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Spring Near the Sea of Monsters

Spring! Click for a larger image.

So, this happened in my front yard yesterday. Some to the east and north may not remember the term, but it is known here in the midwest US as Spring. Feast your eyes upon the blossoms and weep.

It’s been so pleasant the last few days that we’ve slept with the windows open. I have the windows open now as I type this, listening to bird song… as well as the barking of one of my dogs, who just won’t ever shut up. (Three years old now, and she still barks at everything that moves, as though there’s a little yipey dog trapped in that Lab mix body.)

Link Day

Writing advice is plentiful and so cheap it’s, well, free. But every now and then I stumble upon some well-written counsel. I found some the other day and thought I’d pass it along.

I know little about Teresa Frohock other than what can be found on her About page, but I was much impressed by the words of wisdom she offered to debut author Zachary Jernigan. Follow this link to read ten fine points for new and aspiring writers.

Apparently Thursdays are Link days, because I stumbled on two other interesting articles I wanted to pass along. The first is all about how brainless slime molds navigate mazes. Let me restate that. These are things that don’t have brains, yet they are making decisions. It’s a quick and interesting read.

The Perfect REH Collection

If you’re not a Robert E. Howard fan, then there’s probably not much point in reading this post any further, unless you’re simply curious. If you’ve found that you don’t like REH’s work, though, there’s nothing to see here, so move along. Shoo.

Alright, so now I’m probably mostly sharing this with fans of the stylings of REH, so you probably know that there is, finally, a wealth of material by the man to choose from in print today. For a guy who died so young he was incredibly prolific. I’ve read most of his work several times, and there’s some of it I’ll keep re-reading. Others of it, though, I won’t. For instance, Almuric. Or “The God in the Bowl.” Read it. No second helping required.

I have a long shelf of REH, including a bunch of beat up old paperbacks, all those lovely Del Reys (including the two volume best of), and Conan’s Brethren, which is sort of a “best of” featuring a whole bunch of non-Conan adventure stories. Yet as I look up at that shelf from time to time I think about which stories I would include in my very own Best Of collection.

For starters, I’d want it in one volume. And much as I enjoy and appreciate some of the stories in other genres Howard wrote for, it’s his adventure stories that really tick my clock. I don’t read and re-read “Pigeons From Hell” every few years but I darned well pull down Howard’s historicals with some frequency, or his James Allison tales, or “The Gray God Passes.” And a lot of Conan. You get the idea.

Golden Juicebox

I just learned the other day that I’d been awarded a Juicebox from Staffer’s Book Review, specifically for the best book Justin Landon had read in 2012 that wasn’t FROM 2012. Among other things, Landon wrote this about The Desert of Souls:

By embracing that past, infused with Arabian Nights and early 20th century fantasy, Jones captures what is best about outmoded forms of fiction without any of the of negative trappings. Many will call Howard Andrew Jones a writer of historical adventure fantasy. It’s an accurate description, but one that sells him woefully short. Desert of Souls is a masterful novel that resonates on a meta-fictional level that’s rarely equaled.  I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Pathfinder at Work

Right now I’m still cooking away at my newest Paizo novel. I was nearing the conclusion when I decided my time would better be spent shoring up all that came before, and after a week of this I’m getting more and more happy with the result. I’m pretty sure that anyone who enjoyed the first one, Plague of Shadows, will like this one even more.

It being crunch time for this book, I’m not working on much else, although I haven’t been able to resist spending a little time on proposals for some pretty exciting secondary world fantasy novels. Some of you may not want to hear this, but thinking about settings that won’t require a whole slew of research (either via history books or gaming books) to bring to life is starting to feel quite liberating. Instead of worrying that I’ll have missed some key point of ancient Middle-Eastern culture or left out some important Baghdad landmark, I might just be able to make something up.

You might be wondering why I have another pic of Ten Bears on my blog. Merely because the conversation between Ten Bears and Josey Wales is one of my very favorite moments on film.

Right, well, that’s about all I’ve got. I’ve been re-exploring some of my favorite Robert E. Howard stories, and I’ll have some notes about those in the next week.

 

Evildoers Beware!

I have a spider bite on my hand. It may seem unrelated, but while everyone else in the house has come down with various coughs, colds, and even a stomach virus, I remain in perfect health. Coincidence? I think not. Nay, my conclusion is that I have been bitten by a RADIOACTIVE spider. Already I have developed a superhuman immune system. I expect other amazing powers to manifest very shortly. Frankly, I’m just glad I wasn’t bitten by a radioactive camel. Those things HURT, and besides, I’d only be able to go for days without water and spit incredible distances, which isn’t especially useful for crime fighting.

Author Sightings

On January 15th I’ll be driving to Terre Haute to talk to some ISU creative writing students about writing and the business thereof, and then, at 6:00, I’ll be signing copies of The Bones of the Old Ones at the Terre Haute Barnes and Noble. I suppose I could sign other items as well, if you really want. For instance, if you need a signed copy of Memory of Light, or always wanted a signature on your Land of the Lost costume, I’ll be happy to help out.

From January 18th to January 20th I’ll be at ConFusion up in sunny Dearborn Michigan. I attended ConFusion for the first time last year and it’s a great convention. The staff are personable and very well-organized. There’s a strong gaming track AND a strong writing track, and the panels are intimate. Also, there are a number of movers and shakers at ConFusion with whom it’s usually hard to rub elbows at larger cons.

The New Year Dawns

We had the best New Year’s Eve we’ve managed for several years, one full of laughter with family and an old family friend. My wife and son and daughter and I spent most of the day preparing for a massive fondue extravaganza with a variety of chopped vegetables and meats, and a dessert fruit platter with a marscapone cheese dip and a chocolate dip. Our friend Daniel came by with home-made sushi, and one of my daughter’s friends joined in the festivities, along with my mom. My wife is a phenomenal cook and made all the dipping sauces from scratch, some concocted on the fly.

After the feasting we sat down for a hilarious game of Robo-Rally, then played Iron Dragon until late in the night. In recent years my wife and I have been turning in at 11:00 (after watching the NY ball drop with the kids) so this is the first time in ages that we were awake during the local year’s end. The night was a wonderful way to start the new year, especially because I can’t recall when I last laughed so hard, or so frequently, in a span of hours. Trying to get your robot across the factory floor/obstacle course that is Robo-Rally can do that for you. The object may be to win the game, but most of the fun occurs watching the mayhem, even if it involves your own robot. I cackled with glee each time my robot got nudged off course (or I mis-programmed it) and it sailed into one of the pits.

Ninja Delivery Service and Other Tales

It’s going to be a busy week here at Jones central. I have a book reading at the local Barnes & Noble at 2:00 Saturday the 15th of December, and today is the official book launch day. I’m doing my best to spread the word to as many corners of the web as I can reach.

Yesterday, to help spread the word about the book reading, I drove all over my community, stopping at more than 200 mailboxes so my daughter could lean out the truck window and pop in flyers. Those who saw us might have been curious about what we were doing, but they were perhaps more curious that my daughter was dressed like a ninja.They saw that we had flyers. I was wondering if they assumed we were passing out information for a new Ninjitsu dojo.

My daughter had been thinking ahead for next Halloween and putting a pretty cool all-black ninja outfit together when I asked her if she could help. She bounded down the stairs, looking for all the world like an extra from a martial arts film. Okay, well, a  pale, red-haired extra from a martial arts film, but, still, she definitely looked like a ninja, or, because of her age, perhaps a ninja-in-training.

She was more than glad to help and no, she did not want to change. As she leaned out to drop off the first few flyers I told her she was like a ninja delivery service, whereupon she invented a jingle that didn’t quite get old with repetition and had us both laughing.