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Monday, January 29, 2007
My latest Storytellers Unplugged essay is live. Here...
Target Acquired
And it's archive time again...
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
My author
copies of
Blue Devil Island arrived today, so I reckon it's
officially a book. As always, Five Star Books did a bang-up job.
This is one nicely produced hardcover volume, with a
sharp-looking dust jacket and the art printed on the bound cover
itself. Reviews have been kind, and I hope readers will enjoy
the hell out of this book. I can't be terribly objective, so I
don't know if I can say it's the best book I've written,
but it's one of the most gratifying, as it touches on so many
areas of personal interest (military history being but one of
them) and explores my personal feelings about fellowship between
people, martial conflict, and hope in the midst of fairly
serious darkness. While writing the novel, the characters many
of whom are directly or indirectly based on folks of my personal
acquaintance came so alive to me that when I wrote the finale,
I found myself getting rather emotional. Talk about a rarity;
only two other of my works ("Stalker of the Wild Wind"
and "Fugue Devil") have had such an effect on me.
Anyhoo, if you're checking out this entry, I hope you'll check
out the book. I think it'll be worth your while.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Spent a
mostly
relaxing weekend in Virginia, very pleasant but for a lot of
physical discomfort from the damned diverticulitis. Yesterday, I
rode up to Ferrum College, where, back in the dark ages, I spent
a couple of years building up smarts. It's a picturesque area in
the southwestern Virginia mountains, and I spent much of the day
cruising the backroads, getting in some serious walking, and
general meditating. There's a long story behind it, but someone
out on route 666 in Henry County may find an excerpt of the
dreaded
Necronomicon near a little graveyard in the woods. I,
however, know not the first thing about it. Really.
Also got in some serious work on my latest, The Monarchs
of Harrow, and I reckon I'm somewhere near the halfway
mark. It isn't progressing all that rapidly, what with so much
else in the world forcing me to keep pace with it, but on the
other hand, it's shaping up to be a monstrously good book. Not
as monstrous as The Necronomicon, of course, but
monstrous nonetheless.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Last
week, I did a wee bit of updating to my James Bond 007
soundtrack Web site, and tonight, I made the biggest addition
it's seen in about two years a review of the
Casino Royale soundtrack, which I finished up
writing this evening. This site is strictly a hobby-thing, me
being such a Bond fanatic and all, so I don't devote much time
to it these days. However, since the latest Bond did get me all
hot and bothered, I've had a field day watching the movies and
listening to the soundtrack CDs. In general, I rather like the
Casino Royale score, though it suffers from the
same shortcomings as all of David Arnold's scores: a lack of
distinctive themes. The biggest disappointment of all is that
the excellent title track, "You Know My Name," by Chris Cornell
isn't even included on the album.
Anyway, if Bond is at all your bag, you may find my review page
here.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Wowie. I
hate to keep beating this subject to death well, sort of but
right on the heels of
The Edge
review of
Blue Devil Island, Library
Journal features one in the current issue. And it's
a nice one:
"In 1943, U.S. Navy pilot Lt. Cr. Drew McLachlan and his Blue
Devils are based on Conquest Island west of the Solomons in the
South Pacific. Their duty: to battle the Japanese and prevent
them from capturing the strategically important islands.
Conquest Island, however, holds a dark secret in its volcanic
caves, one that testifies to an older, stranger group of
inhabitants who may still dwell within the darkness and whose
very existence poses a threat even greater than the Japanese.
Rainey (The Lebo Coven) skillfully mixes military
fiction with alien encounters to present a fast-paced tale of
wartime heroics and unearthly terrors. A good selection for
large sf or horror collections."
Both
Publisher's Weekly and Library Journal
have smiled on the book almost to my surprise. It's horror,
it's World War II, and I almost expected that, having such
specialized subject matter, it might pass below radar. I'm kinda
glad that's not the case.
Over the last couple of days, I did end up visiting both my eye
doctor and primary care doctor, due to some vision issues that
have turned out to be a result of high blood pressure. I'm going
to be taking some medication for a few weeks and then go back in
for more testing to see how things look.
I'm sure it's all the wife's fault. I shall deal with her in the
appropriate manner.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Another
review of
Blue Devil Island, also thankfully a positive
one, just up at The Edge, a Boston-based
alternative news and entertainment site. An interview with ye
muddling author will be following quite soon, I'm told. Here:
The Edge Reviews Blue Devil Island.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Five Star Books always sends out a
fair number of advance review copies, not only to mainstream and
speculative fiction publications, but also to several that cater
to the romance genre. I was wondering whether any of them would
actually review
Blue Devil Island, and sure enough, it appears that
Romance Reviews Today will be featuring it in their
January 20 edition. They sent me an advance look, an excerpt of
which follows:
"Blue Devil Island is an action-adventure story
that pays homage to the works of H. P. Lovecraft. Men at war see
enough evil, in the enemy and in themselves, but what can they
do when faced with an evil from another universe? Fight to the
death, thats what! Mr. Rainey writes his aerial combat scenes
with great attention to detail; the culture of military life in
a far outpost is harsh, with little comfort and constant danger.
I was reminded of the movie Bridge on the River Kwai
in which soldiers held prisoner in a jungle ultimately triumph
over their captors. McLachlan and his men come to the island
expecting to do battle with an enemy they understand and find
unspeakable evil seeking to enslave them all. Readers who enjoy
a World War II setting with plenty of action and thrills should
pick up Blue Devil Island."
That's a sweet one, and I'm grateful they saw fit to publicize
the novel. I'm not sure how big it's going to be with the
romance crowd, since it doesn't feature a single female, or any
moments of throbbing erotic passion, but hey I'll welcome any
reader who wants to give it a shot. So, thanks, RRT.
Now, the book does feature lots of guns
with
great big barrels going off....
Saturday, January 6, 2007
The epitome
of passive resistance. Evidently, it's not time to put
away the Christmas decorations.
Thursday,
January 4, 2007
The arrival
of every new new year for the last several has been a rude
reminder that there's just something terribly wrong with a year
that begins with a "two." All my young life, any year in the
2000s signified the distant future, filled with rocket ships,
moonbases, underwater cities, mile-high skyscrapers, and all
that good stuff from the science fiction of the 20th century.
And dammit, I'm still in my young life! Really!
Tonight, I watched
Licence to Kill, which is a
much under-rated, pretty damn decent Bond movie. Timothy Dalton
did a very good job as 007, particularly in this entry. It's a
flawed film, to be sure, but it's one in which Bond's character
is very true to the Fleming novels, which for me is always a big
selling point.
Peg's been at my mom's these last few days while recovering from
her surgery so I can go to work rather than stay home and play
nursemaid. (Not that I terribly mind missing work to play
nursemaid.) She'll be back tomorrow, though, so tonight's my last
as a swingin' bachelor for some time. So what did I do? I turned
up the movie real loud.
I discovered tonight that Bob Freeman gave
The Lebo Coven the treatment at his
Byte Marks blog, and he was not terribly displeased with it.
I'm always pleased when someone who is much larger and more
powerful than I, and has a knack for writing about the grim
things that happen to displeasing people, is not displeased.
Thank you sincerely, Bob; you are quite the gentleman.
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