Yearly Archives: 2013

A Rise in Spam

I’m getting a rising number of spam comments — perhaps its because the site’s getting more hits. I’m a little baffled by them. They consist of two types.

1. Someone drops a comment in a thread about a product completely unrelated to the topic.

2. Someone drops a generic few phrases of praise in slightly incorrect English about how much they enjoyed the post, and the masterful way the topic is discussed.

I can’t quite figure out what spammers expect to get from the comments. NO ONE will ever buy a product or visit a page based on someone dropping in to a comment thread to advertise it. And why pretend to be involved in a thread? Is it so that we’ll visit the site attached to the comment, or so that the blog master or mistress will come to trust posts from that person, opening the door for more spam?

Strange and annoying.

Stalking the Martian Beast Rails

As I wind down my edits on the second Paizo Pathfinder novel I’m looking forward to playing a new board game that arrived Tuesday. Regular visitors may recall I was selling off most of my board wargames after discovering Fields of Glory. I’ve put a little of the trade-in money towards purchases of inexpensive Fields of Glory expansions, and am stockpiling the rest for a new laptop… but I also picked up a copy of Martian Rails.

Writing of Ruins

This week I should be finished with my editorial changes on my second Paizo Pathfinder novel,  Stalking the Beast, which I’ve been working on steadily. Ideally I’ll have time to reach the final page then set it aside for a day or two so I can see the whole thing with fresh eyes right before I turn it over. I find that I miss things unless I can walk away from the work for a little while.

As I discussed the cover some months back with series editor James Sutter I chose a scene I thought would be dynamic. And I recall suggesting that perhaps there should be some ruins in the background. In the draft at that time, there were no ruins, but I never like taking my characters (or my readers) somewhere unless it’s interesting to look at, so it was something I intended to go back and correct. When the art came back, there were some pretty interesting ruins in the scene, so during the rewrite I’ve found myself modelling my descriptions on the artist’s depiction. Which reminds me, I still don’t know the cover artists’ name! I’ll have to write James and find out, because I’d like to thank him or her for the inspirational work.

 

 

Clock of St. James

Sticking with the theme of music, I thought I’d post the flip side of yesterday’s single. Like “The Tennessee Bird Walk” this is something I used to hear when I was 5 or 6 and hadn’t heard in decades. I recalled that it was strange and haunting.

Now, upon revisiting, I discover it’s still haunting. I see why it stuck with me.  I’ve never been that big a fan of country music, and it definitely has the country twang. It also is music of its era… which is, of course, to be expected.

What I like are that the lyrics are extremely evocative and tell a surprisingly vivid story of… well, I don’t want to give anything away. I’ll say at first, when the song is playing major chords, you think it’s just going to be the colorful description of a city, but by the third line the character of the narrative changes completely.

The background vocals on the chorus really push a dark, gothic feel, and the way the clock chime is worked into the end of the chorus is genius.

I liked it so well that I’m going to look into more work by Jack Blanchard & Misty Morgan and see if they have any other treasures. Anyway, here is “The Clock of St. James.”

In case anyone cares, my wife has continued to clean my clock while we were playing Iron Dragon. One day I will win again…

Bald-Headed, Whispering Birds

I remember all sorts of songs and snatches of lyrics from when I was little, including a lot of goofy music for kids, pop hits from the early ’70s and, of course, most of the music of the Beatles (which my mom and I both loved — she’d put them on while she was working around the house).

But there was this odd little one-off song mom had on a single disc. Being little, I never asked why she had it, or when she’d picked it up, but I loved it too. I thought it was weird and funny when I was a tyke . And, unlike a whole lot of other matters that amused me when I was a little kid, I still think it’s weird and funny.

This, then, is “The Tennessee Bird Walk.” I looked it up online recently and it was still weird and wonderful. In case you’re curious, the lines that stuck with me over almost forty years since I’d last heard it were: “Remember me my darling, when spring is in the air, and the bald-headed birds are whispering everywhere.”

The Tennessee Bird Walk (Jack Blanchard & Misty Morgan)

Thoughts on Copperfield, Bleak House, and Lions

I think the thing that interested me the most about finally reading David Copperfield was how much I enjoyed the novel. As I mentioned in an earlier post, in high school I didn’t much like Dickens. The second or third chapter of Copperfield started to bog down and I almost gave up, but, pushing on, I enjoyed most of the rest of it… until about the final third.

A number of essays at the back of the edition I read mentioned reading and re-reading the novel, but I don’t see myself doing that. But I might re-read various segments. My favorite parts come mostly before Steerforth leaves the narrative as a speaking character. After that the text produces more and more of Macawber. I gather I’m supposed to find Macawber funny, but the deeper into the text I got, the more I groaned when I saw he was to be a central character of a chapter. I disliked his meanderings so much that I began to blip over huge swathes of paragraphs where he was talking. I likewise didn’t find the machinations of Uriah Heep of great interest. Some villains you hate and you long to see when they will get their comeuppance — the Murdstones, for instance. Heep I just found so irritating I wanted to get him out of the narrative. Not necessarily because I wanted to see him get his just desserts but because I was tired of him.

The Beast and the Dragon

I’m still hard at work on my second Paizo Pathfinder novel, Stalking the Beast.

During the early parts of the day I’m getting the farm repairs managed before the weather gets really hot, and a lot of evenings I’m playing Iron Dragon.

I’m really not into trains, or train games, but some years back our friends Stacey Davis and Monique Robins introduced my wife and me to a rail building board game set in a fantasy land, and we had a lot of fun. We break it out every now and then and play a few games. My wife, who is incredibly well organized, almost always wins!

Here’s a quick peak at the board, from a web site that has a bunch of nifty looking add-on rules.

Remembering a Master

One of my favorite authors died last week. Jack Vance has been eulogized now all over the internet by more influential authors than me, and more eloquently by people who knew him better. (Matthew David Surridge wrote up a nice overview at Black Gate, and John O’Neill talks about Vance’s importance in the field in another essay there.)

I love Vance’s first Dying Earth novel, The Dying Earth, and the four books from his Planet of Adventure sequence, and I enjoy much of his other work as well. I have much of it left to read, and I’ll probably start dipping back into his fiction in remembrance this week.

The intellect, wit, and sheer invention to be found in Vance are marvelous. I can’t think of anyone who’s brought to life so many odd and fascinating human cultures, which is why I always recommend Vance not just to fantasy readers, but to writers who want to improve their world building. That said, often character building becomes almost incidental to Vance in preference to verbal cleverness and imagination, leading to a different kind of writing than that I usually enjoy, which is why I often read him in small doses.  I find him rich, but brilliant, like a really rare and excellent dessert I wouldn’t want to eat every day.

Link Day

My writer friend Jon Sprunk just posted something of interest for Heroic Fantasy fans. Drop by and take a look here.

And don’t forget The Bear Necessities. This is the version I listened to in the 70s, and it’s a real trip. I actually like it better than the movie version. You have to imagine that Baloo the Bear is touring in Vegas. I’d say that it’s so bad that it’s good, which is kind of true — except that the guy on the Hammond B3 is really kicking butt, and I love the guitar licks. Cheesy fun.

 

A Meal to Remember

I was so busy last week that I completely forgot to mention my guest post over at Lawrence M. Schoen’s site, for his Eating Authors column.

It is not, as you might suppose, a column for cannibals, but a place for authors to talk about their favorite foods or meals. I regaled readers with a story of Persian chicken and hallucinating deer, if you want to take a look. There are any number of other tales from numerous authors, so poke around a little when you drop by.