DISPATCHING YOUR ENEMIES

 

While visiting Ray Bradbury in his home one day, he turned to me and asked, “Do you know what the great thing is about writing fiction?”

Ray Bradbury at home

“What?” I queried back.

“You get to kill your enemies!”

We shared a laugh over that because it can be so true.

Ray famously dispatched film director John Huston in his short story “Banshee.” Before he knew him, Huston had been one of Ray’s heroes. But when Ray worked with Huston on Moby Dick, writing the screenplay in Ireland, where Huston lived, Ray found him to be a merciless bully. 

John Huston and Ray Bradbury working on Moby Dick

It was a trying and possibly traumatic time for Ray. Which must have sat in his mind waiting for some kind of exorcism. Possibly it came when, years later, Ray wrote his short story "Banshee."

In “Banshee,” Huston becomes film director “John Hampton,” and Ray, whose middle name was Douglas, becomes young screenwriter “Douglas Rogers.” 

Charles Martin Smith as "Douglas Rogers"
and Peter O'Toole as "John Hampton"
in the Ray Bradbury Theater presentation of Banshee

It is blatantly autobiographical—except for the Banshee, of course, which is portrayed as an actual entity, and, horrifyingly, snatches Hampton off into eternity. 

 

Despite taking place in Ireland, “Banshee,” and Ray’s experience that gave birth to it, is a Hollywood story. It’s a wonder that Ray still pursued an association with “The Biz” after Ireland and the great white whale of Huston’s ego, but he did. Ray was a giddy cinephile. And, to be fair, he made many friends in Hollywood whom he admired and who admired him in return.

 

But it’s one's enemies who often provide the fodder for fiction.

 

I discovered this while writing my critically acclaimed novel Blood is Pretty: The First Fixxer Adventure, which I have just re-published in a revised edition under my Magpie Press imprint. 

I wrote the novel in the mid-1990s after experiencing several painful “disappointments” in my Hollywood career. Disappointments in events and in people. Disappointments are not rare in Hollywood. And yet, when it is your disappointments, they seem far more intensely essential and worthy of revenge. 

 

I had intended for Blood is Pretty just to be a page-turning thriller inspired by such books from the past, including Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, Sapper’s Bulldog Drummond books, and Leslie Charteris’ The Saint tomes. 

Fun to write, I assumed, and fun to read, I knew. But as it is not so much “write what you know” as it is, “what else can you really write but what you know?” the setting became Hollywood. And, since I had been a satirist since my college newspaper column writing days, I naturally took an askew (or screwy) view of the place and cast the book with people from my Hollywood past that I had found to be, shall we say, less than lovable.

 

So, I wrote a satiric Hollywood thriller—if you can imagine such a thing. But you don’t have to because I already did, and you can get it on Amazon as an eBook, trade paperback, or audiobook.

 

Did I have fun dispatching some of those less-than-lovely people? You damn right, I did. One was young and not yet famous but was convinced he would be before too long. And, indeed, he did become famous. One was an active director of mediocre movies who was self-deluded into thinking that all his films were fabulous. Another was a Hollywood hanger-on, a particularly obnoxious film reviewer for complimentary newspapers. And finally, there was a prominent studio executive whom I knew solely through press accounts in the Trades. But I did have a meeting with him shortly after Blood is Pretty was written. Irony—it's my life!

 

But lest you think Blood is Pretty is just an exercise in vindictive jollies, let me assure you I am not so one-dimensional and have a broader “what else can you really write but what you know?” field of dreams.

 

During this time, I read a lot about the brain and the scientific search for how it works. I have always been fascinated by how easily the brain is fooled. By dreams, by shadows, by shapes we perceive which aren't truly there. And, especially by our reactions to movies, how we can suspend disbelief and live comfortably in a manufactured reality. So I read books by Francis Crick, Paul M. Churchland, and Daniel C. Dennett and had the brain and its workings very much on my mind when I started writing Blood is Pretty.

This led me to create a McGuffin for my thriller called Veritas. This computer program can fool your brain far more powerfully than any virtual reality existing at the time and, indeed, even today. But it was also more than a McGuffin, for its existence in the story let me explore the gullible nature of the brain and how Hollywood exploits that.

 

The following paragraph is on the acknowledgments page of Blood is Pretty.

There is a particular theory of consciousness—of how the brain gives us reality—which I have used as a basis for a significant element in this novel. As reported in the New York Times, the theory’s strongest proponent is Dr. Rodolfo Llinás, a professor of neuroscience at New York University. I am indebted to him and the excellent New York Times science reporting for the inspiration. However, the technological extrapolation I spin-off this theory comes solely from the reality of my brain, and neither Dr. Llinás nor the New York Times should be held accountable for it.

Despite this modicum of serious intent in Blood is Pretty, readers have found the book fun, entertaining, and—I say with a modicum of humility—a good read. Now that I have re-proofed and polished the original book, I believe the new, revised edition is an even better "good read" than before.

XX

BLOOD IS PRETTY

THE FIRST FIXXER ADVENTURE

It's the late 1990s—and Hollywood wants to take over the world!

What those in the know in Hollywood really know is that if they need a dark deed done, if they need a sticky personal or professional problem "fixed," they can call upon the mysterious and dangerous Fixxer. With wit and aplomb, he works the fruitful fields of Hollywood, fixing the sins and correcting the stupidities of the denizens therein. 

In Blood is Pretty, The Fixxer comes to the rescue of “the most beautiful woman I have ever seen” to extricate her from the grip of the soul-sucking sexual desires of a producer born in slime and takes on the task of buying off with money and muscle a film geek who won’t cooperate with a director of minuscule talent who simply wants to claim “V”—the geek’s “Holy Grail” of a film treatment—as his own. When the film geek is discovered dismembered, the Fixxer is compelled to know why and finds worlds of evil, both real and virtual, centering around a computer program called Veritas, which has the potential of making its owner the wealthiest and most powerful human on Earth. With the aid of Roee, his friend, companion, and cook who can kill quickly and silently in several different ways; the Captain, officially with the Los Angeles Police Department, unofficially with the Fixxer; Petey, extraordinarily brilliant and comically strange; and “the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” the Fixxer goes forth to do battle. 

Blood is Pretty: The First Fixxer Adventure (Revised Edition) from Magpie Press is now available in trade paperback and eBook formats on Amazon. You can also get the Crossroad Press audiobook edition on Amazon and Audible.

Cheers to all!

xx

 

DID WHAT I READ AS A CHILD INFLUENCE WHAT I'VE WRITTEN AS AN ADULT?

In late June, author Jean Rabe

took on one of those irritating Facebook challenges after having been nominated to do so.

“I have been nominated by Laura Craig to post some of my favorite childhood books. No comments, excuses or explanations. One book a day for seven days. I nominate Steven Paul Leiva... 'cause I'm honestly curious what he read as a kid, Hey Steven, you don't have to participate (I usually don't in these Facebook things. But books, you know, a topic I love).”

A chilling prospect. I hate making lists, except for my personal use. Lists are weird. Wanting to read lists is weird. And yet, I could not not, for example, check out this one on Literary Hub:

WHICH BOOKS DO FAMOUS AUTHORS READ AND RECOMMEND MOST?

Like it or not, we (dedicated readers and writers) become fascinated to know things about authors, and lists are a simple way to such knowledge. But favorite childhood books read? Well, they are a peek into something aren’t they? So I answered Jean thus (rewritten to make it a bit more comprehensive and coherent than a quick FB posting):

“Okay, well, here’s the thing, Jean, I dislike these Facebook list things—see my 11/22/13 blog 12 Random Things About Me That Others May or May Not Know)—but as I love you I’ll give it a go. However, let me answer in one shot right here.  

My favorite childhood books? Well, none of them are going to be classics of children’s lit, as I was completely unaware of them until my young adult years. Although my mother was a big reader, we really didn’t have books in the house to catch my attention. And I had no relatives who would have ever thought to give me a book for a present. Rather books entered our house via Mom’s frequent trips to the public library where she picked out a stack of about ten British mysteries (mostly) to read over the next week or so. I would usually tag along and go through the aisles of the Children’s Section picking out a few books for myself. But more about that later. Because what I really read voraciously and with glee in childhood were comic books, then but a thin dime each at the local liquor or drug store (an interesting juxtaposition of products, don't you think?). Superman and the DC gang having most of my attention and passion

although, for laughs, I would read an occasional Dennis the Menace or Little Archie comic.

These were my main childhood reading accomplishments. And, oddly, despite being comics they were what introduced to me the art of prose writing. Comics weren’t all pictures and dialog, you know. It wasn’t a lot of prose, of course, introductions and brief explanations and ‘meanwhiles’ and such, but it seemed to be enough to spark something in my little suburban brain, something about words with authority setting the scene, explaining things, revealing character.

But back to the library

and books of only words (except for the occasional black & white illustration) between hard covers. My rather poor memory recalls my liking biographies written for kids of such ‘heroes’ as Davy Crockett and other frontier legends (it was the 50s after all).

And I most likely read at least one book on Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln fascinated me. I think because there were photographs of him existing, and not just paintings or illustrations, making him more real than mythic.

As for fiction, I remember reading some Hardy Boys,

really liking Tom Swift,Jr. books because of his neat inventions,

and Tom Corbett, Space Cadet because, obviously, he went into space and he live in the future, which I desperately wanted to get to.  

I also remember loving the sci-fi novel Star Surgeon by Alan E. Nourse.

I think it was because all the space service doctors wore different colored uniforms depending on their specialties. For some reason I thought that was really neat. So did Gene Roddenberry, I’ll betcha, if he read the book, which I betcha he did.

Oh, and I have a memory of checking out books on Greek mythology. Probably because I loved the film Hercules with Steve Reeves.

But then that’s one of the defining aspects of the 20th and 21st centuries—nothing ‘sells’ books like the moving image. There is irony there. But that’s okay. Writers love irony.

That’s all the reading I really remember beyond comic books. But, if we can extend childhood into the teens, at thirteen I was introduced to Ian Fleming’s James Bond through—guess what?—the comic book adaptation of the Dr. No film.

Then I started to read Fleming’s novels and I loved them.

Not just for their adventure and sex and danger but for the writing. I would have had no words to express it then, but somehow I knew that Fleming had a masterful style. Suddenly, beyond that little comic book spark, I saw what prose could do in defining character, describing mood and place and objects; setting a tone and creating an atmosphere.

Advance a few more years and I read Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles.

Wow! Prose that took flight! I was happy to hitch a ride.

Then I read Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

and for the very first time I completely lost myself in a book—I mean completely, deeply, and thoroughly. Many years later I told Ray that he, Fleming, and Maugham were the writers whom inspired me to write. He responded with a big, wide smile saying, ‘That’s fine company to be in.’  

In my late teens I got involved in high school drama as a budding actor and was introduced to plays. Death of a Salesman by Miller and The Glass Menagerie by Williams

had a profound influence on my understanding of the 'authority' of the author. So profound that I left high school drama no longer wanting to become an actor but a writer, wanting, in a sense, to be in charge—to be the ‘authority’.

So there you have it, Jean, for what it’s worth.”

And I wonder what worth it is. What does it say about the writer and reader that I have become?  

Well, I’m eclectic in both what I write and what I read. I consider prose at its best to be an art and not just a craft. And, despite my continuing love of colorful comic books and well-rendered illustrations in general, I think the run of well-placed black words across a white page or screen to be the most beautiful landscape in the world. One can make of that what one will.

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You can find out all about my books and their hopefully well-placed words on the MY BOOKS page on this blog.  Or you can check out my AUTHORS PAGE on Amazon where the purchase of said books is easily done.

On JEAN RABE'S AUTHOR'S PAGE on Amazon you will find a cornucopia of fine literary entertainment in the mystery, fantasy, and science fiction realms.