Last Friday, the IP lawyer who runs ThePassiveVoice.com posted pictures from a recent trip to Capitol Reef and Bryce Canyon. They brought back a lot of memories. For several years in the late 1980s-1990s, the Red family spent the first two seeks of summer driving around the US and Canadian west. One of those years we focused on the Colorado Plateau, including the bits on the edges like Capitol Reef. Keep in mind, this was before mountain bikes led to an explosion in the number of people visiting places like Arches, Bryce, Zion, and other parks in Utah’s Color Country. It was also before many vehicles aside from pick-ups and Jeeps(TM) had real four-wheel drive. Mom had a Fore-Runner, one of the first in Amarillo, and at the time it had the highest clearance of stock vehicles. And boy did we make use of it! Continue reading
Monthly Archives: May 2016
Repost: Summer Reading Stack Low?
The Indie Author Summer Sale Continues Through Today.
Ed. Thank you for your support!
$0.99 from May 27-30
You can’t keep a tough Pixie down…
Lom is a bounty hunter, paid to bring magical creatures of all descriptions back Underhill, to prevent war with humans should they discover the strangers amongst them. Bella is about to find out she’s a real life fairy princess, but all she wants to do is live peacefully in Alaska, where the biggest problems are hungry grizzly bears. He has to bring her in. It’s nothing personal, it’s his job…
By Cedar Sanderson
Free from May 27-30
Violet is trapped in the prison of her own mind. Her body is dwelling in the insane asylum, but when her friend Walter is killed, she must make a decision to avenge his death, or stay safely locked in her own broken soul. He’d drawn her out of her shell, and she finds she still has honor left… But will anyone believe the crazy woman?
By Dave Freer
On sale for $2.99
The Interstellar Empire of Man was built on the enslavement of the gentle Stardogs, companions and Theta-space transporters of the vanished Denaari Dominion. But the Stardogs that humans found can’t go home to breed, and are slowly dying out.
As the ruthless Empire collapses from its rotten core outward, an Imperial barge is trapped on top of a dying Stardog when an attempted hijacking and assassination go horribly wrong. Trying to save its human cargo, the Stardog flees to the last place anyone expected – the long-lost Denaari motherworld.
Crawling from the crash are the Leaguesmen who control the Stardogs’ pilots by fear and force, and plan to assassinate Princess Shari, the criminal Yak gang, who want to kill everyone and take control of a rare Stardog for their own, and an entourage riddled with plots, poisons, and treason. But Shari and her assassin-bodyguard have plans of their own… Continue reading
. . . Where Poppies Blow
Between white crosses, row on row
That mark our place. And in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
‘Scarce heard amidst the guns below.
—From “In Flanders Fields” John McCrae
Today Memorial Day falls on Memorial Day. I suspect most people don’t remember that the last Monday in May is not the date of Memorial Day, but the observance. May 30 is officially Memorial Day. It started as an attempt to encourage reconciliation between various factions left following the United States’ Civil War/War Between the States. After WWI it became America’s version of Remembrance Day. Later, when federal three-day weekends became “a thing,” it shifted from a fixed date to the last Monday in May. Some people still observe both, taking the Monday as a holiday and attending public ceremonies, and holding personal observances on the 30th. Continue reading
Lux Aeterna
I was helping break in, audition a potential choir director recently. He’d brought his own music to inflict audition with, including a movement from the Faure Requiem, the “Agnus Dei.” It is a good choice, because it includes foreign language, tempo changes, mood changes, and is just hard enough that the choir should pay attention. Once you get past the “Lamb of G-d who taketh away the sins of the world, have mercy” text, it shifts to the “Lux Aeterna.” Which sent my mind wandering down musical rabbit tracks about light and music. Continue reading
Summer Reading Stack Low?
The Indie Author Summer Sale!
$0.99 from May 27-30
You can’t keep a tough Pixie down…
Lom is a bounty hunter, paid to bring magical creatures of all descriptions back Underhill, to prevent war with humans should they discover the strangers amongst them. Bella is about to find out she’s a real life fairy princess, but all she wants to do is live peacefully in Alaska, where the biggest problems are hungry grizzly bears. He has to bring her in. It’s nothing personal, it’s his job…
By Cedar Sanderson
Free from May 27-30
Violet is trapped in the prison of her own mind. Her body is dwelling in the insane asylum, but when her friend Walter is killed, she must make a decision to avenge his death, or stay safely locked in her own broken soul. He’d drawn her out of her shell, and she finds she still has honor left… But will anyone believe the crazy woman?
By Dave Freer
On sale for $2.99
The Interstellar Empire of Man was built on the enslavement of the gentle Stardogs, companions and Theta-space transporters of the vanished Denaari Dominion. But the Stardogs that humans found can’t go home to breed, and are slowly dying out.
As the ruthless Empire collapses from its rotten core outward, an Imperial barge is trapped on top of a dying Stardog when an attempted hijacking and assassination go horribly wrong. Trying to save its human cargo, the Stardog flees to the last place anyone expected – the long-lost Denaari motherworld.
Crawling from the crash are the Leaguesmen who control the Stardogs’ pilots by fear and force, and plan to assassinate Princess Shari, the criminal Yak gang, who want to kill everyone and take control of a rare Stardog for their own, and an entourage riddled with plots, poisons, and treason. But Shari and her assassin-bodyguard have plans of their own… Continue reading
Stick a Fork in Me
. . . cuz I’m done. (At least until August)
OK, now for those two books I’m trying to get done this summer . . .
What do you mean, formatting error, function no longer available!?!
From: https://cuteoverload.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/dsc01120.jpg
Weekend Sale: Summer Edition
In honor of the unofficial start of summer in the US, a bunch of Human Wave authors are having a book sale!
www.azounding.com has all the details. (Edited to add: Full sale page goes up later today, some titles go on sale on Saturday. I’ll bump this post over the weekend with updates as they happen.)
Included are my short story collections “Tales from the Uplands,” which is free through Monday, and the brand new “Four Dragon Tales.”
Currently Reading
So, what am I currently reading? Anything that can’t get away.
As usual, I have several *ahem* a goodly number of titles I’m working through, some for fun, some for research, some because they are the academic version of whole grain cereal and greens.
Robert Kaplan The Revenge of Geography Geography (What’s where? Why there? Why care?) shapes history and policy more than some people care to admit. Good but detailed and requires much attention.
Paul Gleirscher Noreia – Atlantis der Berge: Neues zu Göttin, Stadt, und Straßenstation It is a small booklet (190 pages) about Celtic Noreia, the area now Carinthia and parts of Croatia and Styria, looking at recent research and findings. It works my language muscles and is providing fodder for some long-term projects, both fiction and otherwise.
M.M. Kaye, The Sun in the Morning is the first volume in her autobiography about growing up at the end of the British Empire. She’s a fantastic writer, as well as providing info for a possible project. Continue reading
Consumer Tech: Not Exactly a Flying Car
but it makes me a much happier person, and certainly more comfortable!
When we look at the future as envisioned by the pioneers of science fiction writing, or by “futurists” of the 1920s-50s, the extrapolations range from reasonable to odd to “maybe in a few more hundred years.” Instead of knee and hip replacements, we get entire body replacements (no, thanks, I’ve seen those episodes. And I shudder to think of the bloatware the hardware provider would insist on having pre-loaded.) People travel the stars while using slide rules to calculate. Or computers are still room-sized. We have elaborate underwater or lunar-surface habitats to enjoy. But in many cases the consumer tech is absent or seriously off kilter. Continue reading
Tuesday Teaser
I should have known that Elizabeth von Sarmas would not miss one last chance to make her presence known. From Forcing the Spring an upcoming Colplatschki novel.
The next holy day, Pjtor decided to attend worship at St. Donn’s-at-the-Rocks. “It is rather different from the liturgy you are familiar with, Pjtor Adamson,” Geert and Michael Looven had cautioned him. It was also close, small, and favored by many of the journeyman shipbuilders. The sailors and master builders tended to go to St. Issa-by-the-Jetty. Pjtor decided to walk, and Looven came with him. As they approached the grey and cream stone church with its lantern-spire, Pjtor blinked and stopped. Soldiers in the tan and brown of the Sea Republics army watched from the edges of the market square in front of the church, not doing anything but obviously keeping an eye on people. A number of horses and a single mule swished their tails as they stood at one of the hitch-racks by the church. Looven nudged Pjtor, who leaned down. “The rumor may have been true, Pjtor Adamson. See if you can see an ugly woman with light-brown hair inside.” Continue reading
Cat Rotator's Quarterly 
