GoodReads Review: The Best of MZB Fantasy

The Best of Marion Zimmer Bradley Fantasy Magazine Volume 1 by Marion Zimmer Bradley

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I came into this anthology with high hopes, because while the years have taken the luster off them, I love my issues of MZB Fantasy Magazine and think they contain some of the most enjoyable, while still wholesome stories I have ever encountered. Unfortunately, this anthology - filled with what the editor considers the best stories of a range of issues (I am not sure how many issues of MZBF this encompasses; she does not specify); not, notably, necessarily those that the readers voted as the best - failed to live up to my hopes.

Of the stories in this anthology, I would have to say that the humor stories are the most disappointing ... strange, since one of my favorite qualities of the magazine was its ability to provide light but still believable stories. But in this anthology, the humor stories are generally of that quality where the behavior of the characters is stretched to ridiculous for the sake of a joke, ruining any suspension of disbelief I might have had. I didn't care what happened, and the humor wasn't gut-splitting enough to overcome that.

The editor's commentary, overall, detracts from the book. Bad enough that the first story is basically a "punchline" story (in that the only purpose of the tale is to reveal the final line, whether humorous or not), but MZB chooses to telegraph that ending ... making the actual read a bit of a moot point. The personal comments in the intros make it feel as if the magazine was a friends-only club ... not the impression I got from reading MZB's editorials throughout the issues I have.

It's a fantasy magazine, yet at least twice, I counted in the comments, "This is the closest to science fiction we've ever published ..." (you can't say that twice unless they're tied, can you?) and at least two other stories that verged on that territory. This in an anthology of nineteen stories, making about twenty percent of the total ... more if you consider two of the stories are essentially flash fiction.

Those two pieces of flash fiction are very vivid and enjoyable, however. Also of note is Jo Clayton's "Change", which gets deep into the mind of a non-human entity. " The Dancer of Chimaera" from Diana L. Paxson shows the unexpected consequences when a shy, girlish dancer on a space station finds true love. Interestingly, both of these are stories MZB lumped into the SF category (I'd argue that "Change" isn't).

Some of the better stories beyond those draw strongly on a mythic tradition. For Mary C. Aldridge's "The Adinkra Cloth," it is African myth; for Lawrence Watt-Evans' "The Palace of al-Tir al-Abtan," it is Arabian legend. I also liked Pat Cirone's "To Father A Sohn," though I am never a fan of invented pronouns and there's got to be a better way to do it.

Overall, most of the stories are readable, but have distinct flaws, and few are really exceptional. I wouldn't go out of my way to track down this anthology.



View all my reviews

Now Available: The Herd Mentality

The second issue of ParABnormal Digest, with my "The Herd Mentality" is now available for purchase here:

http://sdpbookstore.com/parabnormaldigest.htm

Four words: psychic-vampire unicorn story.

This one doesn't warrant a full Anatomy of an Idea post, as I can't recall a lot about how it came to be ... except to say that I very consciously looked at early portrayals of unicorns and the coloring of their horns and imitated that.

Thursday Thoughts

Sometimes, to get through one part of the writing process, you have to treat yourself with the promise of something else - or at least, that's my theory right now as I proclaim: verily, I will get through this editing pass of Scylla and Charybdis before I start writing another short story. It's looking more and more like my next novel project will be held over for November so I can commiserate with the Nanowrimo people. With luck, SaC will be prepared for the query process by then. It may not be in queries, as I'm still working through Journal of the Dead ...

With Flow up for the editor's eye soon (Double Dragon's, that is), I've toyed with the idea of another novel in that setting. Two ways I can go: a sequel (which opens up the potential for Hadrian's point of view) in the "new adventures happening to these characters" sense rather than the "continuation of the same story" sense ... or an unrelated mystery story I've been kicking around with an Asrai and her self-appointed mortal companion. In the grand tradition of Flow (okay, not very grand), this second idea is likely to involve another character cribbed from a MU*, a bird-like street kid named Gray (short for Igraine).

So I would just like to state for the record that the mounds of time I've spent roleplaying lately are not wasted, thank you very much. Roleplaying gave me my first book sale. Can't argue with that.

Thursday Thoughts

I've mentioned this elsewhere, but the good news is I've finished my winter holiday anthology story. The bad news is, with a word count ceiling of 5k for the anthology, it came in somewhere over 8k. I'm working on a first editing pass now, which has it down almost to 8k, but it looks like this one is going to have to find another home.

Imagine the poor little homeless story, crouching on a park bench somewhere, feeding the pigeons ...

I'm still working on my character notes for the mystery novel, and though I'm enjoying the process, I'm starting to burn out on one thing - the names. I've chosen a naming convention which produces a very distinct look for very little effort (though those of you who have been following me for a while know that I love naming languages and can spend hours putting them together - heck, I even looked up a supplementary list of the hundred most common words to use) (this is an exceedingly long paranthetical and for that, I apologize) (where was I?) ...

In any case - though the naming convention definitely has a lot going for it, one of the things working against it is that it becomes difficult to come up with authentic sounding names after you've put together, oh, thirty or forty. Most will not appear in the text ... but at this point, without a clearer idea of how the plot will play out, I can't be sure which will be needed. So I'm sure that I've omitted some I'll need to go back and add, conversely.

I once saw a panel of mystery writers at one of my local(ish) bookstores who commented that they don't know whodunnit when they start writing - and because I think it would be fun, I decided to take that route. I'm going to firmly squelch a tendency I've had in the past, which is to set up the mystery so multiple people dunnit. One murderer. Two at most. It does not need to be a social event.

8/18 - 8/24
Word count: 1,959

GoodReads Review: Madman's Dance

Madman's Dance by Jana Oliver

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This, the final (?) book in Jana Oliver's Time Rovers series, brings the events of the previous two books to an explosive conclusion - shapeshifters, time travelers, meddlers from a future beyond, anarchists, and all combinations thereof. As with the previous two books, the majority of the action takes place in Victorian London, with some events in "now-time" from the prospective of the time travelers ... well, the point of view characters who time travel ... there's a dizzying amount of crossover, but it all comes together with crystal coherence in the end.

For the first third of the book, however, I was disappointed by the flow. In Madman's Dance, Oliver does a good job summarizing while still moving the plot forward, but for most of this portion of the book, I felt the characters were almost exclusively reactive, responding to the situation without much agency of their own. I also felt just a bit disconnected from events - I think in good part because Jacynda, who is so vibrant in the first two, spends much of this one profoundly altered and just ... not herself. As a new reader, I would not have been drawn to her. As someone coming from the previous two books, I missed the old Jacynda terribly.

A potential word of caution: while, again, Oliver does a great job filling you in on previous plot points without bogging down in it (which is a skillful feat, given how much happens in those two books that is vital to this one), I think the book loses something for not being read with immediacy. If you're going to pick up this series, I'd recommend going straight through.

But it all turns with Jacynda, and when she gets her feet back underneath her, so does the book ... and the way she leaps back into action is a delight. Her audacity and the controlled (barely) chaos she creates are a pleasure to read. The plot device that damaged her at the end of Virtual Evil comes into play and has intriguing implications in the later portions of the book. The reader learns a lot more about the transitives (shapeshifters), their organization, the Lead Assassin who emerged from the shadows in Virtual Evil ... and their future.

The ending of this book is a pitch-perfect illustration of character and exactly the kind of denouement you would want for a time traveler. It made me want to stand up and cheer. I was never quite sure I bought the romantic storyline here, but I think that's personal rather than anything amiss with the way it was portrayed. Definitely recommended as an ultimately satisfying close to the series.



View all my reviews

Sunday Snippet

With where I am in both works I'm presently ... working on ... I had difficulty finding a section that didn't give away earlier action. This is from my winter holiday story:


The presents glinted under the tree, but Irena hardly thought about gifts this year - not even the look on her grandfather's face when he saw the antique watch. Instead, she was fixed on the party, the thought of spending time with Justin, and the hovering promise of mistletoe.

Christmas Eve arrived with no phone call from her mother, perhaps because she stood staring at the phone, willing it to ring. Irena expected to feel more resentment, but her heart seemed to be encased in ice. It was difficult to feel anything, even joy over the snow that had delighted her - still fresh and crisp on the ground, as if it had fallen that very morning.

"I am sure her duties are very important," her grandfather said.

"A midnight call, I expect." Her grandmother's pinched face encouraged her to believe this. "So as to reach us when it's properly Christmas."

Phone call or not, Irena didn't intend to be home at midnight. She endured a day of carols, cookies and traditional Christmas movies - a Christmas Story, Elf and, for reasons never properly explained, The Long Kiss Goodnight - with her attention elsewhere. She felt more distant from her family than she ever had before and wondered if it was more than the party on her mind.

"I don't feel well," she said after dinner, feeling the tingle of the lie dance on her tongue. "I think I ate too much. Do you mind if I lie down?"

"Go on, dear."

Irena trudged upstairs, resisting the urge to sprint instead. She plumped her pillow and blankets in what she hoped was a convincing fashion. Truth was, she had never broken out of her house before. What if she couldn't manage the climb down? Television made it seem so easy. Obligatory for any teenaged girl, in fact. At the very least, she knew she couldn't risk wearing tights and a dress. Well, she had planned on slacks anyhow. It was dorky, but her thighs were too big.

She tossed her cellphone on the dresser and eased the window open, wincing when it creaked. The cold slapped her in the face. She held her breath, sliding out shoulders-first. Her fingers clutched awkwardly at a frost-covered branch. It stung. She should have worn gloves, but they were downstairs in the closet. She wobbled out into the crook of the tree and pushed the window as far shut as it would go from the outside.

Then she was alone in the darkness.

(Belated) Thursday Thoughts

Oh, for the ability to time travel!

Yesterday was a long day, and I just lost track of it. Headed bedwards, I had the thought, "Ack, my post!"

So what's up this Thursday? Time travel. No, not really - I forget that I do, in fact, write about time travelers and have several of their stories pending submission. (The most recent story has a major plot hole which I still haven't plugged, so its submission date is indefinite.) Fantasy sometimes makes it difficult to joke around - something that seems to be meant in humor in a piece of fiction could be literal. So just to clarify ... the only time travel involved here is my effectively backdating this post.

This editing pass of Scylla and Charybdis is winding down - my cursor blinks at the beginning of Chapter Thirty-Two. There are a few throughlines I'm concerned about, but my intention is to do a separate pass where I exclusively focus on whole-book continuity issues and bounce around to fix those. This will be combined with my reading aloud pass, since bizarrely, I seem to notice large-scale continuity questions while reading out loud. My brain is a strange beast.

I'm beginning to weary of my character building for the mystery novel - which needs a title, stat! Or at least before I start writing, because if I start writing without one, it will never be titled - but I'm reluctant to pause and wing it. I'm over halfway through, but it's a lot of material. One choice I made I'm regretting a little is I've given each character songs to describe them and Tarot significators. These have been harder to choose than I had thought.

The victim's song (or one of two) is Celine Dion's "Immortality." I didn't actually choose it to be ironic, but now I'm looking back and facepalming.

Sunday Snippet

This is a piece from another Flow-verse Borderwatch story. (Not fully edited, so forgive a little roughness.) Brianna has just learned that her sister is pregnant ... while she and a group of agents are hunting an Alastyn (a waterhorse fairy) living as a mortal. They confront "Adam" on a beach, and the following ensues:


Carter slammed into Adam from behind and drove a fist into his lung. The skinny kid was a powerhouse and that blow would have incapacitated a human – but Alastyns have the lungs of a horse, and it only slowed him. I drew Adam’s attention with a feint of the knife. His head jerked around, teeth snapping, but he was too far from the water to transform. He kicked out at Carter, who mewled as the blow caught him below the kneecap.

We kept Adam from the water, circling. My thoughts whirled, already imagining sleepless nights spent nursing my niece/nephew – a hazy hermaphrodite – and miles driven as Greta forgot appointments or lingered to exchange coy words with a clerk.

“Brianna!” Marcus bellowed. Adam was upon me, far too fast. I drove the blade forward in a belly-thrust. It glanced off his ribcage, but the shallow cold-iron knick drew a shrill scream.

I locked my thoughts on the present. Unprofessional, sloppy … now to correct my mistake.

Marcus stayed back, blocking the retreat as Carter and I closed in. A technical specialist, Marcus knew enough fighting to stay out of trouble, but we were the enforcers.

Adam bared his teeth. “Who are you people?”

“Does it matter?” I asked.

Carter and I exchanged looks and moved in tandem. He kicked Adam’s legs out from under him as I lunged. The Alastyn hit the ground; I landed on his chest. I pushed the blade against the side of his throat.

“Ahhh …” The aspirated hiss of pain hung suspended, as if Adam were afraid to close his lips.

“Nice work,” Marcus said. “Finish it.”

Adam made a sound of disbelief. “If you know what I am, you know what kind of allies I have.”

“You want to give us names?” I said. “We’ll be happy to take care of them, too. Otherwise – shut up.”

He sank against the sand, but the smirk flitted back. “You should have her name it Dalia.”

I stiffened and – before I could catch myself up in questions – drove the blade home.

“What was that about?” Carter asked.

“Nothing,” I said, rolling off the body. I left the knife in place. We would bury him like that, with the remains of his victims.

Thursday Thoughts

I took about a two week break from my weekly feature(s) (assuming my recent Sunday addition counts) (oh, how I love parantheses (no, I'm not done yet)), unannounced and unplanned, but now I'm back.

The good news is I wrote more this week and am starting to retrench. The bad news is ... these words were in a short story for an anthology that has a 5k ceiling, and I am already about three hundred words over and not near done yet, though the end is in sight. I'll see how much I can cut, but I'm not willing to warp the story to shorten it. It's a winter-holiday theme charity anthology, so I'd love to get the story into the word count and done ... we'll see.

The entertaining thing that's been happening as I work on character profiles for the mystery novel is I've discovered personalities, motives, and new suspects whom I didn't anticipate. I've also uncovered new aspects of my world. I may never use some of what I've written down, but it has gotten the gears turning. At this point, I'm almost wondering if I should just backburner this when done, finish my novel(s) editing, and begin for Nanowrimo. I no longer participate on the forums, but the sense that so many people are in the same boat is still encouraging.

8/4 - 8/10

Word count: 1,536

Thursday Thoughts

Editing on Scylla and Charybdis has me a mite discouraged. I'm adding so much emotional content that I never realized was lacking - which not only is pumping an already unacceptable word count, it's making me worry about my original writing process.

I'm at about the midpoint of the novel, which features one of Anaea's lowest points. She's sacrificed herself for a friend - I won't get into any more detail than that - and when an opportunity to escape comes up, she can't (ethically) take it.

I do realize that, in part, my take on character emotion is influenced by Ann Hood's Creating Character Emotions, which (among other points) emphasizes two things: showing the emotional reaction / feeling rather than telling it (showing the way the fear makes the character feel rather than labeling it fear) and avoiding the obvious cliches on how emotion makes people react. So I also do worry, as I add bits, that the reactions are too subtle / oblique ... but for me, I would rather err on the side of obscurity rather than hammering a reader.

As a sidebar - only a few more days to buy Taming The Weald from Gypsy Shadow Publishing and get two free harp tracks!

7/21 - 7/27

Word count: 783

Sunday Snippet

Since Fatecraft is now available at Darwin's Evolutions, and Loyal Dice is due out soon, I thought I would put up an excerpt from the next story in this series. It hasn't had its final edit before submission yet (much less an editor's eye), so please forgive a little roughness, but here Pazia and Vanchen have come into the hospitality of a forest race known as the Kivesh. (Iphiri, for the record, is a goddess of chance.)

Pazia awoke before her companion and crept into the shrine chamber. Her arm was still sore, but she could move it without wincing. Hafsha knelt, turning lengths of bone over in her hands. The daserii hung back, recognizing the ritual casting of morning lots.

Hafsha’s nostrils flared; she looked up. “Pazia. Please sit with me?”

“I don’t want to interrupt …”

“You are known to Iphiri. You are welcome here.”

Pazia knelt opposite the Kivesh, hands on her knees. “Thank you.” She ventured a question, “The people who brought us here yesterday seemed nervous. Is there something out there?”

“The forest is angry with us,” the priestess replied. “It has been this way for some months. Best to tread lightly.”

“Are you seeking guidance for that?”

“It -” Hafsha faltered. “Among other things.“ She changed the subject. “Do you know the language of the bones?”

“Somewhat – but not well,” she admitted. “I know a bit about every game of chance, but I’m more familiar with seer dice.”

Hafsha seemed to relax at this admission. “Close your eyes, then, so they might fall as they will.”

Pazia did so, waiting. The tink against stone echoed in her head. She squinted open one eye to see Hafsha pass her hand over the bones.

“You may look,” the priestess allowed.

Pazia complied. “What do they mean?”

“They mean …” Her lips rippled, not exactly pursing. “That good fortune has come to us as a gift from the gods, without expectation of return.”

Pazia had seen, in the second before the bones were covered, two crossed bones that indicated a trial or test. Hafsha was not being totally honest about the results. Had she and Vanchen walked from one danger into another?

Thursday Thoughts

More editing done on Scylla and Charybdis - well, that's been the case pretty much every week, but this week I banged through a scene I keep dithering about removing. It's a word-game tournament, which Anaea enters on a whim, and which has unexpected consequences in the following chapter ... but a whole chapter of this, even though I keep trimming the events, still seems excessive.

As for mystery project, I've just encountered the reason why I had pondered waiting until later in my character-building to do my main characters: my entries get longer by bits and bobs as I go on. The entry for the prince - who is a semi-major character - is about as long as the entry for the apprentice, who is the main character's sidekick (more or less ...). I don't know whether it's momentum or shifting moods as I work.

I put this question up on my writerly Facebook, and I'll repeat it here. For those of you who read mysteries, a quick poll. Which do you prefer:

1. Books where the murder happens in the first pages (if not on the first page) and the murder is the immediate focus.

2. Books where the murder happens later on (but still early), giving the reader time to identify with the victim, while some connected plot thread provides the tension.

Or ... it doesn't matter as long as it's good. ;-)

I've already decided which way I'm taking my project - just curious.

7/14 - 7/20
Word count: 873 (oy ... ouch)

Sunday Snippet

Since I've been talking about Flow a fair bit lately, here's the opening of another short story in the same setting:

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."

Thursday Thoughts

So much work, so little time! I'm currently trying to finish a story for an anthology call at the end of the month, and I realize that at some point, I am probably going to have to put everything else down and cram it if I want to finish and do any editing. As I have previously stated (somewhat tongue in cheek), it would probably be technically cleaner if I didn't have time to edit - but that's the only part of the story that might be better for not being touched. But in part due to a crazy-busy schedule, in part due to four major house issues I've had to wrestle, and in part due to the gaming (I admit it!), my progress for the past few weeks has slowed to a crawl.

Also working on character profiles for my mystery story and ran into a very silly problem. I had initially drawn up the suspects list with the victim's sister as one of the suspects - an issue of greed, as she would become the guardian of the victim's son. Then, when I sat down to write this character, this intense, perfect background wove its way out of me ... and the character was both an orphan and single. Whoops.

I thought about this long and hard, and decided to ditch the sister line. I have enough different motives and characters not to need greed, and the "new" background better fits the victim's style.

7/7 - 7/13

Word Count: 727

GoodReads Review: The Leper of Saint Giles

Leper of Saint Giles by Ellis Peters

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


In this fifth novel of worldly monk and self-appointed detective Cadfael, the tension of the book hinges first upon a bleak arranged marriage and the young man who is in love with the bride. Murder, when it occurs, adds a new dimension to an already intriguing storyline. There is a rhythm, a pattern and poetry to Ellis Peters' novels, and if that makes certain aspects of the story predictable, the tradeoff is the experience of the book.

Peters is as devoted - if not more - to showing the positive, luminous side of humanity, kind deeds both large and small, and her books brim with people who rise above the gravity of the crime. For me, personally, I sometimes find her take on pure young love to be repetitive, and I'd love to see darker romances ... but the characters in these books are always skillfully drawn and entertaining.

The writing style is poetic and leisurely, prone to details and a certain delicacy in description. It's not for those who prefer a swift, action-packed pace, but is ideal for slow immersion.

One of the best features of this series is that both the broader history - the tumult occurring in England between Empress Maud and King Stephen - and the personal history of Cadfael continue to evolve and change, not in earthshattering ways, but in subtle, organic steps. Shrewsbury can be relied upon both for its stability and for its forward momentum. However, a reader can pick up any of the books and generally feel neither lost nor as if something has been spoiled, should they go back and read an earlier volume.

View all my reviews

Fatecraft out! (Again ;-))

I always forget that Darwin's Evolutions seems to do releases right around midnight ... so here's Fatecraft! Meet Pazia and poor, put-upon Vanchen over at:

Fatecraft

Sunday Snippet

Here's a quick piece from a short story I'm working on in the Flow universe. Irena has gotten curious about her new neighbor and gone digging about in the boxes in her garage:


Her fingers scrabbled at a cardboard flap, pulled it free. The scent of mothballs and something else, a little cloying – familiar, but out of context. It was full of snow globes; even the little tap she had given the box caused endless blizzards within. She scooped one out of the box. Instead of the expected scene – a cute snowman or a foreign landmark – there was a little cornhusk doll …

“What are you doing?”

Irena yelped and dropped the globe. It pinged off the concrete. She whirled to face her accuser, feeling the flush burn her cheeks. Moira Alban was a tall woman somewhere in the infinite expanse of middle age with auburn hair and eyes the color of a storm.

“Well, if it isn’t the girl who stole the kiwi,” she continued.

“I did not,” Irena said by reflex, then bent for the snow-globe. “I was just curious …”

She hadn’t seen the globe roll, but somehow, it was at Moira’s feet and the woman cradled it like something infinitely precious. “Do you understand the hazards of curiosity?”

In the chill and the dark of the garage, the words seemed menacing. Irena drew back, her heart pounding with a rabbit’s fear – even though she could easily have dodged past Moira, even though hers was the next driveway over and kids shouted at each other in the yard across the street. The rescue of that scene seemed impossibly far away.

“Killed the cat,” Irena said bluntly, and wished she hadn’t. Her skin prickled, even as her mind shouted at her that it was ridiculous. Neighbors didn’t attack each other for picking through boxes, and the garage door had been open. Surely that was an invitation. And how would Moira hurt her, besides?

Just by looking at her, she somehow knew.

Then Moira laughed, a full, rich sound animating the air. The menace evaporated. “Not the most original answer, but it will do. Since you’ve meddled with my boxes, you can help me carry them inside. Come, child.”

Thursday Thoughts

Over the past few weeks, I've been sucked back into online gaming, which means less writing. It's a vice of mine to which I freely confess - but I also believe it to be valuable as writing practice, as it were, and is especially helpful in the area of clarity. If what you've typed out for your character to do / say doesn't make sense, you find out immediately. Cue conversations that involve characters yelping, "Ack, no - not what I meant!" or OOC (Out Of Character) conferences to straighten things out.

As someone who also GMs - that's GameMaster, for those unfamiliar, and yes, it can be a verb ;-) - it also helps on the plotting side. My experience has been that other players routinely come up with courses of investigation or action that I would never have even thought up if I had been writing a tale out on my own. So I have to rewind, sidestep and work out new responses.

So I'm indulging myself in these dangerous waters for now, with an eye on how much time it takes away from my projects. I'm also reading - Ellis Peters, which means that I tend to describe my life thusly: "Brother Cadfael and I are going to get my car's oil changed." "Brother Cadfael and I have a dentist's appointment."

6/30 - 7/6
Word count: 854 (yes, really ... sigh)

Sunday Snippet

More Scylla and Charybdis from a few chapters later. Aboard the cargo spaceship known as the Bleak, she makes the acquaintance of Tobias Risingsun Mortimer, or Flick:



They ate a second meal together and Flick talked about some of his experiences in Defiance, his inventions, his grandmother – who, by process of deduction, seemed to be the only family he had. Anaea pieced together what a Tweaker was: a salvage expert who could give anything that might otherwise have been thrown away a new form and purpose … and an inventor without government sanction or funding. A unique product of the Pinnacle Empire.

She found that by phrasing her questions in an open-ended manner, she could keep Flick talking while sharing little in return. His cheerful spates of information sputtered out occasionally into jokes or questions – but he seemed more interested in what she thought of the crew or hypermentals or philosophical oddities than personal details.

“I mean, supposing they give every child an aptitude test,” he said. “Whatever they turn out to be good at, that’s what they do in life. It’d be efficient, right?”

“How could you possibly design a test that would cover all variables?” Anaea asked.

He crinkled his nose. “Neural mapping on a particular field of tests could account for that – but you’re avoiding the point. Would it be good for people?”

“I don’t know,” she answered. “I’m not an expert -”

“You don’t have to be an expert!” he burst out, gesturing wildly with his fork. “You just have to be human. You just have to have a heart in things.”

She wondered what he would think of the way she had left her home. “I suppose just as a thought exercise -”

The ship shuddered. Anaea’s plate slid out of her grasp and clattered on the floor. An animal bellowed.

An unfamiliar voice came through the overhead. “Captain of the Bleak, you have twenty seconds to surrender. Passengers of the Bleak, the warning shot you have experienced represents only a fraction of our firepower, and your only chance is to prevail upon its commander not to test it.”

The voice faded out, and was replaced by the tail end of creative cursing from the Bleak’s captain. “… frighten the passengers into mutiny, of all the low things -”

“You’re on broadcast,” someone else said.

Anaea rose in a flurry, then stopped, the blood humming in her ears. Pragmatism pulled her panic into stillness. Where would she go? She looked to Flick for some reaction, hoping to see him calm, even bored, but he sat shaking his head like a furry dog.

“Oh, no, no,” he said, “I put most of my take into hard barter -” He seemed to realize only then he was speaking out loud and pressed his lips together into a frustrated line.

“Everyone remain calm,” the captain’s voice continued. “They don’t know who they’re dealing with. The Bleak has outgun and outrun every decent pirate in the sector.”

“What about the indecent ones?” Flick said in a sotto voce. The other two passengers in the mess glared.

The deck pitched. The furniture was secure; nothing else was. Anaea tumbled, landing elbow-first in a corner with the remnants of two or three lunches. Voices yowled – animal or human, it was impossible to tell. Her arm throbbed.

Flick grabbed her wrist before she could stand. “Should’ve known a berth like this wouldn’t have the high-grade inertial dampeners,” he said. “Stay down. Crawl along the fixtures. Though really, where are you going? It’s raining food, what more could you ask for?”

She recognized his manic cheer for worry and swallowed.

"Wet and Wild" Giveaway for July!

To celebrate the acceptance of my contemporary fantasy novel, "Flow," for publication by Double Dragon, I've decided to have "Wet and Wild" Giveaway for the whole month of July. Here are the details:


1. Purchase my novelette (that's a long short, for the uninitiated) "Taming The Weald" from Gypsy Shadow Publishing sometime during the month of July. Make sure you purchase it directly from GSP - the editors have graciously offered to send me the email addresses of those who do, but I won't have a record if you purchase it elsewhere! It can be found under their Moonbeams line, or here: Taming The Weald. That's the Wild portion ...


2. Sit back, relax, and you will receive two tracks from my studio-produced Celtic harp CD, "Rolling of the Stone." The tracks in question are: "Fingal's Cave / The North Brig of Edinburgh" - that's bridge to you non-Scots - and "Banks of the Spey / Tommy's Tarbukas." That's the Wet portion: two water-themed tunes and their medleyed companions.


Please feel free to pass this along to anyone who might be interested!