Martin Cruz Smith

I return to blogging after yet another prolonged absence. This time it was partly due to loss of my Internet connection. It was days before I could find enough time to stay on the phone with tech support to recover the connection. (My ISP tries to weed out the weak-willed by making the customers first fight their way through a jungle of computer-voice links, then slog through the prolonged "you're-on-hold-but-we-really-value-your-call" waiting period, before reaching someone who can actually help.) Once I got finally got hold of a live human technician, we spent half an hour tracing various software paths to figure out what the problem was. It appears I screwed up some settings while trying to uninstall a piece of hardware a couple of weeks ago. I'm glad to be back online now, after going through days and days of Internet Withdrawal.

The topic on my mind right now is Martin Cruz Smith, whose latest novel (Stalin's Ghost) was just released. He rates a lot of respect in my weekly writers' group. Three of us had read his work and recommended him repeatedly to the others for several years. Two of them finally got around to reading some of his work in the last few months and both have raved about him--see comments on the C.S. Harris blog. (I thought Charles Gramlich had a Martin Cruz Smith entry on his blog, too, but after skimming several months of his entries I can't find it. I guess I was confusing his comments during our meetings with blog commentary.)

Anyway, if you haven't yet read Martin Cruz Smith, try one of his books. I recommend you start with Gorky Park. I've decided to re-read some of his books myself, starting with Gorky Park. I love the character of Arkady Renko; I'm a sucker for a noble hero who fights against overwhelming odds. C.S. Harris' one-sentence analysis of his character in her blog entry (see link above) is spot-on:

[O]ne of the most fascinating aspects of Arkady’s character is that as much as he hates totalitarianism and bureaucracy and coercion, he genuinely believes in all that is good and noble about the pure communist philosophy.

I Googled Martin Cruz Smith and came up with some items of interest. Apparently he's not a cyber-wise author--the only "official website" for him is an amateurish and out-of-date page on Literati.net. However, I found other pieces of interest:

• Wikipedia's article on him shows he's written under five names, including his best-known one, and had at least 16 books published before GORKY PARK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Cruz_Smith.
• His newest book was just released--Stalin's Ghost, #6 in the Arkady Renko series. You can read an excerpt here: http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews2/0743276728-excerpt.asp.
• For a discussion of his writing process, you might enjoy reading this interview of him, done a decade ago when his novel Rose was being released: http://www.salon.com/weekly/interview960520.html.

Here are other interviews of him:

• http://www.bookpage.com/0411bp/martin_cruz_smith.html (in conjunction with release of Wolves Eat Dogs);
• http://wiredforbooks.org/martincruzsmith/ (written commentary interspersed with links to three audio interviews, done in connection with releases of Stallion Gate, Polar Star, and Red Square);
• http://www.bookreporter.com/authors/au-smith-martin-cruz.asp (regarding December 6--an interesting discussion of why he decided to set a book in pre-WWII Japan, and his difficulties writing about a culture that was difficult for him to get into).

He's one of America's best living writers, in my opinion.

Back on the Blog

Egads. It's June 1, and almost a month since I last posted here. My apologies for the extended absence (if there is anyone out there still checking this blog). Life got in my way this month. The last two weeks in particular have been awful.

A long-time coworker committed suicide at his office in the place where I work. I didn't work directly with him, and wasn't close to him, but had known him for many years. He had a wife to whom he'd been married for 30-plus years, and five living children. It is a great tragedy, not only for the obvious reasons but also for others not so obvious.

Apart from that, in another sort of tragedy, I learned that someone I care about is addicted to a powerful substance. That addiction explains certain behaviors in the person I didn't previously understand, but it also presents a fearful picture for the future. I alternate between worrying obsessively over what will happen in this person's life, and then trying not to think about the situation at all. I know addictions can't be overcome unless the addicts are willing to work and suffer to resist whatever it is they're addicted to. I feel helpless.

The nascent worry lines in my forehead now are permanently engraved.

But it is June 1, and that is another month and, to me, June 1 has always represented the start of another season--Summer Vacation from when I was a child in school--and I have always loved the idea of a Fresh Start. I will enter the Summer Season with hope that by its end the things that worry me will have been alleviated, or even cured.

Oops. I just remembered that today is the official start of Hurricane Season...

I will be a positive thinker: No disastrous hurricanes will strike this year. New Orleans will not be hit.

Swords of Talera

My blolleague Charles Gramlich has a new book out. Swords of Talera was previously published in serial form in an SF magazine a number of years ago. Since then he's written two sequels to it, creating his Talera Cycle series. Borgo Press picked up the series for publication and has just released the first book, Swords of Talera, which is now available via Amazon. Since Charles and I have been in the same weekly writers' group for six years now, I've been lucky enough to hear bits and pieces from Nos. 2 (Wings Over Talera) and 3 (Witch of Talera) as he was working on them. Charles has a lyrical writing style and the imagination of a born storyteller whose early influences were Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard. (The Taleran books are of the "sword and planet" genre, a la Burroughs' John Carter of Mars books.)

For more info about the book, see Charles' blog and the Amazon page. If you loved the great swashbuckling fantasy novels of yore, you'll be thrilled by Charles' books. And if you've never read the great swashbuckling fantasy novels of yore, try Charles' book for an exciting introduction to the genre.

"New Orleans Betrayed Again"

After going 10 days without posting, I'm suddenly bubbling over with things I want to post about, but I don't have time to develop the ideas. Here's a quickie that requires no work from me:

Visit my friend Shauna Roberts' blog and read her April 30th entry, "New Orleans Betrayed Again." Here's an excerpt: "Today we learned that foreign countries offered $800,000,000 in desperately needed aid—medical teams, body bags, bottled water, food, rescue dogs, ships to house people left homeless, and more—and our federal government turned almost all of those offers down. What kind of government do we have, to allow such incompetence?"

Ironic, that our government helps its own citizens less than it helps those in other nations, yet at the same time it rejects or ignores offers of help from other nations. Grrrr.

2007 Derringer Award Nominees

Alas, I realized today that it's been 10 days since I last posted here. I've had several topics in mind to write about, but have been tied up taking care of matters in Daily Life. Rather than let my blog go empty another day, I'm posting an entry, which I started several weeks ago and hadn't quite finished. (I can't remember now what else I planned to add, so I hedged by adding a final sentence or two.)
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Some of my writing friends bemoan the fact that short fiction has lost so much popularity and is hard to sell nowadays. Fortunately, there still is a market for short fiction in the mystery genre. Below is the list of nominees for the 2007 Derringer Award, presented by the Short Mystery Fiction Society:

2007 DERRINGER NOMINEES

(For Stories Published in 2006)

BEST FLASH STORY

"Matched Set" by Jan Christensen (Winter 2006, Long Story Short)

"Vigilante" by Barry Ergang (Summer 2006, Mysterical-E)

"Snowflake Therapy" by Michelle Mach (June 2006, Thereby Hangs a Tale)

"Flight School" by Jill Maser (August 28, 2006, Flashshots)

"Home Entertainment" by Sandra Seamans (July/August 2006, A Cruel World)

BEST SHORT-SHORT STORY

"Even Steven" by Gail Farrelly (Winter 2006,Mouth Full of Bullets)

"Four For Dinner" by John M. Floyd (Seven by Seven)

"Interview" by Justin Gustainis (October 2006, Cape Fear Crime Festival)

"Elena Speaks of the City, Under Siege" by Steven Torres (September/October 2006, Crimespree Magazine)

"The Worst Door" by Frank Zafiro (January 2006, Dispatch)

BEST MID-LENGTH SHORT STORY

"Eden's Bodyguard" by David Bareford (September 2006, Thuglit)

"Shadow People" by Rex Burns (June 2006,Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine)

"Cranked" by Bill Crider (Damn Near Dead: An Anthology of Geezer Noir)

"Uncle Blinky's Corner of the World" by Robert S. Levinson (March/April 2006, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)

"Shanks on the Prowl" by Robert Lopresti (May 2006, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine)

BEST LONGER SHORT STORY

"Signature in Blood" by Annette Dashofy (Winter 2006, Mysterical-E)

"Strictly Business" by Julie Hyzy (These Guns for Hire)

"Daphne MacAndrews and the Smack-Head Junkies" by Stuart MacBride (Damn Near Dead: An Anthology of Geezer Noir)

"See Also Murder" by Larry Sweazy (December 11, 2006, Amazon Shorts)

"The Valley of Angustias" by Steven Torres (October 2006, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine)

The SMFS website does not indicate when the winners for 2007 will be announced. The website also lists past winners, beginning from the first year of the contest in 1998.