David Dubrow – Page 32

Armageddon Back to School Sale!

September 16, 2016 by David Dubrow 1 Comment

For many of us, going back to school after a long summer vacation seems like the end of the world. Whether you feel that way or not, you can at least get in a good, inexpensive read to ease the pain with my Armageddon Back to School Sale!

From Friday, September 16 through Sunday, September 18, my novels The Blessed Man and the Witch and its sequel The Nephilim and the False Prophet are on sale for $0.99 each! That’s only $1.98 for an occult horror series that has been called a “dystopian roller coaster,” “a story that could VERY WELL and truly can happen at any given moment ,” and “Written in such a way that you get a very vivid and intricate picture in your head of the locations and the beings in them.”

Get your copies today – supplies are running out!

The Nephilim and the False Prophet: An Excerpt

September 14, 2016 by David Dubrow Leave a Comment

What follows is an excerpt from the second book in my Armageddon series, The Nephilim and the False Prophet. You won’t find it in the Look Inside feature of the Amazon product page; this chapter is from later in the novel, when Bill learns the price of denial. If you haven’t read the first book in the Armageddon series, The Blessed Man and the Witch yet, you may want to hold off on reading this.

Chapter 15: Bill — Teamwork

The latest in the longest string of baseless lawsuits ever brought to a courtroom by the hardest-working ambulance chaser in Los Angeles has been put on hold by a judge yesterday in L.A. County’s Superior Court of California. The butt of all the worst lawyer jokes you’ve ever heard, George Smolla, is suing every company that has ever used the Happy Guy logo on any piece of clothing, artwork, or other paraphernalia, digital or physical. His client claims to have drawn the symbol ten years ago in her basement, which makes it an open-and-shit case (no, that’s not a typo). It’s pretty much impossible to find a place that doesn’t have the Happy Guy splattered somewhere, so basically he’s suing the entire world. If Smolla can get a settlement on a nuisance case from someone with deep pockets, more power to him…

You’ve Been Oversued Blog, 10/02/2016

“Come on, grandma. At least drive the speed limit,” Bill muttered. All he could see through the rear windshield of the car ahead were knuckles on the steering wheel and fluffy white hair peeking above the headrest.

What is it about COEXIST bumper stickers that make people think they can drive like assholes? Figures it’s not a Happy Guy sticker. Grandma here doesn’t qualify—

His phone rattled in the center console.

“Hey, Mo,” he answered.

“How’s it going? You still at the office?” Maureen asked.

Bill had to slow down even more when the old lady started riding the brake. “On my way home. Just gotta get gas.”

“Okay, cool. How’d it go today?”

With a humorless chuckle he said, “Great. None of the fumblefucks shot themselves or anyone else, so we’re playing with house money. Most of ‘em didn’t really hit the target either, but Homeland Security’s not about accuracy. Just there to get the participation certificate, and then right back to sniffing panties at bus stops on the government tit. Another standard work day.”

A brief pause. “I guess I’m glad I didn’t put the phone on speaker,” Maureen said dryly. “Jonah’d learn all sorts of new words.”

“How’s my little man doing?”

“Good. He’s had a good pain day, actually.”

Nodding, Bill said, “Good deal.” Fucking stigmata. Thanks for that, Heck. Thanks, Blessed Man, wherever you are. “I’ll try to be home by his bedtime. He watching Doc McStuffins?”

Maureen snorted into the phone. “What else? He wants to see the Nice Man.”

“Still fixated on that, huh.”

“Well…” Maureen said, drawing the word out, “I think he sees the dad as a TV version of you. Sort of.”

Putting a smile into his voice, Bill replied, “Kind of a stretch, seeing that I’m an old white man and Doc’s dad is a black guy, but sure, I can see that.”

“Maybe he misses Tim, then.”

He’s not the only one. Thanks for that too, Heck. “Could be,” he said, took a deep breath to settle himself, and added, “Anyway, I’ll be home in a few minutes. If the world don’t end before I get there.”

“Har de har har. See you soon.”

“Yup. Bye.” He hung up and hit the turn signal when he saw the green 7-11 sign. Even though they irritated her, his end-of-the-world jokes had become habitual since the Occupy Riots. She still believes in that Armageddon crap, even though it was all bullshit. The world’s still turning. A little more fucked up, but still—

[Read more…]

The Blessed Man and the Witch: An Excerpt

September 12, 2016 by David Dubrow Leave a Comment

What follows is an excerpt of the first book in my Armageddon series, The Blessed Man and the Witch. You won’t find it in Amazon’s Look Inside feature on the product page; this chapter is from the middle of the novel, where Diego gets a closer look at his employers, though at a distance.

Chapter 25: Diego – Theater

Cain spoke to Abel in the field, and when they were alone in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and slew him with a club fashioned from a cypress tree.

Then the Lord said unto Cain, “Where is Abel thy brother?”

Cain said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?”

And the Lord said, “What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood doth cry to me from the earth. And now thou art cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thine own hand.”

(Genesis 4:8-11—The Holy Bible, New Kingdom Version)

Diego rocked back and forth on the bus seat with his hands between his legs, biting his lip bloody to keep from screaming. That bitch! That fucking bitch! He punched the air five times before he could stop himself. This was the last bus of the night and if he got kicked off he wouldn’t make it back to Boulder on time. The only other passenger was an old lady who sat in the front as far away from him as you could get and not be hanging out the window. Fuck ‘em. Let ‘em try to kick me off this piece of shit bus. And if Gerald leaves without me, then fuck Occupy, too. FUCK YOU ALL. He might have said that last part aloud, but he wasn’t sure.

A terrible, sick pain throbbed from his taint to his bladder as though someone had kicked him in the nuts over and over again. He was afraid to see what it looked like down there. She must know some kind of women’s empowerment kung fu or something. That PMSing cunt! Hearing himself hissing curses out loud, he bit his lip again to stop it. The fucking driver kept looking in the mirror at him and had sniffed audibly when he’d gotten on board. Shithead’s obviously looking for an excuse to kick me off. Thinks I’m high or drunk or something. Judgmental cocksucker.

It took him several seconds to notice that the bus was already a block past his stop. Taking his hands from his groin, he yanked on the red wire and yelled, “Stop, STOP!” After hopping off he flipped the departing bus both birds. “Fuck YOU!” The Occupy camp was two blocks away. You know, fuck this whole road trip secret mission bullshit. Fuck it. FUCK. IT. Micah with his little flag pin and twitchy-ass Gerald can both eat shit and die.

He was stomping over to Micah’s tent to tell him that when he saw Gerald sitting in front of it on that orange milk crate of his, smoking something in a glass pipe. The butane lighter he used to keep it hot flicked off, and at Diego’s approach he proffered the tube with a quivering hand.

The bitter, plastic odor of the smoke told Diego it was meth. He took the pipe, drew in the smoke, held it for a medium-slow three-count, and let it out. If you held it too long it fucked up your lungs and made you cough. If you didn’t hold it long enough you were wasting it. As he handed it back the pain in his crotch lessened. “Uh, thanks, man.”

Gerald shook his head and held out the lighter. “It’s yours. Feeling better now? You were looking a bit…peaked.”

The constant facial tics made Gerald’s expression almost impossible to read, so Diego just nodded and accepted the lighter. “Yeah. I do, a bit.”

“Good.” Gerald nodded in the direction of Walnut St. “Time to go. You’re driving. Anything here you want to bring with?”

Diego considered going to the tent he shared with the endlessly-coughing Hanlon and grabbing his duffel, but shook his head instead. “Nah. Just this,” he said, lifting the pipe. Fuck it. A new start. I can always find what I need on the way.

Chuckling, Gerald led the way to a white Chevy Tahoe. “It’s a hybrid,” he told him. “Good for the environment.”

The keys were already in the ignition. Diego burned off the last of the meth, put the pipe in the center console, and started the car. “Where to?”

“East. Go east, young man. We’re going to Kansas.”

[Read more…]

Judging a Book by Its Cover: Guns

September 6, 2016 by David Dubrow Leave a Comment

The four principal rules for firearm handling, codified by the late, great Jeff Cooper, are:

All guns are always loaded.
Never point a gun at something you don’t intend to destroy.
Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target.
Be sure of your target and what’s around and behind it.

I learned these rules early in my professional career and have never forgotten them. I can recite them in my sleep, just like I can do Heaven Six without having to remember the movements. They’re ingrained.

In my years and years of working with firearms experts, I have never seen a single one of them, man or woman, point a gun at the sky except when shooting birds or skeet. Never. It just isn’t done by responsible gun owners. When bullets go up, they have to come down, and you have no control over where those bullets might land. This is why celebratory gunfire is very, very stupid.

For thriller novels, there’s nothing quite like a cover depicting a person holding a gun. You pretty much have to have that, unless you want to show a silhouette of a man and a woman holding hands and running away from a burning city. Where this motif falls down is in pictures like this, this, this, this, and this. It’s a stupid way to hold a handgun, and even people who teach this way of gun-handling acknowledge that it’s far from ideal.

You don’t have to be a firearms expert to write characters with guns. Heck, you don’t even have to be a “Nazi gun nut” like me. But you should learn the basics, which are easily found online. When I see a book cover showing someone pointing a gun at the sky, I know the writer doesn’t have his firearms material wired tight.

Authors, tell your artist to pick a different stock photo. The whole gun pointing up thing has got to go.

Uncaged Book Reviews – September 2016 Edition

August 31, 2016 by David Dubrow Leave a Comment

Writer Amy Shannon was kind enough to read and review The Blessed Man and the Witch on her website:

This book was intensely and magnificently filled with horror and ultimate gore for the grand story. Prepare for the end of the world, and get ready to face Armageddon.

You can read the rest of the review on her site.

Pleasantly, that and a number of other reviews were included in the September 2016 issue of Uncaged Book Reviews! I encourage you to click on over and see what else might strike your reading fancy.

After you’ve picked up The Blessed Man and the Witch, of course.

Some Thoughts on Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

August 30, 2016 by David Dubrow Leave a Comment

As superhero movies go, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was no better or worse than any other superhero movie ever produced, and deserves better than the 27% Rotten rating it got from the reviewers. I mean, it’s a superhero movie, not Bridge on the River Kwai. I like superhero movies, though I’m done with Marvel for reasons this post should make clear, and I’ve always been a big fan of Superman. So overall I came away from the movie with a feeling of having been entertained, which is the entire point. The things I want to talk about here are spoiler-heavy, so if you haven’t seen it yet, do so before reading the rest.

Things I liked:

The damage to Metropolis from the events of the film Man of Steel becoming a plot point was a nice touch. After all, Supes and his white trash cousins destroyed the city, so the aftermath of that made sense from a story perspective. This sort of thing wouldn’t have become such a big deal in a pre-9/11 world, when we Americans hadn’t had to deal with mass destruction of our metropolitan areas by inhuman terrorists.
Ben Affleck did a perfectly fine job as Batman; I don’t see what the fuss was about. He’s a big, muscular fellow in middle age. The voice modulator helped. One thing I hated about the Christian Bale Batman was the silly, grating voice the actor put on when in costume.
Jesse Eisenberg/Mark Zuckerberg as Lex Luthor also did a fine job, despite that he had to say a bunch of very dumb things. He didn’t come off as mentally ill: just evil and quirky.
Superman always looked clean and bright and heroic, even when everything was dirty and dingy and awful. It gave him an otherworldly air. Kind of like an angel. Or Legolas in The Lord of the Rings.
All the explosions and stuff. Batman’s armor was cool.
Having Batman torture Superman a little was also cool, though it made Bats look more like a psychopath than might have been intended.
The disturbing dream/vision Batman had while decrypting the data was dark and distressing and unusual. But I didn’t like it, too. You’ll find out why in a minute.

Things I didn’t like:

Batman’s fight scenes were really slow. I don’t know why. It made them rote and unexciting.
Superman didn’t get any opportunities to act heroic in the early parts of the movie, which helped boost Batman’s case that The Man of Steel is more a menace than a savior. Part of being a savior means saving people, and Supes didn’t do that.
Batman’s dream/vision was, apparently, something that will become relevant in an upcoming film. If they’d titled the movie Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Part 1, implying that this was the first part of one long story, that would be acceptable. But they didn’t. Don’t make me go to IMDB to find stuff out about the movie I just watched.
Wonder Woman was nice and all, but she did absolutely nothing to advance the plot. There was no reason for her to be there except to tease the upcoming Wonder Woman movie. How she managed to outsmart Batman, the World’s Greatest Detective, was an artificial boost to make her look competent, but at Batman’s expense.
Good on the writers for giving Batman mommy issues (I mean, who among us doesn’t have at least one), but it was insufficiently teased in the flashbacks for it to come off as anything but contrived at the end with “Save Martha.” That could’ve been really powerful, but it wasn’t.
How did Lois Lane know to get the spear? Any explanation of that requires mental gymnastics rather than an honest analysis of the events of the film.
We all knew that Superman wasn’t really dead at the end, so the last ten minutes were a waste of time. And now that it’s been reported that Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent is dead, what’re they going to do, just not have Superman’s secret identity anymore? Is that it for Superman as a character with a life outside of superheroing?

Anyway, I look forward to watching the Justice League film when it comes out on streaming video in a year or so.