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J.T. McDaniel
Dublin, Ohio
Author, playwright, philosopher, actor, general nuisance
Interests: History, writing, theater, music, acting, philosophy, skepticism, 1st amendment, politics, atheism, art, climate, submarines, evolution
Recent Activity
Shakespearean Musings Again
I read a couple interviews with Sir Patrick Stewart recently. These were old interviews, but they were new to me. What surprised me was that Stewart seemed to view Hamlet's uncle, King Claudius, in a very similar vein to what I used in creating my own version of the character... Continue reading
Posted Jun 20, 2019 at J.T. McDaniel's blog
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Psychics, God, and Death
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One of my books is an edited edition of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The New Revelation, subtitled, for my version, "The Annotated, Debunked, and Exposed Edition." From time to time I include it in my daily cycle of Twitter posts, the majority of which are intended to sell books. Not... Continue reading
Posted Sep 19, 2018 at J.T. McDaniel's blog
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Viral Marketing, but...
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I like history. Most of my novels are set in the past, predominantly during wars. Even the contemporary ones, such as The Alukam (written as Jacob Thomson) spend a good bit of time in the distant past. Much of Returning is set in the distant future, so the history in... Continue reading
Posted Feb 13, 2018 at J.T. McDaniel's blog
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Seeing is Believing, Except When it's Not
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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was one of the most popular writers of his day. His Sherlock Holmes novels and stories are still read. His Professor Challenger stories remain in print, and The Lost World has been filmed, and re-filmed. Holmes, of course, is still his best-known creation. He is known... Continue reading
Posted Nov 26, 2017 at J.T. McDaniel's blog
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Somewhat Improbable
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Last night (or, to be more precise, early this morning) I found myself watching Mistress of the Apes. The plot is rather silly. Beautiful young anthropologist in labor falls victim to crazed druggies raiding the hospital for drugs and the baby is stillborn. Meanwhile, her husband has gone missing in... Continue reading
Posted Nov 15, 2017 at J.T. McDaniel's blog
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International Blasphemy Day
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I'll admit the idea sounds a little silly. Why would there be an International Blasphemy Day? And just what, exactly, are you supposed to do in recognition? Are you supposed run up and down the street, shouting, "Fuck you, {insert god of choice}!" I suppose you could, if you really... Continue reading
Posted Sep 30, 2017 at J.T. McDaniel's blog
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I'm Still Here
It's September 24, 2017. The world was supposed to end yesterday. Obviously, it didn't. No astronomers posted that a giant planet has just popped out of nowhere and is heading our way. The only threat to our continued existence seems to be Donald Trump's "I've got a bigger dick than... Continue reading
Posted Sep 24, 2017 at J.T. McDaniel's blog
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I Did Warn You
One of the things that happens in Returning, two years from now, is the Right manages to con enough states into calling for a Constitutional Convention. It's called to address a pair of non-problems, abortion and same-sex marriage, which the religious right tends to view as dangers to, well, something.... Continue reading
Posted Aug 14, 2017 at J.T. McDaniel's blog
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But I Don't Want to be Right
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The latest stories suggest that the President wants to amend the Constitution to allow a president to sue anyone he believes has insulted him. At the moment, it's not quite impossible to slander, or libel, a politician, but you have to really try. Presidents have even successfully convinced Congress to... Continue reading
Posted Jul 23, 2017 at J.T. McDaniel's blog
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Religion in the Gehunite Empire
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I suppose it goes without saying that, living about 87,000 years ago, Gehunites didn't belong to any of today's faiths. You wouldn't expect them to. You don't base your religion on the teachings of people who haven't been born yet. They did have religions, naturally. The purpose of this little... Continue reading
Posted Jul 16, 2017 at J.T. McDaniel's blog
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How to Lose a Culture
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When the Gehunite starship Warrior returns to Earth in Returning, their own culture has long since been forgotten. In the year 2126 by our contemporary calendar, the ship has been away for 86,985 years. Because most of that time has been passed during light-speed travel, the crew has only aged... Continue reading
Posted Jul 9, 2017 at J.T. McDaniel's blog
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Were Callaaites the Original Amazons?
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Callaaites don't have family names. Like modern Icelanders, their surnames are derived from a parent's given name. The difference is that, for the most part, Icelandic and old Scandinavian names were patronymics, while Callaaite names were matronymics. So Warrior's navigator in Returning, Lieutenant Marina Fehmadaatin, could equally be styled in... Continue reading
Posted Jun 30, 2017 at J.T. McDaniel's blog
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Travelling in Space
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Space, to quote Douglas Adams, "is big." Honestly, you can't even imagine just how big it is. Even harder to imagine, almost all of it consists of nothing at all. Oh, there are hundreds of millions of galaxies, and billions of billions of stars, and even small stars are pretty... Continue reading
Posted Jun 25, 2017 at J.T. McDaniel's blog
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When Home is Gone
What would it be like to spend 15 years in space and find that 86,985 years had passed when you returned home. This happens to the people in my newest novel, Returning. If we're trying to be realistic about interstellar travel, it's likely to be how it works out in... Continue reading
Posted Jun 20, 2017 at J.T. McDaniel's blog
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On Fanatics and Crooks
So far, only a single review has appeared on Amazon for my most recent novel, Returning. I can't say I'm particularly happy about it, because the only thing you see at the top of the page is the single star. You have to scroll down quite a ways before the... Continue reading
Posted May 19, 2017 at J.T. McDaniel's blog
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Casting, Starting Rumors, and Other Useful Stuff
There's a rumour that Returning will be made into a six-part television series to run on the BBC. At least, there will be, provided you nice folks who stumble upon this post get it going. Do that for me. Please. After all, if enough people, bloggers, Twitterati, actors, trend-setters, start... Continue reading
Posted Apr 25, 2017 at J.T. McDaniel's blog
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Arkhgaiizim Passageways, and Why We May Never Have Them
The Arkhgaiizim Passageway is a central element in my new novel, Returning, which goes on sale 3 April 2017. Essentially a wormhole in the space-time continuum, an Arkhgaiizim Passageway allows Imperial Gehunite spacecraft to travel astronomical distances without the need for several generations to be born, live, and die on... Continue reading
Posted Mar 27, 2017 at J.T. McDaniel's blog
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You Can Order Now
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As of yesterday, you can go to Amazon.com and pre-order your Kindle copy of Returning. It will be automatically delivered to your Kindle on 3rd April, 2017, or the first time after that date that you sync your device. The trade paperback edition goes on sale the same day, but... Continue reading
Posted Mar 22, 2017 at J.T. McDaniel's blog
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Nearly Done, but the Campaign Rolls On
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According to my copy of Word, Returning has reached 56,000 words. So it's officially a novel at this point, albeit, one still lacking the last three or four chapters. I know what happens in them. I just haven't finished writing them yet. That won't be the end of it. Once... Continue reading
Posted Feb 10, 2017 at J.T. McDaniel's blog
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On Returning
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Imagine you're part of a starship's crew. You've been away for 15 years. Feeling, perhaps, a little homesick, you return to your starting point. Except it's not 15 years later where you came from, it's 86,985 years later. Call it a penalty for trying to violate the laws of physics.... Continue reading
Posted Jan 29, 2017 at J.T. McDaniel's blog
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Hamlet, Madness, Succession and Fate
As part of a discussion of Shakespeare in Facebook's playwrights' group, we've spent a bit of time on Hamlet. Partly my fault, as I mentioned my own abridgement (available at Amazon.com), and my Hamlet prequel, To Kill a King (available as part of my one-act play collection, The Sixth Victim... Continue reading
Posted Aug 14, 2016 at J.T. McDaniel's blog
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When You're Not Too Busy
I was cleaning out my briefcase today, and found the legal pad I'd kept on my table during the courtroom scenes in Agatha Christie's The Witness for the Prosecution last year. Solicitor John Mayhew, the part I played, spends the entire second act sitting at a table in the courtroom... Continue reading
Posted May 17, 2016 at J.T. McDaniel's blog
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What Hamlet Didn't Know
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When I was in junior high school in 1964 I can remember sitting in English class and being informed that, in addition to reading one of Shakespeare's plays, we would also be celebrating the 400th anniversary of his birth. It didn't seem like such a big deal at the time,... Continue reading
Posted Apr 17, 2016 at J.T. McDaniel's blog
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More New Audiobooks
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I try to keep busy. I should also probably try to remember to update this blog more often. Since the last time I wrote something here, a few more audiobooks have come out. The most recent was William M. Kaffenberger, Jr., and Gary D. Rhodes' Bela Lugosi in Person. Before... Continue reading
Posted Apr 10, 2016 at J.T. McDaniel's blog
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More Audiobooks and Other Stuff
Since the last time I updated this blog, three new audiobooks have been released at Audible.com, another is in audio review, and one more is still awaiting final approval by the publishers. I'm currently working on three more. Published books include Diamond Nester's Reasons Not to Buy a Sugar Glider:... Continue reading
Posted Feb 22, 2016 at J.T. McDaniel's blog
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