Yearly Archives: 2012

Manly Movie Week

With my mother now in a rehab facility following her heart attack, I was less than comfortable with the idea of taking off on the scheduled family vacation. I encouraged my wife to go ahead and leave (she REALLY needed some time off from her stressful job) and take my daughter. Our tickets were non-refundable. My son had become increasingly reluctant to go because of the heavy homework load at his high school, so we two remained behind. Thus, early Saturday morning, my wife, my daughter, and my mother-in-law (who took my ticket) flew off to Orlando.

Ever since, my son and I have been watching manly movies. My wife, you see, has almost no patience for westerns (apart from The Magnificent Seven and Silverado). She is even less interested in WWII movies than westerns, and doesn’t much care for Clint Eastwood as well. As a result, on movie nights over the years there are a lot of manly movies my children haven’t seen.

I know my way around westerns fairly well, and I’ve shown both of my kids some of the greats over the years, including Sergio Leone’s/Eastwood’s “The Man with No Name” trilogy (you know, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, etc.) but neither of them have seen any of the great WWII movies.

I have fond memories of watching some WWII movies with my father, but it’s been 30 or so years since then, so my actual memory of them is a little dim. I consulted with my friends Eric Knight and John Chris Hocking, both WWII history and movie buffs. I combined their suggestions with my memories of movies I’d seen with my own dad, what was available via the public library or Netflix instant streaming, and wasn’t in common circulation on television any more, and put a list together, leaning a little toward movies with Clint Eastwood. And here’s what we’ve seen so far.

Heroic Fantasy and Imagined History

I wanted to point all of my regular readers over to the site of James Enge today. He took an interesting post live about our assumptions on the proper settings for heroic fantasy, and how so many of them are a little bit wrong, jabbing particularly at our assumptions about The Dark Ages.

This week, as with last, I’ve not been around the homestead very much because I’m spending a lot of time at the hospital keeping my mom and sisters company. As my mom continues to improve I’ll have more and more posts coming up, because more reviews and blog posts will be going live about The Bones of the Old Ones.

I finally put hands on one of my favorite CDs, the one I always listen to while driving around plotting tales of ancient Arabia, and I’m looking forward to pointing some of the rest of you to the excellent music recorded on it.

 

 

I’ve Got a Star!

I woke up yesterday to discover I’d gotten a starred review at Publisher’s Weekly. Well, not me, but my next book, The Bones of the Old Ones!

Here’s a nice quote from the opening paragraph: “This rousing sequel to The Desert of Souls offers a mélange of ancient adventure myths populated by convincing, endearing characters.”

And here’s another one: “… fills the pages with gallantry and glamour to provide a thrilling spectacle. ”

So this is all quite nice. It in no way changes the fact I’m sitting in the intensive care unit of a hospital wishing there was something more I could to to help my mom recover, but it means that a smile occasionally crosses my face as I mostly worry. And she smiled when I told her about all this. Even when she’s feeling rotten, she’s happy for me.

The Bones of the Old Ones can be pre-ordered (it’s not out until December 11). But you probably knew that. Just click on the link to get to the order page on my own site, or visit Amazon, B&N, BAM,Indie book stores, Powell‘s, or many other locations.

The Real World

It’s been seven days of unpleasant surprises in the real world, which has meant the writing world has slowed to a crawl. One of my favorite professors passed away last week. I hadn’t seen Jim in person for years, but I spoke to him this spring. He was a wonderful man, talented and generous, and a real mentor to me. Still, I was surprised by the depth of my grief.

And then we discovered that the reason my mom was so weak was that she’d experienced a heart attack. The family and I have been keeping company in the hospital for most of this week. As I write this, I have just learned that she has survived the bypass surgery. There are still many more hurdles and risks.

One of my dearest friends has been slowly dying of cancer for a long time, then battling it back, though still dying. She’s afraid this newest onset may be the last.

With all of this, it has just been difficult to retreat into the fantastic for a while, even though I have a great review in from Sf Signal for The Bones of the Old Ones. And I got a nice callout from Pyr’s Lou Anders as one of the new heirs to the mantle of sword-and-sorcery, which I’ve wanted to be for a long, long while.

That’s all wonderful, and provides some bright spots in a bleak span of days.

My online presence may be a little sporadic for another week or so.

Heading for the Shadows

What I’m actually doing is heading for Shadowlands, a book by my writer friend Violette Malan. I got to read and blurb the book, but for some reason my blurb wasn’t incorporated on the book jacket. I describe it as “Inventive, compelling, and crammed with action.” And it is. It’s urban fantasy with engaging twists, fascinating characters, and stirring action sequences, but it seems to be flying under the radar so that reviewers are missing out on it. Thus I am spreading the word. I hope you’ll check it out.

Here’s the official cover copy:

“The war in the Land of the Faerie has finally ended. Prince Cassandra dispatches Stormwolf, formerly a Hound but cured by his prince’s magic and restored to the Rider he once was, to the Shadowlands to call home the People who remain refugees there. But Stormwolf finds the Hounds of the Wild Hunt now prey upon the souls of the humans, draining them of the magic which is the very lifeblood of the People. With the help of Valory Martin, a mortal psychic, Stormwolf must find the magic needed to defeat the Hunt before it’s too late.”

It’s the second book in the series, but I was able to catch on to what was happening pretty quickly without feeling like I’d walked into the second half of a movie.

SF Signal Podcast

While SF Signal’s Patrick Hester was at Worldcon a few weeks back, he went on a whirlwind series of adventures. Seriously, starting from his long drive from the western United States until his long return, I’m not sure he got in more than a few hours sleep every night.

Along the way he corralled Black Gate’s John O’Neill, World Fantasy Award nominated James Enge, and me, which was a little like herding cats, except that I was so tired I was pretty easy to get moving. James and I talked about our new and upcoming releases (so, plenty of info on Morlock and the writing thereof, as well as Dabir and Asim and the writing thereof). And John O’Neill talked about the past and future of Black Gate, and what lies in store for writers and readers of my favorite magazine.

Patrick kept the interview moving along with thoughtful questions and insightful follow-up, and I think the result is pretty interesting — if you’re into Black Gate, sword-and-sorcery, or historical adventure, that is. I hope you’ll drop by and give it a listen!

The interview can be found by following this link.

The Writing Life

Things have been a little more quite on the web site here as they’ve gotten busier in the real world. I’m involved in promotional efforts for The Bones of the Old Ones— far more time consuming than I would have realized a few years back — and I’m putting a polish on the first two-thirds of the third Dabir and Asim novel. I wish I was polishing all of it, but I don’t have all of it written.

As of this weekend, though, I must switch gears to begin work on my next Pathfinder Tales book for Paizo. As I’ll be busy with that for several months, I don’t want to come back to a bunch of messy first draft pages on book 3 of Dabir and Asim (with plot arcs that fizzle, character names that change, and long slow bits that don’t go anywhere) so I’ve spent several weeks shoring things up and doing some tweaking.

It may be because of my work on the upcoming Pathfinder novel, but I’ve been feeling a real itch to do some gaming. Or it may be because I’m feeling a little stressed and need to decompress. The sitcom stereotype is, of course, that when women get stressed they go shopping for clothes. Me, I open up the closet of cool strategy and tactical boardgames I never get to play because I’m always so busy, and sigh longingly.

Happy Birthday

Today is my father’s birthday. He would have been 80 years old today. I still feel a little twinge of jealousy when one of my friends tells me about heading out for a visit with their dad, or when I see someone hale and hearty on television in their mid-seventies — especially if they’re espousing something hateful — for my father died when he was 68.

I had a fortunate childhood. It was idyllic in a lot of ways. I’d never let my kids ride their bikes all over the city the way I used to do. It seemed like there was more freedom then just to be a child. And while I had homework, I wasn’t slaving away for hours every night the way my children are doing. I had time to play and learn and grow on my own. I could read whatever I wanted, not just what was mandated, because there was time.

A Word From the Author

This blog was created to support my writing, which is why I steer clear of political and religious discussions. I figure that people drop by to find out more about my writing, or writing in general, or that Google mis-directed them here when they ran a search for Snookie.

Sure, I have political and religious convictions, and if I see you at a convention some time and you buy me a drink, maybe we’ll talk about them. But I’m kind of a private person and don’t think anyone visiting here is interested in hearing my views about such things anyway. I don’t claim to be a religious or political expert.

Sometimes I hear from people who assume that because of my obvious interest in the ancient Middle-East I must be an expert in the modern Middle-East, and they want to know what I think about this or that. In light of recent events, I’ve heard from people wanting me to justify an opinion they assume I have, or don’t have, about an entire religion and region.

So just this once, I’ll say something.

The Map

Last week I announced I was busy behind the scenes with the writing of book 3 and promotion of book 2, and that remains the case. But I have emerged from my cloak of secrecy to reveal the map that will be printed within The Bones of the Old Ones.

Topography and icons were drawn by the brilliant S. Jones (my wife!) and lettering was done by the talented Omar Chapa.

The map is not meant to show all important places in the region, merely those places Asim himself would find of interest. For instance, he never once mentions Damascus over the course of his narrative, but Asim would surely think the city important because of its fame as a manufacturing center for wonderful swords.

Map follows the break. Incidentally, if it wasn’t already clear, my wife is wonderful.