From The Vault: "The Hornet Queen" (1997): Scans

Front cover artwork of The Hornet Queen, yet another basketball thriller I wrote during my high school years (and the fifth of the ten books I handwrote from 1995-2000). This 312 page novel I began on July 17, 1997 and completed August 17, 1997, when I was 17 years old. A sort of spiritual successor to Bullet Games, this novel was inspired by the work of John Grisham (who I was reading a lot of novels by that year), and also Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction screenplay, which I first read in June of that year (though I did not see the actual film until November of '97).

Back cover of The Hornet Queen. The premise for this novel was that the Charlotte Hornets basketball team suffers a devastating team accident right before the start of the season (when their bus explodes), and the team ends up hiring a Jewish woman named Eva Diaz, the league's first female coach (who proceeds to persuade the team to pick up 3 female players, 2 of whom end up becoming lesbians). The main bad guy is a disgruntled former employee of the team who doesn't even kill anyone: so much for all that "evil threat" nonsense.

The Hornet Queen's about the author page. After the travesty that was Bullet Gamesit would seem I couldn't be arsed to include a photo for this novel.

Critical praise for The Hornet Queen. Ah, those halcyon days of youth, when my ambitions as a writer were primarily to be the "John Grisham of basketball!"

More critical praise.

Inner cover for The Hornet Queen.

Copyright page for The Hornet Queen.

Table of contents for The Hornet Queen pt. 1. "The Darkhorse Team" was actually one of the working titles for the novel. The terse one-word chapter titles were a sign that I was still somewhat influenced by Tom Clancy as a writer by this point.

Table of contents pt. 2.

The "cast" of The Hornet Queen. The fact that I said Miramax released the film adaptation was probably an example of the Tarantino influence. Sean Bean and reginald VelJohnson were two actors I tended to "cast" in my books quite a bit back then. In fact, Sean Bean had "played" the character of Sypha Nadon in Bullet Games.

Photograph of Lucy Lawless that I taped to one of the book's back pages. She was cast as one of the female basketball players, Ashley Roberts. I kind of had the hots for her at that time, though I wouldn't actually watch a Xena episode until November of that year.

Pg. 1 of The Hornet Queen. One of my goals of this novel was to have as little bloodshed as possible: therefore I decided to begin the book right after the explosion of the team bus that sets the whole stupid plot into motion.

Pg. 57 of The Hornet Queen. A player tosses a drink into Coach Eva's face during a game.

Pg. 95 of The Hornet Queen. There's a ton of Jewish stuff in the book (that utterly mystified my father at the time). Much of it was copied word-for-word from the family set of Funk & Wagnall encyclopedias.

Pg. 116 of The Hornet Queen. One of the female players, Ashley, I decided to make a witch, giving me the chance to go on for page after page about modern witchcraft in America. This could be seen as an early example of my fascination with the occult.

Pg. 125 of The Hornet Queen. It could very well be the only basketball novel to feature a bunch of skyclad witches raising a "Cone of Power" to help the home team win the championship that season.

Pg. 129 of The Hornet Queen. More Jewish lore.

Pg. 133 of The Hornet Queen. Man, nothing gets those pages turning faster than some dreidal action.

Pg. 162 of The Hornet Queen. In this very silly scene, Pat Murphy, the novel's main bad guy, hires a male prostitute named Lloyd to have sex with Eva, so that he can blackmail her later on (as Eva is married).

Pg. 223 of The Hornet Queen. Holly, one of the lesbian players, prepares to out herself to the woman she loves. To motivate her, she reflects on the lyrics to the 1983 single "Mr. Roboto" by Styx. Hey, weirder things have happened.

Pg. 234 of The Hornet Queen. This was around the time in my life where I first started to question the Catholic Church. Why I was under the notion that a black man couldn't be a Catholic priest, I have no idea.

Pg. 235 of The Hornet Queen. More theological speculations.

Pg. 238 of The Hornet Queen. Eva's husband is kidnapped by Pat Murphy and he sends her a typewritten note, which I typed out on my mom's old typewriter. At the time I thought that quite clever.

James Brandy (one of the team's made-up players, played by James Spader) and Ashley Roberts drive to Barnes & Noble, where James Champagne (one of the most famous writers in the world, it would seem) is having a book signing. Wishful thinking?

Pg. 246 of The Hornet Queen. In one of my first dalliances with meta-fiction, I insert myself into the text. My dad found this cameo quite amusing.

Pg. 271 of The Hornet Queen. James drives to Ashley's house to pick her up for a date while rocking to "Laylah." Later on in the book you see him listening to ABWH's "Long Lost Brother of Mine." Glad to see I was so bad-ass back then.

Pg. 301 of The Hornet Queen. One of the first sex scenes I ever wrote. James and Ashley do it. It would seem my primary sexual fantasy back then was banging witches who looked like Xena: Warrior Princess.

Pg. 302 of The Hornet Queen. More badly-written erotica. Then again, if Fifty Shades of Grey can sell...

Last page of The Hornet Queen. Just like in Bullet Games, the team wins the NBA Finals.

From the Vault: "Bullet Games" (1996): Scans

This is the front cover of Bullet Games, a 280 page novel I wrote from August 1st, 1996 to August 27th, 1996. I was around 16 at the time. The 4th of 10 handwritten books that I wrote during the years 1995-2000, this basketball thriller was heavily inspired by the novels of Tom Clancy: even the book title is a rip-off of Clancy's novel Patriot Games. In any event, Bullet Games follows the highs and lows of the Washington Bullets basketball team during their 94-95 season. Like all my basketball books, the team was a mix of real-life players and players that I myself had created.

The back cover of Bullet Games. Piston Wars was a basketball novel written by my brother Tom Champagne that same year.

Bullet Games about the author page. I think that's my tenth grade yearbook photo. Too bad I had forgotten to shave that day: also too bad that I had decided to rock an Australian Outback t-shirt.

The critics loved Bullet Games. Most of these blurbs I just copied from Tom Clancy books, just changing the author's name.

Bullet Games copyright page. Observe that the book was "published" by Berkley Books, who was Clancy's publisher at that time. For some reason all my handwritten books had the ISBN of 9999-9999 (which isn't even close to resembling an actual ISBN).

Bullet Games table of contents page. A lot of these chapter names, again, are taken from some of Clancy's novels.

The dream cast for Bullet Games.

A Bullet Gamesreader's survey that I had my dad fill out after he had completed the novel.

Page 1 of Bullet Games. Observe how the NBA draft is taking place in late July instead of late June.

Page 125 of Bullet Games. The bucking van in this scene is based on one that my parents once owned.

Page 131 of Bullet Games. For some reason I decided that Boston Celtics legend M.L. Carr just needed to be the book's main bad guy.

Pg. 138 of Bullet Games. A tense scene between Utah Jazz point guard John Stockton and his wife. Revolutionary Road, eat your heart out.

Pg. 163 of Bullet Games.

pg. 174 of Bullet Games. One of the Washington Bullets' female players, Non Nothma (named after Star Wars' Mon Mothma, leader of the Rebel Alliance!) is forced to watch as her husband dies from cancer at the hands of a bunch of lunatic doctors who are clearly quacks ("We need a heart pump!")

Pg. 211 of Bullet Games: A scene in which one of the Bullets' female players is attacked by an assassin. She kills him with the help of one of her plants, a "Strangler Fig."

Pg. 212 of Bullet Games. I can't think of too many sports teams that have their own personal staff of psychiatrists on standby.

Pg. 225 of Bullet Games. More implausible action nonsense.

Pg. 246 of Bullet Games. The team's head coach, Jim Lynam, shows up for game 7 of the NBA Finals dressed as a priest. As his team takes its final shot, he recites the Lord's Prayer, and as soon as he finishes it off with "Amen" they hit the game-winning 3 pt. shot. You can't fake that kind of writing.

Pg. 249 of Bullet Games.

The final page of Bullet Games.

Out Now: Grimoire

My debut short story collection "Grimoire" is now available for purchase through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It may also be purchased at the Rebel Satori website.

From Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Grimoire-A-Compendium-Neo-Goth-Narratives/dp/1608640388/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335283252&sr=8-1

From Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/grimoire-james-champagne/1029929778?ean=9781608640386

Confusion er daudur

In 2006, I self-published my first novel, Confusion, through iUniverse. Recently this year, they made it available as an eBook for devices such as Nook or Kindle, but they totally fucked it up (for example, they neglected to italicize words that should have been italicized). That was the last straw. Last month I sent them a letter requesting they cancel the book, and today I got mail from iUniverse saying that they had granted my cancellation request for Confusion. It is no longer available through the iUniverse website or Barnes & Noble (though the botched Nook eBook version still is: not for long though). The book is still up for sale on Amazon in both print and eBook versions, but again, not for long. Now that all rights have reverted back to me, I can begin the process of rewriting it (as I was never satisfied with the finished product and rushed into self-publishing it way too soon), and then try to find it a better home.

Coming Soon: Grimoire

My short story collection Grimoire is now available for pre-sale at the Rebel Satori website (and I presume it will be available on Amazon at some point in the future as well). Expected release date is March 27th. For those who enjoy the weird fiction of H.P. Lovecraft and Thomas Ligotti, the dark and absurd music of Current 93, or the occult philosophies of Kenneth Grant. More details to come in the future.

http://www.rebelsatoripress.com/grimoire-james-champagne/

Skeletons on my Bookshelves: Books Read During My High School Years (1994-1998)

Due to lapses in memory, this list is incomplete: I'm especially hazy as to what I was reading in the 9th grade. It's not exactly by order as well. Books marked with an * indicate that they were required school reading. I very rarely read the books I was assigned however, choosing instead to pursue my own literary tastes. Plays I read during this time period (mainly various works by William Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams and some of Arthur Miller's work, such as "The Crucible" and "Death of a Salesman"), along with works of poetry, are not listed here: not that I read all that much poetry back then.

During the 9th grade and for the first half of the 10th grade I mostly just read Star Wars novels. During the second semester of 10th grade I became obsessed with Tom Clancy, which later evolved into a very brief interest with Robert Ludlum. By the 11th grade my two favorite writers were John Grisham and, later, Anne Rice. In the 12th grade I briefly became interested in the books of Elmore Leonard, mainly because one of my favorite film directors, Quentin Tarantino, had adapted his novel "Rum Punch" that year. An interest in indie films that began during the last few months of my Senior year led me to become interested in the Beats, and during my Freshman year at college in the Fall of '98 I read "Naked Lunch" by William S. Burroughs for the first time. And the rest, as they say, is history.

9th Grade (1994-1995)
---------------------

Star Wars: Heir to the Empire (Timothy Zahn)
Star Wars: Dark Force Rising (Timothy Zahn)
The Lost World (Michael Crichton)

Summer 1995
-----------

Star Wars: The Last Command (Timothy Zahn)
Star Wars: Tales From the Mos Eisley Cantina (Various)
Star Wars: The Courtship of Princess Leia (Dave Wolverton)

10th Grade (1995-1996)
----------------------

Star Wars: The Truce at Bakura (Kathy Tyers)
Star Wars: The Crystal Star (Vonda McIntyre)
Star Wars: Jedi Search (Kevin Anderson)
Star Wars: Dark Apprentice (Kevin Anderson)
Star Wars: Champions of the Force (Kevin Anderson)
Star Wars: Darksaber (Kevin Anderson) Christmas Gift!
Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck) *
The Old Man and the Sea (John Steinbeck) *
A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens) *
The White Plague (Frank Herbert)
Goldeneye (John Gardner)
Patriot Games (Tom Clancy) Christmas Gift!
Without Remorse (Tom Clancy)
Debt of Honor (Tom Clancy)

Summer 1996
-----------

Executive Orders (Tom Clancy)

11th Grade (1996-1997)
----------------------

The Road to Gandolfo (Robert Ludlum)
The Apocalypse Watch (Robert Ludlum)
The Scorpio Illusion (Robert Ludlum)
Airframe (Michael Crichton) Christmas Gift!
The Sum of All Fears (Tom Clancy) [did not finish]
Ethan Frome (Edith Wharton) *
The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne) * [did not finish]
The Runaway Jury (John Grisham)
The Pelican Brief (John Grisham)
The Chamber (John Grisham)
The Rainmaker (John Grisham)
The Dilbert Principle (Scott Adams)
The Partner (John Grisham)
Interview With the Vampire (Anne Rice)

Summer 1997
-----------

Pulp Fiction: screenplay (Quentin Tarantino)
Lord Foul's Bane (Stephen R. Donaldson)
Conversations With Anne Rice (Michael Riley)
The Vampire Lestat (Anne Rice) [did not finish]
The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) *

12th Grade (1997-1998)
----------------------

The Illearth War (Stephen R. Donaldson) [did not finish]
Lord of the Flies (William Golding) *
Brave New World (Aldous Huxley) *
Servant of the Bones (Anne Rice)
The Witching Hour (Anne Rice)
Lasher (Anne Rice) [did not finish]
The Street Lawyer (John Grisham)
Jackie Brown/Rum Punch (Elmore Leonard) Christmas Gift!
Out of Sight (Elmore Leonard)
Riding the Rap (Elmore Leonard)
Maximum Bob (Elmore Leonard)
Get Shorty (Elmore Leonard)
The Tenth Justice (Brad Meltzer)
Insomnia (Stephen King) [did not finish]

Summer 1998
-----------

I Shot Andy Warhol: screenplay (Mary Harron/Daniel Minahan)
Rainbow Six (Tom Clancy)