Here it Comes!

It's finally finished! Bard Conley's Adventures Across the Solar System is finally complete! I've uploaded it to Amazon, so it should be available tomorrow. I'm very, very excited; this is my first science-fiction publication, so it's a new experience. And, as a quick preview, here's the cover art, as done by the amazing Alex Lechev, aka thegreyghost:

I don't know about you, but that makes me want to explore other planets! So, watch this space, and hopefully, tomorrow night I'll make the official announcement. Oh, and it's going to be in paperback, too.

Indie vs. Traditional

I used to be like most writers, wanting desperately to be published by a real publisher and make money as a best-selling author. But it wasn't until last year that I realized that wasn't the way to go to succeed. Now, if I was being published by a 'real publisher' like Tor or Baen, I'd have more sales, but I wouldn't be making very much money, because traditional publishing doesn't pay very well unless you're one of the big-name authors. Which I am most definitely not.

So, I went indie instead, self-publishing through Amazon (for now; there are other platforms for me to use). Sure, my sales aren't exactly setting records, but it's pretty cool to look at my page on Amazon and see nine books (soon to be ten) staring back at me.

At work, I get to listen (quietly) to music. Since it's available, I use YouTube. Usually I'm playing classical music or video game soundtracks (Icewind Dale's music is just awesome). But over the past couple of weeks, I started playing some indie artists, people who were rejected by the establishment at first, but who made great careers on their own. In particular, I've been listening to Postmodern Jukebox, Haley Reinhart, and Lindsey Stirling.

PMJ is one of my favorites; they take modern pop tunes and remake them in older styles. Trust me, you only think your favorite songs are cool. Until you've heard Bruno Mars' Grenade in a 60s surf rock style, or a slow-burn jazz version of Creep, you haven't heard music. And their version of the Titanic song, My Heart Will Go On, is brilliant and awesome in their upbeat, Jackie Wilson 50s' style. Seriously, check them out. You will have a whole new perspective on music.

Haley Reinhart is linked to PMJ, but I first saw her, as many people did, on American Idol. My wife teases me and refers to her as my girlfriend, but it's not her smoldering good looks that impressed me; there are plenty of beautiful women. No, it was her passion, her voice, and her willingness to take chances and be her own person that made her stand out, and it's an absolute crime that she didn't win. She's the best singer in Idol's history, end of sentence.

I suppose part of the appeal was that the judges were unusually harsh on her, as if they were deliberately trying to sabotage her and get eliminated. But she stuck around until the very end, finishing third. Since then, she's gone on to work with PMJ for several songs, but also carved out a successful indie career in jazz-infused pop music that's her own style, and works beautifully for her. She even had a big hit with her remake of Elvis Presley's Can't Help Falling in Love that was in a pretty well-known gum commercial. Trust me, her voice is absolutely amazing.

Then there's Lindsey Stirling. I'm sure that me mentioning her isn't exactly going to make much of a difference on her Youtube channel; she just passed three billion views on her channel. But still, her story is truly inspiring. She went on America's Got Talent almost ten years ago. While she did get through the audition, the judges' criticism after her quarter-finals performance is the stuff of legend. She is a hip-hop violinist, by which I mean she plays the violin but also dances at the same time. Well, the judges didn't think she could pull it off, or fill an arena, or do much of anything with her talent.

Today, she's got five albums, has toured the world several times, has over a hundred videos on her channel, mostly original music but a lot of gaming-related covers, as well. Oh, and she's been invited back to AGT as a guest performer, did a season of Dancing with the Stars, finishing second, and even got an invite to be in AGT: The Champions. She turned them down, of course, and who could blame her? She doesn't need them; in fact, she used their criticism to launch her career in an effort to prove that they were wrong. And did she ever.

My point in this post is that the traditional way of doing things is starting to fall apart, and not just in writing. Music, thanks to YouTube and other streaming options, is a hotbed of indie goodness. The mainstream music scene is just boring now; there's nothing new, nothing exciting, and nothing that you haven't seen a thousand times before, and done better. Indie is where it's at, regardless of your tastes in music.

Movies are a bit tougher, since it takes a lot more work to put one together. But it can be done. Star Wars and Star Trek fan films are legion. Perhaps we'll see some indie movie productions soon; with the current state-of-the-art in computer graphics, it might be possible to rival some of the bigger studios. Making their money isn't going to happen, but unless you're one of the rare few, even in indie, you're not going to make that kind of money anyway. You can still make a decent living from it, and you can certainly have a lot more fun with creative control.

So, check out indie publishing, indie music, and other things indie. It's a brave new world, people, and now is the time. For a good example of indie publishing, check out Best Served Cold, one of the Cameron Vail mysteries, available on Amazon right now.

A Special Anniversary

One year ago, I started writing professionally. That is, I didn't just write for the fun of it anymore, I wrote because I was serious about publishing my work. I'd been looking at getting started for about a month, doing some research and getting rid of some of the myths of writing that I'd been taught over the years. It was a pretty great feeling, and it's been a really fantastic year. I didn't reach my goal of 100,000 words every month, but I did pretty darn well, considering. I'm close to a million words over the course of the past twelve months, which is something a lot of writers never do in their lifetimes.

So, I'm going to celebrate by releasing my tenth book; I'm just putting the finishing touches on Bard Conley's Solar System Adventures, and I expect it will be available by the 31st. I'm excited about this one; it's a semi-anthology; the stories are linked together by an overall plot thread, but it takes a while for that thread to become clear. The last few stories are obviously linked, but they also stand alone. There are ten stories in this book, plus a wrap-up epilogue.

As I mentioned previously, I'm more comfortable writing fantasy than I am science fiction; I've read and played a lot more fantasy than sci-fi in my life. I'm working on fixing that gap with my read-through of Amazing Stories magazine, but it's quite a significant difference. Hopefully, the experience I got writing the Bard Conley stories will help me in that regard.

Back to the Past

So, yesterday I talked about the worst time for Hollywood in terms of making movies parents can let their kids watch, the early 1970s. Alright, I admit I forgot one of the kid-friendly movies from that time: Charlotte's Web. So, there's two. The rest of the half-decade...not so much.

Now, on to the flip side of the equation: The best decade Hollywood ever had. Obviously, it's the 1980s. I mean, there are so many great movies from that decade that it's hard to narrow it down even to a top twenty-five. But I'll give it a try.

1980: Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

          Superman II

1981: Raiders of the Lost Ark

          The Great Muppet Caper

1982: E.T.

          Tron

          Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

          Annie

1983: A Christmas Story

          Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

1984: The Last Starfighter

          Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

          Ghostbusters

          The Karate Kid

1985: Back to the Future

          The Goonies

1986: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

          Spacecamp

          An American Tail

1987: The Princess Bride

1988: Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

          Big

1989: Batman

          The Little Mermaid

          Honey, I Shrunk the Kids

There you go: twenty-five great movies that you can let your kids watch without squirming. And there are others, as well. The 1980s just simply rocked. Sure, I was a teenager during the majority of the decade, so there's some nostalgia involved, but I didn't go to a lot of movies back then. I mean, I did see Batman in the theatres about a dozen times, but who didn't back then?

Now, there are language issues in some of these movies, absolutely. But these movies aren't rated 'R'. And there's not much in the way of violence, and virtually no sex. No pornos making big at the box office, either. That alone makes the 1980s vastly superior to the 1970s.

I'm not saying that other decades had no good family movies; most movies prior to 1960 were family-friendly, period. But the 1980s produced some of the most innovative, clever, creative movies of all time, where the special effects enhanced the movie but rarely, if ever, dominated it. Even Star Wars, Star Trek and Superman focused on story more than special effects, which is why they were superior to their modern iterations. We'll never get another decade like this in movies, I'm afraid. But we've still got these ones, so enjoy them with your kids. And when they grow up, they'll share them with their kids, too. Pass it on, pay it forward, whatever your cliché of choice may be.

It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times

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Great Classical Literature...or is it?

I've been working on a project for one of my courses, which I handed in earlier this afternoon. It's a project on ancient Greek drama, specifically the playwright Aristophanes. He wrote was is known as Old Comedy, and he's the only person whose Old Comedy writings still exist; the rest are lost to history (and so are three-quarters of Aristophanes' works, as well). And, like Homer, Plato, and Herodotus, I always understood him to be a 'classic' writer, someone whose works should be read and studied to better understand the human condition, society, and life in general.

When I was younger, I picked up a great series of books called The Great Books of the Western World. I had the original, 1952 edition, which I picked up on the cheap a bunch of years ago. Aristophanes and the other great Greek playwrights are in that set, and I've read that entire volume, cover to cover. And yes, the plays were thought-provoking and entertaining at the same time. Truly inspirational writing, among the best ever put to parchment in human history.

Then I read a more accurate, modern translation. Oh, my, was that eye-opening. The translations I read were from the 19th century, public-domain translations which were used in the GBWW set to keep costs as low as possible. Anyone who's read 19th-century English translations from other languages knows that, for the most part, it's very tame. Unless you're reading Richard Burton's translation of the Arabian Nights; he didn't hold back anything in that one, especially in his copious footnotes. But otherwise, the translators held to a strict morality, and didn't expose their readers to the more outlandish things these men wrote.

Today's translators, however, have no such qualms. They relish the opportunity to present these works in their 'original' form with the most literal translations possible while still maintaining the structure of the work itself. And let me tell you, Aristophanes was not at all like the man whose works I read in that volume of Greek playwrights.

Here's a brief excerpt from his play Lysistrata, in which the title character attempts to force an end to the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta by getting all the women of both cities to go on a sex strike. The first version is from Jack Lindsay's translation, done in 1925:

If they were trysting for a Bacchanal,
A feast of Pan or Colias or Genetyllis,
The tambourines would block the rowdy streets,
But now there's not a woman to be seen
Except--ah, yes--this neighbour of mine yonder.

Now, here's George Theodoridis' translation of the same lines, done in the year 2000:

If my invitation was for one of those orgies, held for Little Dick or High Dick or Low Clit, you wouldn’t be able to get through all the bum- and drum-beaters clogging the streets. But for this, no! Oh, no! Not a bloody woman in sight! Not one of them! Pause. Sees Caloniki in the distance, SL

Ah, except for my neighbour! Thank goodness… Hi, Caloniki!

Quite the difference, isn't it? Now, I would frankly prefer to read the earlier translation myself, but from my research for the project, it looks like the second one is more accurate. And that definitely changes my outlook on Aristophanes' merits as a classical writer. The rest of his plays are basically the same. He uses a lot of topical subject matter; current events, local celebrities (mostly of the political or military kind, but not always), and extant literature, what we would consider 'pop culture.' That's right, Aristophanes is the spiritual ancestor of Saturday Night Live. Except he's actually funny. And he throws in a heck of a lot more dick jokes.

Shakespeare is another one who puts more 'rude and crude' in his work. We just don't speak his kind of English anymore, so we get bogged down in all the forsooths and thines and forasmuches. But behind all that, he was quite the earthy fellow.

So, what does this mean? I don't know, really; it certainly has forced me to reevaluate my opinion of the world's oldest comedian. I mean, it's still funny, but relying on sex jokes is entirely too much like today's 'humor.' It gets old after a while. But the older translations do clean it up while keeping the humor and entertainment intact, so that's how I'm going to keep reading them. Sure, it's not 'modern.' But how 'modern' can you expect a guy to be when he's been dead for twenty-four centuries?

For some humor that doesn't rely on crudity, you might want to check out The Missing Magnate, one of my Cameron Vail mysteries, available on Amazon. And, you get a fun murder mystery as well. Double the pleasure, folks! So, support indie publishing, and read a new author today!

A Brave New World of Education

A good friend of mine called me tonight. We haven't spoken for a while, and though we had the usual chit-chat and talk about various current events, he surprised me when he asked me for advice on  homeschooling their thirteen-year-old son. I have to say, it's an unexpected, though welcome, piece of news. And I know, he's not the only one who's looking at homeschooling as an option in September.

The thing is, the schools have failed our children for years. Even back when I was in school, things were beginning to change. Grammar and spelling were falling out of favor, and the books we were handed to read...awful. In fact, it was one of those books that inspired me to be a writer, because I knew, even at the tender age of seventeen, that I could write a better book than what I was being forced to read.

But now, reading isn't even much of a priority in school; when our boys were still going, I don't recall a single book being assigned to read at home. And the books they read at school...awful. At least the ones we had gave a pretense of quality, being 'award-winning' books. Apparently, 'Most Boring Book in Canadian History' was a popular category. But now, they get puerile, mindless pap, the equivalent of feeding them McDonalds every day instead of offering them a nutritious meal. Brain candy, that's all it is. And unfortunately, our kids get addicted to it, and never get the good stuff. They don't even read The Hobbit anymore. How can we condemn our boys to a life where they have never read Tolkien, Burroughs, or even the Oz series of books? Instead, they get Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Harry Potter and the Angst Academy, or other books that just don't measure up. I mean, those books are called 'classics' for a reason. But we've got a whole generation that hasn't even heard of them. It's a crime against our youth.

Now, there's more to a decent education than that, of course. Math, grammar, science, history...and, of course, for my fellow Catholics, religion. My friend is an atheist, so I skipped that last part, but I gave him some recommendations. For those who are considering homeschooling your own kids, consider these as viable options to the curricula being offered by school boards.

Math: Saxon Math series. For the younger grades (K-2), they focus on using manipulatives, while developing basic math skills. The higher grades get a thorough grounding in arithmetic and algebra. They'll even learn long division, something the schools have completely abandoned.

Grammar: Shurley Grammar. An eight-grade series that teaches kids how to diagram and analyze a sentence so they actually know what they're saying, and how to say it better. They also learn composition, vocabulary, and other important writing skills. Highly recommended.

History: The Story of the World series is top-notch for younger grades. Reading historical fiction is also great for kids, although I'd stick to older writers like G.A. Henty for that. Today's history books are somewhat slanted, to say the least.

Reading: Get your kids away from the electronics and into books. Classic children's literature, not the garbage they spew out today. Sure, it's better than nothing, but they can do much better. And they deserve better, too. Younger kids will love Andrew Lang's Colored Fairy Books (12 of them) and Arabian Nights. They'll also like Lang's Book of Romance (no, not the Harlequin type), about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Older kids can read the aforementioned Henty, as well as Tolkien, Lewis, H. Rider Haggard, and of course, Edgar Rice Burroughs. Don't tell me a ten- to thirteen-year-old isn't going to be excited about John Carter bouncing all over Mars, or Tarzan swinging through the trees. Girls will love the Little House books and Louisa May Alcott's books.

Religion: Well, I'm Catholic, so I'll have to go with Catholic options; I don't look for non-Catholic programs. Obviously, reading the Bible is essential; there are reading plans all over the place for homeschoolers, or just for yourself. I also recommend the Baltimore Catechism series for kids; it's easy to understand (much easier than the scholarly Catechism we've had since 1992), is set out in straight-forward question-and-answer format, and it's thorough enough to ensure kids know the essentials of the faith. For a good, affordable Bible Study, I recommend the Agape Bible Study website, which is free of charge and has a few dozen Bible study programs covering big or small sections, depending on your needs.

The nice thing about homeschooling is that it's completely open; there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of options. There are countless websites with ideas, and free downloads to get a taste of what's available. Unit studies on all kinds of subjects, entire courses, or just bits and pieces you can put together. Remember, every child is different, which means every homeschooling plan will be different. Do what works for you and, especially, your child.

And, if you want to introduce them to fantastic adventure, you could do worse than to offer them Arrival, the first book of the Chronicles of Meterra series, available on Amazon right now.

Originals or Remakes?

Hollywood is notorious for remaking older movies and 'updating' them. I'm not talking about sequels, I'm talking about redoing the original story for a modern audience, usually with better special effects and more sex. And sometimes, it's hard to fathom just what they were thinking when they decided to remake them. I mean, if the original is good enough for someone to decide to remake it, why not just watch the original in the first place?

A couple of weeks ago I read an article discussing a 'remake' of The Princess Bride. Notwithstanding the concept of the remake (which I hadn't read about yet), where actors would basically redo the exact same scenes separately (different actors playing the same roles in different scenes, for example), the whole notion struck me as utterly stupid. I mean, aside from the low-budget aspects of this 'remake,' what's the bloody point? That movie is as close to perfect as you can ask for. It's got fantastic fencing, romance, Andre the Giant in a role that was literally written for him, 'My name is Inigo Montoya...', Miracle Max, the six-fingered man, and a pompous ass of a Prince who gets what's coming to him in the end.

Seriously, there are some things that should never even be contemplated, let alone actually done. There are plenty of examples of this in recent history, as well. Did anyone actually watch that new Ghostbusters movie that came out a couple of years ago? Because I've never met any one who admitted to doing so. Same with the new Charlie's Angels movie; it doesn't look at all interesting, and I actually liked the first two movies.

And now, Disney is in the process of remaking all their old animated classics as live-action films. We've already seen The Jungle Book, Aladdin, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty (as Maleficent), Lady and the Tramp, and The Lion King. Mulan is on its way if they ever open the theaters again, and there are even more in the pipeline for down the road. Again, one has to ask, 'Why?' After all, the originals are classics for a reason.

The problem is, there's a serious dearth of creative thinking in Hollywood now. All their creativity goes into bigger and better CGI effects; story and plot, characterization and originality are just tossed by the wayside. And it's not getting any better. Of the thirty or so announced movies Hollywood is releasing over the next year, every one of them is either a sequel or a remake. Nobody is willing to take a chance, and so we're stuck in a time loop of watching the same things we watched before, just with more flash and spectacle.

Now, some movies can certainly survive being remade, especially ones built on classic properties like fairy tales or old books. There have been, for example, four different versions of Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days, including the 1956 version, which won Best Picture. The Jackie Chan version (2004) is also fun, but not as good as the previous one. And the 1940 version of The Mark of Zorro has to be considered superior to the 1920 version, primarily because the latter is silent. It's not a bad movie, but it suffers by comparison.

But overall, the trend toward remaking movies is one that will hurt the movie industry, both in the short-term and in the long run. With the exception of some truly timeless tales, you can't watch the same story over and over and get much out of it. Hopefully, someone in Hollywood realizes this before it's too late.

If you want some original material to read, which may someday end up as a movie, check out Arrival, the first book of the Chronicles of Meterra. It's available in both paperback and e-book, so take a look.

Movie Review: The Mark of Zorro (1940)

Let's face it: Swashbuckling action movies are awesome. Even the ones that aren't very good are fun to watch. The 1993 Disney version of The Three Musketeers has very little to do with the plot of the original Dumas book, but it's still fun to see Oliver Platt having the time of his life as Porthos, not to mention the mental gymnastics of watching Charlie Sheen play the pious Aramis. Talk about casting off-type.

But The Mark of Zorro, a black-and-white remake of the silent version starring Douglas Fairbanks, is a joy to watch. I actually found a colorized version of it, which actually improved the movie, although the color can't match the lush spectacle of The Adventures of Robin Hood. Still, it's another great swashbuckling movie, one that everyone should watch. Especially Batman fans, because Zorro was Batman before Batman was Batman.

The movie opens up in Spain, where the young caballero Diego de la Vega is summoned home to California on urgent business. When he returns, he is shocked to find that the Alcalde, his father, is reviled and feared by the peasants for his cruelty and usurious taxation. It's only when he goes to his old house that he finds out his father doesn't have that job anymore. He meets Governor Quintero and his henchman, Capitan Esteban, a fencing master with designs on the governor's wife. Realizing that things are not what he expected, Diego assumes the role of a foppish wastrel, refusing to heed his father's call to fight back against the governor's harsh policies.

Later, disguising himself with a black mask and cape, he becomes Zorro, doing Robin-Hood things like stealing from the governor and giving the money to the poor (in this case, the local friar, who bears a remarkable resemblance to Friar Tuck from Robin Hood, since they are played by the same actor, Eugene Pallette). He also exacts some revenge on the cruelest of the governor's soldiers, and even leaves a threatening 'Z' on the wall in the governor's house.

Meanwhile, he's also romancing the governor's niece, Lolita Quintero, played by the delightfully beautiful Linda Darnell (who, it turns out, was actually only 16 years old at the time), while fending off the advances of the governor's wife, who prefers him to the cold Esteban. The movie's climactic duel between Esteban and Diego (not Zorro) is one of the best fencing duels I've ever seen. Fast-paced, beautifully choreographed, it looks deadly, even more than the famous one in Robin Hood.

Like Errol Flynn in Robin Hood, Tyrone Power was born to play the role of Zorro. He's equally convincing as the foppish Don Diego, and the dashing and deadly masked vigilante. No wonder he inspired Bruce Wayne to don a cape and cowl many years later. Basil Rathbone gets to play the heavy again, and he even gets to win a fencing duel this time, against Pallette's Friar Felipe. And while Power and Darnell don't quite have the same level of chemistry that Flynn and Olivia DeHavilland had in their many screen pairings, they certainly go well together here, despite Darnell's youth.

Along with Robin Hood, this movie is essential viewing for any fan of swashbuckling adventure. It's a movie you can watch over and over again and still enjoy it. And it only runs for 94 minutes, a blink of an eye compared to today's overblown movies. It's available on YouTube, believe it or not, so check it out.

And, for more sword-fighting adventure, check out Arrival, the first book of the Meterra series, available in e-book or paperback now.

Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Interlude

As I said, I'm going to take about a week to get caught up on some other things (including getting the new book ready) before diving back into this set of books. But I wanted to take a few moments to reflect on what I've seen so far. Those who are Traveller veterans, feel free to chime in with your takes on what I've noticed in the rules.

I think the biggest takeaway I have is that this game is designed for science fiction that has nothing to do with Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke, the 'Big Three' of science fiction. It's got more to do with Star Wars, Dune, and E.E. "Doc" Smith than those guys, actually. The focus so far has been, of course, character creation and how to beat people up. It's not quite 'two-fisted' pulp action, but it's close. I love the idea of space pirates boarding an interplanetary passenger liner with cutlasses and revolvers. In fact, that's about as pulp as it gets.

The emphasis on skills isn't as high as it is in more modern games; with only a 2-12 range for rolling, modifiers don't need to be big to be significant. A +1 improves the odds quite nicely; a +3 makes you basically an Olympic-level expert in whatever the skill is. Contrast that with d20 skills, where characters have modifiers of +10 or more at low levels. Maybe that's why, at first, the Traveller characters look rather wimpy, even ones with multiple terms and a dozen skill levels in total.

No aliens so far, which makes for a nice, humanocentric game. I know, Traveller eventually added a bunch of aliens, but I'm not talking about what came later, I'm looking at the game as it originally was. And it's humans. So it would work for a military SF setting like David Weber's Honor Harrington series, although the tech is a little past revolvers and cutlasses. Still, the idea of humanity colonizing the stars without encountering much in the way of competing intelligences is a fun one. It doesn't always have to be about aliens, folks.

So, that wraps up my thoughts on the first book of the original Traveller boxed set. Tune in this week to find out more about my own efforts in science fiction writing.