Kal Spriggs is a science fiction and fantasy author. His website is kalspriggs.com He is an avid reader of books, enjoys gaming, and lives in Colorado.
Just a quick update for now. I’ve been extremely busy this past few days and also fighting a serious cold. I’m sort of on the upswing, but I’m still utterly wiped out. I’m still at work for 10 hours a day plus about an hour commute either way. To top things off, the whole family has been sick, so things have been a bit stressful.
That said, I’ve been finalizing stuff with my cover artist for the Fate of the Tyrant. The third book of the Eoriel Saga will be coming out sometime in June, basically as soon as I hear back from my alpha readers, get the edits done, and send it on to my beta readers for a second look. There’s so much going on in this book that I’ve had to spend extra time on it, in order to do all the characters justice.
I’ll go more into what’s going on with my June update, but since it’s been quiet here I just wanted to pass that along. That’s all for now, I’ll have more news and posts later.
Robert Heinlein wrote a few times about the “Crazy Years” which he plotted pretty much where we are now. He didn’t go into much detail, besides off-hand mentions of the general collapse of nations and civilization and all the things that go with it: war, famine, riots, looting, you know, all that stuff that we’ve been without for a very long time.
I’m talking about serious privation, not the sort of distant wars we’ve seen since WWII… real, genuine hard times. In David Weber and John Ringo’s Empire of Man books, they mention the Dagger Years, a similar time of chaos and bloodshed.
Looking out at the world and internal to our country, I’m worried that we’re headed that way. There’s too much rhetoric and finger-pointing and no one really wants to fix these problems. Problems, after all, employ people in the progress of fixing them. The bigger the problem, the more people will allow “temporary” measure to repair them.
I feel like the US has run out, chasing the road runner… only to find ourselves running on empty air. The rest of the world, is watching, some of them hoping for us to fall and others are encouraging us to keep running, insisting that we’ll find solid ground under our feet soon enough. Meanwhile, here we are, the average person, starting to watch the ground approach.
How we got here isn’t important right now. The important part is putting together some way to actually prevent that impact with the hard edge where ground meets sky.
I’m increasingly coming to the opinion that we can’t avoid that impact. In fact, it sometimes feels like Wile E Coyote’s rocket boots are running us full blast towards the ground. People on all ends of the political spectrum are madly cackling as they pile up dynamite to cushion the fall, and, yes, someone has replaced the parachute with an anvil.
Where am I going with this? Well, it isn’t all doom and gloom. We’ve got enough people trying to rein in the crazy that we might just pull out of this death spiral. What we need to do is start being rational. Anger, hate, these lead to the dark side, yes? We’ve got to stop looking for simple solutions and smooth-talking liars to fix things for us… we’ve got to fix things ourselves.
Be the example for your friends and neighbors. Teach your kids the importance of hard work and independence. Walk with your head high and be not afraid. Fear is the mindkiller. Speak your mind and most importantly… listen. Communication has always been the ally of those who want control. Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.
Do not go quietly into the night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Keep pumping those feet and maybe, just maybe, we’ll get across this empty space to the other side.
For those of you interested, I’ve got the web store up and operational. You can find it here or visit the store link at the top of the page. It is hosted on FB, since doing it here on wordpress would cost me more than I think I’ll make (please, prove me wrong and I’ll move it over here, I promise!)
There’s only three products for now: two shirts and a mug. I’ll put a few more things up over the next few days as I get some of the art in. See below for images of what you can find in the store (images are linked to the store).
Renegades: Origins Anubus shirt. Get yours today!Run’s mug is very important to him.Be sure you don’t drink anything he offers you.Rastar’s keen grasp of history is only exceeded by his way with words.
I’m not a comic book fan. In fact, the couple times I’ve tried to read comic books, I’ve come away frustrated and annoyed. Mostly because I read too fast and I don’t stop to appreciate the art.
That said, I did read up on what “Civil War” would involve, seeing as I love the Marvel movies. As the characters have grown through multiple movies, I find myself liking the series more and more. Captain America has become my favorite… because unlike the other characters, he doesn’t struggle with the power he has, he struggles to do as much good as he can. In fact, while I really liked and identified with Tony Stark back in Iron Man… well, I think he’s kind of turned into a self-absorbed a-hole of late.
Which sets him up brilliantly in this movie. What we have is a fight where everyone has grounded, established reasons for picking sides over the stated premise. In fact, it’s brilliantly established that the central characters have multiple reasons, some of them they may not even realize themselves, to oppose one another.
It gets better, though. The fantastic writing pays out in scene after scene. New characters are brought in perfectly, in a way that doesn’t break up the action or come across with inconsistency. One scene flows into the next and when you finally feel like you can’t take anymore, the action takes a break and gives you some time to recover.
There’s fantastic use of dramatic tension and symbolism. In just about every scene I would think to myself “wow, I see what you did there, good job.” This is storytelling at it’s finest. You’re here to see what would make Earth’s defenders throw down and they deliver… in a way that doesn’t leave you doubting why for an instant.
I don’t normally like movies where the good guys are at odds. In fact, it’s a storyline that I hate in books, movies, and TV. Having been at odds with friends before, I hate the feeling, the anger and at the same time that feeling that something in the world is wrong. Seeing it in movies often just makes me irritated. In Captain America Civil War, there’s none of that. Yes, I wish that our heroes would stop and talk things out, but their circumstances are such that they have no choice other than to be who they are. Besides, we came to see them punching each other.
Thematically, Civil War is about individual rights and freedoms against the collective. In my mind, they pulled it off brilliantly. There were no compromises, no pulled punches. These superheroes are responsible for saving or failing to save the lives of thousands, maybe millions (possibly all of Earth). Their fight right now comes back to the very reasons they are heroes. It’s simple enough to say “I’m the good guy, this is just what I do.” It’s a lot harder to make a movie like this, where the heroes are forced to confront their own moralities.
Would I have liked a different storyline? Probably… but I think the movies would be poorer for it. In Captain America: Civil War the writers and directors drew a line in the sand. They forced the characters to grow and us as an audience as well. If we want to watch big stupid men pummel each other and slaughter enemies without consequence, we should go watch some other movies (Looking at you DC). If we want to see genuine, real, people, who do what they do for complex reasons and who really struggle to improve the world and take responsibility for their actions, then this is the movie you should be watching.
If you’ve enjoyed any of the Marvel movies, go and see Civil War. You won’t regret it.
May is here! I’m excited for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that I’ve started work on The Sacred Stars, the next book of the Shadow Space Chronicles. This one takes a step back from the huge battles of The Shattered Empire and The Prodigal Emperor and has a smaller cast as well. If all goes well, I’ll have it done by the end of the month, which means out to my alpha readers in June and published in early July.
In other news, Fate of the Tyrant is almost ready. It wraps up the initial trilogy of the Eoriel Saga and paves the way for the rest of the series. I’ll do a final round of edits and then I just need to wait to hear back from my alpha and beta readers. Look for a blurb and snippets as well as the cover to appear over the next few weeks.
In other news, I’m finishing the final setup for a store here on the website as well as coordinating things with Sutek Press to start selling signed copies of my books there. I’ll post more when it’s all ready to go.
Next month I start work on an urban fantasy book I’ve had knocking around in my head for a while. It’s another book I’m going to send to publishers, so don’t expect to hear much about it right away.
Oh, yeah, and a little movie called Captain America: Civil War comes out this weekend. I’m going to see that. Maybe twice if it lives up to the hype. Expect a review on Monday.
So, as some of you have heard, the announcement of the Hugo Award Finalists (as opposed to nominees) has come out. And we’ve got an interesting variety there. Everything from some good, well written stuff to, well, Space Raptor Butt Invasion.
There’s been a variety of articles written about all this. At this point, the Hugo Awards went from quietly excluding people they didn’t like to an outright war between Puppy Haters, Sad Puppies, and Rabid Puppies. The awkward part being the “right wing” Sad puppies are really the moderates here, seeking to nominate books based upon merit alone. On the one end you’ve got the people who want the award to be a precious token passed between insiders and on the other you’ve got a host of angry people who are tired of politically correct, bland, crap being given awards because the authors check the right boxes within the exclusive club.
The really sad part is that the award that used to mean quite a bit became so relatively worthless that both sides are now willing to burn it to the ground to spite the other.
That, my friends, is what you get when you push things too far one side or the other. I’m afraid the same thing is happening now in US politics, where we have a clown show up for the presidential nomination. Not because any of these candidates will make things markedly better, but because at this point, both sides are so raveningly angry that they just want to punish “those other people.”
As of this time, I’m coining the term a “Hugo” for a clusterfuck of gratuitous proportions, made up of angry people who want to see things destroyed. I’ll be certain to use it in my books going forward, where appropriate. Sadly, that’ll be the only weight the award will carry going forward.
It has been said that preparation is the key to success. I’ve found that’s true for writing as well. Preparation, of course, can mean many different things. Some writers like to come up with extremely detailed outlines while others merely want to have some vague idea of the setting and go from there.
The most important part of preparation, then, comes back to what you need as an author. Do you need a full, detailed outline of every event and character arc? Do you just need some quiet time before you sit down to write? Do you need snacks in your writing area so that you can focus on writing without interruption? Do you need to make sure other stuff (chores, work, whatever) is done first, so you don’t have to take care of it later? You have to have a good level of introspection, to know what you need to get to the task at hand.
Trust me, the simple things are the ones that can interrupt the flow of words. Writing is a purely mental exercise and if you have distractions or concerns about outside events, they can make it difficult or even impossible to write. The same goes for your writing itself. If a scene or plot device isn’t working, it might become a source of irritation or distraction that can impact the rest of your writing. Take care of the things you need to do before you start writing.
That said, procrastination is also a factor of preparation. I’ve wasted entire weeks and months before “getting things ready” for writing. That could be outlining, world-building, or figuring out the mechanics of what I’m working on. I’ve also seen authors who set aside a day to write who then think of all the other things they “should” be doing and end up doing those things instead. Not because they have to be done right then, but because they’re afraid to try and fail at writing.
Writing is hard. Set yourself up for success. I find the preparation I need to work on different projects changes from story to story. Some stories practically write themselves, with little or no preparation. Others require a great deal of time spent focusing, outlining, and getting myself into the mindset. Get to know your writing style, what kind of preparation you need, and take care of it. Lastly, don’t use preparation as an excuse to procrastinate. Getting words on the page is the goal and even if they aren’t the perfect words, they’re another step along the road to success.
I’m looking for an artist or artists who would like to do artwork that would appear here on my website and also on merchandise. For those of you who have read the Shadow Space Chronicles or the Eoriel Saga, I’d like artwork done in both universes. This would be paying work, so if you think you’re up for it, I’d like to see what you can do.
Shoot me a message via either FB or the contact section here on my blog.
This will be a bit of an odd post. I’m here to talk about how to use philosophy in your writing. Now, I’m one of those odd types who values classical education (even if you had to do it yourself). Knowledge of philosophy and humanity’s efforts to come to grips with fundamental problems is something I think everyone should spend some time considering.
Because at its root, most of our interpersonal and societal problems come down to differences in overall philosophies. Understanding these, being able to work these differences into your writing can add depth that a reader may not overtly see, but they can feel in character motivations and in the cultures and societies you create.
At the lowest level, philosophy is about finding answers. Whether it is Plato’s Values or Kant’s Moral Imperative, most philosophers try to find answers to not just the big questions, but to find answers about how people should live their lives. They struggled to find what is “right” and some of them have left indelible marks upon our society centuries or even millennia later.
Now, this isn’t to say that you need to read and study philosophy to make use of it in your writing. Most societies you design, however, will have struggled with the same truths and the same questions. It is human nature to look for meaning, even where there is none.
Understanding the basic concepts, the ideas of individual versus community, of lesser and greater evils, and of fundamental truths, gives you some leverage to build a society that feels real. Writing a society where firstborn boys are sacrificed to their dark goddess will strike many people as horrific. Working into your writing that they do it to prevent the culmination of an ancient prophesy where a firstborn will bring about the end of the world establishes a conflict between the value of individual rights versus those of the general good (and also establishes why a firstborn who survives might well want to destroy that society). Oh, hey, and throw in a pair of twins where the eldest is mistakenly allowed to live, but that the ghost of his brother haunts him. There’s a great story hook for anyone who needs it.
In all, I very much recommend reading some of the classic philosophers as well as some of the more recent ones, particularly John Stuart Mill and John Locke. Not only will that add some ability to develop morality into your worlds, but it provides you with a look at how we, as humans, reason.
Synopsis for Out of the Cold:The Renegades are coming out of the cold.
They have escaped from an alien prison, stolen a ship, survived pirate attacks, and now they are finally returning to civilization.
Yet civilization brings all new threats. Old enemies await and new enemies abound. They’ll have to work together to survive, even as their own pasts and fortunes seek to tear them apart. Along the way, they’ll face an infamous assassin, slavers, bounty hunters, and get caught up in the biggest war that humanity has ever seen.
Because the Chxor are coming and if the Renegades won’t help stop them, who will?
Rating:
The author was kind enough to give me a copy of this book in exchange for a review. This does not in any way affect my review of this series.
Genres: science fiction
Kal Spriggs 