[Spotlight Post] Allan Cole
The last spotlight post for 2012… I hope you’ve been enjoying this feature of the blog. I have enjoyed being able to show off some of my talented friends/acquaintances/occasional strangers. And now I have one last one to do… Allan Cole.
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I met Allan Cole in 2007 at AggieCon in College Station. He stepped in and took over for Gene Wolf who had to cancel. Jimmy and I were there – I talked my way in as a panelist – because Ruth Thompson was supposed to have been their Artist GOH (but also had to cancel). I’d stopped to talk to Jana Oliver who had the same guide/handler as Allan and we all hit it off.
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What was important about Allan wasn’t that he is a fantastic novelist – I loved the Sten series he did with Chris Bunch. I also liked the high fantasy stuff he did because his agent told him too. He’s rare that way. The Sten novels are more my “style†– they’re tight, fast, and have snarky humor in them – like the Bujold Vorkosigan novels and the Butcher Dresden Files – but the fantasy novels though big and epic don’t take “getting into†as much as some series that I haven’t been able to absorb. The only issues are that the reprints have slightly different names – so I got a couple and said, “Hey, I’ve read this…â€
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But wait, that’s not all! Allan and Chris were also “behind the scenes†influences on me that I never knew about. Allan Cole and Chris Bunch wrote for all the television shows that were my core inspirations in the mid-1980s. I am and always will be a Steven Cannell girl (and truly grieved when Cannell passed) – which then also extends to Frank Lupo and Donald Bellisario. These were the shows that combined action with humor and had great character actors and solidified my “THIS is what I want to do with my life.â€
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Allan Cole was part of that structure. He was also (and still is) one heck of a nice guy. He was just lovely to me then – and still is to this day. He is active on social media. He tells GREAT stories. And he is super encouraging to younger writers. We started working on a project together a while back that I’m sad to say has fallen by the way side… and needs to be picked up (and most of it is my fault). I think we both had to replace computers – and a program we were using for a script project didn’t transfer or maybe work on my Windows 7 computer and now… the file doesn’t open.
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So, Allan, if you’re reading this…I still have all that research, I just can’t open the file to see where we left off and where we need to go forward – I haven’t REALLY forgotten. I do forget for periods of time when I get busy with other projects….I do still want to work on it.
Check out Allan Cole if you haven’t already. You won’t regret it. I think he has most of the books in electronic format as well. Actually, yes, it looks like they all hit KINDLE this month.
Tags: Allan Cole, Author, Fantasy, film, science fiction, Sten, Television, Writing
An Online Sample of My Writing
Books and Anthologies for Sale
- "Operators are Standing By" – Rayguns Over Texas
- A Bubba in Time Saves None – The GodDaddy
- Baen's – Redheads Chapbook
- Baen's – ROTA Apocalypse Now!
- Baen's Yard Dog EBook Bundle – Redheads and Tracy Morris
- Chicken Soup for the Coffee Lover’s Soul
- Flush Fiction – "Some Bunny Loves You"
- I Should Have Stayed in OZ – Not in Kansas Anymore
- International House of Bubbas – "Ivan the Bubba"
- More Stories that Won't Make Your Parents Hurl – "The Pack"
- Perfectly Plum – includes my essay, "The Fast and the Furry-ous"
- Redheads of the Apocalypse – Kindle Edition
- Redheads of the Apocalypse: Apocalypse Now!
- Tarbox Station
- The Astronaut Stole My Sharpie and Other Stories – Kindle Edition
- The Astronaut Stole My Sharpie and Other Stories – Print Edition
- The Four Redheads of the Apocalypse
- The Four Redheads: Redheads in Love!
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1 Comment
Rhonda, you are as talented as you are tenacious. I do remember the project we were noodling around about. Fingers crossed we can get it going again!!!
stregg forever…
allan