Alive and Kicking

Contrary to rumors, I’m doing pretty well. I’ve had some trouble with the drugs but I’m still advancing to a second operation.

Meanwhile, I have three books ready to go in quick succession. The first is my “legendary”– I know, I know, but it has been nearly finished and read by friends in “Samizdat” for years- novel Tiger Country;.

The second is a much expanded “Book of Books”, called With Trees; can you guess its name’s origin?

Third is a new look at what made the Passenger pigeon a unique species. As Robert Bakker said about dinosaurs, it is more interesting to know what they were like when they were alive than what killed them. We know what killed the Passenger pigeon. What made it the weirdest vertebrate species on earth? I have some ideas in A Feathered Tempest.

And the novel? Here’s what Malcolm Brooks says about it: “Steve Bodio brings his legendary Renaissance vision to this startling first novel, a work so mammoth in scope and elegant in execution it makes me wish he’d been writing fiction all along. Recalling the edgy best of Ed Abbey and Jim Harrison, and reminiscent of James Carlos Blake’s contemporary border noir, Tiger Country throws modern heroic renegades into the gravitational pull of the ancient past, to encounter the origins of the human condition. Though it makes admirable use of the techniques of the modern thriller, this book nonetheless has its roots in the classical literary tradition, populated by fascinating, unpredictable characters asking dangerous questions about the world we inhabit. Gripping, and utterly one-of-a-kind.”

Plus the cover photograph by Jackson Frishman of Ladron Peak, the legendary Theives’ Mountain that also dominates the opening scenes of Edward Abbey’s novel The Brave Cowboy, the first great modern “western”

Stay tuned…