Shaun Duke

Major Score! Writer: 1 Fate: -2

Shaun Duke / February 22, 2007

K, the title really is just my odd sense of humor and it will likely make little sense. I just think it’s silly. So apparently I am one of the few winners of the Debut a Debut contest at Writing Aspirations. I’ve apparently won Ninja by Racy Li. It’s somewhat of a dark urban fantasy/erotica from what I can tell. I’ll be inserting it into my reading list now.Additionally, I’ve managed to score quite a good collection of new books over the weekend, mostly from going to local thrift stores. The closest one to me tends to have a little section of scifi and fantasy, so naturally I migrate there from time to time. So here is what I got: The Wilderness Four-1 / Across the Far Mountain by Niel HancockThe Heaven Makers by Frank HerbertThe Abductors: Conspiracy by Jonathan Frakes (a.k.a. Riker from Star Trek Next Gen.)Timeless Stories For Today and Tomorrow by Ray BradburySandkings by George R. R. Martin (huge score here)Tales of the Velvet Comet #1: Eros Ascending by Mike ResnickOrion by Ben BovaThe Best of Isaac Asimov by Isaac Asimov (duh, lol.)Flashforward by Robert J. SawyerAtlas Shrugged by Ayn RandThe Crack in the Sky by Richard A. LupoffMyth Adventures by Robert Lynn AsprinThe Deed of Paksenarrion (trilogy) by Elizabeth MoonKrondor the Betrayal by Raymond E. FeistTekWar by William Shatner (the Shat!)Great Sky River by Gregory BenfordThe Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel KayA Thunder on Neptune by Gordon EklundRedshift Rendezvous by John E. StithThe Lost Swords: First Triad by Fred SaberhagenThe Lost Swords: Second Triad by Fred SaberhagenThe Complete Book of Swords by Fred Saberhagen And from Borders:The Seeker by Jack McDevittJupiter by Ben BovaSo I really made out rather well. Some new stuff, some dorky stuff, and a lot of old hard to find near-golden age stuff. I love Golden Age scifi. All that stuff set in times when we knew so little about physics that you could get away with almost anything. Ahh, so great. Also, figured I would post my ‘reading list’. This doesn’t include the books for my scifi/fantasy lit class though, but I intend to review most of the books that I haven’t read from that class. Currently Reading: Venus by Ben Bova, Forever War by Joe Haldeman, and Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke 1. Shadow Fall by James Clemens2. Seeker by Jack McDevitt3. Ninja by Racy Li (e-book, won it!)4. The Elder Gods Book One by David and Leigh Eddings5. Cell by Stephen King6. Two Wizards by Darren Reid (e-book)7. Nebula Awards Showcase 2004: Edited by Vonda N. McIntyre8. Jupiter by Ben Bova9. Mad Ship by Robin Hobb10. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger11. The Locus Awards: Edited by Charles N. Brown and Jonathan Strahan So that’s basically my ‘to read’ list for the time being. I didn’t want to make it horrendously large simply because that would be crazy. I unfortunately don’t have a Library Thing subscription so I can show random stuff from my book library and other such nifty features. I was under the impression that Shelfari had such things, but I can’t seem the find them. Maybe there is another site that I can do the widget thing for free. Anyone else have a ‘reading list’ or some such?And have you found nifty deals in your local area such as the thrift store I mentioned? (I didn’t mention the local library that has a ‘fill-a-bag-for-5-bucks’ sale during summer…my collection is upwards of six hundred books because of those things…) Or, perhaps you know a neat website or some such that you found useful for finding amazing deals.

World in the Satin Bag

A Writer’s Friend–Music

Shaun Duke / February 19, 2007

I’ve had this idea floating around in my head for a while now. What exactly is the affect of music on writers? Are some inspired by listening to certain forms of music? Or do some not listen while writing at all?In my case it can be either/or. Depending on the type of mood I am in, I can write while listening to music, but in other cases I have to have complete silence. I generally listen to music without words, though, namely classical and orchestrated soundtracks from movies. So I am curious what music does everyone listen to when they write? How does it affect you? And, alternately, has a song, or section of a musical piece, inspired you so much that you’ve actually written a scene set to it?I ask that question simply because it seems that some authors, besides myself, have had this experience. Christopher Paolini wrote the final battle scene in Eragon while listening to Carmina Burana, a fantastic epic classical work by Carl Orff. If you listen to parts of it you’ll understand why he was so influenced by that piece. I have tried looking for other authors that have had similar experiences, but have somewhat come up short. Over here at Quantum Storytelling Redchurch has written a blog about favorite writing music. He quotes using a lot of different forms of music, mostly from film composers.In my case I find that I am increasingly influenced by two specific pieces of music from two rather entertaining films. One is from The Chronicles of Narnia soundtrack, track 13. I’ve actually written in my head an entire scene for The World in the Satin Bag. It’s a very emotional scene too, one in which I am not at all excited to write. The other is the track entitled Kronos Revealed on The Incredibles soundtrack. I’ve not written anything for it, but every time I hear that piece I start to really think. It is a powerful and gripping piece from the film and ends on this dark, brass filled set of notes, intensifying to a climax. So, what sort of music affects all of you in your writing? And, if we take this in the opposite direction, perhaps something you have written inspired you to write a song or think of something musical. Spider Robinson worked with David Crosby to write a sort of ‘scifi’ folk song for one of his novels. You can see the interview here. It’s really the dorkiest you can get, but makes you think a little.

Book Review: The Tower of Shadows by Drew Bowling

Shaun Duke / February 14, 2007

This is for the Debut a Debut contest I discovered here.Every once in a while you stumble upon a great work of art within the fantasy genre. Take Eragon by Christopher Paolini for example. A young author writes a fantastic epic and well driven story, and succeeds. Not only that, Paolini wrote a sequel which, while not quite as good as Eragon, deserves just as much praise for the development of the various characters.However, The Tower of Shadows is not one of these so called ‘great works’. Rather, it is a terribly written, poorly plotted, and mindlessly pointless piece of fantasy fiction.At first appearances, and at first glance, you get the idea that this is going to be a story that falls into many cliches, but has the potential to add some new and fascinating twists. The synopsis is gripping enough:(My version) “Long ago a demon called Apollyon broke free from his imprisonment. Two brothers are the only ones that survive in the village, taken to safety by the wizard Dale, and Apollyon was caged again. Wren, wandering into the village, also manages to escape with the help of Dale.Some years later Cade, grown and possessed with great magical power, seeks vengeance for the horrible deaths of his parents. He hopes to bring Apollyon back and destroy the demon, forever banishing Apollyon from the world. He needs his brothers’ blood–Corin–and a mythical dagger. Dale, however, hopes to protect Corin from the evil idealogy of his brother.And so it begins…” When you open the book, in the first 50 or 60 pages you start to ask yourself a few questions, realizing that the synopsis has just tricked you into reading something that might pass as a paper weight instead: Who is the main character?Honest to God question. In those first pages I mentioned you are introduced not only to the supposed main character (Wren), but to Dale, a wizard, two assassins who’s names aren’t important, but who play an important role, the bad guy (Cade), his powerful apprentice Damon, the brother Cade needs (Corin) and his friend Dusty and his Uncle or Father, or some such figure, Adriel (Dale’s apprentice) and Wren’s daughter (who’s name escapes me at the moment). And mind you, we’re inside all of these peoples’ heads throughout those 60 or so pages. I wanted to know who was going to be the focus of the book, because with the POV jumping around all over the place I couldn’t tell who was the central character. The synopsis told me it was Cade, the writing made it seem like it was Wren–though it on his daughter and other characters just as much on him. Why does it take almost 100 pages before the story really starts going?Now, I know in books of 400, 500, or more pages you wouldn’t expect a full flowering of the plot in any way until probably around that 100 or so page mark. What I mean is, the plot is well on its way, it’s heading slowly for the climax, and you have an idea of what is going on, even if you don’t know all the facts, etc. Tower of Shadows is a 286 page book, this means that the central character should be obvious by page 10 and the plot should be well on its way by page 40 or 50. Rather, the plot doesn’t kick off until you’re so thoroughly bored with the pointless talk of the characters lives. Yes, we need that information, but not if you are going to waste our time and ignore the fact that there is supposed to be some evil stuff going on and the good guys are supposed to be gearing up for a fight. Why do dragons of this world (Ellynrie) have four wings?Now, for most of us fantasy readers or writers, we can dispell disbelief. But we also all know that dragons are enormous creatures of immense power and tend to have some sort of intelligence. We also know them to have two wings. So why four? I can’t explain it. Theoretically speaking, a creature as large as a dragon with four wings would be incapable of much more than perhaps eating, sleeping, and reproducing. The brain mass needed to have some sort of sentience (even sentience to know to destroy human habitations on purpose) would be far too large and complex that such creatures would have to be more intelligent, or far more dominant than humans. Bowling never explains this. We’re supposed to take it as it is. Unfortunately, I can see the problem with a four winged massive beast. Alright, so those are some immediate questions. So now I’ll address some other issues with the book.First a positive.Not all is bad with Tower of Shadows. Despite his constant switching of POV, Bowling’s writing style is powerful. He can describe like nobody else. My biggest complaint in his writing was the excessive use of metaphors that really had no context in the story. The thing about metaphors is this: use them, but don’t make it confusing. Despite that, if he had written this in the mind of Wren, fine tuned the plot and some other elements, I imagine this would have been a halfway decent novel. Another issue with this novel that is less positive is the actual plot and action. First, the majority of the good guys get around on pure luck, despite the fact that Wren is supposed to be this amazingly accomplished fighter and for whatever reason Adriel is supposed to be quite powerful. Wren’s daughter is, well, a useless and pointless character. She serves no purpose other than to drive Wren further on his quest for fear that that he might lose her. And if she had died I think his convictions would have been doubly strong. Instead, she parades around with Wren doing mostly nothing but crying, feeling bad for the mishaps that happen to her father, and doing insanely stupid things that any supposedly

World in the Satin Bag

Chapter Eleven: Of the World Below

Shaun Duke / February 12, 2007

(Note: This is not official version and may be removed in the near future. This do not reflect what is read in the podcast version, nor any other version you may encounter. I have preserved the rough form for posterity — or something like that. This novel has since been rewritten.) The cold black enveloped him in every direction and he soon realized that his inability to breath was the result of being thrust many feet underwater. But with nothing but darkness filling his vision he couldn’t tell which direction led to the surface. He hung there for a moment, feeling the water he had accidentally ingested swimming in the bottom of his lungs and his reflexes telling him to cough. Then, he picked a direction and swam frantically. A few seconds turned to many seconds and he started to wonder if he had chosen wrong and that he would die in the bottom in a watery grave. Quickly he dispelled those thoughts and swam harder and faster. Then, miraculously, he broke the surface. The chill sensation of air tickled his face. He breathed hard and coughed wildly as his lungs begged to be free of their burden. He dispelled the water and phlegm that found its way back into his throat and then breathed a sigh of relief. Looking around he could see nothing. Without the light from Pea’s magical torch every direction left him blind; his eyes could not adjust. To add, his arms were still burning and the only thing that kept him going was the burst of adrenaline injected ever so smoothly into his muscles. James tried to float on his back in order to cool his aching body. He managed it, albeit crudely, and grinned at having remembered something he hadn’t done since he was five. The only thing holding him down was his pack, which he took great effort to keep centered so he didn’t have to flop around too much to keep afloat. What am I going to do, he thought. The echo of voices answered his question. At first he couldn’t make out what was being said as the voices merged into a collage of sounds. Then, as if his hearing suddenly became more accurate, he could hear the faint arguing of Pea and Darl. Despite his fear he chortled. Then the joyful moment was over. “I’m okay,” he said, practically screaming it. A first there was no reply except the continuing debate above. Then, suddenly the echoes stopped. “James?” Pea’s voice came, broken, through the tunnel. “I’m okay. There’s water down here. A lot of water. I can’t see.” He slipped briefly, coughed up the water that ran into his mouth, and righted himself. “We’re on our way!” James waited patiently in the water, floating calmly. He could stand the dark—for a time. He had never been afraid of the dark, not really. His parents had told him he had feared it when he was younger, but he could never remember those days, and in some ways he was grateful not to. He instead fixated on the nights when his parents had told him to go to bed and he had simply remained awake fiddling with his computer. He started to wonder when he would get to use his computer again. He floated there in the dark for what seemed like ages. The sounds of Darl’s work in the tunnel filtered through the air. Shortly after the languid glow of Pea’s torch send a shimmer of light through the end of the tunnel and James could finally make out the dark shapes of his surroundings. The tunnel ended some twenty feet above him, simply cut off by the ceiling of a monumental cavern that stretched farther than the light could reach. We must be under the river, he thought. He wondered how far Arnur was from the river. He guessed a couple miles at least, assuming they didn’t get lost, something he hoped wouldn’t happen. There’s no time for that. A cry of surprise from above forced James to look up just in time to see Darl falling haphazardly through the opening in the tunnel. He tried to move out of the way, but it was too late and Darl came crashing down a few feet from him, landing stomach first, and sending a wave of water over his face. Darl surfaced a moment later. Pea snickered. “Not funny!” Darl said. Then Pea cried out too and fell with a small plop, sending yet another wave of water over both James and Darl. Then Pea surfaced too. “Right, not funny,” Pea said, the torch still held in his tiny hand. The flame hadn’t gone out, in fact, it had sunk an inch below the water and still glowed bright. James admired it for a brief moment. Then Pea said, “Well, what direction should we go.” “I haven’t a clue where we are, let alone which direction is east.” “I think we’re under the river,” James said. “But where under the river I don’t know. The tunnel didn’t exactly stay straight.” “Pick a direction then.” Pea didn’t seem too pleased with the option, but opted for it nonetheless. James hung his head back for a moment and let his ears sink, using his legs to keep him afloat. He floated there, silent and quiet, contemplating the next course of action he would have to take. East could be any direction, he thought. And if we go the wrong way we’ll all be dead. Something gently tugged on his back. At first he ignored it, thinking it little more than the movement of water around him, a current, or perhaps Darl or Pea swishing around. It was only enough to grab his attention, nothing more. But, he soon came to realize that it wasn’t the swishing and movement of his companions that was causing the force on his back. Rather, something inside his pack seemed to be pushing against the side. He

Book Reviews, World in the Satin Bag

Stuff & Book Review: Old Man’s War by John Scalzi

Shaun Duke / February 9, 2007

First, some notes on relatively important dates: Sunday, 11th: Chapter Eleven goes up!Friday, 16th: New book review of Tower of Shadows.Sunday, 25th: Chapter Twelve goes up! Next, I wonder how many of you are note takers. There was a short bit in the comments in my last blog about Tolkien. I mentioned that when he died he left behind a garage full of notes that are still to this day being dealt with. The idea of that is staggering when you think about it.So, I’m curious to know how indepth you all are in your note taking. Personally I don’t take a lot of notes unless I’m dealing with a story that is hard scifi. For fantasy, it’s mostly just making it up as I go. Take for instance my recent efforts for a hard scifi story. I spent about 10 hours worth of research this weekend to make sure that I stayed roughly within the parameters of modern physics as we know it. I had to make sure that star systems I wanted to use for the story could do what I needed them to do, etc. So, a good ten hours later I had over forty systems categorized and labeled for who controlled them, how many habitable planets if any, and the like. But for the story that is on this blog, The World in the Satin Bag, mostly I had an idea and I ran with it. Take Chapter Ten. I had no idea I was going to have the tunnel end in darkness. Not a clue actually. Originally I had thought they would get across and maybe get ambushed and be on their merry way to Arnur. But now, turns out my mind wanted to do something completely different. And, well there you have it. Chapter Eleven should prove to be most interesting in regards to the pace of the story. In fact, I think Chapter Eleven deals with one of my inborn fears that keeps me out of certain places in the world.So, as it is, it’s time for a book review!Old Man’s War is a fantastic military SF novel. I was pleasantly surprised. My first reaction when I saw it was written in first person was that of disinterest. I have a huge problem getting into first person stories and rarely do such POV’s hold my attention. This is not the case with Old Man’s War (OLM from this point on).The story is set in the far future. Earth has become basically a backwater world as mankind has colonized other star systems under the military power of the Colonial Defense Forces, an entity that controls the bulk of human resources. Yet, the odd part is that rather than desiring to have young, fresh recruits join from Earth into the CDF, they are looking for the elderly. John Perry is one such person. His wife has died and he has opted to join. The downside: he can never return to Earth, interstellar war is hell, and he has to survive for two years minimum before he can retire to a generous homestead on one of the many colony worlds.The story itself starts out perfectly. I don’t want to ruin anything, but from the get go you have an amazing clarity of who the characters are. Each character is dynamic, despite having only existed on the page for a mere few chapters. The humor between the characters is superb and I found myself giggling with joy at the witty remarks some of the characters made.The pace is quick and sturdy, making all the twists and turns even more disturbing and surprising. I must say this is by far one of the best novels I have read in a long time. It held my attention from start to finish. The description of battle, characters, and the world Mr. Scalzi has created are amazingly portrayed. You get a great sense of what it must be like to be a soldier for the CDF. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys SF, in any genre.

World in the Satin Bag

Nifty Tools and Brainstorming

Shaun Duke / February 2, 2007

I decided that even though I have posted for this week, I would post again for the weekend because I’ve come up with some interesting information for those of you who are writers, and presumably this same information could come of use to perhaps businessmen and the like as well. At least I suppose so. First, I’d like to thank all of you who have commented and have said nice things about my writing. I greatly appreciate it and I hope that all of you will continue to read. I discovered this program called FreeMind from the blog of Jason Penney (Using a Mind Map to Organize Novel Notes). It essentially organizes notes for you into Mind Maps. What are Mind Maps? Well, remember when you were a kid and your teacher said, “Write one idea in a bubble and then start drawing lines to new ideas and thoughts, and then more thoughts and ideas on those”, so that you ended up with this paper of connected thoughts and information? That’s basically a Mind Map, albeit less complicated. Now, this isn’t to say that using FreeMind is complicated. Not at all. In fact, once you figure out the very basic commands it’s incredibly simple to use. Here’s an example of one I’m working on right now. Albeit, I have some things closed off (lines that end in little ‘o’ things are ones that can be further expanded for more info within the program), simply because they would make it too big to get an accurate image of.(Clicking the image should make it larger so you can see the words better)This makes organizing my thoughts so much easier. In fact, when I started doing it, I only have some minor ides of certain things. After a while I had huge lists of stuff on there because the Mind Mapping process allowed me to come up with more ideas. Now, this isn’t to say that I use this to come up with story ideas, but it is saying that I’m using this process to organize valuable information. In the case of the above image, I’ve had to keep note of different stars, their types, and various other information that would come in use during the story that I’m modeling on this subject. So, essentially, that’s Mind Mapping.Now, this is a whole new thing for me and I’m still not entirely sure how I will utilize it for all my writing efforts. In the instance of science fiction the program comes in great use because it allows me to keep track of various little minor facts that otherwise would get forgotten–physics, star system information, and the like. With fantasy, I imagine I could do much the same, but I have yet to start Mind Mapping all my info for The World in the Satin Bag yet. Perhaps it will happen. Alternately, I’m wondering what all of you do in your brainstorming sessions–you being the reader of course. Before this program, it was mostly coming up with a basic plot or event. In the case of The World in the Satin Bag, my first thought was of a boy who gets sucked into an alternate world. Originally I had no idea it would be at the state it is now. I had no idea that his friend would get sucked in first, nor that war would break out, or anything of that nature. I had expected that he would just gain magic from being there, and not because he had a Fearl–a concept I didn’t come up with until more or less by accident while writing the scene when Laura gets sucked in. So my brainstorming starts out to be very basic. I don’t flesh out entire ideas on purpose. For me, fleshing out ideas tends to leave me with little ‘freedom’. I know I can change anything at any time, but the problem is I’ve already come up with a story I like. I’d much rather leave the majority of the plot unwritten in my mind so that I can have free reign in the direction of the story. The furthest I think ahead is what the next chapter is ‘basically’ going to be about. This is all of course referring to fantasy.But for science fiction I have a lot more issues to deal with. I tend to have grand scale ideas of a aliens and Earth and humankind. So, my first thoughts are: How am I going to get Humans from here to there in reasonable time? How did they get there in the first place? Did someone help us? Are we alone in our fight for whatever might need fighting for?I try to answer those, because they serve as the backdrop of my science fiction world. So, I’m curious what those of you do to flesh out your ideas, or if you do that at all. Are you the type to simply sit back and go with the flow? Or do you like to work out the story ahead of time?