The Yuletide festivities have drawn to a close. The tree, the lights, the holiday cards and decorations remain; cold reminders of the joyous celebration played out, they are the empty cask that held the tasty beverage of merriment consumed. We had a full house. It was delightful. We wouldn't trade those joyful days together for anything less than a free oil-change and a bag of chips. Threatening weather, like some two-bit hood with a switchblade, persuaded our guests to head home early.

Now the last days of the year that was drip to the frozen December ground.

The year began with the water heater replacement; it moved forward with car repairs, motorcycle battery replacement, lawnmower repairs, car purchase, pressure tank replacement, and ended with washing machine repair. The last item, as well as some of the car repairs, I had to outsource; the washing machine repair came at a particularly bad time--see the aforementioned full house. For the most part, the year exceeded expectations. I did get two books completed and self-published (Smoke and Justice Resurgent) in completely different genres, and I've made substantial progress on the newest book (an as of yet unnamed flintlock fantasy novel). I've read a good number of books and written brief reviews of a few of them. There are, of course, more important things happening than my writing--if that's possible--but this is mostly a forum for my writing and a few odd topics that come to mind while I'm writing it.

Speaking of odd topics: The last movie I saw was called White Horse, Dark Dragon.

The movie features Christopher Lloyd, Dee Wallace, and Soon-Tek Oh. When I saw that it starred Christopher Lloyd and had Soon-Tek Oh, I thought it would be interesting. Admittedly, when I saw that Dee Wallace was in it, I was less enthusiastic. I don't have anything against Dee Wallace--she's a fine actress--but she was in a lot of 80's drek--I consider E.T. to fit into that category only with better special effects. (I was going to go off on how I think E.T. was tremendously overrated and a big disappointment for me but I won't; my self-restraint is laudable, n'est-ce pas?). So my expectations for the film were merely moderate--and yet I was still disappointed.

Lloyd plays some scientist hired to go to Faristan, a fictional eastern European country, to finish an environmental impact study for the evil American corporation which has a five-year lease to boldly go where no man has gone before do something or other; I never caught exactly what it was trying to do. Wallace plays a low-budget sorceress where Lloyd and his son of age 6 or 8 or stay. Sorceress has a blind foster daughter who must be in her twenties. Blind girl wanders about the hills and befriends a white horse that can turn into a dragon that can fry people with its eyes. Soon-Tek Oh turns out to be a bad guy assassin of some sort. Lloyd refuses to alter his findings to suit the evil corporation. The corporate honcho sends someone to explain it to Lloyd. Lloyd insists that there are four lights and the corporate guys try to eliminate him. Meanwhile, Oh and Wallace are set to eliminate the blind girl and Lloyd, and maybe the dragon too--I never understood what those two were hoping to achieve. Lloyd and the dragon save the day. Oh takes a fatal fall, Wallace takes a fatal fry after stabbing blind girl. Blind girl is healed by the dragon and even regains her sight. Evil corporate honcho gets bad publicity and loses his place on the board. Lloyd, son and blind girl live happily ever after.

The film makes no sense. None of the characters are believable or even interesting. Perhaps the book upon which the film is based was fabulous satire. At best, the film aspires to be dull.

I'll let Mr. Spock express my rating for the movie:

As for my own dull aspirations and endeavors, the new novel is up to 45K words. One of the good guys is locked in a combat with the evil antagonist; the plot is moving along even though I've decided on some serious changes since I originally outlined the story; and there is some character development. More importantly, the feedback from the sample readers has been highly positive. I hope to have the book completed and published before July.

Best wishes for the new year!

But wait, there's more.

I had a great time playing some games with our guests. One of those was based on the simple rules set ...And One for All. Because I didn't have many of my musketeers painted, we used Mega Bloks Star Trek figures with some Lord of The Rings SBG scenery, and some tables and benches made from popsicle sticks, and barrels and boxes made of wax. Our three player variant was a rocking success.

The dark, quadrangular oculus* bid me welcome this week and sought to entertain me with stories both dark and fey. I accepted the challenge as reward for my fair to middling (or less) progress on the new novel.

*I know oculus refers to a circular or oval aperture and is therefore inconsistent with quadrangular but I've recently renewed my poetic license and mean to make profligate use thereof.

First up was Orson Welles in Black Magic from 1949. It's based upon Dumas' novel Joseph Balsamo of which I had neither read nor even heard until now. Welles plays Cagliostro, a man with amazing hypnotic powers which he decides (unsurprisingly) to use for personal gain and influence. His good fortune goes sour when he attempts to substitute a ringer for Marie Antoinette. I'm a little foggy on the details because that is about when I fell asleep the first time. I resumed the movie sometime the next day only to succumb to the muse of snooze once again. I did manage to watch the end. There's a trial where Cagliostro uses his power to get a witness to exonerate him--but wait, there's more! Another hypnotist appears and mesmerizes Cagliostro into confessing that this film is a boring dog of an excuse for entertainment. Welles gives a swell performance and the costumes are nice (but they can only be of limited dazzle in black and white), but the rest of it is entirely forgettable--or was I hypnotized during the film to think that, and instead of sleeping I was typing my personal identifiers and credit card information into the dark web database?

Dungeons and Dragons (2000) features Jeremy Irons and some other people who have never been in my kitchen.* The beginning of the film held promise. Irons plays a mage named Profion who has an unquenchable desire for power and a hankering to control dragons. Ridley and Snails are a couple of thieves who decide that it would be a good idea to make a big heist at the local Hogwarts. The idea turns out not to be so great. They get sucked into the imbroglio (which sounds like a word that should be sung by men in small, feathered caps and lederhosen in the Swiss Alps) that is Profion's plan to seize power from the empress. Some mage understudy catches them in their thievery at the same time as the counselor to the empress is being separated from his life by Profion's hench Damodar. Everybody wants something called the Rod of Savrille (I can hear David Lee Roth singing that). Cutting to the chase: An Elf and a Dwarf become part of the adventure party; the rod is found; the rod is lost to Damodar and Profion; Snails dies; Profion is about to succeed when Ridley discovers how to destroy the power of the rod. The ending seems to set it up for a sequel which would have to try really, really hard to be worse than this movie.

The film wasn't as bad as I had imagined. It wasn't very good in the same sense that hitting your thumb with a hammer isn't very good. The characters are shallow stereo-types, and poorly drawn ones at that. The actors weren't bad (Irons was great as always) but the script didn't do them any favors. One character was so annoying that I wasn't sorry to see him go: Snails. The character had potential but the script never allowed him to play more than one or two notes which were about as fun has having someone yank out a wad of your arm hair. If that sounds a little like torture to you, you've understood correctly. The special effects, or course, were something else--being in a class from say, 1984.

*See the Cheers episode where Norm Cliff goes on Jeopardy.

True Grit (2010) featuring Jeff Bridges as John Wayne, Matt Damon as Glen Campbell, Josh Brolin as Plasus Jeff Corey, and Hailee Steinfeld as Kim Darby; I particularly enjoyed Barry Pepper as Robert Duvall. I might have seen this sooner if I had realized that it is almost as fun as the original and is 18 minutes shorter. All of the actors do an excellent job of impersonating the actors that I remember in the roles--except Jeff Bridges. Bridges either couldn't or wouldn't do a good John Wayne; he played Jeff Bridges instead and managed to do it convincingly.

I laughed at least twice during the film--both times when Bridges kicked children; I know that sounds bad but in my defense, it was very funny. The film retains much of the dialogue from the original. The best dialogue in the original, in my opinion, was between Kim Darby and Strother Martin (one of the best character actors ever). Part of that dialogue is retained. Also preserved throughout is the articulate speech pattern that uses complete sentences, few contractions, and superior diction. The writing is what makes this movie soar, the actors embrace it and ascend on its wings; and the directors didn't ruin it.

***

Now for something completely different. I've finished chapter 8 of the new novel, which takes me through part IV of my XII part outline and hits the 40K word mark. That number usually indicates the halfway point but in this case, it is probably only about the one third mark.

If you're a sample reader and want an update to the current progress, let me know.

You can purchase Justice Resurgent for only $0.99; and Justice in Season for only $1.99 for a limited time. The link buttons are at the top of the page. All of my books make great last minute Christmas gifts--but seriously, you don't have to buy them all.

When patterns collide:*

Mary, Maude, Denise, Sheryl, and Patsy gathered for their first big assignment as undercover fashion police.

*I think I got the picture above from a 2012 French clothing catalog like the rest of the photos that follow, but it's possible that I got it from Lileks.com. I don't remember. (A Google image search indicates as a best guess that the picture comes from a Bosnian TV Series. I doubt it.)

Even in 2012, I think that wearing this coat is a silent plea for help.

A fine selection from the Dork Collection. Apparently they could only get the one guy who was willing to model these outfits.

Costumes from the famous play Lion Dork in Winter.

The Dork in Summer Collection for high water, rain, and pants optional occasions.

Finally, it's the new Dorktor Who look.

And for women -- I'm not sure whether these dresses are to-die-for,

it's selections from the campaign against women, or styles for the victimized. Maybe the models were just tired or lacked the strength to stand--perhaps the dresses are super heavy.

To complete the options for young women's clothing, there's the dress for those times when she just wants to imagine that she's a basketball hoop.

***

In things more banal and of barely passing interest, the new novel has passed the 35K word mark--which is actually below the pace that I had previously set but I have my excuses.. The real point of interest is that in focusing on some development of a lesser character it evolved into a situation that helps develop the main character arc. Professional writers probably plan that kind of stuff. I find those things just leap out at me unexpectedly like the dog that was hiding behind the parked car yesterday at the grocery store.

My favorite quote I heard this week was, "You need to stop being nice to people!" Of course it wasn't directed at me; I was merely in the vicinity. No one ever tells me that kind of thing.

I did think of a parody title to my latest publication: Justice Detergent--the law cleans up. The actual book Justice Resurgent is currently available for only $0.99; and the previous book, Justice in Season, is available for only $1.99 for a limited time. Links are at the top of the page.

*

This weekend began (and completed) the Christmasification--or is it Christmasization?--of the estate. Fils and his children Kned and Comedienne joined us to erect the brand new yuletide pine constructed of genuine and completely man-made materials. The fun also included the festive luminizing--or is it lumification?--of the exterior timber and mansion house perimeter. A word (or several) about those sobriquets: Fils is self-explanatory; I thought Kned (pronounced either with, or without the vocalized "K" ) sounded better than "dead president;" and Comedienne was the alternative to "Dickens' French girl"--also, she did comedic things like waking us up in the middle of the night several times in order to grace us with renditions of her greatest hits--which sounded a lot like the vocal tracks on a death metal album. She's a scream--literally. We were thrilled to have them. The vocal tracks were inconsequential in comparison to the joy they brought.

Fils and I did discover that putting the Christmas lights up might have gone more smoothly if we had either had more help, or been smarter; but we managed. At the completion of the job when we viewed the lights at night, I remarked, "I was hoping that they would look better than that." He responded, "I guess we had different visions about what we were doing." I don't know what he meant by that. I had visions of a luminous staff with celestial swirls of white light in the large tree accompanied by graceful arcs of warm red cheer in the smaller tree. At dark, we saw a crooked white staff with haphazard white lines in the vicinity next to some red scribbles. It was like Lite-Brite meets a broken Spirograph--two disappointing toys from my childhood (which I never owned but which were never as fun to try as they appeared to be on television). I did take another look at those lights. From one angle, the lights on the large tree reminded me of a dragon with wings outstretched; granted, that took some imagining, but who's to say it's not a Christmas miracle?

We also had our first fire of the season in the fire pit. Louis and Lucien (The Corsican Brothers), the children of my daughter the Ice Queen and her husband Thor, were at the house last night. They enjoyed the fire and roasting marshmallows. In point of fact, the brothers preferred throwing things, including marshmallows, into the fire as opposed to merely roasting them. The fringe benefit was that we could send the brothers back to their parents smelling strongly of smoke--which the Ice Queen hates. Good times!

***
The big news, of course--cue the trumpet fanfare--is that Justice Resurgent is now available for $0.99. Click the book cover image to go to the big river sales site for the book.

*The picture at the top of the post is a Remington-Beals .44 caliber--the type of pistol used by McBride in Justice in Season and Justice Resurgent.

I have mixed feelings about this book. When I did the re-read/corrections, there were parts I really liked; there were parts that I did not love; but the ending really decided me--I think it's the most moving ending that I've written to date.

***
Finally, last week I was nearly finished with Feval's Le Loup Blanc. I finished it the next day.

General Thoughts: See below.

Story in a nutshell: A noble of Bretagne in northwest France lets his hatred of the Kingdom of France lead him to leave his estate in the hands of a duplicitous "relative" named Vaunoy while he goes to challenge the king to personal combat. The estate is supposed to pass to the noble's grandson. The scoundrel Vaunoy wants it all to himself; he not only attempts to kill the grandson, he also kills the loyal dog--so we know he's beyond redemption. Grandson is rescued, only to immediately disappear. Grandson returns later without knowledge of his birthright. Le Loup Blanc and others help restore him to his rightful estate and title.

Do I recommend it? Yes. There are a number of interesting characters and this story strongly resembles that of Robin Hood and the return of King Richard. The grandson returns like King Richard. Vaunoy holds the power like King John. Le Loup Blanc and the men of the forest resemble Robin Hood and the merry men. Marie has the role of Maid Marian. The likenesses aren't exact, but the similarities are strong. I rate it: A Valiant Variant of the Robin Hood/King Richard story.

***
What did Ricardo Montalban say with regard to Paul's epistles to the saints of Corinth?
He called them fine Corinthian Letters.

A cutter ship is featured in the new novel in progress. Below is picture of a model of a cutter I found on the internet--I can't remember from whence it came. The cutter has taken some serious damage in the recent chapter of book, but I suspect it will recover at some point. The sloop that appears in the first chapter will not recover.

The book has progressed to chapter 7 and is paused there while I get Justice Resurgent published. The corrections recommended by the proofreaders are nearly done--20 pages left to go. I thought that I would have it completed yesterday, but reality intervened. Additionally, the story felt flat and somewhat thin on description; I reached out for some feedback regarding my doubts and received encouragement to publish; so it will post sometime next week. I'll put it up initially for $0.99.

***

The highlight of the week was this:

A local chain store runs a weekly contest. This week we won the treat pictured. I'd never had them before. I looked at the bag: coconut milk, gluten free, dairy free. I figured it was probably taste free as well. I imagined a flavor like toilet paper tubes with the texture of sandpaper. As you might imagine, I was quite excited to try them. 

Surprise: The rolls were delicious with a mild coconut flavor that was not too sweet. The delicate little rolls (made with rice flour) melt in your mouth. I think that is the best of the treat prizes that we have won. Naturally, I wasted no time in consuming them.

***

 Not quite a book review. I think I'm nearly finished with this book. I'm just starting chapter 32.

I've quite liked this book. I had previously read the first book of Le Bossu by Feval -- upon which the movie En Garde (as it's called in English, but Le Bossu in French) with Daniel Auteuil is based--and had enjoyed it--I think there are about six parts. When I got the complete works of Feval, I decided to read them in order--Le Loup Blanc is the first book in the compilation. I'm only at 4% read of the compilation and I know this book concludes within that 4% range. The ebook of this single title can be found on the big river site for free. The compilation is available for a couple dollars.

***

Part of the reason I didn't finish the corrections to Justice Resurgent on Saturday was because of other activities. My wife and I delivered to friends some treats that she had made. That activity was followed by a high school basketball game with a wild and successful finish for the home team. Finally, we concluded the evening at a presentation of an old time radio show fundraiser for a local talent group. The entire show delighted. The mystery show was outstanding with a terrific cast.

I have to confess that my favorite part of the show was the singing of Secret Love by a talented young lady. I thought that it was quite as good as Doris Day's version (which is the only version I've previously heard, and which is included on the digital album that I have. Doris Day sings it here:

Although I don't think that song is referenced in Smoke, one or two other songs that Doris Day made famous are prominently featured in that novel. Did I mention the Smoke paperback would make a great Christmas gift. The link is above on the left.

***

Also The Duelists in on Prime. I had to watch it immediately upon discovery---more on that later. For now, suffice it to say that I recommend it.