TERMINAL ISLAND reviewed by Library Journal!

Cool--my first-ever review in Library Journal! Check it out:

http://reviews.libraryjournal.com/2012/11/books/genre-fiction/xpress-reviews-fiction-first-look-at-new-books-november-30-2012/

TERMINAL ISLAND is being released Dec. 4!

"A psychedelic descent into madness and cultural insanity, Greatshell has given us a tale of ancient gods and nameless cults that practice their rites not in some wasted land far away, but right in our own backyard. This book never slows down until the high energy climax. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED."--Brett J. Talley, Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of That Which Should Not Be and The Void

"Echoing Robert Aickman and early Koontz, Walter Greatshell's prose evokes an atmosphere wherein reality and nightmare collide head-on. Terminal Island is a creepy and unsettling destination..."--Laird Barron, Shirley Jackson Award-winning author of Occultation and The Croning

SCI FI REVIEWS ENORMITY

Sci Fi Magazine (SyFy Network) Book Review:

ENORMITY by W.G. Marshall

Rating: A

Enormity by W.G. Marshall is an entirely gonzo concoction about the sad plight of one Manny Lopes, an unassuming American working in Korea who for reasons that go along with the usual amount of super-scientific hand-waving usually required with premises like this, is enlarged to a height of about one-mile. The square-cube law that would normally cause him to collapse and liquefy under his own weight is brought up, just to show that the author is familiar with it, and then waved away, just to make the story possible; and we’re left with the comical and terrifying predicament of a guy so enormous that he lays waste to the countryside not just by moving, but also by sitting, sleeping, evacuating, or even by standing still (as the tiny organisms that live on human skin have also been enlarged, and drop off him to wreak havoc of their own.)

It’s literally a novel of epic scale, both micro (the troubles of a terrified un-enlarged girlfriend who spends days clinging to one of the lesser hairs in Manny’s eyebrow) and macro (the vast geological damage caused by not one, but two, mile-high people, causing massive tsunami and vaporizing entire cities with every step). Next to Manny, and the fanatical North Korean woman who is his equally enlarged opposite number, Godzilla and King Kong were minor nuisances, easily dispensed with. The prose is a hoot, and the climactic confrontation in the Grand Canyon—which to our pair of battling giants is only about as deep as an open grave—is worth the wait. Check out enormity for a worldwide cataclysm that’ll never stop surprising you with its audacity.

Big News: W.G. Marshall's ENORMITY is due out in February, and I predict it's gonna be massive! Check out the advance buzz:

"Hits you like a laser bomb of pulp action. A page-turner that rips across the genres and leaves you gasping for more." -- Mario Acevedo, author of Werewolf Smackdown and The Nymphos of Rocky Flats

"Moves like a freight train...full of memorable characters, Enormity is a wild, genre-bending adventure!" -- Nate Kenyon, award-winning author of Sparrow Rock and Diablo: The Last Horadrim

"Instead of meekly evoking the corny goodness of creaky kaiju eiga flicks, Marshall's tragically hilarious debut pushes an amazing colossal scenario far too insane for Toho or Michael Bay, and schools us all in the lost art of making monsters walk. THIS ONE WILL BURY YOU." -- Cody Goodfellow, author of Radiant Dawn, Ravenous Dusk, and All-Monster Action

MAD SKILLS reviewed at Bitten By Books!

Here's the link:

http://www.bittenbybooks.com/39243/mad-skills-by-walter-greatshell/

Review of XOMBIES: APOCALYPSO on Fresh Fiction!

Here's the link:

http://freshfiction.com/review.php?id=31398

Spanish edition of Xombies--cool!

Weird--I just found out my first foreign edition is being released next week: the Spanish translation of my first published novel, Xombies (which was reissued in 2008 as Xombies: Apocalypse Blues).

The Spanish title is: Agente X - Xombis. I love that.

What's strange is that I had no idea this book was coming out at all. I remember being contacted by two different Spanish publishers a couple of years ago, and forwarding their emails to my editor at Penguin. Having lived in Spain, I was really excited to think my book might soon be on the shelves of my favorite bookstores in Madrid. But I never heard anything more, and sadly assumed that no deal had been reached.

I guess I was wrong!

The best thing about it is, now I have two foreign editions: Agente X - Xombis, and the upcoming German translation of Mad Skills, due out next June, which I think is going to be called Gefangen in Harmony. Which basically means "Trapped in Harmony." I hope they're both monster hits, so I can justify making a publicity tour of Europe. Also so my car doesn't get repossessed.

First, I must apologize for attributing the play Same Time Next Year to Neil Simon in my previous blog entry. Someone kindly pointed out to me that the author is in fact Bernard Slade. It's this kind of thing that makes one doubt everything one knows--I was so sure it was Neil Simon that I would have bet money on it.

Anyway, time for SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON REPORT, PART II!

A little late, I know, I know, but I've been busy...

So my friends and I left the Con that first evening and went to our usual dining hole, Dick's Last Resort, where they throw things at you and make you wear embarrassing paper hats. Then we headed back to our motel for a swim in the possibly-toxic but delightful little pool.

Next morning, Thursday, I got up at 5 am and caught a bus down to the docks at Shelter Island, where I bought a ticket on one of the half-day fishing boats leaving at 6:30. I did this the last time I was in San Diego too, and it was such a nice (and fairly cheap) experience that I swore to do it again. And I'm glad I did--there's nothing better than having a leisurely breakfast of bacon and eggs as the boat loads up on live bait (amid gulls, pelicans, and yelping sea lions), then chugs out of the harbor to the fishing grounds. One of the interesting things this time was that we passed a nuclear submarine entering the harbor, protected by little inflatable patrol boats with big machine-guns.

Another interesting thing was that there was a party of Amish tourists on my boat. I mean really Amish, wearing the full getup. I never knew the Amish went on vacation! One of them even won the pot for the biggest fish. I know, because I had the second biggest fish--damn it! Of course I had to give all my fish away, as usual, since I had no place to keep them. Maybe next time I'll get a motel room with a kitchenette, and make fish tacos.

The pleasant cruise ended and I returned to the motel for a quick shower and swim, then another afternoon wandering the jammed aisles of the Con.

The next day, Friday, I was a little nervous because that afternoon I would have to sit on a panel and talk about "Apocalyptic Fiction." The last panel I was on at Comic-Con was weirdly hostile, with me being the sole defender of "fast zombies" against the likes of Max Brooks and Seth Graeme-Smith. And I don't even care if zombies are fast or slow! How is this even an issue? Anyway, so I was slightly nervous, but the panel went fine. In fact, it was a lot of fun, because it wasn't just zombie authors, but a whole range of post-apocalyptic concepts, including Robopocalypse. It was a big turnout, my buddies Dave and Chris were in the audience to lend moral support, I babbled at length about my books, and afterward I had a chance to chat with the other authors during the book-signing--they were all really nice. Then Chris and I went to the Penguin cocktail party, where we mingled with the hoi polloi and scarfed down free snacks. Amber Benson was there! I was on a panel with Amber a couple of years back, so it was nice to see her again. I'm sure she has no idea who I am.

Saturday was kind of a blur. I think we went to see Captain America, but I had jet lag and slept through most of it. Later at the Con I met the actor Billy Zane and told him I thought he should play the Toecutter in a remake of Mad Max. He was polite in the way that one is when talking to dangerous lunatics.

Finally it was Sunday. I packed my things and took the trolley as close to the airport as it would go, then hiked the rest of the way. It was a beautiful day for a walk. I stopped at Jack-In-The-Box for lunch--the first time I had eaten there since I lived in California thirty years ago. It was exactly the same as I remembered. Then I got on the plane back to Providence.

COMIC-CON 2011 REPORT:

Phew. What a week.

It didn't start well, the flight to California being unusually grueling. I'm not a small guy, so it's rough when I wind up crushed between two people...one of whom is even bigger than me. For seven hours.

So I arrived in San Diego feeling less than fresh. Fortunately, the weather was cool and almost Autumn-like, a major relief from the heatwave afflicting the rest of the country. I met up with my friend Dave Ray at the airport, and we took a cab to our cheap (but cozy) hotel in San Diego's Old Town district. The hotel is really nice except for little signs everywhere warning that the property is contaminated with toxic waste. We immediately went for a swim in the pool. Ahhh--paradise.

After a delightful swim under the palms, we found our friend Chris and caught a trolley to the Con. It was late in the day, but we only wanted to get our badges and have a quick look around.

It was just as mammoth as usual--a vast temple of geekdom. The highlight for me was the DeLorean from Back to the Future, looking exactly as it did in the movie. Wait--then I found a second DeLorean, this time the retrofitted one from Back to the Future III! The exhibit even had Doc Brown's remote-control gadget, the stolen box of plutonium, and the JVC Handicam that Marty used to record Doc's time-travel experiment. Cool.

I have very fond feelings for Back to the Future. The first time I saw the movie was when my wife and I were on a road trip to Canada, and we stopped in this tiny little town by Lake Ontario. We had been driving all day, and were feeling tired and a bit lost, wondering when we'd find a motel in the endless empty prairies.

All of a sudden there was a sign for this town, so we took the exit and found ourselves in a quaint little Canadian burg that looked like a relic from the '50s. The motel there was also quaint, in the best way--a cluster of tree-shaded private bungalows with no TVs. There was a restaurant on the grounds, but we were annoyed to find that the only way to get a meal there was to buy a ticket to the evening's dinner theater--a performance of Neil Simon's Same Time Next Year.

God. We were worn out and just wanted to eat and go to bed; last thing we needed was to sit through some local-yokel stage production. But it was cheap, we were starved, and the dinner on offer was prime rib. We bought the tickets.

It was fantastic.

I mean everything about it: the food, the acting, the musical accompaniment. It was the best Neil Simon play I've ever seen, and that includes the movie versions. Afterwards, my wife and I went back to our bungalow with a sense of stunned gratitude for having lucked into the experience.

The next day, Sunday, we went for a walk along the bleak, gray lake shore, and then through the deserted village. On the main street there was an old-timey movie theater showing Back to the Future. I had been avoiding this movie since it came out a few months earlier because I thought the poster looked stupid--obviously it was some kind of post-Spielberg '80s crap like Weird Science. But we had nothing else to do, so we said what the hell and bought tickets to the matinee.

The inside of the auditorium was a little unusual: along the walls was a miniature facade of the town, like a stage backdrop, and the ceiling was painted to look like a night sky, complete with little lights for stars. We took seats down front. When the lights dimmed, the Canadian national anthem started playing, and my wife nudged me to turn around. Everybody in the theater was standing at attention--everybody but us. Oops. We jumped to our feet, really feeling like we had stumbled into a time warp to the '50s.

Then the movie began.

Well, of course, it was great. We loved it. It's a wonderful movie under any circumstances, but to see it in this strange little Canadian town, purely by accident and with the lowest of expectations...it was one of the highlights of my moviegoing life. More than that, it was like a confirmation that my wife and I were on the right track; we weren't just doomed dreamers seeking something that didn't exist. There was magic to be found, and over the coming years we would keep finding it.

So that's what Back to the Future means to me.