Prepping TiH to send to first round editing.
I can’t decide if I want to scrap it or not, so I’m calling in professional help. I need an expert.
Weird Tales
Weird Tales is getting published again but doesn’t seem to have a new issue since May. I think I’ll pick up the May issue just to support the history.
And maybe read about monsters eating someone’s face. Could be fun.
Sinister Barrier
The introduction to The Complete Compleat Enchanter mentioned Sinister Barrier by Eric Frank Russell, so I read it. It’s good for what it is: pulp.
It’s extremely good pulp but still extremely pulp.
The main character is a detective of some kind, and he starts out investigating some scientists dying. Cosmic mysteries ensue, and things get rolling. I was a little annoyed at how long it took to disclose what was going on. Nothing really happened for a while, but when the big reveal happened, matters moved on pretty quickly. Global catastrophe and the end of human life hung in the balance by book’s end.
Everyone’s flat. The two main leads don’t really play off each other; one’s the boss and good at everything, and he bosses the other around. This is the hyper-competent man that gets referred to so much. It fits the story, but that’s the story you’re getting. Just know what you’re getting into.
What you’re going after in pulp is moving events. Things can’t stagnate. They need to get bigger and worse with every chapter until things hit the ceiling. All along, there must be endless certain doom the hero constantly barely survives, and it’s got to be gripping. If the reader buys the plot, the story should have a lot of tension. This one worked for me, but I got over a few things. If those stop you, you won’t enjoy it at all.
It’s just one of those books that is what it is. Don’t read Anne Rice if you aren’t into bad romance and vampires. There’s SCIENCE! in the Sinister Barrier, and if we were all manly enough man-scientists, the world would be a utopia.
I liked it, though. It rolled right along. 4/5
Reading
I found a way to motivate myself to do some reading!
Have work I really need to get done and procrastinate.
Perspective
The secret to success seems to be don’t try to take down the bad people, try to help the good people. If people see you helping others, they will want to be with you because they want to be helped. If they see you taking down others, they will want to avoid you because they don’t want to be taken down.
People will, in general, react to your actions as if you’re doing those actions to them.
Conflict
What I need for comedy is lower consequences and higher stakes.
Cars
The Drive has gotten less political, and the Autopian has gotten more.
Q
Q+ and Q-
I don’t believe in charge or fields.
When you start physics, Newton’s action at a distance sounds profoundly uncomfortable. But after five or so years of it, you just get used to it and stop complaining. By the time you’re doing QM in any seriousness, it’s just a thing you do.
It’s garbage. That sounds like lies we’re being aclimated to. Fields don’t exist outside of background geometry.
I have no idea what causes the behavoirs ascribed to charge.
Phones
I should get a Pine Phone.