Today I am mostly having an orchgasm
Orchgasm – the joy when you first hear a song that you helped create being played by a WHOLE orchestra! A whole one – you know, flutes and everything!
Continue reading New words for new feelings Number 94
Comedy writers do actually get asked to say something funny at parties (not actually to write something funny, but say something funny – which isn’t that fair; I mean a racquet manufacturer isn’t expected to win Wimbledon!
Or at least I do; get asked to say funny stuff – not to win Wimbledon that is.
‘Come on what’s the best joke you’ve ever written?’
“Sorry, don’t really write jokes.”
‘What!’
‘I prefer commenting on the human condition obliquely using humour.’
‘Yeah, right. Can I hit you?’
Strangely, when I was a full-time scientist, I never got asked what the best science I ever did was. That would have been easy: coming up with the constitutive-like secretory pathway for the release from the human heart of Atrial Natriuretic Peptide.
It’s a belter, eh?
Part of the problem with finally admitting to what I consider to be my funniest joke ever, was that it was actually said in a laboratory! It’s a science gag!
It was while I was doing some work on Marfan Syndrome. This is an inherited genetic condition affecting connective tissue and sufferers are typically very tall with long fingers. Abraham Lincoln may have had the condition, as might Mary Queen of Scots and Sergei Rachmaninoff (as a pianist he had a tremendous ‘span’).
The compromised connective tissue protein is called Fibrillin and it first was isolated from a medium of human fibroblast cells, following electrophoresis after di-sulpide band reduction, which produced a nice distinct single band of 350 KD (not small). Because connective tissue occurs throughout the body there are many distressing and life- threatening problems associated with Marfan Syndrome including degeneration of the heart valves. I was assisting on a project investigating the ultrastructure of Fibrillin in Marfan patients and control subjects. Specifically I was training up two young technicians to ‘rotary shadow’ isolated ‘patient’ fibrillin. This technique involves making a high resolution heavy-metal ‘replica’ of rapidly frozen and freeze-dried macromolecule in a vacuum evaporator. It is not the very, very most demanding of electron microscopical techniques, but there is plenty or room for error.
It was not going well.
Or rather, we were obtaining images from the control fibrillin – which are particularly lovely with a bead-on-string arrangement of fibrillin along the long microfibril. However we were not having any joy with samples from the Marfan patients, which obviously were in rather shorter supply. We wanted some action! We all, after all, wanted to do out bit to help combat this rotten inherited disease!
Was it an isolation problem actually associated with the putative problem with the fibrillin microfibril itself? We didn’t know.
Every other day a new isolated sample would be rotary shadowed, and the delicate replicas teased up on a grid to be put in the electron microscope; the three of us huddling around in the dark looking at the screen for some sign of the elusive molecule.
And every other day disappointment.
And then one day it all came together – as it can do in science for no particular reason. There on the screen was a sample of the ‘Marfan’ fibrillin. The normally intact microfibril was ragged, flayed almost; the beads disrupted.
‘Look at the state of that,’ I said to the two young technicians: ‘it’s the parents I blame.’
All right then, please yourselves.
Continue reading My Funniest Joke Ever (as a scientist)
Continue reading 777 and similar challanges
Blowing your own trumpet is hard. It is so much easier to praise other people, especially when you really like what they are doing. It’s been really nice lately to be able to do just that for some great fellow Harper Voyager writers.
Solo trumpet is even harder if you’re British – honestly, we’re really bad at this sort of thing. Remember we are the people who apologise to the furniture when we bump into it! And when we do give the one-person woodwind a go, we’re usually pretty hopeless and come over as either self-serving egomaniacs or chronic apologists (I know I do.) So, with that in mind, I would just like to mention a few nice things another people have said recently about ‘A DEAD ELF’.
These are from ***** reviews on Amazon.com (which constitute 48% of all reviews btw) and I should just point out that I don’t have any family in the USA. (And none of these people write for Harper Voyager either).
*****
BRILLIANT mix of “Lord of the Rings” and Sam Spade!
By J. Komon
I read a lot of sci-fi/fantasy as well as mysteries, and write a fair amount of fanfic. It isn’t easy to build an AU – everything from the slang to character names to social structure to alien races. You try to keep things somewhat recognizable, and yet just strange enough so the reader can get immersed into a strange new world. Terry Newman does a terrific job: a good mystery, intriguing characters, delightfully snarky humor, and a cynical tough dwarf who does the best Humphrey Bogart tough-guy imitation ever!
I loved, loved this story, and look forward to future adventures of Det. Strongoak!
*****
Nicely done
By Connie Standridgeon
I want more of Strongoak. This book was a great read couldn’t put it down. Loved the characters and loved the created world.
*****
Pratchett-like world building (not flat world but fun!)
By Hans Olafon
This was a fun read. The guy is great with words–a real story-teller. He could probably built worlds–like Pratchett’s Disc World (a relief from reading so many books on Amazon that were obviously self-published because a real publisher would not publish them).
*****
What a fun ride. I loved it
by K. Winkelmanon
Dwarf Detective Nicely Strongoak is one of the most delightful characters I’ve come across this year. The book was well written, witty as all heck and reminded me of Douglas Adams’ (yes, of Hitchhiker’s Guide fame) insanely fun detective novels – Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. While Terry Newman’s yarn doesn’t go quite off the rails as Douglas Adams did, the result is a an engaging story full of twists and turns set in an aging Citadel mountain city laboring under the strain of blending mixed races (elves, dwarves, goblins, men, gnomes, and more), politics and power struggles. It includes classic noir mysteries, dames in distress, betrayals and misdirection placed in fantastical settings overlaid with a steampunk feel. The cars and other forms transportation appear to be steam driven and quite whimsical. The characters were fairly well developed, especially the main ones. I was tickled by the idea of surf elves with enchanted boards, and the crazy way they dealt with banished royalty. The story was entertaining and I couldn’t wait to see what would happen next. Detective Strongoak has some great comeback lines and I had a few laugh out loud moments amid the frequent grins and chuckles. I was not disappointed by this book… except that the novel wrapped things up and ended when I would have been thrilled to have it go on and introduce a new wild adventure and mystery to solve for the incredible Detective Strongoak. More please! And soon!
Continue reading In Praise of Praise
The full advice, before you start writing for theatre:
The Dragonette ’57 convertible steamwagon was not facing any competition:
“I collected my wagon early the next day. It’s a racing-green Dragonette ’57 convertible; the last model with the little wings and the air-trimmed front end. Daddy’s pride and joy, with marble interior finish and leather ragtop. It did my heart good just to touch her. Sceech the grease goblin had done a good job on the shoes, and I took off in a reasonable frame of mind. I had slept pretty well and though I didn’t feel like a million crowns, well at least I didn’t look like buried treasure.”
Continue reading Meanwhile back in the Citadel…
One thing I didn’t quite get about ‘The Shanara Chronicles’ – as clearly stated in the opening credits:
A distinct lack of ‘Dwarf’ . That’s the sort of thing that annoys a certain dwarf Master Detective. Are the elves to blame?
Continue reading Did I blink and miss them?
Yes, the subscription cover offers loads of uses for blatant self-publicity! Such as:
Well, you have to do it, don’t you?
Continue reading Excellent Empire Magazine June ‘Ghostbuster’s’ Cover
It’s my “Great Escape” moment – you know, when Gordon Jackson makes “the oldest mistake in the book” and replies in English to a German officer who wishes him: ‘Good Luck’.
How could he? The fool! After all he had been told?
Argh!
I have just sent off an important document where I’ve written, “you’re” instead of “your”.
Continue reading The Oldest Mistake in the Book!
We’re all hoping to give you some news very soon about the latest Nicely Strongoak adventure. It’s all written and has a great title too, which of course I can’t tell you – battle axes might have to be hefted. What I can tell you is that it’s got even more dwarf detective shenanigan’s and wisecrackery – as well as some great new suits. You’ll learn more about the Citadel and Widergard too, but nothing more about surfing and very little about house prices on the Third Level, although they are extortionate now.
So, keep your eyes and ears open for word on the sequel to the Epic Fantasy #1 Bestseller – very soon, we all promise you.
Continue reading Next book news – soon!
Here be a blog for Terry Newman and Master Detective Nicely Strongoak 