Tell-Tale Steampunk

The weekend of April 1 and 2, I will be traveling to Baltimore, Maryland for the first ever Tell-Tale Steampunk Festival. Tell-Tale Steampunk is Baltimore’s first Steampunk Convention. It is a weekend long event and will feature workshops, vendors, entertainment, music, and educational panels. This years theme is based on the writings of Baltimore’s own Edgar Allan Poe. I recently discussed my short story “Dreams of Flight” which was written for the anthology A Cast of Crows edited by Danielle Ackley-McPhail. The festival inspired the anthology and I gather there will be a scavenger hunt at the festival based on stories in the anthology. Featured guests of Tell-Tale Steampunk include Baroness Alexandra who will host tea dueling, spirit tastings and other steampunk shenanigans, leather artist Doc Stone who is the founder of Key City Steampunk and who has appeared in numerous films, and fabric artist Lady De L’Etoile who teaches fun dance classes at events that get even the most confirmed wallflower out on the dance floor. You can get all the details about the event at https://telltalesteampunk.com/

I’ll be a vendor at Tell-Tale Steampunk, a participant in some events, and there to celebrate the release of A Cast of Crows, Grimm Machinations and Grease Monkeys. At this time, all my events are scheduled for Saturday, April 1 and they’re listed below. I plan to be at my vendor table all through Sunday, April 2. If you plan to come to the event, be sure to check the schedule on site for any last-minute changes.

Saturday, April 1

  • 12:30-1:30pm – The Spectacles (Main Ballroom) – Why Do You Think Me Mad Libs. Don’t be nervous! Join our cast of crows (aka authors) for a madcap game of Mad Libs. The authors will take you on a wild ride of steampunk, Poe, and pure madness with stories that need some help from the audience to finish. Why do we insist they’re mad? Yell out [NOUN GOES HERE] while [VERB GOES HERE] the crazy, creative, and extremely [ADJECTIVE GOES HERE] mad lib game. Among the authors there will be Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Jeff Young, Ef Deal, Jessica Lucci, and Christine Norris.
  • 5:15-6:00pm – Poe’s Parlor – Writing Steampunk in the Wild West and Around the World. I often sets my steampunk in the western United States of the late 1800s where many cultures were meeting and colliding. Join me for a discussion of why the region appeals to me and the opportunities it presents for telling multicultural steampunk stories.
  • 7:00-9:00pm – Rue Morgue Panel Room – Poe-Inspired Steampunk Book Opening. Come celebrate the launch of A Cast of Crows, the premiere volume in the Forgotten Lore series, edited by Danielle Ackley-McPhail and featuring stories by Michelle D. Sonnier, Judi Fleming, Aaron Rosenberg, Ef Deal, Dana Fraedrich, Jessica Lucci, Doc Coleman, Danielle Ackley-McPhail and myself. Also launching: Grimm Machinations and Grease Monkeys. Contributing authors to the Full-Steam Ahead anthologies attending the launch will be Michelle D. Sonnier, Ef Deal, Dana Fraedrich, Jessica Lucci, Doc Coleman, Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Jeff Young, John L. French, and myself.

Hope to see and meet some of you at Tell-Tale Steampunk this coming weekend!

The Marco Polo

I’ve posted a few times about Germany’s Perry Rhodan series. This series of space opera stories began in 1961 and has been running continuously ever since. It started as the story of an astronaut named Perry Rhodan who goes to the moon with three other astronauts and discovers a stranded star vessel inhabited by aliens called Arkonides. Rhodan then sees an opportunity to unify the people of the Earth and begin a new era of deep space exploration. Around the same time, certain humans have begun to exhibit mutant abilities such as teleporting or mind-reading. Overall, the series has elements of Star Trek, Doctor Who, and the X-Men while predating all of those franchises. For the most part, I’ve been reading the Perry Rhodan NEO series, which was a reboot started in 2011.

My explorations of the Perry Rhodan universe led me to discover that in 2000, Revell released four model kits based on vehicles from the books. As far as I know, these are the only kits ever made by a major model kit manufacturer based on vehicles that appear exclusively in print media. I knew I wanted to build one of these kits both as a tribute to my enjoyment of the series and because these kits were based on books rather than movies or television. It was a little tricky to know which kit to pick. All were a little difficult to come by since the kits are no longer manufactured. I was tempted to build the Sol because it appeared in the comic series “The Cartographers of Infinity” and “Battle for the Sol” that I had read. However, I ultimately decided to build the Marco Polo, mostly because it’s the one that most resembled the ships in the novellas I had read so far. Here’s the Marco Polo ready to launch for its first mission.

The Marco Polo has appeared in numerous Perry Rhodan novellas. It first appeared in episode 450 published in 1970 called, “Departure of the Marco Polo.” Unfortunately, this story hasn’t been translated into English, but it is available for download as a German-language ebook in the United States.

We see the Marco Polo right on the book’s cover. Also, you can see, a sizable ship launching from the Marco Polo, which in turn is launching a fighter. Set in the year 3437, the novella opens with two humans, Mentro Kosum and Menesh Kuruzin, approach a giant ship, two and a half kilometers in diameter. In the second chapter, they meet Colonel Toronar Kasom who explains that the Marco Polo is a Carrier Class Ultra Battleship. They soon set off for the Sombrero Galaxy, NGC 4594, the home galaxy of a race called the Cappins who seem to have set their sights on the Milky Way.

As it turns out, the Marco Polo is a much bigger ship than the spherical ships I’ve encountered in the earlier Perry Rhodan NEO novellas, but I’m happy to have built it and I will definitely need to read more about its adventures. The model itself was somewhat challenging and involved careful painting and decal work. Still, I took my time with it and I’m pleased with the final result.

As it turns out, I have published a novel with a ship called the Marco Polo. The novel is Upstart Mystique by Don Braden. In Don’s universe, the Marco Polo is a colony ship en route to a new star system. However, it gets drawn off course to a planet where many of the inhabitants have uploaded their consciousness into the planet’s computers. Now it would seem the planet would like to add the human colonists to the data banks as well! You can learn more about Don Braden’s Upstart Mystique at: https://hadrosaur.com/UpstartMystique.php

Infernal Devices

Last weekend, I was at Wild Wild West Con in Tucson, Arizona. One of the people I was on a panel with was K.W. Jeter. In 1987, Jeter sent a copy of his novel Morlock Night to Locus Magazine along with a letter that suggested there should be a collective term for “gonzo-historical” speculative fiction like his novel and the works of Tim Powers and James Blaylock. Given the popularity of cyberpunk at the time, he made the tongue-in-cheek suggestion that the three of them were “steam-punks.” Since that time, assorted authors have tried their hands at Victorian-inspired science fiction and fantasy including yours truly. However, in the early 2000s, steampunk became more than a literary subgenre. It became a whole movement of makers, musicians, and costumers. As I put the finishing touches on a batch of gonzo-historical stories for eSpec Books recently, I realized I’d never actually read any of the works by the man who coined the term Steampunk. I decided to dive into the novel Infernal Devices, which Jeter published the same year as his famous letter in Locus.

Infernal Devices opens when a mysterious man appears at the shop and residence of one George Dower. George’s father was a brilliant clockmaker who was also known for creating automata. When the famous clockmaker died, the younger Dower inherited the family business. Although George was capable of some basic work on watches and clocks, he lacked his father’s genius. The mysterious stranger, who George refers to as “the Brown Leather Man,” leaves a mysterious machine reportedly built by George’s father. Later, two more strangers appear at the shop. One is a man in blue-tinted glasses called Scape and the other is a woman named Miss McThane. They indicate their interest in devices built by George’s father. They also prove to be anachronisms, speaking more like people of the late twentieth century than people of the nineteenth. Later, George’s servant, Cref, catches them breaking into the house. It soon becomes clear they’re searching for the device left behind by the Brown Leather Man. This leads George on a quest to find out what the box is. His only clue is a coin depicting a fish-headed man left behind by the Brown Leather Man.

George eventually finds himself in a neighborhood of fish-headed people and meets the person who made the coin. When he returns to talk to the man who made the coin, George finds the man dead and is nearly killed himself. Escaping that fate, he comes across Scape and Miss McThane again and finds them in a church where George’s father had installed an automata choir and priest. They’re setting up a service for the fish-headed people. The man leading the service for the fish-headed people is a mysterious Lord Bendray. Eventually, George learns that Lord Bendray once was a patron of his father’s. Among the devices George’s father built for Lord Bendray was a machine that could destroy the world.

Over the course of Infernal Devices, George Dower is shuffled from one adventure and set of colorful characters to another. As it turns out, George himself is rather drab and really just wants to get back to his own quiet life, but finds himself learning more than he wanted about his father’s legacy. One interesting element in the novel was that Jeter introduces a way for certain characters to glimpse possibilities from the future. I also gave characters a glimpse into the future in my Clockwork Legion series. Neither Jeter nor I give our characters a perfect view. In my case the characters only know possibilities might work. In Jeter’s, some characters have caught rapid-fire glimpses of the future. In both cases, seeing the possibilities has a profound effect on the relevant characters.

All in all, I found Infernal Devices a fascinating read. You can find a copy wherever fine books or ebooks are sold.

In the meantime, you can learn about my Clockwork Legions series at: http://davidleesummers.com/books.html#clockwork_legion

Johnny Alucard

I have been continuing my read of the Anno Dracula series and today, I take a look at the fourth book, Johnny Alucard. The series asks what would have happened if Count Dracula escaped Dr. Van Helsing at the end of Bram Stoker’s famous novel and married Queen Victoria, thus bringing vampires into public view for the first time in history. The series has been full of allusions to famous literary and screen vampires along with pop culture icons of the various time periods visited. In the previous novel I read, Dracula Cha Cha Cha, the count finally died for real in Rome of 1959. That noted, Dracula largely exists as a background presence in these novels, which are mostly told from perspective of one of three vampires: the elder and doctor Geneviève Dieudonné, Victorian activist and reporter Kate Reed, or socialite Penelope Churchward.

Johnny Alucard opens with a prologue in 1944 when Dracula visits his native Transylvania and turns a young man named Ion Popescu into a vampire. We then jump ahead thirty-two years to 1976. Francis Ford Coppola is in Transylvania filming his version of Dracula. This isn’t an alternate version of the one we know from 1992. Instead Coppola is creating this world’s version of Apocalypse Now with Marlon Brando as Dracula and Martin Sheen as Jonathan Harker. Katherine Reed is on hand to document the filming and serve as a consultant. Also on hand is the vampire Ion Popescu with Dracula’s blood in his veins and Dracula’s will in his consciousness. Ion is captivated by the production and over the course of this first part begins his transformation into John Popp who follows the film crew back to New York.

We then take a brief interlude into 1977 and find Geneviève in Southern California. She helps a man track down his daughter who has been taken in by a cult out in the desert. I enjoyed the cameo at a diner by a trucker known as the Duck. Through her long history, Geneviève has helped people by working as a doctor, but this episode gives her a taste for working as a private detective.

Our episodic novel next continues John Popp’s journey in America where he winds his way into Andy Warhol’s inner circle. Also in Warhol’s orbit is Penelope Churchward. Through the series, we have learned that a little vampire blood can give humans a boost of strength and stamina. It can help heal them and make them feel very good. Popp realizes that in America, people will pay for this rush and begins selling his blood like a drug. As vampire blood hits the streets and becomes increasingly addictive and expensive, Popp encourages other vampires to get in on the action. Ultimately he stops sharing his own blood and becomes something of a kingpin in the world of vampire blood dealing. Through his association with Warhol, Johnny Popp learns there’s an even better way to wend his way into the hearts and souls of Americans and that’s through Hollywood.

In 1981, Orson Welles hires private detective Geneviève Dieudonné to find out who is funding his version of the Dracula story. During this episode she gets involved with Columbo and even Buffy, or rather Barbie, the vampire slayer.

The novel continues to trace Popp’s transformation from Transylvanian peasant Ion Popescu to Hollywood mogul Johnny Alucard. Meanwhile Dracula’s influence over him continues to increase. In both the Universal and Hammer films, Dracula was often killed at the end and the screenwriters found inventive ways to bring him back for the next film. This book effectively becomes Kim Newman’s story of how Dracula can come back after he’d been killed off in the previous version. Unlike other volumes in the series, this one took me through a tour of the pop culture I actually experienced first hand. I gather the sections of the novel originally appeared as short stories and novellas. This might put some readers off, but I enjoyed this journey through the years and through multiple points of view. Overall, threads from the different eras come together at the end of the novel to deliver a satisfying conclusion.

Like the novel Johnny Alucard, my novel Vampires of the Scarlet Order started life as short stories in a set of publications. You can learn more about my novel at: http://davidleesummers.com/VSO.html

Read a Steampunk eBook

Happy Read an Ebook Week! You can find my steampunk novels available now at @Smashwords at a promotional price to help you celebrate. Find my books and many more at https://www.smashwords.com/ebookweek from March 5-11! Because I’m at Wild Wild West Con this weekend, I’m offering my Clockwork Legion novels for just 99 cents apiece. If you’ve ever wanted to explore my steampunk worlds, this is a great time to jump in!

Owl Dance

The year is 1876, Sheriff Ramon Morales of Socorro, New Mexico meets a beguiling woman named Fatemeh Karimi of Persia, escaping oppression in her homeland. When an ancient lifeform called Legion comes to Earth, they are pulled into a series of events that will change the history of the world as we know it. In their journeys, Ramon and Fatemeh encounter mad inventors, dangerous outlaws and pirates. Their resources are Ramon’s fast draw and Fatemeh’s uncanny ability to communicate with owls. The question is, will that be enough to save them when a fleet of dirigibles from Czarist Russia invades the United States?

Richard Harland, author of WorldShaker and Liberator says, “Owl Dance has everything. Airships, owl-ornithopters, a clockwork wolf, a multiple alien entity, a fast-shooting sheriff, a Russian plot to conquer America, and a very sexy, eco-aware, Bahá’í Persian healer-woman – I mean everything! Heaps of fun!”

You can get Owl Dance for just 99 cents today at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1116949

Lightning Wolves

It’s 1877. The Russians have invaded the Pacific Northwest and are advancing into California. New weapons have proven ineffective or dangerously unstable and the one man who can help has disappeared into Apache Country, hunting ghosts. A healer and a former sheriff lead a band into the heart of the invasion to determine what makes the Russian forces so unstoppable while a young inventor attempts to unleash the power of the lightning wolves.

Deby Fredericks, author of The Seven Exalted Orders says, “The Old West as we wish it had been. Full of adventure and crazy inventions but with some honesty about the prejudices and mores of the day. This is as much alternate history as adventure tale, with an ethnically diverse cast fighting battles that never were. Appearances by a few historical figures, like Geromino, add spice. There’s a poignant undercurrent on how inventions meant to lift humanity up can draw us into the same old quagmire of ambition and greed, plus an intriguing alien race trying to find its way through First Contact with humans. Nicely done.”

You can get Lightning Wolves for just 99 cents today at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1119716

The Brazen Shark

Pirate captain, inventor, and entrepreneur Onofre Cisneros sweeps his friends Fatemeh and Ramon Morales off to Hawaii for their honeymoon. Once there, a British agent makes Cisneros an offer he can’t refuse and the captain must travel to Japan. Wanting to see more of the world, Ramon and Fatemeh ask to accompany the captain only to find themselves embroiled in a plot by samurai who steal a Russian airship, hoping to overthrow the Japanese emperor.

Robert E. Vardeman author Gateway to Rust and Ruin says, “Airships battling! Samurai fomenting war with Russia! Historical characters and powerfully drawn fictional ones mixing it up with political intrigues make David Lee Summers’ The Brazen Shark a steampunk novel not to be missed. Put it at the top of your reading list. Now!”

You can get The Brazen Shark for just 99 cents today at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1139224

Owl Riders

When Fatemeh Karimi married Ramon Morales, she neglected to share one small detail. She was already betrothed to a merchant named Hamid Farzan. She had no interest in Hamid or an arranged marriage. She wanted to live life on her own terms. Eight years after marrying Ramon, she assumed Hamid had long forgotten about her, as she had him.

Settled in New Orleans, Ramon works as an attorney, Fatemeh owns a pharmacy, and they’re proud parents of a precocious daughter. Out west, Apaches armed with powerful battle wagons have captured Fort Bowie and threaten Tucson. Businessmen with an interest in a peaceful solution ask Ramon to come west and settle the conflict. Meanwhile Hamid arrives in New Orleans and he has not forgotten Fatemeh or her vows to him.

Now, the famed Owl Riders must assemble once again to reunite Ramon and Fatemeh so they can tame the Wild West.

You can get Owl Riders today for just 99 cents at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1148595

Read a Horror eBook

Happy Read an Ebook Week! You can find my horror novels available now at @Smashwords at a promotional price to help you celebrate. Find my books and many more at https://www.smashwords.com/ebookweek from March 5-11! As I’ve mentioned here at the Web Journal, I’ve been working on a third volume of my Scarlet Order vampire series. The first two volumes are just 99 cents this week. I’ve also added in my novel The Astronomer’s Crypt for some extra-spooky goodness.

Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order Vampires

Three vampires. Three lives. Three stories intertwined.

Bearing the guilt of destroying the holiest of books after becoming a vampire, the Dragon, Lord Desmond searches the world for lost knowledge, but instead, discovers truth in love.

Born a slave in Ancient Greece, Alexandra craves freedom above all else, until a vampire sets her free, and then, she must pay the highest price of all … her human soul.

An assassin who lives in the shadows, Roquelaure is cloaked even from himself, until he discovers the power of friendship and loyalty.

Three vampires, traveling the world by moonlight—one woman and two men who forge a bond made in love and blood. Together they form a band of mercenaries called the Scarlet Order, and recruit others who are like them. Their mission is to protect kings and emperors against marauders, invaders, and rogue vampires as the world descends into the chaos of the Dark Ages.

Marita Woywod Crande, author of New Orleans Vampires—History and Legend describes Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order Vampires as, “A journey into the time of lords, battles, sailing the seas, and vampires. A wonderful escape into historical adventure.”

You can get Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order Vampires this week for just 99 cents at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1025606

Vampires of the Scarlet Order

A new generation of vampires embarks on a quest to save humanity.

Opening a forgotten crypt during a military exercise, Dr. Jane Heckman is made a vampire and begins a journey to unlock the secret origins of her new kindred.

Elsewhere, solitary vampire Marcella DuBois emerges from the shadows and uncovers a government plot to create vampire-like super soldiers.

Daniel McKee, a vampire working as an astronomer, moves to a new town where he’s adopted by a family, only to have government agents strip those he loves away from him.

All three vampires discover the government is dabbling in technologies so advanced they’ll tap into realms and dimensions they don’t understand. To save humans and vampires alike, Jane, Marcella, and Daniel must seek out the legendary master vampire Desmond, Lord Draco and encourage him to resurrect his band of mercenaries, the Scarlet Order.

Neal Asher, author of Gridlinked and The Skinner, describes Vampires of the Scarlet Order as “A novel with bite. An amalgam of Blade and The Name of the Rose with a touch of X-Files thrown in for good measure.”

You can get Vampires of the Scarlet Order this week for just 99 cents at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1038560

The Astronomer’s Crypt

Two years ago on a stormy night, in the dead of winter, Mike Teter experienced something that would change his life forever. Mike was a telescope operator at the world renowned Carson Peak Observatory in New Mexico. We won’t tell you what he saw that night on the mountain nor what happened afterward on a dark stretch of highway, because it would haunt you just as it has haunted Mike. But what we will tell you is that Mike is back at Carson Peak. And what he witnessed that night two years ago is about to become a reality…

Chris Wozny of The Nameless Zine says, “In the best tradition of horror fiction, we have courageous protagonists, characters who cross the line of good and evil in both directions, unspeakable evil from a forgotten age, and a villain behind the scenes who is attempting to bring back dark powers in the (no doubt mistaken) belief that he can control them … Strongly recommended to all who enjoy Stephen King’s novels.”

You can get a copy of The Astronomer’s Crypt this week for just 99 cents at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1025608

Wild Wild West Con 11

This weekend, Wild Wild West Con returns! It will be held from March 9-12 at Casino Del Sol in Tucson, Arizona. Wild Wild West Steampunk Convention (WWWC) is the largest Western-style Steampunk Convention in the United States. I’ve been excited to be part of the convention since it started in 2011. With a splendid lineup of Special Guests, entertainers, panels and games, the convention organizers are planning an amazing event unlike any other. This is a great event for people who are new to Steampunk. You are not required to wear costumes or specific attire, but you are always welcome to come dressed to the nines! You can get detailed information about the convention at https://wildwestcon.com

Among this year’s Special Guests are K.W. Jeter, Bruce Rosenbaum, Tayliss Forge, Madame Askew and the Grand Arbiter. K.W. Jeter is the author of the steampunk classics Morlock Knights and Infernal Devices and also known as the man who first coined the term Steampunk back in 1987. Bruce Rosenbaum has been dubbed the Steampunk Guru by the Wall Street Journal and Steampunk Evangelist by Wired Magazine. Bruce’s functional Steampunk artwork has been featured in the Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, Architectural Digest, CNN, and NPR. Tayliss Forge is a non-binary designer, maker, and model located in Orange County, California. They are full-time bridal seamstress who specializes in full-body alterations, beading, repairs, custom sleeves, and custom accessories. Madame Askew is a time-traveling tea aficionado, obsessed with cats, fashion, and the proper uses for headgear. The Grand Arbiter is the highest authority on compliments, wit, and Tea-based Equity. Visit the Wild West Con website to learn more about these and other special guests.

I’m also delighted to say that several author friends will be on panels at Wild Wild West Con this year, including Tamsin Silver, David Boop, Diesel Jester, Chief Inspector Erasumus Drake, and Sparky McTrowell.

Here’s my schedule for the convention:

Friday, March 10

  • 2:30-3:30pm – Ballroom G – Space Western vs Weird Western – Have Raygun will Travel? Both weird westerns and space westerns have seen growth over the last decade or so. Are they the same thing? Can Cowboys & Aliens and Firefly truly be cut from the same cloth? Come here from authors who have crafted such tales of western expansion from the Old West to the Final Frontier. David Boop will be on the panel with me.
  • 9:30-10:30pm – Ballroom H – Authors of Steampunk. Get to know some of the authors who have written in the genre along with a friendly Q&A about the industry. K.W. Jeter, Diesel Jester, and David Boop are on the panel with me.

Saturday, March 11

  • 1:00-2:00pm – Ballroom F – Mars: A Land Across the Aether. I discuss the history of how Mars went from being a point of light in the sky to a place that writers would explore with particular attention to Arizona’s place in the story.
  • 2:30-3:30pm – Salon A – Drake & McTrowell’s Hot Potato School of Writing™ with CI Erasmus Drake and Dr. Sparky McTrowell. Once again, I will be one of the “celebrity” author guests in this fun exercise in spontaneous story creation.
  • 4:00-5:00pm – Ballroom G – The Many Flavors of Punk. CI Erasmus Drake, Diesel Jester and I will look at everything from steampunk to dieselpunk to atompunk and explore what these worlds have in common and what makes them unique. Is it just the trappings and the time period?

Sunday, March 12

  • 4:00-5:00pm – Ballroom I&J – Writing the Roaring 20s. Diesel Jester, Dr. Sparky McTrowell and I will talk about the Roaring 20s. What does steampunk set in the 20th century look like? What kinds of stories can be told? What makes this era different from the more traditional Victorian era of steampunk?

When I’m not on panels or giving presentations, you will be able to find me in the vendor’s hall at space Ae02. I will have all my books along with all the books published by Hadrosaur Productions. Be sure to drop by and say hello!

Finding the Lost Boys

My university was in the small town of Socorro, New Mexico. We had one small theater called the Loma, which usually showed movies a few months after their release. In the autumn of 1987, I went with a group of friends to see the Joel Schumacher film, The Lost Boys, starring Kiefer Sutherland, Jason Patric, and Jami Gertz. I was deep in the throes of working on my physics degree and much more into movies about exploring the galaxy than about vampires. I remember finding the movie a fine diversion, but it didn’t make much of an impression on me. I missed the Peter Pan allusions and I was a little thrown off by the notion of young, attractive vampires. Since then, I’ve become more familiar with J.M. Barrie’s classic and we’ve had numerous examples of young, attractive vampires ranging from many of Anne Rice’s characters to characters in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I began to think this was a film I should watch again.

Because so much film viewing is migrating to streaming services, it seems a lot of stores are reducing their inventory of DVDs and Blu-rays. I managed to find a copy of The Lost Boys at my local Barnes and Noble for just $6.00. I suspect that’s less in today’s dollars than I paid for a theater ticket back in 1987. As I sat down to watch the movie with my daughter, I realized she’s almost exactly the age I was when I first saw the film. I thought it would be interesting to compare notes. Of course, she also came to the movie with a more diverse taste in film than I had at her age and there was nothing alien to her about young vampires.

All in all, I enjoyed the movie more now than I remember enjoying it back in 1987. It was funnier than I remembered, poking fun at vampire tropes while also embracing them. The movie tells the story of two brothers who move to a coastal city in Northern California with their recently divorced mom. The younger brother, Sam, meets Edgar and Alan Frog who work at a local comic book store. They give him a comic about vampires as a warning about the local menace in town.

Meanwhile, the older brother, Michael, finds himself drawn to a woman named Star. She introduces him to her friends, who at first glance appear to be a troublemaking bike gang. They invite Michael to ride with them and they lead him to the ruins of an old beachside hotel, which serves as their hangout. Strange things begin to occur and it soon becomes apparent to the audience, if not Michael, that the bike gang is, in fact, a vampire coven.

My daughter and I both found the movie funnier and less violent than we expected. I remembered more bloodshed in the movie, but I may have been conflating the movie with others of the period. The young, self-proclaimed vampire hunters, Edgar and Alan Frog were definitely the show’s highlight, but all of the cast had great moments. I also had conflated the movie with a lot of Southern California-set beach movies of the time and had forgotten how much the movie’s setting reflected Santa Cruz, where it was filmed.

I’m glad I rediscovered The Lost Boys and gave it another chance. The movie’s blend of humor, subtle literary reference, and using vampires to cast a critical eye on a time and place are all things I like doing in my own writing. Even though the movie didn’t resonate with me much a the time, I wonder how much of its approach to storytelling managed to influence me. There’s no doubt the movie influenced works that came after it and I know many of those works did influence me.

You can check out my vampire fiction at http://www.davidleesummers.com/books.html#scarlet_order and judge for yourself!

Darke Pygmalion

The Chronicles of a Mad Lab Assistant: Darke Pygmalion by Lynn McCrary takes place circa 1930 in a world of the Cthulhu Mythos as created by H.P. Lovecraft but steeped with Steampunk technology. The protagonist is Ed, a senior at Miskatonic University. His father owns an airship manufacturing company and expects Ed to follow him into the family business. However, Ed has dreams of building human-like automata. He raises money to live off campus by working in the local morgue where he often hangs out with his good friend, a lovelorn ghoul named Cedric. Ed decides to build a girlfriend for Cedric and succeeds. The only problem is that the automaton has a penchant for murder and Ed must find a way to stop her without destroying himself in the process. At 67-pages, this was a nice, quick read. Overall, I came away feeling like I spent some months in the twisted life of a Mikatonic University student.

The Chronicles of a Mad Lab Assistant was sent to me by its publisher-of-record Dorrance Publishing. Dorrance is a publishing services company that has been around for a while. A quick glance at their website suggests that they not only print your book, but offer some services such as line editing and publicity. My copy of the book came with a nice, professional-looking press release. Still, Dorrance is a publishing services company and not a publisher in its own right.

One of the things I’ve enjoyed about working with publishers is my interaction with editors. I suspect when most people think about editors, they think about people who do their best to catch all the spelling and grammar mistakes in a manuscript. In effect, this is line or copy-editing. That’s important and a good publisher will do that, but another aspect of editing is content editing and sometimes good content editing is just a matter of asking questions and then letting the author tackle those questions. Admittedly, it’s not always necessary to answer every question an editor might have, but it’s often good to address the questions and acknowledge that answers exists, even if the author or the point-of-view character doesn’t actually answer.

Overall, I found The Chronicles of a Mad Lab Assistant an enjoyable book, but I still read it with content editor’s brain and I did come away with a few questions. I wanted to better understand why Ed is friends with Cedric. It seemed clear that Cedric gets to hang out at the morgue for a few snacks while Ed is taking his turn as caretaker, but I wanted to know what Ed got out of this relationship. I also wanted to know more about what Ed actually gained from building the automaton, Millie. Was this an exercise for experience? Did he put it to use in his classes? What’s more, it was clear from the story that Ed wanted to go to graduate school after graduation to the chagrin of his father. That said, I never quite understood what Ed wanted to get out of his additional graduate school experience. It seemed like Ed had the opportunity to go to work for his father at the airship manufacturing company, but I didn’t really see what, specifically Ed wanted to do instead of that or in addition to that.

Admittedly, none of these questions were necessarily plot-critical, but I think they would have presented opportunities for the author to explore the characters and make a book I enjoyed even better. I could see some of these questions being answered in a sequel, but it would also be fun to see a second edition that expanded on some of the ideas raised in the first edition. If you would like to check out the book, it’s available at: https://www.amazon.com/Chronicles-Mad-Lab-Assistant-Pygmalion-ebook/dp/B0BQH2DR7R/

The Night Whispers

My mom was a soap opera fan. When I would come home from school, I’d usually find her parked in front of the television to watch her “stories.” I would occasionally watch with her for a time while waiting to claim the TV from her so I could watch afternoon cartoons on a local independent station before starting any homework I might have. While romance is a natural part of life and it’s likely to find its way into many stories regardless of genre, I suspect her love of soap operas and being exposed to them made me a little more open to including romance in my early writing, especially when I was most focused on hard science fiction.

One soap opera that has always intrigued me is Dark Shadows, which ran from 1967 to 1971. I don’t believe my mom watched Dark Shadows during its original run, but I’m not entirely sure, since I would have been rather young during its run. Still, my interest in vampires and supernatural stories has led me to seek out a few episodes and the 1970 movie House of Dark Shadows. The show was centered around the Collins family of Collinsport, Maine, where a number of supernatural occurrences took place. One of the most memorable characters on the show was the vampire Barnabas Collins played by Jonathan Frid. After the show ended, Frid turned down several offers to reprise the role. The one exception was when Big Finish Productions asked him to play the part for a story called “The Night Whispers” in 2010, just two years before he passed away.

As stories based on a soap opera go, this is a fairly simple one. On a stormy night, some time after Barnabas has been freed of his vampire curse, he is sitting with his grounds keeper and servant, Willie Loomis, portrayed by John Karlen, who played the role in the series. A spirit from the past, played by horror legend Barbara Steele, insists on being heard. Steele plays the spirit of Celeste, a servant girl from the Caribbean Island of Martinique. Steele’s role is fairly short, since her spirit possesses Willie and begins to speak through him. As the story progresses we learn that in Barnabas’s mortal days, his visited Martinique with other wealthy, young men. One of those men forced themselves on the young servant woman and she died, but not before cursing the party. To avoid the curse, Barnabas takes terrible action.

Now, some two centuries after young Barnabas visited Martinique, Celeste is back to tell her story and make Barnabas pay for his role in what had been done to her. Through the telling, we get much of what I like about vampire stories. Barnabas reflects on the morality of past actions from the lens of a long and terrible history. The tale also looks at the way the rich have treated those who work for them. Is Willie just one in a long line of people who have given their loves to serve the Collins family, or have Barnabas’s attitudes to those he employs evolved over time?

I enjoyed Frid and Karlen performing a dramatic dialog. The story had a nice Gothic flavor and, as a casual fan of Dark Shadows, it took me back to that world for an enjoyable hour. If you’d like to give it a listen, this is a nice, affordable download from Big Finish at: https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/dark-shadows-the-night-whispers-147

Another area where my mom’s love of soap operas has served me well is juggling the large cast of characters in Ordeal of the Scarlet Order, which I’m working on now. As in a soap opera, I’m following several different sets of characters in several different sets of locations. I’ve always enjoyed this kind of storytelling because I feel like no story happens in isolation. The actions of friends and enemies across town or across the country can have an impact on a story and I enjoy weaving the tapestry of complex stories through most of my worlds. You can explore my fiction at: http://www.davidleesummers.com/