Refitting Xanadu

The good ship Xanadu, as I'm currently calling it, complete with stately pleasure dome and caves of ice but no sign of Olivia Newton John, possesses no dearth of dings demanding attention. Yesterday repairs to the vessel consumed most of the day. I don't quite remember where it began, but I recall correcting a faucet nozzle early in the process. The main task was a minor matter by most standards: a sheet rock and insulation issue where water had damaged it under previous ownership. 

I had the foresight to pick up a roll of insulation during the week. I didn't have the prescience to pick up a utility knife. I knew that I had such a tool, so never thought about getting one. The removal of the bad gypsum was mostly accomplished by gravity before I touched it. A good jerk and the rest of it came down. I removed the remaining nails, measured the hole, and transferred the measurements to the replacement sheet rock that was already on hand. During the course of these events, I did trash the ruined drywall and swept the area multiple times. Gravity was the culprit. The hole was horizontal rather than vertical and up rather than down relative to the floor. The insulation that had been blown in would sometimes catch a gravity wave and make the less than 2 foot fall to the floor upon which I had to lay to accomplish many parts of the task.

With the replacement marked, I looked for my utility knife in vain. I still don't know where it is. I know where it used to be. I kept it on the bench in the garage - of course, that place is over 300 miles away, and I know it's not there now, what with it getting packed when we moved. One would expect the purchase of a utility knife to be a quick and simple affair. Mostly it was. There were many to choose from, but I selected one that already had my name on it. With a slightly arched handle, it felt good in my hand, like some deadly ninja device, and promised not to cause more pain to me than to the target material. 

It was the assembly that gave me troubles. No blade had been loaded. There were blades inside; I heard them rattle when I shook the tool. They were cleverly hidden within the device that was as easily cracked as a Herring Hall & Marvin. I managed. It would seem like an easy matter to install the new blade into the knife. It wasn't. I tried about 30 times to get the blade to seat properly in the knife so that it could be properly extended and retracted with the thumb-operated control. The two pieces of hardware refused to cooperate. I don't know what I did differently, but on the 30th, or perhaps I exaggerate and it was only the 28th try, the planets aligned and must've I held my mouth just right.

The knife cut very well, and I didn't make a mess of the drywall or the insulation that I cut with it. The planets really had aligned, and I kept holding my mouth just so. In only slightly less time than they took to build the pyramids of Egypt, I had the gypsum sheet cut and screwed in place. I followed that job with replacing the 8 foot long florescent light tubes--having discovered the replacement tubes being concealed beneath the fallen sheet rock--and again demonstrated my ninja-like proficiency with the utility on the remaining gypsum board to cut a cover for the attic crawl space.

The storage room shelves required a supporting actor for their monotonous performance, so I auditioned a 2x2 for that role. The actor required some attention in the form of measuring, marking, and cutting with the circular saw before final casting. Upon completion of those actions, it seemed like a decent match. A few pointers from the screw gun made it fit the role perfectly.

I experimented with refrigerator and freezer options as well as parking options, finding success with the former but not the latter.

Meanwhile, the co-captain of the ship pursued her own agenda. She got a lot of boxes unloaded, and drafted me for a preliminary rearrangement of the furniture, during which we discovered that pianos are not very flexible. If only it were an accordion.

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 Here's the latest AI copy from the persons or scammers contacting me about Accidental Pirates:

What makes this novel compelling is the immediacy of its premise, two brothers, a simple summer outing, a crack in the rock, and suddenly the Caribbean of the 1770s. Pirates, dragonlings, flintlocks, and a fire-breathing Green Lady create the kind of high-stakes wonder that hooks young readers quickly. But beneath the swashbuckling energy is something equally important: brotherhood, courage under pressure, and the quiet transformation that happens when ordinary boys are forced to become heroes. 

It's not bad.

 

Crib on the Borderlands

 

Chained to a rock at last. Fortunately, I don't see any eagles descending--at least not until the lender demands the monthly pound of flesh. We moved up (i.e., escaped) from the rental apartment, where the neighbors allow their dogs do their duty near the doorway, in the doorway, or on the stairs, to an almost-country manor. The wide open space begins on the other side of my back fence. The yard is small and the neighbors are too close, but they're not directly below my feet nor cheek by jowl with only paper-thin walls in between. We were already seeking a new abode (following the sale of the chateau) but the new roommates added to the joint below and the loud video games thundering on to three in the morning beneath our bedroom goaded us into accelerating the move. 

We had hoped to move two weeks earlier, but the repetitive demands from the lender and waiting on the seller and third parties to assemble their waterfowl into linear formation hindered our haste, shackled our swiftness, and delayed out dispatch. This may be the shortest move I've made since college. Although, the move from the rental in W town to the chateau was only a couple miles more. At least this move wasn't to another state or from one side of a large state to the other. Can we reside here with hopes of permanency? We had hoped that would be the case back at the beloved Chateau du Chat Gris, but after graduating 3 kids from the schools, including putting our youngest through the school system, to college, on a mission, and back to college, circumstances dictated a change of residence.

In many respects, that move across the state has been great--notwithstanding the squalid pad. My wife has made new friends--like she always does--and I've met more wonderful people. I like associating with people who are better than I am. One would think such association would help make me a better person, but apparently I'm content to benefit from their attitudinal largesse and magnanimity without fear of catching the malady myself. What can I say? Natural immunity, I guess.

I must think of a name for the new place. We were relieved of the little chat gris, so that option is gone. We are located on a border of sorts and the back fence is a stone wall. A not-too-distant mountain is visible out the back, and I've positioned my writing desk so that I can enjoy that view while slinging vowels and consonants in reckless abandon without fear of hitting anything in that direction. Mountain View Estate? Crib on the Borderlands? Fortress of Insufficient Solitude? Whatever handle I decide to hang on the place, it's still a move up from the former hood where a lady was murdered just across the street.

The new abode has sufficient rooms that I now have a dedicated writing room--that's a first. My wife insisted that I do this thing I do in isolation. Speculation leads me to believe that she doesn't appreciate my requests for her to do what she does more quietly and not to talk to me while I'm feeding my addiction. Although, it could be that having my writing desk with inspiration buddies openly displayed thereon constitutes a source of embarrassment for her. The more likely reason is that I and the desk are simply in the way, have been for many years, and she needs a break from us.

The writing desk was my office desk in my private practice. It has been scarred in several moves; it received new scratches and gouges in the move out of the hood--I blame those good folks who lent a hand but lacked love for the labor and the desk. The squalid pad had a room I could've used for a writing room, but we couldn't get the desk into it. When we moved into the new digs, we had to remove the door to get the desk into the room--and then it was tight squeeze. With any luck, I'll never have to move it out.

Instead of worrying about moving the desk, I'll direct my attention to the wonderful places we'll go, this desk and I, as we wrangle words and phrases from atoms alphabetical into adventures somewhat historical or construct elaborate tales with scenes unreal and fantastical. 

However, those adventures must wait a bit. I've got about dozen address changes I need to complete.
 

 

French Cavalry and an Interview

Wellington confirmed that the French cavalry was the strongest on the European continent during the Napoleonic era.

The heavy cavalry mounted frontal charges during battle to break enemy infantry or route their cavalry.

The medium cavalry performed charges like the heavy cavalry and also acted as ‘mounted infantry.’ (See the picture below, Detaile's "Charging French Dragoons").

The light cavalry conducted reconnaissance before battle and pursuit of the routed enemy after battle.

--Napoleon's Cavalry, Artillery, and Technical Corps 1799-1815 by Gabriele Esposito

Why these bland tidbits of Napoleonic tactics that are well known to every student of the era? I'm glad you asked. I'm assembling facts and details for a short story featuring my three favorite fictional cavalry officers of La Grande Armee: Beaujeu the dragoon, Pichon the chasseur-a-cheval, and Gavrel the hussar. These three sprang to life in a story I wrote set in Egypt. Although that story remains unpublished, the three cavalrymen delighted readers in "Seventh Hussar and Aide to the Mage," published by Raconteur Press in the Wyrd Warfare anthology edited by Chris DiNote, in which they fought at the battle of Borodino.

The story in progress has them at an engagement shortly after the Egyptian campaign and long before the Russian campaign. It's an interesting battle and has been a fun one to recreate in all the various games I've played based on the battle. Naturally, our brave cavaliers will play a pivotal role that may not be well known to history. Spies, dark magic, and the desperate struggle between exhausted forces combine to threaten Bonaparte's position and demand more dangerous deeds for these heroes behind the official proclamations of victory.

Speaking of dangerous deeds, I dared to meet with The Halfling and the Spaceman to discuss writing and Accidental Pirates. I had a great time with the genial hosts.

A week or so ago, I met for another interview with another vlogger, but technical difficulties prevented anything more than a brief visit. We'll reschedule that one. Additionally, I've been invited for the Blasters and Blades podcast early next month. Of course, I'll post a link when it happens.

 

Books for Boys

I've got Accidental Pirates on my mind because I dropped in on Les Freres Corses this week. They're not bookworms by any stretch of the imagination. I don't think they've ever even read a chapter book from beginning to end. Accidental Pirates has changed that. When I stopped in for a short visit. Chris, the brother upon whom the character telling the story in the book is based, immediately grabbed the book and showed me that he was reading it, pointing out that he only had one chapter to go. "They should make this into a movie!" he exclaimed.

That response makes all the time I spent writing Accidental Pirates a complete success. Getting even one boy to read is a victory. Most of the boys I know--arguably, not that many--don't read much at all. Many boys do read, but young male readership has dropped off steadily over the last decade or two. In fact, some report (by which I mean the standard search engine) that reading for pleasure among 11-16 year old boys has dropped steeply in the last 20 years. Only 12% of Gen Z boys read books. Why? 

I suppose there is no single reason. Casting around for suspects, I know that video games provide immediate feedback for less effort invested than reading. Video games require less imagination and often channel non-stop excitement--a steady stream of mind crack that rapidly addicts the player to the immediate rush feedback. The digital rush leaves the mind in a state of decay with nothing to show for the time spent. I liked video games as kid, but I couldn't play them continuously. I had to go to the arcade and the quarters or nickels soon came to an end. Video games were a rare delight. Now many players spend fewer hours at a full-time job that they do with their eyes glued to the gaming screen. I still like video games, but they can't hold my interest like they did when I was a kid. At any rate, getting boys to read faces direct competition from video games.

Suspect number two is the short video. Boys can watch an endless scroll of short videos on youtube and other sites. Watching short videos requires even less effort than playing video games. There's a lot to be learned on these videos, but mostly they absorb time and brain cells with little long-term benefit. Don't ask me how I know.

We should look at another suspect in this crime against boys: Publishers. Who runs the publishing companies and decides what books get published? It's not men. Women and girls read more than men and boys, so it's natural to expect that more books directed to women and girls would be published--but boys suffer for it. It's a truism that most girls will read books with boys as the main characters. The opposite is not true. Boys rarely read and enjoy books with girls as the main characters. Boys want action and adventure. They want to be able to imagine themselves as the heroes who save the day, solve the crime, and vanquish the foe. Tea parties, frilly dresses, girls engaged in long conversations, and even tomboys doing fun and weird things (I'm talking about you, Pippi) don't hold much appeal for boys. Put a girl with red pigtails on the cover and you turn away 90% of boys who would be interested if a boy were featured. Maybe boys are sexist. Maybe I'm sexist. I don't think I am, but I do know that I can usually tell after reading a paragraph or a page whether a man or a woman wrote the story. Most women tell stories with a different tone and emphasize different aspects that do men. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I came to recognize the difference at an early age and realized that I usually preferred the male tone, even though I continue to enjoy stories written by talented women.

I'm happy to report that Raconteur Press has taken up arms against this sea of suspects. Raconteur Press continues to publish adventure books for boys to promote the dreams that come by exploring the undiscovered country of an exciting tale. RP has already published several great adventures for boys in a variety of genres:

Dreams of Fire and Gold by Fred Philips

Meteor Men by Scott Schad

Boy's Own Starship by Christopher Nuttal

I've Got This by Frederick Key

Fossil Force by Graham Bradley

Accidental Pirates by Stanley Wheeler 

I've probably missed a couple titles, but if you have a boy who reads, or who would read if he had the books before him, you can't go wrong with any of these titles. 

 

 

 

 

Hard Time in Kharput

 

The sequel to Accidental Pirates has been sent to the publisher for consideration. Chris and Kenny are thrown into a kingdom in turmoil facing treachery within and enemies without. Chris has been drafted to replace the blood mage - and he finds the job has a serious downside. Kenny wields enchanted steel against a host of enemies. Together they are the kingdom's only hope against a new evil.

I've been doing a lot of reading about Enoch - Genesis 6, Moses 7 & 8, as well as The Book of Enoch, a long with A Brief History of Time and an Alan Dean Foster novel. I may post about these at some point, but at I haven't yet finished any of the books, so I'll post a fun fact from something I did finish - or at least I think I did. This is condensed from chapter 11 of Crusaders by Dan Jones:

Fun Fact:

During an expedition to Egypt, King Baldwin I died after eating a breakfast of fresh fish. His body was salted, spiced, and transported back to Jerusalem to be buried beside his brother Godrey at The Holy Sepulchre. Baldwin of Bourcq raced to Jerusalem, beating the other contenders, to be anointed king and was later crowned in Bethlehem. Nearly sixty, he had been Count of Edessa for almost twenty years. Frankish power and Crusader confidence had been dealt a severe blow at the Field of Blood. The fate of the Crusader kingdoms depended on European help.

Ilghazi, the victor of the Field of Blood, died in 1122--his death probably wasn't from the fish--and the Franks looked to Aleppo again with greedy eyes. September 13, 1122, Joscelin, Count of Edessa, was captured by Balak, Ilghazi's nephew who had stepped in to fill his uncle's slippers. After being transported, sew inside a camel skin, Joscelin was locked up in the fortress of Kharput. Then Baldwin himself was also captured and locked up with Joscelin. The Crusader fortunes seemed fated never to recover from the defeat at the Field of Blood.

A year later, Ilghazi's son Timurtash succeeded Balak after the latter's death in May 1124. Baldwin arranged to pay Timurtash a ransom for his release. However, Baldwin had built up some ill will about his capture; he failed to pay the ransom as agreed, preparing to attack Timurtash instead. The other good news for the Crusaders was the capture of Tyre.

Baldwin II arrived at the walls of Aleppo in October with his Timurtash tax in the form of an army at his back. Additionally, he had among his forces the troops of a Muslim ally, Dubays Ibn Sadaqa, whom he had promised to install as the commander of Aleppo in place of Timurtash. Baldwin laid siege to the city until January 1125, when Muslim forces began raiding Antiochene territory. Baldwin returned to Jerusalem. A stalemate between the Franks and the Muslims had developed and could only be broken by an influx of new warriors from the west or a uniting of Islamic forces.

 

Next week I'm scheduled for a podcast interview. I'll post a link when it's available. 

 

 

Combat Infantry on the Beach

Thus began the game of Combat Infantry Western Front by Columbia Games. This was the second playing of the first scenario. The first time through, the Americans smote the Germans with a great smiting. The first reason for that was that the dice favored the GIs and disfavored the Germans. The other reason was that the latter had been mistakenly deprived of three of their assets. This time, the Germans had their full complement of blocks and the dice evenly mistreated both sides.
 

The Americans had limited placement options. The Germans have more options. In the first run through they crowded near the beach to try to prevent the Americans off the sand. This time, they spread out because the rules place limits on how many units can fire through a hexside.

Here they are at turn three. Although the American left and right were making progress, the center couldn't get any momentum.

 

 By the end of turn 4, the Germans have been forced back on the American right, and the GIs were making an end run on the left, but the Germans continued to dominate the line of scrimmage in the center. However, the Americans were about to add air support to their artillery power.

I didn't get any other pictures. The Americans drove around on the left to take the town behind the German right and did get contest a hex of St. Hilaire on the German left. The Americans made some desperate moves on the last turn in an attempt to drive the Germans out of some key positions but lost more than they gained. They were hampered by several failed rally attempts that continually delayed the planned thrust in the center, and the same problem then slowed the advance on the right. The objective victory points would've resulted in a tie, but the Americans took a two point victory for more enemy units destroyed--thanks to artillery and air support.

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The final edit to the Accidental Pirates sequel should wrap up this week and I can get it sent to the Raconteur Press for consideration. 

We had a visit from the Lawtwister and three of his small claims. The latter had a great time with their grandma, even getting in a Scooby doo game. They all helped us examine the potential new chateau--which will remain sans chat gris--and gave their respective verdicts on it as a place for future visits.

Meanwhile, Les Freres Corse are burning through their copy of Accidental Pirates. It can't be helped, it's a rip-roaring, dragon-flaming, swashbuckling tale.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ardneh's Sword

I finished reading Fred Saberhagen's Ardneh's Sword a few days ago. As with the earlier work in the series, Empire of the East, I stopped about 75 percent of the way through to read another book. I needed the palate cleansed before I could go on, because the pacing was off for me. The slow build to the conclusion was a steady diet of the same bland questions. I did give it 4 stars because it began and ended well--sort of. The story takes place a thousand years after the events of EotE. Chance, Rolf's heir is off with an expedition to find the titular item. Under the direction of a scholar, he cares for an owl that may have the capacity for speech, but the speech is a dialect of gibberish. The owl is wounded mysteriously while bringing Chance Ardneh's Key; this item comes and goes from around Chance's neck at will. Chance meets a young, redheaded boy and as well as a girl, the boy's twin, and a grandmotherly figure. Turns out that these three are the same entity, a djinn named Zalmoxis, or is it the mighty demon Avenarius? That question persists until near the end of the book.

Meanwhile, the scholarly wagon train is threatened by bandits and attempts to take refuge at a sanctuary of healers--although what they're doing way out there in the blasted lands, or whatever the desolation is call, I never quite understood. There, Chance meets Abigail, who has some magic sense and takes the items left by the dead sorceress who was part of the scholarly wagon train to the treasure. The healers do take them to a cave. The bandits attack; there's some magic; Draffut returns to route the bandits for a time.The Beast Lord then goes off on some other errand--like Reverend Tim Tom--taking part of the caravan with him while Chance, Abigail, Zalmoxis, and others take another way looking for Ardneh's workshop.

As you might expect, the bandits follow with an eye toward the prize. The prize at last becomes revealed. Ardneh's sword isn't one item, but many--spandex suits that turn the wearers into pagan gods with no recollection of their former life. One of these dispatches Avenarius. The many gods go their ways. Abigail and Chance elect not to don this armor of the gods and go make marriage plans. The end.

I was most disappointed by the fact that the big battle at the end of EoftE promised a better and different world. However, a thousand years later, the world appeared to be pretty much the same as before, albeit with fewer demons. The owl's role never amounted to much. Avenarius as an antagonist turned out to be a dud; his demise wasn't attributable to any heroics by Chance. The matter of who was spying for the bandits, and the suspicious activity of one of the minor characters was never resolved, as near as I can remember. I'm not a fan of the resolution, but donning the armor of the gods was a completely unexpected twist that was intriguing. One must wonder whether the humans were worse off with the demons or the new gods that were Ardneh's cure for that affliction. I would have enjoyed the book more if it had been shorter. Again, I gave it 4 stars, so my criticisms should be considered in that light.

The sequel to Accidental Pirates has been written and received a round of editing. I'll make one more complete read/edit pass and send it in for consideration for publication. I'll be the first to admit that Accidental Pirates has a slower start than I prefer. The sequel, on the other hand, hits the afterburners at the end of the first short chapter. Although it does gear down for the curves, it never hits the brakes. The last several chapters are a white hot burn to the finish with no shortage of casualties along the way as the boys face danger from the blood pack, turncoats, magical beasts, treachery, and the Dragon Queen herself. It's a glorious charge into peril to help good prevail against evil.