Sunday Snippets

Here is the opening of Just The Messenger, hopefully soon available from Darwin's Evolutions.  As a note, this is my version of the story - the editor hasn't taken a pass yet - so may differ somewhat from the final version:


In the borderlands binding the northern kingdoms together, babies died frequently and were only named on their sixth birthday, usually for traits they showed.  Thorn had just such a name.

The rider crouched, stretching out worn leg muscles from the trip through the shadow realms.  The guardpost had been burned down to its foundations, if it could be called that - it was only a hut, occupied when the village beyond could spare an able-bodied man.  The scent of smoke and charred flesh stirred dread in the rider, unwelcome visions of the scene.  The tethered mare did not react to the stench, but there were reasons for that.

The figure rose, then hesitated.  Under the hood, one dark eye flickered with apprehension.  Easier to keep walking, not confirm the carnage.  Thorn had a mission, one that did not call for detours.

Yet forward into overhanging trees, through the arch cut by frequent passage.  The crows had beat the rider there, as had other scavengers.  Impossible to guess how many homes, though probably not more than thirty.  Just enough that every farmer could walk to his land.

"Scion?  Are you real, or is my mind finally betraying me?"

Thorn might have initially mistaken the figure for a corpse, so grey was his skin, so unkempt his appearance.  The man straightened, flashed a smile that missed half a tooth.

He strutted closer, poked Thorn in the chest.  "Real, then," he said, "or I'm poking a tree I never noticed growing here before."

Thorn resisted the urge to bat the hand away, irritated.  "What happened here, old man?"

"Old?"  Blue eyes swept down, and he chuckled hoarsely.  "I suppose I am, at that.  Thank you for the reminder.  You can call me Squirrel."

"I'm Thorn.  Are there any other survivors?"

Squirrel sighed gustily.  "None.  The raiders came, they slaughtered everyone like animals - except the animals.  Those they set loose.  Some came back to their barns."  He smiled without mirth.  "I would be eating well, except it's beyond my ability to kill a pig on my own."

Thorn placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and started to lead him up the path.  "I'm sorry for your loss.  I'll escort you to the next town, where you'll be provided for."

Squirrel cocked his head, an inquiring gleam in his eyes.  "Where are you bound, young Scion?"

"Coerth's capital.  Dangerous things are happening," Thorn said.  "The king needs to know before it's too late."

Thursday Thoughts

I wonder if I would be able to cheer myself out of my allergy funk by writing a story about evil flowers, poisoning innocent industrialists?

I wonder if people would flame me horribly for writing such a thing?

Natural pollution is terrifying.

How about a flowering tree that produces curses instead of buds?

Or a race that wins a war by planting trees on the opposing territory.  Spy trees?  Stealth trees!  Poisonous trees.

I'm not even going to get into ambulatory trees.  That would be terrifying.

I've gotten good ideas from my misery before.  Maybe it will happen again.

Sunday Snippets

I've finally been writing again, rather than editing or working on blog posts, etc.  Here's a recent bit from "The Base of the World," the short story I'm now trying to finish about a healer dealing with a mysterious disease:

"Liva!"
 

It was the second time she had been awakened from a sound sleep by shouting; she dreaded it before she even fully recovered to consciousness.  She blinked her eyes open to see Viresi.
 

"Liva, why are you sleeping?" the girl persisted.
 

She drew herself up, stung.  "I'm exhausted.  I can only do so much.  It will have to wait."
 

"What about Garra?"
 

She shook her head, irritated, about to snap at the child.  The resemblance to - the memory of - Islu stopped her.  "Garra?  She's fine - not fine," she amended, "but she'll be my next target.  She might complain even more when she's cured, but she will be."
 

"Did you really not look at her?" Viresi pressed.
 

Liva sank back on her heels.  Though still bleary, she focused on the words rather than reacting.  "Her cough was worse … almost overwhelming … I didn't look at her colors," she admitted.  "I didn't have time."  Though she offered the justification, she didn't focus on it as the first part of her statement sunk in.  "I didn't look.  I didn't see how badly off she was …"
 

"No," Viresi agreed.  "You didn't."
 

How had the child known?  She wasn't there … Liva pushed it off in the face of a sense of foreboding.  She rose in a rush.  "I should go."
 

"And I will come with you."
 

Healer and girl moved swiftly through the camp.  This time, Liva didn't notice the eyes upon them, breaking into a sprint.  She was stunned to find she had the energy.
 

She burst into the infirmary to find Delis and Nethin clustered at the dour woman's bedside, soothing her with words, conversing in wary whispers.  She placed a hand on the boy's shoulder and nudged him aside with a strained smile for Nethin.
 

"We were just debating if we should send for you," Nethin said, "but we figured you knew her condition before you left."
 

Liva pressed down the stab of guilt as Garra turned her head to stare, eyes flitting back in her head.  "You finally decided …"  Another coughing spasm took her, a full-body shudder.  She gripped the sheets to steady herself.  Lina reached out to hold her shoulders and delved into her healer's sight.  What she saw chilled her:  the blue mire had spread out through the bulk of Garra's body, thinning only towards the extremities.
 

Liva was not fully rested, but there was no time to build up her reserves - and as with the wounded man earlier, she could not begin with the subtle, delicate work, for the disease had twined thickest around Garra's lungs, twisting hard.  At best, permanent damage that would make the woman's current occupation impossible; at worst …

Strip Mauled by Esther M. Friesner

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Part of a series of anthologies set in suburbia, each looking at the trials and tribulations of a particular brand of supernatural species (or occupation, in the case of the witches), Strip Mauled is the werewolf part of this set. Unfortunately, while most of the stories have humorous moments and are at least worth a smile, most of the authors in turn sacrifice tension and interest in favor of levity. Sometimes, it's hard to suspend disbelief; other times, it's hard to care. When the characters aren't emotionally invested, how can the reader be?

There were some aspects of the anthology I enjoyed. For instance, some of the stories - but not all - link to the tales in Witch Way to the Mall. The sense of continuity was nice. And of course, some of the humor is enjoyable enough that it doesn't matter that the attached story isn't the most gripping of tales. Superlative in the volume - no surprise - was Friesner's own contribution. Incisively witty and hilarious, the satisfaction and suspense in the tale is to see how the odious narrator is outmanuevered. Usually, I object to editors including their own stories ... here, I just can't.

This is a serviceable anthology - only one or two of the stories are actually bad. With the exception of Friesner's, however, I can't really say that any of them stand-out, either.

View all my reviews

Guide to Style

So first of all, a public service announcement:

Comma placement is important!

If you can view that without giggling, you are made of sterner stuff than I.  I've gone back multiple times in the past few days just to look at it.

Secondly, I've brushed up A Dose of Aconite for future submission.  Because I keep a rolling submissions list of a specific number of stories - which remain in as close-to-continuous circulation as I can manage - it won't be hunting for a home until I either sell or retire something else, but it is next up on my list.  It's a very dark story - one of my darkest pieces.  It was originally written for a "villain POV" challenge over at FWO, and got some comments that reviewers weren't sure which side was which.  That's intentional when it comes to the Borderwatch versus the water-witches ... but Mannix himself is a cold, calculating piece of work.

What's interesting is I occasionally come across phrases that I don't think I would write now - but I don't feel the urge to change them.  They're not bad or inferior, just different from my present stylistic approach.  Has anyone ever encountered this?

Another story available!  Voices is now out in Kaleidotrope:

Kaleidotrope

Check it out!

Flow now available in ... print!

Flow is now - huzzah! - out in print. Can order it from here:

http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com/single.php?ISBN=1-55404-936-9

Crazy excited here. Bounce!

Blog Tour: Bonus Stop!

Thought I was done? Guess again! I've got a bonus stop over at Diana's blog:

Guest Post: Lindsey Duncan on Unusual or Strange Sources of Inspiration

Sunday Snippets

Today, I thought I would share a fragment from a Flow-verse story, "A Dose of Aconite." This is the opening of the story, which is about to get some editing out of me prior to submission. So please pardon any "rough" here.

As an aside, the SleepRite here is vaguely modeled after a real hotel (chain name removed to protect the guilty) outside of Oberlin, OH ...


Crouched over his laptop in a dank SleepRite motel somewhere southwest of Cleveland, Mannix Tippet waited for the werewolf to call.

The beast was not expecting Mannix to answer. The room three doors down was temporary residence of the water-witch Tala Blight, who had offered him sanctuary and a cure - as if that could absolve him of the blood he had shed. It had been simplicity to tap the hotel phone system. When the beast called Tala's room to confirm where they would meet tonight, he would not reach her.

Mannix shifted on the bed, starting a minor fugue in the springs, and pulled up his file on Blight. There before him, all the electronic details of her life: her saving habits to her tastes in fiction to how many times she had purchased lavish presents for friends who never reciprocated. Something more precise and useful than magic. Witches relied on it too much; she didn't even own a cellphone.

He knew, without asking questions, that he would kill her. His malice was not for her personally, but it was also immutable. His superiors in the Borderwatch had told him there was informal peace and the supernatural threats both organizations had to face were more important than any difference in methods. The word 'peace' was hollow when a good man like his cousin died on a mission - and the unidentified witch who guided him emerged without a mark on her.

His cousin had drowned.

Mannix had read the official report, which claimed it had been an accident. That meant nothing when a few bytes could erase any truth.

"Take the beast," were his official orders from the Borderwatch. "Use her to find him if you have to, but make sure you can deny it."

There was more than one way to accomplish that. He had already decided if he could not find the real culprit behind his cousin's death, then he would destroy the next witch he encountered. Pity Tala that it was her.

Blog Tour: Stop #6!

My sixth and final stop, over at Daniel Ausema's blog:

Blog Guest: Lindsey Duncan

Sale!

White Cat (www.whitecatpublications.com) just purchased my "Didn't I Mention ...?" for July! This is a rather quirky flash piece: a sideways-and-backwards recounting of a tale by a rather forgetful storyteller ...

Thursday Thoughts

And now I trundle towards the end of my blog tour ... I somehow survived and I don't think I made too much of a fool of myself with my posts. Thanks to everyone who stopped by and commented.

This means I can finally get back to writing ... or ... shoot ... no. Editing. I'm still doing a readthrough on Scylla and Charbydis. Debating whether or not I'm going to do the random page review I did on Journal of the Dead. It will depend on how much stamina I have, as I have yet another novel waiting for its closeup ...

How does everyone else deal with having a lot to edit when you'd rather be writing?

Blog Tour: Stop #5!

Early post - for Wednesday, I'm over at Barbara's blog! Check it out:

Guest Post: Lindsey Duncan, Author of Flow

Happy Tuesday!

I had a crazy St. Patrick's Day and spent most of Sunday recuperating, so I missed having a Sunday snippet this past week. So instead, I've decided to intersperse my blog tour with a bit from later in Flow. Ergo ... meet Hadrian, as the girls are trying to find a source for a fake ID for Kit - who can't yet legally drive ...


Sigvard Repair was north of the city near Norwood. It sat sandwiched between a secondhand record shop and an all-night grocery. There was no closed sign, but the darkened windows said it all. Not for Kit. She caught the handle and braced. The door jerked open into stale darkness. Dimly, she sensed the saurian shadows of metalwork and machinery, some with guts splayed all over the room's low tables. An anemic strand of light escaped from underneath the door to the next room.

"Hello?"

So fast she couldn't track the movements, someone caught them both around the shoulders, opened the door, and ushered them through it. His hand was deft on her right shoulder as he pulled them into the back hall and turned the light up.

"So," that unmistakable baritone said, dropping a few lazy syllables into the bass range as he continued, "what can I do for you ladies?"

Kit blinked as she got a good look at him. Tall and attenuated, he was thin almost to the point of the macabre, nothing helped by arched cheekbones and a high-bridged nose. His skin was ghoulishly pale - she felt as if she was staring at a ghost. His intensity was overwhelming, pulsing out of him in waves she could almost touch.

"Uh, a friend of mine said you could help with something unusual," she said.

Of course he was still in business, why else would he be so calm with two women in his backroom at this hour - but she had to be careful.

"We are looking for false identities," Chailyn said brightly.

Or not. "Something like that," she said, trying not to grimace.

He grinned, an expression that made him look more human, glacial dark eyes catching a spark of warmth.

"Have no fear; I've completely forgotten what numbers to dial for the police," he said. "Hadrian Sigvard, at your service."

He looked severe, even priestly with the hard angles and the way his hair was pulled back - and it was faintly blue in this light, deeper than black - but the lingering, sardonic mode of his words made it easy to forget that image. There was something off about him, but Kit couldn't put her finger on it.

Blog Tour: Stop #4!

I'm over at Angie Lofthouse's blog today:

Lindsey Duncan Discusses Short Fiction

Blog Tour: Stop #3!

I'm over at Nyki Blatchley's blog today, talking about worldbuilding:

Flow Guest Blog By Lindsey Duncan

(First time Nyki has ever had a guest, too!)

Thursday Thoughts

In the middle of this blog tour, I take a moment for my regular feature ... which hasn't been regular for a while, but I now vow to restore it to its rightful place.

That said, there hasn't been much writing of the past week. Instead, I've been busily working on my posts for this here tour. But I've found that serves its own purpose: it reawakens some of the joy of the initial act of creation, something I've been far away from with the last edits of Scylla and Charybdis (and the first edits of Who Wants To Be A Hero? still to come). Don't mistake me, I love the editing process, at least the fine-tuning, word tweaking, reshaping, part ... but there's nothing like the first encounter with an idea.

It's a universe that will hopefully see more stories in the future - besides the one forthcoming and the three I want to get sold, I have a few other ideas sitting in my file. One of them is just a sparker, to have a secret stop on the DC Metro that somehow links to the water-witches. Others were exercises I did from The 3AM Epiphany (which is absolutely the only writing exercise book I would ever recommend - great stuff) or other sources, snatches of dialogue and conflict. All of them need some fleshing out before I'd be ready to write ...

But isn't that the fun of it?

Depending on how Flow does, there's also a few sparks in my head about a potential sequel ...

Blog Tour - Stop #2!

Today, I'm over at Aubrie Dionne's blog:

Interview With Lindsey Duncan, Author of Flow

What's In A Name?

A rose by any other name, etc, etc ...

Today, I wanted to talk briefly about the names in Flow. All three characters had their origins in (short-lived) roleplaying venues, so I had chosen the names independent of each other.

For Enid Katrine Morgan / Kit, I merely knew that I wanted a female name that could plausibly abbreviate to "Kit," and something that had a Welsh background. I decided on Katrine as a more interesting of Catherine, and to "justify" the interpolation of the i (over the more obvious a), I decided to shuffle the names around and have it come from a first name the character would hate.

For Chailyn Lang, I was browsing the internet - ah, of all things! - when I came across the name and thought it had the perfect look and feel. As to Lang, I knew that her father was "some European businessman" (this developed further, of course). I wanted something short and sweet, and how could I pass up the reference to those fairy tale compilations, the (Color) Fairy Books?

For Hadrian, I honestly don't remember any thought process going into the name choice. I simply got the first name picked out and trawled my name book - the highly recommended Character-Naming Sourcebook, by Kenyon, Blythe and Sweet - until I found an appropriate surname to match.

So you can see that I'm not much inclined to choosing names by meaning, instead narrowing on look, feel and sound, with secondary concerns for the ethnic origin of the name and connection to backstory. I tend to avoid meaning-based names, in fact, unless the character for some reason named themselves - or were named by someone who was in a position to predict / comment upon that attribute.

One notable exception, not in Flow but in the same setting, is from "A Dose Of Aconite," where every single character is derived from taking the common names of aconite - wolf's bane, monk's hood, etc - and then picking names with those meanings. For a short, compact work with no intended follow-up, I thought it worked well - a sort of Easter egg for the name-inclined. (Or ... those who follow my blog, now.)

But names are very important to me. The Borderwatch agents are all named in my background material, even though their real names (with one exception) don't appear in the book, only their handles. I needed to know what they were "really" called to properly write the characters.

And Charity, well ... that name was pure irony ...

Anyone have any interesting name-origin stories?

Blog Tour: First Stop!

Today, I'm over at Cherie Reich's blog. My interview is here:

Book Chat Special: Interview With Lindsey Duncan

Sunday Snippet

To kick off my forthcoming blog tour, I thought I would post a snippet from a little later in Flow than the teaser available on Double Dragon's website. Here's the opening of chapter three, as Kit returns home:


Most of the lights were off, but Kit found the gloom more comfortable than the gingerbread warmth of normal light. She made her way down the front hall by feel.

"Hey, Terri?" she called. She found the wood handrail into the living room, trying to shake off a weird sense of tension, as if someone were looking over her shoulder. "I want you to meet…"

The sensation deepened as the shadows gained color, a blur of muted hues that closed in and hit her hard. A fist smacked her chest and her body went awry in response, arms flying, spine cracking into the rail. She howled; her second muscles coiled in readiness, all wild animation and adrenaline poisoning. Instinctively, she tried to place where her attacker stood. Something slammed into her left leg.

She twisted with it, trying to roll over the blow, but a flare of pain sent her mind screaming - not the tendon, not when it had taken so long, not when another pull could damage it permanently - and she surrendered, collapsing in a puddle on the steps. A long white-gloved hand caught her chin and knocked her head back against the rail. Hooded grey eyes played over Kit's face, neutral, assessing. She saw a flash of metal out of the corner of her eye and flinched. The point of a knife replaced the hand.

"I know what you can do," the woman said. "The first false move will be your last."

Thursday Thoughts

Well, by now everyone has seen my big news for the week, and I've been consumed with the tour aspect - writing answers to interview questions and incubating what I want to say for the more open-ended blog posts. I want to thank everyone who was all right with having me visit them. You folks are awesome.

Now that Flow is out, I've made a mental note to shift my story editing priorities - next goal to get out the three unsold stories in the setting: A Dose of Aconite, Splinter Cell, and an untitled third story. A fourth story, X-Mas Wishes, has already been sold for Gypsy Shadow Publishing's charity holiday anthology - originally intended to be released this last December, now due next year.

Two of the short stories involve werewolves, a facet of the setting unseen in Flow, but a logical extension of what I've already built. Two are written from the POV of a Borderwatch character. Splinter Cell takes a sympathetic course; A Dose of Aconite is one of the few (if not the only) stories I have written from the perspective of a character intended to be interpreted as the villain. At least one of these stories (I won't divulge which!) involves a fairy halfbreed ... and in all of them, I've had tremendous fun playing with different species of fairies and their traditional strengths and weaknesses.

And Splinter Cell is the story in which I have far and away the most fun with modern pop references ... even a crack about Kirsty MacColl's "Darling, Let's Have Another Baby." (Easily one of the funnest dumb songs ever.)

Blog Tour!

For the release of Flow, I'll be taking a tour of some blogs, either with interviews or guest posts. My hope is to have other information / material on my own blog for the intervening days. Here's the lineup:

Monday, 3/12: Interview by Cherie Reich
Wednesday, 3/14: Interview by Aubrie Dionne at Flutey Words
Friday, 3/16: Guest post over at Nyki Blatchey's blog on worldbuilding for Flow
Monday, 3/19: Guest post over at Angie Lofthouse's Notes From The Writing Chair about writing short fiction and how it helped my writing / career
Wednesday, 3/21: Guest post over at B.A. Barnett's Writerly Wackiness, tentatively entitled "Three's A Crowd"
Friday, 3/23: Guest post over at Daniel's Ausema's Twigs and Brambles, where I'm thinking of discussing the use of scent - but this may change

And further ahead ...

Sunday, 4/29: Interview with Lee-Ann Graff-Vinson at Writing Commando

If anyone wants to talk to me during intervening or subsequent days, please let me know! I'm up to rambling about just about anything.

Flow released!

It's official:

Double Dragon Publishing has just released my contemporary fantasy novel, Flow. Take a journey with Kit, Chailyn and Hadrian through the eastern United States, hunting fairies (or is that being hunted by them?), evading the Borderwatch and unraveling mysteries along the way.

Publisher's website: Double Dragon Publishing
Direct link to Flow

First scene teaser available on the site ...

Sunday Snippets

This is the first time I've had a Sunday snippet in a while. I've not been writing as much as I'd like, mostly editing Scylla and Charybdis - and I'm far enough into that manuscript that it's difficult to pick out sections that work out of context without spoiling plot.

This, however, is the opening of a short story I'm working on entitled "The Base of the World," about a grieving healer and her new assignment ...


Turgid artic waters rushed about Adris Isle, swept by low currents towards the icelands and the base of the world. From here, Liva could see the dim shadow of the immense column that anchored the world in the field of stars, but that was not her destination.

She clutched her cloak tighter, a speck of brown in the small boat: a figure no smaller than a child, though girlish amber curls had been given a hatchet job before she applied. She had been the first healer to do so - the only healer to do so. No one wanted this post.

The boatman rowed without glance or sound, but his apprentice kept peeking under his elbow at her. "Why are you doing this, miss?" he asked finally.

The voice did not match the woman, resonant, midnight-deep. "Someone has to."

It was more complicated than that, but Liva allowed herself enough vanity to be pleased with the way it sounded. The moment of delight passed as the encampment came into view, tents and temporary wooden lodges pressed together like a pile of dead leaves. She had come here to prove to herself she didn't have to be trapped in her past, but had she simply exchanged one prison for another?

"On a clear day," the apprentice whispered, "they say you can see the dead descending the pillar to visit their relatives on earth."

Liva shook her head. If such apparitions were possible, she would have had company months ago. Her chest tightened as she thought: if Islu didn't blame her as the others had. Some said children could forgive anything, but in her experience, they held blame more fiercely.

The encampment's dock was as rickety and dull as the tents. The boat oozed to a halt, bumping against the wood. Liva squinted, but saw no one waiting for her, not even as a cleverly disguised shadow.

"We're here. Go." It was the first thing the boatman had said since they departed.

Anatomy of an Idea: Three Great Loyalties

This post is (more or less) spoiler-free, but you might get more out of it if you click the link below to Niteblade and read Three Great Loyalties first. It's only a suggestion!

This story started as an hour writing prompt - from which I've gotten a lot of my best work, but these also tend to be the stories that need the most front-end editing to remove slowness. The prompt was to turn a bad day at work into a fantasy story. I chose a wedding I had played for where I was contracted three weeks out and ... well, the logistics of setting it up were a mess, and then it was a September evening wedding and the bride was upwards of forty minutes late - so our thirty minute prelude went on a lot longer than that. While it was getting dark. And cold. I distinctly remember a bridesmaid in a sleeveless gown with a massive rose tattoo on her shoulder.

Very little of this actually appears in the story. In hindsight, I should have at least included the tattoo. But the configuration of musicians - harp, dulcimer and flutist - is accurate, though the genders were flipped and the personalities given a makeover. That is to say ... any resemblance to real-life figures is coincidental.

But for me, stories rarely come from a single source, instead resulting in a collision of two unrelated ideas. In this case, the opposing force was the idea of ghost brides (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_marriage_(Chinese) ). I had just seen an episode of Numbers which featured this concept, and I wanted to tackle it in my own fashion. Very well, then - a bride for the afterlife. But in a fantasy setting, the dead don't necessarily remain mute ...

So a late groom, in this case - in both senses of the word. But that was just the setup ...

This story is slightly unusual for me in that the point of view character is more of an observer - it's not her story. The main characters are the flutist and the bride ... and with that, I run back into spoiler terrain, so thanks for reading and enjoy your day.

Now available!

The March issue of Niteblade is now available, with my story, "Three Great Loyalties":

Niteblade

Thursday Thoughts

Working hard on my Flow galley. After an initial readthrough, I decided to go over it a second time for other tweaks. There were two substantive things that needed alteration - a better explanation of what a "Crescent" is (a rank, or rather lank thereof, amongst the water witches) and a deletion of a minor element that I ... uh ... wrote into the story and then completely forgot to bring back. Also a few tweaks to the use of computers / cellphones to make it less obvious how long ago the manuscript was written ... but decided to leave it on the subliminal assumption that events happen in 2007.

(You have to read the manuscript fairly closely to figure this out - look at the starting date, look at the number of days the book covers, and then note that the confrontation scene happens on a Sunday. But it's there.)

When I return the galley to the editor, I will be wrangling such information as schedules, cover creation, and the policy of review / gift copies ... and doubtless other things that I haven't considered.

Books Read in 2011 - and Random Statistics

Here's the list of the books I read in 2011 and some general, random and (hopefully) funny statistics I recorded throughout the year, including the overall death toll and vocabulary words picked up.

Before I get on to the meat, a confession: I'm rather embarrassed by the small number of books I read in 2011. This doesn't include the copyediting I did for Darwin's Evolutions or critiques written over at FWO, of course, but it still does make me wince ... and resolve for a more bookish 2012.

Totals: 19 books read

Raw stats first. Note that where the math seems off, this is generally attributed to anthologies that were "all of the above," so weren't tabulated either way.

Novels read in my genre (fantasy): 12
Secondary world: 4
Urban: 5
Novels read in mystery genre: 3
Anthologies: 4
Non-Fiction: 1
Sequels and prequels: 7
First person: 3
Third person single-POV: 0
Third person multi-POV: 12

Which seems to suggest third person single-POV is a dying breed. Some value judgments next:

Books I would recommend: 12
Books I was tempted to put down: 3

Finally, my "snarky" section.

For death toll, I'm only counting on-screen / described deaths or plot-related deaths that are given a specific number. For instance, in Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, Grahame-Smith quotes a statistic about 204 murders, then shows a news report about one of those deaths. The 204 murders not being directly related to the plot, just color, they don't add to the tally, but the news report does, for a total of one. A fantasy battle in which "hundreds" died would not get counted because it's not a specific number. I am not going to count non-fiction deaths, though ALVH gets a pass because I am too lazy to separate out the fictional characters from the historical ones.

Books over thirty years old: 0 (though one was right on the cusp)
New vocabulary words: 36
Number of books containing said: 12
Books with maps: 3
Appendix consultation necessary: 0
Cumulative death toll: 1029

For the vocabulary list, some of these words are not strictly "new" - but if I encountered a word and couldn't remember what it went, it entered the list. Some of these words I'd seen in other forms but never as an (adjective, noun, whatever). Here it is, for anyone's amusement:

Assart, bollard, cognoscente, cotte, demimonde, exigent, four-in-hand, inanition, infundibulum, leat, lemniscate, loy, lumenal, merlon, moiety, mooted, neurasthenia, ormolu, palatines, paynim, piacular, pother, purblind, scurfy, spindrift, spume, supererogation, suttee, thrapple, thyrsus, tocsin, toft, travertine, turbid, vagus, volte-face.

As a point of interest, blogger's spellchecker doesn't seem to recognize about half of those. And here are the actual books:

Witch Way To The Mall – ed. Esther Friesner
Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter – Seth Grahame-Smith
Thunderer – Felix Gilman
The Fourth Bear – Jasper Fforde
The Cater Street Hangman – Anne Perry
The Heart of Myrial – Maggie Furey
Blood Rites – Jim Butcher
Sisters In Fantasy – ed. Susan Schwartz / Martin H. Greenberg
Water Witch – Connie Willis and Cynthia Felice
The Dragon of Despair – Jane Lindskold
The Sunflower – Simon Wiesenthal
The Magicians and Mrs. Quent – Galen Beckett
Familiars – edited by Denise Little
The Leper of Saint Giles – Ellis Peters
Madman’s Dance – Jana G. Oliver
The Best of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine – ed Marion Zimmer Bradley
Doppelgangster – Laura Resnick
Paradise 21 – Aubrie Dionne
The Virgin in the Ice – Ellis Peters

Thursday Thoughts

Galley for Flow - received!

Of course, I am hacking my lungs out and too tired to look at it except cross-eyed ...

GoodReads Review: The Virgin In The Ice

The Virgin in the Ice by Ellis Peters

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Deeply rooted in the turmoil of the war between Empress Maud and King Stephen in the 1100s, The Virgin In The Ice poses Brother Cadfael with a number of puzzles: a frozen angel, a wounded monk, and missing young nobles whose guardian is on the wrong side of the fighting. These mysteries collide with the threatening presence of a band of marauders.

As ever, this episode in Cadfael's chronicles is steeped in history and poetry, written with a thoughtful, pensive air - eminently appropriate for events seen through the monk's penetrating eyes. (That this extends to the other point of view characters merely maintains the cohesion of the novel.) That the mystery is perhaps less important to this novel than to others in the series makes it no less compelling a story. There is also a secondary "mystery" that offers an important and satisfying revelation into Cadfael's history.

However, there are certain patterns to these novels that can be viewed as detractions, and it is nowhere more evident than during the battle scene of this book. The writing style can best be described as elegant detachment - neither of which makes for a compelling fight or fights. This takes away somewhat from the climax of the scene.

That said, this book delivers a solid and satisfying reading experience overall ... and ends with a warming note of hope, for all the darkness.



View all my reviews

Thursday Thoughts

More thoughts on the love story ...

Looking at my tendencies in writing, I've often created stories where there's a tension between the character's role in life - not just their occupation, but the thing which defines and drives them - and a romantic interest. I don't, personally, believe that trading what you love for who you love is a fair or healthy exchange, and I think that's reflected a lot in my fiction.

This was, in fact, a huge issue with Who Wants To Be A Hero? ... where this potential conflict arises and, not only couldn't I see my way clear to writing my female lead choosing the love interest over (removed for spoilers), I couldn't see him allowing her to do so. It took much of the novel (knowing it was coming and planning ahead) to work out how I was going to handle it. It turned out to be a solution that was eminently appropriate to the format.

It's something that would be central to the rewrite-project-of-doom I had pondered, as arguably, most of the plot arc is catalyzed by a romance story - the villain's.

By the way, Unnatural Causes is still tabled - I want to come back to it when I have room to devote my full attention.

Thursday Thoughts

My brainpower has been consumed of late by lack of sleep: I have a new puppy, who while delightful and entertaining, also has yet to acquire the knack of sleeping through the night and tends to be quite vocal about her desire to get up. So the writing and editing has been slow going. Confessedly, some of my energy has been going to a roleplaying game ... but that's all right, I figure. Instant feedback, flexibility, collaboration ...

I miss collaborative writing, as well. It was always an enjoyable process, if bumpy - because I'm an incubator, coming with ideas over a long brew-time, brainstorming tended to be lopsided. I used to spur partners on by asking question after question after ... they must have started to think I couldn't speak in anything else. Surely that's not right?

Another reason to procrastinate, though, is that Scylla and Charybdis is approaching the point where I've got no choice but to tackle the dreaded synopsis ...

For Your Reading Pleasure ...

My "Burning The Midnight Oil" is now available in the current edition of NewMyths! Check it out ...

This story started as an FWO monthly challenge to write about an odd couple of some kind. I saw the topic its one couple and raised it a second ...

A Sale and a Release

I just sold "Three Great Loyalties" to Niteblade! Nice affirmation from the editor: she said the vote to include it from the slush readers was unanimous (apparently this is rare).

And ... my story "The Changeling Letter" is now out in the current issue of Sorcerous Signals! (http://www.sorceroussignals.com) Check it out, enjoy, and please vote for your issue favorite.