Posts Tagged ‘Batman’

The New Mike Hammer Audio Rocks (Said the Author)

Tuesday, March 26th, 2019

Note from Nate: The entire Barbara Allan Trash ‘n’ Treasures series of eBooks are on sale now through April 1. Most are $1.99, but a couple are $.99 or $2.99. The newest novel, Antiques Ravin’ comes out April 30, making this the perfect time to catch up and fill in any you’ve missed! I’ve provided links to all major online eBook storefronts, but if I’ve missed your preferred store, please leave a comment and I’ll add it.

Scroll down for this week’s regularly scheduled update. Thanks!


Amazon Google Play Nook Kobo iTunes

Amazon Google Play Nook Kobo iTunes

Amazon Google Play Nook Kobo iTunes

Kobo

Google Play


Amazon Google Play Nook Kobo iTunes

Amazon Google Play Nook Kobo iTunes

Amazon Google Play Nook Kobo iTunes

Amazon Google Play Nook Kobo iTunes

Amazon Google Play Nook Kobo iTunes

Amazon Google Play Nook Kobo iTunes

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Audiobook (digital): Kobo Audible
Audiobook (MP3 CD): Amazon Nook
Audiobook (Audio CD): Amazon Nook

Barb and I are listening to the audio of Murder, My Love in the car. We had a trip to Cedar Rapids recently (more about that later), which took us through half of it. Another trip, this time to the Quad Cities and back, got us about 3/4’s of the way.

It’s quite wonderful.

I have been very blessed to have perhaps the actor most identified with Mike Hammer – Stacy Keach himself – reading all of the Hammers for audio starting with The Goliath Bone and ending with Murder Never Knocks. I have no way to express how cool it was to hear that voice, so identified with Mike Hammer, reading the books I’ve written in posthumous collaboration with Mickey Spillane himself.

Stacy also was Hammer in the two audio book radio-style presentations of mine in the New Adventures of Mike Hammer series (I wrote volumes two and three of the three produced) – The Little Death (Audie award winner for best script) and Encore for Murder (Audie award nominee for best script). I actually acted with him in a couple of scenes on both. Bliss.

When for various reasons, the very busy Mr. Keach stepped down, another of my favorite readers took over – Dan John Miller, the voice of Nate Heller, who read The Will to Kill and Killing Town. He did a fine job and made a particularly good younger-sounding Hammer, appropriate to Killing Town in particular. (He has just done Girl Most Likely, which I haven’t listened to yet, but definitely will.)

Now Stefan Rudnicki has picked up the mantle. Stefan claims to love my work, and I certainly love his. He’s been the reader of the Quarry novels for a while now, and also did an award-winning job on the massive Scarface and the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and the Battle for Chicago by A. Brad Schwartz and me. An amazing job by a reader/actor who really knows how to bring a book alive.

Now he’s taken on Mike Hammer, and he is doing a fantastic job. He gets every nuance of the tough-guy and smart-ass stuff, as well as the noir poetry. If you have stepped away from these audios, because Stacy isn’t doing them anymore (and I get that), you need to get back on board. Stefan in particular brings an older Hammer to life, which is perfect in Murder, My Love, a chronologically later book in the canon.

Don’t miss these. Also, we’ll get to keep doing them if you buy ‘em. The problem with a long-running series, particularly on audio, is that at a certain point the audio publisher feels there are enough books in a series – say, Mike Hammer – to suffice.

Speaking of Scarface and the Untouchable, if you’re going to Bouchercon, and haven’t sent in your Anthony ballot yet, shake a leg. That book is eligible, as are Killing Town and Antiques Wanted, and the Spillane/Collins stories “The Big Run” (EQMM) and “The Punk” (Mystery Tribune).

* * *

Last week Barb and I appeared at the Ed Gorman Celebration of Popular Fiction at Coe College in Cedar Rapids. (We were the only guests at the inaugural event. As Miles Davis once said, told he was going to be late for the show, “I can’t be late for the show, man – I am the show”).

Barb and I taught a full classroom of interested and obviously bright students, who took lots of notes and asked plenty of smart questions. That evening I spoke for an hour, a good portion of my talk devoted to my late friend Ed Gorman and what a wonderful writer he was, and what an incredible friend he was to me (and to Barb, whose writing career he encouraged and supported with anthology invites).

Ed’s lovely, gracious wife Carol drove us around and kept us company. We stayed overnight at the DoubleTree in downtown CR, because it was a long day. I mention this because some of you may be wondering why I so seldom do this kind of thing anymore, especially since I tend to be really good at it (no brag, just fact, some asshole said) and so obviously enjoy myself doing such dates. The signing afterward was similarly fun and I loved talking to longtime readers and new ones alike.

But I have to say such events are going to be few and far between now. I doubt I’ll do more than one convention a year, and it will probably be Bouchercon. I am available to be a guest of honor at just about any other mystery or comics con, as I am easily flattered and like to have my hotel room and transportation paid for. Who doesn’t?

Coe made for a long day. We took that hotel room so I could rest between the teaching session and a cocktail party meet-and-greet followed by the speaking engagement. The long day required me to go up a lot of stairs and walk all over the campus, or at least it seemed that way to me. Listen, I’m not really complaining – I enjoyed the hell out of it, and I got a lot of laughs during my speech, which is almost as good as a fat royalty check. Almost.

This is not about my health issues, or at least is only partly about them. The medication I’m on can give me dizziness, and my gait gets unsteady when I get tired, ever since the minor stroke I had on the operating table. People think because I am energetic and charming and witty as hell that I am a Superman. Maybe, if he had pockets full of Kryptonite.

This is something Barb and I are dealing with. I noticed it for the first time in Vegas at the Mob Museum, where at my first of two appearances I felt I stunk up the joint (I was very good at the second event, a day…and a bunch of rest…later.) At the same time, I am preparing for my band Crusin’ and our “season,” which begins early summer and lasts through early fall. Last year we played around nine gigs, mostly out of doors, which makes me wonder if I should make this my last gigging season.

Nonetheless, I am hoping we will make a new CD this summer, all original material.

The one thing that doesn’t seem to be terribly impacted by age and occasionally sketchy health is my writing. I am more prolific than ever, which makes it hard for some readers to keep up with me. But that’s when I feel the most myself and the most alive – at the machine. Making up stories.

I am not looking for sympathy, which I do not deserve, and don’t mean to imply I am unwell, which I am not. I feel very good almost all of the time. It’s a matter of energy, and I think when this dreadful Midwestern winter gets tired of torturing us, and I get out walking again – and gigging again – I will start to feel in shape.

Just know that the reason my book signings and con appearances are more and more infrequent doesn’t mean I don’t love you. It means that I have to watch my energy level and make sure any appearances are infrequent and, when I do take one on, designed to give me time for rest…and to drop me at the door by car of wherever I’m appearing, with Barb at my side.

What I want to spend most of my time doing now is writing books, and short stories and non-fiction pieces and movie and TV scripts. And I think that’s probably how you’d prefer I spend my time, too.

* * *

Here is what I consider a first-rate interview with yours truly, in support of The Girl Most Likely.

Supreme Justice is chosen one of the best 21 legal thrillers of the 21st Century. Hey, Matt Clemens – we are in some heady company, my friend!

The Rock Island Dispatch-Argus lists some men who made their mark who come from the Quad Cities area. I sort of make the list by hanging onto John Looney’s coattails.

Finally, here’s some stuff about Batman: Child of Dreams by Kia Asamiya and me. Looks like some collectibles were generated from that, unbeknownst to me.

M.A.C.

Unbiased Gift-Giving (and Book Collecting) Advice

Tuesday, December 4th, 2018

Just when I was thinking the last update’s self-aggrandizing gift list suggestions were as far as even I could shamelessly go, along comes an Amazon sale to give me a chance to outdo myself.

Half a dozen of my Nathan Heller books are on sale all throughout the month of December at Amazon. The Kindle e-books are a mere 99 cents, and the physical books (remember those…books you can hold in your hands?) are half-price.

This includes True Crime, True Detective, The Million-Dollar Wound, Neon Mirage, Stolen Away, Angel in Black, Chicago Lightning and Triple Play. The latter two are a short story collection and a trio of short novels (the rest are novels).

You can find them right here.

Earlier I thought that all of the Heller novels prior to the recent batch at Tor Forge were included, but it’s a little more limited than that.

At any rate, if you have holes to fill in your collections, or are looking to turn others on to Nate Heller and me (and by so doing help insure more Heller books will come along in the future), this is the place to make that Christmas miracle come true.

I have other gift suggestions, too, for books I didn’t write. Sounds like the Christmas spirit, huh? Not so fast. I want now to recommend several books that originally appeared in Japanese but were translated by someone calling himself Nathan A. Collins (he claims the “A” stands for “Allan”).

Seriously, though, Nate is a wonderful writer (I said “unbiased”) and these are good books. One of them has a peculiar title – I Want to Eat Your Pancreas () – which is not a horror novel but a very good book about an unusual and oddly touching friendship. It was a bestseller in Japan, which I believe is why the American publisher did not want to change the title.

Nate also translated a thriller that was made into a rather famous anime feature – Perfect Blue: Complete Metamorphosis () – which explores the phenomenon of young female pop stars (rather a creepy if real thing), one of whom attracts a particularly nasty stalker. Nate also translated Perfect Blue: Awaken from a Dream (), a collection of three stories by the same author on the same subject.

The most famous of Nate’s translations is Battle Royale (), which was the “inspiration” for Hunger Games, and an internationally successful film. That’s been out a while. Most current novel is Zodiac War () (Nate also translated the manga version (). This is a science-fiction/fantasy adventure, a super-hero/villain variation on Battle Royale.

* * *

Some recent things on the Net that you may wish to check out….

This is a fun discussion of movie tie-in novels, and several of mine are included.

Be sure to take in this nice appreciation of the Quarry TV series, which includes a celebration of Quarry’s creator, whose name I’m too modest to mention.

Once again Road to Perdition (the film and the graphic novel) are mentioned prominently on a list called (wait for it)“10 Obscure Comic Books That Were Turned Into Movies.”

Here is an oral history of how I created the new Robin and then DC fans rose up and killed him.

Finally, here’s a very good review of my first Quarry novel, which is called Quarry (and not The First Quarry).

M.A.C.

Merry X-Mas?

Tuesday, May 15th, 2018

Some of our loyal readers may recall that Barb and I did three e-book novellas over the past several years, all with a Christmas theme, none available as anything but e-books.

That will change soon. I am, this very week, working on the galley proofs of Antiques Ho-Ho-Homicide (by Barbara Allan, of course), collecting those three e-books into an actual book…a mass market paperback only (no hardcover).

We’re very pleased that this book is happening. The novella form works well for Brandy and Vivian Borne, and we like all three stories. If you’ve never read an Antiques novel, this one will make a good sampler – but it won’t be out till Christmas season, of course.

* * *

Batman: Elseworlds #3 includes Scar of the Bat, my Batman/Eliot Ness graphic novel, drawn by the great Eduardo Barreto. It comes out mid-June. Info here.

* * *

We had the fun of having Nathan, Abby and our grandson, Sam, for Mother’s Day, dining at the lavish new Merrill Hotel in Muscatine. Sam likes to visit because “Grandpa has the best cartoons,” a wise observation for a nearly three-year-old. His favorite is “A Froggy Evening,” reflecting the great taste that has been passed down through the miracle of DNA. He also laughs at his own jokes – gee, I don’t know where he gets that.

Nate finished his latest Japanese-to-English project – the book is excellent and is some of Nate’s best work. We’ll announce it when it reaches publication.

With no nepotism in the mix, Nate’s publisher for the book is Tor, current home of Nate Heller.

* * *

Barb and I went to Rampage, which is the very definition of a movie that we did not walk out of, though we strongly considered it. The Rock, I mean Dewayne Johnson, is very good at action tinged with humor. But the script is mostly an embarrassment – the bad guys build a homing device for the monsters they created…on top of their own building in downtown Chicago! – and some of the performances are downright painful.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan is given a star entrance – I guess he’s on Walking Dead, which I don’t watch – and he’s frankly terrible, making an awful character, well, awfuler. He plays a CIA type agent with corny cowboy dialogue and a pearl-handled .45 side-draw on his belt, which has a big cowboy buckle. One of the biggest disappointments of Rampage was that his character did not die (the possibility of seeing that was an inducement not to walk out).

* * *

One of the few reviews Killing Town has received is from Book Reporter, and it’s a nice one.

A brief but good Killing Town review can be seen here.

And another from the New York Review of Books.

M.A.C.

Hammer on Stage!

Tuesday, January 23rd, 2018

Barb and I are back in Iowa after a lovely sojourn to Florida for five days, where my play Mickey Spillane’s Encore for Murder was produced at the Murray Theater of Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater. The roster of name artists who have appeared at this venue is mind-boggling – Encore premiered the same night that another stage at the complex featured Jackson Browne. We had a full house of 200. So did Jackson – of 4200.

The mastermind of this event is legendary Broadway producer Zev Buffman. He is the President and CEO of Ruth Eckerd Hall, and has produced more than 40 Broadway shows. He partnered with Elizabeth Taylor to present her in her Broadway debut, The Little Foxes. He’s also the co-founding General Partner of the NBA Champion Basketball team the Miami Heat.


The set of Encore for Murder with the radio sound effects table and the looming screen that set the scenes — here showing the play’s poster.

In addition to all that and much more, Zev is a wonderful guy with impeccable theater instincts. Encore for Murder was designed to be a play presented in the “old radio” format. But Zev got the idea (which I frankly was not sold on) to open the play up by having the central character (named Mike Hammer – ring a bell?) be played more theatrically, with Hammer off script, a full music score, a looming projector with dozens of scene-setting images somewhat in Sin City style, and with even the radio actors in costume and participating in theatrical blocking and action. Zev’s hybrid – beautifully executed by director Richard Rice with his son Devin providing noir-ish music and a solid mostly local cast supporting consummate pro Gary Sandy – made me a believer. Yes, you heard it here first – I was wrong. The preview and opening night audiences loved it.


Barb was amused and probably a little appalled that within the first fifteen minutes of us arriving at the theater, I began “directing” director Richard Rice.

Gary – who was Lt. Anderson in my film Mommy’s Day (1995) – was a bundle of energy, the engine of the piece, perfectly playing Hammer for tongue-in-cheek humor where appropriate but turning on a dime into tough-guy brutality. This didn’t occur to anybody till I pointed it out, but Gary is the first and only actor to date to play Hammer on stage – all previous Hammer actor portrayals have been in the movies or on radio and TV. (Gary was star of the radio-style production of Encore for Murder in Owensboro, Kentucky, in 2010).


Gary Sandy as Mike Hammer at the start of the play — the trenchcoat and hat go quickly on a coat tree, returning in full only at the close, with the hat returning now and then during the proceedings.

There’s serious talk of the other Hammer radio-style play, The Little Death (which won the Audie), being presented later this year.

What a wonderful way to kick off Mickey’s centenary!


M.A.C. and Gary Sandy (center) and the entire cast of Encore for Murder at the post-preview night panel.

M.A.C. finding Gary Sandy an easy audience at the panel.

The reviews and press coverage in Florida for Encore were terrific. A sample follows, starting with this behind the scenes article.

And here is the same paper’s rave review of opening night.


Producer Zev Buffman, M.A.C., Gary Sandy, director Richard Rice.

Meanwhile, in the rest of my career….

A cry goes out for DC to reprint the comic strip Batman continuity written by me and drawn by Marshall Rogers. I hope this happens, and I hope I get billing – at the time, the warm and wonderful folks at the Tribune syndicate made me take my name off, threatening to sue me if I didn’t and also to fire me (which they anyway a little while later).

This column talks (favorably) about the Quarry comic book mini-series and The Last Stand.

Here’s a nice Quarry write-up.

And finally this piece presents a Spillane cover gallery that even J. Kingston Pierce would envy. (I own one of these covers. Guess which one and win absolutely nothing.)

M.A.C.