Servusamanu.com

Some day I want to be on this list.

Heinlein’s power suits, shiny knight armor, star wars storm trooper uniforms. Uniform’s and armor make the man, at least some of the time. I recently came across two articles on armor, old and new, which might fill in some research gap for anyone writing about combat.

Ever wondered how many pieces of gold it takes to suit up a modern soldier? Here you go.

For those people with more historical inclinations, a page of photographs of medieval armor and a diagram outlining what each piece is called might just be useful, eh?

Enjoy!

Before there was Servusamanu there was…well a lot of things, but also The Secrets!

The Secrets is both a few seasons worth of (free!) podcasts and a series of pdfs dedicated to becoming a better writer, getting published, and, perhaps most importantly, having a career as an author. Both are written and presented by Michael A. Stackpole, perhaps best known for his Star Wars novels. Personal instruction from a highly regarded and highly successful author is usually hard to come by, The Secrets is easily the single most complete resource I’ve found for all aspects of writing from designing worlds, creating characters, pacing a novel, getting it edited, finding a publisher, negotiating the world of agents, and having a…career…doing the whole process over. The podcasts do tend towards fantasy and science fiction writing (No surprise there), but I’ve found the advice invaluable even outside of so-called genre fiction.

As someone interested in the future of writing and reading, Stackpole’s opinions on trends in the industry are especially noteworthy. I intend to post in the future on using technology like facebook/craigslist/twitter/ipods-iphones-Kindles as a means of delivering writing. In the mean time I suggest listening to the fifth series of podcasts: on the future of publishing .

Hemingway, H.P Lovecraft, Henry Miller, George RR Martin. Which one of them has his own website?

George RR Martin is the author of, among other things, the Song of Ice and Fire, the best fantasy series written since Tolkien. He keeps his page fairly up to date with his new projects, but even better is his ‘Not A Blog’. It is not a forum for writing or publishing, although he does link to contests on occasion It does however give a humanizing look at the life of one (especially talented) fantasy writer. It may not be the most explosive blog a writer has ever started, but anything and everything by GRRM is gold, so why complain?

He’s also the author I intend to quote if anyone gets on my case for occasion bits of sports commentary. (Seahawks 4 Life!)