GoodReads Review: Thieftaker by D.B. Jackson

Thieftaker by D.B. Jackson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In colonial Boston (mere years before the Revolutionary War), thieftaker Ethan struggles to make a living while hiding his skill as a conjurer - magical ability that could have him hanged as a witch. When a young woman of means is murdered with no visible mark on her body, Ethan is hired ostensibly to recover a valuable necklace she wore ... but is drawn deep into the matter of her murder.

This is an excellent book: tense, fast-paced, and well written, the prose clear, concise and evocative. Ethan faces threats and conflict from all aspects of his life, and both his adversaries and allies are interesting characters in their right. I particularly liked the young minister, Mr. Pell. And it doesn't feel as if Ethan's story has abruptly begun at the start of the novel: he has a rich, convoluted backstory that intensifies the conflicts in the present. And while the main plot of the novel resolves, many threads are foreshadowed and/or developed that provide fertile ground for sequel(s).

The historical aspect is also compelling, well researched and integrated - I never felt like I was being lectured, but the setting leapt off the page. I admit, I gave a little bit of a fangirl squeal when Samuel Adams was introduced, and a modern reader might expect that of course, Ethan would fall into the righteous cause ... but the character maintains his own perspective, one that views the young rebellion with wariness and questions both their methods and their motives.

I really debated whether to give this book 5 stars, and if I had been able to give a half star, I would have, but I had some small complaints that kept me from that rating. His relationship with Kannice, while it seems affectionate, seemed devoid of passion. I wasn't in the slightest bit interested in seeing behind their closed doors, mind you, but the fade-to-black moments always seemed ... clinical / businesslike, somehow, because of this. I think the foreshadowing of the eventual murderer and motive could have been done earlier in the book. There is also a point where rapidfire spells are cast, and instead of it feeling tense and staccato, it starts to feel like a D&D session.

But all this is really minor, and just to justify not giving the book top marks - I really did enjoy it and highly recommend it, especially for history buffs. Future volumes promise even more entanglement in the events of historical Boston.

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Tasty treats

Allow me a non-writing indulgence for a bit:  I am thinking of offering some freelance catering / pastry / treats.  I would love input on what interests you from this list, and/or what turns you off, and additional suggestions are welcome!  A few obvious things are missing because I don't have a recipe that satisfies me yet.  For instance, I am a sugar cookie connoisseur, and I haven't found a recipe I want to put my name on yet.

Oh, and I have an irrational hatred of blueberry muffins.

Also, I don't have a lot of access to hot-or-cold holding equipment, so I am focusing on items that can be safely stored, held and eaten at room temperature.

So to make a long story short (too late!), here's the brainstorm list:

Lemon polenta cake – this has been my go-to cake, rich and dense
Cheesecake – flavors?
Chocolate truffles – possible filling flavors include chocolate, whisky, peanut butter, almond, espresso, raspberry, blueberry, ginger … I had toyed with a “surprise pack,” in which you get (maybe a dozen?) with two or three flavors.
Scones – plain; dried cherry and chocolate; ginger; pistachio and golden raisin
Muffins
Danishes – raspberry; hazelnut cream; pistachio cream; fig; lemon; spinach and feta
Cookies – sea salt chocolate chip; peanut butter; cornmeal currant
Salsas / sauces – tomatillo-serrano salsa; chutneys / raitas; some thought pending here
Soups (to reheat) – cannellini bean curry

Wednesday Wanderings

I've been writing a story where the taste of a single food - an apple - is central to the storyline, and I've discovered something odd:  there are very few independent words to describe taste.

Now, your immediate reaction may be to cry out that of course there are thousands of descriptive words for tastes - as many as there are foods that can be eaten.  But what are we really saying when we say something tastes like an apple, a pear, asparagus?  At what point does describing a dish simply become a laundry list of ingredients?  If I have never eaten an orange, to say that something "tastes like an orange" will mean nothing to me.  There are no universal words to put together to describe that citrus taste.  (Citrus itself simply refers to the class of fruits ...)

So we try to describe new foods by combining familiar ones.  Jicama, for instance, is often compared to an apple or celery.  I find its starchy, fibrous nature to be very similar to potato.

Aha, you say - there are some words!  But starchy, fibrous, dry, moist ... all of these things don't describe taste, but rather the tactile experience of food, the mouthfeel.

There are other words we use that don't say much of anything:  delicious; succulent; cooked to perfection; tasty ...

Then, of course, there's the metaphorical.  If I say something tastes like childhood and late night bonfires, that may evoke a very vivid sensation for you.  If nothing else, it will inform the tone of the story.

In the end, though, these comparisons, metaphors, the mouthfeel, the overall experience, creates a taste for the reader ... even if it is an illusion, as solid as air.  And does anything in fiction have a firmer foundation, really?

Resolutions

This has been on my mind for a bit, but I just had a day at work that required me to put it in practice, so ... I have made two resolutions about my outlook on life.

The first comes about because I frequently have four, five or more tasks that I need to complete in a day.  When something takes longer than expected (or even the normal amount of time!), I tend to get stressed out, no matter how much I would normally enjoy it.  So:

1.  I am present in the moment, focus on what I'm doing *now,* and enjoy it.

The second comes about because, like many people, I am my own worst critic.  I expect perfection from myself, even the first time out - and especially with my catering work, I am still learning.  A lot.

2.  I am gentle with myself, especially with new experiences.  I focus on what I accomplished and did well, and then move on to what I can do better for the future.

The word "fail" needs to leave my vocabulary.

This was mainly intended for my work life, but it does apply to my writing life, too.  It's so hard to put aside the rejections and the near-misses and just write, but it's the only way to truly love the writing itself - and since I couldn't stop if I wanted to, that's the best way.

Wednesday Wanderings

Words are not static:  meanings shift; new ones arise; old ones become archaic - some words even mean their own opposites; historical origins are forgotten; and we add new ones, usually cognates of existing words.  To echo a cliche modern complaint, whoever thought "friend" would become a verb?  And who uses "nonplussed" correctly nowadays?

This poses challenges for the secondary world fantasy writer.  In all probability, a totally accurate story - one using no words that owe their existence to specific incidents in Earth history - would be almost impossible to write for its limited vocabulary.  Just removing the words invented by Shakespeare (tranquil, rant ...) would probably be a challenge.

So we're generally left with avoiding words that have an obvious real world connotation.  For instance, "spartan" has a fairly direct and obvious connection with the Greek city-state and the ... well ... spartan lifestyle of its inhabitants.  On the other hand, would we look twice at "gypped," which is derived from gypsy?

Jane Lindskold has a neat example of taking this in the other direction.  In her Firekeeper books, one of the historical rulers is a queen named Zorana, known (among other things) for her plain, straightforward manner.  So, when things are unnecessarily convoluted or ornate, the characters now and again refer to them as being "unzoranic."  This is the only word coined in the books, and it isn't overused:  instead, it is a perfect little tidbit of worldbuilding.

Then again, what about words that are period / historical, but that feel too modern for the setting?  In looking up a complete list of Shakespeare's inventions, I see "advertising" and "skim milk" - neither of which feel like Elizabethan words to me!  It's up to the writer, the word and the moment to decide where they can fool the reader ... into believing the truth.

A Dose of Aconite sold to ElectricSpec

ElectricSpec just accepted my story "A Dose of Aconite" for publication in September!  (Second sale in two days, details pending ...)

This story is set in the same world as Flow.

Wednesday Wanderings

Confession:  I hate chapters.

As a reader, I'm indifferent to them - I rarely pay much attention to where the breaks occur or stop at the end of a chapter.  Of late, they've only mattered because I've been reading a fiction book and a nonfiction book at the same time and swapping at the chapter breaks.

As a writer, they drive me nuts.  I tend to have a general sense of my story's path, but I work without an outline, and I often find complications or expansions develop as I'm writing.  Because of this, I may start a chapter and have an idea of where I want it to end, then find as I get within the approximate word count I've chosen for my chapter length ... oh, I'm not anywhere near that cliff-hanger.  So I have to create another one, and then what I'd intended to be the end of chapter comes in the middle of the next ...

When I wrote Flow, I had the oh-so-brilliant idea (note the sarcasm) to name the chapters, which meant even more headaches when I found that the event for which I'd planned to name the chapter wasn't going to happen, or wasn't happening quite the way I'd thought, or some character said something that made a better chapter title, so now I've just thought this up for nothing.

Another reason why chapters bug me, I think, is because they exist purely outside of the story.  To use a roleplaying term, they are OOC - Out Of Character.  Except in the most meta of novels, no character is pointing out that look, here comes a chapter break!  Who Wants To Be A Hero? occurs in episodes, so that was a natural way of dividing the narrative.  For Journal of the Dead, the third person part of the narrative uses a handful of very short chapters, but once we're into the journal, it is divided up as Rhiane's writing is:  by days and when she starts / stops writing.

But chapters seem to be a common enough convention - some agent guidelines, for instance, don't even suggest an alternative writing sample size if you *don't* use chapters - so I fear I may have to contort myself back into them.  We shall see.

Thursday Thoughts

Recently, I've realized that when I read, I don't create continuous imagery.  Instead, when I first encounter a new element, whether it be a character or a location or a particularly complicated tapestry, my attention shifts to build a mental image.  At the same time, I create kinesthetic associations with the character, place, etc:  the feeling I get when reading about them.  It is that wordless package that I manipulate throughout my reading, like a game piece on a board.  In most cases, I could probably unpack the original image from the kinesthetic handle, but I don't often go back to it while reading.

If this sounds very technical / difficult to explain, it is - precisely because there aren't concrete words for the way I access elements during reading.  I am very much a full-body person, and when I think of a book or story, I immediately get an impression of how it "feels" to me.  A light, comedic novel feels different than a heavier, formal story.  The book that is absorbing but dense to read has its own kinesthetic coding.

I do this as a writer, too.  I pay special attention to my descriptions and the array of senses, but once they're in place, I do my writing on a less visual level.  It's probably why as a writer, I try to describe characters - especially the main character / narrator - as early as possible, even if I have to tweak the flow a little:  it's what I prefer as a reader.  Otherwise, my kinesthetic handle supercedes the written appearance.

It's also why I have such trouble with illustrations or doing "casting calls" for characters.  (A casting call is where you imagine what actors would play the characters, and/or try to find images that fit - the latter being more broad because you could pick a random model.  Dark Beauty is full of eye-candy that shouts "story" ...)  Even if the image is technically correct, it is almost impossible for that image to also evoke the same feeling as my invisible kinesthetic handle.

The final odd quirk that this method of handling fiction causes for me is that I often need a  specific font to write with.  If it doesn't look right on the page, it doesn't feel right in my brain.  Luckily, this need has faded and I'm much less picky - but I will consciously only use Trebuchet MS, for instance, for lighter-hearted or modern projects.  And don't get me started on the fact that I write in 8 - 10 pt fonts because I have Word blown up to 150% so it fills up more of the screen ...

When it comes down to it, I'm doing all my creating with my body.  It has to get translated into words, but it has to go through that channel first and come back the same way.

Thursday Thoughts

Even when I was very young, I wanted to be a writer.  I blithely assumed I would be able to make a living at it.  It took some years for the reality to set in:  being a full-time writer was possible, but the odds were against it.  So I started looking for something else I could love as a supplementary career.  I went through a few permutations, but found that I kept coming back to other creative fields - none of which were particularly lucrative, mind.

Somewhere along the way, I realized that I didn't want to be a full-time writer.  For me, the coordination of having a second profession had become an important part of my life and even an important part of my writing.  There are two reasons for this, I think.  The first is that I am an incubator:  I do much of my thinking and plotting on the backburner, often while doing something else.  If left with "only" writing, where would I go to allow my projects to simmer?

The second reason is that life itself is fodder both for story ideas and for the finer details of writing, from character quirks to snippets of description to unexpected reactions.  I wonder if missing those other aspects of life would turn my writing too far inward, too dependent on itself ... and that would be a shame.

Now, all this said, I wouldn't at all mind making enough that I *could* stop other work, and any other income would be gravy ... but that's pie in the sky.

Goodreads Review: Faery Lands Forlorn by Dave Duncan

Faery Lands Forlorn by Dave Duncan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Volume two of this series follows two characters - and two plot threads - half a world away. The commonborn faun Rap, with his word of power that gives him farsight and allows to communicate with animals, tumbles into the wilds of Faerie with a pair of uneasy allies. Meanwhile, headstrong queen Inos - though queen in name only - finds herself in the exotic foreign kingdom of Arakkaran.

This is epic fantasy at its best: even when the storyline involves global events, it centers with brilliant focus on the problem of its two characters. It's refreshing to find secondary characters who are so complex, too - they don't simply function as allies or enemies, but move from one to the other depending on the motive or moment. I have to compare this book to Duncan's later books Children of Chaos and Mother of Lies; as in those volumes, the plot feels like a perfectly natural and tumultuous outgrowth of the collision of people, rather than an artificial construct.

But it's also easy to see the evolution of both Duncan's writing and the fantasy field. Much of the worldbuilding in this book, particularly character races, is rather cursory and mainstream - fauns, goblins, imps, and so forth. There's also chunks of narrative devoted to infodumping. They may fit very well into the story (they're typically given by a knowledgeable character to an ignorant one about something that very much affects the circumstances), but I am still struck that their length and directness would be a difficult sell in a modern novel. Duncan also handles this with much more grace in his later writings.

In some ways, Inos is almost the cliche headstrong princess, but she is an example that perfectly illustrates why this trope became so popular ... and unlike many of her modern imitators, she has good rationale for everything she does, and especially endearing, she is quick to apologize and quite aware of her faults. (Another sign of the times: the book blurb portrays the whole series as Rap's story, but I would say that Inos carries the weight of this volume.)

The only reason I didn't give this book another star is it suffers from Book-Two syndrome: as the second volume of five, though a lot happens, the characters don't seem to make much progress towards their ultimate goal. This makes finishing the book a bit of an exercise in frustration ... but if you have the rest of the series (a big if, considering they're now out of print - after having only #1 and #3 for the longest time, I immediately snapped up #2, #4 and #5 when I found them in a used bookstore), absolutely read on.

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Wednesday Wanderings

So confession:  I have a banter addiction.

I love writing byplay, snarky asides and snappy patter amongst characters.  If ever two characters who are clever, witty, sarcastic or just plain talkative get together, they are bound to riff off each other.  Sometimes, it only takes one character and anyone they know they can get a rise out of.  I have to be careful that these exchanges don't go on so long they derail the motion of the story entirely - and, of course, since minimal description is helpful to keep the pacing, it runs the risk of becoming talking heads.

Then there are narrators like Vil (or Trin in the zombie novella I'm working on) who have a bit of an askew world view, and that shows through in the way events are described from their perspective.  If this is not quite banter, then it is a close cousin.

In Who Wants To Be A Hero? I let the banter run wild:  it was a humorous novel, after all, and the strong structure kept the story moving.  With Unnatural Causes, I often decided to cut it off, particularly when Vil and quasi-ally, quasi-antagonist Duvalis got into it ... but given the final length of the manuscript, I may go back to some of those conversations and let them take a natural course for a few more exchanges.  Of course, Flow has quite a bit of patter between Kit and Hadrian, the first (and probably my favorite) exchange being where they riff about Hannibal Lecter.

(Of course, one only knows that Lecter has a rare form of polydactyly (like Hadrian, hence the initial salvo) unless one has read Hannibal, the book on which the movie is based, which begs a question about Kit's fifteen year old reading habits ...

It might be mentioned in the novel version of Silence of the Lambs, too?  Not sure, been too long since I read it.

Maybe the reason I like banter so much is I myself am hopelessly addicted to theatric asides ...

(Is this the right way to punctuate multiple parenthetical paragraphs?)

Sunday Snippets

Rather than posting from works in progress, today is a quick look back:

Most of the lights in the house 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.”

Flow, Chapter Three 

 
From Taming The Weald, after Keryn has discovered a mysterious girl in the Weald, a small woodland maintained on her space station:

On the walk to her quarters, Keryn talked about her community in the station, the school, the beautiful views of the void—she didn’t have the heart to tell Verdant there was nothing else out there. The station was the only remnant of civilization in a galaxy shattered long ago.

Halfway home, she wondered aloud, “How do you know our language, if you’ve never been out of the Weald?”

“I hear people talking when they walk past,” Verdant said, “and the trees talk to me, too. They teach me words you no longer use.”

Keryn shook her head, deciding not to correct the girl. Obviously, living in the Weald had confused her understanding of what was real and what was imaginary. Most children grew out of that at a younger age than Verdant's. 

In a ruined fortress in Stone Unturned (Unburied Treasures anthology), our narrator uses her powers to divine its past:

I knelt on the dividing line between cracked, mossy tiles.  “Givesan, Hawk of the Heavens, Father of Humanity, open my ears … open my heart.”  I sang the prayer, letting the melody shape itself.  It was new with each Sounding.  “Carry me under your wings as you carried our mother, through islands and nations of time.”

The ruined hall began to shrink, transcended by music that was more than sound.  I continued my prayer.

“Tilasta, Wolf of the Deeps, Mother of Monsters, be merciful.  Leash your fury.  Grant me passage through the unknown.  Keep close to your breast the evils you bore, more potent than those of humankind …”

Harmony and light.  My senses filled with memories of a blazing hearth and a thousand candles, fur rugs sprawling across the polished white stone to trap the heat …  the press of hundreds of ghostly bodies, most of them elegant and erudite, but also the scampering of servants whose lives history would never remember.

The theme of the strongest memory carried above the bustle.  I focused on it.

GoodReads Review: Black Unicorn by Tanith Lee

Black Unicorn by Tanith Lee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Found it. Found a *bone.*"

This book was an often-reread part of my childhood, a cherished favorite. When I heard the sad news that Tanith Lee had died, I knew I had to return to it and read it again.

The Black Unicorn is a delight, swift reading despite its poetic turns. (Look back at most of the descriptions, and you'll find that there is little concrete detail: instead, Lee uses words to create an emotion that compels the reader to fill in the blanks. It's gifted wordsmithing.) The book has a deep magical sensibility that permeates the story without ever feeling overblown. It is witty, wry and tongue-in-cheek in the way that only reality can be. The characters are sometimes odd and almost absurd in exactly the way people are. And I love the peeve - a perfect companion animal with all the mischief it causes.

The only reason this book doesn't get full stars from me is that it still does read as a childhood book; it is perhaps ideally suited for those a little younger than the main character (fifteen or so). There a few places where things seem odd, implausible or young to an adult reader, but I still very much enjoyed my return to it.

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Wednesday Wanderings

Like many women, I've always been self-conscious about my weight.  (This is going somewhere writing related, I promise:  bear with me.)  Even at my thinnest, I knew I would never be down to slender - there's a point at which bone structure intervenes, and I have healthy doses of Italian and German in my genetic background.

So when I started writing, if I ever considered my characters' weight and bone structure, they tended to be slender, thin ... and in a few cases, even borderline unhealthy.  I was even uncomfortable writing a heavier character.  I was pretty rocked when I read Pigs Don't Fly, and the main character Summer suddenly breaks down about her sizable weight.  Wait (no pun intended), what?

Fairly obvious this was wish fulfillment for me, but how many wishes does one need?  I started working on recognizing this tendency and varying it ... when it comes up in the story.  My RPG characters tend to still follow this mode, because gaming - especially MU* gaming, which is more immersive - is more of a lark, more an opportunity to "be" exactly who you want, rather than telling a specific story.

I had a similar pattern with the height of my characters.  When I was little, I was told that I would probably end up around 5'11".  Having maxed out at 5'6.5", I was for a long time irrationally furious at the world.  Oh, the angst!  It's no coincidence that (again, particularly in RPGs) my ladies tended to be very tall ... or, because I was intrigued by the logistics of it, very short.

Recognizing the pattern is the first step to changing it, of course, but I still indulge in it now and again.  It's a bit like having a bowl of fictitious ice cream.  And isn't all fiction wish fulfillment, in the end, even if it's for something shallow and superficial?

Wednesday Wanderings

I think I'm going to return to Wednesdays for my (almost) weekly post, since Tuesday has been prep day at work, and a couple long ones have knocked me backwards.

Ironically, this week's post is also all about the food:  still ruminating between two novel ideas, the more traditionally high fantasy setting seems to offer plenty of opportunity for feasts and signature dishes.  I pondered the idea of - separate from the book - putting together either the actual recipes or finding sources for inspiration.  They would be used on my blog for promo.

Now, of course, for the savory side of things, it is well within my capability to actually come up with a fully original "cookbook" to go along with the novel.  The pastry side is a bit more dicey; to claim a recipe as one's own, you have to build it from the ground up, and the ratios and chemistry are very precise.  On the other hand, this wouldn't be for sale no matter how I packaged it, so perhaps a bit of (fully credited!) leeway is allowable.

I suppose the reason I'm posting this is a temperature check:  does anyone think this is a good idea?  Would seeing "recipes from the world of X" pique your interest to read a novel?  Or learn more about the author?  No, wait, that would be a negative ... I don't want people prying into me, aaah!

Of course, all this is academic (for now) if I decide to go with the other concept - not only does the setting not lend itself to the same kind of food, the presence of dishes and taste wouldn't be as important to the book.  Believe me, I wish I were a good enough harp composer to embed music ...

GoodReads Review: Classics Mutilated

Classics Mutilated by Jeff Conner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is an anthology of mash-up fiction: where two works of literature meet, or a historical figure meets a mythological one, or ... it's a great concept, rife with ideas even with the restrictions of the public domain. Unfortunately, it also gets three stars from me solely for three stories, each of which were excellent: Anne-Droid of Green Gables (Lezli Robyn), Death Stopped For Miss Dickinson (Kristine Kathryn Rusch) and Twilight of the Gods (Chris Ryall). The rest of the stories, for me, ranged from mildly amusing to forgettable to poorly executed.

Many of the stories seem to be simply bizarre for the sake of it. Maybe that was because they were drawing on aspects of their respective classics that I'm not familiar with, but I think that even in an anthology of mash-up, the heart of the story shouldn't depend on this familiarity. For instance, Twilight of the Gods invokes a specific modern tale, but even if you missed that reference, it is still rollicking good fun. I also thought it was odd that an anthology with such broad possibilities would have two stories involving a drug-addled rock star battling dark magic. Neither of them, to me, were so compelling that both had to be included.

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Tuesday Thoughts

The novel project debate rages on upon the battleground of my innermost thoughts, but I'm starting to trend towards one of two ideas (#2 and #3, for those who might have read the list).  It has occurred to me to try the solution of writing them both at the same time, which has actually worked well for me in the past - particularly when the two projects are of different mindset / tone / setting - with the downfall that when I finish, I suddenly have two books to edit, and that's a lot more hairy.

But my indecision isn't the topic of this blog post.  (Aren't you relieved?  Don't answer that.)  Instead, as I've pondered the elements of one idea (#2), I've realized that one of the downsides is that I have to deal with an aspect of technological advancement that has always puzzled and irritated me:  social media and portable data access.  Though I finally got "Baby's First Smartphone" right before I started school (September of 2013), I still lag behind in a lot of ways.  I adore my desktop setup and can't imagine ever trading it in.  I have limited interest in owning a tablet:  the main upside would seem to be to for portable, annotated recipes.

So it's hard for me to sympathize and sometimes even visualize where this technology might lead.  In Scylla and Charybdis, I indulged in a little wish-fulfillment:  constant connectivity reached a critical mass, until there was a social backlash against it.  People started to consider being unavailable a sign of importance / status.  Of course, access to information remained almost ubiquitous.  The accuracy of that information, on the other hand ... well, it did all start with the internet, didn't it?

Much of this technology - especially when it is fast-forwarded into future possibilities - makes it difficult to come up with a plot where missing persons or fugitives are involved.  Obviously, people have been coming up with ways around surveillance since before the first pair of binoculars, but that's yet another layer of speculation, with the added pressure that the novel may hinge upon whether or not it convinces the reader.  It's the same problem that occurs when you add seers and telepathy to a fantasy story:  how do you create a mystery?  That working with this magically is easier for me is probably telling as to where my mind lies as a storyteller.

Another interesting dimension to all this is how much, in the modern era, we've become accustomed to - even addicted to - the ability to reach anyone, anywhere.  In old movies and stories, one of the first events isolates the characters from the rest of the world.  In practical terms, this serves the purpose of cutting them off, making them rely on themselves and each other ... but nowadays, I think, there's another level of fear and anxiety.

Regardless, the inciting need remains:  cut the characters off from easy answers.  How do you do that when the answers aren't just in the palm of their head, but in an implant in their head?  There are a lot of intriguing options there, but it's a route I have yet to much explore ...

Word Association

My beloved car (with its vanity plate, HRP BEAT) is a 2003 Subaru Forester.  It long pre-dates the capacity we now take for granted of being able to hook up your phone, iPod, whatever, and play your entire glorious selection of personal music.  The closest it comes is a 6-disc CD changer.

Now, I need music for driving:  it occupies the hyper parts of my brain so I can focus.  I've made something of a game of coming up with themed CDs, everything from Where In The World (songs referencing some geographical location(s)) to Tis A Puzzlement, which was my polite umbrella for songs where I had no idea what in the world was going on in them ...

I've done this so much I've gotten bored of it - of course! - so this time around, I decided to play word association to come up with a sequence.  Here's the first:

I'm Going Out With An Eighty Year Old Millionaire - Kirsty MacColl
Gold Digger - Glee Cast version
Pot of Gold - Dian Diaz
(Chorus contains a reference to "Cinderella on a midnight run" so ...)
On the Steps of the Palace - Into The Woods soundtrack
(Both this song and the next discuss hiding / revealing your identity ...)
Carrier of a Secret - Sissel
(Chorus:  "How many mountains must you climb, how many tears must you cry ...")
River Deep, Mountain High - Celine Dion
Move This Mountain - Sophie Ellis-Bextor
(Chorus:  "Take this chance, I won't repeat this.")
No Second Chance - Blackmore's Night
A Chance With You - Alana Davis
(Chorus:  "But I'm gonna let you fly ...")
I'm Gonna Fly - Sydney Forest
I Heard An Owl - Carrie Newcomer
(Thematically:  "The only peace this world will know can only come from love.")
What About The Love - Amy Grant
(Chorus:  "Angels to the left and the right ...")
Angel - Leona Lewis
Seven Devils - Florence + the Machine
The Seven Deadly Virtues - Camelot soundtrack
(Next song talks a lot about flaws / frailties, so ...)
Don't You Remember - Adele
I'll Remember - Madonna
I Remember L.A. - Celine Dion
The Stars Fell On California - Helen Reddy

I took another starting point and produced:

Fire - Paulina Rubio
Set Fire to the Rain - Adele
It's Raining Men - Geri Halliwell
Alleluias - Solar Twins (... do I really have to explain that segue?)
(Line:  "It's much too late to reinvent the storybook lines anyway ...")
Fairytale - Sara Bareilles
Agony (Reprise) - Into The Woods soundtrack (... and we're back to ITW.  Hush!  But this song also thematically ties into the previous one and "the next best thing.")
(Line:  "All 'round the tower a thick of briar a hundred feet deep ...")
The Path of Thorns (Terms of Endearment) - Sarah McLachlan
Honey - Mariah Carey
Sugar - Heather Nova
(Connection:  both songs start with bus trips)
One of These Days - Michelle Branch
Days - Kirsty MacColl
Ten Days - Celine Dion
(Chorus:  "And all I've gotta do is pray and pray ...")
I Say A Little Prayer - Dionne Warwick
(Chorus:  "Forever and ever ...")
Forever and For Always - Shania Twain
Now and Forever - Anne Murray
Who Wants to Live Forever - Sarah Brightman
(To be honest, I've kind of lost the connection here ... I think it was because this is the opposite of forever)
One - Faith Hill
1-2-3 - Gloria Estefan
One After 909 - Helen Reddy

I'm sort of tempted, for when I get tired of my current selections, of trying to do a six-CD string in sequence ... madness!

Tuesday Thoughts

Confession time:  I've always had trouble killing characters.  In my early projects, it was a personal running joke.  When I finally managed to kill off a narrator's significant other, I was pleased with myself ... until the story took a turn and I realized it made perfect sense to bring him back to life.  So much for that.

I've gotten better, if you want to call it that, over the intervening years - at least, with novels.  In short fiction, all bets are off.  Killing off a novel character is still a rarity for me.

On the other hand, death, the afterlife and those who have passed on play a role in a lot of my novels.  Journal of the Dead is set in a world where souls jump into the minds of their murderers.  One of the plot threads in Butterfly's Poison involves the ghost of the dead king.  There's even some patter in Who Wants To Be A Hero? involving death, taxes and afterlife.  And even after her death in Unnatural Causes (this is not a spoiler, as it is part of the ten-second pitch), Cailys continues to influence the story.  Vil and Iluenn cope in part through their differing visions of the afterlife.

I suppose that what it boils down to is, for me, death is transient and neutral, so its main consequence is all of sudden, I have a character / toy I can't play with any more.  That's no fun!  Ahem.  Instead, as a writer, I always keep in mind that there are worse things than death ...

So don't let your guard down when reading my works, thinking the characters will get off unscathed.  I have plans in the works.

Tuesday Thoughts

If you're a science fiction and fantasy writer - and possibly even if you're not; I've heard that it was discussed in a story in the Wall Street Journal - you probably know something about the tumult over the Hugo awards:  Sad Puppies, Rabid Puppies, Dancing Aardvarks ... wait, not the last one?  It's hard to keep track.

For those of you utterly burned out on the topic, I want to assure you that I'm not going to talk about the events themselves.  For one thing, with my last quarter of school devouring me whole, I couldn't devote the mental energy to untangling it.  You may know more about it than I do.  Secondly, I was more intrigued by the questions around the issues, the squishy, subjective uncertainties that make it possible (alas!) to have controversy in the first place.

For those of you not familiar with the issue, let me explain briefly:  the Sad Puppies campaign was created a few years ago because a group felt that more traditional, adventure-style SF was being pushed out of the Hugo awards in favor of more liberal (in the US political meaning of the term) viewpoints.  It completed exploded this year when Rabid Puppies decided to hijack it for their own purposes.  (Please forgive if my summary is inaccurate:  I did say I didn't follow it too closely.)

Behind all this kerfluffle is a tension between the idea that the quality of fiction, like all art, is subjective; and the action of presenting an award, which gives the veneer of some objective quality.  Let's add one more statement to the narrative:  diversity is a good thing and necessary in a genre that builds upon possibilities, but we don't want to set up a forced, artificial diversity.  (Already, you can see the questions bubbling up.)  What am I thinking of when I say "artificial" diversity?  It's when a work rises to the top not because of merit, but because its author or subject matter checks a particular box.  It would be like saying that every novel awards slate has to include one urban fantasy, two epic fantasies, one hard science fiction novel and one soft science fiction novel ... even if there were three amazing soft SF books that year.

But this all circles right back around to the subjectivity of art.  Who gets to say those three SF books were more worthy, anyway?  Can you cry foul, point to an agenda, on an intrinsically subjective choice?  On the other hand, can you expect anyone to make a subjective choice without bias, whether intentional or not?  In critique groups, writers often learn to distinguish between "not my taste" and "bad" when reviewing stories, but that separation of self only goes so far.

Clearly there is some objective quality to fiction:  grammar, style, clear sentence structure, avoidance of cliches.  From there, though, the slippery slope resumes.  It was once the fashion for the writer to address the reader directly in the narrative; this was part of good writing.  This fell out of favor and became a big no-no.  And nowadays?  I haven't seen one recently, but I'm sure you can find stories that include or even hinge on the writer talking to the reader.  (Then there's Simon Hawke's books where the villain confronts the author directly, but that's another story.)  Much of what is "good writing" is part of evolving cultural standards.

So what about popularity as our objective standard?  I think most of us would agree that some of the most popular books - the Twilight series; Eragon - are not in any way good literature.  This isn't even pure snobbery:  when I read The DaVinci Code, I kept thinking, "This is bad writing.  Why am I still reading this?"  Even if it isn't a "quality" book, the pacing in The DaVinci Code pulls you on, and it's easy to see the source of its addictive spread.

At this point, I think I have successfully concluded that I know nothing.

Back to the idea of cultural framework, in a larger sense.  Through fiction, television and other storytelling mediums, we are conditioned practically from birth with specific expectations of how a story will progress.  Goodness knows, these have changed:  again, in earlier periods, writers (and readers) had no problems with characters spontaneously discovering they had rich parents; Greek plays had literally deus ex machina, where a god would be lowered / brought in by machine to fix plot problems.  Writers walk a fine line between satisfying expectations - but boring the reader, who (even subconsciously) knows what is going to happen - and changing things up - stray too far from the conventions, and the reader is unsettled, angry, rejects the story.  (Oh, and everyone's tolerance is a little different, too.  What, you thought it would be easy?)

Even within western society, however, we don't all absorb the same narrative sensibilities.  Our personal experience and upbringing influences what we take from the stories we encounter.  Imagine a child raised on a space station.  (Hey, this IS a post about SF/F.)  She probably would have a different reaction to the setting of the movie Alien, just to start.  If she were a writer, how would she use the quiet of space as a metaphor?

Back to the problem and the question:  if a work doesn't jive with our narrative sensibilities, does that make it poorly written?  Is it an author's job to be universal?  Or does quality mean decoding?

Now we run into the old problem that literature has always had, and SF/F has more recently acquired:  we're afraid to admit that we don't understand, to say that we don't like something because we don't "get" it, for fear of being labeled dim or unimaginative.  That little voice in the back of our head murmurs:  if I don't understand it, it must be deep.

You'll notice a lot of questions here and not a lot of answers.  I don't have answers; I'm still looking for them.  One thing I do know for sure:  the paradox of quality being both subjective and objective means that controversy, accusations of favoritism, conspiracy and collusion, are always only a breath away ... but hopefully, before we react in anger, it gets us thinking.