B. Morris Allen's Blog, page 19
February 24, 2014
The Savage Breasts
William Congreve
and his
Savage Breast
As Dave Barry might say, that would be a good name for a band. But I chose it simply because my last two posts happened to be about musicians, which caused me to reflect on the connection between music and writing.
A lot of my stories have a link to music. My first real story, as noted elsewhere, is closely based on the Deep Purple song, "Blind" (from their eponymous third album). It's been a long time - I can't recall what it is that drove me to wr...
February 19, 2014
Now What?!
I'm not generally a big fan of live
music. It's always seemed to me that you get half the quality at twice
the price. Of course, you also get a sense of energy and community, and
sometimes, a great performance (which you then wish you had as a
recording...).
Somehow, though, I've managed to see a decent number of live acts, including some of my favorites: Cat Stevens (back when he wasCat
Stevens), Gordon Lightfoot, Waylon Jennings, Carrie Newcomer*, Steve Forbert, John Gorka, Darden Smith,...
February 2, 2014
PS - the last protest singer
"Too many protest singers, not enough protest songs." Edwyn Collins
Pete Seeger didn't play much acoustic guitar, but he wrote a lot of protest songs. Seeger had the firm conviction that the purpose of music was to convey a message, and he stayed true to that convictionuntil his death last week at 94.
I came at Pete Seeger from the wrong end - I grew up listening not only to his frien...
December 26, 2013
Duotrope for Dollars
I wasoutragedlast year, when Duotrope announced that it was shifting to a paid model. Well, not actually outraged. In fact, I thought it was a very reasonable decision. Possibly even sensible, though it's hard to be sure without knowing the financial data.
In any case, I found Duotrope to be a valuable service, and I had already been donating $20-25 per year. I thought $50 was a bit steep, but I signed up anyway, since in my search a couple of years earlier, I hadn't found a good alterna...
December 1, 2013
Amazon reconsiders reviews?
One reason Amazon has been so successful is the product reviews that its customers generate for free. Lately, though, it seems like Amazon has focused more on preventing reviews than encouraging them.
I started using Amazon in 1998. Not exactly from its very inception, but only three years after they started selling books. I've been pretty happy with them as both a reader and a writer. I rated the (hundreds of) books I bought, but only occasionally posted reviews, mostly of albums by the bes...
November 23, 2013
Puff, the Magic ... Darn It!
or, stuff that happens while you're falling asleep
When I was eight, my favorite song was "Puff, the Magic Dragon", by Peter, Paul, and Mary. If you remember, it's all about how Puff and his friend Jackie Paper go sailing, scare pirates, and generally have a good time, until Jackie grows up and stops coming around. Puff, broken hearted, just lies in his cave and doesn't frolic any more. It's very sad.A few months ago, I was belatedly reading the anthology George R.R. Martin put together as a...
October 21, 2013
October 18, 2013
Grandmasters
This blog post first appeared at Amazing Stories 
"When I first began obsessively reading science fiction,
at about the age of ten, all sf writers were as gods to me. Some,
however, were bigger gods than others, my holiest trinity being Edgar Rice Burroughs, H. G. Wells and Edward Elmer Smith, Ph.D." Frederik Pohl
When I
was growing up (a little later than Mr. Pohl), the Grandmasters of
science fiction were clear - Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke. There were others, of co...
October 15, 2013
Discovery
This blog post first appeared at Amazing Stories
One of the joys of reading magazines, as opposed to books, is the
thrill of discovery. It's almost the same with anthologies, though I
find that for anthologies, my evaluation process runs:
1. Do I recognize the authors?,
2. If so, are these new stories or stories I'm likely to get some other way?,
3. Do I know the editor or publisher?, and
4. Is it good value for money? (lots of stories, cheap).
So, with an anthology, I'm mostly buying new...
October 5, 2013
Return of the pulps
This blog post first appeared at Amazing Stories
After my disillusionment with slick magazines, I tried reading pulps again, some time in the early 90s. I even subscribed to the Magazine of
Fantasy and Science Fiction, one of the magazines that's always had a
little corner in my heart. It wasn't the same. For one thing, F&SF
at that point went pretty far away from the fantasy and science fiction
that I was expecting. It leaned much more toward contemporary, urban,
magical realism-types of s...
