robert.admin – Page 160 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

December 25, 2015

San Francisco – Day Two – Gates and Lights

oday was a big off-site family deal, everyone into the van and go. And for this, we wheeled out Moby Dick (the massively unwieldly van) and headed out towards the bay. Best yet, the weather had broken gloriously and the sky was a radiant blue. After a three-point turn-around or two, we finally got ourselves dropped on the Golden Gate Bridge’s south side park. From there, we snapped our pictures of that massive bridge (the same ones you’ve seen everywhere, even here) and then started out across it. Now, the west side, it’s only for bikes. Our side is pedestrians. […]

December 24, 2015

San Francisco – Day One – Chinatown and Fishermans’ Wharf

echnically, the part about waking up Hell happened the day before. I’d been up early the day of travel, cross the country to California, the Earth’s rotation working against me. So a long day of effort. Got into San Fran in the early afternoon, ate dinner at a little Pub along Haight (and two dark-lager pints) and I crashed at 6pm – felt like 11pm – lights out. And I woke up to blazing heat and pounding noise. Hell! Turns out the AC in the house we rented was set hot. And some busker was across the street doing amplified […]

December 24, 2015

Heft (DOG EAR)

nother entry in the “paper vs. plastic” debate – what type of books do you prefer? My own experience involves the classic hero of screen and page, the cowboy. Everyone remembers the scene when the cowboy rides up to the foot of a mesa. Somewhere around here are renegade Indians/rustlers/banditos/whatever. He’s got to get some high ground beneath him for a look-see. With that, he slides easily out of his dusty saddle yet before scrambling upslope, he does what? He grabs his trusty Winchester out of his rifle boot, ratchets in a shell and treads up the scree. Yeah, we […]

December 20, 2015

The Immortal (Review)

nother from an outstanding collection of space warfare stories, Space Fighters, accumulated by Joe Haldeman way back in 1988. This time, it’s Gordon Dickson’s The Immortal. So a grissled space pilot gets a wakeup call. He needs to head to HQ (on Earth). Here, he’s told that he’s going to fly a top secret mission with a “specialist” civillian (who is also trained as a gunner). Turns out we’re in an endless war with a bunch of baddies, out towards Polaris. They can’t get around us, we can’t get around us, so it’s endless grinding war between us. We’ve got […]

December 16, 2015

Star Wars Objector (DOG EAR)

or the record, I love Star Wars. Originally. Back then, it was a wondrous storytelling with interesting characters, mixtures of magic and technology, just a fun story. I liked it so much I reffed a Star Wars role playing game that went on for fifteen years. We watched the movies intently for clues about how things worked, what things did. And when I finally got my own VCR, the first movie I bought was Star Wars for $80 (which, in the mid 80’s, was a lot of money). And I watched it over and over again. So what changed (and […]

December 13, 2015

The Game of Rat and Dragon (Review)

kay, write a short story that glorifies space fighters and cats and you’ve got me hooked. The Game of Rat and Dragon is a fascinating short story from the old Space Fighter’s analogy by Joe Haldeman (story by Cordwainer Smith). What caught me, when I looked it back up, was that it was written in 1955. See, I think of that time as the end of the “rocket ship with three tailfins” sort of scifi, stories where authors didn’t know WTF space was, how we could work it, and what it would be really like to fly in it. But […]

December 11, 2015

Andromeda (12/11/2015)

ome from work, out to dinner, then had a look about 8-ish. Looked clear, damned clear. Confirmed it on Clear Sky – 4+ in all categories. No cloud, no haze, no high-altitude winds. Good seeing night. So out came the scope. The goal tonight was the Andromeda galaxy. This took a bit of doing since it was passing right overhead when I started, and a vertical scope is damned hard to aim. Still, managed to sweep north from Cassiopeia to Pegasus and back, looking for that white stain I’d seen recently in binoculars. And there it was! Okay, for you […]

December 10, 2015

Stories not written (DOG EAR)

ometimes you’ve got to get quiet. There are stories around us, all sorts of fascinating ones. Your partner, your neighbor, your coworker, all have stories. You might not have a direct use for them (i.e. in your current written work) but sometimes you can actually pick up something I’ll call “the rhythm of humanity” in the stories your friends tell you. I remember driving with a nice older gentleman all the way to Atlanta. Lots of time to share stories on that long, long road. On the way, he told me about his four divorces, and also his hundred and […]

December 6, 2015

Orion Nebula – filtered (12/6/2015)

ll evening it’s been broken clouds. I finished writing the third section to my book (all done – landmark) then went outside at 12:45am and saw that everything was clear, that Orion was up, and that I had that new light filter I wanted to try. The good news was that Orion was visible right off the back porch, so that’s where I set the scope up at, right on the porch. Nice to work on boards for a change. However, I managed to dislodge (i.e. drop) the spotter scope twice. So now I was cursing a blue streak. Everything […]

December 3, 2015

Tell, don’t show (DOG EAR)

o what is dialog? It’s the act of story advancement where the words (rather than actions) of your characters advance the plot. Oh, sure, you can use this for other things; setting a mood, advancing the plot, defining a relationship, and so on. Like action, Dialog needs to be carefully mapped before attempting. You need to figure out just what you want to say, the order of the points to be made, the information to be passed to the reader and so on. When all this is down (on scrap paper or in your head), only then should you put […]