A Debt Paid

 The Christmas Season is a time for celebration and recollection. I have much to be grateful for, to include the opportunity on Type M to share anecdotes and observations. This post I'll take the occasion to reflect on a debt paid to the acclaimed Denver Chicano artist, Stevon Lucero, who recently passed away from health complications (not Covid).  An imaginative painter, more of a shaman who used paint as his way to share his visions, he was known for his fusion of Mexican and Indigenous folklore, the metaphysical, and American pop culture. He was also a scholarly fan of science-fiction, from the cerebral to the cheesy. 

Photo: Stevon Lucero Metastudios

I'd stop by his studio at the CHAC Gallery and we'd chat about art and writing. He could make connections between 2001: A Space Odyssey and Batman and Carlos Castaneda. How this worked in my favor was that in my Felix Gomez series, I had written myself into a corner. I'd penned each book as a stand alone and never gave much thought to a series arc. Then I got stuck. What had happened was that in my third book, The Undead Kama Sutra, I decided to throw a curve ball to the readers. Carmen Arellano, vampire femme fatale extraordinaire, had been captured by alien gangsters. The reader expected Felix to rescue Carmen but he failed. At the end of the book, she was a captive of aliens in deep space and I had no idea how to rescue her. Felix's dilemma weighed on his mind and mine.

At one First Friday Art Walk, I was chatting with Stevon when he said, "Mario, that was brilliant." Though I had no idea what he was talking about, I agreed with him. 

"What you did, vato. The psychic plane. In every book you build more about accessing the psychic plane. That's how you're going to rescue Carmen, using the psychic plane." He proceeded to explain about the supernatural vortexes at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. Reflecting on what he'd said, Stevon was right. Only I as the author didn't see it but to Stevon, the path across the galaxy using paranormal portals was obvious. And so, his insights unfolded into Rescue From Planet Pleasure. After I wrote the book I sat with Stevon to share my thoughts. With his usual self-effacing manner, he told me that he'd moved on to other things. But at least I had the chance to thank him. 

While Stevon's memorial service was Roman Catholic, more or less, his funeral drew upon Mayan and Aztec traditions. 

A Darth Vader censer violated no rules in Stevon Lucero's universe.

Aztec dancers lead the procession back to the chapel.

Merry Christmas. Best Wishes and Happy Writing to you all.

Up and at 'em!

Finally, after five long years, my new book is out, Rescue From Planet Pleasure. What took so long?

Well, first of all, I had to write the damn thing. But it's more complicated than that. In 2010, after my fifth book in the series was released, HarperCollins chose not to renew my contract. The reason? Sales. The situation baffled to me. Everyone told me each book was better than the previous, but as you tracked my sales numbers, they declined with every new title. So I was frustrated and bitter with publishing. Seems that no matter what I did, I felt like Charlie Brown trying to kick that football. Let me qualify that. I was and am grateful for all the success that I've had, but I can't deny my frustration at trying my best and coming up short.

I had cooked up some new stories which I submitted as partials. But no bites. So for two years I was spinning my wheels with nothing new in the pipeline. Since no one in publishing showed interest in my stories, I didn't finish them. Meanwhile, the Amazon ebook boom was taking off, and I had nothing to offer. But day by day, fan emails trickled into my mailbox. "Where's the new Felix story?" "You left so much unresolved. You owe us." So I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and got back on that horse to start writing book six. My intention was to self-publish but at Comicpalooza in Houston, TX, I ran across the WordFire Press booth in the dealer's pavilion. I was impressed by their hustle and presentation. WordFire is a regional press owned by SF writer extraordinaire Kevin J. Anderson. He and his stalwart crew have not only put together an impressive stable of writers, they also formed partnerships with other publishers to juice everyone's authors. I decided to throw my hat into their ring. I commissioned an artist friend, Eric Matelski, for the cover and he did a fantastic job. WordFire did the legwork with the editing and formatting. This weekend an advanced copy will be available at Denver Comic Con.

Am I happy? You bet. How am I celebrating? By writing Book 7, Steampunk Banditos. Coming next year.

Respect Your Minions

I'm close to priming the BSP pump and start spraying news about my forthcoming Felix Gomez detective-vampire book, Rescue From Planet Pleasure. Early in that story I had a battle between the good vampires and the enemy bloodsuckers. My heroes were cutting down the bad guys by the dozens. Then during the writing of that manuscript I saw the James Bond thriller, Skyfall, and that made me reconsider the body count. Near the climax of the movie, a horde of bad guys close upon Bond and company trapped in the mansion. Our intrepid champions cut through the ranks of the evil doers who kept attacking and attacking like mindless zombies. Then it hit me.

Why are minions so willingly expendable? Why are the bad guy pawns so relentless in their attack despite being slaughtered? These guys are criminals, which means they have only two possible motives. Either they are cultish slaves or they're in the business of murder and mayhem for profit. Even if they are devoted slaves to the master criminal, wouldn't they--as they're being mowed down--ask the boss to reconsider their strategy? What's the point of them dying like vermin? And if they're in it for the money, I think that after one or two bite the dust, the rest would pull back and regroup. Money is only good if you can spend it, something that's hard to do from the grave.

In Skyfall the bad guys arrive in a gigantic helicopter, worth tens of millions of dollars. Flying that machine ain't easy, so it would have to be piloted by an experienced and rather level-headed crew, and despite their competency, the copter is easily destroyed. At what point would the crew hit "minion-override" and decide to quit acting stupid? A band of murderous criminals is like a pack of wolves, and like wolves, once the alpha threatens the pack, then they turn on him.

That realization made me reconsider the slaughter of the minions in my story, and I cut back on the body count. I even had some of the minions rebel against the villain because of their useless loss. As we writers like to say, everyone is the hero of their own story, so it would make sense for the minions to act in their own self-interest. Which actually makes for a more layered and deeper story. Lesson learned.