Mark Allen's Blog, page 5

BOOK REVIEW: Primal Origin by Jack Silkstone

Buy on AmazonIf you’re hunting for a rapid-fire action-adventure story that’s more enjoyable than popping terrorist skulls with a .50 cal, then Primal: Origin will be your literary cup of gunpowder. Penned by Jack Silkstone, one of the rising stars in the resurgence of the “guns ‘n’ guts” genre, this novella introduces the premise behind his popular Primal series; a trio of counter-terrorist operators, funded by a Middle Eastern billionaire, form a covert organization that can wage war against evildoers without worrying about government interference or bureaucratic bullshit. Unlimited resources, cutting-edge technology, no rules other than a sense of justice delivered by bucketfuls of bullets … sure, it’s all testosteronic fantasy, but hot damn if it ain’t a full clip of cocked, locked and ready to rock fun.

As an intelligence and covert operations specialist with real field time, Silkstone brings a “been there, done that, got the t-shirt” verisimilitude to this tale, albeit with all elements cranked to the max. With the salty banter between the warriors to the gnarly weapons to the redline-revving car chases and autofire action sequences, Primal: Origin hearkens back to the halcyon days of men’s adventure fiction, readily bringing to mind such classics as Phoenix Force and Able Team as well as more obscure titles such as Eagle Force.
It’s a high-octane, adrenaline-inducing “trigger-pullers operate outside the law to uphold the law” type of story and by Silkstone’s own admission, it’s not designed to be deep, naval-gazing prose—it’s meant to be entertaining. There’s rough language and brutal gunfights and bloody violence and for the target demographic, that’s all you need to know to one-click this book onto your Kindle.
Primal: Origin delivered the low-drag, high-velocity action goods and accomplished its mission—make me want to read the rest of the Primal series. When I want high literature, I’ll grab some Shakespeare (OK, I never actually want high literature); when I want an unpretentious tale of good guys gunning down bad guys, I’ll pick up some Primal. Just kick the action-craving region of your brain into high gear and hold on tight.

MOVIE REVIEW: Sabotage (2014)

Prior to watching Sabotage yesterday, I knew of only two people who had seen the movie—author Jack Badelaire (see his review here) who called it “intense,” and my brother, whose post-viewing text simply said, “Man, that was grisly.”
Turns out they were both right, as I discovered as I sat in the near-empty theater with four other people—two of whom beat a hasty exit right after the nailed-to-the-ceiling-and-disemboweled scene. Hey, not everyone knows how to mix dangling intestines with their popcorn.

As directed by David Ayer (Training Day and End of Watch), this is a dark, grim, relentless—and yes, intense and grisly—action thriller that ranks as the nastiest film of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s career. Sure, his movies have always been violent (yes, I’m counting Twins, because watching it makes you want to shoot yourself in the head) but with a fun, cartoonish, over the top vibe to the carnage. With its nihilistic emphasis on graphic gore, it’s tough to call Sabotage“fun.” Enjoyable, yes, for movie-goers of a certain inclination … but the tone is extremely savage.

Sabotage manages to be not only a bruising action film, but also a dark whodunit with more twists than a snake swallowing a pretzel. When Schwarzenegger—er, sorry, John “Breacher” Wharton—and his hard-charging team of undercover DEA warrior-operators steal $10 million from a vicious drug cartel, they begin getting picked off one by one in torturous fashion. Thing is, it appears one of the team members helped themselves to the money before the others could get their cut, meaning a traitor lurks in their midst and loyalty soon turns to mistrust and betrayal.

This is not your standard Schwarzenegger role. This is the darkest character the actor has ever played, his soul deeply scarred by the hellish trauma of his past. He is haunted, consumed, wounded, an ass-kicker whose ass has been kicked by life. It’s not a remarkable performance when judged by traditional acting values, but it’s a superlative performance for Schwarzenegger. The larger-than-life invulnerability on which he built his legend is eschewed here in favor of a character that is angry, vulnerable, and twisted.

While the action is not wall-to-wall, there is more than enough door-busting, bullet-blasting, blood-spurting violence to satisfy fans of the guns ‘n’ guts genre. For being a bunch of federal agents, Breacher’s Special Operations Team doesn’t seem all that interested in arresting anyone, but they are very interested in putting bodies on the floor, autofire style. Explosions, gunplay, bad guys biting the dust … yeah, it’s all here.

The directing style is as grim and gritty as the script, with minimal flash (well, unless you count the flash-bangs). Ayer seems a bit overly enthusiastic about grinding our faces in the gore, but in this era of clean, sanitized PG-13 action movies, I personally enjoyed seeing hard-R sensibilities embraced with such unfettered vigor.

This is mandatory viewing for all Schwarzenegger fans and ranks as one of my favorite Arnie flicks. Anyone who has read my books knows that I like things dark, grim, and violent and prefer tortured protagonists to unflappable heroes, so yeah, Sabotage resonates very highly with me. Rarely has a movie so accurately encapsulated the term “guns ‘n’ guts,” because Sabotage has copious amounts of both. “I’ll be back” for a repeat viewing when it hits DVD and you should “Get to da theata!” to watch it ASAP.

Would you write poorly for $1 million?

Would you rather be a barely passable writer with a derivatively subpar series that somehow sells millions … or a supremely talented writer with a fantastic series that for some reason fails to capture readers’ attention? This was the question me and another author kicked around a couple weeks ago. Because sometimes debating hypotheticals can be an amusing way to take a break from writing your latest magnum opus.

The question was actually a bit more specific. We were ragging on the Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey series, remarking how they are, in our opinion, woefully written (actually, that’s not just our opinion; according to Google, about 200,000 people agree with us). Yet somehow they have become blockbusters and the authors—Stephenie Meyer and E.L. James, respectively—despite not being particularly talented wordsmiths, are now amassing the kind of wealth that lets them light their cigarettes with hundred dollar bills if they so choose. So the question became, would a talented author be willing to forsake that talent in exchange for a million dollars … or would a talented author rather write quality books that don’t sell as well? Assuming you are a better writer than Meyer or James—and God knows there are legions of you out there—would you sacrifice that talent if it resulted in you selling more books? Talent or money … if you could have only one, which would it be?
Phrased another way, are sales the ultimate goal for a writer … or is writing a good book enough of a reward unto itself?
Every author will have their own answer, but I suspect even those who claim they would retain their talent rather than forsake it for riches would think long and hard if such a Faustian deal were laid in their lap. Because Lord knows I have never once wished I was Stephenie Meyer or E.L. James, but I have certainly wished I enjoyed their level of success.
Such is the world of writing. Sometimes literary detritus inexplicably evolves into a blockbuster while great novels go as unnoticed as a plain-faced girl in the Playboy Mansion. The best we can do is try to write a good book with a good story and hope readers fall in love with it. Because while hypotheticals may be an amusing way to waste a few minutes during editing breaks, the reality is nobody is going to knock on our door and offer to diminish our writing talent in exchange for mounds of money. We can gripe about the Meyers and James of the publishing world, but the reality is they created stories, poorly written though they may be, that captured the hearts and minds—and wallets—of the reading public. We should strive to do the same.
Just without the “poorly written” part.

Review: "The Dark" (Wolf #2) by Dean Breckenridge

BUY ON AMAZONIf you visit this webpage and read these posts, then you are probably a fan of the “guns ‘n’ guts” genre. And if you’re a fan of that genre and have not checked out the “Wolf” series of short stories/novellas by pseudonymous author Dean Breckenridge, you have been doing yourself a disservice. Maybe not as great a disservice as masturbating with 40-grit sandpaper, but a disservice nonetheless.

Wolf continues to be one the coolest characters you're apt to find in the modern day hardboiled/action genre. We are now into book #2 of the series and still know next to nothing about Wolf’s past. Part of me hopes Breckenridge fleshes out the backstory in future entries, part of me hopes Wolf forever remains a bullet-blasting enigma. Dressed in black and willing to do whatever it takes to solve whatever problem he has been hired to tackle, Wolf is the kind of man you want on your side when the chips are down, the going gets rough, and the proverbial fecal matter hits the rotary cooling mechanism.

You see, much like the animal for which he is named, Wolf prowls about on the fringes, at home in the shadows, and possesses qualities both noble and savage. He is neither gallant hero nor
The gunplay is not quite as copious as book #1, “Kill Fever," but there’s still enough to satiate carnage connoisseurs, and once again Breckenridge writes lean and mean, with the prose pared down to the raw, bleeding bone. These stories are the perfect Kindle fodder for when you have 30 minutes to spare and crave something quick, gripping, and hard-edged. Bottom line, any hardboiled crime/action fiction fan needs to check out this series. You may just find that Wolf is worth howling about.

THANKS, DAD: THE GENESIS OF AN ACTION AUTHOR

My father is inadvertently responsible—or to blame, depending on your wording of choice—for making me the writer I am today. You see, when I was 16, Dad and I stopped at a hole in the wall bait shop that looked like it belonged in a Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie to buy some worms. That ramshackle bait shop boasted a counter overflowing with dog-eared paperbacks for a buck apiece. Amidst the chaotically-stacked, multi-genre mess—Stephen King mixed with Grace Livingston Hill mixed with Louis L’Amour mixed with more bodice-ripping romance than you could shake a stick at—I stumbled upon The Executioner #128: Sudan Slaughter. With a picture of a rugged hero wielding a submachine gun on the front and a tagline promising that “hellfire explodes in northeast Africa,” it snagged my teenage interest almost as easily as a picture of a nude woman might have. (I said “almost.”)

I devoured the book and rapidly became enraptured by the hardcore action and graphic violence. Heads exploded! Brains sprayed! Blood spurted! Guts spilled! It was, in a word, wicked awesome. (OK, that’s two words, but that’s how we talked in 1989. Everything was wicked this and wicked that. And the music was way cooler too, but I digress.)
Over the next year, I immersed myself in action-adventure fiction like an alcoholic turned loose in the Jack Daniels distillery. The Executioner, Phoenix Force, and Able Team were my staples, but I devoured pretty much anything that fit into the guns ‘n’ guts genre.

It soon became apparent that all the books pretty much adhered to a formula. At that time, I knew nothing of stable writers or publishing house demands or any of that stuff—heck, it took me years to realize the Executioner series was no longer written by Don Pendleton. I just knew that after reading hundreds of action-adventure books, they were starting to feel pretty same-y. When I lamented this fact to my father, he replied:

“If you think you can do better, go write one yourself.”

And so I did.

It was called “Delta Force” and it was 3 pages long. Basically just one scene of the elite anti-terrorist team storming a hijacked jet. I wish I still had that short “story,” because I guarantee I set a new world’s record for amount of gore spilled in less than a thousand words. Those terrorists—as well as a plethora of hostages and several Delta Force commandos—died damn hard. Yeah, I had a bit o’ the ol’ literary bloodlust in me. Still do.

That one time was all it took. The writing needle had been injected and I was an instant addict. I wrote ceaselessly, often banging out a story a day. I wrote Mack Bolan fan fiction. I created my own series—Death Dealer and Warlokk—and before long my 3 page action vignettes turned into legitimate short stories which in turn evolved into novellas. I wrote a short story about my uncle, Green Beret Sgt. Leonard P. Allen, who died in ‘Nam by heroically sacrificing his own life in order to save his men. I entered it into competitions and won, resulting in a huge surge of confidence. The writing bug had bitten hard and suddenly my dreams of becoming a cop were eclipsed by my desire to write action-adventure novels.
 BUY ON AMAZON
That dream took longer than expected, backburnered by the demands of college, career, family, life, etc. But thanks to Kindle Direct Publishing, that dream finally became reality on December 11, 2013, when I published my debut action-thriller, The Assassin’s Prayer.

I don’t know if I wrote a better action novel like my father told me to, but I did write one, and judging from the sales and feedback so far, people seem to like it. If you happen to read it and enjoy it, you can thank my dad. And if you hate it and think I should have avoided writing action fiction like a vegan avoids beef, well … you can still thank my dad.

Should Authors Brand Themselves?

The saying goes, “Jack of all trades, master of none.” But does that mean that indie authors who dabble in more than one genre are crippling themselves and their sales by not zeroing in on just one genre? Is it crucial for an author to brand themselves as an action writer or horror writer or romance writer and then cling exclusively to that category, forsaking all others, ‘til death do you part? Does reader bias exist against authors who refuse to wear a singular label? The answer to all these questions is yes … and no. Multi-genre experimentation will hurt some authors but prove to be the path to success for others. Branding is a smart choice for some authors; for others it’s a waste of time equal to trying to start an inferno with a burnt match. Some readers will ignore authors who dip their pen in more than one ink well, others will embrace the diversification. Short of having Nostradamus in their lineage, it’s impossible for an author to predict, so they may as well write whatever makes them happy and let the branding fall where it may.

To be honest, this is a position reversal for me. Not long ago, I vowed to brand myself as an action author. Even this blog is geared toward action fiction and I have no intention of altering the focus, as that particular genre is my primary interest. I had published various short stories in the hardboiled, horror, and romance genres, but with the release of my debut novel, The Assassin’s Prayer , I believed the time had arrived to turn my back on those other genres and focus exclusively on action. After all, I currently have at least four more action novels outlined and ready to be written, so why not adopt the one-shot-one-kill technique of a sniper rather than the spray-and-pray approach of a machine-gunner?

But following the release of the novel, I was approached to submit a zombie story for an anthology. I caught whiff of potential opportunities in the western market. Readers clamored for a novel-length continuance of my short hardboiled story. I swiftly realized that branding myself as solely an action author would leave me as unsatisfied as a gun enthusiast trying to buy an AR-15 in New York. I wanted to write a western. I wanted to write a zombie story. I wanted to write a Jack Reece (“The Killing Question” )novel. And so I decided to do what I want, not what a brand demanded.


 Buy on AmazonThe explosion of indie publishing has shredded preconceived notions of how authors should behave. Experimentation is not only accepted, it is encouraged. Branding may be beneficial for some, but for others it could be detrimental. No author can fully anticipate what will strike a chord with readers. For example, author Jack Badelaire started his career writing a contemporary action novel ( Killer Instincts ) and fully intended to continue down this path. Then, just for a lark, he penned a pulpy WWII tale about British Commandos. Unexpectedly, it snagged the attention of readers and he has now written three books in the “Commando” series that has become his bread and butter. Had he been determined to brand himself as only a contemporary action novelist, the level of success he now enjoys might have eluded him like a scuba diver trying to catch an eel with Vaseline-coated gloves.

For authors only interested in one specific genre, branding is a viable, perhaps even advised, option. But for those whose writing interests branch off in various directions, branding could be the cage that imprisons their success. For me, branding felt like shackles I had willingly put on. Thankfully, they were just as easy to take off. Readers may eventually brand me an action author or horror author or crime author but that branding will be natural, organic, not something I self-applied. Follow your muse, write what you please, and don’t worry about branding. Indie publishing is fertile soil; plant all the literary seeds you want and see which one flourishes best for you.
    

REVIEW: "The Kill Fever" (Wolf #1) by Dean Breckenridge

Buy on AmazonIf you like your action-crime fiction the same way you like your women—short, no fat, hard-edged, and packing a wicked punch—then you’ll be in hardboiled heaven reading this short story by Dean Breckenridge. The first in a planned series, “The Kill Fever” introduces us to Wolf, a shadowy protagonist who roams the gray wasteland between the law and the lawless. Wolf’s enigmatic appearance is summed up with this brilliant economy of prose: “Callaway knew him only as Wolf. Nobody knew his first name. Nobody knew where he had come from. Callaway didn’t think he was a bad guy; wasn’t entirely sure he was a good guy.”

This kind of sparse, stripped to the bone style suffuses this story from its first syllable to its final pronoun. Breckenridge wastes nary a single word; in fact, if there is a flaw—and that “if” is certainly debatable—it’s that setting and description take a back seat (actually, they take the trunk, right under the spare tire and the dead hooker) to dialogue, pace, and action. There is a vibe about “The Kill Fever” that is reminiscent of Richard Stark and in the hedonistic halls of hardboiled, there may be no greater compliment.

In fact—and forgive the imminent blasphemy—for action fans, “The Kill Fever” may actually be superior to Stark’s stuff, because Breckenridge ensures Wolf gets into plenty of gun scrapes over the course of a 51-page story. Hardboiled writers frequently fail to include enough gun-slinging to attract carnage-craving action aficionados, but Wolf packs plenty of heat and isn’t afraid to blow holes in the bad guys.
 Granted, if you want graphic kills, this may not be up your dark literary alley. This is not that kind of story. You don’t write a lean, mean, pared-to-the-bone thriller and then go excessive to describe what a bullet does to human anatomy. So you get lots of “the bullet hit the man and dropped him,” but not so much “the bullet exploded deep inside his chest cavity, shredding the heart and blowing chunks of cardiac tissue into dripping rags of sodden meat as blood-fueled bone splinters shot across the room in a red, wet geyser and painted a crimson Picasso on the opposite wall.” See the difference? One is classic hardboiled. One is action splatterpunk. Nothing wrong with either one, but “The Kill Fever” is the former, not the latter. I don’t read much hardboiled because of the aforementioned lack of action, but of the few authors I do follow in the genre, Breckenridge might just be my new favorite because he found a way to insert action-adventure tropes into the framework of hardboiled crime-thrillers. It’s not as easy as it sounds—I gave it a try (successfully or not is for the reader to decide) on “The Killing Question”—and I hope he continues to impress as this series continues. Because wolves are dangerous yet noble, fierce yet captivating … and so is Wolf.

What Happened to John Woo?

I still recall carting John Woo’s The Killer back from the local Blockbuster to my college dorm after being seduced by the irresistible box art tagline: “One vicious Killer. One relentless cop. 10,000 bullets.” The back of the VHS box promised “the biggest body count in history.” Even with a loathing for dubbed/subtitled films, I had to watch it. After all, I was a 20 year-old action movie connoisseur and bullets and body counts were Cool. Yes, cool with a capital C.
So watch it I did—three times in a row—my awe expanding with each viewing like a hollow-point mushrooming through brain-meat.

It had heart. It had emotion. It had layered themes of loyalty and brotherhood and friendship. It had balletic gunplay. It had graphic bloodshed. It had poetic slow-motion. It had white doves. It had religious symbolism. In short, it had everything you could want in an action flick.
It was the film that made director John Woo a cult name in America. After languishing in the martial arts genre for years, it was his near-perfect triple play of A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, and Hardboiled that gained him the attention and accolades of the American action movie audience. Woo’s maestro-like ability to make bloodshed beautiful and blend it with stylized action and engaging themes could mean only one thing:
Hollywood would sink their claws into him and do their damndest to shackle his skills and ruin his reputation.
We all know the tale by now. Woo was wooed (yeah, I just did that) by the Hollywood movie-making machine and made his American debut with Hard Target, starring Oscar-winner Jean Claude Van Damme. (OK, I made up the Oscar winner part, but I like Van Damme better than I like most Oscar winners.) Even after the studio drastically interfered with Woo’s vision, the morons in the MPAA slapped the film with the dreaded NC-17. Frustrated at having his creativity censored, Woo nevertheless trimmed the violence, but it still wasn’t enough and the studio brought in someone else to deliver the final cut and secure an R-rating. All one needs to do to see how cruelly Woo’s vision was crushed by studio interference is watch the bootleg Director’s Cut of Hard Target and compare it to what was eventually released. The Director’s Cut is a John Woo film through and through; the R-rated cut is just a sanitized American action flick with some John Woo touches.
Woo continued to toil beneath the censorious whip of his Hollywood masters, directing Broken Arrow, Face/Off, Mission Impossible: II, Windtalkers, and Paycheck. Face/Off is the closest we came to receiving a true John Woo film during his stint in America, but much like Hard Target before, Broken Arrow bore only a few flourishes to define it as a John Woo flick, and while his Mission Impossible entry remains the most stylish of the series, it takes more than motorcycle jousting and slow-motion doves to create a true John Woo movie. As for Paycheck … the less said about that, the better.
Weary of having his creative vision enslaved to the will and whim of studio execs, Woo has returned home to China, but his interest in two-fisted action movies seems to have been left behind. Sure, there are action scenes in his period war film Red Cliff and his wuxia entry Reign of Assassins, but hardly the high-octane bullet ballets upon which he built his brand. This, frankly, is a tragic loss for action junkies. John Woo arrived in America a lauded, respected, innovative action choreographer, one of those directors whose name was emblazoned on top of the movie poster—“A John Woo Film”—rather than the credits at the bottom. Even the TV commercials for Hard Target emphasized the film was directed by John Woo. But a decade or so later, Woo fled back home with an apparent lack of interest in the heroic bloodshed genre.
  John WooI don’t know exactly what happened to the director I fell in awe with in my college dorm room all those years ago, but I know this—I would trade you all the Bourne and Expendables and Transporter movies for just one more operatic action masterpiece from John Woo. Bring back Chow Yun Fat, bring back the black trench coats, the mirrored sunglasses, the swirling gunplay, the Mexican standoffs, the white doves, the slow-motion blood squibs. I don’t care if it’s an all-new movie, the long-rumored sequel to Hardboiled (which would be all kinds of awesome), or something else. As long as it’s got guns ‘n’ guts and John Woo directing, I’ll be there with a toothpick, a Beretta, and a smile.

Hell, I might even forgive him for the trampoline scene in Blackjack.

Welcome to Guns, Guts, & God

Welcome to my inaugural post on Guns, Guts, & God, a blog built for the discussion of all things related to action-adventure fiction ... as well as the occasional diversion into the tumultous waters of faith and spirituality.

My full bio is on the About Me tab, but the cut-down version is that I am an action-thriller writer with a fondness for what I call the "guns 'n' guts" genre. In other words, badasses with serious firepower blowing away the bad guys in a wide variety of blood-spurting ways. Of course, readers--well, most readers anyway--cannot live on guts and gore alone, so I do my best to ensure my stories are populated with real people rather than pop-up targets and feature raw, gripping emotion to go along with the bodycount. Yes, I actually believe that action fiction can and should feature characters you care about, not just fodder for the full-auto slaughter.

But don't just take my word for it; links for my books, novellas, and short stories are readily available on this blog, so check 'em out for yourself. Drama to go with the destruction, emotion to go with the eviscerations, beauty to go with the blood ... that's my writing creed.

So what can you expect to see on Guns, Guts, & God? A wide variety of topics ranging from movie reviews, book reviews, commentary, featured authors, writing tips, guest bloggers ... if it relates to the action genre, there's a good chance it will eventully end up on the blog table for dissection.

And as the name implies, you will also find the occasional post about God, faith, and spirituality. Every now and then I intend to put down the bullets and pick up the Bible. But fear not, these won't be your standard-issue, devotional-style dissertations. These segments will be called "Faith Uncensored" and I seriously doubt you've read anything like them before. I'm no Joel Osteen; more like Frederick Buechner crossed with Quentin Tarintino.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by and I hope this isn't a one-and-done deal. I'll try to keep the posts interesting, the reviews insightful, and the self-promotion minimal. I'm currently working on a post called "What happened to Woo?" which will take a look at the rise and fall of Hong Kong action director John Woo, and the first part of the Faith Uncensored series, an essay called "The Messiah & the Muskie." So as you can see, this blog is going to give you guns, guts, and God ... everything a growing boy (or girl) needs.