’t get that impression from Mr. Thorne.  I got the feeling he knew exactly where and when his story was taking place but is saving that for what I hope will be future stories about Sekadi.

“The Queen, The Demon and The Mercenary” is by Ronald T. Jones and like “The Demon In The Wall” is a story that seems designed for nothing but the reader to have as much fun reading it as I’m sure the writer had writing it.  The swaggering warrior Toulou sets out to rescue a suffering kingdom from the demon-wizard terrorizing the people and does it in style.  Highly recommended.

“Icewitch” by Rebecca McFarland Kyle proves that you don’t necessarily have to set a sword and soul story in an African setting.  This story takes place in a frigid realm where a dark-skinned youth struggles to find acceptance among his mother’s people who are lighter-skinned. 

The only real problem I have with Melvin Carter’s “The Leopard Walks Alone” is the ugliness of the names in the story.  I tried saying them aloud and I swear I bruised my tongue.  I realize it’s a somewhat petty quibble but naming is important in fantasy stories.  Difficult and harsh sounding names should be used sparingly. 

And The Master himself, Charles Saunders finishes up the anthology with a tale of Imaro: “The Three Faced One”  If you’ve never read an Imaro story or anything by Charles Saunders, this is an excellent introduction to both.

GRIOTS also boasts fourteen interior black and white illustrations by fourteen separate artists as well as biographical information about the writers and artists and introductory essays by the editors.  The cover by Natiq Jalil is simply wonderful to look at.

So should you read GRIOTS?  Absolutely.  True, a few of the stories didn’t turn my crank but most of them did.  If you’re a sword and sorcery fan looking for some heroic fantasy that takes place in realms other than the Medieval or ancient settings most sword-and-sorcery stories take place in then you most certainly should check this anthology out.  

The Heart of Fortune #3

By now, thanks to the relentless huckstering of myself and Tommy Hancock you should know all about THE ADVENTURES OF FORTUNE McCALL.  It’s a special book in a lot of ways.  I’ve written other stuff for Pro Se previous to this but this one here is a major deal. 

For one, it’s my contribution to The Sovereign City Project which so far has been represented by Barry Reese and Lazarus Gray.  And represented quite well, if I may say so.  Tommy’s Doc Daye is waiting in the wings for his turn in the spotlight and if plans go the way they’re supposed to, there will be an epic crossover featuring all three characters in one dynamite story.  When that will happen I can’t say as yet but rest assured that when I know, you’ll know.

So what stories are between the covers of THE ADVENTURES OF FORTUNE McCALL?  I thought you’d never ask.  Attend:

“The Scarlet Courtesan of Sovereign City” introduces Fortune McCall and his cohorts to Sovereign City and vice versa as Fortune searches the city, hunting for a beautiful friend of his who is working for the British government.  This friend has run afoul of some unsavory characters who are up to some decidedly dangerous business.

“The Day of The Silent Death” has Fortune trying to track down a killer who possesses a method of killing hundreds, possibly thousands within seconds without a sound or warning.

“The Magic of Madness” involves a husband and wife team of magicians who have incurred the wrath of a secret society and only Fortune McCall has a chance of saving them.

“The Gold of Box 850” has Fortune McCall once again getting caught up in British espionage.  But this time he’s got a reason; five million dollars’ worth of gold is up for grabs.  Unfortunately, he’s not the only one looking for it.

And I have to bring your attention to the simply stunning design work done by Sean E. Ali, Pro Se’s Art Director.  So far I’ve been blessed with truly amazing artwork on the covers of my books but the cover of THE ADVENTURES OF FORTUNE McCALL is on another level altogether.  He designed it and the actual cover was done by David L. Russell based on an illustration done by Peter Cooper.  Here, take a look for yourself:

THE ADVENTURES OF FORTUNE MCCALL is available at www.amazon.com or through Pro Se’s site-www.prosepulp.com  It's also available in various E-book formats from Smashwords.

            Paperback: 158 pages

            Publisher: Pro Se Press

            ISBN-10: 1468112562

            ISBN-13: 978-1468112566

So that’s enough of my beating you over the head about the book.  I consider your arm to have been sufficiently twisted and I return it to you with my blessings.  

How The West Was Weird: Campfire Tales

Originally only available as a giveaway with purchase of How the West Was Weird, Vol. 2, the e-book CAMPFIRE TALES is now available at Amazon.com (for those of you with Kindles) and Smashwords.com (for those of you with any other kind of e-reader. This book includes 4 weird western short stories by Russ Anderson, Derrick Ferguson, Joel Jenkins, and Joshua M. Reynolds. For 99 cents, it's a steal!

Four astounding novellas combining the western with sci-fi and horror.  This new addition to Pulpwork Press's best-selling HOW THE WEST WAS WEIRD series includes:

MR. BRASS AND THE CRIMSON SKIES OF KANSAS by Josh Reynolds. The robot Pinkerton is all that stands between President Teddy Roosevelt and an attack by sky pirates and Mr. Hyde.

HELL'S OWN by Russ Anderson. Zombies overrun a small western town, and the town's lone sheriff is the only one that's armed. Will anyone survive?

THE TALE OF THE BARON'S TRIBUTE by Derrick Ferguson. When a foe from Sebastian Red's past attacks him through his friends, Sebastian must undo the damage done to his loved ones and do battle with a foe who is, for once, in every way his equal.

GUNMEN OF THE HOLLOW EARTH by Joel Jenkins. Lone Crow, Doc Holliday, and Morgan Earp lead the surviving members of the Wild Bunch into a lost world at the center of the Earth, running afoul of dinosaurs, a tribe of barbarian women, and a posse of silver-hungry banditos who have followed them from the surface world.

So what are you waiting for?  Get on over to Amazon.com and get yourself a copy!

The Heart of Fortune #2

Hey there, glad you could stop back by for a visit.  We never did finish that talk we were having about Fortune McCall, did we?  Well, let’s get back into it.  Make yourself comfortable.

Now, where were we?  Oh, I was talking about how Tommy Hancock had asked me to contribute to his Sovereign City Project and I wussied out by proposing a generic white 1930’s pulp hero type instead of following my natural instincts and giving him a black adventurer set in the 1930’s.

As I said earlier, I just didn’t think I could pull it off convincingly.  Tommy and I swapped emails, spoke on the phone and during the course of those conversations, I told him about Fortune McCall and he said, “That’s who you should be doing for Sovereign City.”  Again, I wasn’t entirely convinced but the more I thought about it, the more I came around to Tommy’s way of thinking.  Fortune’s being African royalty meant that he saw American culture in a totally different way than that of an American born black man.  Just that fact that his circle of friends is multinational shows he’s a character with a vastly different way of thinking and living.  But he’s still a man very much aware of the society and cultures he operates in.  Despite his wealth, his obvious intelligence and education, he has no illusions about how he is viewed.  And he knows he can’t change that.  The only thing he can do is be a man amongst men and let his deeds speak for the quality of his character.

And to me, writing has to constantly be a challenge.  It’s supposed to be a process by which every single story enables me to build up more creative muscles, do things with character and themes I’ve never done before.  I’ll be honest here; the original character I submitted to Tommy was born out of laziness and I should be hosswhipped for having tried to fast shuffle him.  But if there’s one thing I like and respect about Tommy is that he’ll call me on my bullshit and he did.

Fortune McCall is a character that I realized that I probably needed to do as I didn’t want people to think that all I could do was variations and knockoffs of my own Dillon and whatever else Fortune McCall is, he certainly isn’t that.  And as I rewrote that first story to place it in the 1930’s I found to my own delighted surprise that placing Fortune and his team in that time period actually made them more interesting and exciting to me.  I was able to strip away a lot of the high-tech gizmos and foofaraw I had been using to take shortcuts in the story and have a character that relied more on his brain, brawn and the skills of his friends than fancy gadgets.  And it’s always exciting when somebody else gives me a new playground to work in.  Especially when it’s a shared environment like Sovereign City.  You can bend the rules, break ‘em, make ‘em up and who’s to tell you you’re wrong?

And remember earlier when I was telling you that I wanted my Sovereign City character to be a Shadow-analog type to go along with Lazarus Gray/The Avenger and Doc Daye/Doc Savage?  Well, by placing Fortune McCall in the 1930’s I found that I could utilize that idea even better than I did with that crappy character I came up with and it worked far better with Fortune.

So first of all I had to establish his character and that of his team, tell how they come to Sovereign City and why he decides to stay there.  How he comes to the city and his first adventure there is detailed in his first recorded adventure “The Scarlet Courtesan of Sovereign City” which first appeared in Pro Se Presents: Masked Gun Mystery #2.  The second Fortune McCall story, “The Day of The Silent Death” appeared in Pro Se Presents: Fantasy and Fear #3.

Now here’s where things start to get interesting.  Tommy calls me up nonchalantly (as he is wont to do) and wonders how I would feel about doing a Fortune McCall book.  Plans have changed (and with Tommy that’s at least three times a week) and instead of Lazarus Gray, Doc Daye and Fortune McCall appearing in magazines, Tommy proposed that they be featured in their own anthologies/novels.  Of course this meant that I had to come up with two more Fortune McCall stories to make up a decent book and so I have: “The Sorceress of Sovereign City” and “The Gold of Box 850” are going to join the first two stories in The Adventures of Fortune McCall.  Coming soon, I promise.

So that’s the bare bones of what you need to know about Fortune McCall.  At least for now.  There’s other aspects about the character and the whole Sovereign City Project I want to get into but I know you’ve got to go and I’ve got to get back to work.  Thanks again for stopping by.  Oh, and since I know you appreciate quality artwork here’s an illustration that was done by Clayton Hinkle for “Day of The Silent Death”:

 Until we get together again, read something good, okay?

The Heart of Fortune #1

Welcome back.  Hope you’ve been enjoying the discussions we’ve been having so far as much as I have.  Our next one is going to take us from Sebastian Red’s mystical Wild West for a bit.  But don’t worry; we’ll be going back there soon enough.  It’s just that I thought you’d appreciate some insight into the current project I’m working on so let’s go visit 1933 and Sovereign City, the current home of Doc Daye, Lazarus Grey and Fortune McCall

Fortune McCall is a character who, like most of my characters has been around for a long, loooong time.  More than ten years in fact.  He first found life in a fanfiction series I wrote for DC Legends entitled “Blackhawk International” where I created a 21^st Century team of Blackhawks and Fortune McCall was handpicked to head up a new team by the original Blackhawk, now aged and running a worldwide multi-billion corporation.

It didn’t take me long to realize that Fortune and his team had far more potential as original creations so I requested that story be removed from the site and reworked the character.  He was still set in the 21^st Century but now he was an independent adventurer, sailing around the world on his luxury gambling ship, The Heart of Fortune and still assisted by his team of six close friends, all specialists in their fields. 

And now that I had set him firmly in what my friends laughingly refer to as The Fergoverse, I reworked his background: Fortune McCall is a prince of the North African country of Khusra which I’ve mentioned in a couple of Dillon stories.  As a prince he has enjoyed a spectacularly diverse education in America, Switzerland, England and France in disciplines both academic and martial.  Equally at home in a laboratory, a classroom or a dojo, Fortune (I haven’t revealed his true name yet) is equally dangerous in a boardroom or a battlefield.

You see, his father wanted all of his sons and heirs to be equally capable of taking over as king so he never favored one over the other, making sure they all received the same education and training.  However, tradition must be observed and the line of succession goes from oldest to youngest.  And guess who the youngest is?  Yep.  Fortune.  He’s the youngest of eight brothers.

Now, while some may find this a sucky situation, Fortune saw it as a wonderful opportunity.  Enjoying considerable wealth as a Prince of Khusra, he didn’t have to worry about money.  And since there are seven potential kings, the chances of him ever having to rule were slim to none.  He could therefore enjoy all the benefits of his royal birth with none of the responsibilities.

So Fortune has his gambling ship built, takes on a whole mess’a his people to crew and work the ship and with his friends set off on adventure galore.  As a huge fan of Marvel Comics’ The Black Panther, I envisioned Fortune McCall as a seafaring T’Challa, not bound to any one country.  I could do one story with him in Italy fighting The Decided Ones and then in the next he could be in Australia hunting down packs of mutated dingoes roaming the streets of Perth. 

Cackling wildly, I set about writing a Fortune McCall novel and got about 16000 words into the sucker when I got an invitation from Tommy Hancock.  And that’s a name you’re going to hear a lot as we get deeper into this tale.  So let me give you a brief background on this chap:

Tommy Hancock is a writer, living in Arkansas who I’ve known for a good 15, 16 years, now.  We only met face-to-face for the first time at Pulp Ark but online we’ve collaborated on many a project and stayed up late many a night chatting on IM about characters, stories and ideas.  In recent years Tommy has really made a name for himself as the spokesman and spearhead of The New Pulp Movement.  But for our purposes here, we’re more concerned with his status as a publisher and editor.

Tommy and his partner run Pro Se Press which is creating quite the respectable reputation as a publisher of quality New Pulp fiction and Tommy also is largely responsible for the previously mentioned Pulp Ark. 

The first thing you have to understand about Tommy Hancock is that he gets more ideas in a week than the average person has in a month.  Even if he lived another 77 years he’d never be able to give adequate wordage to all the characters, concepts and stories packing the inside of his already full-to-busting brain.

One of these ideas is The Sovereign City Project.  Tommy contacted Barry Reese and myself and asked us to each create a character for this city, which would be a shared environment between the three of us.  The idea being that we’d lay the groundwork and foundation for Sovereign City and then after a year, the Project would be thrown open to other writers. 

Now, I originally had no idea of placing Fortune McCall into this as I already had other plans in mind for the character, including a team-up with Dillon and indeed, pitched Tommy another character who was more or less a Shadow-analog to compliment Barry’s Lazarus Gray (an analog to The Avenger) and Tommy’s Doc Daye (a Doc Savage analog)

Tommy contacted me after reading my initial pitch and said that while he loved the character, he was puzzled as to why I hadn’t created a black character.  Yeah, that’s right; the character I had pitched to Tommy was a white one.

My thing was this: at the time I’d never written a pulp character in the 1930’s.  Since then, that’s changed (Details Later) and to be brutally honest, I wasn’t confident in my ability to credibly create and portray a black adventurer in the 1930’s.  Given the climate, the culture, the racial issues…I admit it, I folded like Robert Duran in the seventh round of the Duran/Leonard rematch because I didn’t think I could pull it off.

However, Tommy had a little more confidence than I did…and we’ll talk about that the next time we get together.

Until then, feast your eyes on this: the artist is the infinitely talented Peter Cooper and I consider it the definitive look of Fortune McCall.  I dunno if you can but I see a lot of Eisner and Simonson in there.  And yeah, there will be more about Peter later on as well.

As always, thank you for your time and kind attention.  Go read something good and I'll talk to you soon.

I Get PULPED! Part Two

Continuing the adventures of Derrick Ferguson from the previous episode (sorry about the gap between, avid listeners), Tommy, Barry, and Ron discuss all the goodness Derrick has coming in the future, including several Dillon related projects!


Check out PULPED! and the New Pulp Movement and at the New Pulp Forum hosted by Comic Related  under NEW PULP! Also, like New Pulp on Facebook!

Ron Fortier Airship 27

Tommy Hancock  Pulp Machine

Barry Reese

Like Barry's Writer Page, Tommy's Writer Page, and Airship 27 on Facebook!

All music used in this podcast is either in the Public Domain or used under an appropriate Creative Commons license. The opening and closing themes were performed and recorded by The Red Hook Ramblers.