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Author Archive: jsomers
Jeff Somers (www.jeffreysomers.com) was born in Jersey City, New Jersey and regrets nothing. He is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series published by Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and We Are Not Good People from Pocket Books. He sold his first novel at age 16 to a tiny publisher in California which quickly went out of business and has spent the last two decades assuring potential publishers that this was a coincidence. Jeff publishes a zine called The Inner Swine and has also published a few dozen short stories; his story “Sift, Almost Invisible, Through” appeared in the anthology Crimes by Moonlight, published by Berkley Hardcover and edited by Charlaine Harris. His guitar playing is a plague upon his household and his lovely wife The Duchess is convinced he would wither and die if left to his own devices.
The Long, Dark Teatime of the Soul
Hell is Other People
I’ve never been a huge Facebook fan. I see the point and all , and I know a lot of folks get a lot out of it, but for a misanthrope like me Facebook is just another way to feel smug while ignoring people. Now, for some folks, Facebook serves a real useful purpose in their lives and that’s great. For me, Facebook has become a glimpse into the Horror That Is Other People. As a result, Facebook has also become the least reliable way to communicate with me – though to be fair, the only truly reliable way to communicate with me is to stand directly in front of me and shout at me while at the same time slapping me in the face. You then have a 66% chance of gaining my attention. Or being vomited on. Depends on how drunk I am at the time.
Other ways of communicating with me and their reliability:
- Email: 5%
- Text Message: 0%
- Telephone: 1%
- In-person but At Normal Volume and No Slapping: 10% (50% chance I will later remember this meeting as dancing the waltz with a bear)
- Note wrapped around rock thrown through window: %50 (51% if it hits me)
The Five FaceBook People You Will Meet in Hell
I do, of course, check Facebook from time to time, because I’ve been informed that completely ignoring people on Facebook is a Dick Move. So I have become painfully aware of the distinct personality types you meet on Facebook. Let’s stipulate that one of those personality types is what we’ll call the Normal. The Normal enjoys a bit of social media notoriety, likes to post the occasional picture and chat with people. It’s a broad category which we’ll ignore because it’s essentially boring.
Instead, we’re going to explore the Five People on Facebook You’ll Meet in Hell.
1. The Bragger. You guys! I can’t believe I am so lucky and successful! Whether it’s how many books they sold, the big promotion, their amazing relationship, these folks like to brag. Fuck them. Fuck them all. Oh, they get hidden so fast.
2. The Sad Sack. You know what’s great about the folks who post mysterious sadness all the time? The fact that they never tell you what the fuck they are complaining about:
SadSack436: OMFG my life is so awful I can’t believe what just happened
Concerned Fool99: What happened?
SaSack436: It’s personal. But so awful it would turn your hair white.
Note to everyone in the universe: If it’s personal, DO NOT REFER TO IT ON FACEBOOK.
3. The Parent. We get it. You performed the most basic biological function of any organism and procreated. Your child is not special. Shut up. Look, I have nothing against people being proud of their kids and expressing their affection on Facebook. What I don’t need is your torturous twisty logic that somehow equates the fact that your kid remembers to breathe means they represent the next stage in human evolution.
4. The Politico. I don’t care what your political leanings are, your endless posting of borrowed wisdom and half-assed rants are hidden so fast I give myself whiplash. I don’t know for certain what Facebook is supposed to be used for, but it sure isn’t so you can lecture me on politics like some drunk old man in a bar.
5. The Mystery. The Mystery favors one-word posts. Stuff like Gherkins, or, possibly, Bad day. Certainly nothing that makes any sense unless you just spent the last thirty-six hours or so hanging out with them. I’m not sure if this is supposed to underscore that you’re not one of the cool people who understand their codes, or if they’re just incapable of having thoughts longer than one word. And, I find, I do not care.
So, am I a Normal? Of course not. I’m a Lurker. I scroll through your Facebook posts but barely interact, because I am far too cool and mean-spirited to engage on Facebook. And, possibly, lonely. So terribly lonely.
Trickster Review in RT Book Review
The list of things I never thought I’d ever say gets longer and longer every day, mis amigos. Among them is “no more whiskey for me I have to get up early tomorrow,” “holy shit there’s three feet of water in my living room,” and anything involving my name and the Romantic Times, but it’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, and I’m feeling good. So we got a four-star review in the RT Book Review march 2013 issue for Trickster:
Trickster review in Romantic Times
I’ve always known I had it in me to be romantic. Even when The Duchess tells me otherwise, I’ve always known I just needed a challenge to rise to. Who knew a book about blood sacrifice, magic, and con artists would be my gateway to romance?
We Are Not Good People
Have I mentioned I have a new novel coming out in about a month? Could have sworn I’d mentioned it, but perhaps I forgot. Here’s a second teaser trailer, because I have time on my hands and rudimentary video editing software:
BOO YA, GRANDMA. Boo Ya.
My Funeral
My Funeral
By Jeff Somers
I died young. Like a sucker. I bought the ticket and never got to finish the ride. I was twenty-eight and I stepped into the street looking at my watch and got hit by a Mister Softee Ice cream Truck. It took me a few minutes to realize I was dead, that I wasn’t just paralyzed or stunned or hallucinating, that I wasn’t going to stand up and make a joke and buy everyone ice cream. The driver sat on the bumper and cried over me, which touched me in an odd place I wasn’t familiar with, until I remembered that she was the bitch who’d smacked into me going forty-five in a twenty-five zone, doing her makeup or tuning the radio or searching the horizon for children in desperate need of a chocolate shake. Whatever. She killed me, I killed myself, please keep your head and arms inside the safety cage at all times or we’re not responsible for the mess you’re mangled body will make.
There I was, lying on the hot New York City pavement with the ticket stub still in one hand.
We Have A Winner
You’re All Winners
Well, a mysterious fellow named Joe Moore has won our free book trailer. Which is curious, because I don’t think Joe is an author with a book to promote. Never one to back down from a challenge, I officially confer upon Joe the right to compel me to create a book trailer for him for no charge.
For those who are curious, the answer was Slyrs whiskey or any variation on that. The question was embedded in the first letter of each sentence of the post.
CHARGE!
The Inner Swine: Winter 2012
The! Inner! Swine!
Well sir, a few weeks late perhaps, but the Winter 2012 issue of The Inner Swine is out for Kindle and Nook:
The formatting’s screwed and the editing was … there was no editing. Enjoy for ninety-nine cents!
Here’s an essay from this issue:
Holy Crap What the Fuck
Hurricane Sandy Almost Killed Us
by Jeff Somers
SO, in the hallowed pages of JEFF IS A JACKASS, we have few weather-related entries. There was the time I attempted to drive a station wagon with bald tires through a blizzard and ended up performing a stately, ballet-like 360 across a huge intersection. Or the time when I was very, very young and thought that peeing in my snow pants was a genius way to warm up on a snowy day … for about five seconds. Or the time I was almost abandoned by my wife and eaten by wolves when I succumbed to mild hypothermia in the White Mountains. But aside from these lurid tales, for the most part my relationship with weather has been pretty quiet. Until October 2012.
Let’s Do a Free Book Trailer
Trailer for the Book “Jeff Drinks His Life Away”
Well, it’s 2013. How this happened is a mystery. After all, despite the fact that god reached down from the skies and gave me and everyone else on my block the Middle Finger of God (a.k.a Hurricane Sandy), the world did not actually end in 2012 as scheduled, leaving me in a pickle, because I sold everything I owned and told a lot of people to go fuck themselves, because I figured I’d be swept away by a tidal wave of hellfire in December. This did not happen. And I’ve been on the run with John McAfee ever since. May I say this sucks, because John McAfee snorts bath salts and waves his gun around all the time. I don’t think he never sleeps, and he keeps eating my peanut butter, no matter how much I complain.
Dear lord, I apparently need to right my karma, friends. Rarely do I think anything like that, and I guess I could do something like donate a kidney or volunteer at a homeless shelter. Instead, I’m going to give away a book trailer. Not because I am a good person (it is to laugh) but because I really enjoy making book trailers.
Kids, if you didn’t know that I make book trailers, I do. I usually do it for cold, hard American cash – you can see a few examples here. Now, not to brag but some of these trailers have gotten some notice, and one has over 12,000 views as I write this (which is ONE BILLION FEWER VIEWS than Gangnam Style, so fuck me, but anyway).
Go and send me the answer via email to mreditor@innerswine.com – the first person with the correct answer wins!
Book Trailers Galore!
So, I continue to make book trailers for money. Which is a lot more fun than, say, dancing in taverns for nickels, which I’ve done, or luring touristas into hostels in the jungles of South America, which I’ve also done. Nope, on the scale of squick-to-cool jobs, making book trailers is pretty cool.
Here’s the trailer for Falling for You by Lisa Schroeder.
This one was interesting for me. The book is told in a complex structure, and the author was very worried about giving too much away. She didn’t want anything too literal. Instead of a straight-ahead narration script, I instead opted to take a poem written by the main character and use that as our trailer script. I think it worked really well.
Here’s the trailer for Comes the Night, book one of the upcoming Casters series by Norah Wilson and Heather Doherty.
I love the creepy music I found for this with a passion I can’t explain. The VO script for this one was a bit longer than I usually work with (I usually try to hit about one minute, including intro and outro) but I think in the end it needed to be longer, because this trailer works differently: It wants to give you as much information as possible.
Anyways, they were both fun. And I get to read a lot of great books I might otherwise not get to, and meet (virtually, but still) a lot of interesting authors. Lord knows they don’t want to meet me in person. I might have to put on pants. And also, buy a pair of pants.
Tuesday is Guitar Day
Okay, so you might have assumed that a little thing like having my house 1/3 destroyed by a Hurricane would make me reconsider how I am wasting my life and stop frittering away time and energy on guitar songs no one wants to hear. So, so wrong.
Herewith:
Song529
Song533
Song534
Song537
Song542
Song543
It’s all me, baby! I am an genius.
The usual disclaimer: 1. I admit these are not great music; 2. I claim copyright anyway, so there; 3. No, I cannot do anything about the general quality of the mix, as I am incompetent.