Rachel Neumeier's Blog, page 377

The Touchstone Trilogy – reliable comfort read

Okay, people, let’s start with a guest! My first guest for Andrea K Höst Week is Estara, who has been that best and most cherished sort of reader for Andrea — the enthusiastic reader who pushes books on friends, acquaintances, relative strangers … everyone, really. Estara is so far ahead of me with Goodreads reviews that I know I’ll never catch up. Welcome, Estara!

I walked into adventure and adventure has given me blisters.” — STRAY

What can I say that Rachel and the Booksmugglers haven’t said more eloquently about the appeal of Cassandra Devlin and her way out of her normal life as a teenager in Sydney to find a place , as well as a chosen family & friends for herself on a world not her own (I was going to say odyssey, but Ulysses gets back, eventually – Cassandra doesn’t, and it’s stated very clearly she wouldn’t even if she were offered the chance).

Not much, to tell the truth, so what I will try to balance here is why this particular series of Andrea Höst’s works so incredibly well for me in all kinds of situations but particularly when I’m under stress in real life. When I first discovered it, I had to read the full series (ALWAYS with the gratuitous epilogue included) four times that year – I’ve since restrained myself to three times a year, except in especially harrowing circumstances…

Now I’m pretty sure the fact that I tend to jump into a story and immerse myself in my reads to the extent that a lot of the finely crafted details pass me by is fairly helpful in keeping the story fresh for me – this has always been the case for me with reading and over the years (I’ll be 47 this year) the books that stay on my shelves are the books I reread. Books I haven’t reread after a certain amount of time are gotten rid of.

So even after the 8+ reads I’ve done of the series so far I still find subtle emotional shifts and hints between the characters or explorations of the idea of what it realistically be like if you had such advanced nano-technology that “always online” wasn’t a choice but a part of your identity as a person.

But the quote I picked out at the start (which quite a few people have picked out on Goodreads) is probably why I opened my heart to Cassandra even when she was wandering through the wilderness trying hard not to panic: she reflects on herself and her situation (the fact that the whole series is diary entries makes that very clear and easy to follow) but she never lets herself be intimidated into freezing or giving up for good.

Now, to be sure, I agree with Thea that we readers only get half the story of the true horrors, and as Cass herself says: “I’ve never been the type to keep a diary, so this pile of words is strange to look back over. The first thing which leaps out is how calm I sound. That’s a big bluff. I just haven’t written down all the shouting and crying I’ve done. I don’t want to write pages about how it feels to wake in the middle of the night, stiff and cold in my grassy nest, to listen to SOMETHING moving around in the dark and hope that if it bites I die quick.”

What we get is quite enough for me, thank you very much, I’ve got a lovely visual imagination and especially the Ionoth and the fights in the Ena or against those massives (while certainly making good tv-fodder, as Tare media has realised for years) are gruesome enough for me. The labrat situation that lends the name to the second book and especially the incredibly well-described teleporter-tag which Cass has to survive in that book read intense enough for me after the fact, because Cass’s voice speaks to me – many reviews have pointed out that this will be the deciding factor for the reader.

Fortunately AKH is aware of that and the previews at Amazon or Smashwords, particularly of the Trilogy edition, allow the taste-tester to really decide well in advance of a purchase of whether Cass’s voice works for them. We get the dialogue filtered through Cass, as well – although the instant replay ability of the nanotechnology everyone is implanted with actually makes it believable that Cass can quote people word-for-word and realize subtle developments on second viewing which passed her by in the moment itself.

This way I can believe her portrayal of the clueless experimentation partners who have no idea of what she is and what she can do but develop into individuals during her constant contact with them – and the work Cass puts into making them respect HER as an individual (to enable ensuring her survival, an increase in personal freedom and eventually a community worth living and fighting for) – is true to the people she meets because the diary is for her, first and foremost, for a long time. It’s her sounding board when no one understands her and it helps her structure her impressions.

And that’s why I never feel that Cass is the God-given savior of her new world whom everyone loves and adores – men and women both (although it turns out that she is a catalyst for sure) which can make me get a stale after-taste when I come across such a character – whether male or female: she struggles and keeps on struggling and so do her Setari friends, even when the most obvious crisis is over (check out the Gratuitous Epilogue) not only for happy end but also for lack of privacy and problematic public interest and fear of Cass & Co.).

Reading her trials and triumphs just encourages me not to give up myself, when I am in a situation that feels unbearable at the time – especially regarding work-related stress – and so I recommend this to other readers who love her voice as a book to reread repeatedly. You’ll probably find more amazing bits and pieces than you got the first read-through, too.

Personal ties: what clinches my love for Cass and why she continues to inspire me, even at my age (and I cheer for her realizing her dreams, even when she had to scrap the old ones she had back on earth).

Books:

“I blame Doctor Who. Mr Spock. The Scooby Gang: both the ones in the Mystery Machine and the ones with the stakes. I’ve spent my life with stories of people who don’t walk away, who go back for their friends, who make that last stand. I’ve been brainwashed by Samwise Gamgee.” — by far the most liked AKH quote on Goodreads

Books have influenced my own development at least as much as my parents and school did, and continue to do so. And if you read through Touchstone, you’ll see that books, even the Tare version of books, get mentioned again and again and media in general help Cass orient herself in her new world – even as the problems of reality tv series based on her life get shown in a realistic light, as well.

Romance: [cut and paste into the linked translator if you want to see this spoiler-quote!]

“V unq na hacynaarq anc guvf nsgreabba naq qernzrq bs

Ehhry. Ur jnf fgnaqvat nybar va gur qnex – yrivgngvat whfg nobir gur fabj –

jngpuvat gur ubevmba. V pbhyq frr uvz pyrneyl, rira gubhtu gurer qvqa’g frrz

gb or nal yvtugf, naq uvf snpr jnf irel fgvyy naq crnprshy.

V znqr zlfrys jnxr hc. Vg jnfa’g n cebwrpgvat qernz, ohg V’z abg fher vs gur

zbavgbef jbhyq unir cvpxrq hc hfr bs zl Fvtug gnyrag. Naq vs V’q ybbxrq ng

uvz nal ybatre V zvtug unir ernpurq bhg naq gevrq gb gbhpu uvz. V’ir qrpvqrq

V pna jnag uvz nf zhpu nf V jnag, ohg ab zber yvggyr yncfrf. Abguvat juvpu

znxrf uvz unir gb qrny jvgu zl srryvatf, be rira guvax nobhg gurz. Ohg V’z

abg tbvat gb fgbc rawblvat ybbxvat ng uvz.” –Unlock the spoiler quote here.

It took me three years to confess my first crush to the intended person. I was 18 when I managed it ^^ – late bloomer, I know. This is exactly what I would have done, had I been in Cass’ shoes and why I totally felt for her embarrassment when it looked like the dream experiences went both ways.

* * *

Thank you, Estara — and I agree with every word. The Touchstone Trilogy is one of those rare stories where I read the whole thing again right after I finished it the first time — and I just re-read most of it again a month ago. Cass’s voice is awesome. And that coding a spoiler thing is awesome. I’ll have to figure out how to do that myself.

Oh, the excitement: Andrea K Höst Week

Okay! As you know, people, Andrea K Höst Week is starting tomorrow, right here, so you will want to remember to check back in!

At this very moment I have all the guest posts in my hands, well, all but one, and I am PROMISED that one is ON ITS WAY. We will have a wide variety of guests making an appearance: fans, bloggers, and authors, a nice eclectic mix. I am not going to give you a schedule of guest appearances, though, because a) it turns out I am not that organized and have not worked out an order yet; and b) I do not want all the Touchstone Awesomeness posts to appear one after the next, so I may need to shuffle the order around a bit at the last minute anyway.

I can certainly tell you, though, that I will be posting myself once or twice on this and that, and that Sherwood Smith’s post will go up at the end, on the 24th, a date she requested for good and sufficient reason, so you can look forward to that to wind up the week.

Also! You will certainly recall that at the end of the week — meaning on the 24th or very soon after that — I will be picking the name of one commenter from the week out of a metaphorical hat. That lucky person will receive the Andrea K Höst title of their choice, either physical or e-copy, whichever they prefer. If your memory is good, you may remember that I said earlier that if you already had all of Höst’s titles, you could request something by a different author; but to simplify my life I have unilaterally changed my mind about that. Instead, if you already have all of Höst’s currently available titles, you can either request another (to give away), or request one of her forthcoming titles, which I will send you when it becomes available. This promise is now set in stone and I won’t change my mind again, really.

Okay, onward! Time to go decide for sure what I should post tomorrow!

Modern science fiction and the bleak future

Here’s a post Sherwood Smith put up over at Book View Café a couple of years ago. Here’s the bit I want to quote:

“At a LosCon panel a few years ago, a surprising number of people said that they don’t read science fiction any more. They read mysteries—fantasy—historicals, whatever. Not SF. The thing that surprised me was that these were former fans. Granted, people can get tired of mainlining any genre. But to say “I don’t read it anymore”—that surprised me.”

That surprises me, too, and I say that as a person who reads a lot less SF and a lot more fantasy than I used to. But it doesn’t surprise me all that much. Because of this:

“as if the future is bleak any way you approach it”

To me, this does not seem to apply to the way readers feel approaching SF. It applies (at least mainly) to the way authors themselves feel as they approach storytelling. I am talking about the science fiction authors who think the future is grim, who are telling stories about ecological disaster and political disaster and whatever kind of unavoidable disaster and then about the grim, horrible societies that form after the disaster.

For me, this kind of future seems blatantly preachy. Open your eyes! these authors seem to be saying. Let me show you how bleak the future will be! And there’s nothing you can do about it!

And that’s crap. Especially the ecological disaster scenarios. I have explained before why such scenarios are such utter crap, so I won’t go into that here. Besides, though Gaia isn’t going to notice anything we do, it’s possible, I suppose, that the future will look at least moderately ecologically grim on the human level, for example if a supervolcano under Yellowstone really does erupt in the near future. I would certainly personally prefer, however, that if you are going to feature ecological catastrophe in your SF novel, that you avoid modern fads like global warming and do something both more interesting and more plausible.

But the future does not have to be bleak just because people today are in a bad mood. Many things are happening today that are infuriating and outrageous and disappointing. But if you look back over the span of human history, you might notice one or two periods that were almost as stressful as modern life, such as, I don’t know, basically every minute before the development of the germ theory of disease. Also, there might have from time to time been eras where people basically felt disheartened about the future, and you might check and see whether the whole world dissolved into a grim dystopia after each of those eras, too, before giving up hope for the actual future that lies before us now. Especially if you are reading this and therefore probably live in America or Europe or someplace that is not actually mired in a dystopia right this second.

Worse, that kind of story is not fun to read. It says way more about the author than the actual future (obviously). If that’s the kind of story you want to tell, fine, but no wonder readers turn away from near-future SF and toward space opera. Or away from SF altogether and toward fantasy. Smith says, “[Kids I've asked] preferred fantasy because you didn’t get science teacher lectures about how the world is ending and there’s no way to fix it, they got action from heroes with agency…”

Exactly. Those aren’t lectures about science. Those are preachy world-is-ending-doom-is-nigh-it’s-all-our-fault-humans-are-bad screeds. Who wants that? There is no reason near-future SF has to focus on the helplessness of modern people against a bleak future. That is a literary taste. But to the extent to which that taste has taken over science fiction, of course it drives kids (and everyone else) straight for the dragons. How could it not?

The comments on the linked post are interesting, so you may want to read through those.

Dystopias vs Science Fiction

All dystopias are science fiction, but not all science fiction is dystopian. This is a surprise to some, apparently, given this entertaining post over at Stacked.

… so many of you insist on conflating the two! Yes, dystopias are science fiction stories, but the opposite is not always true. Perhaps some examples will help shed light on the situation.

Not dystopias: VARIANT(157 Goodreads readers have been misled into calling this a dystopia). Cinder (422 befuddled creatures). TANKBORN (59 confused souls). THE OBSIDIAN BLADE (1 lonely reader). DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE(22 readers who need to stop reading fantasy while under the influence of certain substances). THE FAULT IN OUR STARS (not even the professionals are immune).

Kimberly is being snarky here. She is also absolutely right.

A lot of novels, especially YA, are labeled “dystopia” today because the label sells. These are nearly all actually science fiction (I put the “nearly” in there in case there are some dystopian fantasies I am forgetting). Sometimes it seems that other subgenres of science fiction have vanished because there are so many dystopias out there today, especially, as I say, in YA. But this is not true, though labeling all kinds of SF “dystopia” for marketing purposes does give that impression.

As you all know, in order to be a dystopia, the society in which the story takes place must be repressive, the repression must occur on a large scale, and the repressive society is generally also presented by the ruling class as a utopia (though this is not required; look at THE HUNGER GAMES, that is about as nakedly repressive as you can get).

Incidentally, this means that Post-Apocalyptic SF is not dystopian, either, though a dystopian society can arise from a post-apocalyptic scenario. But look at LIFE AS WE KNEW IT, for example. You don’t have a large-scale repressive society there. You have a society in the process of falling apart. Same with ASHFALL. Post-apocalyptic does read a lot like dystopia, though, so what else is out there that is not anything like dystopia? Plenty, of course!

For those who don’t read a lot of SF(Chachic, I’m looking at you), let me just mention a couple big subgenres of SF which are not at all dystopian:

Adventure SF — this is the equivalent of high fantasy. There is a quest, and there are obstacles, and tribulations, and often a romance, and generally a positive outcome. HUNTING PARTY by Elizabeth Moon comes to mind. People who love fantasy but avoid SF should look here for stories that are likely to appeal to them.

Incidentally, Andrea K Höst had a good post recently, in which she also mentions high fantasy (secondary world fantasy that is neither epic nor comedic) and adventure SF in the same breath. I think this is right.

Space Opera — often romantic and often melodramatic, always fast-paced, always with a heroic protagonist, set in a relatively distant future. It’s hard to define, so what the heck, I’ll do it by example: The VORKOSIGAN series by Bujold is one of the best examples ever. Stuff that reads like that is space opera. Again, people who love fantasy should look at space opera for SF that will provide a reading experience that feels more comfortable and familiar.

Hard SF — this is what people too often think of as “science fiction”, as though there’s nothing else out there. Often idea- or concept- or world-based, often with characterization taking a back seat. Kim Stanley Robinson comes forcefully to mind. So does James Corey. In my opinion, both do fine characterization, but characterization is not the point. Actually, the fantasy equivalent might be Tolkien. Both are showing you the world more than showcasing the characters. Some hard SF authors do seem, to me, to write very flat characters. Their books are not very appealing to me personally.

Sociological SF — a second classic SF subgenre, this appeals to me a lot more. This category includes masterpieces like Elizabeth Moon’s THE SPEED OF DARK, which focuses on human society; but this category is where an author can use nonhuman species to explore sociological ideas in ways impossible to other genres. CJ Cherryh is the master at this.

Obviously there are lots and lots of other SF subgenres. I just wanted to mention a handful of the most important subgenres that are NOT dystopias.

Okay! Now you can all argue. What should I have used as an example of hard SF? How should space opera actually be defined?

When recipes go wrong

People! I have NEVER been so angry in the kitchen before EVER.

I tried this ultra simple recipe because I wanted to experiment with large tapioca pearls. It’s just as well I can’t find the website where I got it, because I would click over and rant, and probably I should not. Ranting on the internet = ugly, imo. On the other hand, CAPS LOCK OF RAGE are sometimes perfectly appropriate, as in this post.

The recipe was similar to this one, though. And this one is setting you up for the same problem I experienced. Here is the recipe:

Bring 2 cups water to a boil in a saucepan. Add 1/3 cup large tapioca pearls, partially cover and simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the pearls are translucent, about 40 minutes. Stir in 3/4 cup unsweetened coconut milk, 2 tablespoons sugar and a pinch of salt until dissolved. Transfer to a bowl and add 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.

You see, extremely simple. What could go wrong?

The version I used called for simmering some tapioca pearls in a liter of water for 20 minutes until transparent, draining and rinsing the pearls, then adding coconut milk, rock sugar dissolved in a little water, and a pinch of salt. See, very simple and easy and quick. What, I ask again, could possibly go wrong?

Well, I’ll tell you what. If you simmer tapioca pearls without CONSTANT STIRRING, they will CEMENT themselves to the bottom of your most expensive All Clad pan. A WARNING WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE. And twenty minutes is nothing like enough — the recipe I posted above, suggesting 40 minutes, is still not long enough. No, you will tie yourself up stirring the tapioca for SEVENTY FIVE MINUTES, after which some of the pearls will STILL have uncooked centers. And forget draining and rinsing. The pearls that do cook through will turn into goo. There is no way to “drain and rinse” goo. If your recipe needs a particular size or brand of tapioca pearls to work, YOU MIGHT CONSIDER MENTIONING THIS.

Okay. I added coconut milk and jaggery (rock sugar) and a pinch of salt to my tapioca goo, and actually it was not bad. A sharp fruit would go well with this. The recipe I linked above suggests mango, which is good in desserts of this kind. I swirled plum puree into mine, which was nice.

And soaking the pan in vinegar overnight de-cemented the cooked-on tapioca, for which I am very grateful.

But still, GOOD LORD, PEOPLE. If you don’t know how write a recipe properly, leave it to those of us who understand the importance of specifying exact ingredients and cooking times and methods.

I have one more package of tapioca pearls, btw. I have this Indian recipe for savory fritters that use tapioca pearls, if I have the nerve to try it. At least I trust Julie Sahni to write a recipe that works!

The Emotional Stages of Writing

Another funny post by Chuck Wendig, over at Terrible Minds. You should really read the whole thing, so click through.

I think I’ve hit every stage at one time or another. Erased 100 pages? Yep, done that. (Twice.)

Oh, wait, not this one:

9. Oh, Crap, None Of This Makes Sense At All

That terrible moment when you realize the entirety of your story hinges on a thing that doesn’t make any sense. It’s not a plothole so much as the hole in a well-tied plot-noose. If the character on page ten would just do the logical sensible thing and throw away the Doomed Widget of Kjarn, the entire book falls apart. You realize suddenly that everything hangs on a broken hinge, the whole conflict held fast to some kind of Escherprint logic that throws the whole tale into the fucking woodchipper. “Wait, the main character could’ve just pushed a button in the first act that would’ve solved the whole thing? OH GODDAMNIT.”

I’m glad to say that this one, no. I depend on my clever beta readers to make absolutely sure I NEVER have this particular problem, at least not in the finished story! But I don’t think I have ever actually done this. Yet.

24. Everything Just Clicked

Hear that sound? It’s the sound of dominoes falling together in a neat line — it’s like the playing card in a child’s bicycle spokes. Everything clicks. Everything works. Everything makes sense. You don’t know if it’s good or right or how much you’ll have to fix but none of that matters. Because it all feels right and your march to the end of this story feels suddenly ineluctable — forward progress is now unstoppable. You can do this.

Now that’s what we wait for.

The ending of Miguel’s short story just clicked for me. Now I need to go write it. If I can find the time. Because it may be spring break so I am not at work today, but a) beautiful weather, must take dogs hiking; b) must update anaracavaliers website; c) I bet little Bug is about to wake up and I need to take him outside and let him potty and play and then coax him to try a few bits of solid food, plus I also need to try to take pictures because he is six weeks today, if you count from his C-section date; d) do you know how long it’s been since I really looked in on Twitter?; e) at some point I need to start loading the guests posts for next week’s Andrea K Höst Week into WordPress and fiddling with them to make sure they look good.

By the way, Folly “missed.” She is not pregnant, despite doing progesterone tests to make sure the timing was good. I am angry and upset and actually kind of relieved. What the hell, it’s only another $1000 down the drain, that’s almost like not losing money compared to the financial losses for Giedre’s litter. The stud owner has made it clear I can ask for another try with a different bitch whenever I like. I don’t know. Maybe it would not actually be insane to try that with Honey in a year when she is old enough. I would not ordinarily choose to breed her to a wholecolor dog. But, well, when you think about it, her grandfather is almost 18, which is amazing and wonderful and spectacular and tremendous; and The Prez would be 10 and he seems to be on track to have that kind of vigor and longevity if any dog anywhere might, so if he is any kind of match for her in type and beauty, well, he might not be a bad choice as far as health goes. Plus, talk about a total, complete outcross. I doubt they have a common ancestor for twenty generations. Heck, I bet you can run right back to 1950 and hardly hit a common ancestor. And with my pedigree program, I can actually go look.

Goodreads Giveaway –

Well, how about this: Strange Chemistry is running a Goodreads Giveaway for BLACK DOG. Check it out — I’m sure you need another copy to give away, even if you have one already. Scroll down to enter.

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Goodreads Book Giveaway

Black Dog

by Rachel Neumeier

Giveaway ends April 10, 2014.

See the giveaway details

at Goodreads.

Enter to win

The puppy boy is just fine

I know he looks sort of solemn here, but that is just an illusion. He is as bouncy and playful as any five-week-old puppy ever. Or Cavalier puppy, at least; I’m sure he is calm compared to a terrier puppy. He has hit every behavioral benchmark right on time, well, a tiny bit late as you expect for a single puppy. Unfortunately I’ve had too many opportunities to observe that single puppies start off slow (they are understimulated, obviously). They catch up by about six weeks.

I know I said I might swear off showing and just quit the whole dog thing entirely, other than just having dogs as pets of course, but . . . and I know that this puppy is only five weeks old, and we do not truly evaluate puppies this young, but . . . probably I am completely insane to even consider this, but . . . I am thinking that right now, this is a very, very promising puppy. For the first time, I am thinking of keeping this baby. I’m thinking that he might be exactly the type of puppy I was breeding for: a fabulous show-stopping puppy who owns the ring from the moment he steps into it. The kind of puppy who catches your eye right from the first and never lets you look away. That kind of puppy. I remember seeing this puppy’s, um, great-grandfather, in the ring. He was maybe the first dog that ever caught my eye like that. Not a perfect dog, but extraordinarily showy.

Well, well . . . early days, early days. Maybe he’ll only have one testicle descend, disqualifying him completely. Maybe his bite will go off, though it’s fine now. Maybe he’ll have serious freckles, or small eyes, or or or . . . who knows. To walk into the ring and compete right at the top, he would need to be practically perfect in every way. Which is exactly what I hoped for from this breeding. But obviously hard to get.

If I did keep him . . . maybe I would breed him just one time. Or buy a bitch who would be a total outcross and breed him to her. Yeah, that would be insane, another huge gamble. Or get with a friend and make a deal to breed him to one of her girls in return for a puppy back, or something. He would need to be so fabulous for me to do any of that. But maybe . . . argh, who knows. Where IS my crystal ball?

Anyway, I thought you all might like to know that this little guy is perfectly fine.

Crystallized ginger

So, supposing you took my advice and made crystallized ginger? Now that you have all that crystallized ginger, not to mention all the ginger syrup, what can you do with it?

Of course you could just make a LOT of double-chocolate ginger cookies, which is an excellent idea and don’t let me talk you out of it. I’ve been adding twice the crystallized ginger in that recipe, btw, and reducing the chocolate chips to one cup, so that ratio is totally up to you.

But supposing you would like to branch out a bit, here are a couple other recipes you might try:

King Arthur Flour Gingered Oatmeal Muffins

I like these a lot. They rise surprisingly well, too. For me, this recipe made more than 12 muffins, and I was glad I didn’t just insist on putting all the batter into just 12 muffin cups. They also came out of the muffin tin pretty easily.

1 C white whole wheat flour

½ C oat flour, which you can make by grinding some oatmeal in a food processor or (easier, if you have one) a spice grinder

¾ C rolled oats

¾ C brown sugar

1 Tbsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

1 C plus 2 Tbsp milk

¼ C vegetable oil

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

½ C finely diced crystallized ginger

Toss the crystallized ginger with a spoonful of flour and set aside. Combine the dry ingredients. Whisk together the milk, oil, eggs, and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients and fold in. Add the crystallized ginger. The batter was quite thin but everything was fine, so probably you should expect that. Spoon or pour the batter into greased muffin cups, probably about fifteen cups if yours are the same size as mine. Bake at 400 degrees for about 18 minutes. Let cool five minutes and remove from the pan.

Now! You could have sprinkled these with a streusel topping before baking, as KAF suggests, and I’m sure that would be good. But I dipped the warm muffins into ginger syrup and then Demerara sugar. They were great.

King Arthur Flour Ginger-Molasses Cookies

Another KAF recipe. Usually they’re very reliable, you know. Anyway, this is a nice, soft type of cookie, which is what I prefer. I did mess with this recipe a bit, as you will see. What? You can never have too many chocolate-ginger cookies.

1 C butter

1 C sugar

¼ C molasses

¼ C ginger syrup (or more molasses)

2 ¼ tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon (the recipe called for 1 ½ tsp)

½ tsp cloves (the recipe called for 1 tsp)

1 tsp ginger (I believe the recipe called for ½ tsp)

2 eggs

3 ½ C flour (or reduce the flour by 2 Tbsp and add ¼ C. cocoa, or by 3 Tbsp and add 1/3 C cocoa)

½ to ¾ C crystallized ginger (not in the original recipe)

¾ C bittersweet chocolate chips (not in the original recipe)

Make cookies.

Oh, all right, actual directions: Cream the butter and sugar. Beat in molasses and ginger syrup. Beat in baking soda, salt, and spices. Beat in eggs. Stir in flour, or flour and cocoa powder. Stir in crystallized ginger and / or chocolate chips. Scoop onto lined baking sheets or else roll into 1 ½ inch balls, roll or dip into coarse sugar (such as Demerara), and place on baking sheets. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Cool on sheets 10 minutes, then cool completely on racks.

Lemon Ginger Scones

2 C flour

¼ C sugar

1 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

½ butter, cold, cut in pieces

½ C chopped crystallized ginger

Zest of one (or two) lemons

2/3 C buttermilk

Combine dry ingredients. Cut in butter with a pastry cutter. Stir in the ginger and lemon zest. Stir in the buttermilk. Knead gently till the dough comes together. Pat out into 7 inch circle. Cut into eight wedges and place on lined baking sheet (or freeze). Bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until a touch golden. Cool on racks, or better, serve warm.

I would suggest making a glaze with powdered sugar and lemon juice, since after all you just zested that lemon. Alternatively, nothing stops you from drizzling these scones with ginger syrup. Maybe try some each way? Anyway, mmmm, scones.

You can always freeze scones at the cut-into-wedges stage, and I always do unless baking for a crowd. Freshly baked scones are just better, and you can bake them right out of the freezer. Of course it adds a few minutes to the baking time, but not enough to signify.

Coolest art project ever

So, yesterday, I visited Troy Buchanan High School, which is in Troy, MO, which in case you are curious is a bit north and west of St. Louis. This was part of a Writer’s Week, where they invite local authors to come speak to their students and also allow student and faculty to showcase their writing — it’s a pretty big deal, very well organized, and I really enjoyed it.

Plus! The art students get involved.

This is a ceiling tile — ceiling panel? — whatever they are called. The picture was painted by a senior high school student and it is FABULOUS.

Every author who visits gets a ceiling tile, and then after the Writer’s Week events are over, the ceiling tiles are set into place in the library ceiling.

I noticed both Antony John and Brian Katcher had ceiling tiles from previous years — this year, Antony John was there the same day I was, but unfortunately I couldn’t stay all day, because I would have liked to meet him. I really liked his contemporary YA FIVE FLAVORS OF DUMB, but didn’t know till I saw his waiting ceiling tile that he also has a dystopian series in progress. I’ll have to check that out. You trip over YA dystopias everywhere you turn these days, I know, but in fact I haven’t read a huge number of them, so I’m not burned out.

Brian Katcher wasn’t there this time, but was in a previous year — probably he will be next year, since his new book will be out. You may recall that I really admired his book ALMOST PEFECT, and I do have his earlier title downstairs on my TBR pile, but I haven’t read it yet. I will probably wind up getting his newest book when it comes out, reading that one, and then finally going back and reading the first (PLAYING WITH MATCHES).

I think it would be fun to make sure we are all there next year and then get together for dinner or something. And I should really look up the other authors who were there, because who knows, maybe I would like their work, too.

Anyway, the kids were great, the involvement of the art department is so cool, and I am still floored by that fabulous ceiling tile, and the entire ceiling.