So lately I’ve been doing mostly Teaser Tuesday posts, which are quick and fun, but for the last post of the year I thought I would go back and do another comparison of an original scene from the Shards follow-up, The War of the Ravels, and the same scene as it currently stands in the draft revision. (The final revision will be done in 2013.) Although the scene name remains the same for the moment, and the activity in the scene is similar — Mercy is still going after Daras-Drûm, AKA the death-wind — the setting has totally changed. There’s no longer a flashback to Yexandor’s place (which in the current version was no longer a temple, but instead a fallen tree) and a certain blue-skinned sorcerer, whose influence is alluded to in the original scene, is no longer involved in the death-wind’s activities. But other than that it hasn’t changed at all.
Tag: Excerpts
Teaser Tuesday 12/18/2012: A Plague of Demons
This week I’m reading A Plague of Demons by Keith Laumer, another of the e-books that I downloaded directly from Baen’s Free Library. This is not the sequel to the much-loved A Plague of Angels (that would be the quite avoidable The Waters Rising); rather, it’s about aliens in North Africa harvesting brains. Why? I don’t know yet. Maybe they sell them in roach coaches that roam zombie-infested areas. (Or maybe not.)
Then I re-crossed the street, slowed, and gave half a dozen grimy windows filled with moth-riddled mats and hammered brass atrocities more attention than they deserved. By the time I reached the end of the long block, I was sure: the little man with the formerly white suit and the pendulous lower lip was following me.
Another protagonist being followed by another unskilled tail? I see a trend! Clearly our villains need to invest in a training program for their operatives.
And, of course, here is this weeks teaser from The War of the Ravels!
“They were issuing weapons to every man who could hold a blade,” Cynidece said. “Even you probably would have gotten one, if Aldric hadn’t tucked you into his fancy cab and given his horse a smack on the rump to make it run along home.”
Teaser Tuesday 12/11/2012: “Tears in Rain”
This month my free book from Amazon is Tears in Rain by Rosa Montero. The astute reader may recognize “tears in rain” as part of Rutger Hauer’s epic Famous Last Words in the film “Blade Runner”, appearing here as listed on Wikipedia:
“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. [laughs] Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like [coughs] tears in rain. Time to die.”
Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday 12/11/2012: “Tears in Rain””
Teaser Tuesday 11/20/2012: “The Half-Made World”
Well I finally paid for another book, The Half-Made World by Felix Gilman. Why, you ask? Two reasons:
Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday 11/20/2012: “The Half-Made World””
Teaser Tuesday 10/23/2012: “Bad Juju and Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem”
So my quest to save money continues this week with Bad Juju and Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem, a collection of short stories by Jonathan Woods. It’s sort of like what you might get if Joe R. Lansdale, Elmore Leonard, and Carl Hiaasen spent the night together drinking and trying to top each other with crazy stories about life in an unnamed Caribbean republic. For some reason, the setting keeps making me think of a much, much seedier version of Catalina Island, probably because that’s the only island I visit on any sort of regular basis.
As Ariel’s hands grabbed my throat, I kneed him in the jewels as hard as I could. The next instant he was writhing on the floor like a dying insect.
Oh, ouch. I’ve got nothing to add to that one!
And, of course, here is this week’s excerpt from The War of the Ravels, my current work in progress:
The sun lay very near the horizon now, thick and red, coloring the sky with swirls of angry color. The bottom of the chasm became obscured by a thick layer of luminous fog that oozed up from the sea, as if someone had dumped a massive quantity of dry ice into the water and then lit it from below with flood lamps.
Hmm, that can’t be good …
Teaser Tuesday (Or Wednesday Or Whatever If I Screw The Date Up Again): “Pines”
This week I’m reading Pines, by Blake Crouch. This is another Prime freebie for the Kindle, thus continuing my effort to avoid spending money on books for a while — an effort which has probably just been extended by another few months due to my iPod’s unfortunate high-speed encounter with a tile floor. Deceleration trauma is rough on small spinning drives! Anyway, “Pines” is about a Secret Service agents who awakens in a small Idaho town following a car crash, and has a rather rough time leaving. I’m almost finished with it and, while I figured out the Big Twist well before the Big Reveal, the rules say no spoilers, so I had to choose my two sentences carefully. Here goes!
“It’s done,” Pilcher said, “and you’re my new sheriff. Welcome aboard.”
Believe me, this falls into the category of “An Offer You Can’t Refuse”.
And now, of course, here is this week’s teaser from The War of the Ravels:
The innkeeper tugged his blade free again, and accidentally dropped it this time. It failed to penetrate the ground, ending up lying on its side like some sort of unintentional metaphor.
Teaser Tuesday 9/25/2012: “Ghosts of a Tired Universe”
So now I’m reading a book called Ghosts of a Tired Universe, which is not to be confused with “Ghosts: The Complete Series”. For one thing, so far, this book doesn’t have any actual ghosts in it. This one is under the impression that it has something profound to say about Physics and Art (which, in the context of the book, would definitely be capitalized). I haven’t quite decided what I think of it yet, but I’m still reading, so it’s one up on the dreadful Seed from a few weeks back.
Dormius didn’t know at the time that the addiction to brightness had begun to seep into him as well. He too would one day have to rise from that subterranean playground and grow into the being he was meant to become.
Hey, Dormius, be careful with that. Sometimes, growing into the being you were meant to become gets you stabbed by The Slayer and sent to a hell dimension.
And of course, here’s a little teaser from the current section of The War of the Ravels that I’m working on:
“I delivered clothes to them as well, though whether that—” Here he wrinkled his nose a little. “—woman chooses to wear them rather than go around the common room in her shift remains unknown.”
Readers of Shards may be able to guess whose line that is; and the woman in question isn’t Mercy, of course. After all, Mercy is not, at the moment, a woman — she’s an elf. Semantics!
Teaser Tuesday 9/18/2012: More “Ghosts: The Complete Series”
Still reading “Ghosts: The Complete Series” by Amy Cross. At this rate, I’ll be finishing it up just in time to become eligible to borrow another book from the Kindle Lending Library. After spending all my book money for, oh, the next year or so on car repairs last month, this is a good thing. Long books FTW!
“Just tell me,” I say. “Don’t say I can’t handle the truth.”
And in case you were wondering, she is not talking to Jack Nicholson.
And of course, here’s this week’s teaser from “The War of the Ravels”!
In effect, she would be using herself as the battery to power Daras-Drûm’s prison. That might work for a while, but the way everyone talked about this entity, she didn’t think she’d be able to contain it for very long; you didn’t get to be nicknamed “the death-wind” without having some kick.
Indeed, one way to get nicknamed “the death-wind” is to be a demonic entity with a group of necromantic priests as followers commanding legions of the dead; another is to be Tucker the Vizsla. Guess which one Daras-Drûm is …
Teaser Tuesday 9/11/2012: “Ghosts: The Complete Series”
This week I’m reading “Ghosts: The Complete Series” by Amy Cross. It’s a set of eight books—actually more like novellas—that, together, add up to about 150,000 words, or about the same length as “Shards” and “The War of the Ravels” put together. I borrowed it for free from the Kindle lending library. So far I like it much better than the last book I borrowed. The premise of “Ghosts” is that God and Satan, as part of a bet with each other, erase their memories and come to a small town in Texas to try living as humans, and an angel comes to find them and bring them back where they belong — or, as the angel might put it, “Beings that would correspond to your ideas of God and Satan are in town and I, a being who would correspond to your idea of an angel, am here to retrieve them.” Weasel words aside, it’s a quick, amusing read so far. And now for the teaser!
“He smuggled pure adrenalin into the execution chamber, injected his own heart moments before the governor was about to give the order to kill him. Everyone was very annoyed, as you can imagine.”
Or, as Steve Dallas once told Bill the Cat: “How would we look if we let you die in prison before we could execute you? Pretty damn silly, that’s how!”
And of course, here’s this week’s teaser from “The War of the Ravels”!
“Nobody’s doing any farmhouse-barricading,” Mercy said. “Doesn’t work in the movies, won’t work here.”
Oh dear. Barricading oneself in a farmhouse? That can only mean an impending zombie attack! Or something worse …
Teaser Tuesday: “The Bleeding Season”
This week I picked up The Bleeding Season by Greg Gifune. At $2.99 for the Kindle edition (just like a certain other author’s books …) it was definitely the right price after a couple of expensive car repairs.
Some may remember that Greg Gifune was the editor of a magazine called “The Edge” that, way back when, published one of my short stories, “Singletrack“, in which wildlife is disturbed during a biking trip in the Adirondacks, to deleterious effect.
The pizza place downstairs didn’t open for another couple hours, so none of the smells that normally invaded the apartment (no matter what we did to try and cover them) had seeped up through the floor yet. I sat there groggily for a moment, noticed it was still overcast and cloudy but the rain had stopped and the apartment was quiet.
I’m still trying to figure out why one would want to cover up the smells of a pizza place. Meanwhile, here is this week’s supplemental teaser, from “The War of the Ravels”:
After a few moments of silence, Nebandalex said: “Surely whoever is responsible for making sure someone is sitting in the throne would understand if you told them you needed to save the city from ruin, and that their schedule would have to wait.”
“I see you are not familiar with the workings of a court,” Arran Blackhawk said.
Viscosity 