Action Adventure Fiction

I came across an author who has recently self-published a zombie novel. As many of you know, I’ve been planning to self-publish Oasis once I’ve got it done. So, my interest was piqued and I contacted him. His name is Tony Monchinski, he’s a nice guy, and his book is called Eden by Tommy Arlin. And since I know most of you are already interested in zombie apocalypse fiction, I thought I’d introduce him (and his novel) to you.

Tony was kind enough to give a virtual interview. Here’s how it went.

Tell me a little bit about yourself. What is your day job? What are your hobbies?

I am 35 years old and live about an hour north of New York City. I am a high school special education teacher and usually teach history classes (to learning and emotionally disabled students), though lately I find myself more and more involved in mathematics education, so go figure. I’ve been teaching for ten years now. Got my start in a middle school down in Selma, North Carolina; spent time as a teacher with the Peace Corps in the Caribbean; a year in South Korea; and have been in Westchester teaching the past seven.

I’m a family man and my wife and I have a son (little Tony) who is a year and a half old and are expecting a daughter (Honah Lee, like in Puff the Magic Dragon, though it also has meaning in Hangul [Korean]) next month. I love being a dad! It is totally awesome.

My “hobbies” include reading, writing, and more and more photography. I don’t have a lot of spare time because I am also in graduate school, in the middle of writing my dissertation (PhD) in Political Theory. I do find time to catch up on the zombie genre and just recently returned from Maryland’s Horrorfind Weekend convention where I met George Romero and many of the cast members of his films, everyone from Ken Foree to “machete zombie” to “Hare Krishna zombie.” I gotta give props to my friend and fellow teacher Jim Doller and his Maryland Zombie Crew crew (John, Pete and Chris) for getting me into that.

What do you like to read?

Because it feels like I’ve been in school since forever, I usually am reading something nonfiction. Lately its all been related to my dissertation, a lot of stuff ranging from ethics (Kant, Utilitarianism, feminist care ethics, etc.) to education (specifically John Dewey, Paulo Freire and feminist pedagogy). But I make time to read Cormac McCarthy, George Pelecanos, Andrew Vachhs, Russel Banks, Sherman Alexie, and a few others. I also am an avid comics reader and make sure I read whatever Robert Kirkman is doing (The Walking Dead being an obvious favorite).

I grew up reading a lot of fiction, everything from pulpy men’s action adventure stuff (like Don Pendleton’s Mack Bolan; Jerry Ahern’s Survivalist and Track; Jack Hild’s S.O.B.s—Soldiers of Barabas, etc.) to people like Kurt Vonnegut and Douglas Adams to the fantasy of Tolkein and Terry Brooks to the early good stuff of Stephen King and of course comics like Devil Dinosaur, GI Joe and Godzilla.

I also like to read newspaper and magazines and probably subscribe to eight or ten different magazines. As far as the horror genre is concerned, I really like the few copies of Rue Morgue Magazine that I have seen.

Is this your first book? What else have you written?

Let’s differentiate between what I have written and what I have published. I have written four or five novels which I need to revisit, revise, and get out there sooner or later. Eden by Tommy Arlin is the first novel I have published and I sort of put that out there myself with a print-on-demand publisher (Booksurge, an Amazon.com company). Tommy Arlin, incidentally, is a character in some of this other fiction that goes unpublished.

I have two academic texts out and a third on the way. One is a high-level English conversation text for Korean-language speakers that I developed while I was living in South Korea. Another is titled The Politics of Education and details how everything that goes on in our classrooms, from kindergarten to grad school, is political in nature and what that means. Sense published it. Springer is putting out my Critical Pedagogy and the Everyday Classroom next month. I am also in contract with Springer for a second book, Engaged Pedagogy, Enraged Pedagogy, which—because I need to get my PhD done—won’t be completed until 2010. I am grateful to Spinger and my series editor Joe Kincheloe for believing in me enough to allow me to do two books; Springer is one of the largest publishers in the world and they recently got into publishing education stuff, so I am very excited about this.

I am also active in the bodybuilding and powerlifting magazine industry. I have a monthly column that appears in MuscleMag International which I write and shoot (photograph) for. I have written articles, taken pics for, and otherwise appeared in Planet Muscle, the now defunct RX Muscle, Muscular Development Magazine, and Powerlifting USA. I am a big fan of these sports although I was never very good at them (I mean I was never quite as good as I’d have liked to have been).

Tell me a little about Eden by Tommy Arlin.

Eden by Tommy Arlin is all about what happens when the s— hits the fan. Zombies have taken over our world. Humans are holed up in little fortified compounds. Eden is one such compound located in Queens, New York, in a setting very much like one I grew up in.

The story itself is about a man named Harris, a decent, honest man, who is infected by zombies in the first sentence. The book charts his decline and the unfolding of his plans for revenge against those he perceives responsible, interspersed with flashbacks that detail the outbreak and how Harris came to be in Eden. It’s a story of how extreme situations bring out the best and the worst in our species.

How long did it take you to write Eden?

It took about three years off and on. I’d write, put it down, come back to it. When I finally had a publishable copy I put it down, walked away for almost a year and then came back to it. That way when I read it I was almost like a beta reader, a second someone who gets a fresh perspective on the overall work. There were parts I’d forgotten I’d written and it was nice to be surprised. I also found a number of errors-from spelling to continuity-that I was able to put correct.

When the inevitable zombie apocalypse finally strikes, what is your plan?

Now that I have children,,,something like this would be really f—ed up. I’d have to fend for my family. I guess I’d raid the local Wal Mart first and stock up on ammo. Maybe try and commandeer a boat and someone who knew how to pilot it and make our way up the Hudson River into Canada or down into the Caribbean (the only thing worse than the incessant heat for me would be undead cannibals attempting to devour me and my offspring). Basically kiss my ass goodbye, but I’d go out with a blast! Thanks for the interview and readers can check Eden: By Tommy Arlin out at Amazon.com.

Thanks for taking the time, Tony, and best of luck with your book.

I’ve been sick this week, and when I get sick, I like to curl up with a Doc Savage book. For those of you who are unaware of Doc Savage, I have prepared a graphic to introduce you.

Anyway, the book I read this time was “The Mental Wizard.” The back of the book has the following description: “The massive creature-a mile from head to toe!-sleeps in the steaming jungle. Is the behemoth real, or has the golden enchantress ‘Z’ conquered the magnificent MAN OF BRONZE with the hypnotic power of her superhuman mind? Doc Savage meets his mental match when he uncovers the strange lost kingdom of the deadly Amazon.”

I would just like to start by saying two things.

1. That description is totally misleading. It makes it sound like Doc will be facing off against a giant jungle beast. The fact that the description is misleading doesn’t mean the book is not enjoyable, though. The book is great.
2. If you ever find a stockpile of Doc Savage’s stuff, and you see several cans marked “coffee,” don’t be fooled- they’re really filled with explosives.

If you’ve read the last review of a Doc Savage book I did, you already know that if you cut Doc Savage, he bleeds awesome.

But here are some things you may not know about Doc.

• He does not own any shirts that are not ripped to shreds. Just look at any Doc Savage book or magazine cover.
• He is good at faking his own death/unconsciousness. He does it twice in this book.
• Like Frodo, he has a mithril vest. Or at least a tightly woven yet light chain mail vest. It’s tight and strong enough to stop a poison dart needle.
• Doc is calm in any situation. Seriously. Bombs are exploding left and right, strange men wearing strange leather smocks show up (and immediately die), a Amazonian princess descended from the pharaoh Klantic and has hair that appears to be gold plated (and telepathic control powers) shows up and causes trouble, it doesn’t matter. He keeps it together.
• During part of his spare time, he designs military airplanes for large-scale production. The Columbian army even has (at least) one, which they loan to him. The afore-mentioned woman crashes it.
• Doc is prepared for anything. He has a pocket metal detector (remember, this was written in the 1930’s) thats alert him to the grenade in the fruit basket the bad guys try to deliver.
• Doc is possibly the best chemist ever. He uses a small chemistry set to make tear gas and a chemical that dissolves stone. He uses the stone dissolving one to become the new pharaoh Klantic. There’s no way for me to explain that one without having you just read the book.
• Doc may very well have invented RFID tags. He’s left a tracer on each of the automatic pistols that he gives to his five aides. As a matter of fact, he hooks a RFID-style detector to the detonator that makes the before-mentioned coffee cans explode. He leaves the guns for the bad guys to find, and they rush him (after he’s warned them, of course) and that sets of the coffee-bombs…

Despite the fact that everything I’ve said here sounds like it comes from different books, it all really makes sense as you read it. And it’s a lot of fun.

I just finished “The Annihalist.” It’s a Doc Savage novel originally printed in the 30’s. The copy I have is a reprint, published in the 60’s.

Before I go any further, let me just say one thing; They sure don’t write ‘em like they used to.

Honestly, this book was awesome in more ways than I can count.

There’s no possible way that it could be mistaken for “Literature,” but that doesn’t matter. It is pulp, pure and simple. And its a lot of fun. Reading it made me feel a lot better about some of the absurdities that creep their way into Oasis. More on that later.

If you are not familiar with Doc Savage, let me introduce you. First, think of the manliest man you have ever seen, heard, or read about. Now, multiply that by Chuck Norris. That’s Doc Savage.

Seriously, he’s a better detective than Sherlock Holmes, in better shape than Batman, he’s sneakier than The Shadow, he’s a world class chemist, surgeon, martial artist, engineer, rock climber and besides all that, his skin and hair are in perfect shades of bronze. You won’t forget that if you ever read a Doc Savage book, because the book will remind you pretty much constantly. (The bronze giant entered the room completely silently… The metallic man punched left and right, beating the snot out of the two largest henchmen… (This is actually better than I make it sound.))

At one point, a man just watching Doc work out breaks out in a sweat, due to the power of suggestion inherent in the intensity of the exercises.

And if that weren’t enough total pulpy goodness, as it ends up, Doc is above the law. That’s right, when Doc Savage catches bad guys, he doesn’t send them to the police. They are shipped to his private rehabilitation center called the “crime college”(guarded by remote control machine gun nests).

It gets even better.

Doc has discovered the cause of crime.

You ready for it?

In your (and everybody’s) brain there is a crime gland. Oh yeah. A crime gland. And when the crime gland is broken, you lose the natural inhibitions that would normally stop you from committing crimes. By the way, one of the things that happens at the crime college is every patient is given a surgery (without their consent- he’s above the law, remember?) that fixes the crime gland.

In “The Annihilist,” someone has figured out a way to kill using the crime gland. Rather, they’ve created something that, when the crime gland gets excited, causes your eyes to pop out and you die. And the police think it’s Doc Savage who’s doing it. Awesomeness ensues.

The bottom line is this: it may very well be hokey, pulpy, campy, totally impossible and cheesy, but it is a whole lot of fun.

Good luck finding your own copy, though. I bought mine (along with a bunch of other Doc Savage books) at a local used bookstore for $0.75 each. You might be able to get it at Amazon - The Annihilist (Doc Savage #31).

Or, I have a sweeter deal for you. Because I want Doc’s greatness to live on, I’m willing to send my copy of “The Annihilist” to one of you, free of charge. If you’re interested, leave a comment and tell me why I should send it to you. As soon as somebody gives me a good enough reason, I’ll send it off. If nobody wants it, that’s OK, too. It will simply return to its hallowed place upon my bookshelf.

If you’re in the mood for a ghost story, (and it is October, so you should be) go check out Ghost Hunters, by DarcKnyt.

It’s a serial, like Oasis (although different genre) and as of this writing has 17 chapters.

One sentence synopsis:

Three friends become entangled by supernatural happenings in an old mansion with a bloody past.

Go check it out.

Ok, sorry about this, it looks like the next oasis chapter is going to be late. A whole bunch of other things have come up. Hopefully, early Monday or maybe late Sunday.

However, because I know you’re just dying for something new to read, I do have a couple of suggestions.

1 - In the comments to my last chapter,  Glenn pointed out an author named David Wellington, who’s been doing serial novels online for a while now. He has several zombie-flavored works up, including his current serial, Plague Zone, as well as a Vampire and a werewolf book. So if horror is your thing, you definitely need to check him out.

2 - For those of you who are more into pulp type fiction, you need to check out the first issue of a new pdf only pulp called Astonishing Adventures Magazine!

Here’s one of my favorite books ever. It’s not exactly “literature” but it is a lot of fun.

The John Carter Of Mars, or Barsoom series begins with the book in the picture, A Princess of Mars

It’s about a civil war vet who gets mysteriously transported to mars, where due to the lower gravity, he finds himself with super powers. Sure, it sounds a little hokey, and in reality it is. Doesn’t matter, though. It’s great adventure fiction.

This was one of my main influences for starting Oasis.

There are constant rumors that Hollywood is going to make this into a movie. Who knows, maybe some day we’ll see it.

Oh, yeah, and it also includes what is quite possibly my favorite line from any novel, ever. John Carter has found himself paralyzed on the cave of a floor with bloodthirsty Indians searching for him and what may very well be a terrible monster behind him, where he can’t see. He doesn’t know it, but he’s about to be transported to Mars.

That’s right, this might very well be the end of good ol’ John, and this is (more…)

This is the second of the three books I recently bought on writing. The third got here today, and I’ll be certain to read it in the next little while.

On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft

This is Stephen King’s memoir/writing book, and it’s really good. The memoir portion is chock full of interesting and amusing tidbit’s from King’s life. The writing part gives some excellent and practical advice.

The main point he makes is that you shouldn’t let anything get in the way of the story. Don’t bog your work down in useless information. One of my favorite lines in the book is, “first draft - 10% = second draft.”

It’s a great book and I highly recommend it.

My wife gave me this book for Christmas, and I tore through it in a couple of nights. Robert E. Howard Stuff is always a lot of fun. If you’ve never heard of him, he’s also the creator of Conan the Barbarian. This is not the kind of stuff you read when you want to ponder the mysteries of life. This is the kind of stuff you read when you want to escape into grand adventure and action.

Solomon Kane is a tall, dark, brooding, traveling-avenger-puritan-swordsman. (How could you possibly go (more…)