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WORK TITLE: Hex-Rated
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.drjasonridler.com/
CITY: Berkeley
STATE: CA
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://ridlerville.wordpress.com/ * https://www.britannica.com/contributor/Jason-Ridler/9758031 * http://www.drjasonridler.com/career-highlights.html * http://www.drjasonridler.com/curriculum-vita-.html
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in Canada; married.
EDUCATION:York University, B.A., 1999; Royal Military College of Canada, M.A., 2001; Ph.D., 2009; Saint Anselm College, Odyssey writing workshop, 2005.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer. Johns Hopkins University Advanced Academic Programs, Baltimore, MD, teaching fellow, 2016-present. Norwich University, M.A. program in military history, adjunct professor. Google Arts: Theater, writing teacher, 2017-present. The Writing Salon, writing teacher, 2013-present. Writers.com, writing teacher. Worked formerly as a director, teacher, and actor at Pan Theater, 2013-2017; a Smith Richardson Fellow at Norwich University, 2015-2016; a teacher at Tilden Preparatory School, 2013-2014; a lecturer at Royal Military College of Canada, 1999-2013; a consultant on military and historical affairs, 1999-2013; a visiting scholar with UC Berkeley’s Office for the History of Science and Technology; a musician; a cemetery groundskeeper.
AVOCATIONS:Performing improv theater.
AWARDS:Smith Richardson Foundation Fellowship for National Security and Foreign Policy recipient, 2014.
WRITINGS
Fiction contributor to numerous periodicals, including Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Brain Harvest, and Chilling Tales. Article contributor to numerous academic journals, including Diplomacy and Statecraft, Small Wars and Insurgencies, and Defense and Security Analysis
SIDELIGHTS
Jason Ridler is a writer, historian, and improv actor. Born in Canada, Ridler attended college at York University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in history in 1999. He then went on to Royal Military College of Canada, where he earned a M.A. and Ph.D. in war studies.
Ridler is a teaching fellow at Johns Hopkins University Advanced Academic Programs and an adjunct professor for the MA Program in Military History at Norwich University. He teaches writing for Google Arts: Theater, The Writing Salon, and Writers.com. Ridler has taught in a variety of settings, including at Tilden Preparatory School, Royal Military College of Canada, and at Pan Theater. He has also been a punk rock musician and worked as a cemetery groundskeeper. He lives in Richmond, California with his wife, two dogs, and two parrots.
Hex-Rated, the first in the “Brimstone Files” series, tells the story of private eye James Brimstone, a former magician and Korean War vet living in 1970s Los Angeles. New as a detective, Brimstone finds his first client at the funeral of his mentor in magic, Edgar Vance. Vance was a cruel man, and Brimstone is intent on leaving the world of the occult behind him. That changes when he is approached by Nico, a young adult film actress with a terrible scar across her face.
Nico explains that she needs Brimstone’s help. While filming a scene in a pornagraphic film with veteran actress Maxine Graham, Nico was attacked by the woman, in a bizarre way. Midway through the film, a snake slithered out of Graham’s mouth and bit Nico, leaving her scarred and unsightly. Brimstone suspects dark magic. As he begins his investigation, he comes up against various bizarre characters inhabiting Los Angeles, including members of Hell’s Angels and Nazi cultists. To uncover the mystery, Brimstone dives into the underbelly of Los Angeles and the 1970s porn industry, leading to encounters with dangerous dark magic and many forays into the bedroom with Nico’s coworkers.
A contributor to Kirkus Reviews noted, “Ridler’s quick and clever wit is overshadowed by his leering views of women,” while a contributor to Publishers Weekly wrote, “Ridler peppers the text with perfectly pitched hard-boiled vernacular.” Bob Freeman in Bob Freeman The Occult Detective website wrote, “it has everything you should be looking for in a supernatural-drenched thriller,” while a contributor to Inconsistent Pacing website described it as “snappy and compelling.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 2017, review of Hex-Rated.
Publishers Weekly, June 12, 2017, review of Hex-Rated, p. 47.
ONLINE
Bob Freeman The Occult Detective, https://authorbobfreeman.wordpress.com/ (June 28, 2017), Bob Freeman, review of Hex-Rated.
Inconsistent Pacing, https://inconsistentpacing.wordpress.com/ (June 3, 2017), review of Hex-Rated.
NPR, https://www.npr.org/ (June 27, 2017), Jason Heller, review of Hex-Rated.
Jason S. Ridler is a writer, historian, and improv actor, and the author of Hex-Rated, the first installment of his new series The Brimstone Files from Nightshade Press (order it now and Jay will be in your debt forever!. His work has been called “gritty, relentless and wry as hell,” by award-winning author Laird Barron, and multiple-award-winning author Lucius Shepard has called his novel Death Match a “fine, innovative noir from an exciting new writer.” You can check out his books at his Amazon Author Page. He also teaches classes for Writers.com and The Writing Salon, including WRITING FROM THE HEART: UNCOVER YOUR POST POWERFUL THEMES. He also performs improv around the East Bay with his troupe, SOMETHING. A former punk rock musician and cemetery groundskeeper, Jay holds a PhD in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada. He lives in Oakland, CA.
Jason Ridler, Ph.D.
Writing Instructor at Google Arts: Theater and The Writing Salon
Berkeley, California
Writing and Editing
Current
Johns Hopkins University Advanced Academic Programs (AAP), Google, The Writing Salon
Previous
Pan Theater, Norwich University, Tilden Preparatory School
Education
Royal Military College of Canada/Collège militaire royal du Canada
Websites
Personal Website
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Summary
Writer and historian (The Brimstone Files, Mavericks of War) who teaches and lectures on the applied value of creativity, failure, and innovation.
Experience
Johns Hopkins University Advanced Academic Programs (AAP)
Teaching Fellow
Johns Hopkins University Advanced Academic Programs (AAP)
2016 – Present (2 years)
Course development and teaching on issues of strategy, failure, and innovation, with a focus on the American experience in unconventional warfare.
Google
Writing Instructor
Google
November 2017 – Present (5 months)
I currently teach Creative Writing at Google ArtsTheater as a contractor through the vendor Greater than the Sum
The Writing Salon
Writing Instructor
The Writing Salon
July 2013 – Present (4 years 9 months)
I created the courses WRITING FROM THE HEART (Levels I and II) that help beginners write about themes they care about, as well as FANTASTICAL FICTION, an introduction to writing fantasy, science fiction, and horror fiction. I give intensive feedback and constructive exercises so students can develop their skills and be successful in writing stories only they can write.
Norwich University
Professor (Adjunct)
Norwich University
August 2013 – Present (4 years 8 months)
I teach courses on Historiography and Methodology, Total Warfare, and Modern World History
Writing
Fiction
January 1999 – Present (19 years 3 months)
I've published five novels, a story collections and over sixty short stories in magazines, websites, and anthologies. Visit his Amazon Page for all the details!
http://www.amazon.com/Jason-Ridler/e/B007O11LZQ
Or his Blog!
https://ridlerville.wordpress.com/
Or join his mailing list for all the happenings in Ridlerverville!
http://tinyurl.com/ml2oc9u
Director, Teacher, and Actor
Pan Theater
May 2013 – June 2017 (4 years 2 months)
At PAN THEATER I was a producer and director of their most successful sketch comedy and improv shows, HELLA SKETCHY, HELLA SPOOKY, BART: THE MUSICAL, and WRESTLEPALOOZA, performed weekly with their house troupe LIQUID MIND, and directed their senior troupe AWKWARD FACE.
Norwich University
Winner of the Smith Richardson Fellowship
Norwich University
January 2015 – July 2016 (1 year 7 months)
I researched and wrote a monograph on the impact of scholars and subject matter experts involved in military affairs.
Tilden Preparatory School
Teacher
Tilden Preparatory School
October 2013 – December 2014 (1 year 3 months)
Royal Military College of Canada
Lecturer
Royal Military College of Canada
January 1999 – May 2013 (14 years 5 months)
He has lectured extensively on war and technology, the history of science, and unconventional warfare and counter insurgency
Analyst, Editor and Writer
Consultant on Military and Historical Affairs
December 1999 – 2013 (14 years)
Dr. Ridler has been a historical consultant for the Journal of Military Experience, helping veterans use art to express themselves; the Journal of Empire Studies, connecting university and college students with modern military scholarship; and the Canadian Encyclopedia, contributing numerous articles on Canadian history, and was one of their chief consultants for the Bicentennial War of 1812 Website.
Education
Royal Military College of Canada/Collège militaire royal du Canada
Royal Military College of Canada/Collège militaire royal du Canada
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), War Studies
1999 – 2009
Saint Anselm College
Saint Anselm College
Odyssey Writing Workshop, Fiction
2005 – 2005
Activities and Societies: I’m a 2005 graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop under the directorship of World Fantasy Award-winning editor Jeanne Cavelos.
Earl Haig
Skills
Military HistoryHistoryEditingCounterinsurgencyBloggingLiteratureMilitaryNational SecurityPublishingScience FictionHistory of scienceShort StoriesFictionMagazinesCopy EditingSee 29+
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Publications
War on the Rocks
January 2016
A brief examination of the value of quality prose in military analysis
Authors:
Jason Ridler, Ph.D.
Organizations
Society for Military History
Jason Ridler
Jason Ridler
Contributor
Connect with Jason Ridler
The Canadian Encyclopedia
WEBSITES: Ridlerville!, DrJasonRidler.com
Associated with The Canadian Encyclopedia, part of Encyclopaedia Britannica’s Publishing Partner Program.
BIOGRAPHY
Jason S. Ridler is a writer, historian, and biographer. His monograph on Dr. Omond Solandt was published by the University of Toronto Press in 2015.
A former punk rock musician and cemetery groundskeeper, Ridler holds a Ph.D. in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada. He is the author of numerous novels, including Death Match, the first Spar Battersea thriller; Knockouts: Ten Tales of Fantasy and Noir; and more than 50 stories in such magazines and anthologies as Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Brain Harvest, Chilling Tales, and more.
Dr. Jason Ridler is a professional military historian and expert on mavericks, eccentrics, and outsiders involved in military affairs. His debut, Maestro of Science, the first biography of early atomic weapons expert Dr. Omond Solandt, was published in 2015. In 2014 he won the Smith Richardson Foundation Fellowship for National Security and Foreign Policy for his project on the value of unconventional experts at war in the 20th and 21st century . He is an adjunct professor for the MA Program in Military History at Norwich University, and is represented by Janet Reid at Fine Print Literary Management in New York. Read a more detailed biography at Career Highlights. Contact Dr. Ridler via Soldiers & Scholars, his online community for defense professionals, soldiers, and academics.
Dr. Ridler has published in numerous professional journals, including Diplomacy and Statecraft, Small Wars and Insurgencies, War, Literature, and the Arts, among others, and is a contributor to War on the Rocks, where he has written about the impact of quality writing on history, and a profile of Dr. Cora DuBois, acclaimed anthropologist who worked for the Office of Strategic Studies during the Second World War. He is a best known as a biographer, whose work on Dr. Omond Solandt was noted by historian Terry Copp as a "considerable achievement, a work of careful and balanced scholarship." He is currently working on a biography of American counterinsurgency pioneer Charles T. R. Bohannon, and is finishing a major monograph on the experience of unconventional experts involved in British, German, and American military affairs in the 20th century. He is a member of the T. E. Lawrence Society and the Society for Military Historians, and teaches graduate classes on historical methodology, military history, and world history. A former punk rock musician and cemetery groundskeeper, Dr. Ridler hold a doctorate in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada, and lives in Berkeley, CA.
Dr. Jason S. Ridler
CV
Education
PhD in War Studies (2009): Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
MA in War Studies (2001): Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
BA in History, Honors (1999): York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Professional experience
Visiting Scholar
Office for the History of Science and Technology
UC Berkeley
2009-2011
I Participated in monthly seminars and presented a paper on state-directed science and weapons development during the early Cold War in Canada.
Adjunct Professor
Norwich University
Masters Program in Military History
Northfield, Vermont
2013-Present
At Norwich, I teach Introduction to Historical Methodology and Historiography; Total War; and World History.
Adjunct Professor and Lecturer
Royal Military College of Canada
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
2002-2013
For eleven years, I taught cadets and soldiers undergraduate course on military history, counter insurgency, the role and impact of technology in modern warfare, and political science. I was the premier instructor of the history component for the Officer Professional Military Education Programme at both Fleet School Quebec, Canada (2002) and the Canadian Forces Naval Operations School Stadacona, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (2003).
Publications: Books
El Lobo: Charles Bohannan, America’s Counterinsurgency Pioneer in the Philippines, 1941-1955 (in progress).
Maestro of Science: Dr. Omond McKillop Solandt's Distinct Contribution to Government Science in War and Hostile Peace in Britain and Canada, 1939-1956, University of Toronto Press, October 2015.
Recent Publication: Essays, Chapters and Articles
“Whispers of the Dead,” Canada’s History (forthcoming).
“‘Despite the Handicap of Her Sex’: Dr. Cora Du Bois, American Bad-Ass of the OSS in South East Asia,” War on the Rocks (March 25, 2016): http://warontherocks.com/2016/03/despite-the-handicap-of-her-sex-dr-cora-du-bois-american-bad-ass-of-the-oss-in-southeast-asia/
“Fighting Words: Spies, Soldiers, and Stylish Scribes,” War on the Rocks (January 8, 2016), http://warontherocks.com/2016/01/fighting-words-spies-soldiers-and-stylish-scribes/
“A Real Life Indian Jones: Charles Ted Rutledge Bohannan,” Biographical Entry for the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery Archive, (2014), 1-5.
“A Lost Work of El Lobo: Lieutenant-Colonel Charles T. R. Bohannan’s Unpublished Study of Guerrilla Warfare in the Philippines, 1899-1955,” Small Wars and Insurgencies (2015), 292-312.
“Military Historian Brings New Perspective to Soldiers,” James Jones Literary Society (Fall 2013), 11.
“Leadership and Science at War: Colonel Omond Solandt and the British Army Operational Research Group, 1943–1945”, in Geoffrey Hayes, ed., Canada and the Second World War: Essays in Honour of Terry Copp (Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2012), 30-53.
Thirty entries for The War of 1812 Bicentennial Site, Parks Canada and Associated Partners (2012).
“Dr. Omond Solandt and Canada’s Approach to Defence Research Diplomacy, 1946-1956,” Diplomacy and Statecraft (2010), 397-415.
“Omond Solandt: Scientific Renaissance Man,” Information Systems and Operational Research (April 2008).
“From Pioneer to President: Omond McKillop Solandt’s Rise in Operational Research,” Canadian Operational Research Society (2008), 1-4, available at http://www.cors.ca/documents/RidlerSolandt.pdf.
“From Nagasaki to Toronto: Omond Solandt and the Defence Research Board’s Early Vision of Atomic Warfare, 1945-1947,” Canadian Military History (Spring 2009), 27-40.
“Emergence: Toward a Historiography of Canadian Defence Research during the Second World War” International Journal of Canadian Studies (2008), 139-164
“War in the Precious Graveyard: Death through the Eyes of Guy Sajer,” War, Literature & the Arts Special Double Edition, (2008), 85-105.
“Depleting Humanity: Environment, Technology, and the Air War in V. M. Yeates’ Winged Victory” War, Literature & the Arts (2007), 222-278.
The Logic of Military Reform: Some Historical Inquiries. Canadian Forces Leadership Institute Report, Kingston: Canadian Forces Leadership Institute, 2005.
Grants & Awards
Smith Richardson Research Fellowship for International Security and Foreign Policy, 2014.
Canadian Operational Research Society (CORS) 50th Anniversary Grant, 2008 .
Recent Presentations
“Strangelove or Spock? Dr. Omond Solandt, Canada’s Maestro of Science During the Early Cold War, 1946-1956,” UC Berkeley, Canadian Studies Program Colloquium, February 24, 2016.
“Fear and Failure in the Life of a Writer,” Fremont Area Writers Meeting, Fremont, CA, January 23, 2016.
“How to Mine Your Life for Stories,” Fremont Area Writers Meeting, Fremont, CA, November 2014.
“The Day Pro Wrestling Stopped Real Violence,” TMI: True Storytelling, Berkeley, October 2014.
“Playing with a Dead Kid’s Toys,” Beast Crawl Literary Festival, Oakland, CA, July 2014
“Cemetery Days,” Lip Service West, Berkeley, CA, July 2012
“A Better friend than Enemy: The Trials and Tribulations of Dr. Omond Solandt and the Canadian Army’s Defence Research Agenda, 1946-1956.” The Canadian Army Historical Workshop, Directorate of Land Concepts and Design, Fort Frontenac, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, June 2011.
“From Nagasaki to Toronto: Omond Solandt and the Canadian Defence Research Boards Early Views of Atomic Warfare, 1945-1947,” Lecture to the Canadian Studies Program, UC Berkeley, 4 March, 2010.
“Emergence: Towards a Historiography of Canadian Defence Research Efforts during the Second World War.” Old Wars – New Perspectives: The Way Ahead for Military History in the New Millennium. 26th Annual Military History Symposium, Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston, Ontario, Canada March 17, 2005.
Jason S. Ridler, Adjunct Faculty
Advanced Academic Programs | Johns Hopkins University > About Us > Faculty > Jason S. Ridler, Adjunct Faculty
Jason S. Ridler is a military and science historian, conflict analyst, novelist, and improv actor.
Jason S. Ridler Maestro of Science: Omond Solandt and Government Science in War and Hostile PeaceHe earned his doctorate in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada with his biography of Dr. Omond Solandt, early atomic weapons expert, which became his monograph, Maestro of Science: Omond Solandt and Government Science in War and Hostile Peace, published in 2015 by the University of Toronto Press. His writings on war, science, and unconventional conflicts have appeared in an array of journals including Diplomacy and Statecraft, Small Wars and Insurgencies, and Defense and Security Analysis.
He has published works on the war novels and memoirs by veterans for War, Art, and Literature, and is a former contributing editor to the Journal of Military Experience (now Military Experience and the Arts). He is also a former Visiting Scholar with UC Berkeley’s Office for the History of Science and Technology.
In 2014, Dr. Ridler won the Smith Richardson Foundation Fellowship for International Security and Foreign Policy, for his research project on the role of unconventional experts involved in military affairs, from archeologist T. E. Lawrence in Arabia to civic rights activist Sarah Chayes in Afghanistan. A popular version of this project is forthcoming from Stackpole books. He is an active contributor of professional and popular venues, including War on the Rocks, Clarkeworld, and the James Jones Literary Society Journal. He is an adjunct professor for the online Master of Arts in History program at Norwich University, and teaching fellow at Johns Hopkins University’s Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Advanced Academic Programs, where he teaches classes on military history, world history, and innovations studies.
Dr. Ridler is also a novelist, with his debut series The Brimstone Files set for publication by Nightshade Books in August 2017, and he has published over sixty short stories. A former punk rock musician and cemetery groundskeeper, Dr. Ridler lives in Berkeley, CA and performs improv at theaters in Oakland, San Francisco, and throughout the East Bay.
Jason Ridler
ason S. Ridler is a professional writer and historian. His novel DEATH MATCH, the first Spar Battersea thriller, set in the madcap world of pro wrestling, is available at Amazon! Sex, drugs and headlocks, oh my!
Doc Ridler has also published over forty short stories in such magazines and anthologies as Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Brain Harvest, Not One of Us, Chilling Tales, Tesseracts Thirteen, and more. His popular non-fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Dark Scribe, and the Internet Review of Science Fiction. A former punk rock musician and cemetery groundskeeper, Mr. Ridler holds a Ph.D. in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada and lives in Northern California with his wife, two dogs, and two parrots.
Series
Brimstone Files
1. Hex-Rated (2017)
2. Black Lotus Kiss (2018)
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Novels
A Triumph for Sakura (2016)
Jason S. Ridler is a writer, improv actor, and historian. He is the author of A TRIUMPH FOR SAKURA, BLOOD AND SAWDUST, the Spar Battersea thrillers and has published over sixty stories in such magazines and anthologies as The Big Click, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Out of the Gutter, and more. His popular non-fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Dark Scribe, and the Internet Review of Science Fiction. A former punk rock musician and cemetery groundskeeper, Mr. Ridler holds a Ph.D. in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada.
Author of the Week: Jason Ridler
7/5/2017
0 Comments
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by Will Viharo
There are so many amazingly gifted and ambitious authors in the marketplace these days, publishing either themselves or traditionally - increasingly both - that it can be intimidating to the novice just trying to break into the business and immediately establish a unique niche for themselves.
Jason Ridler won’t make this task any easier. Sorry. He’s one busy, multi-talented dude. He has a new pulp fiction series coming out from a major house, along with a string of indie-lit credits.
Ridle me this, Jason: what’s your secret to success…?
Many authors are even more interesting than their fiction, or at least equally compelling. Even if their own autobiographical experiences are not explicitly revealed in their creative work, the heart and soul of their personal lives imbue and inform their imagination.
This same breed of author will produce for profit, and also for the sake of self expression, with equal commitment and passion.
And this peculiar literary species draws from a variety of sources for inspiration, whether private, academic, cultural, or otherwise, weaving a tapestry of tales that reflect their eclectic tastes, interests, and knowledge, without confining themselves to the conventions of any particular genre.
Jason Ridler is one of those authors, even though there’s only one of him.
This is a simple question that doesn’t require a simple answer: why do you write fiction?
Simple answer: I'm good at it, it's fun, it helps build a body of work that will outlive my carbon based existence, it makes me some cash to maintain my below median income lifestyle (the new American Dream), and to prove to myself and others I got stories to tell that are worth some of your four-score-and-ten and beer money.
There's also a deep answer about learning about who I am as a person. But I write about that shit all the time at my column, FXXK WRITING.
You have an eclectic background, to say the least: punk rock musician, actor, historian, cemetery groundskeeper. How do these various experiences inform or influence your work as an author?
It means I have no career map I can borrow. I need to make my own. And that is tough. It means I also bash between two poles: writing whatever I want and writing for an audience. I'm a commercial writer, but I'm also a punk rock kid, so I struggle with conformity. My historical training means I'm good at research and have a wealth of knowledge about military affairs . . . and yet I hate writing military fiction of almost any kind. Contrarian to the last! Doing improv helps me brainstorm and keeps me social, which I desperately need as an introvert-extrovert: to write well you need to know people. Improv introduced me to a community of collaborative artists and goof balls that enrich my social life, and as an art, Improv champions guts, instinct, failure, mistakes, all the shit people polish out of their writing to make it vanilla and palatable. And tending after graves as given me loads of insight into how we view death, life, and how best to use WD-40 and a lighter to excavate a hornet's nest from a grave mound (true story).
Which is why THE BRIMSTONE FILES is a magic sweet spot. I get to do history (it's set in 1970s LA, and I love that era when the Peace and Love Generation implodes into a heart of darkness), I get to do comedy (it's a supernatural thriller but our hero is something of a comedian), there are tons of musical elements (before I was a punk rock kid I was a heavy metal skid, so this is the era of Zep and Sabbath and Uriah Heep!), and, amazingly, the opening chapter of HEX-RATED is set in cemetery!
Do you have a preference between traditional and self-publishing, and if so, what are the pros and cons of each, as you see it?
Traditional. Especially smaller presses. I'm good at promotion, but I'm not good at relentless promotion. Having someone do design, editing, and marketing is a great relief. That said, I've learned a lot from getting HEX-RATED ready for its debut about all these things so I can do it well for my work with Nightshade Press, but also for my gritty indie novels. Like I argued years ago, hybrid careers have emerged as the new normal.
Self publishing allows you to have work available that may be outside the mainstream, and I did reasonably well with BLOOD AND SAWSDUST and A TRIUMPH FOR SAKURA. BLOOD AND SAWDUST is about a fat vampire who takes falls in an underground fight circuit. A TRIUMPH FOR SAKURA has a black mentor and a Japanese woman protege in a dystopian version of America (it's INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE meets MILLION DOLLAR BABY). Given how much white washing of pop culture happens, I found a lot of resistance to SAKURA from agents and publishers. And no one wanted the fat vampire version of Fight Club in BLOOD AND SAWDUST. So, I make nickles, dimes, and quarters from them. My hope is that the Brimstone fans will become Ridler fans and check out my back list, which has a similar vibe,
What are your influences, literary or otherwise?
You can feel the influence of all these artists in my work: WWE wrestling, Marvel and DC comics, The Replacements and other early post-punk bands that took punk elsewheres, Tom Waits, contemporary writers like Joe Lansdale and Gary Braunbeck are instrumental in my development as a writer, same with Steve and Melanie Tem, Jeffrey Ford, Elizabeth Hand, Meg Abbot (phenomenal writer). Older vintage, Harlan Ellison, Herman Hesse, Raymond Carver, Ernest Hemingway, Robert E. Howard. Films that define me more than others: Star Wars, Big Trouble in Little China and, my favorite, The Whole Wide World, the biopic romance of Robert E. Howard and Novalyn Price. No pun intended, but this one kills me every time.
What’s next for you?
HEX-RATED is available for pre-order and launches in August! GET IT NOW SO I HAVE DONUTS TOMORROW! The sequel will be released in about a year. I have a massive pop history project due this summer from Stackpole, and my writing book, FXXK WRITING: A GUIDE FOR FRUSTRATED ARTISTS will be available next month. I also teach writing classes in Berkeley, CA, so if you're in the area and want to learn how to write what you love, let m know! Friend me on Facebook to keep up with the shenanigans.
Cheers, and congrats on the new series!
Jason Ridler
Adjunct Professor at Norwich University
About Me
Jason S. Ridler is military and science historian, writer, and improv actor. He received his doctorate in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada in 2009, with a major in the History of War and Technology, and two minors in Cold War History and War Literature. His monograph, MAESTRO OF SCIENCE: OMOND MCKILLOP SOLANDT AND GOVERNMENT SCIENCE IN WAR AND HOSTILE PEACE, 1939-1956, was published by the University of Toronto Press in 2015.
Dr. Ridler's work has appeared in such journals as DIPLOMACY AND STATECRAFT, SMALL WARS AND INSURGENCIES, and WAR, ART, AND LITERATURE. He teaches historical methodology, world and military history for Norwich University's Masters Programs. His current research interest focus on unconventional warfare, counter insurgency, and the human dimensions of warfare. He is a consulting editor for MILITARY EXPERIENCE AND THE ARTS, where he mentors soldiers who wish to write about their combat experiences.
Born in Canada, Dr. Ridler is a permanent resident of the United States and lives in Richmond, CA, where he writes, teaches, and performs improv acting at Pan Theater in Oakland. He is also a published writer of novels and short stories, and a former punk rock musician and cemetery groundskeeper.
My disciplines and areas of professional expertise include…
Military history, canadian and us history, historical methodology, the history of war and technology, cold war history, the literature of warfare (prose and poems)
Current work
My current research concerns scholars involved in military affairs and how their expertise and outsider status makes them both a force enhancer as well as a source of friction. It is the focus of my next major monograph, DREAMERS IN DAYLIGHT, which will examine a series of scholars employed in military affairs in Arabia, Persia, Afghanistan, Greece, China, the Philippines, Vietnam and Iraq.
Education
Royal Military College of Canada
2009 PhD, War Studies
2001 MA, War Studies
Courses Taught
Introduction to History and Methods
Graduate
Norwich University
World History Since the Late Agrarian Period
Graduate
Norwich
Total Warfare
Graduate
Norwich University
Memberships
The SOE Society
The OSS Society
T. E. Lawrence Society
Society for Military History
Grants
Dreamers in Daylight: Unconventional Scholars in Military Affairs, from T. E. Lawrence to Sarah Chayes
2015 - 2016 $60,000 (USD), The Smith Richardson Foundation
Research
My focus is outsiders involved in military affairs. My doctorate examined the role of science in the Second World War and Cold War through the career of Canadian physiologist, operational research pioneer, and early atomic warfare expert Dr. Omond Solandt. Currently my focus is on scholars and experts from the fields of archaeology, anthropology, advertising, classics, journalism and human rights and their role in warfare in the 20th and 21st century.
A subset of such studies is the examination of organizational cultures, particularly government and military culture, and their capacity for change and innovation. Understanding institutional forces, norms, and learning systems is integral to my work.
I've also published works on the experience of war as told through novels and short stories, and champion the use of literature and philosophy in understanding the human dimension of warfare.
I've conducted intensive research trips in Canada, the US, the UK, and the Philippines, at national, municipal, and university archives, as well as private papers and copious interviews.
Experience
Royal Military College of Canada
9/2002 - 4/2012 Lecturer
9/2001 - 8/2003 Course Development: Officer's Professional Military Education Program (National Education Effort)
Norwich University
1/2013 - Present Adjunct Professor
Publications
Maestro of Science: Dr. Omond McKillop Solandt's Distinct Contribution to Government Science in War and Hostile Peace in Britain and Canada, 1939-1956, University of Toronto Press, October 2015.
10/2015 University of Toronto Press
“A Real Life Indian Jones: Charles Ted Rutledge Bohannan,” Biographical Entry for the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery Archive, (2014), 1-5.
1/2014 Fort Collins Museum of Discovery Archive
“Military Historian Brings New Perspective to Soldiers,” James Jones Literary Society (Fall 2013), 11.
James Jones Literary Society
A Lost Work of El Lobo: Lieutenant-Colonel Charles T. R. Bohannan’s Unpublished Study of Guerrilla Warfare in the Philippines, 1899-1955,” Small Wars and Insurgencies (2015), 292-312.
Small Wars and Insurgencies
Teaching
TEACHING PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE
I've taught high school, undergraduate, and graduate level courses in history and English. At Tilden Preparatory School, I worked one-on-one with students with learning challenges, ranging from ADD to drug recovery and self-harm. I gained a vast swath of experience in reaching students who believed their future in education was doomed, and I take great pride that my capacity to listen, lead, and create a fun working environment led many of them to finish their high school degrees when they'd abandoned all hope. Students handed in historical work on American comic books and censorship, Emily Dickinson work as it compares to modern rap artists, and primary source research into the origins of Philippine/American War using online sources. Many have since gone on to college to pursue their education and careers.
At the undergraduate level, I bring a wealth of knowledge within and outside my fields of expertise to create a dynamic learning environment that employs lectures, film, short stories, and constructive work projects that allow students the agency of focusing their efforts into subjects they find compelling. In my class on the history of science and technology, a prerequisite for engineering students at the Royal Military College of Canada, I obtained the best results by having the students use their final design project as the subject for historical analysis, and minimized the chance of reading the same essay on "The Steam Engine" every year for me.
At the graduate level, I demand students take even more agency while providing guidance and problem solving techniques for them to employ in intensive research an analytic work. I also champion their efforts in improving writing skills, as I believe a historian has a duty to write not just clearly, but well. Having breadth of knowledge in fields outside of my own has allowed me the joy in helping students in American, Military and World History pursue their academic aims and turn in first-rate work.
I promote equality and tolerance, demand excellence, and allow for unconventional approaches to study and writing without dropping the standard required for each level of education.
My teaching capabilities include…
20th-Century English Literature
American History
American Literature
American pop culture
British Literature
Composition
Cultural Studies
Historical methodology
Military History
Science and technology history
Five Questions With Jason Ridler, Author of Hex-Rated
Recently, I had the pleasure of reading Jason Ridler's wild and fast-paced occult noir, Hex-Rated. Then we did an interview. I think his answers offer a really good glimpse of what the book is all about. It's a wild, smart ride through 1970 Los Angeles with magic, sex, and a noir sensibility that will appeal to a lot of readers.
The thing that impressed me the most about Hex-Rated was the way you seemed to evoke 1970 Los Angeles. Is it weird to say I felt like I was there? Because I totally did. Was this something you really had to craft intentionally, or was it just organic to the story (either way, I’m totally impressed)?
Oh, I had to do my homework. I only lived in LA for a brief period (Long Beach) so have ZERO claim to being an expert. But I also knew I couldn't treat the books as historical fiction like Patrick O'Brien and have very ounce of the historical verity on every page. So I recreated the LA of 1970 with real history (Watts Riots, Hollywood, racial tension and daydreams of celebrities), as much real geography as I could muster, and infused it with the LA of pop culture, from rock and roll to pornography to literature. So it's the LA of John Fante's fiction and Ed Wood's movies and the LA of the Zoot Suit Riots and The Strip. I read once that Kazuo Ishiguro basically soaked in as much as he could learn about British butlers and class in the 1930s England and then in a storm of fury and talent and executed Remains of the Day. I did that with 1970s adult film (The Other Hollywood was essential reading to know what kinds of cars porn people loved), LA film history, carnival history, Fante's Ask the Dust, Bukowski, Hunter Thompson, the birth of heavy metal and proto punk. I devoured this stuff and tried to infuse it into a story about the death of the sixties, the birth of the seventies, and all through the story of a carney PI who abandoned the world of real magic to help the casualties of Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll when creepy dark magic begins to return.
The book hit a sweet spot for me in that it was all told through a certain noir sensibility while still feeling fresh and wild because of the fantasy elements. Talk about how you balanced the two.
It was fun as hell. There's a stoicism and coldness to much noir that I love, or a nihilism about value and purpose that is explored as the protag faces bizarre and tense circumstances. But it can get a little atonal. My master is Jim Thompson, who had a wild imagination and sense of humor and gothic sensibilities as well as the dark needle he was jabbing into the human condition. The Alcoholics is a hilarious and terrifying book. I did not want Brimstone to be another Grim Whisky Drinking Detective with a Rough Past. I have nothing to say in that world, at least not yet. So, Brimstone has a very large sense of humor about the human condition. His catch phrase? "Smile, it could always be worse!"
The humor helps cut the darkness, as does the fantastical elements (thanks for noticing). I wanted the fantasy stuff to be more akin to comic book fantasy than is more typical of the the genre I'm playing with: big, wild, powerful, emotional and gripping. I wanted it in technicolor and what the gang at Marvel Comics call Kirby Perspective: the fantasy, when it shows up, punches you in the face like a NUKE!. And yet at the same time, I keep the biggest fantasy stuff off stage. Brimstone knows there are deep worlds of magic. His mentor, Edgar, was deeply invested in it. But his goal is to help the underclass struggling with its tendrils. He is the anti-Elric in that regard. It helps that I find stories about powerful people fucking boring and a form of class-worship of some kind! Give me the dimestore hood who IS NOT the chosen one and I will follow him into the mouth of hell.
You may hate this question, but how would you pitch Hex-Rated to a reader who says they like fantasy but not mystery?
First, all fiction is mystery. Sorry. You want to know what happens next, right? That's a mystery! It's the Uber Genre. And unlike most mysteries the fun is in the encounters as Brimstone finds himself in worlds of dark magic, with berserkers and demons, and undead hitmen whose consciousness live in brain jars but who remotely operated corpses to wreck vengeance! So, that's more monsters per page than a lot of stories about elves and busted swords! Plus, as I said, my magic is more fun than most systems-based fantasy magic and more akin to Lovecraftiean and weird fiction uses of the sublime as well as other cultural folklore and supernatural elements (FUN FACT: I have an admiration for Filipino folklore)
What’s the best review you’ve received so far? What about the worst?
Jason Heller at NPR gave me a stunning review, and he saw what few others have caught. Yes, it is a pulp fantasy novel written for fun and enjoyment. I'm a commercial writer and I want you to love the story. But believe it or not there is also a deeper meaning beneath the magic, sex, and monsters. The masters who emerged from pulp fiction, folks like Patricia Highsmith, Robert E. Howard, Leigh Brackett, Philip K. Dick and Jim Thompson, could captivate you with dark and weird tales of astonishing stuff . . . but there was ALWAYS a deeper theme. I work with a similar guerrilla warfare attitude and if you scratch a little deeper you'll find me discussion reality and illusions and the nature of identity. In a place like Hollyweird, should we be surprised if monsters appear on porn sets? If these monsters are gods, as Donald Westlake and Harlan Ellison argue in stories like "Nackles" and The Deathbird Stories, is it our worshipping of them that makes them real? Heller caught what I was playing with and loved it, and for that I'm so grateful.
The worst? It's a three-way dance between a minutia troll who didn't like that Brimstone (who is always poor) had plastic bags (too expensive in that era!), a fellow who hated that Brimstone was progressive for his era (as if being anti-racist was the REAL fantasy element for 1970s LA), and a lady who couldn't stand my love of rude language!
Your bio says you’re not only a writer, but also a historian and actor. How have those two roles informed your writing?
Well, I'm an improv actor (very different breed than scripted). So I enjoy creating things on the fly. I plotted out HEX-RATED but allowed myself to invent as I went, too, otherwise it would be a mechanical book with few surprises. I love tangents and divergence and my skills as an improv actor have sharpened my ability to follow strange stories to neat conclusions.
And yes, by day I'm a historian who works for Johns Hopkins University. I've got pretty solid research chops, so I can do detailed academic and popular research on stuff going on in LA in the era, which has been helpful. For years, i wouldn't TOUCH historical fiction because, if I may be frank, writing history is harder than fiction. It has a demand in terms of research, support, and execution that by necessity make it slower and less inventive because you are re-creating the past. Without that rigor, you're distorting the past. And that's evil.
So fiction was always where I let my imagination run wild. But these days I'm taking skills from one to the other. I'm using narrative techniques from fiction to help write history (always with ample evidence!). And in my fiction I'm using my research skills to infuse stories with some historical essence while still allowing me the freedom to wander where my imagination goes. I read a lot on the Hells Angels to make sure they came off right in the book, and Hunter Thompson's book was instrumental (example: they were usually filthy and covered in cuts and wounds more than ink and badges). Research helps you find visceral details that help make moments come alive. I try to follow that logic when creating scenes, be it clothes, songs, booze. I won't get it perfect (as Dr. Minutia let me know about plastic bag!), but remember: I'm not recreating LA. I'm creating one that's full of demons and sex cults with magic that works! In this fake universe, the poor have access to Big Macs and Paper Bags!
September 10, 2017
The Scariest Part: Jason Ridler Talks About HEX-RATED
Posted on Nov 28, 2017 by Nick
I’m delighted that my guest this week on The Scariest Part is an old friend of mine from way back, author Jason Ridler, whose latest novel is Hex-Rated. Here is the publisher’s description:
Fall, 1970. Los Angeles has always been a den of danger and bliss, but even darker tidings brew in the City of Angels. Cults, magic, and the supernatural are leaking into the worlds of glamour and dives of the gutter. To the spectators walking down Hollywood Blvd, it’s just more proof that La La Land is over the cuckoo’s nest. But to former child magician and Korean veteran turned newly-licensed private investigator James Brimstone, it means business is picking up.
After attending his mentor’s funeral, Brimstone signs his first client: Nico, a beautiful actress with a face full of scars and an unbelievable story of sex, demons, and violence on the set of a pornographic film in the San Fernando Valley. The cops chalk it up to a bad trip from a lost soul, but Brimstone knows better.
He takes the case, but the investigation goes haywire as he encounters Hell’s Angels, a lost book of Japanese erotica, and a new enemy whose powers may fill the streets of L.A. with blood. He’ll have to use his Carney wits, magic tricks, and a whole lotta charm to make it out of a world that is becoming . . . Hex-Rated.
And now, let’s hear what the scariest part was for Jason S. Ridler:
Hex-Rated, the debut novel in my new series The Brimstone Files, is a supernatural mystery set in porn industry of 1970s LA. And the scariest part was writing the sexy bits.
I’ve written about love, lust, violence, horror and the grotesque for almost twenty years but this was a legit novel! And unlike Harlan Ellison and other heroes who wrote dirty books under pennames, I’d be using my own. What would the neighbors think? What might my family think???
Then I recalled a chat I had with my friend Weird-Ass Neil, back when I started writing fiction. Over hyper-priced coffee I complained that I was stalled. All my characters were lone wolves who had no family because I was worried that if I wrote a father, a mother, or sister…my real life family would scream, “That’s how you think of me? HOW DARE YOU!”
Ol’ Weird-Ass Neil’s about as blunt as a cement brick in the face. His response? “Sounds like you’re giving other people a lot of authority over what you can write, and they’re not even in the room. Dude, I think this is a recipe for mediocrity.” He was right. Fear of external judgment is the killer of creativity. If you please everyone, you’ll hate the work yourself. So I started writing about families and their influences (good, bad, and fugly) and my characters became vastly more interesting and “rounded” and I leveled up as a writer.
So, when I found myself at that crossroad of “Fear of External Judgment” again, I ran in the other direction. Hex-Rated is a pulp novel so there damn well better be some pulp sex. At the same time, the last thing I wanted was some kind of tribute to misogynist power-fantasies of that era. So I made Brimstone a sheet warrior, but a progressive and left-wing child of the Beats with an open mind and forward attitude about sex and sexuality. Yes, the sex in the novel is over the top and primarily built for hetero-normative modes, but it also fit his character and his attitudes. And, I hope, they’re fun to read!
Then, I waited for responses from the big bad world and the results have been HILARIOUS!
Some fans love those scenes for being salacious and ridiculous. Others say they’re “too much,” and Brimstone is “too good” at the beast-with-two-backs to be taken seriously. And my family, in true “children of the 1980s fashion,” skipped those parts like Fast Forwarding the “adult situations” in a teen comedy! I’ve walked the line, as Johnny Cash would say, with some folks loving the lusty bits, others hating them, and most folks loving the story and editing them to suit their interests.
That’s the kind of happy ending you only get when you don’t give in…to the Scariest Part!
Hex-Rated: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Powell’s / IndieBound
Jason Ridler: Blog / Facebook / Twitter
Jason S. Ridler is a writer, improv actor, and left-wing military historian. His novels include Hex-Rated, the first installment of the Brimstone Files series for Nightshade Press, Rise of the Luchador, and Death Match. He’s also published over sixty stories and numerous academic publications. FXXK WRITING! A Guide for Frustrated Artists collects the best of his column of the same name, and his next historical work, Mavericks of War, is forthcoming from Stackpole Books. A former punk rock musician and cemetery groundskeeper, Mr. Ridler holds a Ph.D. in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada. He lives in Berkeley, CA and is a Teaching Fellow for Johns Hopkins University.
Jason S. Ridler is a writer, historian and biographer. His monograph on Dr. Omond Solandt will be published by the University of Toronto Press in 2015. A former punk rock musician and cemetery groundskeeper, Mr. Ridler holds a PhD in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada.
My Favorite Things with Jason Ridler
By MFT Editor July 31, 2017 2 Comments
rise of luchador
fxxk writing
hex rated brimstone
They might not be raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens, but that doesn’t mean that we love them any less. Welcome back to My Favorite Things, the weekly column where we grab someone in speculative circles to gab about the greatest in geek. This week, we sit down with author and military historian Jason Ridler, who’s having quite the publication windfall this summer. Having just published FXXK WRITING: A Guide for Frustrated Artists earlier this month, tomorrow his debut from Night Shade Books hits the shelves: Hex-Rated: A Brimstone Files Novel. But what does he love when he’s not typing furiously away on his next novel or dispensing with writing advice? Spoiler alert: dragon wrestlers, British Fantasy nominees, short stories that turn shit to gold, and a non-speculative fave that Jem and the Hologram fans might find truly outrageous! Curious? Read on for more!
My lunchtime joy is watching grown men pretend to hurt each other, telling stories with their bodies in Boyle Heights. Robert Rodriguez and the crew at El Rey created Lucha Underground, a television series now streaming on Netflix about a cult-like world of pro wrestling with an emphasis on the Mexican tradition of the flying luchadore, crazy storylines, and over-the-top-rope characters from around the globe, including my current fave, Drago… who is part dragon! BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! Aztec warriors! Super heroic feats of athleticism abound in a world of time travel, secret identities and magic masks! And it’s all set in East LA. Tell me this isn’t cooler than hobbits throwing jewelry in volcanos, rube. Plus, one of the valets follows me on Twitter (by which I mean some kid in charge of her twitter account found out I wrote Rise of the Luchador). Lucha Underground has more genre elements per episode than most opening chapters from new Urban Fantasies . . . but guess who gets snubbed EVERY YEAR AT WORLD FANTASY CON? I say it’s a fix! It’s a work (that’s rasslin’ slang for a fixed outcome, rookie)! And I blame the ref! Plus, wrestling shows up in the sequel to my debut novel, Hex-Rated: A Brimstone Files Novel. So, if you want a sneak peak into the world of Brimstone’s future, one way is to catch some Lucha!
But when not dealing the the shifting realities of pretend violence and real injuries, I like to curl up with a good book about shifting realities and the nature of identity. Simply put, Erica Satifka has written the best SF book I’ve read since Project Itoh’s Harmony (as you can see, I’m not an easy mark for traditional SF). Want a protagonist struggling with mental health issues? One faced with a diabolical fiend hiding within her awful day job at Savertown, USA? Want her allies to communicate through frozen goods??? OF COURSE YOU DO! And that means Stay Crazy is the novel for you! It’s well-crafted, funny, ridiculous, and moving, with a nice stab at corporate culture. If you love the everyday fuck-ups of Philip K. Dick written by someone who gets working class culture, mental health challenges and, thank fuck, isn’t some white dude like me, this is the book. Couldn’t put it down. And proving some works are recognized in their time, it’s up for a British Fantasy Award. Proving yet again I’m outside the ring of normal genre stuff.
Which brings me to my first love in fiction: short stories by people you have never heard of (yet). Justin Howe is many things, including my former roommate at the Odyssey Writing Workshop. He also may be the best-read fantasist of the freaky deaky you’ve yet to taste, so I was thrilled when his latest short story, “Behind the Sun,” came out from Reckoning, an enviro-punk-magic-realist-lit-mag from another Odyssey alumni and buddy, the incredible Michael J. Deluca. The story is about literally turning shit into gold, and it’s written in the tradition of many of Justin’s peripheral and central influences like Avram Davidson, Haruki Murakami, and Lewis Shiner. So read it.
Speaking of which, Shiner made his name in the 1980s as a punk rock slacker member of the cyberpunk generation, roughly at the time when my sister Shannon was hooked on Jem ad the Holograms, the sage SF girl-adventure fantasy cartoon series from maestro cartoon writer Christy Marx. Back then, I was a full-time wrestling junkie, but Jem was cool. And you know what else was just as truly, truly, truly outrageous, but filled with warrior-beauty queens who made this young boy in a feminist household feel funny in his . . . heart? The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling!
So, of course I watched the gang behind Orange is the New Black recreate and re-envision Glow to tell a tale of women, sexism, empowerment, and spandex in the 1980s world of pro wrestling. Yes, I loved it, all of it, every slam-bang part of it. Yes, it was strange to see all the sexy and powerful influences that creeped into my Id when I was eleven come raging at me, alive and in color, and much of it through the face of Alison Brie.
Ahem, it was also a very well done affair, and the team knows how to work an ensemble cast without losing the main thread of the series. In short, the aesthetic excellence is matched by strong writing and performances. Glow is Madmen for ladies who grew up on Jem . . . and the older brothers who watched Jem before WWF Superstars. For a guy writing a supernatural mystery set in 1970s LA, it’s fun to see what the following decade became!
Jason Ridler is a writer, left-wing military historian and improv actor. He is the author of Hex-Rated, the debut of his new series The Brimstone Files from Night Shade Press, as well as FXXK WRITING: A Guide for Frustrated Artists, based on his popular column of the same name for Flash Fiction Online. A former punk rock musician and cemetery groundskeeper, he is a teaching fellow at Johns Hopkins University, yet lives in Berkeley. You can check out his blog, or hang out with him on Facebook, because SnapChat scares him!
Eating Authors: Jason S. Ridler
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Written on September 17th, 2012 by Lawrence Schoen
Categories: Plugs
Tags: Eating Authors
Jason Ridler
And lo, another Monday has dawned, and you’ve found your way back to this blog, and the weekly Eating Author feature. Because what could be a better way to start your week than getting a peek into an author’s gustatory memories? Seriously, if I knew the answer to that, this would be a very different blog.
Our dining companion this week is Jason S. Ridler, who strikes me as the sort of person I wish I’d had teaching the various history classes that I ended up sleeping through back in my youth. In addition to his Ph.D. in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada, Dr. Ridler — oh, heck, let’s just call him Jay — has also put in time keeping the grounds at a cemetery, and making his way in the world as a punk rock musician. All these experiences have shaped the author inside the man. But don’t take my word for it. You can sample his short fiction in the collection Knockouts: Ten Tales of Fantasy and Noir, as well as some of his longer work such as his ongoing series of “Spar Battersea Thrillers” that include Con Job, Death Match, and Dice Roll, the last of which was just release this past weekend.
LMS: Thanks for being here, Jason. So, what’s your most memorable meal??
JSR: I was a real ham and egger until I married my wife, whose appreciation of food has opened my mind and taste buds to much better fare than what I used to cook (including a hideously delicious poor man meal called Beef Salad!). While I’ve now got a more sophisticated palate, and can enjoy food with a much grander experience these days, let me tell you about my old friend, The Penny Burger.
In Kingston, Ontario, the prison capital of the Great White North, there’s a dimly lit family restaurant called The Copper Penny. It’s dank but not worn down, has A/C, and had the friendliest and funniest waitresses this side of the 49th parallel (who loved to share stories of their insane boyfriends who were hooked on meth, or growing up in war torn Cyprus or Beirut, or how they had to put a red light in the bathroom so the junkies wouldn’t use it to shoot up: can’t see blue veins in red lights, but I digress . . .). The Copper Penny was known for cheap pints and good greasy spoon entrees. When I wrote my first novel, and it collapsed under the weight of its own stupidity (seriously: at one point, my main character was running through a graveyard for no reason, and he looked back at me and shouted, “what the fuck am I doing here, idiot?”), I spent a lot of time at the Copper Penny, trying to figure out how to save it. And I got hooked on The Penny Burger.
Dice Roll
Knockouts
Con Job
What makes this burger amazing is how insanely average it is! It looks like the kind of burgers we’d see on American sit coms, or Barf’s Burgers on You Can’t Do That On Television. Big patty, big buns, overstuffed with lettuce and tomato and cheese. I have no idea why, but I always loved that industrial grade sameness, that factory belt big burger look. My dad cooks up nice burgers, and McDonalds are always small and weird looking, but eating a Penny Burger was like tasting a fantasy sandwich from the idiot box!
But that’s not all. What distinguished the Penny Burger from the rest was that its topping, on top of the mandatory veggies, was a fried egg and two strips of bacon. Yes. It’s breakfast for lunch, kids! The greasy bacon and savory egg yoke masked how bland the burger actually was, and there was enough salt on the damn thing to dry the St. Lawrence. On the side were these weird chex-style fries covered in red salt that were glorious when done right and rock candy when done wrong. Add a giant pint of Rickard’s Red, and I was living the dream.
All it took was one try, and I knew the Penny Burger was now a staple of my existence in Kingston. There were lots of fine restaurants in K-town, but no meal makes me more nostalgic for being a young and awful writer, fighting his way through his salad days, than that heart attack on a plate.
Thanks, Jay. I’m grateful for the opportunity to preserve this memory for literary posterity (and your future biographer will surely thank us both), particularly as I suspect there’s no way in hell your wife would let you order another meal like that now.
Ridler, Jason: HEX-RATED
Kirkus Reviews. (June 15, 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Ridler, Jason HEX-RATED Night Shade (Adult Fiction) $14.99 8, 1 ISBN: 978-1-59780-903-0
A 1970s private eye investigates the attack of a human-controlled snake on a starlet in the adult film industry.Now that Edgar Vance, his mentor in the magical arts, has been laid to rest in Inglewood Park Cemetery, newly minted shamus James Brimstone is ready to commit himself to his new gig. Brimstone uses the funeral to drum up business, and by the end of the day, he's already working his first case. Vulnerable starlet Nico wants Brimstone's help in unraveling a mystery that may be too weird for the police. While filming a skin flick earlier in the day with veteran actress Maxine Graham--the graphic details of which Nico obligingly supplies for the titillation of the detective and the reader--Nico claims that Maxine attacked her. Nor was this an ordinary attack: a snake emerged from Maxine's mouth and bit Nico's face, producing two scars and sending Nico running in fear for her life. A man familiar with the occult, Brimstone is more intrigued than afraid. His investigation takes several paths, as he thinks up crafty ruses, beds Nico's colleagues, and studies obscure Japanese erotica for answers. Perhaps that's what investigating was like in the '70s. Brimstone faces danger in his quest, but he's remarkably capable both physically and mentally, so it's only a matter of time before he's able to tie the mystery to its larger motive, which of course is really all about him. The retro setting matches the story's sensibilities, and Ridler's (Rise of the Luchador, 2014, etc.) quick and clever wit is overshadowed by his leering views of women.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Ridler, Jason: HEX-RATED." Kirkus Reviews, 15 June 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A495427857/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=af1a2490. Accessed 25 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A495427857
Hex-Rated
Publishers Weekly. 264.24 (June 12, 2017): p47.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Hex-Rated
Jason Ridler. Night Shade, $14.99 trade paper (304p) ISBN 978-1-59780-903-0
Steeped in the style of 1970s pulp detective fiction, this first book in a projected urban fantasy series capitalizes on some of the genre's cheesier--and sleazier--aspects. Its gumshoe, former magician James Brimstone, has just hung out his shingle as a private dick. His first client, an actress with a scarred face, claims she was mauled by a snake that struck from the mouth of her costar on the set of a pornographic film. Brimstone smells sorcery, and before he can solve the mystery of why mages would be seeking purchase in the smut industry, he has to navigate encounters with the Hell's Angels, Nazi cultists, and other personnel from the dark underbelly of Los Angeles. Brimstone is cut from the cloth of the classic wisecracking detective, and Ridler (Rise of the Luchador) peppers the text with perfectly pitched hard-boiled vernacular ("She'd fallen out of the pretty tree and hit every branch on the way down"). The novel's wild mix of comfedy and supernatural perils bodes well for its detective's future adventures. (Aug.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Hex-Rated." Publishers Weekly, 12 June 2017, p. 47. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A495720674/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=a0782ab2. Accessed 25 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A495720674
3 Supernatural Noir Tales That Reflect The Inhuman Condition
July 27, 20177:00 AM ET
Jason Heller
Hex-Rated
Hex-Rated
by Jason Ridler
Paperback, 292 pages
purchase
Jason Heller is a senior writer at The A.V. Club, a Hugo Award-winning editor and author of the novel Taft 2012.
Los Angeles is the city of many great traditions — one of them being crime fiction. From the hardboiled classics of Raymond Chandler to the gritty noir of James Ellroy, numerous novels have used the tough streets and affluent hills of L.A. as a backdrop for some of literature's most thrilling tales of murder, lust, and justice.
What happens, though, when an entirely different world seeps into L.A.? Say, the realm of science fiction or the supernatural? Picture Chandler's The Big Sleep with robots. Or Ellroy's The Black Dahlia with monsters. It might sound jarring at first, but authors have been catering to this weird juxtaposition — and the crossover audience that enjoys both crime fiction and speculative fiction — for years now. Not all of these books take place in L.A.; Jim Butcher's successful Dresden Files series, for instance, deals with the unholy mingling of crime and magic in Chicago. But three recent novels by Jason Ridler, Adam Christopher, and Richard Kadrey have focused the speculative-crime genre through a distinctly Angeleno lens.
"The wind smelled of October, but the heat was pure L.A.," Ridler writes in Hex-Rated, the first installment of his new series The Brimstone Files. The book practically oozes the sleaze — both atmospheric and moral — that fictional L.A. has become infamous for. It's set in 1970, where a newly minted private eye named James Brimstone takes on his first case: a mystery involving a porn star whose last tawdry film seemed to funnel forces from beyond this plane of existence.
Killing Is My Business
Killing Is My Business
by Adam Christopher
Hardcover, 284 pages
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As you might imagine, Brimstone gets in over his head. His investigation goes south, violently, as Ridler's manic plot splinters into conspiracies, martial arts, and Lovecraftian terror. It's also terrific fun, dripping with rich period detail and nods to Ed Wood movies and Jack Kirby comics. Ridler toys with the idea that L.A. thrives on illusions, which makes it the perfect breeding ground for magic, particularly of the darker kind. Smutty, profane, and unapologetically slathered in pulp, Hex-Rated is a loving homage to all the musty, dog-eared paperbacks stuffed in the used bookstore's spinner rack.
In more direct ways, Hex-Rated and Killing Is My Business comment on the ways L.A. has become a crucible for America's hopes, dreams, depravity, despair, and sometimes even redemption. Then again, that's what the best L.A. noir and hardboiled fiction, from Chandler to Ellroy, has always done: sifted the human condition through the grates and gutters of the City of Angels. For Ridler, Christopher, and Kadrey, though, that condition often isn't human at all.
My Review of HeX-Rated by Jason Ridler
hexA couple of weeks back, Brian Keene mentioned Jason Ridler’s HeX-Rated in his newsletter, calling it one of the smartest, fun, transcendent pulp novels he’d read in a long, long time.
I happened to be a quarter of the way into my read of the pdf ARC Nightshade Books sent me when I received Brian’s newsletter.
I’ve always had a deep respect for Keene’s opinions, especially regarding genre matters. One of my fondest memories was a long talk he and I shared mostly centered around our mutual appreciation of Manly Wade Wellman.
He knows his occult detectives.
His full blurb for this Brimstone Files Novel reads, “Jason Ridler’s HEX-RATED is deliciously uncomfortable, wonderfully gritty, and a worthy successor to the occult detectives of old.” — Brian Keene – Bestselling author of THE COMPLEX and PRESSURE
High praise, indeed, but what did I think?
This was my first experience reading Jason Ridler’s work. I understand he’s published a number of crime novels and his experience shows.
Here’s an excerpt from the back cover copy — “After attending his mentor’s funeral, Brimstone signs his first client: Nico, a beautiful actress with a face full of scars and an unbelievable story of sex, demons, and violence on the set of a pornographic film in the San Fernando Valley. The cops chalk it up to a bad trip from a lost soul, but Brimstone knows better.”
Sounds like something right up my alley, no?
I found HeX-Rated fast paced, clever, and a great example of world-building. I loved the diverse and complicated supporting characters throughout and found the magic and lore to be consistent and handled deftly .
An occult detective story, however, lives and dies by the main protagonist.
James Brimstone, an ex-carny and Korean War vet, is a newly licensed P.I. in 1970 Hollyweird. Ridler really makes the era come alive with just enough pop-culture references to keep us old folks happy, though the allusion to Alan Moore seemed out of place and a couple of decades early.
If there’s a fault here it lies in the fact that Brimstone seems a tad too progressive, too modern thinking. I think it would have played better, had been more immersive, if Brimstone felt more connected to the era he was navigating.
That being said, I loved the book and certainly look forward to future installments in the series.
If you’re a fan of the occult detective genre, Ridler’s Brimstone skews more toward Harry Dresden than John Thunstone, but it has everything you should be looking for in a supernatural-drenched thriller.
And that cover art is sweet.
Hex-Rated – Jason Ridler (Review)
June 3, 2017 ~ Peritract
Hex-rated.jpgJames Brimstone doesn’t want to have anything to do with magic anymore. With the burial of his cruel mentor, all his remaining bridges to the world of hexes and demons have been burnt. He can start work as a private investigator and leave the supernatural behind him.
His first case, predictably enough, plunges him right back into it all. A actress with hideous facial scarring – scarring that tastes of magic – begs for his help. James Brimstone finds himself going up against Nazi occultists, monstrous snakes and rage-filled gladiators as he investigates the seamier side of Hollywood.
Hex-Rated is the first book in a planned urban fantasy series. It starts very much in medias res, and does lots of world-building through what’s left unexplained, but it is the first book. I checked.
I really wanted to like this book. The cover, the concept, the aesthetic – all of these are exactly my kind of thing. I love the vividness of pulp, and anything containing occult Nazis catches my interest; they’re such fun antagonists. So when I started reading Hex-Rated, I was inclined to view it very positively.
And I did find several positives. I liked the magic – it’s not as present as you’ll find in other books in the genre, and the protagonist’s distaste comes across well. Magic in Hex-Rated is strange and scary. Wizards don’t throw fire – they make perverted pacts with demons and carve sigils into living flesh. The essential elements aren’t original, but the presentation is.
I liked the setting as well. 1970s America is not something I’m very familar with, and its an unusual choice for urban fantasy. All the cultural references are slightly off from where I expect them – different songs on the radio and homeless veterans of different wars. I’m growing a little sick of urban fantasy that takes place in the early and undifferentiated 2000s. The 1970s setting of this book is both fresh and important, permeating the whole plot.
Unfortunately, I felt that the positives were outweighed by a significant negative. The issue is Brimstone himself; he’s very hard to like. In some ways he’s the standard urban fantasy protagonist – impoverished, worried about falling to the darkness, and surrounded by beautiful women. It’s a common archetype now, and it is a little hackneyed and objectionable. Normally though, the annoying parts of these characters are tempered by humility or incompetence, so the character ends up sympathetic.
Brimstone isn’t humble. He knows how good he is. He’s not particularly great at magic, but he rarely uses it – again, in this book, magic is a strange and dangerous thing. Brimstone solves most of his problems through either fighting or sex. And he’s very, very good at both of them.
I struggle to worry about a character who outclasses all of his opponents – regardless of size or magical assistance – with relative ease. Brimstone knows all the martial arts. He can disable his enemies’ limbs through the careful tapping of pressure points. He moves incredibly fast and can see in the dark. There’s little tension to the combat because he’s essentially unstoppable, and while the author does try and make situations seem desperate, it rings rather hollow – the reader has already seen how capable he is, so pretending he is in trouble doesn’t actually work.
There’s a lot of sex in the book. Quite a lot more than I was expecting. That’s fine – it’s not a problem – but some kind of earlier hint would have been nice. And once Brimstone starts having sex with people, he just doesn’t stop. By my (admittedly rough) count, he has sex with five different porn actresses only a few hours. It’s very detailed, and not really justified that well by the plot. Most importantly, it’s amazing; those of his partners who discuss it (at length) declare sex with Brimstone to be a transcendental experience. In case you were in any doubt over this, his internal monologue also repeatedly explains just how great he is in bed.
Characters must be flawed to be relatable. I don’t know about you, gentle reader, but I’m not an unstoppable god of sex and violence. If I was, I wouldn’t spend all my time congratulating myself on that fact. Brimstone’s abilities are essentially superpowers, and he’s really smug about them. He even has the gall to lecture the reader on being respectful to women, and then immediately takes advantage of a distraught victim of a brutal attack or has a threesome with two strangers just to avoid having to tell the truth.
I get that pulp is about sex and violence. I’m okay with that. But there are limits. One of those limits, it turns out, is graphically describing sex with multiple porn stars while congratulating yourself on your thrusting technique. It’s gratuitous, and not in a fun way. Brimstone comes across as arrogant and self-obsessed, which makes it hard to root for him.
I wanted to like Hex-Rated; I really did. There’s a lot to like about it – the originality, the setting; even the prose, at points, is snappy and compelling. But it’s hard to enjoy a book when the protagonist needs shaking. If you are riding in someone’s head, it needs to be a head that’s interesting to be in. Not the head of a good person, necessarily, but one who you can sympathise with. With a toned-down protagonist and less emphasis on sex, I’d have enjoyed the book a lot more. As it is, Hex-Rated is a bundle of interesting ideas let down by the overall execution.
Buy it here.
I received a copy of Hex-Rated free from NetGalley.com. I don’t believe that this has affected the impartiality of my review, but it would be dishonest not to tell you.