Angels Unbound: Uri'el (an a-to-z post)

Uri'el
Yes, this is the same Uri'el who appears in Shadow Spinner (see Chapter 34: Uri'el) and who guards the entrance to the Garden with a flaming sword. Some say the sword is a manifestation of Uri'el, while some hold that the sword is a separate entity. One thing is certain, the sword can guard the entrance without the presence of Uri'el, and Uri'el can always keep watch over the entrance, no matter where he is, because of his thousand eyes.

He is known to be as pitiless as the most heartless of Demons, even Lucifer himself, even though he is an Angel of Repentance. He watches over "thunder and terror."

Perhaps because of his farseeing gaze and despite his pitiless nature, Uri'el was one of The Three who pleaded the case for humanity when God sent the flood to destroy the Nephilim. It was Uri'el who warned Noah and instructed him on the building of the ark.

It was also Uri'el who rescued John the Baptist from the Massacre of the Innocents. He returned the body of Adam (and his son Abel) to the Garden for burial after their deaths. Uri'el, in his aspect of Angel of Repentance, was the one who checked the door posts for the blood of a lamb in Egypt when Azrael (the Archangel of Death) came to take the first borns. Uri'el told him whom to spare.

He has killed many who have tried to enter the Garden, but it is whispered that he has also killed those who have not. The flaming sword was noticeably absent during the mysterious assassination of Sennacherib, king of Assyria.


Already released:

Angels Unbound: Dumah (a-to-z) and Clone Wars -- "Clone Cadets" (Ep. 3.1)

Dumah

Having a body covered with eyes is not an uncommon thing among Angels. I don't know how often it occurs, but I've already included another of them, Uri'el, in the Shadow Spinner world. It's kind of freaky, if you ask me. Dumah is an Angel of Death, another recurring theme, and carries a fiery rod. He is the Angel of silence and the stillness of death. I like that. As quiet as the grave...

Clone Wars

-- Brothers in arms are brothers for life.

[Remember, you can sign up to join the Clone Wars Project at any time by clicking this link.]

Remember when I said these episodes were not all in order? Well, this is an example of that. "Clone Cadets" is the prequel to the season one episode "Rookies." It's an interesting story to tell considering that we already know what comes next. Bittersweet.

The five members of Domino squad do not get along and are considered jokes, at best, by everyone else. They are so bad that Shaak Ti, the Jedi onsite, is having to consider whether they will wash out of training, something, evidently, that just doesn't happen.

Shaak Ti is distressed enough by the evident failure of the squad that she talks to the Kaminoans about it, and they, in a round about way, blame the Jedi. The Jedi killed Jango Fett, their genetic source of clone material, so it's the Jedi's fault that the newer clones aren't holding up. They suggest finding a new source of genetic material or, the implication is, shut up about it.

There's an interesting character, a failed clone, called 99. He's in charge of maintenance, maintenance being where the failed clones go, apparently. 99, as is so often the case with service personnel, is able to see and hear things that probably he shouldn't be aware of. Mostly, though, he is just an outsider, an interesting perspective from one of the clones. Because of his position, though, he's able to offer valuable advice at a key moment and teach one of the clones a valuable lesson just because of the source. The whole relationship that happens there is rather touching. And, again, bittersweet, since we know what's going to happen to that trooper.

It's a good, very good, episode. It's another that explores the individuality of beings who should all be essentially the same and what can happen when the individuality is allowed to remain rather than trying to force them all into conformity.

The Serial Bowl Is Empty

Well... here we are at the bottom of the bowl. One bite left and some milk to sip from the bottom.

This whole thing has kind of reminded me of when I was a kid. Every once in a while, we would just have cereal for dinner. It wasn't one of those kinds of things where my mom would just decide not to cook and we just ate whatever we wanted; it was an actual, declared cereal night. Yeah, it seems kind of weird to me, now, too, so I can only imagine those happened because my mom or, possibly, my dad wanted the cereal. Specifically. Like, "I want cereal tonight." Anyway...

When we had cereal nights, my dad always used one of the great, giant salad bowls to have his cereal in. All the rest of us would be using normal bowls, but there would be my dad with this huge bowl that was bigger than all of the other bowls combined. He'd pour in, like, half a box of cereal and something like a quart of milk. Maybe, it was closer to half a gallon? I don't really know. I think I'd probably have to experiment by making a bowl that big, but I'm quite sure I wouldn't be able to eat all of it.

And I could never believe that my dad could eat that much either. It was so much cereal! But he did always eat all of it. Amazingly. It was rather... impressive. At least it was to me when I was eight.

At any rate, the Shadow Spinner serialization has been more than a bit like one of those giant bowls of cereal, and being here at the last chapter is somewhat reminiscent of watching my dad take that last bite and, then, tilting the bowl back and drinking the last of the milk with whatever crumbs were left behind.

I can't believe it's over... but, here we are at the end.

Not that I haven't given my thoughts previously on the whole serial experience, I figured, now that it's actually over, I should probably sum it up or give final thoughts or... something, so here are some final thoughts (but, really, if you want it all broken out by points and stuff, go back and read that other post):

I think one of the things we're going to be seeing as we transition away from traditional publishing (and, yes, we are transitioning away from it, at least as it is in its current iteration) is more shorter works and more frequent publications. Rather than indie authors writing full-blown novels, we'll see series of novelettes and novellas. Sure, there will still be the occasional epic fantasy piece, and long, literary pieces will probably continue as they are for quite a while (they are the most resistant to change), but I think we're moving toward things that people can sit down and finish in a sitting or two. People just like that.

And, no, I have no data to back that up. It's just my feeling of how things are going. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am. This will continue our move, culturally, away from physical books, because the expense of printing tiny 20-30,000 word pre-novels will just be too high.

Personally, I've been pretty happy with the experience. It's a lot of work releasing a book chapter by chapter, especially when if you devote a significant amount of time to author's notes the way I do, but I think it was worth it. I know that I brought in a lot of readers and made many connections that I never would have if I had only released Spinner as a single book.

Yes, I have another serialization some time in the future. But that's the future...

For now, here's the last part of Shadow Spinner along with the list of all of today's FREE! offerings.
"Part Thirty-four: Uri'el" (also FREE! tomorrow, Tuesday, October 1)
"Part Thirty-three: Justice"
"Part Thirty-two: The Gate"
"Part Thirty-one: The Serpent Strikes"
"Part Twenty-four: The Serpent"
"Part Twenty-three: The Harlot"
"Part Eighteen: The Angel"
"Part Seventeen: The Tree of Light"
"Part Sixteen: The Dark Tree"
And that's that. Nine FREE! parts today, which, granted, is not as many as on some days, but, well, I've used up all of my free days for a while. Still... Look for something special coming up round about Halloween. No, I mean it. Something special and not just from me. But that's all you're getting out of me for the moment about that.

For those of you that have been following along with Tib's adventures, I hope this brings this (first) story to a satisfactory conclusion. I'm not saying there will be another story about Tiberius, but there could be. One day. Maybe. Mostly, I'm toying with the idea of the origins of Michael and Edward; I'm just not sure I'll have time to get them down on "paper."

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!