Weston Ochse's Blog, page 39

Moving -- Gah!

I've lived in 14 states and four countries.

I've lived in roughly 35 homes, apartments, barracks, etc.

I've lived in a one room house on the Great Plains. I've lived in a spacious apartment overlooking L.A. Harbor. I spent 13 months in a Quonset Hut 37 kilometers from North Korea. I spent 17 days the guest of the Laymon Family as I looked for other digs. I lived with 59 of my newest and closest friends in a resort located in Columbia, South Carolina, we affectionately call Basic Training at Fort Jackson. I lived in a trailer in Sioux Falls, an apartment in Youngstown, a townhouse in Colorado Springs, ghetto housing on Fort Bragg, a rental home in the crack part of town near Fort Huachuca, and the Ambassadorial Residence in Papua New Guinea.
Working on SEAL Team 666 in Dining Room
I've seen it all. I've lived it all. In fact, I've now moved enough that I know what I need.

I need enough space to live, but not too much space to clean.

I need a two-butt kitchen.

I need a yard big enough to enjoy but small enough that I only have to spend a few minutes upkeep.

I need a place to write. I've only had two offices before. When I first started writing up to 2004 I used dining room tables. In fact, I'm using one now. My first office was a nice space I had for only a few months before we moved. My last office was a long windowless space in the basement. It was a man cave. And it was awesome. For a while. What I missed was seeing other living beings and light. Now my office is in a loft space that is bright and spacious and has six windows.Once I unpack the boxes and get some shutters for the south-facing windows, I can actually use it.Until then, I have this table.

You know, I envy those who have never moved. Stability. Never having to pack and unpack boxes. There's something to be said for that. Of course, there's the other side too. They never experience the thrill of a new place. The joy of hanging a picture in a new perfect spot. The satisfaction of finishing a room.

My New OfficeSo I'm here now in my new house. I probably won't be in it forever, but I hope it's a long time before we move. Yvonne and I searched for this sort of layout for several years before we were satisfied. We're hard people to please, mainly because we feel that there's enough out there that we shouldn't have to settle.

Yeah. This is a rockin' house.

It's bad ass.

Most of all I'm just happy that we aren't moving anymore.

BLOOD OCEAN Press Release

Ripped from the Publishers site here
TUESDAY, 22 NOVEMBER 2011On the high seas, if you don't live large… you just sink
The Afterblight Chronicles:
Blood Ocean
by Weston OchseReleased on 16th February in the UK and 14th February in US & Canada

£7.99 (UK) ISBN 978-1-907992-87-2
$9.99 (US & CAN) ISBN 978-1-907992-87-2Will also be available as an ebook
In a world reduced to ruin by all-consuming plague, one young boy embarks on a mission of revenge after one of his friends is found dead … harvested for his blood!

Kavika Kamalani is a Pali Boy on Nomi No Toshi, the floating city. The post-plague heir to an ancient Hawai'ian warrior tradition that believes in overcoming death by embracing one's fears and living large, Kavika's life is turned upside down when one of his friends dies – and he sets out to find the killer.

When he is kidnapped and subjected to a terrifying transformation, Kavika must embrace the ultimate fear – death itself. It is the only way if he, his loved ones, and the Pali Boys are to survive.

This stand-alone title is the latest pulse-pounding story of post-apocalyptic survival in The Afterblight Chronicles series from Weston Ochse – a writer who pulls no punches.

"Weston Ochse is an artist whose craft, stories and voice are so distinct and mesmerising that you can't help but be enthralled." – Dani Kollin, Prometheus Award-winning author of The Unincorporated Man

About the Series
The Afterblight Chronicles is a post-apocalyptic series in which a devastating epidemic has ravaged the world. In the Afterblight, pockets of humans attempt to continue civilization amidst the mounting chaos of the collapsed infrastructure . Mobs run rampant while cults and warlords fight for authority over the survivors of the global plague.

One of the three series with which Abaddon Books launched in 2006,The Afterblight Chronicles is a collection of stand-alone novels that has showcased the talents of a number of brilliant, up-and-coming authors, including Scott Andrews, Paul Kane, Jasper Bark and Rebecca Levene. Blood Ocean is the eleventh Afterblight Chronicles title.

About the Author
Weston Ochse is the Bram Stoker award-winning author of various short stories and novels, including the critically-acclaimed Scarecrow Gods and Tomes of the Dead novel, Empire of Salt.

He is much in demand as a speaker at genre conventions and has been chosen as guest of honour on numerous occasions. Weston lives in Southern Arizona with his wife Yvonne and their menagerie of animals.

Macmillan Films, SEAL Team 666 and the Hardest Working Editor in NYC

I'm hitting the final third of SEAL Team 666. As I sit here in Washington D.C., writing a scene where our star is remembering when he was a possessed kid playing in the trash piles of Subic Bay, Phillipines, I'm trying not to fall asleep. I've already nodded out twice, despite Justice rocking through the headphones. So to stay awake sometimes, I check my email. I've long since had an ongoing google search for my name. So when it appears somewhere, I get notified.  Here's what I got today-

Several projects are under wraps at nascent Macmillan Films: Seal Team 666 — to be written by Weston Ochse; Grimm City, co-created with Gareth Jefferson Jones and to be written by K.W. Jeter — a Philip K. Dick protégé; Single-Minded; and Cityscape, for starters. Under Macmillan /Holtzbrinck thrive some 50+ imprints. "I've met with the heads of some of the other imprints," says Deneen. "Everybody's interested."

Turns out that my editor at Thomas Dunne/St. Martin's Press, Brendan Deneen, was interviewed and highlighted in the online magazine Publishing Perspectives--  Brendan Deneen Takes Macmillan From Publisher to Producer


It's terrific and inspirational and tells the backroom story of editing and agenting. Everyone should read it.

I've known Brendan since we first met in 2004 at the World Horror Convention in Phoenix. He's come a long way in that short time. He's reached what some would consider a peak. But he's looking for higher hills to climb. It's going to be fun watching him climb. And at least for now I have a front row seat.

What I'm Listening to! Listen to Justice. This is Bad Ass Music!


Now back to the novel. The kid is done with this scene. Now back to being a grown up U.S. Navy SEAL who's knocking down bad guys like he's in the middle of a life-size game of terrorist whack-a-mole.

Horror and Science Fiction in Tucson, Arizona

Where are you going to be this weekend? Are you going to be in the East Coast. Has it snowed there? Have you had to de-ice the car? Do you know what slush means?

If you lived in Arizona you could have 70-80 degree weather right now. You could walk outside dressed in a T-shirt. You could swim in the pool.

You could also spend a weekend at the Best Little Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror Convention in Arizona-- TUSCON!  This weekend is TusCon 38. Previous GoHs include Theodore Sturgeon, Vernor Vinge, Robert Bloch, Karl Edward Wagner, Diana Gabaldon, John Ringo, Laurell K. Hamilton, Weston Ochse, Stephen R. Donaldson, Tim Powers, Jim Butcher and Shannon K. Butcher, to name just a few.  Begun in 1974, TusCon has a rich history of supporting the interests of fans, authors, artists, librarians, booksellers and gamers in Tucson, and throughout the Southwest.
 
I'll be on several panels, reading from MULTIPLEX FANDANGO, as well as just hanging out. Come out and see us and have a great time.

Click for information about the convention


Hope to see you there!

I'm up on NPR for a Halloween Special - Boo!

I'm up on NPR for a Halloween Special. Although they have regular broadcast times, here is a permanent link. Of the 28 minutes, about 8 of them are mine. Not too bad. In addition to my essay and interview, there's a segment on Zombies in Arizona (about 3:30 mark) - a tongue in cheek man on the street parody. Just great! Please post his and pass it on and let me know how you like it.

http://radio.azpm.org/azspotlight/podcasts/2011/10/27/2127-the-haunted-halloween-show-2011/


If you scroll down the link, it looks like the host of Arizona Spotlight, Mark McLemore, parsed the links so that each separate section is available.

For my zombie interview.

For my Halloween story.

But it is worth it to listen to the rest. Jane Eppinga is a folklorist and historian and has some great tales about what's spooky in Arizona.

For those who listened and wanted more information about Multiplex Fandango-- Multiplex Fandango is subtitled "A Weston Ochse Reader" for good reason. This collection contains a comprehensive representation of short fiction and novellas by the Bram Stoker award winner and Pushcart Prize nominee, including his recent powerful Stoker finalist short story, "The Crossing Of Aldo Rey" and his brilliant Stoker finalist novella, Redemption Roadshow, as well as acclaimed favorites, "Catfish Gods" and "Big Rock Candy Mountain." Also included in this omnibus volume of sixteen short stories and novellas are six original new works of short fiction written especially for this collection including such future classics as "Tarzan Doesn't Live Here Anymore," "Low Men Weeping," and the stunning, "City Of Joy."

"Multiplex Fandango. What we're seeing here is quite possibly the most comfortable, relaxed, and expert takeover that the horror genre has ever seen. With Multiplex Fandango, Weston Ochse has created an incredible collection, and has given the reader one of the smoothest, most satisfying reads they could ever come across. To drive the point home, Joe Landsdale says in the intro that "This is a book that could almost have been written for me.", but I disagree - this book was written for anyone looking for imaginative, intelligent, and thoroughly awe-inspiring, but strangely uplifting scares that force the reader to think more than react." - Paperback Horror

"This is a book that could almost have been written for me."
- Eight-Time Bram Stoker Award Winner Joe R. Lansdale on Multiplex Fandango
"Multiplex Fandango is a smooth mix of the old school pulp horror vibe and new storytelling, elegantly crafted for the modern reader." - Rain Graves, Bram Stoker Award winner for The Gossamer Eye
 "Weston Ochse is to horror what Bradbury is to science fiction -- an artist whose craft, stories and voice are so distinct and mesmerizing that you can't help but be enthralled. Multiplex Fandango is yet another in a long line of exclamation points that reminds us of that fact." - Dani Kollin, Prometheus Award-winning author of The Unincorporated Man
"The truth of the matter is that for all the drive-in movie references, what Weston Ochse has really created in Multiplex Fandango is a travelogue. Acting as narrator and guide, Weston takes you on a trip to places familiar and obscure—New Orleans, the Sonoran desert, Mexico's Pacific coast, and the dark, impenetrable reaches of the soul. He shows off sights that chill the blood, and as with any good trip, the things seen and experienced along the way will stay with you for a lifetime." - Jeff Mariotte, Novelist and Comic Book Author

Velvet Dogma Wins for Cover Art!

The internet has a lot of advice. If one were to stack all the pages of data on top of each other, it would  be a modern Tower of Binary Babble and probably reach the moon, which is made of nacho cheese btw. When I decided to create a cover for my original un-published novel, Velvet Dogma, there were a few sites that I trusted more than others. After all, eBook covers are not created equally. Some are better than others. One such site is called The Book Designer. Joel Friedlander, who runs the site, has a lot of good advice. Since I'm not a publisher and I'm definitely not an artist I decided to use some of that advice. The result is this cover--



The most important thing on book covers to me is the art. It has to be catchy. It has to stop someone in their tracks and make them want to pick the book up, or in this case, click the link. I figure with all the eBooks out there that's more than half the battle. I could have made my own image, but again, I am not an artist. So I went out to find one.

I'd always loved Matt Hults' book Husk. The imagery is captivating. So I asked him who did the art work and he told me, Danielle Tunstall.


So I googled her. As it turns out, Danielle isn't a one shot wonder. She has hundreds of pieces that she created using real models, photography and digital manipulation. The image on my cover is based on an action shot from the model Collette Von Tora, known far and wide for her alternative modeling. She loves Velvet Dogma, btw.


After a few email conversations with Danielle, she and I came to terms. Use of her art for the cover wasn't free, nor did I expect it to be. In fact, it cost enough dough to be painful. But then her creativity should be rewarded as much as mine should be. A lot of hard work went into the creation of the image for Velvet Dogma. There's an old adage about the relative value of something being what you paid for it. If it was free, then it's value would be zero, and I wanted Velvet Dogma to be worth a lot more than zero.

The Vivacious Collette Von ToraOf course once I got the artwork, then I had to create the cover. One thing I didn't want to do was ruin the effect of the image with a lot of text. I'd read about the use of negative space and tried to apply it. BTW, a very successful friend of mine, Joe Konrath, advised in one of his blogs that one of the biggest mistakes people make is not paying for good art. I didn't want to be one of those folks.

After a few hours on Photoshop, I came up with what was eventually going to be the cover. I sent it to Crossroads Press, the publisher, and they subsequently published the book. Velvet Dogma has received many popular and critical reviews for the content and now it's won an award for Cover Design from none other than Joel Friedlander's site The Book Designer.  Hooray for Velvet Dogma, Danielle Tunstall and Collette Von Tora!

Here's what Joel said about the cover-

Velvet Dogma by Weston Ochse, Design by Weston Ochse, Art by Danielle Tunstall. A great way to use the cover space without having to look like a print book. There are so many things going right here, from the ultra-cool art to the designer's deployment of negative space, to the interesting use of a traditional font for this sci-fi cover. Rad.

Glad to see that I stumbled onto the right way to do things my first time out. I guess it pays off following other people's advice. If you get a chance, drop by Daniell Tunstall's and Collette Von Tora's sites and pay them a compliment. And of course, pick up a copy of Velvet Dogma. It's a kick ass book.

Rue Morgue Magazine is Awesome

I've been a fan of Rue Morgue Magazine since they did a spread on by bud Brian Keene in 2002. He wasn't the huge star he is now, he was just Brian and they gave him the royal treatment. Since then they've occasionally turned their Canadian eyes in my direction. I especially like the full page spread they did on me and my buds Mike Oliveri and John Urbancik when we were doing Muy Mal. I think it was the Godzilla issue.  Just awesome.

Our page in Rue Morgue -- Nice!!!Empire of Salt came out last year as you all know because each and every one of you have read it (nod your heads in unison please-- thanks). I'd heard that they reviewed it, but two different people told me it was a bad review. I was thinking to myself, a bad review? What? Couldn't happen. I asked one of them to get me a copy. When the issue came out, I was traveling and wasn't able to get to the store in time to get it... although it never occurred to me to actually contact the magazine for a copy.

I finally got a copy of the review which came out June 2010 in the mail today. Monica Kuebler, the editor of this might periodic tome, sent me a copy. I opened it today and read it with more than a little trepidation. Then I read it again. Then once more. There wasn't a single thing wrong with the review. It was an awesome review. Are you kidding me?  I like how they said I am 'upping the bar with his tale of undead antagonism" and "challenging other authors to follow suit and keep the subgenre of roaming revenants going strong.

It was just an awesome review. Since the book is out of print in the U.S. (I think it's still available in Canada and U.K.) and the review is more than a year old, I'm going to reproduce it here. If someone asks me to take it down, I'll do so in a hurry though.


Thanks to Rue Morgue. I'm sorry I didn't thank you sooner and more profusely. I know my publisher's going to be thrilled about this. What a wonderful review. You guys are my favorite Canadian magazine!

Blood Ocean - Ready for Prime Time

Blood Ocean. Today I get to do something brilliant. I get to move the folder for my novel for Blood Ocean from the Books-Working folder to the Books-Finished folder, where it joins 16 other books.

Abaddon's edits made it a better novel. The sentences are tough and furious. They punch and jab. This is my most action oriented novel. But with that said, I didn't lose any of the characterizations I'm normally known for. You are going to love the transvestite Filipina heroine, the Hawaiian warrior kids, the drunken Russian sub captain and the wizened sky winker named Tim Lebbon, but who goes by Leb.

This is a good one. I can't wait for you to read it.

Here's Abaddon's page for the book.

Now we're just waiting for Prime Time.

National Public Radio Interview - Weston Ochse

Yesterday was pretty exciting. Mark McLemore interviewed me for the local NPR affiliate. We actually spent two hours together. Not only did I talk about writing, SEAL Team 666, Blood Ocean, Empire of Salt and Multiplex Fandango, but we also talked about our shared passion for horror. He'd recently seen the movie The Sentinel for the first time, recently, and we talked a lot about that. Wow. What a terrifying movie.

We also did some fake man on the street recordings, but I won't give that away until I'm sure it made it into the broadcast. Additionally I read a 1000 word essay about a Halloween when I was seven years old.

The broadcast is scheduled for 27 and 28 Oct. Not sure what time yet, but my work and interview should be a good portion of it. When I have times, I'll make sure I post them along with links for those of you who don't live in the general vicinity. That way you'll be able to listen online if you want.

Here are some photos, courtesy of Yvonne Navarro:

Being interviewed by NPR

Shout Out -- Scott Bradley

This blog isn't all about me. I mean it is, but even I need a break from myself. Sometimes I like to talk about folks I like. Sometimes I just like to explain why some people are cool.

Take Scott Bradley for instance. I first met Scott at the Stoker Weekend in Burbank in June 2009. A bunch of us were lounging on some outdoor furniture-- Larry Roberts, Cody Goodfellow, John Skipp, others -- and Scott was there as well. I was at the Stoker Weekend because of my novella Redemption Roadshow, published by Burning Effigy. It was one of four long fiction finalists for the Bram Stoker Award. Scott was there for the non-fiction category, The Book of Lists, which he contributed to and edited along with Del Howison and Amy Wallace. We must have sat around drinking and talking and just having a solid evening. I remember how intrigued I was about his pending trip with his father to Vietnam.


He promised that he'd send me a postcard. And if you look at this, you can see he did. I have to admit, I added something to it. You probably can't figure out what it is. But the overwhelming feeling of someone taking the time when they are overseas having what is probably one of the best trips of their lives to send you a postcard-- well, in this case it was like a 7,000 mile handshake and inclusion into something special between him and his father.

Scott and I converse on FB all the time. Last year during my Poisoned Soup Book Tour, where I appeared at Book Soup in L.A. and The Poisoned Pen in Phoenix the same weekend, I was supposed to hook up with him, but it wasn't to be. But because Scott couldn't come, I was able to meet Pete Giglio instead, who I'm also very pleased to know.






So this year, out of the blue, I get another postcard, this one from Thailand.

Now that's just badass. I miss Thailand. I've been there six times and wish I was there again.
So where can you find Scott, besides googling him or facebook friending him? You can find a fairly amazing and insightful article of his in Vince Liaguno's Butcher Knives and Body Counts fiction book. Scott's contribution is an essay about The Hitcher titled 'There's Something Going on Between the Two of You.' I have the book because I'm looking at it for a possible award and Scott's essay is one of the finest they have. There's something about the way Scott approaches things that is different from most people. He's also working on a novel with Pete Giglio for John Skipp's Ravenous Shadows. Can't wait for that to come out.
Most of all, just send good thoughts his way. He deserves it.
[image error] Here's Scott. I like this picture because it could have
been taken on the Left Bank in Paris had we been part
of the Lost Generation.