Author Archives: Eric

Reading Statistics

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I posted up a summary of a decade of reading last year. I am not a spreadsheet person, nor did I make a graph but I did lay out the numbers. I averaged just a little over 22 books a year during that time. Pretty close to two per month.

This year I made it to 19 (20 if you count the one I’m reading right now because it will probably be done by the end of the week). All things considered, not a bad amount. The month to month has understandable gaps, and some of the selections I made were decidedly shorter than others, but they were still books and they still counted as reading.

If I stated some kind of goal or set out to specifically read any number of books for the coming year I think that would turn something enjoyable and relaxing into work. As if I just had to get to that next or last book to make a quota. I do things like that (personal goals that mean nothing to anyone other than the voices in my head) but I think for relaxation time it would become a problem.

I’m pretty sure I’ll hit 11 in the coming year, as that’s how many meetings of Watch The Skies we’ll have and we pick a book each month, but beyond that I just hope the book selections I get will be really good stories. I want to have a book that I sneak a peek into while I’m on a break at work. I want a story that inspires me to go and create fan art for it. That’s the sign of a good year of books in my mind.

How did your year of reading go?

An Anniversary

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Today, the 28th of December, is the anniversary of The Pretend Blog. No, it wasn’t always on my own website – it took time to reach that level of understanding and commitment. I’m sure the Live Journal stuff is still out there, I’m just not sure who owns it now and that’s part of why I moved to my own site.


I’ve been writing here and posting whatever I feel like for years now. As I said at the very start, I do this because it’s a thing I want, not a thing that is required in some way. I try to post things on the regular, but that has never been my strong suit. My writing is mercurial and moody on a good day. That’s one of the biggest reasons why I don’t believe I could make it as a freelance writer. I’ve gone weeks without the ‘mood’ moving me to write. That’s fine when the day job fills that space and a paycheck still comes in. Not so good when getting said paycheck means slapping words onto a page… or piling up some pixels.

The Pretend Blog is going to continue. I intend to maintain it as long as I am able. I want there to be a place that is controlled by me. What I post here is mine. No, I still don’t know anything about making my web spot fancy. Yes, the colors should be better and an actual graphic artist should have done my site picture… but that’s just it. What is here is mine. My good stuff, my ugly stuff, all of it.

I’m hoping to have a more consistent presence here, but I’ve said that in the past and it hasn’t happened. I need to be real with myself and just keep posting as I go and putting the things I want up here. Yes, some of the things will age well. No, some of what’s up here won’t age well. People can grow and change and become better than they were. For better or worse, I’m going to continue to pretend people read my blog.

Quiet

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It’s the quiet times that get you.

Everyone has significant concern about the mental health of others during the holiday season. I get that to a certain degree. Times of celebration when you’re not feeling the least bit happy. Seeing people when that sounds like the most soul consuming thing possible. I understand this now more than ever. The thing is, it’s not the hustle and bustle or the crowds or the music that are really the issue. The issue is the quiet.

My daughter went out with friends tonight. No work tomorrow, time to go and catch up and celebrate a little. See a movie they’ve wanted to catch or a concert or something. I absolutely approve.

That leaves me here, in the quiet.

Quiet is the dangerous part. It’s when you’re not interested in watching anything or reading anything or listening to some podcast or interview or sports report. There’s so much noise and nothing that has anything that makes me want to pay attention. It’s empty and they know it as much as I do, and media is desperate to keep us hooked. So I shut it all off.

Stillness, dim lights and lots of time to think. To remember. To cry again.

I have one small advantage. I remember that Rebecca was absolutely NOT a fan of the Christmas season. She actually kind of hated it because it meant that all her “we put the fun in dysfunctional” family was getting together again and something bad was likely to happen. She used to volunteer to take holiday shifts at work for other people and did her level best to avoid the whole thing. She didn’t want to join my family for the holiday either, but did so to avoid making things awkward.

So, many years ago, Beck and I set out to create our own traditions. We decided on the things that would be important to us about our holiday and what we were going to do. We would order Chinese take-out on Christmas eve. We would watch The Grinch, Charlie Brown’s Christmas and maybe Frosty if we had the time (after all, much like Professor Hinkle, we were busy, busy, busy). We made up a theme for our tree so that no two years would be the same. It was glorious.

This year would have been our 28th (I think, the accounting is fuzzy at this point) tree, but Beck isn’t here to see it. That’s the sort of thing that sneaks in during the quiet times and punches you in the feelings. That’s when the quiet gets you.

My daughter and I decided that it was important to continue all these traditions this year and in honor of Beck we decorated our tree in the same colors as the Bisexual pride flag. We won’t be alone here either. Friends help. Here it is in all its unbalanced glory. Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, to all others, have a safe, joy filled and wonderful holiday season whatever you celebrate.

Old Man Indeed

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The first time I read “Old Man’s War” was back in 2009. I checked the date on Goodreads… and I suspect I was lucky because I don’t think I started posting books there much earlier than that (although it’s shocking to me that I’ve been posting to Goodreads for 16+ years at this point).

I had a very positive review at the time and it was very focused on the action. I complained about the 150ish pages of set up.

I saw that the latest in that series was published a couple of months ago. It’s the seventh! book in the series – he must be doing something right. I thought I’d dive back into the series and see about cruising through a nice space opera with some action and plenty of fun stuff to read. I picked up a new copy (e-reader this time partly for convenience and partly because I coudln’t find the other one) and dove in.

To carry forward the diving analogy… I dove into the shallow part of the pool and it didn’t end the way I thought it would.

The part I didn’t remember was the basis of these stories is that the military uses old people. The ‘magic/science’ allows all the knowledge and experience to be swapped into a new, supercharged body that is built to fight. That also means the characters in the stories have a ton of life they have lived… and lost.

The book opens with the main character visiting the grave of the woman he’d been married to for decades who died after having a massive stroke.

That just crushed me. I had to stop almost as soon as I started.

When you read a book matters so much. All the other parts, the style, the characters, the plot are the core but the timing is everything. Back in ’09 I gave no thought to what that meant. I wanted to push past all that ‘old man’ part and get to the war part. Well, here we are 16 years later and the ‘old man’ part is intensely difficult to read. I did finish the reread of this one. The book is still good, but it’s not the same excitement driving work that I read earlier in my life.

I still like the book. I’m not nearly as enthusiastic as I was. I struggled with the main character seeing his wife so clearly in others in so many places. I see the found spirit part but I don’t think I believe it. Maybe if I read this again in a decade or so it might be different, but I don’t think I’m going any further with the series right now (or maybe ever). We’ll see how the timing works out in the future.

Book Review Catchup Post

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Keeping up with things lately has not been easy. It was never “easy” but less so in recent months. I hadn’t actually stopped reading, I just haven’t had the emotional space to write down reviews of books I’ve finished. There are a handful that I’d like to track, so I’ve added them to Goodreads. I’m not going to try to link each of them individually here, nor will I have deep reviews for all of them but I did want to land them where I can track them.

Assassin’s Quest (The Farseer Trilogy, #3) by Robin Hobb (3 stars)

I pushed through and finished the series. I can say I ‘liked it’ but I did not love it. It ended, but somehow it just didn’t feel right to me. I’m glad I finished the series.

Black Sun (Between Earth and Sky, #1) by Rebecca Roanhorse (4 stars)

It was really good to see a fantasy work set in something NOT medieval Europe. It’s well done and I will likely pick up the next book in the series.

Fevered Star (Between Earth and Sky, #2) by Rebecca Roanhorse (3 stars)

I continue to like the concept of non-Europe based fantasy. This book was good and the characters continued to be solid, but when I hit the end I just didn’t have the same drive to get to the next book. We’ll see if I wrap it up at some point.

The Book That Wouldn’t Burn (The Library Trilogy, #1) by Mark Lawrence (2 stars)

There was a lot of potential here and I was really drawn in at the start. The longer I read, the more I was hoping for certain things and not getting them… then things just got weird. That’s good – weird is good – it just wasn’t weird that worked for me.

Glory Road by Robert A. Heinlein (1 star)

I realize there are a lot of fans out there that will not like a one star review for this classic. There are some I have spoken to who read this in their youth and remember it fondly. There are some who continue to reread this as a ‘true classic’ that they really enjoy.

I didn’t read this as a youth, and reading it now with a more modern view… didn’t do it any favors. I suspect if I had picked this up when I was 14 I would consider it one of the best ever. Looking at it now? It is dated, male-centric and just not the exciting adventure everyone seems to think it is… at least not to me. I didn’t even make it to the end.

Even Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk (3 stars)

A wizard private investigator in Chicago on the outs with the official wizarding organization…

I really had to struggle past the direct comparison to Harry Dresden as a starting point. It’s likely not fair, but it’s definitely something people will see right away.

I am not a fan of Supernatural (TV series) but others have told me there is a heavy influence in the book for that as well.

In the end I read the whole thing rather quickly. I struggled with the ending, but then it was as advertised in the title… even though I knew the end.

The Spellshop (Spellshop, #1) by Sarah Beth Durst (4 stars)

This book is exactly the warm, relaxing cup of hot chocolate the author wanted it to be. Charming characters, low stakes (that seem more so) and lots of positive thoughts. If you’re looking for a cozy, I absolutely recommend this.

The Enchanted Greenhouse by Sarah Beth Durst

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I liked this story as much as I liked the first book. There is an attachment, but not nearly as much as I thought there might be, to the first book but this definitely stands on its own.

I will say that when I finished this, directly on the heels of the first one I may have felt like I’d eaten too many sweets. Even saying that, if you’re looking for a cozy, this is also on the recommended list.



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For Charity

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More Futures for Ferals by Danielle Ackley-McPhail

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This series gets 5 stars – it’s a charity and this one actually contains one of my stories. Go – buy a copy because all the profits go to charity.

Rescue is not an easy calling, whether it is cats or some other species.
It is hard work with usually no pay, often not enough volunteers, and
very little thanks beyond (hopefully) the satisfaction of making life
better for another living creature. When donations are low, rescuers
draw on their own funds to take care of their temporary charges, and
not even just the basics of food, shelter, and necessities, but medical
costs or even end-of-life care.
This collection seeks to share some of that burden. The profits from
the campaign that funded these books have already been sent to A
Future for Ferals, a 501c3 registered charity, to mitigate the costs of
rescuing over fifty cats in one day from a hoarder house. Of the fifty
cats, only two had been neutered. The vet bill was over $4000 to neuter
the rest and take care of the necessary medical care some of the cats
needed resulting from neglect.



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Grief is Weird

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I have been struggling to post here. Grief is likely the biggest culprit in why I haven’t been able to. Grief is weird and hits when you’re not looking for it. I mean, there’s the immediate stuff. That’s the part most people recognize. Up front, right after the shock wears off. Tears, snot bubbles, and all the red faced terrible that goes with it. It’s expected and relatively understood.

It’s later. Sometime down the road, after the dust has settled and people have gotten back into their daily routines… there’s still this thing that can happen. Grief just keeps showing up.

There’s insomnia. That’s a fun one. You just can’t sleep because something’s not right and it will never be all the way right again. You look terrible, your eyes are already bloodshot and this is just piling on. There’s all the things still jumbling around in your head. Your brain won’t shut down and even when you think you’re too exhausted to go on it pops up some other thing that you needed to do and forgot.

There’s the diet plan – or lack of plan. You eat take out more times in a month than you have in the past five years. The things you paid attention to slide to the side and things don’t really taste as good as they did before. In our case particularly, we had a host of dietary restrictions we were working with for my wife. Lists of things we could and couldn’t get. None of that mattered any more. That’s a stutter when you look at the prices you had been paying and realize you don’t have to now.

Even that settles after a while. You sort of try to get a new routine. You figure out things, make lists of paperwork and stop missing deadlines. Changes are there, but they’ve settled down and day to day function happens.

Then the stupidest detail slams into you, or somebody very close to you and you’re a weeping mess again.

I woke up to find my daughter asleep in her mother’s chair one morning rather than in bed. I was a mess for days and I didn’t know what to say to her about it.

We ordered pizza. I thought it would be a great idea to add dessert, so ordered the brownies. She opened the brownies box and it was cut into nine pieces. Perfectly divisible for the three of us and now we’re crying all over again because nine divided in half means Beck’s not here. You can’t just do 3, 3 and 3. Half a brownie is terrible.

So, I’m working on it. 95 days as of the first of November when I’m writing this. Just outside those 90 day business windows. Too long and somehow just as if it was yesterday. I’ve been told that things get better. I’m starting to see changes, but I don’t know that I would call any of them better. We will see as time marches on. We’re heading into the holiday season and it’s going to be rough.

I will get back to this. I will continue to tell stories and to write and play games. It will just take time, because grief is weird.

Missing Parts

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I broke down and went looking for stuff on the internet. Almost everything out there is aimed at women – widows as opposed to widowers. I suppose that makes a certain amount of sense given that women tend to live longer. Usually. Except when they don’t.

People keep asking how I am. How the hell do you answer that? I’ve taken to saying “I’m still here…”

One of the things that I’ve struggled to put into words about this massive loss is a lack of intimacy. Not just sex stuff. While that is ‘intimate’ that’s not what I mean. I’m talking about all the little things of a shared life. Tiny moments from every day. Shared life experience that’s not there with anyone else. Even when Beck was sick and couldn’t do much she was here. I could sit and smile and hold her hand while we talked about dumb shit we used to do. She knew every part of me and I knew every part of her. We spent more than 30 years having dinners, going to the gas station, having fancy nights out or throwing parties (then clinging to each other at the end). That is gone now and it hurts – more than I ever understood what hurting could mean. I’m a fucking wreck just typing this. I haven’t cried in decades until this summer. Now I can’t stop. Everyone tells me that’s expected but that answer doesn’t help. I don’t have my person – the one who was always there for stuff like this.

I asked at one point, “Who will I travel with now?” and friends pointed to my daughter. I know I am biased, but I’m going to say it anyway – my daughter is a delight. I love her like mad and going places with her is great. While being great is true, it’s not the same as being able to take a romantic vacation to a mountainside in Tennessee. It’s not the same as waking up with somebody in a beach hotel and wandering down to a brunch with crepes and mimosas because you’re going to stay in and just be with each other all day. This is all of the intimate crushed up into a condensed time frame. Going out someplace new and creating new memories.

As my wife continued with her health struggles over the years the adventures changed in tone and type. They were less active and more thoughtful. Things we didn’t do for various reasons, but we were still out there. It was us against the world, wherever in the world we were. She struggled, but we were together. Toward the end Beck’s conversations tended to be less conversational, and she became all but a shut in. Her ability to walk deteriorated under mysterious circumstances and she spent a lot of time in her chair in the living room. She was still here.

I would take any day of that for any price right now. I am missing part of me and I don’t know how to fix it. Like any wound, I suspect it will heal over time. I’m just not sure how long that will be. Eventually I hope to post more regularly here – but I don’t have any spirit to get there right now. We’ll see.

Powerful

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I have told a number of people over time that I am a true child of media. The MTV generation for sure. I have this weird collection of film clips and quotes stuck in my head that pop up all the time in reference to other things.

An example is from Conan The Barbarian, the 1982 film with Arnold and James Earl Jones. The ‘riddle of steel’ scene always stuck with me. “What is steel compared to the hand that wields it?” They call it the power of flesh, but it is about the people and how they’re connected.

Rebecca, in her life, wielded great power. She wasn’t interested in being some kind of cult leader, she just knew that people needed to be together. She connected with people, sometimes even when they didn’t particularly feel like they wanted it. Sometimes when they didn’t feel they deserved it. She was direct and clear about who she was, and brought that to her relationships as well. People were drawn to her.

On the day of Rebecca’s celebration of rememberance a stranger to all of us walked in. He introduced himself and gave me a card with a letter inside. I was stunned. Here was a man who had been walking past the funeral home and saw the announcement of the celebration by chance. As it turned out, he did know Rebecca. 36 years ago Rebecca saw somebody who needed a friend and extended her power. She reached out to a ‘loner’ and made such an impression that decades later she was important to him.

I’m sharing the (slightly redacted) letter here because I think it’s important to speak to the power of connecting with people. Rebecca was special in that way, and we need her kind of power more than ever now. Reach out to people. Connect. Show your love. Take those chances. It might matter more than you will ever know.

Founding Member – Dear Crabby

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This was originally written for and published in the Watch The Skies Fanzine, the August 2025 edition.

In the time since our last issue, one of our longest standing members passed away. Rebecca Hardenbrook was with the group since the beginning, though her attendance at the physical meetings had been less in recent months. She read, debated and laughed her way through many of the groups reading choices. She attended the extra events like movies or watch parties and was a long standing convention attendee as well. She latched onto fandom and wouldn’t let go, even going as far to publish some fan fiction on Archive of Our Own.

It came as a surprise to some that she was the voice behind a long running piece in Watch The Skies titled “Dear Crabby”. The concept being that of an advice column, similar to Dear Abbey, but with science fiction related themes and… less than political responses. The questions and responses ran from 2014 all the way into 2022.

To quote another member of the group, “I remember how fearless Beck was and how that one particular smile would begin to grow as she listened to someone full of themselves or just didn’t have a solid sense of reality. It would form on her face like an archer pulling back on their bow, and I knew whatever she launched at the person would be DEVASTATING, but in the most loving way imaginable. She did not suffer bullies or fools.”

Crabby’s identity was a loosely guarded secret so that nobody would feel unjustly targeted or as if the response to their question was a personal attack… well, no more than would be expected from an advisor whose monicker literally meant irritable.

From “I hate to make light of the situation but, does it matter?” in response to a question about smashing photons in an experiment to “you do realize that life on other planets could conceivably consist of what amounts to a sentient mold, right?” when responding to a question about UFOs and visitors from other planets, Crabby’s responses had something for everyone along the way. That something might have been thoughtful, or it might have been thoughtful combined with acidic, but the responses were genuinely her own. The archive of her work is still on the Watch The Skies page dedicated to her HERE.

Rebecca will be missed. This world, and those others populated by fandom are less without her.