Down and Out Under the Earth

Posted on October 12, 2016 by admin

Korean films are over-the-top crazy. And they are over-the-top good. If you haven’t seen A Hard Day yet, stop right now and go watch it…see what I mean? Well, Seong-Hun Kim, the director, has a new one: The Tunnel. And it’s over-the-top crazy. And over-the-top good.

A car dealer, Jung-so, just closed a deal for a fleet of cars and it’s his daughter’s birthday and he’s driving home with her cake and happily enters Hado Tunnel Number One (which apparently runs for about 475 miles through the most untraveled stretch of highway on the Korean peninsula) when it collapses. Always something, isn’t it? And not just “collapse,”…a friggin’ apocalyptic cave-in of not only the tunnel but half the mountain, leaving only a few feet of the far exit still open. Jung-so’s Kia sedan withstands a pummeling of rock and earth that would have flattened an Abrams tank (good cars, them Kias), living him dirty, bruised, intact, and trapped.

He whips out his cell phone, which doesn’t explode, and calls the most incompetent 911 dispatcher in the Korean peninsula, triggering the most epically inept rescue operation in human history. Apparently, about the only things that work well in Korea are Kias and cell phone towers (and the battery in Jung-so’s phone, which lasts forever, and even his car battery which lasts even longer. Without exploding) because it turns out the tunnel was built by the most incompetent construction company in all of Asia, one that put in too few support rods and doesn’t know how many fans it installed, nor where they installed them, and didn’t bother to draw up the blue prints to any kind of scale or accuracy. And, which is in charge of building Hado Tunnel Number Two, a few feet away from where Jung-so is trapped. After about an hour, said company starts lobbying to resume blasting on its new tunnel because, hey, Jung-so is trapped in our first shoddily built tunnel so he’s a goner so let’s stop wasting time here and get on with it. All of which drives the rescue commander, Dae-kyong (played by Dal-su Oh of Oldboy fame)―the only competent man in the entire Korean government―nuts to the point he drinks a bottle of urine in solidarity with Jung-so.

No, seriously.

All of which emphasizes the point that, if you’re trapped in a tunnel in Korea (or a haunted island, or a sealed apartment) you’d best start thinking about getting yourself out of this pickle because the government honchos in this movie don’t put a whole lot of value on your individual soul. I don’t know if that’s Seong-hun Kim’s particularly political viewpoint or the result of having a lot of crazy people to your north with nukes, but it doesn’t take long before the ministries and bureaus and the population decide to write Jung-so off and get on with it. Now why they would allow the obviously inept construction company to get on with it, I can’t say, but it may be due to the particularly gruesome death of a rescue worker (apparently saw blades in Korea are made by Samsung) which is blamed on Jung-so’s wife, who apparently has the last say on whether Jung-so should be rescued or not (someone should check to see if she recently upped his life insurance). Scratch of the ole noggin’ here because rescue workers who die on duty in the US are considered heroes, not victims. ‘Course, we don’t have crazy people to our north with nukes. Just bacon.

It doesn’t end all happy and resolved, but it does get resolved, primarily through the individual effort of the one or two motivated and competent people in this whole cockup. Which is a lesson. No one’s going to save you but yourself.

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Capclave 2016

Posted on October 10, 2016 by admin

Now that the torture laughingly called cardiac “rehab” is about over, I’m easing back into my former life of conventions and conferences, starting with Capclave. I love Capclave. It’s small, informal, and all about books. No cosplay, no movies, just a bunch of famous and semi-famous scifi and fantasy writers mingling with the Great Unwashed. And I almost missed it. Only by a casual glance at my calendar last Wednesday did I realize it was two days away. Too late for me to grab a hotel room, so I drove up on Saturday morning and spent the day.

First thing I did was drop by the cleverly hidden Seneca room for Scott Edelman’s

(guy in the red shirt) reading of his story, 101 Things to Do Before You’re Downloaded, coming out in a Dark Regions Press anthology pretty soon. For the two or three of you who don’t know, Scott Edelman is Marvel royalty, which makes him my Leige Lord and Ruler. And, he ain’t no slouch in the short story department, needer. Blown away, I was.

The next reader was Doc Coleman,

a guy I didn’t really know, and I stayed more out of politeness because seems a rude thing to walk out as an author is walking in. Boy, am I glad I did because his story, The Shining Cog, in The Way of the Gun anthology, blew me even more away. Coleman is a master story teller, perfectly paced, does all the voices. Good stuff.

Two more anthologies I gotta buy now. Oy.

Sarah Beth Durst

and Tim Powers

were the Guests of Honor but, through some inexplicable set of circumstances, I didn’t see them until the Saturday night ceremonies. I think the Secret Service was involved…

…hey, look! It’s Hugo Award-winning artist Steve Stiles!

Some highlights:

1. Putting Real Science in Science Fiction panel, with Bud Sparhawk, Michael Capobianco, Alan Smale, and Ian Randal Strock. Interesting observations made by all, including that, as science reveals even more details of the physical universe, there is less and less set in stone, meaning imagination is set free. For example, the New Horizons mission to Pluto revealed a planet unlike anything expected (which, seems to me, is fertile ground for a whole slew of new scifi stories). Back in the Gernsback days, science was in the forefront of the scifi story, almost as a means of teaching. Now, because we’re all older and smarter, there are two scifi short story models: the Analog style, where the science is prominent; and the Asimov style, where the story rules. Bud Sparhawk noted that most of new scifi is about engineering, not science, and engineering, itself, is becoming denser. Michael Capobianco said if you’re old enough, you can remember when things were comprehensible, which I thought spot-on. Who works on their own cars anymore?

2. I drifted over to the Dealer’s Room and immediately ran into Mike McPhail

and his lovely wife Danielle Ackley-McPhail, two of the best small press people around. Mike is into military scifi and has several titles and anthologies out now and planned for the future. I managed to snag the last copy of his 2007 anthology, Breach the Hull, and then spent the evening hunting down several of its contributors and forcing them to sign. Mike has a Kickstarter (http://tiny.cc/Novels2016) that may be finished by the time I get this posted, but go take a look. Danielle and he were gracious enough to let me sit with them at their table during the autograph session

and hawk some of my own titles, of which I got barely even passing interest. Eh. One day. Danielle is at the end of the table. The two women in the middle are Jean/Jeanne of the David Bowie song.

3. Panel: Social Media Promotion Without Being Obnoxious. Kate Baker, Inge Heyer, Natalie Luhrs, Michael A. Ventrella. Being obnoxious off the Richter scale, I figured I could use some pointers and did, indeed, pick up some pretty good tips from the panel members, like don’t waste your money advertising on Facebook and don’t be a jackass on Twitter. Too late for both but, hey, validation is its own reward. I was surprised to hear some newbie authors scattered about the audience contend with the notion that reviews are for readers, not authors. Absolutely true. Authors shouldn’t read their reviews…okay, I do, all two of them, because I’m thick skinned and I’m interested in what I’m doing wrong and I appreciate criticism. No, really, I do. And no, I’m not upset. Those are tears of joy.

4. Bill Freedman

is a Rebel E compadre, both of us sharing scars and wounds inflicted by our editor, Genghis Jayne, and we tend to commiserate on Facebook. So, there I was, sitting in the lobby doing a few Capclave tweets when I noticed Bill, too, was doing Capclave tweets. Wouldn’t you know, dude was sitting right in front of me. First time we had ever met so went out and grabbed some lunch at the most incomprehensible Japanese bento booth in America and then hung out with the McPhail phalanx. If I don’t get some rye whisky, I surely will die.

5. Panel: Military SF: More than People With Guns. Tom Doyle, Walter H. Hunt, Bud Sparhawk, Hugh Taylor. I was rather surprised that Mike McPhail was not on this panel because he IS Mr. Military SF, but, hey. There was much discussion between the audience and the panel about the execution of battle plans versus seat-of-the-pants strategizing in a FTL (faster than light. See? I know the lingo) space war because, you know, FTL, space, and things are moving a bit fast. “You, Squad A, go over there and do this! You, Squad B…” just ain’t gonna cut it. It’s more, “Fleet, Execute Plan 152!” The old military maxim that ‘no plan survives first contact’ leapt immediately to mind so, dudes, you’re gonna need a seat-of-the-pants guy nearby when things go TU (I’ll leave that one to your research). Yes, this is true, the panel acknowledged, but innovators would not do very well in a future command structure that favors Plans so there is little likelihood such a person would be in a high enough command position to pull chestnuts out of fire when things went TU (got that one, yet?). Which, to me, leaves open the possibility of novels and stories where some lowly lieutenant pulls said chestnuts out. When things go TU.

6. Neil Clarke

is an American treasure, editor of Clarkesworld, which has the good sense to reject my submissions (one day, one day) and he finally, FINALLY, after ten years of being nominated, won the WSFA Small Press Award. So, he read Susan Lucci’s acceptance speech. At some point, he meandered past our table and he and I sympathized with each other about the torture of cardiac rehab.

 

So, a good time had. Acquaintances renewed. Autographs hawked. Far too many books bought (holy moly when am I gonna get the time to read all this?). Definitely going back next year.

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Done

Posted on September 11, 2016 by admin

Col’m, that is. It comes in at 98,500 or so words. Mind you, that’s the first draft; I’m sure the word count will alter as I go through subsequent drafts. The story, though, should survive because it ended up where I wanted it, even though it took some rather surprising roads to get there. Who says writing is a controlled and carefully planned activity?

This ends the Partholon trilogy, at least this portion of it. There may be another trilogy to follow. Dunno. We’ll see.

I’ve noticed lately that a lot of readers are irritated by trilogies. They don’t want to wait for the subsequent books; they want the entire trilogy available at once. You might think I’m referring to Game of Thrones but I’m not. That’s a series, not a trilogy, and any frustration a reader feels about Martin taking his time is misplaced. You  want it quick, or do you want it good?

I write trilogies instead of series, because I want the story– at least, this portion of the story–to reach a conclusion. Readers do, too, but it is a sign of these modern times that readers get angry if there’s a delay between Book 1 and 2, much less 3.

I’m a bit baffled by that.

See, back BK (Before Kindle), I had to wait for the 2nd and concluding books of a trilogy I was reading. Best example is Philip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld series. I read the first one, To Your Scattered Bodies Go,

and was blown away. I got the second one, The Fabulous Riverboat, a few months later…and then waited five YEARS for The Dark Design. Was I PO’d? No. I had a delicious sense of anticipation each time I went into a book store and bee-lined for the scifi section to see if the third one was out yet. And the day of joy when it was and I bought it…and the disappointment when I read it and it didn’t turn out the way I had hoped (and, yes, I know, Riverworld turned into a series because Farmer wrote a few more books about it, but it will always be a trilogy to me). And I will always keep that delicious sense of anticipation waiting for subsequent books of other trilogies to appear, like I did recently with Kate Elliot’s Crossroads series.

But, I get it, so, from now on, I will not release a book if it’s part of a trilogy until all three books are ready to go.

Which might be a hint of coming attractions.

Posted in Writing itself | Comments Off on Done

He Ain’t Heavy, He’s my Husband

Posted on July 10, 2016 by admin

This is Weinsberg, Germany, a town about ten miles from Heilbronn:

Nice, huh? It’s one of those towns we visit every time we show up because it’s scenic and crazy. Scenic is obvious:

It’s on a hilltop surrounded by vineyards and there isn’t a bad view anywhere. Pretty much all of Germany’s wineries are in this area…well, okay, there’s wineries all over Germany  but Weinsberg has a goodly portion.

As for crazy…

See that field on the upper right, next to the steeple? During WW2, that was the location of a POW camp for British and Canadian officers, where my grandfather:

saw nothing, heard nothing.

Weinsberg also figured prominently in the horrific Battle of Heilbronn

because most of the German artillery that made life so miserable for the US 100th Division was located in the hills around it. But the craziness goes back even further and involved this place:

Castle Weinsberg, on a promontory overlooking the town.

Back when Christ was a corporal, King Conrad besieged the place for some reason or the other. No telelvision, nothing to do, I guess. The Weinsbergers put up such a fight that Conrad was really PO’d when he finally broke the gates down, and was going to put everyone to the sword except the womenfolk. He said they could leave with whatever possessions they could carry on their backs. So, they piggy-backed their husbands down the hill:

Conrad, being a man of word, said, okay, you get to keep your husbands. But Conrad, being possessed of an excellent sense of humor also, said okay husbands, you now belong to your wives.

Ever since, Weinsberg has a festival where the women carry men piggyback down the steps. I asked my wife if she wanted to give it a whirl but she said something rude.

Castle Weinsberg didn’t fare too well in the subsequent years:

Peasants burned the castle in the 16th C. and slaughtered the royal family, sparking outrage. You know it had to be pretty bad to outrage Germans, and they retaliated by burning the town itself.

No television, nothing to do.

 

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The Adventures of Gracie the Wander Cat: No Rest for the Weary

Posted on June 26, 2016 by admin

I don’t know what the deal is, but that Krauss guy is messed up right now:

to the point it’s cramping my style. Used to leap onto his stomach and settle in for a nap, but now, the guy screams and throws me across the room. How rude. This is about the best I can hope for:

which is not going to work. So lately, I’ve had to settle for alternatives:

all of which have their merits. But, tell ya, nothing beats a warm stomach or chest.

Krauss, ya gotta sleep sometime.

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Bath Bath

Posted on June 12, 2016 by admin

Since my summer is pretty much shot down, what with three months of recovery to go through, thought I’d load up some photos from the trip to Germany earlier in the year.

This is Baden Baden

which got its start as an R&R spot for Roman soldiers stationed nearby at Marseilles. All those hot springs, ya know. It pretty much stayed an R&R spot over the next several centuries, finding itself in competition with lots of other Badens that sprang up throughout Germany. To make sure you went to the original, they changed their name to Baden Baden, so there.

Beautiful place, chock full of spas and hotels and a casino and the requisite ruins:

It was Christmas Eve and, naturally, there was a Christmas market ongoing:

where we bought nougat cakes from this French guy:

The Kaiser liked to hang out here:

Jethro Tull??? Damn, can’t go, I’ll be back in the States:

Baden Baden is purt near France, something I discovered when my German GPS decided to exact a little Axis revenge by directing me in the completely opposite direction I needed to go. First clue was a sign that said “Bienvenue a Alsace-Lorraine.” Oopsy. So, turn around and began a comedy of stopping at every little German gas station in every little German village deep in werewolf mountains where hump-backed proprietors could only point in a general direction when I queried, “Heilbronn?” and merrily careening through moonlit S-curves and sheer drops until I finally stumbled across Schwaigern, where my nephew Steffan:

lives, and I knew my way back. Didn’t stop because there are no restaurants in Schwaigern and everyone was at the house waiting on us for Christmas Eve dinner, anyway.

Inconsiderate Americans.

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Rub Some Dirt on It

Posted on June 2, 2016 by admin

 

I’m a guy. I’m not a particularly tough one, but I’ve had moments. Now, my brother, he’s a tough guy. Drives bulldozers and cranes and cement trucks, and once built an urban water filtration system with a paper clip and a discarded feather. I stand in awe. Both of us, though, in our relative toughness, have the same “walk it off, rub some dirt on it” attitude towards injury and pain. You get hurt, meh. You get the flu, meh. Get your butt to work.

And that’s how I ended up with double bypass surgery two Monday’s ago.

What, because, like a tough guy, I ignored symptoms until I was flopping around on the ground? Uh uh, it was actually through a series of fortunate events.

As the three or four of you who read this blog know, I haven’t had the best of Springs. I caught a respiratory virus at the front of April that whipped my ass, went away, then came back a week later to whip my ass some more. Man. Fevers and head-stuff and exhausted every friggin’ day until finally, finally, the last part of May, all that remained of it was a miserable, hacking cough. I didn’t do a blasted thing that whole time but get up, go to work, sleep.

One morning I dropped off my car for service and then walked a mile to work. When I got there, I had this little ache in my chest. Sheesh, I am soooo out of shape. Gotta get back into it. I resumed my morning exercise routine and, each time I got off the bike, had a little chest ache that went away after a bit. And when I walked up the hill at work, same little achy chest that went away after a bit. Sheesh, I am soooo out of shape. A few more weeks on the bike, and I’ll be back to pre-virus conditions.

And then my sister-in-law called and said my brother was back in the hospital for a second heart stent.

Now, my brother―Piney MacGyver― had a massive heart attack a while back; flatlined, he did, for about a minute before they defibb’d him back to this realm. Which pissed him off. “It was so peaceful,” he told me.

“No bright lights or angels or, in your case, furnaces?” I asked.

“Nope. Just peace.” Turns out he had some artery blockage and they installed a stent. A year later, here he is, getting another stent.

I called him and said, “Dude, rub some dirt on it.”

“Anything for a day off.”

“Cool. So what made you go check?” And then he spoke these fateful words:

“I had a little ache in my chest.”

Hmm. If that’s enough to get Piney MacGyver off to the ER, perhaps I should…

Naah.

So, got off the bike Wednesday morning and had a little ache in my chest. This time, though, it didn’t go away, not even by the time I finished work that afternoon, so I said to my wife these fateful words:

“I think I need to go get checked.”

A stress test and catheter later, the doc said, “Dude, you need a double bypass.” Seems I had a blockage at a spot called the Widow’s Peak, which gives you an idea of how serious this was.

“No stents?” I asked.

“Nah,” doc said, “that’s for wussies. We’re going big or going home here.” A dose of Fentanyl later…and here I am, veins transferred, nifty scar on my chest, and another twenty or so birthdays added to the agenda.

And I get to call my brother a wussy.

 

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Team Cap

Posted on May 9, 2016 by admin

 

Of course. I’m an American. So’s Cap. We both believe that:

(a) the individual is more important than the group;

(b) the natural law trumps the statutory; and

(c) government, even at its most wonderful, is evil.

That being said, the way Captain America: Civil War starts out, I’m kinda in Tony Stark’s camp. See, it’s a good idea to have some type of independent body keeping an eye on powerful, semi-autonomous organizations that tend to the imperial. We used to have one here in the US called Congress but it’s now more interested in sharing imperial power than protecting us peasants. Doesn’t negate the idea, though, especially when the powerful, semi-autonomous organization is capable of overthrowing small―and not-so-small―countries, the way the Avengers can.

So, I was a bit put-off by Cap’s initial opposition to the Accords. Being the good soldier, he knows full well that civilian control of military forces is de rigueur. Yes, that was S.H.I.E.L.D’s job, and, yes, they’re gone, but the principle remains and it’s a matter of Cap expanding his definitions a bit. His balk seemed contrived, just a way to move the plot along. And I think that’s a failure of the script.

See, the real issue isn’t rogue superhero groups running about willy nilly saving mankind from certain annihilation. Not at all. It’s authoritarian centralized governmental structures using rogue superhero groups to make us peasants toe the line. That’s actually the issue in the original Civil War comic series on which this movie is based. If Cap had more clearly expressed it, then the choice would have been more stark (no pun intended). Do you believe in freedom, or do you believe in control?

And, yes, granted, Cap raises a protest about government agendas, but it’s weakly done and passes right on by, mostly because these are post-modernist times and people are choosing government agendas and centralized control over personal autonomy. We want Daddy Government to give us a job, a car, money, an X Box, our own doctor and hospital, six month’s vacation, free movies, a PhD, and a personal police force to beat up anyone we don’t like. So what’s Cap’s problem here?

It’s generational.

See, Cap comes from the Generation of Common Sense. It’s a dying generation, fairly well discredited, but its members tend to quick and decisive action based on the now discredited sense of right and wrong and good and evil. You’re sitting around Avenger’s HQ when you hear about this guy Crossbones

who’s going to steal a zombie apocalypse virus and release the Saviours so, suit up, let’s go…at least, that’s what members of the CS generation would say. There’s just no time to send an application up through the Screening Committee of the UN’s Branch of Weird Threats for staffing and discussion. Crossbones is going in six hours. UN approval is going to take six months. And, even then, there’s a greater than 50% chance that the UN’d say, “Disapproved. Resubmit in 90 days for final disapproval.”

So, go. Stop Crossbones.

And get blamed for it.

The UN is all mad because there’s a bit of collateral damage when the Avenger’s respond to the Chitari and Loki and Ultron and all the other apocalyptic-sized world conquerors’ attempts to conquer the world.  Same way the police get blamed nowadays when they arrest drug dealers. So, monitor the police and the Avengers and criticize them for trying to stop genocide. If the Avengers would just stop showing up, if the police would just stop responding, then all crime would end and Thanos would say, “Oh, sorry to bother you, carry on.”

Have we lost our collective friggin’ minds?

Yeah, we have.

Because the world is now devoid of even a sliver of Common Sense; it is now mediocre, envious, and small-minded. Nothing is anyone’s fault. You are now what you look like, not what you believe. And someone has to approve.

Someone.

Which is the single biggest change to American life in my memory. It used to be that we could do anything we wanted as long as there was no law against it. Now, we can’t do anything unless somebody says we can. Permits for lemonade stands, people. Permits. For lemonade stands.

So a distressingly large percentage of people hear the Cap and Tony argument and go, gee, Cap, you’re being like a bitter clinger or something. I mean, gosh. People could get hurt. Yeah, Crossbones will get the vial of terror virus but at least the Wakandans would be okay. Just let the UN do their job…

Suit up, Cap, I’m coming with you.

Posted in Merry Marvel Marching Society | Comments Off on Team Cap

Lose 5 Pounds!

Posted on May 5, 2016 by admin

…on the too-sick-to-eat-anything diet.

Man. There I was minding my own business, when this virus walked up and sledgehammered me. Left me feeling like this:

I couldn’t make it to Ravencon last weekend because of it. I couldn’t make it out of bed. Second time in less than a month this thing got me. Persistent little bugger.

Anyways, it has really thrown me off schedule and I’m just now getting back to it. Got some re-editing and fixin’ of manuscripts to do, and covers to tweak.

After my nap.

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It. Is. Finished. Part Deux.

Posted on April 3, 2016 by admin

I said The Ship Finding God was done. It is. Or, was. And now is. For reals.

I did the first set of edits, then sent the draft off to Angela Souders, who is a ghost hunter and author and a very cool person whose opinion I trust. She sent me back a couple of pages worth of changes, over half of which I accepted and edited accordingly, and then I told her I was going to change the ending and she promised to send ghosts to haunt me if I did, so, no. Then I put together a style sheet and fixed some things. I sent the whole kit and caboodle off to EJ Knapp for formatting and now, and now…

Now.

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