robert.admin – Page 146 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

January 19, 2017

Fate (DOG EAR)

‘ve mentioned before the sad story of my professional literary arch. If you don’t recall it, let’s do it again. It’s a tale near and dear to my heart. Anyway, had an agent who placed Fire and Bronze with a publisher. Everything was going great. Had the final proofs in. Looking on their site, they were already putting out information about my book, billing me as their “rising star of historic fiction”. Wonderful! My agent noted that they wanted more historical fiction from me and so I started putting together Wenamon, a project I had a real interest in. It […]

January 15, 2017

Algorithms to Live By (Review)

h, yes, my misspent youth. There was some game on the Atari that my best friend and I used to play, a car driving game where you drove as fast as you could, avoiding all the slower traffic, the road obstacles, all that. And what made this “cool” (that is a very time-relevant statement, given the computer games of today) was that places between cities in the game looked different. And the interesting thing here – you tried to hit all the cities across the country in the shortest possible time. So my friend and I would play and play, […]

January 15, 2017

ShowLog – Deland – 1/(14-15)/2017

t’s five o’clock on a Sunday, I’m sitting on the club bench on our porch waiting for the truck to arrive for unloading. I’m beat. But I’m happy. Wotta show. Came back to Deland for their two-day – haven’t been out since last April. The club’s been a little staggered, what with the passing our our treasurer. But this got the dust and frowns out. When you think about it – our two track main had nothing short of three trains (and often up to eight) for the thirteen and a half hours we displayed. People stuffed the tip jars. […]

January 12, 2017

Grateful (DOG EAR)

ery nice lunch the other day. An old friend – a really old friend – a guy I knew like 30 years ago – contacted me and wanted to have lunch. Sure, love to. Then he mentioned that he would like to have me sign a book for his son. (yeah, it has been that long). So sure, we met and I signed the book with a big flourish and all sorts of personalized jokes – I love signing books. We ended up chatting about things, some of which will follow in the next DOG EAR. But that was the […]

January 8, 2017

The End (Review)

urassic Publishing House is gone. I’ve talked about them at length HERE, of my relationship with them and all the fine novels I’ve read that they produced. And with their downfall comes The End, a collection of their best short stories. It’s a wonderful collection (what I’ve read so far, and I will be reviewing the stories as I proceed through them like chocolates in a box, one or two now and again, just making them last). I’ll mention that the book itself is physically a superb effort, leather bound (or simulated such – I’m too uneducated to know the […]

January 5, 2017

Desperate (DOG EAR)

eadline okay write something think think think think something that happened and what it means think think think write something anything something anything the only goddamn reason this page is filling up is that its double-spaced. how can i write several paragraphs about something when i don’t know what to write about? has anything happened? book in the mail? amazon intrusion? witty phrase? richard adams died. but nobody knows what watership down is. and I’ve already bitched about that one two years ago. crap, but the bottom of the page is a long way off. so this is writing. having […]

January 1, 2017

Raiders of the Universes (Review)

h, the good old days. Everyone remembers cars being better, little towns being better, and life being better (actually, the cars were lead-sleds that would kill you at 35mph, the towns were superstitious collectives that people left as soon as they could, and life, overall, was shorter and (with exception to recent political events) stupider). But there you go. In that light, we go back to the “golden age of science fiction” (via a 1932 edition of Astounding Tales) for Raiders of the Universes, a little short story. Taking place in the wondrous future of 3400 or so, the astronomer […]

December 29, 2016

Personalized (DOG EAR)

’ve always said that I like books as presents. If there is something you’ve read that you really enjoyed and you’ll think I’ll enjoy it, by all means, send it. Why people don’t give books more as Christmas presents, I’ll never know (well, I do – most people haven’t read a book since high school yet have watched all the Marvel action movies). Interesting thing I noticed, though. Just got a book for my birthday from my best friend, titled Algorithms to Live By. It’s an interesting study he enjoyed and so he told Amazon (that magic genie of wish fulfillment […]

December 25, 2016

Salammbo (Review)

arthage – I’ve written about its founding (Fire and Bronze) and some of its people (Early Retyrement). In one my my first unpublished novels (Oath to Carthage) I wrote about Hannibal and his war on Rome (and some dystopian time-grabbing future society). So yes, I’ve tried to write Punic for some time. The thing is, I’m not sure I’ve gotten it right. See, in a way the Punic wars determined the culture that would become our world. You had the Romans (who won) who embraced the pragmatic, materialistic world that we recognize. They are who we spawned from, with our […]

December 22, 2016

Lent (DOG EAR)

was brought up Methodist. But a very unstrict Methodist (that must have my ancestors rolling in their graves – they used to be stump preachers) since I didn’t even know we practiced Lent. Really. The first time I even considered practicing Lent (and the idea of sacrificing something for the good of your personal well-being, if not your soul) came as a bet from a Catholic friend of mine (she’s so Catholic, I’m wondering if she doesn’t patrol the city’s rooftops in the moonlight with a cape). But there I go again. It’s what I do. I’m a natural storyteller. […]