Category: The Wolf’s Hour

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.

Subterranean Press posted the following update on their site today:

Robert McCammon’s mix of WWII and lycanthrophy, The Wolf’s Hour, done up in true epic fashion, will be out sold out on publication. We just received a huge batch of retail and wholesale orders that push our total copies ordered somewhere north of 900 copies, and there are only 750 copies in the print run!We plan to fill direct orders first, then those of our regular small specialty dealers. Finally, the large accounts will get copies, and some may find their orders cut back, especially as we haven’t received the rush of orders we expect from the limited edition’s strong Publishers Weekly review.

Remember, in addition to the novel proper, which features a number of full-color plates by Vincent Chong, The Wolf’s Hour also contains a brand-new 36,000 word Michael Gallatin novella, “The Room at the Bottom of the Stairs,” bringing the book up to 680 pages.

  • The still-in-development Blue World movie from Frontsight Productions was mentioned on the website ReelChicago.com on June 16, 2010: 

    Rutger Hauer attached to thriller feature

    Producer Nehs plans to shoot here next spring

    Action actor Rutger Hauer

    PRODUCER MICHAEL NEHS of Frontsight Productions is slated to shoot Blue World, his long-in-development thriller, in Chicago next spring.

    Director Charley Rivkin and Adam Witt adapted Robert McCammon’s Bram Stoker Award-winning short story, about a priest resisting his desire for a porn star he’s trying to protect from a serial killer.

    Nehs says Rutger Hauer, Bryan Dennehy, Steven Weber, Seymour Cassel and Kaitlin Doubleday are attached to star. Frontsight is a division of Nehs’s Templar Studios, which long has had plans to construct a post-production facility in Old Town. See frontsightproductions.com.

     

  • A new mass-market paperback of Le Mystere du lac, the French translation of Robert McCammon’s Boy’s Life, has been released in France by Pocket. The new cover art for the book has been added to the Book Cover Gallery. Click on the image below to see a larger version of the cover.The book should be in French bookstores now. It can also be ordered from online bookstores, including Amazon.fr.

     

  • Artist Vincent Chong has posted his revised artwork for the cover of the upcoming Subterranean Press limited edition of The Wolf’s Hour. Click on the image below to see a larger version of the art. 

 

Subterranean Press has posted the following update on their site:

Have a look at Robert McCammon’s The Wolf’s Hour page, where we’ve just posted two of the full-color interior illustrations, including the foldout death train scene. The book is progressing nicely, on schedule for its fall release. We’ve designed the book and proofread it once, and are going through it a final time. Now that all of the art is in, we’ll be ordering Advance Reading Copies in the next week.Speaking of the art for The Wolf’s Hour, Vincent Chong blogged a bit about the influences behind his striking cover for the book.

Where I’m “At”

Hi everyone, and as always thank you for taking the time to check in, see what’s going on and make comments on my work. Your input is always appreciated.

I’d like to talk about a few subjects near and dear to me this time out. First up: work-in-progress. I’m very excited about what’s coming up in the future, namely the really beautiful edition of The Wolf’s Hour and of course The Five, which I believe (or would like to believe) is the best book I’ve ever written. So I personally am “stoked” about what’s ahead.

I guess you know by now about the new Michael Gallatin novelette, The Room at the Bottom of the Stairs. Well, I had a lot of fun writing that and I started thinking…you know, Michael’s story is far from being told.

So…while The Wolf’s Hour is fresh on my mind, I’m doing a new book of short stories about Michael Gallatin. The reason (well, one reason) I never went back to do a Wolf’s Hour sequel is that I figured I’d said everything that needed to be said. I mean, really, The Wolf’s Hour is packed with just about every World War II situation I could think of. What else could I write that wouldn’t be repeating myself?

I started thinking…maybe short stories would be the way to go. And I’m not usually into writing short stories because I prefer the longer form, but in this case I was thinking I could do some different things in different (and experimental) ways and see what happens. So right now I’m doing this book of Gallatin short stories and including probably another novelette. I hope also in this book to answer some of the questions that have been posed about…well…about a lot of Michael Gallatin’s past and future.

Okay. That said, I’m working hard also on the next Matthew book. So don’t worry, The Providence Rider is trotting along.

Now…another thing near and dear to me. The podcasts.

Oh, the humanity! Also…listen to all that silence in the room.

Guys, the podcasts are really mostly for me because I enjoy doing them. If I hadn’t become a writer (and I didn’t have much of a choice on that one), I probably would have gone into sound production and become a recording engineer. I really, really do enjoy working with music and sound. Also, for me it’s a bigtime stress reliever and I do need that.

So…I’m going to do two more Psycho 60s podcasts (the last one being our time machine trip to the Northern Soul dance club in July) and then shift the format to what I call Radio 678. I’ll be broadening the focus of the show to include songs from the 70s and 80s. I plan to do one of these a month.

Guys…I’m not taking any time away from my writing. I know you don’t necessarily want to hear music or hear me talking about music on the website, but this is all for the good, believe me. So I hope you give them a listen and I hope you enjoy them and…you know what?…you might glean from them some better understanding of me and why I write what I do.

Now, I have to address a comment that was made by an Irish gentleman on Facebook. The comment being that I am arrogant because I don’t want the first four (actually, I believe it’s the first three) books I wrote to be re-published. The idea is that I’m arrogant because I say they’re not good enough to be published again and I supposedly should let the readers decide that.

Well, the books are available. They’re on eBay and other places, I’m sure. They’re in used book stores, yes they are. I’m not trying to destroy all the old copies of those books. They’re out there. I just think my writing has progressed over time and I don’t think those books need to be published in large quantities with my name on them saying I’m the writer of the Matthew Corbett series or The Five or some future novel. Those books are starter novels. They got me going, but I’d like to think I’ve come a long way since. In essence, they’ve done their job.

Am I arrogant for this? For deciding that readers should not buy those early books expecting the quality of the new work? I’m trying to save people some money! Is that arrogant?

Gee, I kinda got my feelings hurt over this one.

If deciding that I require excellence in my work now, and that if someone sees my name on a book they know they will hopefully get as close to an excellent experience as I can give them…yeah, I’m as arrogant as I can be.

And I guess I’m proud to be arrogant.

See, I made the decision that these books are not up to my current standards so you guys wouldn’t have to.

Sir, when I come visit Ireland you owe me a brew.

Onward.

Summer’s here! Have fun and keep reading!

Best Wishes,
Robert McCammon

  • Artist Vincent Chong, who did the artwork for the Subterranean Press release of Mister Slaughter, has posted a blog about the inspiration for his cover art for the upcoming Subterranean limited edition of The Wolf’s Hour. You can read his blog here.

     

  • A new image has been added to the Fan Artwork Gallery. Artist Nikooru Shimo painted a collage inspired by Robert McCammon’s Boy’s Life.Click here or on the image to view a larger version.

Subterranean Press has unveiled the cover art for their upcoming limited edition of Robert McCammon’s classic WWII thriller, The Wolf’s Hour. This is from their site:

Robert McCammon — THE WOLF’S HOUR APPROACHES

As you can see, SubPress favorite Vincent Chong has created an utterly perfect cover for Robert McCammon’s classic WWII adventure novel, The Wolf’s Hour. Now that the dust jacket is completed, Vinny has turned his attention to the interior art, including a full-color pull-out illustration of one of the novel’s high points—the death-train scene.

If the illos and a sturdy signed edition of Hour aren’t enough to convince you to unlimber your wallet, don’t forget “The Room at the Bottom of the Stairs,” a new 36,000 word Michael Gallatin mission, debuts in the limited edition.

Pre-order The Wolf’s Hour from Subterranean Press