Ken Lizzi's Blog, page 28
August 28, 2022
All the Latest. Resurrected Post.
���So, what is new with you, Ken?���
I���m glad you asked, fictitious interlocutor. A couple of items have firmed up since last time I wrote, so I���m more comfortable mentioning them. I���m never truly comfortable mentioning anything that smacks of self-promotion, but this is the gig. No point whining unduly.
The first item I���d like to mention is that I���ve been invited as one of the panelists for the 2017 Calliope Authors Workshop. The organizers are flying me down to Los Angeles next month and putting me up in a hotel. I���ll sit in on a panel with two other writers and a moderator and do my best to help advise the aspiring authors who���ve signed up for the workshop. You, in the back, stop snickering. Anyway, that will be the weekend of September 9, if any of you of reading this are in LA and want to say hello.
Second, I just signed a reprint contract for one of my short stories. If you missed ���Mischosen��� in the anthology ���The Death God���s Chosen��� you���ll have another opportunity when it is included in the Digital Horror Anthology. I���ll let you know the release schedule when I get it.
Another item hasn���t sufficiently cleared for me to mention here.
What else? MBW and I attended my 30th year high school reunion last night. When did they all get old? Do they not have a portrait in the attic handling such unpleasant aspects of time? Kidding, of course. Everyone looks great, happy, and successful.
Worked on the house today. I���ll just say that my home improvement skills make Tim ���The Toolman��� Taylorappear competent and efficient. Well, as a wise man once said, ���A man has got to know his limitations.���
View more on Ken Lizzi’s website ��Like ������� 0 comments ������� flag2017 Oregon Brewers Festival. Resurrected Post.
I have a few bits of information I���d truly like to share. ��But until the details firm up a bit more I���m not going to. Instead, I���m going to write about beer. Deal with it.
This year is the 30th anniversary of the Oregon Brewers Festival. Not necessarily an interesting number, but it is for me considering I���ve been to almost all of them. Twenty plus years of beer lines, heat, random yelling, and crowds. It���s better than I make it sound. I���ve tried some fantastic beer over the years.
This year I took the day off and brought the HA with me. MBW was across the country at a conference. So, daddy and daughter beer day. Bula! We arrived as the festival opened. A stroller provided her shade and a platform for the portable DVD player. She was set. I had a festival mug and tokens. I was set.
Following are my tasting notes. The last couple I tried while standing, in the specialty tent, nowhere near a table, so I was only able to scribble a comment or two. I include them here only for completeness. The HA scribbled all through the program book, so my transcription may not be 100% accurate. Note, when jotting down the name of the brewery, I left out such terms as ���Brewery��� or ���Brewing Company.��� Because I am lazy.
Relax, people. It���s water. Spare me the outraged comments.
Crooked Stave
Single Hop Experimental. 6.2%
Nice, mellow IPA at the lower end of IBU���s. The hop character comes through ��� grassy, not floral or citrus. Not sure I���d have more than one.
Falling Sky.
Octopus Tree Spruce Tip Pale Ale. 5.4%
Crispness of a lager more than a pale ale. But one the brewer stirred with a pine bough. Refreshing, but I would have preferred a more resinous taste.
Ghost Runners
Chasing Fluffy Pink Unicorns. Gose, 5%
Because I���m that comfortable with my masculinity. Nose is too fruity, promising a cloying fruit beer. But the gose saltiness belies that suggestion. It is actually quite god.
Gigantic.
G&T. 5.5%
You put the lime in the���juniper. Nice. Extremely refreshing. A compelling session beer.
Fort George
No Pulp. American Style Pale Ale. 5%
A breakfast beer. No need to pur OJ. Follow with a coffee stout? Maybe a maple bacon porter? (No, not the latter.) Very nice start. Second and third tastes are not as pleasant.
Baerlic.
Dropping Acid Psychedelic Sour IPA. 5%
Thin sour. Needs more body.
Oregon City.
Plumbelievable. Sour. 5%
I can���t believe this contains plums. Top notch sour. Balanced, full bodied.
At the Specialty Tent.
Boneyard Beer. Goze. 5.7% Beautiful.
Laht Neppur. Barleywine 2014. 12% (No notes. I did like it, though.)
Caldera. Triple IPA. (Didn���t note the ABV.) Fantastic.
View more on Ken Lizzi’s website ��Like ������� 0 comments ������� flagYe Fair July. Resurrected Post.
Owning a house demands more weekend hours than owning a condo. This is a cold rule of the universe. Still, one can find time to attend a Renaissance Faire.
I drove MBW and the HA south to Silverton, Oregon for the second year in a row. I���d offered the choice of an afternoon at Hood River watching the kite surfers and wind boarders or an afternoon of watching cosplay and hearing dodgy faux-british accents. MBW determined the HA would get more enjoyment from the latter.
As it transpired, the HA fell asleep in the car on the way down and was thus too groggy to enjoy the first half-hour or so. She did not want to see the royal court. The sleepiness wore off, of course, and the HA continued to inquire after the queen for the rest of the afternoon. She did, at last gain an audience. What royal favors she garnered remain a mystery.
I have determined that, should we attend one of these in the future, that we will not trouble dropping in at the tilting field until at least a half an hour after the marshal begins the jousting festivities. The patter is too weak, the preliminaries too dull to see me through summer afternoon heat. As this appeared to be the family consensus, we didn���t stay for the organized violence. Perhaps next year we���ll wait out the bad jokes and cabbage chopping seated at a picnic table, enjoying ice cream and turkey legs, then drop in at a time better calculated to watch men in tin suits try to knock each other out of the saddle with sticks.
Meanwhile, householder���s obligations require more of my weekend time and beer money. For something other than beer. Sigh.
View more on Ken Lizzi’s website ��Like ������� 0 comments ������� flagOff-Target, Laser-Focused Marketing. Resurrected Post.
An intriguing opportunity came my way a few months back, one that I consider intriguing in two aspects. I was interviewed for an article in the Oregon State Bar Bulletin (the monthly house-organ for Oregon���s attorneys) about lawyers who are also writers.
This interview was an enjoyable opportunity to discuss writing. As usual with this sort of thing, an hour conversation was whittled down to a few paragraphs. But the conversation was still worthwhile.
Now, I said I considered intriguing in two ways. One, the chance to promote my work is always interesting. People won���t buy a book if they never hear of it, right? So, while I���m not overly comfortable with publicity, I recognize its necessity. Second, and perhaps more interesting, is the narrow market the article addresses. Lawyers. And lawyers in only one State, and a relatively unpopulous one at that. This intrigues me because it explores whether a tightly focused outreach to what is not necessarily a target demographic can have any practical impact on sales.
The day the issue of the OSBB dropped, I checked the Amazon ranking of the novel of mine that received coverage. Then I checked again every day after for the next week or so. Other than a single spike in sales one day, I noticed no unusual activity. And, as a matter of fact, the spike was not really anomalous. I can neither tie it to the article nor prove it unrelated.
So, given the scarcity of altered sales activity, at this point I���d conclude that outreach to an audience with no specific affinity to science fiction or fantasy is unlikely to impact sales of a science-fiction or fantasy novel. Hardly a groundbreaking revelation, but interesting as a practical, real world result.
View more on Ken Lizzi’s website ��Like ������� 0 comments ������� flagChecking In. Resurrected Post.
A brief one today. There���s a joke somewhere in the word ���brief��� but I don���t feel like mining that one from the joke pits.
I���ve been busy doing yardwork out back, digging, placing pavers, shoveling bark chips. Getting gnarly blisters. Good fun.
Today, fingers crossed, is game day. First one in a couple of years I think. Should be fun.
Later this week, cortisone injections in my neck. Yipee. Probably should get one in my shoulder. But one ache at a time, right? Ungrateful body. Oh well.
View more on Ken Lizzi’s website ��Like ������� 0 comments ������� flagHappy Independence Day. Resurrected Post.
Happy upcoming Independence Day, fellow Americans. I don���t vent my political spleen with these posts (for which probably half of you are grateful and the other half condemn me as a coward.) I���m not going to alter that custom now. Instead I want to highlight a few (I hope) innocuous words of Thomas Paine.
He wrote, in The Crisis (1776) ���These are the times that try men���s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis shrink from the service of their country, but he that stands by it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated���.���
Impressive words, no? Stirring. We take America for granted now, and assume as inevitable the triumph of the colonists over the Crown. But our ancestors undertook no simple task and with no guarantee of victory. Death, whether by hanging, by lead ball, by disease induced or exacerbated by military camp, was as likely a prospect as was defeat of the mighty British army and its Hessian mercenaries. I wonder if I would have possessed the courage and fortitude to see it through.
I was what Paine might have considered a summer soldier, serving as an Army Reservist in the period between the Gulf Wars. My sacrifices, such as they were, were relatively minuscule in light of the struggles that preceded and followed my term of enlistment. But I���d like to hope I���m no sunshine patriot. I���d like to think I value my freedoms. But I wonder if I accord them their true worth. It seems that most of my life freedom has been increasingly devalued, people more concerned with what their country could do for them, not what they could do for their country. What increasingly seems of value is not the freedom from tyranny the country ensures, but the goods and services the country doles out.
I don���t know. Maybe I���m just settling into early geezerdom. Maybe true patriotism is alive and well and love of freedom endures, along with those willing to ensure its continuance. I hope so. And, since I fear I may be drifting dangerously close to the shoals of politics, I���ll simply reiterate Happy Independence Day, and then shut up.
View more on Ken Lizzi’s website ��Like ������� 0 comments ������� flagAugust 21, 2022
How Does Post-Apocalyptic Fiction Tie in to Sword and Sorcery? Plus Savage Journal Entry 4.
The end of modern civilization. What caused it? Nuclear war, plague, zombies, alien invasion? Pick your poison. But the world we know is gone. Survivors must carry on. And therein lies a tale. Or a plethora of tales. Here you���ve got your Post-Apocalyptic fiction.
A lone hero with a sword faces down supernatural foes in a desperate struggle for existence, or maybe for a purse of gold. He���s no conception of our modern civilization. He might even despise the very notion of civilization (while simultaneously enjoying every advantage of it.) Here you���ve got your Sword-and-Sorcery.
How to reconcile these? How does Post-Apocalyptic Fiction tie in to Sword and Sorcery? Is there a connection? Should there be?
Scratch that last one. I���m not going to arbitrate that. But there certainly is a connection. Ever since the threat of atomic war intruded upon the consciousness of writers, that existential threat has influenced their stories. Writers of heroic fiction were not excepted. Instead of creating a secondary world, or setting stories in the fathomless past of this world, writers instead posited a fantastic world resulting from an apocalypse that occurred at some remove. Note, this is different from the Dying Earth genre, in which stories are set at such a fantastically distant point in the future that a specific apocalypse is fundamentally irrelevant; there could have been several in the intervals between now and the imminent destruction of the Earth in the death throes of the sun. The world of the Post-Apocalyptic S&S yarn derives its unique properties from the apocalypse.
Examples. Fred Saberhagen���s Empire of the East. Both the planet-wide devastation and the creation of magic result from the same apocalyptic event (which I won���t spoil, but seriously, you need to read this one.) The later Book of Swords series approaches Dying Earth territory, in that the apocalypse occurred so far in the past it makes little difference whether the stories are set in prehistory, far-future, or on a secondary world.
One of Michael Moorcock���s avatars of the Eternal Champion seems to be swashing his buckler on such a post-apocalyptic Earth: Count Brass journeys through an altered France and England, dealing with mutated creatures and bizarre, novel technology.
John Dalmas��� The Yngling fights through a post-apocalyptic Northern Europe that must deal with psychic powers. (Not, if I’m being honest, one of my favorite books. But it is an example.)
It���s an understandable approach. Even a single hint of a bygone past (something more subtle than the Statue of Liberty) could suggest a depth to the writer���s world, a sort of built-in cheat for world-building. As I recall, the Oliver Stone draft of the Conan the Barbarian screenplay had a post-apocalyptic setting, rather than REH���s past Hyborian Age.
The cross-over appeal is easy to understand. Gary Gygax certainly did. If you read through Appendix N of the Dungeon Master���s Guide, you���ll find the above mentioned Empire of the East (or, to be precise, The Changeling Earth, which is the third part of the book) as well as Hiero���s Journey, by Sterling Lanier, a somewhat more sci-fi Post-Apocalyptic novel, though with evident appeal to the reader of heroic fiction. And let���s not forget that an early companion game of D&D was Gamma World, a game specifically intended to model the sort of fiction embodied by Hiero���s Journey, with its radiation-induced mutants, quests for lost technology, and strange new societies.
If you���re interested in reading my take on the Post-Apocalyptic genre, give Reunion a try.
And now, for those of you who have been reading the diary of Magnus Stoneslayer, here is Entry Four. (Entry One may be found here, should you wish to catch up.)
SAVAGE JOURNAL
ENTRY 4.
��
���������������������� I’d like to state that, as a rule, I don’t get bored.�� But that would be inaccurate,
and if I cannot be honest with you, dear diary, then really, what is the point?�� Let us put on a brave face (of course that is for me merely a pro forma rhetorical device — I have no need to wear the mask since I am by nature fearless) and confront the facts: I am a roaming barbarian precisely because remaining in one location for any significant duration bores me.
������������������������������Oh, I possess the stoic patience of the savage.�� By ���remaining in one location for any significant duration��� I don’t mean standing poised over a still pond with a fish spear in hand waiting for a trout to poke its head out from a shadowy ledge and like trials of the hunter and warrior.�� I endure such ordeals with laconic aplomb.�� No, I mean the ennui of tedious sameness, the daily sunrise to sundown routine of the peasant farmer, the repetitive watches of the palace guard.�� I speak from experience; I’ve done my share of soldiering in any number of armies, standing all manner of sentry duty, and I’m like to find myself enlisted again.�� But I’m not constitutionally suited to following orders, and the emphasis on routine — and here we pick up the theme again — bores me.
������������������������������Which is why the tavern strumpet lying next to me with the satiated smile on her
dreaming lips will wake on the morrow to an empty bed.�� Did she truly believe that the strapping barbarian warrior who’d stopped in for a joint of beef and a flagon of ale had given over his wanderlust for a sedentary existence as her help meet premised solely on the allure of
her meager charms?�� I cannot credit it.�� No, women are more canny than that.�� She knew exactly she wanted, and she received it.�� She saw in me a temporary variation of her insular life.�� In this respect at least the civilized and the barbarian worlds are identical: women
get bored too.
������������������������������So, before I pad as silent as a wolf into the night, I bid you, dear diary, farewell
until tomorrow.
������������������������������Magnus Stoneslayer
August 14, 2022
The Five Best Fantasy Series. Plus Savage Journal Entry 3.
There was a time when bookshops were the domain primarily of discrete novels, or perhaps a sequel or two. Complete, single-volume stories sat at the apex of the bookstore ecosystem in the epoch before multi-volume epics ruled the shelves. But, for good or ill, their time has passed, their dominance supplanted by the era of the series. Perhaps you want to investigate some of these great beasts, get to know them, yet are leery of undertaking the effort. I understand the trepidation. There is a substantial time investment involved in such exploration. You can���t just read one book: the story would be incomplete. So, where should you start? Well, I���ve wandered with some of these vast herdbeasts, dwelt amongst them. Enough to be averse to doing so in the future when stand-alone volumes can provide me a story with a beginning, middle, and end. But I also understand the Jane Goodall-esque reward that can come with lengthy immersion. Accordingly, I’m here with some recommendations, my selection for the five best fantasy series.
These recommendations are entirely subjective. Other opinions may ��� and will ��� differ. That���s fine. I wouldn���t expect anything different. So, here they are, presented (other than the first) in no particular order.
The Lord of the Rings. But Ken, you say, LOTR was written as a single book, not a series. To which I reply, a fine pedantic point, that I will ignore since the books were actually published as a series, instigated the trilogy trend, and began the Tolkien craze that led to the domination of series fiction. I doubt you need me to sell you on this one. Even if you haven���t read it, you���ve certainly heard of it. The reputation is deserved. LOTR is the granddaddy of them all, immersive, moving, engrossing, and fulfilling. There is a reason people re-read it over and over.
Malazan Book of the Fallen. Steven Erikson created a masterpiece with this series. The chronological depth rivals Tolkien���s legendarium, though Erikson doesn���t go all the way back to the creation of the universe. In sheer length, of course, it surpasses LOTR. But that is the selling point of these epics: they are long. You get to spend a lot of time with the stories, with the characters, with the world the authors are creating. Erikson���s ability to generate memorable characters is impressive. He gives us any number of fantastically realized soldiers (influenced, no doubt, by Glen Cook. See below.) His background in archaeology and anthropology is put to good use. (Regretfully, his unfamiliarity with economics also comes through, but that���s a quibble.) His ability to juggle dozens of narratives and have them all converge at the end of ten books is impressive. Any one of these narratives would provide for an epic story. Yet here we get a saga comprising all of them. He can by turns make you belly laugh or engender loss. Good stuff.
The Black Company. Glen Cook���s seminal series influenced the development of the Grimdark style. While not initially conceived of as a series, Cook managed to turn it into a single, decades-spanning epic of a long-lived mercenary company seeking to recover its past and return to its point of origin. He gives us as protagonists the men usually considered the bad guys: the soldiers fighting for the evil empire are the main characters, rather than the scrappy rebels. It is a deeply cynical book, focused on base emotions, why men fight, why they are willing to fight for and die for each other rather than a cause. The world Cook builds is bleak, without much light. Magic is scarce, but deadly. Life is cheap, wars are devastating. But with the character of Croaker, Cook gives us one of the great narrators of fantasy. And you feel viscerally the fate of each of the soldiers of the Black Company. The final books, the Books of the South, can drag a bit. But the resolution of Croaker���s story is worth the journey.
Now Cook has been prolific. So why choose The Black Company? Why not The Garrett Files? I love those books. But the Garrett Files doesn���t count, doesn���t meet the definition of a fantasy series. Nor do the Elric books, nor Fafhrd and Gray Mouser, nor Conan, etc. These are ongoing series, connected tales instead of single, intentionally completed, long story. What about A Song of Ice and Fire? Not finished, so I can���t evaluate it. If it isn���t finished, it isn���t a series, and thus doesn���t qualify. Same with the Steven Brust���s Vlad Taltos books, or Jim Butchter���s Dresden Files, both of which I’d otherwise consider in the running.
The Chronicles of Amber. Roger Zelazny���s series is intriguing from page one. There is a touch of noir about it, great action, grand revelations, treachery, dynastic family intrigue, and unending creativity in the world building. The Amber family is one of fantasy fictions��� great creations. The notion of one true universe, from which all others derive, is cool. But what is better is the concept of unique individuals able to move through the universes, manipulating and shaping them is even cooler. And Corwin Amber is one of the coolest protagonists ever written.
We shall pretend the second series does not exist, thank you very much.
The Once and Future King. If you want to read something that allows a certain literary pretension, but don���t feel up to the baroque psychodrama of the Gormenghast Trilogy, pick up T.H. White���s masterpiece. Not exactly a rehash of Thomas Mallory, The Once and Future King still follows the same general path through the Arthurian legends, so you���re in familiar territory. But White���s take is a deep dive into human psychology and sociology. It is often funny and often tragic. So, much like life. Except with Merlin and talking animals.
And there you go. Others will provide you a different list, some pointing you to Robert Jordan���s Wheel of Time, some insisting upon the supremacy of Brandon Sanderson. Some deluded soul might even suggest Falchion���s Company��(available in print, digital, and audiobook formats — just saying.) But this is my web log, so the above five are what you get here.
Now, for those still interested, below is the third entry in Magnus Stoneslayer���s diary.
SAVAGE JOURNAL
ENTRY 3.
��
���������������������� Dear diary, today I spent the late afternoon cleaning myself of gore. Again. The blood splatter absorbed from some of the donnybrooks I’m constantly embroiled in is — let us say — messy. When forced to serious infighting then we’re talking oleaginous bits of intestine, in addition to the sticky red life fluid. And it’s best not to consider the contents of said bits of intestine. So, you’ve got your arterial spray, and your squishy bits from the inside of a torso suddenly emerging into the light of day at high speed, and it just gets everywhere. This wild barbaric mane of mine that women love to run their fingers through gets unbelievably clotted. I can nearly peel off like a mask the matter slopped across my face. And the armor, well here I am once again discussing scrubbing the armor. I mean it is worthwhile, but the hours! It is enough to make an itinerant barbarian warrior post an ad for a valet.
������������������������������Of course these chaotic melees seldom transpire near a conveniently located body of water. The few scraps of my opponents’ garments left unstained by brain matter or flecks of lung tissue or whatnot serve to wipe clean some of the worst of the viscera besmearing me, but
never all. It would be such a pleasant change of pace to someday slaughter a foeman who happened to carry a towel in his kit.
������������������������������No, like today, I usually resort to handfuls of grass and the abrasive action of clumps
of dry earth. Still, the sheer atavistic pleasure of combat rushing through my veins really does make it all even out. I don’t want you to think I’m complaining, dear diary. Braving odds that would make a civilized man blanch and soil himself is the meat, spice, and postprandial snifter of brandy of life.
������������������������������I will not forget that so long as I remain yours truly, dear diary.
������������������������������Magnus Stoneslayer
Lake Tahoe. Resurrected Post.
On the road again. I���m writing from our hotel room in South Lake Tahoe. We drove down Thursday afternoon, stopping in Redding, California where we deposited the HA with her delighted grandmother. (They are currently enjoying a symbiosis wherein the HA gets absolutely spoiled and my mother gets unfettered access to her granddaughter for a couple of days.) Friday we headed east, through the Northern California woods and mountains to Reno, Nevada, where we stopped for lunch at a Brewpub. Then we headed south to Lake Tahoe.
Lake Tahoe possesses the beauty of Crater Lake and ready access to all amenities. My breath was taken, and not because of the altitude. Seriously. Check out these pictures. I���ll wait.
MBW and I spent over a couple hours hiking around the environs of Vikingsholme on Emerald Bay. Stunning. We passed by a Renne Faire on the way back to town and considered stopping. But as several thousand others had apparently already decided to stop we gave it a miss and continued on, encountering the inaugural Tahoe Brewfest. Surprisingly, we were early enough to beat the rush and stopped for lunch and tasters.
We biked a bit, cruising the marina and lake shore. Today begins the slog back home. But well worth the drive, I say. Not bad for a long weekend.
Oh, and it appears I���ve been invited back, once again, as an Orycon panelist. Will these people never learn?
View more on Ken Lizzi’s website ��Like ������� 0 comments ������� flagEven More Way Too Late Reviews. Resurrected Post.
I wanted to like Outlander. I came to it with a certain amount of goodwill, having heard of it years ago and appreciating the elevator pitch concept. Unfortunately goodwill can only do so much to entirely overcome certain deficiencies.
The budget is one deficiency. Every penny appears on the screen, but sadly we seem to be talking not much more than pennies. Casting, for another. Jim Caviezel appears largely disinterested in the entire affair, bored and waiting for the check to clear. I���m not sure he���s anyone���s idea of an action hero, despite his excellent turn in The Count of Monte Cristo. Few of the ���vikings��� really fit the role. Not even John Hurt could elevate this material. (Though it was good to see Ron Perlman, even briefly.)
As for the material, we appear to have another riff on Beowulf. This one a sci-fi/horror take, with the role of Beowulf filled by a man from outer space (Earth, apparently, an abandoned ���seed colony.���) In the script���s favor, it doesn���t attempt a direct one-for-one Beowulf analog;not every element of the story appears. I like some of what the script writers have done here. Though I think they missed an opportunity in not playing up a fatalism versus free-will theme. And I could have done without yet another spurious ���we brought it upon ourselves, the monsters are really us��� bit of faux-depth. At least the obligatory warrior princess was reasonably enjoyable and as plausible as the rest of the fantasy (have to consider this fantasy ��� it doesn���t hold up as a viking-era period piece.)
When reviewing a Beowulf riff The 13th��Warrior inevitably comes to mind. That is unfortunate, because Outlander is done no favors by the comparison. For all its narrative flaws, Warrior brought us some memorable characters and a couple of terrific action scenes. Outlander offers up some passable action and thrills but is too often let down by the budget.
Still, if you���re willing to approach the flick with a six-pack and low-expectations, I can see my way clear to recommending this.
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