Myth-ion Improbable by Robert Asprin

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Written by: on Monday, January 23rd, 2012


Myth-ion Improbable
Author: Robert Asprin
ISBN: 0-441-00962-X
Cover Art by Walter Velez

Back Cover:
IMPROBABLE MYTH-ION FORCE
Skeeve: Apprentice Wizard.
Aahz: Skeeve’s mentor, a bad-tempered, scaly green Pervect.
Tanda: Beautiful ex-assassin, and dimension-hopper extraordinaire.
THEIR MYTH-ION
To journey into the Kowtow realm, and retrieve a golden cow that lives in a golden palace and gives gold-laced milk. But Kowtow is a land of vegetarian cowboys, hell-bent on protecting their livestock – and deeply afraid of something that comes out after dark…

So I thought…
The book begins with an apology to explain why he hasn’t written another book for this series in a long time. Apparently it had been so long that he couldn’t put his head back into Aahz and Skeeve’s world until a friend makes a suggestion for him to write an adventure from their younger days. Robert Asprin decides to write a story that takes place between the third and forth book of his series.

My first thought was, “Oh no. Not another book that rambles on and on and on and on and has nothing to do with the story.” I was bored with ‘Sweet Myth-tery of Life’ and I wasn’t in the mood to go through it again.

It starts off interesting. Skeeve at some point purchased a treasure map to give to Aahz. Aahz’s interest is piqued. Tanda enters the scene. Lots of world hopping. Then they land in the realm of Kowtow that’s populated with cows and a lot of copy&pasted towns where everyone looks and acts the same.

One thing that caught my attention was… (cut for spoilers) (more…)

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Simple

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Written by: on Friday, January 20th, 2012

Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge: Simple

This simple thing does not make the best picture. The theme of “simple” reminds me of when the lights go out and the only thing that’ll work is a candle – or whatever handy gadgets you have that are charged but let’s not muddy it up.

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Location: The Green Room
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M.Y.T.H. Inc. In Action & Sweet Myth-tery of Life by Robert Asprin

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Written by: on Wednesday, January 18th, 2012


M.Y.T.H. Inc. In Action
and
Sweet Myth-tery of Life
Author: Robert Asprin
ISBN: 0-441-00982-4
Cover Art by Walter Velez

Back Cover:
M.Y.T.H. Inc. In Action
When Skeeve “the Great” asks two bumbling bodyguards to join the army of Possiltum, they volunteer without question. But with war heroes like these, who needs enemies?

Sweet Myth-tery of Life
The well-meaning magician Skeeve is drowning in a sea of romance. But only one of his nubile suitors can assure his future – and maybe even keep him alive…

So I thought…
More rambling? Two more books under my belt, at least. Elaborate, you ask? I can try.

Myth Inc in Action is told by Guido. I guess I can say that I liked it. Guido and Nunzio join the army of Possiltum with the intent to screw things up to slow down Queen Hemlock but achieve the exact opposite.

Sweet Myth-tery of Life just went on and on about… whatever. I don’t know. It didn’t seem like it was going anywhere and it got to the point that I forgot why they were even in Possiltum or what Skeeve was even wallowing about.

At the back of the first book, there’s an author note for the 1990 version of the book where he apologizes about the fiasco of his “Two “Myth” episodes a year” that didn’t happen. The next book’s dedication includes an apology for a two and a half year writer’s block. I’m starting to get the feeling that the reason the books are dragging is because he was trying to meet the demands of his fans and his heart wasn’t in it.

But yes, that’s two more books under my belt.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Peaceful

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Written by: on Friday, January 13th, 2012

The Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge: Peaceful

The first thought I had was of Gypsy lounging in the sun.


Location: The Green Room
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M.Y.T.H. Inc. Link – Myth-Nomers and Im-Pervections – by Robert Asprin

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Written by: on Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

M.Y.T.H. Inc. Link

and

Myth-Nomers and Im-Pervections

Author: Robert Asprin
ISBN: 0-441-00969-7
Cover Art by Walter Velez

Back Cover:
M.Y.T.H. Inc. Link
Being President of M.Y.T.H. Inc. doesn’t keep Skeeve from sleuthing around some very out-of-the-way – and dangerous – dimensions.

Myth-Nomers and Im-Pervections
Skeeve’s demon cohort, Aahz, leaves in a huff. Now Skeeve finds himself in the missing Pervect’s home dimension – the worst neighborhood in the galaxy…

So I thought…
The book opens with the author’s introduction to Myth Inc Link where he goes into detail of how the Myth series came to be and where he plans to go with the next six books of the series. He says that instead of each book having its own ‘tale with an ending’, it’d be the big picture that would run through the books.

In Myth Inc Link, he writes from several characters’ point of views so that we can see how each character ticks and why they act the way they act. The biggest surprise was Gleep (sadly). It didn’t feel like a story. Rather just a collection of stories and I was hoping he wasn’t going to keep using that format through the rest of the books.

In Mythnomers and Impervections, Skeeve had to go to Perv and track down Aahz. When it starts out, we get the idea that Perv is quite an amazing yet filthy metropolis. This book goes on and on and on and on and on… and on… with Skeeve reflecting about his own troubles to the point that the story doesn’t really go anywhere.

He interacts with the same characters. JR, some homeless Perv. Kalvin, a Djin. Edvick, his taxi driver. Even when he visited Aahz’s mother, the scene was so quickly written that I wasn’t sure what the point was before Skeeve quickly walked back out (Why the book cover was based on this shortly written scene, I don’t know…).

It’s clear that that story is rolling on through the books since they’re heading off to Klah to deal with a problem there.

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Happy New Year!

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Written by: on Sunday, January 1st, 2012

Wishing everyone a happy new year! May this year bring you many good things!

And to add more to this post, I haven’t done any resolutions for this year… yet.
1. I have plans of participating in Camp NaNoWriMo for June and August. I’m also doing NaNoWriMo in November. I, however, am not going to participate in Milwordy. Eesh. One million words in a year? No thanks! hehe.
2. I’m really excited about the 1940 census that’s supposed to come out this spring. It’d be nice to see where ancestors were at this period in time.
3. Hopefully this year is a good year. 2011 was altogether a bad year in many ways.


Location: The Green Room
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What will you try to do everyday next year?

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Written by: on Saturday, December 24th, 2011

The Daily Post asks: What will you try to do everyday next year?

That’s a tough question. I guess the ultimate answer is: breathe.

I’d love to toss out answers such as “Oh, I’ll write 500 words every day.” or “read at least two chapters from a book every day.” and so on. If I get bored of something, it’s very difficult to force myself to do it.

Though! Last year, I remember hearing about people trying to do a ‘photo’ blog where they post a new image every day. I’m not sure if I could do that because it’d be nearly impossible to go anywhere interesting to get an interesting picture on a daily basis. It is a thought though. I don’t know.

On a side note, the picture is of a Club Nintendo reward for Gold members. A 2012 Nintendo Calendar. A good friend reached Platinum status on Club Nintendo and was extremely disappointed to discover that the reward was a collection of 25 Super Mario themed pins (a bit of a change from last year’s nifty statue that Platinum members got). He mailed them to me (they arrived yesterday) and phew… bulky packaging for 25 tiny pins.

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Location: The Green Room
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M&M’s tube toppers

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Written by: on Sunday, December 4th, 2011

Looks like it’s that time of year again when you’re supposed to be full of cheer and generosity…

I pulled down this sad looking ‘Charlie Brown’ tree from the attic along with the many M&M’s tube toppers that I’ve been collecting over the years. It started with the family tradition of having M&M’s tubes in our stockings. The toppers would go on the tree after. Rinse and repeat. I realized how many there were that I decided to start looking for more toppers and managed to get enough for this little tree. A friend started sending me hers as well which was very kind of her! 🙂

I will admit that a tiny side of me is extremely ecstatic that M&M’s has finally gone back to the ornaments design for tube toppers this year. The train topper theme lasted for way too long (You can see some on the table there. I couldn’t fit all the train toppers on there.) and last year’s odd little plastic ball thingie? water-less snow globe possibly? was a huge disappointment. I only managed to get my hands on Red but Yellow was nowhere at all.

I am actually thinking of taking a picture of each design to show what I have and try to do a search for ornaments I am missing.


Location: The Green Room
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NaNoWriMo 2011 comes to an end.

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Written by: on Wednesday, November 30th, 2011

So it’s the final day of November and NaNoWriMo 2011 comes to an end. I crossed the finish line today with 50,452 words. This story worked my last nerve. It was like trying to drag an inconsolable child that often threw temper tantrums or tried to run away, forcing me to chase it down. The story has a beginning and a middle. I never reached the end. I thought the scene that was supposed to end the story ended up feeling like it didn’t end the story whatsoever. I found myself wondering, “What kind of an ending is that? You have loose ends and people will want to know where it goes from there – if they’re still interested at this point.”

I don’t see myself coming back to this story. I don’t know. There’s so much that has to be torn up and rewritten as it is and I still don’t know how to end it.

It turns out that CreateSpace changed their offer. Instead of getting a free proof copy of your book like last year, they changed it so that you must pay for your proof, must approve the book, and then you can order five free copies of your book. You can keep it private so that no one knows about it but it still counts as being published, apparently. Taking that extra step to be published is not something I want to do so I won’t be pursuing that route. I was thinking that if they offered a free proof copy again, I would fix up my sequel I wrote during Camp NaNoWriMo and have a copy of that for fun. Oh well.

Congratulations to all those that crossed the finish line!

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Location: The Green Room
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Damodar sunk his sword into your shoulder and…

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Written by: on Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011

Yeah, I’m still doing that ‘trick’ where I have the “Dungeons & Dragons” DVD playing so that I can’t slip into the whole ‘tv watching’ bit when I keep stalling out on my writing. With it playing in the background and the remote out of reach, I can’t go channel-surfing. Helps a lot in keeping me focused on Word. I couldn’t pick a better movie.

Lately I have been -watching- the movie when it should be deterring me from doing just that! When it got to the scene where Damodar sunk his sword into Ridley’s shoulder, puncturing whatever important organs he might need there, I couldn’t help but think that my story is kicking my butt in a similar fashion.

I absolutely dread my story. I don’t even know if I’ll reach the ending but I have promised myself that if Day 30 comes and I’m not near/on the ending, I’m just going to write up a quick summary of how it ends as long as I reach 50,000 words and just put it to rest. At least this story won’t pester me anymore.

I find myself missing my usual fantasy world that I like to romp around in. I miss my usual characters that are always getting into some kind of situation. This also makes me hesitate to pursue other story ideas that take place in other worlds too. I have a new story idea that I want to try for Camp NaNoWriMo (if they do end up hosting it next summer) but now I wonder if instead of some different world, if I should use that idea in my usual world. I don’t know…

Oh well… Seven more days to reach 50,000 words on this story.

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Location: The Green Room
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