Here is a great treat: Mike Hodel interviewing Arthur Byron Cover on Mike's famous radio show, Hour 25.
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
FREE WATCH ALL 7 EPISODES STAR TREK TOS WRITER JEROME BIXBY WROTE FOR SHOW'S PREDECESSOR 'MEN INTO SPACE"
YOURS TO WATCH FREE
ALL 7 EPISODES STAR TREK TOS WRITER JEROME BIXBY WROTE FOR STAR TREK'S PREDECESSOR "MEN INTO SPACE"
PRESENTED BY THE NEW JEROME BIXBY COLLECTION
"MIRROR, MIRROR: CLASSIC SF STORIES BY THE LEGENDARY STAR TREK AND FANTASTIC VOYAGE WRITER
THIS COLLECTION CONTAINS THREE OF HIS 1950s MAGAZINE STORIES HE LATER ADAPTED IN TO SCRIPTS FOR STAR TREK TOS
EDITED AND INTRODUCED BY HIS SON, SCREENWRITER EMERSON BIXBY
Buy for only $3.99 in Kindle at Amazon.
Below watch 7 episodes of the legendary 1960 science fiction television show Men into Space written by Jerome Bixby. Bixby is celebrated by Star Trek fans for his four scripts for the original series, Mirror, Mirror, By Any Other Name, Who Morns for Adonis?, and Day of the Dove. But six years earlier he had learned the craft of creating top-quality science fiction for television as a staff writer for Men into Space.
The episodes Jerome Bixby wrote for Men into Space showcase many of the qualities that would later make his Star Trek episodes among the best written for TOS. We hope you will enjoy watching them and that you will consider looking at Mirror, Mirror, a new collection of his science fiction stories from the golden age of the pulp magazines that features three stories he later used ideas and themes from in his Star Trek Scripts.
24 Is There Another Civilization? (story)
His first contribution to the series, a story outline. The script was written by someone else, but Bixby provided a strong and intriguing plot.
32 Mission to Mars (as Lewis Jay)
With his first script for the series, Jerome Bixby seems to have become the chief script writer, as he procuces all but one of the remainder of the season's teleplays.
33 Moon Trap (as Lewis Jay)
His skills as an early television writer, when tense dialogue was as important as action, show off well in this episode.
35 Into the Sun (as Lewis Jay)
Buy Star Trek Scripter Jerome Bixby's Mirror, Mirror in Kindle only $3.99.
Click here to see the final three episodes of Men into Space. Including the never aired on TV 38th episode. All three penned by Jerome Bixby.
Friday, December 12, 2014
DIGITAL PARCHMENT SERVICES Announces the Republication of William Charles Rotsler's PATRON OF THE ARTS
DIGITAL PARCHMENT SERVICES
Is Proud to Announce the Republication of William Charles Rotsler's Nebula, Hugo and Locus Award Finalist Saga
PATRON OF THE ARTS
For Immediate Release
Digital Parchment Services, through its Strange Particle Press science fiction imprint, and the estate of William Charles Rotsler are proud to announce the exclusive publication of an enhanced edition of Rotsler's 1974 novel Patron of the Arts ... based on his triple-award nominee fiction novelette of the same name.
Born in 1926, William Charles Rotsler was truly a renaissance man: acclaimed novelist and short story writer, photographer and filmmaker, much-admired artist and illustrator and – how he is perhaps best remembered – and as a warm and special part of science fiction fandom. Star Trek fans particularly owe Rotsler a debt for giving Lt. Uhura the first name of Nyota.
Rotsler had a hand in locating the fossils, crystals and stones for the Nebula Award trophies as well as receiving five Hugo awards for his cartoon work that appeared in fanzines, convention program books, and magazines such as Locus. To honor Rotsler, The Southern California Institute for Fan Interests created the William Rotsler Art Award in 1998. William Rotsler died in southern California in 1997.
"Patron of the Arts gives us a future where art is a major driver in the culture. He envisions new technologies that deepen our arts and alter how we see our world. Rotsler at the top of his form." –Gregory Benford
Brian Thorne was a billionaire. There were only two things he cared about: women and art. And because he could afford it, he paid the world's finest artist to combine the two, to make a work of art of the unforgettable, incomparable Madelon in the new and extraordinary artform: the sensatron. Then Madelon and the artist disappeared – through the sensatron. And all the money in the world could not help Brian Thorne. To solve the secret of the sensatron, he was strictly on his own...
That is how Brian Thorne, billionaire, found himself helpless—caught in a magnificent crystal creation that grew on Mars, and without any resources even if he could get away from the killers who trapped him there. For although they knew he was Brian Thorne, he couldn't prove it. To find Madelon and the sensatron, he had gone to considerable trouble to cover his tracks. Now he wished he had not been so thorough in turning his back on the luxury-lined and very well-guarded life he lived back on Earth. Now, when it was too late!
"A fine novel!" –Harlan Ellison
This new edition of Patron of the Arts features special bonus content – including a foreword by Nebula winner Gregory Benford, an afterword by Lambda finalist M.Christian, and a biographical sketch written by the author himself. The enhanced ebook version is available now – and a premier trade paperback edition will be coming in January, 2015.
Coming soon from Digital Parchment Services will be new releases of William Rotsler's novels To the Land of the Electric Angel, Zandra, The Hidden Worlds of Zandra, and Far Frontier, as well as a collection of Rotsler's short stories.
The Authorized William Charles Rotsler site
Introductory price: $2.99 – regularly $.5.99
ISBN: 9781615085828
For Review Copies Contact:
M.Christian, Publisher
Digital Parchment Services
Twitter: @DigiParchment
Facebook: Digital-Parchment-Services
"Mirror, Mirror" New Jerome Bixby Collection Reaches Top 10 on Star Trek Bestseller List at Amazon Kindle
The famed Star Trek script writer's new collection of eleven stories from the pulp science fiction magazines, Mirror, Mirror, has reached the top 10 on the Star Trek bestseller list at Amazon Kindle and the top 50 among science fiction anthologies and collections.
Before he wrote four fan-favorite Star Trek episodes, and the screen story for the movie Fantastic Voyage, Jerome Bixby (1923-1998) was a highly regarded professional science fiction magazine editor. But Bixby deserted magazine editing for Hollywood. Bixby is best remembered for episodes he wrote for the original Star Trek television series, and is much revered by series fans for introducing, in "Mirror, Mirror," the concept of the "mirror universe" where The Federation and Kirk, Spock, et al, are all their evil exact opposites in character and deed.
Bixby also wrote three other episodes, "By Any Other Name," "Day of the Dove," and, "Requiem for Methuselah," which are ranked among the best in the series. The new collection contains a trio of rarely reprinted novelettes containing ideas that Bixby would later mine and transmogrify in two of his highly regarded Star Trek episodes. These stories are "One-Way Street" and "Mirror, Mirror" (both used in the ST script "Mirror, Mirror") and "Cargo to Callisto" (used in "By Any Other Name"). The collection also contains Bixby's most famous short story, "It's a Good Life," memorably dramatized first on The Twilight Zone, then in the Twilight Zone Movie, and finally reinterpreted for the twenty-first century on the series 2002 incarnation, in "It's Still a Good Life."
Friday, December 5, 2014
Starcom: The U.S. Space Force Cartoon from the 80's - written By Arthur Byron Cover!
(from Arthur Byron Cover's site)
Here's a special treat: an episode of the classic 80's science fiction cartoon show Starcom, written by Arthur Byron Cover!
Here's a special treat: an episode of the classic 80's science fiction cartoon show Starcom, written by Arthur Byron Cover!
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Mirror, Mirror Featured on Roddenberry Site
Digital Parchment Services is thrilled that the Roddenberry section of the SF news site, Nexus, has featured the release of our Jerome Bixby collection, Mirror, Mirror:
Jerome Bixby Stories Spotlighted In New Book
'Mirror, Mirror' collection features magazine tales that inspired 'Star Trek' episodes
Stories used by writer Jerome Bixby to create two "Star Trek: The Original Series" episodes are featured in a new book compiling his science fiction work.
Titled "Mirror, Mirror Classic SF by the Famed Star Trek and Fantastic Voyage Writer," the book from Digital Parchment Services includes the never-before-reprinted novelettes "One-Way Street," "Mirror, Mirror" and "Cargo to Callisto." Bixby molded the first two novelettes into a script for his famous 1967 Season 2 episode "Mirror, Mirror" -- which went on to earn a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation -- and the last for the 1968 Season 2 episode "By Any Other Name."
The book also contains Bixby's famous short story, "It's a Good Life," which was adapted for "The Twilight Zone" and 1983's "Twilight Zone: The Movie." Other stories include his first tale from 1949, "Tubemonkey," and "The God Plllnk," which was published in 1964.
Bixby, who was a highly regarded science fiction magazine editor and writer, also wrote the "Star Trek" episodes "Day of the Dove" and "Requiem for Methuselah." He enjoyed success beyond "Star Trek," however, having co-wrote the story for 1966's "Fantastic Voyage" and penning 1958's "It: The Terror from Beyond Space," which served as inspiration for Ridley Scott's classic sci-fi film "Alien."
Screenwriter and producer Emerson Bixby, Jerome's son, edited the book and wrote its introduction.
The book arrived in stores Nov. 18, and it costs $3.99 for the ebook edition and $9.99 for paperback.
Monday, December 1, 2014
DIGITAL PARCHMENT SERVICES Is Proud To Announce The Republication Of Arthur Byron Cover's Nebula Nominee Breakthrough Book AUTUMN ANGELS
Digital Parchment Services
Is Proud To Announce The Republication Of Arthur Byron Cover's Nebula Nominee Breakthrough Book
AUTUMN ANGELS
For Immediate Release
Digital Parchment Services, through
its Strange Particle Press science fiction imprint, and Arthur Byron Cover are
extremely thrilled to announce the publication of an enhanced edition of Cover's
Nebula-nominated intergalactic romp Autumn
Angels.
"Autumn Angels
is a feast of strangeness populated by extraordinarily exotic, and yet deeply
human characters. In part satire, in part thought experiment, Arthur Byron
Cover's book is an exploration of the meaning of humanity, and is filled with
enough wild images and witty dialogues to equal five books by a lesser writer.
A must read." –Steam
Dave, Amazon
This edition features introductions
by both A. A. Attanasio (author of Radix) and multiple Nebula and Hugo
Award winner, Harlan Ellison, as well as a very special Afterword about the writing
of the book by Cover.
Digital Parchment Services is
especially excited to be able to present this new edition with the stunning
cover painting by Ron Cobb, the internationally acknowledged artist and
illustrator who worked on films such as Star
Wars and Alien, from the original
edition.
The ebook edition of Autumn Angels is available now – with a
trade paperback edition premiering in January, 2015.
Coming soon, also from the
Digital Parchment Services, will be Arthur Byron Cover's An East Wind Coming, Platypus
Of Doom, The Sound Of Winter, and
a collection of Arthur Byron Cover's short stories.
"Three Godlike men (the lawyer,
the fatman and the demon) ... seek to give a godlike humanity depression, in an
attempt to make their race seek purpose and become the ultimate species in the
universe. What follows is ... a novel which plunges you into an original sci-fi
world which raises thought provoking questions throughout the plot ... fast
paced with engaging and unique characters ... thought provoking and emotive ...
Buy it now or I will send you to the antimatter universe."
–Adam Gent, Goodreads
The book that ushered in the 21st
century – in 1975! So far ahead of its time that no one knew what to make of it!
"…recommended to readers of
Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett."
–The PorPor Books Blog
Autumn Angels is a fast moving, anarchistic romp, filled with pop
culture references, in which the clichés and conventions of sci-fi are used as
slapstick props, written four years before Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy–
"It takes the materials of
everyday entertainments—pulp heroes, movies, comics, detective stories—and
transforms them ... into a gestalt that is fresh ... the lawyer is modeled
after Doc Savage's sidekick, 'Ham,' Brig. Gen. Theodore Marley Brooks; the fat
man is Sidney Greenstreet; the gunsel is Elisha Cook, Jr. in The Maltese
Falcon; the Big Red Cheese is Captain Marvel; the Insidious Oriental Doctor is
Fu Manchu; the Queen of England who calls herself a virgin is Elizabeth I; the
ace reporter is Lois Lane; the zanny imp from the Fifth Dimension is Mr. Mxyzptlk,
and both the imp and Lois are, of course, from the Superman comics; the godlike
man with no name is Clint Eastwood in the Sergio Leone-directed spaghetti
westerns; the galactic hero with two right arms is Harry Harrison's Bill, the
Galactic Hero; the fuzzy (but boring) little green balls of Sharkosh are Star
Trek scenarist David Gerrold's tribbles; and you can figure out for yourself
the true identities or esoteric references for The Ebony Kings, the poet, the
shrink, the bems, the other fat man and his witty leg man, and on and on."
–Harlan Ellison
No wonder Autumn Angels is a one-of-a-kind extravaganza, the author lists as
influences the Marx Brothers, Monty Python, Richard Lester, the silent comedians,
Woody Allen, Harry Harrison, Keith Laumer, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Dorothy
Parker, Hemingway, Jeeves and Wooster, Phil Dick, Robert Sheckley, and Alfred
Bester.
"...agile inventiveness ... extraordinary
salience and outlandishness ... astonishing imagination ... grotesque and
hilarious ... honest and often truly beautiful ... shocking and exultant ... nothing
like the usual SF fare. I read it through in one sitting."
–A. A. Attanasio, author, Radix
Read Autumn Angels now ... you'll be glad you did!
Cover: Ron Cobb
#
ebook: http://amzn.com/B00NJX2DYQ
Introductory price: $2.99
– regularly $.5.99
ISBN: 9781615085811
Trade Paper, January,
2015
ISBN: 9781500695200
Arthur Byron Cover's Site
Distributed by Futures-Past Editions
Twitter: @futurespasted
Facebook: Futures-Past-Editions
For Review Copies
Contact:
M.Christian, Publisher
Digital Parchment Services
Digital Parchment Services is a complete
ebook and print service for literary estates and literary agents. The founders
of Digital Parchment Services are pioneers in digital publishing who have
collectively published over 2,500 ebooks and PoD paperbacks since 1998.
DPS clients include
the estates of multiple Hugo winning author William Rotsler, and science
fiction legend Jody Scott; authors such as Locus Award finalist Ernest Hogan,
Hugo and Nebula nominee Arthur Byron Cover, prize winning mystery author Jerry
Oster, psychologist John Tamiazzo, Ph.D., award winning nutritionist Ann
Tyndall; and Best of Collections from Fate Magazine and Amazing Stories.
Twitter: @DigiParchment
Facebook: Digital-Parchment-Services
Thursday, November 27, 2014
DIGITAL PARCHMENT SERVICES Publishes MIRROR, MIRROR By Star Trek And Fantastic Voyage Writer Jerome Bixby!
DIGITAL PARCHMENT SERVICES
Is Proud To Announce The Publication Of
MIRROR, MIRROR
Classic SF By The Famed Star Trek And Fantastic Voyage Writer
NEW JEROME BIXBY COLLECTION
CONTAINS THREE SF MAGAZINE STORIES THAT INSPIRED TELEPLAYS HE WROTE FOR THE ORIGINAL STAR TREK TV SERIES (1966-69)
For Immediate Release
"Mirror, Mirror", the first collection of Jerome Bixby's science fiction in nearly fifty years, showcases three forgotten pulp magazine stories by that Bixby adapted for the acclaimed Star Trek episode.
Before he wrote four fan-favorite Star Trek episodes (receiving a nomination for the coveted Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation), and the screen story for the movie Fantastic Voyage, Jerome Bixby (1923-1998) was a highly regarded professional science fiction magazine editor and writer remembered for his "yeoman work in raising the standards of the science fiction action story (…) whose own stories, though few, are much sought after by discriminating readers." (Science Fiction Stories 1953)
Bixby soon deserted magazine editing for Hollywood, where he wrote a number of low-budget, late-1950s monster movies including It: The Terror from Beyond Space (the acknowledged inspiration for Alien), and landed scripting chores on the documentaryesque early science fiction television series, Men Into Space, before striking it big when he sold Fantastic Voyage to a studio.
Jerome Bixby is best remembered, however, for the four episodes he wrote for the original Star Trek television series, and is much revered by series fans for introducing, in "Mirror, Mirror," the concept of the "mirror universe" where The Federation and Kirk, Spock, et al, are all their evil exact opposites in character and deed.
Bixby also wrote three other episodes, "By Any Other Name," "Day of the Dove," and, "Requiem for Methuselah," all of which critics and fans rank among the best in the series.
Fans of all types will thrill to learn that this first-ever collection focusing on Jerome Bixby's science fiction will showcase a trior of never-before-reprinted novelettes containing ideas that Bixby would later mine and transmogrify in two of his highly regarded Star Trek episodes, "One-Way Street" and "Mirror, Mirror" (both used in the ST script "Mirror, Mirror") and "Cargo to Callisto" (used in "By Any Other Name").
The collection will also contain Bixby's most famous short story, "It's a Good Life," memorably dramatized first on The Twilight Zone, then in the Twilight Zone Movie, and finally reinterpreted for the twenty-first century on the series 2002-3 incarnation, in "It's Still a Good Life."
Other Bixby classics include his first SF story for a pulp magazine, "Tubemonkey" (1949), and his very last, "The God Plllnk" (1964). You will also find a half-dozen other "lost" stories and novelettes reprinted for the first time since their original magazine publication in the 1950 and '60s.
Mirror, Mirror was edited and features a long personal Introduction by his son, screenwriter and producer, Emerson Bixby.
To be released in both trade paperback and as an ebook, "Mirror, Mirror Classic SF by the Famed Star Trek and Fantastic Voyage Writer" is a collection with something for everyone; it's for fans of pulp magazines, for fans of good science fiction writing, and for every fan who has ever journeyed along the space lanes with Kirk, Spock and McCoy.
Digital Parchment Services ebooks and paperbacks are available online through Amazon, B&N, and other sites, while our ebooks debut at Amazon for Kindle, and other platforms and bookselling sites to be announced.
ebook
Introductory price: $3.99 – Regularly $6.99
ISBN 9781615082414
http://amzn.com/1503302431
Trade Paper
Introductory price $9.99 – Regularly $14.99
ISBN 9781503302433
Distributed by Futures-Past Editions
Twitter: @futurespasted
Facebook: Futures-Past-Editions
For Review Copies Contact:
M.Christian, Publisher
Digital Parchment Services
Digital Parchment Services is a complete ebook and print service for literary estates and literary agents. The founders of Digital Parchment Services are pioneers in digital publishing who have collectively published over 2,500 ebooks and PoD paperbacks since 1998.
DPS clients include the estates of multiple Hugo winning author William Rotsler, and science fiction legend Jody Scott; authors such as Locus Award finalist Ernest Hogan, Hugo and Nebula nominee Arthur Byron Cover, prize winning mystery author Jerry Oster, psychologist John Tamiazzo, Ph.D., award winning nutritionist Ann Tyndall; and Best of Collections from Fate Magazine and Amazing Stories.
Twitter: @DigiParchment
Facebook: Digital-Parchment-Services
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Ernest Hogan on Cortez On Jupiter!
Here's Ernest Hogan's beautiful introduction to the new edition of his groundbreaking novel, Cortez On Jupiter!
A long time ago, in the outer fringes of Los Angeles County, I was working on a abstract painting, when Pablo Cortez popped out. The art teachers at Mt. San Antonio College ("Mount SAC") encouraged abstract art, none of this stuff with recognizable imagery or social commentary and certainly no commercial art or illustration. They were Fine Artists who created Fine Art that educated middle class people could dress up in their best clothes, visit on the weekends in downtown galleries or museums and feel civilized.
I was a Chicano kid (yeah, yeah, I was born in East L.A., my mother’s maiden name was Garcia – ya wanna see my I.D. while we’re at it, officer?) whose ideas of culture came from television, drive-in movies, and reading material I bought at liquor stores. I felt that my art should grow out of the funky environment that I lived in. The future starts now, and it also starts here.
No wonder Pablo Cortez popped out of that painting.
I was having a good time playing Jackson Pollock, slinging and smearing paint, putting stuff like paint thinner to make it drip . . . and there was a problem with the drips. I liked them, but they had a tendency to flow in the same direction – down. This would dominate the composition, nail it to the ground. I needed to defy gravity somehow. Like I was on an orbiting space station.
I was also experimenting with writing about Chicano characters – finding new veiwpoints for that gave a fresh, intense life to my stories. (Yeah, I could be an artist and writer. And I could understand science, too. Keep your borders out of my way . . .) I was interested in the things that weren’t in science fiction, after all, they were going to be in the future, too.
Also, once you’re got a good character – one that comes to life on the page and in the reader’s mind, you’re like a mad scientist who has zapped a monster to life. All you have to do after that is follow it around, study how it interacts with it’s environment, report to world what happens... that is if the military doesn’t come screaming down out of the sky and blasts it all away for common good.
This was the Seventies. The Sixties had burned out. The Vietnam War had just ended. Nixon and Watergate were dominating the news. The economy was in the toilet. Everything seemed to be out whack. A lot of people thought the world was coming to and end. As one of my teachers said, "You keep expecting to see people wearing crossed ammunition belts."
This was before Star Wars (yeah, I’m old) and everyone knew there was no money in science fiction, and there was none of the trendy talk about diversity we hear about now. Everybody seemed to think that the science fiction audience was all white nerds who would be alienated by "minority" stuff. I was looking out into a world that certainly was diverse, and the term "minority" was becoming meaningless. I was trying to create the best, most original writing that I could, because it had to be done, and I guess my intent was to be revolutionary.
In some ways, I was a crazy as Pablo Cortez.
My first version of the story of Pablo Cortez – a novelette that no longer exists, and I don’t even remember the title – was never published. I struggled to write it, then sent it around, and got rejected. A few editors thought I showed promise, but no one wanted to publish it.
That was after I gave up on studying art, the whole world of Fine Art made no sense to me, so I dropped out to pursue writing. I did have some minor success as an illustrator and cartoonist, but that was underground. For years I lived under a mound of rejection slips.
Granted there were personal encouraging notes from editors, and later on the occasional sales that kept me from quitting.
Then Ben Bova started his Discoveries series for Tor. He was look for new writers. My wife, Emily Devenport, urged me to send him something. He was asking synopses, so I sent him one of a surrealistic, sex-crazed (and still unpublished) space opera.
Ben didn’t go for that one. He explained that he was working for a conservative guy who wouldn’t go for such kinkiness, and wasn’t beyond burying a book that he didn’t like.
However, Ben felt that from my bio, I had something different to bring into the field with my ethnic and artistic background. He asked for another synopsis.
And of course, I didn’t know what to do.
Lucky for me, Pablo Cortez, like a good monstrous creation, had refused to die.
I had just sold a condensed version of Pablo Cortez’s story, "Guerrilla Mural of a Siren’s Song" to Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Weasley Smith’s Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine. I was taking Ray Bradbury’s advice that if you still believe in a story that you couldn’t sell, after a few years, cut out a page, and send it out again – andI cut a lot more than a page.
What if I take that story, shove a stick of dynamite up its ass. stand back, and take notes on what come splattering down all over the landscape?
Ben liked my Cortez on Jupiter synopsis, and suddenly, I had become a real writer, with contract with a New York publisher, an agent, and everything.
This was the Eighties. I did not sell Cortez on Jupiter as a Chicano science fiction novel. Nobody believed that there was an audience for such a thing. I’d be honest about my ethnicity, but because I wasn’t dealing with people face-to-face, they’d assume I was white like all the other sci-fi geeks. I said that the main character was named Pablo Cortez, but didn’t go on about his being a Chicano, or spoke Spanglish. I hoped they wouldn’t notice until it was too late.
To my surprise, Ben essentially, let me go wild, and write what I wanted, the way that I wanted. His advice was minimal, but dead on. I don’t think this happens much anymore.
Despite what some people might like to think, Cortez on Jupiter is not autobiographical. Like a lot of my viewpoint characters, Pablo Cortez started out as parts of me would live a lot differently if the went off on their own agenda. Good fictional characters usually have less sense of self-preservation than real people, and have a knack for getting into interesting kinds of trouble. Writers tend to find ways to get a long, so they can write.
But there are people who claim that they can’t tell my fiction from my nonfiction. Believe me, I’m always aware for where my life ends and the fiction begins.
Cortez on Jupiter got great reviews. I was compared to William Gibson. I smiled a lot.
Unfortunately, it didn’t become a runaway bestseller. And editor at Tor called it a "success d’esprit."
This was also a time when science fiction was going in one direction, and I was going in another. With bookstores, and publishers in the control of corporations, the genre was becoming nerd lit – that is, fiction created specifically for nerds, which is different from what I grew up reading. Modern readers wanted stories focus-grouped for their demographic, part of franchises they were familiar with, brought to them by multinational corporations they trust. And, please, no new ideas!
"I like sci-fi because I always know how it’s going to, and there are no surprises," as one once explained to me.
Still, Cortez on Jupiter attracted a loyal following. You could say it has become a bit of an underground cult novel. I’ve always kept one foot in the underground, so when the shit hit the fan, I’d have a place to stand.
Locus published two reviews, one comparing it to calling it the best science fiction first novel since Neruomancer, the other complaining about the "abominable prose style."
Like the rest of my work, people either love or hate Cortez on Jupiter.
Some fans were turned off by the Spanglish, thought it was alienating and hard to read while others loved it, telling me that it was the first time they saw language the used every day in print.One editor called my readers, " noisy minority.” Maybe the weren’t noisy enough.
And now that it’s the 21st century, and tides are turning, we’re hearing a lot of talk about diversity, postcolonialism, Afrofuturism and nerds that come in all colors, it may be that Cortez on Jupiter’s time had finally come.
I have this bad habit of being ahead of my time. Maybe that’s why I became a science fiction writer.
So, meet Pablo Cortez, the product of the life of renegade Chicano. His story isn’t nerd lit. Nerds – whatever their ethnicity – need to be challenged, not coddled, like bulls who refuse to charge the matador, and need to be stuck with firecracker-studded banderillas to perform. Maybe it will inspire you to perform, face the unknown, or even our own future. The future always contains the unexpected, and danger.
And it if you have the right attitude, it can be wicked fun.
–Ernest Hogan
Not since Ayn Rand's Howard Roarke has there been an artist as iconoclastic, as idealistic, and as splendidly spectacular as Pablo Cortez. And look out, he's twice as radical!
"Energetic, fast-paced, funny, and thoroughly enjoyable." -Analog
Combining hard science fiction with pyrotechnics worthy of "The Stars, My Destination," Ernest Hogan tells the story of the painter who founds the Guerrilla Muralists Of Los Angeles, goes on to make Mankind's first contact with the sentient life-forms of Jupiter.
“If Hunter S Thompson and Alfred Bester had a Chicano child, it would be this. - Dave Hutchinson
The Secret Origin of Pablo Cortez
An Introduction to CORTEZ ON JUPITER
A long time ago, in the outer fringes of Los Angeles County, I was working on a abstract painting, when Pablo Cortez popped out. The art teachers at Mt. San Antonio College ("Mount SAC") encouraged abstract art, none of this stuff with recognizable imagery or social commentary and certainly no commercial art or illustration. They were Fine Artists who created Fine Art that educated middle class people could dress up in their best clothes, visit on the weekends in downtown galleries or museums and feel civilized.
I was a Chicano kid (yeah, yeah, I was born in East L.A., my mother’s maiden name was Garcia – ya wanna see my I.D. while we’re at it, officer?) whose ideas of culture came from television, drive-in movies, and reading material I bought at liquor stores. I felt that my art should grow out of the funky environment that I lived in. The future starts now, and it also starts here.
No wonder Pablo Cortez popped out of that painting.
I was having a good time playing Jackson Pollock, slinging and smearing paint, putting stuff like paint thinner to make it drip . . . and there was a problem with the drips. I liked them, but they had a tendency to flow in the same direction – down. This would dominate the composition, nail it to the ground. I needed to defy gravity somehow. Like I was on an orbiting space station.
I was also experimenting with writing about Chicano characters – finding new veiwpoints for that gave a fresh, intense life to my stories. (Yeah, I could be an artist and writer. And I could understand science, too. Keep your borders out of my way . . .) I was interested in the things that weren’t in science fiction, after all, they were going to be in the future, too.
Also, once you’re got a good character – one that comes to life on the page and in the reader’s mind, you’re like a mad scientist who has zapped a monster to life. All you have to do after that is follow it around, study how it interacts with it’s environment, report to world what happens... that is if the military doesn’t come screaming down out of the sky and blasts it all away for common good.
This was the Seventies. The Sixties had burned out. The Vietnam War had just ended. Nixon and Watergate were dominating the news. The economy was in the toilet. Everything seemed to be out whack. A lot of people thought the world was coming to and end. As one of my teachers said, "You keep expecting to see people wearing crossed ammunition belts."
This was before Star Wars (yeah, I’m old) and everyone knew there was no money in science fiction, and there was none of the trendy talk about diversity we hear about now. Everybody seemed to think that the science fiction audience was all white nerds who would be alienated by "minority" stuff. I was looking out into a world that certainly was diverse, and the term "minority" was becoming meaningless. I was trying to create the best, most original writing that I could, because it had to be done, and I guess my intent was to be revolutionary.
In some ways, I was a crazy as Pablo Cortez.
My first version of the story of Pablo Cortez – a novelette that no longer exists, and I don’t even remember the title – was never published. I struggled to write it, then sent it around, and got rejected. A few editors thought I showed promise, but no one wanted to publish it.
That was after I gave up on studying art, the whole world of Fine Art made no sense to me, so I dropped out to pursue writing. I did have some minor success as an illustrator and cartoonist, but that was underground. For years I lived under a mound of rejection slips.
Granted there were personal encouraging notes from editors, and later on the occasional sales that kept me from quitting.
Then Ben Bova started his Discoveries series for Tor. He was look for new writers. My wife, Emily Devenport, urged me to send him something. He was asking synopses, so I sent him one of a surrealistic, sex-crazed (and still unpublished) space opera.
Ben didn’t go for that one. He explained that he was working for a conservative guy who wouldn’t go for such kinkiness, and wasn’t beyond burying a book that he didn’t like.
However, Ben felt that from my bio, I had something different to bring into the field with my ethnic and artistic background. He asked for another synopsis.
And of course, I didn’t know what to do.
Lucky for me, Pablo Cortez, like a good monstrous creation, had refused to die.
I had just sold a condensed version of Pablo Cortez’s story, "Guerrilla Mural of a Siren’s Song" to Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Weasley Smith’s Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine. I was taking Ray Bradbury’s advice that if you still believe in a story that you couldn’t sell, after a few years, cut out a page, and send it out again – andI cut a lot more than a page.
What if I take that story, shove a stick of dynamite up its ass. stand back, and take notes on what come splattering down all over the landscape?
Ben liked my Cortez on Jupiter synopsis, and suddenly, I had become a real writer, with contract with a New York publisher, an agent, and everything.
This was the Eighties. I did not sell Cortez on Jupiter as a Chicano science fiction novel. Nobody believed that there was an audience for such a thing. I’d be honest about my ethnicity, but because I wasn’t dealing with people face-to-face, they’d assume I was white like all the other sci-fi geeks. I said that the main character was named Pablo Cortez, but didn’t go on about his being a Chicano, or spoke Spanglish. I hoped they wouldn’t notice until it was too late.
To my surprise, Ben essentially, let me go wild, and write what I wanted, the way that I wanted. His advice was minimal, but dead on. I don’t think this happens much anymore.
Despite what some people might like to think, Cortez on Jupiter is not autobiographical. Like a lot of my viewpoint characters, Pablo Cortez started out as parts of me would live a lot differently if the went off on their own agenda. Good fictional characters usually have less sense of self-preservation than real people, and have a knack for getting into interesting kinds of trouble. Writers tend to find ways to get a long, so they can write.
But there are people who claim that they can’t tell my fiction from my nonfiction. Believe me, I’m always aware for where my life ends and the fiction begins.
Cortez on Jupiter got great reviews. I was compared to William Gibson. I smiled a lot.
Unfortunately, it didn’t become a runaway bestseller. And editor at Tor called it a "success d’esprit."
This was also a time when science fiction was going in one direction, and I was going in another. With bookstores, and publishers in the control of corporations, the genre was becoming nerd lit – that is, fiction created specifically for nerds, which is different from what I grew up reading. Modern readers wanted stories focus-grouped for their demographic, part of franchises they were familiar with, brought to them by multinational corporations they trust. And, please, no new ideas!
"I like sci-fi because I always know how it’s going to, and there are no surprises," as one once explained to me.
Still, Cortez on Jupiter attracted a loyal following. You could say it has become a bit of an underground cult novel. I’ve always kept one foot in the underground, so when the shit hit the fan, I’d have a place to stand.
Locus published two reviews, one comparing it to calling it the best science fiction first novel since Neruomancer, the other complaining about the "abominable prose style."
Like the rest of my work, people either love or hate Cortez on Jupiter.
Some fans were turned off by the Spanglish, thought it was alienating and hard to read while others loved it, telling me that it was the first time they saw language the used every day in print.One editor called my readers, " noisy minority.” Maybe the weren’t noisy enough.
And now that it’s the 21st century, and tides are turning, we’re hearing a lot of talk about diversity, postcolonialism, Afrofuturism and nerds that come in all colors, it may be that Cortez on Jupiter’s time had finally come.
I have this bad habit of being ahead of my time. Maybe that’s why I became a science fiction writer.
So, meet Pablo Cortez, the product of the life of renegade Chicano. His story isn’t nerd lit. Nerds – whatever their ethnicity – need to be challenged, not coddled, like bulls who refuse to charge the matador, and need to be stuck with firecracker-studded banderillas to perform. Maybe it will inspire you to perform, face the unknown, or even our own future. The future always contains the unexpected, and danger.
And it if you have the right attitude, it can be wicked fun.
–Ernest Hogan
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Our LOSCON Program Book Ad - Featuring SF Books Distributed By DPS and Futures-Past Editions By LASFS Members
Check this out: the lovely Digital Parchment Services/Futures-Past Editions ad we will be running in the LOSCON Program Book ... featuring many SF books by current and past LASFS members ... like Arthur Byron Cover, William Rotsler, Charles Lee Jackson II, and Jack Jardine/Larry Maddock!
Stephen King on FATE Magazine, the World's Leading Publication of the Paranormal and the Unexplained
On the premier episode of the 2014 season of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s PBS television show, Finding Your Roots, Professor Gates asked prolific horror novelist Stephen King where he got his ideas for stories. King's reply stunned longtime readers of FATE, the oldest and most respected magazine in its field.
"I grew up interested in nightmares, scary stories, things that go bump in the night," King explained. "My mother used to read FATE magazine Which was about the paranormal, flying saucers, and all that stuff. She would read the stories to me and I was fascinated."
Now you can read The Best of FATE, a new series of books examining key subjects in the fields of the paranormal and the unexplained—such as UFOs, psychic healing, ghosts, angelic manifestations, ESP, and a great deal more—through in-depth studies drawn from the pages of FATE magazine.
Start now with...
"I grew up interested in nightmares, scary stories, things that go bump in the night," King explained. "My mother used to read FATE magazine Which was about the paranormal, flying saucers, and all that stuff. She would read the stories to me and I was fascinated."
Now you can read The Best of FATE, a new series of books examining key subjects in the fields of the paranormal and the unexplained—such as UFOs, psychic healing, ghosts, angelic manifestations, ESP, and a great deal more—through in-depth studies drawn from the pages of FATE magazine.
CLICK BELOW TO BUY.
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
Tim Powers On William Rotsler!
(From the official William Charles Rotsler site)
We are very pleased to be able to bring you this wonderful interview with the celebrated author Tim Powers ... featuring some touching reminiscences about his experiences with William Rotsler:
We are very pleased to be able to bring you this wonderful interview with the celebrated author Tim Powers ... featuring some touching reminiscences about his experiences with William Rotsler:
Tim Powers is the author of numerous novels, including Last Call, Declare, Three Days to Never, and On Stranger Tides, the inspiration for the blockbuster film Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, starring Johnny Depp and Penélope Cruz. Tim Powers has won the World Fantasy Award twice for his critically acclaimed novels Last Call and Declare.
1. How did you first meet William Rotsler?
It was at a Westercon in San Francisco in 1971, when I was nineteen. I had gone there with the rare book dealer Roy Squires, and he introduced me to Rotsler and Paul Turner, and they asked me if I'd be interested in working for them when we were all back home in the L.A. area. The work sounded informal and irregular and paid in cash, so I said sure. I was of course already aware of Rotsler's drawings in fanzines.
2. What was your first impression of Bill?
He seemed big and confident and worldly and humorous -- the sort of guy you're flattered (especially if you're nineteen) will pay attention to you.
3. Can you share some fun anecdotes about Bill? We know that he was (ahem) quite the character....
I remember one time we went to a Mexican bar to hire guys to dress up as Arabs and be extras in "The Street of a Thousand Pleasures" - the offer was five bucks a day and the opportunity to see naked women dance, and there were lots of takers. On the way back to the van, while we were crossing a bridge over a culvert, Bill felt a hand lifting his wallet out of his back pocket; Bill spun around and rolled the guy right over the rail. I don't know how the would-be pickpocket fared, but Bill kept his wallet. I was enormously impressed.
4. Our mutual great friend, Paul Turner, and fantastic pal to Bill Rotsler, asked us to ask you about Bill's (ahem) 'adult' film Street Of A Thousand Pleasures ...?
I carried equipment around and helped build lots of sets for it - cutting walls and turrets out of plywood and painting them with a mix of paint and sand - but I wasn't there when they were filming. I think that was out of consideration for my impressionable youth. But I got to spend a number of nights at their house up on Ridpath in Laurel Canyon, and I vividly remember swimming in the pool, and hanging out with Norman Spinrad and George Clayton Johnson, and drinking beer and eating spaghetti with chili while Cat Stevens' "Tea For the Tillerman" played on the stereo.
5. Can you please share with us some thoughts about Bill's amazing creativity? His work as an author, cartoonist, photographer, filmmaker, etc?
Well, the guy was the complete artist, in every form I can think of except maybe needlepoint. Actually, I think he'd have been more successful if his skills had been limited to one or two areas! But they were all things he was very good at, and he wanted to play with them all.
6. Last, but not least, could you share with us how William Rotsler affected your life ... personally as well as professionally?
He, along with Philip K. Dick, impressed me with the chaotic life of a freelancer - stretches of wonderful idle time interspersed with periods of intense work, and how you have to be able to fully enjoy both. Financial reverses pass, and recur, and pass again. Roll with the punches and don't give up.
Read 5 Time Hugo Winner William Rotsler's Patron Of The Arts ($2.99 - Free on Amazon Unlimited) and The Far Frontier ($2.99)
Read 5 Time Hugo Winner William Rotsler's Patron Of The Arts ($2.99 - Free on Amazon Unlimited) and The Far Frontier ($2.99)
Monday, November 17, 2014
DIGITAL PARCHMENT SERVICES ANNOUNCES The Republication of Ernest Hogan's Controversial Science Fiction Romp CORTEZ ON JUPITER
DIGITAL PARCHMENT SERVICES ANNOUNCES
The Republication of Ernest Hogan's Controversial Science Fiction Romp
Cortez On Jupiter
"Ernest Hogan is the creator of a Xicano science fiction genre with a crossover readership. …raw creativity."
–Frank S Lechuga
Digital Parchment Services through its Strange Particle Press science fiction imprint, and Ernest Hogan, are extremely proud to announce the publication of a brand new trade paperback edition of Hogan's Locus Award finalist science fiction novel, Cortez On Jupiter.
The enhanced ebook version of Cortez On Jupiter, which contains a new introduction about the writing of this highly controversial novel which introduced Chicano tropes to science fiction, is available now – and a premier trade paperback edition will be coming out in January, 2015.
Hogan, who describes himself as "–a recombocultural Chicano mutant, known for committing outrageous acts of science fiction and other questionable pursuits" has had stories published with great acclaim in publications such as Amazing Stories, Analog, Science Fiction Age, Semiotext(e)SF, and many others.
Cortez On Jupiter will be followed by Ernest Hogan's High Aztech, Tezcatlipoca Blues, and a collection of Ernest Hogan's short stories: Pancho Villa's Flying Circus.
Cortez On Jupiter is the story of a wild young Chicano artist who covers Greater Los Angeles with fantastic graffiti and a beautiful African telepath who opens the door to communications with the deadly Sirens of Jupiter.
Not since Ayn Rand's Howard Roarke has there been an artist as iconoclastic, as idealistic, and as splendidly spectacular as Pablo Cortez. And look out, he's twice as radical!
Combining hard science fiction with pyrotechnics worthy of The Stars, My Destination, Ernest Hogan tells the story of the painter who founds the Guerrilla Muralists Of Los Angeles, goes on to make Mankind's first contact with the sentient life-forms of Jupiter.
It's a roller-coaster ride from vulgarity to the transcendent, as the unforgettable Pablo Cortez struggles, selfishly and selflessly, to expand humanity's consciousness on a journey from the barrio to the stars.
"Hard SF, satire, adventure, and some very strange humor combine in this intriguing, inventive, and sometimes disconcerting SF story."
–Science Fiction Chronicle
"An alien first contact story featuring a hyperactive, irreverent, and self-absorbed Chicano artist from East LA. Cortez is recruited to make contact with creatures discovered on Jupiter who "speak" in projected images. It's a dangerous assignment; previous attempts to communicate have ended in insanity and death, but Pablo is always up for a little bit of craziness."
–Michael Lichter, Amazon
"It grabs you and won't let you go. The best [first novel] I've read in science fiction since Neuromancer."
–Tom Witmore, Locus
"Energetic, fast-paced, funny, and thoroughly enjoyable."
–Analog
"If Hunter S Thompson and Alfred Bester had a Chicano child, it would be this."
–Dave Hutchinson
On Amazon: http://amzn.com/B00NMQFUJK
Digital Parchment Services is a complete ebook and print service for literary
estates and literary agents. The founders of Digital Parchment Services are
pioneers in digital publishing who have collectively published over 2,500
ebooks and PoD paperbacks since 1998.
DPS clients
include the estates of multiple Hugo winning author William Rotsler, and science
fiction legend Jody Scott; authors such as Locus Award finalist Ernest Hogan, Hugo
and Nebula nominee Arthur Byron Cover, prize winning mystery author Jerry
Oster, psychologist John Tamiazzo, Ph.D., award winning nutritionist Ann
Tyndall; and Best of Collections from Fate Magazine and Amazing Stories.
Friday, November 14, 2014
Out Now: The NEW Edition Of William Rotsler's PATRON OF THE ARTS!
Digital Parchment Services (distributed by Futures-PastEditions), through it's Strange Particle Press science fiction imprint, and the estate of William Charles Rotsler is extremely pleased to announce the publication of a brand new edition of William Rotsler's Nebula and Hugo finalist novel, Patron Of The Arts.
This new edition features never before seen content – including a forward by the Nebula winning Dr. Gregory Benford. The enhanced ebook version is available now – and a premier trade paperback edition will be coming out in January, 2015.
Coming soon, also from the author's estate and Digital Parchment Services, will be William Rotsler's To The Land Of The Electric Angel, Far Frontier, a collection of his short stories, and a book of interviews by and about William Rotsler.
"Patron of the Arts gives us a future where art is a major driver in the culture. He envisions new technologies that deepen our arts and alter how we see our world. Rotsler at the top of his form." –Gregory Benford
Brian Thorne was a billionaire. There were only two things he cared about: women and art. And because he could afford it, he paid the world's finest artist to combine the two, to make a work of art of the unforgettable, incomparable Madelon in the new and extraordinary artform: the sensatron. Then Madelon and the artist disappeared – through the sensatron. And all the money in the world could not help Brian Thorne. To solve the secret of the sensatron, he was strictly on his own...
That is how Brian Thorne, billionaire, found himself helpless—caught in a magnificent crystal creation that grew on Mars, and without any resources even if he could get away from the killers who trapped him there. For although they knew he was Brian Thorne, he couldn't prove it. To find Madelon and the sensatron, he had gone to considerable trouble to cover his tracks. Now he wished he had not been so thorough in turning his back on the luxury-lined and very well-guarded life he lived back on Earth. Now, when it was too late!
"A fine novel!" –Harlan Ellison
Special introductory price $2.99 (regularly $4.99)
Brian Thorne was a billionaire. There were only two things he cared about: women and art. And because he could afford it, he paid the world's finest artist to combine the two, to make a work of art of the unforgettable, incomparable Madelon in the new and extraordinary artform: the sensatron. Then Madelon and the artist disappeared – through the sensatron. And all the money in the world could not help Brian Thorne. To solve the secret of the sensatron, he was strictly on his own...
That is how Brian Thorne, billionaire, found himself helpless—caught in a magnificent crystal creation that grew on Mars, and without any resources even if he could get away from the killers who trapped him there. For although they knew he was Brian Thorne, he couldn't prove it. To find Madelon and the sensatron, he had gone to considerable trouble to cover his tracks. Now he wished he had not been so thorough in turning his back on the luxury-lined and very well-guarded life he lived back on Earth. Now, when it was too late!
"A fine novel!" –Harlan Ellison
Special introductory price $2.99 (regularly $4.99)
ISBN: 9781615085828
Thursday, November 13, 2014
Please Help Elvis!
(from Arthur Byron Cover's site)
Arthur Byron Cover's partner Lydia Marano has posted a call on Facebook to help their beloved dog Elvis:
Arthur Byron Cover's partner Lydia Marano has posted a call on Facebook to help their beloved dog Elvis:
Elvis needs your help. As you may know, Art and I literally picked him up off the side of the road, in March, where he'd been hit by a car. Our vet gave him a 25% chance of walking again. We worked hard, everyday, to rehabilitate him and Elvis beat the odds. He can run now but as winter approaches it becomes more and more obvious that he still needs ACL surgery. The cost: at least $1500. That's half of what we already spent and, frankly, we're tapped out. Saving up on a fixed income is hard, but we’re trying.By sheer chance, we noticed that Elvis has a tumor in his mouth which is growing over his side teeth. The vet said it had to go ... duh. In one week it’s extended to his lower, right canine. The vet estimated it will cost about $700. We put down what we had — $100 — but he needs more. To date, we've raised an additional $364 -- more than half of what we need for his oral surgery! If you can donate any amount it would be greatly appreciated.
I’ve added new designs to my Red Bubble page.
http://www.redbubble.com/people/Telzey. Elvis will get $4-6 per item sold. You can send funds to lcmarano@gmail.com at PayPal. Or, better yet, send money directly to my vet: Rim Forest Animal Hospital at 909-337-8589.
To those of you who have already donated, you have our eternal thanks. Everyone else -- thank you for listening. Asking for help is the hardest thing I've ever done, but Elvis is worth it.Please help any way you can! As Lydia has said, Elvis is more than worth it!
Friday, October 17, 2014
FATE Magazine and Digital Parchment Services are proud to present...
True reports from the pages of the world's foremost publication focusing on the paranormal and the unexplained.
Out Now!
Coming soon...
Psychic Healing and Spiritual Healing
UFOs and Extraterrestrial Encounters
Angels and Heavenly Visitations
Increasingly, when police are baffled by unsolvable crimes, they turn to psychics of proven ability for assistance. Working with clues provided by those with extraordinary paranormal gifts, officers have gone on to apprehend the guilty and, in many cases, free the wrongly accused. Sometimes a crime was committed by psychic or paranormal means, baffling the most seasoned detectives—in which case paranormal means may be the only way of bringing the criminal to justice. FATE is the longest-running and most widely-respected magazine devoted to the paranormal. During its 66 years as the leading publication in its field, FATE has published expert opinions and personal experiences relating to UFOs, psychic abilities, ghosts and hauntings, cryptozoology, alternative medicine, divination methods, belief in the survival of personality after death, predictive dreams, telepathic communication, and other paranormal topics. Many of these challenge our very concept of reality, suggesting at the very least that this world is a far stranger place than most of us suspect. For this volume of our Best of FATE series, the editors of the magazine open their files to examine true accounts of crimes—often acts of murderous violence—both perpetrated and solved by paranormal means. Here, gathered from the over seven hundred issues of Fate, are some of the most impressive instances of psychic crime-solving and psychic crimes, offering hours of fascinating reading for anyone interested in the strange, the paranormal or the occult.
Purchase Psychic Detectives and Psychic Crimes at Amazon.
$2.99 for Kindle.
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