The second book of the Parasol Protectorate Series finds Alexia, now Lady Maccon, 
happily married and settling into the routine of a wife to a man who is a Scots, a Lord, and a werewolf. Continue reading
Book Review: Changeless
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Category Archives: books
Well, I am enjoying it
Thanks to a friend of mine I am now watching the HBO series “Game Of Thrones.” I must
your host warming the iron throne
say that when HBO pulls out all the stops it can kick ass on lavish production that rival any big screen theatrical film. (Due tot he same friend I became a fan of HBO’s “Rome” which was another kick-ass series, but not fantasy.
I have not read any of the books, nor am I really planning to. It’s not that I have a disdain for the books, if I did I wouldn’t be watching the series. (It took me three years to give the show Buffy The Vampire Slayer its day in court because I had such disdain for the film.) Rather my reading time is very limited and I have to chose quite carefully what ti read, because otherwise I’ll read too much and write too little.
Symapthetic Villians
I think one area where I seem to out of step with a lot of fandom is on the subject of Gollum, and just how much sympathy did that character deserve in The Lord Of The Rings. I have heard from numerous people that they view Gollum as a sympathetic character, and like Frodo, they view him with pity. Color me unconvinced. I’m with Sam on this, he is Slinker and Stinker and neither of those aspects generates much in the way of pity for me.
Those who argue that Gollum deserves pity usually take the tack that fate dealt him a cruel hand by putting the ring in his path, and that the ring perverted him, turning him into the miserable, evil creature that we meet in both the revised The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings.
Bullocks!
Let’s take a look at the characters and their interactions with The One Ring. Continue reading
A project idea
There has been an idea rolling around my head for sometime now that seems to suddenly be gaining traction and momentum. The idea is to take the four short stories of mine that have earned Honorable Mention at the Writers Of The Future Contest and publish them as a small ebook.
I would also add in a copy of my first short story sale, What Everybody Wanted, bringing the word count of the entire collection to about 50,000 words. Equal to the small SF novels of the 50′s and 40s. I have found the means to publish it as an ebook that would be available to all the major ebook readers such as the Nook, the Kindle, and the iPhone/iPad. I was thinking about a price of 99 cents for the collection.
A couple of issue need to be resolved before I move forward on this project.
First, do I want to re-edit the stories? I have changed, particularly in my sentence construction, since these shorts were written. On one hand if I edit them they will be stronger for it, yet then they will not represent the stories that almost placed in the contest so in someways it feels dishonest.
Second, if I re-edit them then the project I think should be shelved until I finish the re-write of Love and Loyalty. Do I have the time for such a project?
Third, What about cover art? I have looked at royalty-free images and I can license an image quite reasonably for my purposes. (well under $50, so the investment would be minimal.) However would that look good enough? That sort of talent seems to escape me.
Opinions? What do you people think?
Friday Funnies
This week’s funny is a book trailer for a book I am currently reading, Packing For Mars.
This trailer does indeed capture the spirit of the book perfectly.
Sunday Night Movie:The Caine Mutiny
Yesterday when I was bumming around town and playing videos games with my pal Bear he asked me what was my Sunday Night Movie feature going to be and I replied that I was thinking of re-watching Robocop.
After my sweetie-wife went to bed and it was time to start up a feature I realized that I was in the mood for something meatier that Robocop. I wanted a dramatic film, not a genre piece. I scanned my collection and my eyes fell on The Cain Mutiny.
I can’t remember the first time I saw The Cain Mutiny. I know it was television during the 80s’, before the dreaded infomercials had pushed movies out as the low-budget local tv station fare. I remember tripping across the film fairly close to the start and I was pulled in at once by the riveting writing, characters, and performances.
If you only know Humphrey Bogart as the cool always in control detective then this film is one you really should see. It’s a film he did after he escaped the studio system and could be in the kind of roles that would stretch him as an actor.
The central character of the film is Willis Seward Keith, a young 90-day wonder of an Ensign. Willie has problems, mainly he’s too attached to his mother still and has not learned to be his own man. He’s got an on-again/off-again relations with a lovely signer, May Wynn, and has been assigned to a worn out, rusted hulk of a ship, the DMS Caine. Willie saw himself making an important contribution to the war effort, (the setting is WWII), but instead he’s on an ‘outcast ship, manned by outcasts, and named after the greatest outcast of them all.’ Or so Communications officer Lt. Keefer informs him. Things seem to take a turn for the better when a new captain is assigned to the Caine, Lt. Commander Phillip Francis Queeg. Queeg is old navy, a life-long naval officer and a by the book man. When the new captain makes it clear that the Caine is going to become a new ship and taunt ship Willie couldn’t be more pleased.
However, Queeg has his own demons and the drama of the story is rich with loyalty, betrayal, and cowardice.
This is a movie that every time it came on TV and I caught even a portion I stopped and I would always end up watching it to the end. I eventually copied off the air on a VHS tape, and then later got it on laserdisc. Now it’s one of my favorite DVDs. When it comes out on blu-ray I will replace it without qualms or any need for additional bonus material.
I tracked down a library copy of the Pulitzer prize winning novel a few years ago. This film is a pretty good adaptation of half the novel. I don’t begrudge them that they only told half the story. Even at that the running time was 2 hours 5 minutes. There is little that is in the film that was’t in the book. Contrary to popular myth, Bogart did not invent the bit with Queeg and the ball-bearings, that was in the book.
If you get a chance see this movie and read the book.
Partial book review: Orcs
So a few weeks ago I was at Mysterious Galaxy (yeah, I’m there a lot) and I came across this books, Orcs by Stan Nichols. I picked up the omnibus book of a three novel trilogy with the viewpoint entirely from a band of Orcs. The concept intrigued me and after reading the first page I decided to take a risk on an author I had never read and bought the collection.
Sadly, this book has not lived up to it’s promise. First off the Orcs aren’t very Orcish. The Orcs come across as tough fighter with a martial culture, but nothing that is outside of human norms, so there isn’t really an alien viewpoint.
Worse yet the events of the book have a very scripted feel to them. It is far from character driven. Rather an event will happen and that drive our protagonists into their new direction. They are reactionary character rather than character that take and initiate action.
The principle villain of the piece is so cardboard that she would be more properly described as recycled cardboard. She has no better characteristics and runs here military is such a piss-poor fashion that in reality she;d have mass desertions and few victories.
I may finished this book but then again I may not. I have a couple of other books in the wings and frankly, this one is just not holding my attention. Too much like an RPG game, this book needed more cooking before being published.
A very pleasant day
Yesterday My friend, Gail Carriger, was in town to promote her third book, Blameless. (A NYT Bestseller I might add.) She had a signing event at the local speciality bookstore, Mysterious Galaxy. There was tea, biscuits, (Cookies to use Americans) and quite a crowd of fans. I and my sweetie-wife had a particularly good time listening to Gail take questions and read from her firs book in the series. (Soulless.)
Afterwards we three had dinner at Khyber Pass a local Afgan restaurant. (My sweetie-wife and I have been there before and I adore the food.) Then we came back to our condo and taught Gail to play one of silly dice games, but I think she enjoyed it.
All in all I had a very good day yesterday.
One of the joys of writing
Today i experienced one of the joys of writing and that is the moment of epiphany.
Writing can be like laboring across an unknown landscape, trying to find shelter during a storm with only the vaguest ideas of where the inn is actually located.
If you are an organic writer you set out looking for the inn without even a map or any idea which direction is lays. I am an organized writer, i.e. one who writes from an outline. This helps, it’s like having a crude hand-drawn map and a compass to held you, but it is still dark and rainy.
A moment of epiphany is like a sudden lightning strike that illuminates the countryside, revealing the road to the inn. It’s that moment when not only does the solution come to you for a problem, sometimes a problem you didn’t even know was there, but the greater shape of the story is enriched by the answer.
I had such a moment today riding the bus and it required such a small change it hardly amounted to a paragraph, but the tone improved so much I was awestruck by it.
truly one of the joys of writing.
Loscon report the second
So it is Sunday morning and day two of Loscon 36 is not but a memory. It is a happy memory.
Many of the panels I attended were aimed towards writers and I found them at least entertaining and mildly informative. (The truth of the matter is that much of was geared toward the novice writer and I have advanced beyond much of that advice.)
I did attend a presentation on a book called “Keep Watching The Skies! American SF films of the 50′s.” Man, I want that book.
It big and heavy, so heavy it hurt my poor arthritic fingers, but for a classic SF film nut like your humble host it is the perfect reference material.
Sadly it runs $99 and that is just beyond what I can afford to pay for a book.
Plenty of parties in the evening and there were fun. (Though I did miss my sweetie-wife. She stayed in the room still under the weather from a flu she has been fighting.) I did make a connected with an editor of an SF podcast, so I might be getting a story online that way soon.