Bosworth Battlefield Site

It had been suspected for a long time that the battlefield site at Ambion Hill where the Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Visitor's Center is located, and the monument to where Richard III was slain, was not the actual site of Richard's final battle. Archeologists and historians have been investigating potential sites for several year and have revealed what they believe to be the actual site of the battle--about two and a half miles southwest of the Visitor's Center--based on finding evidence of a large medieval battle. Various objects found were buckles and strappings from armor, buckles, and most significantly, a boar badge of a quality that Richard III would have given to his closest lieutenants. See video clip and read article at BBC News.

Bosworth Field--a Shakespearean spoof

Enjoy!

I'll be doing a webcast Tuesday, Feb. 9

I will be a guest on Janet E. Smith's Internet Voices Radio show, Marketing for Fun and Profit on Tuesday, February 9, from 4:30 to 5:00pm (east coast time, US). In addition to talking about my novel, This Time (a story about Richard III in the 21st century), we will be discussing the challenges of marketing self published works without investing a lot of money to do so. You can listen at Internet Voices Radio either at the time of the webcast by selecting "Listen Live" or later by selecting "Listen On Demand". The show may be accessed for about a month following the webcast.

I met Janet on the Yahoo discussion group set up for the Independent Author's Guild and got to know her through her insightful comments on self publishing and marketing. She is one savvy self published author.

Major Rant: Google ruined the My Library feature

Google Books has a wonderful search tool that lets you find specific strings in books and they used to have that ability in the "My Library" feature. I loved being able to search my personal library for information where I didn't remember exactly the references where I had found it. (See my June 15,2009 post here.)

It looks completely different now where the books are strung out pictorially in some useless categories such as favorites, read, to be read, etc. instead of just listed with publishing information like they used to. I know what my books look like, I don't need a picture of the jacket.

I can still search the entire Google library and then sift through the hundreds of results for the ones that I've flagged as being in my library. However, there is no way for me to narrow my search choices down to the ones I have, instead of the millions that Google has catalogued.

Why did they have to go and "fix" something that wasn't broken?

Random Rant: Ad nauseam remakes

I settled in tonight to watch Masterpiece Theater Classic only to discover that it is yet another remake of Jane Austen’s Emma. As much as I love Jane Austen and enjoy Masterpiece Theater’s productions of her work, didn’t I see another version of Emma on Masterpiece Theater just last year? Aren’t there any other authors and other stories that Masterpiece Theater could produce?

Mystery seems to do the same with Agatha Christie's and Arthur Conan Doyle's works, but at least with these two authors, there are many more stories to choose from. Still, I do crave exposure to other authors.

I guess I shouldn’t complain too loudly, though. They could turn *shudder* Hollywood, and not only create endless remakes, but pick stories that aren’t nearly as good and then substitute CGI for good writing.

Review of Blue Bells of Scotland by Laura Vosika

In Blue Bells of Scotland, Laura Vosika spins a captivating tale that combines historical fiction with time travel and a bit of reverse alternate history cleverly woven in. Instead of changing the final outcome of an important historical event, Vosika changes the history at the start of the novel so that her time traveler changes it to what actually is. Although the grandfather paradox is mentioned, no consequences are shown for the changed history that the time travel generated such as people disappearing as if they never existed. The pacing flows from a measured cadence at the start of the tale and builds to a climatic crescendo reminiscent of Ravel’s Bolero.

Just before the 1314 Battle of Bannockburn, the two main characters, Shawn Kleiner, a twenty-first century classical trombonist who has rock-star fame, switches places with Niall Campbell, a fourteenth century lord, soldier, and harpist. Niall and Shawn are effectively clones, and so are seen by their peers to be the persons they were expected to be. One thing that often bothers me in time travel tales is how the time traveler is able to understand radically different versions of the same language. For example, in addition to Gaelic, Niall knew Middle English, which is not readily intelligible to Modern English speakers. Here is a sample from Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales:

Heere bigynneth The Knyghtes Tale

WHILOM, as olde stories tellen us,
Ther was a duc that highte Theseus;

Visually, this may be more understandable for us than if we heard it, because of the way pronunciations changed. In Monty Python and The Holy Grail, knight was pronounced ki-nig-it. This is probably the way knight was said then as one of the members of Monty Python, Terry Jones, is a medievalist. Vosika shows how Niall works through the language change in a believable way.

Vosika created a plausible background for both characters that allowed them to function—albeit awkwardly—in the others time. I was able to suspend my disbelief that these two men had these skills and were physically identical to each other. I particularly liked Shawn’s transformation from an arrogant womanizer who only thinks about himself and what people can do for him, to an unpretentious loyal friend—a man ready to lay down his life for a cause he believes in.

Perhaps the most important aspect of a story to me is that I become invested in the characters. Blue Bells of Scotland does not disappoint. Both Shawn and Niall are fully fleshed and I could imagine having a conversation with each. In addition to the two main characters, I feel I got to know and cared for Amy, Shawn’s lover. One negative in my mind is the author sprang a significant revelation about Amy where I did not see the behavior as consistent with her character. My apologies for being vague, but I do not want to introduce spoilers. One character that I would have like to have known better was Allene, a feisty, self-sufficient medieval noblewoman and Niall’s betrothed. I look forward to learning more about her in the second book.

Of some minor concern was that I thought the prose could have been tighter and I found a few typos. I soon forgot these as I became absorbed by the story. This is one book that I found hard to put down.

Even though this is only the first book, I found the ending sufficiently satisfying, giving me the patience to wait for the second of the trilogy. That said; write faster, Laura. I want to read more.

Blue Bells of Scotland may be purchase from Amazon.com:

Once in a Blue Moon

Even though this phrase means a rare event, it does refer to a natural phenomenon when there are two full moons in a calendar month. This occurs about once every 2.5 years. However, this New Years Eve's blue moon is rarer still--it happens only once every 19 years.

Happy New Year and a Blue Moon to everyone.