So I just learnt that the people re-making Dune are gender swapping Liet-Kynes – WTF

Now I am not at all misogynist. Truly. I believe women can do anything a man can do and should be paid the same for the same job as a well. In fact women can do things a man can’t do. But that is another matter entirely.

I do have problems with affirmative action programs though. If the best person for a job is a man then so be it. If it is a woman so be it. The operative words are “the best person”. Being required to hire people to fill a position to satisfy a quota – oh you have 30 employees but don’t employ a Hispanic, African American transgender Male who now wants be classed as female – shame on you…. is just going a bit far the other way and too far down the road to totalitarianism.

However that is actually a different argument to some second rate writer or a film producer looking at one of the greatest science fiction novels of all time and going – oh, we’ll just make that character a female. Huh?

The first question that comes to mind is WHY? It is not as if there aren’t plenty of female characters and strong female characters at that, in Dune. Yes, most are in secondary roles as it is a Patriarchal society but that is how the society was defined by Herbert. Feminists can complain all they want but historically most societies have been in the patriarchal mould. Facts are facts. Not that I am supporting patriarchal social systems in any way, I like today’s equality, but wishful thinking doesn’t change reality. And whatever it’s faults Herbert’s society is rich and clearly defined.

So why change the sex of that character? It messes with story with regards Chani – in fact the whole balance of the situation changes which means they will have to either make other changes to the story or it will look stupid. Which gets back to the question – why change anything in the first place?

It leaves one lacking confidence in the people doing the re-make. What else will they arbitrarily change?

One thinks of other remakes – Conan – Robocop – The Mechanic and so on where a perfectly good movie was re-made and failed at the box office  much to the surprise of those that re-made it. Why would people go and see a modern re-make when the first movie was perfectly adequate.

Now the previous versions of Dune are not adequate so there is scope for great version of this famous book – but so far all they have done is cause me to worry….

 

Well, book 2 has gone to the Beta Reader for dissection. Once it has been returned and the suggested changes investigated I will get it out on Amazon.

I have decided to start editing  the first book of my contemporary Wizard story before returning to book 3 as it is still too soon after the 1st edit and I need to let it lie a bit longer before looking at it again so you will all just have to suffer and wait a bit longer for book 3. 🙂

I had hoped the drop in work due to the Covid19 disaster would lead to me writing more but so far my word production is only slightly than I have averaged so year and actually less than the last six months of 2019.

This is partly because I have been doing more editing this year getting 1 and 2 ready to go 🙂 But  beside that, while I have lots of thoughts and scene fragments floating around in my head I am having trouble getting them onto paper in a coherent manner. However the muse of inspiration will not doubt catch up with me sooner or later.

 

More than a third of the way through Book 2 of Arturo Sandus and his campaign to return to the stars. Maybe.

I have another series of books I am working on about a contemporary sorcerer of sorts who discovers he can move between universes. His movement is sideways, so to speak, not temporal (so far, hee hee) so it is always 2020+ wherever he lands. I am finding it a challenge to come up with a reasonable hypothesis as to why this Earth only has mid 19th century tech while this other Earth is almost the same as his Earth. Another is still stuck in the late bronze/early iron age while one over here is still in the ice age and there are no humans, at least on the American West Coast.

The whole idea is very much a pandora’s box. What about an Earth where Germany didn’t mobilize in 1914, instead opting to do a form of lend lease with their Austrian neighbors, propping them up with arms and supplies and in the process keeping Great Britain out of the war as well. Another where the American revolution never happened and technology stagnated at a level not much more advanced than the Napoleonic period…

Then there is the high tech Roman world, where the Empire never fell due to a restoration of the Republic in the 5th century…

Yes. it’s not ready to print yet, but I have started my pre-print final edit. Which will take time. Still, progress is happening. Got to work on the cover next….

Books 3 and 4 are sort of written… book 5 not so much. At this stage Book 5 is the planned end of the arc but has I’ve written less than 1/3 of it so far it may not be the last at all….

Other stuff I’m working on:

I have a near written book about a contemporary post-grad who meets a marooned sorcerer from a different earth and the adventures that ensue….

There is 2/3 Space Opera sort of Romance  book…

A couple of other Space Opera ideas one of which will eventually tie into Arturo’s story sort of, maybe…

And other less well developed ideas.

As always nothing is set in stone – all my work is subject to change without notice. Well except Arturo’s second book which is pretty much fixed… just need to get rid of the errors and such.

 

 

 

Being a new author, so to speak, I have tried to find out how other people write and discovered that people have various different methods. Some don’t start to write till they have the whole story mapped out in their head. Others write down ideas for a story as they occur inside their head but may not come back and actually write the story for some time, sometimes years. And then the story idea might be changed out of all recognition by other factors and or idea that have occurred to the author in the meantime.

The conclusion I have reached is that I am a very messy writer. I tend to write when a scene comes into my head.  I do methodically edit at least one Word page of previously written material every day (often more than one page). New writing, being more of a inspirational process means I will often write a few thousand words in one story this week and then a few thousand words in some other story next week because something has caught my imagination for that work.

Bear in mind that I work 6 days a week as a ride-share driver for Uber and also do a bit of graphic design work as well with a total work week of +60 hours a week so I get tired easily and often go whole weeks without writing much at all.

That being said, I am about to start editing Arturo’s 2nd book, “Begin Again” which I hope to get out before the end of June but that is a date subject to change without notice!

Well it is certainly an interesting experience self publishing a book. tried to get on the Time Travel  book group on Goodreads and took me nearly 3 hours and needed the help of another Goodreads person to get it up there….

Contrary to what my daughter may tell you I am not really that dumb….

Working on some other things to  get my book placed here and there but have decided  I need a new photo so I will wait til this evening when my lovely wife can do the honors hopefully.

Sales are such that I am not bothering to book a look at a new Ferrari, not even a Matchbox one!

Still. I have done it. Got a book out there. Rome wasn’t built in a Day after all…. wasn’t destroyed in a day either but that’s another matter entirely.

 

1st book is up!!!

the 1st part of the the Arturo Sandus story.

Working 50-60 hours a week doesn’t leave a lot of time for writing but I have the manuscripts for the next 3 books in the series written – not just edited properly yet.

 

Well here we are in 2020 and the first book of my sci-fi/alternate history series is still not published. Res republicae – On the Rocks is the title now. The good news is I have downloaded the Amazon Kindle Create software and am getting my manuscript ready to publish. Knowing me this will either happen after a several hours of feverish work or take several days to come to grips with….

I have have however done up a blurb for the story – you know that bot that is supposed to wet a reader’s appetite and cause them to rush their mouse to the buy now button and voila I’m a dollar or two richer. Well in theory. For those that are interested here it is. Feedback (no swearing please) is very welcome.

Captain Arturo Sanders was having a bad day. First the routine destruction of some ancient automatic defence batteries became a disaster when his ship’s screens failed and he had no choice to abandon ship.

Then he had to rescue two left behind crew people which meant he missed the main shuttle evacuation leaving him and his two companions in a shuttle on their own at the rear.

Then the shuttle was hit by enemy fire just as they traversed the jump point, of course! This sent the shuttle through something to somewhere but not the safe system the rest of the crew had jumped to!

The damage to the shuttle meant they would need a dockyard or failing that they would have to land on a planet to affect repairs which seemed likely as the system had no electronic signature, so space docks looked unlikely.

The third planet was in fact inhabited, but by primitives armed with swords and spears, probably an old Imperial colony that had been cut off and regressed tech-wise. They should be able to land and repair their shuttle somewhere out of the way except of course the engines decided to fail halfway down!

This led to a close encounter with the side of a mountain, followed by a crash landing into a lake.

And then his day got really bad!

This is my first try at WordPress so we shall have to see how things go. As I have finished the first draft of my book Res Republicae 1: From The Rocks, I felt it time to start getting more ‘professional’ about this publishing thing.

I do actually have several books underway but am concentrating on the Res Republicae series first. This series is the account of a space cruiser captain who has a real bad day, finishing up alone on a backwards planet surrounded by people armed with swords and bows. His assumptions about where he is are overturned but he decides he will go on regardless, dragging the primitives around him into the future, by force if necessary.