The Spirit Well

The Spirit Well is book three in Stephen Lawhead's Bright Empires series currently scheduled to have five books. I reviewed book one, The Skin Map, here and book two, The Bone House, here. The titles of these books are great, and, as I've said before, I  love a good title. Book four is called The Shadow Lamp. Hmm... shadows... I have this thing for shadows.

As I mentioned in the review for The Skin Map, I started out not really liking the main character, Kit, of this series. He was... well, wishy-washy, at best. He spent a lot of that book whining and complaining and, honestly, by the end of it, I was pretty sick of him. If it hadn't been by Lawhead, I may not have continued on.

But I'm glad that I did, because Kit really grew into himself as a character in the second book, which probably had a lot to do with the tragic ending of the first. In the second book, we see Kit take control of himself and strengthen his will and resolve. He becomes a character that takes action rather than just trailing along behind. Of course, he doesn't really know what he's doing, but he means to do it well.

The third book gives us a Kit that becomes strong in body and mind, too. In many ways, he has no choice in the matter considering he gets trapped in a stone age past (but, remember, this isn't time travel) with a clan of cave men. By the end of his time there, he doesn't want to leave. It's interesting character growth and I really enjoyed those sections of the book.

The book, on the whole, centers on character growth and story growth. The plot doesn't really advance, but we do see it filled out and some of the missing pieces from the first two books filled in. There's also a new character, which seems a little late to me for her to be coming in in book three, but we'll see how that plays out. She seems to be important and much of the book centered on her journey to get her up to the same point as the rest of the characters. She's not the only new character, but the rest are characters related to the Arthur story line, so they weren't like bringing in a whole new plot thread.

So, overall, the book kept me engrossed, and I really want to know where Lawhead is going with all of this. There are hints of a larger "quest," "quest" being used in the sense of (King) Arthur's Quest for the Holy Grail, and, in some ways, this is a parallel type story to that. There are definitely Grail Quest overtones, at any rate, not to mention the use of "Arthur" as one of the character names. And, then, there is that Lawhead has actually written one of the best Arthurian series I've ever read, so, I suppose, it would be difficult to escape those things. To say the least, I am looking forward to the fourth book (as soon as it's out in paperback).

One thing, though, these are not in any way individual books within a larger story line. You can't grab book three and expect to understand what's going on, nor can you read the first book and expect a satisfactory ending. There is just one story, here, being told across multiple books. So far, it's a good story.

Old White Dudes and Why I Don't Want To Be One

Last week, I talked about the Cotati Accordion Festival, which is a great event, and I enjoy going to it. Generally, speaking, there's great music, good food, and lots of incredible accordions to look at (because they always have booths where they're being sold), and The Great Morgani and his crazy costumes.

One of last year's costumes.

There were a couple of drawbacks this year, though; one of which was that the music wasn't quite as good as it normally is. The other was that there seemed to be a prevalence of OWDS among  the crowd.

Here's what happened (not in chronological order):

First incident:
There was an old dude that kept taking his clothes off. Now, if it had been like crazy person taking his clothes off, that would have been one thing, but this guy wasn't crazy. He just seemed to think that it was okay for him to change clothes wherever he wanted to. I mean, maybe he thought he was at Burning Man or something, but I really don't think so. He just seemed to think it was okay... for him. Seriously, at one point he just stripped down to his "shorts," pulled new clothes out of his backpack, and put them on. And it wasn't like he went off somewhere to do that. He was right up at the stage while someone was playing. Evidently, he just wanted something more comfortable to dance around in. Another time, he went over and bought a t-shirt, so he just disrobed right there at the booth after buying the shirt so that he could change into it. The guy had a flaming case of entitlement.

Second incident:
They had a tent set up with a dance floor in it and zydeco music going on. My wife, her sister, and my daughter went in to dance. Also, the Great Morgani was in there dancing in his old lady costume (so hilarious!). I was standing at the edge of the tent with my left hand on one of the ropes watching them dance (but mostly watching Morgani (because, again, hilarious!)). Someone bumped my left shoulder. I let go of the rope and turned to see who it was, some dude (older than me) with a beer in his hand. Now, the act of turning caused an opening (of sorts) between myself and the rope, and the dude put his left shoulder into the opening so I couldn't turn back to where I had been. Slightly annoyed, I moved over a bit. A moment later, he bumped me again, and, again, I turned to see what was up, and he did the same thing, edging more into the opening I'd made. So I moved again. A moment late, he did it AGAIN, and, instead of just turning to look at him again, I stepped to the side and turned just in time to see him switch his beer to his right hand and grab the rope with his left effectively taking the spot I had been standing in when he first came up. He ignored the fact that I was staring aghast at him and just started bouncing with the music and sipping his beer.

Basically, he had just wanted my spot and proceeded to bump me out of it. If I hadn't known that it would be greatly upsetting to my wife, I would have told him exactly what I thought of his entitlement issues and rude behavior, neither of which he could see. To him, that spot deserved to be his, and he hadn't done anything wrong. But I did know that my wife wouldn't want me to cause a scene, so I moved away from the gashole (that's a new word in our house; it's that thing on your car where you put the gas in), fuming all the while.

Third incident:
The worst one, though, was this dude that was probably actually around my age, so not all that old. Seriously entitled, though. He kept wandering and dancing through the crowd and putting his hands and arms on people and trying to dance them around. By people, I mean women. He was acting all cheerful and cherubic, but it was clearly not welcome attention by many people, including my wife. Now, we'd already been observing his behavior, so when he walked past us and moved toward my wife, she backed away; some women, though, were not that lucky, and, whenever someone brushed him off or pushed him away, he would shrug like it was their problem, not his. He didn't leave the men completely alone, because he would give husbands and boyfriends or whomevers back pats and half hugs to let them know it was okay that he had just molested their women.

When he wasn't doing that stuff, he was walking around like he was the godfather of the festival bestowing blessings on people. And if you're wondering if this was some important dude, don't. It was just some old white dude exercising his entitlement. He had no problems. Any problems were with the other people. After all, he was just having a good time.

So I've used this one event to spotlight these issues, but this is only one example. There was also the recent thing with SFWA and a bunch of old white dudes saying how women shouldn't even be writing science fiction. And there was the deal with the white dudes harassing women at SDCC about how they weren't worthy fans and only wanted to play dress up or some such. And don't even get me started on how white dudes think they ought to get to drive.

In short, we here in the US are suffering from a horrible case of OWDS. Even people who don't have it are being affected by it, probably on a daily basis, much like non-smokers are affected by second-hand smoke. And, like second-hand smoke, being affected by it is worse than actually having it. In fact, people with it probably don't know they have it, wouldn't care if they did know, and would probably think it was a good thing anyway. It's particularly rampant among baby boomers, but there are plenty of signs of the early stages in younger generations.

What is it, exactly, that I'm talking about? Old White Dude Syndrome. It's a horrible disease and usually incurable; however, with proper education and preventative measures most of the symptoms can be minimized. As with any disease, the best prevention is early detection.

Most commonly, this affliction is seen among those we would consider the 1%. At least, that's where we see the symptoms most out-of-hand, especially among politicians. Some current examples:

• Donald Trump and his unwillingness to shake hands with the disease-ridden poor.
• Anthony Weiner and his weiner.
• Romney and his seeming belief (yes, I'm being generous) that half of American citizens want to do nothing more than live off of government handouts. Because they're not rich, see. If only they weren't so lazy, they would be rich, too.

Whereas those are some examples of out-of-control symptoms, we can see the beginnings of OWDS in the entitlement issues that white dudes everywhere have. I mean, come on, since when has it ever been okay to just walk through a crowd groping on women and dancing them around? And that shrug the guy gave was almost as if to say, "It's okay; I'm white."

It's getting to be a thing between me and my wife whenever we see some old white dude acting in one of these entitled ways that I will turn to her and say something like, "Don't ever let me act like that. Just slap me or something, and, if that doesn't work, shoot me." I don't want to be one of those old white dudes. At all. Hopefully, I'm taking the correct kinds of measures to make sure OWDS doesn't take root in me, but, you know, feel free to let me know if you ever see any signs of it coming out. Hopefully, this small bit of educational information will help others onto the path of avoidance and prevention.

No Thoughts Interview

Hmm... maybe that title doesn't sound so good? I mean, that sounds like I have no thoughts... wait a minute, that might be right?

Okay, just ignore me and pop over to No Thoughts 2 Small to see me answer a few questions about Shadow Spinner including what the theme song would be. You can tell me what you think of my choice. That is, if you've read it, you can tell me what you think.

Also, don't forget, "Part Thirty-three: Justice," the penultimate chapter of Spinner is FREE! today!

Lego "Justice" (a Fair post)

So, okay, you got me. There's really nothing to do with justice and Lego (by the way, did you know that "Lego" is the plural of "Lego"? (I think I mentioned this before, but I don't feel like checking)) in  this post. At least not together. I suppose if this was a Lego Batman post, we could talk about Lego and justice together, but it's not. No, this is about the Lego exhibit they have every year at the Fair. (We'll get to the justice part in a bit.)

The arts and crafts stuff at the Fair always includes a fairly large Lego exhibit which is something we spend a lot of time at. At least, we spend a lot of time at it in comparison to the other arts and crafts. Mostly, this is the fault of the boys. Actually, my wife and my daughter usually just glance at them and go do something else while I hang out with the boys while they examine every piece. Okay, not every piece, because my younger son has incredible disdain for kids who send in their boxed kits as their entries.

And I get it. It's supposed to be original creations. But, you know, how do you tell that to a six-year-old? Or to his parents that don't really know the difference. Or the judges who are almost certainly old(er) people that barely know what a Lego is. Yeah, I know I'm generalizing and stereotyping, but, since the contest is supposed to be about original creations and (at least) half of the entries (including some that win prizes) are just kits you can buy at the store, I have to assume that these people don't have any working knowledge of Lego.

Anyway... there have been some really incredible builds the last few years. Some guy made a huge model of a scorpion (and, when I say huge, I mean somewhere in the 3-4' long range not counting the tail) from the technic type pieces and, I'm assuming the same guy, some other similar type bug thing another year. I wanted to share pictures of those, because there was nothing quite so impressive this year, but... well, I can't seem to find those pictures. [They got put into storage (off my computer) at some point, and I don't know where they are (probably because we moved since I did that). And I did, actually, spend several hours looking for those discs to no avail.] All of that to say, you'll just have to be satisfied with the pictures of this years' creations (and hope that I find those other pictures at some point in the future).

My son assures me that these are not from kits (and I don't know of any kits of these, but they are so well done, I thought, maybe, there was some older line of military vehicles or something that I didn't know about). As you can see, they won first place in their category.

Yes, someone touched the plane on the left. My son really wanted to fix it, so I had to remind him about his feelings on the subject and whether he'd want someone he didn't know fixing it if it was his creation.

(I wanted to fix it, too.)

And, now, for the most impressive thing this year

(which is nowhere near as impressive as the things from the last couple of years).

That's the Lego show from this year.

My son always wants to enter something, but, when presented with the knowledge that he would have to submit the piece for judging at some point before the Fair starts and that it would be on display for weeks (where other people could touch it and potentially break it), meaning that he could be without his Lego for more than a month, he always decides he'd rather not. Then, he walks around grumbling about how his thing was better than this-or-that thing. Except he never said that about those Lego creatures. That just made him want more Lego so that he could build something that big. I told him when I sell a million books that we'll talk about it.

Speaking of books!

Today is the penultimate release of the Shadow Spinner serialization! Yes, the end is almost here! Want to find out what happens to Tib, Michael, and the Man with No Eyes? Well, this is your chance to do it. Not to mention the Serpent and... the Angel, Uri'el! This is one climax you don't want to miss! Grab "Justice" today!
Here's your list of today's FREE! offerings:
"Part Thirty-three: Justice" (FREE! Monday, September 23 and Tuesday, September 24)
"Part Thirty-two: The Gate"
"Part Thirty-one: The Serpent Strikes"
"Part Thirty: Called in Judgement"
"Part Twenty-four: The Serpent"
"Part Twenty-three: The Harlot"
"Part Twenty-two: The Undying"
"Part Seventeen: The Tree of Light"
"Part Sixteen: The Dark Tree"
That's only nine parts this week, but, hey, running these things for FREE! every week uses up the free days pretty quickly. Next week: "Part Thirty-four: Uri'el" and, maybe, something else new!

It's Time For More Accordions

As I have mentioned (though not in a while), my daughter plays the accordion. She's closing in on three years of playing and is busy practicing her Christmas music right now. It's kind of driving her brother crazy as he is somewhat offended by the need for Christmas music in September. But, at least, it's not like all of the Christmas stuff that will soon start appearing in stores. If she wants to be able to play Christmas music this year at Christmas, she has to practice now. But I digress...

The 23rd Annual Cotati Accordion Festival was back in August, and my daughter played onstage there for the second time as part of their Future Accordion Stars segment.

It's not a long set or anything, but, still, it's playing in front of a crowd. She was a little nervous, but she did a great job. And, well, hey, it just makes me proud to watch her up there playing.

Beyond the Future Accordion Stars, however, the acts, overall, were not as good this year as last year. I feel confident saying that since we were there for huge chunks of time both days this year. For instance, there was a guy that played for a full hour right after the Future Stars, and he just did what I'm calling free-style accordion playing. I suppose it was somewhat akin to jazz, but, mostly, it just sounded like a lot of noise. To me, at least. A lot of people seemed to like it. There seemed to be a lot of that kind of stuff this year, which really didn't appeal to me.

But there were some good acts, too. For instance, my daughter's aunt's band played (yes, that would be my sister-in-law, but I'm framing it as "my daughter's aunt" because it was her aunt that inspired her to want to play the accordion (completely on accident)), and they're really good and have played private parties for the likes of Coppola. They put the lie to "If you admit you can play the accordion, no one will hire you in a rock and roll band."

Also, there was this band called Sweet Moments of Confusion (great name, right?) that was really quite good. They played all original music based on various folk styles. I wish they had been playing instead of the other dude that wasn't playing anything that had been composed.

And, of course, returning for his 14th year at the festival was The Great Morgani. He really is just a lot of fun. Like last year, I only managed to get pictures of him in one of his costumes (although we did get to see him twice, this year (and the costume for the show I didn't get pictures of was hilarious)).

I don't think I'll ever understand how he can play in all of these elaborate costumes, but he does. Even when his shoes start to "sink," which his monster shoes did. He had to warn us that the foam was settling so that if he suddenly fell over backwards we'd know why. Here's a picture of him walking around in the crowd after playing:

My official opinion is that the accordion is an under appreciated instrument. It's too bad, because it can do a lot and requires a lot of talent. People think it takes a lot of work to do something like play the piano, and it does, but my daughter is just picking up the piano as a side-effect of playing the accordion. You can't just pick up the accordion as a side-effect of the piano. I'm glad she's chosen an interesting instrument to play, something that stands out, even if getting hired in a rock-and-roll band becomes more difficult.

One last picture of a band whose name I don't remember:

(It took me a while to get that the red and green was about the Italian flag and not Christmas. heh)

Following Anne

If you were here on Monday, you'll know that Briane Pagel is both promoting his new book,

Temporary Anne, and writing a "story on the go," as he calls it. It's kind of a choose your own adventure kind of thing except there are no choices other than the ones the audience comes up with. Part one of that story is here. Part two, wherein Stephen King dies, is here. You will find part three (and Anne) over at Laws of Gravity today, although I would imagine that Anne doesn't really have to follow any laws of gravity. At least, not anymore.

If you want to know what I mean by that, go grab Temporary Anne for the low, low price of less than one dollar! And, remember, within the virtual pages, you will also find the story of "The Magic Cookies," worth the price all by itself! Just don't tell Anne that I sent you. I don't want her looking for me.

And since Amazon puts limits on the number of days we can offer our books for FREE! and, because of that, Briane couldn't give Anne away today (as if she'd let him), he has made another one of his books for FREE! today only: Eclipse
I reviewed Eclipse some time ago, so check that out and, then, pick up your FREE! copy. It's one of my favorites of Briane's books.

UPDATE:
Today, I'm over at Crystal Collier's. She asked me about cheese and made me tell a lie. Go over and see if you can figure out what the lie is. There's a prize involved!

Unexpected Applause: Temporary Anne

One of the things I like about the writing of Briane Pagel is that you can kind of see the questions that must be going through his head that inspire the stories he writes. So, like, with the After, you can see the questions about Heaven and the nature of Heaven that inspired the novel. And, so, Temporary Anne

seems to me to be a logical extension of his exploration of Heaven into an exploration of Hell. And what an unsettling exploration it is.

And, actually, in this instance, I'm glad I can't see what's in Briane's head to give him ideas for all of the horrible monsters he creates for this book. And they are. Horrible, that is. And fairly disgusting. But, you know, when designing minions from Hell, they ought to be.

However, as repulsive as his creatures are, they do not approach the level of repulsiveness that his main character attains. I don't think I've seen a truer example out there of the anti-hero. On the one hand, she's trying to escape Hell, and, well, it's Hell, so you are kind of wanting her to do that. But... well, the "but" is full of spoilers, but there comes a point when the idea of her escaping for any longer is not something you want to see happen.

And, as bad as she is, she is not the worst character in the book.

From a train wreck perspective, reading this book is like watching one. And it's fascinating. If you like horror, this is definitely a book worth reading.

However, there are editing issues. Some of them, most people won't notice. Like the punctuation stuff. But the verb tense mistakes might catch some people, although I'm not convinced that most people will notice.

Overall, I'd give the book a B. Maybe a B- because of the editing issues. Definitely worth $0.99, though.

BUT there's more!

Included at the end of the book is a series of short stories by various writers including one by yours truly. So here's the thing there: I was going to release "The Magic Cookies" as an individual story for $0.99, so, of course, I think the $0.99 price for Temporary Anne is more than worth it. And, hey, "The Magic Cookies" is a funny story, and you should all read it.

I'd review the other stories included except that I haven't quite gotten that far. I finished Anne because that was my priority, but that's it. However, Rusty has a story in there that is, at least, part of one that I've read. I'm not sure if it's the whole thing (because it looks too short from what's in the table of contents), but, however much of that story that's in there (all or part), it's also well worth the read. What all of this says to me is that for less than a buck, this book is a steal.

[Note: Once I finish the short stories, I will post an update with short reviews of those. Except "The Magic Cookies." I can already tell you that that one is GREAT and you should run right out and read it. Oh, wait, you don't need to run anywhere. Even better!]