Mark R. Hunter's Blog, page 65
October 21, 2016
October 18, 2016
Sign Up For My Newsletter, Get a Million Bucks*
*Offer only valid on Earth 2.
After much thought, or at least as much as I usually have, I’ve decided to make my mostly inactive newsletter less inactive. That requires people to sign up for it, so I’m asking you—yes, you, there looking at your electronic device—to sign up. Don’t deny it: I saw you looking at your electronic device.
No doubt you’ll want to know what’s in it for you. Good question. Let me come up with something …
Okay, I’m back. I figure I’ll give a little original and exclusive content. Say, a short story, or a humor piece, or a photo of something interesting and/or cool. Oh, and a picture of the dog. He’s very photogenic.
We’ll send it out at least once a month, but (except rarely) no more than once a week. More often when some event or book release approaches, but no so often as to get people mad, because it’s really not that hard to find out where I live.
Also, subscribe to the newsletter and you’ll be the first one to get author news stuff, like releases, sales, giveaways … dog pictures … I’ll think of other things. Like big recent publishing news I have right now that I haven’t told anyone about yet … stuff like that.
Hey, that’s it! Sign up for the newsletter, and as soon as I get, say, ten new subscribers, I’ll tell you all about the big publishing news I just got.
Sure, I’ll tell everyone, eventually … but aren’t you at least a little curious?
It’s over on the webpage at www.markrhunter.com. The best way to subscribe to our mailing list is to go toward the bottom of the page, where it says “subscribe to our mailing list”. No, your e-mail address will not be given out to anyone, ever, unless someone offers me at least five million dollars. Ten million. Also, the moment I get fifty new subscribers I’m going to have a free book giveaway, just for them.
And that offer will be valid on this Earth.
After much thought, or at least as much as I usually have, I’ve decided to make my mostly inactive newsletter less inactive. That requires people to sign up for it, so I’m asking you—yes, you, there looking at your electronic device—to sign up. Don’t deny it: I saw you looking at your electronic device.
No doubt you’ll want to know what’s in it for you. Good question. Let me come up with something …
Okay, I’m back. I figure I’ll give a little original and exclusive content. Say, a short story, or a humor piece, or a photo of something interesting and/or cool. Oh, and a picture of the dog. He’s very photogenic.
We’ll send it out at least once a month, but (except rarely) no more than once a week. More often when some event or book release approaches, but no so often as to get people mad, because it’s really not that hard to find out where I live.
Also, subscribe to the newsletter and you’ll be the first one to get author news stuff, like releases, sales, giveaways … dog pictures … I’ll think of other things. Like big recent publishing news I have right now that I haven’t told anyone about yet … stuff like that.
Hey, that’s it! Sign up for the newsletter, and as soon as I get, say, ten new subscribers, I’ll tell you all about the big publishing news I just got.
Sure, I’ll tell everyone, eventually … but aren’t you at least a little curious?
It’s over on the webpage at www.markrhunter.com. The best way to subscribe to our mailing list is to go toward the bottom of the page, where it says “subscribe to our mailing list”. No, your e-mail address will not be given out to anyone, ever, unless someone offers me at least five million dollars. Ten million. Also, the moment I get fifty new subscribers I’m going to have a free book giveaway, just for them.
And that offer will be valid on this Earth.
October 16, 2016
Book review: Earthbound: Science Fiction in the Old West, by Mari Collier
Sometimes a book’s subtitle just lays it out for you. I did it with all three of my non-fiction books, as Mari Collier did with Earthbound, a perfect mix of SF and Western. Sure, the movies have Cowboys and Aliens, but Mari does it better.
The story actually starts in Ireland, where alien Llewellyn is basically a slave to another race. Circumstances bring his freedom; unfortunately, he’s left with a spaceship that he doesn’t know how to pilot out of Earth orbit. He becomes giant Irishman Zebediah MacDonald, trying to make a life for himself on a primitive planet, especially the place where he hides the spacecraft: Texas.
Eventually Mac meets Anna, a woman who’s lost her children and been captured by the Comanche. Mac may be an alien, but Anna has shocking secrets of her own—and a connection to Mac that even she doesn’t know about. Together the two begin to build a life, as the clouds of Civil War gather around them.
Earthbound is a great story with memorable characters, but to me the most fun was the historical aspect of it. Mari has done her research—it’s no surprise that she’s on the board of her local Historical Society. She doesn’t shirk on the details of life back then, from social constrictions to the dangers of childbirth, but it’s never dull. The supporting characters are great, and I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the series.
https://www.amazon.com/Earthbound-Sci...
The story actually starts in Ireland, where alien Llewellyn is basically a slave to another race. Circumstances bring his freedom; unfortunately, he’s left with a spaceship that he doesn’t know how to pilot out of Earth orbit. He becomes giant Irishman Zebediah MacDonald, trying to make a life for himself on a primitive planet, especially the place where he hides the spacecraft: Texas.
Eventually Mac meets Anna, a woman who’s lost her children and been captured by the Comanche. Mac may be an alien, but Anna has shocking secrets of her own—and a connection to Mac that even she doesn’t know about. Together the two begin to build a life, as the clouds of Civil War gather around them.
Earthbound is a great story with memorable characters, but to me the most fun was the historical aspect of it. Mari has done her research—it’s no surprise that she’s on the board of her local Historical Society. She doesn’t shirk on the details of life back then, from social constrictions to the dangers of childbirth, but it’s never dull. The supporting characters are great, and I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the series.
https://www.amazon.com/Earthbound-Sci...
October 15, 2016
There's No Cure for Chicago Driving
There’s No Cure for Chicago Driving
This first appeared in the 4County Mall, in print and online:
http://www.4countymall.com/single-pos...
SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK
I thought I’d seen bad traffic. I thought I’d seen crazy drivers.
Then I went to Chicago.
I’m a small town boy. When I was younger, my idea of heavy traffic was Fort Wayne, which is about half an hour from my home. With a population of 250,000, Fort Wayne is the second largest city in Indiana, which isn’t saying much—but the fact that most of Indiana is not city is one of the things I like about it.
Years ago I drove to Atlanta, Georgia, and got a new definition of heavy traffic. We arrived during morning rush hour, an ironic term considering I could have walked over the jammed-up cars without ever touching the ground—and gotten there faster.
About ten years later, I had the occasion to drive U-Haul’s largest truck model through New York City, while towing a car on a trailer. It was two months after 9/11/01. Naturally, I got waved to the curb the police, who at that point were looking over every rental truck that came along.
The irony, though, is that the proximity to 9/11 actually made the experience easier. The cops were friendly, and other drivers gave us space—whether out of that temporary sense of brotherhood, or the fear that I might be carrying a load of ammonium nitrate, I couldn’t say.
Then there’s Indianapolis.
In all fairness, Indianapolis is the 14th largest city in the U.S., and the second largest in the Midwest, so there’s bound to be traffic. But it’s also the Crossroads of America: Indiana has more interstate highway than any other state, and more converge on the capital than any other city. Whole families have been known to drive onto the 465 beltway, and never be seen again.
I used to think that was the worst this side of Los Angeles, a city I have no intention of every driving in.
But Indy’s only the second largest city in the Midwest. Then there’s Chicago.
My wife wanted to go see The Cure, which is an English rock band, or post-punk, or new wave, or possibly gothic rock. (I’m post-pun, myself.) It’s not normally my kind of music, but I like them okay … or at least I did, until they made me come to Chicago.
By the time we got to the concert venue in the shadow of downtown, I was clenched in a fetal position in my seat, eyes squeezed shut, whimpering and clutching at the dash. This was an especially bad thing because I was the driver.
But I don’t want you to think Chicago drivers are bad. That’s what I thought at first, until therapy for my PTSD. After several flashbacks, I realized the problem isn’t that they’re bad—it’s that they’re very, very good. Like, NASCAR good. It’s the only way to survive.
Yes, there are cars there; the camera couldn't capture anything going at that speed.
You see, Chicago traffic is the same bumper to bumper gridlock I found in Atlanta, except they don’t sit there unmoving—they continue driving as if they’re the only ones on the highway. Go watch a NASCAR race right after the start, before the first ten or twelve cars have crashed, when they’re all still jammed up and fighting for position. I’ll wait.
Yeah, it’s like that.
I saw drivers who knew their off ramp was coming, so they dove all the way over into the left lane to get ahead of other cars, then swerved across all three lanes of traffic, including that semi in the center lane that was blocking their view of anything in the right lane, and … right onto the off ramp, easy as a Blue Angels jet flight.
If someone ahead is going 60 and they’re going 90—they just keep on going. The guy in front will speed up, or get out of the way … or he won’t. Whatever. Orange cones aren’t a warning, they’re a challenge. There are signs that say: “Accident reporting lane ahead: If you get into a crash, for God’s sake, don’t stop at the scene.”
Where I come from, everyone wants a car. We passed Chicago’s train depots, where people without cars were relaxing in the knowledge that an hour waiting for a train beats two hours drinking yourself down from the edge after the evening drive home.
When the concert let out, we stayed in the auditorium until the only people left were sweeping up or throwing up. Then we went to the parking lot and sat in our car, shaking quietly, until the security guy pointed out we were the only people left and could he please go home now? He took the train. It was 1:30 a.m. when we finally took to the streets.
"Maybe we'll get lucky, and the zombie apocalypse will strike before we have to drive."
The traffic was exactly the same. It might as well have been 5 p.m. on a Friday.
We had to make a left turn to reach our off ramp, but there was a delay ahead and, if we went through the light, we’d end up stuck in the middle of the intersection. So we waited like we were supposed to, and a car load of laughing Chicagoans passed us on the right, cut off the oncoming traffic, and stopped in the middle of the intersection. Then a taxi passed them on the right, and they both stayed there, blocking the cars that had the green light, until eventually they could move on.
We almost abandoned the car right then and there. A few day’s walk home? Good exercise. But we eventually made it out of that insane city racetrack, vowing never to come back again even if Robert Smith personally invites us to play drums for The Cure.
And why did we decide to man up, brave the insanity, and drive on instead of walking?
Well, what are the chances of a pedestrian making it out alive?
This first appeared in the 4County Mall, in print and online:
http://www.4countymall.com/single-pos...
SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK
I thought I’d seen bad traffic. I thought I’d seen crazy drivers.
Then I went to Chicago.
I’m a small town boy. When I was younger, my idea of heavy traffic was Fort Wayne, which is about half an hour from my home. With a population of 250,000, Fort Wayne is the second largest city in Indiana, which isn’t saying much—but the fact that most of Indiana is not city is one of the things I like about it.
Years ago I drove to Atlanta, Georgia, and got a new definition of heavy traffic. We arrived during morning rush hour, an ironic term considering I could have walked over the jammed-up cars without ever touching the ground—and gotten there faster.
About ten years later, I had the occasion to drive U-Haul’s largest truck model through New York City, while towing a car on a trailer. It was two months after 9/11/01. Naturally, I got waved to the curb the police, who at that point were looking over every rental truck that came along.
The irony, though, is that the proximity to 9/11 actually made the experience easier. The cops were friendly, and other drivers gave us space—whether out of that temporary sense of brotherhood, or the fear that I might be carrying a load of ammonium nitrate, I couldn’t say.
Then there’s Indianapolis.
In all fairness, Indianapolis is the 14th largest city in the U.S., and the second largest in the Midwest, so there’s bound to be traffic. But it’s also the Crossroads of America: Indiana has more interstate highway than any other state, and more converge on the capital than any other city. Whole families have been known to drive onto the 465 beltway, and never be seen again.
I used to think that was the worst this side of Los Angeles, a city I have no intention of every driving in.
But Indy’s only the second largest city in the Midwest. Then there’s Chicago.
My wife wanted to go see The Cure, which is an English rock band, or post-punk, or new wave, or possibly gothic rock. (I’m post-pun, myself.) It’s not normally my kind of music, but I like them okay … or at least I did, until they made me come to Chicago.
By the time we got to the concert venue in the shadow of downtown, I was clenched in a fetal position in my seat, eyes squeezed shut, whimpering and clutching at the dash. This was an especially bad thing because I was the driver.
But I don’t want you to think Chicago drivers are bad. That’s what I thought at first, until therapy for my PTSD. After several flashbacks, I realized the problem isn’t that they’re bad—it’s that they’re very, very good. Like, NASCAR good. It’s the only way to survive.
Yes, there are cars there; the camera couldn't capture anything going at that speed.
You see, Chicago traffic is the same bumper to bumper gridlock I found in Atlanta, except they don’t sit there unmoving—they continue driving as if they’re the only ones on the highway. Go watch a NASCAR race right after the start, before the first ten or twelve cars have crashed, when they’re all still jammed up and fighting for position. I’ll wait.
Yeah, it’s like that.
I saw drivers who knew their off ramp was coming, so they dove all the way over into the left lane to get ahead of other cars, then swerved across all three lanes of traffic, including that semi in the center lane that was blocking their view of anything in the right lane, and … right onto the off ramp, easy as a Blue Angels jet flight.
If someone ahead is going 60 and they’re going 90—they just keep on going. The guy in front will speed up, or get out of the way … or he won’t. Whatever. Orange cones aren’t a warning, they’re a challenge. There are signs that say: “Accident reporting lane ahead: If you get into a crash, for God’s sake, don’t stop at the scene.”
Where I come from, everyone wants a car. We passed Chicago’s train depots, where people without cars were relaxing in the knowledge that an hour waiting for a train beats two hours drinking yourself down from the edge after the evening drive home.
When the concert let out, we stayed in the auditorium until the only people left were sweeping up or throwing up. Then we went to the parking lot and sat in our car, shaking quietly, until the security guy pointed out we were the only people left and could he please go home now? He took the train. It was 1:30 a.m. when we finally took to the streets.
"Maybe we'll get lucky, and the zombie apocalypse will strike before we have to drive."
The traffic was exactly the same. It might as well have been 5 p.m. on a Friday.
We had to make a left turn to reach our off ramp, but there was a delay ahead and, if we went through the light, we’d end up stuck in the middle of the intersection. So we waited like we were supposed to, and a car load of laughing Chicagoans passed us on the right, cut off the oncoming traffic, and stopped in the middle of the intersection. Then a taxi passed them on the right, and they both stayed there, blocking the cars that had the green light, until eventually they could move on.
We almost abandoned the car right then and there. A few day’s walk home? Good exercise. But we eventually made it out of that insane city racetrack, vowing never to come back again even if Robert Smith personally invites us to play drums for The Cure.
And why did we decide to man up, brave the insanity, and drive on instead of walking?
Well, what are the chances of a pedestrian making it out alive?
Don’t Wait: Check the Date
In my three (or so) decades in the emergency services, I never heard anyone complain that their smoke detectors worked properly. Well, okay, once—but that guy was an arsonist.
Fire Prevention Week this year is October 9-15, mostly because nothing else goes on in mid-October. No, actually it was because the Great Chicago Fire happened on October 9, 1871. That fire destroyed more than 17,400 structures and killed at least 250 people, and might have been prevented if Mrs. O’Leary had installed a smoke detector in her barn. Have you ever seen a cow remove a smoke detector battery? Me neither.
Nobody really knows what started the Great Chicago Fire, so the dairy industry has a real beef with blaming the cow, which legend says knocked over a lamp. Does the lamp industry ever get the blame? Noooo....
We do know that at about the same time the Peshtigo Fire burned across Wisconsin, killing 1,152 people and burning 16 entire towns. In fact, several fires burned across Michigan and Wisconsin at the time, causing some to speculate that a meteor shower might have caused the conflagration. There may have been shooting stars elsewhere, but Chicago got all the press.
This year’s Fire Prevention Week theme is “Don’t wait, check the date!” So ask your date: Does she have a working smoke detector? If not, you’d better go back to your place.
Just as you should change your smoke detector batteries every fall and spring, you should replace your smoke alarm every ten years. I’d add that doing the same to your carbon monoxide detector is a great idea, so it can make a sound to warn about the gas that never makes a sound.
This is great advice, and as I hadn’t given much thought to the age of my own smoke detectors, I took it. The one in the basement stairway said: “Manufactured 1888 by the Tesla Fire Alarm Co.”
Not a good sign.
The one in the kitchen hallway said simply: “Smoke alarm. Patent pending.”
Oh boy.
So don’t wait—check the date. Do it right now, because otherwise you’d be waiting. I know it doesn’t have quite the pizzazz of the 1942 Fire Prevention Week theme: “Today Every Fire Helps Hitler”.
But hey … you can’t blame the Nazis for everything.
Fire Prevention Week this year is October 9-15, mostly because nothing else goes on in mid-October. No, actually it was because the Great Chicago Fire happened on October 9, 1871. That fire destroyed more than 17,400 structures and killed at least 250 people, and might have been prevented if Mrs. O’Leary had installed a smoke detector in her barn. Have you ever seen a cow remove a smoke detector battery? Me neither.
Nobody really knows what started the Great Chicago Fire, so the dairy industry has a real beef with blaming the cow, which legend says knocked over a lamp. Does the lamp industry ever get the blame? Noooo....
We do know that at about the same time the Peshtigo Fire burned across Wisconsin, killing 1,152 people and burning 16 entire towns. In fact, several fires burned across Michigan and Wisconsin at the time, causing some to speculate that a meteor shower might have caused the conflagration. There may have been shooting stars elsewhere, but Chicago got all the press.
This year’s Fire Prevention Week theme is “Don’t wait, check the date!” So ask your date: Does she have a working smoke detector? If not, you’d better go back to your place.
Just as you should change your smoke detector batteries every fall and spring, you should replace your smoke alarm every ten years. I’d add that doing the same to your carbon monoxide detector is a great idea, so it can make a sound to warn about the gas that never makes a sound.
This is great advice, and as I hadn’t given much thought to the age of my own smoke detectors, I took it. The one in the basement stairway said: “Manufactured 1888 by the Tesla Fire Alarm Co.”
Not a good sign.
The one in the kitchen hallway said simply: “Smoke alarm. Patent pending.”
Oh boy.
So don’t wait—check the date. Do it right now, because otherwise you’d be waiting. I know it doesn’t have quite the pizzazz of the 1942 Fire Prevention Week theme: “Today Every Fire Helps Hitler”.
But hey … you can’t blame the Nazis for everything.
October 9, 2016
On authors and appearances
I'm thinking I should probably have an author's appearance sometime soon, to correspond with the early stages of Christmas shopping season. I've only had one so far this year--probably my lowest number since I first got published.
What do you think? I haven't contacted anyone about it yet, but I'd imagine something could be set up to benefit my host. And do you prefer your author appearances to be just book signings, or something else, such as readings or Q&A's?
What do you think? I haven't contacted anyone about it yet, but I'd imagine something could be set up to benefit my host. And do you prefer your author appearances to be just book signings, or something else, such as readings or Q&A's?
October 8, 2016
Digging for crap
Holy hole, Batman
http://markrhunter.blogspot.com/2016/...
Sometimes I really dig myself into some crap.
http://markrhunter.blogspot.com/2016/...
Sometimes I really dig myself into some crap.
October 4, 2016
New Newsletter News
I’m about to make our author’s newsletter active, and the first one will feature a big future publishing announcement. I’ll have more about the newsletter soon, but for now you can sign up for it near the bottom of my main website page at www.markrhunter.com.
Once it’s up and running you’ll get some free and exclusive content there. And cute dog photos.
Once it’s up and running you’ll get some free and exclusive content there. And cute dog photos.
October 3, 2016
Review of Hoosier Hysterical in Whatzup
Actually, a great review of Hoosier Hysterical in Whatzup, the Fort Wayne area weekly publication.
That’s the good news: The bad news is that, due to the crash (mine, not theirs) and other considerations, I’m only just now getting around to telling you about it—it came out in the September 1-7 issue.
The link to that issue is here: http://whatzup.com/index.php?f=Viewer...
But it was a little hard for me to navigate the back issues. It’s on page 23, but I wasn’t able to see it well until I brought it up as a pdf. Reviewer Evan Gillespie calls me a “pretty funny guy”—my wife called me that once, but if you’d heard the sarcasm in her voice …
It’s a great publication, so seek it out when you can. But since Gillespie’s review was a month ago, I’ll try to paste it here:
“Tippecanoe and Other Stuff”
Hoosier Hysterical by Mark R. Hunter, 2016
Just in time for Indiana’s bicentennial comes a
new history book that compiles everything notable
about our fair state through the ages into one tidy
volume. Yes, it’s a book about Indiana history, but
it is worth reading anyway, not just because you really
should know something about the state in which
you live (and in which you were probably born and
raised, too) but because it’s written by Noble County
native Mark R. Hunter, and he’s a pretty funny guy.
His take on Indiana history is thorough but irreverent,
and even if you have to cast a skeptical eye on some
of his historical claims (I honestly don’t think the
prehistoric mounds in central Indiana
were actually ancient outhouses),
you’ll probably learn some new
true facts about your state by the
time you’ve finished the book.
In Hoosier Hysterical, Hunter
begins almost at the very beginning
of Indiana history. He doesn’t
start with the Hoosier state congealing
out of a mass of molten goo as the
Earth’s crust solidified, but he picks
up the story just a little later, when the
first humans wandered into the land we
know so well.
“Some of them made their way to
Central America, discovered chocolate,
and lived in paradise,” he writes. “Others t o o k
a wrong turn while circling Indianapolis, and boy, is
that easy to do. They settled in the Midwest, imported
corn from the much happier natives of Central America,
and the rest is history.”
That history is the story that Hunter tells, from the
settling of the eventual state by those early natives, to
the later infiltration of the land by Europeans, to the
centuries that the Indiana territory spent as a wilderness
battleground where those Europeans fought off
the natives and each other, established forts and settlements,
and generally made a mess of things.
Hunter’s journey through Indiana’s history is long
and detailed, but it sticks closely to the highlights
you’d find in a drier, not so fun history book in school.
You’ll find out about William Henry Harrison and Tecumseh
and Anthony Wayne and Tippecanoe and all
those other famous names that you’ve heard about at
one time or another but can’t quite remember what it
was that you were supposed to remember about them.
The book’s heavy on what happened before the state
was a state, and what happened during the first hundred
years that it was a state. The second hundred
years, not so much.
Hunter augments the history, though, with trivia
– which is very closely related to history when
you think about it. He gives us explanations of
Indiana’s symbols (did you know Indiana has
an official state rock?) and he crafts loving,
if silly stories about all those Indiana things
we’ve come to love by living here all our
lives. He even tackles the greatest of all
Hoosier mysteries, the origin of the word
“Hoosier.” Of course, he doesn’t provide
a convincing theory of the word’s origination-(
no one ever has or ever will) but
at least he has fun trying.
There are also many chapters
about things that make Indiana special:
the Indianapolis 500, the many famous
people who were born here, the movies
and TV shows that were either set or filmed in Indiana,
the state’s many parks and natural attractions and
many other tidbits and minutiae. Did you know that
the famous Coca-Cola bottle design was created in
Terre Haute? Neither did I, but now we both do. These
are the kinds of things that make it possible to live
with even a tiny bit of pride in a state that rarely makes
it to the top of the lists of really important things.
We native Hoosiers have spent our lives in a
state of constant self-deprecation. We’ve had to, having
been born in a state that most other Americans
wouldn’t be able to find on a map. We’ve learned how
to gently mock the state of our birth while maintaining
a quiet affection for a place that is actually pretty nice
if you really pay attention to it. That’s a balance that
Hunter holds quite well throughout Hoosier Hysterical,
and the book is one more Hoosier product that we
can be proud of.
evan.whatzup@gmail.com
That’s the good news: The bad news is that, due to the crash (mine, not theirs) and other considerations, I’m only just now getting around to telling you about it—it came out in the September 1-7 issue.
The link to that issue is here: http://whatzup.com/index.php?f=Viewer...
But it was a little hard for me to navigate the back issues. It’s on page 23, but I wasn’t able to see it well until I brought it up as a pdf. Reviewer Evan Gillespie calls me a “pretty funny guy”—my wife called me that once, but if you’d heard the sarcasm in her voice …
It’s a great publication, so seek it out when you can. But since Gillespie’s review was a month ago, I’ll try to paste it here:
“Tippecanoe and Other Stuff”
Hoosier Hysterical by Mark R. Hunter, 2016
Just in time for Indiana’s bicentennial comes a
new history book that compiles everything notable
about our fair state through the ages into one tidy
volume. Yes, it’s a book about Indiana history, but
it is worth reading anyway, not just because you really
should know something about the state in which
you live (and in which you were probably born and
raised, too) but because it’s written by Noble County
native Mark R. Hunter, and he’s a pretty funny guy.
His take on Indiana history is thorough but irreverent,
and even if you have to cast a skeptical eye on some
of his historical claims (I honestly don’t think the
prehistoric mounds in central Indiana
were actually ancient outhouses),
you’ll probably learn some new
true facts about your state by the
time you’ve finished the book.
In Hoosier Hysterical, Hunter
begins almost at the very beginning
of Indiana history. He doesn’t
start with the Hoosier state congealing
out of a mass of molten goo as the
Earth’s crust solidified, but he picks
up the story just a little later, when the
first humans wandered into the land we
know so well.
“Some of them made their way to
Central America, discovered chocolate,
and lived in paradise,” he writes. “Others t o o k
a wrong turn while circling Indianapolis, and boy, is
that easy to do. They settled in the Midwest, imported
corn from the much happier natives of Central America,
and the rest is history.”
That history is the story that Hunter tells, from the
settling of the eventual state by those early natives, to
the later infiltration of the land by Europeans, to the
centuries that the Indiana territory spent as a wilderness
battleground where those Europeans fought off
the natives and each other, established forts and settlements,
and generally made a mess of things.
Hunter’s journey through Indiana’s history is long
and detailed, but it sticks closely to the highlights
you’d find in a drier, not so fun history book in school.
You’ll find out about William Henry Harrison and Tecumseh
and Anthony Wayne and Tippecanoe and all
those other famous names that you’ve heard about at
one time or another but can’t quite remember what it
was that you were supposed to remember about them.
The book’s heavy on what happened before the state
was a state, and what happened during the first hundred
years that it was a state. The second hundred
years, not so much.
Hunter augments the history, though, with trivia
– which is very closely related to history when
you think about it. He gives us explanations of
Indiana’s symbols (did you know Indiana has
an official state rock?) and he crafts loving,
if silly stories about all those Indiana things
we’ve come to love by living here all our
lives. He even tackles the greatest of all
Hoosier mysteries, the origin of the word
“Hoosier.” Of course, he doesn’t provide
a convincing theory of the word’s origination-(
no one ever has or ever will) but
at least he has fun trying.
There are also many chapters
about things that make Indiana special:
the Indianapolis 500, the many famous
people who were born here, the movies
and TV shows that were either set or filmed in Indiana,
the state’s many parks and natural attractions and
many other tidbits and minutiae. Did you know that
the famous Coca-Cola bottle design was created in
Terre Haute? Neither did I, but now we both do. These
are the kinds of things that make it possible to live
with even a tiny bit of pride in a state that rarely makes
it to the top of the lists of really important things.
We native Hoosiers have spent our lives in a
state of constant self-deprecation. We’ve had to, having
been born in a state that most other Americans
wouldn’t be able to find on a map. We’ve learned how
to gently mock the state of our birth while maintaining
a quiet affection for a place that is actually pretty nice
if you really pay attention to it. That’s a balance that
Hunter holds quite well throughout Hoosier Hysterical,
and the book is one more Hoosier product that we
can be proud of.
evan.whatzup@gmail.com
September 30, 2016
Revision season
Writers have seasons. Often it’s the season of our discontent.
It’s revision and editing season for me—which is nowhere near as much fun as writing season, but more fun than submission season. Submission season is like living in International Falls, Minnesota during winter, only without the certainty that spring will someday arrive.
But it’s been productive, and kept me away from politics on the internet.
I made numerous revisions to Coming Attractions, most suggested by the editor who last rejected the manuscript, and it’s definitely better for it. I did not make the major revision they suggested. That means I can’t resubmit to them, but I can still chalk it up as kind of a free editorial service. The glass is half full.
Meanwhile, I’d thought I was mostly done with Beowulf: In Harm’s Way, a science fiction story that may, or may not, be space opera. (There are violent disagreements over the definition.) I started out to just check the polished manuscript for mistakes, and discovered it wasn’t so very as polished, after all.
When a writer puts a manuscript away for a while and then comes back to it, all sorts of problems will pop up that were invisible in the heat of the moment. (Summer?) That was the case here, and I spent weeks revising. Now I need to polish and check for mistakes yet again, then give it to someone else who will, no doubt, find still more mistakes.
Then will come … submission season. However, that’s better than promotion season. Sometimes, during promotion season, I feel as if I’m standing in the middle of a quiet residential area in the middle of the night, screaming my lungs off. You want to attract interest, not annoyance.
Well, life is less bland when it’s seasoned.
It’s revision and editing season for me—which is nowhere near as much fun as writing season, but more fun than submission season. Submission season is like living in International Falls, Minnesota during winter, only without the certainty that spring will someday arrive.
But it’s been productive, and kept me away from politics on the internet.
I made numerous revisions to Coming Attractions, most suggested by the editor who last rejected the manuscript, and it’s definitely better for it. I did not make the major revision they suggested. That means I can’t resubmit to them, but I can still chalk it up as kind of a free editorial service. The glass is half full.
Meanwhile, I’d thought I was mostly done with Beowulf: In Harm’s Way, a science fiction story that may, or may not, be space opera. (There are violent disagreements over the definition.) I started out to just check the polished manuscript for mistakes, and discovered it wasn’t so very as polished, after all.
When a writer puts a manuscript away for a while and then comes back to it, all sorts of problems will pop up that were invisible in the heat of the moment. (Summer?) That was the case here, and I spent weeks revising. Now I need to polish and check for mistakes yet again, then give it to someone else who will, no doubt, find still more mistakes.
Then will come … submission season. However, that’s better than promotion season. Sometimes, during promotion season, I feel as if I’m standing in the middle of a quiet residential area in the middle of the night, screaming my lungs off. You want to attract interest, not annoyance.
Well, life is less bland when it’s seasoned.
