Author Archives: Eric

Last Unicorn

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The Last Unicorn (The Last Unicorn, #1)The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What I really wanted was the text of the book. What I ended up with was the graphic novel.

I find it a little irksome, but for the cost I’m just going to let it go. I eventually found the actual book and not a treatise on it or a graphic representation of it – the actual words. I read it and really, really enjoyed it.

I’d seen the film before I read the book and I watched the film again after I read the book. Despite the behind the screens issues of rights and payments (that I really don’t know all that much about, just that they exist and that things didn’t seem to be working in the author’s favor) I think this animated film stays closer to the text of the original book than any other I adaptation I can think of.

This is a genuine fairy tale. I have actually given my copy to my daughter and had her watch the movie as well. It’s well worth the effort to pick this one up and check out why it’s influenced so many folks over the years.

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Firefight

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I have fallen behind on my reviews – so I will be launching a few off here this week. IF you’re connected to me on Goodreads you’ll have seen all of these in the update feed!

Firefight (Reckoners, #2)Firefight by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I don’t recall the actual date I finished reading this book. It was certainly in April, but I haven’t been able to sit and write up my thoughts on it until now.

I really enjoyed the book. It was a fast read. It built on the world from Steelheart and just kept plunging ahead. I totally bought into the main character and was along for the ride. I jumped from this book directly to the next one to wrap up the series.

IF you haven’t read Steelheart, go back and start there.

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Lo there do I see the line of my people…

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I was lucky enough to have somebody offer me one of the Ancestry test kits. I can have my DNA tested. This will hopefully show… something. I’m not sure what form or format the results will take but it should be interesting. Seemed appropriate to do the test and get it ready to send in on Father’s Day.

One of my father’s friends said he wanted to know if his twin was actually his brother based on some questionable choices the one had made. I thought that was hilarious and a fun way to approach the topic, but I am genuinely curious about genealogy. On my father’s mother’s side of the family there is apparently some connection to Col. Prescott of Revolutionary War fame. That would be the “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes!” guy. Defending Bunker Hill against the British with no real supplies or reinforcements. I’m not certain what the specifics of that connection are, but Prescott was my grandmother’s maiden name. I know my family has that paperwork in a file. It’s a cool story / connection. I don’t know how strong or weak that connection really is and I’m certain there’s a lot of paperwork involved in making that connection more solid.

I’m deeply interested in tracking the Hardenbrook name back. I’d really like to know more about that family line, but it comes to a sudden stop with my grandfather’s mother. From what I’ve been told she didn’t have much good to say about the man carrying the Hardenbrook name and… declined to speak further about it. EVER. Combine that with an apparent records fire somewhere along the way and I doubt there’s much of a chance to find out any real connections. Some of the difficulty of genealogy is stories being passed down by tradition without a lot of documentation to back them up. Some of the difficulty is that the people in question don’t want to talk about the past (great-grandma shut that one down) or aren’t able to any more (because they’re gone now).

There are times when I think any time machine would be used just to track down family lines. Would be a neat thing to know. I’ll settle for seeing what the results are when my DNA test comes back. Maybe there will be some kind of surprise in there!

TestKit

Late To The Party

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Somewhere beyond the ringing in my ears there was purple and giggles. This indicated popularity and enjoyment and avoidance of the dog park but I had no knowledge of the dog park. I did not know about Night Vale. You should know about Night Vale.

IF you enjoy weird, horrifying, wonderful, random things then I suggest you tune your dial dear listener to the community radio for Night Vale. There are many things to recommend this, not the least of those things being the penalty for being caught not listening to the mandatory broadcasts or the court ordered amputations for overdue library books. These are important things. These are lovely things.

I strive to catch up. I started way back at the beginning so my time line will be different than your time line but there should be points where these intersect and an understanding can be made.

I have only ever liked the weather once. All of the other weather would have been better if replaced with a constant low moan with static in the background. Nobody is perfect. Except perhaps Carlos.

Even when the weather is bad, it is still better than Desert Bluffs. Those guys are awful.

Go to Night Vale. Listen. Learn. Enjoy.

NightVale

Man and Machine

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I mentioned in my previous post that I was really looking to get back into my writing and laying down some words. Well, some of that is with particular goals in mind. I’ve been invited to be part of the Man and Machine project!

There is a Kickstarter campaign. I’m behind (as previously noted) BUT still want to recommend that you go to the page and check out the stretch goals. I would love to have a new mission patch!

I’m working on my story for this collection and I’m really excited about it. Take a couple of minutes and check it out.

Check out the Kickstarter!

Check out the Kickstarter!

Random Bits and It Could Have Been Worse

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I’ve made a sincere attempt to pare down the number of things going on in my life lately. I really want (and need) to get into more of my personal projects. I need to get more writing done. I’ve got a couple of year and a half old art projects that I’m desperate to finish. I’m working on it.

Little things keep cropping up. Thankfully all of these things land in the “it could have been worse” category. There are some that I won’t post here – stuff that won’t be public knowledge – but here are a couple of examples:

Just found out today that the washing machine needed a new pump. Why would it need a new pump? Because a sock go sucked into the impeller and jammed the whole thing tight of course. So – it’s 150 bucks, but it could have been a lot worse. I can tell you that we were able to cover that repair bill AND we don’t have to go shopping for a new and far more costly washing machine that likely doesn’t work the way we want. Happy with paying that money out? Not exactly, but it beats 500.

OR

Yesterday I got a call from my lovely wife that she had been in a car accident. That’s the sort of thing that immediately sets my world on “wobble” and I start to not think clearly. Fortunately it was an extremely minor fender bender – from her point of view. Somebody hit the car behind her really hard (hard enough for that guy to head to the hospital to get checked out) and that car bumped into hers. Loud bang, no real damage. What it cost was some time standing around waiting for the police to show up and get everything written up. Again – could have been significantly worse. I’m SUPER thankful that’s all it was. There’s a spot to buff out on the back of the car and a phone call to clear up some paperwork. I’ll take it.

I suspect most people wouldn’t land these in the “good” category, but I do. I’d much rather the lesser of the choices. What it has done is made a week when I had nothing really going on and was planning to write bunches much less hospitable to writing time. I suspect I’m going to squeeze some in while I’m catching up on laundry…

That’s where I am right now. I’m going to get some reviews done and posted to try to catch up as well – I’ve actually got a few to write up. I’ve got some promotional stuff I NEED to get posted as well.

Most of all I just need to get some creative stuff out there. Watch out – here it comes!

Balticon 50

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There it went.

I have tried to give myself a little time to get past the immediate reaction and allow for more thought. The problem with that is news of a convention gets stale rather quickly. I’ve been going to Balticon for a while, but not as long as quite a few folks. In fact I had a conversation with a man this past weekend who has attended all 50 of the conventions so far. It’s an impressive number.

For me, it was an impressive convention celebrating the 50th anniversary, but probably one of the worst for me personally. That makes it sound worse than it really was. Perhaps it was the level of expectation going in? I’ve got that sort of thing going with books and movies, maybe it was the same thing for the convention. If I go into a movie or a book with crazy high expectations – those expectations are almost never met so it feels like a disappointment, even it the work in question was actually quite good. IF I go with low expectations and get something crappy, I’m good. My expectations were met. If I go with low expectations and get something excellent… you get the picture. I’ve seen a number of folks on social media and other blogs say they had “wonderful”, “awesome” and “fantastic” conventions. My reaction wasn’t as positive.

I have had a lot of great cons over the years. I’ve really loved being a participant and not just an attendee at conventions. Balticon is the one that I consider my “home convention” and is the one I always give preference to. This year had real issues for me. Some of those things were directly related to the convention, some of them were all about me and some of them were outside the realm of things the con could control (and it’s not fair to blame them for those). I was also somebody that friends brought issues to (they know I’ve joined BSFS), presumably so that word would travel with somebody. That made it a struggle. When you’re the staunch defender, what happens when you don’t want to defend anymore? I got really, really tired of trying to help and defend things that I didn’t find defensible.

The hotel was new this year. That was important – the space was needed for a record number of guests. It also made for lots of people not knowing where anything was, long lines at the elevators, confusion about parking and frustration over added expense. Some of that was just the unavoidable nature of change. Some of that was trying to settle in to a new location. Some of that was people not communicating well and having their expectations not met. I could have worked with all that. I expected it.

I know some of the people involved and I know the intent was good. Programming was an unmitigated disaster from my point of view. Double booked rooms, double booked panelists, changes, deletions and random additions that weren’t communicated well just made a hash of things for me. I’m going to emphasize that again – for me. I am the D list person here and I understand that I’m not going to get priority or even a lot of attention. I got nothing for programming. Nothing. When I asked about this the response was a very snappy “well what do you want?” I want these things figured out before Saturday morning of a convention that starts on Friday for starters – and a little less attitude to go with the response. I get the stress. I work cons too. Snapping at me isn’t going to help anyone. It will in fact hurt the process and cause responses that aren’t necessarily deserved. I just stopped trying to fix it right then. There’s nothing I could do that would have made the situation better and anything I said in anger would not help. I stopped defending. I stopped volunteering to help. I walked away and just did my own thing the rest of the weekend.

I was not the only one in a situation like this. For me – a total ‘D’ lister – it’s not such a big deal. I’m sure I’ll get over it. I’ve already received an invitation to another convention asking me about my thoughts for programming. I’m going to hope for better, or at least in advance, there. The problem is I’ve heard from other people that should be the backbone of the convention – the folks you want to return again and again because they’ve got a solid following and some excellent knowledge to share – that they won’t be back. They reached their saturation point with the frustration and problems and have decided to just walk away as well. I was actually saddened by this. Conventions are where I get to hang out with these folks. Some I might not see otherwise. Most of all, I’m concerned for the next convention, and the next one after that. There was, rightfully, a lot of attention paid to the big names that were there, all the big names that were brought back. Those folks got a lot of attention and drew a lot of convention goers, but at what expense? I fear the damage done. Perhaps I just haven’t gone through this from the participant side of the fence before.

I don’t want this to to turn into some kind of doom and gloom sort of thing. There were a lot of fun things that did happen at the convention. There were great times, laughs and fun mixed with the frustration. I was super glad to have helped out with the Liar’s Panel again this year. I was one of the runners that dashed around the audience collecting up the donations for charity. There’s actually a photo and a little more detail over at Mark’s Journal. Raising a few hundred bucks for charity is a great thing and the panelists were really funny.

I also watched the Mr. Poor Choices III comedy show. I howled. It was fun and funny. The show was totally stolen (from my vantage point) by the sign language interpreters. How do you sign “the nut mangler gym shorts” exactly? Their expressions were wonderful. I went and thanked them after the show. It was great fun.

I got to connect with a lot of folks this past weekend. I think that was really what made it all survivable for me. I had dinner with folks I don’t get to see often enough, drinks with others that I was thrilled to sit and chat with and even a teeny amount of time in the game room (even though I can’t hang with the Power Grid guys and totally forgot my t-shirt – sorry John, I’ll get it right eventually).

I expect with time that I’ll gloss over 50 and other Balticons will be better for me. I really want some of the folks I talked to this past weekend to make some good connections. I’m hopeful that some of the connecting I did over the weekend will lead to future projects. I’m also hopeful that folks that said they were done would be persuaded to return. I am hopeful, and if I work hard and am lucky enough maybe I’ll be one of the folks brought back by special invitation for number 75.

50Logo

Struggle

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I meant to post this earlier. I sat on this post for a while. I still struggle with putting my feelings forward into words. It’s what an author is supposed to do really, but I just don’t believe I’m that good. Hopefully one day I’ll be good enough to write words that move people.

The past couple of weeks in my life have been the definition of chaotic. An emotional roller coaster peaking and dipping day by day. In the past 2 weeks I’ve had the death of a family member, a 50th wedding anniversary celebration, a departure meeting for the exchange students I’ve worked with this year, an ongoing issue at work involving a substantial amount of money, my daughters spring band concert and the funeral for the relative we lost. Oh and right at the start of all that one of the exchange students suddenly living with us for a little while after she was asked to leave the house she was staying in (surprise!).

Some of these things were one day after the next – a couple of them were on the same day. It’s been… I don’t even know what it’s been. I’m exhausted. Wrung out and done.

Perhaps it’s this state of mind that has brought on my choice of examining these things in the context of the military and particularly the military in science fiction and fantasy.

There’s a lot of debate out there about the best way to handle the military, it’s role and the soldier’s place in it all when writing. There are those that ignore introspection and go for action. There are those that take on the story from a commander’s point of view and those that take it all from the grunt’s point of view. Ethics, sanity, the physical toll and the reasons behind it all. I have spent some time attempting to review military science fiction over at milscifi.com and spent more time considering how it is I feel about all these stories.

At their heart military stories are about the people involved and what war does to them. The soldiers and their families are the ones that pay the price of war. There are stories out there that show the trauma and mental damage soldiers end up with as a result of having everything stripped away to the core of their self and being forced to face that. Some people make it, some people don’t. Some are broken and spend the rest of their lives living with the broken parts. That is the reality we live with, every day.

I have come to learn that what I prefer are the stories where there is a level of heroism. The main character should be someone I can empathize with. He or she needs to be somebody that faces down very real dilemmas, struggles through and ultimately comes out with a positive result, even if not the initially intended result. I struggle with and generally don’t like stories where the mental damage wins. I dislike the characters that don’t make the heroic choice. I want the sacrifice to mean something. I want the positive result, perhaps as a direct reaction to the real world.

I like the fiction. The reality is much more difficult to manage. The death in our family was my father-in-law. He was a veteran of 2 wars and was laid to rest this past week with full military honors. Flag ceremony, rifle salute, taps and a direct punch in the heart for me. I didn’t expect it to hit so hard. I’m not going to lionize the man now that he’s gone. He wasn’t perfect by any stretch, but I suspect that some part of that imperfection might be that damage seeping through. I wept when it was time to say good bye – and I haven’t wept in many, many years.

I wanted to have some grand, sweeping point here but it’s just not coming to me. Maybe one day I will master the words, but today is not that day.

Rest In Peace.

Shell2

Get Out

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Writing is a solitary business. You and your chosen method of applying words to paper (virtual or otherwise). It can be difficult, draining and many other words that don’t have very positive connotations. There is something you can do that is a tremendous help.

You can get out.

Yes, get up and move. Stretch in the way that makes that spot between your shoulder blades grind and sort of pop. Focus beyond the meager couple of feet between you and your screen and walk out the door.

I tell you this because an “adventure” doesn’t have to be a big deal. You probably won’t travel through the mines of Moria, nor are you likely to slip into London below. You might however find that one street you hadn’t noticed before. It’s turned at just such an angle that the noise from the busy streets at either end of the block doesn’t carry to the middle. There are concrete stoops with unusual plants. Delicate fairy lights dangle in a miniature garden between two houses just before you see a sign for a shop you never knew was there. It could be better lit, but something about it draws you in anyway. Just a trio of steps off the street, with the jingle of dainty bells and suddenly you’re very far away.

It could be anywhere. Down the street, across town or into that restaurant you’ve been meaning to try. You’ll be shocked at just how much little differences can make when you’ve been stuck in the same place for too long. My travels this evening were fruitful. I netted a free book at an author appearance, learned of a particular author I may need to cyber-stalk and came home with at least 3 new story ideas.

Get out. There’s a world out there filled with interesting new places and people. When you’ve had enough, rush back to your key board and finish that story. I think you’ll find a little adventure might just be exactly what you need.