When you release a new book, you’re supposed to blog about it, right? So that’s what I’m doing. But not in the typical “please buy my book because it’s the greatest thing since auto-reverse cassette players” post. Nah, this time around, I’m just going to chat about what made me decide to write Warlock #1: Autofire Blitz and give some insight into how the character came about.
When I wrapped up The Assassin’s Betrayal, I found myself wanting to write something simpler, shorter, with the emphasis on crazy, over-the-top action. In other words, I wanted to write a Chuck Norris movie. But I wanted it to be splatterpunk gory. My inspiration was the Piccadilly Cowboys, a group of British authors who turned the western genre on its head back in the ‘70s by casting anti-heroes as the protagonists and ramping up the violence to extreme levels. I wanted to be a Piccadilly Cowboy, only in the action genre.
For inspiration, I looked to ‘80s action cinema, the gold standard of “minimal plot, mega-action” entertainment. My primary muse was Commando, mixed with a healthy helping of Rambo. (Some readers have detected a Sin City influence, and while that’s perfectly okay, I’d be lying if I said I thought about that movie even once while writing Warlock.) Simply put, I wanted to create an ‘80s guns ‘n’ guts action flick … but on the written page.
While most action heroes during the Reagan era were righteous, noble warriors, I wanted Damien “Warlock” Locke to be significantly less than a white knight. In my head, Locke is an amalgam of Snake Plissken, Dirty Harry, and Joe Hallenbeck (The Last Boy Scout). Some folks have drawn comparisons to The Executioner, hands-down the most famous action-adventure book series of all time, but truth is, Mack Bolan is a righteous warrior of justice, while Locke is just a smart-mouthed, death-dealing mercenary who sells his lethal skills to whoever can afford his fee (though he is not without his own barebones code that keeps him a sliver above the savages).
As stated above, I wanted this to not only be a violent series, but a graphically violent series. None of this weak, sterilized “the hero fired and the bad guy went down” rated-PG crap. No, I wanted craniums to explode and eyeballs to burst and guts to fly everywhere as bullets ripped apart human bodies. Again, if you’re familiar with the work of the Piccadilly Cowboys, you’ll know what I was gunning for. Warlock was deliberately designed to be ultra-gory and make a lot of splatting noises. If you read Jack Reacher novels and think, “Man, this is some really violent stuff,” then Warlock probably isn’t for you.
In my useless opinion, the modern day men’s action-adventure genre needs more short, punchy novels as well as some good old fashioned guts to go along with all the guns. There was a time when this genre reveled in testosteronic ultraviolence and personally, I would love to see that style of hard-hitting, throat-cutting, brain-blasting action make a comeback. Seriously, “splatter-action” needs to be a thing again.
Can I singlehandedly resurrect the quick-read, graphically-violent action novel? Of course not. But make no mistake, I intend to do my part and even if it never catches on, I’m going to have a blast doing it. A grenade blast, that is … usually after Warlock has rammed it down some bastard’s throat.
Adam Howe writes with pitch-black wit and gulp-worthy violence in “Gator Bait,” a swamp-noir-horror (swampoirror?) set during the 1930s Prohibition. Now, mixing a bayou period piece and horror is no easy task, but Howe pulls it off with aplomb by throwing some “creature feature” dynamics into the steamy stew and cooking up a pulpy recipe for literary success.
A ragtag drifter named Smitty opens the story by losing three fingers to a cuckolded husband. (On a side note, while reading this part, all I could think of was the, “On your finger scale, how was my wife?” scene from The Last Boy Scout. Man, I love that movie! But I digress…) Smitty, sans some digits, gets the eff outta Dodge and ends up in a sleazy backwater dive where the owner, Horace Croker, gives him a job playing the piano. At first Smitty sticks around for the money, but when he gets an eyeful of Grace, his boss’s smoking-hot-and-ready-to-trot wife, he finds another reason to stay. Problem is, Grace is in permanent “hands off” status and Horace has a nasty habit of taking those who piss him off and tossing them to Big George, the massive gator that lives behind—and under—the honky-tonk. You might think you can see where all this is going, but Howe has several twists up his sleeve and leavens the inevitability with some eye-popping surprises.
This novella is chock full of restless energy that prowls like a caged tiger and tight, gripping dialogue. Every facet of the story—plot, characters, setting, action—is skillfully rendered. This is rich, violent, pulpy fun from start to finish and I sported an ear-to-ear grin on my face as I read about all the dastardly doings down at the Grinnin’ Gator.
Bottom line, “Gator Bait” is Joe R. Lansdale chugging moonshine with John Skipp as Tobe Hooper fires up a blowtorch. And if that doesn’t make you want to read this, then nothing will.
