Hello and welcome to Infinite Squirrels with Infinite Keyboards. The homepage for my books, as well as the occasional waxing of philosophical musings about the human condition.
A blog. It’s also a blog.
Anyway, please check back often as I plan to try and post regular content here about myself, my current and future books, and life in general.
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It’s June and that marks the start of Pride Month, a celebration and recognition of the LGBT+ community.
This marks my fifth pride month as an out bisexual man. I came out on my fortieth birthday which fell after pride that year. Obviously, I’ve been bisexual for a lot longer than six years. My whole life, actually, though I wasn’t comfortable expressing or even acknowledging that part of myself for large part of it.
I’m a member of the microgeneration known as Xennials. One of the defining aspects of my adolescence was the constant fear of being called “gay.” Not stupid. Or weak. Or poor. Or weird. No, it was that three-letter word, or it’s three-letter slur sibling that drove many boys from my generation to throw hands or undertake attempting something either dangerous or stupid. Usually both.
If you were branded as being “Gay” or “Queer”, you were a social pariah, especially in my rural community. I wasn’t exactly popular as it was. I wasn’t athletic. I wasn’t rich. I didn’t have cool things. I wasn’t particular attractive. I was a doughy boy who grew up to be an equally doughy man. So desperate was I to never have that label tattooed on my person, that I refused to do any introspection about who I was as a person at a time when that’s the most important thing we as humans can do for ourselves.
So, for the first few decades of my life, I simply turned a blind eye to the internal thoughts that should have made it obvious that I wasn’t 100% straight. By the time I finally acknowledged my own thoughts and attractions, I still had difficulty being able to vocalize it to others. There were a lot of reasons why, which I don’t want to rehash here or now, but when turned forty, I gave myself the gift I should’ve given that adolescent who was terrified of simply existing as they really were. I came out and stated to my friends and family, clearly and proudly that I am bisexual. From that day on, I refused to hide who I am. I don’t lead with it or make that aspect of my life the focal point of who I am, but all the same, if someone asks, I never deny it. That’s all I really, ever wanted. To simply be and not deny any part of who I am.
While things are, to put it lightly, not particularly great for the LGBT+ community right now, especially for our Trans and non-binary siblings, I am grateful that more young people are willing to not only announce who they truly are, they’re willing to accept and support those around them who do so. I have to believe this current environment of hatred is the last, futile gasps of a dying breed of bigots who will eventually be buried and forgotten, replaced by a better generation of humans.
Until the day those better humans finally claim their rightful place at the top, I’ll be here, getting Bi.
Er… getting by.
Moving on, let’s talk a little about LGBT+ representation and my own work. I would never claim that Tales of a Stranger Sister is a LGBT+ story, because those themes and issues are not the focus of the story. However, that doesn’t mean that LGBT+ representation wasn’t important or relevant to this story.
The most obvious example of this is the character of Dr. Rinaldi, who is a gay man that is married with a husband. Again, as the book wasn’t about him or his life, that aspect of his life was not fully explored, but in the same vein, it was never denied or treated as something lesser. That’s ultimately what I wanted to do with Streamhaven and Litia. I wanted to create a world where LGBT humans can simply exist in the world as themselves, and it’s not seen as strange or weird. I’ve heard such settings described as “Queernorm,” so if someone were to ask, then yes, Litia as a world is very much Queernorm.
There were four other characters who identify as LGBT+ in Tales, but I refuse to announce who they are (for now.) I don’t want to be seen as pulling a Joanne, claiming representation cred without actually stating it clearly in the work. Even though I’m the author, I don’t believe that something is truly “canon” until I put it down on paper and share it. In any case, those aspects of these characters’ lives were not the focus of my first novel.
Though, with that said, if I ever decide to return to that world and those characters, I have planned to make those aspects very relevant to the story, so I did lay out some context clues in Tales about who those particular characters are or will become if we continued to follow their lives. If you ever want to take a guess, feel free to email me or DM me on BlueSky and let me know your insights. I won’t lie if you get it right, though I may ask that you keep the info to yourself until I choose to share it.
Anyway, I hope one day we achieve not only a queernorm world, but one of fairness and justice for all humans, regardless the color of their skin, the gods they do or don’t worship, who they love, or how they express who they are. I’ll take a great amount of pride if we can achieve it in my lifetime and it’ll be a true joy to live in that world.
The “Intersex-inclusive Progress Pride Flag” and “Bisexual Pride Flag” graphics were created by the Human Rights Campaign and the whole collection along with information can be found here.
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On May 26th, 1995 the gates to the magnificent world of El-Hazard were opened. Thirty years later, it still stands as my favorite anime series of all time, if not one of my favorite stories, period.
El-Hazard: The Magnificent World was originally a 7-part OVA [Original Video Animation – a direct-to-video series not aired on TV or released in theaters first (Note: being direct-to-video was not seen as a mark of lower quality in the anime industry during the 80s and 90s, and OVAs often had larger budgets and more freedom with runtimes than TV series.)] It was animated by Anime International Company (AIC), produced by Pioneer LDC, and created by Hiroaki Hayashi (Original concept/ Director), Ryoe Tsukimura (Writer), and Kazuto Nakazawa (Character designs), with music by Seikou Nagaoka.
Hayashi has said that El-Hazard was heavily inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs’ story A Princess of Mars, which was the beginning of the Barsoom/John Carter stories that inspired a lot of science fiction and science fantasy of the early 20th century.
Like Barsoom, El-Hazard is a portal fantasy, with a group of normal Earth humans transported to a strange, new world and where they find themselves playing vital roles in the grand events that unfold.
The basic gist of the story is that Makoto Mizuhara, a high school student at Shinonome High School, is seemingly “called” to recently discovered ancient ruins under his school. When he entered the ruins, he is greeted by a beautiful and mysterious woman who acts as if she knows him, even though he’s never met her before. She informs him that she must now send him to El-Hazard where he will confront his destiny.
A moment later, he finds himself transported to an alien world full of strange creatures and peoples seemingly out of the pages of Scheherazade’s A Thousand and One Arabian Nights. Transported to this new world with him (though he is not aware of all of them at the time) are three others who were at the school at the same time. They are his history teacher, Mr. Fujisawa, his childhood friend/crush, Nanami, and his one-sided rival Katsuhiko (who is also Nanami’s older brother.)
The story takes off from there. It has almost everything! Monsters, princesses, superpowers, mistaken identities, war, comedy, drama, prophecies, quests, magical warriors, subterfuge, demon-gods, apocalyptic weapons…
…and even true love.
Part of me wants to recap the whole four-hour story, but a bigger part of me wants people to watch it and fall in love with it like I did when I first saw it in 1997.
The original OVA is not available currently on any streaming services and Pioneer/Geneon Entertainment went bankrupt in the 2000s, so many of their older titles have vanished or have been in licensing limbo. As of right now, it is available on Blu-Ray through a company called Nozomi Entertainment, which was bought by Crunchyroll. However, Crunchyroll have stopped selling it on their store website, so it is not known once the existing discs are sold if further pressings will be made. If you want to own a physical copy, you might want to buy one sooner rather than later.
Nozomi did release the first 45-minute English-dubbed episode of the series on their YouTube channel, so if you can probably get a good idea if you would want to see the whole thing from that:
It’s definitely a 90s anime and it does lean into some of the tropes that were popular at the time, especially considering that both Hayashi and Tsukimura were heavily involved with the original Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki OVAs. However, I like to think it stands out from other fare of the era and it zigged when other series zagged, but that might simply be the rose-colored nostalgia goggles firmly affixed to my face. I will let others judge for themselves.
Like many 90s series that achieved some success with the audience at the time, El-Hazard became a franchise. There was a second follow-up OVA series, as well as a 13-episode follow-up tv series that continued the original story (though without most of the original creative team.) There was also another 26-episode tv series that came out around the same time as the original OVA was being released that was a psuedo-retelling of the original story, but with many major and significant changes to the plot and characters. Unlike the original series, that version is available on streaming through Crunchyroll and on YouTube. It does lean heavier into goofball comedy than melodrama, so if that’s your thing, you might enjoy that version more.
Along with the other video versions, there were also music CDs, drama CDs, radio drama shows, a Sega Saturn video game (which was another version of the story), art books, manga [comics (which were yet another different retelling of the story)], a tabletop role-playing game, and the occasional merch from figurines to playing cards.
Honestly, I could literally sit here all day and gush about these series. I’m such an uberfan that in the days of Geocities and other website hosts, I had not one, but two websites purely dedicated to El-Hazard fandom. Even all these years later I can still make a detailed argument that there are at least 13 distinct possible timelines of events depending on which radio dramas you listen to and supplemental books you read. Gushing would not be a problem. But hey, if you remember and liked this story, too, then please feel free to drop me a line through email or Bluesky and we can geek out together sometime.
Because if you still love this story, even thirty years later, then the gates of El-Hazard will always be open to you.
El-Hazard: The Magnificent World, El-Hazard: The Wanderers, and El-HazardL The Alternative World and all associated video, images, and audio are owned by AIC, Pioneer LDC, Geneon, Nozomi Entertainment, and Crunchyroll. Copyrighted 1995. Used without permission under Fair Use doctrine covering commentary/critique
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This month marks the 24th anniversary of the death of Douglas Adams (May 11th, 2001). I acknowledged Adams at the end of my debut novel because he is a literary, well, for lack of a better term, hero to me. He wrote the books that made me want to be a writer and while my first novel may not share a genre with Adams’ most famous works, I like to believe his influence on my own writing style put a tiny bit of his voice into my first novel.
In particular, a passage like this was heavily influenced by Adams’ style of taking ordinary ideas and making them sound ludicrous to a grand extent.
I still hope to one day write a fantasy or sci-fi comedy more akin to Adams’ novels, but for now, I’m satisfied that I was able to add a dash of Adams to my Ghibli-inspired stew.
I’ve been thinking about Adams a lot recently, now that I finally can call myself a published author. Adams died at 49. I’m about to turn 46 and while I have no plans for an early checkout from this mortal coil, I look at the short amount of time Adams was creating and am in utter awe of what he managed to put out into the universe is such a cosmically brief period. I can only hope that when I do check out, I’ve managed to put out 1/100th of the amazing he brought to our vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big universe.
Adams also died four months before September 11, 2001, and I do wonder about how he would’ve written about the world of the last 25 years. Between both the UK’s and US’s shenanigans on both the domestic and global stages, I have to believe he would have had fascinating, if not hilarious opinions on all if it. But a part of me worries that the sheer absurdity of the world we live in might have made a master of absurdist humor such as him obsolete. Moreso, as a conservationist, Adams might have simply been too dismayed at the rapid destruction of our world and its natural treasures to find any humor in this modern world as a whole.
Sadly, or maybe fortunately, we’ll never know. We can only look at the wonderful work he left behind and speculate at what he might’ve created had he not waved his towel, stuck out his thumb, and flagged down the first teaser leaving sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha.
So, please allow me a moment to lay flowers at the feet and to raise a cup of tea to the man who taught me to never panic and that the two most important things you can take with you out in a cold and uncaring universe are a towel and a book.
And I always know where I can find both.
Comments closedOkay, so first off, a big congratulations to the winner of my giveaway of a free Kindle copy of Tales of a Stranger Sister. The winner has been notified, and they seem excited to give my story a try. Running a promotional giveaway was an interesting experience. I believe I learned some things from my first attempt at it and am hoping to implement what I learned the next time I try it.
Speaking of contests, Today was the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest Grand Finals. I first learned about the annual European song contest, I think, around 2011-2012. A group of friends had stumbled upon videos from that year’s contest and some of the entries were so bizarre to our American musical sensibilities that we couldn’t help but fall in love with the whole concept.
Seriously, any contest that can produce this:
and this:
Is worth checking out at least once.
Since then, it’s become one of my house’s annual traditions to at least check out some of the entries while noshing on delicious eats and sugary cocktails. As we actually have access to Peacock at this moment in time, we were able to watch the whole finals this year.
I’m not going to get into the WTF-ery of the final votes (Seriously, that is a whole conversation that shouldn’t be within a thousand yards of this site. ) So, instead, I’ll keep things fun and just share my top five for 2025. I think only one of these finished in the actual top five, but these were the songs I enjoyed the most:
Ukraine’s vibe can be best described as 90’s anime about musicians trying to stop a space war by doing a homage to a 70s anime about musicians trying to stop a space war.
Latvia’s entry looks like a group of Druidic familiars who have been summoned to perform the soundtrack for the next Ghost in the Shell reboot/remake/revival. It sounds awesome, but it’s not catchy.
I love fun, goofy songs and Sweden’s was one of two that were my goofball favorites this year.
I was honestly not expecting this one to hit with my brain like it did, but damn if it wasn’t so friggin poppy and catchy that I was honestly expecting it to win the whole damn thing and was legit surprised that it didn’t do better.
I like fun dammit and this performance was fun, fun, and fun. Frankly, if Europe is gonna disrespect Iceland like it did this performance, then Ron Swanson was correct on his opinion of the continent as a whole.
So, that’s my very American coverage of Eurovision 2025. Congrats to Austria on winning and I’m sure I’ll be back again soon to talk about anything but the novel I should be writing but instead dedicated 6 hours of my weekend to a European song contest. 🤷♂️
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Well, as promised, I’m back with some new website-exclusive content. This time, I wanted to give a little background on not only why I even attempted to write a novel in the first place, but why I wrote the novel that I did. You can find all the riveting details in the Trivia and Miscelania page for Tales of a Stranger Sister.
Honestly, I pretty much spent all my energy tonight on finally putting this all together as a webpage, so I’m just gonna cut things short here. I’ll try to come back in the next few days and provide some thoughts on whatever I’m having thoughts about at the moment. Probably after I actually manage to get some words down for the next book.
Take care of yourselves, folks.
Comments closedWelcome to a brand new month. A month when some people like to start doing certain things outdoors…
…by which, I mean taking books and reading them outside, of course! Yes, outdoor reading season is officially1 upon us! Grab a book or two or ten and take them with you to the park! Or the beach! Or in a peaceful woodland clearing next to a gentle mountain stream under a canopy of verdant, green leaves.
Say, that last visual reminds me of something…
Okay, got the self-plug out of the way, so let’s plug some other writers! Like, for example, my amazingly awesome and talented spouse has a book as part of a collection of bundles on Itch.io in support of Mental Health Awareness Month. Please check out this and the other bundles if you like new reads and mental health representation.
#IndieApril has come and gone and it was a mixed bag for me sales-wise. Like I said in my last post, I did manage to sell one more book than last month (that’s good), but none outside the US promotion (that’s… well, not bad, but disappointing.)
I know that it takes a while for any book to find an audience and I was prepared for things to go slowly. However, it is hard not to feel like I released this book at the absolute worse time for a Kindle exclusive. Between the general Amazon backlash and boycott and the mother-lovin’ ChatGPT Ghibli GenA.I.”Art” nonsense making everyone look any art done in the Ghibi style as sus (Including my cover, and I have had to tell one person so far that no, it wasn’t generated using GenA.I.), I’m beginning to wonder how many more shoes can drop.
In any case, I wasn’t planning to stay exclusive on Amazon forever. It was always my plan to ease myself into the self-publishing ecosystem, but the way sales have been for every indie writer these last couple months, I might be accelerating my plans to go wide. I will probably stay enrolled in KDP select for at least one or two more cycles (So, hey if you were thinking of reading Tales of a Stranger Sister on KindleUnlimited, maybe get on that sooner rather than later), but I might start looking seriously at releasing the print edition wide. It’s times like these I’m glad I have a self-publishing guru.
Moving on…
More website content will be coming soon. Working on some write-ups about the history of Tales of a Stranger Sister and the people, places, and things that inspired its inception. Still working on the next novel. About four chapters down, who knows how many more to go.
So, that brings this update to a close, but before I go, the month of May officially2 marks 30 years since my favorite anime of all time (and one of my many writing inspirations) was released. Unfortunately, being one of the old Pioneer-produced anime of the 90’s, the license has fallen into many cracks and I don’t think the original 7-part OVA is streaming anywhere, but if you get a chance to see it on either DVD, Blu-ray or through… other means, please take it. It’s a wonderful story full of amazingly fun characters.
So, with grass below you and sky above, get out there and celebrates spring with a crazy little thing called… “reading outside.”
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Okay, so this update is gonna be a little all over the place, so please forgive the random jumps in tangents.
First off, what have I been up to since the release of Tales of a Stranger Sister? Well, besides constant promotion of the before-mentioned debut novel, and occasional posts here, I’ve been working on the next book. I’m about three chapters in, so that’s still a ways off. I prefer not to start talking about details of the story itself until I have an alpha draft complete, but the goal (absolutely not a deadline) is to have that step done by the end of the year. This one will likewise be a light fantasy, but also very different from Stranger Sister.
Writing on this new one has been slower than my debut novel for a couple reasons. First and foremost, I’ve spent the last two years in “Rewrite, Revise, and Edit” mode for my debut, so it’s been a while since I had to pen a true first draft. Second, circumstances occurred that forced me to change careers recently after nearly twenty years at my previous employer. Part of that entails adapting to not only a new work environment and new responsibilities, but also a new routine outside of work. Thirdly, my amazingly awesome spouse (and fellow author) has been dealing with some health issues, which has obviously impacted both of us as writers, if not to say as partners and human beings. Lastly, the world is on fire. I mean, it’s been on fire for a while now, but lately it seems like some people are breaking out the gas cans and marshmallow skewers. It’s… distracting.
I’m still getting in some writing every day (even if it’s something like these blog posts) but until I fully find that balance between work, life, and art like I had before everything went a little crazy, my output will be a little less than what I prefer. Still any output is better than no output, right? Right.
We’re two-thirds of the way through #IndieApril and my promotions have run their course. first, the positive: My 0.99¢ US promotion generated 5 sales, so that means I have now surpassed last month’s sales. *Tosses single handful of confetti in air* The negative: The 0.99£ UK promotion netted a big fat goose egg. I also haven’t sold any copies outside the promotions this month. *Sweeps up confetti and tosses it in the bin* Last-minute positive: Tales of a Stranger Sister received its first five-star rating and review on Goodreads. *Pick up bin and dumps slightly dusty confetti on self* Thank you, kind reviewer. I try not to attach the value of my work nor my own self-worth to outside validation, but still, it is nice to hear that someone liked what you put out in the world.
Oh yeah! If I can turn the conversation back around to my crazy-talented spouse: their own amazing books are currently either part of an awesome bundle promotion or will soon be on sale as part of another promotion. If you seriously want touching, heartfelt, and incredibly fun reads, this is a perfect opportunity to try their stuff.
Now, seeing as I had to install the air conditioner in our bedroom today to prevent it from becoming an unbearable sweat box, I will declare that spring is officially here. I hope yours is a season of renewal and new growth. Be kind to each other and to yourselves.
Comments closedJust a small update for today for a lazy, but not actually lazy Sunday. Added another social media icon to the menu. The book has finally appeared on Goodreads. There are no reviews as of yet (not surprising), but hey, if you were one of the few who both bought and read my debut, perhaps you’d be willing to leave a review there (or on the Amazon page for that matter).
And when I say review, I don’t assume to mean a positive one. If you liked it, great. If you hated it, that’s fine too. If you thought was good in places, bad in others, and “Meh” in chunks, then that’s fair. It’s not for me, really. Reviews are for other readers, so whether you loved it or loathed it, if you want others to find it or avoid it, those reviews matter.
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