More A RIP THROUGH TIME

Gary Dobbs at The Tainted Archive talks about A RIP THROUGH TIME here.

Also, a few folks have mentioned having a problem leaving a comment. If you are having trouble, please e-mail me your response at paladin-1@hotmail.com and I will post it.

Flash Gordon. Han Solo. Buck Rogers. John Carter. Indiana Jones.

Chris F. Holm Talks About Simon Rip.

BTAP #90: A Rip Through Time: The Dame, The Doctor, and the Device by Chris F. Holm

I'm super thrilled about this week's offering at BEAT to a PULP that requires a little back story revolving around TIME TRAVELERS NEVER DIE. Thanks to reviews by Randy Johnson and James Reasoner, I picked up Time Travelers and fell under the spell once again with the concept of jumping through centuries. It got the gears in my tiny brain whirling and Simon Rip was born.

Rip is a time cop who is sent back through the realms in search of the world's first time voyager, Dr. Berlin. I wanted straightforward pulp. Fun adventure not weighed down in The Grandfather Paradox and I wanted plot ideas born not of my limited noodle. Enter Chris F. Holm, Charles Gramlich and Matthew P. Mayo. Each one of these talented writers brought so much more to the table than I could have hoped for. Mr. Gramlich and Mr. Mayo's concluding pieces will be coming up later this year in BTAP's first ever eBook. (With a sharp essay on time travel by Ron Scheer.)

For the opening installment, Mr. Holm has done a phenomenal job in setting up the story especially since I handicapped him in a big way confining him to a lower word count for online readers. But because he is such a gifted storyteller he pulled it off more than admirably. What am I talking about? Well, folks, here it is, A Rip through Time: The Dame, the Doctor, and the Device. Please leave a comment and let us know what you think.

Friday Forgotten Book Follow-up: The Sun Smasher

James Reasoner reviewed Edmond Hamilton's The Sun Smasher back in May. A couple of items in James's post jumped out at me: 1) Sun Smasher has a Cornell Woolrich-esque beginning and then completely goes in its own direction, and 2) the phrase "master of space opera."

I snagged a copy and can now say I'm a fan of Mr. Hamilton's sci-fi prose which in this book is light on the technical jargon (just the way I like it) and has maximun adventure output. The tale follows protagonist Neal Banning as he discovers everything he thought about his upbringing is a lie and his destiny awaits among the stars.

Loads of fun. I recommend reading Mr. Reasoner's post first and then finding a copy of Edmond Hamilton's The Sun Smasher.

For more FFB's click over to this week's host, George Kelley.

Justice Served

I hadn't planned on finishing another Cash Laramie western so quickly but an editor asked if I had a dark tale waiting in the stable. I did -- titled "Justice Served" -- yet I'm not sure that I'm ready to release it because the hero isn't cast in the best of light. Mind you, I wrote this western with the intention that heroes often fail in our eyes, don't they? Still, since I'm fond of Cash, I've decided to hold his reputation in my keyboard for the time being. And then after a few weeks of sitting on it, which I always do to see how a story ages, who knows, maybe I'll be anxious to let it go.

The Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles canon thus far: "Cash Laramie and the Masked Devil" in A Fistful of Legends | "Miles to Go" | "Kid Eddie" ( at The Western Online in two weeks) | "The Bone Orchard Mystery" (out for submission) | "The Wind Scorpion" in the Round One anthology | and "Justice Served."

What is everyone else working on?

Open Roads and Freebirds and Other Links

Alec Cizak on the latest offering at All Due Respect:

For issue number three of ALL DUE RESPECT, JJ Kinni puts together a road story that fuses the wandering prose of Jack Kerouac with some nice elements of all-American debauchery we would expect to find in a Jim Thompson or James Ellroy novel. The result is "Open Roads and Freebirds," a story that moves from post-World War II alienation to the dawn of the free love movement in San Francisco.

Other links in my cyber travels: An interview with Sara Paretsky where Chandler is brought up in an unfavorable light | The Novelist Wars | Car crashes into Stephen King's Gate | and That Nameless Stranger, Half a Century Later.

Wanted Dead or Alive

"Three hard mother-grabbin' years, but I learned my trade and it gave me discipline." —Steve McQueen, The King of Cool, commenting about his experience on the series