Rudow Can’t Fail

A couple years ago, after the first day of Planet Comicon, Rob Schamberger and I went to dinner as we usually do. Early on in the evening, he asked me if I’d want to collaborate with him on a novel he had in mind.

“Fuck yeah,” I said without hesitation.

Over the next couple of hours he laid out what he was thinking and we had some back forth with me asking questions so that I understood the concept he was going for. As he kept talking, I kept nodding and getting more and more into the concept. It felt like he was drawing the plans for a house, well, more like a universe, with lots of room to play around in and explore a lot of things.

The rest of the weekend I started making notes about what we’d talked over, started writing down questions that would have to be answered, and building the framework of a world we could set this in. My excitement built and kept building. It’d been awhile since that had happened. (We don’t need to get into why, just roll with it.)

Over the course of the next year we traded links to pages of things we thought were relevant, met several times in person to flesh out characters and begin working on the plot. It was an interesting time because we both have day jobs and I was going back to school. We knew this was going to take a while, but there would be one helluva novel at the end of it with potential for more. Maybe a lot more.

Fast forward to March of 2020, where we were planning on having dinner after that first night of Planet and continuing the work we’d begun. Then COVID and lockdowns and an abundance of caution slowed everything down, but it didn’t stop it. We texted, messaged, and Zoomed to stay in touch. One day Rob said something about an idea he had for a side story, a novella.

You’ve had enough history to this point so I’m just going to show you what we worked up last year, in time for Planet Comicon 2021:

Original painting by Rob Schamberger. 2021.

Rob told you the story of the cover in his announcement. I’ll tell you that this is the most fun I’ve had writing a story in a long, long time. Rob wanted a “Mars noir” and I asked if he wanted James M. Cain, Jim Thompson, or Raymond Chandler-styled noir. “You had me at Jim Thompson,” he said and I was overjoyed. There were no chains on what we would do.

Here’s part of the opening, a preface from Rudow himself:

       Here’s my required disclaimer: We’re going to cover adult themes, adult situations, and a lot of adult language. If you don’t like that stuff, well, tough. That’s the way it played out, there is no ‘clean’ version. You wanted to know about the situation on Mars? This is how my whole world changed. It’s about sex, infidelity, cursing, and murder. Maybe you would’ve done something different, maybe you would’ve never done anything like I did. 

        

It’s going to be available through Amazon on or about August 3rd, in paperback and Kindle versions, and if you watch me on Twitter or Instagram you’ll see some stuff about it leading up to our appearances at Planet Comicon in Kansas City August 20 – 22. I’m looking forward to seeing you all there. It’s going to be one helluva show.