CM: Sometimes, they come back...

The question this week at Criminal Minds is, "Which television character would you mourn the most?" Despite nods to Sydney Bristow, Ted Crisp, Joel Robinson, and Isaac Jaffe, I settled on Twin Peaks' Special Agent Dale Cooper, and Firefly's Hoban Washburne.

But wait, the nerdier among you might object: weren't they the lucky ones? Didn't they both come back post-cancellation?

Yup. Only you know what? Maybe they shouldn't have... (Click through to read.)

Quick Picks and Sneaky Tricks

A couple links before I'm off to toil away (happily, and thanks so much for the steady paycheck) at the Day Job.

First off, DEAD HARVEST is a quick pick at Naomi Johnson's The Drowning Machine. See what Naomi had to say here. Thanks, Naomi!

Second, Kirkus thinks my pretty, pretty cover is tricking people into buying my novel, and that's just fine by them. So there's that.

Fantasy Literature on DEAD HARVEST

Terry Weyna at Fantasy Literature took a long, hard look at DEAD HARVEST, and had this to say in her four-star review:

"Chris F. Holm’s first novel, DEAD HARVEST, is supernatural noir at its best." 

She probably said some other stuff, too, but I didn't much notice: I was too busy reading that aloud to anyone in earshot. You, however, are welcome to click through and check out the rest.

Thanks, Terry!

30 Days of the 5-2: In which your fearless blogger confesses he's an idiot...

When it comes to kneejerk pop-culture responses, I’m wrong more often than I’m right.

That’s a tough truth to swallow, but the spoonful of sugar that makes the medicine go down is, finding out I’m wrong usually leads to the discovery of some vast, untapped resource of awesome for me to explore.

Allow me to explain.

When I was but a metal-minded kid, I thought the speed and volume with which a guitarist played was indicative of said guitarist’s talent. Then I happened across the intricate jangle-pop of Peter Buck and Johnny Marr, and suddenly, my music world got a whole lot bigger. (And yeah, my eardrums are still thanking me.)

A decade or so ago, when buzz started building about the writing going on at this hokey-looking teeny-bopper show with some seriously iffy special effects about a cheerleading vampire-slayer, I rolled my eyes. I mean, some disposable Young-Hercules-style schlockfest based on a largely forgotten flick that aimed for midnight-movie and missed? No thanks. But then late one night, when flipping through the channels (remember when folks still did that?), my wife and I caught the back half of an episode of Buffy without realizing what it was, and we were hooked. Now I’m convinced it’s one of the best series in the history of the medium.

My opinions on poetry, though, were made of tougher stuff than that – or so I thought. I mean sure, I dug The Odyssey, but who didn’t? And yeah, T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land was one of the prettiest things I’d ever read. And let’s not forget Dante – his Divine Comedy remains one of my all-time favorite reads, and in fact played a major role in the genesis of DEAD HARVEST.  But modern poetry? Modern poetry, I felt certain, was Simply Not My Thing.

Then Gerald So and cohorts started publishing beautiful, hard-hitting poems in print via The Lineup, and online at The 5-2. So, plate full of crow and humble pie, I once more happily changed my mind. That’s why when Gerald asked me to participate in his 30 Days of the 5-2 blog tour – in honor of National Poetry Month (which you totally knew it was, right?) – I of course said yes. It’s a great chance to showcase some fantastic writing – the kind of writing that might change some hearts and minds (provided those hearts and minds are as malleable and wrongly prejudiced as were mine). Writing like Stephen D. Rogers’ Reminder, which appeared on The 5-2 in November of last year:

While sweeping the porch
My broom handle hits
The outdoor chimes
Ding, dong, cling, clang
Dropping me into the rocker
Sadly in need of repair
Letting the broom
Thunk against the rail
She always slapped the chimes
When she came home
If her assailant did the same
It must have been
The last happy sound she heard

Tell me that didn’t hit you square in the chest. It did me. What strikes me about Stephen’s piece is how, in a span of fifty-seven words, he manages to conjure great depth of emotion – not to mention tell a complete story. I’m lucky if I can pull that off in five thousand.

Some writing I admire because it looks like mine, only nicer. Some I admire because it accomplishes something I cannot do.

I’m no poet. But it turns out, I’m glad they’re out there.

Hey Joe

Today, B'con 2011 gate-crasher extraordinaire Joe Myers takes a look at DEAD HARVEST, as well as Stephen Blackmoore's fantastic CITY OF THE LOST, and gives 'em both 5/5. You can check out his reviews here.

Thanks, Joe! Hope to see you this year in Cleveland...

Sabrina Odgen on DEAD HARVEST

Over at My Friends Call Me Kate, Sabrina Ogden is talking ex-beaus, unhealthy melon fixations (get your head out of the gutter, dear reader - we're talking watermelon here), and DEAD HARVEST. (No, really.) Here's a snippet:

"...damned or not, I’d let Sam Thornton snatch the soul from mychest any day of the week."

Thanks, Sabrina! Click through to read the rest.

Death and Taxes

Look, I know y'all are probably busy trying to find a way to justify writing off the contents of your liquor cabinet as a business expense (hint: if you're a published writer, no one's gonna question that), but howsabout you take a break and pop on over to Criminal Minds, where I'm talking about that other great certainty in life: death. Only, you know, all funny-like and stuff. C'mon, it's at least more interesting than a 1099 form, isn't it? ISN'T IT?! (Please say yes: I'm very fragile.)

The British Fantasy Society on DEAD HARVEST

I'm quite chuffed about this one. Have a peek:

"DEAD HARVEST is a great story. Original, fascinating and absorbing from the onset, it captures the reader and describes an interesting supernatural world that sits alongside our own. If you like supernatural ‘who-dunnits’ then this is the book for you."

Thanks, Craig!

Morpheus Tales on DEAD HARVEST!

I've been a little internet-scarce of late, but a little robot tells me Morpheus Tales published a review supplement a few days back that features a rave for DEAD HARVEST! Here's a taste of what they had to say:

"DEAD HARVEST by Chris F. Holm is a slick, fast paced, supernatural thriller, but not so slick that it lacks depth... Plenty of action, plenty of violence, with at least one supernatural femme fatale and a story that keeps you on your toes and turning the page until the denouement... extremely entertaining..."

If you'd like to download the supplement (#16) as a PDF, you can do so here.

DEAD HARVEST at The House of Crime and Mystery

Jacques Filippi takes a look at DEAD HARVEST today, and here's what he has to say:

"Not since reading John Connolly’s debut novel EVERY DEAD THING have I encountered a writer’s debut that so successfully combines crime fiction and the supernatural."

Jacques, I do believe I owe you a beer...

Criminal Minds: Now and Then

Today, at Criminal Minds, I'm having a rather prickly discussion with my twenty-year-old self. Stop on by and have a read!