Rachel Neumeier's Blog, page 318

Finished! This time practically for real.

So, over the past couple of days, working on the final edits for THE MOUNTAIN OF KEPT MEMORY. I’m about 60% of the way through the manuscript, but the edits are so trivial that honestly, I don’t think they count as “work.” About twice I’ve had to change more than a sentence.

My editor and I are never completely going to see eye to eye about the use of ellipses. I like them more than she does. But, whatever, I will take them out. Mostly.

Now, if she wanted me to spell “all right” as one word, I would argue.

Unless something major turns up in the remaining 40% of the manuscript, which I think is not at all likely, I will send this back to Navah on Friday or Saturday. After this: copy edits and page proofs, and those things don’t count, either. When I send it off this time, I’m moving MOUNTAIN from the “Fiction: Finished” folder to the “Fiction: On the Shelf” folder.

The real velociraptor

So, has everybody seen all the Jurassic Park movies? Yeah, great special effects; no, not my favorite movies. Huge plot holes and ridiculous biology (frog DNA, God help us all). But I did happen across this snazzy article about Velociraptor, the real Velociraptor, which it turns out did not look very much at all like the one in the movie.

Visualize the ones from the movies, please.

Now check this out:

Also, just FYI, Velociraptors were about 40 lbs, or about twice the size of one of my Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. I’m just saying.

Speaking of semi-prehistoric animals, the next time Ish is barking madly in the pre-dawn yard and won’t come in, I am going out with heavy leather gloves and an old leather jacket and tossing that possum over the fence. I think its tiny marsupial brain can’t figure out how to climb a tree and cross to another tree outside the yard where it will be safe from spaniels.

Peanut-butter-filled Chocolate Cookies

I haven’t made these for a while because although I love chocolate and I like peanut butter and I thoroughly approve of many, many desserts that combine the two, for some reason I have never much cared for chocolate peanut butter cookies. On the other hand, these cookies are pretty, and a lot of other people do like them, and this season I seem to be kind of into making cookies I haven’t made every single year for the past ten years. So I got out this recipe. And, actually, I like them better than I remembered, so maybe my tastes have changed.

So, forthwith:

Peanut-butter-filled Chocolate Cookies

½ C. butter

½ C. sugar

½ C. brown sugar

¼ C. creamy peanut butter

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 ½ C. flour

1/3 C. baking cocoa

½ tsp baking soda

¾ C. creamy peanut butter

¾ C. powdered sugar

Combine the butter, sugars, and ¼ C. peanut butter. Beat until smooth. Beat in egg and vanilla. Combine the flour, cocoa, and baking soda and add to the creamed mixture. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to proceed, but the dough is easy to work with and doesn’t need to be chilled if you’re ready right away.

Combine the ¾ C. peanut butter with the powdered sugar until smooth. Kneading with your hands is by far the easiest way to make a smooth dough of the peanut butter and powdered sugar. Obviously there is no need to refrigerate this if you want to hold it for a couple of hours or a couple of days. I mean, you don’t refrigerate either powdered sugar or peanut butter, after all. Just put it in a container and leave it at room temp till you get around to baking the cookies.

Okay, now the recipe says to divide the cookie dough and filling into 24 pieces each, and that is fine, but I made 48 cookies because I think cookies that are going into a large assortment for Christmas should be small. Divide up the two doughs however you like and roll each portion into a smooth ball.

Flatten each cookie dough ball, place a filling ball on it, and wrap the filling up in the cookie dough. The cookie dough is pretty easy to work with, so this is a bit tedious but not difficult. Roll each filled cookie into a smooth ball again and place on cookie sheets.

I found that I had a bit more filling than I needed, so I can tell you that the extra filling is actually pretty tasty eaten as a candy.

When you have a sheet filled, take a small glass or jar, moisten the bottom of it, dip it in sugar, and flatten each cookie slightly. Bake at 375 degrees for 6-8 minutes, until the cookies look done and are starting to crack on the top. Cool slightly on the baking sheets and remove to racks to cool completely.

The first time I made these, years and years ago, it was for a potluck and two different people asked me how I got the filling into the cookies. Well, this is how, and these cookies are indeed quite suitable for potlucks or other special occasions. You should probably tag them, though, so people know there is peanut butter in them, just in case someone is allergic.

Recent Reading: The Palace Job by Patrick Weekes

So, The Palace Job.

This is a book I listened to a few weeks ago. It’s a caper story, basically, not too serious but not completely light-hearted either. The narrator was quite good, which was crucial since there were a zillion important characters, like so:

Loch, who puts together the team that’s going to steal an extremely valuable book from the magically guarded vault in the floating city of the bad guy, Arch-Voyant Selestin. Locke was born to an important family and joined the military, but was betrayed by Selestin, who for various reasons destroyed her family and blackened her name. She’s not in it for the money, but to bring down Selestin.

Kail, one of her men from back when she was a scout captain in the military. Kayle is a competent fighter who rather famously always insults his opponents’ mothers to get them to lose their tempers so he can seize the advantage. This is a running joke through the story and it actually is funny the way Weeks does it.

Ululenia, the unicorn, who is not only a shapeshifter but also can bewilder people. As a magical creature, she doesn’t really have a soul, which becomes important as the story progresses.

Desidora, a woman who used to be a love priestess until she was recruited by the gods to be a death priestess instead. As herself, she’s okay. As a death priestess, she’s scary. She carries:

Ghylspwr, a Warhammer that contains the soul of a long-dead king, who although much diminished from his past glory, still has firm opinions of his own.

Tern, a skilled safecracker, because every team of thieves needs one of those.

Her partner, Indomitable Courteous Fist, a VERY highly trained fighter, who is almost a parody of a ninja, though not quite. Icy Fists has taken a vow never to use his prowess against a living person. This doesn’t constrain him as much as you might think.

Hessler, a student of magic who got himself into trouble and can’t go back to the university. Hesler is neither quite as smart nor quite as cynical as he wants to be.

Dairy, an innocent teenager with a birthmark.

Pyvic, a cop.

Archvoyant Silestin, the bad guy.

Nadia, Locke’s sister, whom Archvoyant Silestin trots out as evidence of his magnimity on public occasions because he adopted her after he destroyed her family (that last bit isn’t public knowledge).

That’s a dozen important characters, counting the Archvoyant, and that’s even leaving aside quite a handful of other secondary characters, some of whom are also important. I hope you appreciate that I had to keep all these characters straight while listening, not reading. I just fixed all the names by looking at reviews on Goodreads, because I had virtually none of them spelled correctly in my head. Yet while listening, I could keep them straight. Patrick Weekes succeeded in varying everyone’s voice – Ululenia has a poetic way of speaking with lots of nature metaphors, whereas Tern is snarky, and Icy Fist’s manner is a bit like a Vulcan’s, and so one. Even so, honestly, this book must have presented the biggest challenge for the narrator, but she varies her voice enough to make every character distinctive. I was impressed.

So: a fantasy heist story with The Team pitted against Archvoyant Silestin. Who is definitely a bad guy, so it’s easy to root for Loch and her team. And then, of course, behind the up-front story of the theft, we have a prophecy: the Champion of Light must face the Champion of Darkness, thus determining the fate of the world . . .

The characters: There’s not enough room in this story to *really* develop any character, but I would say there is juuuuust enough complexity to each one that a character reader is likely to enjoy this story. I mean, I did. The bad guys are pretty one dimensional. But who cares? The Archvoyant is power-hungry, he’s selfish, he’s ruthless, and he’s an excellent bad guy for the story. The Warden is an idiot, but hey, the story has that light-hearted feel to it, so he, too, seems right for the story. Beal (not sure of the spelling on that one) is purely evil, but he’s supposed to be purely evil, so that works, too.

The plot: It’s clever, like any successful caper story. The pace doesn’t feel too fast when you’re listening to the story; in fact, it sometimes seems leisurely. But a lot certainly happens and I think the whole story would probably feel faster if you were reading the book instead of listening to it. Not rushed, but brisk.

The story opens with Locke and Kayle needing to escape from an escape-proof prison up in the floating city. Spoiler: they do escape.

Anyway, then Loch puts together her team. The Archvoyant sends Pyvic and a couple of others after her, so we get two plotlines, one of Loch and her growing team and a secondary pov from Pyvic as he tries to track her down.

Then it’s back to the floating city so that the team can circumvent the Archvoyant’s protections and steal the book. But maybe the Archvoyant is playing Loch to get events to come out the way he wants . . . or wait, on the other hand, maybe he just thinks so, while Loch is actually manipulating him to get events to come out the way she wants. And meanwhile, the alert reader is picking up hints about the Champion of Darkness and the Champion of Light . . .

There are complex challenges to keep you wondering how the team can possibly pull off the theft, moments of uncertainty, and startling plot twists. Not every plot twist is a surprise to the reader, and Weekes makes it clear that they’re not supposed to be – when Hessler is all, “Loch, Loch, listen, I think thus and so!”, Loch only shrugs and answers, “Of course. You’re only realizing this now?”

Though the story has plenty of humor and light notes, deeper notes are suggested by, among other things, the interludes of political puppet shows – I surmise that the author is pretty cynical about the way the media presents the news. And race is an issue in this world, with Loch and her family belonging to a marginalized dark-skinned people. But the story doesn’t take itself too seriously and the reader doesn’t have a lot of doubt that eventually the bad guy will be defeated, that Light will defeat Darkness and the world will be saved from an eternal descent into shadow, and that the good guys will not only win, but mostly likely survive to enjoy their victory. Not that there weren’t moments when I had my doubts about one character or another.

Overall rating: Hard to rate. I’m primarily a character reader, and though I liked this book, I wouldn’t say that I found it particularly gripping or emotionally compelling. But that’s not what Weekes was going for. So, compared to books I truly love, I actually *liked* this at about a three and a half out of five, or about a seven out of ten. But it definitely succeeds as a heist story and as a book to listen to while driving. The actual writing is very good, the plotting clever, the conclusion satisfying. So overall, I’d say: five out of five, at least eight and a half out of ten.

Dialogue Tags: The Bad, the Visible, the Audible, and the Absent

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post about English teachers suddenly deciding that the word “said” is passe, I am re-posting this from 2013.

Dialogue should bring your characters to life. We all know that. It should contain and express their unique voices! It should be witty or profound or surprising or interesting or in some way effective! Right? Just serviceable dialogue is not good enough. Dialogue must not be boring or stilted or too predictable, and it should not make your character sound like Mr. Spock, unless, of course, he is Mr. Spock. Above all, dialogue should avoid silly or incompetent use of dialogue tags.

I mean, we all know perfectly well how a bad writer sometimes handles dialogue tags. Like this:

“You can’t mean it,” she exclaimed.

“I assure you, I mean every word,” he smirked.

“Oh, you’re too, too cruel,” she moaned.

“You better believe it, babe,” he sneered.

I’ve actually seen fanfic written like this, so don’t think it never happens. But of course most writers understand that “said” is invisible and most other dialogue tags are visible, right?

Which, actually, is a bit of an overstatement. The fact is, as I recently noticed while listening to an audiobook, “said” is often but not always invisible. In a minute I’m going to provide several examples of dialogue and take a look at what makes “said” pop out of the sentence almost as much as the tags above, and what techniques writers can use to keep that from happening.

But first! Let me add that actually quite a few other dialogue tags are nearly invisible if used effectively and in moderation. I don’t think everybody acknowledges this, though it is obvious.

Some other tags that generally work include: “shouted”, “whispered”, “protested,” “murmured”, “muttered”, and “answered.” But this is certainly not an exhaustive list. Opening up my current WIP [This was DOOR INTO LIGHT, incidentally], I see that in the first conversation, I use “inquired”, “observed”, “conceded”, “added,” and “repeated” as well as “said” – I only use “said” a couple of times. This is all within two or three pages, yet (I would argue) none of these tags stands out or catches the reader’s eye.

I really do want to emphasize this: if used smoothly and correctly and in moderation, lots of tags besides “said” sound just fine, barely draw the reader’s notice, and in fact add to rather than detract from your dialogue. To use them properly, of course, you need to have your character shout only when she ought to shout, and so on. And it’s certainly true that you don’t want to tag too many lines with any of these. But go actually look at what kinds of dialogue tags are used by really good writers such as Patricia McKillip and you will find plenty of variation, far more than you might expect given the popular advice to avoid tags other than “said.” You definitely don’t want to surrender your artistic judgment to some simplistic rule – even a rule that is cited everywhere as though it was handed down on a stone tablet from God.

And, hey, while on the subject of overstated advice, how about adverbs? I mean, how often have we seen advice to cut all adverbs from dialogue tags? That’s going a little far, too. Of course you don’t want this:

“I really must get my husband to a doctor at once,” she said urgently.

“Don’t worry,” he assured her heartily. “There’s a hospital less than half a mile away.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” she exclaimed thankfully. “Can you help me get him into that taxi?”

But if you open any novel by Patricia McKillip, you will see that she sometimes uses adverbs in dialogue tags. If she does, then clearly it’s okay! So that no-adverb rule is better conceptualized as “Don’t use too many adverbs in dialogue tags, and never when the adverb is redundant.” Lots of times it is perfectly clear from the context that your character is worried or in a hurry or awkward or whatever, and if it’s perfectly clear, then you don’t need to have her say something worriedly or hurriedly or awkwardly. Or rather than “said quietly” maybe you should be saying “whispered”? Because you don’t want to use an adverb merely as a substitute for the actual right word.

But it’s important to understand that neither “murmured” nor “whispered” nor “muttered” mean the same thing as, for example, “said gently.” The first sounds quiet, the second tentative or secretive, the third embarrassed. Only the adverbial tag sounds kind. Sometimes you really do need to say “said gently” and no other construction will do. It’s important to have enough of a feel for language to know when that is, and be confident enough to ignore overstated advice.

Now, back to use of the ordinary “said” tag. Look at this tiny sample of dialogue, from Scalzi’s REDSHIRTS, to which I just listened. But look at this:

“I was promised a long story,” Duvall said, after they had gotten their food and drinks.

“I made no such promise,” Dahl said.

“The promise was implied,” Duvall protested. “And besides, I bought you a drink. I own you. Entertain me, Ensign Dahl.”

“All right, fine,” Dahl said. “I entered the Academy late because for three years I was a seminary student.”

“Okay, that’s moderately interesting,” Duvall said.

“On Forshan,” Dahl said.

“Okay, that’s intensely interesting,” Duvall said.

Notice something? Every single line is tagged and in all but one case, the tag is “said.” Besides that, in all but one line, the dialogue comes first and the tag afterward – the sentence pattern is nearly always the same. Of course I selected this tidbit on purpose to illustrate a point, but I promise you that the overall feeling you get, given Scalzi’s writing style in this book, is that every single line is tagged with “said.”

I wonder how many readers actually start to notice all those “he said, she said” tags? When you’re reading, I wonder if you don’t just skim over this dialogue so fast you really don’t notice the tags? But I can tell you, when you’re listening to this in audio format, those tags sure catch your ear. They don’t sound exactly silly, but they start to pick up a fingernails-on-a-chalkboard quality.

Then you get used to it and the dialogue tags stop being so annoying, and I actually did find this story highly entertaining, and honestly it is an excellent choice for a short drive (the whole thing is six cds, but that includes three short stories; the main story is only four cds long).

But listening to this story made me really notice dialogue tags, which is exactly what the use of “said” is supposed to avoid. Compare the above sample to this, which you may recognize as a bit of dialogue from NINE PRINCES IN AMBER by Zelazny:

Just as she neared, I sat up.

“Good evening,” I said.

“Why – good evening,” she replied.

“When do I check out?” I asked.

“I’ll have to ask Doctor.”

“Do so,” I said.

“Please roll up your sleeve.”

“No, thanks.”

“I have to give you an injection.”

“No, you don’t. I don’t need it.”

“I’m afraid that’s for Doctor to say.”

“Then send him around and let him say it. But in the meantime, I will not permit it.”

“I’m afraid I have my orders.”

“So did Eichmann, and look what happened to him.” And I shook my head slowly.

Out of fourteen lines of dialogue, only four are tagged. Using so few tags could lead to confusion, but in this case it doesn’t, because it’s perfectly clear from context which character is saying what. Only one tag is “said”. Neither “replied” nor “asked” stands out or sounds the least bit stupid. The fourth tag is, of course, a movement tag, which is an excellent way of tagging a line without using “said” or any substitute.

You know who really does a great job with movement tags? Sarah Addison Allen. Check this out – it’s from THE GIRL WHO CHASED THE MOON, which I’ve decided is my favorite of her books:

“You’ll never guess what Stella told me last night,” Sawyer said, strolling into the kitchen just as Julia was finishing the apple stack cake she was going to take to Vance Shelby’s granddaughter.

Julia closed her eyes for a moment. Stella must have called him the moment Julia left her last night.

Sawyer stopped next to her at the stainless steel table and stood close. He was like crisp, fresh air. He was self-possessed and proud, but everyone forgave him because charm sparkled around him like sunlight. [ . . . ]

“You’re not supposed to be back here,” she said as she put the last layer of cake on top of the dried-apple-and-spice filling.

“Report me to the owner.” He pushed some of her hair behind her left ear, his fingers lingering on the thin pink streak she still dyed in her hair there. “Don’t you want to know what Stella told me last night?”

She jerked her head away from his hand as she put the last of the apple and spice filling on top of the cake, leaving the sides bare. “Stella was drunk last night.”

“She said you told her that you bake cakes because of me.”

Julia had known it was coming, but she stilled anyway, the icing spatula stopping mid-stroke. She quickly resumed spreading the filling, hoping he hadn’t noticed. “She thinks you have low self-esteem. She’s trying to build up your ego.”

He lifted one eyebrow in that insolent way of his. “I’ve been accused of many things, but low self-esteem is not one of them.”

“It must be hard to be so beautiful.”

“It’s hell. Did you really say that to her?”

She clanged the spatula into the empty bowl the filling had been in, then took both to the sink. “I don’t remember. I was drunk, too.”

“You never get drunk,” he said.

“You don’t know me well enough to make blanket statements like ‘You never get drunk.’” It felt good to say that. Eighteen years she’d been away. Look how much I’ve improved, she wanted to say.

See that? Not just movement tags, but thought tags. We are carried straight into Julia’s point of view here, and her thoughts and reactions substitute for dialogue tags several times just in this little snippet. In fourteen exchanges, there are only three actual dialogue tags. But there are only three completely untagged lines. Movement and thought tags accompany the remaining lines of dialogue, keeping us completely, effortlessly aware of exactly who is saying what – there’s no possible way to get confused. Allen manages this even in a quite long scene with a lot of different characters, which, believe me, is a tricky kind of scene to write.

Let me just add that Allen also works a lot more description into her dialogue than either Scalzi or Zelazny, often with very beautiful unexpected metaphors and analogies worked in, like charm sparkling like sunlight and, oh, lots of examples – read the book.

Now, where does Allen stand on the adverb question? Let’s take a look:

“I’m sorry,” she immediately said. “I didn’t mean to –”

“Win, you know my brother would be alive today if it weren’t for her mother,” Morgan said tightly.

“No one in town has ever said a word about that night,” Win said calmly.

“Like I said, I didn’t know her well,” Julia said carefully.

These kinds of tags are not that rare in Allen’s writing; it took me no time to find a good handful of examples. And in every single case, the adverb makes the dialogue more effective. It really does. That “calmly,” given the context, conveys Win’s self-possession, which is his central characteristic. Saying “carefully” in that last line – it’s one more way of signaling the reader that there is a secret Julia is trying not to give away. All these adverbs do something, they’re important, and no, the feel they add to the story could not be conveyed just via the spoken words of dialogue.

So . . . to sum up, my advice is: be aware of the common advice to minimize adverbs and also be aware of why adverbs are considered to detract from dialogue, but do not write off the use of adverbs in dialogue until you’ve studied how authors like Patricia McKillip and Sarah Addison Allen write dialogue. And that goes double for dialogue tags in general: pay attention to how skilled writers handle dialogue tags, and don’t take simplistic advice like “only use ‘said’” or “avoid dialogue tags” too seriously. No simplistic rules can ever substitute for your very own feel for the language.

My goodness gracious, she said.

Take a look at this:

English teachers were once satisfied if they could prevent their pupils from splitting infinitives. Now some also want to stop them from using words like “good,” “bad,” “fun” and “said.”

“We call them dead words,” said (or declared) Leilen Shelton, a middle school teacher in Costa Mesa, Calif. She and many others strive to purge pupils’ compositions of words deemed vague or dull. . . . As Ms. Shelton put it, “ ‘Said’ doesn’t have any emotion. You might use barked. Maybe howled. Demanded. Cackled. I have a list.”

I don’t know whether to laugh or sob. Students get quite creative, though, as we see here:

One of Megan’s schoolmates, looking for a permissible way to say “big,” came up with “anti-microscopic.”

Good for that kid. Anti-microscopic. I like it. Perhaps it will catch on.

A couple of students kinda got into this little exercise in improving writing according to these teachers’ dislike of “boring” words. Here’s my favorite bit:

One recent afternoon after school, Josie and Josh agreed to take a stab at editing famous authors, starting with the closing words of James Joyce’s “Ulysses”: “….yes I said yes I will Yes.”

Head down, her pigtails brushing the paper, Josie examined the phrase and then suggested a small amendment: “…yes I hollered yes I will Definitely.”

Josh decided to let “said” stand, given Joyce’s reputation. He did, however, insert the commas neglected by Joyce.

No comment on whether the kids also corrected Joyce’s capitalization.

I’m not sure I’d hold Ulysses up as the apex of all English literature ever, but I wonder if these teachers have quiiiite thought through their war on boring words like “said.”

The sole tidbit from this article that I would support . . . under the right circumstances . . . is banning the word “it” from student papers. In fact, taking out the pronoun “it” and putting in the noun you actually wanted might be a handy exercise in teaching students about proper pronoun reference. On the other hand, I have personally seen cases (plural) where, when an instructor banned pronouns like “I” and “my” and “it,” the student simply took out all the pronouns and replaced them with . . . nothing at all. Pretty sure that will never lead to anything good.

In general, I must say, I would not want my child (if I had one) taught by any of the teachers who are so ignorant of good writing as to be susceptible to this murder of the word “said.”

The Powell River Board of Education in British Columbia … provides a list of 397 alternatives to the dreaded “said.” They include “emitted,” “beseeched,” “continued,” “sniveled,” and “spewed.”

Do any of them actually read? I’ll go out on a limb here and declare that no one who loves books and reading can possibly think that it’s better to replace “said” with all the possible alternatives.

Happy 5-year anniversary to Andrea K Höst

I was tipped off via Chachic, so let me point you all to Andrea K Höst’s website, where she is celebrating her fifth year as a published author with a survey and giveaway.

I think we’re all pretty pleased Andrea jumped into self-publishing! I’m definitely looking forward to seeing what she writes over the next five years — and many more, I hope!

Andrea’s survey asks what your favorite book of hers is, and since you can’t pick but one item, let me just say that yes, yes, Touchstone is indeed my favorite, but after that it is REALLY HARD to choose. Even though I am picking And All the Stars, it is really a tossup between that and the Medair duology.

Also very tough to pick one favorite non-pov characters, though for me it’s the guys. Illukar or Koaren or Aristide? Choices, choices.

And I still haven’t read Stained Glass Monsters or Pyramids of London.

2015 End of Year Survey

Like Brandy, I based this on the survey offered by Jamie at Perpetual Page Turner, though I did fiddle with it kind of a lot. I will probably read a few more books this month, but I’m a bit distracted right now by life and tending to steer clear of anything too absorbing because I don’t think I’m in the mood to appreciate really great stories. So I’ll post this now and assume it’ll be more or less accurate in three weeks.

Number of books read in 2015:

Contemporary Romance: 3

Science-Fiction: 39

Post-Apocalyptic/Dystopia: 1

Fantasy: 30

Urban Fantasy / Paranormal: 11

Historical Fiction: 2

Mystery: 4

Young Adult: 3

Nonfiction: 11

Number of books re-read in 2015: 23 (also included in the numbers above)

That’s just over 100 books read in 2015, which is, I believe, nearly a third less than last year, which only goes to show that I was indeed very, very busy with my own work this year. Also, this is the first year in a long time, maybe ever, that I read more SF than F. Re-reading all the Liaden books is what kicked SF into front place. Though I see if fantasy and UF/paranormal are lumped together, which is probably fair, then fantasy does still edge out SF.

Favorite books read in 2015:

Science-Fiction: Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie

Fantasy: Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Young Adult: A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge

Urban Fantasy / Paranormal: Night Broken by Patricia Briggs

Historical Fiction: Hild by Nicola Griffith

Mystery: A Sprig of Blossomed Thorn by Patricia Greenwood

Romance: Once Upon A Rose by Laura Florand

Nonfiction: Moments of Engagement by Peter Kramer

Overall the single most amazing book read in 2015: Hild by Nicola Griffith

Now, to sort out the pile a bit:

Most surprising (in a good way!):

Beauty Queens Libba Bray – I didn’t know it was pure satire till I read it.

Book I most enthusiastically recommended to people:

Maybe Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge, but honestly it’s hard to say.

Favorite series I discovered in 2015:

The Spiritwalker trilogy by Kate Elliot

Book I can’t believe I waited until 2015 to read:

Eight Days of Luke by Diana Wynne Jones

Most thrilling, unputdownable book:

The Girl With All the Gifts by MR Carey

Book that shocked me the most:

The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman

Book I am most likely to re-read next year:

Stories of the Raksura II by Martha Wells I mean, when the next Raksura novel comes out, I will certainly re-read at least this set of short stories and maybe all the Raksura novels and stories before I read the new one. Cause I do that.

Favorite cover:

Voyage of the Basilisk by Marie Brennan

Most memorable character:

Cat in The Spiritwalker Trilogy by Kate Elliot

Favorite male lead:

Janus from The Shadow Throne by Django Wexler

Favorite female lead:

Zuzana in The Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy by Laini Taylor

Most beautifully written book:

Hild by Nicola Griffith, and also

The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman

Book that had the greatest impact on me in 2015:

Hild by Nicola Griffith, and also

The Spiritwalker trilogy by Kate Elliot , because …

Best alien species:

The Feathered People in the Spiritwalker Trilogy were probably my favorite nonhuman fantasy species ever. Giving a fantasy nonhuman species a basis in science never occurred to me.

Favorite romance:

Layla and Mattieu from Once Upon a Rose by Laura Florand

Favorite friendship:

Nieshka and Kasia from Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Most vivid world/imagery:

Hild by Nicola Griffith

Most unique book:

In the Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman

Okay, so, that is 2015. I see, flipping through my books-read list, that I really loved about 25% of the new-to-me books I read this year. Although that’s okay, it seems a little low.

Looking forward:

1. One book I didn’t get to in 2015 but will be my #1 priority in 2016:

I’m pleased to note that I put Hild in this spot last year and did indeed get to it this year. That’s great!

For next year, the book I most want to move from my TBR pile to my actual shelves . . . I’m not sure. Maybe The Demon King by Chima. Or California Bones by van Eekhout. Or Ash and Bramble by Sarah Prineas. Or I really want to re-read the first two books of the Jinx trilogy by Sage Blackwood and then read the third book.

Maybe I can plan to get to all of the above by the end of next year? Surely that’s not too much to ask?

2. Book I am most anticipating for 2016:

Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen by Lois McMaster Bujold

3. Series ending I am most anticipating in 2016:

The fourth book in The Thousand Names series by Django Wexler. Whoops, I hear the series is expected to go to five books. Well, at least I already also had as a tie for most-anticipated end of series:

The last book in The Raven Boys series by Maggie Stiefvater.

Whenever I get the last books of those series, I will definitely start back at book one and read them straight through.

5. One thing I hope to accomplish in my reading in 2016:

In 2014, I said I hoped to read more nonfiction this year. I think I did; eleven is pretty good for me. For 2016, I’d like to read more books than I acquire and thus see a net decline in the size of my TBR pile.

Hey, it could happen.

6. 2015 books I wouldn’t mind seeing nominated for awards in 2016 (so far):

I have a lot more 2015 releases that I hope to have time to read in the near-ish future, but so far the works that I would most like to see nominated for awards next year are:

Novels:

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman

Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie

Of these, I think Newman’s book is farther under the radar than the other two. I hope it gets the notice it deserves. Though I grant you, it feels unfinished compared to the other two. It doesn’t *exactly* end on a cliffhanger, but . . . yeah, it kind of ends on a cliffhanger.

Novellas:

“Penric’s Demon” by Lois McMaster Bujold

I depend on other readers’ recommendations for short fiction. But this was a really good story.

Wow, is it that time already?

An end-of-year post from Brandy at Random Musings of a Bibliophile reminds me that I need to look back over the year’s reading, too. I’ll be curious to see how many books I actually read this year. I know it’s way under the number I’d have read if I hadn’t been pouring so much of my time into writing.

By this time of year I have no real idea what books I read back in January and February. And March and April, honestly, who can keep track? That’s why I write them down.

I’m curious, do any of you also keep track of what you read over the course of the year? I’ve only been doing that for a few years, but it really is interesting to look back and just see what I read and in what genres and how the list compares to previous years.

Update: here’s a “readers’s choice” for best books of 2015 from tor.com. Of the entire list, I have Sorcerer to the Crown already on my TBR pile; other than that, I think the ones I’m most interested in myself are Karen Memory. I recently read a review of Red Rising that makes me want to try that one, too, and then Golden Son is the sequel.

The one I’m least interested in off the tor.com list is obviously Half the World by Joe Abercrombe. After four of his books, I’m quite sure that I’m not the intended reader for his work.

Yet another must-try dessert: Brownie Trifle

So, my mother turned eighty on December 4th.

Eighty. Imagine being born in 1935. Hard to imagine that world anymore, isn’t it? The past truly is a foreign country. My mother’s family was very poor by the standards of 1935, which of course means terribly, crushingly poor by today’s standards. No indoor plumbing, essentially no medical care. What a different world she lived in!

Check this out:

This is a picture of the Black Sunday dust storm in Texas in 1935. My mother was born and spent her childhood in Texas. She certainly remembers dust storms in Texas. I’m sure they still have them, though I doubt it’s ever as bad now as in the dustbowl years.

She was the oldest, which means she took on a great part of the burden of raising her younger siblings. And at that time, in that place, in her family, girls didn’t go to school. So she earned a GED and then put herself through college, and paid for younger sisters to go to college after her.

My mother doesn’t like a big fuss made over birthdays, and I know she spent a good part of the day raking leaves and stuff like that. I thought of making a cake and trying to cram 80 candles on it, but in the end, I made this instead, which was a big, big hit with all of us:

Brownie Trifle (original recipe)

1 brownie mix, the size that will make an 8 x 8 pan of brownies

2 3.9-oz boxes of instant chocolate pudding mix, prepared according to package directions

5 oz chocolate-covered toffee bits

2 8-oz containers whipped topping

Layer all ingredients

Of course I didn’t make that. I made this:

Way Improved Brownie Trifle

1 recipe of your favorite not-too-cakey brownies, for example the recipe below

1 recipe chocolate pudding, for example the recipe below

3-5 oz chocolate-covered toffee bits

2 C heavy cream

1/3 to 1/2 C sugar

Make the Brownies:

9 oz bittersweet chocolate chips, such as Girardelli

1 C unsalted butter

1 C + 6 T sugar

2 eggs

1 C flour

1 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

It goes without saying that you can make any brownies you like, or use a mix. I think the Girardelli brownie mix is quite good, and in fact I think brownie mixes in general make perfectly acceptable brownies. Having tried out this trifle, in my opinion you don’t want to use a brownie that is too gooey, but definitely not one that is like chocolate cake, either. A middle-of-the-road, basic, chewy type of brownie is likely to work best here.

If you’re going to make brownies with the recipe given here, then melt the chocolate with the butter. Cool to lukewarm. Beat eggs with sugar for 1 minute. Whisk in melted chocolate. Combine dry ingredients and fold in. Transfer to greased 8 x 8 baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with moist crumbs attached. For this use, overbaking the brownies a bit is okay, incidentally, because I did and it was fine. I just mention this in case you are ever in dire need of a way to disguise the fact that you overbaked a pan of brownies.

Cool completely.

Make the Chocolate Pudding:

3 T cornstarch

5 T sugar

1 T cocoa powder

1/8 tsp salt

2 C whole milk

2 oz bittersweet chocolate chips

1 tsp vanilla

Any chocolate pudding or chocolate custard recipe would be fine, but I was kind of looking for a recipe that didn’t use eggs, mostly because I was low on eggs. I found a recipe for chocolate blancmange in Marion Cunningham’s Fannie Farmer Cookbook and it caught my eye because she said, of the vanilla version, “It is the dessert Jo of Little Women often carried to Laurie, her frail neighbor, to help restore his health.” Well, with a comment like that, how could I resist?

But Cunningham’s chocolate blancmange didn’t seem very chocolatey to me, so in the above ingredients, I have increased the sugar by 1 T and added 1 T cocoa. I’m pretty sure this would work, but I haven’t actually made it that way yet.

If you are going to make this blancmange, you do it like this: combine the cornstarch, sugar, cocoa powder, and salt in a saucepan and whisk in ¼ C milk until smooth. Heat the remaining milk and add gradually while cooking over medium heat and whisking continually. Cook until thickened. Continue cooking 15 minutes or so to ensure that the raw taste of the cornstarch disappears. Cool completely and chill until you assemble the trifle.

Assembling the Trifle:

Get out either a bunch of little glass dessert dishes or one larger glass bowl. Cut the brownies into small pieces. Whip the cream, gradually adding the sugar, until stiff. Dollop whipped cream into the bowl. Scatter brownie pieces generously over the whipped cream. Spoon the pudding over the layer of brownie pieces and sort of spread out the pudding over the brownies. Sprinkle with toffee bits – I didn’t use that many, but they definitely did good things for this trifle, so don’t be too chintzy. Repeat layers twice, ending with a good dollop of the whipped cream and a generous sprinkle of toffee bits on the top.

Chill until serving.

I guarantee, everyone will love this, even if you don’t stick 80 candles all over the top.