Thomas Pluck's Blog, page 25

Do not drink and ensorcel unwholesome beings from the nether plane.

Take my quiz,

Brands of Single Malt Scotch or Elder Gods of the Lovecraft Mythos?

Only a true scholar of the dark arts and complete drunkard knows for sure…

Buy this glass on etsy: https://www.etsy.com/listing/199026145/cthulhu-pint-glass

Tagged: Funny, HP Lovecraft, Scotch

Dark City Lights available for pre-order

Last year, Lawrence Block contacted me for a story. He’s one of the writers who inspired me to write, and I keep a signed copy of TELLING LIES FOR FUN AND PROFIT near my writing desk, so I buckled down to tackle an idea I’d been saving. The collection is titled DARK CITY LIGHTS, and my story “The Big Snip” appears alongside work by Jerrold Mundis, Erin Mitchell, SJ Rozan, Warren Moore, Robert Silverberg, Jonathan Santlofer and many more.

Three Rooms Press has it available for pre-order from Amazon. If you want to see what 23 writers do when Lawrence Block, the crime-writer King of New York, asks them to write about the 8 million stories in the Empire city, this is the book to read.

You can pre-order it from Amazon, or from your local bookstore.

Tagged: Dark City Lights, Jerrold Mundis, Lawrence Block, New York City

Master Archer Demo

Lars Andersen researched combat archery in the pre-firearms world, and practiced methods that he rediscovered. If you think Legolas in the Lord of the Rings movies was unrealistic, Lars does everything except surf down stairs on a shield. And I’m pretty sure he could do that, too. He shoots faster than the movies, managing 3 precise hits in .6 seconds. He uses hunting arrows, fires point blank, while running and jumping, and varies from melee shooting to 100 yard shots with ease. Watch, it’s very impressive, and the video shows how he went from firing from quivers to holding arrows in his off hand, to holding them in his bowstring hand. To do that, you need to fire with the arrow on the right side of the bow, opposite of what we do now.

I’ve always enjoyed archery, I’m a decent instinct shot, but now I want a bow with no shelf so I can practice ye olde fashioned way…

More details at BoingBoing.

Tagged: archery

Cover reveal for Clock Without Hands

 

 

This is the snazzy new cover of Gerald Kersh’s Clock Without Hands, a collection for which I’m proud to have been chosen to introduce. Kersh is an underappreciated author, and Valancourt Books is doing us all a service by bringing his work back into print. Noir lovers may know him best as the author of Night and the City, but he also wrote fantastic speculative fiction tales and wonderful, gritty and garish portraits of London life. Born in America, but sometimes the best observers are outsiders (read any of Canadian Doug Coupland’s novels set in America, if you want proof).

To quote from the Valancourt site:

Clock Without Hands relates the unexpected and macabre impact of a sordid murder on the mild-mannered neighbour who witnesses the crime. In Flight to the World’s End, a desperate boy flees his cruel life at an orphanage, only to discover a harsh truth about the world outside. And in Fairy Gold, a clerk plays a malicious practical joke on his impoverished co-worker, with unpredictable and startling consequences.

A great slice of Kersh’s work, along with Nightshade and Damnations, a story collection with an introduction by Harlan Ellison, which Valancourt reprinted last year.

His novel Fowler’s End is one of my favorites, as grubby and grotesque as a Sam Fuller flick. Michael Moorcock wrote the intro for that one.

Rather esteemed company to rub elbows with.

Tagged: Gerald Kersh

Sunday Reading

I’m currently reading The Bartender’s Tale by Ivan Doig, which is a cozy and nostalgic coming of age tale in 1960’s Montana, about a young boy growing up behind the gin mill his father runs in Gros Ventre, a beloved saloon called the Medicine Lodge. I’m enjoying it so far, it has lots of local language, wordplay, and Americana.

Speaking of nostalgia, my friend the TV host and actor Bobby Rivers started a discussion on his excellent blog about Disney’s blonde obsession, which kicked me off into a discussion about nostalgia, “fairy tales,” and fantasy fiction, and why it should always be taken with a grain of salt. I recently watched Maleficent. I should’ve loved it, I’m a huge fan of Disney’s evilest femme fatale, but it was an obvious ripoff of Wicked, and I hated it. Afterward, we watching the original Sleeping Beauty (which still looks magnificent) and it was creepier and more involving than the rehash. Also watched 47 Ronin, the one with Keanu Reeves as a half-demon… well, it was dopey fun, if you look at it the same way you do Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

As for good movies, I watched The Endurance, on Shackleton’s failed expedition to cross Antarctica. I rented it via Netflix,  but the link I provided has the entire documentary on YouTube. It’s an amazing story of survival, a mix of footage, reenactments, and interviews with families of the survivors. The RRS Discovery, the ship from the first, successful expedition, resides in Dundee, Scotland. Here it is from our visit in 2013.

As for news that makes me apoplectic, spas are now catering to affluent girls, age 7 and under. Because their young skin needs products? No, to get them used to pampering themselves. My favorite line? “Don’t we want to spoil our children?” It’s at the NY Times and may be paywalled. Read on to see a 3 year old get a pedicure, and for an introduction to the next generation of privilege.

All writers should read the newspaper. The inspiration never ends, and you don’t have to read Internet comments (though NJ’s Star-Ledger has taken to printing NJ.com comments in the paper, which is surely a portent of impending doom). It’s often bad or annoying news, of course, but the drop in violent crime across most major cities, as reported in the Washington Post, is something to be happy about. I’m not sure I agree that long prison sentences are wholly responsible, as Louisiana has some of the longest, and its violent crime rate is still among the highest in the nation. But there is certainly good reason to keep violent felons incarcerated. “Heroin is cheap” doesn’t make sense either, because crack was cheap. The violence is committed over supplying it. Perhaps the drug gangs are done divvying up neighborhoods? As for targeted policing, New York City quit stop & frisk over a year ago and crime dropped. It will take longer to see if the end to “broken windows” policing will have any affect. I think Matt Taibbi is calling it a little early, but quotas and selective enforcement won’t be missed.

Another link seems to be the reduction in lead paint. That is heartening, because it means the drop may continue, but also disturbing, in how our environment can affect us. I’ve lived in buildings that had warnings about lead paint, where all the landlords had to do was give us written notice. I think they have to repaint if young children move in. I wonder for how long we’ll be affected by chemicals in our homes and even the drinking water, without ever knowing the cause. Estrogen-like chemicals in the water have been blamed for lower sperm counts in males and earlier puberty in females; every species is collecting more fat around the middle, which may be linked to PCBs and plastics. I wonder how many people are dead due to a child eating paint chips in a building, so the landlord didn’t have to pay to have it removed…

Happy New Year – 30 Days – Big Update – I’ll Be Back

Wishing you all a happy new year.

And with that, I’ve decided to stay off social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) for the month of January. I’m also giving up beer for those 30 days–yes, really–so I’ll be off Untappd as well. I’m only mentioning it so my internet coffee klatch does not become concerned.

I will likely still post here– I’m hosting Noir at the Bar NYC with several writers from Broken River Books on Jan 25th, and I’ll want to spread the word. And I’m still social media editor for PROTECT, so I will be posting stories to our accounts there. I’m itching to share news, such as the recent discovery that Ebola patient zero of the recent outbreak was probably infected by bats, which vindicates Richard Preston’s reporting for The Hot Zone, which pointing to Tikrit Cave as the source, back in the ’90s. There’s also news that “rescue dogs” are now in high demand as trophies, so much that stray dogs from other States and even other countries are being imported (some with endemic rabies). There’s a story brewing in me about that, and it won’t be pretty.

Recent movies and books I’ve enjoyed. Creole Belle, by James Lee Burke. Even though he does something that made me loathe Chelsea Cain’s One Kick- he lets early child abuse turn a character into a killer/super ninja/etc- he is so deft with character that the story is redeemed. There’s so much more going on, and his fury so well focused, that I forgave him this trespass. But writers, listen up. Child abuse alone does not turn you into a serial killer, a gibbering mental case, or a superhero. Nor does it lock you into the “cycle of abuse,” or make you want to personally execute every predator you see. People who’ve been abused can be all those things, but the majority are not. Those our are projections, of how we would deal with such unfathomable cruelty. Certainly many psychopaths experienced severe abuse at an early age, which blocked any formation of empathy, but it is infinitely more intriguing that most victims of abuse do not become killers or abusers themselves. That is the power of even the dimmest scintilla of human empathy. Don’t use child abuse as a shortcut. Burke almost did, but managed to make a self-destructive character into a fully fleshed human being, instead of a collection of impulses leading to “edgy” and unbelievable plot points, which is what I thought of One Kick before I threw my Kindle across the room (into a couch).

Speaking of psychopaths, I watched the 1965 version of The Collector with Terence Stamp and Samantha Eggar, which was quite chilling, and managed to keep a razor wire of tension throughout. Next I’ll read the novel. I also read A Gathering of Old Men by Ernest Gaines, a rightfully lauded masterpiece of Southern racial relations, which dances from character to character in Rashomon-like fashion, and offers a glimmer of hope at the end. It’s set near Baton Rouge, which I recently visited, and I enjoyed recognizing the unique Louisiana culture. I’ll be moving down there one day. It’s corrupt and swampy and has great food, so it’s closer to New Jersey than you think. If Ernest Gaines isn’t a pseudonym, it should be. I’m eager to read more of his work.

I also enjoyed Bon Cop, Bad Cop, a Canadian buddy-cop movie that I can best describe as Hot Fuzz meets Strange Brew. It’s funny, silly, and simply a blast. Pitting a snobby Toronto cop (Col Feore) and a scruffy Quebecois officer vs. psycho terrorist killer hunting those who besmirch the glory of Canadian hockey, it’s always “Long Wait” on Netflix, but definitely worth waiting to see. Great fun.

Also reading Circus Parade by Jim Tully, an early hardboiled stylist who wrote of riding the rails and as here, circus carny life, before shuffling off to Hollywood and then obscurity. Let’s just say that his circus tales ring much truer than Water for Elephants did, even though Sara Gruen got a lot right, and wrote a very enjoyable, if maudlin tale. This one’s influence on Hammett, Hemingway, and others is obvious and it’s worth reading, if like me, you dig hobo narratives.

On the writing front, I have stories in upcoming collections:

“The Big Snip,” in Dark City Lights, edited by Lawrence Block for Three Rooms Press, a collection of New York City stories. This is available for pre-order.

“The Cronus Club,” in Dana Kabel’s Kannibal Cookbook, from Out of the Gutter. No release date, but I’ve read the story at several readings and according to the audience, it’s quite a doozy.

And I wrote an introduction to the Valancourt Books reissue of Gerald Kersh’s novella collection Clock Without Hands, one of his best. I found Kersh through Harlan Ellison, which led to this infamous letter, and eventually also led to me writing this foreword. Having my name beside Kersh’s is quite an honor. More on this when the book is available.

I’ll also be writing short articles for Criminal Element and sharing them here. I won’t be posting here just to post, as that has the same lure of instant validation that makes social media appeal to me. See you in the comments.

I’ll be back…

Tagged: Canada, Ernest Gaines, Gerald Kersh, Harlan Ellison, James Lee Burke, Jim Tully

Good Reads, mid December

Read any good books lately? I have. Here are a couple.

All Families Are Psychotic, by Doug Coupland. I’m a big fan of Mr. “Generation X.” My friend Suzanne kept goading me to read Microserfs, and I was surprised at how damn good it was. Coupland has a knack for seeing the heart of things, especially generational differences and the string in the sweater of our personality, that when tugged, causes everything to unravel and be seen for its component parts. “Families” is no different, pitting ’50s-born parents against children born in the ’70s and ’80s, with his unique, insane caper-style stories. Almost if Don Westlake decided to write John Irving stories, these books are always fast, packed with humor and unpredictable yet inevitable collisions between unforgettable characters. This one involves AIDS, the space shuttle, endangered species smuggling, Thalidomide, surrogate parenthood, and … well, it’s set in Florida, so maybe all that’s expected. This was one of my favorite reads this year. The paperback is sadly out of print, but it is available on Kindle, and at used bookstores. Coupland always manages to play fun games with book design. My paperback felt like it was bound in corrugated cardboard, and the end wraps had a photo of the author next to a huge statue of a green toy Army soldier. I’m told the hardcover was flipped midway through, like the old Ace Doubles, but I haven’t been able to find one.

Tampa by Alissa Nutting will be polarizing. It’s the story of a monster, like Nabokov’s Lolita, with the gender roles reversed. The main character is a middle school teacher who preys on her male students. Because we view women as less dangerous, Nutting can carve a dark satire of our mores, media, and expectations. By the end, the damage to her victims is clear as day, but our cultural beliefs are barely shaken, even when the protagonist’s monstrosity is laid bare and raw, and our double standards flayed before us like a laboratory specimen. This was a daring novel that will certainly be pilloried as salacious, but its depiction of a heartless female predator and the incalculable damage sexual abuse inflicts on teenage boys is an important and generally untold story.

Lush Life, by Richard Price is like a season of The Wire moved to the Lower East Side on the cusp of gentrification. The book flies, despite being crammed with storylines of street kids, detectives, bartenders, and hipsters. Any fan of the series will want to read this. I hadn’t read Price since Clockers, to my detriment. That book was fantastic, and remains one of the best crime novels written about New Jersey. The Wanderers, his ’60s era coming of age in NYC novel, is delightful, too. One of the first books I ever read that had characters that reminded me of my friends and family, who “tawked” like me. But Lush Life is an accomplishment, encapsulating the sausage factory of the criminal justice system and how even the best intentions ricochet like mad.

And finally, The Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler. Her stories have always resonated with me, from “Bloodchild,” which I’d read as a teen, to “Speech Sounds,” an amazing apocalyptic tale where humanity is slowly robbed of language. The Sower is another story of slow collapse, as the economy crumbles and America becomes a Balkanized state of gated communities and enslaved company towns. Written from the perspective of Olamina, a teenage girl prepping for the day looters clamber over the walls to destroy her family, this book is equally entertaining for teens and adults. It is rich and thoughtful, but written as diary entries, by a young woman creating a scientific philosophy where God is change and cannot be worshiped as much as prepared for. As dark as The Road but as compulsively readable as The Hunger Games, this 1991 novel is due for a deserved resurgence. The politicians will sound all too familiar, as they bargain away our rights and national assets in the name of “the economy” as the country foments into a corrupt Third World state without the rule of law. I’m waiting before I tackle the sequel, The Parable of the Talents. Butler died while still working on a third novel, that was never fully realized or completed.

Give yourself a gift, and read a book. Happy holidays to you all.

Tagged: Alissa Nutting, Douglas Coupland, New York City, Octavia Butler, Richard Price, Science Fiction

Police, the CSI effect, and torture in crime fiction

Brian Lindemuth has a thought-provoking post on police brutality, the CSI and Jack Bauer effects, and the use of torture in fiction over at Do Some Damage. Worth reading, and something to think about.

If stories matter, then we should take care with what we say with them. When is it propaganda? Movies and TV have a bigger reach, but books of course matter as well. Don’t they? If we demonize a race, class, or religion, if we write stories where the end is always justified by the means, however brutal, illegal, or inhumanly vile, what exactly are we trying to accomplish?

This is the mirror to the Dystopia argument in Science Fiction, which asks if we’ve gone from “Cautionary Tale” to “This is inevitable, and we shouldn’t even try. Science will just create killer dinosaurs / a pandemic virus / a black hole that annihilates the planet anyway.”

The pursuit of “justice” can be a sausage factory, as in Lush Life- a great book by Richard Price, who also wrote for The Wire, if you’re unfamiliar with his novels Clockers, The Wanderers, et al- but what do we accept? And has the 42 minute police procedural made us unrealistic in our expectations?

Brian makes some interesting points.

I Will Teach You The Ultimate Power

This was too good not to share.

Tagged: ninja

Noir at the Bar NJ: at The Saint in Asbury Park, 12/2 8pm

I’ll reading with Jen Conley and others, some of whom appear in Trouble in the Heartland, a Springsteen-themed anthology.

There’s a $5 cover but some of us will be giving away books.

Tagged: Bruce Springsteen, New Jersey, Noir at the Bar