Archive for the ‘Message from M.A.C.’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Antiques Giveaway and a Nomination

Tuesday, April 8th, 2014
Antiques Con

The International Association of Media and Tie-in Writers has announced this year’s Scribe award nominees. It was a tough field (COMPLEX 90 did not get a novel nomination, for example), which is healthy considering how weak the tie-in field generally is these days. I am pleased to say the Spillane/Collins MIKE HAMMER short story, “So Long, Chief” – already honored as an Edgar nominee – is also a Scribe nominee.

In the past, these awards have been presented at San Diego Comic Con. We intend to do so again this year, but haven’t received confirmation from the con as yet. I’ll post that info here when I have it.

In the meantime, here is the full list of nominees at my pal Lee Goldberg’s terrific web site.

On a related note, here’s a terrific recent review of Lee’s book on tie-ins (with contributions by me).

A flurry of M.A.C. books has started to hit, including mass-market paperbacks of TARGET LANCER and ANTIQUES CHOP (the latter perhaps my personal favorite of the series). Coming up very soon are ANTIQUES CON (April 29), KING OF THE WEEDS (May 6) and SUPREME JUSTICE (June 1).

[Nate: All copies are claimed for now—see you next time around!] I have available twelve ARC’s (advance reading copies) of ANTIQUES CON for the first dozen of you who are willing to review it for Amazon (and other sites, such as Barnes and Noble and Goodreads). First come, first served, and only USA addresses, please. You can’t post at Amazon until the book is out, so April 29 is the key date. Goodreads reviews can go up immediately. Amazon is crucial because it takes nine reviews to get on their radar.

I am trying to get copies of KING OF THE WEEDS from the publisher for a similar giveaway, and will have some in a few weeks for SUPREME JUSTICE.

Again, I can’t stress how important these Amazon reviews are, not just for me but for any authors whose work you follow and enjoy. You don’t need to post lengthy reviews – a line or two is sufficient. If you are a Quarry or Nolan fan, for example, please consider going to Amazon and posting quickie reviews of those. The Nolan books are in particular under-reviewed, and again, this keeps the Amazon algorithms from kicking in.

Getting back to ANTIQUES CON, we’ve just had a delightful review from ROMANTIC TIMES (a great place for a cozy mystery to get attention). Take a look:

Romantic Times May 2014
ANTIQUES CON
**** ½

Allan’s madcap series has never been the most typical of cozies; it provides non-stop humor as well as a logical, tangled mystery. Vivian is wildly charming, although she often drives Brandy close to insane. The New York City comic book convention setting gives the story a gentle, satirical backdrop. This is a fun, fast mystery that shows Allan at the top of her game.

– – –

M.A.C.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Message from M.A.C. | 5 Comments »

Pitcher This

Tuesday, April 1st, 2014

Longtime followers of these updates may recall that I’ve been involved for around two decades with an organization called the Iowa Motion Picture Association. I’m in fact a three-time past president. The existence of this group makes my friends on either coast chortle with demeaning delight. Nonetheless, a lot of top professionals in the field belong to this organization.

IMPA Awards 2014

Our annual meeting and awards presentation was this weekend past. Usually it’s held in Des Moines, but this time we met in Burlington, which is about sixty miles from me. The event was held at the newly refurbished and very cool Capitol Theater.

Last week the president of the organization got in touch with me about participating in a “speed pitching” session. The keynote speaker, Barry Morrow – Academy Award-winning screenwriter of RAIN MAN – would be hearing five minute pitches followed by five minutes of critique and interaction. My knee-jerk reaction was to say, “No thanks,” because after all – I know everything!

Then in a cooler, more rational mood, I agreed to participate. The IMPA folks were grateful, because I would be an established pro showing the younger aspiring types how it’s done. But that was not how I viewed it.

You see, for several months I have been struggling – under the guidance of a big-time talent/production management outfit – to put together a pitch for Nate Heller on TV. And it’s been a rugged road. I am used to selling one story – almost every book I’ve sold over this long career has been via a proposal – but trying to describe a TV series, based on the entire Heller canon? Mind-boggling.

Just lately my most recent take on the pitch has been more warmly received. So – not being a complete idiot – I realized having the opportunity to pitch it to a pro like Barry Morrow was a favor the IMPA was doing me, not the opposite.

Barry Morrow

It went very well. If I were a better writer, I could describe how generous, smart, kind and incisive Barry’s help was. But ironically his general remarks at the end of the pitch session – and some brief conversation before and after – were what showed me the way for improving my pitch. At least I think so.

Briefly, Barry emphasized being a storyteller when you pitch. To come in the door telling a story – “You should have seen the truck I was stuck behind! Its wheel was going to fall off. I’m lucky to be alive!” That kind of thing. But I also realized that instead of telling who Heller was in my pitch, I needed to open with a story sequence that demonstrated who he was.

Hollywood has a way of making a book writer’s brain seize up. I had completely forgotten the most basic rule of narrative – show don’t tell.

I have already rewritten the pitch, and having delivered the earlier version out loud, I have confidence where before I was a mass of misgivings.

MAC Best Unproduced Screenplay

At the awards presentation Saturday night, I won for Best Unproduced Screenplay, for a MIKE HAMMER pilot script I wrote so that my producing partner Ken Levin and I would have one in our pocket, should the movie that keeps threatening to happen not do so.

Next week we’ll have at least one giveaway of advance copies to readers willing to commit to an Amazon review. See you then!

M.A.C.

Tags: ,
Posted in Message from M.A.C. | Comments Off on Pitcher This

Cover Story

Tuesday, March 25th, 2014
Supreme Justice

Over the last two weeks, Matt Clemens and I have been going over potential covers for the upcoming SUPREME JUSTICE, coming out June 1.

Thomas & Mercer, Amazon Publishing’s mystery/suspense line, has been very good about making me – and Matt, because he contributed so mightily to both novels – part of the book cover process for both WHAT DOESN’T KILL HER and SUPREME JUSTICE. This is hardly common in publishing – in fact, it’s the opposite of common.

What often happens is that I’m asked for my opinion – in the context of how important that opinion might be, given my background in visual arts like comics and film – but rarely has my input been given much if any consideration.

That’s been improving in recent years. Our editor at Kensington always asks Barb and me for ideas for the covers of the ANTIQUES books, and those ideas have been used for the most part.

Titan is careful to run covers past me, and I had considerable input on the Mike Hammer mass market editions, where initially the depiction of Hammer was wrong. The publisher of Titan himself, Nick Landau, enthusiastically presented the hardcover Hammer dust-jacket art over drinks at San Diego Con a few years ago.

At Hard Case Crime, Charles Ardai often discusses what artists might be available for my next book – obviously the first thing out of my mouth is, “How about McGinnis?” But I essentially chose the cover artists for THE WRONG QUARRY (Tyler Jacobsen) out of three or four Charles showed me examples by. And THE WRONG QUARRY seems to be universally regarded as one of (if not the) strongest of my Hard Case covers.

As I may have mentioned here before, those covers are usually done before I’ve written the novel, with just a paragraph precise of the unwritten book for the artist to go by. That means I often have to work to get the cover image into the book.

On the other hand, I provided Forge with lots of input into BYE BYE, BABY’s hardcover jacket that was eventually ignored, due to worries that the Monroe estate would sue. I hate that cover (though the mass market paperback is much better). Where both TARGET LANCER and ASK NOT were concerned, however, I was given the opportunity to give my two cents, and was listened to. Often I write the cover copy, even the front “reading lines” (blurbs), when what is submitted to me seems weak.

So it has improved a lot. I’ve come a long way from when I received BAIT MONEY and BLOOD MONEY in the mail in December 1972 and found fairly terrible photo covers and my name changed from Allan Collins to Max Collins, and my character Nolan given an unwanted first name (“Frank”) which to this day dogs both Nolan and me. Then there’s the day I opened a package and saw that my novel QUARRY and its sequel HIT LIST were now THE BROKER and THE BROKER’S WIFE, the latter title a spoiler for a major plot turn…again, with photo covers, though slightly better ones.

But now Thomas & Mercer has given me a chance not only to suggest cover images, but provides me with half a dozen to choose from, and does tweaks on the art that I’ve suggested. I wish I could include the SUPREME JUSTICE rejects here, because they were strong, too. But I don’t know the legality of that.

Maybe next time I do a book for them, I can put the proposed covers up here and seek your input.

For now, I am delighted with the cover for SUPREME JUSTICE.

* * *

Brief movie report.

We liked MR. PEABODY AND SHERMAN, me more than Barb. It captured the Jay Ward cartoons well and was very smart in its storytelling – a little long, though. See it in 3-D.

NON-STOP was a good thriller, somewhat stupid in the motivation of the villains, but a ride worth taking.

300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE is better than the original, and is a rousing battle picture with an eye-popping sex scene (see that in 3-D, too). But it’s fairly numbing in its more-and-more-of-the-same gory action, and at heart is a very brain-dead right-wing screed. Still, I dug it. I am, as should be evident by now, a sucker for anything in 3-D that doesn’t outright suck.

Speaking of sucking, we walked out of DIVERGENT about half an hour in. I’d read some promising reviews, but this is a really poorly thought-out imitation of HUNGER GAMES (which is a poorly thought-out imitation of BATTLE ROYALE). Really, really dumb, and also dreary and dull. We bailed when some recruits in the Dauntless faction (don’t ask) said, “Let’s do something fun! Let’s get tattoos!”

* * *

Let’s wind up this update with a link to a very nice WRONG QUARRY review from Blog Critics.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Message from M.A.C. | Comments Off on Cover Story

Veronica Mars Attacks

Tuesday, March 18th, 2014

This weekend Barb and I went to St. Louis to visit our son Nate (who as you may know runs this site) and his terrific wife, Abby. I finished the Spillane western novel THE LEGEND OF CALEB YORK (but for a two-day edit, which will begin today), so I could really use the break. Ditto Barb, who recently finished her draft of ANTIQUES SWAP. But the main reason for the trip was seeing the VERONICA MARS movie.

I am a Kickstarter backer of the movie. You’re welcome. But its limited run (pretty much strictly AMC theaters) did not bring the film to our area, so going to see it in St. Louis made a lot of sense, since we hadn’t seen Nate and Abby in a while, and we could do a late celebration of my birthday – Nate even sprung for the tickets. As a harbinger of senility, I forgot to wear one of the two VERONICA MARS t-shirts I received as a backer, a slip that Nate gleefully reminded me of numerous times.

Nate’s presence, despite his sarcastic nature (which I have no idea where he got), was key because – like Barb – he was a VERONICA MARS fan as well. This was an enthusiasm grown from a binge-watch, because I did not discover the show till I’d seen Kristen Bell in REEFER MADNESS and realized she was a special talent. Yes, and blonde and beautiful, but that’s just petty of you to mention. By way of prep for the film, Barb and I binge re-watched the three seasons in three weeks, and Nate and Abby did pretty much the same, though I believe it took them four weeks…a barely adequate performance, if you ask me.

As for the movie itself, as one of the producers (you’re welcome), I am biased. But all four of us loved it. I can’t be sure, but I think it will work well on moviegoers with a bent toward mystery and specially noir P.I. whether they’ve seen the original series or not. It manages to be at once a movie and a great VERONICA MARS episode. The mystery is not really the thing here – the movie is about its main character making a life/career decision – but the whodunit aspect is typically twisty and twisted in the fashion of the series.

As the co-creator of MS. TREE, I appreciate the way creator Rob Thomas (co-writer and director here) transforms wise-guy PI dialogue – and a tough guy attitude – by placing them in the mouth and body of a lovely young woman. Veronica Mars is slightly off-kilter, at least a little nuts, like Mike Hammer, Jake Axminster and Nate Heller (and Ms. Tree). The film has plenty of call-back references to the show itself, and many, even most, cast members (including non-recurring ones) turn up in a way that will tickle fans but doesn’t get in the way of the appreciation of non-fans. Working on these two levels is terribly tricky, and I admire the screenplay for pulling off something that I feared might be impossible.

Everybody is good, but Bell is remarkable – so badly or unimaginatively used elsewhere (fie on you, HOUSE OF LIES), she has a confidence and ease in this role that indicates she is well aware it’s her signature one. Her father Keith, as played by Enrico Colantoni, is equally good, and remains the heart of VERONICA MARS. Jason Dohring as Veronica’s stormy love interest does a beautiful job of taking his character somewhere new while remaining the same guy…again, not easy. In fact, the entire film and its cast does well by the passage of time, and making a ten year class reunion for Neptune High a major set piece and plot mover here is just another example of how good Rob Thomas is with this property that he clearly loves.

The film, in its limited release, had an impressive opening weekend. It’s a unique release with VOD simultaneous and a Blu-ray/DVD coming very soon. I hope that the film’s success – and it already is a success, just by existing – leads either to more features or a renewed series. As much fun as it is to see VERONICA MARS on a bigger landscape – which Thomas managed to pull off on an under-$6 mil budget – this is a story and world best served by series television.

After all, VERONICA MARS is easily in the top ten private eye shows of all time. And in my top five – at the top.

Okay, since you asked nicely:

VERONICA MARS
CITY OF ANGELS
MICKEY SPILLANE’S MIKE HAMMER (McGavin)
A NERO WOLFE MYSTERY
THE ROCKFORD FILES
Runner up: PETER GUNN

* * *

Speaking of movies, a very nice if extremely belated review of REAL TIME: SIEGE AT LUCAS STREET market has popped up at the Bookgasm movie spin-off, FLICK ATTACK.

Here’s a nice, smart review of SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT.

Finally, here’s a terrific Publisher’s Weekly review for the upcoming ANTIQUES CON:

“In Allan’s humorous eighth whodunit (after 2013’s Antiques Chop), Brandy Borne and her quirky mother, Vivian, travel from quiet Serenity, Iowa, along with their blind, diabetic shih tzu, Sushi, to New York City, where they hope to auction their prized possession—an original Superman drawing—at a comic convention. On arrival at Bufford Con, organized by comic purist Tommy Bufford, the pair soon learn that all is not well. The old comic convention guard are none too pleased about Tommy’s new competing event, which may explain why the prize pen ends up as a murder weapon. Mysterious deaths follow Brandy and Vivian wherever they go, but these two spunky out-of-towners always manage to find crafty ways to avoid sticky situations in the big city. Tips about comics collecting add to the cozy fun. Allan is the pseudonym of Barbara and Max Allan Collins.”

M.A.C.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Message from M.A.C. | 3 Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »