Dime Store Riot

In the picture to the left you can see one of the things I wrote for the day job. Technically, I got paid more for it than I've ever seen in an entire year of writing fiction. It's had the highest print run of anything I've ever written and more people have read it than my most popular work. It's also the sole piece of writing I wish no one had to read at all. If there's any comfort to be found in the work, it's simply that I've written something that in some way mattered. It's all I've ever wanted to do.

I just pre-ordered the trade edition of Robert McCammon's The Hunter From The Woods from Subterranean Press . I would have preferred one of the nicer, signed editions that were previously released, but they were a little out of my price range. I've been a fan of McCammon for a long time. Mystery Walk is one of my all-time favorite horror novels. I always believed Swan Song was a much more successful, and ultimately fulfilling, novel than Stephen King's The Stand . And Boy's Life is one of the most magical and wonderful books I've ever read. Period. Then there's The Wolf's Hour . Nowadays the idea of a werewolf James Bond fighting Nazis may not seem all that original, but I vividly remember discovering McCammon's book when I was a kid and being blown away by the horror-romance/spy-action-adventure/thriller hybrid. The return of Michael Gallatin looks to be just as exciting: " The Hunter from the Woods marks the much-anticipated return

Really looking forward to reading Matt Hilton's Action: Pulse Pounding Tales Vol. 1 when it comes out. I would love to submit something for it, especially something a little different than what I usually write, I'm just not sure I have the time before submissions close. But I'd encourage you to check out the details and send your best two-fisted tale.

We have the Mass Effect games but haven't played them yet. Apparently, besides crafting a terrible ending to the series, BioWare skimped on the option to play a female Commander Shepherd (the hero of the series.)  "Ms. Effect: The Rise of FemShep"  by Richard Corbett argues that it's a good thing, that BioWare's apathy in making a female hero, inadvertently created "a powerful, non-sexualised, mature hero for a modern sci-fi story." The article is worth a read even if you are not familiar with the Mass Effect franchise or don't play video games. As a writer, this section struck me: "There are good reasons for this. Writers (of both genders) often struggle to write good female characters, at least in part because so many of them have been done badly. One of the biggest hang-ups is that 'male' is traditionally treated as as the generic template, with female-ness treated as something extra. Look at cartoon animals. More often than not