I love playing handball.

Not the kind you play indoors with four walls, though I’ve played that kind too. I’m talking about the kind you play against a concrete monolith, using a blue rubber ball the size of what we used to call a spaldeen on the streets of New York.

The opponent is almost always a teenager, almost always faster than I am, almost always stronger, and almost always in better shape. But I almost always win, because as physical as handball can get, there’s also strategy involved, and I’m good at the strategy part.

So my opponent walks on the court talking all kinds of trash and making remarks about the gray in what’s left of my hair, and walks off in an entirely different frame of mind. A decidedly beaten frame of mind. And I draw immense satisfaction from the encounter.

Yeah, it’s kind of evil. But then, I don’t have a whole lot of vices.

Handball is a city game, and some courts are in neighborhoods I probably shouldn’t be visiting. The kids I play are too often hanging gang colors. Some of them are sporting prison tats. On the court, it doesn’t matter. Everybody’s a gentleman, everybody’s a sportsman.

So one day I’m playing a crazy-looking kid, real tall and pale and skinny, and he’s beating the pants off me. And because I’m a writer, I starting thinking about who he might be and where he might have come from, and what the subtext of our game might be if neither one of us was what he seemed.

And that was the start of Fight The Gods.

It’s a work of the imagination–I feel safe in telling you that. Urban fantasy? Sure, why not. Action? Tons. Autobiographical elements? If you know me, you won’t have to look far for them. Romance? Well, yeah.

And it’s coming out next month, right here from Crazy 8 Press.

I first met Brian Thomsen when he was editing the Questar line of science fiction for Warner Books. Even though DC Comics was a division under the Book division’s purview at the time, the two never shared events. We worked a floor apart and it might as well have been a world away.

Brian, though, was a comics fan and delighted in breaking that barrier. In time, as happens everywhere, Brian chose to move on and became a freelance editor, writer, and book packager. (He would also continue to visit DC on Wednesdays, bringing Julie Schwartz sushi for lunch and they would chat, which resulted in Brian co-authoring Julie’s must read autobiography Man of Two Worlds.)

During all this time, Brian knew I was honing my craft, and finally getting some fiction assignments. One day, after lunch was over, Brian told me he had sold an anthology called Mob Magic and did I want to contribute. He’d already gotten a commitment from Denny O’Neil and I knew I’d be in good company. I wrote a story called “Solo” and it saw print, the book barely got noticed and life continued.

Sometime later, Brian informed me he had sold two books to DAW and was I interested in pitching to either of them. He had the broadest and vaguest of parameters, allowing the authors to be free in their thinking. I could not tell you today why I picked Oceans of Space instead of Oceans of Magic.

I set about to challenge myself in several ways, writing a story entirely through dialogue as well as a mutiny trial aboard a starship – things I had never written before. The result, “A Matter of Faith” was accepted, edited, and saw print. Unfortunately, as with so many anthologies, it sort of faded away.

With deep regret, I watched Brian go through health issues and shortly after I contributed some essays to a book of his, he unexpectedly passed away. He had been a terrific help to my writing career, a fun guy to talk with, and generally a fine human being. I still miss him.

These two stories are my only original works and I am thrilled to have a forum to make them available once more. Coming in a few days will be “A Matter of Faith” and I have to thank Aaron Rosenberg for the fine cover. “Solo” will follow eventually, but there I created something I want to explore further and need some time to fuss with so stay tuned.

Yes, it’s finally here! Aaron Rosenberg’s hilarious new science fiction novel, No Small Bills, is now available for sale through both Barnes and Noble and Amazon! Here’s what people are saying about it:

“If you’re looking for some wacky light reading, this book is for you. . . . Bob’s narration is the best part of this book — half Mickey Spillane and half Woody Allen. Definitely great reading for a rainy Sunday afternoon.”

“This book is really fun and funny! . . . Love the narrative voice and the flow of the story.”

“Fans of surrealist humor, Monty Python, Science Fiction, and Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide” series will enjoy the adventures of DuckBob Spinowitz, a classic wise-acre everyman (who happens to have the head of a duck).”

What are you waiting for? Pick up your copy today!

I know, I know—after the last post about why I wrote No Small Bills, you’ve been dying to read it! Well, die no more! (Or die more slowly, or something like that.)

No, the book isn’t on sale yet. I’m such a tease.

But wait, all is not lost! You can read the first few chapters! Right here! Right now! For the low, low price of—

Oh, fine, for free. Don’t say I never gave you anything.

All kidding aside, here are the first two chapters of No Small Bills as a free PDF. Read. Laugh. Enjoy. Tell your friends. And come back in a week or two to get the rest!

DuckBob and I will be waiting.

Continue reading Get Ready to Duck! →

Yes, I wrote a novel about a duck—sort of. Why? Because I wanted to do something funny. And ducks? Let’s face it, ducks are funny.

Think about it. How many times have you seen a duck waddling around on its tiny little legs with those oversized feet, quacking left and right, looking all self-important like “check this out, I can get out of the water, ain’t I cool?” Can anyone possibly keep a straight face when watching that?

Of course not.

Now take the duck, make him man-sized and man-shaped, and put him in jeans and a Hawaiian shirt. But keep the feet. See? Even funnier!

Then toss in a few weird aliens, a stoic Man in Black, the coolest roadside diner in the galaxy, the deadliest prawn in existence, the flower that altered history, and a bunch of other strange stuff, and send him on a ridiculous and often-derailed quest to save the universe. Freakin’ hysterical!

That’s why I wrote about a duck.

“But, Aaron,” I hear you say, “why write something funny at all? You’ve done Star Trek, Stargate: Atlantis, WarCraft, Warhammer—you’re not exactly known for funny. Okay, sure, you did two Eureka novels, those were kind of amusing, but that’s as much the show as you. And your first two original novels, The Birth of the Dread Remora and Indefinite Renewal—well, one’s space-opera, lots of cheesy action but not really har-har funny, and the other’s an occult thriller, all dark and creepy. What’s with the humor all of a sudden?”

Honestly? I just wanted to do something funny. I wanted to do something silly. I wanted to do something that made people laugh—no, actually, I wanted to do something that made people gasp for breath and spew Barq’s all over their neighbors and fall out of their chairs.

Why?

Because I like stuff like that.

I do. I love Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I love Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels. I love the old Ron Goulart books, and Harry Harrison’s Stainless Steel Rat series.

I wanted to write something like that.

And I figured the best way to write something funny is to start out with something funny.

Something like a duck.

Full disclosure—I actually came up with DuckBob years ago. Not his story, though. Just his face. Bill. Whatever. I don’t remember why I created it, exactly. I’m sure it was in response to something my co-worker and I were talking about—it was just the two of us in the cramped back room, going over manuscripts, and we would talk and joke and tell stories while working—but I can’t remember the details any more. All I know is that I concocted this image and it tickled my funny bone enough—and irked/amused my co-worker enough—that I had to build it. And apply it as his desktop image when he wasn’t looking.

But the picture wasn’t enough. Or, rather, it was just the start. It got me to thinking. It insisted that an image that strange, that silly, had to have a story behind it. And that story could be encapsulated in a single, succinct phrase: DuckBob Surfs the Ion Storm!

I know this is accurate because I wrote it down immediately, lest I forget. I even expanded the thought into a second line: A fun-filled story of a man-duck’s quest for the perfect galactic wave.

The image itself—that of, obviously, a duck-headed man riding a surfboard—has long since vanished into whatever etheric graveyard swallows such pixilated creations. But the sentences, the concept, lived on. It buzzed around my head like a lost little bee, searching for a home—or for the right moment to sting. And, finally, it found it.

Which is why you get to read a novel about a duck-headed man out to save the universe.

Make sure you have a towel handy, to mop up. Root beer can be murder to get out of the carpet.

The book will be available in a few weeks and soon you can download a preview chapter to see the silliness for yourself.