Liking Twelve's Tenth

I watched Doctor Who's "The Pilot" and liked it a lot. The setting with Twelve working as a university lecturer fits like a glove, Pearl Mackie as Bill Potts was instant likability (and that comes from a card-carrying Clara Oswald fan), and Matt Lucas as Nardole is alien funny forming with Twelve and Potts an unusual, quirky trio. Hey, there's granddaughter Susan in a photograph on his desk. Believe I read somewhere they are bringing back Carole Ann Ford. How we are all on board is that, huh? Oh, and the Douglas Adams nods were spot on. Yeah,  Peter Capaldi’s final season (tenth of the new series run) as Twelve is shaping up rather nicely.

Roll of the Dice: Attractors

Gods

I'm rereading Neil Gaiman's AMERICAN GODS ahead of the April 30th television adaptation on Starz. I will be doing an analysis of novel vs. series for Macmillan's Criminal Element. 

That Brutal Unpredictability

A Free Soul (1931)

Renowned gamesman Barclay Cooke (1912-1981) called Backgammon “the cruelest game.” Memorable hyperbole? Perhaps. But vital skills are needed to play: intense concentration, clever strategy, and an ability to see ahead to possible traps—and still the probability of the roll can level the steel nerves of even the finest. That brutal unpredictability translates well to the mystery, crime, and thriller genres, and of course, with sport slang like post mortem, premature burial, under the gun, shot, hustler, and hit, backgammon is practically crying out for a spotlight with the criminal element.

Read more on my favorite game, by me, here.

THE BROKEN COUNTRY: BEING THE SCABROUS EXPLOITS OF CYRUS & GALINA VAN, HELLBENT WEST DURING THE EIGHTH YEAR OF THE HARROWS, 1876; WITH AN ACCOUNT OF MAPPERS, BOUNTY HUNTERS, A TATAR, AND THE SCIENCE OF PHRENOLOGY

Latest title (and a long one at that, right?) from BEAT to a PULP books and Court Merrigan:

Set in post-apocalyptic 1876, THE BROKEN COUNTRY tracks the scabrous exploits of the outlaws Cyrus and Galina Van. The pair kidnaps a naïve, young scion and head west in pursuit of gold, glory, and respect. Along the trail they met Atlante Ames, a mapper who euthanized her own father and now seeks her twin brother, himself gone outlaw in the ravaged West. In cold pursuit rides the implacable bounty hunter Hal, who takes scalps in the name of Jesus Christ and the science of phrenology, and the contemplative Buddhist assassin Qa'un, paying off the bloodprice he owes Hal … bounty by bloody bounty. Cyrus and Galina's hard road west comes to a head in a dynamite-tossing, six-gun-blazing shootout at the old train depot in Laramie.

A dark journey to a time when wagon trains have retreated and the Old West is haunted by bonepickers and starving tribes, THE BROKEN COUNTRY: BEING THE SCABROUS EXPLOITS OF CYRUS & GALINA VAN, HELLBENT WEST DURING THE EIGHTH YEAR OF THE HARROWS, 1876; WITH AN ACCOUNT OF MAPPERS, BOUNTY HUNTERS, A TATAR, AND THE SCIENCE OF PHRENOLOGY is unlike any other book you will read this year.

Available now to pre-order for the kindle.

Creating The Never-Ending Bloom

Black Thirteen

Callahan stops his traipse down the bloody memory lane to show Roland the crystal ball. Roland has Callahan take him to Black Thirteen without Susannah present, afraid that the demon in her belly will grow stronger.

Faintly, Roland heard the chime of bells—a sound so beautifully hideous it made you want to grind your teeth against it. For a moment the walls of Pere Callahan’s church wavered. It was as if the thing in the box had spoken to them: Do you see how little it all matters? How quickly and easily I can take it all away, should I choose to do so? Beware, gunslinger! Beware, shaman! The abyss is all around you. You float and fall into it at my whim.

Our ka-tet continues forward at Macmillan's Criminal Element.