Jack Tunney's Blog, page 24

COMING SOON ~ FISTS OF IRON: ROUND 3

COMING SOON ~ FISTS OF IRON: ROUND 3

THE THIRD VOLUME OF ROBERT E. HOWARD’S BOXING STORIES AND RELATED MATERIAL PUBLISHED BY THE ROBERT E. HOWARD FOUNDATION …

CONTENTS

Intro: “Big Talk Don’t Bust No Chins” by Chris Gruber

Circus Fists

Vikings of the Gloves

Night of Battle

Sailor Costigan and the Yellow Cobra

Sailor Costigan and the Jade Monkey

Alleys of Darkness

Sailor Costigan and the Destiny Gorilla

A New Game for Costigan

A Two-Fisted Santa Claus

The Slugger’s Game

General Ironfist

Sluggers of the Beach

The Honor of the Ship (originally untitled)

Untitled story (A sailorman ain’t got no business…) (aka “Flying Knuckles”)

Iron-Clad Fists

Sailor Costigan and the Swami (originally untitled)

Alleys of Treachery

APPENDIX

Night of Battle (synopsis)

Sailor Costigan and the Turkish Menace (incomplete)

Sailor Costigan and the Turkish Menace (synopsis)

Sailor Costigan and the Jade Monkey (3rd person version)

Alleys of Darkness (synopsis)

Sailor Costigan and the Destiny Gorilla (synopsis)

A New Game for Costigan (synopsis)

A Two-Fisted Santa Claus (synopsis)

The Slugger’s Game (synopsis)

General Ironfist (synopsis)

Sluggers of the Beach (synopsis)

Iron-Clad Fists (synopsis)

Alleys of Treachery (synopsis)

The Lord of the Ring, (part 3), by Patrice Louinet

JUST RELEASED ~ AUDIBLE VERSION FIGHT CARD: FELONY FISTS!

AUDIO BOOK NOW AVAILABLE
FIGHT CARD: FELONY FISTS
BY PAUL BISHOP
Los Angeles 1954. Patrick “Felony” Flynn has been fighting all his life. Learning the “sweet science” from Father Tim the fighting priest at St. Vincent’s, the Chicago orphanage where Pat and his older brother Mickey were raised, Pat has battled his way around the world – first with the Navy and now with the Los Angeles Police Department.
Legendary LAPD chief William Parker is on a rampage to clean up both the department and the city. His elite crew of detectives known as The Hat Squad is his blunt instrument – dedicated, honest, and fearless. Promotion from patrol to detective is Pat’s goal, but he also yearns to be one of the elite – and his fists are going to give him the chance.
Gangster Mickey Cohen runs LA’s rackets, and murderous heavyweight Solomon King is Cohen’s key to taking over the fight game. Chief Parker wants Patrick “Felony” Flynn to stop him – a tall order for middleweight ship’s champion with no professional record. Leading with his chin, and with his partner, LA’s first black detective Tombstone Jones, covering his back, Patrick Flynn and his Felony Fists are about to fight for his future, the future of the department, and the future of Los Angeles.

JUST RELEASED ~ AUDIBLE VERSION FIGHT CARD: SWAMP WALLOPER

JUST RELEASED ~ AUDIBLE VERSION

FIGHT CARD: SWAMP WALLOPER

Patrick “Felony” Flynn is back! And this time, he’s in way over his head. New Orleans, 1956. When the battered body of boxer Marcus de Trod turns up on the edge of the Bayou Sauvage outside New Orleans with the words “Get Felony Flynn LAPD” tattooed in his armpits, Hat Squad detective, Patrick Felony Flynn, knows he is in for the fight of his life. Far from the hardboiled streets of Los Angeles, Flynn and his partner Tombstone Jones are on a two-fisted rampage to find a killer. But hiding in the swamp, deep inside the walls of the Bayou Sauvage Federal Penitentiary, the killer patiently waits to crush his prey with razor sharp teeth and deadly jaws.
After taking down gangster Mickey Cohen’s championship prospect Solomon Kane in Felony Fists, Patrick Flynn triumphantly returns in Swamp Walloper, facing an even more dangerous foe – a killer fueled by voodoo and revenge.

COMING SOON ~ FIGHT CARD: BAREKNUCKLE BARBARIAN

COMING IN SEPTEMBER
FIGHT CARD
THE TWO-FISTED TALES OF BOB HOWARD
FEATURING BAREKNUCKLE BARBARIAN
PLUS
FIST OF THE FAE
TEEL JAMES GLENN WRITING AS JACK TUNNEY

FIGHT CARD UPDATE

FIGHT CARD UPDATE
Greetings,
Our Fight Card entry this month comes from Nathan Walpow, author of the popular Joe Portugal mystery series (www.walpow.com). Fight Card: Push takes us behind the scenes and behind the hoopla of the world of professional wrestling.
FIGHT CARD: PUSH
You’re a ‘jobber’. You make your living by losing in the wrestling ring. You’re a good wrestler, but promoters don’t think you have what it takes to become a superstar. Then Thumper shows up. Big and strong, with a bunny-rabbit gimmick and fans eating out of his hand. His finishing move is called The Thump, and most guys don’t get up from it on their own.
One night, Thumper puts his opponent in the hospital. Not a big deal. Sure, the outcome of a wrestling match is fake. But the ‘bumps’ in the ring can be all too real. Sometimes you get hurt. Part of the territory.
Then it happens again. Only this time, the guy who got ‘thumped’ is tossed into a car like a sack of potatoes. Lou Boone, the promoter who runs Central States Wrestling with an iron fist, knows you saw something and offers you a ‘push’ if you keep your mouth shut.
A push. Every jobber’s dream. To get to win some matches, to get to be on the big cards in the big arenas. You want it more than anything. You begin thinking you imagined the sack-of-potatoes guy – until it happens again.
Now, you have to choose between wrestling fame and doing the right thing. Before this is over, someone else will be dead. And you don’t want it to be you…
Based on the short story “Push Comes to Shove,” selected by Lawrence Block for the Best American Mystery Stories series.



As always any mentions on your blogs or via your social networking connections are always appreciated.

We have also recently release or second Fight Card charity anthology, Fight Card Presents: Battling Mahoney & Other Stories, which is available via Amazon as an e-book for $2.99 with 100% of the proceeds going to help the family of the late Jory Sherman. A paperback version will follow shortly.
FIGHT CARD PRESENTS: BATTLING MAHONEY & OTHER STORIES
The second in a series of charity anthologies from the Fight Card authors’ cooperative – a writers’ community featuring many of today’s finest fictioneers – features fifteen rounds of fight fiction from authors James Reasoner, Loren D. Estleman, Len Levinson, James Hopwood, Mark Finn, Jeremy L. C. Jones, Michael Zimmer, Marc Cameron, Nik Morton, Marsha Ward, Clay More, Chuck Tyrell, Bowie V. Ibarra, Art Bowshier, and featuring an extensive essay, On Boxing, by Willis Gordon.
Compiled by Paul Bishop and Jeremy L. C. Jones, 100% of the proceeds from these anthologies go directly to an author-in-need or a literacy charity. Words on paper are the life blood of a writer. The writers in this volume were willing to bleed in order to give a transfusion to one of their own – and then continue to bleed to give a transfusion to literacy charities in support of that most precious of commodities…readers. They are true fighters, every one…



Fight Card’s upcoming line-up includes Bareknuckle Barbarian from Teel James Glenn (featuring the two-fisted adventures of Bob Howard – R.E.H.), Job Girl from Jason Chirevas (the sequel to Monster Man), Joseph Grants long awaited The Guns of November, and a new Fight Card Sherlock Holmes tale from Andrew Salmon.
Until next month … Keep punching …

NOW AVAILABLE ~ FIGHT CARD: PUSH

FIGHT CARD: PUSH
NATHAN WALPOW
WRITING AS
JACK TUNNEY
NOW AVAILABLE!
You’re a ‘jobber’. You make your living by losing in the wrestling ring. You’re a good wrestler, but promoters don’t think you have what it takes to become a superstar. Then Thumper shows up. Big and strong, with a bunny-rabbit gimmick and fans eating out of his hand. His finishing move is called The Thump, and most guys don’t get up from it on their own.
One night, Thumper puts his opponent in the hospital. Not a big deal. Sure, the outcome of a wrestling match is fake. But the ‘bumps’ in the ring can be all too real. Sometimes you get hurt. Part of the territory.
Then it happens again. Only this time, the guy who got ‘thumped’ is tossed into a car like a sack of potatoes. Lou Boone, the promoter who runs Central States Wrestling with an iron fist, knows you saw something and offers you a ‘push’ if you keep your mouth shut.
A push. Every jobber’s dream. To get to win some matches, to get to be on the big cards in the big arenas. You want it more than anything. You begin thinking you imagined the sack-of-potatoes guy – until it happens again.
Now, you have to choose between wrestling fame and doing the right thing. Before this is over, someone else will be dead. And you don’t want it to be you…
Based on the short story “Push Comes to Shove,” selected by Lawrence Block for the Best American Mystery Stories series.

AVAILABLE NOW: THE NEW FIGHT CARD CHARITY ANTHOLOGY!

AVAILABLE NOW!
 NEW FIGHT CARD CHARITY ANTHOLOGY
Fight Card is excited to publish our second collection of boxing tales for charity – Fight Card Presents: Battling Mahoney and Other Stories. This time we’ve upped the ante from ten rounds of two-fisted fight fiction to a full fifteen rounds – with 100% of the proceeds going to help the family of western writing legend, the late Jory Sherman – a mentor and friend to so many in the literary community.
Writers helping writers as part of the Fight Card publishing collective.
Battling Mahoney and Other Stories is filled with action delivered by many writers new to the Fight Card ring as well as many of Fight Card’s top contributors. Legendary pulp writer Len Levinson provides the title story – featuring characters from his popular The Sergeant series of WWII thrillers. Bestselling author James Reasoner provides a brand new short story, Bandera Brawl, featuring his popular western character, Judge Earl Stark, while iconic wordsmith Loren D. Estleman sets fists flying in Flash. Meanwhile, Fight Card favorite James Hopwood (Fight Card: King of the Outback and Fight Card: Rumble in the Jungle) gives us a Hollywood Hits tale featuring Abbott & Costello along with The Brown Bomber himself, Joe Louis, and Jeremy L. C. Jones checks in with Gator Joe – a two-fisted tale from the tundra.
Robert E. Howard scholar Mark Finn (Fight Card: The Adventures of Sailor Tom Sharkey) gives us another top notch ‘weird boxing’ tale, featuring Sailor Tom Sharkey & the Electric Gorilla. Bowie V. Ibarra returns to the Fight Card team singing The Song of the Cornerman, while Michael Zimmerman gives us one of the hardest hitting stories in the collection, The Broken Man.
New writers climbing into the ring with Fight Card also include Nik Morton (Cowboy in the Ring), Marc Cameron (Rock, Paper, Scissors), Marcia Ward (Bloodied Leather), Clay More (Heat of Battle), Chuck Tyrell (Fight Day in Diablo), and Art Bowshire (Mr. Hero), with Willis Gordon’s extensive essay, On Boxing, delivering the collection’s knockout punch.
This new anthology also sports another beautiful cover from Fight Card’s resident artist/illustrator, the brilliant and talented Carl Yonder (Pirate Eye).
It’s all happening in Fight Card Presents: Battling Mahoney and Other Stories…
Please help us spread the word and make a difference – a few dollars and a few punches at a time!
FIGHT CARD PRESENTS: BATTLING MAHONEY & OTHER STORIES
Fight Card Presents: Battling Mahoney & Other Stories is the second in a series of charity anthologies from the Fight Card authors’ cooperative – a writers’ community featuring many of today’s finest fictioneers, including James Reasoner, Loren D. Estleman, Len Levinson, James Hopwood, Mark Finn, Jeremy L. C. Jones, Michael Zimmer, Marc Cameron, Nik Morton, Marsha Ward, Clay More, Chuck Tyrell, Bowie V. Ibarra, Art Bowshire, and featuring an extensive essay, On Boxing, by Willis Gordon.
Compiled by Paul Bishop and Jeremy L. C. Jones, 100% of the proceeds from these anthologies go directly to an author-in-need or a literacy charity. Words on paper are the life blood of a writer. The writers in this volume were willing to bleed in order to give a transfusion to one of their own – and then continue to bleed to give a transfusion to literacy charities in support of that most precious of commodities…readers. They are true fighters, every one…

PUSHING AND SHOVING

PUSHING AND SHOVING
NATHAN WALPOW ON WRITING
FIGHT CARD PUSH
I’ve been an on-again-off-again wrestling fan since I was a teenager. There was a period in the ’60s when my father and I watched the WWWF on TV every week. Those were the days of Bruno Sammartino and Bobo Brazil and Killer Kowalski, when no one but the hillbillies wore anything but wrestling tights. I picked it up again in the late ’80s and early to mid-’90s, the days of Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage and Rowdy Roddy Piper. By the end of this period, many of the wrestlers had wacky costumes and there were gimmicks galore. The WWWF had turned into the WWF, and there was more of a circus atmosphere, and it had taken another step away from any pretense of reality.
Even today, when I run across a card on TV (it’s the WWE now), more often than not I stop channel hopping to see what’s going on. I don’t know much about anybody but the Undertaker, but I still enjoy the whole soap opera, the turns to and from the dark side, the magnitude of the mythology they’ve built. And that some things never change – for instance, the referees are as clueless as ever.
Shortly before the turn of the century, I saw a call for submissions for an anthology of wrestling-related horror stories. I kicked out a story called Push Comes to Shove, which involved a jobber – a guy who’s there solely to lose to a current or upcoming superstar – running across a new wrestler who was making stuff a little more real than it should have been. By the time I got around to sending the story in, the market was already closed. I tried to place it a couple more times, but, as is customary with my writing, it was a little too much this and not enough that for most markets, and I packed it away in my electronic trunk.
Not long after, my local Sisters in Crime chapter put out a call for stories for a book of members’ work. I dusted off Push Comes to Shove and discovered it consisted of four thousand words of good story and a thousand of darlings to be killed. I made the cuts and the editors liked what was left. The book came out in 2000, published by Ugly Town, the Los Angeles small press that later published my third and fourth Joe Portugal novels.
One day, I came back from some mystery convention or other and discovered an email from Otto Penzler, the overall editor of the Best American Mystery Stories series. He’d included Push Comes to Shove in the first cut of the 2001 edition, and that year’s editor selected it for the book. This was none other than Lawrence Block, one of my favorite crime fiction authors. So, not long afterward, there I was on the bookstore shelves, in a volume with Joyce Carol Oates.
That was it for a while, and then I ran into Paul Bishop at an event for Stark Raving Press, a new electronic publishing company for whom we were both writing novellas. We’d worked together in the local Mystery Writers of America chapter some years earlier, but I hadn’t seen him in quite a while. He told me about Fight Card, with its preponderance of boxing novellas, but with mixed martial arts and luchadors on the way. Wheels spun in my head, but only for a moment, and I blurted out, “I’ve got this wrestling story, blah, blah, blah, what if I expanded it into a novella?”
Paul said send him the story, and I did, and he liked it, and expansion began. I had the luxury of filling in more of the unnamed protagonist’s backstory, his life with his girlfriend, his training, what he did during the long hours between matches at TV tapings. I added an ex-wrestler uncle and a stint in Iraq and a dash of PTSD. I added some dimension to the bad guy. I was able to make my hero more proactive and less simply carried along by events. The whole thing took a week of writing time…it was one of those stories that, to use the old cliché, wrote itself, as if it had always wanted to grow and flourish.
I decided to shorten the title to simply The Push, then further cut it to Push. It seemed to work better with both the length and with the Fight Card gestalt – plus the longer title remains forever reserved for the short story that got the first (and still, let’s face it, the only) recognition any of my work has received.
One reason I’m fond of this tale is its protagonist is very different from the urban neurotics who usually populate my work. He’s smart enough, but he’s basically a simple guy with a simple life and a simple loyalty to those he loves. Just a guy faced with a big problem while trying to do his job.
When I wrote Push Comes to Shove, I thought Thumper’s costume and persona might be a little over the top, but subsequent developments in the WWF proved me wrong. And though they’ve dialed back on the weirdness a little since then, I like to think Thumper’s Central States Wrestling career would have made him a natural fit for later WWWF/WWF/WWE greatness, if only…but that would be telling.
FIGHT CARD: PUSH
NATHAN WALPOW
WRITING AS
JACK TUNNEY
COMING AUGUST 2014
You’re a ‘jobber’. You make your living by losing in the wrestling ring. You’re a good wrestler, but promoters don’t think you have what it takes to become a superstar. Then Thumper shows up. Big and strong, with a bunny-rabbit gimmick and fans eating out of his hand. His finishing move is called The Thump, and most guys don’t get up from it on their own.
One night, Thumper puts his opponent in the hospital. Not a big deal. Sure, the outcome of a wrestling match is fake. But the ‘bumps’ in the ring can be all too real. Sometimes you get hurt. Part of the territory.
Then it happens again. Only this time, the guy who got ‘thumped’ is tossed into a car like a sack of potatoes. Lou Boone, the promoter who runs Central States Wrestling with an iron fist, knows you saw something and offers you a ‘push’ if you keep your mouth shut.
A push. Every jobber’s dream. To get to win some matches, to get to be on the big cards in the big arenas. You want it more than anything. You begin thinking you imagined the sack-of-potatoes guy – until it happens again.
Now, you have to choose between wrestling fame and doing the right thing. Before this is over, someone else will be dead. And you don’t want it to be you…
Based on the short story “Push Comes to Shove,” selected by Lawrence Block for the Best American Mystery Stories series.

COMING SOON ~ FIGHT CARD: PUSH

FIGHT CARD: PUSH
NATHAN WALPOW
WRITING AS
JACK TUNNEY
COMING AUGUST 2014
You’re a ‘jobber’. You make your living by losing in the wrestling ring. You’re a good wrestler, but promoters don’t think you have what it takes to become a superstar. Then Thumper shows up. Big and strong, with a bunny-rabbit gimmick and fans eating out of his hand. His finishing move is called The Thump, and most guys don’t get up from it on their own.
One night, Thumper puts his opponent in the hospital. Not a big deal. Sure, the outcome of a wrestling match is fake. But the ‘bumps’ in the ring can be all too real. Sometimes you get hurt. Part of the territory.
Then it happens again. Only this time, the guy who got ‘thumped’ is tossed into a car like a sack of potatoes. Lou Boone, the promoter who runs Central States Wrestling with an iron fist, knows you saw something and offers you a ‘push’ if you keep your mouth shut.
A push. Every jobber’s dream. To get to win some matches, to get to be on the big cards in the big arenas. You want it more than anything. You begin thinking you imagined the sack-of-potatoes guy – until it happens again.
Now, you have to choose between wrestling fame and doing the right thing. Before this is over, someone else will be dead. And you don’t want it to be you…
Based on the short story “Push Comes to Shove,” selected by Lawrence Block for the Best American Mystery Stories series.

COMING SOON ~ FIGHT CARD: BAREKNUCKLE BARBARIAN

FIGHT CARD: BAREKNUCKLE BARBARIAN
TEEL JAMES GLENN
WRITING AS JACK TUNNEY
A BOB HOWARD ADVENTURE
COMING IN SEPTEMBER 2014