Editors and Lawyers

Big revelation time.  About a decade ago I made a writing mistake.  I know, I know, tremendously hard to believe.  Me, the great and wonderful ooze, made a mistake.  But it happened and I had repressed the horror of it until just yesterday when I finished reading Young Thongor by Lin Carter.  The mistake was this.  In writing a piece for REHupa, the Robert E. Howard apa, I misspelled Thongor as “ThongAr.” Although it passed unnoticed by the vast majority of that august organization’s members, one member (at the time) caught my mistake and gave me a sound thrashing via private email. I was certainly glad it was private so that my shame was not broadcast to the world.  I wish I still had that email.  The upshot was that he had always considered me a fine critic and thought I showed great promise, but that it was simply an embarrassment to make such an egregious error.  I had the feeling he lost a lot of respect for me that day.  Of course, he was right. It would have been easy to check the spelling since I had half a dozen Thongor books on my shelf.  I figured I’d gotten lazy. I also got a pretty good laugh out of it, though.

Cut to today. I’m editing a bunch of stuff for some friends of mine and have stumbled upon a number of such mistakes, mistakes that could have easily been corrected with another moment’s thought and some checking. I’ve realized, though, that the vast majority of these errors are not really careless or lazy mistakes. They’re unconscious mistakes. The writers are making them because their minds have not been trained to think like editors. Editors are like the lawyers of the writing world. And often they get about the same number of jokes told about them.  What do you call 10,000 editors on the bottom of the sea?  A good start!

And now, I’ve become one of them, an “Editor.”  Next thing you know, I’ll be running for public office and declaring that Novels should be counted as people.

And every time I get a little frustrated at some of the mistakes I’m finding in the editing work I’m doing, I just keep saying to myself…ThongOr, ThongOr, ThongOr.

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Plans Begin to Form

Slowly these days, writing plans are returning to me. I hope I'll be able to bring some of them to fruition before school starts again. I came up with a character I find interesting named Layne Gabriel and I've decided to try a series of stories about him. These will be westerns and the stories are likely to run in the 5,000 word range, although I'm not absolutely sure. I'll publish them at .99 cents on Kindle and see if there is any good response.  If so, I'll try my hand at a few more and then perhaps put all of them together as a collection.

The first story will be called "To Live by the Gun," and is about a third done. The 2nd story is called "Die by the Gun" and is maybe a quarter done. The third story is merely a gleam in my eye but is probably going to be called "Gunfighter Messiah."  I want to have all three done before I publish the first, because at the end of "book" 1, I plan to run the first couple paragraphs of "book" 2 as a teaser, and the same with 3.  Then I'll offer the first one via Kindle select, and offer it for five days free through their program. That way, if someone downloads the first free and likes it, the other two will already be available for them to get.

Each title will carry a subtitle and number.  Since Layne Gabriel is from a place called Colt Creek, I'm probably going to call the series "Colt Creek Westerns," or perhaps "Layne Gabriel Westerns."  Any collection later would likely be called "The Man from Colt Creek."

I haven't decided absolutely on the pseudonym idea yet but I may do it because I think it would be kind of fun and a good experiment to try.  If it doesn't work, I could always reissue the books under my own name, although I won't make any secret of the author's identity and the copyright will be indicated as mine.  If I use a pseudonym, it is likely to be Tyler Boone.

Anyway, this should occupy me for a couple of months. If I could write a little faster I might be dangerous.  Well, probably not.  I've got a couple of other stories I have to work on for other publications as well.

It feels kind of good to have plans, though.
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To Pseudonym or Not

I’ve been reading and listening to more advice for writers lately. One thing that keeps coming up is that readers can be put off if they enjoy one particular book by an author, and then read another book by that author that is dramatically different in genre.  The usual suggestions for dealing with problem are for authors to 1) brand themselves by focusing just on one genre until they breakout, or 2) establish pseudonyms for themselves when they work in different genres.

Since I simply find it impossible to confine myself to one genre in writing when I enjoy reading so many different kinds of books, I’ve begun to give thought to the pseudonym idea.  I’ve decided that I will certainly keep Charles Allen Gramlich for my heroic fantasy work, and will probably use just Charles Gramlich for any nonfiction.  But what about westerns and horror?  Or what if I decide to write something urban fantasy?

Yesterday I came up with an idea for a western work and put down some ideas. I was thinking along with it about possible pseudonyms.  The first one I came up with that I liked was “Matt Boone,” but then I realized there is the rather famous, “Pat Boone.”  I think those are just too close. I tried Matt Sage, but was concerned about the two four-letter words together. Some of you who’ve read my work know I like the name “Boone,” so I jotted down Boone Holland as a possible pseudonym, and then Wade Savage occurred to me in the middle of the night but is maybe too much. I kind of like Wade, though, so was thinking Wade Bonner.

So what do you folks think?

Matt Boone

Wade Bonner

Matt Sage

Wade Savage

Boone Holland

Or do all of these suck?

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Tales of a Youthful Brewmance

Here's what the brews themselves are saying about Charles Gramlich's memoir of his beer drinking days.
 

“I thought I could have been treated better,” says Bud Weiser.  “It hurts not to be loved.”

 

“Lies.  All lies,” says Coors.  “He drank a lot more of me than he lets on.  And he liked it.”

 

“Come back to Canada and we’ll Eff you up really good this time.”  --The Molson Brews.

 

“I don’t always like being drunk by humans,” says Dos Equis, “but when I do I prefer it to be by Charles Gramlich.”

 

“Only 99 cents, he’s charging for this.  Meshuggah!”  --He’Brew: The Chosen Beer.

Get your copy of "Days of Beer" today.  Before it goes stale. 

 Amazon

Barnes & Noble

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Writing Woes

I started a new story today, called “Witch of Ashes.”  It’s a sword and sorcery piece and I liked how the opening section came out.  I wanted to try and “speed” up my process and get the story down faster than I typically do.  It didn’t work. The second section came easy but after rereading it I realized it was more of a “Skyrim” adventure than a Gramlich original.  I had to rip pretty much all of it out.  I think I was able to save a couple of lines.

The problem for me when I “write fast” is that the first image that pops into my head is almost always one I’ve seen before.  And since I’ve been playing so much Skyrim the images that kept popping up were general variations on that theme.  To write fast you have to let the unconscious do most of the work, but when I turn the work fully over to the unconscious I get the commonplace instead of the unusual.  Conscious evaluation of images takes time and, it seems for me, there is no substitute. 

Anyway, here’s the opening to “Witch of Ashes.”

The northern wind was quiet for once. The polished surface of the tarn shown like a black shield beneath the ringed moon. To water’s edge came Krieg, on silent boots with a battle-axe of ebon steel in his fists. He lay flat for a moment, drank his fill, then rose to ghost along the shoreline. It was almost as if he had a purpose.

A shadow jutting into the lake from the shore resolved itself into the fire-ruined hulk of a dragon ship. Krieg paused. He knew what had happened. A great warrior had fallen in battle and been laid atop a bier on his finest warship. The trophies of his greatest victories were placed beside him.  Perhaps his woman was chained alive at his feet; perhaps she went willingly. Soaked with pitch, the ship had then been set adrift and aflame. It had burned to the water-line. The remnant had lodged itself here like a splinter in the flesh of the world.

 Krieg studied the hulk, studied the bleak shore upon which it lay. Someone else had been here before him. Even in the dark his keen gaze identified naked footprints in the soft loam. They were small and slender, such as those made by a woman. There was only one line of prints, coming from the burned ship to the shore.

Intrigued, Krieg turned to follow them.

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Harmland Goes Live:

Harmland is now available on Kindle and Nook. It’s been largely finished for a while. I had trouble with the cover and trouble deciding on the “about the book” blurb, which is very important. I still don’t particularly like what I’ve got but I can always change it later and I wanted to go ahead and get this up before it got any older. Or I did. 

Since adding more ‘eyes’ to the Harmland cover didn’t seem to help, I simplified it and used the subtitle of “dark tales.”  However, Amazon has changed their requirements and I had to make the cover much bigger than in the past, which seems to have hurt the resolution.  I’ve uploaded a new one but it seems to take several days for that to go through, so in the meantime it’s still wearing the original cover.  Hopefully it will still attract some human eyes.

I decided on $2.99 for the price.  There are nine stories and over 21,000 words.  Here’s the table of contents:

PART ONE. Whiskey, Guns, and Sin: Noir Stories

1. The Finest Cut…  

2. The Grey Inside… 

3. Whiskey, Guns, and Sin…

4. The Gift… 

 

PART TWO. Mouth Wet with Rain and Leaves: Hauntings

5. The Finding…

6. Mouth Wet with Rain and Leaves...

7. The Toad…

8. The Vivarium…

9. A Hiss of Angels

Some of you have read the original version of “Whiskey, Guns and Sin.”  This is an expanded version with a different ending.  The rest of these are brand new, including “The Vivarium,” which is my first foray into the Chtulhu Mythos world of H. P. Lovecraft.

If you want to have a look, here it is on Kindle

Here it is for Nook

New Magazine, Old Book

Some of you may be aware that White Cat Publications has announced a new magazine called Insatiable: The Magazine of Paranormal Desires. It'll be debuting in October but they are looking for submissions for the initial issue now and are paying excellent rates. Here's the link to the submission guidelines

While you're there, check out the other offerings that White Cat has.  This is a dynamic publishing organization, new and hungry.

I also got my royalty statement from Invisible College Press today, and am happy to note that the publication of Cold in the Light in ebook has given the work a new lease on life.  Cold in the Light was my first novel publication and I was, and am, immensely proud of it. It's currently discounted at Amazon at $2.84 for the ebook.  The link is here.

It's also available on Nook, at a little higher price,  here.

It's a good book.

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Two Very Different Movies

Last night I watched two movies: Gattica and Drive Angry. 

Gattica was a movie of ideas and message, a near future science fiction story with a very Brave New World feel.  The main character, Ethan Hawke, is born the old fashioned way in a world that is becoming increasingly focused on genetic engineering and eugenics. As a “non-valid,” the Hawke character is deemed fit for only manual or menial labor, but he dreams of more and ‘buys’ the identity of a “Valid.” 

Drive Angry was almost a live action cartoon. The main character, Nicholas Cage, escapes from hell to save his granddaughter from being used in a Satanic ritual to bring hell to earth.  There are fast cars, gratuitous nudity, and various numbers of explosions and gory deaths.  Cage teams up with a young woman who is driving a 440 Magnum Charger, and is pursued by “the Accountant,” who is the death character and who wants to return Cage to hell.

I liked both movies.  On the down side, Gattica was quite slow moving and made the future look very staid, boring, and respectable.  Maybe that will be true; I don’t know.  Drive Angry had some pretty ridiculous looking special effects during the climactic battle scene.  Generally, though, both movies met the goal of keeping me interested. 

Overall, I have to say I enjoyed Drive Angry a little more.  And one reason was the young female co-star.  Besides exhibiting the required level of attractiveness, she got the best lines in the movie and could conduct herself believably in a fight.  In fact, she voiced what has now become my current favorite tough “guy” line in the movies.  When the villain told her in his southern drawl that: “I’m going to kill you, and then desecrate your corpse.”  She responded with, “Well, between now and then, I’m gonna fuck you up.”

Now there’s a line I wish I’d written.

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John Carter: A Review

Ever since I read A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs I’ve had a love affair going with Sword and Planet fiction. There’s a reason why three out of the four novels I’ve written fall into that genre (The Talera series).  There’s a reason why I’ve spent hours upon hours of my time drawing maps and making up worlds for my own Sword and Planet concepts.  As I’ve said before, I consider the genre to be the purest reading fun one can have. 

And so I was eager to see the first big-budget adaptation of ERB’s seminal novel.  Lana and I watched John Carter on pay-per-view last night.  Here’s my thoughts.

First, I want to be clear that I enjoyed the movie and consider it well worth the price I paid to see it.  I thought there were some very good things about it.  There were also some things that didn’t work as well, and a few things I didn’t understand.

Characters:  Generally, the characters worked.  Dejah Thoris was well cast.  She came off a bit too modern in her dialogue to me, but that is to be expected considering the book came out a 100 years ago.  I also liked the casting for John Carter himself, although I didn’t care for the attempts early in the movie to reframe him as a kind of anti-hero.  I see that as a nod to modern young audiences and I didn’t think it was necessary.  Tars Tarkas was a wonderful character for this movie, but was, perhaps, only about seventy percent the Tars Tarkas from the books. I also liked the Sola character and the loveable Woola!  Kantos Kan was well cast as well, but didn’t have enough to do in the movie.  They changed the basic way in which love develops between Carter and Dejah Thoris, and I thought the novel did a better job with that.  Still, I bought the love affair and thought it ended up being very touching.

Plot: A Princess of Mars was a very open ended adventure novel and I knew they’d have to change that for the movies.  They needed a more coherent plot. The one they chose, having the Therns as super science types who are manipulating the politics on Barsoom, was pretty thin, but there was ‘some’ justification for that in ERB’s Martian series. They could have done better at explaining why the Therns were doing what they were doing, though. I’m still not quite sure on the matter.  That said, I liked how the movie brought that plot around at the end to explain how John Carter returns to Mars.

Scenery:  Beautiful scenery.  I totally bought the world and both the ancient and modern cities.  I thought the flying ships were very well done, and the ‘wildlife,’ such as the White Apes and the Thoats were believable. This was a solid strength to the film.

Action:  The action was good and generally believable within the context of the story.  John Carter’s jumping skills didn’t always seem to be equivalent from one section of the movie to another, but I was OK with that. I would have liked to have seen more sword fights. John Carter is the best swordsman on two worlds after all. A little more “Errol Flynn” would have been good with me.

Missteps:  I was a little irritated early in the movie at how they changed up the character of Powel and how they came in contact with the Apache.  It seemed a little tacked on.  I also didn’t like the addition of a dead wife for Carter.  That was just far too cliché.  They made good use of the idea later in the story but it would have been better without that element.

All in all, though I wish it would have been better, I still liked it a heckuva lot and found it much more enjoyable than most of the movies I’ve watched lately.

OVER THE TOP

My critique group consists of folks with a wide range of reading tastes and writing styles.  We frequently have minor issues during critiques over what amounts to the literary versus genre debate.  One popped up the other day when several lines of one member’s story were deemed “melodramatic” by another member.  There were suggestions that the writer should “tone it down.”

This got me thinking on the subject.  And thinking on my part often leads to a blog post.  Here it is.

First, my general rule on writing literary versus genre fiction is that, if you’re writing literary fiction, “tone it down,” if you’re writing genre fiction, “turn it up.”  Of course, literary writers like Cormac McCarthy turn it way the hell up.  (Read Blood Meridian.)  Ray Bradbury, who recently died but who was accepted as a “literary” writer by the establishment, turned it up, at least in works like The Martian Chronicles and Something Wicked This Way Comes.

A key, though, is that a work has to have coherence.  One reason Bradbury’s prose is accepted by the literary establishment is because it was so clearly a total package.  His prose was bright, surreal, powerfully dramatic, but it was also consistent throughout.  Such prose is a problem only if it is “mixed” in with more restrained language. 

Say I wrote for example: “Tom stared out his window at the drizzle that fell steadily from a gray sky.  He didn’t like the rain.  He’d never liked it.  It changed his mood for the worse.  It made him feel empty.  And when he was empty the depression tended to find him.  That depression was like moving into Satan’s apartment in the black bowels of hell, where the only light was the scarlet screaming of blood and sin.”

The last line is way over the top from what came before, and I certainly consider it melodramatic.  However, there are several issues to be considered with that line. 1: While it’s over the top to me, not everyone would necessarily agree.  2: Even those who agree that the line is over the top are likely to remember it, and being remembered is generally a good thing.  You don’t sell books by writing material that isn’t memorable.  3: In a differently styled story, with a different kind of build up, that line would fit perfectly and wouldn’t be judged as over the top at all, at least not by the folks who read (and buy) that kind of fiction.  (Like me.)

Melodrama lies in the eyes of the reader.  Many readers prefer what I will call “restrained” prose to unrestrained prose.  Others do not, and there is little doubt that restrained prose sells less well than unrestrained.  Consider “Fifty Shades of Grey,” a very non-restrained work.  You should use the “look inside” feature at Amazon to read a few excerpts from that.  And it sold in the millions.  No one remembers or talks about “restrained” fiction.  

I think what writers have to do with their stories and prose is to seek a consistency across the entire piece.  If your language is generally heightened, then more pedestrian phrases will call unfortunate attention to themselves.  But if your prose is restrained, then heightened phrases will clearly stand out and likely evoke cries of “melodrama.”  

In other words, and seeking to be memorable at the risk of being called melodramatic, I’ll say: Set your prose mower wherever you like, high or low, but then leave it the same for the whole piece. 

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Updates

Lana's 2nd chemo treatment is tomorrow.  Her first seems to have worked wonders on the cancer site, which has shrunk dramatically.  The doctor told us today that he wanted to start radiation therapy in about 2 weeks and, hopefully, that will knock this thing out.  The radiation treatment will be a major pain in the ass, with her needing to go five days a week for treatment, for six weeks.  The treatments themselves will be short but it's a  little less than a 2 hour round trip for us.  But if that is going to do it then it's a tiny price to pay.

Skyrim: A Player's Perspective

A couple of summers ago I bought myself an X-Box.  A student of mine actually gave me my first game for it, called Doom.  I'd played earlier versions of Doom on other systems and loved it.  I played this one and loved it too.  I also played a Halo version that came with my game system, and tried a racing game.  Halo was OK, thought not up to Doom quality, and the racing game left me cold.  Then I discovered Red Dead Redemption, a western role-playing game, and I liked it as much as Doom.  It took me longer to finish it because it was much more complex, and I had long stretches where I didn't play at all.

Then Lana brought home Skyrim, which is a fantasy role-playing game.  Lana was a Dungeon Master for a Dungeons and Dragons game in Canada and was interested in perhaps playing Skyrim herself.  It's the same kind of set up in a video game.  We each set up characters and began to play the first day.  Lana didn't really like the fact that when things happen in the game you often get vibrations shooting through the handset.  She decided to watch me play a while and enjoyed that.  And I was hooked.  I've spent many hours playing already.

The game is incredibly complex, far more so than Red Dead Redemption.  There are many more weapons that can be used, and a huge world to explore.  You can take one of three basic routes, warrior, mage, or thief, although you end up combining all of them to some extent.  You also can have followers and own homes.  You can learn smithing and alchemy and magic.  The open endedness is extraordinary. By now I'm carrying a range of weapons that I enchanted myself, and many different kinds of potions to be used for specific tasks. I've fought many dragons, as well as mages, pirates, walking corpses, shades, bandits, and demigods, not to mention sabertooth cats, cave bears, wolves, and giant crabs and spiders. 

I have to say, this is the most engrossing video game I've ever played, although it doesn't have the moment to moment intensity of Doom.  In Doom you are always pretty much on the verge of being attacked.  There are peaceful moments in Skyrim.  I've found I really enjoy the Smithing aspects.  Maybe I was a frustrated blacksmith in another life.

And Lana is enjoying the game vicariously through me.  She watches when I end up going through some tough dungeon and she has saved my bacon many a time with her knowledge of the whole role-playing game concept.  She catches traps I miss, locates things I can't find, and in emergencies, goes online to find information that I can't discover on my own.  If I ever beat the game, which seems a long way off, it'll be a team effort.

Harmland and other Updates

The writing has been slow but at least I'm doing some.  My planned collection, "Harmland," is coming along. It's almost completed in content and I've pretty much got the cover issues resolved.  Probably it will go up in June.  Yesterday I put in several hours of work and managed to finish three book reviews that I've promised to The Dark Man Journal.  I'll give those a final look through today and email them off. It will be good to have some stuff going out instead of having more things pile up on my desk/computer.

Lana and I had planned a trip to Yellowstone right about now, but had to cancel it because of her chemo.  Although I enjoy such trips, I'm enough of a homebody that I'm not really going to feel that bad.  And, Lana's chemo seems to be working at present. The swollen node in her neck has decreased in size and that's a good thing.

Off to give those reviews a final read through.  Then we need to do some grocery shopping since we're about out of food in the house.  I wonder if I should have a shower before I leave the house?  If you hear about any strange wild animal sightings in Abita Springs, Louisiana on May 29 you'll know I decided against the shower!

Memorial Day Sale at Wildside Press

Wildside Press is hosting a Memorial Day Sale.  They've cut their ebooks to $2.99, and have cut a dollar off many of their print books.  I thought I might mention a few items I found interesting.

1.  Young Thongor.  The first new Thongor book in 40 years. It's Carter after the fact with Adrian Cole and Robert M. Price.  Carter has been dead for many years, of course, but this must be based on some notes or draft material he had.  I know Cole can write so I snapped this one up.  It's $2.99 as an ebook, for either epub or Kindle, and $14.99 for a print copy.

2.  The Cthulhu Mythos Megapack.   Lots of great Mythos stories for only. 99 cents!  Includes some Robert E. Howard, and many other writers, such as T.E.D. Klein.  I snapped that up.  The ebook link is:
here

3.  The Cowboy Megapack.  Lots of great Western stories in ebook format, at 99 cents.  here

4.  The Mummy Megapack. Great classics and some newer stories of mummies.  Also 99 cents for ebook.  here

5. The Andre Norton Megapack.  99 cents.  here

If you go to  Wildside Press, you can pick at the top of the page to search for either ebook or print. 

My books are also on sale there.  Not all of mine that are published there are available in ebook, but the Talera series is, and Bitter Steel, and In the Language of Scorpions.  The ebook link to my books is here



My print books at Wildside, which also includes Write With Fire, and Midnight in Rosary, are listed here: here

By the way, I also have copies of all my books for sale as signed copies.  If you are interested in any such, email me at kainja at hotmail dot com

A Drought Breaks

Well, a drought that has lasted over two months finally broke a little yesterday. For the first time since mid-March I actually wrote a new piece of fiction. It was short, a prose poem I'm calling "The Hiss of Angels," and it came with a lot of effort, but it was new and it went down officially on a page. It's not that I haven't had ideas. In fact, the idea for this poem came to me several weeks ago. I've had lots of ideas, have tossed them around in my head, but in the end I just didn't have the drive to get them down. Sometimes it's impossible to escape the thought of, "What's the use?" In the end, of course, there is no "use," other than that I want to do it.

 I also finally got up the energy to check my amazon sales for April and May. One rather strange thing is that "Killing Trail" had been selling a few copies every month since it was published almost two years ago now. But in May that has come to a stop and only "Harvest of War" is still selling anything. I would have thought the audiences for those two books were different. I can understand why "Days of Beer" dropped to zero, since folks buying that would have been only buying something 'from me' essentially. I was hoping "Killing Trail" would continue to have legs. Alas, it looks like not. Of course, I've been doing no promoting for the past couple of months either so that probably had an impact. For some reason, I don't seem to get many word of mouth sales. I could try to figure out why bu the answer might just depress me so I'll leave it be for now.

One thing I have done a lot of is play my Skyrim video game. It's a fantasy quest type game, and I like it a whole lot. It has some interesting writing in it. All throughout the game world you find "books" of various kinds that can be read or used. That's cool. The thing about a video game like this is that it consumes your whole mind while you're playing it, and that keeps you from thinking about other, less pleasant, kinds of things. Writing requires thought, and as soon as you start thinking, the scary stuff can start to creep in. Well enough rambling. Time to visit blogs.

First Chemo, and a some vague thoughts on writing

Well, Lana had her first chemo treatment yesterday.  It was a long day, from about 8:20 to 2:00 in the chair with infusions of various medications running into her body.  She handled it like a trooper.  We took along my laptop and she was even able to get online with it and do a little facebooking as a distraction.  She had some weird feelings in her body later but so far not a lot of problems. I understand the worst often hits after a couple of times.  She also has to go back today for a half hour for another infusion of some med to counteract the nausea effects of the first meds. 

I actually did some 'thinking' about writing yesterday evening, for the first time in quite a while.  Mostly I was thinking about the cover to Harmland, and deciding I needed to add a subtitle to make sure folks knew it was short stories rather than a novel.  Also, in the first version I posted, a couple of folks thought the "eyes" down in the left hand corner were headlights, so I wondered about adding another pair of eyes, or two, to dispel that possibility.  I also enlarged the font size of my name and the title, and moved the title in a bit, which several people suggested. Anyway, I've copied the new mock-up below.  It's still not completed, of course, but let me know if you see problems. I'm not really happy with the subtitle of "stories," but haven't come up with anything else yet.

A New Kind of Summer

Our graduation ceremony was yesterday.  I have to return the monkey suit (graduation regalia) on Tuesday and check in at the office for anything critical in my box, but other than that I'm off work until the fall.  Normally this would be a time of great rejoicing and I'd be full of writing plans. But on Monday Lana gets a port put into her chest so she can get her chemotherapy infused, and then the therapy itself starts on Thursday.  She'll be getting 5 to 6 hours of treatment, and then will repeat that treatment every 21 days through the rest of the summer.

They told her she will lose her hair; they expect her to get weak and nauseated.  They gave her 3 prescriptions for anti-nausea medicine.  They told her that her immune system will be weak so she needs to avoid being around folks with any sickness.  She's taking a leave of absence from work.  She won't be able to feed the birds because of the dust dangers.  She has to worry about infections through her fingernails so she won't be able to handle raw foods or do a number of other things she normally does.  Despite this information, neither of us really know what to expect.  That means I don't really know what my plans are either.

For now, I've gotten a new video game, called Skyrim.  It's a fantasy game and so far I'm enjoying it a lot.  Not easy to worry when you're in the middle of exploring some ancient burial site and being attacked by skeletons and dragons from all sides.  And that's a good thing.

Tubb versus Kern

E. C. Tubb (1919-2010) was a well known British writer who wrote over 140 novels and hundreds of short stories under as many as 58 pen names. Most of his output was SF, although he also wrote fantasy and westerns. His best known series is the “Dumarest of Terra” SF series, numbering 33 novels. His best known pen name, at least to me, is Gregory Kern, under which he wrote 17 books in the Cap Kennedy Space Opera series.

I’ve read quite a few of each series, though slightly more of Cap Kennedy. Critics and SF historians generally consider the Dumarest series to be superior, but I have to admit that when I reach for a space opera I’m more likely to choose a Cap Kennedy than a Dumarest.  I recently tried to analyze why.

First, there’s no doubt that Earl Dumarest is a superior character to Cap Kennedy.  Dumarest has depth and we get to see his emotional ups and downs. He’s tough but vulnerable to love.  He has moments of doubt.  Kennedy is always focused and disciplined. He gets lots of opportunities for sex but turns them down because he’s committed to his mission, to protect earth’s civilization from its many enemies.  Kennedy is very nearly a superman, and is pretty clearly modeled after Doc Savage.  He even has a crew of associates, much like Doc, although his assistants are a lot more sophisticated and I like them a lot better.  Dumarest travels alone, although he often picks up a companion, usually female, during each novel.  You feel like you could be friends with Dumarest, not really with Kennedy.

Now let’s consider setting.  The settings for the Dumarest series are slightly more varied than for the Kennedy series, but in general there isn’t that much difference. In each case we have exotic settings in the space opera tradition.  There are desert worlds, ice worlds, etc.  The Dumarest settings often seem somewhat more realistic to me, while the Kennedy settings are more dramatically presented.  I think I like the dramatic presentation a little better.  Storytelling is so much about heightened focus on specific details. 

The big difference between the two series is plotting.  The plots for the Dumarest novels are much looser.  The ‘series’ plot is that Dumarest is trying to find his way to Earth, which in this future history is so completely forgotten that it’s considered a myth.  The ‘series’ plot for the Kennedy series is that Cap is a kind of secret agent who travels the galaxy on missions to protect the Terran federation.  This means the Cap Kennedy series is more tightly plotted, with each story focused on a specific threat to the Federation.  The Dumarest stories, on the other hand, generally give lip service to the overarching issue, the search for Earth, while focusing on Dumarest as he gets involved with a particular character and some problem she (or less commonly, he) is having.  This means the Kennedy series has a lot more continuity from story to story than the Dumarest series, and that means less time needs to be used on set up and story development.  This allows the Kennedy series to get into the action much more quickly, and that is the main reason I prefer the Kennedy series to the Dumarest.

I appreciate the Dumarest stories and enjoy them, and actually wish I liked them better because I do really enjoy the character. But for just a quick, enjoyable read, I pick the Kennedy series. 

Cold in the Light on Sale, and Harmland

Cold in the Light is on sale for $2.84 as a Kindle ebook this week.  That's 2 dollars off the regular price so it's a pretty good deal.  I didn't even realize it until Paul McNamee pointed it out to me. 

I'm getting ready for a signing today at Barnes & Noble in Covington, Louisiana.  In fact, they're hosting an all day literary affair, with a children's play, poetry readings, and an authors' signing circle featuring a bunch of folks who are far better known than me.  I'll be signing at 2:00, so if you're in the area, check it out. The address is: 3414 Highway 190, # 10 Mandeville, LA 70471 (985) 626-8884


I'm working on a blog post comparing E. C. Tubb's Dumarest series to his Cap Kennedy series, written under the name Gregory Kern. That should be up in a couple of days.  I'm trying to recover from all the whining I got about grades right after I turned them in. I'm sure I've not heard the last of that. In the meantime, I'll leave you with a cover image that I've been considering for a collection of horror/noir stories. What do you think?

Been A While

Been a while since I blogged. I’ve been giving and grading finals, meeting with students, meeting for the last time in the semester with various groups and committees. I have one more final to give. Tomorrow. So far I’ve only made two students cry. Better than some years. I hate this time of year. I hate flunking people. And yes, they have truly brought it on themselves, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

Lana has been having some issues. Her taste sensitivities have gone all to hell since the tonsillectomy. Many of the foods she loves to eat taste like crap to her now. We are hoping that will ease up soon. She’s also having some pain in the neck area where the cancer is, and we’ve already been put off once in getting an appointment for her treatment. It’s frustrating and upsetting. However,  Lana did return to work today. I’m home alone for a few hours. I hope she’ll have a good day.

Outside of tomorrow, I should be more regular in blogging for a while now, and able to blog about some things other than work and health issues. I see my Google reader is up to 271 posts. I won’t make it through all of those, but I will start trying to do some visiting today. I’ve got a couple of ideas for decent blog posts coming up.

 I will be signing books with several other writers around 4:00 this Saturday, May 5th, at the Barnes & Noble in Mandeville, Louisiana. I know very few of you live anywhere close, but you are invited if you would like. I also got in a shipment of some of my own books today. I got more copies of In the Language of Scorpions and of Bitter Steel. I now have copies of all my books except Writing in Psychology, and the ebooks, of course, Days of Beer, Killing Trail, and Harvest of War, so if anyone is interested in a signed copy, drop me a line at kainja at hotmail dot com.

 And now, off to visit blogs.
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