Tag: books

Update on the State of ‘Jake and the Dynamo’

I have all but finally decided to self-publish Jake and the Dynamo, which was my original intention with the series anyway. This is admittedly a self-own, but I’m having a hard time getting a publisher to acknowledge my existence—and I don’t mean accept my manuscript; I really mean acknowledge my existence. I think something serious has happened to the industry in the last decade because I used to be able to collect polite, pre-formatted rejection slips. Now I can’t even get a “you suck so don’t write to us again.”

I’m currently swimming in a bewildering array of advice, much of it obviously bad or exploitative, about how to move forward with this. I will certainly have to commission cover art, for which I have some leads, and also format the manuscript. I’m assuming the latter task will require learning some new software, though I’m unsure of that as of yet. My former publisher used Vellum, I think, but that’s only available on Mac, and I don’t have one. At the very least, I know something about web and document accessibility, which will probably help.

So that’s what I’m up to right now, which is part of why the content here is so slim. I really want to get the first two volumes of Jake and the Dynamo available in the near future; the first needs republished, and the second needs to be published for the first time. I am in the midst of the draft of the third. I don’t want to be too hasty and have a bad roll-out when a little more legwork could produce a better product (and more sales, of course).

Rag & Muffin is currently on an editor’s desk, and the requested wait period has not closed, but considering how things are going, I expect that it will (about three months now) without my existence having been acknowledged. At that point, I will consider self-publishing it as well, though I might attempt more submissions first.

I gotta work tonight …

I’m starting to explore the possibilities of self-publishing, so I’m spending tonight looking into the subject and gathering information on what steps to take. I’ll check in later with some some reviews and stuff.

Why Blood Tastes like Copper

Sorry for the long time away. Life is happening. I got a wife and baby and job and stuff. But anyway, here I am.

While my wife is sleeping off her night shift, I have spent most of the day working on my current novel in progress, which happens to be volume 3 of Jake and the Dynamo, currently under the working title of The Shadow of His Shadow.

Anyway, as I was working, I happened to find myself asking a trivial question—why do we typically describe blood as tasting like copper?

This question led me to an interesting article on LiveScience. Although some speculation appears to be involved in the article’s conclusion, the apparent answer is that copper and other metals, including iron, don’t actually have the metallic odor we attribute to them. Rather, the smell comes from an oil in our skin, which breaks down in the presence of metal.

So, when you grab a piece of metal, the breakdown of the oil in your hands leaves behind the “metallic” smell. Naturally, since metal coins get a lot of handling, this makes coins smelly. Thus, the distinctive odor of copper pennies.

Similarly (this part appears to be more speculative), the iron in blood can produce the same smell for the same reason, and (this part is conjecture) we may be sensitive to this metallic smell specifically so that we can be alert to the smell of blood.

So, we smell blood because blood reacts to skin oil in the same way coins do, and then we turn around and attribute the smell of coins to blood.

So there you go.

Jake and the Dynamo: The Shadow of His Shadow
Phase:Writing
Due:4 years ago
33.2%

‘Rag & Muffin’ Excerpt

This is an excerpt from my novel Rag & Muffin. It is currently on an editor’s desk, but since I am getting ignored rather than rejections, I may move to self-publication in the near future. Anyway, this has to include a language warning since it’s more explicit than what I normally post on the blog.

In the dark, on her grass mat, Miss Alice sat in the Padmasana—Lotus Posture—one of the basic positions of Yoga. She had heard that if she practiced Yoga, she could make her Sammohana stronger.

She wanted to make it stronger.

It was the only thing she had.

She tried to focus on her breathing, but it was hard: She kept thinking about the men, about the chair, about the buzzing whine of the drill and the horrible pain it made when it went into her head. The back of her neck hurt. Her brain throbbed with a monotonous ache that made it difficult to think, and she still felt vestiges of the sickness and chills she got the last time they dug into her skull.

She didn’t understand why they were doing this to her. She didn’t even hate them. But she felt stark terror every time the door opened because it meant more agony, more screaming, more sickness. It meant their greasy hands and bad smells. It meant being hit and slapped and tied down. It meant searing pain.

She heard steps outside. She heard a hand rattling the knob. She heard the knob turn with a groan and a click.

The metal door opened with the ear-splitting creak of rusty hinges. Once again, she used her only weapon.

As he came through the door, she looked into his eyes. With a stab of pain, she felt her ravaged Heaven Seed gland squeeze down, and a pleasant ripple ran across her body. She began to speak, to order him to release her—but he simply walked over and slapped her on the mouth.

“Don’t you ever try that on me, you little cunt. And stop wasting your juice.”

It was the man they called Harman. The really bad one, meaner than the others.

Sammohana never worked on him.

Continue reading “‘Rag & Muffin’ Excerpt”

Double Book Review: ‘Bambi’ vs. ‘Watership Down’

Sometimes, when I’ve had a bad day, I just want to watch some cuddly talking animals bleed to death.

This is, again, an old review salvaged from my previous, now-defunct blog and subsequently edited. Were I to write it today, I’d probably give fewer spoilers, so considered yourself warned. In any case, these are still two of my all-time favorite novels, so I think this review belongs over here. I can relate it to magical girls by pointing out that both these books are about talking animals, and magical girls are usually accompanied by talking animals. Or something.

Bambi by Felix Salten. Translated by Whittaker Chambers. Grosset and Dunlap (New York): 1929. 293 pages.

Watership Down by Richard Adams. Scribner (New York): 2005 (Reprint). 499 pages.

There’s an old joke, dating back to the 1960s, about what would happen if Bambi fought Godzilla.  The correct answer, known to anyone who’s read the original novel Bambi by Felix Salten, is that Godzilla would get his ass kicked, at least if he made the mistake of standing between Bambi and a doe in rut.

Felix Salten’s classic novel, an often dark and brutal story originally published in , has been eclipsed in most people’s minds by the Disneyfied version, though since I originally wrote this review, a number of lavishly illustrated productions of the book have come into print. I can vouch for none because I read this book in a 1929 printing, but some of the new editions are beautiful at least at first glance—though I have been warned that some contain an abridged text, so I pass that warning on.

In any case, Godzilla would also likely meet his demise if he made the mistake of harassing the lady friends of the bunny rabbits from Watership Down, except the rabbits would most likely coerce somebody else into delivering the beat-down for them—maybe Bambi, in fact.

So if Bambi teamed up with the Watership Down rabbits to open a can of whoopass on Godzilla, especially if they maybe, I dunno, used some powered mecha armor that somebody left in the woods or something, that would be kick-awesome.  Or maybe the rabbits could all drive armored vehicles that look like giant rabbits that shoot lasers out of their ears, and then Bambi could drive a vehicle that looks like a giant stag, and then they could combine together into a super giant robot that maybe looks like a jackalope.  I would totally watch this Bambi vs. Godzilla movie in the theater.

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The Latest on the State of the Books

Featured image: “Art Challenge” by Sonya Fung

So, as I earlier reported, my publisher has gone out of business. I disappeared after that for a few different reasons, mostly because I immediately dived into the next steps for my books.

I have, just today, sent both Jake and the Dynamo and Rag & Muffin out the door. I sent Jake and the Dynamo to another indie publisher that is interested in the orphans of Superversive Press, but after consulting with my editor, I’ve decided to shop Rag & Muffin with larger publishing houses.

It would be imprudent to name names. All I can say is, the books are out of the house, and I’m working on my rejection slip collection.

This means a couple of things for my current projects: First, Dead to Rites, the sequel to Jake and the Dynamo, is in limbo until further notice. It will get picked up when (if) Jake and the Dynamo does.

Second, I have no idea of release dates anymore because my submissions could get rejected. Rag & Muffin probably will be, since I’m aiming higher with it.

Third, I’m right back where I started a few weeks ago, working on Son of Hel, which I will submit somewhere when I’m done with it.

Fourth, I’m getting married in April, so I disappeared partly because I was working on arrangements for that. In a couple of weeks, I’ll travel back to Memphis to help the magical girl move, as she’s starting a new job soon in my current town of residence. Then we’ll get married a couple of months after that, and then I’ll have to move again because I’ll be moving in with her.

So that’s what’s up. I’m afraid I’m way behind on watching, reading, and reviewing stuff because my own projects and personal life have taken precedence.

Book Review: ‘Krampus: The Yule Lord’

If you hate Christmas, then I have a book for you.

Krampus: The Yule Lord, written and illustrated by Brom. HarperCollins, 2011. 368 pages. ISBN: 0062095668.

Krampus: The Yule Lord, a Santa Claus novel for people who hate Santa Claus, is undeniably entertaining, but someone would have to be a serious Scrooge to embrace it unreservedly.

This is, so I understand, the second novel by Brom, an illustrator and game designer who made his debut as a novelist with The Child Thief, a subversion of Peter Pan. He followed that up by taking on the jolly saint of Christmas, reimagining him as a brawny, sword-wielding Norse god locked in a mortal duel with a devil-like Krampus in a continuation of the ancient rivalry between Loki and everyone else in the Norse pantheon.

Since Brom’s first talent is drawing, the book is lavishly illustrated. Both the cover and the illustrations throughout are by the author.

A nude, dancing fairy from Krampus: The Yule Lord
I can hear feminists screaming, “Where are her organs?!?”

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Rag & Muffin Continues; Art; And Other Stuff

Featured Image: “Magical Girl Uraraka” by Hannahsrrex.

I haven’t posted for two weeks, but I have reasons or at least excuses.

Partly, the more I get settled into being a published author with a book out and two on the way, the less I have time (or interest, even) in watching and reading other stuff to review. This is perhaps inevitable.

Also, my computer is on the fritz. I’ve long known that this little laptop, though it has been a good machine all things considered, is well past its sell-by date. Recently, I managed to fry its keyboard with spilled beer (yes, really) so I can no longer type on it without a peripheral keyboard.

Also, it has stopped talking to my printer for reasons I’ve been unable to figure out. It’s possible the printer itself is to blame, but I doubt it, since all its diagnostics claim it’s working just fine and communicating with the network just fine. It’s just that the computer can’t see it. Turning off all the firewalls and antivirus software doesn’t appear to help, and beyond that I don’t know what to do about the problem. So I effectively have no printer, which will become a problem in the near future when I get back the edit requests for my last submission.

Basically, the computer needs replaced, and has for a few years, but I don’t really have the money for it, especially since I just had to replace my car, which I totaled in a flood. Part of my disappearance here came from the time it took to make sure everything was backed up.

Rag & Muffin Update

Speaking of which, as I’ve mentioned before, Rag & Muffin is finally out of the house. I expect it to need more editing before it’s ready to publish, but it is at least underway. It has taken an embarrassingly long time to get that novel completed and submitted, but I have reasons/excuses for that, too—it is my first novel, though I have two others preceding it to publication, and a first novel always takes the longest. It also took an enormous amount of rewriting and reshaping, partly for reasons I don’t say in public. Although its basic premise—”Fancy Nancy in Dungeonpunk India with guns and Kung fu”—is quite silly, it’s a very personal novel in some ways and was difficult to finish. The earliest drafts were quite lurid; they were torturous to write and I’m glad to have them behind me, but I’m comfortable with the content in this penultimate version I recently sent to my editor, even if it contains more than my usual number of cuss words.

Next Project

I am trying to peel myself away from meddling with Rag & Muffin while my editor has it and instead turn my attention to Son of Hel, which will require more research to do it justice.

I’ll do a whole post on this in the near future, but one thing I will say is that, as I look at the various interpretations and reworkings that have been done of Santa Claus legends, I’m surprised at how few modern interpretations—none of them that I know of—want to connect Santa Clause back to the original St. Nicholas. Since nobody else wants to do it, I figure that’s one contribution I can make. My plan is to conflate as many characters and concepts of Santa lore as possible, so the monk who was bishop of Myra has also become the reindeer-breeding gift-giver with an army of elves in his workshop, accompanied by several interesting companions ranging from a Russian snow maiden to a half-demon to a murderous butcher.

Goodreads Review: ‘The House on the Borderland’

William Hodgson's Horror Trilogy: The House on the BorderlandWilliam Hodgson’s Horror Trilogy: The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As a pioneer of horror writing in the early part of the twentieth century, what Hodgson lacked in skill, he made up for in imagination.

I must confess, I have twice tried to read through Hodgson’s masterwork THE NIGHT LAND and failed both times. It’s a tough slog full of brilliant, hair-raising concepts weighed down by turgid, overwrought, and deliberately anachronistic prose.

By contrast, his “trilogy” of unrelated short novels, including THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND, THE BOATS OF THE ‘GLEN CARRIG,’ and ‘THE GHOST PIRATES’ are surprisingly readable even if they could have benefited from additional editorial work.

In these novels, Hodgson reveals that, in spite of his tendency to fall into both irrelevant and monotonous detail as well as an amateurishly purple style, he has a real talent for action and adventure writing.

THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND, easily the weirdest of these works, becomes genuinely exciting as its lone, beleaguered narrator struggles to defend his supernaturally-infused house from an invading race of pig-faced and claw-handed invaders. By contrast, the book drags during a sequence in which the narrator has a vision of the end of the world that is analogous to passages in Wells’s THE TIME MACHINE, but considerably more monotonous. What these passages lack in excitement, however, they more than make up for in scope of vision, as Hodgson describes our sun growing dark and decrepit and ultimately falling into a gigantic super-star the size of a galaxy.

THE BOATS OF THE ‘GLEN CARRIG’ is a more straightforward adventure story. Starting in medias res, it depicts a group of harried sailors, after their ship has foundered, trying to make it home as they encounter weird and dangerous oddities such as an island of carnivorous plants and a continent of seaweed inhabited by giant octopuses and murderous mermen. The story drags as Hodgson narrates extraneous details (he describes each day, in succession, of the men’s making rope, instead of summarizing all with “We spent several days making rope.”) Like THE NIGHT LAND, the book becomes particularly insipid when Hodgson adds a romantic element. Nonetheless, it is a fun yarn overall.

The novel that works best as horror is THE GHOST PIRATES, and it also shows Hodgson’s skill as a writer of speculative fiction. The story’s narrator has the misfortune to take work on a ghost ship, but not any ordinary ghost ship: in some mysterious way unhallowed, this boat is open to the invasion of creatures from an alternate dimension, creatures bent on killing the crew members one at a time. Hodgson steadily ratchets up the tension with a skill unusual for him. It is genuinely frightening, and unlike his other novels, this one kept me reading far into the night.

Hodgson was a pioneer of speculative fiction and horror. His work is in some senses ahead of its time, particularly his use of science fiction elements such as alternate worlds and speculation about the final fate of the solar system. He deserves to be read most of all because of the writers he influenced, particularly H. P. Lovecraft.

Nonetheless, in these three works (unlike, sadly, THE NIGHT LAND), he can be read for enjoyment, for his own sake, and not merely because of his importance in the history of genre fiction.

View all my reviews

‘Pretty Cure’ Holds a World Record

This is kind of old, but it escaped my notice at the time. Apparently, the film Hug! Pretty Cure, Futari Wa Pretty Cure the Movie, now holds the Guinness World Record for most magical girl warriors in a single film, as reported on the Guinness site.

They accomplished this by stuffing every single Cure into the movie, a total of fifty-five. To acknowledge the record, Guinness arbitrarily required that each girl had to have dialogue and participate in combat.

This is such an oddball record, it’s unlikely that any other movie will beat it—unless it’s another Pretty Cure Film.

Update

In other news, I have decided I am going to make a more ambitious goal for the completion of the revision phase of Rag & Muffin. I believe it is possible to have it done by the end of this weekend.

I just finished revising chapter ten. There are twenty chapters. From here on, the book will need more work, but that’s still only five chapters a day.

Once I finish this, I can send it out the door to my editor and get to work on the research and outlining phase of Son of Hel, which I’m quite looking forward to.

Rag & Muffin
Phase:Revising
Due:6 years ago
54%