Updates and Other Things

Thanks to everyone for visiting and sending us good wishes. Josh got probation, which is what we were hoping for. It cost me over $1000 bucks, though. The fine was $150, but by the time you tacked on this fee and that fee and some other fee it was completely out of hand. The legal system's money grubbing knows no bounds.

Speaking of legal system money grubbing, I also got a red-light camera ticket. I was nearly hit by another car, sped up to avoid that crash, hit the stoplights under yellow, but they turned red while I was in the intersection. And now they say I owe the police $110 dollars. I wonder how these people sleep at night. I'm disgusted.

We're still in preregistration here and I gave one test yesterday and will give another on Friday. I have a deadline on a textbook review, two letters of recommendation to do, and have had three IRB proposals slapped on my desk in the last three days, including one request for a retroactive review, which is not possible. I'm still not going to get around to doing much blogging.

In the meantime, though, I finished reading The Ruins by Scott Smith. I give it a 3 out of 5 stars. I enjoyed it pretty well, although there was way too much telling and not enough showing in the book. I gave a full review at Goodreads. I also watched the opening episode of the new V and was not impressed. I thought the orginal was quite a bit better.

Also, if you haven't voted in Writtenwyrd's Halloween Cthulhu contest then please consider doing so. There are 21 flash fiction entries for people to select their favorite from. The posting and voting take place HERE.
----
----

Placeholder Post

I feel like I've offered very little of value here on the blog since my Days of Beer series, but school has been kicking my butt and I've had several writing deadlines that I've been trying to meet. This week is preregistration at school, which will be very demanding, and Josh's court date has been moved to tomorrow. Please send us some good wishes that that goes well. But for these reasons I'm not going to be keeping up with blogging very much this week.

I'm reading a good book, though, called The Ruins by Scott Smith. Stephen King called it "The Best horror novel of the new century." I don't know if I could agree with that but it's pretty good so far. I'm about half way through it. They made a movie from this but I didn't see it. I'll have more to say about the book when I finish.

Also, Writtenwyrd's Halloween Cthulhu contest posts are up here. There are some good flash fictions up there by a variety of anonymous writers, and you can read them and vote on your favorite. The winner will get a plush cthulhu.

Now, busy, busy, busy.
-----
-----

Spooky Music

I heard “Werewolves of London” this morning driving in through a heavy fog on the Causeway bridge. That has to be, for me, the most recognizable Halloween song out there, followed closely by “Monster Mash.” However, both of those songs are funny rather than spooky, and that got me thinking. What are the actually spooky Halloween songs?

I thought of “Thriller” by Michael Jackson, and there were some elements of spookiness in that, particularly the riff by Vincent Price, but generally that song is a dance tune and not terribly creepy.

After some careful consideration, I decided to give my picks for best creepy/horror music. But maybe there’s something I’m not thinking of, so let’s see how your opinions differ.

Numero Uno: Alice Cooper, from the “Welcome to My Nightmare” era. In fact, the album, “Welcome to My Nightmare,” is the all time creepiest album out there. With song titles like “Devil’s Food,” “Black Widow,” and “Cold Ethyl,”, the last one about a man who freezes his dead lover so he’ll be able to have her with him always, you’ve just gotta see the horror elements. There’s even an awesome spoken word piece by Vincent Price in “Black Widow.” This is the music I play on Halloween.


Here’s Welcome to My Nightmare.

Numero Dos: Black Sabbath, from the early years. Especially the album “We sold Our Soul For Rock and Roll.” Most of the songs on this compilation album are about madness, horror, and evil. “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath,” “Black Sabbath,” “Paranoid,” “Am I Going Insane,” and “Children of the Grave,” are great examples. And don’t forget, “Iron Man” and “War Pigs.”


Here’s Black Sabbath.

So what do you think of my choices?
----
----

Like Mayflies in a Stream

I just finished reading Like Mayflies in a Stream by Shauna Roberts and I can highly recommend it. “Mayflies” is a retelling of certain aspects of the Gilgamesh legend, but it’s told primarily from the point of view of the woman named Shamhat, who is a priestess of the goddess Inanna and the mother of one of Gilgamesh’s many children. Shamhat is a very realistic character and very sympathetic throughout the book as she strives to obey what she sees as the will of her goddess. That often means putting her own wishes second, and it means putting her life repeatedly in danger.

“Mayflies” is a hard book to categorize. I suppose it would generally be considered a historical novel, and Roberts certainly did her homework on ancient Mesopotamia, as her “resources” section indicates. However, as she also indicates, not a lot is known about the time of Gilgamesh and she had to intersperse what she could find out about that age with information gleaned from later periods for which we have better records. In that sense, perhaps “speculative historical” might be apropos as a descriptor for the book. There is also a strong feeling of fantasy/mythology about the work as well, so it has many elements.

However you describe the book, though, it is a fascinating read. I really found myself caught up in Shamhat’s struggles and I much enjoyed the background detail that brought the ancient world to life. Through the last half of the book, in particular, I didn’t want to put it down. I read most of the last half at one sitting. And Roberts’ passion for the story and the characters came through clearly. If you’re interested you can find Like Mayflies in a Stream on Amazon and at Barnes & Noble.
----
----

Beat To a Pulp Story

Just a quick announcement today that my Halloween horror story "Hunter's Moon," is up over at Beat to a Pulp. Stop by if you get a chance and give it a read and let me know what you think.

-----
-----

900,000 and One

I heard this morning on the radio that 900,000 new blog posts go up every day. Do we really need another one? From me? Probably not. But I’m going to post anyway. I started out my first year posting every day, then went to every two days, and lately I’ve been at every three days. I’ve seen no signs that the world is suffering from my slowdown.

My post today is a kind of meme I made up for myself. Certainly if anyone wants to do it, feel free. Or use parts of it if you want. Or not.

What five novels (other than your own) do you wish you had written?
1. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
2. Dracula, by Bram Stoker
3. War of the Worlds, by H. G. Wells
4. A Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs
5. The Hour of the Dragon, by Robert E. Howard

What five short stories (other than your own) do you wish you had written?
1. The Fall of the House of Usher, Edgar Allan Poe
2. Surface Tension, by James Blish
3. Nightfall, by Isaac Asimov
4. The Valley of the Worm, Robert E. Howard
5. The Statement of Randolph Carter, H. P. Lovecraft

What five songs (other than your own) do you wish you had written?
1. Stairway to Heaven, by Led Zeppelin
2. Bullet the Blue Sky, by U2
3. The Warning, by Black Sabbath,
4. Screaming in the Night, by Krokus
5. Leper Messiah, by Metallica

What five movies do you wish you had written/directed?
1. Once Upon a Time in the West
2. Alien, Aliens
3. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
4. Predator
5. The Thing (John Carpenter version)

What five science/nonfiction books do you wish you’d written?
1. On the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin
2. The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen
3. The Night Country, by Loren Eiseley
4. Never Cry Wolf, by Farley Mowat
5. Artic Dreams, by Barry Lopez

What five games do you wish you had invented?
1. Chess
2. Scrabble
3. Jikaida
4. Jetan
5. Kaissa

What five movie lines do you wish you’d written? (Mine are all from Clint Eastwood)
1. Go ahead, make my day
2. Do you feel lucky, punk? Well, do you? Punk?
3. A man’s got to know his limitations
4. Deservin’s got nothing to do with it.
5. There’s nothing like a good piece of hickory.
-----
-----

Illuminating

The newest issue of The Illuminata has just been published. If you follow the link and click on “Download an issue” you can get it for free. It’s volume 7, Issue #4, October 2009.

I’m pretty popular in this issue. Bret Funk starts out with some commentary and a review of Write With Fire, which I appreciated. The Illuminata definitely played a big role in the creation of that book. Without the demands of writing a regular column for the newsletter Write With Fire might never have existed, and certainly not in the form it took.

I also have my usual Writer’s Block column in this issue. Those of you who read my guest blog over at Novel Spaces, called “GEMS,” will see that this article is largely a reprint with a few minor changes. There’s also a review that I wrote for a fine fantasy novel called A Mage of None Magic: Heart of the Sisters by A. Christopher Drown. Drown is kind of a cool name eh?

Not much time for anything else. Mid-term grades were due at noon today and I squeaked mine in. I’m putting the final touches on the Darwin essay, which is due on Friday. It’ll be done tomorrow night, with just some final nitpicking on my part. I’m rather obsessive in case you haven’t noticed.

Man, I need sleep.
----
----