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All Hail Her Royal Spyness

Filed under: Reviews — Leave a comment
February 24, 2015

cover_spyness_200In Her Royal Spyness, by Rhys Bowen, we meet one Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie Rannoch, daughter of the Duke of Glen Garry and Rannoch, cousin to George V, King of the United Kingdom and Emperor of India. Lady Georgiana has a few problems beyond a name and lineage too large for ordinary use. For example, she has . . .

  • . . . a rather nasty sister-in-law.
  • . . . a rather scandalous mother.
  • . . . a family that’s trying to set her up with fish-faced European princes.
  • . . . a responsibility to not get in the scandal pages.
  • . . . an interest in a somewhat inappropriate Irish nobleman.
  • . . . set of skills that includes French, walking while balancing a book on her head, how to seat a bishop at dinner, and absolutely no practical talents.
  • . . . absolutely no money.

That’s right. Lady Georgiana (you can call her Georgie) is flat broke. She might be 34th in line for the throne, but that and a shilling will get you a cup of tea. And sadly, even if she weren’t in the middle of the Great Depression, getting a job is simply out of the question. A royal working as a shop clerk? Imagine the scandal when the society papers found out! View full article »

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Something Good at the Oscars

Filed under: News and Updates, Personal — 1 Comment
February 23, 2015

Note: If you’re not interested in a breakdown of why I don’t think the Oscars matter, scroll down to the end. You’ll know what I mean. I admit, it’s more like two stories in the same blog post, but there’s a reason I’m stringing them together.

I don’t watch the Oscars.

I really don’t care much about them at all. Usually anything that wins is something I’m not interested in anyway.

I remain convinced that this is the only reason that The Lord of the Rings won.

I remain convinced that this is the only reason that The Return of the King won.

The Academy is voted on by a relatively-secret elite, usually solidly upper-class, and who typically live in a Hollywood-shaped bubble that has a rather warped image of what the rest of the world is like. Becoming a member is basically about being popular among the membership committee, rather than having any knowledge about what movies are like as an art form. (Though I should point out that Mother Delores Hart, the semi-famous actress who kissed Elvis and then became a Catholic nun, scrupulously watches every film to cast an educated vote.)

That leads to an odd collection of what they consider worthy of a prize. Since the membership is so insular, it seems to me a good recipe for voting for a movie because you know someone who was involved with that movie; or because you don’t want to face someone at the metaphorical watercooler after voting for something that was merely a good film rather than the right film. View full article »

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New Lego SHIELD Helicarrier

Filed under: Just For Fun, News and Updates — Leave a comment
February 17, 2015

This blog is usually about writing and stories, but it’s also about geek stuff too. Being a bit of a Lego fan, I like it when I find an excuse to bring out that particular part of my geek life.

Well, here’s a great excuse: this gigantic new Lego set modeled after the SHIELD Helicarrier from the MCU.

legoheli

View full article »

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An Old Fashioned Review

Filed under: Guest Posts, Reviews, Writing Tips — 4 Comments

Editor’s Note: One of my authors, Lori Janeski, had a lot to say about the film Old Fashioned, which premiered last week alongside 50 Shades of Grey. I invited her to turn our conversation into a guest review here on Novel Ninja, giving her analysis of why Old Fashioned failed not only as a romantic alternative to 50 Shades, but also why it just plain failed as a means of promoting “old fashioned romance.”

~ Matthew Bowman, Supreme Editor Monkey at Novel Ninja.

I’m not into rom-coms, I’ll admit that at the outset. If you were to ask me to choose between, say, It Happened One Night (Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert) and Twelve O’clock High (Gregory Peck and Hugh Marlowe), I’d pick the war movie, any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

So the fact that I voluntarily went to see Old Fashioned on Valentine’s Day by myself should tell you something. In fact, the main reason I bothered was to try to make sure that Fifty Shades of Smut didn’t make as much money at the box office on their opening weekend.

Knowing that, any review of mine must be taken with a significant grain of salt, because I am not a big fan of the genre in general (with a few exceptions, like Pride and Prejudice). With that in mind, this is what I thought. View full article »

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A Brief Look at Short Fiction

Filed under: Industry, Publishing, Writing Tips — Leave a comment
February 16, 2015

Short fiction — anything less than 40,000 words, at which point it’s officially a novel — is often overlooked. After all, even the definition of the novel seems small today, since a 40,000-word novel is, at maximum, 200 pages long. (And that’s if you use really long words.) When’s the last time you read a modern adult novel that was 200 pages or less?

Let’s take a look at some of the myths of short fiction, and why you should ignore them. View full article »

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A Valentine’s Day Message

Filed under: Just For Fun, Personal — 1 Comment
February 14, 2015

I wasn’t planning on posting something for Singles’ Awareness Day, but that was before this happened.

So there I was, innocently browsing Facebook, when what do I see before me but a book challenge, one of those memes that tells you to pick up the nearest book and find a certain line. “These are always fun!” I thought.

This one was simple. Turn to page 45 and find the first sentence. That sentence would explain my love life.

I looked around for the nearest book, and realized it was the old D&D manual I use for a mousepad.

Uh-oh . . .

“Your blade tints red as it draws your enemy’s blood to strengthen you.”

*gulp*

I think I need a new mousepad.

. . . Happy St. Valentine’s Day, everyone!

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Update on Tuscany Press

Filed under: Industry, News and Updates, Publishing — 2 Comments
February 13, 2015

A few things have happened since I posted my opinion on an essay published by Tuscany Press.

Tuscany has now added a hasty disclaimer to the end of Nico Gnoci’s essay, but you have to scroll all the way to the end to see it and they haven’t bothered to clean up the formatting mistakes. The editor-in-chief also told me in an email that it is opinion, and should not be confused with the stance of Tuscany Press.

They’ve also added a new essay giving a direct rebuttal. It’s by Declan Finn, and it’s a cleaned-up version of what he already posted. I recommend reading the original for full effect, though I admit the newer version’s title (“Set Catholic Sci-Fi Argument for Stun! – Captain Kirk Responds”) is 110% better than Declan’s original.  View full article »

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What’s in a Name?

Filed under: Writing Tips — Leave a comment

download (2)In Shakespeare’s most famous play (though not its most-quoted — that honor actually goes to Hamlet), Juliet takes a moment to philosophize on the subject of names.

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.
[…]
‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes

While a pretty bit of dialog and rather romantic in context, Juliet’s words are a poor example for authors to follow. Characters which change their names halfway through the story tend to be a bit confusing!

Names have been a recent subject of conversation, both in a discussion group I belong to as well as in a private conversation with a publisher as he reviewed a book I’d suggested as a possibility for publication. I thought I’d fire off a quick blog post on the topic.  View full article »

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Why I’m No Longer Recommending Tuscany Press to Authors

Filed under: Commentary, Industry, Publishing, Science Fiction — 17 Comments
February 12, 2015

EDIT: Since posting this yesterday, several people have privately told me of more issues with Tuscany Press. Some of it has been anecdotal, but others have been verifiable; and it all adds up to an unpleasant picture. The editor-in-chief at Tuscany has told me that the essay I fisked in the following post is opinion and should not be construed as Tuscany’s stance, but he did not address the issue that it was approved by Tuscany despite being obviously wrong. I may do an update on this issue soon.

ANOTHER EDIT: I’ve posted an update on this situation here.

Tuscany Press has been my go-to publishing house to recommend to fellow Catholic authors. I’m associated with Chesterton Press, a smaller indie Catholic Press (my Novel Ninja business is separate and not exclusive to Catholic fiction), but Tuscany is a larger operation and can handle more submissions at a time. However, I’m no longer recommending them, due to a recent post on their subsidiary, CatholicFiction.Net, on why science fiction is evil.  View full article »

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Escapism and the Need for Structure

Filed under: Editing, Writing Tips — 1 Comment
February 11, 2015

Some years back, I implemented a new system for submissions. I never look at unsolicited manuscripts anymore; I simply get too many, even though no one (okay, few people) would confuse me for a publisher. I had to put in some form of winnowing process. Many freelancers and small presses require a nominal fee, since even a simple five-dollar payment encourages people to make certain their manuscript is in good order before “wasting” their money.

I wanted a different process, one where no one had to send me money if I wasn’t going to definitely give them value in return. I also wanted to encourage writers to clean up certain common mistakes that I kept seeing over and over. (And over, and over . . .) They all had to do with structure.  View full article »

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