“Ascent”
Verdant underbrush,
turns to dense fog and scorched pines,
to arid ridges.
Steve D
Tag: Steve D
Book Review: STAR WARS: TARKIN sheds light on enigmatic character
I listened to the audiobook version of Star Wars: Tarkin by James Luceno, a story of one of Tarkin’s endeavors in the early years of the Empire that helped him rise to prominence. This is essentially his backstory for the opening of A New Hope, and it was a solid read about an otherwise enigmatic character in Star Wars lore.
I’ve never read any novel in this universe, and this seemed like a relatively innocuous place to start — a bit in the middle in terms of timeline, but likely not explicitly connected to any other stories, aside from the obvious background/lore pieces.
Tarkin effectively follows Moff Tarkin as he oversees a secret project for the emperor and tries to track down suspicious attacks across the galaxy. Simultaneously, the reader is introduced to Tarkin’s upbringing that made him the ruthless, calculating strategist that he is.
Darth Vader plays a surprisingly prominent role throughout the story, effectively teaming up with Tarkin to track down the “dissidents”, and I found their relationship highly engaging, as Tarkin tries to understand Vader, whose identify he believes he knows, and Vader largely remains a mysterious personality.
As a first-time reader of the Star Wars canon, this was a solid entry point. There were references to things about the universe I’m unaware of, but they did not stand in the way of the main plot, which had a clear trajectory for Tarkin and the growth of the Empire at large.
This book has me interested enough to continue reading Star Wars lore. I’m just not sure which direction I’ll go next: back to the High Republic, or these interwar years.
Steve D
June Write Day: Vacation Time
Welp, summer has arrived and all of a sudden we’re preparing for a couple of extended vacations. Not that I’m complaining. I just feel unprepared for the first one. This will be the longest vacation we’ve taken in at least two years, and it is followed fairly quickly by an extended holiday for the 4th of July.
So I need to make a to-do list before we leave.
Last Month’s Goals
- Finish three books. I already mentioned my current reads:
- Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and Entangled Lives by Merlin Sheldrake. I will likely finish both in the next couple weeks.
- Likely next read: I’m eyeing Thor, Volume 1: The Goddess of Thunder for a change of pace, and because I never finished reading Jason Aaron’s run on the Thor comics. After that, I’m not sure.
- Finish New Earth, please? Focus on 15-minute writing sprints, a couple nights per week, and I should get this done.
- Continue to contemplate my writing/publishing vision. I went into more detail above than I had anticipated, so maybe I’ll end up writing about this more this month to get my thoughts onto virtual paper.
Finish three books?
I finished one book (Children of Time) in May and a second one at the very beginning of June. I’m now well into the audiobook version of Star Wars: Tarkin by James Luceno, and still figuring out my next paper read. I’ll likely pick something weighty to sink into over vacation.
Finish New Earth?
Getting closer. I’m not great at writing endings, and I had forgotten that. Whenever I come upon the end of a story, I too often slip into summary mode, where I try to tie off all the threads neatly and concisely. I haven’t quite landed on how I want this story to end, so I’ve been puttering over smaller plot threads until I come to the moment. This feels like the type of story that doesn’t necessarily have a neat-and-tidy ending, but getting it to a satisfactory place is the trick.
Contemplate writing and publishing vision?
Casually. I haven’t come to any decisions about what I might do. I generally like the idea of just publishing my two-part novella when it’s ready and seeing what happens. That would allow me to go to a couple conventions with more than one printed book. I’m just not sure how much I want to invest in marketing and such at the moment. Enough for a release, perhaps?
More contemplation is required.
Goals for June
- Finish three books. Likely:
- Current read: Star Wars: Tarkin by James Lucena
- Likely next reads: The Storyteller by Dave Grohl, perhaps The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
- Finish New Earth? I just need to power through to a fitting ending. I think I just need to be okay with a decent ending, and then come back to it in revisions.
- Enjoy vacation. Work has been crazy, and a big deployment is happening while I’ll be away, so I’m stressing a bit about that. But this will be a real vacation from everything, so I want to embrace it. I just need to get ready for it, mentally and logistically.
Steve D
Book Review: Spectacular World-Building in CHILDREN OF TIME
I got Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky as a gift from my brother-in-law, who thought I might enjoy it. I had heard of Tchaikovsky before in passing, but was otherwise unfamiliar with his work.
The description of this book certainly piqued my interest, and I didn’t want it to languish on my to-be-read shelf for ages, so I dug in.
Children of Time is a fantastic read that encapsulates both the awe-inspiring technological dreams of epic science fiction and the remarkably grounded perspectives and emotional weight of human stories.
This story is described as “evolutionary world-building”, and it takes place over literal millennia as a ship of human survivors of a destroyed Earth search for and try to claim a terraformed Earth-like world as their own. Only a select few humans aboard this ship are awakened at various intervals to deal with the potentially-catastrophic problems that can befall any deep-space mission. Simultaneously, a new race of beings are evolving on the terraformed world at a super-charged pace, thanks to a bioengineered nanovirus to accelerate their advancement in preparation for their human-creators’ arrival.
This brilliantly “symbiotic” narrative alternates over nearly incomprehensible lurches in time. One human aboard the ark ship is awakened from cryo-sleep several times over the course of millennia, facing new challenges or threats each time in what to him feels like only weeks. On the terraformed world, the narrative follows successive generations of characters as they advance and reach for the stars in their own right.
The first portion of the story is a little jarring, perhaps intentionally so, and the reader is flung from one moment in time to the next, separated by centuries or more. Once the reader figures out this rhythm, though, it is quite enjoyable to see how the dueling plots advance over such inhuman time spans.
Much of the world-building focuses on how such a world could be terraformed, how a massive ark ship carrying the remnants of human civilization survives for millennia, and how a nanovirus can advance a civilization. This is all endlessly fascinating, toeing the line between believability and awe.
The story, however, is an entirely human one, focused on the very existence of one civilization or another. This book delves into what it means to be both the first and the last of a great civilization, to survive and continue living as the world appears to be collapsing around you, and to harness or reject the breakneck pace of social and technological advancement.
I loved this book, and there appear to be two more in this series already. I will absolutely be picking up the next installment, Children of Ruin, in the near future.
Steve D
Haiku Sunday – Venture
“Venture”
Wandering heading,
noncommittal arrival,
free adventure day.
Steve D
Haiku Wednesday – Skip
“Skip”
Cracks in the sidewalk,
alternate like stepping stones,
over lava pit.
Steve D
Haiku Wednesday – Frog
“Frog”
Poisonous darter,
warty lily-pad sitter,
or leggy leapers?
Steve D
Haiku Sunday – Reminisce
“Reminisce”
Reminiscent night,
sharing classic party food:
red wine and cheesecake.
Steve D
Haiku Wednesday – Errand
“Errand”
Imminent to-do,
dispensation to get done,
a side quest gone well.
Steve D
May Write Day: Continuing the New Mode?
Yard work. Gardening plans. Summer-like weather. Some light air travel with our boys for the first time. April was a cool month, overall. Work was stressful for the first couple weeks, but it’s calmed down enough for me to catch my breath.
I’m still figuring out my day-to-day routine, but I feel like I’m making progress, in that I have ups and downs but generally get things done when I need to. I’m referring to my “new mode” of approaching Second Shift, family time, and my hobbies, which entails trying to stay up and active through the evenings and not falling into a pattern of laziness that ultimately leads to guilt/shame over not being “productive enough”.
It’s gone pretty well.
Last Month’s Goals
- Finish three books.
- Finish final chapter of New Earth and review story for overall chapter structure.
- Contemplate what my vision for my writing/publishing actually is.
Finish three books?
No, but I finished two: MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios and His Last Bow, as part of the Sherlock Holmes omnibus I’m working my way through.
I’m still relishing the journey of Children of Time, and I’ve started on a nonfiction work about the marvelous world of fungi, called Entangled Lives. This is one of those books that is about science and microbiology and ecology on the surface, but really has some much deeper insights into our perceptions of life, sentience, intelligence, and the connectivity of all things. Both of these books will take me some time to get through and appreciate them in full, so I’m in no rush.
Finish New Earth and chapter overview?
Uuugggghhh no. This is one area I have not been able to work into a consistent routine. I’ve broken myself of the bad mental habit of only writing in long, dedicated sessions, which is a good start.
I was able to write in a couple spurts, but I’ve officially run into book-ending-syndrome, in which I find it impossible to write a suitable ending. I want to play out the scenes in my notes, but I keep watching the word count extend farther and farther over my intended count, and while that doesn’t actually matter, it absolutely distracts me from just writing the damn ending.
Contemplate writing/publishing vision?
Yes, and I haven’t made any firm decisions. I think I know what I would like my next four or five publications to be, which is a great start. Two of them would be the duology of novellas that are my current works-in-progress, and two would be full-length novels, which is obviously way more intimidating.
Identifying a tangible and achievable timeline to write and publish all those stories is the trick. At this point, I’m not even sure when I want to publish my novellas. I could just get them out into the world, but then it could be another few years at least before I publish anything else. What I can’t decide is whether I’m okay with that.
Similar to my previous workout life, spending 10+ hours per week exercising, I haven’t totally shed the notion of publishing at a pace more akin to a full-time writer. I’m not a full-time writer. At this point, I’m barely a hobbyist. But what does it mean for a hobbyist to publish occasionally? Should I try to prepare and publish several works in a shorter timeframe to try to drive real sales pivot into full-time writing? I’m not sure I’m ready for that either.
So, that is part of my dilemma at the moment. Not only the act of writing, but even what my medium- and long-term goals are. I require more contemplation.
Goals for May
- Finish three books. I already mentioned my current reads:
- Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and Entangled Lives by Merlin Sheldrake. I will likely finish both in the next couple weeks.
- Likely next read: I’m eyeing Thor, Volume 1: The Goddess of Thunder for a change of pace, and because I never finished reading Jason Aaron’s run on the Thor comics. After that, I’m not sure.
- Finish New Earth, please? Focus on 15-minute writing sprints, a couple nights per week, and I should get this done.
- Continue to contemplate my writing/publishing vision. I went into more detail above than I had anticipated, so maybe I’ll end up writing about this more this month to get my thoughts onto virtual paper.
Steve D
Evening Satellite Publishing 