Pulp Writer

Random thoughts and likes from an author of modern pulp fiction.

[authorofdreams]

That One Book

Way back in 1982 in El Paso Texas in a bookstore that disappeared only months later I bought a book I'd only heard about in a review in Ares Magazine #3 from 1980. Yet, the review left such an impression on me I recognized the title right away. For the record, here is the review, written by Greg Costikyan, in its entirety: I'm surprised that Kathleen Sidney's Michael and the Magic Man was published as a fantasy novel. It is, of course; but it is also the kind of novel that will appeal to mainstream readers. There is no doubt that a "fantasy" label on the spine ghettoizes a novel to some extent, so I doubt the novel will receive the mainstream critical attention it deserves.Michael and the Magic Man is a story of a group of psychics wandering across America in a van, the world's only defense against nefarious, psychic, alien invaders. They are and can be the only defenders, for their story would be dismissed as insanity were they to reveal it to the authorities, who have already been infiltrated by the invaders and therefore cannot be trusted. But things are not as they seem…Sidney is a writer of considerable power; Michael and the Magic Man is as innovative as it is unusual. One hopes that she will be accorded the recognition she deserves.Greg Costikyan Ares #3, What was it about that review that stuck with me for two years? Looking back from the vantage point of forty years I cannot tell you. The best I have is the quirk of memory I have which while not eidetic seems to be the next "best" thing ((Best is in scare quotes because a good memory is as much a curse as a blessing, but that's a whole other series of blog posts and a half-finished novel)). What I do remember is the novel. It was only printed that one time and was the author's only published novel, at least under the name Kathleen M. Sidney. For no reason, I can put my finger on it spoke to sixteen-year-old me. Sure, it contains some discussion of alienation and finding a place to belong, in fact, the conclusion to the novel hinges on that idea. Still, I do not think that is it. As I noted, it was published in 1980 meaning its writing and gestation dated to the 1970s. The 70s get a bad rap these days, largely earned, but there was also something in the air. There was a sense of not necessarily hope. I think the best word is an adventure, but even that isn't quite right. At least, not an adventure in the sense that existed prior to World War 2. For some reason, the book flooded back into my mind yesterday. I'm sad to see Kathleen M. Sidney only had four publications. At this point, I'm asking myself, "how could I arrange to get the rights to get this in print as an eBook?" I don't want to be a publisher, but… Well, for me this is one of those books. You know the book, the one book that only you have read but want everyone to read. On the rare occasion, you meet someone else who has read it, the two of you form an instant bond. The kind of book you want to thank the author for writing because it means that much to you. So, I can't think of a better way to say that than try to find out how to get it out as an eBook. Then I can give it and people can read it then they can give it. I guess that's not a bad thing to remind myself can happen on the day I don't want to write. I suspect getting info on this book and the idea of resurrecting it is as much about reminding myself to write as anything else. Read the full article

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RPG-A-Day: Weapon

If I think of weapons in RPGs, my first thought is my favorite character story. In the early 80s, I played in an AD&D game that was "computer moderated." That's what the ads at the gaming store, the old Learning Center in Cielo Vista Mall in El Paso, emphasized. Of course, in 1982, a computer moderated AD&D game meant the DM had programmed all the random tables and character generation on his Vic-20 and Commodore-64. When I went to my first game, I had three points about my character. He would be named 'Osric' due to an article on historical names in Dragon #49. He would be a fighter. He would hate magic weapons. Yeah, the last one was me trying to be edgy. Osric was created, and off we went. We were on a mission to retrieve an evil dwarf. We found him by opening a door in the dungeon that was the back of a large theater stage. The evil dwarf was giving a rallying speech to a bunch of orcs. Everyone was surprised. The first person to react was our druid, who ran into the room, threw a rope around the dwarf, and ran back out. He didn't stop at the door but headed straight to the exit. The rest of us followed to catch up and serve as a rear guard. We'd spiked the door and weren't too far behind when a side door opened and several orcs charged us. At some point in a dungeon, I was left holding a magic spear. I loathed magic weapons. Asking the DM, I learned the spear could just about bridge the width of the corridor. I headed to one wall and yelled at the other fighter to hug the other. Then I dropped the spear. The DM treated it as a grapple, under the old AD&D grappling rules. We knocked them all to the ground, broke the spear, and kept going. Enough orcs to wipe out the rearguard completely immobilized and avoided because Osrice hated magic weapons and figured they get him killed, so he used it as a ram instead of a spear. That beats a mere +1 magic bonus any day. Read the full article

[authorofdreams]

RPG A Day: Tactics

I am an awful tactician. While this delights my players, it makes today's topic very hard. You would think for someone who started as a hex and chit wargamer in the 1970s, I would know at least the basics of tactics. Yet years of playing those games, other types of war and board games, and roleplaying games have proven otherwise. Fortunately, I'm not much of a strategist either. Doesn't that mean they balance out.

Of course, I've been too lazy actually to study military operations much. As best I can remember, I've read exactly one book on the topic, The Defense of Duffer's Drift. It recounts a series of dreams had by a lieutenant of infantry in the Boer War. Each dream but the last ends in some defeat until the last. However, each dream leads the lieutenant to a different solution to his tactical problem, the defense of a river crossing. It was originally published in 1904 and is still available in various editions, including some published by the United States Department of Defense. Wikipedia includes a list of twenty-two lessons it teaches. Some are dated, but as I pointed out, it is still read and reprinted, indicating most remain relevant.

My copy is long gone, but I remember being confused more than once while reading it. I probably should have read it more than once. One item I had noticed years ago while looking for a new copy on Amazon is how many books it has inspired. There is a mechanized forces version from the 1980s, Defense of Hill 781. A more recent one concerns counter-insurgency operations in Iraq, The Defense of Jisr al-Doreaa. The linked copy includes the original The Defense of Duffer's Drift (full disclosure, the link like all my Amazon links is an associate link, and I will get a small commission).

The most interesting might be The Defense of Duffer's Drift Brigade Support Area, which seems aimed towards supply troops in front areas who have to aid in defense of their brigade area. Sadly, I cannot find a copy at this time. If you want to look at the original without spending any money, its publication date of 1904 place it in the public domain and, in addition, the DoD/Marine Corp version linked above, it is on Project Gutenberg. Instead of saying I'm an awful tactician again next year, it appears I have some reading to do. Read the full article

[authorofdreams]

RPG A Day: Map

It was the best of maps; it was the worst of maps. They were a pair of maps in a set of books that would hugely influence the roleplaying hobby, one for better and the other for the worse. The maps in question appear at the openings of the first two narratives published of Professor Tolkien's Middle Earth. The treasure map of Thrór, held by Thorin from The Hobbit, is the first. The second is the map of Middle Earth, a world map, at the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring.

Make no mistake about Thorin's map. It is a treasure map as sure as the one Billy Bones has in Treasure Island or, going back even further, the maps to a seal hunter's parasite in The Sea Lions by James Fenimore Cooper. While many of its literary relatives reveal hidden treasure, Thorin's map shows a hidden way to a known but lost treasure. The quest to retrieve the treasure and what it represents, the Kingship under the Mountain, drives the plot of the novel. This sort of map serves a story as a primary element. It can guide the main characters, leading them to some valuable goal or just a MacGuffin. The map itself can be a MacGuffin that drives the action of the main characters or the antagonists. It can serve the same purposes in roleplaying games, being sought and obtained in its own right or something that falls into the character's hands, spurring adventure. Treasure maps have a long history in the roleplaying game going back to the first version of Dungeons & Dragons. The original version of the game had maps on its treasure tables, leading to treasure, magic, or both. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons continued to have maps and even added a chance for them to be fake. Sadly, the second edition of AD&D dropped maps from the treasure tables. This change in the second edition of AD&D reflected changes in the game. The style of play of open tables and sandbox campaigns that characterized many games of the 70s were very friendly to the treasure map. Rolling one on random tables would spur the DM to develop something new in the world for its destination. Getting there could provide weeks of adventure. In such an environment, the world map was more useful. By the mid-70s, the "well-developed campaign," as Mark Cummings declared it in The Space Gamer 18, had become more common, perhaps even coming to dominate the *D&D* scene.

The world map described the world of the campaign, giving more context and depth to the adventures. In the wake of Dragonlance, more and more game was grand world-saving quests in the vein of those books and The Lord of the Rings and its imitators. You can't save the world without a world to save. A map is a great way to present the world. The problem with so many maps, both in D&D and fantasy novels, is they were created before, or at the beginning, of the world in question. Contrast that compressed history to that of the map at the beginning of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien's first works that would lead to Middle Earth were written in late 1916 or early 1917, in the midst of The Great War. The oldest known map of Middle Earth, of Beleriand, probably dates from 1926 to 1930 when his 'Sketch of the Mythology, the first version of The Silmarillion, was composed. In between, over a dozen tales were written or outlined, and two epic poems of material were written. It would be over two more decades before the map of *The Lord of the Rings* would appear. Like so many other aspects, the accretion of details behind the map and its history added to the depth and power of Middle Earth. You can contend that forty years of creation is too much to expect of a GM or working author who has to pay the bills, but the great maps of fantasy often have similar geneses. Glorantha was begun the year I was born, in the mid-60s, but the earliest shared maps of the world, of Dragon Pass in White Bear, Red Moon, and Prax in Nomad Gods, appeared roughly a decade later in the mid and late 70s. Ed Greenwood started the tales of the Forgotten Realms before D&D was published. We got the first box set in the late 80s, meaning at least a decade and a half passed. When trying to cram a world map into a season or even a year, there is no time for the growth, drift, addition, and subtraction that makes these world maps, and their worlds, great. It is one thing to throw together Treasure Island over the week between games. It is quite another to create a deep world map, which implies the world that supplies the depth. I have nothing against world maps, but perhaps if we encouraged DMs to build their world map one treasure map at a time, which will require all the places in between the treasures, they could both be the best of maps. Read the full article

[authorofdreams]

RPG A Day: Scenario

The first time I encountered the word scenario, I was not yet a roleplayer. I was barely a hex and chit wargamer. The scenarios in question were the seven scenarios for the original version of Avalon Hill's Starship Troopers. I remember there were seven because they formed a programmed instruction method of learning the full game, each introducing new rules. Once you'd done all seven modifications were presented to go back and add all those additional rules, such as special weapons carried by Mobile Infantry, back to the earlier scenarios. This was back in the seventies. I couldn't just look the word up on Google. At the time, I thought it was a word specific to wargaming, but my father looked it up at some point, and I learned the dictionary definition. I gave me the first definition you find at merriam-webster.com today, which focuses on theater. I prefer the third, "a sequence of events, especially when imagined," although I think that is a miss for roleplaying games. For roleplaying games, I would call it " a collection of related situations" this fits the note on that definition, "especially: an account or synopsis of a possible course of action or events" (emphasis mine). When Dungeon Masters prepare their scenarios, they generally have a possible course of action for the party but must be ready and willing to accept different courses. A lot of time and energy has been spent writing and talking about this need to not prep a specific course of action. Two of my favorites were written by Justin Alexander and Professor DungeonMaster.

When I got my copy of Holmes Dungeons & Dragons, it really only presented one scenario, the dungeon crawl, and then as a full bore, everything in the rulebook scenario. Actually, it barely presented that by including a sample dungeon. There was no list of progressive scenarios to play with, each adding a few new attributes and notes on adding them back in. Of course, the completely laid out scenarios of Starship Troopers, Star Force, or Squad Leader (to list three games that took up as much as my time as D&D in the late 70s) do not fit in the roleplaying game world. However, one could break RPG scenarios down into simpler subsets and create programmed instruction introductions to the rules. Frank Menzer did something similar with his version of the Basic Set, but not in the other boxes. All of them could have benefited from it. I know back in the fifth grade, I could have learned to Dungeon Master much better with programmed instruction. What would programmed instruction look like for a roleplaying game? It would be divided into two parts: player-facing and DM-facing. Each part would cover the same rules each time. The player part would teach the rules while the DM would discuss adjudicating them. The DM part would also cover building an adventure around those rules with one example and material on adding each to the prior example. Read the full article

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Four by Fay: Review

I first became interested in Richard H. Fay's short stories due to comparisons to two different authors. I didn't know the exact titles at the time. I knew reviewers compared him to Lord Dunsany and Sheridan Le Fanu. That was enough to send me off to Amazon, where I purchased Four by Fay, a collection of four previously published fantasy stories. The stories are "An Evil in Carnlinton," "Vengeance of the Alpe," "Father Ryan's Fright," and "Sing the Bones Alive." Over the past few days, these stories have provided my daily short story. "An Evil in Carnlinton" is a straightforward story of a knight seeking justice for a bandit. Of course, this is no ordinary bandit but a half-ogre who has murdered a virgin and desecrated a church. In this quest, he must enter the haunted ruins of Carnlinton, a city abandoned before his birth, in pursuit of the villain. The evil he finds there and his fight to overcome it are a satisfying tale. "An Evil in Carnlinton" is the story that drew comparisons to Dunsany. That was obvious early on in the language that opens the account. Unique and medieval word choices in vital locations gave the story the kind of combined savory and sweet flavor I associate with foods from SCA feasts. Lyrical descriptions provide a strong sense of place. The language does have some clunkers, perhaps more apparent by the more lyrical prose surrounding them, but you pass over them without them jarring you out of the story. "Vengeance of the Alpe" is a simple "evil wizard curses a woman who rejects him" tale. Again, there is a lyric character to the language, which creates a fairy tale atmosphere. The story is not as strong as the prior one, however. It is a short tale, so the weaker story is enough to sustain it. "Father Ryan's Fright" is the other tale compared to an earlier author, this time the ghost story writer Sheridan Le Fanu. For me, it had elements of M. R. James. That it evokes, both authors' styles could be due to Le Fanu and James being ghost story writers of the second half of the 19th century. This short tale, the shortest in the book, feels like a Victorian ghost tale. It tells the story of an Irish priest unhappy with his parishioners continuing to believe in the old stories of fairies. Its emphasis on a faerie ring, as opposed to a ghost, gives it a Celtic feel and fits the Irish setting. Perhaps this argues for a Le Fanu as opposed to James feel. "Sing the Bones Alive" ends the collection with its best story. The singer is an angry wizard on the hunt for an ogress. I don't want to say anymore because the story does an excellent job of telling about the resolution of two causes of anger. The ogress hunt is a straightforward story, but the internal story to go with it sneaks up on you. The language is not as flourished here, but the prose still has a lyrical quality. The idea of singing spells, so common these days, is executed subtly. This contrast to the modern magical bard is refreshing. A common feature of all the stories is an Irish or general Celtic setting. That dreamy feel so much Celtic influence fantasy tries to capture comes across. Language, of course, is a vital part of this feeling. One final note is the structure. Even though a collection of four short stories that aren't even 20,000 words total may not need good structure, it will benefit from it. The two strongest tales book-end the collection. The order of the internal two isn't as important as it might be in a book of ten, but have the weakest story second is a good choice. I enjoyed reading these tales. For the price, it was an excellent buy. I recommend it to fans of Dunsany, old ghost stories, and fantasy outside of the two major modern modes, epic quest or gritty swords and sorcery. 7 out of 10. Read the full article

[authorofdreams]

Noodling About for a Game

Long ago, Jeff Rients wrote about the genre of Dungeons & Dragons. He described it as, "You play Conan, I play Gandalf.  We team up to fight Dracula."  I have thought a few times about how to do it somewhat directly. Last Saturday, while taking my BIL and oldest nephew to Nan's Games, we listen to The Hobbit on audiobook. Long ago, I realized the Gandalf of that book was a better basis for that than the Gandalf of The Lord of the Rings. While listening, I got a much better feel of directly converting the map from The Hobbit into a map with the names changed. I also saw how to fit the more Conanese assumptions, such as building a barony as a high-level character, to match older editions of Dungeons & Dragons. Last night I revived some notes on doing so with Adventurer, Conqueror, King.

Another bit of Jeff Rients lore that stayed in my head was his "Alchemical Proposal." My original realization about the better source from Gandalf came from using that framework with the quote. A Conan book and The Hobbit could provide his two obvious fantasy books, but what about Dracula. Knowing a bit of the history of the game and the cleric specifically, I jumped to The Hammer Horror Dracula films starring Christopher Lee as Dracula. The cleric was heavily inspired by Van Helsing, as played by Peter Cushing in those movies. I bought but did not watch Horror of Dracula, their first movie outing in those roles, last time I played with this project. I think I'll watch it this weekend.

Another factor in this realization was C's interest in drawing a map for our current online campaign. We looked for How to Draw Fantasy Art and RPG Maps by Jared Blando. We did not find it, but we did find his Fantasy Mapmaker. The former is about drawing the wilderness, while the latter is about drawing cities. It was thinking about getting my copy of the former out when I got home and drawing Mirkwood and the Misty Mountains that I realized how to use it for a game. The interesting thing is, as Rients points out, this is a very circa 1980 or earlier way to build a campaign world. For me, it seems somewhat old hat. Despite that, it is very exciting. I think the issue is we haven't had much material that is the 70s whatever is on your bookshelf goulash campaign settings in a long time. Either it's something commercial designed to be a licensable franchise (or at least a multiple seller) or some DM spinning a very specific personal vision. I'm guilty of the latter, such as with my "Crusade Beyond the Door" 5e campaign pitch. I'm enjoying writing up some notes on a copy of Mirkwood and the Misty Mountains, where Elrond is an innkeeper at the last inn on the old royal road before it enters the mountains, the orcs overran in your grandfather's day. The necromancer is a vampiric sorcery, the king who traded his mortality to fight off the invasion. Read the full article

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The Short Stories of May 2021

I've written a lot about The Bradbury Challenge, especially the writing side of it, but I have not written much about what I've read. I do get direct inspiration for a blog post from time to time. So, today I want to look at the short stories I read last month. In later posts, I'll look at the poems and essays from last month. If there is interest, I'll repeat it next month. Before I make any comments, let's look at the list. Here are the stories I logged on May first through thirty-first in order. I read more than one short story on some days, but only the first story read entirely on that day is listed. The Peacock’s ShadowE. Hoffman PriceBride of the PeacockE. Hoffman PriceThe Return of BalkisE. Hoffman PriceLord of the Fourth AxisE. Hoffman PriceReginaldSakiThe Devil’s CryptE. Hoffman PriceThe Beast Jewel of MarsLeigh BrackettReginald on Christmas PresentsSakiReginald on the AcademySakiDragon Queen of JupiterLeigh BrackettTwo FriendsGuy de MaupassantThe Infidel’s DaughterE. Hoffman PriceWorse than DeathE. Hoffman PriceReginald at the TheaterSakiThe Sensitive GoldfishChristina SteadThe Book of the GrotesqueSherwood AndersonHandsSherwood AndersonPaper PillsSherwood AndersonThe PhilosopherSherwood AndersonMoti Guj – MutineerRudyard KiplingThe Adventures of Simon and SusannaJoel Chandler HarrisThe Crow-ChildMary Mapes DodgeGodlinessSherwood AndersonA Man of IdeasSherwood AndersonRespectabilitySherwood AndersonThe TinkerSherwood AndersonTandySherwood AndersonThe Strength of GodSherwood AndersonLonelinessSherwood AndersonAn AwakeningSherwood Anderson"Queer"Sherwood AndersonThe short stories I read for the Bradbury Challenge in May

Pressed for time

One of the things that stands out is I can see the days I did not have a lot of reading time. The four Saki stories were all very short. I know Saki's stories are generally brief so instead of working through his complete short stories I've saved them for days I'm pressed for time. The de Maupassant story, "Two Friends", was also chosen for that reason and because it had been a long time since I read a story by the master (I've been a Guy De Maupassant fan since the 7th grade).

Pulp Reading

I started the month reading many E. Hoffman Price stories from before World War 2, which I had begun to do in April. I have several megapacks of his stories, purchased for less than $1. I've had a lot of fun reading them. I also reread my favorite Leigh Brackett story and then wrote about it. I read a second Brackett tale as well.

High School of the 1920s

Three stories, "Moti Guy - Mutineer," "The Adventures of Simon and Susanna," and "The Crow-Child," were in an anthology, Modern Short Stories: A Book for High Schools from 1921. I found it looking for the first story at Project Gutenberg. It was interesting to see what was considered educational reading for high school students in the decade my grandparents were in high school.

Short Story Cycle

The last third of the month I spent reading Sherwood Anderson's short story cycle Winesburg, Ohio. Most of the stories are short. All are fantastic character studies. I can see why this has become a classic. It inspired Ray Bradbury in the construction of The Martian Chronicles. I think it also influenced Dandelion Wine by him as well.

Lone Woman Out

"The Sensitive Goldfish" by Christina Stead was inspired by one of the essays I read, "The Forgotten Novels of Christina Stead." I'll touch on it more in the essays post. I found it in A Christina Stead Reader on archive.org. Unfortunately, the other selections were all excerpts from her novels. It is good to note the reader was collected and published nearly three decades after the essay. Stead had not only been remembered but had published more novels after the essay than before.

Not of this Time

Something I did not notice until I started writing these notes is age. No story on that list was written after I was born. The newest story, "Beast Jewel of Mars" was published in 1948.

Conclusions?

Except for the realization about the time frame these stories were written, I think this is a pretty representative list of my reading. Read the full article

[authorofdreams]

History and Its Discontents

 I would like every hour of my life to be new, though connected to the ones that have passed. No day of celebration with its mandatory collective rhythms, to share with all the strangers I don’t care about. Because our grandfathers’ grandfathers, and so on, celebrated, we too should feel the urge to celebrate. That is nauseating."I Hate New Year's Day" - Antonio Gramsci One of the interesting characteristics of the Left is its obsession with the new. The grandest example is also the first, the French Revolution. Alone among Leftist Revolutions, it was the only one to completely eliminate the past in preference to its ways of doing things. Some of these inventions, the metric system chief among them, survived the French Revolution. Most, however, suffered the fate of the Revolutionary Calendar. Twice in history, governments used the calendar. The first was the First French Republic for roughly twelve years, from 1793 to 1805. Later, the Paris Commune used it for not even two revolutionary weeks in 1871. The calendar has nothing particularly wrong with it. You can make an argument the names of months are better than those we inherited from Rome, names which are meaningless to moderns and, in a few cases, wrong((The last four months of the year are named seven, eight, nine, and ten, but are later in the calendar)). The Julian and Gregorian calendars are unique in not tying the new year date to one of the equinoxes or solstices. The ten-day week continues the love of decimal measurements that drove the metric system and decimal time. Yet, the Revolutionary Calendar failed. It would be easy to say that failure was due to the reactionary movements that arose against France after the Revolution. However, if that were the case, one would have expected them to survive the Napoleonic era. The quote by Grasmi I opened up with comes from his essay "I Hate New Year's Day" and contains what I suspect is the real reason. Man is not a strictly rational creature. He is, however, a social one. While Grasmi ends by saying he is nauseated by celebrating things our forefathers did, the mass of humanity is not. We desire a connection to our deeper past. That is why the oldest continuous large-scale institutions, the Orthodox and Catholic Christian Churches and the Japanese Monarchy, date to the fourth century AD. I suspect there are Zoroastrian, Hindu, and Buddist institutions that are even older. Other traditions outside unbroken institutions are still older. I know of one celebration in India with incantations so ancient they are in no known language, and linguists can find no patterns matching them in other human creations. The closest comparison is birdsong((Article requires registration)) so that they may predate language. Gramsci wants his days new while remaining connected to those of his past, but his history begins only the day he is born. Perhaps it is not that old but only dates to his first memory. For a belief system predicated on scientific history, this obsession with escaping all history into the new seems to be a contradiction. Perhaps there is a squaring of this circle of which I am unaware. I returned this week from visiting Texas. The visit had two purposes. It was my older's niece's birthday, a celebration drawn not from my days but those of another. The other purpose was to take family photos. My mother will be 82 next month and wanted family pictures with her and the twins and my other three nieces and nephews. The pictures are more for them as she may pass before they are old enough to have lasting memories of her. The trip was an exercise in history. The history drew from before my birth and after. The past was mine and others. I would not trade those days for new ones entirely my own. Even if I created new celebrations, they would be of things done by people other than me. I would not be as lonely as Gramsci wishes his new socialist man to be. Read the full article

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The Chief of Sinners

Sometimes life conspires to give you something to talk about. Earlier this week, I had the exchange below on Twitter. Beyond Mr. Garach liking the tweet, that is the entirety of the conversation.

Today's "Morning Offering by Abbot Tryphon" addresses the same subject. It also provided me with the title of this post. As Abbot Tryphon notes, the phrase is from 1 Timothy 1:15. It is also in the Divine Liturgy as a prayer before receiving Holy Communion. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.1 Timothy 1:15 I will not claim this is my favorite part of the Divine Liturgy. The Second Antiphon, specifically The Refrain of the Second Antiphon. It is, however, one of two which strike me the most. I was dumbfounded the first time I heard a priest say it. As someone with a mixed Presbyterian and Baptist upbringing, this seemed very out of place. Normal behavior was holding officials of the Church as icons of the Christian life. For a priest to admit, he is a sinner no different someone transgressed against God with intent was strange. To claim he was chief among sinners was beyond belief. Yet, I think one of the key waypoints on the journey that is Christianity is realizing you are the Chief of Sinners. How can this be so, you might wonder. Certainly, Mao or Gengis Khan, men roughly tied for the greatest mass murder in history, come before a boring, middle-aged man in the pews. Plus, do we know that mass murder is the greatest sinning done by man? Yet, with conviction and sadness, I recite that line before those who can receive Holy Communion do. There are two ways to explain this truth. The first explanation is logical. God is infinite in his wisdom and goodness, while all men are finite. Perhaps we could determine some absolute objective measure of sin committed by men. We could then compare ourselves against others, perhaps not entirely, as there is no assurance this measure would form a mathematical chain, but at least against some others. Yet, if we assigned those values to the negative side of the number line, then God is at the infinite positive end. What is the difference between -1 and positive infinity? It is an undefined, endless difference. What is the distance for -1,000,000 and positive infinity? It is the same. Thus, we have all fallen an infinite distance from the Glory of God. Let that would leave us all equal in sin, not ourselves as the Chief Sinner. That is why the second way of understanding that verse is needed, a personal, emotional way. What is the worst thing you've ever done? What is the second-worst thing? Right now, think of the top ten worst things you've ever done. Now, remember there are things you forgot that might belong on that list. How does that feel inside you, deep in your gut? Even if you are not religious, even if you are an out and out atheist, that is not a comfortable thought process; it is one we shy away from. Now think about the Holocaust or the slaughter of the Native Americans or whatever your favorite historical atrocity to cite is. How's your gut? It's probably fine. That is why everyone can say with honesty, "Sinners, of whom I am chief." We know our crimes. We shy away from them. We know what we deserve because of them. A couple of days ago, I wrote about judgment. I said we cannot wholly sacrifice judgment and still function in the world. I noted the injunction of Matthew 7:1-6 was one of mercy. Above when you thought of your favorite atrocity, was it easy to judge? Did you wish to bring the full weight of justice upon those who committed it? Did you think there so be no compansion for them in that judgment? Now take that fierceness of judgment, hold it bright and burning in your left hand. Now into your right hand, pour out those ten worst things you've done. Take that burning judgment in your left hand and illuminate your right hand with it. In that light, you will find the conviction and sadness I feel on Sundays when I confess my belief that Jesus Christ came among men to save sinners. Of whom I am Chief. Read the full article

[authorofdreams]

What's in a Place Name

The feature picture was taken on my return drive from my last trip to see Z. I've meant to take it for several trips now but only thought of it as I passed the sign. I was watching for the sign this time but noticed it too late to stop. Tired of missing it, I took the next exit and drove back two miles to get a chance. Why would I care about taking a country sign picture in Pennsylvania? Well, it's Fulton County which is more or less where I live. Atlanta, which occupies most of Fulton and part of Dekalb county, is home. Every time I drove by the sign, I laugh to myself about almost being home. I wondered, after taking the photo, if they were named Fulton for the same reason. Both counties are named after Robert Fulton, the inventor of the steamship. In fact, seven of the eight Fulton counties in America are named for Robert Fulton. The one that is not is Fulton County, Arkansas. It is named for the last governor of the territory of Arkansas, William S. Fulton. Other names are more common for counties in the US. A Lincoln County exists in twenty-three states. Abraham Lincoln is not the namesake of all twenty-three. Several, including those in Kentucky, Maine, and Georgia, predate the birth of President Lincoln. Settlers in Maine named its Lincoln County for the city of Lincoln in England. Lincoln County, Kentucky, formed while the area was part of Virginia. The Virginia legislature named it after a Revolutionary War general, Benjamin Lincoln. While not a county name, Springfield is ubiquitous as a town name. Over half the states, thirty, have at least one incorporated town or city named Springfield. A thirty-first state, Alabama, has an unincorporated area with that name. Wisconson and Virginia tie for the most incorporated Springfields at four, but Wisconsin breaks the tie with two unincorporated Springfields. There are sixteen Bostons in twelve states. Over a third, six, grace the state of Ohio alone. The original is in England. Ireland has a pair, as does Canada. Now, all this name trivia is find and dandy, but what good is it? Well, list all the Lake-towns in Middle Earth. After all, "Lake Town" is a pretty generic name. There are at least two in this world, one in the US and one in India. Yet there is only one in Middle Earth. There is only one Prancing Pony to our knowledge. I'm a bit hard on Tolkien. How many towns and inns do we see in Middle Earth? More modern fantasy epics name many more towns, inns, and other places, large and small, yet I can think of no repeats off the top of my head. Yet, when I travel to major cities, if I see a bar named Eagle there are good odds if it exists, it is a leather bar. The name is less common today as the bars slowly close, but there are at least thirty worldwide. Atlanta's Eagle closed down in the past year. I even placed one in Hartford, CT, which to my knowledge never had one, in an unfinished detective novel because I needed a location for the last known location of a disappeared individual. So, what is in a place name? More than you might think. Common placenames serve a purpose. For Fulton, they celebrate a figure prominent at the time of creation. For Lincoln, there are several sources. The first is the same as the Fultons, celebrate a famous figure. Another source is the memory of where the people who founded the town originated. For the name of a business, it is a way to signal "your people are here" when saying that out loud carries a risk. As a writer, instead of wracking your brain to think up endless unique names consider thinking up a common name with a history. They can serve multiple duties. Do you want to tell the story of a famous general? Have the characters encounter their third town named after him so one character can ask a question about it. Want to make it easier for the characters to hire a professional who can't advertise? Why they tend to congregate in taverns called "The Porcupine's Wallow." I mean, there is a reason why the all American town where the Simpsons live is called Springfield. Read the full article

[authorofdreams]

Safety in Judgement

A couple of months ago, BleedingFool.com published an article about a blacklist taking shape in the world of comics. This blacklist was the second one to arise in the comics industry in the past couple of years. If you have been a collector of comics at all the past three or four years, you're probably aware of the first blacklist. It was of artists and writers who were labeled haters of LGBTQ and BIPoC individuals. The essential idea behind the blacklist was allowing such haters to work in comics told LBGTQ and BIPoC artists, writers, and fans they were not welcome in the world of comics. You could see it as an attempt to avoid creating what HR would term a hostile work environment plus a hostile environment for fans. This new blacklist is principally of people who were the most vocal advocates of the first one. It appears their success in driving writers and artists who they decided were haters out of the industry made many of their peers unwilling to work with them. How reluctant were these peers? According to the articles, the peers of the blacklisters started requiring contract clauses that they were not ever to work or interact with the blacklist advocates. When I say not work with them, the examples included not being physically close to the person in question. How not physically close? The clauses required the individual under contract and the "will not work with" individual to be housed in different hotels when traveling. Not separate hotel rooms, but physically and commercially separate structures. As you might guess, there is a lot of talk of "karma is a bit" and "couldn't have happened to a more deserving person" around these clauses and the de facto blacklist they create. But I realized driving home Saturday these illuminate a particular passage from the Bible. 1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.6 Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.Matthew 7:1-6, King James Version The seventh chapter of Matthew, at least the first six verses, is one of the most quoted parts of the Bible. It is trendy among non-Christians wishing to lecture Christians on how they are doing their religion wrong. Such quotation usually stops at Matthew 7:1, which is a shame. For an example of such usage, I recommend this blog post, especially for how the common "never judge" interpretation is incompatible with what comes after. I said stopping at the first verse is a shame because the real wisdom is not in the first verse but the second. The judgment you draw upon the world is the judgment that will be removed upon you by the world. In a way, that is a form of "karma is a bitch", but it is much more specific. It is a warning of the dangers of hypocrisy and double standards. The first two verses of Matthew are not an injunction to non-judgment but compassion. Judge, yes, but know that the world will apply the same standard of judgment to you. When you assign a penalty, a crucial part of judging as a process, consider that the exact punishment will come to you. The world judging as you judged is an easily observed principle in the case of a televangelist caught screwing the flock. We're happy to join it to see the big moralist fall. Yet, the advocates of the first blacklist were blind to the fact that the punishment they meted as part of their judgment would be meted against them. While I do not have proof positive they all reject the label Christian, based on their bios, I do not think any consider Christianity a crucial part of their life. I suspect many have quoted Matthew 7:1 against people who do identify as Christian to shut them up if they were commenting negatively on the advocates and their activities. Not their activities here, but in general. Imagine if they had been quoting verse 2 as well. I don't think they'd advocated an unending blacklist for a single instance of something they judged as creating an unwelcome environment. I think they might have said, "what will my potential future coworkers who agree with me judge me as a potential coworker." That is why there is wisdom in that second verse. There is wisdom because it recognizes a universal part of the human experience and the best ways to handle ourselves. It does not reject judgment, exposing us to anyone of ill-intent, but it also includes compassion. It consists of the charity to ask, "why did they do this bad thing?" Then we can treat an accident differently from a bad choice. We can also treat the first time someone made a bad choice differently from the tenth. It even provides space to treat the first-time bad choice the minute after it was made differently from a decade after when we have more certainty if they will repeat that choice or not. If you believe the inclusion of someone will be harmful, make that judgment. Make the case to others so there can be an informed choice to include that individual or not. Just understand that when you advocate excluding someone because they will create fear in the group that you may do the same. If you decide no matter what, you need to go forward in the most aggressive way possible, do not be surprised that the same fear of the other individual you generated turns into fear of you. Read the full article

[authorofdreams]

Golden Pulp: The Beast-Jewel of Mars

https://amzn.to/3ogv2nY I first read "The Beast-Jewel of Mars" in a collection of Leigh Brackett Mars stories, The Coming of the Terrans. While I enjoyed all the stories in that collection "The Beast-Jewel of Mars" is the one that has stayed with me the most over the years. The collection I have dated from the 1970s based on the cover, although the same contents had been issued with different art earlier. First published in Planet Stories in the Winter 1948 issue, the story fits the pattern of Martian stories before December 5, 1964, when Mariner confirmed Mars as a cold, lifeless world. Brackett's Mars is a world of long disappeared seas and towns now watered by canals. The native Martians are humans not so different from ourselves, both in body and spirit. They are, however, ancient. In many of the stories, characters remark about walking on stones worn smooth before some humans on Earth made some advance be it cities or fire. "The Beast-Jewel of Mars" begins with Captain Burk Winters, a chain-smoking wreck, arriving on Mars. A man broken by the death of his fiancé in the Martian desert leads him to seek out Shanga, a Martian treatment that caused one to revert to a more primitive, in the evolutionary sense, state. While we see the watered-down form engaged in the decadent of modern Terra, he is seeking the pure, if illegal, form. He gets that desire and more fulfilled. There is a dark side to this release. Shanga, like any drug of escape, is addictive. Martians of the Dry Towns, the bandits, thieves, and assassins of Brackett's Mars, are using Shanga as revenge for the domination of Mars by Terra. Imagine opium had been native to China instead of imported by the British to exploit the Chinese. Instead, theTong used debase British serving in China. Burk's efforts to escape the addiction and debasement of Shanga consume the rest of the story. A theme common in Robert E. Howard's writing and other authors from the pulps is the decadence of civilization and its vulnerability to rougher barbarians. This theme shows up in multiple comparisons in the story. As Burk leaves his ship for the Terran trade city where the watered-down Shanga parlors reside, we learn: Other things than the making of money were done in the Trade Cities. The lovely plastic buildings, the terraces and gardens and the glowing web of moving walks that spun them together, offered every pleasure and civilized vice of the known worlds.Winters hated the Trade Cities. He was used to the elemental honesty of space. Here the speech, the dress, even the air one breathed, were artificial."The Beast Jewel of Mars" Winters is a barbarian compared to the trades of his tribe. The trade city folk seeking Shanga are described as overly coiffed and bejeweled, pale and effeminate yet showing the signs of stressed life. I cannot help but think of modern celebrates in the descriptions. In contrast, Burk Winters is a big man, his skin burned dark by the radiation of space which simultaneously bleached his almost white with pitiless but radiant grey eyes.

When Burk heads to the Dry Towns for the real Shanga, he becomes the effete Terran among the barbarian Martians, although his effete nature is more in tone and speech than appearance. Yet, in the end, it is the barbaric Terran, from a young and, in Martian terms, uncivilized Terran who will get the best of the decadent Martians who were so "bandits who had been civilized for so long that they could afford to forget it." The idea of being civilized so long you forget you were ever bandits or barbarians is a key to Burk's escape. Brackett's Mars is exotic. One of the great descriptions in the story comes when Burk is flying into the city of Valkis. A parade of five harbors, each created when the seas had dried such that the prior one was unusable, mark the line from the hilltop palace of the kings of Valkis to the thin line of the canal that now provides water to the city. Despite age and technology, on the ground is a town lit by torches. The choking dust of millennia and stones worn down by generations of Martians are described in great detail. The costume of the Dry Towns of topless men and women, the latter in long, full skirts slit to the waist with bells woven in their hair while the former are kilted with jeweled girdles and vicious knives. Edgar Rice Burrough's Barsoom is the only competitor for a fantastic Mars of beautiful women, deadly adventure, and untamed masculinity. I read of Barsoom first but love Brackett's Mars more. My first blog post at Places to Go, People to Be, addressed how Mariner cost us both. For a pulp story from 1948 by an author mostly remembered for her screenwriting, it is straightforward to find. Copies are available on Kindle and at Scribd. There is a Librivox audiobook. If you enjoy pulp adventure and old-school sword and planet, I recommend getting one of them. Read the full article

[authorofdreams]

Spicy, Then and Now

This collection starts with "Worse than Death"https://amzn.to/3uOfMkX I've been reading old pulp stories, mainly by E. Hoffman Price. A few of them are spicy stories. That was the term for them. Yesterday's short story was "Worse than Death," first published in Spicy-Adventure Stories in 1935. The sex scenes are almost non-existent. He achieves titillation via costuming and description. For example, "Sitti Ayesha, reclining among a heap of cushions, looked like a cigarette ad come to life; her olive-tinted curves smiled tantalizingly through the shimmering silk that caressed her nicely rounded hips. Yet the actual sex, at least in this story, although not in others, is men taking what they want. An entirely off-screen rape occurs as part of the plot. It wasn't necessary. A nick of time prevention instead of the right after bursting in of the hero would be a better story, so I have to conclude it was part of the titillation. So, my question becomes, is this story too tame for today or too violent. For those who claim the latter, how do you say that with the success of Fifty Shades of Grey. In the context of the Price stories, I've been looking up a lot of Middle Eastern terms and stories, such as The Peacock Angel. Another story that came up in relation to his stories is The Queen of Sheba. One of the earliest films portraying this legend is the 1921 movie The Queen of Sheba starring Betty Blythe. One image from the film appears in the Wikipedia articles on Blythe and the film which I'm including.

Betty Blythe as the Queen of Sheba The costume would fit many of Price's descriptions of women in both his spicy and non-spicy tales. It would even be spicy today as the amount of exposure would lead to an R rating. Another still in the article for the movie shows her standing with even more exposure. Having lived through actresses going topless being a big deal, culminating in Julie Andrews going topless in Blake Edward's (her husband) movie S.O.B. It is interesting that S.O.B. came out precisely sixty years after The Queen of Sheba, but its bare breasts were more arguably more controversial. I have found no evidence of controversy about Blythe's costuming despite it being much more revealing. I'll also admit I like Blythe's costuming more than the "hot" outfits women wear in movies these days, but I was raised on Barsoom and similar tales so that pseudo-Arabian Nights slave girl imagery has been with me forty-odd years.

"Triangle with Variations" opens this collection.https://amzn.to/33KVQDC I think today, we limit our palettes of what is sexy and isn't in too many ways. Not just costuming, but assumptions about us being more liberal than in the past, which seems to have been much more mixed than now. Easy access to porn probably doesn't help because it runs roughshod over the subtle. As for me, on top of my love of dancing harem girls, I'm coming to enjoy silk hugged curves and negligees such that "the edges of the filmy substitute for nudity weren’t on speaking terms…" The latter is from "Triangle with Variations", my favorite spicy Price to date. I like them much more than modern sexy. Read the full article

[authorofdreams]

Programmer Daily Reading

I have mentioned here, and on Twitter, my daily reading but have not described anything in detail. The only part I have discussed is the Bradbury Challenge to read one poem, one essay, and one story every day. I have mentioned professional daily reading and daily Scripture.

I have one profession, computer programming in the financial world, and another I'm working on getting into, writing. As a result, I keep up my reading in both professions. Today I'd like to describe the programming side. My daily reading in programming has two parts, the "scripture" and the book of the month. About a decade ago, I realize I was not where I wanted to be as a programmer. I also knew I was not on a path to get there. I set out to get on the track to where I wanted to go. One of the first steps I took was to read the book Pragmatic Thinking and Learning. I've re-read it a few times since. It's probably about time for another re-read. Based on it, I made changes to how I approached my career and life. Some have lasted, and some haven't. One effect it had was to point me to the book The Pragmatic Programmer. That could have been a one-off book reading. It could have been like Pragmatic Thinking and Learning itself and become a book I re-read every few years. The structure of The Pragmatic Programmer, however, lead to something different.

It became a book I read constantly. Each chapter is divided into several topics around a theme, but the sections are independent. Each topic recommends several sections to read afterward. It does not have to be read in order. In fact, the Forward to the current edition even says, "Feel free to read the topics in any order - this isn't a book you need to read front-to-back." I have read the first edition at least a half dozen times, but never front to back. Instead, for a few years, starting in 2008, I read one section every workday as my start to work. I marked each topic in the table of contents as I read it to guide me on what to read next. After a while, the habit fell away. Earlier this year, a new, 20th-anniversary edition of the book was published. I bought it. I am on my first read of the latest edition. I started on Topic 22, "Engineering Daybooks," which is the seventh and last topic of Chapter 3.

I mapped this reading out in advance. After each topic, I continue the next day with the first unread recommended topic. When I eventually get to a topic where I have read every recommended topic, I'll swim back up the list until I find an unread one and continue down that list of recommendations. When I mapped out this daily reading, I also decided to map out the technical book I'm reading this month. Reading one in-field book a month is a tip from both of the Pragmatic titles referenced above. I have done that more in the breach than anything. I figured mapping out a book for May when I mapped out a reading of The Programmatic Programmer might get both done. The book this month is Your Code as a Crime Scene. So, that's my daily professional reading as a programmer, one section of digital scripture, and a part of another technical book. I'd be happy to receive referrals to a programming book to alternate with The Pragmatic Programmer as at one section a workday I should read it once every twelve weeks or so. Read the full article

[authorofdreams]

You Don't Live Your Facebook

In letters, we can reform without practice, beg without humiliation, snip and shape embarrassing experiences to the measure of our own desires - this is a benevolent form. The ideal self-expressed in letters is not a crudely sugary affair except in dreary personalities./ "Anderson, Millay, and Crane in Their Letters" - Elizabeth Hardwick One does not have to search very hard to find articles on the problem of social media creating artificial expectations about the lives of others. Just typing "social media edited lives" into DuckDuckGo provides articles on body image, how it changes our perceptions of ourselves and others, and how social media changes our lives in general on the first page. I especially like this quote from the first article, "there may be ways to curate your Instagram feed to make you feel happier in your own skin – or, at least, stop you feeling worse." We have gone beyond the carefully curated self Hardwick noted in the quote above. We are now creating curated others in our lives. Read the full article

[authorofdreams]

Game Review: Cat Lady

It's fun, ridiculous, and about cats.

Cat Lady box cover Cat Lady is a card game where the players take the role of cat ladies. The game takes pains to note that, unlike modern notions that paint the cat lady as an old, probably bitter, spinster, some of the finest people in human history have been cat ladies. The game mentions such famous cat ladies as Marie Antoinette and Ernest Hemingway. For some reason, the game designers failed to mention the reviewer, but that oversight does not detract from the game. The game consists of two decks, a rather large game deck and a smaller strays deck. Three strays are selected at the beginning of the game, and no further use is made of the strays deck. A nine-by-nine grid of cards from the $PLAYING deck is then set up. The person with the most cats starts the game. Before their first turn, the player to their right places a gray wooden cat token above one column or to the left of one row.

Sample game cards Play consists of a player selecting one row or column of cards to add to their hand. They cannot select the row or column marked by the grey cat token. The player acts on any cards as necessary, replaces the cards he took from the deck and moves the cat token to block the row or column he just took. Play then proceeds to the right. The game ends when you cannot replace a row or column. The cards in the game deck consist of four kinds of food (tuna, milk, chicken, and wild), cat toys, cat costumes, catnip, spray bottles, lost cat posters, and, of course, cats. Each cat is worth a certain number of victory points, feeding requirements, and a color. Stray cats are similar but usually have special scoring or a special ability. There are five cat toys, and they are scored by sets. Cat costumes and catnip score variably, but if you fail to get any, they can cost victory points. Cat toys score by the size of sets of unique toys. There are five different toys, and if a player has duplicates, he can score multiple sets. Spray bottles allow the player to move the grey cat blocking token. Pairs of lost cat posters can be traded for two victory points or one of the three stray cats. Food cards are immediately exchanged for a wooden block of the appropriate color.

Food, VP, and Grey cat token Feeding your cats is the principal concern of the game. As I noted, both regular and stray cats have feeding requirements, such as three tuna or two chicken and one milk. Each cat you can feed scores his stated victory points, while each unfed cat costs you two victory points. However, you do not want leftover food as there is a penalty for the player with the most food remaining after feeding his cats. However, if you have food left over after feeding all your cats, you risk a penalty if you have the most food leftover. Feed cats also factor into catnip scoring. You score a variable number of points per feed cat based on how much catnip you have. The risk with catnip is no bags score 0, but one bag is -1 VP per feed cat. Costumes score 6 points for the player with the most and -2 for a player with none. Finally, mentioned above, toys score an increasing amount for the size of sets of unique toys. What stands out about this game? The first is it is just plain fun and impossible to take too seriously. There is a bit of strategy involved as you find yourself trying to keep certain cards out of your opponents' hands more than get them sometimes. Initially, I only used the spray bottle card to get a blocked set of three, but eventually realized it could be used to block an opponent getting a set without taking it yourself. Good-natured "I wanted that" complaints happen regularly. In a move, not enough card games do, the game deck has cards marked 3+ and 4 indicating cards to remove for 2 and 3 player games.

Sample stray cats A standout feature is the stray cat deck. With 13 cards, it allows 286 different sets of available stray cats. Having the right stray cat can really boost your score. For each color of cat, white, black, or orange, there is a stray cat who scores points based on the number of cats of that color you feed while another stray needs one of any type of food, but scores for however many cats you feed that food. Cow will eat any amount of food of any time you feed her, scoring 2 VP per food. If you can get Cow, you avoid the food penalty. In one game, I tried not to draw any cats from the grid after I bought Cow. It didn't work but demonstrates the effect of which stray cats are available on gameplay. Much of the longer-term replayability comes from those 286 possible combinations. As for the cat theme, it's pretty good. The cat names are fun. Using the spray bottle for the "move the blocked set" card will bring a smile to any cat staff playing. Even the costumes, something odd for cats, get in the theme as the dressed cat in the cards does not look happy. The look is much closer to "I know where you sleep." All in all Cat Lady is a solid, fast-playing card game. It is one of those games where the fun of playing outweighs the importance of winning while having enough strategy to engage a more serious gamer. Combined with the short playing time those traits making a good game for a mixed group of serious gamers and people more interested in a game as a form of hanging out. I give it 8 out of 10 paws. Read the full article