All posts by Lars Walker

Reading

Creeping into the 21st century

Leave a comment

C. S. Lewis wrote somewhere that for modern souls, the acquisition of new appliances, vehicles, and entertainment devices constituted “the very stages of their pilgrimage.” I bear that in mind as I announce my acquisition of a Kindle HD.

As you know if you’ve been following this blog, I’ve had a Kindle Keyboard (the generous gift of no less a figure than the learned Dr. Hunter Baker) for some years now, and have fallen wholly under its sway. I like its ergonomics, its lightness, and the opportunity, when I need a new book, to satisfy my jones in about a minute. I treasure my Kindle Keyboard, and have no plans to abandon it. In the single day I’ve owned my Fire, I’ve tried reading on it, and it’s fine. I’m sure I could transition to it as a regular reading device without trouble. But the battery on my old Kindle lasts longer, and the essential reading’s equally good.

The Kindle Fire HD is a genuine tablet, albeit a low-end, entry-level one. The first thing that impressed me was the graphics. What I see on my device doesn’t have the definition of the more expensive Kindles, but nevertheless it amazed me. I got a free month of Amazon Prime with my purchase, and I downloaded an episode of “Justified.” I was highly impressed with the speed and picture quality (though downloading YouTube videos can be annoyingly slow and page loading can be poky). Also impressive was the Dolby sound, which is amazingly good for such a small device.

I’m still learning to navigate on the thing, and experiencing the normal old dog’s problems. I like the way you can move around and zoom in on the screen with a finger swipe, and I think the whole thing will become pretty instinctive before long. For someone who’s always worked with Windows, the whole “Mojito” operating system involves a little techno-shock, but like all systems it makes its own kind of sense. The virtual keyboard is OK; it confounded me for a while but I think I’m catching on.

The main reason for the low price of this Kindle is that it doesn’t have either a camera or a microphone, so the buyer should be aware of that. I bought mine because I wanted more flexibility in accessing the web. I think I’ll even be able to do some of my graduate course work through it; at least that is my hope.

This is a preliminary evaluation. I’ll let you know if I change my mind about anything.

Fiction, Reviews

Sons and Princes, by James LePore

Leave a comment


…Chris thought of Jimmy Barsonetti, a man who, if there ever was one, deserved to die. He knew in his bones not only that he deserved to die, but that the truest justice comes at the hand of the victim, or his family. Had this been Joe Black’s code? On the one chance he had had to ask that question, Chris had been too young, and too paralyzed by the weight of Joe Black’s persona to speak up. He “followed orders” his father had said, but what happened when the orders he received were evil? What did Joe Black do then? That was the question Chris had never asked, afraid of what the answer would be.

Sometimes you run across a book that you like very much, but aren’t entirely sure you understand. But that said, I have to give Sons and Princes by James LePore a high rating.

The hero of Sons and Princes is Chris Massi, a son of the Mob. His father was a respected and feared hit man. He used to be married to the daughter of a don. Nevertheless, he never wanted to be part of that world, and became a lawyer instead. He worries over his son and daughter, being raised by their mother in the shadow of the Family.

But Chris’ plans for his life have gone off track. The district attorney, once Chris’ best friend but now his greatest enemy, tried to send him to prison, and did succeed in getting him disbarred. Now the don is making Chris an offer he… well, you know. He tells Chris that a rival don murdered his father. And if Chris will kill that don, he will send Chris’ son to live with him, out of the seductive mob environment.

Chris is dismayed at the choice, but that’s only the beginning. Things are going to get very nasty, and people are going to die, and the secrets of a number of hearts will be revealed.

There’s a strange double vision in this book. There’s a compelling sense of morality, and even of Christian faith. Chris is a Catholic believer, and there’s a very decent priest involved, and one character turns to prayer in desperation, and the prayer is answered. Yet the idea of vengeance also permeates the story.

That said, I enjoyed Sons and Princes quite a lot. I recommend it. Read it yourself and see what you think. The usual cautions for language and adult themes apply.

Bookselling

Prices subject to change without notice

Leave a comment

Tonight, crowdsourcing. Or a social experiment. What I mean is I want your opinion.

I was talking to someone the other day about the way my novels are languishing at Amazon (my big exposure through Christianity Today the other day resulted in a total of 20 copies sold), and I mentioned that I’m asking $2.99 for a download. My friend suggested maybe that’s too little. Perhaps people assume that a $2.99 book isn’t to be taken seriously.

Baen is charging $6.99 for The Year of the Warrior.

I take it for granted anyone who reads this blog and is in a position to buy an e-book has already gotten their own $2.99 copy. So you have nothing to lose by giving me your honest opinion. Do you think the books would sell better at $4.99? $5.99?

I figure we could run a sale once or twice a year. Hard to do a sale at $2.99, unless you just make it free.

Tell me what you think.

Authors, Bookselling

Klavan and the Imp of the Perverse

Leave a comment


Today, Andrew Klavan announced the release of his new young adult thriller, Nightmare City. In an interesting post on his approach to writing for that market, he makes some cogent points:

Criticize the selling of self-destructive behavior to the young and you’re “puritanical,” or “slut-shaming,” or being “unrealistic about the modern world.” But in fact, this effort to normalize the degraded is itself perverse in the extreme. It’s the incarnation of that imp within who urges us to do ill to what we love the best: ourselves and our children. The people who peddle this trash curse those who dare to criticize them so loudly precisely because they know they are doing wrong and can’t stop themselves. Believe me: the person who accuses you of “slut-shaming,” is herself deeply ashamed.

The term “The Imp of the Perverse” is a reference to story by Poe.

Reviews

Netflix review: "Solomon Kane'

Leave a comment

The 2009 film version of Robert E. Howard’s second most famous fantasy hero, Solomon Kane, came and went almost without my notice. I think many people, even fellow Howard fans, had the same experience. But I caught it on Netflix yesterday, and found it considerably better than I expected, though not without faults.
For a writer of no particular religious belief and rather freethinking sexual views, it was an odd choice on Howard’s part to create a character who was an English Puritan. Of course he made up for that by essentially having no idea what Puritans believed, and the movie shares that ignorance. Still he created an interesting character – more a type than a character, really – who lives and travels the world for the sole purpose of fighting evil.
This movie, intended as the first of a trilogy, is an origin story for the character, giving us background Howard never bothered with. In this imagining Solomon is the son of an English West Country nobleman, banished by his father. At first he traveled the world as a sort of pirate, cruel and greedy but unmatched in his fighting skills. Then, after an experience when his lust for gold brought disaster to his crew, he retired to what appears to be a monastery in England (which is historically problematic, as the story date, though uncertain, must be later than Henry VIII’s dissolution of Catholic institutions). There he comes to the questionable conviction that he can achieve redemption by living “a life of peace.” Continue reading Netflix review: "Solomon Kane' →

Uncategorized

Not my usual Halloween

Leave a comment

If I’d known what I was getting into when I agreed to be one of the Vikings present last night at the American Swedish Institute’s annual “Loki’s Bash” Halloween party, I might not have done it. It was only after agreeing that I learned that one of the event’s sponsors was a local paranormal society, and that divination would be performed as part of the festivities.
But I’d given my word, so I set off. As it turns out, it wasn’t so bad. No doubt I was surrounded by people who would have considered me a Nazi if I’d shared any of my views, but that’s a less and less infrequent experience for me. And I don’t think anything went on, in terms of the occult, that didn’t also happen at the Science Fiction cons I attended. In any case, all of that was out of my sight.
What I did see was an endless parade of (mostly) young adults (total attendance, I’m told, was 1,600) adorned in costumes of varying degrees of quality, cleverness, and good taste. A fair number were dressed as they imagined Vikings would be, in keeping with the event theme. Many were identifiable characters from movies and TV shows. Many others, no doubt, were identifiable characters from movies and TV shows I’ve never heard of. Others were puzzles. Some were meant to be puzzles.
Take for instance, my favorite. There was a young woman there dressed in a black dress with white collar and cuffs. She wore a gray wig plaited in two pigtails. And she had an eyepatch and two toy ravens perched on her shoulders.
I finally had to ask. “Schoolgirl Odin?” I asked.
“No,” she laughed. “I knew it was too complicated. I’m Wednesday Addams. But Wednesday is Odin’s day.”
Makes perfect sense when you think about it.
I got home after midnight, and to bed after 1:00 a.m. My alarm clock picked this morning, of all mornings, to lose its bearings and set off its alarm about forty minutes early.
I blame witches.

Fiction

"It's alive! It's alive!"

Leave a comment



Actor T. P. Cooke portraying Frankenstein’s monster in an 1823 theatrical production.

How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavored to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! –Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath. His hair was a lustrous black, and flowing. His teeth of a pearly whiteness. But these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same color as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shriveled complexion and straight black lips.

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus, 1818.

I probably won’t be posting tomorrow, as I have a thing going on in the evening. Silver bullets to shoot, stakes to drive through hearts, you know the sort of thing.

Fiction, Reviews

Dead Man's Footsteps, by Peter James

Leave a comment


I read and reviewed one of Peter James’ earlier Det. Supt. Roy Grace novels, Dead Simple, several years back, and gave it a middling grade.
But I unwittingly downloaded the Kindle version of another one, Dead Man’s Footsteps, recently, and enjoyed it very much. I thought the characters were better developed here, and Superintendent Grace’s (to me) regrettable interest in psychic evidence only got a passing mention.
The story involves several seemingly unconnected threads, which duly come together in the end, as the real identities of various characters are gradually revealed (with some red herrings thrown in for the fun of it). Supt. Grace is called out to a construction site in his city of Brighton, where a skeleton has been discovered in an old storm drain. Several indications lead him to believe that it might be the remains of his beloved first wife Sandy, who disappeared, as if into thin air, some years ago. Meanwhile a woman is caught in an elevator in her high rise, spending more than a day in terror, unable to send an alarm or use the emergency phone. And we flash back to the morning of September 11, 2001, as a shady Englishman in Manhattan heads for a fateful meeting in the World Trade Center.
The story is long and convoluted, but that’s more a feature than a bug; there are a lot of puzzles here for the reader to work out. And this time the characters were pretty interesting, at least to me. And the story ended with a surprise neat enough to give me a little chill.
Recommended. Cautions for language, adult themes, and a steamy sex scene.

Blogs, Socials

And now I aspire to a nap

Leave a comment

What a strange day. I was very low and very high within a few hours, and all through the mediation of the Internet. This whole thing would have been inconceivable just 20 years ago.

First, though, the weekend report. My big project was my annual ceremony of seeking out and repairing cracks in the retaining wall on the west side of my property, so it doesn’t rain chips down onto my neighbor’s driveway, or give way altogether in small landslide. The neighbor and I have discussed replacing the whole thing, but that awaits the Day When My Ship Comes In. A movie deal would do it.

I knew ahead of time that the work would leave me walking like Walter Brennan on the old Real McCoys TV series, which most of you are too young to remember. Which is just the sort of thing Grandpa McCoy would have said himself, except that he would have said it about Vaudeville or nickelodeon shows.

The other big accomplishment of the weekend was submitting my first research paper for my grad school class. Worked hard trying to master the APA style, and had to cut out half my text after I realized I’d forgotten to make it double spaced. I’ve often had people (some of them with doctorates) tell me they can’t imagine writing a novel. I for my part have a hard time imagining writing a doctoral thesis.

So I hobble into work today and check the grad school web access page, and find that my instructor has critiqued my paper, but not given me any grade points. I took that to mean I’d failed the assignment, and so plunged into Stygian depression. I have to maintain a B average to stay in school. All that was over now, I thought. I was done. Bound for unemployment and life on the street.

Then I e-mailed the instructor, asking her to explain. She e-mailed back that she just hadn’t assigned grades yet.

OK. Never mind, then.

And then I get a plug from John Wilson at Christianity Today’s Books & Culture podcast (see below). That’s like a bucket list thing for me. All my life, Christianity Today has been the standard of intellectual respectability in the evangelical world. And I made it! In a way.

My grandmother would have been so proud. Though I’d have to explain to her what the Internet and podcasts are.

Then we could commiserate about our stiff joints.

Uncategorized

Networking

Leave a comment

Had a small adventure today, a step outside my customary work orbit. It involved a connection with a fellow blogger, too.

Dennis Ingolfsland (a fine Norwegian name) is the chief librarian at Crown College in St. Bonifacius, Minnesota, a school of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. He’s also the blogger at The Recliner Commentaries, a fine blog I’ve been following for years. He doesn’t post as often as I’d wish, but then he’s a teacher as well as a librarian. Also the pastor of a church. That’ll eat into your time.

I’m in the last stages right now of composing a research paper on Theological Librarianship for my grad school class. One thing I was required to do for that project was to interview some working librarians in the field I’m covering. I e-mailed three, and they all agreed to help (librarians, I’m discovering, are a remarkably helpful and accommodating group. Which makes me wonder whether I’m cut out for the job). Dennis invited me to come out to Crown and look at their set-up, and I decided it would be a good idea.

He showed me through their library, which is far larger, better organized, and more sophisticated than mine is. He gave me some good suggestions for connections to online resources. And he bought me lunch, on the college’s dime.

I think they must have confused me with somebody else.

In any case, thanks, Dennis.