Magnificent Monday - Seal Team 666, Shock Totem and Publishers Weekly

Not all Mondays are created equally.

This we know.

It's a truism and was probably carved in stone by the first caveman to invent beer, sunscreen and cable TV.

I've had my share of dreadful Mondays for sure. So it was with sheer joy that I experienced this Monday's announcements.

1. SEAL TEAM 666

This is terribly exciting. I've been working with Brendan and Peter at Thomas Dunne Books for weeks now on this, ever since they reached out to me, firming up the concept. This is going to explode when it hits the bookshelves. Everyone who like character-driven action and horror narratives will love this.

From Publishers Weekly

 Thomas Dunne Goes to the 'Seals'
  

Brendan Deneen and Peter Joseph, at Thomas Dunne Books, bought world rights (along with dramatic rights for Macmillan Films) to Weston Ochse's Seal Team 666. Deneen and Joseph came up with the concept in-house and attached Ochse, a retired Army officer who's won both a Pushcart Prize and a Bram Stoker Award, to write the novel. The book offers a supernatural twist on the story behind the squad that took out Osama bin Laden—the publication is planned to coincide with the one-year anniversary of bin Laden's killing next spring—and follows a Navy Seal trainee (who was demonically possessed as a child) recruited into a government unit confronting a wave of otherworldly attacks on the U.S. Robert Fleck at Professional Media Services represented Ochse in the deal.

(Note that the PW announcement mentions that I won the Pushcart Prize. I was nominated for it, but to my knowledge didn't win it.)

 2. Publishers Weekly Review of Multiplex Fandango

Weston Ochse. Dark Regions (www.dark-regions.com), $40 (286p) ISBN 978-1-937128-06-7

Ochse (Scarecrow Gods) builds a "multiplex" of 16 stories (six original to this volume) for his impressively diverse first collection. The creepy, Lovecraftian "Fugue on the Sea of Cortez" features a disillusioned American soldier searching for existential enlightenment in the waters near a Mexican fishing village. "The Crossing of Aldo Ray" fuses zombie fiction and social commentary. "Catfish Gods" tells the poignant tale of a 13-year-old Tennessee boy, his recently deceased grandfather, and an ill-fated fishing trip. The standout is unarguably the profoundly moving novella "Redemption Roadshow," in which a guilt-ridden Arizona highway patrol officer seeks a necromancer in hopes of finding redemption--and gets something else entirely. Horror fans will be drawn in by Ochse's cool, collected writing style and then blown away when he peels back reality's skin to uncover the supernatural terrors lurking just beneath the surface. (Aug.)

 3. Nancy Goats Goes Digital

For all of you who wanted a copy of Nancy Goats but couldn't afford the $25 price tag for the signed copy, Delirium has made a digital copy available for $4.99. Just a warning. This isn't your average horror tale. It's ultra-violent, but with the sensibility of a literary fiction story (or so a PHD recently told me).

http://www.darkside-digital.com/nancy-goats-by-weston-ochse.html


4. Shock Totem Issue 4

Rarely do I submit to online Webzines. Not because there's anything wrong with it, but because I'm just too damn busy. But when I saw Shock Totem Issue 2, I thought to myself, "Hey! These guys and gals are doing it right." And I liked their style. A story using an MP3 Playlist as a framing device had been rattling around in my head for some time. It sat down and wrote what would become 'Playlist at the End' in an afternoon and submitted it to them. Thankfully, they accepted my story.It's a vile piece of metafiction, and to my knowledge, the only story that has incorporated an MP3 Playlist to the degree that I did. The songs drive the plot and lend it texture. Everything from Muskrat Love to War Pigs. You all are going to dig this one.

So that was my Monday. Pretty freaking awesome I think!

How was yours?