Murder, rockets, ghosts, terrorists, nukes & beach babes
My next novel—The Space Coast Out-of-This World News & Herald-Tribune—now is far enough along for me to start promoting it.
This story is my homage to old-school journalism, inspired by a small-town tabloid newspaper editor I met decades ago. It’s also a suspense thriller with a sci-fi twist, like my first two novels, The Roswell Swatch and The Murder Plague.
I’d like to have Out-of-This-World-News to Beta readers in another week or two, to my editor later this spring, to my publisher this summer, and into print some time in 2025.
(If you’d like to be a Beta reader, please contact me. Details at the end of this post. I will trade reads, or provide some other favor you may need some day in exchange.)
The story
The Space Coast Out-of-This-World News & Herald Tribune is about a fictional tabloid newspaper (and website) that covers crime, the hospitality and entertainment business, beach life, and rocket launches, in the stretch of Florida coast from Titusville to Cocoa.
A hard-boiled, old editor and his idealistic, green reporter snoop around a murder story and stumble onto a domestic terrorism plot. Before long, they’re dealing with conspiracy theories about satellites, dirty politics, a lost cache of stolen bomb-grade uranium, a band of dangerous but incompetent biker outlaws, a bank manager eaten by gators, and a kleptomaniac ghost whisperer.
Editor-publisher Mac MacGregor runs his little weekly beach newspaper to kick people’s asses. He believes—and has some success to back it up—that such intrepid attitude makes his paper and website a delicious must-read for people who can’t resist that sort of thing, just about everyone. His newest reporter, young Stevie Guthrie, took the job in part because, in this era of anemic, timid, and directionless newspapers, Mac’s little rag just might offer a journalism apprenticeship like no other—provided Guthrie can stay out of jail and stay alive long enough to get the story.
An excerpt can be found on my works in progress pages, here.
The inspiration
This is inspired by a real-life little weekly newspaper that was published in Rockport, Texas, in the 1970s and ‘80s. It was called the Toast of the Coast Herald. It was mostly written, photographed, edited, and published by the ass-kickingest journalist I ever met, a guy named Fred Mullins. Another journalist and I had a couple beers with him one night, trading shop talk. Of course, in my own journalism career I’ve had my own ass-kicking editors, who certainly kicked my ass. Ultimately, I suppose, my character Mac is a mashup of them all.
(I have no idea what ever happened to Mullins or The Toast of the Coast Herald. I did some Googling and made a couple of phone calls, but came up with little.)
For this story, I moved Mullins’ paper from Texas’ Aransas Bay to Florida’s Space Coast, renamed it the Space Coast Out-of-This-World News & Herald Tribune, and gave the paper something to kick ass about.
The opportunity
The Space Coast Out-of-This-World News & Herald Tribune, the novel, is the result. I’ve been considering that name to be only a working title. But after I first publicly disclosed it last week, I’ve had people urge me to keep it as the novel’s title. For now, in part for lack of anything better, I will.
Meanwhile: I need a few Beta readers. I hope to be sending out Beta manuscripts soon, and I’d like to get Beta feedback by the end of May.
The task is not editing. I’ll have paid, professional editors for that. I need people to leisure-read it, please. Don’t even take notes. Just read it. The latest draft runs about 75,000 words; that’s equal to about 250-275 pages in a typical book.
Then drop me a note telling me your impressions, in broad terms. What works or doesn’t work? Are the character believable or are one or more too stupid to stand? Does the plot work, or are there holes or ridiculous stuff? Are the science, journalism, law, and law enforcement accurate and realistic or wrong and embarrassing? Is the depiction of the Space Coast pretty fair or pretty far off? Does the story need more or less of anything? Any or all of that stuff. General impressions.
If you want to help me with that, please let me know. Thanks! Otherwise, I hope you’ll be reading the published version of The Space Coast Out-of-This-World News & Herald Tribune novel next year!
