The Young Victoria

ByJohn Brown

Being a crass American I have always considered the current British royalty as nothing more than very expensive mascots. What function do they really serve besides acting as some kind of high-society-reality-show soap opera? 

Not that this is bad. If the British want to spend their money on queens, princes, and princesses, who am I to oppose them? After all, we Americans have kept the stellar Survivor series going for ten seasons. And when it finally ends, we’ll probably replace it with something else of supreme value like World’s Biggest Belchers or Kids Who Eat Boogers. At least the Royal Family has some modicum of class. Still, the point is that I’m not disposed to feel much sympathy for state-supported rich folk. So when I tell you I just watched and loved The Young Victoria, it should tell you something.

The movie was sublime. A large part of it was because the story left me edified, left me wanting to be a husband–a friend to my wife–as good as the Albert portrayed in that film. Compare this to Killers which could have been so good, but devolved into dumb sex jokes and dumber action, which then only got worse. When that one ended, I staggered out of the theater having lost half my brain.  The Young Victoria, on the other hand, enlarged my soul.

The movie is a romantic dramatization of some of the events preceding and following the coronation of  Alexandrina Victoria (Queen Victoria), focusing on her early reign and romance with Price Albert in the 1830s. She was only 18 when her uncle, the King, died and the crown fell to her. Some suggested she was too young and should sign her powers over to a regent. Others wanted to use her as a puppet. The question was: would she fall prey to the political aspirations of others? I will let you watch the movie to find out.

Emily Blunt does a wonderful job as Victoria. I loved her in the Jane Austen Book Club as well. She’s supported by a great cast, including Rupert Friend as Prince Albert, Mark Strong (the villain in the recent Sherlock Holmes and Robin Hood) as the domineering Sir John Conroy, and Paul Bettany as the dubious Lord Melbourne.

When recently compiling my list of favorite movies of the decade, I lamented the dearth of good love stories. Well, I just found one. This movie was golden.  If you love Jane Austen, you’re going to love this show.

(BTW, the Royals actually do perform a number of worthwhile tasks. Read this wiki on the British Royal Family. You may also want to read this on Victoria after you watch the movie.)

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  • Good Stuff! 3 Remakes That Will Go Down Into Your Bones

    ByJohn Brown

    Sometimes a remake of a song is better than the original. Or if not better, different and equally as good. I have three that I think fit that bill.

    First is a mix of “The House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals and “Amazing Grace.” It was sung by Jerry Lawson and the Talk of the Town on NBC’s The Sing-Off, which used to be one of the best music competitions on TV. It was all voice, all a’capella, and the things some of the groups did were simply amazing. But then NBC decided to shorten it all into a one-night competition and basically ruined it by removing the multi-week build of the competition and, more importantly, letting us get to know the groups and hearing a range of songs. Oh, well. At least we got this. Turn up your speakers and let it fill you.

    You can get the single here on Amazon.

    The next is a remake of “Go Down, Moses” by The Lower Lights, who have taken this old choral and infused it with a new folk, soul, revival-style groove that makes me think this is probably how the song was originally sung.

    Every time I hear it, it goes down into my bones and calls forth this desire to sing. You can get it here on Amazon.

    The last is a remake of “Glorious” by Stephanie Mabey. This one was part of Meet the Mormons and sung by David Archuleta.

    You can get the exclusive free download of the single here.

     

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  • You thought Bad Penny was fiction?

    ByJohn Brown

    How about former CIA operatives and Navy Seals forming a private group to rescue child slaves?

    Last January, Ballard made a bold move and left his job to form his own team of former CIA operatives and Navy Seals who operate undercover to bust child slavery rings

    . . . . .

    Ballard’s organization is called Operation Underground Railroad, and members call themselves abolitionists. The references to 19th-century slave liberation are deliberate.

    There are currently 25 million people living in slavery, according to the 2014 Global Slavery Index research released by anti-trafficking organization Walk Free Foundation. The U.S. State Department puts the figure closer to 21 million, and about two million of those slaves are children.

    Ballard’s line of work has opened his eyes to a problem most people are blind to — the fact that there are more people living in slavery now than at the height of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

    . . . . .

    Ballard knows better than anyone just how easy it is to buy a child. In an operation in Haiti earlier this year, he posed as a trafficker and visited an orphanage where two children — a brother and sister ages 2 and 3 — were sold to him for $15,000 apiece.

    That’s the going rate for a child, says Ballard, and over time, the owner can make millions of dollars by selling the child for sex or forced labor.

    Read the rest at Heroes of 2014. Become an abolitionist here.

    Then go on to read about another hero–the Iron Angel–who is helping folks out of another kind of slavery.

    Then a third called the Vicar of Bagdad, who has had over 1,000 of his flock killed for their beliefs.

    Here’s the full list of the six featured heroes.

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    Writing Update: Curse, trebuchets, CONduit, book industry, & Robinson Wells

    ByJohn Brown

    As of 5 PM this last Saturday I have finished 15,000 words of the climax of Curse of a Dark God. I think I have another 10,000 to go and the book will be done. I’m so close to the end of this draft! So don’t let the progress bars fool you. The ending is coming together fabulously–lots of spectacle, big reveals, and major heroics. At least, I think so.

    While working on this, I had to spend a number of hours finding out how strong a wind must be to pick up humans and stones. I also needed to know the destructive forces of various classes of tornados and hurricanes. Why would I need to know such things? I write fantasy, for Leroy’s sake!

    (Yes, that’s good English; I’m a writer, and one of my prerogatives is to make up silly versions of common expletives using the names of friends and enemies.)

    Here’s why: I just can’t write if I don’t believe in what I’m writing. And when I’ve got monsters (skir) that can generate winds that will be used in a siege, well, I had to know the terminal velocities of what these creatures could throw, and what that might mean for fortress defense. I had to know the limitations and ramifications.

    I won’t rehearse all the fascinating details (and it WAS fascinating), but all that research did lead me to a wonderful documentary. It’s called Secrets of Lost Empires 2: Medieval Siege and was produced by Nova in 2000. You can get it on Netflix or Amazon.  In the film, fifty carpenters worked day and night to create and test what they dubbed “the fourteenth century version of the atom bomb”–the trebuchet (tre-byou-SHAY). The trebuchet as the most popular throwing machine in Europe during the middle ages. If you love the history of medieval war, you’ll love this film. You might want to add to it a reading of the excellent Ancient and Medieval Siege Weapons by Konstantin Nossov, which you can get via the inter-library loan program.

    I’ll share two cool factoids for you history fans. “Catapult” means “shield-breaker,” “cata” meaning break or penetrate and “pelta” being the name of the shield used by the Greek light infantry. The original catapults were NOT big spoons–they sped arrows and balls along a track like a crossbow. However, instead of using the spring force of a bow, they used torsion-springs, which is what you get when you twist fibers that want to be straight. In the case of catapults the fibers were ropes made out of animal sinews or hair (horse or human, a woman’s hair being considered the best) and soaked in oil. Click on the image to see a larger picture. 

    A modern example of a torsion-spring are those balsa wood airplanes with propellers attached to a rubber band that’s hooked to the belly of the plane. To fly them, you rotate the propeller round and round, twisting the rubber band. Then you let the propeller go. Because the rubber wants to be straight, it reverses the twist, spinning the propeller the opposite way you twisted it. 

    You might think these torsion-spring engines were weak. But one catapult was reported as being powerful enough that an arrow shot from it broke through a shield, and the armored warrior standing behind it, at a distance of 400 yards! Hence, the name.

    The other factoid is that “trebuchet” comes from the French term meaning to overthrow. If you saw Return of the King, you’ll recognize them as the engines used on the towers of Minas Tirith. Trebuchets are simply an evolution of the staff sling. When it came to breaking castle walls, there was nothing more effective until the cannon appeared. Of course, in my book I use them a bit differently. You’ll see.

    One funny thing. I watched the movie with my oldest who was just as fascinated with the engines as I was. When she was telling my wife about the film, she kept referring to trech-uh-butts. Which, I guess, is as fair an attempt at “trebuchet” as any. However, my wife kept picturing buttocks and couldn’t figure out what the heck my daughter was talking about–“You were watching what with your father?!”

    The French make things so hard . . .

    ***

    The Monday after CONduit I left for work in Mexico and then Vegas. I didn’t get back until this week. So I just wanted to say I had a great time at the con. Loved chatting with all the folks there.

    It was great to see the Larry Correia, Paul Genesse, Jessica Day George, Isaac Stewart (and his brother Dan), Mette Harrison, Eric James Stone, Darren Egget, Julie Frost, Sandra Tayler, LE Modesitt, Josh Perkey, Nicole (whose husband is an Orem cop and I lost his number), Daniel Who-I-Sacrificed-to-My-Editor, and the Dungeon Crawlers Radio guys.

    It was also nice to speak with Julie Wright who was one of the initial judges for the Whitney Awards. She’s always nice to chat with, but this time it was especially nice since she said reading Servant of a Dark God was like eating chocolate. I’ll take chocolate praise any day.

    I also met new author Janci Patterson who just sold a YA with a great premise. It’s called SKIP and is about a young girl whose parents are divorced. The girl has to go stay with her dad who lives in a trailer and is a bounty hunter. I’m a sucker for bounty hunter stories. Especially this one, because she goes out with him and falls in love with one of the guys her dad has to haul in. I’ve slaughtered the pitch, but I got that good old writer’s envy when she told me about it. Can’t wait to read it.

    I also got to see Barbara Hambly. I was at LTUE when she was there like 20 years ago. We loved her stuff. She suddenly dropped out of the writing scene in the early 90’s and now I know why–it appears Del Rey dropped all their midlist authors except for Anne McCaffery and someone else. Hambly was one of the causalities.

    ***

    After Hambly’s main address, I sat with a few authors and had a brief discussion about the book industry where it was suggested the industry was shrinking–fewer readers, fewer sales, doom, doom, doom. But that is exactly opposite all the data I’ve seen.

    1. Book sales have an annual average growth over the last seven years of 1.1%, adult paperbacks are growing 2.9% http://www.publishers.org/main/IndustryStats/indStats_02.htm or http://www.publishers.org/main/IndustryStats/documents/S12009Final.pdf . Now, this doesn’t show units sold. So it could be that they sold fewer units for more money per unit. Still, it shows at the very least that $$$ aren’t shrinking.
    2. The New Book Titles report here shows an increase in the number of titles: http://www.bowker.com/index.php/book-industry-statistics — 80% increase from 2002 to 2009.
    3. Reading rates are actually on the rise: http://johndbrown.com/2009/03/literary-reading-rates-on-the-rise/
    4. Finally, I contacted Bookscan for their numbers for an ALA conference I did last summer. This is just juvenile fiction, but the numbers are in units. Now, I don’t know if they added more sources to their database and so that caused a rise, but I explained to them what I was trying to do—see trends over time—and this is the data they provided. According to their numbers, more juvenile books are being sold now than in 2004. Click on the graphic below. This means we have more and more readers rising up through the ranks! One author asked how much of that was Rowling and Meyer. During that period books by those authors accounted for an average of 7-10% of all juvenile fiction. Bookscan categorizes “juvenile” as everything for kids. That means from Go, Dog Go up through what we consider Young Adult. R&M accounted for an average of 33-36% of what Bookscan categorizes as science fiction, fantasy, or magic within the juvenile mega-category. What all that means is the growth is across the whole category, not just with their books.

    So I’m very sanguine about the book industry’s prospects. Today’s youth seem to be able to play computer games AND read in great quantities.

    ***

    Finally, one last bit of news. Robinson Wells was the one of the main ones to start the Whitney Academy and the Whitney Awards. Well, he just got some fabulous news. Here’s the announcement from Publishers Marketplace: “Robison Wells’ YA debut dystopian thriller VARIANT, a modern-day LORD OF THE FLIES, set at a boarding school where not everything is as it seems and every day is a fight for survival, in a significant deal, in a three-book deal, to Erica Sussman at Harper Children’s.”

    For those of you who don’t know, here are the PM deal categories.

    • “nice deal” $1 – $49,000
    • “very nice deal” $50,000 – $99,000
    • “good deal” $100,000 – $250,000
    • “significant deal” $251,000 – $499,000
    • “major deal” $500,000 and up

    Oh, baby. Someday. Someday. Of course, I’m nothing but happy for Mr. Wells!

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    Black Chokecherry Syrup

    ByJohn Brown

    When you live where we do, you cannot hope to landscape likes folks in a warm suburb. First of all, at 6,000 feet with a min temp of -30 Fahrenheit you can’t grow a lot of warmer climate plants. Second, the deer seem to eat everything else you do grow. So we’ve been looking and I think I’ve found a tree to add.

    I actually found it earlier when I was biking around the beautiful Round Valley and had to stop and go back to revel in the delicious fragrance. But I didn’t know what it was at the time. I do now. 

    It’s the black chokecherry.

    It grows naturally up here. Has beautiful fragrant blossoms in the spring. And it produces fruit that can be made into a delicious syrup. Oh, the raccoons like it as well.

    Now when you eat the raw berry, unless you eat it late in the fall, you’re in for an astringent, alum after-punch. But we picked the berries up a canyon behind our town after the first frosts. In fact, many of our berries were wrinkled. They just fine raw. Even Lilia, my pickiest eater, enjoyed them.

    We picked about 1.25 gallon ice cream buckets of the stuff. Then we followed this recepie and made about 4 quarts of syrup.

    • 3 cups chokecherry juice (see first step)
    • 3 cups apple juice (not from a store, but cooked from apples)
    • 6 1/2 cups sugar
    • (I’ve heard some folks add 1/4 teaspoon almond extract for a stronger cherry taste)
    1. Wash chokecherries, place in a large kettle, barely cover with water and cook, covered, for about 30 minutes till the cherries are soft. Mash gently and strain the chokecherry juice through a sieve or cheesecloth.
    2. Do the same with the apples.
    3. Pour the juice into a large kettle; stir in the sugar.
    4. Cook on high, stirring constantly.
    5. Boil hard for 1 minute.
    6. Remove from heat and skim foam.
    7. To can: Pour hot syrup into sterilized hot jars to within 1/8th inch from top.

    It’s absolutely delicious on pancakes. 

     

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  • Good Stuff: Why We Get Fat

    ByJohn Brown

    What if everything you know about fat, cholesterol, and diet is pretty much wrong?

    What if you found out that the science behind the good old food pyramid is, well, not really there?

    We’ve been told that a healthy diet consists of lots of grains, bagels, bread, pasta, cereals, rice, etc. and very little fat. What if it’s actually the reverse?

    If it is, then it might explain why the rates of diabetes and obesity began to skyrocket as the nation started to implement a low fat high carb diet.

    I remember having gained about fifteen pounds when I was first married. I decided I would go on a diet. I read up on the low fat high carb diet and followed it strictly. Two weeks later, I had gained ten more pounds. Did I, at the time, look at the diet and think that maybe there was something wrong with it?

    No. That would have been too intelligent.

    Instead, I figured something must be wrong with me and continued to try to “eat healthy.” What’s that definition of insanity—doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? Call me insane. Or slow. Or too trusting of authority.

    It appears that the science of nutrition got hijacked. Government policy then ran away with it. It’s a fascinating and cautionary tale. Let me recommend three books that explain what really causes us to deposit fat and how we got off track.

    The first is Why We Get Fat by science writer Gary Taubes. In it he reveals the bad nutritional science of the last century, why the good science was ignored, what really causes us to store fat, and what to do about it.

    The next is The Obesity Code by Dr. Jason Fung. Fung is a kidney specialist. Obesity and diabetes are the root of many kidney problems. And so he decided to help his patients by strop treating symptoms and get at the root cause. Fung’s gift is clarity. He explains how obesity and diabetes became an epidemic, the errors in how we think about calories and diet, and then he explains in great clarity the new model of what really causes obesity and how to reverse it.

    The last is The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat & Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet by investigative journalist Nina Teicholz. She spent nine years investigating this, and the book reveals how the misinformation about saturated fats took hold in the scientific community, government, and the public and how recent findings overturn these beliefs. It’s a startling history, a cautionary tale showing how ego, bias, and premature institutional consensus allowed dangerous misrepresentations to become dietary dogma.

    If you’re dealing with obesity, heart disease, or diabetes, I think you’ll find these books very interesting.

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