O Discordia!

I've not yet figured out much of a running functionality to The Oracular Beard yet and I'm getting into a habit of just posting something whenever I feel like it.  In the coming weeks, I'm going to bust my hump to make a more streamlined effort in making my web presence established.

So today, for your listening and reading enjoyment, I'm posting one of the debut songs from my new musical collective Whitman's Ghost.  The chorus and musical arrangement is by band member Aron Agerton and the verses are adapted from the poem of the same name by yours truly.

Whitman's Ghost. O Discordia.

This is the original poem for you.  It was after a break-up where I wasn't sure where I was headed, but remembered all the pain I'd been getting, but at the same time dishing out my own.  Definitely wasn't on the path I was needing to be on.

It's also got a bunch of literary reference, the majority of which come from Stephen King's magnum opus The Dark Tower.  It's this sprawling western/fantasy epic that kicks butt over seven novels (there's more now) and has some pretty strong connections to the rest of his work.  All told, there's a bunch of reference that has our main character spinning his wheels trying to make up for his past.

O Discordia

I am me, and you are not

I am the last thing that I've got

all these open doors will soon be shut

here I come, ready or not

I have not forgot the face of my father

or the clearing at the end of the path

the direction of my travels tend to wander

until I'm faced with the aftermath

I'm going down, my guns a-blazin'

out of bullets when I turn to the sword

zig and zag those peals of lightning

as if I'd forgotten what I'm fighting for

I am me, and you are not

I am the last thing that I've got

all these open doors will soon be shut

here I come, ready or not

bodies piled high in the courtyard

it's not the outcome we deserve

seeing through shades of gray is so hard

when all along it's the white we're to serve

not that I aim to take no prisoners

the price to fight for our sake

and as the ranks are growing thinner

dead and wounded lie in our wake

bang bang, shoot shoot

we deal our trade in lead

happiness is a warm gun

forever pointed at your head

call off these harriers

please, please, and thankee sai

break down these barriers

and remove the plank from my eye

all is quiet on the western front

not a sound to be heard

picking, poking, prodding at the remains

is a single, solitary bird

this old crow's wings been clipped

hopping back and forth from corpse to corpse

all that's left that seems alive

is this sputtering, guttering, blackened torch

I am me, and you are not

I am the last thing that I've got

all these open doors will soon be shut

here I come, ready or not

Buy the first book here!

Don't click on this next link unless you want major spoilers to the series!

Discordia

Hunting things that hunt you in the night...

Future vampires, sexy vampires, teen angst vampires. 

Now there’s even Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.

The market these days is dripping in vampiric and supernatural literature. And while I’m never one to shirk the ghosts and goblins, especially around Halloween, I don’t really know the nitty gritty about most things that go bump in the night.

Not to worry.  Lee Collins’ debut novel The Dead of Winter takes care of that for us.

This dark fantasy novel set in the wild west follows the adventures of a team of “monster hunters.” What makes this band of heroes unique is the husband-and-wife team of Cora and Ben Oglesby. She’s a boozin’, gamblin’ lady with a hair-trigger temper. Ben does the book learnin’ and doesn’t talk much.

The story opens in the mining town of Leadville, Colorado, that has a problem with a pesky creature called a wendigo. After a few harrowing encounters, Cora regroups to her priest confidant in Denver to get the skinny of the baddie. In short order, she returns to dispose of the beastie and collect the bounty.

I can’t gush quite enough as to how well this book holds up. The vampires and gunslinging are all well and good, but where the light really breaks through the clouds is the attention to character detail. Collins subtly weaves backstory with plotlines and introduces characters whom are ripe for exploration in further installments.

This is another offering of Angry Robot Books who even as a smaller publisher of fantasy and science fiction excel at their craft. I’ve had the opportunity to read half a dozen titles, and they only get better.

The Dead of Winter is scheduled for an October 30 release.  Just in time to scare the socks off you.

http://angryrobotbooks.com/books/the-dead-of-winter-by-lee-collins/

BUY IT HERE!

(Originally published in The Lock Haven Express as Books with your Barista, 10/25/12)

LHU Eagle Eye 02/16/2012

Three things I am thankful for (among many) on this Thanksgiving day.  

Listen, read, enjoy.

It was the year of the Beatles

 it was the year of the Stones

 it was the year after JFK

Paul Simon

The Late Great Johnny Ace

Watch and listen here.

Read my review here.

BUY IT HERE!

BUY IT HERE!

Interview I

As my first post to the new-ish blog, I thought I'd let loose a little and give you a glimpse to not only the process, but how I cope on a day-to-day basis.  There's a lot going on up there, and I've just started interviewing myself when I can't seem to get the words down on the page.  

Now that the blog's back up and running, I'll be sure to post "interviews" as they happen.  This is from a long weekend back in late September in the southern tier of New York.  The in-laws always get the Sunday Times, and it always makes for good reading.



So, Jared, what're you working on today?

Not too sure yet.  I've had my cuppa and some breakfast cereal, doped around on the internets.  Did read an article about ephemera of New York City earlier.  More than likely it'll be Metro again today.

Isn't that something like the third book in the series?

Yah.  I got caught up reading this old issue of the New York Times talking about this sightseeing tour of the city, by boat.  There were two things that struck me as interesting, so I jumped on 'em.

How the inspiration hits me.  It makes connection to stuff I've already thought of and it unravels onto the page.

Sure, third book, but it'll lead me to something farther (or earlier) on down the road.

Doesn't it get confusing?  Frustrating?

Daily.

I mean, I've been working on this stuff since time outta mind.  I'd love for it to be written so it's not in my head anymore or so I could work on something else.

Then I realize--this is it.  If it weren't for this story, there wouldn't be the Jared you know now, interviewing himself instead of "writing."

I've a few other ideas rolling around up there, but the reason they haven't made their way out is that they're not ready yet either.  I'm working on it, piecemeal, and it's coming.

Patience is all.

This is all part of the process.

Counting more than seven wonders

Books With Your Barista

Jared A. Conti

Counting more than seven wonders

  

I may never get to be the superhero I long to in my own mind: the sting of bullets bouncing off my torso, the rising temperature behind my eyes before heat vision kicks in, losing my breath running at mach speeds, or my absolute favorite, just seeing what this great city looks like from above, under the powers of flight.

No longer. Adam Christopher has taken care of that for me.

Christopher’s first outing turned detective noir fiction on its ear, bending and breaking where he saw fit with alternate realities gone awry in Empire State, a tough mystery at best. His second novel Seven Wonders, however, plays superheroes straight, and it reads like any good comic should.

From the get-go, we’re thrown into the action—our “hero” is just beginning to realize the extent of his newly-begotten powers and foiling (with little grace) San Ventura’s one and only remaining villain. Seven Wonders throws a new spin on the arch-nemesis, and I use hero loosely, because face it: sometimes learning how to use your newfound skill set is just as important as what you do with it.

A wildly imaginative cast is introduced in the super team, police force and the villain that for some reason they can’t seem to put down. At one point during the novel’s climax, Christopher spends a page or two listing off a roster of ancillary characters whom not only sound impressive in name, but even more fun comes from deciphering what their powers might be according to their codenames.

Seven Wonders keeps you guessing until the very end, as twists and turns abound amid the action. The story jumps out of comic panels with more excitement better than the latest issue of your favorite hero…or summer blockbuster.

Seven Wonders by Adam Christopher landed in stores August 28.

http://angryrobotbooks.com/our-authors/adam-christopher/seven-wonders-adam-christopher/ 

Click Here to Buy!

Jared A. Conti is a local writer, blogger and Lock Haven University graduate who spends his work time as a barista at Avenue 209 Coffee House. He would love to hear your suggestions on great books, movies or comics to review. He can be reached at jaredaconti@gmail.com.

 

A Room with a View

Books with your Barista

by Jared A. Conti

A Room with a View

Mysterious book leaves reader with more questions than answers

Room is one of those books that come along once in awhile where you can’t help but stay up late into the wee hours of the morning because you’re unable to put it down to see where it leads you.

I’d heard an interview with author Emma Donoghue ages ago on NPR, but it had completely fallen off my radar. I was happy to lay eyes on it again in the glorious sea that is the AAUW booksale.

This adult novel sings with originality as we’re told a story of a five-year-old Jack and his mother. Their lives consist of just this one room, Room, and everything contained therein. This bristles in mystery as the majority of objects they come in contact with in Room—Stove, Skylight, Bath, Outside—are all mentioned as proper nouns.

As Jack learns after the meager celebration that is his fifth birthday, things are not always what they seem. Parents often keep things hidden from their children and the meanings of such stories they are told have more sinister motives. Apparently locked in Room, nightly visits by Old Nick parcel out more and more about the state they are in reach disturbing conclusions.

Once Jack and mother escape Room to Outside, the story takes off on an entirely different perspective as family is introduced to Outside and that which he has never before been introduced.  A previous world known only as Television showing different “planets” become real, and the addition of new people into their familial unit gives much to think about in regards to child rearing, the media and where hard circumstances take us in life.

Once pieces start falling in place, Room begins to build itself into the fabric of your thoughts, peopling itself with ideas once held dear, haunting you for long after you’re done reading. Three distinct stages of Room’s story conclude satisfyingly with lives that cope with others’ decisions on what living really means.

Click Here to Buy!

Jared A. Conti is a local writer, blogger and Lock Haven University graduate who spends his work time as a barista at Avenue 209 Coffee House. He would love to hear your suggestions on great books, movies or comics to review. He can be reached at jaredaconti@gmail.com.

You can break his ship, but you can't break his spirit.

Okay, so here's the dealio:

        Sorry I've not been keeping up-to-date with posting.  Though it's a horrible excuse, I've been GETTING PAID doing regular bi-weekly book review columns in our local rag The Lock Haven Express.

        The only hitch to this is that other than giving me something extra to do, no one can read my column because they've not put any online.  Not sure if any of you's really want to read 'em, but I'm posting them on here so at least I can share them with some of my writerly friends.

Here's the latest.  Read it and weep.

THE ORACULAR BEARD

       

You can break his ship, but you can’t break his spirit.

Ship Breaker, by Paolo Bacigalupi, is the kind of post-apocalyptic book I can get into: solid story, characterization and harrowing exploits. The fact that Ship Breaker has received multiple awards for young fiction doesn’t hurt, either. 

In a gritty post-apocalyptic future, teenage boy Nailer scuttles through the ductwork of washed-up oil tankers salvaging copper wire to sell to the highest bidders. The work is tiring and dangerous, and it  doesn’t help that his drug-addled father uses him as a punching bag to regularly take out his aggression. 

This doesn’t keep Nailer from looking on the bright side. Days are spent searching and daydreaming of the “Lucky Strike” that will make him reach beyond his wildest dreams. One fateful afternoon, he finds himself trapped in a holding tank full of oil, but his wishes are not to come true. Here we see—in excruciating detail—the loyalty which this society leans on to help one another.

Due in part to the destruction of our fragile ecosystem, class 6 hurricanes now rage and wreak havoc upon entire coastlines. Yet these “city killers” can bring up salvage of their own, and this one offers a wrecked clipper ship as penance. 

But what he finds aboard a ship exclusively designed to shuttle the rich is quite more than he bargained for. Amid threats of death and loyalty, Nailer enters into a class war that brings him closer and at the same time further from his home. 

The only thing that caught me up in this book was Nailer’s time on the ocean (I am in no way nautical) and a nutty penchant for using half-human animals as characters in post-apocalyptic settings. It’s one thing to bring this upon ourselves, but to make the animals suffer, too? Ludicrous. 

This fast, entertaining read was at times predictable as well, but the richness of the storytelling helped me to forget that with the addition of themes and ideas I’ve not seen previously breached in the genre. For fans of this book, there is also a companion novel The Drowned Cities to partake of.

click HERE to buy!