Alpha Centauri 2

Community => Recreation Commons => Topic started by: Elok on April 08, 2018, 03:05:33 pm

Title: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on April 08, 2018, 03:05:33 pm
As I promised BUncle, now that it's post-Lent, a thread about the John Carter books.  NB this thread will contain spoilers for hundred-year-old novels.

I got up through the first half of Thuvia before I got tired of the series and gave it back to the library.  I might go back to it someday, but the silliness wore on me after a bit.  I did look up the rules of Jetan at the end of Chessmen of Mars, because you (BUncle) said you wanted me to tell you what I think of it.  I'd be curious to see how it works in practice, because a lot of the pieces seem to have near-interchangeable moves, with the only difference being range.  So, if a piece can move multiple spaces in one turn, any combination of horizontal and vertical moves, it's effectively capable of diagonal movement too, just less efficiently.  A lot of the drama in our chess comes from the pieces' distinct movesets and ability to rush across the board and change the whole game, but most Jetan pieces effectively have a sphere of available moves of fixed size; if one piece is close to another, it's a safe bet that either can kill t'other, whichever gets the first move.  So the chess situation where the positions let, say, a queen or a rook kill with impunity would seem to be gone.

Re: the series' purported homoeroticism, per you, I'm not sure.  Too lazy to quote your threadjack remarks from the book feedback thread, but you noted that the women are all interchangeable cardboard McGuffins and he spends a lot of time dwelling on relationships with men.  To that I'd remark that the men are equally cardboard, they're just a thicker kind of cardboard suitable for whacking the enemy upside the head with.  But it'd be hard to distinguish a line of Tars Tarkas's from one of the red Martians' if it didn't have obvious signifiers.  Also, these books were written in a time of strict gender roles, and they're basically a meathead masculine fantasy where you can go to another planet and be a god of war without even trying.

There are meathead fantasies involving women, too, but he, or his times, was/were far too prim to get into wild white-on-red orgies or whatever.  Warlord of Mars has "the most beautiful woman in the world" carried literally halfway across the world by two brutal villains who loathe her husband; they both scheme to see who can, uh, marry her, with no suggestion that they might do anything else with her.  There's never the slightest suggestion that she spent several months getting raped twice a night.  Anyway, if the books were written today, no doubt he'd go into excruciating and stilted detail about Martian sexual customs, and he might have warrior women too.  Back then, neither was really an option, so women were useless to him.  They can be brave in the sense of acting stern to rogues who make improper suggestions, or using special nonviolent skillsets like Thuvia's control over Martian lions.  Other than that, yeah, they're props.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on April 08, 2018, 03:38:48 pm
Oh, the first three or so Gor books are like that, and with an actual competent modern narrative voice and flow, and, y'knw, actual plots -sorta the way Barsoom ought to be if it was populated with people you could believe in at all, if more than a bit B&D porny- but then abruptly around the fifth book, the bondage takes completely over and gets obsessive and the hero stops being one, and it turns into something barely worth looking at if you were bored, on the market for a swashbuckling planetary romance, and had a free copy of any given later installment in your hands.

The Barsoom series could well be said to have gotten as good as it got with Gods and Warlord, so yeah, if you didn't make it through Thuvia --- I'm disappointed you didn't skip to Chessmen of Mars, not for the space chess as much as you missed the Kaldanes and Rykors of Bantoom and the Lost City of Manator - and I thought it was the absolute apex of what Burroughs does that appeals on some level.

I'm way under enough sleep to function on today, but we'll see if I wake up - I think I will bother with the quotes later, at least for the enjoyment of others.  I expect you'll be cool with if I violate your privacy and copy/paste some of what you did say...

Uno would tend to agree with me -being into some good cheese from time to time- that on some level, the lameness of Burrough's writing can be part of the appeal - sometimes you can really groove to old-timey cheesiness, not merely on the laughing-at level.  There's something in there that's actually good, actually speaks to people even now, if buried under Boroughs' writing pulp trash in a style like a desperate-for-cash Poe eighty-100 years earlier, only without the talent...
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Unorthodox on April 08, 2018, 04:24:34 pm
You gave up books for lent? 
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on April 08, 2018, 04:34:23 pm
He gave up social posting for Lent.  He does it every year, and some other religious holidays, too.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Lorizael on April 08, 2018, 06:00:26 pm
He gave up social posting for Lent.  He does it every year, and some other religious holidays, too.

He's much smarter than the rest of us.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on April 08, 2018, 07:01:53 pm
You, maybe - but he IS pretty impressive.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on April 09, 2018, 06:25:27 am
-Also note -and this is not relevant to your interests at all- how totally gay the series subliminally is, ironic because no evidence whatsoever that Burroughs was, and all his grandchildren would get mad that I say he wrote romance like he'd never kissed a girl, when he'd already sired some of their parents.  But the women are McGuffins, the relationships with are hollow, and Carter spends more time talking onstage to his male friends Tars Tarkas and Kantos Kan - even in Princess, Dejah Thoris' actual largest onstage presence in the series.

-And this whole thing took me decades to arrive at, but I even think "a clean-limbed fighting man" isn't scarless; he's body-hairless.  [homosexual]!  -I really wonder what ERB's deal is.
Now it's flat-out bull that Thuvia was any "maiden" after Lord-knows-how-many years as the spectacularly-beautiful slave of the Therns, but the fact that she was, at minimum something like 28 to Carthoris' 16-18 at the time of the novel is rendered considerably less squicky and wrong by the fact that Barsoomians mature as fast as, or faster than, earth humans and look then like that for 1,000 years.  -It's nothing as bad as the navels and mammalian features on people who hatch and lay eggs for needing to ignore.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on April 09, 2018, 09:22:18 pm
Did Burroughs at any point explicitly say that red Martians, or any other color, have navels?  I wouldn't put it past him, I just don't recall him saying so.

Anyway, it kind of irked me how consistently clueless John Carter was; he takes forever to realize very obvious things (There's a glass wall in front of the food!  She doesn't recognize you because you're disguised!).  Also, in Warlord, nobody finds it remarkable that the Thern Pope is hanging around with a black guy when the only known black men on Barsoom are infamous sky pirates.

With that said, it was initially quite fun in a dumb way, and it's obviously the progenitor of any number of pulp tropes.  Every time Captain Kirk punched out a guard in a goofy costume before seducing a green alien woman, he was plainly channeling this book, or something based on it.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on April 10, 2018, 01:50:00 am
Sure.  And you can never truly understand Star Wars w/o familiarity with Flash Gordon.  Same thing; it's foundational.

And I haven't re-read the series more than once a decade since I was in my teens just as self punishment...
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Unorthodox on April 10, 2018, 03:44:53 am
He gave up social posting for Lent.  He does it every year, and some other religious holidays, too.

So, I'm gonna put this here since it's a line of discourse, but if you want it over in the religion thread, that's perfectly suitable too.

I've never been a practicing member of a religion that observes lent. 

My understanding was that it was something more akin to a religious new years resolution.  Giving up something you struggle with as a means to improve your lives.  But, I see many people just give something up for the duration of lent itself.  Not as part of a permanent change...thus I ask what is the point of giving up something you do not intend to give up? 
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Rusty Edge on April 10, 2018, 06:48:09 am
He gave up social posting for Lent.  He does it every year, and some other religious holidays, too.

So, I'm gonna put this here since it's a line of discourse, but if you want it over in the religion thread, that's perfectly suitable too.

I've never been a practicing member of a religion that observes lent. 

My understanding was that it was something more akin to a religious new years resolution.  Giving up something you struggle with as a means to improve your lives.  But, I see many people just give something up for the duration of lent itself.  Not as part of a permanent change...thus I ask what is the point of giving up something you do not intend to give up?

I understood it a bit differently. More like a Ramadan fast. For me, craving that which I gave up ( usually alcohol or bread except for communion ) was an opportunity to contemplate the significance of the season and say a prayer. Consider sacrifice. That sort of thing. Now,  I applaud somebody who attained freedom from a vice with a Lenten trial separation, or diverts money they spent on tobacco to the church for the season, or food they didn't eat to the food bank, but I always considered the primary purpose to be spiritual. I think to lose that focus of spiritual purification is to miss the point.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on April 11, 2018, 12:32:59 am
The point is to remind oneself of what is actually necessary and what is not.  Most Orthodox fast in a standard way--no meat, milk or olive oil--but various dietary restrictions make that problematic for us.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on April 11, 2018, 01:15:47 am
I think there's a real rightness to a websnerd making that choice for Lent.  I do. Makes sense, that if webs are important, it makes a good sacrifice/thing to reflect on...
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on November 10, 2018, 05:07:40 pm
I'm just going to necro this thing to see if there are any more recent entries in this genre, of the same general type.  I could go to TVTropes, but that's an attention-pit, and the sheer abundance of info makes it hard to sort through.  Looking back, I feel that Barsoom started with originality, but after a while he sort of ran out of ideas and had to have John Carter discover yet another differently-colored race of Martian.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Rusty Edge on November 12, 2018, 05:17:14 pm
I'm confident you could write a John Carter short story in the style of the novels, only better. 

That's not meant as a challenge. I imagine you're just looking for a light diversion after days filled with restoring your life to pre-hurricane status. I have no sci-fi recommendations for you.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on November 12, 2018, 08:18:32 pm
Well, right now I'm finishing up my kids' history of Byzantium.  Odd as it sounds, it'll be far easier to market.  Don't know what I'll do after that.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Rusty Edge on November 12, 2018, 10:56:47 pm
Well, right now I'm finishing up my kids' history of Byzantium.  Odd as it sounds, it'll be far easier to market.  Don't know what I'll do after that.


Actually, that sounds kinda cool. There are very few kids in the family these days, but I still might like to buy it now and read it and gift it in future years.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on November 12, 2018, 11:14:47 pm
It's intended for Orthodox homeschoolers.  Like my kids.  The fact that there's an existing market of other Orthodox (and a few other) homeschoolers is just gravy.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on November 15, 2018, 03:32:44 pm
Well, right now I'm finishing up my kids' history of Byzantium.  Odd as it sounds, it'll be far easier to market.  Don't know what I'll do after that.
It's intended for Orthodox homeschoolers.  Like my kids.  The fact that there's an existing market of other Orthodox (and a few other) homeschoolers is just gravy.
Byzantine Empire Anime Opening (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRRQQVK6nV8#)
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Geo on November 16, 2018, 07:03:21 pm
Naughty BUncle... ;excite;
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on December 23, 2018, 01:22:23 am
bump
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Bearu on December 23, 2018, 02:38:10 am
Elok states "Well, right now I'm finishing up my kids' history of Byzantium.  Odd as it sounds, it'll be far easier to market.  Don't know what I'll do after that" and "It's intended for Orthodox homeschoolers.  Like my kids.  The fact that there's an existing market of other Orthodox (and a few other) homeschoolers is just gravy."

The prospect of homeschooling an American child deprives these children of a decent education. While the only prospect of education for children in the American public school system consists of a deprived education because of repulsive actions from the  humans on both sides of the dual party American political spectrum, the Soviet and Chinese models provide a few answers. A critical element of the Soviet model includes a system of tracking the children so the children receive the quality of education commensurate with the level of knowledge. The Soviet model of education provides an efficient and affordable level of education for every citizen while the American system fails many students. The Chinese and Soviet models guarantee every qualified student receives an entrance and funding in the university without the massive levels of debt seen in the American system. The adaption of the positive aspects of the  socialist models with American characteristics will ensure the models flourish for future generations of students.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Geo on December 23, 2018, 09:05:44 am
Luckily the Soviet "model" ain't in existence anymore. :P
"Tracking" children? ???
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Unorthodox on December 23, 2018, 02:23:46 pm

The prospect of homeschooling an American child deprives these children of a decent education.

Source? 

I highly respect those who choose to homeschool their kids.  The ones I know are almost always better educated than the general populace. 

Public schools vary wildly in quality as well.  States vary quite wildly in the quality of the public school system, but even more locally, schools vary wildly.  We chose our housing location based largely on the public school quality.  I know others that choose charter or private schools when the public school available to them is unattractive.  There are, unfortunately, those who don't have much choice, and vouchers only give rise to charter schools more interested in making a buck than educating children. 
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on December 25, 2018, 12:00:48 pm
Well, I was gone for Advent (I had to go back onto FB for networking reasons, so I broke that), but now I have to buy a Byzantium anime.  Great.  Why they chose Phokas, Constantine VIII, Andronikos III, and Alexios III to mention in those credits, I don't know; were those the villains, I wonder?
EDIT: I looked it up on YouTube.  Yes, it's a joke and there is no series.  Some Greek dude had a lot of free time (but it wouldn't be unheard of for some obscure country to order an anime from a chop-shop studio).  Apparently at one point the lyrics or onscreen blurbs say "Alexios, get on the goddamn horse."  And the four emperors there were just listed as examples of uselessness.  For some reason.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on December 25, 2018, 04:50:57 pm
Re: homeschooling, I was miserable for most of my time in public schooling, and my older son, at least, takes after me very strongly.  A homeschooling child's teachers are intensely invested in his success, can customize the courses to fit his learning speed and interests, and can eliminate many of the obnoxious concomitants of traditional schooling, e.g. bullying.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Bearu on December 25, 2018, 06:37:19 pm
In homeschooling, the environment either stifles or enhances the child's education depending on the teacher's ability. Learning new skills under an ignorant parent represents a challenge because the parents, depending on the educational and financial background, lack the skills, money, and knowledge to teach the children at an appropriate level in the necessary skills for academic success. The other problem resides with the large number of religious families seeking to educate the children in a religious manner. The groups I have seen include a mixture of secular groups and religious families with the religious families varying in the level of religiosity from orthodox to reformed levels of beliefs in Judaism and Protestant sects. The religious families tend to seek the homeschooling environment  for a variety of reasons, but a major reason exists for either a customized religious education or the desire to avoid the moral and ethical issues in the public education system.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on May 15, 2019, 02:48:37 pm
Fall of Constantinople Book Trailer #1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZacX_J9J-0#)
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Geo on May 16, 2019, 05:46:53 pm
Lego!

And now Greece, Kosovo, North-Mecedonia, Serbia, Croatia,... are all released from the Ottoman yoke!
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on May 25, 2019, 03:45:05 am
Sorry I've been away for a while.  I'm just going to use this as "Elok's life update thread."  Our old house became toxic and uninhabitable in the months after the hurricane; I'm writing this from my SiL's post-hurricane dwelling, a bizarre structure out in the sticks.  Basically this pair of elderly shut-ins paid to have a prefab housing unit plopped down atop an aboveground cinderblock "basement," then moved in without really finishing the thing.  They left behind a wreck, which the hurricane wrecked further, and my SiL bought it dirt-cheap.  The whole family's been fixing it up on weekends for months, and now we're in it (bachelor SiL is comfy in an old RV for now; we might get her a finished shed later).  I wound up painting most of this house's interior.

I'm working at a Winn-Dixie out on the beach, full-time, with a higher wage than I've ever earned before (the hurricane also created a labor shortage).  Will be returning to school in the fall to become a respiratory therapist, because the pay floor for RTs is about the same as the pay ceiling for pharmacy techs.  In the meantime, our third son is due in about two weeks, and Pyrebound is popular enough that I got something like fifty pageviews today.  That's pretty close to typical.  Big props to BUncle and Lori for helping me get it off the ground!

So, yeah.  Been busy.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on May 25, 2019, 04:25:37 am
Link Pyrebound in your sig?
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on May 25, 2019, 04:54:35 am
Well, it's already my "website" link, but sure.  I counted it as a major victory when Google ranked my serial above an armor enchantment from Guild Wars by the same name ...
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on June 09, 2019, 10:17:46 pm
Third son born 6/8/19 at 2:29 am.  Everything and everyone fine.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on June 09, 2019, 10:38:03 pm
SIR!   :salute: :1st:
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on June 09, 2019, 11:18:47 pm
-Wait.  Cyril?  CYRIL?  That's child abuse. ;no
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on June 10, 2019, 01:50:42 am
Lilith chose Cyril, I chose Constantine.  There were no names one of us liked that the other didn't dislike at least a little, and she hated Constantine about as much as I hated Cyril (which she liked for synesthetic reasons--the name is "white and gold," apparently).  It's kind of a fair compromise.  She was actually so eager for Cyril that she would have tolerated "Belisarius," which I'd been pushing for since the first one, but I decided Belisarius was a little too weird even if he was an awesome Byzantine hero.
Anyway, he's going to be "Pippin" for a very long time.  The kids have been calling him that for months, and they aren't going to stop now.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: E_T on June 10, 2019, 02:26:11 am
Good for you!!
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Geo on June 10, 2019, 11:33:47 am
Congrats. :)
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Rusty Edge on June 11, 2019, 01:17:28 am
Congratulations!
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on July 08, 2019, 03:09:02 pm
Why not share that reader feedback post to your writer page?
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 06, 2019, 06:26:44 pm
I've begun catching up on Pyrebound today - it's scanning pretty well.  I'll surely have more to say soon when I've read more.

What've you been working on lately?
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 06, 2019, 08:58:14 pm
Hmm.  You know, you really need to give Father a head wound, too, or otherwise some reason he can't ever supervise Ram doing mason work, why they never for a second hope for him giving Ram a crash course enough to get by.  It's probably just the economics don't work in a harsh society, but then nothing Ram could possibly do would raise money enough, fast enough.  That a village of only 500 supported a single mason who did nothing else doesn't make sense, for that matter, certainly not three, two of whom have helpers.

If you ever get to another draft, do at least handwave those issues, willya?
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on August 07, 2019, 03:23:13 am
(sorry, Dormition fast!  And before that, Malwarebytes was refusing to let me on here b/c it insisted ac2 had a Trojan!  Noticed this thanks to obsessive tracking of WP analytics; thanks for reading.  Will try to get back to you after the fast ends in nine days.)
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 09, 2019, 06:19:07 pm
I must say that I never believed in the cave world of the previous version, and that does a lot to make up for I read a previous version and reckon I know, broadly, where this is going up to where the previous stopped.

I 'spose you realize that every character save Ram is unlikeable or barely a walk-on part?  Did I point out before that Ram is Clay w/ less siblings and his parents fit pretty well with the ones from Spenser's Mountain?  (The Waltons, if you're familiar, is a watered-down version of same.)  The setting and main action of both, based on the youth of writer Earl Hamner, is very different, but bildungsromans in hard times.  -At any rate, not a criticism, but something to be aware of; Ram lives in a hard world (Sumerian water monopoly, more-or-less, w/ some Andre Norton dimensional-shift stuff) full of hard people, entirely w/o real friends, even in his family.  It doesn't make Touring The Thing a glorious joy, when the Thing is a crapsack world inhabited by buttholes...

-I'm currently at 3.3, and I'm thrilled for you that it's getting views and a couple of reliable commenters...
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 10, 2019, 06:06:51 pm
I made it up to the first instalment of Chapter Four last night - and, as one of your regulars said, it was good to see Ram have a pleasant evening.  -It's also good that you explicitly have some money going home and work that Ma and Pa are doing okay.  That was ignored, I think, in the previous version, what dire straights Ram disappearing from civilization would leave them in...

The changes in the progression of the Black Band plot are solid.  The ho' is both more appealing/credible in this version, and developments regarding, so far more creditable.

Mylochka has kept me busy so far today with this and that connected to the Frida Kahlo in Love website, so I haven't even begun my morning internet browse yet, so prospects are poor-ish for more reading today, but it's on my to-do list if I get caught up enough...
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on August 15, 2019, 03:50:25 am
Okay, so the Dormition Fast is effectively over (not going to sweat about a couple of hours).  So, a lot has happened with this book since you were last notified about it.  I mentioned it on the most recent Slate Star Codex classified thread, where it got a couple of bites, and somebody mentioned r/rational, the rational fiction subreddit.  I didn't think much about it, because I'm not a rationalist and I'd never used Reddit, but I mulled it over and decided I'd give it a shot.  I posted about it on r/rational, and, uh, see attached image for the results.
I now get about 300 readers for each update, AFAICT, though very few comment on the site (I do get some commentary on my subreddit posts).  "Rational fiction" means basically "story with very deep and consistent worldbuilding, plus characters who work to exploit said world's rules in an intelligent manner."  I'm not sure if PB counts, but a lot of people there do seem to enjoy it and the story now stays in the bottom third of Topwebfiction's main listing, which is quite good for a seven-month-old serial.  Ratfic fans are really good at spotting consistency errors and plot holes, though none have been all that fussed so far about things like the economy of Urapu (I have a dodge for that if need be).

I've concluded that it's not worth the hassle of keeping up with a FB page for the time being; since the bulk of my fans are active elsewhere and FB demands payment to perform the page's intended function of letting fans know when I post, it seems like a model that'd be useful only if I got a lot bigger (on the level of thousands of fans with word-of-mouth going berserk).  I'm thinking about branching out in Reddit, which does the networking parts of Facebook better than Facebook IMO, but I don't know a lot about it.
You have mentioned the Waltons before, but I'm still not familiar with them.  I will probably want to fix Ram's lonesome beginning in the final version; that's something I've received consistent criticism about (the problem is substantially reduced if not eliminated in later chapters).  Possibly Izilbeshi will get actual lines.  I was definitely unhappy with how Darun came out in the original version, and she's hopefully much more of a person here.  Lori's been helping me along--he hasn't read it that I know of, but he's been my sounding board and science consultant, and very helpful at both.

That's about it, I guess.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 15, 2019, 04:08:58 am
I've been noticing you come by at least once a day since I posted, you anxious-for-feedback fellow, you.

Busy working on my sister's website all day, and only finished my morning internet rounds 20 minutes ago - except comics, and it's new comic day, but I read Pyrebound 5.3 instead.  Ram wins something, and don't worry about the lonely beginning, since in this version, he's gotten a fair bit more agency a lot sooner.  A little triumph here and there makes a big difference in stringing the reader along happy.

 ;b;
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on August 17, 2019, 02:28:07 pm
Design question: I'd like to have an emblem for each of the five major deities/belief systems (including the Sul, which is also a worship system of sorts for a few really sick humans).  I've got Haranduluz, Nidriz/Nythrys, and Tegnem covered.  I think Kuara should have some sort of egg-related symbol, perhaps a circle with a cluster of smaller circles inside it.  But I'm stuck on the Sul.  It is plot-relevant, or will be eventually, but I can't think of anything that says "psychic bond between large groups of reshki."  Something involving conjoined claws?
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 21, 2019, 05:29:12 pm
Like fingers laced?  That sounds good.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on August 21, 2019, 10:04:24 pm
Now I'm thinking something more akin to a pair of clawed hands holding each other's wrists.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 21, 2019, 11:18:43 pm
Two apish/goblin heads leaning into forehead contact?
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on August 22, 2019, 12:22:28 am
I'm looking for something more minimalist; the Moonchild Eye of Nythrys is just two crescents around a circle, for example.  More symbol than picture.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 22, 2019, 12:50:54 am
But Monkeys!
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on August 28, 2019, 03:02:56 am
So ... promotional difficulties.  You can see in the attachment to reply 45 that pageviews are steadily waning.  This trend has continued, and will probably go on until we reach a sustainable baseline.  It's to be expected; the huge initial rush was due to half of r/rational binge-reading about thirty pages each, and it tapered off as more and more of them had read it all and had no cause to binge.  Now I'm thinking, where else could I find regular readers?  Facebook is just a desert without money to dump into boosted ads, and I have no promo budget as such, so I'm trying to think of target audiences to inform.

I considered hardcore nerd forums like SpaceBattles, but they're such arcane messes of weird rules that I'm frankly terrified of posting there.  Yes, even though the worst that can happen is a ban.  I already committed one faux pas on SB, and retreated with my tail between my legs.  r/fantasy has an open self-promotion thread every other Monday; however, it's a crowded field and I can't write copy for crap.  I'll keep trying, but it's sort of like the Pool of Bethsaida--somebody's always stepping in before me and getting the miracle.  There's r/worldbuilding, where I've gotten a trickle of hits sharing my weirdness.  The best way to get attention there is with visual media, so I'd want to make a decent sketch of moonchildren or bazuu or something.

Any other ideas?
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 28, 2019, 04:04:24 am
...Let the back of my head work on it and see if I have good notions tomorrow...
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 29, 2019, 02:30:15 pm
One thing I'd suggest is to remember the power of cross-promotion.  The audience for Pyrebound is also the audience for The Curse of Life.  Promoting one work tends to promote the other.  It's fresh meat.

And don't give up on Facebook too easily - posts there do really well on search engines, even if they're screwing you as far as 'friends' seeing them right away.  I've been flogging JKStudio w/ a post every morning since the beginning of June, and I DO feel your pain.  -But Rusty 'liked' everything for the last two weeks last night, Uno occasionally likes something, a couple of my cousins like posts sometimes - and every time I 'like' anything as that page -God forbid that I comment- I might get noticed by someone new.  *Because I keep plugging away for as long as an energetic mood and my supply of photos hold out; if someone stumbles over the page, there's content to look at.  That's job one.*  It all leads back to the website.

Mylochka's show sites?  Leads back to JKStudio, ultimately.  Not always, but if I keep playing the numbers to draw traffic, I'll skim off a certain percent, provided there's something to look at when they get there.  It takes time and persistence.  Flog personal contacts, of course.  I offered Ginger Mayerson a link exchange with her collage art site last night.

Keep plugging away, and DO post something new at least a couple times a month on your author page.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 03, 2019, 01:24:49 am
You have mentioned the Waltons before, but I'm still not familiar with them.
Aside from finding out what I'm on about, I recommend this show to you, as a family man with kids.  CBS show about a rural family during the great depression, ran about seven years, wholesome, pretty good for 70s TV.  The parents' shortcomings watered down for primetime into near-nonexistence.  If you can track it down to watch for free or at least very cheaply, do give it a try and see what you and Shelock and the boys think.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: E_T on October 03, 2019, 04:50:59 pm
"Good night, John Boy..."
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 03, 2019, 05:14:16 pm
See?  It's where "Goodnight, John-Boy" comes from.  For old guys like us who remember -definitely Rusty, too, and maybe even as young as Uno- it's part of the national language/cultural referent-set.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on October 03, 2019, 05:19:28 pm
Mentioned it to Shelok; she's aware of it, but nothing more.  Dunno how we'd watch it, as we're on a limited internet connection.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: E_T on October 03, 2019, 06:54:49 pm
there is likely a wiki for it, would give you a fairly good summery, if anything...
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on March 25, 2020, 02:39:18 am
-Still reading and enjoying Pyrebound - just, haven't been in the mood to post for a while...
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on March 26, 2020, 01:55:24 am
You're fine--I can see the referring link pageviews from this site.  You're one of a hundred-odd regular readers now.  Thanks for getting it so far!
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on April 28, 2020, 01:33:35 am
Slowly working towards the finish of PB, considerably slowed by schoolwork and kids.  Starting to think about next work--will probably be considerably more cheerful, and closer to TCOL.  The working title is "Wild Frontier," though that sounds awful generic and I'll consider any variant on "[monosyllabic adjective] Frontier."  It's inspired by my wife reading frontier memoirs to the kids, and also watching too much Firefly.  It's on a colony world that got turned into a borderline penal colony, used to offload undesirables and reactionaries from an Earth rapidly transitioning towards trans- or posthumanism.  The colony is now an afterthought and its budget keeps getting cut, even as fresh transportees keep showing up and the local population keeps growing.  The result is an ever-expanding terraformed frontier spreading out from the capital landing zone, with the homesteaders at the periphery forming a law unto themselves.  Old world cultures smush and merge in weird ways; a North Korean pirate kingdom feuds with Mennonite cowboys.  I have a world and some characters so far, but not much in the way of a plot.  I want to tell it from multiple POVs to represent the diversity of this weird world, but have the POVs ultimately converge into one web of related events.  Whatever those events work out to be.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on April 28, 2020, 01:47:21 am
I'm in!
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Geo on April 28, 2020, 06:33:14 pm
With such a concept, 'bad frontier' seems to fit better.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on April 28, 2020, 08:40:11 pm
But it's not really bad as such.  Most people out there are optimistic.  Maybe "hard frontier," IDK.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Geo on April 28, 2020, 09:38:20 pm
'Harsh frontier'?
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on November 08, 2020, 11:59:55 pm
This is an official nagging notice, noting that Pyrebound has not been very good since 23 August, and demanding you get back to work.

-Submitted in a spirit of brazen entitlement, a fan, etc., ect., ect.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on November 09, 2020, 01:22:06 am
I've started, stopped, scrapped, and rewritten the latest update so many times I've lost count.  I think I've finally found the answer to where I want to take it, but now I need to find time to write it.  Ugh, Covid/class/stuff.  A lot of it's just lost inertia.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on November 09, 2020, 01:25:25 am
REFUND!
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on November 09, 2020, 11:37:16 pm
Wrote a few paragraphs last night, maybe one manuscript page.  Will try for more tonight, and possibly productivity will increase given looming Nativity Fast.  We shall see.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on November 10, 2020, 12:23:50 am
Rootin' for you.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on December 26, 2020, 01:56:47 am
Updated.  Not totally 100% happy with it, but it moves the story forward through the rut I was stuck in and gets done what I needed to get done.  I can live with this version.  Now we can do all the things I was planning to do with the rest of the story.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on December 26, 2020, 03:31:28 am
This'll do. ;b;
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on January 13, 2021, 11:19:26 pm
This is an official nagging notice, noting that Pyrebound has not been very good since 25 December, and demanding you get back to work.

-Submitted in a spirit of brazen entitlement, a fan, etc., ect., ect.
I'd also add that I've been a loyal fan, checking for a new chapter every Sunday evening I remembered to, which is some, and "boosting" until that stopped working in my default browser, which I didn't realize for quite a while, but I've been doing it in MSEdge for over a month.

You owe me now.  WRITE!
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on January 14, 2021, 01:48:37 pm
I have been, at your urging, in the other thread.  I can only speculate on the sociopolitical woes of one unhappy and dysfunctional polity at a time, you know.  But yes, I'll go back to the other one, where I know how it ends.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on January 14, 2021, 11:57:49 pm
 ;excite;
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on January 15, 2021, 07:27:50 pm
Writing comes first.

I hope you will still monitor the politics; I will try not to demand time-consuming homicidal forensic debate at ten paces if you chip in.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on November 07, 2021, 09:44:47 am
Just popping in to say that Pyrebound is finished.  Will probably get back on the train to edit and prep for publication in a few days.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on June 07, 2022, 10:19:49 pm
A few days turned out to be six or seven months and I couldn't bring myself to make all the radical changes I wanted to at first.  Still: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B3F9RT97

Kindle version's live.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on June 20, 2022, 11:12:40 pm
Re: the original subject of this thread, I've been in touch with other writers on RR and found this gleefully over-the-top sword-and-sorcery thingamabob: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/44789/the-trials-of-the-lion

It may or may not be of interest.  Also, the link in the above post now leads to my print edition as well, though it's $15.17 due to the sheer amount of paper that went into it.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Unorthodox on June 21, 2022, 05:48:24 pm
I'm not a judge a book on the cover guy, but boy do you need a cover artist. 

I'mma gonna do the kindle thing if I can get my kindle working. 
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on June 21, 2022, 11:49:14 pm
Yeah, I don't have cash to spare on this project so I had to do the make-a-cover thing with a public domain image from Wiki.  I like the image in general and as a theme for the story, but I can accept that Kindle's free options lack panache and it might be better to have something more bold.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Unorthodox on June 22, 2022, 06:20:29 pm
I got the kindle out and MAYBE charging.  (8 hours on the cord brought it to 30%...)
Hopefully it'll be back to full health when I get home. 

But, speaking of horrid covers, getting the kindle out remined me of a series I'd been reading. 

Dao of the Evil God. 

https://www.amazon.com/Dao-Evil-God-Sakuya-Yatogami-ebook/dp/B01MY59PQS

Very much english as a second language, and needs an edit, but I was fascinated to hear a lot of the mythology that I had only a cursory knowledge base in, so had been reading up to about 15 or so when I'd caught up to the author.  Definitely not for everyone but enjoyable enough in the vein of this thread.  (fairly sure I got at least half of them free)
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on June 22, 2022, 10:54:21 pm
A new acquaintance who's got a background in design is going to go ahead and whip up a new cover for me, he says, because he thinks even my Royal Road cover is just bleh.  I might use his finished version for Kindle as well, because his rough mockup is pretty boss.  Not gonna share it because it's a rough draft and IDK if he'd be embarrassed, but new cool cover may be en route.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on June 22, 2022, 11:34:22 pm
I dunno - I think the Mesopotamian bas relief cover is pretty boss, for all the tendency to look like a textbook.  Nobody's gonna think something titled "Pyrebound" -great title, btw- is a textbook, surely.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on June 23, 2022, 12:50:06 am
I'm perfectly happy with my paperback cover.  But my Kindle cover has a generic Amazon layout with a bland title block over the image, which isn't terribly distinctive on a small screen and probably looks like a low-contrast smear on a paperwhite.  The image is downright terrible for Royal Road, of course, since it doesn't have enough contrast to show up in miniature and mostly seems like a mass of brown.  I replaced it for the time being with EDIT: whoa, the yuck on the title really shows up at this size!  It looks okay at thumbnail size though.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on June 23, 2022, 03:34:47 am
Okay, the artist said it was cool to show you the mockup.  He did this with minimal familiarity with the story.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on June 23, 2022, 03:44:59 am
-Work in the wingy beardy dude from the previous, and you've got something.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Unorthodox on June 23, 2022, 03:55:05 pm
24 hours charging got to 73%...didn't check this morning.

I agree the anunnaki (at least I believe that was an anunnaki relief) should stay somehow. 

Full disclosure on this next, I am kind of a one track mind, so it might not fit your style, but Pyrebound is a good name, and if I were to advise someone of a font, I'd suggest HorrorMaster or even Nosferotica from Sinisterfonts.com.  Free fonts, you get the license to use in the file. 



Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Unorthodox on June 23, 2022, 04:03:16 pm
(https://allfont.net/cache/img/font-932_Horrormaster_c3723890a8c4a76ec0a869be5256139d.png?coeff=90)

(https://see.fontimg.com/api/renderfont4/aAgx/eyJyIjoiZnMiLCJoIjoxNzEsInciOjI2MjUsImZzIjo2NSwiZmdjIjoiIzAwMDAwMCIsImJnYyI6IiNGRkZGRkYiLCJ0IjoxfQ/Tm9zZmVyb3RpY2E/nosferotica.png)
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on June 24, 2022, 04:09:12 am
Ideally I'd probably want something vaguely suggestive of cuneiform but I don't imagine you could have that and still be legible.  The cover that mockup is from would be primarily for Royal Road, which has different priorities from a Kindle cover; it would need to be distinct and eye-catching at a fairly small size.  Much as I love my winged-sun-dude.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Unorthodox on June 24, 2022, 03:48:35 pm
Kindle SAYS it's charging but is going back down... 
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on June 24, 2022, 09:39:18 pm
Okay, so my buddy who did the mockup ran it through an art AI and got results which, uh, might make it more appealing to Uno?
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Unorthodox on June 25, 2022, 04:24:58 am
I dig the burning temple/altar, not terribly sure of the dead/dying dude with weirdo spear or random sky thing.  I’d say burning altar centered and title would be my favorite.  Bonus points to work flying sun nan relief onto altar. 
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on October 27, 2022, 03:03:23 am
Just popping back in to let y'all know what I'm up to when I'm not doing overtime at the hospital: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/58715/secondhand-sorcery
(the independent serial scene is pretty much dead now, plus Wordpress's new editor is frankly terrible)
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on January 19, 2023, 02:44:15 am
...At least I didn't post this over there...
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on January 24, 2023, 01:02:09 am
... I'm not totally sure why you made that?  But yes, true enough.

Also 2Sor has 74 Royal Road followers (ie people who signed up to be notified every time a new chapter drops).  Yay.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on March 03, 2023, 01:51:48 am
I made it because I was getting ahead making nasty ones for someone else, just-in-case --- and had a whim.

-I really need to catch up with Pyrebound and start this, now that I'm in the mood to bother doing anything...
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on July 14, 2023, 02:51:04 am
I don't want to get hopes up, but ... I am working on a side project.  Just part of the first chapter so far.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on July 12, 2025, 02:40:03 am
This gets my hopes up.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Elok on July 12, 2025, 03:10:40 am
As it happens, I only recently finished lazy-editing 2Sor for print/kindle (Shelok's gonna try to make covers, releasing it as a trilogy since PB was way too big and 2Sor is substantially longer) and resumed the Spring Break project, preserving the original paragraph I wrote like ten years ago.
Title: Re: Bang! Zoom! It's Barsoom!
Post by: Buster's Uncle on July 12, 2025, 04:00:14 am
Early this year I stumbled over an old email from Mylochka about a Sulu story she'd half-written about ten years ago -and forwarded, since what the heck, w/ some encouragement- all written since, and pretty good.


Now, she told me last week she's resuming the Gary Mitchell and young Kirk on the mugatu planet adventure she was thinking about back then, and I happened to stumble over an email about THAT Saturday, and sent it back, just a coincidence.

Everybody's got a Potsie, y'know, and Mitchell was Kirk's...
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