Can we please, please stop fighting over partisan agendas and actually run the country?
I'm at the point of wanting to vote every one of the rascals out. Seriously. We've hit gridlock worse than I-66 at rush hour and something really needs to give here. There's no civility at either the Congress level or the grass roots level.
I don't often talk about politics here, but I'm just fed up with it. Completely.
Monday, September 30, 2013
Friday, September 27, 2013
Friday Updates
Sold "Safety Nets" to Ether World.
Still working on the kickstarter for Strange Voyages, which is also being edited. This is going to be a great book for all of you gamers.
Still working on the kickstarter for Strange Voyages, which is also being edited. This is going to be a great book for all of you gamers.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Iceland Day 5: The Golden Circle
If you only have one day in Iceland, the Golden Circle is what you're supposed to do.
(Yes, I did things backwards, but the riding tour we wanted was only available on the Monday and I wanted to do the whale watching early so we could reschedule in the event of a weather cancellation).
Ideally, you should do this on the first day of your trip. And with a small operator. There are operators that take 60 person buses...and then there are ones that take 12 person minibuses. Guess which is better? Now, we did have one person on our tour who apparently believed anything anyone told her and asked some interesting questions, among them "Is it true that the ancient vikings didn't eat fish?"
That aside, despite a miserable day, we did enjoy the tour. The Golden Circle consists of three destinations. All of them are, to some degree, tourist traps - but sometimes tourist traps can be fun.
Stop 1: The Golden Falls
The Golden Falls are the largest waterfall in Iceland and one of the most spectacular in the world. They aren't that high, but they're wide and run at an odd angle through the gorge.
You can see why rain jackets are recommended for this trip even if it's a nice day...look at that spray! Oh, and if possible, eat at the cafe here. Get the traditional Icelandic lamb stew, which is absolutely delicious and rich with bone marrow and rutabagas.
Stop 2: Geysir
The original geysir after which all the others are named is all but dormant now. It does go off every few weeks, but you have to be insanely lucky. Fortunately, a nearby one, Strokkur, is still reliable - every two minutes or so.
The site also has multi-colored hot springs. In all kinds of hues. Don't cross the fences - they're scalding hot. And be aware that if it's a wet day, the soil around here is clay. I still haven't quite got the shoes I was wearing clean.
Stop 3: Thingvellir
Here's an interesting thing about Iceland: It's the only European country never to have had its own king. (External conquerors who never lived there don't count). Instead, Iceland was governed by the Althingr - Europe's first parliament. (The Isle of Man argues that theirs is older, but the linguistic proof is that the Tynwald was named after Thingvellir - however, they do win the prize for the longest-running, as the Tynwald still meets at the same site, albeit no longer outside).
The Althingr met at Thingvellir because it was at the point where all the pack roads crossing Iceland met - the ultimate crossroads. Or, as I put it, "equally inconvenient for everyone." Nowadays the Althingr meets in Reykjavik, but occasionally ceremonies are held at Thingvellir and the President's Summer House is used for diplomatic functions. It's Iceland's original capital...
...and yeah. That's the President's Summer House. That and the church? The only things here. (There's also a visitor's center). Thingvellir is also a rift valley, falling where the Mid-Atlantic ridge passes through the island. There's even a point here that's the, shall we say "official" meeting of the two continental plates with a sign to be photographed by. If you go for that sort of thing. It's an arbitrary point, anyway - the entire valley is where the plates meet and grind against each other.
As you can see, it really was a horrible day weather-wise. Ah well.
(Yes, I did things backwards, but the riding tour we wanted was only available on the Monday and I wanted to do the whale watching early so we could reschedule in the event of a weather cancellation).
Ideally, you should do this on the first day of your trip. And with a small operator. There are operators that take 60 person buses...and then there are ones that take 12 person minibuses. Guess which is better? Now, we did have one person on our tour who apparently believed anything anyone told her and asked some interesting questions, among them "Is it true that the ancient vikings didn't eat fish?"
That aside, despite a miserable day, we did enjoy the tour. The Golden Circle consists of three destinations. All of them are, to some degree, tourist traps - but sometimes tourist traps can be fun.
Stop 1: The Golden Falls
The Golden Falls are the largest waterfall in Iceland and one of the most spectacular in the world. They aren't that high, but they're wide and run at an odd angle through the gorge.
You can see why rain jackets are recommended for this trip even if it's a nice day...look at that spray! Oh, and if possible, eat at the cafe here. Get the traditional Icelandic lamb stew, which is absolutely delicious and rich with bone marrow and rutabagas.
Stop 2: Geysir
The original geysir after which all the others are named is all but dormant now. It does go off every few weeks, but you have to be insanely lucky. Fortunately, a nearby one, Strokkur, is still reliable - every two minutes or so.
The site also has multi-colored hot springs. In all kinds of hues. Don't cross the fences - they're scalding hot. And be aware that if it's a wet day, the soil around here is clay. I still haven't quite got the shoes I was wearing clean.
Stop 3: Thingvellir
Here's an interesting thing about Iceland: It's the only European country never to have had its own king. (External conquerors who never lived there don't count). Instead, Iceland was governed by the Althingr - Europe's first parliament. (The Isle of Man argues that theirs is older, but the linguistic proof is that the Tynwald was named after Thingvellir - however, they do win the prize for the longest-running, as the Tynwald still meets at the same site, albeit no longer outside).
The Althingr met at Thingvellir because it was at the point where all the pack roads crossing Iceland met - the ultimate crossroads. Or, as I put it, "equally inconvenient for everyone." Nowadays the Althingr meets in Reykjavik, but occasionally ceremonies are held at Thingvellir and the President's Summer House is used for diplomatic functions. It's Iceland's original capital...
...and yeah. That's the President's Summer House. That and the church? The only things here. (There's also a visitor's center). Thingvellir is also a rift valley, falling where the Mid-Atlantic ridge passes through the island. There's even a point here that's the, shall we say "official" meeting of the two continental plates with a sign to be photographed by. If you go for that sort of thing. It's an arbitrary point, anyway - the entire valley is where the plates meet and grind against each other.
As you can see, it really was a horrible day weather-wise. Ah well.
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Review: Moon's Prophecy
I'm very picky about talking animal stories. That doesn't
mean I don't like them - I grew up on Narnia and still adore Watership Down.
Just...picky. And The Moon's Prophecy by Jonathan Sparrow is
a talking animal story. It's book one of a series (or at least a trilogy) and
is focused on the adventures of a group of small creatures (mice, shrews and
hedgehogs) fighting to defend their home from evil marauding boars - apparently
the sows stay at home. The issue I have is that they aren't animals at all. They're
humans in animal form - which quite surprises me as it comes from a naturalist.
The anthropomorphism is the standard kind to make the characters easier to
relate to. In fact, the authors' note all but admits that the talking animals
are really just mountain folk.
If you love talking animal stories, you'll enjoy it. At the
very least, it's a light read - and well-suited to younger teens and tweens.
Some kids at least will love it. If you're looking for something to fill a bit
of time and relax with, it's not a bad book at all. If you want more depth to
your book, then don't bother. And if you appreciate mountain stories - it will
probably work very well indeed.
Three stars.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Editorial Compatibilty
I was recently given a rather large box of old paperbacks. Most of them were things like Amazing, Fantastic, etc.
I enjoy George Scithers' run on Amazing a lot. (I have the privilege of having had a story accepted by him. Sadly, the publisher got into financial difficulties and the magazine it was supposed to be in lasted one issue. I was in issue two...)
Ted White's run on Fantastic? A slog I'm reading out of a bizarre sense of obligation.
Now, to be fair, Scithers won four Hugos as an editor, whilst Ted White's sole Hugo was Best Fan Writer. So, in theory, Scithers is the better...or at least more acknowledged...editor.
Truth is, that I just don't like the stories White chooses to run. And that's fine. Editorial compatibility - the measure of how much your tastes coincide with a specific editor - is an important thing to acknowledge as a writer. My husband loves Stanley Schmidt's Analog (He has yet to get to Trevor Quachri's run), but is strongly indifferent to Sheila Williams' Asimov's.
Paying attention to the editor will help you buy what you want to buy if you're shopping for periodicals or anthologies.
As a writer, you need to pay extra attention to the editor. Submitting to an editor who, like Ted White for me, buys absolutely nothing you like is a waste of time - because we all write what we like to read. It doesn't mean your work sucks. It just means you don't have editorial compatibility.
(And as a writer, there's little worse than selling a story to the publisher and then finding out you don't have compatibility with the person hired to edit it...)
I enjoy George Scithers' run on Amazing a lot. (I have the privilege of having had a story accepted by him. Sadly, the publisher got into financial difficulties and the magazine it was supposed to be in lasted one issue. I was in issue two...)
Ted White's run on Fantastic? A slog I'm reading out of a bizarre sense of obligation.
Now, to be fair, Scithers won four Hugos as an editor, whilst Ted White's sole Hugo was Best Fan Writer. So, in theory, Scithers is the better...or at least more acknowledged...editor.
Truth is, that I just don't like the stories White chooses to run. And that's fine. Editorial compatibility - the measure of how much your tastes coincide with a specific editor - is an important thing to acknowledge as a writer. My husband loves Stanley Schmidt's Analog (He has yet to get to Trevor Quachri's run), but is strongly indifferent to Sheila Williams' Asimov's.
Paying attention to the editor will help you buy what you want to buy if you're shopping for periodicals or anthologies.
As a writer, you need to pay extra attention to the editor. Submitting to an editor who, like Ted White for me, buys absolutely nothing you like is a waste of time - because we all write what we like to read. It doesn't mean your work sucks. It just means you don't have editorial compatibility.
(And as a writer, there's little worse than selling a story to the publisher and then finding out you don't have compatibility with the person hired to edit it...)
Monday, September 23, 2013
The Return of the Pulps
A lot of us aren't old enough to remember the pulps, although we might have read them - or reprints from them.
Hundreds of magazines printed on cheap "pulp" paper could be found at newstands and in bookstores. "Pulp" novelists churned out twenty or thirty books a year, sometimes writing under multiple names to conceal the sheer size of their output.
Then came...television. A lot of people stopped reading. Popular entertainment switched to video.
Those old pulps offered cheap entertainment. They were written by competent writers - not always great ones, but people who knew how to put one word in front of another well and how to follow a formula. Pulp fiction was mostly science fiction, sword and sorcery, mysteries, romances, and westerns - what we now call genre fiction. The novels were short, transparently written, and quick reads. (The sparse style of some of the best science fiction writers recalls this). They didn't pay writers well (and sometimes the writers had to go after them for money). Some kept stables of writers and offered a stable, if low, monthly income.
All that went away. The number of science fiction and fantasy magazines dwindled, with the higher quality digests such as Analog and Fantasy & Science Fiction surviving and becoming a venue for big names and talented newcomers alike.
So, why is this post titled the return of the pulps? When was the last time you saw a science fiction or western magazine in a newstand? And weren't the pulps the very reason why literary and even mainstream commercial writers looked down on genre fiction.
Truth is that, very quietly, something has happened. Now we have magazines such as Bards & Sages Quarterly, Untied Shoelaces of the Mind (there's a title to conjure with) and, of course, Big Pulp. And a plethora of others. They don't pay writers very much, but often feature the same writers multiple times. Some of them don't even pretend or claim to pay. The difference is that unlike the old pulps, they don't buy to a formula. In fact, the new pulps cross genres both in their tables of contents and sometimes even in individual stories. They publish science fiction, fantasy, horror, westerns, even mainstream fiction. They tend to prefer their stories short. Instead of offering readers the expected formulas, the new "pulp" magazines are all about variety.
The "pulp" novelist is back too - writing double figures of novels a year, sometimes under multiple pseudonyms. Many of the new pulp writers write romances - taking advantage of a voracious readership and the fact that romance novels tend to be shorter. They make their money from writing as much as possible.
Is this a bad thing? No. Once more, the reader who wants cheap, competently written entertainment can get it. In fact, quite a few of these pulp magazines offer their content for the best price of all - free. The down side is that the reader has to wade through all of this output - but hey, that's what reviews are for.
The new pulps are where the new writers are breaking in and where you can find the unique, the experimental, the unusual. But you won't find them in the newstand printed on yellowing paper - because these days, they aren't printed at all...
The internet has brought back pulp fiction - and that's a very good thing.
Hundreds of magazines printed on cheap "pulp" paper could be found at newstands and in bookstores. "Pulp" novelists churned out twenty or thirty books a year, sometimes writing under multiple names to conceal the sheer size of their output.
Then came...television. A lot of people stopped reading. Popular entertainment switched to video.
Those old pulps offered cheap entertainment. They were written by competent writers - not always great ones, but people who knew how to put one word in front of another well and how to follow a formula. Pulp fiction was mostly science fiction, sword and sorcery, mysteries, romances, and westerns - what we now call genre fiction. The novels were short, transparently written, and quick reads. (The sparse style of some of the best science fiction writers recalls this). They didn't pay writers well (and sometimes the writers had to go after them for money). Some kept stables of writers and offered a stable, if low, monthly income.
All that went away. The number of science fiction and fantasy magazines dwindled, with the higher quality digests such as Analog and Fantasy & Science Fiction surviving and becoming a venue for big names and talented newcomers alike.
So, why is this post titled the return of the pulps? When was the last time you saw a science fiction or western magazine in a newstand? And weren't the pulps the very reason why literary and even mainstream commercial writers looked down on genre fiction.
Truth is that, very quietly, something has happened. Now we have magazines such as Bards & Sages Quarterly, Untied Shoelaces of the Mind (there's a title to conjure with) and, of course, Big Pulp. And a plethora of others. They don't pay writers very much, but often feature the same writers multiple times. Some of them don't even pretend or claim to pay. The difference is that unlike the old pulps, they don't buy to a formula. In fact, the new pulps cross genres both in their tables of contents and sometimes even in individual stories. They publish science fiction, fantasy, horror, westerns, even mainstream fiction. They tend to prefer their stories short. Instead of offering readers the expected formulas, the new "pulp" magazines are all about variety.
The "pulp" novelist is back too - writing double figures of novels a year, sometimes under multiple pseudonyms. Many of the new pulp writers write romances - taking advantage of a voracious readership and the fact that romance novels tend to be shorter. They make their money from writing as much as possible.
Is this a bad thing? No. Once more, the reader who wants cheap, competently written entertainment can get it. In fact, quite a few of these pulp magazines offer their content for the best price of all - free. The down side is that the reader has to wade through all of this output - but hey, that's what reviews are for.
The new pulps are where the new writers are breaking in and where you can find the unique, the experimental, the unusual. But you won't find them in the newstand printed on yellowing paper - because these days, they aren't printed at all...
The internet has brought back pulp fiction - and that's a very good thing.
Friday, September 20, 2013
Friday Updates!
First of all, That Blasted Horse is now LIVE at Untied Shoelaces of the Mind. If you're in the mood for a brief trip to the weird west...
Regular version here.
Printer friendly.
I also got my contributors' copy of Shades of Blue & Gray yesterday. The production values are as high as I was expecting.
This book is awesome!
Regular version here.
Printer friendly.
I also got my contributors' copy of Shades of Blue & Gray yesterday. The production values are as high as I was expecting.
This book is awesome!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)