K.M. Alexander's Blog, page 30
June 12, 2019
Raunch Review: Farscape
Raunch Reviews is a series about profanity. Not real profanity, but speculative swearing. Authors often try to incorporate original, innovative forms of profanity into our own fantastical works as a way to expand the worlds we build. Sometimes we’re successful. Often we’re not. In this series, I examine the faux-profanity from various works of sci-fi and fantasy, judge their effectiveness, and rate them on an unscientific and purely subjective scale. This is Raunch Reviews, welcome.
[image error]Raunch Reviews: Farscape
The Author: Rockne S. O’Bannon
Work in Question: Farscape
The Profanity: “Dren”
If there is one series that gets requested for Raunch Reviews all the time, it’s Farscape. For the uninitiated, it’s a cult Australian-American sci-fi show filled with great story, fully realized characters, incredible muppets, and not-so-incredible faux profanities. Which leads us to today’s word of choice: “dren.”
Ha! I bet you thought I was going to focus on “frell!” But no! I pulled a fast one on you and switched it up. Why? Well, because “frell” is bad—it’s used in confusing ways and is born from the same onus as “frak” nothing more than a slip around censors. Those don’t rank highly on Raunch Reviews. In comparison, the word “dren” is much more elegant, if not stinkier.
First, its use is not original (we have to be honest it’s another censor-slip/replacer-word), and, similar to its real-world comparisons, it’s idiomatic. “Dren” is used as a vulgarity, meaning essentially an “unwanted substance or act.” It’s easy to pick up on its English counterpart when it’s used in phrases like “piece of dren.” But, unlike “frak” and “frell” it doesn’t follow similar patterns in pronunciation and it spelled nothing like its real-world counterpart. I think that’s important. For these sorts of faux-vulgarities, you want them to be punchy—longer words drift and shrink, becoming manageable enough to work as modifiers. “Dren” does that—and it does it pretty well.
If you’re going to make poop jokes, at least get creative with it and the writers of Farscape did exactly that in this case. Creativity goes a long way and while this is still a censor-slip, it’s a more creative censor-slip. The uniqueness and originality set it apart from others, so “dren” gains some points for that.
Score: [image error][image error][image error][image error][image error] (3.0)
Previous Raunch Reviews
“Quiznak” from J. Dos Santos & L. Montgomery’s Voltron: Legendary Defender
“Smeg” from Rob Grant and Doug Naylor’s Red Dwarf
“Burn Me” from Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time
“Slitch” from Robert A. Heinlein’s Friday
“Yarbles” from Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange
“Cuss” from Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox
“Feth” from Dan Abnett’s Gaunt’s Ghosts from Warhammer 40k
“Shazbot” from Garry Marshall’s Mork & Mindy and Dynamix’s Starsiege: Tribes
“Seven Hells” from George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice & Fire/Game of Thrones
“Mudblood” from J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series
“Frak” from Glen A. Larson’s, Ronald D. Moore’s, & David Eick’s Battlestar Galactica
“Jabber” from China Miéville’s Bas-Lag series
“Storm it”/”Storms”/”Storming” from Brandon Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archives
Have a suggestion for Raunch Reviews? It can be any made up slang word from a book, television show, or movie. You can email me directly with your recommendation or leave a comment below. I’ll need to spend time with the property before I’ll feel confident reviewing it, so give me a little time. I have a lot of books to read.
[image error]
June 7, 2019
Forget Talent
“Forget talent. If you have it, fine. Use it. If you don’t have it, it doesn’t matter. As habit is more dependable than inspiration, continued learning is more dependable than talent.”
Back around the beginning of the year, I shared a quote from Butler that’s quite similar to this one, but instead of talent, that previous quote focused on inspiration. The reason they sound so similar is that they’re both are taken from the same essay on writing advice: Furor Scribendi.
The essay was initially published in L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, Volume IX but luckily you can find a reprinting of in her collection Bloodchild: And Other Stories which I’d recommend for the titular story alone.
June 6, 2019
The Visions of Graces
If you’re in Seattle next week, and you’re looking for something to do, might I suggest swinging by Roq La Rue Gallery on Thursday, June 13th from 6:00–9:00 PM for the opening of The Visions of Graces, a three-person show featuring my brilliant partner, Kari-Lise Alexander, the always incredible Laurie Lee Brom, and the inimitable Syd Bee. (Be sure to check out Syd’s show from April, Dear Illusions, as well—it’s a stunner.)
Each artist is bringing three to four pieces, and I’m excited to see them up on the walls. I’ve gotten a few glimpses at what’s to come, and I cannot wait for everyone to see the work these talented women have been creating. It’s going to be great. I’ve included a few small previews of what’s to come below, but you’ll soon be able to see more.
Kari-Lise Alexander
See more on Kari-Lise’s Instagram feed
Visit Kari-Lise’s website
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A post shared by Kari-lise Alexander (@karilise) on May 29, 2019 at 11:44am PDT
Laurie Lee Brom
See more on Laurie Lee Brom’s Instagram feed
Visit Laurie Lee Brom’s Website
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A post shared by Laurie Lee Brom (@laurieleebrom) on May 29, 2019 at 10:55am PDT
Syd Bee
See more on Syd Bee’s Instagram feed
Visit Syd Bee’s Website
View this post on Instagram
May 31, 2019
Graphing the Distribution of English Letters
I came across this old post on prooffreader.com from 2014 from data scientist and developer David Taylor and found it fascinating. I figured my readers would as well.
Below you’ll see a graphic visualization on the distribution of English letters towards the beginning, middle, or end of words. The data set comes from the Brown Corpus in the Natural Language Toolkit instead of a dictionary, this great because the results are weighted for usage based on the frequency of use.
If you’re a data nerd like me, there are a lot more details in the original post that explain these findings. If you want to learn more about the methodology, then be sure to check out the extended version of the post on prooffreaderplus. I appreciated Taylors final thought:
The most common word in the English language is “the”, which makes up about 6% of most corpuses (sorry, corpora). But according to these graphs, the most representative word is “toe”.
I’m glad the word that ended up representing English the most is somehow “toe”—for whatever reason I find it oddly fitting for our mongrel language.
May 29, 2019
A Weekend of Smoke
This past long weekend, I took a day off from edits and spent a pleasant day reading and hanging out by my grill and smoking a variety of foods. While I enjoy posting about my fiction, my writing, inspirational quotes, weird plants, mapping projects, or my historical research, sometimes it’s nice to take a break and share just random happenings—occasional incidentals. This Smoke Report
is one of those random happenings.
[image error]My cheap but effective offset smoker—they’re not the easiest to learn on, but they’re fun.
In total, I cooked for about six hours, keeping the temp around 225º for the duration of the smoke—I was delighted with the results. I’m getting pretty good at maintaining a constant temperature with chips and chunks and only experienced a few flareups which I was able to quickly control. Preparation is key to doing this right. I like to soak most of my wood overnight (I used mesquite for this go-around), but I like to have some dry wood handy as well. I find that being able to quickly shift a fire’s momentum is important in maintaining a constant temperature.
[image error]My smoked wings were rubbed in the Sweet Sizzle rub from For the Love of Spice which added a nice base flavor.
Chicken wings were the first thing off the grill. These were namely a snack/lunch break while we waited for the main course—a three-pound pork butt—to finish. I think they turned out really good. I brined them for an hour before smoking, and I’m glad I did, it kept the meat juicy while the outside crisped up nicely. Afterward, I ended up turning the remains into a bone-broth, It’ll probably end up in a risotto.
[image error]Smoked onions, garlic, and corn—be sure to soak vegetables in water for at least an hour before smoking.
Along with the meat, I smoked garlic (fresh from our garden), onions (also fresh from our garden), eggs (not pictured), and corn (from the grocer.) The garlic was terrific and became soft and spreadable like roasted garlic but with an added kick of smoke. The onions were much sweeter and less smokey than I expected but an excellent little addition to the feast. The corn on the cob turned out well although it’s still early in the season for corn and the ears weren’t the high-quality corn we’ll find later this summer.
I’m not sure if I’d smoke eggs again—they get an interesting texture and color. The outside turns a golden yellow-brown, but they really don’t carry a lot of extra smoke flavor. Outside of looking unique, I don’t think smoking eggs adds all that much.
[image error]My excellent pork butt sitting atop a Ruby Pear Woodworks cutting board.
As far as the main course went, this was easily the best pork butt I have ever smoked. I dry rub all my smoked meats—I tend to prefer it over sticky/saucy barbeque. It finished about an hour earlier than I expected so I wrapped it for an hour while I finished everything else. This only helped tenderize it further. The final result was incredibly tender with a fantastic flavor thanks to a solid smoke ring.
[image error]Grilled flatbread with olive oil, rosemary (from our garden) and—of course—salt.
At the very end, I grilled homemade flatbread and some beautiful turnips (sadly not pictured) which were also great. It was a delightful little feast all in all and a relaxing day. It’s fun to take days like this to test recipes of perfect techniques. I learned a bunch, and I am quite happy with my results.
Below, I’ve shared my dry rub recipe—it’s great for pork, but it’s a solid all-around rub that works across a variety of food from vegetables like cauliflower steaks or a protein like chicken. It’s also easy to manipulate so throwing in your favorite spice can add a unique and personal spin. Enjoy!
My Dry Rub
4 tsp Seasoned Salt
2 tsp Dark Brown Sugar
1 1/2 tsp Granulated Sugar
1 tsp Smoked Paprika
1 tsp Garlic Powder
1/4 tsp Ground Pepper
1/4 tsp Dry Mustard
1/4 tsp Ground Cumin
Pinch of Ground Ginger
Can be stored in an airtight container for up to a month.
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May 23, 2019
Like My Books? Here Are a Few Recommendations…
I’m still hard at work on Gleam Upon the Waves, and while I’m making significant progress, I don’t have a specific timeline for release. So, if you’re a fan of my work and you’re looking for something to read in the interim that strikes a similar weird-fiction chord s, let me recommend a few of my favorite novels from a whole bunch of amazingly talented writers. In no particular order…
[image error] Cherie Priest
What to Read: Maplecroft & Chapelwood
Priest is a talented and multifaceted author who has written a great many books in a variety of genres. However, if you like books where heroes willingly fight against the madness of Lovecraftian monsters then I cannot recommend her series The Borden Dispatches enough—the first book is a solid new-mythos entry with great characters and a fascinating premise, but Priest really hits her stride in book two, Chapelwood, a humid deep-south foray into the mythos. Pick them both up and read ’em in order.
John Hornor Jacobs [image error]
What to Read: The Incorruptibles & The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky
Jacobs is well known among mythos enthusiasts for his 2011 novel, Southern Gods. But lately he’s stepped up his game; first, there’s his weird-west trilogy: The Incorruptibles, a combination of classic western, high-fantasy, and Roman mythology. His latest mythos novella The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky (one of my favorite books from last year) is an absolute masterpiece of modern cosmic horror—I can’t wait for the follow up: A Lush and Seething Hell.
China Miéville [image error]
What to Read: The Scar
If you like my strange city filled with a variety of even more unusual inhabitants, then you’ll love the steampunk-influenced world of New Crobuzon. Miéville’s writing is evocative, his world rich and vibrant, his characters flawed yet relatable, and everything is weighted in a deep history that always leaves me in awe. While all three in the series are solid books and huge influences on me, my favorite is easily the middle novel, The Scar. A swashbuckling adventure that takes place in the mobile pirate-city of Armada.
Fonda Lee [image error]
What to Read: Jade City
I discovered Lee’s work after sitting on a panel with her at OryCon in 2017. After hearing her talk about her urban fantasy wuxia novel, Jade City, I knew it would be something I enjoyed. I wasn’t wrong. The city is captivating, the worldbuilding fantastic, and Lee’s characters are grounded and flawed. There’s a lot here, and it’s worth exploring. If you like gritty cities and enjoy crime dramas, then I’d recommend you take some time and spend a few days in the streets of Janloon. (The sequel, Jade War is coming soon!)
[image error] Brom
What to Read: Lost Gods: A Novel
My friend Brom is both an incredible artist and a fantastic writer. For me, his 2016 novel, Lost Gods, stands out. It’s a rich exploration into the bizarre and brutal world of Purgatory and the people, monsters, and strange creatures who live (and die) therein. It’s a vast story that mixes a variety of mythology and weaves a remarkable and splendid tapestry of broken and complex characters and has you cheering for an unlikely protagonist searching for a way home.
[image error] Felix Gilman
What to Read: The Half-Made World
I love a good weird-west book, and there isn’t enough of them. The world of Gilman’s novel is stunning in its intricacies and feels vibrate and alive and offers up something unique and engaging that feels thoroughly fresh. I want more. There’s a lot of love: warring factions, a clash of cultures, an unlikely set of anti-heroes, and a surprising plot that feels as unique as it is enthralling. A rollicking gunsmoke-tinged romp that I found delightful.
There’s a wide variety in this list, everything from cosmic horror to steampunk to weird-west. I’m sure you’ll find something to enjoy. All the links go to Amazon, but if you can, I’d recommend asking for them at your local indie book store. Once finished, be sure to leave a review for other readers on Amazon and Goodreads and share your thoughts about the books. It’s a small but powerful way to help out an author and your fellow reader.
What about you? Do you have any reading recommendations for folks who enjoy my books? Leave a comment below and help others discover some of your favorite novels.
Happy reading!
May 17, 2019
May 16, 2019
Raunch Review: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Raunch Reviews is a series about profanity. Not real profanity, but speculative swearing. Authors often try to incorporate original, innovative forms of profanity into our own fantastical works as a way to expand the worlds we build. Sometimes we’re successful. Often we’re not. In this series, I examine the faux-profanity from various works of sci-fi and fantasy, judge their effectiveness, and rate them on an unscientific and purely subjective scale. This is Raunch Reviews, welcome.
[image error]Raunch Review: Voltron: Legendary Defender
The Author: Joaquim Dos Santos & Lauren Montgomery
Work in Question: Voltron: Legendary Defender
The Profanity: “Quiznak”
Overall, the Netflix exclusive Voltron Legendary Defender was well received by fans — and the writers took the time in this reboot to deeply explore various aspects of the lore. And among that lore, its language. Within the show are a number of unique Altean words. For example, I’m a big fan of “tick”—as a unit of measurement. But there’s one word that gets used as an obscenity over and over and the thing is… well, to be honest, I’m not sure it is a profanity. That word: “quiznak.” In fact, it uses are so varied and confusing that it seems to mean nothing at all. Here’s video proof so you can see what I mean.
More than anything “quiznak” wants to be profanity, but it’s not. It’s hard to understand where it falls within the language. It’s used as an interjection. (“Quiznak!”) It’s used as a noun. (“Shut your quiznak!”) It’s used as an intensifier. (“I will not have some quiznak-ing Galra soldier on the bridge of my ship!”) Its use is so broad that “quiznak” has lost any direction on the show. What is a quiznak exactly? What does it mean? How does it translate? Why is it so long—I assume the Altean language has drift. Even our most vile profanities are rooted somewhere—and they all have rules with their use. What we have here is a word without meaning—a formless censor-slip that serves as lazy worldbuilding. It is certainly unique. So, point-and-a-half for trying, I suppose.
Score:
[image error][image error][image error][image error] (1.5)Previous Raunch Reviews
“Smeg” from Rob Grant and Doug Naylor’s Red Dwarf
“Burn Me” from Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time
“Slitch” from Robert A. Heinlein’s Friday
“Yarbles” from Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange
“Cuss” from Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox
“Feth” from Dan Abnett’s Gaunt’s Ghosts from Warhammer 40k
“Shazbot” from Garry Marshall’s Mork & Mindy and Dynamix’s Starsiege: Tribes
“Seven Hells” from George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice & Fire/Game of Thrones
“Mudblood” from J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series
“Frak” from Glen A. Larson’s, Ronald D. Moore’s, & David Eick’s Battlestar Galactica
“Jabber” from China Miéville’s Bas-Lag series
“Storm it”/”Storms”/”Storming” from Brandon Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archives
Have a suggestion for Raunch Reviews? It can be any made up slang word from a book, television show, or movie. You can email me directly with your recommendation or leave a comment below. I’ll need to spend time with the property before I’ll feel confident reviewing it, so give me a little time. I have a lot of books to read.
[image error]
May 15, 2019
Donia: A Free 17th Century Settlement Brush Set for Fantasy Maps
“Uniqueness” is the primary quality I look for when searching for source material for brush sets. As a rule, cartographers tend to gravitate toward standardization—and for a good reason, familiar signs and symbols allow for easier comprehension. While the uniformity we see today took centuries to homogenize, along the way we got some incredible deviations.
Today’s set highlights one of those departures, and it makes for a fine brush set that would serve any fantasy map well. Taken from 1686’s Isola di Malta etched by Francesco Donia who detailed the cities, towns, churches, and fortifications of the nation of Malta. I particularly like how Donia rendered the uniqueness inherent to each of the individual settlements. They’re all different! But these aren’t the slight Blaeu-like approach with subtle variations. Donia rendered individual buildings which allowed each city to feel unique and purposeful.
[image error]
If you’re looking for flora, you’ll want to go elsewhere. This is a set focused on human constructions—cities, towns, castles, churches, towers, fort, even a fountain! It’s not as extensive as some sets, just a little over a hundred brushes. But, it will play well with any other flora-focused brush set so don’t be afraid to mix and match it’s your fantasy world! Do what feels right.
Within Donia, you’ll discover:
33 Cities
20 Churches
2 Fancy Villas
7 Forts
10 Towers
9 Unique Settlement Brushes
20 Mountains
10 Mountain Ranges
12 Cartouches
The button below links to a ZIP file that contains a Photoshop brush set (it’ll work in GIMP as well) and a transparent PNG in case you’re using a program that doesn’t support Adobe brush files. Click here to view the PNG in your browser. Heads up: it’ll come up black and look broken if viewed in Chrome, but trust me, they’re all there.
Version 1.1 Update: Minor change in the description to be more accurate—from “Cartography” to “Settlement” want to make sure people realize this set is primarily focused on cities, towns, towers, churches, castles, etc. If you have v1.0 be aware there is no change to the content. (I do concede, the included mountains are pretty cool.)
As with all of my brush sets, Donia is free for any use and is distributed with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License that means you can freely use it in commercial work and distribute adaptations. While attribution is a part of the license, I personally don’t care. All I did was convert these into modern brushes, Francesco Donia did all the real work—so if you need to give someone credit, give it to him. (That said, it’s absolutely not necessary.)
Enjoy Donia!
Feel free to show me what you created by sending me an email or finding me on Twitter. I love seeing how these brushes get used, and I’d be happy to share your work with my readers.
Donia: A Free 17th Century Cartography Brush Set for Fantasy Maps
“Uniqueness” is the primary quality I look for when searching for source material for brush sets. As a rule, cartographers tend to gravitate toward standardization—and for a good reason, familiar signs and symbols allow for easier comprehension. While the uniformity we see today took centuries to homogenize, along the way we got some incredible deviations.
Today’s set highlights one of those departures, and it makes for a fine brush set that would serve any fantasy map well. Taken from 1686’s Isola di Malta etched by Francesco Donia who detailed the cities, towns, churches, and fortifications of the nation of Malta. I particularly like how Donia rendered the uniqueness inherent to each of the individual settlements. They’re all different! But these aren’t the slight Blaeu-like approach with subtle variations. Donia rendered individual buildings which allowed each city to feel unique and purposeful.
[image error]
If you’re looking for flora, you’ll want to go elsewhere. This is a set focused on human constructions—cities, towns, castles, churches, towers, fort, even a fountain! It’s not as extensive as some sets, just a little over a hundred brushes. But, it will play well with any other flora-focused brush set so don’t be afraid to mix and match it’s your fantasy world! Do what feels right.
Within Donia, you’ll discover:
33 Cities
20 Churches
2 Fancy Villas
7 Forts
10 Towers
9 Unique Settlement Brushes
20 Mountains
10 Mountain Ranges
12 Cartouches
The button below links to a ZIP file that contains a Photoshop brush set (it’ll work in GIMP as well) and a transparent PNG in case you’re using a program that doesn’t support Adobe brush files. Click here to view the PNG in your browser. Heads up: it’ll come up black and look broken if viewed in Chrome, but trust me, they’re all there.
As with all of my brush sets, Donia is free for any use and is distributed with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License that means you can freely use it in commercial work and distribute adaptations. While attribution is a part of the license, I personally don’t care. All I did was convert these into modern brushes, Francesco Donia did all the real work—so if you need to give someone credit, give it to him. (That said, it’s absolutely not necessary.)
Enjoy Donia!
Feel free to show me what you created by sending me an email or finding me on Twitter. I love seeing how these brushes get used, and I’d be happy to share your work with my readers.
