Coming 7/26/22 to a bookseller near you!

I have some good news–THE OSPREY MAN now has a publisher. The plan right now is for a late July release in paperback and as an ebook across different platforms. I’m working out the details now with the publisher, but am excited to be able to offer the book this way. I’m planning to have some in person events, as well as more content on my blog to support the book. I’ll share more details as they become available. Thanks to the readers who have supported the novel. I will have more soon.

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
―Jorge Luis Borges

I’ve been listening a lot to the new Jethro Tull album, and have been so impressed by this one. Ian Anderson has taken inspiration from different books of the bible, as well as some current events, to craft a really wonderful collection of songs. Musically adventurous, with heavy riffs (Mrs. Tibbets) as well as some melancholy acoustic songs (In Brief Visitation), and lyrically dense, this is an album that needs multiple listenings to fully appreciate. I’m so happy it has finally come out, as it was delayed by the pandemic, but it’s certainly been worth the wait.

So why the bible, after all this time? It’s not new ground for Anderson, as fans of Aqualung know. Here we have songs about nuclear war, demagogues, the betrayal of Jesus (‘the fall guy,’ as Anderson calls him). There are references to the Song of Solomon, Eros and Agape, the visitation of Elizabeth, an angry God demanding his people use no graven images, and we wind up, finally, at the Fisherman of Ephesus. Somehow all of this works together over a dizzying forty seven minutes, and leaves you wanting more. Well done, Mr. Anderson, and thank you for keeping us entertained, and keeping us thinking all these years. Gerald Bostock would approve.

It’s hard for me to rank these things, as this has been my favorite band for over thirty years, since I was in high school, but it’s really one of the best albums he has released in all the time I’ve been a fan. Few bands could ever reach the heights that the 70s incarnation of Tull did, but I would rate this in the top half Tull albums, for me certainly at least the equal of albums like Roots to Branches. And here I am on a Saturday night, combing through the King James bible to look up each verse he’s referenced over the album’s twelve songs. Not many other bands require you to do this kind of work, but Ian Anderson always has, it seems.

“Here on my heart, engraved dedication

The fall guy was here, in brief visitation”

When novels are adapted into movies, something is always lost in translation. Some interpretations are so poor that they seem to me an insult to the source material, like a horrible cover of John Coltrane by people who have no idea what a saxophone is, or that jazz exists. Some loved Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies, and some hated them, and some had mixed feelings. The other day I was visiting a friend in the hospital, and in the background, the most recent version of The Great Gatsby played on the TV and it seemed to me, without even hearing it, that it was a lightweight spectacle, a parody of the novel.

When amazon announced their new Tolkien show, I admit I was immediately skeptical. Last year I was excited when I heard they were adapting Jordan’s Wheel of Time, but the result was underwhelming at best, for a variety of reasons. Jordan was no Tolkien, but the territory is very similar, so it makes me suspicious. Even Roger Corman did a better job with Poe; at least he had Vincent Price and knew how to be scary. I just hope amazon shows more care with Tolkien’s material.

The racism on display when the cast for the Tolkien show was announced is abhorrent and revolting. It’s depressing that trolls came out of the woodwork to say vile things, and they must be denounced. I just want to make it clear that my unease with amazon has nothing to do with casting–it seems they did a great job with a diverse group of actors. I just seriously doubt Amazon’s production has a handle on the material, based on what I saw with Wheel of Time. I guess time will tell what they’ll do. No doubt many who’ve never read Tolkien may enjoy a new fantasy show with lots of effects and glitz, no matter the substance. Amazon’s Man in the High Castle was watchable and pretty good, mostly, so maybe there is hope The Rings of Power will be ok.

On the other hand, none of us should trust amazon with anything, ever. The company is terrible in so many ways you couldn’t list them all, and if they accidentally get this right, it won’t be because they love literature, or Tolkien, so much.

Streaming services are hungry for content, and books like Tolkien’s offer a built in audience with well known and beloved source material. No doubt myriad film versions of literary works will continue to be made. Companies need advertising dollars and subscribers, and people glued to their devices. But do we need such adaptations? Is the ultimate goal of a novelist to get a gigantic motion picture out of the deal? Maybe for some of them, that’s the idea.

This gets into a separate philosophical issue of art and media. We’ll never have a shortage of viewers, but the way things are headed, we may soon have a shortage of good readers. Novels demand something of the reader that movies and television shows never do. Reading requires deep attention and thinking that will reward you in a way that even the best television never will.

Someone once said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture. We might also say that films about novels are like paintings about sculpture.

I just saw a nice review of The Osprey Man on goodreads: “Chris Tuthill crafts a really touching story with very relatable themes here. It’s a vivid coming of age tale of loss and endurance.”

That made my evening!

There is something I have always enjoyed about this day, the winter solstice for us in the Northern Hemisphere. I just love the idea that ancient peoples came up with this celebration of life and sunlight in the face of the darkest day of the year, to look ahead to brighter days and know that better things were ahead. In times when winter could mean a struggle for survival, they were optimistic enough to celebrate the shortest day of the year. That speaks to the resilience of the human spirit. So Happy Solstice to everyone! I’m celebrating with a bonfire outside and some mulled wine. 🙂

I wish everyone joyous holidays and a better 2022. I will be hard at work on my book, preparing it for release next month, and working on an audio version. Stay tuned next year for the release of the book and the audio version sometime in winter or early spring. Best wishes to all!

Below is a sample of me reading from Chapter fifteen, as Jacob arrives at the library, that most wonderful of destinations.

I enjoyed The Wheel of Time books so much back in the 90s, when I was in high school and college. It was just the kind of series I’d been looking for after reading Tolkien, and between Terry Brooks, Robert Jordan, Tad Williams, and others like them I was reading lots of fantasy during that decade. So the new series is something of a fun nostalgia trip for me, and I decided to re-read the start of the series, Eye of the World. I’m enjoying it tremendously after nearly thirty years. You might even say an age has passed and the wheel has turned since 1990!

The show is so well done, with a wonderful cast and amazing scenery and effects. They have of course made some changes from the novels, but they seem to be capturing the spirit of the books and hitting many of the right notes with our favorite characters. Rosamund Pike as Moiraine and Daniel Henney as Lan are particularly well cast, and have a great chemistry between them. I’m really looking forward to the rest of this series, and can’t wait for the new installments.

I have also been working on my own fantasy stories for some time now. Once I have published the Osprey Man, (which you can pre-order here) I plan to start readying those stories for publication as well. Fantasy has been my favorite genre since I was a young boy, and I couldn’t help but want to write my own version of the myths and stories I’ve been reading for so many years.

“You want stories?” Thom Merrilin declaimed. “I have stories, and I will give them to you. I will make them come alive before your eyes.”–The Eye of the World

           Kris pulled a sketchbook out of his knapsack and opened it up.

           “I thought Osprey Man needed some jazzing up, you know?” Kris said. “He’s too much of a wuss. So I did some work on him, see?”

           Kris pushed the sketchpad over to Jacob. Kris’ vision of the character was not what Jacob had in mind. Osprey man had been transformed into something that looked like a flying version of the Incredible Hulk. He bulged with muscles. He had a massive chest, huge legs, and his wings were pointed and barbed to look like weapons. Osprey Man now had a square jaw and an angry sneer on his face.

           Worse, he had a rocket launcher attached to his back. The rocket was shooting fire out the back, and out of the front an enormous missile burst forth into the sky.

           The colors seemed too bright, almost neon. Osprey Man had golden wings, lime green tights, and his beak was a lurid pink.

           After a long, awkward pause, Jacob said, “He looks like a demon.”

           “I know, right?” Kris said. “He’s awesome now.”

           “But Jon’s version was realistic,” Jacob protested. “This guy looked like he just flew out of hell. And what’s with the missiles and rockets?”

           “I thought you’d like those,” Kris said. “He has guns too, check it out.” Kris flipped to another panel that featured Osprey man holding what appeared to be an M-16 assault rifle. Some hunters were on the receiving end of a burst of gunfire.

           “This isn’t right at all,” Jacob said. “I mean, did you even look at Jon’s sketches? Did you see the bird at Indian Island?”

           Kris leaned back in his chair and put in hands behind his head. He shrugged and smiled. “I saw his drawings, yeah. And I saw that dumb shitbird, OK? It was boring.”

           Now Jacob was angry. “Don’t talk about Jon that way.”

           “Don’t get all sore at me. I’m talking about that bird, not about Jon. He was my friend too, you know. Jon could draw, I’ll give him that. He was way better than me. But he can’t draw no more, and I can. So if I’m gonna draw these comics, they gotta be how I say.”

           Jacob shook his head. “That isn’t how it works, Kris.”

           “I can just make my own comics then. You ain’t the boss of me.”  

           They looked at each other across the table. Kris was adamant, Jacob knew. Without Kris, Jacob didn’t know how he would get the comic done. But he was just as sure that it would be a mistake to make the comic how Kris wanted it. It would violate everything Jacob and Jon had worked on.

           “Look, hear me out,” Kris said. He sounded to Jacob like he was a seasoned car salesman. “I dig what you’re saying about Jon. He was a better artist than me, no doubt. Thing is, no one wants to watch that NOVA or Wild America shit. They want to see stuff blow up. Have you been reading any new comics lately?”

           Kris rummaged into his backpack and came out with the latest issue of The Incredible Hulk, which featured the hero holding an army tank over his head. He was about to hurl it at a group of soldiers who were firing on him.

           “This is what I’m talkin’ about man!” Kris said, pointing at the cover. “If we’re gonna sell this thing, it can’t be all realistic like that bird at the park. No one would read it! It’s gotta be a butt-stomping, know what I mean?”

           Jacob looked at him. “You sound like your big brother.”

           Kris’ face grew redder than it already was, til it seemed to Jacob that it was a plum about to burst.

           “No way man!” Kris yelled. “No way! I ain’t nothin’ like him!”