Royal Quiet De Luxe Typewriter

I’m terrible at writing rough drafts. The delete key always beckons and I find myself editing endlessly and never reach the end. I soon realize I’m writing a different story than the one that I started. Enter the typewriter. I started working on an old, electric that I had in the basement and made great progress–until it died. That set me on the search for the perfect, old-school writing machine.

This Royal Quiet De Luxe is the most recent addition to my growing horde… um, collection. According to typewriter database, this guy is from 1957. It’s part of the line of machines that Royal released in different colors. The green and blue (never mind pink) machines sell for steep prices. But I got this one for not a whole lot. And I do like the colors, maybe not my first pick, but still a solid design.

Royal Quiet De Luxe, Brown with Yellow Keys, 1957

I had read that these are great typers. At first this one took a bit of getting used to compared to the firmer touch of my Olympia SM4 (which punches holes in the page and is loud… machine-gun loud). I also like that this one has an elite typeface. I get about 400 words on a page. My rough drafts are long, so I don’t churn through quite so much paper.

This one arrived super clean. I wonder if it’s seen more use in the last few months than during the rest of its days. There were lots of eraser shavings that I had to clean out, plus a lot of white out, seems this guy belonged to a frustrated typist at some point in its history. The white out on the keys chipped off easily enough, but I spent hours getting it off the front panel. I ended up using a pin and Simple Green plus a magnifying glass… see the perfectionist emerging again?

Royal Quiet De Luxe, Front Cover Open

The magic margins did give me a little trouble. They feel over engineered. I don’t move the margins once I’ve set them. (Nor the tabs so having those all on the back works out fine.) I did get the margins to work by cleaning the back of the machine thoroughly and then adding a drop or two of gun oil to the margins. They zip around now, and the carriage returns to the same spot on the left margin cleanly. (I was having a problem where the left margin would jump a space or two on its own.)

Royal Quiet Deluxe, Margins and Tabs

The carriage locks with a little lever on the side, and the machine can be secured in its case with two side levers and a slot in the back. I don’t have the space to leave it out permanently. The case sits on the floor near my desk, but looks great for something that’s weathered more than 60 years.

Royal Quiet De Luxe, Case

All around, a solid machine that isn’t difficult to maintain.

Hounds and Jackals, Bronze Age Board Game

I always imagined that board games were a medieval invention. I thought that chess and checkers started the trend, setting it off on a course that runs clear through Monopoly and on to Catan. Playing cards have a distinctly medieval flare, with kings, queens, jokers… and jacks. (Though apparently they were first invented in medieval China, and only later came to resemble what we think of today as a standard card deck.) So it makes sense that board games would date from about the same time.

But they’re a whole lot older. Positively ancient. An article I stumbled across on LiveScience details an archaeological find that includes the remnants of a board game, dating to the second millennium B.C. Who would have thought people were playing board games 4,000 years ago? This one was found in a rock shelter in Azerbaijan. The board is a series of holes that were carved into the floor of the shelter, and was played by nomadic herders. Maybe when the rain forced them inside? Or at night, by firelight?

The game is called 58 holes. It looks a bit like a cribbage board, with two sets of 29 holes, and was played widely all over ancient Egypt for thousands of years. It’s also been more poetically named Hounds and Jackals after a version of the game that was found in the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenemhat IV.

Pharaoh or sheep herder, it didn’t matter. Both still played the same game. 


Hounds and Jackals board, found at Thebes, 13th Dynasty



Others say the game is more similar to backgammon than cribbage, but no one truly knows. The rules of the game are lost along with its official name, if it ever had one. Perhaps both pharaoh and herder had different rules as well, though I like to think they didn’t… and that forms part of the appeal of board games. 

Perhaps its’s not so surprising that board games are ancient. And no, I’m not thinking about what people did before cell phones and the internet, or even the printed book. I’m instead reminded of how often I played games when I traveled, and how much I enjoyed them with people with whom I did not share a common language, people who I never could never have interacted with all that much or all that deeply without the help of a common game. Connect 4 was super popular in Thailand. Backgammon in Jamaica. Chess in India. Board games each have a language all their own. All anyone needs to do is learn one set of rules. 

You can still buy 58 Holes today, though it’s sold under the more appealing name of Hounds and Jackals. I wonder if it comes with a set of rules.

Cambridge University Library, 600 Years Old

Cambridge University Library turns 600 years old this year, apparently making it older than both the British Library and the Vatican Library. The library started in 1416 as collections of manuscripts in wooden chests, though the chests themselves were rather grand. To mark its passage into its seventh century, the library is putting on an exhibition. The library highlights writing examples that capture 4,000 years of human thought and show how the written word has played a pivotal role in shaping society. They even somehow include Twitter.

From the University of Cambridge website:

The new exhibition puts on display Newton’s own annotated copy of Principia Mathematica, Darwin’s papers on evolution, 3,000-year-old Chinese oracle bones, a cuneiform tablet from 2,000BC, and the earliest reliable text for 20 of Shakespeare’s plays.

 

If like me, you won’t be able to make it anywhere near Cambridge in the foreseeable future, you can read about the exhibition on their website, and peruse it in a great online version of the exhibition.

There’s also a video:

I’ve often thought of buying a beat up, letterpress printing press and producing hand-crafted, limited edition books. The idea of scribbling on old bone fragments or clay tablets never occurred to me before… need to give that one some thought.

Keeper of the Akku Now Available

Keeper of the Akku is available on Amazon. For now, it’s exclusive there, and part of the Kindle Unlimited program. This story is what’s known as a novelette, weighing in at about 50 pages or 16,000 words.

This is my first published piece. I’ll be following up with another novelette in June, and also have a much longer novel in the works. Carol Davis was a great help in the copyedit and proofread departments. If you’re looking for editorial services, I highly recommend her. I also need to thank all the folks in three different critique groups who read earlier drafts of this story. It’s much stronger due to their feedback.

Here’s the book description:

For countless years, Drogga has made the journey alone. His cart wobbles over hard ground, crossing empty land between his village and the tower. When Drogga encounters a human child, a runaway hiding at this near-sacred place, he resists his instinct to chase her off. He provides the girl with food and shelter. He listens to her stories of the city, where humans still live. He has heard how these people—strangely pale and hairless—brought about the destruction of the world, though surely this child is no more at fault than Drogga, or his people.

When Drogga’s sister must accompany him to the tower, he knows that he has made a terrible mistake. His sister will never approve of this human child, not where the akku belong. Drogga sees only one option. His sister and the girl must not meet.

Follow this link to find the book on Amazon and read an excerpt.

Keeper of the Akku, Cover Reveal

My first novelette, Keeper of the Akku, will be released next week. I received the final cover image today, really happy with how this turned out. I think it captures the story well, lets the reader know this is a fantasy story—and a bit of a lonely one at that.

The cover was created by Stephanie Mooney at Mooney Graphics. I can’t thank her enough. She was super easy to work with, and obviously is a talented designer.

So without further ado, here’s the cover:

My Place on the Web

Hello there!

I’m Alex Fosse. I write stories, science fiction and fantasy–almost always with creatures in them. I’ve been writing for nearly 20 years, have a hard drive full of fiction in various states of completion. It’s time for that to change. I’ll be finishing some of these stories, and working on new ones in the weeks, months, and years ahead. Then letting these stories escape, sending them out into the wild to see if they can fend for themselves. First up, I’ll be releasing a couple of novellas.

I’m also an avid reader. I hear about writers who are not, but so far have not met this strange beast. Some of my favorite authors include Philip Pullman, Ursula K. LeGuin, China Miéville, and Robin Hobb.

Thanks for stopping by my corner of the web.