Yearly Archives: 2014

The Big Lord Dunsany Re-Read

I don’t actually know how big it will be, because so far I have me and anyone else who wants to join in. Which means just me.

While prepping for the lecture I gave at the Big Read I started thinking about all of the great Lord Dunsany short stories I’ve enjoyed over the years and realized that there were a couple of collections I’d still only sampled from. I decided it was time to revisit that lyrical master of the fantastic.

I hope some of you will join in. For the next three or four Fridays I’ll be reading through A Dreamer’s Tales, and for the first week I’ll be reading:

Big Read List

I’ve returned from DeKalb Illinois, where I was treated royally by Big Read organizers Steve Roman and Edith Craig. Steve and his wife Karen showed me around the downtown and took me out for dinner, then drove me to the Ellwood House, where I addressed the audience about the importance of fantasy fiction and delved into its history.

I promised attendees that I would provide a list of highlights from among the books I mentioned over the course of the talk, and here they are.

Hardboiled Monday: Such Men are Dangerous

Following up on the hardboiled master list, I thought I’d talk about the book by Lawrence Block that holds the number two slot (because we’re going in alphabetical order until we we get to the anthologies). Chris Hocking was kind enough to drop by and offer a few additional thoughts.Earlier discussions are here.

Just a brief aside before we get to the discussion — this evening I’ll be at the DeKalb Illionois Public Library addressing the importance of fantasy fiction as part of this year’s Big Read. Details are here.

Return to Form

After more than a half dozen years away, I’ve finally returned to East-West Karate, where I earned my Black Belt. I didn’t start from zero, though. I began regular calisthenics in June and noticed how good that made me feel each morning. It increased my energy levels overall. After a few months I decided to re-up my membership and start work towards my second degree black belt. (Both of my children have now earned their first degrees, which pleases me mightily.)

Now I’ve been working out at the karate dojo for a month and I’m starting to re-learn the mid-level katas, or forms. I look pretty sloppy still, but it’s nice to be moving through a kata and suddenly have some of the old knowledge snap into place. I’m looking forward to getting crisp with them, relearning the higher level forms, and eventually getting to the final ones required for the second degree black belt test. It’s a year or two off, assuming I can get up to speed fairly quickly, but I don’t care. Just the thought of having the chance to try for a second degree is pretty swell. I thought, after my knee issues, that I’d never be able to do this stuff again.

 

Reflections on the 7th Novel

I turned over my fourth Pathfinder novel this week. It’s a little strange thinking that it won’t see the light of day until two years from now. By then my daughter will be a junior in high school and my son will be a sophomore in college. Sometimes I think time would feel less like it proceeds at such a breakneck pace if I didn’t constantly have my children changing to show me. My wife and I don’t feel particularly different than we felt two years ago (although I do have more gray) and with luck we won’t feel too different in two more years.

Hardboiled Monday: Queenpin

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

Every Monday until we reach the end of the list we’ll discuss another book from the list, working our way down in alphabetical order. Any questions about the contents of the list can probably be answered on the preamble on the post about the list itself. The list was created by Hocking to lure me into reading hardboiled and noir, based on his reading in both genres for more than three decades. It worked. Being good doesn’t get you on the list; a work has to be great, keeping in mind certain idiosyncrasies that I discussed in the original post.

Hardboiled and Noir List

A few posts ago I mentioned my friend Chris Hocking had provided me with an amazing list of hardboiled and noir fiction. Hocking gave me the titles of the books he thought I’d most enjoy, the crème de la crème of the hardboiled and noir books he’s read over the last three and a half decades. It’s an extremely generous gift. Think of it this way: I’d have had to read for more than thirty years in the genre to find these on my own! With his permission, I’m now sharing it with you.

Before you dig in, understand that this list is idiosyncratic: it’s like a mix tape made for me by someone who not only understood my own preferences in literature but happened to have extremely similar tastes.

Hardboiled, or Noir?

It turns out that I’ve been using two related genre terms interchangeably in a whole series of related posts over the last year and now I have to cringe and confess I didn’t know what I was talking about.

Chris Hocking has introduced me to some noir, it’s true, but mostly what he’s opened me to is hardboiled fiction. While I’ve enjoyed the noir, it’s the hardboiled stuff that’s delighted me the most. I’m actually going to excerpt the Wikipedia definition of the term to define it, although I take issue with its concluding phrase, where it goes dreadfully wrong:

The Big Read

Next month I’ll be the keynote speaker at The DeKalb public library’s Big Read.

I’ll be speaking at 7:30 pm, October 6th at the Ellwood House – Visitor Center (Behind Ellwood House Museum), 509 N. 1st St., DeKalb, IL 60115.

I hope to see some of you there!

Further details can be found at this link.

Deep in Revision

I’m deep in revision, so there may be a little radio silence here for a while.

I’m head down over the second pass of the second Paizo novel of the summer, smoothing out the rough draft and groaning at the bad stuff. Occasionally I happen upon a chunk of text I like so well I can hardly believe I wrote it, which is always a nice surprise. Will I complete it and a final, third pass, by the end of September? Will Lassie warn the firemen? Will the sherif stop the stagecoach? Probably.