December Writing Update

Some old business first. 

Life - yes, that "life" - has reared its unwelcomed head, and together with the holidays, has resulted in my wife not yet getting around to reading the manuscript of The Idle House Ghost and Nine Again. This is not a major problem, since it being the busiest time of the year for many people anyways, I likely would not have plagued my beta readers with it until after the first of the year, in any event. And though it will not go out until after the first of the year it's target publication date in February has not changed. Much. I won't set an actual date until she had completed her read through.

As for writing fiction...

I have not been actually been doing much of that since my last report, for several reasons. First, of course "life" again had me doing and thinking of other things. Early on I did spend time early thinking about new angles and making revisions to reflect those thoughts for the first part of that Lorrian novel I had started, before setting it aside last spring to write The Founders' Tribunal, The Ilse House Ghost and Nine Again. However, I have to admit that it still fails to excite my interest. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I haven't found that something to make it sparkle. And if it fails to excite my interest, I have good reason to believe it will fail to excite the interest of most of my readers as well. Especially since most of my long time readers who are still with me, found my books while looking for science fiction, and that's not what I'm writing these days. While I won't say never, unless I can find someway, and some character, to spark my interest in the story, I may well leave this one in "the trunk." 

But if not that, what?

Looking ahead I see: {Blank}

I have no idea for a new novel.

What I do have is a gnawing sense that I need to write one more Red Wine story. A novella will do. A novella would be ideal. I rather like novellas these days. 

The premise of these stories is that they are prequels to the Red Wine Agency thriller novels of intrigue written by the fictional character, Tarashay Clare. in my story Chateau Clare. Which is to say, a fictional character of a fictional character. Since I don't think writing true thrillers is in my wheelhouse, I wrote these lighter stories with more modest stakes and set them prior to those novels, recounting the time when he is being  slowly drawn into the bare knuckle world of Great House intrigues. Given that premise, I feel I need to write one more story that would fully draw Red Hu into the Great Game as the mysterious Red Wine of the Red Wine Agency. And given the feeling that just one more story would wrap this series up, that is what I am hoping to write.

If I can come up with the story. Always a big if.

I am, however, happy to report that ideas are coming right and left, though I haven't a clear idea of the story yet. I have a premise and am running variations of some early scenes in my head during idle times which change daily as a new idea appears in the middle of the night. All these ideas have to be rustled together into a story. Given that task, I doubt that I'll be ready to pull all the loose ends together into a story that can be put into words on a screen much before the release of The Isle House Ghost and Nine Again. 

Not, mind you, that there is any urgency to get this story out. In my one novel a year project, this story would either be my 2028c project or my 2029a project. Either way I care to look upon it, I am far ahead of the pace I set for myself. And given the inexplicable burst of creativity that has seen the rapid writing of three novels and three shorter works in the last two plus years, I don't feel any urgency to get something out on any sort of schedule. That said, by nature, I hate putting things off, so if I am able to put together a story, it will out sometime in the late spring or early summer of 2026. It is, however, still very much a bird in the bush. We'll just have to see if I can get it in hand. Stay tuned.

The Saturday Morning Post EXTRA! EXTRA! (No. 162)

 

In this episode, I found a novel by the author of some non-fictional books that had an important affect on me. During my sophomore year in college, the stacks of the university library were opened up for all. Prior to that, you had to use the card catalog to select a book, and then submit a request for it and wait for someone to collect it from the stacks. Now, I could, and often did roam the stacks - six or seven floors of books. One of the subjects I searched out was had to do with naval matters, and having an interest in tea, I found a book about the tea clippers and the races they ran from China to London to bring the first tea of the season to London. A very romantic trade. I used the idea for one of my first (unpublished) stories, made a game of it, and tracked down more books on tea clippers. That first book was The China Clippers by Basil Lubbock. I have my own copy these days and a number of other books he wrote on that trade, the opium trade and others. Plus, he also wrote several novels. I have one in paper, and found this next one at Gutenberg.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.

Jack Derringer, A Tale of Deep Water by Basil Lubbock  DNF 41%

Alas, this effort was just too authentic for me. Lubbock set out to create an authentic story of life on a Yankee "hell-ship" on a voyage around the Cape Horn from Frisco to New York with a motley crew, most of whom had been shanghaied to serve aboard it, as this ship had a bad reputation with a ruthless captained and brutal mates. We follow the fortunes of Bucking Broncho, a cowboy who wakes up aboard ship after a night of drinking. He finds an old acquaintance, Jack Derringer, aboard, who is an experienced sailor and who takes him under his wing. Jack is an Englishman, with some education, who has taken to roving the world looking for adventure. The rest of the crew is made up of a variety of nationalities, and skill levels, all driven by those brutal mates who curse, beat, and kick men to make them work.

Lubbock himself was something very much like Jack Derringer, in that he was well educated, but had the itch for adventure. Giving university a miss, He sailed to America and the the Klondike gold rush of 1898. After that he signed on to a British sailing ship, and used that experience to write his first book, Around the Horn Before the Mast. After serving in the Boer War, he signed on for another sea voyage. In short, he knew of what he was writing about.

The problem with this book is, as I said above, it is too authentic, especially in the dialog of the motely variety of crew on board. The cowboy character talks like a cowboy from a very old western - dialed up to 11. And then you have all sorts of other nationalities, each using their own jargon. I simply found it too hard to follow what was actually being said. Plus, Lubbock did not bother to explain what these fellows where doing while working the ship. And though I have read a fair number of books and novels set in the age of sail, and so I have a general idea of what was going on in these scenes, the scenes themselves went on far too long for my taste, as usual. All in all, the story failed to engage me and so I decided to reluctantly call it a day for this novel.

Basil Lubbock is pictured on the cover of the edition I found to illustrate this book.

The Saturday Morning Post ( No. 161)

 

As it happened, I had just downloaded this book from the library when the previous book became available. I decided to read that one first. But now, having decided that 500+ page contemporary murder mysteries are likely not my thing, I turned to this book, which, I had good reason to think, might be my thing.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below

Arabella by Georgette Heyer  A-

As I mentioned in another review, Heyer's romances vary in tone. Some are more serious, well as serious as romances can be, while others are comedies. Arabella falls on the comedy end of that spectrum. It proved to be a very enjoyable antidote to that mystery story with all its unpleasant characters, "real" and  fictional.

In this story Arabella is the oldest daughter of a kindly clergyman. She has seven siblings that the clergyman must provide for on modest means. Her mother married this second son of the gentry, and is very happy, but she knows it will be hard to marry off her four daughters, and so arranges to send her oldest, Arabella, down to an old friend of hers in London, who married well and is now a rich widow in the hope of finding a suitable i.e. rich, husband for Arabella. Her friend is delighted to introduce Arabella into London society and goes about it as if she were her own daughter. 

However, along the week-long journey from the north, Arabella and her traveling companion's carriage breaks down and it being winter, they call on a local house for shelter while they wait on a replacement carriage to be sent out from town. This house happens to be he hunting lodge of a Mr Beaumaris, a youngish, very wealthy, and important figure in London society. They are welcomed, but she overhears Beaumaris telling his friend that he fears she is just another woman hoping to land him, and his money, as so many other women have tried. This makes Arabella angry, and she when their together again, she tells him that she has her own wealth and has no interest in him.

Well, word reaches London that she is a wealthy heiress, trapping her in her lie, and causing her to be besieged by scores of young men in need of a wealthy heiress to marry. And, of course, she meets Beaumaris in London, and his attendance to her ensures her success in London society. Can she escape her lie?

I found this a very enjoyable story. Heyer's writing is always witty and  entertaining, which I value highly.  Arabella is an engaging protagonist, her father's daughter, ready to stand up against anyone when she sees injustice or cruelty, be it taking charge of a battered orphan child who was being forced to crawl up chimneys to clean them by his master, or saving a little dog being beaten youths. My few cons were that there is a fair amount of "telling" as we are introduced to London society and all its ins and out. Plus, there is a typical Heyer sub-plot involving her brother in town and getting into deep financial trouble living wide and foolish. Plus gambling, i.e. the evils of gambling, and losing at it, are often featured in Heyer's Regency London stories.

I haven't exhausted as Georgette Heyer's catalog yet, so more of her stories will be on the way. And if you've read my last mid-week post, you'll know just how many more.

Thank You, Tristan

I owe a big thanks to Tristan, a booktuber who focuses on classic literature, for what turned out to be a stellar reading year. While not all of his suggestions that I have tired have turned out to be winners, he did motivate me to try some classics, and one author it particular that led to a my good reading year.

I've been trying to expand my reading horizons for the last couple of years, and finding his channel inspired me to search further. While he covers the classics, he does not stop at "The Classics" but talks about all sorts of books. For example he listed 50 books of suspense, two of which I had read, The Riddle of the Sands and The 39 Steps. From his list, I chose to give The Eye of the Needle a try, which, sadly, did not work out for me. I also tried Anna Karenina, which also did not appeal to me. I did, however, read Under the Greenwood Tree, Kim, and My Brilliant Career at his suggestion and enjoyed them.

I also gave Jane Austen a try, reading Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey, and trying, but abandoning, Emma, and Pride and Prejudice before deciding that Jane wasn't for me. However, there was an unexpected happy side effect in trying Jane Austen. When my daughter heard that I was reading Jane, she suggested that I give Beth Brower's The Unsellected Journals of Emma M Lion a read, and as readers of this blog know very well, I loved those books. They all earned an "A" grade from me. Indeed, I've read them twice this year. They are one of the two most delightful discoveries of my reading year. 

Which brings us to the second discovery of my reading year, also thanks to Tristan and his lists 50 books, this time it was historical novels. One of the authors he highlighted in historical fiction was Georgette Heyer. And since the library has several pages of ebooks by her, I was quickly able to pick up several of her books, Black Sheep, which earned a B+ rating from me, followed by The Toll-Gate. I enjoyed them enough that since those two, I've gone on to read 17 more Heyer books this year, five of which earned an "A" grade, and nine a "B" grade, with only four "C"s and one DNF.

Brower and Heyer are the standout authors this year, along with L M Montgomery. They stepped into the shoes of my favorite author of 2024; Ellis Peters. And, at least for the Brower and Heyer books, it was Tristan who directly or indirectly brought to my attention to them. Of course he has brought many more books to my attention over the past year, some of which I hope will lead me to more delightful discoveries in the coming months. 

So how as your reading year? What where your standout books or authors?

I will post my entire reading list for 2025 after the first of the new year. It turned out I read a lot of books in 2025, and DNFed, a lot as well. 

 

The Saturday Morning Post EXTRA! EXTRA! (No. 160)

 

Once again we have a book suggested by a YouTube video I watched. Just a random one this time, and not the book he suggested, but one by the same author. And once again, I am going outside of my usual cow path of reading; a contemporary mystery novel. The library had ebook versions of it, so I put a hold on it, and got it sooner than I expected. So how did this experiment fare?

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.

The Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz  DNF 61%

As with all my reviews, I'm sharing my subjective opinions with you. This is probably a good book, just not one for me. I didn't hate it. You see how far I got into it before deciding that I didn't care to keep reading it just to say I finished it. Basically, there were too many unpleasant characters and the story too long for my taste. Indeed, I didn't even connect with the first person narrator protagonist enough to care how things turned out. Plus, at almost 600 pages (!), this murder mystery story runs way too long for a mystery. Even at calling a day at 61% mark, I basically finished a reasonable mystery story.

All those quibbles aside, I will say that it is an interesting book, with an interesting premise. More about that in a minute. This is the third book in the series, so a lot had happened to our narrator in the previous two books, which is brought up, and plays a part in this story, but I don't think it was necessary to read those two previous books to enjoy this one. The missing past wasn't my problem.

The first person narrator in this story is a freelance book editor. Returning to England from a less than successful love affair, she accepts an assignment to edit a book from an troubled young author. He had two unsuccessful books published by the publishing house she had previously been a senior member of. This author is the grandson of a famous children's book author, who was, in life, a very mean and domineering woman. She kept all her children close to her at the said Marble Hall by the ties that bind, i.e. the prospect of inheriting her vast fortune. This author had a terrible childhood, and is really messed up. Nevertheless, he was hired to continue the detective series of an author who had been murdered in one of the previous books, who was another unpleasant fellow, I gather.

As we go along with the story, the editor begins to realize that just like the murdered original author of the mystery series, this new author is using people he knows as the models for his characters in the murder mystery story he is writing, and perhaps events that happened at Marble Hall as well... 

What makes this story interesting is that we, as the reader, get to read this murder mystery he is writing a he is writing it. We are introduced to the "real life" characters and then we read the first 30,000 word section of the novel that he has turned in to the editor, right along with her. At this point, the story we are reading shifts to the story he is writing, set in a mansion on the south coast of France. After finishing that installment, we switch back to the present day. The editor, being familiar with previous events, becomes concerned, as I said, that the author is using real people he knows as characters in his murder story, perhaps family members, which could cause a lot of trouble down the road for both her and the writer. So she starts looking closer into his childhood, involving the reader in a second mystery running parallel to the fictional one. We then get another 10K-15K slice of the book before returning to the real-life mystery. An interesting concept, but at the cost of words. Lots of words.

The problem with this story for me is that I really don't like stories with unpleasant characters, and the author of the mystery story is this story is that in spades. He's a jerk who had just punched his wife in the story at the place were I decided to call it quits. Plus murder mysteries are not really my cup of tea, especially when there are two or more murders in a story in order to cover up the first murder, as in the fictional story within this story. That is a trope that I absolutely hate. And to top it all off, I think I had figured out who the murder was in the fictional story as well. It seemed almost too obvious, so when the editor didn't pick up on the clue...  I guess that was just enough for me to call it quits. I didn't care any more. Unlike my wife, I don't force myself to keep reading something I have to force myself to read. Especially since I have two other books waiting for me to read.

I have another mystery by Horowitz on hold at the library, and I will give it a try when it comes in, since it is in another series, and as I said, I had no complaints about the writing; only the characters.

The Founders' Tribunal is Currently FREE on Amazon

 

I just happen to notice that Amazon has price-matched my other venues and as of 6 Dec 2025, Amazon is offering The Founders' Tribunal for FREE. Save $1.99!  Act now!

THE FOUNDERS' TRIBUNAL ON AMAZON 

The Saturday Morning Post (No. 159)

 

Another adventure story from an author that was one of my favorites. in my long ago youth. How does it fare in my old age? 

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below. 

Prester John by John Buchan  C

The answer to the lede question; not well. Not that there is anything really wrong with the book, for what it is. It is just not for me anymore, for a number of reasons. But before all of that, the premise.

The story opens with several kids in Scotland. While playing hooky from church they discover someone performing some sort of pagan ritual around a fire on a deserted beach at night. This someone turns out to be a visiting black clergyman. Discovered, he chases the boys, but they escape.

Fast forward ten years, and the narrator is offered the opportunity to make his fortune in South Africa as a merchant. On the trip down, he discovered the same clergyman, who, of course doesn't recognize him. And well, the rest of the story is about the fact that this clergyman, a spiritual descendent of a fabled Ethiopian emperor said to be Prester John, is the leader of a great African uprising, that, of course, must be suppressed. One desperate adventure after another ensues.

Buchan spent two years in South Africa as an aide to the British high commissioner, so he knew the setting and the people, and could described it, in great detail and in authentic terms. Unfortunately, many of those terms meant nothing to me. And then there is my usual problem of not being able to picture what is being described, so that a lot of the words describing the scenery and such was wasted on me. He also has pages and pages of rock climbing descriptions, which like battles, just confuse and bore me. He also has a lot of internal dialog, which I may've put up with in my youth, but I find tedious these days. I did a lot of skim reading in the last third of the book.

Part of the problem with this book and similar ones, is that I don't care about the fate of the English Empire. So when you have these heroes giving it their all to save it, I'm not really caring all that much. For example, in this case, if this great leader rose and led the Africans to toss out the European colonialist, I'm on their side. Laputa, the black clergyman and leader of the planned uprising is sort of an African Fu Manchu, sharing Fu Manchu's desire to overthrow European colonial rule. Time has made these fictional villains the heroes of these stories.

I will give Buchan credit; he treated the blacks with respect and sympathy for their plight. The Laputa was seen by the first person narrator of this story as a great and noble man, and the natives were not serotyped savages. 

However, in the end, though there was fast paced danger and adventure, there were also long sections towards the end that read like history lessons, and for some reason my ebook reader would freeze every time I got to a certain page within the last ten pages of the end, so I never could read, or rather, skim to the end of the story. Oh well. I don't think I missed much.

I am probably not doing this book justice. John Buchan wrote a couple of my favorite stories and writes well. However, as in the case of Robert Lewis Stevenson, it seems that these old time adventure stories are no longer my forte. 

This book is available for free on the Gutenberg Project.

Some Random Thoughts on Contests

 

These random thoughts were inspired by the current Self Published Fantasy Blog Off "SPBO" contest. Which, I should add, my books are not part of. I had entered Beneath the Lanterns, and Sailing to Redoubt in the previous two contests, but this contest is a "Campion of Champions" contest that pits the ten winners from the first ten years of the contest. And well, it struck me, at least, as; how unfair was that! I felt sorry for those authors. They all had been champions... but when this contest ends in a month, well, ten champions will have been reduced to just one.

But on to my random thoughts...

Entering art into any sort of contest or juried show is a crapshoot. All art is subjective and all judges are to one extent or another subjective when judging art. The "winner" will be the piece that best matches the subjective taste and/or assessment of any objective criteria that the judges are tasked with evaluating. One needs to understand that the results of these contests are essentially a matter of luck, i.e. since it boils down to the choice of judges, in order to avoid soul crushing disappointments. 

There are, of course, ways in which contests attempt to camouflage the subjectivity of the results, often using popularity as a gauge of excellence on the theory that being more popular suggests greater success. For pure art popularity does not confer superiority. Pure art succeeds on an individual level. However, popularity can be a truly objective way of judging art - when art is considered as a product.

And, well, art can be, and often is, considered a product. In the case of books there is one objective way of measuring its worth, and that is the profit a book generates. Unfortunately, the publishing industry and most authors, are very closed mouth about how much money a book earns, which would be a truly objective way of determining what are the "best books," at least for the publisher and author. Contests that use popularity assume that the books that generate the most popularity reflect commercial success. So as long as everyone understands that the criteria of success is commercial appeal rather than artistic excellence, the results are authentic.

There are also in the book industry a number of contests that use some form of jury system to judge a book by its artistic worth. However, as I said above, the results will reflect the tastes of the judges, informed by the expectation of the genre and general readership. But these results represent a non-representational sample of readers, and as such, can be dismissed under the category of not ever being able to please everyone.

But even if you can come up with some sort of objective basis of judging art, what purpose does it serve? It must serve some purpose, or why bother? Officially it is "honoring" the creator for their outstanding effort. And there are no doubt artists who value that acknowledgement. But I can't help but believe that the main reason for contests is to promote sales. You can add "Winner of ___" to the cover of the book. And maybe it does. Anything is possible.

But what is not often mentioned is that there is a dark side to contests. Contests are, by their design, exceptionally efficient at producing "losers." The more people who enter their work in contest, the more losers a contest will produce. There can, by design, be only one winner. And while most contests give secondary prizes for runners up, there is still, only one winner. Every other entry has been judge inferior to the winner.

This feature of contests is obvious, but, as I said, often overlooked. Unless you're one of the losers. This effect struck me forcefully when I view the current Self Published Fantasy Blog Off contest. For the last 10 years author Mark Lawrence has run a contest to promote self published fantasy books to a wider readership by running a contests that features 300  self published books submitted submitted by their authors. The books are judged by various fantasy blogs and YouTubers. My gut feeling is that the state goal of the contest haven't been very successful. I suspect that the people who read self published books don't need the encouragement, and the readers who don't, won't for reasons that publicity will do little to change their mind, if they ever notice the contest. Videos reviewing these self published books as part of the contest are often the lowest watched videos on any booktube channel. Still, I suppose any odd mention helps the cause. 

But,  as I said at the top; the current SPFO contest is a "Champion of Champion" which pits the winning books from the last ten years against each other. They were indeed, all champions in the year they were entered. Now, however they are being ranked against each other to determine which book is THE CHAMPION, the best and it doesn't matter how often any judge might say that they're all champions, at the end of the day, only one of them will be judged the best. And the other nine can only be regarded as losers, former champions.

Despite my negative attitude to contests, as I mentioned above, I have entered two of my books in the above mentioned contest and two in a similar contest for science fiction books. I did so on the grounds that it's free and easy promotion and the hope that I might hear what an experienced reviewer might say about my book after being forced, in a way, to read it.

The free and easy as promotion aspect has proven to be a bust. I never saw a sales bump for my fifteen minutes of effort. And as for the feedback, the sum total has been two reviews posted on two obscure blogs and on Goodreads for the two books, which was nice, but didn't move the needle. The other two contests resulted in nothing more than a mention when all the books were introduced, i.e. nothing. A waste of 15 minutes.

One bonus result of entering these contests was to give me a sense of anticipation and jeopardy for a while, i.e. add a little spice to life, which proved to be almost all that made entering the contest worth it.

Going forward, I won't be entering any more of my books in these contests, since I am not writing books that fit the usual mold for either genre. I have no reason to believe I even advance to the second round, but I might risk a iffy review out of the process. Plus, I don't need the publicity since my free book readers seem to find my books at a pace most self publishing authors would envy. So I might as well let some other deserving author take my spot and get their shot at glory.

So to sum it all up: little effort, little gain. However, not being naive about what the results of judged shows and contests deliver, I suffered no heartbreaks. Only disappointments...