Achlan wasachlan! Welcome and Welmet!

 

KJA’s Blahg on WordFire … temporarily co-opted?

Posted By SandChigger on July 10, 2009

I just noticed my Dune RSS feeds in Safari reporting a new item somewhere and when I checked, it was Kevin’s blah over on WordFire. But the content (as displayed in the feed) didn’t exactly sound like his usual cyber self-sucking fare…

Bring back Vorian

Please please please write more aobut Vorian and the events that followed “The battle for Corrin” This was your best Dune work by far, please stop trying to expand apon Frnk herberts original books and go back to the seriese that got You where you are.
Thank you

Huh?

The post fine print says, “This entry was posted by dwinit on Thursday, July 9th, 2009 at 6:38 pm and is filed under Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.”

The “About The Author” block just lists whoever-this-is’s name (dwinit) and Gravatar: dwinit Gravatar

So WTF is this? A real cracker who has broken into his blahg over there (Welcome to the world of WordPress, Kevin, where eternal vigilance is the price of ease!)? Or perhaps a trusted KJASF member or other psycho-fan-t who has run amok?

Another interesting peek into the (web-inept?) world of KJA.

Addendum/Update: It gets better. This was temporarily available on Kevin’s Twatter page:

TheKJA on TwitterTheKJA
Published a new post: Bring back Vorian @ http://zz.gd/99cfaf
about 1 hour ago from Socialite

But it has now been deleted.

Also, the original URL for the post quoted above now gives this message:

I’m Sorry, This Page Does Not Exist :(

You’re receiving this error because the page you are looking for no longer exists on this website.

OK, so it’s looking like a cracker or loon insider now.

UPDATE/CORRECTION!

Remembering how pissed off I got when I learned that KJA had accused me of “hacking” his imbecilic KJASF website, I’ve decided to remove “cracked” from the title of this post because what I suspect actually happened was that KJA or Uncle Mike left the general blog settings so that anyone could register and left the default role setting as “Author” (meaning that anyone who registered could automatically post). If I’m right (and we’ll probably never know), “dwinit” just took advantage of the same stupidity as I did at Spayshul Central.

The post to TheKJA’s Twitter account is a bit more problematic, however; it looks more like an actual cracking. Unless KJA’s blog has a plug-in that allows automatic posting to his Twitter account, too? He does evidently have one that reposts to his MySpace blog, after all.

If there is no such plug-in, the post to Twitter indicates someone who follows KJA enough to be able to copy his vapid Twats announcing the fact that he has blahgged. Whoever you are, dwinit, SALOOT!

Synopses section now open

Posted By SandChigger on June 30, 2009

I’ve finally gotten around to opening the chapter-by-chapter synopsis section here on the website. There’s a link from the main portal page, and here is another:

Synopses of Dune & “McDune” Books

At the moment there’s still just my PoD synopsis from Wikipedia, but it will have company in a few days.

“What? What’s going to happen?” “Something wonderful.”

Posted By SandChigger on June 25, 2009

Actually, it already has happened. It’s just that the speed of the propagation of information is limited in our universe to lightspeed or slower.

Something wonderful.

Wait for it….

Someone finally told KJA about the WoD wrapper!

Posted By SandChigger on June 19, 2009

Yes, he finally knows!

After overwhelming fan response and surveys, Tor Books has decided to adapt the UK version of the WINDS OF DUNE cover for the US release. Most of the feedback I’ve received from readers who compared the two was that they found the UK version much more striking.

Ok, seriously, who honestly thinks this hack had any idea whatsoever that this was coming? Unbelievable.

I am sure we’ll see Stephen [Youll] back for the next cover.

Gonna scream and whine to get his good buddy back on, I reckon?

Love it. BUG SCORE!!!

(And a big shukran jaziilan to our own dear Quasimodo, Hunchback Jack, for the heads up on this one!)

Erasmus on Wikipedia

Posted By SandChigger on June 19, 2009

It seems that the Wikipedia page on Erasmus—the independent cross-dressing robot from the Legends and “Dune 7″ books who liked to perve his human ward’s bum in the shower—has rightly come up for deletion. In a bid to establish the notability of the character and thereby justify the page’s existence, a possible McDune fanboy has provided a link to this review of the audiobook version of The Butlerian Jihad by one Rod MacDonald, published on 01/06/2009.

The best bits are at the end, in the final three paragraphs:

When Serena and her baby are ruthlessly killed by Erasmus, the enslaved humans are so outraged that they rebel. … we also see the destruction of Earth by Omnius, its surface obliterated by nuclear weapons.

Um … okee-dokee, that’s not quite what I remember reading. Erasmus killed Holy Baby J…um, Manion, but not Manion Mommy, right? And it was the humans who nuked Earth to destroy Omnius.

Did this guy really listen to the thing?

Omnius and Erasmus are important characters who re-appear again and again in ‘Dune’. They had been created for a specific purpose, a purpose that will not be realised until thousands of years have passed. In summation, the addition of extra material to the series distils everything down to a conflict between humans and machines. Just like ‘Star Wars’ which became the life and times of Darth Vader, ‘Dune’ has become man versus machine!

No, Omnius and Erasmus reappear in McDune. And again with the Star Wars analogy? Ugh.

This is interesting and essential listening for all those immersed in the ‘Dune’ universe! Perhaps a thousand years from now, after the order of the books has been established, Butlerian Jihad will be the first of a series instead of an addition written later to explain subsequent events. However, who will be listening to it? A machine like Omnius?

When the order of the books has been established? It already is established, dolt. There are six books starting with Dune and so to be ten volumes of shitty, officially sanctioned fan fiction.

Sunt lacrymae.

Oh … Pee-Yoo-tiful?

Posted By SandChigger on June 18, 2009

Oh. Damn.

One of the Twat’s Twits (or was that Twit’s Twats? Oh well) today was about there being a sample of the audiobook for The Edge of the World now up over on the Hachette Book (God, is that name appropriate or what?) Group site. I’m not much of one for audiobooks (don’t own any, have never listened to one, that I can remember), but I thought I’d at least give the sample a try, since I can’t seem to get into the book otherwise.

Ouch.

I had to go to audible.com to find out that Scott Brick is the narrator. (Otherwise I was going with my first impression, that KJA had somehow necromancied up the spirit voice of a younger Orson Welles for the recording!) I thought he was supposed to be good or something? Could someone else please listen to the sample and tell me if this is what Brick always sounds like? And is this type of … “performance” the average for audiobooks?

http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/books_9781600249082.htm

Eeew.

Masjid bayna n-Nujuum: Review of A Mosque Among the Stars

Posted By SandChigger on June 17, 2009

I really wanted to like this book. I first learned of it when I discovered the Islam and Science Fiction website during a web search early last December. The book wasn’t available on Amazon at the time (It is now, but for Kindle only the last time I checked), so I contacted one of the editors, Muhammad A. Ahmad, and was told to contact the publisher, ZC Books, directly. (Their site disappeared from the web a couple of weeks back, to be replaced by one now featuring “Chicas con webcam en el videochat porno, video-chat erotico.”) They informed me that the price of the book was $20.00, plus $12.00 for shipping, or $8.00 for a PDF copy. I decided to think about it for a while, since I wanted the physical book, but then got busy with end-of-the-year stuff and didn’t get back to them until February. When I did, they told me to contact the other editor, Ahmed Khan. I did and long story short, eventually I had the book by the end of March but didn’t start reading it until May (book pile traffic jam).

The book begins with an “Introduction” by Ahmad followed by “A Brief Note on the Contents” by Khan. The main purpose of this book, as of the website mentioned above, is to present Islam—”an often misunderstood religion”—and Muslims “in a different light.” I really have no interest in the former—let me be clear about this, of the Abrahamic religions Islam is the one I have the least use for and I believe it is anything but “misunderstood”—but the latter, the people themselves, will always fascinate as all human beings must. What I hoped to find in this book, somewhere in the gaps in the agenda, was a few glimpses of realistically depicted Muslim characters in science fiction settings. And they were there. But the book has a few problems as well.

Of the twelve stories, only the last six are completely original to this anthology. The first two are “out and out reprints” according to Khan, and indeed, I soon found that the first is available online. The third through sixth stories evidently underwent “revisions” for this book, which may be a common practice for all I know, but it still bothered me a bit, given the overall agenda.

The first story is the excellent “A Walk Through the Garden” by Lucius Shepard. For me it’s a toss-up between this first story and the next as to the best one in the collection, with the very last one a strong third. (I’m not going to spoil the plots much here; there are several blog posts out there that already do that. Google.) In this one, it’s the setting and the story universe that’s Muslim rather than any specific characters.

After the action-filled opening of the Shepard story, “Squat” by Donna McMahon presents characters facing a moral dilemma. The Muslim here is a supporting character, not the main one.

“Organic Geometry” by Andrew Ferguson was the first indication that this book wasn’t going to be perfect. This one is just two pages long and about cricket. It is not science fiction. I don’t understand why it was included here.

The same applies to “Synchronicity” by editor Ahmed A. Khan. His story, about an Indian fellow with a Muslim doctor friend, is written well enough, if a bit formal in the language, but it’s about a vague premonition and the events that follow from it, and human relations, and not science fiction as I define it.

“Cultural Clashes in Cadiz” by Jetse De Vries is simply awful. It’s badly written (and, I’m sorry to say, poorly edited), jejune, and for me was ultimately pointless. I didn’t find the attempted humor amusing, and I actually had to force myself to finish reading it. But at least it does contain a few science fiction elements (multiverse time travel, unfortunately) amidst much silliness.

“Servant of Iblis” by Howard Jones is yet another non-science-fiction story—it’s more of a historical weird/horror mystery in a Muslim setting—but it’s well written and I rather enjoyed it. (It reminded me somewhat of the very enjoyable Samarkhand section of Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Years of Rice and Salt.)

I also enjoyed “The Weight of Space and Metal” by Camille Alexa, the first story originally written for this volume, or at least I did while I was reading it. Afterwards I was less satisfied with it, but to explain why requires a little spoilage: the Muslim character in this one dies under suspicious circumstances, probably the result of sabotage by a jealous non-Muslim. And that just seemed a bit too pat later for me to remember this one favorably. It is interesting and well written, however.

“Miss Lonelygene’s Secret”, by C. June Wolf, is set in the future and relies on technological innovation for setting and its main plot element, but frankly it bored me and I was glad when it was over. I don’t recall the Muslim element as being particularly central to the story. The character(s) in question could just as well have been Chinese.

“Recompense” by Pamela Kenza Taylor is a rather good ghost/sort-of-pirate story with Muslim elements and characters. Taylor handles her subject matter much better than Anderson apparently has done with similar material in the first volume of his new “epic” Terra Incognita fantasy series.

“A Straight Path Through the Stars” by Kevin James Miller can best be summed up as “disgruntled Muslim American makes Second Contact with a ship full of Muslim aliens.” Um … no thanks. The editing was fairly spotty in this one, too, which did not help the already bad writing.

“Emissary” by G.W. Thomas was another attempt at humor that fell completely flat for me. The only Muslim element is the names of the characters, maybe? Forced, too contrived, pass on this fail.

Tom Ligon’s “For a Little Price” completes the collection and was worth the wait. (I’m pretty sure the two duds preceding it didn’t influence my judgement here.) Who the Muslim characters are and what they do in this one is a little strange when you think about it, considering the agenda of this book, but the story rang truer (and the resolution more satisfying) for being more in line with common beliefs and expectations. Ligon has included a section entitled “The Back-Story” which provides interesting insights into the story’s history and development.

In conclusion, I’m glad I got and read this one, for the sake of the good stories. I just wish all of the stories had been equally well done.

Youll be damned: TOR to shoot US WoD under UK covers?

Posted By SandChigger on June 16, 2009

In an Amazon customer discussion thread on the Winds of Dune page started on the first of this month, I asked why there was still no cover illustration posted for the US hardcover when the UK cover had already been on display for some time on the hardcover and paperback edition pages over on Amazon UK, and opined that perhaps TOR was considering ditching the less-than-inspiring “Jessica and Alia traipsing through da souk” illustration by Stephen Youll and going with the UK cover for the US edition as well. KJASF spokesman Brian Conway objected that it was probably just an “Amazon problem”.

However, I notice this morning that the US edition at last sports a cover illustration…

Winds of Dune US cover?

I needn’t point out the similarities with the UK cover, right?

Winds of Dune UK cover

Now, I fully realize that this could indeed really simply be an Amazon glitch. But the differences in the titling and the presence of the SciFi Channel emblem kinda make me think otherwise. Still too early to call as another “Bug Score”, or not?

If true, this will represent a major break with the (admittedly, rather boring) cover design of the books since Hunters, but will emphasize in yet another way just how very little these people value consistency in any form.

(Oh, yeah: Eat it, Conway.)

Addendum: CONFIRMED!

If B. Conway on Amazon is to be trusted, at least:

Posted on Jun 16, 2009 11:09 AM PDT
B. Conway says:

Looks like the Publisher did decide to make the change. I’m surprised to see them change so close to publication, but apparently there was a lot of positive feedback on the UK cover. I’m sure the book will be well received by MOST people.

Not sure why he’s sure of that last when he hadn’t a clue about the cover change.

Who wants to bet that it took KJA by surprise as well? Whoo hoo!!!

Just a big mouth with meaningless words coming out of it: BUG SCORE!!!

Posted By SandChigger on June 15, 2009

I was checking in on Amazon just now and adding some things to my wish lists and noticed that my ranking over there has been voted down to something like 5,000,000 or so! (5,652,390, to be exact, if anyone’s interested.)

Wow … that’s so … devastating. I guess they’re really showing me now, huh? I mean, my customer reviewer ranking on Amazon is something I take so very seriously, that it really hurts to see it drop so … precipitously!

Not.

Anyway, I thought I’d try to see which reviews had been attacked and I noticed that someone had posted a new comment on my Paul of Dune review. Here’s what I found:

So, now you are attacking books that are completely unrelated to Dune, and to this point unpublished? If you are going to be a legitimate critiquer of anything, you don’t get to speak until you read the books.
Otherwise you are just a big mouth with meaningless words coming out of it…

This was in response to a comment on May 28 in which I laid out the schedule for the next three McDune and three “Smellhole” series books that KJA and BoBo Herbert supposedly will be writing together. I didn’t recognize the commenter’s name from any run-ins I’ve had over there on review or discussion threads, but I checked out his profile page just the same. No reviews or personal information, just a wish list with 20 items.

People … when are you going to learn not to mess with me if you’ve been stupid enough to leave information exposed online?

If you click the “See all 20 items” link, you’re taken to a listing page that contains this one little gem of information: This list is for: Jonathan Cowan. Now, I may be getting older and a bit forgetful, but names still resonate down the old memory lanes and this one was ringing loud and clear. A quick hop over to Wikipedia to confirm something and I knew why…

Rebecca Moesta Anderson, born November 17, 1956 in Heidelberg, West Germany, is the author of several science fiction books. Although born in Germany, Rebecca was born to American parents and raised in Pasadena, California, where she lived until her early twenties. Rebecca graduated with a Bachelor of Liberal Arts from Cal State L.A.. and shortly after graduation married a former classmate from Caltech, becoming Rebecca Moesta Cowan.

In 1981, the couple moved to New Haven, Connecticut, where they lived for one year until they moved to Darmstadt, Germany, until 1987. In Germany Rebecca took graduate courses with Boston University and earned a Master of Science degree in Business Administration. During their stay in Germany she gave birth to her son, Jonathan, before moving back to the United States and settling in Livermore, California.

Well, look at that: I’ve been told off now by Kevin’s stepson.

BUG SCORE!!!

Update: Junior has come back and deleted his comment. It’s really inspiring to see a young man with the strength of conviction to let his words stand for themselves.

Like stepfather, like stepson.

(Um, Junior, your name is still visible in your Wish List. Internet inept as well.)

Webdancers’ Comet? Or Sidney’s Timeweb?

Posted By SandChigger on June 9, 2009

As the next installment in the continuing saga of fuck-ups on the Dune Novels website, webmaster “Uncle Mike” Anderson brings us the “Books by Brian Herbert” page!

Look closely at that first item:

Oops!

(Click image for larger version in new window.)

Hmm … that doesn’t sound much like one of the Timeweb books. That sounds more like … Sidney’s Comet! Which as a matter of fact is the third book in the list! With the exact same text!!!

Oh the HUMANITY!!!

Here’s the title link as is on the page: WEBDANCERS. At least the Amazon link at the bottom goes to the right page.

Now here’s the big problem with this. When you put the link code into the text, it clearly says “SydneysComet” (Oh shit, there’s another one: Sidney is misspelled!) in the URL part of a tag that is wrapped around “WEBDANCERS”. How can you not notice the discrepancy if you’re paying the least bit of attention to what you’re doing?

Boy, the Herberts certainly are getting their money’s worth, huh?

Addendum: Important note: I forgot to properly attribute this one this morning! I didn’t catch this one myself, because, well, other than checking out the latest stupidity on the BBS over there every once in a while, I never visit the site. If I want what passes for Dune news now, I just go straight to the source, which is Kevin and his blog on Wordfire or his Twatter page. So a BIG THANK YOU to the person who caught this, you know who you are. (Is it OK to say? Take a bow in the comments if so.)