David Lee Summers's Blog, page 5

Sylvie and Bruno

A recent writing project has sent me delving into the works of Lewis Carroll. Before this, pretty much what I knew about Lewis Carroll was that he wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, and The Hunting of the Snark. I also knew that he was a mathematician. What’s more, his love of wordplay, puzzles, and social commentary come through in his writing. However, I had never read his two Sylvie and Bruno novels published in 1889 and 1893 respectively.

Effectively the...

Drifting Dragons

Last month, I shared a post discussing stories about airship crews who hunt dragons. As I noted, my story “The Slayers,” which was published in the September 2001 issue of Realms of Fantasy, was an early example. In fact, it’s possible it’s the first such story published. That was followed by a sequel story called “The Dragon’s Keepers” which first appeared in a 2004 issue of The Writer’s Post Journal. The first story was essentially Moby-Dick retold with dragons and airships. The second story i...

Anniversary and Astronomy

Yesterday, my wife and I had our 35th wedding anniversary. Ten days before that, on May 9, I had been invited to give a presentation about Kitt Peak’s role in exoplanet searches to the Huachuca Astronomy Club in Sierra Vista, Arizona. We took advantage of the timing for the presentation to make an early getaway for our anniversary. Sierra Vista is in Cochise County, not far away from the historic copper-mining town, Bisbee, which my wife and I have enjoyed visiting numerous times. In fact, when ...

White as Snow

Back in college, I took a class in German literature and one of our assignments was to translate the fairy tale “Snow White” as told by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm from German to English. Up until that point, like many people, I mostly knew the story of Snow White from the Disney film. Doing the exercise in class, I learned that the Grimm’s version of the story was much darker and more nuanced than I’d experienced on the screen. That exercise was the start of a long fascination with fairy tales. Sev...

The Tusks of Extinction

Last September, my daughter attended a geology conference in California. When we picked her up, we went to see the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. Among the fossils found at the tar pits were mammoth skeletons and there are some impressive displays in the museum there. While touring the site, I found myself wondering what it would be like to share the world with these awesome elephant-like creatures. In his novella, The Tusks of Extinction, Ray Nayler does just that.

Set around a century ...

The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain

While I was growing up, my parents, grandparents, and their siblings were employed as miners, farmers, and railroad workers and I was among the first generation of my family to attend university. Although I work at an observatory in telescope operations, I have never strayed far from academia. In fact, many of the people I work with are university professors. Because of that, I found myself drawn to Sofia Samatar’s novella The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain.

Samatar imagines a societ...

John Carter Warlord of Mars

Given the action and adventure of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars series, it should come as no surprise that it has inspired numerous comic book series over the years. Some of these series have retold adventures from the novels. Others have been original stories. Some have focused on some of the other characters in the series. Princess Dejah Thoris has a few series devoted to her adventures both before and after John Carter’s arrival on Mars. After recently completing the novel series,...

Talking to Ghosts

I’m a skeptic when it comes to paranormal phenomena. I have never met a ghost, a cryptid or an alien for certain and the existence of such things would be remarkable enough that I want to see irrefutable proof before I believe in their existence. That said, I have had some uncanny encounters that could be ghosts. Most are likely just psychological, such as standing in a darkened hallway and having the sense that something was standing behind me or passed beside me. One, I describe in detail on m...

Remembering Laura Givens

On April 23, I was saddened to learn that my friend Laura Givens left this mortal realm. If you’ve read this blog for very long, seen me at conventions, or read my books, you know Laura Givens’ work. She designed most of the book covers for my press, Hadrosaur Productions, and she also designed covers for Lachesis Publishing, Hiraeth Publishing, and Ring of Fire Publishing among others. She’s designed covers for such authors as S.M. Stirling, Carrie Vaughn, David Gerrold, Connie Willis, Philip J...

Undead Murder Farce

I recently subscribed to the anime streaming service Crunchyroll so I could catch the latest episodes of Space Battleship Yamato which are appearing on the service soon after their release in Japan. While waiting for the next block of episodes to drop, I was searching for a new anime series to watch. I enjoy learning more about history and folklore, so I searched for anime series that dealt with that. I have also enjoyed how anime has tackled steampunk themes and I searched for some new steampun...