HAWK: Hand of the Machine-- now in paperback and on Kindle!

Press Release – For Immediate Release

HAWK: Hand of the Machine-- now in paperback and on Kindle!

White Rocket Books proudly announces the release both in trade paperback and Kindle formats of HAWK: HAND OF THE MACHINE, a far-future science fiction adventure novel by award-winning author Van Allen Plexico (The Sentinels; Assembled!), set after the invasion and devastation of our galaxy.

Conjuring images of the great adventure-fiction lawmen of literature, from the Lone Ranger to Green Lantern, HAWK: HAND OF THE MACHINE introduces us to Hawk, an officer in service of the great Machine intellect that protects the survivors of our galaxy.  Awakening naked and screaming in a post-apocalyptic future, he discovers our already-shattered worlds being overrun anew by savage alien invaders—and the Machine strangely silent.  Plunging into action, he finds himself armed with only a few high-tech weapons and a sentient spacecraft with its own hidden agenda.  Now he must discover the truth about the attackers, about himself—and about the other Hands of the Machine.  Do any still live?  If so, will they help him or hinder him?  And, most critically of all:  Is Hawk himself really who he seems, or is he something far worse: the greatest traitor and criminal in all of history?

“HAWK—the character and his setting—came to my mind in almost complete form a few years ago,” says Plexico.  “But with the success of my Sentinels novels, he sort of got pushed to the back burner for a while.  Now White Rocket Books is rectifying that situation.  Hawk is, I’m confident in asserting, far too good of a character to ignore for long.  His story should grab anyone who enjoys the idea of the lone lawman patrolling the lawless expanses of Earth and the depths of space—from the Lone Ranger to Babylon 5’s Rangers to Raylan Givens of Justified—and dealing with all sorts of unsavory menaces.  And then, as the action escalates to truly epic levels, with futuristic armies clashing across alien landscapes, there are the twists,” Plexico adds.  “A whole battle cruiser full of them, before Hawk is done!”

Plexico has been called “truly gifted” (Pulp Fiction Reviews) and “amazingly talented” (Sean Taylor, author of Show Me a Hero).  “Nobody—not even Abnett and Lanning—is doing cosmic superheroes as well as Van Plexico is doing them, period,” adds Barry Reese, award-winning author of Rabbit Heart and creator of the Rook.

Portions of HAWK appeared serialized in the February and March 2012 issues of Pro Se Presents, to general and widespread acclaim.  “One of the leading New Pulp writers of today, and able to bridge nearly any genre,” said publisher Tommy Hancock, “Van brings a special touch to anything he writes and creates.”

White Rocket Books is a leader in the New Pulp movement, publishing exciting action and adventure novels and anthologies since 2005, in both traditional and electronic formats.   White Rocket books have hit the Amazon.com Top 15-by-Genre, have been nominated for many New Pulp awards, and have garnered praise from everyone from Marvel Comics Editor Tom Brevoort to Kirkus Reviews.

On sale as of May 29, 2012, HAWK: HAND OF THE MACHINE is a $15.95, 6x9 format trade paperback from White Rocket Books, as well as a $2.99 e-book for Amazon Kindle.  (Nook format is coming soon.)

356 pages

ISBN-10: 0615641318

ISBN-13: 978-0-615-64131-7

On Amazon.com:
Trade Paperback : http://www.amazon.com/Hawk-Machine-Van-Allen-Plexico/dp/0615641318

Kindle edition:  http://www.amazon.com/Hawk-Machine-Shattered-Galaxy-book/dp/B00852PZ1O

It's a bird. It's a plane. It's Van Allen Plexico!

Van Allen Plexico knows genre writing. And he knows that genre isn't a dirty word in writing circles. From space adventure to superhero epics to football nonfiction, Van's done it all.

Needless to say, it's an honor he set aside a few minutes to chat with us here at Bad Girls, Good Guys, and Two-Fisted Action.

(And congrats to Van on his win in the Pulp Ark Awards Best New Pulp Character category with Blackthorn.)

Tell us a bit about your latest work.

Just putting the finishing touches on HAWK: HAND OF THE MACHINE, a 105,000-word Military SF Action Pulp novel. It's the story of Hawk, a sort of "US Marshall in Space," who awakens naked and with no memories, in a space station being assaulted by horrifying hordes of alien creatures. From square one he's on the run, trying to figure out what in the world is going on while fighting for his life--and for the galaxy! The novel will be out from White Rocket sometime this summer. PRO SE PRESENTS will be running a two-part story that kicks the thing off, starting this month.

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?

Identity, duty, and memory. How the role you play in life defines who you are as a person. My best characters-- Lucian, Ultraa, Hawk, Vanadium-- all reflect this search for understanding and acceptance of who they are trying to be, vs who they actually are inside.

What would be your dream project?

To write a 20-volume superhero space opera saga with dozens of major characters and vast battles and aliens and androids and gods and cosmic beings and regular humans, all mixed together amidst vast carnage, and presented alongside deep introspection and character development and evolution. And, hey--I'm doing it and it's called the Sentinels novels!

If you have any former project to do over to make it better, which one would it be, and what would you do?

Every time the first volume of the Sentinels series has been reprinted or published by a different publisher or included in an omnibus or hardcover, I've rewritten or at least tweaked some portion of it. It's the introduction to the whole series so I want it to be the best it can be, and I've never been entirely happy with it--which I suppose is natural, because most everyone who's read it liked it a lot and most of them kept reading the rest of the books. Whew.

What inspires you to write?

Reading, mainly. Movies and TV, too, and comics. But mostly just walking through any section of Barnes and Noble and just looking at the books there will get my blood pumping and send me hurrying home to the keyboard. And of course receiving feedback from readers always makes you know it was worth it--that someone else enjoyed your work, too.

What writers have influenced your style and technique?

Roger Zelazny is my lord and master. He died of cancer in 1995 and how I wish I could have met him. His work is overwhelmingly the major influence on my writing. My novel, LUCIAN: DARK GOD'S HOMECOMING, was written mainly as my homage to just how much he influenced me--right down to the poetic language (I tried!) and first-person POV from a shady and unreliable protagonist.

Jim Starlin had a massive impact on how I think in "cosmic" terms, with vast empires and themes of life and death and the mystic side of all of that. Kirby did, too, but probably more Starlin than Kirby. Just the "flavor" of Starlin's writing-- his characters with their anguished soul-searching and conflicted natures--that really shaped my work.

Lately it's been Dan Abnett (of the Warhammer 40K novels and comics like Guardians of the Galaxy and Nova) that has helped me to get a nice handle on how to write even better action scenes and strange, outlandish settings and battles. He's so good at that stuff.

Where would you rank writing on the "Is it an art or it is a science continuum?" Why?

Oh, I probably come down about 50/50. You have to get the "science" part pretty much down. Of course, there are always new things to learn, and I'm always looking stuff up, along the lines of grammar and style and structure and the like, so it's a continual process. The "art" part is, I suppose, partly your own natural talent and partly the impact of various influences upon you. Whatever "art" dwells within my writing is a direct result of spending a lifetime reading and re-reading Zelazny and Starlin and Herbert and Tolkien and Varley and Niven and Howard and on and on, absorbing the parts that seem to me to work the best and sound the best.

Any other upcoming projects you would like to plug?  

Two fairly new ones: my highly acclaimed LUCIAN novel (mentioned above) has just come out in a new paperback edition from White Rocket Books, now at a much lower price than before, along with a Kindle edition. And a project you know all about, on account of you have a great story in it, is BLACKTHORN: THUNDER ON MARS, an adventure anthology which came out at the end of the year. If you like JOHN CARTER or THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN, this book is for you! Action and adventure with a warrior, a sorceress, and a savage beast-man in a post-apocalyptic Mars! I wrote the origin story and several other very talented writers continued the saga. It's been nominated for an astonishing SEVEN PulpArk Awards. Everyone should check this book out asap!

Learn more about Van and his work at: www.plexico.net and www.whiterocketbooks.com.

Magazine Line Up for the first part of 2012 from Pro Se AND Two Notable New Pulp Publishers Collaborate!

Pro Se Productions, Publisher of the monthly New Pulp Magazine PRO SE PRESENTS, announced today its magazine lineup for the first quarter of 2012!  This lineup includes not only works from multiple writers, both new and familiar to New Pulp fans, but also features the first collaboration between Pro Se and noted New Pulp Publisher, White Rocket Books!

“Pro Se is ecstatic,” Tommy Hancock, Editor in Chief of and Partner in Pro Se Productions, stated today, “to be working with White Rocket Books and especially its owner and premier writer, Van Allen Plexico.   Known as one of the leading New Pulp writers today and able to bridge nearly any genre, Van brings a special touch to anything he writes and creates.   For Pro Se to be able to give Van a vehicle to showcase his latest upcoming work HAWK in a monthly magazine format is an opportunity we couldn’t pass up.”

HAWK: HAND OF THE MACHINE is a stand-alone piece including an excerpt from Plexico’s HAWK novel, to be published by White Rocket Books in 2012, reworked to be a story all its own.  It spotlights the title character, a member of a force of protectors of space and its galaxies and planets.  HAND OF THE MACHINE will be featured in two parts beginning in PRO SE PRESENTS #7, February 2012, and ending in PRO SE PRESENTS # 8, March 2012.  HAWK will also be the cover feature for the March issue.

“I couldn't be happier,” said Van Allen Plexico, creator of HAWK and Publisher of White Rocket Books, “to see HAWK getting to make his mark for the first time in the pages of PRO SE PRESENTS, before he appears anywhere else.  I think HAWK will appeal to readers of all sorts--from military SF fans to space opera aficionados to pure pulp action/adventure fans--and Pro Se has positioned itself to reach that kind of broad audience and bring them the best that New Pulp has to offer.

Plexico continued, “The readers of PRO SE PRESENTS will discover a new character and a new universe to get into and enjoy, and my own readers will check out the magazine and find in it a publication that they will truly get a kick out of every month.  My thanks go out to Tommy Hancock and his merry band of Pulpsters for giving HAWK this kind of spotlight to make his big debut!”

The tales that make up the rest of PRO SE PRESENTS for the January, February, and March issues only show how varied the New Pulp field and the content from Pro Se can be!   Featuring stories from various genres by Kevin Rodgers, Megan Smith, PJ Lozito, James Palmer, Frank Schildiner, Ken Janssens, and Ashley Strole Mangin, the first three months of PRO SE PRESENTS is full of intergalactic adventure, Private Eyes of a feminine persuasion, dimension hopping teenagers, monster hunting gangsters, masked heroes, eerie Villains cast in classic molds, and so much more!  Known for Puttin’ The Monthly Back into Pulp, PRO SE PRESENTS is headed up by Lee Houston, Jr., Magazine Editor in Chief and edited by Houston, Frank Schildiner, Nancy Hansen, and Don Thomas!

For more information on Pro Se and when PRO SE PRESENTS is available, like PRO SE PRODUCTIONS on Facebook and follow www.pulpmachine.blogspot.com and www.prosepulp.com for all the latest on Pro Se Productions!