The Future

I was called a Luddite once, and after I’d ridden my horse to the library and looked it up, I sent an eloquently worded telegram to the mistaken party in dispute of that claim, but this week I’ve thought that perhaps the mistaken party was myself.

I’d like you to picture a scene from my life this week. I was interviewing CSI creator Anthony Zuiker on the telephone, holding the earpiece up to my ancient video camera which was plugged into the wall. I could barely hear the conversation and later as I transcribed it by playing it back in five second segments, straining to hear the faint voice the camera’s mic barely picked up over its own hum, I listened to what he was saying. Guy was talking about the future like someone who’d been there. Seriously, when Anthony Zuiker sees the future - it looks eerily like the mirror. Whereas, I see the future and get distracted by the price of bread.

Ten years ago his little television show debuted starring that guy from To Live & Die in L.A. and went on to spawn a spin-off shortly afterward starring that guy from Jade. That’s right, Zuiker was on a mission to resurrect the careers of stars of William Friedkin movies. Such a fan was he, that he even had Friedkin direct a couple episodes of his show, (and ya know who else did? Yeah, fellow career ressurector Quentin Tarantino – just try sneezing at that… you can’t). That’s right, he’s the creator of those shows about preternaturally technologically equipped police reconstructing crimes and criminals through what they leave behind, (in the words of Nathan Arizona “microbes and shit.” It’s there whole “damn forte.”)

After a decade of it, he’s scratching the itch to write books. But hell, anybody can do that, so he’s gotta take it to the next level. Level 26: Dark Origins was the first of a strain of book experiences he’s dubbed digi-novels. And what exactly is a digi-novel? A book that can be enjoyed cover to cover conventionally, but is designed to be experienced in tandem with film supplements and an online community, exploring the fictional world created by Zuiker and co-author Duane Swierczynski. Dark Origins was a creepy as hell book about a serial killer who dons bondage gear when he operates, rendering him effectively forensic-proof. Add to that, a contortionist’s body, a sick mind and immovable will and it sounds like a job for Steve Dark – a damaged, forensics dragon-slayer with something more than a knack for catching killers and a lot to loose.

This week, Zuiker and Swierczynski give us the second Steve Dark volume, Dark Prophecy and digi-novel version 2.0 featuring a stand-alone one –hour film and even more bells and whistles on the iPad app. Zuiker insists they’ve improved and re-focused the tone and direction of the books as well, steering away from some of the darkest elements. I asked him about the new book and the future of publishing.

I’ve heard the books described as a trilogy, is that accurate?

Yes it is. When I first got into the bidding war with Dutton and Hyperion and we settled on Dutton, they were definitely very aggressive about making it a trilogy. Which was fine by me because we felt that the more chances we had to tell the story, the better. Book one was definitely a villain point of view with Sqweegel, book two is definitely a Steve Dark point of view for our protagonist, and book three is probably a good balance between villain and hero. Again, we’re finding the balance in our story telling and trying not to replicate ourselves twice, and try to go into new territory and just improve. We’ve made a lot of great improvements. And we’ve been very vocal in the press about our mistakes. Because the thing is for me as a producer, as a leader of industry, it’s not so much to try to have success in industry, but rather be able to verbalize what’s been going right and wrong, to pay that information forward and push the medium forward, so that if anybody else tries to do something like this, we’re closer to our goal, which is perfecting this thing called the digi-novel and moving publishing forward the best way we can through our successes and failures. I did the same thing for television. I’m very verbal about the things I’ve done right and done wrong. I’d like personally to go down as one of those producers that shared as much information as possible for the next person coming up.

Have you heard of any other digi-novels being made?

I think 39 Clues has been doing has been doing things in this arena and been very successful at that. If you ask me will there be a Stephanie Meyer Twilight type series or a Harry Potter type series or a Dragon Tattoo type series coming out in the future where you incorporate motion pictures with real actors like we have and social communities and interactivity instead of just doing a book and the movie comes out a few years later, we can merge all three going forward with all this amazing technology and with the iPad, the answer is ‘absolutely.’

I think that people will appreciate what we’re doing at our company now in the next five years. There’s just no way I foresee going forward that there won’t be some level of storytelling in the publishing industry that doesn’t have this type of interactivity and extra content because publishing and technology will have to merge going forward. We’ve seen the impact of Kindle and taking e-books on the go. It will only get better and faster.

Do you have an idea what the next step is?

Well. We’re going to see how book two does. We’re going to tear it apart and put it under a microscope so to speak. We’re going to see what we did right and what we did wrong. Ask ourselves whether we’ve built on fiction and if we’ve bettered our product and if the answer is ‘yes’ then we’ll keep trying different things and see if we can perfect this experience moving forward. We’ve already got some ideas that are already different for book three. Hopefully Dutton feels that we’ve been successful globally after three books and we’ll do more. And we’re also very seriously thinking about doing a digi-novel that’s not crime based. That there’s a lot of other ways to change up the format. I just took a five mile walk this morning around Central Park and had this discussion, if we did the Dark series and continue, what’s our next series? What would that look like? So we’re having discussions now for the next five years. You know, the thing about publishing is sometimes it’s about book nine. So we really are dedicated to staying in this industry as long as we possibly can and keep challenging ourselves to do great things and hopefully the world appreciates it and likes it and takes us along for the ride.

I’ve got to ask, Steve Dark almost seems like an homage to Thomas Harris's Will Graham - and with William Peterson having played the role in Manhunter, did that have anything to do with his being cast on CSI?

That’s funny. Kind of. When he and I sat down, I want to say in August of ’99, Billy Peterson and I, you know he was from Chicago, I was from Chicago, we both liked the Cubs, we both liked to drink beer at the Cubs’ games, so we got along pretty well and that’s how CSI was started. In terms of Steve Dark, it’s been such a challenging emotional ride with the launch of all three CSIs. I flew back and forth from Vegas to Burbank twice a year for a decade straight. I lived out of a hotel room for five days or seven days (at a time) with three kids, and missed everything from first steps to school plays and soccer games. So I think a lot of the hardship that I’ve dealt with in television, I’ve poured into Steve Dark’s hardship in terms of chasing evil. On top of that, I’ve taken all the information of my CSI career of all the bad people and horrific crimes and put them into one entity, which is Sqweegel, the forensic-proof killer. I think that artistically, channeling all that hurt and pain from the TV experience into the art form of the digi-novel is kind of how that got portrayed as an artist. Hopefully people who are fans of CSI and like that side of it, find it stimulating intellectually.

What's changed now that Steve Dark is not working for the government anymore?

In the book it’s five years later, he’s finished his so-called indentured servitude. I keep telling Dan Buran who plays Steve Dark ‘y’know you’re a werewolf.’ Meaning you really can not not catch killers. There just really is no walking away. So what starts as a casual interest in book two, you know picking up the newspaper, having a cup of coffee, reading about Tarot cards, quickly becomes an obsession with Steve Dark. And I think you’re going to see him get past the brooding phase in book two and really be able to emotionally put to bed the one thing that’s held him back for all these years. Now the challenge for us for book three is how do we turn the stakes up? How does one man take down the man who might control the whole world for book three? All I can tell you is that I was very inspired the movie Inception and you’ll see some similarities in book three.

How did Duane Swierczynski get selected?

He was one of a handful of people selected that were sent to me with writing samples from Dutton. Duane’s done a really, really great job. He had a very, very tough task with book one, to go off a ninety-page outline that I wrote during Terminator Salvation, that had a stop in the writing, that lead to visual, that he had to trust what I was shooting and continue back in the manuscript, that’s really challenging and not something that authors really do. To be sort of given this blue-print where they have to stop twenty times and trust a film maker. So in book two we wanted to make sure that the one hour movie didn’t fight the narrative, so we told him to get back to his roots in the outline manuscript phase of the book and let us shoot the movie separately. And instead of him coming to me in book one, we would make the movie and go to him and write the manuscript for book two. I think it worked out pretty great.

I read somewhere that you were a mystery aficionado since childhood, I'm curious what first grabbed your imagination.

I was an only child in Las Vegas, my parents worked for the casino business, so pretty much my babysitter from three to ten o’clock at night was the library. So I would literally just walk around the library in the mystery or horror section, read all those great Sherlock Holmes novels. I just became infatuated with mystery at a very young age and then I think as I got older as you know a child in Vegas, plus all the CSI stuff, began to get extra creative in terms of telling all these CSI stories.

The whole thing started when I was in Japan and I saw a special on the 25 levels of evil that measure a serial killer. I had no idea that that sort of barometer existed and once I saw that special in Japan, I began to think about level 26 which is a fictitious level with one name on the list, Sqweegel. And that’s how the whole franchise was born.

When was that?

That had to be in the year 2007.

The books straddle the mystery and horror genres, would you classify them one way or the other, or does that kind of distinction make a difference to you?

That’s funny, I went to Columbus Circle this morning to look for the paperback, and it somehow got shoe-horned in the horror section. I always thought of it in the mystery genre or the mystery thriller genre, especially book two.

You studied 'competitive forensics' in school?

I did. The sort of joke around town was when I was a freshman in high school we had an elective and I took “forensics” thinking it was forensic medicine like in Quincy. When I showed up it was actually forensic speech not forensic medicine which taught me about public speaking and that kind of thing. The only ironic thing is that one day I would take those public speaking skills in pitch phase to sell a show about forensic medicine.


You can read the rest of my interview with Anthony Zuiker at Ransom Notes.

Sqweegel Las Vegas

Dear blogosphere, take a good look at my face. Go ahead. That’s me looking excited. Why, you might ask. I’ll give you a simple equation: Ann-Margaret + Sqweegel = my face, er excitement. Last year, CSI creator Anthony Zuiker and literary contortionist Duane Swierczynski wrote Level 26: Dark Origins, featuring the killer/monster Sqweegel, an actual contortionist whose white rubber fetish suit lends his pretzel/slinky-love-child locomotion an even creepier look and also retains all of his DNA at kill sites – making him a forensic-proof killer. And I’m assuming I don’t have to explain Ann-Margaret to any of you red-blooded readers.

But wait, I read the book and didn’t Steve Dark, the titular preternaturally endowed forensic specialist who is hunting him, dispatch of said monster in an appropriately bloody manner? How is it that Sqweegel is on my TV? Ahh, tune in for the broadcast overlap of the Dark books and CSI tonight.

Funny enough, today is also the official release of the second Level 26 title: Dark Prophecy. Did you do the full digi-novel experience with the first? The interactive component to Zuiker’s innovative, ahem, novel experience? The books are designed to read well cover to cover, but for those who’d like to go deeper, last year’s featured twenty cyber-bridges – filmed supplements to the text with some great character actors in the roles, and this time around, instead of several short films, you get a one-hour stand alone, (or side by side), movie companion.

A while ago I spoke to Duane Swierczynski about the project, and this week I spoke with the brain behind the concept, Anthony Zuiker. Here’s a taste of the interview landing tomorrow:

Is the book release being coordinated with the broadcast overlap?

My thought last year was wouldn’t it be great to take the villain out of Level 26: Dark Origins and have him be on CSI, but during the Up-Fronts we were running the risk that they would move CSI off of Thursday. Ironically, Dutton put in stone that the book would launch on a Thursday and we stayed on Thursdays at nine, so it just kinda worked out like that.

I took this footage from Level 26: Dark Origins and cut it together with real CSI footage and did this little campaign for a minute that said ‘CSI meets its match - a forensics-proof killer’, and the funny thing about that is that on Thursday night of last week, literally it was almost the same as the promo.

Is there any other broadcast overlap planned?

As we all know, the end of book one, Steve Dark axed white Sqweegel, and killed him. The cliff hanger to the book was they found a black Sqweegel suit in the fountain in Rome. We thought, wouldn’t it be neat to continue that mythology on CSI where the Black Sqweegel reappears played by the same actor, Daniel Browning Smith, and then once the episode ends the story line would continue in book format and digital episodes in Dark Prophecy.

Are we going to get any Ann-Margaret in a cat suit a'la Viva Las Vegas?

I don’t think so. As you know, she’s very selective in what she does in television. When I called her up she was actually taking a voyage from London to New York on the Queen Mary. I pitched the story line, she found it very intriguing. She wouldn’t say yes on the phone, so we sent her a script and the Queen Mary was gracious enough to print it out and leave it on her bed, so she read it at night on the dark waters. She called up the next day and said that she was terrified, but she would do it. She did a lot of her own stunts and she showed me all of her black and blue marks all over both of her arms from them. It was a very very challenging role. A very physical role and if you know anything about Ann-Margaret, she’s incredibly fit –

I know that.

- and she did such a wonderful job that CBS deemed this an ‘instant classic.’ I think you’re in for a very scary, strong episode on Thursday.


I'll post more of the interview with Anthony Zuiker tomorrow.

Crazy Larry Smells B'Con

Gutter Press, the book branch of Matt Louis's Out of the Gutter empire is officially in the swing. Aside from their Baddest of the Bad anthology from OOTG, they've got titles now from Joe McKinney, William Ingsly and I've got my eyes on that John D. MacDonald reprint - looks sticky sweet. Gotta admit, I'm not much of a Travis McGee fan, but I'll take his hardboiled standalones any time.

Jon Bassoff and the New Pulp Press crew are trying their hand at e-publishing. Curious about how that goes. Meanwhile they're preparing to publish a printed edition of Dave Zeltserman's heretofore only available digitally short story collection and Jackson Meeks' While the Devil Waits has been optioned for a film. I gotta say, I come back to that book often. Really had a unique quality that I still am hesitant to define, but the press release I read called it Charles Willeford meets Albert Camus which is good enough.

Kyle Minor wrote this piece over at HTMLGIANT about the ever emerging crime-lit scene. He had great things to say about Anthony Neil Smith especially, plus nods to a bunch of our favorite writers and publications. Thanky, Kyle.

Spintetingler reviewed the new Gerard Brennan edited supernatural tinged Irish crime anthology Requiems for the Departed story by story and assigned a different piece to several writers including me. My job was easy, I drew Ken Bruen out of the hat.

Over at Ransom Notes, I'm bemoaning my inability to get to Bouchercon this year, but encouraging everybody who does to seek out Greg Bardsley and get their picture with him before he blows up. Word is his new novel is gonna um do that.

Crimefactory editor Cameron Ashley has hit American shores - I've seen pictures of him hanging around the likes of Jimmy Callaway and Jason Dukes and I know he's invading the Rawson home soon. Here in St. Louis we're preparing for him by uh... Oh crap, we gotta get prepared. N@B is next week after all. Scott Phillips, Jonathan Woods and Chris La Tray will join the imported Ashley for a perfect storm of nastiness at the Delmar Lounge - but remember - we're starting an hour earlier. 7PM not 8.

Been Franklin?

Over at Ransom Notes, I'm talking about Tom Franklin's new one, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter. I loved this book. Not as wild as Hell at the Breech or Smonk, (is anything as wild as that one?), but strong and sturdy and a dark undercurrent that might carry you away, if you're not anchored to something solid. Every night, Larry Ott's mother prays that God send her odd son one special friend, just for him and unbeknownst to her, Larry thinks He has in Silas Jones. When Larry's father finds out about the friendship between the two boys, he plays them against each other till their bond is broken and Larry is once again all alone. Twenty-plus years later, Larry gets another friend. Careful what you pray for. One of the things I love about Franklin's books are his sociopaths. And this one's got a doosey, or two, or three, I don't want to give anything away, but this one comes with my personal stamp of approval. Whatcha waitin for?

Speaking of Franklin, I'm planning a trip to see him in Arkansas in December, but Rod Norman put the notion in my head that he might drop in on the proceedings in Franklin, TN. Sunday where his buddy William Gay will be signing with Sonny Brewer. Will it happen? Doesn't matter, Scott Phillips and I, (and Rod & co.) will be heading out there to meet the legend one way or another.

Then, I've got to hurry home, 'cause Monday morning I'm supposed to speak to a couple of middle school classes. I've never done anything like that before. I'm more than a wee bit scared. I hated middle school and middle schoolers have always hated me, but here I go anyhow. I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm being asked under false pretenses. I'm supposed to speak about being a writer, but I'm afraid I may actually be the cautionary tale portion of their education. Whatever.

And in N@B news, Thursday, Oct. 21st's event has been pushed forward one hour. We'll be starting at seven, not eight, in an effort not to run afoul of the live music at The Delmar. Man, I still cringe thinking of Sean Doolittle and Pinckney Benedict having to raise their voices to be heard over that. Sorry guys. Once again, Jonathan Woods, Cameron Ashley, Chris La Tray and Scott Phillips reading from his brand new book Rut, out Oct. 25 from Stona Fitch's Concord Free Press! Be there.

K.

My friend Kyle. I miss him already.

Rut: Noun/Verb

Just announced officially at the Concord Free Press site, Scott Phillips new one Rut will be available Oct. 25. Cause I’m so cool, I read this one like two years ago and I can’t wait to be able to discuss it with the rest of you hosers. It rocks. We’ll be throwing a little release party of sorts for it Oct. 21. We call it Noir at the Bar. Scott will read from Rut, I’m sure, Jonathan Woods will bring something unsettling and Cameron Ashley and Chris La Tray who both have a foot and a fist in the Kung-Fu Factory edition of Crimefactory will be on hand as well to perversify your minds.

Over at Ransom Notes, I'm talking about Hilary Davidson and her debut novel The Damage Done. While here, I'm going to go into why it's such an exciting release for me. Hilary and I both had our very first short stories published in issue 17 of ThugLit. It was my first exposure to online publishing and I had no idea what to expect as far as exposure went. Hilary’s story Anniversary went on to be selected by Ed Gorman for his yearly best of anthology and mine? Didn’t. WTF, Gorman? I was sold, however ,on the exposure that online zines could offer and have since published several more there, (none of which have made Gorman’s or Penzler’s best of the year collections btw – how bitter do I sound?)

Anyhow, good for Hilary. Even though she’d been published many times before, we shared a place for our first fiction exposure and now look at her, Miss ‘oh, I have a book out, oh, I’m so special, oh, don’t you want to be like me?’ Yeah. I guess I do. When Beat to a Pulp: Round One is here, it’ll be the fourth time we’ve had nasty stories attending the same mixer only this time, she’ll be out there on the floor with Ardai and Gorman, and Randisi and Littlefield while me and Shea hold up the wall and spike the punch. Come have some refreshing punch you dancing pretties with your books and your contracts – yeah that’s you Frank Bill- then we’ll get this party started. Bwhaaaahahaha. Ahem.

Cullen Gallagher has a little chat with Hilary here. Nice to see Joelle Charbonneau last night at Left Bank Books reading from her new one Skating Around the Law. Matthew McBride was in attendance too and I scored a couple of great used books by Denis Johnson and Pinckney Benedict.

Low Hanging Stars

Erik Lundy is a stand-up comedian, cartoonist and crime writer… Hold on, I think I hear Anthony Neil Smith climaxing. Could be why he's one of the new assistant editors for Plots With Guns, (new issue features Jonathan Woods, Matthew McBride, Jason Duke, Bryon Quertermous, David James Keaton, Steven Torres, Chris Benton, Nathan Cain, Matthew C. Funk, Tim L. Williams). That means, he’s busy. Real busy. But he took the time to write a piece for the Narrative Music series. He also writes about one of my favorite types of fictional characters - those Tom Waits might refer to as, "Nothing wrong with her a hundred dollars wouldn't fix," but who still take on the world like everything's at stake. Those with no sense of proportion. Those who reach for the stars, but their own lack of grandiose vision limits them to liquor store hold ups, cheating on their spouses with meth dealers who have a nicer truck... you get the picture.

After you dig this piece, go check out Erik's stuff at Workplace of the Damned.


A Front Row Seat to Hear Old Johnny Sing

I know, I know, you’re sitting in a bar, sucking down a brewski, and your buddy pipes up, “Hey, crime fiction and music?” You slap your head and say, “Well, shit howdy. Shel Silverstein, of course.”

Okay, maybe not, but the dude who wrote Where the Sidewalk Ends also happened to write some of my all-time-favorite story-songs. He won a Grammy for A Boy Named Sue, was responsible for the harrowing story of a prisoner counting down the minutes to his execution in another Cash song 25 Minutes to Go, and told us of a girl, Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout, and her refusal to take some garbage out. You could practically put together a late night commercial shilling two-disc sets of Silver-songs. And, that’s just the ones sung by other people.

My favorite from The ‘Stein is the story of a young man who has almost completed his very own American Dream – he’s got a TV set, and a wife, a truck, but it just isn’t enough. He has to have a front row seat to hear ole Johnny sing, damnit. He’s went through all the proper channels in his life, getting the TV and truck on credit. And, what would be more Americana than purchasing a wedding ring at Woolworth’s?

And, the more he risks to achieve the goal (pawning his wife’s wedding ring, selling his own gold tooth, and even mortgaging the farm), the further it’s pushed away from him just a teensy bit more. From being turned away by Johnny’s wife at their door, to being laughed at when trying to buy tickets that have been sold out for months and months at the Opry box office. To the point that it’s downright normal for him to fight his way into a concert, and even get tossed in the penn for his trouble.

What I love most about this song is the simplicity of the goals. I’m a sucker for characters who, “shoot for the lowest star.” (I’d love to take credit for that phrase, but Amy Sedaris used it in reference to an actor friend.) Ya know, they long to make it to the sky, but they’ll settle before they get all the way to the moon. I understand Breaking Bad’s Walter White slinging meth for the good of the unborn child, wife and disabled son he’s leaving behind. But, the guy that makes me giggle ‘til I tinkle in my Fruit of the Loom’s a little is the one that foregoes fertility drugs in favor of snatching one of local furniture maven Nathan Arizona’s quintuplets.

The guy in this song, he didn’t dream of being a star on stage himself. Hell, he wasn’t even asking to meet Johnny, shake his hand, or get an autographed headshot for the living room. No, he was just happy to have a front row seat in the audience with all the other regular Joes who paid for tickets. And, by the end of the song, despite his travails and current state of confinement, it’s all worth it when The Man in Black sings a tune in his prison yard.

A Front Row Seat To Hear Ole Johnny Sing:

Now you know some fellahs, they want fame and fortune
Yeah, and other fellahs they just wanna swing
But all I wanted all my life
Was a TV set and a truck and a wife
And a front row seat to hear ole Johnny sing.

Yeah the TV and the truck I got on credit.
And I got that girl with a little old Woolworth ring
And life was warm and life was sweet
But still, it was kinda incomplete
Without a front row seat to hear ole Johnny sing.

Hey, John you walk the line,
Do "Deelia" one more time
And when you do them Cottonfields
You warm this heart of mine.

So, one day I thought, Hey, I'm gonna do it!
(That's what I said)
So, I mortgaged the farm and pawned her wedding ring.
I sold the gold tooth out of my mouth
And jumped in the pickup and headed South.
For a front row seat to hear ole Johnny sing.

I hit Nashville cold and wet and hungry.
I said, "I'm here, bring him on let him do his thing."
But they told me down at the Old Pit Grill
I'd have to go all the way to Andersonville
For a front row seat to hear ole Jonny sing.

I found his house knocked on the door and it was opened
By a brown-haired girl and a baby with a teethin' ring.
I said "I seen you somewhere before
but don't stand there and block the door
I want a front row seat to hear ole Johnny sing."

She said I'd have to go down to The Opry
And the feller there said I'd have to wait till Spring.
He said, "We've been sold out for months and months
And this poor insane fellah wants
A front row seat to hear ole Johnny sing."

Well, he said a couple more things, and I started cryin'
And then he laughed at me and that's when I started to swing.
Well I bust through the doors in a roaring rage,
Crawled over the crowd till I reached the stage
For a front row seat to hear ole Johnny sing.

Then some crazy guard started shootin'
I shot back, and the next thing I know I was winged
and on the floor
When a guy in a voice kinda deep and low
Says, "Boy that's a mighty long way to go
For a front row seat to hear ANYBODY sing."

And I guess that judge, he weren't no music lover.
I got fifteen months but that don't mean a thing.
Cos' yesterday in the prison yard
A show come through and HAR! de HAR!
I had a front row seat to hear ole Johnny sing.