Jeremy Lee's Blog

This is a short story I wrote in response to a few fan comments I've gotten back about New Frontier.  Some people didn't really understand what made Shannon walk out on her boyfriend and family and throw her whole life into the service.  I hope you enjoy this quick return to the world of New Frontier.
Baptismal Firesby Jeremy Lee

When she opened
her eyes nothing felt right, and she felt itchy all over, as if her skin tried
escaping from the stupidity her life became even if her
bones insisted on staying and seeing things through to the end.  Shannon rolled out of her bunk, planting her
feet on the deck and staggering over to the overly exposed head at the far end
of the quarters.  The first time she
ducked in for a shower, feeling like the entire crew watched her stripping
down; Shannon felt a vivid flashback to physical education in her boarding
school and subjecting to the test of puberty again in adulthood felt
absurd.  Nothing ever felt right out in
the black, and she missed fresh air almost as much as she missed easily
identifiable food.  In the television
programs she remembered all the windows looking out on the endless star field,
but since signing up to do her four years and get a free college education she
felt certain she’d seen fewer stars than living in the polluted center of London.

      The heavy
rocking underfoot signaled the maneuvering thruster humming to life, which made
not only Shannon Drake’s but also all the sleepy eyes aboard the Dreadnaught snap open.  The claxons roared a heartbeat later,
deafening, and Shannon veered away from the toilet and back towards her bunk in
the middle of the crew’s berth, sliding into her uniform’s jacket.  Captain Wellesley threw so many drills at his
crew, at every hour of the day and night, the warning bells induced boredom
more than anxiety.

      “All hands beat
to quarters,” Wellesley’s sedate baritone droned through the ship’s com network,
the voice of their god and commander pounding in the crew’s skulls.  Then, with all the air of an afterthought,
the captain’s voice repeated with an addendum, “Beat to quarters, this is not a
drill.”

      Shannon,
despite all the practices, lectures, and training exercises, felt a flood of
fear.  She didn’t belong out here, didn’t
want to die out in the frozen wasteland of space or burn up in the emerging
ozone of the red planet they orbited. 
She just wanted the company to pay for school, spend a few years in
uniform, pop off a few rounds, maybe take in the gas giants and try spotting
Clark’s monolith, and then graduate to a suit and tie gig with the company,
moving from the martial to the home décor departments, designing custom
furniture for one of the boutique lines.

      Flinging her
weight bodily out of the crew’s berth, not trusting legs to keep working of
their own volition, and nearly taking out one of her crewmates, Shannon numbly
stumbled into the corridor.

      “Watch it
Drake,” Doyle barked while shoving Shannon back against the bulkhead.  “Just run and hide in the head and stay the
hell out of the way.”

      Swallowing,
thinking of taking Doyle’s advice, Shannon instead chased after him, stepping
into the control room and instantly regretting her temerity.  She shouldn’t have been there, her place was
below in the plasma bays, keeping ammunition moving, and she froze in the
middle of the con’s bustling activity.  The
con undulated with chaotic activity, but all of the pandemonium filtered
through two men, the CO and the COB, and then passed back outward from them to
the men and women manning their stations. 
Pressing against the environmental controls, hearing the captain and the
chief of the boat’s commands through a fog, Shannon couldn’t turn and flee.  The metal and flashing electronic screens all
around her created a bland and lifeless picture of industry, but the screams,
and the throbbing through the deck spoke of war and not commerce.

      Bangs and
shimmies sent the Dreadnaught
spinning, explosions popping and bursting all over the ship, devouring
spacecraft and crew.  Shannon saw an
empty chair in front of her and slid down, staring at the controls in front of
her without knowing what to do, not even grasping what station she sat at.  Her fingers flighted over several touchscreen
buttons, almost pressing half a dozen, and the cacophony around her dulled into
a catatonic hum.

      “It’s a good
try,” Captain Wellesley barked in her ear, pulling the enlisted girl from her
seat with a vice-grip on Shannon’s shoulder. 
“Get to your lifeboats now.  All
hands,” he screamed but his voice boomed out of the handful of still-functioning
speakers all over the Dreadnaught,
“abandon ship.”

      The captain
kept hold of Shannon, directing her through the rapidly disintegrating ship,
Doyle and the other survivors from the con right in front of her, and then
Wellesley began kicking crewmen into lifeboats as the ship groaned, the metal
giving way and ready to invite in the vacuum of space.  Shannon belatedly thought of yelling,
slamming her fist against the shut and locked hatch, feeling the pod ejecting
away from the ship.  The sounds around
her vanished and she sank back absorbed in the absolute silence of space.  Then the dull roar began as a rumble through
the metal of the small craft, spiking and climbing in sound along with the
temperature.  Sweating, praying the
shield beneath her held, and the atmosphere proved thick enough to catch in the
chutes, Shannon waited through reentry, screaming the entire time but not even
realizing how loudly she wailed.  The
heat of the atmosphere resisting the small Mercury-craft like pod climbed, the
feeling of free-fall sinking in Shannon’s stomach, and then jerked with the
sudden rush of the parachutes, gathering in as much atmosphere as they could, and
by the time she jarred and bounced across the Martian landscape nothing broke
through her numbed shock.

      In the
seclusion of her lifeboat, without a window or even hardly room to move, she’d
lost all track of time or even conscious thought.  On the ground, without the constant assault
on her senses reentry provided, Shannon thought of what awaited her, she’d
survived the attack on the ship, and plunging down through the planet’s
atmosphere, just to land on Martian soil, lost on the great red rock.  The door began popping and decompressing, sending
the enlisted girl pressing back away from the hatch, then opened with pneumatic
hisses.

      “No, no, no,
please god, no,” Shannon screamed, flinching her hands in a useless echo of
duck and cover.

      “Quiet now
crewman,” Wellesley snapped.  She focused
closer at the sound, his voice coming through the face-shield of an EVAC suit
with a slight metallic ting.  “You’ll be
fine, this far into the politician’s terraforming gimmick you can breathe on
the surface fifteen or twenty minutes before the poison’s too deep in your
lungs.”

      “Right,”
Shannon tried climbing out of the pod and fell on the Martian landscape.  She blushed, but then her dark skin rippled
with goose bumps when she felt the frigid air, and nearly chocked when the
iciness flashed through her lungs.  “I
just forgot a minute, but I remember now.” 
She already felt a scratching in her throat, lightheaded dizziness
swimming in front of her eyes, and the chilled sensation multiplied with every
breath.

      “Just don’t
waste any more time getting your gear strapped on.”  The captain popped the service hatch and
gestured vaguely inside with his hand.  He
observed the red planet, not quite as pure in color as he remembered from his
own first tour, back when the first colonists hadn’t even reached the asteroid
belt yet and Mars still stood as the extreme edge of human civilization.  A few browns and tans hinted among the rust
colored crags, lichen clung to the sides of boulders, and he thought he even
spotted a few shrubs in the far distance. 
In another generation or two cows might be grazing on this very spot,
the idea revolted the captain who preferred space hostile and remote.  “We’re probably not more than twenty miles
from Von Braun, but we’re already short of time.”

      “We’ll have to
leave Drake behind if you want to cover that distance any quicker than a week,”
Doyle snickered.  The other survivors,
after picking over the crashed pods which took hits in space and smashed down
with nothing living left inside, sat around watching the newbie struggle with
her suit.  All forty pods made it down,
but only twenty-eight members of the crew stood around on the red soil.

      “Nobody gets
left Doyle.”  Wellesley fixed the man
with a gaze speaking louder than words, “You were even worse on your first tour,
in case you’ve forgotten.”

      They started
out across the harsh red land, two abreast and moving their feet double-time.  Shannon sweated profusely with ten strides, the
suit more than her skinny frame could take, but stayed right beside the captain
at the head of the column no matter how much pain shot through her system.  They all heard the sound, though only Shannon
glanced around and saw the rounds hurtling down towards them.  The cannon shots, the term borrowed from the
ancient weapons they bore only a passing resemblance to, hurled bundled plasma
down from low orbit.  The attacking
Coalition ship which took out the Dreadnaught
clearly wanted to finish her crew, ensuring a clear and open path for their
landing commandos to Von Braun, so they lobbed down shots meant for massive
craft in space to plow the road and finish whatever remained of the escaping
Alliance crew.

      Breaking into a
mad dash the pairs in the marching column scattered, only vaguely and
erratically holding their course for Von Braun. 
New craters exploded in the Martian landscape, and the temperature
boiled as the plasma charged the air. 
Shannon nearly froze, only the sight of the captain running a straight
course out across the plain kept her legs churning, feeling a desperate need
for Wellesley at her side.  Unlike her
comrades, who tried running serpentine patterns, Drake followed Wellesley’s example
and ran pell-mell for the far ridge, the only landmark within sight.

      She sprang up
the rust colored rocks of the ridge and found the captain standing still.  “Sir, we can’t stop here.”

      “Open your eyes
and ears crewman, they’re not risking any shots this close to the colony.”  Wellesley nodded with his helmet and drew
Drake’s eyes out across the last stretch of red earth running out from the
ridge, which hid the greatest manmade structure on Mars from view.  “Some of the underground equipment reaches
out this far, and you never know what a little damage might do.”

      “Aye,” Shannon
mumbled, taking in the sight of Von Braun Colony.  More than forty-square miles comprised of
small interlocking modules with multiple greenhouse domes, and just outside several
of the largest compartments growing garden parks which signaled the steady
changing of the Martian air.  “What’s
stopping them from blowing it off the map?”

      “That’s far and
away the best prize in the system this side of Armstrong; they aren’t trying to
blow Von Braun into holy oblivion.  What
they want is to take the city.  Whoever
controls that colony just took the lion’s share of the trade off the belt, and
that’s billions in revenue, if not more than that with the rate the mines are
coming on line.”

      By then a few
of the remaining soldiers of the Dreadnaught,
only five others surviving the gambit through the plasma shot, joined Drake and
Wellesley up on the ridge.  Something
made Shannon refuse turning back, not wanting to see the field full of charged
holes blasted from space, and she kept her back ridged and faced the
colony.  Doyle and the others swallowed
at the sight of the city, and stumbled onward without even acknowledging the
captain.

      Wellesley let
them walk, letting the shock and terror settle and pass, walking with Drake at
the back of the group.  As they drew
close to the modular compound, gradually re-adhering to training and moving in
secrecy they approached the glass dome of a massive four square mile greenhouse
large enough for redwoods inside, and a vast variety of exotic flora and
fauna.  The captain again sprang to the
front of the group and guided them up the service ladder towards the top of the
great dome.

      Peering through
the glass while the others began filing into the airlock, eight stories above
the red earth, Shannon thought she saw armed men jogging through the trees
inside.  Pressing closer to the glass,
she caught a second glimpse, and recognized the dull gray uniforms of the
Coalition troops.  Her mind shot in a
hundred directions of comprehension, remembering what the captain told her on
the ridge, wanting to shout, but also feeling a need to stop the men below
before anything else happened.

      “Drake, get in
here, it’ll take nearly an hour to get inside,” Doyle hollered down with
another snarl of exasperation.  More than
anything, he wished a few of the more worthy soldiers made it through, and
couldn’t believe a fool like Drake survived what better men couldn’t.

      “They’re
already here,” Drake answered.  She
pulled her sidearm and sprang up the steps of the ladder into the airlock.  Ignoring the shouts and protests of the rest,
she shot the controls and broke down the door leading inside, breaking the
airlock and letting the Martian air rush inside.

      Drake leapt
blindly from the eight-story high perch, cushioned slightly by the thicker air
rushing out of the massive greenhouse into the thin space outside.  She bounced between a few trees, rolling
painfully to her feet and limping in the direction she saw the Coalition
invasion teams sneaking.  Her leg sent an
explosion of pain coursing through her with every step, and she realized dully
that the bone probably broke in the fall, but she couldn’t let that stop her
now.  The face-shield of her suit cracked,
and she could hear the hiss of oxygen bleeding out, but she clung to the
captain’s reminder that she should have a few minutes, and kept hobbling
forward.  Drake didn’t know if Wellesley
and the others were behind her, or moving out on the catwalks from the high
airlock perch, and she didn’t care.  She
set off through the paradise which gardeners and botanists created from the plants
of the earth, an Eden for Mars, and didn’t even think about the way her white
EVAC suit stood out among the greens of the forest.

      Of the twenty
commandos whom Drake spotted from outside, she now found only six, struggling
on towards the door leading into the interior modules of Von Braun, already
showing signs of weakness from poisonous air. 
Drake took careful aim, though she hadn’t practiced firing in her EVAC
suit.  Her first shot caught one of them,
tearing his chest open and sending him sprawling to the ground.  The rest of the Coalition troops turned
around quickly, gasping for air and off-guard at finding a sniper waiting for
them, and each breath dragging them further under, but they sent out a spray of
bullets at Drake who could only fumble and pop off a few more rounds.

      Drake felt
sharp pains ripping through her body, staggering forward squeezing the trigger
relentlessly even when the muzzle quit flashing.  Drake tried counting how many of them went
down, but couldn’t concentrate through the searing pain flashing in every joint
of her body.  Breathing hurt, a
scratching sensation rising up in her throat clawed her insides deeper with
every inhale and exhale.

      Bodies moved
around her, and Drake realized she must have collapsed at some point, only
seeing the shapes as specters of black on blue, but they slowly took on
concrete form with other shades blending in. 
Wellesley appeared over her, easing her helmet off and his severe face
almost breaking into a blank expression, which all his crew called a Wellesley
Smile.  “Stay calm, you did good kiddo,
they didn’t even make it out of here into the colony proper.”

      “I was going to
design furniture, who’d have thought there was something else out there.”

The end

If you would like to find out what happens next check out New Frontier from Neverland Publishing.

Hello to all,
I've been struggling mightily lately with the stresses of reaching out into the ether and begging people to buy my latest book New Frontier and working my way through finishing the rough drafts of Black Rose War.  That's neither here nor there, my problems right?  However I did think that perhaps I should post an update for those of you out there waiting for a chance to read these books.
After all these years I can't believe that I'm considering walking out on a publisher and postponing the release of the first book.  That's just it though, I've been working on these novels for more than a decade, and am incredibly proud of the end results, honestly at times it feels like someone else wrote them they are so far beyond what I've written before.  Because of that, and professional problems with my current publisher, I think I have no choice but to run the incredible risk and turn down the contract with Neverland and keep searching.
I was planning on doing a few posts coming up illuminating the world and trying to fill the gap until these books finally reach publication, and there are a few short stories out there on the way and I'll keep everyone updated on what publications to watch and when.

Here's a quick article trying to outline a few of the ideas behind the emergence of capitalist anarchy in my latest book, which has drawn a bit of criticism from a few fans who seem to think this is somehow offensive, thought I honestly don't fully understand what is offensive in presenting a philosophical idea in a work of fiction confuses me.

The idea of capitalistic anarchy, which appeared ludicrous to me even just a few years ago, became the initial impetuous behind the story of New Frontier, originally with me thinking of what an absurd and worthless system of society that it would create a beautiful backdrop for a story about human achievement.  What happened, in the writing and researching, was that the concept of capitalistic anarchy challenged me in a new and unique way, altering some of my own opinions, but indeed creating a rich and complex backdrop which helped the story to thrive.

In the book the concept was simple, these modern governments running up ridiculous debt, offering tax cuts and increased spending in the Bush era and tax hikes and increased spending in the Obama era, though this is by no means only an American habit, there are many other nations which mimic the same unhealthy economic tendencies, became bloated to the point that they couldn’t keep the system rolling forward.  Too few people contributing to society, and too many taking until the structure only needs a slight push, and when you're standing on such an edge a natural disaster, war, even a riot at a sporting event might trigger a catastrophic collapse.  Specifically, in the novel New Frontier, a consortium of wealthy and ambitious dreamers founded a new company, the Alliance, with the goal of expanding space exploration when the governments kept cutting back on funding, and using the patents from the bevy of new inventions to filter new products into the populace and begin colonizing near space, the moon, and eventually move further out into the Solar System.  This singular company becomes so powerful that some of the smallest bankrupt countries turn to this private company for their salvation when the bubble breaks, and become, in effect, subsidiaries of the Alliance.

To this point in the concept I could track things, and thought that this might be a lesson in the ambitions of the corporate world, how they might slip out of control without regulation, but this crashed into another aspect of the novel which informed on this, though I originally conceived of them separately.  New Frontier, at its heart, is a new age of exploration, and the more I researched the first age of exploration, when Europeans first started crossing the Atlantic, the more I learned the hidden secret of what sent those ships around the globe and mapped the oceans and seas of the planet.  As children in school we’re always taught of the monarchy, and the church, standing behind the great explorers and funding their missions, most of our history books, at least the cursory ones which are mandated in schools, breeze past the economics which truly drove the age of exploration.  Not only the spice islands themselves, more profitable than the modern drug trade, which actually motivated the earliest expeditions only seeking out a chance to make fortunes there, but later the slave trade, the sugar trade, potatoes, and the list goes on and on.  These fortunes by the way were not limited to the crowned heads of state, companies rose up out of nothing and became world players, exploiting opportunity with innovation and daring.  Men from even the lowest classes of society could rise higher than at almost any point in history before, breaking down the old class system, which was less ridged at the start of the age of exploration but still the last traces of strict feudalism remained, and introducing a chance for advancement, and fall, unheard of in generations.
New Frontier became something different from what I first set out to write, not an indictment of business or a indulgence of a youthful fantasy of the evils of money, this became a celebration of the success which business can drive humanity to achieve, while also accepting that within that same framework, greed runs as rampant as innovation.  This wild west which the world of humanity descends into works both ways, unfettered from the restraints which government puts on individuals and society, embracing that full anarchy spirit, might led to breakthroughs in technology or military, but there is nothing there to defend an idea or fortune but the person who has it, and the others who might try taking it away.  I wanted to look at both sides of this fascinating philosophy, the good and the bad, and let it breathe, and see what we might learn from this world which took far different turns than the one we live in today.  But we never know what will happen tomorrow.
For those of you out there who've read the book, let me know what you think, did the book make you think, make you angry, make you intrigued, make you into a full blown anarchist?

Jeremy Lee

Just a quick looking forward to 2014, and finally seeing Black Rose War coming into print.  Not only will at least book one of the series see publication, and quite possibbly book two also, but so far at least four short-stories which expand the world where the novels take place are also on the horizon in 2014.

My new novel, New
Frontier, explores the dangerous twists and turns of a topic rattling
around in my brain, I think like most people in the western world, for the last
decade or so, Religious Terrorism. 
Beyond that though, once I started toying with such a volatile and
tricky substance in the story, the theme expanded into the realm of religious
commercialization.

In a world without governments, where capitalist anarchy
reigns supreme and super-conglomerates have taken the place of old
nation-states, I started trying to visualize what life in this world really
looked like a street level.  It doesn’t
take much, we already see in our world today with a government trying to
regulate every aspect of life, that faith is big business, so I extrapolated
that without those shackles preventing any crossovers that capitalism and faith
would make extraordinary partners.  The
second I started picturing preachers and bishops and sheiks out to make their
fortune, out in the open, the picture looked too familiar not to feel
overwhelmingly disturbing.

The compromises I made in exploring this aspect of religion
brought out a side of my own beliefs dormant under the cynicism which so often
defines my own outlook on faith in a higher power.  I just couldn’t accept the cultish and overly
simplistic view of an opportunistic preacher milking a congregation of sheep of
all they were worth, it missed too many of the finer points in the debate and
made people who held such faith out as fools. 
My own experience in life, my friends and family, tell me that there are
millions of intelligent, moral, and courageous people who believe with all
their hearts in a higher power, so why reduce their beliefs to nothing in a
novel meant to express the full potential of mankind?

Hence, the use of four characters in particular to explore
the idea of religious commercialization and religious terrorism, which I felt
conveyed the rich tapestry of the question, and perhaps touched on the
occasional truth.  The first of these
characters is by far the most identifiable, the most offensive, and likely the
character which many groups who take up arms against anything they deem an
assault on their beliefs will concentrate on as well.  Ironically, the Reverend Higgle is actually a
true believer, a fact not shared by his fellow members of the board of the
International Trading Company.  It’s just
that Higgle doesn’t believe that doing the lord’s work requires poverty, but in
fact his wealth only makes him a more powerful instrument for the lord, and
perhaps he even influences the decisions of his secular bound colleagues.  What Higgle does represent, far and beyond
the crassness of monetizing faith, are the aspects of religion which most
frighten me.  He builds communities where
the faithful never encounter outside ideas; they can spend their whole lives
surrounded only by the word of god and fellow devotees, and so never face tests
in their faith.  Higgle wields versus
from the book of revelations like a sword, thoroughly enjoying the control he
holds over his flock, and more than happy to send them into a panic or rage to
achieve what he believes must be done. 
This last aspect of his character crosses over into another dimension,
truly believing that he is the instrument of god he takes for granted that his
own wants and desires are in fact the will of the creator, and that other
people are beneath him and need his blessing.

The second character in question, Hector de Anza, stands in
stark opposition to the Reverend Higgle, and was the first time I began fleshing
out the idea that perhaps New Frontier
did admonish religion, but also celebrated faith.  Hector is a staunch believer in Christ and
the Lord, stopping numerous times in the story to pray, even in the middle of a
crisis, but he follows his own path and not one laid out for him by religious
authority.  Perhaps the most moral and
direct character in the tableau of the future presented in the book, Hector
never chides others for their own beliefs, he tests his own, but always comes
back with a certainty in his faith.  This
quiet and unassuming man also practices the verses of the bible I witness
forgotten so often in our own daily life, forgiveness and acceptance of his
enemies.

The third character, Jean Girard, flashes through the story
like a brilliant and dangerous comet in the stars.  This man is a member of Higgle’s flock, but
beyond that, he actually does represent the small minority of the faithful
which embrace their preachers will as their own and follow orders with cultish
devotion.  All this man needed to hear
was that the crew of the Argos, the ship at the center of the novel, were the
minions of the devil, and he was prepared to throw his own life away to get at
them.  Jean is the religious terrorist of
the novel, and a simpleton, but that doesn’t diminish the fact that he
believes, right to the very end, that he’s doing the Lord’s work.  He is Christian mostly because I believed
that I couldn’t use a terrorist of another faith while showcasing the other
aspects of the religious argument through other Christians.  The horror and fact of religious terrorism
doesn’t lie in what religion the perpetrator believes, but in the insane
lengths they go to in trying to celebrate their deity, their faith, through
slaughter, and I thought that became brutal clear when Hector and Jean face
each other and their contrast is brought out into the open.  They embrace the same faith, but used that
faith in such different ways.

The final element of the religious theme in the book comes
into play with Suresh Singh, a devote atheist who scorns religion as phony
hocus-pocus and instead embraces science with the same zeal the other
characters above embraced their faith in god. 
It is with this man, this secular and often contradictory man, that the
evidence for and against faith flows through, and who witnesses the worst and
best of humanity over the course of the novel. 
In the end he is not made a believer, his own principles won’t allow
that, but he is forced to acknowledge the possibility of something beyond,
something science might not ever explain.

How will the increasing commercialization of
religion alter ideas about faith in the future? 
What happens when communities increasingly separate themselves in these
modern times and practice such ardent mental isolationism?  I don’t have the answers, I might not ever,
but I’m always excited to explore the question.

For more, check out the publishers page or head on over to Amazon.

Several years ago, I reached a crossroads of sort in my writing career, caught between what came naturally and pushing myself into another direction entirely.
I’d written a book, in truth an earlier version of book one of Black Rose War which comes is finally due for release in 2014 after years of rewrites and re-imaginings.  This version, looking back on it now, was pedantic, the story all right, but nothing like what it could have been, but at the time I was incredibly proud of this adventure in a wonderland of my own creation.  I looked at the story, it had emotion and conflict, adventure and a touch of political drama, and, like so many fantasy pieces, existed in a world filled with medieval touches.  I sent the story off to a few publishers and agents, and quickly grew frustrated by the lack of interest, clearly they didn’t understand that all I needed was a chance.  When I finally found one willing to give me a chance, the fact that they worked with you to self-publish, offering only a guiding hand to help authors, I didn’t even smell the trap.  This isn’t an article about that though, I got out of it without losing a penny, and there are plenty of tales out there about the dangers of such dubious businesses.
What I did, during the brief window where I thought that version of Black Rose War was bound for publishing, is get the idea of writing several short stories set within the world I created as a kind of teaser for the series (an idea I’ve gone back to now that I actually really am on the verge of bringing them out with Neverland Publishing next year).  I wrote four or five stories, all of them actually connected in some way with the main tale, though set hundreds and occasionally thousands of years before.  I started sending these stories out, brimming with the confidence of youth and absolutely certain that my big break was only a few weeks away.  Nope, it sure wasn’t.
I got a series of rejections back instead of the enthusiastic acceptances I expected, but one in particular changed my life.  The man or woman who wrote this little letter didn’t sign it, just put the magazine’s letterhead at the bottom, so I can’t even name them, but they did more for me with a few lines than they intended or I even realized at the time.  “There is nothing in this inventive or creative, it’s all a derivative of the same old fantasy stuff we’ve been reading for a hundred years.  We publish exciting new viewpoints, not rehashes of old stories.”
I was angry, and over the years I’ve learned that most editors do indeed pull their punches much better, and I probably caught this particular gentleman or lady on a very bad day, but in retrospect, I’m so glad I did.  I think I turned purple with rage, grabbing a bottle of something alcoholic and sitting on the couch just stewing with bitterness, telling the empty room how stupid they were, how they just didn’t understand, how I owned the story, and so what if it wasn’t weird and off the wall.  I could make a story as bizarre as they wanted, but without that human element it didn’t matter, no reader would connect with it.  Then I fell asleep, and through the night, waking in fits and starts, still upset but starting to contemplate what they said, I merged the two.  I went over the stories, and even the book, and spotted where I did let chances at letting my imagination fly get bogged down in rehashing what people expected because it clicked together so easily.  I let vista drift into the mundane, because…  I don’t really have an answer, even today.
I threw the story out, threw the book out even, and started over.  Now, more than half a decade later, when I send out my queries I get a very different response.
What I took away from that passionate rejection was nothing less than what became the central pillar of my entire career since then, push and challenge the reader and myself with every page of the story.  Whether it’s suddenly deciding in Where I’m Bound that my central character, a main of great dignity and principle, could become so contorted with hate he nearly kills a young kid, or in Kings of New York asking if a sociopath might start feeling something vaguely resembling friendship and what that might look like, or the grand imagination of stripping away governments and exploring space in a pure capitalist society in New Frontier, I try to always push, and imagine what that editor might say about the next story.  Not to sound too arrogant, which is rather difficult in an article like this, it’s not that I always succeed, not even the greats who tower above me always scored with every story, but I try every time, and I think over the years of pushing so hard, I’ve gotten so much better at this elusive and frustrating craft.
This small lesson sounds trite, almost obvious, but everywhere I turn these days, all of the message boards and groups, always talk about making a warm comfortable and inviting environment for writers.  I can’t speak to others, and they’re welcome to what works for them, but that’s rarely helped me, and I can find that with my friends, or in a conversation with my publisher.  What excites me far more is facing the criticism, scratching thick skin until it feels raw again, and coming back the next time determined to prove that I’m even better, whether it’s answer a book review critic or my own editor’s re-write demands.  Facing the litany of criticism also made me a braver writer, not just dismissing the naysayers, saying they didn’t get it, or they aren’t the audience for this, but listening, absorbing, and only then deciding if the words would change, or if they could go to hell.

How do you like that fancy spelling for an old comic book series which never quite caught fire?
What, considering the face that the series audience didn't quite spill over into heavy demand but certainly was better than nothing, would a rebirth of the Diamondback series spawn?
Will we ever get the chance to tell the stories we so carefully crafted for these wild and nontraditional characters?
These are only a few of the questions currently coursing through my head as I frantically glance over my old notes for the comics, and even looking through the comics which did get released, only a fraction of the work we did behind the scenes.  Michael Andereck and I (Diamondback's co-creater) are starting to mull over the idea of giving Diamondback a whole new try, this time in the cheaper and more cost-effective medium of short stories.  We're starting to toy with the idea, and that led to jotting down the better part of two stories, and I guess here soon we might be looking for magazines which might partner with us, so...
The question remains, what do the people out there who enjoyed the first round of Diamondback, Cowboy, and Denver City think about the madcap adventures continuing.  On the flip side, what questions spring up in the mind's eternal of those who missed out on the first go-round?

This is the first in a planned series of posts, which I plan on slowly detailing the history of the art-form which I so love.  This, however will not yet begin the great adventure, which I might even try and parlay into a non-fiction book some day, I don't know.  This is the first entry to start the process of polling people for their votes for the greatest comic characters of all time.
Before I let you start voting I want to clarify, this is not a purely superhero list, Calvin & Hobbs, Garfield, Maus, any character who appeared in a comic book, graphic novel, newspaper strip, or even in an on-line comic is eligible.  Just give me a name, at least one title they appeared in if they appeared in many, and that's all the information I really need.  I guess aliases too if the character went by a lot of names.  Take into account the history of comics, if you want, and impact on pop culture, again, if you want.
Now onto the voting, give me your top fifteen characters, either right here in the comments or submit via the link back on the main website (Here's the link)
Check back here for the more, and updates as the list grows and updates.

We've all had those people who fly into our lives and wedge themselves into heart and mind, more than a good friend they become an intrinsic part of you more like family, at least for a little while.  One of the best friends I ever had also pushed, cajoled, and encouraged me in a way few other people ever have.  I owe Jason McKauge a sizable debt, and I'll never really get the chance to repay it.
We met while working at a Barnes & Nobles, I still in college and he having just escaped from the confines of education.  Though we met in Denver, we were both from the same small part of Texas, which never stopped amazing me.  We both read voraciously and dreamed of adding a few of our own works to the list of titles which we poured over.  Jason never let me rest, always pushing to see how much more I might be capable of, if I could work some paragraph into a diamond when the rough draft came out as less than coal.  He preferred the elegance of poetry, I worked in the sweeping arc of prose.  We went nightly over to the bar after work, playing chess and talking through our latest plots, characters, scribbles, or problems.
Then I left, off to New York and a new adventure which I hoped would help with writing and with life, and not long after Jason returned to Texas.  We would talk on the phone for hours, resuming the old prodding and encouraging, but I never saw my friend again.  Over the years we spoke less frequently, drifting apart.  I never stopped thinking of him, and when we did speak the time melted away and our friendship picked up just where it left off.
No one felt more proud when my first book came out than Jason, and no one felt more overjoyed when they received news that my publisher wanted to know what I'd do next.  Though he struggled his whole life with finishing the things he started, his mind always darting around to the next idea, he never stopped believing that I would achieve everything we ever dreamed. Jason died last year, far too young, with a book of poetry almost finished.  Friend will be bringing that volume out if they can, and I'll feel something between the joy he felt at my title and regret at everything I'll never get the chance to read which he might have written.
I miss my friend, as we always miss those we count as family.  I dedicated my last book to him, a small gesture in the face of grief, but I hope that somehow he knows that in the end he was thought of, and missed terribly.

I still remember sitting down with this book for the first time, excited and thrilled, knowing only that I was readying another book from the author of Cavalier and Clay.  Swaying back and forth over the first hundred pages, one second entranced and the next revolted, hating the main character and yet captivated by this train wreck of a man, until eventually I quit battling against the incessant pull of this book and just dove in.  Of course, this novel delves in Chabon's prodigious vocabulary, and occasionally lingers almost too long over simple moments, but these are the traits Chabon's work which either draws you deeper into the story or repels you, but for myself the luxurious language intoxicates rather than disgust.