Uncategorized

Better than he that taketh a city

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First of all, my exacting sense of justice requires me to say a word of praise for my congressman, Keith Ellison. I’ve written harsh things about him here (and surely will again), but in actually trying to do something about the crimes of an African government (and an Islamic African government at that) he’s showing more principle than the average Democrat. More than the average Republican, for that matter.



Saturday was garage clean-up day for the Viking Age Club & Society of the Sons of Norway. Times are lean even for the wolves of the sea, and so we’ve decided to move one of our boats out of paid storage and into the garage of one of our founding members (for slightly less pay). But that required a communal effort to help clean his garage out and install shelves for the Viking stuff he was already storing there. Nature cooperated by not sending the predicted rain, but we still managed to get a lot less work done than we’d planned. We were, however, immensely successful in talking to each other and eating a lot of pizza.

Everyone admired my new book cover.



I had a personal victory in the area of self-control. (May I note, in passing, that I really hate maturity?) Museum Replicas, Ltd., of Atlanta, the budget-conscious reenactor’s best friend, has a clearance sale going on, and one of the items advertised is this Norwegian Viking sword, which I could have had for $160 (plus shipping and handling. Oh yes, I’d have wanted it sharpened too. That’s extra). It’s a great deal, I said to myself. You can’t miss an opportunity like that!

Well, yes. Yes I can. I have more practical uses for the money, and I know it. And, as I replied to myself, Soon I’ll be rich from book royalties, and then I’ll be able to afford an Albion sword.

Authors

Write to a Normal Length

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Sci-Fi author Paul McAuley talks about writing science fiction in the United Kingdom.

Here in the UK, there are now only three major imprints that regularly publish sf; a major reduction in the diversity of the genre’s ecological niche. And for the most part writers can no longer develop their careers in public, fostered by a sympathetic editor: they have to hit the ball out of the park with their first novel. It’s either two strikes and you’re out, or keep hitting home runs with the same rhythm and swing – if you do write a successful novel, the publisher wants more just like it, in other words. Which is why, I guess, there are more series around, now. So the market is much tougher than when I started out, but in general the ambition of writers is higher, too. I wouldn’t mind seeing some shorter novels, though. Or rather, seeing novels written to their natural length, instead of being pointlessly expanded by the equivalent of the fluff that bulks out padded envelopes.

Goofing

Swine flu over the cuckoo’s nest

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Over 1,000 people are reported to have contracted the new swine flu in Mexico, and it’s been spotted in California and Texas. Here’s a report from FOXNews.

The U.S. government said it was closely following the new cases. “The White House is taking the situation seriously and monitoring for any new developments. The president has been fully briefed,” an administration official said.

White House sources report that, if the flu becomes a serious menace to the U.S., President Obama (peace be upon him) is prepared to fly immediately to meet with it, shake its hand and apologize for America’s record of antivirus imperialism.

Fiction, Writing

The enemy with a thousand faces

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If you follow our comments (each to his own taste) you’ll have noted an exchange following Phil’s “Questions” post, in which I talk about my personal emotional problem with shame. It’s an awkward sort of conversation, as I no doubt appear partly self-pitying and partly just perverse, responding to everything with a one-size-fits-all, “That makes me feel ashamed.” Although I can see how it might look as if I was playing a game, let me assure you that I’m dead serious. That’s what it’s like to have a shame problem. Whatever you think about anything, good or bad, helpful or worthless, shame is always there, in some different form. It’s a ubiquitous, protean enemy.

Thinking about it this evening, it occurred to me that that would make a great theme for a fantasy story. I could have a villain who was a shape-changer, who follows the hero wherever he goes, and confronts him again and again in different disguises.

And then I realized, with a shock, that I’d already written that story. My new book (which, in case you’ve forgotten, is called West Oversea) features a villain who’s a shape-changer. He follows Erling Skjalgsson wherever he goes, even in a voyage to North America, and confronts him again and again in a variety of disguises.

I wrote an allegory on my own condition, and didn’t even realize it.

I’ll figure out a way to feel ashamed of that, too….

Uncategorized

The Friday Fight: Spears Tveir

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I know we had spears last week, but we’re having spears again this week, and it’s good for you. I’d think the man with the spear would be at a disadvantage, but he pulls through.

Non-fiction

A New Book on Fasting

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On Discerning Reader, Trevin Wax recommends a new book by Scot McKnight called, Fasting.

The greatest strength of the book is McKnight’s picture of fasting as a response, never an instrumental practice in which we try to receive something. We go without food because of what has taken place in our hearts.

The book lays out the different ways that fasting serves a response. It can be an expression of repentance, a response to a moment in which we feel we must earnestly seek God, a response to grief (McKnight sees grief as the thread that connects all the various fasting practices). Fasting can sometimes be a response to our need for spiritual discipline, a response to our corporate life together, even a response to poverty and injustice.

Non-fiction

In Praise of Being Unfashionable

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Glenn Lucke recommends a new book by Tullian Tchividjian, the new pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian, called Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the world by being different. He says it’s a very useful tool for standing out for Christ in appropriate ways.

From the forward, Tim Keller, a great pastor and author, states, “Here you will learn how we must contextualize, how we Christians should be as active in Hollywood, Wall Street, Greenwich Village, and Harvard Square (if not more) than the halls of Washington, DC. And yet, there are ringing calls to form a distinct, ‘thick’ Christian counter-culture as perhaps the ultimate witness to the presence of the future, the coming of the Kingdom.”

Book Reviews, Creative Culture