The Divine Dantes Trilogy is Published!

Divine Dantes Book I

$.99 Ebook

“[A] lively and good-natured work with a great deal of humor . . ..”

Publisher’s Weekly Reviewer

“[R]eminds me a little of the fun I find in Carl Hiaasen or Christopher Moore, but he definitely has his own vibe . . ..”

Breakthrough Novel Award Expert Reviewer

A Best Second Novel award finalist in the Indie Book Awards, "The Divine Dantes: Squirt Guns in Hades" is the first in a trilogy of laugh-out-loud books paralleling Dante Alighieri's classic poem, "The Divine Comedy," where the characters of The Inferno are encountered in modern times with surprising results. At the center is Eddie, a young rocker who is heartbroken after his girlfriend, Beatrice, leaves for Venice. This not only ends their relationship, but also the world's greatest two-person rock band. At Beatrice's request, Virgil-their erstwhile manager-cum-travel-agent guides Eddie to Europe to meet her without Eddie being in on the secret. Will Eddie want to see Beatrice? Will the band get back together? And if it does, can Eddie settle on a name for it? Read the first novel in this literary, rock, love story today!

Divine Dantes Book II

$0.99 Ebook

Book 2 of The Divine Dantes's Infernal Trilogy finds Eddie and Virgil in Barcelona, Spain. Eddie, the young rocker with an active mind, thinks they are there to get on a cruise. Virgil, however, has tricked Eddie and arranged for Bea to secretly meet them. Meantime, Virg and Eddie visit famous Barcelona landmarks (La Sagrada Familia, Park Guell, La Rambla Street, etc) as Eddie adds his trademark commentary. Will Eddie speak to Bea when she arrives? And if he will, does their two-person band get back together?

Divine Dantes Book III

$1.99 Ebook

In this final volume of The Divine Dantes trilogy series, Eddie finds himself on a cruise with his beloved Beatrice. There will be mayhem, love and of course rock-n-roll.

Buy the trilogy today and get ready to rock on in a Divine Comedy way.

#DivineDantes #DivineComedy #RockNovels

War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy - BBC Film Adaptation

The start of 2016 has blessed us with a fantastic film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's War & Peace. This BBC series is running now so there is still time to catch up on first couple episodes before the climatic ending.

And while many have read War & Peace and Anna Karenina, his classic novels, few have read Tolstoy's short stories or his excellent novellas that weave similar tales of love, war, peace and give a picture of Russia at the height of its powers.

Check out the BBC version of War & Peace this weekend.

#BBCWar&Peace #TolstoyNovellas

Edgar Allan Poe's Valentine Poem to Francis Osgood

A Valentine

Edgar Allan Poe

to

Francis Osgood

In late January of 1846 the death of Virginia Poe was but a year away (January 30, 1847) and Frances Osgood was four months pregnant with Fanny Fay. As Virginia’s health continued its downward spiral, one can imagine the rumors “A Valentine” brought when recited at the home of Anne Lynch on Feb 14, 1846. The poem was written by Edgar Allan Poe to Francis Osgood. Virtually undetectable at its reading, the poem is an acrostic that spells the full name of Frances Sargent Osgood. At its recitation, all in attendance wondered to whom it was addressed. In this original, Poe misspelled her middle name as “Sergent.”

A Valentine

(Sartain’s Union Magazine, February 15, 1846)

For her these lines are penned, whose luminous eyes,
Brightly expressive as the stars of Leda,
Shall find her own sweet name that, nestling, lies
Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
Search narrowly these words, which hold a treasure
Divine—a talisman, an amulet
That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure—
The words—the letters themselves. Do not forget
The smallest point, or you may lose your labor.
And yet there is in this no gordian knot
Which one might not undo without a sabre
If one could merely comprehend the plot.
Upon the open page on which are peering
Such sweet eyes now, there lies, I say, perdus,
A musical name oft uttered in the hearing
Of poets, by poets—for the name is a poet’s too.
In common sequence set, the letters lying,
Compose a sound delighting all to hear—
Ah, this you’d have no trouble in descrying
Were you not something, of a dunce, my dear—
And now I leave these riddles to their Seer.

#edgarallanpoe #PoeValentine

Cover Reveal - The Divine Dantes: Cruising in Paradise (Book 3 of the Divine Dantes Trilogy)

Divine Dantes Book III

There are better things to do today than think about the Superbowl. Okay. Well. Maybe not. I still wanted to publish the cover to book #3 of The Divine Dantes Trilogy that finds young rocker Edward T. Nad on a cruise with his beloved Beatrice. By the end of the month I'll let you know where Cruising in Paradise is available. And if you have a moment or two, now that football ends tonight, you can catch up on the first two books in the award-winning trilogy that follows the characters of Dante's The Divine Comedy in a modern world.

Divine Dantes Book I

Free Ebook

“[A] lively and good-natured work with a great deal of humor . . ..”

Publisher’s Weekly Reviewer

“[R]eminds me a little of the fun I find in Carl Hiaasen or Christopher Moore, but he definitely has his own vibe . . ..”

Breakthrough Novel Award Expert Reviewer

A Best Second Novel award finalist in the Indie Book Awards, "The Divine Dantes: Squirt Guns in Hades" is the first in a trilogy of laugh-out-loud books paralleling Dante Alighieri's classic poem, "The Divine Comedy," where the characters of The Inferno are encountered in modern times with surprising results. At the center is Eddie, a young rocker who is heartbroken after his girlfriend, Beatrice, leaves for Venice. This not only ends their relationship, but also the world's greatest two-person rock band. At Beatrice's request, Virgil-their erstwhile manager-cum-travel-agent guides Eddie to Europe to meet her without Eddie being in on the secret. Will Eddie want to see Beatrice? Will the band get back together? And if it does, can Eddie settle on a name for it? Read this literary, rock, love story today!

Divine Dantes Book II

$0.99 Ebook

Book 2 of The Divine Dantes's Infernal Trilogy finds Eddie and Virgil in Barcelona, Spain. Eddie, the young rocker with an active mind, thinks they are there to get on a cruise. Virgil, however, has tricked Eddie and arranged for Bea to secretly meet them. Meantime, Virg and Eddie visit famous Barcelona landmarks (La Sagrada Familia, Park Guell, La Rambla Street, etc) as Eddie adds his trademark commentary. Will Eddie speak to Bea when she arrives? And if he will, does their two-person band get back together?

#NewBargerNovel #DivineDantesTrilogy

Robert Smith's Favorite Songs from the 1980s

Below is a solid list from Robert Smith of the songs that he most admires from the 1980s (excluding his own, of course). New Order's “Everything’s Gone Green” is my favorite along with “Persephone” and “Gigantic.” All three are unrelenting driving forces of the New Wave genre and not to be missed.

ABC, “Look of Love”
The Associates, “Tell Me It’s Easter on Friday”
David Bowie, “Let’s Dance”
Kate Bush, “Cloudbursting”
Cocteau Twins, “Persephone”
Christina, “Things Fall Apart”
D.A.F., “Sex Unter Wasser”
Depeche Mode, “Personal Jesus”
Dinosaur Jr, “Freak Scene”
Echo and the Bunnymen, “Killing Moon”
The Fun Boy Three with Bananarama, “It Ain’t What You Do…”
Peter Gabriel, “Red Rain”
Human League, “Human”
The Jesus and Mary Chain, “Some Candy Talking”
Joy Division, “The Eternal”
Chaka Khan, “I Feel For You”
Madness, “Return of the Lost Palmas Seven”
My Bloody Valentine, “Lose My Breath”
Mel & Kim, “Respectable”
New Order, “Everything’s Gone Green”
Yoko Ono, “Walking On Thin Ice”
Pixies, “Gigantic”
The Pretenders, “Don’t Get Me Wrong”
Prince, “Starfish & Coffee”
Psychedelic Furs, “Heaven”
Siouxsie and the Banshees, “Dear Prudence”
Soft Cell, “Tainted Love”
The Sugarcubes, “Birthday”
Suzanne Vega, “Small Blue Thing”
Tom Waits, “In the Neighborhood”

What, no Smiths or Morrissey on the list? :-)

#RobertSmithFavoriteSongs #Best80sNewWave

Review of The Postman Only Rings Twice by James Cain

Review of The Postman Only Rings Twice by James Cain

Frank Chambers is a thug and a criminal who has been through a string of Southern California jail cells. In between prison visits he tries to get a little cash by working odd jobs such as picking crops or busing tables. When he jumps off the back of a truck and comes across the diner/gas station run by Nick Papadakis and his beautiful young wife Cora, he finagles a low-paying job without many questions asked. Frank and Cora plot and sulk and use terms like “flimflam” and other great words from the 1930s to form the seduction/want, crime, payback trifecta of crime noir novels.

That kicks off James Cain’s stripped-down, gritty, sexy crime romp he titled The Postman Only Rings Twice and published in 1934. The kicker is that no postman makes an appearance in the novel. One can only surmise that the postman is a metaphor for the grim reaper. Cain admitted as much in his preface to Double Indemnity where his fellow screenwriter Vincent Lawrence told him the postman would also ring his doorbell twice. Cain adapted the phrase as being applicable to the end of his novel and went with the title.

The Postman Only Rings Twice didn’t invent the crime genre, but rather a sub-genre of it much like Edgar Allan Poe did with the first locked room murder crime story—“The Murders in the Rue Morgue” almost 100 years earlier in 1841.

And what was Cain’s sub-genre exactly? It’s now termed Roman Noir or hardboiled crime and is defined, more than anything else, by the writing style employed. Cain uses a basic--almost sanitized--style of writing that is devoid of exposition and rarely provides the name of the character speaking. It makes one wonder if his editor gave him a strict word limit that forced him to go back and cut every superfluous word in the final edit. It is reminiscent of the way Ernest Hemingway wrote The Sun Also Rises in 1926 (his first novel and in the roman à clef style of real life story having a fictional façade), which Cain must have certainly read given its popularity. Cain’s stripped down writing, just like Hemingway’s, gives readers the feeling there is an iceberg of information floating under the surface of his criminal sea.

The Postman Only Rings Twice is an interesting tale and well worth your reading efforts. I give it an 8 out of 10.

#PostmanRingsTwice #JamesCainReview

"Tales from the Smith" Illustrated Books Series Launched by Butcher Billy

In a play on the popular TV horror show "Tales from the Crypt" that aired in the 1990s, Butcher Billy has combined his love for The Cure and Robert Smith with his talents as an illustrator to launch an illustrated books series. It employs creative use of Cure lyrics into the title. Check it out!

The cover above is The Cure's most claustrophobic song and could very well be the cover song for The Iron Shroud by William Mudford, the tightest science fiction story you will ever read.

#ButcherBilly #TalesfromtheSmith

First Trip to the Moon in a Science Fiction Short Story

With all the hubbub about Star Wars: The Force Awakens swirling in our cosmic movie atmosphere, I am reminded of the ever-present space alien that populate the screen. Before there were movies of this nature there were science fiction short stories.

Which one was the first to feature a lunar alien? What about a trip to the moon from earth?

That huge literary honor belongs to "A Visit to the Lunar Sphere" published in 1820, nearly 200 years ago today. The trip was by balloon, not rocket. By watching the The Force Awakens one can see just how far the genre has progressed in 200 years thanks in no small part to modern technology.

Did the first Lunarian in a sci-fi short story have a name? You bet--Zuloc. But who was the author? Well, the story was published anonymously, but in Mesaerion: The Best Science Fiction Short Stories 1800-1849 I ascribed the author to be none other than Captain Frederick Marryat (1792-1848).

#ScienceFictionShortStories #FirstLunarAlien

Did Edgar Allan Poe Write Short Stories?

The basic questioned posited as the title of this article may seem rudimentary to some, but to those new to Edgar Allan Poe it is not. The short (story) answer is that Edgar Allan Poe wrote many short stories. It's debatable which is his most popular, but surely these are in the Top Ten Poe short stories: "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Black Cat," "The Gold-Bug," "The Pit and the Pendulum," "The Tell-Tale Heart," and "The Cask of Amontillado."

Below is a complete list of Poe's short stories:

"A Tale of Jerusalem" (1832)
"Bon-Bon" (1832)
"Loss of Breath" (1832)
"Metzengerstein" (1832)
"The Duc de L'Omelette" (1832)
"Four Beasts in One" (1833)
"MS. Found in a Bottle" (1833)
"The Assignation" (1834)
"Berenice" (1835)
"King Pest" (1835)
"Lionizing" (1835)
"Morella" (1835)
"Shadow" (1835)
"Mystification" (1837)
"A Predicament" (1838)
"How to Write a Blackwood Article" (1838)
"Ligeia" (1838)
"Silence - A Fable" (1838)
"The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion" (1839)
"The Devil in the Belfry" (1839)
"The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839)
"The Man That Was Used Up" (1839)
"Why the Little Frenchman Wears His Hand in a Sling" (1839)
"William Wilson" (1839)
"[The Bloodhounds]" (1840)
"The Business Man" (1840)
"The Man of the Crowd" (1840)
"A Descent into the Maelström" (1841)
"Eleonora" (1841)
"Never Bet the Devil Your Head" (1841)
"The Colloquy of Monos and Una" (1841)
"The Island of the Fay" (1841)
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841)
"Three Sundays in a Week" (1841)
"The Gold-Bug" (1842)
"The Masque of the Red Death" (1842)
"The Mystery of Marie Rogêt" (1842)
"The Oval Portrait" (1842)
"The Pit and the Pendulum" (1842)
"A Tale of the Ragged Mountains" (1843)
"Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences" (1843)
"The Black Cat" (1843)
"The Tell-Tale Heart" (1843)
"Mesmeric Revelation" (1844)
"Thou Art the Man" (1844)
"The Angel of the Odd" (1844)
"The Balloon-Hoax" (1844)
"The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq." (1844)
"The Oblong Box" (1844)
"The Premature Burial" (1844)
"The Purloined Letter" (1844)
"The Spectacles" (1844)
"The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" (1844)
"Some Words with a Mummy" (1845)
"The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" (1845)
"The Imp of the Perverse" (1845)
"The Magazine Prison House" (1845)
"The Power of Words" (1845)
"[The Rats of Park Theatre]" (1845)
"The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade" (1845)
"The Cask of Amontillado" (1846)
"The Domain of Arnheim" (1846)
"The Sphinx" (1846)"Hop-Frog" (1849)
"Landor's Cottage" (1849)
"Mellonta Tauta" (1849)
"Von Kempelen and His Discovery" (1849)
"X-ing a Paragrab" (1849)

#PoeShortStories #EdgarAllanPoe

Review of The Pearl by John Steinbeck

Long before there were salt of the earth people getting instantly rich off the lottery only to curse the windfall they had received, there was a tiny little nugget of a novel called The Pearl. The novel was published by John Steinbeck in 1947. True originality in the novel is lacking because it is based on a folktale from Mexico.

The Pearl has been influential on popular singers. Below are a number of songs based on--or influenced by--The Pearl.

"Angry"                 Matchbox 20         Mad Season 2000
"Colored People"                 dc talk         Intermissions 2000
"Colors of the Wind"                 Vanessa Williams Pocahontas 1995
"Half-Breed"                 Cher                 If I Could Turn Back Time 1999
"How Can I Keep from Singing" Eva Cassidy         Eva by Heart 1998
"I am Woman"                 Helen Reddy         Helen Reddy's Greatest Hits 1987
"I Got a Name"                 Jim Croce Photographs and Memories 1985
"I Write the Songs"                 Barry Manilow Greatest Hits 1978
"The Pearl"                 Fleming and John
"Reach"                 Gloria Estefan         Destiny 1996
"Songs"                 Joan Armatrading What's Inside 1995
"Sunshine on My Shoulders"         John Denver         Behind the Music 2000
"To Have and Not to Hold"         Madonna         Ray of Light 1998
"The Pearl"                 Joshua Kadison Delilah Blue 1995
"Seek Up"                 Dave Matthews Live At Red Rocks 1995

Pros: If you want to read an artistically written book, bursting with fine prose, then is the novel for you. It is also on the shorter side and could be called a novella.

Cons: The characters of The Pearl are monotone and the dialog is lacking. In actuality, there is little dialog at all. I also found the plot rather simplistic and as mentioned above, lacking in true originality.

Rating: 6 out of 10 stars.