Alternate Universes for Writers

Alternate Universes are popular concepts in science fiction. Generally they are used to create settings in which some pivotal historical event turned out differently, such as the US not entering WWII and Hitler winning, or Europe intervening in the Civil War so that it’s still going on in a more modern world.

I was thinking of an alternate world in which fictional novels were never invented. The population would be generally literate but the material available for reading would be nonfiction primarily, with some mythological material. There’d be no tradition of printed fiction. And science would be just starting to get underway.

Say I got transported to that world. I started thinking about what I’d do if I wanted to establish a tradition of fiction writing in this universe.  Most of what I have written is clearly later in our Earth’s tradition. But there are many great earlier stories in our own tradition that I’ve often wondered how I might rewrite them if I’d come up with those ideas first. In this alternate universe none of those ideas would be done, so I’d have my chance. Here’s what I was imagining last night that I’d write in this alternate world. What do you think? Which books would you write?

1. War of the Worlds

2.  Dracula

3.  Frankenstein

4.  Wolfman

5.  The Invisible Man

6.  Journey to the Center of the Earth

7.  Lord of the Flies

8.  The Mummy Returns

9.  The Living Dead

10. From Earth to the Moon

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When the Crik Rises

In my first memory of my dad, he’s a heroic figure. I don’t know how old I was when the memory was formed, but not very. My mom worked outside the home when I was little, and there was no kindergarten in Arkansas at that time. This meant that up until first grade I spent much of my time with Dad. On this one particular morning, we’d driven down into the field to check on the cows after a night of heavy rain.

The cattle were in a field on the other side of our creek, and the place where we normally crossed the stream was running too high to drive the truck through. Dad parked and we walked along the creek to where it widened out and the rushing water slowed. It still looked like a muddy, swollen river to me, but Dad picked me up and put me on his shoulders and waded across.

I remember being a little scared and a little excited both as I sat up there high and looked out over the world. With a daddy like that, what might one accomplish?

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Surety Versus Doubt

Every day on Facebook I see something that amazes me. I see people expressing opinions with seemingly total conviction about such things as religion, politics, gun control and so on. I can’t wrap my head around it. These issues are complicated. There are no simple, black and white answers. The only thing that seems clear to me is that we cannot be absolutely sure on any of these topics.

I also know from my studies in psychology that “surety” is based on emotion rather than intellect. Some folks will “feel” the truth in their position and will proceed from there with total confidence in their actions. Honestly, I have always considered such people dangerous. I have also had to check my own responses in such cases because my immediate “feeling” is to reject what these people say with a snort of derision at their naivety.  I tell myself that I have to keep in mind that even a broken clock is right twice a day.

I am convinced that there are certain places where we don’t need to engage our intellect at more than a surface level. For example, I am a fan of the New Orleans Saints. I did not evaluate my fanship rationally; I didn’t even attempt to do so. I’m most prominently a fan because I live near them, and if I lived in Green Bay I’d probably be a fan of the Packers.  When a penalty is called on my beloved Saints, I often scream at the refs and talk about favoritism. And I know I’m being subjective and I don’t care. Because, in the grand scheme of things, no one should really care. Football just isn’t that important. We can afford to be irrational about it.

But politics, religion, science, and many of the other topics I see constantly being discussed on facebook are important. No, they are “critical.” There needs to be less “feeling” of what is true and more “seeking” for it. And that requires thought, not emotion. It requires the withholding of snap judgments. It requires that we question our own beliefs and not just our opponent’s. In fact, questioning our own beliefs is more important, because another thing you learn from psychology is how easy it is to reject evidence that does not already agree with your viewpoint.

 I am constantly questioning my own beliefs. I work through pro and con arguments for just about everything in my head, or often in print. I try to sift through evidence and examples and, usually, I arrive at a compromise position because I’ll see that both sides of the debate have some merit worth considering. It is seldom that the evidence supports an extreme position, although that has happened. Ultimately, I tend to come out the other end of this process with a level of intellectual satisfaction and a level of emotional dissatisfaction. And I think that’s a reflection of the real complexity of the world we live in.

I’ll sum up this rant by saying two things to those who are so “sure” of their rightness. First, if you haven’t actively investigated your position by considering the evidence as objectively as possible, you are being intellectually dishonest with yourself and everyone around you. Second, if you don’t have doubts, then you’re not doing it right.

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Top Ten Sword and Planet Books of All Time

David T. Wilbanks asked me the other day to list my top ten Sword and Planet books. Since the genre is ever close to my heart, I always love getting a chance to talk about it. For those who aren’t familiar with Sword and Planet (S & P) fiction, here’s a quick description of the genre.

           

The basic story is about an Earthman (seemingly never an Earth woman) who is transported to an exotic alien world where he must use his wits, his muscles, and a sword against a host of human and nonhuman foes. Any apparent supernatural force usually turns out to be “super science” instead of truly supernatural. The S & P hero is generally not a barbarian, but is most often quite chivalrous.  Edgar Rice Burroughs is considered the father of this type of fiction, and his John Carter of Mars books established the pattern.

Here’s my list for top ten Sword and Planet books of all time.

1.  A Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This one started it all. It’s the first in the John Carter of Mars series. The recent movie, John Carter, is based on this story and used a lot of elements of it, including Carter’s capture by the Green Men, and his relationship with Dejah Thoris. However, the movie introduced the Thern aspects of the plot and the moving city of Zodanga stuff. The book had a lot of high octane action mixed with all kinds of exotic scenery.

2.  The Gods of Mars & The Warlord of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs. These are the next two books in the John Carter series, but I’m considering them as one book because they really are one large story cut into two segments. These were even better than “Princess” and mark the height of the John Carter series. I only rank “Princess” higher because it was the first.  ERB wrote eleven books in the series, although the last one was left as a partial when he died.

3.  Almuric, by Robert E. Howard. Howard is known more for Sword & Sorcery than S & P, but he did write this one entry in the genre and it’s a doozy. It shows that even when Howard was being imitative, he couldn’t help but bring his own immense creativity and imagination to bear. It’s certainly a unique entry in the genre in many ways. The only problem with this book is that the ending seems to have a very different tone and there are many who think that Howard did not actually write the last chapter of the book. That last chapter is much more standard S & P than what came before.

4.  Outlaw of Mars, by Leigh Brackett. This is actually a compilation of two Eric John Stark tales, “The Secret of Sinharat,” and “People of the Talisman.” Brackett’s work also blurs the lines of the S & P novel slightly but the Stark stories still fall within the borders of that genre. Stark is a kind of mixture of ERB’s Tarzan and C. L. Moore’s Northwest Smith. Brackett was a great stylist as well, at least in my opinion.

5.  A Sword for Kregen, by Dray Prescot, as told to Alan Burt Akers, who was really the British author Kenneth Bulmer. The Dray Prescot series is the longest running S & P series ever. Thirty-seven volumes were published originally in English, and quite a few more in German. The German ones are just now being published in English finally, after a lot of begging from the fans. A Sword for Kregen is number 20 in the series and the first that I read. It’s still my favorite, although a number of others come close, including Renegade of Kregen and Krozair of Kregen. The first in the series is Transit to Scorpio. The main character is Dray Prescot, a sailor from Earth who mixes some of the characteristics of John Carter and Howard’s Conan.

6. In the Courts of the Crimson Kings, by S. M. Stirling. This is a modernized version of the S & P tale and it works beautifully. Stirling captured the excitement of the S & P story but added a level of scientific plausibility that many other entries into the genre have lacked. I would love to see more stories from Stirling in this setting but that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.

7.  Nomads of Gor, by John Norman. Norman has a bad rep these days and much of it is deserved. In his Gor series, and in other books he’s written as well, he has generally depicted women as natural slaves to men, and he’s gone to great lengths in describing the conditions of that slavery. What isn’t well known is that there was very little of this in the first books in his Gorean series. Yes, there were female slaves, but also free females. And there were male slaves as well. This is not unusual in fantasy fiction. The later books in the Gor series began to emphasize female slavery more and more, and eventually just became unreadable to me. The first six books of the series, however, are quite good S & P tales, and quite traditional in most ways. “Nomads” is my favorite and is #4 in the series. The first is Tarnsman of Gor.

8.  Planet of Peril, by Otis Adelbert Kline. Kline was a contemporary of ERB’s and also wrote series of S & P novels set on both Mars and Venus. Planet of Peril is the first in his Venus series and is pretty good, although it feels much more dated than ERB’s stuff to me. Kline does get credit for being there at the very beginning though. Notably, Kline was also Robert E. Howard’s agent and his encouragement is probably the reason why Howard wrote Almuric in the first place. Some people believe that Kline is the guy who wrote the last chapter of Almuric, although a friend of mine named Morgan Holmes has evidence to suspect Otto Binder as the culprit. Binder worked with Kline and knew much about Howard’s work.

9.  Thief of Llarn, by Gardner F. Fox. This is the second and last in the Llarn series from Fox, the first being Warrior of Llarn. “Thief” is the first one I read. The main character is an Earthman named Alan Morgan, who is very similar in many ways to John Carter. The Llarn stories don’t really break any new ground but I thought this one was a lot of fun.

10. Kaldar – World of Antares, by Edmond Hamilton. This is actually a collection of three short stories about a character named Stuart Merrick, who is transported to the planet of Kaldar in the Antares system. I read the individual stories in other sources long before this volume was published and much enjoyed them. I’ve always thought it interesting that Hamilton’s “Kaldar” preceded Ken Bulmer’s “Kregen,” which was also set in the Antares system. The only real similarities are in the names and settings, and I have no idea if Bulmer knew about the Kaldar stories. He probably did but whether it was a conscious influence or not is unknown.

So there you have it, my top ten S & P works. Of course, many other writers have played in the S & P genre, including Michael Moorcock, Lin Carter, and Jack Vance. This is also the genre my Talera series falls in, and I’ve written other individual S & P stories, including The Machineries of Mars, which I self-published on Amazon. For a longer examination of the genre, see the article by myself and Stephen Servello over at ERBzine. 

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Genre Shaming

Feedly has been down today. From what I picked up on their blog, they've been web attacked by some group that wants to extort money from them. Let's hope they get it cleared up soon. Since I no longer even have all of the individual links for folks, I'm not visiting blogs until they get Feedly back up and running. Just means I have time to update my book files on the books I bought today when I visited 2nd and Charles. Not that I needed more books.

Another thing making the rounds on Facebook has been somebody who went on a rant about how grown ups shouldn't be wasting their time on YA fiction. Probably just a pathetic cry for attention. I always have to laugh when people do this sort of thing, try to denigrate the reading choices of other people to make themselves feel better and smarter. I even heard the term 'genre shaming' the other day and got a good cackle out of it.

I've never lived in a place, or even been in a writing group, in which my primary choices for reading and writing weren't frowned upon.  It never had one iota of effect on my reading/writing behavior, although I once left a group because of the constant snide comments comparing my work to comic books, which the person making the comments didn't know anything about anyway.

My advice to those who feel attacked for their choices:  1) Be confident in your own choices. If you're reading, then it means you've got some intelligence and imagination, which already puts you into an elite group of humanity. 2) Know that no matter what you read, you are building a vocabulary and learning to process written information in a faster and more efficient way. 3) Stop giving a shit what people with lesser imaginations criticize about you.

I do firmly believe it's better to read all kinds of things than to limit yourself to just one genre, but there are no genres to be ashamed of. Certainly, there are good and bad examples of writing and storytelling within all genres. But it's all grist for the mill.

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The Flying Nun

I've been working this summer on another memoir book, like Days of Beer, but this one focused more generally on growing up in Arkansas, living on the farm, hunting and fishing, and family life. Most of the episodes I've put in so far have been funny ones. Here's a sample. Not laugh out loud funny, but I thought it had a bit of a zinger.  There are some other incidents that are much more hilarious. Anyway, here's a little piece I call "The Flying Nun."

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I went to a Catholic grade school where we were taught by nuns during the entire six years. We had some sisters I really liked, and some not quite so much. We never had one that I had more respect for than Sister Annella, though. She would play baseball and even football with us at recess.

One morning after we’d come out of mass and were headed back for school, I was bragging to Sister about how fast I could run. She indicated that she was pretty fast too but I just kind of grinned and told her she wasn’t as fast as me. She said, “let’s just see.”

Taking that as a challenge, I prepared to show Sister my heels. We took off for the school, with her holding the hem of her habit up so she could run better. I had no doubt I could beat her.

I was wrong. 

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New Review of Swords of Talera

S E Lindberg has put up a detailed review of Swords of Talera, the first in the Talera series of Sword & Planet novels. I hope you can check it out.

As I mentioned to him in a comment, Swords of Talera was written when I was twenty-four, although it was polished up before it was printed in 2007. There was a pretty long gap between Swords and Wings over Talera, the second book, and another long gap before I wrote the third book, Witch of Talera. Swords is a bit more pure Sword & Planet, and very much an homage to ERB. The second and third books begin to bring in more Sword & Sorcery and horror elements, and the series gets progressively darker across the trilogy.

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Morning Words

When I don't have an alarm set for work, I always awaken in the morning out of a dream. The one I was having this morning involved pushing a car along a brutally rutted road in the dark. But that wasn't of much interest. Far more interesting to me is that, as I lay there for a moment, words suddenly appeared floating in the air right in front of my face. Closing my eyes allowed me to see them better, because, of course, they weren't really there.

Sometimes when I awaken I'm very briefly caught in what is called a hypnopompic state. From what I've read, the state is produced by being largely awake but with the brain activity in the frontal lobes still suppressed. Frontal lobe activity is key to what we call rational consciousness. Most people will occasionally experience such states, though most don't recognize them and just refer to them as dreaming.

Hypnopomic states are driven by emotion, and, in my case, probably because I'm such a huge reader as well as a writer, the imagery that appears in that state often consists of words floating in the air before my eyes. Most of the time I can read a few of the words but the meaning is usually jumbled. This morning, however, a whole phrase appeared to me. I've copied it below. Only the word indicated here as "throat" was smeared. I couldn't read what was actually there but "throat" seems like the most logical choice to my fully awakened frontal lobe. Perhaps you have a better word to replace it.

"There are those who smile and talk to your face with the tongues of angels, and all the while their black gaze is fixed on your throat, and their teeth click, click, click as they whisper evil behind your back."

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Fish Bone Cure

We ate quite a lot of fish when I was growing up. Dad always ran a couple of trotlines in the spring and summer, and both Paul David and I liked to fish. Mostly we caught catfish on cane poles with hooks baited either with grasshoppers and worms, or with some of the chicken hearts, livers and gizzards Mom brought home from the processing plant. We also caught bass and bream, though, usually on old Zebco reels with spinners on the line. We loved eating them all.

 Though I liked the taste of fish, I didn’t like bones and sometimes worried about choking on one. I’d heard that if you ever got a bone caught in your throat you should drink vinegar, which would dissolve it.

One night the terrible thing I’d dreaded happened. I got a fish bone caught in my throat and panicked. I jumped up from the table and took off running into the kitchen where mom kept a little carafe of vinegar on the counter. I tore the cap off and drank the whole thing down in a couple of gulps.

The cure worked, though whether the vinegar dissolved the bone or just washed it down I’ll never know. Unfortunately, the treatment was about as bad as the bone. I think the vinegar dissolved about half my esophagus too, and maybe a little bit of stomach.

Come to think of it, though, it wasn’t much worse than drinking straight shots of Jack Daniels. But that’s a story from when I was quite a bit older.

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Ideas

I have gotten the question, "where do you get your ideas?" It's not the most common writerly question I get but it's certainly happened more than once. My first word in response is: "Everywhere."  And that's true. But some particularly fertile places for ideas for me are:

1. Dreams

2. Overheard conversations, particularly "misheard" ones

3. Reading science

4. Reading history 

5. Nature (both seeing it and listening to it)

That's not particularly the topic of my post today, though. I want to talk about the fact that, for me, I get two types of ideas. The first kind are those that leap into my mind fully formed. Imagine kicking through some debris and turning over a perfectly cut and polished little jewel. Maybe there's a little dirt on it to brush off, but once that's done the jewel is ready to keep or to sell. For me, this happens most prominently with flash fiction, and sometimes with longer short stories. But not with novels. 

 As an analogy for the second kind of idea I get, imagine digging through a cave somewhere and uncovering a fossil. Only, it's not the whole fossil. It's just a single big bone. You dig around a little more and find another bone, and then pieces of others. The finding is pretty easy but now the hard work begins. As any paleontologist will tell you, getting a fossil out of the ground is back breaking work, and after that you have to put it all together, which requires even more hours of time. This is most often how my novels get put together. And sometimes it happens this way for stories, usually longer pieces. I get a big idea and realize there are a lot of smaller ideas all nestled around it. Then I have to dig it out, start putting it together, find on occasion that I’ve put something together wrong and have to back track. But finally you have a finished piece.

So, for those of you who are writers, is this something similar to what happens for you?  Or is the process very different?

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Zanthar of the Many Worlds: Review

I love Sword and Planet fiction. Edgar Rice Burroughs, Leigh Brackett, Alan Burt Akers (aka Ken Bulmer), and many others. There’s a reason why I’ve spent so much time writing it myself, as with the Talera series. I find it the purest form of adventure fiction. And I take it seriously.

I also demand that the writers whose Sword and Planet offerings I read take it seriously too. I’m afraid that I can’t quite picture Robert Moore Williams, who wrote this book, Zanthar of the Many Worlds, taking the genre seriously.

The book begins with John Zanthar, a brilliant Earth scientist who invents a machine that can open portals to other worlds. Zanthar himself is sucked through it accidentally, and later two of his students are sucked through as well. So is a man named Fu Cong, who becomes the primary villain of the story. So far, so good.

Then the weaknesses with the work start to arise. One would expect that transportation to an alien world would cause a person a bit of dislocation and discomfort. Not Zanthar. In the first few pages of the story he acquires some allies who decide he’s a god, and defeats the leader of a horde of attackers who are riding “miniature dinosaurs.” These appear to be T Rexes a bit bigger than the “Velociraptors” of Jurassic Park. Zanthar kills one of these dinosaurs with one blow from a “copper  hammer” he’d been carrying in his lab when the transportation occurred. He also has no problem communicating with his new friends, who are conveniently riding telepathic beasts. And one of his new allies is a beautiful woman capable of healing any wound merely by laying hands on it and concentrating. Later she proves capable of raising the dead. (I’m not sure I’ve ever had a day that easy in the real world.)

I’m also a lover of good poetical prose, and the best Sword and Planet fiction has this. The prose in Zanthar of the Many Worlds is almost completely leaden, and in many cases just downright silly. Here’s a bit of prose from early in the book: “And then: ‘The love-life?’ Zanthar questioned. He did not understand the term. In fact, he was not at all certain that he understood a tenth of the words she used. ‘I do not understand.’” The repetition was just wretched.

Later, there’s an actual bit of dialogue imagined by Zanthar between atoms.  I’m not making this up. Here it is:

“Zanthar had the impression that he could hear the atoms talking each to the other, saying, ‘Brother, where are you?’

‘Comrade, what has happened?’

‘Sister, why are we in darkness?’

‘Cousin molecule, where has mother gone?’

‘And where is father?’

‘Is—is this the night that never ends?’ an atomic voice wailed.

‘Is—is this the end of the universe of atoms?’ another whispered.” 

That was it for me. I stopped reading and just quickly scanned the rest of the book. I can’t in good conscience recommend it to anyone. And, do be aware that there are three sequels in this series, Zanthar at the Edge of Never, Zanthar at Moon’s Madness, and Zanthar at Trip’s End. All were published by Lancer books and were probably contracted for to capitalize on the Conan boom of the sixties. They were published between 1967 and 1969 and I’m guessing they were written exceedingly fast. I know Moore wrote a lot of books. He died in 1977. I have a few others of his at the house, most notably the Jongar series. They’ve all moved way down my list of books to read after this Zanthar fiasco. I read a quote once about a different writer that rather sums up my feelings about this book. “That’s not writing. That’s typing.”

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Access Restored

The technician from AT & T showed up about 8:30 this morning and took about 15 minutes to restore our phone service and internet. Turns out a tree limb had fallen on the wires across the road from us and that proved easily rectified.

Although I'm very glad the guy finally came to fix it, and that it was easily done, I'm still furious that AT & T let us sit for a week without any phone and net service. They could clearly care less if they have our business or not.

Anyway, I'm way, way behind on things so I'll start going around to blogs before long. It will take me a day or two to catch up, I imagine.

Off Line through no choice of mine

As of Sunday night about 9:00, our phone and internet went out. We called AT & T the next morning bright and early and they told us it would be fixed by May 17, Saturday. When I protest they supposedly switched me to a supervisor, where I remained on hold for over 20 minutes and finally hung up. I am not happy but it seems there is little I can do,

Almost any other week would not have been a problem because I'd be going into work. But this marks the one full week I have off before summer school starts and I was hoping not to have to make the two and a half hour round trip this week. I finally came over to the library with my laptop, which is a good 15 minute drive but much better than the alternative. Unfortunately, I failed to bring extra batteries for my mouse, which is dying. This laptop gives me a problem with the built-in mouse so now I'm up a creek.

Anyway, this is why I'm not visiting blogs this week. I'll be back as soon as we get phone and net back.

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LEADEN

I love a good story but I also love lyrical prose. Lyrical is the right word because prose has a sound to me. It’s not quite poetry but it has a musical element. In the hands of a master, it sings.

Consider: “See the child. He is pale and thin, he wears a thin and ragged linen shirt. He strokes the scullery fire. Outside lie dark turned fields with rags of snow and darker woods beyond that harbor yet a few last wolves. His folk are known for hewers of wood and drawers of water but in truth his father has been a schoolmaster. He lies in drink, he quotes from poets whose names are now lost. The boy crouches by the fire and watches him.” (Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian)

Or: “The battle in the meadowlands of the Euphrates was over, but not the slaughter. On that bloody field...the steel-clad bodies lay strewn like the drift of a storm. The great canal men called the Nile, which connected the Euphrates with the distant Tigris, was choked with the bodies of the tribesmen, and survivors were panting in flight toward the white walls of Hilla, which shimmered in the distance above the placid waters of the nearer river.” (Robert E. Howard, “The Lion of Tiberias”)

Very different language, and yet both are beautiful to me. I always strive to make my prose sound good as well as be functional, although it is not easy to achieve. I also believe the sound of the prose should match the content of the story. A horror tale will have different music to it than a fantasy. I believe fantasy in particular lends itself to beautiful prose, because fantasy generally requires much more description than horror fiction does.

So, I read a lot of fantasy, in hopes of getting a fix of both great story and beautiful writing. Then I come upon something like this:

“More important, if he could but grasp the language, what was the strange power this woman had? ‘You have strange powers,’ Zanthar said.”

And then: “The love-life?” Zanthar questioned. He did not understand the term. In fact, he was not at all certain that he understood a tenth of the words she used. “I do not understand.” 

Repetition ad nauseam seems to be this author’s stock in trade. The repetition of “strange power(s)” and of “understood” are just killers here to any music these phrases may have had. Not to mention the far from pithy dialogue, which simply restates exactly what the writer has just told the reader in narrative. This is the very illustration of “leaden” prose.

One guess who this author is.  If you read my last post, it’s the same guy. Robert Moore Williams. I was gonna give up on this book but have decided to continue on. I think I can milk a few more blog posts out of it. I can only hope no one will ever find my own writing so worthy of this type of exploration. I’d much rather be compared with McCarthy and Howard.

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STRUGGLE

 I believe there is an important principle for authors to remember when writing fiction. This is: the victory a character achieves is directly proportional to the struggle needed to acquire that victory. The greater the struggle, the greater the victory. And the greater the struggle, the more readers will pull for that character to win and take joy when he or she does.

This holds true no matter the ‘level’ of the struggle. It doesn’t have to be a fight to the death. It doesn’t have to be a “save humanity or it goes extinct” kind of conflict. A child struggling against prejudice, a woman struggling to escape an abusive relationship, a man striving to find meaning in a world where he feels like a spent coin are all examples of the kinds of struggles that could, and have, become engaging fiction.

I’m reading a book now where the writer didn’t know this simple fact, or at least hasn’t illustrated his knowledge of it so far. The book is Zanthar of the Many Worlds by Robert Moore Williams. A man is transported to another planet. Within a few moments he acquires some allies who decide he’s a god, and he defeats a horde of attackers. He kills something referred to as a “miniature dinosaur” with one blow from a “copper  hammer” he’d been carrying in his lab when the transportation occurred. He has no problem communicating with his new friends, one of whom proves capable of healing any wound merely by laying hands on it and concentrating.

First I’m yawning. Then I start to scan. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a day on this real world where everything has gone that easily. And I've never even had to kill a miniature dinosaur with a hammer. Is the author going to get a clue? I’ll give it another dozen pages or so and see. I’m not confident.

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Notable New Releases

Several of my friends have new books out that I’m eagerly looking forward to getting and reading. Perhaps you might enjoy these works as well. Here’s a quick blurb about them.

1. First up, Ron Scheer, over at Buddies in the Saddle has released How the West was Written: Volume 1.  Beat to a Pulp is the publisher. Ron has been doing a long running exploration on his blog of the early history of printed western tales. And he’s branched out well beyond such names as Owen Wister and Zane Grey. I’ve been following his work on this project eagerly and have ordered the book, though I haven’t yet had a chance to read it. Both an ebook and print version are available. Here’s the link on Amazon  

2. Bernard Lee DeLeo at Bernard’s Blog has the second book in his Cold Blooded series available for preorder. I tell you I almost NEVER preorder a book but I did this one. Looking forward to reading it. I’ve liked everything I’ve read from DeLeo, but the first Cold Blooded was my favorite. You can preorder here

3. C. S. Harris. The latest in Harris’s Sebastian St. Cyr mystery series has been released, Why King’s Confess. This is an excellent historical mystery series that just ‘drips’ with atmosphere. It’s at Amazon here. I love this series.

4. Richard Prosch has released One Against a Gun Horde, a collection of western stories set mostly in Nebraska and Wyoming.  I’ve been remiss in getting this one up. I plead overwork. See Amazon link here.

5. Beat to a Pulp has a number of new releases out. They also have a re-release of  A RipThrough Time, which yours truly has a section in. An exciting space time adventure, if I do say so myself. And I do.

6. James Reasoner and his wife Livia have also leaped into the publishing ranks with Rough Edges Press. They have a good number of releases out already with a lot more to come. Check out their website. 

I’ve probably forgotten someone. If so, I’ll have to put up a second edition of this short list. But, for now, happy reading!

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Back in Action, but for Captcha

Most of my grading is done until Saturday, when I give an 8:00 in the morning final exam. Yeah, really looking forward to it. I'm now figuring out all the grades to turn in, which will take time but is not so taxing as grading itself.

I even decided to visit blogs today and then found the captcha thing was apparently down.  After writing half a dozen comments on various blogs and then being unable to post them I gave up. Hopefully the verification system will be back up and working tomorrow and I will try any new blog posts that come up.

I'm looking forward to doing a little reading. Haven't had much chance in the past few days. I did write a flash fiction story yesterday. Only 438 words. It came right from a dream I had, with minimal changes. I'm calling it "See Your Night, and Raise You Hell."

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Blogging Absence

Getting my final papers in today (Thursday), and gave two tests this week that I need to grade. Will have another test on Monday. Senior Grades have to be turned in by noon on Tuesday of next week. This is a long way around of saying I'm going to be absent from the blogosphere for a bit, probably until at least Wednesday morning. I trust you will all be well.

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Star Trek Dream

I dreamt last night that I was on the set for the filming of the final scenes of a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode. Picard, Troi, Riker and Crusher had beamed down to a planet and been trapped by a group of aliens whose ship had crashed there. These aliens were reptilian, an apparent offshoot of the Gorn. Something in the planet’s atmosphere was causing the Gorns to mutate into near-mindless alligator type creatures. The ones who were still OK insisted that the humans, who were unaffected by the condition, help them solve the problem before they were all lost.

In the scene I witnessed, the Trek crew discovered that the problem had something to do with unequal air pressures inside and outside the bodies of the aliens. These pressures were causing their skulls and bodies to distort. Once the Trek crew figured out the problem, the aliens had a device that was able to equalize the pressures and prevent the mutations from occurring.

It was clear to me that the actors thought the whole concept was very weak and they weren’t really enjoying themselves. As the last scene was filmed and the actors headed for the dressing room area, I was walking along with them and saw lots of head shaking. As Patrick Stewart was unbuttoning the top of his uniform he made the comment: “That was insane.” 

I guess that’s why this episode never aired!

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Our Yard

It’s Easter Break and I’m at my computer at home instead of at work this morning. That means I get to look out the window at our bird feeders, which I just filled about five minutes ago. I love our yard. The activity is nonstop. In the past few minutes I’ve counted 30 indigo buntings, a beautiful little blue bird about sparrow size, 5 blue jays, 5 doves, 3 cardinals, 2 brown thrashers, 2 red bellied woodpeckers, 1 red headed woodpecker, and 6 squirrels. There’ll be a lot more doves, cardinals, and squirrels across the day.

Last night we had our usual posse of raccoons. At one point after Lana had thrown out the scraps I heard something fall over on the back porch and went to look. A coon was up on the railing and walked right up to the glass back door and peered in while I was standing there. A little later I saw a possum in the yard.

I grew up in the country, of course, and have seen a lot of critters in my life. I think I’m enjoying them more now than I ever did before, though. I’ve spent most of my life either daydreaming or working. And whenever I’m doing either of those things, I do them in an intensely immersed state that doesn’t allow for many distractions. Finally now, in my fifth decade, I’m starting to look up occasionally from whatever has my attention at the moment and just watch the life around me.  I owe Lana for a lot of this. She’s taught me quite a bit about just experiencing without having to analyze. It’s rather a joy.

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Skyrim Victory

I’ve posted here before about my favorite video game, which is Skyrim. This is an heroic fantasy game, in which one can play various types of heroes in a fantasy setting full of demi-gods, assassins, wizards and dragons. I’ve chosen to be a Nord warrior, although you can also take the thief’s route, the assassin’s route, or the mage’s route. The Nord are a hardy Northern race akin roughly to Vikings. My character’s name is Ruane.

There is an overall story arch to the game in which the player becomes the Dovakin, meaning kin to dragons. Dragons had disappeared from the land but something is now bringing them back to life, and the Dovakin has to solve that mystery and defeat the enemy causing it. Along the way there are lots of side entanglements, including having to choose between the southern empire (basically Rome) that rules the land or a local uprising that hopes to throw the empire out of Skyrim. You also have to deal with vampires and werewolves along the way, or become one, and explore many caves, grottos, and ruins that contain monsters.

I’ve now solved the major mystery of the game but am still playing some side quests. I really like the exploration part of the game, and there’s a couple of other elements that I like very much that Lana laughs at me about. First, you get to smith up your own weapons and armor from materials you find in your journeys. Then you can add enchantments such as fire or frost resistance, enhanced archery skill, added shock damage etc to the weapons and armor you make.  I’ve had tremendous fun doing this, and have continued it after the main quest is over.

Second, books exist in the Skyrim universe--all kinds of books, such as spell tomes, history texts, explorer’s journals and so on. And you can acquire houses in the game that have bookshelves in them where you can add or take away books. I’ve steadily been acquiring all the books I can find as I’ve gone through the game, and now that the major part is over I’ve started filling my bookshelves. In this aspect the game is much like my real life. And I take joy in it.

I’ll mention one more fun element of the game to end this post. A skill that players develop as they move through the game is the ability to “shout.” Shout is a magical attack and there are shouts that can freeze things, set things on fire, slow down time and many others. My favorite shout is one called “Unrelenting Force,” which hits the enemy with a intense blast of air that can send them flying. Lana also gets a kick out of this shout and has actually put up a video on You Tube of me using this shout on various targets. The music she set it to really makes the vid. If you’d like to check it out, it’s HERE.  (The horse you see in some of the clips is Shadow Mere, a pretty cool companion beast that you can get in the game.)

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Oh the Cruelty, or is that Cruelness?

Well, been almost a week since I posted on the blog. I don’t know how time gets away from me. For one, we had preregistration last week, and I gave a test on Friday and got 30 essays from another class on Friday. Lots of grading over the weekend.

I had also been doing some writing. I finished a short horror story called “Long Dead Woman in a Black Dress,” which I’ll be submitting soon. I’m about halfway done with an SF story that carries the working title “Electric Love in Blue.” And I’ve drafted the first scene of a new Krieg story, which I’m calling “Where All the Souls are Hollow.”

Then came Sunday. On Sunday, all the plumbing in the house seemed to clog up, and it’s gotten worse. Plumber is supposed to come today (Tuesday) and I hope the news won’t be too bad. I don’t know about you, but these kinds of domestic crises take a toll on me. I know I should roll with the flow (or non-flow considering our current issue), but I just find it hard to concentrate when dealing with this kind of stuff. I let it get to me too much.

On the review front, I think the interview over on Prashant’s blog came off well. I sure appreciate him putting it up. On the less positive side, I also noticed a couple of days ago that Bitter Steel has a new review and it is a 1 star stomp. Looks like it went up about a month ago but this is the first I’ve seen it.  I apparently achieved the notable level of “tripe!”  This is actually the first 1 star review I’ve ever gotten for anything so I have to keep it in perspective.

Whether reviews are good or bad, I always read them to see if I can pick up any insights into what readers like or don’t like. This one was not very helpful, though. Besides the “tripe” label, he adds: “Then I stumbled upon the word 'cruelness', and I knew that it was a lost cause. Out of all the actual words the author could have chosen, he picked 'cruelness'. The word is 'cruelty', Shakespeare.”

Of course, cruelness is a perfectly good word that is found in dictionaries everywhere and is even counted as a word in Scrabble. I remember considering “cruelty” in the context of the story but I felt that ‘cruelness’ had the better sound in that particular situation.  So, if the use of “cruelness” instead of “cruelty” can make such an impact on this particular reader, there was no way I’d ever reach him anyway. Frankly, I’ve been much more troubled by 3 star reviews that took the work seriously and found something lacking.

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Reviews, Updated

Updated News:

Prashant, over at Chess, Comics, Crosswords, Books, Music, Cinema, has now put up the review of Killing Trail, and there is an interview with yours truly.  I hope you'll get a chance to drop by and leave a comment. I'll be checking back and forth during the day to answer any questions that folks might have for me.

Also, Aimless Writer (Jeanne) still has her review of Harmland: Dark Tales up over on her blog. I'm very glad to see she enjoyed it. If you'd like, you can read her review here. She has a couple of books of her own available that you should check out.
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Fits and Starts: Drips and Drabs

I've actually written a fair number of words lately but ultimately have not made a lot of "progress." I've started four different projects that would be novel length but all four fizzled out fairly quickly. One will eventually be finished; I just don't really feel like working on it right at the moment. Of the others, one will probably go nowhere because I was trying to capture an urban fantasy vibe and it just isn't my genre. I've tried it before and never been able to complete such a piece. I know what the problem is on the third work and it needs rewriting because my scenes were too much telling and not enough showing. That I can do but I've got to get the energy up and school has been pretty draining lately.

I did finish a couple of short stories and some memoir stuff. Some of that is submitted now and I hope for good results. I've been noting a decided lack of focus and discipline in myself of late. I know what I need to do but I'm not feeling too guilty about letting the work slide. Anyway, as I've learned over the years, even putting words on paper in drips and drabs can result in finished work. It just takes time.

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Today's Writing Quiz

Today, my writing students are going to get the following, non-graded quiz. All the examples here are taken from actual student papers handed in to me in the past. Although there are some outright errors below, most of the sentences are serviceable but wordy or convoluted.  

What is either wrong or weak about the following sentences?  Revise to remove those problems.

 1.  In order to analyze their results, the researchers used an ANOVA.

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2.  The study would seem to suggest that males are more physically aggressive than females.

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3.  It has been found that honey bees can detect ultraviolet radiation.

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4.  The study examined the role of anxiety levels in racial stereotyping.

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5.  The researchers were interested in studying the effects of temperature on test taking.

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6.  The patient exhibited flattened effect.

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7.  When the participant was exposed to the test stimulus they showed a strong reaction.

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8.  Charles Darwin finds that there are remarkable similarities between humans and other primate species.

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9.  There have been a lot of studies done to investigate the role of anger in punishment.

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10.  Heroin is an elicit drug.

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11.  They gathered data from 17 women; all of whom were taking birth control pills.

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12.  Participants were asked to sign a consent form before filling out the survey.

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Noir at the Bar: The Readings:

So I made it the Noir at the Bar reading at the Irish House on St. Charles last night. I got there a bit early because I’d heard they had good food and figured to eat and drink a beer or two before the festivities began. Jāson Stuart, the organizer, and his wife, Karen, were also early so we all sat down to a meal. Karen and I had the house burger and we both agreed it was great. Jāson had the big Irish breakfast, with various kinds of sausages and puddings. Looked delicious and I’ll have to try that next time. Wonder of wonders, we talked books and writing. Who’d a thunk it?

Folks began to trickle in and we actually started the reading around 8:00. Jāson read a short, poignant piece from a work that should be out soon with a very intriguing main character. Heather Graham then read a piece from one of her published works. This was the first time I’d met Ms. Graham. She was very nice. The great Megan Abbott read next, from a work in progress. Everyone admired her description of rattlesnakes!  I didn’t get a chance to talk to her a lot but did mention knowing her mother, Patti Abbott. She laughed and said that everyone knew her mother.

Laura Lippman was unable to appear, but we also had readings from myself, Greg Herren, and Nate Southard. Greg was the only person besides me with a piece set in the New Orleans area. I believe he said the title of his tale was: “A Streetcar named Death.” Nate and his wife came all the way from Austin, giving them the win in the travel department. Nate’s piece featured a small town sheriff who is not only dealing with crimes but with the onset of Alzheimer’s. What an interesting concept.

Besides the readers, there were probably about a dozen other folks there, as well as some people listening in who had come to the bar because it was…well…a bar. I have to call out three of my Xavier colleagues for coming out to support me: Elizabeth and Elliott Hammer, and Kate Eskine. Kate brought hubby along. He didn’t seem to have been dragged kicking and screaming. Elizabeth is such a sweetheart she even wore a hat with a “Charles Gramlich Fan Club” attachment. It was great to have them there and I thank them. I am not worthy!

After it was all over, several of us sat around and visited and had another drink or two. We talked more writing and traded some books among ourselves. I really had a good time. I don’t get out a lot and this kind of event always makes me wonder why since I have a good time when I do. Thanks to Jāson for organizing and to everyone who read or came to listen. I’m hearing rumors of another one next year so that sounds pretty cool.

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Noir at the Bar

I'll be here on Saturday night this week, March 22. I'm really looking forward to it. A number of authors are going to be reading their noir tales, including Megan Abbott and, I think, Heather Graham. I'll be reading a piece called "The Finest Cut," which appeared in my Harmland collection. 

The reading takes place at the Irish House: 1432 St. Charles Ave., New Orleans, LA 70130. It's from 7:30 to 10:30. I have no idea what time I'm likely to be reading. But there is booze there! Come drop by and say hello if you can. Should be a great time. 

Contact information for the Irish House is: (504) 595-6755

info@theirishhouseneworleans.com

There's also a page on facebook about it. 

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Favorite Movies: Part 2

Here's part two of my list of favorite movies, and the ones that have had some influence on my fiction. 

             

             6. Alien. I consider this my second favorite horror movie. It’s far more horror than SF to me, although it combines those elements. It has definitely influenced some of my more graphic horror. I know Sigourney Weaver from this film, and I would recognize the name of the Captain if I heard it, although I can’t think of it now. Despite that, there’s one element of this film that irritates me, and that is how fast the alien grows after it “hatches.”

                7.  Aliens. The sequel to Alien is a very different movie. It has horror elements but it is primarily adventure SF, which I do enjoy writing. There are some great dialogue lines in this one, and some great characters. I know Weaver, of course, and would certainly recognize the names of several of the other actors if I heard them. This was an influence on Under the Ember Star.

                8. Predator. This movie nicely combines horror and adventure. The SF elements are really quite minimal. I know Arnold, of course, and Apollo Creed. I know that’s not the real name of the actor but the character he played on Rocky. There are elements of this movie that influenced Cold in the Light.

                9. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1978. Also a horror movie as opposed to a true SF film. Very enjoyable. I like the first version quite  a bit too, but this is the first version I “saw” and I’ll always have a soft spot for it. This film was remade a couple of times later and was horribly mangled. Only the first two versions are worth seeing. I would say this has influenced some of my horror.

                10. Brotherhood of the Wolf. This is a French film starring a number of actors whose names I wouldn’t even recognize. It’s based on real historical events, a “beast” that terrorized the French countryside and was widely believed at the time to be a werewolf. The movie puts quite a bit different spin on the “beast.” It’s got great action and wonderful visuals. I enjoyed this enough to go and buy a copy. I did so, partly, because I figured it wouldn’t show very often on TV. I was right.

Honorable Mentions:

                11. The Exorcist. One of the few movies that actually creeps me out.

                12. Excalibur.  A dramatic retelling of elements from the Arthur legend.

                13. Raiders of the Lost Ark. Great pulp adventure.

                14. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Western mythmaking with Clint Eastwood.

                15. Young Frankenstein. I seldom watch movie comedies but this is one of my favorites.

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Favorite Movies: Part 1:

I quite often make a point of saying that films mean almost nothing to me. It’s true. I watch movies. I enjoy some of them. Almost always I promptly forget them and can’t even remember their titles within a few days. I have no idea about the names of most actors. Lana often tells me the names when we’re watching movies, but within fifteen minutes I couldn’t give you that name. I think I’ve looked up something on the internet about movies or actors maybe a dozen times in my life. I’ve bought exactly six movie DVDs in my life, three of which I got in a package deal for about 3 bucks (and have never watched since I bought them).  Lana has bought two others that I might well have bought myself under the right circumstances. Yet, I cannot say that movies haven’t affected me. And there have been some that have influenced my writing. So, instead of bashing movies too badly today, I’m going to actually talk about a few movies I really do like and which have been influences on my fiction.  To avoid making these posts too long, I'll do it in two parts.

                1.  Once Upon a Time in the West. This is my favorite western, and perhaps my favorite movie. It stars Charles Bronson, Jason Robards, and Henry Fonda.  Bronson plays a gunfighter known only as “Harmonica,” and Fonda is the primary villain. This is really the classic myth of the old west and I do own a copy of it. I didn’t actually buy the copy, though. It was a gift. There are lines of dialogue and certain descriptions in the Talera series and in Cold in the Light that evoke elements of this film.

                2. The Outlaw Josey Wales. This is my second favorite western, starring Clint Eastwood, of course. I couldn’t tell you any of the other actors in it. It is actually based on a novel and is one of the very few cases in history where—for me—the movie is a whole lot better than the book. This also had an influence on the Talera series.

                3. The 13^th Warrior, starring Antonio Banderes and a bunch of other actors I don’t know. This is my favorite heroic fantasy movie. It’s based on Michael Crichton’s Eaters of the Dead, which is a retelling of the Beowulf story. Both the book and the movie are very good. The movie has been more of an influence on my work than the book, primarily because of the very strong visuals. This movie’s influences can be seen in some of my heroic fantasy, such as “A Whisper in Ashes.”

                4. The Thing, John Carpenter version. This is my favorite horror movie. I know the faces of many of the actors in it from other films but the only name I know is Kurt Russell. I thought the casting was excellent, though, and Carpenter got great performances from all the cast members. This has definitely influenced my horror fiction.

                5. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The one exception to my “I don’t care about TV/Movies” feelings is Star Trek: The Original Series. I will watch anything and everything about the original series and have seen every episode and film more than once. I’ve even watched the cartoon series, which featured the voices and likenesses of most of the original cast.  I know almost all the actors names, which is unheard of for me with any other series ever. I even know the names of many of the guest stars and have several of their autographs. Wrath of Khan is by far the best of the movies made with the original cast and I’ve watched it so many times I largely have it memorized. Perhaps strangely, however, it has had little actual influence on my writing. I’m sure it’s influenced overall themes but not many details of the Star Trek Universe enter my fiction. Part of it is that I seldom write SF of this type, and part is that I know the stuff so well that I automatically reject it for specifics in my own fiction. The one exception is probably the Spock eyebrow arch, which I have had characters do in my stories. Lana bought a copy of this but I fully endorsed the purchase.

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A Review of Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy

I read Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy quite a few years ago now, and reviewed it at the time in various places. I never posted the review on my blog, however, so here it is:

Book Review:  Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West:  (Vintage, 1992, 335 pages). This was the first book I read by Cormac McCarthy. It is both beautifully written, and deeply flawed. The prose is often scintillating. McCarthy’s command of the language and his use of metaphor and vocabulary is extraordinary, enough to make me envious. On the other hand, the flaws (as I see them) often make this book a difficult read.

   

First, in the modern literary tradition, McCarthy attempts to make his book as inaccessible as possible to readers. He eschews the use of normal dialogue punctuation and often leaves out helpful speaker tags. There are “no” quotation marks to indicate dialogue and I was incredibly irritated by this. It smacks of elitism. I see no benefit to it and the costs are considerable. There were many places where it was difficult to recognize transitions in dialogue and who was speaking. The writer’s job is to make his or her prose as accessible as possible. Note, I don’t say “easily accessible.” McCarthy’s work almost demands rereading for the quality of his prose, his imagery, and his meaning. Why, then, make a sometimes difficult task more difficult by doing something as silly as leaving out quotation marks.

   

There were two other major flaws in this work, flaws that prevent it from reaching the level of artistry that it had the potential to reach and which the cover blurbs suggested it had obtained. First, and most critically, there is little “story” in this tale. I don’t believe story is the “only” reason for writing. I appreciate beautiful language and surrealism, but story is important and is needed to carry a long work like this. A book cannot be a masterpiece without story.

   

For the most part in this book, a young man, fourteen years of age when the tale begins and known only as “the kid,” wanders around in Texas and Mexico observing and participating in various acts of extreme violence. He has no goals (realistic perhaps but not particularly conducive to story). He simply survives one scenario after another with little more than animalistic reactance. His “will to live” may be remarkable, but when the blurbs say that this book should stand alongside Moby Dick I think they are wrong.

   

In Moby Dick, at least the character of Ahab had a clearly discernable goal--to kill the white whale. The Ahab character in Blood Meridian, who carries a touch of the character of the white whale as well, is known as “the judge.”  But the judge doesn’t even appear until page 79, and his motives are opaque, at least to me.

 

Another flaw, and one that strikes me as a major one in a “literary” novel, is that there is virtually no character development. This is perhaps understandable for the judge, whose personality is fully formed when we meet him, but it seems there should have been much more development for the kid, who ages by over a decade during the book. There is no “regeneration through violence” as the front cover asserts for the kid. He is the same at the end as at the beginning. The sheer weight of violence this boy witnessed and took part in would have been expected to have shaped his character. It doesn’t. He becomes neither holy nor truly debauched. In fact, his emotional reaction throughout is virtually deadpan. It’s as if he’s spent the years as a garbage collector, but without really getting any extra ‘stink’ on him.

  

Speaking of violence, Blood Meridian is, make no mistake, intensely and brutally violent, perhaps the most violent book I’ve ever read. The violence is constant and deftly handled, neither over dramatized nor too understated. There are certainly echoes of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and such films as Apocalypse Now. Had the violence more clearly served the purposes of a story I would have praised it. Perhaps McCarthy’s point is that there is no glory or honor or redemption in violence, and he may be right. But that is hardly the stuff of myths. One aside about the violence in Blood Meridian is that I find it interesting that a level of violence that would, in a genre novel, be seen as “over the top,” is here considered masterful. Perhaps violence that has a point is suspect.

   

A last flaw in the book comes with the ending, though I’m sure many literary critics would disagree. Frankly, as with many literary novels, I didn’t understand the ending. When the kid stumbles upon the judge at the end, the judge embraces him and then.... What?  From the response of witnesses it was something rather horrible. I ’m just not sure what. Cannibalism?  Murder?  Sex? Clearly, Blood Meridian had an effect on me or I wouldn’t have gone on so long about it. It has passages of great beauty, and though I’ve criticized it I still find myself recommending it. I don’t think it is a great novel, but it does have power.

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Mardi Gras

 At midnight the police moved in and began to disperse the dense French Quarter crowd. The members of that crowd didn’t want to stop the party but reluctantly gave away, breaking into sub crowds, then into smaller groups that gradually streamed off toward homes or other parties. Fat Tuesday was over. Lent had begun.

As the crowds split, a cold hard gust of wind came blowing in over them and over the Quarter. It gathered other gusts to itself, swirled across the Faubourg Marigny and up Bourbon and Royal streets like a desert dust devil. It carried with it black dust and a mélange of beads and other Mardi Gras trash. It picked up the stench of sweat-soaked people, the stale odors of alcohol, urine, vomit. Along with those scents it gathered the thoughts and feelings of the revelers—their joys and rages, their laughter and sobs, their lusts and sins.

And when the wind had all of that in its grasp, it leaped upward toward the highest steeple of the St. Louis Cathedral.The cross at the top of the steeple shook; a dirty shadow enveloped it, then shrank down, took darkling form. For a moment it seemed that a long-armed man clung to the steeple. Then the figure leaped down and down from the cathedral and disappeared into the bushes and hedges of Jackson Square. The wind was gone as if it had never been.

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