So its been a few days since I’ve a) finished and released FOUNDRY OF THE GODS, the sixth book in the CORROSIVE KNIGHTS series and b) since I got my website re-made and the blog problems settled.
I could sit back, take it easy for the rest of the year and catch up on some of the video games I’ve bought but haven’t had time to play (Battlefield 1 and Fallout 4 being the two predominant ones) or, likewise, catch up on movies I’ve rented/bought but have also let slide (I just picked up the digital version of the extended cut of Suicide Squad and want to see if that improves upon that very flawed film in any way and also have Captain America: Civil War waiting for me along with at least a dozen other films I’m curious to check out), or, likewise redux, catch up on some books I’ve picked up and have waiting for me in my Kindle…
But who am I kidding?
Finishing FOUNDRY OF THE GODS was an incredible rush, especially after having worked on it for just a little over two years, and now that its done I’m juiced to get to the next novel in the series, #7, which will be the conclusion to the main CORROSIVE KNIGHTS storyline.
Mark this date on the calendar, I certainly will: Today is the day I formally start that book. I’ve already done quite a bit of work on it, from using the index card app to build a rough plot outline to actually writing a few chapters of the book when I was free enough to do so.
Will this book take me two years to write as well? I suspect it might not, only because I already have so much material squirreled away and ready. With FOUNDRY, I started almost completely from scratch with a start and ending and little else. With Book #7, I also have a start and end planned out but also some good stuff for the middle sections.
When all is said and done, I also suspect this book will be one of the longest ones I write, longer perhaps than THE LAST FLIGHT OF THE ARGUS, which is currently my longest book, wordcount-wise.
A short while back I posted my admiration for this here device…
The price of the device ($3000 and up) is quite steep but, based on the video, I was shocked by how beautiful and functional, especially to those who are artists, the device appeared to be.
Well, the device has not been offered for review and people are, of course, reviewing it…
I have to say as someone who loves tech and especially tech innovation, this device is really exciting.
Is it exciting enough to spend that amount of money getting it?
Not really. At least not for me. Though I have worked in the field of comic book art, I’m more of a writer these days and, as tempting a product as this is, the price tag on this is a little too out of my league for something to “play” around with.
On the other hand, this is the first iteration of this product and it wouldn’t surprise me that future versions are cheaper and (gulp) better. Apple, take note!
If you want a more in depth review that talks about the actual nuts and bolts within the machine, check out this article by Tom Warren and found on theverge.com:
What is literature’s most notorious award? Why, the “Bad Sex in Fiction” award, of course!
The 2016 nominees are listed in the article above and I can’t help but paste one of the examples of bad sex in fiction from the article below. It’s a howler, for sure, courtesy of Jonathan Safran Foer:
“He jerked off with the determination of someone within sight of Everest’s summit, having lost all his friends and Sherpas, having run out of supplemental oxygen, but preferring death to failure.”
O……kay?!
I’ll be curious to read some of the other nominees.
I like “siege” films. In fact, one of my all time favorite films is John Carpenter’s very low budget 1976 film Assault on Precinct 13 (avoid the 2005 remake)…
So when I heard about the plot of the 2015 film Green Room, I was intrigued. Especially considering the director and writer of the film, Jeremy Saulnier, was also responsible for the intriguing 2013 movie Blue Ruin.
Like Blue Ruin, Green Room is a tense, though low budget thriller which involves a down on their luck punk rock band that barely scrapes by between low-attendance gigs. They travel some 90 miles out of their way under the promise of a concert only to find the venue is now closed to the man who offered them the job. To make up for it, the man offers them another gig at a relative’s place but warns them the venue is made up of neo-Nazis. As long as they do the gig and not get political, he tells them, they’ll be fine.
Hard up for the cash, the band heads to the venue and performs. But, after the performance, a cell phone left behind in the venue’s green room (the place where the band prepared for the concert) winds up causing them to witness a murder. From there, the band and an unlikely ally are forced to fight for their lives to get out of this closed-in place.
Green Room, as mentioned before, is a “siege” film. What that means is that you have the main character(s) locked in a small area while bad-guys mercilessly assault them from without. In the very best siege films, the characters are inevitably outnumbered and outgunned and have to rely on their wits, rather than strength, to survive.
In the case of Green Room, the characters presented aren’t the sharpest and are likely more than a little buzzed after the concert but do realize quickly, though not quickly enough, the extent of their predicament. Like the best of the siege films, not everyone survives and likeable -as well as unlikeable- characters meet their fate in brutal ways.
The movie’s cast is solid, with the late Anton Yelchin playing Pat, the band’s leader. Alia Shawkat, often a more familiar face in comedic roles, is also very good as Sam, another band member and confidant of Pat.
But clearly the biggest, splashiest -and surprising- role is that of neo-Nazi leader Darcy, played by Patrick Stewart. Unfortunately, this bit of “big” casting, to me, didn’t work quite as well as I hoped it would.
Taking a very well known -and for the most part beloved- actor and sticking him/her into a nasty role has been done before and sometimes to very good effect. Henry Fonda, for instance, had a decades long reputation for playing salt of the earth types…people who were genuinely good inside and looked out for others. This made his role of Frank, the cold-blooded killer in Once Upon A Time In The West, all the more shocking.
In Green Room, unfortunately, Darcy’s role is presented as one of cold expediency. He is evil, yes, but in a cold, methodological way. In other words: When presented with problem “a”, he logically figures out the steps needed to clean it up. The evil presented here is -purposely, I suspect- like the Nazi collaborators of World War II.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t make for a particularly gripping bad guy. Worse, unlike seeing the evil Henry Fonda’s character was capable in Once Upon A Time In The West, Darcy’s evil is done by surrogates and therefore he’s always above the fray and doesn’t become the hissable villain we really needed to have.
Coming away from the film, I was left with other questions as well. One of the big ones involved the injury sustained to one of the band members very early in the film and when they realized, without a shadow of doubt, that their lives were in mortal danger. The injury presented (I won’t go into spoilers here) is gruesome and chilling and kudos to the special effects department for the way it was presented.
However, such an injury would clearly be life threatening to the character that received it. This injury must have severed many, many blood vessels and arteries and yet the character continues on doesn’t bleed out.
Further, after a while I couldn’t help but wonder why Darcy and his crew didn’t just rush the damn green room and blast everyone away. Granted, the script tried to explain this but…I dunno. Again, I don’t want to go into spoilers but it just seemed the bad guys were holding back more than they needed to…and ultimately that was to the benefit of the “good guys” and the resolution of the film.
Despite all that, I still think Green Room is a decent, tense siege thriller. If you don’t think to hard about certain elements of the film (as I did), you will find this an enjoyable nail-bitter. It is also a film not for the squeamish!
Sometimes it feels like the universe is conspiring against you.
In a big way.
A little over two years ago I started my latest CORROSIVE KNIGHTS novel, FOUNDRY OF THE GODS, and all was well. By well I mean: It took a great deal of patience and a hell of a lot of work to get the book done.
And when I was done, I was happy, as I always am when such a large amount of work is finished.
So who would believe that:
I release the damn book the day before the elections and then find myself absolutely crushed by what happened within.
That I would innocently begin the process of updating my webpage and spend the next week in computing hell trying to get everything to work as it should?
Ok, I brought #2 on myself but, seriously, who would have thought this country would be dumb enough to elect someone like Donald Trump to the presidency? Didn’t anyone learn their lesson with George W. Bush?
Ah well, the choice is made and, as I said before, let’s hope the office is better than the man. I strongly suspect those who voted for Mr. Trump will take a good deal of broken promises and general presidential insanity to prove to them they made the wrong choice.
Regardless, things around here look like they’ve finally settled. I’ve got the blog up and running and the website looks nice. I’ll still do some work on it but the new system is so much easier to use.
For those who bought FOUNDRY OF THE GODS, hope you enjoyed it.
As of today, 11/8/16, I have the paperback version of Foundry of the Gods “in review” and should become available for purchase by later today or early tomorrow.
The Foundry of the Gods ebook is now listed with the other five books of the series under the Corrosive Knights Amazon link:
Even more exciting, as of today I’ve experienced something I haven’t experienced before: I have book sales simultaneously listed for the United States, UK, France, Canada, and Australia!
I’ve had sales for my books throughout the world but this is the first time I’ve seen sales appear simultaneously in five different countries and, for that, I want to thank those out there in these countries for giving my works a try. I sincerely hope you enjoy what I’ve made!
Next step: Update my main webpage. Should do that at least every time I write a new book, no? 😉
Yesterday, 11/6/16, I uploaded my latest Corrosive Knights novel, Foundry of the Gods, to Amazon and their ebook/Kindle services. At sometime around midnight, the book went “live” and available for everyone to purchase. You can do so at this link:
What was so wonderful to discover at a little after midnight and what must have been minutes after the book was made available was that some people already purchased the book!
To them I must say: My deepest, most heartfelt thanks to you. This is the first time a book of mine has gone live and already found an audience willing to buy it. This certainly encourages me to continue my work.
For those others who have given my books a try or will experience them for the first time, I also offer my deepest thanks.
Spending one’s hard earned money on what amounts to an author’s flight of fancy is something I take incredibly seriously. This is the reason it takes me as much time as it does to release my works. I want to make sure they’re worth spending your money on.
As for today, I’ll finish up the work for the paperback version of this novel and that too will be available very soon for purchase.
In the meantime, I hope those who have the book -or will soon get it- like what I’ve written. If you do, please take a moment to offer a review. There’s nothing that makes me happier than seeing you were happy with what I wrote.
In the meantime, have a very pleasant day. For those living in the United States, hang on. The election is tomorrow and by Wednesday the insanity levels should finally ease…
As of yesterday, I completed the latest draft (#12) of book #6 of the Corrosive Knights series. I took five days to re-read the book and add notes/corrections in pen. It took only four days to take those corrections/notes and put them into the computer. When I was done with that, I felt there were still three chapters that required one more read-through, “just in case”. One of the chapters was part of the original three I worked on in draft #11, the other two just featured more corrections this time around and I felt I should go over it one more time to make sure all was well.
I did all that on Thursday, finishing the entire novel by shortly before noon.
Since then, I’ve been preparing the novel for formal release. I’m working on both the “print” version as well as the e-book/Kindle version along with such necessities as creating ISBN numbers and submitting the work to the Copyright Office.
As those who have read my entries here know, I’ve kept the title of the book secret. I did this mostly because of the later point listed above. I don’t feel comfortable releasing specifics such as book titles until I’ve done the copyrights and, now that they’re done, here you have it:
As you can see, the title of Book #6 of the Corrosive Knights series is Foundry of the Gods.
I might still tweak the cover a little bit but regardless, by sometime next week the e-book will be available for purchase and, once I review the print/hard copies, they too will be available. Give that another week.
In the meantime, I’ll get all the other busywork done and give you a head’s up when the latest novel is indeed available for purchase.
It’s been a long, long road to get here but I couldn’t be happier. Foundry of the Gods, for those who have read this series to this point, should knock your socks off! 😉
