The Next Big Thing Blog Hop

The lovely and darkly delicious Anne Michaud has tagged me for a fun blog hop, to talk a little about current WIP. She in her turn was tagged by Linda Bloodworth.

So here are The Roolz:

Use this format for your post
. Include an introduction to your interview post and a link to the person who tagged you for participation.
 Answer the ten questions about your current WIP (Work In Progress). Include some pictures if possible.
Tag five other writers/bloggers by sending them an email and then add their links to the end of your interview post.Their answers should go up the week after.

Your blog post would need to be up between the 22 Oct – 26 Oct . If you are on She Writes you put the post up there, too. Your Blog post will be labelled:
 The Next Big Thing Blog Tag.

1. What is the working title of your book?

REVENANTS ABROAD
2. Where did the idea come from for the book? A song by HIM :::batting eyes coquettishly in the general direction of Helsinki:::

3. What genre does your book fall under? — Hard to say. It’s paranormal/urban fantasy, but in a sense it’s also sci-fi, it’s set in the future.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? I don’t know yet. Some characters are inspired by actors, others by musicians, others by no one. Not saying who’s who in the few photos I’ve added. They simply inspired characters in the story. There’s a key character that I haven’t even got a human role model in mind for. Yet. Honestly I think I’d prefer a bunch of unknowns to be cast in it.

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Ultimately it’s about wanting something you can’t have and making the best of the results of imperfect choices.

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I hope to find an agent…

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Hahaha! What year is this? I’m like the Energizer Bunny, still going on it!

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Honestly I have no idea.

9. Who or What inspired you to write this book? The song I mentioned in Q2.

10. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? Vampires. Humor. Murder. Demons. Prague. Organized crime. Seduction.

And here is where I break the rules! I’m such an anarchist. I’m not going to tag anyone in this, because in the past I rarely get anyone playing along. HOWEVER COMMA if you want to join in let me know and I will add your name and a link to your blog to this post.

The Last Werewolf

So…

I treated myself to another trip to Powells, because I had ordered a copy of “The Last Werewolf” by Glen Duncan and it was in and I had to go pick it up (they will mail books to you if you’re not in the area, but I pretended  decided I needed to go and save myself the shipping costs, and…well, anyway…).

I had heard about this book a few months ago, don’t recall how or why now, but saw this video which features the author reading a short excerpt. Chalk it up to a combination of his lovely accent, his voice, his persona, and the stunning writing, but as soon as I heard it was released (July 12, 2011) I put in an order for it. I don’t normally cough up the moolah for hardcovers these days, but I couldn’t wait for it to come out in paper. Essentially it’s the story of the last werewolf (surprise!) who has reached the point in his 201 years where he is contemplating suicide. Thing is, there are people who want to keep that from happening. Why? I don’t know. And most evil yet, I skipped ahead and am now laughing about people being eaten by the werewolf. Seriously, it’s funny the way he tells it. But listen to him tell you, and read a bit:

This is one of those books where, as MaryJ says, “With writing like this, does it even matter what the book is about?”

There’s a style of writing that seems to have become the de facto standard these days, although I’ve never heard it discussed. It consists of endless similes to describe something. Something is always like something else. Duncan, at least two pages into the book, seems to be masterfully avoiding doing any of that. For that, I will always love him. Someone please call him and tell him? Thanks.

I must give you a snippet more from the first page (items in bold are italicized in the book, but WordPress italicizes the entire quote, ergo, I bolded instead):

I sipped, I swallowed, glimpsed the peat bog plashing white legs of the kilted clan Macallan as the whisky kindled in my chest. It’s official. You’re the last. I’m sorry. I’d known what he was going to tell me. Now that he had, what? Vague ontological vertigo. Kubrick’s astronaut with the severed umbilicus spinning away all alone into infinity…At a certain point one’s imagination refused. The phrase was: It doesn’t bear thinking about. Manifestly it didn’t.

“Marlowe?”

“This room’s dead to you,” I said. “But there are bibliophiles the world over it would reduce to tears of joy.” No exaggeration. Harley’s collection’s worth a million-six, books he doesn’t go to anymore because he’s entered the phase of having given up reading. If he lives another ten years he’ll enter the next phase — of having gone back to it. Giving up reading seems the height of maturity at first. Like all such heights a false summit. It’s a human thing. I’ve seen it countless times. Two hundred years, you see everything countless times.

Even the book itself is lovely. The cover is matte black, lightly textured paper, the typeface is done in a pale yellow, but the moons on the front, down the spine and on the back are done in a metallic coppery-gold, almost a holographic effect. The edges of the pages are colored red – blood red. Nice touch. It’s a short book by the standards of today’s fantasy, coming in at just 293 pages.

As others have predicted before me, I believe this book will be to werewolf stories what Dracula is to vampire stories. Duncan also wrote a blog post for Powells.com which you can read here detailing his obsession with the movie “An American Werewolf in London,” as well as a discovery of a kind of magic.

I realize it makes more sense to tout a book once you’ve actually finished reading it, but I’m so excited about this one, I had to share now. If my opinion changes when I finish it, I’ll let you know, but I don’t think it will. Now, if only I had some nice whisky to drink while I read it…