Blógünder Schlock

We usually get nothing but positive feedback about our podcasts over at WritingExcuses.com. This week, however, the discussion under the ‘cast has been especially enthusiastic, and listeners seem thrilled with the podcast itself. Here are some samples:

Thanks so much for this podcast! I love hearing you guys talk about this stuff…
And Howard, thank you for finally hitting the nail on the head about Harry Potter.
–Lauren B

I love you guys! I’ve been killing myself to try to come up with a decent magic system for a story, and I wake up this morning to find that you guys did a podcast on it!
Get out of my head, get out of my head!
–Faith_Cross

Wonderful! Interesting - insightful - fun!
–LRK

I didn’t realize you were making up the example of Spock’s extra eyelids until you called them radioactive.
–Cy Reb, Jr.

… I was listening to this podcast for the third time this morning, taking notes…
–Guerry Semones

I absolutely loved this podcast. I thoroughly enjoyed this episode. And as always, I find your banter hilarious.
–Steph

See? They like us. They really like us. Go have a listen.

Okay, I love Michael Z. Williamson’s heroes. They’re tough, they’re flawed, and when they break stuff it stays broke. When I saw that the title of his latest was Better to Beg Forgiveness I figured I was in for a great ride.

I was right.

But before I gush: I don’t like Kurt Miller’s cover. I feel bad, because the artist in me knows he put a lot of time getting it to look just like he wanted it to. The art-critic in me is willing to concede that it’s probably a style thing. I’m a fan of the old-school Science Fiction and Fantasy pulp covers. Give me a Whelan, a Frazetta, or a Vallejo cover and I’m happy. Sadly, this means that many of the current Baen covers don’t work for me.

But I know better than to judge a book by its cover.

The story follows a team of contract bodyguards (read: mercenaries) whose job it is to protect the newly elected and unpopular president of some backwater world. As the story unfolds it becomes apparent that about the only people who want their client in good health are them and their client.

Mike’s politics are a little more subtle in this book. We return to the universe of Freehold, but this book takes place well before the events in that one (anywhere from ten to a hundred years, if I’m any judge of these things.) Grainne appears in the story, but we’re spared the tour of this utopian version of libertarian meritocracy.

The politics are only a little more subtle, however. If you look carefully at some of the characters in the background you’ll find parodies of some prominent media figures as well as a few left-leaning US politicians. Still, the politics are believable. People and organizations are corrupted by power, and garden-variety stupid springs up everywhere.

I had a great time reading the book. The first half swung in and out of the action-and-peril sequences very naturally, but as the tension and intrigue built I found I was waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop. The other shoe, it turns out, is a size 11 boot to the base of the spine. It’s quite the kick in the pants. From there, the book is pretty much non-stop action all the way to the big finish. I stayed up too late reading, and had my dreams punctuated with small arms fire and the occasional bit of HE demolition work.

I saw The Golden Compass on Friday because I really needed to wind down a bit.

In a nutshell, don’t bother. Save your money for something else.

I’ve not paid much attention to the fact that the author of the source books has an atheist agenda (link), because I’m a sucker for eye candy, and love a good story well told. I wanted to see the movie because it looked like fun.

There was some fun, but the film went nowhere. The characters were clunky, the mythos ridiculous, and the ice-bears were not given nearly enough screen time.

I confess to enjoying the mini-arc in which the girl needs to hire the bear, uses the Golden Compass to see what the bear needs, and they both end up getting what they want. Overall, though, the movie was disjointed and disappointing.

Understand, this was a movie I wanted to like. Based on the trailers, it looked like a cool, steampunk/fantasy with a nicely mythic child protagonist. That’s right up my alley. The fact that I came away from it bored and disappointed speaks worlds more about the film than anything else I can say.

I know, I know, they won’t notice. But I’m done doing business with them.

(Note: If you work for Qwest, please read on, and feel free to respond. After all, it only takes one person to completely destroy your company’s image. It’s possible, though only remotely, that one person can save or restore it.)

So… I’m hard at work trying to bang out the last two pages of Bonus Story for the next book. I have seven more rows to color, the flooding is done, and I’m painting. My music is blaring, the house is empty for the next three hours, I’m in my happy place…

And the phone rings. Number Unavailable. Private caller.

I pick up.

“Taylers’, this is Howard.”

“Are you Howard Tayler, of Blank Label Comics?”

Sounds like a salesperson, but he might have legitimate business with our little collective.
“I am.” I say, with that practiced inflection that says if you have legitimate business with me, now is the time to get to it.

“Has anybody from Qwest talked to you about lowering your small-business calling rates?”

“No, they haven’t. Please put me on your no-call list.”

And I hung up, cranked the tunes, and got back to work.

The phone rang again. Number Unavailable. Private Caller.

Ohhh-kay. This is either ILLEGAL (No-call means just that, and there are legal ramifications to calling in spite of it), or accidental, or it’s a coincidence.

“Hello?”

The same voice I spoke to before begins, as if we were old friends who had been cut off accidentally:
“Why would you want us not to call? We’re trying to lower your rates, not raise them.”

I let him have both barrels.
“You are quite possibly the rudest salesperson who has ever called me. When I-”

“I’m not a salesman,” he interrupted. “I’m trying to lower your rates, not-”

“And I said put me on your DO NOT CALL list.” (Note: I may have actually raised my voice at this point.)

“-lower them. And you’re the one being rude. Maybe we’ll raise your rates instead. How would you like that?”*

And then he hung up.

Had I the presence of mind to get his name (and had he lacked the presence of mind to refuse it) I would be on the phone with Qwest right now demanding an apology. Or maybe I’d be contacting an attorney, trying to find a way to sue these people for what has to be the most flagrant violation of “do not call” I’ve ever experienced.

Regardless, I don’t currently do business with Qwest. Our land-line is provided through my ISP, Comcast/AT&T. If this guy had my phone number, he also had the ability to look that information up, and could quite easily have determined that “lowering my rates” also required him to sell me something. In fact, I doubt he’s calling existing Qwest customers. He’s calling FORMER Qwest customers, trying to get back their business.

Hey, Qwest! At this point if you want to get my business back, you’ll beat AT&T’s best rate by 95% or more for a period of no less than two years no, wait… screw that. You want me as a customer? Fine. Free phone service for two years, no strings. If I’m satisfied come August of 2009, maybe I’ll decide not to switch back to the folks who are currently taking pretty fine care of me.

These folks, after all, are the ones who provided me with high-speed internet access back in 2001 when you said it couldn’t be done. You whined and made excuses about how the line between my house and the switching station was too long for DSL. AT&T came by and laid new cable — no excuses, just great service.

In fact, now that I think about it, I still have quite a bit of loyalty towards my current provider. Forget it, Qwest. You could offer me free phone service for life, and I’d tell you to offer it to one of my fixed-income neighbors who needs it. But I’d warn her that your salespeople are pushy, and should be hung up on at her earliest convenience.

(*Note: The conversations above were not transcribed real-time, nor do I have recordings. I’ve paraphrased as accurately as I can, but rest assured, I’ve made nothing up. This guy really did threaten to raise my rates.)

Saturday afternoon my buddy R.J. and I went out to eat for his birthday. I mentioned that I’d seen a sushi place hanging their shingle on south State street, and he agreed to try it out.

It was also an All You Can Eat sushi place.

We bellied up to the bar and got started. The nigiri sushi (wee slabs o’ fish over rolls of rice) were delicious, and quite fresh, but the restaurant had our complete and undivided attention when we tucked into the “Godzilla” roll.

I’ll make this short, because I don’t have the vocabulary to properly describe what was going on in my mouth. See, I look for good sushi whenever the opportunity presents itself. I’ve bellied up to sushi bars in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, Boston, Maryland, Austin, and Honolulu. You can take me at my word when I tell you that the Godzilla roll was easily the tastiest sushi I’ve ever had.

R.J. agreed.

Suffice it to say that if you like sushi and live in Utah Valley, you need to go to Sushi Ya, at 1545 South State St in Orem (east side of State, a little past the light 1600 S if you’re coming uphill from Provo). For $18.95 per person you’ll get some fantastic sushi — especially if you make sure to order the Rocky Mountain Roll and the Godzilla Roll. Both are house creations, and are party-in-your-mouth delicious.

There are a couple of house rules you should be aware of. This is not a buffet, where high prices cover the waste and gluttony of patrons who want to somehow “beat the system.” You order your sushi one or two servings at a time. You have to eat the rice, too (sushi MEANS “rice”), and if you’re wasting food there may be a surcharge. That said, neither R.J. nor I liked the yapi, a vegetarian hand-roll (fresh, crisp, and not what I wanted). Karl, our sushi chef, said that it was okay if we didn’t finish it. That happens sometimes, and they understand (note: I ended up finishing it anyway, because the taste kind of grew on me.)

Karl was awesome, by the way. Conversational, eager to please, and deftly expert. Sadly, he’s headed back up to the home store now that he’s gotten everybody trained.

That reminds me… there is a Sushi Ya under the same management in Twin Falls, and that’s where Karl works. I don’t know the address (this might be the place), but I’ve met the guy who’ll be serving you, so I’m pretty confident in the food.

Naturally I have an ulterior motive here. I can’t afford to keep Sushi Ya in Orem open all by myself. They flung their doors wide just one short week ago, and richly deserve your patronage, if only so that when I can afford to treat myself to another evening of sushi I have a great place to do it. And if you DO stop in, go ahead and mention this review.

If you’re a D&D fan with kids, you need this book. I mean, you can’t be letting your kids read the monster manual, even though they really want to, because they’re not supposed to know how many hit dice that beholder has, right?

A Practical Guide to Dragons is perfect for kids. I scored a copy from Stacy Whitman, the Mirrorstone editor at Wizards of the Coast (we met at LTUE), and hadn’t opened it myself when my 11-year-old daughter captured it and hauled it off to her bedroom.

She has read the monster manual (that’s what I get for leaving these dangerous tomes just lying around where anybody can see them) but eagerly plowed into this “lighter” volume and reported back that it was much better, since there weren’t tables of numbers detracting from the enjoyable blocks of text. Besides, the blocks of text were a lot longer, and far more fun.

After reading (and enjoying) the book myself , I found another use for it — it is possible that a tome very like this one could actually be “player knowledge,” and could be worked into your next campaign as both a prop and a resource. There’s even a little table of Draconic words you could drop into your campaign, forcing your players to do some research with the book rather than just throwing a d20 against “Knowledge: Draconic” and hoping they don’t pooch the roll.

And at Amazon’s $10.36 price tag it’s a lot cheaper than the rest of your D&D sourcebooks.

I saw a familiar face at LTUE, but was having a hard time placing it. You know how that is, when you bump into somebody from (for instance) the comic-book store while you’re seeing an off-Broadway show?

Virginia Baker worked with me at Novell, and I recall a couple of occasions when we talked about how cool it would be if we could each pursue our interests rather than Novell’s.

Well, there she was at LTUE last weekend, showing off her first book, Jack Knife, published by DAW. I was thrilled (once I figured out why she looked so familiar), even if her book is not yet making her enough money to ditch the software industry in favor of a pursuit that consumes the soul WITHOUT breaking the spirit.

We swapped books, and I think I came out ahead. Jack Knife is a tale of Victorian England, Jack the Ripper, and three unfortunate time-travellers. If you can get past the time-travel itself, and the too-high-tech gadgets the folks from 2007 are carrying back into the past, you’ll probably love the book. Ginny (sorry — Virginia will always be “Ginny” to me) did her homework on this one. Jack Knife has all the elements of a great horror tale, and blends them with the additional horror of how nasty Whitechapel was a hundred and twenty years ago.

You can get the book at Amazon, or anyplace else that sells mass-market paperbacks, but yours won’t be signed.

When I plunked down $450 on the Austin Health-Mate air purifier, last week I expected to be disappointed, and to execute the “money back if you’re not satisfied” clause. But I was desperate, because my allergies and asthma were as bad as I ever remember them being.

Well, the escape clause will remain un-escaped, much as I’d love to have $450 rattling around in my pocket.

Yesterday my nose ran like a faucet, my lungs sounded like an accordion, and I went through kleenex like I own stock in the company. I doped up on Excedrin PM for a good night’s sleep, but in the morning as the meds wore off, I started to go drippy and wheezy again.

Late this morning the Health-Mate finally showed up. I yanked it out of the box, plugged it in upstairs, and got back to work. For two hours I was still a little drippy, but then I noticed a smell, and at about the same time I noticed that I was breathing clearly.

The smell… well, it smells like a really good air-freshener, only not “sticky.” What does clean air smell like? Surprisingly, it doesn’t smell like “nothing.” But it also doesn’t smell like whatever allergens have been blowing around inside my house for the last who-knows-how-long. It just smells… clean.

The real test for this sucker will be in April, when the pollen starts a blowin’. If I can wake up in the mornings without the runny nose and watery eyes… ahh, bliss.

I’ve been spending upwards of $50 per month on allergy treatments for the past four years, and while they’ve helped significantly, I’m not cured. Spending the equivalent of 9 months of that treatment money on keeping the air clean in the house for five years is worth it.

Yeah, I know. The filter probably won’t last that long, and it’s a two hundred dollar item. But Austin has a pro-rated usage clause saying that if your last filter does NOT last five years, you don’t pay full price on the new one. NICE.

Regardless, it’s still worth it.

UPDATE:  the morning of February 8th …

I woke up without a head full of snot for the first time in recent memory. I did have a little bit of coughing and wheezing right about the time the furnace kicked in, which means that the filter in my bedroom had to play catch-up as the furnace blew fresh crap around the room (yes, we’ve cleaned the ducts, grills, and central filter), but that little jag only lasted maybe 30 seconds, and then I was back asleep.

Over the next few days we’ll be cleaning house, and moving the purifier into the room where we clean — hopefully chasing down piles of allergens, dust, mold spores, and who knows what else.

Before I tell you how much I love Rob Balder’s new comic Erfworld (illustrated by Jamie Noguchi) I need to explain to you why Rich Burlew’s The Order of the Stick is so wildly successful.

It’s like this: Rich understands role-playing. He knows how to tweak. He knows how to min-max. He knows how to put a munchkin in his place, and he can play the rules-lawyer better than anybody I know. And he takes that deep understanding of role-playing games (and D&D 3.5 in particular) and spins out a comic strip that sends it all up.

If you’re a role-player and you haven’t heard of The Order of the Stick it is likely that you’ve been rolling those bones in a cave somewhere. Rich tapped into the collective subconscious of role-players so effectively that players have begun citing D20 v3.5 rules and using Rich’s comics to prove their points.

On to Erfworld… Rob Balder wrote a song a while back called “Rich Fantasy Lives” (available on his CD) that proved to me once and for all that Rob gets it. Rob understands why fantasy gamers game, whether they’re role-playing, LARPing, or marching armies across tabletops. (His long-running comic Partially Clips does not exploit this understanding, however. It’s funny and wonderful for other reasons.)

Erfworld seems, then, to be a very loving send-up of table-top strategy. And because I’m just starting to get into said genre (thanks to my IK gaming group), I’m right there in the cross-hairs.
If you play Warhammer, or any of the other 28mm-scale tabletop strategy games, you’re probably already familiar with Turn Signals on a Land Raider. Erfworld is a different approach to this material, and thanks to Jamie Noguchi it is a visual delight. (I’ve criminally understated Jamie’s contribution — Erfworld is not just pretty, it is excellent sequential-art storytelling.)

Erfworld is also brand-new. There is sufficient story now to hook you, but not so much that you’ll lose more than an hour catching up. And even if you’re not a table-top strategy gamer you’re likely to enjoy it. The word “croakamancer” and the giant cloth golems alone are worth the trip.

At Comic-Con in July my friend Jim Zubkavich told me that he was finally going to take the plunge and put Makeshift Miracle into print. His webcomic burst onto the scene four years ago garnering him “Best Newcomer” at the Cartoonist’s Choice awards, and was among the first titles to be picked up by Modern Tales.

Jim’s line art back then made me a little envious, but his coloring drove me particularly green. He did more with tinted monochromes than most folks do with a 16-bit palette. And now, four years later, he has taken the whole story and remastered it. Some panels have been re-drawn, others re-colored, and the entire work is available now in book form.

You can read the non-remastered stuff at makeshiftmiracle.com. You’ll want to own the book, though, and that can be accomplished via instructions found here.

Okay, there’s the light. Now for the dark. At WorldCon 64 in August I met this cool guy in the bar at the Hilton. We talked for a bit before discovering that we were both comics professionals — kind of unusual at a strictly Sci-Fi event. His name was David Lloyd, and he’s the guy who was originally tapped to write and illustrate V for Vendetta, and who later teamed up with Alan Moore.

He has a new book out, too. If you’re into crime noir, you may want to check out Kickback, the graphic novel compilation of Lloyd’s Dark Horse series of the same name. The art and the story are both gritty and gripping independently of each other. Taken together they nicely epitomize “crime noir” without being predictable.

I read it on a bright, sunny day while sitting on my back deck. I fear some of the effect may have been lost on me. It’s possible I need to wait for November’s rains, and read it again cloistered in my office with only the reading lamp on.