Welcome to Adam P. Knave dot com

So what’s been up. Let’s see. Oh, right! I go to the dayjob and then I go home and write. And then I read a bit and generally go to bed. Except for the rare night I hang out with friends. Yeah, that’s about my life.

And that isn’t a bad thing. In fact it’s pretty damn wonderful. So there is that.

I’ve been reading A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz which has been an interesting thing overall. It’s well written and mostly interesting. Uhm, about a boy and his father in Australia – wow that sounds dull that way. Keep in mind they are both insane and the father is brother to a famous criminal and you start to see where the almost-farce comes in. The thing is that while the book can be funny and insightful it is also full of grasping moments toward deepness that don’t quite land. Overall I would say this is a good read, but there are just enough times I kinda wanna strangle it that I can’t quite say run out and buy it this second.

It is good though, overall. Way more win than lose.

In other book news Empty Rooms Lonely Countries by Christian A. Dumias is out. And so the hell what. Well, Dumias is an old friend I haven’t had contact with in something like 8 years. I had no clue what happened to him (if you knew me this far back, he co-ran Legion Studios – the website that let me run Never Bite the Homeless and was kinda a sister site to TwoHeadedCat for a while) until the other day when I caught wind of this book. So I stalked him for a few minutes (what! I did!) and got back in touch with the mad motherfucker. I haven’t read this collection of shorts but he was always great writer.

Anyway. That’s about it, except for me asking that if you’ve read Strange Angel you do me a huge favor and review it up on Amazon. Like it or hate it, just be honest, that’s all I ask. Reviews really do help. So thanks.

So yeah, writing a lot and reading a bunch and watching some movies and hanging about. That’s my life, in a nutshell. I wish I could blab endless about all my projects but I really can’t. So instead I’ll leave you here and come back with some sort of funny post later on.

Just a friendly reminder. You can pre-order my first full-length novel right now. You can read all about it and, in fact, read the first four chapters – right now. Yup.

CLICK RIGHT HERE.

They were four: Wereberry the strawberry werewolf, Choco-Ra the chocolate mummy, The Creature From the Fruit Lagoon (his friends call him “T.C.”), and Cherrygeist the… well she was a ghost. At least, until she wasn’t. One day, she wasn’t there at all. And then they were three.

Three friends who have sworn to search for her to the ends of the world and beyond – to find and save her.

Through familiar lands to places startling and unknown – across looming castles, endless battlefields and simple brick roads – these three friends will hunt and search and scour every inch. Along the way they’ll have to rely on a whole lot of luck and a little bit of charm, but mostly each other.

A fairy tale for the super-sugar generation, Stays Crunchy in Milk is a road novel packed with 100% of your recommended daily allowance of essential action and adventure. And it’s a delicious part of a nutritious breakfast.
———–
This is my kind of book! Stays Crunchy In Milk is that rare story with both heart and substance. Adam Knave deftly reexamines the pop cultural elements of his childhood then reshapes them into wondrous things both familiar and new. Knave’s engrossing story transforms his love for his early memories into an exciting adventure novel. Its narrative swept me right along. I really cared about what happened next. Two thumbs up from me. Four paws up from Roger Rabbit. — Gary K. Wolf, Creator of Roger Rabbit

An imaginative work that uses pop culture icons in a highly entertaining way. A fine example that fun stories need not fit into one specific genre. — Alan Kistler, Comic Book Historian, MTV.COM
———–
So yeah. Read some of it, read about it, pre-order it if you want. Just click here. Don’t forget there is a special limited edition hardcover, too. Only 34 will ever be made, and people have been buying them, so you might want to grab one sooner than later if you want to ensure you get one.

Just, you know how this works, click here

So I started reading it. I didn’t get very far. I dunno maybe it just annoyed me and won’t you. But while it is obviously bizzaro fiction and that entire subgenre gets away with a lot of things – this one just didn’t work for me.

All right, drop me in a world where Bruce Campbell’s followers cut off their right hand. And try to destroy everything else. Sure. And out Shatner at a con about him. Sure. But things like a character who smokes, and every time you see her she is dragging, literally, half a cig in a single drag, every time? It gets odd and old.

Add to it the idea of a fiction bomb that erases a work of fiction from reality so that it never existed? Well strange but all right I guess?

Here’s where it lost me. There’re four theatres showing constant Shatner stuff at this convention. We’re told each one has like three levels of seating, each theatre seating 2k people. Each one is soundproofed. EXCEPT! The screens are free hanging, and behind them is open, joined space that isn’t soundproofed of divided. So that someone can stand there and see the back of each screen all at the same time.

Wait, what? Sound doesn’t really work like that. If you can hear all the movies in the back, those screens aren’t thick enough to stop sound, for seriously. Especially not if you can see what is projected on them (reversed, ‘natch) from behind. And that might seem like a minor point to you but it is an underlying issue of odd laziness on the part of this book that annoyed the crap out of me.

If you want me to buy into twenty impossible things before lunch then the non-impossible can’t also be impossible simply for the sake of it makes your life easier. Sorry, Charlie.

Also, frankly, writing the main Shatner full … of ellipses … so that he … has a form of bad … dialect in the book grew old fast. Yes, we know Shatner pauses when he acts. Everyone reading the book does. It doesn’t work on paper the way you think it does, not for long stretches.

So I stopped. Because my frustration level was growing at a constant rate. The end.

So we decided to go live with the first four chapters of Stays Crunchy in Milk, because why not? Chapter One is here. Enjoy.

When I decided to write Stays Crunchy in Milk one of the big things that drew me to the story was the idea of getting to write a road novel. I’ve always had a love of road stories, really. Something about putting some folk out on an adventure, a traveling journey, that just makes me smile.

I can write about, say, Boston and tell you everything I want to about the city. I can talk about what it looks like what it feels like and so on down the endless paths of possibilities there. But if I use a few characters and instead of telling you what I think, reflect what they feel and think through the city – show their experience colliding with that the city is and has and get that reflection together … you can get an incredibly complex view. A view not only of the city itself but also of each one of those involved characters. I love that.

The whole thing serves so many different masters and creates such an interesting and big picture it can be addictive to me, both as a reader and writer. So when I sat down to write a novel I realized I wanted to take these characters on a journey, make them move away from comfort zones and explore into places they’d never even heard of. It let me find my own feelings on a lot of things and it taught me more and more about each character as I went.

I mean look I can sit here and say “Well Character X will jump if a spider walks into a room” but there’s no way to run every permutation beforehand. Nor, I think, should you. Because the next time they jump they could learn something from it. People do that, after all. So every experience adds to the last and every time you have something utterly new you have to work out about that character. They should be the sum of their lives, after all, and challenging that, taking them somewhere new for a constant stretch, will help keep them growing.

And with three characters to reflect through, every big event was a chance for exploring the effects of those changes. Both in them and in me. I know how I felt about some ideas and concepts before I wrote the book and I know that having to process those same concepts through three different headspaces and untangle those knots often opened things up for me in ways I might not have seen beforehand.

So yeah. Road novels. Travel stories. Got a favorite?

————————————–
You can, of course, pre-order Stays Crunchy in Milk right from this post:

Preorder Choices, just click the drop-down and select!

Stays Crunchy in Milk (paperback) – US $16.95 Stays Crunchy in Milk (paperback) – Canada $18.95 Stays Crunchy in Milk (paperback) – UK $21.95 Stays Crunchy in Milk Hardcover (anywhere) $49.95

The Hardcover edition is limited to 34 copies produced, ever. So grab one today.

ALL PREORDERS will also have their copies signed. They will also come with a separate art print by Renato Pastor. How nifty is that? Buy a book and get it signed and also get free art!

Welcome to fun. I am so enormously pleased and excited to announce that pre-orders for my first full-length novel, Stays Crunchy in Milk are now open. This is the big one, for me. I have never been as proud of a work that I have written as I am of this book. Which is not to say that I don’t love Crazy Little Things and Strange Angel. I love them both and wish you would consider buying more of them. No, Stays Crunchy in Milk is just something else.

First of all – it isn’t horror. At all. It is … if you like the way I write here on this blog, the pop culture entries, bits of my life, all of that stuff? This is the book for you. It is a story with action, adventure, humor … all the good stuff stories should have. It was a joy to write, and I tell you honestly having had to reread it last week for more proofing, it is still a joy to read, even though I wrote it.

After the jump I am going to reveal, for the first time anywhere, the cover and I am going to talk way more about the book and what it means and where it came from and what it is. I will also tell you about the contest for pre-orders, the special gifts, the special editions of the book itself and I will also let you pre-order the book right from this post itself. So, if you have ever enjoyed anything I’ve written, anywhere, I ask that you come along for this ride.

Read the rest of this entry »

Spent the weekend in Ohio. Nice place, really. Come for the food, stay for the crippling depression.

————–

Got an awesome review of Strange Angel (which you can order here in StoryisStory.com:

I wound up reading Adam Knave’s Strange Angel twice: this is a complex, ambitious book. It’s a rare book that I read twice in a row: I needed that, for this, to get my head all the way around it.

Awesome! You can read the rest right over here. (Thanks again for the review CB Potts. The review is also on Amazon, please if you do read the book review it there, it helps.)

————–

Grabbed a Red Bull on my way to work today. Except I grabbed a 16oz. Now normally I drink a normal sized 8oz Red Bull. Sometimes if really out of it I might grab a 12. I didn’t mean to grab this thing. It’s huge. I’m sitting here like a gawking hobbit going “It comes in pints?

————–

Also, if you want to have a banner to link to the book with I give you one! Designed by Unrepentant:

Adrienne Jones came up with a concept a while back: McFly Day. That’s the day when you get your new book. See, remember Back to the Future? When George McFly got a big box of his new book and opened them? That was the best day a writer gets. It’s McFly day! I always want that day.

The other day, thanks to Strange Angel (click and order it now, amazon has it on sale for like $10.20!) I got me a McFly day!

So that’s always exciting. Box of books. Hooray! Also congratz to Marianne who had her own McFly day for her book, Lessons from the Fat-o-sphere: Quit Dieting and Declare a Truce with Your Body which is a MUCH longer title.

So hooray for McFly day! The mostest wonderfulest day of the year, and it can happen more than once!

It’s that time! Yes folks, despite odd printer delay, Strange Angel is for sale! You can click the image about or click here or whatever to get your copy.

Susie Sparrow’s life has turned upside down. She’s merged with Ferapont, who says he is an angel, and has dedicated her life to ridding the world of demon possessed people. Unfortunately she is also in High School. Trying to schedule fights around school, hanging out with friends and dinner with the parents might be too much for one girl with large flaming wings to handle. But don’t tell her that. This volume collects all three volumes of the hit novella series as well as the original short story that started it all. As an added bonus it also contains a never before seen end story, exclusive to this volume!

“Strange Angel is fun, scary, gory, action packed, and surprisingly touching… This book is highly recommended for any fans of Buffy or just good, fun, dramatic horror and fantasy.” — D.J. Kirkbride, author of SOULLESS

“Knave’s intense vision is packed with occult thrills. His brutal meditations on the struggle between good and evil create a fast-paced narrative bristling with gothic horror appeal. This dark action series is bound to be popular with fans of the recent surge in horror film.” –John Edward Lawson, author of LAST BURN IN HELL

“And even though I have repeated this time and time again, Knave is one of my favorite writers. His style is intimate and provocative, quietly humorous and always intelligent. He has this amazing ability to make you question everything you believe in, while passing you a beer and telling you a dirty joke. And never was it showcased more then in this series. That’s right, people, Knave has fucking arrived!” -Kelly “Bloodymary” Perry, Horror-Web.com

“If you’ve been missing some Buffy, but want to read something with a unique twist, the Strange Angel series of novellas by Adam P. Knave is a great joyride.” – Adrienne Jones, author of BRINE

This brings, for me, a four year journey to an end. It’s a little odd. But I am also ridiculously proud. So go and grab a copy!

Also, mini-blog-tour is in effect. I know some of you had expressed interest in interviews or reviews or guest blogging. Speak up again if you haven’t heard from me or if you want to now, and we can get that ball rolling!

Strange Angel is available now!

Also! If you have any questions like “Why should I buy this” or “What makes it cool” or anything (that isn’t spoiler-y) ask them and I shall answer them here! And, you know, if you read the story when it was in novella series form and enjoyed it – do me a favor and review it on Amazon? Thanks!

I have found the best book ever and it is Shatnerquake!

Shatnerquake by Jeff Burk has the following desc:

“It’s Shatner VS Shatners!

It’s the first ShatnerCon with William Shatner as the guest of honor! But after a failed terrorist attack by Campbellians, a crazy terrorist cult that worships Bruce Campbell, all of the characters ever played by William Shatner are suddenly sucked into our world. Their mission: hunt down and destroy the real William Shatner.

Featuring: Captain Kirk, TJ Hooker, Denny Crane, Rescue 911 Shatner, Singer Shatner, Shakespearean Shatner, Twilight Zone Shatner, Cartoon Kirk, Esperanto Shatner, Priceline Shatner, SNL Shatner, and – of course – William Shatner!

No costumed con-goer will be spared in their wave of destruction, no redshirt will make it out alive, and not even the Klingons will be able to stand up to a deranged Captain Kirk with a lightsaber. But these Shatner-clones are about to learn a hard lesson…that the real William Shatner doesn’t take crap from anybody. Not even himself.

It’s Shatnertastic!”

Uhm. It’s 100 pages. And 10 bucks. And I can’t buy it yet. I am sad. But money is kinda tight. Anyone wanna buy me a book that you just know I’ll review here in glorious detail?

Holy shit. Shatnerquake

EDITED! Fuck that, Im buying it and will have it in a couple of days. I’m hoping to have a review done before next weekend, yo.