KULTURE VULTURES BY BILL & WILLIAM VITKA, BLOG TOUR

 Today, I am hosting 

Bill & William Vitka

Kulture Vultures

& The Plot To Steal The Universe 

I have asked William to write a guest post about how Kulture Vulture came about. You will find his answer to my question below. 

It is a funny tale, I hope you enjoy his answer!

Carolyn

Blurb:

A sinister fleet with a monster at the helm is moving among the stars. The Combine demands absolute obedience or it deals death and destruction. Ruled by a cold-blooded dinosaur with genius IQ, the Combine has enough firepower to crack open a planet like breaking an egg.

Its deadliest weapon is the media.

Against all odds, mutiny has erupted and the seed of the insurrection is Earth.

Rebellion marks Earth as the Combine’s next target. A deadly attack is imminent.

There are five guys who can save the world. Save the world and everything else.

The only problem is they’re dead.

Amazon US

Amazon UK 

Barnes & NobleKobo

Goodreads 

Kulture Vultures: Oh, God. Where Did This Thing Come From?

Kulture Vultures. The Greatest Science Fiction tale ever told.* The epic story of an intergalactic cab driver and his mission to save Earth from a megacorporation run by a tyrant lizard. The sordid tale of that same tyrant lizard trying really hard to masturbate and only kind of succeeding.

Many contemporary scholars have been asking: Where did it come from?

The short answer is: Whiskey.

The slightly longer answer is: Drinking with my dad and mumbling, "We should write a book we actually like."

The even slightly longer answer is: All of the above – then letting our imaginations run utterly wild and psychotic without a helmet on.

We were bored with the books and movies that were streaming out of the shitpile in Big Publishing and Hollywood. It's all terrible. Twilight and then Twilight slash-fiction like 50 Shades of Grey. Or, hey, endless remakes and prequels that don't need to exist.

We decided to make something new. And insane. And silly. And yet has some science in it. And also has genuine heart.

Something that wasn't a cash-grab.

Something new that paid its respects to the old.

This is a close approximation of the back and forth with my dad:

What was the threat? Well, the bad guys could try to blow up the Earth. But that's old. So what's a new twist on it? Earth is the only planet in the galaxy that's producing original culture. Oh, that's not bad. See what I did there? I do, and there's some kind of media conglomerate that's keeping all the other planets under its thumb and the only way to get that Earth culture is through pirate networks. The media conglomerate is run by a tyrant dinosaur!

Of course it's ruled by a tyrant dinosaur. (My dad and I are both basically 12.)

We discussed what kind of heroes we wanted and what our minds' eyes saw in them. Both being New Yorkers, the yellow cab seemed perfectly emblematic. So we settled on an intergalactic taxi driver named Zel who has a Phil Dickian mystique in an X-rated Doug Adams kind of universe. His sidekick needed to be strange and crude and silly. Enter Sprosty, the blue, four-armed pervert.

Great.

They still needed an Earth connection.

Hmm. Who are the great culture-guardians on Earth?

Independent bookstore owners.

Nice.

Now, who are the great minds best-suited to think of a way to stop an alien menace from destroying the world?

The guys who wrote about it all their lives. Duh.

I can name a few of them. But they're dead.

That's not going to be a problem.

William Vitka is a journalist and author and native New Yorker/Pennsylvanian. He’s written for CBSNews.com, Stuff Magazine, GameSpy, On Spec Magazine and The Red Penny Papers to name a few.
His debut novel, INFECTED, was published, kicking and screaming and bloody, in late 2012. His anthology of short stories, THE SPACE WHISKEY DEATH CHRONICLES, was published at the crack of 2013 by Curiosity Quills. EMERGENCE, a prequel to INFECTED, will knock your socks off. His latest book is the alien invasion tale STRANDED.

Find him online at:

Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/William-Vitka/e/B004S7MH9S/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VitkasGrimm
Twitter: https://twitter.com/vitka

 

INSECURE WRITER'S SUPPORT GROUP

 

 

IT IS TIME FOR 

INSECURE WRITER'S SUPPORT GROUP

To find out more about this group,

visit:

Alex J. Cavanaugh 

(The Ninja Captain)
at

http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com.au

TO SIGN UP TO BE PART OF THIS MONTHLY MEME, JUST FOLLOW THIS LINK:

http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/p/iwsg-sign-up.html

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my followers and blogger buddies for their support throughout this year and wish everyone a very happy and safe Christmas.

I admit that my blogging has not been as attentive recently as it has in the past and I intend to be more involved from next year, with a fresh, updated page and a new look.

I have been busy writing this month and am happy with my achievement, but still have a long way to go before I am near to publishing. 

To all of my beta readers and critique partners, I hope to send you all work to peruse shortly.

I wish everyone health and happiness for next year and look forward to visiting you then.

Keep safe.

Carolyn

TEASER TUESDAY

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by

http://shouldbereading.wordpress.com/

of Should Be Reading.

Anyone can play along!

Just do the following

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE ANY SPOILERS!
Make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away!

You don't want to ruin the book for others!

The Soulkeepers

(The Soulkeepers #1)

by G.P. Ching
Blurb:

When fifteen-year-old Jacob Lau is pulled from the crumpled remains of his mother's car, no one can explain why he was driving or why the police can't find his mother's body. A beautiful and mysterious neighbor offers to use her unique abilities to help him find his mom.

But in exchange she requires Jacob to train as a Soulkeeper, a protector of human souls. He agrees to her demands, desperate for any clue to the mystery of his mother's disappearance. But soon Jacob finds himself trapped in a web of half-truths, and questions her motives for helping him.


My Teaser: 

Jacob interrupted. "There's something you have to tell me that's more shocking than the news that you've buried your dead husband in the garden and his body has grown a magical tree?" Saying it out loud sounded even more ridiculous than hearing it.
Ching, G. P.  (2011-03-21). The Soulkeepers (The Soulkeepers Series) (p. 100). Carpe Luna Publishing. Kindle Edition.

WRITER'S FOR WRITER'S

Stephen Tremp  Christine Rains

M.Pax and (myself), C. M. Brown

Writers helping other writers to succeed.
Twitter hashtag: #W4WS
Find us on Facebook

 An initiative to promote writers and their books (that’s you)!

Our Mission:

• Help writers bring awareness of their book(s) to tens of thousands of new people

• Help writers reach Amazon Top 100 in at least one category (i.e., suspense, free, etc.)

• Increase sales of their book(s) after the promo is over

• Drive new traffic to their blog and increase following

• Create verbal and viral buzz.

W4W's is held the third Monday each month!

How it Works: The spotlighted author will choose a social media avenue, such as Twitter or Facebook (or both). Then, the good people of Blogdom will promote the author’s book to their Twitter followers or Facebook friends, that is, incredibly large new audiences the author could not reach on their own.

Facebook: The writer posts an image of their book along with a short blurb and a link to Kindle on their blog. Visitors simply click the Facebook page, then share the link with their FB friends. https://www.facebook.com/Writers4Writers

Twitter: The author posts pre-written Tweets on his/her blog. At your convenience, simply copy and paste Tweets into Twitter. Or go to #W4WS on Twitter and Retweet.

To sign up, join the Linky List HERE! 

This month our selected authors are:

Nick Wilford 

and 

Michael Offutt  http://slckismet.blogspot.com/

Unfortunately and sadly, Nick has had to postpone his spot for W4W's this month, due to the loss of his precious son, Andrew who passed away in his sleep.

Anyone who knows Nick, will respect his loss and will know that it will be hitting him hard. 

Kyra Lennon, Nick's critique partner as sent the email below and has set up a way we, Nick's blogging friends can help his family at this very sad time.

Please read below for the details.

Okay guys, I've been talking with Mary Pax and Clare Dugmore about what we can do for Nick and his family - and since I am in the UK like Nick, we decided it would be a good if I co-ordinate.

Although it's early days, and we're not sure what Nick's family need right now (not that there's anything that can REALLY help), we'd like to ask if any of you would like to club together and donate some money to send them some flowers to let them know we're thinking of them, and any remaining money can be donated to a charity of their choice.

I can collect money through Paypal - just because that's the easiest way for it to be collected and sent on.

We're open to any other ideas, but we thought a charity donation might be the best way to go. Any donations are welcome - if you can only afford £1/$1, we'll take it, and if you can't afford anything, don't feel bad. What we're doing here is trying to let Nick and his family know that - as a group - us writers are there for him.

My Paypal email address is: kyralennon@gmail.com and I will keep you updated on the progress!

Our thoughts are with you during this sad time, Nick.

Carolyn