Category: Books

Book of the Week: The Princess Bride.

Yes, The Princess Bride the book is not as good as The Princess Bride the movie. William Goldman was a little sad, and perhaps a little weary, when he wrote it. Keeping that out of the movie was a smart call. But it’s such a good book, nonetheless. It’s unfair to judge it by its cinematic version.

And so, adieu to Anno Dracula: One Thousand Monsters.

 

NaNoWrimo, Day 3: 1860/5057.

I woke up this morning and figured out what the book is going to be about. Not the plot, because I more or less knew the plot already.  What I hadn’t figured out was the style and conceit of it all.  But once I knew what was going on, it was somewhat easier to get the words out.

Although that may be the flu shot.  ‘Flu-like symptoms?’ Oh, my, yes. I don’t know whether to crash for a day, or go back tomorrow for another dose.

Day 2 of NaNoWriMo: 1592/3196.

1600 words seems to be more or less how much I can do right now without an insurmountable struggle. It’s all clunky and contrived, of course; and I’ve decided to embrace the No Real Research rule and punch it up to eleven.  But, to paraphrase what a guy once said in Stephen King’s book It: it may end up being a crappy novel, but hopefully it’ll no longer be an unfinished crappy novel. Everybody should have one of those in his or her files.

Day One of NaNoWriMo: 1600 words.

I know that it’s supposed to be 1633, or something like that?  But it’s the first day, and considering that I had to deal with day-after-Halloween sugar crashes, Date Night, and what was almost a child medical emergency, I think that 1,600 words is very credible. Hopefully I’ll be able to get an even better rhythm flowing as I go.

Guess we’ll see.

Moe Lane

PS: Alas, I suspect that other creative work will suffer this month.  Sorry about that: I’ll try to glean more stuff from my archives. But, again, I’m actually trying to write a novel, here.

So. NaMoWrimo.

As my wife gently pointed out, if one wishes to be a novelist, one must actually have novels to hand. So we’ll give it a shot.  On my terms, though; I’m not planning to make a big deal out of it here, I’m not going to get all misty-eyed mystical on the subject, this is all about buckling down and working.

And I refuse to research a damned thing.  If real world people or organizations don’t in fact act in the way that I’ll be writing them, well, they should change that immediately.

Intriguing Swedish adaptation of Stoker’s Dracula novel makes its appearance.

So, background: there’s an Icelandic-language version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (called Powers of Darkness) that’s pretty gonzo (English translation here). We didn’t know about it for a long time, because it was in Icelandic, which meant that anybody who came across it probably just assumed that it was a straight translation. But it’s not: there’s apparently a good bit more sex, action, and Satanic Masonic Conspiracies in the Icelandic text, which made it ideal fodder for Ken Hite’s The Dracula Dossier (you simply must acquire a copy, if you have not yet done so) RPG supplement. Continue reading Intriguing Swedish adaptation of Stoker’s Dracula novel makes its appearance.

Book of the Week: Anno Dracula: One Thousand Monsters.

Kim Newman’s latest, and it’s an excellent choice for Halloween.  Anno Dracula: One Thousand Monsters is a vampire novel (of impressive pop culture awareness) set in Japan in 1899, which is a fascinating setting in its own right.  This book is also a standalone-sequel of sorts to Anno Dracula itself, but if you haven’t read it yet you should do so anyway. It will well reward your time.

And so, adieu to Infinite Stars.