Author: terribleminds (page 172 of 454)

Today will feature not just one image, but several.

I am a fan of the blood orange. I like its aesthetics — it’s a bruise-dark fruit that does indeed bleed into the glass — and I love its taste, sour and sweet and mmm. And so I quite enjoy using it in recipes when I can get them, and lately I got a whole bag of blood oranges (and then later, some Aliseo blood orange juice) and I used it to make two different cocktails and a taco. The taco recipe will be forthcoming, likely this week, but I’ll give you the two cocktail recipes here:

Blood Orange Negroni, aka the Miriam Black: Make a fucking Negroni, then put blood orange juice into it. … … mm, okay, that’s simplifying it too much, maybe? Whatever. Seriously, in a shaker, make your Negroni as you would: ounce of gin, ounce of Campari, ounce of sweet Vermouth, then squeeze 2-3 blood oranges into the mix. Shake that motherfucker like a pair of dice and then guzzle it with your booze-mouth. For those of you unsophisticated monsters that cannot abide gin, I say: sub out the gin and use bourbon.

The Mimosa, Reloaded: Yesterday I decided that the bottle of Champagne that my wife and I have had in the fridge since the Cretaceous needed to stop taking up space, and I thought, HEY FUCK YEAH LET’S DRINK MIMOSAS. What were we celebrating? Our ability to make mimosas and drink them whenever we want because damnit, we are adults. Then someone on Twitter — @mattaccount — said, “You should put amaretto in that,” and I thought, ew, no, why would you do that. The taste profile seemed odd to me — but that’s because I’m dumb. Almond cookie plus sour plus Champagne actually sounds great when you think about it. (I have admittedly only recently come around to amaretto, which as it turns out is fucking amazing, especially Lazzaroni.) So I changed my tune and decided, you know, okay, maybe. Maybe. And I did what this person said and it was amazing. Then I thought: let’s go bigger. LET’S GUY FIERI UP THIS SONOFABASTARD AND DRIVE THIS DRUNK BUS THROUGH THE WAL-MART IN FLAVORTOWN, and then I bleached my pube-beard and put on sunglasses and surfed on a tide of — wait, no, none of that happened. But I did add something to the third iteration of the drink, and here’s what I did — ounce of Amaretto, ounce of blood orange juice, ounce of pineapple juice, top off with Champagne. I did not put this in a fancy flute glass because I am not a fancy flute glass kind of guy. You can drink this out of a proper wine glass, or a bike helmet, or a shoe, I don’t care. It’s good. Have it. And it’s breakfast. Totally nutritious because fruit juice.

THERE YOU GO.

Before the images, I will remind you of some things:

AN EVENING WITH CHUCK WENDIG is next week, so if you’re in the PA/OH/WV environs, come say hi, listen to me jabber, get a book signed, take a picture, get in the van, fight a wizard.

Also, now there’s a whole different EVENING WITH CHUCK WENDIG (seriously, I’m pretty sure I’m going on a date with the whole audience), and this one is more Star Warsy in nature — on May the 4th I’ll be at the Cherry Hill public library at 7PM, but you can also buy tickets to a catered reception at 6pm (see? a date!), and so if you’re closer to PA/NJ/NY/DE, come say hi.

I’ll remind you folks that the second Atlanta Burns book, THE HUNT, is now out. If you want a kind of… noir-ish grim-dark Veronica Mars, well, I got your book, so go check it out. In it, Atlanta’s ex-BFF Bee needs her help untangling a nasty knot to find out who got her pregnant. That means Atlanta’s got to go around once again kicking over logs, and as always, what she finds underneath is a squirming, teeming mass of corruption.

NOW, ON WITH THE BLOOD ORANGES.

These images all belong together — though, given that they are macro photos, some may hide their true nature. But I promise, this is all part of a series, all taken together. Enjoy.

Today’s challenge is deceptively simple.

Your story must include a dragon.

OKAY THERE YOU GO BYE

wait hold on don’t leave.

There’s more.

You might be saying, “But I don’t want to write fantasy.”

Okay, so what does a dragon in science-fiction look like?

And I’d encourage you to think outside the scaled, fire-charred box. Who said the dragon has to be a literal dragon? What about a serial killer called the Dragon? An MMA fighter or wrestler? The name of a boat or spacecraft? The name of a disease? In fact, I’d encourage you to think beyond the literal here as much as you can. Get creative.

How do you include a dragon that isn’t really a dragon?

You have, mmm, let’s say 2000 words.

Due by Friday, April 8th, noon EST.

Post at your online space.

Link back here.

Behold the dragon.

Sam Sykes wrote a book. Well, he wrote several books, but one of those books escaped his head and attacked a publisher and now is on bookstore shelves and whenever you go into one of those bookstores, the booksellers stare at you with dead eyes and then those dead eyes roll out of their heads like discarded marbles and there in the darkness of the sockets is a pair of tiny Sam Sykeses, and those two little Sams sing the refrain of a familiar song: BUYYYYY MY BOOOOOK. 

Anyway, hey, look, here’s Sam now!

* * *

Hey, fellas.

Did you know I wrote a book? It’s called The Mortal Tally. It’s a good ‘un. You can find it in your local bookstores. Please buy it. Okay, thanks.

…

…what? What’d you say?

…MORE? Jeez, I thought I did pretty good already, but…uh…

It’s the second book in my new trilogy, Bring Down Heaven.

And to be honest, that fact gave me some pause.

I feel like the second book in a trilogy is usually met with some tension from both authors and readers, thanks to a long and storied past filled with disappointments. Authors are never quite sure how to keep the tension going between the exciting rush of the new first book and the dramatic conclusions of the third book. This occasionally translates to readers who are less than enthused to see a book that becomes the literary equivalent of treading water.

Both of these weighed heavily on me as I started in on The Mortal Tally. Fortunately, I had the advantage of this being my second second book in a trilogy, so I had learned a few lessons, which I would like to share with you today.

And I think the very first and biggest problem facing a second volume comes from the fact that both writers and readers go into one without a clear expectation of what they want.

They want the story to continue, of course, but they don’t know how. They want to get between books, but they want to feel like something has happened so their time wasn’t wasted. They want to feel like this story works on its own, but also bridges the two.

Daunting, right?

Now, far be it from me to suggest anyone need to change anything with their writing or reading (you’re perfect just the way you are, you precious little gosling), but I think we, as a reading culture, would benefit highly from setting down what we expect from a second volume.

Your answers as to what that is might differ, but I found mine early on.

Escalation.

The second volume should be when the characters realize just how in over their heads they are. It’s when the antagonist takes notice of them and stops underestimating them. It’s when the relationships that formed in volume one are put to the test. It’s when the price for victory is laid out and the question of who’s going to pay it is weighing heavily on our characters and our readers.

All storytelling is conflict. And as the first volume is presenting the conflict and the second volume is finishing it, the second volume is where the conflict is sharpened into a thousand tiny blades, turned into a meat grinder and our heroes are fed through it, one by one.

In The City Stained Red, my first book, things ended poorly: a war between two occupying forces had broken out in the civilized heart of the world, our heroes divided as their differences grew too great to keep them together, and they learned that a terrible demon was watching over their every move.

In The Mortal Tally, things get worse: the war is joined by civil unrest amongst the beleaguered population and aggravated by religious strife in its leadership, our protagonists discover that there’s a whole world of things waiting to kill them, and we start to wonder if life under a demon might really be so bad in comparison.

And this escalation all feeds nicely into the other task a second volume should accomplish.

Development.

Specifically, character development. The second volume is where things really start to come together in terms of shaping a character. When we meet a character in the first volume, we’re only really meeting an idea of them, something that gets us interested in them. The second book is where interest turns to investment, where we start looking beyond the ideas, the quips, the cool little traits and start learning the fears, the relationships, the hopes. And as we learn them, we start to see what kind of characters these guys will be by the end of it.

The first and third volumes will feature external forces as the antagonists. But the main force of opposition in a second book should be the protagonists themselves. This is where the meaningful struggle will come in and where the big questions will get answered.

Don’t believe me? Well, why not look to another story that solidified this for me?

There’s always going to be debate over it, but a lot of people consider The Empire Strikes Back to be one of, if not the best, entry in the Star Wars series. And why shouldn’t they? It was all character development.

Han was still a rogue, but started realizing there were things he cared about more than his immediate prosperity. Leia began to realize that any future she had would require her to rise up and become a leader. And Luke went from an idealistic boy to a guy who realized the terrible price he’d have to pay if he wanted to save the ones he loved.

Now this blog has already gone on long and I can hear Return of the Jedi fans and all six of The Phantom Menace fans gearing up for a rumble, so I’ll end this ramble with just a few words of wisdom.

1. Escalation, Escalation, Escalation!

2. Remember that all escalation leads to development.

3. Ewoks are kind of cool, I don’t care what anyone says.

4. Buy my book.

* * *

Acclaimed author Sam Sykes returns with the second thrilling novel in his Bring Down Heaven series. 

The heart of civilization bleeds.

Cier’Djaal, once the crowning glory of the civilized world, has gone from a city to a battlefield and a battlefield to a graveyard. Foreign armies clash relentlessly on streets laden with the bodies of innocents caught in the crossfire. Cultists and thieves wage shadow wars, tribal armies foment outside the city’s walls, and haughty aristocrats watch the world burn from on high.

As his companions struggle to keep the city from destroying itself, Lenk travels to the Forbidden East in search of the demon who caused it all. But even as he pursues Khoth-Kapira, dark whispers plague his thoughts. Khoth-Kapira promises him a world free of war where Lenk can put down his sword at last. And Lenk finds it hard not to listen.

When gods are deaf, demons will speak.

The Mortal Tally: Amazon | B&N | Indiebound

Reddit AMAs are a lot of fun — you guys pile on the questions, and I answer those questions. And I thought, well, hey, fuck it, let’s do one here.

Here’s how this’ll work:

You go to the comment section, and you pop in your question.

Then, tomorrow morning, I’ll start answering them.

If some questions are too damn weighty to answer in a comment, I might note that I’m setting it aside to answer in a longer form blog post later.

But you can ask me anything you want.

I will endeavor to answer where polite and where possible.

Oh, and a couple quick updates —

First, I apparently have a Wikipedia entry, finally. I AM A REAL BOY.

Then, hey, Star Wars: Aftermath dropped in paperback yesterday. And the Kindle price dropped. So feel free to ignite your lightsaber and carve off a slice.

Finally! If you’re in the PA/OH/WV area, I’ll be at Seton Hill on 4/12 for AN EVENING WITH CHUCK WENDIG, which sounds like we’re going on a date together. Maybe we are. Bring flowers. I like flowers. And by flowers, I mean whiskey. I’ll be talking about stuff and signing books and possible dancing around in a negligee or something, I dunno. The event organizers were a little hazy on that point.

NOW, WITH ALL THAT OUT OF THE WAY.

Go forth and AMA, folks.

I live in a house with three people and one of those three people is a tiny person of meager age, and despite all that, I made a 9-lb ham on Easter Sunday. Which means that I presently have enough ham to fill a tote bag. I have all the ham. It is an endless tornado of ham. A HAMNADO. And this isn’t a Hamilton reference. I’m not being sly. I mean that I have a fucking shitload of proper once-pig in my refrigerator.

Leftovers from holidays present a challenge because most folks fall into the lazy pattern of making a set number of expected leftovers. With ham it’s, what? You might make ham salad. Or ham sandwiches. Maybe you stick some in an omelette. Or you make a ham hat. Or a ham shirt. Maybe you put a couple googly eyes on there and have a HAM-BASED PUPPET SHOW. Eventually, though, you get burned out on it. Monday rolled around — one day after I made the ham — and I was already like, fuck this ham. Fuck this ham sideways. Stick this ham back up the pig’s ass, because I am done with it. Ham is stupid. Why did I buy 47,000 lbs of ham? Why didn’t we just eat cereal for Easter? Cereal is delicious. You peel a couple Cadbury eggs, drop them into a bowl of Cheerios, and feast like fucking royalty. Ham? Why did I do that? Ugh.

So, I was trying to concoct something to do with the ham that was unexpected, while at the same time still utilizing a goodly portion of the ham. And I thought, okay, once in a blue moon I make chicken tetrazzini, which is a pasta dish from my youth that used cream of mushroom soup, which is to say, it’s super disgusting when you make it like that, but it’s super awesome when you make it with fresh ingredients. And I thought, I’ll make that. I’ll throw out this stupid ham and make chicken tetrazzini, instead. But I didn’t have chicken. All chickens had abandoned me.

I had ham. Of course. Shit.

So, HAM TETRAZZINI it was.

Here, now, is how I made this ham tetrazzini, aka, HAMTRAZZINI.

It was amazing.

So now, you will make it, too. You will take the tote bag full of ham leftovers that you possess, and you will combine them with awesome ingredients and you will then Paypal me a bunch of money for the huge favor I just did for you. You will tattoo my face on your body. You will tattoo my beard onto your face. You will thank me by forming a religion around me.

Let us begin.

Get an onion. One onion. Sweet. Medium-sized, which is to say, roughly the size of a baseball and not a softball. You are going to slice it thin, and then you’re gonna put it in a hot pan with a generous dollop (1-2 TBsp) of unsalted butter. Sprinkle a little salt on that bad boy. Cook the onions till they are soft and weak and pliable. Cook the onions till they unfailingly do what you ask them to do even if what you ask them to do is against their moral code.

Now, mushrooms.

Mushrooms are kinda fucking gross because they’re like nodules of fungus that grow up out of heady, poo-rich earth, and they’re doubly gross when they’re out of a can or in bad Chinese food. As a kid I hated mushrooms because I was pretty sure they were actually little human ears. Thing is, you gotta know how to handle mushrooms — that means buying good mushrooms, ones that aren’t slimy, ones that aren’t out of a can, ones that you didn’t buy from some guy who had the mushrooms in his foul-smelling trenchcoat. In this case, some white mushrooms. The basic 101 mushroom. I got like, a half-pound or something? Came out to about two cups, sliced. Slice them up, as noted. Then put them in with the onions. You might need another pad of butter in there, I dunno. You do what you like. This is your food. I’m not eating it.

Oh, shit, somewhere put a little garlic in there, too. I did like, three cloves, minced. You can do more if you really like garlic. My father used to eat whole cloves of garlic because my father was disgusting. He was convinced that it cured all kinds of diseases, including cancer, but of course he died from cancer so either he didn’t eat enough garlic or that shit just didn’t work. Either way, his breath could melt a garage door. He’d eat garlic cloves and also hot peppers right out of the garden. Pop a jalapeño into his mouth and just, chaw chaw chaw. If I did that, I’d create a volcanic channel of pure heartburn in my chest and then I’d crawl behind the couch, weeping. My father also chopped off his own finger and wrestled a whitetail buck to the ground so he could hog-tie it, whereas the toughest thing I can muster is opening a pickle jar without one of those jar-lid-opener-helper-flappy-things, so I’m clearly almost as tough as he is. Was. Whatever.

Enough about that. I’m way the fuck off track here.

While the ‘shrooms and onions are soaking up the butter (5-10 mins in the pan), get yourself a receptacle (bowl, jar, jockstrap) and mix into it: 1 cup of dry vermouth, 2 TBsp sherry vinegar, pinch of salt, 1 tsp thyme, whisk that shit around in the jockstrap, then pour it into the pan.

Simmer it until it reduces down to a magnificent slurry.

Now, get yourself a pot of water boiling. For pasta. Actually you probably already should’ve started this because, c’mon, boiling water for pasta is the slowest activity in the history of man. Well, actually, publishing a book might be just a hair slower, but whatever.

Time to talk ham.

#HAM4HAM

Sorry, Hamilton reference. I guess. I’ve never seen Hamilton. I’ve listened to some of it and I like it but I’m afraid to listen to more because if I don’t like it, then people will kill me. They will find me, and they will burn me as a heretic. And I’ll admit that I was profoundly disappointed to learn that Hamilton contains no actual ham. When people first started going gonzo for the show, I had no idea what it was. I Googled it and found the show, and thought, “A musical about American history, oh, ha ha ha it can’t be that,” and I continued to believe that surely, surely actual ham was involved. But it wasn’t. It goddamn wasn’t. Expectations? Dashed.

Anyway, you have two metric butt-tons of ham, so cube enough it of to fill three cups. Ham cups. That was my nickname back on the football team, by the way. “Ol’ Ham Cups” Wendig, they called me. “Go long, Ham Cups! Go long! Secure a goal tally for the home team, Ham Cups!”

Whatever. Cube your ham, you rube.

I will wait. And I will watch as you sensually chop ham.

Mmm. Yeah. Ham it up, you. Ham it hard. Cube it hot. Mmm.

OKAY HAM VOYEURISM OVER.

By now your shroomy onion goop should be good. Put it in bowl and set it aside to think about what it’s done. Let it simmer in its own juicy shame.

Take the same pan, and you’re going to make a roux, which is French for buttery flour clump. Put into the pan 4 TBsp of butter, let that melt, and whisk (great word, say it with me: whisk whisk whisk) into it 1/4c flour. Then let it get golden brown but not like, dark diarrhea brown.

Now it’s time for the wet stuff. Which sounds pornographic but isn’t.

Mix in:

1 cup of heavy cream.

3 cups of milk.

1 cup of chicken broth/stock.

(If you’re one of those cocky hipsters who laboriously makes his own stock, good for you, go groom your precious mustache. Me, I use this shit, because it’s really good, and also I am fundamentally lazy.)

Then, 1/4 tsp nutmeg.

Salt and pepper to taste.

Whisk periodically while periodically drinking whisky.

This yummy DAIRY CAULDRON should bubble for about ten minutes on low-med heat.

Cook your pasta. Really, I don’t give a shit what kind of pasta you use. I think tetrazzini uses linguine, but I had spaghetti, and I’m sure there’s some argument about what pasta goes best with what sauce but really, for me, who cares? Use what you like. Use pasta shaped like little Darth Vader faces, I don’t give a flamingo shit. Hell, maybe you don’t even use pasta. Maybe you just rice. Or Cheerios. Or driveway gravel. I don’t control what you do at your stovetop, reader.

Pasta done, drain and strain and lovingly caress it. Like it is the hair of a dead lover.

Dairy cauldron done bubbling, too. Good. Great. Yes.

Mix into the now-empty pasta pot: the dairy goop, the shroomy onion goop, the pasta, and mix ’em all together. Now mix in: one bag of frozen peas. Now mix in the cubed ham. Mix, mix, mix. Then pour in in: 3 TBsp more sherry vinegar. Sherry vinegar is an epic secret to a lot of great dishes. For years my chicken noodle soup was fairly mediocre until I learned to put in a splash of sherry vinegar right at the end and suddenly it became sublime. SHERRY VINEGAR ALSO GET YOU CRUNK. Okay, it doesn’t really. Just drink red wine or gin like a fancy grandma. I am a fancy grandma. Why aren’t you?

Now, get yourself a big-ass baking dish and set the oven to 425F.

Actually, you probably should’ve set the oven to 425F earlier.

But you didn’t, because you’re a jerk.

WHATEVER DO IT NOW.

Into the baking dish, pour your MILKY PASTA MAGMA.

Now it’s time to talk topping.

For my mileage, I don’t use breadcrumbs because I never ever have them. And I never feel like taking the time to make them so I’m always saying fuck these breadcrumbs and just going without. But I will note here you can do a couple nice substitutions for breadcrumbs:

a) potato chips, no seriously, this can be amazing

b) saltine crackers, also delicious

c) dandruff, but only if it’s really crunchy scalp-flake, and don’t forget beard dander, too

d) crickets, live or otherwise

e) grated LEGOs

Anyway.

Take 1.5c of fresh grated Parmesan cheese, and sprinkly-dinkle it over top the milky pasta magma in the baking dish. Then if you’re using the breadcrumb-or-substitute, use about 1/2 cup of it and sprinkle it over the top of the whole affair.

NOW BAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT

BOOM

Which is to say, 20-25 minutes in the scorching doom-cube that is your oven.

Now it’s done, it’ll be about 1000 degrees, and won’t cool down for approximately 7 hours, so just sit and stare at it until it finally chills out. And then when that’s done, it’s dinner time. It’s ham leftover dinner time. Take the pasta and shove it in your pasta hole. That is the round, largest hole in the center of your dumb face. Just grab it with your hands and cram it into the pasta hole until your cheeks are bulging like those of a greedy hamster.

Enjoy. Now send me money.

#HAM4CHUCK

I love Spring, and yet, Spring hasn’t quite sprung here — it did, and then it didn’t, and now it’s cold and gray and rainy. Which is normal, one supposes.

Just the same: gimme dat sweet sweet sunshine.

And since I don’t have flowers blooming all over, yet, I figured today’s macro would be best if it were a flower. SO HERE, INTERNET. I GOT YOU A FLOWER.

TAKE A GOOD LONG SNIFF.

IT’S FULL OF ANTHRAX AND BEES HA HA HA HA

okay no.

Let’s see. Do I have any updates?

You saw that Hyperion came out, and surely you went out and checked it out, right? I mean, it’s got carnival freaks and a clown who barfs bees and a tractor-trailer and — well, c’mon.

Also, The Force Awakens’ first issue now has a cover by Esad Ribic:

So, check that out. Comic should be fun.

Um, what else?

I’m no longer feeling quite like death. This pulled muscle from coughing SUCKS MIGHTILY, but the cough is diminished so hopefully the muscle will untangle itself and calm down. This time my go-’round with pneumonia only lasted two weeks before I felt fairly normal. Last time was a whole month, so this is better (though having the flu along for the ride and a flu-sick wife and pre-schooler was, um, not ideal).

You know Invasive — out in August — is totally preorderable, yeah? Since folks ask, I’ll say that Invasive is not a sequel to Zer0es — and yet, it takes place in the same universe, and it takes place after the events of Zer0es have occurred. One does not need to read one book to understand the other, but they have some light connections. (Connections that will only deepen as other books are revealed, but on that, I can say no more.)

I think that’s it.

Go forth and punch Monday in the teeth.