Here’s a photo of yours truly at the Barnes and Noble. I met a number of readers and signed some books, it was a great day. Hoping to do more events like this when the next book is released.
Category: Books
Author’s Guild
I highly recommend The Author’s Guild, which I recently joined to help with issues related to my novel’s publisher. Happily, they are working to keep it in print, even if the publisher is unresponsive. If you are a writer, it is well worth joining, they advocate for you and seem to really care about these issues.
In other news, we are off to western New York for the eclipse, which the children are extremely excited about. Hoping there are no clouds on Monday! Best wishes and safe travels to everyone who is on the move this weekend.
Book Talk
I will be at the Barnes and Noble in Poughkeepsie, NY on Saturday, April 27 at 2pm for a book talk and with copies of THE OSPREY MAN. It’s sure to be a fun time! Bring a friend, grab a coffee, and stay for some storytelling.
DUNE
“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.” –Frank Herbert, DUNE
The new Dune film is amazing, far better than anything that fans of the book had any right to expect. I loved it. I started rereading the book as soon as I got home; I read the above quote and had to put the book down for a moment. Frank Herbert wrote that in 1965–probably quite a bit earlier, as ’65 is the publication date. What a visionary.
The film changed a few things, but that’s to be expected in a work of this size and scope; it would be impossible to adhere to everything Herbert wrote. At some point I may write up some further thoughts. But suffice to say it was great and left me speechless. Once I finish the first book, I’ll probably continue with the others, too. I loved the first three books in the cycle and enjoyed the next three as well, though I felt they weren’t at the same level of quality as the first two or three.
A good friend of mine also recommended the many sequels written by Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson, so I may go down that Golden Path, as well.
I’m really in awe of Denis Villenueve and the whole cast of this movie, particularly Javier Bardem, who I felt carried much of the film as Stilgar. We’re lucky that a director as good as Villenueve was able to make this. In my opinion, this achievement is as great as Peter Jackson and Lord of the Rings, and will be remembered for a long time.
Philip K Dick
Every Saturday I have a ritual, in which I go to the library used book sale. I always stop first at the science fiction section and see if there is anything by Philip K Dick, who is one of my favorite writers. I haven’t found one in the roughly eight years I’ve been doing this.
This week, for the first time, I took my three year old. I carried him into the store and put him down. He grabbed a board book that was on display. We went to the Science Fiction section. He ran to a random area of the shelf and grabbed a book off the shelf and held it up to me. “Get this one daddy,” he said. “You can read it to me, too. I want this one.” Here’s the book.
I’ve read dozens of his books. This felt like the start of some crazed scene in one of his novels to me. Perhaps the boy was directed there by some outside intelligence. Maybe aliens planted it there. Or another dimension is seeping into ours. Perhaps an unlikely coincidence. I think I’ll be taking the lad again.
Christopher Tuthill 