Daniel M. Ford's Blog

Hey all! It’s been a while since I wrote anything on this here blog…since just a few weeks after Crusade’s release. In that time I’ve had another novel come out, another coming out later this year, and lots of exciting stuff going on in that world.

In the past four years I’ve come to realize that, given the existence of my day job, I can either write novels, or I can write blog posts, and I know which one i’m going to pick. Maybe someday that will change, but not yet.

For now, I just want to write a few words about one of my favorite G.I. Joe Characters and why. So if toys and 80s nostalgia and G.I. Joe don’t interest you, check out now!

I have and still have very specific favorite Joe characters. I can’t always articulate why or how they become a favorite, and that’s sort of what I plan to talk through here. So without further ado, let’s talk about G.I. Joe’s original Salt, Hector Delgado, AKA SHIPWRECK

Original 25th Anniversary Version (V 11, 2007) V13 from a 2009 5 pack, and V12 from a 2008 Comic Pack with Copperhead.

As my collection does not currently feature any vintage Shipwrecks, and really very few vintage figures at all, I’m starting with the basic Shipwreck that came out in 2007 as the 25th Anniversary Figures suddenly ignited collecting fever in new and old Joe fans. Sharp-eyed collectors will notice that I customied this shipwreck a little bit, popping off his closed-fist hand and replacing it with another gloved hand because, well, I didn’t want one of my favorite characters to have only one weapon-grasping hand. Also few if any of these guys are carrying their actual original accessories…I’m a habitual swapper and part-changer in these minor ways.

I had the original Shipwreck, from 1985. I loved the character the very first time I saw him, though I couldn’t tell you when that was. A toy commercial? An episode of the cartoon? On the back of a figure with that iconic cross-sell art? I couldn’t tell you. Why’d I like him so much? I’d love to tell you it was my regard for the iconic uniform and traditions of the United States Navy or some deep commitment to the semi-mystical heroism of the sailor. I suspect it was that he had a parrot, tattoos, and a kick-ass pirate’s pistol. I was seven; I wasn’t deep.

This guy knows what’s what.

I love the 2007 version’s sneer. I like that they didn’t get fancy with Polly; later versions of his parrot pal are fancier, prettier, and much less likely to stay where you put them.

A slightly stoned Shipwreck

This one looks a tad friendlier. Skinnier arms so he looks less like Popeye, which, frankly, is to his detriment. The shoulder bag comes with clever posts for a more ornate Polly to sit on, but it barely works. All in all it’s probably a “better” figure in some small, meaningless way; I think I prefer the first 25th Anniversary version still. This one looks happier to be there, less likely to complain, and less likely to chuck someone overboard for back-sass. In other words, less like the Shipwreck I know and revere.

Just a little comparison of the rank patches of Shipwreck in these 3 different uniforms. I’m not up enough on these things to know what the differences mean. The only explanation I WILL accept is that, naturally, Shipwreck is constantly gaining and losing rank because he is an irreplacable member of any unit but also a cranky asshole who gets ratings and rank taken away. On a side note, I guess we don’t yet know how the 25th Anniversary/Modern Era Joes are going to age…but the paint wear on Shipwreck’s elbow there (a figure that’s going on 13) probably doesn’t bode well.

Now, I prefer Shipwreck as a sailor. However, we all know there’s a contingent of Joe fandom that DEMANDS their plastic army men be REAL ASS SPECIAL FORCES SOLDIERS GRAARGH and toy designers tend to follow suit. So evenutally, in the 90s, Shipwreck got a redesign and suddenly became a Navy SEAL (joining Torpedo and Wet-Suit) instead of just a Gunner’s Mate and Machinist. Personally I’m not a huge fan of that development. I love Shipwreck’s appearances in the comics where he orders the rest of the Joes around at sea and think he can fit in any conception of a Joe team as a guy on the guns of the WHALE or taking the helm of any the various boats and assorted water-borne mayhem when necessary. But the next few figures are going to trend more in the REAL ASS direction, with one sharp left turn at the very end.

In order; V 15 aka Dollar General Shipwreck, V 14 from Rise of Cobra, and V 16, Arctic Shipwreck, a Toys R’ Us (RIP) Exclusive

Here we see a bit of the REAL ASS aesthetic creeping in. I’m going to speak in defense of the Rise of Cobra Shipwreck; he’s the only figure in that “delta armor” style from that movie I’ve actually kept around, I think. Why? Because they managed to keep him unique.

For instance, he’s still carrying the FN200 bullpup rifle they all carried but his, for some damn reason, has a harpoon on it. And that kind of whacky, unrealistic, silly detail is what makes G.I. Joe G.I. Joe. We’re talking about a comic/cartoon where soldiers (including a silent ninja with a wolf pet, a sailor with a parrot, and a Native American with an eagle) fight a snake-themed paramilitary AMWAY supported by punk bikers and a Scottish arms dealer with a liquid metal mask.

Shit is weird is what I’m saying.

Also he’s got a cool knife and a wicked Desert Eagle sidearm. He just needs a damn holster for it! Anyway, this Shipwreck kept some character, by Neptune. I can’t say the Dollar Store Shipwreck does the same, but it does look enough like the Shipwreck of the Devil’s Due Publishing version from the early 2000s, and that comic more or less got me back into reading comics, so. I can dig it. Even the Toys R Us (RIP) exclusive arctic Shipwreck has its moments.

Lookit that smiling bastard. He’s somewhere awful in some kind of crazy government issue body-suit; he’s got frost in his beard and all over his watch-cap, but you just know Shipwreck sniffed out whatever kind of local hooch the folks were drinking (or smuggled his own on whatever shit detail he got sent on) and has won everyone else’s hazard pay at dice and cards, lost it back, and is busy winning it again. You just know he’s got some scheme to collect extra per diems cooking, and he knows that he’s collecting chips he can later cash in for extra liberty or a TAD somewhere tropical. You can try, but you can’t hold Hector Delgado down, and figure is proof of that part of his character.

Then there’s this guy!

Yeah, okay. Put him in a tactical vest, with the same legs that Hasbro went absolutely NUTS putting on every figure they could around 2012 and onward with the integral holster. I mean, it’s fine. It’s whatever. It’s still Shipwreck so I still love it a little. And at least the t-shirt under the vest says NAVY. But the only thing differentiating this Shipwreck from a billion other Joes is his black watch cap and beard. At least this version of Polly is well painted; I don’t know if it’s actually the one that came with this figure or not, and it can only barely sit on the carry handle of his armor, as you can see. I have a lot less use for this sort of REAL ASS Shipwreck than I do our last example.

HOOTING, HOLLERING, AIRHORNS

If you’ve known me in Joe collecting circles or on twitter for a while, you KNOW I love the Tiger Force color scheme. You know I don’t care at all about how unrealistic it is to wear a bright yellow camo shirt. I care not one tiny whit for how realistic any of it is or isn’t.

And you just know when Shipwreck got asked about joining Tiger Force (or any other subteam) his first question was about extra pay, hazard pay, uniform allowance, and what kickass gear he’d get to play with.

It’s majestic, completely unhinged and ridiculous, and I couldn’t possibly love it more. One day I ought to cosplay a Tiger Force Shipwreck (I ought to do a lot of things). It should be noted that this Joe Club subscription figure is based on an amazing Brazilian G.I. Joe, “Marujo,” that I’d love to get my hands on some day, but as it’s among the most popular and expensive international Joe variants, that’s unlikely.

So, do I understand any better why I love Shipwreck after writing all this? Not really. Perhaps it’s the filecard quote about him from 1985

Shipwreck is your quintessential sailor. He can splice a line, fry powdered eggs in the tooth of a gale and eat them, tell taller tales than a Senate Appropriations committee and take a three day liberty in Thule, Greenland and come back smiling.

Perhaps it’s the parrot and the flintlock pistol. Perhaps it’s the beard and the tattoos; I’ve got a predilection for those things myself. Perhaps it’s just the idea of the early Joe years, before all of us kids who loved it went on and read Clancy and Marcinko and played a bunch of Call of Duty; that you could join America’s daring, highly trained special mission force without being some pitiless dealer of death. And it’s worth noting, of course, that the definitive Joe continuity (Larry Hama’s comics) have never, ever presented Joe this way, have never ever made them into the Jack Ryan/Rogue Warrior/Call of Duty/Black Ops bullshit archetype our popular media is suffused with now.

There’s the fact that he is a not at all subtle nod to Jack Nicholson’s legendary Billy “Badass” Budusky in The Last Detail, one of the first movies I ever saw on Netflix and absolutely worth hunting down still. There’s the fact that his portrayal in the DDP comics showed up shacking up with Courtney “Cover Girl” Krieger, much to everyone else’s shock. But at the end I’m pretty sure it’s the fact that he seems like a pirate, and pirates are frickin’ cool when you’re seven years old, especially when they’re unequivocally a good guy.

Hello all. I know I rarely blog enough here. I understand that. Time is short, and I spend a lot more time writing novels than I do blog posts. More on that particular news in the coming months.

So Crusade is out, in the wild. GO GET IT, if you haven’t already. The audio and ebook/print book are available on Audible and everywhere books are sold, respectively.

I have a question for those of you who’ve already read, something I”m just dying to know. Several reviewers have mentioned crying when they read Crusade.

I’m not going to lie; I was aiming for tears. What I really want to know is, if you read Crusade and it did generate some tears, please, please let me know what part of the book brought that on?

Hello folks! It's been a while. And for most of that while, the most common question I've been getting asked....on twitter, via this website...is when is the audiobook of Stillbright: Book 2 of The Paladin Trilogy coming out. And I promised an answer as soon as I knew. 

Well, I've got one. 

 

Tuesday, October 17! 

Let me tell you, I'm listening to Michael Kramer's narration as I write this, and if you enjoyed Ordination, you won't want to miss it. 

If you haven't nabbed the Audio versions yet, but you do have the Kindle version (or feel like spending a buck to get it) check out the kindle whispersync available from Amazon. Check it out here. 

Hopefully you'll hear some more in this space soon, or perhaps I'll see you at the upcoming Hockessin Art and Book Fair (November 4) or Thy Geekdom Con (November 5). More on those later. 

 

Hello all! It's been some time, but I couldn't let today go by without sharing some news. 

Namely, as it says right there in the title, today Stillbright received its first press review, and I've been celebrating it all day. 

Publisher's Weekly has given Stillbright a starred review. You can read the entire thing here. 

I'm probably not supposed to admit how good that feels, but it does. I've worked on this story, lived with these characters, basically nonstop since August of 2011, and to get that kind of reception is validating. It may not seem like a big deal to some of you, or to more seasoned authors. But that review hones right in on many things I cared about, and thought about, while writing the books. I wanted a good story, characters that readers cared about, and to ask some questions. I know there's places I could've been more successful, but right now I feel better about The Paladin Trilogy than at maybe any point since I started writing a story about a beat up old knight running away from his life and finding a burnt-out village. If you haven't read Ordination I hope you do. If you have, thank you, and please enjoy Stillbright. 

And now to the second part of this post: upcoming appearances!

March 26: Griffincon, Williamsburg VA. I'll be selling and signing copies of Ordination. I also think I'll be debuting a talk on writing fight scenes, and how to take lessons from RPG combat into writing action scenes in fantasy. 

April 8th: CecilCon, North East MD. I'm definitely doing the panel I mentioned above. Panel time is 1 pm in Room B. I'll also be selling and signing. I hope to be giving away an ARC of Stillbright, with entries earned by purchasing copies of Ordination. 

April 29th: Artomatic, Arlington VA, at 7 p.m. I'll be part of a panel on character-building in fantasy with the amazing Kathy MacMillan, author of Sword and Verse. You do not want to miss this. It's going to be great. 

May 20th: Release Party! at The Barking Dog in Bethesda, MD, 7-11 pm. Celebrating not just Stillbright but all of SFWP's spring releases, including Kate McCahill's travel memoir Patagonian Road, AA Balaskovits' collection of fractured fairy tales Magic for Unlucky Girls, Tara Laskowski's flash collection Modern Manners for Your Inner Demons, and a spate of releases from Stillhouse Press, especially We All Scream, the harrowing memoir of my publisher, Andrew Gifford. 

I'm hoping to build on the above list as the summer goes on and moves in to fall, so if you know of any literary or SFF events or bookstores that might put up with me, please give me a shout. I'm also looking for more review outlets for Stillbright so if you're a blogger, podcaster, reviewer, or bookseller please get at me! 

As soon as I have any more info on the upcoming audiobook of Ordination from Podium Publishing, I'll pass it on immediately. 

 

Hello all. I hope this Boxing Day or Kwanzaa or Monday December 26 finds you well, and that this season has seen you enjoying exactly the Holiday celebrations you wish with the people you treasure. 

Folks who follow me on Twitter may have noted a few cryptic "I have cool news I can't announce yet" tweets in the past couple of months. I wasn't exactly under an NDA or anything, but I wanted to keep this under my hat until I knew it was truly happening, and now I do. 

I've signed an audiobook deal for The Paladin Trilogy with Podium Publishing. 

This happened several weeks ago and I've been keeping it fairly close except largely for family members and beta readers. The even more exciting news than that it's happening is that they are going to be narrated by none other than the amazing Michael Kramer, who has narrated the work of Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson, Ken Liu, and countless others. It's an honor and a pleasure to know that Ordination is in his hands and that he will be bringing Allystaire, Idgen Marte, Torvul, and Mol to life. 

I want to thank all my original readers and everyone else who has read Ordination, written reviews, foisted it on friends and family members, talked it up to other fantasy readers, left ratings on Goodreads or reviews on Amazon so far. I also especially want to thank Andrew Gifford and the entire team at SFWP for all the work they have put in as well, and for having had the belief in my work to put it in print in the first place. 

I don't yet know a release date, but as soon as I have one I'll be sharing it with everyone. 

Thank you, and Happy New Year. 

 

Let me preface everything I'm about to say with this: I think Fallout 4 is a fun game. I've played hours and hours of it since its release. I bought the Season Pass and played most of the DLC. It is, in fact, the final piece of DLC that has led me to the following conclusion:

As much fun as I've had with it, Fallout 4 is still a disappointing piece of storytelling in many ways.

When it comes to my gaming habits, I am a Narrativist through and through. I don't care nearly as much about mechanics as I do the story the game tells me or allows me to create. I love the Fallout series and have intensely played and replayed all of the core games; Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas and so of course I was slavering for Fallout 4. I was dazzled (and intimidated) by the construction system, I enjoyed the combat, and I found most of the companions interesting, if a little bit thin.

But ultimately, now having played Automatron, Far Harbor and now Nuka-World, I ultimately feel disappointed by the storytelling in this entry, both at a macro and micro level. I'll start with the latter.

Let's talk about two specific locations; Easy City Downs and The Combat Zone.

Easy City Downs is a former horse track (I actually thought dog track, but it seems that the Fallout Wikia disagrees) taken over by Triggermen in order to stage robot races.

What a great idea! That is thoroughly Fallout to me. Repurposing the things and ideas of the shattered world. Repackaging its vices. Yes. I dig it.

But!

It is purely a combat encounter. That's it. That's all. There are lots of different approaches you can take, but they come down to this; when you show up at the Downs, you're going to kill a bunch of Triggermen and raiders and robots. The means and method is entirely up to you, but that's all that's gonna happen.

Is that really how this would've gone down in any previous entry in the Fallout universe? Why can't I take it over and run races? Why can't I cut some kind of deal with Eager Ernie and take a percentage off the top by promising that the Minutemen and/or Brotherhood will keep looking the other way? Why can't I scour the Commonwealth for rare robot models and modifications to bring to the races? Why can't I build my own robot using the tools from Automatron and race it to earn caps? Why not some questlines or radiants where I have to track down some raider who's fallen behind on the vig and extract caps or flesh? There are dozens of quest and story-telling possibilities with this location and the game makes use of precisely none of them. I mean, sure, there are different kinds of quests that can bring you there; kidnapping, bringing back an escaped synth, and so on. But all of them boil down to just shooting/stabbing/punching/blowing the place up.

The Combat Zone (the reference in the name to Boston's former red-light district is one I only got because I've read so much Robert B. Parker, but I chuckled) is in the same boat. You walk on in there and watch Cait knock the crap out of some nameless, faceless raider, or you would, if you weren't busy getting attacked by the entire audience the moment you walk through the door. Again, it's not hard to see the narrative potential here, for fighting, betting, moving up in the ranks, working with or against Tommy Lonegan. A friend of mine (incidentally the same guy who did the wonderful map for Ordination and the future books in The Paladin Trilogy, to whom you should pay money to create maps for your own books and/or RPG campaigns, I can put you in touch with him) suggested that Cait should only have become available as a companion if you worked your way up through the ranks in a series of Combat Zone fights.

While Cait's story (why is it that some companions here have involved stories and questlines and demonstrate growth, but most don't?) is really interesting to me, the Combat Zone is just more wasted potential.

I think I can sum up my ultimate disappointment in Fallout 4 this way: instead of using its best ideas to ask “what kind of story can we create for the player here?” the game only asks “what kind of firefight can we have here?” or “what kind of settlement can you build here?” Can we say that's true of previous entries in the series? Sure, in any prior Fallout game you could waltz in and shoot up the place. But it seems to me as though 3 and New Vegas really did a lot more storytelling with their locations and ideas than 4 does. Is there any place in 4 as charming and memorable as Little Lamplight? Do any of the gangs or raider groups in the base game have the life and depth of the 3 Families of the Vegas strip? I would certainly say no.

Now I know the settlement building really works for a lot of people. And I played around with it, and it can be fun, but I never played with Lego and I don't want to play Minecraft. Sure, custom designing my character's home (and eventually building huge pegboard walls to display my massive collections of weapons) was kind of fun. But why can't I just appoint someone to run a settlement for me, like hiring a steward for my Manors in Skyrim, once I have it up and running? Also how in holy hell am I supposed to get a settlement's happiness above 85%, which I have absolutely never, ever achieved?

These are rhetorical questions, so please don't feel a need to answer them. But if you've got a good answer, feel free to share.

This brings me to Nuka-World, which I think I finished this morning. Yes, it just came out. No, I didn't find that it had a heck of a lot to do other than “go to an interesting location and kill everything in it.” The amusement park setting was a really neat idea, but since most of the park is not operating when you show up (and likely is not going to be until you finish almost all of the quests) it's mostly just new scenery to kill ghouls and robots in. And I think there is a huge problem, this late in the game, with asking the player to suddenly work on behalf of some very thinly sketched raider gangs.

The problem is that up until this point (you have to be at least level 30 to go to Nuka-World, and more than likely a player will have completed the main game at least once by now) raiders have been nothing but faceless enemies. Sure, there are a few named raiders here and there, and they are humanized a bit by reading some notes or some terminal entries about how they interact with one another. But a player has to seek that information out, and it has zero impact on how the raiders will act in the game.

After about the first hour in Nuka World, you're introduced to 3 groups of raiders; the Pack, the Disciples, and the Operators. And after dozens of hours of killing raiders at every moment, of them being absolutely nothing but enemies, you're suddenly supposed to see these 3 gangs as people you're supposed to care enough about to do jobs for them, ensure their survival, and balance their ambitions.

Or, of course, if you are horrified by them, you absolutely can get a quest option to kill “just the leaders.” Guess what happens if you kill any one leader of any gang? Every single raider in the park goes nuts attacking you. And you then don't get the option of doing most of the quests in the frickin' add-on. You go and kill the leaders and you report to someone for having done it and that's that.

Let's say you really consider the motives and actions of your character in Fallout 4. Let's say you took seriously the idea of bringing back the Minutemen, and you built settlements, and you defended them, and you wore the Minuteman General's Armor (one of the coolest looking get-ups in the entire game and you can't put ballistic fiber in it, FOR SHAME) and got a Colonial haircut and mastered the laser musket and the revolutionary sword and by God you built enough artillery to blow the goddamn Prydwen out of the sky after you destroyed the Institute and everything it stood for.

Why on earth are you suddenly going to even consider conquering settlements you built for a raider gang? Why are you even going to consider working for the Disciples, a gang whose whole schtick is so putrid and cliched that they feel like they were conceived by the kind of grody gamer whose room is covered in posters saying WHY SO SERIOUS and  Hellraisers? I mean, literally, their hideout is full of mutilated corpses, has prisoners shackled to a wall for everyone to torture freely. Their footsoldiers walk by saying things like “that last one died too quickly.”

Now, I get that playing evil is an option some people enjoy. Not quibbling with that. What I am quibbling with is that Fallout 4 has only given you the option of playing mean and then wants you to go 0-60 on evil as soon as you walk into Nuka-World. Previous Fallout games gave you the option of going this way from the moment your boots hit the ground. Want to be an unrepentant asshole in Fallout 3? Blow the shit out of Megaton and watch Mr. Tenpenny applaud from his veranda. In New Vegas you got a good early look at what the Legion were about, and you could absolutely sign up and be a sadistic, awful bastard if that's how you wanted to play. I never did, but if that's your bag I'm not here to judge.

While I do think The Institute is ultimately evil in Fallout 4 and I have yet to complete a playthrough where I sided with them, I can at least see the argument. I can see the space that would lead a person to take that route, genuinely believing they were doing what was best for the Commonwealth, and especially with the added weight of your long lost son giving the sales pitch. I think it's a facade of bullshit and self-interest, and the self-awareness of the Synths you interact with throughout the game (and especially in Far Harbor, which I think had more interesting storytelling than the rest of the game) but I am willing to hear the argument.

You can absolutely miss me with arguments that suggest that Caesar's Legion in New Vegas is anything but utterly, knowingly, deliberately evil.

But with Nuka-World, nothing in the hours of gameplay prior prepares you for suddenly taking charge of raiders, improving their conditions, listening to their dumb justifications for their behavior (after I mowed down the Operators I found some holotapes that I assumed speak to their origins and I rolled my eyes so hard I almost passed out) or doing anything but eradicating them from the Commonwealth. And doing that is exactly what the DLC really doesn't want you to do. The game does not in any way position you to accept raiders as heroic, marginalized, misunderstood, or worthy of your admiration, pity, time, sweat, effort, caps, or thoughts. It positions them throughout as enemies, plain and simple, and then wants to pull a 180 degree switch once you walk through the doors of Nuka World. It hasn't earned that switch. Not even a little bit. The flat, stale storytelling of Nuka-World is probably the most disappointing part of a game that I still enjoyed, but can't love the way I do its predecessors. I go into a Fallout game expecting my choices to matter. Fallout 4 gives you one big choice; side with the Institute or against it. Blow it up or don't. Sure, the faction you do pick then decides whether you blow up the Prydwen or shoot up the Railroad HQ. And seriously, why couldn't I at least try to hammer out peace between the Brotherhood of Steel and the Railroad? You could get the Brotherhood and the NCR to play nice in New Vegas. It was tricky, but it could be done. This entry in the series just gives you straight up or down choices that don't feel like they make a difference except in terms of which bodies hit the floor. I expected more than that.

And seriously, why can't I put ballistic fiber in any damn piece of clothing or hat that I want? WHY?

So what's your experience with Fallout 4? Enjoy it more than I do? Think it's the best entry in the series? For my money, New Vegas is tops, and probably one of my top 5 of all time.  

I realize I mostly blab about books, writing, reading, RPGs and such here, but I right now I just have so many feelings about West Ham's first league game of the new season. I realize that "American fantasy author" doesn't scream "expert on football" and I am not claiming to be! I am learning. It's a process. But I do watch every game that I reasonably can, I stick around till the end (in this case I was out the door after Chelsea's second goal, but only because I had a professional obligation and had to get on the road) I have done as much reading as I can manage about English football in general and West Ham in particular, I follow several of the major West Ham blogs and social media sites religiously even if I don't comment on them. In no particular order: 

-Of course Ayew got hurt inside his first half in claret&blue. Of course he did. That is the most West Ham thing possible. It is maximum West Ham. 

-Even when he was out there nobody seemed to have any ideas in the final third other than "give it to Carroll and pray" and it didn't work at all. Why does West Ham have so many damn wingers if none of them can get a cross into the box for Carroll to do something with?

-Antonio is not a RB. His confidence is shattered. Would anyone really blame him if he actually turned in a transfer request because he's tired of getting played out of position and being mercilessly picked on by every opposing offense? 

-Costa should have been red carded for his attempt to break Adrian's ankle. 

-That being said, Adrian needs to reign it in and stop trying to be cute. Pick the damn ball up. That is literally the advantage you, and ONLY YOU as a keeper are given in that area of the pitch.

-Valencia is unplayable. Sell him for a bag of practice balls. Take the first offer that comes in. I admire his approach and professionalism but he was a net negative today. 

-I do not believe that the club are "happy with our attacking options," when the Ginger Pele scored the only goal on the only real threat. I love Collins but he shouldn't be our best attacking threat. 

-Did Tore do anything positive?

-Nordtveit was dreadful. 

-Lest anyone think I'm just picking on the new signings, Noble and Kouyate seemed overmatched. 

-Masuaku was pretty decent. 

-For the love of all that is holy please let Byram start the next game at RB and let Antonio play forward, where he belongs, and might actually create a scoring threat. 

 

There. I don't know if I will do this regularly, or ever again, but this stuff needed to get out of my head. 

Greetings!

Been a while since there was any action on this blog, but I thought I'd catch you up on a few things. 

First, any reviews on Amazon or Goodreads are still appreciated. 

Secondly, I've got a big stack of bookplates just waiting to be signed and affixed on your copy of Ordination. To get one, all you have to do is any of the following: 

Follow me on Goodreads or Twitter and send me a message with the address to ship it to

Tweet a picture of your copy of Ordination and send DM me an address (again, DM on Twitter or email me through this site). 

Last, I've got a few appearances already scheduled for the end of summer and fall and hopefully more to come, but for now

Monday, August 15 at 6 pm: 5th Annual Space, Magic, and Swords at the North East Branch of the Cecil County Library. I'll be a special guest, and a signed copy of Ordination will be given away as a prize. Details here

Thursday, September 29 at 6 p.m.: I'll be on the SFWP Panel at the Fall for the Book Festival at George Mason University 

Sunday, October 2nd at 2 p.m.: There is an SFWP reading at The Writer's Center in Bethesda! Details here

Saturday, October 22 at 11 a.m: The Hockessin Book & Art Fair. I'll be exhibiting, selling Ordination, signing books, and who knows what else. Best please to get details on the Book & Art Fair is on their Facebook page, here

I'm hoping to add more appearances. Got a book club, library, fantasy bookstore, gamestore, or comic book store within a 2 hour drive of New Castle, Delaware (longer also possible)? Let me know. I'll come and talk your ear off about Allystaire, Idgen Marte, Torvul, and company. 

 

Greetings! 

Well, the release of Ordination: Book I of The Paladin Trilogy is imminent. The official release date is June 1, but Amazon is going to be shipping pre-orders this coming week (so make sure to get yours in today and take advantage of the ebook sale if print is dead to you). 

With that being said, I'm going to be off selling and signing copies for the second time this spring, and since so many of you are going to be meeting Allystaire and Idgen Marte in the next few days, I thought I'd reveal the cover of Stillbright: Book II of The Paladin Trilogy. 

 

Largely, I'm happy to let Kerem Beyit's beautiful art speak for itself. What I love about this image the most, besides the simple fact that it features Idgen Marte, who I hope many of you will come to enjoy as much as I do, is how much of her character this image manages to showcase. Whatever is happening out of frame, she knows about it, has assessed it, and is readying herself to deal with it, while Allystaire has barely noticed anything. 

 

I thought I would ease back into blogging today with a little look at what I've been reading and watching lately, though with luck some of this might spin out into longer reflection. First up, the books!

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nahesi Coates. I read this more or less in one sitting and I almost never do that anymore. I should probably read it again. I don't know what I can or should say about it except that if I had to tell almost everyone I came in contact with to read one book this year it'd be that one.

World War One in 100 Objects by Peter Doyle. Kind of an interesting if not necessarily deep look at specific examples of objects from WWI; helmets, hats, badges, weapons, the car the Archduke was assassinated in.

World War 1 by S.L.A. Marshall. I've probably read more books about WWI than any (non-Irish) historical subject and I'm not entirely sure I was enriched by this one. Marshall was the official U.S. Army Combat Historian of WWII and Korea and his methods and legacy have been sharply questioned. Really hard time getting stuck into it. At times his voice is interestingly dry; at others it was 'oh I've been drooling facedown on that page for five minutes' dry.'

The Last Days of Innocence: America at War 1917-1918. Still trying to really get down into this one, but I will eventually; grading for school, baseball, working on Stillbright and another book project keep getting in the way.

In terms of comic books, nothing much has changed for me; still mostly looking forward to Rat Queens, Saga, Star Wars and G.I. Joe every month. I have gotten into Patsy Walker, AKA Hellcat! by Kate Leth and Brittney Williams and the new Black Panther by Ta-Nahesi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze which had a beautiful first issue that I unfortunately tried to read with a massive headache, and will have to go back into later. I'm willing to take recommendations on new Marvel books to jump into; I abandoned ship from Marvel years ago. I am, sadly, deeply skeptical of whatever new relaunch D.C. is doing, but I'll at least give you an ear.

In terms of television watching, well, I don't watch as much as I might like, but something's got to give every night before I go to work on a book, and baseball fills up a lot of time prior to that. I thought Daredevil Season 2 was actually superior to Season 1; making the legal drama about the Punisher was the smartest choice it could've made. Supergirl is easily my favorite of the superhero shows on these days, and I'll probably only catch up with Arrow, Flash, Agent Carter and Legends of Tomorrow by late in the summer; they're packing the DVR right now. Two things I've watched recently stick out; the Jackie Robinson documentary by Ken Burns is predictably amazing, but I think you can hardly help but be amazed by Jackie's life and legacy. If you tried to write a novel or a screenplay today featuring a person who was tremendously athletically gifted, as brilliant, as resilient as Jackie Robinson was, you'd be told it was wildly unrealistic.

Lastly, and really this is the thing I can't stop thinking about, is the FX show Baskets. Zach Galifianakis is extremely hit or miss to me, so I didn't jump right into that show. I started watching it On Demand on my spring break and I am obsessed with it now. That show is odd all the time, painfully beautiful in certain moments, savagely funny in others, and fully humanizing at its best. I might write a longer essay going over my reactions to it, which began with cautious interest, grew to surreal fascination, and ended in total devotion. I may watch the entire thing again before I write anything too in-depth about it. I'll say this; it certainly seems like certain characters on that show are going to fit a specific, cliched type – Penelope as the unattainable, emotionally distant object of desire, for instance – only for that type to be undercut with humor, honesty, and even tenderness later on. But even those moments aren't allowed to last too long, because at the end of the day our main character, Chip, is too self-involved and too much of a dyed-in-the-wool fuckup to learn from anything for much longer than a few minutes. Also that show has a few moments where it revives the absolutely lost art of making smoking on-screen look beautiful and desirable. 

There you have it; are there any shows I should be watching that I'm missing out on (if you say Agents of SHIELD consider yourself forewarned that I'm going to ignore that suggestion), books I have to read, comics I should take a first or second chance on? Let me know.