Book Review: MJ-12: Endgame by Mike Martinez
The MJ-12 series (MJ-12 Inception, MJ-12: Shadows) comes to a successful conclusion in Mike Martinez’s MJ-12 Endgame, where a plot by Lavrentiy Beria to take control of the Soviet Union after Stalin’s death will help decide the fate of Variants across the world. MJ-12: Endgame does not waste any time in dropping us into the world of Mike Martinez’s MJ-12 ‘verse, an alternate world where people given superpowers by two mysterious vortexes at the end of the second World War are recruited into the intelligence agencies of the USA and the USSR to covertly thwart the plots and plans of the other side.
Guest Post: Finding the Dark by Rachel Caine
Today on Skiffy and Fanty, Rachel Caine, part of the Dead Air team, a podcast/serial story collaboration she is doing with Gwenda Bond and Carrie Ryan, tells us about finding the darknes in thrillers and what her new project has to offer. I started reading my dad’s books when I was, well, old enough to figure out where he kept them, which was way too young. Some of them were what would be euphemistically called “men’s adventure” today; James Bond-type books, only with more sex and violence. Some were horror. But I most remember the opening of one of Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct novels … a book about a murderer backing a woman into a corner in her apartment, and relentlessly slashing back and forth at her like a sideways pendulum. It haunted me. I couldn’t get it out of my head, no matter how much fun space exploration science fiction I read, or high fantasy, or historical novels (all of which I loved).
My Superpower: Michael R. Underwood, 2nd edition
My Superpower is a regular guest column on the Skiffy and Fanty blog where authors and creators tell us about one weird skill, neat trick, highly specialized cybernetic upgrade, or other superpower they have, and how it helped (or hindered!) their creative process as they built their project. Today we welcome our own Michael R. Underwood (aka Mike) back to talk about how the power of being a role-playing gamer applies to his novel The Younger Gods.
My Superpower: Geoffrey Girard
My Superpower is a regular guest column on the Skiffy and Fanty blog where authors and creators tell us about one weird skill, neat trick, highly specialized cybernetic upgrade, or other superpower they have, and how it helped (or hindered!) their creative process as they built their project. Today we welcome Geoffrey Girard to talk about how his Supreme Strategic Suspicions relate to Cain’s Blood… In Cain’s Blood, the teenaged clones of infamous serial killers (Bundy, Gacy, Berokowitz, Dahmer, etc.) cause all sorts of nasty havoc. I was somewhat puzzled by early reviews that focused on how “dark and violent” the book is. I’d never really thought about that. I just wrote about what might happen next, the most-likely thing in a given situation. When Scott Smith, the author of The Ruins, called the book “very dark,” I didn’t think much of that either, until I watched The Ruins for the first time in years and thought: “THIS guy thinks I’m dark!” It was the first time I stopped to consider what I’d ultimately created. And How.
