We lost a man of steel this week. I attended his funeral yesterday. Don was born in 1930--you can do the math. He was a metal welding wizard. He worked in metal with the ease that the more skilled members of my family work with wood and concrete, or sarcasm. I always thought that he looked like Will Rogers; he also had friendly philosophical thoughts from time to time. He and his wife were friends of my parents and they played cards together when they lived close. I worked with Don one summer back in 1978 or 79. He managed a farm and I did the unskilled labor: moving sprinkler pipe, fixing fence, clearing the broken straw, hauling and stacking hay and a thousand other tasks. I got $4.00/hour which was rather good wages for an under-size high school kid at the time. He never looked over my shoulder but would sometimes let me know how I could improve on a task when he examined it later. 

I remember one time when we were stacking a load of hay. We had to use the hay elevator of the mechanized chain variety. Many people would climb the 20 foot elevator like a ladder to reach the top of the stack prior to activating the elevator. My technique (learned from my father, the undisputed He-Man of the hay bale universe) was to ride the elevator to the top of the stack by placing a foot on one of the paired prongs on the chain which were made to stick into the bales to haul them to the top.

In that instance, I stepped into place while the chain was in neutral and not moving. Don then kicked it into gear. The chain started with a jerk (not me, but the yank or tug type) which knocked me off balance. I slipped and finally fell backward with my Achilles tendon between the two prongs and my heel caught on the uphill side. The elevator was dragging me feet-first to my doom--or at least to potential injury (at the time I was convinced that it was to my certain doom. It was like I was in the desperate clutches of Gollum and we were about to fall over the brink into the molten lava of Mount Doom). After the machine had dragged me for a few uncomfortable feet, he shifted it out of gear so that I could extricate myself. We both laughed about it but his laughter was more genuine than mine. I can't say that I'm a better person for having worked that summer with Don, and I'm sure he was no better off for my association, but I enjoyed our work and our friendship.

***

The Gallows from Warbases Company arrived yesterday. I had to put it together immediately. There were no directions. The large pieces went together easily. The lever assembly was tricky but I eventually deciphered it after staring at the online store picture until my eyes turned into pixels. The trap door mechanism required some thought. I looked for instructions online but didn't find any. I couldn't find any pictures other than the view from the top. 

I figured it out and I include a view from beneath the scaffold for anyone who would find that helpful.

As for the ever pressing need to write, I did it. It was a struggle to get to 65K words for several reasons. First, I remembered with some consternation that the rescue scene that I had written last week included the rescue of most of the distressed characters. I had left one of them dangling on the gibbet (which sounds like a way to serve shrimp or something: The special today includes sauteed prawns dangling on the gibbet. I highly recommend them). So I had to rewrite that scene. Time escaped me. By Saturday, I had two days worth of writing to catch up on. Also, I was distracted by the funeral, the gallows assembly, and hanging new blinds for my wife--the blinds were actually for the windows but my wife had selected them. Nevertheless, being the mighty splitter of infinitives and fearless dangler of participles that I am, I worked through the distractions and completed my goal for the week.

I'm rethinking the way I intended to divide this adventure series. I may opt for more, shorter books than for a trilogy of long books. Four to six books that I could sell at a less expensive rate might be more worthwhile, profitable, and fulfilling--the thrill of completing 4-6 books should be greater than that for completing only 3. I may end these in the 80K word range rather than the 120K range.

Next time: I may do reviews of 1632 by Eric Flint and Cthulhu Armageddon by C.T. Phipps. One of these was a DNF for me but I should set forth my reasons.

Before I get to Solo: A Star Wars Story

Speaking of enterprises of great pith and moment (and that's not meant to be a Star Trek reference), I've hit the 60K word mark on the novel in progress. I still haven't decided upon a title that I like for it. Please feel free to send suggestions for the title of a best selling flintlock fantasy novel to be published this year. I could tell you something about it but that would inhibit your imaginative title suggestions.

I've found that writing dialogue is how I discover my characters. The characters ask questions that I had not previously considered. Answering those questions helps develop depth and motivation. Action scenes are fun to write, but conversation is the fertile soil in which the seed of character is best sown.

***

Aside from the writing, which went extremely well, the week included a game with these figures from Bronze Age Miniatures and the musketeer figures that I've posted earlier. It was Barsoom meets the musketeers. Once again using the ...And All for One rules mentioned before for a simple game that several boys could quickly learn for a fun evening.

They never got tired of trying to kill each other and take off with the loot.

I alluded to a review of Solo: A Star Wars Story. I'll be brief--or not; I'm just rambling here.

 Color me simply disappointed. I thought it not a bad show, better than Last Jedi. When I see a Star Wars film I'm thinking about rewatchability. I'm always asking myself if I'll want to watch this film again. Of the new films, only The Force Awakens has a measurable rewatchability factor for me. As for Solo, I thought Firefly did the train robbery better. Apart from the characters there were elements that recalled scenes from the original New Hope, Empire, and Jedi trilogy that I appreciated. I was glad that Ron Howard paid homage to the three great movies onto which the rest of the mediocre films of the franchise have been scabbed.

For both people who have not seen this film yet: Beware, spoilers follow.

As for the acting, I found the new actors playing the roles of the old heroes entirely believable; I liked them. The special effects obviously soaked up a lot of the budget. The music only reached memorable heights when it went back to the original theme. The story seemed sloppy and unlikely. If I remember correctly, bad guy Dryden never had a pistol. I think the bad guy should have more than a glorified knife for self defense. I was pleased to see Clint Howard with a cameo. Lando's lover-like remorse at the loss of L-3 struck me as a rather ridiculous, but I hate cat videos and space octupi as well so maybe I'm wrong--but I'm not. The security on Kessel, a planet with mines producing extremely valuable fuel mined by slave labor, reached a nadir even lower than that on Endor for the protection of the death star in Jedi. At least there were no Ewoks. Finally, who was surprised when the big bad Cloud Rider took off the helmet to reveal a woman? No one.

Let's begin with the book review and see where it goes from there.

Death's Angels by William King.

I got this book for free and it is still available at that price. I picked it up because my new novel in progress is in the flintlock fantasy genre and also has dragons. I wanted to see what this book did with similar components. This book and my book are nothing alike.

What I liked: King is a very good writer. I never felt that I was reading something that could (as I've noted about many fantasy books) have been written by a fairly talented 5th grader. He can put a story together and his sentence structure and word choice never annoyed me -- except for the occasional use of profanity; that annoyed me (I nearly put it away without finishing). I continue to believe that the best writers don't need to use profanity. I won't say it's a substitute for talent in King's case because he's very talented and that type of language is infrequent. But I digress; this is supposed to be the part where I discuss what I did like. Most of the characters were interesting if somewhat stereotypical. The main character, Rik, is the orphaned thief; there's a big barbarian who suffers from a lack of mental agility, and also a weasel-type named Weasel. I liked those guys even if they weren't terribly unique. I wanted to know more about the Terrarch overlords, the conquerors from space and wielders of magic. King did some interesting things with the variety of dragons; I wanted to know more about them. The story progressed at a rapid pace. Danger hovered in the wings or came straight on with scything claws; it's some exciting reading.

What I didn't like: I just didn't care for the story. The story was well told. I never grew bored with it. The author kept me interested even after it became clear that the baddies were some kind of demons. I'm just not into demons; it's a flavor of fantasy for which I have never acquired a taste. I enjoy a good battle against Sauron or some dark lord and his minions, but grotesque and bug-like hell spawn held at bay or set free by the interpretive dance and chanted lyrics of pasty-faced sorcerers and their slimy apprentices leave me sick and empty in the same manner as did that expired can of creamed corn left in the hot summer sun that I convinced grandma to cook for me when I was a kid--I haven't been able to eat creamed corn since. The lack of flintlock detail and combat description disappointed me. This book really could have been a sword and sorcery piece without significant modification. I was hankering for a helping of musketry fire and bayonet charges and found those particular morsels of the repast too small to appease my desire.

The Verdict: There are 91 reviews on and 90% of those are 4 and 5 stars. A lot of people liked it. I can't say that I really agree with the 3, 2, or 1 star reviews. It didn't appeal to me but that was a matter of taste rather than quality. Your mileage may vary. As for me, I won't be reading further in the series.

***

With regard to my own books, the sales continue. Most of the recent sales have been of Justice Resurgent, but Justice in Season, the first book in the two book series has also sold more copies.

The novel in progress has broken the 55K word mark. I have departed from the story as broadly outlined but characters and events often refuse to be bound by my original concept for them. Once the writing begins they insist on slipping the 12 point Times New Roman bonds which had loosely anchored them to their predefined role in the tale. That's the exciting part. They always take me places beyond what I had originally imagined. I can't wait to find out what happens next. Seriously, I know what happens; I just don't always know how it's going to happen. OK. Sometimes I don't even know what's going to happen; I'm as surprised as anyone.

Finally, I started a French movie, Le Doulos, a week or so ago and got time to finish it yesterday.

The story goes like this:
Confusion. Girl gets beat up. Guy gets shot. Botched burglary. Things get explained. Everyone dies.
That's not a proper review. I'm not a proper reviewer. It might make a nice reframe where I use pictures from the film but build my own unlikely tale around them but I probably won't get to it.

Before the cavalcade of other items which may or may not be included in today's post, let me address  ERB's The Moon Men. 

On second thought, this will be first (except for what I said above which actually came first but referred to something which will not in fact be first, except for the mentioning thereof, which was in fact first). I must say that the novel writing went exceedingly well this week. I passed the 50K word mark. More importantly, two epiphanistic* breakthroughs combined to remind me why I love writing (and the 150 copies of the books that sold this week didn't hurt either). As you may remember from last week (or not), the antagonist was locked in combat with one of the good guys. I had left the combat unresolved on a cliff hanger and moved on to the next chapter. Some things had to happen in that combat to make it serve a higher purpose. I hadn't put those things together in my mind until on my way to the shower I fell, striking my head on the toilet and had a vision of the flux capacitor had a striking idea--but not of the Psycho shower striking sort. The resolution perfectly achieved the purposes that I had for the combat and also helped me with some issues that I had puzzled about for an important moment near the conclusion of the book. Also, another string that I had not foreseen suddenly unraveled before me--and by "suddenly" I mean over the course of a few days after I had written the conclusion to the combat and had written a few other scenes; it's a very subjective suddenly. It was awesome! Truly, I was feckful in my writing this week.

*Epiphanistic may not be a word but I like the sound of it and my poetic license is still valid in all 50 states, most of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, parts of Asia, and many Pacific island nations.

Back to the promised review:

As for the matter of the cover: It bears the title of The Moon Men but the cover actually contains the second two books of the trilogy made up of The Moon Maid, The Moon Men and The Red Hawk. The scene depicted is from the third book. My review is only of the second book but I can say that the antagonist pictured is much larger than described in the book, and I don't believe the girl in the story wore such an outfit.

How did I come to review this book? You may wonder--probably not but I'll explain it anyway. It was New Year's Eve. I was exhausted and went to bed late, as is the custom. After falling asleep twice and being roused from that sleep as many times, I could not recapture the muse of restful dreams. I contemplated my volumes of forgotten lore and stumbled upon this one behind my bookshelf door. So this was the first book that I began for the new year (although I had a few others already in progress from 2018). For some reason this slender tome beckoned to my sleep deprived mind. I had read it a couple times before and thought to read it again perhaps never more. So it began; it became my breakfast reader. I finished a couple days ago.

The book has many classic ERB elements but it is set in a dystopian future--it's Burroughs' version of 1984 meets Braveheart. It appeared as a serial in 1925. The earth has been conquered by the Kalkars of the moon led by Orthis. The Americans live as a conquered people taxed more than they can bear, virtual slaves to the uncouth tyrants. The Kalkars represent the communists--the nation is divided into districts each of which is called (and presided over by) a Teivos (Soviet spelled backwards). The hero, Julian 9th, with the American flag held aloft finally leads a rebellion against the Kalkars. The hero could be John Carter or Tarzan but without the charm. The story isn't so much about the hero as it is about the state of the conquered and the conditions under which they live. As per the usual ERB formula, Julian rescues the woman that all other men, especially the Kalkars and the degenerate humans who seek their favor, covet. Naturally, they fall in love and then the ending does not climax with the destruction of their enemies and living happily ever after. Fortunately, ERB has another book in the series to correct this disappointing ending.

The setting and the warning are the real story in this book. A quote from Burroughs' voice of warning:

That is their politics; that is their religion. Hate. but the world is all hate--hate and misery.

...[T]he people didn't know when they were well off. They came from all other parts of the world to share our happiness and when they had won it they sought to overthrow it, and when the Kalkars came they helped them.

On the movie front--because the war must be waged on all fronts--I watched Wyvern. I know what you're thinking: Wyvern and surely you weren't in Milwaukee, were you? (Read those first three words of that sentence out loud, varying your pronunciation until you get the joke).

All I have to say about this movie is that I didn't hate it. I did have low expectations but I entertained high hopes. My expectations were exceeded though my hopes were left unfulfilled. I guess that isn't all that I have to say. I'll say more. The movie had some interesting characters. I would have liked to have got to know more about some of them before they checked into the flying gastro-intestinal hotel. The ending kind of killed the show for me. The hero planned the last encounter that would destroy the wyvern but the plan, it seemed to me, utterly failed to account for the fact that the beast was of the variety volant. The plan would never have worked but for an unforeseeable problem that the creature developed so that it couldn't fly away when the the metaphorical hammer came down.

Other observations:

Uhtred is D'Artagnan. I finished my vidangel view of the 3rd season of Last Kingdom.

And I forgot the other pithy comment--but it was good, really good.

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.