September 3rd, 2010 §
Sales of Red Planet Noir continue apace, and I was fortunate enough to sell out recently at book signings in Austin, Houston, and Lake Charles.
For those unfamiliar with my literary debut, it won the 2010 Indie Book Award for Science Fiction, and follows Michael Sheppard, a New Orleans private eye coping with the infidelity of his wife and collapse of his marriage. He finds solace in the bottle and his career in the toilet. Nights at the casino pay the bills, until they don’t, and leg breakers start knocking at the door, and knocking out his teeth.
When he’s hired by a bombshell heiress to check out a murder on Mars, it’s a chance for a new start. But as the case unfolds, he makes enemies of cops and gangsters alike in an investigation racing from stately mansions to smoke-filled speakeasies, from deserted ice colonies to mining towns on the asteroid belt.
All he wanted was a paycheck to clear some gambling debt. Now Michael is the key figure in a murder conspiracy that’s left a vacuum in the halls of power, with the labor union, mob and military vying for control of Mars.
Red Planet Noir is for science fiction and hardboiled mystery fans alike. It’s a Raymond Chandler mystery in a Robert Heinlein world.
It can be ordered from:
Amazon.com
Barnes and Noble
Powell’s Books
Your local indie
It can also be ordered from most bookstores if they’re out of stock.
Here’s a little taste of the novel:
When the phone rang, I was half-drunk, half-dressed, half-asleep, and half expecting it to be the phone company reminding me that the bill was past due. I didn’t have any money because I didn’t have any clients, and I wouldn’t have any clients if they cut my line, which I had told them only last month and the month before that. They were becoming a nuisance.
So I pulled on a shirt that wasn’t very dirty, but smelled of Scotch and strippers, my signature cologne, and pressed the Answer button. A figure flickered on the telephone screen. The phone company only hired brunettes, because that’s what the owner liked to fool around with, and only hired men, for the same reason. She was neither, and carried her curves as if to prove the point.
“Mike speaking,” I said, fishing a lighter from my shirt pocket.
“Mike Sheppard, the private investigator?” she asked…
Chapter 1 can be downloaded here. [pdf]
Red Planet Noir is now available in paperback and on Kindle readers.
ISBN: 9780964167438
Image credit: Ari Yaoi
August 18th, 2010 §
Over at App Consumer, I throw rocks at the netbook. A snippet:
History, it would seem, is repeating itself. The netbook is obviously the frail child of the laptop. It is smaller. It is cheaper. It is slower. They keys are generally so miniscule that one would be justified in assuming they’d been pried from a TI-80 and arrayed in a traditional Qwerty layout. It plays, again, to the nostalgia factor of consumers. It plays to our comforts. We are used to Windows XP. We are used to Microsoft Office. We are used to arrows and a trackpoint or trackpad interface. (And as such, our microvascular surgeons are used to performing carpal tunnel procedures and purchasing expensive sports cars.) But again, to find a commercial for a netbook is to experience only pity when it is followed by an advertisement for the iPad. Apple’s creation is the harbinger of the destruction and the absolute obliteration of a portable industry which had tied its fortunes to the Fredo Corleone of computing devices.
Read the whole thing here.
(Photo credit: Newscom)
August 6th, 2010 §
While professional curmudgeons like to berate the proliferation of (admittedly) narcissistic personal questionnaires, it’s refreshing to know that they’ve been around for centuries. Indeed, in the 1800s they were all the rage, and Marcel Proust famously answered one that has withstood the test of time. This questionnaire is commonly seen in Vanity Fair magazine, and most recently, my hero Christopher Hitchens answered it in his remarkable memoir, Hitch-22. Below are my answers to the Proust Questionnaire.
What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Watching loved ones suffer.
Where would you like to live?
Post-apocalypse. (Although I suppose that’s “when” would I like to live. Hopefully someone will push The Button soon.)
What is your idea of earthly happiness?
Sometimes I watch King of the Hill and marinate in the contentment of Hank Hill, the good father satisfied selling propane and propane accessories, and proud to be assistant manager of Strictland Propane. That’s where I want to be, but I’m not sure how to get there.
» Read the rest of this entry «
August 3rd, 2010 §
Over at Pop Syndicate, I profile author Sean Ferrell and his thrilling debut novel, Numb. I’ve long known that Sean is a really witty guy. I had no idea he was secretly a brilliant novelist. From the piece:
Says Ferrell, “I live in New York City. Images assault us constantly here. Just the other day I spotted someone’s personal car that had the name and number of a tax preparer painted onto the rear window — a sort of guerilla advertising that is seen more and more. I thought, how can that possibly work? Who is driving through Brooklyn, sits at a light behind this car and thinks, ‘Thank God I saw that. He can do my taxes.’ That’s where Numb lives: in a world so full of information that it ceases to mean anything.”
Read the whole thing here.
Buy the book here.
August 3rd, 2010 §
Over at The Atlantic, I run Sen. David Vitter through the meat grinder, pretty much assuring that I won’t be invited to his reelection party. A snippet:
It takes more than a little hubris for Sen. David Vitter to play the moral superiority card, but that’s exactly what he’s doing in the Louisiana Republican primary race against retired state Supreme Court Justice Chet Traylor. Vitter, better known nationally as “that senator who slept with all those prostitutes,” is beneficiary to revelations that Traylor is a home wrecker who stole a state representative’s wife, and, later, the same representative’s daughter-in-law.
Read the rest here.
July 23rd, 2010 §
The Atlantic kindly invited me to guest blog this week, and I was thrilled to accept. Here’s a roundup of the pieces I’ve written so far:
- One Giant Creep For Mankind
41 years ago today, Neil Armstrong cracked open the hatch of the Eagle lunar module and took one giant leap for mankind. Then mankind rolled up its sleeves, picked up a shovel, and dug in. That was quite enough adventure, thank you very much.
UPDATE: Spotlighted on The American Prospect. Thanks!
- The Company He Keeps
Gallup reports that President Obama’s job approval average during his sixth quarter in office ranks on the bottom half of chief executives to date.
- Somalia’s Spreading Cancer
As it turns out, those three pirates snuffed by SEALs last year are not only bad guys in Somalia. Though it’s made few headlines of late, life in the post-apocalyptic African state has gone from bad to worse.
- Clinton Calls Out Burma
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke out this morning against the Burmese government, which is delaying elections announced for this year. Because the military junta has yet to announce a date, Secretary Clinton says, they risk “raising questions about their commitment to such elections.” One would, of course, think being a military junta would have raised an eyebrow in the first place.
- Gingrich Denounces Ground Zero Mosque
Yesterday evening, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich announced on his website opposition to the Park51 community center — the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque.” According to Gingrich, “There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over.”
- Chad Refuses to Arrest Bashir
This week, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is in Chad for a regional summit, and human rights groups are pleading for his arrest. Bashir presided over the conflict in Darfur, where an estimated 300,000 people were killed and over 2.5 million displaced. He is wanted by the International Criminal Court for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.
July 7th, 2010 §
Over at The Atlantic, I call for the promotion of David Petraeus to General of the Army.
It’s difficult to find a war in American history where so much depended on any one man. He is the face of this war, the spiritual commander in chief amongst presidencies deficient in military authority. He is the only man, general or civilian, who can stand before the American people, the American soldier, and military families, and discuss the conflict without being second-guessed or dismissed out of hand as a partisan hack. Long gone are the days of “General Betray Us.” Indeed, even MoveOn.org has scrubbed its website of the controversial advertisement. Petraeus is the Army. He is the war. The fate of the region is in his hands.
For that reason, and because President Obama has recommitted this nation to war in Afghanistan and the continued campaign in Iraq, General Petraeus should be promoted to General of the Army, and given a fifth star.
Read the whole thing here.
Photograph by Jonas Fredwall Karlsson
UPDATE: Linked by Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit. My thanks, good professor.
UPDATE 2: The ever-thoughtful Daniel Foster comments at National Review.
UPDATE 3: A link from the Washington Post!
UPDATE 4: Spotlighted on The Week as Best Column on Afghanistan. Thank you.
June 30th, 2010 §
This is heartbreaking news.
“I have been advised by my physician that I must undergo a course of chemotherapy on my esophagus. This advice seems persuasive to me.”
From Vanity Fair.
A recent Washington Post profile.
June 23rd, 2010 §
Over at The Atlantic, I throw rocks at the Obama administration for sacking General Stanley McChrystal. A snippet:
General Stanley McChrystal is the best in the world at what he does, so long as the world is not watching. As commander of JSOC, the Joint Special Operations Command, he oversaw and engaged in missions that put bullets into thousands of terrorists, including Al Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. As Michael Hastings reports in the now-infamous Rolling Stone profile that proved the general’s undoing, “He went out on dozens of nighttime raids during his time in Iraq, unprecedented for a top commander, and turned up on missions unannounced, with almost no entourage.” Hastings relates the sentiments of a British officer: “The fucking lads love Stan McChrystal. You’d be out in Somewhere, Iraq, and someone would take a knee beside you, and a corporal would be like ‘Who the fuck is that?’ And it’s fucking Stan McChrystal.”
Read the rest here. Send hate mail here.
For background, here is the Rolling Stone piece referenced.
On a different note, my last piece for The Atlantic was a profile of heroic war correspondent Michael Yon. I conducted a lot of interviews for that article and took a lot of heat for defending Yon, but in the end, he was right. That piece was the first (of any I’m aware) to suggest:
- McChrystal’s days were numbered.
- Petraeus would be the most likely successor.
- The ascent of James Mattis, who is now rumored to take over CENTCOM.
A few side-notes as well. The McChrystal piece was submitted seconds after the Petraeus announcement, so I mention him only in closing. I have nothing but respect for General Petraeus. He is the definition of an American hero, and will one day be mentioned in the same breath as Washington, Alexander, Agrippa, Napoleon, and Patton. By taking command of the war in Afghanistan, General Petraeus is taking a demotion, and I believe he is doing it out of loyalty to Stanley McChrystal. The nation owes General McChrystal a debt it can never fully repay. His achievements in Iraq are second to none, and his plan for Afghanistan is both humane and insightful. To see him go is a great loss to the Army and the war. It’s a sad day when warriors survive daily firefights only to be taken down by media firestorms.
Also: I’m not sure but I think I may have set a record for most uses of the word “fuck” in an Atlantic piece.
June 4th, 2010 §
Because, you know, literacy is already so lavishly funded by the state and burdensome upon the tax payers, the Louisiana Book Festival has been canceled. If you listen closely, you can hear John Kennedy Toole, Truman Capote, William Faulkner, and Robert Penn Warren rolling in their graves. Some news to chew on:
Sad chapter for Book Fest
Book Festival victim of budget cuts
Budget cuts for cancellation of Louisiana Book Festival
Don’t worry, though. I’m sure Tiger Stadium will receive a fresh coat of paint, and the Hornets will get a well-equiped gym.