Richard Long writes to exorcize the demons of his past and manifest the dreams of his future.
His debut novel, The Book of Paul, is a dark, thrilling, and psychologically rich supernatural horror/thriller that blends mythology, science and mystery into a page-turning addiction.
Author Richard Long explains why tarot plays an essential role in the mythology of The Book of Paul.
Big news for all fans of THE BOOK OF PAUL:
Our epic book trailer Kickstarter Campaign is now live!
I’ve put together the Kickstarter video (the hardest part, since I had to look at myself the whole time I was editing), devised some awesome rewards for donors, and finally launched the campaign. Yay! So now, of course I need to spread the word and try to raise $3000 in 30 days, because if you don’t make your goal, you get nada on Kickstarter.
Read MoreWhat actually constitutes a “Thriller”? Adventure? Action? Mystery? Page-turning ratio?
Browse around your local B&N and you might notice that the Horror section has dwindled to one or two bookshelves, while Thrillers and Fantasy novels can fill two or three aisles. It’s clear that the Horror label is considered a minus to marketing mavens in the publishing industry, and yet–the Thriller and fantasy sections are chock full of — horror books!
Hmmm. So what’s the real deal? Join us this Thursday (new day!) at 8pm eastern (same time!) for the Dead End Blog Talk Radio Show Presents: Thrillers! It’s a riveting, spine-tingling, bone-chilling, ________ (insert your own thriller cliche here), look at what makes a Thriller…a Thriller. Below are some of the questions, topics and blood-soaked ground we’ll be covering. Your responses and comments are welcome and encouraged!
I’ve always believed that any good vs. evil tale is only as good as the evil. The best villains are the ones you end up rooting for—the ultimate guilty pleasure. You want them to survive, so you can get another unhealthy dose of evil down the road. Check out the following links for various lists of the top literary villains of all time and the top film villains of all time. I’ve included three lists in each category to point out the overlap of critical consensus. In literary fiction, many of the same names keep popping up. Ditto with the film villains. Which are your favorite villains from each list (or your own write-ins)?
Read MoreI’ve been known to say that I don’t suffer fools gladly, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes I don’t suffer at all. Take these ladies and gentlemen for example. Please. Here’s a Best of Collection” from my Nation of Idiots posts plus some new favorites:
Good kitty!
Read More funny photos, funny pictures, idiots, morons, stupid peopleCome again? Sure, but you have to wait until Easter! Badoomboom! But seriously folks, Thank God It’s Good Friday! Why? What’s so Good about Good Friday? Wellllll…as all those who’ve have read The Book of Paul know, most of the action in the story takes place between Holy Thursday (what’s for dinner? Roast rump!) and Good Friday. And for everyone who hasn’t read The Book of Paul, now it’s on sale for 50% off until roll-away-the-stone day! That’s only $1.99 — the price of a tall Starbucks coffee as opposed to the regular $3.99 grande latte price. Wow! What a deal! Yes, indeed it is. And it’s available only on Amazon http://amzn.to/LJf2nX so tell your friends, family, creditors and rival clan members that they better take advantage of this once-in-a-weekend opportunity, before Paul decides he doesn’t feel quite so generous anymore.
Okay. Now that we’ve made your weekend a whole lot darker by spreading the gospel according to Paul, let’s zero in on that gloomiest of all religious HolyDays–Friday the Good. Being a former altar boy educated by friendly nuns and way-friendlier priests, I’ve been well indoctrinated in the Party Line position of the Church regarding the significance of Good Friday, which can be summed up as: Christ HAD to die to cleanse us all from Original Sin®.
HOWEVER, since we all continue to be born with Original Sin®, and therefore have to be baptized to RE-cleanse ourselves (otherwise we will surely burn in hell for all eternity), I’m still a little cloudy on the “HAD to die” reasoning. Another thing that doesn’t quite add up for me is the whole “on the third day He shall rise again” bit. Admitedly, I’m no math whiz, but if Jesus died at 3:15 in the afternoon of Friday and was out of the tomb at sunrise on Easter, that comes to…wait a sec, let me get my calculator…um…okay, got it: about 39 hours. Hmmmm. Weird, huh?
Read More Blog radio, Easter, Gnostic Gospels, Good Friday, Good Wednesday, Gospel of Mary, Gospel of Philip, Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Truth, Hermes, Hermeticism, Nag Hammadi, Sophia, The Dead End, Women who love PaulI enjoy sex. If there were a like button I’d press it. I like having sex, writing about sex, reading about sex and talking about sex. I like laughing about sex, too. It’s perfect for parody. Case in point — Hollywood movies. Every R-rated (non-splatter/torture porn/horror/war) movie has the obligatory sex scene — or two or three — which typically fall into two categories: the rip-each-other’s-clothes off–bang-against-the-fridge-because you’re so overcome with carnal lust you can’t even make it to the bedroom or a fairly comfortable piece of furniture; or the slow, grinding, warmly-lit, pelvis-thrusting bedroom copulation featuring numerous side-view close-ups of the star’s (or their body double’s) perfectly sculpted asses, pecs, breasts and panting, perspiring faces. Pleasssssse, just give me the cutaway to the equally cliché afterglow scene.
Read More Beeline, Erotica, Fatal Attraction, Glenn Close, Hollywood, John Holmes, Marilyn Chambers, Michael Douglas, Ron Jeremy, sex scenesI was invited to participate in what can best be described as a chain-letter blog hop. Here’s how it works: someone gave me 10 interview questions which I’m going to answer below. Then I passed on the questions on to 5 other authorswho will post their answers on their own blogs next week, and they pass on the questions to 5 more authors and so on and so on until there is some kind of nuclear blog dirty bomb disaster with a half life of 500,000 years.
The very talented author and superior human being, Kate O’Reilley invited me to this bunny blog hop. Here’s a link to her fab blog and quite interesting answers: http://katevsworld.com/2013/02/20/the-next-big-thing-blog-hop/
So without further adon’t, herewith are my pithy (yes, I do write with a lithp) replies:
1: What is the working title of your book?
The Book of Paul. Does that work for you?
2: Where did the idea come from for the book?
The first line of the book is: He practiced smiling. I wanted to explore a character that had been so damaged that he’d completely shut down emotionally. Could someone like that be redeemed by love? Why yes, of course he can! Right? Well, I hope so.
3: What genre does your book come under?
The Book of Paul covers a lot of ground: occult horror, mystery, thriller, crime, dark fantasy and sci-fi⎯with a healthy dose of humor and a sassy sprinkling of erotica.
4: Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
Read More Alphabet City Manhattan, Blog Hop, blog tour, Book of Paul, Chuck Palahniuk, Clive Barker, Kate O''Reilley, New York, Paul, Steven King, The Next Big Thing, Umberto EcoYes, it’s true. I’ve been with a lot of stupid people. And a lot of people have been with me. We’re all capable of idiocy to varying degrees. I suppose the true measure of success in life is to keep the stupid/smart ratio weighted toward the gray matter zone. Am I immune to asshatism? Heck no! Anyone who knows me well can certainly serve up a heaping plate of DUMB when asked to recall something realllllly stupid I’ve done, asked, considered, plotted, acted out, bet on, lost my shirt, still paying the price for, etc. etc. etc. But so what? To be is to do…a bunch of stupid crap that you can never take back again.
Who loves you, baby?
Me. Stupid.
For those who’ve read The Book of Paul, you know that Paul loves to wax philosophical from time to time, especially when he’s trying to convince William to DO HIS DUTY for Clan and King. Billy, our faithful narrator, is highly motivated by Paul’s blackmail threats and promises of power, riches and glory, but his ambivalence continues to infuriate Paul throughout the story. William chronicles their encounters in his journal entries which inform the reader of Paul’s true motives as each layer of the onion is peeled away.
This excerpt below is from one of William’s journal entries, entitled DUST! One of my favorites, it gives Paul the bully pulpit for a sermon about death that should give you some good shivers and plenty to contemplate. It also ends with my favorite Paul quote in the book. SPOILER ALERT: this chapter takes place well after the halfway point of the novel, so if you haven’t read the book and intend to, BE WARNED, there are revelations that will dampen the suspense. But for fans of the book, I’d love to hear your comments on Paul’s provocative monologue. Enjoy!
“DUST!” Paul shouted so loudly I thought the ceiling might crack.
“The Bible says God made Adam out of dust and breathed His life inside him. He made him born to die. All things turn to dust in time, they say. All except a few. My children died so I could live, and earn the wisdom of their sacrifice. Now I’ll pass it on to you. All of us are killers. Each and every one. We live by eating life. Time has robbed us of this knowing. Time and our shame of the truth. We let others do our killing. We pretend goodness is better than hunger. We fear death and the pain that accompanies it. We pretend they don’t exist.”
He paused and looked at me. “There once was a spiritual seeker who found a guru on the mountaintop. He couldn’t believe his good fortune and so he asked the question that had been burning in his heart: ‘Master,’ he asked, ‘What is the greatest mystery in life?’
“The wise man said, ‘The greatest mystery in life is that we see death all around us and we still can’t believe it will ever happen to us.’”
“I can see you found that amusing,” Paul said, smiling back at me, “but here’s a little twist. The wise man wasn’t so wise after all. It’s no mystery why we hide from death. We hide because we fear it. The greatest mystery of life is death. What force engineered this necessity? What is this thing we call ‘food’? We eat life, William. We eat life! And we eat it every single day!”
He stopped for a moment, then walked to the lectern and put his hands on a giant codex. It looked like it might have been made in the fifth century or even earlier. “When this book was made, people didn’t pretend they were above the occasional murder,” he intoned, rubbing the thick leather binding like Aladdin rubbing the genie’s lamp. “They didn’t put their noses up in the air each time someone lost their head. It was all out in the open. People would fill the public squares for a beheading. Torture was a science. An art! The bravest saints would know the rapture that awaited them when their final breath was torn away. There wasn’t the slightest pretense we were any better than that. Now we have marches and rock concerts, and petitions to stop it. And slaughterhouses and food factories that hide it. Wrap it up on a Styrofoam dish. Microwave it. We pretend death is everywhere except here.” Then he got very quiet. I had to strain my ears to listen. “But death is here. Now. In this very room, watching us. And death has many secrets to share.”
I felt the hairs on my neck tickle at my shirt collar. “What secrets?”
Read More Ash Wednesday, Death, lent, Steven Colbert
Am I really as old as that TV set? No. Cute baby, though.
My birthday is Valentine’s Day. It is a good day to be born.
Twice as many kisses; I always say. My brother was born on St. Patrick’s Day, which is odd. Two boys, two saints, both mostly fictionalized. My mom always made a heart-shaped vanilla cake, with vanilla icing and little peppermint hearts trimming the edge. It was delicious. My awesome wife Ariane, who also happens to be an awesome chef and could fix me the ultimate birthday cake using the Magnolia Bakery recipe, but I’m off sugar. Oh well, cupcakes for the kids.
