The third bookbinding project in this kit was somewhat more complicated. It involved sewing multiple signatures (sets of folded paper leaves) together over linen “tapes” using something called a kettle stitch. The end product was what the instructions called “an adventurer’s journal” and I called a naked text block, ready to be “cased in” (bookbinding term for putting a cool cover on a fully assembled text block). Not everything that could go wrong did go wrong, but a fair amount did…
Continue reading “Weird Wednesday: Adventures in Bookbinding, Part 2”Category: Cool Books
EBookDaily is Featuring Slaying a Tyrant
This website spontaneously decided to promote the permanently free Slaying a Tyrant today, and asked that I link to their site, so here’s the link: https://ebookdaily.com/free-kindle-ebooks/2024-03-16/B07WDSZRV2
Weird Wednesday: Adventures in Book Binding, Part 1
So, sometime back I watched this video and it got me interested in bookbinding and rebinding. I looked at a few videos, and tracked down a self-contained kit on Amazon. Thoughts and pictures below.
Continue reading “Weird Wednesday: Adventures in Book Binding, Part 1”Thoughts on Mansfield Park
I recently listened to Karen Savage’s excellent reading of this book on Librivox, and it reminded me that I have opinions about this flawed, messy novel by Jane Austen.
-The absolute most important thing to understand is that Austen thinks Fanny and Edmund are a couple of intelligent, well-meaning introverts with an adorkable lack of self-knowledge and social “polish.” Take Mia Goth’s Harriet Smith from the 2020 Emma, make her more intelligent but still humble, earnest and insecure, still someone who makes you chuckle indulgently at her awkward moments. Take one of the more dignified and less half-witted versions of Charles Bingley (the 1980 guy is good, for instance) and make him more introverted and religious, but still faintly absurd and still oblivious about stuff that’s not Right Under His Nose. That is how the omniscient narrator sounds about the two romantic leads in Mansfield Park.
-They’re also ridiculously, boringly compatible and (to the narrator’s mind) obviously destined for each other. The whole drama about him pining after Maria Crawford and Fanny pining after him and then it all wraps up in a highly abstract, fourth-wall-breaking handful of paragraphs in the last chapter…it’s something of a bitter joke. The fact that Edmund is emotionally dependent on Fanny (note his reactions when he’s all peopled out at the end of the ball) while he’s obsessing over Mary is part of the joke. The fact that he thinks he molded all Fanny’s opinions and personality while the author drops hints that nature as well as nurture was involved…also part of the joke. The fact that they’re first cousins? That, too, I regret to say, is part of the joke.
Continue reading “Thoughts on Mansfield Park”Wolf’s Trail (Hunter Healer King Book 1) is now Out on Amazon!
Now available in Kindle Unlimited
The name’s Chloe Fortebat, and I am in trouble. I left my father’s ranch on the plains to come to the Old World: a place of airships, steampower, and monsters nobody talks about. Now I’m dodging giant werewolves with fangs the size of my knife, and the hunters crazy enough to go after them. The most dangerous of these doesn’t look the part: a quiet, sharp-dressed medical man with a tired face….
My name is Dr. Maxim os Storm, and I hunt the beasts that haunt the night. The leader of this pack of werewolves has set his mark on Miss Fortebat, but this brave lady would rather fight him than let him make her his tool. As far as I am concerned, that makes her my ally. My only chance of curing her lies with an ancient machine, hidden by my people in the caves beneath Wolf Island. We must keep that artifact out of the werewolf’s grasp at all costs, for he would put it to a terrible use….
Final Episode of Hunter Healer King
To claim her inheritance, Chloe Fortabat has to leave her ranch and come to the Old World, where she mingles with monster hunters. The most dangerous of these doesn’t look the part: a quiet, sharp-dressed medical man. Dr. Maxim os Storm’s mission is to destroy those monsters which feed on human pain. He is drawn to Chloe, but she is being slowly transformed into the exact type of monster he hunts. He does not know if he can cure her in time, or what she will do when she learns his secrets…
The final Vella episode of Hunter Healer King is now live. I am collecting the Vella episodes into book form, and will release it to Kindle Unlimited under the title Wolf’s Trail (Hunter Healer King Book 1) in late December 2023, barring catastrophes. If you are interested in learning more about Vella, keep reading.
Continue reading “Final Episode of Hunter Healer King”AetherCzar’s Black Friday Sale
AetherCzar (Hans G. Schantz) has graciously included Marrying a Monster in his Black Friday Sale. With over 190 books free or $0.99, I’m sure there’s something for everyone.
New Episode for Hunter Healer King
To claim her inheritance, Chloe Fortabat has to leave her ranch and come to the Old World, where she mingles with monster hunters. The most dangerous of these doesn’t look the part: a quiet, sharp-dressed medical man. Dr. Maxim os Storm’s mission is to destroy those monsters which feed on human pain. He is drawn to Chloe, but she is being slowly transformed into the exact type of monster he hunts. He does not know if he can cure her in time, or what she will do when she learns his secrets…
I plan to drop new episodes for this serial every day in the Kindle Vella store for the foreseeable future. To learn more about Vella, keep reading.
Continue reading “New Episode for Hunter Healer King”New Episode for Hunter Healer King
To claim her inheritance, Chloe Fortabat has to leave her ranch and come to the Old World, where she mingles with monster hunters. The most dangerous of these doesn’t look the part: a quiet, sharp-dressed medical man. Dr. Maxim os Storm’s mission is to destroy those monsters which feed on human pain. He is drawn to Chloe, but she is being slowly transformed into the exact type of monster he hunts. He does not know if he can cure her in time, or what she will do when she learns his secrets…
I plan to drop new episodes for this serial every day in the Kindle Vella store for the foreseeable future. To learn more about Vella, keep reading.
Continue reading “New Episode for Hunter Healer King”New Episode for Hunter Healer King
To claim her inheritance, Chloe Fortabat has to leave her ranch and come to the Old World, where she mingles with monster hunters. The most dangerous of these doesn’t look the part: a quiet, sharp-dressed medical man. Dr. Maxim os Storm’s mission is to destroy those monsters which feed on human pain. He is drawn to Chloe, but she is being slowly transformed into the exact type of monster he hunts. He does not know if he can cure her in time, or what she will do when she learns his secrets…
I plan to drop new episodes for this serial every day in the Kindle Vella store for the foreseeable future. To learn more about Vella, keep reading.
Continue reading “New Episode for Hunter Healer King”
Jaglion Press 