A welcome Rut
I had no idea it was coming, but yesterday I received the welcome news that Scott Phillips (crouching at lower left in the photo at right) is about to release a new novel.Rut, published by Concord Free Press,
"takes readers to the Rocky Mountains circa 2050, where the once thriving burg of Gower is about to become a 21st-century ghost town. Thanks to extreme weather and plenty of toxic waste, the skiers and celebrities are gone, along with the money and the veneer of civilization. What’s left? Old-time religion and brand-new pharmaceuticals, bad food and warm beer, mutated animals and small-town gossip. Can the town survive? We’ll see."Now, that sounds like one believable speculative novel.
Phillips has written three previous novels: The Ice Harvest, The Walkway, and Cottonwood. The first of these was made into a fine movie starring John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton. He also writes some of the most deadpan hilarious short crime fiction anywhere.
I'll be looking for Rut. And you should, too.
© Peter Rozovsky 2010
Labels: Scott Phillips, short stories
posted by Peter Rozovsky at 3:21 PM
17 Comments:
Kinda sounds like Boulder in August.
Yeah, I expect anyone reading that blurb and this post might exclaim, "Speculative? The deuce you say!"
Scott Phillips is well worth reading. Just look at the company he keeps.
He's not 'magnificiently bearded' though is he?
Well, neither am I these days, so I can't hold that against him.
Boulder? I thought Colorado Springs was Fundamentalist West, not Boulder.
Linky
Well the Springs is where George W Bush was born again. Also Focus on the Family and the Airforce Academy.
However lots of cute hippy chicks on Cache La Poudre St at Colorado College. Rich, cute hippy chicks perhaps I should say.
Just remember that Concord GIVES their books away for free based on a request. So when the time comes make sure to place your request early as I imagine with how well known he is among the community this one will go quick.
Benefits of being on the East Coast I guess.
Hmm, Colorado Springs sounds scary now, but Scott Phillips is writing about what will be scary in the future.
As Colorado Springs goes, so goes Boulder -- an ominous warning.
Brian, I once "ordered" a book from Concord Free Press, and they sent me the wrong damn book. I didn't have the heart to complain.
I know about Concord's "generosity-based" model -- instead of paying for the book, the purchased agrees to make a charitable donation. But it makes its books available in some stores, too. I wonder if the books are given away under similar conditions there.
Huh. I've always received the right book from them.
I was always under the impression that they only ever had one book available at a time.
I didn't know that. If you're right, that might explain why they disregarded my request. An explanation of the one-book-available-at-a-time policy would have been nice, though.
I knew he'd found a publisher, but this is the first I've heard it's about to come out. Thanks for the heads up.
Aha, so you've read his work before? I wish his short fiction were more readily available. But that's a problem any time one likes a given writer's short stories.
I read The Ice Harvest pretty recently and loved it.
Have you read his short stories? One appears in the second issue of Murdaland, and I've read I think two others. I don't remember where, though.
I haven't read any of the shorts but I'll follow your link.
Paul, I should warn you that the link is a tease. It gets you just the first three pages of a story called "The Emerson, 1950." But it's better than nothing, and it should give a fair sample of the mood of the stories..
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