MJG's Feed Releases for July 2010
2010 July
Daemon and Freedom™
These books are the future. I loved them and really hope Daniel Suarez writes more set in this awesomely utopian/dystopian thriller tech world. Damn, they resonated with my world view and my ideas of human tubes and human plus so much. All kinds of s...
Writing Blog #4 flashbang
I’ve been told I sometimes write in a flashbang style. This has manifested itself in several kinds of feedback-
- I can’t read for more than 10 minutes at a time. It’s exhausting.
- Some of the sequences left me really feeling the pain the main char...
Ruin of the White Root Mine
The White Root mine is old, so old that only the faintest outlines of its bones remain. Squint hard and you might see fragments of its ribcage scattered over the hillside, parts of a cracked skull just visible through the topsoil. Once it must have b...
The Lonely Dead by Michael Marshall Smith
I really wanted to like this book. Ever since Michael Marshall Smith wrote his sci-fi trilogy of One of Us, Spares, and Only Forwards, I thought he`d be one of my favorite authors.
My first novel (as yet unpublished ) was influenced by his breezy f...
Writing Blog #3 bad guy motives
Last week I talked about character motivation- filling in the gaps between what characters want and why. It`s a fundamental part of story architecture- that the good guy wants something and will fight to get it. But probably more important than what...
Kyushu’s dying theme park- Ceramic Land
During Japan`s real estate Bubble in the 1980`s, theme parks were the investment to make. They couldn`t fail. Sink millions into expensive construction, land, and man-power, and ride the surging economy to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. A...
The hotel one man dug out of solid rock #2 interior
Takahashi Minekichi was a rural Japanese strawberry farmer with a vision. For 21 years he carved the beginnings of a grand hotel into the solid rock wall of a cliff face on his land, digging out the contours only he could see. He did it all alone, us...
On Writing 1. the Dungeon Master`s screen
What has the DM`s screen got to do with writing?
Well- I`m still working on my Dawn* books. I`ve sent them out to agents and got a lot of no`s in reply, with zero personal correspondence. So I`m trying to make them better. Here`s some of the feedback...
MJG`s reviews for the 5th week of June.
I`ve started iSquinting movies and TV shows onto my iPod, so now I can get through a heck lot more stuff in one week. With my job- being a part time freelance English teacher who works at typically peak times of morning and night, there`s both a lot...
Baba’s abandoned curiosity shop
The old curiosity shop in Takadanobaba has been a mystery to me for a long time. I first spotted it passively years ago, before I lived near here, most likely on a trip to the Blue Parrot second-hand book store. It’s built in red-brick, or at least t...
Kymaerica (Kcymaerxthaere)
Kcymaerxthaere (née Kymaerica, pronounced `ky-MAR-ex-theere`) is an alternate world. It exists over and above our own in a system of 29 `gwomes`, only 4 of which are actually Kymaerica (an early name for the world). It was discovered by Geographer-At...
Calling All Stories! (editorial)
Out of Ruins needs your input!
This site is constantly evolving- as anyone who`s been reading for a while knows. It began as a blog about Japan, entitled Big Red Dot, after the big red dot in the middle of the Japanese flag. It then moved through inc...