Punktalk

Fan artist Isabel Bader

Writer Paul Witcover emailed me the other day to let me know that while he was on Facebook, someone contacted him via chat and claimed to be me, stranded in London and penniless due to a mugging, asking for money to help in getting home. And then Paul Tremblay wrote to tell me that Nick Mamatas (two more cool writers, these) had been texted or sent an instant message along the same lines. (As a result of all this, my Facebook account has been suspended.) I assured Paul Witcover that I have never been to London, but if he should ever receive a message that I had been mugged in Punktown, then that would be a matter of the utmost severity. I don’t know if these are cyber-criminals trying to make money or just cyber-assholes joking around, but I guess I should see it as a sign of success that people want to impersonate me. I mean, just look at all those Elvis and Michael Jackson impersonators! If this keeps up, pretty soon I’ll be just like them, and…oh, wait…

Another sign of success, I guess, is fan mail. Let me share in its entirety a delightful email message I received from a young lady in Germany (where, between the German translations of PUNKTOWN and MONSTROCITY, from Festa Verlag, and three volumes of PUNKTOWN audio CDs from Lausch, I have been warmly received indeed):

Dear Jeffrey Thomas,

My name is Isabel Bader, I am 24 years old, and I live in Germany. I’m writing to you because I’m a huge fan of your Punktown stories (I also joined the forum, but sadly it seems to be fairly inactive nowadays, that’s why I chose to contact you directly. I hope that’s okay.).

 The first book I’ve ever read from you was MonstroCity, which has become one of my all-time favourite books.The whole plot about the Necronomicon and Ugghiutu is extremely gripping, there’s almost constantly a dark and ominous atmosphere present, and the main character Christopher Ruby is really likeable. It’s simply an amazing novel! Apart from this, I’ve read the first collection of Punktown short stories, Deadstock, Blue War, Health Agent and recently Third Eye.I’ve enjoyed all of them thoroughly.

I think you’re an incredibly talented author with outstanding skills and you’ve created an utterly fascinating world. To me it’s the perfect combination of science-fiction and horror and I really like the Lovecraftian elements that some of your stories have. The characters you’ve created are always very realistic and well developed. You’ve also thought up some really amazing alien races and mutants, my favourites are the Choom. Additionally, your ideas for the technical details are great. VT and all of its possibilities, hovercars, helicars, holographic advertising, cloning, encephalon brains, plasma capsules etc., it’s all so amazing! If Punktown was real I’d really love to visit it (and try some fried dilky roots and a cup of hot mustard).

Besides reading, I also like to draw and I was quite surprised that apparently no real Punktown fanart could be found anywhere. I was lucky enough to get hold of an exemplar of the limited German Giger edition of the first Punktown collection and I was really glad to see that it contains some of your original drawings. I have to say that your works look fantastic! You’re not only an awesome writer but also a great illustrator! Some of your pictures look almost exactly like I had imagined the depicted scenes.

I myself wanted to create a Punktown drawing for quite some time and just recently I was finally able to complete it. I thought you might be interested in it and of course I’d love to hear your opinion. Personally, I think it turned out great, better than I had imagined. My choice fell on Jelena Darloom from MonstroCity, since she’s one of my favourite Punktown inhabitants. In the background you can see the city itself. I’ve included some details from the book, such as Alvine Products, some tentacles, and Buddy Balloon. Everything was drawn and coloured by hand, except for some digital light effects in the city. You can view the picture here: http://i42.tinypic.com/wlu1ao.jpg               

Anyway, I would be very happy if I hear back from you, whenever you can spare a few minutes of your time. I’m looking forward to reading more of your Punktown stories as well as your other books.

Best Wishes

Isabel Bader

By now I hope you’ve followed the link to Isabel’s rendition of the unfortunate little Choom hooker from MONSTROCITY, Jelena Darloom. She made her look wonderfully cute and sexy, eh? And Isabel’s paid a lot of attention to detail, as she indicates in her message, right down to Jelena’s two-color lipstick, and Buddy Balloon (sitcom star from DEADSTOCK — a mutant who is little more than a giant sphere) lurking in the background. I actually think Isabel’s Jelena might make a nice tattoo. Anyway, this picture put a big, Choom-like smile on my face. I’m flattered that my work would move Isabel to spend the time to do this. It makes me feel like I’m doing something right. Isabel, that cup of hot mustard is on me.

And lest you think I’m mocking Elvis and Michael, not long ago I bought a CD of MJ’s greatest hits for my wife (though I like a lot of his songs, myself), and I have not only been to a concert to see an awesome EP impersonator named Steve Connolly (http://spiritoftheking.com/), but I’ve seen Elvis’s original band play in a fun presentation featuring Elvis in video incarnation, called Elvis Presley in Concert (http://www.elvis.com/concert/overview/). I was invited to both events by an Elvis-crazed coworker and her husband, but again I enjoyed these events very much myself. You have to know when to pay your respects to the Kings.

Rock on, MJ.

I’m a RocknRoll-er

There’s a new interview with me up at the cool German-based web site RocknRoll Reporter, where they recently gave glowing reviews of the German-language PUNKTOWN (six out of six guitars!) and MONSTROCITY (five out of six guitars!). Here’s a tidbit:

RRR: Is Paxton still growing or will you concentrate on other stories in the future?

JT: Both! Punktown will continue to grow and evolve, I’m sure, even behind my back if I leave it for a while. But I suspect I will continue to set many of my stories in Punktown forever, because anything can happen there. It’s a setting that can support so many types of plot. But I also like to be free to write about other environments, including our own world. I just sold a short story that takes place in contemporary Viet Nam (which I have visited six times), involving Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, and I am currently working on a novel set in Hell called THE FALL OF HADES, a sequel to my LETTERS FROM HADES.
 

Here’s the link to the Engligh-language version of the interview (there’s a German translation as well): http://www.rocknroll-reporter.de/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=894&Itemid=57

Thanks to Thorsten Seiffert for his great questions!

Harlequins and Amazons

Yesterday it was Demons and Loons…today it’s Harlequins and Amazons. Yes, with Necropolitan Press (that’s Nick Curtis and me) ready to ship copies of the brilliantly unsettling THE HARLEQUIN & THE TRAIN by Paul (THE LITTLE SLEEP) Tremblay very soon, it has already gone up for ordering at Amazon.com. If you haven’t already seen it, check out Nick’s extremely clever cover design. Read the book and you’ll understand.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0981832008?ie=UTF8&tag=necropolitan-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0981832008

A while back writer Paul Jessup had some very nice things to say at his blog about an ARC of the book:

“Clever, croaching psychological horror protrayed in one of the most unique ways possible.”

http://pauljessup.com/wordpress/2008/07/got-issue-14-of-ev-and-the-harlequin-the-train-by-paul-g-tremblay/

Don’t be a fool…order Harlequin.

Demons and Loons

Some mini reviews of three recent books I’ve read, but first to note that Paul Tremblay’s THE HARLEQUIN AND THE TRAIN, produced by Nick Curtis and myself through our Necropolitan Press, has been nicely reviewed in the latest CEMETERY DANCE, issue #60. “A mesmerizing take on the bizarre underbelly of suburbia.” says reviewer Jack Lloyd. BTW, I hate to be crotchety in my old age, but some of the issue’s artwork does not impress, and I think undermines the fiction it accompanies, but I don’t want to hurt feelings so I won’t say which pieces I don’t care for. It’s just odd, where CD is such a prominent magazine and where I see so many immensely gifted artists out there. But there’s fiction from authors I’ve enjoyed like Eric Brown, Daniel G. Keohane, Tim Waggoner, etc., so there’s always a lot to recommend an issue of CD.

GOD’S DEMON, by Wayne Barlowe

Wayne Barlowe is one of my favorite artists, and so I was intrigued when I learned he had written a novel based on his vision of Hell, as presented in his beautifully ghastly books BARLOWE’S INFERNO and BRUSHFIRE. An ambitious undertaking, recreating such a vividly realized world in words, and Barlowe proves a talented author with a skill in description, though of course no author could do justice to the artwork he can render. It is as unrelentingly bleak a setting as any one could encounter, with some of the unlikeliest lead characters I’ve ever read about. The protagonist is the demon lord Sargatanas, who over the millennia has become disgusted with Hell and pines for a return to the pearly gates that he spurned when he was a follower of Lucifer (who since the fall has been MIA). In the absence of Lucifer, the most powerful and nasty demon in Hell is the insect-like Beelzebub, whom Barlowe makes a truly daunting nemesis. Sargatanas gets it into his ugly head that if he wages war on Beelzebub, God will take notice and be so impressed as to forgive him. (I guess just praying to God in repentance, humbly asking to be forgiven, would be less impressive than slaughtering untold thousands of other former angels in battle.) Along the way Sargatanas falls in love with the rather less physically repugnant Lilith (actually, she sounds pretty hot), and despite their appearance (or his at least) the two develop a torrid relationship. Meanwhile, Hannibal (yes, that Hannibal, though not that other Hannibal) joins forces with Sargatanas, leading a badly deformed army of his fellow damned souls. The novel has all the weight and feel of a fantasy epic, is effective and exciting, and comes to a strong conclusion. I have to say, though, that I largely disliked the characters of Sargatanas and Hannibal — but I’m OK with that. As I’ve said before, I don’t have to like a character to be fascinated by them, and these are two intriguingly complex characters. They are flawed, egotistic, and Barlowe knows it. Several times Sargatanas questions whether his motives are selfish — and indeed they are. I had thought all the demons and souls under Sargatanas’ command might literally storm their way into Heaven together, or together attract God’s notice and be delivered, but apparently everyone is willing to sacrifice his or her afterlife just to see that Sargatanas himself can get there, to the more pleasant digs he once turned his back on. Sargatanas seems contrite for his former rebellion to some extent, but he doesn’t take full responsibility, at one point laying the blame at Lucifer’s cloven feet, for misleading him. He doesn’t seem especially concerned for the damned souls, aside from Hannibal (who starts out the story with an incomplete memory of himself, at first presented as a seemingly callow Luke Skywalker type called “Hani”), the souls commonly being used even in Sargatanas’ city as human bricks from which infernal buildings are made. And Hannibal, once he regains his memory, becomes driven with a desire for power, not so much lifting up the status of his fellow souls as pursuing his own ends — even willing to betray his army in one really surprsingly awful decision. And when his soul army on its march to attack Beelzebub encounters other souls who don’t want to join his forces, they are destroyed! (So much for free will.) By the end of the book, through partial and indirect demonic possession, he has even identified with the demon enemy he most despised. Again, this is actually all extremely fascinating — these are not your typical pure, and physically appealing, fantasy heroes, and I prefer that. So long as Barlowe doesn’t expect us to love them, and sometimes I’m not sure. We are constantly reminded how “noble” Sargatanas is, but I saw him that way only in comparison to some of the other demon lords, like Beelzebub. And we are not given enough of a feel for why Sargatanas rebelled against God in the first place (though I guess we readers can fill that in generally ourselves, with our awareness of Biblical events and Milton’s PARADISE LOST, which Barlowe gives as his inspiration). I suppose I let my own take on Hell, the novel LETTERS FROM HADES (and its related stories), color my reaction. In my stories, the damned are largely in Hell unjustly, victims of cruel and unbending strictures, whereas in Barlowe’s Hell it seems they are pretty much all sinners who deserved their punishment. Still, I could not help but feel more for them than the demons, or the traitorous Hannibal. There were a few minor lapses in logic in the novel. For one, a likable demon named Eligor — who serves sort of as our guide throughout the novel, whereas Sargatanas is held at a slight remove — is shown a plain filled with bizarre puppeteer creatures that torment the souls of the living, and Eligor seems not to have learned of their full nature before, despite having been in Hell for thousands of years and their being a pretty significant influence on mankind. And at one point Beelzebub has an extension of himself, manifested as a single fly, bore its way through a magical tunnel between his city and Sargatanas’ and enter the mind of one of Sargatanas’ top men, possessing him. (If this can be done, why not do it to Sargatanas himself, or at least his other top men if the demon lord is too powerful to possess?). But these are quibbles. As I say, I was intrigued with every character whether I liked them or not. I tend anyway toward prefering Everyman characters over larger than life messianic or Shakespeare-type characters, and in this grandiose tale we are involved with the latter. But they were consciously and effectively complicated characters, bold creations in a boldly but beautifully ugly setting — characters familiar in a mythical way but also daringly ugly and imperfect. Barlowe’s vivid artistic vision mesmerizes, his story rings with an epic fantasy’s sturm and drang. GOD’S DEMON is an impressive achievement in world building — and the building of atypical fantasy antiheroes.

SNAKE AGENT, by Liz Williams

As full a helping of Hell as GOD’S DEMON was, I just had to go back to the buffet and see how Liz Williams does it in SNAKE AGENT (from Nightshade Books, with a breathtaking cover by Jon Foster). This novel is much lighter and friendlier in tone than the previous book, despite such darkness as a father murdering his own daughter and turning her into an unhappy little ghost. Understated humor throughout, without going over the edge (I have a thin tolerance for overt humor). Our hero is Detective Inspector Chen, battling (or aligning himself) with the supernatural in the near future setting of Singapore Three, even venturing into Hell when necessary, the netherworld being a sort of parallel version of our own world. Chen is quite decent and likable, and married to a lovely and gentle demon named Izari (who I think I’d choose over the bird-footed if sexy Lilith). Chen becomes sucked into a complex plot involving human big business and infernal politics, and it’s all very fast-paced and exciting, told in Williams’ deft and accomplished style. My only two small complaints: much is made of demon hunter No Ro Shi, and we expect dramatics once he learns Chen’s wife is a demon he has previously battled, but he sort of fades off toward the end. And more importantly, once Williams introduces a demon investigator named Zhu Irzh, she seems to become more enamored of his admittedly more colorful character than Chen, and our hero recedes into the background a bit too much. But it’s a great read, and there are more books that follow in this series, and I’d like to read them in…the near future.

THE WISDOM OF LOONS, by Jeff Dennis

 Well, after two doses of Hell and reading Jeff VanderMeer’s FINCH, set in the hellish city of Ambergris (a review of this to appear in…the near future), it was a nice change of pace to escape to the real world again. Jeff Dennis’ novel is set at a campground in Georgia, conveyed in palpable detail so that I was comfortably transported there. Cal Blevins is divorced, estranged from his kids, and beginning an early retirement at his beloved Lake McDowell. At 62, he doesn’t expect to fall in love again, but it comes in the form of teacher Lauren Talbot, vacationing in the cabin next door. The situation has its complications, however, in the form of Lauren’s father, reduced by a stroke to a childlike state. Edgar is extremely cute and extremely irritating, proving a real challenge to the would-be lovers. Meanwhile, strange supernatural events begin to occur, such as a ghostly visit from Cal’s dead father. But the supernatural elements in the novel are portrayed in a fantastical way, rather than being horrific. This is not a horror novel, and in fact can not be classified easily, which may be why Dennis published it through his own Nightbird Publishing. I hope it is not taken for granted for this fact, because it’s a lovely and involving book about very real people with ordinary but universal human concerns…love, loss, regrets, hopes, the relationship between the past and present, our relationships with our families, self evaluations and spiritual ponderings. The reader should pay attention to small details — such as a sneaker retrieved from the lake — for clues that lead to a surprise ending that might even spin M. Night Shyamalan’s head around. We are forewarned by a frontpiece synopsis (which I would criticize as giving away too much of the plot) that a surprise ending is to be expected, so I anticipated this and successfully guessed one part of its three-piece punch correctly, but the other two pieces still sent me reeling. Again, this is a subtle, deeply human, life affirming book (think ON GOLDEN POND with ghosts, but I don’t mean that in a derisive way!), something that I wouldn’t usually turn to reading — but I’m very glad I did. As low key as it is, it held me just as surely as did the two special effects laden books I review above. THE WISDOM OF LOONS is understated fantasy, is intensely but gently real, and I hope it receives the attention it deserves.

Review of VILE THINGS

In my last post I discussed the new anthology VILE THINGS, and today I learned that Fangoria has run a review of it at their web site. The reviewer gets the title of my story and my name wrong (it’s “Rat King,” and I’m “JeffREy Thomas”), but it’s a very favorable review so it’s cool. And they’ve made me more intrigued to read the other stories in the collection. Incest and fungus — aaaiiiee!!!

Here’s the review:

http://www.fangoria.com/reviews/6-books/2852-vile-things-book-review.html

Vile Things

Today I received my contributor’s copy of VILE THINGS — an anthology of “Extreme Deviations of Horror,” edited by Cheryl Mullenax, for Comet Press. It features my story “Rat King,” about an SS guard at the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen, and has quite an impressive list of other authors besides. Here are the contents:

The Fisherman  Brian Rosenberger
Fungoid  Randy Chandler
Tenant’s Rights  Sean Logan
Again  Ramsey Campbell
Maggots  Tim Curran
Going Green  Stefan Pearson
Coquettrice  Angel Leigh McCoy
The Fear in the Waiting  C.J. Henderson
The Worm  John Bruni
Sepsis  Graham Masterton
What You Wish For  Garry Bushell
The Devil Lives in Jersey  Z.F. Kilgore
Rat King  Jeffrey Thomas
The Caterpillar  C. Dennis Moore
“Poor Brother Ed” or The Man Who Visited  Ralph Greco, Jr.

I want to point out that the cover art is particularly good — a bit of Photoshoppery that puts me in mind of the face-hugger from “Alien.” The artist is Phil Fensterer, and you can visit his absolutely mind-blowing web site here:

http://www.creativeschism.com

You can find out more about the book, see its excellent cover art and design, and best of all, ORDER the book at the web site for Comet Books, here:

http://www.cometpress.us/books/vilethings.html

Live evil…get “Vile”!

Genre Fiction: Too Bleak?

In my last post I mentioned a group I’ve become affiliated with, Science Fiction and Fantasy Ethics. Its mission statement has prompted a discussion over at the cool site SF Signal. Like commentator Tim Stretton says, “I think SFFE arose to combat pessimism about SF, not pessimism in it,” so maybe the intention of SFFE has been misunderstood, but it is still a very provocative, stimulating conversation…to which I added my own two cents:

“Most of the works for which I’m best known have been set in my far-future city of Punktown, which is a nasty, dark, dystopian sort of place to be sure. But I believe that my stories actually offer a positive message, in this way: my novels seldom end with the defeat or destruction of the major characters, instead allowing them to persevere, to grow, to find love, to save or benefit others, to reaffirm the resilience of the human spirit in the face of adversity and in just such a hostile world. This is the case even in my novel Letters From Hades, which is set entirely in Hell.

The main reason there are so many scary visions of the future? One could speculate about our less optimistic outlook, a loss of innocence, after the end of the 1950’s, the assassination of Kennedy and the Vietnam War, after Reagan and the Bushes, but I think it might really be as simple as these sort of settings offer more dramatic potential, greater conflict to pit the characters against! What is the alternative? A blissful realm of humming golden zombies? One might think of Star Trek as a positive vision of the future, with its rainbow starship crews and missions of exploration and discovery, but even there we have bad guys, wars, and danger. How exciting would SF be without these things? So I think it’s not so much to do with creating dark and dreary futures, but how well the characters function in them, and whether they can survive and even flourish despite the odds. I can’t imagine a more positive approach to SF, really, than that.”

Check out the entire discussion HERE:

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2009/06/mind-meld-why-is-genre-fiction-is-bleak-and-what-can-be-done-about-it/

***And please note that SFFE has moved to a new host, this being Wordpress, so please check out their web site HERE:***

http://sffethics.wordpress.com/

Science Fiction and Fantasy Ethics: It’s Alive!

It’s gone live, as of today! And what is this ominous “it”? Why, it’s a new group called SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY ETHICS (a provocative banner that’s already creating some controversy and hence, heh, drawing in the curious), the brainchild of author Andy Remic (the rock n’ rolling WAR MACHINE and BIOHELL). And I myself am one of the “Authors Involved with the SFFE Project.” (And check out the other authors — an impressive bunch!) Here’s Andy’s mission statement for the group:

“Our mission is to celebrate everything positive, funky and exciting in the Fantasy, Science Fiction and Horror Universe!

The SFFE is a core platform, a hub of authors who have banded together with the aim of celebrating all that is positive in genre fiction. We aim to make an ethical stand, to do what is right and leave cynicism and negativity at the door. We aim to concentrate on what makes us smile, what entertains us, and what brings light and joy to our SF, fantasy and horror worlds. That’s not to say there is no place for criticism— there’s plenty bad in the world. However, this little digital corner is a place for positive progression. Somewhere you will (hopefully) come if you want to smile and be entertained.”
 

It sounds entertaining to me, and I look forward to contributing. Already there are two cool reviews posted, by David Keith (no, not the FIRESTARTER David Keith, silly!) of Richard Morgan’s THE STEEL REMAINS and Mark Smith (no elation to THE DEAD ZONE’s Johnny Smith) of the new STAR TREK movie, whatever that is. So check it out…and come back and visit the SFFE site often, if you too want to concentrate on an enthusiastic celebration of the fantastical genres of SF, fantasy and horror!

The web site is: http://www.sffeth.blogspot.com/

“Top 10 on eBay” - A PUPPET SHOW

The stuff you find on the web. According to BookThink, in October of 2007 my book A PUPPET SHOW was in good company on this list:

http://www.bookthink.com/printerfr/113top1pr.htm

The book in question , A PUPPET SHOW, was a 26-copy lettered edition from Delirium Books, 2004, containing my short story A PUPPET SHOW FOR NO ONE (which originally appeared in my collection HONEY IS SWEETER THAN BLOOD) and a bonus story, A NAMING OF PUPPETS, into which I arduously worked the names of every person or book store that had preordered the book. (A NAMING OF PUPPETS has since been reprinted in my collection DOOMSDAYS.) This beautiful little hardcover was housed in a leather box that opened to reveal a puppet theater (a drawing done by yours truly, and I provided the cover’s foil stamp design as well), and which contained a gorgeous handmade marionette. I remember my son Colin wanted to get his hands on this creature…um, maybe the only toy I ever denied him!

 Well, maybe I’d sell it to him for a steal at $750.

Analog on “Blue War”

I just discovered a very nice review of my novel BLUE WAR at the web site for Analog magazine, in which reviewer Richard Foss says:

Stake is an interesting character, and like all great modern detectives, he grapples with the moral dilemmas of a case, and this one has plenty…the alien society is well crafted, the tension of a community that has recently been at war is palpable, and the fast-paced adventure stays lively right to the end. Fans of SF that merges thriller and detective elements will find Blue War a very worthwhile read.

The review in full, here:

http://www.analogsf.com/0904/reflib_04.shtml