Rachel Manija Brown's Blog, page 66
October 11, 2021
King of Exchanges (Stephen King exchange) is up!
King of Exchanges is open! It's full of great stuff! Enjoy!
Stories and art from The Breathing Method, Carrie, Dark Tower, Holly Gibney, Misery, Rose Madder, Salem's Lot, and The Stand.
"The Breathing Method" is a non-canonized tag so here's a direct link for that story. You actually don't need to know canon to read it, other than that it's set in a gentleman's club where they tell spooky stories. The Man Who Came Downstairs.
comments
Stories and art from The Breathing Method, Carrie, Dark Tower, Holly Gibney, Misery, Rose Madder, Salem's Lot, and The Stand.
"The Breathing Method" is a non-canonized tag so here's a direct link for that story. You actually don't need to know canon to read it, other than that it's set in a gentleman's club where they tell spooky stories. The Man Who Came Downstairs.
comments
Dear Yuletide Writer
Thank you for creating for me! If you have any questions, please check with the mods. I am a very easy recipient and will be delighted with whatever you make for me. I have no special requirements beyond what's specifically stated in my DNWs. I'm fine with all POVs (i.e., first, second, third), tenses, ratings, etc. I enjoy both shipfic and gen. I am fine with sex if it suits the story, or no sex if that suits the story.
General DNWs: Current political figures, literal coronavirus (diseases and pandemics in general are fine), on-page rape or child abuse, a focus on human pregnancy or babies (brief references are fine), graphic depictions of eye or tooth trauma, digestive upsets, and detailed descriptions of bodily fluids other than blood, sweat, and tears.
Worldbuilding
I have requested worldbuilding for all my canons this year.
Don't worry about failing to fulfill the "worldbuilding" aspect of the prompt - it would be almost impossible for you to do that by accident. For the purposes of Yuletide, I consider a worldbuilding story to be one which explores the world/setting of the canon. This could involve exploring a corner of the world we don't see much in canon, getting into more detail on a part of the world we do see a lot of in canon, making some interesting custom or culture or place a big part of the story, or simply telling a story which includes vivid and atmospheric details of the world.
Basically, for the canons I nominated, I really love the world and want to see more of it. However, I do want an actual story with characters, not something like a travel guide or an encyclopedia article.
You can use either original or canon characters. I've noted canon-specific preferences about this in the sections on the individual canons.
Gateway - Frederik Pohl
Worldbuilding
This request is just for the novel Gateway, not for any of the sequels. Please consider the book a standalone for the purposes of the story.
I love the world of the story, with its desperate characters and unsolved mysteries and the ships that can take you literally anywhere, but you don't know where and it's a coin-toss whether you'll return alive. This book has no equal for haunting mysteries beyond human ken and the dark side of the sense of wonder. So I'd like more of that.
I'd like a story that takes place at least partly in a ship, rather than a story set entirely on Gateway or Earth or Venus.
I'd prefer a story focusing on original characters, though if you want to reference the ones who appear in the book or give them cameos that's fine. If you prefer to write about the canon characters, how about an unseen mission one of them went on, like Klara's that went so badly that she ended up terrified to ship out again?
I loved the interstitial material like the mission reports, classified ads, etc, and if you wanted to include some of that I'd be delighted, but please don't do only interstitial material that doesn't tell a story. But if it also tells a story, such as a story in the form of a complete mission report, that would be great.
Here's a few other possible prompts. If they inspire you, great, but they're just in case you find prompts helpful. You can write anything you like!
Gothic in space: a prospector realizes the others on her ship intend to murder her to get her share of the bonus. (Or do they?!)
Someone decides to stay at their destination, whether because they can't get back alive anyway or they prefer it to returning to Gateway.
A story about one of the scientists who can't resist shipping out, or someone else who actually wants to ship out, even if they're also scared.
What happened to one of the ships that didn't come back?
Feel free to write horror or otherwise go very dark for this canon. Equally, feel free not to if you come up with a happier or bittersweet idea.
Shadows of the Apt - Adrian Tchaikovsky
Worldbuilding
I've read the ten main books, the books of short stories, and Echoes of the Fall. Feel free to draw on any of that canon.
For this story, please feel free to either create original characters or to write about any canon character in the series, with the exception of Totho. Like many characters in the series, I DNW Totho. My favorites include the nominated characters and their friends, Taki and the other Fly pilots, the original four friends, and Grief in Chains/aka other names. But seriously, I love everyone.
I love, love, love the kinden. I would love it if you invented a kinden and wrote me a story about them. I would also love if you explored a canonical kinden in more depth. I was especially intrigued by the Butterflies (their names especially fascinate me) and the Woodlice (they're Apt AND Inapt, what is up with that?!) and the Starfish (are they really non-sentient, WTF???), but honestly I'd be thrilled with a story focusing on any kinden.
I'd prefer a story that isn't war or politics-centric, as we got plenty of that in the series. You could write me a story about a lonely Roach girl taming a wild ladybug, or Thorn Bugs falling in love, or the first Earthworm student at Collegium, or a Pillbug doing whatever Pillbugs do in their downtime. Or if you focus on canon characters, you could write about Straessa and Castre Gorenn (or Tynisa and Che, or Atryssa and Tisamon, etc) going out on the town with a focus on their cultural/kinden differences and similarities, or Taki flying into an unexplored area, or what Che does after the end of the series.
Thousand Worlds - George R. R. Martin
Worldbuilding
Works in this setting: The canon is scattered in a bunch of short stories and two novels, Dying of the Light and Tuf Voyaging. The collection Dreamsongs Volume 1 is in print, and collects nine of the stories in the Thousand Worlds universe. They are "A Song for Lya," "Bitterblooms," "The Stone City," "The Way of Cross and Dragon," "The Tower of Ashes," "The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr," "Nightflyers," and "Sandkings." Other stories in the setting include "The Glass Flower" and "In the House of the Worm."
Canon-specific DNW: Corpse-handlers and their animated corpses.
I'd prefer a story that doesn't center on the main characters and major settings from Dying of the Light and Tuf Voyaging. I like them but I also got a whole novel worth of them, so I'm more interested in the less-explored corners of the universe.
I love the lush detail, the sense of wonder, and the feeling of an immensely vast, strange, beautiful, terrifying universe. They make me feel like I'm looking up at the stars and imagining inhabited planets orbiting those suns, with each planet inhabited by beings living their own fascinating stories.
My favorite stories in this universe are "A Song for Lya," "The Stone City," and "Sandkings." The first two use setting and local culture to explore bittersweet themes, while the third is a straightforward horror story that depends entirely on very cool alien creatures: all quintessential worldbuilding stories.
But all the Thousand World stories make marvelous use of worldbuilding: Morgan's gifts and the contrast of the inside/outside settings in "Bitterblooms," the city where rationality ends in "The Stone City," the eerie tower and world of "This Tower of Ashes," the decadent culture of "In the House of the Worm," the central game and the various beings of "The Glass Flower," the spooky beauty of Wraithworld in "With Morning Comes Mistfall."
So please write me something set in some corner of this vast universe, maybe a different part of one of the worlds we see, maybe one that's just mentioned, or maybe one you made up that fits the feel of the world. I'd be happy with either original or canon characters. If you do use canon characters, please have them be from one of the stories I mentioned in this letter - there's others set in this canon that I'm less familiar with.
Altered men, psychics, spaceships, decadent horror, bittersweet longing, ancient ruins, strange forests and the even stranger things that lurk in them, incomprehensible or all-too-comprehensible aliens: I'm here for whatever inspires you.
comments
General DNWs: Current political figures, literal coronavirus (diseases and pandemics in general are fine), on-page rape or child abuse, a focus on human pregnancy or babies (brief references are fine), graphic depictions of eye or tooth trauma, digestive upsets, and detailed descriptions of bodily fluids other than blood, sweat, and tears.
Worldbuilding
I have requested worldbuilding for all my canons this year.
Don't worry about failing to fulfill the "worldbuilding" aspect of the prompt - it would be almost impossible for you to do that by accident. For the purposes of Yuletide, I consider a worldbuilding story to be one which explores the world/setting of the canon. This could involve exploring a corner of the world we don't see much in canon, getting into more detail on a part of the world we do see a lot of in canon, making some interesting custom or culture or place a big part of the story, or simply telling a story which includes vivid and atmospheric details of the world.
Basically, for the canons I nominated, I really love the world and want to see more of it. However, I do want an actual story with characters, not something like a travel guide or an encyclopedia article.
You can use either original or canon characters. I've noted canon-specific preferences about this in the sections on the individual canons.
Gateway - Frederik Pohl
Worldbuilding
This request is just for the novel Gateway, not for any of the sequels. Please consider the book a standalone for the purposes of the story.
I love the world of the story, with its desperate characters and unsolved mysteries and the ships that can take you literally anywhere, but you don't know where and it's a coin-toss whether you'll return alive. This book has no equal for haunting mysteries beyond human ken and the dark side of the sense of wonder. So I'd like more of that.
I'd like a story that takes place at least partly in a ship, rather than a story set entirely on Gateway or Earth or Venus.
I'd prefer a story focusing on original characters, though if you want to reference the ones who appear in the book or give them cameos that's fine. If you prefer to write about the canon characters, how about an unseen mission one of them went on, like Klara's that went so badly that she ended up terrified to ship out again?
I loved the interstitial material like the mission reports, classified ads, etc, and if you wanted to include some of that I'd be delighted, but please don't do only interstitial material that doesn't tell a story. But if it also tells a story, such as a story in the form of a complete mission report, that would be great.
Here's a few other possible prompts. If they inspire you, great, but they're just in case you find prompts helpful. You can write anything you like!
Gothic in space: a prospector realizes the others on her ship intend to murder her to get her share of the bonus. (Or do they?!)
Someone decides to stay at their destination, whether because they can't get back alive anyway or they prefer it to returning to Gateway.
A story about one of the scientists who can't resist shipping out, or someone else who actually wants to ship out, even if they're also scared.
What happened to one of the ships that didn't come back?
Feel free to write horror or otherwise go very dark for this canon. Equally, feel free not to if you come up with a happier or bittersweet idea.
Shadows of the Apt - Adrian Tchaikovsky
Worldbuilding
I've read the ten main books, the books of short stories, and Echoes of the Fall. Feel free to draw on any of that canon.
For this story, please feel free to either create original characters or to write about any canon character in the series, with the exception of Totho. Like many characters in the series, I DNW Totho. My favorites include the nominated characters and their friends, Taki and the other Fly pilots, the original four friends, and Grief in Chains/aka other names. But seriously, I love everyone.
I love, love, love the kinden. I would love it if you invented a kinden and wrote me a story about them. I would also love if you explored a canonical kinden in more depth. I was especially intrigued by the Butterflies (their names especially fascinate me) and the Woodlice (they're Apt AND Inapt, what is up with that?!) and the Starfish (are they really non-sentient, WTF???), but honestly I'd be thrilled with a story focusing on any kinden.
I'd prefer a story that isn't war or politics-centric, as we got plenty of that in the series. You could write me a story about a lonely Roach girl taming a wild ladybug, or Thorn Bugs falling in love, or the first Earthworm student at Collegium, or a Pillbug doing whatever Pillbugs do in their downtime. Or if you focus on canon characters, you could write about Straessa and Castre Gorenn (or Tynisa and Che, or Atryssa and Tisamon, etc) going out on the town with a focus on their cultural/kinden differences and similarities, or Taki flying into an unexplored area, or what Che does after the end of the series.
Thousand Worlds - George R. R. Martin
Worldbuilding
Works in this setting: The canon is scattered in a bunch of short stories and two novels, Dying of the Light and Tuf Voyaging. The collection Dreamsongs Volume 1 is in print, and collects nine of the stories in the Thousand Worlds universe. They are "A Song for Lya," "Bitterblooms," "The Stone City," "The Way of Cross and Dragon," "The Tower of Ashes," "The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr," "Nightflyers," and "Sandkings." Other stories in the setting include "The Glass Flower" and "In the House of the Worm."
Canon-specific DNW: Corpse-handlers and their animated corpses.
I'd prefer a story that doesn't center on the main characters and major settings from Dying of the Light and Tuf Voyaging. I like them but I also got a whole novel worth of them, so I'm more interested in the less-explored corners of the universe.
I love the lush detail, the sense of wonder, and the feeling of an immensely vast, strange, beautiful, terrifying universe. They make me feel like I'm looking up at the stars and imagining inhabited planets orbiting those suns, with each planet inhabited by beings living their own fascinating stories.
My favorite stories in this universe are "A Song for Lya," "The Stone City," and "Sandkings." The first two use setting and local culture to explore bittersweet themes, while the third is a straightforward horror story that depends entirely on very cool alien creatures: all quintessential worldbuilding stories.
But all the Thousand World stories make marvelous use of worldbuilding: Morgan's gifts and the contrast of the inside/outside settings in "Bitterblooms," the city where rationality ends in "The Stone City," the eerie tower and world of "This Tower of Ashes," the decadent culture of "In the House of the Worm," the central game and the various beings of "The Glass Flower," the spooky beauty of Wraithworld in "With Morning Comes Mistfall."
So please write me something set in some corner of this vast universe, maybe a different part of one of the worlds we see, maybe one that's just mentioned, or maybe one you made up that fits the feel of the world. I'd be happy with either original or canon characters. If you do use canon characters, please have them be from one of the stories I mentioned in this letter - there's others set in this canon that I'm less familiar with.
Altered men, psychics, spaceships, decadent horror, bittersweet longing, ancient ruins, strange forests and the even stranger things that lurk in them, incomprehensible or all-too-comprehensible aliens: I'm here for whatever inspires you.
comments
October 10, 2021
Yuletide: It Begins
The Yuletide tag set is up! I'm incredibly excited for this Yuletide. I think it's one of the best tag sets yet.
Here's a few nominations I was particularly delighted by:
Only in Yuletide:
xkcd What If 120 (Alternate Universe WhatIfs). I'd never seen this one until I spotted the nomination and looked it up, and now I'm dying for fic from this "world which, thankfully, is not the one we live in."
Casey Jones the Union Scab - Joe Hill (Song). Worldbuilding (Casey Jones the Union Scab).
Camp Counselor Jason (Webcomic). Carrie White (Camp Counselor Jason), Jason Voorhees (Camp Counselor Jason), Pamela Voorhees (Camp Counselor Jason).
moon's haunted - dustinkcouch (tweet)
Dogs Playing Poker - Cassius Marcellus Coolidge
LifeAlert "Help I've fallen and I can't get up" commercials.
Blasts from the Past:
Wayside School - Louis Sachar. Characters include Bald Man in the Basement and Sammy the Dead Rat.
St. Clare's - Enid Blyton. Carlotta Brown, Claudine, Sadie Greene, Alison O'Sullivan.
Malory Towers - Enid Blyton. Catherine Grey, Alicia Johns, Clarissa Carter, Darrell Rivers, Felicity Rivers, Gwendoline Mary Lacey, June Johns, Moira Linton, Sally Hope, Wilhelmina "Bill" Robinson, Zerelda Brass.
The Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton. Worldbuilding, Bessie | Beth, Moon-Face, Silky.
Just William - Richmal Crompton. Ethel Brown, Robert Brown, Violet Elizabeth Bott, William Brown.
Horror for the Witching Season
Near Dark (1987). Characters: Caleb Colton, Homer, Mae, Severen.
The Endless (2017). The Entity, Hal, Tim, Worldbuilding.
Experimental Film - Gemma Files. Lady Midday, Lois Cairns, Safie Hewsen.
James Asher series - Barbara Hambly. James Asher, Lydia Asher, Simon Ysidro.
You nominated those characters? Great idea!
Poirot books - Agatha Christie. Adam Goodman, Ariadne Oliver, Felicity Lemon, Julia Upjohn.
The Hundred and One Dalmatians - Dodie Smith. Nanny Butler, Nanny Cook.
What in the tag set delighted you?
comments
Here's a few nominations I was particularly delighted by:
Only in Yuletide:
xkcd What If 120 (Alternate Universe WhatIfs). I'd never seen this one until I spotted the nomination and looked it up, and now I'm dying for fic from this "world which, thankfully, is not the one we live in."
Casey Jones the Union Scab - Joe Hill (Song). Worldbuilding (Casey Jones the Union Scab).
Camp Counselor Jason (Webcomic). Carrie White (Camp Counselor Jason), Jason Voorhees (Camp Counselor Jason), Pamela Voorhees (Camp Counselor Jason).
moon's haunted - dustinkcouch (tweet)
Dogs Playing Poker - Cassius Marcellus Coolidge
LifeAlert "Help I've fallen and I can't get up" commercials.
Blasts from the Past:
Wayside School - Louis Sachar. Characters include Bald Man in the Basement and Sammy the Dead Rat.
St. Clare's - Enid Blyton. Carlotta Brown, Claudine, Sadie Greene, Alison O'Sullivan.
Malory Towers - Enid Blyton. Catherine Grey, Alicia Johns, Clarissa Carter, Darrell Rivers, Felicity Rivers, Gwendoline Mary Lacey, June Johns, Moira Linton, Sally Hope, Wilhelmina "Bill" Robinson, Zerelda Brass.
The Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton. Worldbuilding, Bessie | Beth, Moon-Face, Silky.
Just William - Richmal Crompton. Ethel Brown, Robert Brown, Violet Elizabeth Bott, William Brown.
Horror for the Witching Season
Near Dark (1987). Characters: Caleb Colton, Homer, Mae, Severen.
The Endless (2017). The Entity, Hal, Tim, Worldbuilding.
Experimental Film - Gemma Files. Lady Midday, Lois Cairns, Safie Hewsen.
James Asher series - Barbara Hambly. James Asher, Lydia Asher, Simon Ysidro.
You nominated those characters? Great idea!
Poirot books - Agatha Christie. Adam Goodman, Ariadne Oliver, Felicity Lemon, Julia Upjohn.
The Hundred and One Dalmatians - Dodie Smith. Nanny Butler, Nanny Cook.
What in the tag set delighted you?
comments
October 3, 2021
Chickens and Eggs on Instagram!
Click for pics of hot chicks!
In the third photo, the chickens are, from top to bottom, Darrell, Gwendoline Mary Lacey, Mary-Lou, Clarissa, and Bill. Not pictured: Sally.
comments
In the third photo, the chickens are, from top to bottom, Darrell, Gwendoline Mary Lacey, Mary-Lou, Clarissa, and Bill. Not pictured: Sally.
comments
September 20, 2021
It's Yuletide Time!
It's the start of my favorite season: Yuletide!
Nominations are open now.
You can coordinate nominations here.
This year they have added worldbuilding! This means you can request a fandom with just "worldbuilding" and no characters, and get a story set in that world with original characters.
The fandom promo post is open, with lots of new and tempting canons.
What are you all thinking of requesting this year?
I'm making three "worldbuilding" requests, for Frederik Pohl's Gateway, George R. R. Martin's Thousand Worlds (his early space opera setting for "A Song for Lya," "Sandkings," Dying of the Light, etc), and Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shadows of the Apt (bug people).
comments
Nominations are open now.
You can coordinate nominations here.
This year they have added worldbuilding! This means you can request a fandom with just "worldbuilding" and no characters, and get a story set in that world with original characters.
The fandom promo post is open, with lots of new and tempting canons.
What are you all thinking of requesting this year?
I'm making three "worldbuilding" requests, for Frederik Pohl's Gateway, George R. R. Martin's Thousand Worlds (his early space opera setting for "A Song for Lya," "Sandkings," Dying of the Light, etc), and Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shadows of the Apt (bug people).
comments
September 10, 2021
The Transall Saga, by Gary Paulsen
Gary Paulsen wrote one (1) portal fantasy/post-apocalyptic science fiction book. It's not bad and he does play to his strengths by including a lot of survival stuff, but he's so much better at writing similar stuff set in our world that I can see why it was a one-off. The worldbuilding is okay but nowhere near as vivid and evocative as his real-world worldbuilding.
It's correctly called a saga because it has an epic amount of plot and event crammed into 248 words, which is both its strength and weakness. To give you a sense of what reading the book is like, I'll sample chapter 2.
(In chapter 1, Mark, a thirteen-year-old boy who loves nature, is camping alone when he sees a flaming ball of fire and gets sucked into a beam of blue light. The chapter ends with that, on page 5.)
Page 6: Mark wakes up in an alien jungle.
Page 7: Mark is charged by a large hairy animal resembling a buffalo and escapes by climbing a tree.
Page 8: Mark falls into quicksand. Don't panic. You know about this. Remember, you read about it in Hiker magazine.
Page 9: Mark escapes the quicksand.
Page 10: Tubular, scorpionlike insects with antennas and long pincers swarmed over him, biting small chunks out of his skin.
Page 11: The buffalo creature returns to attack him again. For the record, this is where I completely lost it.
The rest of the book continues in basically this vein, as Mark finds other humans, rescues a girl from an attacking Howling Beast, gets clubbed by her tribal chief, gets welcomed to the tribe, gets disillusioned with them and leaves when they wipe out a neighboring village, returns when they get attacked by slavers, gets clubbed and captured as a slave, escapes, returns to help the slavers and their captives when they all get attacked by cannibals, gets welcomed to the slaver tribe, etc! Etc! Etc!
Not Paulsen's best work but he'd have clearly had a very respectable career in pulp action had he taken that route.
[image error]
comments
It's correctly called a saga because it has an epic amount of plot and event crammed into 248 words, which is both its strength and weakness. To give you a sense of what reading the book is like, I'll sample chapter 2.
(In chapter 1, Mark, a thirteen-year-old boy who loves nature, is camping alone when he sees a flaming ball of fire and gets sucked into a beam of blue light. The chapter ends with that, on page 5.)
Page 6: Mark wakes up in an alien jungle.
Page 7: Mark is charged by a large hairy animal resembling a buffalo and escapes by climbing a tree.
Page 8: Mark falls into quicksand. Don't panic. You know about this. Remember, you read about it in Hiker magazine.
Page 9: Mark escapes the quicksand.
Page 10: Tubular, scorpionlike insects with antennas and long pincers swarmed over him, biting small chunks out of his skin.
Page 11: The buffalo creature returns to attack him again. For the record, this is where I completely lost it.
The rest of the book continues in basically this vein, as Mark finds other humans, rescues a girl from an attacking Howling Beast, gets clubbed by her tribal chief, gets welcomed to the tribe, gets disillusioned with them and leaves when they wipe out a neighboring village, returns when they get attacked by slavers, gets clubbed and captured as a slave, escapes, returns to help the slavers and their captives when they all get attacked by cannibals, gets welcomed to the slaver tribe, etc! Etc! Etc!
Not Paulsen's best work but he'd have clearly had a very respectable career in pulp action had he taken that route.
[image error]
comments
September 9, 2021
I just got two emergency alerts for my county within an hour of each other
One was for excessive heat, and the other was for flash flooding.
comments
comments
August 27, 2021
Hard Light, by Elizabeth Hand
Cass, now a person of interest in two different murder investigations from the prior two books, flees to London. Unsurprisingly, she promptly gets roped into being a courier for a dealer... she assumes of drugs, but what she delivers is much odder, an ancient artifact which suggests that very early people understood some of the concepts behind moving pictures. Murder and an investigation into a cult movie from the 60s ensues.
This was my favorite Cass book. It's beautifully thematically integrated, with all the plot lines involving images: photos, movies, or the thaumatrope, an ancient spinning disc with two carved sides. It's extremely dark as usual, but this time there's a counterbalance in the form of Sam, a teenager raised by horrible cultists who is what we'd probably call genderqueer and in whom Cass recognizes both a kindred spirit and someone she might be able to actually help.
Everything involving the creepy movie (which might literally be evil) and the shadows of the past, both the recent past of the 60s and the ancient past still present in the form of artifacts, ruins, and bones, was very evocative. The way it was all woven together was extremely well-done.
Spoilers! ( Read more... )
This would make a good paired reading with Gemma Files' Experimental Film, which also involves a middle-aged woman investigating a creepy movie.
Inexplicably, only books one and four in the Cass Neary series are available on Kindle. The link goes to the hardcover. Isn't the cover great?
[image error]
comments
This was my favorite Cass book. It's beautifully thematically integrated, with all the plot lines involving images: photos, movies, or the thaumatrope, an ancient spinning disc with two carved sides. It's extremely dark as usual, but this time there's a counterbalance in the form of Sam, a teenager raised by horrible cultists who is what we'd probably call genderqueer and in whom Cass recognizes both a kindred spirit and someone she might be able to actually help.
Everything involving the creepy movie (which might literally be evil) and the shadows of the past, both the recent past of the 60s and the ancient past still present in the form of artifacts, ruins, and bones, was very evocative. The way it was all woven together was extremely well-done.
Spoilers! ( Read more... )
This would make a good paired reading with Gemma Files' Experimental Film, which also involves a middle-aged woman investigating a creepy movie.
Inexplicably, only books one and four in the Cass Neary series are available on Kindle. The link goes to the hardcover. Isn't the cover great?
[image error]
comments
August 24, 2021
comments
August 23, 2021
Tom Morello at Minetta Lane Theatre: Speaking Truth to Power Through Stories and Song
Confession: I'm not into Rage Against the Machine. I get that they're great but their sound isn't to my taste. However, I loved the Tom Morello/Bruce Springsteen collaborations. So I checked out Speaking Truth to Power, which is part of Audible's Words + Music series in which musicians create an audio work of their choice which is part music and part song.
It's great. It's SO GREAT. Funny, passionate, and legit inspiring. And don't we all need inspiration right now? Morello tells his life story, as a Black nerd in a white neighborhood as a kid, becoming a musician, becoming an activist, becoming a father, meeting his own father, and the influence of his amazing-sounding mother. It's a great story, really well told. It's a recording of a live performance, and captures the energy of a really great concert. And don't we all need the feeling of a really great concert right now?
I still don't love Rage Against the Machine, but Morello also performs "The Ghost of Tom Joad" and some songs from a folk album I didn't even know existed, "The Night Watchman," and I loved those. So I recommend it to everyone, whether you like Rage Against the Machine or his solo work or neither or have never heard either.
[image error]
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It's great. It's SO GREAT. Funny, passionate, and legit inspiring. And don't we all need inspiration right now? Morello tells his life story, as a Black nerd in a white neighborhood as a kid, becoming a musician, becoming an activist, becoming a father, meeting his own father, and the influence of his amazing-sounding mother. It's a great story, really well told. It's a recording of a live performance, and captures the energy of a really great concert. And don't we all need the feeling of a really great concert right now?
I still don't love Rage Against the Machine, but Morello also performs "The Ghost of Tom Joad" and some songs from a folk album I didn't even know existed, "The Night Watchman," and I loved those. So I recommend it to everyone, whether you like Rage Against the Machine or his solo work or neither or have never heard either.
[image error]
comments
