Author Archive: Percival Constantine

Pulp Ark Awards 2012

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The nominations for the 2012 Pulp Ark Awards are now open. The details can be found at All Pulp:

I’m eligible for nominations in the following categories:
1. Best Novel – The Myth Hunter
4. Best Cover Art – The Myth Hunter
9. Best New Character – Elisa Hill
10. Best Author – Percival Constantine
Make sure you send in your nominations for me in these categories! You have until January 15th to send in your nominations. Please note that only those who participate in this nomination process will be allowed to vote when the ballot is available. So if you want to vote in the awards, you must nominate!

The House of the Devil

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Where The House of the Devil gets it right, it gets it really right. From the opening credits to the music to the general style of it, if you didn’t know any better, you could easily be fooled into thinking this was a film from the late 70s or early 80s as opposed to 2009.

College student Samantha Hughes (Jocelin Donahue) has found the perfect apartment near campus to get away from her slob of a roommate who’s always having sex with whomever (it’s implied in one brief scene with her that it’s more than one person). The landlady has a good feeling about Samantha and offers to waive the security deposit and just needs the first month’s rent. The problem is Samantha can’t afford it, so she answers an ad for a baby-sitter for the Ulmans (Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov). Mr. Ulman seems a bit strange, but Samantha needs the money and takes the job, against the wishes of her best friend, Megan (Greta Gerwig). When she arrives at the house, Mr. Ulman informs Samantha that he lied and the position isn’t to watch their child, but rather Mrs. Ulman’s mother. Although initially suspicious, Samantha still agrees to stay after Mr. Ulman agrees to pay her four hundred dollars for the night.

As I said at the beginning, when the film gets it right, it really gets it right. Director Ti West proves that he’s an absolute master of the slow-burn suspense-build. Nothing really happens throughout most of the movie, but West does such a great job of slowly building up to things and Donahue is great at conveying her fear and uncertainty at being in this old, large house that I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. This film works perfectly, both as a throwback to classic horror films and as a horror film that can stand on its own.

Unfortunately, when the film reaches the climax, things get a little shaky. As far as direction goes, it’s handled great. Effectively creepy with incredible visuals. But the logic of the characters just makes no sense from what we’ve seen of them up to this point. The villains of this movie are devil-worshippers, I don’t think I’m giving away anything by saying that. But some of the logic they use just seems inconsistent and wonky at best, to the point that I found myself sitting there thinking, “wait a minute…why would they even DO that?” during scenes where I should have been thinking, “ohshitohshitohshitohshit!” Their behavior completely took me out of the flow of the movie and broke the momentum that West had spent all this time building up. And the movie doesn’t hinge on the villains behaving like morons, so with just some rewriting, this could have easily been fixed.

If you’re going to watch this movie, and if you’re a fan of classic horror I recommend you do, then just be warned. Don’t think about the logical holes of the villains, because it will rob you of the scares to be had in the climax.

A Question of Continuity

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With DC’s reboot/relaunch/whatever-they’re-calling-it-this-week of their line, a lot of people have been questioning what this means for continuity. Some stuff seems to have still happened—for example, with the Batman characters. Dick Grayson is still an adult and running around in his own costumed identity, Jason Todd is still the Red Hood, Tim Drake is still Red Robin, Damian Wayne is still around as the latest Robin, and Barbara Gordon was still crippled by the Joker but is now back to being Batgirl. A lot of stuff from Green Lantern is still considered canon as well. But Superman has apparently been rebooted from the start.

So how does this all fit together?

To put it simply: it doesn’t. No matter how much DC says everything fits together, it never will fit together. Because to fit it all together is impossible.

I don’t claim to know a lot about DC Comics, but from what I do know, they’ve always played a bit more loose with continuity than Marvel has. And it’s no surprise—Marvel really invented the idea of rigid continuity. And when they did, it made sense. I doubt Stan Lee thought these characters would last more than ten years at the most and if they did, going by what had already happened in comics up until that point, it wasn’t likely to ever become an issue.

But it did. It became such an issue that DC came out with Crisis on Infinite Earths in order to streamline their continuity. It was followed by things like Superman: The Man of Steel, which saw John Byrne completely reimagining Superman. If you want to know where Marvel’s idea of the Ultimate concept came about, it was from that. Byrne took things about Superman that he thought worked and tossed out the stuff that he felt didn’t work. And no matter your opinion on what he did, there’s no denying that he redefined Superman for years to come.

Except not everything was streamlined. Lots of stuff from Pre-Crisis was still considered canon (Batman, the Teen Titans, etc). But other stuff wasn’t (Superboy, Supergirl, Wonder Woman, etc). DC writers cherry-picked what continuity they kept and what continuity they discarded. And that’s what we’re seeing now. Yet now, it seems like something extremely experimental and terrible. Why?

The reason this seems so drastic now is because of the Internet. And hey, I love the Internet. I would not have a writing and lettering career if not for the Internet and the opportunities it’s opened up. The upside of the Internet is that everyone has a voice. The downside of the Internet is that everyone has a voice.

I’m sure people had these same questions and concerns when Crisis came out. I’m sure they had them before that, when the concept of multiple Earths was first introduced.

The thing to keep in mind about continuity is that it never fits together completely, no matter what publisher, no matter what venue. In movies, James Bond went from 1962 until 2002 before being rebooted or aging. That’s forty years, and during that period, James Bond was perpetually in his mid-thirties or so (older when you’re talking about the later Roger Moore entries). And there were even subtle references to those past movies. Despite taking place twenty years earlier, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was still referenced in Licence To Kill and yet there was not a twenty-year age difference between Timothy Dalton in 1989 and George Lazenby in 1969. In the very first issue of Fantastic Four, Sue Storm tells Reed Richards that they have to make it into space “before the commies do” (yes, that line actually appears in the comic, Google it if you doubt me). But if we’re to believe that the comics currently take place in the present day, then there’s no possible way the Fantastic Four could have made their first flight during the height of the Cold War. Hell, pretty much all of Tony Stark’s early history is incompatible with the time frame compared to today, as he was probably more of a Cold War character than anyone else.

And with Batman, it’s even worse. Batman has never really been rebooted—all his stories are pretty much in continuity. So you’ve got a guy who is perpetually in his mid-thirties or so who has had adventures that have spanned around seventy years. No matter how you cut it up, there is no way to fit all that content into a twenty-year period.

I’m reminded of a class at the Wizard World convention in Chicago that Joe Casey taught on continuity. And right when the class started, he drew a little circle on the board and he pointed to it and said, “that’s me.” Then he drew a very large Pac Man-esque symbol about to eat the small circle and he said, “that’s continuity.” That was maybe ten or twelve years ago (damn, I’m getting old), but that image has always stuck with me as the perfect example of continuity—because if you’re not careful, it can and will swallow you whole.

So, to all those who gnash their teeth at the continuity conflicts of this new DC Universe, I offer this advice: give it up. You’re fighting a losing battle and you really only have three choices. You can drive yourself crazy trying to figure out how it fits together (while ignoring the obvious dated elements), you can give up on DC completely, or you can just go with the flow and treat references to past continuity as little Easter eggs to pick up on.

Personally, I’d rather just go with the flow. Because no matter what continuity it follows, there are some great creators working in this new setting. And if you deprive yourself of those stories because of silly continuity conflicts, then you’re the one losing out.

My view on continuity is that it’s something of a rough guide or a template. Treat it as such but don’t rigidly adhere to it. I guarantee your experiences will be a lot more enjoyable if you follow that advice.

In Defense of New Pulp

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Tony Davis, editor of The Pulpster, recently said the following about the New Pulp movement:

The “new pulp fiction” has been active in recent years, and more and more self-published novels and collections appear on PulpFest dealer tables and mail-order lists.

This used to be known as “fan fiction,” and science-fiction fans have been producing such material since organized fandom reared its head in the 1930s and ’40s. Today’s publications are more professional looking than those produced on old mimeograph machines or with carbon copies on a Smith Corona manual typewriter.

There’s both good and bad with the new pulp fiction. On the “good” side, pulp fans are encouraged to express their love of the pulps and pulp heroes by creating new tales. And as the years go by and we get further and further removed from the pulp era, it’s nice to know that the pulps are living on in one form or another. Publishers of the new pulp fiction also take out advertising space in pulp fanzines — that can only be “good” for business.

On the “bad” side, one could question the quality of some of these modern attempts at writing pulp fiction by non-professional scribes. Sure, you could argue, there were badly written stories during the heyday of the pulps. However, the pulp publishers had editors and other staff who read submissions and ensured that they at least met the standards of the pulp magazine (even for a Spicy title). Some stories were returned to aspiring authors for a rewrite, sometimes including critical suggestions for improvement. Other stories ended up on slush piles as fillers. But at least they were subject to review.

Another concern is that newcomers to the pulps might mistakenly think the glossy trade paperback they are looking at was originally written in 1933, not 2011. Newcomers should remember that “new pulp” is reflective of fan fiction today and not the pulp era of the late 1890s through the early 1950s.

As a writer who is part of the New Pulp movement, I felt I should write my own response to this and it can be summed up very simply: Tony Davis doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Let’s start with the idea that all New Pulp is fanfiction. So first, let’s define the term fanfiction. According to Dictionary.com,  it’s defined as “a fictional account written by a fan of a show, movie, book or video game to explore themes and ideas that will not or cannot be explored via the originating medium.”

My novels do not fit that definition. My characters came from my imagination. Oh sure, they were inspired by others, but if we’re going to stretch the definition of to those lengths, then Batman and Indiana Jones are nothing more than the Shadow and Doc Savage fanfiction.

But let’s forget about Mr. Davis’ misunderstanding of the term fanfiction for a moment and instead, let’s focus on the crux of his argument—New Pulp is amateur because it features no quality control. The stuff is just slapped together and thrown out on the websites.

My last two novels were published by Pulpwork Press, which is POD and thus self-published. I’ve also recently completed an eight-page comic story for Airship 27, another POD self-publisher. And I’m in the development stages of a project over at Pro Se Productions, yet another POD self-publisher.

According to Mr. Davis, none of these three publishers utilize editors or any sort of a review process. I’m now tempted to ask Josh Reynolds, Derrick Ferguson, Ron Fortier and Tommy Hancock just what they’ve been doing with my work after I’ve sent it to them. Because Mr. Davis now tells me all the hard work they’ve done editing my stories doesn’t qualify as “editing.” And why? Because they’re POD.

Wow. That’s ignorance on a massive scale and it shows Mr. Davis has done absolutely no research on the New Pulp publishers before he wrote this article.

And the idea that newcomers will mistakenly believe that New Pulp was created during the initial pulp era? I’m sorry, that’s absolutely ridiculous. Every work I’ve created is clearly marked with its year of creation. Not year of publication, that’s different—year of creation. Every New Pulp book I’ve read is also marked with this. And if anyone thinks my work, clearly set in the twenty-first century, was written in 1933, then I have to question their intelligence.

What this argument boils down to is purism—the idea that nothing outside of that initial era qualifies as pulp. And that too is ridiculous. Pulp isn’t restricted to one era (the late 1890s were as different from the early 1950s as the early 1950s are to the early twenty-first century). Pulp is a style of fiction. And if we’re going to adopt a purist mentality towards pulp, then we’re being extremely exclusionary to newcomers.

Now let’s get into the quality argument. Mr. Davis does make a good point—the downside to POD is that anyone can be published. But the idea that traditional publishing is more selective of quality? This is another ridiculous notion, the idea that because there were fewer venues for creators, the material produced was of a higher quality. This is an idea even more ridiculous than the purist mentality. Look in any medium, in any era, and you’ll find a sea of crap. POD hasn’t changed that, because the “real” publishers aren’t exactly putting out winners (just look at Stephanie Meyer or Dan Brown to see what “real” publishers consider high quality material). “Real” publishers don’t choose what they will and won’t publish based on the quality of the material, because quality is extremely subjective. I mentioned Stephanie Meyer above as being proof of low quality, yet I know many people who think the Twilight books are absolutely incredible (and these are well-read individuals). Publishers don’t select works based on quality, they select based on marketability—both how well they can market the book and how well the author (or in most cases, the author’s agent) can market the book to them. Quality doesn’t even begin to factor into the equation.

And the New Pulp movement that Mr. Davis dismisses with a not-so-subtle hint of snobbery? It’s keeping pulp alive. It’s bringing pulp to new audiences. No one in the New Pulp movement has said that “real” pulp is bad. Quite the opposite, we’re very candid about our love of the classics and we encourage people to read those classics for themselves if they haven’t. That’s free promotion right there. It drives up demand for the classics, which keeps them in print. And guess what? That keeps The Pulpster in print as well. Because if we regard pulp with the kind of dismissive, purist mentality that Mr. Davis seems to adopt, then the market for pulp fiction will shrink, which will lower demand.

And where would The Pulpster be if that happens?

Ron Fortier reviews THE MYTH HUNTER!

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Pulpmaster extraordinaire Ron Fortier has written a great review of The Myth Hunter! Go check it out!

Here’s a bit about Ron had to say about it: “From the opening action sequence to the last climatic battle with a cruel and vicious assassin, ‘The Myth Hunter’ is a super charged thriller that never lets up…a solid, masterful thriller by a young writer realizing his tremendous potential.”

I’m back on THE BOOK CAVE!

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Ric Croxton had me back on The Book Cave to give me a chance to talk about my latest novel, The Myth Hunter! Unfortunately, Art Sippo was under the weather so he couldn’t join in. So it was just Ric and I chatting for a little bit. Give it a listen!

http://thebookcave.libsyn.com/the-book-cave-episode-130-percival-constantine

Also, be sure to pick up your copy of The Myth Hunter over in my novels section!

X-Men: First Class Review

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I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t dreading this film. Ever since news of it first broke, it seemed 20th Century Fox just didn’t really put the proper effort into planning this. Depending on who in the production you talk to, First Class is either a prequel or a reboot. No one seems to really know. And there are logistical problems in both.

A reboot would be fine—but if you’re going to do a reboot, why not use the five of the original X-Men instead of only one? And if it’s a prequel, then why set it in the 60s, which sets up logical inconsistencies with the existing films? Why not just set it ten years or so before the events of X-Men, with Cyclops, Jean, Storm and Beast as the original team (which is what we’re led to believe was the first class in the original three films).

I’ll get to  more logical inconsistencies later. Suffice it to say, this review will be laden with spoilers! DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU DO NOT WANT CRUCIAL PLOT DETAILS REVEALED!

As you’re no doubt aware, X-Men: First Class takes place against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) is in Cambridge, using his telepathic powers to guess what drink hot girls want and then hits on them by talking about how their hair color or eye color is an incredible mutation. This is much to the chagrin of his childhood friend, Raven (Jennifer Lawrence), a shapeshifter who he introduces as his sister but who clearly is interested in Charles as something more. Charles, however, has a problem with the fact that Raven’s true form consists of blue skin, bright red hair, yellow eyes and some scaly formations over her naughty bits.

So right off the bat, we’ve got a Charles Xavier who acts like a shallow frat boy. Way to go, Fox.

In another part of Europe, Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender) is tracking down Nazi war criminals. The primary man on his hit list is Klaus Schmidt, the man who killed his mother and told Erik he was part of a new master race because of his powers of magnetism.

Schmidt however, has a new name these days—Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon). He and his Hellfire Club, which consists of Emma Frost (January Jones), Azazel (Jason Flemyng) and Riptide (Alex Gonzalez) are manipulating the United States and the Soviet Union into inching closer towards all-out nuclear war. The reason behind this is as retarded as can be imagined—Shaw believes nuclear winter will wipe out humanity but will leave mutants in tact. Apparently, now being a mutant means you’re completely immune to a nuclear explosion.

I won’t even get into how this plot is completely contrary to the motivations of the comic version of Shaw, who is simply a power-hungry opportunist. Nor will I get into the bizarre way that they adapted Shaw’s powers into absorbing all kinds of energy and redirecting it as well. It’ll just make me mad. All X-Men fans really need to know about this Shaw is that he’s some sort of bizarre amalgamation of Apocalypse and Bishop.

CIA agent Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne, and don’t ask me how Moira went from being a Scottish geneticist to an American secret agent) stumbles upon this plot and witnesses the Hellfire Club’s powers in action. She finds Charles Xavier in record time (recently graduated, he’s apparently already an expert in his field as just a few minutes earlier, he was still working on his thesis) and after reading her mind, Xavier finds out he and Raven aren’t the only mutants out there. Through Moira, they meet the Man in Black (Oliver Platt). It sounds like he should be mysterious, but he’s not. He’s just never given a name. Why couldn’t they have just called him Fred Duncan (maybe only hardcore X-Men fans will recognize that name), since that’s basically who he’s playing?

During an attack on Shaw, Xavier meets Erik and the two join forces. From there, we see them recruit several young mutants to their cause—Alex Summers/Havok (Lucas Till), Hank McCoy/Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Sean Cassidy/Banshee (Caleb Landry Jones), Armando Munoz/Darwin (Edi Gathegi), and Angel Salvadore (Zoe Kravitz).

From there, the film is pretty by the numbers. You have an attack where Darwin is killed off for no reason (just had to kill the token black guy, didn’t you?) and Angel switches sides. Now operating independently, Xavier and Erik train the young mutants in the use of their powers in preparation for the final battle with the Hellfire Club against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

I don’t want it to be said that this film is completely bad. It is far superior to X-Men Origins: Wolverine (and Hugh Jackman makes a cameo in this film which is honestly the greatest part of the movie). I’d say it’s about on par with X-Men: The Last Stand. The direction in First Class is far superior, but the story in The Last Stand is, I’m actually ashamed to admit, better. Mainly because of how completely retarded Shaw’s master plan really is.

Michael Fassbender steals the show as Magneto. He’s got the character down and he’s got the same kind of gravitas that Ian McKellen had. The beginning of the film, when he’s Mr. Nazi Hunter, is awesome. I now want to see Vaughn direct a Cold War Bond film starring Fassbender in the title role. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were both doing this as an audition tape for how they could tackle Bond.

The same can’t really said of McAvoy, who just comes off as a pretentious ass. Hoult gives a decent performance, but completely lacks Beast’s trademark wit and humor. Again, this is a far cry from Kelsey Grammar’s portrayal, who was managed to get across both dry wit and intelligence. In comparison, Hoult is just playing a stereotypical shy geek. Kravitz is gorgeous to look at but has little else going on. Lawrence’s Mystique spends half the movie whining and the other half chasing after almost every guy on the team. Jones and Till have a few good moments as Banshee and Havok and they do serviceable jobs in their roles. But they ultimately have nothing to work with.

Of all the First Class, Darwin is probably the most interesting, and unfortunately, his only purpose is to serve as the sacrificial lamb.

As far as the Hellfire Club goes, I just can’t buy Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw. He doesn’t have the right presence for a character like that and when he’s wearing that helmet like he does through half the movie, he just looks ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong, I think Bacon’s a great actor. But he’s not a right fit for any version of Shaw, let alone one this badly written.

January Jones…oh god, she’s terrible. Easily the worst performance of the film. Her only role is to look good in lingerie (which she does). Great body but what a bad actress. Her diamond form also looks really bad, almost two-dimensional. And as for Flemyng and Gonzalez, they really serve no purpose in this film other than for action scenes.

And the costumes. While fanboys were bitching about the X-Men wearing black leather in the original movies, I was in favor of it. I agreed that putting the X-Men in blue and yellow costumes may look cool in the comics (and even that is somewhat up for debate), but it doesn’t work on film. And First Class proved I was right. The costumes looked garish and absolutely terrible. If they had to go with something that resembled the original costumes, they should have used a pale yellow and black instead of blue. But as it stands, they just look ridiculous. Especially in bright sunlight.

There was also some really wasted potential in the setting. The original point of putting this film in the 60s was supposedly because of the similarities to the Civil Rights Movement. Yet the only real element of the 60s is the Cold War (and Xavier’s forced utterings of the word “groovy,” which just made me cringe).

Again, there are good elements—Vaughn definitely knows what he’s doing behind the camera and there are some decent to outright great performances. But the story is just ridiculous. And it’s obvious Fox didn’t pay much attention to what they’ve done before with these films.

Look, I’m not a continuity nut. It doesn’t bother me that film adaptations of comic books aren’t 100% accurate. I know they’re not and I know they can’t be. And to anyone who points to situations like Sin City, self-contained graphic novels are nowhere near the same as a comic series which has been running monthly for decades, has numerous spin-offs, and has heavy ties to a shared universe that you can’t touch on because of different studios holding different rights. It can’t be accurate, changes have to be made.

But when you start violating the internal continuity and logistics of the film universe you’ve set up, that shows you really just don’t give a shit. And that’s what pisses me off. Even in badly-done movies like Fantastic Four or Ghost Rider, I still got the sense that the filmmakers cared about what they were doing, they just couldn’t do it well. Here, what’s so irritating is that these filmmakers are capable of doing it well, yet they just don’t seem to care.

Here are some examples of the inconsistencies in the X-Men movieverse that First Class causes:

-In X-Men and X2, it’s made very clear that Xavier and Magneto built Cerebro together. In First Class, Beast has Cerebro already built before he even meets Xavier and Magneto.

-In X-Men, Xavier says Scott, Jean and Storm were his first students. They’re not present in First Class.

-In The Last Stand and Wolverine, we see Xavier in the past, played by Patrick Stewart, walking. In First Class, he becomes crippled when he’s much younger.

-In The Last Stand, Xavier and Magneto are seen, played again by Stewart and McKellen, recruiting a young Jean Grey. In First Class, they part ways when they’re much younger.

-In The Last Stand, Moira is portrayed as a Scottish geneticist. In First Class, she’s portrayed as an American secret agent whose memories of the X-Men are wiped clean.

-According to First Class, in the 1960s, Emma Frost is a member of the Hellfire Club. But according to Wolverine, in the 1970s, she’s younger and the sister of Silver Fox.

-In X-Men, Xavier is surprised when Magneto has a helmet that can block his telepathy. Yet in First Class, Xavier clearly knows Magneto stole the helmet from Shaw.

Of course, that’s all assuming this is a prequel, which is what Singer has said. Now if you take this film as a reboot, as other people involved have said, these aren’t problems. But then you have the question of if you’re going to make this a reboot, why are you using obscure characters like Angel Salvadore and Darwin to round out the X-Men instead of using classic characters like Cyclops and Jean?

Again, there are good elements here and it’s not really a bad film. But it just doesn’t work for me. Too many inconsistencies with the established film continuity and a ridiculous story just pulled me right out of it.

Who is Elisa Hill?

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So just who is Elisa Hill, the star of The Myth Hunter?

Elisa is the daughter of Robert and Tanya Hill. Both of them were myth hunters as well. From a young age, Elisa was groomed for her future profession. She was home schooled for most of her life, and the myths and legends we grow up with, knowing they’re just stories? What we didn’t know, what we weren’t raised knowing, is that they’re all based on fact.

Elisa’s parents knew better than ours. And they raised their daughter with that knowledge as well. She was schooled in the legends as well as the methods to pursue the truth behind the legends. From a young age, Elisa was taught not only the legends, but various languages. She’s fluent in a number of languages, and has at least a rudimentary knowledge of many others, as well as a fair bit of combat training.

A child prodigy, when Elisa was sixteen, she was accepted to Burroughs University. She pursued degrees in mythology and archaeology, and in her time away from school, she accompanied her parents on some of their adventures. But after she finished school, Elisa chose to travel the world a bit on her own.

It was during these travels in her early twenties that she became acquainted with Lucas Davalos, who was a rogue myth hunter (more on him later). A rogue in myth hunter circles is one who pursues the legends not for knowledge but profit. Elisa was attracted to Lucas’ rogue nature and she joined him in his missions. Like him, she became a rogue. This didn’t sit so well with her parents and their relationship became strained.

After the Hills’ demise, Elisa regretted the way things went down between them. She tried to push Lucas into joining her in changing their paths, but he refused and betrayed her on a job. With nowhere else to go, Elisa sought out an old family friend, Maxwell Finch. He took an active part in her upbringing but retired shortly before Robert and Tanya died.

Seeing her desire to redeem herself, Max took Elisa under his wing and now aids her in her quests. As the head of the mythological studies department at Burroughs, he also helped her secure a teaching position. Although she mostly works there as a part time professor, the job provides her with supplementary income and access to a wealth of materials.

As mentioned before, Elisa is skilled in various forms of armed and unarmed combat. Although she has some skill with firearms, she prefers not to use them. Instead, Elisa relies on weaponry from various cultures. Her preferred weapon is the kukri, a Nepalese dagger. She carries a pair of them on her at all times, and she’s able to use them both at close range and also as throwing weapons. However, she also has a collection of other weapons that she’ll rely on as the mission calls for.

Despite her knowledge and experience, Elisa is still a bit brash and has some of the rogue nature in her even now. This has brought her into conflict with some of her associates and some of her colleagues think of her as a bit too brash. She toes the line between rogue and legit, sometimes relying on her contacts from her old life.

In The Myth Hunter, Elisa uncovers evidence that opens a path to the one quest her parents never managed to complete, that of the truth behind the supposed lost continent of Lemuria.The question then becomes, where will this knowledge lead her? And elements from her past, including Lucas and the secret society known as the Order, as well as another vicious myth hunter named Seth, are also after Lemuria’s secrets.

Can Elisa beat them to those secrets? For that, you’ll have to check out the book! You can buy your own copy of The Myth Hunter, both in print ($11.99) or electronic ($2.99) formats. You should also be able to find them at your preferred online retailer or by request at your local bookstore.

The first image above was drawn by Marcus Jackson. The second image was drawn by Jonathan Reincke. Both were attached at different points to a possible Myth Hunter comic book which unfortunately never materialized.

ALL PULP spotlights THE MYTH HUNTER!

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The fine folks over at All Pulp have taken it upon themselves to help get the word out concerning The Myth Hunter! First up, Tommy Hancock has given four out of five tips of his hat to the book! In his review, he says, “This book is full of vivid descriptions, fantastically crafted narrative, intriguing and engaging dialogue, but its biggest star is the characterization.  Constantine brings each and every character to life, not just with vivid details, but with emotions and passions.  Even the characters we are meant to like leave us feeling a little divided on just how much we like them, and that’s a sign of humanity granted to a written creation, a skill many writers never ever develop.”

Want to read more? Check out the review!

And once you’ve finished reading the review, you get a look at some of my own thoughts when All Pulp puts me in the hot seat for an interview! The questions were really well-crafted, focusing on the way I write heroines, the choices for supporting characters, and my thoughts on the New Pulp movement.

Interested yet? Go check it out here!

THE MYTH HUNTER DEBUTS!

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The wait is over! The Myth Hunter is now available for purchase on Amazon.com! You can also purchase an ebook version over at Smashwords (soon to be available on Amazon as well).

From the back cover:

Ancient civilizations. Gods and monsters. All the legends of the world have elements of truth to them. And to track down those legends, there are the myth hunters. Some of them, like Elisa Hill, are explorers, trying to learn more about the world we live in. And some are soldiers of fortune, whose only goal is to profit off them. When evidence proving the existence of the lost continent of Lemuria, Elisa embarks on a journey for the truth. And her quest will take her from the oceans of the Caribbean to the temples of India and the Ryukyu Islands of Japan. But it’s a race against time, because the mysterious sect known as the Order and a ruthless myth hunter named Seth are also after the secrets of Lemuria!

And for an added bonus, if you order a print version of The Myth Hunter before July 1st, you will receive a free ebook of Love & Bullets, my previous novel for free! What’s Love & Bullets? Check out the description below:

Beautiful. Cunning. Deadly. These are just a few of the words that describe Angela Lockhart, former operative of the mysterious Agency. Now working as an assassin for an international syndicate called Infernum, led by a mysterious power broker known only as Dante, Lockhart has become the ‘Most Wanted’ for every major law enforcement agency in the world. But when Agency operative Christian Pierce begins a dangerous game of deception to try and bring her back into the fold, Angela will find herself torn between her old life and her new one…

This book is the first in the Infernum series, with the second book due for a release later this year, so you’ll want to make sure you’re caught up before then!

So you may be asking yourself how do you take advantage of this offer? All you have to do is take a screenshot of the order confirmation you receive, the part that lists The Myth Hunter as a purchase. On a PC you do this by holding Alt + PrintScreen and on a Mac you do it by holding Command + Control + Shift + 3. This will save an image of your computer screen to the clipboard and then you just go into an image editing program (such as Photoshop or even MS Paint will be fine), paste the image, and then black out any personal details (address, order number, credit card information, etc). Then save it and e-mail the image to percival.constantine@gmail.com with TMH PROMO written in the subject field. You’ll receive a response with information on where and how you can obtain your FREE digital copy of Love & Bullets!