Flawed Diamonds

And now...

2012-01-12T17:18:00.000-05:00

I submitted a story today. It's a good story, one I've been working on for two months, and I think should go well with the anthology's theme. It's been nearly two hours since I submitted, and I'm anxiously checking my email to see if the editors liked it. This is silly. They'll take some time, probably a month, since the deadline isn't until the 31st of this month. And so I do what all writers do, move on to the next story (the werewolf one in this case). And try to put the waiting out of my mind. But what I'm really doing? Is waiting.

And waiting

"I don't discuss my process"

2011-12-28T10:32:00.000-05:00

I feel like discussing the genesis of a story today. I always think that my stories are easily guessed, the low-hanging-fruit plots that anyone could come up with given ten minutes of thought on a theme. But it doesn't seem to be that way. I've gotten praise for my unusual stories, sometimes from editors, so apparently, my though process is unusual enough that I can sell stories based on it.

I want to be in a werewolf anthology. I don't seek out werewolf stories. There's much more interest in the other parts of the Universal Horror tradition. The werewolf tends to be a serial killer with a big furry coat, a Jeckyl and Hyde persona. An easy metaphor for the rage and anger we all keep bottled up.

How can I make my story different, yet still retain the essential "thing-ness" that makes a werewolf story a werewolf story?

First with the negative. I don't want this to be a 'spot the werewolf' story. We think the unfeeling brute in the story is the werewolf, and OOOH THE SURPRISE it's the meek little person who turns out to have been bullied and gets their unexpected revenge. Nor do I want this to be a story the lionizes the werewolf. While I write stories that involve violence, at the same time, I try not to present it as a way to solve problems. I prefer it to be a symptom of sickness, rather than something cool to do. Oh, and no silver. Silver was introduced in the 20th century, so I'm going to leave it out.

What I do want: a flourish of originality, and something touching on authentic folklore. Europe tends to have the richest werewolf tradition, so I think I'll go with those. And France. I want to set it in France. Probably because I enjoyed Brotherhood of the Wolf, but also because the wolf was wiped out in England in Medieval times, I tend to associate wolves and werewolves with France. I also want wolves, and wolf behavior. And it turns out that there's a strong association of werewolves with cannibalism, so I think that'll go into the plot.

So it's off to Wikipedia. As Wikipedia grows, it has a lot of links to specific instances and references. For example, you can find this entry in the werewolf entry linked to above:

A notable exception to the association of Lycanthropy and the Devil, comes from a rare and lesser known account of an 80-year-old man named Thiess. In 1692, in Jurgenburg, Livonia, Thiess testified under oath that he and other werewolves were the Hounds of God. He claimed they were warriors who went down into hell to do battle with witches and demons. Their efforts ensured that the Devil and his minions did not carry off the grain from local failed crops down to hell. Thiess was steadfast in his assertions, claiming that werewolves in Germany and Russia also did battle with the devil's minions in their own versions of hell, and insisted that when werewolves died, their souls were welcomed into heaven as reward for their service. Thiess was ultimately sentenced to ten lashes for Idolatry and superstitious belief.

That reminds me of an Italian society of dreamers I've read about in Ken Hite's Dubious Shards; the Benandanti, a group of Medieval Italian mystics who fought the Devil in their dreams. I also remember something about the winter of 1450, when the Seine froze, and wolves got into the walled city of Paris. They were eventually wiped out on the steps of Notre Dame. That Wikipedia entry also includes a link to Werewolf Witch trials, which happened in Estonia, where many witches were also werewolves. It was a long, very cold winter, with a poor harvest before it, so the winter of 1450 sounds like an excellent time to set a story about starvation.

So to make a small, possibly credible link with the Benandanti, I'll move the story to the Franco-Italian border, which was at the time in the hands of the Holy Roman Empire, a political entity I tend to forget about since it's not modern. With a little work from Wikipedia and Google Maps, I decide I'm going to put it in the Duchy of Savoy, the capital of which is Chambéry, and the Duke around 1450 is Louis. And that kind of research is a lot of fun. Another hour on Google Maps, and I'll have the very village the story takes place in.

In his Finishing the Hat Stephen Sondheim says that one of his guiding principles is that "God is in the details." Well the man writes some beautiful words, so I'm going to take him at his word and be very picky with my details. It gives me a background to hand the story on, allowing me to make casual mention of the Duke Louis, and Fredrick III is the Emperor (elect only, because he wasn't crowned by the Pope until 1452, but this was apparently just a formality). These details create an air of authenticity, even as I pick and choose my regional werewolf legends.

I don't want to make the werewolf sympathetic per se, but I do want to make them (I don't know what sex it's going to be yet) complex. Complex characters are always somewhat sympathetic because we understand them, and respond to the care used to create them. And because I want to use the cannibalism angle; it's difficult to make people like a cannibal, but I'm always up for a challenge.

So I've got this enormous pot of details and wants and not-wants, but you can see how the details are going to shape the story. And things may change. If I write myself into a corner, I may have to alter any or even all of these details to create a successful story, but as I progress as a writer, the need to change the story once I've started it is less.

And there you have it; the initial steps in the creation of the story I'm currently writing. Now to get to the difficult part of writing it.

Have I Told You to Buy My Stuff Lately?

2011-12-21T09:54:00.000-05:00

I always feel funny telling people to buy my work. What I prefer is that other people do it for me.

Let's take Rod MacDonald's review of Andromeda Spaceways InFlight Magazine for SFcrowsnest.com. If you're too lazy to click the link, I've copied and pasted the important bit below:

David Conyers and John Goodrich are the joint authors of ‘The Masked Messenger’ which features Harrison Peel in another Cthulhu Mythos story. The agent is in Morocco to investigate strange deaths where people end up being cut into thousands of pieces. Is this a conventional terrorist act or is it an act of a cult belonging to the Masked Messenger? There is a strange book, centuries old, which contains deadly secrets and there is also a portal in the Sahara Desert which leads on to another world completely different from our own. An excellent tale full of suspense and action, it's worth purchasing the magazine for this alone.

Rod seems like an excellent fellow. I think it's entirely worthwhile to follow his advice and purchase a PDF copy. I mean, I wouldn't want to be accused of ignoring Rod's advice.

Inspiring...

2011-12-18T19:36:00.000-05:00

I've recently read and reviewed Ross Lockhart's The Book of Cthulhu. It's a really good anthology, and more than that, an inspiring one. There are so many extraordinary, well-crafted stories in it that I wanted to make my next story to be good enough to warrant inclusion. Could I write a story that could follow "The Oram County Whoosit" and not embarrass myself?

I don't know. I don't think so... yet. But I'm revising the story that I've said that about, and I think it's better than anything I've yet written. According to my initial review group, it shares the strengths of the majority of my work; strong characterization, and a good fight scene. I think it has more description and atmosphere that my work up to now.

It's been a long, hard slog. Between classes and work, I've had to assemble the story bit by bit, and that often makes scenes and events inconsistent. And writing style can vary from day to day, depending on mood and the events of the day. The protagonist is also a huge variation from my usual, as well as being set in the near future of a city I've never been to. In early writing classes, they say you should write what you know, but there comes a time when you run out of parts of your life to mine. And I can either continue to dig up my life's shallow grave, or I can strike out and try someone who has very little in common with me. Let's hope this character comes out as strong as I hope she does.

There's also a lack of exposition in this story, which may not be the best approach because it's set in the near future, and there's a lot of technology out there that isn't familiar to the reader. But the characters in the story wouldn't talk about that technology any more than you or I would talk about how our cell phones work. We use them when they work, curse at them when they don't.

I think it's a step up in terms of the quality of my writing. I'll ask what you as readers think if it gets sold and if you read it.

ANTHOCON was awesome!

2011-11-29T07:32:00.001-05:00

Yeah. I drove three and a half hours, obeying several speed limits, to get there before Brian Keene's Keynote Speech. Which he posted on his website, and is an excellent read, by the way, so go do it now.

The company was good. The attendees were an enjoyable mix of pro and fan, with the vast majority of the authors from the Epitaphs anthology in attendance. So I did what I love to do when I'm in the company of writers; we spoke. We exchanged ideas, laughed at stuff, and talked. Authors love to talk.

We also spoke of the death of Les Daniels, and I have to say, I learned a great deal about the man. I knew him as the author of some terrific vampire novels, creator of Don Sebastian de Villanueva. Billed as "The vampire horrified by humanity" Don Sebastian consistently went to the most horrible places and times in history, such as Spanish Inquisition, the French Terror, and the lower classes of Victorian England. They're excellent novels. But Dan was much more than that. He was the first person to publish a book on the history of horror, Living in Fear: A History of Horror in the Mass Media, as well as the first serious look at comics: Comix: A History of the Comic Book in America. Les was, therefore one of the people responsible for raising two art forms that I enjoy out of their "it's pulp and no one should study it" gutters. He did a lot more, and his friends shared a great deal of the other work he'd done. Les was remarkable, no doubt about it. He will be missed.

Anthocon also featured at least a couple of people who were a little bit out of their element. Local author K. D. Mason writes murder mysteries set along New Hampshire's coast. We talked a bit. He was a nice guy. Among the vendors were a pair of college programs with graduate degrees in creative writing, and they looked bored. I got some literature from them.

But the real draws was the authors. Writing can be very lonely, because it's very seldom that collaboration happens in company. But talking with other people who write always makes the hard parts seem less difficult, because we all face the same problems. Editors! Reviews from people who didn't read the book! Finding time to write! But the conversation always circles back into "Have you read this book/story/series and what did you think of it." Because the New England Horror Community is a group of voracious readers, and they've all got informed opinions about what they're reading. Is the protagonist of Hunger Games nothing but a victim through the whole series? There's a couple of opinions, and they're all got a reason for the opinion.

The major lesson learned? Brian Keene can tell when someone is telling a Harlan Ellison story from twenty feet away. If that's not a superpower, I don't know what is.

Excellent con.

After twenty years, I'm going back to Portsmouth!

2011-11-11T07:59:00.001-05:00

This weekend, I will be the guest (my first time as the guest of a convention) at Anthocon, hosted by Shroud Press, in Portsmouth, NH.

Portsmouth is a lovely town on the New Hampshire coast... I used to visit there when I was in college. Among other things, it has the USS Nautilus, the US's first nuclear submarineUSS Albacore, formerly the US Navy's fastest submarine (Thanks to Donovan Loucks and Dan Foley for correcting me on that). But it was a nice little touristy place, quite attractive, with some nice shops. And now I'm going back.

Why? Because Shroud Books is publishing Epitaphs, the first anthology of the New England Horror Writers Association. And I'm in it.

I wrote "Not an Ulcer" for the gay-themed Unspeakable Horror anthology. It was one of my bridesmaid stories, and something like the third story I’d seriously written. The anthology asked for a rewrite, which they ultimately rejected. But just being asked for a rewrite was pretty big. But Lee Thomas had a story with a similar concept called “I’m Your Violence.” Do I stack up against Lee Thomas? I think not! But hey, I got asked to do a rewrite! At that time, 2008, I was in the running for several anthologies, and although I was in the second-to-last cut for all of them, I didn’t get into any. I started calling these bridesmaid stories on this blog; always a bridesmaid, never a bride.

The story is based in some way in my job time in California, but no character is based on anyone I knew. I wanted to do a story about someone at war with himself. At first, there were several Rush Limbaugh references, but I’ve cut them out. People read stories to be entertained, not to be preached at.

The story takes a real chance with the main character–the first line makes it quite clear that he’s a bigot, very difficult to sympathize with him. But I'm good with character, and I like a challenge.

I originally send “Nicaragua 1986” for consideration, which was written with the intention of submitting it to Epitaphs. I sent “Not an Ulcer” as an off-chance, since it had been rejected by five different markets but Tracy liked it. I don’t do body horror often, and I did polish it a little after every rejection, so it’s a much stronger story now than when it was submitted to Unspeakable Horror.

2011-11-07T10:33:00.002-05:00

Apologies, people. There was a hurricane, and then a class that is eating my brain. It's a good class, but I'm spending some fifteen hours a week on a three-credit course. It's a good coruse, field expereince an all that, but sometimes I wish that it took up less of my time.

I need to update this blog. Since I last posted, two stories have been published: 'The Masked Messenger" by David Conyers and myself, in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #52. It's a good story of terrorism, violence, hatred, arrogance, and horrible things from outside of time and space. Pretty much everything you've come to expect out of a story I'm part of.

Second, on the 12th, which is to say Saturday, I will be at Anthocon because I placed a story in the New England Horror Writers Association's anthology Epitaphs. "Not an Ulcer" has been around the block a few times, and I will provide a little insight into this story later.

I've also sold a story to Undead and Unbound, a Brian Sammons anthology. I''ve been invited to contribute to a couple other anthologies, also. One story is taking shape nicely. So yeah, I've been busy, and not just with playing Fallout: New Vegas.

Although it was a lot of fun.

And I'm Back

2011-08-29T08:30:00.004-04:00

"The whole matter began, as far as I was concerned, with the historic and unprecedented Vermont floods of November 3, 1927.... Shortly after the flood, amidst the varied reports of hardship, suffering, and organized relief which filled the press, there appeared certain odd stories of things found floating in some of the swollen rivers; so that many of my friends embarked on curious discussions and appealed to me to shed what light I could on the subject. I felt flattered at having my folklore story taken so seriously and did what I could to belittle the wild, vague tales which seemed so clearly an outgrowth of old rustic superstitions."

H. P. Lovecraft, "The Whisperer in Darkness."

Hurricane Irene has made a mess of a fair amount of Vermont, but there was some wisdom in buying a house that's been in the same place for a hundred years. A bridge near us is unsafe, and there is currently only one way to get into or out of Bennington. The Woodford Bridge collapsed, to there's no way to get into or out of Bennington to the East. That'll take some time to fix.

Stepping back a little, my summer classes are over, and my computer died, and had to be replaced. So I don't currently have a program to update my website, or upload pictures to my blog. On the upside, I did finally get to play Fallout: New Vegas. It is an excellent game, and I will be playing it again.

But I'm finally decompressing from the summer, and am back to writing. I'm overdue on a story I've been asked for (never turn someone down when they ask for a story), but it is coming together, and I expect to have the first draft done this week. Then it goes to the on-line workshop, and then the physical workshop.

It's good to be back in the saddle.

Splinter Fleet Mordiggian for Battlefleet Gothic

2011-07-17T07:30:00.006-04:00

Dodging classes and work, I've managed to collect and paint up an acceptable fleet, although several of the escorts still need painting. I've got a thousand point, sixteen-model list... but I was painting first and adding up the points later.

This is Splinter Fleet Mordggian, as it currently stands. One official Hive Ship. The snail-like ships are Phalons from Ground Zero Games' Full Thrust. I like the Phalon models a great deal, the battleships make excellent capital ships and the smaller scouts are good drones. Top left is a Shadow Scout with the tentacles put on backwards. I thought it came out kind of cool.

On the right is a a Phalon Mothership. The shells have these wonderful swooping patterns on them, and it was worth the extra painting time to emphasize them. On the left is a Phalon Corvette, which will be an escort drone. The middle is a little guy I found from Reaper Minis: the Rift Blights, which are ridiculously cool as tentacle drones. They come in two flavors: Spaghetti, and Spaghetti with Meat (pictured). There will be more on these guys later

A Phalon Battleship on the right, and I'm fairly pleased with the way the pattern on the shell came out. To the left is another Rift Blight. These guys painted up very nicely, although I'm not a particularly good photographer. In the back is that Shadow Scout.

Three Phalon cruisers (left and right are heavies, a battlecruiser in the center) that are going to substitute for torpedo Kraken. I think the camera focused on the hive ship's tentacles, instead of the other ships.

This is the best picture I made. It's a Rift Blight from Reaper Minis, and it's such an awesome model. The tentacles have teeth on them, which you can actually see in this picture.

The "Spaghetti with Meat" Rift Blight. It's a got a huge, exposed brain, but also the same sort of thorny tentacles. These guys are going to look great chowing down on Imperial ships.

Next I have some larger ships to build. The Phalon Carrier is just about the size of the Tyranid Hive Ship, and my next figure is going to be a Goroloth Drone, which is about the same size. The larger Goroloth mini, as yet unacquired, is between an quarter and a third larger than that. My big guy, however, is going to be the monstrous Armorcast Kraken, which will dwarf both of these.

Some notes on "N is for Neville"

2011-07-04T09:41:00.003-04:00

Dead but Dreaming 2 is out, and it contains my story "N is for Neville." You should go buy it from Miskatonic River Press. The cover is slightly different from the one previously posted, but the contents are pretty darn good.

For those of you who like your metatext fresh, here are my story notes on "N is for Neville."

All my stories are special. They’re all pretty personal pieces, expressions of myself, my heart and sweat on the page. And hey, if someone pays me money to print it, that's extra gravy.

“N is for Neville” is its own kind of special. I worked it for a while before it came out in its current form, including a month-long period in which I was stuck. I couldn’t get the tone right, the characters didn’t speak to me, and the words just hung on the page, lifeless.

What got me through it was Wilum Pugmire. I was reading his Sesqua Valley and Other Haunts, followed by The Fungal Stain and Other Dreams and I realized what I was missing decadence. The characters needed to be arty, wealthy, and bored. And Wilum’s writing showed me how to get that across. Which is why he appears in the story, and why the story is dedicated to him.

What I didn’t expect was for Wilum to write a story that Tuckerized me, and to sell it to the same anthology. And that’s something that warms my blackened walnut of a heart. One of the reasons I write is so that I can consider these smart, eloquent people who love words as my peers. Because I love the conversations writers have. To listen to people throwing out idea after idea and pass them around, building on each others concepts until you have this grand, hypothetical castle in the clouds; that’s magic. Ideas are magic.

I met Wilum at the 2007 World Fantasy convention. Like most writers I’ve met, he is enormously pleasant to talk with; intelligent and a fascinating conversationalist. More than most, Wilum has brought a great deal to my life and my writing. This story is dedicated to him because I would not be where I am today without his generosity and fascinating stories. Thank you, Brother Wilum.

Sharing a Small Pleasure

2011-06-30T17:43:00.004-04:00

A few years ago, we set up a 'pie' fence. A rhubarb patch and some raspberry canes--the sort that the locals call "black caps." It wasn't all that difficult, just transferred some brambles and canes that were crowded next to the garage out to the fence. It's worked like a charm, you can no longer see the ugly chain-link fence the previous owners had.

Our berry harvest is pretty astonishing. We pick twice a day so the birds won't get at them. And this is what we get:

The above represents two days worth of picking. Berries from our own yard... one of the small pleasures of living out of the city. They go really well on ice cream.

Huh

2011-06-13T10:06:00.004-04:00

Interesting the hand position used to handle a fencing foil is virtually the same one used for venipuncture. Thumb on top of the instrument, extending the elbow directly out from the body.

Now, how to use my disengage?

Community College Instructors

2011-05-24T07:11:00.002-04:00

I've attended three different colleges, gotten a Master's degree, and now I'm back on school for a professional certificate.

In all of my previous University experience, I've been taught by academics. People who have dedicated their loves to the study of their particular focus: Shakespeare, computers, etc.

What the Community College offers is a more motley collection of people. However, I have to say, they're a lot more colorful. I've been taught anatomy by a former chief of surgery, and now I'm being taught microcomputer apps by a Roller Derby coach who posts her own videos. It's quite the different perspective.

My writing is... inscrutable?

2011-05-18T08:17:00.006-04:00

In my copious spare time, I sometimes Google myself to see if there are any new reviews of my work out. This has led to several quite interesting discoveries. Most recently, I came across this review of “God of Chickens” at Scary Minds. It's a good and detailed review. And in the middle of the fourth paragraph, there's this little sentence:

“John Goodrich lays down the gore track with the amazing God Of Chickens, like a good Harold Pinter outing it works but try figuring out exactly how!”

Sale!

2011-05-18T07:18:00.007-04:00

I'm pleased to announce another sale, this one to Henrik Harkesn's Urban Cthulhu: Nightmare Cities. Editor Harksen's his first anthology, Eldritch Horrors, Dark Tales was a solid read, and I wrote “The Neighbors Upstairs” specifically for the follow-up. I'm quite tickled that he liked it.

Thus far, the table of contents includes:

• “the guilt of each… at the end…” by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
• “Dancer of the Dying” by Jayaprakash Satyamurthy
• “The Neighbors Upstairs” by John Goodrich
• “Carcosapunk” by Glynn Owen Barrass
• “Architect Eyes” by Thomas Strømsholt
• “Slou” by Robert Tangiers
• “Ozeelah’s Lake” by Morten Carlsen
• “The Statement of Frank Elwood” by Pete Rawlik
• “Night Life” by Henrik Sandbeck Harksen

Mmmm. Urban Cthulhu.

I think I Needed a Little Time Off...

2011-05-08T08:56:00.005-04:00

I still do. The school semester's over, and I've got to test out of something to get a class I've already taken (don't ask). I'm working more, and I have less time to write than I want because it's Spring, and in the Spring I get all ambitious and want to actually go do things.

Last night, for example, we went out to see a movie for the first time in months. We don't go out to the movies much. There's a lot of crap being produced. As a friend said, Hollywood has the reverse of the usual business model. You can see the good parts of a movie for free in the trailer, but you have to pay to see the crap.

Part of a movie's charm is the ambiance in which you see it. For this reason, and because we were hopeful but not expecting greatness, we went to the drive-in.

Mostly there for Thor, which could easily have been an enormous disaster, and Rango, which was only of vague interest.

But hey, Hathaway's drive-in! I've blogged about it before, but this time, I brought the camera. It was a mild Spring day, the sunset was lovely, and the bugs were outside the car. You kind of bring your own environment when you see a movie from the comfort of your own car. Families were there, and kids were throwing a ball around before the show. It was just that sort of bucolic, rural scene that does happen every now and then, not just in peoples' nostalgic biographies.

We used our radio for sound this time, and it sounded a lot better than using the provided speaker. We also visited the snack bar for tasty local burgers, pretty good fries (they provide vinegar for those of us who like them that way) and surprisingly tasty popcorn.

An enjoyable way to watch a couple of films. It's not really the way to watch a film you really want to pay attention to, because there's people walking around, drivers entering and exiting, and overall a fair mount of distractions. But the average film doesn't require you to pay attention to every frame, so it's fine. I will want to pay attention to every frame of On Stranger Tides, so I'll be seeing it in a more traditional theater. But I'm hoping we'll catch another double-feature before it closes for the winter.

Oh,the movie? Kim Newman was right, and Thor was well done especially considering the comic. The perfect drive-in film. Entertaining, pretty to look at (that the costume designer managed to turn Kirby's designs into wearable clothing is Oscar-worthy), with just the right amount of things blowing up. Rango was an amiable film, neither knocking my socks off nor wasting my time.

Return to the Tombs of Horror

2011-04-12T09:38:00.004-04:00

The Return to the Tomb of Horrors was written and released some twenty years after the initial Tomb of Horrors. The Return was to be an event; one of TSR’s (now owned by Wizards of the Coast) last boxed sets, it contained a book for the main adventure (printed in two colors), a booklet of maps and monsters (printed in color), a small journal from a previous survivor of the tomb, and a color card of art. Where the original adventure looks very much like it was typed out, twenty years had brought a fair amount of progress to desktop publishing. Return is printed in two colors, with border art and a watermark. This makes it more visually pleasing, but I can’t really say it improves the adventure itself.

Return to the Tomb of Horrors has a very late nineties feel. Dungeons and Dragons had expanded enormously from its original days of a largely terrestrial combat encounter game to setting within a larger multiverse with dozens of planes that could be visited. Multiple campaign settings had come been published, including the dimension-hopping Spelljammer, which took place on sailboats that plied the spaceways between magical stars. There are unfortunate aspects to the period, also. The term ‘demon’ is never used in the text. Following the Satanic Panic of the late 80's, the term demon was replaced with tanar’ri. Because if you change something’s name, you change its nature, right?

Second edition mega-adventures don’t start at the door of the dungeon. Return has two adventure sections before the adventurers even reach the Tomb. The lead-up provides the adventurers with information concerning the ultimate end of the adventure, as well as a string of clues that get them to the tomb without the GM having to say “You arrive at the Tomb of Horrors.” As someone used to the investigative play style of Call of Cthulhu, I find the clues that link the plot to be fairly weak and easily missed.

The adventure does have a fairly grand plot behind it. The original Tomb simply had the trap-laden tomb with Acererak waiting passively in the middle. The Return features a grand plan of apotheosis for the lich, interplanar locations, a spooky city in the midst of nowhere, and a second dungeon-style Tomb, the Fortress of Conclusion, out in the planes.

The Return shows how much Dungeons and Dragons had changed in twenty years. Now there was a great deal happening behind the scenes of the adventure, which the adventurers would only become aware of as they progressed in the adventure. Acererak now had a background that could be learned, and an overarching plot that had to be foiled. The characters’ motivation is no longer “treasure” or “because it is there” but because very bad things will happen if they do not pursue the adventure to the end.

The Return also encompasses the original Tomb, giving it a sense of continuity. Return is literally built around the original tomb, creating a continuity from the old adventure to the new. I can’t view it as pastiche, because it expands on the original adventure, retaining certain iconic elements (the Green Devil Face, for example) while introducing a far more than the first adventure.

Although the Return also includes a booklet of images to show the players, these are poorly chosen. The originals were there to hand clues to the players. These are much less necessary. Do we really need a drawing of a room with a dirt floor and three coffins? Or a walkway stretched over a room full of bones?

Ultimately, The Return to the Tomb of Horrors is a reasonably satisfying continuation of the Tomb of Horrors. The traps are less crazy deadly; there are few “characters are dead, no saving throw” traps. It’s a good read, longer than the original, with a lot more change of setting, and much more plot. It has a lot more polish, but in places seems to lack the ferocious creativity Gygax put into giving the players, and their characters, a real challenge.

AVP, or How to Lose My Interest in A Single Scene

2011-04-08T07:14:00.003-04:00

After watching and really enjoying Aliens, I decided to try the newest series in the franchise, AVP, Aliens Versus Predator. This was not a mistake, because it did not waste a lot of my time, and it gave me something to write about.

I made it to the second scene, at which point, the film strained my credulity beyond my interest in continuing.

Here's the scene: An ice-climber in Nepal. We are told this on-screen. Nepal.

The ice-climber's phone rings. I live in Vermont, and there are places where you can't get cell reception. I seriously doubt that there is good cell coverage in Nepal, let alone on isolated ice flows. Strike 1.

And then the ice-climber, hanging on a vertical ice flow, answers the phone. Yes, this was pretty inevitable when the phone rang, because it doesn't do to have a phone ring and no one answer it. But it just heightened the unfolding absurdity. Ice-climbing alone, and answering our cell phone as if it were a priority. Strike 2.

The third insult, and the point at which I turned the film off, was the "awesome reveal" at the end of the scene. After having a conversation with the person on the other end of the line, the ice-climber decides to go meet with the person who has called her. And she climbs to the top, and it is revealed that the guy she's on the phone with is up there, with a helicopter, ready to whisk her away.

This is another example of a tiresome trope of "What happens off-screen is silent." You can't sneak up on anyone with a helicopter, especially not somewhere as silent and abandoned as an isolated ice-flow a few days from civilization. Are we to believe that he flew in while she was sleeping and set down? That he's got a cool stealth-copter? That he flew in, landed, and she just didn't notice?

The scene is clearly intended toward the reveal of the helicopter already being there, impressing us with the Company's reach and grasp. Nowhere is beyond the Company's grasp, and they've got the resources to find you no matter where you are. But the scene doesn't make sense if you think about (yes, I understand that's a problem) what had to happen off-screen to make the scene work. And that attitude, in my experience, does not make for a good script.

So goodbye, AVP, it was time to watch a film with a better thought-out script.

Tombs of Horror

2011-03-31T08:38:00.009-04:00

March 2011 will not go down in history as my best or most productive month ever.

When I’m stressed and encounter long stretches when I have difficulty concentrating, I tend to read role-playing game supplements. RPG adventures and setting books don’t require the sustained attention that a novel does.

One of the first adventures to be published for Dungeons and Dragons was Gary Gygax’s Tomb of Horrors. Probably more fun to read than to actively participate in, the Tomb of Horrors is a death-trap meat-grinder. Where most adventures are a string of combat encounters strung together by the thinnest semblance of a plot, the infamous Tomb has three combat encounters and dozens of traps designed to kill and maim the greedy, the inattentive, and everyone around them.

Unique among adventures up to this point, Tomb of Horrors includes a booklet of pictures so that the players can see what their adventurers see. Which is very important given the technicality and lethality of the traps, but also went a long way towards establishing a ‘feel’ that few other modular adventures have. Anyone who has encountered the Tomb of Horrors remembers the Devil’s Head illustration, for example. It has also become a central point for all of the future expansions and revisions.

Tomb of Horrors also saw the birth of the riddling undead archvillain trope. Acererak, whose tomb this is, leaves a helpful hint in the form of a poem, in the entrance of his tomb. This was followed by Keraptis in White Plume Mountain, the Dread Crypt of Srihoz, and various other would-be poets that are found in RPGs with some frequency. This trope, for , but seldom appears in other fictions. Partially, this is because of the interactive nature of the game. A riddle handed to a book or television show character doesn’t require the viewer or reader to figure it out. Which is a pity. I love the trope.

I think the real key behind the Tomb’s popularity is that is was true to itself. Originally envisioned as the location of an evil undead horror that did not want to be disturbed, the traps were lethal (sometimes exceptionally so), and secret doors and passages placed where they were unlikely to be detected. The players/characters were only encouraged to succeed through the corrective of being killed if they weren’t. Without a lot of luck and foresight, they would not succeed. Most adventures point the characters in the right direction with not-so-subtle clues, or hand over the necessary magic item just before it is required. Not so much with the Tomb of Horrors.

Like any good piece of pop art, the Tomb has spawned a number of spin-offs, rip-offs, tributes and homages. D&D has produced a continuation of the Tomb of Horrors at least once per edition, and there have been many imitations, good and bad. For me, they're all wonderful comfort reading. In my head, I can see half a dozen different ways that the characters would react to a trap, and how would they try to avoid it, and what sorts of players' characters are likely to get caught and killed. I find it very relaxing.

With My Name on the Cover!

2011-03-01T08:09:00.005-05:00

I think this is what they mean when they talk about "momentum." Midnight Echo #5, from the Australian Horror Writers Association, is out, with my story “God of Chickens”. With my name on the cover.

You can order it in PDF as well as print from the AHWA website.

It's looking at YOU!

2011-02-21T07:23:00.004-05:00

Yes, I'm "and others." And it's available for pre-order.

Ephermeral Eons...

2011-02-01T08:08:00.002-05:00

With all the snow, we've developed layers in our snowbanks like a geological cross-section from a road cut through rock. I've enjoyed the study of certain types of ephemera, and wondered if there is any point to being able to learn the layers of snow. "This fall was light and fluffy, but it was later compacted by the action of heavy wet snow and sleet on top of it."

Message received by Battle Barge Glad of War, in service of the Rune Bearers chapter of the Adeptus Astartes

2011-01-20T16:42:00.005-05:00

My Lord Grettir;

Contact has been reestablished with the xenos provisionally designated Splinter Fleet Mordiggian

As my lord can see, Splinter Fleet Mordiggian has grown significantly since the last report was submitted. Previous contact was with small forces which displayed minimal diversity. This is sadly no longer the case. Recent sightings have indicated large numbers of genestealers, termagants and hormagaunts, indicating the explosive growth and rapid development of the Splinter Fleet.

Larger genus have been seen at a distance. To the right, a Trygon can be seen, and an enormous Tyrannofex crawls below it. I think I need not remind my lord the dangers such horrors present. Where before this splinter fleet had a single zoanthrope, now there are two. Two hyperintelligent psyker minds now guiding these Tyranid horrors.

Most distressing is the identification of this enormous Tervigon, capable of spawning hundreds of hormagaunts. None of this genus have previously been seen in this sector.

The fleet is known to have clashed inconclusively with Chaos Space Marines and was badly mauled by incursions of Eldar as well as Orks. None of these have managed to rid us of the menace.

I pray that my lord would make haste to deal with this tenacious enemy. The Adeptes Astartes have ever been the hope and savior of Mankind, and the Rune Bearers known for their victorious action against the Tyranid foe.

May the Holy Emperor guide your hand,

Johann of Eorthscraef

Viva Las Vegas!

2011-01-14T10:46:00.002-05:00

OK, not my first glimpse of New Vegas, but the first dramatic enough for a screen capture.

So I give you "Viva Las Vegas," the Dead Kennedys version:

Bright lights city gonna set my soul
It's gonna set my soul on fire
Got a whole lot of money that's ready to burn
So get those stakes up high
There's a thousand pretty women waiting out there
They're all waiting the Devil may care
And I'm just a devil with love to spare, so

VIVA LAS VEGAS!
VIVA LAS VEGAS!
VIVA LAS VEGAS!

How I wish that there were more
Than the twenty four hours in the day.
Even if I ran out of speed, boy
I wouldn't sleep a minute away

Oh there's blackjack, poker and the roulette wheel
A fortune won and lost on every deal.
All you need is sonar and nerves of steel, so

VIVA LAS VEGAS!
VIVA LAS VEGAS!
VIVA LAS VEGAS!

Viva Las Vegas with the neon signs flashing and
The one arm bandits crashing
All hopes down the drain.
Viva Las Vegas turning day into night time
Turning night into daytime
If you see it once, you'll never be the same again.

Gotta keep on running
Gonna have me some fun
If it costs me my very last dime
If I wind up broke
Then I'll always remember
That I had a swingin' good time.

Oh, I'm gonna give it everything I've got
Lady Luck's with me, the dice stay hot
Got coke up my nose to dry away the snot, so

VIVA LAS VEGAS!
VIVA LAS VEGAS!
VIVA LAS VEGAS!
VIVA! VIVA!
Las Vegas!!!

Dead But Dreaming 2 Lineup

2011-01-07T08:16:00.003-05:00

The table of contents for Dead but Dreaming 2 has been posted to Yog-Sothoth.com. It looks like an excellent line-up, and I'm very pleased to be included, especially since I loved the first Dead but Dreaming, and also because my words gets to appear with Wilum Pugmire's.

"Foreword: Messrs. Cthulhu and Lovecraft Have Arrived", Kevin Ross
"Taggers", Walt Jarvis
"The Unfinished Basement", William Meikle
"Plush Cthulhu", Don Webb
"Class Reunion", Darrell Schweitzer
"First Nation", Scott David Aniolowski
"Your Ivory Hollow", Wilum Pugmire
"The Spell of the Eastern Sea", Michael Tice
"Dark Heart", Kevin Ross
"Transmission", Ted E. Grau
"N is for Neville", John Goodrich
"The Timucuan Portal", Daniel W. Powell
"No Healing Prayers", Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
"The Dissipation Club", Adrian Tchaikovsky
"Lure", David Annandale
"The Call", Rick Hautala
"Christmas Carrion", Donald R. Burleson
"The Depopulation Syndrome", Erik T. Johnson
"Uncle Sid’s Collection", Cody Goodfellow
"Father’s Day", Brian Sammons
"Innsmouth Idyll", Darrell Schweitzer
"The Hour of Our Triumph", Will Murray
"Here Be Monsters", Pete Rawlik

The Praise of the Praiseworthy...

2011-01-05T07:30:00.005-05:00

Writing can be a very daunting task. Unless you're damned good at it, you're going to get more rejection than acceptances, and those are going to be weighted towards the beginning. Which can be discouraging. Do I persevere? Will I ever get any accepted to anything?

And once the story is bought and released, there is still the worry that said story sucks. Did I spend enough time making sure that this point was made? Did I spend too much time hammering away at that one? The most frightening thing about writing is that there are precious few guidelines. And when reviews come in, they can be enormously mixed, depending on what the reader was expecting, which is sometimes not the story they read.

That said, yesterday Brian Keene posted his Top 10 Books of 2010. And I'm on it.

The review of some random person carries some weight. When an Amazon reviewer is moved to write: "I was confused as to why this had been written, as it seemed to have no overall point or connection to the cthulhu concept." Then perhaps I didn't pay as much attention to the words as I should have.

Positive words by a professional writer such as Ellen Datlow or Brian Keene, outweighs this by far. And I have to keep remembering that out of two stories eligible to get name-dropped in Year's Best Horror, both have been singled out for praise. I may not be taking the publishing world by storm, but I'm not even close to the bottom of the barrel, either.

Twice the Good News

2010-12-31T16:47:00.005-05:00

The good news is that I've sold another story. This one to Andromeda Spaceways In-Flight Magazine. Some time ago, David Conyers and I wrote a Harrison Peel story named “The Masked Messenger,” now it has found a home.

The other good news is that I have sold “N is for Neville” to Miskatonic River Press's Dead But Dreaming 2. David Conyers, Erik T. Johnson and Wilum Pugmire have also sold stories to this anthology, so I will be in excellent good company.

Chem Lab, Isolation of Caffeine from Tea

2010-12-30T13:39:00.011-05:00

Chemistry is the visually iconic science. When people in a film "do SCIENCE!" it's usually with the distinctive apparatus of chemistry. When Herbert West is down in his lab doing Mad Science, it’s with a chemistry set. Yeah, he’s got a head in a pan, but notice the chemistry glassware that’s littering his work area.

That’s because chemistry deals with physical matter, and often needs to separate one substance from another.

So I came to chemistry lab and chose my station. And then I looked up and saw this:

That’s the ceiling. Clearly, someone had an interesting (read: explosive. The ceiling is a good twelve to fifteen feet above my head) chemical reaction. A reminder, or maybe a hope, that something like that could happen to me.

The lab I took pictures of is an isolation of caffeine from tea. So the first thing we did was a good, hot cup of tea. This being chemistry, we have to do it with beakers and hot plates, and there’s just a horrible amount of stuff hanging around, including an ice bath and a filter and vile stuff (how vile? Just wait, I’ve got a shot of the label of one of the ingredients we used) that we’re going extract the caffeine with.

Having boiled the tea to get all the fascinating organic compounds out of it, we add a binding agent. Helpful hint to those of you who have not taken chemistry: hot glass looks exactly like cold glass. If you don’t know what temperature the glass is, put your hand near it first.

Having brewed tea, and added chemicals to make it completely undrinkable (the modern method for extracting caffeine from tea involves dipping it in high-pressure liquid carbon dioxide, rather than using a ethyl acetate, which is why decaffeinated tea and coffee no longer taste like ethyl acetate), we cool it in an ice bath.

We then filter the result into a Buchner flask. This removes some of what we added to the tea. The hose is a vacuum pump attached to the water faucet, more to encourage the tea through the filter than anything else.

Now we get to the cool glassware. The shape of the seperatory funnel helps separate the liquid by density. The denser stuff goes to the bottom, and the lighter stuff can sit on the top. You can see it beginning to separate in the photo. We use the stopcock to pour the clear stuff out the bottom, while making sure we don’t get any of the tea-colored liquid. We end up with a small amount of clear liquid in to a beaker. We then set this under the hood and leave it to evaporate.

The rest of the class comes back in a week. I spy on it the next day. The liquid has evaporated, leaving behind a chalky white substance.

We think it’s caffeine, but how can we be sure? And how will we be able to remove any impurities? The answer appears to be a crack pipe.

But it’s not really a crack pipe. It’s a complex piece of glassware called a cold finger. We shove ice down the top of it which has a long extrusion into the bottom cavity. So we can heat something and provide it with a cold surface to reform onto after it has sublimated. Caffeine will burn off the crystals we have and stick to the cold finger, where the impurities shouldn’t. The stem to the side will be attached to a vacuum pump so that this can be achieved at low pressure.

Here you can see the ice going down the cold finger, and there is our collection of suspicious white crystal at the bottom. And it’s resting on a hot plate. I swear that the rubber hose is not feeding into someone’s lungs.

See?

The reason we all wear safety goggles is because we’re noodling around with stuff like this. No wonder Peter Parker got his fame from being in a science lab. Where else are you going to find an off-the-shelf mutagen?

After weighing how much stuff we have scraped off the interior of the ~~crack pipe~~ cold finger, we dissolve it. We’re dealing with minuscule amounts by now.

This is a 10 mL beaker, and there might actually be 1 mL in it. If Barbie ever does science in her Malibu Dream College, she’ll come with an assortment of 10 mL beakers. Probably in fabulous colors.

This piece of equipment was designed by a sadist. It’s ostensibly so that you can look at the eensy weensy sample you’ve put in this machine and see exactly when it melts. The melting point of something is a good indication that it is what you think it is. But that’s not the fun part.

You see that yellow sticker? It says “Caution Unit Hot.” Do you know what’s directly above that sticker? The eyepiece. Will the chemistry student be able to look through the eyepiece without burning the shit out of their cheeks? Ho ho ho! Science has a sense of humor!

There is another way to check to make sure that the caffeine we’ve labored over so hard is in fact caffeine. With a Nuclear Magnetic Resonator.

One of these. An advantage to taking chemistry at Bennington College is that they are proud of their science program, and are willing to plunk down the 300 large it takes to own Nuclear Magnetic Resonator. And the additional 12 K per hear it takes to feed the thing helium coolant. So at the end of this lab, yes, I got to drive the school’s NMR.

Now, interpreting the results was surprisingly difficult for something so damn advanced. The NMR tells you about the molecules you’re dealing with indirectly. Your results are based on the hydrogen atoms that are bonded to the atoms next to the one you’re looking at. Is that clear? So it will tell you, for example, that you’ve got eight hydrogens near a particular nucleus, and you have to parse out what atoms they’re near and how many go on each one. For the whole chain. It’s surprisingly like a cryptography sequence.

So at the end, hurrah, we have managed to isolate this stuff:

This is a sequence of three consecutive labs, all of which built on each other. I figured if I was going to photograph and share, I might as well share the most impressive-looking one.

Tomorrow, the Good News.

So what's this disk thing for, again?

2010-12-28T10:06:00.010-05:00

I purchased the special edition of Fallout New Vegas the day it came out. I have loved the Fallout games that came out on PC, played them repeatedly, and generally consider them to be some of the best computer games ever made.

But I was going through a lot of effort to get through Chemistry. And I knew that that distraction of a really awesome game would be a drag on my studies. So I tortured myself by leaving the game sealed for two months.

The day after Chemistry ended, Thursday the 9^th, I opened it. The special edition goodies are really cool. A deck of cards, a special platinum chip, chips from various casinos in the game, a graphic novel about what happened just before the game pulls you out of a shallow grave, and the game itself. Happy, shiny! What I've been waiting for! My reward for all that hard work (I mean besides a grade and a shot at a career). I placed the disk in my drive and got ready to install.

Oh. I have to create a Steam account in order to verify the game. I didn't have a lot of luck with Steam the last time I tried one of their games, because I'm still on a dial-up connection.

Yes, I could join the rest of the world and go to some sort of speedy internet, but that's going to cost me some $240 a year to play a game I paid $80 for. Does that make sense to you?

So I start the Steam up, create a new account, one with a password I can remember, which takes some time. And then the verification procedure, after which Steam tells me that the server aren't ready. Lovely. I restart the process, made easier by the fact that I don't have to create a new log-in this time. And the servers are still too busy to acknowledge me. A third try, and I've got it! YAY for me! As Steam starts to download the game to my computer.

All six point nine gigabytes.

Which will take until the heat death of the universe on dial-up. Which is weird, because I've got those six point nine gigabytes of data on this shiny physical object sitting in my disk drive. The bit I paid for. Steam doesn't care. It wants to download the game from their servers. Well, there must be a way to get it to acknowledge the disk, right?

After a few days of poking around Steam's website, I discover that there's a command you can use if you want to install a game from disk rather than download it. Well thank God, because I was starting to get a little frustrated. This was my reward for finishing a class on Wednesday, and it's now Saturday.

Only the command doesn't work. Steam thought about it, and spit back an error at me.

So I have my disk, which I have paid for, and all that data which my computer cannot access. Thanks Steam!

Eventually, after a week of screwing around, I went to the Grotto with my CPU, (YAY, walking around with my CPU doesn't make me nervous!) and spend four hours downloading the game. Which I had on disk. Did I mention that I have the game on disk and that Steam either couldn't or wouldn't acknowledge this?

But I got the game downloaded, started it up, and it's fine. I'm playing it. But really Steam, why can't I, a moderately average user except for my dial-up connection, get the data off this shiny disk thing with all the data already downloaded onto it? And what happens if, in ten years, I want to play the game I paid for again, and Steam has gone the way of the Heat.net?

And So... We Have Weather

2010-12-27T11:10:00.007-05:00

The East Coast got pretty well hammered with snow Sunday, and yesterday. We've got a large and fascinating accumulation of snow. But I thought I would add a few pictures to what we all know happened:

This is our back door. If you look carefully, you can see the impression of the door panels in the snow.

This is our street.

This is downtown Bennington in the midst of getting 20 inches of snow. And yes, the Geek Bar opened early.

We had some wind, as well. Although this looks like the tortured erosion on some Himalayan glacier, but it's really the roof of our extension.

I apologize for the lack of blogging in the last month. Finals, and all that sort of thing. That said, I have a few things in store: a walk-through, with pictures, of a chemistry lab in which we isolated caffeine from tea.

My trials and tribulations in getting a game to install.

Did I mention a new sale? Well, I'll get around to it soon enough.

A Thanksgiving Day Sale!

2010-11-27T11:39:00.001-05:00

My much- and often-revised story "God of Chickens" will appear in the official magazine of the Australian Horror Writers Association, Midnight Echo, issue #5. The issue should be on Australian newsstands at the beginning of 2011.

This is my first non-Lovecraftian story to see notable print, and I'm rather pleased.

I suspect that will make it difficult to obtain here in the United States, but I have queried the AHWA about getting some copies. If you're interested in a copy, send me an email or make a comment to this blog post. I'll do what I can.

Armistice Day, Yet Again. What Have We Learned?

2010-11-11T08:26:00.004-05:00

It's Armistice Day, or Veterans' Day, depending on your personal point of view. Some people have the day off, and there's probably a big sale going on.

Just take a moment and think about what today is for. Remember those who have served in the military. What did they see, what have them done? Remember those who didn't come back, whose mothers and brothers miss them. And remember those who didn't come back whole, those with post-traumatic stress disorder, or brain damage. Remember those missing an arm, a hand, or a leg. Make sure you voted to send them out for something worth that.

I don't usually post songs, but Carbon Leaf's "War Was In Color" is a good, solemn tribute, and appropriate for the day.

The Dreams Haunt Me...

2010-11-09T08:42:00.002-05:00

For two running nights, I've dreamed of playing Fallout: New Vegas. Yay. If I was the sort to believe in personification, I'd be wrapping this bad boy in tin foil.

I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that I'm rereading the best novel about Vegas ever: Tim Powers' Last Call.

But there it sits, wrapped in plastic like Laura Palmer, untouched except when I put newspapers under it to confirm the date.

Chilling Screen Moments #1: There's Something About Mary

2010-10-31T19:57:00.007-04:00

The Kingdom is my go-to snobby horror. It’s a Danish miniseries, directed by Lars von Trier. At four and a half hours, it takes is slow, careful time developing a strange, eerie ghost story. I love The Kingdom, and generally speaking, I’m very tired of ghost stories.

The Kingdom Hospital remake really pointed out to me the amazing economy of the the original miniseries. There is no fat, no wasted scenes, no overlong belaboring of any points. Everything is there because it needs to be there. That said, it takes a little while to grow on the new viewer. You don’t even see the ghost for the first half an hour. But the story gathers momentum, and becomes an unstoppable juggernaut of creepiness.

The ghost story structure is very similar to the one in The Ring (Creepy Moment #5). One character perceives the cries of a child from beyond the grave, and sympathy compels her to help. The story is a mystery, with Mrs. Drusse discovering parts of the past and putting together what happened. Ghost stories are partially about the fear of death, and one of von Trier’s real innovations is setting the story in a hospital, perceived as many as a place of death. But more and more, ghost stories have become about the fear of dying badly.

Mary, it turned out, died very badly. Like the standard ghost, she wants to be found and buried. Chilling Moment #1 comes when we find her body.

Have you ever seen someone creeped out so badly they ran out of the room? I've watched it happen at this reveal. And this was a television show; there's barely any blood, and there isn't a power tool in sight. To me, this is horror at its best; an emotional reaction elicited not through revulsion or disgust, but chilling horror born of sympathy.

Chilling Screen Moments #2: You Want What?

2010-10-27T07:09:00.006-04:00

The Dr. Who spinoff Torchwood has tried to straddle the line between action and horror, and to my mind, succeeded in being neither.

That stopped on the third season, the five-episode miniseries called Children of Earth. This series is concentrated nightmare fuel.

The aliens come down, and they aren't friendly. Unlike most Dr. Who-style aliens, we don't see what they are. They breathe a poisonous, opaque atmosphere, a very good counterpoint to the "show the monster" in The Host. The aliens are capable of wiping out humanity (shades of colonialism and War of the Worlds), and they can control our children. Children all over the Earth stop what they are doing and start chanting things. It starts with "We are here."

In Episode Four, we get down to brass tacks. A government representative negotiates with the alien, who speak with a breathy, synthesized voice. It's good and creepy. But the script really shines as the humans negotiators come to realize exactly what the aliens want.

In Episode Five, we learn why, and it's worse than we thought. It is one of the most horrible, chilling revelations I've ever seen put on film. The slow negotiation builds up the tension incredibly well. Brilliant and frightening.

Chemistry Makes Me Sad

2010-10-25T07:44:00.005-04:00

I love the Fallout games. They have some of the best stories being told in computer games today. The retro-future background combined with the blasted post-holocaust wasteland is simply excellent.

The most recent game has come out: Fallout: New Vegas. Being the enormously geeky fan that I am, I've bought the special edition. And I can't play it. Or rather, won't play it. With Chemistry requiring so much of my time, I simply can't afford to get sucked into a game experience that I know damn well I'm going to love. And so it sits, still in plastic, waiting for me to open it. And it's going to stay that way until the end of December.

Chilling Screen Moments #3: It’s Not The Monster That Frightens Us

2010-10-23T11:31:00.004-04:00

In many monster films, the driving source of tension is created by allowing the audience to glimpse the monster, never truly seeing it. This works quite well in Cloverfield and Alien. A monster movie truism has been that once the monster shows up on screen, the tension is gone; we know what it is.

The Host completely ignores this trope. We get a good long shot as the monster runs past us, in broad daylight, fourteen minutes into the film. Although this is a monster movie, writer/director Bong Joon-Ho knows that it’s not the appearance of the creature that is threatening, but how it acts. With photorealistic CG effects, render farms, and experts at translating concept to screen, it is much easier to create a credible monster than in the past.

The film's narrative is much more akin (and this is acknowledged by Bong Joon-Ho in his commentary) to a crime thriller than the standard monster film. A child is in peril, and her family must fight the government as well as the monster’s unpredictability and inhuman strength to get her back.

Early in the film, the monster smashes through a crowd, shredding people and creating panic. Park Gang-du grabs his daughter Hyun-Seo and runs, dragging her behind him. He falls, grabs her hand again, and takes off running again. After eight more seconds of panicked flight, he looks back... and he’s grabbed the wrong hand. The girl behind him isn’t Hyun-Seo.

We identify the most with human moments, with emotions we understand. Gang-du’s blank expression conveys his stunned incomprehension, and for a few seconds, he’s too shocked to even be horrified. It’s a gut-wrenching moment of loss, and an presage of terrible things to come.

Chilling Screen Moments #4: Hans Beckert Confesses

2010-10-20T09:33:00.006-04:00

In Fritz Lang's M, Peter Lorre plays Hans Beckert, the screen's first serial killer. Beckert preys exclusively on children, a crime so heinous that the Berlin's thieves, safecrackers, and murderers band together to catch him.

And find him they do.

Lorre's Beckert is the polar opposite of the modern, urbane serial killers such as Hannibal Lecter or Dexter Morgan. Beckert is tortured, half in denial of the things that he does. His trial, even before a kangaroo court of criminals, finally gives him the opportunity to get it out, even if his audience are likely to be his executioners.

The speech he gives defined Peter Lorre's career for the rest of his life, and it's not difficult to see why. Lorre's portrayal runs the gamut from broken to manic in the course of one dead riveting, completely chilling, three-minute speech. Serial killers have become pretty old had old hat, but Hans Beckert's mad, harrowing speech remains a chilling landmark in cinema.

Chilling Screen Moments #5: Finally Watching Samara At Work

2010-10-17T07:59:00.007-04:00

Structure is not an aspect of film that is often praised. Yet in a suspense, mystery or horror film, it's vital. Not just that the story itself be interesting, but that it be presented in a way that obscures exactly what is going on while keeping the viewer interested.

One of the major challenges to a ghost or monster film is how to build the tension without giving too much away. When should the terrifying entity be shown, and how can it be presented in such a way that it's not disappointing. Very often films fall down when that thing that's been chasing everyone around is suddenly revealed to be a giant carrot, or a dwarf in a rubber suit.

The Ring does this perfectly. The tension increases throughout the film, leading to many great, chilling moments. There are three "shock" moments in the film, but they are buttressed with enormous amounts of tension-building subtlety. The mystery is complex and strange, and the investigation is extraordinarily well handled. We glimpse pieces of the ghost's sad and terrible history even as we see the horrifying effects it has on the world around it. The Ring's story manages to push so many buttons; the images of a child along in a sterile medical environment, cruelty to animals, an isolated community, technophobia, medical testing, the hints that home is not as pleasant as we want it to be.

The structure of the film, the way the audience gets hints about what's going on, works beautifully. There is no Basil Exposition telling us what happened. The viewer, like the characters, piece what's going on from interviews, observations, and strange experiences. We get glimpses of frightening consequences without knowing what triggered them, except that there's a videotape involved, and people who watch it die. This lack of clarity gives the story a lot of impetus.

This all comes very terribly clear at the end when we watch what happens when someone watches the videotape we have only seen glimpses of. Who we thought was only the victim turns out to be the tormentor, and she crawls out of the television to do her horrible work. It's a hugely chilling moment, as we look at everything we've learned for the past hour and a half in a different light.

Chilling Screen Moments Moments #6: Tokyo in Flames

2010-10-12T08:51:00.006-04:00

Anyone can take a bucket of blood and splash it on celluloid. While I enjoy the occasional gore flick, the red stuff is often at the expense of plot and interesting characters. A film (or a miniseries) that spends time and effort on building atmospheric dread interests me more. In the lead-up to Halloween, I present six screen moments that still make me catch my breath.

#6: Tokyo in Flames: Godzilla.

The original Godzilla is very much a different genre from the daikiaju genre it spawned. It is a disaster film, only the disaster happens to be a giant lizard. Unlike most other films in the genre, this concentrates not only on the giant monster wrecking the city, but what it leaves behind. After Godzilla stomps Tokyo, the camera pauses to view the the devastation, and the city in flames.

It's a very powerful moment as director Ishiro Honda concentrates on the human suffering in Godzilla's wake.

Trees Pretty

2010-10-03T16:29:00.003-04:00

Trees Pretty.

I'm in the midst of nuclear geometry and polar bonds, and I can't think of anything interesting to say. So enjoy my state's prettiness.

Remember when I said "I'm back"?

2010-09-20T15:36:00.009-04:00

Well, things happened. My employment situation needs a radical change, and I have gone back to school.

I'm taking two classes in preparation for my Medical Lab Technician Certificate. The program is offered by the Community College of Vermont.

Although CCV offers this program, they don't offer all the courses necessary to complete it. Fortunately, they have an exchange program with Bennington College, for Chemistry. And I thought, hey, I'm treading the ground where Shirley Jackson, Martha Graham, Buckminster Fuller once walked. I'll be getting the benefits of a really expensive education for a low CCV price.

What I didn't realize until the first class is that BC has a very rigorous science program. One of their students went on to work on the Manhattan Project. I am one of the two people in the class that did not take Chemistry in High School (I took Biology and Physics), which is assumed for the course. I don't mind that I'm twice as old as the rest of the students, and may be older than the professor. What I do mind is that this is an accelerated class. And while it's fascinating to get a peek into the nature of physical matter and the universe, it's bloody difficult.

Thus far, this is what I've given up in my pursuit of Chemistry:

Half my work hours
Fencing
Warhammer
Writing: yes, the novel is on hold.
Blogging
Reading for Pleasure.

So... yeah. Not a lot of time to do things. In the last couple of days, I've started to get a handle on it, I think. I'll know when the first test rolls around in a couple of weeks.

I will be taking some pictures in lab today. In case you're interested.

20 Minutes into the Present

2010-08-23T21:51:00.004-04:00

Max Headroom is finally on DVD. And we have it.

I like to think that I remember the show because of the writing. Max was one of the first shows about the media, and how the modern life has become more and more entwined with television. The plots were fairly standard (Ace reporter Edison Carter discovers an injustice, and gets on the air at the last moment to right the wrong). But the MacGuffins that drive the stories are very perceptive and unusual.

The conflation of television and politics is particularly relevant today, when we have television personalities holding political rallies, and getting the nation whipped up over this molehill or that. While we have not reached the point of Max Headroom where it is illegal to turn the television off, there is precious little difference between someone who can't turn their television off, and someone who won't.

The plots also usually depend on there being someone moral in a chain of events that will say "no" to the murder or imprisonment of an innocent person. For every monster out there, there is a moral individual who is able to stop them. Considering that the show is remembered for being very 'cynical' Max Headroom held the positive view that someone in the chain of command can stop an atrocity.

Part of the fascination with the show, twenty years later, is how close it comes to being real. The episode "Academy" features a show trial on Network 23, which is rather creepily reminiscent of the OJ Simpson trial.

Amazingly, in the dark future, there are few guns, and no one gets shot. I wonder if this is primarily because the writes of the show were English, rather than American. None of the show's problems have yet been solved through violence. It's the tool of terrorists and fascists.

The characters spend a lot of time watching screens and watching people interacting with screens. And not just because Max, the titular character, is confined to one. It's rather disconcerting... there's about as much face time as there is someone talking to someone over a screen. And there's more tapping on keyboards than Jessica Fletcher ever did.

Max should also be remembered for the contradiction he was. A prime-time show that critiques the media it was on. An anti-media icon that shilled for Coca-Cola. Did the producers and writers of Max sell out? Or were they cleverly co-opting a media to get their message out? It's hard to tell, but it's a lot of fun to analyze.

How Do You Follow Something Like That Up?

2010-08-21T15:29:00.006-04:00

I mean, what can I possibly say on this blog that is half, even a quarter as cool as "I had a hawk eating off my hand"?

I guess I'll have to take some time and shamelessly self-promote.

Matthew Carpenter, the man who has reviewed all my Lovecraftian work and liked it (I could say the same about Ellen Datlow, but I haven't heard her opinion of Cthulhu's Dark Cults) has once again posted good things about my work to Amazon. He likes Cthulhu's Dark Cults generally, but he once again singles out my story for discussion:

“Captains of Industry” by John Goodrich - Mr. Goodrich is just starting his career as a published author. “The Patriot” was among the many highlights of Cthulhu Unbound 1. Two impoverished immigrant factory workers, struggling to live and struggling in the battle for workers’ rights, infiltrate an industrialists’ dinner party to try to get some leverage. They run afoul of the Hermetic Order of the Silver Twilight. Once again Mr. Goodrich gives us a rousing story of superior quality. His characters come alive on the page and the action is actually heart wrenching.

I'd like to point out that I'm very proud of this. Horrifying a reader with a horror story isn't all that difficult. Getting them emotionally involved with the protagonist is more challenging. I seem to have touched Mr. Carpenter's heart. I am pleased.

I Played with Birds on My Staycation

2010-08-08T07:41:00.005-04:00

The Santa Fe Good Taste Factory was in the area, so he decided to spend a few days with us. Which is awesome. He is always fun to be with, and when someone visits, I usually look around and find something interesting and local to do. This time, I asked if he was interested in taking a lesson at the local branch of the British School of Falconry.

And he said yes.

So there we were, 11AM, scrungy as we usually are, walking up to this nice little barn. A very nice guy (Rob, I think) told us he would be our instructor, and we both hauled out our cameras and listened very carefully.

The first thing I noticed when I had a Harris Hawk sit on my wrist is that the talons are very sharp, and so is that beak. While the plumage is beautiful, and even more attractive up close, these attributes do not command immediate attention. I found it disconcerting, at first, to be so close to those huge claws on dinosaur-like feet. Did I mention his name was Mycroft? That took a couple of minutes to sink in.

Harris Hawks are unique among raptors in that they hunt socially. This gives them a huge advantage over non-social hawks as far as falconry goes, because they won't get all pissy if two or more go after the same target. Also, they're a fairly small for a raptor--three and a half foot wingspan, between one and a half and two and a half pounds (the females are larger). But up close, Mycroft is clearly a death machine.

Attached to the bird's legs are three devices. One, some jingle bells so you know where it is. Second are the jesses, leather thongs so that you can hold onto the bird until you're ready to let him go. Think of them as bird-reigns. The bird steps onto your gloved hand, and you make a fist, clasping the jesses between your middle and ring finger. This keeps the bird in check if it decides to take off at the wrong moment. The third device is a radio transmitter with antenna, just in case the bird flies off.

I learned that you have to walk so that the bird is always facing into the wind--otherwise they get agitated. Walking backwards is a small price to pay when you're keeping the Massive Sharp Beak of Death calm.

Once we learned the basic tips, we were ready to receive the bird. Rob would cast the bird, it would go to a downwind perch. Then I raised my gloved arm, and Mycroft took off, and headed for me. Mycroft, apparently, flies lower than many of the usual birds, getting a bit of ground effect. Then he perfectly, every time, came up and landed on my arm. Stuck the landing even as he grabbed the little beefy treat the trainer put on my glove as a reward. Watching a bird land on your arm is really amazing, so much energy conserved, and yet each one is absolutely perfect (unless I screw it up).

After a couple of landings, we learned to cast. This is something like throwing a rock or a baseball. You hold the jesses for a quarter second as you throw, giving the hawk a bit of a boost. So we managed to get the hawk off my glove and back a couple of times, and each time, Mycroft got a tasty treat.

We did a little ranging after that, walking along, and the bird would make quick flying hops from, tree branch to tree branch to keep up with us. We could hear it only because of the jingle bells attached to its legs. So when you hear the jingle over your roof... it's probably not reindeer.

Our hour was over far too quickly. Falconry is hugely entertaining, because you've got this raptor doing its thing off your wrist. That last bit is incredibly strange, because we seldom get close to birds, let alone anything as magnificent as a medium-sized raptor. I got a real appreciation for the complexity of hawk flight, as well as for the difficulty in training hawks.

I don't think I'll want to participate in the hunting aspect of the sport. It's the next logical step, and the next lesson, but I'm a lot more interested in the bird for itself than it coming back with a squirrel.

Special thanks to the Queen of Science for the wonderful pictures.

Finally... I'm BACK!

2010-07-27T07:27:00.005-04:00

It's been a difficult month, and I apologize for being remiss on this blog. But now I'm back.

One of the more notable joys of June was discovering a new favorite (non-Sondheim, but he's in his own category so other writers have a chance) musical.

Probably some of you have seen Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde. It's quite possible you don't approve of the trend of making musicals out of films. I know that generally speaking I don't, although said trend did bring us Spamalot, and I'm willing to forgive a lot for that.

That said, the Legally Blonde musical is fast-rising on my list of favorite musicals. Yes the songs are clever and entertaining, but the central message of the work as a whole, which is emphasized very differently from the film. The plot is the same; vapid but intelligent girl goes to Harvard law to chase boyfriend and discovers that she likes being a lawyer.

In the film, she succeeds because she is true to herself; succeeds with the tasks using her intelligence, social networking, and other feminine skills that the other law students discount. The musical, however, shifts that. Elle succeeds because she works hard. She is thrown one obstacle after another, and she learns to settle down, apply herself, and hammers each problem until it breaks. I can't think of the last time any media had that message, and it's one that really needs to come up more.

Films tend to tell us to be true to ourselves, and if we do that, we will achieve our dreams. Very seldom is there prolonged effort involved, usually just a moment of endurance, and sometimes one of inspiration. Elle Woods discovers when she pursues one goal that what she achieves in that pursuit is better than what she thought she wanted. She isn't staying "true to herself" she's finding new challenges to overcome, and discovers the joy of self-fulfillment. We need more texts like this. Especially ones with clever, catchy songs.

Comfort Reading

2010-07-05T13:35:00.018-04:00

Every now and then, I like to blow an afternoon reading at TVtropes.org. They have an enormous collection of trite plot devices and characters that often show up in various media. I lavish a fair amount of love and attention on esoterica. In the extreme, it seems because even TVtropes doesn't have a precise fit for a trope that makes up some of my comfort reading.

I love the riddling trickster's tomb. I love tombs and crypts in which the setup and execution would have baffled NASA engineers, where the concealed 10 x 10 pit traps are still in perfect working condition after centuries, and even millennia.

There's a bit of my affection for ancient Egypt tied up in this. After all, the characters are pludering a trapped tomb, loading up on gold and other grave goods. There's a touch of archaeology, even if it is prying the gold letters out of the walls and melting them down.

The tomb of the riddler seldom appears outside of the RPG media-form. Teasing riddles have little effect on a novel reader. Readers aren't motivated to solve the riddle because it doesn't save them grief; they're just along for the ride. And if they do solve it, they're still saddled with the characters' stupid ball until the author decides its time.

At the heart of the trope lies an arrogance; that those entering the dungeon are too stupid to figure out the traps without help, and that even if the Evil Overlord gives them hints, they're still going to die to the fiendish traps.

The trope began with Gary Gygax's Tomb of Horrors. Tomb of Horrors was an enormously influential adventure, one of the first modular adventures ever released. People tend to strongly divide between loving and hating it. It was designed to test the skills of overproud D&D players, but there's a lot of personality in it. The reader gets a sense of the builder's nasty sense of humor as well as their capacity for random mayhem.

Tomb of Horrors was quite successful. And with success came imitation. The next adventure in the "S" series was Lawrence Schick's White Plume Mountain, which reinforced many of the concepts, including giving the players a riddle to help them figure out the mind-boggling traps that were laid for them.

A further exploration of the theme was Nightmare Keep. Like several vertions of the trope to come, this adventure set out to make a bigger and nastier Tomb of Horrors . Included are the strange poetic traps, the same distinctive undead horror waiting at the end. However, it's a bit overblown, the traps rather self-consciously weird rather than traps for individuals to get themselves killed by being greedy or careless.

Other imitations include third-party adventures such as F'Deck Fo's Tomb. I often champion third-party variations on a theme because individuals removed from the editorial control of a single entity (in this case TSR) often have wider mematic interpretation that brings something new and fresh to the trope. This is not the case here. With the adventure-writing in its infancy, some publishers seemed willing to publish anything. This adventure would never have gotten past the editors at TSR.

Rising RPG star Sean Reynolds wrote his own bigger, badder riddle tomb for second edition Dungeons and Dragons adventure The Crypt of Lyzandred the Mad. Like many bigger versions of the original, this feels like the creator (Lyzandred, alternately Reynolds) is trying too hard. The riddles rely heavily on logic and word puzzles, sometimes straight-out asking the riddle, giving the feel of an enormous pop quiz. the Tomb of Horrors' Acererak was trying to kill the characters. From a read-through, it feels like Lyzandred is grading them.

In the waning years of AD&D 2^nd ed, the Return to the Tomb of Horrors mega-adventure was published. Both a sequel and an enormous expansion of the original, this gave the original TOH a definite location as well as an ecology. Not only has the tomb attracted a cult of worshippers, but the builder's designs in creating such a deadly location come into very large, interdimensional view. Of course, it's up to the adventuring party to foil the mighty plot. The author, Bruce Cordell, did a good if not completely satisfying job with this expansion. It won best adventure for the year, and is certainly one of the most overarchingly grand adventures I've ever read.

Gygax went topped his own meatgrinder dungeon with Lejendary Adventures' Necropolis, later converted to D&D 3rd edition by Necromancer Games. If the Tomb of Horrors was a meat-grinder, Necropolis is astonishing. The sophistication and resourcefulness of D&D players had increased, at least in Gary's opinion. However, it also shows a a definite change in Gary's style, and the expected style of play. Where Tomb of Horrors is a location with no background, Necropolis is set in a pseudo-Egyptian location, with a large number of encounters that contribute to a broad storyline leading up to the assault on the tomb of SetRahotep.

With the advent of third edition and the Open Game Licence, third parties were allowed to publish their own adventures in the D&D system. Unlike the earlier efforts, this time some extremely talented people got into writing adventures. Some of them wrote riddling trap tombs, and again the memetic mutation carries them to different yet interesating places, adding to the richness of the trope.

KenzerCo's Lost Tomb of Kruk-Ma-Kali is one of my favorite meldings of the old meat-grinding trope with more in-depth playstyle. While the killing traps remain, the tomb is presented not only with an ecology surrounding it, it also has a political history. The end of the text also deals with the political and cultural repercussions of the players actions, allowing the adventure to become part of a larger tapestry. But this adventure made me wonder: if Kruk-Ma-Kali was basically a Hobgoblin Genghis Khan, why the blue frell did his followers dump his mortal remains into a supremely elaborate trap-tomb rather than paying for a resurrection?

Dread Crypt of Srihoz is part of Goodman Games' Dungeon Crawl Classics series. These deliberately call back to adventures of first edition D&D, right down to a cardstock cover with the dungeon map printed in blue ink. Goodman's writers clearly know and love the dungeon tropes they are playing with. The Dread Crypt is another deathtrap dungeon, but the writers have understood the need for the perception of a single guiding hand behind its construction. The tomb's locations serve a purpose, even if this will not be apparent to the adventurers, the cohesive design allows the Game Master to view it as an expression of the individual who built it. Of particular interest is the fact that it lampshades other riddling labyrinth lords by offering riddles that don't help the players at all. A very perceptive stroke.

One of the earliest Dungeon Crawl Classics was produced as a direct homage to Tomb of Horrors. Called the Dread Crypt of the Devil-Lich, it was a tournament adventure, just as the original TOH was. Imitating the older adventure, it contained many strange traps designed to test the adventurers' ability against deadly hangman's riddles. Its failing is that it does not feel like a cohesive adventure. Each trap is radically different from the other, never revealing the likes of the dislikes of the tomb's designer. Still, the adventure is very solid, and the climactic battle with the eponymous devil-lich looks both deadly and intriguing, especially after the party has waded through more than a dozen rooms of nightmare traps.

One of the best and most unusual homages to the Tomb of Horrors is Tomb of Iuchiban for the Legend of the Five Rings game. TOH tributes seldom appear outside of DUngeons and Dragons, and L5R's Oriental setting is not one I would have thought that lent itself to the trope. Rob Vaux does so magnificently, however, creating an ever-changing maze of traps that range from simple but deadly to complex, magically weird meat grinders. This adventure is a real pleasure: well written, original, and cohesive.

And yes, now there is a fourth edition version of the Tomb coming out this month. Although 4th ed hasn't thrilled me so far (I haven't actually played since 2^nd), I think that may be the impetus for my most recent return to deathtrap tombs. I'm actually more interested in the Erol Otus-illustrated Tomb of the Blind God (Goodman Games again).

This is my 'comfort' reading, imagining the D&D party trapped and besieged in a stone crypt loaded with traps and monsters. At best, they fire my imagination, wondering how characters (and players) would face the illogical hangmans' riddles they are presented with.

Gunfighter Nation

2010-06-23T09:30:00.004-04:00

"By the terms of the Frontier Myth, once imperial war was conflated with savage war, both sides become subject to the logic of massacre. The savage enemy kills and terrorizes without limit or discrimination in order to exterminate or drive out the civilized race. The civilized race learns to respond in kind, partly from outrage at the atrocities it has suffered, partly from recognition that imitation and mastery of the savages' methods way the best way to defeat them. A cycle of massacre and revenge is thus inaugurated that drives both sides toward a war of extermination. Only an American victory can prevent actual genocide: the savage enemy would indeed exterminate all the civilized race, but the civilized carry massacre only as far as necessary to subjugate the savage. To achieve victory in such a war, Americans are entitled and indeed required to use any and all means, including massacre, terrorism, and torture."

Slotkin, Richard; Gunfighter Nation (1992) p. 112

Hide Your Women and Lock up the Fried Chicken!

2010-06-10T13:19:00.004-04:00

Cthulhu's Dark Cults is finally out. You should totally order it.

If you want to know about my story, "Captains of Industry" then head over to editor David Conyers' blog in which he hand gives each author a little time to discuss their story (I'm at the bottom) and a little snippet from each story. The inestimable Stephen Gilberts provides the delightful cover.

I'm really fascinated by the human side of horror. Monsters are interesting, but their relationship to the people in the story is what will really pull the audience in. David was surprised when I turned in a story without any of Lovecraft's brilliantly detailed alien horrors. But with the title Cthulhu's Dark Cults I figured that the human cultists should be the focus of the stories.

HP Lovecraft and the Non-Euclidian Plot

2010-05-26T17:52:00.009-04:00

I like a Cthulhu Mythos pastiche as much as anyone. Probably more, I've got shelves full of Chaosium anthologies, as well as four volumes of Japanese stories in honor of Lovecraft, as well as various small press books of stories in imitation of Lovecraft. Hell, I've even got a couple books of August Derleth's imitations of Lovecraft.

I do have a crap limit. Lovecraft shows up in strange and unexpected places... including children's television. The animated superhero show Justice League broadcast a two-parter "The Terror Beyond" on November 15, 2003. I Netflicked the disk, and watched it.

It's terrible.

The plot revolves around Dr. Fate and Aquaman joining forces with Solomon Grundy in order to seal a breach between out dimension and that of Icthultu, a noxious horror that has a mysterious link to Hawkwoman's homeworld of Thanageria. There's some fighting, because the Justice League aren't just going to ask Fate and Aquaman what they're doing. Once that's cleared up, they take a trip (in the second half-hour) to Icthultu's dimension to kick his ass.

Now I'm going to start with the pictures. Some of Icthultu's defenders are gray, headless creatures with screaming mouths in their hands. Ramsey Campbell, are you paying attention?

With the gray IP violations defeated, the team separates, Fate, Grundy and Hawkgirl going to face Icthultu. We are treated to a good reveal of the tentacled face of Icthultu glowering down on our heroes. Atheist Hawkgirl tells us that her Thanagarian people used to worship Icthultu, which gave them philosophy and agriculture in exchange for their souls. But the price was too high, and they stopped believing. They beat up some star-spawn (look at the right hand of the picture, that's practically Cthulhu in silhouette) , and get right up to in Icthultu's grill.

In a G-rated nod to hard-core pseudo-Lovecraftian Japanese porn, Hawkgirl is grabbed by tentacles. Golly, who saw that coming? She's held spread-eagle (haw haw!) before the burning eyes of Icthultu, and banter is exchanged.

As the great Old One is distracted, Solomon Grundy gets into its head, and runs down icky corridors fighting off weird alien antibodies. I think he's in Icthultu's brain, the landscape looks like the neurons from the episode of Futurama when Fry does the same thing. But it turns out that there's something living inside Icthultu's brain... a giant monster!
Rawr!

Fortunately, Icthultu (as voiced by Rob Zombie) is a enormous wimp. Grundy snaps off its claw, stabs it a few times, and that does the trick.
He probably stabs two feet of claw into a creature that's taller than a three-story building. But that seems to do it for Icthultu, and down it goes.

Grundy having done the mighty deed, is dying, and Hawkgirl comforts him. When Grundy asks if he is going to meet his soul, Hawkgirl chokes back the reply that she doesn't believe in them. THEN WHAT WAS THE BIG PRICE ICTHULTU EXTRACTED FROM YOUR PEOPLE, LADY? She believed in her ancestors' souls enough to build up a big mad-on at Icthultu for stealing them.

The non-Euclidian arc of this story, serving mainly to give us fights (some do feature some pretty smooth moves), drives me nuts. Superman and Wonder Woman are too hasty to ask Dr. Fate and Aquaman for explanations, and barrel right into a ritual that's keeping the Icthultu out of our dimension. But if they'd asked, the episode would have been over in fifteen minutes. Hawkgirl's comforting of Solomon is touching, but the moment is ruined because she's reversed her stance on souls in the last ten minutes.

Not all Lovecraft references are interesting, and not all are worth dissecting.

Carnifex vs Angry Marine

2010-05-22T08:08:00.003-04:00

I like to tell stories. This comes through even when I paint the models of Splinter Fleet Mordiggian. A picture is worth a thousand words, so here's some flash fiction about an Angry Marine and a Carnifex.

The Big Fan-Fic Kerfluffle

2010-05-11T07:42:00.003-04:00

Well, somebody blew up about fan fiction, and SF being a fairly small community, there's been a bit of discussion about it.

And it's been interesting to hear various people weigh in on the discussion. Predictable, I find the most interesting and cogent thoughts to be from writers of my generation, and who I've met.

Charlie Stross has a very well thought-out post on his attitude toward fan fiction using his characters or settings.

Nick Manatas presents a very interesting case of what copyright is and what it is not, using the rather complex case of HP Lovecraft as an example.

Me? I'm essentially still a fanfic writer, although I've gotten paid decently for one of them. And, as Silviamag said in the comments of Nick Mamatas' post, "I'll say it again: the day there's erotic lesbian fan fiction of my work is the day I've made the big leagues."

How it's Done...

2010-05-02T08:38:00.004-04:00

I've had this bee in my bonnet that someday, I would put together an anthology of really stunning stories, the best short stories I've ever read. I should have written it down then, because I don't remember half that list:

"The Hedge Knight" by George R. R. Martin
"The Great Lover" by Dan Simmons (yes, these two are novellas. It's my anthology)
"Jigsaw" by Stephen Bissette
"The Statement of Randolph Cater" HP Lovecraft
"The Cleft" by Gahan Wilson
"Monster" by Jack Ketchum

I'm forgetting a number of others.

However, there's a new story to add to it. I've been enjoying the Silver John stories of Manly Wade Wellman, thanks to Paizo Publishing's collection Who Fears the Devil. Wellman writes very well, and his stories of rural Appalachian folk are appealing in their evocation of this slice of Americana.

And there's a story that stands over the rest, as there usually is. "On the Hills and Everywhere" is simply told, and powerful for all that. It's officially going on the "How it's Done" list.

The Run-Up to Cthulhu's Dark Cults

2010-04-29T07:20:00.002-04:00

It's been a log time coming, but Chaosium appears ready to release Cthulhu's Dark Cults this summer. This anthology has my story "Captains of Industry" in it.

David Conyers, editor of the anthology, is putting up snippets of the stories, as well as notes concerning the stories' creation on his blog. And it's my turn today.

Why Computer Games Aren’t Perceived as Art Yet, and Why That’s Unfortunate

2010-04-28T16:40:00.004-04:00

A friend on Facebook is annoyed that Roger Ebert doesn’t think computer games are art. He’s enormously into computer games, and thinks that should be treated as art. The problem is that they won’t be, not for some time. I've identified four major reasons for this.

1) Grind. The leveling and power-gaining apparatus of most plot driven games (RPGs) (first person shooters tent to rely on acquisition of equipment) are such that they require the player to engage in dozens, if not hundreds of combats that are not germane to the plot. As such, grind and random encounters place the main plot on hold. At this time, great works of art are analyzed in such a way that everything is important. See the creations of William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens. Wordy they may be, but in modern critical thinking, nothing is wasted, and everything in them contributes to the overall effect and greatness of the text (using “text” in the semiotic sense, the work of art as a whole). Nothing is repeated, nothing is there specifically to make the text longer. In any other art form, repetition of minor elements that do not contribute to the overall effect is called padding, and is understood to the impact of the text. In computer games, it’s expected.

2) Impermanence. The Microsoft Windows platform is at least polite about backwards compatibility, although God and Heinlein help you if you try to work with one of those games with XML memory usage, or proprietary memory extender. Games created for Windows are generally workable, however it’s quite possible that the average user won’t be able to get it running and not know why. One of the tenets of great art is that it can withstand the test of time. How can we introduce our friends and colleagues to good, older games if we can no longer play them?

The game industry itself has little interest in games that are not recent. It’s very bang and bust–make a big hit, get the money, and then the game is forgotten for the next new shiny one. Sometimes, there’s an extension or additional downloadable content, and a game gets a gold, Platinum or Game of the Year edition. Yet good games are seldom available again after a major media shift. If you own a game on 5.25" or 3.5" disks, you’re probably out of luck. If the game was on an Amiga, or any other no longer extant computer architecture, you’re almost definitely out of luck.

Platforms, with one exception, are even worse. A limited number of PS3s can play PS2 games, and those were the first wave available. The current ones cannot. There’s a strict list of Xbox games that can be played on the X360. Only Nintendo made its most recent generation (the Wii) fully backwards compatible with its previous generation (the Game Cube). Much of the computer game industry does not take game longevity seriously, apparently believing that no one wants to play a game more than five years old. I can think of three franchises that have moved older games onto newer platforms: Wing Commander (now dead for a decade), Fallout, and God of War. I’m sure there are others that I’m not familiar with, but these updates remain the exception rather than the rule. If the industry itself regards games as cheap, throw-away trash to be forgotten in a few years, why should anyone else regard them differently?

3) Insularity. In order for an art form to be taken seriously, it must be taken seriously by people whose opinions matter to people other than gamers.

There is no language of critical apparatus within the video game community. There are awards and reviews, but there really isn’t anyone writing about the underlying structure of the games, dissecting them in a public forum to see what makes them tick.

It took Alan Moore and Watchmen to make critics look at (some) comics with a more serious eye. It wasn’t until this decade that Pop Matters started publishing books of essays on television shows (thank you Joss Whedon and Buffy). Computer games are going to have to wait until the generation that came up playing them become tenured professors and start writing critical essays about them. And even then, they will need a champion, a well-respected individual who comes lays out a difficult-to-refute case that video games should be considered art, and then hammers the point. ST Joshi did this for HP Lovecraft.

4) Complexity: Much modern criticism is celebrity-based. There is discussion of a Kurosawa film, the oeuvre of Scorsese, a Joss Whedon series. This singling out of individuals who are responsible for the brilliance of a film undercuts the contributions of the hundreds, or thousands of people who made minor contributions small but telling contributions to the completed work. It can be said that the director of a film deserves praise for all decisions, because they selected competent individuals whose artistic sense agreed with their own, but the fact remains that the director does not make all decisions, and film is very much a collaborative art form.

Modern criticism is based on literature, where a single individual is responsible for the creation of a work. It is easier to praise the individual at the helm of a film, as it were, because it is often impossible to say who made a particular decision. Was it the director of photography that suggested a particular shot? Did the actor or the director suggest an affecting line reading? Listening to commentary may help, but the creation of the work is so moment-based that the individuals involved sometimes disagree on a decision.

How much more difficult it is in computer games? Does the praise for a particularly beautiful set piece go to the Project Coordinator, the Lead Artist, or Visual Coordinator?

That said, I think analysis of computer games is important, precisely because it has become such a pervasive commonality in our culture. What are the underlying themes (and yes, these things affect us whether we realize it or not) that are being underscored in individuals minds as they play Modern Warfare 2? How is that likely to affect individuals attitudes toward armed conflict when they are asked to vote for or against involving their country in such a conflict? How do Mario game players perceive non-game intellectual challenges, such as at work? I don’t know, but these questions cannot be answered in a satisfactory fashion until games receive serious, rigorous, scholarly attention.

ANZAC Day

2010-04-25T12:10:00.003-04:00

As far as I can tell, ANZAC Day is the last memorial day specifically dedicated to World War One. Which is sad. Nothing defined the Twentieth Century more than WWI: The rise of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and WWII, and the arising Cold War all have their roots in the the Great War of 1914-1918.

Most of us would rather remember WWII. It was a more clear-cut war, with the Nazi atrocities making the opponent easier to demonize than the Central Powers of World War One. The victors could feel good about winning WWII. But the Great War was a quagmire, an enormous mess that scarred the "lost generation" and wiped out entire British neighborhoods, thanks to the Pals Battalions, sometimes in a matter of hours. Ah, the glory of war.

Rather than my usual mournful trench poetry, this one is a touch more playful:

"The General Inspecting the Trenches"
by Alan Herbert

The General inspecting the trenches
Exclaimed with a horrified shout
'I refuse to command a division
Which leaves its excreta about.'

But nobody took any notice
No one was prepared to refute,
That the presence of shit was congenial
Compared to the presence of Shute.

And certain responsible critics
Made haste to reply to his words
Observing that his staff advisors
Consisted entirely of turds.

For shit may be shot at odd corners
And paper supplied there to suit,
But a shit would be shot without mourners
If someone shot that shit Shute.

And next... off to fight a Green Knight

2010-04-23T14:37:00.005-04:00

Having had a long, slow slog getting back to being energetic... I'm not thinking about myself as having Seasonal Affective Disorder. After all, I'm not so depressed that I can't get out of bed. I just miss the sun (see my Floating down the Nile posts) when it's not up for eight hours. But I'm not thinking of it as SAD. I am, however, scknowledging that I do slow down during the winter months.

I'm starting to refer to it as "Celtic Solar Hero." Gawain, in some stories, gains strength as the sun goes up during the day, and slowly loses is as the afternoon wears on. There are a few other examples of this sort of hero, none of which I can think of offhand. But I now think of myself this way. Although the sun remains a burning ball of hatred when its on full blast, it's also a source of strength.

Watching from a distance

2010-04-15T09:38:00.002-04:00

The Sun

Sometimes, a new picture can make me reassess something old and familiar. I haven't visited the Astronomy Picture of the Day archive in years... and I started again this morning. I am stunned by the beauty of the universe. This picture of the sun is one of the most amazing images I can remember seeing. A "simple" solar prominence, but the surface of the Sun has never looked like that before.

We are surrounded by beauty, sometimes, we have to look for it.

Validation!

2010-04-12T06:57:00.001-04:00

Ellen Datlow's annual Year's Best Horror list is out, and "The Patriot" is in the list! Take a look, there I am, sandwiched between Cody Goodfellow and Theodora Goss.

I'm dancing the happy dance now!

Making Our Own Fun

2010-03-28T09:27:00.006-04:00

I have a friend who hangs out at the Geek Bar and complains that there's nothing to do in town. He was recently fired, and is looking for a job in larger cities, like Denver. I say go for it. Everyone should decide for themselves the size of the place they want to live in, and you don't know what you'll like until you live there for a while.

But I laugh at him when he says he's bored. It's a lot better to be creative and self-entertaining rather than waiting for the world to come to you. As Harvey Danger said in “Flagpole Sitta,” "If you're bored then you're boring." I find there's too much entertainment out there, and I don't have enough time to get to everything I want.

This morning, for example, the local fire department burned a house down. The local paper announced it, so we went out and sat in our car at 6:30 in the morning to watch.

I've never seen a house burn down before. Not live, not from beginning to end. It's surprisingly slow, with a lot of billowing smoke. And then there's fire licking out of the roof, a whole lot more smoke, and suddenly the whole thing is going like a bonfire.

These photos are presented in order, but there isn't any set time between them. I just snapped pictures when things seemed to be interesting.

About fifteen minutes after we saw the first puffs of smoke.

Maybe twenty minutes into the process. You can already see how parts of the external roof are charring.

Twenty-five minutes in, we get the first visible fire on the roof. They'd taken the tar shingles off the roof earlier, which probably kept this from getting messy.

Not much later. You can see smoke damage and burn to the left of the leftmost window.

The house is pretty much unsavable at this point.

The particle board that covered the left window is gone, and you can see it's an oven in there. You can also see the rafters in the roof. Watch the difference between roof between this and the next picture.

The ridge of the roof is sagging badly, and the place is coming down pretty soon. I wouldn't want to be the firefighter that walks into that.

The roof has collapsed. When you see a fire on a TV show or a movie, it pretty much is at this stage. It doesn't last very long without a lot of accelerant.

I've never watched a house burn down, and hope I never do unless it's another controlled demolition.

It'll go into a story some day.

Oh my GOD it HAS a NAME!

2010-03-23T08:28:00.003-04:00

The Dunning-Kruger Effect: why the incompetent don't realize they're incompetent.

Hard choices made more difficult

2010-03-22T09:04:00.003-04:00

I've been underemployed for close to a year and a half. I need to get a better job. I've been on the job search for the past year, but it has been unsuccessful. The key to getting there is to make the search it a part-time job. To pound at the search relentlessly until something cracks.

I've got a part-time job. It pays some of the bills. I've got another part-time job. I write. Over the past week, I've stopped writing in order to concentrate more on the job search. What is making this difficult is that I'm being rewarded on my previous writing. And because I find the job search stressful.

Two people in the writing group have send me notes about how much they're enjoying the Current Project. That's unprecedented. The story, if I do say so myself, is very good. It will be published after it is finished and polished. And, on Saturday, I received my first pro-pay check for a story ("The Dark Horse" in Cthulhu 2012). That's something I've wanted for a very long time.

But right now, the short-term goals are more important than the long-term ones. And hopefully, when I have a new job, I'll be able to return to writing with a renewed sense of urgency. But I'm not very happy right now.

Pseudographia, How I Love Thee...

2010-03-14T11:51:00.003-04:00

What would the Star Wars saga be like if it were really a saga? Old Norse scholar Jackson Crawford has given a sample of how it might look. He has written an article about Tattúínárdœla saga, the Saga of the People of the Tattooine River Valley, complete with snippets of Old Norse.

As someone who loves sagas, this is a brilliant piece of literary nonsense; pseudographia.

Invitations

2010-03-11T08:08:00.002-05:00

If there's anything that makes you feel like a part of the writers' community, it's getting an invitation from people whose work you respect. Over the past couple of months, I've received several invitations to submit to projects. It's a warm feeling.

Part of the reason I decided to write was because I like talking with them. I listened to Tim Powers speak at a book signing, and I knew that I wanted to have conversations with him and people like him. At NECON, I have spent wonderful hours talking about ideas with other writers. It's unimaginable fun to sit in a group of people who are throwing out ideas, with other people knocking them in utterly insane directions.

To my delight, I'm getting there. Hard work pays off, as does having the right phlebotomist.

Splinter Fleet Mordiggian: First Encounter

2010-02-28T20:51:00.006-05:00

Warning: This is an ENORMOUS NERD POST!

The Imperium of Man has received reports of a heretofore unencountered strain of xeno, hereafter designated Splinter Fleet Mordiggian.

After three months of painting and learning the system, I put five hundred points of Tyranids on the table. And I enjoyed myself a great deal.

You're looking at 10 Termagants, 10 hormagaunts, 3 warriors, 1 zoanthrope, 5 genestealers, and a Crocodile Games Scarab Ogre standing in for my Tyranid Prime.

This picture shows a bit more of the detail of my paint scheme, which was inspired by Destroyah in Godzilla vs Destroyah. Also, the Santa Fe Good Taste Factory told me that no matter what I did, I had to kill Space Wolves. So a few of my bases have remnants of a Space Marine chapter, the Rune Bearers. The pieces are taken from a Space Wolves set. I got close to fifty heads on sprues, which will make excellent gristly trophies for a long time to come.

I was massacred in the first game because I had nothing to penetrate the armor of his Kans once my Zoanthrope was gone. In my second game I managed to pull out a tie against the Sisters of Battle in a very enjoyable and even game. I think I like Warhammer's declaration that some battles are not victories; it's entirely acceptable for neither side to win. God knows there have been enough inconclusive battles in history.

I'm enjoying Warhammer's feel. It's more of a wargame than Warmachine. Yes, the buy-in is significantly higher, but there's more a feeling of Clauswitz's "everything is more difficult in war" philosophy. When the dice roll, I calculate what should happen. But the dice (reality, fate, miscommunication, the incompetence of subcommanders, the ammunition got wet, etc...) tell me what did happen. I don't think the "fists full of dice" mechanic is particularly elegant, but it seems to insert an acceptable amount of random into the situation by dispersing it.

Warmachine, now that I've got the experience of two minis wargames, feels much more game-y, on the Gameist-Narrativist-Simualtionist spectrum. If you line up these three special abilities, you should be able to massacre the other guy's Warcaster. Warhammer tells you that you need the right tools that should take down the enemy (you really need armor piercing attacks against tanks, for example). Heroes are present, but they aren't the overwhelming power they are in Warmachine.

I had a good time.

Huh...

2010-02-26T11:15:00.003-05:00

I think my career as a photographer has started.

One of the joys of owning my own website is that I can peek behind the curtain and look at the mechanics. In this case, you're looking at the amount of bandwidth used by qusoor.com. It includes a rundown of how many times a particular page has been referenced, and where data is being sent. It's kind of interesting... about eight years ago, I discovered that Anton LaVey's daughter had linked to the Ultimate Hellblazer Index from her site.

Because I'm on a great server, I've got a lot of bandwidth that I don't use, so I'm pretty lenient about people who use my photos. But every now and then I check out the list to see who's using what. And if I don't approve, or some is heavily using my pictures, I'll put up an unpleasant image. If you're going to show a lot of people an image, at least have the decency to use your own bandwidth. My photo of Sting, for example, is surprisingly popular.

This morning, as I was looking through my links, I came across this little leach. I guess he likes my photography. Yeah, there's a difference between using it for free and actually paying for it, but I guess my photo was evocative enough that it suited his purposes.

What I've been waiting for... the Bloom Box

2010-02-25T10:46:00.004-05:00

From Walter Jon Williams' Blog:

The Bloom Box is an in-house power generator. If I read the article right, it uses fuel and oxygen to cerate emission-less power. I've been waiting for something like this since my father (who worked at a power utility) told me what a fuel cell was, some thirty years ago.

He also said (my father is very smart) was that "utilities are interested in more than just electrical power." And from watching PG&E's antics for close to a decade, he wasn't wrong. So keep an eye on the Bloom Box. This will be a massive decentralizing influence if it works half as well as advertised.

Although it's touted as an emission-less energy source, it's not a fuel-less energy source. We won't be able to replace the amount of petrolium fuel America consumes with biofuel. There simply isn't enough arible land. But I would like to see the efficiency numbers; how many coal-burning power plants will we be able to take off-line if these suckers work?

And how soon before they're small enough to stick in a car?

Fear my Camera Skillz!

2010-02-15T12:33:00.002-05:00

A quick video by Iren Bear concerning Templecon. I was the camera man for this, and provided an occasional still, some of which you will recognize from my previous entry.

Templecon 2010

2010-02-11T08:19:00.003-05:00

I went to Templecon 2010 last weekend. This year, the convention was less exclusively about Warmachine (although there was still a lot of Warmachine). It had also moved venue to something that wasn't seven floors above ground, which made moving equipment and bulky packs stuffed with miniatures a lot easier.

The main event was Warmachine. And there was a LOT of it.

I never personally saw all the tables being played, but that is a load of tables, and that's a lot of people playing.

Other games were present in the periphery: Monsterpocalypse, Warhammer Fantasy, 40,000, Heavy Gear (I'd play if I could field all hovertanks. Yes, I'm an enormous Hammer's Slammers geek) and and Flames of War. I took this picture because it was the absolute epitome of the Flames of War game for me: A gentleman in a French cap playing a guy wearing a sweatshirt with a German Tiger Tank on it.

That is what Flames of War is all about.

I did not play. I've lost my taste for Warmachine. But I hung around the scenario table my brother set, called "Incoming!" which distributed dice, T-shirts, and artillery fire to anyone who wanted some. "Incoming!" proved popular, because it was well set up, and run, as well as providing an extra dimension to the experience it doesn't usually have: sound.

This is Tristan and George playing on the "Incoming!" table. Note the stacks of craters piled up at the base of the big, black bomb (they look like hamburger patties), just waiting to be used.

As always, many of the figures were gorgeously painted. I find that painting is an enjoyable aspect of the hobby, and it makes the force on the table look good.

Makes the table look smart and engaging.

In order to attract a more diverse crowd, Templecon's theme this year was retro-futurism. Warmachine has long had a steampunk theme, and this year there were a fair number of steampunk costumers about. I regret missing the burlesque dancers.

I also spent time with writer C. J. Henderson. CJ has appeared in every notable anthology I've appeared in, and was writer guest of honor this year. We had some good chats; like me, he's deeply into Lovecraft, and even ran a Call of Cthulhu game (My character, predictably, was eaten).

So a good time, and I drank enough water to not get dehydrated in the dry motel air.

Good Words on My Work

2010-02-09T16:22:00.005-05:00

Anderson Feldt has a blog, pleasantly called Literary Vivisection. At the end of least year, he read and discussed Arkham Tales

He posts specific reactions to nine of the seventeen stories, including mine. His style is minimalist, but this may be my favorite discussion of “Arkham Rain” yet:

“Arkham rain”, by John Goodrich. Rape, body alteration, dark legacies and darker choices to be made. Fantastic.

Hey Anderson, want a copy of Cthulhu Unbound?

Ars Brevis

2010-01-31T08:52:00.003-05:00

For a change of pace, I helped out with a local ice sculpture contest on Saturday. Have I ever carved ice before? Heck no! But the Geek Bar sponsored it, and a friend asked for volunteers. We didn't win (that went to the guy who brought power tools), but I think we did pretty well.

As you look at these pictures, it should be noted that I spend a total of an hour working this, while the Primary Artists worked more than four hours each. So any glory I get is pretty much riding on their frozen coat-tails. Some people weren't quite sure what it was (working in a clear medium is more difficult than it appears), so I carved the name of the ship in the hull. I think that helped people figure it out.

A (hopefully rare) political post

2010-01-28T11:08:00.004-05:00

Dear Supreme Court of the United States:

Pyramid Texts

2010-01-11T07:58:00.002-05:00

Adventures with pyramids, who could say no?

Pyramid is an early adventure for the first edition of Dungeons and Dragons. It's a good adventure with many solid ideas, and, rather unusually for a D&D adventure, an sense of humor. The adventurers are begged by the ghost of the pharaoh Amun-Re to rob his magically-trapped tomb. There's a lot going on inside, including excavation by spoon, and Amun-Re's remaining priesthood, which still lurks in the pyramid itself.

I was very excited to hear that Paizo's Pathfinder game was going to include a close parallel to Egypt called Osirion. One of the first adventures they put out involving Osirion was J1, Entombed with the Pharaohs. Adventure structure has changed a great deal since Pyramid was put out. The adventurers expect to be interested in the adventure, not placed at the edge of a desert thanks to actions they had no say in. So there's background, a bunch of stuff that happens before the party even gets to the pyramid, which affects what happens when they're in the pyramid. Quite notable is that the adventure does not stop when the tomb-raiding does. There are hints and riddles of things that may come to pass in the campaign, if the Game Master wishes. It's a nice way to layer on experience, allowing the literary device of foreshadowing in the campaign. yes, I am one of those snobby players who thinks that virtually any literary device can be used to enhance play in an RPG scenario.

Paizo's follow-up has several structural similarities and some very interesting differences from Kortes' first pyramid adventure. Again with the wacky magical traps (and I like wacky magical traps), but there is a logic to these, because this pyramid was meant to be accessed from time to time. As such, it's got a very different feel from the previous two adventures. Also like Entombed with the Pharaohs, there is a breaking of the walls, a hint at something in the scenario that is beyond the confines of the adventure.

It was kind of a shock to read this adventure and realize how like the majority of first edition D&D scenarios it was. It's a dungeon crawl; go in, kill the monsters, avoid the traps. There's a lack of description that I find is good for the immersion experience. The monsters, complex traps, and other immediate goals are well described, but there's a flatness to it that leaves me cold.

The Pleasures of a Brick-Based Economy

2010-01-07T07:30:00.004-05:00

I seem to have discovered a pattern for myself. During the waning of the sun, I start to noodle around with Ancient Egyptian books and games. This year, it's Children of the Nile: Alexandria. I've enjoyed the Simcity-style building game Children of the Nile for many years, and just purchased the expansion. I love watching my little people build temples, monuments (mostly to my greatness), and tombs, creating a thriving economy.

Perhaps the adoration of virtual citizens is having the right effect. I've sent off two manuscripts in the last two days, and will be sending out a third today.

California vs Vermont

2010-01-03T10:09:00.004-05:00

"And along in the Summer, when you have suffered about four months of lustrous, pitiless sunshine, you are ready to go down on your knees and plead for rain--hail--snow--thunder and lightning--anything to break the monotony-- you will take an earthquake, if you cannot do any better. And the chances are that you'll get it, too."

Roughing It, Chapter 56, by Mark Twain

This is not a complaint about the weather. I missed the snow, and would rather have it than an earthquake.

That said... we've had a bit of snow.

The Small Traditions Are the Important Ones

2009-12-30T22:35:00.005-05:00

Did you have a merry Christmas? A happy season? A delightful Festivus?

As usual, I had too much to do and not enough time in between them. A lot of driving around, and few days in which I do not have a responsibility to be somewhere. Work is pretty heavy, and that's good for the store, but it takes a bit of a toll on me. The writing has fallen by the wayside, and tomorrow I head down to Massachusetts to be with friends. We'll see how much writing I'll get done.

But rather than concentrate on the negative, I'll put up some of my stranger Christmas traditions. Every year, for example, we go to the World's Best Grinder place and get an awesome grinder.

Those of you who do not live in the New England area may not realize that a sub is a grinder in these parts. Dunno why. But the important thing to realize is that the sandwiches made by Elmwood Pizza are without a doubt the best in the world. I don't know why. It may be the Polish tradition that adds a special mix of spices to the oil. All I know is that their grinders are incredibly savory. The meat is acceptable, the veggies nothing to crow about. But every cold grinder we have gotten there has been a treasure. The Queen of Science and I get one every Christmas (I put a six incher in her stocking one year. The smell of it permeated the car and gave me away), and they are as excellent as we remember.

For me, it's a little treat that's the taste of Christmas.

Falling Out of Love

2009-12-11T07:17:00.004-05:00

My relationship with certain media franchises can best be described as a romantic one. Certain things I just fall in love with: Godzilla, the undead, Klingons, Fallout, the Diskworld, Ancient Egypt, Cthulhu, Wing Commander, and many others. Some stay. Godzilla, for example, is something I can return to many times a year with complete enjoyment.

Every now and then, however, I fall out of love. Something switches, either in me, or the franchise, and it loses its luster. It happened a few years ago with Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Le Comte Saint Germain, I'm sad to say. I'll always look back on those books with fondness, but I don't think I'll ever read a new one. It's kind of sad, because it's a part of my life that I enjoyed, and now am leaving behind me.

Over the last two months, I've fallen out of love with Warmachine. Which is a pity. I played the game pretty much on a weekly basis for two years, and spent a lot of time painting up my little miniature army. I like the painting, but the game has evolved into something that is unbalanced. It has become frustrating to play. Much as I hoped Mark 2 would fix the problems that annoyed me, the game still had problems which made it unplayable for me.

The sad part is, the loss of me has resulted in the implosion of Warmachine in Bennington. I was the guy who started off Warmachine, and it appears that without me, there isn't enough interest to sustain itself. Partially I feel guilty because this means the store has a lot of stock that is going to just sit on its shelves. And I don't get to socialize with some of the Warmachine players anymore. I've started a mini painting night, and that's providing me with a good hour and a half of serenity, the aspect of the hobby I enjoyed most.

What am I painting, you ask? Tyranids from Warhammer 40K. And yes, I can already see the signs of love. I bought the older Tyranid books in order to have a sense of their history. I've even bought a novel that involves them, but in my defense, I know the author.

The December Blues

2009-12-08T08:04:00.003-05:00

So, the job search is going into heavy drive, so I don't have the time I would like to devote to this blog, or writing in general, anymore.

This sucks.

And it's the Christmas season, so there's a lot of extra scurrying around buying stuff and being secretive and mailing stuff. Plus I've added another work day at the Grotto.

Once I'm done with the revisions to "N is for Neville" and "Between Two Living Gods" I will be getting back to Hag. I will thus be having less closure on my writing for the next three months. This is, I think, going to be a couple of difficult months.

Trifecta of Excellence: A Game, A TV Series, and A Book

2009-11-20T07:38:00.007-05:00

Despite several near-disasters, it's been a good week. Wednesday could have been very bad, but it turns out I am competent enough to replace the motherboard of my own desktop.

This week has been very good to me is the excellent media I've been soaking in. It's difficult to get excited about new stuff these days, because so much stuff out there is crud. I'm pleased to mention three excellent examples of the media I spend a lot of time with: a books, a television series, and and a computer game.

The Fallout Game of the Year edition has been wonderful. I have already played through the main plot of Fallout, but I missed a large number of the side-quests, and the additional content offered by the downloadables has been amazingly fun. Killin' inbred hicks from Maryland? Yeah, I can get behind that. Murdering slavers in the industrial wasteland that was once Pittsburgh? Surprisingly fun. Me and my Power Armor getting abducted by a giant tin-toy alien mother ship? That was pretty cool. The game has a lot of interesting story and development. The plots and subplots are solid, and are sold to you in different ways. Not a lot of repetition in Fallout 3, although sometimes, the combat is a little overdone. Random encounters add length to the game, but not a lot of interest. Fortunately, it never becomes a Diablo grind of waves upon waves of monsters that exist solely to die, give you experience, and drop stuff for you to sell.

Rome is one of the best TV series I've ever watched. Although it's got some historical inaccuracy, mostly for the sake of drama and the convenience of keeping the same actors, it also is steeped in history. It's the little details that are so fascinating: watching the Town Crier read out the news and then pause to advertise a sponsor; seeing the swirl of ethnicities and peoples in the dirty streets of Rome; feeling the rise and fall of family prestige based on so many minor factors. It's delightfully complex and horrible and relentlessly human all at the same time. The sets are gorgeous, the acting top-notch. The plots got a little bit soapy toward the end of season two, but entirely enjoyable. This is excellent television.

When the Santa Fe Good Taste Factory recommends something, I listen. If he recommends something, it's usually quite good. Not that my other friends don't have good taste, but the Good Taste Factory suggests it, I'm guaranteed to like it. The Gone-Away World arrived in the mail during a period in which I was having trouble reading books, partially because I was reading some crap I felt obligated to read and report on. And I'm having trouble with my own writing, which always effects my reading. The Gone-Away World is not the sort of book I usually read. I like strong plots with muscular prose, something with a sense of where it's going. Gone-Away World is loaded with digressions, strange introspection, a semi-halpess protagonist who wanders through his own life. However, the prose is brilliant. A quote: "Garbage in, garbage out. Or rather more felicitously, the tree of nonsense if watered with error, and from its branches swing the pumpkins of disaster." I went on this ride with author Nick Harkaway because I was seduced by his prose, and the funny, strange, human way he has his protagonist think and put things together. An excellent book, probably the best one I have read this year.

Armistice Day

2009-11-10T07:40:00.005-05:00

On 11/11/1918, the guns fell silent.

War is a quintessential human sport. It is such a tremendous undertaking, so inconvenient and difficult that if we did not love it so much, it would never happen. And when we wage, we want to keep the reality of it from the people in whose name we do so. Strange, isn't it?

The Secrecy News website found or assembled a PDF of this report on why certain photographs from the Great War were censored. It's quite an amazing read, loaded with pictures and explanations of why such pictures were not released. What great pains militaries take to make sure that those who are not involved in the fight do not see what soldiers do, see how soldiers die. Even as they act in the name of those who should not be exposed to these horrors.

How the Process has Changed

2009-11-06T11:36:00.005-05:00

It's been a frustrating couple of weeks, partially because of the story I've been writing. This story required a lot of background: who the Caananites were, what they spoke, and differentiating between a qedeshem and a qedeshot (qedeshem is male). And while the research was fun, working with an only semni-familiar culture can be frustrating. How many goats was Pharaoh likely to bring with him on a campaign of conquest? I'm more interested in the logistics of how the force was concentrated than how the force fought, which is not so much what the average chronicler or diarist is going to talk about. They write about the glory of the campaign. I want the nasty, gritty details about how it happened. There's a scholarly book on Tuthmosis' campaigns which likely would clear up a few of my questions about the composition of Tuthmosis' force, but I'm up to my eyebrows in unread books, and $75 is a bit steep.

My process has changed in the last year. I used to write the story, then immediately run over it for a revision. Right now, I'm letting the story sit, generally for as long as it takes to revise a previous story and then write another one, before I get to the serious revising.

Bradbury was right. Write a lot and your work will improve. I used to have the problem of going back to a story after a couple of months and remembering exactly what all the words were, and being unable to rewrite effectively because of that. Now, because there's a fair amount of verbiage pouring out of me, I've forgotten a lot about stories I've written, so revising them is a lot easier. In what I would have said was an impossibility two years ago, I sometimes forget the names of my protagonists.

But there's one way to tell if the process has improved my work. Will it sell?

Brian Keen Must Die!

2009-11-02T13:11:00.007-05:00

"By Way of Thank You"
by John Goodrich

What really killed Brian Keene wasn’t his writing, but taking a break from it.

He had been spending a lot of time in the nearly-inaccessible concrete bunker in the bowels of the defense installation he called The Compound. His home, his safe haven from the hordes of ravening FUKU, as well as semi-human zombie fanciers. Here he wrote his books and stories, and, on occasion, posted to the Internet.

He’d just finished a particularly difficult scene, and figured he deserved a bit of down time. Maybe he would go look at That Message board.

“FINALLY PUBLISHED!” was the thread’s title. With more trepidation than hope, Brian clicked.

“YeAZ BiTcHeZ!” gushed the post. “The Crapola anthology series took my story. Cost me $200 for the processing, but they really liked “Zombie Slumber Party Slaughter.” They said I could be the next Stefanie Myer with my talent. All I need is to get sdome notice, which I’ll get once Crapola hits the stands! Who’s a thought it, published on my first story!”

Brian ground his teeth. He’s typed this response so often his fingers already knew where to go as he thought about what to have for lunch.

“No. Look, kid, money flows to the author.” The words ripped across the screen like a jackrabbit with an M-80 up its tailpipe. “These assholes at Crapola are ripping you off. They aren’t distributing your story. Nobody worth anything reads Crapola. You’ve just flushed your money down a dirty but well-worn toilet.”

He clicked the “send” button, and wandered around the site to see if there was any worthwhile conversation to be had.

A few minutes later, the thread had been lengthened by a single response. He took a deep breath, readied himself for the usual ignorant rebuttal, and viewed the thread.

“Don’t be h8tr, dudzor” the message ran. “I’ve been working on this writing thing for six weeks, and you old guyz don’t like to see the new guyz coming up to kick ur assez. Yeah, I didn’t make any momney off the sale, but people can and do read the Crapola anthologies. That’s why they charge so much—they get great distribuition. In a couple of months, someone else will pick up my storey, and I’ll get a contract for a couple of books. They said I will be the horror’s next Sephanie Meyer.”

“You fucking idiot!” He didn’t type it, he screamed it at the screen. Not for the first time, he wished for a device that would let him slap sense into someone through the Internet. Since he didn’t have one, he was just going to have to school this numbskull with words that would probably bounce of his thick skull. But he had to try.

The light in the bunker flashed. That was the doorbell. He only switched it on when the wife was out… dammit. She was out shopping. Food or clothes or something. He wished he’d paid more attention to where she was going.

Nothing to do but go see who it was. He considered dropping the intruders sight unseen into the pit trap that he reserved for Jehova’s Witnesses. But it might be someone he wasn’t expecting. Someone he liked.

He looked through the peeohole. They were lawyers. They didn’t even have to open their mouths and he knew they were lawyers. They wore stereotypical pinstriped suits, with the red power ties that should have died in the ninties. Their hair was immobile, even in the November breeze.

What the did lawyers want with him? Not pushing the button to dump them into the oubliette took more willpower than had gone into his first book. Lawyers. He took a deep breath, calmed himself, and checked the loads of the weapons cache. When he was ready, he opened the door.

“Mr. Keene?” The lefthand lawyer was wearing sunglasses on an overcast November day. He clearly thought he was Mr. Smith from the Matrix. “Mr. Brian Keene?”

Brian let out a small, dejected sigh. He was about to be served.

“Yeah that’s me.”

“We are the representatives of PublishNorthAmerica, the publishers of Crapola. We understand you’ve been advising one of our authors not to pay for publication. Not to mention the slanderous ways in which you attack out client, PublishNorthAmerica, whenever they come up.”

“Wait a second. Didn’t your little trip out here cost a little bit more than you made from any of those little guys? You guys charge more by the hour than that guy paid you.”

“You have been a thorn in our side for some time, Mr. Keene. Now it is time to rectify that.”

Keene’s easy smile was confident, and the smirk on the lawyer’s face faded.

“What’s black and brown and looks good on a lawyer?” the author asked.

The lawyers exchanged glances, wasting valuable time as the Rotties charged them. A gruesome gurgling was followed by the wet crunch of bone, and then a sloppy licking sound.

As the dogs were about their work, Brian noticed the black van that was parked on the street. Even as he was wondering how much more cliché his visitors could be, the van’s side door opened, and two more men in black suits stepped out. The left one even had sunglasses.

“Fuck this.” Brian pulled a pistol off the wall and unloaded. The two went down in crumpled heaps. This was going to be a big mess.

The black van’s door opened again, and a squad of black-suited figured leaped out, this time carrying an array of assault rifles and pistols. He could almost hear the Propellerheads music as they charged, firing with all the accuracy of Hollywood Nazis.

Bullets smacked against walls, and the concrete of the Compound echoed with thunder as Brian returned fire. They were all on the ground in a few seconds, and Brian was reloading.

The van vomited more black-suited bodies, as if they’d stowed some sort of clown car in it. But their tactics were movie simple: run forward, guns blazing. Running and gunning, they were as accurate as a Dan Brown novel, cliché as an exploding car.

Wait a minute.

Brian pumped four shots into the van’s engine block.

True to form, it exploded in a fireball that would have made ten kilos of plastic explosive proud. The van vaulted backwards, nose over end, before coming to rest in a smoking, burning heap.

The quiet was sudden end eerie, the only sound the panting of the Rotties and the greasy crackle of flames devouring burning van.

Not much later, The Wife drove up. He watched her cascade of red hair as she slung the kid, then threaded her way across the corpse-strewn yard.

“Half the county heard that explosion,” she said. “And there was only one place it could come from. You’ve got quite the mess to clean up.“

Brian rolled his eyes. “Me? But this isn’t my fau—“

Her glance was so sharp he never felt the cut. Just fell to the ground, the world turning black.

“I warned you before,” she said, somewhere beyond the black cotton that smothered the world. “Never mess with the redhead.”

Today is Brian Keene Must Die day. Brian will be killed in dozens of horrifying ways in blogs across the blogosphere for a very good cause. Please consider making a donation to the Shirley Jackson Awards.

Someday I’ll be one of the cool kids and hear about these before they happen. I owe Brian for a very good headbanging that I desperately needed a few years ago. Thanks, Brian.

What a Halloween weekend should be

2009-11-02T07:37:00.005-05:00

The Queen of Science and I traveled to Connecticut for a good friend's party, and it was most excellent. The costumes were great. We had a magnificent Genghis Khan, a delightful Snow Queen, a touch of steampunk, more birds than anyone anticipated, several devils, and a really awesome pair of French Maids. Even better, the conversations were quite interesting: the Snow Queen knows a very diverse group of friends, and at any point, there were at least two interesting conversations going within earshot. She is also a divine cook, and a hostess of the diligent, attentive old school.

Side note to college-aged trick-or-treaters: wearing a T-shirt that tells us which college you are going to actually reduces the likelihood of receiving candy.

Sunday morning, I staggered on sleepy legs to be script doctor and director of photography for Iren Bear's "Thanks Wargamers" video. I'm amazed at how little time it takes for Iren Bear to put together something solid and well-edited on Youtube. In it, he thanks the voters for his win (see previous post). This video also is the first to feature him, and features a hilarious cameo from Mrs. Iren Bear. Give it a watch if you're at all geeky: Iren Bear writes a concise, funny video.

We WON!

2009-10-30T07:59:00.004-04:00

Yeah baby!

So the battle report is well on its way to 7,000 views, and people are now discussing how to make their own batreps in the same fashion. I'm hoping we see a spread of this style of watchable battle report, rather than the usual point the camera and talk at it. Part of the camera's role is to take out the dull and trivial parts, like the dice rolling. And this video pares that down, as well as providing a sense of story for the viewer.

I was a on-location gopher, secondary special effects department, script doctor, and voice actor, but the real credit goes to Iren Bear.

And yeah, I like the dancing.

"More than Once a Year Makes Them Nervous"

2009-10-29T08:08:00.007-04:00

Woah. It has a graphic. I'm sort of climbing out of a bad patch, thanks to yesterday's non-productivity, doses of Futurama and Rome, and cracking The Gone Away World (thanks, Nick!). Nothing serious, but there's a few things in my life that are going to change. But this post has to do with the panel. I'll post about my life later.

It's a little nerve-wracking to know that the panel is coming up in less than a week and a half. Must do some brushing-up on Dracula (where is that quote? Is reading from the Unicorn edition a good idea or just bragging?) Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Laurel K. Hamilton, Nancy Collins, Suzy McKee Charnas, a touch of Leonard Wolf, perhaps quote Frank Langella. Peg the dates of Hotel Transylvania and Interview with a Vampire. I think I'll need some notecards. And when did that "Demon Lover" ballad get written down?

But the real question remains; is there anything that humans won't have sex with?

Thrill the World!

2009-10-24T15:02:00.004-04:00

Today is Thrill the World day, when thousands of people go out and perform Michael Jackson's Thriller dance, somewhat simultaneously, all around the world. It's an interesting confluence of 80s pop culture, zombie flash mob, and internet organization. This year it's a little strange since Michael is dead.

As for myself, I thrilled the world last week in a different fashion. I finally played my zombies vs. Cthulhu game of Horrorclix. Again appropriate because Horrorclix is currently dead (but dreaming... NECA recently acquired the license). While Cthulhu lost without even eliminating a third of the fielded zombies, it was fun to see some 26 zombies slowly marching on the Great Old One. The Wizkids sculptors made those little zombies very evocative.

Huh

2009-10-12T07:59:00.005-04:00

So, I'm speaking on a panel about Paranormal Romance. I'm not sure if I'm more surprised about the engagement itself, or the subject.

Last month's New England Horror Writers newsletter, (the one that has me on the front page) had a note that Colgate bookstore in Hamilton, NY was looking for someone to participate in a panel, tentatively called ""Fangs, Fur and Fey: Perspectives on Paranormal Fiction." They wanted someone who was more of the horror bent than romance. They were having some difficulty getting a horror writer, although the romance folks volunteered quickly.

What's up with that? Horror writers often complain that they aren't getting the exposure we deserve, so why wouldn't they want to get on a panel like this? Is there an undercurrent of elitism in horror?

Their loss is my gain. I sold myself as someone who has read into the roots of paranormal romance, having read Anne Rice, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Laurel K. Hamilton, Nancy Collins, and watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer religiously. I've also read some of Leonard Wolf's literary criticism of horror, so I've got a bit of the analysis to back me up.

So if you want to see me talking horror and romance, I'll be at

the Colgate Bookstore
3 Utica Street, Hamilton, NY. 13346
Saturday, November 7^th. 2 PM

Gods willing, and with a bit of preparation, I won't make an ass of myself.

Watching Movies, the Old-Fashioned Way...

2009-09-28T08:59:00.005-04:00

Hathaway's Drive-In in North Hoosick had a end-of the season closer we couldn't resist: Up followed by Star Trek.

We aren't really drive-in people. The heyday of cars and movies was a bit before our time, and we're not really that in love with our car. It's a small, efficient box that gets us from point A to point B. But it's fun to go and see a film in a venue that is past its prime, to get a whiff of the way things used to be.

The intermission video was particularly interesting. The animated bits looked like they came from Jay Ward Productions (of Rocky and Bullwinkle fame). The non-animated parts were also interesting. Mostly, they were an exhortation to visit the snack bar (where the drive-in makes most of its money). Offering hot dogs and burgers was one thing, but watching a 60s-era bag of popcorn get a small pail of butter poured over it was horrifying.

Hathaway's utilizes the two traditional methods of getting the sound to the customer: stands with wired speakers on them (you hang them on your door) and a low-wattage broadcast that can be picked up on the car radio. The speakers are clearly the original material, large aluminum boxes the size an internal DVD drive. We hung it on the steering wheel, it was too chilly to keep the window open. The drive-in is not, incidentally, the best place to see a film with a lot of audio magic. The speaker is mono, so unless your car radio is awesome you're going to lose the audio designed for Dolby Digital or THX.

Fun was had. We cuddled under blankets to keep warm, watched Star Trek for the fourth time on the big screen.

Bottleneck

2009-09-25T08:54:00.002-04:00

Well, this kind of sucks. Once again, I have a problem I wanted to have a year ago. My review and rewrite process has run into a bottleneck. I'm writing too fast or something.

I'm polishing several some stories I wrote earlier this year, and I'm bottlenecked by the review process. I've got five stories, all in various positions of revision. The writing group won't meet again until October 13^th. In the meantime, I've got at least three stories I want them to look at. I've also reached a squeeze with the on-line review process. I can only have three stories up, and I've got three stories up. And I need them to look at 'Secret Sisterhood' as soon as I finish polishing it.

Whine, whine, whine. It's difficult to be me.

It's Raining Good Reviews...

2009-09-15T07:17:00.005-04:00

Brian Sammons, a good writer who knows Cthulhu from a Cthonian, has posted a review of Cthulhu Unbound at Nanci Kalanta's Horror World.

"I really liked John Goodrich’s The Patriot for many reasons. First and foremost, it is well written and very creepy. Second, it’s a war story, and I love war stories when they’re done right. Third, it’s set in a war mostly forgotten today, World War One. From start to finish, this tale is simply great, but as for that finish, it’s a doozy. While it is tough to pick my absolute favorite of this anthology, this one would be one of the contenders."

Guess who owes Brian and probably Nanci a drink?

A Personal First

2009-09-14T08:56:00.004-04:00

I wrote the story I'm threatening to send to William Jones's High Seas Cthulhu II anthology in seven days. That's a personal first, especially considering that there were children in the house for the last two days.

So now it goes through the process of critiques, both on-line and individual. I don't think that the local group will get to it this Tuesday; we're preparing for the Sweating Ink-themed reading on the 17th. Most of the group will want to read their stories to the group before we read to the putative audience at the North Bennington Library.

So now, it's time to polish, polish, polish.

The submission backlog continues apace. Today I send a package out to Asmiov's.

What's Got Two Thumbs and Was Name-Checked by Fangoria's website?

2009-09-06T17:38:00.002-04:00

Me.

New Battle Report!

2009-09-04T08:27:00.004-04:00

Iren Bear has put together yet another awesome battle report for Youtube. I provide the voices and a few of the special effects, but it's really all him.

And Now the Dreams

2009-09-02T10:20:00.003-04:00

Whenever I'm coming off a big pile of stress, I get very vivid dreams I can remember. Most of the time, I sleep soundly, and don't remember my dreams. The week or ten days following something stressful, this changes. So last week was a big one for strange things happening in my sleep.

These aren't anxiety dreams or nightmares, they just seem to be my brain letting off some steam after being put through a wringer. But the nature of them has changed since I noticed this trend twenty years ago. I used to get just flashes of nonsensical scenes mashed together with weird emotional cues. Now I seem to get plots. Not necessarily good plots, but events to definitely chain with each other.

Hm. There's an observation about amateur neurolinguistic programming in there, but I'm not sure what it should be.

Oh Shit

2009-08-18T16:48:00.004-04:00

I stocked a copy of Space Hulk last week. I was going to ask the store owner to hold it aside for my brother, but he wasn't in, so I didn't. I put it on the shelf.

Only it turns out I didn't. Because the product is not out yet, and because it doesn't look like I remember.

Holy shit. I know it didn't happen, but I can remember it, I remember being surprised that it was thinner than expected, and I remember the cover art, which was the same art for the computer game which I bought more than six years ago. It is nothing like what the game's cover art used to look like, nor is it like what the game will look like when re-released.

Holy shit, I still can't believe it didn't happen. I remember it. Images and emotions, like I remember kissing the Queen of Science this morning.

And I'm worried. Yeah, stress and all that, but I've never remembered something that didn't happen.

Not Again Soon, I Think

2009-08-18T09:06:00.004-04:00

Carmen is a success. Not a financial one, not yet, but certainly an artistic success. Although the audiences have not filled the theater, they have applauded long enough that we have taken two and three company bows. So clearly, a lot of something is going right.

It is not, however, a personal success. I'm not enjoying the performances. I spend a lot of time backstage, and I think about what I want to be writing. Which I would be doing, if I wasn't in this opera. Don't get me wrong, I'm working with remarkable people who are very artistic and completely not divas. They're all down-to-earth and very practical about their work, and good fun to be with.

But I'm not enjoying it. I'm not getting a thrill out of audience attention, I'm not serene and satisfied at the end of the performance. It's just work. Hot, time-consuming, unpaid work during which which I am frequently uncomfortable. What am I getting out of this again?

It feels like acting, like writing, is something a lot of people aspire to, and those who love it will pursue it. As a result, there is a glut of wanna-be-actors, and directors feel that can do as they wish because there's always someone else who wants to act (or, in this case, sing).

It's significant that I didn't audition for this part, as the majority of the rest of the cast did. In fact, I understand the competition to get in this was pretty fierce. But I didn't have to audition, I just walked into the part.

Not again soon, I think.

On a different topic, David Conyers has a thoughtful essay on why he enjoys collaboration. I don't link to this specifically because he mentions me, but he does mention me.

It's All About Me

2009-08-11T08:36:00.002-04:00

As from Commentary! The Musical.

I have managed to work my Carmen character, Lilas Pastia, from background character to the major force for all the unpleasantness in the opera. Before, I was simply the tavern-keeper and Carmen's pimp, the stock character of the crooked tavern-keeper cut from the same cloth as Les Miserable's Thenardier. Now, I push Zuniga (Don Jose's commander) onto Dom, Jose's knife, and blame him for it. In the next act, when we fight and he kills me in a fit of vengeance, my death has become the defining break between him and Carmen.

So the spiral of operatic death in this production of Carmen is all my character's fault. Not bad for someone who doesn't sing, and basically came in as a bit part.

Lots of Work

2009-08-07T10:00:00.004-04:00

Yeesh. With the writing and the working and the opera, I haven't had much time to say anything on this blog.

I've been watching some more Godzilla, and discovering the magic of composer Akira Ifukube. I didn't realize how much his scores contributed to the Godzilla films I liked until I realized how affecting that trumpet riff from Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster is. Other composers seem dated or just plain strange, witness the the samba-influenced work of the late 60's and early 70's Godzilla films. Ugh.

But I got a major worry off my chest; I've started submitting stories to venues again. This morning I sent "N is for Neville" off to Dark Faith anthology.

Carmen opens in less than a week.

Cormac McCarthy's The Road

2009-08-02T15:52:00.004-04:00

It took me two days to read Cormac McCarthy's The Road. It's been some time since I read a Pulitzer Prize-winner. I've read Executioner's Song and intend to read Klavier and Clay, especially since Michael Chabon has a story in an upcoming Lovecraft tribute anthology. I expected some excellent writing.

Just after I'd cracked the book, I walked down to the post office with it in my hand. I never go to the Post Office without a book, and I think you know why. On that day I was told twice, both time by older (over 65) individuals whom I did not know that the book was depressing. I did not retort that because I had read a lot of Harlan Ellison post-apoc stuff, I was expecting hugs and puppies. I like post-apocalyptic stories. I've enjoyed the Fallout games, as well as Canticle for Liebowitz, I am Legend, Gate to Women's Country, as well as Beyond Thunderdome, Damndation Alley, and various other films. I would call myself well-read in the genre, but I've got some background in it.

Unfortunately, The Road tugs on a heart-string I don't seem to have. As with Dan Simmons' Children of the Night, the story tugs very heavily on the child in peril theme. Which, apparently, doesn't work with me. So there is a dimension to the story that was clearly missing for me, especially as the whole book is the relationship between the unnamed man and his child.

However, I had a lot of difficulty getting past the inconsistencies in the story. One might say that the story is a fable, and therefore the details don't matter, but the details do matter.

Problem; they are constantly discovering dried corpses. At the same time, it is constantly raining. Now, it never rains when they discover the dried corpses, but some are leftover from the cataclysm (never mentioned). How is it that these dried bodies survive in such a wet environment? Wet encourages rot, unless all the microbes are gone. Which, I suppose is a possibility. There are no living trees in the book, no living plants at all, and no animals, either. To me, it seems strange and unlikely that all the plants are gone. Without them, what is producing the oxygen that the humans breathe, especially after large areas were burned, consuming much oxygen?

Ecosystems change, adapt, and abide. The real problem with a nuclear war or other major disaster is not that it will destroy all life on earth, but that it will wipe out humanity. We are far more sensitive to changes in condition than the entire ecosystem of the Earth. Mass extinctions have happened before, and life always has found a way.

The Devil, as they say, is in the details. And while the plot of The Road was engaging, and the use of language clever, the above details threw me. I try not to be a hard-science asshole, but this bothered me, and lowered my opinion of the book.

As post-apocalypse literature, I thought it was OK. Gate to Women's Country beats it by a country mile.

Open Letter to the SF Community

2009-07-30T10:24:00.002-04:00

The Carl Brandon Society has just blogged an Open Letter to the SF Community with some resolutions for discourse in the SF community. Three simple, well-worded points should stand for all Internet discussions, not just those in the SF community.