how a Californian (like me) sees the world

WARNING: What follows is exceedingly general and perhaps a bit non-PC. I don't care, and neither should you. Au contraire, you should laud me for admitting my ignorance rather than disguising it. Consider this a list of what I don't know about the world (and hope to learn someday).

DISCLAIMER: You'll notice that I said a Californian like me. You can no more judge all Californians to be the same than you can judge all Dubliners or all Tokyoites to be the same. We're a mixed lot. But even among them, I am an outlier. I was born in Northern California, for one thing. I've lived in the capital, the Midwest, the American South, and the Great Plains, so I know a bit more about the rest of America than the average Californian does. My political views don't exactly match up with a lot of other Californians', either. I'm a white middle-class twenty-something, and proud of it.

Ready? Then let's begin:

THE REST OF AMERICA:

• OREGON: Best known for portraying that forested planet in The Return of the Jedi. And being mispronounced by Midwesterners and foreigners alike.
• WASHINGTON STATE: Coffee. Rain. Pine trees. Killer whales. Reggie Watts. Legal marijuana. Sententious living.
• IDAHO: Potatoes.
• MONTANA: Looks really good on a postcard.
• NEVADA: Vegas, baby. And machine guns. The rest of it's desert. And Reno.
• UTAH: Mormons! Who doesn't like Mormons? And saltwater?
• ARIZONA: Simply marvelous gun laws. Cacti which are the envy of the civilized world. Gila monsters. Fatuous Nicolas Cage movies. Mountains that look like Indians.
• NEW MEXICO: Are the rocks supposed to be red like that?
• COLORADO: Best place to raise abducted children.
• WYOMING: Fewer people than a single suburb of Los Angeles. Seriously, the antelopes outnumber the humans. Scary thought.
• NORTH DAKOTA: I felt like a celebrity there.
• SOUTH DAKOTA: Big stone heads. The Black Hills (yeah, baby). Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane.
• NEBRASKA: What the guy who thought of the phrase "middle of nowhere" was thinking of.
• KANSAS: You're not there anymore, Toto.
• OKLAHOMA: Bombs. Musicals. The Dust Bowl. Tornadoes.
• TEXAS: If it weren't for them, Mexico would have invaded long ago.
• MINNESOTA: So, like, let's go to the lake, eh?
• IOWA: The Minnesotans are right. The best thing coming out of Iowa is I-29.
• MISSOURI: My dad went to college there. Considers himself more Missourian than Ohioan. They've got an arch. That's the limit of my knowledge.
• ARKANSAS: Most direct route between Tennessee and Oklahoma.
• LOUISIANA: Bayous, swamps, Cajun food, levies, Mardi Gras, and hurricanes. Especially hurricanes.
• WISCONSIN: Cheese.
• ILLINOIS: Abraham Lincoln.
• INDIANA: No friggin' idea. Maybe basketball?
• KENTUCKY: Is the grass really blue, or is that just a figure of speech?
• TENNESSEE: Too many mullets for my taste.
• MISSISSIPPI: Hard to spell.
• ALABAMA: Probably has the most likeable/least unpleasant Southern accent, depending on where you stand on Southern accents.
• GEORGIA: Good peaches.
• FLORIDA: Can't think of it without thinking of the auto-tuning rapper. Thanks a bunch. Before Flo Rida was a thing, I associated Florida with Scarface, my grandmother's house with the orange trees in the backyard, the one billion percent humidity, and the white-sand beaches.
• MICHIGAN: They make cars there, don't they? And awesome music?
• OHIO: Hot in summer, rainy in spring, miserable in winter, the most beautiful place on the planet in autumn.
• WEST VIRGINIA: Coal. The Civil War. Trout fishing. Caves. Chuck Yeager.
• VIRGINIA: This may sound weird, but I can't help but think of Virginia in terms of the famous people who were born there: Ella Fitzgerald, George C. Scott, Sam Houston, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark (yes, that Lewis & Clark), Patrick Henry, Robert E. Lee, Tom Wolfe, Booker T. Washington, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, and, like, twenty U.S. presidents. 
• NORTH/SOUTH CAROLINA: What's the difference? 
• WASHINGTON, D.C.: Crazy homeless people in the streets, crazy people in the government.
• MARYLAND: You need to put on some weight, you're too skinny.
• DELAWARE: Sounds like a seldom-used word you'd find in a dictionary.
• NEW JERSEY: Just as all myths have some basis in fact, the moniker "Armpit of America" must on some level be well-deserved. 
• CONNECTICUT: Pretty. And filthy rich.
• PENNSYLVANIA: The birthplace of liberty and independence. Looks nice in autumn, too.
• NEW YORK: California's biggest competitor in terms of culture and coolness. They've got some pretty country, too; and heck, they even have their own version of the San Andreas Fault. We'll get you yet, you buggers.
• RHODE ISLAND: Too small for my Californian mind to encapsulate.
• MASSACHUSETTS: Baseball. Football. Clam chowder. Cod. Moby-Dick. Cheers (the TV show).
• NEW HAMPSHIRE: The last stop before Maine.
• VERMONT: The second-to-last stop before Maine.
• MAINE: The last stop before New Brunswick. Also, Stephen King is from there; I do know that much. A lot of his books are set around those parts.
• ALASKA: I know as much as everyone else does. Grizzly bears, gold, the Inuit, glaciers, the tallest mountain in North America, savage cold, bush pilots, hunting, cruises, trains, oil, fishing, formerly Russian, real men and real women. Oh, and I'd give my right arm and two or three toes to live there.
• HAWAII: Palm trees. White-sand beaches. Turquoise water. Tropical fish. Sunshine. Ukeleles, luaus and leis. Volcanoes. Surfing. Pearl Harbor. The U.S.S. Arizona. Paradise on Earth. California's biggest competitor in terms of fun in the sun and water sports. Not bad if we can take on New York and Hawaii and still compete, eh?

THE REST OF THE WORLD:

• MEXICO: Lovely beaches, great food, incredible culture, marvelous natural beauty, and good booze...but a corrupt government and a few too many all-powerful drug cartels. Oh wait, that's California.
• CANADA: A dichotomy. On the one hand: nigh-socialism, a Governor General, and a certain amount of cultural snobbery (though that might just be the folks from Toronto). On the other hand: maple syrup, the Yukon, Nova Scotia, the Northwest Territories, British Columbia, Alberta, the Canadian Rockies, ice hockey, Shania Twain, William Shatner, Dan Aykroyd, Kim Cattrall, Stana Katic, Nathan Fillion (whom I hear is from Edmonton), Rick Moranis, Leslie Nielsen, Donald Sutherland, Alexander Graham Bell, Elijah McCoy (the real McCoy), James Howlett (better known as Wolverine), Anne Shirley (a.k.a. Anne of Green Gables), Chris Hadfield (the astronaut), Rush, Barenaked Ladies, Great Big Sea, dinosaurs, Black Velvet whisky, the Devil's Brigade, lentils, Swedish Fish, and some of the friendliest, politest people on the face of the Earth.
• BRAZIL: Great barbecue, oddly-named mountains, and the best jungles and parties (and jungle parties) anywhere.
• BOLIVIA: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid got zonked down there, didn't they?
• URUGUAY: It's all about the tango.
• KENYA: I know Tanzania, Mozambique, and some of the other countries have amazing biodiversity, natural beauty and safaris, but whenever I think "East Africa," my mind just leaps to Kenya. Craters, rhinoceroses, the Serengeti, poaching problems, and now some election brouhaha. And a spectacular John Wayne movie.
• SOUTH AFRICA: Let's move past the bit with the apartheid and get into Sharlto Copley, J.R.R. Tolkien, Basil Rathbone, Manfred Mann, Candice Swanepoel, and that sweet movie Zulu with Michael Caine. Just please don't mention Dave Mathews. We don't mention Dave Mathews on this blog.  
• LESOTHO: See RHODE ISLAND above.
• EGYPT: Revolutions. Pyramids. Rivers. Desert. Camels. Political turmoil. And they have their own version of The Daily Show.
• MOROCCO: I only know where it is 'cause I watch Bogart films. 
• CROATIA: It gave the world Serious Sam, so it can't be all bad, can it?
• RUSSIA: I was born five years before the Berlin Wall fell, but I'd venture to guess that my generation's the first one that doesn't think "Commie bastards" whenever we hear the word "Russia." That doesn't mean I trust Putin or the KGB, but I sure would like to visit the country, ride their trains, drink their vodka, walk over their bridges, and so forth. Oh, and see St. Petersburg in the wintertime.
• FRANCE: The other place an aspiring artist or writer might go besides California.
• ICELAND: All of the wintry fun of Canada or Alaska with none of the urban sprawl.  
• ENGLAND: Sorry, did I say Canada was guilty of cultural snobbery?! Though that could just be Londoners. Seriously, some of my best friends are from England. I wouldn't mind retiring to Newcastle someday, having fish and chips down by the quayside, a pint in the Turk's Head, then a walk 'round the priory and a pipe-smoke on the point. Geordies rock.
• SCOTLAND: It gave us Scotch whisky, haggis, Robert Burns, Ian Anderson, and some of the world's finest and hardiest soldiers. I think a good many wars would have been lost without a few good Scotsmen.
• IRELAND: The setting of another rather good John Wayne movie. If you don't think about the Troubles, you can get lost in the whiskey, the beer, the corned beef and cabbage, the stew, the River Liffey, James Joyce and the wild Irish countryside. Gotta love Chloë Agnew and Liam Neeson, too.
• GERMANY: Efficiency. And cake. And philosophy. And awe-inspiring classical music.
• SPAIN: Sunshine. And beautiful horses. Architecture to die for. Paella. Soccer. Bulls, and a lot of sports that shouldn't be combined with bulls. And tomato-chucking. 
• SWITZERLAND: Americans voted it the best place to go if you're trying to escape from a German prison camp. I've heard they make pretty good watches and toys, too. 
• INDIA: Outsourcing. Overpopulation. Sacred cows. Fascinating religions. Fantastic architecture. Pollution. Garbage in the streets. People pooping in public. The Ganges River, which I wouldn't dunk my worst enemy in.
• VIETNAM: The site of a rather nasty and unconventional war. Now home to gorgeous waterfalls, delectable cuisine, a generation of suspiciously blond-haired Vietnamese, and tons of unexploded ordnance.
• CHINA: Big. Really big. Filled with people. Controlled by a Communist government. Mao's noggin is everywhere. Still, even though fat guys go topless in public and toddlers poop in the streets, the trains run on time and the countryside is undeniably gorgeous.
• JAPAN: My knowledge beforehand was mostly limited to World War II, anime and manga. Now I see the country through the Korean lens, and that colors my perception a bit. It's definitely one of Asia's bright stars, a broad, clean, polite and user-friendly country. But its foreign-relations record is a black mark in its ledger.
• SOUTH KOREA: Before I came to live here, I knew the name of the capital and that the country got snow in winter. That's it. Now I know that, despite the bali bali culture that grinds students and salarymen into the ground, Korea has elevated itself from a smoking crater to one of the most prosperous, bright, advanced and innovative nations on the planet. The people, though bound by millennia of tradition and rigid societal and behavioral mores, are some of the most friendly and unconditionally kind folks I've ever encountered.
• NORTH KOREA: If you're ever in need of a good laugh, just look up some of their propaganda.
• AUSTRALIA: Deserts, mountains, jungles, forests, beaches, great music, good actors, some fantastic sports (and sports players), architectural wonders, storied history, a charming accent and some of the weirdest animals to be found.
• NEW ZEALAND: Like some weird mix of England, Iceland, and Hawaii. But it did give us Peter Jackson, Lucy Lawless, Karl Urban and Bruce Spence, and some lovely glaciers.
• ANTARCTICA:  Snow. Ice. More snow. More ice. Mountains. Volcanoes. Rocks. More snow. More ice. Frigid seas. Storms. Penguins. Blubber. Jules Verne, H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, and every other adventure or horror writer who ever needed a remote, bleak, barren, ice-blasted place to set a secret base or an eldritch abomination.

if I had $300,000,000

I don't like television. As a general rule, I find it flabby, unwholesome, dissatisfying, crude, and pointless.

So when I tell you that my favorite television show is Firefly, you should understand that the show itself is none of those things. It is, in fact, pure awesomeness incarnate.

Tragically, it was canceled after a measly 14 episodes had been filmed, due to Executive Meddling. More's the pity.

In an interview, Firefly's male lead Nathan Fillion stated that, if he had $300 million on hand, he would buy the rights to the show, and probably continue it, free of interference from the powers-that-be.

That got me thinking. What would I do if I had $300 million?

I'll tell you what I'd do. I'd start up my own movie studio.

On-Target Productions, I'd call it. Or maybe Faithful Studios. Something to convey my sententious but entirely truthful belief that Hollywood is incapable of producing a piece of cinema which is in any way faithful to the source material, and that my studio, by virtue of its firm grounding in literary value (and complete disregard for monetary gain), is.

Anyway, the name isn't important. What's important is that I'd outfit this studio with the best equipment my limited budget could buy, hire the most hardworking personnel I could find, write a bunch of screenplays (the way I like 'em), and make some movies that are entirely accurate and complete interpretations of the media upon which they're based.

I mean that quite literally. Entirely accurate and complete. No chopping or dissecting or mulching being done here; if I mean to make a movie out of a book, I'm using the whole goddamn book: every scene, every line of dialogue, every sentence if needs be. There'll be no "lost characters" like Tom Bombadil from The Lord of the Rings or Peeves the Poltergeist from Harry Potter. And there'll be none of this cutting-out-minor-scenes-because-they-don't-advance-the-action-fast-enough-and-we-can-totally-skip-those-scenes-anyway-because-all-they-do-is-reveal-minor-nuances-of-character-that-we-can-gloss-over-in-the-third-act malarkey. These are going to be faithful interpretations, like I said. That means every little scene, no matter how insignificant a two-bit brain-dead Hollywood screenwriter might consider it, will be reproduced in exact facsimile. No exceptions.

Having my own studio (and not giving a fig whether my productions are marketable, or even if they will be marketed) will give me room to breathe. I don't have to worry about length, or mass appeal, or tone, or censorship, or any of that other crap that the Gilded Mulcher has to worry about in order to sell movie tickets. I can reproduce these great source works as I see fit, with complete creative control, and revel in the realness and truthfulness of the results. I can bring my imagination to life for myself and a few other acolytes to enjoy. Everyone else can go spit.

I'm not saying these films will be unwatchably violent, sexy, or disgusting. There's practically no sex in any of the works I have in mind to adapt. And the violence won't be worse than anything you'd see in a typical action flick. As for the darker, scarier stories...well, it all depends on what you think might blast your soul from your body with cosmic horror.

                                                                                         by Pete Amachree

And mind you, I won't object if a few independent-minded cinemas agree to pick up my works and release them at a few small drive-ins and dollar theaters. Those are the kind of folks I'd want watching my films anyway, not the bigwigs from Hollywood and Cannes.

But that's beside the point! Aren't you curious to know which books and stories I will be adapting for the screen? 

I thought you'd be. I have some very specific ideas on that score. They include, but are not limited to...

• Several tales from Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian mythos. If you haven't read any of Howard's original Conan tales, it's time you started. Howard's barbarian makes Arnold Schwarzenegger look like a pantywaist choirboy. The stories are gritty, bloody, sweaty, and hard-boiled, bursting with darkness, danger, hideous evil, swashbuckling adventure and testosterone. Some of the stories I have in mind are Beyond the Black River, The Tower of the Elephant, Iron Shadows on the Moon, and Red Nails...as well as a weird Western tale, unrelated to Conan, The Horror from the Mound.
• Selected works of H.P. Lovecraft, including At the Mountains of Madness, The Thing on the Doorstep, The Shunned House, The Haunter of the Dark, The Shadow Out of Time, The Whisperer in Darkness, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, and The Dunwich Horror. It'll be interesting to see if Lovecraft's works translate well onto the screen. A lot of the horror and suspense in his stories is conveyed through description and inarticulate mentality, not through dialogue or action. Many of the horrific implications and disgusting monsters are best left to the realms of the imagination, too, rather than put up on a screen in CG and pixels. Still, I'd be willing to give it a shot.
• Most of H.G. Wells's full-length works, including The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, and The Island of Dr. Moreau. Most have been made into films already, but none of them have been done correctly. That's not my opinion, that's fact. I'll treat 'em right if no one else will.
• Many of Jules Verne's classic tales, like Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and Around the World in Eighty Days. Can you imagine what giant squids, raft-rides through lava tubes, and thrilling heroics on speeding steam trains would look like on a humongous theater screen? It gives me the chills!
• Dozens of science fiction novels and short stories by writers such as Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, A.E. van Vogt, Arthur C. Clarke, C.M. Kornbluth, L. Sprague de Camp, Lester del Rey, and Fritz Leiber. Here are a few I've got in mind.
• The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood
• The Novel of the Black Seal by Arthur Machen
• The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov
• Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein (a respectful interpretation); also The Roads Must Roll and Universe
• The Empire of the Atom, The Wizard of Linn, The Weapon Shops of Isher, and Black Destroyer by A.E. van Vogt
• The Hammer of God by Arthur C. Clarke
• The Big Front Yard by Clifford D. Simak
• Baby Is Three by Theodore Sturgeon

• A live-action film adaptation of the superb and underrated Hanna-Barbera cartoon Thundarr the Barbarian. A fur-clad warrior with a magic sword wanders the post-apocalyptic Earth in the year 3999, after a rogue planet cast human civilization in ruin. In his ongoing quest to save the scrawny, ragged survivors from evil wizards, mutants and strange monsters (many of which are holdovers from the 20th century), Thundarr is aided by the beautiful Princess Ariel, a sorceress, and a huge, furry Mok named Ookla. I'm thinking some big-budget disaster scenes and a lot of Scenery Gorn. 
• Some of the video and computer games I've played have definite potential, such as Crimson Skies. Maybe if I'm in a really fun-loving and goofy mood I'll do Serious Sam.
• Yes, I know I've railed against remakes on this here blog. But I can't help it. I'd redo a few of the old stop-motion monster flicks, not because I think CG would make them better (certainly not; Ray Harryhausen has no equal and never will), but simply because I'm curious to see what they'd look like with a technological makeover. Just curious, is all. I can't help but wonder what a reboot of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, The Valley of Gwangi, Them!, Jason and the Argonauts, and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad would be like. Specifically, the monsters. You know how much I like monsters.  

And that's it. I think it'd be a lot of fun. I've always wanted to try my hand at screenwriting. And I'll bet I could hire an assistant until I got good at it. Then I'd just go to town. My studio would crank out these films, and they'd go for limited theatrical release or direct-to-DVD, and whoever was interested in real, faithful, true adaptations of good books and cartoons and movies could buy 'em and watch 'em. That's all I want. That's what I'd do with $300,000,000. Maybe a few bucks to charity here and there, but for the most part I'd launch my vendetta against  Hollywood and revel in unmitigated artistic license.

What would you do with $300,000,000? Buy a monkey?

 

the silver key

or, the long road to literary enlightenment

I hope you'll have the patience—or tenacity—to stick with me on this one. This is a landmark post. Seminal, you might call it. Yeah, definitely seminal. It marks a turning point in the career of that damn novel sitting under my bed, dusty and neglected.

Sometimes it pays to reread things. Be it a news feature, an essay, or a work of literature, there's usually some information to be gleaned from it the second time around...and only on the second time around. I knew this to be true with humor pieces (like Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker series) and epic novels, but just a few minutes ago, I received a surprising piece of inspiration from an unexpected piece of material. It's funny how the passage of time and the garnering of experience can alter one's perspective.

Maybe this lays a morbid cast over my efforts as a writer, but the source of this evening's epiphany was none other than the master of cosmic horror himself, H.P. Lovecraft.

I have a tradition. I instituted it this autumn. When the weather turns cold, grey, wet, and otherwise inclement, I take out my H.P. Lovecraft collection and reread it. It's a modest collection, but it includes almost all of his better-known short stories and a modest number of undiscovered gems. It consists of two books: the novel-length At the Mountains of Madness, which has a few brief stories tacked on at the end, and a compendium, The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre.

I didn't really believe that I'd find anything truly instructive in them. Like I've said before, I read for pleasure and education. There's always something to be learned from any book. Every author's style is either a lesson or a warning. I had been warned against Lovecraft's writing by Stephen King, who, by his own admission, adores Lovecraft's talent for horror but loathes his tin ear for dialogue and adjective-soaked prose. Both King and I are ardent fans of Lovecraft and hold the man in high esteem, but I can see King's point. So I keep the editing goggles on whenever I read Lovecraft, to protect my own writing from negative subliminal influences.

So there I was, perusing Lovecraft's best works. I was flipping through the pages, vaguely wondering what to read next. I had reviewed "The Dunwich Horror" and "The Thing on the Doorstep," had devoured the very brief "In the Vault," "Pickman's Model," and "The Rats in the Walls," and was making inroads on "The Whisperer in Darkness." It was a toss-up whether to proceed onto "The Haunter of the Dark" or "The Colour Out of Space," the latter being lengthier but of considerable quality.

Then something caught my eye: "The Silver Key." I have a photographic memory, and a title will usually remind me of the finer details of plot and character. "The Silver Key," however, evaded the grasp of my recollection. Curious, I began to read.

The following passages hit me like a thunderbolt.

     He had read much of things as they are, and talked with too many people. Well-meaning philosophers had taught him to look into the logical relations of things, and analyse the processes which shaped his thoughts and fancies. Wonder had gone away, and he had forgotten that all life is only a set of pictures in the brain among which there is no difference betwixt those born of real things and those born of inward dreamings, and no cause to value one above the other. Custom had dinned into his ears a superstitious reverence for that which tangibly and physically exists, and had made him secretly ashamed to dwell in visions. Wise men told him his simple fancies were inane and childish, and even more absurd because their actors persist in fancying them full of meaning and purpose as the blind cosmos grinds aimlessly on from nothing to something and from something back to nothing again, neither heeding nor knowing the wishes or existence of the minds that flicker for a second now and then in the darkness.
     They had chained him down to things that are, and had then explained the workings of those things till mystery had gone out of the world. When he complained, and longed to escape into twilight realms where magic moulded all the little vivid fragments and prized associations of his mind into vistas of breathless expectancy and unquenchable delight, they turned him instead toward the newfound prodigies of science, bidding him find wonder in the atom's vortex and the mystery in the sky's dimensions. And when he had failed to find these boons in things whose laws are known and measurable, they told him he lacked imagination, and was immature because he preferred dream-illusions to the illusions of our physical creations.
     ...
     With his dreams fading under the ridicule of the age he could not believe in anything, but the love of harmony kept him close to the ways of his race and station. He walked impassive through the cities of men, and sighed because no vista seemed fully real; because every flash of yellow sunlight on tall roofs and every glimpse of balustraded plazas in the first lamps of evening served only to remind him of dreams he had once known, and to make him homesick for ethereal lands he no longer knew how to find.
     ...
     Then he began once more the writing of books, which he had left off when dreams first failed him. But here, too, was there no satisfaction or fulfillment; for the touch of earth was upon his mind, and he could not think of lovely things as he had done of yore. Ironic humor dragged down all the twilight minarets he reared, and the earthy fear of improbability blasted all the delicate and amazing flowers of his faery gardens. The convention of assumed pity spilt mawkishness on his characters, while the myth of an important reality and significant human events and emotions debased all his high fantasy into thin-veiled allegory and cheap social satire. His new novels were successful as his old ones had never been; and because he knew how empty they must be to please an empty herd, he burned them and ceased his writing. They were very graceful novels, in which he urbanely laughed at the dreams he lightly sketched; but he saw that their sophistication had sapped all their life away.

Wow.

This is heavy stuff.

And with it came a revelation, a breakthrough, a foe-tossing flood of self-discovery.

I was stricken on two fundamental levels: first, I recognized that I had been laboring to construct my own science fiction novel as...well, fluff. Under the noble guise of science fiction, a revered medium which the savants of yesteryear employed to paint pictures of the Universe both unsuspected and overawing, I had constructed something intolerably artificial, mere varnish laid over a poisonous message of social criticism and allegory. Second, it reaffirmed my confidence in my chosen genre. The more I tried to summarize to myself (and explain to others) the premise of my novel, the more I found myself overcome with shame and doubt, a creeping disbelief in the credibility of science fiction as a vehicle for one's literary goals. Sci-fi, I increasingly allowed myself to believe, was kid stuff: childish and immature, not as worthwhile or credible as "realistic" novels.

Lovecraft saved me from that self-destructive train of thought. In one stroke, he made me realize the needlessness and puerility of embedding a sociopolitical message in the flesh of my fiction (indeed, why should it not stand on its own?) and simultaneously assured me of its worth. He reminded me of the marvels of science fiction and fantasy, the wonders which the mind can create, the boundless adventure that the wizard author may manifest on the printed page for all the world's dreamers, poets, thinkers and star-gazers to enjoy.

So here's where the seminal part of this blog post comes in. I'm instituting a major (and I mean major) overhaul of my novel manuscript, effective immediately. I haven't touched the thing in months, years. Perhaps I've been overcome with reality. Logic and realism have—how does it go?—"dinned into my ears a superstitious reverence for that which tangibly and physically exists." I've been unsure of myself as a writer, but more than that, unsure of myself as a writer of science fiction. Thanks to Lovecraft, I'm no longer afraid to delve into fantasy. Why the heck not? It's fun, dang it. You're supposed to do what you want with your life, aren't you? Hang the critics!

But most important of all, I'm ridding my novel (and all subsequent novels in the series) of all traces of ulterior message. The political significance, the social commentary, the biting satire—out with it. I don't need it. It was becoming too much to handle anyway: constantly scrutinizing my plot devices and characters to ensure they encapsulated the proper symbolism. Fundamentally, the novel is about doing what you want with your life, and having the guts to actually carry it through to the finish. So that's what I'll focus on. To the blazes with all the rest. If my fiction isn't good enough to stand by itself without political messages, social mores, commentary or satire, then it shouldn't be written in the first place. I've been ignoring the advice of Stephen King all along: I should write first, and worry about the thematic elements later. I should be teasing them out during the editing process instead of hammering them in too early. I'll write first, and if a message develops out of the subsequent product, then I'll refine it. But it won't be anvilicious and it sure as hell won't be political. If I was meant to be a political writer, then you'd be reading about Obama and Romney and Palin and Pelosi on the Sententious Vaunter, and not Lovecraft and Heinlein and Asimov. Same thing applies to my novels, starting this minute.

So, now that you've borne witness to the Great Revelation, I'll go one step farther and include you in the Great Work. I am GOING to start rewriting my novel soon. I'll keep you up-to-date on the process. In my long hiatus from novel-writing, and my long steep in the cleansing waters of inspirational science fiction and related literature, I've had a few other minor epiphanies which I feel will thoroughly improve the plot, pacing, and characterization of my novel. I'll take this opportunity to implement those changes. And when I get done...I'll have a real, honest-to-God manuscript, not just a bunch of loose pages bundled together and stuck under the bed with the dust bunnies.

And now, you'll have to excuse me. I'm going to take Lovecraft's silver key and use it to open the gate of dreams. It's been shut far too long, and for too trivial a reason. Stay tuned.

May your epiphany come to you likewise, and bear equally righteous fruit.

recommended reading

There's some serious catching-up in order.

Therefore, I won't tell you about what I'm reading right now. I'm taking a break and just doing some stuff for business and pleasure. I'm busting through a couple of sci-fi anthologies (The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volumes I and IIB), which I hope will help me write better sci-fi, and also are a damn lot of fun. I might even tell you about some of the stories I've read, if you behave yourselves.

In addition to that, I'm slowly plowing through Dr. Robert Bakker's paradigm shifter The Dinosaur Heresies, in which the scruffy, courageous maverick first put forth his controversial theory that dinosaurs were not pea-brained, slow-moving, swamp-dwelling sluggards, but were dynamic, lively, active, agile, bird-like and intelligent. This bombshell challenged hundreds of years of universally accepted scientific thought on the terrible lizards. Bakker's discoveries, though initially criticized, withstood all tests and vitriol. Today, when we think "dinosaurs," we imagine the terrifyingly smart and agile Velociraptors from the film Jurassic Park. We have Bakker to thank for that (even though the paleontological consultant to Spielberg's film was Jack Horner, Bakker's bitter enemy, who believed that T-Rex was a scavenger [?!?!?!?]).

I haven't enlightened you about what I've already read, though, and that's why we're here. I have to review a couple of works I completed after finishing Moby-Dick a few months back.

I didn't waste any time sitting on my laurels after conquering Melville's leviathan. I was over at Miss H's place when I spotted Elie Wiesel's seminal work Night on her bookshelf. I asked to borrow it, and before the day was out, I had finished and returned it. It's a little book, but filled with the scope of human tragedy, suffering, cruelty and horror.

I could speak of how Elie and hundreds of other Romanian Jews were removed from their villages by brutal Hungarian policemen, cudgeled into lines, and marched away from their only home...

The last glimpse Elie had of his mother and sister as they were led into the gates of Auschwitz...

The loss of Elie's faith as he witnessed the hanging of a twelve-year-old boy...

How even the rabbis were reduced to blank, staring, godless husks by the horrors of starvation, torture, and brutality...

The long, cold, desperate flight from one camp to another as Allied armies drew near, and how the Jewish prisoners were forced to run through the snow and the darkness, and any who straggled or fell were shot...

...but that would probably spoil the book for you, so I won't.

Wiesel is on the second row up from the floor, seventh from left.

I'll just say this: more than any other work I've ever reviewed—fiction or nonfiction, printed or televised—Night brought home the horrors of the Holocaust most grimly and truthfully. It's a literal punch to the gut. For once it's no surprise that a particular work won the Nobel Peace Prize.

And now on to more cheerful territory...
Have you ever wondered if maybe the scientists were wrong, and the interior of the world wasn't just a mass of molten rock, but was hollow and cool and airy and possibly filled with prehistoric beasts?

Well, even if you haven't, Edgar Rice Burroughs sure did. And he wrote At the Earth's Core just to show the world what he thought.

There are definite fringe benefits to being friends with a scientist. Make a sponge of your mind and you'll soak up a lot of mental detritus. As an added perk, your scientist chum may even let you give his gizmo the first test ride.

Such is the case with David Innes, the wealthy heir to a mining empire who, attempting to make a good show of his father's business enterprise, invests in the invention of his scientist friend, Abner Perry. The invention is the "iron mole" a sort of segmented steel worm with a huge drill on the front, which Perry insists will increase efficiency one million percent. As the principle investor, Innes is given the privilege of riding shotgun in the device while Abner takes it on the maiden voyage.

Everything goes downhill from there, so to speak.

The giant iron mole burrows into the ground like a...like a...well, like giant iron mole. Alarmed, Professor Perry tries to turn the beast aside and regain the surface; but no such luck. Both men strain at the helm until they're blue in the face, but the mole cannot be turned; it's heading straight down at a tremendous rate. Perry and Innes give themselves up for lost, resigning themselves to falling into the Earth's molten mantle and perishing in the blaze.

...but they don't.

Five hundred miles down the mole suddenly bursts out of the ground again. A fresh, cool breeze streams through the cracks. The Professor has collapsed from heat and exhaustion, but Innes is able to crack open the hatch and look outside.

He sees trees. Hills. A beach. An ocean. And a horizon which curves up instead of down. He can see mountains and oceans in the distance, turned on their ends, as though he was seeing from above.

Gradually, the men figure it out. They're standing on the inside of a huge sphere.

They are inside the Earth.

The Earth, it turns out, is hollow. And what's more, it's inhabited.

Welcome to Pellucidar, the savage land at the Earth's core.

All the better to massage you with, my sweet!

Perry and Innes are soon drawn into a millennia-long conflict between the primitive humans who reside in Pellucidar and the vicious Mahars, telepathic reptilian monsters who keep humans as draft animals...and livestock. Along the way they encounter sabertooth cats, dinosaurs, sea monsters, and all manner of nasties, dwelling in a land of eternal sunlight.

At the Earth's Core was first published serially in 1914, and released in book form in 1922. Since then, it has attained a small cult following, but remains largely obscure, probably due to more well-known stories like Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

Nonetheless, it's an astounding tale. The concept is intriguing, if totally bogus. (Hey, that's why they call it science fiction, right?) First off, there's no way there'd be eternal sunlightg at the center of the planet, weird electrical phenomena notwithstanding. Second, gravity's pull would be considerably less at the center of the Earth, but it would still pull you toward the center. You could not "walk about" on the inside curve of a chamber inside the globe unless the planet was spinning a lot faster, like a centrifuge. Third, the air would be so dense 500 miles down that it'd be tantamount to breathing water. Human lungs would collapse.

But I didn't come here to pick the science apart. I came to tell you how awesome the story was. And it was awesome. Burroughs sure knows how to write a gripping fight scene (and there's a boatload of fight scenes). The plot rapidly becomes more complex and convoluted as human traitors, mindless monsters, and a ravishing love interest make their appearance. There are desperate scrapes, close shaves, narrow escapes, rousing victories, moments of unbridled joy and plenty of stark, quivering terror. And at the end, there is a very human feeling.

Everything that makes good, rousing science fiction, in my opinion.

You might have a little trouble getting into it, as Burroughs does have what critics called a "stilted, florid style"...but it's nowhere near as bad as Jules Verne. You'll do fine.

And finally, as an interesting sidenote...

In At the Earth's Core, the Mahars (those evil reptilian beings) employ the thuggish gorilla-esque Sagoths to do their dirty work for them, rounding up slaves and enforcing the rules. At the Earth's Core had an enormous influence on another of my favorite authors, H.P. Lovecraft. In Lovecraft's book At the Mountains of Madness, he introduced the shoggoths, huge, slimy, amorphous blobs, also the servants of a master race. These were inspired in name and function by the Sagoths of Burroughs's story. Shoggoths have proven as influential to other writers as the Sagoths were for Lovecraft: the beastly things have appeared in countless works of fiction, sci-fi and horror over the decades. One of these works, notably, was Robert Bloch's Notebook Found in a Deserted House, which is widely accepted to be one of the cardinal inspirations for the 1999 film The Blair Witch Project.

That concludes this edition of "Six Degrees of (Literary) Separation."

Is he bursting out of the hillside in a mindless rage? Or did he lose his toboggan?

Until next time...

writing updates, 3/31/2011

It never ceases to amaze me how magazine editors always seem to know exactly what I'm thinking.

Seriously, they've got me pegged. It happens every time. I'll wonder aloud in an offhand way "How easy would it be to transition from a fixed-wing aircraft to flying a helicopter?"

And lo and behold, the April issue of AOPA Pilot magazine runs an article (part of their Pilot Challenges series) about a lifelong airplane pilot trying her hand at helicopters for the first time.

Shazam! My question's answered. This isn't the first time the AOPA has done this to me, either. A while back I wondered what it might be like to fly VLJs (very light jets) solo from the left seat, and they up and came out with an article about a fellow who owns his own Cessna Citation Mustang and does just that. And as if that wasn't amazing enough, the man's a published novelist as well!

Or take the April editions of Science Illustrated and Popular Science. I picked 'em up on a whim at Barnes & Noble a few weeks back. One of three scenarios in corporate publishing politics is playing itself out here. Either (a) these competing magazines monitor each other's work like a bug under a microscope, and arrange matters so that articles with extremely similar subject material are published simultaneously, or (b) both publications maintain research teams comprised of assiduous, straight-shooting go-getters whom of their own accord, respectively, come up with timely stories which just happen to cover the same topic; or (c) the editors-in-chief of both publications have a direct line to my brain via crystal ball or magic mirror, see what I'm mulling over in preparation for my next crack at being a science fiction writer, and delegate their writers accordingly:

"Quick, Hawkins! He's wondering about humanity, the future, and the possible mass-migration of civilization to new stars and new worlds aboard massive space-worthy floating arks!"

"Get moving, Jansen, Sadie, Leroy. He needs more info on giant starships, interstellar travel, space station environments, self-contained ecosystems and possible planetary destinations. Like, yesterday. Scram!"

My money's on option (c). 

Who'd a' thunk it? This month both magazines featured front-page articles pertaining to interstellar travel. And I mean real interstellar travel, not glitzy Hollywood Battlestar Galactica interstellar travel. Feasible, like. None of this high-flown hyperspace crap. Just the nitty-gritty: ships powered by black holes. A solar sail miles wide, capable of propelling a spacecraft at a fraction of the speed of light. A cone-shaped vehicle, which gathers and manufactures its own fuel from stardust as it zooms through the void. Star cruisers the size of continents, designed to hold a million human beings, and enough livestock, greenhouses, water recycling plants, air scrubbers, public parks, recreation halls, virtual-reality discotheques and whatnot to keep all of us from going hungry, thirsty, or batshit crazy. Lasers. Antimatter. Nuclear warheads. Hell, one article even talked about how our physical bodies might not even need to make the trip; eventually we might develop the capability to simply send our consciousness across billions of light-years instantaneously, downloading it into another body upon arrival.

Sounds amazing, doesn't it? And disturbingly god-like. Speaking for myself, I think it's a neat idea. But I kind of like to keep my body with me wherever I travel. I might need bits of it once I reach my destination, if you know what I mean. This whole sending-your-mind-into-space idea reminds me of a couple of rather unsettling stories by H.P. Lovecraft ("The Whisperer in Darkness" and "The Shadow Out of Time"; both involve aliens hijacking people's minds and transporting them across the space-time continuum).

(Ahem) Anyway, to cut a long story short, all of this stuff really helped me out with my writing.

I, ladies and gents, have completed my first science fiction novella.

If, going by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America standard, a novella is indeed between 17,500 and 40,000 words in length (less being a novelette and more a full-bore novel)...

Then I have written a novella.

That story I've been slaving away at, off-and-on, for something like four months—"Aptitude" I think I called it—is finally finished. I've got to edit it and clean it up some, of course, but the draft is complete. Rough tally is 21,300 words.

Ain't that the cat's pajamas?

I mean, yeah, okay, sure. I wrote a novel before this. It's about 51,000 words. A short novel, yes, but a novel. ("Only one, but a lion," as Aesop wrote.) I'd hesitate to call it a novel, though. It sucks canal water. I've been informed by semi-competent authorities that my characters lack depth, the first act is flat and dry and dull, and my description could use stand a lot more pizazz. (Huzzah, I finally get to use the word "pizazz" in a blog post...about dang time!) 

Something just feels right about this story. It has a plot. It's dynamic. It flows. The characters sparkle and sizzle and flash. The dialog is punchy. The setting is described in intimate detail. The conflict is multifarious and mind-bending. All of it just sort of weaves together. "Aptitude" is an amalgamation of coming-of-age story and high-speed mystery thriller (set in outer space). And unlike this damn novel, I like the way this story turned out. It feels whole. Complete. Well-rounded. Unpolished, but fully shaped. It has that "I'm-done-all-you-need-to-do-is-take-off-the-rough-edges-and-BOOM-I'll-be-a-twenty-carat-diamond" feel to it.

So I'm immensely encouraged and excited by the vibe I'm getting off this story, both during and after its creation. I'll keep you posted on how the submission process goes. In the meantime, it's time for me to polish up some other stories I've got waiting on hold, both on paper and in my brain. I'll keep you posted on that, too. I might even get back into editing the novel sometime soon. I'm confident that I'll fix it eventually. If I have enough whiskey on hand, that is.

And as for my stated goal of publishing three nonfiction travel articles by July? Nuh-uh. Not going to happen. I'm going to try, but I might have to push the deadline back a bit. Then again, word's come down from the higher-ups that we might have the entire month of April off from work. With all that downtime something's sure to happen on the writing front. I should hope I could be productive if I'm grounded for four weeks. 

Stay tuned...

P.S. Here's the link to the PopSci feature on how we might depart our planet. (I don't like the tone of this article too much; it accuses the human race of being a "risk to the planet." Nonetheless it's entertaining and mind-blowing enough to hold my interest.) I tried to get a link for the Science Illustrated article, too, but it seems they are rather like yours truly: too old-fashioned and stubborn to put their stuff up online. You can only find it in print. Check your local bookstore. Oh, and if you're curious about the artwork, that's a computer-generated image from the well-known and celebrated sci-fi novel The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, obtained from Wallpaperbase.com. It depicts a highly underrated scene that, to my knowledge, has never made it into a cinematic adaptation of the book: the ironclad torpedo ram Thunder Child, under full steam, attacks three Martian tripods to cover the escape of another vessel laden with English refugees, off the mouth of the River Blackwater in Essex. Though heavily damaged by the Martians' Heat-Ray, she successfully rams one tripod and destroys it. The Thunder Child then turns toward a second tripod. Burning from stem to stern and close to sinking, the valiant ship charges the enemy with all flags flying and guns blazing. The second tripod's Heat-Ray obliterates the torpedo ram, detonating her boilers and ammunition magazines, but the flaming wreckage plows onward and crushes the Martian. The civilians aboard the paddle-wheel steamer are able to escape unharmed.

This is the first time in The War of the Worlds that a human artifact is able to compete with the Martians and come anywhere close to victory. Despite the loss of the ship and all hands aboard, the Thunder Child's sacrifice proves a tremendous boost to human morale, which the Martians have nearly stamped out of existence.

Now tell me that ain't good science fiction. Just try.

what's on my mind

At the sound of the tone, the time will be exactly October 2009. That means fall is on my mind. I'm loving the cool weather we're getting here in the desert—"cool" meaning the lower seventies. It's nice to have a temperate breeze blowing through your hair rather than a scorching blast of hell-fire. My allergies are bothering me more so than usual, which ironically may have to do with the Santa Ana winds that have cooled the temperatures down to such pleasurable levels. Airborne mold spores and pollen might be traveling long distances and lodging themselves in my snout. The nearly nonstop coughing and sneezing I've been enduring daily has, by default, been on my mind lately. I mentioned earlier that the soonest I can get a flight physical is October 13. That's two weeks away, dang it. I can't resume flying until after that date. That leaves me wondering what the heck I'm going to DO with myself during those two weeks. I can write and read, sure, but I'll get cabin fever before long. I really ought to be doing something constructive, I suppose, like job hunting. Figuring out a useful occupation is weighing on my mind. At some point this week I have to investigate the other facet of my occupational education: bartender's school. I must start calling around and getting more information. I plan on doing that tomorrow, but it's on my mind nonetheless. From the way I'm writing about it, you might get the impression that I think it's a chore. Well, I'm sure school itself won't be, and neither will tending bar. But looking up the information might be a drag. I sure wish I could just dial a number into the phone or computer and have all relevant data instantly downloaded by wireless Ethernet into a computer chip embedded in my cerebral cortex. Hurry up, technology. I've been reading more H.P. Lovecraft this evening, and the blood-freezing anticipation of what the unsuspecting protagonist will find in shadowy Innsmouth is sinuously entwined about my brain. I would appear to have gained a few pounds since I returned home from Korea in mid-July, which is depressing me, because I'd hoped I could keep it off. I've resolved to eat more vegetables and smaller meals; that's how I lost the 20 pounds in the first place. So far it's going tolerably well. I was forced to eat a can of cold sauerkraut this afternoon because I was practically starving to death, but apart from that, success seems attainable. Those regained pounds—and the fact that, by admitting this to you, I sound like some kind of insecure, emasculated health nut—sit heavily on my mind. I'm cursing myself for slacking in other ways as well. I resolved to learn Korean, once, and now that I'm home, my textbooks have been doing nothing but collecting dust. Now that I have so much time on my hands, it's high time to start learning. Hey! I could address this concern and figure out what to do with myself by studying Korean every day! Well, scratch those two off the list. I just learned the meaning of the word "sophomoric" today. Though I'm grateful that my vocabulary has been boosted a little, I'm also a trifle distressed. The word "sophomoric" seems to describe me perfectly. Look, I'm using the word "sophomoric" in a blog, for Pete's sake. What's more sophomoric than that? That could even be considered ostentatious (which I used to think was the perfect word to describe me). I'm having a cocktail party on the third weekend in October, and trying to organize a group trip to Las Vegas the weekend before that. So far only a couple of people have expressed interest in either event. That's just great. Since when did all my friends get to be so staid? How come they can't get time off work? What's with their deplorable lack of enthusiasm? What's wrong with my capabilities as a host—or indeed, my personality—that people are so reluctant to do things with me? What in blazes is going on?? Most worrisome, I've recently become unsure of my chances of marrying an Australian girl. I've heard rumors that they don't really like Americans as much as everyone says they do. The American accent is annoying, for one thing. For another, an Aussie girl can never be sure if an American fellow is going to up and take off for somewhere else in the world. What kind of chance do I have? My voice is annoying even by American standards. Plus I'm a self-proclaimed globetrotter. No Aussie girlfriends for me. I'm doomed. Finally, I begin to feel as though I've been blogging too much lately. I rapped out two entries today, and another one yesterday, as many as five or six in the last few days. It's too much. This overbloggage is taking over my life, just like the Bearded One warned that it could. So I think I'll taper off. I don't think I'll do any blog-writing tomorrow, or even the day after...possibly not even the day after that. Hold all my mail.

recommended reading

I have completed A Long Way Gone, discussed more fully in the last installment of recommended reading. It possessed a poignant ending. As I turned the pages, Beah's personal tragedy kept mounting, until it was inconceivable that a mere teenager could take any more hardship. He was eventually forced to flee Sierra Leone, at great personal risk and high cost, after his uncle's family was...well, I won't spoil it. Suffice it to say that A Long Way Gone is a powerful book. It's powerful in a sense which no other book I've read can approach. It is heartrending on perhaps the same level as Night, by Elie Wiesel. It portrays the absolute worst of what human beings can do to one another, and even to themselves. It is both sickening and saddening...yet not without hope. I'm more than half done with The World Turned Upside Down, that splendid science-fiction anthology, and have only two stories left to read in The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre. And make no mistake: the tales are bloodcurdling. I have encountered few writers who make my skin crawl in abject terror. Even Stephen King, whom I admire immensely, merely makes the bile rise to my throat, and has perhaps caused me a few nightmares. H.P. Lovecraft evinces an overwhelming, universal sense of horror that leaves a sensitive reader wide-eyed, pale and sweaty. Though I have been rendered wide-eyed and pale, I have yet to break out in a cold sweat. Then again, I still have two of Lovecraft's most seminal stories to read: The Shadow Over Innsmouth and The Shadow Out of Time. I'm a grown man and Lovecraft's shorter tales like The Haunter of the Dark, The Dunwich Horror and The Thing on the Doorstep made me turn on all the lights and go jumping at shadows. I can only imagine what these last, lengthy stories will do to my fertile imagination. Lovecraft is one of the best writers I've ever read, for one simple reason: he knew what he was doing. He had each story's plot in mind the whole time he was writing it, and he knew where to lead the action to reach the terrifying climax. Along the way, he masterfully built suspense and dropped tantalizingly ominous hints relevant to the insidious denouement. He was also a literate and intelligent writer, whose prose is elegant and erudite, and whose vocabulary makes me run to the dictionary or encyclopedia every two or three pages. Furthermore, his imagination was limitless. He envisioned an inherently unknown, nefarious, multidimensional multiverse filled with monstrous evil. Anyone who solved the mysteries of this universe would go mad with horror. Spawned trillions of years ago, gigantic half-ethereal creatures from the outer dark, who once held sordid sway over the Earth and the galaxy, slumber uneasily in the depths of our oceans or behind our nearest stars, waiting to wake and extend their fibrous grasp once again. Innumerable volumes of profane arcana and obscene ritual, like the Necronomicon and the Pnakotic Manuscripts, passed down through millennia by these evil gods and their inhuman minions, lie forgotten in ancient tombs or dusty towers, holding their sickening alien secrets for some innocent eye. Disgusting, bestial ceremonies and barbarous sacrifices are carried out in forgotten catacombs and dusky swamps, breathing life into these ancient monsters, keeping their potent legends alive. Phalanxes of horrific things lurk in the dark and pounce upon unsuspecting (or willing) humans. Though he may have been a tad racist, H.P. Lovecraft was a talented horror writer who knew his trade and his stock-in-trade. I highly recommend him. As an aside, I'd like to reiterate that the more I read William Zinsser's On Writing Well and reread The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White, the more humbled I become. There are things in the latter that I have unforgivably forgotten and things in the former that I have never suspected. More fool me. I started in yesterday on The Book of Five Rings (as written in Japanese at left). Purportedly, it is a discussion of martial arts, particularly kenjutsu, or swordsmanship. It is written by one of the foremost masters of the art, one of Japan's most famous (or infamous) swordsmen, Miyamoto Musashi. I've read the first two pages and already my mind's been changed about both Musashi himself and Japanese martial arts. From what I understand, Musashi, who died in the seventeenth century, was a renowned swordsman and martial arts instructor. He never lost any of the dozens of duels he fought, even though he fought some of them with a wooden sword. He was supposedly a master of the two-sword style, with both a full-length sword and a short sword (or wakizashi). His legacy is less than flattering. It is rumored that he never shaved, never bathed, never combed his hair, and had a disfiguring skin condition. No matter. Musashi didn't care about any of that. Whereas some are merely practitioners of the martial arts, Musashi was a true martial artist. He practiced both physical and mental control in combat, and strove for perfection in every aspect of his life. That included something as simple as calligraphy (which is why I included the above image of Japanese kanji, instead of, say, an image of the book cover or a painting of Musashi). His legend—and his track record—impressed me so much that I decided to use him as one of the protagonists in my novel. There was a hitch, however. I knew nothing more about the man than what I've told you. Ultimately I decided to buy his book, his magnum opus on swordsmanship that many have touted as a road map to personal success in life. From the first pages Musashi defines martial arts, not as a simplistic mindset such as "being prepared to die," but as a way to serve your master, serve yourself, and establish social standing. That took me completely by surprise. I'd always thought of martial arts as a skill demanded only in war, or perhaps in recreation. Now this scruffy, centuries-dead ronin comes along and tells me it can be used to ascend the social ladder? I can only wonder what else lies in store for me. The volume is divided into five sections: the Earth Scroll, the Water Scroll, the Fire Scroll, the Wind Scroll, and the Emptiness Scroll. Each encapsulates different aspects of Musashi's swordsmanship technique and philosophy, except for the last scroll, which discusses other schools. Furthermore, the book's chapters have positively titillating titles, such as "The Way of the Long Sword," "Stabbing the Face," "A Stand against Many Opponents," "Moving Shadows," "Knocking the Heart Out," and "Being Like a Rock Wall." Oh, goody, he said, rubbing his hands. I'll keep you posted. There remains only tell you that I've placed yet another order to Amazon.com, despite my recent dismissal from my job and my slowly dwindling accounts. This particular order was made possible by a generous birthday gift from my grandparents, I'll have you know. Among other things (like the excellent war movie Battleground and a few more volumes of One Piece), I'm expecting Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and The Memoirs of Wild Bill Hickok, by renowned Western writer Richard Matheson. I'm trying to catch up on the classics with Little Women, and Memoirs can only help me get a better idea of Hickok, the other protagonist in my novel. Though a work of fiction, the book eschews the fanciful, heroic light in which the ne'er-do-well lawman is cast, and focuses instead on the rawness and ignominy of his life, as re-imagined by Matheson. It's told from a first-person perspective, as is The Book of Five Rings. Who knows what kind of insight I'll gain? It can't hurt to read it. Like I always say, I'll read anything if I think I can learn from it. Except perhaps for the Necronomicon, written by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, detailing the hideous secrets of the dark cult of Cthulhu and a great many other things too awful to mention. That might not be healthy at all. It might even frighten me to death.

recommended reading

Not all that much has changed since last we spoke. I'm still busy bulling (or, rather, snailing) my way through all those doughty historical works I mentioned in the last post (although I am now about halfway through Sinclair's A History of New Zealand, and somehow managed to work my way through the nebulous 20-page introduction to The Philosopher's Handbook). Still, there have been some changes, and there are a few things which I think I should bring to your attention. First of all, in the space of about two days, I read a book that Elaine gave me before I left Korea: A Long Way Gone, by Ishmael Beah. It's Beah's own memoirs of being a child soldier in Sierra Leone fifteen years ago. Parts of it are quite horrific, with graphic descriptions of the dismemberment the author witnessed (and sometimes caused) during the war. At times, it is heartrendingly poignant; Beah loses his entire family to rebels and rebel armies, eventually fleeing to New York by way of Guinea after much suffering and trial. It's a book on a dark subject, and yet somehow I was not at all depressed at the end of it. Rather, I was moved. Hopeful, almost. It's startling just what people can survive (physically and mentally) if they're put to it, given enough time. Read this book and you'll see what I mean. Thanks, Elaine. Second, there's a comic book I've been mentioning here and there but not fully discussing, much less vaunting like I should be. It deserves it. Yeah, okay, it's a manga (a Japanese comic book). It's called One Piece. This marvelous comic series, one of the best I've ever read at home or abroad, deals with the adventures of one Monkey D. Luffy and his crew. Luffy (the boy in the red vest) was inspired by a pirate captain to become the next legendary King of the Pirates by finding the ultimate treasure left by the previous king: One Piece. With big dreams in his head and the love of adventure in his heart, Luffy's no different than the thousands and thousands of other would-be Pirate Kings who are sailing the world's fiercest and most dangerous ocean, the Grand Line, in search of the treasure. Well, maybe a little different: as a child, Luffy ate the magical Gum-Gum Fruit and gained the power to stretch like rubber. Gifted with superhuman strength, incredible rubber powers, and unsinkable optimism, Luffy and his misfit crew (whom he garners along the way) eat, sing, and fight their way through a colorful world of epic scale, swashbuckling derring-do, and dark danger. This is good stuff. The fights are spectacular, for one thing. Not only is Luffy's stretchy fighting style a joy to watch (think Mr. Fantastic from Stan Lee's The Fantastic Four, only Luffy's no super-genius), but the other crew members get into some amazing dust-ups as well. Luffy's first mate, Roronoa Zoro, has mastered the three-sword fighting style: one in each hand and one in his mouth. The crew's cook, Sanji, has legs strong enough to kick through cement walls and dent metal, all without wrinkling his tuxedo. The sniper, Usopp, though he's got a yellow streak a mile wide, is a phenomenal marksman with his slingshot, flinging everything from rotten eggs to explosive devices into the faces of his enemies. Nami, the crew's wily orange-haired navigator, defeats her enemies through cunning (and some rather devastating weather manipulation). That's just half the crew. With these and many more Luffy sails into the unexplored Grand Line and begins to cross it island-by-island, encountering giants, dinosaurs, gangsters, zombies, secret agents, Marines, hidden kingdoms, fantastic treasures, sea monsters, and a longer list of colorful characters and dastardly super-powered enemies than even Bleach could boast of. The adventure is high, the fights are incredible, the humor is gut-busting (Luffy is, to say the least, extremely simple-minded, frustrating his crew to no end) and in all this manga is just a joy to read. I can't get enough. Saying 'How's your grannie, and good old Ernie?'/'He coughed up a tenner on a premium bond win.' Sorry, I'm listening to "Thick as a Brick" by Jethro Tull as I write this. Finally, I just want to give you the customary preview of coming attractions. I placed another order to Amazon.com the day before yesterday (I don't know when to quit). Among some of the things I ordered were:

• One Piece Volumes 14,15 by Eiichiro Oda (did I really need to tell you that?)
• The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi
• Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle
• The World Turned Upside Down by Eric Flint, Jim Baen (authors) and David Drake (editor)
• The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre by H.P. Lovecraft

Miyamoto Musashi was, of course, one of the world's most famous swordsmen. He fought many duels and battles all across medieval Japan, never losing. He was not a samurai; simply a student of swordsmanship, as well as philosophy. The Book of Five Rings is, in fact, his most famous work on philosophical pursuits. I'm interested in reading it not only because, well, I know next to nothing about Japanese philosophy (and as I've mentioned heretofore, I'll read anything if I think I can learn something from it) but also because Musashi is a character in my novel. (He's the person one of my protagonists is reincarnated from.) I hope this book will give me some insight into the man's character, which will thereby translate to this monster of a book I'm trying to write. Not many people know that Pierre Boulle also wrote books like The Bridge Over the River Kwai, but he did. That happens to be a marvelous book, and much better than the movie...which is one of the reasons I suspect I'll like his other well-known book, Planet of the Apes. The Charlton Heston movie was splendid (I'd like to forget that there was ever a Tim Burton remake), but I think the book will blow it out of the water. It never fails. The book is always better than the movie. This promises to be good. The World Turned Upside Down is a compilation of stories which influenced contemporary writers. Yeah, right. This is a so-called "genre anthology" and the influenced contemporary writers in question are the authors, Eric Flint and Jim Baen, both of whom work in science fiction. This book is a collection of sci-fi stories showcasing work from unknowns as well as giants. I'm always interested to read more science fiction, but this particular book caught my eye since it features John W. Campbell's novella "Who Goes There?", the inspiration for one of my favorite movies ever, eminently creepy and horrific: John Carpenter's The Thing. I've always wanted to read this story, ever since seeing the movie...I'll bet I won't even be able to sleep for a week. Heh heh heh... The last entry, The Best of H.P. Lovecraft, is exactly what it sounds like: a selection of that worthy's most bone-chilling tales. I got into Lovecraft only recently, as a consequence of getting into Robert E. Howard; the two were coeval, after all. But from what I have read (At the Mountains of Madness) I think I'm in love. Lovecraft's stories consist mostly of first-person accounts with extremely macabre or terrifying overtones...and fantastically horrific implications. These are made credible by clinical, eloquent prose and the strategic evincing of madness (on the part of the narrator) and overarching design (on the part of the horror itself). The mythos Lovecraft created behind his stories is no less compelling. Enter the Elder Gods, disgusting and bestial extra-dimensional beings who came to Earth billions of years past and held dominion, of which only their long-dead cities, inhuman servants and (in some cases) filmy tendrils remain in evidence. Lovecraft's stories tell tales of various unsuspecting innocent human encounters with these cities or servants or tendrils that invariably leave said humans gibbering, insane wrecks. It'd be horrific enough to encounter a half-man, half-fish creature abducting human women to breed with; worse yet is the implication that legions of fish-creatures have been committing such kidnapping for hundreds of years at the insidious behest of their endlessly evil and repugnant Elder God creator, who once ruled over a dark, otherworldly kingdom on land and sea populated with such hybrids, millions of years ago. See what I mean? Stay tuned for the book reviews. You know you want to.