Christopher Farnsworth's Blog, page 7

Awards Season

Good news, everybody: RED, WHITE, AND BLOOD is a finalist in the 2013 Audies for Suspense and Thrillers, which recognize “distinction in audiobook and spoken word entertainment.” As much as I’d like to take credit, it’s all due to Bronson Pinchot, who once again did a brilliant job bringing my scary thoughts to life. (Bronson previously won Audible.com’s “Narrator of the Year” in 2010, in part for his work on the first Nathaniel Cade book, BLOOD OATH. He’s also just an incredibly nice guy.)

The awards will be MC’ed this year by Daniel Handler, author of the Lemony Snicket books, on May 30 in New York.

So, When’s The Next Book Coming Out?

I’ve been asked by quite a few people when the next book in the Nathaniel Cade series will be done. Until now, I’ve mumbled some vague replies about a top-secret project, which probably made them think I was doing nothing but snacking on Cheetos and watching movies on Netflix.

Now the news is out: before I move on to Cade Book Four, I’m writing a book called BIMINI, about the Fountain of Youth. Here’s the announcement, which went out on Publishers Marketplace last week:

Christopher Farnsworth’s BIMINI, an action-packed thriller updating the legend of the fountain of youth and the conspiracy led by people whose vitality depends on it, to Rachel Kahan at William Morrow, in a pre-empt, by Alexandra Machinist at Janklow & Nesbit. (NA) Film rights to Tom Jacobson and Monnie Wills.

The book is inspired by an original idea from movie producers (and all-around good guys) and . I’m having a lot of fun with it right now, and I think anyone who likes Cade is going to have a great time reading this, too. Once again, this is all due to my brilliant agent, Alexandra Machinist.

And that’s about all I can say before mumbling some vague stuff about how this is still top secret for now.

As for Cade, I am going to get back to him — he won’t let me rest until I do — by the end of the year. I’ll have more news on Book Four once it’s finished.

Anyway. Thanks to all of you who keep asking about Cade, and for all the kind words about the books.

Living Legend Still Legend, Living

A couple of years ago my mom found a box with all my elementary school papers. In addition to some embarrassing pictures — I rocked a bowl cut for far longer than the style would allow — I came across one of those questionnaires that teachers have their kids fill out when it’s Friday and the clock is counting down toward the weekend. It asked about my parents, my pets, and my brother. And then there was the one question that still stands out to me today:

“What do you think you want to be when you grow up?”

My reply, in shaky block letters: “A writer like Stan Lee.”

I was six or seven when I wrote that. I barely knew what a writer did, but I knew that Stan Lee got to make up stories about Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four and a bunch of other super-heroes. That sounded pretty good to me.

When I was 39, my first novel was (finally) published and I was invited to speak on a panel at Comic-Con. That would have been a dream come true by itself. But as I was checking into the hotel, I realized I was standing in line right in front of Stan the Man himself.

I told him something he’d probably heard a lot before: “I became a writer because of you.”

He gave me the famous smile, shook my hand, and then that voice that I’d heard narrating Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends said, “Bless your heart. Thank you.”

Today he’s ninety years old and still Smilin’ Stan. You could do a lot worse for role models.

Thank you, Stan. Happy Birthday.

(Recommended Reading: Sean Howe‘s excellent and comprehensive Marvel Comics: The Untold Story.)

 

 

The First Time I Didn’t Want To Be James Bond

Jean and I saw Skyfall on Friday night, and it was amazing. Beautifully shot, brilliantly acted, filled with lovely touches of nostalgia for the former Bond films but clearly written as a naturalistic answer to those movies. It immediately became my favorite of the series.

But something happened this same weekend after I saw it. Like any geek worth his comic book collection, I usually have a moment where I indulge in the wish-fulfillment inherent in the James Bond franchise: when I imagine myself as the sleek, well-tailored killing machine hopping the globe in pursuit of international madmen of villainy and the sultry, magnificent women all around them. (Even John F. Kennedy wasn’t immune to the lure; the Bond books were his favorite reading in the White House, and were reportedly on his nightstand during the Cuban Missile Crisis.)

Only this time, it didn’t happen. Instead, I found myself holding my youngest daughter after her morning nap. She was in the middle of a cold, and her voice and breathing were thick with snot, and she was warm and still drowsy in my arms.

She used my forearm as a shelf for her head. She said, “Tired,” and “Good nap” and then “Cuddle.” She stayed there, totally relaxed and trusting, for five minutes without moving.

I was smiling so hard I felt tears come to my eyes. At that moment, I realized, I wouldn’t trade places with James Bond for anything. Not for anything in the world.

Happy Election Day

This is it. Election Day. One of my favorite secular holidays. I believe everyone should get the day off, and the bars should serve free drinks and ice cream after the polls close. Even my daughters seem excited: our youngest was up at 3:00 AM and our four-year-old cheerfully informed me she hopes Mitt Romney wins because “he wore a red-and-purple tie, and those are my favorite colors.”

I covered a few elections when I was a reporter and I still get infected by the excitement. For all my talk about being sick of the campaigning, there’s really nothing like the kind of charge you can get on Election Day. Sports fans, I know you think you’ve got the lock on intensity when it comes to game day, but trust me. Watch a bunch of former debate geeks, policy wonks, and political junkies waiting for the returns; it’s like a pack of werewolves taking over the local Holiday Inn. By the time the bartender finally escapes, there are claw marks in the drywall and someone’s eaten the carpet.

No matter who wins, I enjoy this part, with everybody equal parts exhausted and exhilarated and anxious. By tomorrow morning, you’re going to hear wails of despair and rage. There might be recounts, lawsuits, and the inevitable disappointment when the story doesn’t end cleanly and crisply, with a winner over here and a loser over there.

But right now, everyone is filled with a kind of savage joy, waiting for the moment when we all get to find out what happens. For all the misinformation, hype, spin, partisan hackery and outright lying, I’m always glad to see this day come. For a few hours, at least, millions of people all give a collective damn about what happens to our country and our future. As flawed and imperfect as the process is, it reflects our own flaws and imperfections, and our hopes to make something better on the next go-round.

If that’s not worth free beer and ice cream, then I don’t know what qualifies.

Halloweek: The Crestwood House Monster Series

Jean and I have been touring schools lately, looking for the right place for our older daughter. In between the smart-boards and the iPads and the progressive learning methods, it’s been one punch of nostalgia after another: the smell of modeling clay mixed with sack lunches; the same posters that were up on the walls of my own elementary school, the same cursive writing charts, and, in one library, the same books.

Specifically, the Crestwood House Monster Series of books.

I’d almost written these off to faulty memory until I saw this one in a Halloween display: The Wolf Man.

And then it all came flooding back. The Monster Series was a line of books that gathered up a bunch of (surprisingly accurate) monster lore and then included (surprisingly detailed) plot summaries of the great monster movies of the 30s, 40s, and 50s. The Collister Elementary library had the entire set, and since I wasn’t allowed to read comic books in class, I checked out every one of them. To this day, there are some horror films I haven’t seen — for instance, I’ve never seen Universal’s original Mummy series — but I know how they ended, because I read the Crestwood House books. This was the Internet before the Internet: a corner of the library filled with specialized knowledge, just waiting there for someone willing to seek it out. My path to writing The President’s Vampire started right there.

(You can read an excellent history of the books here.)

As soon as I knew the proper name for the series, I went to Amazon and got some copies of my own, in order to keep wallowing in the resurfaced memories. One old favorite holds up very well: Mad Scientists.

Yes, that is Boris Karloff as Fu Manchu. With a Death Ray.

It includes Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Fu Manchu, The Invisible Man, and The Fly. It’s a treasure trove of very smart guys with really bad ideas. And it’s got some lovely still pictures from all of those horror flicks.

Jekyll becoming Hyde

I’m still sort of amazed that no horrified parents’ groups ever rallied against these books, since they include murder, mayhem, occult practices, and all kinds of other crimes that kids are supposed to be sheltered from.

But then, as now, kids are tougher and smarter than we think — I don’t remember a single nightmare from one of these books, or, for that matter, from Channel 12′s month-long Halloween movie marathon. Instead, I think I began to realize that these were all stories — that there were common threads of legend and pure nonsense running through them, and if I worked at it, I might be able to unravel them and find the secrets for myself.

I’m thrilled to see that these books are still out there in the wild. The copies I picked up were discards from the Fergus Falls library, probably salvaged for less than a buck each, which seems like a shame.

Hopefully someone will buy up the rights to the Crestwood House series and bring them all back into print. I think there are a lot of kids who would appreciate this kind of field guide to the world of monsters; who might really be able to use books that explain away some of the mystery, and shed a little light in the dark.

Halloweek: Lightning Round!

• Cracked.com has five examples of stories from history that are just as frightening as any horror movie. Doesn’t include my favorite, but the one about a real-life Chucky doll makes up for it. There’s also this piece from Cracked about the creepiest stories in the history of war.(Spoilers: it includes eating human flesh.)

• Paranormal author Brad Steiger gives his picks for the most authentic ghost films at UFO Digest. Or you can check out his picks for scariest UFO movies, in case you’re looking for something to watch on Halloween.

• This one goes out to my friend Brill (and of course, to Robopocalypse author Daniel Wilson): “Predator Drones Coming to Life.” Apparently SkyNet is here.

• And speaking of real-life horror stories, try to wrap your mind around this concept: “Planetary Chemotherapy.”

 

Halloweek: How To Diagnose A Zombie

Just in case the decomposing flesh and the eating people doesn’t clue you in, here’s how you diagnose what’s wrong with a zombie.

(via BoingBoing)

 

Halloweek: Dracula Cha-Cha-Cha

I would have sworn that Kim Newman invented the song from his book of the same title, Anno Dracula: Dracula Cha Cha Cha. (If you haven’t already, go out and pick up the entire Anno Dracula series, now available from Titan Books. It’s freaking amazing.)

But as it turns out, it’s a real song by Bruno Martino that was a minor hit back in the 60s.

The moral of the story: real life is always weirder. Always.

Halloweek: The Vampire James Brown

Just in time for Halloween, an Ohio historian might have discovered the secret origin of the president’s vampire.

I recently got an interesting email from Mark Butler, who works for the Ohio Historical Society. He ran across some new information about James Brown, the real-life prisoner who was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson, and the inspiration for the story behind my fictional vampire, Nathaniel Cade.

Brown, according to some sensationalistic headlines at the time, killed two of his crewmates on a whaling vessel and drank their blood. He was pardoned by Johnson for reasons unknown. (You can get a more complete account from Robert Damon Schneck’s The President’s Vampire: Strange-but-True Tales of the United States of America. )

However, Butler has discovered something new in the story. He was researching Brown as part of a presentation he did called “Infamous Ohio” and found what might be the original source of the story that Brown was a killer who drank his victims’ blood: a warden seeking to boost tourism revenues.

And of course, there’s a new presidential angle, as well.

Butler writes:

…In addition to the fact that other papers covered this story, the reality is that James Brown was mentioned as being a “human vampire” months before the Brooklyn Eagle published its article. The Stark County (Canton, Ohio) Democrat included this in its August 25, 1892 article on Brown’s impending transfer. The article jokes that had Brown committed his vampirism in 1890, he might have been asked to co-lead the Republican Party alongside William McKinley. (This article is available online at the Chronicling America project.) The Democrat cites the Chicago Herald for its information on Brown.

 Therefore it is unlikely that a writer for the Brooklyn Eagle created the myth of James Brown’s vampirism. In addition to challenging the notion that the Brooklyn Eagle created this myth, a review of an additional source debunks the notion that the myth creator (whoever they were) developed this myth by merging it with the sad story of Mercy Brown, who died in 1892, the year of James Brown’s transfer.

 In his book, “The Ohio Penitentiary Annex and Noted Convicts”, Warden B.F. Dyer writes that Brown was known to have “killed a shipmate and drank his victim’s blood.” Dyer’s book was written in 1891. This means that the story of James Brown being a vampire pre-dates not only the Brooklyn Eagle article, but also pre-dates the death of Mercy Brown. In other words, James Brown was an alleged “vampire” during Mercy Brown’s lifetime. Dyer’s book is available at the archives/library of the Ohio Historical Society.

 If a Brooklyn Eagle reporter did not create this myth and the myth was not connected to that of Mercy Brown, who is responsible?

I think it is more likely that Dyer himself created this myth. He also writes that Brown stabbed a fellow prisoner with a fork (an eating utensil) while in the Ohio Penitentiary. What was Dyer’s motivation? Just as a vampire can sell newspapers, a vampire could also help sell his book. The Ohio Penitentiary had quite a tourism industry, including tours and even postcards, during its heyday. Imagine if potential visitors heard that they might catch a glimpse of a real vampire!

I love history. Thanks very much, Mark.