Year: 2010

Back from my Christmas trip to Cozumel, Mexico. Guys, I can’t say enough about this place. It was fantastic. I stayed at a resort called the Fiestamericana…yes, I know it ought to be the “Fiesta Americana”, but it’s the way it is. Anyway, it’s a great resort with fabulous people. I told the manager that I thought the biggest plus about the resort was that the employees had the gift of making guests feel like family…and it was so true. So if you have a vacation coming up or you just need to get to a place that’s sunny, where the sea is beautifully blue and clear and the atmosphere just as sparkling, then the Fiestamericana at Cozumel is your place. Believe it!

I wanted to check in with the arrival of the New Year. But first…I can’t resist talking about Cozumel just a little bit more. You know, I want to thank everyone for the greetings and well-wishes. I was by no means “fishing” for sympathy in my tale of the unkilled cat. I was simply stating in a straightforward manner the trials and tribulations I’ve been facing if not in the past several weeks then in the last few months. But I do appreciate the comments and well-wishes.

Having said that, I’m here to say that I do feel great after my trip. I got along fine on my “wounded” ankle. It got a little stronger every day. As a matter of fact, one day I took a cab from the resort to downtown in search of some Cuban cigars and decided to walk back (after I got a small tattoo on my chest…henna, not permanent, but thinking along those lines). Well, I walked away from midtown through neighborhoods and local shopping areas, and all of it along the oceanfront. It was warm, the sun was high, a soft breeze was blowing, the sky and sea were awesome shades of blue…ahhhhh! I went into a local department store and scoped the place out. I investigated an area of nice houses going up that evidently had been abandoned for lack of money, but it was an interesting excursion anyway. I went into the terminal at the dock where the cruise ships come in. I walked and walked. Until at last I had walked seven miles, and I was standing in a pasture scratching behind the ears of a solitary horse. It showed its pleasure by thumping its hoof on the ground…whichever ear was being scratched, that was the hoof that beat out a little counting rhythm that I found very charming.

I went snorkeling, I went on a sunset cruise, I swam and swam, I had a fabulous seafood feast, I did karaoke for the first time in my life (and did better than I thought I would because I sang with a guy named Joe Bargo from Kansas City who actually is in a jazz band and can carry a good tune), I drank liters of Coke Zero and smoked Cuban cigars by the pool, I partook of a fantastic tequila bar where there were about thirty different bottles of variously-flavored tequila, I drank my favorite Johnny Walker Red, I met all sorts of people from everywhere, I laid out on the beach, I watched the moon set and the sun rise and then the sun set and the moon rise, I went on a submarine a hundred and ten feet down to the edge of The Shelf, I rode on horseback through the jungle, I heard a GREAT band do their Steppenwolf set, I ate cactus and enjoyed it, and I have vowed to return to that place in April after I finish The Providence Rider.

So, yes…I did have a good time.

And the New Year approaches, and may be here before what I’m writing is on my website. I am looking forward with great anticipation to 2011. Aren’t you? I mean, really… 2010 was a tough year. A year of change, not all of it wanted and not all of it good. A year of bracing yourself. A year of taking it on the chin. Or sometimes getting kicked in a lower area, and having to grin and bear it so nobody knows the pain you’re feeling.

Yeah, that kind of year.

But that kind of year, it seems to me, has its value. It teaches you discipline and toughness. It teaches you to depend on yourself. To know you can handle whatever happens… because you have to. And to handle with grace and style the difficult things, the things that a few years ago might have put you down for the count.

Nossir. I ain’t goin’ nowhere now. I’m here to stay, so go ring the bells and tell ’em, the best is yet to be.

And it is, guys. I have some tremendous projects ahead. Much more Matthew to come, and many more surprises. Some things, I think, that will even surprise me. And one project in particular I wish I could tell you about, but it will happen when it happens…and when it does happen…and it will…wow.

So hang in with me. Enjoy this ride into the future we all are on. Trust me to guide you. I will take you to some wonderful places, and introduce you to some amazing characters. There’s a lot ahead for all of us, and I can’t wait to get started on that journey from here to there.

Ring the bells, my friends. Ring the bells and tell ’em.

I’m here to stay, and the best is…

Yeah. It’s comin’.

Happy New Year to all, and thank you for believing in me.

Best Wishes,
Robert McCammon

Some of you may recall the video we posted of Timo “The Doc” Heikkinen’s song “Boy’s Life,” which put music to Robert McCammon’s poem found at the beginning of Boy’s Life. You can see a video of a live performance of the song on the Video page.

Timo’s band, newly-christened The Doc, has released their first studio CD, The First Cut, which includes the song “Boy’s Life.” The song and/or album can be purchased in MP3 format from cdbaby. For more information about The Doc’s album or to purchase the song, visit the The Doc’s The First Cut on CDBaby.

 

I have come to relate a strange tale, as is my wont and my talent in this life. Many things around us are not to be understood. We just can’t grasp them. Maybe on the other side of the dark glass we will, but in this realm…forgettaboutit!

My tale involves the night I was driving at fifty miles an hour, the legal speed limit, along a major highway here in Birmingham. Everything was just peachy! Driving along, listening to The Clash on my CD player, looking forward to dinner…peachy. Suddenly I see a police car sitting in the median ahead. No problem, I’m going the speed limit. So I don’t even take my foot off the accelerator or touch the brake. No problem?

Ah, the problem.

Suddenly from my left a black cat squirts out of nowhere and directly in front of my car. There’s a lot of other traffic on the highway, and I realize that if I swerve suddenly the police officer in that car is likely to light ’em up for me, or I might bash into another vehicle. So before I could slow down a single mph, I have hit a black cat. I hear and feel the thump on my right tire. I glance back in my rearview mirror and see the cat stumbling off the highway, so I know I’ve not killed it—let’s just say it’s not yet dead—but it seems to be badly injured.

Okay. Life goes on, right?

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. In the last couple of months I have had a virus winnow through my anti-virus program, destroy my hard drive and nearly destroy part of The Providence Rider, as well as mangling other important programs I need to keep. I was able to transfer some work to a second computer. Within several days of working on that rig, the hard drive crashed. I luckily have a third computer tucked away in a closet. When I plugged that in, the power pack instantly blew up. I’m not talking a quiet pop, folks. I’m talking fire and smoke shooting out of the vents in the metal box.

On a more personal front, there are things going on I can’t even begin to relate. One thing I will say is that I very much enjoy running. I run every day if I can. Well, someone advised me that I’d been running wrong for years and I should be running “heel to toe” instead of “toe to heel”. Good enough. I go out and buy two pairs of very expensive running shoes. I’m ready to go. I decide to run on an indoor track to get used to my new running style. Yeah, let’s go!

Four strides in, I take a curve, my right foot crinks to the side on the new tread of my exprensive running shoe, and suddenly all my weight is on my ankle and my foot is turned beneath me at a right-angle. I flew toward the railing and nearly brained myself. The upshot of this is that I wound up limping into my neighborhood pharmacy at about eight that night to ask if I could rent crutches. No, I was told, but I could buy crutches if they had them…but they did not, and I might try another pharmacy several miles away.

Bear in mind, I am walking now by dragging my right foot and my speed is somewhere between snail and death. I never knew pharmacy parking lots were so huge. Okay, I should have gone to the doctor but I didn’t. I’ve had sprains before and gotten through them, but this was Pretty Ugly. I recall breaking out in a cold sweat when it happened. Anyway, major damage has been done and…guess what…I am supposed to go for a trip to Cozumel, Mexico over the holidays…and I’m leaving Tuesday the 21st, and I’m writing this on Saturday the 18th and my foot is still mucho swollen. So the time is ticking.

Anyway, I get my crutches and I go on from there. My situation does get a little better. I’m able to get off the crutches, though now the pain is so severe I can’t drive. Do I hear a black cat laughing? What would that sound like? I think I know.

Okay…I have run out of food. Did I tell you I am separated from my wife and I live alone in an apartment now? Another tale…but I have to make myself drive and get some food. So I force my foot into an old beatup running shoe and I head to the grocery store, where while I’m tottering around trying to choose a jar of grape jam for my peanut-butter-and-jam sandwiches an elderly lady asks if she can hold my basket.

Fun…knee!

Well, I relate all this in a late night conversation to a friend of mine in Vancouver, the excellent writer KC Dyer. She says, “Rick, this is the curse of the unkilled cat. You have to appease the Cat God to have this curse removed.”

“Okay,” I say. “And how is that going to happen?”

“You go to the grocery store…”

OMG! Not again, I think.

“Go to the grocery store,” she says, “and buy the most succulent seafoody catfood you can find. Then you take that catfood to the nearest animal shelter and donate it. I think it will work, and I think something will happen to show you it’s worked.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

I go.

Well, that day becomes one of the most stormy and rain-filled days in Birmingham history. I have a small car—a Pontiac Solstice, long live Pontiac (sob)—and I’m fishtailing around in the rain like crazy. No way I can get way across town to the nearest animal shelter!

Another call to KC. She says, “Take the food to the nearest vet, and make sure it goes to the cats or kittens that need homes.”

Okay. The nearest vet is right down the street. I take the catfood and I tell my story to the people at the front desk, and thank God I know them because my story is weird. But they listen and they understand because they, too, have some black cat stories. Anyway, the time comes to feed one of the needy cats and see what happens.

This particular cat has run into the bathroom, where it drinks water from the faucet yet they tell me it doesn’t like to have water dripping on its head. So I cup water in my hand and lo and behold the cat drinks from my hand. And…and…after all the water is gone it continues to lick my hand. A sign? I don’t know. But I do know that cat enjoyed its seafoody lunch. It almost ate the plastic dish. So I left feeling lighter, and feeling that a unkilled black cat’s curse might be loosened from my shoulders. A little bit, maybe. But in this case a little bit is a lot.

Now…you may be asking how in the world this is a Christmas story?

I have had a very difficult and tough last few months. Well…last few years, really. Okay…ever since I wrote Boy’s Life things have been tough, because I walked away from genre horror work and I wasn’t supposed to do that, according to the corporates. They were investing in a horror writer. That’s what I was supposed to be for the rest of my life, no matter what else I wanted to write. And guys, the corporates can make life Hell for you, in ways that an unkilled black cat could never imagine.

But I’m here. In a different place now. I’ve been in my apartment since August. I’m pretty much on my own.

A Christmas story? Well, listen to this.

One night I was sitting on my balcony and I had a thrill of happiness. It just came on me. It was a thrill of happiness that I haven’t felt for a very long time. I recall feeling that kind of thrill on Christmas morning when I was a little boy, with the tree and the presents waiting under it to be unwrapped. I felt that thrill, and I knew…the world is my present, waiting to be unwrapped.

I have determined to travel more, to get out in the world and enjoy life more than simply being a solitary hermit creating fantasies. I will certainly continue to work because I love to work and I love the family of my characters…but nothing beats real life, guys. Nothing beats getting out in the world, meeting people, going places and having new experiences. That’s why on Christmas Day I’m going to be swimming in the clear blue water off Cozumel. It will be my baptism into a new life.

I have experienced that thrill of happiness several times since. It is the kind of happiness that can not be bought. It can not be manufactured. It can not be written about. It must be experienced to be known. I intend to find more and more of it, as time goes by. I think at long last I have earned it.

I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I wish you happy times with loved ones. Never take them for granted. Never.

I wish you peace and kindness, and I wish you freedom from black cats of all kinds.

Your friend,
Robert McCammon

Gauntlet Press will be publishing J.N. Williamson’s Illustrated Masques in 2011. The book collects the two-volume 1992 graphic novel J.N. Williamson’s Masques and adds some new material. One of the stories adapted to comic form for this book is Robert McCammon’s “Nightcrawlers”. The script was written by James Kisner, and the art is by Ted Naifeh.

The book is expensive, but if you’re interested, you can read more about it on the Gauntlet Press site or on the Cemetery Dance site.

“Nightcrawlers” was originally published in the anthology Masques and was also included in Robert McCammon’s short story collection, Blue World.

Subterranean Press posted this update on their site today:

Our mammoth (nearly 700 pages) edition of Robert McCammon’s werewolf classic, The Wolf’s Hour, is in our warehouse and shipping.The Signed Limited Edition which features a brand new 36,000 word Michael Gallatin adventure is over 90% sold out. We should add that we will not be filling any orders for our wholesale or large online retail accounts. The classic novel and new novella are joined by the movie poster-inspired dust jacket by Vincent Chong, as well as three full color interior illustrations, including a pull-out of the novel’s centerpiece “death train” scene.

Some Thoughts On The Wolf’s Hour

Hi, all. November is upon us. Also upon us, and something I’ve been very excited about for a number of months, is the beautiful edition of The Wolf’s Hour from Subterranean Press, which I consider to be the Ultimate Edition of that work. I’d like to take a few minutes to talk about that book, if I may.

Where did the idea come from? I’ve thought about that and I can’t really answer it. I do know I’m very interested in World War II history, and also the “lore” and “allure” of secret agents. You may not know that I tried to put myself in the running several years ago to pick up the James Bond series when the publisher was casting about for a writer. I didn’t get the spot, and I guess I’m glad I didn’t because my work has evolved in another direction, but I always thought I could do a “bang-up job”—British lingo there—putting across an action-oriented secret agent novel.

So I decided to think about doing a different kind of secret agent, and using of course my interest in World War II and general weirdness. What could possibly make my hero different? I wondered.

Then I had the Ah, ha moment. Eureka, as they say.

But if he’s going to be that, I decided, it has to be believeable all the way. It has to be made real. It can’t just be dropped in like a gimmick. There has to be a backstory and a wealth of personal history—and tragedy—and if this unreal hero is to become real he must first and foremost be made human.

Now, the fun part about putting this hero together is that I knew there would be a lot of action. If you know what I mean?

Usually I don’t get to write scenes like that. If you read the new novelette “The Room At The Bottom of The Stairs,” you will see that I decided to go for the gold in terms of the bedroom scenes. Someone mentioned to me after reading those scenes that they were “very earthy.”

Well, yeah. I don’t get a lot of opportunities to write “very earthy,” so in this case I thought…go for it, all the way.

They actually may have said “very dirty,” but I heard “very earthy.” Same difference. I guess?

I realized when I was writing The Wolf’s Hour that it was going to be a long book, but I didn’t realize until looking back and re-reading this Ultimate Edition how fully-packed the thing is. I mean, it is intense. I think every possible situation one could throw at a hero, whether he is merely human or more than human, is in this book.

The action scenes were great fun to write. I do mean, here, the physical action. You know. The fighting scenes. Okay? Well, they were fun to write. But I never wanted my hero’s life-condition to be a gimmick, something that is used when the pace falters or the story runs out of steam or you just need a good jolt to throw at the reader. No, his situation had to be honest, as much as I could make it.

It had to be depicted as a life lived in both great joy and deep sadness, because for all my hero’s abundant strength and speed and animal passion, he also walks alone. He must pay the price for what he is, and though the decision to be what he has become was not his to make…there is still the price to be paid, and so this becomes more than a story about a secret agent in World War II who is a lycanthrope. It is also the story of an innocent boy who set out to catch a kite and became a solitary traveller through a dangerous world.

I am very proud of The Wolf’s Hour. It appears that this is another of my books that, thankfully, is growing in stature with the passage of time. I have been asked many times if I would ever consider doing a sequel. Again, there are so many events packed into this book that I might have a hard time writing a book-length sequel. But after writing the shorter piece “The Room At The Bottom of The Stairs,” I started thinking… hmmmm, well, maybe I could do a sequel of sorts that was not really a sequel but that did continue my hero’s story.

So…I sat down this summer and wrote what has become The Hunter From The Woods, a collection of short stories and novelettes starring Michael Gallatin. He gets to move around quite a bit, from a ragtag circus in Russia to fighter planes clashing over North Africa to a freighter in the fog of the North Atlantic and beyond. It was great fun for me to rouse Michael Gallatin to new adventures and…who knows what the future holds for him?

Thank you for your readership, as always, and I hope you enjoy the Ultimate Edition of The Wolf’s Hour. I suppose you know the title is a takeoff on “The wolf is ours” and the idea of the eleventh hour, which was indeed “the wolf’s hour” in the lore of several mythologies.

Happy November to you all, and good reading to you as well.

Best Wishes,
Robert McCammon

Subterranean Press posted this update on their site today:

We’ve just received the shipping notification from our printer that the first two advance copies of Robert McCammon’s werewolf classic, The Wolf’s Hour, are en route to our offices. We have orders for more than 1100 copies of the limited edition—the print run is only 750— so we will not be able to fill orders for any of our large online retail accounts.

To guarantee yourself a copy, your best bet is to place a direct order at this point. As a reminder, our edition includes not only the novel proper and a number of full-color plates by Vincent Chong, it also features a brand new 36,000 word novella, “The Room at the Bottom of the Stairs.”

Finally, be on the lookout for an announcement concerning McCammon’s epic (over 180,000 words) thriller with a supernatural backbeat. We have some really nifty promotional ideas for The Five that we think will make it an even bigger treat for Ricks many fans.