But It's a Dry Heat

Archive for March, 2012

Dear Author, Don’t Make Me Smack You.

Several months ago I read a much-lauded book, the first in another long epic series where the author is taking a god’s age to finish the sequels. (Like I can talk. I’m still not done with the 80K sequel to The Music of Chaos.) Despite all its press, I found the novel overrated, but that’s not the point of this post.

In one small scene in the novel, the protagonist, while on horseback, shakes the horse’s reins to encourage it to move forward.

And then my head exploded, raining confetti all around the room.

This isn’t the first book I’ve read where the author mistakenly thought that riders shake the reins to signal “Go.” It may have been one (more…)

They Hang Horse Thieves, Don’t They?

An interesting side effect of being a heathen employed by a church, is that I probably read more scripture than many so-called Christians. Certain scriptures, those associated with Lent/Easter, Pentecost, and Christmas, for instance, get replayed yearly.

Every single time I read this scripture (below), I think, “Dude, Jesus totally stole that donkey.”

Mark 11:1-6 (ESV)

Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples 2 and said to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. 3 If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.’” 4 And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it. 5 And some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” 6 And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go.

Yeah, I know. If you do more than skim it, you’ll note that in verse 3, it’s implied that Jesus will return said long-eared critter, but I still argue that Jesus had a rather loose definition of property rights. I mean, the attitude reads as pretty much, “I’m borrowing this here donkey; deal with it.”

Religious folk, of course, might argue that since Jesus is also god, creator of the heavens, firmaments, and beasties great and small, the donkey is his by default.  Well, no. Not unless Dodge can roll up onto my doorstep and appropriate my Ram truck for a few hours, whenever Dodge chooses.

Today’s heresy is brought to you by the upcoming Palm Sunday and my muse who says I don’t have time to write a review of the action flick we watched two nights ago (Ronin). (Pictured: Two of five, of my neighbors’ donkeys, Sora and Clyde. Aren’t they cute?)

But It’s a Dry Heat

In Time

Remember Logan’s Run?

Me neither; just a few scattered impressions from when I was a kid and it was on TV.  I recall it being about a futuristic society where people were killed off at 30, their expiration date announced by some kind of colored device on their hand.

In Time trades in a variant of that premise: in the future, science has somehow made it so that people stop aging at twenty-five. Humans, however, still make babies and in a world where no one dies except through fatal accidents, people would eventually be packed on this little blue sphere like sardines. Society’s solution is stamp a digital clock on everyone’s arm that starts ticking at 25, counting down a year. Since it’s possible to put more time on the clock, a person could theoretically live forever. Run out of time, however, and it’s Deadsville for you. Time, not money, is now the most important commodity.

It’s the future and (more…)

Regarding Greyhounds, and WIP Excerpts

It’s an absolutely lovely day here in sunny New Mexico. Blue sky, a light breeze, and 74 degrees.

My muse, however, has been very persistent and I spent most of the morning writing. By about noon, the greyhound decided I totally sucked because I hadn’t taken him for a walk. Never mind that the backdoor had been open and he’d been free to sun on the lawn all morning. (This, because, the flies haven’t come out of hibernation or back from Florida or whatever it is that flies do when they aren’t tormenting horses or loitering on dog shit.)

At one o’clock, I’d run out of words and it was time to get up and move and stop growing my ass. I put on the hound’s harness and out we went into the warm sunlight.

Halfway down the block, the greyhound’s tongue is a pink, wet ribbon, flopped out of his long snout, his head is down and he’s drooping like an orchid in the desert. My delicate little flower. “You’re trying to kill me,” he seems to say.

“Puh-lease. There’s no point in killing you. It’s not like you’d make good eating.”

Tomorrow? We’ll go through the exact same routine.

Here’s my response to a Lucky Seven tag on Facebook, via Maureen O. Betita. Supposed to post 7 lines, from 7th paragraph, on 7th page from current WIP. As usual, I cheated. This comes from chapter one, even though there is a prologue, but I’m so appalled that I’ve written a prologue, I can’t bear to make it more real by posting excerpts. And it’s more than seven sentences, because…I can’t follow instructions. Neener-neener-neener.

***working title, Lost in Paradise***

“Some help here, huh?” said Eowyn, Kelly’s seventeen-year-old niece.

Kelly grabbed the garbage bags, noting the contents–more coffee filters and cups–and hefted them into the dumpster.

“You’re late,” noted Eowyn.

“Nonsense. A bookseller is never late. She arrives precisely when she means to.”

“Ugh.” Eowyn marched ahead of her and opened the door. “You know the Lord of the Rings movies are the bane of my existence. Before them, only real nerds teased me about my name.”

Kelly strolled through the doorway, ahead of her niece. “I can’t help it. I was compelled by–”

“Wisconsin called. They want their genre cheese back.” Before Kelly could reply, Eowyn asked, “So how was the booksellers’ conference?”

****

Mischief managed. Have a great Friday.

Hugo

“…it was a very long, very french tongue bath for some creator of silent films..” ~a comment on a review at Rotten Tomatoes.

To some extent, that assessment isn’t off-base, although a big part of the slobber on Hugo comes courtesy of critics who would cheer for a film about paint drying, if it were directed by Martin Scorsese.

Which isn’t to say that Hugo is a bad movie. I liked Hugo. I didn’t love it, but it was a pleasant way to spend an evening. It’s pleasant like a perfectly toasted slice of bread with a bit of butter and fresh strawberry jam is pleasant. It makes for a nice breakfast, but deep down, you’d really prefer a breakfast burrito, loaded with cheese, chile, potatoes and eggs.

I had no particular expectations for the film, but those who (more…)

The Iron Duke

In which China conquers the known world not with cheaply priced chachkes to be sold in Wal-Mart, but with nanotechnology and mind rays….

Kidding. Sort of.

In the alternate history of The Iron Duke by Meljean Brook, an Asian culture known has the Horde, conquered vast swaths of Europe by infecting their opponents with nanoagents, teeny little machines, aka, “bugs,” that swim about in the infected’s blood.

The infection had two variants. The first variant turned people into zombies, because you simply can’t have a good story without zombies. The second was a mixed blessing since it provided enhanced strength and healing ability while also including a susceptibility to mind-controlling rays. Via a specific radio frequency, the Horde was (more…)

Clumsy and Insane; What’s Not to Love?

Ask any horse owner for the defining characteristics of equines and they’ll likely say “accident prone” and “frequently paranoid.”

The second is a function of the horse’s position on the food chain, herbivore, aka, a carnivore’s happy meal. While the average horse is as likely to be eaten by a lion as I am to win the lottery, most equines retain an instinctive wariness of anything that smacks of predator. In the modern setting this might mean a black trashbag or a small child dressed in a Halloween costume (horse eating gnome).

Non-horsey folks, having seen movie horses who gallop without hesitation toward gunfire, think horses arrive, out-of-the-box, brave and cooperative.  Horses are smart and can be trained (desensitized) to tolerate all manner of scary things. Hollywood horses, because they have to carry expensive commodities–actors–are particularly bomb proof. But even a horse who’s utterly unfazed by gunfire, might come unglued at the sight of your grandma and her purple hat with the peacock feathers.

Writers really should take note of this. If your fictional equines are calm, tractable beasts of burden, you’re missing out on a prime opportunity to torture your characters.

Horses are also (more…)

Immortals

“Where’s the beefcake?”

Me, after watching Immortals, a film that is advertised as being “from the producers of 300.” Except 300, for all its flaws, featured some of the best that modern nutrition, gyms, and some steroids could make of the male physique. The plot of 300 could be summed up as “a few very good men fight to the death against the Persians, and day-yum, are they sexy martyrs.”

Theseus, Immortals’s hero, is terribly overdressed.  Also, for the most part, Immortals is short on action and gore, which is especially problematic as it’s also fresh out of plot and characterization.

The movie begins by introducing the movie’s McGuffins: the Titans and the Epirus bow. The Titans are contained in a box that is (more…)

Guest Blogger – Erin Pryor

Good morning, all! Today, in place of the usual snarking on movies and odd doodles from my sketchpad, I’m pleased to welcome Erin Pryor, author of Pillars in Time, a time travel romance. Erin has stopped by for an interview and book giveaway.

Let’s start with some warm-up questions.

-What’s in your refrigerator right now?
Milk is #1. I have kids so I gotta give them protein. Some Italian sausages, Lunchable’s, cheese, and diet soda.

-It’s up to you to come up with a new national holiday. A real holiday, the kind that means I get the day off. What would it be?
National Women’s Day. Where all women can take the day to do whatever they want without the distraction of work or children. Just a day for us.

-Stick shift or automatic transmission?
Automatic. I’ve never learned how to drive a stick

-Name two things on your bucket list (life list). (more…)

Drive

After watching Drive, a couple of things came to mind:

First, I hope Ryan Gosling wasn’t paid by the word, and second, the only way to make Los Angeles look like anything other than an overpopulated, ugly-ass, shithole is to film it at night.

I also realized that for once, my inability to remember a character’s name isn’t my fault because in this case, the protagonist had none. Ryan Gosling is The Driver in a bloody tale about a sometimes stunt driver/mechanic/getaway driver whose well-ordered life falls apart when he falls in love.

The movie begins with Driver precisely uttering instructions to (more…)