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What’s The Price of Magic? It’s a “game” or exercise taught by Orson Scott Card at a writing class I attended in San Diego recently. The purpose of which is to define rules of a fantasy world where magic is possible. For magic to be possible, there is bound to be a price.

Uncle Orson’s writing class was a wonderful two day course that finished off my relaxing Southern California trip. The class was more than inspiring, it gave me some real world experience with the writing process.

OSC talked about everything from characterization and viewpoint to submitting manuscripts. It was fun and fascinating to learn from someone so intelligent and prolific. When I read OSC’s books I’m always amazed at his understanding of human nature. For anyone interested in the writing process, I highly recommend his class. Maybe if he does one next year I’ll try for his boot camp, an extended course whepre you write a complete story under his tutalage. Sounds fun, huh!?! What’s the price of magic? $175 and two days with a master of his craft.

reading, writing writing

I just finished reading The Penal Colony this morning. I started reading it Wednesday and had a difficult time putting it down. It’s a fast read and a great story. I’ve been simultaneously reading another book, but this one clearly held my attention. The great thing about this book is that the author, Richard Herley only asks you to pay him if you enjoy the book. I sent him my payment a few minutes ago. It came out to about $2 U.S.

Here is the book synopsis from his website:

It is 1997. The British government now runs island prison colonies to take dangerous offenders from its overcrowded mainland jails.

Among all these colonies, Sert, 25 miles off the north Cornish coast, has the worst reputation. There are no warders. Satellite technology is used to keep the convicts under watch. New arrivals are dumped by helicopter and must learn to survive as best they can.

To Sert, one afternoon in July, is brought Anthony John Routledge, sentenced for a sex-murder he did not commit.

Routledge knows he is here for ever. And he knows he must quickly forget the rules of civilized life.

But not all the islanders are savages. Under the charismatic leadership of one man a community has evolved. A community with harsh and unyielding rules, peopled by resourceful men for whom the hopeless dream of escape may not be so hopeless after all …

The story is one that fascinated me from the start. With the state of the prison system in the U.S., I have naturally wondered what would happen if convicts were placed on an island to work things out for themselves. This is a fascinating study into human nature and the nature of civilization in a vacuum. It also makes one grateful for many significant and insignificant luxuries we live with each day.

As for the writing and the story, you can’t ask for more. Mr. Herley is a writer in charge of his craft. The plot progresses steadily and the characters are developed carefully and expertly. I like a story that has deep and meaningful characters.

Again from the website, a note about age appropriateness:

The Penal Colony is exceedingly violent, although the worst is not so much described as alluded to. It also deals with homosexual rape and other matters which are best left to an adult sensibility: the book is not suitable for children.

This statement makes it sound worse than it is. Truly, this is not a kids book, but Mr. Herley handles the situation in the book with careful sensibility. Nothing is said for the shock factor as much as to paint a clear picture of what would probably be.

reading

I bought Pillars of the Earth before I knew that is was Oprah’s Book Club pick for January…honestly! But I’m not sorry I did. It’s a great book full of all the elements of a great story. Ken Follett finished it in 1989, and it’s popularity has been growing for years through word of mouth.

Ken Follett has long been fascinated with the cathedrals of Europe, but it takes a work of genius to make others fall in love with those same ideas through the use of fictional characters in the middle ages.

He spins a wonderful tale of hardship and passion. His characters are truly believable; all have strengths and weaknesses and no one is perfect. Certainly, some are closer to perfection than others, but he doesn’t hide people faults and short comings. Maybe that is what I like best. The book also makes me thankful for everything we have in our modern age, especially the things we take for granted like food, security, compassion and reinforced steal.

reading

I finally finished Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Reading it is like reading 3 books. I really enjoyed it, but I tired of Ayn making the same point over and over. She could have easily cut that book by half and not lost a thing. I have to say though, she really gave me something to think about.

Additionally, Sarah and I are making our way through the new Harry Potter.

reading

I’ve been reading Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged for the last few days. I’m only into a little over 20%. That is when I figured out who John Galt is…couldn’t Ayn have made it a little more difficult to guess? If you solve a mystery when a book is only 20% of the way done, doesn’t it kind of ruin the climax? As soon as I guessed it I went to Wikipedia to verify it. I had seen a list of all the characters there earlier, but refused to read who John Galt was, because I didn’t want to spoil it. Upon confirming my suspicion…I learned a little more than I should have…so just a word to those who don’t want the mystery completely spoiled…after you have your own idea…just believe it and don’t try to find out too much too fast.

reading

I have been reading quite a bit lately. I read Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead. I also finished Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis. I’m reading a little from Montaigne’s Essays for my 10 year reading plan. And I’m back tracking and studying a little philosophy with some lectures from The Teaching Company called An Introduction to Greek Philosophy. Currently I’m working my way through Ayn Rand’s Atlus Shrugged. That is going to take me a while.

reading

I have started a 10 year reading plan that touches on a lot of great books. The plan is based on a volume of books called Great Books of the Western World. Here is a web site that takes about the reading plan and links to a yahoo group where we discuss the work. I’m reading Rabelais: Gargantua and Pantagruel, Book I right now. He is one weird duck.

reading

I have followed and enjoyed the work of Project Gutenberg since the early to mid nineties. I have always wanted to participate somehow, but always worried about taking on too much and letting down the project if I didn’t pull my weight, or if my interest should wane. Maybe up until a few years ago, that might have been a reasonable excuse, but not anymore.

People that want to help out can benefit from the synergy created by distributed proofreading. Participants can do as little or as much as they desire. I recently started proofing for pgdp.net and find it relaxing and enjoyable. Even if I just do one page a day, I know that I’m contributing to something lasting worth.

reading

This is, perhaps, my favorite argument of Socrates, one that I have had for years, and now I find that Socrates had it long before me.

Moreover, we may hence conclude that there is great hope that death is a blessing. For to die is one of two things: for either the dead may be annihilated, and have no sensation of any thing whatever; or, as it is said, there are a certain change and passage of the soul from one place to another. And if it is a privation of all sensation, as it were a sleep in which the sleeper has no dream, death would be a wonderful gain. For I think that if any one, having selected a night in which he slept so soundly as not to have had a dream, and having compared this night with all the other nights and days of his life, should be required, on consideration, to say how many days and nights he had passed better and more pleasantly than this night throughout his life, I think that not only a private person, but even the great king himself, would find them easy to number, in comparison with other days and nights. If, therefore, death is a thing of this kind, I say it is a gain; for thus all futurity appears to be nothing more than one night. But if, on the other hand, death is a removal from hence to another place, and what is said be true, that all the dead are there, what greater blessing can there be than this, my judges? For if, on arriving at Hades, released from these who pretend to be judges, one shall find those who are true judges, and who are said to judge there, Minos and Rhadamanthus, Æacus and Triptolemus, and such others of the demi-gods as were just during their own life, would this be a sad removal? At what price would you not estimate a conference with Orpheus and Musæus, Hesiod and Homer? I indeed should be willing to die often, if this be true. For to me the sojourn there would be admirable, when I should meet with Palamedes, and Ajax, son of Telamon, and any other of the ancients who has died by an unjust sentence. The comparing my sufferings with theirs would, I think, be no unpleasing occupation. But the greatest pleasure would be to spend my time in questioning and examining the people there as I have done those here, and discovering who among them is wise, and who fancies himself to be so, but is not. At what price, my judges, would not any one estimate the opportunity of questioning him who led that mighty army against Troy, or Ulysses, or Sisyphus, or ten thousand others whom one might mention both men and women—with whom to converse and associate, and to question them, would be an inconceivable happiness? Surely for that the judges there do not condemn to death; for in other respects those who live there are more happy than those who are here, and are henceforth immortal, if, at least, what is said be true. –Project Gutenberg’s Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates, by Plato, 32

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