David Cranmer's Blog, page 62

At War

I'm waiting for white to move. This has been a hard fought battle though my opponent isn't out of the game yet. “Easy, you know, does it, son.”

A Pale Fire Mystery

I think I did fairly well on this article where I strive to convince mystery lovers that Nabokov's literary classic is for them.

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita, Ada, or Ardor) is not what one would call a traditional mystery story. You won’t find it among the likes of Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Father Brown, or Phillip Marlowe in the mystery section of your local bookstore. Instead it’s shelved in the classics section with Ulysses, The Adventures of Augie March, Mrs. Dalloway, and other noted literary titles (Pale Fire came in at #53 on the list of the Modern Library 100 Best Novels). And, yet, I can’t think of a greater mystery.

Read more at Macmillan's Criminal Element.

False Memories

This article reminded me a bit of BLADE RUNNER's replicants created by the Tyrell Corporation. In particular, Rachel's implanted false memories. It seems, based on this piece, its just as easy a Jedi mind trick on flesh and blood.

False Memories Now

This article reminded me a bit of BLADE RUNNER's replicants created by the Tyrell Corporation and implanted with false memories.

The cradle rocks above an abyss...

Adam Frank's "one thought about death has always stayed with me.." reminds me a lot of the opening (and first chapter) to Nabokov's SPEAK, MEMORY.

How the West Was Written: Frontier Fiction, Vol. 2, 1907-1915 by Ron Scheer

During the years 1907–1915, frontier fiction boomed with new writers, and the success of Owen Wister’s The Virginian (1902) began to make itself felt in their work. That novel had made the bestseller lists for two years running. With the continued popularity of Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show, and the appearance of one-reeler westerns on movie screens, many featuring the adventures of Bronco Billy Anderson, the cowboy hero was becoming an established mythic figure in the public imagination.

For writers of popular fiction, the frontier was also a subject for exploring ideas drawn from current public discourse—ideas about character and villainy, women’s rights, romance and marriage, democracy and government, capitalism, race and social boundaries, and the West itself. With each new publication, they participated as well in an ongoing forum for how to write about the West and how to tell western stories. Taken together, the chapters of this book describe for modern-day readers and writers the origins of frontier fiction and the rich legacy it has left us as a genre. It is also a portal into the past, for it offers a history of ideas as preserved in popular culture of a century ago that continues to claim an audience today.

How the West Was Written: Frontier Fiction, Vol. 2, 1907-1915 by Ron Scheer is now available in print and Kindle formats.

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Praise for How the West Was Written: Vol. 1

“This is a splendid study of early western fiction, most of it written contemporaneously with the settlement of the American West. A surprising number of women authors are included among the sixty-some novels reviewed by the author. The book offers penetrating, rich, and lucid examinations of these early novels, and gives us a good understanding of where western fiction came from and how it has evolved. Highly recommended.”
—Richard S. WheelerSpur Award-winning author
“[Ron Scheer’s] scholarship is meticulous and the book is an enlightening contribution to American literature with this study of the Western, its roots and its themes. I’m proud to have it on my bookshelf. It’s unique in the canon, as far as I know.”
—Carol BuchananSpur Award-winning author

Sunrise Over The Mountain

1/18/2015. Photo by David Cranmer

The Swashbuckler Way Out West

My latest article at Macmillan's Criminal Element: Errol Flynn: The Swashbuckler Way Out West. This piece has to be dedicated to my mother who was a huge fan of the Australian born actor and first introduced me to films like THE SEA HAWK, CAPTAIN BLOOD, and THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD.

Red Venus

The Cold War just bled into the cold void of spaceSUPERPOWERS CLASH on the DEADLIEST PLANET in the SOLAR SYSTEM ... 

Fog-shrouded Venus had refused to give up her mysteries, until the USSR sent their best and brightest on a top-secret scientific mission. Now the crew of the Krasnyy Sokol, led by gorgeous Cosmonaut Nadezhda Gura, must brave a hellish hothouse of jungle swampland crawling with monstrous life. It’s Russians and rayguns against a death planet—and that’s before the Americans show up. 

At 17K words, RED VENUS is a slam-bang trip on atomic-powered rockets, seen through the eyes of the East. Read it, tovarisch, and experience a part of the solar system that never was. 

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Praise for Garnett Elliott and RED VENUS: 

“Garnett Elliott takes the Cold War into space in this rip-roaring planetary adventure tale that wouldn't be out of place in the browning pages of an old issue of Imagination or Imaginative Tales, two of my favorites from the ’50s. Check it out!” 
—Bill Crider 
Anthony Award-winning author 

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“Garnett Elliott’s RED VENUS is an exciting science fiction thriller that is at once pulpy yet high tech, crackles with sharp characterizations, a full-tilt pace, plenty of twisty surprises, and action galore … Oh, and did I mention the hostile planet teeming with fierce, grotesque creatures who fly and crawl and ooze out of the muck to relentlessly stalk and strike at practically every turn? Buckle up tight and get ready for a maximum-G thrust into outer space adventure!” 
—Wayne D. Dundee 
Author of Fugitive Trail, By Blood Bound 
and the Joe Hannibal series 

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“RED VENUS is a solid, old school pulp sci-fi story, equal parts adventure and intrigue. But it’s also an insightful ‘what if’ narrative … a terrifically fast-paced alternate history with great characters and pacing. I loved it, and I'm pretty damn hard to please when it comes to sci-fi.” 
—Heath Lowrance 
Author of Hawthorne: Tales of a Weirder West

James Reasoner on The Lawyer: Stay of Execution

Anyone who has followed this blog from the beginning (and I think there's about three of us left, right?) knows I'm a huge fan of Western writer extraordinaire James Reasoner. To have him review a book I had a hand in publishing remains a big deal for me. Here's James on The Lawyer: Stay of Execution.