Sneaky Burrito

Letting Out My Inner Bitch

2013-05-17T14:45:00.001-07:00

Read my lovely response on page 1 of the comments, then move on to page 2.

Seems to me that someone who got downvoted a lot, doesn't have a lot of reading comprehension. Which is no wonder since she defends this practice, and I quote: "Once you've learned how to review a book quickly, it isn't all that hard to spend half an hour and get an accurate sense of it."

Or an inaccurate sense of it, in the HK case.

At any rate, I like how Ms. E. Etc. says my remark wasn't "an impassioned appeal to reason and logic." No. No, it wasn't. That was the whole point. She didn't respond to reason and logic so I ceased using it with her. (At least I succeeded in wasting some of her time, typing that long, rambling response to me.)

Anyway, feel free to read the comments for yourself. Chances are, if you are reading this, you already know my opinion of Harriet Klausner.

Blogging is an Exercise in Stubbornness

2013-05-16T15:11:00.000-07:00

No, seriously. I haven't had anything useful to say for a good long while. But I keep posting something every day anyway. And for some reason, people still visit. Don't know why or who or how many. Stats are all different, depending on where you look.

I used to have a week's worth of posts lined up in advance. No more. Now I fly by the seat of my pants. And I'm not as happy with a lot of my more recent efforts. Too hasty, too hurried, not particularly interesting or informative (in my opinion -- though I am my own worst critic).

I need to start doing that again -- lining posts up in advance. I can use my down time at work (which I don't happen to have any of, this week -- have been busy for three days straight, though I honestly prefer that as I need to remain useful to remain employed).

Anyway, pretty much just talking to myself at this point.

Presidential Reading

2013-05-15T03:09:00.000-07:00

I found this list of Bill Clinton's favorite books on Huffington Post and I wondered: do you think Presidents and former Presidents and candidates circulate lists like this with deliberately-chosen titles, or do you think these sorts of books really are their favorite reading? (There was that time that George W. Bush listed The Very Hungry Caterpillar as a favorite childhood book -- that he could not possibly have read until age 23.)

I actually have read a couple of these (The Confessions of Nat Turner and One Hundred Years of Solitude), and they are quite good. And it probably does take a certain type of person with a certain educational background and set of interests to become interested in taking part in public life at that level, in the first place. And heck, my dad is a man in the same age bracket (a few years younger) and prefers nonfiction and was once a philosophy major. (Whereas my mom, like me, is totally into genre fiction, though she's more of a fan of mysteries and I like fantasy.)

But at the same time, I can't help but think the list is, well, carefully crafted. A couple of African-American authors, a Latino author, a little poetry, a little history, a little philosophy, a little highbrow fiction. I'm not saying he doesn't like these books -- maybe he does. But maybe, just maybe, they were chosen from a larger pool to project a certain image.

(And if you're a Bill Clinton fan, don't get all up in arms. I am, too. I voted for the guy in 1996 and would have in 1992, only I was just 15 in November in 1992 and, thus, not eligible to vote.)

Why I Don't Like the "Freelance Culture"

2013-05-14T03:24:00.001-07:00

Work from home for cash. Sounds great, right? And it would be great, if everyone and their mothers didn't also want to do it. Because so many people are trying to freelance right now (maybe they're unemployed, or stay-at-home parents, for example), the people who buy the work can get away with all kinds of awful things -- like paying rates that equate to less than minimum wage, or disappearing without paying at all.

Here's one that sounds like a scam. I'm sorry this woman got taken, but first of all, who doesn't want the other half of the money up front? I could use $80 right now. It would almost be enough to make my next Stafford Loan payment, maybe a week's worth of groceries if I don't go crazy in the produce or cheese sections. An electric bill. A bag of dog food and most of a case of cat food. When you live paycheck-to-paycheck, you think about these things. Freelancers should be even more conscious than I am. (At least my paycheck is predictable. And probably better than what most freelancers make, unless they're elite or well-known or write for real publications or some such.)

But here's something else: paying someone $350 for an e-book on male health supplements? Someone who is a PROFESSIONAL FREELANCER? Who most likely does not have the medical education to evaluate peer-reviewed, scientific sources -- if she even has access to them in the first place. (Because really, if you have an MD, what the fuck are you doing wasting your life writing "articles" -- and I use the term loosely -- on the web for chump change?) At $10 an hour, which is really only about $20,000 a year, that's 35 hours of work -- about your average work week. That includes research, planning, writing, revising, and proofreading. Can a person write a book in about week? Probably. Can a person write a QUALITY book in a week? Absolutely not. It'll be slapdash, cobbled together, slipshod, hurried, and whatever other adjective you can come up with to describe shoddy work. And if you want a better hourly rate? You have to do even LESS work on the book. Not a recipe for quality. (More a recipe for copy-pasting from Wikipedia...)

Argh. I know the economy sucks, but really, get a real job. (I understand some people have exhausted all other choices -- it's tough to get an interview, these days -- and I do feel for them. I felt like that for a little while last year, although I just redoubled my efforts in other areas. I did NOT consider "freelancing," not even once. This is more directed at people who think it is inherently easier to work from home and are willing to sell their souls in order to do so.)

Or slave away for peanuts for the rest of your life. What the fuck do I care? Just stop bombarding me with the "articles" you write. Fuck HubPages. Fuck eHow. Fuck Squidoo. Fuck all that worthless SEO crap that shows up when I use Google. (And thanks to Google for always working to push that stuff further back in the search results.)

Ooh, I'm angrier than I thought. Perhaps I should stop now? If I get too much more worked up, I won't be able to sleep.

Want to Discuss Fantasy with Like-Minded Individuals?

2013-05-13T04:18:00.001-07:00

Head on over to the newly revamped Best Fantasy Books forums. Lots of changes (for the better) and new posters are always welcome (really -- it's not at all as cutthroat as the Top Reviewers' Forum on Amazon). Looking for recommendations, reviews, monthly book clubs, or just to vent about a trend in fantasy literature that you hate (or to gush about one you love)? That's your place. And, enter their giveaways to win free stuff (books, Ammy gift cards, even e-readers on occasion).

(No, no one asked me to do this. I just couldn't think of anything to post and really, I do like the new look. Plus, I won a Kindle through one of their giveaways. So I know they're legit! It's a bit of a smaller group than some sites, but that means you can actually get to know the other members, and you don't feel so lost in the crowd. Also it's moderated, so there's no spam, or else spam gets killed pretty quickly. Last time I looked at the Tor.com forums, I could not say the same thing...)

One of Those Days

2013-05-12T14:51:00.002-07:00

I just don't feel very good today. And I can either let it get to me, and I can completely veg out, and not exercise and not finish my writing (still have 36 minutes to go to keep from getting even further behind) -- and I'll probably feel even worse tomorrow, as a result.

Main lesson: if the muffin recipe says 4 eggs and there are only 6 muffins, don't eat the muffins with a side of scrambled eggs. You'll just feel ill and sluggish for the rest of the day.

As for writing, I will keep going. I'm mostly stopping here to complain about not feeling good, and to keep up my "1 post a day" streak. My major find today is one horrible scene where the POV shifts twice without any breaks in the text (symbols between lines, or blank lines, or something like that) to indicate POV shifts. I decided to rewrite the scene to be in only one character's head, but made a note to myself to go back and look at it and see if that makes sense. I think it's the right course of action because too many POV shifts (properly done) in one scene make it seem like the writer couldn't make up his/her mind.

I understand POV shifts when groups of characters separate, change location, etc. Or even when a new chapter starts. But it's not sitting right with me, when it's happening in the middle of a scene where several people are sitting around a table and talking to each other. (The paragraph break here, however, was somewhat arbitrary...)

It's easy to delete one line that shouldn't be there (character A is POV character but we get a random thought from character B, e.g.: "character A really looks stupid in those parachute pants"). But it's tougher to change a series of paragraphs and still make sure to only include the relevant information.

Sometimes I feel like the editing and revision will never end. First I said I wanted to resubmit by January, then March, and now, who knows? Maybe by the end of the summer? (Still better than vomiting something half finished into the Kindle store.)

Good Way to Kill a Few Minutes

2013-05-11T16:48:00.002-07:00

If you have not encountered this contest before, check out the 2012 winners:

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

The idea is to submit the opening line for the worst possible (non-existent) novel. Winners are chosen in different categories like science fiction, romance, etc. Some of them are pretty good. (Also, feel free to enter yourself, but don't expect much in the way of a prize...)

Old Websites

2013-05-10T03:55:00.000-07:00

Lists of resources are great. I get excited at first, when I find a page like this.

And then I start looking at it. And I'm realizing how OLD it looks. Web pages looked like this years ago. And then I scroll to the bottom and oops, last update was in 2005. (Belatedly, I also notice that it's mostly computer-related stuff, which I generally don't read. So no harm done, I guess.)

Now, I know things happen. I may have put up a web page here or there and then forgotten about it. People die. Sites get archived. But HTML 3.2 (there's a link about it on the site in question), for example, was introduced in 1997. We're on HTML 5 now. I'm impressed that most of this guy's links still work (at least, the random ones I tested).

If you're maintaining the site for sentimental purposes, yeah, just let it sit there. But if you want people to USE your site, you need to change things up once in awhile. Update the look (use CSS and/or Dreamweaver and you can change the look without recoding much, if anything). Haha, maybe that's a project for me -- I've been using this blog template for like almost two years now.

And if you're a writer, consider a professional designer or something like Drupal or WordPress. Because nothing looks worse than some crap you came up with yourself because you couldn't afford to hire a web designer. I've seen some TERRIBLE writer websites. Author sites are important marketing tools, especially for the self-published crowd. Don't neglect this aspect of your image.

The More You Know

2013-05-09T03:18:00.000-07:00

A long digression before I get to my point. I was watching some of the commentaries and special features on the DVDs of Game of Thrones (season 2) last night. The whole team was obviously pretty proud of the episode where Stannis's fleet invaded King's Landing. And rightly so -- it really was quite a good episode. One of the better ones in terms of plotting and focus on a single event (as opposed to being all over the place as some other episodes are). But one thing bothered me -- the fire liquid (sorry, I forget what it was supposed to be called). It was freaking neon yellow/green.

So let me tell you something, OK? Almost no chemicals are that color. Maybe fluorescein in solution (used as a color additive and I've also seen it in eyedrops used when an eye injury is suspected). Flammable solvents? Nearly universally clear, colorless liquids -- sometimes perhaps with just a hint of yellow or light, light brown (so light as to be almost colorless).

Let me tell you a little secret. Take this to heart, if you plan to have a chemist or alchemist be a character in your story (unless the alchemy really works, and then all bets as to colors are off, of course). Unless you are working with coordination compounds of metals (inorganic chemistry), many, many chemicals turn out to be white powders/crystals, with many others being yellow oils. Sure, there are exceptions. Like if you have a DMT protecting group that leaves, you could see orange. Or ethidium bromide can be orange or pink, depending on whether DNA is present. But the mad scientist lab with a red flask and a blue beaker and all that crap? That's food coloring used for a photo op. That's not what synthesis looks like. (Trust me, I have a Ph.D. in chemistry. I have attempted actual syntheses. Maybe they didn't work all that well, but I've tried them. My true calling in grad school was in analytical chemistry, anyway.)

Yo, Publishers

2013-05-08T03:16:00.002-07:00

Most of the time on this blog, I complain about trends I see in self-published works. Today, I have a beef with traditional publishers (and it has nothing to do with the fact that my manuscript got rejected).

Actually, it's not even a beef. It's a bit of advice: first impressions matter. So if your book takes place in the far future, make sure you're consistent when referring to HOW far in the future it takes place. For example, you should not have a header on your publicity material that says "120,000 years" and then TEXT in your publicity material that says "12,000 years." (In other words, proofread. And be consistent.)

Also, you should probably make sure that the e-mail you send around asking for reviews doesn't have any grammatical errors (e.g., subject-verb agreement issues). Doesn't speak well to your editorial capabilities. Publicity people? Have your company's copy editors check over the promo material and e-mails you send out.

And, sadly, this is the same for self-published people and people who have traditional publishers -- no fake Amazon reviews, please. I will consider Amazon reviews fake (or, at the very least, unhelpful) if they:

Are very, very short (as in, they barely meet the 20 word minimum)
Are written by people with minimal information on their Ammy profiles
Are written by people who have not written any other reviews
Are written by people who have only reviewed your other books
Are written by the author or the author's family members or people having the same last name as the author (unless the author's last name is something very common like "Johnson" or "Williams")
Are barely intelligible
Include such statements as "I don't usually read ____(genre)___ but I thought this was great"
Are written by Harriet Klausner

That is all. (And yes, this post was spurred by some actual publicity material I recently had occasion to view.)

Don't Know if I Should Have to Do This

2013-05-07T03:16:00.000-07:00

So I mentioned the other day that I accepted a book from an author (going on the assumption that I'll review it). So far, I'm liking it. Now, it's a cookbook, so I'm going to try out a few recipes before writing the review. But I've noticed that I have written a lot of 4 and 5 star reviews, fewer 2 and 3 star reviews, and I think only one 1 star review. (The 1 star review has 5 positive votes, though...)

Anyway, a lot of reviewers get accused of giving good reviews to stuff they got free, that they might not have liked so much if they'd had to pay for it. (And, I just gave 5 stars to a novel, The Bones of the Old Ones, that I got a free e-loan of.) I'm probably going to give this cookbook a pretty good rating.

But I think there's a reason I'm giving good reviews to stuff I get free -- I only accept things I think I'll like. I would've read The Bones of the Old Ones regardless, because I liked the first volume (The Desert of Souls) quite a bit. So of course I jumped at the chance to get that for free. (I seriously have no money right now. Well, I have enough for one week's worth of groceries and a birthday gift I have to buy, and then the bank account is empty until payday. So free is the only price I can pay!)

Same with the cookbook. It's the kind of thing I would've been interested in, anyway. I've refused or ignored review requests for things that don't sound like they're right for me. "Free" is not good if it's something you'll never use, after all. At least, that's what I think. (I never accept self-published novels, even when they are free.)

And what about everything else? Well, I've given less favorable reviews to a few things my dog has destroyed. But most of what I've reviewed is stuff I've had around the house for awhile. If I found something to be crappy, I probably got rid of it long before now. So I naturally have things in my house that I like. Which translates to more 4 and 5 star reviews. I guess.

Maybe this is all an attempt to justify things to myself. I do know that if I've been writing too many positive reviews at one time, I try to review something I'm less happy with, to keep some kind of balance. I've got no problem meting out 1 star if that's all that's deserved.

And yeah, I am totally the person who writes 15 paragraph reviews of novels. I've got a lot to say. Deal with it!

More Usage

2013-05-06T03:14:00.002-07:00

It's late and I don't have a post. I've also been into the pinot grigio. But here is a really comprehensive page about English usage errors (and non-errors). I wouldn't make a lot of these mistakes, but I probably would make a few of them. Definitely worth a look for all you writers out there:

Common Errors in English Usage by Paul Brians

You Can't

2013-05-05T18:30:00.001-07:00

You can't be both acclaimed and bursting onto the scene. If you're new, people haven't evaluated you yet. If you're acclaimed, you've been around for awhile.

Also, paragraphs on the internet are generally not indented and are separated by blank lines. Paragraphs in print books, however, are not like paragraphs on the internet. So it looks like you slapped something together without an understanding of print books, when the "Look Inside" feature on Amazon shows blog-like paragraphs. Not very professional.

And then there's the made-up language that "appeared" to you. Um, no. Gonna stay away from that. Only, I can't. Because your characters keep using it. Bad idea, there. When 50% of the dialogue is gibberish, people aren't going to have the patience to stick around for your story, whether it's good or not.

Also not good when the first couple of pages are people talking to each other without really saying anything except entreating someone to tell them a story. There's no hook. You can't laugh a sentence. You shouldn't have adverbs in dialogue tags. Argh!

A quote: "...Louise wondered what was compelling her to urgently visit this place." Compelling someone to visit? That's OK. Compulsion implies urgency, though, so "urgently" is not needed. Well, plus, it's an adverb.

No really, you can't laugh a sentence.

Big old long paragraph in chapter two that is FULL of passive voice ("was," "was," "was," etc.).

In the end, I have the same advice as always: HIRE AN EDITOR. Like, seriously.

Taking the Plunge

2013-05-04T19:43:00.000-07:00

I agreed to review a free Kindle book today. I've gotten multiple requests to do so, but this is the first one I accepted.

Please note: it is NOT fiction. I am not accepting self-published fiction for the time being.

However, the book is related to my interests. (It's a cookbook about using alternative -- read "not all-purpose" -- flours.) Cookbooks are more likely to get a pass from me in the editing department, as long as the proportions for the recipes are correct. Why? Because who ever reads the stuff at the beginning of a cookbook? (I do sometimes refer to Joy of Cooking sections about choosing produce I haven't bought before. But I've never read the introduction.)

Anyway, if you want to know what kinds of stuff I actually am willing to review, you can find me on Amazon. Here's a short list:

Cookbooks -- must have at least some vegetarian content, and baking is a plus (especially with non-white flour), things I don't like include: mushrooms in any way, shape, or form; ketchup; processed/boxed foods; high-fructose corn syrup
Yoga -- my favorite style is Kundalini, and I like Iyengar-style hatha, but I don't care for vinyasa a whole lot (also, nothing related to pregnancy, please -- while I am female, I neither have nor want children)
Science -- especially evolution and the origin of life, history of science, science related to food and cooking, plants, diseases, nutrition, and potentially other topics (but please, make it real science that can be verified or falsified by experiments; creationism and intelligent design not welcome)
Loom knitting -- there aren't a lot of books on this out there yet, and I'm not very good at it yet, but I'd like to get better and that means getting patterns and instructions and practicing
Fantasy novels -- must come from a traditional publisher (will review entire series but if that's what you want, you have to provide me with the entire series)

I know that's kind of specific. But the closer you get toward approaching my interests,the more likely you are to get a favorable answer from me. That is all.

Guns

2013-05-03T03:21:00.002-07:00

Guns didn't used to figure a lot in the epic fantasy I would read. But, they're popping up more and more, and not just in steampunk and urban fantasy. I'll admit, I don't know shit about guns. I don't like them, I don't want them around me, and I'm slightly freaked out by the fact that I apparently work with a bunch of gun nuts (it IS the South, I suppose).

Anyway, I don't notice errors relating to gun use in fiction. But people who DO know about guns, may notice errors. (Kind of like I notice errors in science ALL THE FUCKING TIME.) Here is a nice page with a list of mistakes writers make, with respect to guns. It's more applicable to modern day kinds of stuff. But worth checking out if you intend to use guns in your story.

Stop. What Are You Doing?

2013-05-02T04:17:00.006-07:00

So I was checking back on the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest and found that the entries have been narrowed down yet again.

Anyway, looking through the reviews of the "science fiction, fantasy, and horror" category, I found this one. The person is posting a synopsis as a review and GIVING HER OWN ENTRY 5 STARS.

Well, if the link doesn't work, it's because I clicked the "report abuse" button. Seriously, don't do this. Or at least, be more clever about it. Create a sockpuppet account or SOMETHING. (Really, I'm not advocating unethical reviewing practices. Don't review your own fucking book. It looks bad. Really, really bad. And it's unethical. If you weren't happy with the synopsis, that's too fucking bad. You were in charge of writing the synopsis so you have no one to blame but yourself.)

And then there's this one, where someone (not the author) posted a review so he could PROMOTE HIS OWN BOOKS. Again, I clicked "report abuse" so if it is gone, Ammy took action.

Oh, and I checked -- Mr. Self-Promotion links to his books in EVERY ONE OF HIS REVIEWS. I'm sending an e-mail to customer service about him. Let's see what happens.

Update: I wrote the stuff above last night before bed. Mr. Self-Promotion went from 161 reviews to 7 overnight. Nice to know at least some complaints are taken seriously.

It's Difficult...

2013-05-01T04:55:00.001-07:00

...to compose a good rant.

OK, just kidding, it's really not. It's a lot of fun. I like to write in ALL CAPS and to drop f-bombs all over the place. There's more organization involved than you might think, though. Wouldn't want to sound CRAZY or anything. Can't jump from topic to topic without transitions.

And yes, this will be posted online. But probably not until July. I'm waiting for a certain special occasion...

(Hope my rant lives up to the hype...)

Don't Do This

2013-04-30T03:13:00.002-07:00

So. You've written a "book." And you want to share it with the world. And you think, I'll self-publish it. You create your own little publishing company wherein you are the only author. Maybe this fools a few people into thinking you're not self-published. You even set up a website for your little company, buy a real domain name and everything. Good for you.

You join a forum to promote your book. You actually post more than one message, including relevant, on-topic content in each message. You post a message about your book IN THE CORRECT THREAD. Good for you again. (You may disappear later, and you have a fondness for Forgotten Realms, which does not bode well. But I'm feeling generous, so I'll forgive that.)

But all of that can't make up for the "Look Inside" feature on Amazon. Your book has got to stand on its own. So I don't want to see:

A main character who is a thief in a big city
A cliche at the end of your second paragraph ("reared its ugly head")
An A-B-A-B style of beginning paragraphs (i.e., "Dialogue...", character's name + adverb..., "Dialogue...", character's name + adverb...) -- this is really noticeable, people -- when it's the same fucking line of dialogue and the same fucking character name
Burly detective syndrome on the second page (referring to your MAIN CHARACTER, nonetheless)
Explaining too much (could also be called "assuming your readers are stupid;" if your city guards carry horns, we can assume said horns are used to signal to other guards)
"Seeming," "virtually," etc. There's a place for these words, but use them sparingly. I'm only on the second page of the preview, man. (You don't "seem" to have bad luck -- you either have bad luck or you don't.)
Having a character "huff" and "puff" -- what's he going to do next, blow your house down?
Not knowing when to use "was" versus "had been" -- they're not the same
Gack, a main character who is a thief who needs to join a GUILD (because no one has EVER written this story before)
Words other than "said" and "asked" in dialogue tags

You have a friend proofread the book. Great. Now, say it with me, everyone, PROOFREADING IS NOT EDITING.

And, lesson number 2: NO FAKE 5-STAR REVIEWS (from people who haven't posted any other reviews, no less...for all I know, this is a sockpuppet account of yours).

Keep on pursuing your dream, man. Just don't expect to catch it using tactics like these.

Review - The Bones of the Old Ones

2013-04-29T03:13:00.000-07:00

Please forgive the unusual style of this review, but I am also going to post it on Amazon and I only want to write it once. So it might not be quite the same as most reviews I post here.

I am a longtime fantasy reader, though I tend to stick to "epic" or "traditional" fantasy and thus have not read a lot of sword and sorcery. My sole experiences with sword and sorcery to date, other than the first volume in this series (The Desert of Souls), have basically been a handful of Elric stories by Michael Moorcock. I am not particularly familiar with many of the writers who influenced Howard Andrew Jones (e.g. Harold Lamb, Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, etc.). So the first thing I will say is that, if you happen to find yourself in the same situation as I was, don't let that stop you from picking up this book. It is definitely possible to enjoy The Bones of the Old Ones, even without that background. Actually, having read Mr. Jones's books, I am now motivated to go seek out some of the work of the authors who influenced him.

While you don't need to be immersed in the world of sword and sorcery to enjoy The Bones of the Old Ones, I would strongly suggest reading The Desert of Souls first. Although Bones IS a self-contained adventure, a few characters from the previous book make appearances (not necessarily as characters in this book, but as names dropped here and there, for example). Plus, the relationship between the two protagonists, Asim and Dabir, was developed primarily in the first novel. Asim, I thought, underwent a rather nice transformation in Desert from being a little bit of a stick in the mud to being someone who would actually be willing to break the rules to save a friend. (In Bones, as in Desert, events are related from Asim's point of view -- basically as an account he is writing years later -- so you get much more inside Asim's head than Dabir's.)

At any rate, I don't want to spend too long talking about the previous book. I just thought the characterization needed a little context. I, personally, am glad that the author didn't re-hash in great detail a bunch of the plot and/or character development from the previous book. At the same time, reading the previous book helps one to understand Asim and Dabir more fully.

Bones is not as heavy on the characterization as Desert was, but Dabir and Asim generally behave as we expect them to, based on what we know from the previous book. Asim seemed slightly less rigid with respect to remembering to pray five times a day. Sometimes he missed prayers; sometimes he remarked on that fact and sometimes he didn't. However, the action was pretty fast and furious (sorry for the cliche) for a lot of the book, which leads me to believe that not a lot of time passed in the world of the story, or that if time did pass, Asim was too busy fighting his way out of trouble to stop and pray. That might be a little of Dabir's more permissive attitude influencing the normally stolid Asim, as well. I also rather liked that Asim was again not just a bodyguard type, but actually figured out, on his own, some key information about the bone artifacts that gave the book its name.

One thing I really like about both books in the series is the setting. Bones is set primarily in Mosul (Iraq) and environs, shortly (a century or two) after the rise of Islam. This is a far cry from the pseud-medieval-European world seen throughout much of the fantasy genre, and I appreciate that a great deal. I get rather tired of the standard tropes (e.g. farmboys with swords, tavern scenes, etc.) and so I enjoyed the Middle Eastern setting quite a bit. I am not a historian; however, the Afterword discusses sources (a list can be found in Desert) as well as certain liberties that were taken with historical facts. To me, at least, the day-to-day world felt realistic and well-researched, but the details were integrated in such a way as to add to the story without infodumping. I also like that Mr. Jones stayed true to the actual historical setting he chose. While there were female characters in this book, including some with a great deal of influence, they were well-integrated into the story. The book would've lacked authenticity if he'd included female characters acting outside the typical roles expected of them at the time. Thus, one of the more powerful (human) women in the story, Lydia, is "Greek" rather than a Muslim Arab.

Another thing I think is done well is the action. In the Afterword, Mr. Jones discusses how he studied Zelazny's fight scenes from the Amber books. I have to admit, I found the fight scenes in the Amber books to be somewhat tedious. I often skimmed them until I found out who won, then moved on. But there was no need to skim the fight scenes in The Bones of the Old Ones -- I read them straight through. I got a sense of what was going on -- could even picture it in my head, most of the time -- and sometimes wondered about the outcome. While I didn't expect either of Asim and Dabir to die (as I believe Mr. Jones has more adventures planned for the pair of them), I really didn't know how they were going to get out of certain situations. That made me want to continue reading!

Pacing was appropriate. While it took me a couple of weeks to read this book (I've had a lot of demands in my life lately that haven't left much time for reading), I don't remember any parts that dragged. Things were always moving, always advancing the story. There weren't a lot of unnecessary diversions.

The villains were a group of ancient sorcerers known as the Sebitti. Some of their names, you may recognize from history or literature (Enkidu, for example), but those were really just names and nothing more. I particularly liked that the Sebitti changed alliances from time to time, that even though their longevity somewhat removed them from having human concerns, that they still had humanlike motivations. They weren't totally alien and they weren't totally evil.

Another villain was a little more alien -- a frost demon who inhabited the body of Najya, a Persian woman who made the acquaintance of Asim and Dabir fairly early on in the book. As in other cases of demon possession in fantasy fiction, Najya's own soul retreats further and further back as the demon gains strength, but shines through every once in awhile. This aspect of the story was a little predictable, I'll admit. What made it work, I thought, were all the competing factions -- some Sebitti supported Najya's demon, some opposed the demon, some seemed to switch alliances, Lydia the Greek (you may remember her from Desert) was involved, etc. A demon possession on its own wouldn't have been very compelling, but mixed in with everything else, it worked all right.

The magic system was standard fantasy fare. Incantations, power from blood, demon possession, carved symbols, magic circles for containment and/or protection, etc. Some of the effects were new and different -- for example, wooden figurines grown to large size and come to life -- and that kept my interest. I felt nearly as frustrated as Asim when he'd fight and fight against a giant wooden man and not get anywhere for a long while. I do wish there'd been a little deeper look at the issue of Islam versus magic, i.e., what was permitted or not, characters' internal conflicts, etc. (But then again, maybe that would've been out of place in an adventure story.) Asim protested a little in this regard -- and Dabir too, at one point -- but sometimes religion took a backseat to other elements needed to advance the story.

I will agree with some of the other reviewers that the ending was a little too "Hollywood-ish." However, considering the outcome for Dabir's love life in The Desert of Souls, I wasn't sure until very late in the book whether or not Asim would get his wish with respect to Najya. Jones easily could've made the two friends' fates in this area mirror each other.

And finally, putting on my editorial hat for just a moment: I found that there was a fair amount of "telling" instead of "showing." For example, Asim would say that Dabir told him something instead of having the conversation play out in a scene. To some extent, this can be explained away by the fact that Asim is supposedly writing down the story years later. Perhaps he doesn't remember their exact words, perhaps the entirety of the conversation would've been boring to reproduce -- we don't know. In some sense, this may be a stylistic choice. The prose was otherwise quite good -- much better writing than in the small amount of other sword and sorcery I've read. And other than this one issue, I thought the book was very well edited, both on a substantive level and on a proofreading/copy editing level.

Oh yes, and I loved the little teaser Asim dropped just at the end with respect to the next book in the series.

At any rate, I'd recommend The Bones of the Old Ones to anyone with an interest in fantasy who either already reads sword and sorcery or who is thinking about getting into some more sword and sorcery. I'd also recommend it to anyone who is getting tired of the trope-laden pseudo-medieval-European fantasy setting (not that there aren't tropes in Bones, mind you, but the alternative setting makes a difference).

Full disclosure: I received a free e-loan of this title from the publisher after a brief online discussion with Howard Andrew Jones. I do not know Mr. Jones and was not asked to write a review. I merely said some nice things about the previous book in the series on my blog, and Mr. Jones asked if I would like to read the sequel.

Self-Editing

2013-04-28T13:20:00.001-07:00

I promise a more substantive entry in a day or two, as I finally finished The Bones of the Old Ones by Howard Andrew Jones and I intend to post a review. But, reviews take time -- and time is something I don't have a lot of to spare at the moment. It was a fun book and I want to do it justice.

In the meantime, I'm plugging away at my manuscript. I've managed to make up some of the time I lost since getting the puppy, but I still have a long way to go. I did find something on StumbleUpon worth sharing, so here it is:

Ten Mistakes Writers Don’t See (But Can Easily Fix When They Do) by Pat Holt

I've heard, read, or otherwise discovered a lot of these on my own. Because, you know, I am interested in improving my writing. But Holt gives a lot of good examples from contemporary fiction and the piece is worth reading (and bookmarking) because hey, how often do you get good advice for free?

For example, Holt goes through some repeats (including odd ones, like "abraded" or "abrasion"). Looking at my work in different ways really helped me with this. What I mean is, you see some repeats when you read printouts on paper. But because the pagination is different, putting your manuscript in, say, Kindle format lets you see different repeats -- ones you might have previously missed. (Now, if I could just think of different ways to start my paragraphs, I'd be all set!)

Anyway, if you're a writer or aspiring writer, and you want your editor to focus more on substantive story issues and less on annoyances, read the post I linked to and try implementing some of the advice. Command (or control) + F is your friend!

Like Seriously, WTF?

2013-04-27T15:33:00.000-07:00

If I put the word "post" in the title of my post, I get 3-4 times the number of hits as if I don't put the word "post" in the title of my post.

Day Off!

2013-04-26T10:58:00.004-07:00

A bunch of people from work went to a symposium today. One of them is the lawyer I work with. I was asked if I wanted to go, but the catch is that it's a two day thing, a 90 minute drive away, with an overnight stay, and I only found out on Monday. So that's pretty much a no-go for me. I can't afford to board my dog and anyway, she just got spayed and probably shouldn't be boarded. I can't make alternate pet care arrangements on that short of a notice. But anyway, since there wasn't going to be anything for me to do at work, I was told I could take the day off. And so here I am!

I am actually having a lovely day. I have cleaned my bathrooms, changed the paper in my bird cages, cleaned my tortoise and guinea pig cages, updated my tumblr, done a lot of laundry, walked the dog a couple of times, and more. I'm mixing chores and fun things pretty well, so I feel good about what I've gotten accomplished without feeling like I've been spending the whole day working. And that is a really nice feeling to have.

So what the hell does this have to do with my blog? Well, I think I've posted a couple of times about how far behind I am with my writing. I am using today to start catching up. I'm breaking it into smaller chunks and mixing it up with other tasks. And the fact that I can actually tell I'm making progress is encouraging me to keep working. (Before, I was more of the opinion that I was never going to be able to catch up.)

It's interesting, but changing the technological capabilities of the world in which my manuscript is set, hasn't changed a lot of the story yet. Much of the dialogue is the same. Much of the description is the same, too, actually. It will diverge a little more, the farther on I get. More technology is available in big cities in my world than in small towns, isolated manors, etc. But right now, those are the only sorts of places we've been. (Because that's how far I've gotten with the rewrite.)

Every now and then, I have a crisis in confidence. I ask myself: what if it sucks? What if people are underwhelmed and no one wants to pay me for a sequel? What if I can never find a publisher in the first place?

But I can't let myself think that way. Right now, I am editing. I am FULLY in control. I remain in control until I send it off to the next publisher on my list. It is up to me to make this good, bad, or otherwise.

Anyway, time to do some more writing!

Never Thought About This Before

2013-04-25T04:32:00.001-07:00

5 Ways to Repair Misused Em Dashes

It's worth taking a look at if you tend to use em dashes. I do, although I'm trying to cut the number of them down. I am way too into parenthetical phrases, dashes, etc. I know a lot about punctuation (commas are my stumbling blocks, however) but there is always more I can learn.

By the way, is it just me, or in Season 2 of Game of Thrones, when Stannis's men start playing the drums during the invasion of King's Landing, does the beat sound like "The Beautiful People" by Marilyn Manson?

Six-Word Biographies of Harriet Klausner

2013-04-24T04:02:00.004-07:00

Also posted over at the HKAS.

Harriet once "reviewed" a book of six-word memoirs by writers. In honor of that, here are some six-word descriptions of the Mad Hattie.

*I was born a "speed reader."
*Sell ARCs. Get cash in hand.
*Don't know how to use semicolons.
*Subject verb agreement? Who has time?
*Relish! Support cast! Armchair! Relish! Relish!
* Relish makes my day go round.
*Incapable of spelling my own name.
*Motionless readers "xcite" my lower-head.
*#1 major food group is RELISH!
*Summaries and reviews are the same!
*I Love to destroy authors' livelihood!
*"Reviewed" 140 books in one day.
*Suffers from lack of reading comprehension.
*Oh! The poor readers remain motionless.
*Husband's name is Stanley. Or Mikey?
*Grocery list: bananas, cherries, sausages, asparagus.
*Likes 1970s "films" starring Harry Reems.
*Number 1 Hall of Fame "reviewer."
*I don't disclose advance review copies.
*More "reviews". Must write more "reviews".
*My life's purpose: cutting and pasting.
*Out of relish? Must go shopping!
*My free book supply is dwindling.
*Sentence structure? What does that mean?
*You're supposed to read the book?
*My rank is going down. Aarrgh!
*Grammar? Punctuation? Never heard of them.
*I have Harlequin on speed dial.
*I'm the world's biggest reviewing Fraud.
*Over the top of [random landmark].
*Tsuris. Rotating cast. Still readers. Tsuris.
*Eciting eexciting exciing exciiting excitin excitng.
*I get more comments than anyone.
*"Get a life. Read a book."
*Master's in library science, my behind.
*Am I supposed to disclose ARCs?
*I love klausnering every single genre.
*Viscous, vicious - what is the difference?
*Morality prevents me from making money
*My fan voters love my "reviews."
*I am the Queen of Fraud
*Aspiring Frauds: learn from the queen.
*I have a PhD in lying.
*Run-on sentences are my specialty.
*Goddess of (bad) Grammar, Harriet Hogwash
*The Perpetual Perpetrator of Poor Punctuation
*The Butcheress of Grammar, Harriet Hooey
*Great and Prolific Poobah of Frauddom
*The Mad Hattie, Mistress of Malarkey
*Diva of Deceit, Klausner the Quack
*The Cozy Queen of Carp Reviews
*Our Lady of Perpetual Posting Reviews
*The Frau_ Known as Harriet Klausner
*Butcheress of Grammar and Sentence Structure
*The Queen of Quotable Commaless Carp
*"great" I can't spell the word
*grat gret graet reat greta geat
*Welcome to Fraud Ville: Population - ME!
*Amazon's representatives and I are BFF!
*Immorality is my way of life.
*I live to write fake "reviews".
*I really really relish relishing relish.
*Sub sub genre. Sub sub plot.
*Read the book? Why do that?
*Never at a loss for words.
*I love to reference pornographic movies.
*You mean reviews should make sense?
*Details, schmetails. Who cares about accuracy?
*What's a pronoun antecedent? Please explain.
*My English "education" improves my "reviews".
*Still fans. Fast-paced fans. Armchair fans.
*Always three paragraphs, except for biographies.
*Increase word count: list other books.
*I still listen to 1970's music.
*I love to use obscure references.
*My biography changes depending on circumstances.
*When in doubt, make stuff up.
*I've never expressed a personal opinion.
*Haven't read a book so far.
*Comment away. I never read them.
*I don't care what people think.
*Came out of womb speed reading.
*Sells ARCs on half dot com.
*My hair turned gray. You like?
*"Reviews" are my game. Ethics? Lame.
*I don't get out very much.
*Sleep? Eat? Bathe? Who has time?
*I'm a professional librarian. Truuuust me.
*28,750 books. Twelve years. Do math.
*Harlequin loves my five star "reviews".
*Ethics, schmethics. I have no integrity.
*Semi-colons 'R Us. Commas 'Rn't Us.
*Words, schmerds. They all run together.
*I can never remember character names.
*I never take a day off.
*Reems is my favorite movie star.
*Watching Deep Throat: up my "alley"!
*Everyone really loves all my "reviews".
*See the comments? They love me!
*I'll do anything to get attention.
*Why would anyone think I'm fraudulent?
*My "reviews" sell lots of books.
*Ain't I great? Publishers love me.
*Ain't I great? Amazon loves me.
*Send me more free books. NOW!
*What to do if not "review"?
*Don't have much of a life.
*So many books to never read.
*I can't clean! Too many books.
*Relish. Bananas. Pickles. Strawberries. Sausage. Yum.
*Anybody need empty relish jars? Cheap!
*Anybody need some unread books? Bargain!
*"She's soft, I won't deny that."

Credit to me, Sara, Bev, buck210, and Hattie and Stanley Klausner themselves.

Hey, Jackasses

2013-04-23T03:34:00.000-07:00

Wonder if that post title will get me some hits?

Seriously, I've been noticing something on Amazon lately and I feel like ranting a little bit today so I thought I'd combine the two.

I comment on a lot of reviews on Amazon. Specifically Harriet Klausner reviews. And there have been a couple of times when the authors of the books in question (or their friends, or their mothers, or whatever) have attacked me. (Thankfully, the attacks don't extend past comments.)

I feel that I'm doing Amazon customers a service. I'm alerting them to fake reviews. Now, sometimes I resort to snark, ridicule, etc. Why do I do this?

Well, first off, Klausner reviews are full of comic material. How many (humorous) ways can you interpret an ambiguous pronoun? How many incorrect ways are there to use a semicolon? How many ideas can you shove into one sentence? How many irrelevant 1960s or 1970s songs, references to pornographic movies, or weirdly inappropriate Yiddish terms can you throw into a book about the Amish? Do you really believe a Jewish lady from the Northeast has any business reviewing health books written for African-Americans? Is there really someone out there who doesn't know the difference between "Six Degrees of Separation" and "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon?" (Yeah, really...Harriet doesn't.) How can readers do gymnastics while reading (they're fast-paced, spinning, twisting readers! or else they're motionless!)?

Second, we've tried everything else. Vote five times, your negative votes count. Vote a sixth time, and all your negative votes disappear. You've become a fan (in the sense that you're actually the exact opposite, or an anti-fan). Yeah, there are legitimate reasons to have a fan voter system (to discourage trolls, among other things). We've tried reporting abuse. We click that link until our mouse fingers turn blue. Nothing ever gets done, other than the occasional removal of a duplicate review.

Third, we believe it's unethical to review books you haven't read. And no one reads 28,700 books in a little over a decade. We also believe it's unethical to plagiarize publicity materials/book jackets/dust covers and pass the content off as your own. We believe it's unethical to disregard FTC guidelines that require disclosure of free items received in exchange for a review. We don't believe that a person would rate 99.7% of 28,700 books read as 4 or 5 stars. We don't believe a person who allegedly reads as much as Harriet Klausner claims to, never picks up any new vocabulary and never learns how to properly punctuate sentences. We don't believe someone who has read a book gets so many details wrong (including at least twice missing the fact that there were characters NAMED AFTER HER).

And so, we comment, as that is the last option left to us. We can't always post "be on the lookout, this is a fake review," because Amazon deletes repetitive comments. So we vary the language. We tailor it to the review in question, as far as that's possible.

Please note, there is a difference between a REVIEW and a COMMENT. A review is supposed to be written by someone who has read a book, detailing his or her experience with the book, and offering an individual opinion as to whether the book is good or not, what works or doesn't work, what other books a reviewer enjoyed (e.g. if the reviewer loved this book, and also loved that book, since I loved that book, maybe I will love this book too), etc. A comment is a comment on the review, not on the book or author. Perhaps you have a question to ask the reviewer. Harriet doesn't read or respond to her comments, by the way. But asking a question (e.g. does this DVD have a "music off" option, or does such-and-such a character appear in this book) is a legitimate reason to leave a comment. Correcting an inaccuracy is a good reason to leave a comment. My point is, there are lots of reasons to leave comments. Alerting unwary consumers to fake reviews is surely one of those reasons.