Author Archives: Keith West

RIP, Darrell K. Sweet

I just learned that we lost one of our greatest artists today. As reported by Locus Online and Tor, Darrell K. Sweet passed away this morning. He was one of the most recognizable artists in the field. I grew up reading books he illustrated, and he was a personal favorite of mine. I’ll post a more personal eulogy sometime in the next day or so. It’s late, and this is one I want to take my time with. Darrell K. Sweet, 1934-2011; he will be missed.

Trying Twitter

4 Replies

I’m giving Twitter a try. Hopefully this experiment will be more successful than Facebook was back in the summer. (I need to figure out why Facebook converted the blog page into a personal page, which I don’t want, and try again.) Anyway, in case any of you are interested, here’s where you can follow me: @AdvntrsFntastc. Hopefully, I can figure how to get the avatar to load before the day is over.

A Review of the Final (?) Issue of Realms of Fantasy, Plus Some Suggestions

Leave a reply

Well, I had hoped it would never come to this. While Realms of Fantasy hasn’t exactly been my favorite magazine, I’m very sorry that it has ceased publication and this will be my final review. For the time being, at least. It’s come back twice before, so we can always hope.

This issue wasn’t planned as a final issue, so I don’t know if there were any stories still in inventory. I imagine if there were, the authors were paid a kill fee and hopefully some of them will see publication elsewhere.

Publisher William Gilchrist said in his farewell post on the magazine’s website that the October issue would appear in print and would be late. He indicated that the issue should be available by November 15. I haven’t seen it, but it might not have arrived yet. B&N tends to be late getting the print copies. I bought the PDF version from the website.

Anyway, let’s look at the fiction.

There are five stories in this issue. We’ll take them in order.

First out of the gate is “Return to Paraiso” by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz. I’ve not read anything by Ms. Loenen-Ruiz before. This was a well written piece about a girl who is brought back to her village by the army in an unnamed Central American country. She’s pregnant and kept in a cage. She may also be the consort of a god and carrying his child. This story falls into the nature mother’s passivity defeats the evil of masculine machines, a type of story that really doesn’t appeal much to me. However, this one was better written than most things in this vein, and I rather liked it.

“The Man Who Made No Mistakes” by Scott William Carter is by far the most ambitious and morally complex story in this issue and arguably in any issue of the magazine since its last resurrection. It concerns a young man with the ability to go back in time and change the course of events. The only catch is he can’t go further back than the most recent change, whether that’s five minutes ago or five years. He’s in something of a quandary because he’s committed a horrible crime and the way a certain person is affected by that crime is the only thing that keeps civilization from collapsing. Every attempt he makes to undo the crime ends in major disaster. It’s one of the strongest stories I’ve read in months, and I expect to see it on the awards ballots and in some of the Years’ Best anthologies next year.

“Second Childhood” by Jerry Oltion is a ghost story of a sorts. Oltion is a writer that doesn’t always connect with me, in part because I find his work too preachy at times. This particular story isn’t as bad as some, but not a lot happens in it beyond the narrator’s mother comes back from the dead and various discussions the narrator has with her husband about the implications of that event. While some men might find the situation to be a horror story, I couldn’t get too excited about it.

The cover story, “Sweeping the Hearthstone” by Betsy James, is what I think of as a typical RoF story. It’s about a girl who comes to work in an inn, only to discover there’s a spirit inhabiting the hearthstone in the main hall. A spirit who is romantically interested in her, an interest that turns out to be mutual. This one is about emotions. While competently executed, it’s not the sort of thing I prefer to read.

The final story is “Barbie Marries the Jolly Fat Baker” by Nick DiChario, in which the toy knight runs away from home because Princess Barbie is getting it on with the baker toy. Given the author, I expected this one to be competently executed (in this I wasn’t disappointed) and something more original (in this I was disappointed). The ending gave me the impression the author got bored with his scenario and didn’t know where to take it, and so just stopped.

So that’s an overview of the stories in the October 2011 issue of Realms of Fantasy. This is (for now) the last issue. With the exception of the Carter, and to a lesser degree, the Loenen-Ruiz, there isn’t a lot here to recommend it. I realize your mileage may vary.

I hope RoF returns. It’s happened twice before. Maybe it will again. If it does, I’d like to make a couple of suggestions to any potential buyers/publishers.

First, go digital. Several prominent magazines began as print and are now electronic only, including but not limited to Fantasy, Something Wicked, and Apex, while others such as Clarkesworld, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Lightspeed, and Heroic Fantasy Quarterly started out electronically and seem to be doing just fine. I can’t imagine all the color illustrations are cheap to print. You can get the same quality of illustration electronically. You also don’t have warehousing, shipping, returns, paper, or printing costs.

Second, stop trying to be the one stop shop for all things fantasy. This issue contained 84 pages. By my count, 26.5 of them were fiction, with words from the story on the page. Each story had a full page illustration (not included in the previous page count), plus there were several pages of ads scattered among the fiction. There was more nonfiction relating to fantasy in this issue than there was fantasy itself. I can’t speak for most readers, but I never bought RoF for the reviews or columns. I bought it for the fiction. With less than half of the contents being fiction, even taking ads into account, it doesn’t seem like a good buy for the money. The nonfiction columns, such as “Folkroots” or art features, are fine, but really, do we need 15 pages reviewing games, books (3 columns: general fantasy, urban fantasy, and YA), plus graphic novels? This issue was typical of most I’ve seen. Decide what you want the magazine to focus on, fiction or reviews, then do that better than your competition. Don’t try to be all things to all people.

Finally, get a new editorial team. Shawna McCarthy has been the editor of the magazine since its inception. Every time the publication has been sold, the new owners have kept her on. While I don’t question her credentials, I have reservations about her taste in fantasy. The stories all seem to be about the same. One of the commentators on the Black Gate post about the closing of the magazine called it chick-lit fantasy. I’d have to agree. The primary content seems to be about the emotional lives of women, with fantasy elements thrown in.

I realize there are a number of people who like that type of fantasy, not all of them women. But it doesn’t seem to be a successful formula commercially. If it were, why does it keep failing. I have no problem with one of the stories in each issue being in this vein, and while it’s not my preferred subgenre of fantasy, I do read widely enough that I would read, and possibly enjoy, something along these lines if there were plenty of variety to go along with it. There’s virtually no sword and sorcery in RoF, and what little I’ve seen this past year has been marginally S&S. And while I don’t think each issue should be only S&S either, I do think there should be a great deal more adventure oriented fantasy in the magazine.

To sum up, the final issue, with the exception of the Carter story, was nothing particularly outstanding. Writing that sentence gives me no pleasure, nor does the fact that the magazine has failed again. I do hope someone will bring it back. I think it could survive, given a change of emphasis and direction, especially if published as an e-mag.

NaNoWriMo: It’s Over (Sort Of)

3 Replies

Well, I did it. I managed to complete 50,000 words of a novel. Fifty thousand, forty-five to be exact. That’s nowhere near all of the novel. I’m estimating this one will run to at least 70,000, possibly more. But to “win” NaNoWriMo, you had to complete just 50,000. Which I did in spite of myself.

I say in spite of myself because I turned out to be my own biggest obstacle. This is by far the longest thing I’ve attempted. I didn’t plan it out in detail well enough. I usually have a general idea of where I want a story to end up. Getting there is just details. The devil, as they say, is in the details. This novel has three viewpoint characters, four if you count the captain who only appears in flashbacks at the end of the major sections. The characters are in separate locations when the book opens, and I alternate chapters featuring each of them. I found myself writing more than one chapter about a character, depending how well I understood that part of the character’s story arc in relation to the other story arcs. I would then go back and insert chapters where needed. I found this to be both a stressful and liberating way to write.

Anyhoo, I’ve not been blogging much in the last couple of weeks because I was trying to make the deadline. I’m going to step away from the novel for a few days, finish up a fantasy mystery novella that’s about 1500 words from being done, start reading some of the books that have been piling up. I’m also going to think about some details I didn’t work out very well before I started writing a month ago. I hope to finish the first draft of the novel over the holidays, get it to the beta readers, and get to work on the second book in the series. I’ve learned a lot about writing and how (not) to approach a novel, and I’m eager to put some of those things into practice.

Things I’m Thankful For

4 Replies

There are a number of things I’m thankful for. Here’s a partial list.

First of all, my family, both immediate and extended. (This includes the dogs.)

Our health.

Employment, both for me and my wife. And not just a job in my case, but something I find fulfilling. While I’m not sure it’s something I want to do for the rest of my life, I don’t dread going to work every day.

A place to live, food to eat, cars to drive.

Books to read. Lots and lots and lots of books to read. And vintage pulps. And comics and graphic novels. And opportunities to write.

The good things blogging has brought into my life: new friends, review copies of books from both authors and publishers, and outlet for my writing.

That I live in the greatest country in the world, where I am free to say what I like, read what I like, and worship God in the manner I see fit.

May God bless each and every one of you as much as He’s blessed me.

RIP, Anne McCaffery

2 Replies

Locus Online is reporting that SFWA Grand Master Anne McCaffery died at home in Ireland of a massive stroke on November 21, 2011. She was 85. McCaffery was author of the long-running Pern series. In addition to Pern, McCaffery was the author of a number of other series, which she often co-wrote with up and coming authors who went on to have significant careers. These authors include, but are not limited to, Jody Lynne Nye, Elizabeth Moon, Elizabeth Anne Scarborough, and Mercedes Lackey. McCaffery won a number of awards for her work, including the Nebula and Hugo (she was the first woman to win both). In 2006 she was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

Ann and Jeff VanderMeer Launch Weird Fiction Review

NaNoWriMo: Excerpt Two

2 Replies

Well, the second week of NaNoWriMo wasn’t as successful for me as the first week. I got bogged down in the middle of the week with family commitments, then my wife attended an out of town conference from Thursday through Sunday. That didn’t leave me much time to write, although I can’t complain. Hanging out with my son for the weekend was worth the missed writing hours.

I should be at 25,000 words today to meet the 50,000 word “finish line” or 30,000 to meet my self-imposed goal. I’m at just over 19,000. I think I can catch up if I don’t miss too many days. I knew I would fall behind during the first part of the month when I started and planned on catching up over the Thanksgiving weekend.

Here’s the second excerpt from the novel. The storyline concerns the crew of a starship who wake up from coldsleep on a planet. They don’t know where they are or how they got there and have to survive. I’m alternating chapters between three viewpoint characters, who are on different parts of the planet when the book opens and whose storylines progress more or less simultaneously. At the end of each major section, there will a flashback chapter involving a fourth character, the captain of the starship. Where the captain is and what happened to her is going to be one of several mysteries the other characters will be dealing with. The flashbacks featuring the captain will not be chronological, but instead will give a different perspective on events and discoveries in the section of the book each flashback concludes.

What follows is when we first meet the captain.

Captain Galina Vladimirovna Lyakhova would have paced her quarters if they had been big enough. As it was, she had to settle for slamming her palm against the bulkhead and cursing Bixby again. The first time she’d hit the wall, she’d done so with her fist. The impact of the slap stung her wrist, and she suspected it was sprained from her initial strike.

At the moment, she didn’t care, even though that was a mistake she wouldn’t repeat.

The sealed orders had been waiting for her in an old fashioned envelope when she came out of coldsleep. Bixby hadn’t wanted any electronic trace of them to be found and must have had them placed there after she entered the chamber. She couldn’t bring herself to think of him as Fleet Admiral. Only a bastard of the lowest class would pull a stunt like this, one that didn’t deserve such a title.

At least this explained the makeup of the crew. She’d noticed the unusual number of trouble makers and misfits. It was her first command, and she’d gone over the list exhaustively, trying to familiarize herself with the people whose lives could depend on her decisions.

It also explained some things about her recent promotion and why she’d been given this particular assignment. She’d always suspected the smuggling ring she’d discovered and exposed went higher in the ranks than those who were court-martialed. She’d just never dreamed it would have gone as high as Bixby.

As punishment, she’d been given this command and a first mission that would get her and a number of trouble makers out of the way. Permanently.

Even the name of the ship mocked her. C. S. S. Integrity. What was the old axiom? No good deed goes unpunished, that was it.

She sighed and stared at the picture of her parents hanging over her desk. Tears of sorrow came to her eyes, displacing the tears of frustration and rage that had been there moments before.

Oh, Papa, Mama. Thank God you didn’t live to see this. Not that they would have been able to see what was really happening. Instead they would have gotten an official letter, also in an old fashioned paper envelope, only this one would be bordered in black. Inside would be some official story about her ship being lost, either in an accident or just gone missing, containing the usual platitudes of “condolences”, “service”, “debt of gratitude”, and the like. And all of it would be a lie. A coverup.

She stepped closer to the picture, and as she did Galina saw her face superimposed on first her mother’s, then her father’s. She had her mother’s long, golden hair and voluptuous figure, while from her father she’d inherited his tall frame and grey eyes, as well as his sense of right and wrong.

A number of men, and several women, had taken one look at her over the years and dismissed her as a piece of fluff who probably slept her way up the ranks. Nothing could be further from the truth, but she’d let them think what they liked. Never correct someone who underestimates you, her father had told her, not until it’s too late for them to do anything about it. She’d outmaneuvered and outflanked them all. At least until she met Bixby. She was still realizing she’d never known who and what she’d been up against.

“Rescue mission, my ass,” she muttered.

She put both her hands on either side of the picture, leaned her forehead against the plexiglass, and began to weep for her crew.

Eventually, she raised her head and wiped her eyes with her palms.

The dozens of people in cold sleep were still her responsibility, even if they had all been sold down the river. She’d be damned if she stood by and didn’t go down fighting for them.

Captain Galina Valdimirovna Lyakhova headed towards the armory to obtain a sidearm.

Angry Robots Books Announces New Authors

A Few Thoughts on the Penn State Sex Scandal

1 Reply

The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.
Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 3, scene ii

I generally shy away from current events unless they have to do with publishing or in some way relate to heroic adventure when I’m choosing my blog topics. For the most part, Adventures Fantastic and its sister site, Futures Past and Present, are current event and political free zones.

However, for anyone who follows the news, like I try to do, there has been no escaping this week of the coverage of the still growing sex scandal at Penn State. As a parent of a child in the age range of the ones in question, it’s been hard not to put myself in the place of the families of the victims. It’s not been a pleasant place to go mentally, and I’m not going to inflict that portion of my thoughts upon you. I have found myself today thinking of the events in terms of the heroism, or mostly lack thereof, of the principal players in this drama.

So, if you’ll indulge me in venting my spleen, I’m going to share some of my thoughts. What follows beyond the “Read More” link might be offensive to some of you, so if you think you might be one of those people, please do us both a favor and don’t read it.

I don’t usually follow sports or related news stories unless they involve local teams, but like I said above, there’s been no escaping this story short of going into isolation. It’s been like watching a train wreck.

And it’s been pretty revolting. The only bright spots are that it looks like justice is going to be done, at least to some degree, and the Penn State trustees have acted swiftly to do the right thing by firing the people responsible for the coverup. Kudos to them for the terseness of their announcement the other night that the president and head coach were fired immediately, without any preamble or dissembling. None were needed.

I heard the entirety of Joe Paterno’s statement earlier that afternoon, not just the soundbites from it that some networks carried. In essence, he said he was going to resign at the end of the season so the board of trustees didn’t need to consider him, he was sorry he hadn’t done more, and he would spend the rest of his life serving the university. It was all a very self-serving and pathetic attempt to spare himself the humiliation of a public firing. Fortunately the board didn’t pay any attention to him and fired his sorry ass anyway. As they correctly said, the university is bigger than any athletic program. I wish more university personnel understood that.

I don’t care how much so-called “good” he’s done for young people over the years. It can’t make up for the fact that when children needed him the most, when he could have done more good than at any other time in his life, when he could have exhibited exemplary courage and leadership, he did nothing. He turned a blind eye. You can’t make up for that.

And Mike McQueary should be in jail as an accessory. A pretty boy like him will likely find himself as some lifer’s wife if that’s where he ends up. Although from what I understand about the life expectancy of child molesters in lockup, the lifer would probably be a widow in fairly short order. He has testified that he walked into the shower and saw Sandusky (I think I’m supposed to say “allegedly” here) sodomizing a ten year old boy, walked out, called his father, then talked to Paterno the next day. WTF?

He didn’t try to call the police, and more importantly he didn’t do anything to stop it. He walked away. You can make all the rationalizations and excuses for him you like, it doesn’t change the fact that he didn’t man up and do the right thing. By his own admission, he let that child be (“allegedly”) raped. This was the defining moment of your life, Mike. And you blew it. You could have been a hero. Yes, it would have been unpleasant, but how are things for you now, huh? When you see something like this happening, walking away, calling Daddy, and then telling people who cover up the crime just doesn’t cut it.

And they apparently kept silent so they could avoid some bad publicity and win a few more f***ing football games. These are the people who are heroes in our society? The ones who can win games, never mind the rest? I hope not. I hope this is just an aberration. Given the riots that followed Paterno’s firing, I’m not sure it is.

This is why my heroes are either historical or fictional and are rarely sports figures, career politicians, or celebrities. My heroes protect children, not programs, not their own asses.

And as a final thought, I don’t think the men responsible for pretending these horrible acts didn’t happen should have been fired this way. I think their firings should have involved a squad. (If the meaning of that last sentence isn’t clear, think about it.)