WatSuanDok's Journal

MentatJack

Fri, 30 May 08 09:42:00 UT

I've revived MentatJack.com and have a blog there that I'll probably keep a bit more updated than this.

Hummingbirds

Wed, 28 May 08 09:36:00 UT

There is a particular intersection when I take the "short cut" over the mountain into West LA where I've been noticing hummingbirds. Lots of hummingbirds.

I finished reading Blood Engines this morning. If you've read Blood Engines, you can understand how I could get freaked out being surrounded by hummingbirds. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. Full review to follow later.

REVIEW: Touch of Twilight by Vickie Pettersson

Tue, 27 May 08 20:56:00 UT

Touch of Twilight was released today. I finished my advanced copy late last week and have had a chance to contemplate it. I'd classify this as dark urban fantasy with a touch of romantic angst. I hadn't read the prior books, so it took a while to piece together the rules, but along the way there was quite a bit to keep my interest.

Pettersson takes a bunch of the standard tropes you find in super hero comic books and weaves them into the real world, making comic books themselves an integral part of the mix. I would VERY much recommend starting the series from the first book, as the rules are rather complex. Don't read too much into the astrology, be open to ANYTHING that you could see in a comic book and hang on for the ride.

I used the phrase "romantic angst" because almost every decision the main character makes is weighed against her feelings for the men in her life. This humanizes an otherwise drastically superhuman character, and may very well offer plenty for the reader that's more into the romance genre.

As far as the action goes, there's a ton and it's written well, but many sequence just seem to end. Much of this feeling comes from the average bad guy being a bit less expendable than you'd expect in this genre. The violence is high, the body count is low, but every character, shadow and light, that enters the spotlight gets fleshed out well.

This is not quite my genre of choice, but I seriously admire the risks that Pettersson takes creating such a unique world. I wish more of the grit and flash of Vegas made its way into the book, but otherwise I quite enjoyed the book. On the strength of this book alone, I'd consider reading one of the first two before passing judgement on the series. If you've read and enjoyed the previous books, there's a lot here that should keep you interested.

With great books come great responsibility

Mon, 26 May 08 21:52:00 UT

Librarything just let me know that I'll be getting an early reviewer copy of Anathem by Neal Stepheson. I'll totally be reading and reviewing that as soon as it arrives. Also, it looks like I won an exciting "military sci-fi / dystopian cyberpunk" novel from Graeme's Fantasy Book Review. I'll read and review that as well.

On a slightly different note, this project inspired me to write a bit about Carl. I'll let you know how that goes.

Blood Engines * 0.5

Mon, 26 May 08 12:45:00 UT

I'll do the review I forgot to promise you of Touch of Twilight later, but I wanted to go ahead and give my impressions of Blood Engines now that I'm 1/2 way through it. If I keep at this pace, I may even finish reading Poison Sleep today.

I've read much less fantasy than science fiction, but one thing I'm fairly certain of is that magic results in consequences. I heard an interview on Adventures in SciFi Publishing (I'm pretty sure it was this episode) recently where a writer referred to his writing as "hard fantasy" in much the same way I'd talk about hard science fiction. He basically said that he liked creating magical systems. He wanted more complexity than the hand waving magic that just happens, used by Gandalf and the like in high fantasy.

I'd like to apply the label "hard fantasy" to Blood Engines. I just encountered the 3rd of San Fransisco's wizards, a technomage of sorts. Both this fellow and the porno mage encountered earlier are masters of very well defined and distinct magic system. By comparison Marla Mason comes off as sort of the magical equivalent of Batman, defined in equal parts by her tools (cloak and dagger) and by her dark personality/wit. Both her and the Chinese mage (encountered before the technomage and the pornomage) come off a bit more like the all powerful mages of high fantasy and thus show the specialized mages in stark contrast. The the tension between him and Marla (and of course the looming threat of the opportunistic Susan who forced Marla to San Fransisco in the first place) keeps the tone of the story intense enough that snake gods and blood gods and the end of physical universe fit as seamlessly into San Fransisco as elves and orcs fit into Middle Earth.

I guess you can't consider this a full review, as I'm only half way through the book, but I REALLY love the pieces that Pratt has pulled together here, and the story he's building out of them has got me hooked. I was a little worried that the Pratt I've come to love via short stories and The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl would get lost in the more formulaic world of series fantasy, but so far I'm loving Blood Engines and look forward to following Marla Mason for quite a few books.

Currently listening to The Slip by NIN, available for free at that link.

Cover Art

Sat, 24 May 08 10:59:00 UT

I have a rather strong desire to write a book that could use one of Kasem's paintings as a cover. I keep looking at that and on the surface seeing the meditation but my mind keeps getting drawn to quantum mechanics. There could definitely be worse sources of inspiration.

SMTP and Population

Tue, 20 May 08 11:21:00 UT

So, I've been thinking for a while that it'd be neat to apply some of the interesting problems / solutions that I've encountered developing applications for Novica to my SciFi writing aspirations. I just thought of a GREAT one.

I can't exactly share the particulars that inspired this, but in EVERY application there are bottlenecks. Sometimes the bottleneck is the database and sometimes it's the browser or the user. The bottleneck can be a 3rd party API that's not responding. The bottleneck can be ANY number of things and I've found myself envisioning each of these bottlenecks as problems related to population/space colonization in a far future story.

I'll have to stew on this a bit.

Scrivener

Sun, 18 May 08 11:40:00 UT

Scrivener has been on my mind since Greg van Eekhout mentioned it. And even before that Tricia Sullivan had piqued my interest in such software, Story View in her case.

I downloaded Scrivener last night, and then wrote the following on Tricia Sullivan's blog:

I ran through the tutorial last night.

My fiction output hasn't ventured much beyond short stories yet, so it might be a while before it's larger organizational tools, but the simple things excite me. I absolutely love being able to "tag/keyword" various segments. I love it's simple "snapshot" versioning system. I love the ability to place images side by side with writing segments. I love how slick it's full screen mode is (custom paper width, "typewriter" functionality that keeps current text in the center of the screen, and custom alpha for the part of the screen not covered by the page.) Also you can set a word count target for each segment.

I'm a software developer, and I've toyed for years with the idea of using various development environments for prose generation, and Scrivener offers pretty much all the tools I'd want. This may be the tool that'll convince me to write something a little bit more ambitious.

I should be writing

Fri, 16 May 08 09:16:00 UT

I mentioned that I'm up to date with Adventures in SciFi Publishing. This has let me spend a bit more of my listening time on fiction. Escape Pod is still my default, and will most likely continue to be until I'm up-to-date, but I have the following waiting in the wings on my iPod:

The Silk Code by Paul Levinson
The Rookie by Scott Sigler
The Metamor City Podcast

I also heard another site (it's sort of an anthology feed that collects audio works authors have already recorded) mentioned the other day, but its name has totally slipped my mind.

This is the part of the journal entry where I actually talk about what I chose as the title of this entry

I Should Be Writing is a podcast for wanna-be fiction writers, by a wanna-be fiction writer. I'm pretty much alternating between episodes of this feed and episodes of escape pod, as I somehow managed to get them pacing each other chronologically. I just listened to the first anniversary podcast for ISBW.

I really like Mur's insights, and her show provides quite the mantra for anyone actually trying to write. I actually wake up in the morning with story ideas ... This has happened before, but sporadically. It looks like my bedtime may have to creep forward an hour or so, so that I can get some of these ideas down.

Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine

Wed, 14 May 08 12:26:00 UT

F&SF sent out a bunch of free issues for bloggers to review, and while I came a bit late to the party and didn't get a free issue, they did point me at a "blogger's only" subscription offer. They also said it was fine to post that link.

I'll read an issue cover to cover sometime soon and write up a review.

Mother's Day

Sun, 11 May 08 19:20:00 UT

I wrote an entry yesterday, pointing out what I've been sharing via google reader.

Every couple weeks I get an envelope from my mom that reminds me that this is not a new concept. The envelop sometimes contains a note, sometimes not, but always has articles, book reviews and comic strips that she thinks I'll find interesting. These brighten my day. Thanks Mom.

REVIEW: The Iron Dragon's Daughter, by Michael Swanwick

Sun, 11 May 08 11:21:00 UT

First, since I love to recommend books for young readers, I'd warn that the subject matter is quite intense. Strong themes of disturbing sex and violence are integral to the story.

Swanwick sets his tale in a fantastical realm adjacent to ours. All of the trappings of modern life exist. All the trappings of the traditional fantasy exist. Except dragons and warhorses are machines. Sexuality strengthens and enhances magic associated with the traditional fantasy realm, but wreaks havoc with the engineering and circuitry associated with the building and maintenance of dragons. A fantastical cosmology, restricting the travel between our world and this one to souls, and the constant need for bloody sacrifice flesh out Swanwick's fantastical realm. And that flesh is beautiful and grotesque.

Jane's life is hard. On many levels, she doesn't quite fit into the world around her. She keeps not quite learning the lessons life is trying to teach her and her close friends pay the bloody price and reincarnate into the sphere of characters that will drive the next stage of her life. This coming of age fugue teaches with repeated tragedy.

This book sat on my shelf for many years. I picked it up at various times, but I only ever made it through the first section. Swanwick brings a vivid life to the supporting cast of children and then slays many of our favorites suddently and brutally. This forces you to reconnect with the world anew, but if you do, you'll be better prepared for the pain and tragedy that comes again in waves. By forcing Jane to live through and overcome horrors in childhood, highschool and college Swanwick earns every ounce of character development.

I found the world vivid and darkly beautiful. Its acceptance of violence as a way of life speaks volumes about our own world. The narrative is linear, but time, both in the story and the setting itself is fluid and somewhat fractal and chaotic in turns. In spite of it's tone and weight, I found this book refreshing for it's drastically unique take on familiar tropes. The Iron Dragon's Daughter is anchored firmly in the genre of fantasy, but should prove to be a satisfying read for either the horror or SciFi fan as well.

I've once again made it to the end of a review without expressing well how much I enjoyed the book. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and while I'll definitely recommend it to particular people, I fully expected a broad audience, even a broad fantasy audience, to have a bit of difficulty with it.

Sharing what the world is sharing with me

Sat, 10 May 08 19:08:00 UT

I was asked to share posts from some of the SciFi RSS feeds I've been tracking of late, so I updated my google reader shared page. I also found out that I can make notes when I share things now, which should entice me to do so more often. I didn't include all of the author's that I track, as I'd rather wait for a good post of their's to share as opposed to the random sampling I just did now.

In other news, I started a random little project ... You'll see in the intro section a couple numbers ... they're links to books for which the number is quite important. 42 is obvious. The other is the model number of a dragon. I'll add more. Feel free to recommend other book number combinations that I might find interesting ... There's potential for a meme/google bomb here, so feel free to do this on your journal/blog/corporate intranet/etc.

Kay Kenyon

Sat, 10 May 08 13:19:00 UT

I've been hearing a lot about Kay Kenyon's latest books. They latched onto my brain with "In a landlocked galaxy that tunnels through our own..." A mind that comes up with that is a mind I want to get to know better.

I was playing with the cats just now and looked up at my bookshelf. There, right beside Oaths and Miracles by Nancy Kress was Seeds of Time, by Kay Kenyon. Two things are exciting about this. (1) My books are alphabetized by author, which pleases me. (2) I didn't know I had a book by Kay Kenyon. This was a random used bookstore purchase many years ago that I've never gotten around to reading.

I find myself to be a bit giddy.

ARC

Fri, 9 May 08 12:52:00 UT

I got 2 advance reader copies just now. One from EOS and one from Ballantine. Maybe this is a sign that I should get my online review application/tool finished. In any case, both books look interesting, and I'll post reviews here once I've read them. One of the publishers requested that reviews be held until the book drops. More on this later.