Ajax Minor's Blog, page 15

new test post books

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Testing the Discourse and other Categories

Where oh Where is the text hiding?

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Sun Valley, Moon Mountains Released!

The first novel in the series ‘The Ur Legend’ was released April 1, 2016. It’s called, “Sun Valley, Moon Mountains.”

The novel is in the combined genre of “fantastical realism” (fantasy and realism). Sun Valley, Moon Mountains is set in modern times against the breathtaking backdrop of the Mountain West and woven throughout, on the tapestry of Luna, with the heroes of the Iliad and the ancient gods of Sumer.

You can buy it now on Amazon, either as a paper book or an e-book.

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Ur Legend 7/25/15

[image error]The first novel in the series ‘The Ur Legend’ was released April1, 2016.

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Ajax Minor

Who in hell is Ajax Minor?  Check the link.  Everyone knows Ajax the Greater, or simply Ajax.  He was the greatest of the Greek heroes in the Iliad, next to Achilles.

There are many reasons an author may use a pseudonym.  Georges Sand, and other female writers of the 19th century, felt they needed the protection a pen name offered, or the credibility a male name conveyed (or maybe Georges Sand just liked to wear pants and smoke).  Michael Crichton used the handle John Lange for his pulp fiction potboilers, while a student at Harvard Med School.  Was he trying to hide somehting or just having fun?  And Mark Twain?  Brilliant marketing of brilliant books that connected his stories to a true past.

I think Sam Clemens’ motivation comes closest to my own, though I think that the adjective ‘brilliant’ applied to anything I have produced or accomplished to date inappropriate.  But like Clemens’ experiences on the Mississippi, SunValley Moon Mountains drew its inspriation from the shared experience my wife, Linda, and I suffered in losing a child.  And my choice of Ajax Minor reflects the deep interest I’ve always had in Classical history and literature, as did the book’s main protagonist, Jaq.  The Iliad was the first book that seized my imagination when I was in elementary school; and I’ve read it in many versions since and consider it to be one of my all time faves.  And maybe like Clemens I just thought the name was snappier than my own.

Ajax connected well, phonetically, with the name  Jaq.  And I believe  that Jaq would not have thought the comparison to Ajax the Greater appropriate, because of both the warrior’s physical stature and his temperment.  But why would I ever care what a character in a fantasy thinks?

Worldlines are a key basis for the fantasy in SVMM and in the subsequent books in the ‘Ur Legend’ series.  In quantum mechanics, not only elementary particles, but macroscopic objects, can branch at key points in their histories as they evolve.  In one of my personal histories, I wrote SVMM; in another, I found the manuscript that Jaq wrote and edited it for publication. In an infinite universe, with infinite time, all contingencies are not only realizable but realized.

So, you decide who really wrote SVMM.  In Hugh Everett’s quantum theory, we both did.  Ajax Minor, then, is a pseudonym, but there is nothing ‘fake’ about it.  It is a tribute to the hero of my story.  And the story itself is a tribute to my heroines, the loves of my life, Linda and Katherine, Kate and Ur.

 

 

 

 

 

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Philosophy, Physics and Phantasy

So far, all that has flowed out of my head and through my fountain pen has been fantasy, in one form or another.  Sometimes it has manifested itself on the page as a variation of Swordplay and Sorcery.  With no elves!  Sometimes it has been a mutation of Magical Realism.  But in my novels, I’ve tried to avoid ‘abracadabra’ as the final explanation of bizarre events.  There are times when the ultimately unexplainable is unavoidable and one has to default to ‘presto! change-o!’.  But I tried, especially in ‘Sun Valley, Moon Mountains’ (SVMM), to provide a basis for the story which was founded on a worldview that was legitimate, if debatable. So there is an epistemology, a theory of how we come to ‘know’ things, that is advanced and provides an explanation for all of the weirdness.  In SVMM, it is the Rationalism of Descartes and Berkeley.  Now I, like my character Jaq, don’t really buy into Rationalism, but in the end he’s forced to accept it, if grudgingly.  And Rationalism does have some very strong arguments.

I also had fun tying Rationalism to Quantum Theory.  Maybe it’s all nonsense, but you will have to be the judge.  And there is a connection between the Philosophy and the Physics.  In any event, this Blog is for those who would like to explore the major theories of knowledge: Rationalist, Empiricist, Kantian or any other that you find compelling; and to discuss and argue how, or even whether, a Quantum description of reality, or many of the bizarre Cosmologies advanced, in ‘Sun Valley, Moon Mountains’ or in the series, make sense.    I’m not an authority on Philosophy of Mind, and I’m certainly not a physicist.  But that doesn’t mean we can’t all debate and defend our own worldviews.  Trust me, the experts don’t have the answers-yet.

So have a go at what I consider to be a few of the foundational works in Epistemology, and check out a few of what I consider some of the better works for laymen, by experts, on Quantum Theory and Cosmology, the Multiverse and ‘other worlds’.  I’m sure many of you have read them already and probably have your own favorites you might share, along with your ‘worldview’.

N.B.  If you have never read 17th or 18th century philosophers, or any philosophy for that matter, you might find the style and some of the text off-putting.  Descartes has a tendency to bloviate, so if you want to get to the heart of Rationalism, read Discourse IV, which posits the famous ‘Cogito’, “I think, therefore I am.” Reading Kant, as one of my professors said, is “like gargling with razorblades.”  But the Prolegomena is short and worth the effort.  By and large, Berekely and, especially, Hume are pretty accessible.

Epistemology:

Descartes:  Discourse and Meditations

Berkeley:  Principles of Human Knowledge

Kant:  Prolegomena

Kant:  Critique of Pure Reason

David Hume:  An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Quantum Q’osmology:

Brian Greene:  The Hidden Reality

Michio Kaku:  Parallel Worlds

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Writing and Reading

I often hear people say, “I’ve always wanted to write,” or “I’d write, if only I could find the time.”  The second comment is the easiest to address.  Let me tell you, you do have the time.  Can you spare 15 minutes, one day a week?  If not, you will probably die of anxiety or exhaustion, or are so completely fulfilled that you really don’t need, or want, to write after all.

Consider:  Grab a Composition Book at the local supermarket in the school supplies section.  Or just use your Word Processor.  During those 15 minutes, once a week, write one hundred words.  I think a prose writer can do that.  Do the math.  In one year you will have written 5200 words.  That’s a nice short story.   I Married a Butterfly is only 3000 words and is, while short, a complete story.  The year will pass in any event and, barring death, you will finish it either with a piece of writing or without one.  So, do you want to write or don’t you?  We’ve established that you have the time.

The arithmetic is simpler, but the process harder for poetry.  I can vouch for this, since I’ve written some poems; though I am clearly not a poet.  Novels, of course, require more of a time commitment, either in terms of hours per week or as the sum of months or years.

We can, and will I hope, talk about all kinds of things with one another in the Blog:  how the creative process varies for each individual, writer’s block (assuming that’s a problem), development as a writer, using college courses, writers’ groups, book doctors (editors) and any other useful resources.  We will talk about writing and editing.  Some writers prefer one task over the other, or may love or hate both.  And we’ll talk about publishing your work so that you can share your ideas and/or actually make money!  Agents.  Direct submission to publishing houses.   Self-publishing, including the great resource of Kindle/Create Space for new writers no one else will touch.  Which is probably most of us.

One thing that is absolutely necessary is to have a good grasp of the fundamentals of modern exposition.  Unless you are a bona-fide genius with a revolutionary style that resonates with a large audience, you have to observe current conventions: Point of View, dialogue tags, well defined genre.  Then again, since I fail utterly on genre, I should probably say you need to be aware of modern conventions.

But before you begin to write, make sure you have a good grasp of usage, grammar and syntax.  Even if you got A’s in English, you may have forgotten some basic rules after years of plumbing houses, slinging hash or writing memos.  So, “Get the little book!”

Read  and keep handy at all times  ‘Elements of Style’

As for Reading.  Since we’ve mentioned ‘Elements of Style’,  as a general reference, and recommended further background works in “Philosophy and Phantasy”, we should also cite a few works of literature that are relevant to Sun Valley, Moon Mountains . While I promised ‘no elves’ in the novel, there are elements of “Swordplay and Sorcery” common to straight- ahead Fantasy.  However, in SVMM I do a riff on The Iliad.  The main protagonist, Jaq, while a Wall Street trader by vocation and a Philosopher by avocation,  is a Classicist by training.  So it’s no surprise that the world which he ‘shapes’ with his mind draws inspiration from Classical texts, like ‘The Iliad’, and ancient sources, such as the Sumerian Creation Epic.  ‘The Iliad’ is one of my all-time favorite works of literature.  With the exception of the genealogies, it’s fast paced and filled with complex characters.  It’s bloody.  Gory, actually, and surprisingly so.   But the most interesting aspect, I think, is the unpredictable and ephemeral nature of both courage and cowardice in every one of us.

While there are numerous translations, I’ll cite links to my two favorites: Lattimore’s and Pope’s.  Read Lattimore first; or if you believe a different translation superior, shoot it in.  Pope is just plain fun to read.  And brilliant.  I’m not a huge fan of Rhyme, but Little Sandy does a masterful job.

Richard Lattimore:  ‘The Iliad’

Alexander Pope:  Pope’s Iliad

James B. Pritchard:  Sumerian Creation Epic Vol. 1 and other Fun Stuff

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