Jim's comments (member since Apr 03, 2009)

Jim's comments from the Beyond Reality group.

Janny wrote: Ah, no wonder you didn't know if you were coming or going. grin"

We're supposed to?!!!

;-)

I can't stand to see them mistreated either. It's been heartbreaking lately to see so many animals in bad straights with the drought & foreclosures. They had 95 horses get dropped on the Humane Society from just one farm last winter. Dogs & cats left to die in houses or cages when people move out. The list goes on. It's a shame flogging isn't allowed...

Let me know what you think of the second Imager, Jon. That's a neat system of magic he's worked out.

I didn't see Anna Karenina, but I did watch the Breeder's Cup. Zenyatta was FANTASTIC. After all the talk & her record (13 for 13?), we watched her & she was SO far back for SO long - I just knew she wasn't going to win. Well, it just shows what I know about a horse race.

The way they took the last turn was perfect. I've seen so many fillies lose a race because they bump or get crowded by a colt, especially when they're back in the pack. But Mike Smith kept her out of that trap. To be so far back is usually also a killer, but then she came flying past the field! It was fantastic.

Personally, I like horse races. There are a lot of slobs in the business, but I grew up with it & knew a lot of really good people - mostly steeple chase & timber racing. Older horses that were well taken care of. Flat racing is a lot like high school sports. They're asking far too much of young horses & use them up.

All three of our horses are ex-race horses. Blue sold for a bundle the first time he went through the sale here (Keeneland, KY), like 2 million or something. The next time he went through, just a year or so later with 2 broken ankles, he sold for a couple of thousand. He was bought by a trainer up our way who put him out to retirement pasture in MD. He ran loose for a while & then Tommy gave him to Margaret.

Topaz, my daughter's horse, had a similar story to Blue's. Both of them have some of the best breeding, but were used too hard, too young & broke down. (Actually, Blue was slow as molasses for all his fancy breeding.) They were basically dog food, but got lucky enough to fall into our hands.

Cutter, my wife's young horse, actually won quite a bit of money & was honorably retired. He was sold to a well meaning guy who just about starved him to death. It took Marg years to get his issues worked out, but now he's great. He still is a bit attached to the barn at times since he lived in a stall in Florida for the first 5 years of his life. When it gets cold & the coyotes howl, he won't leave the barn area for days.

When they first come off the track, they need to learn manners, but Marg is good at that. She gentles them up & now they're as friendly as a big bunch of puppies. All of them are very personable & gentle now, though.

Janny wrote: "Thanks for posting that, Joy - I'm definitely of the camp that feels you haven't lived if you don't risk the bangs and the bumps."

No wonder I feel so old some days!
;-)

That's an awesome poem, Joy. I'm not much for poetry, but that one is cool. It would be great set to music. Janny...?

I'm glad you enjoyed it, Joy. I did too. I'm happy to turn you on to something so good.

Yes, thank you for the link. It was interesting to read. It would be more interesting if I had some kind of idea of the associated costs the publishing company has for each book. For instance, how much marketing is done? I've heard that tens of thousands of dollars can be spent on those special displays you see in book stores.

Then there are manufacturing costs. Paper, printing & shipping are expensive. Storage is obviously tight since so many copies have a limited time on the shelf before being returned as front covers. I used to buy some books through a remnant store, but it went out of business. They survived by selling books that were taken off the shelves (front covers intact) for 75% off.

How much corporate time is spent on a book? How is that charged? I've heard that there are some very high paid executives in the business while some of the books I've read seem to have been edited by a first grader.

The 6 - 8% Viehl gets is about what a musician gets for a CD, isn't it? I wonder what they get for a song on ITunes or an author gets for an e-book?

I really hope this brings some other writers forward. It would be interesting to see what some of the big boys make compared to the newcomers. What do the independent publishers charge? There's so much I don't know about the industry that it's impossible to form an opinion based on this one article.

It's a wonderful story & a hoot. Bujold & Miles at their best & most... versatile, I guess. I don't know how else to put it politely.

Kathi, I felt that most of the interludes, animals & other questions you had were to add a sense of wonder & mystery. Brust took something that he learned from Roger Zelazny, how to add depth to a story, to new levels. Where Zelazny would often toss in one seemingly random thing or character, Brust added in many.

Some of the animals refer to the world that makes up his Vlad Taltos series. It's all based on Hungarian myths & legends. Fenario is a twilight land, standing between the mythical (elvish) lands & the human lands, so it's a mix. It obeys 'real' laws sometimes, magical ones other times. Devera is a perfect example. She appears in many of his books, a random kind of character who exists in a lot of times & places.

If you try to apply linear thought & logic to the story, it is impossible. Take Miklos' encounter with the dragon & then how Vilmos deals with it. Miklos' pretty much obeys the laws of our reality, while Vilmos' is much more magical, heroic & epic.

You need to accept that what is, might just be & interpret it to whatever pleases you. Just be aware that you might change that if you read another of his books or even re-read this one.

Joy, Schrödinger's cat boils down into a quandary as to what makes reality. It depends on where you are observing from. If you're outside the box, the cat is both alive & dead until you observe it. Then, either one determined reality lies ahead or two realities diverge; one in which the cat is alive, the other where it is dead.

However, if you're the cat, it's an entirely different situation, isn't it? Lots of very smart people have been burning lots of brain cells on this for years because it illustrates some of the absurdities behind quantum mechanics in a real world situation.

If you get a chance, you should read Einstein's explanation of relativity sometime. He does a great job using trains to explain the seeming paradoxes involved based on whether the observer is standing on the train or the platform. You don't have to be a scientist to understand it. It's really fascinating reading.

His book is fairly short although he packs many thoughts into it. You can read it online at:
http://www.bartleby.com/173/
or download it at Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5001

How cool! Mini black holes & fantasy worlds!

Joy H. (of Glens Falls) wrote: "I wonder how the scientists would reply to that statement. It seems to put into question all scientific discoveries..."

Back in the 1930's, Einstein & some buddies got together & had lots of fun with quantum physics. It's is more like philosophy and precisely to the point that Janny makes. Reality is up for grabs. Read up on Schrödinger's cat some time. It's the perfect example of reality versus observation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6d...

I thought the premise was dumb, too. The idea of a planet full of homosexual males doesn't really make sense & it seems abusive to the kids, to say the least. Be gay, get adjusted or exiled. So I hated the planet.

Homosexuality has only been a word for a little over a century & shows plenty of signs of breaking back down into nonexistence as a specialized term already. When put into the light of some of the other oddities in the universe, it still seems far out, but then so do a lot of the religions around. I mean real ones today. So, I was able to get past it on that level.

Unfortunately, I didn't like Ethan & never felt fond of him. That was the second big strike against this book & made it the worst of all I've read, so far.

I'll toss in Never Ceese A vampire . . . a werewolf . . . Can Two Who Were Wronged Make It Right? by GR author Sue Dent. I have it & her next book on my TBR pile & really want to get to it.

Thanks, Pamela. I really like the 2d one.

I agree about the lack of personal responsibility. Drives me nuts.

'foreword' instead of 'forward'. <sigh>

Yeah, I'll bet you could have lived a long time without that piece of trivia though.
;-)

I remember reading a forward or something he wrote once about 'the best way to cook bacon is in the nude'. That always stuck with me because he's correct. If you fry it & you're naked, you won't get the pan too hot.

Reading. My father's copies of Conan Conan the Usurper & Conan Conan the Warrior with the front cover art by Frank Frazetta was what sucked me in. After seeing those, I HAD to read the books.

His father owned a newspaper, The Long Islander, started by Walt Whitman. Every room seemed to have bookshelves that were full with more boxes of them stashed around. Hmmm... strangely like my house, down to the wall of the bedroom covered by a custom built, wall to wall, floor to ceiling bookshelf.

Definitely reading is inherited for me.

I found the first couple of chapters a little stilted, I seem to remember, the first time I read it. then, either I got used to the style or it changes slightly. Anyway, I found it captivating once I was a few chapters in, so keep reading Kathi. Hopefully, it will grab you up & suck you in. It did with me.