Welcome to the Into the Wild Easter Egg page. Yes, it contains spoilers. You’ve been warned.
- Chapter 1 – Home Bitter Home
Hard to spot, but Hellman’s basement lair/office was inspired by the Dresden Files, namely Harry’s warehouse office in the Dresden Files TV series. Same walls, see? 😉 - Chapter 1 – Oberon
First King of Roger Zelesny’s Amber, father of Corwin and son of Dworkin. I love the Chronicles of Amber. Fantasy, gangster-esque infighting, and tons of pulp cool. If you haven’t read them, do yourself a favor and get all ten of them now! - Chapter 1 – Van Zant
Roger Van Zant, the back-stabbing, money laundering financier whose bearer bonds Robert De Niro steals in Heat. - Chapter 2 – “The fat guy in the grey suit shot me a disapproving glance.”
The whole Frederico’s setting was inspired by The Blues Brothers restaurant scene. Dan Akroyd and John Belushi acting like boors and trying to blackmail their band members to join up again. - Chapter 4 – “Smiling Marc was big, black, and built like a brick.”
I always see Ving Rhames as Marsellus Wallace in Pulp Fiction when I think of Smiling Marc. If I ever return to this part of town, he’s definitely getting a bigger part. Also, Hellman doesn’t like betrayals, and Smiling Marc will be on her list. - Chapter 4 – “no convenient dumpster to break it”
A standard movie trope, people jumping into dumpsters. Standard because it’s easy to hid lots of cardboard boxes in a dumpster to break the stuntman’s fall. - Chapter 5 – “the way a homicidal maniac would grin right before serving you your deep-fried liver in tomato sauce.”
“I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti“, from Silence of the Lambs. Gotta love Hannibal Lecter. - Chapter 5 – The Bender
Futurama for the Win, baby! Also: bonus! - Chapter 6 – The Noose
A nod to one of my favorite books of all time, Christopher Kubasik’s Changeling. A YA Shadowrun coming of age novel, staring a cyberpunk troll assassin, the original version had a horrible man-chest cover that likely tanked sales. Thankfully, the Shadowrun: Legends version has a more *ahem* thematically appropriate cover. - Chapter 8 – The Bender (again)
I always picture the Bender as Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus in the movie Gladiator. Except for the color of his hair, but hey, you’ve got to change something, right? - Chapter 8 – Capo
Capo is now synonymous with the head of a mafia family, but that’s a relatively recent term, popularized by the Godfather books (and movies.) While the word capo does exist in Italian, it’s likely that it was popularized from the German kapo, describing WWII concentration camp prisoners turned guards in exchange for food and special privileges. The kapos were often as vicious, or more, than the SS, and calling someone a kapo in Jewish circles today is a grave insult, especially among the older generation. - Chapter 10 – Tommy Gun
What’s a gangster story without Tommy Guns? They do kick, although not as bad as rifles (who have a more powerful cartridge). However, a Tommy Gun’s recoil is severe mainly due to its construction and buttstock. Also, stick magazines/box magazines are superior in almost every aspect to drum magazines, although, let’s face it, not nearly as cool. - Chapter 12 – Gnasher
The Gnashers of Pera. Local bandits in Jack Vance’s Planet of Adventure series, namely City of the Chasch, the first book. One of my favorite series when I was a teen. I must have read it fifteen or twenty times by now… - Chapter 12 – Spike-heads
An homage to Clive Barker’s Hellraiser. They’ll feature more in future novels. I mean, Hellman and Blondie will have to go to Perdition sometime, right? - Chapter 13 – “In one, an untouched bed-stand remained, with a lamp on it.”
There is a famous photograph from the Blitz during WWII showing exactly this. Four stories of a building blown out, and on the fourth half of an iron-framed bed, with a bed stand next to it and a small night lamp completely unharmed on it. War is strange. - Chapter 15: “a pale hole with clumps of dark-gray filaments hanging off its sides”
Sarlacc, anyone? 😉 - Chapter 16: “Ramirent. Chaulkin. DeVries. Maybe Habermaas.”
I occasionally, ahem, “borrow” names. Habermaas is Jürgen Habermas, a German sociologist and philosopher. I actually don’t remember anything about him, except that I was forced to read his theories in school, and his name sounds cool. And Ramirent is a Swedish building company, but that was entirely accidental (read: my subconscious is playing tricks on me.) - Chapter 17: mist-trees
I’ve always been fond of sea anemones, small, tree-like creatures with flowing tentacles containing numerous stingers. While some fish can live among sea anemones, other are killed on touch. - Chapter 17: “Should have gotten the same caliber.”
I’m taking some severe liberties with small arms terminology. For example, a caliber is only the diameter of the bullet. It says little about the brass, or if the cartridge will fit a particular weapon. I’m aware that this will annoy the living daylights out of some of you. But if you’ve survived having a military-trained combat soldier calling everything except a revlover “gun,” I figure you can survive this, too 😉
And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, I can recommend Throwing Lead by Dan Sawyer.
So, did you spot everything? Think they were too easy?
Don’t worry, there’s also a pair of other Easter Eggs that I haven’t revealed. Yes, I’m evil. If you find them, feel free to email me and gloat!
Back to the Reader’s Only Into the Wild page.
