Looking for Advice on China

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I'm planning to go to China in the spring, to research the next Darger & Surplus novel.

(As an aside . . .  You have no idea how cool writing that made me feel.  That is exactly the sort of thing that, when I was young, I hoped I'd be doing some day.)

So now I'm looking for advice.  Where should I go?  Beijing and Xi'an, of course.  But where else?  Whenever I hit the guidebooks, I end up being overcome by how large China is and how much of it sounds very, very interesting.  So I could really use your input.

Ideas?  Suggestions?  If it helps, the book will begin in Chengdu and most likely end in Beijing.

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Scribbledehobbledehoyden: The Magpie's Eye: Page 126

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An exercise, written quickly:

To love is to trust
To trust is to err
To err is to sin
To sin is to be natural
To be natural is to be simple
To be simple is to live without complication
To live without complication is to be free
To be free is to fly
To fly is to have no ground beneath one's feet
To have no ground beneath one's feet is to be distracted
To be distracted is to be confused
To be confused is the beginning of wisdom
The beginning of wisdom is to admit one is wrong
To admit one is wrong is unnatural
To be unnatural is to worship Satan
To worship Satan is to be damned
To be damned is the common lot
The common lot is to live, love, lose, and die
To do all these things is perfectly ordinary
To live an ordinary life is extraordinary, if only to yourself
To be true to yourself, you must ask questions
If you're asking questions, the Socratic method is best
Do you see what we mean?


This sort of thing is so easy!  Making words say something true is so very hard.

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Scribbledehobbledehoyden: The Magpie's Eye: Page 125

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The Windmill.  "I can't go on.  I must go on.  I'll go on."

A cartoon, not well-drawn but arrogantly erudite.  I like it.  Too bad it was ruined by the bleed-through from the previous page.

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LYREC!

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My pal Gregory Frost has just turned his first novel, Lyrec, into an e-book.  Greg is, of course, the brilliant fantasist who wrote Shadowbridge and Lord Tophet, the first two of what many of us hope fervently will be a long series set in one of the most imaginative worlds in the history of fantasy.

As for Lyrec itself, well . . . here's the blurb:

Lovelorn Lyrec and wise-cracking Borregad have been companions through world after world, adventure after adventure. They seek Lyrec’s lost lady, and vengeance for the obliteration of their homeworld. But the evil Miradomon is always one step ahead, leaving a dark trail of destruction behind him. In this incarnation, Lyrec is young, strong, handsome, skilled in the arts of war and song. Poor Borregad is stuck in the body of a cat. And Miradomon? 

You can download a free sample of the book at Book View Cafe,  Or just buy a copy for $4.95.  It's a terrific deal on a terrific book.

Click here now.


And . . .

I had more things to say but they'll have to wait until tomorrow.  Busy today.  Very very busy.

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Scribbledehobbledehoyden: The Magpie's Eye: Page 124

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A slogan slogan.

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Marty Greenberg, Rest in Peace

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Another piece of our history is gone.  Marty Greenberg, who, as his friend Mike Resnick pointed out, sold over 2,000 anthologies and packaged something like 700 novels without making a single enemy along the way.

I never met Marty but he was a pervasive presence in science fiction.  The field is going to look a lot different without him.


And because that's a grim note to begin the week on . . .

Here's a video for a product that may make you feel better.

Or, then again, maybe not.   Enjoy!

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Scribbledehobbledehoyden: The Magpie's Eye: Page 123

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A doodle and a found piece of ephemera.  The opening at its center is, as I note within, the universal symbol for Tintin.

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