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NEWS AND VIEWS - MAY 2020
WRITING NEWS Hey, hey! I finished writing another Signalverse novel this month. This one's called Sneak and the Shadow of Darkplanet (it was originally just Sneak, but that started sounding kind of boring to me, so I jazzed it up). It's about a guy named Alan who discovers his best friend from high school has become a supervillain; she tries to turn his apartment into a hideout, and eventually gets him mixed up in this huge outer space adventure. It's pretty crazy, even for a Signalverse book. I was hoping to finish this one by the end of April, but it ran a little longer than I was expecting, and also I haven't really been writing as much as usual -- my minimum quota is usually 500 words a day, seven days a week, but lately I've started taking the weekends off. Anyway, as soon as Tom finishes the cover art this one should be good to go. Hoping to release it in June. Next up? The Brassfire Fleet, the second book in The Chemical Empires trilogy. I entered The Demon in the Metal in the SPFBO contest a few days ago; I'm hoping it'll do well. And that's about all I've got for writing news at the moment. * * * * * * * * NEVER GIVE UP For your reading/viewing pleasure today: three of the greatest come-from-behind victories in boxing history. Archie Moore was the light heavyweight champion of the world when he faced Canadian Yvon Durelle in 1958. Moore was a crafty defensive boxer (and in my opinion the second or third best light heavyweight in history), but he was at least forty-four years old at the time and a lot of people were beginning to wonder how much longer he could go on. In this fight, he was knocked down by the younger Durelle three times in the first round, with the third knockdown leaving him splayed all over the canvas. He was knocked down again in the fifth round. In Hollywood a fighter who gets knocked down usually just jumps right back up again, but in real life it's very unusual for a fighter to rally after taking this kind of a beating (in fact the fight probably would have been stopped if it had been held today). Moore, however, practically elderly at this point, not only got up four times, he proceeded to hang in there long enough to recover and knock out Durelle in the eleventh round. A truly inspiring performance. In 1952 Rocky Marciano challenged Jersey Joe Walcott for the heavyweight championship. Walcott isn't very well remembered today, but he was an excellent heavyweight who did a lot of slipping and juking, making him very difficult to hit; even Muhammad Ali admitted once that Walcott's style would have been a headache for him. Walcott knocked Marciano down in the first round -- the first time he'd ever been knocked down. The fight was comptetitive, but Walcott was the slicker boxer and was able to build up a good lead on points; by the thirteenth round, Marciano was beat up and practically blind. Nevertheless, he continued to pressure Walcott, and in the thirteenth he managed to maneuver him to the ropes. Both of them threw punches at the same time, but Marciano's landed first, knocking Walcott out cold. The punch, widely regarded as one of the most devastating blows in boxing history, not only got Marciano out of trouble, it won him his title. This one really needs no introduction. George Foreman, forty-six years old, comes from behind to knock out the much younger and much fresher southpaw Michael Moorer with a single well-timed punch. Foreman claims that this late knockout was all part of his strategy (of lulling Moorer into complacency) but as much as I like Foreman, I don't buy it. He won this one because he persevered long enough to spot a great opportunity, which he was alert enough to take advantage of. * * * * * * * * SUMMER READING Here's some books you might like. Hardcore Gaming 101 Presents: Japanese Video Game Obscurities by Kurt Kalata. An in-depth look at some very strange games in some very strange genres. Love this book. If A Pirate I Must Be: The True Story of Black Bart, King of the Caribbean Pirates by Richard Sanders. Fascinating look at the career of Bartholomew Roberts, sometimes called Black Bart, who captured more ships during the Golden Age of Piracy than any other pirate, by far. Sanders notes that a capable man like Roberts might have risen high in the Royal Navy, perhaps even to the level of an admiral, if he hadn't been bound by the class prejudices of his time; I found this idea especially intriguing. The Greatest Knight by Thomas Asbridge. A wonderful biography of William Marshal, a brilliant tournament knight who served five English kings, and who at the advanced age of seventy was still personally leading men into battle. Wotta man! Alone on the Ice by David Roberts. The story of the 1912 Australasian Antarctic Expedition, led by Douglas Mawson. After one of his companions fell into a crevasse, and another died, he was forced to march over a hundred miles through Antarctic blizzards, alone, to make it back to safety...and because he missed his ship, he wound up having to spend a second winter in Antarctica, sharing a cabin with a guy who was slowly going insane. Absolutely astonishing story of survival.
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