Peter Hodges

I was at Vericon this past weekend.

If you’ve taken the time to click on the link and review the activities and the speakers, you’ve probably come to the conclusion that the mirror on my wall, while telling me that I am NOT the dorkiest of them all, certainly ranks me amongst the top ten of all dorks in the world.  Whatever.  I glory in my anti-social tendencies.  I’m already married with a kid on the way, so who do I need to impress?  Odds are, if you’re reading this site, then you probably are somewhere in the dork continuum between D&D Rule Lawyer and Frequent Video Game Player.  Welcome, friend.  Hopefully you’re already attached to a significant, heterosexual other.  If not, the future doesn’t look too bright for you.

Vericon was great.  I attended both last year and this year, hearing some great speakers on different aspects of fiction.  I had the opportunity to see how my own writing could be improved through panels on culture and action (fodder for another post).  I obtained autographed books from Guy Gavriel Kay and R.A. Salvatore.  I participated in the Game of Thrones CCG (based on Martin’s books).  This last thing makes me sound really “off the chain,” but let me be the first to tell you that the game is BEYOND fun…especially if you have a deep and abiding love for Martin’s works.  I even took the time to buy enough cards (for around ten dollars) to build myself a deck. 

I embrace the mockery that some of you are throwing my way.

The real reason I was at Vericon has to do with an announcement I’m hoping to make regarding Loss of Innocence.  You may have noticed that I haven’t been posting new material lately.  I promise, ladies and gentlemen, that there is, indeed, a reason for this.  I hope to be able to reveal it soon.

I’ve been invited to Boskone in February, but as a result of my wife’s “delicate” condition, I may not be able to attend.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed, because even though Boston was colder than a scorpion dunked in liquid nitrogen, I love the city and would like the opportunity to return.  Both George R. R. Martin AND John Scalzi will be at this conference, so I’d have the opportunity to get more books signed and hook up with a new author of Scalzi’s caliber. 

…I am most certainly not the dorkiest of them all.

That claim totally belongs to the guy who made the H-Wing Car Fighter.  Here is another good picture.  The car is a heavily modified Honda Del Sol, assembled with donations and parts from people around the country.  For those who aren’t up to speed on your Star Wars jargon, the car is made to look like the famous X-Wing Fighter, which was flown by Luke Skywalker during his mission to blow up the Death Star in Episode 4.

I can rest easy knowing that at least someone out there is more of a dork than me.

I have a few titles that I’m excited about reading in the coming days.

Runner by William C. Dietz sounds like a very interesting mix of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation and Joe Haldeman.  Dietz is an author that I haven’t talked about much here on the site, but he is one of my favorite serial military sci-fi authors.  His Legion of the Damned series is a mix of Full Metal Jacket, the French Foreign Legion, and David Drake.  It is well worth reading, and the reviews that I’ve read of this book (somehow I missed it; it was published in 2005) agree that it is worth the read.

I’m finally getting to Coyote Frontier by Allen Steele.  This is the third in the Coyote trilogy, which is a series of novellas covering the plight of humankind’s first interstellar colony.  Although I don’t necessarily agree with some of the political statements made in the first book, the rest of the books follow pretty closely the model for libertarian revolution espoused by Heinlein in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.  I’m anxious to close out the series.

The one that I’m the most excited about starting is Off Armageddon Reef by David Weber.  This is his first major commitment to a new series since the Honor Harrington novels, and the early buzz is very promising.  I’m a fan of Weber’s prose; he has a penchant for technical details that other sci-fi authors should attempt to emulate.  His main characterizations tend to be deep, and his plots possess all of the political intricacy of a techno-thriller.    Off Armageddon Reef tells the story of a defeated humanity, living in a dark age enforced by a made-up religion to avoid notice from an alien race who had hunted mankind to near extinction nearly a thousand years before the setting of the book. 

The news sites are all rife with the story that Hillary has initiated her bid for President.  I won’t burden you like most of the other Conservative or Libertarian blogs out there and cry with despair at this announcement.  It remains to be seen if her ability to galvanize women and left-of-center Democratic partisans can overcome the mobilization of the Christian/Mormon right, the conservative business sector, and the anti-Clinton majority of the South.  Her candidacy, should she happen to win the primaries, is likely to set the stage for the single most polarizing election in our nation’s history.  At the very least, I would predict the highest voter turnout in recent memory, both for and against.

The childish side of me would like to make the prediction giving Hillary the Democratic nomination would make the Republican candidate a clear winner.  However, after eight years of George W., I think that the nation might be ready for a change…any change at all.  In all honesty, if the Democrats would be smart enough to field a genuinely moderate candidate, someone who was realistic about our commitments in Iraq and not prone to outrageous increases in taxes and bureaucracy, they might even win my vote.  Imagine that.

The Hotline, a political news site/blog, reports that Hillary is not accepting federal matching funds for her campaign.  This can mean one of two things:  She is either extremely confident of her fund raising abilities, or she already has enough “promised” money to run her campaign.  The first is arrogance, while the second is unsettling.  The educated American public may be a bit too jaded to let a candidate “buy” an election through media saturation, but this is a smaller percentage than most of us like to admit. 

The real trick for her candidacy will be to distance herself from her husband’s legacy (such as it was), including her involvement in the Whitewater scandal.   Will the Chinese fund her campaign, as they did her husband’s?  If, God forbid, Govenor Bill Richardson of New Mexico is her running mate (a distinct possibility), will the former Department of Energy Secretary give away more secrets to our Asian competitors?  Another area of concern (especially for a knee-jerk Libetartian such as myself) is how close her husband comes to power after serving as President in his own right for two terms.  Will he have a cabinet position?  Will he have any sort of influence over her or the decisions she makes?  Will she completely distance herself from him, striving to make her own mark? 

I’m filled with more questions than answers.  I’m also reluctant to make predictions on this matter, simply because I have no clue how the public, in general, will react.  What I can say is that having her as President of this country would be an unmitigated disaster for both foreign policy and for the way in which our government administers domestic and social programs.  Government involvement in anything should be as minimal and as unobtrusive as possible, and I fear that the aims of a Hillary-led executive branch would not align with that statement.

I recently finished a four book series by John Ringo and David Weber:  March Upcountry, March to the Sea, March to the Stars, and We Few.  At its core, it is the typical coming of age story, but it is told with such attention to detail in both plot and character that it stands above the trite nature of previous, similar sagas.  I picked up the series thinking that I would find myself a quick, mindless read, but I quickly realized that there were hidden depths in both the characters and the world-building.  The universe is constructed through dialogue, casual reflection, and an assumption of solidity that is built gradually over the series until its inevitable climax.  It is both believable and real, something that you wouldn’t quite expect from your run-of-the-mill military science fiction.

Prince Roger, heir tertiary to the throne of man, is stranded on a barbarian jungle planet after a failed attempt at sabotage on his transport ship.  He is a spoiled brat and a liability to his mother, the Empress.  His only saving virtue is that he is an experienced hunter (his primary recreation) and he somehow carries the blood of five hundred years of emperors and empresses in his veins.  He is protected a by a company of Marines for whom the definition of tough is scarcely adequate.  They crash land on a planet with one space port (which happens to be in enemy hands), but they land on the wrong side of the planet and must hike through inhospitable jungles and forbidding mountains.  To do this, they must ally with and fight native tribes, using each people group as a waypoint to gather more supplies and manpower.  Roger undergoes a chrysalis while on the planet, becoming a leader of men in the truest sense of the word.  He wins respect from his marine protectors, grudging at first, before finally leading them with the same charisma and ruthlessness that his bloodline is known for.  The series will inevitably be compared to stories of Xenophon and his march across Persia (told well by Michael Curtis Ford in The Ten Thousand), but the ending reads more like the The Odyssey. 

Read this series for the strong military science fiction and the adventure, but enjoy it for its political complexity, world building, and  characterization.  If you’re unsure, try the first novel in the excellent Baen Free Library, then go buy the rest.

I’ve spoken in this space before about the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin.  It is hands down the best epic fantasy written in modern English.  It has everything that you could want, from intrigue to romance to mystery to desperate battles.  The writing is top-notch, the characters are more than cardboard cut-outs, and the plot resembles a plate of spaghetti that slowly becomes coherent as it is digested. 

One of my favorite speculations on books of this type is to envision actors and actresses who might play the various character roles.  I no longer have to sit and ponder, since HBO has optioned the rights to make a series based on the books in Martin’s series. 

Truthfully, the books are rather adult, and I can imagine no better network to spend the necessary money to fully realize the vast landscapes and cast of characters.  There is enough violence, sex, and intrigue to keep even the most jaded viewer entertained, while those of us with higher tastes will be mesmerized by the subtleties of plot twists and vivid characters.  My recent foray into watching the first season of HBO’s Rome is proof enough of their dedication to providing an excellent realization of source material.

Martin has made the annoucement here (17 January entry); I also hope to hear some news on the upcoming installment in his series (the fifth book) entitled A Dance With Dragons soon. 

…actually had some blast to it this morning.  We had snow on the ground (a rarity for us), as well as roads that are still treacherous into the early afternoon. 

It sounds like a good time to play my used copy (thanks EB Games!) of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, complete with a no-DVD executable.  I love it that Ubisoft didn’t get any of my money for such a great game with such hideously limiting copy protection.