Swords Against Boredom

My short fantasy The First Casualty is set to appear any second now (assuming you are reading this on Sunday) in Electric Spec. Follow the link and you can read it for free, along with several other science fiction and fantasy offerings.

The First Casualty is a mix of sword-and-sorcery and fantasy, with much mingling of war and politics and religion and witchcraft and hard truths. I hope you enjoy it, and feel free to come back here and let me know whether you did (or didn’t).

Also, my ghostly historical flash piece, Tell’s Choice, will appear Oct. 14 at Every Day Fiction.

Every Day Fiction offers a new flash story (1,000 words or less) every day via email or other platforms, or you can read them at the Web site. It’s free.
Tell’s Choice is a ghostly retelling of the William Tell legend, from a father’s vantage. I hope you enjoy it.

In the meantime, follow the link and check out Every Day Fiction. If you don’t like the story one day, just hang on because the next day’s story likely will be completely different. I’ve been reading every day, and there have been some gems. Enjoy.

– Steve

Over on its Web site, All Possible Worlds has posted the cover for its second issue … another nifty image.

Editor Jason Champion says the issue should be back from the printer in about two weeks. This edition includes my fantasy story, Two Kings in Zalzalla.

– Steve

One of the toughest things about writing fantasy, for me, is the naming of things — cities, lands, people. There’s a little dance involved between the desire to come up with names that sound exotic and the need to present something the reader can pronounce. I try to avoid the heights of silliness sometimes seen; I’ve actually seen one instance in Realms of Fantasy in which the author actually inserted a question mark in the place of a letter for one creature’s name. That’s just stupid. We have a whole alphabet, damn it! Pick a letter and move on …

I also want to avoid place names and people names that sound too much like those used by other authors. This can be tricky, because sometimes a cool name in a story I read a bazillion years ago bubbles up in my mind and tries to convince me it’s brand new. Every time I come up with a cool name, I fear I dredged it from memory instead of the creative side of my brain. So I often discard those and come up with names that I know I’ve never seen.

And sometimes those names come from the oddest sources. To wit: Read more »

I buy individual James Bond movies on DVD as they become available, rather than grab one of the several boxed sets you see everywhere. The boxed sets always toss in one really good Bond flick with an assortment of stinkers. One at a time is the way to go.

My lovely wife knows of my fondness for Bond movies, so when she spotted a batch of new titles in the store she called me to see which ones to get. I had her pick up “Dr. No,” the very first Bond movie. Although it was made on a shoestring budget, it still stands up in my mind.

“Dr. No,” of course, introduced Sean Connery as 007. He set the right tone: suave, calm, competent, yet with his own somewhat larcenous, piratical spirit.

I also like Connery’s touch with some of the more bizarre elements of a Bond film: his bemusement with Dr. No’s odd behavior and megalomania, for instance, or the absurdity of waking up on a small island to see a drop-dead gorgeous woman emerge from the sea. I think Daniel Craig has something of the same touch himself in “Casino Royale,” and that’s a big part of why that movie works so well — that and the eye-popping action sequences.

The other 007 films I have so far are “Goldfinger,” “Thunderball,” “Goldeneye” and “Casino Royale.” What other Bond movies eventually will find their way into my collection?

• From Russia With Love (Connery)
• You Only Live Twice (Connery)
• Diamonds are Forever (Connery)
• Live and Let Die (Roger Moore)
• The Man with the Golden Gun (Moore)
• For Your Eyes Only (Moore)
• The Living Daylights (Timothy Dalton)
• Tomorrow Never Dies (Pierce Brosnan)
• The World is Not Enough (Brosnan)

I don’t really care if I never see “Moonraker” again. “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” with the hideously uncharismatic George Lazenby, is best forgotten. “Die Another Die” is an Abomination.

Others fall into a gray area — they don’t necessarily stink, but aren’t great, either. “The Spy Who Loved Me,” “Octopussy,” “A View to a Kill” — all with Moore — all have things I like combined with things that are painful to watch (Tanya Roberts trying to act, for crying out loud …) “Never Say Never Again” brought back Connery to do a remake of “Thunderball” with better special effects but with a score that just … does … not … work … “License to Kill” was one I looked forward to, because I thought Dalton did a good turn as 007 in “The Living Daylights.” But “License” was pretty lame, and had none of that “Bond feel.” I might watch at least part of any of these if I happen across them on TV, but I don’t need to have them in my DVD collection.

Some Bond superlatives, using my own highly idiosyncratic criteria. Feel free to disagree:

• Best chase: The foot pursuit of the bomb maker in “Casino Royale,” hands down. Honorable mention: The motorcycle fleeing a helicopter through a slum in “Tomorrow Never Dies.”
• Worst chase: The one from “The World is Not Enough” involving the ballooning snowsuit. Really, it was fine up to that point — but a ballooning snowsuit? C’mon.
• Best gadget: Little Nellie, the ultralight that did aerial combat with helicopters in “You Only Live Twice.”
• Worst gadget: The invisible car from “Die Another Day.”
• Best villain’s hideaway: Blofeld’s secret base beneath a fake lake in an extinct volcano, in “You Only Live Twice.”
• Worst villain’s hideaway: Crab Key, Dr. No’s place. Not bad for a low budget flick, really, but Bond arrives new to the scene and uncovers it in, what, 20 minutes? Get some security, for crying out loud.
• Best Bond girl: Daniella Bianchi in “From Russia With Love.” Classy, beautiful, charming accent, and not at all slutty. Honorable mention: Sophie Marceau, in “The World is Not Enough.” Honorable mention: Eva Green in “Casino Royale.” Honorable mention … oh, forget it. I could do this all day.
• Worst Bond girl: Tanya Roberts in “A View to a Kill.” Nice body, but I wince every time she speaks. Yuck. Honorable mention: Denise Richards in “The World is Not Enough.” Curvy as hell, yes — but why would anyone cast her as a nuclear scientist? Oh, yeah … curvy as hell.
• Best Felix Leiter, master of disguise: Jack Lord in “Dr. No.” (Felix Leiter, Bond’s CIA buddy, is a master of disguise because he appears in nearly every movie, yet is portrayed by a different actor every time. Sometimes he’s white, sometimes he’s black, sometimes he’s tall and hunky, sometimes he’s kind of guy-next-door. Felix Leiter — master of disguise!)
• Worst Felix Leiter, master of disguise: Norman Burton in “Diamonds Are Forever.”
• Best villain: Mads Mikkelsen as Le Chiffre, in “Casino Royale.” Honorable mention: Joseph Wiseman as Dr. No — quietly menacing, much the way Mikkelsen is in “Casino Royale.”
• Worst villain: Hugo Drax, in “Moonraker.”
• Best henchman: Oddjob, in “Goldfinger.” Honorable mention: Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd, the gay assassins in “Diamonds Are Forever.”
• Worst henchman: Jaws, in way too many freaking movies and that’s why I hate him.
• Best MI6 contact: Kerim Bey, in “From Russia With Love.” This guy is just plain cool.
• Worst MI6 contact: The guy in “Dr. No,” because the bad guys knew Bond was coming before Bond even knew he was coming.
• Best Bond: Sean Connery. Honorable mention: Daniel Craig.
• Worst Bond: George Lazenby, a.k.a. Double-Oh-Stupid, bearer of the “license to suck.”

– Steve

Over on the SFReader boards, poetry has been a hot topic.

One member posted a few poetic phrases and challenged people to spin prose ideas from them. The idea was to just take the phrase and try to “literalize” it, or somehow use it as a springboard for storytelling inspiration.

The phrases posited were:

• Sun wings
• Ocean eyes
• Moon laughs

My first thought on looking at these was that they would make decent titles. Then I got more into the spirit of things and tried to think about the stories that would go with those titles.

Sun wings might be the reflective panels of a satellite or the “solar sail” concept espoused by Arthur C. Clarke — widespread panels of fabric stretched out to capture solar wind and propel a spaceship. But my favorite off-the-top thought is that Sun Wings could be a name, perhaps for a dragon with brightly-colored wings, or for a deity in a MesoAmerican-style cult.

Ocean eyes is tougher … it makes me think of scopes and ways to peer into the depths, or perhaps the very deep blue eyes of a mermaid or some other aquatic beauty.

Moon laughs … I came up dry on this one, but after spinning it around in my head for a while I came up with a kind of mild madness common to lunar colonists who stay too long.

It’s a fun brain puzzle. Can you come up with some cool inspirations from these? Or some nifty poetic phrases to inspire? Feel free to share.

– Steve

My short horror story, The Bloofer Lady, went live today in Issue Five of the online horror ezine, Down in the Cellar.

The Bloofer Lady is a gruesome little thing I wrote several years ago. If you go read it, please remember that a lot of horrific stories are written by perfectly sane people …

– Steve