Harry posts
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THE STATE OF THE AUTHOR ADDRESS
Let’s talk briefly about where things stand for me as an author in the fall of 2018. There’s some personal stuff here and an update on new books.First of all, my wife and I have been living in this apartment for 24 years come Oct 3. And sometime in the upcoming months we’re going to be evicted.The eviction will come in one of two ways: a massive rent hike, or a straight order to get out so the building can be demolished. Our landlord passed away, and his heirs would rather sell than collect rent, so the building is up for sale. (And no, I...
LET’S BE MINDFUL OF FAKE HURRICANE PHOTOS
from the blog:With Hurricane Florence hitting the coast of the USA, take a minute to familiarize yourself a few of the most common fake viral photos that people share on social media, so you can recognize them this time around and give them the obscurity they deserve.
As Promised, Short Reviews of Some Books I've Read Recently
These include Amazon Affiliate links, so don’t be shocked if a couple of pennies come my way if you decide any of these books are interesting.Meddling Kids, by Edgar Cantero.I was surprised to discover that this was a bestseller, since I had not heard of it before it turned up on a “What to read now that you’ve finished watching STRANGER THINGS” list. The author is from Spain and while English is his second language, he brings a beautiful fluidity and a welcome playfulness to the book. Well, mostly welcome. He experiments with the langu...
Deleted Scene from my WIP: The Crown of Infamy
I know I promised a post with book recommendations, but that's on hold while I manage other things. Soon, though.In the meantime, I just had to revise the plot of the novel I'm currently working on, The Crown of Infamy, which meant that I cut a few scenes, and I thought I'd share one of them here.Keep in mind that this is absolutely first draft material, so there's likely to be misspellings, dropped words, word echoes, and clumsy sentences. If you read, please read generously.By way of setup for this scene, Liam Both, who is rac...
SLAPSTICK AND NEW FICTION: SHARING SOME PERSONAL STUFF HERE INSTEAD OF ON SOCIAL
My Saturday was supposed to be fun. I was going to finish up my day’s writing, then pop over to the Summerfest celebration, which is basically the weekend when our local chamber of commerce rounds up food trucks, a beer garden, and some local musicians/cover bands. Not tremendously fun, but it’s outdoors and the beers are excellent. I’d planned to try some overpriced food truck treats, buy a fancy red ale from a nearby microbrew, and read in the shade for a few hours.Hey, my wife was going to be away until the evening, so I could have all...
DODGING BOTH ROCK AND HARD PLACE: THE UNCOMPROMISING HERO
I watched MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: FALLOUT last week, then rewatched BLACK PANTHER a few days later, and I was struck by the similarities. Both are about good men in a situation where other people expect them to be ruthless if they want to succeed. Both refuse but succeed anyway, partly through a circle of incredibly competent friends, and partly through their own awesomeness.Exceedingly minor spoilers for both films.“You are a good man, with a good heart, and it is hard for a good man to be king.”To me, that’s the central line in THE BLACK PA...
WHY YOU SHOULD GO SEE BLINDSPOTTING
Would it seem incongruous is I said these two different things about BLINDSPOTTING:1) It’s a film about gentrification.2) The last 30 minutes have more tension and intensity than any thriller or action movie I’ve seen in the past year.Typically, when I see a movie in the theater, I don’t bother doing any more than a tweet about it. For example:or maybe:But this film feels too complicated for a simple tweet. It’s like a buddy comedy where the funny bits are suddenly cut short by the very real possibility of tragedy. It’s a coming-of-ag...
THE NEW IRON FIST TRAILER IS FINE WHEN IT NEEDS TO BE GREAT.
Here’s the first trailer for S2 of Iron Fist, and if I’m being honest, I don’t love it.It’s not terrible, not like the trailers for S1 (“Where did he learn martial arts?”) but S1 was so terrible that I wanted this to blow me out of the water.It doesn’t. It’s a competently staged fight with an interesting viewpoint trick, it’s clear that the filmmakers know how to show Finn Jones fighting, but the visuals aren’t interesting. The location isn’t unusual. The enemies are, what, a few muggers?That’s not going to wash away the...
THE SPFBO BUMP(?): CONTESTS AND BOOK SALES
A little over a week ago, the final results of the SPFBO (Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off) competition came in. In case you didn’t know, The Way into Chaos was a finalist, but in the end I landed squarely in the middle. Sixth place, in fact.Sixth isn’t so terrible, although the structure of the contest means that my book was certainly not the sixth best of all 300. (If you already know know how SPFBO works, skip the next paragraph.)SPFBO is pretty straight forward: They have ten blogger-reviewers and 300 self-published fantasy novels to spl...
Young Men in Groups
I noticed this a couple of weeks ago and I tried to put off a response until my interest in it fell away. It hasn’t. Therefore:It started with this tweet from Chuck Wendig:If you click on that and read the whole thread, skip the rest of this paragraph. But basically, there are a bunch of right wing Star Wars fans who have decided the movie series has to be one of the many fronts in the culture war, and they imagine they have the power to tank a movie’s box office through shitposting.And then there’s the guys who think that targeted harass...
Verfremdungseffekt and the Modern Theseus: A Short(ish) Review of DAVE MADE A MAZE
I came across this movie in an odd way. It was literally lying on the floor in the library; someone meant to check it out, but dropped it while browsing through graphic novels. I looked at the cover, read the back, then opened wikipedia to make sure the Rotten Tomatoes score was not below 40%. Then… sure. Why not?Especially since my wife has a soft spot for artsy, oddball movies with interesting production design.The premise is simple: Annie returns from a business trip to discover that her boyfriend, Dave, has built a shitty cardboard fort i...
Yeah. Right: On the artificiality of narrative and the suspension of disbelief
If you hate spoilers for movies, especially the new Avengers picture, don't read farther.My kid doesn't like action movies.He won't overlook the artificial aspects of them to lose himself in the moment. In Mad Max: Fury Road, for example, when Tom Hardy jumped from a flaming truck just as it exploded and caught hold of another vehicle, my son blurted out "He's dead."Now, did I need a teenager to point out that the death-defying stunts of an action movie are inherently artificial and overblown? I assure you that I did not...
"I Don't Want To Be What They Made Me." A Review of JESSICA JONES S2
When I finished watching the second season of Jessica Jones (the first time through) I tweeted this:Now that I’ve seen it all the way through three times does my opinion still hold up?Yep!Spoilers!The standard “First Story” in any MCU property is that the hero faces off against a bigger, stronger version of themselves. Iron Man vs Iron Monger. Hulk vs MCU version of Abomination. Cap vs MCU Red Skull. Black Panther vs Killmonger.But S1 of Jessica Jones skipped this plot structure because the character already had an arch-enemy with terrify...
Randomness for 3/23
1) What happens when bookstore employees get bored. This is delightful.2) The literal translation of every country name in the world.3) Book Towns: small towns filled with bookstores.4) Why is English such a weird language?5) Peanut butter and mayo sandwiches were a thing in the ’60s so we tried it.6) Telltale Games: creative endeavors in a corporate environment.7) Beautiful murals from the last remaining Prohibition-era speakeasy in Seattle.
RANDOMNESS FOR 2/21
1) Longest-standing video game record declared ‘impossible,’ thrown out after 35 years (update)2) “She wrote it but…” Revisiting Joanna Russ 35 Years Later.3) All 288 reported concussions of the 2017 NFL season in one video clip.4) Single Mothers Are Not The Problem.5) Why We Love Tyrants, according to psychoanalysts6) What’s the longest train route in the world? Video.7) Criminals impersonate authors on Amazon to launder their money.
Villains out of ordinary folk
Over on Marie Brennan's blog, I wrote about how I created one of the villains in The Twisted Path from an actual guy I met while touring Lisbon. Check it out.And if you find it interesting, please share.
PODCAST REVIEW OF THE WAY INTO CHAOS, AND AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR
… Who happens to be me.The podcast is right here. Podbean. iTunes.I listened to part of it last night. At one point, I brought my son into the room, played about fifteen seconds’ worth, and said: “Is this how I sound in real life?”Him: “Yeah, Dad. That’s you.”Me: “It’s a miracle your mother ever gave me the time of day.”Him: “Yeah, Dad.”So, check it out. I talk about the successes and failures of Twenty Palaces, the various seeds that became The Great Way, and a number of other things.Apparently, I talk earnestly about m...
“WE’RE NOT IN A PROPHECY.” “LET THE PAST DIE.” “I’M SCARED.” THREE SHORT REVIEWS
I think that, if I group my reviews together, I can keep them short. So I’m going to try that.BrightEveryone who creates a fantasy with a contemporary setting has two major issues they need to address. Okay, it’s more than two, but as far as I’m concerned, these are the biggest.First, the stakes are bullshit.Second, monsters are not effective stand-ins for victims of injustice.The first is pretty straight forward, I think. In the normal course of things, I care as much about who becomes the next arch-duke of the sewer goblins as I do abou...
SPFBO, THE SELF-PUBLISHED FANTASY BLOG OFF
Have you guys heard of this?Author Mark Lawrence, in an attempt to help self-publishing authors publicize their work, created a Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off. The system is simple: He recruited ten reviewers with blogs, solicited 300 fantasy novels from self-published authors, and distributed them. Each reviewer picks one out of their 30 to move to the finals. Then the reviewers choose a winner.The Way into Chaos is one of those finalists.The winner gets an award, but most importantly, a publicity boost, which is a big hurdle for self-publish...
WHERE THINGS STAND WITH THE TWISTED PATH AFTER ONE WHOLE DAY
[It seemed redundant to post a download link to the new 20P novella on Patreon and also the permanent post for it. Instead, I'm going to put up this followup post, which links back to the main post.]Let’s see:The Twisted Path has its permanent reference post up on my blog. I also added the cover art to the front page in the Twenty Palaces section. (That felt good.)I posted a download link for Patreon supporters, and sent messages to patrons who quit the service after their quickly reverted rate changes.At nine-thirty-ish last night, I sta...
New Twenty Palaces Novella Available Now
Hey, want that new Twenty Palaces Novella?Go ahead and click that Dropbox link above. When it prompts you to sign in, just click Cancel. Then you get the zip file that will open into a .mobi and a .epub, depending on your ebook reading pleasure.And if you like it, please post a review on Amazon, Goodreads, the corner booth of your local cafe while you're hanging out with your friends, in your social media, anywhere.Thank you very much.
Re that new Twenty Palaces I've been promising.
I’ve been talking about this here and there, so let’s hit the topic one more time, but with art.The new Twenty Palaces novella, The Twisted Path, will be released soon. I just got the copyedit back, so sometime in the next few days, I guess? Being a novella, it’ll be ebook only, and I hope you’ll buy yourself a copy for Christmas.Here’s the photo the cover was created from and the original.My wife took that picture in the public square in Evora, Portugal. My son adjusted the image (in GIMP) and I did the text. I’m pretty happy with ...
Changing Patreon fees and The Twisted Path
On December 6th, I got an email from Patreon telling me they were going to increase the charges that you, the patrons, were going to pay. They pitched it to me as though it was a way to make their payments more predictable. I was supposed to be 95% of the pledges rather than the fluctuating amount it has been.Of course, that was crap. The payment will be 95% of the pledge, but only because they're hanging the credit card processing fees on you guys as an extra. In the past, that came from my share. I have no idea why that's supposed to ...
SEEING THE FOREST FOR THE ALGORITHM: A REVIEW OF PAST EDIT NOTES AND A HARD TRUTH
In which the author makes an embarrassing confessionOne of my little secrets is that, in between projects, I’ll sometimes read a book about writing. It’s always useful to reinforce the basics, and seeing how other writers approach the blank page gives me insights into my own work.Sometimes I get the impression that I’m supposed to be past all that, but I’m not. I’ve never really felt that I’ve mastered this craft. Some aspects of it, maybe, but I still struggle.And since I’m brainstorming something new, I took another writer’s c...
JUSTICE LEAGUE (NO SPOILERS)
Okay. I wasn’t going to see it until next week, but reviews said it was sorta good, so I caught a 7pm sneak tonight.The theater was mostly empty, a very bad sign.The movie itself was “pretty good for superhero movies” if that’s any kind of rating that matters. They finally got the heroes right. The villains were still cgi ciphers for a supers plot, with three macguffins that have to be gathered and joined to end the world, etc etc. The parademons were effectively animated but Steppenwolf was an empty shell.Still, this is the first time ...
Mohawks, Barrel Fires, and a Few Nice Shots: a highly qualified defense of episode 7 of STRANGER THINGS 2
This post contains spoilers for the second season of STRANGER THINGS 2. You should only read it if:a) You have already seen the showb) You actively like spoilersc) You enjoy discussions of storytelling but have no interest in this particular show.Moving on: episode seven, is widely regarded as the weakest episode of the entire show, for good reason. It steps away from the setting we, the audience, are invested in, and it drops all of the regular characters except one: Eleven. (I should start calling her "Jane" but I'm not ready to m...
BLADE RUNNER 2049: BEAUTIFUL AND SAD AND WTF? COME ON, GUYS
In my attempt to return my online activity to spaces I control, I’m going to be dropping reviews here, too. To start, Blade Runner 2049.First of all, it’s a beautiful movie. And it’s a sad one, too. That’s not a spoiler; it’s obvious from the first few minutes that this shit will turn tragic.Also, it’s part of the Staring School of filmmaking. Nowadays, when filmmakers want to signal that their movie is Capital A Art, they show lingering shots of the actors staring at something without speaking. It’s meant to suggest that there’...
“YOU HAVE NOTHING BUT A WAR INSIDE YOU.” FINAL PUNISHER TRAILER AND PREMIERE DATE
The show airs on Nov 17, which is less than a month after it was announced. I wonder if Netflix is hoping to build anticipation by delaying the release day announcement as long as possible.Not that it matters, since I’ll be binge-watching it on the first day, and I won’t be watching previous Punisher movies to get myself in the mood.Here it is:https://youtu.be/OMW_dPtm7BoOne thing I didn’t realize at first was that this is the same day the new Justice League movie premiers. Marvel is literally counter-programming DC’s big gamble. And as...
“YOU HAVE NOTHING BUT A WAR INSIDE YOU.” FINAL PUNISHER TRAILER AND PREMIERE DATE
The show airs on Nov 17, which is less than a month after it was announced. I wonder if Netflix is hoping to build anticipation by delaying the release day announcement as long as possible.Not that it matters, since I’ll be binge-watching it on the first day, and I won’t be watching previous Punisher movies to get myself in the mood.Here it is:<iframe height="315" https:="" src="<a href=" width="560">https://www.youtube.com/embed/OMW_dPtm7Bo?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>One thin...
BRINGING IT HOME: A FOLLOWUP TO LAST POST
For the last few years, I’ve been putting more and more of my thoughts into Twitter threads, and it’s time to pull back from that. The people on Twitter are great, except for the ones who aren’t, but the company is a parade of fail. What’s more, it’s all so ephemeral. If I write about a Star Wars reboot on my blog, it’s always available to me when the subject comes up. If I put it Twitter, it falls into the memory hole before the day is out.So, more posts in spaces I own.This is probably a terrible decision, considering how little t...
