As with all great stories, Crossline was inspired by — what else — a girl.
I’ll explain.
Crossline is actually the melding of two completely disparate ideas I developed a dozen years apart. Back in the late ‘90s, I had an idea for a sci-fi comic book mini-series. A buddy of mine helped me see how big Crossline could really be, so I upped the action and then we put the very beginning of Crossline into layout. But the comic book never took off, so to speak.
Yeah. Okay, great. But … what’s this about a girl?
Well … back in high school I had a crush on a redhead, who was a tried and true American Irish lass who also happened to be fiery and passionate about all things Ireland and the IRA. So of course I had to write about it, because who better to capture ‘the troubles’ then a 16-year-old Jewish kid from Long Island who knew absolutely nothing about Ireland?
And so a trilogy of short stories came to be. They were lumpy and unpolished, but there was a real cross-border love story set within political action and intrigue, and each story was an improvement over the last. The framework for something special was in place.
(For the record, I never published the stories, and to my chagrin at the time, I never got the girl.)
And yet … I held onto the story idea, and when at long last I saw how the sci-fi component could really raise the stakes to this human drama, I started writing the novel. It took almost 25 years, but Crossline has finally arrived.
The space adventure gets the action rolling, but there’s a saga that comes with it. And lest this all sounds a bit heavy … fear not. I replaced the original teenaged angst with some philosophical musings, cosmic shenanigans, and loads of humor, cuz like Plato himself liked to say, that’s just how I roll (or maybe it was Confucius, I forget).
In any case, if Crossline sounds like your kinda thing, it will be available both in print and e-book through my pals at Crazy8 Press. Coming soon.
At Farpoint’s 20th Anniversary convention, Crazy 8 Press held a panel discussion, previewing plans for the first half of 2013.
Peter David, Aaron Rosenberg, Glenn Hauman, Bob Greenberger, and Mike Friedman addressed the audience about the great response to the first 18 months of operation. They were also candid about the pitfalls many digital publishers are facing which is marketing and publicity.
In addition to the already released sixth installment of Latchkeys, the convention saw the debut of the Latchkeys omnibus Splinters, and Aztlan, collecting the first two novellas in Mike’s new Aztec detective series.
Coming in March will be Crossline, the first book from an outsider to C8, Russ Colchamiro. Additionally, the omnibus edition of Peter David’s Pulling up Stakes will be available.
In May, the second ReDeus collection, Beyond Borders, will be released, followed in June by Fearless by Peter David. The former will be a set of tales featuring the gods outside of North America while the latter is a sequel to Peter’s charming and underrated Tigerheart.
In time for Shore Leave, Crazy 8 will release Native Lands the third volume in the ReDeus series along with a Crazy 8 surprise project, still under wraps for the moment.
Aaron will be releasing Three Small Coinkydinks, the third installment in his hilarious DuckBob series of stories.
Additional titles and projects will be unveiled as the year moves along, culminating in August for our second anniversary.
Up until now our little gang at Crazy 8 has published books by just our little band of writers — the founding members, as we like say (ahem-hem). But we finally thought, you know, it’s time we opened our doors to some of our fellow writers and bring them into the Crazy 8 family. As announced at Farpoint this afternoon, this will be our next offering and one we’re excited about.
With that, let’s welcome our newest brother in arms — author Russ Colchamiro.
If you don’t know Russ, his debut novel was the hilarious sci-fi backpacking comedy Finders Keepers, which he published to some nice fanfare through 3 Finger Prints.
In fact, review site Ruled by Books had this to say about Russ: “There are only a handful of comedic authors that I enjoy, tops among them being Douglas Adams and Christopher Moore. After reading Finders Keepers … add Russ Colchamiro to that list.”
And now he’s back with his latest novel, Crossline, which will debut in Mid-March as the first official Crazy 8 novel written by an outside author.
So what’s Crossline about?
If you ask Russ, he calls it a modern-day Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon-style space opera, with his usual time-bending, philosophical shenanigans mixed in, as well as action, space soaring thrills, some deadly, but lovely ladies, and of course, loads of humor.
Space battles? Check
Wormholes? Check
Alternate realities? Check
Pot smoking shaman? Check
You want more? Keep checking in with us here for further updates and pretty soon we’ll hear from Russ himself about how this crazy space opera came together.
Tomorrow, Crazy 8 Press will assemble at Farpoint in lovely Timonium, Maryland for a weekend of fun. We’ll be at our very own table signing autographs, selling books, and helping the con celebrate its 20th anniversary.
As you know, Peter David will be unable to attend as he continues to rehab from his stroke. However, his daughter Ariel will be on hand and throughout the weekend some very cool artwork, signed pictures by Bill Mumy and autographed books by Harlan Ellison will be auctioned off to help raise funds to offset medical costs.
The print editions of Latchkeys: Splinters and Aztlan will be making their debuts at the show.
In addition to a C8-centric panel – where we will discuss how we’ve been doing and what you can expect from us next — you can find us on the following panels:
Sunday 11AM: Reading (30 minutes in Ridgely 1)
Sunday 1PM: After Earth (Dulaney 2)
Bob Greenberger
Friday 10PM: Book Fair (Con Suite)
Saturday 10AM: Bob Greenberger (Greenspring)
Saturday 1PM: Crazy 8 Press (Dulaney 2)
Saturday 2PM-4PM: All Kinds of Writing Workshop with Howie (Parlor)
Saturday 4PM: Time Management for Writers (Dulaney 2)
Sunday 10AM: The Bob & Howie Show
Sunday11AM: The Business of Being a Writer (Dulaney 2)
Sunday1PM: After Earth (Dulaney 2)
Sunday 2PM: Music to Write By (Dulaney 2)
Glenn Hauman
Friday 10PM: Book Fair (Con Suite)
Saturday 10 AM: Bob Greenberger & movies
Saturday 1PM: Crazy 8 Press (Dulaney 2)
Saturday 2PM: Did We Win? (Dulaney 2)
Aaron Rosenberg
Friday 6PM Writing YA Fiction (Dulaney 2)
Friday 10PM: Book Fair (Con Suite)
Sunday 10 PM: Plotters vs. Pantsers (Dulaney 2)
Sunday 11 PM: Business of Being a Writer (Dulaney 2)
Sunday 12 PM: Autograph Session (Crazy 8 table)
Sunday 1 PM: World Building (Parlor)
A couple of weeks ago, my pal Ilsa Bick asked me if I wanted to do the Big Blog Hop. What’s a blog hop? I asked. Turns out it’s an elaborate game of tag. Ilsa tags me, I talk about my latest book, then I tag someone else, who talks about theirs. If you’re nice enough to play along, you get to meet one author after the other until you’re dizzy and you throw up.
Or something like that.
Ilsa, by the way, is one of the spookiest writers working today. Her latest book is The Sin-Eater’s Confession. Get it, read it, tell all your friends how good it is.
But in the meantime, check this out…
1) What is the title of your latest book?
Aztlan: The Maxtla Colhua Mysteries.
2) Where did the idea come from for the book?
I’ve always been interested in the Aztecs, and with the “end” of the Mesoamerican calendar looming, I wanted to do something alternate-history-ish with it. On the other hand, I wanted it to be different — and what’s more different from your normal alternate history than a noire murder mystery?
3) What genre does your book fall under?
Alternate history, if it falls under any genre at all. But unlike most other alternate histories, it doesn’t deal with the events that follow immediately from the historical turning point. It takes place hundreds of years later, and all those events are merely part of the culture’s history. The focus is on the character Maxtla Colhua and the cases he has to solve as an Investigator for the Empire.
4) Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie version?
Maxtla might be played by Christian Bale. Necalli could be Harvey Keitel if he were twenty years younger. Eren could be Jennifer Garner. Calli could be Penelope Cruz.
5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
One sentence doesn’t do it justice. So…
Maxtla Colhua is an Investigator for the Empire—a 21st-century Aztec Empire that, having successfully repelled Hernan Cortes in 1603, stretches from one end of what we know as the Americas to the other. In Aztlan: The Last Sun, someone has decided to punctuate the end of the Aztec calendar with a series of grisly murders reminiscent of the pagan sacrifices carried out in ancient times. Can Maxtla find the killer before his city is ripped apart and the Last Sun becomes the death knell for the Empire? In Aztlan: The Courts of Heaven, Maxtla is looking for the missing star of a brutal Aztec ball game in which gambling fortunes are won and lost. To find the idol of millions, he will have to challenge the most powerful men and women in the Empire—or see the streets of Aztlan run red with blood. Two murder mysteries set in an exciting world that never was but could have been—collected in a single volume!
6) Is your book self-published, published by an independent publisher, or represented by an agency?
A couple of years ago, four other writers and I formed an indie publishing venture called Crazy 8 Press. That’s the publisher.
7) How long did it take to write the first draft of your manuscript?
I write two pages on a slow or otherwise cluttered day, of which there are many, or eight on a great day, of which there are few. So maybe 80 working days.
8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
I don’t want to dodge the question but it’s really not like anything I’ve ever seen or anything I’ve written before — which is why I wanted to write it. On one hand, it has elements in common with alternate histories, but in that it’s a noire mystery it’s also like a Mickey Spillane novel. Read it and tell me if there’s anything it reminds you of — your take is as good as mine.
9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Every writer I’ve ever admired, I suppose. No one in particular because — once again — I’ve never read anything like this.
10) What else about your book might pique a reader’s interest?
Aztlan is really about relationships–familial, romantic, professional, and so on. A big one in this book is father-son. My dad passed away a few years ago and I see now that I came to grips with what he meant to me in the pages of Aztlan.
So a while back, you saw that we here at Crazy 8 had announced a new property we were releasing—a strange, dark, spooky YA series called Latchkeys. Steven Savile led off with Unlatched, and we told you there would be new installments every six weeks or so.
Yeah, that didn’t exactly go according to plan, did it?
Why the long gaps between stories? Well, there were the usual real-world complications—people got sick, or moved, or changed jobs, or had some other project come up and insist on their full attention, and their Latchkeys story got pushed back. In a few cases, it was the fault of other books and other authors entirely—we try to give each new release room to breathe, and to shine, which means if a novel comes in late we may need to scoot it back in our publishing schedule, and that may shove back everything after it.
But there were also the in-story complications. You see, Latchkeys is an unusually collaborative venture. The HiveMind that created it has thirteen members, all of whom helped build the setting and the story arc and the characters, all of whom claimed one of the stories from that arc, and all of whom offered suggestions and feedback on each other’s stories. But no matter how careful your outline, when you sit down and start writing things change. They have to, really—you’re breathing life into that outline, giving it form and color and texture and flavor, and in the process you’ll fine-tune it, mold it, smooth out its edges and in some cases shift it slightly to give it a better cast, a better feel. What that means, though, is that your story won’t be a word-for-word reenactment of your outline—which means that anyone writing after you in the series will need to not only read your story once it’s done, but figure out what’s changed and how those changes will affect his or her story when its time comes.
And the more stories there are ahead of you, the more you’ll need to go back and reread to make sure you’re still in line with everything that’s happened before you.
Which meant that, for Time Limit, I had to go back and reread all five of its predecessors.
They’re all awesome, of course. But things have shifted a bit here and there, and that meant sitting down and rethinking Time Limit itself, figuring out what from the outline had changed and how to handle the alterations. After all, it does all have to dovetail.
In the end, I’m quite pleased with my job on Time Limit. It provides a lot more insight into some of the characters, cements a few interpersonal details, and tells a fun self-contained adventure but also lays the groundwork for a few other big events. I hope you enjoy it. It is now available on Kindle and Nook for your reading pleasure.
And I apologize for the wait. We’re working on getting magazines to set around the office.
