Having watched and really enjoyed seasons 2-4 of Battlestar Galactica, I've gone back and watched the first season. Now I remember why I quit watching this show when it first ran. The character of Dr. Baltar is way too important and unpleasant. He acts profoundly stupid and insane, and the lack of recognition of this by other cast members is a false note that I couldn't buy. Tighe's wife Ellen is also way over the top in the first season. The quality of the show really improved after the first season, as Baltar took a back seat to other, more interesting character developments.

I was so enamored of the film by the Coen Brothers that I read the novel from which it was taken, Cormac McCarthy's of the same name. I found the book curious, and not always in a good way. As McCarthy has aged he has adopted a highly deadpan, almost cartoonish style, a vast departure from the richness of novels like Sutree or Blood Meridian.
He has also, imho, grown in his ability to develop characters with great subtlty and vermissilitude. I was curious about how much of the breathtaking dialogue in the movie was taken directly from the book, and I was pleased to  see it was word for word. I also read the novel seeking more development of the character representing the inevitability of death, and found it. I also discovered that my take on the movie, that it was the Sheriff's story, was accurate.
I also found that I couldn't read the sheriff's monologue and dialogue without hearing Tommy Lee Jones' voice, and that was a very, very good thing. His performance, albeit not on stage all that much, was one of the best I've ever witnessed. Why the Academy chose to nominate the actor playing the villian, who had a not-too-tasking cartoonish role, is mystifying.
Read it, watch it.

I'm taking advantage of a free two-week trial of Netflix so I can use the 'view instantly' feature. I've been working me way through the first couple of years of the Showtime series "Weeds", about a suburban housewife who starts a career as a pot dealer. I'm realizing that the top-notch drama/comedy has segued to the pay model. While the networks run reality crap, the cable networks are producing the good stuff. Now to figure out the cheapest way to get what I want and dump what I don't...

I finished Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, a narrative about Nigeria at the end of the 18th century. I wasn't as captivated by it as I'd expected; it was told very much from the point of view of the tribesman constrained primarily by custom, and so much of the book read like a anthropology study. It's easy to see how customs and societal boundaries work to the disservice of the members when looking at an alien culture.

I finished The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver last week, and came away disappointed. I thought the first three-quarters of the book were marvelous, with rich characters, a tight, escalating plot line, meaty topics and a fascinating setting. I  was particularly taken with her use of five separate narrators, and the way she gave them each a recognizable voice and individual motivations. If she had ended the novel at the end of the character arcs, this would have been among my all-time favorite novels.
Unfortunately, she chose instead to tack on a hundred pages more of lifeless and at time heavily didactic narrative. We follow the subsequent lives of the viewpoint characters via vignettes spread over forty years, while they act in accordance with the changes wrought by the character arc. While we followed the main characters as a family through the first three-quarters of the book and witnessed their changes within that structure, the last quarter follows them as detached characters, so we are not given enough to involve ourselves in the separate lives.
I'd still recommend reading it, but stopping at the Exodus section.

A very short piece, Assassin, appeared recently in Fiction At Work.

I've declared my novel "Memories of the Future" complete, at least for the time-being. Heinlein suggested 'No revisions except under editorial direction' and I've used that as an excuse to stop massaging it. I reached the point where I reversed in the afternoon changes made in the morning.
My plan is to send out a query a day until I find the proper agent or run out of agents to query. This is where e-mail submissions really help. The cost and time of snail mail submissions is a barrier to entry. Although I'll still query those agents who only accept mail queries, I'll favor those who accept e-mail.
Now, on to something new.

Yes, I know it seems perculiar to bloviate on Harry Potter and William Faulkner in back to back posts. "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" wrote Emerson. Maybe that applies, maybe not.

I should have read this novel in college, but I can see why I didn't. I think I only penetrated this book by working backwards, first reading writers who came out of the Faulknerian strain of fiction, particularly Cormac McCarthy. He trained me to read Faulkner.  And while I admit I didn't catch everything in the first and second sections, from Benji's POV, then Quentin's, I was able to tread water until the prose became more straightforward and things fell into place.

I found it a work of tremendous strength that occasionally lapsed into purple prose. Most of all, however, I found it a masterwork in fulsome characterization. He staked out new territory in fiction, developing character from their thoughts and dialogue without the aid of third party or omnicient description. This is the attribute I most value in Raymond Carver, whose writing I adore.

I also came away with a increased admiration for the reading public at the time of this publication. To recognize the genius within the dense, confusing first section is more than I would have expected.

The most interesting aspect of this book, beyond the style, was for me the relationship between the white and black cast members. I'll be interested in reading what critics took from Faulkner's exploration of race relations, and how that impression might have evolved since the time he was awarded the Nobel Prize.

Now I need to read more of his writing; I've read Light in August, Sanctuary, As I Lay Dying, and this. Next, I'm thinking Absalom, Absalom.

There. I've said it. Book seven of the Harry Potter series sucked.
1. Harry is an ingrate, allowing Hermoine to wait on him hand and foot for months while sleeping rough and fleeing the death eaters. A little thank you once in a while isn't too much to ask for.
2. Why the chapter after chapter of them wandering around England without any purpose or goal?
3. They just happen to camp next to a couple of goblins and old friends so they can overhear some plot-advancing info. You'd have to be a billionaire to get away with that coincidence.
4. The deadly hallows vs. seeking out little bits of he-who-I'm-so-tired-of-having-to-hypenate-around. I felt like I was watching a late-night commerical; "But wait- there's more!" plot devices to confuse the reader and require endless backstory.
5. The King's Cross scene. Let's stop right in the middle of the ultimate battle for a chat and a spot of tea, shall we? Now here's some information key to understanding the plot that I couldn't think of a better way to relate.

To give the author her due, I was taken with the way she gave Dumbledore human flaws, and enobled Snape while remaining true to his character. If I were workshopping this book, I would have probably said it was a great first draft.

I finished Atwood's Oryx and Crake, and came away dissatisfied. Much as in The Handmaid's Tale, the world she created was populated with unsubtle characters subordinate to the issue that the novel expored, how technology can serve or destroy mankind. Her writing remains singularly beautiful, but I much prefer her more subtle, character-driven writing such as The Blind Assassin. It did cause me to consider my work in progress, to make sure I didn't wander into similar didacticism. 
In writing my query letter, I've had occasion to look for mainstream/literary writers and works that use SF elements yet have been marketing as non-genre. There are more than I expected, including Michael Chabon, Atwood, Phillip Roth, Cormac McCarthy, Don DeLillo, Richard Powers, T.C. Boyle, as well as Michael Crichton and other beach-read writers.

After you finish the first draft, give it to a dozen highly perceptive and dedicated writer/readers. Their insightful comments can solve problems you might spend years butting your head against. Wow.
I'm reading Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, and so far I'm not enjoying it as much as the other novels of hers I've read. I'm not fond of a story told primarily in flashback; it flattens the tension so dramatically. Also, the post-holocaust world feels too familiar, although this might be a function of my genre reading. Perhaps a non-SF reader would find it intriguing, much as the public reaction to McCarthy's The Road, which I found derivative.

Out of the blue, the Israeli sci-fi magazine Mercury contacted me today to buy reprint rights (in Hebrew) to my story "Call Me Mr. Positive." I've now sold it three times. Very efficient.Another continent conquered! 
It certainly helped break the monotony of plowing through the first set of revisions to Home of the Future.  I hate editing, hate it, but as Hemingway? said, writing is rewriting.

S. and I watched Vantage Point over the weekend, a movie starring Dennis Quaid and Forest Whitaker about the attempted assassination of the president. It was one of the worst films I've seen in many years. 
My primary gripe was the lack of a viewpoint character. Quaid is introduced, given a very quick profile and motivation, then disappears for an hour or so. The film is constructed as a mystery, as the actions as we follow one character after another through the same actions, while the director spoon-feeds us a little more info each time. As I've learned in writing, playing this keepaway with the audience can only lead to resentment, and I resented the hell out of the ham-fisted handling of this info. Honest to God, several times we see characters watching something on a screen to which we are not pirvy, to which they react strongly. 
The whole thing ends with a ridiculous car chase and coincidences that would shame the most amateurish hack. 
How can so much money produce so much crap? And my writer friends are constructing tight, well motivated stories for a few thousand bucks.

I'm about halfway through the Jack Aubrey/Stephen Maturin sea adventures series; for the third time. Other than Lord of the Rings, I can't think of a more satisfying read. O'Brien's ability to capture the Napoleanic-era British naval life, create nuanced,  interesting characters with compelling conflicts and enthralling plots is remarkable, and the fact that he was able to keep it going through 20 novels is unparalleled. One review compared it to a cross between Jane Austen and C.S. Lewis, but I'm not sure that is praise enough.

 I declared war on the verb 'was', my bete noir,  and now I can't write a damn sentence. Perhaps I was my native tongue is one I haven't learned yet.  I have yet to learn my native tongue.

 Yesterday I received word that Relief: A Quarterly Christian Expression Coach's Midnight Diner has accepted my short story 'Schadenfreude'. In this deal with the devil story, the devil makes this offer to an aging ingenue; for every charitable thought she has, she will grow younger; with every uncharitable thought, she will age further. 
This is the third story written at Clarion I've been able to sell, as well as both of the submission stories. I have one more that I think should find a home. The 2,500 poem "Pilgrims of the Milky Way", however, will probably never find a taker. It's either too wierd or not wierd enough, and iambic pentameter is not the flavor of the day in sci-fi.

I did a quick review of how many rejections I've accumulate for each acceptance:

Call Me Mr. Positive 3

The Hard Way  6

Your Friend on the Outside 10

Hot Flash 3

Killing Myself Has Changed My Life 3

I Regret I Must Eat You Now 4

The Adequate Woman Takes to the Trees 3

Passing Acquaintance 2

A Slave to his Possessions 4

My Daughter of Many Colours 9

Honeymoon at the Pearly Gates 7

The Writer's Life 2

Good Girl, Bad Rep 8

Cast of Characters 2

Left in Right Field 2

Luck of the Harvest 7

Cats Discover Text Messaging 5

5 Places You Must Visit After You Die 3

I'll Hate Me Bye and Bye 0

Give Me Your Nightmare 0

Three Toad Sloth 0

 

Still Unsold but circulating (partial list)

Even Steven 11

Schadenfreude 12

Universal Liar's Club 12

Pair in the Hole 8

Isolation 11

Shine, Shine, Shine 6

Another Man's Treasure 7

Smothered and Covered 9

Take It Like a Man 5

Head in the Clouds 8

Family of Man 5

Hooked 3

Second-hand Monkey 3

Dreaming of You Dreaming of Me 7

Some of the unsold stories I consider among my best. In writing, I think stubbornness is a very valuable trait.

 I read a couple of thrillers last week; The Hundredth Man by Jack Kerley and Requiem for an Assassin by Barry Eisler. I found both very unsatisfying, in a particularly troubling way.
I was troubled because both authors have a very good grasp on many elements of writing, from sentence construction, scene manipulation, blocking, pacing, description, dialogue... all of those aspects that I still struggle so hard to master. 
Having mastered them, however, neither writer was able to use those tools to do anything more than follow the tired trophes of a thousand others. Kerley's hero was one of a million cops with a tragic background, a loyal sidekick and an overdeveloped libido. Eisler's John Rain character, the star of a series of novels, is the conflicted loner, the killing machine, Jason Bourne, or the grandson of James Bond without the wit. Neither changes or evolves or does anything that can't be predicted from the first 20 pages. 
People are endlessly complex, plots are not. When the character cannot evolve, the author is forced to use plot to entertain. These don't.

The reading at the Thurber House last night went very well. Around 100 people were in the audience, and charitably laughed at all the right moments. I was pleased to see neighbors and church friends in the audience, as well as a number of my writing group buds. Thanks, all. 

 This review appears in the latest Publisher's Weekly: I was dumbfounded when I read it.

Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show
Edited by Edmund R. Schubert and Orson Scott Card. Tor, $15.95 paper (416p) ISBN 978-0-7653-2000-1

The first collection of short stories from online magazine Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show (www.oscims.com), launched in 2005, features noteworthy SF and fantasy stories from a bumper crop of talented new authors. Four new Enderverse stories from Card will initially draw genre fans, but the stories from lesser-known writers are the compilation's real driving force. James Maxey's provocative “To Know All Things That Are in the Earth” takes a decidedly skeptical look at the Rapture; David Farland's “The Mooncalfe” puts an interesting—and unique—spin on oft-trod Arthurian legend; and Tom Barlow's brilliantly sardonic “Call Me Mr. Positive” explores isolation on a deep space mission gone tragically awry. If the quality of these stories is any indication, IGMS has as much promise as the newcomers it showcases. (Aug.)