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August 27, 2011

Portrait of the Artist

Shelf Awareness talks to The Magician King author Lev Grossman about his many creative influences including his obsession with C.S. Lewis’s Narnia Chronicles, his mother’s British heritage, the traditions of fantasy writing, and the midlife crisis that inspired his debut The Magicians.

Literary T.V.

Word & Film offers this tantalizing teaser for book-based T.V. shows currently being developed.  Included are Salman Rushdie’s sci-fi series “Next People,” an adaptation of Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad, and HBO’s “Hobgoblin” from Michael Chabon and Aylet Waldman.

The Continuators

Writers who keep the popular series of deceased authors alive are the controversial subjects of this Salon article.  Included are interviews with Jeffery Deaver on his update of Ian Fleming’s James Bond series and Eric Van Lustbader on continuing Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne books.

Butch Cassidy & the Mystery Memoir

The Huffington Post explores new evidence that the notorious outlaw’s 1934 biography was actually an autobiography.  Thought to have been killed in a 1908 shootout, some rare books collectors now insist he survived the next 30 years to pen his life story as William T. Phillips.

 


Huston, We Have Lift Off

September 30, 2010

Writer Charlie Huston

Charlie Huston is a writer on a serious roll.  Over the past year, in fact, the genre-bending author has been riding the literary version of a Vegas hot streak warm enough to make even the coolest Blackjack dealer sweat.  For starters, last October Huston published My Dead Body, the much-anticipated final book in his brilliant and brutal “Joe Pitt” mystery series about a hard-boiled vampire PI working in New York City.  A mere three months later, Huston went on tour to support his newest stand-alone Sleepless, a noir-style thriller set in a near-future L.A. that’s been devastated by a fatal insomnia epidemic.  Not one to rest, the versatile writer also spent early 2010 penning the Marvel comic book series Deathlok: The Demolisher, a slightly-satirical sci-fi adventure that was collected in hardcover this summer.  Clearly, the man’s been on a creative tear.  And there’s more.  In August, Huston signed a three-book deal with Mulholland Books that kicks off with his forthcoming novel Skinner in early 2012.  That very same month Marvel whet fans’ appetites with a preview of Huston’s new comic Wolverine: The Best There Is which is slated for release this December.   Believe it or not, however, it is yet another project in addition to these recent and upcoming works that’s making the biggest noise for Huston these days.  Teaming with True Blood creator Alan Ball, Huston has adapted his 2009 novel The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death into an HBO series pilot that’s poised to launch him into a new stratosphere of popularity. Continue reading “Huston, We Have Lift Off”


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