Michael Thomas Ford's Blog

What's the buzz?

This morning I received an email from the Indiegogo folks. According to them, my "gogofactor" is DOWN. Your gogofactor, they explain, isn't just based on how well your campaign is doing, but also on how much people are talking about you and your campaign. You know, on buzz.

Did you know that "buzzability" is an actual word? This is terrifying. I can barely handle "impactful." Now I have to be buzzable.

I also apparently have no Klout. Klout is the latest social media tool designed to humiliate you, this time by somehow looking at your online activity and determining, on a scale of 1-100, how influential you are. A friend suggested I see how much Klout I have (you know, since I'm doing so well at being buzzable), so I checked.

My Klout score is 10. I think they give you a 10 just for being online. According to the good people at Klout, Rice Krispies are more influential than I am. Also, Honey Boo Boo and the plague.

Listen, people. This is not okay. What is this, time to pick sides for dodge ball in 8th grade gym class? Thanks a lot, Klout.

I'm now at the halfway point for the Indiegogo campaign. There are 15 days left. To make this thing happen, that means we need to bring in about $287 a day between now and November 01. That's what, 8.2 hardcovers a day? Surely we can do that.

We have to do that. Remember, if the project isn't fully funded, it doesn't happen. Nobody gets books. So here's the plan. Tell EVERYONE. And I mean everyone. Make LILY buzzable. Start buzzing.  Because if this doesn't happen, I'm going to be sad. We're all going to be sad. Do you really want me to  have a dismal gogofactor, no Klout, and no book? No, you don't. Because that's just wrong.

The Indiegogo Campaign: Day 10 Report

Day 10? What, you might be asking, happened to days 4 through 9?

Well, a couple of things. I got the flu (again). The truck died. One of the dogs was sick. Some other unpleasant stuff got in the way. Frankly, I was a little depressed and decided to watch bad horror films instead of be my usual perky self.
But I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about Lena Dunham. Book circles are buzzing about the $3.7 million advance Dunham just got from Random House for her as-yet-unwritten advice book for young women. Dunham, by the way, is the 26-year-old writer/director of the film Tiny Furniture and the creator/writer/director/star of a show called Girls, which apparently received a bunch of Emmy nominations this year. So yay for her. That's impressive. She also seems really nice.
But this advance. Oy, this advance. I have also been published by Random House. They're home to my Jane Austen-as-modern-day-vampire series. And I can tell you this--I didn't get $3.7 million for those books. I was really happy with what they did give me, but probably not nearly as happy as Lena Dunham is. Particularly considering that this is her first book. My books were my 55th, 56th, and 57th. Not that I'm counting.
A lot of people have asked me if I think Dunham deserves her advance. Well, a publisher decides what to advance you based on how well they think the book will sell. And if Random House thinks Dunham's book is good enough to warrant giving her $3.7 million, they must think she's going to sell somewhere between 500,000 and 750,000 copies, because that's how many they'll need to move in order to make a profit. And even at those numbers, Dunham won't have actually earned back her advance, as she'll presumably be getting the usual 15% royalty rate. If her book has a $27 list price, that means she'll be chalking up $4.05 for each copy sold, meaning she'll need sales of about 913,500 copies to earn out.
That ain't gonna happen. Never. So does that mean Dunham doesn't deserve her $3.7 million? To me, the more useful question is, does anyone deserve a $3.7 million advance?
That's a difficult question to answer. If Random House had offered me $3.7 million for my Jane Austen vampire books, I don't think I can with even a hint of honesty tell you that I would have said, "That's way too much! How about we do a hundred thousand and you use the rest to sign up some other folks?" But I know someone who did just that. When bidding on her novel reached heights she never dreamed of, she called a halt to it and accepted a lower offer. Why? Because she knew that if her book failed, not only would she never receive an advance like that again, no one writing books like hers would receive such an advance. She didn't want that to happen.
Her book, by the way, went on to be very successful, and ultimately she did earn an amount equal to what she would have gotten had she let publishers keep upping their offers for her book. It just took her a lot longer to get there. As in probably twenty years longer. And that brings up a good point: As an author, you're going to earn the same amount for your book whether you get that money up front as an advance or over time as royalties. Unless, of course, you're overpaid to begin with and never earn back the advance. But let's assume you do. Lena Dunham could indeed sell enough copies to earn her $3.7 million over time. It's doubtful, but it could happen. So why throw that $3.7 million at her right away? Why not give her a million now and let the rest come to her in the form of royalty checks twice a year? Then use that other $2.7 million to buy some other books.
My novelist friend Michael Lowenthal pointed out that pretty much every author we know would be thrilled to receive a $50,000 advance for a novel. That's a lot of money for most authors, who generally receive well below that. Using that number, we could give Dunham her million and still have enough left to give 54 other writers and their books a chance at success. That seems reasonable, no?
But of course that $3.7 million isn't just about the quality of Dunham's book. It's about creating buzz. The $3.7 million isn't for Dunham's words so much as it is for Dunham herself. She's the It Girl of the moment. She's funny. She's hip. She's everything Random House wants their readers to think they are. What they're buying in Dunham isn't a book, it's an image, or more precisely a pop culture moment that they hope will live long enough for them to get a return on their investment.
So do I think Lena Dunham deserves a $3.7 million advance? No. But it has nothing to do with her as a person or a writer. I think she's pretty great. And it's not her fault that the world of books and publishing is changing into something that writers like Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner wouldn't recognize. She's just the most recent beneficiary of a publishing world desperately trying to figure out how to stay relevant. But if she wants to donate $50,000 to my Indiegogo campaign for my book, I wouldn't say no.
Speaking of which, I'm at the 1/3 mark as far as campaign time goes, but just under that for actual sponsorship. If you've been thinking about participating, please head over to my Indiegogo campaign page now. And please, please, please keep telling your friends about the project. Word of mouth has been my biggest promotion tool, so hound everyone. They'll thank you for it later.

The Indiegogo Campaign: Day 3 Report

Three days in, and we're already at 25%! I'm really, really pleased with how it's going. I'm even more pleased at how much conversation this campaign is generating. Thanks to a mention by the fabulous Emma Dryden of drydenbks, I've been corresponding with a lot of people interested in this idea. One of the questions I'm being asked most often is if I'm doing this because I think authors and traditional publishers have an adversarial relationship. The short answer is that no, I don't think authors and traditional publishers have an adversarial relationship. What I think is that the publishing world has changed so quickly--and continues to change so rapidly on a daily basis--that no one really knows what to do. And because authors are ultimately the ones most affected by whether or not their books sell, we're the ones who need to take control of our work and our careers. Nobody else is going to do it for us. I started in publishing in 1988 as an editorial assistant. When I left five years later to write full time, editors at my company still weren't using computers. "Electronic rights" were a vague concept that neither the contracts department nor agents really knew what to do about. We all pretty much had our heads in the sand and kept reassuring ourselves that huge changes might be coming, but if so they were waaaaaay down the line. Well, that lane was shorter than we thought. Those changes came, and they're still coming. And we still don't really know what to do about them. Ebooks have changed everything about how we read books, about how we sell books, and about how books themselves are perceived. Self-publishing has gone from being largely a vanity undertaking to a viable pathway for authors who want to have more control over their work. Publishing is a totally different world now than it was when I stepped into it 25 years ago. I decided to go this route with LILY because it's an odd little book that, frankly, probably would have gotten lost in the shuffle if I'd taken the traditional publishing route. This way, readers who want to read it can get it, and I get to do the book the way I want to. It's simply another way to get a book into the world. I'm still working on projects with traditional publishers, and while I think there's definitely room for improvement there, I'm also excited by the things publishers are trying to do. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to Emma for mentioning my project, to everyone who has written, and to everyone who has donated to the campaign. There's still a long way to go, but every time I get an email from Indiegogo letting me know that someone else has contributed, it makes my day. Please keep spreading the word!

The Indiegogo Campaign: Day 2 Report

I can't believe that only 48 hours in, we're already at 20% on the Indiegogo campaign! As one of the Galactica crew might say, this is frakking amazing.

A couple of questions have come in from people regarding what I'm doing, so I thought I would answer them here, in case anyone else has been wondering about them.

1. Is LILY, the novel, about Lillie, the dog in the video?

No. In fact, I didn't even think about that until someone mentioned it. But Lillie does deserve her own book. She has a great story.

2. Are you giving up on traditional publishing altogether?

Again, no. I have a number of books in the works that will likely end up being published through traditional channels. There are some books for which this is still currently a better option. But I also am working on a couple of things for which this new model might work wonderfully. LILY is something of a test to see just how well it works.

3. What happens if you don't raise the full $7,000?

This is an all-or-nothing campaign, meaning that if the project isn't fully funded by midnight on October 31, it doesn't happen. Nobody will be charged, but nobody will get books. I'll go back to the drawing board and on to the next thing. I won't consider this a failure, as I'm doing it partly to gauge reader reception to this idea, but I will be disappointed.

That's your update for today. I may have another exciting announcement in the next couple of days, so keep tuning in. In the meantime, thank you for all of your help in getting the word about my campaign out there. You're all awesome.

The Indiegogo Campaign: Day 1 Report

So yesterday I launched the Indiegogo campaign for my new novel, LILY.

Wow. The response has been fantastic. In just 24 hours the project is 8% funded, and it's thanks to readers participating and sharing the news with friends. It's very gratifying to see such support for this new way of getting art into the world.

There are 30 days left in the campaign. It only happens if the project is fully funded, so I need to keep the momentum going. I figure I need to raise $215 a day to reach the finish line. To put it in terms of books,  I need to move a total of 185 more hardcovers, 259 more paperbacks, or 431 more ebooks. That's about 6 hardcovers, 9 paperbacks, or 14 ebooks a day.

Indiegogo says it typically takes seven "contacts" before someone contributes to a campaign. I hate to poke you that much, so how about we save ourselves the bother and you just trot over to my Indiegogo page now and pick yourself up some goodies?

Thanks again to everyone who has already contributed and, just as important, shared my project with their friends. Keep spreading the word!

The AFI 100 Project: #98 Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

[image error] The other night on the County Music Association annual awards show actress Gwyneth Paltrow performed her single "Country Strong," which apparently she sings in some upcoming movie where she plays (duh) a country singer. An alcoholic country singer, of course, because is there any other kind?

I don't much care for Gwyneth Paltrow as an actress. If you ask me, her Best Actress Oscar win for Shakespeare in Love over Cate Blanchett's stunning portrayal of Elizabeth I in Elizabeth is the single greatest travesty in Oscar history. Seriously, they should have a do-over.

On a personal level it's difficult to overlook her marriage to the leader of one of the most tiresome bands in history, her ridiculous blog (Goop), and the fact that she named her kids Apple and Moses. Really, could she be any more annoying? No, she couldn't. Except when you remember that she's best friends with Madonna and follows a macrobiotic diet. Seriously, she makes it very difficult to like her.

Her singing was fine. The song is tedious and Paltrow's presence as a singer is about as thrilling as her presence on screen, which is to say that she resembles a perfectly pleasant boiled dumpling that is badly in need of some dipping sauce. Also, she wore a regrettable dress and tragic shoes, her knees were shiny, and I spent most of the time she performed wondering who the attractive fellow singing with her was and then, realizing that it was Vince Gill, wondering 1. When he lost weight, 2. Where he got his glasses, which are exactly what I've been looking for, and 3. How he and Amy Grant are getting along. Apparently everyone else was wondering the same thing, as they then panned to Amy in the audience and she was beaming and nodding.


The real problem, though, is that Gwyneth will probably get at least another Oscar nomination out of this. Everyone who plays a country singer does. Just ask Sissy Spacek, Reese Witherspoon, Jessica Lange, Jeff Bridges, and Joaquin Phoenix. Seriously, it's like playing someone with a terminal disease, facial deformity, or an accent. And if you actually play a guitar, well, you might as well dust off a spot on your mantel.

What was my point again? Oh, right. Actors who decide to be singers. Or at least play singers. See, Yankee Doodle Dandy, which is about the life of the legendary performer/composer George M. Cohan, stars James Cagney. Now, I always think of Cagney as a tough guy. But in YDD he dances and sings all over the place. It's enormously entertaining, and as I watched it I realized why Cagney had won a Best Actor Oscar for his performance. In addition to the fact that every serious actor who sings and dances for a role is automatically given a nomination, he was actually good at it.

Only after I looked up his bio did I realize that he'd actually started his career as a song and dance man, which made me only slightly less impressed (it feels a bit like cheating, like a real vampire playing Dracula). Really, though, he's very good. And funny.
 
As for the film, I will say this right up front: I am not a fan of overly-patriotic hoo-ha. It freaks me out. Fireworks on the Fourth are great and all, and yes America is a swell place to live compared to a lot of other places, but anything more than some pretty exploding rockets and I start to get anxious. Flags. Pledges. Anthems. They're all perfectly fine in their way, but I eye them with suspicion.

Thankfully, Yankee Doodle Dandy isn't really about patriotism at all, which is a relief. George M. Cohan certainly knew how to turn patriotism into a winning show, but the film is more about vaudeville and Broadway than anything else. So yay for that. And I have to admit, several times throughout the rest of the night I found myself singing, "And we won't come back until it's over over there."

Yes, it's hokey. Yes, there are flags waving all over the place. Yes, it would be better with zombies and explosions. Still, Gwyneth Paltrow isn't in it and a good time was had by all. And by all I mean me and the six dogs--Lillie, George, Andy, Teddy, Honey, and Greta--who watched it with me. The other dog, Possum, sat with Patrick in the living room and watched Golden Girls reruns. She hates musicals. Or perhaps she's a Communist. I'll keep an eye on her.

The AFI 100 Project: #99 Toy Story (1995)

[image error] Anyone who has ever lived in New York City knows that the Christmas season doesn't begin until the tree goes up in Rockefeller Center. Even those of us who are unusually Grinchy about the holiday hoo-ha get a little bit warm inside when we see it towering over the ice skaters below, its glittering lights twinkling merrily.

Unless, that is, you happen to be moving out of Manhattan on the afternoon of the tree lighting, in which case you hate the Rockefeller tree with the passion of a thousand burning suns. Why? Because trying to navigate a U-Haul truck through the traffic that accompanies the tree lighting is not what most of us call fun.

In 1995 the tree lighting was particularly popular as the chosen tree had a great back story. It actually had been scouted by the company responsible for finding each year's guest of honor 11 years earlier. At that time the Norway spruce was living on the grounds of the Mallinckrodt Convent run by the Sisters of Christian Charity. Back then the Sisters didn't want to part with the tree, but by 1995 it was so large and so old that they feared it might fall and do damage to the convent. Or possibly to a Sister. So they said okay, come get it.

It's a charming story. So charming that it was written about endlessly. There was even a novel about it--cleverly titled The Christmas Tree--by Wall Street Journal reporter Julie Salamon. After all, who can resist the combination of Christmas and nuns? Did I mention that the nuns had a tree cutting ceremony complete with the sprinkling of holy water? I like to imagine them dousing the tree while screaming, "The power of Christmas compels you!" but I suspect it wasn't anything so thrilling.

Anyway, all of this charm meant that a billion and two people were crowding Manhattan to look at this Norway spruce. And there I was trying to drive against the tide. I was moving from New York to Boston. Packing the U-Haul had taken far longer than expected, so I didn't leave until late in the afternoon. I will spare you the horrible details and say only that it took almost 6 hours to get out of Manhattan.

Now, what has any of this to do with Toy Story? Nothing. Except that the night before I fled New York I went to see Toy Story. I thought it would be a nice break from all the packing and general hysteria that was my apartment.

I remember thinking at the time that it was a cute little movie. Watching it 15 years later, I see that I must have been high from sniffing packing tape, because it's not cute. It's annoying. Unless, maybe, you're 5, but then you probably like anything as long as it's loud and colorful.

I'm not going to rehash the plot of Toy Story here. Chances are you've seen it, and if you haven't you can find out for yourself. But I will tell you my major problem with Toy Story. Bo Peep. And her sheep. What boy would have a Bo Peep doll? No, no -- what child would have a Bo Peep doll? Seriously, is it 1873? Or did Andy (the kid in the movie) inherit it along with his great-grandmother's chamber pot and doily collection?

I know Bo is there only because Matel wouldn't let the filmmakers use Barbie, but come on. What genius said, "We can't use Barbie? Fuck it, throw Bo Peep in there. No one will know the difference."? I mean they named the army action figure Combat Carl instead of G.I. Joe to avoid pesky trademark issues. Why not just make a Barbie lookalike and call her Sexist Sally, or maybe Unrealistic Expectations Eunice? The point is, there were better options.

I have other problems with the film too, like the fact that Andy is so intellectually lacking that he doesn't notice cowboy toy Woody is no longer in the car when they get to Pizza Planet, even though he's been moping around about his missing Buzz Lightyear spaceman toy from the minute he and his mother left the house. And that's another thing--where's his dad? Did he catch a stray bullet while patrolling in the hood? Is he doing time for knocking over a Dairy Queen to support his meth habit? Did he run off with Mr. Jenkins from down the street? I don't care that Andy's dad isn't around, but I want to know why, damn it.

Maybe they explained that and I just wasn't paying attention. I could only watch about three minutes at a time before I was thinking about other stuff. Not that the story is all that complicated. It's the classic boy-meets-toy, boy-loses-toy, boy-gets-toy story. But with two toys, both of whom are annoying.

To be fair, most of the fuss made over Toy Story when it came out had to do with its look, which was (depending on your point of view) a great leap forward in animation. Personally, I don't like it. I'm old school. I like Snow White and Fantasia. I like images made by people, not computers. I'll take Spirited Away, or even My Neighbor Totoro, over Toy Story any day.

Toy Story is supposed to be a heartwarming story, but to me it comes across as sterile and cold. The work is too perfect, which ironically makes it seem less real. With traditional animation you don't expect perfection and so you're able to lose yourself in the world of the story. With Toy Story I was never able to forget that I was watching something that was trying too hard to look like real life, so when things really went awry in the lifelike department (like the horribly unreal-looking dog Scud)it was enormously distracting.

I did have one big laugh, when Woody and Buzz are coming down after being shot into the air by a fireworks. Woody says something about how they're finally flying, to which Buzz replies, "This isn't flying. This is falling--with style."

Okay, so you had to be there. Trust me, it was a ha-ha moment. Or maybe I was just relieved that it was almost over. All I know is, I don't have to drive a moving van through Manhattan tomorrow, so as far as I'm concerned it's all good.

The AFI 100 Project: #100 Ben-Hur (1959)

[image error] As many of you know, I love lists. I also love projects that have no real point and take a great deal of time. A few years ago, for instance, I spent a year reading everything ever written by William Faulkner. In chronological order.

I don't recommend this, by the way. Faulkner's a great writer, but after you spend a year with him you start to wonder if maybe you shouldn't have married John Steinbeck or Carson McCullers. I much preferred the couple of months I spent with Shirley Jackson. Shirley's a great gal. Smokes too much, but we all have our faults.

Anyway, I'm a sucker for lists. I'm forever watching things like The 100 Greatest Hair Metal Bands of All Time on VH1 and The World's 10 Deadliest Sharks on Discovery Channel. I just can't help it. And the longer the list, the better.

It's therefore not at all surprising that when I stumbled upon the American Film Institute's 100 Years, 100 Movies list I immediately saw it as a challenge. Based on input from people who are supposed to know about these things, this is the list of the best American movies from the past century. They revise it every 10 years to account for new titles and changes in how films are perceived, and the last poll was in 2007, so it's already a little out of date. Nevertheless, I am intrigued.

So that's my new time-waster. I'm watching all 100 films. I've already seen quite a few of them, but I'm watching them again. You know, because skipping some of them is cheating.

Don't worry, I'm not going to get all film critic-y about them. Apart from creepy clown movies -- on which I am almost certainly the world's leading authority -- I know almost nothing about film. But neither do most people who write about them and talk about them. I'm just curious what these smartypants think are the best American films.

Let's get started, shall we?

Number 100 on the AFI list is Ben-Hur. On the 1997 list it was number 72, giving it the second biggest drop on the list (you'll have to wait a while to find out which film plunged farther). Frankly, when I saw the list I wished Ben-Hur had dropped at least one more place. I really didn't want to watch it. I'm not a fan of Charlton Heston. Or chariot races. Or movies that clock in at more than three hours. The fact that it came on two discs was enough to make me almost abandon this project before I'd even begun.

But I do like gladiators, so I gave it a shot. And here is what I have to say: Ben-Hur is the gayest movie ever made. It's gayer than Brokeback Mountain. It's gayer than any Falcon video. It's gayer than a gay sundae smothered with gay sauce and topped with a big dollop of whipped gay.

Seriously, it's all about Heston's Ben-Hur and his special friend Messala (played by hunky Stephen Boyd). As boys the Jewish Benny and Roman Messy are inseparable. They hang out. They throw spears and rejoice when they hit the same spot and their shafts quiver joyously side-by-side. They spend a lot of time looking longingly into one another's eyes and pledging eternal love.

Then, as they usually do, things get complicated. The Romans decide they're better than everyone else and suddenly it all turns very West Side Story and tragic. Ben-Hur's sister accidentally almost kills some Roman bigshot by throwing pottery at him and Messala (who is now a crossing guard or something) makes an example of Ben-Hur by tossing him in a ship's galley with a bunch of other muscly men in loincloths. Oh, and Jesus has a cameo but he's shot from the back and the guy who played him isn't even listed in the credits, making us think that maybe it's the real Jesus.

This is a problem. See, both the film and the novel on which it's based have the subtitle "A Tale of the Christ." I'm not a big fan of tales of the Christ. They tend to be all preachy and stuff. Which Ben-Hur is. First Jesus gives Ben-Hur some water. Then Ben-Hur gives Jesus some water. Then Jesus is crucified but still manages to find time to cure Ben-Hur's mother's and sister's leprosy.

The implication is that all along Jesus has been making things happen for Benny, which if you ask me is a sneaky way to talk about what you really want to talk about. I mean, drawing us in with gladiators rubbing each other with oil and then saying, "Gotcha! This movie is really about falling in love with Jesus!" is just wrong, like putting a shirtless Gerard Butler on the cover of a magazine and then stuffing it full of articles about making the perfect meatloaf and getting rid of unsightly varicose veins. Not. Cool.

But it's kind of clever. Because Ben-Hur's story is interesting. He spends a couple of years as a galley slave, getting all buff. He saves a Roman general (or something) when their ship sinks, even though (or because) the Roman acts like an S&M Daddy and takes delight in watching the galley slaves grunt and strain at their oars. The Roman adopts him as his son and becomes his real daddy, and they spend a lot of time looking longingly into one another's eyes. Ben-Hur becomes a charioteer and finally gets revenge on Messala in the coliseum. Having them engage in some hot hate sex would have been nice, but it was 1959 so instead we get a terribly thrilling chariot race and a deathbed confrontation in which Messala is tied to the wall with leather straps.

Because we're interested in Ben-Hur we put up with the Christ when he shows up. Maybe we roll our eyes a little bit, but we don't get too annoyed by it because the chariot race scene really was a lot of fun and we're in a good mood. It reminded me of how when I was a kid our Sunday School teacher let us play communion with grape juice and Nilla Wafers. By the time she gave us the news that it was really the body and blood of Christ we'd just gobbled down we were so hopped up on sugar that we didn't care.

So kudos to director William Wyler for that. I will never watch Ben-Hur again, but I have to say that it wasn't nearly as painful as I thought it would be. It's no surprise it won a billion Academy Awards, although if I wanted to be cynical about that I could point out that most of the other films nominated that year were kind of dreary except maybe Anatomy of a Murder, but no one was going to give a Best Picture Oscar to a movie in which the word "semen" was used way too many times for anyone's comfort.

All in all, Ben-Hur was not the worst way to begin this project. The sets are great. The costumes are fun. The sea battle and chariot race are faboo. It's a great big spectacle. I just would have liked more oily gladiators and a little less Jesus. But isn't that always how it is?

I'm baaaaaaaaaack!

I know, it's been forever. Six months, anyway, which seems like forever in blog time.

Why the long silence? Well, first I was writing Jane Goes Batty, the sequel to Jane Bites Back. That took longer than expected. Here's the cover. The cover for Jane Bites Back was good, but I really love this one. So look for that in early 2011. Around Valentine's Day, I think.

While I was finishing that book up I had not one, but two new books come out. First up was The Road Home, my most recent novel for Kensington Books. Then came Z, my young adult zombie novel.

Speaking of Z, my editor just sent me the Booklist review this morning. Take a look:

Z.
Ford, Michael Thomas

Josh is addicted to a virtual-reality zombie-killing game, and his skills get him noticed by people who take the game to a whole new and very real level. He finds himself enmeshed in an enterprise involved in everything from creating fresh zombies to manufacturing illegal drugs. When friends begin to appear as zombie targets, things unravel quickly, and Josh must choose his allies wisely to get out alive. Ford expertly builds the tension in this long, escalating thrill ride. Subplots about friendship and first love are woven lightly but deftly through the action in a way that keeps the focus on the game. There are blatant parallels between the virus that creates zombies (from humans) and HIV, giving this book some potential as a conversational door-opener for a weighty topic. The frenetic action and near-future gadgetry make this a good choice to hand to graduates of Anthony Horowitz's Alex Rider books or perhaps fans of Vivian Vande Velde's Heir Apparent (2002) or Neal Shusterman's Full Tilt (2003).

I don't know why it's taking so long for the review journals to review books lately. It used to be the reviews would come out a few weeks or even a month before the book's release date. Now they're coming later and later. To be honest, I was starting to get a little paranoid that everyone hated the book. But the reviews have been great, so it's all good.

Actually, I had four books come out this year. The paperbacks of What We Remember and Suicide Notes came out too. I was particularly excited about Suicide Notes because one of my favorite writers, Ellen Hopkins, called it "A riveting read."

After all that excitement, I started school in August. Yes, at 42 I've gone back to school. I'm in the American Sign Language Studies program at Berkeley City College. It's fantastic. It's also a lot of work. What with all the studying and papers there's been very little time for anything else. But I aced my midterms, so yay me!

Not that things have slowed down all that much. Right now I'm finishing up Before Today (my next novel for Kensington, out next fall) and then getting to work on Jane Vows Vengeance, the third book in my Jane Austen vampire trilogy. Oh, and all of the crazy-making holidays are right around the corner. Also, finals.

Come to think of it, I still don't have time to blog. But I miss it, so I'll make time. Also, it's a nice break from the regular writing and helps clear out all of the clutter that accumulates in my head.

I have a new blog project I'll be doing right here. More on that in the next week. I'll also be resuming work on Spawn of Bozo, my blog about creepy clown movies. I've acquired more than 80 films that are waiting to be viewed and written about, so expect a lot of clown action in the coming year.

Thanks to all of you who wrote to make sure I wasn't dead. It was sweet of you. You know, in a morbid "maybe now I can get some money for his signed books on eBay" kind of a way. And yes, I mean you, Mom.

Spawn of Bozo Issue #17: The Idiot Box Part II (The Whoniverse)

Before we begin, kindly take a listen to the following bit of music. Listen to the whole thing. To make it really fun, close your eyes while you listen and imagine being around 5 or 6 years old, sitting in front of the television in your living room. It helps if the living room in which you're sitting is circa 1963, and in Great Britain, but it doesn't really matter. Just do your best.



For millions of Britons over the age of 50 or so, that theme brings back lots of memories. And not all of the...