What I'm reading

 by Steve Pease/Michael Chandos

     I have a Really bad habit of reading in bed before submitting to the seduction of sleep. I like the quiet focus of night to dive deeply into a short story or novel. Why is it a bad habit?

     I have a nice recliner with a standing lamp on a swing arm to customize the light on whatever I'm reading, a light blanket for my legs (30 March and an inch of snow last night here at 7500 ft in Colorado), and a table full of future reads beside them. But I still read in bed.

     Unfortunately, I have been teaching my mind that, when we read, we soon sleep. Now, when I sit down to read something, I start yawning within ten minutes! You don't get much reading done in ten to twenty minute bites, and you don't get enough Story to appreciate depth. Short stories should be read in one sitting, and a great novel urges you to read another chapter and another. I must get to the chair.

     I like to have several very different books going at once. Mood selects what I read every night. Currently, I am working my way through a "complete" collection of Dashiell Hammett's short stories, including his Nameless Detective, the famous Continental Op. A researcher at the University of Texas Austin, which holds Dash Hammett's papers, recently discovered a handful of short stories under a previously unattributed Hammett pen-name, so maybe they aren't all in there. A thick book.

     When writers can write more stories than the market can bear or they want to write stories considerably off their known output or genre, writers change the author name, their "brand," for that separate series of stories. Compare Stephen King and Richard Bachman, John Swithen and Beryl Evans. I write my fiction as Michael Chandos. I'll explain why in the next blog.

     Dangerous Visions is a stellar collection of science fiction short fiction chosen by Harlan Ellison. His selection criteria demanded an excellently written story that meant something, that said something to the reader. These are stories that demand a reading venue other than the pillow. There are two subsequent volumes. I consider them graduate-level education.

     Starship Century presents concepts for spaceship design, propulsion technologies, and destinations for interstellar travel written by two well-known scientists that also publish fiction. It's not as technical as other books I have on the subject, but the concepts are deep and are not pillow fodder.

     Write Like Hemingway is an examination of Hemingway's writing style learned while he was a newspaper columnist for the Kansas City Star. He was assigned to major stories, but newspaper space was limited, so he learned to write without fluff, with exact words and precision. Good lessons for current-day fiction writers like me.

     Marksman is a collection of private eye stories from the 1930s Black Mask and similar "penny-a-word" markets. Not deep, but they are fully realized stories, with action and technicolor characters. My stories are, I hope, more like Ellison's, but there are lessons to learn here, too.

     Read with a purpose, read for fun always, mix it up a little, enjoy the buffet!