Justin Howe's Blog, page 49
September 18, 2012
September 17, 2012
One Book Four Covers: Vermilion Sands by J.G. Ballard
How about those covers, eh?
I dig the ones at either end, although the left one fits the book better. That one on the right, though? Gosh. I totally want to read that book.
For folks who don’t want to Google, Vermilion Sands is a fictitious resort at some undetermined time in the near future populated by the bored, artistic, insane, and/or wealthy. Ballard said his inspiration was Palm Springs, but I always imagine a Mediterranean locale. It’s also one of those books you’re either going to love...
September 12, 2012
September 11, 2012
How To Read
Back in the good old bad old days I worked with a guy who would take summers off to go work in Alaska as a hunting guide. He’d return in the fall with an assortment of wilderness stories. One of them was about when the other guides and he all got stuck for a week in the back country waiting for the plane to pick them up. They ended up having to trek miles to another pick up site and wait for the plane there. On the way one of the guys dropped his book in the river and wound up with nothing to...
September 1, 2012
To Trunk Or Not To Trunk
Reasons to trunk a story:
If it were published you wouldn’t tell anyone and you’d hope no one would read it.
You know it’s not together yet. Parts might be working, but parts aren’t. It will simply accrue rejections and thereby limit its markets for when you do figure it out in the future. Put these on the trunk’s top shelf. Months from now you might know exactly what needs to be done with them.
You’ve seen hundreds of stories exactly like it in the slush and yours isn’t any better.
Better a stor...
August 14, 2012
Heads. I Win.
Mr. Bowes, I suspect this frightening tableaux originated with you, yes?
August 8, 2012
August Update
August is here.
The beach in town is filthy with humanity leaving their trash around. It’s downright apocalyptic. To make matters worse the mayor has cordoned off a section of the beachfront and designated it an “International Zone”. Yes, town now has its own Interzone. There’s even a monument and everything. We’re not at “Lee and the Boys” levels yet, but I wonder if the mayor’s a secret William S. Burroughs fan.
(Remind me not to go back to the beach until, say. . . October. Also, shit, secon...
July 18, 2012
“Memoirs of Journeys to Venice and the Low Countries” by Albrecht Durer
“Here I am a gentleman, at home a parasite.”
I downloaded this from Gutenberg. It’s delightfully dull — all about buying and selling jewels (for friends and to pay back his own debts), complaining about Italian painters (rascals, all of them, except Giovanni Bellini), worrying about his mom (he was paying her rent as well as his wife’s back in Germany), and admonishing his kid brother (do not neglect your studies). For much of it Durer seems to be balancing his account book. “How many florins...
July 10, 2012
Buy These E-Books
My buddy Jay Ridler has come out swinging this past year with a slew of e-books over at Amazon.
So far I’ve been digging the Spar Battersea novels, the first of which Death Match got described as “a rock ‘em sock ‘em addition to the noir canon. Gritty, relentless, and wry as hell, Ridler brings the pain” by the likes of Laird Barron and “Fast, breezy and barbarous, Death Match is a fine, innovative noir from an exciting new writer. Reading the book is like eating a corn dog while watching a la...
June 26, 2012
Ur Update
In case anyone’s curious about what’s been going on with the Vaults of Ur, Dennis has been doing a stellar job writing up play reports.
