Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Another Excerpt: The Key To My Heart


While we're at it, here's another excerpt from my newly-released ebook, The Key to My Heart where our hero, P.I. Chance Gannon finds himself in trouble:

I was on the hard cold concrete floor, tasting the salt in my own blood.

They were beating on me, banging on every nerve ending like a maestro would on the keys of his piano. The pain never went away; but after the first few blows it did dull. A little.  And if it was something the recent years have taught me, it was you could endure pain. Schmitt aimed another hard kick to my gut. I doubled over and puked up a mix of blood and this morning’s breakfast. I looked up at the bastard. That goddamn gold tooth glinted in his smug Nazi smile. “So, perhaps you are not so cocky now,” said Schmitt.

“Go to hell,” I snarled.
 
“Wrong answer,” said Beck from behind me. My spine burned up and down as his boot connected with it. I gritted my teeth.  “Tell us about Walter Carswell,” said Beck.

“I don’t know anything about him,” I spat.

“Wrong answer!” I saw stars as his fist connected with my face.

 I sagged back and fell against the damp cinderblock wall. Wiping the blood from mouth with my sleeve, I looked up. Beck and Schmitt stood in the semidarkness, their rough facial features highlighted by the shadows. I rolled over and lay down on the floor.

Beck walked over and knelt down, putting his face up to mine, close enough to smell the sauerkraut he must’ve had for lunch. “It would go much better for you if you cooperated, Mr. Gannon. Why are you foolishly insisting on this?”

“Maybe I…” I was going crack wise, but I clammed up. I saw something that make me blink: Beck still had the same jacket he wore when they picked me up… and under it, I could see the butt of my .45 gleaming dully in his belt. Real amateur night.  I pulled myself up on one elbow. “Water. Water please.”

“Karl, bring us some water,” said Beck to Schmitt.

“Careful Hans,” said Schmitt, who seemed to be half-ways reading my mind. He poured a glass of water from a pitcher on a table and passed it to him.

“Nonsense,” said Beck, accepting the glass. “Perhaps Mr. Gannon has learned the value of cooperation.” He patted my cheek with the palm of his hand like I was a good doggie. “See?” He passed me the glass.

I barely had time to sip the water, as cold good as it felt in my bloody mouth. My other hand was in his belt, grabbing the butt of my gun. I yanked it out and palmed off the safety as I brought it up to Beck. Beck’s mouth opened to form a giant O as he reached for his own gun. I was faster, this time. My finger squeezed the trigger twice and my hand jerked with the recoil as Beck dropped to his knees and fell over backwards. I rolled over, still on the floor. Schmitt was struggling with his Schmeisser when I fired, dropping him in his right leg. His submachine gun clattered to the floor as he rolled around, blood seeping through his finger as he clutched his leg and his eyes tearing up with pain. Leaning on a chair, I lurched to his feet and had another look at Schmitt. I stuck my gun in my belt; he wasn’t worth it, just now. See how it feels, tough guy. I found the door and got myself out of the room.

I leaned on the banister as I climbed up the rickety basement stairs.  With any luck, I wouldn’t be running into von Stroheim or any other of his flunkies. Not until I was feeling better. I gasped, holding back the as I hit the top of the stairs. I pushed the door open. No time to see if the door was open. I could see another door, with a window in it, and beyond that, blue sky. I lurched across for the door, shoving it open and pushing myself through.

I was at the top of the same flight of stairs as they’d brought up. The street was a long way down. Fighting the dizziness and everything else, I grabbed at the long black rail and began to climb down, one slow step at a time. Halfway down, a heard a voice behind me, all too familiar.

“Herr Gannon,” said von Stroheim, standing at the top of the stairs. “I do not know how you escaped, but in your condition, I imagine you cannot get very far, nacht whar?” He motioned with his hand and two new boys I’d never seen before came up beside him, their hands resting inside their jackets. “Please be sensible.”

It was then I heard the siren, as welcome as the sound of a cavalry bugle in all of those cheesy westerns. Guess the neighbors are nosy here, too. It was followed two seconds later by a SFPD prowl car, pulling up at the bottom of the steps. I looked up at von Stroheim and his goons and down at the two uniforms who had stepped out of the car and were looking up at me, then at the others, unreadable expressions on their faces. “No thanks boys,” I said, finishing off the last few steps, “I think my ride’s here.”

You can help out a poor unemployed writer by purchasing my books, Elvis Saves JFK! for just 99 cents and War Plan Crimson, A Novel of Alternate History, for $2.99 and now The Key to My Heart, also $2.99 (all are free to preview). All books -- which are already on Smashword's premium distribution list -- are also available through such fine on-line retailers such as Sony, Chapters Indigo, Barnes & Noble and Apple's iTunes Store.  And if you’re looking for an experienced marketing communications guy, do me a favor and have a look here. Thanks.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

A Book Review: Charles Stross’ The Laundry Files Series

I must apologize for my absence from this blog. Yes, I am still alive and well. So on with this month’s installment...

While not strictly in the domain of alternate history or of parallel universes, the series of books – The Atrocity Archives, The Jennifer Morgue, The Fuller Memorandum and now, most recently, The Apocalypse Codex – that comprises the Landry Files series by Charles Stross, details the workaday adventures of one Bob Howard.  Bob leads an average life. He has a loving girlfriend, Mo and a boss who has fast-tracked him for Bigger and Better Things. Did I mention he is a computational demonologist who works for a top secret British agency that defends the U.K. against those Things that Go Bump in the Night? Did I mention that Bob met Mo while fighting entities from another dimension? And that Bob’s boss… he’s oh wellumm.

It’s a very fun read. Much of the series’ universe is based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft’s delightfully nihilistic Cthulu Mythos and those who would bring about the time when the Old Ones would again return to walk the surface of the earth, known as CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN (think of a really, really bad version of the Harmonic Convergence.).

Okay, I admit it here – in the interests of full disclosure – I have a deep interest in the Mythos. Many authors including myself (Truth, Justice and the 1962 War Against Evil) have taken their turns to romp around in what has inadvertently become a very large and very scary shared universe.  I'l also admit that I am also now working on a draft of a Lovecraft-inspired book.

But enough about me.  I happen to love Stross’ contribution to the Cthulu Mythos. Much of it is written in a deliciously paranoid tongue-in-cheek style with touches of sheer brilliance when it comes to workplace satire.  He also works in the style of famed British author Len Deighton, whose novels and movies featuring the decidedly low rent exploits of his bespectacled antihero spy Harry Palmer were the perfect counterpoint to that same era’s over the top exploits of a certain 007 (Deighton also happens to the author of the alternate-history classic, SS-GB.).

Bob Howard is cast in much of the same mold as Harry Palmer.  He wins just as often as he loses. And if he does win, it’s more likely he’s done so by just muddling through.  There’s a certain kind of realism there that’s refreshing.

And maybe that’s who we need defending us against The Old Ones and all the other horrors out there. Not some flash-in-the-pan 007 superspy, but a lowly computational demonologist with a knack for muddling through.

Do I recommend the series? Absolutely.  If you haven’t read any of the books, now’s the time.  While there’s still time…

Meanwhile, you can help out a poor unemployed writer by purchasing my books, Elvis Saves JFK! for just 99 cents and War Plan Crimson, A Novel of Alternate History, for $2.99 and now The Key to My Heart, also $2.99 (all are free to preview). All books -- which are already on Smashword's premium distribution list -- are also available through such fine on-line retailers such as Chapters Indigo, Barnes & Noble and Apple's iTunes Store.  And if you’re looking for an experienced marketing communications guy, do me a favor and have a look here. Thanks.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Update: The Key to My Heart Granted Smashwords Premium Status


Well, good news! The Key to My Heart has been approved for Smashword’s Premium  Distribution, which means it will be soon available on such retail websites as Chapters Indigo,  Apples iTunes and Barnes and Noble.  Meanwhile, you can always buy it here.

Meanwhile, as I said, I’m reading the latest installment in Taylor  Anderson’s long-running Destroyermen series, The Iron Gray Sea. I’m about half-way through it, but by now, you should know that I’m a dedicated fan of the series who is eagerly wondering how the whole thing must end.

At one point soon, I’ll also be talking about my next favorite, Charles Stross’ spy/horror series, The Laundry Files, which I can only describe as Len Deighton meets H.P. Lovecraft.  Not that it has much to do with alternate universes –some—but it is a darn good read.

Meanwhile, you can help out a poor unemployed writer by purchasing my other two books, Elvis Saves JFK! for just 99 cents and War Plan Crimson, A Novel of Alternate History, for $2.99 (both are free to preview). Both books -- which are already on Smashword's premium distribution list -- are also available through such fine on-line retailers such as Chapters Indigo, Barnes & Noble and Apple's iTunes Store.  And if you’re looking for an experienced marketing communications guy, do me a favor and have a look here. Thanks.

Sunday, August 18, 2013

An Excerpt: The Key to My Heart


I knew she was trouble as soon as she stepped into my office. The type of trouble that only gets talked about by lonesome men in dusky bars over gin in dirty glasses. The type of trouble that leaves a smile on your face and you begging for more. The type that if it hasn’t killed you stone cold, it’s only because it’s driven you nuts first.
She wore a long black cape with her hood up and under it, a hint of long blonde hair. Her cold red lips parted in a ghost of a smile. “Mr. Gannon,” she said. “Chance Gannon.”
“That’s what it says on the door,” I said, sitting up behind my desk. Behind me, a tabletop fan battled the steamy August night air. I could tell by the sweat beading on my forehead it was losing. Somewhere, the latest Dorsey tune droned from a radio. A half-read pulp magazine – Amazing Stories- lay unfinished on my desk with a shining finned rocket ship sitting tail-first on a moonscape with jagged alpine peaks in the background and planet earth glowing in the sky above. It was a cinch I wasn’t going to finish that. “Have a seat. What can I do for you Mrs...?”
“Miss,” she smiled. “Miss Melody.” She lounged in my sofa, her long tanned legs peeking through her cape. “Mr. Gannon, six months ago, you were retained by an associate of mine, the late Walter Carswell.”
I said nothing. But I remembered Carswell.  He vanished just after I started to work for him. Never knew what happened to him; but she seemed to.  I slid my hand towards half-open desk drawer where my .45 lay.
“That’s all right; I know. Before Walter died, he placed something with you for safekeeping. It belongs to me.”
“You’ll have to excuse me, but I’ll need a bit more proof than that before I hand anything over.”
“Carswell said when the time was right, I should come to you and give you this.” She stood up and placed it on my desk. The golden heart basked in the weak light from my lamp’s 40-watt bulb.
I picked it up. “There’s a little tarnish on your heart.” 
She smiled. A gleaming 9 mm automatic appeared from the folds of her cape. “Give the item to me, Mr. Gannon. Now.”
I dove for my drawer and my .45, but she’d fired first. Two slugs bore into me, burning hot pokers of pain into my leg and my thigh, tearing into already scarred flesh. As I lay up against the wall in a pool of my own Type “O,” I looked up at her as smoke curled up from the barrel of her gun. We could both hear wail of sirens coming down the block. That’s what you get for having nosy neighbors. “Guess you lose, babe. You don’t get it.”
“Next time, Mr. Gannon,” she smiled, walking for the door. “Next time.”
She’d be back. And I don’t think it was because she loved me. As her heels clicked down the linoleum of the corridor and the sirens got closer, I slumped back against the wall. The pain shooting up through my body, it wasn’t nearly as bad as when I got shot up after jumping into France back in ‘44. But four years later, on damp mornings — which are most mornings in San Francisco — my knee still ached and I still walked with a cane. And I didn’t like the idea of carrying more lead in my body.
I looked up to the sound of flat feet charging up the hall. I knew the uniform that came through the door, gun drawn: Bertinelli. Holstering his revolver, he walked over and knelt beside me. “Jeez...Chance!”
“I’ll live,” I croaked. “Anyone see the woman who did this to me?”
“A skirt.” Bertinelli got to his feet, smiled as he picked up the phone to call for an ambulance. “Always figured it’d a be woman who’d do you in.”

Copyright 2013, Michael Cnudde
####


And the mystery, as they say, only deepeens.  Liking what you read?  You can buy The Key to My Hearherefor just $2.99. 

Meanwhile, you can help out a poor unemployed writer by purchasing my other two books, Elvis Saves JFK! for just 99 cents and War Plan Crimson, A Novel of Alternate History, for $2.99 (both are free to preview). Both books are also available through such fine on-line retailers such as Chapters Indigo, Barnes & Noble and Apple's iTunes Store.  And if you’re looking for an experienced marketing communications guy, do me a favor and have a look here. Thanks.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

The Key to My Heart Launches on Smashwords!


I must apologize.  I’ve missed a whole month on this blog; but rest assured it’s not been in vain.

I can now announce that my latest novel, The Key to My Heart is now on sale as an e-book via Smashwords.

Chance Gannon is washed-up P.I. who survives in post-war San Francisco by taking divorce cases and drinking himself to sleep at night. When he’s gunned down in his own office by a mysterious and beautiful femme fatale, it launches him on one last case that not only threatens his life, but the entire world!

The Key to My Heart is my homage to hardboiled detective fiction, complete with the femme fatale, the loyal girlfriend, and the hard-nosed cop who’d just as soon see Gannon behind bars.

But… if you know me, I’ve also thrown in a dash of SF – something about aliens and time-travelers, if you can believe that, plus a few other things.  But I'll say  no more, because I’d be spoiling it. 

As The Key to My Heart is not yet available through Smashword’s Premium distribution system, you can buy it here, for just $2.99. Watch this space for further announcements regarding this.

As an update, I'm also reading the latest installment in Taylor Anderson's long-running  Destroyermen series, The Iron Gray Sea.  I'll talk about it in a future posting.

Meanwhile, you can help out a poor unemployed writer by purchasing my other two books, Elvis Saves JFK! for just 99 cents and War Plan Crimson, A Novel of Alternate History, for $2.99 (both are free to preview). Both books are also available through such fine on-line retailers such as Chapters Indigo, Barnes & Noble and Apple's iTunes Store.  And if you’re looking for an experienced marketing communications guy, do me a favor and have a look here. Thanks.

Thursday, June 27, 2013

The Long Earth, by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter: A Review

This is one of my favourite new books.  


While The Long Earth is indeed about parallel earths, but as the authors very quickly point out, it is one on a grand scale.  “All those parallel earths are identicalon all but the detailed level,” one character points out early on, “Oh save that they are empty… this is tough luck on Adolf Hitler, who hasn’t been allowed to win his war anywhere!”

Imagine millions of earths coexisting with our earth on a slightly dimensional plane on ether side of this earth, and you get the picture.  Travel between the earths is possible by “stepping.”  Some use a device called a stepper (which when described, you can sense the whimsical hand of Pratchett behind it) while others seem to have a natural talent. Others can’t step at all.

Authors Pratchett (famous for his Discworld series) and Baxter (his Odyssey was reviewed in an earlier posting on this blog), with a mixture of humour, gentle satire and awe, paint a wide canvas of a world whose population one day awakens to realize that the old saying “there’s only one earth” no longer applies, but there are literally millions of new worlds the taking, and how the peoples of the earth wrestle with the vast implications of what now faces them.

The book has a number of characters and plots, but the main plot follows the path of an unlikely pair of a natural stepper, Joshua Valiente and an intelligent computer program who may have once been human, Lobsang, as they explore deep into the Long Earth to find the source of an impending disaster, sweeping in like a tidal wave of doom across the alternate universes, that will eventually overwhelm and destroy the home (or datum) earth, along with the entire Long Earth, if not stopped.

But that’s all I’m going to say here.  

My recommendation: if you’re looking for a great summer read that will keep you turning pages, buy this book. And then, of course, you’ll have to wait for the next book in the series, The Long War, coming soon.


Meanwhile, you can help out a poor unemployed writer by purchasing both Elvis Saves JFK! for just 99 cents and War Plan Crimson, A Novel of Alternate History, for $2.99 (both are free to preview). Both books are also available through such fine on-line retailers such as Chapters Indigo, Barnes & Noble and Apple's iTunes Store.  And if you’re looking for an experienced marketing communications guy, do me a favor and have a look here. Thanks.

Monday, June 3, 2013

Amelia Earhart’s Plane Found on Sonar?


Regular readers of this blog will know that we’ve closely followed the search for Amelia Earhart’s aircraft by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR). 

Now, perhaps, most intriguingly, their search may have paid off. TIGHAR'S long-standing mission has been to find the twin-engined Lockheed Electra that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan flew in while making the fateful Pacific leg of their round-the-world flight attempt, before vanishing in July 1937.

A sonar scan shows an “anomaly” resting in about 600 feet of water, off of Nikumaroro Island, which is some 350 miles from their planned destination, Howland Island.

Is this Earhart's Plane? - TIGHAR


This, along with a recently unearthed picture taken in October 1937, showing some debris closely resembling the landing gear of Earhart’s aircraft sticking out of the water off of Nikumaroro Island, is the strongest evidence unearthed thus far to suggest what happened to the plane.

But what happened to Earhart and Noonan?  Were they trapped in their plane when it crashed, perhaps rendered unconscious by the impact and couldn’t escape?  Did they make to the nearby island, where they managed to eke out an existence for a while? If so, what happened after that?

It’s likely these questions will never be fully answered and the mystery that had intrigued so many – including myself – for well over 75 years, will endure.  Amelia, of course, is a prominent character in my alternate history novel War Plan Crimson and has a short story all to herself in my alt-history collection, Elvis Saves JFK!

Meanwhile, you can help out a poor unemployed writer by purchasing both Elvis Saves JFK! for just 99 cents and War Plan Crimson, A Novel of Alternate History, for $2.99 (both are free to preview). Both books are also available through such fine on-line retailers such as Chapters Indigo, Barnes & Noble and Apple's iTunes Store.  And if you’re looking for an experienced marketing communications guy, do me a favor and have a look here. Thanks.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Poetic Justice - Part II

It’s not always parallel universes and alt-history on this blog. Sometimes it’s other stuff. Like poetry. Yes, poetry. You’ll remember how in this space, a few months back, I wrote about the release of the poetry anthology Poems from Planet Earth, from the good folks at Leaf Press and edited Yvonne Blomer and Cynthia Woodman Kerkham.

Well, the good news is that it’s finally out and the poetically-minded of you can order it online here.  




The book has its genesis in the Planet Earth poetry and spoken word series held every Friday night at the Moka House in Victoria.  I was honored to be a regular reader at the series that featured many fine poets, including Patrick Lane, Pamela Porter (a Governor General’s award winner for poetry).  I remain indebted to Yvonne and the others at Planet Earth for their graciousness and kindness (Hi Sheila! Hi David!).

I am also highly honored that I also have a poem included in the anthology… it’s also quoted in  a  chapter introduction, which also freaks me out a little. If you like poetry, or just remotely curious, I encourage you to give this book a try.

Meanwhile, you can help out a poor unemployed writer by purchasing both 
Elvis Saves JFK! for just 99 cents and War Plan Crimson, A Novel of Alternate History, for $2.99 (both are free to preview). Both books are also available through such fine on-line retailers such as Chapters Indigo, Barnes & Noble and Apple's iTunes Store.  And if you’re looking for an experienced marketing communications guy, do me a favor and have a look here. Thanks.