R’ha — an SF Short Film

A young, German filmmaker named Kaleb Lechowski, 22, has released an all-CGI short film called R’ha that’s pretty impressive, especially for an amateur effort. Okay, the story’s nothing new, but the visual (and audio) representation are startlingly good. Reportedly, he spent seven months on the computer creating this film with a running time of 6:26. If you’re not at work or in a house with people sleeping, turn up the sound a little.

Apparently the display of film-making talent is generating quite a lot of buzz. More on the story here and here.

Who Says Wonks Can’t Have a Sense of Humor?

Think they can’t have a little fun at the White House? How about this Official White House Response to a citizens petition “to Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016”?

This Isn’t the Petition Response You’re Looking For

The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense, but a Death Star isn’t on the horizon. Here are a few reasons:

  • The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We’re working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.
  • The Administration does not support blowing up planets.
  • Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?
[more]

The rest of it is pretty good, too. Why not give it a read?

The Hobbit: the Movie (Part 1)

posted in: theater and movies 0

It was just like the Lord of the Rings movies, only more so. Allysen and I went to see it in 3D for New Year’s Day evening, and came away agreeing: “The parts that were good were great, and the parts that were bad were really bad.” Basically, it was about an hour too long for the story it told, and if you edited out some of the endless battle scenes and Indiana Jones-like theatrics, you’d have a really good movie.


Here’s my bullet list of the good points:

  • Martin Freeman as Bilbo (he was great)
  • Ian McKellan as Gandalf (of course)
  • Cate Blanchett as Galadriel (better than in LOTR, I thought)
  • New Zealand as Middle Earth (gorgeous)
  • Surprisingly, the added material relating to the evil stirrings in Dol Goldur (I say surprising, because basically Peter Jackson does well when he sticks to Tolkien’s storyline, and generally does badly when he changes it.)
  • The meeting of Bilbo and Gollum (beautifully done)

Here’s my list of where it went wrong:

  • The pacing (way too slow in the setup, where the dwarves show up at Bag End), and simultaneously headlong and tedious in the overlong action/battle scenes
  • Clownish characterization of some of the dwarves, but especially of Radagast the wizard
  • Dwarves that looked like men
  • Dialogue that occasionally slipped out of Middle Earth and into Jaba the Hutt’s den (“Those dwarf scum are my kind of scum!”)
  • Frenetic fight scenes in place of story development
  • Did I mention too many fight scenes?

The 3D experience was less successful for me than it’s been in other movies. It has its moments, but for the first hour or so, I actually felt that it intruded more than it helped, giving a sort of cartoonish quality to some of the characters, especially the dwarves as they appeared in Bilbo’s house. I think I might actually have preferred seeing it in 2D.

All in all, a very mixed bag. Great stuff marred by clumsiness and self-indulgence. On a scale of 1-4 elvish swords, I’d give it two swords and a dagger.

Happy Circuit Around the Sun, 2013!

Yes, we’ve made another turn around Sol, and congratulations to all of us! I hope you have all had a terrific holiday season, and are in good form for the start of another circle. Here in the Carver household, we had a great Christmas with my brother and his wife visiting from Florida, and several other good friends on hand. My sister-in-law Youngmee didn’t exactly get her wish for snow while visiting, though. Oh, we had a little dusting, but the real snow waited until a day after they’d left. Next year!

As I look back on 2012, I see a time of transitions for the family. Allysen, ever looking for adventure, started rowing with a local community boat club last May, and turned overnight into a crew enthusiast (despite having to get up at 4 a.m.). My sister Nancy got married, out in Ohio, and we all traveled out for that happy event. My daughter Lexi went from a Masters program in mechanical engineering to a PhD program, and back to Masters (due partly to will o’ the wisp promises of funding from the university). Her sister Julia finished her homeschooling with a GED, spent some time in the summer as an editorial intern, and pondered her future direction. And I…well, I made good progress on the new book. 2012 was a good year for ebooks, and saw exciting growth in my audience to the UK. When sales in the U.S. slumped a bit, my friends in Britain came through and turned it around for me! 2012 also saw four of my books become audiobooks, with more on the way.

I look ahead to the new year with excitement and more than a little apprehension. Last year was just a warmup. In the coming months, we’re helping Allysen’s mother move from her longtime home in Puerto Rico to a really good continuing care community in a town near us. That’s a huge undertaking that will involve all of us. We also have to gear up for work on our house. It needs a new roof, and we’d like to add a modest dormer for more room while we’re at it. Once that’s all done, we’re having a solar-electric array installed on the roof (more on that later). Among other things, this means moving everything out of our attic, and probably out of my office. All while I’m trying to finish The Reefs of Time! Pray for me.

All that said, life is good. And I hope it is for you, too. Happy New Year!

For Some Very Good Free Ebooks…

Show us your Nook! Or your pretend-Nook, if you don’t have a Nook. From now through Dec. 31, a bunch of authors, including the one attached to my fingers, are giving away a free ebook from Book View Café. All you have to do is visit Katharine Eliska Kimbriel’s Live Journal page at http://alfreda89.livejournal.com/. She has the instructions there. The idea is you post a picture of yourself with your Nook to Cat’s Livejournal or Facebook page, and in return you get some coupon codes for free books. Just go to Book View Café to collect. Nothing to register—just use the coupon codes to download epub editions of the books.

I’m giving away Eternity’s End, a Nebula finalist. You’ll also get Cat’s Fires of Nuala, Vonda N. McIntyre’s Starfarers, and Jennifer Stevenson’s King of Hearts, all in DRM-free epub editions. (Which means, among other things, that if you have a Kindle pretending to be a Nook, you can easily convert the epub to mobi-Kindle format with Calibre, a free program.) See Cat’s page for a list of other participating authors.

Here’s where you can go to collect your epub copy of Eternity’s End once you have your coupon code: http://bookviewcafe.com/bookstore/bvc-author/jeffrey-a-carver/.

Hurry! Before we run out of ebooks!


Happy 12-12-12, Everyone!

posted in: quirky, special days 0

This is the best day since 11-11-11.  And as my friend Crystal pointed out, the fast-approaching 12-21-12 will be almost as good. Alas, we may never see a 13-13-13, and not because of the end of the world.

Say Twelve-Twelve-Twelve fast a few times, and then check out my earlier 12-12-12 post (right below, if you’re reading this directly in the blog) about works in progress and the great Blog Hop.

The Next Big Thing — Work in Progress

Today I’m diving into an author meme that’s circulating around the net this month. It’s called a Blog Hop. The idea is to post some tantalizing information about your work in progress, to get folks (that’s you) psyched about what’s coming down the pike—and then to link to some of your writer friends and colleagues, and encourage the same folk (you, again) to go check out what they’re doing.

Here goes. First question, please:

1) What is the title of your next work?

The Reefs of Time.

It’s Volume Five of The Chaos Chronicles. Or, to put it another way, it’s the long-awaited sequel to Sunborn. It’s also still very much a work in progress, and I don’t have a publication date for you, unfortunately. Some of you have been waiting a long time for this book, and I very much appreciate your patience.

2) Where did the idea come from?

It continues a story inspired by chaos theory, which began years ago with Neptune Crossing, the opening volume of The Chaos Chronicles. The series chronicles the adventures of one John Bandicut from Earth, a survey pilot out on Triton (moon of Neptune), whose journey starts with a search for relics of life from outside the solar system. He finds it, in the form of a quarx—a noncorporeal alien who takes up residence in his head—and the translator, a powerful machine or being of equally alien origin. A lot happens after that—four books’ worth, in fact. Worlds in danger, starting with Earth. Reluctant heroes. New friendships and loves where least expected.

In The Reefs of Time, we are hundreds of years further into the future, out at the edge of our galaxy. There’s a calamity in the making, of truly galactic proportions. Li-Jared’s homeworld is involved. The starstream is involved (see From a Changeling Star and Down the Stream of Stars). The Mindaru are involved (see Sunborn). The inspiration for this volume came not just from chaos theory, but time theory, as well. The human element was inspired by… well, I’m not really sure, to be honest. My own feelings of awe in the face of a seemingly chaotic universe, perhaps.

Each of the books is a story complete, while building a much larger story arc.

3) What genre does your book fall under?

Sounds sort of like science fiction, doesn’t it?

4) What actors should play your characters in the movie?

I’d never thought about that until now. Well, okay, this sounds nutty, but actually Tom Cruise, toned down, might not be bad as John Bandicut. Chris Pike could be good, too. Or Jeremy Renner, or Mark Ruffalo. He has to be smart and capable, but also a little crazy. He’s got actual, alien voices in his head, and he’s loyal to those he loves, and when pushed, he’s willing to take some enormous risks.

Most of the characters in this book are aliens, and that’s a tough casting challenge. Willem Dafoe was great as Tar Tarkas, and he might be a pretty good Ik (an alien). Lynn Collins (Deja Thoris in John Carter) could be the beautiful, four-breasted humanoid, Antares. Or Lena Heady. For Julie Stone, human… not sure. Someone smart, competent, cute, reminiscent of Allison Mack (Chloe in Smallville); but I’m not sure she’s quite right. Someone similar, though. Summer Glau? Too exotic. Piper Perabo? Too adorable. I think this part is still open. Li-Jared and the robots, I really have no idea.

5) Give us a one-sentence synopsis. (Go ahead, try!)

When a time distortion opens a channel from the center of the galaxy in the deep past, to the outer galaxy of now, it also opens a path for a malevolent group of cyber-entities to come forward in time, threatening thousands of civilized worlds. It falls to John Bandicut and his alien companions to find a way to close the timestream. And if Bandicut survives, he might just learn that Julie Stone has made it to Shipworld, out at the edge of the galaxy, and that she has played a part in the mission.

Okay, I made it in three sentences. But it’s a whole lot more complicated than that, really.

6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

It is slated to be published by Tor Books, who have been waiting patiently for the long-overdue manuscript.

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft?

Ouch. Five years or more in, I’m nearly finished with the massive first draft. I expect the rewrite to go a lot faster, though it will be a huge job, involving a lot of weaving and a lot of cutting and tightening. 

8) What other books would you compare this story to?

That’s a hard one. It has some of the epic proportions of Vernor Vinge’s A Fire Upon the Deep, and A Deepness in the Sky. Maybe some kinship with Gregory Benford’s galactic core books. Or Jack McDevitt’s The Engines of God. Or Samuel R. Delany’s Nova. Or Niven’s Ringworld. A bit of Heinlein, a bit of Clarke. It’s character driven, but probably comes in somewhere between hard science fiction and galactic space opera.

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?

James Gleick’s book, Chaos. An article in The Planetary Report about chaos in the solar system. An image of a man, a pilot, driven a little mad by the loss of his cybernetic implants, as the first human to encounter an alien.

10) What else might pique the reader’s interest?

It’s a great, sprawling adventure with characters I find very interesting (humans, aliens, robots), a complex plot spanning half the galaxy, and—oh yes—time travel! I can’t wait to read it. And I really can’t wait to finish writing it. The Reefs of Time. When it’s done, the readers of this blog will be the first to know.

All six books that connect to it, by the way, are readily available as ebooks. (That includes four books of The Chaos Chronicles, plus the two Starstream novels mentioned above. Paper books are also available, though you might have to go to the used market for some of them.)

If there are no more questions, why don’t you check out what some of my fellow authors have to say about their works in progress? (Some might be posting over the course of the day, so if you don’t see anything, check back.)

Richard Bowker http://richardbowker.com/
Ann Tonsor Zeddies http://pointoforigin.livejournal.com/
Lois Gresh http://loisgresh.blogspot.com

The next bunch of writers are all colleagues of mine at Book View Café:

Patricia Burroughs http://planetpooks.com/the-blog/
Katharine Eliska “Cat” Kimbriel http://alfreda89.livejournal.com/
Pati Nagle http://patinagle.livejournal.com/
Steven Harper Piziks http://spiziks.livejournal.com
Deborah J. Ross http://www.deborahjross.blogspot.com/

Others will be posting on December 19. I’ll try to get some more links for you then.

If you’re a writer and have posted your own “Next Big Thing” (or want to do so right now), please go ahead and post your link under Comments!

Holiday Specials!

Before this gets away from me and I forget to promote it (What good are specials if you keep them to yourself?), I have a few book specials lined up for the holiday season.

Ebooks first. At Book View Café, you can pick up my two short story collections, Going Alien and Reality and Other Fictions, for just $1.99 each through December 31. (That’s a dollar off the regular low, low price of $2.99!) Epub or mobi (Kindle) format, your choice, DRM-free.

In the Kindle store, the price of my spaceship-racing thriller, Clypsis (Book One of the Roger Zelazny’s Alien Speedway trilogy) has been marked down by the publisher, at my request, from $9.99 to $5.97. That’s a 40% markdown! Gentlebeings, start your engines! A rousing collaboration with the late, great Roger Zelazny, for young adults of all ages! (Plus, when you compare the ebook price to $89.56 for a new, vintage paperback, it’s a no-brainer. Never mind the $.01 used paperbacks. I’m sure they’re not as good.)



Finally, for lovers of tree-books, I remind you all that personalized, autographed paper books make fine gifts for the discerning gift giver.  Why not visit my virtual bookstore at http://www.starrigger.net/order.htm? Take 10% off the book total (not off the postage, please) for any order you send me in the month of December. This sale is not listed on the website. Just take the discount and mention you read it on my blog or Facebook page.

The book is dead? I don’t think so. Long live the book!

   

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

posted in: nature, personal news 0

Here’s hoping that you all have a wonderful day, and that you have much to be grateful for. If you’re outside the U.S., you might not have the day off, but I hope you’ll join us in spirit. Think of something to be thankful for, and share it with someone you love!

Oh, and if you happen to run a large retail corporation, and you’re thinking of starting “Black Friday” on Thanksgiving Day, how about thinking again? Why not treat your employees (and your customers) with dignity and respect, and let everyone enjoy their holiday before you throw open the doors with your sales? We can wait. Really, we can.

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