Eutychus the Scribe Reviews Tempest at Dawn

"Tempest at Dawn is a novel. Fiction. Historical fiction. It does adhere closely to Madison’s notes when describing what occurred in the Assembly Room. But James Best uses the imagination of the novelist to construct what might have occurred in the taverns, salons, dining rooms and inns. He also draws on historical data to present us with the personalities of the major participants in the convention. The result is a readable, engaging story of the creation of our Constitution."

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Coming soon to a bookstore or website near you

Prior to 1776, world history was primarily written about kings and emperors. The American experiment shook the world. Not only did the colonies break away from the biggest and most powerful empire in history, they took the musings of the brightest thinkers of the Enlightenment and implemented them. The Founding of the United States was simultaneously an armed rebellion against tyranny and a revolution of ideas—ideas that changed the course of world history. 

Flavorwire Lists the Top Ten Author Accessories

Interesting list, but where are Mark Twain's white suit and Tom Clancy's sunglasses? Or Shakespeare's ink stained hand, for that matter. Oh wait, there are no photographs of Shakespeare's blackened fingers.
Link to Article

Speaking of Mark Twain, here's my favorite quote:
"Always do right—this will gratify some and astonish the rest."

Heroes and Villains

Part II: Bad Guys Don't Need to be Human

Stories pit an antagonist against a protagonist. The conflict can be anything from an everyday struggle against life’s travails to a battle to the death. Whatever the scale of the clash, there is always tension in a good story. Edge-of-your-seat page-turners are often about a heroic figure fighting against a ruthless and capable villain.  Villains come in limitless varieties, but they must always be formidable. If you write an action/adventure story, you need an intimidating antagonist who can fill your hero with self-doubt. Whatever the physical or mental capabilities of your hero, the villain must present an insurmountable challenge. Superheroes need super villains. That’s why Lex Luthor always has a handy stash of Kryptonite.

A great villain can have unnatural powers, a gang of allies, or simply be crazed, but they do not need to be human. In fact, some of the most interesting villains have been animals. Herman Melville set a whale up as the supposed antagonist in Moby Dick, a good dog gone rabid made Stephen King’s Cujo a terrifying story, and Daphne du Maurier choose seagulls in his short story The Birds, which Alfred Hitchcock made into an iconic movie. King Kong, Godzilla, the Alien in the Sigourney Weaver thrillers, and the raptors in Jurassic Park are on the other side of the scale from commonplace seagulls. Personally, the lions in The Ghost and the Darkness were the most nerve racking protagonists I ever encounter in a darkened theater.

So when you plot out your next story and you need a really scary bad guy, don’t forget it doesn’t need to be a guy … and it doesn’t need to be human. Or even alive in a biological sense. Next post we’ll look at some ornery machines that scared the bejesus out of breathing characters.

Faith Friese Nelson Reviews The Shut Mouth Society

The Shut Mouth Society by James D. Best is the kind of book I like best.

It starts with a rich collector who has discovered an early Abraham Lincoln document. The collector asks two people to authenticate the manuscript: Greg Evarts, a detective, and Patricia Baldwin, a professor. The professor, of course, is not only smart but stinking rich and beautiful. The novel has everything from intrigue and murder to romance.

The story begins in California and progresses to the historical east coast where the reader is introduced to private libraries, secret apartments, and shown how rich and powerful civil war descendants live. Conspiracies and secret societies from the Civil War era are unveiled in such a realistic manner that, when I finished the book, I actually did some research to separate fact from fiction.

Link to Faith Friese Nelson Blog

Mr. Know-it-All Lauds the Steve Dancy Series

Mr. Know-it-All (Gary Clothier) is a columnist for the Star Democrat in Maryland. Nice answer to a reader's question. At least I liked it.

Q: A friend showed me a list of old-time cowboy movie stars, including pictures. On the list was James Best. I recently finished reading a Western novel by James Best. Was the movie star also a writer? The novel was excellent. F.T.N., Bangor, Maine

A: James Best the actor also lists accomplishments of being an artist and director. He was born in 1926 as Jules Guy, and is probably best known for his role as Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane in the popular TV series "The Dukes of Hazzard." According to publicity material, he claims to have appeared in more than 600 television shows and appeared in more than 80 films.

James D. Best the author has written at least six books, including the Steve Dancy Western novels: "The Shopkeeper," "Leadville" and "Murder at Thumb Butte." I couldn't agree with you more about the series. I read them and enjoyed them immensely.

Star Democrat Link

Heroes and Villains

Part 1: Heroes Need an Antagonist

Protagonists come in three basic groupings—the wholesome hero, the flawed hero, and the anti-hero. The level of heroics may be all over the map—from resolving an inner conflict to saving the galaxy—but the three types remain relatively constant. Examples of wholesome heroes include; Roy Rogers, Frodo Baggins, and Atticus Finch. John Wayne often played a flawed hero, as did Clint Eastwood. Other examples of flawed heroes include Sherlock Holmes, Oskar Schindler, and Huckleberry Finn. 

Nowadays, the anti-hero has risen to prominence in storytelling. For pure nastiness, Chigurh in No Country for Old Men gives Alex DeLarge in Clockwork Orange a run for the money. (Cormac McCarthy and Anthony Burgess certainly knew how to carve out a sympathetic sociopath.) Victor Frankenstein, Macbeth, and Hannibal Lecter provide additional examples of antiheroes.

Whether our protagonist comes from a background as common as dirt, or is a cerebral solver of Einsteinian puzzles, or a bigger-than-life champion of the downtrodden; the hero of our story must eventually overcome a tougher-than-nails antagonist. Protagonists may fight with wits or brawn, but win they must. And they can’t win easily—otherwise it’s not much of a story. After all, a hero cannot be heroic without a scary antagonist. The great news for writers is that unlike protagonists, the varieties and variations in antagonists are beyond imagination. Antagonists can be an inner conflict, an animal, time, a place, a villain, a machine, or even a child. Antagonists make writing fun. And it’s the antagonist that keeps our readers turning the page. More on this in another blog post. Stay tuned.

Arizona Centennial Conference

The official Arizona Centennial Conference will be held April 18-21, 2012 at Pointe Hilton Tapatio Cliffs Resort, Phoenix. On February 14, 1912, Arizona became the last continental territory to be admitted as a state. Delaware, the first state, had already been in the union one hundred and twenty-five years. Trains, planes, and automobiles had shrunk wide-open spaces and generated the kind of enthusiasm we now see for iProducts. The telephone was starting to supplant the telegraph, so the year before, American Telephone & Telegraph took control of Western Union Telegraph Company, to create "Ma Bell." The University of Arizona had already existed for twenty-seven years. In the same year, Oreo cookies would be introduced, and the Titanic would sink.

Some blame the gunfight at the OK Corral in 1881 for Arizona's late statehood. The national notoriety gave the rest of the country the impression that Arizona was an unruly remnant of the Wild West.

Perhaps they were right. After all, if it doesn't bite, and it's not posionous, it's not native to Arizona.

This ought to be a fun and enlightening conference. Check out the Arizona Centennial Conference website. You might also want to read Murder at Thumb Butte before the conference. It will put you in the mood to learn more about Arizona territorial history.