Book Review: Bigfoot Crank Stomp

I have recently decided to try to finish the first draft of my novel Little People, Big Guns, which almost certainly qualifies as bizarro, this coming summer. I decided to do some research into the genre, so I bought Erik Williams' horror novel Bigfoot Crank Stomp, which I first became aware of after meeting representatives of Eraserhead Press and Deadite Press (they're all part of the same company) at the World Horror Convention last May. It was a short novel and a quick read, so here's my review...

The Plot

A group of meth-cooking petty criminals have captured Bigfoot and for some reason have gotten him hooked on methamphetamine. They intend to get him high and then burn down the cabin around him once they're finished cooking one last batch of meth, but some drug-dealing rivals interfere. Bigfoot gets loose and goes into a withdrawal fury and it's up to some local sheriff's deputies, a traumatized Iraq veteran, and a random camper to put a stop to him. Think a deranged, comedic cross between Breaking Bad and Harry and the Hendersons...

The Good

*One thing I like about bizarro fiction, even though I haven't read much of it, is that the plots are really creative and often hilarious. For example, Eraserhead put out a novel entitled Shatnerquest in which a bunch of nerds try to rescue William Shatner after the apocalypse--only to find he's grown into a Godzilla-sized monster and is rampaging around. Bigfoot Crank Stomp certainly fits this tradition, as the plot by itself amusing by virtue of just how ridiculous it is.

*One character gets high and a significant chunk of the story is told from his point of view. I've never done any sort of drug (let me make this quite clear) so I don't know how it feels to be intoxicated, but I like how the point of view shifts all the way to bugnuts insane. And some of the decisions the character made in this condition made me laugh out loud.

*The novel is never boring. It's a quick, entertaining read.

*There are some good descriptive passages, like how Bigfoot's roars and screams sound and how a man who fell off a cliff is described as looking like "he tried to kiss the inside of a tree trunk at high speed."

The Bad

*It's never explained just how the first set of criminals captured Bigfoot in the first place, or why they decided to get him hooked on meth. People who do drugs often make extremely questionable decisions, but we have scenes from the point of view of the meth-cookers who got their hands on Bigfoot and we still don't get so much as "it seemed like a good idea at the time." A character lampshades this by saying they'll probably never know (in response to a character who's astounded someone actually did this), but still.

*The scenes from Bigfoot's point of view refer to meth as "food." But wouldn't it differentiate meth from the more normal sort of food it eats? Perhaps some kind of modifier of "food" like "happy food" or "sleepy food" or something. If anything, even if Bigfoot is a being of less-than-human intelligence, it would differentiate between the food that it eats and something that goes up its nose.

*Another group of characters are introduced a little over halfway through the story. It would have been better if they were at least mentioned earlier. Perhaps as clients of the drug dealers, or someone whom the sheriff is suspicious of? Think Chekhov's Gun.

*The novel isn't very long--according to Amazon it's 156 pages, but it cost $4.95. Marko Kloos's much-longer Frontlines e-books (as of this review Terms of Enlistment, Lines of Departure, Angles of Attack, and the forthcoming Chains of Command) are around three times as long each at the same price. Although the novel was a quick read and entertaining, it's far too short for an e-book price that high.

*Not sure how much staying power the novel has. When I reviewed Clive Barker's The Hellbound Heart (you can see that here), I criticized the purchase price for being too high for something that short, but I've re-read The Hellbound Heart at least twice. I'm not sure if I'll re-read Bigfoot Crank Stomp.

The Verdict

Although it's a fun book, it's too short for the purchase price and I don't foresee it having a lot of re-read value. If you've got Amazon's Kindle Unlimited, though, a borrow would be worth your while for a trip to the gym or killing a couple hours. Six out of ten.

Writing Update, Featuring the World Horror Conference...

The weekend before last, I got the chance to volunteer at the World Horror Conference, which came to Atlanta this year. Although I've been to DragonCon and AnachroCon multiple times, this is the first time I've attended a conference dedicated solely to horror and the first time I've worked as a volunteer in that context. And I got a gig as a panel monitor, which meant I could watch panels so long as I kept all the speakers hydrated, kept the room clean, etc.

Not only did I get to see some interesting panels, but I got to make some very useful contacts. I talked with representatives from a small press (I'm not going to name said press at the moment, for reasons you will see) and pitched them The Thing in the Woods. They were interested, and one of the relevant editors gave me what looks like a personal e-mail address to send it to. I spent the last week editing the book (mostly for style and some minor grammatical quibbles) and put it in the press's preferred format and submitted it to all the appropriate e-mail addresses last Saturday. The press's response time is within 90 days, with six months on the outside. Now all that there is to do is wait and keep my fingers crossed.

The conference also yielded an unexpected bonus. I attended pitch sessions hoping to snag a spot with one press I was interested in as a possible market for Thing. Instead I was seated with another press, one that puts out horror that's too gruesome for me and for whom Thing would not be a good project. So on a whim I decided to pitch my on-hiatus bizarro story Little People, Big Guns, which features a group of little people making war on a pack of badgers that killed one of their own, to another imprint by the same company. They were really impressed, which one of them said was the most entertaining pitch they'd heard all day. However, they said it sounded like Act I rather than a full novel. Their rule is to keep the insanity escalating. So on the fly I came up with Act II and Act III, the former of which involves the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (which would explain one character's strange behavior in Act I) and the latter of which involves a gigantic bear-sized badger and said character missing a foot and with a literal ax to grind.

They liked the plot, and so now I've got another project to write. Considering how I originally intended for this to be a short story (or at most a novella) I'd self-publish on Amazon for the Kindle, the possibility that this could be a published novel (albeit probably a short one) is a major boon.

Finally, I met a cool guy who's a voice-actor. Given my earlier dabbling with the idea of making "I am the Wendigo" into an audio book, this could be a really useful connection. I've got a lot going on right now, but I've definitely saved his business card.

So let this be a lesson to all aspiring writers--if you want to make good contacts, network, and pitch, volunteering at conferences is one way to do it. However, you should take pains not to be obnoxious or in it for yourself. Remember, volunteering is work, and you should put that first. Don't worry, there'll be plenty of time for the stuff you want to do as well.

December 2014 Writing Contest: The Results

The revival of my earlier writing bets with a couple friends is now in its second month, so it's time to update you on how the first month went.

In the first month, I wrote 3,838 words of fiction. This doesn't compare well with a previous December in which I wrote just under 12,000 words, but I can plead extenuating circumstances. I was editing a novel for a client, which will be available on Amazon sometime soon. Between that and the end of an editorial internship I had with a magazine company, I had significantly less writing time than in 2013, but I made more money. :)

Here is what I did accomplish:

*Although I only finished bulking up The Thing in the Woods in preparation for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award this morning, I got much of the work done over December. One of the better critiques I'd received from my writing group is that a character introduced at the end of the novel in the first draft should have been introduced earlier. The technical term for this is a Chekhov's Gun--if you see a gun in the first act, it had better be fired in the third, or don't include it. In this case, it was the reverse. I plugged the scene introducing him (part of which I wrote in November and part in December) around two-thirds into the book and had his earlier appearance play a role in driving events toward their climax. He's going to play a much bigger role in the sequel, The Atlanta Incursion, so this will help set him up for that.

*I finished and then after writing-group critique heavily revised a chapter in my new novel project. I'm keeping this one more quiet until it's finished so I won't go into a lot of detail but now I've got four complete chapters. I've plotted out a fair bit more and this project plays to my strengths (imaginative situations, world-building) rather than my weaknesses (characterization), so I have high hopes for it.

*Little People, Big Guns got the short end of the stick, I'm afraid. Just under 200 words written. This is something I thought I'd be able to finish quickly. I start class again Monday, but maybe I'll be able to do more this month.

*Added a link to the sequel Needs Must to the "back matter" of Übermensch, my supervillain-protagonist short story. For independently-published authors, "back matter" is something quite useful to have. That's your chance to link people to related projects, encourage them to leave reviews, etc. Hopefully this will lead to more sales for "Needs Must," especially during periods where I give "Ubermensch" away for free.

My Writing Plan for the Month

As I might have mentioned earlier, I have revived my monthly writing bet with one friend for the month of December and will be continuing it in January with another friend. Now that I'm done with graduate school and my magazine internship, I can get started on it in earnest. Thus far I've written 1,700-ish words for two different projects. Hopefully I'll be able to do better, considering last December I wrote nearly 12,000 words.

Here're some goals I hope to reach for the month:

*The Thing in the Woods is 53,000-odd words at present, but the few agents I've sent it off to have said it needs to be longer. My goal is to get to at least 60,000 words this month through judicious adding of a few words per page (much like how I cut, by nicking a few words per page) of extra description, atmosphere, etc. I've also written a new scene that might be 1,000 words or so that I haven't plugged into the main draft yet. Samhain Publishing, a small press that published the novel Shadows in the Mist I really enjoyed, has a minimum of 60,000 for print books. The main way I know as an author to market a book is to do book signings, so having a print book is essential. Plus 60,000 words would put me well ahead of the bare-minimum figure of 55,000 words. 7,000 words is doable, I would think.

*My current project--that I won't go into details with for now--is at 17K words or so. Owing to the nature of the project there's a lot of journalism (playing to my strengths) and telling instead of showing (which is easier to write). I had the notion of finishing it this month, but that might be a little too ambitious. I took a couple chapters to writing group yesterday and spent a fair bit of the afternoon editing based on their suggestions.

*I've got 2,000 words of a bizarro novella or novel involving badgers and heavily-armed little people written. If this is a novella, I might be able to finish it this month. This is the first time I've written comedy in years. Joke topics include badgers, hippies, little people, and even the death of David Carradine. :)

I can already foresee spreading myself too thinly and not finishing anything. So let the games begin.