EXTRATERRESTRIAL NOIR
Rich Leder
GENRE: SciFi
Blurb:
A PSYCHO-CRIMINAL EXTRATERRESTRIAL ON A SUBURBAN CUL-DE-SAC
A FAMILY ON THE BRINK OF ALL-ENCOMPASSING INSOLVENCY
A TWELVE-YEAR-OLD UBER-GENIUS DAUGHTER IN THE LINE OF FIRE
CAN SHE SAVE THE FAMILY, NOT TO MENTION THE PLANET?
An extraterrestrial crashes into a suburban cul-de-sac Colonial, absorbs every binary bit of information ever chronicled in all of human history, rearranges its molecules and presents itself as a couple of late and legendary film noir superstars, then immediately displays an appetite for debauchery, depravity, decadence, and destruction, seducing the family into its psychopathic criminal orbit with irresistible Hollywood panache, alluring sexual charisma, and inconceivable intergalactic powers.…all in the name of saving the family from their emotional, marital, and financial ruin.
But uber-genius-daughter Mike Devine figures out fast that the extraterrestrial’s principal plan is to employ its unfathomable interplanetary muscle and implode the planet. Which leaves the fate of her family, not to mention the world, in her twelve-year-old hands.
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Excerpt:
“Maybe it’s a missile, or a rocket,” Emily said. “Jesus, it’s really moving fast.”
“Is it me?” Carol said. “Or is it coming right at us?”
“It’s not you,” Maggie said.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Lisa said.
“Do meteors split off from the flock?” Carol said.
“I don’t think meteors travel in a flock,” Maggie said.
“It’s like somebody aimed the thing right here,” Emily said.
And then they were silent, watching whatever it was shoot toward them. A fireball, they were now realizing, that was going to hit New Jersey any second.
“Jesus,” Lisa said, and the women dove to the ground. There was no time for them to think of their husbands, who, as it happened, were face down on Peter’s green, or their children, who were unaware that some kind of cataclysmic crash was about to occur.
No time even for their lives to flash before their eyes because the thing was low in the sky now and not aiming for New Jersey or Bergen County or Paramus. Aiming for The Stars. And not just for The Stars, for Hope Circle.
With a blinding blast of flame and a supersonic swoosh, the thing shot over their heads and hit the Devines’ roof at a forty-five-degree angle on the front side. There was a smashing sound that was oddly muted and echoless, though the original crash was followed by three successive lightning-quick crashes, and then there was nothing.
Maggie got to her knees first and followed the black, smoky, fast-dissipating trail over their heads to her house, where smoke was wafting around the hole in her roof where whatever it was had gone crashing in.
“Oh no,” she said, “My kids.”
Interview with Rich Leder
What would we find under your bed?
Nothing. I’m neat and tidy. Oh, well, sure, monsters, but I am really neat and tidy. Except for my writing area, which, at the moment, resembles a paper plant hit by a tornado during a hurricane.
What was the scariest moment of your life?
When she was three or so, I lost my daughter at the Avocado Festival in Carpinteria. Thousands of people in the street. Thousands. Booths, bands, noise, action. I let go of her hand to rub my eye, and she was gone. Really gone. Like nowhere anywhere. I’m running through the crowd, screaming her name, panic in my voice, heart pounding in my head, all the worst thoughts in the world racing across my brain screen, cross-eyed with fear, paralyzed with terror. And then there she was. Some other little girl had found her and walked her to a police officer. That, my friends, was the scariest moment of my life. I haven’t let go of her hand since that day. And she’s 30 years old and engaged, for crying out loud. I will never let go of her hand. Not ever again.
Do you listen to music while writing? If so what?
Never. I listen to the world in my book. If there’s music in that world, then that’s what I’m listening to.
What is something you'd like to accomplish in your writing career next year?
I’d like to get “Money Dog” out into the world.
How long did it take you to write this book?
It take me about a year to write a book. But that’s just the writing of it. By the time I sit down to put words on paper (sketches and beat sheets and timelines and research) and then on screen (the book itself: sentences, paragraphs, pages, chapters), I’ve been living with that story for years and years. Living with that idea, that plot, those characters. So who really knows the answer to that question? I guess “a long dang time” sounds right from the moment of molecular creation to The End. Yeah, that’s it, a long dang time.
Author Bio and Links
Rich Leder has been a working writer for more than three decades. His credits include eight novels for Laugh Riot Press and 19 produced movies—television films for CBS, Lifetime, and Hallmark and feature films for Lionsgate, Paramount Pictures, Tri-Star Pictures, Longridge Productions, and Left Bank Films.
He’s been the lead singer in a Detroit rock band, a restaurateur, a Little League coach, an indie film director, a literacy tutor, a magazine editor, a screenwriting coach, a wedding consultant (it’s true), a PTA board member, a HOA president, a commercial real estate agent, and a visiting artist for the UNCW Film Studies Department, all of which, it turns out, was grist for the mill.
Giveaway:
2 comments:
Thank you so much for featuring Rich Leder and EXTRATERRESTRIAL NOIR today.
Thanks, Avid Reader, for hosting me today. Fab to be part of your cool blog!
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