![]() As with COOTERS, we’re taking them out on the festival circuit.įirst one out of the chute will be MARY-MARGARET ROAD GRADER. Some of you - the lucky ones - will get a chance to see them this year, at a film festival near you. He wrote so many, it was hard to know where to start, but start we did, and I am pleased to say that we have three more Waldrop movies filmed and in the can, in various stages of post production. Only the first of a series of short films - and one full-length feature, we hope - we have been making, based on some of Howard’s astonishing, and unique, stories. Scripted by Joe Lansdale, directed and starring Vincent d’Onofrio, produced by the sfx wizards at Trioscope, it spent most of the year on the festival circuit, screening at the Atlanta Film Festival, the Dubuque Film Festival, FilmQuest in Provo, Utah, the New York Shorts Film Festival, Midwest WeirdFest in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and the Santa Fe International Film Festival, winning several additional awards along the way.ĬOOTERS was just the beginning, though. NIGHT OF THE COOTERS, an adaptation of his novelette of the same name, debuted at the LA Shorts Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Sci-Fi. ![]() Howard also had a movie out last year… well, actually the year before, but overlapping. If you missed it, you can still grab a copy from SubPress, autographed by me, Brad, and Howard himself. It’s a swell book, if I do say so myself. All of it tied together by a series of interviews done by Brad Denton, wherein H’ard told the stories behind the stories, and how all this came to be. Plus the never-published “Davy Crockett Shoots the Moon,” a story purely in the mode of Howard Waldrop. Howard, science fiction in the mode of Cordwainer Smith, and his earliest pro work, including his first sale, one of the last stories bought by John W. It was a collection of Howard’s earliest work - the stories he wrote for comic book fanzines in the 60s and early 70s, some plays from college, con reports, articles from CRAWDADDY, a sketch he wrote for Red Skelton (Red passed), sword and sorcery in the mode of Robert E. Howard Waldrop had a new book out last year: H’ARD STARTS: THE EARLY WALDROP, from Subterranean Press. Roger would have loved this book, I like to think. Those of you who are already Sleeper fans will be delighted, I think, and as for all the readers out there who have yet to meet Mr. Ye editor is hardly objective, of course, but I have to confess, I have always loved Croyd, and it was great to see him in action again, in tales that spanned the decades, from the Fifties to the present day. Other featured characters will include old favorites like Golden Boy, Oddity, Lazy Dragon, and Ramshead, along with some great new aces and a colorful assortment of jokers and jacks. The stories will be tied together by “Swimmer, Flier, Felon, Spy” from Christopher Rowe, featuring his enigmatic investigator Tesla. “The Boy Who Would Be Croyd,” from Max Gladstone. “The Bloody Eagle,” by Mary Anne Mohanraj, “Party Like It’s 1999,” from Stephen Leigh, “Semiotics of the Strong Man,” by Walter Jon Williams, It is long past time he had a book of his own. He is the ultimate wild card… and our most iconic character. You never know what you are going to get when the Sleeper wakes. ![]() Everyone knows Croyd, and no one really knows Croyd. ![]() Unable to hold a normal job or have a normal relationship, he lives on the margins of society he has been a bodyguard, a thief, a mercenary, a con man, a hero for hire… whatever it takes to survive. Croyd can sleep for days, weeks, even months, but when awake he does all he can to keep sleep at bay. He lives in terror of the day he draws the black queen, and does not wake at all. Other times he wakes as a joker, malformed and hideous. Sometimes he wakes as an ace, with astonishing new superpowers, different every time. ![]() From that day on, Croyd has been continuously reinfected by the virus whenever he sleeps, his body reshaping itself into a myriad of new shapes and forms. In Wild Cards, the Sleeper is Croyd Crenson, who was a high school freshman on his way home from school when the virus was released over Manhattan. In poker, a sleeper straddle is a blind raise, made from a position other than the player “under the gun.” Sleepers are often considered illegal out-of-turn play and are commonly disallowed. And yes, as our long-time readers will no doubt guess, this one features a character who has been around since the first Wild Cards Day (Septemthe day Howard Waldrop was born): the Sleeper, created by the late great Roger Zelazny. Today is the publication day for the newest Wild Cards hardcover from Bantam, the thirty-third volume in the overall series… but no, you do not need to have read the first thirty-two to enjoy this book. Exciting news for all the Wild Cards fans out there. ![]()
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