Thom Dunn is a Boston-based writer, musician, and utterly terrible dancer. He is the singer/guitarist for the indie rock/power-pop the Roland High Life, as well as a staff writer for the New York Times’ Wirecutter and a regular contributor at BoingBoing.net. Thom enjoys Oxford commas, metaphysics, and romantic clichés (especially when they involve whiskey), and he firmly believes that Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" is the single greatest atrocity committed against mankind. He is a graduate of Clarion Writer's Workshop at UCSD ('13) & Emerson College ('08).
In other news: my friends at Quirk Books asked me to write a little Thanksgiving post celebrating a book that I'm grateful for. And that's how I ended up standing in my kitchen with a Bluetooth keyboard in my hand, walking in circles drunk on double IPA and writing this wonderful ode to The Invisibles, which turned 20 years old this year.
But seriously. This book will change your life. If it were a food, it would be a Cthurkey.
The fine folks at Quirk Books have just released Stuff Every Geek Should Know, the latest in their ongoing sampler series of free eBooks. These samplers often feature snippets from Quirk's other offerings, along with fun little teasers and games, but Stuff Every Geek Should Know is chock-full of brand new content from writers including Eric Smith, Kyle Cassidy, E.C. Myers, and, oh yeah, me! I've had comic books and scripts published, and plenty of non-fiction, but this is technically my first eBook from a real official fancy publisher. Here's the official blurb from Quirk:
Packed with tips, articles, and how-tos on everything from performing Jedi mind tricks to creating your own cosplay gear to wooing the geek of your dreams, Stuff Every Geek Should Know is an indispensable guide to life, the universe, and everything geeky. Featuring content from Quirk's nerdiest titles plus all-new, never-before-seen good stuff from the geekiest bloggers in the known universe. Chapters include:
GEEK SKILLS FROM POP CULTURE: How to survive a haunted house, perform the Vulcan nerve pinch, decode ciphers, and master other survival skills.
GEEKS IN ACTION: How to make amazing YouTube vids, create comic books, handle yourself in an online multiplayer game, and generally get your geek on.
THE GEEK GATHERING: How to have the best convention experience of your life.
GEEK LOVE: How to craft an online dating profile, plan a geeky marriage proposal, pass on geek wisdom to your kids, and otherwise enjoy the human emotion of "love."
You can download the book on Scribd, Amazon, Nook, Kobo, or iBooks, for all your e-reading pleasure — and tell your friends to do the same!
Can you believe it's been 5 years since the release of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies? And just over 200 from the release of the original novel? Well, to celebrate, the folks at Quirk Books (who published ...and Zombies and its followups, as well as many other fine collections of pulped trees) asked me to do some digging and explore the past, present, and future of their massive mashup mega-hit -- where it started, how it worked, and what it did for the company over the last 5 years. The short answer is that it basically launched their entire fiction line, which is now tremendously successful -- and also served as an accidental omen to our current pop-culture status of zombie overload (seriously! They beat the trend! But barely). For the long answer? Check out my 3-piece retrospective on Pride & Prejudice & Zombies on the Quirk website.
Hello, website! Long time, no update! I swear that one of these days I am going to actually train myself to just make brief updates here as they happen, instead of these info dumps. ANYWAY. I've got some stuff going on, because of course I do. It goes like this:
Meanwhile, in addition to my normal duties at Five By Five Hundred, I have a review of Eric Smith's new book The Geek's Guide To Dating on Tor.com, and some coverage of SpeakEasy Stage Company's world premiere production of Make Up Your Mind, a brand new play by Kurt Vonnegut even though he's dead.
And then, ya know, the youge (like, the slang/shortened word for "usual," but spelled phonetically? Is that right?): Workin', writin', so on and so forth. Tonight at the Huntington we start performances for The Cocktail Hour by A.R. Gurney, which is directed by Maria Aitken, a favorite of ours at the theatre. Here's a little video I made for that:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa_ckErMzAY]
I also wrote some fun stuff about ghost stories at the theatre on the Huntington's blog which is still worth reading even though it's after Halloween, as well as two pieces of flash fiction in this "Quantum Shorts" competition that you can go read and vote for so I can win some monies: I Kill Dead People and Not Dead Yet (which was the basis for my story in Grayhaven Comics' Fifth Dimension anthology).
Wow that's a whole lot of dead stuff. In that case, I should end this on a happy note, which is that Maurissa Tancharoen both listened to and enjoyed my song "I'll Fight A Whedon For You"; unfortunately, her husband Jed was less than impressed.
So now I've pissed one Whedon and armwrestled another, which only leaves Zak for me still to cross. But overall I think that means that I've successfully become a Whedonverse villain?
Holy crap, I'll be 28 in 2 weeks.
Over on the Quirk Books blog, I propose a few days for Alternative Oktoberfests, mostly inspired by books, in case you're one of those weirdos (not like me) who somehow doesn't enjoy a sixteen-day festival of beer and bratwurst (weird). Check it out:
Look, we all know that I love stories and drinking. This is no secret to anyone who's ever spoken to me for more than a minute. So naturally, I've got another article on the topic that's now live over at Quirk Books. Think of this as a kind of companion piece to my How To Drink Like Your Favorite Writer and A Guide To Pairing Your Comic Books and Beer posts. You liked those, right? Of course you did.
And here's another new article I wrote for the fine folks at Quirk Books about one of my favorite things in the entire world: time travel paradoxes. Time to make your head spin!
I actually wrote this article quite while ago, and I was pleasantly surprised to see it hit the waves of the Internet today. Similar to another post I did over at Tor, this one breaks down a few of my favorite fictional rock bands (some of which have managed to become nonfictional as well, which is a particularly impressive feet). Check it out!
Happy International Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day! Woohoo! I mean, uhh, aaaargh argh argh argh me booty n' ye swab wit' me gob in the gonk. I don't know. But I do know that in honor of International Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day, I've written an article for Quirk Books on my Top 10 Fictional Pirates of all time. I also know that EL James, author of the bestselling and highly controversial 50 Shades book series, retweeted my article. So if her follow up novel is a Momerotica Pirate epic -- well, now you know who to blame.
My newest article for Quirk Books is now live, a breakdown of fictional schools to both increase and decrease the impact of your own September woes. Did I mention that it starts with an epigraph from the greatest television show of all time (also known as The Adventures of Pete & Pete)? 'Cause it does. Now enough dilly-dallying. Go check it out!
Here's a new post I did for the fine folks at Quirk Books, about two of mankind's greatest creations: alcohol, and literature.
I have a confession to make. I didn't really bring t-shirts for everybody. Although I do have these sweet new business cards! So that's cool, right? I know I've been slacking (again) lately (again) with keeping this website updated with all of my various doin's. But it's not like I've not been not doing things (...or is it?)! Instead, I've just been too busy doing things to, ya know, write about doing things. It's kind of why I hate meetings in general, because I'd rather be doing things, than talking about doing things. So this website's kind of like a meeting then. Except I don't hate it; in fact, I quite love my little website here. So really, not like a meeting at all.
(shut up Thom) Okay so here's a brief rundown of where the hell I've been:
Head on over to the fine folks at Quirk Books and check out my world-famous (read: on the internet) Comic Book & Beer Pairings article on their blog! It's comic books, and beer, together. What more could you possibly want? Also, shout out to Quirk's Marketing & Social Media Coordinator Eric Smith for the fantastic pictures that he scrounged together to accompany each entry. They help make the article extra awesome-worthy.
I've been doing some guestblogging for Quirk Books, publishers of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and that soon-to-be hit Broetry (what you mean, you haven't bought a copy yet?!), and my first post is up today. It's a countdown of one of my favorite character types in pop culture/literature: the Chessmaster, that brilliant strategist who plays 50 moves ahead of the rest of the cast in the story, and always seems to have some grander scheme in mind that we as readers/viewers/audience can hardly even begin to comprehend. And they always know how to manipulate and play the other characters into going along with their plans, whether they realize it or not. We're talking Nick Fury, Ben Linus, Dumbledore, the Cigarette Smoking Man — you know the type. Check out the full list at the link below. Agree? Disagree? Let me know on the Quirk comments!
Congratulations to my good friend (and fellow FiveByFiveHundred co-founder and Daily Genoshan founder) Brian McGackin, whose first book, Broetry, is available today from the lovely folks at Quirk Books! Broetry is one of the those things that, when Brian first told me about the idea, I kind of wanted to punch him in the teeth, because of how stupidly brilliant and simple it is. It is quite literally poetry, but written for, well, dudes. There's no waxing philosophical about flowers in the spring, but there is plenty of Mama Celeste Frozen Pizzas, comic books, X-Box 360, and HaiKougars to go around. I've been close to this project from its earliest moments, and can honestly say that it is every bit as fantastic as it sounds, and I encourage everyone to pick up a copy (because I guarantee you will find something in it that you enjoy). Also, as an added bonus, my name is in the book, so that's cool, right?
In case you're (somehow) still not convinced, here are a few samplings from the book that I think you might enjoy:
Better late than never, I have a new review up on DailyGenoshan.com of The Meowmorphosis, the latest literary mash-up from Quirk Books, wherein Gregor Samsa awakens to find that he turned into a giant cockroach giant adorable kitty. From the publisher:
“One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that he had been changed into an adorable kitten.”
The phenomenal success of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies inspired a massively popular literary-remix movement. Now Quirk Classics once again charts bold new territory, turning the monster-mash-up formula inside out to infuse Franz Kafka’s horrific masterpiece, The Metamorphosis, with the fuzziest, snuggliest, most adorable creatures possible: kittens!
Meet Gregor Samsa, a humble young man who works as a fabric salesman to support his parents and sister. His life goes strangely awry when he wakes up late for work and finds that, inexplicably, he is now a man-sized baby kitten. His family freaks out: Yes, their son is OMG so cute, but what good is cute when there are bills piling up? And how can he expect them to serve him meals every day? If Gregor is to survive this bizarre, bewhiskered ordeal, he’ll have to achieve what he never could before — escape from his parents’ house. Complete with haunting illustrations and a provocative biographical exposé of Kafka’s own secret feline life, The Meowmorphosis will take you on a journey deep into the tortured soul of the domestic tabby.
