The Least Read Blog on the Web

Tip Tuesday: Almost W

2012-01-24T08:00:00.000-06:00

Okay, so you've done your reading (or reading-cubed, if we're going by the formula I made up for the purposes of this series), and so we have to move on to the "W."

The "W" is obviously for writing. And so, based on this formula, it would seem that as soon as you're done doing your "Rs," it's time to dive right into the writing.

Except . . . well, not quite.

See, here's the thing. Before you do any writing, you should really do some pre-writing.

Now you might think that this is the outliner, plot-firster in me talking. Someone who plots out pretty much every move in advance is naturally going to do a lot of groundwork before he or she starts writing. But even if you're a seat-of-the-pants type of writer, even if you're a character-first writer, you're going to want to do some work in advance.

For me, the advance work is (once again) based on Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake Method. Except I don't make it through all ten steps. I usually get about two-thirds of the way in and I hit what I like to call "critical mass" and I have to start writing right now.

If you're a character-firster, maybe you could spend some time writing journal entries in the voice of your characters.

If you're a pantser . . . well, I'm not sure what to tell you.

Whatever the case, doing that work up front, whether it's world building, practicing your characters' voices or sussing out their backstory, is time well spent, because it means when it comes time to actually do the writing, you can focus on that.

Every Life

2012-01-22T12:00:00.000-06:00

As we remember the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, it's important to remember that God values every life.

Text: Jonah 3:1-5, 10

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Tip Tuesday: The Third R

2012-01-17T08:00:00.000-06:00

Two "Rs" down, one to go.

For those unaware of what I'm talking about, let's review. I've been sharing my limited experience with writing, using a formula I made up:

Given what we've seen, what do you suppose the third "R" is?

Wrong. It's actually "research."

Okay, okay, we'll call it reading, because that's usually the way we conduct research. Not the only way, of course, but certainly a way.

There's an old adage that writers toss around from time to time: write what you know. Some of the best fiction comes when the author writes about a subject that they're uniquely qualified to know and understand. And there's certainly some truth to that. When an author puts together a proposal for an editor or agent, one of the things they want to know is if said author has any special qualifications to write his or her book. For example, if someone is writing a hard sci-fi book about time travel, an actual theoretical physicist will have a better chance at getting noticed than, say, a Lutheran minister.

Not that I've written a book on time travel.

. . . yet. Ahem.

Anyway, that adage is all well and good, but it can also be a bit limiting. If all we're supposed to do is write what we know, that could turn out to be rather confining. Should I only write about people who are Lutheran ministers, since that's what I know? Should my only setting be the sinking of the RMS Titanic or the USS Enterprise D since I used to research those things a lot when I was younger?

C'mon. Like you couldn't have guessed that second one.

The answer is "No." While "write what you know" is a good adage, the reverse is equally true: know what you write. If you want to write about time travel and you're not a theoretical physicist, do the research and find out what you need to know.

The reason for this is simple: no matter how obscure the subject you're writing about, someone, somewhere, will read your story and know you don't know what you're talking about. It'll either be a minor glitch that momentarily leaves the reader scratching his or her head. Or it could be so major that they'll stop reading and vow never to read your stuff again.

Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about, but not one from the literary world (exactly). Let's talk Castle.

I love this show. It's simply awesome. Nathan Fillion, playing a writer? What's not to love? However, as great as the show is, it's obvious at times that the writers don't always do their research.

How do I know? Because of Lee Lofland and his blog, The Graveyard Shift. Lofland is a retired police office and every week, he posts a "review" of the episodes, pointing out where the show got the police procedures and research wrong.

Now one might argue that this is a TV show, one designed for entertainment and not education. At the same time, though, every now and then, the writers make a doozy that really, they should have done better.

I'm not saying that these research errors make me love this show even less. But it illustrates my point. Lofland knows better. And at times, his frustration over the mistakes is very obvious. In spite of them, though, Lofland keeps watching.

So when do you do the research, before, during, or after? That's up to you. Like I said last week, writing is about finding a method that works best for you. Some folks have to do extensive research before they put one word on the page. Others wait until after the first draft is done. Figure out what works best for you and stick with that.

Just make sure you do it. You don't want to lose any readers because you didn't do your legwork.

"Failstate" Book Trailer Contest

2012-01-16T07:09:00.000-06:00

Before you keep reading, be sure you watch this video:

Ummmmm . . . I'm not sure what else I have to say. Any questions?

An Unnamed Sermon

2012-01-15T15:00:00.000-06:00

Sometimes, you just have to listen when God speaks.

Text: 1 Samuel 3:1-20 John 1:43-51

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Tip Tuesday: The Second R

2012-01-10T08:00:00.000-06:00

Last week, I started this column to pass along writer tips that I've picked up as I traveled the road to publication. I stated that while it's difficult to come up with a one-size-fits-all roadmap for people, there are some general principles that I think can be quantified into a (hopefully) easy to remember formula:

And, as the little red line indicates, last week we talked about how writers are readers. We devour books, both in our respective genres and out of them.

So what, pray tell, does the second "R" in the formula stand for? Why, reading, of course. More specifically, reading about writing.

Let's be honest, unless you were born with a supernatural amount of writing talent, there's a lot that you have to learn. And I'm saying that, not as someone who has learned it all, but as someone who knows darn well that I still have a lot to learn too! Writing fiction is never as easy as it seems. There are a lot of tips and tricks to pick up, lots of ideas and concepts to master, techniques to squirrel away until you need them.

To learn all of this stuff, you could just surf the web and hope someone is doing weekly writing tip columns on his blog (ahem). Actually, there are a lot of websites out there that offer advice (better than mine, that's for sure), such as Randy Ingermanson's and Jeff Gerke's.

Or you can always go to a bookstore and find the reference section. There's usually a ton of how-to-write books that cover a wide range of topics. You can usually find good ones published by Writer's Digest (although they can also be a mixed bag; some good, some not so good).

Of course, one of the best ways to "read" about writing is by joining a writer's group. For example, my membership in American Christian Fiction Writers has been invaluable, not only because of what I've learned on the e-mail loops, at local chapter meetings, and at the national conference, but also because of the networking I've been able to do.

So there's a lot of advice out there for you to find. Gather it, read it, assimilate it, use it. But do so with a little bit of caution, because there's a trap you can fall into all too easily.

Let me give you a personal example. A number of years ago, I started "getting serious" about my writing (I've done that a lot; seems to be a every-other-year type of thing) and I started gathering books about writing to learn more.

One of the books I got was On Writing by Stephen King. I figured if anyone could tell me about how to write a page-turning spellbinder, it'd be Uncle Stevie. And by and large, this was a great book. I'd recommend it to just about anyone.

But as I read it, I got a little nervous. See, King stated emphatically that the only true way to write a thrilling, unpredictable book was to go into the story with no idea how it'll end. He said that if you figured out the plot step-by-step, it'd be too predictable and boring. So he instructed his readers that the only good way to write was to make it up as we went along.

That freaked me out, because I tend to do outlining before I write. At the time, I thought, That's why my books aren't selling! I've been too predictable! I have to make it up as I go along.

Shortly after finishing King's book, I moved on to read The Key: How to Write Damn Good Fiction Using the Power of Myth by James N. Frey. Again, a good book with some great ideas and advice. Only there was something that confused me. Frey said that if you wanted to write a best-seller (which many of his students have gone on to do), you have to come up with an outline first! And not just one, several!

I was so confused. I had Stephen King saying, "Make it up!" on one side, James N. Frey saying, "Outline that sucker!" on the other. So who should I listen to?

In my case, it turns out that I should have listened to Frey. See, here's the thing, folks. Oftentimes, a writer, when giving advice, will try to codify the way they do things as "the only way it works." I think that's what King did. When he writes, he makes it up as he goes along. He has no idea of how his story will end. And that's great! Good for him! But it doesn't work that way for everyone. By suggesting that it does, King is trying to force a round peg into a square hole. It just doesn't work.

Again, that's why I'm a bit hesitant to give out too much advice. I know what works for me, but I'd be foolish to suggest that it's what would work for everyone. For example, I love Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake Method. I've used this several times and I think it's helped me write some strong stories (Failstate, my upcoming novel, is one such example). But is it for everyone? No, not really.

That's why you should always take advice from others with a little grain of salt. Yes, there are some universal, set-in-stone kind of rules. Spelling, grammar, punctuation. But al;ways be cautious when someone tells you that their way is the only way. It works for them. It may even work for you. But if it doesn't, don't worry about it.

The Right King

2012-01-08T19:18:00.002-06:00

The "wise" men weren't all that smart when they went looking for the right king.

Text: Matthew 2:1-12

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Schrödinger's Cat

2012-01-06T08:00:00.000-06:00

Ever hear of Schrödinger's Cat? This video will explain it for you. Consider it a quick lesson in physics on a Friday:

Replication

2012-01-04T09:00:00.000-06:00

I've been looking forward to this one for a while now. I mean, I've been a huge fan of Jill Williamson ever since I discovered her Blood of Kings trilogy. When I heard she was moving into the realm of science fiction, I knew I had to check it out. Her latest book is Replication, published by Zondervan. In the interest of fairness, I'll confess . . . reveal . . . state that I received a copy of this book for free. It's funny. I actually pre-ordered a copy but that's okay. This book was good enough to warrant two copies.

Now normally, I'd spend some time summing up the plot, but in this case, I don't have to, because Williamson has done the heavy lifting for me:

So there we go: clones, a secret facility, nefarious purposes, and a very good lesson about faith, one that actually snuck up on me when I wasn't looking.

I suppose I could leave it at that, but let's dig a little deeper. This book is shorter than I expected, which helps make it a fast read. Williamson did a great job creating unique voices for both Abby and Martyr. I especially liked Martyr. He kept me smiling the entire time I was reading, especially some of the "logical leaps" he makes with incomplete information about the outside world. One in particular caused me to chuckle for a few minutes. The plot has a lot of great twists and turns to it, plus a lot of excitement to keep you turning the pages.

In short, if you're looking for a great read, you can't go wrong with Replication. Jill Williamson has done it again!

Tip Tuesday: The Equation for a Story

2012-01-03T09:00:00.000-06:00

As of this posting, there are 88 days until the release of my debut novel, Failstate. This has been a long road to walk, one that I talked about in a column over at Speculative Faith. But it's a road that I didn't walk alone. There are a lot of people who have walked the publication road before me. There are a lot who are following behind. And there are some who are just getting started, who have caught the dream and want to see a story that they created and wrote appear in print, for people to read and enjoy.

Only here's the thing. A lot of people have a distorted view of what it takes to be a writer. For instance:

Okay, granted, that's a joke, but the sad thing is, everything the ignorant bear said has been uttered or at least thought by would-be writers.

Now I'm hoping that no one that's reading this currently holds any of those ideas (if you have in the past, well, that's another story that you can keep to yourself). But maybe you're just getting started and you don't have any idea of what to do.

That's where this column will come in. Every week (hopefully), I'll be sharing some writing tips that I've picked up over the past decade or so. Now understand, I'm no expert. What I'm sharing is stuff that's worked for me in the past or advice that others have given me that makes a lot of sense. If any other writers want to contradict me, please do so. I'm always open to correction. If nothing else, consider this friendly advice from someone on the road.

In some ways, I'm a little nervous about writing articles like this. I don't want anyone to think that there's a magic formula to getting published. There's no "one size fits all" way of doing it. If you were to poll a hundred published writers, you would hear one hundred different stories of how they got where they got and what they thought was important. Simply put, if anyone tells you that there's one way and only one way to write good stories, they're either deluded or lying.

That said, I think there are some general, universal principles that can be codified into an easy to remember formula:

We'll spend the next few weeks expanding what each of those symbols mean, starting with the first "R." The first "R" stands for "reading." Or, to be more specific, reading fictional books.

I honestly don't know any successful writers who aren't also avid readers. A love of the written word means that we not only produce them, we devour them as well. When filling out the "Interests" section on Facebook, writers will usually include "Reading" somewhere toward the top of the list. To be blunt, if you don't read, you're not going to write. Imagine a person who claims to love doing needlepoint but doesn't own a single hoop thing. Imagine a self-professed car nut who doesn't spend any time in his or her garage. The same principle is at work here. If you're going to write, you're going to read as much as you possibly can.

Take me, for instance. I like to joke that my family was the terror of our local library when my siblings and I were children. We would check out two or three crates worth of books every couple of weeks, doubling or even tripling the staff's workload when we visited. And while we didn't read all of them, we read the majority. My first job was at said local library, and I usually left work with numerous books I found out in the stacks. When I was in school, I carried a novel with me wherever I went to read between classes.

Nowadays it's no different. This is my current to-be-read stack:

This is actually pretty deceptive. I forgot to include three library books we have in our basement. And on the very top of the left stack is my Kindle, which currently contains 34 books I've picked up over the last year or so. Yes, I've got a lot of reading to do, and I can't wait to tear through most of this.

So why do writers read? Well, there are three primary reasons. I've touched on the first: because we love stories and are driven to consume them.

Secondly, I think that reading stories help us produce more. It's sort of a "you are what you eat" type of thing. I don't know about other writers, but there have been periods where I haven't been able to read as much as I would like. When that happens, I notice it's more difficult to write new stories. I need a constant input of ideas and words and images to keep my own imagination flowing. As a matter of fact, I'll often try to juice my imagination before I begin a writing project by reading a bunch of books that I know I'll enjoy, just to give myself a high octane boost.

Thirdly, and most importantly, I think it's good for writers to read because it's a great way to learn what to do and not to do.

One thing I've noticed over the last few years is that when I read, I'm not just reading for enjoyment anymore. Oh, sure, I still love a good story, but I've been asking myself questions like, "Why did I enjoy this scene so much? What did the author do?" or "What made this book a flop to me and how can I avoid the same thing?" We can pick up techniques and ideas along the way, stuff that we can use in our own writing to improve our books.

For example, in Neil Gaiman's book Neverwhere, we're introduced to Richard Mayhew, a somewhat wimpy man with an over-domineering girlfriend named Jessica. Now Gaiman could have just told us that (sort of like I just did), but over one chapter, he paints such a clear picture of both Richard and Jessica that I wound up clearly on Richard's side and wanted nothing more than to see Jessica kicked to the curb.

Now I could have read a book about showing vs. telling (and there is one available. Take a look in the above picture). But by reading Gaiman's book, I found such a great example of that principle in action that it's stuck with me even though I read the book years ago.

The same thing can happen for you as well. Pay attention to what successful authors do. If you found something you really like, ask yourself how the author achieved that effect. If the story doesn't work, consider why it doesn't and ask yourself how to avoid a similar pitfall.

Now you might rightly ask yourself how to find the time to read. Well, it's all a matter of priorities. If writing matters to you, not only do you have to find time to do that, you should also find time to do the reading too. And there's plenty of time to read if you know where to look for it. Let me ask you this: when you go get your oil changed or see the doctor, what do you do in the waiting room? Do you read the moldy oldy magazines? Do you watch TV (if there is one)? Do you pull out a smart phone and commit avian acts of aggression against non-kosher enemies? Why not bring a book with you and spend the time there?

To put it simply, writers read. If you want to be a writer, you also have to be a reader.

Thanks for joining us. Next week, we'll take a look at the second "R" in the equation. Until then, happy writing!

Bless, Keep, Shine, Peace

2012-01-01T20:31:00.003-06:00

May you be truly blessed in the New Year.

Text: Numbers 6:22-27

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Portal: No Escape

2011-12-30T08:00:00.000-06:00

So it's been a while since I posted a Portal related video. But this is one as worth the wait:

What If?

2011-12-25T09:00:00.000-06:00

What if Christmas never came?

Text: John 1:1-14

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Little Baby Upheaval

2011-12-24T16:00:00.000-06:00

A new baby always shakes things up.

Text: Luke 2:1-20

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Merry Sith-mas?

2011-12-23T08:00:00.000-06:00

Okay, so maybe I should be a little more pious on the day before Christmas Eve, but I just can't help myself.

Freeheads

2011-12-20T19:44:00.001-06:00

And thus Kerry Nietz's DarkTrench Saga ends with Freeheads.

Sandfly and HardCandy are returning to Earth after their encounter with the jinn on the planet Jannah. Only when they arrive on DarkTrench, their ship, they discover a planet that has changed and not for the better. They're strangers now, complete outsiders, worse than they've ever been.

But Sandfly's mission hasn't changed. He has a message for the people of Earth, one that could set them free. Will anyone listen? Or will the message of A~A^3 die with him?

I really liked this series overall. The premise, if you're not familiar with it, is a future world where Islam has pretty much conquered the globe. Sandfly and HardCandy are debuggers, humans implanted with a device that allows them to connect to technology wirelessly. It's a fascinating idea and a bit chilling. And while Freeheads wraps everything up nicely, I think it's probably best if you've read all of the books in the series recently. It took me a few chapters to get back into the groove, so to speak, and there were a few characters I couldn't remember from the first book.

The only other thing that I noticed, and this isn't a really big deal, is that the first half of the book struck as . . . well, a little slow. I'm not sure how to describe it, exactly. I got a feeling that something big was lurking under the surface (pun intended?) that never really revealed itself. I don't know if Nietz was trying to intentionally misdirect me, but there you go. Like I said, it's not a big deal and it didn't diminish my enjoyment of the book at all. Just a weird, nagging feeling I got.

It'll be interesting to see what Neitz does next. Given what I've seen from this trilogy, I'll be first in line.

A Turned-Around Christmas

2011-12-18T14:48:00.002-06:00

There's a lot of stuff to do to get ready for Christmas. But oftentimes, our to-do lists get us all turned around.

Text: Luke 1:26-38

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Vader, Did You Know?

2011-12-16T08:00:00.000-06:00

Oh my . . .

Our Faithful God

2011-12-11T14:39:00.001-06:00

What does sanctification mean anyway?

Text: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

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Cello Wars

2011-12-09T17:49:00.001-06:00

You may have seen this floating around the Internet recently, but it's worth sharing anyway.

Pencils Up!

2011-12-08T08:00:00.000-06:00

Okay, so not many people stopped by to play my game of "Retell the Fable." That's okay. I know I've been away from the Blog Tour scene for a while.

So the assignment was to take one of Aesop's Fables, chosen by me at random, and find within it the basis of a story. The fable chosen was The Stag at the Pool, which has a listed moral of What is worth most is often valued least.

Before I share my idea, I'll name Blog Tour Overlord Rebecca LuElla Miller as the winner. Just because. Although Christian Miles definitely deserves runner up too!

So what did I come up with? Well, after reading the fable, I couldn't help but notice a distinct parallel between the foolish stag and an Old Testament character. The Stag, while fleeing the lion, winds up getting his antlers caught in a tree. While fleeing an enemy, the main character winds up getting his head caught in . . .

Hello there, Absalom.

So what is it that Absalom overlooked, something that's worth a lot more than he valued it? And how can we take the story of the Stag, merge it with Absalom's story, and come up with something different?

This is what I came up with:

In a far off kingdom, there's a king who has two sons. The younger is a strong warrior type, brash and out-going, a real ladies' man, whose personal livery bears the symbol of a stag. The older is a bookish sort, not very out-going but prone to charitable actions. Younger brother constantly mocks older brother and his ways, especially since the older brother's symbol is that of a lion ("More like a mewling kitten," is a constant jibe). Instead, the youngster is always going out on adventures and garnering glory for himself.

Then an enemy something-or-other (wizard maybe? Then it could be a fantasy) does something bad. Really bad. And when the King doesn't seem ready to do anything about it, the younger son takes matters into his own hands and . . .

Wait a minute, that's the beginning of Thor, isn't it?

Well, you get the idea. Something happens between the younger son and his dad, something that drives a wedge between them. It prompts the Stag to rebel against the King. The King tries to fight back, but the Stag proves too much for him. He steals the throne and expels the King. He ignore the Lion completely, figuring that his brother can do little to stop him.

The King tries to reclaim his throne, only to lose badly. The Stag proves too much for him. The King is either killed or exiled (depending on how dark I feel like going). The Stag consolidates his power, or at least tries to. But then his brother stands up against him. The Stag scoffs at the Lion's threat, until the entire kingdom rises up with the Lion. It turns out that the Lion's actions, caring for his subjects, has won their support. Faced with a revolt, the Stag flees, only to wind up being taken down by his subjects and made to pay for what he's done.

The spiritual payload would be something from John 13, maybe. The idea that the greatest in the kingdom is a servant. That sort of thing.

At least, that's the idea I came up with in 48 hours. Not much, but there you go.

Wordcount Wednesday

2011-12-07T23:55:00.001-06:00

Well, that's the end of that. Project Disappointed Viper has been shelved. I didn't make it much past 5,000 words, but I have to call it quits. Too long of a story. Don't worry about it.

So I'm not sure what I'll do next. I've got some revision work to start on Failstate. And there is a major holiday coming up quickly. Oh well. There's always something.

CSSF Blog Tour: "Corus the Champion" Day 3

2011-12-07T07:00:00.000-06:00

So here we are, wrapping up the tour for Corus the Champion by D. Barkley Briggs and it occurs to me, it's something of a miracle that we're even having this tour in the first place. After all the first book was published back in 2009 and then the original publisher (the name of which escapes me) canceled before published Corus. But then Living Ink Books stepped in and re-released the first book and has been publishing the rest. And fans of well-written

Now I'm not saying this to knock the aforementioned anonymous-by-way-of-forgetfulness publishing house. Instead, I think this is a great lesson for writers when it comes to patience.

I've never met Briggs nor spoken to him, but I can only imagine what he was going through when his series died. It must have hurt. And who knows how long he waited before Living Ink stepped in and performed a little resurrection. But I'm sure those intervening months or even years were tense. Maybe Briggs wanted to throw in the towel and move on to something different. But he didn't. He hung in there. And the result is a fabulous book that makes me want to read more.

So for all of you pre-published authors, don't despair. Remain patient. Your time could be coming soon too.

Go check out what the other tourists have to say:

Gillian Adams Noah Arsenault Beckie Burnham Morgan L. Busse CSFF Blog Tour Carol Bruce Collett Theresa Dunlap April Erwin Victor Gentile Nikole Hahn Ryan Heart Bruce Hennigan Christopher Hopper Jason Joyner Julie Carol Keen Krystine Kercher Marzabeth Shannon McDermott Rebecca LuElla Miller Eve Nielsen Sarah Sawyer Kathleen Smith Donna Swanson Rachel Starr Thomson Steve Trower Fred Warren Phyllis Wheeler Nicole White Rachel Wyant

CSFF Blog Tour: "Corus the Champion" Day 2

2011-12-06T07:00:00.000-06:00

Okay, so I've got nothing. Perhaps I've been out of practice too long.

See, after reading Corus the Champion by D. Barkley Briggs, I couldn't help but think how really cool it was that Briggs was able to take the Arthurian legends and twist them in a new an unique way. It's always fun to see a classic myth twisted in a new and unique way (hence why I'm rooting for my friend Christian Miles to get his book published. Post-apocalyptic Arthur FTW!).

Except as I started trying to organize my thoughts, I realized deja vu. And on the second day too!

But maybe it bears repeating. As many Christians have pointed out in the past, most myths contain within them a kernel of truth, echoes and reflections of deeper spiritual principles that God has woven into the very fabric of reality, principles that haunt us and have to be expressed in some way. It's our fallen nature that wraps those echoes in non-Christian images and themes. Folks like Briggs or C. S. Lewis simply peel away the garbage until the truth remains.

Shall we have some fun, folks? Almost three years ago, I reminisced about an assignment that was given out by a friend of mine on a previous blog tour. Mirtika challenged us to take a myth or fable and find a way to baptize it and make it Christian.

Let's try it again. I have in front of me a copy of Aesop's Fables and I'm going to pick one at random. What I want you, dear reader, is think on the themes and images of said fable, search for Scriptures that parallel it, and come up with a germ of an idea for a story.

And I'll put my money where my mouth is. I'll post my idea on Thursday.

So here we go. Drum roll please.

I'll trust that you're creating a drum roll somehow.

The Stag at the Pool.

So have at it. Come back and share what you come up with. The person with the best story idea gets . . . I don't know. Bragging rights. My eternal admiration.

In the meantime, go see what the other tourists are up to:

Gillian Adams Noah Arsenault Beckie Burnham Morgan L. Busse CSFF Blog Tour Carol Bruce Collett Theresa Dunlap April Erwin Victor Gentile Nikole Hahn Ryan Heart Bruce Hennigan Christopher Hopper Jason Joyner Julie Carol Keen Krystine Kercher Marzabeth Shannon McDermott Rebecca LuElla Miller Eve Nielsen Sarah Sawyer Kathleen Smith Donna Swanson Rachel Starr Thomson Steve Trower Fred Warren Phyllis Wheeler Nicole White Rachel Wyant

CSFF Blog Tour: "Corus the Champion" Day 1

2011-12-05T07:00:00.000-06:00

You know, I'd like to bill this as my triumphant return to the Blog Tour. But I'm not exactly sure what I'm triumphant over. Certainly not the calendar, as I originally posted this three weeks early. And, truth be told, I suspect that the blog tour has done just fine without me. So hey, everyone, I'm back.

What brought me back was Corus the Champion by D. Barkley Briggs. When I heard that we were going back to Karac Tor, I signed up immediately. Yes, I'm selfish like that. I couldn't wait to read this book (which, in the interest of fairness, was provided to me for free by the publisher).

The Barlow boys are still in Karac Tor. They've defeated the witch named Nemesia but things are not going well. For the Horned Lord is out to break Corus the Champion and then the rest of the Hidden Lands. Each of the boys have a role to play in trying to bring him down, but it's going to cost them, some of them dearly, as they seek a way to stop their enemy.

I have to be honest, I had a really hard time getting into this story. I think it has something to do with the fact that I read the first book almost three years ago. I remembered bits and pieces of it: one of the brothers has magical music, there was an adventurer named Creed who had a magic sword that didn't like it when he lied, and that's about it. For the first third of the book, I was trying desperately to play catch-up. It made for slow going. I seriously thought I wouldn't be able to participate in the tour because I'd still be reading. But once I got past the midway point, things picked up and I obviously finished in time.

That said, this book felt a little muddy to me. I enjoyed it; the storyline involving Ewan engaged me the most. The other plots seemed too connected to the overall plot (which I have largely forgotten) and for the most part, the book felt like the middle chapters of a larger epic and I felt more than a little lost. Maybe it would have helped if I read the first book again; alas, it has since disappeared from my house!

I'm not saying that this is a bad book. Far from it. Briggs did a fantastic job building a believable world and some very fun characters. Creed is still a favorite. And it was enough to make me want to keep traveling in Karac Tor when I get a chance to read The Song of Unmaking. Hopefully it won't take three years again.

Go and see what the other tourists have to say:

Gillian Adams Noah Arsenault Beckie Burnham Morgan L. Busse CSFF Blog Tour Carol Bruce Collett Theresa Dunlap April Erwin Victor Gentile Nikole Hahn Ryan Heart Bruce Hennigan Christopher Hopper Jason Joyner Julie Carol Keen Krystine Kercher Marzabeth Shannon McDermott Rebecca LuElla Miller Eve Nielsen Sarah Sawyer Kathleen Smith Donna Swanson Rachel Starr Thomson Steve Trower Fred Warren Phyllis Wheeler Nicole White Rachel Wyant

Broken Sight

2011-12-04T22:58:00.001-06:00

I've finally been able to dig into my pile of Marcher Lord Press's most recent releases (see my previous book review). Now I've polished off Steve Rzasa's Broken Sight.

The book is a continuation of Rzasa's earlier books with Marcher Lord. In this world, religion had been pretty much outlawed. More specifically, it had been illegal to own the printed word (e-books were perfectly fine, because the government could monitor and censor the contents). But then, in the previous books, that situation changed. Want books? Get them! Want to publicly practice your religion? Go for it!

This is the situation facing Lieutenant Commander Brian Gaudette, the skipper of the Rescue Ops ship Weskeag. He's got a crew of Christians, Muslims, agnostics, and former sympathizers of Kesek, the fallen and disgraced secret police of the Realm, all mixed in one ship. That's a problem, because he finds himself heading out to answer a distress call, one that's fraught with danger.

Because Kesek hasn't disappeared. Not even close. And this mission could easily kill them all.

I checked my reviews from the previous books. Apparently I was a bit cool toward the second. That's not the case here at all. I loved this book. Once again, Rzasa's story world simply shone. You can tell he did a lot of work figuring out the "physics" of interstellar travel.

I loved the characters, the adventure, all of it. The only thing that threw me even a little was the sheer amount of foreign phraseology peppered throughout the book. I mean, it added to the verisimilitude, but there were a few times where I was scratching my head.

But overall, this was a great book, and I'm hoping that it won't be the last time we see Rescue Ops in action!

Warning: Road Construction Ahead

2011-12-03T21:31:00.001-06:00

The words of Isaiah in chapter 40 point to a need for some road construction.

Text: Isaiah 40:1-11

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Wind and Shadow

2011-12-01T10:00:00.000-06:00

I've been waiting for this one for a long time. A long time. I'm talking about Wind and Shadow by Kathy Tyers.

True confession time: Tyers is the reason why I stuck with writing Christian speculative fiction. I still remember browsing the CBD website for Christian sci-fi (back before the Web 2.0 revolution) and stumbling across her Firebird books. And I remember staring at her name, thinking, Why is that name so familiar? And then I looked up at my Star Wars books and saw The Truce at Bakura and I knew I had to get Firebird. And I did, and it was awesome, and that inspired me to keep working on my own books and I . . .

I'm gushing, aren't I? Sorry. Ahem. Dignified.

Seriously, I loved Firebird. Those three books were a lot of fun and after reading them the first time, I kept hoping that some day, Tyers would return to that universe. That day has come.

Wind and Shadow follows the children of Firebird's man characters. Kiel Caldwell has become a priest, Kinnor a Sentinel like his father. Kiel is called to the barren world of Mikuhr, the former home of the Sentinels' enemies, the Shuhr, by a diplomat named Wind Haworth. But as soon as he steps off the ship, Kiel disappears.

Once his disappearance is reported, the Sentinels send in his twin brother, Kinnor, to investigate his disappearance. But little does either brother realize that they have stepped into a larger conflict, both in terms of the Whorl and in terms of the spiritual realm, one that could easily end the life of everyone they know.

I really enjoyed this book. I did. Tyers has a flair for creating rich worlds and layering in some great sci-fi details. The characters are great. The action is top-notch.

But here's the thing (and I hesitate to say this, because I think it's more my fault than anything else). I felt a little lost in the early going. I don't know why that is. I got what was going on, for the most part, but every now and then, I got the feeling that I was missing something important, that while all of the pieces seemed to fit together, I was overlooking something.

I don't quite know how to explain it. That sense of "missing pieces" dragged on my enjoyment just a little in the earliest chapters. But once I got past that, I had a blast.

Like I said, it's probably just me. Life has been a bit crazy today and I can't say that I've been able to read as much as I like to with as much focus as I normally would bring to bear on a book. But if you're a fan of Christian sci-fi, be sure to check this one out. Totally worth it!

Wordcount Wednesday

2011-11-30T22:48:00.001-06:00

Project Disappointed Viper is going slowly right now, folks. As of right now, it's at 5,719 words. I hope to do better, but I know, I say that in every Wordcount Wednesday post.

On a more exciting note, I got the Advance Reader Copies for Failstate via UPS today. So tonight, I stuffed press releases and info sheets into them and then stuffed them all into padded envelopes to go off to various media outlets. I have no idea if I'll get reviewed in any of them, but here's hoping!

Aren't they pretty?

Come!

2011-11-27T08:30:00.000-06:00

Who you gonna call?

Text: Isaiah 64:1-9

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The Muppets

2011-11-21T22:15:00.001-06:00

Thanks to the good folks at 365 Twin Cities, I got to attend a sneak preview of The Muppets tonight. I've been looking forward to this movie for a while now; the trailers that they've been releasing have been absolutely genius, such as the Green Lantern parody or the Dragon Tattoo parody. I hoped that the same silly genius would carry over to the movie itself. Truth be told, I'm not sure what I think of what I saw tonight. It was okay.

My problem, I think, came from the first part of the movie. Kermit the Frog said it best this past weekend on SNL when Jason Segel hosted: "When people go to a Muppet movie, they say, 'Gee, I can't wait to see the human!'" Except what Kermit said sarcastically, I think the writers took seriously. Let me put it this way: recently I watched The Muppet Movie and The Muppets Take Manhattan with my son. Both of those movies started with Kermit. Not this movie. Instead, it started with Walter and his human brother, Gary (played by Jason Segel). Kermit and company didn't show up until much further in.

In some ways, I get it. It made sense, given the overall plot: Walter, Gary, and Gary's long-time girlfriend, Mary (Amy Adams) go to LA ostensibly for Gary and Mary's "we've-been-dating-for-10-years" anniversary. But once there, Walter learns that a rich oil baron is going to destroy the old Muppet studios (including the iconic theater) to drill for oil. Horrified, Walter convinces his brother and his girlfriend to round up the old Muppet gang, starting with Kermit, so they can save the studio.

But even with that decent premise, the film lurched in the early going. I blame the humans, personally. We don't go to a Muppet movie for human-related drama. Instead, we go to see anthropomorphic animals made out of felt have relationship drama. And boy, do they pack in some rather . . . well, I don't want to say "adult themes." Let's just say there was some stuff put in there that was meant for the adults. I can honestly say I don't think I've seen anything quite so heavy in previous Muppet movies. And the ending . . . well, wow.

There were some bright spots. Some of the cameos were genius (one in particular). And there were some great "breaking the fourth wall" moments, plus nods to previous movies.

I don't know. I'm not sure what I was expecting when I went into this movie. I'm pretty sure that this wasn't it. Not totally. But I hope this doesn't sink the Muppets, because if there's one thing that I realized as I was watching this: I missed them.

Wordcount Wednesday

2011-11-09T22:42:00.003-06:00

Last week, I started the pre-writing process for a new novel. Personally, I use Randall Ingerman's Snowflake Method. I have for the past couple of novels I've written and it works well for me. I don't use the whole thing. Usually about 2/3s of the way through, I hit what I call "critical mass" where I have to start writing.

I hit that point Monday on with my new project. I still don't want to say anything about it, so we'll have to call it . . . shoot, I don't know. Blue Harvest? Rory's First Kiss? Incident on 57th Street? Okay, I've got it. My project will henceforth be known as Project Disappointed Viper. Why? Because that's what the random codename generator gave me.

Anyway, Project Disappointed Viper is currently weighing in at 1,086 words. A meager start, but I know it'll grow. I'm pretty excited about this one.

The People vs. George Lucas

2011-11-08T23:19:00.002-06:00

My goodness, that was an interesting hour and a half. I just got done watching the documentary film, The People vs. George Lucas. And I have to say, it gave me some food for thought, both as a fan and as a writer.

Basically this movie details the love/hate relationship that fans have with George Lucas and a certain galaxy far, far away, mostly focusing on the late '90s re-edits and the prequels. There are interviews with fans, famous personalities (I see you there, Neil Gaiman!), and a few "Star Wars insiders." While they cover a lot of territory, from fan films to the way many Star Wars fans' love has been twisted into hate, there were some interesting focal points. For example, who shot first, Han or Greedo? What do you think of Jar-Jar Binks? And who does Star Wars belong to at this point, George Lucas or the fans?

Like I said, this was a thought-provoking movie to watch. True confession time: I've been a Star Wars geek for most of my life. I've read the Extended Universe novels, played the videogames, bought all the soundtracks. One of the things I was looking forward to most about being a parent was seeing my son's reaction to the classic moment in Empire Strikes Back where we get a peek at the Skywalker family tree. And yes, I have been disappointed by the prequels. It took me a while to see how bad Episode I really is, and I've even gotten into arguments with my youth about which trilogy is better. I suspect that in the future, there's going to be a Jar-Jar line. A lot of what the fans said in this movie resonated with me, such as their pleas for Lucas to release a version of the original trilogy in its unenhanced form. You know, one in which HAN SHOT FIRST.

But at the same time, I also found myself wondering how I would react if I were in Lucas's flannel. Suppose one of my creations takes off and becomes a cultural institution that . . . What's so funny? Why are you laughing?

Okay, fine, I'll wait until you're done.

Seriously, though, if Star Wars is George Lucas's creation, if he is the owner of it still (and thanks to U.S. Copyright Law, he will be for a long, long time), then technically, he does have the right to go back and touch things up as he sees fit.

I know. I feel icky just for writing that.

But it's still the truth, as much as we may disagree. It's his story, his universe, and we're invited to come along if we want. Yes, I have an idea of how I would have told the prequel stories, but that's not my story to tell.

I guess what's really interesting about this movie is the sheer amount of rancor (pun possibly intended) that Star Wars can create amongst its fans. The fact that people are willing to invest so much vitriol and ire for a movie trilogy is a testament to what a cultural touchstone it's become.

And the one thing that made me smile was the ending of this movie. A lot of the vocal critics admitted that the reason why they do what they do is because Lucas inspired them. Whether we agree with what Lucas did in recent years or not, he shaped a lot of our childhoods. And I, for one, am still grateful.

So thank you, George. Now, if it isn't too much of a bother, can you please release the original trilogy?

Falling Back

2011-11-05T13:25:00.002-05:00

True confession time: Daylight Savings Time ending is one of my favorite holidays of the year. An extra hour of sleep, y'all! But do we really understand all the intricacies of DST? Here's a handy video that helps explain it all and, quite possibly, will make you question whether springing forward and falling back is such a great idea.

It's a miracle I survived my childhood . . .

2011-11-04T09:26:00.001-05:00

. . . with as little psychological trauma as I have, seeing as this was considered educational TV:

Orcs Must Die!

2011-11-03T17:49:00.001-05:00

Every now and then, I'll spot a game on Steam that catches my attention for some reason or another. When I saw the title of Orcs Must Die!, I had a feeling that this was my kind of game, so I downloaded the demo and sure enough, I liked what I saw well enough that I pre-ordered the full. Just last night, I finished the first play-through, but I'm definitely not done with this fun and funny game.

The basic premise is this: the player is an apprentice warmage, one charged with protecting magical rifts from wave after wave of invading orcs, kobolds, ogres, and so on. You have a few special magical talismans that shoot fire or ice or electricity. You also are given a wide variety of traps and helpers to defend the rift(s). There are arrows that shoot out of the wall, giant springboards that can toss the orcs through the air, or swinging pendulums that . . . well, the less said about those the better.

This is basically a tower defense game with wall and floor traps. There isn't much of a plot, but what little is there is funny and engaging.

Like I said, I finished the game, switching from the medium difficulty to the easiest. Now I'm going back to try to get perfect scores on each of the levels. Doing so gives me "skulls," which I can spend to make the traps more deadly. And then there's the "nightmare" mode. I'm actually kind of looking forward to that one.

So if you have a few bucks sitting around, this one is definitely a keeper. Have fun (stopping them from) storming the castle!

Wordcount Wednesday

2011-11-02T23:08:00.001-05:00

Stick a fork in Hive. It's done.

Well, not really. True, earlier this week, I finished the first draft of this monster project. The final wordcount for the first go-round? 85,504 words, which isn't all that bad, considering I set my goal at 80k when I started this . . . geez, when did I start this one? Hang on a sec.

Back in February, apparently. That actually isn't as bad as I thought it'd be.

In some ways, this has been a weird journey. Rather than pouring onto the page, this one was created in fits and starts. I seem to have taken Lent off, then took a two or three month hiatus after our second son joined our family (writers can claim paternity leave, right?).

But back to the wordcount. I'm actually impressed that I brought this one in so close to target. Granted, that total is going to fluctuate. The introduction I wrote back in February is getting axed. One of the main characters is going to be introduced earlier in the book, which means I have to add some extra stuff somewhere. And the ending, while bringing everything to a close, totally stinks. I mean, no symmetry, weak resolution, it's just "blah."

Funny thing is, I seem to recall I said the same thing about a certain other manuscript I finished about a year and a half ago. And look how that one wound up. So while I'm a little daunted at the prospect of wading back into Hive, I know I can make it better.

So what's next for me? Well, Hive goes up on a shelf for now. I've learned this the hard way: I need emotional and intellectual distance from my writing projects to do a better job editing when the time comes. In the meantime, I might take a crack at a short story that's been rattling around in the ol' brain pan for close to a year now. I mean, I've had this Post-It note:

. . . stuck to my desk for who knows how long, waiting for the day when I could finally use this information in said short story. Maybe now's the time to do so.

I've also begun the "pre-writing" a new novel. Won't say anything more about it for now. Yes, it's kind of secret. Maybe I'll be able to explain more about it in the future. Probably. Most likely. For now, though, consider it Project X. Only without Matthew Broderick. Or Helen Hunt. Or the monkeys.

You know what, let's just forget that part, okay?

Bye, Ron!

2011-11-01T09:00:00.000-05:00

Here's something fun: J. K. Rowling once considered killing one of her main characters halfway through the Harry Potter series. The last book turned into a total Joss fest, but this would have shifted things pretty radically, right?

Happy Reformation Day!

2011-10-31T14:12:00.000-05:00

Wordcount Wednesday

2011-10-26T23:01:00.001-05:00

Wow, it's been an interesting week.

First of all, let's get down to official business: my Hive report. I'm still cautiously optimistic that I might be able to finish the first draft by the end of this month. By my rough estimation, I need to write at least three more chapters and an epilogue, and I've been averaging about a chapter a day. So we'll see. I've made predictions like this before and usually I've come up wrong.

But this week was pretty good, all told. I was able to write 6,804 words, bringing the grand total up to 80,399 words. That means I'll finish over-target, but that's okay in this case. I'm sure that the first rewrite will tone things down.

With that out of the way, let's talk some of the other fortuitous things that have happened. For starters, today marks my debut as a contributor at Speculative Faith, a blog dedicated to Christian speculative fiction. I'll be posting every other Wednesday. This week, by way of introduction, I told a little of my journey to publication, something I've never really done before. I'm not sure what future topics I'll talk about, but I'm thinking my obsession with telling stories with aliens in it has to come up at some point or another.

Last but certainly not least, this week also marked a major milestone for me: a book that I contributed to is available on Amazon! This is the first time this has happened. I've mentioned the book before: Spirited. As of right now, it's available as an e-book for the Kindle. I've heard that it'll be available for the Nook soon. Print copies won't be available until March (sorry to all the purists out there). But if you've got nine bucks to spare, the proceeds go to 826 National, a non-profit organization that offers free after-school tutoring, workshops, and in-school programs.

Wow. Quite the week.

Wordcount Wednesday

2011-10-19T22:12:00.001-05:00

I feel like I'm always making excuses in these updates. I am writing. Really! I still feel the same "psychological progress" from last week. The story is moving forward. I'm just not adding that many words to Hive as I go.

To wit: I added 3,374 to the book, bringing the grand total to 73,595 words. That's good, but not great.

So what's my excuse this week? More edits on Spirited, including a look at the galleys. That was a fun first for me. So was getting the cover for the book:

So there you go. I keep saying I want to step this up. I've even been secretly hoping I can finish this monster by the end of this month. But with only 12 days left, I'm thinking it might be a while longer. Time will tell.

Goliath

2011-10-16T07:10:00.003-05:00

Late last night, I finished reading Scott Westerfield's Goliath, the conclusion of his Leviathan series.

The valiant crew of the British airship Leviathan is back and this time, they're on a mission that could bring the war gripping the world to a sudden stop. A scientist from America claims that a weapon he's invented can easily bring every major world power to its knees. The British Admiralty believes the threat is real. So does Prince Alek, who continues to travel with the Darwinist forces. He feels responsible for the war in the first place, and he'll take any chance he can to end the destructive conflict. But Deryn Sharp, still masquerading as a boy, isn't so sure. But then, she's got a lot on her mind: her secret could unravel at any moment and worse, she's beginning to realize that she doesn't just see Alek as a colleague but as something more.

Can Alek and Deryn work together one last time to end the war? Or will the Clanker and Darwinist forces tear each other apart and take the world with them?

This was a fun read. The story was fast-paced and the action great. Once again, I loved Westerfield's imaginative recreation of a steampunk alternate history. His Darwinist creations, basically living vehicles, were fun to see in action, overshadowing the steam-driven war machines they faced. And the plot was superb as well, what with a certain famous American inventor claiming that he could end the war early.

But there lay the one flaw with this book: if you know your history, especially when it comes to unusual events in the early twentieth century, the book's biggest secret becomes glaringly obvious. Now perhaps I noticed this because I do know a little about unusual events that occurred in Europe in the early twentieth and the typical reader of this book won't.

How's that for trying to avoid spoilers?

It's not a major flaw. Even knowing what I know, I still was sucked in to the story, which came to a pretty satisfying conclusion. So if you haven't checked out this series, do so. You'll be entertained, that's for sure.

Book of Days

2011-10-14T00:17:00.002-05:00

I just now finished Book of Days by James L. Rubart.

Cameron has had a rough life. He's lost his wife, Jessie. He lost his father, first to a disorder that robbed him of his memories, and then to death. But worst of all, Cameron is starting to lose his own memories and he worries that he too will die an early death. But both Jessie and his dad told him about the Book of Days, where God records the past, the future, everything. Cameron comes to believe that this Book holds the key to curing him, if only he can find it.

Ann is a woman looking for her past. And she has a lead, a good one. But if she follows it, she'll have to work with Cameron, a blast from her past that she just isn't ready for.

Both Cameron's and Ann's journeys will bring them to a small town in the Pacific Northwest, a town with its own secrets and people who will stand in their way. Will Ann find her past? Will Cameron have a future? Those answers are written in the Book of Days.

Okay, so my summary is a little over the top. Sue me.

It took me a little while to warm up to this book. I'm not exactly sure why that is. It was an enjoyable read with a few twists and turns to keep things interesting. Some things didn't sit well with me (for example, there's an unnamed villain and Rubart tries to drop hints that it's one person; it's pretty obvious it's not that person). But by and large, I enjoyed this book, especially after I got past a "critical mass" point, where I had gotten invested in the characters and stories. I especially appreciated the way Rubart portrayed Cameron's deteriorating condition. Very well done.

Naturally a book like this raises some questions about God's omniscience and how that relates to and interacts with human choice. Granted, this isn't a theology textbook, but I think Rubart did a good job of showing how both can work together. At least, I thought it was good. My colleagues who wear the funny shirts might disagree with me but hey, this wouldn't be the first time.

So all in all, a solid read and well done in my not-so-humble opinion.

Wordcount Wednesday

2011-10-12T22:58:00.002-05:00

So I was hoping to do better this week. Yeah, that didn't happen. But more on that in a minute.

Looking at the numbers, it doesn't look like I made a lot of progress. Over the past week, I added 4,611 words to Hive's total, bringing it to 70,221 words. But while the wordcount may not reflect a great deal of progress, I think I made psychological process. For a long time now, I've felt like I was spinning my wheels with this book. But in the past week, I've been able to move the story forward in some major leaps and bounds. Major revelations, some fun new (sort of) characters, and the players are getting in position for the final moves. I'm actually kind of optimistic that I can wrap this puppy up in the next few weeks.

So why didn't I do better? I blame The Night Queen, the short story that I wrote for a YA anthology. You remember, the one I wrote last week? Well, the editor for the anthology got back to me with a list of suggestions and edits and so I spent a day working on that (a day I had originally intended to pump up Hive's wordcount. Not that I'm complaining, just stating the fact). The great news is that I've officially been brought into the anthology!

It's called Spirited. Thirteen authors (including yours truly) have written spooky stories. The proceeds from this book will go to charity, specifically 826 National, an organization that promotes youth literacy.

Here's a book trailer in case you're curious about the book:

Pretty cool, huh? If you "Like" the book's Facebook page, you can stay up to date. Oh, and be sure to check out the cool contest that's being run right now. You can win an advance copy of the book by playing "Ghosthunter" with the authors' biographies. I mean, you've got a leg up now, right? You know at least one of them.

Phoenix Jones arrested

2011-10-11T09:15:00.000-05:00

A few months back, I posted a video about a real life superhero named Phoenix Jones, a man who really gets dressed up in a costume and patrols the streets in an attempt to fight crime. Well, apparently Jones was arrested recently for pepper spraying a group he claims was fighting but police say were dancing.

I'm not going to take sides on this one, but I'm thinking if you can't tell the different between fighting and dancing, you probably should hang up your cape and cowl.

Wordcount Wednesday

2011-10-05T21:50:00.001-05:00

So things took kind of a curve this week.

For starters, I wasn't able to get as much work done on Hive as I would have liked. So this past weekend, I was really going to try to kick it into gear.

Then a fellow writer and friend of mine, Jill Williamson, notified me of an anthology looking for a short story. Did I have one lying around in a drawer somewhere that would fit the theme and the wordcount?

Unfortunately, no. But I figured I could crank one out in a few days. How much time did I have?

It was due today? Oh, shoot.

Actually, it wasn't all that bad. I spent two days writing it and then did a fast edit on it. It's probably a lot rougher than I would have normally liked, but I sent it to the editor today and we'll see what happens. The end result was a story called The Night Queen that clocked in at 5,526 words. I have no idea if it will get in or not. We'll just wait and see.

So Hive took a backseat this week, as you can tell from the wordcount. I only managed to write 1,445 words, bringing the grand total up to 65,610. Hopefully I can do better this week.

Boneshaker

2011-09-30T09:00:00.000-05:00

And so I continue my foray into the steampunk genre with Boneshaker by Cherie Priest. And this was a fun read, even if it's not exactly what I expected.

The Civil War has been dragging on for decades and the Russians are trying to decide whether or not to sell Alaska to the U.S. When they learn that there's gold in the Klondike, they start a race to build a machine that can dig it all out. The most likely contender is a man named Leviticus Blue, a scientist who builds a massive drill called the Boneshaker. Thing is, before he can deliver, the Boneshaker runs wild through underground Seattle, trashing the financial district and creating a big old mess.

Worse, in the aftermath of the destruction, a strange gas the locals call the Blight begins to seep through the town, killing people and turning them into zombies. To contain the threat, a massive wall is built around downtown Seattle.

And that's just in the prologue. Many years after this disaster, a young man named Ezekiel Wilkes decides he needs to get into the ruined city to clear his family name. He's really the son of Leviticus Blue and he's sure that his father didn't do anything wrong. He's bound and determined to face down the undead rotters and the folks still inside the city. But what he doesn't realize is that his mother, Briar Wilkes, is on his trail. She wants to make sure he gets out alive. But with a city controlled by a mysterious scientist Dr. Minnericht, no one is really safe.

I'm not sure what I expected with this book. I think I expected more gadgets, crazy inventions run by steam and gears and such. And while there were a few, it wasn't all that many. Cherie Priest seemed more interested in exploring the ruins of a vastly different Seattle.

That's not to say I didn't enjoy this book. I did. The counterfactual elements blended seamlessly with Priest's descriptions and I really enjoyed this story.

I'm coming to the conclusion that steampunk might not be for me. It's fun and all, but I'm not sure I'm going to be anything like a rabid fan. But with books like this, I might be willing to stick around a while longer.

The Healer's Apprentice

2011-09-29T10:30:00.000-05:00

I heard some good things about The Healer's Apprentice by Melanie Dickerson and so a few months ago I downloaded it to my Kindle. There it languished for a long time before I decided I had better check it out.

It's the story of a young woman named Rose. She's been apprenticed to the town healer (imagine that) and because of that, she encounters Wilhelm, the duke's older son. After helping him, she winds up being drawn bit by bit into his world. Worse, it would seem that Rose is developing feelings for him and maybe even vice versa. Problem is, Wilhelm is betrothed to a noble woman, a young lady he's never met. How can he fulfill his duty when Rose occupies his every waking thought?

For the most part, this was a good read. It was a bit too predictable for my taste. I had the plot pretty much figured out a quarter of the way in. Dickerson managed to toss in one curve ball that fouled the scent a little, but not enough to really throw me off track. The faith elements were woven in nicely and I appreciated the subtle nod to some of the issues that sparked the Reformation.

So all in all, this book struck me as a solid read. Maybe the problem is I'm the opposite gender as the target audience and romance really isn't my genre. But don't let that stop you. You might just be swept up by a well crafted fairy tale.

Wordcount Wednesday

2011-09-28T23:13:00.000-05:00

Okay, break time's over.

Yeah, I've been really bad about writing. I kept putting it off, thinking I could take one more day, one more week. No big deal, I can start again in June. In July. Of course, in July, our family grew by one and it's tough to write when you've got a newborn in the house.

Excuses, excuses.

But that's hopefully going to get better now. I recently got back from the annual ACFW Conference and it's kind of charged my batteries. Apparently some people found the idea of a pregnant teenage cyborg to be interesting. So I've got to start work on Hive in earnest.

Thing is, I haven't been keeping my wordcount updates . . . well, up-to-date. Last time I posted my count was back in May, when Hive clocked in at 50,393 words. Over the past few months, I've been able to tack on a word here, a sentence there. I didn't think it amounted to much. But apparently I did better than I realized. Added to the stuff I've written since Monday, that brought the grand total up to 64,165 words.

Excellent. That also means I'd better start wrapping things up, if I can. My original target was 80,000. I think I'll go over, but big surprise, I always go over.

Normally I'd set a deadline for myself or a prediction of some kind. Not now. I'm hoping I can keep this up, though. I've got a lot of stuff rattling around in my head that wants to come out and play. But the pregnant teenage cyborg needs to get out of the way first.

Tropico 4

2011-09-17T21:19:00.004-05:00

The Tropico franchise has been great from the beginning, and Tropico 4 is no exception.

For those unfamiliar with the games, you play as the dictator of a Caribbean island. You have to guide your country, making them prosperous either through trade or tourism. You have to deal with rebels and foreign governments, all the while trying to siphon away as much money as you can into a Swiss bank account. Well, not all the games were like that. Tropico 2 was about pirates. Go figure.

In many ways, Tropico 4 is just a spit-polished version of Tropico 3. The building models are pretty much the same (although the graphics are better). You still build your dictator from the ground up, selecting a background, a rise to power, and three traits, all of which give you particular bonuses and, in a few cases, hinders your performance. And then you're set loose on an island with agricultural and mineral resources.

The really interesting difference between the previous game and this one was the inclusion of a twenty mission campaign with a coherent storyline, one of a meteoric rise, betrayal, and revenge. That was a fun surprise; each mission forces the player to focus on a different aspect of island building. In one, you have to build a tourist mecca. In another, an industrial powerhouse. There were points where I was left scratching my head. For example, one mission took me a really long time, not ending until the game year hit the '90s. The next mission started in 1955. I realize it's a game mechanic that can't be helped, but it was a little odd.

Included in the game is the usual sandbox mode as well, allowing you a freeform game to play however you like.

I really like this game. It has some wry wit and humor and provides enough of a challenge to keep me coming back for more. I have no idea if a 5 is in the cards, but if it is, I'll be dusting off my dictator hat for another go-around.

When the Devil Whistles

2011-09-16T18:16:00.004-05:00

A few months back, a few friends recommended When the Devil Whistles by Rick Acker, mostly because it was a freebie for Kindle. While I normally don't read thrillers, I figured I'd give this one a go.

Allie Whitman is a professional whistleblower. She goes into companies and ferrets out evidence of fraud against the government and then sues them. She's good at what she does. She and her lawyer, Conner Norman, are making a bundle off of these lawsuits, enough to form their own company, Devil To Pay. Life is good.

But things quickly begin to unravel as Allie goes after a new company. They have secrets, yes, but secrets that they are willing to kill for to keep quiet. And Allie has put herself in their crosshairs.

This was an okay book. I didn't get into it all that much. Maybe it was the genre, but for some reason, the characters didn't grab me. I think part of it stemmed from the fact that Conner, the lawyer, seemed a bit too perfect to me. I mean, I know that lawyers are human too and I wasn't expecting him to be a money-grubbing corrupt jerk. But Conner came across as superhuman and flawless.

The overall plot, while interesting, didn't grab me all that much either. Truth be told, I'm still not sure how it all fit together in the end. Maybe I started skimming toward the end of the book. That would be my fault, I guess.

What really surprised me was the fact that the Christian content was a bit on the light side. Yes, Conner and another character are church-going folk and yes, there's a quote about the devil whistling (hence the title), but beyond that, there wasn't much. That's not a complaint, mind you. Just an observation.

So should you read it? Sure, if you like legal thrillers. I just checked and as of this writing, the book is still free for Kindle.

This is all kinds of awesome

2011-09-13T23:49:00.002-05:00

Ummmmmmm . . . wow? I think that just about says it all.

2011-09-10T10:00:00.000-05:00

I just yesterday finished reading Divergent by Veronica Roth. What can I say? My YA dystopian kick continues.

Set in Chicago in the future, society within this once great city has been split into five factions. The Abnegation are supposed to be the selfless civil servants. Amity stresses friendship, Candor will only tell the truth, Erudite searches out knowledge, and Dauntless are the warriors who guard the rest. When a child turns 16, he or she are given an aptitude test to see which faction they best fit in. Then they make a choice. If they stay within their faction, they can continue to see their family. If they leave to go to a different faction, they'll never see their loved ones again. The rule in this dystopian Windy City is "faction before blood."

That's what makes Beatrice Pryor's choice so difficult. She's been raised in Abnegation for her whole life, but it would appear that she could also fit in with Dauntless. It's a hard choice that she has to make, but make it she does. Now she finds herself caught up in a whirlwind, what with training, making new friends and new enemies, and a political Gordian knot that only she can untangle. Because Beatrice has a secret, one that could save the day.

If she can survive that long first.

This was a really good read. At least, I thought so. It was interesting to see how the factions interacted and how they all fit together. I also appreciated some of the thoughtful comments that Roth snuck into her story. What really surprised me was how much I kept nodding and thinking, This all sounds familiar.

Then I understood why. There's a reference to an infant baptism at one point (full immersion, no less!). And Roth's acknowledgments certainly explain why I found myself in agreement with her overall worldview.

So upside? I enjoyed this book. It was a fun ride while it lasted and if there are future books in this series, I'll be sure to check them out.

Outside Aperture

2011-09-09T12:00:00.000-05:00

Yet another fan-made film about Portal. This one's a little . . . well, weird. But in a good way.

Pitching Advice Part VI

2011-09-07T15:50:00.000-05:00

Just a few last minute comments from me, seeing as the ACFW National Conference is a little over two weeks away. I want to leave you with two thoughts about meeting editors and agents at a conference.

First of all, remember that they are human too. We unpublished author types often get ourselves worked up into a weird frenzy at the thought of meeting industry insiders. Even if we're not consciously doing it, we sometimes get this strange idea that editors and agents occupy a circle of existence reserved for either demigods or demons. You know, "These are the folks who walk the halls of the publishing industry, that heady nirvana to which we all aspire." Or, depending on how many times we've been rejected, "These are the gatekeepers who bar the way, the single-headed Cerberus who I must overcome to see my dreams become reality."

Let's just put it bluntly, folks. They're human beings, just like you and me.

Keep that in mind as you meet with them. While it would be nice if every editor and agent at a conference was chipper, friendly, and helpful, there's always the chance that you might catch them at an off time. Maybe they're hungry. Maybe lunch isn't agreeing with them. Maybe they just got an angry text from their significant other and they're hurting a little. Whatever the case, they may not be feeling their best and that may reflect on their interaction with you. It stinks, but what can you do?

Second, lastly, and most importantly, remember this: the editors and agents are on your side. More than that, they actually want to be there and meet with you.

Think about it this way: how big do you think the slush pile of the average editor or agent is? They could probably find some decent books without leaving the office. But there they are, sitting in a room, waiting to meet with you. Why? Because they know that you might just have what they are looking for.

This bears repeating: They want to meet with you.

If you're feeling nervous about meeting with an editor or agent for the first time, repeat that mantra to yourself. They are on your side. They may reject you. As a matter of fact, they may reject you a lot. But the fact that they're at the conference means that they're open to new ideas, your ideas, and they want to hear them.

My best advice: be professional, don't freak out too much, and remember, they want to meet with you.

See you at the conference!

Want You Gone

2011-09-02T12:00:00.000-05:00

One of the great things about the Portal games is the inclusion of music. When I beat the first game, I nearly fell out of my chair as GLaDOS, the big, evil computer began to serenade me. And while knowing that she'd sing again in the sequel kind of made it less special, I still loved the new song, "Want You Gone."

But not, apparently, as much as the guy who made this video. To be fair:

If you haven't played the game all the way through, don't watch the video. But if you have, enjoy.

Warm Bodies

2011-09-02T09:00:00.004-05:00

When's the last time you actually cheered for a zombie? I mean, really cheered for him or her? You might do so if they're about to take a chunk out of a really annoying person in a story, but I suspect that making a zombie a sympathetic hero is not easy.

Well, unless you're Isaac Marion, author of Warm Bodies. And it isn't that hard to cheer for a zombie if that zombie is R.

R is different from the rest of the Dead. He lives alone in a jet at an abandoned airport. He's introspective, wondering about who he is and where he came from. And that difference leads him to do something unheard of: while out hunting, he spares a young woman named Julie.

R doesn't know why he did it. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he killed and ate Julie's boyfriend just a moment before he met her. Maybe it's something about her. Maybe there's something changing in him. But suddenly, R doesn't want to be a zombie anymore. Instead, he wants Julie. And maybe, just maybe, she wants to be with him too. But how can a Living girl and a Dead man be together when their worlds are so different?

If you're more observant than I am, you probably caught the literary underpinnings of this story (I actually feel quite stupid for not catching the "R" and "Julie" connection until about 2/3s of the way through). But don't let that throw you. This is a great book. R is an interesting, complex individual that you want to see succeed, even in the face of impossible odds. The zombie-fied world that Marion created is an interesting one too, complete with what appears to be a zombie culture that's fascinating to explore.

The ending didn't quite work for me. It was a bit too deus ex machina, although in keeping with the unheard "soundtrack" of the book (this book is big on music). But don't let that throw you. It's a fast read, and well worth your time.

Steampunk

2011-09-01T13:17:00.003-05:00

I've never really read Steampunk before. Oh, sure, I've seen some quasi-Steampunk movies (i.e. Wild, Wild West or League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), but I haven't really ever experienced the literary charms of the genre. I decided it would be best to rectify that oversight and so I purchased a few anthologies and a highly recommended novel. I started with Steampunk first.

This is a collection of short stories and snippets from novels. I skipped the novel snippets; I'd rather read a complete story rather than a piece of one.

For the most part, these were okay. The stand-out for me was Seventy-Two Letters by Ted Chiang, a well thought-out romp through bad science, golem mythology, and nineteenth century manners. I really enjoyed that story, mostly because it was close to something I had been brainstorming.

Otherwise, the other stories were okay. I'm not quite ready to declare myself a Steampunk enthusiast or affectianado or anything like that. I still have some more books to read. But it was a good jumping off point.

Pitching Advice Part V

2011-08-31T10:00:00.000-05:00

So you're at a writing conference. You've scrimped and saved to get there, you've been dreaming of this chance to hobnob with agents and editors. You've signed up to meet with said agents and editors but then you learn that you didn't get an appointment after all. Or maybe you're in the envious position of having the appointments you've signed up for, but there are other agents and editors you wanted to meet with. What's a writer to do?

Time to see if you can get what I like to call a "God appointment."

Simply (and somewhat crassly) put, at writing conferences, it's acceptable to stalk editors and agents. Well, within limits, of course (more on that in a bit). But should you run into an editor or agent in the hall, in a coffee shop, or even on the cliched elevator, it's okay to try to pitch to them.

So how do you do that? First, ask if it's okay to pitch at that moment. Your target, whoever it may be, could be heading to a meeting, or running late to a class, or possibly even heading toward the bathroom. Needless to say, if that's the case, they probably won't take kindly to an enthusiastic and/or nervous author trying to pitch them a book. Show your professionalism and your respect for their time, and ask, "May I pitch to you?" If they say "No," thank them and walk away.

But if they say yes, treat it like a high-powered pitch session. Tell them the book's title, the genre, and your hook (you have been practicing your hook, right?). And then wait for feedback. If the editor or agent prompts you for more information, keep talking.

The key to these kinds of pitch meetings is to let the agent or editor steer things. So long as they keep asking questions, you're golden. But if they thank you, time to let it (and them) go. And if they're eying potential avenues of escape, then it's definitely time to stop talking.

This is a great way to get your work in front of industry insiders, but it's important to keep the three "Bs" in mind, namely, "Breakfast," "Bathroom," and "Bedroom." Simply put, if your target enters one of these three, they're off limits.

I don't think I have to elaborate too much on these points. I mean, I'm not a morning person. It's best to let people have their coffee and donuts in peace. If you find yourself at a table with an editor or agent, make small talk, but don't talk business unless they bring it up first.

And really? Pitching to someone in the bathroom? It seems odd that people would have to be told this, but apparently, not everyone understands. In his book The Art of War for Writers, James Scott Bell tells of an editor (or maybe an agent) who used to have proposals slid under the stall door while he was in the restroom. This individual would take off the cover sheet, and then write on the second page, "This has met my needs at this time," and then slide it back out again.

Don't let that happen to you.

I would think the bedroom one is obvious too. If they're heading for their room, don't follow them in.

Does this work? You'd better believe it does. I've been to four ACFW Conferences and I've seen it happen. At one, I was chatting with a friend when an agent walked up to us. He dismissed me pretty quickly (due to my genre of choice) but my friend launched into a very concise and passionate pitch. They exchanged information and my friend signed with the agent shortly thereafter.

And it worked for me twice as well. At the last ACFW Conference, I ran into Jeff Gerke of Marcher Lord Press before the festivities started. He invited me to chat with him while he ate lunch. I told him about Failstate. He asked for a full manuscript. And sometime next year, that manuscript will be published.

At the same conference, my friend, Jill Williamson, introduced me to her agent, Amanda Luedeke. In a bizarre twist, Jill actually pitched Failstate to Amanda for me. That began a conversation with Amanda that ended with me signing with her.

God appointments, times when He intertwines your path with the right people, do happen. You just have to be ready for them.

I Write Like . . .

2011-08-28T20:47:00.002-05:00

I just saw a link to a webpage that allows you to cut-and-paste something you wrote into a text box. Using some sort of computer voodoo, the website then determines what famous writer you write like.

So I decided I should test this out. I took the first chapter of Failstate, my debut, soon-to-be-published novel, and this is what I got:

I write like
Chuck Palahniuk

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

Huh. I've never read Chuck, but I have heard of him.

So I decided to see if this would vary at all if I submitted text from a different story. So I dusted off the first chapter of Numb, my Christian space opera/espionage thriller. And this is what I got from that:

I write like
James Joyce

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

Um, wow.

So you tell me? Good thing that my style varied so much between two books? Or evidence of a lack of consistent voice on my part?

Beyond Black Mesa

2011-08-26T21:09:00.001-05:00

I've apparently been amassing a load of on-line videos that are really cool. I figured I'd better start sharing them, nicht wahr? Here's one set in the universe of the Half Life games. The sheer dedication it takes to make a video like this is absolutely mind-boggling.

Pitching Advice Part IV

2011-08-24T13:00:00.003-05:00

So here's the "long awaited" post about what not to do in a pitch meeting. But before we get into that, let me tell you a fictional story that will help illustrate my point.

Let's pretend that I just went through a particularly messy divorce (this is in no way based on my life at present, just FYI). It turns out that my wife wound up cheating on me multiple times, and then, due to legal chicanery on the part of her attorney, she winds up with everything. I am left an emotionally, financially, and spiritually broken man.

Over the course of a year, I manage to pick up the pieces and, by the grace of God, I am made whole again. And as I reflect on my experiences, I realize that by golly, there's a story there, one I'm yearning to tell. So I sit down and bang it out. I edit it, I revise it, I show it to my pastor, my family, and everyone agrees that it will be a blessing to those who went through similarly messy divorces.

So I'm off to ACFW! I have my editor and agent appointments in hand and I am ready to wow them with the story that God has laid on my heart.

The editor is first. I sit down, introduce myself, and she asks me to tell her about my story. I begin telling her the tale of my protagonist (who is loosely modeled after me) and his harrowing journey (which is loosely based on mine). And as I describe the plot, it stirs up all sorts of painful memories: of learning of my wife's cheating ways, of the long, empty nights alone, the glories of grace that set me free.

And I start to tear up a little. I apologize and wipe away the tear and try to soldier on, but with every word, more memories are bubbling up, stirring up my emotions and before I know it, I'm blubbering like a baby. I somehow manage to make it through my pitch, but by the time I'm done, I've gone through six tissues (which the editor had to retrieve from her purse).

Oddly, the editor doesn't seem all that interested. She thanks me for my time but that's it.

So I figure I have to wow the agent. When I meet with him, I hold it together a little better, just a few random sniffles, and then I sit back and wait for him to make the offer.

Instead, he starts to criticize my protagonist, saying that he's unlikeable and his entire character arc is unbelievable.

I bristle immediately. How dare he criticize me like that? He didn't go through what I did! I feel attacked, so naturally, I do my best to defend myself. I point out how he is wrong, how the story is fine the way it is, that it's truer to life that way.

After what amounts to a tense, five minute "conversation," the agent thanks me for coming and that's it. I wind up leaving the conference, wondering why no one asked to see more.

Can anyone tell the fictional me why this happened?

Before you pitch, you have to Spock it up. Keep your emotions in check. When you're pitching, being overly emotional is a liability.

Now you might think that both of these examples are a bit extreme, I've heard stories through the grapevine of those things happening. People will start crying as they pitch, either because of nerves or because, like the fictional version of me, they're too emotionally connected to their story.

I've also heard stories of people who, when encountering criticism from editors or agents, will become belligerent and start arguing with them.

You might be tempted to think that crying or arguing is an indication of being passionate about your craft. And that's a good thing, right? An editor or agent would want to know you're passionate, right?

Normally, yes. They want to find passionate people who are engaged by their stories. But if you're weeping while pitching or arguing with them, they're going to see, not a passionate author, but a thin-skinned one. A person who will be too emotional to handle the process of publishing a book. A person who won't be a good partner and collaborator when it comes to the editing that needs to be done. In short, a person they won't want to work with.

So if you're pitching an intensely emotional story, one with deep connections to you, and you're not sure you can make it through a pitch without crying, start practicing it now. Work on it every day until you can make it through with no more than a sniffle. If you think you might get snippy with an editor, well, learn to bite your tongue until it bleeds.

Now does this mean you have to be completely Vulcanized (i.e. without emotion, for those of you not in the know) when you pitch? Of course not. It's good to seek a bit of rapport with the agent or editor in question. That's a lesson I stumbled into my first conference.

At my first conference, way back in 2006, I was signed up to meet with Steve Laube. At the beginning of the conference, they held an agent panel, and one of the questions they asked the agents was, "What's the worst project you've ever been pitched?"

There were some doozies, but Steve Laube told the story about how an author started pitching him a story about flesh-eating mutant frogs. He very gently tried to explain why he wasn't interested, but as he did, the author blurted out, "But it's a love story!" And of course, everyone at the panel laughed.

Fast forward to my appointment. I am nervous. Petrified, really. I had never met a literary agent before, let alone pitch to one. Not only that, but my first pitch meeting hadn't gone well (my own fault; I hadn't done my research on the publishing house). So I was freaking out.

But as I approached the table where Steve Laube waited, I decided I had to do something to let off some of the nervous energy, something that would give him a glimpse of who I was as a person. When Steve asked me what I was pitching, I said, "I've written a romantic novel about flesh-eating mutant frogs."

Steve, with a perfectly straight face, replied, "It's been done."

And that's all it took. I relaxed, I told him about my project, he told me why it would never sell, and that was it. And I count that as a success.

I guess the upshot of this is: be yourself when you pitch. Just remember, this is very much like a job interview. Be respectful, be calm, and you'll do fine.

Next week, we'll talk about what I like to call "God meetings." Those are fun.

From Dust

2011-08-23T21:28:00.004-05:00

One of the dangers of having Steam installed on my computer is that every now and then, I'll see an ad for a game that looks interesting and is priced relatively low. Usually I can resist the temptation to splurge. Sometimes I can't. And the cheap-o games I get are a mixed bag. Some are really fun, others aren't.

So a few weeks ago, I saw an ad for From Dust. The ad made it sound like this was a critically acclaimed game and a friend of mine mentioned playing it. I blame my sleep deprived state, but I decided to buy the game and see what it was like.

It's a fairly straightforward game. You have a little tribe of followers/worshipers who are traveling from level to level, building villages around stone totems. You are some sort of powerful deity or spirit or something-or-other who can sort of control the forces of nature, sculpting the land, protecting your people, guiding them ever onward in their quest to find . . . well, I'm not sure what, exactly. The story in this game isn't much, just a weird through-line of trying to find "the Ancients" for some unknown reason. Go figure.

Each level is basically a puzzle you have to solve, using the powers that your followers can unlock for you. For example, if they build a village around the totem for "Infinite Earth," you gain the ability to create sand and dump it wherever you want for a limited amount of time. The trick is to figure out how to keep your tribe safe from the hostile world around them. That's not as easy as it sounds. There were a few levels that I barely made it past, simply because I got lucky.

In many ways, this game reminded of me of a stripped down version of the old Populous games. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. I liked Populous. And for the most part, I liked From Dust. The levels were challenging enough but not so bad as to completely stymie me. There are further challenge levels that I may check out.

The downside is the DRM, which apparently a lot of gamers are upset about. From what little I can gather, Ubisoft, the game's developer, promised that you wouldn't need a persistent internet connection to play but, guess what, you actually do. That didn't bother me so much, but for some reason, at the beginning and end of each session, the game tried to sync my saved games and failed, a process that took two to three minutes. Kind of bugged me.

So I guess you have to ask yourself if you don't mind intrusive DRM. If not, this could be a fun distraction.

Pitching Advice Part III

2011-08-17T13:28:00.003-05:00

Last week, I promised that we would take a look at a big no-no when it comes to pitching your ideas. But I realized after I made that promise that I haven't really talked about what to bring into a pitch meeting at a conference. So I'll save the "what not to do" thing for next week, okay?

Basically, you can/should bring two things: a one sheet and a proposal for your novel, one that includes sample chapters.

Now I'm no expert on one sheets, but my philosophy on those is to keep it simple. I've seen some one sheets that a chock-full of graphics and fancy designs, but I wonder if that really helps. Instead, put the book's title, genre, and wordcount on it. Put a back-cover type blurb on it, along with your bio and contact information. I usually also include a picture of myself so that if the editor or agent takes the one sheet, they'll have a face to go with the name. If you want to see some examples of one sheets, head over to Rachelle Gardner's blog. Her most recent post is about what to bring to a conference, but it also includes links to sample one sheets.

As for the proposal, that can be tricky. Different houses and agencies have different requirements. It's impossible to craft one that will please everyone in terms of content and format. You definitely want to put in your hook, your back-cover copy, any spiritual payload or theme you're trying to convey. Include a one to two page synopsis, your bio, any marketing ideas you might have. And be sure to include sample chapters as well. It's been my experience that in a pitch session, the editor or agent will want to see what you bring to the table.

Again, I'm no expert. If you do some searches on-line for sample proposals, you'll find some. Rip off the general structure and you should do fine.

The one thing to remember is this: it's very unlikely that the agent or editor you're meeting with will keep your one sheet or proposal. After all, they have to pay for their checked luggage too, and the last thing they need is to try to stuff a carry on or suitcase full of paper from their meetings. If they do keep it, that's great. If they don't, it's not a big deal either. Every agent or editor has their own style and preferences when it comes to this.

With that out of the way, next week we'll talk about a huge "DON'T" when it comes to pitch meetings. See you then!

It's Story Time

2011-08-15T19:24:00.005-05:00

Earlier this evening, I was driving to McDonald's to pick up some supper, and my radio was tuned to KS95. The DJs, Moon and Staci, were asking for people to call in and tell them stories. Moon wanted folks to tell him stories about a time when they uttered the words, "Get out of my house!" Staci, on the other hand, wanted people to tell her a story about a time they were in a riot.

The moment I heard her story prompt, I started laughing, and I thought, Do I have a story for you! Sadly, I had left my phone at home and by the time I returned, food in hand, I couldn't call in. So instead, I Tweeted my thought.

Shortly thereafter, I found this reply:

I replied with a short version of the story. But that got me reminiscing and I felt the need to share.

So snuggle in, folks, and let me tell you the story of the four Minnesota kids who found themselves in a race riot sparked by the Ku Klux Klan.

When I was in college, three of my friends used to go on what they called "Cross Country Skips." Usually during spring break, they would pack up and drive to Toronto or New Orleans or Corpus Christi. But since my college was on the quarter system, our breaks never matched up. I never got to go.

Finally, in my second year in Seminary, we figured out how I could go. We'd head to Memphis for Martin Luther King Jr. weekend. They'd drive down to St. Louis and pick me up early in the morning. We'd be there by Saturday morning, and we'd have a day or two to see the sights and hit Beale Street.

Everything went pretty well. We made the drive and arrived early on Saturday. As we pulled into town, we saw people walking around with what appeared to be civil rights inspired signs: "Keep the Dream Alive," that sort of thing. When we got into our room, we saw a big crowd gathering nearby. We thought that maybe it was a parade of some sort. So we figured we should go check it out.

Now pay attention, folks, and make sure you learn from our mistakes. There were certain stupid decision we made.

We left our hotel and drifted in the direction of the crowds. Much to our surprise, we saw a police checkpoint across one street. Confused as to why a parade would need a checkpoint, we asked a passerby what was happening.

"The Klan's in town and having a rally on the police station steps."

Now I'd like to think that it was sleep deprivation, but for some inexplicable reason, we decided that we should go check this out. NOT because we agreed with the Klan's rhetoric or beliefs, mind you. I think our reasoning was more along the lines of "We're four white kids from Minnesota who have never seen the Klan before." So we thought that we'd see what we could see. (THIS IS STUPID DECISION #1)

We went through the police check point, where we were patted down and the girls' purses were searched (STUPID DECISION #2) We then went down the block and we came upon the edges of the scene.

Let's see if I can set the stage for you: the Klan, about a dozen members in the sheets and everything, had set themselves up on the police station steps. The cops had made a no man's land around the steps, using police cars as a barricade. Pressed up against said barricade was an anti-Klan protest, a crowd that covered the street from building to building. We found a spot toward the back of the crowd, where I had a pretty good view of the proceedings (being 6' 6" has its advantages at times). I could see the Klan, the entire crowd, the Memphis riot police in full body armor watching us all warily (EVIDENCE OF STUPID DECISION #3).

As we watched, the anti-Klan crowd . . . well, "saluted" the Klan in an appropriate manner and then burned a Confederate flag. Then some sort of disturbance started working its way through the crowd, heading right for us (EVIDENCE OF STUPID DECISION #4). The girls wisely ran away; the other guy and I stuck around to see what was happening. As it turns out, someone had shown up wearing a jacket with a Confederate flag patch on it. A group of people were screaming at him, "Are you one of them? Are you one of them?" and hounded him out of the crowd.

It was at this point I turned to the other guy and said, "Let's find the girls and get out of here."

We found them on the edge of the crowd. We started discussing what we wanted to do next without really leaving the area (STUPID DECISION #5). That's when we noticed that a big chunk of the crowd was running. As in right at us.

So we turned and ran, but a second later, the people stopped running and started moving back into the crowd. Out of immediate danger, we did the only logical thing: we stopped where we were and continued our discussion of where we wanted to eat lunch (EXTREMELY STUPID DECISION #6).

As I recall, I was the one facing the crowd as we talked. And as we talked, I noticed these odd canisters sailing through the air, spouting what looked like smoke. And these projectiles were landing in the crowd. By the time I realized I was seeing honest-to-goodness tear gas canisters, the entire anti-Klan crowd (which, remember, filled the street from building to building) had turned around and everyone was running.

Right. At. Us.

I think I said something like, "I think it's time to run again." And we started running for our lives, a mass of humanity hard on our heels. One of the girls was yelling that if we got split up, we should meet back at the hotel. Thankfully, said hotel was just a block or two and we managed to dive into the lobby just as the desk clerk was locking the doors. In other words, if we had been moving just a second or two slower, we would have been trapped out on the streets.

We waited for the initial surge to go past the hotel and then we snuck out a side doorway to head for lunch (STUPID DECISION #7). It was then that we discovered that some people had decided to take advantage of the chaos and do some destruction of public property. Some teenagers came running down the streets, knocking over trash cans and newspaper vendors. One had his belt off and, for some reason, was whipping a bus. Another was carrying a 2X4. But then the guy carrying the 2X4 turned around, dropped it, and took off running. We soon saw why. The cops were after them, one with his weapon drawn, the other wearing a gas mask.

We got out of there quickly and went to the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch. We stayed out of the neighborhood until the later afternoon, when we went back to watch the news to try to figure out what happened. As near as we could figure at the time, the anti-Klan people started pressing up against the police barricade, prompting the cops to start spraying pepper spray to disperse them (that, we think, caused the initial surge of people). When that didn't work, they resorted to tear gas.

Anyway, we went out later that evening to hit Beale Street. As we left the hotel, one of the girls spotted the 2X4 the guy had dropped in the street. On the way back to the hotel, she saw it again. And she took it as a souvenir. So far as I know, she still has it.

Like I said, we made some stupid decisions. Looking back on it, I honestly have no idea what possessed us to go past that police checkpoint. It was just dumb all around.

At the very least, it gives me a great story to use when I play "2 Truths and a Lie" with people. Because really, how many of you would think a mild mannered Lutheran pastor would have witnessed a race riot started by the Ku Klux Klan?

Why We Need to Be Careful

2011-08-15T19:21:00.001-05:00

A friend of mine pointed me toward this article tonight and it was an interesting cautionary tale, especially for those of us who are trying to produce stuff that could be found in Christian bookstores. Here's the relevant hook that got my attention:

Immersing myself in Christian culture is the reason I nearly stopped being a Christian; immersing myself in a morally-suspect show about witches and demons is the reason I came back.

Naomi and Her Daughters

2011-08-14T22:19:00.002-05:00

Well, this was an interesting one, to be sure.

I got Naomi and Her Daughters by Walter Wangerin, Jr., for free from Amazon for my Kindle. I've read some of Wangerin's books in the past. I still use his book on marriage in my premarital counseling sessions. So I was a bit curious to see what he would do with a beloved Bible story.

The title is pretty self-explanatory. This is a novelization of the book of Ruth. If you know the story, you know the plot of this book for the most part. But Wangerin takes some rather unique liberties with the story, marrying the book of Ruth with the ending of Judges (yes, that ending. The one with the Levite's concubine). He fleshes out the characters in some rather interesting ways too. Boaz starts out life as a petulant teenager with some pretty severe issues and Naomi winds up extremely bitter toward the end.

I think I enjoyed this book, for the most part. Wangerin has a poetic lilt to his writing that seemed to suit the material fairly well. I think any potential readers should be aware that this book is pretty salty for Christian fiction. There's some vulgarities tossed around. And one scene, involving Rachel and Leah, boggles the mind. I seriously do not understand what the point of it was and I'm still struggling to wrap my mind around it.

And Wangerin does take some rather interesting liberties with characters and situations, such as including the destruction of Gibeah in the story of Ruth. At first, I had a hard time wrapping my mind around that, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was kind of within the realm of possibility.

I don't know. You can check it out for yourself. It's a fast read, to be sure, and there are some interesting theological thoughts to consider at the end. Just don't expect a clean-and-polished story.

A Dance with Dragons

2011-08-11T22:10:00.002-05:00

Wow, this one took a while to get through. I'm pretty sure I enjoyed it, but I'm a little angry at the same time. But what else did I expect from George R. R. Martin and his latest book, A Dance with Dragons?

How can I even sum this one up? I mean, if you haven't read the previous four books, anything I say will not make any sense. But to sum up: Daenery Targaryen is ruling over the city of Meereen. Jon Snow is Lord of the Night Watch and trying desperately to juggle competing pressures. Tyrion Lannister is traveling across the eastern lands. And I was glad to see all three. They are the most memorable and sympathetic characters left in this saga and they were largely absent from the previous book. It was great to see them wading back into the mess that Martin has made.

I don't want anyone to think that by "mess," I am somehow disparaging the world and story that Martin has created. This is epic stuff and incredibly volatile. There's really no way to predict where Martin is going.

My only real worry was that I wouldn't be able to get back into the story. It's been a while since I read the previous four books. But thankfully, it all came back to me as I read. I think I may have been missing some details but that didn't stop me from enjoying this book.

But I can also understand why some people are upset about the ending. It seems like Martin likes to dangle hope in front of us before shredding it. I honestly have no idea where this series is going. I just hope it doesn't take him another five years to get the next book done.

Basically, this is the best way to sum up reading a George R. R. Martin book:

That says it all.

Pitching Advice Part II

2011-08-10T21:07:00.005-05:00

Let's continue this series about what to do in a pitch meeting at a writing conference. Again, I'm thinking mostly of the up-coming ACFW Conference that's a little over a month away, but I'd like to think this advice could be used at other times as well.

So you've signed up for a pitch meeting. You wait for your turn in pitch purgatory, having done whatever it is you do to psyche yourself up (personally, I hit the prayer chapel for a quick centering prayer). You are called to enter the room, you sit down across from the editor or agent you're pitching to, and . . . then what?

It may seem obvious. Talk about your book, right? But if you're not ready, you can wander into a verbal quagmire:

"Well, my book is, uh . . . well, it's contemporary romance and it's about this girl who's based on my best friend from college. Anyway, she's got this problem. She's being stalked by this guy who is totally obsessed with her. Oh, and did I mention that the girl has a dead twin? I think that's important . . ."

Okay, so maybe you wouldn't be that bad. But if you're not ready, you can easily lose your way. So what do you do? Introduce yourself, tell the title, genre, and wordcount, and then hit them with your hook.

A hook is a one sentence summary that explains what your book is all about. It should be succinct and easy to grasp, something that tells a person what your book is about in thirty seconds or less.

It's not an easy thing to do. I mean, what if you have a cast of thousands or a plot so filled with twists and turns readers need a map to keep track of it all? How can you condense it all down to a short blurb?

I won't lie to you. It's not easy. I had trouble wrapping my head around it. But then I got help, specifically from Randall Ingermanson and his infamous Snowflake Method. This is a method that I've adopted to help me write my books and it really, really works.

Specifically, you want to pay attention to what Randy says about Step One, writing a one sentence summary about your plot. I won't go into all of it; it's worth your time to read the whole thing and even buy the course from Randy. Believe me, it'll help your writing, no matter where you are on your journey.

I'm also going to give you three examples from my own writing. I'm not saying these are perfect, but I think they'll give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

For NUMB: "A surgically-altered assassin fights his superiors to save the only woman he can love."

For HIVE (my current WIP): "A pregnant teeanger flees her people and those who want to steal her baby."

For FAILSTATE (my soon-to-be-published debut novel): "A fledgling superhero seeks justice for a fallen colleague despite his older brother’s interference."

In all three cases, I don't use names (because those would be meaningless) but descriptors. I tried to describe the conflict and obstacles my main characters face. It's as pure a distillation as I can get of the basic plot. Are there more characters in the story other than the assassin, the pregnant teenager, and the fledgling superhero? Of course. But they are the heart of their stories and they get center stage.

Once you have your hook, you need to know it. Backwards, forwards, upside down. You should be able to rattle it off at the drop of a hat. Last year, my wife and son would try to surprise me in the weeks leading up to the ACFW Conference. They would ask me at random times, "What's your pitch?" And I would have to deliver the hook for Failstate quickly and clearly. If I couldn't do it, my wife would mock me.

So you're back in the pitch session. You've introduced yourself, you've told them your book's hook. Then what? Now you can start giving a more detailed version of the plot. But again, you want this to be clean and concise. You don't have to give intricate details about every subplot or character's backstory. Think back cover copy here. Three or four paragraphs that explains what your character is doing, how they do it, and how the book is resolved. That's right, in a pitch meeting, you give away how your book ends. This isn't the time to be coy and say something like, "And to find out the ending, you'll have to read my manuscript." As a matter of fact, those words should never cross your lips or be written by your hands. Ever.

At this point, the agent or editor might start asking you questions about your book, its characters, and the plot. Be ready for this. Know your book and your story well enough that you can answer the questions without getting flustered.

A few years back, I wound up in an pitch session with my "back-up" agent. To put it bluntly, she wasn't my first choice. I knew she didn't represent speculative fiction (there are precious few who do), but I had to put someone down for my second choice, and I liked her attitude on the ACFW website. Lo and behold, at the Conference, I found myself meeting with her.

So I hit her with my hook and my back cover copy. And then she spent ten minutes grilling me about every single little detail about my book. What motivated my characters? How did this work? Had I considered this or that or the other thing? As I answered, I actually got my hopes up a little. Was she interested?

As it turns out, no. At the end of our meeting, she told me flat out she didn't represent spec fic (which I knew), but she did compliment me on knowing my book.

Truth be told, I think I made up about a third of what I said on the spot. The point is, when you're in a pitch meeting, you'd best either know your book or be really good at improvising.

So that's it for this week. Next week, I'll talk about a few mistakes you'll want to avoid in a pitch meeting.

Pitching Advice Part I

2011-08-03T20:41:00.003-05:00

Holy cow! The ACFW National Conference is well nigh upon us, only a month and a half away. I should really be adding to my WIP; instead, I thought I would stink up my little corner of Al Gore's series of tubes by offering some unasked-for advice on how to pitch to agents and editors. I'm thinking mostly in terms of those folks going to ACFW, but I'd like to think that this advice can transfer to other conferences as well. Yes, I am just that full of myself.

So I should probably show off my credentials at this point, right? Talk about how I have many degrees in writing? Or reveal that I've inked many multiple book deals from the times I've pitched? Yeah, I got none of those things. But I have been to four conferences. I've paid attention to what other people have said about pitching, and so I figured it might be helpful to pass on my (rather limited) wisdom. I'm thinking these posts, one for the next several Wednesdays, will be geared for those who have never pitched before, Conference newbies, as it were. Of course, if more experienced writers happen on by and wish to add or contradict me, I will gladly accept the chastisement.

So here's the first piece of advice, specifically for those who will be at their very first conference. My first piece of advice about pitching is this: don't.

That may sound a little odd. I mean, the great thing about a conference like ACFW is the chance for new writers to meet and rub shoulders with editors and agents. You've been working on your book for years, honing and perfecting it. Your critique partners and the others you've shown it to are raving over it. You've dreamed of getting your work in front of an industry insider. You've scrimped and saved, you've got your appointment in hand. Am I really suggesting that you shouldn't pitch if this is your very first conference?

Yes. Yes, I am.

And I'm not the only one who thinks so. Randall Ingermanson has also said this (and if he hasn't, well then, I'm sorry for putting words in his mouth). Allow me to tell you a story to explain my reasoning.

When my older son was nine months old, he figured out the whole crawling thing. A week later, he started walking. We tried to discourage him, mostly for our own sanity, but he was bound and determined. He was going to walk. And then, a day or two later, he started running.

My wife and I were stunned. He was always good at the gross motor stuff, but we were astounded at how "advanced" he was. We were proud parents to be sure, having a child who went from crawling to running in such short order. So naturally, we signed him up for a full marathon that very week.

Of course we didn't. He obviously had a long way to go and, although all he does now is run, he still has a long way to go.

The same thing is true when it comes to writing. You may be far and advanced in front of all the newbie authors attending the conference, but if this is your first writing conference, you're taking your first steps and probably aren't ready for a full marathon. Not yet.

To put it another way, you're going to learn so much about writing at your first conference that suddenly, the book that you've slaved over and was so good . . . well, you start noticed the flaws. Or you've learned a new technique that will push your already good story to a phenomenal level. In other words, as ready as you might think you are, you're probably not. You need a little more time to get things to where they could and should be.

So what if you've signed up for an editor or agent appointment and you get one? Should you not show up? No, definitely go, but don't go to pitch. Go to talk to the agent or editor about the publishing industry. Ask what they think the next big genre might be. Ask them what mistakes newbie authors make in their writing so you can avoid them. If it's an agent, ask him or her what they bring to the table and how they work with their clients.

This is definitely a case of "do as I say, not as I do." I pitched at my first conference, way back in 2006. I had a great story, the "story of my heart." I had the praise of critique partners and friends who had read it. I was sure that I was going to wow those I spoke to and walk away, if not with a contract, then with a promising lead for one.

Please note that I just recently signed my first contract. That's how well that went for me.

Part of it was genre; I've always been a speculative writer and the Christian market has never been all that open to us. But a larger part of it was the fact that I was taking my first toddling steps into a marathon. I simply wasn't ready.

Of course, you're free to ignore this if you want to. Plenty of first-timers do indeed pitch and do well. So what do you do if you're going into your first pitch meeting? Come back next week and we'll talk about what to do and not to do.

Captain America: The First Avenger

2011-07-22T23:46:00.005-05:00

My darling wife let me sneak out of the house today to see Captain America: The First Avenger. It may be the last movie I see in a theater for a while. Not complaining, just stating a fact. And I've been doing well seeing all the Marvel tentpoles, so naturally, I figured I'd better make my last one this one.

For those of you unfamiliar with Cap's mythology, allow me to educate you: Steve Rogers is the quintessential 98-pound weakling, but one with a huge heart. He wants to serve in the United States Army during World War II, so much so that he tries multiple times at multiple stations to enlist. The problem is, Steve has a host of medical issues that keeps him classified as 4F.

His only chance is to agree to an experimental program, one designed to create a squad of super-soldiers. But due to a small problem, Steve is the only one to receive the treatment, thus making him Captain America.

At first, Cap is only used as a USO sideshow, but soon he finds himself on the front lines, facing an evil German scientist known as the Red Skull, the head of a Nazi research group called HYDRA. Red Skull had diabolical plans that could reshape the world, but that's only if Captain America can't stop him!

I'm not quite sure what to think of this movie. I had a lot of fun watching it. While no one is going to win an Oscar for this one, there were some great performances by Tommy Lee Jones as a gruff drill sergeant (I know, what a stretch for him, huh?). And Hugo Weaving left bite marks all over the scenery as the Red Skull. And Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter was kind of fun too.

Chris Evans as Cap? Well, let's see here. I kind of liked him better when he was the scrawny runt. For some reason, I appreciated his heart a whole lot more. It was almost as if once he became the super soldier, he got swallowed by the loud explosions and action sequences. And while I kind of get the need for an action montage in the middle of the movie, I thought it detracted from it a bit.

What really bothered me, though, is how they left one major plot thread dangling. I won't say what it is, but it's something that I think they should have resolved at the very end. Maybe they're saving it for the Avengers movie next year. Or maybe there will be future Cap movies that will sew things up. But it would have been more organic to resolve it in the first movie.

And, speaking of the Avengers, make sure you stick around until the very end, okay? Once again, over half the audience left without seeing the tag, which turns out to be a sneak preview of the Avengers movie. Not a lot in terms of plot, but it is interesting to see Cap, Tony Stark, and Thor hanging around in what I can only assume is a SHIELD conference room.

Anyway, Cap wasn't as good as the first Iron Man movie or Thor. I think it was marginally better than the second Iron Man movie. And it does have me eager to see what Joss is cooking up for us next summer.

Zero

2011-07-16T21:26:00.003-05:00

I just got done playing a pretty cool new board game, one that I had something of a stake in. Well, maybe not a stake, but I was certainly involved. That game would be Zero by University Games.

To create this rather unique trivia game, the good folks at University Games surveyed around 500 people (I was one of them; so was my brother-in-law) to see who answered what and how often. For example, "Name countries that start with the letter 'I.'" So they asked those 500 people and saw how many answered what. The trick is, you want to pick the one people said least often. For every ten percentage points on the answer card, you move forward one space (i.e. if an answer rated a 50, you move forward five spaces). The object is to not cross the finish line, to be the final player on the board. There are ways to "rewind" and go backwards.

All in all, it's pretty fun. I worry that it's possible to run out of cards eventually; people with a good memory might start filing away the best answers pretty quickly. But it's certainly worth the play.

Wolfsbane

2011-07-06T13:21:00.004-05:00

The valiant men of Nightshade are back and this time, one of them has to face mistakes from his past that threaten his life and the lives of those he trusts.

Midas Metcalfe is a medic for Nightshade, a black ops team that's sent into dangerous situations that the U.S. can't handle in any sort of official way. His team is brought into help out Danielle Roarke, a demolitions expert with the army. She was held captive and brutalized by a general in Venezuela, only upon escape, she finds no one believes her tale. Nightshade has to escort her back so she can clear her own name.

But things are not as they seem. Even as Midas and Roarke battle their almost uncontrollable attraction for each other, forces in both of their lives are threatening to consume them. Can they find safety together? Or will they be completely torn apart.

I love Ronie's books. They are a great mixture of action and romance. She put together a great mixture of plot elements that seemed to be completely unconnected, but as the story chugged along, they all came together. My only (minor) gripe is that the romance between Roarke and Midas seemed a bit . . . rushed. I don't know, maybe it's my gender, but it seemed to come together all a little too conveniently.

I will say this, though, I appreciated the way that Ronie wrote gritty in this book. This is not, in any way, a squeaky clean, sanitized Christian book. There are some real world things that happen (one that caused my eyebrows to rocket into my quickly receding hairline), but I appreciated the care that Ronie used in crafting this story.

I'm really looking forward to the conclusion of this series, namely Firethorn, especially since there was just a tiny glimpse of what was going on at the end of this book. Well done, Ronie. Well done!

In honor of the Fourth . . .

2011-07-04T09:00:00.002-05:00

. . . I'll just link to this review I did four years ago. For some reason, I've been thinking about this one a lot lately.

Have a happy and safe Fourth of July, everyone. Don't blow up too much of our country while you're celebrating our independence.

Weddings & Wasabi

2011-07-03T07:42:00.004-05:00

A very sweet coda to a great series.

I know it's odd that I would read romantic chick-lit like Weddings & Wasabi by Camy Tang, but I met Camy at the first ACFW Conference that I ever attended, so when I heard that she had started publishing her Sushi Series, I was curious what it was all about. And once I read Only Uni, I was pretty much hooked. So I had to read this last book to see how it all wrapped up.

Jenn Lim has just graduated with her culinary degree and now faces a crisis. Her Aunty has pretty much demanded that she come to work in her restaurant, but Jenn has had enough of being a doormat, so she defiantly decides that she is going to be a caterer, starting with her cousin Trish's wedding. And maybe her rebellion could also include that handsome man riding a Harley that she just met too.

I had a lot of fun reading this book, but there was one thing that had me a little upset: it's so short! This one clocks in at 110 pages, so there's not a lot of room for plot development. Everything is pretty much straight-forward and, in some cases, a little rushed. I can sort of understand that: Camy had to self-publish this book, so I suspect that finances played a part in the book's length, but I was a little disappointed that we couldn't spend a little more time with Jenn and her cousins.

But this book was able to do what it had to. It wrapped up a lot of the through-lines of the Sushi Series (especially the one about Grandmother) and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Uglies

2011-07-02T14:36:00.002-05:00

I first heard about Uglies by Scott Westerfeld a few years ago. A friend's daughter was interested in trying to write a screenplay adaptation of this book and was talking about it on Facebook. At the time, I kind of shrugged it off; it was a YA book and I wasn't all that interested.

Boy, what a difference a few years make.

What really cinched the deal for me was the fact that I just recently finished two other books by Westerfeld and enjoyed them enough that I wanted to see what else he had to offer. So onto my Kindle went Uglies and I just now finished it.

This is the story of Tally Youngblood, an Ugly who is about to become a Pretty. Apparently at some point in the (near) future, society gives people an operation at the age of sixteen that wipes away all physical imperfections and makes them all good looking. Once you become Pretty, you move across the river and party all the time.

But until then, you're stuck in Uglyville, and that's where Tally finds herself, longing to be made Pretty so she can join her friend, Peris, in New Pretty Town. To pass the time, she starts pulling pranks on the younger Uglies and the new Pretties. And that's how she meets Shay. Like Tally, Shay is also waiting to be made Pretty. Sort of. But Shay has a slightly different dream in mind, one that will pull Tally away from the future she had planned into one that's a little more real.

This was a fun read. Once again, Westerfeld did a great job creating a plausible world, and he also crafted some really memorable characters, especially Tally. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I'm looking forward to reading the others in the series. But not yet. I still have close to two or three dozen books in my to-be-read pile.

But when I burn through those, you can bet I'll be going back to Uglyville.

Failstate is coming!

2011-06-30T21:29:00.002-05:00

It's official! Earlier this week, I signed a contract with the good folks at Marcher Lord Press. They will be publishing my Christian superhero novel, Failstate. The publication date is still to be determined at this time, but I'm really excited to see this process through.

If you're curious to see some of the "behind-the-scenes" stuff from writing the book, check out my Wordcount Wednesday posts from about a year ago. I'm sure I'll have more stuff to say about the next steps of bringing the book out to the public in the coming months.

The upshot? I can't wait for all of you to meet this guy:

Cars 2

2011-06-25T16:58:00.005-05:00

A friend of mine sagely observed on Facebook that if Cars 2 was a live action movie starring real people, there'd be no way it'd get a G rating. And she is absolutely right. But I suppose if your movie stars anthropomorphic cars, it's all good.

Lightning McQueen, now a successful Piston Cup champion, is invited to take part in a race to promote a new alternative fuel. Much to his chagrin, his best friend Mater comes along for the trip. Mater is the epitome of what you might call an ugly American (car). He sticks out like a sore thumb in Tokyo, the first location for the race. But bizarrely, Mater is mistaken for a secret agent, one working to stop a secret cabal of cars determined to stop the race and discredit the new fuel.

In some ways, this was an okay movie. It was entertaining and a good send-up of spy flicks. But it definitely didn't rise to the level of other Pixar movies. I think its real problem was that it was lacking in heart. There was no overarching "deeper theme," no tug at the heart-strings that I've come to expect from the wizards of Pixar.

Another problem was Mater himself. While Mater was certainly funny and a large part of the first movie, he got a little grating after a while in the second.

What really surprised me was the sheer level of violence in this movie. Like my friend Carrie sagely observed, if these were people and not cars, this would have been rated much higher. Lots of death, and in some cases, violent death, was casually thrown throughout the movie. I'm not sure what my son made of this. He's four and I suspect this is the most violence he's seen in a movie, like, ever.

So I don't know. A mostly fun movie, an unworthy successor for the original, a movie filled with lots of cars getting blown to bits. Not the highlight of the summer for sure.

Knight Errant

2011-06-25T09:18:00.003-05:00

That's more like it. Last night, I finished reading Knight Errant by John Jackson Miller and unlike the last Star Wars novel I read, this one was a lot of fun and, for the most part, quite satisfying.

The story centers around Kerra Holt, a Jedi from 5,000 years before the original trilogy, who is stuck in a really tight spot. She is cut off from Republic space, stuck in a sector that is controlled by various Sith Lords. She's the only Jedi, the only one capable against of taking a stand against the Dark Side. At first, she's caught up in a conflict between brothers Daiman and Odion. But soon the conflict between those two spill over, driving Kerra to the strongholds of other Sith Lords. She's the only one who seems at all concerned about the plight of those under the Siths' heels. Can Kerra do something to stop the destructive evil? Or will it finally consume her as well?

This week confirmed something that I've suspected for a while now. The Star Wars Extended Universe has pretty much exhausted the original trilogy's generation. Crosscurrent was set at the tail end of that generation. Because so many books have been written about that era, it's become so bloated and heavy that the books simply aren't as engaging anymore. But books set in the "distant past" seem to recapture the freshness and uniqueness of the Star Wars universe. For example, the idea behind this book, of one lone Jedi facing off against countless Sith Lords, completely on her own, was fascinating.

It also helps that Miller put together some great oppressive regimes. We encounter three different Sith territories as we travel with Kerra, and they're not at all alike. You'd think, given that Sith were in charge of each, that there would be the same kind of repression and oppression in each, but Miller came up with three different ways that people can be beaten down and rooted each in their lord's personalities.

The characters in this book really shine as well. Kerra is a great hero, as is Brigadier Rusher.

I don't know if we'll see more novels about Kerra Holt (I know that they're publishing comics about her exploits), but if there are, I might just be persuaded to pick them up.

Emily Howell

2011-06-24T12:40:00.002-05:00

Okay, take a listen to this music:

Pretty, right? So who do you think wrote this music? Okay, stupid question. It's obviously someone named Emily Howell. So who do you think Emily is? A child prodigy? A grand master in the works?

Nope. She's a robot.

According to this article, "Emily" was fed the works of the great masters, analyzed them, and then was told to start producing music of her own. The video above is one such result.

Ummmmmm . . . I'm not sure what to make of this. But I, for one, welcome our coming robot overlords with terrified humility.

Crosscurrent

2011-06-23T07:36:00.003-05:00

My brother-in-law, who attends comic book conventions from time to time, snared this little goody for me. He knows I have a soft spot for Star Wars novels, so he got me an autographed copy of Crosscurrent by Paul S. Kemp. And it sounded like a great story, at least on the back cover.

Basically it boils down to this: Jedi Knight Jaden Korr receives a vision from the Force. Someone is calling him to a distant planetary system, begging for help. He travels out there, only to arrive in time for an ancient cargo transport to pop in from the past, a past when the Sith had their own empire. Now Jaden and his friends must deal with this ancient threat.

I don't know of another Star Wars story that involves time travel, so I was definitely curious to see how Kemp would pull this off. Sadly, he didn't do so well.

The reason I say that is because really, this book is two unrelated half-stories that have been slapped together. There's the time travel business and then there's what the Force was really trying to show Jaden (which I thought was a lot more interesting). Neither plotline really has anything to do with each other aside from physical proximity (the ship from the past just happens to pop up in the same planetary system as Jaden's true mission). As a result, neither storyline is developed to its full potential, which means that when the story reached its climax, I was wanting more. More character development, more depth to the story, more of just about everything. And that's not wanting more in a good way. It was wanting more because Kemp didn't develop this idea enough.

The up-shot? Crosscurrent is a so-so try at two potentially fun stories that should have had their own individual books.

The Sims 3: Generations

2011-06-22T12:22:00.003-05:00

I wanted to hold off on writing this review of The Sims 3: Generations for as long as I could so I could see as much of this new expansion as I could. But unfortunately, I've grown a little frustrated with the Sims lately, a statement that I'll explain in just a little while.

I've been an avid Sims player since the early days and, by and large, new expansions always get me to sit up and take notice. I especially liked the idea of this one: add more stuff for kids and teens to do. That's been one area where the Sims 3 has been lacking: while adults can do a lot of stuff, the teens and the kids especially basically only have school and skill building. So when I saw that they were dedicating an entire expansion to new stuff for the young'uns, I was pretty excited.

And there's some good stuff in this pack. I think I've seen most of it by this point. There are new characteristics for your Sims (such as the Nurturing personality trait for those Sims who love kids, or the Rebellious trait which is fairly self-explanatory). Kids can now pull pranks, such as rigging showers with dye packs. There are new objects, such as a chemistry table that allows Sims to craft potions that do various things to whoever drinks them. There are new objects, such as new playground equipment.

The school setting has been revamped as well. Now kids and teens can sign up for afterschool clubs to build their skills. They can go on field trips (which also build skills). There's prom (an addition that I love!). You can even ship your kids off to boarding school, which I've done a few times now. It's an interesting experience; you don't have to worry about controlling said kid, but you also don't have much say in what traits they develop while they're gone. It's a cool trade-off.

Also fun is the inclusion of the Imaginary Friend. Occasionally, after a baby is born, a mysterious aunt will send them a doll they can play with. If they play with it enough (which they do automatically; it seems to be a toddler's favorite go-to activity), the toy will "come to life" as an imaginary friend, a companion that only the child can see and interact with. But if the child has a chemistry set and a high enough logic skill, they can craft a potion that brings said friend to life for real. The friend then joins the family and can even be married. I've done that. It was kind of fun.

On paper and even throughout my playing, this was a good expansion that helped enrich my game. But I have a serious complaint about it, one that seems to be recurring for most Sims games: it shipped with way too many bugs. This seems to be a common theme for Sims games. After the initial release, there are a lot of problems with the game that hopefully get caught with the first patch. It's a bad way to do business, in my opinion, and lazy to boot.

And it's also infuriating. Twice now I've lost games because I've hit a bug that makes half my household unplayable (their picture disappears from the boxes on the left of the screen). I've had to delete two very fun games because I can't play them. Also broken is the family inventory when the Sims travel overseas as part of the World Adventures expansion. Normally, when you go overseas and buy a "big" item (such as a nectar maker or martial arts dummy), it would get put into the family inventory to be used when the Sim returned home. Not since Generations came out, though.

So I've learned my lesson: while I will plan on getting expansions for this game, I won't buy them right away because the development team apparently needs to finish their jobs. It's a shame. A franchise like the Sims deserves better.

Behemoth

2011-06-20T17:17:00.003-05:00

What a way to spend a day . . . off.

Since I was on my own for most of today, I spent a good chunk of it reading Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld. That's the sequel to the book that I finished (and reviewed) only yesterday.

The book picks up where the first one left off. Alek, the "missing heir" to the Austrian-Hungarian empire, is still hiding on the British airship Leviathan. They need his help to maintain the mechanical engines that have been added to the sides of an otherwise living airship. But now that the Leviathan is approaching Istanbul on a vital diplomatic mission, Alek sees his chance to escape.

Deryn Sharp, still disguised as a boy, is finding Istanbul a strange place. Not only is it a Clanker country (where steam-powered machines dominate the city), the Germans obviously have designs to bring the Ottomans into the war against the Darwinist nations.

Soon both Deryn and Alek find themselves in the midst of international intrigue along with shadowy plots that could reshape the world and the course of the on-going war.

This was another fun read. Again, Westerfeld has given his storyworld a great deal of thought and executed it well. There are just enough twists and turns to keep a reader guessing, especially as the story continues to weave in historical and almost-real events.

Personally, I'm looking forward to reading the final entry into this trilogy, but it doesn't get published until September. Oh well. Hopefully I'll have whittled away my to-be-read pile by then so Goliath can take priority.

Leviathan

2011-06-19T14:33:00.003-05:00

True confession time: I have never read steampunk. Never had the opportunity. Never really had the desire either (although seeing some Star Wars characters re-imagined for steampunk did get me curious). But a few months ago, a friend visiting from New Zealand left some books with me, two YA books by Scott Westerfeld. Last night, I finished the first, namely Leviathan. And I have to say, I'm a little disgusted with myself for being so closed-minded.

The book is set in the early days of World War I, only things are a little different. The Germans and Austrians are "Clankers," people who build giant steam-driven walkers (think AT-ATs from the Star Wars universe, only with big cogs and belching steam). The English, the French, and the Russians are Darwinists. In this alternate timeline, Darwin not only came up with evolution, he also discovered DNA and genetic manipulation. The Darwinists build vehicles and machines out of living animals. For example, the titular Leviathan is a massive hydrogen-breather, a living airship made of a whale, housing living weapons that the English use in war.

The story follows two young people. There's Alek, the potential heir to the throne of the Austrian-Hungarian throne (or however you say that). When his parents are murdered in Serbia, he has to go on the run to Switzerland. Then there's Deryn, a girl who wants to serve in the British Air Service but can't because . . . well, she's a girl. So she hides her gender and enlists. Pretty soon, fate brings the two together, Clanker and Darwinist, and unites them in a common cause.

This book was a lot of fun to read. It's a sort of alternate history (with a few familiar faces popping up here and there). While the Clankers are interesting, the Darwinists are fascinating. Westerfled does a great job of making the Leviathan plausible, as odd as that might sound. Yes, it's a giant flying whale, but he's thought through how it all would interact and intersect. What's really fun are the illustrations by Keith Thompson, which brings the world to life.

I've already started reading the sequel and I just found out the last book in the trilogy is coming out this September. Sigh. Every time I think I've chipped away at my to-be-read pile . . .

Good Omens

2011-06-16T08:21:00.003-05:00

Okay, I don't get it.

Last night, I finished reading Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, and I just don't get it. I've heard rumblings that this was a good book, and based on some of the introductory comments, I thought I was going to have a great read on my hands. I figured that I'd object to the theology of the book, but I was willing to set that aside to see what the fuss is about.

The concept was intriguing: an angel and a demon, two entities that should be on opposite sides of the on-going war between Heaven and Hell, wind up more as "frenemies." They discover they have more in common with each other than the others on their respective sides. So when they find out that the apocalypse is about to be unleashed on a world they've come to love, they decide they're going to do everything they can to stop it.

My problem with this book is that there's just too much. There are too many characters, from the four "horsemen" to the neophyte Antichrist to the dozen or so minor characters who find themselves caught up in the Last Things. And that sheer number of people, I think, is what diluted my enjoyment of this book. Aziraphale and Crowley, the angel and demon, are the prime movers in the first third of the book (and, I think, the most fascinating characters), but they largely disappear from the middle third, which is where I think the story kind of went off the rails.

Oh well. It would have been nice if I could have enjoyed this book, but I didn't. I'm sure the diehard fans of this book (and apparently there are quite a few) won't find my little corner of cyberspace. That's probably for the best.

Green Lantern

2011-06-15T12:41:00.004-05:00

Thanks to the good folks at Twin Cities Moviegoers (and my darling wife, who spotted the ad for a free screening), I got to take a sneak peek at Green Lantern this morning, and one in 3D even! I'm hoping this turns out to be the only speed bump in a summer of superhero movies.

The story centers around ace test pilot Hal Jordan, who is selected to be a part of the prestigious Green Lantern Corp, a sort of intergalactic police force that utilizes the green energy of willpower to fight evil (more on that in a little bit). Hal is not what you would call an ideal recruit. He's a loose cannon at his job, much to the frustration of his lifelong friend, Carol Ferris. He's got some emotional baggage that's holding him back as well. It's easy to understand why the de facto leader of the Green Lanterns, a guy named Sinestro (gee, can't imagine what his character arc is going to be), has such grave reservations about Hal's place in the Corp. That's because an ancient enemy of the Corp has reappeared and threatens to destroy everything they are supposed to protect.

As I left the theater, I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed with this movie. Don't get me wrong, there's some fun stuff here. Ryan Reynolds was fun to watch and made for a believable hero. I don't know if diehard fans will appreciate the humor he brought to the role, but I did. Blake Lively as Carol Ferris was okay, but she did lead to one great, laugh-out-loud moment regarding the plausibility of costumes protecting secret identities. And a lot of the effects and visualizations were great. Oa, the Green Lantern's base of operations, was pretty cool to look at.

But where this movie kind of fell apart was the story. For starters, there was the lack of focus. We kept ricocheting between Oa and Earth, and the writers slathered on a lot of emotional hand-wringing, which meant that we didn't get a lot of what I wanted to see, namely Hal Jordan using the green energy of willpower to make stuff out of thin air.

Speaking of which, that kind of struck me as odd when they mentioned it the first time. Okay, I know, it's Green Lantern and I've read enough of the comics to know that his power is based on willpower. But the way they were tossing around emotional energies and their attendant colors struck me as a little silly. Why is willpower green? Why is fear yellow (beyond the obvious cliched reason)? Worse, the way they described the Lanterns at one point made me think of a different group of individuals tasked with protecting a galaxy far, far away. Almost word for word.

What really bugged me was the tag at the end. Up until the end, I was mildly surprised at how well they were setting themselves up for a sequel. If you know the source material, you know what's coming in the next movie (if there is one; I'm not so sure there should be), but what impressed me was how the writers set it up organically within the story. It was a significant move in terms of the larger storyline, but they contained it well within the convoluted mess they had created. But then, at the end of the movie, without any explanation as to why, they set up the villain for the next movie. In my not-so-humble opinion, it would have been better to leave the tag for the sequel and explain why what happened happened.

So there we go. I've seen better superhero movies this summer. This was okay, I guess, just not all that satisfying.

Ether Ore

2011-06-10T19:34:00.002-05:00

I've read a lot of short story anthologies before (usually sci-fi or fantasy ones), but I've never seen one of Christian fiction. Well, never fear, the good folks at Marcher Lord Press have filled the niche with Ether Ore, a collection of short science fiction stories put together by half a dozen of their authors and the main man himself, publisher Jeff Gerke.

What surprised me (and threw me off a little at first) is the fact that the majority of the short stories are framed in a larger story, a continuation of Jeff Gerke's initial tale of armless robots. The rest fold in. Like I said, that confused me for a moment. I had to go back and reread some parts before I caught what was happening. My bad.

But the stories definitely weren't. Bad, that is. There was some fun stuff in this book, from some space opera from Steve Rzasa to a post-apocalyptic story from award-winning author Kirk Outerbridge. All of them were a great read, but if I had to pick my favorite, I'd have to say Graxin by Kerry Nietz. That's just my opinion but I'm sticking with it.

At $3.99 (at present), this is a great deal for some great stories.

Super 8

2011-06-10T16:23:00.003-05:00

This is turning out to be a good summer for geeks. Exhibit B: Super 8.

In the summer of 1980 (I think), a group of kids are working on a movie shot on a Super 8 camera. As they work on filming a scene one night, they witness a horrific train derailment, one that brings the Air Force to their small town in Ohio. They vow not to talk about what they saw (for a pretty good reason which I won't go into now), but nothing is ever that simple.

Power starts fluctuating throughout their town. Someone starts stealing microwaves and car engines. Dogs and then people start disappearing. Something strange is going on and the kids have to solve the mystery of what was on that derailed train.

Naturally, the audience knows thanks to the commercials and previews. I'm not complaining about that at all.

As a matter of fact, I really don't have any complaints about this movie. Well, one minor gripe about something that Joe, the main character, does. But again, I'm not going to get into that either. Major spoilers. But aside from that one moment, this was simply a great movie all around. It has some emotional heft to it, one that remains central to the plot as Joe and his friends try to survive the odd happenings in their hometown.

Probably the best part of this movie is Elle Fanning as Alice, a girl recruited to star in the movie. She was simply phenomenal. But then, so was Joel Courtney, the young man who played Joe.

And J.J. Abrams did a great job building the tension throughout the movie, teasing us with shots of the train-riding alien in the early going and slowly revealing what it is and what it's up to. In some ways, the plot reminds me of E.T., if E.T. wasn't a wuss.

This is definitely one of the better movies I've seen for a while and, like I said, it's just another reason why this summer is for us geeks.

Matched

2011-06-08T07:52:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago, Entertainment Weekly had a list of young adult books that are being adapted into movies. I pulled the page out of the magazine, thinking it'd make a good start to a "to-be-read list" (although they'd all be books I'd have to read in the future; my to-be-read pile still has two to three dozen books in it). I left the list on my desk and kind of forgot about it.

Then my wife brought Matched by Ally Condie home from the library. She said it looked like an interesting young adult book. She knew I'm on a dystopian kind of kick right now and thought I might like to read it. The cover looked familiar. Wouldn't you know it, Matched was indeed on that list. So even though I hadn't intended to find any of these books just yet, I bit the bullet and started reading.

Cassia is a young girl who lives in the Society, a regime that basically controls every aspect of her life. They decide her daily schedule, they provide strictly controlled meals, and they are the ones who select who she will someday marry. On the day she turns seventeen, Cassia goes to her Matching banquet and learns that the Society has chosen her best friend Xander to be her mate. It's a bizarre happenstance; normally most people are Matched with total strangers. This delights Cassia to no end. At least, it does at first.

But then, as she's reading up on her intended, she sees the face of another friend, that of Ky. And she is intrigued. Why would she see two faces where she should have only seen one? What is the deal with Ky, a brooding young man who seems to harbor deep secrets? Soon Cassia is caught between Ky and Xander, but more than that. She finds herself squarely in the crosshairs of the Society and it's not a good thing.

This was an interesting read. I enjoyed it just fine, but I felt like it was missing something, a little bit of "oomph," so to speak. Things seemed almost too sedate, but I suppose that was the point. The Society is a manacle wrapped in velvet, one that guarantees safety and health by taking away choices. It would take a bit to wake someone up from such a life. Cassia, Ky, and Xander are all likeable characters, which helps. Maybe the problem I had was that the story was a bit too predictable. There were some "twists" here and there, but they weren't all that surprising. Or it could be that Condie was obviously leaving herself room for a sequel and left a few too many dangling threads.

In the end, I enjoyed this book and I'd probably read a sequel. But then, I've got a lot of books to read between now and November, when the next one is supposed to come out. I'll get there eventually, I guess.

X-Men First Class

2011-06-06T22:57:00.003-05:00

I just got back from seeing X-Men First Class and, I have to say, I had a good time. I don't know what the "purists" might think of this movie, but I thought it was a great deal of fun.

It's set in the rollicking '60s, when Charles Xavier, with the ability to walk and a full head of hair, spends his times trying to pick up chicks with talk about mutations (Seriously. This happened. And it was actually kind of funny). Erik Lensherr is a Holocaust survivor out for vengeance against a Nazi scientist who . . . well, I won't get into that right here. Suffice it to say Erik has a legitimate gripe against him. Their paths cross as both men try to take the villain, named Sebastian Shaw, down. The problem is, the bad guy has a team of mutants to protect him, such as Emma Frost, Azazel, and Riptide.

So naturally, Xavier and Lensherr need a team of their own.

They collect a group of fellow mutants and begin training them to face off against Shaw's team, especially since Shaw is trying to start World War III by getting the Soviets to place nukes in Cuba.

Seriously. This movie uses the Cuban missile crisis as a backdrop. And I have to say, it worked.

Sure, there were some silly things that made me roll my eyes. And personally, I think everything got wrapped up a little too neat-and-tidy in the end (basically, any question you might have about the early years of the X-Men are answered). It would have been nice if they left a few things up in the air, allowing for more stories to be told.

But I still enjoyed it, especially because of one cameo appearance. That's all I'll say about it, but it was a beaut.

Anyway. I had fun. And if you like comic book movies, you probably will too.

Playing for Keeps

2011-06-04T22:46:00.002-05:00

Oh, the pain. The pain. I just got done reading Playing for Keeps by Mur Lafferty and . . . wow. I'm not even sure where to start.

The plot, such as it is? The story follows a not-quite-superhero who calls herself Keepsie. Keepsie is part of what's known as the "Third Wave" heroes of Seventh City, folks who have special abilities, just ones that aren't particularly useful. Keepsie has the unique ability that no one can steal from her. Those that try get stuck to what they're stealing.

Apparently a supervillain named Doodad knows this. He slips something into Keepsie's pocket for safe keeping. And it's this one little act that gets Keepsie and her friends caught between the heroes and baddies.

I really wanted to enjoy this book. I did. It's been waiting for me on my Kindle for a while now, so I figured now would be a good time to read through it. But this story just did not sit well with me. For starters, there are simply too many characters. I could not keep track of them all, especially since they all had special powers. It wasn't until toward the end, when Lafferty started "culling the herd," so to speak, that I got a handle on everyone and what they could do.

The plot, such as it is, felt contrived and was put together rather poorly. I had most of it figured out before the characters did, which frustrated me (some of the answers seemed incredibly obvious to me). The dialogue was stilted and unrealistic.

What truly bugged me, though, (and this may not be Lafferty's fault) is the poor formatting on the Kindle. There was a complete lack of clean chapter breaks, hyphens disappeared from the text (meaning words that should have been hyphenated gotallrantogetherlikethis), and the margins jerked around painfully in places. By the time I finished this book, I suspected the book was self-published. It bears all the hallmarks.

In short, keep your money safe. Don't spend it on this one.

The Constantine Codex

2011-06-02T07:56:00.003-05:00

I really wanted to be excited about this book once I was done with it. But sadly, The Constantine Codex by Dr. Paul L. Maier turned out to be largely disappointing.

This is the third book in what you might call the Skeleton series. Dr. Jonathan Weber, a mainstay in Maier's books, is back with his wife, Shannon. The married archaeologists have stumbled on what could be a monumental discovery: in a dusty corner of a library in Istanbul is a codex, an ancient manuscript that might be part of a Bible commissioned by the Emperor Constantine, one of fifty mentioned by the church historian Eusebius. As great as that is, the codex contains two surprises that could bring about major changes to the Bible.

Small problem, though: the codex goes missing. Now the Webers must race against the clock to find it and prove that it is authentic.

Normally I love Maier's books, but this one fell really, really flat. Part of the reason why is because what I would consider the plot's inciting incident didn't occur until two-thirds of the way through the story. Everything up until that point seemed like needless set up and filler (especially a debate between Weber and a Muslim scholar; while informative, it felt tacked on). The whole time I was reading, I kept waiting for the story to truly get started. When it finally did, the whole thing felt rushed.

Also problematic for me was the fact that some of the material from the codex was lifted from one of Maier's previous novels, namely The Flames of Rome. While Flames is a phenomenal book, the material stood out in this one like a sore thumb.

In short, this could have been a great novel but sadly, it fell flat. I'm not saying I wouldn't read another Jonathan Weber novel (and in the ending, Maier left the door open for more), but I'd probably be less enthusiastic about it going in.

Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse

2011-06-01T20:51:00.003-05:00

For reasons I don't want to get into right now, I got a hankerin' recently for dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction. And so I did some digging on Amazon and I found Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse. And I am so glad that I did.

There are entries by Orson Scott Card, George R. R. Martin, and Stephen King. Each one discusses what life after a massive disaster would be like for the survivors. Just about every single one of them grabbed me and wouldn't let go.

Now I did skip two of them. I won't say which ones. One offended me just from the introductory remarks from the editor, and I decided my time would not be well served by reading it. The other, while it looked okay, just didn't interest me. I think it was a style thing.

But this was worth the time to read. Some top-shelf stuff here, folks.

Hero in Hiding

2011-05-26T23:11:00.003-05:00

I just got done reading Hero in Hiding, the second novel by Mitchell Bonds.

Cyrus Solburg is back and he's got quite the problem. As the titular hero in hiding, he and his bride, Kris, have to lay low. Voshtyr Demonkin, a malevolent Arch-Villain, has decimated the Heroes Guild and is searching for Cyrus to complete his nefarious P.L.O.T. Device. Cyrus must set out on a new adventure, one that will take him to far-flung corners and teach him new ways to be a hero.

I'm honestly not quite sure what I think of this one. It's an okay story, but the more I consider it, the more I'm unsure what to make of it all. The book is funny, no doubt about it. Bonds gleefully skewers a number of heroic and villainous tropes and there are quite a few laugh-out-loud funny moments as well. But it almost seems as if the plot were kind of scatter shot. It didn't feel as focused as the first book (which I reread before tackling this one).

In terms of theology, well, that's tricky too. While there is a supreme God called "the Creator," there are a number of lesser deities as well. It's a strange pantheon that left me scratching my head more than once. It's not a major concern or anything like that, it just struck me as odd.

I guess I'll have to reserve judgment, though, and see what the third book has to offer.

Wordcount Wednesday

2011-05-25T22:07:00.002-05:00

I almost didn't post this tonight.

As of right now, I'm at 50,393 words for Hive. That means I added 4,049 words this week. Not good, especially since my self-imposed deadline was supposed to be in six days and I've got a long way to go.

Shoot.

An Open Letter

2011-05-21T13:04:00.003-05:00

Well, here we are. We're about midway through Apocalypse Not. The rolling rapture, scheduled for 6:00 PM in every time zone, hasn't quite reached Minnesota yet but given the fact that I haven't seen any reports about people vanishing, I'm not too worried.

Actually, I was never too worried. As I've mentioned on previous occasions, I'm a strict and ardent amillennialist, so when I heard about Mr. Camping and his odd predictions (and especially how he got there), I wasn't all that concerned. As an amillennialist, I'm not big into the rapture, the 1,000 year reign of Christ, or any of that silliness. This video helps explain a little bit as to why:

I could go into more reasons as to why I don't believe in a pre- or mid-Tribulation rapture, but instead, I thought I would take this moment to share some thoughts that I've had over the past week or so, specifically three thoughts targeted to three distinct groups.

First of all, to the date-setters, of whom Mr. Camping is but the latest, I share this piece of advice: stop it. Stop it right now. Before you grab your calculators and handy dandy charts of things to come, remember what Jesus said: no one can know the date of His return. No matter how you try to spin your predictions to explain how you figured it out, remind yourself that many, many people have played this game before and you know what? They were all wrong! Every single last one of them. That may seem obvious, but it's worth pointing out. If you think you've figured out the date of Christ's return, whether it's by arcane mathematics or divine visions or because you saw the date burned onto toast, the odds are so incredibly against you actually being right, it's in your best interest to keep your mouth shut and your message off the digital billboard near my house or the shelf of my local Christian bookstore.

I'm even including those who try to create the map-with-no-names, such as Tim LaHaye or Hal Lindsey. Especially Mr. Lindsey, who has made at least two generic time frame predictions that I know of (in the '70s and again in 2000) and yet still has enough clout that people listen to him as some sort of authority.

Part of the reason I say this is because of the damage that date setters do. Can you imagine what Mr. Camping's true believers are going through right now? How many of them have had their faith irreparably shaken because they're going to have to face the world tomorrow? I'm actually worried we're going to hear about at least a few suicides because of this mess before it's all over. Not only that, but consider what these kind of ridiculous predictions do to the rest of us Christians. Thanks to Mr. Camping and his crew, people are delighting in rubbing every Christian's face in this failed prediction, even though the majority of us didn't take it seriously in the first place.

That actually brings me to the next group I wish to address: the atheists. This morning, when I logged on to Twitter, I saw the terms "rapture" and "Christians" was trending. When I clicked on the latter, the majority of the posts were how all of us Christians were fools, as if every single last Christian was out on a hill waiting for Jesus to show up. They were gleefully slapping around a mighty big paintbrush and, I gotta say, that doesn't reflect too well on any of you. Shall I assume that all atheists are insensitive jerks by the actions of those few? I know that's not the case. But quid pro quo. If you don't want us judging your particular belief set (or lack thereof) by the actions of the rude few, you might want to tone it down. Just saying.

And finally, to the rest of my brothers and sisters in Christ, the Christians. As I was looking at the gleeful jokes from non-believers on Twitter, I realized we have a serious PR problem. A massive one. It would appear that if the rapture were to happen the way the vocal minority of Christianity expects (i.e. all believers disappear), the reaction would be unrestrained joy.

Maybe it's time to take Jesus' words seriously, that we are to be salt and light in this fallen world, so that if, by some strange chance, we do all disappear someday, the reaction of the rest of the world is, "The light has gone out."

Just some food for thought.

Wordcount Wednesday

2011-05-18T21:47:00.001-05:00

I am disappointed with myself this week. I could make a lot of excuses, but I know that's all they are. Right now, Hive has reached 46,344 words. That means I've only added 6,796 words. So not good! Hopefully I can do better this week. We'll have to see.

CSFF Blog Tour: "The Ale Boy's Feast" Day Three

2011-05-18T07:00:00.002-05:00

So here we are, the final day of the tour surrounding The Ale Boy's Feast by Jeffrey Overstreet.

As I sat down to start reading this book just a few days ago, one of the things that I had to remind myself was that the Keeper is not God, Auralia is not Jesus, and that I shouldn't go looking for allegorical Christian connections in this book. I mean, I've made that mistake many times. Many, many times. So I was bound and determined, this time through, to keep an open mind, not slide into the simplistic x=y allegorical formula that's tripped me up in the past, and see what the story had to say.

And I'm proud to announce that I didn't have that problem. Instead, I came up with a new one.

Toward the middle of the book, I started to wonder, Is this book truly Christian?

But before we delve into that too deeply, let me just say . . .

Now I'm not questioning Jeffrey Overstreet's faith. Far from it. I've learned long ago that you can't do that, that only God knows what truly goes on in a person's heart, soul, and mind. But as the characters delved into the deeper meanings and mythology behind the Keeper(s) and their larger purpose in the Expanse, I started getting uncomfortable.

Part of it came from some discussions that Scharr ben Fray had with his brother Ryp or with Cal-raven. For example, in Chapter 10, Ryp and Scharr get into a discussion of the Keepers, how Cal-raven was taught to put his faith in it. Ryp observes that if Cal-raven discovers that his faith was founded on a lie, he might cling to it all the harder or let go and despair.

Scharr ben Fray's response worried me a little:

We see the suggestion of a shape among the stars. We give it a name, even though that shape is only a fiction. It's how we've always assembled our myths and our religions. We do this to comfort ourselves about all we do not understand. But surely this isn't an empty pursuit. If it helps us face the day, why fight it? We all choose stories in which to root ourselves. Why not choose the story that enables us to flourish?

Later on, while talking with Cal-raven, Scharr basically says the same sort of thing: it doesn't matter if what we believe is based on a lie, just so long as it is helpful. At least, that's how I read it.

Now maybe I had elevated Scharr ben Fray into something that he wasn't. In the previous three books, he seemed to fit the "wise wizard" archetype, the guy who speaks the deeper truths in a book. In The Ale Boy's Feast, he's definitely not that. At least, not from my perspective. But given that that seemed to be his role for the series, it stung a bit when he seemed to say that religions were built on myths that don't necessarily have to be true.

Can you understand why that made me just a tiny bit uncomfortable?

I'm relatively sure that Overstreet is not including Christianity in that description. I'm hoping that he isn't viewing the Bible as filled with myths that don't have to be true to be "true" in a deeper sense. If he is, then this isn't the most orthodox Christian books.

Which actually brings me to another problem I had with the overall series. Overstreet's central thesis seems to be that Art (with a big "A") is meant to point us to a deeper reality (which Overstreet calls "the mystery," an oblique reference to a divine figure). True beauty shows us that there is more to this world and can lift us beyond the pain and garbage of the world and help us find a connection to Someone Deeper.

And that is true, I suppose. Art can inspire us, uplift us, help us feel and experience a connection to God. But can Art help us overcome the garbage that keeps us from God?

The sad thing is, Overstreet's book, while true in a generic sense, didn't strike me as all that Christian. His "mystery" could be any sort of divine figure or even impersonal divine energy. I could see a lot of non-Christians read this book and agree with everything in it . . . and come away completely unchanged. Maybe I'm being overly critical, but that's where I wound up after finishing the series.

Now, having said that, let me reiterate: I did enjoy this book, as I did all the ones that came before it. Overstreet has a great sense for storytelling. His prose is lyrical. And he kept me guessing to the very end (and even beyond). I would gladly read whatever he writes next and I would eagerly anticipate it. But at the same time, there were a few areas where I felt this whole endeavor fell short.

Go and see what the other tourists have to say:

Gillian Adams
Red Bissell
Grace Bridges
Beckie Burnham
Morgan L. Busse
Valerie Comer
CSFF Blog Tour
Shane Deal
Chris Deane
Cynthia Dyer
Andrea Graham
Katie Hart
Ryan Heart
Bruce Hennigan
Jason Joyner
Carol Keen
Dawn King
Inae Kyo
Shannon McDermott
Shannon McNear
Karen McSpadden
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Eve Nielsen
Sarah Sawyer
Kathleen Smith
Donna Swanson
Rachel Starr Thomson
Robert Treskillard
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Dona Watson
Phyllis Wheeler

CSFF Blog Tour: "The Ale Boy's Feast" Day Two

2011-05-17T07:00:00.001-05:00

So in spite of painting our entire basement yesterday morning, I still found time to finish reading The Ale Boy's Feast by Jeffrey Overstreet. And I have to say, I'm glad I did. A lot of what Overstreet set up in the previous three books were resolved. Characters were reunited with loved ones or found resolution in their predicaments. Futures were hinted at. A lot of them died (a surprising number; I was beginning to wonder if this was written by Joss Whedon at one point). But in the end, I think I finally have a handle on the message that Overstreet has been trying to deliver.

And that's been a long time coming.

It seems every time we do a tour on one of his books, I wind up confused over who Auralia and the Keeper is. In the previous three books, I kept landing on a Christological meaning for Auralia and thinly-veiled allegory for the Keeper. Even though I was told that wasn't correct after the first time around, my mind kept drifting back to it. This time, I managed to restrain myself (the end of Raven's Ladder helped). And in the end, I think I'm okay with where we wound up.

Although, truth be told, there were some troubling statements that, left on their own, have me worried. But I'll delve into that tomorrow.

The upshot is that this was a satisfying conclusion to a really good series. I don't know if I'll ever get a chance to read them all from start to finish (my to-be-read pile is threatening to consume a good portion of our house at present). But I've certainly enjoyed my sojourn in the Expanse.

Go see what the other tourists have to say:

Gillian Adams
Red Bissell
Grace Bridges
Beckie Burnham
Morgan L. Busse
Valerie Comer
CSFF Blog Tour
Shane Deal
Chris Deane
Cynthia Dyer
Andrea Graham
Katie Hart
Ryan Heart
Bruce Hennigan
Jason Joyner
Carol Keen
Dawn King
Inae Kyo
Shannon McDermott
Shannon McNear
Karen McSpadden
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Eve Nielsen
Sarah Sawyer
Kathleen Smith
Donna Swanson
Rachel Starr Thomson
Robert Treskillard
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Dona Watson
Phyllis Wheeler

CSFF Blog Tour: "The Ale Boy's Feast" Day One

2011-05-16T07:00:00.004-05:00

I feel a little unready for this. Part of the reason was because I thought I was going to get a review copy of this month's book, namely The Ale Boy's Feast by Jeffrey Overstreet. So I kept waiting for it and waiting for it until I realized, about a week ago, that said review copy wasn't coming. So I put in a reserve at a nearby Barnes and Noble and ran to go get it. I am not complaining about the lack of review copy. I'm just saying I didn't get my hands on this book until recently. As of right now, I'm only about 2/3s of the way through the book and I'm not sure when I'll get it finished. My family and I are in the middle of a home improvement marathon (the actual work, not the TV show), so it might not be until Tuesday or even Wednesday.

So I figured what I'd do is talk about my raw impressions of the book. I have no idea how the many plot threads will finally tie together. I don't even know that they will.

My initial thought is that I should have started preparing for this final book in the Auralia's thread series a lot earlier than I did. I'm not talking about getting the book earlier. I mean I should have read the previous three. I only read Raven's Ladder a year ago, but apparently that was too long to trust my memory. I remember King Cal-Raven. I remember Scharr Ben Fray. I remember Krawg and Warney and Jordam and Cyndere. And I remember the titular ale boy. But all of the minor characters? Yeah, I don't remember most of them. Worse, I don't remember how most of those main characters were left at the end of the last book. The first third of this book left me completely lost and, I'll be honest, a little disgruntled. It's one thing to dump a reader mid-series into a plot with a few characters. It's entirely another when your cast numbers in the hundreds. Even now, I'm still not sure I know who everyone is, and that's problematic for me and, I would think, problematic from a craft stand-point. This means that absolutely no one can board the story late. Someone picking up this book would have absolutely no idea what is going on and, I think, would stop reading midway through.

That aside, I am liking what's happening. The stakes are high for the myriad characters and Overstreet's prose is excellent, as always. I just wish I wasn't so lost.

Well, come back tomorrow and see if I have any more thoughts rattling around in my brain. Maybe I'll be done by then, maybe I won't. We'll just have to see.

Go and check out what the other tourists have to say. Hopefully they all finished the book (unlike me):

Gillian Adams
Red Bissell
Grace Bridges
Beckie Burnham
Morgan L. Busse
Valerie Comer
CSFF Blog Tour
Shane Deal
Chris Deane
Cynthia Dyer
Andrea Graham
Katie Hart
Ryan Heart
Bruce Hennigan
Jason Joyner
Carol Keen
Dawn King
Inae Kyo
Shannon McDermott
Shannon McNear
Karen McSpadden
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Eve Nielsen
Sarah Sawyer
Kathleen Smith
Donna Swanson
Rachel Starr Thomson
Robert Treskillard
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Dona Watson
Phyllis Wheeler