Steve Furlong

Books

Piano Scale Fingerings - with Accidentals
Price: $0.99 USD. Words: 220. Language: English. Published: November 3, 2013 . Categories: Nonfiction » Music » Instrument - Piano & Keyboard, Nonfiction » Music » Instruction & Study - Exercises
Help the student pianist learn the proper fingerings for all of the Major Key scales. This version has sharps and flats with the notes to help the younger student.
Piano Scale Fingerings
Price: $0.99 USD. Words: 220. Language: English. Published: November 3, 2013 . Categories: Nonfiction » Music » Instrument - Piano & Keyboard, Nonfiction » Music » Instruction & Study - Exercises
Help the student pianist learn the proper fingerings for all of the Major Key scales. This version has sharps and flats only at the beginning of the line, the way they are normally written in piano books.
Wing Chun Forms - Large Images Edition
Price: $4.99 USD. Words: 9,380. Language: English. Published: September 10, 2013 . Categories: Nonfiction » Sports & outdoor recreation » Martial arts
Move-by-move instructions for performing all six Wing Chun forms. The content is the same as the 2011 Wing Chun Forms but the photos are twice the size.
Piano Flash Cards - Bass
Price: $0.99 USD. Words: 460. Language: English. Published: December 3, 2012 . Categories: Nonfiction » Music » Instruction & Study - General, Nonfiction » Music » Instrument - Piano & Keyboard
Many younger music students have trouble making the connection between notes written on the page and notes on the piano. These full-page flash cards can be held up to a piano keyboard to help make the jump.
Piano Flash Cards - Treble
Price: $0.99 USD. Words: 460. Language: English. Published: December 3, 2012 . Categories: Nonfiction » Music » Instruction & Study - General, Nonfiction » Music » Instrument - Piano & Keyboard
Many younger music students have trouble making the connection between notes written on the page and notes on the piano. These full-page flash cards can be held up to a piano keyboard to help make the jump.
Wing Chun Forms
Price: $3.99 USD. Words: 9,340. Language: English. Published: January 2, 2012 . Categories: Nonfiction » Sports & outdoor recreation » Martial arts
Move-by-move instructions for performing all six Wing Chun forms.

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Smashwords book reviews by Steve Furlong

  • In Vino on July 06, 2022

    Summary: Meticulously Plotted and Written /In Vino/ picks up where /The Wise and the Mad/ left off. Almost literally where TWatM left off, in-story chronologically. The main viewpoints change, because IV in large part deals with consequences of TWatM's events. As is to be expected with Porretto's novels, the craftsmanship is meticulous: interwoven plot threads, believable character development, excellent spelling and grammar. The naive might think that such things, especially the latter, could be taken for granted in a published work, but such are the times we live in. /In Vino/ has the feel of the last book in the series, as the earlier plot hooks and the conflicts have been resolved. The story universe has room for more stories but doesn't have need for them.
  • Love In The Time Of Cinema on July 06, 2022

    Summary: Pleasant, fast-moving romance This is the third of Porretto's straight-up romances that I've read, though I believe it was the first that he wrote. As always, I need to lead off with the disclaimer that in general I don't care for romance novels and am most definitely not the target audience. With that out of the way, if you like romances, you'll want to read this. It's fast and easy reading, a page-turner. The romance starts with what would seem like a bit of obsessive stalkerdom -- and the stalker acknowledges it -- but no one complains so it's OK. That was the only bobble in the plot or characterization that caught my eye. Everything else flowed smoothly and naturally. /LitToC/ is presented as a story within a story. There's no confusing which level you're on because of both perspective and formatting conventions. I'm mentioning it only because I've read similarly framed stories in which I lost track of the level and suspect that the author did, too. As always, Porretto gets the mechanics of writing right: no typos, not-quite-the-right-word errors, or grammatical glitches. The main characters are somewhat larger than life in that they're at the top levels of skill or fame. That's fine in a novel, but if you're looking for something more relatable, Tess the office worker who never quite got noticed as an actress and Joe the car mechanic and blogger who make a life together, this isn't it. Though now that I think of it... Say, Mr Porretto, Onteora County has to have any number of office workers and car mechanics, doesn't it? Don't they deserve to have their stories told? Anyway, spooling the digression back in, characterization was good. Characters behaved consistently with their, er, character as established. The male lead grew and developed in a believable way. The female lead did as well, though not as much. Porretto avoided the trap of making the antagonists evil for the sake of evil. They had their reasons for acting as they did (grubbing for money, mostly) and even the one self-centered jerk wasn't mwa-ha-ha evil, just a self-centered jerk. Bottom line, if romance novels are your thing, read it. Even if they aren't, read it and luxuriate in the craftsmanship.
  • The Warm Lands on July 06, 2022

    Summary: A Page-turner of a Heroic Fantasy Fantasy? Yes. _The Warm Lands_ hits many of the tropes: magic, civilization which is a shadow of its former glory, a small cadre of wise men passing down knowledge, and villages living in what moderns view as rustic medieval life. Heroic? Oh, yes. The main characters strive against external threats of lesser or greater scope and soul-destroying internal demons. They mostly win, which makes for a good story, but the key point is that they do their best to be their best, which makes for a heroic story. Where _The Warm Lands_ differs from standard heroic fantasy is the scale. The planet's population is tiny and fragmented, so there are no grand armies marching to battle. (The largest battle has a few dozen participants.)Instead, most of the struggles are character against himself or character against the cost of his power. Viewpoint is limited to a handful of characters. A nice surprise was that this story stands on its own. It has a few hooks which could lead to a sequel, but it doesn't follow the trend of keeping an open-ended series going and never reaching the final resolution. Bonus: The story, all 100k words of it, is free of typos, punctuation errors, inappropriate word choice, and other careless or ignorant errors which make reading most fiction a pain for a nit-picky part-time editor such as myself. Either Porretto or his notional copy editor is meticulous and is to be commended.
  • Antiquities on July 06, 2022

    Summary: A Romantic Thriller? A Thrilling Romance? /Antiquities/ tells the story of a woman who meets the love of her life when she's down on her luck and at the end of the road. He's loving, rich, talented, and just plain wonderful. /Antiquities/ tells the story of a couple whose happy, fulfilling life is caught up in major political and technological events. Put them together and you may find the whole is more than the sum of the parts or you may be unsettled by the mixing of the genres. A major selling point is Porretto's usual excellence in characterizations, consistency between scenes, and avoidance of plot holes. And the impeccable word choice, grammar, and other low-level mechanics, the failings of which are so often a hurdle in reading fiction. You may want to read the earlier "Onteora" stories before reading this one. It's not really needed -- I have not yet read the second or third novels but was able to figure out major players and events as they came up -- but you'll probably enjoy the story more if you do.
  • The Discovery Phase on July 06, 2022

    Summary: Well-written. Read it. I need to start off this review, as with my last review of one of Porretto's novels, by noting that I am not the target demographic. /The Discovery Phase/ has no space travel, no desperate hunts for kidnappers, no eldritch horrors rising from the watery deeps. Why would anyone ever write such a thing??? With that out of the way, /The Discovery Phase/ is a well-written romance novel. No, that's damning with faint praise. /The Discovery Phase/ is a well-written novel regardless of genre. The low-level mechanics are, of course, impeccable. (In all of Porretto's novels that I've read, I recall spotting one typo.) The main characters have depth, which is revealed bit by smidgen throughout the story, not dumped near the beginning in bouts of pernicious autobiography or failing to exist at all. Both the characters and the situation evolve plausibly. Problems are resolved without murder or car chases (which some might view as a drawback) or even sci-fi widgetry. While I find the setup and early actions to be implausible if projected into real life, they're no more implausible than a kidnapped woman's neighbor /just happening/ to be a retired Green Beret who has half a million dollars of military weaponry stashed in his garage. Bottom line, if you're in the mood for a well-written romance, read this one. If you're in the mood for a well-written novel, even if you don't care for romances, you could do worse.