back from the UK

Here's the short version, in case you're pressed for time and don't want to read the rest of this post:

     1. Miss H and I went on our trip to the British Isles and Ireland. It was Fun, with a capital "F." 

     2. A couple of days ago I queried Ethan Ellenberg with a 50-page excerpt of New Model Earth, which is the new title I've chosen for Revival, my sci-fi magnum opus.

     3. Miss H and I are moving. We're staying in Henderson, but we're switching apartments.

I told myself I'd write a post for each leg of the trip Miss H and I took to Europe, with oodles of delicious pictures for you to drool over. This is a travel blog, after all. But to be honest, I can't be bothered. There's too much going on right now. We're moving, as I mentioned. And I'm still trying to do three things every day: write, read, and exercise. So far I've been failing miserably, but not for lack of trying. Well, okay, maybe for lack of trying. But not for lack of wanting. So I'll just give you the picks of the litter: 

Black Linn waterfall, near Ossian's Seat in the Scottish Highlands.

I shouldn't have to tell you what this is.

The obligatory Big Ben selfie.

Tower Bridge ain't falling down...

The Titanic's original slipway in Belfast, Northern Ireland. 

Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, County Antrim, Northern Ireland.

Trinity College Library, Dublin. 

The view from Dundrum Castle, County Down, Northern Ireland. 

The Giant's Causeway, County Antrim, Northern Ireland.

All done drooling? Great. The trip was luscious. Heather and I had a long layover in Miami on July 3, and spent a sultry afternoon in South Beach lying on golden sand and swimming in bathwater-warm seas and stuffing our faces with Cuban food and ducking self-professed heroin addicts on Collins Avenue. The bachelor party ("stag do") in Edinburgh was a blast; the boys and I pub-crawled across town, buying cheese from a bona fide cheesemonger and whisky from a bona fide whisky monger and mowing down while we roamed the streets. I ate haggis pizza and got to try a beer that was 44% alcohol. Jeff and Jenn's wedding ceremony was beautiful. They had a double-decker bus with their names on it, and got married in a friggin' castle, and the reception dinner was just amazeballs (game terrine, beef Wellington, and apple and berry cobbler), and a fun time was had by all. Then Miss H and I walked from one end of London to the other, and then flew into Dublin and did a private pub crawl of our own, and then had an 18-hour layover in Boston that left a fine taste in our mouths (as did the fondue and pisco sours at Stoddard's). And that was the trip. 

It was, however, ludicrously expensive. 

So expensive, in fact, that Miss H and I have been living paycheck-to-paycheck since we got home. 

Our lease is up, and Ventana Canyon Apartment Homes will be increasing our rent. They claimed it was because there was "development" going in next door to our apartment complex and that's upping the property value. The "development" they speak of is the construction of another apartment complex. I was no great shakes at economics in school, but doesn't an increase in supply and a corresponding decrease in demand mean a drop in price...?

Anyway, we selected a one-bedroom apartment at a complex just a mile and a half away, around the corner on Gibson. It'll mean a downgrade in living space, but much cheaper rent. Frankly, the complex is much nicer: a five-foot-deep heated pool, an indoor racquetball court, and a host of other amenities Ventana can't offer. I won't tell you the name of our new complex, however, because I expect to become a world-famous author soon and I'm keen on privacy.

Yes, I said "world-famous author." I haven't been bone-idle since I got back from the UK. I busted my hump, and with the help of a few erudite beta readers, I whipped the manuscript for Mugunghwa into shape. I'm publishing it for the Kindle...well, hell. Maybe tonight. Depends on how convoluted the KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) process is. I've already formatted my novel the way they want it and saved it HTML, and now all I have to do is pick a cover design and set a price, as far as I'm aware. Then it'll pop up on Amazon 24-48 hours from when I click the "publish" button. Fame and fortune will follow.

...but just in case it doesn't, I also prepped my manuscript for New Model Earth (which I shall hereafter refer to as NME) and sent a query letter, a synopsis, and an excerpt off to the folks at Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency. These are the same folks who picked up John Scalzi and published his works, so I have high hopes. 

Before 2015 is out I intend to start writing freelance opinion articles for the Pacific Standard, The Awl, and any other online periodical that likes my pitches. Might as well start working as a freelance writer, especially while I'm waiting to hear how my novel ambitions pan out. 

I've also taken proactive steps to get my flying career in order. Rather than lament my persistent lack of funds, I set up a GoFundMe campaign (click here or see the badge at the top right of this page). I need $25,000. That's to get current, get my high-performance rating, rack up 100 hours PIC and 50 hours cross-country flight, do my commercial checkride prep, take my exam, and then become a commercially-licensed pilot. And hopefully get snapped up by Grand Canyon Airlines shortly thereafter. 

I'm taking this campaign seriously. I've shotgunned it out over Twitter, Facebook, and Gmail, and I've even printed out flyers—actual, physical pieces of paper—to post up at the small airports around Las Vegas (North Las Vegas, Henderson, and Boulder City). I'm doing that this weekend, if there's any time after the move. 

If you really love me, you'll save this and send it to everyone you know. Even that hated coworker you have to stand next to in the elevator each day on your way to work. 

Fox Broadcasting can go pound sand

It's Blade Runner-slash-every
buddy-cop drama ever!
What's not to like? 

This is not a political rant. I don't give a split fig about Rupert Murdoch or Bill O'Reilly or what all the puffed-up bubble-headed self-important liberal college professors and community organizers refer to as "Faux News."

No, my beef is with the television executives who sit around in board meetings and decide to cancel my favorite TV shows.

It's been recently announced that the science fiction police procedural Almost Human, which aired last fall, won't be picked up for a second season.

This is the same depressing news that I got in 2012 when I heard that Terra Nova had been canceled, and the same monstrous injustice I and the other Firefly fans who came late to the game execrated when we learned that this fantastic show consisted of just 14 episodes.

Thank goodness Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is on ABC, and is therefore safe from Fox's meddling, or I might have a complete psychotic breakdown.

Seriously, what gives? This is becoming such a trend that "Screwed by the Network" and "The Firefly Effect" have become official tropes. To quote from that life-stealing wiki, "Incidentally, many of these [canceled] shows (including Trope Namer Firefly) were on Fox — basically because Fox was likely to give the sort of show that gets this effect an initial run, but tended to be too Nielsen-sensitive to be patient."

Let me repeat that for you:

Too Nielsen-sensitive to be patient.

That's gotta be it. The ladder-climbing, insecure little weasels (I'd say "network executives," but that would be redundant) over at the Fox Broadcasting Company are so obsessed with making themselves look competent and keeping their stock high — in more ways than one — that they'll cancel a brilliant show if the Nielsen ratings are anything less than stellar.

Now, I know what you might be thinking, particularly if you're like everybody else on the face of the freaking Earth and think Almost Human and Terra Nova were terrible shows. (If you do, then what are you doing here? You should be pounding sand, too.)

You're thinking, "Where's the injustice in that? Almost Human didn't have good ratings, so it was canceled. QED."

Ratings aren't that simple, buster. Evidence suggests that Almost Human's ratings were out of its control for half its run. Firefly's doom was spelled out when Fox aired its episodes out of order and inexplicably stuck it in the "Friday night death slot." Terra Nova had 10.8 million viewers and a 3.6 rating, but the execs were worried about the price tag, and they also (wrongly) believed that a mid-season addition called Touch would be the next big hit.

It's Lost with dinosaurs! What's not to like??

I'm not a critic. I'm not going to launch into a big long spiel about why these shows are lost treasures. I'm not going to tell you how Terra Nova was "unlike anything else on TV," and that it "found its creative legs late in the season" (the article I linked to previously does that quite eloquently). I won't mention how Almost Human was just what the doctor ordered, a by-the-book police procedural with a lighthearted, humorous undercurrent, with the added zest of its dystopian-but-somehow-still-gorgeous futuristic backdrop. I have no need to declare Joss Whedon's script-writing talents godlike, and that the cinematography, dialogue, acting and story of Firefly are second to none. That's been said before by irate fans and gushing magazine columnists the world over. 

It's cowboys/Civil War veterans IN SPACE! What's not to like???

Almost Human and Terra Nova have their shortcomings, I know. The special effects and the acting aren't perfect. Pacing, characterization and story are sometimes lackluster. Everyone I know at my workplace and on Facebook loves to point out how shoddy, unengaging, static, formulaic, boring, unbelievable or artificial they are, with flat characters, unsatisfying stories and flawed concepts. But as the Guardian's pithy Glaswegian Graeme Virtue points out, the first seasons of these shows are like "the early, rough-and-ready EPs of your favourite band." Yeah, sure, the lyrics are canned and superficial, the garage-band sound is fuzzy and inexpertly mixed, the guitarist's fingers are still bleeding and the drummer hasn't found his rhythm yet, but isn't that the fun of it? Getting in on the ground floor? Liking a band because of that raw, pristine concept, the fundamental sound down deep beneath those shaky riffs and uneasy vocals? Following them while they mature into the next KISS or Zeppelin or Floyd? Watching them find their cadence, their vibe, their niche, and fill it out like a piece of loose clothing they're growing into?

That's been one of the joys of watching Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Yeah, sure: it was soulless early on. A lot of people tried watching it and quit in disgust. But if they'd had the patience (unlike your average Fox network executive) to stick with it, they'd have discovered a true wonder: a flower blooming, a vine twirling its way around a beanpole, a seaweed-strewn ship emerging from its watery grave where once only the rotting, sun-bleached mastheads were visible. Watching M.A.O.S. get into its stride, establish its characters and its world and then cut loose like a slipshod stallion kicking his way out of a barn has been...well, a real kick. It's probably true that you have to be a fan of the Marvel Universe (or at least Agent Phillip Coulson, or at the very least Clark Gregg) to like the show. And you have to sit through those awkward first few episodes wherein the groundwork is laid. But then the show gets its hooks into you. Firefly and Almost Human did it during their pilot episodes, and Terra Nova managed it in the season finale.

It's just a travesty that these three shows will never have the chance to revel in the worlds they worked so hard and long to build, thanks to the pusillanimous, apple-polishing, money-grubbing swine at Fox.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is called injustice. And it's also the reason that television sucks so hard in this day and age.

Rant over.

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.

lazy Sunday

I'd like to tell you that this post will update you fully on what I've been doing during my recent lengthy absence, but alas, it won't. It concerns what Miss H and I did today (Sunday).

It all began, obviously, when I woke up. I may or may not have been hung over from the beer and whiskey I may or may not have drunk at the dinner-party-slash-night-on-the-town I may or may not have attended with the rest of the gang. That's immaterial. Miss H and I had a lovely lie-in, punctuated by a bowl of honey-nut frosted flakes (my new favorite Korean cereal—it's the shizz). Then we looked at the clock and noticed it was 4 p.m. Concluding that we'd had enough of our lazy morning, we cleaned up, got dressed and caught the big red Samhwa Express (bus number 1300) into central Incheon.

We were aiming for the Shinsegae Department Store. Miss H had some clothes shopping to do, and we'd heard from the girls at work that there were some likely stores there. We shopped around H&M, took a longing peek inside Tiffany & Co., searched for a liquor store that apparently didn't exist, and then left. We bussed ourselves back to Bucheon and headed to NewCore, a large outlet/department store not far from Estima. It is notable for having a large faux rainforest tree planted straight through its atrium, which goes up for five stories and has lots of plastic jungle animals concealed in its branches and packs of screaming Korean kids running around its trunk. We played some games at the arcade, took a look around the electronics and music stores, and split.

Then it was dinnertime. We moseyed across to Han and Yoon's, a tiny, charming barbecue restaurant run by two brothers who speak a smattering of decent English. We ordered the marinated pork, a bargain at ₩8,000. We grilled it up and ate it with lettuce slices, onions, garlic and ssamjang.  

To assuage our sweet teeth (tooths?) we adjourned to the Strip, a long alleyway filled with bars and restaurants paralleling Gilju Road. There happens to be a Coldstone Creamery there. Let me tell you: after a huge dinner of Korean barbecue, a Like It-size bowl of Chocolate Devotion goes a long way toward assuaging one's sweet tooth.

We moved two blocks southeast to Jungang Park, and joined a lot of assiduous Koreans in working out on the exercise equipment. We pulled, pushed, strained, yanked, rotated and stretched, going at it like pros. Not even our rotator cuffs were spared. We resolved to visit more often, as a twosome, and continue the regimen. We shoved off for home, pausing to watch three old men play janggi (Korean chess) in the dim light of an incandescent lamp.

On the corner of Gilju and Seokcheon, just across from Estima, we were accosted by a couple of Christians. Neither Miss H nor I are particularly religious people. More to the point, we were tired, footsore and needing badly to collapse in our apartment for the night. This was not the best time for two clean-shaven Korean men in suits (one black, one grey) to come up to us and ask "Do you have two or shree minutes?"

Mr. Grey did nothing but stand in the background, adding a word or a nod to his partner's spiel. Mr. Black took a more proactive role. He whipped out an LG Tabletphone and treated us to a video (captioned in English) about "God the Mother." It explained how human and animal families are but shadows of the Great Family in the skies above Jerusalem, or something. Mr. Black stood there, tablet in hand, while Miss H and I stared in blackballed perplexity, watching the little green man disappear above the crosswalk we'd been about to walk home over. Mr. Black added a few words here and there as the video progressed. The word "Jerusalem" seemed to figure very highly. Apparently his sect—which, he proudly proclaimed, consisted of 2,200 parishioners—believed that God was a woman, and that the most apt model for Her worship was the human family, and that just as we are born on Earth with mortal mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers, so the Heavenly Host sits above us in a similar arrangement—

After that it got kind of murky.

Mr. Black started to show us another video, which concerned some rather vague pronoun use in the Torah (the use of "us" instead of "I" or "me," and the literal definition of Elohim meaning "gods" instead of "God," singular). This, I felt, departed from the comfortable realm of annoying-but-familiar evangelism and jumped straight into kookery. So I said "Sorry, we have to go," and scooted in the direction of the little green man, Miss H in hand. I caught a glimpse of disappointment and surprise on Mr. Black's face—the merest hint of a frustrated sigh—and then we vanished into the crowd on the crosswalk. Three minutes later Miss H and I were in our apartment, grousing about how some things never change, even if you travel 6,000 miles and wind up in a country where the police cars go everywhere with their lights flashing, even if they're just heading down to the 7-11 for coffee. Even in Korea, it seems, you can be waylaid on the street by creepy people in their Sunday best, and bombarded with leaflets and pamphlets and (apparently) tablets with strange videos.

And now I'd like you to take a moment to consider this:

These are dinosaurs (gongryong in Korean): Styracosaurus, Tarbosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Velociraptor, Stegosaurus, Spinosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, and Pteranodon. I bought them in a small bucket at Homeplus for something like ₩8,500. (A full-size bucket would have been ₩13,500, which I consider a tad high for dinosaurs.)

Why did I buy a bucket of dinosaurs at Homeplus for something like ₩8,500, you ask?

Well, why not? I like dinosaurs. I bought them with the vague idea of putting them on my desk at work. Then I realized that my desk is already occupied by a firefighting helicopter, a large rubber Parasaurolophus, and a small yellow plastic frog which Miss H and I won at a Californian arcade.

So now they're on the windowsill in my apartment, and I must say, they do spruce the place up a bit. Every living room could use some of the old Mesozoic charm.

That's what I think, anyway.

recommended reading

Some changes have occurred.

I've picked up some new reading material in preparation for my (eventual) departure to East Asia—a lot of new reading material, actually.

Also, I need to tell you what I've gotten through lately.

First, I've dropped The Dinosaur Heresies. No offense to the good Dr. Bakker, but I had to prioritize. A weighty scientific volume might make good reference material or even some didactic bedtime reading, but I'm really delaying the rest of my reading list by committing to it. Plus...well, I hesitate to admit it, but compared to the other stuff I could be reading, Heresies is just a little bit dull. Bakker is witty, light-hearted, and occasionally sardonic, which puts him head and shoulders above such stuffy characters as Charles Darwin and Stephen Jay Gould, but the fact remains that he's writing a book about why dinosaurs are more avian than reptilian. Compared to something like Starship Troopers or Black Hawk Down, with explosions and gunfire and war machines and whatnot, paleontology goes flat.

(I won't even really need to brush up on the avian-reptilian dinosaur debate until I sit down to write the sixth book in my series, where I introduce the reptilian-avian character. Remember this, children. You can reference this post when I get accused of retroactive continuity.)

That having been decided, I launched myself into one of my more recent acquisitions, something I picked up at the used bookstore earlier this summer and had never heard of before: David Houston's Alien Perspective.

And this is the cool part: the copy I bought has been signed by the author.

Pretty nifty, eh? Even if I've never heard of the dude, it's nice to know he made enough of a name for himself to sign somebody's book. It's something else for me to strive for, as long as science fiction as I know it doesn't go by the wayside by the time I get published.

Ahem...

Alien Perspective has one of the neatest and most unique plots I've come across in a SF novel, despite being packaged as just another five-dollar paperback. It concerns not one, but two alien ships—exploratory vessels sent from a dying planet to seek out new worlds to colonize. Well, they did—except one of them picked up a greyish, gooey parasite that stifles and kills everything it comes in contact with. After a few deaths, the first ship gracefully decides to commit suicide and render itself a harmless, drifting hulk. The problem is, some of the precocious alien children on board decide they're too young to die, lock the adults out of the command center, and take control of the ship. Not knowing what to do about the parasite, the alien children elect to land on the closest inhabited planet and ask for help.

The closest inhabited planet just happens to be called "Earth."

It was a supremely suspenseful story. The taglines and synopsis I read on the back cover totally belied the pace of the book. The aliens don't even land on Earth until three-quarters of the way through the book. The first 75 percent of Alien Perspective is split between two points-of-view: that of Himi, the alien captain of the second exploratory vessel, who is trying to figure out why the first vessel didn't rendezvous with him as planned; and human astrophysicist William Reid and his colleagues, who are trying to figure out who the aliens are and what they want. Complications arise in the form of Senator Copalin, known as "The Black Blot" for his habit of slashing funds to any program he deems "unnecessary" (Reid's project is at the top of the list); and Leon Hillary, an eccentric millionaire and the leader of the Alienites, a cult which fervently believes that the incoming aliens are our divine creators.

A suitably entertaining tale of intrigue, mystery, adventure, trials, errors, and unseen perils ensues.

For myself, I was somewhat let down at the end. Perhaps I've grown too accustomed to reading James Rollins, whose adventure novels are jam-packed with explosions, monsters, sinister third parties, and imminent catastrophes. By comparison, Houston's book proceeded rather calmly. That being said, there was enough to hold my interest. Alien Perspective reminded me why I love good old-fashioned science fiction: the breathtaking beauty of space is undiminished; the physiology and culture of alien nations is speculated upon; amazing technological marvels abound (both above the Earth's surface and upon it); and I can confidently say, without spoiling the ending, that a rapport is established between human and alien at the end. I never fail to find such themes refreshing. At its heart, Alien Perspective is classic, true-to-form sci-fi: ordinary people battling extraordinary obstacles with advanced technology, backed by the power of logic and reason. 

Satisfied?

All right, here's a list of new works I've acquired over the past few months. Some of them I bought; others I dug out of boxes. Some of these I've mentioned here before, but I want to list them again, since I'll be taking them to Korea with me and I'll undoubtedly review them later.

To begin, some classic fiction:

• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding 
• The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  
• Ice Station Zebra by Alistair MacLean
• Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden
• The Sand Pebbles by Richard McKenna
  

Next, some sci-fi, both well-known and unknown:

•  Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
• The Hammer of God by Arthur C. Clarke
• I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
• Transgalactic by A.E. van Vogt
  
• Into the Storm (Destroyermen, Book One) by Taylor Anderson
• The Seventh Carrier by Peter Albano
• Winged Pharaoh by Joan Grant
• Phaid the Gambler by Mick Farren

And finally, some promising nonfiction:

• Riding the Iron Rooster by Paul Theroux
• The Old Patagonian Express by Paul Theroux
• Skeletons on the Zahara by Dean King
• The Great Shark Hunt (The Gonzo  Papers, Vol. 1) by Hunter S. Thompson

This should be adequate literary sustenance to nourish my mind on bus rides, international flights, and subway trains, not to mention my tiny apartment in Seoul on those quiet weekday evenings. I can't wait.

To be clear, I read Heart of Darkness and Lord of the Flies in high school. That was almost ten years ago, though. I feel the need to reacquaint myself with these works in a more, ah, enlightened frame of mind.

The Sand Pebbles is the newest addition to the list. I found it in a box which my parents were planning to take to the thrift store (??!?!!). It looks incredible, and I can tell it's infecting me with an obsession with all things naval and Chinese. The book concerns Jake Holman, a young sailor, who is assigned to the aging gunboat San Pablo on the Yangtze River...right before the Kuomintang begins the Northern Expedition of 1926, which will eventually lead to the fall of the Beiyang Government and the unification of China.

Sounds kind of tame, right?

It isn't.

China explodes into war. Racial tensions and anti-foreign sentiment boils over, and Jake (who has been gradually forming a mostly positive opinion of the country) is now ordered, along with the San Pablo, to battle his way upriver and rescue two white Catholic missionaries from an oncoming horde of Nationalists. In the midst of this madness, Jake must contend with his shipmates (who believe him to be a Jonah, and would like nothing better than to throw him overboard) and his own heart (which has fallen for the missionary's pretty daughter).

The story is a sweeping historical epic, which beautifully and masterfully encompasses the political, cultural and social landscape of China in the mid-1920s, as seen through the eyes of a down-home American boy. It also skewers the superstition and ignorance of the uneducated; exalts the loyalty and determination of lower-class Chinese over the bigotry of the Westerner; and divulges triumph and tragedy, despair and hope, honor and depravity in a single stroke.

It was made into a 1966 movie with Steve McQueen, but the book looks like it's going to be better. Books always are.

Riding the Iron Rooster is another latecomer. I picked it up for two bucks in a used bookstore in San Diego. It was written by one of my favorite travel authors (perhaps my very favorite), Paul Theroux. Where most travel writers wax poetic, florid, or downright sappy, Theroux remains delightfully crotchety. He hates people. He loves trains. So he rides trains, venerates trains (and the lands they pass through) and denigrates the passengers. Riding the Iron Rooster is an account of Theroux's passage through China, as part of a larger train trip through Asia (which he recounted in The Great Railway Bazaar, a book I read and loved). Just the title gets me going. Riding trains is fascinating and fun even in a familiar setting, but throw in the mysterious, misty, mountainous terrain of China, a country thousands of years old, with food and customs as otherworldly as can be, and—

—ooh, I've got goosebumps.

See what I mean? I'm getting China on the brain. Next thing you know I'll be forgiving the Chinese for being dirty Communists and sucking up all our national debt and limiting their poor citizens to one child per couple and being greedy, callous, polluted, industrialized buggers in general.

Anyway, that's the list. If you see anything on there you're curious about, drop me a line and I'll give you the skinny. I heartily encourage you to Google (or better yet, Amazon) some of these and see if they're worth checking into. I'm sure you'll find something you like.

One last thing:

Now that I'm done with Alien Perspective, I'm quite stumped as to what I should read next. I did Moby-Dick, followed it up with a few works of science fiction, took a short detour into scientific discourse, and then tripped lightly back into SF.

Where next? Suggestions, please.

disappointment

Amazingly, I didn't realize that I was being a bad host until after I rousted Allison out of bed at 7:00 a.m. We were to head for Los Angeles that morning, December 15. I can tell I'm going to have a hard time writing this. Already my mind is wandering. The Gods Themselves is gleaming at me from my nightstand (curse you, Isaac Asimov), my flashcards from bartender's school are tantalizing me from one corner of the bedspread, and the wind is howling outside my window. Plus there's something embarrassing that happens in this story that I have to tell you about, and I don't wanna. But here goes anyway: Yes, I'm a bad host. The one thing I hadn't counted on when planning Alli's visit was how early we'd have to get up every morning to actually make it to the marvelous places we intended to see. Why'd we have to get up so early? I'm glad you asked. It gives me a chance to complain. I live only 60 miles or so from Los Angeles. That's it. That's maybe an hour's drive. Less, seeing as the speed limit's 70 miles per hour on the freeways. There's just one little thing that prevents me (and everybody else) from reaching Los Angeles in an hour. It begins with a "T." Traffic. That's it. Traffic is the thing. There are about 90,000 people living in the Apple Valley, Victorville and Hesperia areas alone. Odds are, any given day, that some of them are going to want to go "down the hill" (south on Interstate 15 through the Cajon Pass). And of course, once you get down the hill, you are in the L.A. Basin, which, as of last year, has nearly twenty million people in it. More than half of them are in Los Angeles alone. And all of them want to go somewhere. Usually right when I want to go somewhere. Dammit. So, in order to get anywhere in Los Angeles on time, you must tack an extra half-hour to an hour (or more) onto your travel time. We had no set time for our arrival at Universal Studios (thank God) but we hit the road about 8:00 nonetheless. Things weren't quite as bad as I'd feared, but still pretty clogged. It was the middle of the week after all. There were only 700,000 people on the roads instead of the usual 20 million. Long story short, we made it. Alli was a champ yet again. I had appointed her my navigator, and she never missed a turn. She also kept me abreast of the route at least two turns in advance, which I appreciated immensely. We pulled up to Universal Studios, parked (our lot was adorned with many blown-up images of Woody Woodpecker), and walked into the outdoor shopping center. Unsurprisingly, there weren't too many people about at 10:00 in the morning. The Hard Rock Café was the quietest I've ever seen it, even with the blaring guitar music. None of the shops caught our eye, festooned as they were with amazing paint jobs, life-size cutouts of King Kong, neon lights, and other assorted foofaraw. So (after a brief stop back at Roger for my camera), we adjourned to the park proper. Down the sidewalk, turn right at the big spinning steel globe and the mist machines, stand in line for 30 minutes while the Eastern European tourists try to haggle about ticket prices, and then go in through the blue gates. (That's how you get into Universal Studios.) The first thing that confronted us as we entered was a large bronze statue of a director, a script girl, and a cameraman, who were busy filming everybody who came in. The director was crouched down in a most ridiculous position, his index fingers making twin L's as he framed the shot. We started meandering through the ever-thickening crowd. If we'd thought that the shopping center outside had been glitzy, we got a real wake-up call inside. The place was off the hook. The most astounding collection of shops, boutiques and souvenir stores lined the crooked alleyways, leaning this way and that, and covered in the most outrageous assortment of protrusions and add-ons. The effect was intensified by the Christmas decorations which had been laid over the structures. Various movie cars were parked here and there, including the Bluesmobile from The Blues Brothers. You know I couldn't have resisted getting a picture in front of that. After satisfying our curiosity on the streets, we headed for the rides. The first one we took was, logically, the grand Universal Studios tour. That was a piece of wonderfulness. We drove through movie set after movie set, past movie car after movie car, through sensation after cinema-caliber sensation. I won't spoil it, of course, but I will say that we had a close encounter with Norman Bates, from Psycho; rode out a massive earthquake in a subway station; barely dodged a flash flood and some vicious dinosaurs; and even sneaked along Wisteria Lane while they were filming Desperate Housewives (quiet, please!). There weren't too many shows we were interested in. I did notice, however, that they were going to have a 30-minute "stunt show" at the Waterworld stage. I'll be the first to admit that Waterworld (that apocalyptic Kevin Costner movie) is a piece of crap. But it's a fun piece of crap, sort of. So we said, "What the hey!" We didn't regret it, either. There were explosions, and people falling dozens of feet into water, and fireballs, and shootouts, and hand-to-hand, and some of the most judicious use of zip-lines that I've ever seen. Those explosions and fireballs were the real kicker: loud, flashy, and so big that you could feel the wave of heat 50 feet away in the stands. There was even one point where they hurled a complete replica of a seaplane over the wall and into the water, where it skidded across the arena, in flames, and fetched up against the fence, practically in the faces of the people in the front row. That was...neat. The stuntmen (and stuntwomen) were really well-trained. Nobody missed a fall or failed to take a punch realistically enough. Jet-skis figured highly in this show, and some of the stuff they did with them was absolutely incredible. It was hard to believe they were doing it all live, right in front of you. I'm talking jumps, and dives underneath the water, and dodging explosions, and all that cool stuff. It was a good show. Better than the movie, I'll warrant. Better stunts packed into less time. Plus the leading lady was cuter. Eventually, we satisfied our curiosity with the upper lot, and descended to the lower lot via the Starway. This was an extremely long escalator, covered by a glass tile awning. The lower lot is where all the rides are. Including Jurassic Park. Oh heck yeah. We went straight for the dinosaurs. I was giddy with glee. Of all the theme rides in the park, including The Mummy, I was the most anxious to ride this one. I mean, come on! Dinosaurs, for Pete's sake! Dinosaurs! It was everything I'd hoped it'd be. I got into the car, and we started off down the jungle river. It was hard to believe I wasn't in the movie (or rather, the book...the literary version of Jurassic Park, which is a million times better than the movie, actually has a river segment that presages the Universal Studios version). The sun was shining through the trees and ferns and fronds overhead, forming golden beams that fell onto the swiftly flowing water below...the effect was cinematic as well as beautiful. I won't spoil the ride, but man, is it ever a gut-wrencher. Allison and I clambered out of the car thrilled, our shoulders soaking wet, our hearts thudding, unable to keep the grins from our faces. We had survived. We had to take pictures to commemorate the event. That was about it. Neither of us were much interested in the other rides, and we'd seen the rest of the park. So we wandered lazily out (stopping for a few minutes to get surveyed), and got back on the highway for the Walk of Fame. We had a nice stroll down Hollywood Boulevard together, even despite the grunge, and the whiskery black blues musician singing at us, and the kinky lingerie shops every hundred yards. We ate lunch at Combo's New York Pizzeria, where the slices were about this size... ...then got back into the car and began heading in the direction of the La Brea Tar Pits. Or, we attempted to. We soon discovered that I was going the wrong way. We need to pull a U-turn, head back down Hollywood to Vine Street, and hang a louie. But where to pull a U-turn? Hollywood Boulevard doesn't generally allow U-turns in turn lanes, and there aren't too many streets leading off, just narrow alleys. Unwisely, I picked one of these alleys to turn around in. This one had a couple of decently tall buildings on either side, one of which was a youth rehabilitation center with several cars parked outside. The other looked like some official building of some sort, with a few men dressed in business casual on the stoop. I pulled into some van parking, began to reverse, and— BAM. The Jeep jerked. There was a sickening sound, a sound I knew all too well: blunt metal meeting blunt metal, hard. I'd backed into somebody. I lost my head. I twisted around in a desultory attempt to see if I'd caused any damage to the other car, and, seeing none, pulled forward and out. As I was driving past the other building, one of the semi-formally-dressed men raised a hand and yelled "HEY! You hit that woman!" My head was still in the clouds. I was scarcely aware of what I was doing. "Bad?" was the only thing that came out of my mouth. "You'd better see," the man said, not aggressively, but not passively either. He pointed back at the other car. My head began to clear. It began to feel like the inside of a dry, dusty Egyptian tomb, in fact. So did my gut. I reversed, made sure I was as out of the way as possible, got out, and took a look at the other car (coincidentally, another white Jeep Cherokee). What I saw made my stomach plummet through the asphalt. There was a misshapen dent the size of a ham in the other Jeep, right where the driver's side door met the front panel. My mortification compounded a hundredfold. It was bad enough that I'd backed into somebody. It was worse that Allison had witnessed it (let alone been in the car when it happened). Worst of all, however, was the fact that I'd almost run for it. The self-recrimination began immediately. I was a cheating, sneaking coward. And now Allison knew it. I wished that all of hell's fire and heaven's fury would come whirling out of the ether and smite me dead. Outwardly, I remained calm. Not even I know how. I waited while the neatly-dressed man sent one of his friends inside the rehabilitation center to fetch the owner of the other Jeep. (He knew her personally, and knew this was her car.) While we waited, the man told me, "I'm just trying to help you, man. We've got cameras all around here." He made a circular motion with his index finger. I looked up. There were indeed traffic cameras pocking the alleyway. It was a fortunate thing the man had stopped me, I realized later. If he hadn't, and I'd driven away, I would've been a whole heap of trouble. Presently, the woman came outside. She was short, middle-aged and blond. She was not angry, but she did express regret that I'd punched in her new panel. (She said that she'd just gotten it redone.) I did not admit fault, as I'd been instructed to avoid doing, but instead made my apologies and willingly supplied the woman with insurance information. I dutifully copied hers down also. Her insurance card was expired, and she got a bit miffed when I asked for further proof of financial responsibility ("You hit me"). But in the end, we completed the transaction. She went back inside, and I folded up my insurance cards and got back into my own (completely undamaged) car. I pulled back onto Hollywood Boulevard wanting nothing more than to melt permanently away into sludge. I couldn't even bear to look at Allison. Throughout the whole thing, she'd sat calmly in the passenger seat of my Jeep, passing me paper and pens like a helpful angel, even cracking a few jokes about the whole thing. She was marvelous. But I still felt awful. I felt bad that I'd subjected her to being involved in such a hassle, and worse that she'd witnessed my attempted escape. And then, as I was thinking these things, Allison placed a hand on my shoulder and said, bracingly, "How ya doin'?" I told you she was wonderful, didn't I? The accident had taken up some of our time, enough that the La Brea Tar Pits were too close to closing to visit. More's the pity. We went to LACMA instead. You know, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. After a few missed approaches and go-arounds, we made inside the parking lot, and took the elevator up to street level. The ticket seller told us that, if we waited 15 more minutes (until 5:00) we could "pay whatever we wanted" for admission—that is, make a donation. To kill the time, we toured the museum's current outdoor exhibit, "Urban Light": It's just what it looks like: a bunch of iron streetlamps stuck close together and set alight. Doesn't seem to qualify as "art" to me, but it was beautiful, and I guess that's enough. The ironic thing is that Allison and I had had a rather spirited debate on what should and should not qualify as "art" that morning as we ate breakfast at IHOP. As soon as we came in sight of this particular exhibit, Allison turned to me and said "There, does that qualify as art?" And I said, "Maybe if they turned 'em on." And then, mere seconds after turning away from the ticket booth, the lights came on. I turned to Allison and said, "That's better." There remains little to tell. We toured the museum, discovering some of Picasso's little-known sculpture, and admiring Luis Meléndez's vivid and massive collection of still-life paintings. Finally, we piled back into the car, fought our way out of Los Angeles on I-5, drove to San Diego, spent a few fruitless minutes searching for our hotel (which didn't seem to exist anymore), gave up, found a Howard Johnson, got a couple of rooms, and went to sleep. I lay on my bed in my pajamas, watching Robin Williams opine profanely about politicians, mulling over the disappointments of the day. Both Allison and I were disappointed that there had been so little to do at Universal Studios. I was disappointed that we hadn't seen the La Brea Tar Pits. As for my disappointment in myself for what I'd done that day...well, that was nowhere near subsiding. Allison, too, was likely disappointed in my driving skills...to say nothing of my irresponsible cowardice. I could only hope to to give her less cause the next day.