One of the common traits among noir crime novels is that they’re quick reads. You can usually tear through one in a weekend, especially if The Simpsons are a rerun. But in talking to writer Bradley Spinelli about his noir crime novel The Painted Gun (paperback, digital), it seems that it sometimes takes a lot longer than a Simpsons-free weekend to write one of these page-turners.
While human cloning hasn’t been perfected, yet, it’s still a controversial topic that’s inspired moral, ethical, and spiritual debates. But all of these discussions have been about whether human cloning should or should not be allowed, not what happens when it does. It’s those latter kinds of questions that inspired aspects of Mur Laffery’s new sci-fi murder mystery novel Six Wakes (paperback, digital, audiobook), as you’ll see in the following interview.
One of the ironies of our social media-obsessed/broadcast everything culture is that most people actually lead rather dull lives. “Birth, School, Work, Death” as The Godfathers used to sing. But that’s not true for Dan Ryckert, a game journalist for Giant Bomb, published author and memoirist, wrestling manager, “two-time Guinness World Record holder,” and all-around character (something, as a fellow game journalist, I can attest to). Which is why I was interested in talking to him about his latest memoir, The Dumbest Kid In Gifted Class (digital; paperback forthcoming), a collection of true tales from what has clearly been an odd life.
Though she learned to speak English from watching Scooby-Doo, there’s nothing cartoony about the scary writings of Ania Ahlborn. With her new book, Within These Walls (paperback, digital) hitting stories, I spoke to her about what inspired different aspects of this novel.