Author Archive: jsomers

Jeff Somers (www.jeffreysomers.com) was born in Jersey City, New Jersey and regrets nothing. He is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series published by Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and We Are Not Good People from Pocket Books. He sold his first novel at age 16 to a tiny publisher in California which quickly went out of business and has spent the last two decades assuring potential publishers that this was a coincidence. Jeff publishes a zine called The Inner Swine and has also published a few dozen short stories; his story “Sift, Almost Invisible, Through” appeared in the anthology Crimes by Moonlight, published by Berkley Hardcover and edited by Charlaine Harris. His guitar playing is a plague upon his household and his lovely wife The Duchess is convinced he would wither and die if left to his own devices.

Busy busy

Author: jsomers October 18, 2007

I’ve once again fallen behind on blathering here, because I am slightly busy. Between revising The Digital Plague and submitting it to my Corporate Masters and beginning the earliest draft of the third, as-yet-not-officially-titled Avery Cates book, I’ve been doing some promotion (i.e., interviews) and resisting summary dismissal at my day job, which is always a near thing considering how often I’ve exploded into incoherent expletives at staff meetings. And then my agent sent me a note asking me to look over the last draft of Chum and revise as I see fit. Chum, for those of you who can’t read my mind, is actually the manuscript that my agent signed me on. It’s not Sci Fi, it’s more of a black comedy with murder thrown in. My agent took it on years ago, but it got back-burnered when the sale of The Electric Church sort of came out of nowhere. She closed her note by saying “that working for a living is totally over rated, right?”

Ha! Who has time for all this? Plus, I’m working on writing the next issue of The Inner Swine. A little personal zine might not seem like much, but when each issue is about 20,000 words and you put it out 4 times a year, it does eat into your time. I’m frickin’ booked.

So, there have been a few interviews to point you towards: First off, Mike Collins interviewed me for Your Mom’s Basement:

11. Your book was chosen as one of the launch titles for Orbit in the US. What’s that been like?

Well, it’s interesting to have so much publishing muscle behind you. My last book was published by the tiniest of tiny publishers and the marketing team was me, my wife, and my Mom. Things went about as well as you can imagine.

Everyone is so excited about Orbit entering the US market–I’ve literally have people go from Listening Politely to Rabidly Interested in my book just because they hear that Orbit’s publishing it. To have that kind of clout behind you is intoxicating, and I’ve started walking about with a crown and a T-shirt that says KING OF ALL SPEC FIC. Is that wrong?

You can read the whole thing here.

Then, our friends over at Chud.com interviewed me after reviewing TEC the other day:

Was being a writer always your goal?

At first my goal was to be a brain surgeon. When I was in kindergarten or 1st grade, and people asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, I generally said “Brain Surgeon”. It impressed the adults, especially since my Mom liked to dress me in white shirts and ties.

Then, heartbreakingly, I realized one day when I was 27 or so that becoming a brain surgeon would require lots of school, hard work, and a basic understanding of math. So I decided to write.

Whew! Is it any wonder I drink? I mean, this kind of pace is killer. I actually had to wake up before noon the other day. It was traumatic.

Local Big-Assed Famous

Author: jsomers October 12, 2007

This morning, instead of my usual beating for failure to blog, I received a box of chocolates from My Corporate Masters. I haven’t eaten much, or regularly, since being confined to this hotel room, so I threw them up almost as quickly as I could eat them, but it was still a banner day.

The reason? I got some more local press. There’s a really great article on me in today’s Jersey Journal, in their entertainment section called URGE. I was interviewed by the mega-cool Michele Donohue, who turned my mumbled and barely-coherent grunts into something entertaining.

If you’re in the local Hudson area, pick up a copy and let me know what a jackass I come off as. If you’re not local, I think it’ll be added to the web archive in a few days, so you can search on my name at their site soon and find the article there.

When I was plugging my first novel a few years ago I organized the “Big Assed Famous” tour, which was meant to be funny since the end result of a self-organized book tour is bankruptcy, not fame, but I still like the phrase, so you’ll start seeing it an awful lot here. Emphasis on “awful”.

Radio Is a Sound Salvation

Author: jsomers October 11, 2007

So, I was on the radio last night, on the Joey Reynolds Show, and it was a blast. My lovely wife and I plowed into Manhattan at about 1:45AM and showed up at the studio without incident, and I think I was mildly coherent, emphasis on the word “mildly”.

Everyone was super nice, and Joey is a real marvel. He’s very smart and warm, making you feel at home immediately. His other guest during that hour was the famous writer Marc Eliot, so it was a little intimidating as I was, as usual, the slowest man in the room. Joey was great about throwing me things to talk about, though. When I was first seated in the studio I was alone, and the producer explained the mikes and everything, but no one told me that my time hadn’t yet come and the mike wasn’t going to be on until Joey was ready to talk to me, so I spent a half hour or so grunting into the microphone as Joey and Marc spoke, and no one could hear me.

If nothing else, my name and the title of my book were mentioned a lot, and my pants didn’t fall down while the dying Pac Man sound played softly in the background, so it was a triumph. I almost managed to appear adult and informed, sort of. At least no one had the urge to stand up and slap me during the show.

Anyway, here are some lo-fi MP3s of the show, broken up into 3 delicious parts. Download ’em and listen to me stammer my way through the show!

Part one.

Part two.

Part three.

Huzzah.

Cussin’

Author: jsomers October 10, 2007

I’ll be on the radio for the first time in my life tonight. My Corporate Masters are sending along someone to actually speak for me, as my own voice has been deemed “irritating” and “fey” and “mumbling”. They’ve applied some construction-grade duct tape to my mouth and I will pass notes to the Voice Actor, who will read my comments in a stentorian boom.

Well, I should be insulted, but to be honest I’d love to have a Voice Actor follow me around and boom out my thoughts to the world. I’m much better at communication when I’m writing as opposed to speaking. When I speak I forget words and get lost chasing the tail of my admittedly shallow thoughts, and sometimes my pants just fall down with a whoop noise.

Plus, there’s the cussing.

I don’t actually curse all that much in my daily life, although you probably wouldn’t guess that from my fiction. As several reviews of The Electric Church have mentioned the sheer level of foul language in that book, I suppose it’s something to consider—is there such a thing as too many F-bombs? I wouldn’t think so. Foul language, like everything else, is meant to be used.

In real life, however, I sometimes let loose a string of invective at the wrong times. It sort of comes naturally. I don’t curse a blue streak in general conversation, but if my brain decides a phrase or comment needs a little oomph, it does not hesitate to drop a green and shining curse into the stream of words. Sometimes I realize what I’ve just done and sort of freeze up for a second, shocked at what my own subconscious has done. Then I shrug and move on. To hell with it, I figure, I’ll blame it on the booze.

Will they have a delay button on the radio tonight? Lord I hope so. Maybe I should go into the bathroom and just unleash a string of horrible language, get it out of my system.

In my writing, I make no apologies—certainly you get a sense of the language in the book pretty quickly, so I think a quick scan in the bookstore will turn certain people’s hair white and they will put the book back on the shelves with trembling hands, and that will be that. If you skim the book and buy it and then get upset at me for finding 23 new ways to use the word fuck as an adverb—look at me, I’m the Shakespeare of invective, inventing new cursewords!—well, too damn bad. No refunds.

Your Humble Correspondent on the Joey Reynolds Show

Author: jsomers October 6, 2007

I was woken up at 2AM last night by several men and women in dark suits, smoking cigarettes and definitely not smiling. Half asleep, I was dragged out of my sheets and into the bathroom, where my head was dunked into ice cold water for thirty seconds. Then I was left to flop on the slimy tile floor for a few moments while one of them sat on the toilet and smoked.

I choked up water and demanded to know what that was for.

“Training,” he said. “Yer goin’ to be up late.”

Believe it or not, I will be on a national radio program, trying to convince people across the country that my book is worth their pesos. I’ll be on The Joey Reynolds Show Wednesday night/Thursday morning:

WHERE: WOR 710 AM

WHEN: 2AM, Thursday 10/11 (or you could think of it as Wednesday 10/10 evening if you like)

WHY: Jeff needs liquor monies, and this will be a good way to announce my new cult I want everyone to join, wherein you give me all your monies.

Please tune in, or at least get the podcast next day, and tell me how incoherent I am. I’ve never been on radio before. I imagine I will have a Brady-esque freezeup moment the second the LIVE light goes on.

The Whirligig is Comin’

Author: jsomers October 5, 2007

Since there’s nothing in my contract that specifies I must blog about my own damn book all the time, I think I’ll take a break here and flog something else. My Corporate Masters might send someone to break a finger or perhaps deny me potable water for a few days again as punishment, but screw it. What’s life without chances?

So I direct your attention to The Whirligig. The Whirligig used to be edited by Frank Marcopolos, who later sold it to the indomitable J.D. Finch. The first issue of the new Whirligig is coming out very soon, and I have a story in it. Huzzah for me.

The Whirligig is a litzine, though now that it’s a paying market I’m not sure it’s a zine, really, but screw semantics. What it is is a grand read—always was under Frank’s stewardship and I have no reason to doubt the new incarnation will live up to the legend. Here’s the description:

“Included will be Bram Stoker nominee Nick (Move Under Ground; Under My Roof) Mamatas with another of his well-wrought entertaining/disturbing stories. Longtime zinester Jeff Somers, who has a new novel called The Electric Church (Orbit) out now, will be represented with a hard-edged story that almost needs a new genre to describe it — how about avant-noir? Jeff will be at WFC with the book, as will I, to catch any stray rays of his reflected glory, which I’ll use to illuminate the wonders of The Whirligigzine, Issue 1a. Or something like that. (Jeff’s site, http://the-electric-church.com/ is worth a visit.)

And if you like hard-hitting stories, where horror is an everyday occurrence and the writing keeps you off balance, Karl Koweski and Kevin Dole2 will set you up with a couple that make Palahniuk look like a sissy. And top it all off with an excerpt from Arik Berglund’s novel The Prodigal sending you on an all-expenses-unpaid trip to one of the circles of an outrageous and hilarious Dantesque hell in the modern world.

And then the poets…

But I’ll tell you about them in another update. They deserve one of their own.”

Finch will be attending World Fantasy Con concurrent with the launch of the first issue, so if you’re planning to be there come find us and we will tell you more than you want to know about TW and my story in it. In the mean time, you can also check the Whirliblog to keep updated. Send him some money, dammit.

Bad Review Revue*

Author: jsomers October 5, 2007

Well, there’s another less-than-stellar review of TEC in The Austin Chronicle. Which is fine; I don’t mind bad reviews. Everyone gets them, and I do sincerely think it’s better to have discussion about your book than to be damned with faint praise. Besides, reviews are generally really positive. If it was nothing BUT bad reviews I might be in the news right now as WRITER MISSING BELIEVED ON BENDER but with so many glowing reviews to comfort me, I can’t complain.

There’s always the temptation to spin a bad review, to either pretend it doesn’t exist or to do a movie-blurbation of it and somehow ellipse the damn thing into something positive. For example, with the review linked above I could pull this:

“Somers, clearly a gifted craftsman, writes in a clean, sharp style rooted firmly within the Chandler school. . .”

And have done nothing wrong. Nothing! But that wouldn’t be strictly honest, of course, and I’d likely be haunted by the plump ghost of Ray Chandler at night, rattling his chains and calling me 1930s insults.

So, I plod onward, head down. I find it interesting that people assume I was attempting something cyberpunk; I can see why, but while writing this the word cyberpunk never entered my tiny little pinhead, and I continue to be surprised. I don’t think TEC hits that mark at all, which is fine, since I wasn’t going for it. Maybe it’s the cover that makes people expect cyberpunk. Who can explain such things? Not me.

Anyway, interviews are bubbling under. People have been emailing me questions which I attempt to address with the sobriety and class that everyone has come to expect from me. Which is to say, not much of either. Watch the skies!

*Stolen shamelessly from www.defectiveyeti.com

Another Review

Author: jsomers October 3, 2007

Shipwreck innovation is an amazing thing. So far I’ve been able to fashion an amazing array of useful items from the furniture and other items in my hotel room. It’s an old place, a little dusty and smelling strongly of ancient Murphy’s Soap treatments. The walls are papered with several layers of wallpaper, each more ghastly than the last, and the carpet has that perpetually dusty quality that makes you sneeze just by looking at it.

I’ve been in here for weeks now, forced to blog by My Corporate Masters, without a television, without a radio, with a one-way Internet connection, and my supplies of booze–smuggled in via techniques you do NOT want to know about–running low. So if I want anything new, I pretty much have to make it myself. This is not always successful.

Anyway, I’ve caught another nice review of TEC out there on the intarwebs, over on SFRevue, by John Berlyne. He starts off with

and goes from there. Despite not liking the amount of cussing in it, he generally thinks the book is bully. And so will you. Buy twelve.

Dystopias Ahoy!

Author: jsomers October 2, 2007

One thing that keeps coming up in reviews of The Electric Church and interviews and all that jazz is dystopias. You know, those broken imagined futures where everything has gone to shit? TEC is obviously set in a dystopia, sure—any place where the cops are more likely to kill you than serve out justice and where cyborgs plot to steal your brain and eat your knowledge is the opposite of a utopia, I think.

I’ve always liked dystopias. Same way I’ve always liked murder and sadness and funerals—for fiction, that is. Happiness is boring. When you’re happy you mix up some cocktails and sit on the deck enjoying the sunset and murmur things like sure is pretty and who in hell wants to read the literary equivalent of that?

When you’re sad and angry, however, the deck holds no joy for you, so you put on a jacket and get out on the street to walk to the local bar for a few bitter shots, and along the way you purposefully bump someone with your shoulder because you’re pissed, and then they spin and yell at you and the next thing you know you’re spitting teeth into the curb and miserable.

Now, that’s interesting. I can write a story about that.

Utopias? Not so much. Even regular old balanced worlds are kind of boring, if you ask me. But my eye always goes for the rot underneath, the horror of a world you don’t actually have any control over. I think that’s the difference—those of us who imagine they have some control over the world imagine utopias or at least balanced worlds. Those of us who believe we’re all just sliding down a meltstream of existential suffering into a big blob of meaninglessness, well, we see Dystopias.

As with much that I say, this is pure, ignorant opinion. I have no proof or evidence to display, aside from my certainty that I am right. You’d be amazed how often people don’t accept that as “evidence” however.

Paul Di Filippo Likes TEC

Author: jsomers October 1, 2007

My days vary here in the hotel. When there is a good review or positive media mention of me, sandwiches are left on the small coffee table in the parlor. When a bad review is posted, or if I’ve failed to blog recently, something is stolen from the room in the night. Once they took the toilet handle. Another time they removed all the light switches. I’ve found I can “earn” back some of these items with good press or energetic blogging. This morning, in addition to sandwiches, I got back my underwear, which is very comforting.

The reason is this mention of The Electric Church by Paul Di Filippo on the Barnes and Noble Review. Huzzah! It’s wonderful to be mentioned in such august company, and by someone who is such a great writer himself.

In other news, I’ve been interviewed a few times recently and should have something to show for all my glib, charming answers in a bit. I tried to work in subtle SOSes with clues as to where I’m being held, but I’m sure the bastards will edit it all out, along with my passionate discourse on the usefulness of Helper Monkeys.