My wife Su Young Lee (we got married last month) has just published her first book. It is pretty unlikely the audience of this blog will read it, but it’s still such a great accomplishment that I can’t not crow about it. The title is- 韓国語ストーリーボクス -Korean Story BOX, and it’s basically a mid-level fun textbook for Japanese students interested in learning Korean, filled with all kinds of insider insights on Korean culture- such as the lowdown on face lotion BB Cream (I hear it’s very popular with Japanese ladies), how Japanese are loath to schedule social engagements on a … Read More
The Bells of Subsidence @ Clarkesworld
My story The Bells of Subsidence is published this month in the professional magazine Clarkesworld. I really hope you’ll take the time to go read it- it’s one of my favorite stories and I’m so pleased Clarkesworld is giving it a wider audience. Read it here! It’s basically a Forrest Gump-ish love story across the massive sweep of super-string space. If you like it, I’d love it if you shared it with your friends via Facebook and Twitter. I’d love it even more if you also subscribed to this site’s free feed by RSS or email, so you get story … Read More
Why ‘Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close’ only whimpered at a distance
I went into this movie with a great deal of anticipation after being wowed by the trailer; a lean and emotionally charged montage of a young boy’s epic journey around New York, set to the pulse-thumping, heart-string twanging strains of U2’s ‘Where the Streets have No Name’. Even from that trailer alone I was getting choked up. The very notion of it, this hopeless but hopeful quest, the urgency the boy addresses it with, the uniting of all these various people through loss and the promise of regrowth- seemed a no-fail winner. But it failed. I’ll explain why shortly. Extremely … Read More
Why Pathfinder lost its way – book review
★★ Orson Scott Card’s books vary enormously in quality- when he’s good he’s genius; tying intricate plotting with fascinating inner monologues, cumulative story development, and a real sense of threat (a la Pastwatch, early Alvin Maker, early Ender and Bean), but when he’s bad he’s atrocious; padding his ‘stories’ with bantery filler, gross over-explanation, and a distasteful kind of sexualized potty humour. Ugh. His latest fantasy/sf novel ‘Pathfinder‘ falls into both camps, though not in equal measure. In short, it was disappointing. Pathfinder tells the story of Rigg, a boy with the ability to see the paths of all living … Read More
Why Haruki Murakami’s ‘1Q84’ is all Q and no A
For years now I’ve been waiting to read Haruki Murakami’s latest magnum opus 1Q84. It was released in Japan two years ago, it came out in Korean a year back (when SY read it), and now it’s finally come out in English- one massive tome 900 pages long, some 400,000 words in length, comprised of three books, which I’ve spent the last few weeks plowing through. And, it’s kind of genius. With some very long stretches that suck. I’ll qualify that in a minute. First I’ll tell you what it’s all about. There’s a boy and a girl, Tengo the … Read More
Pros / Cons of Life in Japan #1 Walking
City-walking is both an art and a science. As any seasoned city-walker knows (I’m looking at you, New York), success depends on an endless stream of complex crowd-motion algorithms executed with the balletic grace of Neo slow-dodging bullets. Like a persistent spermatazoa wriggling for the egg, we city-walkers waggle, chicane, and drive our way through the crowds of human dreck that litter our path. However in Japan, more specifically in Tokyo, all those fancy commutation computations may be rendered inert by a single oblivious breed. CON? THE WALK-IN-FRONTER Everybody knows there are two (or more) lanes on the sidewalk, just … Read More
Fuchu US Airbase Heyday
Since publishing my 2008 explore and photos of the abandoned US Air Force base in Fuchu, Japan, it’s been one of the most popular pages on this site. See it here. It has attracted hundreds of veteran airmen from the 50’s onwards to comment and reconnect with old friends and colleagues- some of whom at times sent me photos from the Base’s heyday to include in a heyday page. This is that page. Thanks to 4 airmen in particular- Carl Lindberg, Cliff Cockerill, Bill Lambert, Dale Lingenfelter, and Donn Paris for taking the trouble to scan and send the photos … Read More
The Orphan Queen @ Ideomancer
My story The Orphan Queen – which shows, slantwise, the terribleness of isolation and the terrible bravery it takes to conquer it – has been published this month on the semi-pro magazine Ideomancer. I’ve been striving to be published in Ideomancer for something like 8 years, so I’m totally psyched that I finally made it. How many stories have I submitted there over the years? What did Ideomancer have to say about them? Coniferous Bob – 2008 – “too much idiom, drowns out the rest” The Giant Robot and the Myna Bird – 2008 – “no but liked, however no … Read More
Nara Dreamland Heyday
Nara Dreamland, Japan, was Asia’s first Disneyland clone- opened in 1961 and continuing operation until as recently as 2006. Over that 45-year span millions of people were entranced by its mimicked delights- the Matterhorn mountain, the fairytale castle, Main Street, etc… Even now many thousands are still entranced by Dreamland abandoned, as its rides grow dusty and weeds shoot up through its empty concrete boulevards. Some of those thousands have left comments on my main Dreamland page– sharing their memories, including several veterans who passed through US bases in Japan in the 60’s and went to Dreamland on R & … Read More
Feyon in the Doll Room
Feyon is the voice of wealth and pampered privilege in DAWN RISING, my epic fantasy novel. She has never had to work a day in her life; rather she is treated like a porcelain doll by an army of maids and retainers, dressed and primped endlessly, and looks on Dawn and the others in the Abbey as if they are her playthings to toy with. However, there is steel at Feyon’s core, and a horrible secret even she has struggled to forget- centred around the grand doll room in her mansion in the Roy, where all the figures of her … Read More