Newbie Writes a Novel

In Which The Author Surveys The Roster of His Fallen Foes

The 78 books I read in 2003, in chronological order, not counting a dozen or so large reference books for the novel. Not the 100 I was shooting for, but not bad all the same. My reading really slacked off in November and early December, but has picked up again quite recently.

The Hot Zone by Richard Preston
Swords in the Mist by Fritz Leiber
Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart
Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear
The 1977 Annual World's Best SF Ed. by Donald Wollheim
By Any Other Name by Spider Robinson
What Strange Stars and Skies by Avram Davidson
The Big Time by by Fritz Leiber
The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov
Gateway by Frederik Pohl
Again, Dangerous Visions Volume I Ed. by Harlan Ellison
Again, Dangerous Visions Volume II Ed. by Harlan Ellison
The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke
Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement
The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany
Double Star by Robert Heinlein
Everything We Had by Al Santoli
The Two-Ocean War by Samuel Eliot Morison
The Case Against Tomorrow by Frederik Pohl
Have Spacesuit, Will Travel by Robert Heinlein
Everything's Eventual by Stephen King
Science Fiction Hall of Fame III: Nebula Winners 1965-69 Ed. by Arthur C. Clarke, George Proctor
The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock
Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
The Grunts by Charles R. Anderson
The Company They Keep by A.J. Simons
For Your Eyes Only by Ian Fleming
Stories From the Hugo Winners, Vol. II Ed. by Isaac Asimov
Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
The Hugo Winners Volume III, Book II
Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
Skeleton Crew by Stephen King
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
The Age of the Pussyfoot by Frederik Pohl
Swords Against Wizardry by Fritz Leiber
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
The Second Indochina War by William S. Turley
The Fighting Elite: U.S. Army Special Forces by Ian Padden
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
The Godfather by Mario Puzo
McSweeny's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales Ed. by Michael Chabon
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien
Koko by Peter Straub
The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub
A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan
Hammer's Slammers by David Drake
The Battle of the Bulge by Robert E. Merriam
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume I Ed. by SFWA
Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming
Moonraker by Ian Fleming
Diamonds Are Forever by Ian Fleming
Dr. No by Ian Fleming
On Her Majesty's Secret Service by Ian Fleming
You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming
The Man With the Golden Gun by Ian Fleming
The Killer Angels by Michael Sharra
Blade of Tyshalle by Matthew Woodring Stover
Dragon Prince by Melanie Rawn
Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov
Way Station by Clifford D. Simak
The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov
The 1980 World's Best SF Ed. by Donald Wollheim
Misery by Stephen King
Thrilling Cities by Ian Fleming
Gather, Darkness! by Fritz Leiber
To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer
Asimov's Mysteries by Isaac Asimov
The Best Science Fiction of Isaac Asimov by Isaac (no shit) Asimov
Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber
The Wanderer by Fritz Leiber
As Eagles Screamed by Donald R. Burgett
The Proud Highway by Hunter S. Thompson
Secrets and Spies: Behind the Scenes Stories of World War II Ed. by the Readers Digest Assoc.

In Which the Author Admires the March of Technology

Novel-writing operations have just been moved over to my brand-new eMac.

And it is beautiful.

A 60 gigabyte hard drive isn't particularly noteworthy nowadays, but it gives me pause. The machine I was previously working on (the one I'm typing on right now) has "only" 10 gigs, of which I never managed to use more than 2.5 at once-- OS and all of my very big, very expensive multimedia programs included.

Just eight years before I was born, replicating the abilities of my $800 desktop eMac would have cost at least $180,000,000,000-- one hundred and eighty billion dollars. In 1970 dollars, even.

Considered another way-- a full novel manuscript, 400-800 pages, will probably take up 2-3 megabytes, maybe 4-5 in some newer and fancier word processing formats. But still... even assuming that I write actively for another fifty to sixty years, my new machine can contain the text of every novel and every short story I will ever (ideally) write in a little corner of its hard drive-- and I would never be able to fill it up, even if I were to bang away until 2053 or beyond.

Jesus, what will be on my desktop in five years? In ten? In twenty? Will I have something with a terabyte of drive space before my thirtieth birthday?*

Contemplating the bigness and the strangeness of things can be very amusing, and not a little scary.

There will be a brief pause in actual writing over the next week as I prepare to move. So we hold at 91,000 words, and trust that Locke Lamora and Jean Tannen won't mind a little break in the action.

*April 2, 2008. Be there or be square.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of My Bitching.

Three and a half points of extreme aggravation, plus further praise.

1. "Arwen's life-force is now linked to the Ring."

What the hell is this bullshit? I don't object because it wasn't in the book; I object because it doesn't make any fucking sense. How could her "life force" become "linked" the the Ring? This was transparently a plot device designed to make things "more personal" for Aragorn, but what the hell would he need that for? He's already Mordor's Public Enemy Number One. His world is going to be destroyed if he fails. He'll be dead himself if he fails, so he's never going to see Arwen again anyway. It's already quite "personal." And it serves to reduce Arwen to a state of total wilting flower-hood, this elven woman who is supposedly Luthien come again. What the hell happened to her in the second two films, anyway?

2. Kung-Fu Staff Gandalf With Denethor-Beating Action!

What the fuck was up with Gandalf clubbing Denethor down when the Steward started issuing the panicky order to retreat? I could understand a painful cuff, as a schoolmaster to a pupil (which could have been both humorous and in-character), but just beating the shit out of him, while Denethor's guards stand there and do nothing? Gandalf should have laid down the verbal smack-- there were a million cool things he could have said to bring Denethor to heel, and a million ways for Ian McKellen to make them sound fantastic, but instead of using wisdom or charisma Gandalf just ninja'd the fucker. That's not Gandalf, who can throw down with the best of them but calls upon wit, perception, and lore before he turns to force of arms.

More aggravatingly, there was no narrative continuity between the beat-down scene and the later portion of the film. Okay, Mithrandir beats up the Steward and just leaves him on the grass, then runs off. The guards do nothing. Later, we see Denethor walking around doing things with his guards in tow, and apparently he didn't do anything to Gandalf for having beaten him up. Huh? No follow-through means no fucking cookie, PJ.

3. Super Denethor Powers, Activate! Form Of... A Human Toch!

The tone and execution of the funeral pyre scene just seemed off to me. This scene should have been high tragedy, dripping with madness, positively Shakespearean. Instead it was just kinda... eh. Denethor jumping off the pyre and running away added a great deal of unintentional comedy. And maybe having him leap from the "prow" of Minas Tirith was a good idea in theory, but that "aircraft carrier" surface atop the citadel is an awfully long way to run, especially while one is rapidly going up in flames.

As a general note, the thing I like least about Jackson's films is probably the fact that each character's grandeur (and emotional tone) are fairly faithfully replicated from the novels (with a few noteworthy exceptions), but their inherent dignity is too often nowhere to be found. And god dammit, would it be too much to ask to replace a few slow-motion herky-jerky combat shots with some characters having emotionally engaging verbal confrontations? Dialogue is only boring when it doesn't advance plot or illuminate character.

Gandalf in particular did not get enough lines in RotK, and Elrond simply gets the greased shaft throughout the entire film trilogy. Having established him as a fairly useless prick (in contravention of his literary character) in the first 75% of the trilogy, it then makes him a sympathetic and doting father for the last 25%. I think I'll refer to the film Elrond as Elrond Weisshaupt, as he's clearly been replaced by a double. Pity-- Hugo Weaving was perfect for the part.

With that said, the rest of the film was so monumentally magnificent, and so masterfully done, that each major point of aggravation was effectively apologized for as soon as it was done. 95% of this film kicked my ass into the fourth state of matter-- and speaking of asses, mine wasn't the slightest bit sore after three and a half hours of barely moving. Usually, I'm squirming and shuffling by the end of a two-hour film. This one so astonished, thrilled, and fulfilled me that not a joint in my body complained about sitting through it. Holistic gratification, one might say.

PJ did a truly masterful job of expressing the simultaneity of the last stand before the Black Gate and the last climb up Mount Doom-- and using Sam and Frodo to echo the Isildur/Elrond scene from the first film was a stroke of visual genius.

I expected to really miss the Mouth of Sauron, as he added personality to the faceless Mordor hordes and to Sauron-- but when the Black Gate finally opened, I didn't miss him for one second. That was my shit-my-pants moment-- the sheer, malevolent beauty of Barad-Dur and Mount Doom afire in the distance, with the Eye's blood-red light diffused through clouds of steam and smoke. Fucking magnificent.

The conception and presentation of Mordor has been one of the highlights of the films for me. It's awe-inspiring but never serene, empty and eerie but never restful. Every rock and every crag seems truly imbued with malice-- you can feel your lips and throat parching while Frodo and Sam trudge through it onscreen.

I think I have one more post in me on the subject of The Lord of the Rings. You have been warned.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of Kicking Your Ass.

Saw it last night with the better half and a friend of hers in tow. The theater lobby was a bit like the steerage scenes in Titanic as the ship starts sinking-- I arrived at 5:30 seeking tickets for 7, but all the shows until 9 were already sold out. So we had a long dinner, and then 9 it was. Fortunately, we arrived an hour early to take our place in the huddled mass, so we got very comfortable seats and only had to use the riot truncheons a handful of times.

And then it kicked our asses. Just kicked. Kung-fu mules on crack don't kick like that. All our base were belong to Peter Jackson. There were three specific moments in the film that were so ludicrous and/or stupid that they should have derailed my enjoyment entirely-- but the rest of it was so beautiful, so magnificent, so masterful, and so ass-kicking that the apology was instantly accepted.

I'll offer a more detailed analysis later. I'm neither a "literary purist" nor a complete Tolkien ignoramus; I respect PJ's insistence that first and foremost this trilogy had to work as a set of films rather than as a direct, blow-for-blow translation of the books. With a score of nine out of ten, I think they do it.

I and many smarter folks have been discussing this a bit on Making Light. If you're bored, you can find my comments mixed into a very decent thread.

Blogging About Bloggers Blogging Me; Blog the Blog Blog Bloggity Blog.

Ariel, that perfidious Albionite behind the Alien Online, is actually referring folks here as though I have anything worthwhile to say yet. He also blurbs the novel, as he sees it:

"Ethical dilemmas, swashbuckling fight scenes and rogues aplenty, all set in an alternate C16th/C17th quasi-European world, by the sounds of things."

Hmm. That's not half bad, for starters. He left out the naked Amazon kung-fu fighters that ride nanotech dinosaurs on the border between California and Faerie, but that's okay... they're a surprise for the last chapter.

"Mary Gentle-esque? Could be, and no bad thing if it is."

Alas, I haven't read the works of the lady in question, so I couldn't say one way or another.

"and the only thing he hasn't posted yet is a sample ."

I shall do so within the month. I'll also be seeking a few brave and foolish volunteers to peek at the first third of the story, which should come to about 180 pages. But first, I have to be completely satisfied with the draft, so check back in 2011.

Kidding. Kid. Ding. Kidding. I have expunged intolerably rampant perfectionism from my soul; where once I was a 13 on a scale of 10, I'm now merely a 12.

Oh, yes, Gabe Chouinard (link at left, you lazy bastiches) has returned from the netherworld of no-access. With S1ngularity consigned to the rubbish heap, apparently, I have no idea what the bugger will be up to, but at least he's writing.

"Kill Me Sooner!" the supporting character begged...

I've just made substantial progress in "unlocking" the plot of the second half of the novel by moving the hasta la vista, baby scene for Capa Raza's little magician buddy to a much earlier point. My original idea for the climax was to have it all come down to one final night where all hell breaks loose-- Locke and Jean catch the Bondsmage, mess him up good, and then proceed to their rendezvous with Raza and the Merangias Sisters. But... ah... it wasn't quite working. I kept failing to come up with a viable means for the Gentlemen Bastards to discover the workings of Raza's plans and interfere with them. Zero. Blank. Nuttin' but crap, and stupid crap at that.

However, if they whack the Bondsmage sooner rather than later, they can shake the insider info they require out of him. Furthermore, this is a chance to make Raza a more effective antagonist, since losing his magical accomplice (he's the only character in the story who gets one, by the way) should make things easier for Our Heroes. But... what if Raza steps up to the challenge, and things don't get easier? Oh, that's got possibilities.

In secondary news, I'm re-writing (for the second time) the short story that won a writing award at ConVergence '01... I wonder if I'll always be doomed to be perpetually embarrassed by the shit I spat out just two or three years ago? I've found an in-depth source of period info (an account of paratrooper boot camp from WWII) that makes things infinitely more interesting.

In tertiary news, Jenny is not feeling good at all. I'll have to keep an eye on her this week.

In quarternary news, I'm 99.5% certain that I'm going to be attending Minicon 39, which will be my first. The thought of meeting some of the people that I hope will be attending scares me shitless.

82,000 words. Some of which may even be okay.

Nerd Loves His Booky-Book.

Progress on my five-year reading plan has been updated:

Here be dorkage!

I'm almost finished with The Wanderer; I'll move on to either the Vernor Vinge novels or The Shadow of the Torturer.