by Gene Moyers | Feb 10, 2019
The Gods of Publishing have been kind. We have an early release this year. Now available from Airship 27 is a new anthology: Marty Quade Private Detective. This contains my story “Over their Head,” one of four stories chronicling the adventures of Marty Quade, a classic hard boiled Detective.
Set in 1930s New York, Marty was a classic detective who appeared in the back pages of Ten Detective Aces magazine in the mid 1930s. Although never having his own magazine or a huge fan following he is cut from the classic Chandler/ Hammett detective mold. He is a tough, self confident and quick with both fist and gun.
I had never heard of Marty when Ron Fortier put out a call for stories of his adventures. It seemed that the airship was looking for more detective stories to publish and had cast around looking for a classic detective in the public domain. I’ve always wanted to write mysteries and the temptation was too much so I put in a bid.
It wasn’t hard to find reprints of a few of the old Marty Quade stories and after reading them for flavor I started in. I’ve said before that mysteries are much trickier to write than adventures. All the clues have to balance out and everything has to mesh exactly to write a good story. It was a lot of work, especially as this was the complete story that I lost in the big data crash three years back. So technically, the story you will see in the new anthology is the second version of the story I wrote.
I’ve thought about it and still can’t decide which version is better. I remember the first version moving very quickly. But I think the re-done version has a good noir feel. I wish I could see them side by side; the same but very different, I think. At any rate “Over their Head” had it’s challenges but it was definitely fun writing a classic tough guy detective story.
For what its’ worth, I think the cover art is classic detective noir and the inside illustrations are very good as well. If you like hard core detective fiction you should like this book.
It is now available on Amazon. I will have some for sale on E-bay soon.
What am I working on now? Just finishing up a Moon Man adventure and hoping to start another classic pulp hero after that. I should be able to knock that out quickly and later this spring I am returning to my original fiction roots and will be finishing my long lost colonial adventure novel. It’s a fun one set in early Philadelphia, and yes, Benjamin Franklin does put in a cameo appearance.
That’s all from the Pacific Northwest today. Oh, despite the news about winter storms, Portland avoided heavy snow; just dry and cold here. Although, I guess Seattle to the north got quite a bit.
by Gene Moyers | Jan 24, 2019
Well, we’re off to a new year; a good one I hope. Writing wise it’s starting out well. I just got the word that a story of mine is soon to go to print. It is a hard boiled detective story in a new anthology. The character is a little known detective published for years in the 1930s.
Don’t know if it will sell well, but I had a lot of fun writing the story and hope a few people will see it. I would like to write more mystery fiction but as I have said before; mysteries are hard to write. I’ve always been a fan of mysteries (am reading one now by Robert Crais) and now having juggled various clues, suspects, timings and settings myself have even more respect for those talented writers who can keep us on the edge of our seats poring over a “who dunnit.” I will make an official announcement of this story and book very soon. Gotta give the publisher first crack at that.
I just finished a new story set in my “Zeppelin Universe.” For those of you have not read my : Flight of the Wasp” story in Alternative Air Adventures, I created an alternate History where Aircraft ended up taking a second place to Lighter Than Air vehicles. This meant a totally different ending for an abbreviated WWI and what I refer to as the subsequent “Imperial Cold War” taking place in Europe.
I now have written six different adventure stories set in my alternate world, with more outlined and on the way. These include four linked stories in a complete book about a brush war in Africa set in 1935 between British and German colonial forces called Zeppelins Over Afrika. This book has been submitted to a publisher and is awaiting artwork. Fingers crossed, it may appear in production later in the year.
Other stories in this series will appear where and when I can find appropriate places for them. The one I just completed is a bit off beat and deals with a real life bit of unusual British technology that didn’t quite make the grade in 1930 England. I don’t where this one will end up but it was kind of fun to write about something that could have been a big part of modern life, if the cards had fallen a bit differently.
Next up for me are a couple of stories starring classic pulp characters. I have written stories about Moon Man and Phantom Detective before. Both are classic characters that were very popular in their time. The Phantom Detective magazine actually ran longer than The Shadow or Doc Savage, the two heavy weights in the hero pulp genre. Publication didn’t cease until 1953 after twenty years of stories.
I am deep into my new Moon Man story. I have had the outline around for a while and it should go fast.
The Phantom Detective Outline is also complete. I hope to knock out both stories in the next month or so. That is, IF the Gods of Writing and Publishing smile on me.
That’s it for now. More news soon, I hope.
by Gene Moyers | Dec 5, 2018
Well, 2018 is nearly over. Looking back it wasn’t the best year, not the worst either, but it could have been better, writing wise. Although 2018 saw the publication of my first full length novel, I had only two other stories published. A lot of other projects are in publishing limbo, either working their way through the system or stuck because of production hang ups.
This is not unusual. Writing has it’s ups and downs so through the luck of the draw there was just less published this year. As always, the Gods of Publishing always have the final say in these matters.
As far as pure writing I got some good work accomplished but not as much as the previous year when I wrote close to 150k words. So, where are all these words and stories?
Some have been submitted and are in the queue with various publishers, others are filed away for revision (sometimes serious revision) and some were written just for fun and may or may not eventually find a publisher.
Also the honest truth is, I was busier with this year with non-writing activities a good bit of the year than I have been. Sometimes life tends to interfere with my writing. But it’s been a good year that has (I hope) laid the foundation for more published work next year.
Since my last journal entry, I have turned in a long short story featuring Domino Lady. I cannot give away publishing info but I can say I think we will see more Domino Lady books this year. There are anthologies out there that have been on hold that now seem to be moving forward.
I have also been working on stories with my two original heroes. These are a lot of fun but are not likely to be published for a while. I am aiming for anthologies for both Dream Master and my female avenger the Shrike (one of the names she is known by). I already have a lot of Shrike stuff written but am holding them back for the right moment.
Anyone who has read Not That Kind of Girl should realize that I wrote her in the style Walter Gibson wrote the Shadow novels. This means she appeared fully realized in her first novella. She was trained, experienced with a full cast of supporting characters. There was no origin story or reference to it. This too was in the style of Gibson’s Shadow novels. Now, I fully intend to write stories of her early adventures as well as her current activities. In fact I am nearly finished with her original adventure, her de facto origin. I’ll add this to the stack of other stories I have written about her, but don’t expect to see it soon. While I hope to have complete anthologies of her adventures published, I intend to only slowly let out details of her past. So, sadly this origin story will not see the light of day for a while. Still it is a lot of fun to write.
So, what can we expect in 2019? I hope it will be a good year for publication. I’m hopeful that several stories will be published as well as a full length book set in an alternate history world I have created. I have high hopes for this book. Alternate History is a big field in the Sci Fi/ Fantasy genre and I would like to break into it.
Also, I am returning to one of my first loves. While I like New Pulp and will continue writing my favorite pulp characters, I actually started out writing historical adventure. So, I am dusting off some incomplete projects and hope to have some good stories, including novels, ready for submission next year. First among them is my swashbuckling hero set in Colonial America. He is a lot of fun. I don’t know where his first full length adventure will find a home but it will be fun looking. Maybe I’ll submit it to some larger publishing houses. Which brings me to a topic I’ve thought about a lot. How to break into main stream publishing? I’ve got some ideas but I think that is a topic for future journal entry.
So, I bid a somewhat fond good bye to 2018 and look forward to an exciting 2019.
Happy Holidays to all!
by Gene Moyers | Sep 27, 2018
My latest story has just been published in a new anthology from Airship 27. The book is called Aviation Aces vol. 1. Hopefully it will be the first volume of a series chronicling the adventures of daring pilots from all ages.
My story is a fun little tale called Rescue. It uses characters created by Frederick Nebel for the air stories he wrote in the early 1930s. I had read some of these stories and when Airship 27 put out a call for pulp action air stories, l already had an idea of what I wanted to write; a pure action story with lots of flying and non-flying adventure.
Rescue is just that. It has sky pirates, plane crashes, dog fights and more. There’s no mystery villains or clues to sort out, just non-stop adventure. If you like Indiana Jones movies, hopefully you’ll like Rescue.
Anyway, it is available at Amazon now. I should have copies available for sale in a week or so.
The other three stories in the book look good as well. Andy Fix and Jeff Fournier have a historic based, WWII story about the famous Black Widow night fighters. This one is well researched and very enjoyable. I have not finished the other two stories by Robert Ricci and Fred Adams yet but they look like a lot of fun as well.
Meanwhile. I have been very busy finishing up a couple of projects that I will talk about soon Including a new Domino Lady story, if there are any DL fans out there.
More soon.
Go Ducks!
by Gene Moyers | Sep 10, 2018
My last posting noted there wasn’t much going on because, uh . . . well, there wasn’t much going on. But now the summer slow down is past and things are starting to move again. I just got the word that a long awaited story is about to be published. I can’t announce any titles yet, because I am bound by contract not to announce anything until the official announcement is made. Still, I can say that a fun little adventure story that I wrote will be published very soon. Art work is finished and final checks are progressing. Hopefully I will announce the title within a couple of weeks. Been waiting on this one for a while and am very pleased.
Last time I talked about two larger projects that have occupied my writing time this summer. There is my new mystery novella, hopefully intended for a future anthology to be published by Airship 27. The second is also a novella length story. It is an occult mystery.
This one has been in the works for a while. I got the initial idea almost three years ago. At the time I was too busy with other projects to do anything but write a brief few hundred word synopsis while the idea was fresh in my mind, before diving back into some hot projects that need a lot of work. This happens to me quite often. I get a neat idea; if I don’t drop everything and get it down on paper the idea soon fades leaving me with only vague idea what it was. Story ideas have to be jumped on when they happen. Usually this is a fun distraction. I love outlining future projects. There is no pressure or details to work out. Just throw out a brief outline filled with neat ideas; they can always be revised later.
Anyway, I got his idea but just didn’t have time to do anything with it. I was up to my nose in writing Not That Kind of Girl and Master of Blackness, what would become my Purple Scar novel at the time. (Aside: Has anyone out there read it? I was hoping to get some feedback but haven’t head anything even though it has sold a respectable amount of copies) I finally got time to flesh out my occult mystery outline this winter and actually started writing it after I got back from Windy City Pulp Con. Like the mystery novella, I quickly found it was going to be too involved for a long short story so I had to revise my outline and it became a full novella. I have been working hard on it this summer and it will soon be finished. It’s fun with a little of everything; a crooked medium, murder, nosy cops and of course nightmares. I hope to be finished with it very soon. Then I can jump back to my other mystery novella.
Unusual for me, I have been working on both stories simultaneously; jumping back and forth as inspiration struck. Normally I don’t do this but with two longer stories that I wanted to get finished, inevitable slow downs would occur as I worked out plot problems so jumping form one work to the other work gave me a break from banging my head against an awkward conversation or tricky plot points while keeping both projects moving. My occult mystery went generally faster and as I say, will be finished within days. Then I will attack the other mystery and have it done by October.
What will I do with them? The mystery has a tentative home in an anthology for Airship 27. But as it is a classic, hard boiled detective story that can be set anywhere in the ’30s, ’40s or ’50s there are lots of possibilities. All I have to change is a few names and I can go a couple different ways with it. Likewise with my occult mystery. I haven’t quite decided where this one will go. Again I have a couple of options for it.
So that’s the latest. Hopefully I will be back very soon with a new title to announce.
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