Sunday, July 31, 2011

EMPIRE OF THE WHEEL: Lost Serial Murders & Zodiac Killer Revelation Tonight!

Tonight my co-author, Rick Spence, and I discuss publicly for the first time our new book, Empire of the Wheel: Espionage, The Occult and Murder in Southern California...

A revelation about The Zodiac Killer will be announced tonight, as well, on the Radio Misterioso program at killradio.org... 8-10PM PST...

Empire of the Wheel

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Adventure Musings

So as I move SOTAQ closer to production, and have finished my three-year non-fiction project about the same time I finished the accompanying novel inspired and written during that time, and I've attended my last and eighth Comic Con as a mere professional attendee, my mind is meandering toward the next adventure novel. It's time, I think. Julius Corbin is calling for another expedition...

It looks like I may start traveling for pay again. That'll really put the adventure focus into high gear. I've been spending time in the travel section of the bookstores, considering which maps I'm going to need. My eye was on a really good South America map, as well as a nice waterproof map of India.

I've also been in REI and Bass Outdoor World, making a serious assessment of particular accessories and specialty items. It sincerely enthuses me just thinking about travel again. I wrote both Corbin novels entirely out of the US, so if I start consulting again, you can look for that third Corbin book by Christmas.

However...it does take place mostly in North America and the Arctic...I've decided I want a little getaway to Big Bear Lake in August, so I may just pick up where I left off in Saudi Arabia a few years back, with Chapter Two of Black Apples...

Barnes & Noble has a 30% discount on a copy of one of my favorite films of that prolific year in cinema, 1939: Only Angels Have Wings.

This one has Cary Grant as a postal pilot in the Andes. I've mentioned it here before, I believe. I place this film in that category of light adventure dramas, a favorite of mine which classic Hollywood did so well. Great trappings and atmosphere, the right attitude, and the right kind of broad for when there's gotta be a dame in the story (No friggin' Willie from Temple of Doom - Ugh, she ruined that picture!)...

Recently I watched March Or Die,

a mid-70s attempt at an homage to a Marlene Dietrich/Gary Cooper film titled Morocco (1930). It may have had a little touch of Lost Patrol, but all the Foreign Legion flicks do.

Anyway, after hearing so much bad about this film, I had to see it because I'm a Gene Hackman fan. I decided that March Or Die is not such a bad film. Again, adventure drama, trappings and atmosphere, and a broad, but I liked it enough. Not everything adventure needs to be wall-to-wall bullwhips and bullets...

Still waiting for the latest on the Lost City of Z movie. I'll have to do some browsing. I did see some months back that David Fincher was still doing 20K Leagues, maybe in 3D. Not sure what the latest is on that...

If you haven't seen the 40's serial of The Phantom, I recommend it.

Not as cheesy bad as many. And I'm finally working my way through my Terry and the Pirates serial set, and it's not drudgery. I'm liking it a lot, actually. Remember back in 1980 when someone was seriously considering T&theP? It was in a movie mag that summer with a really cool tableau painting and logo. I did an article on T&theP including this possible movie in my LCL Mag. I was thinking while watching the serial how cool it would still be if they did a movie trilogy. Since Lucas has given Indy the slow death, we've all been cheated out of great high adventure so he could give us the slow death with the ruination of Star Wars. T&theP would be a great idea right now, especially since Tintin looks pretty cool...

When are we gonna see the first great steampunk movie of this century? What would it be? Any ideas?

Not sure what I'll watch tonight before hitting the hay, but it'll be an adventure film...

Friday, July 29, 2011

'Secret of the Amazon Queen' Update

I will be meeting with my storyboard artist within a few days to get started on the visual creation of the script. Yanis Zambeis is a young artist I have known for a few years and one of the most gracious human beings I've ever met. He's a good cook, too!

Yanis and I will have some storyboard imagery to post here for your enjoyment. I know I'm excited to be moving to this stage. I have also been talking with a photographer, who recently worked with some talent I manage, about a promotional shoot with one of the stars of the movie, so look for future news about when those images will be incorporated into SOTAQ marketing.

My casting director and I are still considering various actors for the lead roles of Julius Corbin, Califia and Claude Toussaint. I'm pretty clear on my vision for the queen, so there are very few on that list: My first choice, a more well known second choice, or an unknown whose got what it takes. I'll name her when I cast her. My first choice for Claude has always been Tim Curry, but we'll have to see about that. There have been some other very interesting names discussed for that role. The longer list has been who we've considered for Julius Corbin. He has an age range that's flexible. In the book, Julius is 39, but for the film he could be ten years older, or five years younger. However, I'm adamant that he be no younger than 35 (much to my casting director's LA/Hollywood frustration, LOL NYAH HA HA!!)

I will be kicking off the official promotional campaign at the SOTAQ website as well, and I'll post that link when it's ready...

For now, if you've never read the book, it's in the links to the right in a double volume including the second book, Tropic of Despair

...

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

'Empire of the Wheel' Authors On Radio Misterioso This Sunday, July 31

Rick and I will be interviewed by Greg Bishop this Sunday night, 8-10PM PST at killradio.org on the Radio Misterioso program. Remember, faithful listeners and newbies, if it gets started a few minutes late, it WILL be on!

Take a look at the press release that has gone out to several newspapers around the US, as well as a few TV stations:

EMPIRE OF THE WHEEL:
Espionage, The Occult & Murder in Southern California

Walter Bosley & Richard B Spence

Corvos Books has released the new non-fiction book by Walter Bosley (I Will See You In Time, LCL 2011) and Richard B Spence (Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence & The Occult, Feral House 2008) which reveals what may have been occult serial murder in San Bernardino, California almost a century ago. Unexpected to the authors was a revelation about The Zodiac Killer that emerged from their research into the questionable deaths of seven people (three of them children) in late 1915 in the San Bernardino Valley. Empire of the Wheel explores the questions that arise from the only available record of the deaths and proposes a theory that the victims were human sacrifices at the hands of an occult driven criminally insane madman or group. The possibilities are just as esoteric as the analysis, which the authors use to explain the motive of a psychopathic killer or killers moving amid WWI espionage activity in the area, along with Aleister Crowley and Harry Houdini. Sure to capture public interest is the material on The Zodiac Killer which presents what the authors think is the factor that ties all The Zodiac’s victims together, thus providing one of the biggest contributions to Zodiac Killer investigations in several years.

WALTER BOSLEY is a former counterintelligence specialist with the FBI, served as a Special Agent AFOSI for over five years after earning his USAF commission, traveled the world as a counter-terrorism consultant from 2000 to 2005 and is now a licensed private investigator. Bosley resides in the Inland Empire.

RICHARD B SPENCE, PhD is a Professor of History at the University of Idaho and has appeared as a guest on the History Channel, Coast to Coast, and other programs in the US and abroad.

Empire of the Wheel is available at Amazon.com

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

End Of An Era

Well, Borders is soon to be no more as we have known it. Much as the bookstore industry in general.

It was not quite twenty years ago when I visited my first super-bookstore. A B&N in upstate New York on my way back from a Vermont mini-vacation in 1992. Back then, B.Dalton and Waldenbooks were the most proliferated book retailers in the areas of the country where I lived before moving to Long Island. You could often count on both those stores being in any shopping mall. They were essentially the same place: they sold the same books, were divided in pretty much identical categories, only the signs were different. Waldenbooks was dressed up a tad more with paned glass windows on the facade and oak shelves. B.Dalton was perhaps more willing to offer discounts and specials. It really came down to which nuance of retail atmosphere you preferred and I recall preferring B.Dalton because their selection was slightly larger--but not quite everything that was available. That is where the superstores came into the picture.

Bookstores used to be places where you'd peruse titles and then purchase your selection, to dive into at the food court over a beverage or hurry home to read on the couch. You never saw people sitting on the floor. Coffee? Huh? There was only one place I ever knew that offered such things in a bookstore. The Upstart Crow in Seaport Village in San Diego. I loved the place. Went there a lot during my years at SDSU. But I thought of the Crow as a specialty place, not a norm. But that changed in '92 when I walked into a B&N for the first time. Being a bibliophile, I thought it was the most amazing wonderful thing that there could be a bookstore so big -- and with chairs! COMFY CHAIRS WITH HIGH BACKS! There were so many books and so many categories! Sure, there were Crown Books stores, but their inventory was discount and usually odds and ends. This B&N superstore had new and current releases! Still, there wasn't a store like this near where I lived, so again I considered it a freak of nature, another novelty in a place associated with vacation, not the real world. The most appealing aspect was the diversity of special interest categories of books that neither B Dalton nor Waldenbooks carried.

Then I returned to California and discovered Borders and found myself there every time I wanted to shop for books. For me, it was a book store designed with a reader's sense. When I was assigned to Wright-Patterson AFB (I was on active duty at the time), I found my personal favorite Borders ever in Dayton, Ohio. I spent many evenings and weekend afternoons there. When my son would visit in the summer time, we'd go to the Borders there just about every day, after a movie or miniature golf. When I planned my terminal leave trip to Europe, it was mostly in the Borders cafe. I first started to enjoy 'world music' at that same Borders. Some of my best memories are associated with that store. My Borders in Dayton was a hangout where I could find what I liked to read.

Of course, things change. The economy and technology have everything to do with the demise of Borders and the certain drastic change coming to B&N. Personally, I have always found B&N less personable than my experience with Borders. Maybe it's just me, but I always found Borders employees to seem more like real book lovers, whereas B&N seems like a place that hires anyone who wants the job. I could be wrong in general, but my experience has been that. Anyway, technology was inevitably going to change how we read. People love gadgets and the convenience of them. The economy's downturn forced the issue: It is simply smarter for publishers to market a product that does not require very much money up front to produce, does not require much space to store, and isn't wasted if it doesn't sell every copy. As a publisher, I love e-books. So does the public, mainly because the market has begun to force prices way down. Unfortunately for the bookstores, the traditional model, people began using bookstores like libraries.

A store cannot stay in business if people use the products in the store without buying them. It's very simple. Also, when there is an alternative that is more convenient, less expensive, and technologically fun and hip, the traditional model is doomed. As Borders and B&N did to the independents and chains before them, the digital marketplace has done to them. Amazon was the first very clear sign of what was to come. My personal vision of the bookstore of the future is this -- and I believe we will see this within five years (or less): The remaining book superstores will exist but in an altered form. Customers will have access to about a third of what these stores offer now. There will be a cafe, cashiers, nick-nack and gift area, and maybe magazines. However, there will be no massive floor of shelves with physical books on hand. Instead, there will be numerous computer stations. The only actual books in the store will be the single samples of bestselling or popular titles. Customers will instead peruse the online catalogue and select their purchases there. The remaining space of the store will be the production area, filled with Esso machines or the like, and your book will be printed while you wait (if you want it printed, and I believe people will still want printed books). You can enjoy a tea or coffee while you wait. This is the bookstore on the close horizon. Prices will be lower, no teenagers will be sitting on the floor in the aisles, the bookstore will be relevant again.

What we must point out is the irony of it all. The superstore model that wiped out the model before it actually included its own destruction in its very design: the library atmosphere encouraged people not to buy product.

As much as I loved my favorite Borders stores, and have shopped at B&N, as a publisher I have embraced the digital model of selling books. The digital world has allowed me, a small press guy, to compete with the big guys. Believe me, getting my product onto the shelves in the superstores cost me more in schmoozing sales reps and ineffective promotional costs than it did to produce the physical book. And forget the small stores, for I have never encountered a more sour and unpleasant lot of human beings in the retail world than owners/managers of indie or used bookstores. Not all, but unfortunately enough that it is a fair characterization, with a few exceptions (like Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego who are always friendly, and the Coliseum Bookstore in Manhattan, to name a few). If I am able to market product for little to zero cost, I can drop my prices and do not need to be in any store. This is the new model, and the new era to come.

In the end, it doesn't change the content.

So, farewell Borders. You will be missed.

(I hope this wasn't too rambling, I had to write it in two sessions several hours apart...)

Monday, July 25, 2011

Comic Con In The Rear View

Not much to report. As you know, I wasn't too thrilled this year.

I did not go Saturday, as I was returning home to pick up some of my entourage. However my correspondents who stayed informed we didn't miss much. I was back ion the scene that night and returned the next day. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..... Naturally, I did some business. That's really what usefulness remains with this event for me.

So...On to the next event:

The H.P.Lovecraft Film Festival in San Pedro in September

More to follow...

Friday, July 22, 2011

Comic Con Brief

OK,

We went to see Captain America today and I really like it. Any fan of classic or pulp hero literature and comics should like this movie a lot. I place it in a personal category of favorites that has consisted of The Rocketeer, The Shadow and The Phantom, three movies I love in spite of nitpicky critics. It's a cool flick. 'Dum Dum' and other Howling Commandos are in the mix and you gotta stay after the credits to get a glimpse or two of the new Avengers movie coming next year.

I gotta get up early to return to the Con, so this report is short. The Con itself is sort of weak this year, in spite of Spielberg's presence pitching Tintin. Of course, I didn't battle the crowd simply to get in and watch Spielberg on a screen hanging from the roof simply to be in the same ENORMOUS room with him. Been there, done that. Doubt I'll even sit through Kevin Smith this year. But a guy I was in film class with in junior college thirty years ago has a booth this year. He's a voice actor, Dino Andrade. We'll be getting together with a couple other classmates to catch up after the Con. Probably the MOST important thing was collecting contact data on four VERY lovely actresses interested in talking with my casting director for Secret of the Amazon Queen...More on that later.

Two more days left. If anything worthy happens, I'll share it here...