Peter Hodges

Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog is worth the hype. It stars Neil Partrick Harris, Felicia Day (from the “The Guild“), and Nathan Fillion (Mal from Firefly).

Acts I and II are available now.

Felicia Day is a great discovery. I’ve watched a few episodes of the guild, but seeing her in this, as well as hearing her sing, is a real treat.

If you think you don’t like musicals, go ahead and give this a try for two reasons. First, it’s Joss Wheedon. What more reason do you need? Second, it’s funny as hell.

For some reason, I’ve missed most of McDevitt’s fiction during my tenure as a science fiction reader. I first read some of his short stories in the anthology Breach the Hull, which Mike McPhail of MilSciFi.com provided for my review. I enjoyed his prose immensely, so I decided to see what he had recently written.

I settled on Polaris as my first choice. The book cover is splashed with a blurb that indicates that McDevitt is the “heir to Asimov and Clarke.” Given how much of my formative youth was spent with my nose in their books, I thought this was an auspicious beginning.

Polaris is the story of Alex Benedict and his “assistant” Chase Kolpath, antiquities dealers. In a far future star-spanning civilization, they find and sell cultural relics from the past (past meaning way after our own time) to rich clients. They fill a niche with rich clients that like to have artifacts to show off to their friends or families. They become interested in the sixty year old disappearance of six celebrities from a ship called the Polaris, which was present to watch the collision of a neutron star with a G-type star that supported planets. Shortly after watching the collision, the crew on this ship mysteriously disappears.

When the government opens up an auction of the personal effects from those on the Polaris, Alex and Chase manage to buy several artifacts for their clients. In the process of touring the facility where the items are stored, a bomb, attributed to a local terrorist group destroys the building. It is no stretch of the imagination to note that the bomb was aimed not at the people attending the tour, but rather at keeping the secret of the Polaris disappearances intact.

What follows is a fairly typical whodunit in the Asimov style. I won’t lie and say that I was surprised at the ending. McDevitt is perhaps a little too obvious in the way he provides clues to the reader, but the characters are genuninely likable and the story moves along at a brisk enough pace that I was mostly satisfied at the conclusion. I would say that this novel would qualify as a good beach read.

I’ve been wrestling with my first completed novel (Loss of Innocence) for a while now. Kate and I had initally said that we were going to podcast it in its entirety throughout the year until we were finished, but as I dug in to seriously edit the manuscript, I realized how far I had come since completing it and beginning work on Alchemist. (And yes, there are two more sections ready for Kate to podcast. They delay between episodes is due to me whining about how bad I am and not Kate’s procrastination.)

There are two forces at work here. The first is that when I have a new idea or a cool concept, I generally take it and run with it as quickly as I can. In my excitement, I can’t see the holes that are obvious to everyone else. The second is that I am an intensely (and notoriously) critical person. I have to fight this every instant of my life, whether its at work, in my personal relationships, etc. Most of the time I succed in suppressing it. Most of the time.

My critical persona is especially brutal when it is self-directed. Given a bulk of my own work, I am never satisfied. I’m not talking about the little errors that always creep up in a manuscript. I’m talking about the “meta” errors, such as story arc, setting choices, and characterization. I’ll re-write dialogue two or three times until I get the sound or the tone of the conversation just right, then read it later and want to gouge my eyes out at my sheer ham-handedness with the English language.

Back to my first novel: I’ve heard several authors talk about that first novel they wrote, which is so uniformly bad that they hope it never sees the light of day. I’m having that struggle again as I wrestle with the text of Loss of Innocence. Vast sections need a complete overhaul, while occasionally I’m reading things that make me pause and wonder where I got a particular idea or turn of phrase from. I’m momentarily stunned that I find those jewels of text within the work. I feel as though I need to elevate my writing to that standard all of the time, and not just in those rare flashes of brilliance.

However, if I keep making tiny edits and changes until I have something perfect (perfect, at least, on that day), then I never drive to finish. Even the greatest novels have their dull points. Rather than trying to rid myself of them entirely, I need to force myself to drive the story to the point where a professional can step in and tell me how to make it better. Otherwise, I’m like a bag full of starving, feral cats.

When is the harsh self-criticism apprpriate?

I find that when I limit myself to the harsh self-criticism on first drafts, I get the most use out of this aspect of my personality. If I take it beyond the first draft, then I start causing damage to the fabric of the story I’m trying to tell. I’ll begin to think tangentially rather than linearly, which muddies the plot, blurs my characterization, and leads to inconsistencies.

Global warming gives you kidney stones. All this time I thought it was oxalate in tea and cola that did it. Let’s be real for a second, even if we do live in the Feminized Nanny States of America. We are all responsible for our own actions. Do you know what that means? It means that because I drink too much Dr. Pepper (when I’m naughty) and Coke Zero (when I’m nice), I am destined to have kidney stones. Do I have a right to complain when this happens? No. (Well, maybe a little; enough, at least, to get some sympathy from the wife.) But it’s still my fault. I can’t blame it on global warming. I can’t sue Dr. Pepper or Coca-Cola.

Denver, the mile high city, once again makes news. This time, it isn’t a singer taking it upon herself to modify the national anthem, it’s the city police department and the safety council voting to outlaw pipes and chains in the hands of demonstrators. If your thought at the first was the same as mine, then maybe you’re thinking that it’s not a bad idea. Demonstrations are okay, provided they remain peaceful. However, weighted pipe and chain are not used as weapons. Upon further research, I discovered they are used to make a sleeping dragon, which is a device designed to make it difficult to arrest and remove protesters. An earlier draft of the ordinance endeavored to remove gas masks and bulletproof vests. That’s one thing I have a real problem with. If you want to know why, click this link.

The People’s Democratic Progressive Republic of Massachusetts is at it again. *sigh*

Could the International Space Station be used as a space craft? Color me doubtful, but it’s at least worth a feasibility study. One thing I do agree with the author about is the fact that we’ve wasted too much time playing in the cradle. It’s time to move outward. This could be an elegant solution, like using the interior of the first stage of a Saturn V booster as the first Skylab station.

 Jack Campbell continues with his aggressive publishing schedule by releasing the fourth book in the Lost Fleet series just eight months after the last one.

The saga of Black Jack Geary, commanding a battered fleet in enemy territory, continues. The novel opens with a large battle that is rendered in exquisite detail. Ship manuevers, timing, formations, and a seemingly complex battle plan are described from Captain Geary’s point of view as his fleet engages a numerically similar force in an effort to secure some breathing space for repairs and replinishment.

This book, like the others, is told primarily from Geary’s perspective. Black Jack Geary was lost in an engagement that history recognizes as the opening shots of a one hundred year war. He drifted alone in an escape pod, until the fleet he ended up commanding found him drifting in space and rescued him. In the time since he disappeared, Geary has been venerated as a hero, granted almost god-like status by the men and women under his command. Also during this time, the men and women in the navy have lost their sense of honor. They fire on civilian targets with impunity, kill survivors of enemy fleets, and conduct battles with all of the complexity of a bull charging. When the existing fleet leadership is betrayed during a parley, Geary assumes leadership of the fleet (as the senior captain) and tries to teach them about the way war should be fought. His adherence to honor and an older tradition that would be loosely recognized as a modern day “law of war” is foreign to the men and women under his command.

Geary is trying desperately to get the people under his command back to Alliance space. His ship holds the key to the Alliance winning the war against the Syndic Worlds–literally an access key to the enemy’s network of faster than light travel. Unfortunately, a non-human intelligence has entered the picture, and Geary’s crew makes some startling discoveries about its history and motivations.

To make matters complicated, Geary faces mutiny within his own fleet. Some of the captains under his command resent the “mercy” that Geary shows to the Syndic forces and endeavor to sabotage him. Moving carefully, Geary consolidates his hold as a leader of the fleet while still remaining in charge of the fleet’s destination and tactics.

Campbell has done it again in this volume. The pacing is superb, the writing is taut and somewhat suspenseful, and the characterizations are top notch. The author avoids the temptation of making his character god-like, instead forcing him to wrestle with the mythology around his absence, and the growing hero-worship associated with his return and his unquestioned success. Geary is really just a man, trying to do the best that he can for the men and women who serve under him. That others think this attitude makes him a candidate for receiving divine intervention bothers him to no end.

Campbell apparently has two more volumes in this series, and I have to say that I wish I had them in my hands right now. If you haven’t started this series, do so.

Look for a theme change soon. I just wrote two book reviews scheduled for this week and the lack of capital letters in the titles is bugging the hell out of me.

A church in my hometown was going to give a gun away as a prize in a youth conference shooting contest.

How awesome is that?

Unfortunately, the Channel Five news in Oklahoma City (known even fifteen years ago for its sensationalism), liberally re-used shots of a youth firing what appears to be an Uzi at gallon bottles filled with water. To end the footage, they also showed a paintball contest, but to the uneducated eye, it would look as though they were being trained in SWAT tactics. The dubious spin placed on the story by the reporters really makes my skin crawl. Bottom line, they are teaching teens to handle firearms safely and responsibly in a supervised environment.

Should a church be giving away a weapon?

I suppose a better question is should a church be giving anything away at all, especially given that the mission of the church is to minister to the needy and spread the Gospel. Using a raffle or a contest to draw people to the church to hear the message is a time-honored trick, so perhaps we can forgive the church for that. Likewise, the use to which the prize (an AR-15) is being put is for sport; i.e. shooting targets in a controlled environment. The prize comes with a degree of experience and instruction, and may even allow someone to defend their family one day. God works in mysterious ways, friends.

If a church has decided to give away any prize (something I’m not entirely comfortable with given the mission of the church), I suppose a gun is as good as anything.