The Saturday Morning Post EXTRA! EXTR! (No. 140)

 

We're having a Jean Webster weekend. I was curious about the author of When Patty Went to College, Jean Webster. Was she, by chance, famous enough to warrant a Wikipedia entry? The answer is yes.  That book was her first novel and she went on to write seven more novels until her death at the age of 39 of childbirth fever after giving birth to her daughter in 1916. Prior to this she lived an active life, traveling the world as well as writing and being socially active. I was curious enough to download several more of her books. In this episode I will review her most famous work.

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. 

Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster  A

I am not grading this book on the curve. I read this book in a day, and it has everything I value in a book; engaging characters, especially the narrator, along with clever and witty writing. Written nine years after When Patty Went to College, it is ten times more accomplished and engaging.

The narrator is an orphan, Jerusha "Judy" Abbot, who grew up in an orphanage and was then kept on after age 16 in order to attend high school, and work (for room and board) at the orphanage. She is offered the opportunity to attend college, with everything paid, including a monthly allowance, by one of the trustees of the orphanage. This trustee has done the same thing for several of the male orphans, and now wishes to it for her, since she is a promising student, especially in English and writing. His only requirement is that she write him a letter once a month describing her experiences, with the understanding that he won't write back. Everything will be handled by his secretary. She catches just be briefest glimpse of him, as he is leaving; only an impression of him being tall from the long shadows cast by a light outside. It gave her the impression of a daddy-long-legs spider, hence the name she gives him in her letters.

The book is mostly her letters to him over the course of four years, as she attends college, and spends her summers on a farm, reading like a diary. They, like her first book, describe life in a woman's college ca. 1910 or so. I need to have a "fried chicken and waffle supper" some time.

While I enjoy being emersed in this era, I loved her understated humor. But then, I'm a big fan of understatement in most everything. It's hard to pick out examples of this humor, But I'll give you a sample or two.

The first is from her first visit to New Your City, and shopping with a wealthy roommate. "And the shops? I never saw such lovely things as there are in the windows. It makes you want to devote your life to wearing clothes."

Or; "The weather of late has been ideal - bright sunshine and clouds interspersed with a few welcome snow-storms. I and my companions have enjoyed our walks to and from classes - particularly from."

Or on visiting the house of her rich roommate; "All the furniture was carved and upholstered and gorgeous; the people I met were beautifully dressed and low-voiced and well-bred, but it's the truth, Daddy, I never heard one word of real talk from the time we arrived until we left. I don't think an idea ever entered the front door." 

In short a wonderful story. My only complaint is a minor one, I thought the ending could've been handled with a little less melodrama.

The Saturday Morning Post (No. 139)

 

A reread this time around. This is a very special book to me, since the copy I have was my grandmother's. She wrote her name, her maiden name, on the first page. She received this book as a Christmas present from a friend of hers, Leona, which I know because she kept the gift tag with the book. Grandma Algiers was born in 1894, and married in 1917. The version of the book I have is the 1908 version, so I would expect she received it within a few years after that date. It also happens to be the book that I used as a reference in the painting above.

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. 

When Patty Went to College   by Jean Webster  B-

I am probably grading this book on a slight curve, due to the book's connection to Grandma, and taking into account that I am not the audience Jean Webster was writing for. Still, it is an interesting book; a series of fifteen episodes featuring Patty and her friends during their senior year at an all girl's college. Webster attended Vassar, so it likely represents life at that college at the turn of the last century. 

The episodes are a mix of slight and humorous little vignettes and slightly more serious ones. For example, the first vignette describes setting up their room; painting the floor black, hanging tapestries on the wall (against the rules) and dealing with the janitor. Another is about a game of making up stories about staff and students "Locale Color" that are so ridiculous that no one would believe them... except some do and trouble ensues. There is one about befriending a very lonely and homesick girl who just doesn't seem to fit in and discovering why. And an episode about some of Patty's friends signing up a fictional girl for Patty's German Club - a girl who of course never shows up, and who Patty can find no trace of in the school records, even though she sends notes explaining why she didn't attend the meetings... You get the idea.

I will leave you with this one nugget of wisdom from Patty, who, after getting out of another of her scrapes with officialdom states; "When you have to explain to a woman," she said in the tone of one who is stating a natural law, "it is better to write a note; but when it is a man, always explain person."

Not a book you need to go out and read, though if it does interest you, you can download and read it from Gutenberg.

The Summer Sunsets of 2025

 

It has been my custom for years now that, during the summer, I watch the sun set while sitting on my rocking chair, playing the part of an old man sitting on his front porch. Though in my case, I'm sitting in my garage overlooking our condo's driveway/parking lot, as you can see from the photo above taken from my rocking chair. I usually get up and take the photos from the edge of the parking lot to avoid the powerlines. (Though I am sure I could get rid of them in post, but I want authentic photos, not AI enhanced ones. Most sunsets are nondescript, cloudless sunsets. Which is to say nothing to write home about, much less photograph. But when there are clouds about, I get my phone out and snap a photograph or two of them. Below are the best sunsets of the summer of 2025 photographed from the top of an Eau Claire hill, a perfect place to watch the world turn.

A spotlight on the world.

Clouds on the move.

A variety of clouds.

A moody sunset.

The sun setting in the smoke from the Canadian forest fires and a low bank of distant clouds.

Again, a selection of clouds.

A sunset in yellows, orange, and purple. 

And finally, a cloud bowing its top.  All in all, nothing too spectacular, but a decent year of sunsets. 

The Saturday Morning Post EXTRA! EXTRA! ( No. 138)

 

                      

During my teen years in the 1960's many of the pulp stories from the 20's thru the 40's were being reprinted. I read and enjoyed them. For example, I was a big fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and there were many other science fiction stories from those decades that were republished and found a new audience. However, there were two of the popular pulp heroes that, for some reason, I did get into reading back then. One was Doc Savage. I may've read a few  Doc Savage stories, since I had a friend who was collecting them. While I do have one book on my shelves from the other author, but it's not his most famous character. I have no recollection of reading it.

However, when a number of the booktubers I watch chose a book by this author to read and discuss, and the book is in the public domain these days, I decided to give it a read.

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 comments are always welcomed.

The Hour of the Dragon (aka Conan the Conqueror) by Robert E Howard  C

My kingdom for a map!

This is a late in his career Conan story, and the only (authentic) novel length one. In this story Conan has settled down as the king of Aquilonia after his days of roving. As the story opens, the enemies of Aquilonia have resurrected a long dead sorcerer using a magical jewel, the Heart of Ahriman, and with his power and the jewel they defeat Conan's army of Aquilonia by rendering Conan temporarily paralyzed and leading the army into a trap. Conan is captured, imprisoned, and escapes death with the help of a young woman, Zenobia. The story then follows Conan as he is pursued by various enemies, his kingdom sacked and misruled. He escapes several traps, and learning about the importance of the Heart of Ahriman, he chases after the various people who have stolen it first from the sorcerer and then from each other. This takes him across all the lands of Howard's Hyborian Age, hence my cry for a map. 

I'm sure I could've found a map of Howard's Hyborian Age if I Googled it, but I didn't care quite enough to bother. I think some books have one included.

As I said, this is my first Conan story. And likely my last. In my opinion, comparing apples to apples, pulp writer to pulp writer, any Edgar Rice Burrough's hero is a more fully drawn and interesting character than Conan. Conon is not the brightest blade on the wall, but not an idiot either. He's a mostly chivalrous barbarian, at least in this story. And while he can hack to pieces six fighting men, seven would defeat him, so he often has to be either saved with a arrival of unexpected help, or simply left for dead when knocked out. (This happens several times.) He knows fear and dread. All in all, he's no superman, and I must admit I found him more human than I expected. That said, Howard doesn't take a great deal of time or effort to give him any great depths. He uses him to drive the plot along, fighting and conquering.

The writing itself was a lot of "telling" as we say these days. The scenery is described. Characters give speeches to explain the story. We are given several different point of view characters to build the premise and story, when needed. Conan is also mostly described, we don't really get to know what he's thinking, though sometimes what he's feeling, usually fear, dread, or anger. As I said above, I think almost any of Burrough's books and heroes are superior to Howard's Conan in this novel. I have a feeling that the length of the story did Conan and Howard no favors. Both may shine better in short stories where less is expected.

There are many Conan and other Robert E Howard stories available for free on the Gutenberg project.

The Saturday Morning Post (No. 137)

                         

Since discovering Georgette Heyer and the Beth Brower, I haven't really found an author that I care to pursue. I didn't know where to go next with new books. Still, onwards... but not this week. This week it's backwards, since I'm in the mood for a good book, so we have another reread this week.

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 Fortune of War by Patrick O'Brian   A

This books takes up the story some months after the conclusion of Desolation Island. In it we meet once again some of the characters from that story. Desolation Island ended with the horrible old Leopard getting ready to continue on its voyage after making repairs on the desolate "Desolation Island" in the Indian ocean. This story starts with their arrival in the Pulo Batang in Indonesia, after having visited Australia. Captain Aubrey and Doc Maturin are sent off to England, in a fast dispatch ship, only to encounter a mishap at sea, end up on the HMS Java, just prior its battle with the USS Constitution in the War of 1812. Not to give too much away, the Java loses that battle and Aubrey and Maturin are taken prisoner and end up in Boston, waiting to be exchanged for captured American officers. Boston proves to be a dangerous place for Doc Maturin for several reasons, not the least being that there are French secret agents in Boston who want him dead.

I have raved about these stories in the past. And while one may, at first glance consider them in the same category as a hundred other titles concerning the war at sea during the Napoleonic era, they stand, in my opinion, head and shoulder above all of them. O'Brian paints his novels on a far wider canvas, painting with a unique style and skill, the society, places, and human characters of the time. His is a unique style of writing, one that is authentically not modern, but neither is it obscure. It is witty and deep in turn. Characters are vividly drawn, as our the locales. He offers many insights into humanity. Plus his stories have a sense of what we now call "found family" since, over the course of a decade and a half of war at sea, with crews and officers changing ships frequently, you get a sense that the Royal Navy was one large family, with crews and officers finding old shipmates on every ship they encounter. And as such, familiar characters come and go with each book.

This is another series of books that I can not recommend high enough.

The Founders' Tribunal Art and Blurb

I'm being lazy with this time around with the cover of The Founder's Tribunal. I'm using a piece of art I had painted years ago. Since it is going to be an ebook/audiobook release only, I don't need to have a piece of art that wraps around to the back cover. (Although both pieces of art I considered, could be used to wrap around.) And, well, ebook covers are mostly only seen in thumbnails, so I'm not going to paint a special cover for a thumbnail.

Above is the complete painting for the alternative version of  the cover for The Founder's Tribunal that I considered. As you can see, being a landscape painting, I had plenty of room to frame the cover. Below is what I used for my trial cover, but it could've been adjusted right or left if I care to.

However, below we have the complete painting that I used for my first, and likely final version of the cover. It too was painted in landscape and the focus can be shifted for the cover as well.

Since first posting this cover, I have altered the cover slightly, zooming in on the painting, i.e. enlarging the scene I've chosen to focus on. That original post now features this zoomed in version as well. There were pros and cons for both versions, but in the end, this is the cover I have decided to go with, since it best captures the mood of the minor scene it is meant to illustrate.

I usually go for mood. If I do illustrate a scene or setting, it won't be a dramatic one. I don't paint drama. In this case of this cover, it is meant to "illustrate" a meeting Red Hu has with Lorivel Carvie, and Carleesa Trilae at Red's old law office, located in an old residential borough of Celora on a snowy winter's morning. As such, both paintings work, more or less, for that setting. 

So what's the story about? Well, below is my current blurb for The Founder's Tribunal. As usual, I don't like to do more than a tease the story in my blurbs. I'll no doubt talk more about it after its release.

In this sequel to The Darval-Mers Dossier, Redinal Hu finds himself once again playing a small, but perhaps dangerous, role in the Great Game.

When Red’s former colleague and good friend, Lorivel Carvie, calls and invites him to dinner – her treat - Red suspects it’s more than a social get-together. As much as he wishes it was. And, as it turns out, he was right.

Lorivel’s cousin, Carleesa Trilae, is the private secretary of their great grandmother, Penlane Trilae, the First Minister of the Commonwealth of Lorria. The First Minister has received a summons to appear before something called the Founders’ Tribunal to defend her administration against charges that she is not following the founding principles of Lorrian society. What this Founders’ Tribunal is, and who’s behind it, is a mystery. The Minister believes it to be a ploy of a cabal of Great Houses. Nevertheless she is determined, even eager, to face this secret tribunal and let them know exactly what they need to do if they want to maintain the founding principles. Her great granddaughters do not think this is a wise idea. They hope to persuade her to accept Red Hu as her legal counsel and bodyguard. 

Well, Penlane Trilae hasn’t remained First Minister of the Commonwealth of Lorria for over half a century by being timid. So it’s on to plan two.

The Founders’ Tribunal is a 25,000 word novella set several months after The Darval-Mers Dossier. Set during the troubled times leading up to the Second Founding, this story is his first outing using his alias, Red Wine, a gentleman for hire. The story is set in the same world of Chateau Clare and Glencrow Summer, but in an earlier historical period than those two novels.

The Founders' Tribunal is now up for pre-order on Amazon for $1.99 Its release date is November 6th, 2025. It will be released as a free ebook and audiobook around that date as well, in all the usual ebook stores. More on the story, and hopefully, news about a third Red Wine story, as its release date gets nearer. Stay tuned.

 

The Saturday Morning Post EXTRA! EXTRA! (No. 136)

 

In this installment I an reviewing one of the "booktube darlings," which to say a book that most of the people who post videos on fantasy books praise as a masterpiece. Given my track record of being out of step with the taste of the booktubers I watch, and popular opinions on books in general, I approached this book with some trepidation. It had a lot to live up to. Did it?

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.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke  F

It takes a very special book to earn an "F" grade from me. I usually don't waste my time on the books I dislike as much as this one. If it wasn't such a universally praised book, one that I was determined to discover the reason why for this praise, I would've DNF'ed it halfway through, since it was the most boring book I've ever read. However, I pushed on, skimming through it to the end in the forlorn hope of discovering the wonderfulness of it. The wonderfulness that all those booktubers assured me was present, though they didn't want to say too much, for fear of spoiling it for readers. 

Needless to say, I completely missed the proclaimed charm of this story. I sincerely am baffled by its acclaim. Was it all a mega-joke?

No doubt, as usual, it's on me. Perhaps I found this book so boring because, as I have mentioned several times before, I don't have a "mind's eye," which is to say I can't envision things in my mind. Elaborate descriptions do not build pictures in my mind. I have to believe that the elaborate descriptions in this book conjure up a grand vision in the minds of most readers gifted with the ability to construct mental pictures. Description comprises probably half of the words of this story. I kid you not. I suppose for fantasy readers, this is what was so wonderful about the story, since the story itself is frustrating and ultimately surprisingly mundane.  The fact that I can't do so, meant that much of the charm of this book is lost on me. It became just a repetitive descriptions of places by a simple minded narrator, without context. I needed a map.

Another reason this book failed to work for me is that, despite being an artist and a writer, I have a certain practical streak in my makeup. Things in a story have to make some sort of sense for a story to work for me. As a result, one of the things I most dislike about science fiction and fantasy, is when the writer comes up with some fantastic, mind-blowing concept, untethered to any sort of reality, and then just runs with it, building a scaffolding of a story and characters around it, simply to flesh out this fantastical concept. I feel that's the case with this book. The setting and story are simply a way to dress up a vague metaphysical concept. As a result, I simply could not, for even one instant, suspend my disbelief in the setting of the story, even with the magical explanation of it in the text that tied this world to our real world. It made no sense to me, especially as it was represented. And as I said, we spend half of the book exploring this concept-inspired, non-sensical place which we are expected to believe actually exists alongside our everyday world. We're dealing with a portal fantasy here, folks. Sorry if that's a spoiler.

The next sore point for me, is the first person narrator. He is one of those unreliable narrators who has amnesia, so neither he, nor we, the reader, learn his real nature until the end of the story. Throughout the story he narrates the story with child-like naivety, describing every little (unimportant) thing and every action in minute, and tedious, detail. As he begins to discover new things as part of the plot, the reader soon comes to know more about is going on than the narrator due to his amnesia and naivety. Thus we are doomed to listen to him slowly figure out all the things we already have figured out, while trying not to yell "Get on with it!" to either him or the author. 

And lastly, however imaginative the setting is, the writing, I found, to be, though  detailed, flat and tedious in its presentation. I felt no spark of life in it. Years ago I read her other famous novel, Jonathan Strange & Norrell, and in my memory of it I seem to recall it was pretty dull reading as well. Colorless is the adjective I would apply to her writing. Elaborate, but dull and tedious, without any wit or charm. I not a fan of Susanna Clarke's writing.

So what about the story, you ask? Well, the narrator, known as Piranesi lives in a vast series of great halls that are filled with statues; endless miles and miles of these great halls. And statues. Some of the halls are flooded making seas and lakes. They have fish, and birds, and seaweed, but for some unexplained reason, no plants, or trees, or other animals, at least in the part of the halls Piranesi has explored. Likely because they would be inconvenient for the author if she had to have Piranesi dealing with lions, tigers, and bears. Oh My! 

Piranesi spends his time - years - exploring and mapping these halls; the reader gets to know them quite well, as I said, half of the book is descriptions of them. Once a week he meets with the only other human (alive) in the halls that he knows of. This fellow is searching for some magical powers he believes are in these halls. This fellow brings familiar items from our world to give to Piranesi, items that Piranesi seems to recognize what they are, despite the fact that he has no memories of the mundane world that they, and he, came from. (Sorry, that's a spoiler.) All he remembers is his life in these halls where these things don't exist. But despite the fact that he is supposed to be very curious, exploring and mapping all these halls, his familiarity of these other-world items and their origin never seems to strike his curiosity, or stir memories at all. Hard to believe.

Throughout the story we, along with Piranesi, gradually learn bits and pieces of his back story, mostly via notes that Piranesi himself had written in his collection of notebooks. The earliest entries, ones that he wrote before he came to live in the halls and forgot who he was, tell, or at least hint of the backstory. For some reason, likely the convenience of the author, he hadn't been curious enough over the years, to have gone back and read his older notebooks before, so it's all new to him. And, as I said, the reader is soon well ahead of him in figuring out what is going on. 

None of the reviewers ever wanted to say anything about the story for fear of spoiling it. The truth is that, if you strip away all the halls and statues, the story of Piranesi is a very mundane one. A dark academia story. While it is my policy not to talk too much about the story, I probably have said more than most reviewers have already, so I'll leave it at that.

Piranesi has a 4.22 star rating on Goodreads with over 400,000 ratings, so people must like it a lot, or a whole lot of people are in on the joke - or afraid to admit they fell for it. I seem to be in the 1% of readers who don't get it's charm and would rate it 1 star. Even discounting my lack of appreciation for all the effort put into imaging this world, I have to say, I truly don't understand the appeal of this story. I guess I didn't fall for the joke.

A harsh review, I know, but then, I had to read, or at least skim-read, the whole damn thing searching for the magic. And finding none. It made me a bitter man.

The Saturday Morning Post (No. 135)

 

I found myself without a book to read owing to the one I had picked up at the library not being what I had hoped it would be (i.e. good). I was, however, waiting for another book to arrive from another library in the system, so with nothing to read and uncertain wait, I picked out an available ebook from a known author to read while I waited, and it proved to be...

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. 

Powder and Patch by Georgette Heyer   B

Given my recent track record with Georgette Heyer, this was a somewhat risky venture, but any port in a storm. She's a fairly reliable author with plenty of books to choose from, some are readily available as ebooks from the library. This was one of those books, and it proved to be a lucky choice.

This is a historical fiction romance set in the later 1700's, before the Regency Period, and the French Revolution, when France still had a king. The premise is that the males of the Jettan family have always had a reputation of sowing their wild oats as dandies in their youth. However, they have always made a point of marrying for love when the times comes for them to settle down.  The hero of this story, Philip Jettan, is the grandson of the Jettan who build a great house in the country, when it came time for him to settle down, a house he loved. This Jettan's son, after sowing his wild oats, married, had a son, Philip, and after his wife died, he too settled into the country home. Philip, grew up in this country estate, and loved the country and country life. He didn't mind being considered a bumkin, and valued honesty and plain talk; much to the despair of his father, who wanted him to follow the family tradition of sowing his wild oats; or at least dressing in fashion and learning a little about life in the wide world before setting down to marrying a nice neighbor girl, one who Philip was in love with.

This girl, however, would also have liked to see him become more fashionable as well, rather like an old neighbor who returned to the village, as a fantastically dress, witty and charming flop. So Philip's love and his father combined, convince Philip, despite his objections, to go out and become a fashionable gentleman of the world. He travels to Paris to learn how to be a fashionable young man about town at the hands of his father's old friends. A determined man, he to meet their expectations, and succeeds in becoming just such a gentleman his lover and father seem to desire. Perhaps all too well as it turns out. Be careful what you wish for...

This is one of Heyer's light-hearted stories, laced with witty dialog and colorful characters. A pleasant, quick read. I turned out to be a lucky pick. All in all, Heyer is a pretty safe choice. Tomorrow 's EXTRA! installment will feature the book I was waiting for. Was it worth the wait? stay tuned.

Fields and Fence Lines (Part Four)

Geez, I got'a lot of limits, don't I?

This time around, let's talk about imagination. A rather essential tool in a writer's tool box. I have something of an imagination, but like everything else, it definitely has its limits; it's fence lines. And it's a pretty small pasture, in fact.

Now, I've written twenty-three books, so I'm not going to complain about my imagination. Still, when I hear of people filling notebooks with story ideas and bemoaning the fact that they'll never have enough time to write all the stories they have in their head, well, I'm not in their league. I've had just enough story ideas to fill my time writing for the last 15 years, with only a few to spare, and they're spares only because I couldn't get them to work.

The funny thing is that there is not a shortage of stories that you could put your own stamp on. Millions of them. The trouble is that almost all of those stories don't interest me. And that's the key. If I were doing this for money, i.e. producing a product, that wouldn't matter. I would write the stories that research would tell me were selling in the moment. I'd write to market, and call it a job.

But as an amateur, I can afford to be picky, telling only the stories that, for one reason or another, interest me. And, as I said in my last installment in this series, I have to live with the story I'm writing in my head for six or more months, so it has to be one that I don't get bored thinking about for that long. It needs to be at least a "B" story for me.  And given how picky I am as a reader, you can see how small this pasture is.

Another limit of my imagination, and my stories, perhaps because I'm a son of an engineer, is that the stories I write have to have at least one foot in reality. They have to have a solid element of realism in them. I have no interest in writing wild, mind-blowing, impossible, or absurd stories. And that pretty much includes writing pure magic. I'll sometimes hide a science-ish explanation behind something that appears to be magic, at least from the character's point of view, but I never wave my hand and just say it's magic. I feel that's cheating.  

Because I don't have a visual mind, my settings have to be vaguely familiar, at least to start with. I have to be able to envision them - not in any great detail - but get an "impression" of them in mind. For this reason, I'm not going to be able to invent weird, alien worlds, or characters for that matter. Instead, I strive to make my worlds realistic and relatable, familiar, and yet unexplored. While I have given my readers islands floating in the air, I usually find a way to make my settings similar to my favorite historical period; the fifty years before I was born. I like to mix the old with the new, the familiar with a twist. For example, my cars are usually an electric powered Model T (well a bit little more modern, but you get the idea) and societies are powered by solar energy and stored in high capacity capacitators. My weapons are mostly non-lethal. 

I usually write my stories set in modest utopias with a nostalgic air. I avoid religion in my stories and many of my stories are post-political; an united world administered by a bureaucracy with all the rules long established. One can say that when it comes to worldbuilding, I've imagined a world I'd like it to be and have largely ceased looking for something new. I just innovate around the edges these days, voluntarily limiting my imagination, having found what I want.

As for the details of my worlds, since I can't conjure up more than an impression of a scene, much less a world, I construct them from I know from life and perhaps more importantly, from some sort of impression of the real world from my readings. For example, I have an impression of the South Sea Islands of the Pacific from reading books set in them. I used those impressions to set my Taef Lang stories in, but I dotted my south seas with islands, so that you're never out of sight of an island or two in order to make it more interesting, and more convenient for things to happen. Plus, I used all those sea stories I've read for my settings on the boats. And this method, using what I know or have read, and then designing the world to suit the story I have in mind, is true for all my worlds. 

Once I have a world in mind, no more than an impression and mood, I proceed to build it out, one concrete object after another, as I, and my characters move through it. While I can't quite picture scenes, I can imagine what items might be expected to be on stage, so to speak, and add these items to the scene, not so much "seeing" them in my mind, but rather knowing they would be there, and then constructing them in concrete terms as I go along.  This is pretty much how I paint my pictures as well; constructing the scene as I go along, from little more than an "idea" rather than a picture.

Another limit is that I write the stories I want to read, the way I want stories to read. For example, I don't care to write dark, grimdark fantasy, or horror stories, if only because I don't want to live with them in my head for months. Nor do I have any desire to read them. And there are no doubt many other types of stories I either don't have an interest in, or the imagination to write. 

And on the other hand, there are some stories that would, in theory, require less imagination than I like to use in creating my stories. For example, contemporary fiction. For me it's a been there, done that (even if I actually haven't) feeling that doesn't interest me. Historical fiction falls into this category as well; though more because of the need to conform to known facts, and having to do the research necessary to make the story fit history accurately. I'd rather invent what I need for the story, unconfined by history, then be handcuffed in storytelling by existing facts, especially since my favorite period corresponds to the early 20th century, where too much is known. Plus, there are too many wars to work around.

Characters are also limited by my imagination and personality. I do not base my characters on any real people, and so, not being a student of humanity, my characters are rather limited. Save for my narrator, I don't go deeply into their thoughts and motivations, though I try to make them more than plot devices. Even my narrator is only pleasant, but bland character, without deep thoughts and powerful emotions. The variety of my characters is also limited. I look on them as actors under contract in the old movie studio model. Like it or not, I seem to have this stable of actors in my head. They play different roles, with different names, in different stories. But like the stars of the old silver screen, even as they play different roles, there remains the essential, individual character of the actor in every role. And thus, my characters and the narrator of my stories, no matter which one, are rather similar to every other ones in all of my stories. 

And while some people can see some of my attitude in my stories, I can assure you, I'm not the narrator, nor do I want to be. Any similarity between me and my narrators is a result of the limits of my imagination, and the fact that I approach writing organically; my stories are written as if by the person experiencing the story. Essentially I am telling the story as the character, but like an actor, that character is not me. Anything anyone might see of me in the character is just the residue of the actor playing the role.

So, summing things up. I have just enough imagination to write a story or two a year, and no more. I keep my stories grounded in reality, using as much as real life imagery as I can to fill my stories and, hopefully, make them seem real, while avoiding enough everyday reality to transport my readers someplace else. And when I've found what I'm comfortable with, be it characters, the world, the technology, and the society, I don't go further. I'm content to graze within the pasture of my limits.

The Saturday Morning Post EXTRA! EXTRA! (134)

                      

In this week's second episode we take a stroll down memory lane. Or rather a hike... or maybe a safari. We're traveling more than sixty years back down memory lane as I reread one of my pre-high school era's favorite books. I first read it as a library book, though I picked up a mass market paperback some years later, and reread it again. So, without further ado...

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. 

Starnan Jones by Robert A Heinlein  C (This time around)

A "C" is actually a fairly good grade for a juvenile written in 1953. As I said in the lede, it was perhaps my favorite science fiction story of my early youth, though when I reread it in my late teens, even then I can remember thinking that it didn't measure up to my memory of it. And knowing this, I went into this reread with muted expectations.

Let's get the story out of the way. It concerns an orphan in the Ozarks whose stepmother remarries a brutal man, and the title character, Max Jones, wisely heads for the hills, taking with him his late uncle's secret navigational books of the Astrogators' Guild, i.e. the people who navigate ships in space. His uncle had promised to nominate for that guild. (All work on Earth being controlled by guilds.) He meets Sam, a kindly hobo, who, while Max sleeps, steals the books and his ID. Max continues on to the space port and confronts the Astrogators' Guild. Though they are willing to help him find a guild and give him some money,  they won't accept him into the Astrogators' Guild. Plus, he learns he's not the first Max Jones who has just showed up. Rejected, he meets Sam again in the space port. Though he has some ill feelings towards him, he lets him talk him into using the money he was given to create false records so that both of them can join the crew of the passenger starship Asguard. This works and they become members of the purser department. What follows is the star-crossed voyage of that ship, and Max's advancement on board, due, in part to fact that he has a photographic memory, and thus can remember ever digit printed on those Astrogator's books he inherited.

Looking back now, I can see many aspects in this story that have remained a staple in my reading life. One can wonder what came first, the chicken or the egg, Starman Jones or a propensity for stories about ships.

Starman Jones is essentially a sea story set aboard a ship in space. In it are all the elements of a sea story, including (spoiler) a cursed ship and shipwreck. Ships in space - real ships, not little one-man UPS Trucks in space have always been in my wheelhouse. I wrote those stories myself. And I have always loved sea stories as well, though those came afterwards. I don't think there's a cause and effect; I think ships just appeals to me, though you won't get me on one.

The second element that this Heinlein book offered, that may have appealed to me back then, is just a hint, mind you, a hint of romance. These were written for young readers, and during this stage in his career, Heinlein had little use for, nor likely did his editor, for girls and romance. Nothing comes of it, and it's rather ham-fisted in its presentation, but it's there. A romance has always been a welcome feature in my favorite books - Edgar Rice Burroughs always had one in all of his stories.

In short, it was entertaining to see how closely this story hewed to my later taste in books.

Heinlein's Earth was also very interesting, in a strange way. At the start of the story we are introduced to "trains" that fly through the air, guided by rings on towers, as well as levitating 200 feet long trucks that travel at 200 mph, and yet Max was working the family farm plowing fields behind mules. There was something like TVs, but the star ships had nothing more complicated than cameras to take sights on stars and books of calculations used to navigate; values of which had to be fed to the astrogator who steered the ship to a certain "folded" spot in space to cross lightyears in an instant. While 1953 is a pretty long time ago, I am pretty certain that even in 1953 most farmers were using tractors.

It was also interesting to see that even at this point in his career, he was getting up on his soapbox and sprinkling his libertarian philosophy throughout the story; self-reliance, anti-government, or in this case anti-guild, honesty, at least when confronted, duty, and self-sacrifice. There were, however, no mention of female crew members at all, much less female officers. Women just were meant to be wives. That came through pretty clearly since Max's almost-girl-friend, a planet's junior chess champion's only goal was to get home and marry the man she loves.

By and large, it could've been worse, but I have no desire to revisit my youth again any time soon.

The Saturday Morning Post (133)

  

This week we have another Georgette Heyer book, however, this time, as I teased in an earlier post, we have one of her mystery stories.

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

Why Shoot a Butler? by Georgette Heyer  C+ 

This is a typical 1933 English country house murder mystery. Our amateur detective is Frank Amberly, a barrister, who is said to be the rudest man in London, and not without reason. One evening Amberly gets lost on his way to his uncle's country estate and discovers a young lady standing next to a parked car. A car with a bullet hole in it, and inside, a butler with a bullet hole in him. The lady, Shirley Brown, has a automatic in her pocket, but it does not seem to have been fired. She proclaims her innocent of the deed. Amberly believes that... but what was she doing just standing there? In any event, he leaves her presence out of his report to police, and begins to investigate just what happened and why. And so begins a rather long and elaborate murder mystery story.

The story was fine enough for what it was; a classic English murder mystery with plenty of twists and turns. Perhaps too many, and too long for my taste. And it also cheats, as we are never told what Amberly is up to in his investigation, nor what he is thinking. We are left, along with the poor police sergeant, trying to figure out what Amberly is up to. It also has, what I consider, the great failing of murder mysteries in general; a series of connected murders. Three in total in this outing. If you have to keep tossing in a new murder to keep the story ticking, you haven't constructed a compelling murder mystery. But there you go; as I said a typical classic murder mystery. While it is well written with some amusing dialog, the characters are all just off the shelf, and Amberly, is indeed, rude and unlikable, and so it lacks some of the charm of the best of these classic stories. Still, it's better than any of the modern attempts to recreate this type of story. Perhaps simply because it is a product of the time, a contemporary story that the author didn't need to research Wikipedia to write. It gets the period right.

Bottom line; it was fine, but I could put it down at any time. I'll only add that I'm not much of a murder mystery fan, so you might want to factor that into my conclusion. If you are a fan of classic whodunits, you will probably not be disappointed by this story.

I might try one more of her mysteries. We'll see.