http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/bdtv/Player.php?id=2527
Okay, so you’ve got a zombie movie, starring Cuba Gooding Jr., Ron “The Man” Perlman, and Henry Rollins as a friggin’ priest? That has classic written all over it. Ron Perlman is the high mackdaddy of all monster movies. Anything with Ron Perlman in it is already cool. Add Henry Rollins, and I’m down with this one.
I’ve been out of the store since right before Christmas. I’m now officially an unemployed writer guy.
I’ve been working on the novelization of Mr. Nightcrawler. It has been coming along really well. I can honestly say that this is as good or better than anything I’ve ever written. My co-writer, Mike, has about six months before he has to ship off to EOD school, so we’re on a tight schedule, but we will make it. I’ll be farming this out to publishers about the same time MHI hits the shelves, so hopefully getting a thriller published will prove easier than the epic adventure getting MHI published was.
Other than writing all day, I’ve been playing videogames. My family got me Fallout 3 and Gears of War 2 for Christmas.
Gears is just like the first one with some extra stuff added. The multiplayer is awesome, and Horde is amazingly fun. My only complaints about Gears 2 is the writing. Sometimes it is painful, but I’m just being whiny. The action is awesome, just sometimes I would like a little better dialog than the high-school football team stuff that we get from Delta Squad.
That, and as I play this game, I’ve got to ask, why the hell did humanity land on this awful planet? Did we run out of gas? Let’s see, you’ve got sky piranhas, giant super fish, killer dinosaurs, mega-worms, giant spiders, the locust horde, razor hail, and now the glowing oil stuff makes mutant zombies. Hell, that sounds like where I’d want to settle down. As I was playing through on co-op, I kept saying, “Man, this planet totally sucks!” Sera makes Dune seem like a pleasant vacation spot.
Fallout 3 is simply amazing. If you’ve played Oblivion, it is very similiar only with a Mad Max vibe. It sucks you in. As I play it, my family actually sits around and watches as the story unfolds, because it is like taking part in a movie. What an epic game.
After video games, there’s always bad movies. I’ve been watching a bunch of my typical B movie fare. Last night was Danish vampires in Nattens Engel. Which is Angel of Night in English. Holy crap, this movie was bad. But every once in awhile it was so bad it had moments of awsome. The story didn’t make a lick of sense, and you literally despise every character in it, but their badness made it somehow entertaining. Yay Denmark! http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138647/
But the vacation can’t last forever. I’ve applied for a couple of accounting jobs. Working 40 hours a week like a normal person is still kind of a vacation.
2008 was an interesting, fun, and in some ways, idiotic year. So let’s recap.
WORLD NEWS
As usual, most of the world sucked and was run by morons. In 2008, Angry Muslim Terrorists blew stuff up, and we blew up Angry Muslim Terrorists, while people who should know better whined about violence and George Bush. Having finally killed enough Angry Muslim Terrorists, the war in Iraq was pretty much won, but you probably didn’t see that on the news. I caught a few minutes about that in between coverage about how awesome Obama was.
Then some dude threw his shoes at the President. Apparently throwing shoes is some sort of really big insult in backwards nations that enjoy a high percentage of man/goat relationships. I was disappointed that the Secret Service didn’t immediately chainsaw bayonet the guy into lunchmeat.
China held the Olympics. Despite China’s clear wins in games like Dissident Executing, America still kicked ass, led by weredolphin Michael Phelp’s fifty-seven gold medals.
In European news, Russia was so terribly offended by the new Indiana Jones movie, that dared to portray them as bad guys, that they promptly retaliated by steamrolling Georgia into rubble. Europe, being run by a bunch of socialist wimps, was too busy having giant parties celebrating the upcoming election of Barack Obama as Rock Super Star of the EU to actually do anything. Besides, Europe doesn’t actually have militaries anymore, since those cost money that could otherwise be spent on programs to provide free cocaine to hookers in Amsterdam.
In other world news, the world economic system, which was entirely based on giving home loans to hookers in Amsterdam, also collapsed.
US NEWS
In a historic election, proving how unbigoted we are, and how we’ve put America’s shameful history of racism behind us, we elected the first communist as president. This historic achievement occurred during the Great Presidential Crusade of 2006-2008, when the entire US news industry became the Office of Democratic Truth and Enlightenment. Under such auspicious reporting during the primaries we were able to choose between a communist and Satan’s concubine on the Democrat side, and on the Republican side we got to choose between several democrats and a Reptoid from the Hollow Earth, i.e. America’s Mayor. When all was said and done, the democrats went with the communist and we ran a sock puppet.
We are so boned.
A sad aftereffect of the Great Presidential Crusade by the Office of Democratic Truth and Enlightenment was that they managed to destroy the US economy. Now I know you’re saying, wait a minute, Correia, “That’s going too far. The economy was destroyed by lending money to idiots (as was mandated by congressional democrats) who couldn’t pay it off and then loaning more idiots money on those loans while we were paying oil sheiks $5 a gallon because we’re too stupid to tap our own resources.”
And I would have to agree with you except for one thing. The economy runs on good feelings. No, seriously. If people feel upbeat, they continue to invest and spend. If people are freaked out, they hunker down. When everybody hunkers down and quits spending money, then people start to lose their jobs. With Iraq wrapped up, the media needed something to bitch about to get their guy elected, so they picked the economy. 24/7 we got to hear about how we were suddenly in the Great Depression. They just pushed and pushed and pushed, even when the vast majority of people were doing just fine.
So then it all spiraled out of their control, and now we’re hosed. True, we’re not even doing as bad as we were doing in the early 1980s, but that doesn’t matter. This kind of thing is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The economy is based on good feelings, (it sure as heck isn’t based on anything that makes sense) and the good feelings were destroyed out of political expediency and propaganda. Thanks a lot, idiots.
LOCAL NEWS
In 2008 I released a little Print-On-Demand book that managed to turn into a hit. Baen Books purchased the rights to Monster Hunter International, and now I’m eagerly awaiting the Summer 2009 release.
I quit my job and sold my shares to my partners. I spent the last few years working like crazy to turn FBMG into a great business. I’m really proud of what I did there, but working as many hours as I was, made it so that I had no time to write, and besides that, I was turning into that dad. You know, the one that never ever sees or does anything with his kids, and after years of working 80 hours a week, he comes home and finds them all grown up. Yeah, I was turning into that guy, and I really didn’t want to do that.
So now I’m a semi-unemployed writer guy. If anybody needs an accountant/manager, shoot me an e-mail and I’ll send you my resume. I’ve actually got a pretty darn good skill set.
As much as I loved running my own business, I really look forward to working 40 hours a week like a normal person, but in the meantime, I’m going to be blissfully unemployed and enjoy the vacation. I’ve got a little savings in the bank and a bunch of books to write.
Happy New Year!
I’ve noticed a trend. Richard Paul Evans wrote The Christmas Box and The Christmas Letters. Then there was the Christmas Jars by Jason Wright. Now we’ve got the Christmas Sweater by Glenn Beck. Notice anything? All best-selling novels. All written by Mormons!
So as a novelist and a Mormon, I too am entitled to write a best-selling Christmas novel. Now I’m a slightly different type of novelist than the gentlemen above, so I’m not sure how this is going to work out. So I am proud to present to you, gentle reader, excerpts from the upcoming, as of yet untitled, Larry Correia Christmas novel project: THE CHRISTMAS (insert noun here).
I will, of course, come up with whatever the noun is as I go along. I’m thinking cookies. Or maybe a tree… or something. Inevitably however, everything I write seems to turn back into rampaging monsters or terrorist plots. Go figure. So here are some excerpts from my rough draft of THE CHRISTMAS NOUN:
***
From Page 2 Prologue Flashback sequence: “Well, I’m really sorry about Christmas being so tough this year, little Timmy. After your father was crushed to death cutting down that Christmas tree, and your mother lost both of her hands at the candy cane factory, and your brother died from that rare mistletoe allergy, and…”
“That’s okay, Grampa. I understand. I’m eight years old. I’m sure this will be the best Christmas ever!” Little Timmy said, just knowing that he was going to get that limited-edition Millenium Falcon he had always wanted.
Grampa paused to wipe the tears from his good eye. He had recently lost his other eye in a freak reindeer accident. “Well, here’s your present, Timmy,” he said, pushing the wrapped package forward…
Young Timmy ripped it open. It was a rock. “But, Grampa. It’s a rock,” he said sadly. “Where the hell’s my Millennium-Falcon? You could have at least got me the Optimus Prime with laser ax and eyeball cannon!”
“It’s all we could afford, Timmy. I’m sorry. Just remember that Santa Claus still loves you. Just not this year. Because we’re poor.”
Timmy looked out the window to where the neighbor kids were playing with their new ponies or flying around on rocket sleds. “You suck Grampa! Christmas killed my entire family, and I still get a friggin’ rock. I hate Christmas FOREVER!”
Grampa raised his fists to the sky and theatrically shouted, “NOOOOOOOO!” kind of like Darth Vader at the end of the last Star Wars movie, but without so much reverb. Then he died.
***
From Chapter 1.
Young Timmy grew up until his friends just called him Tim. But he was a bitter young man, who had sworn a blood vendetta against the spirit of Christmas. One year Tim got a job as a mall Santa as a condition of his parole.
On Christmas Eve morning, Tim was working at the mall, when he happened to bump into Sally Love-Interest.
“Well, hello, Tim,” said Sally. “Do you have any plans for Christmas Eve?”
“No, Sally,” said Tim sadly. “I figure that I’m going to loaf around my slum apartment, shoot rats with my .22, then drink Thunderbird until I pass out in a pool of my own vomit. If I’m lucky I might live through the night. How about you?”
“Well, I’m going to the protest. Industrialist-billionaire-Republican-capitalist Chuck McScrouge is trying to bulldoze the Orphanage/Old Folk’s Home/Teddy Bear Hospital and evict all of those orphans, old people, and teddy bears… on Christmas Eve!”
Tim shrugged. “Whatever.”
***
From Chapter 2.
Tim’s Mom was really glad to see him when he came to visit her at the Orphanage/Old Folk’s Home/Teddy Bear Hospital. “Oh, Tim. I’m so glad you could come.” She waved at him with her stainless-steel hook limbs. Tim noted that she had gotten into the season by painting them with red and white stripes, like pointy stainless-steel candy cane hands. “You look so handsome in your Santa suit!”
“Hey, Mom. I hear Mr. McScrouge is going to bulldoze this place today. You and all of the old folks will probably freeze to death or something I guess.”
“Oh, no. I believe in the miracle of the Christmas (Noun),” she said.
“The Christmas (Noun)? Well that just sounds stupid.”
“No stupider than Jars, Letters, Boxes, or Sweaters, and look how many books those sold!” his mother admonished him.
***
From Chapter 3.
“Bwa Ha Ha Ha Ha!” Mr. McScrouge laughed with the laugh that only industrialist billionaires can produce. “Foolish Sally Love-Interest. You really think that your feeble protest can stop my fleet of bulldozers?”
“You’ll never get past the Christmas (Noun)!” Sally shouted from across the picket line. “Because it represents goodness, redemption, forgiveness, and puppies!”
“I’ve bulldozed a leper colony, three hundred acres of old growth forest, a spotted owl habitat, and a homeless shelter before breakfast.” Mr. McScrouge said around his Cuban cigar. “Your orphanage/old folk’s home/teddy bear hospital is next.”
“Never, Mr. McScrouge!”
He held up his hand. “It’s pronounced Screw – Jay. It’s French.”
“Oh, sorry.”
***
From Chapter 5.
Tim ran into the room, his fake white beard twirling dangerously above his padded belly. “Wait! Where did that old book go?”
Sally looked up from Tim’s Grandfather’s chest of secret Christmas memories. “You mean that big ancient scary one bound in what looked like human skin and inked in blood? I gave it to those carolers.”
“That was Grandpa’s book of forbidden mysteries and Cthulu summoning!” Tim shouted. “He had it buried under the town nativity scene. When those atheists burned it, they freed the book!”
Sally was embarrassed. “Oh, I thought it was ancient Summarian Christmas carols.”
“The only song in that book is the song that ends the world. It will rip open an unspeakable hole in the fabric of space and time and turn everyone into zombies. Which way did they go?”
“They were going to sing to the old folk’s home,” Sally said. Tim spun and ran from the room. “Wait, where are you going?”
“To get my shotgun!”
***
From Chapter 7.
BOOM
Tim used his Santa hat to wipe the gore from his face. “Man… who would have thought that old people still contained that much blood! They look so dried out, but it’s like they’re pressurized or something…”
“Tim!” Sally screamed. “The portal is getting bigger. Something is coming through! Something big and evil!”
There was a scream of incomprehensible terror from the portal to hell. “HO HO HO” Then a sleigh made of bone and chaos exploded into our world in a flash of fire and a stink of corruption, pulled by eight tiny Hell-Deer, being whipped onward by a horned demon in a jolly red suit wielding a cat-o-nine tails made of Christmas lights and barbed wire.
“On Stalin! On Hitler! On Sodom and Fred!” shouted the demon at its hell-deer. “On Carrot-Top! On O.J. Simpson! On Rosanne Barr! Move your lazy ass, Ted Kennedy! Ho Ho Ho!” His belly shook like a bowl full of jelly. Poison jelly-fish that is!
“Santa?” Sally asked stupidly, as Sally was actually pretty dim-witted, but she was really easy on the eyes.
“No,” Tim said as he pumped another 12 gauge slug into the chamber. “It’s the Anti-Clause.”
“I’m checking my list, and checking it twice, and now I’m going to swallow your souls,” bellowed the Anti-Clause.
“Not if the Christmas (Noun) and my Black Tiger Style Kung-Fu can help it!” Tim shouted.
***
From Chapter 8.
The last of the zombies burst into flames and collapsed around the mall.
Tim slowly lowered the dripping chainsaw. “I think we did it!” he shouted. “We saved Christmas.”
“What!?” Sally shouted.
“Oh, yeah.” Tim shut off the chainsaw. “Sorry about that.”
“I love you, Tim,” said Sally as she kissed him passionately. At the beginning of the book she had looked kind of nerdy, and had been wearing glasses and had her hair in a bun, but by the end she was just in a torn tank-top and was looking pretty hot, in classic B-movie tradition. “Especially now that you have the spirit of Christmas and stuff.”
“I couldn’t have done it without the Christmas (Noun) and that extended dream sequence from the last chapter.”
Then it snowed. And the orphans, old folks, teddy bears, and special guest star Hulk Hogan had the happiest Christmas ever. Cthulu was displeased.
THE END
(Note to people who actually read books, the above is satire. No. Not the little guys with the goat legs… Satire. There is actually no Christmas novel in the works. Do not let the strangeness you just read dissuade you from purchasing my actual (not sucky) novel, Monster Hunter International, available now on www.amazon.com) http://www.amazon.com/Monster-Hunter-International-Larry-Correia/dp/1439132852/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229922500&sr=8-1
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Update: There is a new Christmas Noun post in 2009: http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/the-christmas-noun-2-the-nounening/
I’ve never promoted a restaurant before, but I totally have to talk up Sushi Ya.
Okay, now when somebody tells you that you’re going out to dinner after the Glenn Beck Christmas show to all-you-can-eat sushi, you don’t imagine it is going to be very good. All you can eat sushi usually sucks.
Plus this was all you can eat sushi, for only $20 for dinner. Which if you eat much sushi, (which I do) then you also know that’s dang cheap. So I really wasn’t expecting much.
I’ve eaten sushi in about six different states now, in restaurants overlooking the ocean owned by 15th generation samurai sushi-warriors. My sushi standards are pretty tough. Seriously, I’ve eaten at some good places, and even places that are near the top of the Zagat survey, and some trendy places that are super popular but have mediocre food. If it is raw, and out of the ocean, I’ve probably eaten one. Remember Devil Fish from Mystery Science Theater? Awesome on crackers. The monsters from Humanoids from the Deep? Taste like yellow-tail.
But Sushi Ya was awesome. Everything was rolled fresh as you ordered. For $20 I was able to eat amazing sushi until I couldn’t walk. This stuff was excellent. Seriously, it was far better than the expensive trendy places around Utah, and taste wise, rivaled the fancy food-snob places I’ve eaten.
Mrs. Correia is not a fan of seaweed. It usually makes her puke. But she loved Sushi Ya.
They’ve got traditional sushi on the A and B sections, and the C section is a bunch of weird custom creations. The stuff from C was mind blowing. The owner came out and suggested his personal favorites. They were the best rolls I’ve ever had.
Sushi Ya
2440 Fort Union Blvd.
Salt Lake City, UT 84121
(801) 944-3933
Go check it out. Please, keep these guys in business. I’ve got a new favorite place to eat. Service was great too.