Nice John Bauer Portfolios

John Bauer has been one of my favorite artists ever since I discovered him in Great Swedish Fairy Tales, a number of years back. He was a major influence on Brian Froud. He also inspired the ugly troll dolls.

Here is a good portfolio of his work: http://www.animationarchive.org/2008/10/illustration-john-bauers-bland-tomtar.html

Another: http://www.artpassions.net/bauer/bauer.html

Here's another one with bio: http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/bauer.htm
GW

G. W. Thomas has been published since 1987. He has appeared in over 400 publications including Writer's Digest, The Writer and Black October Magazine. His website is www.gwthomas.org

"Trips" by Robert Silverberg

I've also been reading Silverberg's Beyond the Safe Zone, a collection of stories from the late 1960s to early 1970s. One of these stories is "Trips", which nicely uses the idea of multiple worlds. What surprised me about it was what Silverberg doesn't do with it, not what he does with it. Let me explain. We all remember Sliders, don't we? (The idea is older than Silverberg. Francis Stevens wrote The Heads of Cerberus back in 1919.) Each week Jerry O'Connell would go to another alternate world and have to deal with stuff. The first 2 seasons were good but then they dumbed it down, then they really dumbed it down. That aside, the focus of the show was action. A big escape. Maybe some explosions.

Silverberg entirely bipasses any such plot by having his traveler simply fade to the next reality at will. He isn't interested in an exciting plot. He's interested in character. The traveler is especially interested in visiting alternate versions of his wife, Elizabeth. From an action-adventure POV the stories is pointless, a dud. Nothng much really happens. It's a circle story with no end. This isn't Silverberg's objective. He starts the story very slow and always fades away when something "exciting" is going to happen. Despite this, the story is brilliant. The slow build up is well-crafted, pulls you in slowly. (He says some deep things about tourists, too.)

I don't know that I could maintain my interest in this type of story beyond a short story. I tried to read Silverberg's last set of Majipoor books and found them well-crafted but too dull to sustain me. I guess I'm just not there yet. I've also been reading his stories from In the Beginning, his earliest Pulp tales. "Yokel with a Portfolio" is fun but you can see Silverberg didn't stall there but grew beyond mere plot-driven tales. I suspect I prefer something in the middle like Downward to the Earth, my favorite Silverberg novel.

GW

G. W. Thomas has been published since 1987. He has appeared in over 400 publications including Writer's Digest, The Writer and Black October Magazine. His website is www.gwthomas.org

Sea Siege by Andre Norton

I've just started Sea Siege by Andre Norton and I'm pretty sure where she got her inspiration this time. The book is about people on islands in the Caribbean who are attacked by an intelligent underwater race. In the first chapter people are speculating what the "dupee" is, a ghost or a sub that goes around killing for the joy of killing, pushing the world closer to nuclear war.

If you haven't got it, Norton has reversed Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. In Verne's book, a sub that is terrorizing the shipping lanes is thought to be a sea monster. In Norton, a sub that is thought to be doing the same turns out to be a sea monster. I can see the young Alice Mary reading 20,000 Leagues and being disappointed that it turns out to be Nemo and the Nautilius. In Sea Siege she gets to turn the tables and tell it the way she would have liked it to be.

Another thing struck me about all of Norton's work--the lack of illustration. The majority of Norton's novels first appeared as Ace Doubles or Singles, not in magazines. Because of this most were never really illustrated (Huon of the Horn is an exception, first published as a hard cover, I believe). An older, Pulp Era writer would have had some illos in the Pulps. Unlike Edgar Rice Burroughs or Robert E. Howard, Norton illos haven't become a cottage industry. This is too bad because her work is as colorful as either of these older gents. I wish a Frazetta or Michael Whelan would have cemented their career by illustrating her books. (We do have the many Ace covers at least.)

GW

G. W. Thomas has been published since 1987. He has appeared in over 400 publications including Writer's Digest, The Writer and Black October Magazine. His website is www.gwthomas.org

Hackers On Film

Here's a great blog posting about the myths Hollywood has about computer code and hackers. (Thanks, Tim!) It struck me as fun because I watched Die Hard 4 again yesterday. Justin Long (the Apple Guy) plays a hacker Bruce Willis' character, John Maclean, has to protect. Kevin Smith plays a hacker named Warlock and is fun to watch as well.

A lot of recent code cliches come from The Matrix films. Hollywood knows younger viewers expect computer-related stuff in movies. Almost any action movie has a hacker in it these days.

http://www.drivl.com/posts/view/494

GW

G. W. Thomas has been published since 1987. He has appeared in over 400 publications including Writer's Digest, The Writer and Black October Magazine. His website is www.gwthomas.org

Harry Potter on July 15th

The second last Potter film opens on July 15 and I expect it will be my favorite of the bunch. The book certainly was. I liked it because there's no more pussyfooting around. Events happen that turns things from covert to open warfare. (The last film will have some great scenes but over all I was disappointed with The Deathly Hallows.) There was talk of splitting the last book into 2 movies but I think that would be a big mistake. Are we willing to wait that much longer to see the end? Like Goblet of Fire, the last book will be very hard to adapt but stuff will simply have to be left out. (Hopefully the really boring stuff when Harry and Hermione are trying to figure out what the Deathly Hallows are. The battle for Hogwarts will be the best part of that story, and who knows, maybe the ending will make more sense...) The films have had a good way of shortening the dull spots.

GW

G. W. Thomas has been published since 1987. He has appeared in over 400 publications including Writer's Digest, The Writer and Black October Magazine. His website is www.gwthomas.org

Cadfael Mysteries

Enjoying the Cadfael Mysteries with Derek Jacobi. (I've always enjoyed Jacobi's performances whether in a Branaugh Shakespearean drama or as a Roman senator in Gladiator.) The Ellis Peters series (20 books written between 19747-1994) was filmed in 1994. This proved to be a finale of sorts as the author died shortly after. I think what I like best about the series is the detective story set in a time that isn't the 1950s or the present day. Detectives in other times could resort to some tricks that we couldn't use but they didn't have DNA evidence, fingerprints or even a microscope. They had to rely on their brains. The spector of superstition is also a bigger worry. In our day, we can accept someone figuring out something scientifically. Back in the Middle Ages, onlookers might jump to the conclusion of witchcraft. I think Peters used a monk as a detective for several reasons: 1) education in an age of ignorance, 2) opportunity, a monk might have time to figure out crimes where a peasant would be too busy working, 3) station, monks would be allowed in places peasants wouldn't but could still talk to commonfolk as well, and 4) limitation, a monk wouldn't resort to torture to get info. It would be a pretty short show if Cadfael just tortured people for confessions. Perhaps if he had been part of the Spanish Inquisition, this might have flown. (No one expects the Spanish In.... well, you know.)

Series I (1994):

• One Corpse Too Many (Episode 101 – Book 2)
• The Sanctuary Sparrow (Episode 102 – Book 7)
• The Leper of Saint Giles (Episode 103 – Book 5)
• Monk's Hood (Episode 104 – Book 3)

Series II (1995-1996):

• The Virgin in the Ice (Episode 201 – Book 6)
• The Devil's Novice (Episode 202 – Book 8)
• Saint Peter's Fair (Episode 203 – Book 4)

Series III (1997):

• The Rose Rent (Episode 301 – Book 13)
• The Raven in the Foregate (Episode 302 – Book 12)
• A Morbid Taste for Bones (Episode 303 – Book 1)

Series IV (1998):

• The Holy Thief (Episode 401 – Book 19)
• The Potter's Field (Episode 402 – Book 17)
• The Pilgrim of Hate (Episode 403 – Book 10)

GW

G. W. Thomas has been published since 1987. He has appeared in over 400 publications including Writer's Digest, The Writer and Black October Magazine. His website is www.gwthomas.org

Swordsman Vs. Space Monster

I'm just finishing up Conquerors From the Darkness (1965) by Robert Silverberg (writing as Ivar Jorgansen). I always thought it was a Sword & Sorcery novel but it is actually Sword & Planet. The plot concerns a young man who works his way from recruit to Thassalarch (sea lord) of a ship that is charged with keeping the oceans safe. The world has been flooded by a race of aliens, who later left, leaving the humans to live on floating cities. The aliens come back of course and Dovirr the Thassalarch opposes them. This is one of my favorite scenarios, going back to Charles R. Tanner's "Tumithak of the Corridors". Another fav is Tom Godwin's "The Survivors" (novelized as Space Prison) in which a band of humans must survive a very nasty planet to regain their freedom and get revenge on the aliens (called Gerns -- from 'Gernsback', no doubt).

I would love to write a novel set in the world of Tumithak. I wonder if that would be legal now? Is it in the public domain?

Charles R. Tanner
"Tumithak of the Corridor"
"Tumithak in Shawm"
"Tumithak and the Towers of Fire"
"Tumithak and the Ancient Word"

Tom Godwin
"The Survivors"
Space Prison

GW

G. W. Thomas has been published since 1987. He has appeared in over 400 publications including Writer's Digest, The Writer and Black October Magazine. His website is www.gwthomas.org