Phil Giunta's Blog, page 43
June 2, 2018
Book Review: Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert A. Heinlein
For as long as he could remember, young Thorby had been a slave—until he lands on Jubbal, one of the Nine Worlds of the Sargon Empire, and is purchased by a beggar named Baslim. It is not long before Thorby realizes that Baslim is no simple mendicant, but a spy and one who despises the slave trade. Once Baslim educates Thorby in reading, writing, mathematics, and even a bit of espionage, he frees Thorby from slavery and adopts him as his son.
In the event of his death, Baslim commands Thorby to carry a special message to the captain of the first Free Trader vessel that landed on Jubbal. Baslim uses hypnosis to allow Thorby to memorize the message in an unfamiliar language.
After Baslim is finally arrested and executed by Sargon police, Thorby makes his way to the spaceport where he approaches Captain Krausa of the Sisu and delivers the message. As it turns out, the Free Traders owe a special debt to Baslim and as such, Krausa follows the old man’s instructions and adopts Thorby into his family. Thorby becomes a crewman aboard the Sisu—but only temporarily, for Baslim also wished to have the Free Trader captain turn over Thorby to a Hegemonic military vessel where he would have the opportunity to discover his true lineage. Baslim suspected that Thorby had been abducted from a Terran family.
When Thorby is finally reunited with his family on Earth, he learns that he is heir to a fortune… but not everyone has his best interests at heart. Worse, the company once owned by his parents might now be indirectly involved in the same detestable institution from which Baslim had liberated him.
Citizen of the Galaxy is one of Heinlein’s juvenile SF adventure novels, what we would today categorize as young adult. It is a delightful “rags to riches” tale that allows the reader to experience a wide range of lifestyles and family structures through Thorby’s eyes as he evolves from slave to adopted family member of Free Traders to an enlisted man aboard a military vessel and finally, the head of one of the wealthiest corporations on Earth.
June 1, 2018
Still Finding My Way Back…
This, folks, is exactly where I’ve been for the past eleven months. Kristen sums it up perfectly in the above quote and her entire blog post about burnout is spot on. I’ve mentioned my own struggles with burnout and depression on social media and on this blog, and if it became monotonous for you, I apologize. I’m trying to avoid camping on these themes, but it has been a struggle. I’m still writing, still working, still taking care of my obligations just like you’re doing… but most of the time, I’m little more than an automaton, going about the motions of life without actually LIVING.
But hey, at least I’m not waking up with outright anxiety attacks or panic attacks as I did in years past. Instead, I’m confronted with that “malaise of the soul” every morning, as Kristen mentions, and all of its accompanying bleak perceptions of life.
The needle on my emotional meter has been limited to a range covering melancholy, dread, anger, disappointment, and apathy, and I pass off power naps as ersatz replacements for actual rest. I’ve become increasingly reclusive—something I’m trying to combat—and some activities that once brought excitement and joy no longer do and have not for the past year.
And don’t think I haven’t been on a quest to figure out how the hell to climb out of this dismal state of mind. No one can persist in this manner for too long and honestly call it a life. I’ve long since become inured to bouts of depression that last a day, a week, even a month or two. Depression has been a constant companion since I was a kid, always under the surface and occasionally pulling me under with it, but I always managed to eventually slip from its grasp, even if only temporarily. This year-long darkness in my head is a new and unexpected experience and old techniques for working through it have mostly failed me.
This is why I look forward to a week at the beach next month and a week-long Mindful Writers Retreat in October. These are short term reprieves that I hope will give me a boost. For the long term, I know I need to make specific changes (and I know at least some of them) in order to get back to actually LIVING.
May 30, 2018
Spring Loaded!
May is nearly over and this is only my third blog post of the month. I’m not sure where the time is going, only that it’s passing with frightening speed. The past four weeks have handed me healthy portions of success and failure. I’ll begin with the latter. A network switch upgrade at work—that had been postponed three times for reasons beyond my control—was finally scheduled for Sunday, May 20, but came to a screeching halt when we discovered a problem with fiber cabling. We’re having that problem corrected now and will reschedule the upgrade for another Sunday in June or July.
Just before Memorial Day, I received notice that a short story I’d submitted to a contest had been rejected. Such is the writing life. I took Honorable Mention in this same contest in 2017. I was disappointed, but that didn’t linger very long because my local writers group is preparing to publish their next anthology in 2019 with the theme of Rewriting the Past. This story happens to fit that theme. In fact, I have two stories that deal with altering the recent past in some way. Hopefully, one of them will be accepted.
On a brighter note, I managed to add about 4,000 words and two chapters to my SF novel-in-progress during the month. Over Memorial Day weekend, I also recorded my second Kickstarter video since April. This one was for the third volume of the Middle of Eternity speculative fiction anthology series that I created and edited for Firebringer Press. It will be called Meanwhile in the Middle of Eternity and will probably see publication in early 2019. I’ve talked about this series extensively in previous blog posts so I won’t keep blabbing about it here. If you’re interested, you can check out the first two volumes on Amazon or Goodreads by clicking on the titles here: Somewhere in the Middle of Eternity and Elsewhere in the Middle of Eternity.
The previous Kickstarter video I recorded in April was for another upcoming book that I’ve also discussed here before. This will be a double-novella that will combine a vampire story called Freedom’s Blood by Steven H. Wilson and my paranormal mystery, Like Mother, Like Daughters, in the format of the old ACE Doubles (read one story, flip the book over to read the other). I hope to see that book released this fall.
I also managed to submit a supernatural tale to an open call for an anthology titled Beach Pulp, to be published by Delaware-based Cat and Mouse Press later this year or early next. I worked with Cat and Mouse previously when my short story, “Tower Sixteen” won second place in their 2016 contest and was published in the anthology Beach Nights.
Lastly, I attended a number of training sessions this spring as a volunteer for the Lehigh County Community Emergency Response Team (CERT). These sessions included CPR/First Aid, Missing Person Search and Rescue, Fire Suppression and sizing up a hazardous scene, Simple Triage and Rapid Treatment (START), and leveraging and cribbing to extract a victim from beneath large debris. Learning new skills, making new friends, and accumulating helpful new emergency gear from flashlights and first-aid kits to tools and tourniquets.
Add to the above yard work, spring cleaning, and minor home improvements and it’s no wonder that time flew by. I hope to get out on the water again with rod and reel come June. I haven’t been fishing since mid-April and that’s a problem for me!
May 12, 2018
Book Review: Starman Jones by Robert A. Heinlein
An Illinois farm boy with a photographic memory, Max Jones runs away from home after his widowed mother marries the town loser, whose only goal is to sell the Jones farm for quick cash.
Max decides to head for Earthport on the hope that his late Uncle Chet, a career astrogator, had nominated Max as a future member of the Astrogator’s Guild as he had promised before his death. Along the way, Max encounters a congenial homeless man named Sam who ends up stealing Max’s government ID card and a set of astrogation books given to him by his uncle.
At Earthport, Max is further disappointed to learn that Uncle Chet never registered him for membership in the Guild. Shortly after, Max meets Sam in the street just outside the Guild Hall. After a brief confrontation, Sam decides to take Max under his wing and together, they stow away aboard the space cruiser Asgard using forged identifications.
Aboard the Asgard, Max finds himself in familiar territory. As Steward’s Mate, he is assigned to the care and feeding of pets and livestock being transported from Earth to an off world colony. It isn’t long before Max befriends a precocious and brash young lady named Ellie and her talking spider puppy, Mr. Chips.
During the voyage, a series of circumstances permits Max to be promoted to an Apprentice Chartsman and then to Astrogation, where his photographic memory allows him to make computations with inhuman speed based on charts and tables he long ago memorized from his uncle’s books. However, Max’s rapid rise through the ranks pits him against a resentful senior officer who makes his life difficult at every opportunity.
After an astrogation mishap sends the Asgard leaping to a completely unfamiliar part of space, the captain orders the ship to set down on a serene Earth-like world that the passengers eventually christen “Charity”—a compliment that turns out to be a deadly misnomer. Will Max and the bridge crew calculate the proper path back to known space or will they and the passengers be doomed to wander this strange area of the galaxy in search of a new home?
Published in 1953, Starman Jones is counted among Robert A. Heinlein’s twelve “juvenile” SF novels—what is known today as “young adult.” I haven’t read a Heinlein juvenile novel yet that failed to entertain. They’re an absolute trove of fun and imaginative space adventures. Character development, pacing, and plot are all masterfully crafted. As renowned SF anthologist Groff Conklin once said, “Nobody but nobody can beat Heinlein in the writing of teen-age science fiction.”
I completely agree.
May 11, 2018
Blogging Takes a Back Seat…
The tenth of May had to arrive before I realized that I had not yet written a blog post this month. Several reasons for this, some of which I’ve mentioned here previously.
First, my priority has been a science fiction novel that has seen sporadic progress since 2016. It became one of those projects I worked in between writing a novella, editing two anthologies, and writing about eight or nine short stories. Over the past month, I’ve been focusing more of my writing time on the novel, rewriting parts of the outline and troubleshooting problems in the pacing and plot of the first draft, which is only about 70% finished. Truth be told, since writing the outline and the first eleven chapters over the past two years, I didn’t like where the story was going. Better ideas developed during my time away from the project, but now I’m back on track.
On top of this, I recently received gorgeous cover art for the third volume of a speculative fiction series that I created and edited for Firebringer Press. The Middle of Eternity anthologies, as mentioned here many times, began in 2014 with Somewhere in the Middle of Eternity and continued in 2016 with Elsewhere in the Middle of Eternity. Each book offers over a dozen stories in the SF, fantasy, and paranormal genres written mostly by emerging writers. For some, this series marks the first publication in their careers. That was my goal when I pitched the idea to Firebringer Press. Fortunately, Firebringer is owned by fellow scribe Steven H. Wilson who has shown much generosity in helping creatives find an outlet for their work.
The next book, Meanwhile in the Middle of Eternity will probably hit the market in 2019 since my publisher and I are planning to release a “double-novella” later this year in the format of the old ACE doubles from the 1950s through there 1970s. Read one story, flip the book over to read the other. I just recorded the Kickstarter video for this in mid-April. I hope to see the campaign go live later this month.
Of course, now that spring has decided to make an appearance in my part of the country, lawn work and spring cleaning have been consuming what time I might have used for promotion and blogging. Most of the heavy work is done, but there are a few home improvement projects on the horizon this summer… as always.
So blogging might be sporadic over the next few months. I have another Kickstarter video to record for Meanwhile in the Middle of Eternity and I hope to finish the first draft of my SF novel by September at the latest so that when I attend the Mindful Writers Retreat in October, I can start hammering away at the second draft.
As they say, though, if you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.
April 29, 2018
After Action Report: Chiller Theatre
Spent another fantastic day at the semi-annual, star-studded Chiller Theatre in Parsippany, NJ. This time, I was honored to meet actors Ed Begley, Jr., Nicholas Lea, Steven Weber, Raj Singh, and John Schuck. Good times!
April 28, 2018
Book Review: The Dunwich Horror by H.P. Lovecraft
This anthology of seven eerie, suspenseful tales by the legendary H.P. Lovecraft includes three that involve his famous mythology of the Ancient Ones—especially the monstrous entity, Yog-Sothoth—as well as the grimoire of black magic known as the Necronomicon. 
“In the Vault” – After finding himself locked in a tomb, a despicable, cantankerous undertaker successfully escapes by stacking six occupied coffins to create a platform, allowing him to reach a small opening above the door. However, just before crawling free, his leg punches through the lid of the top coffin, leaving him with wounds that were not merely inflicted by jagged wood…
“Pickman’s Model” – An artist of the macabre develops a new and startlingly realistic style when he begins painting demonic figures too grotesque to be displayed in public… but where did he find this latest inspiration?
“The Rats in the Walls” – After restoring the cursed, ruined estate of his ancestors, a young man begins hearing rats scurrying in the walls. An exploration of the cellar reveals an opening to a large chamber, the contents of which reveal the true and terrible history of the property.
“The Music of Erich Zann” – Each night, on the top floor of an apartment building, an elderly violinist plays a haunting, otherworldly melody… and receives a response from somewhere beyond our dimension.
“The Haunter of the Dark” – Robert Blake takes an unhealthy interest in the ruins of a long-abandoned Gothic church whose distant spires are visible from his apartment window. After venturing across town, Blake learns that local residents fear the church and do not speak of it. Undaunted, Blake presses on and finds a way inside. While exploring the ruins, he encounters an artifact that offers him frightening visions of the Ancient Ones—one of which is soon unleashed.
“The Dunwich Horror” – In the isolated, backwoods village of Dunwich, Massachusetts, the primitive Whateley family welcomes a grandson named Wilbur, born of Lavinia and an unnamed father who is believed to be the ancient creature known as Yog-Sototh. Other villagers become fearful of Wilbur’s rapid physical development and inhuman countenance—not to mention the strange growling and rumbling from the surrounding hills that began after his birth. Following Lavinia’s unexplained death, Wilbur and his grandfather begin boarding up the windows of their home as if to imprison something inside. After the deaths of Old Man Whateley, then of Wilbur, the invisible creature bursts from its confinement to wreak havoc on the village. Three professors from nearby Miskatonic University undertake a mission to destroy the creature using the Necronomicon, the grimoire of black magic that initially spawned the beast.
“The Thing on the Doorstep” – Edward Derby, an intelligent, but weak-willed young man with an interest in the macabre, marries a homely, eccentric woman named Asenath who is reputed to have a beguiling affect on others. It is claimed by some that once captured by her stare, they found themselves gazing upon their own bodies through Asenath’s eyes. It isn’t long before Derby undergoes a bizarre and dangerous change of demeanor…
April 25, 2018
Exhausted, But Still Here…
Howdy, folks. Hope all is well on your end of the galaxy. I haven’t been as active on the blog this month for several reasons, some good, some not.
Over the past few months, I’ve been working six—sometimes seven—days a week at my FT job while trying to balance health, writing, and home responsibilities. As you might imagine, this led to exhaustion. Exhaustion then escalated to burnout. Burnout exacerbated depression. The results were not pleasant… and it ain’t over yet. At least two more long weeks are on tap for May.
In between all of that, I managed to record a short video that will accompany the upcoming Kickstarter campaign to publish my paranormal novella, Like Mother, Like Daughters, starring Miranda Lorensen, my single mom, psychic-medium, paranormal investigator featured in my first two novels. I’ve been discussing this book quite a bit here on the blog. Look for the Kickstarter to launch in the next month or two.
I’ve also been reworking the first draft of a science fiction novel that has been in progress since 2016. It’s the most challenging and research-intensive story I’ve ever written. I’m well outside my comfort zone, dealing with everything from spaceship propulsion, exoplanets, wormhole theory, exotic matter, and more while also creating a future Earth that is on the brink of dystopia.
Next month, I’ll be recording another Kickstarter video—this one for volume three of my Middle of Eternity speculative fiction anthology series that began in 2014 with Somewhere in the Middle of Eternity and continued in 2016 with Elsewhere in the Middle of Eternity. The third installment will be titled Meanwhile in the Middle of Eternity. Most of the contributing authors from books one and two will return, to be joined by six new voices, all offering yet more imaginative tales of SF, fantasy, and the paranormal. More details coming soon!
For now, I leave you with Snoopy, confronting a problem faced by every writer!
April 16, 2018
Book Review: Farnham’s Freehold by Robert A. Heinlein
It is the early 1960s and the United States is on the verge of nuclear 
war. To prepare for this, Hugh Farnham constructed a fully stocked bomb shelter beneath his house years before. On a night when Hugh’s daughter, Karen, invites her friend Barbara to the house, the local radio station in their Midwestern town begins transmitting warnings of a possible nuclear strike. Hugh’s son, Duke, is skeptical that either side would commit such an act of suicide. He considers the bomb shelter an overreaction on the part of his father—until the radio station issues its first bomb warning during a round of bridge (a game that features prominently throughout the story).
All hands rush into the shelter where the pragmatic Hugh assumes the role of a supreme commander, giving orders and demanding unswerving obedience as he tries to get the situation—and his alcoholic wife, Grace—under control.
After a series of blasts rock the shelter—resulting in minor injuries to the occupants and superficial damage to the shelter—the family ventures outside expecting to find the radioactive remains of their obliterated neighborhood. Instead, they find themselves surrounded by a serene woodland paradise unblemished by even the slightest mark of humanity. At first, the area is completely unfamiliar, until Hugh, Duke, and the Farnham’s servant, Joe, begin scouting the area and recognize natural landmarks. To complicate their dire survivalist predicament, both Karen and Barbara announce that they are pregnant.
Hugh and Grace’s marriage was disintegrating long before this catastrophe and on a day when Grace decides to leave Hugh and the shelter to strike out on her own (albeit with Duke to protect her), the entire lot are captured by a race of humans in a flying craft unlike any they’ve ever seen and from that moment on, the fate of the Farnhams takes more than one otherworldly turn…
Heinlein spares no details in this well-paced adventure, from the graphic descriptions of births (both human and feline) to a thoroughly developed caste system of a future Earth that is at once fascinating (reverse-racism, adherence to a diluted form of Islam) and disturbing (benevolent dictatorship, cannibalism, female servants labeled—and used as—sluts or “bedwarmers”).
Although Farnham’s Freehold sparks much debate among hardcore Heinlein fans and general SF readers alike for its political and sociological views, it was not my favorite of Heinlein’s works by far. The story itself did not appeal to me and sometimes I find Heinlein’s portrayal of his female leads to be doltish, naive, or unrealistic and nowhere was this was more evident than in the character of Barbara.
April 9, 2018
Psychics and Ghosts and Vampires… Oh My!
I glanced at the calendar in the left sidebar of my website today and realized I had not yet written a blog post in April—but not without good reasons.
Near the end of March, I drafted project plans for the next two books I’m releasing with writer pal Steven H. Wilson through his publishing imprint, Firebringer Press. Both of these books will, hopefully, be crowdfunded via Kickstarter.
First up will be a paranormal mystery novella, Like Mother, Like Daughters starring Miranda Lorensen, paranormal investigator, psychic medium, and single mom from my novels Testing the Prisoner and By Your Side. This time, she’s bringing her daughter…
After Andrea Lorensen’s lover is found murdered during a paranormal investigation, she is determined to find the killer—with some help from her lover’s ghost. Meanwhile, her mother Miranda travels to Salem, Massachusetts where she reunites with the spirit of a teenage girl executed for witchcraft in 1692. This time, however, the encounter reveals an astonishing truth about Miranda’s past life—a truth that could kill her.
Like Mother, Like Daughters will be paired up with Steve’s vampire novella, Freedom’s Blood…
You’re a vampire, but you have an unyielding belief in the sanctity of the individual’s rights. How do you survive, if you can’t take blood without permission? And what do you do when someone offers you his blood… with strings attached? This humorous tale explores the ethics of being a vampire—or even just a creature that’s gotta eat—against the background of a developing America. Starting out in Colonial Maryland and carrying on through the 21st Century, “Freedom’s Blood” will perhaps amuse, perhaps enrage, and will certainly introduce you to a vampire like none you’ve ever encountered.
We intend to release the book in the format of the old ACE Doubles where you read one story, flip the book over, then read the other.
After we recover from that, Steve and I will produce the third volume in our Middle of Eternity speculative fiction anthology series that began in 2014 with Somewhere in the Middle of Eternity and continued in 2016 with Elsewhere in the Middle of Eternity. Almost all of the stories and interior illustrations for book three are finished and the cover art is in progress.
In addition to our returning writers Steven H. Wilson, Stuart S. Roth, Susanna Reilly, Michael Critzer, Lance Woods, April Welles and myself, we will be joined by Julie Fedon, Christopher Ochs, Bart Palamaro, Sean Druelinger, and Peter Ong.
To take the pressure off of artist Mike Riehl, who not only produced the covers to the previous volumes but all of the interior illustrations, we brought aboard artists Laura Inglis and Tim Marrron. It should be noted that both Julie Fedon and Christopher Ochs illustrated their own stories.
Look for more details about both books in the coming months!
