robert.admin – Page 163 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

December 12, 2013

Being an Evil Overlord Part 4 (DOG EAR)

And now we go into our Fourth week of five, another 50 rules for either maintaining your evil empire or not making your villain’s overthrow trite and predictable. Enjoy these but note them – if I see one of them in a book of your’s, I’ll hash you in a review. You’ve been warned. I will not set myself up as a god. That perilous position is reserved for my trusted lieutenant. I will instruct my fashion designer that when it comes to accessorizing, second-chance body armor goes well with every outfit. My Legions of Terror will be an equal-opportunity […]

December 8, 2013

The war that killed Achilles (Review)

So, in a show of fair advertising, I’ll point out that this book’s sub-title, The True Story of the Iliad, is not entirely truthful. That’s why I bought this book when I found it at Slightly Foxed in London. But this isn’t about the war behind the Iliad. It’s about the Iliad. It’s nothing more than a complete breakdown of the elements of the epic, how they fit into the overall stream of storytelling, and how these elements relate to us in our modern world. There is nothing about the actual Trojan War except a map in the front and […]

December 4, 2013

Being an Evil Overlord Part 3 (DOG EAR)

And here we are with our third set of campy, silly, overdone ways that heroes overthrow overlords. I mean, is any of this fair? Not to the overlords, who should be better than this. And not to the readers, whose story they paid for should be better than this. Read these, think about these, and don’t do these. I will not order my trusted lieutenant to kill the infant who is destined to overthrow me — I’ll do it myself. I will not waste time making my enemy’s death look like an accident — I’m not accountable to anyone and […]

December 1, 2013

The New World (Review)

I‘ve gone onto a different tack here. Originally I was trying to get a review for a full story a week. However, my Dad (a frequent contributor) passed away a while back and I’m having a hard time knocking down a book each week, especially monsters like Game of Thrones and Pillars of the Earth. With this in mind, I’ve used Dad’s eReader to search around Amazon and pull down free short fiction, a way I can honor my commitments here and not have to read every waking hour. So, this week, our first shortie – The New World , […]

December 1, 2013

OpsLog – TY&E – 12/1/2013

Big day on the Tipton, Youngstown and Eire – we’re running a timetable that JW and I both worked on. This is the great thing; playwrights feel it. Authors feel it (I’ve been told). The A-Team feels it. A plan comes together. More that a dozen trains moving across the division against each other, kept apart by time and location. No collisions. The railroad functioning as intended, its cargos moved, its passengers transported. But I’m really focused today on sand and logs. See, my train (my baby) is the Sand and Log run. I came up with this run and […]

November 28, 2013

Being an Evil Overlord Part 2 (DOG EAR)

We continue with our review of the things NOT to do if you are an evil overlord. Further, it’s also a list of the things we shouldn’t do as writers. These are overused plot tricks that allow the heroes to overcome the long odds against them. If you see your own story reflected in any of the below, consider another draft. Enjoy… If one of my dungeon guards begins expressing concern over the conditions in the beautiful princess’ cell, I will immediately transfer him to a less people-oriented position. I will hire a team of board-certified architects and surveyors to […]

November 24, 2013

The Count of Monte Cristo (review)

Ignore that recent movie adaptation (i.e. the same way thuggish joyriders adapt your car when they are done with it). This book isn’t about sword fighting. It’s about vengeance. And not vengeance just served cold – vengeance left to itself over a decade of being locked in a cell, of simmering about the people who profited from entombing you from the living sunlit world, and what you could do if you could ever got out. Such is the sad fate of Edmond Dantes, unjustly locked up on an island fortress during the pro- and anti-Bonaparte times following the Emperor’s exile […]

November 21, 2013

Being an Evil Overlord Part 1 (DOG EAR)

Overlords are a popular villain of movies and literature. They provide the foil against which the hero can play his heroics against. They are important, perhaps necessary to have. But they can be painfully obvious, too. The trick is to not make them too trite and predictable. And when I say that, it’s actually amazing how many ploys, plots and desperate schemes we’ve enjoyed in books and theaters, where thousands of plucky do-gooders defeat thousands of world-enders, power-grabbers, magic-hoarders, land-seizers, and country-invaders. There really isn’t much new under the sun today when it comes from defeating a madman’s master plans. […]

November 20, 2013

OpsLog – LM&O – 11/20/2013

One of the pivotal (and poetic) moments of history is Sept 15th, 1940 during the Battle of Britain. This was the day the Germans threw their entire bomber and fighter force against the English Isles, and the day the English had everything (including their reserves, as it was famously stated) up. It’s one of those days you see coming, and then the storm breaks upon you. That was the club tonight. When I’d heard that two of our solid operators weren’t going to make it, I thought it was pretty much a wash. This close to the holidays, members start […]

November 17, 2013

The City & The City (Review)

There have been divided cities in the past. Even in our lifetimes, there was Berlin and Jerusalem. Cities have quarterings: rich and poor, indigenous and immigrant. But no two cities have been divided as Beszel and Ul Qoma. Vaguely placed somewhere in our modern Balkans region, the two cites exist in the same geographic location but slightly different phases. Patches of each city are visible from the other. Some places are crosshatched, meaning you actually interact with pedestrians and traffic of the other. But they are as separated as if there was a wall between them. The Breach (or, strike […]