An Analogy

The piece below is fiction. Or is it?

So, I was walking along the road with an acquaintance when we noticed that a house across the way was on fire. The fire hadn’t spread very far yet . Fearing that there might be people inside, and figuring there was still a chance to save the place, or at least save some of the stuff inside, I started across the road. My companion grabbed me and pulled me back.

“Wait! Was that fire started by a human? Or was it lightning caused it?”

“What does it matter?” I yelled, trying to pull away. “There may be people in there!”

The man would not let me go. “The important thing,” he said, “is whether we need to blame a ‘who’ or a ‘what.’

By now, the whole first floor of the house was engulfed with flames. I jerked free of his grip and took off toward the fire. The man tackled me from behind and in another moment was sitting on top of me so that I couldn’t get up.

“A who or a what?” the man yelled at me. “If it was humans started it, that’s one thing. Then we could act. But if it was lightning then that’s nature and we just have to let it burn.”

“Get off me!” I screamed.

He wouldn’t. “I think it was lightning,” he said. “We’re just going to have to let it burn.”

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Gods of Talera and Buying Books

Well, I've passed 50,000 words on Gods of Talera. I've also written the last chapter, so I know basically where I'm going. For much of June and July I made outstanding progress. Now, unfortunately, real life has intruded to cause a slow down. Tuesday all our toilets stopped flushing. We had a plumber out and he found out that it was the pipe running from the septic tank that was clogged, most likely with tree roots from all the trees around us.

Now we have to have a new pipe put in and the people who do that had to get digging clearance and won’t be able to start until Monday.  That means showering at the “Y” and bathrooming wherever we can.

While the plumber was here, he noticed that it’s nice and cool under the house, probably because some of our AC piping is leaking or broken. So, we’ve called an AC guy too. We had been doing very well this month on bills after cancelling most of our TV cable and cutting back on our cell phones and on satellite radio, and after poking a new hole in our belts so we could tighten them further. But now that cushion is so far gone that I can’t even see where it was. And it has been like that for month after month for a while now.

We’ve been running in the red for so many months now that I’ve lost track. I believe it’s around 11 or 12 in a row. It’s a good thing I had quite a bit of savings before the run started. One of the worst things for me is not having money to spend on books. I see so many new books I’d like but I’m just forcing myself not to buy them. I’ve bought one .99 cent book for my kindle in the last two months. I’ve also picked up a number of Kindle free deals, of course, and I have years of collected unread works so I’m not in danger of running out of reading material.

But I see new work by friends and colleagues and writers I admire, and I’d love to buy copies of their works to support them, as so many have supported my writing. Unfortunately, it’s not in the cards at the moment. As soon as the cash river regains some flow I’ll be buying some books. I’ve got a big wish list!

As for Gods of Talera, in between phone calls and dealing with all the minutia of getting any house repair done, I've got to try and keep making progress. It's very hard, though. I tend to be a writer who thrives on routine, and I don't write particularly well when emotionally and physically upset. Reckon I need to get over that, given that life seems to be all about constant emotional and physical upset.

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The Worst Novelist in History?

I saw some commentary about bad writing on facebook this morning, and this link was below it, about “The Worst Novelist in History.” I had to read it. And I think I might just agree, although I’ve seen some horrible writing in the modern world.

The fairly short article is about Amanda McKittrick Ros, or at least that was her pen name. Her real name was Anna Margaret Ross. She was born in Northern Ireland in 1860 and died in 1939. She was a schoolteacher, and I find myself wondering what horrific effects she may have had on her students.

Here is a line from her first book, Irene Iddesleigh, which her husband paid to have published as a tenth anniversary present to her: “She tried hard to keep herself a stranger to her poor old father's slight income by the use of the finest production of steel, whose blunt edge eyed the reely covering with marked greed, and offered its sharp dart to faultless fabrics of flaxen fineness.” 

She went on to publish more books and poetry, though. Here is the Wikipedia link for her. She apparently was a bit full of herself in addition to writing prose like that wonderful bit quoted above. 

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Momentum, And Loss

I’ve been making good progress on Gods of Talera this summer. This is the fifth book in the Taleran series and brings the current storyline to an end. During the last week in June and first week in July I was averaging over 1000 words a day, and a couple of times approached or exceeded 2000 words a day. I only count them when they are pretty well polished so that means quite a bit of wordage for me.

A lot of the progress I was making was due to two things, 1) getting into the routine of writing every day, which I can seldom do during the school year because of other work, and 2) the story developing momentum, with one idea leading to another and another and another. For me, that kind of thing starts to snowball and it revs up my excitement level for the tale, making it easier for me to dive into work every day.

Then, starting on Monday, July 6, the momentum started to fade. This was expected. I had a presentation on Dreams and Creativity to prepare for Saturday, July 11, and I started working on the presentation, as well as doing things to promote it. I managed a residual 1000 words on Gods on Tuesday, July 7, and then it dropped to virtually nothing the rest of the week as my attention turned toward the presentation.

I’ve found that I always have a day or two lag after a writing interruption before I can pick up the momentum again. I expected this after the dream presentation, and had already decided to take that Sunday off and hit it again hard on Monday. Sunday was when Randy Johnson died.

I didn’t get started back on Gods on Monday. I did a bit on Tuesday, then sagged again for a couple of more days. A big part of it was my sadness at Randy’s passing. I know some writers who seem to be most energized to write when they are upset emotionally. I’m not one of those writers, at least not where fiction is concerned. I write best when my mood is stable, and it wasn’t.

I realized on Thursday, though, that Randy, of all people, would not want any writer to write less because of his death. Randy loved good reading and, judging by his reviews, he loved the Talera series. I wrote about 800 words yesterday. Not quite a thousand but not a bad chunk. I’ve got to get my momentum back, gotta keep rolling. I owe it to Randy, and myself.

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On the Passing of a Friend

At about 8:30 Sunday night, I was sitting in the living room playing a video game when Lana, who was on facebook, gave a gasp. I asked her what was wrong and she told me, with a catch in her voice, that Randy Johnson had died. I jumped up and rushed over to her computer, hoping, hoping that it was a mistake, or that it wasn’t the Randy I knew. I’m afraid it was the Randy I knew, not the baseball player of that name, but the voracious reader, the music lover, the blogger, and my friend.

I may never have met Randy, although I spoke to him once on the phone, but he was definitely my friend. And he was the friend to a whole lot more of us, both in the blogging world and on facebook. We shared many interests in books and movies and music. He liked westerns and pulp stories and SF and fantasy. He liked Spaghetti westerns and was something of an expert in that area. He’d seen more of them than anyone I know. He liked hard rock and heavy metal music, and he had a great sense of humor.

Most importantly, Randy was a kind and thoughtful man, and a loyal friend. He cared about the rights, and freedoms and dignity of all humankind. He tirelessly supported me in my writing, and I know he did the same for a lot of others. He was the kind of person I could look up to. To say that he will be missed is an understatement. I am heartsick.

Randy had a chance to say his last piece in a blog post and facebook post put up by his nephew. I’ll leave you with the link to that blog. 

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Breaking Bad

Recently, Lana and I took a step to save some money by getting rid of most of our cable TV package. We kept only the local channels. Neither of us watches a lot of TV but we oftentimes do watch an hour or so in the evenings when we eat supper. To make for the lack of most of the cable channels, we decided that we'd pick up a few shows that we've always been interested in watching but never had through the library. Lana had known this, but I only found out recently when I started watching the early seasons of Game of Thrones, that this is the way to watch TV. You don't watch week to week and deal with commercials. You get the whole season and watch it an episode or two a night.

We decided to start our program with Breaking Bad. I'd heard many good things about it and had imagined I'd like it, but had never been able to catch it. We've watched season 1 and are just about finished with season 2. Here are some of my thoughts.

1. I am enjoying it but not finding it nearly as compelling as Game of Thrones. I think there are various reasons for this. For one, the setting for GOT is far more interesting than the suburbia of BB. Second, there are a lot more interesting characters in GOT. Walter, Jessy, and Hank are the most interesting characters to me so far in BB. Third, there are much more sympathetic characters in GOT than in BB.

2. One way I judge the quality of a show is whether it makes me want to inhabit that world in my imagination. I don't want to really live in GOT or BB land. But I've often found myself imagining interacting with the folks from GOT. Never with the folks from BB.

3. I've learned again that I really do like heroes. In BB, despite Walter selling Meth, I found him a very sympathetic and even heroic character in the first season. In the second season he has become, for want of a better word, a "dick." I'm not liking him much at all, and my interest in the show has waned accordingly. Jessie is too weak at present to be much of a hero so I'm left with no one to root for. Hank seems the most heroic character at the moment, but he doesn't have a lot of screen time. Although many folks have told me they thought season 2 of BB was better than season 1, I can't agree, and I think this is the main reason.

4. Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely enjoying Breaking Bad and will watch it most likely to the end as Lana brings home the other seasons. I'm expecting to see the continued deterioration of Walter White.

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Free Creativity Seminar

If you’re going to be anywhere near Slidell, Louisiana this Saturday, I’m going to be giving a presentation on creativity that is free and open to the public. The topic is “Dreams and Creativity: How to Enhance Your Art through Dreaming.” The presentation will be hosted by the Artists Galleries de Juneau, located at 2143 First St. in Slidell. That’s Saturday, July 11th from 1:00 to 3:00 pm.

The talk will cover the physical characteristics of dreaming, ways to improve dream recall, and how to harness your dreams to create art. There will be a question and answer period after, and I’ll have copies of my book, Write With Fire:Thoughts on the Craft of Writing, available for sale. Below is one little piece of the talk, about the care and feeding of dreams.

 Despite what many people believe, there’s no real mystery about where dream imagery comes from. It comes from your own mind, and it reflects the kind of things you put in that mind, the kind of things you think about, and feel about. Dreams come  from your fears, your hopes, and your obsessions.

If you spend most of your time dealing with the reality of jobs, family, politics, and paying the bills, then that’s where your dream content comes from. And such mundane dreams, which make up most of what any person dreams about, are not well remembered. It’s the weird and the strange that we remember.

A lot of art is about seeing the world in some new way, some unusual way. If you want your dreams to help you with your art, start feeding it some unusual things. Watch TV shows and movies that you don’t usually watch. Read books you don’t usually read. Take some risks.

Dreams also come from things you are emotionally invested in. Read and watch stuff that makes you uncomfortable. Push your own envelope. If all you experience are those things that make you feel safe and protected, then how can you expect your dreams to help you create. Feed your head some weird stuff. That will feed your dreams, and, just maybe, your art.

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Encounter with a Fourth of July House Mouse

I’ve known we’ve had a mouse in the house for a while. I’ve heard it late at night, and there’s been physical evidence left behind. I’d left a shirt on the floor of my office for a few days and when I moved it the other day there was an acorn under it. I left the acorn there after picking up the shirt, and the next day the acorn was gone again.

Years ago, for reasons that escape me, I brought a double handful of big acorns into the house, then put them in a drawer and promptly forgot them. At some point a mouse stole them and began hiding them around the house. I’ve found quite a few little stashes over the years, and usually throw them out when I do. I know many of the mice that made them are no longer with us, but it seems like each new mouse that comes in finds some of those acorns and hoards them like gold.

Late Friday night/Saturday morning, around 4:00 or so, I encountered our newest house mouse. Like many men of my age, I spend an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom. Nature called again around 4:00. I stepped into the bathroom and immediately thought I saw something coming down the wall near the bathtub. When I looked closer, it was the mouse, a sleek, gray, well-fed looking creature.

It appeared he wanted out of the bathroom and there’s only one way out. I was standing in his way. He darted a step toward me and I darted a step back. I then tried to reason with him that if he would just be patient, I’d get out of his way post haste. Apparently, he wasn’t patient. He came shooting in my direction. I did the only thing I could under the circumstances. I grabbed hold of the sink on the left and the wall on the right and…levitated.

Here’s the thing, I’m not really scared of mice.  I outweigh them by a considerable amount. I don’t find them disgusting. I think they’re rather cute, in fact. So why is it that when such a small thing comes scurrying toward me, I immediately engage in the standard avoidance dance?

Maybe it’s the acorns. Maybe I’m afraid I’ll encounter a mouse who can’t tell the difference between acorns and…well, you know.

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JUDGING BOOKS BY THEIR LENGTH

I’d finished a book the other day and only had one book going. Since I generally like reading at least two at a time, I started scanning my TBR shelves for my next read. A book that I’ve had for a couple of years caught my eye. I’d read other things by the author and liked them, and this one had an intriguing title. Then a thought struck me: “It’s awfully long.” I passed it by.

Something similar occurred a couple of months ago. One of my colleagues at Xavier was reading book three of A Song of Ice and Fire. That’s Game of Thrones for you TV viewers. I’d been watching the TV show myself and much enjoying it. I’d decided I wanted to read the books. But there stood my friend with a serious doorstop in his hands. It’s over 1200 pages. And that is one of a bunch in the series. I thought to myself, “I have not the strength.”

I’ve never been one to judge a book by its cover. In fact, I notice covers only in passing. But I’ve been aware for maybe a decade now that I’m becoming increasingly reluctant to start “big” books. Increasingly reluctant is the operative term. I used to read Stephen King novels. Not anymore. I used to read long-assed thrillers. Not anymore. Even if I love you, I’m just not going to read your 800 page opus. Or even your 600 page one. And probably not your 500 page one.

400 pages appears to be about my cutoff these days, but the book I rejected this morning for being too long was only around 380. My ideal length for a book that I’m about to invest my time in is between 185 and 250 pages. I’ll pretty readily go 300, especially for a thriller. But 350 is starting to push it.

I guess the question is, why am I becoming this way?  I have some thoughts, of course. First, I’m 56 and quite aware that I’m likely never to get all the books read I’d like to read. Five of my preferred size books would equal one Game of Thrones tome. Do I want to read a 1200 pager by George R. R. Martin, or would I rather read five other books by the likes of James Reasoner, E. C. Tubb, Joe Lansdale, Poul Anderson, and O’Neil De Noux? Five wins.

Second, I started out writing short stories mostly so I had very little idea how long novels needed to be. But I’ve written a number of novel length projects by now and I’ve never found the need to go beyond about 350 pages. I can’t even imagine how much padding I’d have to include to push one of my Taleran books to 1000 pages. They average a little over 200. And in almost every long book I’ve ever read, I’ve found what seemed to be padding. As a writer, I just don’t think one story in a million needs great length to be told effectively. In fact, padding a work is the opposite of being effective. Maybe once in a while a story really needs to be that long—once in a long, long while.

So what about you? Do you love big thick tomes heavily marbled with fat? Or would you prefer a leaner cut of meat? What is your ideal length for a novel?

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The Series Character, Part 1

When I was a kid I think my favorite kind of reading was the "series." John Carter of Mars, Conan, Travis McGee, The Sacketts, the Black Stallion, The Three Investigators, The Hardy Boys, etc, etc. When I first started writing, and started thinking about a novel, I immediately thought "series." My first western, the unpublished "The Bear Paw Valley," was conceived as an introduction for the gunfighter character of Quint Maclang. He was modeled quite a bit on the youngest of the Sackett brothers, Tyrell. Well, I was the youngest of brothers so why not?

The "Maclang" western series never got off the ground, but the Maclang fantasy series did. I've now written four books about Ruenn Maclang, who would be Quint Maclang's nephew. Three of these have been published and a fourth is supposedly scheduled for it. I'm about 33,000 words into book 5, which will be the last one for a while, I think.

One thing I've started worrying about is repeating myself. The first book, Swords of Talera, was an introduction, and then books 2 and 3, Wings Over Talera, and Witch of Talera, dealt with a war against a sorceress named Vohanna. Books 4 and 5, Wraith of Talera, and Gods of Talera, deal with another war against a sorcerer named Vessoth, who was Vohanna's husband. There's a lot of new adventures in the 4th and 5th books, but there is some commonality as well.

As I was thinking about this the last few days, I stumbled on a link to a blog where John D. MacDonald is talking about writing Travis McGee. I'm reading this closely and giving it some thought. He certainly knew the pitfalls and promise of the series character. One thing I found interesting was that he said it was harder to write first person stories than third person ones. I don't know. It doesn't really seem that way to me. The restrictions of the first person tale help me quite a lot, I think.

Anyway, I'm going to have more about writing a series character as I give it more thought. As readers, are you a big fan of series? Or would you prefer stand alones? For those who read series, do you commonly find that the formula starts to pale after a while?

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PEDESTAL MAGAZINE, 76, REVIEW

As I mentioned in my last post, Pedestal Magazine, Issue 76, is available. It was published June 22, 2015. I have a piece in it called “Gaunt,” which is about the creature I consider to be my muse. When I first got access to the magazine, I posted about its availability on my blog. Then I began reading the other poems and was blown away. I realized I wanted to do a longer post and review. This is one of the best collections from varied poets that I’ve ever read, and I feel very lucky to have my piece in this mix. Bruce Boston and Marge Simon, who served as editors for this particular issue, deserve a lot of credit. I don’t normally do reviews of magazines like this but felt compelled to in this case. Here are my capsule thoughts on the poems, without any spoilers: 

1. Lewis Carroll Knew My Family: A Series, Diana Smith Bolton: The Red Queen, The White Rabbit, The Cheshire Cat. They’re all here. Alice’s Adventures are such surreal works in their own right, and here we have the surrealistic elements taken to another level. The resonance here is intense.

2. Miracles, Ken Poyner: Genetics gone wild. This is a poem of ideas, touching on one of the biggest scientific advances of our age.

3. Critique of Car Accident Art Museum, Ross Wilcox: The melding of the machine and human. The stanzas consist of “exhibits” described. Each alters your reality a little further.

4. Lunar Eclipse by the Chitose River, December 10, 2011, Stephen Toskar: My favorite poetry often revels in contrast. Here we have such contrasts as warmth and cold, sex and fear. The last stanza is perhaps my favorite in the collection. I won’t quote it; you have to read it with all that’s gone before.

5. And Then the Stars… Mack W. Mani: Very grounded piece. A poem about reality, though it has the stars. Lots of subtext. I’m sure I didn’t catch it all.

6. Time Capsule, Rose Blackthorn: What comes after. The post-apocalyptic world as a time capsule.

7. Tourists Do Not Touch the God, Andrew Pidoux: What happens when even the Gods grow old. I liked the humorous images in this.

8. Venetian Red (for Michael Nathan), Steven Ratiner: Images of the old world’s beauty. An invocation to a past age, and a present.

9. Tether, Christina Zawadiwsky: a free for all of beautiful images and thoughts. Not quite free association. A stream of resonant consciousness. Perhaps my overall favorite of the pieces, although my favorite also seems to change with every reading of these works.

10. Gaunt, Charles Gramlich: The shortest poem in the mag.

11. The Dark Side of The Force in Relation to Art (Remarks by Lord Vader), Frederick Pollack: If Lord Vader gave a commencement address, what might he say?

12. Whatever Happened to Scott Carey?, Richard Bruns: Metamorphosis. Why me? Why not you?

13. Selenites, John Philip Johnson: How many will know that word, “Selenites.” I know it. So alien this piece, and yet familiar to us from the history of philosophy.

14. Crow Mother (for Frida Kahlo), Linda Rodriguez: The juxtaposition of beauty and the grotesque. Great fun to read aloud.

15. Schizophrenic Conversation at the Four Winds Bar: A Poem of Blues-Rock Numbers, and Crap-Game Numerology, Fred R. Kane: Reads like your favorite drunken night in an old blues bar. It happened, if only you could remember more than snatches. At the right moment, this one could be my favorite too.

16. Analog Reincarnation, Gary Singh: Life captured by a camera, and then by words. We step back two paces from reality to get a better view.

17. The Alien Ruins, Daniel Ausema: My favorite title. It already evokes my imagination. What will we find when we first make contact? A living race, or a lost one? And how will we come to know them?

18. Copernicus, Dane Cervine: Life and death and wonder.

19. Flyology, Gabrielle Bates: A feeling of lightness of being comes through in this one. Sometimes this is my favorite. The language flows so smoothly.

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Pedestal Magazine

Pedestal Magazine #76 is up, and I’m very honored to have a poem in the magazine. My piece is called “Gaunt,” a poem I wrote a couple of years back about how I see my literary muse. As I’ve been reading through the other wonderful works in this issue, I feel very lucky to have had a piece chosen for this company. I’m really blown away by the depth of language and emotion shown. You can check out the issue here.

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Harvest of War, A Little Experiment

Sales of all my own Amazon titles had been decidedly low and flat for some time so I thought I'd try to shake things up with a free promotion. I made my fantasy story, "Harvest of War," free for three days, July 15-17. It's still too early to tell much probably but here's a quick synopsis of the results so far.

I gave away 87 free copies. I also gave away one PDF copy that someone on Goodreads requested from me. I had made this story free back when it was first published in 2012 and it moved a 'lot' more copies, but 87 is respectable I suppose. And maybe quite a few folks already had it. I promoted it on facebook and Goodreads. It reached its highest ranking at about 11 hours in on the giveaway, but about four hours after I started promoting it. Here are the numbers:

At 11:45: #2,745 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)

#4 in Kindle Store > Kindle Short Reads > 45 minutes (22-32 pages) > Science Fiction & Fantasy

#13 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Anthologies & Short Stories

As of today, June 19, I've gotten one additional sale on the title, but it came at the end of the free promotion period and, quite likely, the person thought it was still free and clicked buy before seeing the .99 cent price had returned. Sorry about that. There have been no additional sales on any of my other titles so far, but many who downloaded "Harvest" have probably not read it yet. It did look like the numbers on Swords of Talera dipped so someone may have picked that up, though whether it had anything to do with the promotion I don't know. 

I was/am also hoping for some reviews on the story and the first one came in this morning from Prashant over at Chess, Comics, Crosswords. It's a very good one and I'm really happy Prashant enjoyed the tale. At the heart of why I write is to tell stories that I love and that others love too. It's gratifying when you hear that it has worked, and particularly gratifying to make that connection with someone in another part of the world. Thanks very much to Prashant for his great review!

At some point in a couple of weeks, I'll have another post on this to see if any new developments have occurred. In the meantime, happy reading. 

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Heroika: Dragon Eaters Review

Heroika 1: Dragon Eaters, Edited by Janet Morris

I first became familiar with Janet Morris through her stories in the Thieves’ World Series. Morris generally wrote my favorite stories throughout that series, and when her characters from there, “Tempus” and “Niko,” appeared in several spinoff novels I also read and enjoyed those. So, when I heard of a new fantasy anthology edited by Morris, I quickly picked it up.

In Heroika: Dragon Eaters, Morris has put together seventeen short stories that all feature dragons and some aspect of dragon consumption. There are all manner of tales here, including many that use the kind of fantasy setting one might imagine, as well as others set during the Civil War, in the swamps of Louisiana, on a modern earth, and in a post-apocalyptic world.

This is a big book, chock full of stories. I read the kindle version but the paperback is apparently 436 pages. That means plenty of bang for the buck. The stories are also uniformly well done. The biggest names are Janet and Chris Morris, who have two pieces in the book. Most of the other writers are not household names but are definitely experienced and talented writers. I’d read and enjoyed material by such authors as S. E. Lindberg, Walter Rhein, and Mark Finn, and had heard of some of the others although their writing was new to me. I’m not going to do a detailed review of the stories because I don’t want to give things away. Here are some capsule comments about things that I found particularly memorable.

“The First Dragon Eater,” by Janet and Chris Morris has an interesting structure that reminds one of the ancient Eddas.

“Legacy of the Great Dragon” by S. E. Lindberg is set in an ancient Egypt where the gods are real. Great atmosphere and characters in this one.

“Bring Your Rage,” by Janet and Chris Morris has some beautiful writing in it: “When I first saw Rhesos, he came riding a horse white as sunlight, a black dog at its heels…” Also very interesting characters.

“Aquila of Oyos,” by Walter Rhein features the Dragon’s point-of-view, and has a nice twist featuring a second dragon.

“The Wyght Wyrm,” by Cas Peace takes us to the age of Stonehenge and the Druids. Great setting.

“The Old Man on a Mountain,” by Jack William Finley features an aging warrior on his last dragon hunt. You really feel a lot of empathy for this character and his suffering.

“Of Blood and Scales,” by A. L. Butcher. I liked the concept of the “bloodsister.”

“Night Stalkers,” by Travis Ludvigson takes place in the time of Charlemagne and features Roland in a “northern thing” adventure.

“Forged,” by Tom Barczak features a nice surprise before you see the dragon.

“The Rhyme of the Dragon Queen,” by JP Wilder has a great cadre of heroes and rogues, including Spera, an excellent female character.

“The Dragon’s Horde,” by Joe Bonadonna. There’s a lot of creativity in this tale and a very interesting twist on who the villains are.

“Wawindaji Joka,” by Milton Davis. Great character conflict in this one. Jimbia is an excellent character and shows some interesting development.

“Against the Sky Tomb of the Earth Kings” by M. Harold Page wins for best title. Great inventiveness and action here.

“Red Rain,” by William Hiles. Here we have a dragon appearing during the Civil War, and Union and Confederates must join forces against it. A lot of emotional intensity in this one and I’d have to say it was my favorite piece in the anthology.

“La Betaille,” by Beth W. Patterson featured the youngest hero and I loved the details of the swamplands and the people who live there.

“Arctic Rage,” by Bruce Durham features a kind of “Alien” and “The Thing” riff in a post-apocalyptic world.

“Sic Semper Draconis,” by Mark Finn was full of action. Reminded me a bit of David Drake. 

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Books versus TV/Movies

Some time ago now, during a riot in London, it was reported that in one area every shop had been picked clean by rioters except—the bookstore. That one had been left untouched. I can’t imagine the same to be true of the video store. 

It’s a familiar refrain and sometimes even I get tired of hearing it.  But it does often seem that our society’s values are a little skewed.  Sports often appear to be valued over education, infotainment over actual news, and—yes—movies and TV over books and literacy.  I generally find that when I’m reaching for an example to illustrate some important point about writing, that a reference to a “movie” often works best. The books I want to use as illustrations will work only for a subset of people.  The movie will work for nearly everyone. In fact, I sometimes feel as if I watch most TV and movies just so I’ll have something to talk about with other people and to use as examples in my classes.

Along a similar vein, I’ve had dozens of folks over the years find out that I’m a writer and immediately recommend that I 1) write for the movies, 2) read screenplays as a way to improve my writing,  3) read a book about screen writing, or 4) all of the above.  This is in spite of the fact that I, 1) don’t really find movies very interesting, 2) personally find screenplays the most boring thing to read outside of technical manuals, 3) don’t ever want my written prose to sound like it came from a movie, and 4) it just plain irritates me.

Now, I have nothing against folks who like movies. I like plenty of them myself. I also think that writers can learn something from studying every form of writing, including screenwriting, and there are movies that contain great dialogue, although I generally find them strongest at the “one liner” verbalizations.  But what irritates me about people making the “movie” suggestions to me is that these folks seem clearly to value movies more than books.  It almost seems they are saying, “well yes, write your little novels until you develop the professional skills to write for the important markets, TV and the movies.”  Frankly, most TV and movie writing isn’t very good, and that which is good generally comes originally from books, as with the Harry Potter movies and Game of Thrones.

I’ll admit that I probably sometimes overstate the case against movies, but that’s because hardly anyone else seems to question the “movies are just worth more than books” vibe that we live with in our society. I question it.  If my TV/video system was gone when I woke up tomorrow, my life would go on almost exactly as it did before.  When Lana is not home, our TV is off 99% of the time. But if I woke up and all my books were gone, I’d be devastated and would probably head for the nearest bookstore immediately to start replenishing my shelves. 

For me, and for always, books are where it's at.

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A Louisiana Boat Ride

To revise a line from one of my favorite movies, “Well, Mister, we’ve got something in this country called a Louisiana Boat Ride.”  Sunday morning, June 7, Lana and I left the house around 4:50 AM to go and join Scott Schexnaydre, a local photographer who graciously offered to take us out in his boat. We went out to an area of marsh lands called Lake Boeuf, and had a great time. Scott took us to several rookeries where we saw hundreds of adults and young herons and egrets of various species. There were numerous grackles as well, and these were some of the biggest I’ve ever seen. Many of the dark black males were nearly as large as crows. Lana got a picture of a female grackle with a mouthful of dinner. “Yum! Yum!”

 

Lana also captured an Eagle in flight, and got pictures under a bridge of some baby barn swallows still in the nest. 

At that same bridge, I spotted some Lubber grasshoppers. We watched one of these complete a molt. These are a huge variety of local grasshopper. The babies are young and mostly black with stripes of red. They are found in large numbers together and look almost like crickets. The adults, though, are yellow and black and easily stretch the length of a man’s palm.

 

Most insects, and other normally small critters, grow big in Louisiana, which has close to a tropical environment. As we were going out toward the lake this morning I noted masses of pink slime on many tree trunks and on the reedier grasses. Scott and Lana knew what this was, the eggs of a type of invasive snail species called the Red Apple Snail. Pictures will be forthcoming. I found one emptied snail shell, which was about the size of a golf ball, and later saw a live snail on a tree extruding its eggs. It was much bigger, about the size of a tennis ball. Scott got us close to get pictures, and almost put his hand on a normally unseen denizen of the marsh area, a very large water spider about the size of a baby’s fist.

Nature simply can’t be touched as a provider of beauty and entertainment. (All photos courtesy of Lana Gramlich)

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Forgotten Books Friday, Brackett and Hamilton Double

For Forgotten Books Friday this week I’m looking at Tor Double Novel No. 8. This contains “The Nemesis from Terra” by Leigh Brackett on one side, and “Battle for the Stars” by Edmond Hamilton on the other. That makes this a family affair since Brackett and Hamilton were married.  Both books would be classified as space opera. They were originally published separately in 1961, and combined in the Tor edition in 1989.

I read Battle for the Stars first, many years ago, and for my Goodreads review simply have the phrase, “decent space opera.” I read it as a standalone, probably checking it out from the small library in my hometown when I was a teenager, and obviously from the review I didn’t remember it all that well. It’s probably been over 40 years. I preferred the stories in Hamilton’s Crashing Suns collection, which I reviewed last week.

I discovered Brackett later than Hamilton but I’ve read more of her work and rate her as the better writer. At least, I tend to like her work better than Hamilton’s. Reading The Nemesis from Terra now shows me why.

First, Brackett had more poetry in her work than Hamilton. Here are some lines: “The winged ones drifted out from the white towers, and across the little racing moons. They were light and indescribably beautiful, and their wings shimmered with soft secret fires like opals under mist.”  I’m afraid I’m just a sucker for that kind of descriptive poetic language.

Second, while both Brackett and Hamilton wrote a lot of action into their stories, Brackett’s characters seem, to me, to have more heart. We see more of their inner thoughts and emotions. We see more things through their eyes. To make a comparison, reading Hamilton is like watching a movie, while reading Brackett is more like playing a video game. The video game involves you more directly in the action rather than letting you passively receive the information.

Brackett wasn’t an early influence on my writing, but has become one during my adult years, as I’ve read more of her work and have studied why I enjoy her stuff so much. She, and C. L. Moore, were particular influences on Under theEmber Star.  Here’s a particular little snippet of Ember Star that, perhaps, evokes a Brackett kind of feeling.

“The seven hovercycles Ginn saw hidden now beneath the overhanging bank of the dry river were typical of nomad machines. Low slung. Predatory. They seemed molded out of rust but that was only camouflage against the umber and ochre shades of the desert rocks. Ginn noted the hand-stitched seats of local leather, the exquisite etchings in black and red that embellished every metal surface, the displays of bone beadwork that dangled from handlebars and saddlebags.”

I like doing these forgotten book Fridays so I’m going to try to do a few more while it’s still summer. Once school starts, all bets will be off.

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Mommas Don't let Your Babies

Mommas don’t let your babies grow up to be barbarians.

Don’t let ‘em wield swords and steal dragon gold.

Let ‘em be sorcerers and live to grow old.

Barbarians ain’t easy to love ‘cause they like to kill things.

They’d rather carve your guts and rob all your jewels,

than live in your stone huts and follow your rules.

Barbarians like taverns and wenches and looted rings.

They drink ale and eat meat over smoky old fires.

But they like a good battle and often end up on pyres.

So, Mommas don’t let your babies grow up to be barbarians.

‘Cause they’ll decorate their helmets and armor with bone.

And they’ll wander the world and they’ll never come home.

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Stampede the Wind

A lot of flooding going on around the country the past few days. Texas and Arkansas have been hit. I called my brother yesterday and they were safe on the farm, although there had been street flooding in Charleston and the nearby town of Lavaca. Paul David said the Arkansas River was as high as he'd ever seen it. I hope everyone will be safe.

We've had a lot of rain here as well, although we're more used to it. Louisiana gets 80 + inches of rain a year. Last night we had more heavy rain and a hard wind. Our back yard is a pool this morning and I had to feed the birds around the edges of it.

Around 4:00, I woke up to a banging sound and thought either something had hit the roof or the door to our tool shed had blown open. I grabbed a flashlight and went outside. I barely needed the flashlight because of non-stop lightning. I didn't see any bolts of lightning, just a strobe-light effect in the clouds.

The rain was mostly holding off for the moment. A few heavy drops. But the wind! It ran like a stampeding herd of mustangs through the trees. We are surrounded by trees, mostly pines, which reach very tall. When I looked up I could see the top of the pines bending over in a steady wind. But on the ground where I was it as only a little breezy. Even our trash cans didn't blow over.

I stood there in the dark a bit. I like the feeling of energy and power that a storm births into the world. Finally I went back inside and lay down. The wind rushed on, then slowed as if the stampede had finally passed us by. After a while I slept again, and dreamt of horses.

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Where Micro Weird Came From

I thought I might occasionally try a new feature here on the blog wherein I talk about the genesis of certain projects. Today’s choice is Micro Weird:Tiny Tales of the Strange. Back at the end of 2012, I was working on the third piece in my Fiction Techniques series, “The Twist Ending.” As part of the research for that work, I both read and wrote a number of flash fiction pieces with twist endings, and I went back and analyzed all the twist ending stories I’d written in the past. A lot of things became clear during that period.

FictionTechniques #3: The Twist Ending, was published in January of 2013, and I’d already started to consider publishing a collection of the twist ending pieces I’d written. Turns out I had quite a few of them lying around that had not been collected, and over the next couple of months I wrote several more.

In March 2013, I published these under the title Micro Weird: Tiny Tales of the Strange. Micro Weird is the most eclectic collection I’ve ever produced. It contains horror stories, science fiction tales, humor, and even some mainstream pieces. The common denominator that ties the stories together is the “twist ending.” If you like twist-ending tales, Micro Weird might be just the collection for you. It’s only 99 cents.

Here’s the Table of Contents for the collection:

AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART

EYE SPY

SEASON OF RUST

HIGH IQ

GIVING UP THE GHOST

PAST PERFECT

LOVE STORIES

THAT CAT IS ON DRUGS, MAN

INSPIRATION

ANIMAL BEHAVIOR

A FACE ONLY A MOTHER COULD LOVE

FAR BEYOND HOME

THOUGHT FLOW

THE TEETH OF THE WIND

FOREVER, OUT OF LOVE

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