Behind the Times
The Official Blog of Prometheus Radio Theatre's SuperHumanTimes
Bio Link
Born in 1961 and writing since 1967, Lance Woods earned a degree in Visual Arts (Film/Video) at the University of Maryland. The first script he wrote was a one-page episode of the Batman TV series at age 6. Since then, he has had two comedy-thrillers -- Breeding Will Tell and Murder Case -- produced by the Baltimore Playwrights Festival. In the real world, Lance has worked in the comic-book industry since 1991, which clearly influenced the development of SuperHuman Times, as did the works of scriptwriting heroes as diverse as Neil Simon, William Goldman, James L. Brooks and Rod Serling.
When he isn't daydreaming about writing something under the palm trees of Orlando, he lives far from that with his wife and son in a situation comedy format surrounded by a supporting cast of wacky friends, including members of the Parsec Award and Mark Time Award-winning Prometheus Radio Theatre.Syndicate
Behind the Times: The Official SuperHuman Times Series Blog
T-minus 7 days
Ground Control, this is Houston. Give me a Go/No Go for launch.
Novel? Go!
Promotional postcards? Go!
Rockin' one of a kind T-shirt? Go!
I'm ready.
Bring on Balticon!
Novel? Go!
Promotional postcards? Go!
Rockin' one of a kind T-shirt? Go!
I'm ready.
Bring on Balticon!
Thanks to my ever-patient wife Cindy for taking the photo (many times, in fact; next time I need a photo, she'll probably send me to Glamour Shots so she can finish transforming Greg's old room into the computer room, which explains the disarray behind me).
Anyway, if you want a postcard — or maybe even want to hear me read from the book (maybe; I have no idea what Steve will make me do during our panel), come to Balticon and drop in on Salon B at Marriott's Hunt Valley Inn on Saturday, May 26 at 4:00. with Steve, Phil Giunta, and artists Todd Brugmans, and Laura Inglis on tap, it should be fun. (Hmm. Heroic Park isn't listed in the write-up. I hope I'll get something to do.
Maybe he'll even let me push SuperHuman Times. One can hope, since that's where the bloody book sprang from.
If I don't get much time at the panel, and you're staying at the con, I can bring the book to your room and read to you before you go to sleep. At Balticon. Yeah, right.
Whatever. This is a nice, talented bunch, just the latest I've been lucky to fall in with in my travels, so please wish all of us luck.
— L.
Anyway, if you want a postcard — or maybe even want to hear me read from the book (maybe; I have no idea what Steve will make me do during our panel), come to Balticon and drop in on Salon B at Marriott's Hunt Valley Inn on Saturday, May 26 at 4:00. with Steve, Phil Giunta, and artists Todd Brugmans, and Laura Inglis on tap, it should be fun. (Hmm. Heroic Park isn't listed in the write-up. I hope I'll get something to do.
Maybe he'll even let me push SuperHuman Times. One can hope, since that's where the bloody book sprang from.
If I don't get much time at the panel, and you're staying at the con, I can bring the book to your room and read to you before you go to sleep. At Balticon. Yeah, right.
Whatever. This is a nice, talented bunch, just the latest I've been lucky to fall in with in my travels, so please wish all of us luck.
— L.
"Book Tour" News
Hi.
It dawned on me today that, since I have a book coming out, my publisher might want me to make appearances in support the thing. And I was right.
So far, it's just two stops. And I won't be able to make one of them — the important one.
- If you're planning to go to Balticon in (duh) Baltimore over Memorial Day weekend, look for the Firebringer Press gang at the Marriott Hunt Valley Inn. I'm told we have a panel at 4:00 on Saturday the 26th, but, conventions being what they are, this could change, so please consult your program for the final schedule. I am assuming that part of this shindig will involve reading from our respective works. This should be a hoot, and I'm not talking about Steve Wilson and Phil Giunta, who are both practiced at it.
- If you're planning to be at Shore Leave — also in Baltimore, and also at the Hunt Valley Inn — from August 3-5, it's my understanding that Heroic Park should be there, too! That's the good news.
The bad news is that the author will not be there because — when the book was supposed to drop over Memorial Day at Balticon — I made vacation plans that begin on, yup, you guessed it, Shore Leave weekend. I don't know if Steve is planning a launch party in my absence, but I'm trying to engineer it so I can phone in or check in via webcam from wherever I happen to be. More on this as it develops (although I wish it didn't have to because I really want to be at the con).
That's it. Nothing impressive, but at least we'll be making a handful of potential customers aware of the book. There may be more conventions to come and, if so, I'll announce them here, but we're staying local for now. Bills to pay, mouths to feed, and all that.
Stay tuned.
— L.
It dawned on me today that, since I have a book coming out, my publisher might want me to make appearances in support the thing. And I was right.
So far, it's just two stops. And I won't be able to make one of them — the important one.
- If you're planning to go to Balticon in (duh) Baltimore over Memorial Day weekend, look for the Firebringer Press gang at the Marriott Hunt Valley Inn. I'm told we have a panel at 4:00 on Saturday the 26th, but, conventions being what they are, this could change, so please consult your program for the final schedule. I am assuming that part of this shindig will involve reading from our respective works. This should be a hoot, and I'm not talking about Steve Wilson and Phil Giunta, who are both practiced at it.
- If you're planning to be at Shore Leave — also in Baltimore, and also at the Hunt Valley Inn — from August 3-5, it's my understanding that Heroic Park should be there, too! That's the good news.
The bad news is that the author will not be there because — when the book was supposed to drop over Memorial Day at Balticon — I made vacation plans that begin on, yup, you guessed it, Shore Leave weekend. I don't know if Steve is planning a launch party in my absence, but I'm trying to engineer it so I can phone in or check in via webcam from wherever I happen to be. More on this as it develops (although I wish it didn't have to because I really want to be at the con).
That's it. Nothing impressive, but at least we'll be making a handful of potential customers aware of the book. There may be more conventions to come and, if so, I'll announce them here, but we're staying local for now. Bills to pay, mouths to feed, and all that.
Stay tuned.
— L.
Thus Spake the Author (Testing, Check, Test ...)
So, late last night, The Mrs. — otherwise known as the producer for Prometheus Radio Theatre — sticks me in a closet with two types of microphones and says "Read!"
No pressure.
With nothing better to do but sleep (yes, this is our marriage, and it works), I "performed" the first eight pages of the novel. This wasn't easy.
If you haven't read the free sample chapters, you wouldn't know that the first eight pages contains four distinct characters and voices: Kevin Dunbar (my normal reading voice), his drunk co-player at the blackjack table (deeper and slurred), a neutral pit boss, and Nataliya Tzone, who I always imagined as Isabella Rossellini's voice in Annette Bening's body (10 years from now). I always respected Renee Wilson for being able to pull it off in the first Tzone story, "Risk Management." Now I worship her. Can't wait to hear her in "Unfinished Business."
The Mrs. says I sounded pretty good, but she's biased. She just has to resolve a couple of tech issues. Alas, one of them isn't securing someone else to do this, so you're all going to be stuck with me.
It didn't help that I was listening to Sirius/XM Radio Classics yesterday and heard a killer performance of Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" starring the magnificent Burgermeister Meisterburger himself, Paul Frees. And I was going to record that night.
No pressure.
— L.
No pressure.
With nothing better to do but sleep (yes, this is our marriage, and it works), I "performed" the first eight pages of the novel. This wasn't easy.
If you haven't read the free sample chapters, you wouldn't know that the first eight pages contains four distinct characters and voices: Kevin Dunbar (my normal reading voice), his drunk co-player at the blackjack table (deeper and slurred), a neutral pit boss, and Nataliya Tzone, who I always imagined as Isabella Rossellini's voice in Annette Bening's body (10 years from now). I always respected Renee Wilson for being able to pull it off in the first Tzone story, "Risk Management." Now I worship her. Can't wait to hear her in "Unfinished Business."
The Mrs. says I sounded pretty good, but she's biased. She just has to resolve a couple of tech issues. Alas, one of them isn't securing someone else to do this, so you're all going to be stuck with me.
It didn't help that I was listening to Sirius/XM Radio Classics yesterday and heard a killer performance of Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" starring the magnificent Burgermeister Meisterburger himself, Paul Frees. And I was going to record that night.
No pressure.
— L.
Updates, We Have Updates
Well, now that Heroic Park actually exists now, we've started telling people about it, and about SuperHuman Times.
- I've updated the website with Facebook icons connecting to the newly restored SuperHuman Times page, which you're cordially invited to like.
- Firebringer publisher Steve Wilson has sent out the review copies of the novel to a host of reviewers in the legit press, as well as to many s-f/fantasy-oriented websites. (Wish there were some comic book sites that did prose reviews; like the podcasts, I'd like to get the word out to that fan base. if you know any, please let me know at timeskeeper@superhumantimes.com and I'll pass it along to Steve.)
- I've just placed an order for a simple, yet often effective promotional tool: postcards. which we'll put out on tables at s-f/comic conventions where the book is being hawked and/or sold. Here's the front. There's more on the back, but you'll have to go to a con and get your own to read it.
Sorry it's not something sexier, like lanyards or T-shirts, but I'll have to get money from an inheritance or court settlement to pull those together, because the book's not gonna sell THAT well.
Speaking of writing (rather than writing), I am starting on a couple of new projects, one Times-related, one not. The "not" comes first. It's a short story I'm working on for my fellow Firebringer Phil Giunta, who's editing an anthology. It starts with a contemporary man who catches the tail end of a 1940s radio broadcast on satellite radio one night and hears his name in the credits, which, of course, leads to a possible murder mystery.
The new Times story should be a challenge. Anticipating that readers will respond to Nataliya Tzone in the novel the way they have in the podcast, I'm making the next book a case for Tzone Defense Security, which will allow me to fully put her daughters, Nicoleta and Violeta, into action. Each will have a unique case and, once I figure out a way to dovetail them together, I'll be able to plot it out. Hopefully, sales of Heroic Park will justify its existence.
It won't be for lack of trying.
— L.
- I've updated the website with Facebook icons connecting to the newly restored SuperHuman Times page, which you're cordially invited to like.
- Firebringer publisher Steve Wilson has sent out the review copies of the novel to a host of reviewers in the legit press, as well as to many s-f/fantasy-oriented websites. (Wish there were some comic book sites that did prose reviews; like the podcasts, I'd like to get the word out to that fan base. if you know any, please let me know at timeskeeper@superhumantimes.com and I'll pass it along to Steve.)
- I've just placed an order for a simple, yet often effective promotional tool: postcards. which we'll put out on tables at s-f/comic conventions where the book is being hawked and/or sold. Here's the front. There's more on the back, but you'll have to go to a con and get your own to read it.
Sorry it's not something sexier, like lanyards or T-shirts, but I'll have to get money from an inheritance or court settlement to pull those together, because the book's not gonna sell THAT well.
Speaking of writing (rather than writing), I am starting on a couple of new projects, one Times-related, one not. The "not" comes first. It's a short story I'm working on for my fellow Firebringer Phil Giunta, who's editing an anthology. It starts with a contemporary man who catches the tail end of a 1940s radio broadcast on satellite radio one night and hears his name in the credits, which, of course, leads to a possible murder mystery.
The new Times story should be a challenge. Anticipating that readers will respond to Nataliya Tzone in the novel the way they have in the podcast, I'm making the next book a case for Tzone Defense Security, which will allow me to fully put her daughters, Nicoleta and Violeta, into action. Each will have a unique case and, once I figure out a way to dovetail them together, I'll be able to plot it out. Hopefully, sales of Heroic Park will justify its existence.
It won't be for lack of trying.
— L.
The Website's Back!
It's not much, but it's got what it needs: no Flash, no Java, no animations, just short bursts of info, links to the existing SuperHuman Times podcasts, synopses for the ones that are finally in production, and, oh yeah — THE FIRST THREE CHAPTERS of Heroic Park, for FREE!
Holy Crap! I Wrote a Real Book! See?
Here it is, all 250 pages of it.
You're looking at the first copy from the first print run of "Heroic Park." Aside from the copies that will be sent to critics for review, it's the only copy in existence as far as the outside world is concerned.
I received this last night at a mini-gala that Firebringer Press publisher Steve Wilson held in my honor, complete with a congratulatory chocolate chip giant cookie and a lovely snack buffet. Several friends turned out to mark the occasion, and it was pretty overwhelming for me. Thanks to Steve and the crew for a great send-off.
Now let's hope you like it when it drops in August. And if you don't care for print on paper, it will be available electronically. Which reminds me: I'll have to start recording the audiobook soon. Hoo, boy ...)
— L.
You're looking at the first copy from the first print run of "Heroic Park." Aside from the copies that will be sent to critics for review, it's the only copy in existence as far as the outside world is concerned.
I received this last night at a mini-gala that Firebringer Press publisher Steve Wilson held in my honor, complete with a congratulatory chocolate chip giant cookie and a lovely snack buffet. Several friends turned out to mark the occasion, and it was pretty overwhelming for me. Thanks to Steve and the crew for a great send-off.
Now let's hope you like it when it drops in August. And if you don't care for print on paper, it will be available electronically. Which reminds me: I'll have to start recording the audiobook soon. Hoo, boy ...)
— L.
And We're Back! With a Novel!
Greetings, again. Miss me? I doubt it.
Anyway, I'm starting this engine up again after a year and a half, and I hope to keep up with it on a more regular basis. I've just been waiting to have something to report so that I wouldn't bore you to tears.
First, the podcast: We are still planning to make new episodes of SuperHuman Times. However, as I've explained on numerous occasions, podcasting is something that we at Prometheus Radio Theatre do when we aren't making a living. I personally apologize for the delay. If you're reading this, I hope it means that you're still holding out hope for us. Good. I think we will surprise you.
While you're waiting for SuperHuman Times episodes to return, how about enjoying something completely different, something that even I never expected to see: my first-ever SuperHuman Times novel, Heroic Park, from Firebringer Press!
And here's the part that I hope will really interest you: it's actually gone to press and is on track for release in August, so you'll be able to enjoy it on vacation. It will be available in print, electronic, and audio formats. ("Read by the author." Hoo, boy.)
In a nutshell: The book is a mystery set in the Times universe, specifically at Heroic Park, a theme park in Tucson, AZ, whose main draw is its ability to give ordinary humans super-powers for one day. When a park employee dies mysteriously just days before the park is set to open a new expansion, Times reporter Kevin Dunbar, comic-book artist Rei Shinozaki, and — here's someone you may recall from the podcasts — "retired" sorceress Nataliya Tzone have to find out why it happened ... and who might be behind it.
Now, aren't you glad you checked in here? More as the big release draws closer. Maybe I'll have some links to reviews for you. But don't hold your breath. I doubt it will attract much attention. If it attracts yours, that'll be enough for me.
Thanks for visiting. Let's try to do this more often, eh?
— L.
Anyway, I'm starting this engine up again after a year and a half, and I hope to keep up with it on a more regular basis. I've just been waiting to have something to report so that I wouldn't bore you to tears.
First, the podcast: We are still planning to make new episodes of SuperHuman Times. However, as I've explained on numerous occasions, podcasting is something that we at Prometheus Radio Theatre do when we aren't making a living. I personally apologize for the delay. If you're reading this, I hope it means that you're still holding out hope for us. Good. I think we will surprise you.
While you're waiting for SuperHuman Times episodes to return, how about enjoying something completely different, something that even I never expected to see: my first-ever SuperHuman Times novel, Heroic Park, from Firebringer Press!
And here's the part that I hope will really interest you: it's actually gone to press and is on track for release in August, so you'll be able to enjoy it on vacation. It will be available in print, electronic, and audio formats. ("Read by the author." Hoo, boy.)
In a nutshell: The book is a mystery set in the Times universe, specifically at Heroic Park, a theme park in Tucson, AZ, whose main draw is its ability to give ordinary humans super-powers for one day. When a park employee dies mysteriously just days before the park is set to open a new expansion, Times reporter Kevin Dunbar, comic-book artist Rei Shinozaki, and — here's someone you may recall from the podcasts — "retired" sorceress Nataliya Tzone have to find out why it happened ... and who might be behind it.
Now, aren't you glad you checked in here? More as the big release draws closer. Maybe I'll have some links to reviews for you. But don't hold your breath. I doubt it will attract much attention. If it attracts yours, that'll be enough for me.
Thanks for visiting. Let's try to do this more often, eh?
— L.
Welcome to My New Old (Old New?) Location
Hello, and welcome to the new home of “Behind the Times,” the official series blog of Prometheus Radio Theatre ’s SuperHuman Times, newly relocated to the domain of the show's official website. I’m your “host," Lance Woods, and I created and write the show. I’ll be using this blog to keep you updated on the production/availability of new episodes, share listener feedback, and occasionally digress into non-show-related meanderings when I (rarely)get the urge.
A little history: From November 2006 through the present, this blog was onBlogger . (I’ve kept the account active so you can read those entries, if you like.) After reading my stats recently, I learned that, after nearly four years of admittedly sporadic blogging (58 entries, alas), the blog’s only been viewed314 times. So when I realized that I had credit for a Quick Blogcast at Go Daddy (which hosts the Times site),it seemed like a no-brainer to consolidate and start keeping the blog here instead. Nowyou and the rest of the web can ignore the entire Times web presence in one convenient location. You’re welcome.
Enough cyberwhining. Let me give you a thumbnail overview of where things standwith the series:
• For a synopsis of what SuperHuman Times is all about and the current episodes that are available for download, please click here. I’m very proud of what my pals at Prometheus have done with my scripts, and I hope you’ll want to hear more after hearing these podcasts.
Speaking of “more”…
• There have been no new episodes of Times since May of 2008. Yet we still receive the occasional fan email, and we still plan to make more. There are many reasons for the delay, but the one unifying reason is that we don’t produce radio shows for a living. Real-world commitments,economic travails, and personal dramas take priority over something we do mainly for fun. Sure, we’d much rather be creating 21st Century radio drama over slogging away at our respective professions, but bills must be paid, kids must be fed, etc.
However, amidst all that mundane activity during the extended lull, I can proudly make one statement…
• There are six new Times scripts standing by for production. Honest! I wrote them years ago! We’re currently setting up what we call “Studio B,” which will handle the recording and editing of Times while Prometheus chief Steve Wilson uses his original facilities for other projects like The Arbiter Chronicles and Firebringer Press audio books. Such things take time, and we hope you’llbear with us.
That should do it. I’ll check in again when I have news about Times to come. Until then, thanks for reading, and listening.
— L.
