Thomas Pluck's Blog, page 43
June 1, 2013
Congrats Wayne Dundee! “Adeline” wins the Peacemaker
Let us congratulate Wayne Dundee!
His story for Protectors: Stories to Benefit PROTECT, ”Adeline,” a gripping tale of frontier history and justice, has won the Peacemaker Award for best western short story of 2013 from the Western Fictioneers.
Tagged: Protectors Anthology, Wayne Dundee, Westerns
The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau
The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau
I interviewed the incredibly talented Joelle Charbonneau about her latest novel, a dystopian YA thriller entitled THE TESTING that recalled ENDER’S GAME and the FALLOUT video games, for THE BIG THRILL.
(Click the title above to go to The Big Thrill)
Tagged: Joelle Charbonneau, Science Fiction, The Testing, Thrillers, Young Adult
May 31, 2013
Free Story Friday
BEAT TO A PULP is David Cranmer’s living tribute to the gripping fiction first printed in the colorful magazine-spinner rags of the ’30s. Gernsback’s Amazing Stories, Weird Tales, and H.L. Mencken’s Black Mask, where Dashiell Hammett and Paul Cain “gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse,” as Chandler famously wrote in The Simple Art of Murder.
I’m proud to announce that David will be publishing my action novel BLADE OF DISHONOR, which stars “Rage Cage” Reeves, an MMA fighter coming home from the Iraq war to find his grandfather embroiled in a battle over a Japanese sword stolen in World War 2. Release is planned for late 2013, joining the Cash Laramie books, the Rip Through Time series, and many more great stories.
Body and Katana by Nikaryabova on Deviant Art
I always enjoy the stories David publishes every week in BEAT TO A PULP, and we began working on the Reeves story after he chose my story “A Glutton for Punishment” for the weekly dose of pulp. Unfortunately a website crash wiped out the comments, but none other than my literary hero Lawrence Block dropped in to say he liked it. And I hope you will, too.
Tagged: Beat to a Pulp, Blade of Dishonor
May 30, 2013
May 29, 2013
Two Triple Cheese, Side Order of Fries
I saw this first on HBO or Up All Nite, and it remains one of my favorite lesser-known theme songs.
By Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen.
Tagged: Burgers, Commander Cody
The Big Eat: Goodbye, Pal’s Cabin
Over at Devil Gourmet, I visit West Orange landmark Pal’s Cabin one last time before they shutter the doors and auction everything off. Open since 1935, Liberace once tickled the ivories there, and they still grill a good steak and a fine burger. You have until June 1st to visit, or dine vicariously through me.
Tagged: Burgers, Pal's Cabin
May 28, 2013
Feeding Kate and Gator Bait!
I dropped by Sabrina Ogden’s blog to talk about my inspiration for Kamikaze Death Burgers at the Ghost Town Cafe, my story for the charity collection FEEDING KATE. All funds from the anthology were meant to pay for jaw surgery for our dear friend Sabrina, complications of Lupus (see, House? Sometimes it IS Lupus, ya mook). The indiegogo campaign was a success, and now the book is available on Amazon, with the proceeds going to benefit The Lupus Foundation. So please, drop by her blog for some chat of burgers, samurai, and my wild Jay Desmarteaux yarn, inspired by Mad Max and my last trip through the Utah desert.
And as usual, a bunch of things I’ve written are all available at once. So I also ask that if you want to hear about some backwoods Cajun revenge, you check out my review of ‘GATOR BAIT for Criminal Element’s Crimes Against Film series. If a Playboy playmate in a motorboat with a twelve gauge gunning for revenge sounds up your alley, laissez les bon temps roulez! (Let the good times roll, for y’all who ain’t from the bayou, like me and John Fogerty… who also aren’t).
Tagged: Cajun, Criminal Element, Feeding Kate, Gator Bait, Sabrina Ogden
May 27, 2013
Memorial Day Story: The Long Walk Home
Memorial Day originally came about to honor the Confederate dead in the War Between the States, and now encompasses all who have served at home and abroad. I won’t make hollow platitudes about thanking soldiers for our freedoms. I thank them all for their service, in combat or otherwise, and believe our government treats them shabbily, and we tolerate that treatment… or we’d have stopped it by now.
After reading On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society by Lt. Dave Grossman, I feel the deepest of empathies for every soldier who was sent to war willingly or unwillingly.
I’ve written several stories veterans and war, the most recent being BLADE OF DISHONOR, which begins in World War 2 with the Devil’s Brigade and ends in the present day, traveling through Japanese POW camps and underground MMA fights along the way. That is sitting with my patient editor David Cranmer at BEAT TO A PULP, so let me share you a much shorter novel about a veteran who comes home to a different world: “The Long Walk Home,” which appears in Burnt Bridge.
Tagged: Memorial Day
May 24, 2013
May 23, 2013
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