C. Litka's Blog, page 37
March 4, 2022
Opening Lines

Several weeks ago one of the blog I look in on, Fantasy writer Mark Lawrence, had a blog post where he listed most of the first lines of his books. I thought quite a few of them were really good – I like clever writing. For example:
From his book, Dispel Illusion
The two saving graces of explosions are that from the outside they’re pretty and from the inside they’re quick.
From his book, Prince of Fools
I’m a liar and a cheat and a coward, but I will never, ever, let a friend down. Unless of course not letting them down requires honesty, fair play, or bravery.
Writers are told that first lines are very important, one of keys to hooking a reader. And yet, in all my years as a reader, I can recall only one set of opening lines that I recall. They were the lines from Jasper Fforde’s Shades of Grey:
“It began with my father not wanting to see the Last Rabbit and ended up with my being eaten by a carnivorous plant. It wasn’t really what I’d planned for myself – I’d hoped to marry into the Oxbloods and join their dynastic string empire.”
And to be honest, I think those lines would likely have sent just as many readers packing, as they did drawing them further into the story.
The truth is that I don’t think first lines are all that important. Oh, it’s nice to have a clever opening to a story, but are they critical? I doubt it. In fact, I think closing lines are more important, as they set the tone for what people remember of the book. I pay more attention to closing lines than opening lines. In fact, I already know the closing lines for the story that I’m writing, even though I'm less than a third into at this point.
That said, I do make an effort to come up with what I hope are engaging opening lines, but their nature depends on how I am opening the story. Sometimes my openings are just setting the stage – so the lines are simply descriptive, serving only that purpose. I sometimes open with dialog, and so they’re dialog. And occasionally I try to be clever and teasing. In any event, below are the opening lines of my published novels along with opening lines from works that have never, or not yet been finished.
I'll start with some of my early unpublished works going back to 1980’s and 90’s.
The Hybrid-Worlder (unpublished novella)
Within the Knym-sooh the air was heavy and aromatic with the flavors of Chantsom Yea.
Death on Glou’Ay (unpublished short story)
The cosmicpolitan worlds – while retaining their singular character – have become rounded and smooth from their long intercourse with the many other famous hominoid worlds; like pebbles on a seashore.
The Brigand Sea-Prince (unpublished fantasy novel)
We stood in silence – waiting – within the dimly illuminated bowls of what looked to the lower hold of a vast galleon. It was, however, the Great Hall and Throne Room of the sea-raiders of Ividish’fa.
The Poisoned Coast (YA Novel)
‘Read this,’ snapped Cory, bursting into my room.
He slapped a sheet of paper down on the solar power panel I was working on.
I could probably dig up more scraps, but let’s move on to my more recent stuff.
Some Day Days
The scent of grass and warm stone laced with fleeting wisps of chatter and laughter drifted through the open window, moving the curtains ever so slightly, without shattering the stillness of my room.
A Summer in Amber
Not yet 8:30, and the morning was bathwater warm and nearly as moist. It'd be tropical by noon.
The Bright Black Sea
'You'll see my ship safely – and profitably, mind you – around and back. Am I making myself clear, Litang?'
The Lost Star’s Sea
Can you dream pain?
Fear, yes. I felt that, but was the sharp splinter of pain in my head part of the dream as well?
Beneath the Lanterns
The golden light of dusk day slanted through the pine boughs to splash down on the blue shadowed road before me.
Sailing to Redoubt
I clung to the railing on the tilting deck. The horizon would not stay still.
The Prisoner of Cimlye
‘...And your packet of Can-Fi Savory Biscuits, 49 coras, brings your total to...’ I pulled the lever on the adding machine, ‘279 coras.’ I wrote the total on the sales slip, looked across the counter, smiled, and waited…
The Secret of the Tzaritsa Moon
I signed aboard the Tzaritsa Moon as her second engineer. I ended up a toaster repairman. I was very lucky.
An earlier story that became the opening set of events for Tzaritsa Moon has this variation of that same opening:
I took my first steps in becoming a toaster repairman aboard the Aphar Hawk, nine days out of Gan Dou orbit. And I don’t believe that I’ve ever stepped faster in my life.
The Secrets of Valsummer House
Pine Cove had its secrets. Little ones. And one big, dangerous one. It took Patrol Lieutenant Vaun Di Ai, Intelligence Analyst 3, to uncover its big and dangerous one. It would. Them girls with pretty faces and inquiring minds.
The Shadows of an Iron Kingdom
I’d like to believe that I can take the rough with the smooth. I didn’t complain about the hundred petty inconveniences of the Iron Kingdom. Not too much. It was the werewolves, superhumans, and mad scientists who haunted its black forests and ruined castles that got to me. Still, what did I expect in the company of Vaun Di Ai?
The Aerie of a Pirate Prince ( unfinished 9 Star Neb Mystery/adventure)
It wasn’t my fault. For more than three years I’d been quite content to leave the infamous Alantzian System’s pirate princes to their own un-Unity Standard devices.
Keiree
The taste of claustrophobic panic as the pod closed around us clung to the back of my throat. The sharp pricks of pain as Molly’s claws clutched my chest still lingered. And yet, if everything had gone right, those sensations would have been twelve thousand, nine hundred and fourteen Martian years old. But everything hadn’t gone right.
Sian(unfinished sequel to Keiree)
‘Grrrrrrr,’ warm breath on my ear. {Feed me} in Molly’s vocabulary.
‘Go away,’ I mumbled, turned the other way, and jerked the blanket over my head. I wasn’t ready to get up. I wasn’t planning to.
I felt Molly land on top of me, and pulling back the blanket with one clawed paw leaned close, and said, ‘Grrrrrr’ in her deepest, most menacing tone.
‘No,’ I mumbled.
“No” was a concept Molly has never mastered. I doubt she ever tried.
I could feel her warm, moist breath of her mouth around my ear. And then the little pricks of her teeth as she began to close her mouth on it.
One thing you don’t say to Simla cats, at least not to Molly, is “Don’t you dare,” because she will dare. I didn’t care much about anything. But I didn’t care to lose an ear.
A Night on Isvalar
The name’s Riel Dunbar. I’m second mate of the interstellar freighter, Tarina. I’ve been a starfer – a starfarer – for something like 37 years. Perhaps not the most ambitious starfer, but the second mate’s berth suits me. It’s a responsible position. And if it doesn’t pay as well as a first mate’s berth, it comes with half the headaches.
Villain & Botts (Unfinished work)
A broad chested, grey bearded man in a black spaceer's uniform with silver trim swept into the Astra Automation's elegant showroom accompanied by a tall woman in a soft white and silver outfit that shimmered as she walked and Temta, one of the salespersons. Could either of these be my owner, Viletre Viseor?
Velvet Island Nights (Unfinished work)
'Good morning gang,' I sang out cheerfully with a wave of my umbrella as I strolled into the Exports Section of the Bureau of Trade, Department of Statistical Studies of the Island of Larrendia Governmental Office. 'The sun is high, the sky blue, the breeze balmy, the birds cheerful, and our workweek is in its last gasp. What do you say we take our morning break early and savor this wonderful morning as it should be savored – out of doors, and in the shade of LeVara's Cafe with his best Janvar bean caf? The reports can wait an hour.'
Rust in the Dust (Fragment of an unfinished work)
Twenty-seven books will not fill a wall of bookshelves, not even the wall of a very cozy dormer office under the rafters of Croft Hall, Wayscross University. This came as not a complete surprise to me. I had hoped, however, that by artistically spreading my twenty-seven books out across the shelves – displaying the larger volumes cover out – I might create the impression that the shelves were more filled than they actually were. Sadly, this proved not to be the case. Indeed, rather than disguising my scarcity of books, it seemed to emphasis the barrenness of the shelves – each book a lonesome cry of despair.
Inlowpar Stars (Unfinished work)
‘Greetings, Zenabya. Broke enough to consider going back to work yet?’ pinged the auton Cline Carr, of the Starfarers’ Guild Hiring Hall on Kantea Island.
Taef and the Sorceresses (A fragment a page long)
The gods have their places. They’re welcome to rule the dead unseen under the ground or reign high in the sky. They may torment or reward the living hidden behind the masks of natural events or make mischief in the myriad coincidences of everyday life. As long as they stay invisible, and in their proper places, humans embrace or ignore them as they choose. But, should a god should step out of its proper place… Ah, then, things get complicated.
And finally, just as a tease, here is the current first lines from my work in progress. Talk about setting the stakes!
The long red tram crossed Crane House Lane and disappear ed behind Villiers House, sealing my fate . I’d be late for work. I slowed to a walk and took another bite of toast. I found that I didn’t care. It was that kind of day,
February 25, 2022
Riding the (Virtual) Rails: Bulgaria

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmUBfZ4mg5A&t=6537s
A little over two years ago I posted a blog about my armchair travels in the cabs of trains. Over the years many train drivers and train enthusiasts have posted on Youtube videos of real time complete train trips as seen from the cab of trains. You can find my original post here, with some links to those videos here: https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6896160652380675241/486859535421288849
Since then, I have continued to travel throughout Europe in the cabs of trains, and my plan is to post links to the the channels where you can find the trips I’ve taken since then.
Today I'll introduce Bulgaria to you. I spent several months traveling through the country, and as you can see from the map below, I've ridden on most of its rails, save for a few branch lines. (Yellow routes are the ones I've ridden on.) I have one more stretch to watch, that blank route in the northeast. Right now I'm traveling in Romania.

Just a brief word about these videos. I find that there is something about moving pictures that draw you into a scene far more completely than a still photo. And I think that crisscrossing a country on their train system gives you a far better “feel” for a country than a picture book of tourist attractions. Moreover, you can always “get off” the train and explore most of these countries on foot virtually by using Google Street View. I spend 45- 60 minutes every day exploring countries from a train cab window while I ride my bike on a rack inside the house during our long winters. But they can be fascinating to just watch – movement is conductive to thought, and watching the countryside glide by can be a gateway to thinking.
Bulgaria is a very beautiful country, with lots of hills and mountains that make for very scenic travel. The southern east-west route across the country is across flat land, for the most part, and sort of boring, but the northern two routes have lots of scenic stretches, as do the branch lines that run north and south.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39TPmlfovVM Through the Ishkar River Valley north of Sofia
Bulgaria is one of those countries where the station masters, in their red peaked caps, come out of their offices to watch and wave to every train that goes by their station, even if it doesn’t stop. It’s also one of those countries that have huts at both ends of the station where all the track converge back into the main line or two. These are, or were, used to house the men who had to manually switch the track to route the train to its designated platform at the station. Now days this switching is all done remotely in most Western European countries, but in the east, on the smaller branch lines, the switch must be thrown manually, and you will see guys manning these huts to switch the tracks for the next train through
.
In concrete Bulgarians trust. In my travels I’ve passed under a thousand overpasses, so when I say that I struck me that I have never seen fewer and thinner supports for the overhead roads than in Bulgaria, it has to be in the national character not to over-engineer their bridges.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39TPmlfovVM
Bulgaria also has a certain dystopian air to it in places. The houses in some cities are mostly foursquare, in stained grey stucco. Some of the apartment buildings have individual units painted differently, so that they look to like a patchwork quilt. You see horse drawn carts on town streets. I found all this interesting enough to hop about in Street View. The small towns are very interesting. On one block you see a yard full of junk that could’ve come straight out of Appalachia, and two blocks later, an architecturally designed house or duplex that puts America’s mass produced vinyl sided faux mansions to shame. It is a country well worth at least a virtual visit by train and on foot via Street View. I like Bulgaria.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmUBf...
Video Train Ride Channels for Bulgaria. Many of these channels also have train spotting videos, just of trains passing, so you have to do some scrolling to find the cab ride videos.
Joro 14
https://www.youtube.com/c/GeorgePenelov/videos
Nikolay KoZarski
https://www.youtube.com/user/NikolaiKozarski/videos
DKG Traction
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzGxewrJk1OjTnRSE8NgmQg/videos
Back On Track Studios
https://www.youtube.com/c/BackOnTrackStudios
Ivo Radoev
https://www.youtube.com/user/rivo23/videos
February 18, 2022
Best of Times, Worst of TImes

It seems to be the best of times and the worst of times for me in self publishing. And I use “worst” only for its reference to the opening line of A Tale of Two Cities, though I am doing both fine, and not fine at the same time. Let’s take a quick look at the current state of my publishing “business” that’s not really a business at all, since unless Amazon makes me, I give away my ebooks rather than trying to earn any money off of them. My “sales” (i.e. books I’m giving away) for the last 30 days on Smashwords stands at 39 books, while on Apple (via Smashwords) I’ve sold 129 – more than 3 times the number I’ve sold on Smashwords. For the last 360 days, I sold 866 books on Apple vs 998 on Smashwords. Basically Apple is holding its own or slightly growing, while Smashwords is fading. And fading fast. Amazon just reports by the month, so that so far in February, I’ve given away 40 books and sold one. Roughly, we’re looking a selling something like 250 in the month from my three usual sources. My goal is to move 300 books a month, and I’ve usually exceeded that in the past. So this is the worst of time.
However, it is the best of times as well. For the calendar year 2021, I sold 8,699 books – my best year ever. By comparison, in 2020 I sold 6,490 books, and in 2019, 8,598. So by those numbers, I’m doing just fine. And yet, on the flip side, I released 4 novels and two novellas in the 2020 -2021 period, which did not jump my sales much at all, clearly indicating a diminishing return on investment, since in the past I was only releasing a book a year, after my initial release of 3 books in 2015.
I also made a record $180 in royalties from Amazon, the best of times.
The key to my success in 2021 was that Google Play Store came into its own. In 2019 I sold 558 books on Google. That jumped to 1,030 in 2020, and then to 4,765 in 2021. This means that more than half of my sales for 2021 are due to books sold on Google’s Play Store. Looking at the glass half empty, I was selling only half the number of books I used to via Smashwords and Amazon, despite publishing those 6 new works. So once again, we’ve arrived back at the worst of times. Though just for reference, my 30 day running total with Google today is at 456 books, so I may well move 600 books this month. I can’t complain. Still good times.
Looking ahead, I’m sure Google sales will fade. They peaked at 836 books in October 2021, so they are fading already. And since any new book from me is still many months away, it is doubtful that 2022 will a banner year. The worst of times.
Still, I’ve done just fine in self publishing, and I’ve done it my way. It’s when I think of people starting out now, hoping to find readers for their stories, that I feel sad. Unless you are publishing a carefully researched and designed commercial product aimed at very specific ebook genres, new writers won’t even be able to give their books away to would-be readers like I do, much less sell any. Most authors will probably find more readers, and more engaged readers, on fan fiction sites or Wattpad, then in self publishing. And more satisfaction as well. Of course there’s still traditional publishing, and it’s gatekeepers. Given the odds of finding readers in self publishing, those gatekeeper no longer seem so formidable. Though they are, of course. It’s just that self publishing is just as formidable these days. So, since publishing prospects seem to be about equal, I may give those gatekeepers a go.
February 11, 2022
Next Writing Project Update

I recently watched a Youtube video on Mike’s Book Review where he talks about reassessing his video output in a response to his disappointing viewership. He has 64.5K subscribers, but most of his videos are watched by 6K or less viewers, which kinda bums him out. And this is not the first video of this type I’ve seen. It seems that there comes a point where years of effort playing the game of Youtube algorithms pays off in subscriber numbers, but not in satisfaction. At this point, these Youtubers step back and reassess what they’re doing and why.
I’m at a similar point, though not from dissatisfaction with my results, so much as recognizing the reality of what I can do, and not do. I wrote and self published four novels and two novellas in the last two years or so. They were short novels, by my standards, and so they where much easier to write than a 100K+ novel, but even so, it is not a pace that I can keep up. Nor do I want to. Though I had fun writing those shorter novels and novellas, in my mind they were just long stories rather than real novels, and I want to get back to writing something a bit more ambitious. As I mentioned in some previous posts, I spent the summer trying to come up with just such a novel, and failing. I spent the fall starting and abandoning several short novels, as my interest in them faded. However, in the last couple of months, I’ve taken the world from that failed effort, and a plot from some older failed efforts, and combined them into a story that, I think, I can make a novel out of.
I have written the first chapter – some 8,000 words – in this novel and I have the first half of it pretty well in hand. After that it gets a bit sketchy. But I’m confident that I can make it all work. However, as I said, I want to write a novel, and I want to write the best novel I can, so that I am going to hold myself to a high standard, and not rush through this story. I’m not setting any deadlines for myself, either to finish it, or word count per day. It will be done when it is done. Perhaps by late fall 2022, but it could easily slip into 2023.
I’m approaching this book as literary fiction. Not heavy literary fiction, but something more than pure genre fiction. It is set in the far future, so could be considered science fiction. However, as in many of my previous books, I like hybrid past/futures – futures that look a lot like the past, with advanced technology mixed in, and this book will be no different. The basic plot is an espionage story this time around. But since I’m not a thriller type of writer, it will be more like a 39 Steps type of story – travel, mysteries, captures, and escapes. Yah, nothing too new here.
So, bottom line – do not expect to see a new C Litka book before fall of 2022 at the earliest. Hopefully it will be worth the wait.
February 6, 2022
Three Mini-Reviews

A couple of short reviews to bring my reading adventures up to date. I have one book in the pipeline, but I'm a bit discouraged. And I'm writing again, slowly, so I'm not as interested in reading books.
My grading system:
A – Great (Very rare)
B – Good (Recommendable)
C – Okay (Average to so-so, but good enough to read to the end.)
DNF – Did not finish. I don’t bother reading books that I would grade either D or F
The reviewer’s bias: I prefer stories with well developed, pleasant characters. I like writing that is clever and witty – entertaining in itself. I prefer first person narratives, or close third person narratives. I dislike thinly disguised fanfic and stories with gaping plot holes.A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers – DNF 14%
This one surprised me. A space opera without war (at least as far as I got) with lots of pleasant characters and a focus on them. I figured this would be a book that I would enjoy. But it just seemed to drag, even though it jumped between different POV characters. I didn’t need a menu for every meal… I got to the point were there looked to be several pages of info dumping on what the ship did – punching holes through sub-space, and I just lost heart. I was only 14% into the book and I couldn’t wait for it to finish, so I did.
The Lies of Locke Lamora (The Gentleman Bastards #1) by Scott Lynch – B-
What’s this, I’ve read and enjoyed a fantasy book? Will wonders ever cease? It has great world building, a likable Robin Hood main character with sidekicks, and interesting story with not a lot of magic. I did not care for all the blood and gore – I get it, these are bad guys – but I can just skip over those parts, and I did. I’m not crazy about the dual timeline thing, I always suspect things like that a gimmick, but in this case it was basically telling two stories that would probably not have fit together all that well if told in chronological order. All that said, I won’t be reading the other three volumes. Though the star ratings don’t fall, the reviews I read suggest that the follow ups aren’t anywhere as good. Once is enough.
Polarisby Jack McDevitt – DNF 20%
This is the second book in the Alex Benedict series. It is set some years after the incidents described in A Talent for War. This is another book I should’ve liked, but didn’t. McDevitt writes in an easy to read, first person narrative style, i.e. right up my alley. But… He is very verbose, and the Marie Celeste mystery story he created – a space ship with its crew gone without a trace – did not really interest me for some reason. Couple that with the fact that the story had gotten nowhere in the first 20% of the book, so my interest waned. Plus, this is another of those SF stories where travel between planets is a mere taxi cab ride – anywhere in the galaxy in hours. If you are going to write about space, I believe that you should make it as vast as it really is. Make it grand. If you need to move from locale to locale within hours, set the story on a planet. You don’t need whole planets for a stage setting. Real planets, not Star Wars planets, have a great variety of climates, and people as well. Well, off my soap box. I got to the 20% point in the story, and started to skim read. And at that point, why go on? I didn’t.
February 2, 2022
Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe A Review

The reviewer’s bias: I prefer stories with well developed, pleasant characters. I like writing that is clever and witty – entertaining in itself. I prefer first person narratives, or close third person narratives. I dislike thinly disguised fanfic and stories with gaping plot holes.
Dying earth is where science fiction authors go to write fantasy stories. Gene Wolfe’s The Torturer’s Shadow is no exception. It has all the fantasy tropes that you can throw a stone at: a grimdark mood, castles and dungeons, medieval cities, ancient weapons, strange beasts, archaic words and speech patterns, and magic. All of this can be explained as science fiction since the story is set hundreds of millions of years on a decaying, future earth. Things happen. The only thing that hasn’t changed in all those millions of years are the humans. They’re quite familiar.
I did not expect to like this book. Indeed, I had sampled a few pages some time before and didn’t like what I read. But I decided to give it a try since this book is the read along book for February 2022 for the Youtube science fiction channel, Media Death Cult. I found the audio version of the book on Youtube, so I “read” the book that way – at least 2 ½ hours of its total of 9 ½ hours – before I decided that it was too unpleasant and called it a day. The narrator did a great job of reading the story to have kept me engaged that long. I would never have gotten 10 chapters into the book if I had to, you know, actually read the thing.
I had never heard of Gene Wolfe until I read of his death several years ago, and everyone praising him for his unique writing. I guess he was famous before that, but I wasn’t deep enough into SF to have heard of him.
There are several ways to write a story. One can picture a story line that may wave around a bit, but it has a beginning point and an end point. Another style is to have several story lines that slowly converge near the ending into one. A third method is to have a series of broken story lines that when fitted together form one line from beginning to end. Wolfe’s tale struck me more like an elaborate doodle – it meandered, circled on itself, went off into seemingly dead ends, and in general sought to make itself as ornate and it’s meaning as obscure as possible. There are actually several guide books that attempt to explain this story. So, if you like books that puzzle you and don’t mind not knowing what the hell is going on, then Gene Wolfe might be right up your alley. It’s not up mine.
The story, as far as I got, was mostly world building, such as it was – nothing was made very clear about the world. It established a grimdark fantasy mood, with a nondescript first person narrator, an orphan adopted into the guild of torturers. He will, I gather, eventually be too nice to one of the prisoners he is being trained to torture later in the book and he'll be exiled from the guild for that offense, to wander the world for another book or two.
For some reason, The Torturer’s Shadowbrought to mind a book by Walter Mores called The 13 ½ Lives of Captain Blue Bear.In many ways the books couldn’t be more different, but I seem to think that they shared one common element – the stories featured strange, absurd scenes and situations. Wolfe’s book, however, is very much darker in tone and seriousness than Mores’. Mores’ Captain Blue Bear was also a much nicercompanion. I finished that book.
January 28, 2022
Self-Published Science Fiction Contest Result

Woke up this morning and I realized that I had not written a blog post for this week. Luckily, or unluckily, depending upon how you look on it, a subject to write about came up in my usual morning tour of web sites. Fantasy-Faction announced their top ten self published science fiction books for the Self-Published Science Fiction Contest, and my entry, A Summer in Amber was not among them. A disappointment, but not a terrible surprise. In any contest, the odds are always against you. I was, however, doubly disappointed in the fact that all they did was announce ten titles, with three going on to the semi-finals. For the fantasy version of this contest, they had, in a series of postings, given each title a little review before eliminating it, and I was expecting the same for this contest. While it can be argued that it is for the best in this case, I still would’ve like to see what they had to say about my story.
The ten blogs that have been judging this contest have been a mixed bag. At least three of them have written little reviews for all of the 30 books they were given. On the other hand, one just made a Youtube video in his car announcing his top ten, while others have yet to be heard from. I had thought myself lucky to be on Fantasy-Faction’s list, but it turned out to be, well, a wash, at best.
Still, I’m planning on entering Beneath the Lanterns in the fantasy version of this contest, and I’ll enter The Secret of the Tzaritsa Moon in the next version of the science fiction contest. I don’t expect to win, these represent my minimal/no cost efforts to promote my work – nothing ventured, nothing gained. And it is fun waiting to see what they have to say about your work – at least until they do. If they do.

January 21, 2022
My Reading Report Card

My Reading Report Card as of 21 January 2021
My grading system:
A – Great (Very rare)
B – Good (Recommendable)
C – Okay (Average to so-so, but good enough to read to the end.)
DNF – Did not finish. I don’t bother reading books that I would grade either D or F
October 2021
Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds – DNF
It had a prologue that seemed to foreshadow how the story would unfold, which I didn’t appreciate. It had too many characters to follow without a cohesive focus. Said that a man died, and then spent 13 pages describing the process. I should talk, but way too wordy no one to care about.
November- December 2021
Miss Buncle’s Book by D E Stevenson – B
Miss Buncle Married – B-
The Two Mrs Abbots – C+
The Four Graces – B
Light romances and mild comedy set in what was contemporary England of 1934 through 1945. I found them entertaining, in part because it is a place and a period that I enjoy exploring in fiction. There a no doubt more realistic and darker representations of that period in fiction, but I like light novels, and these fit the bill. Complete review here: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-miss-buncle-books-by-d-e-stevenson.html
Miss Clair Remembers – by Miss Read (Dora Saint) – B
Emily Davis – C +
Fairacre Festival – C (Novella)
Summer at Fairacre – B
Stories about school teachers and rural life in England from 1910’s to the 1970s. These are the small, slice of life stories I like, again in a time and place that I like. She writes clearly, and doesn’t shy away from talking about the darker sides of rural life and rural poverty. I had read a number of her stories years ago, and enjoyed them as well. Miss Clair and Emily Davis talk about life in pre-World War ll England, and the Fairacre books are two of “Miss Read’s” own stories set in the 1950 through the 60’s.
I have complete reviews on my blog here: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2021/11/summer-in-fairacre-by-miss-read.html
Victories Greater than Death by Charlie Jane Anders – DNF
YA/Middle school fiction. Not my thing.
Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P Djeli Clark – C
Promising setting, but the story and characters were so-so, though to be fair it was only a novella. Might try another in the series.
Tooth and Clawby Jo Walton – DNF
Fantasy with characters that are dragons. Fantasy is just not my thing these days and while using dragons as your POV characters my appeal to other readers, they didn’t do it for me.
Hammers on Bone–Cassandra Klaw – DNF
A detective story novella featuring over-the-top hardboiled detective style story writing with an unpleasant POV and secondary characters, with not much going on as far as I read.
A History of What Comes Next – by Sylvain Neuvel – DNF
Cheesy opening with narrator killing her husband of 20 years by sticking a pen up his nose because he may have read something about her he wasn’t supposed to know. An unpleasant read and I was unlikely to care for the characters going forward.
The Way of Kingsby Brandon Sanderson – DNF
Epic fantasy; not my thing. I’m just not into the use of magic in a story.
January 2022
Network Effectsby Martha Wells – C
Murder Bot is entertaining, though its schtick getting old, Supporting characters and setting are nondescript. Plot is repetitious both within the story and from one story to the next. Won’t continue on with the series Complete review here: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2021/12/network-effects-by-martha-wells-review.html
Leviathan Wakesby James S A Corey – C
Too long. It left me with too many questions. I have the feeling that the plot driving incidents did not make sense. Annoyingly magical ending. I might try another book in the series.
Complete review here: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2022/01/leviathan-wakes-by-james-s-corey-review.html
The Great North Road by Peter F Hamilton – DNF (@ 10%)
Too many points of view characters, too many words, and to many and too long of scenes made it a slog to read.
A Talent for War by Jack McDevitt – C+
A SF detectives story concerning events in a war 200 years prior to the story. First person narrative to my taste, but because the mystery is in the past, it has too many disjointed flashbacks to the past. Major plot concern seemed to go missing in action – a red herring or what? It’s ending is melodramatic that I’m not sure made any internal to the story sense. However I will likely try another in the series.
Dark Run by Mike Brooks – DNF (@24%)
Bounty hunters in space, i.e. nothing original, more or less a Firefly fan fic story.
A Memory Called Empire by by Arkady Martine – B
Finally, a long, original story written using a single point of view character that you can care about together with a straight ahead narration that is set in an intricate interstellar Chinese/Aztec-like court setting. The backdrop of the story is sketched in with snippets of text at the beginning of each chapter. It is wordy, but has a well thought out world. I could nit-pick, but it was the best SF read so far, so I won’t complain.
January 20, 2022
Reading vs Writing

It shouldn’t be writing vs reading, but it has been that for me. I haven’t been reading all that many books since writing has taken over my creative life.
I suspect that this isn’t the case for most writers. Most writers read a lot of books while they write. Nathan Lowell said in a recent blog post “Reading is a necessary key to writing for me. Over the years I’ve learned that if I’m not writing, I’m probably not reading.” And I know of other authors – indeed all of the ones I know, both read books and write. But for me, that hasn’t been the case for me.
As I see sit, there are several reasons for lack of reading. The first one is that I was motivated, in part, to start writing my own stories again – after spending a decade painting pictures as my creative outlet – because I couldn’t find new books that appealed to me. There are certain modern fads in fiction writing that I simply don’t like. One is the use of multiple points of view and the other, the extensive use of flashbacks. I guess I’m old fashioned in that when I pick up a book, I want to read a narrative, not solve a jigsaw puzzle. Now, I’m sure that there are good reasons why an author might want to jump between characters and time to tell their story, and do it well. Indeed, I can think of stories where occasionally shifting focusing on the activities of different characters works –I love Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey and Maturin series and he does this. I also, barely, tolerated the alternating narrative chapters in the Leviathan Wakes, but by and large, it isn’t a technique I enjoy.
Another factor in my falling out of love with reading is that for all my reading life, I’ve considered myself a science fiction fan. But the type of stories I like were rather specific – planetary romances – which they don’t write anymore, and space opera which almost always means military science fiction these days. While I can’t enjoy the old stories that I loved as a teenager, the new stuff is no better. It seems that the sf background of so many writers and their stories come from movies and TV shows. So much so that I could taste the movie or TV show that inspired their story. In short, a lot of it is thinly disguised fan fiction, that includes using all the unrealistic shortcuts that movies and TV shows take with science fiction. Of course, I’ve read in other genre – mysteries; until I got tired of them always being about murder, sea stories; but new ones are rare these days, fantasy; until I grew weary of the same basic story being recycled and magic that can do anything the author needs done. Not to mention decent series books that become repetitious after a while.
So instead of reading, I began to spend my time daydreaming up stories of my own and writing them down. Reading stories at the same time was, I felt, a distraction for me. One I didn’t need with my own stories in my head.
Still, all that said, I want to read more, and I have been making more of an effort to do so over the last several months, in part because I haven't written any fiction since November 2021. I have been day dreaming up a new novel, but I don't expect to start setting it down in words anytime before spring. At the earliest. Certainly, not before I have lived the whole story in my head and I'm satisfied with it. In writing the last few shorter novels, I've been starting off with a beginning and had an end in mind, only to find myself lost in the middle and having to stop writing to figure out how to proceed. Not doing that this time. I wrote four novels and two novellas in the span of two years. I figure I can take a year to write a full sized novel. And I intend to take it.
January 13, 2022
A Good Day

I got some real – and very unexpected – good news today. I was reading over the birthdays on the 11 January File 770 posting and discovered that one of my favorite authors, Jasper Fforde, had been born on 11the of January, 1961. Great. I clicked on the comments as saw that some of the commentators had tried and didn’t click with perhaps my favorite SF story, his Shades of Grey. So of course, I had to comment and say how much I enjoyed it. It was published in 2010, when I was 60 years old, and was the first book in a planned trilogy which included Painting by Numbers, and The Gordini Protocals. As the years went by following its release, the second book did not appear. I found a Youtube video of him saying that he was planning to write a prequel to the book before continuing on with the series. By this time I was despairing of living long enough to read all three before I died. Later, I found an interview with Fforde where he said that the series was canceled because of the disappointing sales of Shades of Grey. Alas. So in my comment, I mentioned how sad I was that the planned sequels were never going to be written.
Today, just to see if anyone else commented on Jasper Fforde, I checked back on that comment thread and found that a SF author & poet, Nicole J LeBoeuf, commented on my post, pointing out to me that a sequel to Shades of Grey has been announced, and is scheduled to be released on August 11th 2022! I immediately punched up Amazon UK (as Fforde’s books, if they even reach the US turn up a year after they’re released in the UK) and found the listing: the sequel is called Red Side Story. The listing is here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1444763660/ref=pe_27063361_485629781_TE_item
I looked Fforde’s website and on it he mentions that he wants to wrap up his long running Thursday Next series along with Shades of Grey to move on to new stories. This means that at least some of the mysteries left hanging in Shades of Grey will be wrapped up in one book instead of two. I might actually live to know the Truth…
All in all, a good day. I’ve got something to look forward to – not just a new Jasper Fforde book, but a the book with return of Eddie Russett and Jane Burnswick nee Grey that I never expected to be able to read.
