I’ve never tired of talking about the works of George MacDonald Fraser. While a lot of people knew his Flashman series, fewer knew of his nonfiction work, especially his masterpiece Quartered Safe Out Here. I first read it while doing my Masters after my thesis adviser gave me a copy. Not only is it aggressively honest, its observation of the tiniest details is like staring at a Faberge egg and finding new and even more intricate bits you missed the first ten times before. I would highly recommend Quartered Safe to anyone looking to improve the writing of characters, narrative, humor, poignancy, action, and most definitely dialogue. The man was a master.

As it happens I just received the copyedited ms of A Darkness Forged in Fire yesterday and am going through the corrections now. I had always planned to acknowledge my admiration and debt to MacDonald Fraser and had hoped he would have been pleased that he inspired someone as profoundly as he did me. It’ll be a bitter sweet moment when I write that acknowledgment now.

Read here

Fraser is probably best known for his Flashman series and for penning the James Bond movie Octopussy. It’s in the field of nonfiction, however, where I think he was a true genius. Quartered Safe Out Here is simply one of the best personal memoirs ever written of WWII. Its raw honesty, brash humor and unflinching look at life as a soldier is as close as most of us will ever get to understanding what it was like. I know I was heavily influenced by this book and the ultimate rogue, Flashman, in writing the Iron Elves and I had always hoped I’d get the chance to tell him that. I waited, and now the chance is gone.

Up to this point I’ve more or less kept my blogging to all things publishing, but I just couldn’t stay quiet after this latest sermon masquerading as an ad by Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. A cross, a Christmas tree (where exactly were these sold in Bethlehem?) and the belief that “What really matters is the celebration and birth of Christ and being with family and friends.” Really? Has he met my family? Seriously though, is there no room in Huckabee’s America for Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, and atheists? Couldn’t he have wished Christians a Merry Christmas and the rest of us Happy Holidays? Or better yet, donated his air time to something more deserving, like a clothing drive for those poor Hooters girls that will be freezing in those little shorts? Well, perhaps not that.

Theocracies are not conducive to free thought, free will, or women (or gays.) We already have a government that thinks waterboarding (which is drowning, not the sensation of drowning but actual drowning) is some kind of water sport. Do we really want one led by a man who believes that his god wants him to rule the world…oh, yeah, the last seven years…aw hell.

I went to the Museum of Natural History this afternoon to meet a British publisher who was in town. While waiting outside between the two pine bough dinosaurs I noticed a couple of guys with camera gear. Turns out they were waiting for Kelly Ripa and her kids who were in the museum. A short time later out she comes with her kids, the photographers took a few shots, she smiled and waved and got into a black SUV and was gone. It was all so matter of fact I wasn’t sure it had actually happened. They didn’t run up and jam their cameras in her face, the kids weren’t scared, she didn’t yell…it was all rather pleasant.

I was filling out the comprehensive author questionnaire from the publicity department at Pocket the other day and caught myself thinking about how I was going to answer some of the more personal questions. Thinking, of course, is a good thing, but this bordered on censorship, driven by the most horrid of reasons – don’t offend anyone lest you lose sales. This is a line I walk everyday as an editor and rarely think twice about it. My goal is to publish good books that sell. I do my very best to keep it in that order, too, believing that a good book will find its audience. And it’s well known that good, controversial books sell really well.

Now that it’s my turn, I realized I was listening a little closer to my opinions, and starting to wonder if any of them could cause me problems. Problems? As in folks would hear what I believe, and by the simple process of all of us being different, I was bound to offend or disagree with a sizable segment. It really surprised me. I have no desire to be that guy…that politician looking for the safe, middle ground where you offend the least. Those that already know me are probably smiling at this because the chances of me not offending someone, or at least riling them up, is a bit like the sun not rising tomorrow – possible, but unlikely. Like most human beings, I have opinions, strong opinions – most of them informed, some not – so I suppose if I change it all, it will be to become more informed so that I can have even more opinions 🙂