Marty Halpern's Blog, page 18

Book Received: Tarzan in Kentucky: Poems by Judith Moffett

Okay, I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a poetry kind of guy. But Tarzan in Kentucky really isn't poetry...well, actually, it is poetry but not what I typically think of as poetry, if that makes any sense.
I know Judith Moffett as a science fiction writer. We worked together in 2014 to turn her Hugo and Nebula award-nominated story, "Tiny Tango," into a Kindle ebook, which I detailed in a four-part series of blog posts.
But Judith (though she prefers "Judy") isn't your typical science fiction writer: She has received three Ingram Merrill Foundation grants in poetry, in 1976, 1980, and 1991. In 1998, she presented at the Nobel Symposium on Translation of Poetry and Poetic Prose, and, most recently (2015), she presented at the James Merrill Symposium, held at Washington University in St. Louis. Like I said, not your typical sf writer.
But getting back to Tarzan in Kentucky, from publisher David Robert Books: The cover photograph (taken by the author herself) is of Judy's farm in Kentucky, and from other pics I've seen, it really is that beautiful and lush. And obviously the ideal setting for writing.
But like I said, I'm not a poetry kind of guy, so I'm going to leave you with an excerpt of a review by Meredith Sue Willis on her Books for Readers blog; but do read the complete review:

Tarzan in Kentucky: Poems by Judith Moffett is a chewy, sinuous collection of poems by a living poet who went many years without writing poetry, but is—to our great benefit—writing again. Called "An effortless" virtuoso by James Merrill and "among the most accomplished of her generation" by Daniel Hoffman, Moffett writes brilliantly lucid everyday language contained—and freed—by tight forms like tercets and sonnets. You only notice the form if you are looking—you feel the emotion, see the picture, hear the voice and the story. The forms are certainly there, though, giving her poems a musculature that makes much of the free verse we are used to seem flaccid.
...a number of [the poems] are about her farm, and there is a long section called "Grief" in which she writes about the aftermath of her husband's death. The poet speaks to herself in one called "Broken Couplet":

Solutions, none. No cures.This task alone is yours:
to make each day a questfor getting through it best
when "best" cannot mean "well..."

You feel here what rhyme is about: an arbitrary way of linking things that then makes meaning of what started out as arbitrary.

Tarzan in Kentucky: Poems is available in print form only from your bookstore of choice...even if, like me, you're not a poetry kind of person.

Book Received: Courtney Schafer's The Labyrinth of Flame

I wrote about my work on The Labyrinth of Flame  -- Book III in the Shattered Sigil Trilogy by Courtney Schafer -- in my November 10, 2015, blog post.
The Labyrinth of Flame is the product of a fully funded Kickstarter (284% funded, actually) -- and when I wrote that blog post in November, Kickstarter contributors had already received their maps and ebook edition of the novel. In fact, the ebook edition is available for purchase at this time.
And now, as I write this, all Kickstarter contributors have received their signed trade paperback print edition of the novel as well. (And I've received my signed copy of the book, too!)
Ms. Schafer is currently working on a distribution agreement with Thomson-Shore, and once that is finalized, readers will hopefully be able to order the print edition. As soon as the book becomes available, I'll post an update on More Red Ink -- but in the meantime, whatever process you use to make notes to yourself: Evernote, OneNote, Keep, Pocket, or even the old-fashioned handwritten Post-It note, make a note to read The Labyrinth of Flame. Correction: make a note to read the entire Shattered Sigil Trilogy!
As you may, or may not, know, the first two volumes of the trilogy -- The Whitefire Crossing and The Tainted City -- were originally published by Night Shade Books. Upon the publisher's demise, and sale, Courtney Schafer decided to self-publish volume three via Kickstarter. Fortunately, the author knows her readers, her audience, and how finicky we book collectors can be. (To paraphrase Ross E. Lockhart from his Facebook post:) Production-wise, Ms. Schafer did the literary equivalent of getting the old band back together: cover artist David Palumbo, cover designer Martha Wade, and Ross E. Lockhart on interior design. So even though the book was self-published, book three perfectly matches the previous two volumes in the series. Readers and fans of Courtney Schafer will not be disappointed in the quality -- both in design and content editing -- of this final volume in the series.
Bibliotropic has a lengthy review of The Labyrinth of Flame, and here's the conclusion to that review (but please do read the review in its entirety):

...the ending of The Labyrinth of Flame is quite possibly the most satisfying ending to a series I've ever read. It ties up everything wonderfully, leaves room for the future, and left me with flailing around like an idiot over what happens to the people I ship. Seriously, I don’t think there's any possible better way for this book and this series to have ended. It closed on a high note, filled with hope and optimism even for difficult tasks ahead, and I'm going to be honest with you all — I actually just went and reread the last chapter again while writing this, because I love the ending that much. It left me with the first book hangover I've ever experienced, and despite having just reread the first two books in the series in preparation for reading this one, all I wanted to do when it was over was pick up The Whitefire Crossing and start over, so that I didn't have to leave the world and characters behind.
Fantasy just doesn't get much better than this!~Ria, Bibliotropic

Stephen King's On Writing

"If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered."
~ Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

(via @Chiara_Micheli)

Barbara J. Webb's Apocrypha: The Dying World Series

Two years ago (and it's hard to believe that much time has passed already!) I was working on a manuscript for City of Burning Shadows , book one in a new series from author Barbara J. Webb.
Ms. Webb is among a growing number of savvy, professional, self-published writers who understand that to have a successful career in self-publishing one must invest in professional editing: developmental editing, line and copy editing, and final proof editing.
I'm now reading the mobi edition of City of Burning Shadows to refresh in my mind the story line and characters in preparation for my next project, which will be book two in this series: What Dreams Shadows Cast. I will begin work on this manuscript in January.
You can read my previous blog posts on City of Burning Shadows, but what would be even more revealing would be Ms. Webb's recent guest blog post on Bibliotropic in which she wrote:

I wanted to write about hulking lizard warriors. And bird-people. And people so made of magic that they don't have a true shape. I couldn't do that in the real world. So I built a city—a dying city in the desert—and into that city I placed a hero.
Ash is bruised and broken. He's lost his family, his faith, his purpose. He's watching his world collapse around him and feels powerless to stop it. But when he's faced with an old friend in need and a new friend who holds the key to saving Ash's dying city, he can't turn away. That one act of humanity drags him into a world of lies and plots and monsters he never imagined.
A secret world.

If you've read this far then you are most likely a reader of fantasy fiction, and urban fantasy in particular -- so I wanted to make sure that you were aware of "The Great Self-published Fantasy Blog-off!" hosted by author Mark Lawrence (@mark__lawrence [2 underscores!]).
Let's see if I can sum up: Mark published a blog post on self-promotion that was so well-received that he decided to take the self-promotion one step further: a self-published blogger challenge.
Mark asked for volunteers from the well-respected book-reviewing blogger community. He then asked writers to submit their self-published fantasy novels. He selected 10 bloggers and 250 fantasy novels. Each blogger was randomly assigned 25 novels. From those 25 novels, each blogger selected the best novel. So he now had 10 bloggers and 10 novels.
Then each blogger had to read and rate each of the 10 novels. When all was said and done, the novel that came in first place would then be reviewed by all 10 bloggers (aka free publicity, free promotion). The readings and ratings are still ongoing, and can be tracked here. The deadline for reading and rating the 10 novels is March 1, 2016.
So, why am I telling you this? First, if you enjoy reading excellent quality self-published fantasy, Mark's list would be a great place to start. And second, one of the 10 finalist novels is Barbara J. Webb's City of Burning Shadows.
In fact, if I understand correctly, a story bundle of the 10 finalist novels will also be made available in March. So you'll want to stay connected to Mark's blogger challenge in order to take advantage of that offer.

And Now for Something Completely Different: Vinyl

I'm listening to Eric Clapton's recent Royal Albert Hall performance, Slowhand at 70 , on 180gram vinyl, a 3 LP set, in fact, plus a bonus DVD.[1]
It's an early Christmas gift from my wife because she wanted one of her gifts early: a book entitled Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day -- so that she has some new bread recipes for the holidays. And I'm not one to argue -- I get new tunes and fresh-baked bread for the holidays!
Apparently my wife had shopped for some new vinyl for me during a recent visit to Barnes & Noble's.[2] After the fact she told me that every album she looked at seemed familiar; she was worried that I already had the album on vinyl (the original vinyl release) or on CD. I told her that I had been eyeing the new Eric Clapton album, Slowhand at 70. She said that she saw it at B&N but didn't want to buy it because she thought I would feel bad, being reminded that EC was 70 years old. I had to laugh at that, even though I understood what she was saying; as for me, I told her that it doesn't matter how old he is if he can make music like this (I had already heard the song "Cocaine" online from the concert). So, we ordered the album, and here we are....


Why vinyl? I have a classic Concept 2QD turntable[3] that had been in storage (in its original box!) for a dozen or so years, along with a couple hundred vinyl LPs. Recently I pulled everything out of storage, but discovered that the turntable's tone arm was frozen and wouldn't move (over time the lubricant had dried and hardened). Say hello to SerTech Electronics of San Jose, one of only three audio repair services in the entire Bay Area. They have a three-week backlog of work, but be patient as they do good work at a reasonable rate. So about four weeks after leaving my 2QD with them, I had a working turntable. I also installed a new Shure M97xE Cartridge; a new diamond stylus on a turntable that's been in storage is a must.


My next step was to catalog my vinyl collection, so I set up an account on Discogs.com. Once my collection was keyed in I was able to sort by date: the last album I purchased was Bruce Springsteen and The E-Street Band's Live/1975-85 5-LP box set, which was released in 1986. Nearly thirty years since I last bought an LP![4] Time to update my collection.
The first album (read: LP) I purchased was Freedom: Live at the Atlanta Pop Festival -- The Jimi Hendrix Experience's July 4, 1970, performance; his final U.S. performance as it turned out -- a 2-LP, 200gram vinyl, set. It's one of many albums I play when the wife is out of the house as, sadly, she's not too fond of Hendrix (or Frank Zappa/Mothers of Invention, or anything loud & noisy; but then again, maybe it's not the music, per se, but rather the volume I play it at...ya think?).
And, finally, just one more new LP that I bought myself for Christmas: Miles Davis's classic Kind of Blue on 180gram vinyl.
An interesting story about this album, if you'll bear with me: Growing up I idolized my uncle, my father's youngest brother. He drove a 1957 Black T-bird convertible with a red interior; traveled around the world (literally: Africa, Antigua, Europe, Bermuda, Australia, working for the NASA space program), and owned the apartment building in which he lived (though he told me to never tell any of the tenants that he was the owner!), walking distance from Santa Monica beach. As I got older I would hang at his apartment building on occasion, and when he went out of town in the summertime he would let me stay there, and I would walk to the beach every day. But no matter when I visited, he was always playing Miles Davis on the turntable. I believe his favorite title was Bitches Brew, but I was partial to Kind of Blue. So in memory of my Uncle Herb....

---------------Footnotes:
[1] I've also converted the concert DVD to an audio mp3 file, which I can play on my tablet or phone, or via wireless to my surround system. To convert a DVD to mp3 the disc must first be converted to an mp4 video file, and then from mp4 to mp3. And the bonus, of course, is the mp4 vid file, which can also be played anywhere as well. To do this conversion, you'll need to install three free software apps (I'm talking Windows; Mac people are on their own): DVD Encrypter and Handbrake (for DVD to mp4), and VLC Media Player (for mp4 to mp3). And if you want to modify the mp3 file in any way, you'll need to add a fourth free application: Audacity.
[2] B&N has vinyl? Who woulda guessed? I haven't been to a B&N store in ages. So I checked out their website, searched for vinyl, and was impressed -- I mean impressed -- as there were dozens of titles.
[3] The 2QD photos are courtesy of diybuy.net. These photos are much better than any I could have taken of my own identical 2QD. In fact, in addition to these two photos, someone has posted a complete teardown of the 2QD.
[4] As I said, my last LP was purchased in 1986. At this point in time, LPs were hard to come by as the recording industry was moving exclusively to the compact disc. As a vinyl freak, I fought the good fight against CDs, but finally, on July 13, 1990, I broke down and purchased a Denon 6-disc changer at The Good Guys in San Jose. Unfortunately, The Good Guys (the great store that it was) has long since left this mortal earth, as has that Denon player. How do I remember the date, you may wonder? Because right after purchasing that CD player, I also purchased my first 6 CDs -- and I still have the receipt as proof:


Remember the Wherehouse stores? Remember Tower Records? Sigh.... Anyhow, in case these six CD titles are unknown to you -- and also because there are albums by other artists with the same title -- here's the performers of these 6 CDs, in order: Madonna, Bruce Hornsby & The Range, Santana, Phil Collins, Santana (again), and John Cougar Mellancamp. Why these titles? You should have asked me twenty-five years ago -- maybe then I could have told you!

A Writer's Life

(via @Chiara_Micheli)

Frank Zappa

This was Matt Groening's Life in Hell tribute to Frank Zappa, published on December 17, 1993, thirteen days after FZ passed away from prostate cancer.
FZ was born, and died, in the month of December: December 21, 1940–December 4, 1993. He would have been 75 years old this month. We can only imagine (actually, knowing Zappa, we probably can't imagine!) what musical creations he would have bestowed upon us had he lived a full, and healthy, life.
Here's one from the vinyl collection:


And one from the CD collection:

The 6-volume CD (12 discs) Wooden Box Set


Suzy? Suzy Creamcheese?

Editing in Process: Central Station by Lavie Tidhar

In my previous blog post, in which I congratulated Tachyon Publications on their 20th anniversary -- "Still saving the world one good book at a time" -- I mentioned that I had just submitted my seventy-fifth invoice to the publisher. That invoice was for work done on Lavie Tidhar's novel Central Station .
Lavie Tidhar is an Israeli-born writer, who currently resides in London. He won the 2012 World Fantasy Award for best novel for Osama , over Stephen King's 11/22/63 and George R. R. Martin's A Dance with Dragons, among others.
But about Central Station, Tel Aviv:

In North Tel Aviv the Jews lived in their skyrises, and in Jaffa to the South the Arabs had reclaimed their old land by the sea. Here, in between, there were still those people of the land they had called variously Palestine or Israel and whose ancestors had come there as labourers from around the world, from the islands of the Philippines, and from the Sudan, from Nigeria, and from Thailand or China, whose children were born there, and their children’s children, speaking Hebrew and Arabic and Asteroid Pidgin, that near universal language of space.

Central Station delivers a complex, idiosyncratic story, with multiple story lines and multiple points of view: robo-priests, strigoi (data-vampires), robotniks (cyborg ex-Israeli soldiers), enhanced humans, revolutionaries, space colonies -- and weaving through it all, flows the Conversation, the stream of consciousness that connects everyone and everything.

Here's more from the novel:

Strigoi.The word rose like a bubble in her paralysed mind. She was losing the memories, losing her own self, awash in the joy, the unbearable pleasure of the woman’s touch, that current of electricity in the brain as her node was raided, her data sucked away by this...thing that had an ancient, terrible name, a word she once heard her sister use, and her mother shushed her angrily—

Central Station is available for preorder from Central Station ">Amazon and other booksellers.


---------------

I just have to add, for those that may care, that I wrote this blog post while listening to the new 2-CD set Bluenote Café , Performance Series Disc 11 from Neil Young's Archives.

Tachyon Publications Celebrates Its 20th Anniversary

My very first invoice for work done for Tachyon Publications is dated February 19, 2002. In another three months -- and hopefully the publisher will still be sending work to me at that time -- I will have worked for Tachyon Publications for fourteen years. That's a lot of time with one publisher. How many editors out there can say they have done freelance work for the same employer for fourteen (or more) years? How many freelance editors have even had a publisher survive fourteen (or more) years?
My last invoice was number 75, and hopefully I'll be blogging about that project (Lavie Tidhar's Central Station) next. Not all of these 75 invoices were for books, though most were. A few were just for front or back matter that showed up a few weeks after I had completed work on the actual book. One of these days, I'll have to consider a blog post in which I list all the Tachyon projects that I have worked on. There are quite a few award winners among those!
So Tachyon Publications is celebrating its 20th Anniversary this year. And they did so marvelously with a party this past Sunday, November 15, at the Park Branch of the San Francisco Public Library. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend (granddaughter babysitting responsibilities), so I wanted to express my congratulations in this manner -- since I was unable to do so in person -- with a blog post.

And what's an anniversary party without a cake! Believe it or not, pictured above is the 20th Anniversary cake: the Tachyon Publications logo -- the rhino at the typewriter. This cake was courtesy of Effie Seiberg, who tweeted and posted to Google+ each step of the baking process. Just for the record, this was a confetti cake, frosted with orange-tinted almond-flavored buttercream, covered in fondant. And, to quote Ms. Seiberg: "Parts of it are painted with a combo of edible luster dust + vodka. The vodka is to dissolve the luster dust to make it a liquid paint (and thus a stronger color than when it's a powder) and because it evaporates faster than water, which would make everything sticky."
I asked Effie if she saved me a piece of cake, but, sadly, it doesn't appear likely. I hope you made it to the Tachyon party and were able to snag a piece of this scrumptious-looking guilty pleasure.
And in addition to the cake, everyone who attended the party received a complimentary chapbook: Charlie Jane Anders's Six Months, Three Days, a Hugo Award-winning novelette. (And Ms. Anders was in attendance at the party as well!)

If you haven't purchased at least one of Tachyon's publications recently -- print or ebook -- well, what are you waiting for? Daryl Gregory's We Are All Completely Fine won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novella just about two weeks ago.

Vive la France!