New Digs

Looking over my well-worn and semi-retired Blogger blog, it’s painfully easy to notice that I haven’t posted in almost one year. And before that, the posting was pretty damned infrequent.

I could blame work, moving house, travelling overseas, not writing, not making music, spending too much time playing computer games, drinking too much absinthe … but only one of these would be true.

Yeah, you got me. It was the absinthe.



Rather than trying to force discipline onto my inconsistent personality, I thought it might be easier to start a new blog at some new digs.

Same name as the old one, same guy writing. Here’s hoping he writes more.

From now on, you can find me over at www.danielhatadi.com.

You Call That A Book Launch? THIS Is A Book Launch.

Big Daddy's doing a Booze And Bands Book Launch for SEX, THUGS AND ROCK & ROLL, the latest Thuglit anthology (which includes a story by the bald headed guy all over this page). Jason Starr, Justin Porter, Sarah Weinman, Patrick Lambe and Big Daddy Thug himself are all going to do readings from the book before they stage dive into the mosh pit.

I'd be there, but I'm half way across the globe and I've gotta see a man about a dog.

Details in the flyer above.

If you're scared of bricks and mortar, you can grab a copy of the book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powells, Indiebound or Kensington.

SEX, THUGS AND ROCK & ROLL is now available

Smack bang in the middle of a fine collection of thuggery related literature is my story, BUDDHA BEHIND BARS. It's my first publishing credit so I'm celebrating by dehydrating a bottle of Johnnie Walker and snorting it off the belly of ... okay, I'm just having a glass of Coke. But still, I'm hoping this will kick my arse on to a chair and force me to write some more.

With an intro penned by Sarah Weinman, followed by a love letter from Big Daddy Thug, the collection includes stories from the broken keyboards of Patricia Abbott, Jonas Knutsson, Jedidiah Ayres, Justin Porter, Albert Tucher, Joe R. Landsdale, Scott Wolven, D.T. Kelly, Marcus Sakey, Steven M. Messner, Hugh Lessig, Lyman Feero, Gary Carson, Matthew Baldwin and Jason Starr.

The faint of heart and the high of morals need not apply.

Snapshot Interview

At the end of 2007, Karen Chisholm (of the Aust Crime Fiction weblog), Damien Gay (of Crime DownUnder) and Perry Middlemiss (of Matilda) decided a similar snapshot of Australian crime fiction was required.

Over the past couple of months these three have conducted a number of small, five-question interviews with a wide variety of Australian crime fiction writers and will begin publishing them across the three weblogs, starting Monday March 3, 2008.

If you are at all interested in the current state of Australian crime fiction, you'll find this series very entertaining and, hopefully, illuminating.

This is where you can read my interview, and here are all of the interviews.

It's especially worth reading my interview because I mention the existence of two dimensional poo.

Hard-Hitting Poets Arrested For THE LINEUP

"...every word has purpose: to plant clues, reveal character, move toward resolution."
Gerald So

Edited by Gerald So of Thrilling Detective, with Patrick Shawn Bagley, R. Narvaez, and Anthony Rainone

Including the hard-hitting poets Patrick Shawn Bagley, Ken Bruen, Sarah Cortez, Graham Everett, Daniel Hatadi, Daniel Thomas Moran, R. Narvaez, Robert Plath, Misti Rainwater-Lites, Stephen D. Rogers, A.E. Roman, Sandra Seamans, Gerald So, KC Trommer

In paperback spring 2008 from www.lulu.com - $6.50

Get the lowdown at poemsoncrime.blogspot.com

Australian Crime Fiction Snapshots

From Crime Down Under:

Back in April 2005 Ben Peek, on his weblog The Urban Sprawl Project, undertook to interview as many Australian speculative fiction writers as he could and to publish those interviews over the course of a week. Each interview was only short, some five questions in all, and was aimed primarily at getting a brief look at the author's latest work, what they were currently working on, and what they thought of the then current state of the speculative fiction field in Australia. He called it the "2005 Snapshot".

In August 2007, the ASif! (Australian SpecFic in focus) crew, along with a guest or two, decided to follow Peek's lead and came up with their own 2007 Snapshot. They finished up interviewing 83 authors, up from the 43 in Peek's original.

At the end of 2007, Karen Chisholm (of the Aust Crime Fiction weblog), Damien Gay (of Crime DownUnder) and Perry Middlemiss (of Matilda) decided a similar snapshot of Australian crime fiction was required.

Over the past couple of months these three have conducted a number of small, five-question interviews with a wide variety of Australian crime fiction writers and will begin publishing them across the three weblogs, starting Monday March 3, 2008.

If you are at all interested in the current state of Australian crime fiction, you'll find this series very entertaining and, hopefully, illuminating.

At some point during the month, my own SnapShot interview will appear at one of these venues, so keep a look out for it.

Best Of 2007

Some people like to do these lists because everybody else is doing it. Others refuse to do so for the same reason. I'm a combination of the two: if everyone else does it, then I don't want to, but I'm going to anyway ... because it's what I actually want to do.

But enough with the Maxwell Smart jokes and on with the list. As always, it's based on my personal reading of the year, which has nothing to do with publishing date. Since tracking it, I've learned that I only read about thirty books a year, all chosen by a whim of the moment.

EVERY DEAD THING by John Connolly

Famed for its hourglass shaped plot (one story tapers into the next), the first Charlie Parker novel is filled to the brim with lyrical writing and beautifully gruesome imagery.

CITIZEN VINCE by Jess Walter

There are two novels in this list about crims trying to get clean or stay clean, with both having a decidedly literary bent. Walter does a brilliant job here of fleshing out so much in so few words that I really should get off my arse and read some of his other work as soon as possible.

NO DOMINION by Charlie Huston

Thankfully the world of books generally does a fair sight better with sequels than cinema does, but in the hands of Charlie Huston, disappointment seems to never be on the cards. Thanks to vampire private investigator Joe Pitt, I want to be Charlie Huston when I grow up.

BENEATH A PANAMANIAN MOON by David Terrenoire

Piano-playing spy John Harper has a damned fine sense of humour and a softer side when compared to more traditional protagonists in the genre and it's these differences that bring Terrenoire's debut floating up above the rest. It took me far too long to get around to reading this, but the day David writes another novel is the day I queue up for it.

SATURDAY'S CHILD by Ray Banks

Other than wanting to be the love child of Charlie Huston and Ray Banks, I can't say enough about this fine piece of work. But if I had to choose my absolute favourite of this list, it would be a close fight between this one and the next.

THE WINTER OF FRANKIE MACHINE by Don Winslow

The retired hitman being pulled back into the biz is not a particularly new idea, but the depth of Frank "Frankie the Machine" Macchiano lifts this to the top of the foam from the cappuccino. Bob De Niro's working on a film of this and, as long as he doesn't stuff it up, I'll be one of the early viewers.

DOUBLE INDEMNITY by James M. Cain

Only one classic this year, and it was one I'd seen the movie of, so I wasn't amazingly shocked by the unfolding of the plot. Still, I gobbled down this timeless and twisted tale of desire in a couple of evening sessions. And it tasted damned good, I tell you.

RAZOR by Larry Writer

This year I delved into non-fiction of various subjects, but this account of the razor gang wars of 1920s Sydney reads almost like fiction, so I'm including it here. The detail of the research is mind blowing and made even more impressive by being set in locations that I know well. Whatever the newspapers of today may say, Sydney is a far safer city than it used to be.

THE CONFESSION by Olen Steinhauer

In my blogging travels I've come across a number of authors whose work I've read, but this is the first time I've read a second book from any of them (that has more to do with my playing catch up than the quality of the writing). I'm extremely glad I did. Everything I liked about Olen's first in the series, THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS, is in its sequel, but the story is taken to another level here. I can't think of any better endorsement of this amazing Eastern European spy series other than saying I have the next two books waiting on my shelf.

I was very tempted to include Joe R. Lansdale's LOST ECHOES in the list, even though I'm only about a third of the way in. Although I doubt very much that I'll be disappointed with the rest of it, I have to be fair, so I've kept it to a simple mention.

New Issues of Spinetingler and Thrilling Detective Now Online

What's especially good about these two issues are stories from people like Stephen Blackmoore, Patricia Abbott, Patrick Shawn Bagley, Seth Harwood, and some guy from Down Under that likes to play harmonica and whose favourite colour is black.

Yes, I know. Black isn't a colour.

Go thou and read now.

Download the PDF here:
Spinetingler Fall Issue 2007

In For Questioning Podcast Has Moved

Thanks to Podomatic's recent bout of unreliableness, Angie's moved her world-famous crime fiction podcast to http://inforquestioning.libsyn.com/, so make sure to update this in your podcasting client (usually iTunes).

And if you haven't subscribed, what the hell are you doing over here?

Smokin' Steinhauers!

Olen Steinhauer, well known among those of us that like our crime fiction bleak and real, is mostly linked with his series of Cold War novels set in a fictional Eastern European country that remains nameless. I'm guilty of only having read the first novel, but the second and third are already in waiting.

Why am I mentioning all this?

Word around town (this translates to 'from the horse's mouth'), is that Olen's done and got his upcoming novel, THE TOURIST, optioned by an unknown actor's production company called Smoke House. They say one of the people responsible is related to George Clooney, but I don't think that's true: he must be a distant cousin of Steinhauer himself.

I mean, I can't tell the difference, can you?

Hatadi Caught In Podcast Heist!

That mad Hatadi has done it again: his voice has been captured for all eternity in a digital form. To be replicated and distributed through millions of small boxes with clicky wheels on the front.

(switch to first person)

And it's all thanks to that bold criminal of the podcast universe, Seth Harwood. If you haven't checked out his podcasts before, you owe it to yourself now, if only to hear my rugged Australian accent at about the nine minute mark of Seth's recent Jack Palms episode, all about Russian sex slaves and rabbit holes, number 17.

As Duane Swierczynski said:

"I like the cut of this young man's jib."

New Crime Fiction Podcast: In For Questioning

One of Crimespace's own, Angie Johnson-Schmit, has started up a crime fiction podcast called In For Questioning, with the first interviewee being yours truly.

Hopefully you'll enjoy me hurting all your ears with my inane babble about starting up Crimespace and writing songs about dead rubber chickens.

Next week's interview will be with Cornelia Read, and there are many more authors that I'm dead excited to hear getting grilled by Angie.

This is the start of something special and I'm well chuffed to be part of it, not only in terms of the interview, but I can also take credit for composing the theme music.

Enjoy!

Crime + Horror = Computer Game?

It's not often that a computer game crosses over into blog-worthy material, but The Darkness goes against that by being a cross between crime and horror, a genre combination that's a semi-obsession of mine. Mostly because I'm trying to write a novel that does just that, but also because I think the two genres are a natural mix.

And it's a not-so-sneaky way for me to plug my article running in issue 19 of Crimespree Magazine, titled 'Crime+Horror=Thriller'.

From Wikipedia:

In modern day New York City, Jackie Estacado is a young Mafia hitman just turning 21, and finds himself the victim of an assassination attempt orchestrated by the don, his "Uncle" Paulie. Surviving the explosion meant to kill him as he crashes through a window, Jackie begins planning his revenge. A voice in his head manifests, calling itself "The Darkness", and demonstrates the power it has over Jackie by controlling his body and enabling him to use supernatural appendages and powers to violently eliminate all of the hitmen sent to make sure that he was dead.



In terms of both genres, you can see that the premise is filled to the brim with stereotypes. Mafia hitmen and demonic supernatural powers all exist within one young man that just happens to wear a long black leather coat and has long black flowing hair. On the surface, it seems fairly straightforward, but the presentation of the whole makes the game hang together beautifully.

The voice of the demonic presence known as 'The Darkness' is none other than Mike Patton of Faith No More, Mister Bungle and probably too many other side projects for me to name. Patton has possibly the most demented control over his vocal chords in the world, save for the Satanic bluesman himself, Tom Waits. Patton's voice isn't the only one that's top notch. The main character, Jackie, strikes just the right note of tough and cool, New York, 'I don't give a fuck' style ever heard in a computer game.

And I must give points for a great start to the dialogue: "I remember the night of my 21st birthday. That was the first time I died." Another happy line comes in the form: "Is there a way out of this fucking cemetery?"

Graphics are suitably moody and (dare I say it?) dark, with the demonic tentacles that represent Jackie's supernatural powers slithering menacingly all over the screen, making you feel as if they are growing out of your own shoulders as you walk around the neighbourhood laying waste to all the mafia types that get in your way.



I'm only part of the way into the game, but I'm told that the story hangs together well, which is a difficult thing to do in a computer game. You want to give the player a feeling of freedom, but not too much. The Darkness does well here because the player is forced to feel what the main character is going through by using a solid and immersive first person perspective.

The story is fleshed out with a third person voice over where we see Jackie gesticulate in time to his speech over a more than decent soundtrack. And something I haven't seen done in a computer game before: they put the effort in to make you care for the characters before they're killed.

Okay, I'll admit I'm a gamer. Not obsessively so, but a definite regular. What pulls this game above the rest is the attention the makers have put into creating an actual story. I'm tempted to say it's one of the finest examples of interactive fiction I've ever come across.

Gamers, go buy it. Readers and writers, see if you can look into it, as long as you don't mind a game that allows the player to devour still-beating hearts from victims.

There, I finally blogged again. Phew.