It's All About Story...

  This post isn't so much about one book, but a series. Several years ago I was looking for a good series to read, or listen to, again lots of time in a car, and stumbled across The Wolf of the North by Duncan M. Hamilton. If you read through reviews about his books you will get a mixed bag, but I would submit to you that the naysayers are... well... blind.  I think the important thing with Hamilton is to read all of his books in the framework of the world he is painting. That will really show how flexible this man is with his writing craft. In a simplified way, through the three series I have read so far, you have your barbarian story, your musketeer story, and your dragon slayer story. All very different, but they fit well together. Kind of reminds me of Joe Abercrombie, but the vulgarity isn't so present, which is nice.  One thing I will warn you is that Hamilton likes to dash your hopes on a regular basis. The Wolf of the North is particularly good at this. What is i...

50 years later and I am still reading sword and sorcery novels. Conan the Barbarian is still one of my go tos. The characters Howard, and subsequent authors, developed in that universe are rich and fun. One of my favorites in the Conan universe is the swashbuckling captain Valeria. She's sexy, strong, and still all woman.  Side note, while Sandahl Bergman, who played Valeria in John Milius' epic "Conan the Barbarian," was a crush of mine, she's not the same Valeria. Anyway, in the stories, she matches Conan's skill and bravado to a tee, a fun character to read. She goes toe to toe with the big barbarian in many ways... yes, many ways. Which leads to, S.M. Stirling's "Conan: The Blood of the Serpent," published in 2022. I picked it up on Audible recently as I spend a lot of time in the car. Stirling sets up the story as their first in person meeting and lays it out as a precursor to Robert E. Howard's Conan story, "The Red Nails," pu...

I don't get to posting that much. On top of that, this type of thing isn't in my wheelhouse, so nobody really reads this stuff anyway... but just in case you do... and like Conan stories, read, or listen, to the book above.  John C. Hocking includes two stories in this volume, Conan and the Emerald Lotus and Conan and the Living Plaque. Both are pretty good stories, and if you get the audio book, it is read by Bradford Hastings, who does a damned good job. Hasting's take on Conan's voice and personality is very fitting in my humble, or not so humble, opinion.  The first story, Conan and the Emerald Lotus, follows Conan as he gets himself caught in a battle between three sorcerers and the mysterious emerald lotus. This story really feels like an R. E. Howard Conan story. Conan functioning in the interests of Conan, gets himself embroiled in this mage competition, and it's not really a competition, but more of an intrique bound up in ambition, betrayal, and addiction....

  As usual, I am always looking for something new to read, but I am often disappointed. I feel like written material is now taking a back seat to visual material. Odd for me to say as my professional background is film and animation production. Most of the time I have at least two books going at the same time, usually something more scholarly, historic, perhaps practical, or theoretical, and then something in the fantasy/sci-fi genre so the brain can unwind and disconnect from the data of the former.  So, here I am reading F.F. Bruce's "Are the New Testament Documents Reliable," which is an excellent read in itself, published originally in 1943, but Bruce updated as new discoveries were made. About halfway through I think, I need something a little less scholarly to rest the little grey cells. I think that would actually upset Poirot, resting the little grey cells. Anyway, I stumble upon Bernard Cornwell's account of the battle of Waterloo, " Waterloo: The Histor...

  When I read the synopsis for this show, I immediately thought that this idea would never catch on in the UK.  I have English family, some of them worked for the royal family during 1960's and 70's. Two of my cousins were Pages of Honour to the Queen. They still refer to us as the colonies. The idea of an American Police Constable in Lincolnshire automatically struck me as, no, this won't do. I was right on the perception in the UK part. Sadly, ITV did not renew the series after its initial season. You can watch the show on Amazon's Britbox here . I read some of the reviews from British critics, they were exactly what I expected. I won't offer my detailed thoughts on them, but I think I have enough insight to understand why, and in my humble opinion, they are wrong.  The show follows Bill Hixson, former US Police Chief, played by Rob Lowe, who has a reputation as an efficient, hard, and mechanical leader. He is hired to take charge of the East Lincolnshire Police f...

  I am a gamer. I think I may need to start going to AA for gaming, gamers anonymous, do they have that? It's a problem, I particularly have a love for RPGs, but adventure gaming as a whole is for me. Many, many, years ago, when computers had green screens with neon green type blinking fancifully across the monitor, I would sit in my father's offices, wherever we were posted, and play Zork I: The Underground Empire. I would describe this game as the godfather of adventure games. Each time I see, "West of House. You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a mailbox here," I am flooded with memories, imagination, and the urge to play. If you are interested, there are plenty of emulators out there, look it up and give it a try. As time moved on, I got into 3/4 perspective role playing games, which simply means the gameplay takes place looking down on a map as you navigate your player, and/or party, through the story and en...

I always tell my students that there are no new stories, simply various perspectives on a handful of premises. Most of them gasp, think I am nuts, and wonder why, then, should they bother studying our craft. Their doubt is usually assuaged when I bring up Star Wars, The Matrix, Harry Potter, and now Dune. (I did used to mention the 1984 Dune, but no one remembers that one much). I will end the presentation asking which one of them will have the next great take on the messiah story? It really gets the discussion going. At some point the question comes up, "how much can you borrow from another story?" My answer is nothing, it needs to be your own, but there are varying legal precedents for how much one can have similarities with another entity considering my earlier comment about their being nothing new really. Which brings me to two TV series I have recently watched. ITV's "Shetland" (available on Amazon Prime's Britbox) and BBC One's "Wallander,...

I wanted to start this with, "what young man doesn't love Sherlock Holmes?" I then thought for a moment that there are probably a lot of young men who have no idea who Sherlock Holmes is. Or at a bare minimum, they picture Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. I am not knocking that series by the way; it is extremely well done. I still prefer the Granada Television series from the 80's to early 90's with Freddie Eynsford... uh Jeremy Brett. Great series and adaptations. I have been reading the Holmes stories since I was about 8 years old. I bought an anthology collection of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock stories at a bookfair while we were stationed in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. I couldn't put it down. I have the same collection downloaded on audible, engaging to listen to, and well produced. Sadly, somewhere in transit over the years the book has disappeared.  Imagine my surprise when my wife recently recommended that I read Sir Arthur's historical n...

I wrote about Joe Abercrombie's " First Law " series way back in 2008. At the time, his first book, well at least the only one that had been released in the US, was " The Blade Itself. " I think I mentioned that it took me a while to get settled in, but once I did, I was hooked. As a matter of fact, I read the first book over a period of two or three weeks. I had to have the second book once finished. It was not available in the US. I contacted some of my UK family and asked them to ship me a copy, which they did. I read " Before They Are Hanged " in three days. When finished with that one, I created an account on Amazon.co.uk, ordered the next book, paid the US import tax, and had it shipped here. (Turns out this was cheaper than having my family send me a copy). I read the " Last Argument of Kings " in one sitting. Finished it at 3:00/3:30am. My wife was not happy, but I loved the story, even with the somewhat anticlimactic ending. Imagine ...

  I saw a New York times write up of the " Society of the Sword " series (well, I think it was the NYT) by Duncan M. Hamilton, it read like this: "The Three Musketeers meets Game of Thrones." I was thinking, "I wish I had written that." It's certainly apropos. The problem is, the write up left out the book to the left, " The First Blade of Ostia ," which is the prequel to the first book in the series, " The Tattered Banner ." The story follows Bryn Pendollo, a young man who dreams of becoming a master fencer, and the title of "First Blade of Ostia." As I was reading through the prologue, it reminded me of how much I wanted to be like Dick Butkus or Randy White on the football field when I was a kid. The world in which this story is set focuses that kind of hero worship, or idolatry, on great master fencers who compete in the arena. They are celebrated martial artists, masters of their craft, who earn riches and recognition...

 My father had a tremendous love of C.S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower series. With regularity he would press me about reading them. After all, I was born under the sign of water, and all things sail fascinate me. Of course the fact that my father attended the Naval Academy and held a Master Yawl Handler's license may have had something to do with that. With that said, at the time, my reading interests where elsewhere, so I steered clear of them for quite a bit.  Dad's love for those stories was such that each year, when the old Gregory Peck, Virginia Mayo " Horatio Hornblower " movie would show on the television, he and I would have to sit down and watch it. The movie is based off of Forester's book "Beat to Quarters" in the series. It has become one of those movies I like to watch when I am feeling nostalgic, and perhaps missing dad a bit. As the love of the film has made a viewing routine in our household, my wife has become a Hornblower fan as we...

 One of the things I run into a lot these days is, people don't read. I am not talking about the quick snippet on the great google machine, or the next greatest post from your favorite influencer, I am talking about literature. With regularity students in my courses, when asked what was the last book they read, will say, "..uh, I don't read." Actually, the response usually is, "you mean books? No." It breaks my heart.  Reading is one of the greatest remedies to the stresses of the world. I often have this conversation when students are suffering from artist's block. I tell them they need to step back and read. The look I usually get is like I have just fed them some camphor oil mixed with ipecac... yes, I wrote that. But it's so true. We need to let our minds relax and begin to paint their own pictures. Hard to do that when we are bombarded with images from the google machine all day. Sitting down with a good book allows your mind to disconnect from ...

Once again, too many years in between posts... my struggles with discipline are real... and also my really crappy ability to sustain a visible presence online. Which is odd, because I teach marketing. Doh. So, new thoughts, centering around Frank Herbert. When I read with the goal of transporting myself to some otherworldly realm, I gravitate more towards the Fantasy genre than to Sci-Fi. It's probably a 60/30 thing, most of my library contains works from authors like Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Robert Howard, L. Spraque de Camp (when writing Conan), Robert Jordan, Ursula K. Le Guin, Terry Brooks, Joe Abercrombie, Patrick Rothfuss, Brain Sanderson, Duncan Hamilton, etc... but I do have almost every work by Ray Bradbury, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and one book by L. Ron Hubbard. Yes, I read through "Battlefield Earth." Curse John Travolta for that crappy film... yes, I watched that as well.  This leads me to Frank Herbert's "Dune." This has got to be one of m...

  This is definitely a reading household. Between myself and their mother, my kids have been introduced to books all across the spectrum. So, it should come at no surprise that we have read through the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings books. As a matter of fact, Dad here is a total sci-fi and fantasy nerd. The four books that got that started: The Hobbit, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, and A Wrinkle in Time. If you have kids, I highly recommend setting aside some time on a Sunday evening and reading these to them. Anyway... I get caught up personally in linking The Hobbit & LOTR and the Narnia series to the messages we find in the Bible. Most of us know that J.R.R. Tolkien was a devout Christian, as was his good friend C.S. Lewis. These two wove their understanding of faith into their work, it's perhaps a bit easier to see it in Lewis' work, but it is there in Tolkien as well. Because I am the tangent King here, I will say if you want a g...

It has been 11 years. When I talk about discipline, I guess I am speaking to myself.  So, I used to have this theory that the insanity that is happening in the US of A dates back to 1977. Why? And How? Well you see, as a kid, I remember all of my friends playing, we all wanted to be the hero, the Lone Ranger, or Superman, the good guy. Then, in May of 1977 all of that changed. George Lucas turned us all to the dark side. Suddenly no one gave a rats patoot about being the hero, everyone wanted to be Darth Vader. I mean everyone. No one even cared who Luke Skywalker was.  I remember it explicitly. I lived in Bonn, Germany at the time. A New Hope wasn't actually released in Germany until February of 1978, so I had heard about Star Wars, but didn't get to see it until early '78. The following weekend on the playground at recess, everyone wanted to be Darth Vader. I remember it so vividly because we were all running around breathing into the cold air and feeling that being able ...

One of my colleagues has just sent me a link to a new blog called ...Pencil Test Depot , a wonderful collection of pencil test animations from some of the greats. If you love animation and would like to see how it is done then click the link above.

At long last one of my favorite Robert E. Howard characters will have his own movie, view the trailer here . The film, directed and written by Michael J. Bassett (with help from Howard of course) couldn't get any funding anywhere, dunno why, perhaps the Puritan (omg did he say Puritan?) nature of the Kane character scared off all of the big production studios. So Bassett shot this whole thing on a skeletal budget and mostly out of his own pocket from what I understand, remember that as you watch the trailer. Official release for the US is September 24, 2009 at the Austin Fantastic Fest. As far as I know there isn't going to be a theatrical release, so this means straight to DVD. Damn shame, but this movie should be fun! Update - 2023 - 14 years later... yeah, the discipline thing is weak with me. I bought this movie on DVD. It's dark, moody, sometimes horrific in nature, but worth the watch. I think Bassett was in the process of making a great film, and then realized, ...