Tag: books

Lenten Reading: The Matter of France

Years ago, I had an annual practice in which I gave up watching or reading any fictional works for Lent in order to focus on some substantial nonfiction reading. These days, my ratio of nonfiction to fiction is much higher, so I’ve abandoned this particular Lenten practice. Nonetheless, I have decided (a little late, since Lent started a week ago) on my Lenten reading, and I invite anyone interested to join me. It is not nonfiction, but that doesn’t matter.

I have decided I wish to read the romantic epic Orlando Furioso, one of the great works of western literature which Ludovico Oriosto produced in 1516 and revised in 1532. The work is a sequel to the earlier, unfinished Orlando Innamorato of Matteo Maria Boiardo. These works together are part of, or are based on, the “Matter of France,” a cycle of literature about the deeds of Charlemagne. Generally, the Matter of France contains few fantastical elements, but the two Orlando epics are pure fantasy containing little historical content but lots and lots of magic, strange creatures, and bizarre journeys. Many anime fans know some names from these epics thanks to the FATE franchise and would do well to familiarize themselves with the originals to clear up misconceptions.

I have previously read Bullfinch’s deceptively titled Legends of Charlemagne, which summarizes these two works in prose. Bullfinch conveys the impression, and may himself have believed, that he is delivering a faithful presentation of the Charlemagne cycle rather than the inventions of two poets. In any case, his work is engaging and makes a good starting point for anyone who finds epic poetry intimidating.

My plan for Lent is to make it through the Innamorato before Easter at least, and then tackle the Furioso itself later. Having decided this, I have to choose my translations, since I don’t read sixteenth-century Italian.

Because the Orlando Furioso is more popular than its prequel, there are more translations available, the earliest being that of John Harington from 1591. That might seem the best option since it is close to the publication of the Italian original—but an online search reveals that it and most early translations are Bowdlerized, leaving out all the steamy parts. I oppose Bowdlerization on principle.

I have therefore decided on Barbara Reynolds’s translation of the Orlando Furioso, which is available from Penguin. From what I’ve seen, Reynolds appears to know what she is doing, and her version does not appear to be an abridgment. Her translation is probably less beautiful than Harington’s, but it is apparently more complete. Also, it was written in the 1970s and does not appear to have been updated, which means it will contain few or none of the corruptions of language so beloved by today’s academics.

Choosing a translation of the Orlando Innamorato is more difficult because there are fewer and less satisfactory options. William Stewart Rose produced an abridged prose version that’s somewhat famous and would probably make a good introduction to the Furioso, but I have already read Bullfinch’s prose summary, so that does not interest me. More recently, Charles Stanley Ross produced a poetic but non-rhyming translation. However, the above-mentioned Barbara Reynolds convincingly eviscerated his work in a thorough review (that, maddeningly, I can’t find again, or else I’d link it). A few samples confirm Reynolds’s opinion that Ross’s poetry is awful. To make matters worse, the most recent edition of his work has a foreword announcing that “terms of gender and religion have been updated.” As already stated, I detest Bowdlerization, even self-Bowdlerization, so the Ross version is a no-go.

I finally decided on the translation by A. S. Kline. It’s recent, so I’m wary of it (a discerning reader should be wary of any translation produced within the last decade), but it might be the best version that is both in English and not abridged. Unlike Ross’s, it does not attempt to keep the meter of the original but—like the original and unlike Ross’s—it rhymes. From what I’ve seen of it so far, the poetry is merely passable, but that will have to do.

The Cup of Agamemnon

Yeesh, it’s been a while. So much has happened over here, and we’ve managed to clone the magical girl not once but twice now.

I seriously need to get another novel out. Part of my problem is that I’ve had trouble buckling down on a single project I’ve been drifting back and forth between sequels to my existing work and other things, but I finally grit my teeth and decided to finish The Cup of Agamemnon, a planetary romance I’ve had in the back of my mind for some time.

Below is a teaser from the first chapter. This is rough, of course, and it may be too heavy on info-dumping, so it will likely be trimmed before it sees print:

“Is he dead?” Angelica asked.

“He’s breathing,” I replied.

“Then he’s not dead.”

“Not yet,” said Sam after spitting out a stream of blackish liquid produced by the stuff he’d been chewing, “but he will be if you two stand around jawing.”

“That’s true,” I answered, “but you’re not supposed to move an injured man.”

“Sure. But you ain’t supposed to leave him in the mountains to freeze to death, either.”

“Very well. Sam, grab his legs. I’ll grab—”

“Ain’t no sense in it, him being light. I’ll just carry him myself.”

And Sam, the hulking brute, did exactly that: He bent down, took up the unconscious Gernian, and threw him over his shoulder like a sack of tubers. I winced, but I held my peace. Right now, I wanted to keep my head attached to my shoulders—and considering my situation, that meant holding my peace.

To make a long story short, our interstellar craft had unexpectedly struck atmosphere during a phase-out of its Alcubierre drive’s warp field. An Alcubierre drive is tricky to operate, especially in-system: By compressing spacetime in one direction and expanding it in the other, it can move a ship across the galaxy in a minute without relativistic effects. But traveling such a distance in one go would build up enough energy to produce a nova-sized explosion when the drive deactivated, so it’s necessary to travel in short hops, stretching a minute-long trip into months. Inside a star system, the hops have to be even shorter.

We made a bad hop and collided with our target. The protective ceramics burned off, and the ship hit the dirt hard, so it was now a smoking pile of slag. We were stranded without food and with little water in a barren range of mountains where the air was thin and cold but breathable. There was no snow, either because the wind had blown it away or because the air was too dry.

We were four in number: Three of us were mammals, so our needs were similar, but the fourth was something indeterminate, transcending all mortal classifications. Fortunately, he had his own ways of sustaining himself—ways too disgusting to describe.

The peaks over our heads were rough and came to sharp, needle-like points. The rocks, mostly flint, cut into our feet. But I knew this world was inhabited, or at least had been, and I was confident that we were not the first to walk through this forbidding mountain pass: There were telltale signs of beasts—too many to be random—mostly in the form of droppings but sometimes of churned gravel or overturned stones. At regular intervals, we found trash pits containing steel wire, fragments of what were probably harnesses, and rusted steel cans soldered with lead. All the evidence pointed to pack trains. This was a trade route, and I said so to my companions.

Our de facto leader was Angelica. She told me to shut up, so I did. She had been the ship’s captain, and she was still in charge. Besides, her formidable technology put the rest of us at her mercy. She was our best hope for making it out of the mountains and finding water, and she could also kill us in a nanosecond if she had a mind to.

By the way, she blamed the crash on me.

Continue reading “The Cup of Agamemnon”

Quick Update

I’ve had a heck of a time getting a chance to write blog posts, since our little daughter has hit another phase where she doesn’t want to sleep at night (and she never likes to sleep if “Dada” isn’t in the room). Nonetheless, I’m working on a project I’m excited about. I’ll give updates later, so stay tuned.

Writing Children’s Books

My wife and parents have been urging me to produce some child-friendly writings, and I’ve been thinking I really should, especially since experience indicates that kids show the most interest in my work. Besides, I’d like to produce something I can read to my daughter, who’s currently under two. Since she was born, we have taught her to love books, and now that she’s beginning to form complete senteces, she often brings us books with the command, “Read the book!”

Today is the last day of our Covid isolation, and we’re all just about back to full health. We were lucky not to get sick during the height of the pandemic, and to come down with a mild variant that never went into our chests. I am currently working primarily on two projects: I just finished the draft text for a children’s picture book and am also editing and rewriting a more advanced children’s novel. On top of that, I’m working on the third volume of Jake and the Dynamo, which runs under the working title of The Shadow of His Shadow.

I don’t have experience writing for kids. My wife, looking over the draft of my picture book, immediately said the vocabulary and sentence structure were too advanced. But that doesn’t surprise me; I was already aware that, as I was writing it, I slipped back into my natural style. That can be fixed.

I’ll be wanting an illustrator in the near future to come in on this project. I’m not sure who to pursue as of yet, though I wish I still had contact with Roffles Lowell, who did the interiors of Jake and the Dynamo, and whose style would be great for a children’s book.

Revisiting the Landscape with Dragons

A Landscape with Dragons: The Battle for Your Child’s Mind by Michael D. O’Brien. San Francisco: Ignatius Press. 1998. 261 pages.

Years ago, I started my blogging career on my other, now happily defunct, website for the sole reason that a book had annoyed me. I wanted to create a site dedicated to refuting that book, but because I am paradoxically contrary by nature yet also conflict-averse (as well as scatterbrained), I never did much to accomplish that task. I want to turn to it now: I am going to discuss the book that started me on my blogging journey and then, I hope, have done with it for good.

The book in question is A Landscape with Dragons by Michael D. O’Brien, a little-known Catholic novelist who writes dense, religiously themed, and very niche works. He is a well-read and intelligent individual. A monk of my acquaintance, who knew him personally, once called him a living saint. In his nonfiction, however, O’Brien comes across as plum crazy, and it was his apparent craziness that irritated me.

But O’Brien, I have found, is a Cassandra: He has told the truth and made accurate predictions, yet he has done it so unconvincingly, and has made such poor arguments, that he is easy to ignore, dismiss, or mock.

So I am here to say: Mea culpa, Michael O’Brien. You were right about everything.

Continue reading “Revisiting the Landscape with Dragons”

Assorted Updates

Happy Easter.

A lot is happening in the Davidson household. The little magical girl is now fifteen months old. As is typical for a girl her age, she’s hit a sleep regression. She is having trouble getting to sleep at night and can’t handle being in her crib by herself, which is putting some strain on both her mother and me. My wife is a nurse and works nights; previously, when she worked, I could put the baby to bed and then write late into the evening, but now that the baby is fighting bedtime, I’m struggling to find time for other things I need to do. I’m attempting to rearrange my schedule to write early in the morning … but the baby wakes up really early to demand milk and cuddles, and then she won’t go back to sleep. I usually end up holding her until my wife gets home, and then I don’t even get breakfast before I have to rush to work.

So it goes.

My parents-in-law have been here for a while and have been a huge help with the baby, but they’re heading back to the Philippines now, which means I need to up my game. I’m trying to figure out a system to write and watch the baby simultaneously; the problem is, I can’t write in her presence because she wants to bang on my keyboard and has a tantrum if I don’t let her. I could potentially block her off so she’s in the room with me but can’t reach the computer, but that will make her cry.

On another first-time-parent, first-time-homeowner front, we’re working on the house. We’re putting in a garden and planning to plant fruit trees in the back. Also, we’re going to plant hedges in the front because the direction of the wind and location of the house cause a lot of trash to blow into our front yard. I figure, if we have hedges, the trash can pile up against them on the street instead of scattering across our grass. We’re moving slowly on all this because budgeting is tight, but we’re moving.

Also, it appears a vole has destroyed part of our sprinkler system. After reading some articles online, I suggested to my wife that I might be able to repair it myself, but she gave me “the look” and told me to call somebody instead.

And although this isn’t the highest priority, I want to put one of those miniature free libraries in the front yard. Having retired from archaeology, I work as a librarian, so passing out books to others is a mtter of principle for me. I don’t want to be officially associated with the organization called Little Free Library for the same reason I refuse to join the American Library Association despite official pressure: Because those guys are assholes. Nonetheless, I’ve always liked those miniature libraries, and I think there’s only one other in town at the moment, so I’d like to host the second. When I finally get it set up, I’m going to fill it with books that are edifying but not too demanding, such as Mortimer J. Adler’s Aristotle for Everybody and H. G. Wells’s Short History of the World.

I have plans to DIY our guest room after the grandparents head out. It may turn into a disaster, but it will at least be a disaster contained to one area of the house. Our house has an atrocious interior texture, and the walls were abused by previous occupants who didn’t understand the concept of stud-finding and thus ripped holes in the sheetrock that were then hastily patched. So I intend to try my hand at skim-coating. Some DIY sites online claim, no doubt falsely, that it’s super easy with the right tools, so I’m going to give it a shot, and if I destroy a room, at least I will have only destroyed one room. But if I succeed, that means I can go on to do the other rooms. The plan is, rip out the carpet, skim-coat the walls, apply new texture (orange peel, probably, because it’s easy and looks okay and comes in cans), and put down a floating floor. If that works out, I’ll move on to other rooms to do the same thing.

I have some ambitions that are beyond my skill level, such as a built-in bench for the dining area and built-in floor-to-ceiling bookcases for my office, which would be extra cool because the office has high ceilings. These projects would, at the least, require tools I don’t currently own and can’t presently afford.

On a more serious note, my computer desperately needs replacing. One thing slowing down my writing is that I simply don’t know if my machine will cooperate with me when I turn it on. Sometimes it boots up fine. Sometimes it takes twenty minutes. Sometimes my word processor crashes unexpectedly or slows down the computer to a crawl. Sometimes I think I can squeeze in a little time to write but actually can’t because the computer is too slow. This computer is now over a decade old, well past its life expectancy. As with everything else, this is a budget item for which there are no funds. But I have been expecting for years now that this thing will simply one day fail to turn on when I press the power button, and although that still hasn’t happened, it is fast approaching.

I have yet another item that is halfway between a hobby project and a religious devotion. I am a fanatical Bible annotator. My notes are a stream of consciousness consisting of points from sermons and my own thoughts but mostly snippets from books and articles I’ve read, with quotes ranging from Jules Verne to Bertrand Russell to the Bhagavad Gita as well as a slew of archaeological journals. I’ve been through three different study Bibles over my lifetime, and I am almost finished copying my notes from the previous two into the third one. That third one is a first edition, in leather, of the Harper Collins Study Bible, and it is getting worn out, so I am seriously considering copying all of my notes, a project that would literally take years, into a new, fourth study Bible.

To that end, I recently acquired, for an embarrassing amount of money, a rare leatherbound edition of the New Interpreter’s Study Bible, a volume I have coveted for a long time. But after examining it and finding it dissatisfactory in some ways (poor binding and narrow margins mostly, but also the annotations are obnoxious), I think I am likely to settle for the fifth edition of the New Oxford Annotated Bible, which I also acquired recently. The New Oxford is horrid in many respects but is also the only “ecumenical” study Bible that updates regularly, is designed for personal annotations, and is printed by a company that actually gives a darn how the product looks.

I anticipate that the fifth edition will be the last version of the New Oxford that is actually useable. All of the Bibles I just mentionend use the New Revised Standard Version, which is an offense to the ears that wreaks havoc on the texts it pretends to translate, but it is the only English version, unfortunately, that includes all the books used by the Eastern Orthodox and some prominent lesser Eastern Churches. A new version of the NRSV is forthcoming, which promises to be worse than the current one; the current NRSV I can fix with a red pen, but the new version will be beyond saving. I expect that the sixth edition of the New Oxford, whenever it appears, will use this newer version, so that means the fifth edition is the last “ecumenical” study Bible that will not be worthless. For that reason, I expect it will be the last study Bible I buy and may be the one into which I copy all my notes to create my own personal “definitive” edition. The New Oxford lacks features that anything calling itself a study Bible ought to have, such as a cross-referencing system and a concordance, and its formatting is horrendous, but it is, sadly, the best thing available in its niche and is likely to remain so.

On the writing front, I have two projects. I am working on a collection of Rags and Muffin short stories, though this has proven difficult: Although I’ve been editing, formatting, and promoting Rags and Muffin, actually writing and living in their world isn’t something I’ve done for some time, so it’s hard to get back into. I’m also moving ahead with the third volume of Jake and the Dynamo. I was having some difficulty with the plotting of that book, but I’ve recently found the solution. Finding the time to write, however—and getting my computer to cooperate—are other matters.

Book Interior Formatting: $45

I’m not yet planning to advertise this on other platforms yet because I’m hoping to get one or two takers to see how it goes, but I’m offering professional-grade book formatting for only forty-five dollars, a considerably lower price than you will find anywhere else.

I own the latest version of Vellum book-formatting software. I will use Vellum on your book to give you a professional-looking product for considerably less than you would pay either to buy Vellum yourself or hire a designer.

My novels Jake and the Dynamo and Rags and Muffin are formatted with Vellum. Follow the links and check out the See Inside option to observe their interior layouts. These are relatively simple designs, but numerous others are available, including ones that are more flashy or complex.

I will format nonfiction or fiction. Print versions are available in black-and-white only, but eBooks can feature full color. I can fit the book to any measurements required or allowed by your preferred print-on-demand platform. I will format any kind of book except erotica.

I need:

  • Word Document (or similar) containing the full text of your work. Authors who submit a document with both a semantic heading structure and triple asterisks (***) for section breaks get a $5 discount.
  • Any interior illustrations with directions for placement (optional). See your preferred publishing platform for instructions on size or file type.
  • Any images to be used as chapter headings or section breaks (optional).
  • Cover image (for eBooks), preferably measuring 1800 x 2700 pixels (optional but strongly recommended).

I will provide:

  • Basic typographical formatting (EM dashes, proper ellipses, and correctly oriented apostrophes, if needed). Tell me explicitly if you don’t want this.
  • An attractive, professional layout using Vellum’s templates. I will provide samples for your approval so you can pick the layout and fonts that work best for you.
  • Up to three free template alterations if you decide you need a different layout.
  • Free corrections of any compatibility issues (such as margins not matching a print-on-demand service’s requirements).
  • One free revision if you edit your manuscript or add cover art after submitting to me (additional revisions will require another submission with the same $45 price tag).

I will produce:

  • All eBook formats for all platforms, including optimally sized cover thumbnails if you provided cover art.
  • A PDF suitable for paperback or hardcover print books. (Interior only; all platforms will require you to upload the cover as a separate file.)

Bonus:

  • Additional, smaller documents, such as PDFs of short stories or sample chapters for use in promotion, are $10 each.

Contact me at dgddavidson@hotmail.com.

Return of the ‘Rags and Muffin’ Hardcover

I earlier reported that an Amazon order of my novel Rags and Muffin resulted in a delivery of the volume printed by IngramSpark. I had no explanation for this and still don’t.

I needed some additional copies recently and ordered them, again from Amazon. What I got this time resembled the test printing I originally got from Amazon, which in my opinion is superior to the IngramSpark version.

I do not know why I got IngramSpark books before. I do not know what will arrive in the mail if you order a hardcover.

However, the difference between the two versions might not be noticeable to most readers. The Amazon version appears to have sturdier binding, though whether it actually holds up better over time or whether that’s merely a cosmetic difference, I can’t say. The image on its cover is also clearer, but only slightly.

Rags and Muffin back cover.

I think this is a good-looking book. Amazon only recently began offering hardcovers through Kindle Direct Printing, but the product they produce is of high quality. The printing is clear, the paper is bright but not too bright, the cover is good, and the book overall is solid, with a lot of heft.

It happens that Vellum, which I use for formatting, updated right before this book went live on Amazon, so I was able to give the internal formatting some slight improvements over what I originally planned to release. Because the cover was already made, I couldn’t change the page count, so it was too late to use some of Vellum’s newer, more creative layout options. But you nonetheless get a fine-looking interior with large, clear type.

Rags and Muffin interior.

Vellum is expensive, but it’s one purchase I definitely don’t regret: I can format my books myself without hiring a pro, which means I can instantly correct any lingering typos if I become aware of them. This novel did (yet again) get an additional proofread recently from a generous reviewer, and all he found was a missing quotation mark—which has now been added where it belongs. I can’t claim it’s perfect, but it is a very clean manuscript, unusually so for either indie or tradpub.

The only downside to the hardback is that Amazon forces a starting price that’s decidedly high for an indie book. Naturally, I make most of my sales in eBooks, so I’m debating whether continuing to offer hardcovers for my future titles is worth the expense.

The Pulps: ‘The Resurrection of Jimber-Jaw’

The other day, I came across the anthology The Pulps. Edited by Tony Goodstone and published in 1970, it is a nostalgic look back at the heyday of pulp magazines in the 1910s through the 1950s. I thought it might be worthwhile to discuss each of the stories it contains, one at a time.

The Pulps is an oversized hardback designed to have dimensions roughly similar to a pulp magazine. In addition to a collection of stories (chosen to be representative rather than for quality, Goodstone tells us), it contains a smattering of vintage ads and excerpts from letters to the editor and other back matter. The presentation of the stories preverves illustrations and mimics original layouts, though the font has obviously been standardized and modernized. The book also contains a collection of full-color magazine covers.

The Pulps features a decent explanatory apparatus. An introductory essay traces the history of pulp fiction, arguing that it has its origins in the moralizing chapbooks of the 1840s. The book is then divided into sections dedicated to adventure, sports, war, westerns, detectives, and so forth. The book offers one great disappointment: Toward its end is an essay about The Shadow and Doc Savage, but it contains stories of neither.

I’ll take these stories one at a time, in the order presented.

Continue reading “The Pulps: ‘The Resurrection of Jimber-Jaw’”

Amazon KDP vs. IngramSpark Hardcovers

Depicted at the top of this post is the author copy of the hardcover edition of Rags and Muffin, which I received from Amazon KDP before the book went live (hence the “Not for Resale” stripe across the middle). My initial thought was that it looked really good, very professional and well put-together. The cover art is printed directly onto the case, and it came out crisp.

Recently, my wife, unaware that I could order additional copies at cost, ordered a few of these from Amazon in order to give them as Christmas gifts. When her copies arrived, I immediately noticed that they looked markedly different from what I had originally received from Amazon. Here is a side-by-side comparison:

Amazon and IngramSpark hardcovers.
The two hardcovers, compared.

My author copy is a thicker book, and a little better looking. You can also see that, in the copies my wife ordered, the title is not quite centered but shifted to the right. Even more baffling, if you look closely, you can see that my name overlaps Rags’s sneaker in the author copy but not in the ordered copy. I at first had no idea how that was even possible since I uploaded the cover as a single PDF file.

My first thought was that I had inadvertently uploaded the wrong cover image to Amazon KDP at some point. I have been shuffling a lot of files around to get this book published, so that would be likely—except the book should have failed to publish if that were the case, since Amazon has exact specifications for covers and will automatically reject anything that doesn’t fit.

After hunting through my files, I finally found the answer: The cover art on my wife’s copies is the cover for IngramSpark, the print-on-demand service that more or less holds a monopoly on distribution to libraries and brick-and-mortar stores.

Since Amazon KDP has only just recently begun offering hardcovers as an option, this may be a new discovery: Apparently, Amazon shipped IngramSpark hardcovers to my wife instead of its own hardcovers. That may indicate that Amazon outsources printing whenever possible. I have not tested if this is also true of paperbacks.

I’m not entirely happy with this. Amazon appears to be turning out a better product, as their version of the hardcover looks better in every significant way, including the binding (both are glued, but Amazon’s at least has a cloth backing). Not only that, but I can correct the contents of the Amazon version instantly and for free if necessary, whereas the contents of the IngramSpark printing are locked in by IngramSpark’s prohibitive pricing.

This has got me to thinking—is IngramSpark actually worth it? Their distribution is better, but since I’m small fry, my chance of being picked up by booksellers is remote anyway, especially since I can’t afford to buy back unsold copies. Almost all of my sales are certain to come from Amazon anyway, and if Amazon is willing to sell an inferior product in lieu of its own better product … maybe I should just kill the IngramSpark version and sell exclusively on Amazon. For this reason, I am already enrolled in Kindle Unlimited: It forces me to offer eBook versions on Amazon exclusively, but I know from indie authors with much greater reach than I have that eBook sales on other platforms are negligible.