Category Archives: authors

authors, kindle, weather

Yet Another Odd Day

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Today began with the sound of rain falling hard enough to wake me up. Then a bit later the rain was gone and the wind started howling. Although the temperature finally got up to the 50s, it still felt cold with the wind. Not only that, but the wind was dry enough to remove most traces of the rain in short order. So now it is drear and overcast and calm. Quite a change form yesterday’s rather pleasant 70s, sunny, and light breeze. Springtime in Colorado continues! (At least no snow – L reported snow yesterday and today in the mountains.) On to bigger and better topics.

This weekend I installed the PC version of the Kindle book reader on the laptop here. It is an amusing experience to read via the Kindle application. On the plus side, they have made it as pain free and simple to use as possible. It is actually tolerable to read for long periods. But there are gotchas. I am one who typically scans both pages of a paperback book in an extended pass as I read. You can’t do that in the Kindle app. That is somewhat ameliorated by the larger font sizing in the app versus the paperback, but I still find that it slows my reading time versus a paperback. Not to mention the continuous tap-tap-tap of the next page button as I read – but I suspect that a good mind reading application is still a ways off. {*grin*} My recommendation? Give it a try and see what you think. And here’s a gem from XKCD about the Kindle:

Speaking of reading, do you ever find yourself beginning a book and within a paragraph feeling that you have read the book before? I have a semi-edetic memory, so I generally remember books I have read recently word for word. It is good enough so that I can refer people to the answer to their question in a manual without consulting the manual. I used to get calls while sound asleep and be able to tell the caller to read, for example, page 56 on the left most column and then promptly resume sleeping. It is amusing the reputation you can build after a few calls like that. {*grin*}

In any case, I began reading the free Kindle download of Kim Harrison’s Dead Witch Walking.  Within a paragraph I was sure I had read the book before. So I ventured out to my library – and while I had a number of Kim Harrison titles, none were Dead Witch Walking. So I read on, becoming even more certain I had read the book before. Maybe it was serialized? Maybe I read it on a website? I certainly didn’t have this cover on the shelf:

It was driving me crazy to *know* that I had read the book before but was completely unable to figure out where. Since Kim Harrison is one of the authors I like, I was certain that if I had read the story in book form, it was in my library. So I pulled down the volumes of Harrison here and began going through them to see if perhaps I had the book under a different title. Sure enough, I opened This Witch For Hire and discovered it was a combined copy of Dead Witch Walking and The Good, the Bad, and the Undead. Mystery solved.

Since it had been more than 5 years since I last read the book, I decided to go ahead and re-read it. I greatly admire the way Harrison combines fairy tale and mythological arcana, witchery, and sarcasm to generate an enthralling read. Where else do you find a wise cracking, hen-pecked, male chauvinist pixie paired with a naive witch and an undead vampire in the grip of living ennui in a private detective business sharing a re-purposed church and cemetery together with werewolves and fairies?

I most admire Kim Harrison’s writing for her handling of satire and sarcasm without going too far. I liken writing satire and sarcasm with running along the edge of a cliff – go a little too far and you are likely to suffer a devastating crash. When I write satire and sarcasm, I seem to be incapable of stopping before I dive off the cliff and crash. Ms. Harrison has the knack of teetering on the edge without falling. It makes reading her works a pleasurable yet toe curling experience. Is she going to go too far in *this* paragraph, how will she recover from this misstep? A bit like reading Terry Pratchett, only edgier.

What author(s) do you admire most for skills you cannot perfect?

P.S. Happy Birthday to the Son. Early this morning he will reach the ripe old age of 20. It sure doesn’t seem that long ago that L and I were anxiously waiting for him to make his appearance. Happy Birthday Son!


authors, Carr, mystery

Do you …

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Do you ever find some authors that you know are good, possibly even great, are highly esteemed, are lauded by others whose judgment you generally agree with, that you just cannot stomach? If you are still with me after that convoluted sentence, let me explain. This past weekend I tried to once again read several novels by John Dickson Carr. I have had five of his novels around for twenty years and make periodic attempts to read them. It never seems to work.

For those who don’t know Mr. Carr’s work, he is widely considered to be the absolute master of the locked room mystery. His protagonist, Dr. Gideon Fell, is highly educated and erudite. He is also a man of considerable size and girth. Given that I am a fan of detective fiction, intelligent protagonists, and always root for big guys (maybe a bit of personification), it seems that the Carr novels should be some of my favorites. But they aren’t. I struggle to read more than a chapter or two. And it drives me crazy because I know that if I could just get past whatever is stopping me from enjoying these books, I’d get the chance to enjoy some highly reguarded literature. This is the author that Dorothy Sayers once remarked “… can lead us away from the small, artificial, brightly lit stage of the ordinary detective plot into the menace of outer darkness.” He was the president of the Mystery Writers of America and a Grand Master recipient from the same organization.

I think what really drives me crazy is the fact that the only Carr novel that I like is one that is closer to a romantic comedy than the normal Carr novel. “The Case of the Constant Suicides” is one of my favorite locked room reads, exceeding even the Sherlock Holmes stories in my esteem. When I read that story, I experience new vistas opening before me that I know must be lurking in the other novels that I cannot stand. But it is no good. Years and multiple attempts to even tolerate the other Carr novels have fallen short.

So answer the question! Do you have authors like Mr. Carr that you know you should like and yet you just cannot do it? Who are they? And perhaps more important to my personal decades long quest: did you opinion ever change to the point you came to like that author?

authors, Molly

Help, I’m in trouble with my dog

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It’s official. Molly is sure I have a spare mistress hidden in my office and is upset about it.

This afternoon, I’m attempting to listen to the podcast of “Herding Vegetable Sheep” by Ekaterina Sedia as read by Kate Baker from the Clarkesworld site. Molly keeps running into the office barking and looking about. Ms Baker has one of those husky voices that sounds sexy even when emanating boredom while reading the phonebook and that triggered Molly’s jealous streak. Every time I turned up the audio, Molly came sprinting into my office, barking and searching.

When Molly couldn’t find the lady so obviously speaking, she turned to me and gave me the look. You know, the one that says “this voice isn’t L and yet it sounds like a young lady, so where is she? Huh? HUH? What are you hiding from me? Come on, I know you’ve hidden her somewhere.” How do you respond to a look like this?

I have to admit it was an effective look. I immediately felt guilty for listening to the reading. But then it hit me that I had nothing to feel guilty about, so why was I letting the dog make me feel that way. (It might be those big brown eyes. I don’t know.) In the end, I outfoxed Molly by reading the printed version of the story. (So there!) After all, what Molly can’t hear won’t hurt her.

It’s now an hour or more later and Molly is still sitting here in my office looking at me very intently as if to say, “I know you hid that lady somewhere and I’m not leaving until she comes out.” Wonder if she’ll give it up when I go to make supper? It’s a real shame when your dog thinks you’re holding out on her.

Anyway, for those of you that enjoy Sci-Fi and non-fiction about the field of science fiction, I highly recommend the Clarkesworld site. The ezine they publish has some very good short stories and audio readings. Given the collapsing market in short stories as the more traditional mags fold up shop, this is becoming one of the premiere places to see new authors cut their teeth. The addition to the mix of an occasional story by masters like Mike Resnick and Robert Reed adds just the right spice.

Since I seem to be a bit book and author tracked at the moment, I’d also like to recommend the Robert Burton Robinson site. He has four of his Greg Tenorly series novels available for download and they are a very pleasant read; a combination of mystery, detective, and romance. He also has a couple of his other novels and a chapter serialization of his newest novel available on-line.

Back to work. I still have to figure out how to convince Molly that there is no new mistress so we can return to normal.