From Japan

I started seriously reading manga last year for the first time and from there eased back into anime, which I haven't consistently watched since ... I don't even know. College? I used to watch a lot of it with my friends, but never really sought much of it out myself. 

I also got very heavily into several Japanese rock bands because Youtube's algorithm noticed I watched a bunch of videos by an all-female band called GIRLFRIEND and decided on that basis to send me an endless string of all-female rock bands from Japan. There are a ton of them.

Anyway, some good stuff:

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End
Delicious in Dungeon
Zenshu
Rock is a Lady's Modesty
A Ninja and an Assassin Under One Roof

Band-Maid
Nek!
Hagane
Lovebites
PaleNeo
Hanabie
Mutant Monster

Mind the Gap

Scrolling back through this blog, I surprised myself with how quickly I hit 2015. Only 11 posts ago! And the top book in "Books I've written" is Charms and Witches, which, wow, was ten years ago.

It's not that I haven't written anything in the meantime. I finished a fifth Delvonia book not long after that, then wrote a standalone novel in 2022 after getting 35,000  and 10,000 words into a couple of books that fizzled -- oh, and I did throw together a 20,000 word novelette back in 2018.

So why nothing published? Well, I did try with the novelette -- I actually wrote it because a bizarro fiction publisher put out a call for novelettes, so I banged one out and submitted it. It got a very nice, personal response from the publisher along the lines of, "Really good but not quite what we're looking for; feel free to try again with another story sometime."

The other stuff, I would have published myself back in the day. But by the time I got to five books on Amazon and five years of self-publishing under my belt, I concluded that I was no good at marketing or cover creation, and if I didn't do something to improve on both, there wasn't much point in continuing to fart around on KDP, selling maybe a few dozen copies per book and getting nice reviews that apparently only I and a couple of others ever read.

The book from 2022 is good, but still in first draft form. The Delvonia book is exceptional. Frankly, though, I just don't find myself with the energy to do final drafts and search through the thin pickings of fantasy publishers who still accept unsolicited submissions.

So I'm basically writing for myself and a few people close to me these days. Right now I'm 75,000 words into a novel I think is pretty terrific so far, with maybe 2 or 3 months of writing to go if I can keep to a 500-words-per-day pace. 

It's got a different sort of appeal to it. I may end up feeling like it has a shot at getting a publisher's attention, in which case I'll see about breaking my long submissions dry spell.

But the thing I've realized is, if it's not worth it to write for myself, it's not worth it to write at all. I don't work in the right territory to expect to get a cultural phenomenon going, which these days is the only way to make much money at the publishing game.

So I'm content with how things are going, and more than willing to just keep on keeping on and waiting to see what happens.

Any publishers who read this and go to my book links and decide I'm great, feel free to make me an offer!

Free Associating Your Way to Victory: If You Can't Think of the Answer, Think of SOMETHING and Maybe It'll Get You There

At trivia last night, I was stuck on a question about Parks and Recreation. Which two characters from that show, the quizmaster asked, celebrated an annual "Treat Yo Self" day? I love Parks and Rec, so I was pumped to get this one in a snap. And Tom's name popped right into my head.

Yes! Halfway there!

And then, as happens so often at trivia, my brain decided to just block me on remembering Donna. I could picture her. I could hear her and Tom exclaiming in unison, "Treat yo self!" But I had nothing. The song they were playing to count down the time limit got really loud in my head. Nobody else on the team had a clue. I was about to cost us points by blowing what ought to be an easy question for me. The pressure made my brain freeze even harder.

So I just thought, Start writing names. Anything. It's kind of a normal name, right? But not one that's super-popular anymore ...

I wrote down "Brenda."

BZZT. WRONG.

It wasn't Brenda, but ... 

Instead of further panic, my mind eased into this you're-on-the-right-track mode. I put the pencil to the answer slip again.

"Donna."

A couple of criteria, making the decision to act instead of giving up, a little luck hitting three of the right six letters, including the final vowel, and bam. I had it. Tom and Donna celebrated Treat Yo Self day every year on Parks and Rec.

Score!

Also at trivia last night, I told my friend Joe about the stab I recently took at starting a new novel. Don't do it, Herb, I thought, you're going to jinx yourself. You're only 3k words in and you have no idea where it's going ... 

But I told him anyway.

So this morning, with the day off, I got up and sat at my computer determined to push through a thousand or two words to keep my momentum going. And I when I opened up the file, I saw the handful of chapter titles I'd brainstormed up a few days ago in an attempt to cobble together at least some kind of outline. The title of chapter two kinda sorta meant something in the context of the two-and-a-half scenes I've written on chapter one. But none of the rest of it hung together at all. The half-done scene three needed someplace for the characters to go once it was done, and some reason for them to go there. But where, and what? And then what?

Just write some more chapter titles. Anything. Some place names. Throw some words together.

"The Lower Elder Elvendale."

Awesome. If it's the 'lower' something, what's the 'upper' part of it? Why's the upper part separate from the lower part? Well, if it's a valley, it's got a river, right? And if there's an upper valley and a lower valley, how are they split? Waterfalls. Are the characters going to go up the falls? What are the falls called? I guess there are elves here ...

"Up the Fey Falls."

Then ... they've got to do something at the top of the falls, in the upper valley. I dunno what. But that will get them out of the valley, and then where do they go? It can't just come out of nowhere. It needs to tie into something that's already happened or the story's just a bunch of random wandering.

Well, in scene one, I'd had someone tell about a battle where a famed human warrior cracked the Giant King's skull.

"Chapter VIII: The Giant King's Skull."

Why would they need to revisit the Giant King's skull? Why is it even something they could revisit? And this is all going great, but how do they get from the titles I wrote down for chapters two through five, to being in the Lower Elder Elvendale?

Click.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Click.

A couple of criteria, some essentially random stuff I'd already written, a commitment to write something instead of giving up, and suddenly a crap-ton of story was falling into place. The first two-and-a-half scenes, which I'd had fun writing but felt no certainty would go anywhere, had turned into a story foundation I'm now really excited about. I have actionable ideas for the first eleven or twelve chapters in the book.

And I one-hundred-percent promise you, if I hadn't written "Brenda" down last night, I never would have gotten "Donna." The song would have run out, and those points would be gone.

You can't just sit there and wait for it to come to you, you know?

Public Service Announcement

I've been on a mild antidepressant for years without ever being certain how much it actually does. As is often the case with long-term medications, this year, my prescription expired well before my annual physical, meaning the online pharmacy my work requires me to use had to contact my physician's office for refills. This is a task they've somehow gotten worse at over the years rather than better, and their batting average in 2020 has been especially poor. To make a long story medium length, I ran out about three weeks ago, with about a week and a half to go until my doctor's appointment.

Since I haven't had any really bad depressive episodes in quite a while, just low-grade ups-and-downs, I didn't push for a temporary supply to tide me over, and at the appointment discussed with the P.A. whether it would be a good time to test the waters of going off the medication entirely. Since I hadn't noticed any difference during the time I'd gone without, she agreed it would be reasonable to try, so when the online pharmacy finally delivered the prescription last week, I just put it in the drawer and continued monitoring my mood.

Yesterday, a typical collection of work-related annoyances piled up on one another in slightly larger numbers than normal, and I went in the kitchen to get an early lunch despite not being hungry. While chiding myself for stress-eating, I opened the freezer and was confronted by a choice between two equally unhealthy frozen junk-food entrees -- and as I gloomily struggled to pick, the choice got harder and harder, and a spike of depressive angst just about dropped me to the floor.

The emotion spiralled me downward so quickly, and so clearly exceeded any proportionate response to the triggering stimuli, it basically announced with a bullhorn that it was symptomatic and not ordinary, healthy brain function at all. It might as well have been a sneeze or a sudden rush of allergy-driven eye-watering.

So I went in and took my bupropion, and I've been fine ever since.

The moral of this story is that, while depression is a complex collection of mental health conditions, some portion of it in some people is driven or at least worsened by straightforward brain chemistry issues that respond to targeted medication almost as readily as fevers and headaches do.

If you struggle with chronic depression and have resisted trying medication, stop thinking that it reflects poorly on you if you need chemical assistance to help control your symptoms. "My head really hurts, but I ought to be strong enough to get through without taking an ibuprofen," is kind of a silly thing to think, and for a lot of people, it's equally silly to say, "I feel so down all the time, but I ought to be strong enough to get through without taking an antidepressant."

Disclosure: I ended up making both the frozen burritos and the frozen cheeseburger sliders, and my stomach was unhappy with me, but I don't regret it.

I Like ‘Picard’ So Far, But ...

CBS All Access needs to tell their Star Trek writers to stop doing this.

Interior, Character A's (study/ready room/lab). Character B enters dramatically.

Character B: I have news.

Character A: What is it?

Character B: I suspect ... you already know exactly what it is.

Character A: No. So soon? This changes everything.

Character B: In ways we cannot begin to describe.

Character A: Be careful, Character B. That kind of talk can have consequences. Unspecified consequences ... so unspecified, in fact, that you would regret ever learning their specifics.

Character B: I understand.

Character A: Do you, though? Do you truly understand?

Character B: More than you could ever know. You see, I too can reveal the possibility of unspecified consequences. And for your sake, I hope you grasp the implications of that.

A very smart family member whom I admire recently shared this quote on Facebook:

My response was this:

It doesn’t take a moral law to recognize suffering. It doesn’t take a moral law to recognize enjoyment. It therefore doesn’t take a moral law to recognize someone taking enjoyment from the suffering of others. It doesn’t require a moral law to care about your friends' and family members’ well-being. It therefore doesn’t require a moral law to dislike the idea of someone taking enjoyment from your suffering or that of your friends and family members. It doesn’t require a moral law to feel a sense of small friendship with a stranger who smiles at you as she rings up your purchases at the grocery store, or one who says, “Here, let me get that door for you” when your hands are full. It therefore does not require a moral law to dislike the idea of someone taking pleasure in the suffering of strangers.

Cruelty and exploitation and spitefulness are not Evil, but they are evils with a lowercase “e,” and they don’t require a moral law to recognize. They only require empathy, which is a quality readily observed in almost all social animals.

When we require adherence to a moral law that is given by a law-giver, we de-emphasize the importance of empathy. And we enable power-hungry people to further undermine empathy through the creation of cruel laws.

We do not have or need laws to enforce morality. We have and need them because some individuals lack sufficient empathy and/or understanding to behave in a manner that avoids unnecessary suffering. And since laws can cause unintended suffering or even deliberate suffering, they cannot be regarded as the embodiment of morality. Rather, they are a necessary evil which we must always regard through the watchful lens of our empathy.

One is, of course, perfectly welcome to believe that empathy has a higher source. But if so, then having granted us empathy, that source has also granted us the only need for and path toward law that is required. Any declaration of a moral law distinct from empathy is therefore unable to prove itself in the way that the author of the quote attempts to demonstrate. It may be accepted as a given by those who so choose. But in mathematical and logical proofs, we should remember that what is given is by definition not proven.

I thought I demonstrated a lot of empathy by writing it that way instead of just saying, "I call B.S. on this quote."

Westworld: What's in a Name?

You know those shows you watch, the ones with lots of big arcs and mysteries that make you wonder if it's all headed somewhere, or if the creators are just making it up seat-of-the-pants as they go along? Battlestar Galactica and Lost come to mind as examples -- stories that delve into the metaphysical and create uncertainty about the nature of the reality experienced by the characters.

Usually, at some point, they give away their hand. The time for payoff arrives -- maybe for a plot thread that's run through one season, maybe for the series as a whole -- and you realize that they've been winging it.

That's not Westworld.

As I watched the first season, I kept worrying that I'd traveled this path before. Apparent inconsistencies and odd bits of presentation made me think, "Yeah, these pieces aren't all fitting together smoothly," or, "Huh? That seems like a mistake."

No.

Westworld is one of the most carefully constructed television shows I've ever seen -- to such an extent that it almost commands me to write about it.

So here's a start, a taste of Westworld's oceanic depth of thought and planning. I'll try to avoid spoilers, but some of this will make sense only if you've watched the show. If you haven't, I highly recommend you do so.

Let's begin with a partial list of characters from the show.

Dr. Robert Ford
Bernard Lowe
Dolores Abernathy
Theodore "Teddy" Flood
Maeve Millay
William
Logan

William and Logan are visitors to the park. William is a thoughtful, sensitive fellow who's hesitant about the attractions of Westworld -- the carnality, the violence. He meets and quickly grows entranced with rancher's daughter Dolores Abernathy, a synthetic "host" within the park. Logan, meanwhile, is a shallow thrill-seeker intent on making the most of Westworld's unbounded opportunities for self-indulgence.

What does the name "William" mean? Resolute protector. And "Logan"? Hollow.

Maeve Millay is madam at the town brothel in Westworld's main village. She's played with deliriously entrancing verve by Thandie Newton, and both her beauty and her personality magnetize the susceptible whenever she's onscreen.

"Maeve" means "she who intoxicates." Millay could be a play on "milady" -- or it could be a licentious bit of punnery, since "mille" is one-thousandth and "lay" is pretty self-explanatory.

Next, we get a little deeper. Robert Ford serves as creative director of Westworld, having created it decades ago with his partner, Arnold. The two of them invented and programmed the hosts who form the main attraction of the park, and while Arnold died tragically before the place opened, Robert has carried on through a career of genius and fame. Fittingly, "Robert" means famed, bright, or shining.

And "Ford?" A ford is a river crossing, a place where a journey can proceed from one side of dividing waters to the other.

Why can a river be crossed at a ford? Because the water there is low.

Bernard Lowe serves as Ford's right hand. Almost everything Ford achieves, Bernard enables in some way, through his technical wizardry or his stout, quiet loyalty. Like Ford, he's brilliant -- but he's about the least flashy genius you could imagine -- quiet, calm, and humble. That is to say, he speaks in a low volume, his behavior is low-key, and his ambition is virtually non-existent. As the series progresses, we find out how much he has endured over the years and how difficult he is to cow. This is where "Bernard" comes in. It means, "hardy, strong, or brave as a bear."

Now, if low water permits a Ford to do its job, high water might be expected to prevent it. But Teddy Flood doesn't impede Dr. Ford in the least. He's a square-jawed, simplistic character who plays the noble, long-suffering Romeo to Dolores Abernathy's Juliet. As one of the park's artificial hosts, he's completely under Ford's control. "Teddy" might even imply that he's a toy. So what's the significance of "Flood?" Well, midway through the season, the villainous Man in Black (Ed Harris) has an encounter with Dr. Ford, and when he threatens the park's master, Teddy Flood stops him.

Of course, a flood will prevent you from crossing a ford.

As for "Theodore," it means, "God's gift." Possibly, it's sheer coincidence that Michaelangelo's "The Creation of Adam" has an important moment toward the end of the season. But I really don't think there's a lot of coincidence going on in this show.

Finally, there's Dolores Abernathy. "Dolores" is an easy one, even a bit heavy-handed. Plenty of people will already know that the name means, "sorrow." And Dolores more than almost any other character goes through all kinds of hell through the course of the story. But what about Abernathy? Seems like just a handy name for a ranch family, with a bit of a quaint or old-timey ring to it. Nothing watery or river-y about it, right? Actually, as it turns out Abernathy is a place name. It means, "mouth of the Nethy River." Okay, there's a river in there after all! And the mouth of a river is where it meets the sea, right? Dolores repeatedly brings up a dream image she has, of a place "where the mountains meet the sea." She feels this place calling to her -- it symbolizes home and safety and some ineffable goal she can't quite understand. Holy cow, does the Nethy River flow through mountains where they meet the sea?

A little geographic Internet searching provided me with the answer. Now, like I said, I'm trying to avoid spoilers. Dolores is on a journey, and wants to find a place where the mountains meet the sea. If "Abernathy" pinpoints a place where the river Nethy flows through mountains and reaches the sea, that might give something away. On the other hand, if it flows through mountains and doesn't reach the sea, that's kind of foreshadowing too, isn't it? So all I'll say is, the Nethy is a river in Scotland that flows through the Cairngorm mountains.

It gets at least pretty close to the sea.

Is all this just my obsessive imagination run wild? Maybe. One of my searches while writing this turned up a name-based analysis of the show with some completely different interpretations and references. It could just be a fluke that four of the main characters have names that are water- or river-related, and that those names are descriptive of their relative roles and actions in the show.

But perhaps a greater point is that the show supports this depth of thinking. There's a huge amount going on in every episode, including tiny details that mean nothing the first time you watch an episode, but make your eyes bug out when you re-watch with an understanding of the season finale.

If you like entertainment that expects you to think, and you haven't already done so, you should check it out.

Luka's Dawn by A.M. Manay!

I've thoroughly enjoyed the November Snow series by my fellow Self-Published Indie Network author, A.M. Manay. It's a vampire-faerie-werewolf-psychic adventure extravaganza with a huge cast of intriguing characters and an appealing mix of fun, thrills, thought, and heart.

If this sounds like a good combo to you, I'll call your attention to the newest addition, a short story called "Luka's Dawn" -- although spoiler-phobes will want to start at the beginning, since this one is pretty much chock-full of important details about the rest of the series. Manay has a clever way of playing with spoilers, though: the first November Snow book is truthfully called She Dies at the End, and even when the foreshadowing makes you certain what's coming, things still surprise you when you get there.

Anyway, I had the privilege of beta-reading "Luka's Dawn," and it's a splendid addition to the series. You can pre-order it here if interested!

One of my compatriots at the Alliance of Self Published Authors, W.O. Cassity, is releasing a Lovecraftian horror story next month.

Here's a short excerpt for all who might be interested:

     Skulking over the ledger’s musty-scented pages, Dr. Livingston dipped the oversized quill into the emerald-green inkwell before penning the latest entry:

11 November 1877
Bethlem Royal Hospital Bedlam
London, England

Subject 41 expired at approximately 10:22 p.m., possibly due to cardiac arrest once again. I wait for my assistant Hensley to deliver and release the corpse to the hospital morgue. My only concern is that there may perhaps be further inquiry into the claw-like contusions upon the deceased's forearms and along his facial cheeks. I still cannot fathom how the subject, who was restrained, managed to damage himself in such a way. Both Hensley and I agree that the peculiar wounds appeared to spontaneously appear across the patient’s flesh of their own accord.

Having witnessed this entire incident, I must admit that further precautions are still a necessity as I continue to push on toward a resolution to this condition. The screams of the patient still reverberate within my ears at those haunting terrors, which only existed in his tormented mind. My first assertion is that the patient’s experience became so vivid, he was somehow able to enact the subjective manifestations of his consciousness into literal lacerations upon his extremities. Perhaps Hensley and I are the first to witness the true potential of the human mind to inflict its falsely perceived stimuli upon the body during a controlled experiment. Mind over the material world indeed! This may warrant further exploration in the future after I have completed my current work toward a cure for dementia praecox.

When Hensley returns, he will prepare Subject 42 for her time in the chair. I will administer the new cocktail of ingredients according to the schedule after readjusting the chloroform and nitrous oxide levels for proper sedation during the procedure. Even though she’s much smaller than Subject 41, we still need to gauge the appropriate levels of anesthesia so Subject 42 will remain conscious yet controllable and programmable during the procedure.

As I understand it, Subject 42 has a peculiarly heightened state of hysteria, so perhaps this will allow us to mark any substantial improvements in her mental realignment using the electric resonating device with profound measure. It was difficult to identify the response from Subject 41 due to his condition’s tepid state and mannerisms.

Regardless of tonight’s setbacks, I have the utmost certainty that I can mitigate the issues Subject 41 experienced tonight. It is too soon for me to surrender now and too dangerous for me to stop. Questions are being asked already and if I do not have an answer to Annabelle’s condition soon, I may not be able to cure her ailment before they forcibly return me to New York if they discover what I have been doing. Certainly, they would shower me with accolades upon my substantial progress, but the board will need to see results and I need to save Annabelle if I am to marry her. She would definitively accept my proposal of marriage with a clear mind, for who else could liberate her from Dr. Kraepelin’s diagnosis other than the youngest fellow to be accepted by Bethlem Royal Hospital? At the age of thirty-seven, I will become renowned for such an achievement and therefore, Annabelle would accept me unconditionally.

E. L., PhD

Edgar rested his quill in the inkwell and remained still as he pondered what outcomes awaited him in the final experiment of the evening. A rapping at the heavy oak study door rescued him from his reverie.

“Yes, what is it?” he asked.

“Dr. Livingston, Subject 42 is now prepped for the resonance procedure,” Hensley responded. “Should I start charging the apparatus?”

“Indeed, Hensley. I shall be there momentarily.”

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Something Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition Got Really, Really Right

One of my friends linked to this on Facebook today:

I got choked up about this too -- not just when I first got the book, but to be honest, every time I've looked at it since. The art directors for the 5E books did a terrific job being inclusive ... and in a way that's genuine and story-oriented, not forced. If you have any sense of adventure and a yearning for heroism, the picture of that woman on the "Human" entry makes you want to *be* her. It's the truest kind of representation, because it makes you feel human even if you look nothing like her.

Half-orcs and tieflings, on the other hand, kinda got the shaft. Apologies to the artists who did those sections, but ... yechh. Who wants to play a character that looks like that?

Beyond Expectations

When I heard Simon Pegg would be writing the third of the reboot Star Trek films, I was cautiously optimistic. Optimistic because, well, Simon Pegg. Cautiously because ... um ... Paramount. I got a really strong impression that Into Darkness was initially written with the villain not being Khan, and that the studio had him shoe-horned in for completely cynical reasons. So even considering Simon Pegg to be a genius, I wasn't sure he'd be allowed by the suits to work real magic.

When I heard Justin Lin would be directing ST: Beyond, I remained cautiously optimistic despite the caterwauling of many Trek fans that the movie would be turned into The Fast and the Federation. I've never seen any of the F&F movies, but I'm of the impression they're good popcorn flicks, and the trailers for that franchise alone make it clear Lin can bring the spectacle. After the dreary cynicism of ST: ID, I would have been happy with a good popcorn flick version of Trek.

By the time I saw the final ST: B trailer, though, I'd become tepid in my hopes. Each of the trailers seemed determined to make the movie look more action-packed, and none gave an impression of strong story or dialogue.

My son kept asking me when we were going to go see it, though, so last weekend we packed the family in the van and went to the theater. Everyone enjoyed themselves, but as it happened, Joey, the one kid most interested in seeing it, was working that day and didn't get to go.

So last night, I took him and saw it a second time.

What a terrific film.

The first time round, my nitpick circuitry hadn't been turned off, and I found aspects of the movie silly, parts of the plot predictable, and some of the pacing haphazard. Somewhere around the 45-minute mark, I thought to myself, "This is a perfectly enjoyable Star Trek film, but I'm not going to want to see it over and over again."

The thing is, though, the movie kept getting better and better as it went on. The energy ramped progressively upward, but at no point did the characterization slack -- in fact, almost every aspect of the spectacle served as an opportunity to let the beloved Trek ensemble shine. And despite these characters now being 50 years old, the culmination of the story delivers real meaning for them -- and does so with a grace and elegance largely absent from the previous two films.

On a second viewing, all my nits had been picked, and the movie captivated me.

Do you want to see Captain Kirk outwit and outfight bad guys while delivering both gravitas and wry humor? Do you want to see classic McCoy/Spock duels of sarcasm done with genuine invention and an undercurrent of heart? Do you want to see Uhura do more than sit at her console or get choked by a Klingon? Scotty, Chekov and Sulu each getting their moments to shine? Then this ought to be the movie for you.

Star Trek: Beyond overflows with the sensibilities of the original series. Yes, the action gets hyperkinetic at times -- but even that is really in keeping with TOS, if you think back to those space battle scenes where a jerky rotation of the camera would fling the whole bridge crew about with choreographed inertia.

There's more great Trek dialogue in this film than in the previous two put together, more of a sense that these characters fit together as a unit, more pure adventure and entertainment, and a greater celebration of what the Federation is and what it represents.

So much for even-numbered Star Trek films being the good ones!

Us versus ...

It is far past time for people of conscience to stand up. Not against another people, not against a group or organization, not against any other human being -- but against an idea.

The idea of "us versus them."

It's an attractive idea with insidious allure and horrific staying power. But it's the wrong idea.

If we're going to fix these problems we face, if we're going to put an end to the violence and the hatred, we need to come to grips with the central issue, which is the deeply mistaken notion that there is a "them."

There is no "them." There is only an us.

And we need to convince ourselves and our fellows that every one of us is one of us. Even the deluded. Even the demented. Even the unsalvageable.

Because until we remove from our thinking this conviction that "they" are a "them," we will continue to treat "them" with a lesser standard of decency than we demand for ourselves. And so long as we treat some of us less decently, the response will be a return in kind.

Tribalism begets tribalism. It can never be defeated by more tribalism.

We live in a world of us versus us. It's time we wake up to that reality and bring an end to its misbegotten evil.

Free and Cheap Books!

The Ingressionist, book two of The Aveliad, is free now through March 3! And all the other books in the Delvonian Tales series are just 99 cents each!

More Than You Could Imagine

I was driving home from Plano, mulling over these complaints that Star Wars: The Force Awakens is just a retread of the original 1977 movie. So I decided to make a mental list of all the things in the movie that we've never seen before in any Star Wars film. Because I'm nerdy like that.

Anyway, here it is. Please correct me if you can think of a single example of any of these things in the first six films.

1) a rolling ball droid
2) a hot-shot pilot who's a major character and also with the resistance when we first meet him
3) stormtroopers making a landing for a ground assault
4) a Force user who can freeze blaster bolts and paralyze people
5) female stormtroopers
6) a stormtrooper taking off his helmet
7) a stormtrooper breaking conditioning
8) a full explanation of where stormtroopers come from
9) a woman as the central protagonist
10) a fully formulated economic ecosystem based on scavenging the wreckage of a galactic-scale war
11) humans who have learned to understand the language of astromechs
12) the inside of a wrecked Star Destroyer
13) people on a desert planet being thirsty (!)
14) self-rising sponge food
15) good guys flying a TIE fighter
16) TIE fighters strafing civilians
17) someone having to get the hang of piloting a spaceship
18) atmospheric spaceship combat
19) Han Solo actually smuggling something (!)
20) Han Solo listening to Chewbacca and treating him like a partner instead of a pet or underling
21) the interior of a large civilian spacecraft
22) fighting alien monsters aboard a spaceship
23) someone who is sexually attracted to wookiees
24) a female general
25) a planetary-scale weapon being fired with a view from the surface that shows its beam taking up the entire horizon
26) a Force user who can read minds
27) a Force duel that's entirely mental
28) a sun being sucked away into darkness as the visual and thematic backdrop to a high-stakes dogfight and an even higher-stakes personal confrontation
29) a human female wielding a lightsaber
30) a female with a speaking role who is a Force user


Did I miss any?

Not What I Expected

I got this CD in the early '90s for the song "Soul to Soul," which was getting airplay on several of the stations I listened to in Dallas at the time. Based on that one song, I was expecting edgy, unpredictable indie rock with a lot of creative modulations -- depending on how generous you are, "Soul to Soul" has six or eight distinct motifs, as compared to the typical pop song's three to five.

So when I put it on for my first listen, I was gravely disappointed that the rest of the CD sounded to me like nothing more than a proficient '80s hair metal band. None of the other tracks had nearly the complexity of "Soul to Soul," and as my disappointment mounted, track 6 came along and served up the ultimate hair band crime: an obligatory ballad with the acoustic guitar-strum lead-in joined by humming and/or whistling on the part of the lead singer.

I tried to give the album several more shots, then wrote it off as the work of a thoroughly indistinctive band that happened to exceed their capabilities for a single, lucky song. Because I'm a pack rat, the CD stayed on the shelf or in a box through four or five moves. I think I tried to sell it to CD Exchange once and they didn't want it.

But I reached the B stretch of my collection for this feature, and I didn't want to go straight into the Beatles, and I was also curious as to why I'd bought "Dancin' on Coals" in the first place, since I couldn't even remember the title of the one song I'd liked. So into the car CD player it went.

And darned if it's not a pretty good album!

This time around, instead of expecting edgy, unpredictable indie rock, I was expecting boring late '80s hair-band music. And the CD turned out to be just as far from that prediction as from my original expectation in 1990. Bang Tango, at least in this incarnation, blends funk-metal, glam-metal, and some alt rock stylings into a highly listenable concoction full of blistering guitars and amazingly inventive bass parts, making it hard to believe that I mistook this for hair metal, which almost always relies on alternating two-tone eighth-note thudding for its bass lines. There are saxaphones and harmonica solos, and even some gospel-ish backing singers on "Midnight Struck" -- the song I mistook for a cliche hair-band ballad -- and none of it's thrown in; every song is carefully and solidly arranged with thoughtful layers and variations from verse to verse. The production values are great without the CD being overproduced or glitzed-up. It's just all-out solid rock and roll, very well put together.

And "Soul to Soul," far from being just a kind of cool song, is downright incredible.

So thanks, CD Exchange, for turning this one down, if I'm remembering that part of the story right!

This One's Beyond Obscure

So, maybe you know the crazy guitar-organ-flute-yodeling-accordion-Popeye-the-Sailor-vocalization masterpiece "Hocus Pocus" by the Dutch group Focus. Or slightly less likely, you might know their song "Sylvia." But I'm pretty sure you didn't know that their guitarist, Jan Akkerman, recorded an album of classical lute songs interspersed with far-edge eclectic art rock as one of his solo endeavors.



That's Tabernakel. I can't for sure remember what inspired me to buy this CD, but I think it was the unintentionally hilarious set of liner notes in my copy of the digitally remastered Focus 3, wherein the producer of most of Focus's albums waxed Spinal Tap-esque about the genius of the band. Somewhere along the way, he mentioned Akkerman's obsession with lute music and that he thought the guitarist had actually recorded a whole album of lute songs. Like I suspect is the case with most of the stuff in those liner notes, that wasn't quite true; about a third of the album is art rock. But there are a lot of lute songs.

I'm guessing if you like lute music, this is pretty kick-ass stuff. Akkerman is a hell of a musician, and the songs have enough complexity that there are times when I think, surely he overdubbed that with a second lute track -- it can't all be him just playing one lute. But I'm pretty sure it is.

Anyway, if you've got a hankering for lute tunes, check it out.

Random ABBA Thoughts

So I've been terrible about this CD feature so far, but I'm going to try to crank several out over the next few days and get myself in the habit.

Up next is ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits.

I'm not ashamed to say that I love ABBA. I think they're officially the second-highest selling pop group of all time, so I've got company, even if they also personify some of the silly excess of the 1970s. And in my defense, I only love them enough to have their greatest hits. It's not like I've got all their albums, right?

Anyway, I have no unifying thesis for this ABBA fest. Just a potpourri of observations and memories.

First, there are some genuinely poignant and uplifting moments in the music of ABBA. "Chiquitita, you and I cry / but the sun is still in the sky and shining above you." "I believe in angels / something good in everything I see." Maybe the words are a little saccharine on their own, but those voices and the music really make me buy it.

Next, I can't think of ABBA without remembering that there was an ABBA movie, and that I watched it on cable, probably several times, but can only remember one scene from the very end of the film. (Spoiler: I guess the characters in the film spend the whole time trying to see ABBA in concert or meet them or something, and they totally fail, and then in the last few minutes after they've given up, they get on an elevator and ABBA are there. Is this ringing a bell with anybody?)

Finally, there's a snippet in "One of Us" that's pretty much exactly the vocal hook from Ace of Bass's "I Saw the Sign." It was very weird putting this CD in my car player, getting to a track that I'm really quite unfamiliar with, and then hearing this 100% familiar moment that was only familiar because of a different, later song. I'm not accusing Ace of Bass of stealing it, but they totally stole it.

I Have Not Been Selected!

But thanks anyway to everyone who nominated my book in the Kindle Scout program. I still think it's a cool program, but I guess I'm just destined to do a little more legwork.

I should be able to get Charms and Witches self-published in the Kindle store and in hardcopy form on Amazon in a week or two. It basically had to be ready to go for ebook publication in order to be submitted to Kindle Scout, so I just have to format the paperback version.

Since I didn't get selected for Scout publication, I have no way to identify people who nominated me and send them a free copy the way Scout automatically would have. But if you watch this space or follow me on Twitter (@HerbMallette), I'll announce when the book will be on free promotional giveaway status.

Thanks again to everyone who voted for me! I appreciate all the support!

A Little Red-Faced

So ... I consistently kept up my new weekly feature for exactly one week!

In my defense ... well, I'll make up a defense later. I'm a procrastinator, in case you couldn't guess.

Anyway, this week's CD (or last week's or maybe it was the week before's) is the soundtrack to the marvelous animated classic, Hoodwinked.





If you haven't seen this movie, it's probably on Netflix or if not, the DVD is crazy cheap, like four bucks. The concept is a retelling of the Little Red Riding Hood story as a police procedural, using the storytelling technique of Akira Kurosawa's Roshomon. I've never seen Roshomon, but Hoodwinked makes me want to.

Aside from being clever and cute and funny as hell, Hoodwinked is notable for having a tremendously fun genre-hopping soundtrack of original pop songs, rock numbers, Henry Mancini-style caper music, and even a couple of songs from that rarest genre of all: rap music that I actually like.

In addition to numbers where stars Anne Hathaway, Jim Belushi and Andy Dick strut their vocal stuff, the soundtrack includes a wistful melodic piece featuring Ben Folds, along with score music by the film's composer and lots of songs written and performed by the movie's co-director, Todd Edwards, who's obviously a multi-talented guy.

One of my favorite tracks is a bluegrassy tune sung by a yodeling billy goat. Trust me, it makes total sense in the movie.

All in all, a dynamite soundtrack and a movie to be enjoyed by kids and adults alike.

Check it out!

New Feature!

In an effort to get myself blogging more often, I'm going to steal a page from my friend Donna Beck and schedule some features. To start with, I've decided to write a weekly piece in which I'll examine one of the albums in my music collection. For lack of a better plan, let's begin at the top of my CD rack and move along one artist or perhaps one category at a time and have a brief discussion of whatever merits, drawbacks, and/or interesting facts strike me about one of the CDs.

And the inaugural CD is ...

The complete Basil Poledouris score for Conan the Barbarian.

Right off the bat, let's get this out of the way: although I've got a soft spot for this movie, I am not its biggest fan. I saw it twice in the theater as a teenager, which for financial reasons I only did with movies I really liked. But the summer after it came out, I actually read all the Conan books and discovered that the Conan in the movie was a big wimp compared to the Conan in the books. And other than having muscles, Arnold Schwarzenneger actually looks nothing like Conan. Nor does he really talk like Conan or display much of Conan's cunning. So by late adolescence, I was already pooh-poohing the film, and rewatching it in adulthood didn't do anything to improve its standing with me.

But the soundtrack manages to perform the amazing feat of elevating an inauthentic adaptation of the character into a sweeping and majestic epic, and for that reason, I was more than happy to shell out the thirty bucks (plus shipping) for this 3-disc extravaganza.

I'm sure your first question is, "Who the hell needs three CDs worth of Conan the Barbarian music???" The answer, of course, is no one. Which is why the "complete score" part of the package is all on two CDs, with the third disc in the set comprising the truncated soundtrack released on vinyl in 1982. So this product is really aimed at people with both a completionist mania to possess all 108 minutes of the full score and an understanding that it will often be preferable to listen to the 48-minute version everyone else considers more than sufficient.

To sit through the whole thing, you've got to have a pretty significant appreciation for theme and variation. Poledouris crafted a number of distinctive melodies for this soundtrack, but not as many as you'll find in, say, John Williams' original Star Wars soundtracks. So there are a lot of recurring motifs and themes, rendered in different arrangements and at different tempos.

Rather than try to work my way through a description of the musical highlights, I'll just give a couple of personal notes on my connection to this music.

First, does it say something about my 16-year-old self that my favorite piece from this soundtrack is called, "The Orgy"? Maybe. But the music for the orgy scene is so sensual and lush, and really just does a perfect job capturing the carnal and charnel decadence of the Doom cult's fiendish bacchanalia. Even though it's been maybe 20 years since I last saw the movie, hearing this bit still vividly conjures images of Conan and his partners in their bizarrely conceived makeup (intended as camouflage?) sneaking around the huge chamber full of dazed, indulgence-sated cultists. It's gorgeous music, and it always reminds me of the Jupiter movement from Holst's "The Planets."

Second, I'm one of perhaps three people in the whole world for whom Poledouris's main title theme doesn't conjure images of Conan or wild Hyborian battle sequences. Instead, it gives me visions of a bunch of claymation Dungeons and Dragons characters fighting trolls and evil sorcerers. In high school, my friends and I used to make stop-animated films using modeling clay and a super-8 camera, and one of our best ones featured our D&D characters marauding through a dungeon with the Conan music playing in the background. By some miraculous quirk of fate, the title theme matched up almost perfectly with the stop-motion adventures, even the part where the brash, percussive battle theme modulates into the more sedate, sweeping, Romantic segment. I've got the movie on VHS somewhere, if the tape hasn't decayed with age. Someday maybe I'll pay to have it transferred to DVD.

So there you have it. Rush right out and buy your copy. And if you're really ambitious, buy a single-frame-capable video camera and some modeling clay, too!