Midnight Reviews

One of the best surprises a writer can receive is an unexpected good review. My two vampire novels, 100,000 MIDNIGHTS and ACROSS THE MIDNIGHT SEA, each were recently reviewed by Bradley Krawchuk, who had some great things to say about both books. I thought I'd share those reviews here today.

In the interest of full disclosure, I do know Brad, though not very well. We've never met in person, so I guess we're what you might call friendly internet acquaintances. We first met several years ago on a forum devoted to the work of prolific comic book writer/ artist John Byrne. I later became Facebook friends with a handful of people from that forum, including Brad.
Brad is a voracious reader, going through hundreds of a books a year, many of which he reviews on Facebook. I did not ask Brad to read or review my vampire novels. In fact, I didn't know he'd purchased them until he posted his thoughts on the first one, so these were not solicited reviews.

Here are, in his exact words, Brad's comments:

"100,000 Midnights by Aaron Smith - Now, why didn't Facebook highlight Aaron Smith's name there? Ah! There it is! Hey Aaron, cool book! Dude, the "Miracle" was awesome - and a good name, too! And Perfection? That was just X-Filesy goodness.
So at first I didn't like it. I read a couple chapters and I thought I knew where it was going, and then when I realized I didn't, I assumed I knew where it was going anyway, and then I figured out where it was actually going but not, and then I understood it was just doing whatever it wanted and I held on for the ride. That's when it got really fun!
A young man with an old soul meets a young looking but much older vampire, and then proceeds to go on many crazy and (seemingly) disconnected adventures with her. That's pretty much the gist of it right there. It reads like an old fashioned serial adventure story; if you took out things like cell phone references (and an entire chapter about rock n' roll), substituted carriages for cars and steamers for airplanes, you could almost fool me into thinking this was written back in the early 20th century. John Carter, Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes... you put a chapter a week in a pulp 100 years ago this would almost fit in. Almost.
Because while the serialized adventure style of the book hearkens back to a bygone era, the references to classic sci-fi and fantasy literature - both overt and subtle - has a decidedly nostalgic and sentimental undercurrent that makes it seem much more at home in modern literary times. It feels like it's of the past even while it yearns to be part of that past, an interesting and very entertaining line to walk.
The sheer lunacy of the ideas and the many disparate elements that get tossed in and taken out makes it feel like it could go in any direction, and like I said, once I understood I shouldn't anticipate anything, I left myself open to be pleasantly surprised by where it went. By the time I got to who was living in that castle, I was pretty much beaming as I said "of course!" As such, I can hardly wait to see where it goes next in the sequel!"

And, concerning the second book:

"Across the Midnight Sea by Aaron Smith - The follow-up to Smith's 100,000 MIDNIGHTS sees Eric (our human narrator) continue his relationship with the newly Elder vampire Siobahn, and his continued employment by Phillip, an older vampire with a mysterious past that isn't so mysterious after this volume.
The book picks up days after the end of the previous adventure, and while there are some twists and turns the novel overall has a more focussed narrative thread, without the numerous serial adventure side missions. There are certainly still nods to different popular stories, but this second outing delves less into the general supernatural themes of the first and spends time deepening the lives of the main characters. Phillip's aforementioned mysterious past is revealed, Eric's family naturally comes into the picture, and a possible love triangle emerges when Eric befriends an entirely human female closer to his own age than the near 300-year-old (and immortal, and vampiric) Siobahn.
Think of the first book as a rollercoaster, and this one like a Ferris wheel. You hardly catch your breath with the first, with the second you take time to stop and look around, but they're both still fun rides. I have no idea what the third book will be, and that's a good thing."

Those 2 reviews each made my day and I'm glad Brad (and other readers, I hope) looks forward to the next book in the series.

I found it interesting that Brad, being an observant reader, noticed certain differences between the two books, specifically what he calls the serial nature of the first book and the more focused narrative thread of the second. He's right on the money, and there are reasons for the differences (and I'm glad he seemed to enjoy both styles). The first book was indeed originally written as a series of short stories and intended to be a serial. I first created the character of Eric and Siobhan in two short stories, "100,000 Midnights" and "A Study in Shadows," which were published in Pro Se Press's magazine FANTASY AND FEAR. After writing those, I couldn't get enough of them, so I kept writing. I came up with plot after plot and soon had eight stories. It was then that I decided to try to put them all together as one novel. Those 8 stories became the 14 chapters of 100,000 MIDNIGHTS. After that book was accepted by Musa Publishing, I wanted to do a sequel. That story, ACROSS THE MIDNIGHT SEA, was meant from the first page to be a novel, which explains the difference in style from the first book. 

I do plan to write a third novel continuing the story of Eric, Siobhan, Phillip, and the other cast members. I haven't started it yet, but I have a few ideas. 

Those interested in my vampire novels can find them on Amazon for Kindle:

100,000 MIDNIGHTS  

ACROSS THE MIDNIGHT SEA      

or for Barnes & Nobles' Nook e-reader:

100,000 MIDNIGHTS 

ACROSS THE MIDNIGHT SEA

or at the Musa Publishing site.  

Thanks again, Brad, for the great reviews! 

 

Anything Can Happen at Midnight

I suppose it was inevitable that I'd want to write about vampires at some point in my life. I've been interested in the undead ever since I was about five and a vampire story in a Batman comic scared me senseless. Over the years that followed, I saw dozens of vampire movies, read most of the best-known vampire books (and many obscure ones too), and never completely lost interest in the idea of blood-drinking creatures of the night.

It was a few years ago that I wrote my first vampire short story, "100,000 Midnights," which was published in one of the magazines I sometimes contribute to. I started writing sequel shorts to that one, soon had a handful of them, and then made the decision to combine them all into one book instead of publishing them piece by piece. That became the novel 100,000 Midnights, which was released as an e-book just over a year ago by Musa Publishing. While it was a slow starter in sales, possibly because it was aimed at an audience outside my usual pulp stomping grounds, it's really started to pick up in recent months, probably due to the help of some very positive reviews. Here's the Amazon page for 100,000 Midnights. 

 

Now, I'm happy to announce that the second book in my vampire series, Across the Midnight Sea, is now available for Kindle, Nook, and most other electronic formats. Here it is on Amazon.

 

So as I write this, I'm thinking about what it's like working on this series of vampire stories (and yes, there will eventually be a third book), and I'm starting to smile as I realize how much fun it is.

The vampire books, or I guess I can call it the Midnight series now, since that word appears in both titles and will find its way into future volumes' titles as well, are my personal playground where anything can happen. Other series of stories I've written or are currently writing seem to have more rules that I have to follow (not that that's a bad thing, it all depends on what I'm trying to accomplish with a given project). For example, when I work on a character like Sherlock Holmes or Allan Quatermain, I have to maintain the essence created by the originator of the character. When I work on a Marcel Picard detective story or a spy novel like Nobody Dies For Free, the stories take place in a realistic version of our world and I have to obey the laws of science and reality. But with the Midnight books, my typing hands are completely unbound.

The Midnight books are set in a world full of supernatural beings, though the general human public isn't aware of what goes on in the shadows.

100,000 Midnights begins with our protagonist, Eric (who I've never given a last name to) stopping in a diner late one night. Eric is what you might call a very young hermit, a somewhat eccentric young man who has few friends and often feels like he was born in the wrong era. So he's sitting alone in this diner and he meets Siobhan, who turns out to be a 292-year-old vampire, though she physically looks like she's not even twenty yet. Eric's whole life changes that night and he finds out that there's a hell of a lot more going on in the world than he ever imagined. He also discovers that he has a natural talent for dealing with supernatural emergencies, though that doesn't mean its always easy. And, he also soon discovers that he can't ever really go back to the way his life used to be, not that he wants to, because that would mean leaving Siobhan.
I'm not going to say anything more about the plot right now,but Eric's nocturnal adventures continue through that book and into the sequel.

The Midnight books are also, I realize, a place where I can pay tribute to many of the things that have influenced me. Quite a few of the places in those two books are thinly disguised versions of places I've been to. Someday, I'm going to do a blog post featuring photos of the real-life locations that have inspired the places in the novels. There are references and homages to a lot of other things in there too, things like the work of H.P. Lovecraft, old Archie comics, H.G. Wells, Dracula (of course!), Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes, and probably a dozen other things, some of which I might not even have been aware of putting in there at the time!

When I started the set of vampire stories that eventually coalesced in the first novel, I really didn't know exactly where I was going with them. Now, two books into the series, with a third just barely started, I'm still not sure where Eric, Siobhan, and the others will eventually end up, but I hope those who have read and enjoyed the first book and those who are currently reading the second, will come along for the ride. You can never be sure what will happen at midnight.     

Werewolves of.......Idaho????

On the thirteenth day after the end of the world, Byron was down to his last pill. Two weeks since the lights went out and there were no answers, no reassurance. Still they waited. The whole little town, except the fifteen men and twelve women who had gone off into daylight to look for information, now huddled in the high school, most of them in the gym, everyone from the mayor down to the newest infant to be born into a world suddenly very uncertain. The twenty-seven who had left had not been heard from again.

What you've just read is the first paragraph of the latest of my stories to be published. "The Librarian," in the new anthology of werewolf stories, Tails of the Pack, just released by Sky Warrior Books and edited by Steven E. Wedel. Tails of the Pack contains eleven brand new stories, including mine. The anthology is available as an e-book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords. 

Here's a look at the cover, which I think is a wonderful piece of art:

Honestly, I'm a bit surprised to suddenly be the author of a werewolf story. I've never considered myself a big fan of werewolves. Sure, I like some fictional depictions of this particular type of supernatural beast. The original Lon Chaney Jr. film, The Wolfman is certainly one of Universal's monster movie classics, and I have to say I like the earlier Universal film, Werewolf of London even more. Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London" has always been one of my favorite songs, guaranteed to make me smile every time I hear it.  But overall, werewolves have never appealed to me as much as vampires or Frankenstein's monster or even zombies. But when I heard, sometime last year, that an anthology was open for werewolf stories, I let the idea float around in my head for a while and, as they often do when I let them, a story popped into existence.
Byron Phelps, the librarian in the small town of Ramsey, Idaho, is enjoying a peaceful, quiet life despite a dark secret that no one else in town knows about. Then everything turns upside down and nobody is sure exactly what's happening. A once-normal town is suddenly cut off from the rest of the world and everyone is plunged into confusion, uncertainty, and fear. Then...

Sorry. I can't say anymore! 

But I'm glad I took advantage of the chance to write a werewolf story. It was fun and I hope those who buy the book will enjoy it. Will I write more about werewolves in the future? I don't know. Maybe next time I sit at my keyboard when the moon is full and the children of the night make music outside my door...
     

 

SPARKS

The process of writing a story usually begins, at least in my experience, with a question. In the case of my vampire novel, 100,000 Midnights, the question was “What happens when a human being, blissfully unaware of the existence of the supernatural, finds himself drawn into a world of shadows, immortals, and horror?”

            That question started the ball rolling and I soon had the first in a series of short stories that I later merged into a novel and had the good fortune to have published. But now, more than two years since I started to write the story, I find myself looking back on the process and wondering exactly how the pieces fell into place after I’d asked the initial question that became the core of the plot. I don’t mean I wonder how each event in the book took shape. That much is obvious: a story rolls like a snowball down a mountain and picks up not only speed but detail as the writer becomes more comfortable with his or her characters and themes. What I do mean is that I began to wonder why this particular writer chose, consciously or not, to answer the story-starting question in the particular way I did. What outside influences worked their magic on my mind in order to cause my brain and then my typing fingers to spit that story out onto the page?

            Looking at the novel, I realize that the primary theme is much simpler than mortal meets immortal. In fact, it’s perhaps the most common theme in all of storytelling: boy meets girl. But as I think of many of the stories I’ve written, I see a pattern. I have a habit of using a specific variation of that common theme. Quite a lot of my work could be categorized as stories of ordinary boy meets extraordinary girl.

            Using this theme was a natural pattern for me to fall into because I’ve been there. Like Eric, the protagonist in 100,000 Midnights, like Jason in my first novel, Gods and Galaxies, and like a few other characters I’ve written about, I’ve often felt that I didn’t quite fit in with what society seems to consider social success and, maybe, normalcy. Not that I was ever that odd or a complete outcast, but the general tone of my life, at least for the first twenty-five years or so, was that of a loner and an eccentric in the eyes of others, and my life may have seemed dull and mundane, to others and certainly to me. There’s a bit of me in all my characters. Like Jason, I’ve always been both fascinated and appalled by religion, interested in mythology but critical of the damage often caused by its believers. Like Eric, I’ve always had a fascination with the past, a feeling that maybe, at least in the corners of my mind where fantasy outweighs reality, I’d have been happier to have lived in a different era. I suppose I’ve always felt like an outsider in my time and place, a stranger in a normal land. For Eric and Jason, their dull lives are thrown into unfamiliar, exciting, and ultimately better (even if more dangerous) territory when they each encounter a very unusual woman. For Eric she’s a 300-year-old vampire; for Jason, she’s royalty from another galaxy. Both men make the jump to a brighter reality because of someone who comes very unexpectedly into their lives.

            My own experience might not sound as dramatic. My wife isn’t an alien, isn’t an immortal blood-drinker (which is good because I don’t even like needles at the doctor’s office!), but the experience of discovering her was no less powerful.

            Because of my solitary nature and my feeling of never really fitting in completely, I long held the expectation that I would always be alone. Then she appeared. I met the woman who would become my wife while filming a movie. I had done some acting several years earlier, studied the art, performed in some Shakespearean stuff around the New Jersey area, had fun with it, but stopped when I got tired of people who were more interested in being actors than they were in the actual work that goes into acting. Theatre became one in a long list of former hobbies that had worn out their welcome. So I stopped. But I got a call out of the blue one day asking if I’d be interested in a small role in an independent film an old acquaintance was making. I agreed to do it, having nothing to lose. When I said yes that the offer, I had no idea just how much I’d end up gaining. 

            I arrived on the set and there she was, working as a member of the film crew. She wore a Wonder Woman t-shirt and barked orders at actors in a voice that still held a trace of the accent she’d brought with her from Poland a decade earlier. At some point in that chaotic day of takes and retakes and debates over the delivery of lines and the torturous pauses that eat up time between shooting, electricity passed between us, magnetism, a hint that there was more going on than the filming of a movie. When the day was at its end and I asked her to call me, I was different. For once in my life, despite all my history of social awkwardness, I felt no fear, no hesitation, as if, for once, the universe was rooting me on, wanting me to win.

            I would have been crushed if she hadn’t called, felt like a lottery winner who has the ticket snatched from his hand by a strong wind before getting a chance to claim his prize. But she did call me, and the rest is history.

            It’s been almost a decade now and she’s with me every day when I wake up, every night when I go to sleep. During that decade, many things have changed. I own a house and I’ve become a writer. That second thing, the writing, I don’t know if I ever could have done without her. I write the words, but she encourages me because even when I don’t think I have another sentence in me or another story to tell, I know that she believes I do, and that convinces me. Before her, on my best days, maybe I could look in the mirror and hope to see Clark Kent staring back at me. But now she smiles at me and for at least a moment, I believe I can be Superman.

            There’s an old saying about a great woman behind every great man. That’s not quite right. I try to be a good man, don’t know if I’ll ever qualify as great, but I know that beside me—not behind but beside me—there’s a great woman. Unlike the women I sometimes write about, she’s not an alien with royal blood or a vampire with all the powers of the undead…but sometimes I think she does have some kind of superpower. What else could possibly explain how she puts up with me and my moods and my frustrations, frequent depressions and all the other things about me that must be aggravating at times?

            I don’t know how she does it. I don’t think anyone else could. But I know one thing for certain. Everything I’ve accomplished and everything I’ll accomplish in the future is a fire started by the sparks that came from her.

            As writers, we have to exaggerate events. A simple love story often isn’t enough. There has to be more. And so somewhere in that story is placed a fantasy element and in my writing it’s usually the extraordinary woman who changes the life of the ordinary man. I imagine the events and put them into words, but I don’t have to imagine the emotions. When one of my characters discovers the feelings of joy and wonder and chaos and surprise and disbelief and potential that come from finding the one person in an infinite universe of beings who can make him feel that way, I’m not making anything up. I’ve been there and I’ve done that.