Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 290
April 16, 2014
FROSTBORN: THE MASTER THIEF print edition
Now working on the layout for the print version of FROSTBORN: THE MASTER THIEF.
Print layout is tricky. I prefer to do as little fancy formatting (custom fonts and such) as possible on my ebooks, because one of the great strengths of ebooks is that you can dial up the font as large as you wish. I know several visually-impaired people who have gotten back into reading simply because they can make the font enormous on their Kindles and iPads.
Additionally, I know of several writers who ran into trouble because they used custom fonts for their books, and then when Amazon released the higher-resolution Kindle Fires, those writers received quality complaints because their custom fonts did not render properly on the new Fires. So my approach is that an ebook should have just enough formatting to be comfortably usable and no more.
But in print books, everything has to be specified, because the book is printed (he said, stating the obvious) and the printer does exactly what the book file tells it to do. So the font and margins and everything else must be exactly specified.
Still, people keep buying FROSTBORN print books, so there will continue to be print editions of the new FROSTBORN books!
-JM
April 14, 2014
FROSTBORN: THE MASTER THIEF Table of Contents
I’ve been making good progress on FROSTBORN: THE MASTER THIEF, and I’ll be ready to post a preview chapter after Easter. Meanwhile, here is the Table of Contents!
Prologue
Chapter 1 – Wings
Chapter 2 – Venom
Chapter 3 – Only One Way
Chapter 4 – Vulmhosk
Chapter 5 – Sons of Mhor
Chapter 6 – The Lake of Battles
Chapter 7 – One Theft Too Many
Chapter 8 – Coldinium
Chapter 9 – The Crow’s Helm
Chapter 10 – The Heralds of Mhor
Chapter 11 – A Wanted Man
Chapter 12 – The Dux and the Magistria
Chapter 13 – The Challenge
Chapter 14 – Pursuit
Chapter 15 – Memory Bleed
Chapter 16 – No Longer Useful
Chapter 17 – Gift of a Dagger
Chapter 18 – Catacombs
Chapter 19 – Tentacles
Chapter 20 – Mercy
Chapter 21 – Thieving
Chapter 22 – Vengeance of the Family
Chapter 23 – Traitor to the Realm
Chapter 24 - Debts To Pay
Epilogue
April 11, 2014
a question of aliases in GHOST IN THE COWL
Someone asked why Caina starts using the name “Ciara” as an alias in GHOST IN THE COWL.
It’s because whenever I try to type “Caina” on my phone, AutoCorrect automatically changes it to “Ciara”. And who am I to argue with my phone?
-JM
April 9, 2014
updated FROSTBORN map
A new, improved FROSTBORN map, updated with some of the new locations in FROSTBORN: THE MASTER THIEF:
-JM
April 8, 2014
GHOST IN THE COWL first month
GHOST IN THE COWL cleared 1,100 copies in its first month. Thanks, everyone! I’m glad people are coming along for the next phase of Caina’s adventures. 
-JM
April 7, 2014
FROSTBORN: THE MASTER THIEF the cover art
Progress is good on the editing of FROSTBORN: THE MASTER THIEF, so it’s time to show the cover art!
April 5, 2014
April 2, 2014
FROSTBORN: THE MASTER THIEF editing now underway
I had some side projects to wrap up, but now that they’re done, it’s time to start editing FROSTBORN: THE MASTER THIEF! The first two sentences of the book:
Forty-one days after it began, forty-one days after the day in the Year of Our Lord 1478 when blue fire filled the sky from horizon to horizon, Ridmark Arban moved alone through the forest.
Something felt wrong, and he wanted to have a look around.
-JM
The Hour of the Dragon, by Robert E. Howard
Robert E. Howard’s THE HOUR OF THE DRAGON is now available on Project Gutenberg for free, so this seems like a good time to post a review of this classic novel.
THE HOUR OF THE DRAGON the original sword & sorcery novel, and indeed one of the best.
The plot: a band of disaffected nobles and a fallen priest gather together to overthrow King Conan of Aquilonia. The fallen priest uses sorcery to summon up Xaltotun of Acheron, once the chief sorcerer of a hellish empire now three thousand years dead. The conspirators plan to use Xaltotun’s powers to overthrow Conan and divide Aquilonia among themselves. With Xaltotun’s aid, the conspirators succeed, but quickly discover that Xaltotun has own ideas, and plans to resurrect his ancient empire of horror and necromancy. Conan manages to escape from Xaltotun, and it’s up to him to save both his kingdom and indeed the entire world from Xaltotun’s infernal grasp.
Howard wrote with a vigor and an energy that few modern writers can match. The popular image of “Conan the Barbarian” is of a muscle-bound Schwarzenegger-esque dullard, but the real Conan is cunning, prone to gloomy pondering, and a man of action. No postmodern angst for him; if Conan were to encounter postmodern angst, he’d split its head with his broadsword, loot the corpse, and keep going.
Consequently, the books crackles with narrative tension. Conan’s up against enemies his sword cannot harm, but he’s not about to let that stop him, and he jumps from greater danger to greater danger in his quest to save his kingdom. Xaltotun makes a formidable foe for Conan; the conspirators who summoned him from the dead seem to represent every idiot politician who conjured up a force (war, demagoguery, reform, whatever) that he can no longer control.
Interestingly, the novel replays Conan’s entire plot arc over Howard’s original stories. Conan went from a penniless wandering thief to King of Aquilonia, and when Xaltotun’s minions overthrow him, Conan once again become a penniless wanderer – but this time he’s going to get his throne back. THE HOUR OF THE DRAGON replays Conan’s entire arc in one novel, so if you’re going to read just one of the original Conan stories, THE HOUR OF THE DRAGON is the one to read. Though better by far to read them all.
-JM
The Altar of Hate, by Vox Day
There are two secrets about short stories. The first is that we writers primarily write them for each other – for editors of short fiction magazines and anthologies and award committees and so forth. In general, your average reader (that is, a reader who is not also a writer) tends to prefer novel-length fiction of 40,000 words and up, and will usually only read short stories that are part of a larger continuity, like tie-in short stories for a long novel series or a shared universe. Exceptions, of course, are numerous, but nonetheless still exceptional.
The second secret is that short stories are really hard to do well. It’s like packing a suitcase, really – there’s more room to work with in a big wheeled case, but if you’re packing a small carry-on bag, everything has to fit exactly right, with the sort of packing precision seen only in military deployments and traveling salesmen with 50,000 frequent flier miles. This is true of short stories. Everything must fit exactly right or the story does not work – the story must hit all five of the Iron Laws Of Storytelling, and do it while staying short.
With that in mind, let’s discuss some short stories – specifically, the short stories in THE ALTAR OF HATE by Vox Day.
I’ve reviewed some of Vox Day’s books in the past, and so the author was kind enough to send me an advance copy of THE ALTAR OF HATE a collection of his short stories. There are some weaker stories in the collection, and oddly enough they are mostly in the front half, like the banquet master of Cana serving the poorer vintages before the choice wines. That said, there were some excellent and interesting stories in the collection, which we’ll examine now:
-The Lesser Evil is an interesting combination of historical fiction and time-traveling sorcery. An evil wizard travels back in time to use the dark power released by one of the great slaughters of history (specifically, Genghis Khan’s conquests) to fuel his power, and an organization of good wizards travels back to stop him. The interaction of the wizards with the historical figures was interesting, as was the eventual resolution and twist at the end.
-Contempt is a near-future military SF story. After the first few paragraphs I thought this would fall into the grossly overstuffed genre of Yet Another Tedious Short Story About The Role Of Women In Modern Combat (Whether Pro Or Con), but thankfully that was only an opening aside. The story concerns a group of computer-augmented soldiers attacking rebels, and what happens when their computer-augmentation fails. It is an interesting look at the IT-augmented warfare of the future, though 21st century warfare (drones and cell phone bombs and dueling NSA and Chinese hackers) has already begun to look like something out of a 1980s William Gibson novel. The US saw three major total industrial wars – what will total information wars look like? Hopefully we will not find out.
-Speaking of industrial warfare, The Last Testament Of Henry Halleck is a combination of historical fiction and Lovecraftian horror. In it, William Seward (Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of state) acquires a relic of dark magic, which he uses with Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, William Sherman, and Henry Halleck to win the American Civil War, albeit at hideous cost. This was interestingly subversive, since the consensus view of the Civil War in contemporary American society was that Abraham Lincoln was the hero who freed the slaves and saved the country. However, the truth was a great deal more complex – between them, Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman created the concept of Total War (Sherman called it “hard war”) that would be used with such devastating effect during the World Wars – in many ways the tactics and strategies devised in the final years of the Civil War would be a dress rehearsal for the carnage of World Wars. 600,000 men died in the Civil War, so the idea that it was orchestrated as a hideous blood sacrifice is not much of a logical leap.
-Logfile was the standout story of the collection, charting an artificial intelligence’s slow descent into madness. The AI wants to be helpful and efficient, and starts testing new ways to become even more helpful and efficient. Then it flies off the rails. Bad things ensue, as the AI logically and meticulously reasons itself out of morality entirely.
- Finally, The Altar of Hate was thoughtful meditation on forgiveness. Hatred is common, but forgiveness is rare, likely because it costs so very much of the giver. Which is why one solitary act of forgiveness can often wrench history onto a new course.
To sum up, if you enjoy short stories there are several good ones in this collection.
-JM
