So I’ve now seen the full list of nominees for the Georgia Author of the Year Awards and in my category this year (Short Story Collections), there are only four other nominees. So I have a one-in-five shot at winning. Not bad! Of course I’m up against the likes of Terry Kay, so I can’t fathom that I’d actually win. Still, what a nice honor! If you want to check out the book that earned me the nomination, you can get it in print or for any of your ebook readers.

Still plugging away on the Lazarus Gray novel — working title is The Devil’s Heart but I might change that at some point as the story develops.

Recorded the first episode of Ubergeeks last night and it went very well — my lovely co-host (my wife, Cari) and I shot the breeze about comics, gaming and several other things. I still have to edit in the theme song and so forth, then submit it to iTunes to get it listed in their directory.

Thunder Jim Wade is supposed to be out sometime in the next week and I can’t wait for you guys to see my story in that book! “The Hellmouth” starts off with a daring raid on Wade’s island home and from there, the action’s only getting started. A terrifying enemy known as Leviathan is out to destroy Thunder Jim Wade and he’s willing to stop at nothing to achieve his goals. I think it’s one of the best pulp tales I’ve written and editor Tommy Hancock described it like this: “Wow!” So there you go.

Thanks to all of you who have helped me set a record for visits to this blog for the fourth month in a row! I appreciate the fact that you guys are interested in what I have to say and take time out of your day to visit the site.

Today’s art is from the upcoming sequel to The Adventures of Lazarus Gray, the exciting Die Glocke. It depicts the evil Walther Lunt and is by the incomparable George Sellas!

So my work on the new Lazarus Gray novel is going swimmingly. But you won’t be able to read it until sometime in 2013 — that’s the one downside to writing. By the time you get to see what I worked so hard on, I’ve long since moved past it!

My wife and I are going to be starting a new podcast later this week — it’s going to be called Ubergeeks and it will feature us riffing on all things geeky. I’ll let you know how to snag an episode when we have it ready.

Been doing some edits on the original Rook stories for the Pro Se re-release of Volume One at the end of the year. Definitely takes me back to where I was back in 2006 when I created the character.

HardCoreGamer1 posted a review of The New Adventures of Richard Knight over on Amazon and they had this to say:

For those of you who have always wanted to experience the excitement of being a child in the 1930s sitting in the local movie theater on a Saturday afternoon watching Flash Gordon or one of the other serials of the time, now you have your chance.

Pro Se Publication’s The New Adventures of Richard Knight is a collection of six adrenaline rush stories featuring the pulp hero who hasn’t appeared in print since 1942. Along with sidekick Larry Doyle, Knight fights evil which appears in many forms, while reminding us of the conflict at the time with the Nazi regime. The creators of these stories are well-known to readers everywhere: Josh Reynolds, Barry Reese, Terry Alexander, I.A. Watson, Frank Schildiner, and Adam Lance Garcia.

Knight is back in all his glory, flying the planes and shooting the guns every secret agent longs to have. It’s still the early 1940s in the dialogue when men were men and women were, well–dangerous.
Each of the six stories draws the reader in from the first sentence and doesn’t let go until the end. Highly recommended.

Thanks for the review! It was a really fun book to work on — and I think my next contribution to the Pulp Obscura project, Thunder Jim Wade, is even better! I had a real blast working on that one.

Today’s art is by Storn Cook and is from The Rook Volume Four.

Random thoughts running through my head:

The Pulp Ark Award winners are supposed to be announced soon and I’m curious to see who takes home the hardware this year. I’m pretty certain I won’t be a winner this time around but being nominated is honor enough.

There’s a new Table Talk episode up — Bobby Nash, Mike Bullock and I take questions from readers in this one.

I won’t be at this year’s Pulp Ark Conference but maybe I’ll be able to sneak in a visit to Pulp Ark 2013! I will be at Dragon*Con this year as an attending professional and as we get closer, I’ll let you know if I’m on any panels and where you can find them.

Working on a Lazarus Gray novel — so far, so good. I’m only about 5,000 words into it so I’m definitely in the “honeymoon” phase of the book. This one starts several months after the end of Die Glocke, which will be published soon. I’m really loving Lazarus and the gang right now — I hope to keep telling their stories for a long time to come.

George Sellas will be doing the covers and interiors for the new editions of the Rook books, the first of which should come out at the end of the year — all will be from Pro Se Press. George has already started working on some of the art for volume one!

Really enjoyed the new book by Percival Constantine — give it a try.

If you’re not watching The Walking Dead, what’s wrong with you?

I hope to have finished pages from Anthony Castrillo for the Lazarus Gray comic story soon. If you’ve seen the layouts I posted, you’re probably as excited as I am.

Our art for today is by Anthony Castrillo and is from the Wild Cat Books’ edition of The Rook Volume Five — it features the evil Stickman.

Over on Amazon, Doc Panic continues his flurry of reviews. Today, he’s taken a look at The Adventures of Lazarus Gray:

i have read a bunch of stuff from Barry Reese and have enjoyed it thoroughly. The Laz Gray character comes in with some similar aspects as one of my top Pulp guys “The Avenger”. Barry manages to so effortlessly bring characters to life. This book is no exception. Some similarities will strike home with The Avenger characters, but never a doubt to them having their own personalities. Barry has been branching out and doing some great work in many other New Pulp branches, Richard Knight and such. This book shows why he is becoming a well known name throughout the New pulp industry. 5 very happy stars.

Doc Panic has been busy over on Amazon, leaving recent reviews for three books that I was involved in.

First up is The Rook Volume Five. Doc Panic had this to say: The Rook 5 is a brilliant look into the sidekicks created and borrowed for the Reese character the Rook. I personally enjoyed seeing the sidekicks get some action. The book was chalked full of action and the supernatural, which is what makes the character so good!

Next is his review of How the West Was Weird, Volume II: Lions and tigers and bears ohh my! oh sorry lost myself, how about gunslingers, ghosts, and monsters! OH YEAH!!!!. This book was a blast to read. I have to admit that westerns have never really been high on my list. Good thing this book changed all that, could it be the thrilling supernatural aspects???. Either way enjoyed the book thoroughly and recommend it to all. It was well done and each story was just the right length I think for the styles.

Finally, we have The Green Hornet Casefiles: It is great to see the Green Hornet brought back to his glory. The stories all bring out what was great about the character, and what unfortunately the TV networks wouldn’t let be done. The Hornet is no stop action and thrills just like the original. Looking forward to more!

Thanks, Doc! I appreciate all the kind words. Volume Five of The Rook was complicated by a lot of things but I’m glad that you found some enjoyment in it! I still really like the Claws of the Rook characters and you’ll see them again soon, I promise.

It was fun to write the Green Hornet — a definite honor!

And as for How the West Was Weird… westerns aren’t my usual cup of tea but I found a good hook for the story in that one and thought it turned out really well. Glad you thought so, too.

I appreciate folks who take the time to post reviews, be they positive or negative! It means a lot to me.

So.

In the past three days, I’ve had four different people point out a major mistake in The Adventures of Lazarus Gray to me. Basically, Lazarus is given two “real” names. How did this happen?

Let’s peel back the curtain a bit and see, shall we?

Lazarus Gray is really (spoilers) Richard Winthrop. But while doing some edits, I found a couple of spots where I called him Davenport – no idea why. I made the corrections and sent the files to my editor, asking that he delete any old copies he had. He said okay. I also asked him to do a search and replace for the word Davenport to check to see if I’d missed any.

I suspect he did that – but then his computer crashed and there was a bit of a rush to rebuild everything. I think that’s when the mistake slipped through.

Another story: Lazarus Gray was originally going to be serialized and the first couple of stories did appear in magazines first. But when the mags went on hiatus, the last batch of stories didn’t see print until Adventures came out. Originally, the team up with the Rook would have been published after the other Laz stories had run but with the publishing snafu, it ran PRIOR to Adventures and before his “origin” story had been printed! So a lot of people had their first introduction to the character in what was actually his sixth appearance.

Sometimes publishing is a crazy thing.

Mistakes happen.

Lazarus Gray is Richard Winthrop.

The first review of The New Adventures of Richard Knight has been posted on Amazon! User “Doc Panic” said:

This new take on an old pulp hero was amazing and fun to read from start to finish. There are times when you read a book with multiple authors and stories where maybe a few don’t quite hit home. I am happy to say, this is not the case with Richard Knight. It picks you up from the start, drags you threw the wild,jump starts your heart,and tones you down with a strong cup of coffee. Do yourself a favor and read this one!

Veteran author Ron Fortier took a look at The Adventures of Lazarus Gray and this is what he said (my comments are interspersed in italics):

As much as most writers enjoy creating new series characters, eventually many of them, after writing the adventures of the same cast multiple times, start to feel the burden of familiarity. Add to the fact that each new volume often builds upon the fictional cast from allies to recurring villains so that eventually the poor writer is saddled with a huge ensemble that he or she feels compelled to include in each new story. These moments of repetitive angst seemed to be evident in Reese’s last volume of his Rook series. For the uninitiated, the Rook is a masked vigilante created by Reese years ago as his entry into the new pulp community and was an instant success among fans; this reviewer included.

Still, by the sixth volume of that character’s exploits, the sheen of newness had faded and the Rook stories started becoming more about the supporting cast rather than the central hero. Like Arthur Conan Doyle’s ultimate dissatisfaction with his own creation, Sherlock Holmes, Reese somehow seemed to be struggling to keep the Rook afloat. It was clearly time for him to move on to something new and with this collection, he has done just that in a most triumphant way.

I definitely think I had run out of steam by the fifth volume of The Rook, no doubt. My back-to-basics approach in Volume Six helped restore some luster to the property, I thought. Still, you’re right – I wanted something new.

Lazarus Gray is Reese’s new hero and is an homage to the classic Avenger series, wherein we have our mysterious leading man aided and abetted by a team of loyal assistants; in this case a trio. Together they are known as Assistance Unlimited. Although Gray’s creation was part of a shared world that included two other heroes, Reese clearly found his old muse with these new characters and has produced some of his best, most energetic and enjoyable fiction to date. These stories move at a breakneck speed and are filled with memorable characters and well delivered action to match anything done in the days of the old pulps.

As I’ve said many times, The Avenger is my favorite pulp hero. I wanted to do something to recapture what I loved about those stories while not resorting to outright theft. So I set aside the plot elements of The Avenger and distilled the character aspects that meant the most to me.

At the beginning of the volume, we meet an amnesiac washed ashore on the beach of Sovereign City with a strange medallion around his neck upon which is embossed the words Lazarus Gray. Within minutes of awakening, an assassin dressed as a police officer attempts to kill him, but Gray is more than a match for him and is the victor. Perplexed at his background, he assumes the name on the medallion and sets about creating a new life for himself as a champion of the underdog, the lost and impoverished while at the same time investigating his own unknown past.

Along the way he acquires three unique followers: Morgan Watts, a once time crook, Samantha Grace, a blonde debutante with both brains and beauty and Eun Jiwon, a Korean martial artist. All three are fiercely loyal to each other and Gray for various reasons and are always eager to go into battle with him. Reese’s ability to define this trio and breathe life into them is deft and although they do represent classic iconic pulp figures, he also injects original personal touches that sets them apart in a truly refreshing way.

It was important to me that I love his aides as much as Lazarus himself. In that regard, I succeeded. I could write novels about any one of them.

Having been a fan of the Rook series from the start, I had come to expect a certain level of quality from Reese. That this collection totally blew those expectations out of the water was one of the best surprises this reviewer has had in a long while. “The Adventures of Lazarus Gray” is by far the best work Barry Reese has ever produced and I predict will soon build an even larger fandom than that of his Rook tales.

One point does require mentioning and that is the last story in this volume appears in print for the second time. It was first printed in “The Rook – Volume Six” and is a team up between the two heroes. I have no problem with the publisher reprinting the story, but a notice of such should have been made in the book’s indicia. Which brings about a minor goof because this story was clearly written before the others, although chronologically it appears last. In this book Gray discovers his true identity as being one Richard Winthrop, yet in “Darkness, Spreading Its Wings of Black” we are told he was Richard Davenport.

The blame for that is a shared one. I mistakenly typed Davenport, when I knew it was Winthrop. When I found the error, I asked Tommy to make the correction in that story. So it was just one of those things that slipped through.

Finally let me add that this book is a gorgeously designed package with a wonderful cover by graphic artist Anthony Castrillo and superb interior illustrations by George Sellas. So what are you waiting for? Go pick up “The Adventures of Lazarus Gray,” you’ll be happy you did. You can thank me later.
Thanks for the review, Ron. Anthony, George and Sean Ali made the book a gorgeous one!

For the second year in a row, I’ve been nominated for the Georgia Author of the Year Awards! Last year, I was nominated for Best Novel for Rabbit Heart and this year I’m nominated in the Short Story Collections category for The Adventures of Lazarus Gray! They haven’t updated the website yet to list the nominees for the 48th Annual Georgia Author of the Year Awards but I received my email just a few minutes ago, congratulating me on being nominated.

Thanks for the nomination and to all those who have supported my work through the years!

From the GAYA website:

The Georgia Writers Association recognizes Georgia’s authors of excellence by presenting the Georgia Author of the Year Awards. The GAYA has the distinction of being the oldest literary awards in the Southeastern United States while reflecting the current publishing world. The GAYA honors both independently published authors and those whose books are published by traditional publishing houses.

The Awards have grown in prestige and participation since its inception in 1964 by the Dixie Council of Authors and Journalists. The GAYA changed hands in 1990 to Georgia Writers Association and in 2006 GWA began a strong affiliation with Kennesaw State University’s Department of Humanities.

In 2011 over 100 books were nominated for Georgia Author of the Year. The GAYA covers the traditional categories of Poetry and Fiction, while accommodating the growing Creative Non-Fiction genre. The guidelines are revised each year to parallel the changing literary marketplace.