I forget how I found this, suggested by people who liked something or other, somewhere webmagical maybe?

It’s decent so far although there is a glaring typo on the first page.  Second paragraph.  Wow, really??  Unless … in British English does “prize” mean the same thing as “pry”?

“Now they would be coming to prize him from his warm comfy shell, …”

Something like that.  Is that grammatical in Britspeak?

[Well shit son, I've been schooled.  Evidently that is a valid use of prize.  Learn something new...  I guess I could debate the wisdom of using semi-obscure readings of incredibly common words.... but why would I - I just learned something and now that I've posted my lack of knowledge for the world to see, I will never forget it.  For at least a week.]

Anyway, it’s about some spoiled brat guy in the future who accidentally destroys a barren planet with his experimental self-replicating city building robots, then gets roped into doing something for the powers that be in lieu of an extensive punishment of some sort.  Ahh, but of course this task is punishment of it’s own right?

Something to do with fighting off something like his little self-replicating bots (he calls them von Neumann machines), except a million times worse.

I’m sure he will confront the nature of humanity, somewhere along the way.

I’m trying to be more adventurous and trying out new sci-fi authors.   Maybe some of them won’t suck.

It came in the mail on Monday, just as I finished The Anvil of Ice by Michael Scott Rohan.  Literally, almost just as a finished it.  Like a sign of some sort.  Or, at least like a package I ordered a week ago.

Sadly, the only cover image I can find for my printing (1st print HC for $10ish from Amazon! …except that it’s got the remainder dot.  Doh!  Oh well, still hard to find) is from Amazon, and is sized funny, hence the formatting oddities.

Oh, yeah I could just crop that shit.  Well, that’s that.

Oh, right the book.  It’s quite good, but you have to be in the mood for mid 80′s fantasy – lots of descriptions, scenery, not much dialogue, etc.  It was a slow start for me, but I quite enjoyed the book and will be tracking town the other two in the series.  Lots of stuff about smithcraft – tools used, hitting shit with hammers, stuff about metals… if that’s your thing and you like fantasy this just might be your bag.

THREE AND A HALF OUT OF FIVE STARS

Before that I was reading books on writing.  Namely, these 3:

Images are links to the Amazon pages (Man, isn’t that row of search results that opens up above books on Amazon now really annoying?  Almost as annoying as italics!).

I found them all quite useful, with Self-Editing for Fiction Writers probably at the top of the list.  Lot’s of useful tips and things to consider and…and right now I can’t remember a single one of them to mention.  But hey, that’s my brain.  Welcome to it.  That’s why I buy the dead tree versions, so I can easily look things up…

Bird by Bird was, of course, the most “entertaining” is it’s a semi-memoirish type deal with interludes from the author’s life and experience hanging the flesh on the writing tip bones.  This one is aimed at more of a literary fiction audience – that & memoir(ish) appear to be the writers genres of choice – but there are lots of helpful thoughts about the writing process, and about being a writer in general that I think any writer would benefit from reading.

Writing the Breakout Novel is a bit commercial. BUT, all writing is commercial.  Even literary fiction – although it does follow its own magical rules… still, I think the book has something even for aspiring literary fiction authors.  At minimum, it will give them a criteria cheesegrader to fling their plot/character cheese against.

If you’re into that kind of thing.

I’d recommend all three.

Also recently finished up Death is no Obstacle, a series of interviews with Michael Moorcock about writing, mostly his in particular.  Yes, that’s really his name.  How very British of him.

So, if you’re a fantasy reader you’ve most likely heard of him.  I’m (somewhat, I don’t reeeeeally care) ashamed to say I haven’t read any of his stuff yet.  But, Elric/Eternal Warrior stuff is on my “to read someday” list.  I just haven’t felt like it yet.

Anyway, lot’s of interesting conversation about books and the genres he’s worked in.  I’m sure it would have been more interesting if I was familiar with any of the works mentioned, but hey! :).

He’s somewhat famous (?) for having written several of his books in record time.  I think it was like, 3 days for some. Now, I think he says he had some kind of outline ahead of time… so it’s not “from scratch” as it were.  And, they were old school fantasy, so probably what 1/3 the length of modern fantasy?  And he doesn’t specify, but I’m pretty sure it was just rough drafts… so now that I’ve deflated his sails into something much more manageable….

THE END.

[Oh, and I forgot I ordered this too:

I would have forgotten, except it was leaning against our door when I got home. ]

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