Three Captains and a Ranger—Classic TV at its Classiest.

Captain Z-Ro. Somewhere in a remote, uncharted region of the planet Earth stands the laboratory of CAPTAIN Z-RO. In this secret location, known only to a few in the outside world, CAPTAIN Z-RO and his associates experiment in TIME and SPACE ...to learn from the past ...plan for the future...

Okay, who would not love an intro like that? Who could turn the channel? And yes, I said turn, for Captain Z-Ro existed in the old days and on the old TVs. Imagine: you had to get up, walk to the TV, and manually turn the channel. Oh, the pain! And the sparkling black-and-white. Love it!

Captain Z-Ro had, in my humble opinion, the coolest mustache and beard combo. Ever. Check it out: Z is on the right, with his pesky kid sidekick Jet beside him. Z sent Jet into the past to correct incipient errors before they could reverberate down through time and change stuff. Like, really important stuff. But the helmet made it all worthwhile, don't you think?

 

 

Then we have Captain Video. Poor, missing Captain Video with his really cool title card:

 

 

 

Lots of renowned science fiction writers penned episodes of this tragically lost series, including Isaac Asimov, Damon Knight, Jack Vance and Arthur C. Clarke. One can't help but wonder which one of these greats came up with the absolutely coolest and most perfect villain's name in the history of scifi and all else of vast importance: Chauncey Everett.

 

Okay, maybe you had to be there.  

Very few episodes survive today because of some idiot who burned most of them back in the 1970s. Whoever committed such a heinous crime, I hope he is now paying for his dastardly crimes. Painfully.  

And then there's Rocky Jones, Space Ranger. Clean-cut, square-jawed Rocky and his crew used either the Orbit Jet XV-2 or, later in the series, the suspiciously similar Silver Moon XV-3. We were often treated to a glimpse of the Orbit Jet/Silver Moon, looking like a V2 rocket—remember, this was only a few years after the end of WWII—setting down in what appeared to be a power station. Something very much like this, in fact:

 

 

Seriously futuristic, Rocky's spaceship had electronic viewscreens—most other early TV scifi made do with a plain old window or at most a porthole—elaborate control panels sans wheel or stick, powered doors that OPENED WHEN YOU APPROACHED, a cloaking device, subspace radio—hmm, sound familiar to anyone? Anyone?—and artificial gravity which was actually explained and occasionally used as a plot device.

Clearly, this was one 50s series that was decades ahead of its time. And Rocky himself was a babe:

 

 

And, though he didn't actually spend time in space, I also had a thing for Captain Midnight, also a babe:

 

Captain Midnight had a penchant for standing around with his hands on his hips, and he had a lovely booming voice. And he was a hero, of course.

 

Charming, upbeat, endlessly positive, everyone looking forward to an exciting future in space and time, heroes who always saved the day…

Is it any wonder I loved these series as a kid? And they obviously affect me still and even unto this day...

 

Let's Give Adverbs a Little Love for Valentine's Day

Pity the poor adverb, the least respected, most abused part of speech.

First of all, there’s the brawny verb, always doing something energetic, kind of the Hulk of grammar, smashing or running or jumping or, in some case, simply being. Run. Dance. Write. Laugh. Exterminate. You can almost hear his shirt tearing.

Then there are the nouns, the prima donnas of the parts of speech. "We’re the names of things," they whine. "Everything, but everything has a naaaame." Table. Chair. Computer. Pen, paper, ink…you can understand how nouns have swollen heads. They’re surrounded, submerged, all but drowning in things they represent.

And where there are nouns, there must be adjectives, the handmaidens, the servants, the toadies. We can't just have a table; oh, no. We have to have a large, wooden, shiny, heavy, sturdy, gleaming, antique table. It’s not just a pen; it’s a fine-point black-ink gel pen. The sky is blue, or gray or cloudy. The sun is a brilliant bright orange. Adjectives: the sycophants of grammar.

But as if nouns didn’t already have swollen heads about themselves, they also have to have an entire class of words to take their place. It’s almost as if the poor overworked nouns need to run off to the Hamptons for a long weekend once a month or more, so bring in the pronouns. While my sister is slathering on sunscreen, she is taking her place in a sentence. Even our old bright brilliant friend the sun may be off dancing with the moon, while it is subbing way up in the sky.

Prepositions, conjunctions, interjections, all little guys wandering around in sentences, but they get plenty of notice and pats on their little heads. Prepositions even get objects, and conjunctions are like chains or pivot points, joining up things. And don’t even get me started on interjections, those excitable little dudes who get exclamation points! Wow! Cool! Awesome!

Then, sneaking along behind, embarrassed to be seen, picking up crumbs at the grammar banquet with their little –ly tails dragging in the dust behind them, there’s the lowly adverb. Gone are the adverbial glory days—if they ever existed. Read what Mark Twain had to say about the poor little guys:

"I am dead to adverbs; they cannot excite me. To misplace an adverb is a thing which I am able to do with frozen indifference; it can never give me a pang. ... There are subtleties which I cannot master at all,--they confuse me, they mean absolutely nothing to me,--and this adverb plague is one of them. ... Yes, there are things which we cannot learn, and there is no use in fretting about it. I cannot learn adverbs; and what is more I won't." 

Even Stephen King said "The road to hell is paved with adverbs."  

Ouch! Well, yes, okay, it’s true. Adverbs can be a sign of weak writing, a cry for stronger verbs. But don’t they deserve a little respect instead of being ostracized and sent into the outer darkness? If someone is eating voraciously, isn’t that easier to say than ‘as if he hasn’t had a meal in days’ if only for word count alone? 

I confess it, loud and proud: I have any unholy passion for the red-headed step-child of grammar, the lowly adverb. So sue me.  

And don’t even get me started on the tragic semicolon, poor, misunderstood bastard child of a period and a comma…

Doc and Monk and Ham and Rennie and Long Tom and Johnny.....and Lamont

Pulp. I love pulp. I remember when they began publishing the reprints of the Doc Savage novels. I read one and was hooked. Of course, I'd already known and loved H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, plus many many many of my favorite science fiction and fantasy writers started out in pulp.

For many readers today, pulp means the golden age, the 20s, 30s, 40s, cheap but engrossing entertainment before TV and gaming and comics. The old heroes: Tarzan, Buck Rogers, The Spider, The Shadow, Doc and his Fabulous Five and all the rest.  

But there are new pulp heroes being created every day. And the brilliant dean of pulp historians, Tom Johnson, and his wife, the equally knowledgeable Ginger--friends of mine, I'm proud and happy to brag--have produced a new book on the new pulp heroes called, you guessed it: NEW PULP HEROES. It's only available from Tom himself under his imprint, Fading Shadows, and, if you're lucky, he might even autograph it. My own copy is in the mail as we speak, since I ordered it as soon as I found out about it.

 

So if you love pulp as much as I do, then do yourself a favor: Go ye forth and do likewise.

 Here's the cover and ordering information:

 NEW PULP HEROES now available in 280-page paperback from FADING SHADOWS, $12.00, plus $3.99 postage (US). Tom& Ginger Johnson compile 56 essays on new pulp characters, plus 2 essays on villains, plus much more data. Also included are new pulp fiction stories by grandma & grandpa Johnson: “The Mind Master” by Tom, and “The Origin of Mr. Minus” by Ginger. This will only be sold through FADING SHADOWS. This is very likely the first of several books that will chronicle the history of new pulp heroes, and their creators. Order from Tom Johnson, 204 W. Custer St., Seymour, TX or contact fadingshadows40@gmail.com   

 

 

2014 Untreed Reads Reading Challenge

Just got the below from one of my publishers, Untreed Reads. It sounds like an awesome deal to me...and if you'd like to check out some of my work there--for free!--I'd really appreciate it!

 

Here's the info:

 

 

Hello, everyone!

January is typically the month where people set all types of goals and challenges for themselves. One type of very popular challenge is to read a certain number of books over the course of the year.

We think reading is pretty essential to a happy life, and challenging yourself to read more over the course of a year will keep your brain as healthy as giving up chocolate cake or soft drinks. So we want to make it even easier to help you meet that goal.

We've setup The 2014 Untreed Reads Ebook Challenge to get everyone's brains all fired up. If you'd like to participate, all you need to do is the following:

1. Send your name and email address to 2014Challenge@untreedreads.com . If you're participating in another reading challenge on the Internet, be sure to let us know that too. We won't EVER share your info with anyone else, but we'll add you to our New Releases newsletter so you can see the great new books coming down the pike...plus get even more coupons!

2. Each month we'll send you a coupon good for a free download from our store (http://store.untreedreads.com). You can choose any title up to $5.99 and in any format you prefer: EPUB, PDF or Kindle.

3. Read the book and leave a review in our store and as many other places you can, such as Amazon and Goodreads. Please leave an honest review! You'll also need to include in your review that you received a free copy of the book in exchange for a review. The government requires that. Darn red tape!

Don't break your resolution to stop procrastinating! We're only accepting sign-ups through January 31st, so be sure to take advantage of this great opportunity!

 

Both Beauty and Beastliness are in the Eye of the Beholder

We all love fairy tales as kids, and some of us continue to love them forever. Good old Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were onto something when they started collected the dark and creepy stories from the past. But 'Beauty and the Beast' wasn't from the Grimm boys. This is a truly French story: gorgeous girl falls in love with frighteningly ugly creature, entirely against her better judgment, thus breaking a curse and turning him all pretty. Happy ending, yay!

But when Greta Garbo saw Jean Cocteau's 1946 movie version of the fairytale, La Belle et la Bête, and the star, Jean Marais, turned from delicious, desirable, delectable, deadly Beast to wimpy guy, she famously said: 'Give me back my beautiful beast.'

Right there with you, girl. The Beast, at least in that movie, won hands down for style, charisma and general awesomeness against his 'human' counterpart.

 When I wanted to write something fairy tale-ish, I decided to retell this story with a bit of a gender switch. I wanted to see how a young man, smart but a little naïve, would deal with a strong woman who hides her face from him at all times. The result turned into a tragic love story with magical interludes and lots and lots of books.

In my opinion, every story should have lots and lots of books. And then some more.

So if you love fairytales, I'd appreciate it if you'd give 'The Beauty in the Beast' a read and let me know how you liked it. It's free for a short time at Smashwords. And here's the cover:

 

 

Review: THE DARDANELLES by Richard Freeman

I review books for Endeavour Press, which publishes a lot of history. I love history, and World War I aka The War to End All Wars, is one of my favorite time periods.

Recently, I read THE DARDANELLES by Richard Freeman; here's my review:

Gallipoli. The Dardanelles. In many ways, these names evoke one of the most disastrous events in an entirely new kind of disastrous war. But who was to blame for the tragedy of the Dardanelles campaign? In Richard Freeman's fascinating, detailed and downright horrifying book The Dardanelles: Brilliant Conception and Tragic Failure, it's clear that nearly everyone involved must share culpability.

Churchill was blamed for forcing the idea of invading the Dardanelles on a reluctant War Council, though in fact he didn't agree with Kitchener about the importance of the campaign.

Lord Kitchener, for all his popularity, was used to a far different sort of war.

Vice Admiral Carden, Commander of the Mediterranean Squadron, was ordered to bomb the Turkish forts to submission in order to clear the way for ground forces; the admiral was weak, elderly and sent vague reports about the Turkish resistance being 'reduced', though in fact little damage could be done from guns created to fight other ships and not forts situated high in the hills.

Sir Ian Hamilton, the general in charge of the ground forces, was sent out from London at a moment's notice, with no plans, out of date maps, no staff, and a supply system that was ludicrously inadequate. When he begged—again and again—for more troops and more ammunition, Kitchener and the War Council ignored his pleas, or else responded with too little, and far too late. And as the casualties mounted, horror grew back home.

Freeman's prose is clear and eloquent as he demonstrates again and again how badly things were managed…and how hideously British and ANZAC soldiers suffered due to this mismanagement.

A powerful, intense, almost day-by-day description of one of the most famous and bloody campaigns of The Great War. Highly recommended.    

~K.G. McAbee

Fritz Leiber: Father of Sword and Sorcery

I've loved Fritz Leiber's work—specifically his stories about Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser—since, well, forever. Fafhrd was a huge, muscular bulky Northern barbarian draped in furs, with a massive sword he named Graywand. You'd think he'd be the practical, no-nonsense sort, but he tended to be a bit romantic. The Gray Mouser, on the other hand, was a small, sneaky former thief, who dressed in gray, obviously, and called his sword Scalpel and his knife Cat's Claw. The Mouser came across, indeed was, cynical and businesslike, but with a sneaky sentimentality that was endlessly endearing. In many ways, they reminded me of the immortal Monk and Ham—Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair and Theodore Marley Brooks, to introduce them formally, though we Doc Savage fans have no need to be so formal. Both relationships seemed to be endless squabbling intersected by fights—but the love and respect between the characters was always there.

Both Fafhrd and the Mouser had been apprentices to wizards, and who could not love the wizards' names: Ningauble of the Seven Eyes, with eye stalks that kept sneaking out of his hood; Sheelba of the Eyeless Face, on the other hand, was, as his nom de sorcier clearly states, optically challenged.

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are rogues, of course. Most of their time is spent wenching, drinking, wenching, brawling, wenching, gambling, wenching, stealing and I seem to recall a bit of wenching as well. Their swords and many other talents are for rent to the highest bidder, but they have a deep rooted humanity, and Fafhrd liked kittens. But their most constant and intense love was for pure, true adventure, back to back against the world.

 My kind of guys.

So when I first started writing, as we all do when we first begin, I wanted to write something Leiber-ish and Fafhrd/Mouser-ish. So I wrote 'Jewels of a False God' which I recently dusted off and published at Smashwords. Cover is below.

Just wanted to say thanks, Fritz Leiber, for so much enjoyment.