TALES FROM THE HANGING MONKEY Reviewed!

William Patrick Maynard, currently the talented writer who is bringing a new audience into the world of Sax Rohmer thanks to The Terror of Fu Manchu and The Destiny of Fu Manchu had some really nice things to say about Airship 27's Tales From The Hanging Monkey which contains stories by Bill Craig, Joshua Reynolds, Tommy Hancock and myself. Bounce on over to the Black Gate blog to read for yourself what he had to say.

Kickin' The Willy Bobo With: VALJEANNE JEFFERS

DERRICK FERGUSON: Who is Valjeanne Jeffers?

VALJEANNE JEFFERS: I'm an artist, poet and science fiction author. I'm also a member of the Carolina African American Writer's Collective (CAAWC) and a graduate of both Spelman College and NCCU.

I've written six books. I paint and I've had poems and nonfiction published too. During the late '90s, I wrote my first, and only, nonfiction book, The Story of Eve, a collection of essays in which I analyzed the media's connection to politics and our behavior. I really had a lot of fun writing it, because I'm something of movie buff. Obviously, this wasn't my last stop. The Story of Eve was never published as an entire volume, although excerpts have appeared in PurpleMag.

But the absolute love of my life is science fiction.

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

VJ:I live in Alabama. I have an MA in Psychology, and I taught college for a few semesters. I enjoyed teaching—I've always loved a good rousing discussion. I mean, let's face it, what is teaching but engaging your students in dialogue that encourages them to think and question the world around them?

More recently I've begun working as an editor for Mocha Memoir Press and also as a freelance editor (I'm co-owner with my fiancé of  Q and V Affordable Editing). Editing is another job I enjoy, because I get to read some of the best novels written before they're even published! I'm also self-published, so I sell my own books and earn income this way too.

DF:How long have you been writing?

VJ:I've been writing since I was nine or ten years old. As a child, I found writing to be a wonderful escape— just like reading, only more interactive. I was also a greedy reader of SF/ fantasy literature.

I rediscovered this love during the '90s, when I became a lifelong fan of Stephen King. I remember working as secretary (while going to classes at night) and reading books during my lunch hour—in class too whenever things got boring.

Then I stumbled upon Wild Seed by Octavia Butler. Octavia was a revelation! I'd never read science fiction written by a Black person—I didn’t even know People of Color wrote SF! I became obsessed with writing my own novel, creating my own worlds. When I first starting writing science fiction, I found that I was able to escape into my characters' lives, even when I just thinking about a plot or scene twist. For me, this is still the most productive and fun part of writing—the ability to slip into my character’s skin.

DF:Why science fiction?

VJ:Science fiction, in my humble opinion, is the most wonderful genre ever created! In what other motif can you create an alternate universe, give your characters preternatural powers, and make a statement about the human condition? You're only limited by your imagination. As an author, I like having that kind of freedom— the freedom of not being constricted by the laws of our physical universe.

With science fiction you can use your character's “powers” to make statements about who they are. You can even manufacture the kind of world you'd like to live in...one that is imagined, but (perhaps) not impossible, such as in the “not-too-distant-future” worlds. After all 40, years ago cell phones and modern computers were science fiction. Two hundred years ago, so were airplanes.

DF:What writers have influenced you?

VJ:There have been so many! In my youth, I read a lot of  YA SF/fantasy, pulp fiction and African American literature. I was addicted to the Nancy Drew mystery series and to Marvel comics. I also devoured the works of Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, James Baldwin and Chester Himes. I'm the daughter of two English teachers, so AA literature was required reading in my household. But I didn't enjoy them any less because of this.

I later came to feel that the magic realism of African American literature (especially the novels of Himes and Wright) had a profound effect upon my evolution as a writer. I mean take Richard Wright's The Outsider, for instance, in which the protagonist fakes his own death and recreates himself. This is the classic stuff of pulp and science fiction!

As an adult, I credit Stephen King, Dean Kootz, Sarah Zettle and Tad Williams as among my early influences. But during my last five years as a writer, I believe I was most strongly influenced by Octavia Butler, Charles Saunders, Tananarive Due, and Steven Barnes.

Of course I have other favorite authors, who I know have impacted me—folks like Mimi Jean Pamfiloff, Carole McDonnell, Quinton Veal, Ronald Jones, Edward Uzzle, Milton Davis, Joe Bonadonna, Derrick Ferguson and Balogun Ojetade.

DF:When I'm asked to describe your work I always say it's imaginatively experimental. How would you describe it?

VJ:Thanks for the compliment! I'd say that “imaginatively experimental” is an excellent description. In adding to this, I'd describe my work as loosely fitting into the science fiction genre, with elements of fantasy, erotica and horror.

The alternate worlds I build are in keeping with what is scientifically probable if not yet possible. But there is sorcery too—magic just seems to find its way in my books. Charles Saunders once described my Immortal series, as a world in which science and sorcery co-exist. (I floated around on cloud nine for a month after that review!)

There is horror too, simply because some of the scenes in my novels can be very frightening. But life can be scary, and art imitates life. So there are scenarios that will make the reader's hair stand up on the back of their necks.

I've also been known to write some pretty steamy love scenes. Hence the erotica. I take the attitude that all authors express their connection to love and sexuality differently. There is never a right and wrong approach. James Baldwin, for example, could be graphically sexually in his novels. Octavia Butler, more reserved. Both are brilliant authors, and both are acceptable ways of approaching love and sexuality. I view sex as a part of life. I don't ignore it. I don't emphasize it either, so it's not on every other page.

DF:Tell us about the IMMORTAL series.

VJ:Each novel has time-travel, sorcery and shape shifting woven into the plot. The books are set on the alternate planet Tundra, a world without racism, sexism, poverty or crime. This is the setting of Immortal in the year 3075.

But the setting of 2075, a year which impinges on the present, is just as violent and conflicted as American during the 1960s. In fact, I drew heavily on the '60s, an era of great conflict but also of great love and sacrifice, when I wrote the Immortal series. And my readers have said that they get a strong “Make Love not War” vibe when reading them. 

In the first novel, Immortal, I introduce Karla and Joseph: lovers who've been separated by time and space. The inhabitants of Tundra decided that this was the way they wanted it, and fought to make it so. Karla and Joseph are gifted. They are also burdened. Gifted because they are werewolves. Burdened, because it falls upon them to protect Tundra from a powerful evil that has been unleashed upon their world.

Karla and Joseph are not the only protagonists of Immortal. The first novel builds the groundwork for the communes of supernatural beings, good and evil that make their appearance. In the second novel, the reader meets Karla and Joseph's kindred, who are also the saviors of Tundra. In Immortal III: Stealer of Souls, another key player emerges: Annabelle, a vampire with her own agenda and her own stake in Tundra's survival.

In Immortal IV: Collision of Worlds, the characters find themselves in a sinister, steam punk realm without their memories. Their death or survival is interwoven with the fate of Tyrol (The Switch II: Clockwork). That's all I can say giving away too many plot goodies. This is the conclusion to the series. At least, it was supposed to be. However, my readers have told me in no uncertain terms that I can't end it there. So we'll see.

DF:In the IMMORTAL series you're fearless in mixing science fiction with werewolves, vampires and eroticism. When you began the series did you worry that it would be too much for potential readers?

VJ:Most definitely! In the beginning, I felt like I had so much going on, that no one would ever want to read it. But the story is what the story is. When one begins to write, the characters take on lives of their own...these spirits that walk across the page.

I got good feedback from CAAWC. So I pressed on. I started to realize that I had a very unique book and that everything somehow fit together to create a compelling mosaic.  I remembered Octavia Butler's fiction. She was well known for her supernatural “communities.” I thought of The Talisman too, a SF odyssey in which the characters “flip” between realities. Then I knew I had a winner.

DF:Tell us about THE SWITCH series

VJ:The Switch was my first plunge into the steam punk genre. It takes place on the planet Tyrol: a world in which the wealthy live in luxury in the skies, and the poor in a cancerous, steam punk underground.  One of the problems with Tyrol, along with the oppression of the poor, is that the society has become so cut-throat that wealthy women cannot take lovers— for fear the men will marry and then murder them to steal their money. So the rich create androids for their own pleasure.

Like my Immortal series, there is a sharp contrast between the privileged and the poor. There are also two lovers, Simone2 and Dumas2, who are central to the plot, and to the liberation of their planet. There is sorcery and there is time travel. But The Switch is also an erotic thriller, with a plenty of sharp turns and twists. I've had two fellow writers compare it to Phillip K. Dick's Blade Runner! Of course, I'm honored by such a comparison!

There is also heavy emphasis on the other characters, such as Z100, an evil agent provocateur, and Lotus, the time keeper. And for anyone who missed reading Book I: The Switch (originally published by Mocha Memoirs Press) not to worry. I've condensed both books into The Switch II: Clockwork.  

Charles Saunders has just written a fantastic review of The Switch and Immortal IV and I'm really juiced up about it!  It's up on his site for anyone who wants to check it out!

DF:What are your future plans for your writing career?

VJ:I've just two of my stories published in anthologies, which I'm very excited about! My interracial romance story, Mocha Faeryland was just published in 31 Shots of Mocha (Mocha Memoirs Press). This was the very first fantasy romance story I'd ever written. But I like pushing myself outside my comfort zone. And my sword and soul story, The Sickness, was accepted for publication in Griots II: Sisters of The Spear (MV Media). Griots II should be out in 2013.

I'm also writing a space opera, Colony. If readers are interested, they can read the first chapters at smashwords or my wordpress site. I have a paranormal novel, set in New Orleans, in the works. And I'm working on a film based on one of my stories, Grandmere's Secret, with Balogun Ojetade. It's the first time I've ever attempted anything like this, and so I'm both anxious and excited about it.

DERRICK FERGUSON:What's a Day In The Life Of Valjeanne Jeffers like?

VALJEANNE JEFFERS: I spend my day writing, editing, reading—not necessarily in that order—and playing with my grandbaby. And I hang out with my guy, Quinton Veal. Quinton writes erotic poetry (Her Black Body I Treasure) and he's an extraordinarily talented artist too. So we have a really cool relationship.

Anything else we need to know about you?

I'd like to thank Derrick Ferguson, pulp fiction writer extraordinaire for interviewing me. I had a blast!

Valjeanne Jeffers

http://www.vjeffersandqveal.com

http://valjeanne.wordpress.com

http://qandvaffordableediting.blogspot.com

C'mere And Sit Down For A Minute. I Wanna Talk To You...

One of the true pleasures I enjoy is when I open up an email and see that a story is attached to it. It happens on quite a regular basis.  Some of the stories are from other writers I’ve known for years and just want to get my feedback on certain aspects of the story or certain characters or just want to let me read it ahead of the hoi polloi.

Then there are the stories I get from those aspiring writers who labor under the belief that I actually know what I’m doing and are looking for some constructive criticism about their prose.  It’s a a pleasure to get those stories as well.  And I’m not going to sit here and lie to you and say that it’s not flattering as hell that a writer would put himself out there like that and send out their literary child to be examined by a stranger who just may well flay it alive over a pit of red-hot coals.

But I don’t do that.  Really.  Even on that rare occasion where I receive a story that…needs work, let’s say…I do my best to be supportive and provide the necessary encouragement while attempting to be realistic and practical without being a complete and total dick about it.

But there is one thing that grinds my grits to no end…

I can never understand why someone would send  me a story and feel the need to add to the email something that usually goes like this or some other variation: “I really appreciate you reading this story even though I know it sucks.” Or “This story is just so much crap and I’m probably wasting your time asking you to read it.” 

My question is this: if you know the story is crap or it sucks and you wrote it then why are you asking me to read it?  Apparently you must think I like reading crap.  In which case you must not think much of me to begin with. Or maybe you think that by you coming out first and saying it’s crap or it sucks that you’re getting a jump ahead of me and cushioning the blow if it turns out that I don’t like it.

How about this: let me read the story and let me decide for myself if the story sucks or not.  There’s absolutely no upside to you making up my mind for me before I’ve even read Word One and prejudicing me against your own work.  And in my experience, 9 times outta 10 the story is nowhere near as crappy as the writer thinks it is.  Matter of fact it usually turns out to be pretty damn good.

And when I say this one on one to a writer he’ll usually email me back something that reads along these lines; “Well, that’s easy for you to say. You don’t write crappy stories.”

Say wha?

Of course I write crappy stories.  Every writer does.  The difference is this: you’ll never see the crappy stories because the only stories I send out are the ones that I know without a shadow of a doubt represents the best work that I can do. The crappy stories I leave on my hard drive until I can rewrite them until they ain’t crap or I decide to give them up altogether.  And believe me, the amount of crappy stories I have written are considerable to say the least.

Okay, glad to have gotten that off my chest at last.  So we’re clear on this, right?  No more sending me stories with a little “I know this story sucks” note attached, okay? Don’t worry.  If it is that bad, I’ll say so.  And then I’ll roll up my sleeves and get to work to help you make it better.

So why are you still sitting here?  Go get busy writing.

Kickin' The Willy Bobo With: MARK BOUSQUET

Derrick Ferguson: Who is Mark Bousquet?

Mark Bousquet: I was raised in a small town in central Massachusetts called Winchendon (the only town so named in the entire country). Back then, the town population was 8,000 people and the entire high school was only 200-something kids. I played baseball and basketball in high school, acted in the yearly play competition, and generally had a great time. I attended Syracuse University on two separate occasionsand earned Bachelor's degrees in Public Communications and then inLiterature, then went to the University of New Hampshire for a Mastersin Lit, and then to Purdue University where I earned a Ph.D inAmerican Studies (a dual degree in 19th century American environmental Lit and History).

DF: Where do you live and what do you do to keep the bill collectors away?

MB: I've been living in Reno, Nevada for almost a year now with my coonhound/beagle Darwin, where I'm the Assistant Director of Core Writing at the University of Nevada, Reno.

DF: How long you been writing?

MB: Almost as long as I can remember. When I was in the first or second grade, I can remember getting a creative writing assignment and just absolutely loved it. Since then, I've always been thinking of stories to write when I get some free time.

DF: What writers have influenced you?

MB: My biggest influences were the mid-80s Marvel Comics' writers: Walt Simonson, Roger Stern, Steve Englehart, and Mark Gruenwald. I love the way they told long-form stories using the monthly format to their advantage. Beyond that, as a kid I gravitated towards series of books: the Hardy Boys, Lord of the Rings, the Three Investigators, Narnia, Encyclopedia Brown, and the Old Mother West Wind series. As I grew older, it was writers like Elmore Leonard, William Goldman, Nick Hornby, Robert Parker, and Edward Abbey. And I love the 19th century: Mark Twain, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emily Dickinson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Stephen Crane.

DF: What's your philosophy of writing?

MB: Simple: If I'm not having fun writing it, then you're not gonna have fun reading it. Beyond that, I'm always trying out new things. In my career as an academic, I've got to write articles that are largely written in the same style and format, no matter the subject, so in my creative writing, I like to try new things, which is why I've gone from a contemporary fantasy, to a kid's book, to a sci-fi actioner, to now aweird western.

DF: Before we get into GUNFIGHTER GOTHIC let's talk a bit about your earlier work.  Tell us about DREAMER'S SYNDROME.

MB: It started with a simple idea: what if everyone got to be as adults what they wanted to be as kids? I came out of the fan-fiction ranks, working at Marvel Volume 1 on just about every single Marvel characterI'd wanted to write. I was in the home stretch of my "original"series, ALL GOD'S CHILDREN, which was an "end of the Marvel Universe" story that jumped all over the timeline. I loved working at MV1 but I was ready to try something new, so I propped DREAMER'S to the Frontier Publishing website and luckily, they accepted it. The narrative focuses on Austin and Kelly, a young couple who get split apart by what I called "the New World." The story starts on the morning of the Reorganization, where the whole world wakes up and finds themselves transformed into their childhood dream. Austin goes from being a lit professor to a pirate, and Kelly is horrified to find herself transformed into a Disney-esque Princess. They get split and the story is about the two of them finding a way to come back together inside a New England that has been transformed into a half-Middle Ages, half-contemporary setting.

DF: HARPSICHORD & THE WORMHOLE WITCHES was a book completely different from DREAMER'S SYNDROME. Tell us about how and why you wrote that book.

MB: One of the complaints I received about DREAMER'S was that there was too much talking and not enough action, so I set out to write a straight-ahead action story where I'd have to fit the characterizationin alongside the action. (I didn't time to make these changes for mykid's book: ADVENTURES OF THE FIVE: THE COMING OF FROST.) 

The wholeproject was designed to be an antithesis of DREAMER'S. Because it was written for Frontier, DREAMER'S was a serialized novel, where each chapter had to tell its own episode, but with HARPSICHORD, the whole story is designed to move fast and hit hard. Harpsichord is a student at a military academy who gets shunted off to the Deep, the far end of space, and forced to fend for herself. I wrote the whole novel in a month while I was waiting for my dissertation adviser to get back tome with some feedback on the latest diss chapter I'd turned in. The whole project popped in my head and out onto the computer screen faster than any project I'd ever written.

DF: Before we get into GUNFIGHTER GOTHIC let me ask you this: why a Weird Western? And what about that genre turns your crank?

MB: Russ Anderson invited me to submit a story for HOW THE WEST WAS WEIRD VOLUME 2, and that's how I came up with Hanna and Jill, the stars of GUNFIGHTER GOTHIC. I'd been wanting to write a western for a while and luckily Russ presented me with the opportunity. What I love about the genre is the wide open expanse of the west allows for any and all kinds of stories.

DF: Okay, enough sizzle.  Give us the steak.  What's GUNFIGHTER GOTHIC and why should we read it?

MB: The core question of GUNFIGHTER GOTHIC is how far are you willing to go for the woman you love when you know she'll never love you back? Hanna and Jill grew up together as best friends in a whaling merchant's house in Boston, but on opposite sides: Jill was the merchant's daughter and Hanna was the servant's daughter. Along the way, Hanna fell in love with Jill, while Jill lives too much in each individual moment to probably fall in love with anyone. She had agreed to marry Dotson Winters in order to save her father's dying business but when he disappeared on the morning of their wedding, Jill and Hanna headed after him. They boarded a train in Kansas City and before that ride was over, they'd fought werewolves, vampires, special agents, and confronted Mary Todd Lincoln and Dotson.

Then the train crashed. Jill died.

And GUNFIGHTER GOTHIC: BLOOD OF THE UNIVERSE is the story about how Hanna gets Jill back. Bellingham, a time-traveling British secret service agent who was on the train with them, tells Hanna the real reason he's in 1866: to look for the Universe Cutter, a blade that can bring one person back from the dead.

DF: What does the future hold for Jill and Hanna?

MB: This "Volume 0" edition is designed to be a bridge between the story in HTWWW V2 and the upcoming GUNFIGHTER GOTHIC VOLUME 1: UNDER ZEPPELIN SKIES. I love these two characters and I'm really enjoying writing of their adventures in the weird west.

DF: Bellingham is a character that at times threatens to steal the book away from Jill and Hanna.  Can we expect to see more of him?

MB: Absolutely. He stars in a back-up tale in BLOOD OF THE UNIVERSE entitled, "Appetite for Appeasement," that sends him back to 1939 London. He's kind-of-obviously the answer to the question, "What if James Bond had a TARDIS?" and he's an absolute blast to write.

DF: You're also a movie reviewer.  Tell us about your movie review blog, ATOMIC ANXIETY.

MB: I love movies. Directors are every bit as influential to me as writers and I love to write and talk about movies. I'll write reviews for almost everything I watch, whether it's an all-time classic or a cheesy B-movie.

DF: What other writing projects do you have planned?

MB: Getting UNDER ZEPPELIN SKIES finished is the next project on the agenda, and then after that it's the next ADVENTURES OF THE FIVE story, a Christmas story that I hope to have out for Christmas. But you probably guessed that. Other than that, there's all kinds of other projects spinning in my head, but I like the stay flexible. Over the past year, I contributed stories to not only HTWWW V2 but BLACKTHORN: THUNDER ON MARS, and I'd really like to start writing more short stories for other people's collections.

DF: What's a typical Day In The Life of Mark Bousquet like?

MB: Get up, walk the dog, go to campus, deal with teaching and administrative work, then home to walk the dog again, eat dinner, and then settle down with a movie or catch a ballgame or get some writing done.

Derrick Ferguson: Anything else we need to know about Mark Bousquet?

Mark Bousquet: Just that I'm always trying to get better and love any kind of constructive criticism, whether it's positive or negative. To try and build some momentum for UNDER ZEPPELIN SKIES, I'm offering a PDF version of GUNFIGHTER GOTHIC to anyone who wants one. It's free ofcharge - I wouldn't object to getting some feedback in exchange or apositive comment dropped at the Amazon page, or buying the $7 paperback or 99 cent Kindle version, but it's certainly not a requirement. I think I've given away a good 20 copies or so, so far, and I'm happy to send more out to anyone who wants one. The early feedback has been very positive, which is nice, since this is where I'm spending the next few months of my creative time.

Atomic Anxiety: http://atomicanxiety.wordpress.com/

Mark’s Amazon.com Author’s Page: http://www.amazon.com/Mark-Bousquet/e/B004WWUTNU/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1/187-8686434-3030664

The Denbrook Bible

By Mike McGee
Originally written in August 2002

This is the first run-through of the "city planning bible" for Frontier's shared-world imprint. I haven't done any editing. You'll notice a lack of things like: "Monkey City: A place where monkeys RULE!!" I want it to come across as much like a real city as possible. As I see it, there aren't any superheroic/supernatural/science fiction elements in this world until we introduce them in the actual series.

It's about the size of Chicago. Like Chicago, it's unofficially divided into halves - here, it's a matter of the West and East sides. The Union City Bridge - a bridge not unlike the Golden Gate (albeit smaller) - connects them: The West end spills you out into a seedy little neighborhood called with apparent irony Greater Denbrook, and the East leads you to downtown.

Don't ask me why a city called Denbrook has a bridge called Union City. It makes sense if you think about it, but only then…like a lot of things in Denbrook.

Anyway. Before we get into that. The Union City Bridge stretches over Hopkins River…it's a sheer hundred-foot drop into some very cold waters. Hopkins feeds into Lake Erie, accessible from Denbrook's north shore. Cross the lake, you're into Canada, which is useful info if you're the kinda guy who does things like flee from the police. Business types use the lake for fishing, off-shore coal mining, things like that...there are some pretty big boats out on the water, though fewer yachts and the like. Denbrook isn't the kind of city that attracts folks with disposable income, and that water is too frigid and choppy even in summer to be all that much fun. Still, there are sparsely populated beaches here and there - the lake is fine to swim in, though no one trusts the river. That current's a bitch and toxic dumping made it poison for decades. It's clean now, but...

Okay, remember the bridge? Cross it headed east, but instead of going downtown, take a left and head back the way you came…this time headed down a downward-slanted street called Hopkins Drive. This'll lead you into the Barrens. There used to be a lot of industry here in Denbrook, and this is where most of it was located - on the banks of Hopkins River. The burned-out shells of factories, ancient rusting hulks of iron mining machinery…it's all still here, and picturesque in an urban decay sort of way. But this isn't why you're here.

See, you have to drive a mile or two before you come up on the old industrial sites. Between you and them, you have what citizens think of when they think of The Barrens - which is to say, bars, night clubs, strip joints, the whole nine yards. The river runs alongside all of it. People come here to party. During the week, it's kinda nice; Friday through Sunday, The Barrens are flooded with weekend warriors, a lot of them kids from the suburbs. Every now and then, someone gets drunk, hits their head, and falls into the Hopkins. Sometimes they get pushed.

Motor back up Hopkins Drive and you find yourself on Superior, a great big street that takes you straight through downtown Denbrook. I'll point out some stuff along the way…

First, to our left, a street branches off Superior at a right angle to The Barrens, Matheson Avenue.  Matheson is the gateway to the Warehouse District, which is –you guessed it- composed of warehouses.  Most of those have been converted into apartment buildings.  This is a fairly high-income area, but the give breaks to young professionals and the like.  You find a lot of yuppies, a few bohemians and a scattering of senior citizens who are not pleased by the weekend activity in the slightest.

Head up Superior another three blocks and on your right you’ll spot Denbrook Tower.  You can’t miss it.  It’s the city’s second tallest building.  Built in 1902, it was home to several department stories in its heyday.  That heyday was back in the ‘50’s when the subway got put in…see, the Tower was conceived as Denbrook’s hub, and the crisscrossing subway trains that traverse West and East Denbrook are all accessible from a train station in the basement.  But more and more folks tended to (a) drive and (b) stick to the suburbs, so the Tower went to seed.

But in the late '80's, some billionaire industrialist or other bought the place, gutted it, and more or less turned it into a seven-story shopping mall. Thirty stories of offices above that mall are still mostly unoccupied, but the shopping center thrives. The train station and the two floors above it are both underground, which means the stuff on the fourth floor is actually at street-level. Anyway, you'll find a lot of chain retail/restaurants on the lower floors, and swankier stuff the higher up you go.

Drive up Superior another block, and you'll see the main branch of the Denbrook Public Library. I know, you're like, what the hell? But check it out: We're talking one gorgeous, ornate building constructed in 1905, connected to a 1999-era glass-and-steel monster by means of an underground passageway. Kinda really fucking huge for a library, don'tcha think? The '99 leviathan was built out of necessity: Denbrook's collection is among the largest in the country, probably on the planet. If you can't find what you're looking for here…friends, it don't exist. The newer stuff you'll find the new building. The old stuff…some of it quite old indeed…you'll find in a variety of collections scattered throughout the other one. You want a library card.

Six blocks up, we come to Cathedral Street, on our left. The Cathedral of Saint Paul the Apostle, built in 1855, jumps out and says hi. Look past it a block or so, and you'll see a glass-and-street enclosure that looks a bit like a hothouse: This is City Center. Every bit as appropriate as calling a slum Greater Denbrook. Basically, City Center is yet another big shopping mall, built in 1987. But when the Tower re-opened a month later, that was effectively the end of City Center as a profit-making entity. City Center does a brisk lunch trade, but that's about it. Its four stories contain about eight businesses, and all of them struggle. City Center cost about fifty mil to erect. This is what's known as a white elephant.

So who goes there for lunch? Folks who don't wanna walk all the way down to the Tower. .. i.e., folks who work here, in the business district. The side streets from E. 10th to E. 22nd are all banks, office buildings, corporate headquarters, etc., etc., ad infinitum. Scattered in there you'll find a few pizza shops, a bar or two, but for the most part…Corporate America.

From E. 23rd to E. 26th, we're in the Theatre District. Like the Tower, the Theatre District is yet another tale of resurrection: Denbrook's grand old movie palaces were the rage for decades, but fell into disrepair in the '60's and '70's. The last of them - a third-run movie house by then - closed its doors in 1983, as a result of roughly 875 fire­code violations. But in the late '80's, all of the old places were bought up, renovated to a state approaching their original magnificence, and were re-opened as playhouses (and one opera house) in the early '90's.

On E. 28th, you find Howard Phillips University. Huge. A college with a host of controversies, it's really the only game in town for those who'd like to obtain a four-year degree. The campus occupies four blocks and has a student-operated radio station - WHPC, at 88.3 FM. Its student paper is the Vanguard.

Hop on the shoreway and let's buzz through the East Side real quick ...

Coming off E. 55th, you'll notice a ghetto that looks a little more like Beirut.  If we were gonna slow down a minute, you'd notice that no one seems to be on the street. That's because this whole area of town was bought out by corporate interests. Eminent domain, though I can't imagine the residents were really all that sad to go.

You run out of East Denbrook at E. 185th. Out past here, you've got Denbrook Heights, a suburban community that gets richer and more lily-white the farther you get from the city. If you'd left East Denbrook and gone northeast instead, you'd have found yourself in Ruckerville, a pretty dilapidated community that's high-crime, low-income. Neither Ruckerville nor Denbrook Heights are part of the city proper, but a lot of Denbrook's workers commute from these areas.

Cross through downtown Denbrook, back over the Union City Bridge, and now here we are, back in Greater Denbrook. Denbrook's west side is more blue-collar, homier, and (as far as its East Siders are concerned) totally devoid of culture. Greater Denbrook's homes date back, most of them, to the early 1900's, and this whole section of town has the Historical Preservation Society all over it like white on rice. Brave yuppies have moved here for the architecture and because Greater Denbrook is cheaper than the Warehouse District, and the neighborhood is a sometimes uneasy mix of races and incomes, of newcomers and those raised here. The wealthy tend to head to the suburbs when they have kids…but not all of them. This can be a rough place to live, but it's more welcoming.

But let's back up for a minute. If you leave the Union City Bridge headed west and keep driving straight down Superior, you'll take in Greater Denbrook in its entire splendor; but instead, let's turn left and head down W.25th. This is a long block of pawn shops, secondhand stores and mom-and-pop retail. It terminates at the W. 25th Market, a lovely old brown brick building erected in 1911. On the street, there's an open-air fruit and vegetable market. Head inside, and you'll find various meat-market stands. The yuppies get a real kick out of how quaint it all is; the longtime residents have shopped here for generations.

Head past the Market, make another left, and trundle downhill over a few small, rundown bridges with no names. The main street is Violin Road; somehow that became the name of the whole place. This little community - just a few miles around, and still a part of the city - was once populated by folks who made their trades in the factories and mines. Now there's nothing left but the bars ... at least four on every block. The current population is a mix of old-timers who barely get by and young bohemian types who've come in from other communities. Wild dogs roam the overgrown park at night, and homeless people and runaways live under those bridges.

Turn around and head west. The neighborhoods between W. 25th and W. 117th are mostly unremarkable:  Largely poor, all pretty much the same. At W. 117th, we enter Blackwood - not quite another town, not exactly an official part of Denbrook proper. Middle-class, mostly white but increasingly integrated, Blackwood does curiously have its own police force…a police force that is notoriously unfriendly to "outsiders." But in fairness, Blackwood is a safe place to raise families, and quiet; a slightly more urban alternative to a truly suburban community. And it doesn't completely lack for excitement.

Downtown Blackwood is a haven for Blackwood's youth culture scene, mostly an odd combination of kids into hip-hop and the kind of kids who look like the ones who shot up Columbine. Both types congregate at Ground Zero, a large coffee shop. There's also a smallish venue for (mostly local) music: The Arcade. The Arcade's second floor is a concert hall; its ground floor (accessible through a back door) is a goth dance club called the Mausoleum. A ton of smaller clubs and bars dot the landscape, as well as an occult bookstore or two.

Head further west. The paved streets will lead you out of Blackwood, but take a right at Hiassen Road. This isn't a shortcut - this is the scenic route. Hiassen runs downhill into the Valley: Several miles of forest. Officially, the Valley is a public park, but there's no real question about it - you're in the woods. By day, there are hikers and picnickers and bicyclists; by night, you can be arrested if you're seen wandering around outside of a moving vehicle. But even in Blackwood, that's not much of a concern ... you aren't too likely to encounter a cop down here. Your headlights are reflected back at you from animal eyes in the trees: There's a gigantic deer population, despite the seasonal efforts to hunt them down to a more manageable level, and an unusually high number of owls make the Valley their home.

It takes about ten minutes to get from one end of the Valley to the other. The road leads uphill to Bankcreek Lane, and now you're 1n Westfall. Like Blackwood, Westfall is a semi-urban area, but this is definitely a suburb. This part of Westfall is also youth-oriented, and not much different from the place we left previous to our journey through the woods, albeit a bit more ... dirty.

Beyond Westfall, the cushier suburbs - but you don't want to live there. Not really. Not when you've got the city… 

Derrick Ferguson Has THE CUTMAN In His Corner!

Back during the heyday of the Classic Pulp era there were magazines devoted to just about every type of genre you could think of or that publishers thought they could sell to the entertainment hungry public.  Most of us are familiar with the hero pulps, the western pulps, the science fiction pulps, the horror pulps.  But there were far more than that.  You had your spicy pulps which was the safe name for what was pretty much soft core porn.  There were gangster pulps, railroad pulps and sports pulp.  And a sub-genre of the sports pulp was boxing pulp stories.

If you’re at all familiar with the boxing pulp genre it’s probably because of Robert E. Howard and his champion boxer character Sailor Steve Costigan.  Even though Howard is best known as the creator of Conan, King Kull and Solomon Kane he wrote more stories about Sailor Steve Costigan. 

It’s probably inevitable that in the New Pulp Renaissance we’re enjoying right now that the pulp boxing genre should also enjoy a revived popularity and it’s a genre that’s well represented by the the Fight Card series of books in general and THE CUTMAN in particular.  It’s the second book in the series but you don’t have to have read the first one in order to enjoy it.  The books are credited as being written by Jack Tunney but that’s a “house name”.  The first book “Felony Fists” was written by Paul Bishop and THE CUTMAN was written by Mel Odom and it’s a terrific read.

First off, it’s set in Havana, Cuba during a period of history that fascinates me; the period when American organized crime worked hand-in-hand with the Batista regime, turning Cuba into a playground of illegal activity.  It’s here that the cargo ship Wide Bertha docks and it isn’t long until one of its crewmen, the two-fisted Irishman Mickey Flynn runs afoul of the henchmen working for small-time gangster Victor Falcone.  And this in turn leads to Mickey having a beef with Falcone himself who has aspirations of moving into the big time by currying favor with Charles “Lucky” Luciano.

The boxing angle comes into the story due to Falcone’s sponsorship of savagely brutal  backroom boxing matches which is dominated by his fighter, the human buzzsaw “Hammer” Simbari.  Simbari is a bloodthirsty sadist who derives extreme satisfaction from beating men half to death in the ring and the inevitable battle between Mickey and Simbari is written with a great deal of tension and suspense as we’ve seen what Simbari can do and so has Mickey.  And he’s not all that sure he can take Simbari.

Not that he has any choice.  In a series of plot twists I wouldn’t dare reveal here, the fate of Wide Bertha and her crew rests on Mickey’s exceptional boxing skills, skills learned from the legendary Father Tim of St. Vincent’s Asylum For Boys in Chicago.  Mickey’s got no choice but to climb into the ring with this near unstoppable fighting machine. 

THE CUTMAN has got a lot going on besides the boxing.  There’s a whole host of supporting characters that added greatly to the flavor and atmosphere of the story.  Colorful, delightful characters that reminded me of those great supporting actors in those classic black-and-white Warner Brothers crime/gangster movies of the 30’s and 40’s.  In fact, that’s exactly how THE CUTMAN reads, like an old fashioned Warner Brothers movie.  The crime elements are interwoven with the well written fight scenes and there’s even a romantic subplot with Mickey and a lusty gorgeous Cuban barmaid which doesn’t go the way romances in this type of story usually go.

So should you read THE CUTMAN? I certainly would recommend it.  It’s a solid page turner that does exactly what I think a pulp story should do; keep you asking; “what’s going to happen next?”  It’s very well written with snappy, slangy dialog and good descriptions of the fight scenes.  At all times we know exactly what’s happening and why.  I’m most certainly going to be keeping my eye out for future volumes in the Fight Card series which are available as e-books only and you should too.

Format: Kindle Edition

File Size: 299 KB

Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited

Publisher: Fight Card Productions (November 11, 2011)

Sold by: Amazon Digital Services

Language: English

ASIN: B0066E93MK

Derrick Ferguson Travels To The City of Bathos THROUGH THE GROANING EARTH

THROUGH THE GROANING EARTH: A TALE FROM THE CITY OF BATHOS

By Joel Jenkins

Pulpwork Press

ISBN-10: 1450505112

ISBN-13: 978-1450505116

I suspect a lot of you reading this that were around in the 70’s got turned onto the sub-genre of heroic fantasy called sword and sorcery the same way I did: The re-discovery of Robert E. Howard thanks to the Lancer Conan paperbacks with the exquisite Frank Frazetta covers. I devoured all the Howard I could get and once I was through gobbling all of his stories I quickly moved onto Charles R. Saunders, Fritz Leiber, Michael Moorcock, Jack Vance and Lin Carter. Carter was a little bit too slavish in his homage to Howard with his Thongor series, though. But still, at that age I didn’t care. If it was sword and sorcery, I wanted it.

Never got into J.R.R.Tolkien, though. To me, Tolkien was all about the world building and creating a mythology and he’s certainly done that as “The Lord of The Rings” is still going strong to this day. Not that I have anything against that kind of fantasy. I would just rather read about working class barbarians and warriors who hack and slash their way through the day and spend their nights wenching and partying.

Which is probably why my interest in sword and sorcery dropped severely once the popularity of Tolkien style heroic fantasy seemed to me to have taken over. Nobody really was writing meat and potatoes sword and sorcery and the trend appeared to have swung over to what I call, for lack of a better way to put it; more ‘literate’ high fantasy. None of which appealed to me as I simply can’t slog through 1,000 page books that really have just enough story and plot for 150/200 pages.

Knowing Joel Jenkins as I do I think he misses that kind of straightforward, testosterone laden sword swinging tale. And Joel’s the kind of guy who doesn’t lay back and wish somebody would write the kind of story he wants to read. He goes ahead and writes it himself. And in his two books set in the legendary City of Bathos that’s exactly what he’s done: write about blue collar, working class barbarians and warriors in “Escape From Devil’s Head” and THROUGH THE GROANING EARTH.

Both books, but especially THROUGH THE GROANING EARTH aren’t ‘novel’ novels. Instead, they’re like a sword and sorcery version of that old television series “Naked City” that always started off with the narrator saying that “there are eight million stories in the naked city”. I don’t know how many inhabitants of Bathos there are but they include courtesans, thieves, disgruntled godlings, out-of-work mercenaries, farmers, innkeepers, outlaws, priests, schemers, cowards, cutthroats and they all have their own stories to tell.

And by this method of telling various stories set within this city, with some characters occasionally crossing over from one story to another, Bathos itself becomes a character in its own right. A marvelously decadent city that at once and the same time is wonderfully sleazy as well as gorgeously thrilling.

A large part of adding to the City of Bathos taking on a life of its own and becoming a character is Joel’s lush descriptions and dialog. One thing that turns me off from a lot of modern day fantasy is that the writers will have the most amazing characters populating their stories but those characters talk as if they’ve been watching MTV and CNN for the past 10 years or so. Joel’s characters have a richness to how they speak and how they phrase their sentences that immediately let you know that you’re reading about people who live in a mythical place and time.

And these are people, no doubt about it. Nobody’s going on some impossible quest to save the world from an all-powerful wizard or to save the world from an ancient evil. Bathos isn’t that type of city and the people who inhabit Joel’s story are just trying to get through another day without getting killed. For the most part, a lot of the characters in THROUGH THE GROANING EARTH are minding their own business when they get caught up almost without knowing it into a wild adventure. And they rise to the challenge with an enormous amount of well written fight scenes in which Joel runs riot with the description. I strongly suspect Joel has just as much fun writing those scenes of carnage as I did reading them.

And Joel does go in for world building just as much as Tolkien or Stephen R. Donaldson or Robert Jordan. But he doesn’t give you these honkin’ huge pages and pages of back history or have characters relate what you need to know through info dumps. Joel weaves and integrates the geography, history and political dynamics of Bathos into the story and into the dialog of his characters. It’s an effective technique that I really like to see writers use.  All too often with a lot of fantasy writers the story itself is put on hold while the writer attempts to impress with how much effort he’s put into thinking out this imaginary world. And in fact, I’m of the school of thought that says if you’ve put enough into this imaginary world then the information can’t help but find its way into the mouths of the characters. Which is where it should be in the first place.

So should you read THROUGH THE GROANING EARTH? I don’t see why you shouldn’t. If you like Old School sword and sorcery like Robert E. Howard used to make then I heartily recommend this book as well as “Escape From Devil’s Head”. Joel has a sincere love and respect for this genre and if you’ve read Joel’s other books set in the modern day then here’s an excellent chance for you to experience another aspect of the marvelous talent of Joel Jenkins.

THROUGH THE GROANING EARTH is available from Amazon.com as a paperback or ebook for your Kindle or through Pulpwork Press http://www.freewebs.com/pulpworkpress/