Congratulate Mike on his Staff Pick Kickstarter Campaign! Veteran author Michael Jan Friedman is writing a historical fantasy for reluctant readers based on the advent of the Gregorian Calendar in 1582.
“I know,” Friedman said. “Who in his right mind would want to write a book about a calendar? Especially one that’s been around for almost half a millennium?” Nonetheless, he insists, Lost Days is an exciting adventure, steeped in intrigue and the interplay of magical forces. As a history teacher, he is enthusiastic about what the book can mean to students for whom history is a turn-off.
“I’m talking in particular about kids who grew up in underprivileged circumstances,” he said, “kids who never got the chance to see history for the splendid and fascinating tapestry it is. These are the kids I see in my classroom every day. This book is for them.” Friedman said he hopes to capture the attention of these readers with “monsters and demons and blood and death, and magic, and courage, and crazy schemes, and even love. These are story elements that kids, any kids, can latch onto.”
He is financing the publication and distribution of Lost Days through a Kickstarter campaign. Anyone who wishes to back the project can do so at http://bit.ly/MJFlostdays.
I am not entirely certain who I offended when I was assigned to work with the subject known as DuckBob Spinowitz. The Grays, an extraterrestrial race, found something worthy in him and made him a sort of guardian of the galaxy. He was tethered to The Matrix, seeing all and responsible for keeping peace and order.
Our agency is sworn to help him and somehow I became his handler. Then his partner. Now, I suppose, I call him a friend.
When we first met, I considered him a juvenile delinquent, a lab rat, and a loaded gun, a menace to Earth and the universe as a whole. But then things happened and he accomplished things that I thought difficult nigh unto impossible. And he did it after having his human head morphed into that of a mallard, literally becoming DuckBob.
He’s lazy and is the textbook definition of a slob. Yet, he somehow manages to keep tabs on the myriad alien races populating the known universe. I can’t tell a Yridian from a May-bin-yo but he can and right there I can admire him.
I once described my job to him, “What we do, it’s dangerous. Really dangerous. We’re facing aliens all the time that’re bigger than we are, stronger than we are, faster than we are, smarter than we are, and a lot of ’em have way better tech than we do—and much bigger guns. We’re putting ourselves at risk every day, in order to protect the American people and their way of life.”
DuckBob has to worry about the entire universe.
And there are times I think the universe worries about him. I just got word, the universe apparently feels it owes DuckBob some kind of debt. They’ve found a way for him to do his job without being connected 24/7 to the Matrix. He’s been brought to Earth to taste freedom for the first time in years.
My task: keep him safe and keep him close because they may have freed him, but I also know the universe is a joker. Something’s coming for DuckBob and I have to keep him safe.
God help me, but we need DuckBob. And I need my friend (not that you need to tell him that).
DuckBob (and Tall) will return this fall in Three Small Coinkydinks.
Crazy 8 Press will return to Shore Leave this weekend — and we have lots of exciting news to share! And a shirt to give away!
Not only will we be celebrating our third anniversary as Crazy 8 Press, but we’ll be unveiling our schedule of upcoming new books! Over the next year or so we have multiple titles set to come your way … and we think you’re gonna love ’em!
In fact … we’ve got a brand new book — Tales of the Crimson Keep — that we’ll be debuting at Shore Leave!
For the convention itself, six members of our author team – Russ Colchamiro, Peter David, Michael Jan Friedman, Robert Greenberger, Glenn Hauman, and Aaron Rosenberg – will be on hand all three days, participating in a wide variety of panels as befit their myriad professional experiences and interests. We’ll be talking books, and movies, and TV and everything fun and awesome that’s scifi.
Now let’s talk Tales of the Crimson Keep.
For the big unveiling … Friday evening from 10 p.m. until Midnight we’ll be a part of the Meet the Pros party where our first ever Crazy 8 Press anthology will be making its first appearance. This book is an outgrowth of the story “Demon Circle’, a creepy, funny, magical tale written by the Crazy 8 Press co-founders in 2011 as part of our team’s premiere event. We all took turns writing the story, based on an opening line contributed by Kevin Dilmore, another convention guest this year, in a tight, tiny public space, adding to the challenge. The original tale was released as an eBook with proceeds benefiting the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
Tales of the Crimson Keep includes “Demon Circle’ as well as seven brand new stories set in this shared universe, along with an introduction from Dilmore. Print copies debut this weekend and Kindle and Nook editions should be available within the next week.
As a part of the weekend celebration, we will be giving away a copy of Tales of the Crimson Keep though Goodreads.
Our Crazy 8 Press panel will be held on Sunday at 1 p.m. where we will chat, make you laugh and even give away a Crazy 8 Press polo shirt.
As always, we’re excited to mix and mingle with everyone, because, let’s face it … the fans are what keep us going. And we’re proud to say our fans are awesome. :)
So come join us in the Concierge suite for a rollicking good time with Crazy 8 Press
I’ve written 72 of them, y’know. And that’s not counting comic books, TV scripts, etc. And you’re asking me to name my favorite?
Hmm…I’ve naturally got to consider my most recent novels, all of which bear the noble Crazy 8 Press insignia. After all, these are my purest visions, the tales closest to my heart.
For instance, Fight The Gods, the roller-coaster-ride of a New York City cop who finds out he’s not what he seems. At all. One reader described this novel as “Percy Jackson for adults.” Not a bad tag line, that.
And then there are the Aztlan stories, noir murder mysteries set in an alternate-reality, 21st-century Aztec Empire. As I often tell readers of these novellas, you’re gonna love Maxtla Colhua, Imperial Investigator. I do. (Then again, I invented him…)
Of course, no list of my favorite “kids” would be complete without I Am The Salamander, set to be released this fall, in which young cancer survivor Tim Cruz endures a metamorphosis even Kafka never dreamed of. You think it’d be nifty to have super-powers? Think again.
The Hammer and the Horn–a swords-and-sorcery adventure steeped in Norse mythology–would have to be up there too. It was, after all, the first book I ever sold, way back in the 1980s. And it paved the way for The Seekers and The Sword and The Fortress and The Fire, the rest of the Vidar Saga trilogy, all of which is being re-released here at Crazy 8 Press.
But my favorite? That might be Starfleet: Year One. And I’ll tell you why.
About fifteen years ago, then-Star Trek editor John Ordover asked me to write a serial that would appear in the back of every Trek novel for twelve consecutive months. I’d long been intrigued by an unexplored territory: the beginnings of Starfleet, 200 years before Captain Kirk, and the captains that would have been the first to boldly go.
I based my serial loosely on The Right Stuff, except the dividing line that ran through the first crop of Starfleet captains was whether they were a) pilots forged in the furnace of the Romulan War or b) scientists–”butterfly catchers” I called them. As we Trek historians know, Starfleet ended up drawing on the perspectives of both camps. But which of these captains-in-conflict would end up commanding the new, state-of-the-art Daedalus–the prize in their philosophical struggle?
I loved writing this story. I loved the characters. I loved the way it dovetailed with Trek continuity. I loved the way it advanced the greater epic. This, I thought at the time, was my best work.
Anyway, the serial was well-received. The plan, after a while, was to add a little more material and turn it into a freestanding novel called Starfleet: Year One, which would soon be followed by Years Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, and Seven. I was stoked.
Until I found myself sitting next to Rick Berman’s sister at a party. Her name was Judy, and she was a lovely woman whom I had met before. Rick, her brother, was Gene Roddenberry’s successor as honcho of the Trek franchise at Paramount. “Judy,” I said, “you’ve got to tell me about this fifth series that’s coming out. You know I won’t tell anyone.” Judy looked around to make sure no one was eavesdropping and said beneath her breath, “Think two hundred years before Kirk.”
Which was pretty much what Starfleet: Year One was about.
In the days that followed, Paramount almost put the kibosh on the Starfleet: Year One book. The compromise we obtained was that it would come out, but there would be no Year Two, etc. And Year One would bear a disclaimer that it had nothing to do with the events depicted in Star Trek: Enterprise.
So all those captains I invented, painstakingly modeling their origins and personalities, carefully intertwining them with established Trek history? You’ll only see them in Starfleet: Year One.
On the other hand, as we know all too well, nothing in science fiction is defunct forever…
With the super awesome power of my books, that is.
Sometimes it’s a hoot, poking fun, or just calling out the absurdities of life by going over the top with some goofy character or hyped-up scenario.
And sometimes it just doesn’t fit. I’ll explain:
In FINDERS KEEPERS, I crafted a scene with the character of Donald — a 40ish, balding worker-bee called into the CEO’s office; an office in Eternity, the realm that oversees the construction of all celestial bodies in the Universe.
In this scene, the CEO was in the process of humiliating his secretary, yet again, simply because he could.
The elevators had gone out in the building, yet the CEO was forcing his secretary to walk down some 40 flights of stairs to retrieve his lunch order. And, of course, the CEO did all this through an intercom, adding to the humiliation.
Donald, who happened to walk into this scene, volunteered to do the grunt work, sparing the secretary this mortifying task. Ultimately, it did not go well for anyone.
The reason I crafted this scene to begin with — hey, it was fun to write and it helped with Donald’s character development — is that it’s based on a true story, as amazing as that may sound.
I hate bullies and weasels, and saw this as a perfect opportunity to ‘stick it to the man’ with what I thought was a well-crafted scene.
Only one problem.
As far as FINDERS KEEPERS went, the scene — while effective unto itself — was not critical to advancing the overall plot of the novel, and slowed down the pace.
So even though I spent the better part of two weeks fine-tuning the action, and as much as I hated to do so, I cut it from the manuscript.
I still have hopes that I’ll find another place for this scene; it may yet show up in the third and final book of the first FINDERS KEEPERS trilogy, or perhaps I’ll use it in one of the spin-off books I have in mind. Or maybe I’ll never find the right spot. Tough to tell.
In any case, as an author, it’s sometimes tough to take one of your favorite children and slip them into a drawer.
Then again, that’s the beauty of there being so many pinheads in the world. There’s always another chance to stick it to the man.
At long last, the moment you’ve all been waiting for—the first glimpse of the cover to the all-new Crazy 8 Press anthology Tales of the Crimson Keep!
In a way, this book has been three years in the making—at least, the first story involving the Crimson Keep, “Demon Circle,” was created three years ago. Right around the same time that Crazy 8 Press itself officially began. Now here we are, three years later, with over a dozen books to our collective name, yet this is the first time every member of the team has contributed to the same project. And we’re debuting it at Shore Leave (Hunt Valley Inn, Hunt Valley, MD, August 1-3), the fan-run SF convention where Crazy 8 started and where, three years ago, we wrote “Demon Circle” as a round-robin story out in the exhibit hall.
If you’re at the show, come by and see us, pick up a copy, and get all of us (sans Paul, who will be there in spirit and possibly in effigy) to sign it. And if you can’t make it don’t worry, you’ll still be able to buy the book online or from us at any of our other con appearances. It will be available in ebook formats soon after the convention as well.
Congratulate Mike on his Staff Pick Kickstarter Campaign! Veteran author Michael Jan Friedman is writing a historical fantasy for reluctant readers based on the advent of the Gregorian Calendar in 1582. 
