River, a poem

River

Razor wire in the Jordan,
no crossing to the  promised land;
can’t reach across the water,
can’t ever touch its sand.
Moon glistens on the metal,
on each sharp sentry strand;
razor wire in the Jordan,
no crossing to the promised land.

The river lies before us,
our dreams have brought us near;
they say we can’t go over,
they turn us back in fear.
No water in the deserts,
no water for us here;
the dreams have all run empty,
they’ve stolen every tear.

Razor wire in the Jordan,
no crossing to the promised land;
they call us criminals,
they keep the fires fanned.
We look across the river,
and try to understand;
razor wire in the Jordan,
no crossing to the promised land.

No wading in the water,
can’t reach the other side;
no rowing the boat ashore,
milk and honey are denied.
No baptism in this river,
flowing deep and wide;
as seekers we have come
but our prophets lied.

Razor wire in the Jordan,
no crossing to the promised land;
I can journey no further,
I can only stand,
knowing pain awaits
if I reach out my hand;
razor wire in the Jordan,
no crossing to the promised land.

Stephen Brooke ©2024

A poem or maybe a song. I don't usually write topical stuff but the phrase 'razor wire in the Jordan' was irresistible to me.

Busorama

Busorama was a typeface that had a period of popularity in the last century, perhaps most notably as a titling face on a number of speculative fiction novels. For better of worse, it remains evocative of that period; I would think at least thrice before using it today, even ironically.

Although the original commercial version remains available for purchase, there are various clones out there, including at least one of them open license. Here are a couple covers that used Busorama:

 

Vultures' Vacation

 

A rather old song about the vultures I used to see in Mayo Florida. A few out there would have heard me perform it in years gone by. When I lived in Steinhatchee, my father was, for a while, under care at the facility there and I would drive up frequently. The vultures congregating on the city water tower were hard to miss! I debuted this song at a coffeehouse down Tampa way, when I was still willing and able to do a lot of traveling.

Verb, a poem

Verb

Love is a verb.
To love. To have loved.
Object and subject revolve about it,
hoping to fix it in place,
but it moves, first here, then there,
for love is a verb.
To love today. To have loved yesterday.
Conjugate tomorrow for me.
To love again.

Stephen Brooke ©2024

A quick thought more than anything else. Some of it might survive the inevitable editing.

 

Miami Beach

 

In the first Wilk adventure I wrote, ‘The Dictator’s Children,’ I have Wilk spending part of the novel in southern Florida, in Naples and in Miami, though the home base of the narrative is Havana and there is a foray into the fictional Central American nation of El Plantio. All this takes place in 1948. The pictures here are postcards of Miami scenes from the period.

The two hotels are much like the fictional Hibiscus in which some of the action is set—a smaller hotel, three stories, in the Art Deco style, and on the beach. One could imagine the Hibiscus looking like either the Pelican or Somerset here. In pink. We never get much of a look at the outside; either the action is at night or indoors.

But it is nice to have some idea of the appearance. The third postcard is Lincoln Road, the swank shopping area. Wilk and Elena Guzman stroll up the street (in a bit of a lull before the storm) and purchase Beretta handguns in one of the stores. Those come in useful very soon after!

Incidentally, the Pelican is still there on Ocean Drive, though more closed in by its neighbors now.

Hard and Soft

We sometimes speak, in the fantasy genre, of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ magic systems. This refers to the rules of how magic works in our created world, whether they are clearly delineated or ‘anything goes.’ There is a very wide range between those two. Tolkien’s magic is fairly soft; it is simply magic and some can wield it. This is not unlike the magic of the myths from which he drew many of his ideas.

Tolkien does soft magic well. In other hands, it can become nonsense, following no logic, and providing easy solutions to any problem that comes along. On the other end of the spectrum, an author like Sanderson provides quite strict rules for the use of magic.

All this, for the most part, is how magic works, not why it does. Admittedly, if one gets into explaining the nuts and bolts of it, one veers toward soft science fiction. I plead guilty to this. I need to know why my magic works, and it needs to be grounded in science of a sort. No depending on nebulous ‘elemental’ magic or ‘the power of words’ or anything of that sort.

Of course, my characters don’t need to know what I know. Most sorcerers are operating on empirical knowledge. It’s like that bit by Arthur C. Clarke about advanced technology being magic to those who don’t understand it.

More than a few old school science fiction writers leaned heavily on telepathy to create ‘magic.’ Andre Norton used it a lot, whether working in SF or fantasy. Even Edgar Rice Burroughs threw it in from time to time. Unfortunately, that can be as mushy as any soft magic, if we do not have a clear idea of how telepathy works. It doesn’t work in my primary fantasy worlds, but...well, the books do explain mind reading and more, and it all fits into the concept of infinite worlds and the ability to enter into them.

Admittedly, I do not clearly state why some have that ability. But then, we needn’t explain why some have better hearing than others, need we? Or why some are smarter! We just say ‘genetics’ and that’s how I explain it—some are born able to see or even partially cross into other worlds. And that is the basis of all magic.

Or I should say all known magic, or magic that works in my worlds. If we posit infinite universes there would have to be all sorts of magic out there. That is only of academic interest as it would not impact any world where it didn’t work!

So perhaps the bulk of my fantasy is really soft science fiction? It could certainly be argued but I would not attempt to market it as such. It reads like genre fantasy so that’s what I call it. It’s all part of the speculative fiction spectrum anyway.

Real Places, Fictional Places

Many of my stories are set, in part or whole, in Florida. This is not necessarily the ‘real’ Florida nor do they all visit the same fictional version of the state. Scenes in the Wilk novel ‘The Dictator’s Children,’ for example, do take place in the real Naples Florida. I attempted to keep the narrative and description historically accurate—the tale is set in 1948—but was willing to bend or invent as needed for the story.

It may be noted that the Women in the Sun novels, written under the pen name Sienna Santerre, are set in that same Naples but the details vary to fit a different fictional timeline. There are definite parallels between the two; indeed, I originally thought to tie the two series together but chose to go with a completely different vision of Naples. The decision to use the pen name brought a final division between the two.

My Shaper novels are set in a fictional Cully Beach Florida, a place that draws from a number of Atlantic coast towns but especially from Flagler Beach. It is not Flagler, however! It is Cully Beach and exists in its own fictional space. These novels are set in the same Florida as my novel ‘The Middle of Nowhere’ and a number of my short stories.

The Ruby of ‘Middle’ is somewhat loosely based on Steinhatchee Florida. Again, it is not Steinhatchee, nor are the neighboring towns the same, though they have resemblances. I ‘flipped’ a few of the locations there. The town of Genoa, from which some of my characters hail in this version of Florida, is pretty much a disguised Naples. But I also visit real places around the state in the stories—including White Springs to attend the Florida Folk Festival in the Cully Beach novel ‘Smoke.’

‘Asanas,’ the first (but I hope, not only) Tamarind novel, is set in yet another, different Florida. The town of Tamarind is completely fictional, though nearby Leawood is, in part, based on Englewood. But there is also something of Fort Myers Beach to it, and certainly other places I know. As with Ruby, I flipped some of the geography. Most of the places around it are real Florida locations; I invented nothing beyond the Tamarind area itself, aside from Karen’s ‘farm’ on an invented lake somewhere north of Sebring. There are a whole lot of lakes there! I will admit that Consonante Springs and its spa/hotel is loosely based on Bonita Springs, which is located quite a bit further south. And the Hot Dog Stand derives from a beach-side restaurant in faraway Keaton Beach.

I’ve done somewhat the same sorts of things in my novel set in southern Ohio, ‘These Remembered Hills.’ I’ve moved things about just a tad in the Hocking Hills region where the tale is set—not any towns or such, but the valley where the Fry farm is located. That is based on a very real place.

I am entirely likely to draw from a hodgepodge of remembered places and events when writing my stories, mixing them up and altering them to best fit. There is no need to stick strictly to the facts in a work of fiction, as long as the result is believable and consistent. Then the world we create is just as ‘real’ as that of our everyday lives.

Yet, if we name a real place and get some detail wrong, there will be those to pick at it. This is a pretty good argument in favor of changing the names. I’ve no doubt someone will see something in my versions of Naples that they think is not quite correct. I myself have found things in stories set there. Like getting the dry and rainy seasons reversed! If it doesn’t hurt the story, it’s no big deal, but major blunders can impact our willingness to believe.

Ultimately, any setting is fictional, no matter how closely it is modeled on reality. It comes from the author’s mind and it is for the author to make it seem real. Tamarind and Cully Beach must be places the reader can believe exist, places where they can live for a few hours. The same is true of ‘my’ Naples.

But the goal is not to make the reader see those places as I see them. It is to let them see as the characters see. That is the final step to making it real.

My Mojo

 This is a song (yes, with music) I wrote quite a long time ago but never got to recording. A sixteen bar blues, more or less, and decidedly not serious (as much of my stuff). I do intend to get scratch recordings accomplished of all those songs sitting in my files. My attention has been too focused on writing fiction recently and what music career I had fell by one wayside or another. Here's My Mojo's Missin':

My Free Books

A while back I decided I’d rather give my ebooks away than give Bezos a cut. Therefor, they are free to download at the Arachis Press site (arachispress.com). The print versions do remain available for purchase. At this point, relatively late in my life, I’m not at all concerned about making money from the books.

Indeed, I am considering applying a Creative Commons license to the writing, allowing the public to have ownership. I do intend to do this with any and all music and songs I’ve created. There are no direct heirs I need be concerned about, though I am tempted to name a niece or nephew as my literary executor. Let them decide what to do with the stuff!

One thing is certain, none of my music will be registered with a performing rights organization. I have been a BMI member for a long time but never listed but one song with them. I’d remove it if I was willing to take the time to figure out how.

I create, and that is fine of itself but it is better to share what one has created. This I shall do, with no strings attached, with no payment involved. I can hope some will enjoy the work, that it might even prove meaningful. If they do, I also hope they will share it with others, and perhaps spread the word. Reviews are always nice. The books were written to be read.

Stephen Brooke 2024

Novel-whatzit

I have never written a novelette. ‘So what?’ some might ask, or even, ‘What the heck is a novelette?’

A novelette is, in essence, a long short story. Any attempt to give an exact measurement of its length will be arbitrary but typically the form is considered to be over 7,500 words up to somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000. If one goes higher, it is likely to be a novella—that is, a short novel.

At this point, the longest short story I’ve ever written stands at 5,100 words. It is always possible I’ll turn out something longer one of these days. There isn’t as much of a market for the novelette as there is for work both longer and shorter, but it was a popular form at one time. Some of the great golden age speculative fiction came as novelettes, some of the best known stories of Howard and Lovecraft.

And the novelette has had its mainstream popularity. Some of Alice Monroe’s stories fit the category. Oh, there are undoubtedly loads I could list if I felt like researching!

Why do I define the novelette as a sort of short story? Because it typically has the same sort of focus on a single plot line. It comes from the same mindset; I much suspect that most who sat down and wrote a novelette were thinking ‘short story’ when they started. It grew to whatever length was needed to tell the story.

I will mention that one of my personal favorites is ‘The Man Who Would Be King’ by Rudyard Kipling, weighing in at a bit over 14,000 words—near the top limit. In honesty, it sometimes feels more like a novella, but the narrative is kept just sufficiently focused to justify the novelette name. It really is the sort of story that could have been inflated into a novel, had Kipling been so inclined. I am glad he wasn’t; I do not think it would have the same impact.

You, of course, are free to call it what you wish. So, you ask me now, ‘What is a novella?’ It is simply a short novel. How short is, again, arbitrary. It starts where the novelette lets off, down around 15 to 20,000 words and goes up to, traditionally, 35,000 or 40,000 words. I prefer the lower number, but some now set it higher, at 50,000.

Not so long ago 50,000 was regarded as a perfectly good length for a novel. And there is more than one bloated contemporary novel that might benefit from being cut back to something like that size.

Enough of my curmudgeonly opinions. I have written novellas (and I am not counting those novels that run between 40 and 50,000 words). The first section of my Donzalo’s Destiny is a self-standing novella of some 21,400 words. I added ten more sections to finish the epic, some more self-contained than others but each with its own unique arc.

A true stand alone novella is not something for which I have any plans. But then, plans do change and new ideas do come along.

I could name a bunch of famous novellas here. A few, anyway, such as ‘The Old Man and the Sea,’ ‘A Christmas Carol,’ or ‘Of Mice and Men.’ All fitted to the story that needed to be told and none the worse for being shorter than what some would consider a proper length for a novel.

Indeed, maybe the better for it.

Although I have a handful of published short stories, my focus tends to be on longer form fiction. My short stories, admittedly, have had a tendency to morph into chapters in novels. But I continue to dabble at them and could even turn out one of those in-between novelette/novella works one of these days. As always, the material will dictate the final form.