Ken Lizzi's Blog, page 30
August 7, 2022
NanoCon Mark IV Report. Resurrected Post.
I���ve returned from NanoCon Mark IV��and my stint as GOH. How about that?
It was a fun little con, held at Lower Columbia College, just across the river from Rainier. I���d guess attendance came in at about two hundred. I���d consider it a success. I sold out of Under Strange Suns. I cut my inventory of Reunionin half. I met a number of intelligent and interesting people.
Among these I���d count James Wells, the great grandson of H.G. Wells (or the great man himself with a time machine and a convincing American accent.) We exchanged novels, so I have The Great Symmetry on my to-read pile now.
I had an engaging chat with James Omelina who runs several escape rooms in the southwest Washington area. I���m intrigued to check one out. I hear good things about the entertainment value of well-designed escape room, and James appears to have the design aspect dialed in.
I even managed lunch at the Ashtown brewery, a few blocks away from the convention. Well worth it.
The organizers were kind enough to invite me to return next year. I do hope my schedule allows it.
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Published on March 26, 2017 12:26
Playa del Carmen, Mexico. Resurrected Post.
Once again I write from one of the dreary hardship stations where I toil in the phrase fields, reaping sentences and paragraphs for your entertainment. This particular gray, danksome locale is Playa del Carmen, Mexico. That���s right, I���m suffering the horrors of the Mexican Riviera on your behalf.
For example, just to the south is Tulum, where the Spanish first landed, assaulted the Mayan town, and were routed by that metropolis of 10,000 or so. Of course, a couple years later when the Spanish returned there were only 400 left alive in Tulum. So, whether the Mayan���s should count that a victory or not is certainly up to debate. The point is, I had to visit that nghtmarish scene of battle and disease, under the blue sky, against a backdrop of turqoise Caribbean waters. Excruciating.
And more ruins awaited. I was forced to scale the crumbling, hazardous steps of the pyramid in Coba, sight of ritual sacrifice. In this case, I sacrificed for you. I then further endangered myself, plunging into the bottomless depths of a cool, refreshing cenote, some fifty feet or more below ground. I could have drowned, assuming I suddenly forgot how to swim.
In between these labors I sit outside and write. That���s correct, I don���t even allow myself to sit indoors while working through the second draft of Boss. I mean, c���mon. I���m from Oregon. I���m not used to this sort of heat. I must resort to wading through the surf or plunging into the swimming pool to relieve the misery.
I even faced death herself in order to free bottles of tequila from their imprisonment. This I do for you!
And I haven���t yet completed writing the talk I���ll be giving next week at NanoCon Mark IV. That���s right. I proceed from one task to the next.
For you, dear reader. For you.
Well, back to the fields.
Published on March 19, 2017 12:45
Tasting Notes. Resurrected Post.
My Beautiful Wife and the Heir Apparent have been away for a couple of weeks. Too long, really. Still the time intervening between departure and return must be filled. I���ve been reading, caught up on some films, gotten a solid push on the second draft of ���Boss.��� Productive, I think. Stimulative to the synapses, fueling the story muscles. But a man can���t work all the time.
And so, beer.
I managed to visit a few brewpubs that I���ve missed. It���s not hard to miss a new one. They spring up in Portland like mushrooms. I posted some pictures of last weekend���s beer exploration. Today I���ll provide some tasting notes and comments about this weekend. For those of you who read this web log solely for thoughts on books, speculative fiction, sci-fi conventions and whatnot, this is a good place to stop reading.
Fat Head���s Brewery in Northwest Portland is the Oregon branch of an Ohio-based operation. But it brew on the premises and appears to develop a good number of its recipes independently. It is a cavernous space with a lot of tables. Oregon was playing Cal on the tube above the bar. And I ordered a five beer taster for $11. A bit steep I think. Perhaps someone has a spreadsheet with the price of taster trays in the greater Portland area.
The thing is, I took notes. Perhaps less detailed notes than usual, but here they are.
Built for Speed IPA. 6.3% Typical West Coast IPA, but not in a good way. Revisit ��� Pretty good after food.
Semper FiPA. 6.5% Oo-rah! Sorry, had to. Grassy, undistinguished IPA. Revisit ��� unchanged.
One for the Road IIPA. 8.5% Raisin and leather balancing a near perfect amount of hops. Near to classic beer status. Revisit ��� Unbalanced.
Tortuga Tri-PA. 9.25% Pineapple wallop. Aftertaste a lingering cigarette bitterness. Might grow on me, but no an immediate favorite. Revisit ��� Unchanged.
Pimp My Sleigh. 10.5%. Belgian Style Christmas Ale. Tastes like a near textbook barleywine. Perhaps a trifle thin/vinegary. Could use a chewier, raisin finish. Revisit ��� Minor improvement.
I think I���d go back there, try some more options. I find it interesting that revisiting a beer after having run some different flavors over the tastebuds occasionally altered my initial impression.
I visited Great Notion Brewing because a local publication listed one of its beers as the best beer in Portland. So of course the pub was completely sold out of the beer in question. I���d say just my luck but I probably should have seen that coming.
Great Notion is a typical example of the Portland brewpub. A smallish, re-purposed space decorated in a vaguely woodsy, Northwestern fashion. I ordered a sandwich and a five beer-taster tray. The sandwich was reasonably priced, $9 for a sandwich and generously sized side salad. The taster tray ��� not so much. $14! That can���t be the going rate, can it?
At least the beer was good.
Strawberry Cream IPA. 7%. Slight bite of hops to offset the smoothness. Strawberries and cream���and hops? Who���d a thunk it? Works though.
Grassroots IPA. 7%. Solid IPA. ON par with Gigantic and ��� almost ��� Breakside.
Super Ripe IIPA. 9.5%. Grapefruit and sucrose. In a good way.
Sorcerer���s Apprentice. 7%. Sour. Apricot and lemon juice. Pucker up!
Midnight Fluff. 10%. Stout. Feeling diabetic after one sip. Dip a s���more in it or pour it over ice cream. This is dessert beer overkill. Good, though.
I���d go back. But I think I���d just order a pint of something and hope for the best.
Hey, if you���re enjoying my particular brand of nonsense, please exercise the like and share functions of your social media platform of choice. Think of the children.
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Published on March 12, 2017 12:28
NanoCon Mk. IV. Resurrected Post.
Here���s a bit of news I, at least, found interesting. I���ve been asked to be the Guest of Honor (note the capitals, because I���m kind of a big deal, y���know?) of NanoCon Mk. IV Science Fiction Convention. The con will be March 24 and 25 in Longview, Washington. If you���re in the area, come on by and say hello.
I met a representative of NanoCon while I was at another convention, sitting my lonely vigil in author alley with a pile of unsold books. When she asked me to participate in NanoCon I assumed she meant in the capacity of a panelist. So as you can imagine I was somewhat taken aback when I received an email from the NanoCon organizers thanking me for agreeing to be GoH.
Well, I���ll do my best. I hope to see you there.
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Published on March 05, 2017 14:07
Somnus is AWOL. Resurrected Post.
There was a period of about six months following the birth of the Heir Apparent during which I was functionally a zombie. A decent night���s sleep consisted of perhaps four hours, broken into two-hour blocks. Ah, good times. But gradually the HA began sleeping through the night on a more-or-less consistent basis.
Bringing this up to near the present day: Wednesday to be precise. The second set of lower molars are coming in. Apparently that is a process fraught with a certain amount of discomfort. Discomfort which decides to manifest itself mostly during the night. All night. Children, you should know, are not naturally predisposed to stoic acceptance of discomfort.
The upshot is that I���m enjoying a scaled-down example of history repeating itself. I do miss sleep. I really, really do. Seriously, I���m not kidding. Sleep, if I���ve done something to offend you, I humbly beg your forgiveness. Come back to me, oh gift of Hypnos. And Morpheus, knock if off with the creepy-ass dreams you engender those few moments I am asleep.
So my outlining of the next project has not proceeded as far as I���d hoped by this point, is what I���m saying.
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Published on February 26, 2017 14:14
Idle Plots. Resurrected Post.
Pardon me while I ramble on a bit. This is primarily (or perhaps entirely) for my benefit. Consider it musing or work notes.
Geography dictates the battlespace. As a rule, soldiers aren���t herded together onto a broad, featureless plain, formed up into ranks and columns, and marched headlong at the opposing army doing precisely the same thing. Elevation, terrain flank anchors, concealment, lines of egress ��� these are considerations. This becomes obvious when one considers major battles, such as Bannockburn, Crecy, etc.
But set battles ��� planned or simply unavoidable ��� were the exception. Most armed conflicts on land ��� from the Classical Era up through the Renaissance ��� manifested as some sort of siege, a campaign being a series of marches and counter-marches, avoiding battle while taking as many keeps, towns, and, cities as possible while steering clear of the fortifications too tough to crack or too time consuming to starve out.
Now, how would magic effect this truism? I suppose that would depend upon what limitations one imposes on the magic. If it is magic powerful enough to simply vaporise a city, or cause castle walls to disappear then ��� assuming mages of such potency were common ��� fortresses would be pointless.
Flight would add a complication. Mass flight especially so: walls aren���t of much use if the enemy can airdrop his entire army inside your defenses. And starving your enemy becomes more problematic when he can resupply by air. But even individual flight would add a wrinkle. Still, countermeasures are conceivable. Netting, for instance. Or fully enclosed structures. Or simply a sufficiency of archers. So, individual flight could be interesting, but not a game changer.
Magic as artillery could be interesting. Taking the place of, or complementing, siege weapons. Or providing counter-battery fire. Incendiary magic, causing combustion within the walls of the besieged town, burning the gates, melting portculli. Excavation magic, performing the job of sappers, undermining foundations or digging tunnels. (Freeing up manpower would, in itself, be of tremendous value. Talk about your force multiplier.)
Illusion would be effective tactic. All war is deception, after all.
Limiting factors would include the assumption that the enemy has similar capability. Your wizard torches the enemy town, his wizard torches your camp. The mage would be priority target, having to be on constant alert for assassins and snipers.
So, in order to retain castles and walled towns as a constant the magic must follow logical, constrained rules. Or the magic must be so rare that mundane threats outweigh the risk of your expensive walls having been a huge waste of resources. There must be limits, defined or inferred (cf. the sieges of Minas Tirith and Helms Deep.)
Things to ponder. At least if you���re a writer gathering plot threads for a fantasy novel.
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Published on February 19, 2017 14:00
July 31, 2022
Savage Journal 1
I began playing around with the notion of writing an extended, serial story many years back. It ended up in a condensed package under the title Savage Journal. (Still available floating about on the web somewhere.) But I thought it might be fun to run it as originally intended here on my web log. Let me know if you’re enjoying it and I’ll keep posting installments up until the final entry. Or, let me know if it is too unutterably tedious, and I’ll return to my usual nonsense. (Nonsense available for purchase, among other places, here.) So, without further ado, I present:
SAVAGE JOURNAL
ENTRY 1
I burnish the links of my chain mail with handfuls of sand. I’m keeping it clean with��dirt. Let me repeat that: I’m keeping it clean with dirt. Sort of paradoxical, that. Makes you think. You have a lot of time to think while you are scrubbing little metal rings with fistfuls of gritty soil.
For example ��� or for another example, if you count that whole cleaning with dirt paradox as a first example ��� ��I think about symbiosis. See, here I am, a strapping epitome of barbaric individuality: bootstraps and broadsword. Yet I engage in a daily ritual that exemplifies a sort of interdependence. I painstakingly scour specks of incipient rust from my armor ��� I protect it from the elements it continuously endures. It in turn (in no small part due to the structural integrity that I maintain) protects me from the sort of sharp, pointy elements I endure on a regular basis. Symbiosis? Fair exchange? Enlightened self-interest? (Self-interest on my part, of course. I’m not positing an anthropomorphic hauberk, proposing
some sort of chain mail intelligence. That would be crazy.)
See what I mean, diary? Lots of time to think. You just don’t get that sort of reflective leisure while lopping off heads or ducking arrows or the performance of other sundry acts of derring-do: the hack and the slash that comprise so much of my quotidian existence.
Don’t get me wrong; there are contemplative moments other than armor maintenance. Walking, for example, provides many of them. Even more than thew-straining parry and cleave and disemboweling cut and thrust I do a lot of walking. Roaming from place to place is really the fundamental component of the itinerant barbarian warrior trade. It is better when I have a
horse (of course) but somehow I seem to find myself riding shank’s mare more often than the genuine article.
Roaming, thinking, slaying, cleaning. That’s the day-to-day life of your savage swordsman. Me, yours truly.
I suppose I should wrap up the whole paradox and symbiosis stuff, pay off the opening paragraph with some profundity or pithy tribal wisdom. But this is a diary entry, you know, not an essay. So, I can muse.
And that’s all the musing for today.
Until tomorrow, dear diary, I remain,
Magnus Stoneslayer
Between the Covers. Resurrected Post.
���What are you reading, Ken?��� I assume you are asking for purposes of today���s post.
I���m glad you asked. As usual, I have several books going at any one time. This week I finished ���The Hunted��� by Elmore Leonard. Typically outstanding work. It is also an example of how cell phones have changed everything. The same story could not be written as a contemporary piece. Still, excellent 70���s-vintage Leonard.
I also finished ���The Dark Defiles,��� the third of Richard K. Morgan���s ���A Land Fit for Heroes��� grimdark fantasy trilogy. I don���t want to say too much about it here. I���ll note that Morgan is a gifted stylist. The man can write. I���ll also note that I called it pretty close as to the fate of one major character, but I don���t want to explain my reasoning here. Suffice it to say that is one check mark in the negative column. At the same time, Morgan kept me guessing throughout and I do appreciate that, whatever else I might think about the story. So, due praise for originality.
I���m about three-quarters of the way through a re-read of the complete Sherlock Holmes stories. It���s been decades since the first read through, though of course I���ve read through an individual story here or there across the years. But in the main, I���ve managed to forget the stories well enough that I���m almost experiencing them for the first time, able to puzzle out the mysteries or be surprised. Good fun, though often more grim and sobering than I���d remembered.
I���m working my way gradually through a history of the Thirty Years War as well as a history of the early campaigns of the Hundred Years War.
I started ���Under the Volcano.��� So far so good. It takes a few pages to adapt to the pacing of early Twentieth Century literature after extensive immersion in more recent genre fiction. But as I tend to read rather widely ��� and, in fact tend to read more older fiction than new ��� the style doesn���t present any problem. I���m already intrigued. The far south of Mexico during the early years of World War II isn���t familiar ground for me. All the early references to the Emperor Maximillian���s legacy are hitting the target as it was only a few years ago I read a history of Max and his ill-fated wife.
And I���ve picked up the sequel to Tim Willock���s ���The Religion.��� I���ll see how bloody is the follow up to Matthias Tannhauser���s involvement in the Siege of Malta. This one is called ���The Twelve Children of Paris��� and is set during the Saint Bartholomew���s Day Massacre. Just getting into it, so I���ve yet to form an opinion. Loved ���The Religion��� so my hopes are high.
I���ve got three more lined up. But other books might bump those from the queue, so I���ll withhold titles.
Now, I���ve got time for some more reading before the HA wakes from her nap.
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Published on February 12, 2017 14:20
No Time to Binge, Doctor Jones. Resurrected Post.
I���ll be driving MBW and the HA to a restaurant later this afternoon to watch the Superbowl with friends. In part this is to see friends. Also in part because I wouldn���t be able to watch the game at home. See, my house gets crap TV reception. I purchased a 40-mile antenna. Installed downstairs it does nothing for the big screen. Upstairs, connected to��the petite bedroom TV, it receives a few channels, one of which occasionally shows something worth viewing. But none of those channels is Fox (which is carrying the game this year.)
What we watch primarily comes courtesy of Netflix or Amazon Prime. I also have a Roku hooked up downstairs, providing numerous other options, when the wifi consents to filter down from the rarefied upstairs atmosphere. If the weather is bad (and this is the Pacific Northwest) Roku provides a pixilated picture, brief ten-second sections of video between two minute blocks of nothing, or simply nothing at all. So, the best bet is usually Netflix or Amazon Prime upstairs on the small screen or a computer screen.
What sci-fi/fantasy genre options do I watch, then? Well, MBW caught the Game of Thrones bug, so we���ll be picking up HBO again this summer to catch up on the nefarious exploits of Tyrion, et al. And while we���re paying the premium, we���ll check out Westworld, see if it holds up to the good reviews, despite the absence of Yul Brynner.
I���ve caught all the Marvel Comics series on Netflix. A mixed bag, but overall entertaining enough. Come this summer I can catch up on the last season of Agents of Shield, though I���m not sure why. I haven���t really enjoyed it since about halfway through season one. Ask me in person sometime, maybe I���ll explain why. Maybe not (probably not.)
Amazon Prime provides options as well. I started Man in the High Castle, but it deviated so far from the book that I lost interest right away. I never grew invested in it. It probably speaks ill of me that while something with such high production values, seriousness of purpose, and intelligence loses me, I can get a kick out of a low budget, tongue-in-cheek, lowbrow fantasy comedy like Dudes and Dragons. Really, I do have standards. I shouldn���t have enjoyed that. But I did. I���m working my way through The Expanse. I want to like it, and it does have its moments. But there is a turgidity to it, a moral greyness to it, like Game of Thrones in Space but with less humor. And I���m always troubled by all the staircases in the spaceships, not to mention the ��� expansiveness ��� of the ships, all the unused space. Its as if the writers said, ���Look, if we show a bit of weightlessness now and again, we can handwave the physics the rest of the time.��� Maybe it picks up?
I���m not really interested in all the DC superhero shows, so I have no basis to offer an opinion on Arrow, Supergirl, etc. My appreciation for Doctor Who faded over the years and I didn���t bother trying to finish the first Capaldi season. The entire show has run on the interactions of eclectic characters, witty dialog, and swelling music cues telling you what and when to feel. None of that has been enough for me since the Tennant days to cover the canyon-scale plot holes.
There are, thankfully, always books. But for now, one last football game (until autumn.)
View more on Ken Lizzi’s website ��More Too Late Movie Reviews. Resurrected Post.
I don���t get to the movie theater much, maybe once a year. So movies are a home affair, on variety of screen sizes, and generally a matter of compromise. As I was, temporarily, a bachelor this weekend, I was able to skip compromise and select whatever I wanted. Accordingly I caught up on a few genre films. I have some thoughts on what I watched.
The first in the lineup was ���Star Wars: The Force Awakens.��� My history with Star Wars is checkered. I saw the first one in the theater at the age of eight, probably ideal. The film had an impact, as did the second two, though to a lesser degree. I���d say Brian Daley���s Han Solo books made a greater impression than Empire and Jedi. The first short story I recall writing was the imaginatively titled ���Han Solo and The Boy.��� (After writing it I felt somewhat guilty, realizing somehow it was a larcenous endeavor, so I went back and changed all the names.) I saw the films a few times again over the years, but seldom. The affection was more a matter of fond memories than anything else. Watching them again years later I found the dialog hokey and much of it rather absurd. The later trilogy sapped most of the remaining goodwill ��� though not all: I fulfilled the hopes of my early short story writing effort by scripting a comic book short story for ���Star Wars Tales.��� It was nothing more than a two-page gag, but it was published Star Wars work.
So, I approached ���The Force Awakens��� with less enthusiasm than perhaps I should have. I think I might have enjoyed it more if I���d seen it in the theater with an audience and fed off of the collective experience. But instead I watched it alone, my critical authorial faculties engaged. I should highlight the positives: seeing old, familiar characters again. That was nice. But the rest came across as an absurdly high-budget fan film. See, what made the first Star Wars film work was its unabashed embrace of bygone films, of the old cliff-hanger serials, 40���s and 50���s westerns. Two-fisted good guy against malevolent bad guys. The same kind of story telling that made ���Indiana Jones��� work. The problem with ���The Force Awakens��� is that it attempts to be a piece of modern story telling. And that just doesn���t work. At least, it didn���t for me. Obviously I���m in a distinct minority. That���s fine. I���m glad the rest of you enjoyed it. My experience should not in the least detract from the pleasure you derived from the movie.
I followed Star Wars with ���Star Trek Beyond.��� Now, I���m willing to admit this is in many ways a lesser film. Yet, perhaps because I went in with low expectations, I had a good time. It is silly, the story makes no sense, and it seems to waste the story telling possibilities offered by having a starship. But I think what made it work is the characters. There is pleasure in seeing Kirk, Spock, Scotty, and Bones interact, even if it is Faux-Kirk, Faux-Spock, etc. Credit to the acting (less so to Faux-Spock, but they can���t all be winners.) Would I watch it again? No. But it proved a fine accompaniment for lying on the couch with a couple of beers.
Last up came ���Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice.��� Again I went in with low expectations. The movie was savaged by critics. And it is glum, dour, and occasionally plodding. It is also plethoric and overwrought. But it worked. As a mishmash of The Dark Knight Returns and The Death of Superman storylines (and I guess a few others ��� I don���t really keep up on comics anymore and never read much DC to begin with) it worked as spectacle and as a comparison piece to ���Captain America: Civil War��� with its questions of how the people of a nation would respond if unfettered gods lived, walked, and wreaked the odd bit of carnage and major property damage among them.
My take, anyway. Yours might vary. And probably does.
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Published on January 29, 2017 14:08
