robert.admin – Page 186 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

September 14, 2014

With the Night Mail (review)

ood Steampunk is hard to find. The thing is, when authors write Steampunk today, it still carries an aftertaste of digital computers, moon walks and plastics. It just isn’t good Steampunk. But take a top-shelf author (in this case, Rudyard Kipling) and let him imagine (in his age of doughy dirigibles and puttering heavier-than-air wobblers) the world of 2000AD and see what happens. I mean, wow. So our unnamed narrator is hopping a ride on the Night Mail (Postal Packet 162) from London to Quebec. It’s a very automated process, with the bags loaded into the removable gondola (at least […]

September 7, 2014

The Thirteenth Tale (Review)

Review by Jenessa Gayheart, author of “The Story of Eidolon” Webmasters note – Jenessa, as mentioned above, is the author of the three-book set, “The Story of Eidolon” (links below and reviewed across my site). We’ve been having pleasant conversations in emailland and I popped her the question of doing a reivew (and maybe more) for me. So here it is – something I know nothing about (how is that different, you ask?” he Thirteenth Tale was recommended to me by my mother. She said, “Jenny, you’ll like this, it’s a mystery about an author. Like you.” Whether she simply […]

September 4, 2014

Erotica 101: Characters (DOG EAR)

ynthia Woodelston Pratt stepped out of her front door, the sun shimmering along the sassy golden locks of her long blonde hair which hung halfway down her back. She had solient green eyes and a cute button nose, and lips shaded to pastel pink by a generous swipe of lipstick, She was comfortably clothed in a pink polo top. Her delightful bottom was sheathed in tight cut-off jeans, faded, their bottom edges across her thighs frayed into white fluff. On her feet, very casual light brown Doc Martins. She was an American girl, just out for a day’s shopping at […]

August 31, 2014

Concrete Island (Review)

see a lot of concrete islands in my bike rides, specifically places in urban environments lost to people. If you spend your entire life tucked into your house, your office or your car, you’re going to miss a lot. The thing is, nobody missed Robert Maitland when his jag hit that freeway concrete barrier and punched through. Not his distant wife or his at-arms-length mistress, nor the work staff he’d trained not to bother him. So when Robert ends up down an embankment in the weeds, with his leg smashed and no way out of the little island formed by […]

August 28, 2014

Writing blue (DOG EAR)

t all started years back with this dynamic woman I used to share weekly lunches with. I was moaning about an inability to place work (as opposed to my successful current self, who is unable to place work). She looked across the table and asked, quite frankly, “Have you thought about erotica?” The deal was, she knew a friend who made scratch doing just that. Oh, you won’t get rich (it kept Steve King alive in his early years), but you can make some money at it – if you are a real writer. After all, writing erotica/porn/smut is no […]

August 27, 2014

OpsLog – LM&O 8/27/2013

heckmate in three. I’ve written the program we use at the train club, the one that generates switchlists (i.e. railroad documents that tell what industries each car is going to). In a typical session, nine trains and one yardmaster move something like 100 or more cars to and from specific locations. And even though I’d written the program, I’d never gotten a chance to run a train with it. As I mentioned, the session was winding down, one train in Calypso dropping a cut, the other topping the ridge at Harris, heading for Martin Yard and eventually Cincinnati. I was […]

August 24, 2014

Journey to the Past (Review)

nd now we reach the end of The Story of Eidolon, third of the trilogy. This book sees our young hero Hickory finally assuming the duties of an adult, actually joining scouting missions for the community of Portla (now that its good citizens have pulled their heads out of the mire that buried their pasts and have started looking forward again). Finally, we get a chance to leave the community and see what is beyond. I like these sorts of stories, that of a changed world with the evidences of what it had been. Like those shepherds who grazed their […]

August 23, 2014

OpsLog – FEC – 8/23/2014

very time I drive to Ken Farnham’s Florida East Coast railroad, something happens on the trip. Once, a ladder came off a truck in front of us, spinning and sparking along the road like some giant spin-the-bottle game. Then there was the truck tire that blew up like a bomb right in front of us. This time, a four foot long stuffed fish toy (yeah, read that again) came off a pickup and rolled down the passing stripe. There wasn’t much room (barriers on either side of the road, so no runoff). While everyone else braked, I tucked my tiny […]

August 21, 2014

Used (DOG EAR)

erailed. It’s a book by James Siegel which I picked up out of a bin in front of Sanford’s Maya Used Books. It was a hot day, I was flipping through their sidewalk bin of hardbacks, caught on the name (I’m a train fan), read the flap, noted the price (a buck) and added it to my stack. It sat next to my bed (in the pile of potentials) for over a year. I think, twice, I must have moved it to get up the dust and cat hair. And finally, between other books, I read it. Wow. I won’t […]

August 18, 2014

OpsLog – Saluda Grade – 8/18/2014

ronically, the last time I ran on the Saluda line, it was March of 2012, two and a half years ago. The ironic bit was that what I wrote here was a complaint about the changing club dynamics, the economy and general aging that was making a session here so difficult. Happily Jim brought his layout back after years and years down. And happily we had crew enough to run all the trains (except one local). But for its part, the railroad did what it was supposed to do: simulating running two branches of the N&S lines around Asheville (the […]