Sneaky Burrito

Accents in Game of Thrones

2013-05-22T03:04:00.001-07:00

Long piece from Gawker about the actors' accents in the Game of Thrones series on HBO.

I do find it a little strange that people adopt British-style accents for fantasy series and movies. I *think* I would accept others, although I would need to actually see a fantasy television series (not urban fantasy, which totally could take place in contemporary America) with American accents in order to properly judge. (Don't forget, you all, that GRRM is, himself, an American...though we also have a proud tradition of expressly forbidding the granting of titles of nobility in this country, and the British still do have a monarchy, a House of Lords, etc.)

I, like the author of the linked-to piece, am not particularly convinced by Peter Dinklage's accent, though I think he is an excellent fit to play Tyrion (not only because of his stature, but because I think he captures the character and his struggles and his attitude pretty well -- the buildup to what I know is coming in books 4 and 5 is believable).

But in general, I can listen to a British accent and have no freaking idea where in the country the person is from. (I wonder if it is the same for people from other English-speaking countries coming to the US and trying to differentiate regional accents? I suppose it is. I once heard a native Mandarin speaker admit that she couldn't tell a British accent from a US Southern one, though she also said the British man was easier to understand when he spoke. Go figure.)

Anyway, the analysis at Gawker is pretty in depth, if you watch the show or you're into that kind of thing.

P.S. I already have a post tag called "British accents," so I may have talked about this before. Oh well, that would've been a long time ago.

Glad It's Not So Cutthroat with Books and Dog Toys

2013-05-21T03:43:00.000-07:00

5 Despicable Things People Do for Good Online Reviews from cracked.com

Makes me glad to write reviews for stuff I've bought myself (for the most part), for chump change (in the scope of things...a dog toy costs a hell of a lot less than a hotel room). And makes me think twice about EVER writing a review for a restaurant (even one I like) or anything travel related (well, reviewing travel stuff would imply I had traveled, which I don't have the money to do...).

It's not just pressure from stores and product makers. I once ordered a product from an Amazon marketplace seller. The product worked, which was great, but the packaging was simply awful. I was honestly surprised the product DID work after the box got smashed like it did in transit (because the only thing protecting it was a Tyvek envelope). Well, I decided I just wouldn't leave seller feedback. Except the seller kept pressuring me to leave feedback. So, I left 3 stars. The product did work, but it took much longer to get to me than it was supposed to, and there was the box issue -- both of which I mentioned in the feedback. The seller came after me with a sob story about how it would hurt his sales to get less than 4 or 5 stars, and blah, blah, blah. I just ignored him, though I was tempted to change the feedback to 1 star. (Assuming that was allowed at the time -- I don't even know.)

At any rate, my point was that I felt pressure then. I ignored it, and the issue went away. The most recent time I dealt with a marketplace seller, there was an error with my order but the seller was super responsive to my e-mails and fixed the issue ASAP. So don't let the first experience I described, put you off marketplace sellers all together. They do have some good points. Just check the feedback before purchase.

I see that I've gone off on a tangent. But I don't want to quote liberally from the article I linked to, because you should really visit the site where it's hosted and read it there, if you're interested. Bonus profanity in the linked-to piece (since this blog post is absent any profanity from me -- hey, it happens on occasion).

I'd add #6 to Cracked's list, though: "send advance review copies to Harriet Klausner."

Do You Not Realize How Unoriginal This Sounds?

2013-05-20T04:17:00.000-07:00

Another day, another press release.

First paragraph of the synopsis begins:

"War has broken out in the Seven Kingdoms."

Second paragraph of the synopsis begins:

"Meanwhile, now that dragon magic has returned..."

Copy much? Are you writing a novel or a book report on A Song of Ice and Fire?

The Amazon review looks real. Perhaps too generous, at three stars, but real.

Not a good sign when your "about the author" section has a grammar error: "While his stories were always for personal enjoyment and those of his friends and relatives" ("Those?" Really?)

On to the Look Inside:

"they cut a wide birth"
a character could easily tell abnormally large humanoids were giants
"many of who didn't get along"
random line breaks in the middle of sentences
no indentations at the beginnings of paragraphs (solid wall of text is hard to read, yo)
lots and lots of telling instead of showing
a lack of understanding of how to use speaker attributions (you don't say: "'Please send for my brother.' He ordered." -- first off, if you say "please," it's not an order; second, well, do you really need me to tell you what's wrong with the punctuation? if you do, you shouldn't be writing a BOOK)
something is "genetically bred" into someone (WTF?)

That's only the first couple of pages. I can't take any more of this. It needs so much work. My first draft was better.

What I've Been Reading

2013-05-19T19:03:00.000-07:00

Cozy mysteries.

There's a reason. And I'm not likely to change from being a fantasy fan to a mystery fan, anytime soon.

I will say, picking up a mystery or two is fun every now and then. Cozies are a little too cute to be my everyday reading. People who are terribly unqualified are super eager to be crimesolvers, and oddly unaffected by the untimely deaths of people they know. The books are a bit formulaic, as well.

But, they're not long, I have someone willing to lend them to me in Kindle format so I don't have to pay for them, and I have done far too little non-fantasy reading these past couple of years.

And as for why I'm reading these? Well, let's just say that pretty soon, there will be a new cozy mystery series on Amazon (free, in the comments to HK reviews) called "Harriet's Reviewing Circle Mysteries."

Bathtub Reading

2013-05-18T17:18:00.002-07:00

Took my Kindle in the bathtub for the first time today. Worked out fine. Two pieces of advice, for those who might be interested:

Gallon-sized plastic freezer bag. Seal it up tight, and you're good to go.
Don't do it when you're tired. Those freezer bags might be water resistant, but total immersion in the bath might not be such a good thing.

I read a whole book today (not fantasy). Haven't been able to say that in awhile. I do, in fact, still like reading! And I can, in fact, enjoy other genres (and sometimes even silence my inner critic).

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!