review revue

Spy Game Weekend

It was a tremendously restorative weekend. Big changes are afoot for me professionally, and I got the revisions for Gamble out the door Friday afternoon so there was not much to do but wait, and read. While the former is not my favourite, the latter most definitely is. I polished off two Trevanians (Eiger Sanction and Loo Sanction), and decided that while I was there I might as well try some Ian Fleming, which oddly enough I never had. Casino Royale was thus sampled and finished.

It scratched a definite itch. All three bore deep imprints of a certain type of “men’s fiction” (usually from the late 70s-early 80s, but with some exceptions), so occupied with proving “manliness” and “intellectual superiority” the emotional stuntedness of the protagonists is almost ignored save for when a bit of bathos is thought advisable. (Hemlock’s pretensions made me nearly scream with mirth.) Honestly they reminded me of nothing so much as early Clive Cussler novels or a certain type of Western–though I’m not saying that as an insult, I read Cussler like candy growing up since those books were of the few allowed upon the single small bookshelf my adult caregivers thought showed them to be both daring and reasonably well-educated. (There were more books hidden under my mattress than on that particular piece of shelving, but I digress.) They also reminded me, tonally, of MacDonald’s Travis McGee series.

There’s a great deal of misogyny marinating that style of book, but if I waited for misogyny- and fridging-free reads…well, we all know it. It’s tiring; I roll my eyes and move on.

The thing I think saves the genre’s better offerings is the fact that the protagonists are always, without exception, shown to be emotionally stunted and deeply unhappy. I can see why Eastwood wanted to make Eiger into a film, and I think Daniel Craig’s Bond is far more in the style of book-Bond than any other. The urbane wit and suspense is covering up complete paucity in other areas, and Craig really leaned into that. (Some honor must also go to the script, I’m sure.) And I’m forced now to grin ruefully and shake my head at the boys (and even adult men) who breathlessly informed me that Dirk Pitt or Jonathan Hemlock or James Bond or McGee (or or or) were their heroes. (Or role models, which is both pitiable and risible at once.)

I do wonder if the reveal was conscious on the writers’ part.

I could’ve pressed onward with Fleming, but I think the itch is gone. Instead I cracked Fernando Pessoa’s Book of Disquiet, which is giving me a certain type of existential feeling. It reminds me of Anais Nin’s diaries, actually; the feel in my head is largely the same with a few outcroppings of different stone to hold. I’m also trying a gothic that is giving me a bit of trouble; I am told it loosens up in the second third but am unsure if I’m gonna make it that far.

This week is full of meetings, plus starting on Chained Knight revisions. I will be forced to be social all the way through Friday, which will bleed off working energy but cannot be helped. I’ve scheduled a lot of administrivia, which can be handled even when I’m exhausted. Silver linings, and all that.

I do wonder why the Muse wanted those particular spy thrillers thrown into the creative mill. It’s interesting grist; we’ll see if anything happens with it. And now a certain Boxnoggin wishes I’d stop muttering while staring at the glowing box, for he has real action to commit upon the pavement of our fair neighbourhood.

Off I go.

Moss and Blossom

Clinging to helping hands.

The weather’s been good for both moss and blossom, which doesn’t often happen ’round these parts. Of course, what with climate change it’ll get more usual.

Yesterday was Movie Night, so the kids and I watched Glass Onion. Benoit Blanc saying, “I’m bad at dumb things,” is going to live in my head rent-free evermore. We had fun all the way through–the Princess had watched it before, so she was busy looking for details, while the Prince was snort-laughing at the savagely funny portrayals of rich folk. The only problem with the movie is that it had to tone down just how bizarre millionaires/billionaires actually are, since fiction must make sense and reality is under no such constraints.

It’s been a week of small victories and some frustrations. I’m trying to take the former while breathing through the latter; the eclipse seems to have jolted some things into place. There’s a busy weekend ahead of me–I want to get to a specific place in the serial before shifting to revise a couple books, and the garage could use a bit of spring cleaning. It’s always something.

See you next week.

Barrel of Literary Carrots

The rains have moved back in, or at least the clouds. This pleases me. I was reading yesterday about theories that the sun is conscious and while that makes as much sense as anything else in the universe does, it also makes the big yellow ball fit the description of an Elder God and that’s hardly comforting. Of course the blessed thing powers all life on this whirling rock, so I suppose one can’t complain, but still…I prefer a bit of rain.

I’m in the middle of the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation novels, which The Untamed is based on, and enjoying them roundly. A collection of Haruki Murakami stories, a translation of the Tao Te Ching, and Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey have all been thoroughly enjoyed lately. That last was an Experience–I hadn’t read Odysseus’s adventures since middle school, and Wilson’s an extremely gifted translator.

I did want to smack Telemachus several times, though. Boy needs to keep his manners on while talking to his mother, fa cry-eye. Even Achilles was nicer to his mum.

I might need more Murakami, I can’t tell yet. I read him while in specific moods until the itch is scratched, like listening to Jandek. Then I’m fine for a while, but at certain points I require another dose.

This is the part of book hangover (or snapback, as I call it) when I am irritated that recovery takes so goddamn long. No matter how much I pad out my estimation of time needed to re-wrap my nerves after a zero draft’s finish, it inevitably takes three times as much. It also requires a lot of “filling the well”, as Julia Cameron put it–giving the Muse and the rest of me enough grist for the creative mill. So I’ve been watching series and movies, and diving into the TBR like Bugs Bunny into a barrel of carrots. The massive effort to get a book out under significantly non-ideal circumstances does tell on one.

I mean, no circumstances are ever wholly ideal, but some are less ideal than others, to coin an Orwell-ism. I’m waiting for the swimming-relief phase instead of the merely exhausted-and-blinking bit. Boxnoggin likes that our daily rambles have become a bit slower, though I always let him sniff as long as he pleases at the usual spots. I’m just not moving very quickly otherwise.

However, work on the serial proceeds apace, as well as the short story collection, which has a cover now. (Long story short, the universe itself is conspiring to make me throw this collection out into public.) Other stuff will have to wait for an upcoming deadline; once that’s past I can engage in more and better planning. Of course Chained Knight and Gamble both need revising, and I should check in about Hell’s Acre again…

Ah, the reward for finishing a zero draft: more work. Still, I’m content to have it so. As long as there are more books to read–and to write–the gods can’t take me, right?

Right?

Morning, Chopped

We made appointments, answered questions, filled out all the paperwork online, got out the door Tuesday morning…and an officious Walgreens “pharmacy tech” refused our entire family the Covid vaccine we qualify for (since we haven’t been boosted since 2022). Which was upsetting in the extreme–I could not sleep the night after, heartsick and vexed. I’m hearing anecdotally that this is happening to a lot of eligible people, being refused lifesaving and disability-fighting vaccines by pharmacists using “religion” as an excuse or who seem genuinely unaware of CDC guidelines and best practices. It’s fucking maddening. Perhaps the reason vaccine uptake is “low” is because our public health infrastructure has completely failed, mostly due to business interests gutting it because they want the serf class–no matter how sick or disabled–back at the mill for exploiting.

Anyway, I’ve filed complaints and we’re making arrangements to go elsewhere. Plus, I’ll never step in another Walgreens again so long as I live. And that’s all I’ve to say about that, because most of what I’d add is unrepeatable blue words.

I don’t know how long it will last, but it looks like the Gallow & Ragged trilogy is discounted in ebook. (I wish I were alerted to these things more consistently.) The first volume, Trailer Park Fae, is $2.99 for Kindle–again, I don’t know for how long, but I thought I’d mention it.

I finished Emily Wilson’s translation of the Iliad and it was marvelous. She makes the Greek sing through the English and her notes are a delight. Next up is her Odyssey translation. I am smacking my lips in anticipation–after a moment spent with Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human, which I first read in a Junji Ito adaptation.

I was in bed this morning with the Dazai as Boxnoggin got his cuddles, and happened across a particular passage where the protagonist talks about how, when people say, “Society won’t stand for it…” what they really mean is “I won’t stand for it.” If someone says, “Society will ostracize you,” what they really mean is, “I will ostracize you.” The force of the passage, addressing a “you” since the book’s in first person, was like a thunderclap. I had to set the book down and think about things for a bit–which Boxnoggin adored since it meant chest-skritches, always a favorite after a long night spent snoring in comfort.

Of course the protagonist is a bit tiresome, but the feeling Dazai describes of being an imposter in one’s own life, of clowning to hold back the despair, of utter alienation beginning in childhood, is extremely familiar. I sought out the book after Ito’s adaptation because of that definite, echoing familiarity–nausea in the Sartre sense, I’d call it. I’ve the urge to watch Breathless afterward, just to see if the existentialist throughlines I’m seeing hold.

It’s good to have some bandwidth for reading again; not-reading is almost as uncomfortable as not-writing. For a short awful while I was so emotionally and physically exhausted by the struggle around a certain series I couldn’t manage more than a paragraph before passing out at night; thankfully, the commitment to protecting the work (and myself) in this Year of the Real is paying off by granting me a little breathing room. Funny how that works out, ennit–when one starts enforcing one’s boundaries, one finds out rather quickly who was taking one’s kindness for weakness, and one acquires far more energy to spend on one’s own affairs.

It’s been a chopped-up sort of morning, as you can see by the separators. I’m about to begin another push to get the Sekrit Projekt past the point of no return, where its own momentum will take it over the finish line…but it’s rough, and various other considerations might intrude. The month of April’s going to hit like a freight train, since I’m rather behind, what with so much time eaten up by health concerns and struggling to get That Particular Series born. At least the stress nausea (I’m detecting a theme, and a rather unpleasant one at that) is receding bit by bit.

It’s not the end of the battle, but I can see it from here. And that is a welcome development indeed, my friends. The relief is damn near depthless.

Whatever Flavour of Great

Roadtrip Z

Happy Monday! Cotton Crossing is $.99USD in ebook at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, and Kobo; the entire Roadtrip Z series is deeply discounted in ebook until 3/22. (Details and links are on the Monthly Sales page.) A little bit of madness in March, as they say, and She-Wolf and Cub is still a Kindle deal for the rest of the month as well.

The weekend was…productive, at least. Another couple short stories brushed up and formatted for the anthology, which is coalescing quite nicely, and I even got some serial wordcount in. I managed to detach and spend Sunday afternoon on the couch with Emily Wilson’s Iliad translation, which is absolutely wonderful. Greek is singing through her English, and it’s marvelous. I’m glad I held off on her Odyssey until I could finish this one, which won’t be long. I wish I could find something comparable for the Aeneid, but my Loeb will have to do.

In fact, I’d love to retreat to said couch with the last quarter of the Iliad, but there’s work to be done. I’ve got the protagonist of the Sekrit Projekt in a bit of a pickle, where they’ve been all weekend, and it’s time to get that sorted. I’d love to do a bit more of the serial today, since there’s about to be another knives-in-the-dark moment. I think it’s time for someone other than our favourite sellsword to get wounded, which will scare the stuffing out of her.

Always a good time.

The backyard is quiet; I am uncertain if Deathwish Bunny is the parent of the nest Boxnoggin found in one of the ferns. At first I thought he’d found a rabbit corpse, since it was before dawn and I was pre-caffeine; however, I glimpsed something moving in the depths after dragging his snoot from the hole and realized what was going on. The dog is quite upset that I won’t let him Be Great, for whatever flavour of “great” requires him attempting to eat newborn rodentia. The tender-hearted may rest assured that we’re keeping him away from the nest; if the kits are still in there, they have remained unmolested. I did notice that something or someone covered the hole back up, so I’m assuming Deathwish (or some other bunny) has attended to whatever’s going on inside. In another week or so I’ll check the hole again, hoping to find it vacant.

In the meantime, Boxnoggin will just have to suffer. He also got a bath this weekend since the weather was warm enough to permit him drying in rapid order. We make do with dry or damp-towel scrubs during the winter since he is slick-coated and suffers the shivers if he gets chilled, but climate change has given us a few very warm sunny days so we’ve made the best of it. Of course, he’s quite upset that his familiar stink is missing and doubly put out that I washed the comforter on my bed so he can’t regain said stink from it, but we all have our crosses to bear in these trying times.

…this post has turned into a Doge Report, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. He was an utter goofball this morning, requiring more than the usual cuddling and bellyrubs before deigning to let me get out of bed. Possibly he felt the dual inconvenience of bath and refusal to let him snack on bunny-nests necessitated a great deal of Speaking to the Manager, which would be me. Alas, he will remain unsatisfied upon both points, at least until he reeks of dog instead of the fancy anti-allergy oatmeal shampoo.

I’d better grab some toast and get going. The biggest decision will be which ankle to put the brace on; getting older is full of such quandaries. At least once I return from shambling about there’s a prospect of more coffee, and I can get a few plot twists ironed out while moving.

And awaaaaaay we go.

Books and Connotations

Catkins are coming off the magnolias and I saw an actual cherry blossom yesterday, though not on the tree down the hill who’s usually first past the post. I suppose I might be able to relax a bit instead of dreading a sudden cold snap? (HAHAHAHAHAHA WHO AM I FOOLING.)

I got to a major character death in the Sekrit Projekt last night, broke down crying, and decided it was time for bed. Going back over the raw text today will be uncomfortable–up until the very last moment, I thought this character would make it. I always do, I’m always pulling for them even when I know it’s impossible. This one’s going to wreck me even more badly than it does the protagonist, but that’s pretty much always the case as well. Sometimes I even mourn my dead villains, because I know precisely what made them what they are.

Anyway, getting to that particular plot-knot means that I am definitely past the halfway point in this particular book, which means there’s a bit of a slog before the slipsliding race to the finish. I know a lot of things will have to be expanded in revision, but that’s a completely different problem. Now it’s me and the book trapped in a cage, and only one of us will emerge victorious.

Technically we both win–it gets born and I get another notch on the belt–but at this stage it always feels an awful lot like a zero-sum game. And after this week I have to split working time so I’m not solely focusing on pushing this bloody great boulder up the hill, Sisyphus-style. It will also mean I say a more definite and thunderous no to a great many things people have grown accustomed to demanding from me, always a fun time.

I finished Amitav Ghosh’s Smoke and Ashes this morning, listening to the rain on the roof as Boxnoggin’s nose was buried my armpit. (Don’t ask me, our dog is a weirdo.) It’s an eye-opening read, and I particularly enjoyed both Ghosh’s careful tracing of how a great deal of colonialism was built on opium as well as the connections between that trade and the fossil fuel addiction leading to climate change. His positing of the humble poppy as a force in and of itself is extremely valid as well. All in all, a fantastic read, A+, absolutely recommend.

Next up, Emily Wilson’s translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey, since the Princess wants to read both as well and talk about them. She’s loved the Odyssey since childhood–Odysseus is, in her words, a picture-perfect explication of “that fuckin’ guy”, and not in an entirely pleasant sense either. As in any household, in ours there are a few terms whose connotations are completely dependent upon tone and context, and that’s one of them. It’s said with extremely loving and positive overtones when it’s, for example, “that fuckin’ chocolate guy“; however, when it comes to certain political figures it’s overwhelmingly negative.

I can’t wait to hear her takedown of Achilles, frankly, who I always found a bit of a jackass.

Okay, a lot of a jackass. I kept reading the Iliad going, “Wait, this guy is supposed to be a hero? But he’s a douchebag, Hector’s much better!” My feelings on both Helen’s husbands are a bit unrepeatable, as well, and don’t ask me about either of the Ajaxes. (Ajaxi?)

This is going to be amazing. I can’t wait.

The rain is taking a bit of a breather, so I should probably amble into the kitchen for some toast. Before then, though, I’m going to absorb the last half of my coffee in something approaching peace.

Pushing the boulder another few inches can wait for a bit while I do so. It is, after all, a Tuesday.

Bureaucratic Duck-Nibbles

It’s been trying to snow for days now, producing sleet and spatters between bouts of very cold rain. There’s the occasional edge of huge, wet flakes, but those disappear soon as they hit the ground. If we get a strong east wind through the Gorge we’ll have a deep freeze, but it doesn’t seem like that’s on the cards. As it is, we’ve had just enough below-zero this winter to cut down on some summer insect (or slug) infestations, and while the snowdrops are beginning to fade it looks like the hyacinths and cherries are holding off for a little while longer. Resentfully, in the hyacinths’ case, but at least it’s something.

The daffodils are out in force though. Little yellow YOLO trumpets, absolute mad lads.

Thankfully, I’m beginning to get some bandwidth back. The Junji Ito phase (one graphic novel after another) was apparently just what I needed, and this past weekend I also finished Dower’s War Without Mercy, which was a fascinating read, especially tracing how racist propaganda symbols can be inverted. I’m about fifty pages from the end of Lakota America, though that’s hard going–any real American history is. If one is not nauseated by the invasion, genocide, and racism, one isn’t paying attention.

There’s plenty to keep me occupied afterward. My next-to-the-bed TBR has swelled dangerously and needs some attention.

I spent Saturday doing administrivia–there’s been a lot of that lately, tax season and the change of year both conspiring–and setting up the framework for that anthology of my short stories I’ve been threatening for, oh, a year or more? Since the Jolene or My Rebbe’s Wife stories didn’t fit elsewhere, I decided I might as well put them in my very own antho to sweeten the pot. I had been holding off because the entire project seemed like too much to handle, but finally the bright idea of (wait for it…) cutting the entire shebang into small, easily-accomplished chunks and formatting one short story (or two) per weekend struck.

I don’t know why it took me so long to arrive at that strategy, since it’s my standard suggestion to others. Like Alice, I suppose I rarely ever follow my own good advice. But I have the stories chosen now–eighteen, all told–and even have ideas of putting a few which can’t be sold for cash (as they have other characters, like the Kolchak and Jill Kismet story, or the Zombies, Run fanfic) into a free ebook just for funsies.

We’ll see.

Today will be all about even more administrivia–I swear I am being nibbled to death by bureaucratic ducks–but once that’s done I can take a look at a second escape attempt in the Sekrit Projekt, and maybe get an election into the serial. Our favourite sellsword is about to have a moment of “if nominated I will not run, if elected I will not serve–whaddaya mean I don’t have another option?” Plus, one of the last pieces for this second season fell into place during some intense doodling and planning last week, so that’s a worry shelved, one I didn’t even know I was brooding over.

Plenty more where that came from, but I’m grateful nonetheless.

There are a few sales going on right now–many of my ebooks are 50% off during the Smashwords Read an Ebook Week, She-Wolf and Cub is a Kindle Monthly Deal, and Incorruptible is $2.99USD in ebook through these retailers for a few days more. And of course, A Flame in the North is still going strong–which provides some validation, even if I am still exhausted and burned to the ground by the effort to protect the series itself.

Dawn has risen while I’ve been typing, and the lacework of dark clouds under higher, lighter ones has turned into a soft infinite grey. Trying even harder for snow, I suppose, and though it’s too warm for any to stick it’s still chill-raw out there and I’ll be conservative with Boxnoggin’s walkies. His back leg appears to have healed completely but I’m still discouraging indoor parkour or any nonsense outside–the rabbit who has decided our backyard is now his notwithstanding.

But that’s (say it with me) another blog post. I had not believed a mere bunny could give me such a filthy look, but this one managed while also taunting 65+lbs of furred and muscled himbo terrier-boxer. The development does not bode well, though there was no sign of Compere Lapin this morning.

He’s perhaps just biding his time. Into Monday we go, boots on and eyeliner thickened. And with the baseball bat firmly to hand…