Year: 2011

It is a grim, gusty and rainy day here.

I’m writing this as we near one week since the devastating tornadoes and storms ripped through my home town and my home state.

I wanted everyone to know how much I appreciate your well-wishes and voices of concern. I was out of town when this happened. My family is fine. My home is fine. Everyone I know made it through. But I wanted to post some pictures and talk a little bit about what I’ve seen, what I’ve felt, and what I think.

My God. Why?

Like you, I saw the destruction from a distance. I saw it in the news media. The worst of the storms hit at least an hour away from where I live. Tuscaloosa, of course, was mangled beyond recognition. Other small communities, like Pratt City, have been nearly removed from the map altogether. But when I got home on Saturday night aroung 10:30, I undeniably felt the silence of the shock. It was an eerie feeling that even a horror writer cannot describe. It was the edge of something. It was the end of something. It was awesomely and horribly final.

I pulled into the parking lot of my apartment complex and found huge logs piled up. I found crushed cars, as you can see in the photographs. Evidently fifteen or so massive trees went down, and many cars were demolished. My place is absolutely fine, no wind damage at all. And this is the weirdest part, and the random nature of destruction: I left two cigar butts in an ashtray on my balcony, and in all this maelstrom from Hell and the falling of trees those cigar butts did not move one inch.

This morning I took my camera and went out. I could have taken hundreds of pictures like the ones I’ve posted. These were taken in the parking lot of my complex and within two miles of where I live. Old trees were uprooted and the root systems eight and nine feet tall. Roofs were shattered. Cars slammed down so hard their tires exploded. Tangles of power lines fell to the earth, and had to be reeled out of the way so people could get to these communities to help…and let me tell you, guys, that if you don’t believe in miracles you need to wake up because the death count was way low from what it might have been and should have been in all this destruction.

Interesting picture from a local church. “Was God In The Storm?”

I will not begin to set myself up as someone who could answer that question. All I know is, for all this suffering and death and broken hearts and broken bodies…people are still moving forward with hope, even in the silence of the shock.

 

As I understand it, people staggered into local hospitals carrying dead children, and with their own arms and legs broken. People are still missing. The atmosphere has changed. Cell phones are not working correctly…the signals are erratic, and the voices float in and out as if you’re speaking to someone underwater. In an instant, lives were forever changed and destinies altered. And remember…I am an hour away from the main scenes of horrific carnage and absolute destruction, where entire blocks…and neighborhoods, really…were scooped from the earth and scattered before the storms.

Last night I lay in bed and listened to the wind. A soft breeze, then. In it I could distantly hear a siren. I wondered if someone’s heart had not finally taken too much, and stopped beating in the silence of the shock.

I understand also that many, many household pets are missing. Just gone. And many pets wander the streets searching for houses and masters that are no longer there.

Please pray for the people of my home town and my home state. We are suffering here, in so many ways. But in so many ways also we have come together and are starting to dig out of this. Things are forever changed, yes…but people move forward because there is no going back.

I will remember this for the rest of my life. This, again, is beyond the ability of a horror writer to describe. There are no words for this. There is no way to adequately express this, even between people who have seen their homes destroyed and their children and loved ones taken from them in an instant.

There are no words.

There is only silence.

God bless you for your help.

Rick.

 

(Click on the images to view larger versions.)








 

 

Robert McCammon — THE FIVE Update and Review

The Five

The latest review of The Five, Robert McCammon’s epic Rock and Roll supernatural-tinged thriller comes from Bibrary Bookslut, who is very much impressed with the novel: “Although there are aspects of the novel that remind me of many of his earlier works, it’s his classic Boy’s Life that most often came to mind while reading The Five. Both are rather subtle tales, relying upon anxious tension and ongoing mystery to feed the horror, as opposed to outright gore and terror. The story touches gently upon the supernatural, exploring the same themes of good versus evil that McCammon has so deftly dealt with before, but leaves the interpretation to the reader. Depending upon how one chooses to read it, this can either be a novel about the all-too-human pain within our hearts, or the inhuman fury and deception that haunts the fringes of imagination…or both.”

The trade edition of The Five is done and ready to ship to our warehouse. We’re working to schedule Mr. McCammon’s visit to sign and inscribe copies for customers. In the meantime, we’ll be filling orders from our large wholesale and online retail accounts with unsigned copies, so you may see those become available before the signed copies ship.

Finally, if you want an inscribed copy of The Five, we’ve extended the deadline to the end of the day, May 6, 2011.

Posted on Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011 at 9:07 am.

I’ve had a number of people ask, so I thought I’d let you all know that the McCammons are doing fine after the storms in Alabama.

Rick is actually out-of-town this week, so he missed out on it all. I spoke with Sally yesterday, and she said that she and Skye were fine and had no damage at their home, though there was plenty of it all around them.

Thanks for your concern!

Hunter

A brand-new short story by Robert McCammon will appear in an upcoming anthology honoring author Ray Bradbury.

Publishers Weekly: Deals the week of 4-25-11

Bradbury, Revisited
Ray Bradbury biographer (and former PW Midwest correspondent) Sam Weller sold his third book about the sci-fi author, Live Forever: An Anthology of All New Stories in Honor of Ray Bradbury. Agent Judith Ehrlich brokered the deal for Weller, selling world English rights to William Morrow’s Jennifer Brehl at auction. Bradbury is writing the introduction to the book, and Weller is co-editing the title with Mort Castle.

Robert McCammon’s story will appear in the book, along with contributions from Neil Gaiman, Audrey Niffenegger, Joe Hill, Alice Hoffman, David Morrell, Tom Monteleone, Lee Martin, Ramsey Campell, Dan Chaon, Harlan Ellison, and many more. The book is expected to be published in Summer 2012.

Author Lee Martin blogged about his story and provides more background information about the title of the anthology: Live Forever: Ray Bradbury and what it takes to make a story.

The limited edition of Robert McCammon’s upcoming novel The Five is now sold out from Subterranean Press. If you haven’t ordered a copy of the trade edition yet and would like to have it personally inscribed (signed to you) by Robert McCammon, you need to place your order with Subterranean Press before May 1, 2011. Orders for the trade placed after that date will still be signed, but won’t be inscribed.

A review by Mark Justice from Pod of Horror #64, 12-APR-2011

Download Pod of Horror #64

“Finally, we have The Five, the new novel from Robert McCammon. Any new McCammon work is noteworthy and a cause for celebration. But The Five is also McCammon’s return to contemporary fiction. The Five chronicles the last tour of the titular rock band. As they travel the southwest in a broken down van, their manager and keyboard player announce they’re leaving the group. After a surreal encounter with a mysterious young woman, the band decides to write one last song together. At the same time, a troubled veteran becomes convinced that he must kill The Five. Whether he’s crazy or under the influence of a vast and dark power is something you’ll have to decide for yourself. The possible supernatural element is mostly relegated to the background of The Five. It informs the story without detracting from the rich tale of the traveling musicians and the tragic events that lead to their final show. Ultimately, The Five is about the wellspring of creativity and the enduring power of art, told with incredible skill. McCammon’s love for music shines through on every page. I defy anyone to read The Five and not come away feeling changed for the better. If McCammon had not written Boy’s Life, I wouldn’t hesitate to say this is his best novel ever. It’s a book I’m sure I will return to again and again.”

Hi, everyone. Thank you for checking in on the website and Facebook. I’m so glad to have you as readers and fans because, as I’ve said before, what would a writer be without readers. Unread, is what! So thank you again.

I realize that in the course of a year I’ve written over a thousand pages. That includes THE FIVE, THE HUNTER FROM THE WOODS, and THE PROVIDENCE RIDER. Way over a thousand pages, really. At this point I have about another hundred pages to go on RIDER, so this book should be finished pretty soon. I think you’ll find it’s very different from MISTER SLAUGHTER and from the other episodes in Matthew’s ongoing career, but my plan was always to make each book “different”, so there you have it.

I wanted to talk a little bit about THE FIVE and why I wrote it. I’ve always loved music, of course—as you might be able to tell from the podcasts—but I was sitting in a California Pizza Kitchen restaurant one day for lunch and I heard a song being played through the sound system. As I listened, I realized…that song is speaking to me. There were things going on in my life at that time that this particular song seemed to be zeroing in on. I thought…wow, this is for me. This is speaking to me in a way that possibly no one else in the restaurant could understand. That song was “Bittersweet Symphony” by The Verve.

So I started thinking…what is it about music that touches a person? And why suddenly can you hear a song and believe it is speaking, for some mystic reason, directly to you? I don’t know the answers to those questions, but I began framing THE FIVE right there in the CPK. A band down on its luck, having suffered many hardships, struggling from one gig to another trying to make ends meet…and suddenly they are part of a larger picture they can’t understand, but they are presented with an opportunity and a path they come to feel they need to follow.

I hope THE FIVE finds a large readership. I do believe it’s the best book I’ve ever written, because it has so much of “me” in it. Not to sound big-headed about that, but THE FIVE was written from a very personal place. So I do hope the emotions and passion in it—and my love for music—translate well to other people.

Let me also talk a little bit about RIDER. Wow, what a journey this has been from SPEAKS THE NIGHTBIRD! In RIDER, we leave a cold and snowy New York for a trip to a mysterious island in the Bermudas, where Matthew meets…

Yes, you got it. Matthew meets Professor Fell, face to…face?

I will tell you that Professor Fell has summoned—another word for ‘kidnapped’—Matthew for the purpose of solving a problem. The professor needs, as he puts it, a ‘providence rider’—a scout, to seek out a trail—so in essence Matthew is the providence rider of the title, working for Professor Fell among a conference of very colorful and deadly criminals.

The next book I’m working on?

Okay.

It’s going to be a big science fiction/horror novel. I’ve been convinced that readers are eager for my return to doing some kind of contemporary ‘horror’ novel, but I want it to be big and different and have a worldwide scale. I want it to have meaning beyond being a simple scarefest or pot of gore. So…I’ve come up with the idea and the theme and I’ll begin work on that in October. Well…as you can tell, I’ve already started work on it, putting the characters and the scenes together. But the actual writing will begin in October.

After that, Matthew returns. That next book is put together—mostly—and takes place in the hot and swampy Carolina colony in the summer. So get your tarsoap ready to keep the mosquitoes off, make sure your torch is burning bright, and beware the creature that—

Teasers are such a bitch, aren’t they? Heh.

I do have a lot more work to do. As I’ve said before, I write books I want to read. I am blessed that others want to read them too, and get something from them. I have been really blessed to know that many readers feel connected to me through my work, not only in the States but around the world, and so we come back to the idea of a work of ideas speaking to someone, giving them a message or a pat on the back or a word of encouragement as well as—hopefully—a good story to be enjoyed.

There are changes in the works regarding the website and my Facebook page. I’m going to become more involved with both. All praise, of course, goes to Hunter Goatley for keeping things going and for being such a vital presence in my career. Also…for being such an excellent friend. Hunter has really gone the distance for me, and every day he shows his value as a cheerleader and supporter of my work. Thank you, Hunter!

So there are many new things coming, as well as some changes and some surprises. We’ll have some new videos coming up soon and some other cool stuff. Please keep checking back in to see what’s going on.

It’s almost summer! Time to put on the shades, because the future is awesomely bright!

Take care, everyone, and happy reading!

Best Wishes,

Robert McCammon

The Five, which Stephen King says “isn’t just Robert McCammon’s best novel in years; it’s his best novel ever…” has been sent to the printer, on schedule for a late May release. You can head over to the book’s page to check out the full-color endsheets and one of the interior illustrations by Vincent Chong. (These are exclusive to the Limited and Lettered Editions.)

As we’ve mentioned before, we’re flying Mr. McCammon in to sign and inscribe copies of The Five for readers. The deadline to get in a request for an inscription is May 1, 2011. You may order flat signed copies up until signing day—we’ll let everyone know the date once that’s firmed up.