David Lee Summers's Blog, page 57

Revisiting Das Boot

I grew up knowing I had ancestors who came from Germany. What’s more, my uncle married a German woman. I wanted to be a scientist and I knew about a number of German scientists such as Kepler, Einstein, and Heisenberg just to name a few. So when it came to pick a language from my limited high school offerings, I chose German. My high school only offered two years of the language, so when I exhausted those, I was encouraged to take classes at Cal State San Bernardino. During this time, one of the...

Fun with Text-to-Speech

This week, my wife and I have been proofreading the Hadrosaur Productions editions of The Astronomer’s Crypt and Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order Vampires before these books are uploaded as ebooks and sent to the print vendor. Last week, my wife presented me with the code to upgrade Microsoft Office on my desktop computer. I upgraded the edition and began to look through the menus, making sure I knew where familiar features were located. Fortunately not much has changed, but I did ac...

Celebration in Isolation

In my post one week ago, I mentioned that my family was celebrating numerous anniversaries and milestones. It should come as no surprise that these celebrations had to be adjusted in the wake of restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, we did our best to mark the occasions in a suitable fashion.

Before I continue, I note that as I write this, the death toll from COVID-19 approaches 100,000 in the United States. I’m very sorry for those who have lost loved ones at this difficult t...

Dragon’s Fall – 2nd Edition Cover Reveal

As with The Astronomer’s Crypt, the rights to my vampire novels, Dragon’s Fall and Vampires of the Scarlet Order revert to me next month. I’ve been working hard this month to re-edit and re-format all of these books so I can launch them as soon as possible after the rights formally revert to me. My vampire novels are older than The Astronomer’s Crypt, so they required a bit more editing. The most challenging part about Dragon’s Fall was that it was originally intended to be released as a series ...

Anniversaries and Milestones

May 2020 is a month of numerous milestones and anniversaries for me. Today, May 19, I celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of my marriage to Kumie Wise. I’ve dedicated two of my novels to her. The first is The Pirates of Sufiro which celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary this year and the second is Vampires of the Scarlet Order which celebrates its fifteenth anniversary this month. To commemorate both our anniversary and the anniversary of Vampires of the Scarlet Order, the dedication of wh...

The Astronomer’s Crypt – 2nd Edition Cover Reveal

Next month, the rights to my novel, The Astronomers Crypt, revert to me. One of my jobs this month has been preparing a new edition so its ready to launch as soon as Im clear to do so. Overall, I was happy with the novels first edition and my updated edit has changed very little. I caught a handful of typos that were missed the first time. Im not sure I believe its possible for a truly typo-free book to exist. Also, the editorial process on any book is a discussion between the writer and the...

Tombstone Rashomon

Ive been waiting for the DVD release of Tombstone Rashomon ever since I first heard about the movie, which was during its production. The movie stars my friend Eric Schumacher as Doc Holliday. Its directed by Alex Cox, who directed Repo Man and Sid and Nancy, and tells the story of the infamous gunfight outside Tombstones OK Corral from the perspective of several of the participants in a style similar to Akira Kurosawas classic film Rashomon.

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The gunfight at OK Corral is a tale worthy of a ...

Return to Penny Dreadful

In my post looking at the vampires who appeared in the first season of Showtimes Penny Dreadful, I mentioned that I had started the second season. Ive finished the season, which overall, I enjoyed more than the first.

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Our heroes, Vanessa Ives, Ethan Chandler, Sir Malcolm Murray, Sembene, and Dr. Victor Frankenstein, are all back. This time our villains prove not to be vampires but a coven of witches. Whats more, these witches, called nightcomers in the Penny Dreadful mythos, are servants of...

Star Trek: Picard

For staying at home during a pandemic, I feel like Ive been extremely busy the last six weeks. Some of this has been from documentation work that Ive discussed here. Some has been because rights to three of my novels revert to me at the end of this month and Im working to get new editions ready to go when the reversion takes effect. This past Friday, the Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association invited to me to speak to them via Zoom about Kitt Peaks DESI project. The upshot is that I havent had...

Interviewed by Greg Ballan

In my last post, I shared an interview I conducted with Hadrosaur Productions author Greg Ballan. During that same conversation, we turned the tables and he interviewed me. We discussed my writing along with the history and future of Hadrosaur Productions. The first book of mine he read was Heirs of the New Earth. In the current scheme of my series, its the fourth novel of my Space Pirates Legacy series. He jumped right in at the end, but still seemed to enjoy the read.

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As with my last...