R.A. McCandless's Blog, page 40

Admonished by a Young Man

Put me in coach!My oldest is nearly 9 going on Surly.
The upside is that he’s damn cute, and mostly reasonable.  He’s always had an adult streak of caution and perspective that runs a good 1.61 kilometers wide.  He can be stubborn, from time to time, and I have no idea where he gets that.
Possibly his mother?
Yesterday, as we were swimming at a friend’s pool, he growled at me, “Do you want to know why I’m mad at you?”
Apparently, I hadn’t recognized that he was mad, so he felt the need...

Flame On!

Shouldn't we have shields?Incendiaries were a thing, and they took a lot of different forms, but fire arrows were not as much as TV/Hollywood and Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves would like us to think.  Sun Tzu has an entire chapter (chapter 12 to be exact) devoted to attacking with fire in The Art of War, but very little of it talks about fire arrows, and none of it to fire arrows in open battle.  You might use fire arrows during a siege or in a similar engagement to...

Gender/Racial Swaps—So What?

It really is based on Casablanca.  No.  Really.Ironman is now a woman.
Should everyone be up in arms about this?
Not really.
The comics industry isn’t adjusting to fit in with “progressive” times—whatever that is meant to mean. There isn’t some agenda-toting cabal going around telling the artists and the writers that they have to adapt. There is a long, long, really long tradition of riffing and stealing the stories of other artists and cultures, and then using them as a vehicle to tel...

Sure, All Lives Matter, But . . .

This sums things up better than I ever could.  Your arguments to the contrary are certainly welcome.

All Your Base

Are Belong to Us

Arms and Armor - A Quick Primer

Armor is a must for any fantasy writer.  If you’re gonna have swords and arrows and other sharp, pointy objects aimed at your characters, it pretty much goes without saying that you’re gonna want some armor to fend them off!  Of course, you don’t want too much fending off.  If your fantasy book doesn’t bleed, or at least produce a little ichor from icky, dark creatures beyond the ken of men and elves, what’s the point?
No, really?
But which armor to go with?  Well, if you’re...

Samurai and the Sphinx

All we need now are ninja!There’s a story behind every photograph, but some photos, and the story behind them, are simply fascinating.  Take this Samurai posting by the Sphinx from Wikipedia:
The Second Japanese Embassy to Europe, also called the Ikeda Mission, was sent on December 29, 1863 by the Tokugawa shogunate. The head of the mission was Ikeda Nagaoki, governor of small villages of Ibara, Bitchū Province (Okayama Prefecture). The assistant head of the mission was Kawazu Sukekuni.
Th...

Armada by Ernest Cline - A Review

Greetings Starfighter!Earnest Cline’s stock in trade is his geek cred and nerd-dom.  He’s a card carrying member of everything dork-worthy and pop-culture related from the late 70s science fiction/fantasy/gaming era forward.  In his debut novel, “Ready Player One”, this DeLorean-driving master wove together that tapestry of geek-chic trivia, first-hand experience and scifi speculation to create a wonderful bit of wish fulfillment.  With “Armada”, Cline dips back into that well,...

Secret Project—Revealed

Lengthen your stride and quicken your pace!I can’t even tell you have excited I am.  Last week, I announced a “secret project” with really wasn’t that much of a secret if you paid attention.  But for those who are new, I set out to build a replacement of the bookmark I lost.  The idea came to me after I finished working on my son’s storybook.  For that, I’d taken to Fiverr.com and found an artist whose work was in line with what I was trying to create.  I had a wonder...

A Victorian Birthday and Mementos Mori—Guest Blog from Ash Krafton

The Victorian Era is steeped in traditions. Anything that flew in the face of tradition was shunned, cursed, and outcast. Tradition provided vital foundation, the legs upon which society stood.  Traditions embellished every moment in life. One such tradition was the celebration of birthdays. Considering this month marks the book birthday for THE HEARTBEAT THIEF, you might expect a post on birthdays. Right? Anecdotes about parties and pastries and pretty ribbons and……no. Just—no.On one ha...