Howard Andrew Jones's Blog, page 73

Field Commander: Napoleon

I REALLY like this game. The last few evenings, rather than reading, I’ve been conquering various parts of Europe or North Africa in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.

Field Commander: Napoleon is a solo war game from Dan Versen Games. I traded an earlier copy of it away, thinking it wouldn’t be tactical enough for me to enjoy. But I ended up regretting the exchange and traded for another. I’m glad I did. The game simulates both strategy and tactics during the age of Napoleon… which, oddly enough, has never especially interested me. It’s ancient history that I truly enjoy. Yet this game is an awful lot of fun.

There are a lot of adventure novels out there with complex battle scenes that aren’t very well described,or thought out (or simply devolve to a siege — although I should say that there also are  some great novels about sieges). I’ve spent a lot of time over the years reading about ancient campaigns, but reading is one thing. Actually testing out the strategies and moving armies and units around in a system that simulates a battle or a campaign is a pretty nifty way to get an even better grasp of what a story might require, or how a general might marshal troops.

I still mean to write some thoughts about the Dickens novels I read; and soon I’ll probably go into more detail about why, in particular, I enjoy this game. For the next few evenings, though, I”m likely to be busy playing the game ra@ther than writing about it.

Some more details about Field Commander: Napoleon, as well as some reviews (including at least one video review) can be found over at its official Boardgamegeek page.

Finding Balance

If you’re a regular site visitor it might seem that I suddenly dropped off the Earth. I know I’m always curious when a site I like stops having regular updates. Has the person running it moved on to other things? Is the person alright?

In my case, I’m just trying to find  a little more balance in my life. For the last few years I’ve spent a lot of time running from deadline to deadline. I’m trying, now, not to be writing morning, noon, and night, and the weird thing is that I’m still getting quite a lot of good work done.

Over the last few weeks I’ve written about 25 thousand words on a new secret project. I’ve finally gotten around to reading David Copperfield, which I liked well enough that I read a second Dickens novel, Bleak House. Now I’m reading Mary Robinette Kowal’s Glamour in Glass (up for a number of awards) and my old friend Joe McCullough’s Dragonslayers. And over the weekend I finally sat down to try my hand at the solo wargame Field Commander: Napoleon. It’s even more fun than I had hoped (although I haven’t figured out how to beat the Egyptian campaign yet!)

That’s not all, though. I’m also spending more time with my wife and children– playing music with them and playing games and watching movies as a family. I am enjoying life, and it is good.

That pic up at page top is the cover image for my upcoming Paizo Pathfinder novel, Stalking the Beast. I don’t yet have the information on the artist, or I’d post it, and will do so as soon as I am able. If you click on it, you can see a larger version.

 

Various and Sundry

A few weeks back I mentioned my inclusion in a nifty writing anthology, Writing Fantasy Heroes  (where I share a table of contents with some pretty talented and famous writers) and an essay about the book went live this week over at the blog of the talented William King, probably best known in North America for the creation of Warhammer’s famed Gotrek and Felix.

Not only is the essay (by editor Jason Waltz) of interest, there’s an ongoing discussion in the comment section about the nature of heroes that might well be of interest.

In other news, I stumbled onto a new review of The Bones of the Old Ones, this from The King of the Nerds. The majority of reviewers seem to agree with me that the second book is better than the first (and the majority of them seemed to really dig the first as well, which makes that kind of statement even more pleasing to the ear).

Here in my homeland along the shore of the Sea of Monsters I’m still working away at my secret writing project, and the royal We is quite pleased. I’ve also been caring for my wife as she suffered from laryngitis and an ear infection. She’s finally starting to feel better, although the laryngitis itself is still hanging on pretty strongly.

I almost hate to mention any kind of medical topic — well, I don’t like giving too much detail about our private lives in any case –  because any time I mention a medical topic I get spam medical posts and must prune them from threads. I’m STILL getting medical spam because I mentioned “ear infection” in a post at some point in the last twelve months. But wait, there’s more. The other day a spammer added a comment to my notebook post from a few months back. He or she was trying to trick fans of the movie The Notebook to visit their site by searching for mentions of the movie The Notebook and then cramming in a paragraph about the movie, followed by a link, as though he or she was a fellow fan! Being spammers they didn’t even bother to see if I was really talking about the movie (I wasn’t).

Meanwhile, in speculative fiction, my wife and I watched the first two episodes of Defiance and think it has promise, although neither of us are completely  in love with it. (The beautiful bordello owner with a heart of gold? 8 alien races? But then I remember how Roddenberry had to have the second pilot of Star Trek end with a fist fight so the network would buy it, and recalled that artistic vision has to meet the demands of the network and still might DIE, like my beloved Firefly and the original Star Trek.) We liked it enough we’ll keep going.

In my alleged spare time I’ve been reading some books I’ve been asked to blurb, and returning to Shakespeare. There are still a number of Shakespeare plays I haven’t read (or watched — typically I read them, then watch a BBC production). First up was Antony and Cleopatra, which had some fine moments but felt choppy, and didn’t strike me as being as grand as some of my favorites, no matter T.S. Elliot’s admiration for the play. Of course the choppiness all comes down to presentation, so I’ll be very curious to see it performed. Now I’m two acts into Coriolanus and so far I’m liking it better.

I’ve read and watched most of the famous tragedies and almost all of the histories, but I’ve yet to read The Tempest, and know next to nothing about The Winter’s Tale and Cymbeline, which I’ll probably tackle next… although I might also try some Dickens, who I haven’t read since I was force fed A Tale of Two Cities in high school. I hated it then, but I also hated Shakspeare’s Julius Caesar (read in the same class), which I later discovered was brilliant. I expect I will discover that it was young Howard who was stupid rather than Dickens…

 

 

Of Deserts and Plagues

Last week I received the newest version of The Desert of Souls from my UK publisher, Head of Zeus. It’s a little smaller in height than the American version which gives it a slightly greater heft. I think it’s a pretty snappy look, and it’s always a pleasure to receive a box of your own books.

Note below that Mighty Max, Norman, and Virgil showed up to admire the books as well.

In other news, Justin Landon of Staffer’s Book Review seemed to dig my first Paizo Pathfinder novel, Plague of Shadows. Amongst other compliments, the one that brought me the biggest smile was “by its conclusion I feel that Jones could write a sporting goods shopping list and I’d be riveted.” You can find the whole thing here.

I don’t often have a sporting goods shopping list, but I could send him a copy of my supply list the next time I head to the lumber yard prior to fence repair. I’m guessing he’d find it less riveting than he supposes. Although, given the kinds of stuff I’ll be picking up, I suppose he could say that I “nailed it.” Hah!

Here is my official notification of the fact I have no good segue. I’ve been having some really cool and vivid dreams the last few weeks. For instance, last night I dreamed I was reading the opening to Tolkien’s sequel to The Lord of the Rings, set in the Third Age. Sam’s son was the hero and he was off to fight big tobacco. One of his rewards was to be the full version of Macbeth, longer by a third than the surviving text. I woke up right after the dream got underway, so I’ll never know what the full version of Macbeth would be like.

I guess what I should say is that I’ve been having the starts of nifty dreams, because the previous one had just gotten to get interesting when I had to wake up and make breakfast for the kids. In this dream I was sitting at the piano jamming away on the Beatles version of “Money” (I know the Beatles don’t use a piano in their recording, but I prefer the feel of their version, in real world and dream time). I was into the first verse when fantasy author Scott Lynch wandered up with a guitar case. I think he was about to open it to grab his ax and join in, but he might have planned some El Kabong style justice. Because I woke up right then, I’ll never know. Scott tells me he’s about as musical as a pickle, although, as he recently had a dream where he was jamming with the Beatles, I advised him it might be time to learn guitar.

 

 

Horse Adventures

This is one of our family horses, Trigger, so named by his previous owner because he somewhat resembled the famed horse ridden by Roy Rogers.

Trigger is my personal favorite of our horses. He’s never moody or indifferent. Don’t get me wrong — like most of the horses I’ve interacted with, eating is his number one priority, so he’ll almost always be head down standing in the pasture. But if you wander into the pasture he’ll usually mosey on over to see what you’re doing. And he has a playful streak.

I was out fixing horse fencing a few years ago (more on that later) which requires a number of tools, including pry bar, saw, hammer, drill, clamp, and supplies like nails and screws, and, of course, lumber. I sat everything down and turned to pry the broken board off of the fence, and Trigger wandered up. I said hello, he looked innocently at me, then, calm as you please, bent down, picked up the bag of nails with his teeth, turned and trotted away.

He dropped the bag as soon as I called his name, gave me a look over his shoulder, and then wandered off.

Much as I like Trigger, though, he creates the most work. In the picture you’ll note him looking over the fence. We have several acres of fine, fenced in pasture, but he really thinks that the grass on the other side is better. He’s constantly creating extra work for me, because he’ll lean with the full force of his 1800 pounds (he’s 16.1 hands — big horse) against the top fence rail just to reach the grass on the other side. Fence posts can’t take that kind of strain for a long period of time before they break. He’ll also do the same thing with the bottom rail, depending upon his mood, I suppose.

You can see one of my replacement rails there in the bottom row.

Every spring I head out to fix up a year’s worth of partly cracked or sagging boards, although from time to time Trigger or one of the others will create a problem that has to be dealt with instantly. This weekend it was so nice that I ended up spending several hours Saturday on fence duty. I probably have ten or more boards to repair before summer gets started, which will mean a trip to the lumber yard for more supplies.

Sunday I hadn’t planned on any more horse related experience. I got to work uprooting a small dogwood tree that had grown up all on its own about six inches from the corner of the house (my wife wanted it saved and moved out into the yard).  The whole dogwood experience was a lot more involved than I would have liked, because I was trying to save it, and I was only part of the way along when my daughter wandered up from feeding the horses to tell me the barrier between Trigger’s stall and that of our other gelding had been partly kicked down. There’s no telling why. Maybe they got persnickety about something in the other horse’s feed trough. Maybe they saw a snake outside. Maybe one of them was singing off key. Whatever happened, the end result was me spending a good hour or more repairing the horse stalls.

For all that I would rather have been relaxing today, it was amazing weather to be working outside, and I ended up counting myself lucky to be in the fresh warm air. We kicked the horses out of the barn so that we could have the fresh air blowing straight in, and it was just a wonderful afternoon.

Spring Near the Sea of Monsters

Spring! Click for a larger image.

So, this happened in my front yard yesterday. Some to the east and north may not remember the term, but it is known here in the midwest US as Spring. Feast your eyes upon the blossoms and weep.

It’s been so pleasant the last few days that we’ve slept with the windows open. I have the windows open now as I type this, listening to bird song… as well as the barking of one of my dogs, who just won’t ever shut up. (Three years old now, and she still barks at everything that moves, as though there’s a little yipey dog trapped in that Lab mix body.)

But that’s just the front yard. Look here at the view of the side yard and the blossoms. You might also note the back end of said Lab — trotting off to bark at a leaf, probably — as well as a side view of my other, calmer dog (we think she’s a Husky/German Shepherd mix, but can’t know as she’s a shelter dog). Over that ridge in the distance is the Sea of Monsters, as you may have heard me mention before. For privacy reasons I’ve also left out the great light tower on its shore where I do most of my writing work.

Spring! Click for a larger image.

I’m hard at work on a secret writing project (shh) that I’m really enjoying. Some projects just come together faster than others.

I have a few updates and observations I’d been planning to address last week, before I came down with a nasty cold that left me a little low energy. Working in the sun proved a better cure than rest and medicine, though, and I’m about 95% today.

I’ll probably log back on tomorrow with some other things, but I wanted today’s post to mostly be about Spring. I used to prefer Autumn more than any other season, but these days it’s the reawakening of the Earth. Maybe I’m getting maudlin as I age.

Bones in the UK

When I returned from my trip to New York City I had a wonderful surprise awaiting me in my e-mail. It was the cover for the UK edition of The Bones of the Old Ones, by the talented Charles Keegan, who created the original hard cover painting for The Desert of Souls.

I’ve heard from a lot of people that they preferred the original cover to the paperback, and I’m already starting to hear from people who prefer this version to the one for the American release. What do you think?

 

Back from the Big Apple

My wife and I took our children to the east coast last week for a nice family getaway involving museums, a musical, subway rides, fine dining, and excellent company. I have a few anecdotes to share later this week that might be of interest, but tonight I simply wanted to log in and share a couple of interesting links.

First, while I was away last week writer friend (and fellow Pathfinder author) Elaine Cunningham posted an interesting essay about speculative fiction characters who aren’t white, and cultural appropriation. I was in New York when most of the conversation was going on, but I dropped by to add my own two cents earlier today. You can find her essay here.

My friend Nathan Long, writer of the Waar books, and some Gotrek and Felix novels, not to mention the fabulous Blackhearts books and other tasty stuff, put up a post on fantasy world building that’s likely to be of great interest to many writers of fantasy and science fiction. You can find it here, and the conversation is just getting under way if you want to join in.

On the long drive to New York I read the family The Graveyard Book, and on the long drive back, my wife read us Watership Down. I already knew both were excellent books, but I did not realize how fine both sound when read aloud. The best writing often has a rhythm and meter to it so that the prose has an ebb and flow.

Elyana Rides Again

If it’s been quiet here, that’s because you couldn’t hear the sound of my laptop keys clicking away.

I’ve just turned my second Paizo Pathfinder novel over to, you guessed it, Paizo, and I believe it to be a better adventure than the first. That should please those of you who liked the first one (and perhaps, who knows, interest those who were less kindly disposed). Drelm and Elyana’s second adventure is now in the hands of James Sutter. I’m not sure when it will be released — that will depend in part upon how much editing the text requires and what’s in the queue ahead of it.

I’ve been running at deadlines for the better part of a year and a half now, and it’s taken a real toll on my family. So, for the next week, I’m just going to be doing some fun things WITH that family. The kids are getting older. So am I. Going forward I’m going to try to arrange things so that I’m not constantly frantic about some looming deadline.

I’m not going to be updating the site for an entire week, but then I should be back to my more frequent ramblings, musings, and occasional link suggestions.

I’m very much looking forward to my next book length project, but I’m not going to worry about that now.

I DID wish to mention that I now share a table of contents with a whole bunch of talented writers: Alex Bledsoe, Jennifer Brozek, Orson Scott Card, Glen Cook, Steven Erikson, Ian C. Esslemont, Cecelia Holland, Paul Kearney, Ari Marmell, Janet and Chris Morris, Cat Rambo, Brandon Sanderson, and C.L. Werner. We all contributed essays in the collection Writing Fantasy Heroes, available now from Rogue Blades Entertainment (on Amazon). My essay’s topic is writing about a pair of heroes.

I hope you’ll check it out! My contributor copies have been sitting on my desk for a few weeks now, but I’ve been so busy wielding Drelm’s great axe that I haven’t had a chance to crack open the book and see what suggestions my fellow writers have.

Links and Elyana Sadrastis

Keeping with ancient tradition (established last Thursday) I have more Links of Interest. PLUS a few updates on my Paizo book, now vacuuming up all of my time.

First, related to my own musings about epic fantasy in the last week or so, John Fultz took a post live earlier in the week that’s brought in some interesting comments from some of my own favorite authors, and it’s probably worth a look. You can find it here.

Second, my friend and fellow author Alex Bledsoe is looking for some footage of the Smokies. For the whys and the specifics and the reward for assistance, visit here.

Third, I dropped by Fictional Frontiers with Sohaib and discussed The Bones of the Old Ones at length. I always have a good time on Fictional Frontiers! The podcast can be found here.

Fourth, my good friend Eric Knight just had his first three Vampire Earth books released in a way-cool Science Fiction Book Club edition. If you haven’t visited the apocalyptic future where brave resistance fighters are trying to overthrow life-sucking alien invaders, now’s your chance. Great action stories with wonderful character arcs and smart plotting. Here’s a link to the book.

Fifth, I just learned that all the Ben Haas westerns are gong to be made available as e-books. I wrote a long post about just how great Ben Haas was in August of last year. Now everyone will soon have a chance to find out for themselves. I don’t always read westerns, but when I do, they’re by Ben Haas.

I just received a super cool book in the mail yesterday, but I’ll have to blog about that in a day or two. Right now I am still fully enmeshed in my rewrite of my next Paizo novel, now titled Stalking the Beast.

I’ll be honest — it’s been a rough six months because of my mom’s medical condition, and as a result writing’s been a real challenge. But I’m very pleased with the way the book has finally come together. It’s got a lot more moving pieces than the first one and there were times during the drafting I despaired that I’d be able to get it running. Now, though, as I’m tuning it up, I think I might have something pretty nice here.

I stumbled across some discussion of the main character of my Paizo books, Elyana Sadrastis, the other day. Some Pathfinder players occasionally wonder what her specific stats would be if she were written up as a game character. Well, I think some of that should be left to the imagination, but I’ll give a few hints. When I roughed out her stats I multi-classed her as a high-level Fighter with some Ranger levels. I didn’t want her casting a whole lot of spells around because I find high magic in fiction (at least on the side of the heroes) problematic. Thus almost all her feats come from the fighter side of the equation. Apart from the cure light wounds spell she uses in the first book, about the only Rangery magic you’ll see her use are some communicate with animal spells, and those I write as though she’s just specifically in tune with an animal, not as though she’s waving glowing fingers about and mumbling.