Saturday, February 28, 2015

THE WEEK IN REVIEW: FEBRUARY 22-28, 2015

TODAY IS KALEVALA DAY IN FINLAND.
MARCH 1st IS THE 65th ANNIVERSARY OF CRUSADER RABBIT.
THE FILM ADAPTION OF THE SOUND OF MUSIC CELEBRATES
IT'S 50th ANNIVERSARY MARCH 2nd.
FLORIDA'S 170th ANNIVERSARY OF JOINING
THE UNITED STATES IS MARCH 3rd.

AMONGST EVENTS AROUND THE WORLD THIS PAST WEEK...
*Everyone trapped within the Harmony Gold Kusasalethu mine of South Africa has been successfully rescued!
*While not yet officially law, Britain's House of Lords has passed the "3 person" method of in vitro fertilization if medically necessary.

CONCERNING NORTH KOREA...
*North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered his military forces to prepare for war, but he hasn't said when or against who yet; although South Korea will be holding joint military exercises with the United States soon.
*Meanwhile, the United Nations reports that a North Korean shipping company has been disguising (renaming and reflagging) its vessels in an attempt to avoid an arms embargo.

BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE UKRAINE...
*Boris Nemtsov, a former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia and a known critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was assassinated in Moscow February 27th.
*Pro-Russian separatists have finally started honoring the current cease fire and are removing heavy weapons from the front lines. No word on whether or not those weapons have actually left the Ukraine, but their military says they cannot remove Ukrainian heavy weapons since they are still under attack.
*Russian President Vladimir Putin claims war with the Ukraine is "unlikely", but refuses to participate in any further cease fire or peace talks.
*Britain plans to send advisers to consult with the Ukrainian army.

TERRIBLE TERRORIST ACTIVITIES...
*Avijit Roy, an activist for peace and free speech, was publicly attacked and
hacked to death by several sword wielding men February 26th.
*ISIS/ISIL forces destroyed the contents of a public library in Mosul, Iraq while forcing everyone nearby to witness their actions at gunpoint. The terrorists later repeated such actions at the Mosul Museum, although how much was lost has yet to be determined.
*ISIS/ISIL forces are also claiming responsibility for bombing the Iranian ambassador's home in Tripoli and a rocket attack on Al Abraq International Airport.
*al-Shabab terrorists claim they will soon be attacking shopping malls in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
*After escaping from the Houthis, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi says he is still President of Yemen.
*An ISIS/ISIL terrorist using the alias "Jihadi John" has been identified as Mohammed Emwazi, with fresh warrants issued for his arrest.

PASSING PARADE...
*Leonard Nimoy (actor, director, writer, photographer, etc) has taken his final bow on life's stage.
*Boris Nemtsov and Avijit Roy, as mentioned above.

WITHIN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA...
POLITICALLY...
*US President Barack Obama officially vetoed the TransCanada Keystone XL Pipeline for economic (lack of it creating permanent jobs) and ecological reasons, despite it being passed by the Republican dominated Congress.
*For whatever reason(s), Speaker of the House John Boehner totally stopped proceedings on Wednesday to remind everyone present of the Congressional dress code.
*Although Congress has threatened another government shutdown unless President Obama agrees with their views on Immigration and other issues, they have passed an emergency funding bill that will keep the Department of Homeland Security and others operating for an additional week.
*The Federal Communications Commission has declared the Internet a public utility, thus establishing net neutrality.
*Republican Robert A. McDonald, the current Secretary of Veteran Affairs, has admitted he lied about serving in the Army Special Forces.
*Recreational marijuana is now legal in Washington, DC.
ELSEWHERE...
*South Korea and the United States are preparing for a joint military exercise, while North Korea's military has been ordered "to prepare for war".
*Eddie Ray Routh has been found guilty and sentenced to life without parole in the 2013 death of former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, who the book and movie American Sniper are based on.
*Amongst the winners at the 87th annual Academy Awards are Birdman (Best Picture, Best Directing, Best Original Screenplay), Julianne Moore for Best Actress (Still Alice), Eddie Redmayne for Best Actor (The Theory of Everything), J. K. Simmons for Best Supporting Actor (Whiplash) and Patricia Arquette for Best Supporting Actress (Boyhood).
*Saving Christmas was the big "winner" of the 35th annual Razzie Awards for Worst Movie, Worst Actor (Kirk Cameron), Worst Screen Combo (Cameron and his ego), and Worst Screenplay.
*Joey Logano won the Daytona 500 of NASCAR.
*James Hahn won the 2015 Northern Trust Open of professional golf.
*Spring training is well underway in preparation for the 2015 Major League Baseball season.
*March 4th marks the 65th anniversary of The Scarlet Pumpernickel, the very first Looney Tunes short to use just about the entire cast of characters.

For more news at any time, either scroll down to our IN OTHER NEWS feature at the bottom of your screen, or visit any other reputable news source.

THE PUZZLE CORNER: FEBRUARY 28, 2015

FUN FACT
Because of its slower rotational rate and closer position to the sun, a day on Venus lasts longer than an actual year on Venus!

I'm afraid we start today's Puzzle Corner on a sad note, but I can't help wondering how many people will be able to answer the question correctly.

TRIVIA TIME: REMEMBERING LEONARD NIMOY (1931-2015)
While everyone knows his most iconic role, what was his next part when that series ended its original run?

BEFORE AND AFTER
Two separate phrases have at least one word in common, and can be combined to make something new. Based upon the clue below, do you know what it is?

Cheap School Entertainment

We'll reveal all next weekend.
But for now, let's open the envelope and discover the results in our combined Oscars/Razzies quiz from February 21, 2015's Puzzle Corner.

01. The Razzies are known by what more formal name? The Golden Raspberry Awards.
02. What film won the very first Best Motion Picture Oscar? Wings in 1928.
03. What movie "won" the very first Worst Motion Picture Razzie? Can't Stop the Music in 1980.
04. What movie won the Best Motion Picture Oscar last year?
12 Years a Slave from 2013. Remember, that both awards shows present based on the previous year's films.
05. What were the first new Razzie categories to be added to the original program?
"Worst New Star" and "Worst Musical Score", both have since been retired.
06. What Oscar is technically still available, but hasn't been awarded since 1984?
Best Original Musical, with 1984's winner being Purple Rain.
07. What Razzies were added to the program in 1994?
"Worst Screen Combo" and "Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip off, or Sequel".
08. While the Razzies unfortunately don't get much TV coverage, what year was the first Oscar telecast?
1960, although future airings were sporadic until the 1970s.
09. Who has "won" the most Razzies, to date?
Sylvester Stallone, with 10 "wins" out of 32 nominations.
10. What movie has received the most Oscar nominations, to date?
It's a tie between Titanic (1997) and All About Eve (1950) at 14 each.

Sunday, February 22, 2015

SUNDAY FUNNIES: THIS AND THAT (random jokes)

Hello folks! Autumn the Puppy here.
Yes, the weather is still abominable here in my neck of the woods. LOTS of snow and bitterly cold temperatures, with more of the same expected to at least finish out February, if not taking us into the beginning of March 2015 as well.

But you folks came here to be entertained for a few minutes, so let's see what I can dig up.



Why did the flamingo stand on just one leg?
If he had tried standing on no legs, he would have fallen down.

A boy walks into a pet shop and asks, "Can you please sell me a shark?"
The pet shop owner looks at the boy and asked, "Why do you want to buy a shark?"
The boy's answer was, "My cat's been trying to get into the fish tank and I want to teach it a lesson."

What do you get when you cross a pig and a parakeet?
A bird that hogs the conversation.

What letters are NOT in the alphabet?
The ones in your mailbox.

What did zero say to eight?
Nice belt.     0   8

For those in the audience who have a photographic memory, what kind of film do you use?

Would a ticklish subject be the study of feathers?

What's the difference between
here and there?
The letter T.
What has 8 legs, 3 heads, 2 arms, and 2 wings?
A man, riding a horse, carrying a chicken.

Have a great week everybody. Stay safe, and please be back here next weekend for more Sunday Funnies!—AtP.

Saturday, February 21, 2015

THE WEEK IN REVIEW: FEBRUARY 15-21, 2015

AMONGST EVENTS AROUND THE WORLD THIS PAST WEEK...
*Hyundai and Kia are about to initiate a vehicle recall in South Korea.
*North Korea has expressed its dislike of a recent conference in Washington, DC on human rights abuses, and "will respond very strongly, accordingly."
*Research by the University of Leuven indicates that a previously unknown variation of the HIV virus might exist in Cuba.
*Greece and the Eurozone have reached an agreement on bailout terms for the economically challenged country.
*Prokopis Pavlopoulous has been elected President of Greece.
*Timothy Harris is the new Prime Minister of Saint Kitts and Nevis.
*Houthis are discussing an agreement to form a new government in Yemen.
*With the Ebola Virus apparently on the decline in that area, Liberia has reopened its borders.
*Israel suffered the worst snowstorm they have experienced in over a century this past week.
*Australia has been experiencing an unusually high number of cyclones this season.
*Scientists now theorize that some of the universe's supply of lithium may have been produced by novas.

BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE UKRAINE...
*The Ukraine says that not only have the pro-Russian separatists broken the latest cease fire treaty, but that Russia has now (allegedly) sent more troops and tanks into the Donetsk/Donbass area to support them!
*Fighting has broken out in Debaltseve, a previously unaffected Ukraine area.
*While no evidence has yet to be submitted to prove the tank allegation, the United States and the United Kingdom are considering new sanctions against Russia for breaching the ceasefire agreement.

TERRIBLE TERRORIST ACTIVITIES...
*ISIS/ISIL has released more shocking videos of people they kidnapped being beheaded. Egypt has retaliated over the deaths of 21 Coptic Christians.
*Violence has been breaking out in Copenhagen, including an attack on a Free Speech rally and an assault on a synagogue.
*Nigeria has rescued the towns of Monguno and Baga from Boko Haram terrorists!
*In retaliation, a Boko Haram plane bombed a funeral in Niger, killing 30 civilians.

PASSING PARADE...
*Singer Lesley Gore ("It's My Party", "You Don't Own Me") is no longer with us.
*Comic book artist Brett Ewins (Judge Dredd) has passed away.
*Actor Louis Jourdan (Gigi, James Bond in Octopussy) has taken his last bow on life's stage.
*Poet Philip Levine has left us.

WITHIN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA...
POLITICALLY...
*With the budget deadlines looming, the Republican controlled Congress is threatening another government shutdown, including things that were not affected during the first one, like the Department of Homeland Security!
*A Federal District Judge in Brownsville, Texas has issued a temporary stay on President Barack Obama's executive orders concerning immigration reform, giving Texas and other states a change to formally file a lawsuit against the program. The Department of Justice has already said it will appeal the stay and oppose the law suit.
*Senator Rand Paul's claim of having earned a biology degree is being questioned by the Daily Kos.
*The Arizona State Legislature is debating whether or not to limit television coverage of their sessions to just the actual voting on bills.
ELSEWHERE...

*In the aftermath of the Brian Williams scandal, Bill O'Reilly's Middle East war stories are now being called into question.
*Severe winter weather continues to plague the Upper Atlantic Seaboard of the United States.
*Apple is making an over $800 MILLION US Dollar investment in solar power for their facilities.
*The United Steelworkers Union has gone on strike against the Motiva Steel refinery.
*The 35th annual Razzie Awards for the worst in movies will be presented tonight, while the 87th annual Oscars for the best in motion pictures will be presented Sunday night.

For more news at any time, either scroll down to our IN OTHER NEWS feature at the bottom of your screen or visit any other reputable news source.

THE PUZZLE CORNER: FEBRUARY 21, 2015

FUN FACT
Silent movies have not been honored in an Oscar ceremony since the very first awards presentation, when an Oscar for Best Title Writing was available.

Pull up a chair. Break out the popcorn and your other favorite movie snacks.
Tonight the 35th annual Razzie Awards will be presented for the worst in movies, while tomorrow night the 87th annual Oscars will be presented for the best in motion pictures.
Obviously, we have a quiz celebrating both, so read the questions carefully before answering. Ready?

01. The Razzies are known by what more formal name?
02. What film won the very first Best Motion Picture Oscar?
03. What movie "won" the very first Worst Motion Picture Razzie?
04. What movie won the Best Motion Picture Oscar last year?
05. What were the first new Razzie categories to be added to the original program?
06. What Oscar is technically still available, but hasn't been awarded since 1984?
07. What Razzies were added to the program in 1994?
08. While unfortunately the Razzies don't get much TV coverage, what year was the first Oscar telecast?
09. Who has "won" the most Razzies (to date)?
10. What movie has received the most Oscar nominations (to date)?

We'll reveal all next weekend. But for now, let's open up THE ANSWERS BOX and discover the results of the February 14th, 2015 Puzzle Corner.

THE LETTER SHUFFLE
To celebrate February 14th, how many new words can you make out of VALENTINE?

A, alien, alive, an, ant, at, ate
Eat, eave, even, evil
I, in, inn, inane, it
Lane, late, Latin, lean, leave, lei, lenient, lent, lie, line, lint, live
Neat, nine, nit
Tan, tea, ten, teen, tile, tin, tine
Veil, vein, vent, vial, vile

More than the 43 listed above might be possible.

PRESIDENTIAL FAMOUS FIRST QUIZ
February 16th was Presidents Day here in the United States.
Did you know who was the first President...

01. To physically live in the White House?
This is a trick question. Technically, John Adams and his family might be the first, since they were there during construction, but officially Thomas Jefferson was the first to occupy the structure during his entire administration.
02. To work in the Oval Office? (The West Wing, where it resides, was a later addition to the structure.) William Howard Taft
03. To marry while in office? Grover Cleveland. He was single when elected.
04. To remarry while in office? John Tyler, for his first wife died during his administration.
05. To see their child actually born in the White House? We're back to Grover Cleveland, who welcomed his daughter Esther into the world during his second term.

Thursday, February 19, 2015

HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR!

For those observing the lunar calendar and the Chinese zodiac, today is your day!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2015 is the year of the (depending upon your perspective on the subject because of an uncertainty in the translations) goat, sheep, or ram.

Either way, people of this sign are said to value love and peace highly.

Monday, February 16, 2015

ANOTHER CHAT WITH AUTHOR I. A. WATSON

Once again, The Free Choice E-zine has the opportunity to chat with author Ian Watson, who writes under the name I.A. Watson, so as not to be confused with another wordsmith of the same name.

TFCE: So Ian, what have you been up to since our last conversation, concerning your then recent release of ROBIN HOOD: FREEDOM'S CHAMPION?
Author I. A. (Ian) Watson
I.A.W.: I failed in last year’s publishing objective to average a title a month. I managed to get ten things into print, but the sheer time lag of writing to publication thwarted my goal.

Last time, we’d covered up to
my World War II adventure/superhero romp SIR MUMPHREY WILTON AND THE LOST CITY OF MYSTERY, which was number seven or eight. Publication-wise since then, in chronological order, there has been:
“Sinbad and the Rakshasa’s Game” in SINBAD THE NEW VOYAGES volume 4, pitting the swashbuckling sailor against a dazzling damsel in a captive chess match where the loser dies. And...

THE TRANSDIMENSIONAL TRAVEL COMPANY, a contemporary SF weird science adventure novel featuring the staff of the go-to company for getting your packages shifted to other realities or parallel universes.

First out this year is SHERLOCK HOLMES MYSTERIES, a massive Kindle only collection of seven stories I wrote for the first six volumes of Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective, plus an additional unpublished tale, “The Adventure of the Failing Light”, pitting our investigators against the real-life mystery disappearance of three keepers from a lonely Outer Hebrides lighthouse in winter 1900. That’s about 130,000 words all together.
And by the time this interview is allowed out for the appalled public (he says with tongue very firmly in cheek), there will also be SHERLOCK HOLMES CONSULTING DETECTIVE volume 7, which includes my story “Spring-Heeled Jack”, pitting Holmes and Watson early in their career against that notorious Victorian bugaboo–all Canon friendly, of course.

All of this stuff is listed, along with free stories and samples and various other bits and pieces, at my author website at http://www.chillwater.org.uk/writing/iawatsonhome.htm

TFCE: Airship 27 Captain Ron Fortier says you've submitted Sherlock Holmes mysteries through Volume 9 of that series.
I.A.W.: Really? I thought I had made it to Volume 10.

TFCE: Anyway, since you're comfortable in both genres, please recap for us the difference(s) between historic and traditional fiction.
I.A.W.: Historical fiction is clearly a subset of fiction as a whole. If you mean traditional fiction as the sort of stories that have been typically told in our narrative tradition, historical settings have always been popular within that whole set. The Greeks and Romans told myths of their ancestors–the Trojan War, for example. King Arthur’s tales were set in a fictionalised part era, written from the 12th century but assumed to have happened around in the 5th. Robin Hood’s ballads were placed back in the days of old King Henry II or his son Richard the Lionheart. Victorians liked to hearken back a century to the era of pirates; like Treasure Island. Pulp writers of the 1930s loved the wild west setting of the 1880s. Nowadays the gangster era and World War II seem to be the popular time-periods of choice.
Classic Pulps for any taste

The difference that makes it historical fiction is the setting. The backdrop, and often the whole plot driver, is some real or semi-real era of our past. Beyond that the distinctions are whether the story is dependent on the setting and how real that setting is.

For example, consider a romance story that just happens to be set in the middle ages, versus an adventure tale chronicling a soldier’s exploits at the Battle of Waterloo. One requires the sets and costumes and takes advantages of the manners and mores. The other depends upon established historical detail to shape the events that the characters endure. Most historical fiction lies somewhere between the two extremes of that scale.

The authenticity of the setting is also a dramatic choice. Few authors find it helpful to have their historical characters speaking the actual language of the time, or accurately portray their heroines with rotting teeth and pock marks, or include 100% accurate social and intellectual attitudes; otherwise the story becomes all about that. There is always a choice about how much history to admit and what to discard.

Special mention should also be made to that sub-genre, the alternative history, wherein a different past is depicted based upon some imagined time line change. What would the Victorian era have been like had James Watt invented space travel, or had Napoleon conquered the British Empire?

Reasons for using historical settings differ by author and story, but the main ones are, 1. to make use of some period or event for a story that could only happen there and then, e.g. the last days of Pompeii before the volcano; 2. as an exotic location to offer a different kind of atmosphere that isolates the cast from a mundane present; 3. to make use of historical figures as fictional characters; 4. because a particular historical setting has become a genre in its own right, as with the western or the war story.

TFCE: During our last chat, I asked if doing the research for such projects was a daunting/difficult task. Do you find it even harder as time passes further beyond the period when your subject(s) lived?
I.A.W.: There are deficits and benefits. Set the story in the 1950s and there is a wealth of material to draw upon to get things right, including many people still alive who lived through the time, thousands of movies and books of the time, and a shared cultural understand to which most readers will need no additional introduction. Set the yarn in World War I and there is still a strong shared understanding of the era, so long as the story is set in one of the “famous” parts of World War I, and not in central Asia or somewhere. But settings and circumstance are more open to author interpretation. Go back to Victorian London and we’re close to a fictionalised consensus reality that often digresses quite a bit from a purely historical portrayal.

By the time we get back to the middle ages or to classical periods we have rather less to go on. Readers will bring with them a kind of mental summary of the times and places, which can either be supplemented or contradicted by the present story, but the author has to select which interpretations of history are best relevant for the purpose of storytelling. In these cases research can be harder but sources are fewer, requiring less broad reading.

Recently I’ve been working on three classical novels, a two-part historical fantasy called ST GEORGE AND THE DRAGON, of which volume one is out in February 2015 and volume two in April 2015, and on a mythological fantasy,
LABOURS OF HERCULES. The former is set in late 3rd century North Africa, in the crumbling days of the Roman Empire, and I’ve tried to paint in the culture, attitudes, beliefs, society, and behaviours accurate to that time. The idea was to have one fantastic element, a nigh-unstoppable dragon, drop into what is otherwise a normal world of politics, economics, military strategies, and social wranglings. What would a lottery of virgins to feed to the wyrm do to that ordered Roman society?

The Hercules story is set in that semi-mythological continuity established over a millennium by Greek and Roman writers, a collection of tales of heroes and gods as connected and complicated as the modern-day exploits of Marvel and DC comics superheroes. There are all kinds of parallels too; all written over many years for changing societies, by multiple authors with different emphasises, levels of skill, and regard for established canon. My research for LABOURS OF HERCULES was partly about selecting which versions of the source tales to give priority and partly about rooting the fantastic elements of those stories into a consistent, credible, and relate-able civilisation.

TFCE: In the specific case of Saint George and the Dragon, just how fictional or historic is the legend? After all dragons, as they are portrayed in fantasy novels today, didn't really exist, did they?
I.A.W.: The core source of the legend is that medieval best seller The Golden Legend, which at one point in the middle ages had sold more copies than the Bible. The book is a collection of wonder-stories about the lives of the saints, of which St George is the best known and most remembered today. Based on that success came many imitators, and St George became the exemplar of the paladin knight, adopted as patron saint by England, Portugal, and Georgia.

TFCE: Since there's one in the United States, could you please clarify which Georgia?
I.A.W.: Certainly. I'm referring to the Caucasan nation of Georgia, formerly part of the U.S.S.R.
However, the U.S. state of Georgia was named after English King George II, who was named after King George I, who was named after... St. George!
St. George is or was also the former patron saint of Ethiopia, Genoa, Milan, Beirut, Malta, Aragon, Catalonia, and Moscow. Moscow's ancient coat-of-arms shows him slaying a dragon. He is the patron saints of the Boy Scouts of America and of the U.S Army's armor branch.

TFCE: So who was Saint George?
I.A.W.: There are all kinds of arguments about George’s actually identity. In my books, I go with the majority in identifying him as George of Cappadocia, a senior Roman military officer who died under the persecution of Emperor Diocletian at the start of the 4th century. There are similarly arguments about where ‘Silene’, the place where he fought his dragon and rescued a princess, actually was. Much medieval tourist money depended on the outcome. I’ve plumped with Cyrene, in modern day Libya, because that part of Africa has a long and notorious association with serpents and snake-monsters, and perfectly fitted the rest of the story’s economic and political aspects.

As for the reality of dragon, there are two ways one could take that aspect of the story. Libya still has archaeological and documentary traces of a snake cult, with subterranean carvings and classical accounts. One city of that time in that area was Crocodilopolis, reputedly so named because prisoners there were fed to a sacred crocodile. It’s not impossible to imagine a society where ritual human sacrifice to a huge snake or croc took place until the arrival of a militant Christian knight ended the practice.

Or there’s the way that I took, to dig back into prehistory. After all, reptiles ruled the Earth for three million years, a hundred times longer than humans have managed so far. What if dragons were the apex of dinosaur evolution, sentient, intelligent, dominant, language-using, science-using, what-we’d-call-magic using? What if one of them survived the extinction cataclysm that wiped all traces of their civilisation from the world? What if he awoke from eons of sleep to find a human infestation has crawled across his planet? And what if he was a really, deeply, truly evil bastard?

The dragon is the one fantastic element in this book. There are other monsters, and magic, and rites, and visions, but all the overt supernatural elements process from that one point. The dragon is the change to “proper” history.

That said, the time period contains its own changing belief systems about the world and about supernatural things. In those dying days of empire, when the Romans had all but abandoned Rome and were fighting schismed wars over Byzantium and Nicopolis while barbarians nibbled away their borders, the official Roman pantheon was in decline. New heresies such as outlawed Christianity were growing in strength. It would be impossible to do even a vaguely historic account of St George and the Dragon without addressing issues of faith.

Painting by Briton Riviere
There are no overt miracles in ST GEORGE AND THE DRAGON, either from the
Christian God of George’s father and of George’s humble monk companion (George himself is not speaking to God at the start of our story, for reasons that become apparent later), or from the Greco-Roman deities of Lady Sabra, so-called “princess of Libya”, daughter of the Roman Cyrenean governor. Those of Christian or pagan faiths will be able to make a case for divine interest in the story anyway, as they do in actual history. Those who would prefer different explanations will be able to comfort themselves with mundane solutions. That is the way faith works–or doesn’t.

That doesn’t stop our protagonists having things to say about religion, though. One of my favourite scenes is Princess Sabra formally addressing her gods to curse her enemies in the way we know from archaeological and literary sources often happened in that era. One might argue that the gods heard her prayers; but the gods help those who help themselves. Another scene I liked has humble Brother Jacob absolutely baffling the dragon’s charms and temptations by contemplating the 23rd Psalm. Dragons so rarely encounter religious poetry as a means of fending them off.

TFCE: How many times has Saint George and the Dragon been covered in literature before? And how accurate were those past recountings?
I.A.W.: It’s hard now for us to grasp how big a character George was in middle ages writing. The sheer volume of copies of The Golden Legend and its imitators that have come down to us today illustrates how widespread circulation must have been.

By Hans Acker, circa 1440
As for George, as well as being the patron saint of England, Portugal, and Georgia, he is recognized as saintly by the Catholic, Anglican, Lutherian, Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox churches. He’s listed as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers whose intervention Catholicism holds to be particularly efficacious. He is particularly good with leprosy and sexually transmitted diseases. Patronages of Saint George also exist in Aragon, Bulgaria, Catalonia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Greece, India, Iraq, Lebanon, Lithuania, Macedonia, Palestine, Romania, Russia. Serbia, Syria, and Ukraine, as well as many cities and the Scout Movement. His red cross on white background has contributed to the flags of England, Australia, New Zealand, and Great Britain. And yet, as one early pope said of him, he is amongst those saints whose actual acts “are known only to God”. The church no longer makes dragon-slaying claims for him.

The Victorians were the last people to really like writing St George stories. There’s even a volume about the patron saints of England, Ireland, Scotland, France, and a bunch of other teaming up as knights to go fight evil. It’s that period that emphasises additions like a villainous Moorish knight who kidnaps Princess Sabra, requiring a second lengthy rescue while she must continue to invent ways of preserving her virtue. I’ve ignored these later accretions, not least because of their disturbing racist undertones. If Silene was Cyrene then there’s a pretty good chance that their princess was a person of colour anyhow.

As for accuracy, given that we can’t agree on who “the historical” George was, or where his encounter with “the dragon” took place, it’s hard to judge how accurate various stories were. The middle ages tendency to dress historical figures as then-contemporary knights and to assume that customs and manners were the same in the third as the thirteenth century doesn’t help.

There are some clues to help us, though. The traditional Roman legionary soldier was more or less gone by the third century A.D. A new class of horse-mounted, armoured officer has arisen, the equites–the knight. There were even cataphractii, heavy mounted knights, the tanks of the battlefield. Okay, they hadn’t yet invented things like the stirrup, but they were a good way towards the medieval conception of a knight in shining armour. They even wore cloth surcoats over their mail, so a white tabard with red cross on it is far from impossible.

North African history in the latter half of the third century was characterised by a gradual decay of Roman central authority, a series of revolts from Roman rule, civil war, and a slow climate change that saw formerly fertile farmlands be claimed by the spreading Sahara. It seemed credible to me that under such circumstances there would be no help from central authority for a governor with fantastic claims of draconic attack, especially when his prefecture was so late in making due tax returns. We know that various troop withdrawals left these African provinces dangerously vulnerable to barbarian raids and piracy. We know that the declining economy, mounting security issues, political instability, and religious upheavals were tearing those areas apart. I saw those realms as one big dragon away from reverting to horrible customs of human sacrifice.

TFCE: Was it necessary to take any liberties with the character(s) that others didn't, or fixed any past misconceptions/mistakes?
I.A.W.: George’s main source material comes from an era when characterisation wasn’t that emphasised. He is portrayed as the perfect Christian knight.

Of course, that makes for rather tedious modern reading. It also requires an absolute assumption that George was right in his assertions of faith, in his crusader-like zeal, and in his pious actions. I felt it better to offer a George behind the middle-ages P.R., a rather more flawed and reluctant saint, dragged unwillingly into a situation where he must choose whether to be a good man and do the right thing at incredible cost. We call people who make the difficult right choices in such situations heroes.

Hence we start with George playing Han Solo or Sam Spade, a wandering mercenary knight. He’s been let down by the world, betrayed by his empire and emperor, and has become bitter and cynical about the faith he was brought up in by Christian parents. I think that’s a position many readers will be able to identify with.

True Christian faith is represented by his travelling companion, Brother Jacob, a young monk who would never get lauded as a saint but who, in the New Testament sense, undoubtedly is. Jacob believes his job is “to believe for George until George is ready”. Jacob is as annoying as any earnest door-knocking evangelist, but redeemed in my view by his utter, simple, kind faith and total dedication. Jacob does not have answers for George’s complicated theological questions. He just believes, in God and George.

The other issue with the source material is the princess who is rescued. She isn’t even named until later in George’s publishing history. She gets no dialogue. Her only role is to get chained to a post to be eaten by a dragon and to be rescued by the hero.

That doesn’t fly for modern audiences. It doesn’t sit well with a modern telling of the tale. Why is she at that dragon-post? Was she volunteer or victim? What was she thinking? What did she want? What events had led her to this place and this doom? What did she feel for George? Why should we care about her, other than a very basic woman-in-peril reflex from male readers? Sabra needed work. Sabra needed to be a person, not a plot point.

Sabra got the work. Sabra has as many scenes as George. Sabra has enemies to deal with and a plot line all of her own. Sabra is bloody lethal.

TFCE: The Saint George saga takes place earlier than the legend of Robin Hood. Considering the difference in eras, how “politically correct” were things back in the 1400s, compared to how they are today?
I.A.W.: The middle ages were characterised by a stratified society. The European feudal system placed people very clearly in classes, each with their own laws and duties. While there was, famously “one law for rich and poor alike that forbids begging and sleeping under bridges”, there were in actuality ecclesiastical courts reserved for clergy, royal courts for nobles, trial-by-combat, and a whole range of other legal recourses that the powerful could invoke over the poor.

Slavery still existed, which classed people as animals that were property of others. Serfdom was not much better, forbidding the serf from leaving the land to which they were “tied”, denying them ownership of possessions, the right to marry without their lord’s approval, and other freedoms. It was a world away from our contemporary self-reflections about whether we treat people different from ourselves fairly. Many believed, or purported to believe, that feudalism was God’s natural order.

Women were generally treated as inferior to men, with a very few remarkable and fascinating exceptions. Certainly women of low birth were not accorded much power or respect. Noble women were most valued for their dowries and alliance prospects and as breeders of legitimate heirs. Indeed, medieval law on rape says nothing about the harm done to the female victim but is concerned about compensation due to her male relatives for her loss in value.

The sort of free-speaking, educated, socially-enlightened heroine beloved of our romantic and adventure fiction was very rare in actuality.

Perhaps the most distinctive difference was the utter societal belief in its right to impose its needs and values over those of rivals. Modern critics of the crusader movement tend to judge the Christian knights by different ethical criteria than the Moorish adversaries they displaced. Actually neither side conducted itself well by modern standards, but both were considered exemplary by their own cultures at the time.

The middle ages included first encounters between Europeans and a range of other cultures, especially in Africa and the East, because scholars vary about whether the New World was reached. I find very little primary evidence that either side of these conformations gave much consideration to the culture or needs of the other.

The late Roman setting for ST GEORGE AND THE DRAGON offers a different set of social standards. Higher born women had more rights. They could hold property, could divorce, and were often highly educated. Many of them held secondary religious roles within their families or at local temples at some time in their life.

On the other hand, slavery was a fundamental part of Roman culture. The economy depended upon it. Some estimates suggest that one quarter of the population were slaves. Although a huge body of law existed regarding slavery, most of it was about protecting an owner’s asset or establishing how someone might become or cease to be enslaved. The slave him or herself had few personal rights, including any right to object to sale or to sexual exploitation, or even to being killed by their owner. Brother Jacob, an ex-slave himself, has some thoughts upon this in the novel.

One modern prejudice that we rarely see evidenced in Roman literature is skin colour. Emperor Septimus Severus, born in Leptis Magna, Tripolitania, who ruled A.D. 193-211 was of Berber heritage. That probably meant he was dark-skinned, so he is often cited as “the first black Emperor of Rome”. If so, then the five Emperors descended from him may also have had Black African complexions. Likewise Cleopatra may have been dark skinned. That we do not know is a good indicator of how little it mattered to writers at the time.

TFCE: What about your other historical projects you mentioned last time, like the Women of Myth and the possibility of tackling King Arthur?
I.A.W.: LABOURS OF HERCULES is historical, if one is willing to allow mythological elements into the story. I’ve tried to be faithful to what we know of the society in which those events were described as taking place, as the hundred or so footnotes to the novel attest.

WOMEN OF MYTH is already book length but I’d like to add a fourth story to the collection if I can ever find the right way to tell it. One of those stories could easily be classed as a crossover with the Hercules novel since it features some of the same characters, including Hercules.

I already have four or five book’s worth of King Arthur material ready to go. I’m just waiting the right time and market.

Cover to Volume 1
In addition to those, some material I wrote for Pro Se press will be hitting the shops sometime soon. “The Curse of Urania” is a story of the 1920s occult character Semi-Dual. I just proofed a final version of that for an anthology, so it’ll hopefully be coming soon. Likewise a novella called “Race Against Death”, featuring 1930s aviator detective Richard Knight, will be appearing as THE NEW ADVENTURES OF RICHARD KNIGHT volume 2. Also scheduled for release are four more alternate-history novellas set in a 10th century where Christianity never happened and magic never vanished, the BYZANTIUM series. Next up in that run is BYZANTIUM: FIRE AND STONE.

Also written and sent off are two more stories for Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective volumes 8 and 9, another Holmes story set, remarkably, in Elizabethan England, and two different jungle action stories set in the 1930s. I’m really trying for that twelve publications thing this year!

Lurking on the hard drive is THE FALL OF BABEL, a fair play murder mystery set in the Biblical tower just before it comes down. It’s Conan Doyle does Conan. He’s a barbarian king, she’s a sacrificial virgin, together they fight crime! That one turned out so well it’s sitting there for now so I have something to offer if a major publisher ever knocks on the door.

My problem usually isn’t turning this stuff out, it’s getting it to print.

TFCE: By the way, I hope I'm not out of line asking this, but has there ever been a footnote you didn't like? I've even come across a couple in The Transdimensional Transport Company.
I.A.W.: That has certainly become something of a writing mannerism, to the utter frustration of my various publishers. There was even a reference to footnotes I made in my non-fiction essay volume WHERE STORIES DWELL which had a footnote that read “Because footnotes are good”.

I started using them in fiction because I use them all the time in my factual writing and find them so useful. They’re great for offering explanations that allow readers to understand material that may not be common knowledge any more, for offering attributions to facts and quotes, for translating from English to American English for the benefit of trans-Atlantic readers, and for adding to the fun for those who like that kind of diversion but not in-story. So I use ‘em.

Also, they completely baffle Kindle, requiring hours of additional prep work for people assembling my books.

My inspirations for how to do historical material are Robert Graves, author of I, Claudius, Claudius the God, The Golden Fleece, Homer’s Daughter and other fine works, and George MacDonald Frasier, author of the Flashman series and other period pieces. Both of them include copious footnotes and appendices, so I never really questioned whether I should do the same.

I think writers write best when they play “their natural game”. Unfortunately my natural game includes many footnotes.

All of author I.A. (Ian) Watson's work is available either through Amazon.com or at http://www.chillwater.org.uk/writing/iawatsonhome.htm

Image sources: I. A. Watson, Wikipedia's Public Domain file sharing system, and Clip Art.

Sunday, February 15, 2015

SUNDAY FUNNIES: SNOW JOKE

Hello Everybody! Waxy Dragon here and boy, is it cold outside!
I don't know what it's like in your part of the world right now, but it is BELOW ZERO where I am at the moment, even without the wind chill factor!
So please, if you don't have to be outside for any reason right now, STAY IN WHERE IT'S WARM!

But I must honor my duty to keep you folks entertained for a bit, so let's see what's around the Internet today.


It's good to have a sense of humor about such things, but there has been a lot of snow lately.
"How much snow has there been?" you ask. Take a look at the photo below this sentence and see for yourself.















The picture on the right above this text is of the current view from my living room window where I live. Normally you would see my front yard, the driveway, the street where I live, and a hint of the neighbor's house across from me.
BUT NOT TODAY! Those who say there's no such thing as climate change better seriously rethink their position on the subject.
I'd fly further south for the remainder of the winter than I already have, but there is no way I can even get out my front door at the moment.

Of course, as you can see by the image on the right, I'm far from the only one fed up with this lousy winter.
I'm offering free snow cones, free igloo building materials, free snowman kits; all you have to do is come on over and take as much of this snow as you want!

Now, it does help to remember some famous words of wisdom...




So let me calm down a moment, and picture myself somewhere nice and warm, where this little baby dragon can enjoy the sun and not have to worry about the risk of her pilot light going out. I KNOW! A beach!


It's a nice quiet day on the sea shore. The sun is shining. I've taken a nice, relaxing dip in the ocean, and now I'm just spreading my wings out as I lay on my towel and soak up some rays.

Hey, being a baby dragon has its advantages. I never have to worry about sunburn or skin cancer, and the sun does feel nice on my scales.



Now I think I'll play in the sand for a while, but what should I build?

I KNOW!

In any event, have a good week everybody. STAY WARM, and please be back here next weekend for more Sunday Funnies!—wd.