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Harold and Keda

I’m a firm believer that subtext and symbolism are rarely pre-planned and tend to reveal themselves over time, even to the writer. There are elements of these in my stories that others have pointed out to me, and I have to conclude must have gotten there subconsciously. Plot elements arise that I never planned out, but which I’ll happily take credit for.

With that in mind, I am certain that the relationship between Shinichiro Keda and Harold Saldana was sexual.

They were not in love with each other, but they were lovers. I think it began sometime while Keda was doing his Medium training in New York. It would have continued until the event which split them and Keda decided to live full-time in the United States.

Further, I think that Fuhara— Harold’s other protege, who appears briefly in Dead Roots and I never fleshed out the way I had originally intended— entered the picture before Keda left and that they were a threesome for at least a short time.

I think that Keda’s reunion with the both of them in Tokyo, when he delivered Aki, was a tryst behind the fusuba doors, while Tom and Artie drank whiskey, oblivious.

I think that when Keda returned to Harold’s apartment to take Aki away, he used his sexual power over Harold to get his former teacher’s guard down and take the creature for himself.

These are events which I wish in retrospect that I’d explored in the text, but for now they can be considered the real story as of this post.

A few facts about the upcoming Analyst book

Land of Unbelief is underway and should be out late this year, assuming there are no major roadblocks. Here’s what I feel comfortable sharing at the moment.

1. This book will be written so that new readers can jump straight in.
2. Several characters from the previous books will appear.
3. Like in Dead Roots, the antagonist of Land of Unbeliefwill be tied to Tom’s past.
4. Something drastic will happen to Artie.
5. Volumes 2 and 3 did not give enough attention to the use of chems and medications. This one will.
6. I will continue my commitment to writing new LGBT and PoC characters. One of the existing characters will come out.
7. For at least me personally, this will be the most emotionally painful volume to date.

Finally, I’m planning a one-off comic that will lead in to the new book and introduce some of Tom’s new coworkers at the DPSD; it will be drawn by paracoma.
That’s about it for now. More info in the coming months!

Four books I read this year that surprised me

Luther: The Calling (Neil Cross)

 

Somebody on my tumblr feed offhandedly mentioned the BBC crime drama Luther starring Idris Elba. I love Idris Elba, so I went to investigate. I was pulled in by the series' classy, gritty opening sequence featuring Massive Attack:

Research into the series led me to find that the show's creator, Neil Cross, was an award-winning UK crime novelist; and that after the first two seasons of the show aired, he wrote a prequel novel entitled Luther: The Calling, which then won him another award. An award-winning media tie-in novel? I was intrigued, and skeptical. I went to Amazon and picked it up immediately.

A few hours later I was putting it down to take a breath and process some of the truly gruesome imagery, something I don't think a book has ever done to me before. The TV show, while enjoyable, unfortunately didn't live up to the expectations the book left me with, probably a symptom of Neil Cross making the jump from prose to television; nonetheless, highly recommended.

Sideways (Rex Pickett)

I've seen the movie adaptation of Sideways more times than I can count, so I was excited to finally dig into the original book. I was delighted with the narrative and also taken aback by how the two protagonists somehow manage to be even worse individuals in the book than in the film; but most importantly I feel like Sideways is exemplary of a film adaptation which deviates significantly from the source material but still remains tasteful and faithful to the spirit if not the letter of the text. Entire characters and sections are cut in the film, the opening and ending are significantly different, and several key scenes play out very differently. In some instances I preferred the film version and in some the book.

In every case where a change was made, I could recognize clearly how a certain section would be too bloated in the transition to a screenplay. I enjoyed the book's version of events equally as much as the film's and I never felt annoyed at an omission, or that the change undermined the integrity or intention of the narrative. Truly it was a case of trimming fat, streamlining the book to make the jump to a visual medium. I find it difficult to articulate much further so I'll leave with a glowing recommendation for both the book and the film (the film in particular one of my favorites ever), as well as urging you to experience both if you're pursuing a career in writing or film.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Haruki Murakami)

This stands out as the only entry on this list where the surprise came in the form of stark disappointment. I was introduced to Haruki Murakami early this year, and I found in him a new favorite, devouring five of his novels over the course of a few months. My latest purchase from his back catalogue was The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, widely considered to be his best and most sprawling work.

If I would call Kafka on the Shore his least accessible novel of the ones that I've read, Wind-Up Bird is the only one I'd honestly just call... boring. I forced myself through to the finish, never finding that resolution, or at least satisfaction, I'd come to expect from Murakami. Long-winded detours and an absence of much in the way of plot made this an honest-to-goodness slog. I wonder why?

I understand there is a stage adaptation of this book, which I hope I'll one day get to watch, or if nothing else gives me hope for an eventual film; perhaps if the story was presented to me visually I'd find more to connect with and really discover what it was trying to say. Failing that though I really did not enjoy this book at all save for a few scattered parts-- a huge disappointment considering how much I've fallen in love with Murakami's prose. That's my opinion, at least; I'm keen to hear from anyone who has a more positive interpretation of it.

The Night Circus (Erin Morgenstern)

Full disclosure-- I was prepared to hate this book. I'm a wee bit of a snob when it comes to reading so I am often loathe to dive into the fantasy section or read anything that's popular with the YA crowd; this came highly recommended from a friend with a much stronger literary background than me, however, so I begrudgingly put aside my pretensions and gave it a look.

To my shock and delight, something that reminded me a bit too strongly of the "indie steampunk" set at first glance turned out to be quite a delicious and well-paced read. Phantasmagoric imagery, prose that was intricate without being too purple and some overt references to Shakespeare to satisfy my snobby tastes; there was not too much or too little of The Night Circus and I'm quite excited to read Morgenstern's next novel whenever she gets around to releasing it. In spite of myself.

That said, I will never not think 'Erin Morgenstern' is a terrible pseudonym. My apologies.

King of Men now available on Kindle

Praise for DEAD ROOTS and BLOOD MOTHER:

“Genuinely horrifying… I had to put it aside twice due to the vivid picture Wood paints with his words.”

“If you enjoy horror, paranormal themes, or even just want an action novel with masterfully crafted worldbuilding, you owe it to yourself to check this out.”

“Urgent and bleak… the story grabs you by the throat and demands your attention.”

Hours after the conclusion of BLOOD MOTHER, Tom Bell and his companions flee to Japan to exorcise the demonic entity, Aki, once and for all. Power-mad Harold Saldana pursues them with the full weight of the D.P.S.D. and his own vast underground network at his command. Tom must cross enemy territory to reach the remote village of Kurozu before Harold does, and every minute that passes, Keda is losing his grip on the godlike creature inside of him.

Outlawed by his own department, Agent Bell will be forced to forge strange alliances with otherworldly beings, and decide how much of himself he’s willing to compromise to see this perilous mission through to the end; nobody is coming back the same, if they come back at all.

Click here to get King of Men for Amazon Kindle.

I would make Tom Bell black if I wrote Dead Roots tomorrow.

My skin is pretty light. My mother is of European descent but my father was from Birmingham; my entire family on his side is straight up pre-Civil Rights Alabama black. I came out light-skinned and as a result for most of my life I thought of myself as white, though I was still raised to be very conscious of my black heritage.

Over the past year— after the release of Dead Roots but before Blood Mother— I have been reconnecting with my family roots and identifying as a biracial African-American. I tick African-American and white on forms where I’m asked for my ethnicity. I consider myself an author of color. If this is an issue for you, do us both a favor and stop reading— it’s not up for debate.
I had a pretty privileged upbringing, but my father did not, and the emotional impact of growing up the way he did most definitely impacted the environment in my home as a youngster. I did not grow up in a “white” household. However, for much of my life I sort of viewed the world through a white filter, one I’ve had to deprogram myself from since I started dedicating myself to my writing. I viewed white as the default for characters in media. Though this is no longer the case, Thomas Bell and many of the characters in Dead Roots came out of the last days of that mindset, so as a result two of the three main protagonists in my series are white guys.

This is a situation I’m not entirely happy with, as I had the opportunity to go against the grain with a black protagonist and I didn’t take it. By the time I was writing Blood Mother, I was conscious of this and the story started to take shape around the fact that Tom and Artie are straight white guys. Much of the plot in Blood Mother centers around a colony of creole farmers descended from antebellum slaves. Rodham Baker, a black co-worker of Tom’s, is presented as a perceived threat to Tom’s masculinity; Tom projects his insecurities onto Rodham, in a way wants to be him. This is cemented in a scene near the end when Rod becomes a threat to Tom’s romantic life, the subtext intended to shine a light on Tom’s ingrained, unexamined fear of the “black male”.

Though not as emphasized, Artie’s background as a hillbilly from West Virginia is also thrown into focus on a few occasions, with his attitudes towards both race and sexuality. He is not what I would consider hatefully homophobic or racist, but certainly has some hangups that he could stand to have examined; he is portrayed as fearful of gay people and people of color in the sense that he feels like a guilty party. He is fearful of being perceived to have prejudice towards the minority characters in the story.

I guess what I’m getting at is that I’m attempting to make up for propagating the cliche of the white protagonist duo by examining it, and laying my own previous disregard on the table. I’m hoping that by subverting the trope and highlighting the fact that Tom and Artie are a couple of milquetoast guys in a rapidly advancing society, by contrasting Tom’s progressive attitudes against Artie’s ingrained fears, I can retroactively justify making the characters Caucasian.

In this way I expect I would, hypothetically, want Artie to be played by a white actor or portrayed as Caucasian in a comic adaptation; Tom, however, is not so enmeshed in his race as a part of his character that he couldn’t be played by anybody, at least to me. If I were starting the series again tomorrow he’d be definitively black, though as it stands I’m happy for him to be thought of by the reader as black, Asian, latino, or whatever might come to mind—though American-born is non-negotiable, by virtue of his canon background and how it informs his relationship with Shinichiro Keda. Similarly, Margaret is described as white and red-haired, but her personality and background are a blank slate as far as ethnicity is concerned.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that Dead Roots reflects a white-as-default attitude that I found myself surrounded by, having light skin and living in suburban New Zealand for a large chunk of my life; but from the second book and going forward I will be working to remedy that. Thanks for your patience, and sorry for dropping the ball.

King of Men available in September

Praise for DEAD ROOTS and BLOOD MOTHER:

“Genuinely horrifying… I had to put it aside twice due to the vivid picture Wood paints with his words.”

“If you enjoy horror, paranormal themes, or even just want an action novel with masterfully crafted worldbuilding, you owe it to yourself to check this out.”

“Urgent and bleak… the story grabs you by the throat and demands your attention.”

Hours after the conclusion of BLOOD MOTHER, Tom Bell and his companions flee to Japan to exorcise the demonic entity, Aki, once and for all. Power-mad Harold Saldana pursues them with the full weight of the D.P.S.D. and his own vast underground network at his command. Tom must cross enemy territory to reach the remote village of Kurozu before Harold does, and every minute that passes, Keda is losing his grip on the godlike creature inside of him.

Outlawed by his own department, Agent Bell will be forced to forge strange alliances with otherworldly beings, and decide how much of himself he’s willing to compromise to see this perilous mission through to the end; nobody is coming back the same, if they come back at all.

King of Men will launch this September for Kindle and Nook devices as well as paperback.