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The Inside Reader: Vaughn R. Demont
Nov. 26th, 2010 10:38 amShow me the books he loves and I shall know the man far better than through mortal friends - Silas Weir MitchellI read both recent books by Vaughn R. Demont, The Vampire Fred and House of Stone, and both of them play a perfect balance between cleverness and lightness. Completely different in themes (Vampires and Elves), both characters have a funny intake in their own situation, and the writing style of the author is rich, without for this making too heavy the reading. I highly recommend to check you out this new author, and meanwhile welcome him as Inside Reader: it's a particular list (as its author ;-)), and so you will find other item other than books.
Vaughn R. Demont's Inside Reader List
1. Lenny Bruce - How To Talk Dirty And Influence People Paperback: 208 pages
Publisher: Fireside; First Edition edition (May 1, 1992)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0671751085
ISBN-13: 978-0671751081
Amazon: How to Talk Dirty and Influence People
“I am influenced by every second of my waking hour.” – Lenny Bruce, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People (p. 188)
To understand my process, I feel I need to understand that which influences and has influenced me. I’m a writer, working in the genre of urban fantasy, so it might seem odd that I would lead with a controversial comedian from the Sixties that I’d only heard of because I’d watched the Christian Slater film "Pump Up the Volume". While I could easily carry his final line from his autobiography out on my shield and simply go with the point that a writer must keep himself open to receive inspiration and influence from all sources, the rest of his book influenced me as well.
I could use his various arrests for obscenity as a platform, about how in my own writing I’m hoping to rail against the “phonies” and “pretentiousness”. Sure, Lenny went out on stage to challenge the status quo, but he still went out there to get paid, do his job, and have a good time. When I first started taking writing classes in undergrad, I was put under the impression that what I was doing was a sacred and noble pursuit, that I was pulling the abstract from the ether and translating it into words that lesser mortals could understand. I was given works by towering masters of the craft who could, or had changed the world with their words. This continued even into graduate school, where my head was crammed with works by authors I’d never heard of that I read dutifully, perhaps out of some vain hope that I’d emerge from the chrysalis of those hallowed pages ready to deliver my own Great American Novel.
Instead, in secret, like the kid hiding comic books in his biology text, I studied other sources in popular media and realized what I wanted to do with my writing: I wanted to tell a good story about characters that I liked, maybe sell it to a publisher and start to pay off my student loans. It’s hardly lofty, but I found myself, I love what I do, and I find influence in my waking hour. Every second.
2. Elmore Leonard - Out of Sight Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks; Reprint edition (April 14, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0061740314
ISBN-13: 978-0061740312
Amazon: Out of Sight: A Novel
Though Elmore Leonard had been recommended to me on a few occasions, I didn’t even start noticing his works until I saw the movie Out of Sight and found out it was based on one of his books. I went out and rented Jackie Brown and Get Shorty and quickly went to the college library to read every Elmore book I could find.
I loved his research, all the little tidbits that were wedged in without feeling like they were wedged in, the constant reusing of characters from previous books and alluding to plotlines that were never quite resolved. I loved how Leonard had created a living breathing world that went on even when he wasn’t writing it.
But most of all I loved his dialogue. It was crisp and witty and sharp but most importantly it was real. I could hear the characters in my head saying the lines, and I knew that I could read the lines aloud and not roll my eyes at them thinking how corny it sounded. When I read Leonard’s dialogue, I knew that that was how I wanted my characters to sound: like regular people. I didn’t want a reader to suspend disbelief because my protagonist sounded wooden or was using a level of diction that wasn’t accessible.
His settings were believable as well, and not just because they were actual places. It’s all too easy to set your story in a real world city and still have the skyline seem little more than set dressing. With Leonard’s stories, you never question why the story is set in Detroit or Los Angeles or wherever because you can’t imagine the story occurring anywhere else. The settings were real because you could tell that no matter how dirty and dingy and crime-ridden these places, they were described with the utmost love and care. It was from recognizing this that I expanded the writer’s maxim of “write what you know” to Elmore Leonard's take of “write what you care about”.
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About Vaughn R. Demont: Writer, Scorpio, and self-professed waffle-addict, Vaughn R. Demont (the R stands for truth, justice, and sleeping late on Saturdays. It also stands for Radcliffe) received his Bachelor of Arts from Oswego State University, and his Master of Fine Arts from Goddard College, where he studied Creative Writing and being poor. He has published numerous stories online including The Last Paladin series, The Vampire Fred: Wicked Game, and the recently released House of Stone. Vaughn R. Demont. Writer, gamer, waffle-addict.
"House of Stone", a new urban fantasy novel coming from Samhain Publishing in June 2010!
Blog: http://vaughn-r-demont.livejournal.com
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/vaughndemont
Free Fiction Fridays!: http://vaughn-r-demont.livejournal.com/tag/free_fiction_fridays
House of Stone by Vaughn R. Demont Paperback: 296 pages
Publisher: Samhain Publishing (May 3, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1609280911
ISBN-13: 978-1609280918
Amazon: House of Stone
Blurb: A modern knight, a noble quest, and a magical sword. What could go wrong?
Welcome to the City, where gods run nightclubs, goblins hire out as mercs, sorcerers work their magic, the Fae hold court over every neighborhood…and humanity is blissfully ignorant of it all.
For minor Fae noble Richard Stone, life is going well. He has a decent fiefdom (okay, it’s a slum), a budding acting career (okay, so it’s porn), and one of only five magical swords in the City. An arranged marriage is barely a blip on his worry meter—until his family blade loses its magic. The shame of it puts his noble standing in jeopardy.
To regain his status, Richard needs help. Fortunately, his new bride is a sidhe knight and his servant Simaron has, er, his back. Together they embark on a quest to find the demon who slew his father, investigate a conspiracy that goes to the highest echelons of Fae nobility, and discover a secret family legacy that could ruin his House.
All while keeping up appearances to a society that demands perfection. And they say a noble’s life is easy...
I’m a long-time fan of G.A. Hauser, and To Have and to Hostage is still my favorite, but I have to tell that this is probably the best novel I have read by her on a wide target basis; I love G.A. Hauser faulted hero, but sincerely it’s a forbidden pleasure: her men are always too much, too much hot, too much horny, too much gay… and their life are sometime more a soap-opera than your next door guy. But that is the reason why I like them, they are unrepentantly handsome, like some villain you cannot not love since they are so fascinating. 
I’m a long-time fan of G.A. Hauser, and To Have and to Hostage is still my favorite, but I have to tell that this is probably the best novel I have read by her on a wide target basis; I love G.A. Hauser faulted hero, but sincerely it’s a forbidden pleasure: her men are always too much, too much hot, too much horny, too much gay… and their life are sometime more a soap-opera than your next door guy. But that is the reason why I like them, they are unrepentantly handsome, like some villain you cannot not love since they are so fascinating.