Tomorrow's the last day

I'll be trying to enjoy Halloween without stressing too bad. dgthsdgzhjzxfuynhzednzdt.

Selected Covers from Old Dragon Mags

For those of you unfamiliar with roleplaying culture (and hoo daddy, is it ever a culture) Dragon magazine is a monthly magazine covering fantasy roleplay, which these days means it covers stuff from TSR and Wizards of the Coast, playing only lip service to other interests. Though I spent a great deal of my time with a Dragon propped up in front of my speckled teenage face when I worked in a comic/gaming shop in high school and my freshman year of college, I haven't read a new issue in over a year. Kind of a bummer, but when you've got the internet a magazine that's often more about pulling one company's party line than it is about gaming becomes less and less desirable.

Some time ago, I was presented with a large box of such magazines from the 70s and 80s, and my love for the mag (at least in spirit) has been rekindled. The older issues are loaded with delicious fluff, and a kind of hokey, zine-like charm.

However, just like all fantasy literature, they often have bad covers. Terrible covers, in fact. I've selected three of the ones I found the most awful, and the three I loved most for balance's sake.

This first one isn't terrible in the sense that the art is awful, but it's just so frigging incomprehensible. What is with the floating, glowing sword? What does that guy to the far left see that's got him having aneurysms? It looks kind of like the dude in green is controlling the glowy sword, but it also looks like he's menacing them with a knife so they don't take that corpse he's hoarded for himself.

I tried to go into Photoshop and zoom in to see just what's supposed to be happening, but the colors are just so frigging dark and murky that it's impossible to discern very much. This is all totally ignoring the hilarious placement of the sword. Use the schwartz indeed.

This one is just horrible on so many, many levels. Let's ignore, for a moment, the bizarre thigh and ass-baring tunic and gogo boots on the woman, and focus on this goony-looking dragon. It's a fairly standard-looking, generic, inoffensive dragon until you get to its head. What the Hell is all that jazz doing on its head? It has neck spines, three (?) horns, a little beard of spines, big floppity ears, a waggly tongue, and what are either tusks or tragically misplaced canine teeth.

Now we can move on to the woman, who's decided to go dragon whispering in a tunic that bares not only her leg up to her hip, but the beginnings of her ass cheeks. Surely her universe has underwear. Right? Then there's the issue of her nips poking through the fabric. That tunic is honest-to-God the only thing this woman is wearing. Look at that thing, the front flap would be her undoing in a stiff breeze, and she's not wearing anything underneath. This, to me, suggests that she is in fact a fantastical flasher.

Uuuuugggggh. I was reluctant to post this one, because it's the only hideous cover I came up with for this post that actually has a reason behind having it on the cover at all. See, the cover is an illustration for a comic/game setting/a whole lot of other things that I still see floating around on the internet and other mags. The putz taking center stage is named Pinsom, and I don't care enough about him to explain him or his universe to you in depth; I just mentioned all this to make sure you know that I know that this cover isn't a non sequitor.

With that said, the cover isn't... necessarily terrible. I mean, it's no Fantastical Flasher vs. Orky Talk Dragon, but it just seems... off, somehow. The weird saccharine colors and goofy character designs make it hard to not just screw my face up and turn the mag over so as to avoid seeing it. That and the princess has one hand with four fingers. I checked and rechecked the comic in the mag, and that doesn't appear to be a racial trait.

Now, I also promised you three good covers, or at least three covers I deem to be good. So, here goes. Feel free to hate on these and praise the sickeningly purple Pinsom cover.

Mostly, I like this cover because it's understated. Yeah, there's a unicorn present, and that usually incites some kind of weird nerd rage in me, but the horny horse that's often associated with purity (how ironic) makes for an awesome contrast to the skeleton of the dead soldier just to its left. The sun beams streaming down from the treetops work to further the contrast between the setting and the skeleton, making it seem entirely out of place.

Still, the image is kind of hopeful. Even though Skully's dead, life goes on around him. He probably nourished those scrub grasses and wildflowers, you know. Circle of life and all that happy crap.

I. Love. This. Cover. It's simple in concept, but the level of detail is staggering. The fortifications in the background, the men in the field, the scavenger bird overhead. The armor and weapons look real, tangible, and from the same period. It's just. It's just awesome. It made me exclaim, "Holy crap, this is so cool!" in the same way the Dragon Flasher cover made me recoil in horror. No. Wait. Actually, it made me exclaim about its coolness even more emphatically than I despaired over the Dragon Flasher cover. Within the magazine, I was able to find some information on the cover that only cemented my opinion that it is Beyond Awesome:

Cover
As Camlan burns, a wounded King Arthur prepares to meet the mounted attack of his hated rival Mordred. This painting was carefully researched by Roger Raupp, who based the weapons, armor, and fortifications on those in existence in the British Isles after 500 A.D. The battle shown here takes place at Hadrian's Wall, where soem sources beleive the historical Arthur lived.

If that's not genuine awesomeness, then by God I'm not sure what is.

Following the baddass King Arthur cover, you may find yourself wondering, "What the fresh Hell is this? Isn't this something you'd normally call bad?"

Oddly enough, no. To me, a cool fantasy cover doesn't have to be totally badass or historically accurate to be considered good, and this cover is definitely cool. In a quirky way, at least.

As with the Arthur cover, a lot of my delight with this image comes from the little details sprinkled about. The Coke bottle (is this urban fantasy?), the wishbone earring he's got going on, the various book spines with things like 'Merlin,' and 'Gandalf,' and (of course) 'Dragon,' on them.

the most fetching thing about the image, though, is that the kooky wizard doesn't even seem to be doing anything diabolical. Upon closer inspection, he's holding a book of stories, and the mist he's conjuring takes the vague form of a sort of illustration to whatever page the book is open on. Not to mention the skeletal dragon is pretty damn cool in its own right.

As a special treat, I offer up the ginormous scanned images of any of these covers to those asking in the comments. Even the Pinsom one.

If you really want it.

You sick bastard.

I Don't Get 'Cute' Halloween

Maybe I'm a relic of some bygone era, but I've never seen the appeal in cute Halloween things. Jack O'Lanterns with big, doofy grins and those awful with tree decorations that make it look like a witch has crashed in to the tree just make me sigh. I was downright dismayed when I stopped trick or treating and started handing out candy, because I got to take an informal mental census of just how few kids wear scary costumes or take any interest in creepy decorations. I was just as dismayed by the number of licensed costumes, because they're usually awful and not ever really scary.

Until a few hours ago, I had plans to just dress up as a shirt ninja for Halloween, but now I'm making plans to disguise myself as a sinister ghouly thing using recycled stuff around the house.

Fantasy Covers and You (and Me)

Ah, the cover of a book. Unfortunately, it's usually your first impression of any book you pick up. Sometimes I feel as though the number one reason I feel just a little ashamed of reading fantasy and scifi books in public is the terrible image it literally presents to onlookers.

The majority of fantasy covers are awful. You can't even say that the majority awfulness affects all literature; not on this scale, not to this horrible extent. No, most book covers overall are boring. Fantasy and scifi covers often cover the other end of the spectrum, and not in a good way.

After years of reading fantasy books and working in a comic shop, I've come to the epiphany that fantasy covers have a lot in common with comic covers in terms of problems and apparent philosophy. Both are intended to catch the buyer's eye and (usually) depict a scene that does occur (or could occur, in the case of many old horror comic covers) in the book.

The problems with the execution of this philosophy are many, the most obvious of which being that, in order to hook the greatest number of buyers, certain unscrupulous and tactless measures are often employed. This means lots of chainmail bikinis and hot space pirate chicks who, upon close inspection, have no space undies. It's important to point out here that I am not opposed to making your cover eye-catching and appealing to more people in the attempt to make money. I love money.

Another problem shared between fantasy/scifi and comic covers is the occasional disconnect between the writers and the cover artists. Now, I know this is often inescapable due to time constraints and whatnot, but it leads to a lot of confusion and disappointment among the people buying the books. This is especially true in the case of books for which the writers/story artists had no say in the cover production process, with the cover artists being given vague instructions like "A man in power armor being menaced by an alien." Whether or not power armor or menacing aliens ever appear in the book is sometimes of no consequence.

The third major issue on my mind has less to do with the process of making covers and selling books as it does with a very simple principle of comic books and speculative fiction. The logic of these books, comics and fantasy alike, exists within a vacuum. Said vacuum is contained between the front and back covers of the book, in the narrative itself. Sometimes it seems like people forget that any representation of the events contained within looks somewhat... schizophrenic, without prior explanation. This is less of a problem with comics since most people buying them already understand the in-universe logic that's led up to the events depicted. Of course, the dearth in new comic book readers is another rant altogether.

Fantasy and scifi covers, by and large, just have too much crap going on on them. Look at the Modesitt cover I posted way up at the top for a good example of Excessive Crapitis. The Wheel of Time series is also full of such examples, but I chose that one because it left me wondering just what the Hell could possibly be happening.

The resentment of excessive presence of characters and action on covers is one reason I honest to God like the Twilight covers. They're not good books, they're creepy and not in the way you usually imagine books about vampires to be, but the artsy fartsy covers work. They're simple, they fit the target audience quite nicely, and they're iconic. A black cover with that dumb curly lettering, and some artsy symbolic image that's primarily red and white, and it's obviously a Twilight cover. The Kushiel's Legacy books have a similar iconic quality, but the covers follow the formula of having a sexy lady with a d-bag tribal tattoo stand off to the side and look brooding. Usually with a lot of pattern-fill looking stuff. Still recognizable, still iconic, no doubt still in touch with the sort of people the book is sold for. However, it still carries the weighty shame of reading the book in public. If the Twilight books had been good or at least not creepy, being seen with one wouldn't draw snickers.

Tonight: Bad, disturbing, or just plain weird Dragon magazine covers from the 70's and 80's. Stay tuned.

Status Report: FML

I have a huge cavity and no dental insurance. I've never had dental insurance. FML.

Should I ever become wealthy, I'm having the whole lot yanked out and replaced with titanium studs that can bite through a car door. See if I don't.

One Week Left. Oh, Crap.

I've gone through three opening scenarios, created five characters, chosen no title, and established no workspace.

I am so boned.

Anthropology Has Ruined Me

Science in general, and social science in particular, has ruined me on fantasy and scifi. I don't mean to say that majoring first in computer science and then anthropology has made it impossible for me to enjoy these things, but that it causes me to put entirely too much thought into my own worldbuilding.

For those of you without experience majoring in these disciplines, I think it's important to point out that computer science isn't all tapping at a keyboard, and anthropology isn't all paging through rotted tomes written by dead white dudes about Exotic Native Peoples who wear conical hats. On their dongs.

The study of computer science, at least as I learned it, requires much wandering in and out of the doors of chemistry, physics, and high mathematics. I failed chemistry hard, but I enjoy physics and have no problem working mad number magic in the name of programming or another applied skill.

Further, the study of anthropology is... broad. Annoyingly so. I love anthropology, I do, and I try so hard to make that clear to anyone I kvetch to about my major. But it is a schizophrenic science. Sociology, statistics, psychology, ecology, evolutionary biology, human evolutionary biology. I've had my fingers in so many scientific pies that it's hard to distinguish where the influence of one on my way of worldbuilding ends and another begins.

I wonder about so much inconsequential crap that will never wind up in the narratives of my stories. At what age do mothers ween their children? What's the latent function of a particular religious practice? It must have had a purpose at some point of history, even if it's only symbolic now, right? Why are women permitted to serve in the army? Was it always like that? Did some catastrophe or something make people change their minds? Did their minds need to be changed?

What kind of evolutionary chain produces a dragon, or a unicorn, or a bugbear, or anything else writers might describe as a naturally occurring critter?

In a way, it enriches what I make and cheapens what I read. I have all these questions of 'why' and 'how' that come up, and I'm the only one who can answer them. And even when I do answer them, I feel that my explanations are lacking. Even worse, I've wasted valuable plotting time trying to figure it out.

Mad social science, anyone?

Prep for NaNo: Workspace Wants

Since we moved to a new apartment over the summer, I have made my home in a small room (about 3 tatami mats, if my professor was right about his estimate) on the second floor of our apartment. I sleep on a futon, so it's not exactly cramped, but I've found no space for my desktop computer. That stays downstairs, in the living room.

I can't do all my writing in the living room, and I couldn't stand to do it all on my futon with my laptop propped up on my knees. Clearly, I need a space set up in my own room that lets me use my laptop and still sit at a table. Here are my problems:

• Tiny, tiny room. We're talking almost no floorspace when my bed is made.
• Since my room is tiny, I have no room for a chair.
• I share a wall (and a window, oddly enough) with my housemate's room.
  

The solution to the space issue, so far, seems to be a tiny table which needs no accompanying chair. Bonus points if the table is collapsible. I don't know what I'll do about the chair thing, probably a cushion or a floor chair of some description. Again, points for form factor
So, what I would want for my ideal NaNo workspace:

• Itty bitty teensy weensy table Best bet so far is a little coffee table at Wal Mart for $25
• Floor chair for back support Very unlikely.
• Small, cheap lamp with a low wattage bulb. This, unlike my eye-searing halogen desk lamp, will give me light to work by without depriving my housemate of sleep. I can get this at the thrift store pretty damn easily.
  
• A new mousepad. My old one smells like stale Cheetos.
• A cup for my pens. I can just wash out a ramen cup. I'm a class act.
  

I think I have my start.

Somehow, just as I was ready to post to the kvetching forum on the NaNoWriMo boards, The beginnings of a plot came to me.

It's like a present.

Why Am I Doing This Again?

I kept looking over at this entry, at this empty text field, for hours before I started typing. I looked, and I wondered if I had any answer that satisfied me. Why am I doing this, trying to produce a novel? It'll likely never be published. I'll likely never even find an agent willing to be seen in the same room as this book. But, just before I set my hands to the keys to tap in a new URL and navigate away from this failure of an entry, I came to a stunning realization.

This is not a new phenomenon; hundreds and thousands of people try to bang out a novel. What's more, some do it with ego, and bravado, and expectations. And they finish. Whether they manage to publish their works or not isn't important; what's important is that they have separated themselves from the majority of people on the planet by creating a book, whether it sells or not.

I think to myself, why shouldn't I try?

So, welcome to my blog. It will document my journal through National Novel Writing Month, whether or not I fail utterly.

In the days preceding November 1st, I'll be making sporadic updates. However, as soon as November begins, I will update daily. Topics covered will range from my daily wordcount, to my crippling anxieties over writing, to general musings about the genre I've decided, like the chumhead I am, as my own for this NaNoWriMo.

Buckle in for a long, strange, self-loathing ride.