Author: jasonloch

Forward!

Now that the first Ptahmose book (tentatively titled Evil in Thebes) is in the hands of my lovely beta readers, I’ve decided to start work on book 2 of the series.  I know it’s a bit risky to start work on a sequel when the first book hasn’t even been submitted to agents yet, but I’m so excited about this universe that I’ve created that I feel compelled to keep writing.  I have an enthusiasm for this project that I don’t have for the Andrewverse (for those of you just tuning in, the Andrewverse refers to the setting of my first book A Theft of Bones).  Don’t get me wrong, I still have fond feelings for Andrew and his friends, but at this point in time I don’t feel a strong urge to write anything more about them.  That may change someday, but for now they’ll have to sit on the sidelines.

Back to book 2: I’m pleased to report that I just finished a rough plot sketch tonight.  Following the precedent set by Evil in Thebes, it’s in table form (an idea I borrowed from J. K. Rowling, as you may recall).  I think it’s a great way to keep track of the various subplots as they develop throughout the book.

When writing a plot sketch, I basically write down the first semi-coherent ideas that pop into my mind without worrying overmuch about their quality.  A lot of stuff is promptly erased by the delete key, but some of it sticks and eventually I have a decent foundation for a story.   Once I actually start writing in earnest, the plot usually undergoes a few more changes and I always love to look back and see how my work has changed over time.

I think that the initial plotting of a novel is probably my favorite part of the writing process.  I love sifting and winnowing through endless possibilities to come up with a coherent, entertaining plot.  It wasn’t always that way.  When I first started writing, I got frustrated with plotting very quickly.  It galled me when a great idea fell apart once I started pursuing it.  But my attitude changed once I accepted such mistakes as an unavoidable part of the writing process.  Now when an idea doesn’t pan out, I just shrug my shoulders and try to think of something better rather than getting bent out of shape.

Review of The Broken Kingdoms

Today I finished reading The Broken Kingdoms, the second book in N. K. Jemisin’s Inheritance Trilogy.  You can read my review of the first book in the series here.

Rather than simply pick up where The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms left off, Broken Kingdoms jumps ten years into the future to tell the story of Oree Shoth, a young blind woman living in the city of Shadow beneath the World Tree.  Freed from their servitude, godlings cavort around the city.  But when Oree finds a silent godling in her muckbin one day, she gets pulled into a dangerous conspiracy that threatens not only her life but the very fabric of the universe itself.

As I mentioned in my earlier review, one of the great things about Jemisin’s work is the rich mythology that underlies it.  Broken Kingdoms does an excellent job of elaborating on what we already know.  In particular, we learn a lot more about Itempas, a full god who was seen briefly at the end of Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.  Jemisin does a great job of humanizing her deities so that they actually have distinct personalities instead of just being insanely powerful cardboard cutouts.

Jemisin also continues to take risks with her writing and it continues to pay off.  Rather than play it safe and write a direct sequel, she chose to give top billing to a new set of characters (though some familiar faces do appear as ‘guest stars’).  In doing so, she emphasizes that her world doesn’t just revolve around one small group of people, which makes it seem that much more realistic.  And even though I’m not really a fan of first-person narrators, I have to admit that Jemisin is able to pull it off.   She’s also quite adept at the short scene: some of her scenes are only a paragraph long but she manages to pack a lot of power into a few lines of text.

The only thing that I didn’t like about Broken Kingdoms was the sex scenes.  The breast fondling and lady-part stroking veered a bit too close to romance novel territory for my tastes, but your mileage may vary.

The final book in the trilogy, The Kingdom of Gods, is due to come out later this year.

Scandal in ancient Egypt

I was reading a review today of Toby Wilkinson’s new book The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt where the reviewer mentioned “the failure of Egyptian writers to indulge in the kind of salacious detail that the Greeks and the Romans so relished.”  While it is undoubtedly true that we have yet to find an Egyptian Suetonius or Tacitus, we can’t say that that such a person never existed.

Unfortunately, the written source material for ancient Egypt is fragmentary at best and the best preserved texts are those carved on monuments.  As a result, we tend to have a lot of bland, official pronouncements about the glories of the king.  But that doesn’t mean that more irreverent works didn’t exist; it just means that they’re less likely to have survived since they would’ve been written on papyrus.

We already have some tantalizing hints of scurrilous stories.  Papyrus Westcar makes Khufu look like a jerk, while the tale of Pepy and General Sasenet suggests that the two of them were lovers.  Demotic literature is even more irreverent: Thutmose III has his rear end whipped by magical figures sent from Nubia and Amasis is portrayed as a drunk.  The tradition of writing down scandalous things about one’s superiors is probably as old as writing itself and I don’t think we should assume that the Egyptians were any more reticent about these things than anybody else.

As for Wilkinson’s book, I look forward to reading it, if only because I’m curious to see how he backs up some of his assertions.  In particular, I wonder how he supports his claim that there was “close surveillance” of the populace in pharaonic Egypt.  He’s a good scholar, so I’m sure it’ll be an interesting read.

A good ending

After seventeen chapters and 90,000+ words, I’ve come to the end of my Egyptian novel.  I still haven’t the foggiest idea what I’m going to call the damn thing though.  The working title was The Arrows of Sakhmet, but I never really fell in love with it.

Thankfully, that’s a decision for another day.  Now, it’s time to relax and enjoy some family time. 🙂

Merry Christmas!

Just wanted to take a moment to wish all my dear readers a very merry Christmas.  While I was disappointed that Santa Claus didn’t leave Diablo III under the tree, I’ve been having a wonderful time visiting family and friends.  I also received some cool new books to read, including Affairs and Scandals in Ancient Egypt and His Majesty’s Dragon.

I’ve also been writing the last chapters of my Egyptian novel.  I’m currently working on the penultimate chapter, so I should be done with the first draft within the next few days.  Because my writers’ group has already commented on the earlier chapters, I can start making preliminary revisions right away.  We’ll be discussing the last chunk of my novel on January 25 and, with a little bit of luck, I’ll have the older material well polished by that point.

Oh, the joys of Amtrak

Amtrak has once again demonstrated its unsurpassed skill at being irritating.  I have an unused ticket that’s still good for travel, so I thought I’d apply it to the cost of my Christmas trip home.  Everything went along swimmingly until customer service said that, because I was applying the balance from an unused ticket, I would have to surrender the old ticket before they would confirm the new reservation, and they would only hold the reservation for three days.  I pointed out that I live three hours away from the train station, but they were unmoved.  I even offered to mail them the ticket.  That won’t work either, apparently.  They suggested I wait until three days prior to my intended departure before making my reservation, but that’s a disaster waiting to happen.  Not only will the ticket be much more expensive, but there’s no guarantee I’d even be able to get a seat.

After I hung up, I muttered some choice epithets and then set about booking my tickets.  Although my departing ticket is outrageously expensive, I was relieved to see that the return ticket was reasonably priced.  So reasonably priced, in fact, that I decided to upgrade to business class since it’s only $12 extra.  But, when I got my ticket confirmation, my eyes almost popped out of my skull and plopped onto the keyboard.  A ticket that should have been $43 was now $85 because of a change in the base fare.  There was no way I was going to pay $85 for an Amtrak business class ticket, so I had to go back and downgrade to coach.  Happily, the base fare didn’t increase for the coach ticket.   That would’ve caused me to mutter yet more choice epithets.

Sometimes I wonder why I bother with Amtrak when I go home.  The trains are always late, the coaches are slightly seedy, and it takes forever and a day to get anywhere.  Then I remember that it would cost me $500 (at least) to fly, and I shut up.

Just in time for the holidays

When I was browsing Amazon the other day, I discovered that Jonathan Stroud has a new book out entitled The Ring of Solomon.  Even though I don’t usually buy hardcover books, I bought this one right away.  Throughout the original trilogy there were a number of tantalizing hints about Bartimaeus’ backstory and I’m glad that Stroud has decided to flesh things out.

Here’s hoping that this prequel is better than the Star Wars prequels! 😀

Enter the Demon Hunter

At Blizzcon today, they announced the fifth class for Diablo 3: the Demon Hunter.  She’s basically a cross between the Amazon and the Assassin from D2.  So while her main weapon is the crossbow (she can even dual wield ‘pistol crossbows’!), she also uses traps and shadow magic to kick demon ass.  I haven’t seen any gameplay videos showing the Demon Hunter in action yet, but the demo videos of her skills look awesome.

In other D3 news, the mysterious Talisman has been revealed to be a dedicated inventory for charms.  Charms were something that first appeared in the D2 expansion pack.  They could be quite helpful, but you had to keep them in your inventory if you wanted to receive their benefits.  Consequently, it wasn’t uncommon for players to lose a ton of inventory space because of all the charms they had collected.  I’m glad to see that D3 will solve that problem by giving charms their own special receptacle.

I’m still keeping my fingers crossed for an announcement about the beta test, though I know I’ll probably be disappointed.

Tea

When it comes to tea, I tend to be very traditional.  I love nothing more than a nice steaming mug of Earl Grey.  The Physicist, on the other hand, loves to drink teas with kinky names like Iron Goddess of Mercy.  Over the years, he has mocked me mercilessly for my allegedly staid tastes (no doubt this stems from deep-seated self loathing that arises from his own inability to appreciate the finer things in life).  But lately I’ve begun to ask myself, could The Physicist actually be right?  Could there be more to tea than Earl Grey?  So during my last trip to the grocery store, I decided to throw caution to the wind and purchase something more exotic.  I bought:

(1)  Revolution Tea’s Honeybush Caramel Tea.  I tried this first and was absolutely blown away.  As promised by the name, it has a definite hint of caramel that actually works quite well in a tea.  I didn’t feel the need to add anything to it, which is kind of unprecedented for me.  It’s a great tea to have as an after dinner treat.

(2)  Stash Tea’s Blueberry Superfruit Tea.  I had this with breakfast this morning and found it to be quite delicious.  The combination of berry flavors makes it a bit tart.  I didn’t mind, but I think I’ll add a bit of honey or sugar next time.  I think this would be especially good iced on a hot summer day.

The best thing about both of these teas is that they’re caffeine free, so you don’t have to worry about them keeping you up if you choose to enjoy them late at night.

Any recommendations for which tea(s) I should try next?