Monthly Archives: October 2014

Lord Dunsany Re-Read: A Dreamer’s Tales, Part 3

dreamer's talesThis Friday brings us the third installment of our read through of a Lord Dunsany short story collection, A Dreamer’s Tales. My friends Bill Ward and C.S.E. Cooney have joined me once again to share thoughts. You can join in too — this book’s stories not only are quite short, they’re freely available as a Kindle download or through Project Gutenberg. It won’t take very long to catch up if you haven’t read them yet, so you might want to do so before you read any further.

This week we tackled four stories, “The Idle City,” “The Hashish Man,” “Poor Old Bill,” and “The Beggars.” We have a pretty simple review scale. One star is a standout and two stars is truly great.

Catching Up

amberAt some point in the near future I hope to post that I’ve finished the outline of my new book and then share some lessons I’ve learned from it. Right now, though, it’s still somewhere between halfway and two-thirds complete.

There are secrets and counterplots and manipulations going on within this one, and knowing when to reveal what and through whom is really the tricky thing. I ALWAYS appreciated Zelazny’s original Chronicles of Amber but as I try to replicate some of the feel of revealing layer upon layer of how the world works and who’s behind sinister plots I have more of an appreciation for what he himself pulled off. It’s not easy.

Lord Dunsany Re-Read: A Dreamer’s Tales, Part 2

dreamer's talesThis Friday brings us the second installment of our read through of a Lord Dunsany short story collection, A Dreamer’s Tales. My friends Bill Ward and C.S.E. Cooney have joined me once again to share thoughts. You can join in too — this book’s stories not only are quite short, they’re freely available as a Kindle download or through Project Gutenberg. It won’t take very long to catch up if you haven’t read them yet, so you might want to do so before you read any further.

This week we tackled only two stories, “Idle Days on the Yann,” and “The Sword and the Idol.” We have a pretty simple review scale. One star is a standout and two stars is truly great.

Link Day

quistI’m deep in the midst of my new outline and have a number of errands to run, so I must keep today’s post short, although I want to give two shout-outs.

First, to Erin Evans’ Fire in the Blood. I don’t usually read epic fantasy, but I was terrifically impressed by her character arcs, driving plot, and unveiling of mystery. I’ve been trying to think my way through a succinct blurb that says all that, and I’ll do so in the next couple of days.

fireinbloodSecond, last night my wife and I drove south to the Evansville Barnes & Noble to listen to our friend Mark Rigney read from his new Renner & Quist novel, Check-Out Time. It sounds just as fine as the Black Gate review described it, so I hope you’ll join me in picking up a copy for yourselves.

And then, for you folks reading along with Lord Dunsany, I found an interesting essay from Great Science Fiction and Fantasy Links. Take a look, and don’t forget to join in Friday for the next two tales we’re reading, “Idle Days on the Yann” and “The Sword and the Idol.”

Hardboiled Monday: Fast One

fastoneAs with preceding Hardboiled Mondays, Chris Hocking and I are working our way down the master list in alphabetical order. Details and the list are here. And earlier discussions are here.

I remain disappointed that there was so little interest voiced about the Howard Browne book from last week. As far as I’m concerned, that’s one of the finest books on the entire list, but I think we got more FB Likes and comments on that silly Spam Haiku post on Wednesday. If you somehow missed our discussion on The Taste of Ashes, take a look. And if you like this stuff, by God, order a copy of the complete Paul Pine detective stories from Stephen Haffner. Just trust me on this one.

Today we’re looking at Fast One, by Paul Cain.

Lord Dunsany Re-Read: A Dreamer’s Tales, Part 1

dreamer's talesThis week launches the first instcallment of our read through of a Lord Dunsany short story collection, A Dreamer’s Tales. My friends Bill Ward and C.S.E. Cooney have been kind enough to join me in posting their thoughts. You can join in too — this book’s stories not only are quite short, they’re freely available as a Kindle download or through Project Gutenberg. It won’t take very long to catch up if you haven’t read them yet, so you might want to do so before you read any further. We began with  the first five of them.

We could have started the re-read with any of Lord Dunsany’s eight short-story collections, but I thought the opening entries in A Dreamer’s Tales were quite strong and hopefully would convince newcomers to stick with him.

Here’s how I rate them. One star is a standout. Two stars means it’s among Lord Dunsany’s very best.

Spam Haiku

heatherjansch

Some stunning work from Heather Jansch.

Bill Ward and I were talking the other day about the vast waves of spam that wash up from the Internet onto our sites and how it could be inspiring. After all, wonderful artwork can be fashioned from driftwood swept in from the sea. Could we do the same with phrases clipped from tens of thousands of messages and “friendly posts” for our blog sites trapped by our spam filters?

Yes. Yes, we could. And surely we have shaped it into art destined to shine like a beacon and illuminate the way for future disciples.

Incidentally, Bill searched for Spam Haiku and found a Haiku site dedicated to the actual food product. Really and truly. Ours is different from that, though. We’re artistic innovators, we are, fashioning masterpieces culled from Internet spam.

Well, maybe not masterpieces. Surely not masterpieces.

They’re not true Haiku,
but perhaps they will amuse.
They fit the meter.

Anyway, our creations can be found below, made entirely from phrases we found in our spam filters. Some were trimmed for size, but it’s surprising how much of it simply worked as it was.

Hardboiled Monday: Howard Browne

ashesAs with preceding Hardboiled Mondays, Chris Hocking and I are working our way down the master list in alphabetical order. Details here. And earlier discussions are here.

Chris Hocking recommended all of Browne’s mystery novels: the four Paul Pine books and a standalone, Thin Air. I couldn’t lay hands on the first three Paul Pine books, and Thin Air got lost in the mail, but Hocking had given me The Taste of Ashes. It came wrapped in a deceptively mediocre cover that provided little clue as to how outstanding the prose within would be.