Shovel Ready Brings Startling Story...and One Other Surprise!

I write for New York magazine and am the former culture editor of The New York Times Magazine. My first novel, “Shovel Ready,” is a future-noir thriller about a garbageman-turned-hitman set in a dystopian New York City. For many years I was the co-editor of the satirical celebrity website Fametracker. Raised in Toronto, I now live in Brooklyn, where I’m currently at work on a second Spademan novel, "Near Enemy," which is coming out in January, 2015.

I had to start with the author on this one, because he just about blew my mind with his style of writing. You all know my favorite author was Robert B. Parker. His crisp, sarcastic dialogue was what drew me in and I loved it... Picture a Parker book, with just as crisp, short sentences, but without quotes, he said/she saids, or anything else to guide you in reading...

Whoa! What do you think? Well, this immediately put me on alert, of course, but I found I slipped fairly easily into the story and, except for a number of times, I wasn't sure who was talking, and had to stop a second, I found that I quickly realized that it was moving faster than even Parker! Do I applaud this decision? I'm not quite sure. For this particular novel it worked, but for others? I'm just not ready to say...  But those who go crazy over the missing punctuation not found through editing...you have been warned...LOL

Another thing different was that the author included two discussions at the back of the book. These I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated! They were reprints, but so what, few of us really get to read something directly related to the book we've just finished! So, kudos to the author for this idea! The topics are "anti-heroes" and "genres and nerds" [my own interpretation of the more sophisticated titles...] In fact, you might want to read these before you begin and are faced with the writing style..I think it would have help me a little to not get so unstrung. Obviously this is an author to watch as he stretches his creative genius into the fiction arena...

Shovel Read:

A Spademan Novel

By Adam Sternbergh

This novel crosses genres, perhaps a natural intermix in fact. Lev Grossman concludes one of the discussions with:

Weirdly, I am a crusty old sticker for genre distinctions. I love affixing labels to things, and I bristle like a monstrous Gamma World hedgehog-critic hybrid whenever people talk about the boundaries between genres dissolving. Genre distinctions are exciting! It would suck if they dissolved! It wouldn't be fun to cross two genres--like say postapocalyptic sci-fi and hard-boiled crime, as  in Shovel Ready--if there were no distinctions between them, and all fiction was just undifferentiated mush...

I agree with him and  have enjoyed the cross-genre novels more fully, but still like to differentiate the various genres. Readers can consider how the content has been liberated because of the additional complexity and creativity this has allowed... Don't you think?

The setting of the novel, in my opinion, is perfect. Where else would a post-apocalyptic sci-fi  be more familiar than where the entire world saw what happened on 9-11?

For one thing, Times Square is totally gone.

The population has been reduced by at least half, and most who stayed were too poor to relocate. The dirty bomb that took out the area has left many people still afraid. Those who might want to investigate whether anything is still usable normally carry a Geiger counter.

Parks are filled with camps where the homeless live and are now hassle-free since the cops do little to monitor safety...  That's mainly because of what has happened to the rich...

If you're a Star Trek fan, and have enjoyed the shows with holographic scenes were part of the story, then you will understand what I mean by saying that the rich have gone to "bed..." Not quite like the writers of Star Trek did it, though... In the future, after New York has been destroyed, the rich headed to the tops of the highest buildings and there they spend much of their time, entering into various holographic scenes, of their own choosing, in which they fantasize their days...and lives...away. Of course, they have nurses and other staff persons to help keep them clean, fed...and safe... The latter, however, is not as secure as supposed... Hackers still have to make a living in the future, right?

Enter Spademan...

My name is Spademan.

I'm a garbageman.

--this fucter

I don't care.

Don't you want--

Just a name.

I have his address.

Great.

See this fucker--

I said don't.

Okay.

The less I know, etcetera.

How much?

What I said. To the account I mentioned.

And how will I--

You won't hear from me again.

But how do I--

The dead guy. That's how.

Remember some of the films where Charles Bronson became a vigilante? Well, he was the first one I thought of that would have made a perfect Spademan. He had lost his wife during the bombings in New York...

He had also lost his job since there was little if any garbage to be collected in the following days. He had one thing left from his previous life...a special kind of knife...one he'd use on the job and had carried it with him until one day he opened one of the bags that had been tossed, with a live but dying baby in it...as garbage...

It wasn't that he set out to become an assassin, but now that he was in the business, he had set down the rules for himself--he didn't want to know any names, except the one to be "handled" and he demanded all money up front, transferred before it happened. No followup connection.

 I don't want to know your reason. If he owes you or he beat you or she swindled you or he got the promotion you wanted or you want to fuck his wife or she fucked your man or you bumped into each other on the subway and he didn't say sorry, I don't care. I'm not your Father Confessor.
Think of me more like a bullet.
Just point...

It might sound hard but it's all too easy now. This isn't the same city anymore. Half-asleep and half-emptied out, especially this time of morning. Light up over the Hudson. The cobblestones. At least I have it mostly to myself...

Used to be you'd see men with dogs. This was the hour for that. But there are no dogs anymore, of course, not in this city, and even if you had one, you'd never walk it, not in public, because it would be worth a million dollars and you'd be gutted once you got around the corner and out of sight of your trusty doorman and your own front door...
Now it's just nurses, and doormen and feed-bad delivery boys out at this hour. Tireless members of the service economy.
Like me...

~~~

So it turns out my Persephone has a
reputation. Everyone knows someone
who knows. The people who got too
close to her usually have some
memento. Something permanent,
in the process of healing.
~~~

Enter Persephone...

That was the name now being used by Grace Chastity Harrow... Yes, she's a relative of T. K. Harrow. The evangelist...

Spademan had verified that because famous people drew attention and it was a different rate for the job... He understood that Persephone was now living in one of the camps... but a surprise was there when Spademan... She had used a knife to cut up some of the residents... Yikes!

Spademan starts interviewing anybody who was willing to talk, but then, not too many were willing these days...

So, of course, by the time he finds her, he invites her home to his apartment.  You see, there was a line he wouldn't cross in his business... He would not harm children... Persephone was pregnant...

Now at least in New York, the Garbagemen are sources of important information...so the Spademan made a few calls... And, by the way, a little later readers will discover that they also have access to the incinerators... You know, clean up after yourself at the finish of the job?

Back to the holograph action... and here's where it gets downright eerie... T. K. Harrow and his business associates are all into it! If there's a slight waver of his body as he walks on stage, if you care, you would immediately know it was a holographic image. Now, I would go into specifics about how I consider potential individuals to play a certain role in a book but when this guy popped up, I admit he seemed a very good fit... Because, got to share, that while a holographic image is conducting his revival, the real T. K. is in bed, like the other rich men, and enjoying a fantasy...perhaps even the one he's trying to sell to his followers...

You see, he sells heaven on earth...Why wait?

So here's where the fantasy scifi gets exciting...Because action starts happening within the "tapped in" dreamlands... Cool, right?

Street-corner church service. Soap box preacher. Big crowd. More popular in these end times.

One of the more interesting characters I haven't mentioned is Mark, who appears to be struggling with exactly what he believes. But one thing is for sure, he's into "tapping in" so much so that he gets involved with helping solving the problem and thinks nothing about springing wings during his bed "fantasies...

Set Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retreat from him, that he may be struck down and die.

Mark paused the story.
So I've been teaching this passage a lot lately to my kids, my students. At first, I taught it the way that I learned it in Bible school. Not as a story of lust, or of corruption, but of temptation. You know, how God puts temptation in front of you. He allows you to feel your own weakness. To confront it just as Christ did here on Earth. Satan laid out the whole world to Christ, promised it to him, if only he'd bend a knee to Satan. And he felt it. Christ. He was tempted. But he didn't succumb. And we feel it too. Whether it's the apple in Eden. Or the desire to look back over your shoulder and watch Sodom crumble. Or spotting the most beautiful woman in Israel, bathing naked on a rooftop. I'm sure you have some secret temptation. Some secret shame...

Whoops, I would not think that it the teaching behind the David and Bathsheba story. And, indeed Mark found that out and quickly learns its real meaning...

And do you know what happens when the Lord is displeased with you?

No.

You end up in New York, outside a library, begging some stranger to put you in the ground...

Okay, the novel might two genres, but there are many more different issues in this book that will smack readers in the face, maybe even more than it did Spademan! But he had made a promise to himself and then to Persephone... Spademan was going to protect her unborn child...

I reallllly enjoyed meeting Spademan! And I'm looking forward to its sequel. What about all the religious issues in the book, you may ask? Well, in my opinion, if you can't test your own beliefs by reading of somebody's either nonfiction or fictional beliefs, then, that is a problem for yourself, don't you think...not the writer's...

Still, I think I would have like to read a few, "Mark said," or "Spademan said," to salvage my prideful years of knowing proper punctuation, especially with dialogue in fiction! LOL! Hey, Kudos to Adam Sternbergh, he has truly stretched the limits and boundaries in his Debut... Wonder what he'll be writing about say, in 3 years... Better watch and learn--he may be the new fiction guru for all future novels... OMG! LOL

If you're willing, I do highly recommend this novel and this author!

GABixlerReviews

The Last Infection by Michael Garza May Become Addictive...Have you been Infected?

I think Zombies have been around forever and there are always fans, aren't there...but...once you've seen one zombie, or a group, is there more to be said about them? I didn't think so, until Michael Garza sent me his latest...

The Last Infection began as I expected...but before long I was become more and more interested. Why do we love to experience fear vicariously? And yet, Garza presents us with more than fear...

The main thing that Garza adds are the characters who are running for their lives. Even while they are running, their personal life issues do not disappear and that's what pulls readers in... The hope that there will be some to escape the terrible apocalyptic...

Last Infection

By Michael W. Garza

It had started out just like AIDS and other world-wide infections... sometimes passed on through used needles...not something that resulted in death for those who were infected... No, this became

worse... They didn't die, but they acquired the same taste as those
who died--the need for blood to keep them alive!

The infected were treated,  and others were placed in isolation, but no matter what, those who were helping them, even wearing masks didn't stop the spread..

But there was something different about those who had become infected, they were still in fairly decent shape and could move faster... If you watched their eyes, you saw some sign of life... and they could think... slowly, they began to evolve, adapt and communicate with each other... Worse, they had started to round up Zombies! What d they plan to do with them? 

It happened much faster than any other plague; people died as soon as it reached an area and cities were empty, vehicles abandoned. If anybody was still alive, you would see them at the top of hi-rise buildings, having used equipment to block off the lower floors...

The infected had an awful look about
them and they made unnatural
lurching motions with their
arms that scared the heck out of him.
 He hoped they would give up...
~~~

Most everybody was gone now...If you were still alive and uninfected, you were being hunted... Jake and Alicen had always fought alot, over nothing and anything... Jake was the only one to help Alicen stay alive... They were now on their own, their parents had lost their lives as they tried to escape... Jake was now all that kept them from dying as well...

The news had called the growing mobs, the infected. Alicen and Jake heard terrible things from school and their friends. Some called the infected, vampires, because they wanted blood. Others called them biters because they chewed through your skin. Jake didn't know what to think. He only wished that he hadn't heard all the stories that were stuck in his head. "Don't let them get me," Alicen whispered. 
"I want mama," Alicen said. "Hold on ," Jake said. "I told you we have to hide first." He spoke so low, he had to move his lips against her ears before she could hear him. "Please stay quiet." There was nothing in Jake's twelve years that prepared him for what was happening. He'd spent the last few weeks terrified, held up in his family home as his parent's tried to figure out what to do. The man on the news promised that they'd find a cure and this would all be over soon. That was three weeks ago. A few days later, the news and every other channel went black. 

~~~

He swore under his breath. He'd let down his guard and fell asleep in what was a sporting goods store before the infection. The mistake left him trapped with only one way out into the rest of the mall. The quad outside the entryway was crawling with a group of infected. He'd counted two dozen, but more were coming. Their quick twitching movements identified their infliction at once.
                                                 ~~~

Chris becomes the lead character in the story. But no way did he want the role. He had made it through a major detox on his own and now he wanted to live and that required him being on his own...He had been living on his own, and able to stay alive, but he was being pulled in to help with the children--by a woman who just would not accept "no..." 

A gunshot was easy to recognize and these days, someone had to be in real trouble to waste the round. Chris froze and waited for the echo to clear. He closed his eyes and turned in the direction of a new sound. His eyes sprang open and he ran towards the side of the building. The sound of voices, now screaming, guiding him and as he neared the front of the building, he made them out. “Get behind me,” a distinctively feminine voice cried. There was another gunshot as Chris reached the corner of the building. “Here they come, get ready.” Chris peeked out onto a parking lot in front of the store and found the woman behind the voice almost immediately . She raised a handgun and fired...
                                                                         ~~~

He had seen the two kids before but they had turned away from him. Now some woman was trying to protect them! The feeling of guilt swirled inside of Chris, eating away at him until he called out, “Come on,” Chris yelled. “Follow me.” From then on, whether he wanted it or not, Chris was the leader...working to get them all to safety. Where would that be? Well, Jake knew of an island... Catalina...

They had barely started on their way when they came up against a barricade...and were facing a different type of danger. A group of survivalist had so far been lucky. They had been living far in the woods and had not been infected. But now they were trying to keep it that way and they captured anybody who was not now ill. They quickly separated Chris and Jake and took the two females...they would become wives for two of the most loyal members!

But did they really think they would be free of those out there hunting...for blood?! Soon, the infected were coming and, much slower, zombies were following!

 At times through their journey, Chris' small group was able to join with others and, on the way, Jenn wanted to try to find her mother and father... Living and escape items, food, bandages, water...and gas for the latest confiscated  vehicle each brought a fight...with somebody... and, always, the zombies were coming up from behind...

And when they had made it to the building where Jenn's parents were supposed to be and climbed to the top floors, as hostages of those inside, they were already surrounded and the infected soon were working to get into the building... while Jenn, who had found only her father alive, Chris, Jake, and Alicen, joined with a few others, were moving on via a different route...

But would anybody really escape?

You know who you are, don't you... Zombie enthusiasts are bound to get extra thrills as new combatants join the war against the few humans still not infected... Will any escape? Or is it really the final ending of the world? 

Michael Garza has gone well beyond the pure chase scenes in most zombie fiascos...If you enjoy bloody gore and freaky dead humans...do check out The Last Infection. While it's not my kind of thing, I believe Garza has done much to add depth, diverse, and character issues into the zombie savagery... What more could you want? LOL



GABixlerReviews

Michael W. Garza often finds himself wondering where his inspiration will come from next and in what form his imagination will bring it to life. The outcomes regularly surprise him and it's always his ambition to amaze those curious enough to follow him and take in those results. He encourages readers to peek at his latest work as well as the material he's published in the past. He sincerely hopes that everyone will find something that astonishes, surprises, or simply scares the heck out of you.

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• Book Review: The Hand That Feeds by Michael Garza
• Michael Garza's The Hand That Feeds Holds Readers in Suspense as Zombies Roam!

Red Flood by Nocomus Columbus So Good We're Already Asking For More...

Grand Falls of the Little Colorado River is courtesy http://www.tripadvisor.com

“Where are we?” Moses asked.                        

“The Badlands,” his father replied.                   

Even though he was just a child, Moses knew about The Badlands.   Everyone knew about them.   Moses’ teacher taught about The Great War, and what happened when it ended.   

After the Rebel terrorist’s treacherous victory at The Battle of Flagstaff, the U.S. government relinquished control of the southwest giving complete autonomy to the resistance forces in return for a cease-fire.   New borders were created.   Both parties agreed to designate a vast piece of land that served as a demilitarized border, meaning neither the U.S. nor the rebels could occupy the territory.   Not long after the cease-fire, that piece of deserted land got a name.   Moses had heard The Badlands was lawless, inhabited by drug smugglers and armed gangs.   Even worse, were stories about The Raiders, who attacked villages along the border in the middle of the night killing everyone, doing terrible things with their victim’s bodies.   Thinking about it made him shutter. 

~~~

Red Flood

By Nocomus Columbus

Columbus begins his latest offering with an intriguing prologue... A couple, out in the Wilderness, have just welcomed a son. But there is someone outside and the father is forced to leave the mother alone... 

So he can escape, taking their son to safety. He then leaves him with his own mother and moves on to support the Rebels--the only group now  working against the government.

I have found that in reading Columbus, you will need to delve into his words and envision what he's presenting. Perhaps you are not always successful when it moves deep into his story thoughts, but he works hard to make sure we interpret what he has to say. Nocomus has created many diverse shorts that will take you through a gamut of emotion--always emotion...

This is a first of what another reviewer said could be an apocalyptic novel--maybe. I am always intrigued by all of the different stories that can be labeled under this genre and how many people actually think about that time. Interestingly, the topic has never struck me as important, even if I enjoy watching and reading about others' thoughts. My own experience with the Y2k projections, for instance, seemed just silly, but meant a lot of work, LOL...

While the Prologue entices, the way the book ends is even more thought-provoking: 

The End of Innocence...

Prophetically perhaps, the boy is named Moses and we watch a little as he goes to school, then joins a ball team. One day, however, Moses noticed a strange man there seeming to watch him. And when he got up to bat and knocked it out of the field, the strange man came and asked who had taught him to hit like that. Fortunately, his grandmother was there that day, as she always was, and hurried to get Moses and leave...

But when next Moses came home from school, he found his grandmother, near death. She whispered his final instructions and said that his father would be there to take him with him. Moses had thought both of his parents were dead and, although his grandmother had been dark-skinned, he was still somewhat surprised when his father, too, was dark-skinned... They didn't take time to discuss anything though and were soon on their way, with another man driving. Moses was forced to hide in the back of the truck, but then, when they thought their followers had gone, he poked his head up and was seen in the side window!

They escaped but with the loss of their driver and truck, so they started walking, Alwan, Moses' father had fought against the Rebels, but that was exactly where they were headed now--hopefully so Moses would be safe. He was different in a way that even Moses didn't realize... Alwan had been shot, and although Moses surprisingly helped his take the bullet out, he was still weak and could not afford to sleep while they traveled.

During their trip, Moses had asked to learn about living like his father had--finding fresh water, learning to track...
having time to bond... Luckily they found an old cabin in the woods and were able to have a roof over their heads for the night. Soon Alwan left to tried to find food, warning Moses to keep hidden until he returned...

But the time was moving slowly and when he heard noises, it wasn't his father...

No wonder readers are requesting more! This could turn into a novella or novel, easily, if that's where Columbus is heading... I, too, am looking forward to seeing what happens!

Moses was beginning to worry.  He went through every star he knew,  and then he did it again.  His father had been gone much longer than normal.  The night was unusually cold, and the fire was starting to die.    Moses covered himself with the blanket.   “Where is he?” Moses wondered.   He looked around, but it was too dark for him  to see anything outside the light of the fire.   

So he sat, and decided to count stars again.   “Ugh,” Moses said aloud.   The boy heard a noise from behind.   

He looked over his shoulder.  The noise got louder.   It was the sound of someone walking.  “Dad?” Moses asked.   

       “Daddy’s home!” a strange voice called back.    Moses jumped up and turned around.    He tripped, nearly falling into the fire.   The footsteps he had heard didn’t belong to one man.    It was three men that he had heard walking. 

       The strangers stood next to each other  on the edge of the campfire’s light.  

                       ~~~  

I'm curious to see how much more this story will run... The author has taken some major steps to fill in on scene, characterization, dialogue, etc... It could be a move forward for this young author I've been watching from the beginning...Go Nocomus! Keep up the solid work, get some help on your proofreading, but...just keep writing!

GABixlerReviews             

Biography

I was born in the home of The King, raised in the Northern part of Clinton's state. I fought a war in Eve's garden and as of right now, I live under a large, metal arch. My profession has me working for The Man, but my passion is to write, however painful it is to read. Thank you for your time