ASSASSIN’S CODE
NOVEL #4/Published in 2012 by St. Martin’s Griffin
When Joe Ledger and Echo Team rescue a group of American college kids held hostage in Iran, the Iranian government then asks them to help find six nuclear bombs planted in the Mideast oil fields. These stolen WMDs will lead Joe and Echo Team into hidden vaults of forbidden knowledge, mass murder, betrayal, and a brotherhood of genetically engineered killers with a thirst for blood. Accompanied by the beautiful assassin called Violin, Joe follows a series of clues to find the Book of Shadows, which contains a horrifying truth that threatens to shatter his entire world view. They say the truth will set you free…. Not this time. The secrets of the Assassin’s Code will set the world ablaze.
A FOOTNOTE IN THE BLACK BUDGET
Short Story
Joe Ledger, Top and Bunny go to the bottom of the world all the way to the Mountains of Madness in this crossover with H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos.
***This story is not yet released. It will be included in the anthology The Madness of Cthulhu, edited by S.T. Joshi.
MAD SCIENCE
Short Story
Joe Ledger and Violin go after a kill-squad of Red Knights in this sequel to ASSASSIN’S CODE.
BORROWED POWER
Short Story
Joe Ledger teams with a mysterious British agent named Felicity to investigate a dangerous bioweapons factory. A story told in two parts: A young Mr. Church teams with Lilith to hunt monsters in the sewers beneath Paris; and when that ancient evil rises again, Joe Ledger and Violin close in for the kill.
EXTINCTION MACHINE
NOVEL #5/Published in March 2013 by St. Martin’s Griffin
The President of the United States vanishes from the White House for five hours. Next morning he is found, apparently safe and sound. Except that he claims that during the night he was abducted by aliens. A top-secret prototype stealth fighter is destroyed during a test flight. Witnesses on the ground say that it was shot down by a craft that immediately vanished at impossible speeds. North Korea’s ultra top-secret weapons research lab is destroyed by a volcano—in an area where there has not been an eruption for forty millions years. All over the world reports of UFOs are increasing at an alarming rate. Key military personnel, politicians and scientists begin disappearing. And in a remote fossil dig in China, dinosaur hunters have found something that is definitely not of this earth. Joe Ledger and the Department of Military Sciences rush headlong into the heat of the world’s strangest and deadliest arms race, because the global race to recover and retro-engineer alien technologies has just hit a snag. Someone—or something—wants that technology back.
ARTIFACT
Short Story
Joe Ledger goes after an enigmatic device that could hold the key to permanent sustainable energy—or could become the most dangerous weapon on earth.
THE HANDYMAN GETS OUT
Short Story
Joe Ledger is naked and unarmed and has to escape a high-security facility armed with whatever he can find. Expect Joe to get cranky.
CODE ZERO
NOVEL #6/Published in March 2014 by St. Martin’s Griffin
A direct sequel to PATIENT ZERO. A rogue scientist within the DMS takes the Seif al Din pathogen (and dozens of other deadly and exotic weapons) and begins selling them to the highest bidders. Bizarre science-based terrorist attacks tear the nation apart—and at the heart of it are new outbreaks of the zombie plague that first brought Joe Ledger into the DMS. Joe and his crew team up with Arklight (from Assassin’s Code) in a running battle that leaves a trail of bodies from Los Angeles to the steps of the White House.
THREE GUYS WALK INTO A BAR
Short Story
Joe Ledger teams with Malcolm Crow (from the Pine Deep Trilogy) and Sam Hunter (from Strip Search) to tackle a team experimenting with genetically engineered werewolves.
***This story will be included in the anthology, Limbus II, available in 2014 from JournalStone Publishing.
PREDATOR ONE
NOVEL #7/To be published in March 2014 by St. Martin’s Griffin.
Someone is turning airliners and fighter jets into murderous drones. Joe Ledger needs to discover if the enemy is a supercomputer hacker or an advanced Artificial Intelligence program gone rogue.
Also….JOE LEDGER makes cameo appearances in…
FLESH & BONE
Book #3 of the ROT & RUIN series from Simon & Schuster.
TOOTH & NAIL
Ebook tied to the ROT & RUIN series.
FIRE & ASH
Book #4 of the ROT & RUIN series from Simon & Schuster.
ROT & RUIN: THE COMIC
Coming in Fall 2014 from IDW Publishing.
A Conversation between Jonathan Maberry and Ray Porter
NOTE: Actor Ray Porter has become the official ‘voice’ of Joe Ledger since his first performance on the audiobook of Patient Zero. Since then Ray has read all of the novels and a slew of novellas and short stories. Author Jonathan Maberry discusses with Ray the process of bringing Joe Ledger to life in the audio performances.
JONATHAN MABERRY: What’s your process for preparing to read an audiobook?
RAY PORTER: I like to familiarize myself with the characters. Often I can gain insight into how the character sounds from a gentle pre-read of the text. I say “gentle” because I don’t want to get too heavily into the read until I am recording. “Save it for the stage.” Most important for me is to get an idea of the author’s “voice.” Nine times out of ten, the author will help me find the voice of the book just by the way they have chosen to tell the story. As much research as necessary before recording is a good idea. Thankfully, Blackstone Audio has great proofers but I always feel a little embarrassed when I have pronounced something so hideously wrong that I feel like taking an English class.
JONATHAN: Walk us through the steps of recording a book?
RAY: Well, as I said before, a gentle pre-read helps me a great deal. Since I record at home, I am the narrator and engineer. I read the book from my iPad, which is mounted to a music stand next to my microphone. There is a monitor above me and a mouse and keyboard handy so that on the very rare and vastly infrequent times that I make a mistake (between 1 and 1000 times per page), I can simply punch-in in ProTools and continue recording. I also have to stop for helicopters flying overhead. No matter how well insulated your recording space, some sounds just get through. Los Angeles is sometimes not the most tranquil place, and I have had to take extended breaks at times to wait for the noise to lessen. We live near Forest Lawn, and on the day of the Michael Jackson funeral there were so many choppers in the air that I just took the whole afternoon off.
JONATHAN: How do you pick the voices for each character in the Joe Ledger books? What goes into that process?
RAY: It’s hard to describe how that happens. Sometimes the author will say “He had a high, thin reedy voice and a thick Bulgarian accent that still lingered behind his Texan drawl and cleft palate” (don’t get any ideas, Jonathan!) and so you just do that. Other times, it just kind of happens. I don’t know how to describe it better. When I first came across Mr. Church, I saw him in my head. I had a clear picture of his face. His voice just sort of fell out of my mouth. I tend to get a clear visual of faces and then their voices arrive from that. There are also clues from the author. The description of the way a person looks can tell me what they may sound like. You gave me such a gift in your initial description of Rudy that I only needed to follow suit. Others can be tougher to find, but it is so important that the person listening knows who is talking and when. In a scene between two women I really need to be as specific as I can so you don’t get lost.
JONATHAN: What’s the role of the director in the performance process?
RAY: I usually work alone but when I have worked with directors it is always a great experience. I am fortunate to work with Grover Gardner at Blackstone and I can get his input whenever I need it. Imagine getting help with your science homew
ork from Stephen Hawking and it is kind of like that.
JONATHAN: You read books all day long. Do you still have the energy to read for pleasure?
RAY: I do. I have always been a voracious reader and I really love books. I even collect antiquarian books. I was initially worried when I first started narrating that it would be the ultimate busmen’s holiday to read a book for pleasure, but quite the opposite is true. I find I am reading more now that I narrate books than I did before. I read to my three-year-old son every night at bedtime, so you could say I also narrate for pleasure.
JONATHAN: Readers have told me how much they enjoyed your reading of Patient Zero. Do you have a favorite character from the book?
RAY: Everyone has been so kind in their reviews of that book. I had an utter blast reading it. I feel a great affinity for Joe Ledger as we are very similar in a lot of ways. Except for the killing zombies thing, that is. I like Gault and Toys a lot, Mr. Church is endlessly interesting, Rudy is great, Grace….
At the risk of sounding lame, I kind of love all of the characters in that book. I can’t decide a favorite.
JONATHAN: Do you feel like the character as you portray him, and how much of yourself do you bring to the role?
RAY: I think I have to have a personal investment in a character to make the character work. But I really try to let the characters speak for themselves. You didn’t buy “Ray Porter reads Patient Zero,” you bought “Patient Zero.” I have to stay the hell out of the line of communication between you and Jonathan so that his work will affect you. If I do my job right I am just narrating the book, you are reading it.
JONATHAN: Do you have a favorite character from Patient Zero? Or from any of the other Ledger novels or stories?
RAY: Well, as I said before, choosing one character over another feels a little like “Which cute puppy do you want to keep?” It is just too hard for me to choose. As for Dragon Factory? Oh my, there are some fun people in that one!
JONATHAN: Do audio performers get any kind of recognition—like an Oscar or Emmy?
RAY: There is actually a spoken word Grammy, believe it or not. Jim Dale won for his narration of the Harry Potter books. There are also the Audie awards from the Audio Publishers of America. I am up for one this year (nonfiction) and my fingers are crossed. Audiofile magazine has monthly Earphones awards that they give each month from reviews in that magazine. I have won a couple and felt very proud indeed.
JONATHAN: Do people ever recognize you by your voice because they’ve heard you read an audio book?
RAY: This question made me smile. I think it would be very cool, but it hasn’t happened yet. I actually would prefer it not to happen. I feel it is very important to stay out of the way of the text in my narration. I know I made some strong choices in the first Joe Ledger book (and the second!) but they were justified by what Jonathan wrote. He created a book that was so much fun to read, but I really was never conscious of “performing” the book. Jonathan wrote it, not me. I am so happy and grateful beyond words that people like my narration of his work but the most important thing for me is that you get to experience Jonathan Maberry’s story, not mine. That being said, I still think it would be the coolest thing ever to be on the phone with AT&T or something and have the person on the other end say “wait a minute, you sound like the guy from Patient Zero.” That would be excellent. Although with my luck I’d get “I know you. You narrated The Complete Idiot’s Guide to String Theory. You broke my brain! Damn you!” I actually did narrate the aforementioned book. I really liked it. But truth be told, zombies and evil geniuses hell-bent on world destruction are more fun than a barrel of transgenic simian commandos. Keep ’em coming, Jonathan!
JONATHAN: When you get the next book in an ongoing series, what’s your process for getting back into the groove with those character voices/personalities?
RAY: A lot of getting back in the groove with recurring characters depends on the author. In your case, every character has such a well-defined personality that, if I really “listen” to what you are saying, the voice just naturally comes back. A perfect example of this is when I was reading a phone conversation made by an obviously distraught person who was unidentified. I got three lines in and realized “it’s Toys!” You write such full characters that I hear their voices just by reading the text. Which brings me neatly to the next question.
JONATHAN: Nowadays when I write a new Ledger story I hear your voice interpretations in my head. How weird is that?
RAY: It is weird and wonderful that you hear my interpretations as you write. I cannot think of higher praise. Your writing is such a great pleasure to read. I’m one of the few, if not the only, ones who gets to read it out loud (there may be a Joe Ledger fan out there annoying his flat mates with his interpretations). I once said that Mr. Church’s voice literally fell out of my head, and many of your characters are like that for me. Joe and I just talk alike, always have. I am amazed that I get to read these stories, and I miss them between books. You’d better not let Joe retire! People have spoken about how well these books work as audiobooks, and I am grateful indeed that I was assigned Patient Zero way back when.
Jonathan Maberry is a New York Times bestselling author, multiple Bram Stoker Award winner, and freelancer for Marvel Comics. His novels include Assassin’s Code, Flesh & Bone, Ghost Road Blues, Dust & Decay, Patient Zero, The Wolfman, and many others. Nonfiction books include Ultimate Jujutsu, The Cryptopedia, Zombie CSU, Wanted Undead or Alive, and others. Jonathan’s award-winning teen novel, Rot & Ruin, is now in development for film. He’s the editor/co-author of V-Wars, a vampire-themed anthology; and was a featured expert on The History Channel special Zombies: A Living History. Since 1978 he’s sold more than 1200 magazine feature articles, 3000 columns, two plays, greeting cards, song lyrics, and poetry. His comics include Captain America: Hail Hydra, Doomwar, Marvel Zombies Return and Marvel Universe vs The Avengers. He teaches the Experimental Writing for Teens class, is the founder of the Writers Coffeehouse, and co-founder of The Liars Club. www.jonathanmaberry.com/.
Joe Ledger Page 29
