data:STvSW (Trek Novel Count vs Wars)

I've always salivated on the raw number of genre books whilst losing myself in the local Waldenbooks, a B.Dalton, Borders or Crown.  I'm no spring chicken, so I can tell you how fantasy, for example, which popularly started with Tolkien, ramped up from two shelves with no label (falling, generically, under 'fiction') to taking up two entire bookshelves, then onto an entire row.  Star Trek (ST) and Star Wars (SW) novels are no exception to the rapid expansion across store shelves.  As ST preceded SW by a decade (the first ST novel was January of '67), it obviates that those novels were readily available.  By the time I was a little lad, they were in easy rotation at the used bookstores (Book Baron, Anaheim, was a favorite and a weekly habit).  SW would first come out in advance of the movie in 1976 (SW the movie would come out in May of the next year).

The first marked difference though is that ST novels first came out as compendiums, or a combination of short stories.  This was the fashion of the time, culling the works of several authors per consolidated novella.  The very first of these were meant for young readers - equating, again at the time, for readers 'of age' (maybe as early as 10 but up to 17).

SW novels, contrarily, started as straight novelizations of the movies: populist for the most part.  However, quickly shifting with extensions of its universe by 1978 with Splinter of the Mind's Eye.  From there, demand exploded with subsequent extensions of the universe, including the exploits of smuggler extraordinaire Han Solo and he ..at Star's End.  It was of these popular novels that the affinity for Solo appeared to strengthen above the Skywalkers.

Now for the raw numbers...I was reveling in the picture I took at Barnes & Noble last weekend, and simply wondering how many books have come out for SW (and then ST)...from there I used GoodReads as the foundation for the count:

There are 251 Star Trek novelizations overall.
There are 376 Star Wars novelizations overall.

That's a whopping 125 book difference, despite the decade lead on SW.

Yes - I acknowledge the differences of each respective zeitgeist.  I would also make an argument in the quality of those novels.  I have found, over many a year reading them, that ST is much more cerebral than SW.  It's more 'hard' science fiction (if there is such a thing, knowing it is a loaded definition), then the populist trappings of what could be assumed as fantasy more than science with SW.

Out of either series, I personally recommend the first 12 of the ST novels, probably avoiding number one and going straight into any other number.  For SW, I am enjoying the latest canon books by James Luceno (Catalyst, Darth Plagueis).

Also pitching to support your local bookstore, so I'm throwing in links for Anaheim:

BOOKTOWN: https://www.yelp.com/biz/booktown-usa-anaheim 
POP COMICS: https://www.yelp.com/biz/pop-comics-and-culture-emporium-anaheim
PHAT COLLECTIBLES: https://www.yelp.com/biz/phat-collectibles-anaheim-2


PS - for Shlitz and giggles, I had to look up the most prolific series and came up quickly with the Perry Rhodan series - Wikipedia states, As of April 2017, more than 2900 booklet novels of the original series plus 850 spinoff novels of the sister series;plus over 400 paperbacks and 200 hardcovers have been published, totalling over 300,000 pages. Having sold approximately two billion copies worldwide alone, (including over one billion in Germany), it is the most successful science fiction book series ever written. The first billion of worldwide sales was celebrated in 1986."

Wowzers - never heard of Rhodan.

"Huntress: Maps" (16apr17)

..last was here...

Concourse 9570TAE typified the gleaming sensibilities of the S'G'en sector.

No one could conclusively state an exact timeline: if the 9000 Concourse design came before the Cambridge sector, or, if two hundred and seventy standard years before it was a response *to* the Cambridge Concourses.  The latter were well derided across the lightways for dozens of years.  They were compared to the strip malls that cropped up all over the United States right before the 21st century.  The intersection of convenience and lack of aspiration. The affluent yacht jockeys would burn more fuel than step foot in a Cambridge.

S'G'en had, for thousands of years, been religious techvangelists.  Their walls without a single seam, meeting each other in a curvature with a molecular degree of angle that was legendarily machined.  The lengths of the starport were calculated to a degree that took several different supercomputers to compile the variances.  All were designed to maintain airflow like a planet.  The air felt fresh and not recycled.  The tech would eventually convert toward personal use, helping those with respiratory issues that could not be resolved otherwise.  The angles perfected to maximize the gravitational uniqueness of the structure.

She strode the gleaming white halls like a black shock on a blank papyrus.  Stares followed her along the thoroughfare, she brought her obnoxious blaster.  The laws around the Verse may vary, but the ability to protect oneself at a port were immutable.  Factions counted in the thousands.  One had to protect themselves.  There were constraints: the blaster could not fire projectiles, lest the station suffer.  Only energy weapons that ranged in a certain spectrum [even then those could be spoofed].

Gamon wanted a neutral station.  Not to protect himself from her - she was a Hunter not a Merc - it was from his prey that Gamon knew there was no safety outside the confines of the peaceful S'G'en.

She stood off when she spotted him.  Gauging.  *Was he alone?  Was this a trap?  Were there anyone else watching them?*  After an hour of focus, she determined that they were, indeed, alone.

He pulled into himself when she walked into the bar.  A roboserver strode up immediately, without a word.  "Hausenfleur.  Ice."  It strode off, only a momentary nod indicated it took her order.  The bartender was keeping an eye on them, not obviously, as it would be a sign of disrespect for a S'G'en.  As they were open people, it was nude, it's blue skin shimmering in the glow of the bar.

"How're you?"  She threw at his nervousness.  *He hasn't been sleeping.*  Perspiration beaded under the three primary eyes.  The other dozen were half-closed.  An Asripian cannot hide it.  That information saved her life once.

"Do you have what I need to clear my name?"  He wiped moisture from his face.  Her dark hair fell forward, and, learned through years of necessary parlor tricks, she left two metal plates in front of him to study.

"Is this...?"

"It's what you paid me for."  Gamon shifted forward and put three-fingered hands around it like castle walls.  His gills shivered.  She gently pressed the back of his hand, it was clammy.

"But.  Let's be clear, I have the information that shows you were definitely not in the arena that night.  You didn't steal what they said.  *But* they have this information too.  And by knowing, they could use it against you, especially if they knew you had it."

His hands dropped in failure.  *He's weak.*  "What do I do?"

"Get to a Laohshian bank and have this uploaded immediately.  Notarize it with a S'G'en acolyte, as I assume you wanted to meet here for that purpose.  Get a Verse lawyer.  In that order.  File a motion before they have a chance to respond.  You have hours, not days."

He shivered and shook, "You're pay?"  She nodded, "I took the liberty of taking it from your account.  I don't like doing it, but it's part of my line of work."  She passed him her pad.  "Enter your number while I look away."  He did so.

"Now go."  He stood up and left without a word.  The bartender's posture shifted as he watched him go in the mirror.  *He's being watched.  Interesting.*

The Hausenfleur came, the honey-colored liquid shone with a deep shimmer of light.  It smelled of bees in the summer on a Terran Alpine slope.  Grass.  Melted snow as it runs over granite.  She sipped it for a while and decided that Gamon owed her a little bit more on the advice.  She charged the drink and asked for the bottle.  It took three weeks of intense work to get Gamon that information, she figured he would owe her just a little bit more.

She pressed the pad.  Gamon made her day without knowing it.  If the Hausenfleur kicked in before she left the station, he may make it one more time.

...next is here...
...

poem:"you will hear me" (10apr17)

static still in a moment of horror
the world explodes
unwillingly and complete
cacophony of screams
and abrupt stillness
and fragility
exploited
on black top
in pews
in prayer
in moments

if one asks you what death's cause
look not to its instruments
but in its narcissism
ego raw, dripping of the
insipidness
not to be explored

seeing the world
as nothing more
than blots of shadow
and never lights of triumph
of our collective will
for a moment of peace

emptiness aching in
madness of the one
the ticking incessant
and we pay the price
for a crusade
in
one
head

Eric Lacombe .

"Beth" (a snippet)...26mar17...

San Marino.  The Huntington Library is alive in the late winter.  Especially as Pasadena, at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains, warms to a pleasant 80 degrees.  The tens of thousands of roses are not adorning their plants yet, but leaves are sprouting from thick straight stalks.  The branches are dark, a type of green that one has to closely inspect to believe it has any color at all.

Where the roses and lily pads are still dormant, the camellias are in full bloom.  The Huntington has colors I had yet to see otherwise, including a camellia with pink and white strips, almost as if the Queen of Hearts had not yet finished with her chores.

rikioscamera flickr

And, where one may miss the smell of roses, they are easily forgotten by the smells of a hundred other variety of flowers that sit across the property.  Wisteria hangs heavy from the trees, draping over the water, it's light purple majestic and appropriate with the Mountains not far away as a backdrop.  The swimming stone sculptures of limestone towered up into the clean, blue sky.

Beth sat with her leg crossed, a serious look upon her face.  Her hair was pulled back, the dark brown and chestnut highlights were accentuated by the sun.  The straight lines and her matronly demeanor drew her pensive look into deeper focus.  Her eyes never lost their luster, they still glowed with an intensity - a shadowed topaz, that didn't lighten despite the sun sometimes alighting her face.

I had to catch myself constantly, as if the past didn't exist - and, for me, I didn't feel it.  It had been eight years.  We were in our later twenties then and full of fire.  We stayed up all night wordlessly making love, in a time when we didn't know sleep as intimately as we do now.

I loved lightly brushing back the strands of hair from her temples and staring into her eyes.  She stared back with an equal intensity.  If it hadn't been for her job, and mine, we would have stayed together.  At least that's what I tell myself.

The truth is that it was better this way.  Better to have that distance where we didn't have foresight.  It made us better.  She was married, no kids, and I got close to both, but my career ruined a string of chances.  And, equally honest to myself, none of them held a candle to Beth.

She had that mysterious allure that held my respect.  The classic touches on her face, the ever present shadow in her hair, her eyes and even in the earthen color of her skin - a mixture of Vietnamese and Polish descent.

"Where's the doctor at today?"  I smirked slightly, awaiting her to turn to me.  She didn't.  This was odd.  We sat at the Chinese Garden House.  We had stewed pork belly in coconut sauce and a few odds and ends.  I sat with a Buddha Beer.  His exaggerated smile looking into me.  He got the joke.

"Why didn't we stay together?"  Great.  A hard question first.  My mind bounded to keep this day light, I felt like a boxer trying to keep the fight going, at least in the best way possible.  I shouldn't answer lightly though...

"I can assure you it wasn't for lack of thinking it over."  It was true: we both tried to make it work, each on their own, but returned to the same point and the same decision.  She still didn't look at me.  Try harder dummy, I spoke to myself, the sweat starting to come.  "But here we are...now.  At this moment."  I shifted the food away.  "The Tao would say this is where we needed to be.  Together.  I don't think you've noticed, but I'm holding in an elation that I've had for two weeks."  I didn't want to reach out, but I've wanted to hold her hand the moment we walked unto the grounds.

We left the food behind and walked back toward the Japanese Garden.  Along the footpath, the camellia fell low.  The shafts of sunlight dappling our path.  I know what she was thinking.  There were too many variables for her.  She was a doctor and of high analytical mind.  There was too much baggage.

"It's unfair to think that our past could command what could be."  She still hadn't made eye contact.  The sweat came down.  I'm not going to lie, I wanted this to go right and exactly what I thought could not is happening.  Having been a known quantity killed the chances for spontaneity.  "It was a life time ago, before all of this."

"And you could so easily take me back?  You don't know what I've done..."  We walked up a trail that was cooled by bamboo, right next to the traditional Japanese House.  I couldn't take anymore, I swung her around and looked confidently into her eyes, "I don't care."  As I held her by her arms to turn her toward me, her eyes relaxed and I could feel her body soften.  She put her hand on my face and searched my eyes.  I fought every urge to say something - but I knew it would fall apart.  She said nothing as well.

She turned and sunk her body into mine as we walked past the House.  All the walls were open today and you could see from one end to the other.  It must have been that way in the dead of summer, allowing any breeze to flow through.

On the other side of the House there was a zig zag of bridge that cut through twenty-foot-high bamboo.  She deftly moved our bodies in that direction.  Her hips and her side felt impeccably right against me.  My chi had filled, embarrassingly so...but there was little I could do to control it.

Beth moved me, as if I was led like a dancer, against the railing and pushed against me.  Her eyes were wrought with abandon.  I didn't know what it meant for tomorrow, just as I thought that she wanted, I wanted assurances for me as well.  I couldn't stand to lose her again.  She pulled her lips up to mine and we kissed until the warmth of the afternoon fell and the sting of the cold evening brought us back to reality.

work in progress:"Filipino Cookbook"

He crossed the thinnest point of a rivulet and back to the shore where he first awoke.  The glade afforded better cover here.  The thick green of the elephant ears larger.  It would surely hide him from any eyes that happened upon him again.

A trickle of water, collected high above him in the towering mangroves, ran down the its trunk and near him.  He drank deeply of the clean water and cleared his nose and ears of sand.  Once clean, he felt a lull of ease, but shook himself to watch the waters, hoping for any signs of his brother.

After a time, it began to rain. He ducked out from under the shelter, pulling loose vines that dropped from the mangrove.  He used these to tie the elephant ear together.  A little roof.  He wanted to rest, but hunger got the best of him.  He knew there had to be mani near by, as this glade was downstream by the looks of the water collecting from above the cliff.  Peanuts always found a way - where convenience made animals or humans passed them.

After some time, he did find the familiar soft stems of the plant in a clump below the cliff, on hard packed soil.  They were wilted in the growing rain.  He pulled a handful out and took them back to under the shelter of his little roof.  They were not ripe, but it did not matter.  He was ravenous - sucking the shells of the bean and then eating their seed last.

He took turns between the cliff's edge and the river.  The edge of peril wore away in time.  Escober went some other way.  My brother came up some other river.  The rain may have slowed their coming, or stopped their trucks.  They would be coming.  This time it would not be back to prison, but to hang from the nearest tree.

The patter of the drops, collected above, fell like the clap of a hand on the leaves of the elephant ear.  He put his back to the tree, and arranged the leaves above him, he was dry enough.  With his stomach turning, but with sustenance, he fell asleep, the rain assuring him safety for a time.  In his light dreaming, and the peanuts' taste in his mouth, he remarked to himself how different they were when roasted and salted.  He thought about his uncle's oxtail soup.

Uncle's Kare Kare
Kare kare is a deliciously, full-bodied soup that is tangy, oily.  The cross of fragrant meat with the base of peanuts satisfied any one that were lucky enough to have it prepared right:

Three to five pounds of oxtail, five tablespoons of cooking oil, five cloves of garlic (crushed), one medium onion (sliced), a quarter of a cup achuete water, a banana heart (sliced crosswise), two bundles of Chinese long bean, or, sitaw, (cut into two inch pieces), sliced eggplants as desired, a third of a cup rice, toasted brown in a pan first and then ground into a powder, a half-cup of buttered peanut and salt and pepper to taste.

Cut oxtail into bite sized pieces.  Boil once and discard the water.  Boil again until tender.  Saute garlic and onion in the oil.  Slowly add in the achuete water, sauteed garlic and onion to the meat and bring to a boil.  Add all vegetables and enough water to make a fine sauce.  Add the powdered rice and peanut butter dissolved in a third cup water into the meat.  Season with salt and pepper.  Serve alone or with rice.

Leon slept dreaming of the soup.  He slept dreaming of the harana.

abstract:"are these not reveries?"

I do
Prescendone
The blue pill with the orange strip
I can see the mottled skin when I hold it to the florescent light
It tastes like nothing
I settle it in the saliva on the side of mouth and allow the jacket to melt away and the white powder to settle across the gulley of my gum
It does its trick
And I float upwards

I dream in these reveries
Because the doctor's lead me here
Dr. Fansem, Nurse Siffa, Therapist 1, Investigator Unknown
And I believe in them, why shouldn't I
"Dream.  It's healthy."
Then, "Take the pills.  Don't forget."
And I don't.  I am a good boy.
I take them and they are most important to me and my mental state and general health and for the good of the therapy.

There is a tree outstretching his branches under the warm sun of the spring
And light breezes on long grass
And I am not really there but floating through it
Where am I I should ask I don't
Never
It's enough to feel the sun and the breeze and there is nothing ill, nothing dark

And I wake and I don't care, because sleep will come again
Soon enough

I have enough pills
And time
And the sun is always there to greet me
In time

Where do they make them
In happy factories?
Glory be I say to myself and no one else
Because it's my little corner
Of this side of the world.

poem:"teh reals"

It is within the dregs
The grey mottle of shadow
Nothing stirs

Breath suspends

Not in anticipation
But resignation

It is here on clouded floor
Under undecisive grey light

It hangs above

Like an unanswered question
Unfulfilled quest
The promise lost

Five years
Written in salinity
in ink in time

the candle

ne'er lit

It's fine
It's fine

It is it is

over now.