Phil Giunta's Blog, page 22
July 3, 2020
Book Review: Jack Vance’s City of the Chasch
In response to a signal from a planet over 200 light years from Earth, a ship is sent to investigate. Upon reaching the planet, two astronauts named Adam Reith and Paul Waunder are dispatched in a small scout ship. Soon 
after, missiles fired from the planet destroy the mothership and damage the scout ship, forcing it to crash land.
Injured, Reith and Waunder are soon captured by a band of primitive warriors. Waunder is immediately beheaded by one of the soldiers. Their teenage leader, later introduced as Traz Onmale, rages against the man and strips him of his rank and status by removing the man’s Emblem.
The scout ship’s crash also attracts the attention of rival clans known as the Blue Chasch and the Dirdir. Each newly arriving group drives away the next until Onmale’s soldiers finally chase the Dirdir away before transporting the injured Reith back to their village. Unfortunately, during the chaos, the Blue Chasch manage to depart with the wreckage of Reith’s scout ship.
Once healed, Reith manages to do exactly what you would expect in any “fish out of water” story—he violates the customs, and questions the beliefs, of Onmale’s people, resulting in a series of misunderstandings, some of which spark violent confrontations.
Eventually, Reith convinces Traz to join him on a quest to recover his scout ship from the Blue Chasch and together, they embark on a daring expedition across the planet. Along the way, they befriend a Dirdirman named Anacho, engage in battle against an insane beast known as the Phung, join a traveling clan of traders and rescue a young woman from a misandrist clan of sadistic priestesses, encounter a clan of sadistic pranksters known as the Green Chasch, overthrow the corrupt chief of a ruined town, and much more…
City of the Chasch is evocative of the Mars novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs with Adam Reith and Chasch taking the place of John Carter and Barsoom (as Mars is known to its inhabitants). Jack Vance does an exemplary job of revealing the complex cultures, conflicts, and characteristics of his world as the story unfolds. There are no significant infodumps here, allowing for a reasonably fast-paced tale. While there is nothing spectacular about the story, City of the Chasch holds up as a sturdy SF yarn and is the first in a tetralogy in Vance’s Planet of Adventure series.
July 1, 2020
Book Review: VALIS by Phil K. Dick
In 1974, a schizophrenic drug addict named Horselover Fat attempts suicide after a close friend succeeds at it. While struggling with guilt over her loss, Horselover is struck by an enigmatic beam of pink light that he attributes to a deity known as Zebra.
Afterwards, he experiences visions of the Roman Empire and gains detailed insight into early gnostic Christianity, which he chronicles in his exegesis. Horselover also credits the light for imparting crucial medical information that saves the life of his son, Christopher. A short time later, however, his wife Beth leaves him, taking Christopher with her.
Through all of this, Horselover’s friends—David, Kevin, and Phil K. Dick—believe that he is insane, until Kevin persuades the group to see an independent science fiction movie called VALIS, playing at a small theatre in town. The film, about an alien satellite called Vast Active Living Intelligence System, contains overt and subliminal messages that correspond to Horselover’s experiences after encountering the pink light. Convinced now that Horselover’s account was legitimate, the four friends take up a quest to contact the filmmakers in the hopes of learning the truth about VALIS and the information it revealed to Horselover.
It is explained at the beginning of the story that Horselover Fat might be Phil K. Dick projecting his inner turmoil into a second personality. Either way, VALIS is one of the most bizarre, engaging, imaginative, and occasionally disturbing novels I’ve ever read and could have been conjured only from the mind of Phil K. Dick.
June 28, 2020
About This Writing Stuff…
This week, Charlie Jane Anders encourages us to write what is in our hearts regardless of current events. At Career Authors, David Bell provides five reasons for outlining your novel, while over at IndieReader, Savannah Cordova shows us five ways to get your novel noticed on Amazon.
Marlene Cullen explains how to use the freewrite method to chronicle traumatic experiences. Jami Gold delves into the risks and benefits of foreshadowing. John Gilstrap warns us against second guessing our writing. Kristen Lamb demonstrates how the Johari Window can be used to provide depth to our characters. Tajja Isen discusses the importance of sensitivity readers for stories involving minority characters.
Congratulations to writer pal, Amanda Headlee, on winning the “When Words Count Pitch Week XVII contest” with her upcoming horror novel, My Brother’s Keeper.
All that and a lot more. Enjoy!
Never Say You Can’t Survive: Everything is Broken! What Should I Write About? by Charlie Jane Anders
5 Tips for Navigating a Successful Novel Outline by David Bell
Freewrite: How to Write About Traumatic Events Without Adding More Trauma by Marlene Cullen
5 Tips for Getting Your Book Noticed on Amazon by Savannah Cordova
What’s the Point of Foreshadowing? by Jami Gold
Eyes Front by John Gilstrap
Pulp Diction. What We Can Learn from the Noir Czars by PJ Parrish
How to Characterize by James Scott Bell
The Johari Window: Understanding and Harnessing the Character Blind Spot by Kristen Lamb
Parody, Satire, and Fan Fiction: What’s the Difference? by Matt Knight
How Not to Write a Book About a Minority Experience by Tajja Isen
6 Ways to Incorporate a Dash of Foreign Language by Kathryn Craft
Blurbing and Being Blurbed by Barbara Linn Probst
How the Rising Action Works in a Story by Joe Bunting
Meet the Pitch Week XVII Finalists from When Worlds Collide!
June 9, 2020
About This Writing Stuff…
This week, Alice Sudlow and Dan Brotzel each offer ten tips for entering and winning short story contests. Joe Bunting provides a guide to story arcs and writing an effective first chapter, while Robert Wood challenges us to add a radical twist to our plots.
At Writer’s Digest, David Corbett teaches us how to develop our characters with each new scene while Elizabeth Sims shows us ways to elevate our stories to greatness. KD Holmberg reminds us that inanimate objects can also be powerful characters, and Chris Winkle helps us fill in our story’s middle.
All that and little more. Enjoy!
How to Write a Good First Chapter by Joe Bunting
Story Arcs: Definitions and Examples of the Six Shapes of Stories by Joe Bunting
Ten Lessons from Entering Hundreds of Short Story Competitions by Dan Brotzel
10 Steps to Win a Writing Contest by Alice Sudlow
6 Daring Plot Twists to Try in Your Writing Part I and Part II by Robert Wood
7 Simple Ways to Make a Good Story Great by Elizabeth Sims
Inanimate Objects as Characters by KD Holmberg
How to Craft Characters Scene by Scene by David Corbett
Backstory for Writers: When and How by Ane Mulligan
Filling in Your Story’s Middle by Chris Winkle
Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive by Association of American Publishers
Publisher Rocket vs. KD Spy: Which is Best for You? by Brendan Hufford
June 6, 2020
Book Review: The Masks of Time by Robert Silverberg
On Christmas Day in 1998, a charismatic being in the form of a nude man materializes from a shimmering electrical field in the middle of Rome. Calling himself Vornan-19, he claims to have traveled back in time 1,000 years to observe the cultures of primitive Earth.
Soon after, the United States government assembles a motley team of five scientists to escort Vornan across the nation, around the globe, even to the moon colonies, all the while studying him in an attempt to determine or debunk his authenticity. Yet, Vornan offers little more than nebulous scraps of information about the future and evades direct questions about the mechanics of time travel, asserting ignorance about all matters scientific and technical.
Rather, Vornan admits to being little more than a bored dilettante from the future seeking to amuse himself by partaking in the sexual customs of “underdeveloped” humans. He reveals only that he hails from a land known as the Centrality and that poverty, starvation, even death have been eliminated, somehow, during the 1,000 years between our time and his.
Among Vornan’s cadre of guardians is Leo Garfield, a middle-aged physicist stymied in his current academic career and in need of a distraction. It is his through Garfield’s point of view that we experience the escapades of Vornan-19, for it is with Garfield that Vornan forms the closest bond.
Vornan’s habitual venery not only extends to the female scientists of the group, but almost any random woman, or man, he happens to encounter in his travels. Despite Garfield’s attempts to keep him in check, Vornan manages to leave chaos and frustration in his wake wherever he goes. Whether that is intentional or a merely the result of being a stranger in a strange land is anyone’s guess.
His popularity in the media rapidly escalates, to the chagrin of a cult known as the Apocalyptists, who believe that the world will end on January 1, 2000. Their public protests and orgies become more fervent as they rail against Vornan, even while he amasses a rabid following of his own. To desperate millions around the world, this prophet from the future brings hope and wisdom. He becomes their new messiah.
Is Vornan-19 merely a simple observer from the future seeking an escape from ennui and indolence, or is he a sham taking advantage of a gullible and “underdeveloped” humanity?
The Masks of Time was published in 1968, during the Vietnam War and a period of violent civil unrest in the United States. People sought hope, equality, peace, but most of all meaning, and many of them looked to various new-age religions and cults to find it. Robert Silverberg deftly adopted all of these elements into the tale of Vornan-19.
While the story opens with the amusing and engaging arrival of Vornan in Rome, the second chapter is loaded down with exposition during Garfield’s initial visit with his friends Jack and Shirley in Arizona. From there, the pacing remains uneven, but the story held my attention to the end.
June 5, 2020
I Ask The Coldest of You Mortals
I ask the coldest of you mortals.
We revel in the beauty and diversity of the natural world, do we not? The blue of sky, the green of grass, the myriad colors of a rainbow, of flowers, of animals.
If those colors don’t offend and enrage you, why should the color of human skin? Is not our beauty and diversity also to be celebrated?
I ask the coldest of you mortals.
June 4, 2020
The Wrong Side of History
At one point, I remember my friend praising an incredibly detailed plastic model of Godzilla attacking the White House—until he learned that the builder constructed it in protest against George W. Bush. My friend instantly changed his opinion, condemning the model vehemently.
After Obama was elected in 2008, my friend sent an email to our circle stating that he did everything he could “to prevent this from happening” as if he were some modern semi-Svengali, who had failed to mesmerize millions of Americans to do his bidding.
Later, in 2009, my friend sent a scathing email to PA Senator Arlen Specter when Specter changed his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat. He told Specter that he would go door to door if necessary, to convince people never to vote for him again.
I don’t know if my friend ever followed through on that because it was at this point when I cut ties with him. He had become impossible to deal with and worse, he had carbon copied my work email address in his correspondence to Specter.
I mention all of this because on Monday, June 6th, I shared a video on my Facebook wall of Joe Biden’s laudable speech from Philadelphia . In that post, I made it clear that I have never been an admirer of Biden, but I also included a lengthy polemic against Donald Trump in which I said something to the effect of…
“If you are entertained by Trump’s abuse of social media as his personal platform to demean, threaten, bully, intimidate, and encourage violence against anyone he dislikes (like the petulant, callow man-child he is)…
If you condoned Trump’s use of 1960s racist threats to quell peaceful black protestors while white men looted and damaged property to incrimate those protestors (a fact he failed to acknowledge)…
If you found it acceptable when Trump emboldened and supported armed white men when they entered the Michigan state capitol in an attempt to coerce and intimidate Governor Whitmer and the state legislature regarding COVID-19 quarantine (I guarantee you, if the governor had been Republican, or the gunmen black, Trump would have been outraged)…
If you are not concerned that our president, after cowering in a bunker, ordered police to use pepper ball projectiles and smoke to remove protestors—and a priest—simply so he could walk to a church in D.C. and take a pointless photo op while brandishing a bible he never read (as if this benighted, feckless thug were some model of Christianity)…
If you agreed with this tawdry, ersatz leader when he boasted of being the greatest president since Lincoln…
If you delight in Donald J. Trump’s dangerous lies and rhetoric that have done nothing but divide this country rather than unite it…
Then unfriend me or unfollow me, and while you’re at it, go unfuck yourself.”
However, I later realized that in writing that closing line, I was no better than my friend from 12 years ago. I had allowed my rage at what I perceived to be damage inflicted on my country—by a bloviating, incompetent fraud—to get the better of me. On that day, I allowed myself to be dragged down to Trump’s level and to that of my former friend.
So I deleted that post, but not because my opinions regarding Trump have changed. He remains a disgusting and repulsive monster, a fact he reinforces on a daily basis. My estimation of this deranged tyrant is not based on mainstream media but on observation and the evidence of his own words and conduct, which are far from the mark of a true leader.
Remind me again how a president with a revolving door on his Cabinet of Corruption has been successful in “ draining the swamp. “
How about that wall that Mexico was supposed to pay for?
For a president who claimed that he would never leave the White House because there is too much work to be done , how many golf outings has he taken?
No, I deleted that Facebook post because it was out of character, cut against the grain of who I am, and I have enough decency to check myself when that occurs. Unlike political extremists on either end of the spectrum, I welcome intelligent, spirited, and civil discourse—within reason.
For example, I patiently debated the same person four times in six months on Facebook over my candidate of choice, Tulsi Gabbard. Every time I mentioned Gabbard’s name on my Facebook wall, this fellow writer railed against her and I entertained a spirited exchange once, twice, three times, but by the fourth incident, I felt it to be harrassment and I finally had to unfriend and block the individual.
Of course, the incident proved yet again that no one ever changes their mind as a result of a political debate on social media. It’s a waste of time. All those fruitless hours I’ll never get back!
In conclusion, I will replace my original, antagonistic closing line from my Monday Facebook post with this:
If you support Donald J. Trump, you are on the wrong side of history.
June 3, 2020
About This Writing Stuff…
This week, Ruth Harris reminds us that writing is a marathon, not a sprint while Meghan Ward offers tips for ramping up the action in our stories.
Jami Gold provides a three-part series on point of view, Kristen Lamb discusses the benefits of using an unreliable narrator, Sandra Beckwith guides us through the challenges of book marketing, and Chris Winkle walks us through plotting a novel series.
All that, and a little more. Enjoy!
A Writer’s Guide to Patience, Practice, and Persistence by Ruth Harris via Anne R. Allen
Is Your Story a Bit Lazy? Five Ways to Improve the Action by Meghan Ward via Anne R. Allen
7 Questions to Ask Before Creating Your Book Marketing Plan by Sandra Beckwith
Is Our Story’s Point of View Really What We Think It Is? by Jami Gold
How Does Our Characters POV Affect Our Story? by Jami Gold
What Do Readers Want from a Story’s POV? by Jami Gold
Deception as a Storytelling Device: Introducing the Unreliable Narrator by Kristen Lamb
Will China’s Entry into U.S. Publishing Lead to Censorship? by Ed Nawotka
How to Plot a Novel Series by Chris Winkle
Getting Comfortable with Failure by Jael McHenry
Into the Woods by Dave King
Learning from Pinocchio: Creating Charaters Who Are Fully Alive by Barbara Linn Probst
June 1, 2020
Taking a Hiatus from Social (Disease) Media
Aside from posting writing and publishing news, I will be away from Facebook and Twitter on a daily basis for the remainder of 2020.
I no longer have time or energy to waste in such a toxic environment as social media, which is becoming worse by the day and will doubtlessly continue to deteriorate as the Presidential election nears.
We all have enough stress to deal with in our lives. Speaking for myself, I’m tired of being subjected to the daily onslaught of vituperation, lies, rage, pettiness, immaturity, fear-mongering and, most recently, harassment. As usual, give the human race a tool and they will find the most effective way to weaponize it.
I have healthier uses for my time rather than squandering it online in what is essentially a festering degenerative disease eroding the mental stability and intellect of the masses.
I will be available via Facebook Messenger and email if you need to reach me. Otherwise, as stated above, I will check into Facebook and Twitter when I have announcements to share.
Be well.
May 29, 2020
SCARY STUFF!
Looking forward to seeing my short story, “Burn After Writing” in SCARY STUFF, a horror anthology coming later this year from Oddity Prodigy Productions. The book is an homage to the classic EC Comics titles Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror, and Haunt of Fear, as well as the magazines Eerie and Creepy.
More information forthcoming!
