It's rare for me to share negativity, but I was so excited to see a new #DavidJamesDuncan#novel out (his first in 30+ years) and it's..... bad. Like I have fought through some books before, and there's no way I am wasting 700 pages worth of my time on this hamfisted, bloated, unbelievable nonsense. Really disappointing, because I adore everything else he has written. Buyer beware in case you were thinking of getting it. #books#literature#NotGood
Well. I've been reading a lot as usual and there have been some good #books in there and some of the nonfiction has been excellent. But I haven't had a home run #novel read in awhile and so it's time to dip back into the masterpiece rereads stack. I'm not quite in a Pynchon mood so tonight I'm starting Soldier of the Mist, one of Gene Wolfe's finest works, which by definition puts it on the all time short list of greatest #SFF genre novels.
🧵 https://bookshop.org/p/books/latro-in-the-mist-soldier-of-the-mist-and-soldier-of-arete-gene-wolfe/7252330
I think I might write a blog about how to format a #novel using #LibreOffice because it's so unbelievably easy.
I'm not sure who'd be interested it though. I'm sure everyone uses some expensive professional software or something.
The guide would be for people like me who likes control and likes free stuff and is maybe a little bit oldskool and out of touch with what all the hip #writers are doing nowadays.
THE PERIPHERAL (William Gibson, 2014; Spanish edition 2017).
First novel of the trilogy (not yet finished) the Jackpot. In 2020 the second novel, "Agency" was published (I am reading it now). I haven't seen the Amazon Prime version and I'm not sure I'm going to see it. The reason is that I don't think it can live up to the novel. Perhaps one of the best novels translating today's complex reality (past, present, fact, fiction, economics, politics...).
Today in Labor History August 11, 1894: Federal troops drove over 1,000 jobless workers from the nation's capital. Led by Charles "Hobo" Kelley, an unemployed activist from California, and Jacob Coxey, they camped in Washington D.C. starting in July. Kelley's Hobo Army included a young journalist named Jack London and a young miner-cowboy named Big Bill Haywood. Frank Baum was an observer of the protest and some say it influenced his Wizard of Oz, with the Scarecrow representing the American farmer, the tin man representing industrial workers and the Cowardly Lion representing William Jennings Bryan, all marching on Washington (Oz) to demand redress from the president (the Wizard). 650 miners, led by a "General" Hogan, captured a Northern Pacific train at Butte, Montana, en route to the protest. The Feds caught up with them at Billings, forcing a surrender, but a few eventually made it to Washington.
#WritersCoffeeClub April 8
Do you think of your books as having a particular length? <-- catching up.
The only time I consider the length of my books is after they're written. Then, I check to see what qualifies as a #novel or #novella.
Since jumping into the #webnovel arena, one platform has demanded chapters be no greater than 15k characters—this is because of the fiction-on-phone readership's alleged 'short attention span'. rolls eyes
Today in Labor History November 5, 1916: The Everett Massacre occurred in Everett, Washington. 300 IWW members arrived by boat in Everett to help support the shingle workers’ strike that had been going on for the past 5 months. Prior attempts to support the strikers were met with vigilante beatings with axe handles. As the boat pulled in, Sheriff McRae called out, “Who’s your leader?” The Wobblies answered, “We’re all leaders!” The sheriff pulled his gun and said, “You can’t land.” A Wobbly yelled back, “Like hell we can’t.” Gunfire erupted, most of it from the 200 vigilantes on the dock. When the smoke cleared, two of the sheriff’s deputies were dead, shot in the back by their own men, along with 5-12 Wobblies on the boat. Dozens more were wounded. The authorities arrested 74 Wobblies. After a trial, all charges were dropped against the IWW members. The event was mentioned in John Dos Passos’s “USA Trilogy.”
Today in Writing History July 7, 1907: Robert Heinlein was born. Heinlein was a pioneer of “hard” science fiction, which emphasized scientific accuracy in science fiction stories. He was considered one of the big 3, along with Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. Some of his best-known works include “Starship Troopers,” “Stranger in a Strange Land,” and “The Moon is a Hard Mistress.”
“Michael Dunn has created the characters that bring the 19th Century's Mine Wars to life for today's readers. Anywhere but Schuylkill will remind readers of John Sayles and Tillie Olsen and the best in the long tradition of labor literature.”
—James Tracy, co-author of Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels and Black Power: Interracial Solidarity in 1960s-70s New Left Organizing
Today in Labor History January 12, 1876: Working class novelist Jack London was born. As a kid, he was an oyster pirate in Oakland, along the shores of the San Francisco Bay. As a young man, he became a hobo, riding the rails from town to town, looking for handouts and sometimes work. He wrote about these experiences in his short novel, “The Road.” He was also a lifelong alcoholic, which contributed to his early death. In his novel, “John Barleycorn,” he wrote about both his alcoholism and his experiences as a laborer in numerous low-paid, backbreaking jobs. He was also a socialist and a champion of unions and working-class activism. With respect to strikebreakers, he famously wrote: "After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, the vampire, He had some awful substance left with which He made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a cork-screw soul, a water-logged brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles." London was also one of the first Haoles (non-Native Hawaiian, or white person) to learn how to surf in Hawaii.
“In the tradition of Upton Sinclair and Jack London, Michael Dunn gives us a gritty portrait of working-class life and activism during one of the most violent eras in U.S. labor history. Anywhere but Schuylkill is a social novel built out of passion and the textures of historical research. It is both a tale of 1870s labor unrest and a tale for the inequalities and injustices of the twenty-first century.”
-Russ Castronovo, author of Beautiful Democracy and Propaganda 1776.
Available on Sep 19, 2023, from all the usual online distributors, or direct from my publisher: http://wix.to/M9gMx11
Today in Labor and Writing History July 10, 1925: The Scopes "Monkey Trial" Trial began in Dayton, Tennessee. John T. Scopes was a high school science teacher accused of violating the Butler Act, which made it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school. Scopes was found guilty and fined $100, but the verdict was overturned on a technicality. Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee wrote about it in their play “Inherit the Wind” (1955). However, they said that their play was a response to the McCarthy anticommunist witch hunt and a statement in support of free speech. Ronald Kidd's 2006 novel, “Monkey Town: The Summer of the Scopes Trial,” was also based on the Scopes Trial. Scopes was defended by labor Clarence Darrow, who had defended Eugene Debs, during the Pullman strike (1893); and Big Bill Haywood against false murder charges (1905); and the McNamara brothers for the false charges in the L.A. Times bombing (1910).
The Woefully Neglected (and Partially Unfilmable) Creations of Alasdair Gray
“Novels narrated in the first-person or in the third- can have those choices rendered cinematically […]. But Gray used endnotes, illustrations, typography, plagiarism, self-reference, and the layout of the page to further his plots, to deepen his diegesis, and to make us laugh.”
Today in Writing History January 19, 1809: Edgar Allan Poe was born. “The Raven” made Poe an overnight sensation. Yet, he spent much of his life in poverty. Poe originally considered having an owl or parrot, rather than a raven, quote “Nevermore.” Poe was a binge drinker who sometimes remained sober for months before falling off the wagon again. His alcoholism worsened as he got older. He died in 1849, mostly likely from alcoholism. His grave remained unmarked until 1865. For 60 years, from 1949 until 2009, the “Poe Toaster” left a bottle of cognac and three roses on Poe’s grave every January 19th.