M3 The Norse Myths

            For those starting out into Norse myth, I recommend Kevin Crossley-Holland’s The Norse Myths. This is an accessible yet authentic translation of the most well-known of the Norse myths. Before the myths, it explains the basics of the pantheon and the cosmology, which many will find familiar if they watched the Thor movies produced by Marvel.

            Like with the Graves book, the myths are organized chronologically from the creation all the way through to Ragnarok. Also like the Graves book, it doesn’t have every myth, but this collection is fairly broad. It focuses solely on the gods rather than including the hero stories (called Sagas in the Norse).

            This book is an excellent stepping-stone to more complete sources of Norse myth such as the Prose and Poetic Eddas by Snorri Sturrlson. I highly recommend it for anyone with an interest in Norse mythology.

F3 Celestial Glory

            Kashari Station didn’t boast much in the way of amenities. Most Consortium stations boasted complex speculative marketplaces and warehouses with assortments of goods. Kashari, though, only had basic goods directly for sale, and no marketplace. Instead, they were a stellar cartographer’s dream.

Travel Bag

            As I’m considering more and more travel, I’m considering an upgrade to my travel bag. I’m currently using a canvas Everest backpack, which is fairly spacious and fits well into the carry-on area. But it isn’t spacious enough. While I can squeeze about a week’s worth of clothing and gear with nothing to spare.

M3 Library: The Holy Bible

            I own more editions of The Holy Bible (including separate editions of The Books of Moses) than any other book of mythology. I know some people get prickly when it comes to thinking of the Bible as mythology, but it is. We’re just talking about these cultural stories. The reason I own so many (5 at last count) is because the translations can vary so widely. No book has been translated as many times as the Bible. Nor has any book had its translation disputed as much as the Bible.

F3 The Master

            I rolled the penny across my knuckles, then quickly palmed it, making it disappear from view. Palming a penny was easy, rolling it across knuckles was not. But Eva, unimpressed with my coin work, rolled her eyes at me.

            I picked up the deck of cards, instead, rapidly shuffling and manipulating the cards. Our first meeting had been at a poker game where she had dealt. I had managed to keep up with a good bit of her card work. She also knew when I held back cards, but now we were reversing roles.

Time Management

            I’ve been showing my students this semester how little time they have in an effort to make them realize the importance of managing that time. I have also been engaged in my own pieces of time management, trying to locate where my time has gone, and what I can do to rectify that.

M3 Library: The Greek Myths Complete Edition

            This book by Robert Graves is held by many as the definitive volume of Greek myths. Originally published as two volumes, it has since been consolidated. It covers everything when it comes to Greek myths. All of the major players (and most B-listers) are in this book.

F3 Gunsmith

            I wasn’t a complete stranger to gunpowder. I had watched as officers at the department gun range had loaded their own shells, some of them using the old black powder for recreational purposes. But the powder the king’s alchemist had sold me was nowhere near as refined.  There were clumps in the mixture, and I thought the proportions might even be off.

            It’ll have to do.

Conference Planning

            Since the success of last year’s fiction fest, I’m trying to worm my way into speaking and attending other conferences. This requires a great deal of preparation in the form of money and in pitching my proposals at the proper time. I’m slated to do two conferences this year, as well as attending a convention (purely for fun), too. This means very tightly evaluating my budget to see if it’s even possible to attend all of these.

            I think I can do it. I’ve been frugal enough this past year, that I think I can do this. But it wouldn’t hurt to start targeting conferences that are more local. Unfortunately, this is not New England where the states are clustered closely together. I think there are more conferences in New England in a month than in Arizona all year, and the driving distance is about the same. I’ll have to see if there’s a way to stack specific locations so I can enjoy multiple conferences in a region, and make it just one trip.

M3 Library: Parallel Myths

            Of all the multi-culture mythology books I’ve looked at over the years, this is the best. I love the organization as well as the myths. The author, J.F. Bierlein, offers up useful information in part 1 before diving fully into the myths, then follows up the myths with some interesting hypotheses ideas for interpreting myths in part 3.

F3 Enticing Aroma

            Flynn twitched his nose, wrinkling it back and forth as the new aroma filtered into his nose. It was familiar, but distant. He couldn’t place it. The smell wasn’t unpleasant, by any means. Flynn just couldn’t place it. He took deeper breaths, trying to figure it out, but he couldn’t do more than recognize it as familiar. No, check that. It was pleasant. He associated it with something pleasant from his past.

            “Ann, are you using your pherotube up here?”

            And turned to look at him, shaking her head no. “I thought the smell was you.”

Hard & Soft Science Fiction

            With the new Star Wars out and the Star Trek Alternaverse in full swing, along with films such as Interstellar and The Martian, the hard and soft sci-fi debate has reared up again. Since I write sci-fi, I thought I would weigh in.

M3 Library: Overview

            It occurred to me that it would be good to give my readers a brief overview of the books I use as sources of myths. In general, I look for books that emphasize the text of the myths over author commentary. I find that author commentary often gets in the way of my own interpretation of the myth. I want a clean slate to look it over and make up my own mind.