Omen?

I just realized tonight that during the first quarter of this year, I wrote 1313 pages of fiction. At least it wasn't 666. It's a good thing I'm not superstitious . . . although there's a black cat sitting about five feet from me at this moment, and I don't much like the way he's looking at me.

Library Day

Yesterday I realized that I didn't have enough research material for the book I'm currently writing. The protagonist was about to visit Chicago in the 1890s, and while I know a little bit about that subject, I don't know enough to write competently about it. I didn't have enough in the research books I own, either. So today it was off to the library -- three of them, in fact -- and while I was doing that I realized that after the guy leaves Chicago he'll be going to Boston, and I didn't know enough about that, either. I rounded up books on both subjects and have already figured out a plot point about the Chicago scenes that was bothering me, so the research certainly helped. Between the library visits and a few other errands, I didn't do any actual writing today, but I ought to be able to get back to it tomorrow.

And of course, I found a stack of books that I just want to read, too, which is one of the perils of going to the library. I hope to get to them soon, since it seems like all I've been reading lately is research for one project or another.

Back to Normal, I Hope

Well, I'm back on the regular computer. Livia fixed one of the problems on it, and the others all seemed to disappear. So we'll see if it lasts.

I spent most of the morning taking one of our dogs to the vet, then ran some errands and came home and wrote for a while. Not many pages today, but I had a really good weekend so I'm considering today sort of a breather.

This is Only a Test

I'm having problems with my main computer, so I'm checking to see if I can update the blog with my backup computer, a laptop so old I'm surprised it's not steam-powered. If you're reading this, I guess it worked. Until my regular computer is up and running again, though, I may not be posting much.

Recycled Books

I had occasion to be in Denton, Texas, today, so while I was there I made a stop at Recycled Books, one of the best used book stores in this area. Some of you who read this blog are quite familiar with Recycled, and for those of you who aren't, it's on the courthouse square and is located in what used to be a good old-fashioned downtown department store. So what we have there are three full floors (including the basement) of old books. I usually get up there two or three times a year. Today I found only a few things I wanted, but I was glad to get them. Here are the highlights:

IN THE MOOD FOR MURDER, M.T. Jefferson -- This is the second book in a series of mystery novels set in a small town during World War II. I came across the first one, THE VICTORY DANCE MURDER, a while back and really enjoyed it, so I've been looking for others in the series since then. "M.T. Jefferson" is really veteran paperback H. Paul Jeffers.

RENEGADE'S TRAIL, Gordon D. Shirreffs -- Another of Shirreffs' novels about manhunter Lee Kershaw. It's hard to go wrong with anything Shirreffs wrote. Even his minor books are entertaining, and when he was at the top of his game he was one of the best Western writers ever.

YOU PLAY THE BLACK AND THE RED COMES UP, Richard Hallas -- The Dell Mapback edition of this famous noir novel, for what I think was a pretty reasonable price. The cover's a little beat up, but hey, it's still a Dell Mapback. I've heard about this book for years but have never read it or even seen a copy before, to the best of my memory.

HIDEAWAY, Nikki Content -- This one had me puzzled when I saw it in the store. It's Gold Medal 308, a first printing from June 1953, but I never heard of it, or the author, before. It's a crime story about a gangster hiding out on a tropical island in the Pacific. Seems like I should have run across it before now. Is Nikki Content a pseudonym? A little Internet research tells me that yes, it is. Nikki Content is really Fan Nichols, who wrote at least one other book I own a copy of, the title of which escapes me at the moment. The copy I bought today is in pretty good shape, with a Barye Phillips cover (not a particularly good Barye Phillips cover, mind you, but still).

Before heading up to Denton I wrote on the current book and had a pretty productive day, the best in over a week, in fact.

Back to Work

I wrote on the current project today but wasn't satisfied at all with my production. I've never liked it when I have to think too much about what I'm writing (I know that sounds silly), but when things are going well the process is pretty instinctive for me. I just know what needs to happen next. The stretch I'm in now, I'm having to figure it all out. That's a lot slower and not nearly as much fun. So I stopped early and worked on research for upcoming books instead. But I'll write myself out of this little slump in a day or two . . . I hope.

Day Off

I decided that today would be a day off, only the second day this month that I haven't produced any new pages. So instead we went to two libraries, a bookstore, and worked on the plot for a new book, then I spent the rest of the day reading research material. Livia says that hardly counts as a day off. She's probably right. But it was still a relief not to have to face that blank monitor screen.

Lost City/Clive Cussler and Paul Kemprecos

Since there aren't very many pure adventure novels published these days, and since I liked the other Clive Cussler novel I read, PACIFIC VORTEX, I decided to give this one a try. It's part of a spin-off series called The NUMA Files. Instead of Dirk Pitt, the hero is underwater adventurer Kurt Austin, who heads up NUMA's Special Assignments Team. (NUMA stands for National Underwater and Marine Agency.) The Lost City of the title refers to a geologic formation in the North Atlantic that holds a secret which could have a huge effect, for good or ill, on the world, but most of the action takes place in the French Alps.

I wanted to like this book. A lot of it seems pretty much perfect for my tastes. Kurt Austin is a suitably stalwart hero, there's a varied and interesting supporting cast of good guy characters, the villains are properly dastardly and bent on world domination, and the plot is the sort of over-the-top silliness that was so common in secret agent movies and novels during the Sixties, one of my favorite genres. But it has one flaw that I just couldn't get past, one that it shares with a lot of modern thrillers: it's too blasted long. We get back-stories for all the characters. We get descriptions of just about everything that can be described. We get science and technology lessons. All of this is so overwhelming that I started skimming in the second half of the book just to get on with the story, something I hardly ever do. Note that I don't really blame this on Cussler and Kemprecos. Big books are the fashion these days. Readers demand them, and therefore so do the publishers. Or maybe the publishers just decided that books had to be longer and the readers went along with them. I don't know. But I know that as I was reading LOST CITY, I thought there was a pretty good story in there that could have been told in half the wordage. And would have been if it had been written in an earlier day and time.

Maybe I should have put a "Reactionary Curmudgeon Alert" on this post. I found enough to like in LOST CITY that I might try one of the other novels in the series someday, but probably not any time soon.

SF List Again

I thought I might as well go ahead and reveal which books I've read from the list mentioned in the previous post, along with their rankings on that list.

1. CHILDHOOD'S END, Arthur C. Clarke
2. FOUNDATION, Isaac Asimov
3. DUNE, Frank Herbert
5. STARSHIP TROOPERS, Robert A. Heinlein
9. THE SPACE MERCHANTS, C.M. Kornbluth and Fredrick Pohl
15. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, Arthur C. Clarke
16. RINGWORLD, Larry Niven
23. THE GODS THEMSELVES, Isaac Asimov
27. THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, H.G. Wells
28. 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, Jules Verne
31. THE STARS MY DESTINATION, Alfred Bester
34. ENDER'S GAME, Orson Scott Card
36. LORD OF LIGHT, Roger Zelazny
46. I, ROBOT, Isaac Asimov
51. 1984, George Orwell
55. CITIES IN FLIGHT, James Blish
59. STAND ON ZANZIBAR, John Brunner
61. FAHRENHEIT 451, Ray Bradbury
63. FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON, Daniel Keyes
73. THE PUPPET MASTERS, Robert A. Heinlein
75. THE FOREVER WAR, Joe Haldeman
76. DEATHBIRD STORIES, Harlan Ellison
79. THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES, Ray Bradbury
98. THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN, Michael Crichton
100. A PRINCESS OF MARS, Edgar Rice Burroughs

I see that I miscounted in my earlier post. That's 25 books, a fourth of the list. And the newest one is, what, nearly 30 years old? I guess that says something about me. Out of all the ones I've read, the one that probably influenced me the most is A PRINCESS OF MARS. I really loved that series when I was about 12 years old. I still read a Burroughs novel from time to time, and I always enjoy them.

Science Fiction Novel List

100 Science Fiction Novels You Just Have to Read

I've read 22 out of the 100, mostly the older books on the list, which isn't surprising considering that I don't read much modern SF. But there are quite a few books on here that I own and have never read, so I really ought to get around to giving them a try.

Thanks to Winchell Chung on the Space Opera SF list for the link.