David Maine: The Party Never Stops

My Q & A over at Goodreads.com

2012-02-13T01:49:00.000-08:00

I've got a lively little discussion going on over at Goodreads, where readers are asking me questions about all of my books, not to mention other people's books, the publishing industry, and topics of general interest. I don't think you have to join Goodreads in order to check out the page, you can just go to it by clicking here. However, you do need to be a member in order to ask a question or post a comment, but signing up is no big deal and takes about twenty seconds.

Of course, if you haven't joined Goodreads, you might want to consider it, and you can also do a quick search and become my friend. I'm not one to jump on every tech bandwagon that comes along, not to mention every social-networking hoo-hah, but I've been a member of Goodreads for a while now (like, a few years) and it's pretty great. It's pretty gratifying to have a site with 9 million members who are joined together by their love of reading and appreciation for books. Plus there are groups and discussions and things you can get into, which are fun.

Best of all, you get some pretty good book recommendations, not least of all from places like the Goodreads page for the always-lively Next Best Book Club...

The Green Flash!

2012-02-09T11:52:00.000-08:00

Soyou know about The Green Flash? Sometimes, very rarely, at the moment that thesun slips behind the horizon, you can see this split-second moment of refractedlight as the disc vanishes: a little burst of green light. It happens I thinkonly at the seaside, and it’s this quasi-legendary thing that I never reallybelieved in until a few years ago, when Uzee saw it in Malaysia. I was lookingat her at the moment, so I saw the flash reflected in her glasses, no kidding.

Ihad never seen it directly for myself. But then last week, as we were drivinghome at sunset, we rounded a corner on the hill leading to our house andsuddenly there was this vista of ocean and sunset, the sun alreadyhalf-vanished behind the horizon, a perfect semicircle sitting perched at theedge of the world. So we stopped, right there in the middle of the road, andwatched at it slid further down. Hoping no cars would come roaring around thebend behind us. Okay, not the smartest thing in the world, but the view wasspectacular, even for Hawai'i, which has no shortage of spectacular views.

Ihad no camera, which was fine, but it does mean that the photo below is of adifferent sunset and is included only to give some vague sense of things:

Andthen just as the sun dipped out of sight and a car did in fact come around thebend and quickly stop before ramming us, what did we see? THE GREEN FLASH! Nokidding. Ding!—there it was, and then it was gone, just that fast.

Wewere tremendously excited and turned up into our driveway and home.

Ofsuch little moments are wonders made.

PopMatters music reviews roundup

2012-02-08T19:13:00.000-08:00

A few of the more intriguing records I've reviewed lately for PopMatters.com:

Chicago bluesman Toronzo Cannon has recently release Leaving Mood, a strong album of straightforward blues tunes. Ranging from the rocking to the soulful to the angsty, Cannon delivers a polished set here. He doesn't exactly reinvent the form, but he does, maybe, reinvigorate it a bit. Besides, he plays a Gibson Flying V (cf. Lonnie Mack, Albert King, Dave Maine), so if nothing else he has impeccable taste in guitars.

JJ Grey is a Florida-based blues/soul/rock/whatever singer-songwriter whom I describe in my review as "a national treasure." I mean it too: if you're unfamiliar with his unique version of "swamp blues" or "Dixie soul" or whatever the heck you want to call it, you should check it out ASAP. His band, Mofro, is rock-solid too. "The Sweetest Thing" is pretty much my favorite song these days.

Power-pop doesn't get much love these days but SorryEverAfter might change all that. This 6-song EP marries energetic guitar squeal with liquid female vocals and attitude by the bushel. Pop it in the car CD player and drive somewhere fast. It's about as substantial as Cracker Jack, and twice as fun.

The Lijadu Sisters were (and are) a pair of Nigerian singers who were poised it break out worldwide in the 1970s and 80s with a string of slickly produced albums that incorporated elements of funk, soul and rock alongside more traditional West African sounds. An unfortunate accident struck down one of them and ended their career, but now the records are being re-released, beginning with their first, Danger. And what a terrific record it is! The beats are funky, the wah-wah is psychadelic, the harmony vocals will make you swoon. Even if you don't like "African music," this is worth a listen as being simply music that happens to come from Nigeria, not Motown.

Finally, here's a hip-hop record for people who hate hip-hop: No Bird Sing are a Minnesota-based trio who play live drums and guitar accompaniment to live rapping -- though the raps have more in common with tortured grunge introspection than stereotypical cars-and-bling braggadocio. The record isn't perfect, but at times it's terrifically compelling, and often it sounds like nothing else I've ever heard. For me, that counts for a lot.

Pats lost.

2012-02-05T19:45:00.001-08:00

Moment of silence.

Thank you.

Another "David Maine" crops up in Romanian...

2012-02-04T12:56:00.000-08:00

A while back I posted some French paperback covers from books written in the 1980s; apparently some guy used the pen name David Maine for such timeless works as Geurillas Galactiques and so forth. (The link to my post is here.) Well, now another cover has surfaced, courtesy of a thoughtful fellow named Cosimo who wrote to this blog and left a comment asking if I am the author of this extra-lurid Romanian version:

The answer is: No, I did not write that, but man I wish I had. I especially like the New England Patriot-type tricorn-hat wearing laser-gun carrying starship trooper in the middle. The vaguely hawk-like face on the flying mechanical Raptor of Doom is also a nice touch. And is that guy in back a streaker?

Hey Cosimo! Thanks a million for tipping me off to this!

In case you're wondering, here is the original French version. (I think it's French. Or is "guerillero" Spanish? That would account for the faintly Aztec-like temple structure in the background.) Please note: this is an example of Super-Fiction. If anyone can put me in the same room as these materpieces, or anything like them with my/our name on them, please give me a shout.

Pop Matters Slipped Discs 2011 - UPDATED

2012-02-01T00:25:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite features on PopMatters.com is their annual Slipped Discs section, in which music writers take the time to advocate for great records that have somehow been overlooked, either by critics or listeners or both. This year's edition is split into three parts, which can be found here:

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

So check 'em out. Part One contains a brief writeup that I did for The Builders and the Butchers, whose record Dead Reckoning was quite possibly my Album of the Year, and which has been heard by just about nobody else besides me and a couple of people in Portland. I refer to it as "criminally overlooked," and I stand by that.

A mighty sweet review

2012-01-21T12:55:00.000-08:00

The eminently sensible Mandy de Jager, over there at the Mandy the Bookworm blog, has posted a mighty find (and might kind) review of The Gamble of the Godless. I encourage one and all to swing by for a gander. Thanks, Mandy!

An exerpt:

"It really is like another world and Dave Maine has created this amazing world by providing the reader with all of the important details in such a way it seemed to me that every sentence was especially crafted... although Maine is not usually known for fantasy work such as this, it certainly seems as though he is no stranger to the genre. He knows what he’s doing!"

Aw, shucks. Mandy's blog is well worth a peek for her forthright and unique views on any number of interesting books. And I'm not just saying that because she was so nice to me. Check it out.

The Next Best Book Club's funky take on Best of 2011

2012-01-03T13:02:00.000-08:00

Hey kids, check out the always-vivacious Lori over at The Next Best Book Club, whose innovative twist on the classic "Best of 2011" list is well worth a peek. Basically, she asked a bunch of writers, myself included, to list their three favorite books of the year, with a quick blurb describing what made them so great. It's a fun list to trawl through, especially if you're looking for (or are just open to) some unexpected recommendations.

Happy New Year!

Christmas music I can get behind

2011-12-25T23:11:00.000-08:00

A tip of the hat to my brother Stephen for alerting me to this great parody of Black Sabbath's "Iron Man," entitled "I Am Santa Claus." Maybe it's just me, but man, Christmas music this year has felt more intrusive than ever. Here's an antidote. Oh an by the way, the guy just nails Ozzy's voice.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

GREAT HOLIDAY GIFT IDEAS FROM A GUY WHO DESPERATELY WANTS YOU TO BUY HIS BOOKS

2011-12-16T00:49:00.000-08:00

Best Present for Dreamy Teenage Girls Who Are SenitiveAbout Being Animal Lovers: The Preservationist is a geeky animal lovers’ family saga masqueradingas a cool end-of-the-world apocalypse story. What's not to like? Also there’s a tough chickin it. Maybe more than one. Available on Kindle too, if you like that.

Best Choice for the Closet Naturalist of Any Age: The Geometry of God by the lovely andtalented Uzma Aslam Khan tells the tale of a fossil-discovering young girl inPakistan, her argumentative grandfather, and the forces trying their best todisrupt them. Available on Kindle too. Mehwish rules.

Best Present for Horny Adolescent Males Who Hate to Read:The Book of Samson contains manyscenes of violence as well as the actual line: “Then I went in her.” Actuallyit contains this line several times over. Nuff said. If it's running low on Amazon, you can get it here.

Best Choice for Bewildered Parents Wondering How the HeckThings Ever Got to This Point: Fallen lets you know that, hey, families have been just a little bit warped prettymuch from Day One. Special cameo from God lends weightiness, plus maybefatalism. Did I mention Kindle? And hey, if Amazon is still sold out, you can get it at Barnes & Noble.

Best Choice for the Aficianado of Tragic Love: Trespassing by the lovely and talentedUzma Aslam Khan contains all manner of love stories, licit and otherwise,requited and otherwise, tragic and otherwise. Ideal huddling-under-the-comfortermaterial for those chilly winter afternoons. Now on Kindle--as of like, today. Cool!

Best Present for Teenage Girls, or Boys, or AnybodyReally, Who Is Unafraid to Loudly Proclaim Their Love for Animals, Talking orOtherwise: The Gamble of the Godlessisrife, positively rife I tell you,with talking animals, one-armed sorcerers, drug-addicted felines, warriors withdark secrets and so forth. Groundbreaking? Hmm—no. Buckets of fun? Oh yes.Available as a Kindle-style eBook only. A great e-stocking stuffer for 2.99.

Best “WTF” Present for Your Weird Uncle or PossiblyCousin: Monster, 1959. Becausereally, “WTF?” is the only natural response to this book.

My high-tech life, for better or worse

2011-12-16T00:02:00.000-08:00

Okay, I did it. I caved. My old cell phone died after 3years so I needed a new one so I went and… bought a smart phone. How smart?Smarter than I am, that’s for sure.

It’s a Blackberry, of all things. (Now I feel like a lawyer.)It’s sleek and stylish and satisfyingly heavy, and now I can do things likecheck my email compulsively (oh great) and, I suppose, download apps and so forth,if I ever learn how to do that, which I don’t think I will, because you know,life is too short to spend staring at a tiny little screen.

But I must confess: I love it. It’s heavy and solid in myhand and mighty pretty. So there you go… I've resisted this whole tech thing asmuch as I can—I mean, I have a computer, but I don’t fetishize it—but now thegame’s up. I’ve caved. I changed the wallpaper on my phone last night so now it’seven cooler. Pretty soon I'll personalize my ringtone. Then... Game over.

Alas.

The other thing I got myself for Christmas, which I’m noteven a little ashamed of, is the Rolls-Royce of mp3 players, the uber-iPod, theCowan J3, 32 gigs, etc. It’s great. I’ll be able to store all the CDs I listento for PopMatters without having to, like, delete stuff every time I want toadd stuff. The sound is terrific and the covers look mighty pretty, and it’sgot this whole touchscreen thing so you can just scroll through the albumcovers and pick which one you want to hear by tapping it. NO READING REQUIRED.A moderately intelligent bunny rabbit could use this thing. Have I mentioned that I loveit? I actually look forward to loading the dishwasher and brushing my teethevery night, because that’s when I get to listen to it. That’s how much I loveit. Should I be worried? Short answer: yes.

Makes me nostalgic...

2011-11-23T15:12:00.001-08:00

Imanaren are a Moroccan Berber band from the southern part of the country. Their debut album is available on Amazon as a download for less than 6 bucks. it's worth it, too, as they really nail the trance-out vibe and roll with it... Lots of oud, percussion and unison vocals. Sweet.

Mamihlapinatapei, anyone?

2011-11-19T13:00:00.001-08:00

Here's a terrific article over at BigThink.com about relationship words that don't translate easily into English. What a blast. The Yagan word Mamihlapinatapei, for example, means: "The wordless yet meaningful look shared by two people who desire to initiate something, but are both reluctant to start."

Awesome. I'm going to have to start using this word in everyday conversation. (Well... maybe every other day.) The article lists 9 more, plus a few observations about close-but-not-quite equivalents in English. It's a good time, take a look at it here.

The Avin Project goes live!

2011-10-17T16:27:00.000-07:00

I've been working with a team of educational consultants to make The Gamble of the Godless available for English teachers and homeschoolers free of charge (as a pdf); the team has put together a slew of curriculum materials, all of which have been vetted and okayed by me, and all of which address Common Core State Standards for English. This is a tremendously exciting project for me, and if it flies, it will give me a chance to interact face-to-face with high school kids all across the country as they work on various projects inspired by the book. So I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens.

Take a look at the pitch here, on the Chronicles of Avin web site. You can even watch a video of me being slightly less than eloquent about the whole thing (sorry, I'm a little camera shy.) And if you're an English teacher (or homeschool parent), give me a shout via the attached application form.

Two more bloggers get behind Gamble

2011-10-04T15:26:00.000-07:00

Ahoy, it was a busy weekend out there in book-blogger land, with both The Canary Review and Cheryl's Book Nook coming out swinging in favor of everybody's favorite unorthodox epic fantasy novel.

The Canary Review was slightly more gushing, remarking that "the author world-builds like a fiend" and characterizing the book as "a stellar example of an indie publication," which is awfully nice. The reviewer goes on to urge readers to "Explore the book and the world of animals/ See if you make it back alive" which is pretty snazzy IMHO.

Cheryls Book Nook is a briefer review that admits that the reviewer wasn't crazy about the story at first, but it got better to the point that "You will love it. Dave Maine has a winner in this tale and hopefully the beginning of many more." So that's pretty gushing too--thanks folks.

I urge you to take a stroll to either or both of these blogs and say howdy. It means a lot to these folks, who read and review out of nothing more than the love of a good story, and who'd be happy to have a comment or two.

Another Gamble review

2011-09-29T13:29:00.000-07:00

The cool-headed and sensible Trace over at Croft Fantasy Book Reviews has decided she too is a fan of The Gamble of the Godless, citing its "good strong characters" and declaring that she was "fascinted by the various animal communities." There's a bit more, so feel free to go over and take a gander.

BTW, the Croft web site is an interesting place, filled as it is with reviews of fantasy and dark fantasy books, not to mention a wide variety of odds and ends (Season Two trailers for The Walking Dead, anybody?). So feel free to leave a comment, as I'm sure your interest is much appreciated...

And hey! We won't tell her she got the name of the book wrong, okay?

My new, new favorite band

2011-09-28T15:21:00.001-07:00

Okay you know the drill by now: These guys ROCK.

Wooden Shjips (yeah, I don't understand either) playing "Home." Check out the tricky Neil Young "Hey Mey My My" riff at the very beginning, before it deconstructs into 5:45 of droney, fuzzed out goodness...

Dumb video. Amazing song.

2011-09-15T15:00:00.001-07:00

Remember hard rock? Ahh, those were the days. Here's a terrific song by a band called The Nevers, whose album Saint Bernadette was released recently and which I'll be reviewing on PopMatters.The video is dumber than a stick, so I recommend closing your eyes and enjoying the blissful rocking-out experience. It's almost like 1978 again...

2011-08-29T15:25:00.000-07:00

South Dakota's own Chris Johnson has added his voice to the chorus of bloggers saying that The Gamble of the Godless is a mighty fine piece o' work. After characterizing the book as "unique" on a number of different levels, Chris goes on to say that "You will laugh, cry, feel pain, laugh a bit more, and feel frustrated with [the characters]." I'm thinking that the feeling pain and frustration part is actually a good thing--an indication that the reader is so involved with the story and characters that s/he feels emotionally committed to the happy and awful things that befall them. Feel free to let me know if I've gotten that wrong, Chris.

He goes on to describe the book as "an emotional roller coaster, just like a good fantasy novel should be," and "a fantastic book." So there you go; that's pretty unequivocal, I think.

Not quite as unequivocal as his Goodreads review, in which he compares reading Gamble to reading Tolkein, but you know, I'll take it.

The whole review can be read here.

Thanks for the Blog Tour memories...

2011-08-28T01:53:00.000-07:00

So, today marks the final day of my eight-day blog tour, which kicked off Sunday on The Next Best Book Blog, then zipped across a half dozen blogs before winding up at TNBBB before finishing up here. I'm thoroughly humbled and gratified at the very kind response that bloggers have been giving The Gamble of the Godless--both those bloggers affiliated with the tour, and others, who have taken it upon themselves to read the book and then talk it up. Not only have the bloggers affiliated with the tour been kind and generous with their time, but other have as well. A complete listing of reviews, interviews and guest-blog posts can be found just bt scrolling down the page a bit.

The good news is that the fun's not over yet. Even as we speak, another blogger has posted a five-star review on his blog--I'll post the link in a day or two. And the Goodreads Goodreads page for Gamble continues to see positive reviews added almost daily. Even if you're not a member of Goodreads.com--and really, you should be--you can check out what people are saying by clicking here.

Once again, a hearty thanks to all the bloggers involved in the David Maine Blog Tour, 2011 edition. It's my hope that we can do it all again, bigger and better than ever, in the pring/summer of 2012, when Book II of The Chronicles of Avin comes out. Sound good to everybody?

Dave Maine Blog Tour Winds Up at TNBBC blog...

2011-08-27T13:42:00.000-07:00

...which is as it should be.

The ever-energetic Lori not only reviews Gamble in some depth, but offer capsule reviews on my first four books as well. Among many other kind things, Lori characterizes The Gamble of the Godless as "a fun read that you will find yourself easily slipping into." I certainly think that's true, and it's gratifying to hear the statement coming from someone as experienced and savvy as Lori.

So I invite you to stroll through the TNBBC garden for a while, sniffing the flowers as you go, and if you enjoy yourself,l let Lori know with a comment. The same goes for all the others bloggers who have participated in the past week, all of whom are listed in the entries below. The coming weeks will see even more reviews coming out, as I have sent the book off to numerous people since its release at the start of August, so stay tuned.

And needless to say, if you happen to read the book (and especially if you like it), don't be shy Feel free to post a review on Amazon, B&N, Goodreads, or your blog, or any combination thereof.

Look what I got in the mail!

2011-08-26T21:57:00.000-07:00

Check out the excellent T-shirt by The Mast, a Brooklyn-based duo that I've been championing for a few weeks over here. My review of the album, Wild Poppies, ran on PopMatters, and the band kindly responded by sending me a just-about-perfect-for-Dave T-shirt. Thanks, guys!

Here's video of them, in case you're late to the party:

The train kept a-rollin'...

2011-08-26T14:33:00.001-07:00

...with this interview with Rena Rossner over at her blog, My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors. (I think we've found our proze winner in the Best Blog Name category).

Rena asks me a bunch of good questions about, among other things, the music I play while writing, and how the fantasy stuff relates to the non-fantasy stuff, and also, like, drug-addicted cheetahs. (Which is something I get asked about a lot these days.) So take a look at the interview and, as ever, leave a comment if you like what you see.

Tomorrow, it's back to Lori's Next Best Book Blog and then this party wraps up on Sunday with, I guess, a word or two from me. Thanks to all of you who've been along for the duration, your interest is much appreciated...

Book Sexy Reviews goes ga-ga over Godless

2011-08-25T00:21:00.000-07:00

Okay, early response to The Gamble of the Godless has been gratifying--but the kind folks over at the Book Sexy Review blog has just set a new standard in gushing positivity. Big thanks to the folks over there for taking the time to read it with such passion and enthusiasm.

A couple of choice excerpts:

"David Maine has created a wonderful cast of characters and a elaborately detailed world – one of the most engaging I’ve experienced... I found myself glued to the page. I read this book, cover to cover, in two 3-hour sittings. If Book 2 were available, I’d have downloaded it immediately and kept on reading."

That's some mighty kind reviewing right there. So please, if you have even a whisper of interest in what Book Sexy might have found so engaging in the book, please jog on over and have a look. And consider leaving a comment for the reviewer. It will be much appreciated.

Bibliophiliac falls for Fallen

2011-08-23T20:20:00.001-07:00

...Sorry, bad pun. Couldn't resist.

But hey! It's not all about The Gamble of the Godless these days. The ever-lively bibliophiliac blog is running an in-depth (and quite glowing) review of my 2005 novel Fallen, which I much appreciate and heartily recommend to anyone and everyone. Among other things, the review states that "David Maine is one of the most original writers I have ever encountered." Aw, shucks.

The same site promises to post a review of Gamble down the road, so that's a twofer I'll take any day. Meanwhile, I encourage one and all to trundle on over to the Fallen review and take a look, say howdy, leave a comment and generally make your presence known.

Guest post at Steve Himmer's blog

2011-08-22T11:44:00.000-07:00

Take a gander at Steve Himmer's always-lively blog for a guest post I wrote in response to the question of why I jumped genres, from literary fiction to fantasy. Steve has a multifaceted blogging style and it's worth taking a few minutes to snoop around his site.

As always, if you like what you see, let Steve know in a comment. It means a lot to the people who have taken time to post stuff.

My guest post on The Next Best Book Blog

2011-08-21T14:54:00.000-07:00

Today I have a guest post over at The Next Best Book Blog, which is undoubtedly the most enthusiastic webspace in existence when it comes to my books. Moderator Lori is a dynamo of energy and passion, not just for my books but for books in general--she's the kind of reader that I wish there were a lot more of. But since she's unique, I urge you to trundle on over there, check out her blog in general and my post in particular (if you're interested) and leave a comment telling her she's doing a fantastic job. I'm sure she already knows it, but hey, it never hurts to hear it one more time.

And while you'rea at it, you can even pick up a T-shirt or coffee mug. How cool is that?

New Interview up on Mandy the Bookworm Blog

2011-08-20T14:37:00.000-07:00

The always-lively Mandy the Bookworm blog has a new interview with me posted today, in which I rattle on about writing The Gamble of the Godless, along with thoughts on pets, inspirations, switching from literary fiction to fantasy, and a bunch more. Take a look if you just can't get enough of me through ordinary channels...

Virtual Book Tour Kicks Off on Sunday

2011-08-16T13:47:00.001-07:00

This Sunday (Aug 21) marks the start of a week-long whirlwind of events called The Gamble of the Godless/David Maine Blog Tour. It kicks off with the excellent Next Best Book Club blog and then swirls through another half-dozen blogs in the ensuing six days before wrapping up on TNBBC on the 28th. I'll be posting updates and links as they appear, but take a moment to take a gander at the schedule put together by Lori over at TNBBC, which is here.

As you can see, there is a fair amount of stuff going on, so please, support these dedicated bloggers with a look-in. If you're inclined to leave a comment, they'll appreciate it that much more.

Cheers, and enjoy the festivities!

New review at Indie Book Blogger

2011-08-11T18:25:00.001-07:00

The always-lively Indie Book Blogger site, which ran an interview with me a few days ago, is now running a 4.5-star review of The Gamble of the Godless, which it describes as "a lot of fun." Take a look at it here, if you're so inclined.

An extract: "I had a lot of fun reading this book with it's unique rules for interaction between the races. The cultural differences are much more pronounced than is normally found in fantasy novels which led to some interesting difficulties for the group as they traveled through the various regions."

There's more, so take a look. And it means a lot to these independent bloggers if you leave a comment and tell 'em you like what they've done, so think about doing that. And thanks, Indie Book Blog!

Guest blog entry at Best O' Books

2011-08-08T19:45:00.000-07:00

Take a gander at The Best O' Books review blog to hear some of my thoughts on the transition from traditionally published author to indie author (not that the two are mutually exclusive). Best O' Books usually focuses on mysteries and thrillers, but Rae, who runs it, was kind enough to give me a forum to air some thoughts. You can find me here at thebestobooks. If you're so inclined, feel free to add a comment or otherwise let Rae know that she's doing a fine job.

Great interview at Indie Book Blogger

2011-08-06T02:54:00.000-07:00

The excellent Indie Book Blog site is running a mighty fine interview with me these days, so go check it out and maybe leave a comment to tell the fellow what a terrific job he's doing. The site plans to run a review of The Gamble of the Godless sometime next week, so that's nice too.

Here's a link to the interview.

It's here!

2011-08-04T19:20:00.000-07:00

The Gamble of the Godless is now available at Amazon.com. Follow this link to check out info, reviews, download sample chapters or just buy the whole darn thing:

http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&keywords=The%20Gamble%20of%20the%20Godless&index=blended

To reiterate: this is an epic fantasy, and it rules.

Want more? Here's the description that I wrote for Amazon:

"Avin del Bors has a problem. His brother Drew has run off to fight in a war against the wolves, even though the wolves weren’t responsible for the vicious attack against the humans on the Free Plains. Avin’s companions—the warrior Ax, one-armed sorcerer Jocen, plucky owl Ulkia, drug-addled cheetah Summon the Wind and raccoon stand-up comic Onesso—all have their own reasons for accompanying him through the animal territories across the Bladebone Mountains. Their travels will take them from the highly regimented wolf cities, to the richesse and luxury of the Equine Commonwealth, all the way to the vertiginous tunnels of the serpents’ underground Net and across the waters of the Autonomous Dolphin Collective—to whatever unknown awaits them.

"What neither Avin nor his companions yet understand is that the real force behind the Free Plains attack is neither canine nor feline, nor yet crocodile, insect, raptor, bear or shark. Far to the east, in the scorched wasteland known as The Barrens, lives the ragged clan that calls itself The Godless. There, Avin will confront his brother, his companions and himself, and discover two truths: one that changes everything he understands about himself, and another that threatens the balance of the entire world."

Sounds pretty dire, no? Well, things are tough out there.

Want to check out my Chronicles of Avin web site? Sure you do! After all, The Gamble of the Godless is merely the first in an ongoing series called The Chronicles of Avin. So, you know, there's plenty to find out about, and there's no better place to start than here:

http://thechroniclesofavin.com

So cheerio, and happy reading. I hope you enjoy the book!

Web site up and running!

2011-07-29T19:16:00.000-07:00

Bookmark it, kids!

The web site is up for The Gamble of the Godless and all its attendant sequels and spinoffs: mosey on over to http://thechroniclesofavin.com to catch all the latest developments with the book, plus a preview of Book II and a few hints about other projects in the works. Once the book goes up for sale online, there will be links to vendors as well as reviews and guest-blog posts written by myself.

Meanwhile, the final corrections have been turned in for updating, which means that the book should go to the distributor early next week (fingers crossed), which means thw whole shebang should be available online late next week (fingers doubly crossed in a somewhat painful double-jointed fashion which nonetheless we hope denotes success).

Let the world domination begin. (That line will make more sense once you've read the book.)

I'm reading the eBook as you read this...

2011-07-21T23:19:00.000-07:00

Ahoy!

Just got the e-file of the eBook and I'm going through it now, word by word, punctuation mark by punctuation mark. I'm proud to say that 83 pages in, I have discovered exactly 7 errors, one of which was an omitted period, one of which was an extra period, two of which were omitted quotation marks, etc. So the proofreading I did in a blur last month seems to have gone pretty well, at least through the first four chapters.

However--there is an odd quirk to the e-file conversion that left out the space break between words whenever a single word was italicized. So instead of someone saying "I never did that!" you have, "I neverdid that!" or whatever. It's odd, and it doesn't happen every time I use italics, just enough times to be noticeable and annoying. So I'll have to fix those moments too.

I hope to be done on Monday and the e-file will be corrected soon thereafter. And then hey, kids, I'm done. With luck it'll be up on Amazon et al in a week. Fingers crossed...

Here it is!

2011-07-12T17:47:00.000-07:00

New cover for the forthcoming eBook, in its final form:

I am very happy.

It's the Final Countdo-o-own!

2011-07-10T23:38:00.001-07:00

Remember this horrible song by unspeakably lame cheeseball hair-metal band Europe, back in the '80s?

I'm no fan of the band, but the chorus has been going through my head incessantly these past few days. (If you want to spare yourself the agony, just skip to 1:56 in the vid.) On Friday I got the revamped and (hopefully) almost-finalized cover for The Gamble of the Godless, and boy it looks killer. I don't want to unveil it till it's good and ready, but with luck that won't be more than a day or two. Then what happens is:

- The manuscript gets converted into an eBook file (3 days more or less)

- I look over the thing one more time and, I hope, find no errors (the weekend)

- It goes to Amazon, Barnes&Noble and The Apple Store, among other places (early next week).

- After that it's up to the vendors how fast it goes on sale. I guess Amazon gets it out there in 24 hours, but other places take longer. Why am I not surprised?

So--woo-hoo!--it's actually possible that this thing might be out in the world in the next 7 to 10 days. At which point I will fall down on the ground, gasping for breath. Just pray that I don't find a bunch of mistakes in the e-file that need to be corrected, because that will add time.

Around that time I'll be sending out some printed paper copies to a handful of bloggers who might find it in themselves to say nice things--fingers crossed--and thus start the tidal wave of excitement that we're all hoping for. (And guys? Hang onto those hard copies. They might be worth a lot on eBay someday.)

And then?

The excellent web site www.thechroniclesofavin.com will go online at just about the same time. At first the site will be pretty bare bones, but as reviews start to trickle in, there should be a bit more meat growing on its frame. There's also some talk of doing videos. Yes, viral videos. Stay tuned.

I also have a Chronicles of Avin page on Facebook which is so bare bones, it makes the web site look like sensory overload. Eventually I plan to get that up and running too, with Facebook pages for some of the characters in the book. That'll be a riot. Or a complete dud. You decide.

All together now: It's the final countdo-o-own!

Taking a break from all the cover brouhaha...

2011-07-01T15:38:00.001-07:00

Hey, happy Fourth of July weekend! I'm tired of hashing out the particulars of my forthcoming eBook cover--nothing definitive yet, stay tuned--and I just really fel like spacing out and listening to some heavy washes of stoner rock. So for your enjoyment: Naam.

You can find these guys on Amazon if you like the song. The record is pretty consistent, and less limited/more varied than a lot of stuff out there. Worth a listen IMO.

Vote now on which cover you prefer!

2011-06-30T00:20:00.001-07:00

Cover image coming soon

2011-06-29T02:33:00.000-07:00

Yeah look I know I should be all cool and detached and everything but the hell with that, the cover of The Gamble of the Godless is starting to come together and it's a scorcher. It's not finalized yet and probably won't be for another day or two, but trust me it rawks.

I don't mean to be a tease and I'll get an image up as soon as I possibly can. Just had to blurt something out about how fantastic this thing is looking. Cheers.

Take the Poll!

2011-06-23T13:43:00.000-07:00

Hey kids, immediately to the right of this entry is a special Dave Maine Blog Poll which I invite you to participate in. It's a little hard to read--sorry about that--but it asks: "How much would you be willing to pay for an eBook by an author you've never read?" The answers are 99 cents, 1.99, 2.99, 5.99, 9.99 and "I wouldn't buy it."

I know it's impossible to answer this definitively because it will depend on the book itself and so forth, but I'm looking for a general consensus. I'm curious about this because eBook pricing is still wildly variable; my St Martin's eBooks (The Pres, Fallen and Monster 1959) are 9.99, which is cheaper than their bound versions, but many eBook exclusives sell for a lot less than that.

Here's an interesting article on the vagaries of this issue at the moment, focusing on B&N's pricing of a book series:

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2011/ebook-marketview-the-value-of-promoting-the-first-title-of-a-series/

How this will all play out, nobody knows. But I'm curious about people's gut reactions, so even if you don't read eBooks, pretend that you might, and take the poll! Thanks.

eBook or Not eBook?

2011-06-20T22:14:00.000-07:00

Interesting discussion going on over at the SF & Fantasy Novelists web site (an interesting site in general BTW) about whether and how eBooks will harm the publishing industry and reading habits in general--or salvage them. Worth a look if you're interested:

http://www.sfnovelists.com/2011/06/20/the-book-is-dead-long-live-the-book/

This is something that's been on my mind, needless to say, as my own eBook creeps toward its birth. (And I got some news regarding that today... It's happening! Slowly, yes, but it's happening.)

So I finally got in touch with cover design people this evening and started that conversation, which makes it feel somewhat more likely that this project will in fact get off the ground one day. Hooray!

Act fast! Free book!

2011-06-17T15:08:00.000-07:00

While waiting for The Gamble of the Godless to appear, why not download a free eBook fantasy novel by Evelyn Zant? It's called Shadowing: A Henchman's Tale and I just read chapter one, which has me hooked.

Evelyn is selling her novel through Smashwords (great site) but is giving it away for free this week. Unfortunately, today is (ahem) Friday, so you have only another day or two to grab it. Go for it--you get a great book for free that you can read on your computer or Kindle, plus you support independent publishing and a fun author. What's not to like? If you don't care for the book, just hit delete. If you do like it, please consider writing a positive review on Amazon, Goodreads or your blog.

The promotional code to enter to get it for free is: AU93B .

If you've never used Smashwords, you'll have to sign up (takes about 30 seconds). Then you "buy" the book, enter the promo code and choose your format (PDF, Kindle, Word, etc). It downloads in about 15 seconds and BAM! You've got your weekend's entertainment. And in case you're wondering: no, I don't know Evelyn, never met her, just stumbled across this on Goodreads and thought it was worthwhile. So, no hidden agendas. Just hop on over to Smashwords and have fun.

More great stuff from The Mast

2011-06-16T13:46:00.000-07:00

Here's a trailer for their debut album, Wild Poppies, out on Tuesday (June 21). The Mast are a Brooklyn-based duo featuring Haale on vocals/guitar and Matt Kilmer on percussion. They manage to be ethereal and rocking at the same time.

Here's their web site where you can download a free song:

http://themastmusic.com/

Gearing up

2011-06-15T20:17:00.001-07:00

So, obviously The Gamble of the Godless is not going to be seeing the electronic light of day in mid-June because, ahem, that's what today is. But fear not, I do have a tentative release schedule, which looks something like: end June/beginning July. This should give us time to get a cover done, along with an ISBN number and all that. So hoorah. It will become available at Amazon first, probably, as they're the quickest at this sort of thing, with B&N and the Apple following relatively soon.

IF YOU ARE A BOOK BLOGGER and are interested in writing a review, let me know, because it seems likely that there will be a number of hard-copy Advance Reading Copies of this eBook (?) printed up. Just drop me a line at dmloveletters@yahoo.com and I'll write you back for your mailing address. When I get the copies I'll send one to you. I only ask that you make a good-faith effort to review the thing, as the supply will be quite limited. I understand that I can't require you to write a positive review. Too bad!

I wish I had a cover image to show you but alas I don't. I have been noodling around on my computer, putting various ideas together based on public domain images and some photos of my own, but I don't think these are quite ready for prime time.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying the suddenly-hot summer, and I hope you're doing the same.

The Republik Music Festival, Honolulu, HI

2011-06-12T22:10:00.000-07:00

There's not much better than seeing Steel Pulse playing outdoors in Hawaii. Big crowd, good-natured, not much pushing and shoving, and great tunes. The video below was not taken by me, or anyone else at the show--it's a couple years old--but it gets the idea across. The band played this song, and the singer is wired and the band is tight. Time to dance.

Spotted at Honolulu Zoo, June 9, 2011

2011-06-10T20:23:00.001-07:00

Fennec fox by the name of "Puka," or possibly "Pooka." Pronounced POOH-kuh. About the size of a rabbit.

Sweetest. Pooch. Ever.

I never wrote these!

2011-06-10T17:46:00.000-07:00

But I wish I had!

The first appears to be a French sci-fi novel from the 1970s entitled "Galactic Guerillas," which is totally a book I could get behind. I want a copy, pretty much NOW. let me know if you've got one kicking around in the basement... n'est-ce pas?

http://www.noosfere.com/icarus/livres/niourf.asp?numlivre=661

Thanks to my Goodreads page for tipping me off about it (and for giving me credit for writing it, which I didn't, as I was about 13 years old at the time... but hey, I'll take the credit for it.)

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/57843.David_Maine

POSTSCRIPT: While looking for cover images of Guerillero Galactique, what should I come across but a 1982 book by the same author called Invasion Cosmique. Gosh, I wish I spoke French better so I could understand what this title meant...

No Sleep Till (or even in) Brooklyn!

2011-06-06T20:44:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gentlemen, for your consideration I present to The Mast, a guitars 'n' drums duo featuring lovely vocals and slamming percussion. The record is out on June 21, and this is representative of the duo's sound. Enjoy.

Maine = Vacationland

2011-06-03T19:13:00.000-07:00

As promised, here are a few shots from our recent meandering in the Pacific northwest, starting with a view of the Cascade Mountains (I think) from the 500-foot-tall observation deck of the Space Needle. Yes, we went there, although it took a couple of tries, and yes, I even bought a T-shirt. But it's a really cool T-shirt.

We then headed south to portland, stopping along the way in Tacoma, WA to see the totally cool Museum of Glass and the Dale Chihuly-decorated Bridge of Glass:

And finally, in Portland we enjoyed the roses where we could find them, and also the wonky local design sense, like the storefront of our favorite restaurant. (Southpark Seafood--well worth a visit if you ever get the chance...)

Yes, I have sold my soul to the Devil of short attention spans.

2011-06-03T17:34:00.000-07:00

That's right: I am now on Twitter.

in a blatant attempt to market myself, I have joined this thing that I don't really understand. But that's okay, as long as you understand it. So, go ahead and join me, or friend me, or follow me, or whatever it is you do to me on Twitter, and I promise to try and come up with clever things to say about myself several times per day. Oy.

And don't forget about Goodreads.com, where you can become my pal and receive timely updates about upcoming books and so forth. I actually prefer Goodreads to these other things like Facebook and Twitter. It's possible that I have said this before, however.

Back from vacation

2011-06-03T17:29:00.000-07:00

So, Seattle was fun, but Portland OR is pretty much the city I would create if I had my way. Coffee shops, breweries, CD shops, a beautiful river, lots of greenery and (ahem) rain--okay, maybe a little more rain than my design might call for--and of course Powell's City of Books, where I got lost for about an hour, collected a stack of stuff I wanted to get, then got overwhelmed before returning the books one by one to the shelves and leaving with nothing. It was great! No, really, it was.

Also great was seeing Uzee's cousins and aunt for several days. They drove down from Vancouver (the one in Canada) and we all hung out and acted really serious most of the time. No, we didn't do that last bit. But we did hang out.

Uzee and I caught a couple of concerts: Iron and Wine and The Decemberists, who were playing an outdoor concert in scenic but frigid Bend, OR. They were good--too much new stuff, what can you do--but the revelation of the evening were opening act Rodrigo y Gabriela. Here's a video, but they're even more electrfying live. And I'll find some pictures from the trip. Stay tuned.

Revisions completed, manuscript turned in...

2011-05-21T15:59:00.000-07:00

...now it's off for some R & R in Seattle, WA and Portland, OR. These are two places I've never been, but look forward to exploring.

I'll be back in early June and will be strategizing with my World Domination Team about how best to proceed with the eBook (see below if you haven't been around here much lately). I'm hugely stoked. If you'd like to keep up with quick-moving developments, please contact me either through Facebook or Goodreads.com (a great site) and we'll become pals. I don't say no to anybody!

A reminder: as of right now, launch date fot The Gamble of the Godless looks to be early-to-mid June. That roaring sound you're hearing? Ahh, that's the buzz, the buzz...

Also: if you know people who are fantasy/sci-fi readers who are looking for something fresh to devour this summer... send 'em over to me on FB or GR, and I'll happily become pals with them too.

Cheers! I'm off to the Space Needle and the Experience Museum. Wish me luck.

No Kindle? NO PROBLEM.

2011-05-02T21:51:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in my last post, my forthcoming epic fantasy novel The Gamble of the Godless is coming out this May/June as an eBook exclusive, available at places like Amazon and B&N.com and the Apple store. Now, I don't have an e-reader--a Kindle or anything like it--and it occurred to me to wonder whether I'd even be able to read my own eBook. Turns out that's not a problem.

All these readers have free programs that can be downloaded and put onto your desktop or laptop. It takes about three minutes and bingo, instant Kindle.

Here's what you do:

Decide whether you want Kindle from Amazon, Nook from B&N, or whatever. you can go to www.download.com and search for "eBooks on PC" or something similar and you'll get a slew of options. Probably the easiest thing is just to go to Amazon, B&N or Apple.

Download the program and install it. This took me about two minutes and is about as tough as downloading a song.

Once you have the program, you'll need to register it with whomever you're going to be getting downloads from (in my case, Amazon). That's another 20 seconds, provided you already have an account. if you don't, it will take a minute or two.

So after that, you can download stuff, including the free sample chapters from just about every book online (including a three of mine, and Uzee's latest).

Here's a screenshot of what you get when you install the program and click it open. You get a couple free books when you install the program, and I've added a few samples.

Click on the book you want and you'll get something like this:

This is the beginning of Fallen. You can modify the font size and brightness, and after a few seconds the bars across top and bottom go away, so it starts looking like a book:But if you want, you can modfy the words per line, so it stretches across your screen in something like magazine format (and I've dimmed the brightness a little too):
Anyway, if you've been curious about eBooking it but haven't wanted to splurge on $100 plus, this might be an easy stopgap. Plus, it'll allow me to read The Gamble of the Godless...

Hey, be my pal on Facebook and keep up with fast-breaking developments...

2011-04-27T15:13:00.000-07:00

Greetings Earthlings, there are some fairly exciting developments happening round this ways these days... including the upcoming publication of my fifth "serious" novel, An Age of Madness, sometime in 2012 (details forthcoming). In addition to that, however, is the imminent release of a eBook exclusive version of my epic fantasy novel, The Gamble of the Godless. This is a mighty tome I wrote back in 1995-96, then revised, then follwed up with a couple other sequels (making a trilogy) which actually landed me my first literary agent, a fellow in Chicago named Michael Steinberg.

Alas, Michael was unable to place the books, and we subsequently parted ways. But when The Preservationist was released in 2004, I dusted off the fantasy trilogy and found it pretty good. My current agent, Scott, loved it also, and has been trying to place it ever since. Which brings us to...

The E-BOOK EXCLUSIVE release, which is tentatively planned for sometime in late May. Yep, that's about a month from now (things happen fast in the e-world). There are still some bumps to iron out, and we need someone to paint a, like, cover, so it may get pushed back till midsummer. But stay tuned! This is a wildly exciting development for me, and it might even be a harbinger of change in the publishing paradigm in general, so let's see what happens.

The Gamble of the Godless will be available for download on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and elsewhere (like the Apple store). You'll need some kind of e-player to read it, obviously, but I understand that there are also programs that allow you to read these things on an ordinary computer or laptop as well. If the sales are decent, we'll release the two sequels as well, and if they're really decent, we might even end up with a traditional publisher making a bid... we'll have to see what happens.

Anyway, to keep up with developments, which are happening quickly, I urge you to friend me on Facebook, as I suspect I'll be updating that page often as news comes in. I'll still post updates here too, of course (including the cover image once I get it), but I suspect FB will be more immediate.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/profile.php?id=100001054731276

I guess I should go proofread this thing now, hey?

More Sahara Desert "blues"

2011-04-26T00:54:00.000-07:00

This stuff just keeps coming... and it's amazing.

Bombino is new to me, but he rocks, and you can sign up for a free download of this song on his page at Bandcamp. You can listen to the rest of the album, too, including some bonus live tracks. Here's the link to his album: http://bombino.bandcamp.com/album/agadez

And here's the video (don't worry, the talking stops after 20 seconds or so).

Ahh, the good old days... when writers wrote.

2011-04-24T00:14:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting article by Anjum Hasan written for Tehelka, an Indian magazine, in which she ponders the (relatively) recent development of authors as public figures. Specifically, she refers to the expectation that writers will make themselves available to read their work aloud--performing it, essentially. It seems many readers love this kind of thing, as it allows them to... I'm not sure what. Interact with the writer in a way that just reading the book doesn't allow? Maybe. Some writers like it too, I guess. Good for them! Others, ahem, see it as a chore. I've been told I read well (shucks), but put me firmly in the "I'd really rather just have you read the book" camp.

But too bad! Public performance is, for all intents and purposes, part of the job description these days. And here I thought writers just sat around and wrote books all day? Silly me.

To quote from the article:

"I’m not against readings — there is often no better reality check than standing before a roomful of people and trying to draw them in. And if they do listen (they don’t always, despite appearances), then the ensuing adrenaline rush is surely one of the rare highs of a writer’s life. What worries me is the assumption that writing is easily translatable into public utterance, that one writes precisely in order to go out there and give one’s spiel, that one ought to at all times be ready to reinforce, explain, paraphrase, annotate, justify, or ( just by being in the public gaze) remind the world of what one has said in print. [Emphasis mine.] Judging from the requests that pour into my inbox to address students, launch books and publishing houses, be in public conversation with other writers, conduct workshops, judge competitions, be interviewed, and, of course, read from and talk about my own work, the writer today is public property. Of course, we behave like public property. We announce our publications on our blogs, dissect our work in interviews, smile for the cameras, tweet about… well… everything, travel for launches and book signings. I don’t know of many writers who shun this kind of publicity out of shyness or on principle. I’ve heard of reclusive writers but I personally only know one. So where does that leave us? In danger of imagining writerly existence as a wholly public enterprise when most of us should, in fact, stay silent."

There's more, and it's interesting, so take a look if you're so inclined:

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main49.asp?filename=hub230411SILENCE.asp

Meanwhile, rumor has it that I have a new book coming out sometime next year, and when it does, will I be doing readings? Of course I will. And counting myself lucky, to boot. We can dream about the good old days, I guess, but they seem to be well and truly passed...

The Warlocks: Hurricane Heart Attack

2011-04-17T17:08:00.000-07:00

A little tax weekend tune for you, to shake the IRS blues away. This is from a few years ago, great song. Added bonus: the singer looks like Snape from the Harry Potter movies. Extra added bonus: the most indulgent rock luxury ever conceived--two drummers!

Look, it's the history of science fiction!

2011-04-16T20:44:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of a clever artist named Ward Shelley, here's an easy-to-absorb (sort of) pictorial representation of the literature of the fantastic, from prehistoric/preliterate days right up the present second: Okay it's kinda hard to see here. Go here for a much better view: http://www.wardshelley.com/ From there you can click on various tabs to enlarge...

Well, they're 2/3 right.

2011-04-11T02:24:00.000-07:00

I will be the Distinguished Visiting Writer at the University if Hawai'i at Manoa for the fall semester of 2011. Emphasis, please, on the "Distinguished." I'll be teaching a couple of workshop classes and generally making myself noticed, for better or for worse. If you're in the area, feel free to drop by my office (presuming, of course, that I get an office; not really sure how this works) and say howdy. Now if you'll excuse me, my Distinguished Self needs to go do things like read about red wines and, I don't know, change the oil on the Rolls-Royce, or something...

Wonky maps, part 1.

2011-04-09T20:10:00.001-07:00

So our pals over a BigThink.com have started some new potentially fun thing called Cartographic Curioities, which basically amounts to "cool maps." here's one for ya... A mao of the USA in which each state is renamed in honor of the country to which it most closely matches its GDP. A fun idea, and one with a more serious point to make, in terms of the relative disparity betwee, say, Texas (which = Canada) and, ahem, Hawaii (which = Nigeria). And isn't it great how Minnesota = Norway? Something poetic going on there. For a fuller explanation of the map, plus some reasons why a quick glance is in fact somewhat misleading, go to: http://bigthink.com/ideas/21182?utm_source=Big+Think+Weekly+Newsletter+Subscribers&utm_campaign=9e6b34a357-Strange_Maps_Weekly_Newsletter_Promotion_4_7_2011&utm_medium=email

If this recurring feature is as cool as I think it could be, I may be pointing out some fun maps from time to time (hence the "part 1" in the heading above).

In other news: I did my taxes today, oy.

In yet other news, Uzee and I are quickly solidifying plans for a trip to Seattle and Portland (OR) this May/June. Rumor has it that we'll be taking in The Decemberists (Hoo-rah!) and Iron and Wine (Yip-pee!) while we're out there. Details forthcoming.

Also, my new book, An Age of Madness--details should soon be forthcoming about that too (fingers crossed, happy thoughts, etc).

Heeeeere's Johnny!

2011-04-08T18:00:00.001-07:00

Well, sad to say, my not-ready-for-prime-time, three-and-a-half-minute vid of Johnny Winter shredding "Good Morning Little School Girl" is not uploading. Don't know why not, but whatever. The sound is so-so anyway, and the picture's worse, so you're not really missing anything too massive. (The picture gets a bit less shaky after 45 seconds or so, and then all goes well till about 3:30, at which point I was instructed forcefully to turn the camera off. Sadly, you can't really hear the woman bellowing in my ear, although she sure seemed loud at the time...) But anyway, in the spirit of inclusiveness, here's a YouTube video I dug up of considerably better quality, as Johnny plays on Swedish TV in 1987. Extra fun: the guitar he's playing in this clip is the same one he played last night at Hawaiian Brian's--or if not exactly the same, then very similar. Insider tip: If you're not familiar with JW, run don't walk and find a copy of his take on Jimi's "Red House." Or you could just pick up any of his roughly eight thousand records and feel pretty happy...

Johnny Winter TEARS IT UP in Honolulu

2011-04-08T14:04:00.000-07:00

I'll be posting a shaky, homemade video soon... as much as I got, before I was told to put away the camera (!). Last night, Texas guitar legend Johnny Winter showed us what we all already knew: that he can still shred with the best, even sitting down the whole time. Not many concerts come to Hawaii, but this one was pretty fun. Rock on, Johnny.

Pakistan's cricket team has a lot to be proud of

2011-03-30T22:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, so they didn't win the World Cup, and in fact flamed out in the semi-final against India... but they put up a good fight and got further than anyone expected going in. nice job, guys, and best of luck in 2015.

And by the way, I want the shirt!

The Jolly Boys!

2011-02-25T14:47:00.000-08:00

Mento masters from Jamaica... They're my new sort-of heroes.

Pay attention to Red Hen Press!

2011-02-19T22:13:00.000-08:00

Located in sunny Pasadena, California, Red Hen Press is a small publishing company that prints a lot of interesting fiction and poetry. Here's their web site:

http://www.redhen.org/

And one of their better-known books:

http://www.amazon.com/My-Life-Clothes-Summer-Brenner/dp/1597091634/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1298182827&sr=8-2

And a Publishers Weekly article about their poetry publishing:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/45949-red-hen-press-works-to-keep-poetry-relevant.html

So check 'em out. There's a reason I'm talking about Red Hen Press. Sure, they're an interesting looking independent publisher... but there are other reasons, too.

Recent reviews at PopMatters.com

2011-02-07T13:16:00.000-08:00

Hey kids, I've been busy lately scrawling book & record reviews at PopMatters.com. It's a great site, and here are some of my thoughts over the past few weeks, starting with some bare-bones rock & roll...

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/135216-tina-sparkle-welcome-to-the-no-fun-house/

For those of you who prefer your musical a trifle more placid, these Benedictine nuns might suit your tastes better:

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/135986-the-benedictine-nuns-of-notre-dame-de-lannnonciation-voices/

Here's some highbrow lit that I quite liked:

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/135614-bound-by-antonya-nelson/

An unlikely combination of Kore (African harp) and cello that works really well:

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/136162-ballake-sissoko-and-vincent-segal-chamber-music/

Eye candy for six-string freaks:

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/135296-star-guitars-by-dave-hunter/

Low-fi alterna-rock from small town Washington state:

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/135681-solvents-forgive-yr-blood/

And finally, appealing to the lowest common denominator in all of us:

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/131714-four-color-fear-by-greg-sadowski-ed/

Oh, this sounds like a good idea.

2011-01-17T16:39:00.000-08:00

This just posted on Yahoo News:

"TOKYO (AFP) – Japanese researchers will launch a project this year to resurrect the long-extinct mammoth by using cloning technology to bring the ancient pachyderm back to life in around five years' time. The researchers will try to revive the species by obtaining tissue this summer from the carcass of a mammoth preserved in a Russian research laboratory, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported.

"Preparations to realise this goal have been made," Akira Iritani, leader of the team and a professor emeritus of Kyoto University, told the mass-circulation daily.

Under the plan, the nuclei of mammoth cells will be inserted into an elephant's egg cell from which the nuclei have been removed, to create an embryo containing mammoth genes, the report said. The embryo will then be inserted into an elephant's uterus in the hope that the animal will eventually give birth to a baby mammoth.

The elephant is the closest modern relative of the mammoth, a huge woolly mammal believed to have died out with the last Ice Age. Some mammoth remains still retain usable tissue samples, making it possible to recover cells for cloning, unlike dinosaurs, which disappeared around 65 million years ago and whose remains exist only as fossils

Researchers hope to achieve their aim within five to six years, the Yomiuri said.

The team, which has invited a Russian mammoth researcher and two US elephant experts to join the project, has established a technique to extract DNA from frozen cells, previously an obstacle to cloning attempts because of the damage cells sustained in the freezing process. Another Japanese researcher, Teruhiko Wakayama of the Riken Centre for Developmental Biology, succeeded in 2008 in cloning a mouse from the cells of another that had been kept in temperatures similar to frozen ground for 16 years.

The scientists extracted a cell nucleus from an organ of a dead mouse and planted it into the egg of another mouse which was alive, leading to the birth of the cloned mouse. Based on Wakayama's techniques, Iritani's team devised a method to extract the nuclei of mammoth eggs without damaging them.

But a successful cloning will also pose challenges for the team, Iritani warned. "If a cloned embryo can be created, we need to discuss, before transplanting it into the womb, how to breed (the mammoth) and whether to display it to the public," Iritani said. "After the mammoth is born, we will examine its ecology and genes to study why the species became extinct and other factors."

More than 80 percent of all mammoth finds have been dug up in the permafrost of the vast Sakha Republic in eastern Siberia. Exactly why a majority of the huge creatures that once strode in large herds across Eurasia and North America died out towards the end of the last Ice Age has generated fiery debate. Some experts hold that mammoths were hunted to extinction by the species that was to become the planet's dominant predator -- humans. Others argue that climate change was more to blame, leaving a species adapted for frozen climes ill-equipped to cope with a warming world."

Just when things were going so well...

2011-01-16T20:50:00.001-08:00

So the hated New York Jets beat the beloved New England Patriots today in Foxborough. Sadness all around. After overachieving to go 14-2 in the regular season, the Pats stumbled when it really counted. Sigh. This is bothering more than it should, really.

However, credit to the New York Post for their brilliant pre-game parody. It just about makes the loss palatable. Almost.

Maybe things would be better if we were all just Scottish.

2011-01-12T23:39:00.000-08:00

Something weird has happened to heavy metal lately. Weird, but fun.

Exhibit A: Van Canto. A capella metal group from I think Germany. Five singers and a drummer. No guitars. What? You heard right. Total metal annihilation. Love the guy who does the guitar "solo."

Exhibit B: Grave Digger, from Scotland. Ach ye bonny lassie! You got bagpipes in me metal!... No wait, you got metal inna me bagpipes. Mmm... tasty.

Shootings in Tucson, shootings in Nebraska. And more to come, I'm sure.

2011-01-08T19:31:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure what's happening to this country... but it sure ain't pretty.

Please don't change anything I write after I die.

2011-01-07T20:49:00.000-08:00

So they're taking the word "nigger" out of Huck Finn, or at least one particular edition of it. The novel uses the word 219 times, mainly as part of Nigger Jim's name, and it's being replaced with "slave". This is stupid for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that fact that Jim is not a slave.

Obviously it's an ugly word with a vicious history, but cutting it out of one of the landmark anti-racism books in US history seems pretty fahking stupid. It seems to me that only by acknowledging our own wretched history as a nation can we begin to make stumbling progress past it.

The claim is that this is being done so young readers are not exposed to the word. My thought is that this book was not written for young readers, and maybe it isn't the book that should be changed, but the seventh-grade lesson plans that are trying to incorporate it.

I wonder if Flannery O'Connor's short story "The Artificial Nigger" will be next.

A lively debate on the issue, with a few dissenting voices but mainly criticism of the move, can be found here:

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/01/05/does-one-word-change-huckleberry-finn

I wonder what you all think...

Tehelka features new fiction from Uzee, 12 others

2011-01-04T21:21:00.000-08:00

Tehelka, one of India's more cutting-edge publications, has launched 2011 with a special "noir fiction" issue featuring stories from a baker's dozen of the subcontinent's finest, including the lovely and talented Uzma Aslam Khan. The homepage for the issue is here:

http://www.tehelka.com/

and the link to Uzee's story is here:

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main48.asp?filename=Ne080111THE_MISSING.asp

For those of you in India, the magazine is available in hard-copy format. The rest of us, alas, will have to rely on the goodwill of the internet.

Illustration for Tehelka by SHILO SHIV SULEMAN

Not a definitive list, by any means...

2011-01-01T13:46:00.000-08:00

Best book I read in 2010: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

Don’t let the fact that this is a historical novel about Dutch merchants in 17th-century Japan put you off. Compulsively readable and engrossing, with an insanely powerful ending. He piles on the historical detail but never loses sight of the story's forward momentum. Mitchell wrote Cloud Atlas a few years ago and this continues his streak of greatness.

http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Autumns-Jacob-Zoet-Novel/dp/1400065453/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1293918694&sr=1-1

Best graphic novel: Lint (Acme Novelty Company #20) by Chris Ware

Emotionally wrenching—not what you might expect from a 65-page comic book. Chris Ware charts the course of one guy’s life by using one page to represent an episode from each passing year. Everyman Jordan Lint is born on the first page, dies on the last and undergoes a series of transformations in between that are both mundane and unique. Ware's clean but cluttered art suits the story perfectly. This is the kind of book you show to people who are scornful of comics.

http://www.amazon.com/Acme-Novelty-Library-Chris-Ware/dp/1770460209/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1293918733&sr=1-1

Best movie: A Prophet, directed by Jacques Audiard, starring Tahar Raheem

French movie about prison inmates, and one in particular who is caught between rival gangs. Really gripping, but be warned: there is a ten-minute sequence that is probably the most effective movie violence I have ever seen. If you can get through that (it happens pretty early) the movie is a knockout. IMDB lists this as a 2009 release but I didn’t see it till 2010.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1235166/

Best TV show: Oh hell, I don’t know. The premiere of The Walking Dead?

I don’t watch a lot of TV except football and Survivor. I like The Office but it’s been so-so lately. Caught the first episode of TWD more or less by chance. It was pretty good—damn good for TV—but have seen none of it since.

Best new record by previously unknown (to me) band: The Tamborines, Camera and Tremor

Blissful shoegaze power pop, plenty of distortion but also great hummable melodies. Sort of like cotton candy coated in gravel and broken glass. Thre-to-four-minute gems of perfection.

Best new record by a band already known to me: Sasquatch, III

Dumber-than-dirt biker-stoner rawk. It’s great. They like riffs. You know what riffs are? They like them. I like them too. They play them a lot. I like that. I like the way they play those riffs. Repeat. I'm listening to it right now and you should be too.

Besides all that: the singer is my evil twin.

Most disappointing record by a band known to me: The Black Angels, Phosphene Dream

What happened to these guys? They used to rock out for extended jams, playing what they called “drone ‘n’ roll.” Moody, murky, faintly paranoid, heavily fuzzed-out, gloomy trips to the edge of whatever. Suddenly they’ve morphed to a ’60s retro pop band ripping through little 3-minute ditties and generally sounding lame. There are a few good songs on Phosphere Dream but nothing to compare to their first records. Go listen to Passover and get back to me.

Best movie monsters in a really awful movie: Giant flesh-eating scorpions in Clash of the Titans

I believe I already said “giant flesh-eating scorpions” so there’s really nothing much to add.

Best comic book mini-series: The Light, by Nathan Edmondson and Brett Weldele

Five-issue miniseries about a strange epidemic in which light—electric light, from the grid, as opposed to natural sunshine or moonlight or whatever—kills whoever looks at it. It's an odd premise but fleshed out nicely with beautiful art and an understated script. There’s a lot of driving around in the dark, but the story pulls it off for the most part. The art is exquisite and a big part of the success here.

Happy New Year, everybody

2011-01-01T13:22:00.001-08:00

Let's make it a good one...

A couple of new music vids/good tunes

2010-12-22T20:38:00.000-08:00

#1. Sufi devotional music from a shrine in Tamil Nadu in southern India. Check out The Nagore Sessions on Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/Nagore-Sessions/dp/B001TKK50A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1293079279&sr=1-1

#2. "Wicked Wire" by Philly psych band The Asteroid No. 4. New tune from their latest album. They're on Amazon too, and elsewhere.

Lively interview of Voodoo Funk-meister

2010-11-27T12:31:00.000-08:00

The guy behind VoodooFunk.blogspot.com, Frank Gossner, has an interesting interview over at another blog called Dust and Grooves. The link to the whole interview is here:

http://www.dustandgrooves.com/2010/11/frank-gossner-brooklyn-ny.htmlhttp://

Voodoo Funk is a great blog with piles of interesting music (see the link below right, on the sidebar) and Frank is himself a mightily opinionated guy, as can be seen from this extract from the intervie win which he rails against CDs and, even more so, against MP3s. I am curious what people have to say about this. Is he just being a Ludditmp Or does he have a legitimate point?

In the interests of full disclosure, I'll admit to having no problems with CDs, though I have yet to warm up to mp3s. Yeah I have an iPod-type device, but I mainly rip tunes from my physical CDs... I think I've downloaded stuff (apart from free sample tunes) maybe a half dozen times in my life. (Free tunes, on the other hand... well I've got thousands of those.)

Here's Frank's rant:

"Vinyl is the most civilized way to listen to recorded music.

For my personal taste, the best music ever recorded was all released on vinyl. Why would I want to listen to it on any other format? If you're into art, would you want the original painting or a digital print?

The CD always was a shity format. I mean sometimes I would buy some, like for example when my wife and I recently went on a long road trip. The CD to me was a substitute for the music cassette but no replacement for the record. The music industry thought, "Oh, these crappy things are real cheap to manufacture and they're good enough for the idiot consumer out there" and for the most part they were right. I remember those technology embracing fools who in the mid- to late 80s sold off their record collection for cheap and "switched" to CDs. It's funny how most people are willing to sacrifice quality and content for what they see as technological progress. Today they have to realize that they're sitting on a pile of worthless plastic.

Now we have MP3s and a lot of people say it's a great thing how music is now not anymore seen in connection with a physical format but only as the sound itself. Great, you've made it from a 12" album with room for cover art, lyric sheet etc to a ringtone for your cell phone. Some people call this advancement. I call it pitiful. People are sticking cheap plastic plugs into their ears and inject badly compressed audio files into they hearing cavity. This doesn't have anything to do with enjoying music. It's consumption on the most primitive level. This whole mp3 culture really pisses me off. And you can take those ugly "docking stations" and disgusting miniature speakers and shove them. Maybe that's why they're shaped so ergonomically.

I'm not an audiophile. I'm not the kind of guy who spends thousands of dollars on a hi-fi system but you need some real speakers and you want your music to sound like it has some balls.

I grew up listening to Punk Rock and I still believe that the best way to listen to music is really loud, drunk and with a bunch of friends. Fuck an iPod.

It's a shame that besides a few specialized boutique stores, there are almost no record stores around anymore. Record stores were great places to hang out, meet people, talk about music, browse through records and check out new stuff. Sure you can argue how nowadays all of this can be done in cyber space but is this a good thing? Call me an old fuck but I still believe in leaving the house every once in a while and in socializing with real people in the real world. I'm glad if I don't have to stare into an LCD display every waking minute of the day. I don't have a desk job but if I imagine having to sit at a desk all day and stare into a computer screen and then go home and do the same thing in order to talk to friends, shop for music etc. this just seems so incredibly sad and boring.

People have this weird trust that every new piece of technology has to be embraced, that technological progress always is a great thing, especially if it makes certain aspects of your life more easy and less time consuming. Now what do they do with all that extra time? Let me tell you, they don't do fuck all. They throw out another hour or two updating their Facebook accounts. You walk into a bar or a club these days and you see people staring into their "smart" phones instead of concentrating on getting shitfaced and chasing real life tail. That's some embarrassing and shameful shit.

I know... I'm writing a blog myself (although that's more or less just an archive of reports stemming from my 3 year stay in Africa) and it's ironic how I'm writing all this shit for another blog and probably some people will read this after having had a link sent to them via Facebook or Twitter or some other shit but I hope you understand what I'm talking about. I think it's just getting too much. Sometimes when I grab a book, I have to force myself to really read as in really consciously read and digest each word in every sentence instead of just briefly scanning page after page for the most basic content? Sometimes I catch myself having read a few pages when I have to realize that I've not caught anything but the most rudimentary shit and have to go back several pages and start over. And I think it's the same thing with music. If almost all you could be interested in is available instantly, you consume with haste. You can really immerse yourself into a book or into a record and I think this doesn't really work to this extend with an e-book or with sound files.

Imagine to switch on your stereo, flip through stacks and stack of records to find something that fits your mood, pull the record out of the sleeve, put it on the turntable, sit your ass down in a nice and comfy chair, hold the cover, look at it and listen to the music. Now imagine scrolling through your iTunes library, hit play and sit there in the bluish glare of the screen which makes your face look like the undead... you think you're enjoying music? You think you're having a good time? Think again."

Great song

2010-11-15T00:45:00.000-08:00

Even if you don't like hip-hop... it's epic

This is a little late...

2010-11-11T00:46:00.000-08:00

...but I just watched this movie over the weekend. Twice.

Anvil! The story of Anvil is, well--the story of Anvil. Anvil are a Canadian heavy metal band, not the best in the world but not the worst either (trust me). I saw them play in a tiny club in New York in I think 1983 or so; the closest thing they ever had to a hit was something called "Metal On Metal," which pretty much sums up the band. But they were fun. And then they disappeared.

Except, they didn't. For the past 30 years they've been working day jobs, scraping together the cash to make records, playing obscure clubs and then going back to work Monday morning. This documentary is astonishing--it's a tribute to people who enjoy very little fame or success in the arts but keep at it anyway out of love for what they do.

I'll admit: it got me pretty misty a few times. Those guys would be me in another life.

Even if you hate metal, throw this in your netflix queue and check it out.

Arundhati Roy on Kashmir

2010-11-10T01:45:00.000-08:00

The Indian army has over half a million troops in Kashmir, a disputed territory between India and Pakistan that is the size of Ohio. Half a million troops to contain what the govenment claims is 500 Islamic militants trying to stir up separatist trouble. That's over a thousand soldiers per "militant." Something about the equation isn't quite right.

Below is an editorial by Arundhati Roy, essayist and author of The God of Small Things (great book if you haven't read it) describing her recent travels there. It's long but worth reading. Obama apologists should pay particular attention to the opening three paragraphs.

KASHMIR’S FRUITS OF DISCORD

By Arundhati Roy

November 8, 2010

A WEEK before he was elected in 2008, President Obama said that solving the dispute over Kashmir’s struggle for self-determination — which has led to three wars between India and Pakistan since 1947 — would be among his “critical tasks.” His remarks were greeted with consternation in India, and he has said almost nothing about Kashmir since then.

But on Monday, during his visit here, he pleased his hosts immensely by saying the United States would not intervene in Kashmir and announcing support for India’s seat on the United Nations Security Council. While he spoke eloquently about threats of terrorism, he kept quiet about human rights abuses in Kashmir.

Whether Mr. Obama decides to change his position on Kashmir again depends on several factors: how the war in Afghanistan is going, how much help the United States needs from Pakistan and whether the government of India goes aircraft shopping this winter. (An order for 10 Boeing C-17 Globemaster III aircraft, worth $5.8 billion, among other huge business deals in the pipeline, may ensure the president’s silence.) But neither Mr. Obama’s silence nor his intervention is likely to make the people in Kashmir drop the stones in their hands.

I was in Kashmir 10 days ago, in that beautiful valley on the Pakistani border, home to three great civilizations — Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist. It’s a valley of myth and history. Some believe that Jesus died there; others that Moses went there to find the lost tribe. Millions worship at the Hazratbal shrine, where a few days a year a hair of the Prophet Muhammad is displayed to believers.

Now Kashmir, caught between the influence of militant Islam from Pakistan and Afghanistan, America’s interests in the region and Indian nationalism (which is becoming increasingly aggressive and “Hinduized”), is considered a nuclear flash point. It is patrolled by more than half a million soldiers and has become the most highly militarized zone in the world.

The atmosphere on the highway between Kashmir’s capital, Srinagar, and my destination, the little apple town of Shopian in the south, was tense. Groups of soldiers were deployed along the highway, in the orchards, in the fields, on the rooftops and outside shops in the little market squares. Despite months of curfew, the “stone pelters” calling for “azadi” (freedom), inspired by the Palestinian intifada, were out again. Some stretches of the highway were covered with so many of these stones that you needed an S.U.V. to drive over them.

Fortunately the friends I was with knew alternative routes down the back lanes and village roads. The “longcut” gave me the time to listen to their stories of this year’s uprising. The youngest, still a boy, told us that when three of his friends were arrested for throwing stones, the police pulled out their fingernails — every nail, on both hands.

For three years in a row now, Kashmiris have been in the streets, protesting what they see as India’s violent occupation. But the militant uprising against the Indian government that began with the support of Pakistan 20 years ago is in retreat. The Indian Army estimates that there are fewer than 500 militants operating in the Kashmir Valley today. The war has left 70,000 dead and tens of thousands debilitated by torture. Many, many thousands have “disappeared.” More than 200,000 Kashmiri Hindus have fled the valley. Though the number of militants has come down, the number of Indian soldiers deployed remains undiminished.

But India’s military domination ought not to be confused with a political victory. Ordinary people armed with nothing but their fury have risen up against the Indian security forces. A whole generation of young people who have grown up in a grid of checkpoints, bunkers, army camps and interrogation centers, whose childhood was spent witnessing “catch and kill” operations, whose imaginations are imbued with spies, informers, “unidentified gunmen,” intelligence operatives and rigged elections, has lost its patience as well as its fear. With an almost mad courage, Kashmir’s young have faced down armed soldiers and taken back their streets.

Since April, when the army killed three civilians and then passed them off as “terrorists,” masked stone throwers, most of them students, have brought life in Kashmir to a grinding halt. The Indian government has retaliated with bullets, curfew and censorship. Just in the last few months, 111 people have been killed, most of them teenagers; more than 3,000 have been wounded and 1,000 arrested.

But still they come out, the young, and throw stones. They don’t seem to have leaders or belong to a political party. They represent themselves. And suddenly the second-largest standing army in the world doesn’t quite know what to do. The Indian government doesn’t know whom to negotiate with. And many Indians are slowly realizing they have been lied to for decades. The once solid consensus on Kashmir suddenly seems a little fragile.

I WAS in a bit of trouble the morning we drove to Shopian. A few days earlier, at a public meeting in Delhi, I said that Kashmir was disputed territory and, contrary to the Indian government’s claims, it couldn’t be called an “integral” part of India. Outraged politicians and news anchors demanded that I be arrested for sedition. The government, terrified of being seen as “soft,” issued threatening statements, and the situation escalated. Day after day, on prime-time news, I was being called a traitor, a white-collar terrorist and several other names reserved for insubordinate women. But sitting in that car on the road to Shopian, listening to my friends, I could not bring myself to regret what I had said in Delhi.

We were on our way to visit a man called Shakeel Ahmed Ahangar. The previous day he had come all the way to Srinagar, where I had been staying, to press me, with an urgency that was hard to ignore, to visit Shopian.

I first met Shakeel in June 2009, only a few weeks after the bodies of Nilofar, his 22-year-old wife, and Asiya, his 17-year-old sister, were found lying a thousand yards apart in a shallow stream in a high-security zone — a floodlit area between army and state police camps. The first postmortem report confirmed rape and murder. But then the system kicked in. New autopsy reports overturned the initial findings and, after the ugly business of exhuming the bodies, rape was ruled out. It was declared in both cases that the cause of death was drowning. Protests shut Shopian down for 47 days, and the valley was convulsed with anger for months. Eventually it looked as though the Indian government had managed to defuse the crisis. But the anger over the killings has magnified the intensity of this year’s uprising.

Shakeel wanted us to visit him in Shopian because he was being threatened by the police for speaking out, and hoped our visit would demonstrate that people even outside of Kashmir were looking out for him, that he was not alone.

It was apple season in Kashmir and as we approached Shopian we could see families in their orchards, busily packing apples into wooden crates in the slanting afternoon light. I worried that a couple of the little red-cheeked children who looked so much like apples themselves might be crated by mistake. The news of our visit had preceded us, and a small knot of people were waiting on the road.

Shakeel’s house is on the edge of the graveyard where his wife and sister are buried. It was dark by the time we arrived, and there was a power failure. We sat in a semicircle around a lantern and listened to him tell the story we all knew so well. Other people entered the room. Other terrible stories poured out, ones that are not in human rights reports, stories about what happens to women who live in remote villages where there are more soldiers than civilians. Shakeel’s young son tumbled around in the darkness, moving from lap to lap. “Soon he’ll be old enough to understand what happened to his mother,” Shakeel said more than once.

Just when we rose to leave, a messenger arrived to say that Shakeel’s father-in-law — Nilofar’s father — was expecting us at his home. We sent our regrets; it was late and if we stayed longer it would be unsafe for us to drive back.

Minutes after we said goodbye and crammed ourselves into the car, a friend’s phone rang. It was a journalist colleague of his with news for me: “The police are typing up the warrant. She’s going to be arrested tonight.” We drove in silence for a while, past truck after truck being loaded with apples. “It’s unlikely,” my friend said finally. “It’s just psy-ops.”

But then, as we picked up speed on the highway, we were overtaken by a car full of men waving us down. Two men on a motorcycle asked our driver to pull over. I steeled myself for what was coming. A man appeared at the car window. He had slanting emerald eyes and a salt-and-pepper beard that went halfway down his chest. He introduced himself as Abdul Hai, father of the murdered Nilofar.

“How could I let you go without your apples?” he said. The bikers started loading two crates of apples into the back of our car. Then Abdul Hai reached into the pockets of his worn brown cloak, and brought out an egg. He placed it in my palm and folded my fingers over it. And then he placed another in my other hand. The eggs were still warm. “God bless and keep you,” he said, and walked away into the dark. What greater reward could a writer want?

I wasn’t arrested that night. Instead, in what is becoming a common political strategy, officials outsourced their displeasure to the mob. A few days after I returned home, the women’s wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party (the right-wing Hindu nationalist opposition) staged a demonstration outside my house, calling for my arrest. Television vans arrived in advance to broadcast the event live. The murderous Bajrang Dal, a militant Hindu group that, in 2002, spearheaded attacks against Muslims in Gujarat in which more than a thousand people were killed, have announced that they are going to “fix” me with all the means at their disposal, including by filing criminal charges against me in different courts across the country.

Indian nationalists and the government seem to believe that they can fortify their idea of a resurgent India with a combination of bullying and Boeing airplanes. But they don’t understand the subversive strength of warm, boiled eggs.

Feels like a milestone

2010-11-08T18:45:00.000-08:00

As you can see from the helpful Flag Counter up above, the number of visitors--unique visitors--to this site has been growing, and the number from the USA has recently passed the 1,000 mark.

I find myself strangely moved by this.

This blog started three years ago, but I only added the Flag Counter about six months ago, so the actual number is probably much much higher--but this is offset, maybe, by the fact that my writing for PopMatters only began about six months ago too, and I think much of my traffic gets driven here by my reviews on that site. Anyway a lot of people who visit seem to come back (which is why the counter number on the right is so much higher than the Flag Counter numbers, which only record unique hits. That, plus the counter was added several months earlier).

So, let me just take this moment to say thanks to all of you who take the time to click a link or type an URL and come check me out. There are people all over the world doing this, and more every day. It's appreciated.

Now the question is... which will I get first, 2,000 Americans or 100 Australians? Or 200 Brits? Or 50 Pakistanis, or 10 people from Myanmar? Stay tuned.

E-books, Kindles and Nooks

2010-11-08T11:39:00.000-08:00

I am curious what people have to say about them.

The whole e-book things has pretty much bewildered me. Here you have a more or less perfect object--a book--which holds an astonishing amount of information in a compact form, which is portable and easy to read, required no batteries or power source, and best of all will still work perfectly when you take it off the shelf 20 years from now. I just haven't seen the need for an electronic version, myself. I've thought the whole e-book phenomenon is an elaborate way to get suckers to pay for something that they already have, and then force them to upgrade every 18 months or so.

Now I'm less sure of this. I have students--creative writing students, who read a lot and think about stories and so forth--who love e-books. They tell me they're convenient and portable and enable the user to cart around dozens or hundreds of titles at once. They're better for the environment because they don't consume trees (hmm, but they consume power, and those computer factories aren't exactly enviro-friendly, and neither are the old Kindles chucked into landfills).

Then there was this interesting article on PopMatters about it all:

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/133251-barnes-and-noble/

So I'm wondering, am I just being a conservative reactionary loser? (Wouldn't be the first time.) The kind of guy who starts every second sentence with, "When I was your age..." ? After all, I think comic books are a legitimate narrative art form--something that would have gotten me laughed out of Oberlin 25 years ago. Am I making the mistake with e-books that I accuse other people of making with comics? Confusing the form with the content?

Or to put it another way, am I confusing the physical artefact of the book itself with the important stuff, which is the story contained within the book? Is Beowulf just as good on a Kindle?

I have a hard time believing it, but I'm less certain than I used to be. I used to roll my eyes about computers too, back in 1995 or so. And cell phones. And Walkmans. (Remember them?) I'm seeing a trend here. I hardly touch my cell phone, but sheesh, I'm on my laptap hours every day.

Somebody--set me straight here. Are e-books just as good as the "real" thing? Or does something get lost in the digital, plasticized, software-upgraded translation?

Hate to say I told you so...

2010-11-07T22:32:00.000-08:00

...but as I said two years ago, I voted for Nader.

Here's a lengthy article by Tariq Ali that appeared in the Guardian not long ago. Ali, if you don't know, is a writer and essayist originally from Pakistan, who has lived in the UK for decades and written a lot of books, both fiction and non-fiction. He is also the editor of the magazine New Left Review.

Here is his latest book.

Here's a link to his site:

http://tariqali.org/

Here is his Guardian essay:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/28/obama-hope-all-hype

The guy says a lot of things that are a.) true, and b.) discomforting to many people. All the more reason for him to keep saying them.

Sister Fa!

2010-11-05T00:24:00.000-07:00

Senegalese rapper Sister Fa combines kora and hip-hop beats with some spitfire vocals, not a word of which I understand. Great song anyway.

Here's a link to her record on Amazon, for more clips:

http://www.amazon.com/Sarabah-Sister-Fa/dp/B00260YMAQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1288941992&sr=8-1

Uzee spills the beans!

2010-10-12T23:59:00.001-07:00

Here's video from YouTube--YouTube!--that someone posted from an event in San Francisco, where the lovely and talented Uzma Aslam Khan has been doing various things to promote the Granta issue in which she appears, as well as other things. I had no idea she was going to tell stories about her beloved husband, however. But here you go.

Truly Awesome.

2010-10-09T00:06:00.000-07:00

Check out the video from Australia's Axis of Awesome. It lives up to its name... oh man.

Granta 112

2010-10-03T16:51:00.000-07:00

Granta, the well-respected British literary magazine, is devoting their current issue to... well, check the cover. The lovely and talented Uzma Aslam Khan has a significantly hefty story in there, as do some other well-known people (Kamila Shamsie, Mohsin Hamid) as well as a wide range of lesser-known (in the West anyway) fiction writers, poets, journalists and visual artists. (The art is especially eye-catching, I think.)

Well worth a look, I think, and something like eleven bucks at Amazon right now. Pretty good deal for 250+ pages of hot-off-the-press stuff.

It's been catching good reviews too, from a number of UK papers, The Economist and, in the US, the New York Times Book Review (who mentioned Uzee by name and singled out her story. Hah!) Here's a link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/books/review/Chotiner-t.html?pagewanted=all

Danish rappers from Morocco, Pakistan, and Honduras...

2010-09-20T12:43:00.000-07:00

...singing a cover of the song "Aicha" by Khaled, a Moroccan rai singer who had a huuuge hit with this back in '97 or '98. We were living in Rabat at the time and man, you heard this song just constantly. Good song though, so it was okay... Good remake too. And I find this video interesting, for a number of reasons.

Hey, newsflash everybody who's terrified of the headscarf: It's just a scrap of cloth! Get it?

God Bless America!

2010-09-20T12:38:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I love my country. Not all the time, but sometimes. Jacob Isom is a my hero, and the United States of America produced him.

"DUDE, YOU HAVE NO QUR'AN!"

Here's the YouTube video of the whole story, complete with quote in context (and for those of you who don't know the story... he was defending the Qur'an, not demeaning it. Unlike that idiot "preacher" who wanted to burn it. He's the kind of guy who makes me grind my teeth about my country, but that's another story):

My kind of football player

2010-08-31T12:57:00.001-07:00

I'm not even a Steelers fan, but you gotta love Troy Polamalu. He looks like the unholy love child of Johnny Unitas and Macy Gray. Also, he's an amazing player.

Despite this... go Pats! I wish Troy played for them.

It's not on Ground Zero and it isn't a mosque. WTF, guys?

2010-08-22T20:14:00.000-07:00

Even if you hate Keith Olbermann, please watch this.

"First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Communist..."

Heck, we all make mistakes...

2010-08-11T18:10:00.001-07:00

Floods in Pakistan Worsen. Please Consider Helping.

2010-08-08T18:36:00.000-07:00

Pakistan's been going through a rough time lately, even more than usual. The plane crash in Islamabad, then some riots, bombings and shootings, and now this.

If you can spare some cash, the people could sure use it. The waters show no sign of diminishing and in fact are flowing southward, which will only worsen the situation as it moves into southern Punjab, Sindh and, god forbid, Karachi.

Here's a link to some places you can donate, either online or by mailing a check. There's always the Red Cross, too.

http://alkhair.co.uk/home/

http://edhifoundation.com/contact.asp

Thanks.

15 Overrated American Writers

2010-08-08T15:49:00.000-07:00

The Huffington Post has published this interesting article by Anis Shivani (yeah, me neither) about the 15 most overrated American writers working today. It's a fun article and bound to raise a few eyebrows, and what strikes me is how few of these people I have actually read (Amy tan, Jumpa Lahiri). Based on my limited knowledge, hey, this guy might be on to something...

Here's the link to the article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anis-shivani/the-15-most-overrated-con_b_672974.html#s123759

And for you people who hate links, here's his list. Any thoughts?

1. William T. Vollman
2. Amy Tan -- I read something once. She seems to be one of these people who writes the same story over and over with minor variations, but that may not be fair.
3. John Ashbery -- I actually heard him read at the U of Arizona when I was in grad school. I had no idea what was going on. Shivani offers a quote that seems about right.
4. Mary Oliver
5. Helen Vendler
6. Antonya Nelson
7. Sharon Olds -- read her a lot in grad school when I was trying to date poets. She writes a lot about, like, sex and her father. Often in the same poem, if you get my drift. I used to like her stuff but haven't read it in ages. She had a book called Satan Says, which I thought was a killer title for a bunch of poems.
8. Jorie Graham
9. Jonathan Safran Foer -- a big gun among young writers but I've never read anything by him.
10. Jhumpa Lahiri -- yeah man, somebody explain this to me. I read a few stories from Interpreter of Maladies and was amazed at how poor some of them were. Never read The Namesake; it seems dull.
11. Junot Diaz
12. Louise Gluck
13. Michael Cunningham -- wrote The Hours, which I never read, but like everyone else I saw the movie.
14. Billy Collins
15. Michiko Kakutani -- apparently a reviewer for the New York Times, not a writer per se.

I realize this may come off as sour grapes, and maybe it is, but I also think it's an interesting list and something to think about. Shivani gives his reasons and has a historical perspective too in a discussion of Pulitzer Prizes awarded in the first half of the 20th century. It's interesting to see who was being recognized at that time (Julia Peterkin, Oliver La Farge) and who was overlooked (Faulkner, Hemingway, Sherwood Anderson). Willa Cather won for One of Ours but not for My Antonia. So it's nothing new, exactly, but the hype machine is, perhaps, operating at a greater pitch these days than in the past.

Rock and roll will never die.

2010-08-07T23:54:00.000-07:00

Need proof? Here's some.

Great review in The Asian Review of Books

2010-07-28T13:30:00.001-07:00

The Geometry of God has gotten a killer review by the always-astute Nirinjana Iyer in the latest issue of The Asian Review of Books. To wit:

"Given that most books with the slightest connection to Islam feature covers with veiled women baring their kohl-lined eyes for the curious outsider's gaze, THE GEOMETRY OF GOD's black-and-white American edition's jacket depicting an animal skeleton is probably fair warning that Uzma Aslam Khan's Pakistan is going to get in the way of the sensationalized portrayals of the country so beloved by mainstream (Western) media. In her third book, Aslam gives us a female paleontologist, charged writing about the erotic, and a profound inquiry into the often-vexing relationship between faith and reason. Add to these riches the voice of a blind child "taste-testing" words, and THE GEOMETRY OF GOD becomes that rare creature, a novel where the urgency of the message is matched by the verve of the narrative."

That's just the first paragraph. Read the whole essay here:

http://www.asianreviewofbooks.com/arb/article.php?article=1107

Pink Floyd to Israel: Tear Down the Wall

2010-07-27T20:46:00.000-07:00

Ah, the epic power of rock and roll...

"Washington – For the first time in half a decade, rock legends Pink Floyd reunited for a benefit concert in England to raise money for young Palestinian refugees, MSNBC reported Tuesday.

Roger Waters and David Gilmour, joined by a full stage of keyboardists and drummers, both picked up the guitar to play for the more than 200 fans gathered to see the Oxfordshire concert. The reunion was unpublicized prior to the curtain's rise.

The proceeds from the benefit concert went to the Hoping Foundation, an organization that focuses on the “next generation” of young Palestinians, mostly refugees. Their projects include a film workshop, a scouting group in the Balata refugee camp near Nablus, and a UN Relief and Works Agency yearbook. The event raised over half a million dollars to benefit the group.

The Pink Floyd duo played a number of classic and fan favorites, including “Wish You Were Here” and “Another Brick in the Wall (Part Two).”

Waters has been involved in pro-Palestinian activism for years. In 2006 he spray painted "tear down the wall" on Israel's West Bank separation wall in the city of Bethlehem. He also worked with the United Nations to produce a short film about the wall's impact on life in the West Bank.

A slew of musicians, including Elvis Costello and The Pixes recently cancelled concerts in Israel in protest of Israel's Israel's policies toward the Palestinians and the deadly attack on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla on May 31st. "

http://palestinenote.com/cs/blogs/music/archive/2010/07/13/pink-floyd-reunites-for-palestinian-benefit-concert.aspx

Osama Bin Laden comedy movie is banned in Pakistan. Surprised?

2010-07-20T02:25:00.000-07:00

So, an Indian film called Tere Bin Laden (Without You Laden) is making waves in India for being the first terrorist-inspired comedy, and in Pakistan for being (*sigh*) banned. The more things change...

According to newspaper reports, "the movie is is about a Pakistani journalist desperate to get a visa to the US who pretends to score an interview with the elusive al-Qaeda chief after finding a look-alike."

Sound innocuous enough, no?

Well, apparently--NO.

Faiza Khan, a journalist based in Karachi, has an interesting article about the government's response in The Times of India. It's well worth a read as she touches on a number of important points. An extract:

"The censor board, to be fair, is known to be a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, merrily releasing graphically violent local films whose vulgar depictions of sexuality would shame the Marquis of Sade, while banning 'The Da Vinci Code' (due to Pakistan's profound respect for its Christian minority, often expressed by denuding them of all their rights and massacring them in their homes). As such, TBL's falling foul of Pakistan's censors is imminently un-newsworthy in itself; it is the unprecedented reasoning for the ban, however, which sets alarm bells ringing.

"TBL isn't being banned for the usual reasons — that it's injurious to the national image or because it might encourage young people to have sex or an independent thought, nor because it's an Indian film and the rallying cry of the post-Partition subcontinent has long been 'loathe thy neighbour'; it's being banned for fear of reprisal from those whose sentiments will be wounded by a frivolous film referencing bin Laden. 'Tere Bin Laden' will be kept off Pakistani screens for fear of encouraging attacks on cinemas and inviting more bombs and bloodshed. While this is a very real thr-eat, throwing up your hands in anticipation of defeat is not a fitting response. Immaculate security at cinemas that goes beyond a frail old man with a gun sitting next to a decrepit metal detector would be a suitable response. Having a Pakistani red carpet launch, a fitting honour for one of the country's most popular young singers, would be a suitable response. Having the gumption to poke fun at bin Laden and at the world's perceptions of Pakistan would be a suitable response.

"The nanny state has yet again proved itself as the type of nanny that shakes your baby when you're not looking. The driving logic appears to be that kowtowing to the demands of terrorists, in this case anticipating them even before they've been aired, will somehow discourage them. What then might we do if these terrorists start objecting to women in the workplace, or on the street, to the existence of religious minorities, or the government, the army and the institution of democracy? Oh, wait. The ardent hope is that if one stays under the radar, and changes the way one lives in order to not ruffle their feathers, perhaps they will leave us be. On the plus side, perhaps this will render the Taliban redundant; after all, who needs them when the government is willing to do their job for them?"

Here's the link to the whole article:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/6182631.cms?frm

And another article in Pakistan daily newspaper Dawn:

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/culture/03-censor-board-bans-tere-bin-laden-in-pakistan-ss-03

So... who do YOU write like?

2010-07-17T01:40:00.000-07:00

The web site I Write Like offers to analyze a sample of your writing, then tell you which famous writer you most resemble. Go ahead, try it... You know you want to.

I submitted a paragraph from my latest novel-in-progress and was told that I write like, well, see for yourself:

Could be worse I suppose. Could be better, too.

Come on, try it! Right here: http://iwl.me/

Great New Band

2010-07-12T19:10:00.000-07:00

Reviewed these guys for PopMatters--it will be forthcoming sometime, don't know when. The band is The Tamborines, the album is Camera and Tremor, due August 2. They rock, in a fuzzed-out, poppy-melodied, slabs-o'-distortion kind of way. Been listening compulsively for a week or two. Check out the song while reading the entry below. More please!