13429 / 100000 words. 13% done! Finally back in writing mode! I am going to push this year. Gunning for 1,000 words/day. Let's see if I can keep on pace...

My Very Own Death Bar!

11698 / 100000 words. 12% done!


This is my progress on THE NOVEL. Would like to finish the first draft before the end of the year.

New Readings and Ramblings

Lately I've been engaged in a lot of reading, most of it non-fiction in various areas of interest. A lot of it is related to child development and parenting, because that is the main focus of my life right now, but I am also doing readings for an Art History course I am taking and am still always reading books on Mesopotamia as background for a novel I have been working on for quite some time. The few fiction that I have been reading lately has been the result of a conscious effort to branch out a little and add some new authors to my regular reading rotation. I started reading Henning Mankell after watching the excellent BBC Wallender series with the sublime Kenneth Branagh and from there I have started on the Ian Rankin Rebus novels, just because I always meant to give them a go and the last few years I seem to be reading more mystery novels than anything else. I have also recently started reading science fiction and fantasy novels again, after a long hiatus, and am realizing how much I enjoy those genres when done well. I prefer novels that are written in a fast-paced hard boiled style rather than the more baroque and convoluted writing styles, though I do have a special place in my heart for certain stylists. China Mievelle has written the best book I have read in years, The City & The City, but I have enjoyed many of the authors I have sampled lately. Two books of note that I have just finished are from the pulpier end of the genre spectrum, but very enjoyable and right up my alley, are Andy Remic's Kell's Legend and David Gunn's Death's Head. Remic is unabashedly riffing on David Gemmell, who is one of my favorite authors to read, especially his Troy trilogy. While Remic's writing is nowhere near as smooth as Gemmell's, and he doesn't quite have the same heroic spirit as Gemmell, he handles action and pacing well, and comes up with some very inventive villains and situations. David Gunn's book is very well written, he has a stripped down prose style which is direct and clear, and he develops an intriguing character and comes up with some very intriguing environments for his hero. I love the Ferox (from a latin word for fierce whose savage culture is a good contrast/mirror for the ranking system of the Death's Head legion.

The Kent Family Chronicles Part Four

This has been an interesting book, but definitely not my favorite of the series. It seems everything in this series has been going south for all the characters. The Kent family just isn't getting a break in this book, and at times it's difficult for me to read considering my penchant for happy endings. I liked the character of Luis Cordoba, a Mexican soldier that saves Amanda Kent de la Guera from the aftermath of the Alamo and General Santa Anna's wrath and sires a son named Louis Kent. Amanda's life isn't very pleasant for the most part, and she trades her humanity in the pursuit of the myth of the Kent family. She virtually ignores her son at a time he needs her most, turns her back on her values in order to pursue the vision of the Kent family reunited that she has dreamt about all her life and finally has reached a point where it might be possible to bring it to pass. But as a result of her actions she doesn't guide Louis properly and it looks like he is going to turn into a ne'er do well and not become someone who could live up to the Kent name (so far, no one has. Philip Kent the benchmark his descendants are striving to emulate, turned into a curmudgeon at the end himself. Hopefully somebody redeems this family at some point because so far no one has really lived up to the ideals that the family is supposed to embody. Maybe Jared Adam Kent comes closest so far, he warns Amanda that what she wants to pursue will destroy her, and he seems to have retained all his genuine emotions throughout the journey of his life, not becoming soured by time, and he has had the graciousness to bless his son Jeptha even though he decided to walk a path different than what Jared envisioned for him. I enjoy the history I get to experience through this series, but often it seems like the plot is just a vehicle in order to display the panoply of American history rather than to give a cohesive picture of the Kent family (indeed, this series was sold as a package to commemorate the American Bicentennial, but still...)

Kent Family Chronicles Part Three

This book is the first one to pass off the narrative flow to another generation, and I find Philip's son Abraham (named after his maternal grandfather Abraham Ware from the first two books) to be a generally likable and fitting successor to Philip Kent. Philip on the other hand has soured quite a bit over the years and I no longer find him a likable individual, his beliefs and actions are no longer consistent with his views during the first two books.

This book also begins to examine a slightly different spirit that resides in the younger generation during the westward expansion than existed during the time of the Revolutionary period. Many of the Revolutionary war veterans have lost the revolutionary spirit and have instead become gentrified and very conservative in spirit.

This book has some surprising twists and turns. I began this blog when I was approximately one third of the way through the book, and soon after it changes protagonists to Gilbert Kent, Abraham's half-brother. Gilbert is an even more likable character than Abraham, who suffers a character reversal after the murder of his wife and becomes a disreputable low life. Soon after the viewpoint shifts again to Abraham's son Jared.

In this series John Jakes seems to revel in throwing us curve balls, there are many episodes in this book wherein distasteful things happen to the main characters, which is realistic and interesting, but it's beginning to make me think the Kent family must be under some kind of a curse because their luck collectively isn't very good so far...Hopefully things will start looking up for them in subsequent books...

I have noticed that when a generational switch is about to occur, John Jakes has a penchant for pretty much dropping all the sub-plots surrounding the old generation even if they are not quite resolved. The character from the preceding generation, even if still alive, becomes a non-entity. When John Jakes switched from Philip Kent to his sons Gilbert and Abraham, the character of Philip had been changed completely, the change in his personality being barely explained by a throw off line that as people age their politics tend to become more conservative. But one of the things that bothered me is that by the second book nothing is mentioned any longer about the James, Duke of Amberly, Philip's father. I would have liked to know at least when he died, there had been some letters exchanged between Philip and James, so in the event of his death there should have been some effect on Philip and the family in the Americas.

Jared Adam Kent is by far my favorite character in the series so far. He's tough, resourceful.

Kent Family Chronicles Part Two

After a brief hiatus I am back into the Kent Family Chronicles or Bicentennial series by John Jakes and I have been enjoying it immensely. This period of history never interested me much the way it was presented in my school textbooks, and I never started to develop any interest in the events or people involved in the Revolutionary period of American history, but this started to change once I became interested in Genealogy. Now reading these books I am gaining a new perspective and interest in the events and people involved, and it's beginning to tie some loose ends together in my head (English history up to the Restoration has always been of interest to me, and thanks to C.S. Forester, Patrick O'Brian and Bernard Cornwell I became interested in the Napoleonic Period as well). All in all this series has been a great romp so far with some intriguing twists and turns. I have enjoyed following the life of Phillipe Charboneau aka Philip Kent. John Jakes seems to have a willingness to let some of his main characters suffer through things that other mainstream writers wouldn't which heightens the level of interest and suspense for me. There are times I find myself sneaking a peak a couple of chapters ahead because I suspect a character I like is going to suffer through something horrible, and many times my fears have been justified, but the narrative still pulls me along. It definitely adds more realism to the tale.

Weirdness in Florida

I don't know what they put in the water in Florida. This is one of the most off the wall books I have ever read, at least since the last Hoke Mosley novel I read by Charles Willeford. Great location, interesting (and very unusual) characters, weird stuff always coming out the blue. This one was a sheer wild romp from beginning to end and almost every character becomes endearing in their own special, quirky way by the end of the book, even the bad guys.