Author: andersrunestad

Screw Punch Now Available, and More on the Way

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It was such a doozy writing a 100th post that my next update took too long to get here.

But my first novel Screw Punch is now out.

And two recent short stories are also available, both with long titles that I’m here going to just call Power Plant and Nocturnal Incident.

Two more novels in the Maize Noir world of Midwestern themed crime fiction are coming, Spider’s Wine and Attack Therapy.  They are written and on the way this year, but now is the time for Part 1 of this loosely connected trilogy. So, without further ado, let’s close with an excerpt from Screw Punch:

She had nothing left to do but help Kim find her tool and get out of there.

So she paused to look into a wall mirror above the little microwave that sat on the inadequate table. Her hair had been pulled up in a pony tail that she now released to shake her hair around and regather in her hands.

As she shaped her hair together into a thick stream, she noticed absentmindedly that the closet door was open by a small crack.

She looked up critically at the mirror, noticing straight white-blond hairs that were escaping her pony tail and that she smoothed back over her scalp with both hands. Then she pulled off the hair tie, rested it on two fingers, and grabbed all of her hair and bunched it all within one petite fist.

And then she stopped, frozen, and hair began to drift down. In the mirror, her eyes enlarged and her mouth opened silently.

A pair of eyes was staring back at her from the closet.

Remembering from 2018 . . .

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Some folks no longer with us.

I meant to comment on Harlan Ellison’s passing. A writer who influenced so many people, and probably as much for his never dull, frequently entertaining personality displayed in many public appearances. I was more of a fan in my teen years than when older, but I always enjoyed his comments and just knowing that he was out there.

And, of course, he wrote one of Star Trek‘s greatest episodes:

Also, Steve Ditko. When I was a whippersnapper, I found a torn copy of Doctor Strange Classics in a comic shop, getting it from a reject bunch for something like four-for-a-dollar along with a beat-up Silver Age Tales to Astonish.  Ditko’s surrealist, psychedelic art was mind-boggling, and led me to further joy reading his original Spider-Man stories in Marvel Tales.

Here’s a book-themed (and groovy) look at the weird wonder of the art of Ditko:

And . . . Dolores O’Riordan of the Cranberries. The voice of otherworldly nineties Celtic pop music, and a band that was one of the best things about the nineties:

Rest in peace.

Stan Lee, Rest in Peace

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A big, big part of my childhood and those of so many others.

I know I’m not the only one who read “Stan’s Soapbox” in the Marvel Comics “Bullpen Bulletins” and hung on every word like it was cosmic wisdom, at least up to a certain age.  And there was the narration he did for that Spider-Man cartoon in the early ’80s, and all the other appearances.

Since I was such a nerd about reading credits in the comics, I knew that he didn’t write them all by the time I was reading the comics of the late 70s and early 80s, but he was still this benevolent presence in the background of everything Marvel.  And then I found the reprints of old Amazing Spider-Man and others more interesting at some point, and then really discovered Mr. Lee’s talent for cranking these stories out, month after month.  Anyone who can write at that level–regular, little time in between, always entertaining–is a great writer.

And this video takes me back to those days when Stan was Marvel Comics (and see the very insightful writing question from an audience member at 1:30).  Rest in peace, Stan, and Excelsior!