Wow.

Even though the team I was rooting for failed to win the game, it was without a doubt one of the more intense games I have watched years. I have to admit, with the Chiefs latest run of futility, I haven't been big into the post-season as I was earlier in my life, but hey, I used to be a huge St. Louis Cardinal fan also before they ducked out on us and slithered off to Phoenix. Still, I had to root for them tonight for nostalgia's sake at least (plus, the Pittsburgh fans around here are obnoxious enough as is).

I did get some writing in this afternoon, which is good, since it's been very hit or miss lately. Still, I now have a hard deadline for my Stargate SG-1 novel, so it's time to get back to work. It's going to be a sprint more than a leisurely plod, but we have all the contract stuff straightened out (inshallah) and I am going to make sure I hit this deadline. I'll post some word counts tomorrow.

Work is being work. Trying to decipher developer's notes so I can turn them into standards documents is not my first choice of "fun stuff", but hey, that's why they pay me the (semi-)big bucks. I just hope all the writing at work doesn't burn me out and keep me from writing on the Stargate stuff in the evening.

And speaking of other worlds, I read jimhines's book The Stepsister Scheme. If you haven't already you haven't already picked this up, I highly recommend that you do. I picked it up at the local bookstore and thought I'd just read a few chapters yesterday to get a feel for the book. A few hours later, I found myself finishing the book. It takes a lot of what you think you know about fairy tales and turns them on their head. I definitely am looking forward to the sequel. Good job, Jim!

And speaking of fractured fairy tales, I also recommend the web comic, No Rest for the Wicked. Another look at the realm of fairy tales and a surprisingly quick read considering the number of strips he has out. I've been scanning around and adding a few new web comics to my list of things to read, so if you have any favorites, feel free to make a few recommendations here.

And with that, I think it's time I go to bed.

Unreality SF has posted a review on the newly released Doctor Who: Short Trips The Quality of Leadership.

They had this to say about "The Price of Conviction":
"Richard C. White is up next, with The Price of Conviction, a tale set in Germany. The story's requisite "leader", Martin Luther, doesn't make as much of an impact as a character as I'd perhaps expected, but White makes up for it with a suitably-grouchy First Doctor and a energetic and intelligent Susan, both of whom leap vividly off the page."

It was a lot of fun working on this thing and I can't wait until Shore Leave to get as many of the other authors to sign a copy for me as I can. This is one I'm gonna be proud to show off for some time to come. *grin*

Peter Quentin has posted a review of The Sky's the Limit on Dreamwatch , calling it "an interesting mix of stories".

Of particular interest to me was:

"On the whole, the ones that work best are the standalone tales, featuring the crew doing what they do best. Some unusual combinations, such as Barclay and Ro or Crusher and Tasha Yar, particularly stand out, and there’s a nice concentration on sometimes overlooked characters like Pulaski and Geordi."

As the author of the Pulaski story, I'm glad people seem to enjoy it.

I noted on kradical's blog that Sci-Fi Online has posted their review of The Sky's the Limit, giving it an 8 out of 10 rating.


Their specific quotes about Redshift pleased me:

Redshift by Richard C. White is a Pulaski story. Although it hung on a structure of the Enterprise being attacked, this is another character piece and will please fans of the Data/Pulaski problem. The story also has the added benefit of humanising the good doctor; I often felt that in the show she was portrayed as a one dimensional character, so it's nice to have some insight into what was going on in her head.

*insert goofy grin here*


Almost makes up for that abysmal football game today. Thank God I didn't pay to watch it or I might be writing this from the local hoosegow.

I'm working on my research paper for Ethics in Literature and we're studying In Cold Blood for our final project. I know, using the name Truman Capote and Ethics in the same sentence is just asking for lightning to strike me any second. Still, I'm torn. I really like the novel. I think it's well-written, I think Capote did a pretty good job keeping himself out of it, (although his friendship (or more) with Perry Smith is way too obvious), and I think he did a great job of making the characters believable.

However, it's just not a "Non-fiction novel".

It's a good novelization of a historical fact. Not a damn thing wrong with that. I also don't object to his creative recreation of conversations and events that he couldn't possibly have been at. Cornelius Ryan did that in "The Longest Day" and no one pillories him over that.

It's just that Truman fudged the facts when he had them available because it made for a better story and THEN bragged to George Plimpton and anyone else who'd listen to him that his novel was "immaculately factual".

Dear Truman . . . in a pig's eye.

Maybe it's the historian in me, but to have 8000 pages of notes (that he refused to ever show anyone since "the novel stands on its own"), and to still make blatant mistakes or even faking facts to make certain points just rubs me the wrong way. Paying Donald Cullivan to stand in for Capote in the jail scenes with Perry Smith is so unethical it's painful. It was wrong to try and pay Herbert Nye to not say anything about the book when Nye complained about how he and other Kansas Bureau of Investigation members were given short shrift by Capote. Now, there's nothing wrong with the fact that Capote and Albert Dewey became friends during the investigation. Dewey, according to everything I've researched was a good cop in his own right, but some of the stories attributed to him by Capote were actually other men on his staff.

And this just starts to scrape the surface of the errors, inaccuracies or blatant mistellings of the facts in the book.

As I said, it's a great novel, but its just barely more accurate than your average Wikipedia entry. There's a lot of story that Capote left out and let's just say, some people weren't quite as sympathetic as Capote made them out to be. It's probably a good thing people were a lot less litigious back in 1965 than they are today or Capote might have been passing out a lot of that $2,000,000 he made on the book to a bunch of people in Holcomb, Kansas.

*sigh*

Jacqueline Bundy posted a very nice review of Echoes of Coventry on the TrekNation BBS.

You don't know how badly I've been sweating, waiting for some feedback on this story.