Sands of Time

Another free book from the ACFW conference down, one to go.

While the book cover describes this as a "thriller", I would say what the spine says is slightly more accurate: "a romantic suspense". Don't get me wrong, the plot, involving smuggling enriched uranium from a former Soviet republic is definitely thrilling, but that plot is secondary to the love story at the heart of this book between FSB agent Roman Novik and missionary Sarai Curtiss.

Sands of Time would appear to be an installment in a series of books with these characters. There were many references to action that took place in the past, so much so that I had the feeling I should be more familiar with them. Don't get me wrong, Susan May Warren does an exemplary job getting the reader up to speed; I really didn't need to read the former books. She brings in the backstory in ways that don't overwhelm the current plot.

It turns out that Roman and Sarai have a history together. She left him thirteen years prior due to Roman's choice of career. Now a coup in Irkutia brings them back together. What information does Sarai have that makes Governor Bedlov want her dead? And can Roman protect her when she is convinced she doesn't need a hero?

Take what I'm about to say with a grain of salt. After all, I'm a guy who just read what is essentially a romance novel, even if it is one with some pretty decent action. The book was enjoyable. I really appreciated what Warren had to say about the Christian vocation (the tension between Sarai and Roman over his career as a soldier highlighted the issue nicely), but Sarai bugged me. A lot. She struck me as very unreasonable at times. Not only that, but the ending felt a little too pat for my tastes. Things got wrapped up a little too quickly. Again, this might be because of that's the way romantic suspense is written; I just wanted a little more action.

If you're into romantic suspense, you probably can't do better than Sands of Time.

The Leader's Song's structure - Three or Two?

As if the strange fork-in-the-road I'm facing regarding genres isn't enough, I also have been debating the structure of my sci-fi trilogy, The Leader's Song. In some ways, it might need a massive overhaul to its structure. In other ways, it might be fine the way it is.

Here's the deal. I mentioned my one-sentence summary in a previous post: "A pastor unearths an alien who is searching for grace." That both describes the first book and the overall plot of the trilogy very well. My problem is this: there's both a modern part of the story and a part that spans centuries of ancient history.

Currently, the trilogy is structured like this:

• The Leader's Song: The Rune Enigma -- The modern story starts. About half-way through the book, everything shifts. The modern story is put on hold so the ancient story can unfold.
• The Leader's Song: Exile -- The ancient story resumes where it left off. There is a break to hop back into the modern story about halfway through before going back to the ancient story. When the ancient story winds down, the modern story takes over again.
• The Leader's Song: Return to the Fold -- The last book follows the modern story to its end, but major pieces of what happened in the ancient story color what happens from here on out.

I know those descriptions are kind of generic, but hey, I don't want to give away the entire plot for free, do I?

So you probably see my dilemma. I start the modern story, I put it on pause so the ancient story can play out, then resume the modern story again.

Why did I structure it like this? Well, a couple of reasons. First of all, when I first wrote this story, I wrote it as one long book. After I finished, I realized that it was simply too long and had to be divided up into three parts.

Second, I thought this structure might be a good way to "ease" the reader into the world I created. Rather than just dump them into a world with aliens, I thought I would slowly reveal what's going on ... and then dump them into a world with aliens.

Third, this is the way the idea kind of unfolded for me when I was brainstorming and I never really questioned the way it was.

So why am I questioning it now? Well, as I was getting ready for the ACFW Conference, one of the things I did was get a paid critique from Jeff Gerke of my novel proposal. Mr. Gerke has served as an editor at various Christian publishing houses and is known as an advocate and champion for sci-fi and fantasy. He was very helpful but one of the things he commented on was the structure of my trilogy. He thought it was a bit convoluted. Instead, he suggested dividing the two stories into separate books: the ancient story and the modern story.

A few other people have commented that it might be better to do that as well. A few have said that it's silly to try to ease the reader into the story since it's almost like I'm trying to hide the fact that aliens are involved, something that will be boldly proclaimed either in the cover art or on the back cover copy. I can see where these people are coming from and I've even put some thought into what I would have to do to restructure everything. It could be done.

So why am I so hesitant to do it? A couple of reasons:

First of all, while people have said I should restructure, just as many people have said to leave it the way it is. That's part of my confusion right there.

Second, if I were to restructure, it would wreck big chunks of the modern story. Part of the modern story includes a mystery that could shake Christianity to its very core. A sthe ancient story plays out, it kind of tweaks the mystery a little before a big shocking reveal at the end of the second book (which sets up a nice cliffhanger that I hope is very "Luke, I am your father"-ish). If I restructure the book, the mystery loses its oomph because the reader will know what's going on, thereby taking the teeth out of part of the plot. To be honest, it's what the restructuring would do to the modern story that makes me hesitate the most. I'm not sure how it would play out or even if it could as well as it has.

Third, I'm a little lazy and am scared by the amount of work that would go into the rewrite. There, I said it. This doesn't mean that I wouldn't do the work if I think it'll help; I will. I'm just hesitant to expend all that effort if it isn't really necessary.

I suppose I'll just have to wait and see what Steve Laube and Andy Meisenheimer have to say about it. I'm still waiting to hear from them and probably will be waiting for a while. That's okay. It'll give me more time to mull it all over.

More ACFW Ruminations

Turns out it wasn't that I hit the word limit for the blog. I ran into some HTML problems that I don't fully understand. Oh well.

Anyway, on with my ACFW ruminations.

Third, I was amazed at how God was ready to give me little boosts throughout the conference. For example, after finding out that Bethany House is closed to sci-fi, I was feeling pretty glum. Part of it was a death of a dream -- for six years now, one of my daydreams has been to add to Bethany's impressive sci fi resume with my own trilogy. It was kind of hard to see that dream die. Part of it was also frustration with myself for not doing my homework and wasting one appointment. So as I'm feeling blue and rather down on myself and my story, I walked into my Early Bird appointment.

The Early Bird session at ACFW was a definite plus. Colleen Coble and Deborah Raney led this session. Basically the idea was that authors could send them their works-in-progress and have them critique what they were doing. Then in the actual session, we would discuss each others stories and brainstorm about how to pump up the conflict, where to take the stories, that sort of thing. Some of us signed up for small group brainstorming sessions and mine was on Friday afternoon.

So there I am, trudging into hospitality suite 1239, feeling pretty down on myself and my writing. I sit down and the first words out of Deborah and Colleen's mouths were, "We loved this story!" It perked me right up and kept me going.

The same sort of thing happened on Saturday. I had a paid critique with Bryan Davis. He basically "bled all over" the first twelve pages of my book and pointed out some problematic areas. But he too liked the concept of the story and our chat was a great boost for me.

Fourth, I now find myself at a sort of crossroads. Sort of. The one thing I took away from the conference about the current Christian market is the fact that it's pretty much closed to sci-fi. That's not to say that it'll be closed forever but it certainly is right now. That seems to be the bad news. The good news is that while very few Christian publishing houses are looking for fantasy, they won't automatically slam their doors to it either.

So what do I do? I have a Christian sci-fi trilogy, The Leader's Song, that is pretty much complete (the second and third books need some hammering; the first, just some polishing). I've been mulling over another sci-fi book that I'm tentatively calling The Dragon's Heart. While at the conference, I had another sci-fi idea that needs quite a bit of work but could be fun. So I guess on the one hand, I can continue to write books that may never sell.

On the other hand, I do have one or two fantasy ideas that aren't Christian. I've been mulling over one of them for two or three years now and I think I may be ready to start writing it soon. I wish there was some way to inject some Christianity into it, but honestly, I'm not sure how I could. I do have an idea for a fantasy trilogy but that still needs quite a bit of brainstorming to get ready and I'm a bit hesitant to do that.

On the third hand, part of me thinks the way to go is to ditch sci-fi and fantasy for a while. I started a speculative biography about Joesph Caiaphas about a year ago that kind of petered out. I also recently had an idea for a murder mystery set in Slovakia that could be kind of fun (but may not work; it depends upon what conditions in Slovakia were like during the Communist regime). I figured maybe I could make a shift into some different genres, try to get published there, and then go back to sci-fi if/when I become a more established writer. The problem with this is simple: I only have these two non-sci-fi/fantasy ideas. What do I do after these?

I'm really not sure what to do. Do I continue to stumble down the sci-fi path? Do I hop over to the fantasy path? Do I do a complete 180 and go down a path I've never really traveled before? Hmmmm. Well, if you're a reader of my blog or just stumbled on it on your way to something more interesting, please feel free to leave a comment or a suggestion.

Tomorrow I may post another dilemma I've been dealing with lately, namely the structure of The Leader's Song trilogy.

More ACFW Thoughts

I've been keeping track of what others have written about the ACFW conference, especially reading the day-by-day (almost blow-by-blow account) of my conference mentor Shannon McNear (I'm even mentioned twice in her accounts). Now that it's been almost a week and a half since I've gotten home and I've caught up on my sleep, I figured maybe I would share some more thoughts about it all.

I'm not sure why I haven't been giving it more thought. I think part of it is that the minute I got back to Blue Earth, there was a ton of things to deal with (a parishioner about to cross the Jordan, Jill's best friend's wedding to attend, the usual rigamarol of being a pastor, plus that big "other issue" in my life that I'm still not prepared to discuss at length). I had to dive back into my somewhat regular routine with both feet and haven't had a lot of down time to really process through what I went through. Now, though, let's see here.

For starters, I'm definitely not sorry that I went. It was a very good, very uplifting experience. Like I said before, it was heartening to see that there were a lot of fantasy and sci-fi writers out there trying to crack open the Christian market. Maybe not as many as the romance or mystery writers, but it seemed like every day, more and more of us came out of the woodwork. I even stumbled over a few. Or, rather, they sought me out. Perhaps it's because, as Shannon said, I'm TALL and I was wearing this around my neck:


Second, in some ways, the conference was a bit discouraging. But I guess that goes hand-in-hand with writing sci-fi and fantasy. The good news that I kept hearing is that some publishing houses are beginning to open ever-so-slightly to fantasy. The bad news is the same isn't happening with sci-fi.

Why is that a big deal? Well, let me share the pitch line I had printed on the back of my snazzy business cards:

"A pastor unearths an alien who is searching for grace."

See the problem? Yeah, me too. My encounters with editors and agents was not always encouraging. Dave Long from Bethany House informed me that Bethany was pretty much closed to sci-fi. Steve Laube said that the market was pretty much closed to it as well, although I enjoyed our chat as he shared some stories about the Firebird trilogy.

Now, all is not lost. I was able to send a proposal for said book (actually, for said sci-fi trilogy) to Steve Laube and Andy Meisenheimer of Zondervan and I'm waiting for their replies. I have a feeling it'll be "Thanks, but no thanks", but that's okay. At least I'm in crash position for it.

I seem to have hit my blog's outer limits for length. Tomorrow, more thoughts and maybe I'll even post about the writing dilemma I seem to be facing post-Conference.

Embrace Grace

Another free book from the ACFW Conference down, two more to go (plus the three that I actually bought). Yes, I have a stack of books in my den that are calling me to read them. Heck of it is, I even bought two more this past weekend. I know, I know, it's a sickness!

But on to the book, Embrace Grace. It was good. How's that for a review? Ha!

In all seriousness, I looked forward to reading this book after hearing Liz Curtis Higgs speak at the ACFW conference. She was phenomenal. Lots of humor, lots of insight, plus a few details that I'm going to steal for sermons in the future. Yes, every pastor does it. It's just that not all of us admit to it.

Grace is essentially a book written about the conversion experience. It encourages the reader to embrace doubt, faith, truth, sin, forgiveness, repentance, and grace as they move from a state of unbelief and "lost in sinness" into a forgiven lifestyle.

I really enjoyed what I read. The chapter that surprised me the most was "Embrace Sin". Just the title alone caught me off guard, but as I read it, I remembered the old Martin Luther quote that we snotty Lutheran pastors like to throw around ... "Sin boldly!" Liz basically repeats what Martin said so many years ago. Hey, truth is truth.

What made me chuckle was when I was in line to get my copy signed by Liz. She asked who the book was for and I said it was me. She smiled at me and told me to ignore the fact that when she addresses the readers, she refers to them as women. And, as a rule, she does. I told her I didn't mind, especially since the New Testament basically contains nothing but references to "brothers". I figured turn-about is fair play!

So there you have it. It was a good book and a quick read. Always two good qualities.

Violet Dawn

Normally I wouldn't read a mystery. It's just not my style. But there were several reasons why I read this one. For starters, I got it for free. Yes, I know, that's a lousy reason to read a book, but it was a definite factor. I got it when I registered at the ACFW conference along with a few other books in genres I normally don't venture into. As odd as it sounds, once I get a book, I tend to make sure to read it, even if I normally wouldn't, even if the experience isn't that good.

Not to worry, though, Violet Dawn by Brandilyn Collins was a joy to read. It had me hooked from the beginning, when poor Paige Williams finds a dead body in her hot tub, to the last page where ... well, you really don't expect me to give it all away, do you? I mean, if finding a dead body in your hot tub isn't enough to get you reading, then I don't know what will.

Honest to goodness, this book was in my hand just about every chance I had. When I was playing yet another game on Civilization IV, I had only one eye on the screen. As I was watching TV, I wasn't really paying attention, I was hip deep in Kanner Lake, trying to figure out what was going to happen to poor Paige. It really helped that Brandilyn kept the chapters short. Short chapters always sucker me into reading a book; I always wind up muttering, "Just one more, just one more."

What really got my attention, though, is that this book is a little different from other Christian fiction I've read. Most Christian fiction includes, for lack of a better term, a "come to Jesus" moment, where one of the non-Christian characters ... well, comes to Jesus. You know what I mean. Or, if that doesn't happen, the spiritual aspects of the story are basically right there in the foreground. I'm not saying that either of these things are bad. Given the way I write Christian fiction, I'd be a hypocrite to say that it was.

That's why Brandilyn's subtlety with Christianity was kind of a refreshing change. A few of the characters in the book are Christians. There is an over-all Christian theme to the book. But we're not beaten over the head with it. It made for a fun, breezy read.

So will I venture back to Kanner Lake? More than likely, I will. I mean, it was a great town to visit. I think it'd be fun to go back again.

Oh, and of course, I can't forget one of the main reasons why I read this book first (since I came back from ACFW with seven books). The reason is S-Man. A minor character in the book, but a really cool and awesome guy in real life. Stuart, thanks for letting a newbie tag along with you for so much of ACFW.

Plague of Terror

I really wanted to like this book. I really, really did.

I mean, this book was written by an LCMS pastor. I thought that was really cool because it's my dream to become a published LCMS pastor as well. But the more I read Plague of Terror, the more disappointed I became.

The premise of the story was interesting: terrorists release a fast-acting virus upon an unsuspecting world, pitching everyone and everything into chaos. The book itself follows three siblings, a doctor, a radio DJ, and a pastor, as they try to deal with this horrific plague and manage falling in love. There's the added mystery of a strange man that pops in and out of their lives.

In many ways, this book reminds me of Ted Dekker's Circle Trilogy and Frank Peretti's two angel books. To put it bluntly, Dekker and Peretti do it better. This was not an enjoyable read. If nothing else, Anderson's book taught me a few things about writing Christian fiction:

1) Show, don't tell. You hear this a lot in writing books. At least, I have. Now I understand why it's so important. In many cases, Anderson tells us about things. He doesn't show us through what his characters do or say. It made it boring to read.

2) Watch your Point-Of-View. Anderson had us jumping inside one person's head and then into another person's head and then into a sort of omniscient narrarator P.O.V. It made the book less enjoyable. Rather than see the world through the eyes of one character at a time, you never knew whose eyes we'd be looking through.

What really got frustrating was the times that Anderson "pulled back the curtain", so to speak, to allow us to see what was happening on the spiritual plane between angels and demons. He could have learned a lesson from Frank Peretti on this. Peretti did it right: when he shifted into the spiritual realm, he broke from the scene he had been writing. This allowed the readers to make the shift with him and it wasn't jarring when angels or demons popped into the story.

Anderson doesn't do that. We'll be going along, following people in the moral plane, when suddenly BAM! There's a paragraph out of nowhere about what the angels are up to. But then we're back with the humans again immediately afterward.

Another thing that Anderson could have learned from Peretti would have been to give the angels and demons names and personalities. As it was, I didn't really care. As a matter of fact, I think he could have just as easily cut all the scenes from the supernatural P.O.V. and the story would have been better.

Which brings us to the next point...

3) If it doesn't move the plot forward, cut it. I mentioned that there were three siblings in this book, right? Only two of them related to the main plot of the story, namely the doctor and the pastor. Both had major parts to play. The radio DJ and her love interest contributed very little the main storyline about the virus. Once I finished reading the book, I seriously questioned why she was even included in the story at all.

Actually, there seemed to be a lot of unnecessary padding in this book. There were scenes that were tossed in there for seemingly no reason. In one case, I thought that something truly horrible had happened to one of the heroes, only to have him pop up a couple chapters later and be just fine. In another case, there were some scenes set in Iran that didn't really seem necessary.

I could go on, but you get the idea. It wasn't a bad concept; it was just executed poorly. Hopefully Anderson's future efforts will be better.

There's more of us than I realized!

One of the nice things about going to the ACFW Conference is that I realized there were a lot more of us sci-fi/fantasy writers than I realized. Here's a picture we took at our Thursday night get-together:

The really cool thing is that sci-fi and fantasy writers kept popping out of the woodwork as the conference progressed. It's good to know there's more of us out there!

The ACFW Conference

So late last night, I got back to Blue Earth from the American Christian Fiction Writers' annual conference in Dallas. All in all, it was a good experience. I went to several classes that were very helpful, but there were some things I learned about writing and about myself:

1) Make sure your information is up-to-date. One of the things you can do at the ACFW conference is go to appointments with editors from various Christian publishing houses. I signed up for one, hoping to pitch my Christian sci-fi trilogy. I figured it would be a good fit with the house in question because they had a track record of publishing Christian sci-fi and fantasy.

Boy-howdy, was I wrong.

Turns out my information was several years out of date. The editor who championed the sci-fi books I enjoyed reading had left long ago to become an agent. Therefore the house wasn't looking for sci-fi and was closed to it. So I basically wasted that appointment. Thankfully the editor was very polite about it and offered a few suggestions about what to do, but it still kind of stung, especially since it was my own fault. Oh well. Live and learn.

2) Don't burn your bridges. I actually learned this from observing someone else.

I made another mistake at the conference. I approached the wrong guy with my pitch (not the editor I mentioned in number one) and he politely told me he wasn't interested. A few nights later, a bunch of us were sitting around chatting in the hotel lobby and this individual joined our group. He then mentioned that several people had approached him with their pitches and then made fun of us for doing so. Needless to say, I was a little torked that he did that.

So I learned a lesson: you never know who is going to overhear the negative things you say or who might stumble into a blog. That's why I'm not saying who this individual is. Let's just say that even if he eventually wanted to work with me, I would not want to work with him.

3) I'm definitely a traditionalist when it comes to worship. Meaning that I have to have a liturgy and traditional hymns if I'm going to consider it worship. Enough said about that.

4) I hope I can go back to ACFW again next year. I had a blast at the conference. I made some new friends, got to connect with people I only knew from their blogs or the ACFW forums, and even garnered a few compliments for my writing (which really helped buoy me up, especially after learning lessons #1 and #2).

In short, while it's good to be home, I'm really glad that I went.

The Secret Life of Becky Miller

I never thought in a million years that I would read a "chick-lit" book. I would have never guessed that I would enjoy it either.

I figured that I would take a look at The Secret Life of Becky Miller after I heard about its LCMS connection. Yes, denominational loyalty goes a long way with me. I wasn't sure what I would find exactly. I had never read chick-lit or "Mom-lit" before.

The story was instantly engaging. Becky Miller is a stay-at-home mom who is trying desperately to stay ahead of the game. She's trying to balance three young children (one of whom has health issues), her husband's work woes, her somewhat eccentric friends, and especially her desire to do Big Things for God. Unfortunately, Becky's plans never seem to work out quite like she planned. For every step she seems to take toward her goal, she's forced to take several backwards. For every door that God closes, it seems like He slams shut two windows. It seems like whenever Becky hits rock bottom, she's tossed a shovel and told to keep digging....

I trust you get the idea.

Hinck weaves several threads through the overall plot: Becky's desire to work full-time for her congregation's women's ministry, an impending article for Women of Vision magazine, just to name two. The chapters are short which is a definite plus, seeing as I was always tempted to "read just one more, read just one more" (hence why I finished this in a day and a half). Hinck's writing made me laugh out loud on more than one occasion and yes, I even teared up on two occasions (get to the twist toward the end and see how dry-eyed you remain, those who judge me!).

Will I read any chick-lit again? I'm guessing the answer is no. But I certainly am looking forward to Hinck's Restorer series!

Settling Accounts: Drive to the East

Just last night, I finished reading Settling Accounts: Drive to the East by Harry Turtledove. Turtledove is the master of counterfactual historical fiction. In other words, Turtledove takes history, changes something about it, and then susses out how that might have made things different.

Drive to the East is the latest in a long series of books that Turtledove wrote along this counterfactual line: what if the Confederate States of America won the Civil War and became their own country? He started this series with How Few Remain (a book that I haven't read). I started reading when the series took up World War I. Turtledove reckoned that the South would be allied with Britain and France while the North would ally itself with the Kaiser in Germany.

Since I started reading this book, the North has won World War I, subjecting the Confederates to a crushing set of conditions for peace. They've also wrested Canada away from British control and occupied it. But what's truly interesting is what happened in the South. Embittered by the South's defeat in the Great War, a man named Jake Featherston wrote a scathing book in which he blamed the big-wigs in Richmond for the loss as well as the African American people (not the word used in any of these books) who rebelled against the CSA as well. Jake eventually joins a new political party, the Freedom Party, which eventually takes over the country with Jake as its president.

Yes, that's right, in this alternate timeline, the Nazis rise in the southern United States and then start World War II with the North.

When Drive to the East picks up, the offensive of the CSA had smashed through US lines, driving up through Ohio to Lake Erie, dividing the US in half. Now they're threatening to march east, eventually destroying Pittsburg. The USA has to counter that threat and quickly or else they'll lose the war.

The plot is a lot more complicated than that, of course. One thing about this series is that Turtledove slathers on the characters. I wouldn't say it's a cast of thousands, but it's pretty darn close! In some ways, it's understandable why he does that: you need that many people to keep up with all the action that takes place in this alternate time-line. You need someone to describe the war in the Pacific and Atlantic; you need people to describe the inner-workings of both the USA and CSA's governments. You need the perspective of the African American people who are rounded up and taken to concentration camps for "population reduction". The problem is, Turtledove piles on so many people that it's a little tricky to keep up with them all.

There were two other things that bothered me as I read this book. First of all, Turtledove is extremely repetitive in his writing. He kept using the same phrases over and over and over, often using them, almost word for word every other page. Worse, if one character had a massive revelation about something, you could almost guarantee that at least three others would have the exact same revelation within a dozen pages and that Turtledove would almost repeat it word for word.

The other thing that bothered me is that Turtledove seems to assume that his readers have very short memories. Perhaps its because he loads up his story with so many characters. It seemed like he had to expound on his characters' backstories every other time we encountered them. At the beginning of the book, that's helpful. It had been a while since I'd read one of his books in this series and I needed the refresher. But when I'm three-quarters of the way through the book, I don't need to be reminded for the fourth time that Yossel Rosen is Flora Blackford's nephew or that Sergeant Michael Pound has been in the Army since the Great War. I know that already.

But while I was annoyed with those two things, it's not enough to keep me from reading the next book in the series. After all, I need to see who figures out how to make a uranium bomb first, the US or the Confederates. My money's on the US, but with Turtledove, you just never know.

Inspiration Strikes

So I went for a haircut today and came away with an idea for a short story.

I've been putting off getting a trim for a while now. I wanted to time things so that I could get one right before I went to the ACFW conference so I could look my best. Problem is, my hair grew a little faster than I expected and it was beginning to bug me.

The man who normally cuts my hair is sick, so I decided I would try out a hairstyling place in downtown Blue Earth. As the lady got me ready and quizzed me about how I wanted things cut, I noticed her coffee mug:

Blessed are the hairstylists, for they bring out the beauty in others.

Uh huh. Don't remember that in the Beatitudes.

But as my hair was falling to the floor, the sentiment on the mug got me thinking. A hairstylist can certainly bring out the outer beauty in someone, but that usually won't lead to inner beauty. As a matter of fact, it would normally lead to....

Inspiration struck. I have at least the beginning of a short story. Now I just need to find an end for it.

Crown of Fire

I just finished reading the last of the Firebird trilogy, namely Crown of Fire.

Firebird's story concludes in this volume as she is called back to her homeworld of Netaia. Due to her older sister's abdication of the Netaian throne, Firebird will be confirmed as an heir in the Angelo family. But Firebird and Brennen are really setting a trap for their deadly enemies, the Shuhr, in hopes of destroying the threat of Three Zed.

At the same time, though, the Shuhr are setting an ambush of their own. Will Firebird, Brennen, and the Sentinels succeed with the Speaker's help? Or will the Shuhr destroy the only thing standing between them and complete domination of the Whorl?

No, I didn't steal that summary from the back cover of the book. It kind of stinks; I can sum up someone else's book, but write a synopsis for something I wrote and it's like pulling teeth....

I digress, sorry.

Like the other two books in this trilogy, Crown of Fire is excellent and sets the standard for all Christian sci-fi. Tyers does a masterful job blending faith with sci-fi. If you're looking for a great Christian story, you can't go wrong with the Firebird trilogy, especially since you can get all three books in one volume now. I just saw it at my local library today.

* * * *

One of my friends commented recently on my blog that I seem to be doing a lot of reading lately. That's true. I have been. I'm not exactly sure why. I suspect that part of the reason is because I'm trying to charge up my writing batteries. I've noticed (and I'm sure any authors who may have stumbled onto my little niche of the blogosphere can attest to this as well) that when I haven't read that much, I have a hard time writing.

Well, lately, I haven't been doing that much writing, even though I've been doing a lot of reading. I'm not sure what the problem is.

Part of it, I think, is the fact that I'm getting ready for the ACFW conference. I'll be pitching my own sci-fi trilogy, or at least the first book of it. Getting everything ready (one-sheets, business cards, four copies of a full proposal just in case) has been attention consuming, especially on top of my duties as a pastor.

Part of it is distraction from another situation that I can't discuss here. At least, not yet. How's that for suspense building?

Whatever the case, I think I took some good strides tonight. Jill and I went to Mankato to pick up my business cards for the conference and to release some books into the wild. As we were wandering the River Hills Mall, some elements dropped into place for a story that I've been mulling over for a while. I've also been doing some brainstorming on another Christian sci-fi book and I may be ready to start working on it. I'm even thinking of using the Snowflake Method to see if that will help.

Anyway, hopefully my super-saturation of literature over the past couple of weeks has helped me get ready for some great writing. We'll just have to wait and see.

We're Slowly Taking Over!

It's been an interesting 24 hours for me. If I were one to try to read into things, I'd think that perhaps Someone was trying to send me a sign.

As my profile says, I'm a proud member of The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. I've belonged to this denomination all my life and I can't imagine myself ever leaving. Well, that's not entirely true, but that's a discussion for another day.

As you also know if you've read my blog for a while, I'm also an unpublished author. Up until today, I thought that there weren't that many LCMS authors out there. 24 hours ago, I was aware of only one, Dr. Paul L. Maier, author of my favorite book. I always thought that if I were to be published, I would be a rarity: an LCMS author.

Turns out, we're not as rare as I thought.

Yesterday I sent out a mass e-mail update to my family and friends. I mentioned in the update that I would be attending the ACFW Conference in Dallas. Shortly thereafter, my Uncle Paul wrote back to me and said, "You know, the LCMS pastor in Fairmont (a town about twenty miles to the west of where I live) is a Christian author. He's had some stuff published."

I was stunned. I've met this man and never knew! So I did some digging and sure enough, there he was. I made a mental note that the next time I saw him, I'd have to pick his brains a little.

But the hits just keep on coming! Jill's Mom occasionally will send Jill articles from the Minneapolis paper or other sources. Today, Jill received a copy of the Concordia Academy - Bloomington Highlights, the newsletter of her high school alma mater. The front page story?

The Secret's Out: Author and Lancer alumna keeps focus on faith, faimly, in 'Secret Life of Bekcy Miller' novel

Turns out this lady wrote a speculative fiction piece about a daydreaming housewife. That piqued my interest. After all, speculative fiction is the broad umbrella term for stuff like sci-fi and fantasy, things I'm keenly interested in. I read about the "Mom-lit" book she wrote, but then I hit a paragraph that made me sit up and take notice:

Hinck plans to continue her writing and has additional books already in the works. Sharon's eyes light up when she speaks about the first book she wrote which will be published as part of the Restorer series by NavPress in June 2007. The series, with some analogies to the story of Deborah from the book of Judges, tells the story of a woman who is "pulled into a world waiting for a promised restorer."

I just about flipped. I had heard about this already! One of the wonderful folks in the ACFW forum, Mir, posted a story about how Jeff Gerke, then an editor at NavPress, acquired this book through Steve Laube, a literary agent. So I knew this speculative fiction book was in the works; I had no idea it was written by an LCMS author!

So I guess, if I'm fortunate enough to get published in the near or not-so-near future, that I won't be the only or even one of the few LCMS authors. But hey, that's all right. There's strength in numbers.

Fusion Fire

Late last night, I finished reading the second book of Kathy Tyers' Firebird trilogy, Fusion Fire. It actually kept me up later than I wanted or should have been up. I'm paying for finishing this great book today. A little sleepy.

This book continues the story of Lady Firebird from the first book. She has married the Sentinel who saved her at the battle of Veroh, Brennen Caldwell, and, as we join Firebird, we discover that she's pregnant with twin boys. But Tyers doesn't hesitate to thrust Firebird into danger. It turns out that Firebird and Brennen have been targeted by the Shuhr, the Sentinels' distant cousins who are not guided by the Sentinels' ethics. Think Sith to the Sentinel's Jedi, and you get the basic idea.

But the Shuhr aren't the only thing threatening Firebird's relationship. Firebird discovers she's carrying a horrendous secret, one that could steal all the happiness from her life, especially as Brennen travels to Three Zed, the home base of the Shuhr, to rescue Firebird's estranged sister, Phoena. Then there's the political machinations of occupied Netaia to deal with ... well, just writing about it makes me want to go home and start reading Crown of Fire, the last book of the trilogy. I won't, though, because I don't want another late night tonight.

This is a good continuation of the story and starts to build on the foundations forged in the first book. Since this is the second time I read it, I was surprised at how much I misremembered. I originally thought that the Shuhr were an invention of the second book. Having read Firebird, I realized that Tyers dropped some major hints about their involvement in the storyline. I also had to wrestle with sympathy for a character named Ellet Kinsman. Before I reread Fusion Fire, I thought she wound up badly abused in the story. Now I have little sympathy for her. Read the book; you'll probably see what I'm talking about.

What resonated most strongly for me was Firebird's struggle with the concept of evil. It's not just the big quesiton of "Why does God permit evil?", although Firebird certainly dives into that philosophical tangle. Firebird must also struggle with the more personal question of "Am I evil?" That resonated quite strongly for me. I mean, hey, I'm a pastor, I know what the Bible says about original sin and such, but even I have to admit that I'd rather think that I'm a good guy deep, deep down. Firebird struggles with that idea as well and it helps move the plot along.

Rereading this book also makes me curious. Like I said, the first two books of this trilogy were originally written as secular science fiction. Tyers was able to go back and weave Christian concepts more tightly into the plot and republish them. I've only read the Christian version. After seeing how tightly woven Christian concepts are into this story, it makes me wonder what the original looked like. I'm not sure I'd be able to find an original version, nor am I sure I'd really want to read it. It just has me curious.

Anyway, one more Firebird story to go. At least, one more to go before Kathy finishes her current work-in-progress. Then I guess I'll have to look forward to more sleepless nights.

Firebird

(AKA Trojan Horse for the Force Part II)


As promised, I went back after finishing DragonKnight and I've started Kathy Tyers' Firebird trilogy, starting with, appropriately enough, Firebird. Like I said before, this book is the reason I read Christian Sci-Fi/Fantasy at all. Simply put, this is one of the best.

Firebird is the story of Firebird Angelo, the third-born daughter of the ruling family of a planet called Netaia. Because of her position in her family, Firebird is what's known as a "wastling". She is a back-up heir for her mother, the queen of Netaia. Should anything happen to her two older sisters, Firebird would be able to assume the throne. But as soon as her older sister, Carradee, gives birth to her second daughter, Firebird's life is forfeit and she will be expected to die for Netaia. In Firebird's case, this death will come during an invasion of a planet called Veroh.

Firebird's plans, however, don't work out when she is captured by Veroh's defenders, members of the Federacy, a galaxy-spanning government. More specifically, she's captured by Brennen Caldwell, an ace pilot on the fast track to the High Command of the Federacy. Brennen is also a Sentinel, a member of an ancient and somewhat secretive religious order. Brennen surprises Firebird by not only treating her with great dignity and respect, but by insisting that she not throw her life away for Netaia. Why would he do that?

Well, you're gonna need to read the book to find out!

The one thing I noticed during this second re-reading is how closely parallel some of the concepts of this story are to another epic space opera set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. The Sentinels especially sound like Christianized Jedi more than once. But that's not necessarily a bad thing; it gives readers a "point of contact" that allows them to slip into the story a bit easier. They're dealing with familiar concepts with a not-so-subtle twist. Hence my "Trojan Horse for the Force" comment.

Tyers does a marvelous job working with this story and she really captures the emotional content of Firebird's journey from death to new life. You won't be disappointed with this one.

As for me, now it's on to the next book, Fusion Fire.

Accepted

Tonight, Jill and I had to take a trip to Fairmont to get her a new cell phone. Hers died last weekend, most likely because her contract expired and the phone company wanted us to buy a new one. So we decided as long as we were in town, we might as well take in a movie.

The movie we took in was Accepted. In the interest of all fairness, I went into this with very low expectations. Sure, the commercials looked funny, but that's the job of advertising executives. The fact that the previews included one for a certain movie made me worried that what we were about to see was going to be very, very low-brow.

In some ways, it was. I mean, all you have to do is consider the name of the fake college that's created by our intrepid hero, Bartleby Gaines (yes, that's his real name): the South Harmon Institute of Technology. Well, maybe not the name. The initials then. Figure it out yourself. They make liberal use of the initials almost to the point of eye rolling.

There were also some logical lapses in the plot, which in some ways was entirely predictable. I know one of my faults is that I overanalyze movies too much, but there was one glaring plot hole that just did not make sense to me at all. After careful consideration, I won't share what it is. It does kind of give away big chunks of the early plot, so I'll leave it to my intrepid readers to suss out what the plot hole was.

But now onto why I left the theater with a big smile on my face. First of all, the movie was fun. It was. Predictable or not, the story was a fun ride. I'll give you an example to look forward to. If you're paying attention, you won't be all that surprised by the way the movie ends. But it was still a great ending nonetheless.

Second, Justin Long did a fantastic job in this movie. At least, I thought he did. He evoked a sort of new millennium Ferris Bueller in his performance. He did seem to rely on slapstick gags a bit too much, but it was enough to truly drive me bonkers. It's almost enough for me to overlook those abominable Mac commercials.

Third, Lewis Black was a stitch every time I saw him. Loads of fun.

So there you go. Fun movie, go and see it.

DragonKnight

So I've now finished the third of Donita K. Paul's dragon books, DragonKnight.

Instead of following the story of Dragon Keeper Kale Allerion, this story follows Squire Bardon, a character introduced in the last book. Bardon sets off on a sabbatical, a time for him to spend in seclusion to decide whether or not he wants to dedicated himself to the service of Paladin. But as soon as he arrives at the secluded cabin he's supposed to live in, he finds himself thrown into a quest with three women to save a group of knights held captive by an evil wizard's spell. Bardon reluctantly agrees to put his sabbatical on hold while he tries to help the women.

Soon Bardon's troubles grow as more and more people are added to the questing party. But on the way, he learns more and more about himself and who he really is. Trust me, if you read all three books, you'll understand what that's about.

I thought this was simply a phenomenal book, perhaps the best out of the three. You know those little gripes I had about the second book? They're not in this one. The story was a great read and actually kept me up late last night as I kept thinking, "One more chapter before I go to sleep. One more chapter! Oh, I have time for just one more."

So if you're in the mood for a great fantasy adventure, this is definitely one to read.

A Trip to Barnes and Noble

So this afternoon I went to Barnes and Noble. I did my usual swing through the Christian fiction section but didn't see anything that caught my attention (the usual lack of sci-fi/fantasy. Hopefully that will change soon!). I moved on to the regular sci-fi/fantasy section where I picked up Harry Turtledove's Settling Accounts: Drive to the East. I'll add it to the pile (which I think includes Kathy Tyer's Firebird trilogy and Karen Hancock's Legends of the Guardian King books).

On my way out, I went through the new books section and noticed the novel version of John Cena's upcoming movie, The Marine. Fair enough. It was what was sitting next to it that made me cringe:

Seriously. What the heck is this? Torrie Wilson holding a gun? Before I knew what was happening, the book was in my hand and I turned it over to read the back to see what this was about. This is what I learned:

December 2001: Vince McMahon steps out of a snowy night into a diner in upstate New York for a meeting with old friend Phil Thomson, now a highly placed government official. Thomson has a strange proposition: creating a new covert black-ops group using the Superstars of World Wrestling Entertainment. The WWE's talented men and women are perfect. Highly skilled athletes with the ideal cover, they travel all across the country and the globe; no one would find it unusual to find them in a town one day and gone the next. The government would train and support the wrestlers in every way possible except one: no one must know the truth.

March 2006: The Superstars have been handed their latest assignment -- take down a commercial-grade methyl-amphetamine plant that is bankrolling terrorist activities in Europe. Their mission seems simple and straightforward, until a member of their team is taken prisoner. Now all that they've worked so hard for is in jeopardy, and one of their own might be killed...

Seriously. I am not making this up. What scares me even more is the fact that people gave it such positive reviews. A few might be sarcastic, but really.

I guess the one nice thing about this fiasco is this: Yes, this travesty was published by WWE Books. But if this can get published, then I have to have a good shot. Heck, maybe they'll need some help with the sequel. Vince, call me!

Trojan Horse for the Force

Okay, this is a day late, but here we go.

Like I said, I started reading Kathy Tyers before I knew she was Christian or had written any Christian science fiction. Because of this, I had a rather interesting experience reading Balance Point, her second Star Wars novel and part of the The New Jedi Order series of books. If you haven't read the books and ever plan to, don't check out that link. Major spoilers. Anyway...

I don't want to give away too much. The basic idea is that Jacen Solo (the son of Han and Leia Solo and a soon-to-be Jedi Knight) has to face off against a Yuuzhan Vong in a fight to death. Jacen has been having visions of this conflict for most of the book. At one point in the fight (either during it or immediately after; I honestly can't remember), Jacen has another vision where he is immersed in the Force.

Much to my surprise, the Force spoke to Jacen. In a fatherly voice, the Force addressed Jacen's fears and calmed him. It was an interesting scene, one that left me saying, "Huh?"

Let's face it, up 'til that point, the Force was supposed to be an amorphous, impersonal energy field generated by living beings that could be manipulated by Jedi (both Light and Dark) and the Sith (although after what got added in Episode I, who can say?). To suddenly have the Force actually talking to a Jedi threw me for a loop.

But now that I can look back on it, well, duh! Trojan Horse! It was an interesting moment, seeing a little touch of Christianity sneaking into the Star Wars universe. Kind of fun.

CSFF Blog Tour: Kathy Tyers

Well, better late than never, I guess....

To get the word out about Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy, the good folks at American Christian Fiction Writers have been conducting blog tours. This month's subject is a fantastic author named Kathy Tyers.

Ms. Tyers is the reason why I read Christian Sci-Fi. I converted to CSF in a sort of round about way. The thanks, believe it or not, goes to Star Wars.

See, I read the Star Wars novels obsessively. I've got one big shelf in my house filled with them. So naturally, I was aware of Tyers' two novels, The Truce at Bakura and Balance Point. I also found a copy of Shivering World. The hard science fiction of terraforming kept me engaged, but I was surprised by the Christian references in the book. By the time I was done reading it, I was wondering if Kathy Tyers was Christian.

Then one day, I was browsing the Christian Sci-Fi and Fantasy section at Christian Book Distributors, hoping to find something that piqued my interest. I came across a trilogy of books, the author of which had a familiar name. I just couldn't place it.

I kept repeating the name to myself over and over and over again, finally looking up at my massive collection of Star Wars novels. It was there that I say Ms. Tyers' name. I decided, "What the heck. I'll give this trilogy she's written a shot."

What was the trilogy in question? The Firebird Trilogy.

I know I haven't reviewed this on my blog yet. I won't post a review here yet. These books are on my list to re-read; once I'm done with Donita K. Paul's latest book, I'll re-read Firebird and review the books here.

At any rate, I absolutely loved Firebird. It was simply a great story. But here I'm getting ahead of myself again.

Anyway, there you go. As far as the blog tour is concerned, I've only had a chance to read Beth Goddard's two part interview with Kathy Tyers. But I'll be poking through the other blogs, and so should you. Here's a list of the participants:

Jim Black
John J. Boyer
Valerie Comer
Bryan Davis
Beth Goddard
Rebecca Grabill
Leathel Grody
Karen Hancock
Elliot Hanowski
Katie Hart
Sherrie Hibbs
Sharon Hinck
Pamela James
Jason Joyner
Tina Kulesa
Rachel Marks
Shannon McNear
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Cheryl Russel
Mirtika Schultz
Stuart Stockton
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith

Perhaps tomorrow I'll write about one of the "Trojan Horse" moments I had reading some of Kathy's secular stuff. We'll see.

EDIT: After poking through some of the other blog tour participants' posts, I realized I should clarify something. Apparently Kathy originally published the first two Firebird books and Shivering World as secular books. Since that time, Bethany House Publishing has reprinted them and allowed Kathy to pump up the Christian content.

The reason I thought I'd share this is because I think the copy of Shivering World I found in my local library was the original version. I haven't had a chance to read the re-release yet. That's why, at the time, I wondered if Kathy was a Christian.

Yet Another Web Comic

I know, I know, I know. I need to stop finding these things.

This time, I was checking the website for "Striptease" (get your mind out of the gutter and read my post; it's not about that) when I noticed a very well done banner ad for another web comic called Talismen. The above isn't the banner ad itself; I couldn't download the image from it. Instead, it's an "incentive poster" that the artist drew.

The cool thing is, the artwork in this webcomic is that elaborate on every page. A lot of webcomics I've peeked at are simply stick figures (or worse) not really worth reading. Talismen, on the other hand, is richly illustrated.

The story of Talismen is about a group of children who are banished from a magical kingdom to our world. In the first story arc, one of them, named Ollie (the marine in the poster above), is brought back to the magical kingdom. He falls in love with a woman named Astrina and learns about his past. They're now working to bring the other exiles back to face the evil Lord Ba.

I can't wait to see how this story unfolds. It should be really good, especially since I can see a love triangle forming amongst some of the exiles. Make sure you keep tabs on this one! It promises to be good.

Yet Another Crazy Idea!

So I've been mulling over a crazy idea for the past couple of days....

As my more loyal readers (what few there are) know, I've blogged about the similarities between the movies The Clonus Horror and The Island. I was first tipped off about the similarities between the two movies and the fact that the latter may have plagiarized the former by The Agony Booth, a great website for reading about really, really bad movies. Think Mystery Science Theater 3000, but only on the Internet.

Anyway, I recently read the Agony Booth review of "The Island", which included a section on the similarities between Michael Bay's "masterpiece" and "Clonus". And that got me to thinking. Maybe I should see if I can spot the similarities as well.

I actually have a copy of "Clonus". MST3K ripped this movie apart during one of their last seasons on the Sci-Fi Channel. Getting "The Island" would be easy enough as well. I'm thinking that on one of my days off, I would devote a morning or an afternoon to watching the two back-to-back, "Clonus" first and then "The Island", just to see how much Bay ripped off.

I've done stupid things like this before. One time, in college, I decided to watch Ed Wood and then Bride of the Monster back-to-back. I had seen "Bride" before (again, thanks to MST3K), but I had always fallen asleep while watching it. But after watching "Ed Wood" first, I was able to appreciate "Bride" a bit more because most of "Ed Wood" is concerned with the filming of "Bride". Good stuff.

So will I do it? Who knows? But if I do, I'll let you all know what I discover.

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers

I found out about this book from Randy Ingermanson, a Christian fiction author who also teaches a number of on-line courses about writing. I've taken one of them and so should you (if you're a writer) and he has an e-zine he publishes once a month. It was in one of the latest editions of this e-zine that he mentioned this book. More specifically, he said that if you're a writer and you seriously want to be published, you should get and read this book immediately. I realize it's hyperbole, but hey, it's worth a shot, right?

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers is a really good book about some of the mechanics of fiction writing. Renni Browne and Dave King are independent editors who have worked with writers over the years, polishing up their work to get them ready for publication. In the introduction, they lament the fact that in modern publishing, a lot of manuscripts don't get the editing job they need to turn them from good into magnificent. Their book is designed to "sit in the gap", so to speak, to train writers to edit their own work.

They cover such topics as showing and telling, point of view, dialogue mechanics, and voice. There are many examples taken from workshops that they've led and published novels to illustrate their lessons. What's really nice is that at the end of each chapter, they have a detailed checklist with suggestions on how to check your manuscript for problems as well as exercises you can do to test yourself on the concept.

I agree with Randy Ingermanson. If you're a writer, you'll want to read this book!

The Good News, The Bad News

This makes me so excited! I'm a huge fan of Karen Hancock's books. Her Legends of the Guardian-King series have been a real joy to read. Perhaps I should re-read them and post reviews on the blog....

Whatever the case, I finished the third book in the series a few months ago. I've been eagerly waiting to get my hands on the fourth and final book.

Well, today I went over to the website of Bethany Publishing House to do some research. I'm hopefully going to meet one of their editors in a month at the ACFW Conference so I can pitch my sci-fi trilogy. From what I've read, when you're pitching a book, you're supposed to be able to tell the editor why your book would fit into their publishing line. So I wanted to see what other sci-fi books Bethany had listed (strange thing is, I know that they've published more sci-fi than they've listed! I should know, I have those books on my shelves!).

At any rate, I checked the "speculative fiction" section and I noticed this cover! Doesn't it look cool? Very heroic. It made me smile to see this cover.

But there's always a smidge of bad news to go with the good. This book isn't scheduled for release until April of 2007. So while I can smile and drool over the cover art, I have to wait to find out how this terrific story ends.

Oh well.

"It's Just That He Finally Shrugged"

After looking over my previous post, I realized that I may have come off a little harsh about Dar the doneel winking all the time. Perhaps if I explained why....

As my faithful readers/friends will know, I'm an unpublished author myself. I've been writing since the fifth grade (not that anything I produced at that time is any good; most of it will never see the light of day ever again) and lately, I've been working on a Christian science fiction trilogy that I call The Leader's Song.

I've been working with a critique group from Ameican Christian Fiction Writers help me polish up the first book in the trilogy, The Rune Enigma. One of the things these wonderful ladies in my critique group has helped me realize is that I have four pet words that I constantly use. I incorporated all four into a sentence to help me remember to search them out and destroy them.

My four pet words are: just, that, finally, shrugged.

Notice the last one. It seems like on every page, I have a character shrugging, often when there's absolutely no logical reason for them to do so. I've had to grit my teeth and groan whenever I encounter one of these words.

I suspect part of the reason why Dar the winking doneel bothered me is because I'm too hypersensitized. And, like I said in the previous post, I loved DragonQuest. The constant winking wasn't enough to stop that.

DragonQuest

I'm always a sucker for a good Christian book series, and Donita K. Paul's dragon books are no exception.

This sequel to DragonSpell continues the tale of Kale Allerion, a Dragon Keeper in the service of Paladin. In this book, Kale and her numerous friends are sent on a number of quests. The overall plot is to rescue a "meech dragon" from the evil wizard Risto. Along the way, Kale encounters two different women who claim to be Lyll Allerion, Kale's long-lost mother. Along the way, Kale grows into her role as a servant of Paladin by working with the stodgy Bardon, the always amusing Dar, and a number of minor dragons that have bonded to her.

Once again, Paul does an excellent job creating a unique world. Rather than retread the usual fantasy races (elves, dwarves, etc.), Paul created her own races, such as the diminutive, light-bearing kimen, the tumanhofers who love to dig into mountains and into books, the color-shifting emerlindians, and so forth. Paul shows incredible creativity in creating this world, especially when it comes to creating dragons. Kale, as the Dragon Keeper, has hatched four dragon eggs so far and each new dragon surprises me. It turns out there are different kinds of minor dragons, differntiated by their colors. Each type of dragon has its own color and corresponding abilities. The first minor dragon Kale hatches, Gymn, is a green dragon and has healing abilities. Seems pretty standard for a fantasy novel, right? Well, things get a little interesting after he hatches. The next minor dragon to hatch is a purple dragon named Metta who has musical abilities. A green and yellow dragon named Dibl comes next. His ability is to make people laugh. The fourth is named Ardeo. During the day, he's dull and silver. At night, he shines like the moon. These dragon abilities stunned me the first time I read them. I would never think of having a singing dragon or one that makes people laugh, but Paul weaves these abilities into the story wonderfully.

There are really only three minor things that I didn't like about this book. The first is the more problematic. The plot in DragonQuest shifts and swings rapidly and oftentimes, plot threads that get started get resolved "off-stage" so to speak. For example, at one point, Kale and company are sent to investigate who attacked the city of Vendela with Creemoor spiders. But before they can complete this quest, they're sent on another quest, leaving the spiders to be resolved by another band of heroes. This wouldn't be a problem, but this happens several times in the book. Kale and friends are given an assignment but, before they can complete it, they're sent off on another errand. The quest they were on is then fulfilled by another group and we're barely told what happened.

Part of this stems from the fact that Paul tells the story only from Kale's point-of-view. This is admirable and very well done, but it means that many of these seemingly important quests are finished "off-stage" and then we're simply told what happened.

The second kind of grows out of the first. The end of the book was too abrupt for me. I don't want to give the ending away. Suffice it to say that there's a big build up towards something that never happens. I can understand why it happened and how it fits into the plot. But given the number of quests that are resolved "off-stage", this disappointed me.

The last thing that kind of bugged me by the end of this book is the number of times one of the characters, Dar, winks. It seems like every other page, Dar is winking at Kale. It's overused in my opinion and detracts from the story. Every time I encountered Dar winking, I kind of sighed and had to steel myself to keep reading.

None of that should keep you from reading these books, though. Once again, Donita K. Paul has put together a great fantasy read, one that can be enjoyed and appreciated by people of all ages.

Web Comics Have Seized Me!

I suspect I've always been a closet comic book fan.

When I was younger, I used to check out a dozen or so from the library every week or so. The problem was that our local library did not have a good selection; I usually wound up checking out the same issues of The Avengers or Archie over and over and over again. The other problem was that since they were basically kept in a big heap, making it pretty impossible to keep up on storylines.

Through the years, I've dabbled in comics every now and then. I subscribed to Star Trek: The Next Generation for a while until the writing of Michael Jan Friedman drove me away. I bought a series of Punisher, where the Punisher goes on a rampage throughout Europe (I can't seem to find these anymore). I also made sure to buy the issue where Superman died and I've even gone onto e-Bay to purchase the entire Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew series. That one might seem a little inexplicable, but they were comics I found in the library's heap and I had to see them again.

I'm also a big sucker for graphic novels now. 1602, The Watchmen, Superman: Red Son, The Runaways ... okay, I'll stop.

What I've gotten into in the past couple of weeks, though, are web comics. A friend of mine on Red vs. Blue clued me into the one that got me started (thanks, Swooper).

The first one is Dr. McNinja:



That's right. He's a doctor. And an Irish ninja. He's battled Ronald McDonald, a child who grew into Paul Bunyan, a group of pirates who kidnapped his family, and most recently, a man with such well-developed abs that he grew an organic jet-pack. Yes, you read that correctly. Dr. McNinja is truly bizarre and quickly got me hooked. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, you can guarantee I'm checking the site to see if the newest page is up.

One day, while reading the latest page of Dr. McNinja, I noticed a banner for another web-comic, one named Stuff Sucks:





It piqued my curiousity, so I clicked and found myself in a comic written by Liz Greenfield. It's the story of Daniel who works in a record store. The plot got started a little slow, but soon I was enraptured as a con artist named Zemi made Daniel's life difficult by trying to steal the ring he bought for his girlfriend. Sounds like an odd premise for a comic? Maybe, but I check this one at the beginning of every week for new art.

And then, one day, I noticed a link at the bottom of Stuff Sucks that caught my attention. The name itself was enough for me to raise my eyebrows. I mean, Striptease?




Get your mind out of the gutter. It's not about that. Instead, it's the story of a guy named Max who draws a comic called "Neato-People". Last night, I decided to get caught up on the six years worth of back issues there was. Yes, it took me a while, but it was worth it.

The story was a little slow at first but things really picked up. Max falls in love with a girl from a rival comic company named Alli, who his editor and friend, Emily, doesn't approve of. Things get a little hairy as Alli's boss blackmails her into stealing Issue #2 of Neato-People. Things just get more convoluted from there as more and more people come out of Max's past, which only complicates the on-going rivalry he's developed with an evil comic book writer. When we last left our heroes, they were trying to rescue their Goth friend from the Cage of Apathy in a fetish night club. Yes, you read that correctly too.

Striptease is a bit more adult than the other two but the stories are so engrossing, I really didn't mind. Sure, they're not that realistic (pay attention to the storylines that deal with Alli's evil twin sister, Naomi, and you'll see what I mean), but the relationship between Max and Alli will keep me coming back. Only problem: the writer/artist who does this one has to take the summer off to work in a caricature booth in an amusment park and doesn't have the time to really update it. That's okay. I can wait.

I'm sure I'll stumble across more as I go, but it's kind of fun to let my inner comic book guy out once in a while.

Alternate Generals

I'll be the first to admit, I'm a sucker for counterfactual history. This is history with a twist, where a learned (or not so learned) writer takes "the way things were" and throws in a major "What If?" factor that sets everything on its head.

My favorite counterfactual author by far is Harry Turtledove. Mr. Turtledove is perhaps the master of the genre. I've read a number of his books, most of them set in an alternate history where the South won the Civil War. He's made it up to World War II now and I keep tracking down his books to see what happens.

Jill, my wife, knows that I love reading Turtledove books, so one day she came home from the library with Alternate Generals, edited by Harry Turtledove. She found it on the library's free bookshelf, where anyone in the community can leave books they're done with so someone else can take them. She thought I might enjoy it.

I have to say, I was a bit hesitant at first. The back cover copy made me roll my eyes:

At Gaugemela the Macedonians had Alexander and the Persians had -- Darius. Result: world conquest. But what if the Persians had -- Erwin Rommel. Or what if George S. Patton had commanded Southern forces at Bull Run, and Lincoln had become a Confederate prisoner?

When I saw that, I feared the worst. Were they simply going to transpose major historical figures into battles they weren't connected to?

Thankfully, that wasn't the case. This is a pretty good collection of counterfactual short stories, all revolving around famous battles and wars. Some of them are very well done. Some of them aren't.

Part of the problem is with me, I suspect. In some cases, the author picked a battle obscure enough that I didn't know what the original outcome was, which then made it difficult to revel in the cleverness of the counterfactual proposal. In one case, I didn't enjoy the style. But there were some great tales in here:

• The Test of Gold by Lillian Stewart Carl - The tale of the Romans conquering the British Isles. Very well done and, as the first story in the collection, whetted my appetite for more.
• The Charge of Lee's Brigade by S. M. Stirling - What if America never gained its independence and a General Robert E. Lee went to the Crimean War as part of the British Army?
• The Craft of War by Lois Tilton - Written as a Socratic dialogue, Sokrates discusses how an exile from the East helped the Persians win their battles against the Greeks. The exile's name, in Greek, was Sontseus. Can you guess who he was?
• Billy Mitchell's Overt Act by William Sanders - By far, the best story of the bunch. What if the Americans had intercepted the Japanese fleet before they could strike Pearl Harbor? What if the Americans fired the first shot in World War II? Great, great stuff.
• A Hard Day for Mother by William R. Fortchen - This one was just very well done. It involves the Battle of Gettysburg.
• Bloodstained Ground by Brian M. Thomsen - A has-been, washed out Samuel Clemens is sent on assignment to cover the funeral of President George Custer.
• Vati by R. M. Meluch - What if the Nazis had jets before D-Day? Sound weird? This is a great story too.

There were other stories in here but I just didn't enjoy them. Some were so bad that I simply skipped over them. I guess I did learn one thing about myself: I don't enjoy naval stories.

Oh well. This one was good, but not good enough to keep. It's going to be released on Book Crossing eventually.

My Super Ex-Girlfriend

Last night, Jill and I went out to see this movie and, I have to say, we had a lot of fun with it.

The story is basically about Matt Saunders (played by Luke Wilson) who goes out on a date with a girl named Jenny. What our hero doesn't realize is that Jenny is really G-Girl, a superhero. At first, our hero thinks that this is pretty cool, but as he realizes that he doesn't love Jenny but is in fact in love with someone else, he has to break up with Jenny, who doesn't take it all that well.

The plot was very funny. Luke Wilson was great as Saunders. Rainn Wilson turns in a great performance as Saunders' sleazy friend. And Eddie Izzard! Oh my gosh! I had forgotten that he was even in this movie. I loved his character, Dr. Bedlam, a man with a connection to Jenny's past that drove him to supervillainy. I almost fell out of my chair when the end credits listed him as Bedlam. He was absolutely pitch-perfect.

I also appreciated the plot because it made me wonder something: so many superheroes gain their powers through exposure to some foreign element (i.e. a radioactive meteor, a radioactive spider, cosmic rays, a mystic hammer, etc.) that seems to only affect them physically. It rarely changes them mentally. Why is that?

This movie, though, had a few negative points. First of all, Ivan Reitman liked his computer generated blurry effects too much. The first time I saw G-Girl fly, she was trailed by a blurry effect that I thought was kind of cool. The only problem is, you see that effect just about every time she uses her power. Very annoying after a while.

Second, the performance of Anna Faris kind of fell flat. At first, I thought she did okay as perhaps the only straight man in the entire movie, but eventually, I realized that she basically kept showing the same emotion, dull surprise, over and over and over.

And the third and final gripe really isn't about this movie in particular. Why do people consider Uma Thurman beautiful? She does absolutely nothing for me. Oh well. To each their own, I guess.

While we're at it, let's talk about the previews that we saw with this movie. None of them made me want to go to the movies:

Pathfinder - A Viking boy is left behind after a raid on Native American villages. He's raised by the Native Americans and, when the Vikings come back, he fights to save the tribe. Eh.

Beer League - Artie Lange leads a group of slackers to an eventual victory so their team can stay in a beer league as opposed to a team made up of jerks. I think I may have given away the entire plot there, but you know what, I don't care. This looks like a movie that would just be a waste of two hours.

John Tucker Must Die! - No way. Not gonna happen, not even after watching the trailer. As Jill said so well, "This would be two hours of my life that I would never get back." I mean, we've seen this kind of crap before. How much you wanna bet this is the plot: Cheater-boy John Tucker has broken the hearts of X number of girls. They get a girl to pretend to fall in love with him so she can break his heart. Instead, she falls in love with him and he with her "for real", much to the frustration of the X number of exes who eventually fall in love themselves and forget their mad-cap scheme of humiliation.

But I will say this. Does anyone else think Jesse Metcalfe in this movie bears a striking resemblance to Mark-Paul Gosselar from Saved By the Bell? Maybe they hoped Jesse's jet black hair would conjure up memories of Zach Morris.

What Would Your Character Do?

Just a caveat up front: I skimmed the second half of this book.


You may think that would disqualify me from writing a review, but I would submit that the fact that I skimmed is indicative of the book's problem. This month's book is What Would Your Character Do? by Dr. Eric Maisel and Ann Maisel.

The premise for the book appeared solid. Dr. Maisel, a psychologist, had written thrity personality quizzes that you can drop your story's characters into. How would he/she react if placed in this or that situation. On the surface, it seemed like a really good idea. Even if your character isn't going on a road trip (Quiz #15), you can see different facets of his/her personality that will help your writing.

At least, that's what I thought would happen. Not exactly the case.

First of all, the way that Dr. Maisel worded the questions and the scenarios he chose aren't quite as helpful as I thought they'd be. It might help shed some light on your character in a very general way, but it seems more like these quizzes would help you write very specific stories about very specific characters. For example, Quiz #6, "Stranger in Town", deals with how your character would react if he/she was stranded in a strange town and the townsfolk were acting hostile or suspicious. That'd be a great story, but really, how is that supposed to help me write a sci-fi story?

The second major problem (and the reason why I skimmed the end of the book) is the fact that for each answer, Dr. Maisel tries to layer on extra psycho-analysis, most of which I thought was either arbitrary or shallow.

This book might be helpful to a writer so long as you ignore Dr. Maisel's additional comments. It could also be useful to brainstorm story ideas. But I'm not sure it's worth the money I plunked down for it.

I'm Already Worried

Okay, so I knew that the teaser trailer was playing at theaters carrying Pirates of the Caribbean II: Dead Man's Chest. However, I haven't had the chance to see that yet, so tonight, I went surfing to see if I could find it. And I did:

They're More Than Meets The Eye!

The logo looks cool with what I'm assuming is Megatron's eye hovering over the Earth. And even the new slogan is pretty cool too. But then I watched the trailer and, I have to say, I'm a little concerned.

Why? Well, I was a big fan of the original Transformers cartoon. The first DVD I bought was a copy of the Transformers movie when Optimus Prime dies. When I accidentally lost that copy, I went out and bought a new one. When I heard that they were making a live-action Transformers movie and that Steven Spielberg was one of the producers, I got kind of excited. Surely Steven wouldn't let us down, would he?

And yet, after watching the trailer, I'm a tad worried. Here's why:

1) What are the Transformers doing on Mars? I mean, creative license aside, that doesn't make a lot of sense. But hey, I'm willing to let that one slide.

2) Michael Bay is the director? That ain't good. This is the same guy who brought us Pearl Harbor and The Island. Granted, I haven't seen The Island, but I've blogged about it. I'm not sure I want to trust beloved childhood memories to the guy who didn't realize his last movie was plagiarized from another.

3) The big thing that's missing. Did you notice? If not, go back and watch the trailer again. Pay special attention to the end when the big space ship whatever-it-is transforms into the title and then the release date. There's something important missing.

That's right. The classic Transformer noise. All we get is a little mechanical whirring.

I'm sorry, but that just doesn't cut it with me. I don't care if you update the Autobots and the Decepticons in how they look (I suspect you'd almost have to, given the simplistic style that the original cartoon followed). Heck, send 'em to Mars first and bring them here. Come up with a new backstory as to why they're here (although the Decepticons coming to steal all of Earth's energy to transform into energon cubes could go a long way given the rising price of oil and such).

But don't mess with the Transformer noise! It's a little thing that's quintessentially Transformers. If it had been in the trailer, I would have geeked out immediately. Now I'm just nervous.

Dragonspell

Time for another book review!

This time, it's Dragonspell by Donita K. Paul. It's the first book in another fantasy series, so you can expect to see more reviews of Paul's books here in the future.

Dragonspell is the story of a young girl named Kale who goes on a quest. At first, she believes her mission is simply to bring a dragon egg she's found to the city of Vendela. But she soon discovers that she has a unique talent: she can sense where dragon eggs lay. She actually finds seven others.

This gift sends her on a new quest, given to her by the mighty Paladin: she must recover a meech dragon egg that's in the clutches of an evil wizard.

I really enjoyed this book. Paul weaves a very fun world to explore with unique creatures. One thing that always bugs me about fantasy books is the fact that they're often retreads of the characters you find in The Lord of the Rings: elves, dwarfs, goblins, orcs, etc. Some of the creatures in Paul's book (such as the tumanhofers) are all-too-familiar, but others, like the emerlindians and the kimen are fresh and unique only to her stories.

The story of Kale is engaging as well. I never tired of hearing about Kale's adventures and I look forward to seeing who else pops out of the eggs she's carrying. Gymn the fainting green dragon and Metta the singing purple dragon were delightful characters.

The only minor complaint that I have about the book is that the allegory wears thin at times and you can catch Paul preaching a little. There are definite "moral" moments where Paul, a retired teacher, makes sure that her reader catches the lesson. It didn't so much annoy me as make me want to start skipping sentences and paragraphs to get back to the adventure. But given the fact that this book is likely targeted for readers younger than me, it's not a deal-breaker by any means.

So there you have it. Go check out this book when you have the chance. And expect a review of Dragonquest, the next book in the series, in the next couple of weeks.

A Terrifying Message from AL GORE!

Don't say I didn't warn you!

Adventures in Dating

No, I haven't finished another book. That would be waaaaay too quick, even for me.

Instead, I wanted to plug Adventures in Dating, a machinima series I'm sort of involved in.

For those of you unfamiliar with machinima, it's the process of taking footage from a video game and turning it into a movie. I know I've talked about it before, but if you're looking for one of the greatest examples of machinima out there, look no further.

Anyway, AiD is a series put together by a person named Decorgal. She asked me to do the voices for one of the characters in the series a while back and this character is finally going to make his debut.

I've watched the first four episodes of this series and I'm simply blown away by how great it is. Decorgal does some superb machinima work with the Sims and I'm sure you'll get a kick out of it.

So go check out Adventures in Dating and see if you can figure out who I am.

Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader

I'm a sucker for Star Wars novels. I've got tons of them. The thing is, I have my favorite authors. If the book is written by Stackpole, Zahn, or Allston, I'm there in a heartbeat. The others, I can take or leave. But I decided to take a chance with Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader to see how James Luceno continued Vader's story after Episode III concluded. I especially wanted to see if Luceno could erase Vader's ridiculous temper tantrum from my mind.

For the most part, he did. Luceno presented what might be called a "bridge version" of Vader, showing his first few halting steps from newly fallen Anakin Skywalker to the menacing Dark Lord of the Sith we meet at the beginning of A New Hope.

The story itself revolves around a small group of Jedi who manage to survive the infamous Order 66 that wiped out the rest of the Order. It also deals extensively with Vader's transition to life inside the suit. I think Luceno did an excellent job portraying Vader's confusion and outright frustration with his new situation.

There were a few things that bugged me, mostly because I'm a continuity man . For example, the first time that Vader fights in the suit, Luceno describes it as awkward and difficult since the cybernetic parts aren't graceful. At the end of the book, when Vader fights again, he's suddenly become more graceful. This makes little sense to me since nowhere in the book did Luceno say that the parts got upgraded or Anakin became more used to them.

All in all, though, this was a pretty good book. I'm glad to have read it. Luceno's not entering the constellation that Stackpole, Zahn, and Allston occupy, but he's definitely someone I would read again.