Janice Hardy is a Fantasy author, and runs the Fiction University website / blog. Her blog is a source of interesting titbits, related to writing fiction. She turned a number of those blog posts into books, of which I purchased three.
The three books by her hand that I'll discuss are focused on beginners to mid-level writers. They might make some good presents for under the tree, in case you have a young niece / nephew who wants to be an author some day…
Highly spoken of, 'a classic', and yet... I don't know.
It's epic scifi allright. Kim Stanley Robinson describes the colonialization of Mars, and all the stumbles along the way, and once you're done with book three, you know all there is to know.
But... after reading all three books, I was left with a kind of empty feeling, as things didn't go anywhere. Mumble muble bla bla mumble mumble... with a sudden stop at the end.
This series is literally using ‘imagination’ as the primary magical means and method. It has some interesting aspects and intrigue, but the main character is a little too powerful, and the whole writing style smells of LitRPG and Cultivation (which I don’t like) but… he doesn’t belong to that wave of writers.
I’m a little puzzled though. L.E. Modesitt has been around for quite a while, but I have no recollection of reading anything by his hand before. Hmmm…
I suffer from an old time music revival, and now I'm stuck in the 70's. So let’s throw a classic at you: Boston’s debut album Boston. I’ve been playing it whilst working on my latest Dapper contribution, and damn, every track (except perhaps the last one) is fantastic. Ah, more than a feeling… and that organ!
Verdict? After all these years it's still fantastic!
Space Opera by the numbers. So many books follow the traditional ‘captain down on his luck’ ‘fight against a secret force and a corrupt army / government’ etc. etc. etc. and this is just another one. Still, this series made it into book seven (or eight?) by now.
I believe human nature is effectively blocking any usable form of communism and anarchism. That's why I believe in enlightened capitalism, with a shot of socialism to protect the weak. That’s the role of government: protect the populace from getting hurt by greed and stupidity. (Click on the image to enlarge.)
Post apocalyptic YA with great concepts that becomes a little too far-fetched in the latter half of the third book. Concept: the world is overrun by a virus that blows up people. The only way to survive is eating the flesh of someone who’s sick but didn’t yet explode.
From there we move into split brains, gen splicing, and virtual reality, served with a dash of betrayal and a royal helping of romance. Like I said, pretty good all the way up to the virtual reality, that’s where it looses some steam.
Simple, step by step instructions on how to maintain indents for regular text, as set in Word.
In a nutshell: you need to set the indent used in Word styles.
Read on for examples and instructions.
Yeah, that’s a song, not a book 🤔 Although the original was performed by Fred Astaire in the musical The Sky’s the Limit, and the best known version is perhaps Sinatra’s, this one’s my to go to. It’s night, and nobody knows if it’s the end of a love affair, or the end of the world.
Shivers... I think I'll have to read a Chandler / Marlowe next...
Here she is on YouTube...
Some newer drives use SMR instead of CMR recording. Unfortunately, manufacturers are not clear when they are using SMR technology.
SMR mostly affects the writing speed, may decrease lifespan, and greatly hampers (if not completely blocks) recovery of data upon OS failures, drive failures, or power failures. It should be cheaper (to manufacture)...
I’m alternating between two fantasy / romance series, Faith Hunter’s Jane Yellowrock and Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson, trying to understand the appeal and writing styles.
It’s interesting to see how they both approach the classical notion of vampires and werewolves, and twist the readers’ expectations, whilst on the other hand serving them exactly what they want...
A somewhat humoristic horror (?) read. The main characters are 'british at all costs', featuring a paranormal gifted young snobbish (and poor) gentleman, and his traditional butler. The story itself didn't do much for me, but the dialogues were nice and sharp and funny.
On https://myindiebookshelf.com/ I ran into Lawrence Nault. Who is... real? Or not? When I see an AI generated or otherwise modified face, I start to doubt. So, just for fun, I looked a little deeper.
Sleuthing on the 'net may also help you to figure out how to present yourself as an author. Learn from the best and the worst, as they say.
Limitless (the series) is more enjoyable than I expected (probably appeals to me because of the main character and his voice overs). I'm not convinced it is going to last for more than a season though... Still, it's fun so far, let's see if even the fun lasts for 22 episodes...
Trying to learn more about romance novels, I dipped my toes into the ‘Jane Yellowrock’ series. I think this is the second or third novel from the series. I’m still not sure what the target audience is for these: starving housewives, or males looking for a vampire killing, werewolf kicking biker chick?
So... I have a thing for eyes. Sue me.
This wallpaper works great on multi-monitor setups with two identical monitors.
Click on image to enlarge or check out the other wallpapers...
Sometimes I sample ultra cheap offers on Amazon / Audible. Here's one of those... It's another typical fantasy / romance with some 'porny' chapters inserted ('She took his cock in her mouth' etc.)...
Unfortunately, though the premise is promising (post apocalypse, Celtic gods, latent magic etc.) the books as a series fail to hold my attention, and I don't need the porn scenes to spice it up. (It isn't romance, it's porn. Duh.)
Ryan Reynolds is a busy bee. Here’s a high-octane, big FX take on The Truman Show (which is better) with a bit of The Matrix thrown in (which is better).
‘Guy’ lives inside a video game, and helps the programmer to recover code and discover love.
The verdict? It’s okay if you said goodbye to your brain cells two or three years ago.
A little piece of Flash Fiction, triggered by user posts on Discord / Writers+
Lil, Matt, I hope you won't mind :-)
(Written and posted with Lil and Matt's permission. Most of the blue messages are Lil's originals, the black and red my somewhat embellished replies.)
I think my first encounter with anime was back in '95. Yeah, I'm getting old 😔
Shadow and Bone... Bone and Shadow... Oh, what does it matter. It's just another Netflix fantasy series, decent first season, bad second season, then rapidly killed off.
Sigh.
Typical Netflix.
Things are never ever good enough. My god, can people complain!
Yeah, I know. I do as well. It’s only human. But the amount of negativity thrown at the Marvel shows for ‘not being true to the comics’, ‘poor CGI’, ‘discriminating’ and what not… my god! Is there even a way to do things right?!? We’re talking about television series, at smaller budgets, based on fantasy comics… and not everything has to be politically correct!
Street gang assists Watson and Holmes, fighting supernatural stuff. The single episode arcs are all tied together in the end. Not that bad, and it might have deserved another season, but it’s fine as is.
(I hate series that are discontinued without a proper wrap-up. Are you listening, Netflix?)
I am a sucker for weird stuff with a bit of action, decent story line, interesting characters, and good production values. The Peripheral thus far ticks all the boxes. I've never read the book it's based upon (by William Gibson) but I guess I will give it a go after this series has been completed.
You can browse your library and retrieve all your purchased documents from your e-readers, but did you know you can send other, non-Amazon documents to your Kindle e-reader? Or send them to a friend, assuming they have an Amazon / Kindle account?
I guess we’ve all read how our autistic Killer Bot handles the world, and in this book he finds a friend whilst rescuing his clients.
I don't know what it is, but clouds always make for great wallpapers. This is a dual monitor version I found... somewhere 🤔
Click on the image to enlarge, or check out the other wallpapers...
Source: https://janefriedman.com/
Direct link: https://janefriedman.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Self-Publishing-Checklist.pdf
She seems to be looking at things mostly from the viewpoint of a more experienced (self published) author, but otherwise this should offer some help to all aspiring writers. One suggestion: get your editing and your covers arranged a bit earlier...
Oh dear. Season 1 was promising, and had some interesting plotlines. An interesting ending. Lots of possibilities for a great season 2.
And then season 2 actually happened.
Just a single season, YA, and a bit tight on budget, yet quite promising.
Unfortunately, there won't be a second season. I personally think it deserved one, but I can live with it the way it is.
Dutch: Blogger is gratis maar soms wat onhandig, daarom heb ik de 'about' pagina aangevuld met wat extra informatie.
Are you old enough to remember the old Addams' Family? You might have seen one of the replays, or read any of the cartoons. Skip the nineties-something movie, and forget about the animated series. What you need is the original, weird stuff. So, where does the Netflix series sit?
I create and edit my covers in good ol' Photo Impact, with a dash of Krita on the side.
I've shared this link in the past (3D book mockup covers) but did you know there's a full fledged online cover editor as well?
I've updated immprep.exe, fixing two small bugs, and adding Word (.docx) support. Note that the command line parameters have changed, to allow for more flexibility, and support for other TTS applications (not yet implemented, but it's easier to do now). When working on Word support I ran into a few issues (for the full story and latest version of ImmPrep read on).
This is a follow-up to Book & Chapter Sizes.
I found some information on the size of best selling books, and it seems they're getting shorter and shorter. Is that Twitter, or do readers simply have less time these days?
Netflix has a habit of killing off promising fantasy series. Some barely make it past the first season, some get a few episodes more, but to be honest, Netflix (just like all the other streaming services) rarely give a series the chance to grow on people.
And so they killed this one as well. Fortunately, the core plot was done before the series was canceled.
Elon Musk is still messing around with Twitter (aka the sewer of the Internet) and this time he has irked the user base by imposing limits.
I applaud his actions.
Amazon is de grootste (online) boekhandel ter wereld, maar als Nederlandse gebruiker is niet altijd alles even duidelijk.
Een paar tips voor het veranderen van land, webwinkel en taal.
Dit is een update op de oude post.
A few hours after the closure of the race in Austria (at the Red Bull ring) a number of drivers got additional time penalties, leading to a shuffling of the race results.
During the race Hamilton complained about Verstappen, and I joked that it would be quite the joke if it was actually Hamilton who would get an extra penalty... and he did 🤔😒😂🤣
Anyway. It's tough. But let's be a bit pragmatic... maybe it doesn't matter as much as some claim.
Standard action flick with Jennifer Lopez as a former agent who went undercover to protect her newly born child, and has to protect the orphaned kid fifteen years later.
For a standard Netflix action flick, it’s surprisingly good (if a bit predictable). But the most important question isn't answered: how the hell does Jennifer Lopez keep in shape?
Why does Microsoft keep doing these things? My home server (a Windows 10 box) ran perfectly fine, and woke up when requested. And then, suddenly, it doesn't respond to a WOL anymore.
Possible reason: Windows 10 decided that their limited default Windows-provided driver was better than the custom, certified driver provided by Asrock.
Unfortunately, re-installing the original driver did NOT restore WOL functionality. Why, Microsoft, oh why... Anybody help?!?
Last month's wallpaper was a whopping 10kb, this one is actually the largest in my (small) collection, at 2.5 Mb. As usual I have no clue where it came from 😓 and feel bad for the original artist.
(Click on image to enlarge.)
Warning: 18+, not suitable for work and the faint of heart.
More covers from the Internet, trying to find a few good and bad examples...
This is the final installment, and we're counting down to number one, insulting a few politicians and Microsoft along the way. Yes. Things are getting bad. Very bad. 18+ and only the strong of mind should travel onwards from this point!
"The Beloved Novel of Love, Friendship, Sisterhood and Magic". Right. They missed a single word in that description: boring.
Because, I'm sorry, but because that's what it is. Boring. It starts somewhere, it goes somewhere, and it ends somewhere. I made it three quarters through, trying to figure out what was so great about the story, and gave up.
Fortunately, there's also a movie... is there?
Warning: 18+, not suitable for work and the faint of heart.
I grabbed a few book covers from the Internet, trying to find a few good and bad examples... Some are fake. Some are funny. Some are bad or disturbing in many ways.
This is the fourth installment, and today we'll cover the best 'sex sells' covers. Well, maybe not the best, and perhaps not the best selling... Just don't forget to bring your notebooks and eyewash.
You can't kill the dead. Well, it turns out you can. With a bit of training.
You know what's worse though than killing dead? Next to being kicked out of hell and finding out you're not entirely human? That must be staying a virgin after meeting your favorite porn star, but I guess that's only a problem if your name is Jason Stark.
Warning: 18+, not suitable for work and the faint of heart.
I grabbed a few book covers from the Internet, trying to find a few good and bad examples...
We're now entering the domain of fan fiction, and as most aspiring authors have little money, little art talent, or both (I firmly belong in that category), they'll have to rely on affordable pre-made covers, a little photoshopping, or old fashioned felt tip pens and crayons to get the message across.
With Netflix continuing to increase their pricing, the offer of HBO Max looked pretty good... Who doesn't want a lifelong 50% discount, great series and a bunch of movies? And so, I subscribed.
I might cancel any day now. When HBO Max becomes Max, and all the good stuff disappears in exchange for crappy reality stuff...
