"All These Devils" is the first novel I've written since 2008's "City of Human Remains." And it was a giant pain in the ass!

In the past, a novel of mine would run about 80,000-120,000 words and take about a year. This one was just over 60,000 and two years - the longest I have ever taken for a single novel. (I did have a few breaks, the biggest one to produce the "Mexican Astronomy" LP for THE LOUD BANGS).

This was supposed to be my 'easy' book to get me back into the swing of writing prose. So easy that it kind of already existed, in that this novel is based on an award-winning and optioned screenplay of mine (for which there are two existing sequels). With such a strong story already in place, I naively thought it would be the quickest thing in the world to turn it into a sort-of novelization for some fly-by-night publisher.

I was totally wrong! Hardest book I've ever written, hands down.

Throughout the 2010s, I had become the film soundtrack guy, scoring 10 movies. In 2021, I decided to write some pop songs, something I hadn't done much of since the 1990s. When I did, though, I was much better at it than I had been before. So, I thought maybe that would also work with prose, as I had written 50 screenplays and 5 plays since my last novel.

In 2008, I finished "City of Human Remains," which was this120,000-word epic. I went to NYC in Sepember 2008 to pitch it and got 30 possible agents to all bite. That very month, the U.S. economy collapsed, taking the book industry with it, and I was like fuuuuuhk this novel writing shit, I'm going to Hollywood. I can write a screenplay in a month and usually get an option, and books are dead, so let's get away from this disappointment.

So, if you buy this, and you like it, great! Thank you. I appreciate it. Personally, I give the novel a C+, but for a long time it was a D+ so.... success!

Side note: two variants of the novel exist: a past tense version and a present tense version. This wasn't (entirely) because I wasn't sure what tense to use, but also because the theme of the book is the past destroying the present. It seemed like a good stroy to try this stunt on. And, well, I had two cool covers and I couldn't decide