STILL Talking DINOSAUR JAZZ with Michael Panush ... and Victor Standish

Michael Panush, author of DINOSAUR JAZZ, was sitting unhappily and dangerously

between a murderous Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini.

Sir Arthur turned to me, "Captain McCord, you are a Texas Ranger!

Are you going to let this stage fraud threaten me?"

There was the sound of Gypsy laughter and my son, Victor Standish,

pulled out the seat next to Houdini for his Victorian ghoul friend, Alice Wentworth to sit down.

She placed tender fingers on Houdini's arm.  "Oh, do let go of your hatred, sir."

"For this murderer's sake?" growled the magician.

Alice murmured, "No, for yours. I care for you too much to see you hurt yourself."

Houdini muttered something in Yiddish and got up and stormed away.  Sir Arthur, showing none of the wit of his hero, Holmes, got up, following him.

Victor flashed an easy smile to Michael Panush.  "That went well."

Michael frowned, "It did?"

Alice nodded sadly, "Yes, for Meilori's, it went extremely well."

Victor sat back easy in the plush leather chair. 

"I've always wondered if authors had favorite characters in their books.

Who is your favorite character from Dinosaur Jazz, and why are they so awesome?"

"That’s a difficult question," Michael sighed.

" I like the main character and narrator, Sir Edwin Crowe, because of his courage and willingness to do the right thing.

I like James, Sir Edwin’s Ape Man partner, because of his strength and determination.

Plus, these are two men who hunt dinosaurs for a living. That’s pretty cool.

However, I’d have to say that my favorite character is Clara Washington Embers,

who starts out the book as a wealthy American dilettante with radical pretentions, who takes up dinosaur-hunting for fun.

Through the course of the novel, she discovers this need to battle tyranny and in subsequent stories

 she joins the Communist Party in Soviet Russia, tries to unionize the Ape Men of Acheron Island

and ends up helping to lead a guerilla resistance group against the invading forces of Imperial Japan during WWII.

She has this drive for justice that I greatly admire. Plus, she shoots dinosaurs and several men with a very large rifle."

Victor laughed, "If you're going to shoot villains, doing it with a very large rifle is the way!"

Alice frowned like a librarian at Victor, then turned to Michael.

"If you were to write yourself into Dinosaur Jazz, what type of character would you be?"

I’m not very good at running, so I’d presumably be a tasty tyrannosaur snack.

But there actually is a character in the stories named Nathan Whipple, who is somewhat like me.

In Dinosaur Jazz, he’s a little boy visiting Acheron Island with his tourist family. He’s not exactly based on me – he’s far more courageous –

but we both have the same sort of glee concerning dinosaurs, pulp fiction and adventure.

Plus, he’s named after my grandfather and has a pet triceratops named Max, named after a dog of mine who passed away a few years ago.

Most importantly, Nathan decides to become a pulp writer and use his own adventures as inspiration. Hopefully, we both tell a good story."

Alice smiled sadly, "A pet triceratops named Max.  How like Trish with her hellhound, Medea."

Victor patted her too long fingers softly, then turned to Michael again.

"I heard you call Dinosaur Jazz as "pulp fiction". For Alice, who is new to the genre, tell us a little about what that means."

Michael rubbed his chin.

"Pulp fiction comes from a large number of magazines, featuring exciting stories of various genres, which were extremely popular in the Twenties and Thirties.

The name comes from the fact that these magazines were cheaply produced and printed on inexpensive ‘pulp’ paper. 

The pulps had all sorts of genres, with fantasy and horror in Weird Tales, hard-boiled crime tales in Black Mask and science-fiction in Amazing Stories.

There were also popular recurring characters, like Doc Savage and the Shadow, who had their own magazines recounting their adventures.

Pulp magazines wanted stories that were lurid, exciting and action-packed. Quite a few of them featured Lost Worlds.

Some authors, like HP Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Dashiell Hammett created amazing works that are directly responsible for inspiring the genres of today. Just look at what Quentin Tarantino named his best movie if you need proof of that.

Other pulp writers were…less talented.

I remember reading somewhere that great fantasy artist Frank Frazetta said that he never actually read Edgar Rice Burroughs, though he illustrated Burroughs’ books, because the writing just wasn’t very good.

This may be so, but I think that the ideas of the pulps, the sense of adventure and excitement, is worthy of emulation. I hope that both Dinosaur Jazz and the Stein and Candle Detective Agency can stand strong as examples of ‘modern pulp.’"

A teen girl with shaved head, goggles, and cloven hooves skipped up beside a stunned Michael. 

"Hi!  My name's Maxine.  I've been listening from the next table. When does the next ship for Acheron Island leave?"

Michael muttered low, "If I ever get my hands on Roland!"

{Dinosaur Jazz will be released in print and on all major eBook devices on the 13th of June, and is available for reviewers on NetGalley.}