Category: About Writing

Avatar Remaindered, 1

Back about three or four years ago, when I began this project … this paying out of my story debt, I must’ve begun with Chapter 2 of Avatar Remaindered. As–lol–I have not found Chapter 1 anywhere in the archives. Diligent searching, I tell you.

I thought I might link to it when I post up Chapter 23 as the avatar needs to be in the district round about now, and Avatar Remaindered was always going to be ‘published’ before the end of Lodestar.

Since a lot of readers have joined in the meantime, I decided instead to enable you all to read … if you’re interested … Sard Yon Kerr’s adventures from start to finish. I’ve gone back to the original and revised it. May follow it up with the chapters in between. Be easier to find consecutive chapters then.

1. SardDownload

‘The Mercy of Gods’

I’m going to try to talk about this without giving anything away since you too might want to read it. It’s worth it. Science fiction.

It definitely took me reading this tome twice before I could be sure that the title says what it says for a reason. And remember that if you’re a fast reader … like I am … it will probably need twice through before you get both the title and the reason for the incredibly detailed viewpoints. It did me.

Those were the two main things I took away from the second time through. I found the incredible nit-picky detail quite irritating the first time. Usually when I pick up a book for the first time, I consume it for its story. It’s a make or break reading and if it doesn’t come up to my expectations I’ll be leaving it in the laundry.

Lol, “leaving it in the laundry” is a euphemism for getting rid of it. Back in my youth when I lived on the road for three years, books were regularly left in a camp-ground’s laundry for swapping. You’d leave your excess luggage in the form of books and magazines there in exchange for things you hadn’t read yet. No mobile phones in those days. The really good books that I found in that way and that I couldn’t abandon like that, I would post home. Still have a couple that I collected that way.

Here at the retirement village, there’s quite an extensive library of books left by people not wanting to store them in their apartment shelves, I assume. I’ve left a few of my acquisitions there too. I’d say that’s the primary method of acquisition. Detective fiction is the most popular genre here.

The second time reading a book, since I already know the plot and outcome, I can concentrate on the detail. And in The Mercy of Gods there is a lot of talk and thinking by various characters. Some that irritated me first time round became a necessary flow-of-consciousness to enable me to negotiate–along with the character thinking the verbiage–the extremely difficult situations presenting themselves.

Situations that I might have glossed over first time round. [Yeah, I know. Glossing a novel is wasteful on a number of counts. What can I say? Chasing an outcome is my addiction.] The primary situation is a bunch of humans in a very alien situation. I take my hat off to the authors’ world-building and ability to explain what is happening in the extreme environments they’ve invented.

Another really great process … not topic, not event, not character … what’s left? Process? So, another really intricate and interesting process is the way the humans are made to pit themselves against what they think is the target which turns completely on its head. You just will not see that result coming. Even me telling you like this won’t help you, because if you are a normal human being you’ll be reading along waiting for something to happen. It’s dense, opaque and a great read! Go read a book review somewhere if you need spoilers.

My very first five-star read this year!

About Blogging: Drafts …

Today my Drafts folder contained a list of ten titles. It’s the place where I’ve got in the habit of keeping ideas for future posts but looking them over today, I am disappointed at how many just aren’t current anymore.

At least one is dated back to May last year and since there have been eleventy-five articles about it in the press, anything fresh I might have had to say about it has gone into oblivion.

A problem with about a third of the ideas/titles that I bothered to record, is that they have no accompanying notes. I want to go back and ask myself, huh? What was that about? And as not-very-good-titles give me no clue. Useless in the here and now.

Third are the ideas where I pasted a link that I intended to discuss. Several of those apparently had a use-by-date and now show up with error messages.

So there are three recommendations for your—and my—Drafts folder … stay current, make more notes and don’t let anything hang in your drafts folder for longer than maybe 6-8 weeks.

Lol, one good thing about not finding any inspiration in my drafts folder is that it gave me a topic to write about.

Two for the price of one, in this instance …. searching for an appropriate image … and none to be had … thought I might as well catch up on some of the books I’ve been reading. This one over the Christmas – New Year break.

I often have more than one book on the go and this one, a calm read, was a great contrast to The Mercy of the Gods.

My interest in Ancient Egypt was kindled when in my teens one of my brothers had to have his tonsils out—which necessitated a hospital stay—and any child having to go to hospital got a book as a get-well present.

My father didn’t always pick the right book and the Tutankhamen one seemed to have fallen flat with the patient. Some of us at home gobbled it up.

Searching for the Lost Tombs of Egypt is more an acount of the tombs that Egyptologists have expected to find and haven’t yet. It’s amazing to me that with all the digging that’s been done people still expect to find anything new.

This book also explains the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms, how they relate to each other, and lists all the known pharoahs. Even Alexander the Great gets a few pages. It’s possible he was buried as a pharoah, somewhere in Egypt. One of the tombs still to be found.

It’s a book that can be thought of as a reference book but belongs to the in-house library. I enjoyed it, as I said. Definitely worth reading for Ancient Egyptophiles. Chris Naunton’s style makes it an easy and interesting read.