touching eternity

Ontario 2025

miseri — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 18:33:26 GMT

So I've gone and done it. I've cancelled my registration for Bouchercon 2025 and the hotel booking that went with it. The original plan was to meet a friend, Neal, in Thunder Bay and then to drive to New Orleans, so there's no flight to the US to cancel; there is, however, a train trip to Sioux Lookout, apparently the closest stop to Thunder Bay. That's still a thing. The new plan is to meet Neal as planned, and then to maybe bum around Ontario for the two weeks we'd planned to spend on this road trip to Bouchercon and back.

At least next year Bouchercon will be in Canada.

Three thoughts on US politics

miseri — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 07:47:24 GMT

Aside from everything the political pundits have been saying, I think there are three things we can all take away from the chaos going on down south:

Politics is hard, y'all. You can't just throw some unqualified, uneducated dweeb into the highest positions of government and expect them to succeed with nothing more than common sense, heart, and "fresh eyes". (Or one out of the three, anyway.) That trope of the naive underdog succeeding over the jaded elite is a fairy tale.
The border/immigrant situation before now was actually no big deal. If it were actually the issue some people describe, then taking a tougher stand would mean detaining actual criminals, not detaining innocent tourists; and (assuming this wasn't the goal all along) they wouldn't have to expand their scope to legal immigrants just to say they caught more furriners.
The US government was actually already pretty damn lean and efficient. Everything they've cut or tried to cut has turned out to be vital to the functioning of the system and to the welfare of the people. Which means there's actually been hardly any waste at all.

Military Dodgeball

miseri — Sun, 16 Mar 2025 21:09:17 GMT

I immigrated from Singapore to Canada when I was 17.

I went back to Singapore when I was 18 to do the two years of military service required of me as a male Singapore citizen. People thought I was nuts. I'd managed to get myself out of the country at the crucial moment of my life, so why not lie low in Canada until I got my Canadian citizenship, then renounce my Singapore citizenship and never put on combat boots?

I have in fact renounced my Singapore citizenship in favour of Canadian citizenship in the years since. So what was the point of my National Service? Hard to say, except for this: I am proud to say that I did not dodge the draft even when it would have been not just easy, but easIER, for me. I've paid my dues.

So I respect people who step up and honour their social contracts. I respect the sacrifices made by the military.

I have never forgiven That Man for skipping out on an event intended to honour the fallen of his own nation, at the 100th anniversary of the Armistice. Because it was "raining". Hello, these people lived in mud for a year because your leaders told them to; you can stand a bit of wet in your hair. Plus, you're in a position to commandeer a fleet of taxis, so don't tell me there weren't options.

(Sure, he went to the thing the next day, the one that everyone else was at — but, y'know, that's the point: everyone else was there and everyone was watching. What are you when no one is looking?)

I remember when Clinton was first elected, and the grumbling that went around about his lack of military service. Why was this draft-dodger in the White House while war veterans were struggling? At least Clinton didn't try to dissolve the social services intended to better the lot of the struggling vet.

And I'll be honest: stepping up to a military obligation is a LOT easier in peacetime than when it means being shipped off to Vietnam and potentially killed there. Proud as I am to have done my time, I'm not entirely sure I'd have done the same if there were a war going on, and I don't want to have to find out. I can forgive what sterner warhorses might call "cowardice". Disrespect, however — disrespect and disdain for people who did what you didn't have the courage to do — is another matter.

Everyone loves the Wild Card

miseri — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 17:54:08 GMT

There is, I think, a popular version of the "fish out of water" trope, in which a fool is forced to deal with a situation he understands nothing about; and because he's looking at things with a wide open mind, with no preconceptions to restrict him, he succeeds better than the experts, with strategies none of them could ever have envisioned. I recall that when I played 7th Sea, there was an NPC who owed his naval success to never having been a naval officer before his surprise appointment — so he employed land tactics instead, and won the battle. I myself once started to write a story about a young fisherman who accidentally won a full scholarship to a famous art school when the lobster trap he left in a judging hall was mistaken for an artistic entry. I never finished that story, because it demanded a good deal more cynicism about art than I possessed, and I didn't know where it was going after that premise.

There is a tiny bit of truth to that trope. When I tried fencing with the SCA, I was told that newbies were actually the most dangerous fencers, because they were the most unpredictable. They try things that more experienced fencers don't do and therefore don't expect. But here's the thing: there is a reason that more experienced fencers don't do that, just as there's a reason land-based tactics aren't generally used in naval combat. They rely on being unexpected — once they're expected, they become far less effective than the tried-and-true.

That's the other reason I never finished the story about the fisherman with the art school scholarship. I knew, deep down, that he could not expect his instructors to make the same mistake again and again and again. And maybe there's another story in his struggles to actually develop his artistic abilities, but that would demand that I know a lot more about art appreciation than I do. It's easier to be cynical, and to imagine that an unjaded innocent would cut through the nonsense with their fresh takes, when you're only half-educated about how a thing works.

And when that thing is the government ... well.

One will be eaten by leopards, and one will be left behind

miseri — Sat, 08 Mar 2025 03:45:45 GMT

A long time ago, I asked my priest about the (pre-tribulation) rapture, since this was never part of my catechism as a good(ish) Catholic boy. "Oh no," he said, "we don't believe in that. It implies that there is a group of people who are somehow special and treated differently. No, when the end times come, we will all suffer together with everyone else."

I don't remember the exact wording of the middle bit, but I think that's a fair approximation of what he meant: that we're all in this together, and God doesn't play favourites. (There's a whole other related discussion about what it means to be holy, but that's not what we're talking about here.)

Anyway, if you've been paying attention to the commentary going around on social media, there's been a lot of talk about "people not realising that their faces would get eaten by leopards when they voted for the 'leopards eating faces' party". Essentially, that people have been wishing Bad Things upon their neighbours, unaware that said Bad Things would also descend upon these people themselves. And it occurs to me that, maybe, this is a subtle byproduct of the "rapture" mentality — that Bad Things may happen to people in the Out group, but certainly not to people in the In group. "The leopards won't eat my face because such fates are for the great unwashed masses and I am not one of Them."

I've never been a friend to the whole pre-tribulation rapture concept, ever since that moment with my priest, and I think that's a big part of it. There's something ... smug and prideful, I think, about the idea that if one is a Christian, one is going to be spared a thing meant to ravage all of humanity, including one's friends and neighbours. It feels a bit like wishing evil upon others simply for existing outside your tribe, which is different from the idea of justice dispensed for wrongdoing; and in this difference, it is opposed to the message that you should "love thy neighbour".

We will suffer together with everyone else. We're not special.

And when we plot the fates of our communities, we'd do well to remember that we too are part of the same communities, and not definitively saved by our professed allegiances.

Click here to be a hero

miseri — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 20:36:00 GMT

I am extremely wary of any content creator who incorporates as part of their name words like "courage", "heroic", "freedom", and so on -- words implying some sort of heroic virtue attached to whatever content they're pushing, particularly if said content has nothing to do with the virtues indicated.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I always feel that such content creators are coming at this with a political agenda in view. The literal virtue signalling, I think, is meant to imply that their specific stance is somehow heroic -- that they are the only ones who "dare" to speak the truth, everyone else is a stupid sheep, and if you listen to them then you too are a hero.

First of all: if you have to tell everyone that you are courageous, or honourable, or heroic, then chances are, you're not. Reputation is a thing built by other people, and the best you can do is say that you strive to satisfy these ideals.

Secondly: the "war" of conflicting ideologies is not some sort of superhero fantasy where the other side is made up of supervillains intent on the destruction of humanity. People do not embrace an ideology unless they are convinced that the world would be a better place because of it, and you do your own argument a disservice by dismissing them as an unworthy "other".

And thirdly: condescending much? This is an obvious attempt at manipulation, which makes me less receptive to whatever you're trying to say. And the edginess is something I grew out of when I hit my twenties.

Oh, and a word about this sort of counter-whatever edginess: it's one thing to think for yourself or to challenge common social mores, but it is quite another to base one's entire belief system on refuting those social mores. If you have to find out what society thinks just so you can think the opposite, then guess what? Your thoughts are still being dictated by society. For this reason, I am as suspicious of anyone who is "100% against" as I am of anyone who is "100% for". In my opinion, true freethinkers -- people with the courage to think for themselves -- should be partly "for", partly "against", and the tiniest bit "where the hell did that idea come from".

A hot take on TERFs.

miseri — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 19:12:24 GMT

I realise that, as a man, I probably am not going to get all the nuances of feminism. I have been told that feminism is primarily about equality -- equal rights and equal treatment -- and that's something I can easily get behind. I am all for treating people fairly. To my mind, fairplay is the hallmark of being a gentleman, which implies that a gentleman is, at the very least, sympathetic to feminist issues.

So ... transsexualism.

I admit to being a little uncomfortable with the idea in principle, yet I find myself much more comfortable than I thought I would be with those friends of mine who have come out as trans and who have transitioned. I'm not prepared to debate this one way or another, but one thing I do know: regardless of whether this is right or wrong, whether a transman is properly a man or a woman, everybody deserves the freedom to live their lives in peace. the spirit of fairplay demands it.

Which brings me now to the subject of Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists, or TERFs.

And I have to wonder: what exactly are the TERFs trying to exclude transpeople from? If feminism is about ensuring fair treatment between the sexes, then are they saying that transpeople (transwomen in particular) do not deserve that same fair treatment? Sure, a transwoman may have enjoyed the privileges that come with growing up male, but by transitioning and presenting as female, the only male privilege they retain is the self-assurance that comes with growing up dominant -- in all other respects, they are treated as they are perceived: as women. What does their past matter, or their likely level of self-assurance, if your movement is concerned with fair treatment in the here and now? To my mind, in a world where the sexes really are given equal opportunities and equal treatment in all things, whether someone was born a man or a woman should matter roughly about as much as whether they were born in June or July.

So, my hot take on TERFs is that ... they're not really interested in fair treatment of the sexes. Perhaps they really are, as the male chauvinists fear, actually interested in the promotion of their own supremacy. After all, the intention to exclude a group does seem to rather imply an end goal in which the barriers are raised rather than lowered. And if feminism is about lowering the barriers, that in turn implies that TERFs are working at cross-purposes with other feminists.

Though I'm sure none of them see it that way. The specific angle I'm picking at seems nuanced enough, and the distance between action and meaning is usually great enough, that someone that deep inside -- someone sincere about the egalitarian cause -- might not notice the deviation. Or perhaps, like the fabled frog in the slowly boiling pot, they think the difference too small to matter.

I don't know. I'm not a woman and I'm not trans. This is not a discussion that affects me personally. All I can offer is the observation of an outsider, and this outsider thinks that a TERF might be more feminazi than feminist. Not a judgement -- just a suspicion.

(A note on the "privilege of growing up dominant": as an ethnic minority who grew up as an ethnic majority, I seem to have a greater confidence in my place in the world than my peers who have grown up here and who thus have only ever known a world where they were the minority, the exception to the norm. Things bother me less. The subject actually came up on its own accord once with an old school friend, and I found I was not alone in noticing this. I assume the same may be said for anyone else who crosses the line of privilege from more to less.)

On the edge of ... something

miseri — Wed, 18 Aug 2021 04:58:26 GMT

It is now mid-August. Two weeks ago, I submitted my video of the talk I cooked up for the Agatha Christie thing, and I have to assume that the festival organiser considers it Good Enough, since the last I heard from him was that he was going to look at it later but that he was sure it would be fine. Tickets for the thing are on sale at The International Agatha Christie Festival with my talk scheduled for the 15th of September.

"Cat's Paw" is supposed to go into copy-edits this week. I am anxious. I'm not entirely sure that Publisher thinks the last 25% or so is good enough to get on with, but I can't exactly demand his time right now because he's got his hands full with his own wedding. (I had an invitation, and if it weren't for the ongoing plague, I'd be there.) We're about two years behind where I thought we'd be on this novel, and to be honest, I'm just too embarrassed about the delay now to say much about it publicly.

I feel like I'm on the edge of disaster.

It does not help that the past few days have seen the skies covered with smoke from fires in BC, turning the sunlight sepia. Rain in the early part of today has returned things to normal, but yesterday and the day before, I could smell the faintly acrid hint of burning in the air, and the world was coloured like a scene from a zombie apocalypse movie.

[Edit: did I really typo "mid-August" as "mid-October"? Weird.]

I have One Job

miseri — Fri, 02 Jul 2021 00:16:10 GMT

It is currently too hot to think.

Well, I've finished what should be the final draft of the latest. "Cat's Paw" ... I think we'll be going with "Unnatural Ends" instead, but who knows. We've not had a proper discussion about the title. Publisher has more on his plate right now than my one little book, but like it or not, I'm scheduled for copy-edits to begin in August. Had to get the draft done now, though, because I have another anxiety-making deadline for August.

That's this recorded talk I'm supposed to give for a thing in September. The recording needs to be done by mid-August, and I am going to spend ALL of July focussing on getting that right. I need to figure out how to record and edit videos, and I've got to figure out what I'm going to say and how to say it in the best way possible. That's it. My One Job for July.

As soon as the daily temperature drops down to something a little more human.

The truth about Slytherins

miseri — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 21:59:24 GMT

Ever since J.K. Rowling took up a stance against recognising transwomen as women, I've felt a little hesitant about making references to Harry Potter. But then, Harry Potter was such a phenomenon that I don't think there's any escape from it. Those Hogwarts Houses, now. They're practically horoscopes for people who don't believe in horoscopes.

But here's the thing I've been wanting to talk about, and which I haven't felt comfortable talking about in a while.

I think everyone's got Slytherin House wrong.

They say Slytherin is about ambition, cunning, and resourcefulness. But I don't think that's true. I think Slytherin is about POWER. Getting it, holding it, keeping it, increasing it. Power. Everything else is a means to that end: Ambition is valued as the drive to get it, while cunning and resourcefulness are valued as effective tools to get it. But at the end of the day, none of those things are as valuable as power itself.

Once you accept that Slytherin is about power, the House's emphasis on blood purity makes sense. I'd always thought it counter-intuitive that a House that values ambition should also value breeding. Wouldn't a Muggleborn tend to have a greater desire to make it in the wizarding world than someone who's already made it, and therefore be more ambitious? But the House is actually about power, not ambition. The theory is that you can potentially go farther if you start out several metres ahead of the crowd. You can inherit your parents' power and make it greater. Plus, everyone already knows what your parents are capable of, so investing in your education is pretty much a sure thing.

It explains Crabbe and Goyle, who are portrayed as being not bright enough to be devious and (at least until they turn on Draco) not ambitious enough to be anything more than someone else's lackeys. But they're descended from long lines of known power, and therefore likely to be powerful themselves. Their potential for power is the thing Slytherin really values, and it outweighs their deficiency in the things Slytherin is only advertised as valuing.

I don't know why I'm still talking about personality-sorting as described in a Young Adults book from twenty-odd years ago. But enh, whatever.

Death on Denial

miseri — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 03:00:49 GMT

I have somehow managed to miss that Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of "Death on the Nile", framed as follow-up to his production of "Murder on the Orient Express", is a thing that is actually being done. The trailer came out last August, apparently, and I completely missed it. So of course I had to go see it.

Christie Geeking to ensue.

Okay, Linnet Ridgeway, Simon Doyle, and Jacqueline de Bellefort are easy enough to pick out in the trailer, simply because their story is pretty iconic. But who is who, here? I can tell that there's been some race shuffling, which is nice; I'd just like to see what they do with it. Off to Wikipedia, let's see this cast/character list!

Poirot. We knew that.

Bouc. Wait, that's the guy from the Orient Express. What's he doing here?

Euphemia Bouc. Who what? Played by Annette Bening ... she's got to be getting on in years now, so ... OHH, I get it, the Boucs are replacing the Allertons from the book. That makes total sense. Bouc was Poirot's sort-of host in "Orient Express", so he's taking over Tim Allerton's very similar role here. Well, technically, I guess it's Mrs Allerton (or Madame Bouc in this case) who was Poirot's host in the book, but you know what I mean.

Dr. Linus Windlesham. Who? The "Dr" part suggests he's supposed to be a non-German version of Dr. Bessner. I'm not sure I understand the reason for the change, but whatever. Maybe they're collapsing his role with another character. Why does "Windlesham" sound so familiar? (Checks book.) Oooh, Linnet Ridgeway was supposed to be romantically linked to a "Lord Windlesham" at one point -- that character's more backstory than background, but I guess they're planning something interesting there.

Andrew Katchadourian. Again, who? Goshdarnit, four names in and they're all unfamiliar to the story. I assume, based solely on the "Andrew", that this is supposed to be Andrew Pennington only not-American. Played by an Indian actor, it seems. Hm.

Mrs Bowers. Finally, a name I recognise -- the nurse. They made her a "Mrs" instead of a "Miss", but it might not mean anything.

Linnet Ridgeway. Gal Gadot ... interesting choice. Gadot isn't exactly "classically white"; she looks much more Mediterranean or ethnically ambiguous than the WASP one assumes the original Linnet to be. Then again, I don't remember the book actually stating outright that Linnet was even white. One simply assumes. Are they going to say she's Anglo-Indian, now? That would be interesting, and might explain the casting of Ali Fazal in the "Andrew Pennington" role. This could put a bit of depth into the role and the story. I mean, are they going to talk about British colonialism in India?

Simon Doyle. Y'know, I stumbled onto this originally because I wanted to look up this very recent scandal involving the actor, Armie Hammer. I probably shouldn't say much more about this.

Louise Bourget. Ooh, that's Gwen from Downton Abbey. Louise in the book was a bit of a non-entity, very much like the singing telegram girl in "Clue". The adaptation with Peter Ustinov as Poirot got her more involved by giving her a motive -- but then, that adaptation insisted on giving absolutely everybody a motive, which kind of made it feel a bit silly. Nevertheless, I'm hoping she gets a bit more of a role here.

Jacqueline de Bellefort. Okay. Nothing seems different here.

Salome Otterbourne. Ooh, they made her black. Very interesting.

Marie Van Schuyler. If Bowers is here, so must Mrs Van Schuyler be. And played Jennifer Saunders. I ... wait. They've got Dawn French as Bowers. Are these two going to be the movie's comedic relief?

Rosalie Otterbourne. Well, they couldn't not make her black, but the interesting thing here is that Rosalie's actress appears to be darker than Salome's. Excuse my noticing, but I was just watching a video about colourism the other day, which posited that the film industry has a tendency to relegate darker-skinned black women to older roles while younger black female characters, especially if they are meant to be romantic leads, tend to be cast as very fair. So I cannot wait to see how this plays out, especially since Rosalie Otterbourne is indeed supposed to have a romantic story arc.

Meredith Wilson. I have no idea who this character is, or who she's supposed to take over for. Colonel Race, perhaps?

No sign of Cornelia Robson or Ferguson. One of my favourite parts of the book was the bit where Cornelia chooses the aging Bessner over the younger and more conventionally attractive Ferguson, and gushes on about how Bessner is going to teach her all about neuroses and psychoses and stuff, but hey, I get it. There are a fair number of characters as it is, and it's better to cut out a few than to short-change someone -- as was unfortunately a necessity with "Orient Express" where the specific number of suspects was part of the point. And in many ways, despite Christie's attempts to cast one as "positive" and the other as "negative", Cornelia and Rosalie are basically the same character archetype. And without Cornelia, what is the point of Ferguson as a separate character?

Wait, is this Dr Windlesham going to be a combination of Bessner and Ferguson as well? That would make me laugh so much.

They also drop Jim Fanthorp, as well they should. That character had zero presence and personality in the book, and I think pretty much every adaptation drops him in favour of plumping up someone else.

Tim Allerton, as mentioned, is probably now going to be Bouc. But I know Tim Allerton's shady secret, and it's going to be very interesting to see how that plays out in conjunction with a man who's supposed to be a director of the Orient Express.

That was just an overuse of the word "interesting", wasn't it? I'm excited to see how this plays out.

Annunciation = Consent

miseri — Tue, 06 Apr 2021 17:11:01 GMT

Here's a thought that came to me while I was in the shower yesterday:

When you consider how much of the Greek gods' sexual shenanigans involved unconsenting mortals, you realise just how much it really means that the Christian God bothered to send the angel Gabriel down to Mary to tell her what was about to go down. And we make a big deal out of Mary saying yes to it. Why would we do that, unless, deep down inside and whether we admit it or not, we all understood that Mary could have said no and God would have respected her wishes? Gabriel may have phrased it all as an announcement of what is to be, but the Annunciation really is all about Mary's consent.

The idea of consent is hardwired into Christianity. It's the basis of free will, the idea that we can choose between good and evil, and dictate our own tomorrows. Sadly, it means that people do choose evil from time to time, resulting in bad things happening to good people -- but would you rather live in a world where your every action is dictated by a higher power without your consent? (There's also the third option of a world where none of your actions have meaning because the results are always a matter of fate, but that's another discussion for another time.)

I've been told that one of the stumbling blocks we modern readers have with understanding ancient mythologies is that the idea of God being good translates in our minds to the gods of those mythologies having to be good as well. But this isn't so. Those ancient gods were powerful and that's it. But God is Good, and therefore God's relationship with us is built on consent.

Fu Manchu

miseri — Mon, 29 Mar 2021 20:00:56 GMT

Well, it looks like anti-Asian sentiments in the US are spiking. I assume something similar but more low-key is happening here in Canada, though I personally haven't experienced anything of the sort. And why would I, given that I never go out? But two weeks ago, eight people were killed in a series of shootings in Atlanta; six of them were Asian, and while this doesn't appear to be related to the "Blame Covid-19 on China" thing, it does seem to be linked to the fetishisation of Asian women.

Whatever the case, my publisher asked me to put together an essay that he's selling to ... the LA Times, I think? So I did that, and we're all quite pleased with the end product. It's a pretty kick-ass article about the Yellow Peril, Fu Manchu as a lingering Asian stereotype, and the need for Asian heroes as a counterbalance. I hope it gets picked up.

In the course of writing this article, though, I discovered that Fu Manchu novels are still being written to this day. I know. Blew my mind. New author, of course, and a cursory look at a couple of reviews and at the author himself assures me that the modern approach is aware of the racism going into the Fu Manchu image, and taking steps to both defuse and diffuse it.

To be clear, I don't think we should get rid of Fu Manchu altogether. In the first place, what's needed is not an image of Asians as paragons of virtue, but a broad range of Asian representation. We don't want people to say, "Oh, they're always the good guys, never the bad guys. Why is there this pressure to always portray them this way? Clearly, they must be the bad guys in real life." We want them to look at this range of good, bad, and ugly, and say, "Oh, they're all of these things; they're just like us." For this the Asian villain is every bit as necessary as the Asian hero.

And in the second place ... well, the sort of pulp thriller associated with Fu Manchu is just so much damned fun. It's an ordinary guy -- maybe a bit tougher and smarter than most, but otherwise fairly Everyman-ish -- up against this larger-than-life villain and near-impossible odds. Can you imagine if Dick Francis got hold of the rights to write these stories? The stress levels would make them too much for me to read at all.

Fu Manchu has outgrown his sources, I think. I mean, once upon a time, it was his connection to this grand, mysterious Other which made him larger than life in the minds of the average pulp fiction reader. Today, the East is no longer so mysterious, and people know that the caricature for what it is; but Fu Manchu remains larger than life because of his history of being a larger-than-life villain. You see? Try the same thing again today, and it probably wouldn't work. You'd have to spend chapters showing why the guy is powerful and dangerous. With Fu Manchu, all you have to do is say his name. If I were sitting down to a tale of rip-roaring pulp adventure, I wouldn't want to waste time being convinced of the odds stacked against the hero -- but I'd still need to already be convinced, or the odds won't exist and the story will lose its oomph. And so ... Fu Manchu.

I've got to get my hands on one of the more recent books one of these days.

Dishonour on your cow!

miseri — Thu, 18 Mar 2021 04:59:27 GMT

One of the more entertaining moments of this past year in seclusion was the watching of multiple Youtube videos explaining why the new live-action remake of Disney's "Mulan" sucked so very much. I've not seen the actual movie, of course: just watching the criticism has been quite enough, and I'd just like to put a few of my thoughts down here.

Foremost among the complaints appears to be the introduction of Chi as a thing Mulan has but is not allowed to express because she is a woman and Chi is for warriors. It's an interpretation of Chi that even I, banana that I am, find utterly disconnected from the actual Eastern concept. I mean, you might say that someone is good at channeling their Chi, but, as one reviewer put it, saying someone has "strong Chi" is like saying they have "strong blood". Chi is not a superpower that some people have and some do not. So, right off the bat, it looks we're dealing with writers who have zero respect for the culture surrounding the source material. I think I heard some mention of one of the designers (costume or sets, I forget which) doing extensive research in museums across Europe, which makes me think someone decided to take a nice, long vacation on Disney's dime instead of actually working.

Another complaint is the introduction of a sister whose happily-ever-after is being married off by the matchmaker. I think more than one reviewer has said that the message they get from this, combined with Mulan's Chi superpowers mentioned above, is that the only way to have any agency in the world is to be born special. It's a shame. I think I can see what the point of the sister might have been, once upon a time when she was first thought up. I think she was brought in to be a foil to Mulan. I think she was meant to tell young girls that it's all right to be feminine and that they have a choice, except that that's not how it all came off. If I were one of the writers, I think I'd have made it so that it's the sister who has an innate talent channeling her Chi, not Mulan. That way, both sisters get the endings that they choose, rather than the one Fate funnels them into.

Quite aside from all these issues with the story, there's this collective horror over the movie filming practically next to a Uyghur concentration camp, and having the gall to thank the local authorities in the credits. I have to confess, though, that I would not have known what was going on with the Uyghurs in China if not for this movie doing what it did, so I have to wonder if someone in the larger Disney machine did this on purpose. Like, maybe the whole thing is an expensive and elaborate F*** YOU to the Chinese government. Maybe someone realised that people would be more likely to pick up on this one diplomatic screw-up if they hated everything else about the movie, so they deliberately made it awful to get people talking about it and about the Uyghurs. Hell, for all I know, Disney might have actually spent a quarter of what they said they did, and lied about it because it's all part of the ruse to get the word out there.

An update four years in the making

miseri — Sun, 14 Mar 2021 21:39:39 GMT

Has it really been over four years? It has. A few things have happened since then.

1) "Murder at the Veterans' Club" was published in 2018 as "A Gentleman's Murder". Editing and rewriting and polishing it up into something publishable meant adding 30,000 words, dropping four characters (including the original murderer!) and removing one sub-plot. I'm pretty pleased with it. A German translation came out in 2019. We're now working on developing it for television, which is all about discovering things that I wish I'd thought to put into book. Yeah, expect the adaptation to delve a bit deeper into the various characters and why they are who they are.

2) I have a second book in the works. The working title was "Cat's Paw", which is an absolutely horrible title. I don't know what I was thinking when I first wrote that down. Doing a Google search for it will maybe get you an explanation for the idiom, and then a cascade of cat pictures. The last draft I submitted to Inkshares is titled "By Unnatural Selection" instead even if the filename itself is "Cat's Paw v3". Maybe "Death By Unnatural Selection"? We'll see. Last I heard, they're looking at publication in the Fall and, much as I feel like this is running super late already, I can't help feeling like there's still a ton of rewriting work to be done before going to copy-edit.

3) I moved back to Calgary to be with Mom in mid-2019, and then Covid19 put the world into lockdown. I have not cut my hair since March 2020 at least -- possibly even since January 2020, but March was when staying home actually became a thing. Not counting the days when I had to shovel snow from the front walk, I've left the house six times since then: three times to see a dentist or dental surgeon, these visits culminating in the extraction of a molar; twice to pick up an order from Bureau En -- er, I mean, Staples; and once when Mom's dog came down with an acute kidney failure and had to be put down.

That's the important stuff, I guess. More as and when it becomes relevant. I started a blog on Wordpress back when, uh, I stopped posting here, but I think that's going to be more of a "public face for this author" kind of thing. I don't know. Sometimes I just need to write stuff down and put it where people may or may not see it, and often I don't because I have total strangers reading me now and good lord what would they think?

EXCITING NEWS

miseri — Mon, 21 Nov 2016 02:33:33 GMT

"Murder at the Veterans' Club" has been selected for The List. This is a contest for book projects on Inkshares that have caught the eye of the Powers That Be--unlike other contests, participation is by invitation only. On 31 December, the three book projects with the most unique readers will win the Full Publication deal ... you know, that thing that normally only happens when you get 750 orders.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

It means that on 31 December, if "Murder at the Veterans' Club" is still in the top three--it's currently in second position--it can go into production with the Full Publication deal right then and there. It means people could get their books a month earlier than expected. It means the current focus is no longer on the great 750, but on maintaining a position at the top of the heap.

It means that people think "Murder at the Veterans' Club" is a book worthy of note, in case anyone had any doubts before.

But wait! Starting out in second place is nice and all, but does that mean I can sit back and relax and just wait for this to fall into my lap? NO! A handful of the competition is starting from zero, which means they are blank slates with unknown potential; the first few weeks of any campaign always see a spike of orders, and these young turks are fresh and full of beans. Any one of them could pole-vault into first position and force me back, and back again, out of the top three. The competition is not to be sneezed at!

I feel a sense of invigoration--I hope it's more than merely momentary. I need to get out there and get more people in. Get friends to get their friends involved. MAKE IT HAPPEN.

Hey! LJ friends! YOU WANT TO GO HERE!

A thought on Inkshares pre-orders.

miseri — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 03:26:16 GMT

It occurs to me that I should not be asking "would you buy my book", but rather "do you think my book will sell, and would you put $5 on it?"

"Murder at the Veterans' Club" is a detective story, but I get the sense that nearly all of the people around me prefer the science-fiction and fantasy genres. There does exist a substantial body of mystery fans out there, but I am barely connected to them.

$5 isn't a lot, right? It's what it would cost to back the book at the lowest level, after having received the $5 credit for signing into Inkshares. And Inkshares doesn't count the *amount* of money, but rather the number of books sold. A $10 e-book ($5 after applying the credit) counts for exactly as much as a $20 printed book with author's signature ($15 after applying the credit). I get the feeling that asking people straight out for money might actually be more successful than trying to sell them something they may not even want.

But always: "do you think my book will sell". Because that's what this pre-order business is all about. And if I can't get the judgement of mystery fans, maybe I can get a lot of fantasy/sci-fi fans to take a guess.

Murder at the Veterans' Club

miseri — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 02:15:32 GMT

My novel became available for pre-orders today.

This is the project page at the publisher's website, where you can go to pre-order it..

This is a website I made for the book, with some additional stuff.

The cover was made by Marco Innocenti of kidstudio.it.

There's an annoying shipping fee for all orders outside of the US, so I'm telling people that, if they're outside of the US, they should get other people to join them and order as a group. There's an option to order a single book, and there's an option to order 3 to 10 books, and both options have the same shipping cost. So if people order as a group, they can split the shipping cost and save money that way.

Confession:

At one point early on, I did start to freak out. No-one had ordered! No-one was biting! I'm a terrible writer, and life is woe and darkness and teh sad! Then I got a grip and said to myself, "self, it's only been five minutes since you launched; what were you expecting?" Life was subsequently much more liveable.

Oh! And I must mention this one thing that I've been happily hugging myself over since last Friday.

I spoke to a representative at Chez Doris, a local women's shelter, about a sort of donation drive I'd like to attach to my campaign. They said yes. So: once we hit 250 pre-orders, I will start donating $1 for every new pre-order, to Chez Doris. Why a women's shelter? Well, everyone needs some help, and women in need tend to be in a much more vulnerable position than men. Every pre-order I get represents generous support, and support ought to be spread around....

(Not that I haven't been calculating everything to the moon and back to see what I can afford to give. I'm not a selfless saint.)

I'll be looking for two more charities to add to the campaign: one to kick off at $2 per pre-order from 450 pre-orders on, and another to kick off at $3 per pre-order from 600 pre-orders on. I'm thinking Nazareth House and Ann's House for tier 2 and ... I don't know. There are plenty of local soup kitchens to choose from; and it also occurs to me that something related to helping soldiers with PTSD would be appropriate.

More Inkshares books

miseri — Fri, 18 Mar 2016 01:49:22 GMT

More recommendations from Eric Peterkin and the cast of "Murder at the Veterans' Club". Strongly suggest people take a look and maybe place a pre-order if they like what they see.

Eric Peterkin made to approach the shed, but his friend, Avery Ferrett, pulled him back. "What do you think you're doing?" Avery hissed. "Can't you see the occult warning signs?"

Eric glanced back, skeptical. "You don't honestly believe the local superstition, do you?" They'd already met a diverse cast of local characters, familiar enough to paint a picture of typical rural Quebec, yet distinct enough to be memorable.

"Eric, if we were in our own genre, I'd be happy to let you take the lead. But 'A God In The Shed' is supernatural horror, and that's more my line than yours. And don't tell me 'everybody looks so normal' because that's exactly why this sort of supernatural horror works."

"Yes, it's a little like Lovecraft, or it looks like it's going to be; and you have just the right sanity slippage for it." Eric, used to having the lead in any investigation, had to admit it chafed to let Avery take the reins for once. "Me, I thought it was more of a fantasy piece about human lives adjusting to this new thing in their midst, and I just want to turn the page to see what happens next."

Eric Peterkin slid into the booth and dropped a book onto the table. "I swear," he told his friend Avery, "there is nothing so suited to train travel as the short story. You can start one as you leave Paddington and finish it as you arrive in Taunton, and no worries if you haven't got the time to get back to reading afterwards."

"If they're any good." Avery cocked his head to read the title of Eric's book. "'Scribbles'. Are they only scribbles?"

"Only scribbles! Well, they're very good scribbles. Listen." Eric flipped the book open and read: "'He was gorgeous in a way that had her stomach twisting and her heart melting, dripping. It was the sort of feeling she’d get when she’d see a new character in a show or a movie and think, You.' Now, is that an excellent description of someone falling into a sudden, mad infatuation or isn't it?"

Avery was frozen in the act of lifting his cup to his lips, arrested by some stray memory in relation to the words he'd just heard. But Eric, turning to order a pot of tea for himself, never noticed.

Inkshares books

miseri — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 02:43:41 GMT

Getting involved with Inkshares has meant getting involved with a lot of other writers, all struggling to get their work known. Of course, each of us only has a limited number of people we know, and not all of the people we know might be interested in what we have to offer. On the other hand, we all know people who might be interested in what someone else has to offer. So now, I'd like to talk about a couple of books currently in the funding process....

Or, more precisely, Eric Peterkin and the cast of "Murder at the Veterans' Club" would. Because, hey, I'm also in it to show myself off, right?

But seriously. Go check these books out.

Avery had his nose deeply buried in a book when Eric found him at the Arabica that night. "What's got you so engrossed?" Eric asked, sliding into the seat across from his friend.

"'The Traveller's Cup'," replied Avery, holding up the book cover for Eric to see. "It's an absolutely spiffing tale of outer space adventure. There are giant slugs pulling chariots, and space dragons, and this fascinating society divided between glowy nobles and a not-glowing-at-all grey underclass. Our hero's one of the nobles, of course, only he gets sucked into this contest that's usually about the underclass getting sent off on a suicide mission--"

"Fine, fine. Let's have a look at it, then."

But Avery pulled back sharply. "No. Get your own copy. I'm not finished with this yet."

Eric sighed and got up again. There was no point being social when Avery was stuck in a book like this. But the booksellers on Charing Cross Road were still open, and if Eric hurried, he might be able to get himself a copy and see what the fuss was all about.

Eric returned to his club and found Bradshaw in his office with his feet up on his desk and a book open across his lap. Eric thought the book might be a report of the club finances, but it turned out to be a pulp novel in a glossy cover: "The Amaranth Chronicles: Deviant Rising"

"Pulp science-fiction, Bradshaw? I didn't think you read that sort of thing."

Bradshaw grinned. "I embrace all things, Peterkin; as does this story. This, this is *epic* pulp science-fiction, but not without a homely, human touch. It goes from personal to political and back again; and of course it wouldn't be science-fiction without a good deal of action and adventure."

"Oh?" Eric liked stories of action and adventure, and of course no-one could deny the mass appeal of pulp. Eric had fond memories of lazy Saturday mornings curled up with the latest pulp adventure ... it looked as though it might be time for another expedition to Charing Cross Road.

Chasing the dream: publishing

miseri — Thu, 25 Feb 2016 15:01:45 GMT

It's been a few months. I decided against joining the Reserves: I don't think I'm in good enough physical condition, and in no position to improve to an acceptable point.

However, I have decided to finally try to get myself published.

JF Dubeau, whom I met at NaNoWriMo a few years back, has been going on about Inkshares, a new publisher with a new take on the manuscript submission process. What they do is that they crowdfund that process: instead of having your manuscript evaluated by a single person (and risk having to contend with someone who just is Not In The Mood the day they pick up your work) they would have you sell pre-orders for your book. Sell enough pre-orders, and they publish, market and distribute--all that good stuff that a traditional publisher does and which I couldn't deal with on my own. Otherwise, everyone gets their money back. There's no risk except to the author's ego.

It's been noted that a lot of publishers these days want writers to demonstrate saleability first. That is, you're far more likely to get published if you can show that you've got a following on Facebook, Twitter, Livejournal or where-absolutely-ever that would snap up a copy as soon as it hits the bookshelves. I think Inkshares' pre-order model does something like that. It proves saleability. Of course, they *say* it's to help pay for some of the publishing expenses, and maybe there's some truth in that; but I know what it's really all about.

So! I am going to try to get a book published by Inkshares: "Murder at the Veterans' Club", a classic "golden age" detective story set in 1924.

The plan is to spend some time lining up my ducks, and begin the pre-order campaign at Easter. I've brushed off my Twitter account and now I make all my Facebook posts through that: saves a bit of trouble. I'm getting involved on Goodreads. I'm investigating Wattpad. I'm ... spending a lot of time on social media. Good thing I don't have to worry about a day job at the moment, or I might never have time to actually write.

The suggested pre-order campaign length is 90 days, but I think I should go for a much longer campaign length than that. I think I should set the ending date for the end of January 2017. While that seems to imply that anyone ordering now would have to wait that long before the publication process even begins, I believe that hitting the pre-order goal before that time would mean beginning the publication process early. This isn't Kickstarter, where you want to get as much funding as possible. Who cares when the projected end date is, if you reach your goal in a few weeks? The alternative is to spend more time building up a following, and begin a shorter campaign later; but it seems to me that this would be no different from starting a long campaign now.

But I'm going to need a lot of help.

I'm going to need friends to sell to friends-of-friends.

I'm going to need people who believe in me and my writing, and who believe enough to overcome the rather hefty price tag attached to the pre-orders--which I cannot change. Trust me, I tried. (There again, some people seem to have no trouble with the prices, so maybe that's just my perspective?) So much of my ego is built up on what people have been telling me about my writing since I was in school, I'm terrified of failing here.

I'm chasing the dream, SIR!

miseri — Fri, 13 Nov 2015 23:30:00 GMT

It has now been two weeks since I joined the ranks of the unemployed. I finished filing my EI claims yesterday, so now, on that score, it's a matter of waiting to see if it's accepted. I understand that I'm supposed to also file regular reports on the job-hunt situation.

To be perfectly honest, I don't really want to go back into full-time, 9-to-5 work. I want to spend a few years following the dream of full-time writing ... and then, if it doesn't pan out, maybe start looking again.

And then on Monday I was suddenly hit with a brainwave: why not join the Army Reserves? The part-time reserves are set up to fit (relatively) unobtrusively around a full-time career, which means that I would still be left with all the time I want to chase the dream. Every little bit of extra cash means that much more time that I can spend chasing the dream before I absolutely have to do something ... and the way I budget, for all I know, the part-time pay might be totally sufficient to keep me chasing the dream for the rest of my life.

I went to the recruiting centre on Tuesday to get more information. The recruiter seemed to get quite interested when I mentioned that I'd been trained as a signaller back in my NS days. It seems that comms personnel are currently in demand. He said that with my university degree, I might consider getting a commission, even. I don't think it would be a good idea, though: in the first place, I don't think I'm officer material; and in the second place, officers need French and, even with the promised French language training that the Army will happily give any officer who needs it, I have zero confidence in my ability to reach any sort of fluency in a second language.

I'd probably have to go through basic training again, though. Could I do that, at my age? Maybe five years ago, I could. Five years ago, I was in even better shape than I was twenty years ago. But now I'm on the cusp of 40, and my right knee feels funny sometimes, and nothing is quite what it used to be. Also, basic training was the single suckiest thing about NS that I can remember.

I spoke to LeGuen about the idea, since he was once a reservist. He came to the conclusion that, at our age, enlisting would be a Bad Idea, though his reasons were all things I think I'd be okay with. (I suspect that there are more than just one or two Terrible Things In Life that I'm actually okay with.)

Right now, I go to bed in the evenings thinking that this is absolutely something I should do; and I should go for a run in the morning to see if I can still make 2.4km in the allotted time. And I wake up in the mornings thinking that I must be crazy to even consider it, and there's no way this could be a good idea, and going for a run would be pointless.

I have yet to make that morning 2.4km run.

Melisande: body image

miseri — Mon, 16 Mar 2015 03:12:28 GMT

Today I reread E. Nesbit's "Melisande", because it's right there on the web now, and a pretty good fairy-tale. And I'm noticing and realising a few things that went right over my head before.

"Melisande" is, as mentioned, a fairy-tale. Princess Melisande was cursed with baldness when she was a baby; but her father has an unused wish that his fairy godmother gave him on his wedding, and when Melisande is old enough she wishes for hair that will keep growing, doubling its growth rate each time it is cut. This has unfortunate consequences (of course) but is all nicely resolved with a happy-ever-after in the end.

Interesting thing number one is that Melisande actually does not have any problem with being bald. When the wish is given to her, she initially tries to use it for the betterment of the kingdom, which doesn't work because the kingdom is already perfect as it is. It's her mother who tells her what to wish for, and it's clear that her mother is the only person who is uncomfortable with Melisande's baldness. Even her father seems to have no issue with his daughter's baldness, not even when the curse is first laid: he does not use the wish right away because, he says, "Melisande might want to use it for something else when the time comes." In short, Melisande, bald or not, is perfect just the way she is, and happy just the way she is, and it is only societal pressure that forces her into the unfortunate state of affairs.

Interesting thing number two is that her father the king pulls some decidedly ballsy, crafty moves over the course of the story, particularly with regard to the matter of the uninvited fairies. The situation is that, historically, no-one has ever managed to invite all of the fairies to a princess's christening, resulting in a curse laid on her by the one snubbed fairy. So the king convinces the queen to just have a private christening and not invite any of them at all. Of course they all turn up, ready to curse the poor child to kingdom come, but only one fairy manages to lay a curse ("she shall be bald!") before the king cites history and tradition (it's always only one fairy and only one curse) and dares any of the remaining fairies to lay another curse under the threat of winking out of existence for bucking tradition.

The queen gets to tell him "I told you so", but I can't help but think that this was the king's plan all along. By leading the entire fairy cohort into thinking that the princess would have to receive 600+ curses, he pretty much ensured that the first fairy would go easy on the girl in order to leave room for all the others. And then his handling of the situation was just ... so much chutzpah.

Truth is beauty; beauty, truth.

miseri — Sat, 05 Jul 2014 15:59:06 GMT

Part of the reason I believe in God is that there exist things in this universe which are pointlessly beautiful. The pointlessness is a major factor.

I understand why beauty or attraction exists in many things -- that is, I understand when there is a reason why something would be considered beautiful or attractive. Beauty in other human beings is a function both of health and social dominance: we're attracted to people who could provide a perceived advantage to the next generation. Beauty in music may be a result of resonance with our brain waves. Certain foods are tastier than others because we have evolved to require certain nutrients, and I have often found that cravings for specific foods are indicative of some deficiency that might be answered by those foods.

But why is a sunset beautiful? Of what possible use could there be, to the human race or to any other living thing or any system in the universe, in the acknowledgement that sunsets are beautiful? What about rainbows, clouds, the night sky? The soaring lines of a mediaeval cathedral inspires awe by drawing our eyes upwards, but why should they? Why should this awe be inspired at all by this arrangement of stone?

I have this idea that beauty resonates with us because it speaks to some mysterious connection we have with the Divine. We can't have a connection to the Divine if there is nothing Divine to be connected to. "Pointless" beauty -- beauty that does not serve some purpose related to the survival of species -- is evidence of something higher, something out there calling to us and which we are hardwired to seek out. I think this something is God. And God is, perhaps, multi-faceted: if different (pointless) things appeal to people differently, it is because their connection to Him is different.

So I think, when creating art, that it is perhaps more important to seek beauty than to try to infuse the work with meaning or truth. As human beings, our understanding of anything is necessarily limited and flawed; we can very easily be wrong about everything. If we create something that embodies our idea of truth, we can only say that "this is what I believe to be true". But if create something that appeals to us as beautiful, then we can say "this touches the connection I have with the Divine; as such, this is an aspect of the universal truth".

It's usually May.

miseri — Fri, 06 Jun 2014 17:58:55 GMT

Everything's been late this year, including the May doldrums ... I had rather hoped that they would pass me by this year, but apparently no such luck.

Sometimes I wonder if it's, in a way, psychosomatic: that it happens because I expect it to happen. Or, alternatively, perhaps it's something that's exacerbated by brooding -- that is, if you don't think about it, it won't be so bad; but it's kind of hard to not think about it once you've noticed that it exists at all.

Ah well. It'll pass, eventually. Keep calm and carry on, and all that.

PS: I hate you all.