Rachel Neumeier's Blog, page 285

Back cover summaries —

So, here’s my first attempt at back cover copy for The Dark Turn of Winter. Or Winter Dragon, or whatever the book eventually turns out to be called. Anyway, what do you think?

In a world where the Immanent Powers that dwell in the land can alter the course of a kingdom’s succession . . . in a land where the whims of distant, uncaring Gods may bring luck or ill-luck to any town or province or kingdom . . . in a land where many-headed dragons ride midwinter storms across the land during the dark turn of the year . . . in such a land, the ambitions of power-mad kings seldom present the greatest threat to peace and prosperity.

Even so, power-mad kings don’t make comfortable neighbors.

When Kehera, princess of the peaceful land of Harivir, finds her country threatened by the ambition of the Mad King of Emmer to the north, she reluctantly resolves to make any sacrifice necessary to protect her people. But she never expected to find herself a pawn in a power struggle between enemies she hadn’t even known existed.

Innisth, infamous Wolf Duke of the grim country of Pohorir, has long wished to break from his king and forge a new independent kingdom of his own. When Kehera unexpected falls into his hands, he believes he may see a way to force her into an alliance that will finally allow him to achieve his ambition. Yet he never expected to care for her, and even as triumph seems within his grasp, he finds it less sweet than he had hoped.

As midwinter rushes down upon the world, Kehera and Innisth must find a way to work together or they may both lose everything to a common enemy that is more dangerous than either of them had ever suspected.

Does this give too much away? Or is it too confusing for someone who isn’t familiar with it? It can be hard to tell, especially with a big, complicated story like this one.

I bet you can guess the romance in this one is more than a faint subplot, yes? Or is that not obvious from this description?

Comments, thoughts?

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Weekly Good News Update

Happy post-Thanksgiving! While we’re all in the mood to be grateful, here are a handful of things we might take a moment to appreciate:

How Nanotech Bandages could supercharge first aid

About half of all diabetics suffer from nerve damage, or neuropathy, which might mean a blister or a cut escapes notice until it progresses into something more serious. Diabetes also can lower blood circulation and immunity, which may slow healing. Now, researchers are devising solutions by upgrading run-of-the-mill balms, dressings and sutures with nanotechnology designed to speed and improve healing. The latest innovations include ointments that contain nanoparticles loaded with substances that trigger the migration of new skin cells to a targeted area, as well as scaffolds for these cells to populate.

That sounds good, but this sounds even better, if mysterious:

U.S. Dementia Rates Are Dropping Even as Population Ages

Despite fears that dementia rates were going to explode as the population grows older and fatter, and has more diabetes and high blood pressure, a large nationally representative survey has found the reverse. Dementia is actually on the wane. And when people do get dementia, they get it at older and older ages. … The new study found that the dementia rate in Americans 65 and older fell by 24 percent over 12 years, to 8.8 percent in 2012 from 11.6 percent in 2000.

Hard to beat the above for good news, but here’s something I’m glad to see. Have you been concerned about the “superbugs” and the dire trouble we’d all be in if any kind of little unimportant surgery meant possibly dying of some awful infection? Me, too! So I’m happy about this:

Predatory bacteria can wipe out superbugs, says study

Shigella bacteria make 160 million people ill each year, and more than a million die, largely through contaminated food. … Tests in a laboratory dish showed the predatory bacteria caused the population of superbug Shigella to collapse 4,000-fold.

Now, Shigella isn’t exactly the specific pathogen I lose sleep about, but still, maybe we’ll see breakthroughs soon that’ll let us relegate multiple-resistant Staphylococcus aureus to the dustbin of history. Faster, please!

Here’s something related, possibly more directly applicable to the kind of hospital-acquired infections that most worry me:

New material inhibits bacteria without penicillin

The mesoporous material Upsalite is shown to inhibit growth of bacteria associated with acne and hospital acquired infections. In a study published in ACS Omega, researchers at Uppsala University have shown that the mesoporous magnesium carbonate Upsalite exerts strong bacteriostatic effect on Staphylococcus epidermidis. … Staphylococcus epidermidis is an opportunistic bacterium that has received the most attention for causing hospital acquired infections (HAIs), and can readily become resistant to antibiotics. It is also associated with acne as well as infections of intravascular devices and complications in patients with implanted prosthetic material. The results open up for development of materials inhibiting bacterial growth without the use of antibiotics for e.g. dermal applications.

Here’s another promising development in medicine:

New machine in use in Connecticut treats tendinitis, foot pain without surgery or anesthesia

Alex Horjatschun was in excruciating pain from tendinitis, caused by a bone spur on his heel. On a scale of 1 to 10, it was a definite 10. “… after the first treatment (the pain) seemed to really subside and after the third treatment it was like night and day … The pain now is maybe a 1, if that.

Oh, yeah, I remember my brief but excruciating experience with foot pain. Last year, I think? How fast our memory of pain fades, luckily. This treatment seems to have been worked into a nice double-blind study, so that’s very promising.

Possibly trivial, but to put a cherry on top of all this medical good news:

Daily chocolate consumption is inversely associated with insulin resistance and liver enzymes in the Observation of Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Luxembourg study

This study reports an independent inverse relationship between daily chocolate consumption and levels of insulin, HOMA-IR and liver enzymes in adults, suggesting that chocolate consumption may improve liver enzymes and protect against insulin resistance, a well-established risk factor for cardiometabolic disorders.

Have some dark chocolate! It’s totally medicinal!

Here’s something that may prove to be considerable practical use, but just to shake things up, it’s not related to medicine:

Graphene Solar Absorber Could Enable Cheap Thermal Desalination

[R]esearchers at Nanjing University in China have developed a solar absorber material made from graphene oxide that enables a solar approach to desalinating water without the need for solar concentrators and thermal insulation. The result could be a low-cost, portable water desalination solution ideally suited for developing countries and remote areas.

Okay, and this last one is not “good news” so much as just interesting:

Scientists to test theory about light that could completely change our view of the universe and prove Einstein wrong

[T]he theory suggests that actually in the very early universe, light might have travelled much faster than its current speed. The speed of light – 186,282 miles per second – has always been seen not only as a constant but as the maximum speed of anything in the universe. … “The theory, which we first proposed in the late 1990s, has now reached a maturity point – it has produced a testable prediction. If observations in the near future do find this number to be accurate, it could lead to a modification of Einstein’s theory of gravity. … The idea that the speed of light could be variable was radical when first proposed, but with a numerical prediction, it becomes something physicists can actually test. If true, it would mean that the laws of nature were not always the same as they are today.”

Weird! But cool.

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Most anticipated books of 2017

My goodness, how the year is flying past. Almost December. Sheesh. I told my agent I would try to have a final finished draft of No Foreign Sky to her by December. Well, that’s another reason to be thankful for holiday weekends: I got a ton of work done yesterday and though I may not quiiite be ready to send this draft on November 30, I should nearly hit that. I’m done with the hard part and on the final polish of the draft now.

Meanwhile, since we’re so near the end of the year, how about looking forward to 2017? My MOST ANTICIPATED list doesn’t exactly rival my TBR pile in sheer size, but it’s surprisingly lengthy. Let me see, let me see … all right, here we go, working backward through the list from Very to Most Anticipated, looks like a baker’s dozen of titles. Many, as you will see, are new editions to established series. No surprise there. Naturally everyone looks forward to new installments in much-loved series.

All right, then, here we go:

13. The Pearl Thief by Elizabeth Wein

I’m putting this on the bottom of my Most Anticipated list because, though I expect to love it, I do have to be in just the right mood AND have time to read an emotionally compelling book before I can tackle one of Wein’s. I am still a book behind with her now, not counting this one. Which is a prequel story about Julie. Knowing where Julie is heading will certainly add a certain depth to this book.

12. Convergence by CJC.

Um, what is this, the 18th Foreigner book? Yes, the 18th. That means it will tie off the current trilogy within the series. I’m sure I will read it soon after it’s released. Probably after re-reading the most recent couple. We’re not at the end: I see that at least one more trilogy is planned. My bet is that will be the last one; it feels to me like we’re moving toward a more definite resolution.

While I look forward to Convergence, I’m accustomed enough to another Foreigner book hitting the shelves every year that I no longer wait with bated breath for The Moment the book is released.

11. Eagle and Empire by Alan Smale

I’m holding off on the second book until this one is released. I do look forward to going on with this series, though, especially since Our Hero was left in a pretty difficult position at the end of the first book.

If you are also waiting for the third book in this or any other series, let me remind you that a delay in purchasing the second book is not read by publishers as a “delay while waiting for the third.” It is read as a failure to purchase the second book. If sales of the second book look bad enough, the publisher may cancel the third book; certainly the author will look like a less promising investment for a subsequent series. So I do suggest that if you definitely plan to buy the second book of a series sometime, do it right away and stick it on a shelf while you wait for the third.

10. A Peace Divided by Tanya Huff

I know there’s going to be a 7th Torin Kerr book in the Valor because Tanya Huff said so at WindyCon. I don’t see much information about it yet, though.

9. Miss Ellicott’s School for the Magically Minded by Sage Blackwood March 21, 2017.

I enjoyed the Jinx series very much and look forward to seeing what Sage Blackwood will write next.

8. Grave by Michelle Sagara

This is the 3rd book of the Queen of the Dead series. I enjoyed the first two books quite a bit, so I’m very much looking forward to this one. Then maybe I’ll finally try out some more books by Michelle Sagara / West!

7. Silence Fallen by Patricia Briggs

Good heavens, 10 books in this series already?

6. The Shadow Cipher, first book in a new series by Laura Ruby

A new book by Laura Ruby! Not only did I really love Bone Gap, it’s turned out to be the kind of book I keep thinking about after finishing it. Let’s see, here’s what Goodreads says about this new book:

It was 1798 when the Morningstarr twins arrived in New York with a vision for a magnificent city: towering skyscrapers, dazzling machines, and winding train lines, all running on technology no one had ever seen before. Fifty-seven years later, the enigmatic architects disappeared, leaving behind for the people of New York the Old York Cipher—a puzzle laid into the shining city they constructed, at the end of which was promised a treasure beyond all imagining. By the present day, however, the puzzle has never been solved, and the greatest mystery of the modern world is little more than a tourist attraction.

Tess and Theo Biedermann and their friend Jaime Cruz live in a Morningstarr apartment house—until a real estate developer announces that the city has agreed to sell him the five remaining Morningstarr buildings. Their likely destruction means the end of a dream long-held by the people of New York. And if Tess, Theo and Jaime want to save their home, they have to prove that the Old York Cipher is real. Which means they have to solve it.

Intriguing! Kind of sounds a bit like Winter’s Tale by Helprin, doesn’t it? A magical New York of towering skyscrapers. I look forward to seeing what Ruby does with this.

5. A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

Speaking of sequels to books I really enjoyed this year.

4. The Cold Eye, by Laura Anne Gilman

I just loved Silver on the Road, so I’m really looking forward to this one. I think this is a duology, so no reason to hesitate about reading this one. The biggest problem will be deciding whether to re-read the first book. I remember it well, but I might enjoy re-reading it before diving into the sequel. Which is actually coming out practically first thing next year: I see the release date is January.

3. Harbors of the Sun by Martha Wells

Oooh, a Raksura book! I think this will be the last. That’ll give Wells a challenge, tying this series off beautifully. I think the Raksura books are contenders for “most re-read” for me. They’ve turned into total comfort reads — and I enjoy the associated shorter works, too.

2. 5th and final Thousand Names book from Django Wexler

No cover image yet, apparently, and it’s darned hard to find the information that there even IS a fifth book. But I asked Wexler via Twitter so I know there definitely is. I’m putting the fifth and final book in this series as Number 2 on my most-anticipated list because I am just DYING to re-read the first book, which strikes me as the kind I will enjoy even more the second time than I did the first. Then I will go on with the rest of the series. In the meantime, if you’ve read all the books to date, no spoilers, please!

and last —

1. Thick as Thieves, from MWT

How about that! Another Queen’s Thief book! Yay! *Jumps up and down, claps hands.* I don’t think this is supposed to finish the series, right? At least one more is expected to eventually appear, I think?

Also, before ending this post, let me just note a couple other 2017 releases I’m looking forward to:

The White Road of the Moon

I’m pleased to say that Kirkus has given this one a starred review, though the review won’t actually be published till December 1. Still, yay!

Also:

The Dark Turn of Winter

Although for this one, I can’t even guarantee this will be the title, much less offer you all a cover image to admire.

Also, hopefully:

Shadow Twin

But, jeez, I have been so busy with revisions of No Foreign Sky that I am officially behind where I wanted to be on Shadow Twin. I should catch up to myself in December. I think.

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The Passive Voice is Both Common and Perfectly Okay

I was thinking about writing rules and fake rules and so on from the previous post.

I thought I would take a moment to emphasize, NOT ONLY is “was” not always (or even usually) part of a passive construction, but also the passive voice IS ALLOWED. It’s actually both rather common and quite useful; sometimes even crucial. Allow me to provide a handful of examples.

Some of these, the astute reader will notice, do not actually use “was,” so if that’s your shorthand method of identifying the passive voice, back up and start looking at actor versus acted-upon. And if, God forbid, “was” is your teacher’s method of identifying the passive voice, you can undoubtedly slip in all kinds of passive constructions that he or she won’t even notice. If that’s the kind of thing that amuses you, I mean.

So:

1. The ax murderer was apprehended after a brief high-speed chase.

The essential information here is that the bad guy has been apprehended. We can assume that he was apprehended by the police, but the agent of his capture is not as important as the fact of his capture.

2. This house was built in the late 1800s.

Not only is the builder not important, most likely the builder is not known. How in the world would you re-cast this into the active voice? And why would you bother? It sounds fine with a passive construction. If you put “My house was built in the late 1800s” in an English paper, I bet the teacher wouldn’t notice the sentence uses the passive — even if she had just completed a lecture about the evils of the passive voice two days earlier, and even if she lectured about the evils of the word “was.”

3. My camera has been stolen!

You definitely don’t know the name of the burglar. “Someone stole my camera!” would work, but offers no improvement.

4. My dog was hit by a car, but he’s okay.

You are very unlikely to be more interested in the person who hit your dog, even if you know who it was, than in your dog’s wellbeing. “A car hit my dog” would sound silly. The passive voice puts the emphasis in the only reasonable place — on your dog — where it stays throughout even though this sentence shifts from passive to active halfway through.

Okay, let’s write a few more … here goes:

5. Manhattan has been destroyed by aliens!

6. My dogs are all thoroughly spoiled.

7. I was born in Houma, Louisiana.

8. They were a trifle anxious when the moaning began.

9. He was surrounded by lurching hordes of zombies.

10. Your meaning was most elegantly conveyed by a few well-chosen phrases, even though you chose to use the passive voice.

To sum up, basically you can just file Passive Voice under “Stuff I never think about; I just write sentences that work.” If I were writing an English paper, though, I might entertain myself by making sure lots of passive constructions appeared in it because that is indeed the sort of thing that amuses me.

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Excellent Q & A today —

From Janet Reid’s website, the following question:

At what point do you ever feel – or would you advise a client to consider – a pivot to be inevitable? Is there a certain number of years or number of attempts that would start to give you doubt? I’m coming off of a particularly brutal 9-month round of querying and rejection, my 5th in ten years.

There’s a lot more to it! Click through and read the whole letter, but I will summarize briefly: the person writing the letter strongly suspects that he or she has a dire issue with plotting, even though all the rest of the writerly ducks are lined up in a row.

Wow, can I ever sympathize.

Janet’s response:

I think you’ve identified a shortcoming in your skill set and you don’t know how to fix it yourself. … It seems clear to me that you can either take steps to improve your story telling skills, or you can change what you write. Either of those are honorable options. … The question really is, which one will make you happy?

Again, there’s a lot more to it.

In general I don’t find writing advice helpful; I don’t find books about writing helpful; I don’t find critique groups helpful; and I don’t imagine a class on writing would be helpful. BUT. Any or all of the above *could be* super helpful under the right circumstances.

Janet’s advice seems perfect to me: If you want to tell stories, but just have a hard time with plot, enroll in a class on plot and story. Often it’s just a matter of learning how to outline properly so you can see those plot holes sooner rather than later. Or partner with someone who does know how to plot and work together. Writing teams are all over the place these days.

If it were me, I’d think hard about reading a couple posts/articles/books that talk about rising action, falling action, all that kind of thing; and then I’d think even harder about the latter possibility Janet mentions. Who do you know whose analytical eye goes straight to the plot holes and weaknesses in every book? You want the person whose inclination is to point out, “Nothing interesting is even happening for half this story!” Your friend who always says, every time you see a movie, “But why didn’t they just…” and ruins the movie for you. Work with *that* person.

I sure hope the letter-writer does go on to fix this problem and has a great career as a writer-of-books-where-the-story-does-work.

Update: I should have added, Take a Break and Read Middle Grade Fiction. Short novels with extremely clear, straightforward plotting is exactly what this person might benefit most from reading.

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The Weekly Roundup of Good News

Who knows how long I’ll keep this up? But I keep noticing links to good things. So here, appropriately right before Thanksgiving, another list of Good Stuff you might not have heard of:

3D-printed skull implant gives 7-year-old his life back

Two years ago, Teddy fell down a Topanga Canyon, California, hillside and suffered a traumatic brain injury that left him with a gaping hole in his skull. … “This was a remarkable defect,” his doctor, Dr. Mark Urata, told CBS Los Angeles. “It was close to 50 percent of his skull that was gone.”

…Last month, the first-grader received a 3D-printed skull implant that fits perfectly with his existing skull bone structure. The implant is no ordinary plastic — it’s made from a material called PolyEtherEtherKetone (PEEK), which has roughly the same physical properties as a real skull. The surgery was successful and Teddy is now back to being an active kid.

Amazing pictures at the link. Hooray for modern medical technology! On the same theme:

This world-first brain implant is letting a ‘locked-in’ woman communicate

A paralysed woman in the Netherlands is the first to be fitted with a new type of brain implant that allows patients who cannot speak or move to communicate using nothing but their thoughts. The new implant, which works with a computer interface to help her spell out words and sentences, can be used anywhere, allowing her to communicate with people in the outside world, without medical experts on hand to help. … one in three people with ALS eventually lose the ability to move even their eyes. Ramsay wanted to figure out how to build a system that didn’t rely on any kind of physical movement at all. … This meant one thing – a mind-reading device.

Changing the world in a way that really matters, one locked-in patient at a time! I can see the day when paralysis is simply not a life sentence anymore. Faster, please!

Finally…Some Good News for Coral Reefs!

According to a new studying published in the international science journal Nature, some areas of coral reefs are thriving! … The study surveyed 2,500 reefs in 46 countries. Surprisingly, the 15 reefs with the most robust fish populations were not in the remote areas with low fishing activity. Scientists concluded that these reefs, mostly found in the Pacific Ocean, such as Kiribati and the Solomon Islands, benefit from responsible management on the part of local government. The traditional customs of the regions, including rotational fishing and the prevention of over-fishing by outside groups, allows the reefs to recover from human interaction.

Officials Move Closer To Delisting Yellowstone Grizzlies

Grizzly bears were first listed as threatened in 1975 when the Yellowstone population was estimated to have as few as 136 bears. Recent estimates say the population is now above 700.

And there’s more!

Thailand welcome cranes lost for 50 years

A fuzzy-headed baby sarus crane hatched on a rural farm this fall offers a glimmer of hope for wildlife conservationists, organic farming advocates and a nation grieving after the death of their beloved king. That’s because this chubby chick named Rice is the first of its auspicious species to survive after hatching in the wild in Thailand in 50 years.

And yet more!

Tasmanian devils on the mend, scientists say

Scientists have discovered wild Tasmanian devils that have recovered from the facial cancer that has decimated the species over the past 20 years. Dr. Rodrigo Hamede from the University of Tasmania said he hoped this was the beginning of a much brighter future for the devils. ‘It is rewarding and it also puts the future in a more, sort of encouraging scenario.’

If your only picture of Tasmanian devils was created by Bugs Bunny cartoons, here is a real Tasmanian devil:

Moving on to history —

Mexican pyramid has two more inside, scientists discover

Experts have discovered a third structure within the Kukulkan pyramid in eastern Mexico, revealing that it was built like a “Russian nesting doll”, experts said on Wednesday. … A 10-metre-tall pyramid was found within another 20metre structure, which itself is enveloped by the 30-metre exterior visible at the Maya archeological complex known as Chichen Itza in Yucatán state.

I just think that’s pretty neat. Here’s something else historical, though it hasn’t quite gotten underway yet —

Israel to launch expedition to find more Dead Sea Scrolls

Israel is embarking on a major archaeological expedition to find yet undiscovered Dead Sea Scrolls, an Israeli antiquities official said Monday. … Amir Ganor of the Israel Antiquities Authority said a government research team will spend the next three years surveying hundreds of caves in the Judean Desert near the Dead Sea, the arid region where the Dead Sea Scrolls, the world’s oldest biblical manuscripts, were preserved for thousands of years and discovered in 1947.

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12 Bad Writing Tips New Writers Give Each Other

Via the Passive Voice, a post at Anne R. Allen’s Blog: Stupid Writing Rules: 12 Bad Writing Tips New Writers Give Each Other

I tell new writers to join groups and get feedback from other writers, but now I do it with the caveat that most of the feedback you’ll get needs to be taken with several shakers of salt. … But do keep in mind the actual advice you get is sometimes pretty useless, especially when it comes from people who aren’t in the business. (That includes some academic writing programs, which are often based on an art-for-art’s-sake philosophy that can generate some pretty unmarketable fiction.) So keep in mind that you should probably ignore most of the specific advice you get in a critique group. … Now, with the rise of social media, the chances of being fed stupid writing rules has increased exponentially.

Bonus points for Allen for referring to the The Dunning-Kruger Effect

So, what are these 12 bad writing tips? I’m sure you’re curious, as I was.

1. Don’t make your opening scene too dark.

Allen has commentary about this, of course. I must say, I personally might well be turned off by a very dark opening scene…ah ha. Really this rule should read: Don’t make your opening scene tense. Well, phrased that way, it’s obviously bad advice, isn’t it? Of course you need to have tension right from the beginning! I imagine someone is misinterpreting something, because surely no one thinks the opening must be all sweetness and fluffy pastel unicorns, right?

2. A novel needs a prologue.

Ha ha ha. Actually, though, the opposite rule, Novels must never include a prologue, is also wrong and I think you hear that far more often.

3. Don’t put contemporary references in fiction or your book will seem dated in ten years.

Could be! But another word for “dated” is “setting.” Also, not relevant if you’re writing secondary world fantasy, of course.

4. When writing memoir, tell everything exactly as it happened, or somebody will sue you.

Not interested in memoir personally, but click through and read Allen’s comments about this if you are.

5. Novels can not contain contractions.

Wow, really? No one who, you know, reads books, could possibly believe this.

6. “Said” is boring. Use more energetic tags like “exclaimed”,”growled”, and “ejaculated.”

Ouch. More common bad advice, “Said is invisible and you should never use other tags.”

7. Head-hopping is necessary if you have more than one character in a scene.

Again, anybody who reads books must know better. Do many prospective writers not read books? Maybe their first step, before soliciting / seeking out / paying attention to writing advice, should be to start reading books?

8. All internal monologue must be put in italics.

This doesn’t strike me as wrong … oh, okay, Allen says it’s not wrong, just on the way out as a standard. Well, that’s different.

9. Never use sentence fragments: all characters must speak (and think) in perfect English.

Oh, please.

10. Never use the word “was.”

Oh, for heaven’s sake. No one is still buying into the notion that “was” signals the passive voice, are they? Nor the idea that the passive voice is always bad? I do particularly enjoy Allen’s comment on this “rule” — Past Progressive: “I was reading the book when some idiot came in and told me the word ‘was’ is taboo for writers.”

11. In a memoir, everyone must have equal time.

Yeah, this sounds unlikely, but it’s not relevant to me because I never plan to write memoir. My life has fortunately been extremely boring, a fact I appreciate practically daily as I hear about other people’s drama.

12. Never read other writers while you’re working on a novel, or you’ll write like them.

Well, I read all of Patricia McKillip’s books while working on CITY, and you know what? I cherish every instance where someone compares me to her.

The real reason not to read other writers while you’re working on a novel is, you will never finish YOUR work because you are too busy reading THEIR work. Or so it is for me, alas.

Interesting post! Lots more comments about everything if you want to click through.

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This sea slug is like a cross between a dinosaur, a jellyfish, and a watermelon

I saw a gif of a Melibe leonina on Twitter recently and thought: Not really? Because talk about alien forms of life and “living in a science fiction universe” and all that. I must share this wonderful creature with you, so here is a brief article with a video clip: This sea slug is like a cross between a dinosaur, a jellyfish, and a watermelon, which incidentally, what a delightful title for an article!

This person — RR Helm — begins the post:

I am awkward, and for that reason I’ve decided the sea slug Melibe will be my new power animal. I’m clumsy, equally bad at all sports, and catch roughly 2% of things that are tossed to me; I can’t relate to those other power animals. If I’m going to adopt a spirit animal, it’s gotta be something that is awesome despite also being silly. Even better, it will be awesome because it is silly. That’s my power animal. That’s a Melibe.

I can identify with that! About 2%, that sounds right for me as well.

Anyway, you really must click through and enjoy. This creature is now on my top ten list of Aliens Among Us animals.

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Interesting, and yet —

From File 770 I happened across a link to this tidbit:

Valentine Michael Smith is heading to Earth — and now maybe to television.Paramount TV and Universal Cable Productions are teaming up to develop Stranger in a Stranger Land into a TV series on Syfy, the companies announced Tuesday.

Well, okay. But I can think of ten SFF books that would be waaaay cooler as a television series than Stranger. In no particular order, or rather in the order I thought of them —

1. Death of the Necromancer by Martha Wells

2. The Fall of Ile-Rien by Martha Wells

3. The Touchstone trilogy by Andrea Höst

4. And All the Stars by Andrea Höst

5. Those Who Hunt the Night by Barbara Hambly

6. The Thousand Names by Django Wexler

7. Practically anything by Lois McMaster Bujold, but if I had to pick, um … how about starting with The Warrior’s Apprentice. I guess.

8. Hunting Party by Elizabeth Moon

9. A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. Wouldn’t that be a lot of fun?

And, I don’t know, how about —

10. Black Dog, by yours truly

Wow, that was easy. I could probably come up with a list of 100 before I would even start to get close to thinking about Stranger, which I must confess was never one of my favorites and hasn’t held up at all with re-reads. If I were determined to do a Heinlein book, it certainly wouldn’t be my choice. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress strikes me as a much better choice.

Granted, I’m not thinking about how expensive the sets and special effects would be. But for what, at least half of the books listed above, I wouldn’t think that would be prohibitive.

Anyway, I don’t think I’ll be holding my breath to see Stranger on Syfy.

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Disney movies you’ve never heard of

Of all the Disney films I haven’t watched, I’d guess, from this post at tor.com by Mari Ness, that “Home on the Range” might be the worst.

I’m not even sure how many Disney movies might exist that have never pinged my radar. Ness mentions several others by name that don’t sound familiar.

All right, having googled around for a minute or so, I see that according to Wikipedia, Disney’s made quite a lot of animated movies. But few that I haven’t heard of, though many, like “Cars,” that I never saw. (I mean, cars?)

Note “Home on the Range” though. Cows appeal to me more than cars, but Mari Ness does not make me want to rush out and see this film.

… oh yes, the yodeling.

To be fair, the yodeling is actually a plot point: it’s how Alameda Slim rustles cattle. His yodeling mesmerizes all nearby cows with perfect pitch—that is, all of the cows in the film except Maggie—turning him into a Pied Yodeller of sorts. It’s also just awful, especially when Randy Quaid—that is, Alameda Slim—starts yodeling various pieces of classical music, starting off a weird animation bit complete with dancing, eyes glazed over cows. The entire sequence is meant, I think, both to be a centerpiece of the film, and a throwback to Disney’s glory days, and in particular the pink elephant sequence in Dumbo. But love or hate Dumbo, at least no one in it tried to yodel any parts of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy.

Randy Quaid, alas, does.

It’s topped by a later moment when crooked cattle dealer Wesley, voiced by Steve Buscemi, watches Alameda Slim and a rabbit roll down an old abandoned mine track, chased by a horse, chased by a buffalo, chased by some cows, chased by some goons yelling “UNCLE SLIM, UNCLE SLIM!” as Wagner’s Die Walkürie plays in the background, and Wesley says, “I gave up Clown College for this?” and I don’t think I have ever identified with Steve Buscemi as much before or since.

So, well, although I don’t know that I feel much need to see the movie, I do recommend the review. There’s lots more — click over and enjoy, if you’re not afraid of getting a yodeling cattle-rustling Randy Quaid stuck in your head.

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