Herkimer College professor publishes new novel, 'The Bird Room' Herkimer County Community College Professor Blake Pitcher has released a new novel, ‘The Bird Room,’ blending rural themes with supernatural fiction.

Honored to make an appearance in the local newspaper... For good reasons!

www.romesentinel.com/news/herkime...

The Bird Room The Bird Room - Kindle edition by Pitcher, Blake. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading The Bird Room.

amzn.to/3Meo2Z1

The Cover of The Bird Room Novel: Birds Fly Through Wormhole

The idea for this novel came to me 28 years ago. After working on it for the last seven years, it's time to publish it and move on. To let go.

My co-worker's art show at MVCA in Little Falls looks amazing.

"...Comforted by the sanctuary of filtered order in a world of sensory overload, we might unintentionally narrow our horizons, depriving ourselves of opportunities. Cherished values like community, free speech, and privacy could be diminished."

"..individual control can be pushed too far. Enthralled with the idea of taking power from politicians, media giants, and price-inflating middlemen, we may lose sight of the benefits of representative democracy and the need for intermediaries who bring us reliable news and high-quality...services."

The Control Revolution by Andrew Shapiro (1999). Read this in grad school, and must admit I was pretty naive. I described the chapter on 'Narrowing Our Horizons" as "unlikely." Boy, was I wrong!

Had been thinking about this book recently, and a revisit finds it (in my mind) startling prescient.

Not where I would suggest someone to begin with Vance, but after struggling to get into Araminta Station the series started to loosen up for me. Where else can one find the dense lyrical prose and description, humorous cynicism, and world building better than a Vance book? (Rhetorical question).

Just delivered. After working through the essential Jack Vance (Dying Earth, Cugel, Demon Princes, Lyonesse, et al.) I have arrived at Throy, the final book in the Cadwal trilogy.

... but the effort fades away as it envelops you with a level of depth and detail that is rare to come by. The faint must, delicate vellum, and beautiful illustrations all add to the experience. I love finding things in used books, like this Christmas note about Barb having scarlet fever.

Oliver Twist. My most recent Charles Dickens read. This 1898 edition isn't in perfect shape, but for twenty cents from the Cazenovia Library book sale, it's difficult to beat the hours of entertainment it provided. Reading Dickens, the language is thick at first, but the effort fades away...

Also putting off any summer trips to Maine.

Burn by Peter Heller is what I would call literary apocalypse fiction. This book was a recent gift, and as a signed first edition, may be the fanciest book I own. Simultaneously a likely/not likely story that's really about the people inhabiting it.

Excerpt from Snow Crash (1992) by Stephenson. My shabby highlight job. Heck, you could probably just highlight the whole book. There's a lot of good words.

Incidentally, I learned what 'grokking' was, perhaps in some kind of symmetry to reading Snow Crash. Also, I might be the man from Mars.

A senior audit student recommended Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) to me. He was a fantastic participant in a small, strange photo class. We were talking about science fiction and I asked him if he had any suggestions. This edition from the library has beautiful typography.

Working my way through Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson on the recommendation of a friend. Little late to the game as it was originally published in 1992. Notable for coining the term 'Metaverse' and other concepts Silicon Valley is striving to make reality.. This is SciFi creating the future...