StanleyWheeler

"Wrong or right, they have the might, so wrong or right, they're always right, and that's wrong... right?" If you've ever seen the musical Camelot , you know that King Arthur spoke the line above as he contemplated some wrong to right, some peril to face, and what use to make of knights. I had never seen the show before. It was a recording of the musical play, not the 1967 movie that also starred Richard Harris--which I've also never seen. I highly recommend this musical. It makes me want to reread The Once and Future King which I haven't read since I was in jr. high school. My wife had seen this film before and even knew most of the songs. Apparently she used to sing a few of them with her sister. Earlier today, I mentioned Camelot as an introduction to the line with which I opened this post to a room of 14 year old boys; they all wondered what Camelot was. They had never even heard of Camelot. At least they heard of King Arthur--they just d...

This book has been my companion for at least a couple months. The title of the book comes from something Washington said after the war. Another book about the American War of Independence? Indeed. I acquired both the kindle version and the hard copy. I'm glad I did. Ferling's Almost a Miracle ranks among the best single-volume treatments of the conflict that I've read. The book provides background on the politics, personalities and international ramifications behind the decisions. The options available to the parties are discussed at length in many cases. In some instances, such as Cornwallis' reasons for refusing to leave Yorktown until it was too late, the author provides the statements given at the time, as well as the justifications given with the benefit of hindsight. This is an excellent book. I think I prefer it to another favorite, Leckie's Washington's War, because it does not focus on Washington as much as that work. I give the book 5 ou...

Stories from the stock photo folder. It's Twilight Zone meets Mayberry . I don't know who put this picture together but it must have a great story to go with it.  Mirror Universe Spock is performing a mild meld on Barney Fife. Is this also a MU Barney or has has MU Spock engaged in both time travel and universe hopping?  Perhaps he's extracting from the deputy the location of the one bullet he keeps for his revolver. Maybe Spock desires to know why everyone is avoiding Aunt Bea's pickles. On second thought, it looks like Barney is in the engineering section of the Enterprise. Barney has been transported to the MU. He has traded places with Dr. McCoy and drained the universe of color.  Here's how it looked before the Barney Rift opened. I don't know if Barney can get back. Kirk and the rest of the crew are doomed -- maybe they all shifted to Mayberry; unless Scotty can construct a starship or transporter from stone knives and Otis' alcoh...

The novel in progress has passed the 70K word mark. I note that my most recent publication, Justice Resurgent was only 74K words and is the shortest of my books. Justice in Season as originally written was about 95K words but I cut it back to 89K words. Finding Jack-The Orb was over 88K words. Smoke , my favorite work so far, was 95K words. I anticipate reaching the end of the new novel somewhere between 80K and 90K words--it's part of a series so I'm adjusting the break point between books. When I read a book, I don't care so much about word count--unless it's way too long with a lot of slop that should've been eliminated. I only track the word count on my own books to keep my writing goal steady and manageable, and to make sure that I'm publishing something with enough words and pages, i.e., enough story, to be a worthwhile investment for a reader. Speaking of books: I should review two. Let me begin with 1632 by Eric Flint. It was available as a fre...