Rachel Neumeier's Blog, page 399

Recent Reading: a genre potpourri

1. Romance

Wow. People. “Turning Up the Heat” by Laura Florand? Just, wow. It’s this little novella, which I yesterday because I wanted something short but good and because it’s supposed to come before THE CHOCOLATE ROSE, which I want to read relatively soon.

So, okay, “Turning Up the Heat.” It draws the best portrait ever of a woman who gives herself away until she finds she has nothing. Which, I know, sounds all grim and depressing and Literary, and also totally like the modern stereotype of The Woman Who Lives For Her Family, so dreadful and tedious and oh, God, just spare me.

But it’s not, because a) this is really the portrait of a woman who gives herself away until she almost vanishes, even though her husband isn’t trying to be a taker. That’s critical because horrible parasitic relationships are not fun to read about. Also because b) her husband also gives himself away until he has nothing, even though she has no idea. And most of all because, of course, c) all this works out in the end. As it better, in any romance story worth the genre, if I understand romance at all. If you want grim pointless tragedy, there’s literary over there, right?

Let me just add, normally any relationship that would be fine if only the people involved would TALK TO EACH OTHER drives me absolutely mad. Even though this is certainly a textbook case of such a relationship, it is fine! This is another example of pure skill in storytelling rescuing a situation I normally find intensely frustrating. Florand is just that good at drawing characters you can absolutely believe in and sympathize with. Part of it is the use of backstory, part of it is the way she shows us both protagonists’ point of view and really gets us to see how they are operating at cross purposes, part of it is evocative writing.

The moment stretched, breakable or buildable. Like molten sugar that could be formed into anything wonderful, as long as you didn’t let it chill too much and drop it, shattering everywhere.

Yeah, like that.

Okay, moving on!

2. YA (MG?) fantasy set in India

So, I’ve never heard of Suzanne Fisher Staples before. I think I picked up this book, SHIVA’S FIRE, at a library sale. It’s a bit younger than I would have really preferred, but very nice for all that. It’s actually an interesting contrast to some other YA fantasy with non-European settings that I think got more buzz (or that I heard about more, at least), but that I didn’t find very impressive.

The structure of the story is interesting and unusual. Parvati, a girl of twelve or fourteen, is the main character, but the first several chapters are primarily from her mother’s point of view. This is because the story starts on the day of Parvati’s birth and then takes in her early childhood before the pace slows and we begin to have a little more time to enjoy watching Parvati go off to a special school for gifted dancers. This passage pretty much sums up Parvati’s childhood and describes a major source of conflict in the story:

Parvati grew to be a child of sunny disposition, great charm and cleverness, and excellent health. Her mother took delight in her. Because of the terrible circumstances in which Parvati was born, people continued to regard mother and daughter with fear and suspicion, and the village children were not allowed to play with Parvati. . . . But Parvati was content to entertain herself. As soon as she was able to stand, she played at dancing, holding up one leg until her thigh was parallel to the ground, just as she had observed the Shiva Nataraja statue’s leg.

The “terrible circumstances” involved massive monsoons and tornadoes, and the total destruction of the village – the village only very slowly recovers, this is not something that we see in chapter one and by chapter four we can’t tell there was ever a problem. No. Total destruction. I’m not kidding. There’s no question but that this is a deliberate evocation of Shiva as destroyer-of-worlds, and the event has a huge impact on the whole story.

The story itself is fairly simple, and some plot threads that were introduced were only superficially related to the main story (and, in one fairly important case, never really resolved). The love interest seemed to me to be unnecessary, inserted basically because hey, doesn’t every story have to have at least a thread of romance?

I may be reading romances these days, but I do think it’s a shame that it’s so impossible today to write a YA story that doesn’t include a romance, no matter how much you have to strain to get it in there. (This is just a general comment; I don’t want to imply that this is a big problem with this story; the romance is not seriously obtrusive, only unnecessary and a bit out of place.) Parvati herself is a rather simply-drawn protagonist – I wouldn’t say any of the characters are very, you know, layered. That’s why this story reads young to me.

Nevertheless, I see from the inside flap that SHIVA’S FIRE was a Junior Library Guild selection, which I know is a fairly big deal because my agent told me so after THE FLOATING ISLANDS was selected. And you know why SHIVA’S FIRE was a selection? Because of the beautifully evoked setting and culture, that’s why. I don’t think I’ve ever seen India better drawn than it is in this book. From the first lines, we get a lovely sense of place:

Meenakshi arose early the day Parvati was born, for the infant in her womb had not allowed her to sleep during the night. Tiny knees and elbows thumped Meenakshi’s sides in an odd, slow rhythm: tai-taiya-tai, tai-taiya-tai.

She did not know her daughter would arrive amid a change in the course of natural events, that fish would swim among the stars and birds would soar beneath the waters.

Meenakshi yawned and tied her sari around her swollen middle. She moved quietly to let her husband, Sundar, and their sons sleep while she went to the temple to offer prayers. Flies buzzed lazily in the leaden heat, and a trickle of perspiration rolled down the side of her face.

On a metal tray, she arranged a coconut, bananas and a champakam blossom with a fragrance as delicate as the pink at the base of each white petal. She laid another blossom at the fee of the statue of the dancing Shiva, which Sundar had carved of sandalwood and placed in a niche in the wall.

There’s truly exquisite detail throughout – the clothes, the food, daily life in the village, the train journey experienced as a poor person, the school where Parvati trains as a dancer, the train journey experienced as a wealthy person, the maharaja’s palace. It’s definitely the beauty of the setting that made this book for me. And the writing itself is nice, smoothly lending itself to the story without making itself obtrusive. I definitely think this book ought to be in every middle-school library that’s looking to include diverse settings; it makes a beautiful counterpoint to what I expect is an abundant supply of contemporary American settings and sparkly vampires.

3) YA secondary-world fantasy

THE PIRATE’S WISH by Cassandra Rose Clarke. Very nice! I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed the slangy voice of the protagonist, Ananna, contrasted with the much more formal style of the assassin-love-interest (Naji). Excellent writing throughout, great descriptions — not obtrusive long descriptive passages, but always smoothly handled so that you hardly notice how deftly Clarke is drawing you a picture.

So, did mythological manticores really eat people, specifically young men, as their preferred diet? I do think I remember the thing about three rows of teeth. I definitely enjoyed the manticores in this story. Amazing how you can actually sympathize with the poor manticore, forced to eat nasty fish instead of young male crewmen. Poor baby.

The kingdom of fish was a little much for me, though.

More important than the manticores, Naji’s angst over having been scarred was less of a thing than I feared it might be, though I was prepared for some angst given the first book. I liked the way Clarke handled this developing relationship, especially the way Naji found out Ananna was in love with him very early in the book — I was afraid it would be something he wouldn’t discover till the end, and the reader would have to suffer through horrible misunderstandings because of that. We certainly do see misunderstandings, but not as contrived as that would have been.

Of the Strange Chemistry titles I’ve read so far, Clarke’s are my favorite. There are still lots of Strange Chem titles I haven’t read, though. Interesting how different they are: Pantomime is more ambitious, larger in scope, older in tone, I would even say rather literary in tone. Zenn Scarlett, in contrast, is much, much younger in tone and plot than I expected; to me it read very Middle Grade — I’m keeping an eye out for a twelve-year-old kid to give it to. Clarke’s duology is just plain charming and, to me, seems to hit the happy medium of YA squarely on the head.

And, okay, this is long enough, so later for:

4. Contemporary adult fantasy

5. Horror

A Top Ten List That Shows Excellent Taste in Books

Always nice to see something like this list of under-recognized authors.

This sort of thing also swells my TBR shelves, because plainly if a reader loves my books, our taste must be pretty similar! In particular, I’m definitely going to pick up JINX by Sage Blackwood. Ysabeau Wilce’s books sound like they might be a little young for my preferences, but they also sound fun — Ninja Mo? How can I turn that down? And I just bought CHIME by Franny Billingsley because when I went to add it to my wishlist, hey, special deal on Amazon.

Authors! Here’s how to respond to negative reviews!

With thanks to Kate Elliot for taking the time to look up and post this link, as part of a comment thread here.

I particularly like the interpretive dance.

I have to add, though, I stand by my firm policy of never reading negative reviews. A line or two of gentle criticism in an otherwise stellar review is plenty, thanks.

Crossing Genre Boundaries

Do you realize I have eight romances on my Kindle? Eight. Wow.

Four are by Laura Florand – that number will only go up; I’m definitely in line for The Chocolate Touch when it comes out and anyway, I’m sure I’ll eventually buy everything she’s written. Also two by Ruthie Knox, and two by Mina Esguerra (though I’m not sure one of those counts, since it’s really romantic fantasy).

Anyway, eight is a lot for me, since romance has never been a genre to which I’ve paid much attention.

And why have I started reading romances? I can easily identify proximate three reasons:

a) a review at Angieville that made me try Sarah Addison Allen (who, btw, has another book scheduled for release this coming February). This is what first pulled my attention toward romance.

b) a series of reviews at Chachic’s Book Nook that made me try first Laura Florand and then take a chance on Knox and Esguerra.

c) and low prices for many Kindle ebooks, so that it’s the next thing to risk-free to try a new author. It helps when a book also has a charming title and catchy back cover copy, both of which are true for, say, Interim Goddess of Love by Mina Esguerra. Seriously, doesn’t that title make you smile?

But the ultimate reason I’ve started to read a few romances amid all the fantasy and SF and mysteries and nonfiction is that I finally tried a couple that really appealed to me.

Which makes me wonder: What are some really appealing books to recommend to people who don’t read a particular genre? I mean, I would never consider pressing a copy of CJ Cherryh’s Downbelow Station into the hands of an avowed romance fan who doesn’t read SF. Sure, Downbelow Station is a classic award-winning novel, but it is also big, slow-paced, has a huge cast of protagonists, is filled with complicated politics, and contains essentially no romance at all (I say “essentially” because I can’t remember even a faint thread of romance, but don’t want to re-read the book to check.) It would be ridiculous to recommend it to a romance fan just because it is a great book.

But then, what SF novel would you recommend to a romance fan? Or to a reader who mostly sticks to fantasy? What secondary-world fantasy novel would you suggest for a friend who’s mostly a fan of mysteries? And like that.

Some are easy to pick!

Fantasy to Romance

For your fan of fantasy, if you want to recommend a romance, you just can’t beat Sarah Addison Allen! Right? There’s just enough of a thread of magic through her stories to make a fantasy reader happy, so they’re perfect to bridge the gap between fantasy and romance. And Allen’s romances are handled with, how shall I put this? With some delicacy. They are not highly eroticized, which is another factor I think might appeal to readers who have generally avoided romance.

Romance to Fantasy

What if you want to go the other direction, recommend fantasy novels to readers who prefer romance and maybe paranormals, but who aren’t usually drawn to secondary world non-paranormal fantasy? Okay, I get that fantasy-with-a-strong-romance-subplot is not a rare beast. Even so, Bujold’s Sharing Knife series is an obvious pick. What else? Well, the Medair duology by Andrea Höst uses very definite romance tropes, too. I’d also suggest Troubled Waters by Sharon Shinn. We get nice development of a secondary world there, and a romance that develops slowly but surely through the whole story. Shinn is a good choice overall, since a lot of her books have a very strong romance component – the Angel series, for example, are all SFF romances.

Romance to SF

Besides Shinn, whose Angel books read more as fantasy than SF, I’d suggest Bujold’s Shards of Honor, particularly for readers of a certain age, because eventually one does start to appreciate a protagonist who’s over twenty-five. For younger readers, um. Right now Höst’s Touchstone Trilogy is kind of on my mind, since it’s probably my favorite read so far this year. Is it okay if the romance doesn’t really start until the second book, or would that be too disappointing to a romance fan?

Fantasy to SF

What about SF for readers who prefer fantasy? No fair choosing fantasies with SF trappings, like Guilt-Edged Ivory by Doris Egan (which ought to be better known, and would be yet another good SFF choice for a romance fan). If you want to choose something that really is no kidding unmistakably SF, what would it be? I’m going to vote for really good space opera. I think you want a story which is fast-paced, with great characterization and catchy dialogue. Something that will draw the reader in immediately and not give him or her time to worry about the SF setting. In other words, Bujold’s The Warrior’s Apprentice. Another good space-opera is Hunting Party by Elizabeth Moon – though I don’t think all her books set in that world are of equal quality. For more consistent quality, Moon’s Vatta’s War series might be a better choice.

Or if you really want to choose something other than space opera? In that case, how about Octavia Butler’s Dawn? Anybody who can read the first few pages and put that one down, well, let’s just say I wouldn’t understand their taste as a reader. It is sociological SF, and of course brilliantly written, because, you know, Octavia Butler.

Literary to SF

Before we stop thinking about Elizabeth Moon, though, I would totally offer The Speed of Dark to a reader who is all into literary and turns his or her nose up at SFF. That is, imo, one of the greatest SF novels ever written.

SF to Fantasy

Speaking of snobs, you do get SF snobs who look down on fantasy. What might you press into such a reader’s hands that might change his mind? That’s tricky, because I think some of this SF vs Fantasy attitude is actually a preference for plot-driven vs character-driven stories (I don’t think this is the whole explanation! Just part of it! Don’t jump on me!). But, stipulating a reader who prefers a plot-driven story, what might you recommend? I’m not generally going to prefer a plot-driven story myself, so it’s hard for me to think of examples. But how about Tim Powers? I think Declare might be a good choice. Especially since Powers’ books also have the rigor that some SF fans value, though it’s rigor in historical research rather than physics.

Literary to Fantasy

Come to think of it, Powers might be another good choice for a reader who usually prefers literary fiction. Another fantasy novel I might suggest for someone who usually reads literary would be A Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin. I think it might have been considered literary or mainstream when it was published, but don’t kid yourself, it’s fantasy. More specifically, it’s magical realism, a big complicated story of generation-spanning scope. Plus, Helprin’s writing is just exquisite.

Mystery to Fantasy

Okay, how about a fan of mysteries who never reads SFF? I think mysteries divide neatly into two categories, so for fans of Sherlock Holms or Agatha Christie, I’d think of the Lord Darcy stories by Randall Garrett, Eric Flint and Guy Gordo. On the other hand, for mystery readers who are into character more than plot, I would think of Barbara Hambly’s Stranger at the Wedding, which is very much a mystery even if it is also a secondary-world fantasy. Hambly’s Bride of the Rat God is also a mystery. Come to think of it, so is Those Who Hunt the Night. I guess it isn’t surprising that so many of Hambly’s fantasy novels utilize the style and tropes of mysteries, since she writes both.

Fantasy to Historical

I don’t honestly think it’s necessary to suggest particular historical novels for readers of fantasy. I think fans of fantasy probably already read historicals, since historicals are basically magic-free fantasy. But just in case: people! If you haven’t already read anything by Elizabeth Wein, are you missing out, or what? My personal suggestion is, start with The Sunbird, but hey, really, with Wein, you can start anywhere. Anyway, the books connected to that one have an Arthurian thing going, so they’re sort of fantasy anyway.

And if you haven’t yet read anything by Gillian Bradshaw? Yeah, you should totally go do that, too. Especially if you like romances. Try A Beacon At Alexandria and go from there.

Historical to Fantasy

Is there anybody who reads historicals but not fantasy? Just in case you happen to know someone like that, there are a zillion great historical fantasies, by which I mean fantasies set in a real historical setting, but with magic. If I had to pick just one to suggest, then maybe it would be Judith Riley’s In Pursuit of the Green Lion (if you like a European historical setting) or perhaps Lord of the Two Lands by Judith Tarr for a Greek/Egypt setting.

Or for fantasies that aren’t exactly historical fantasies, but have a historical feel, maybe Jo Walton’s Tooth and Claw, or else Temeraire by Naomi Novik.

Okay, I don’t suppose I hit suggestions for all possible genre-to-genre combinations – if I tried, I guess it would be, uh, let’s see, the genres are SF, fantasy, mystery, historical, romance, horror, western, and literary, right? So that would be, what, 56 different possible genre to genre combinations? Yeah, not going to try to be complete! But if you’re so inclined, feel free to add a combination I left out, or add to any combination I included!

Would you call Rowling’s experiment a success?

Did you know that JK Rowling published a crime novel called The Cuckoo’s Calling under a pen name?

Yeah, probably everybody already knew that but me.

Anyway, Nathan Bransford has an interesting post about that. Apparently it got picked up by a big publisher, got good reviews . . . and didn’t sell. Just another nice “debut” novel that vanished without a trace.

I imagine it’s selling much better now that the author’s real name is known.

I don’t normally talk about myself very much –

But this is one of those rare-ish moments.

Chachic has an interesting series of “Chasing Your Dreams” posts she’s been running, to which she asked me to contribute.

Grammar checkers vs human judgment: Still no contest

Every writer I know (at least, the ones with whom this topic has come up) turns the grammar check off on his or her computer. We all believe that our own feel for grammar is way better than that of whoever programmed the grammar check for Word. And we’re all right, too. (Spellcheck is a different story; that’s a really handy little gizmo.)

But recently I’ve been playing around with a new grammar check service, grammarly.com, because I got an offer to play with it for free. Plus, I was thinking about maybe pointing this service out to some of the students who come in for help with their papers, and maybe to the English faculty – the students because the better ones could often use a boost with grammar but shouldn’t be overwhelmed by this service, and the faculty because grammarly.com not only generates summaries of student errors, but also checks for signs of plagiarism.

I wasn’t really thinking of this service for the use of writers, because, well, if you’re a writer, then the English language is your one and only tool, right? And if you have no feel for it, good luck with that. So you are not likely to need a grammar checker if you’re a writer. Unless! If grammarly could catch certain really obnoxious mistakes, and not annoy you by pointing out too many perfectly fine constructions by mistake, then maybe it would be worthwhile? Depending on your style, of course. Because probably you have noticed that novels, like blog posts, may be deliberately written in a more casual style with deliberate errors, like for example in this paragraph?

So I tried three documents: a horrible, mistake-laden student-type paper I got off the internet (I did clean it up just a little before I ran it through grammarly, because it was actually too awful to use straight), a handout I wrote years ago on how to housetrain a puppy, and a six-page excerpt from BLACK DOG, which as you all know is the novel I have coming out next spring.

So What Did I Find?

Wow, did grammarly nail that downloaded student paper for plagiarism. Since in fact I did get the whole thing straight off the internet, it certainly would have been plagiarism if I’d meant, God help me, to turn it in for a class. Grammarly also found zillions of mistakes in the paper, but I didn’t want to analyze what it was doing because that paper turned out to be just too painful to read closely, even in the interests of analyzing grammar checkers.

As for the handout and the novel fragment, I found that grammarly can be set for “casual” and “creative” as well as “academic”, and if you use those settings, it doesn’t question as many sentences. This is great! But it doesn’t go far enough. It identified as wrong four types of constructions that I was using on purpose, in each case because it wanted me to write more formally.

Places Where Grammarly Should Really Lighten Up

a) Grammarly thinks it’s wrong to split infinitives. We all know split infinitives are generally accepted today, except in extremely formal academic writing, and that you not only can but should split ’em if you think the sentence sounds better that way.

b) Similarly, grammarly thinks prepositions are items you shouldn’t end a sentence with, and in fact often this does feel clumsy, imo. But, especially in slang or in dialogue, sometimes it sounds best to end a clause or sentence with a preposition: “Hey, I’ve got a hot date tonight!” “Dude! Who with?” is not an exchange to re-write according to formal rules that are outdated anyway. And I say this as a person who has a “I’m the grammarian about whom your mother warned you” tee-shirt.

c) Grammarly doesn’t like constructions such as “waving away any concern” and “put back her hood.” Given the little grammar tips grammarly showed me, it wanted me to write “waving any concern away” and “put her hood back.” But those corrected phrases sound clumsy in context, so I think that whatever supposed rule governs this is at best questionable, or at least being interpreted too strictly.

d) Grammarly hates partial comparisons, such as “People eat more in the cold.” I gather it wants complete comparisons, such as “People eat more in the cold than they do in warm environments.” I get what it’s talking about here, but can you imagine writing dialogue like that? Honestly, you’d get an instant Mr. Spock impression.

Other Stuff I Noticed About Grammarly

I’ll start by saying that grammarly identified all the Spanish words in BLACK DOG as misspelled, which you can hardly blame it for, so I didn’t count that as a problem. Besides spelling and the four issues mentioned above, grammarly identified 24 “questionable writing issues.”

a) It identified seven commas as misused. Four of those sentences were exactly the way I want them, one definitely correct – granted, the sentence structure was complicated. The other three are commas that a copy editor also might mark, and that I’d think hard about. It’s a question of how the sentence sounds in dialogue (or direct thoughts, which are like dialogue), and whether I want a pause or whether (in the case of a missing comma) I want a sense of rushed speed through that sentence. Most important would be thinking, in every single case, about whether I think the way the commas are used might conceivably distract a reader. Commas are tricky. I think grammarly was right to mark the ones it did, even if I chose to leave every single one alone.

b) Commonly confused words. It marked five, all of which were correct the way I had them. In every case but one, the suggested correction was actually ridiculous. Honestly, I am not very likely to type “bony” when I mean “body”, or “pups” if I meant “pumps.” Unless I’m really tired. (Then I quit trying to write and go to bed.) IfI used grammarly on a regular basis, I would want a way to turn this particular function off.

c) Grammarly marked five possible verb-tense errors. It was just plain wrong in every case – wrong and funny in one case when it thought “raven” was a verb and suggested “ravening” or “ravened.” I’d meant the bird, of course!

d) And last, grammarly marked a handful of possible errors with articles, all of which were fine the way I had them. When someone says, “Be patient,” you don’t need an article in front of “patient!” Understandable for grammarly to flag this, and yet also stupid. Also, grammarly wanted me to put an article in front of the word “something” – as in “a something” or “the something.” This was almost as funny as the raven.

Things I Wish Grammar Checks Would Catch, But They Just Don’t:

Grammarly did no better than Word’s standard grammar check in catching repeated words. I put the word “steep” in the second paragraph three times, just to see if grammarly might by any chance be programmed to flag this kind of thing. It didn’t. Too bad! Copy editors do a great job with this, but it’s amazing how something like this will sneak right through into the final version of a manuscript, despite everything you can do.

Grammarly also did not catch an incorrect “him and I” construction, which I put in because I really hoped it might. I know the ordinary Word grammar check doesn’t, but I hoped grammarly would do better. I don’t know what it is with the people who program grammar checks, I really don’t. Were ALL of them so traumatized by their grade school teachers that they are scared to put the word “me” in a sentence? (As a related question, why is the one rule that sticks FOREVER in peoples’ heads a rule which doesn’t even exist?)

Grammar checkers do get the difference between subjects and direct objects; I’m sure they’d mark a sentence like, “Steve was so mean to I,” so why would a grammar checker let you get away with “Steve was so mean to Melissa and I”? For all I know, a grammar check might even INTRODUCE this kind of error, since plainly grammar checkers think the “him and I” construction is just peachy.

Okay, winding up: it took grammarly 40 seconds to analyze six pages. (Yes, I timed it.) I have no idea how long it would take to check a whole novel, but . . . quite a while, I bet.

Also, while grammarly generated a printable report which flagged everything and suggested corrections, the report was generated in a single-spaced all-one-paragraph format which would be unimaginably painful to read if you had more than a few pages. Though I guess it would save paper, if that was a priority.

Who Would Benefit From a Service Like Grammarly?

Students, maybe. Not in basic writing, but maybe at about the English Comp II level or above. If students are truly clueless about grammar, this program wouldn’t work well. You have to have some basic sense of what you’re doing before you can evaluate whether you did indeed put a comma at the right place, when a program suggests you didn’t. For students at too elementary a level, I think this program would tempt them to change constructions that are right into constructions that are actually wrong. But for students who generally write well, but who tend to make a handful of standard errors, I bet this program would be helpful in teaching them not to. Unless the errors were “him and I” mistakes, in which case, sorry, but it would miss ’em all.

Teachers, maybe. You sure wouldn’t want to have to wade through every single thing grammarly flags as a possible mistake, but it might be quite handy to have grammarly’s quick summary of potential areas of confusion. Grammarly does generate a summary of what it thinks might be spelling errors, commonly confused words, article errors, pronoun errors, adjective and adverb errors, faulty parallelism, confusing modifiers, verb-form errors, comma errors, etc. Even though grammarly would probably be frequently wrong about verb tense and article usage and whatever, that kind of summary still might be useful to you a better sense about where a particular student is having trouble. Plus, flagging possible plagiarism is always good.

Writers? In my opinion, no. Anybody who seriously wants to write ought to be too fluent in the language to benefit from this or any grammar checker – except for checkers with actual judgment, such as beta readers and copy editors. Those grammar checkers are priceless.

Ooh! Dragons!

Over at tor.com, a preview of Todd Lockwood’s cover for Marie Brennen’s upcoming A TROPIC OF SERPENTS. Beautiful!

Also downloadable in all kinds of sizes if you want to use it as wallpaper.

I have to say, Tor knocked it out of the park with book design for this series. No way I would get these in e-format; the physical books are such a pleasure to hold and admire.

Fear is the mind-killer

A good post here from Judith Tarr at Book View Cafe.

I think she’s right; this is a lesson that generalizes well.

Suddenly summer

And the garden is abruptly in full swing. You know how it is, if you’re lucky: those first tomatoes dropping warm and velvety into your hand, the prick as you forget about the spines on an eggplant, the taste of a green bean right out there in the garden. I always find myself moving toward vegetarian cooking at this time of year, just trying to keep up!

I’m trying to think of everything I’ve made in the past week or so. There was the potato-pea-carrot curry in coconut milk, that was good. You know how you can make potato pancakes? You can make veggie pancakes, too, with shredded potatoes, zucchini, carrots, green onions, and (if you’re me) a generous spoonful of hot chili paste with mustard seeds. Those were good. I have a lot of Thai chilies, so I need to find the recipe for that chili paste again.

Green beans are excellent just cooked crisp-tender and drizzled with sesame oil and sprinkled with sea salt. I only use sea salt for very plain preparations; in other words, not that often. But it makes a real difference for something like this.

Let’s see.

Jalapenos stuffed with cream cheese, wrapped with bacon, and baked. Those are great. I haven’t made them yet, but I have a lot of jalapenos I need to use, so maybe tomorrow. Cauliflower soup with artichokes and bacon. I didn’t grow the cauliflower, cauliflower is a pain. I got it from a guy at the farmer’s market, who was selling these beautiful heads. I didn’t grow the artichokes, either. Or, for that matter, the bacon.

On the other hand, I did grow the lovely pink eggplant I used to make eggplant with spicy tomato sauce. Also the tomatoes. This year I’m growing almost no kinds of tomatoes but Principe Borghese and Old Brooks. Those varieties are extraordinarily resistant to cracking and catfacing, which is a quality I put right behind flavor and way ahead of color or shape.

I have exactly one zucchini plant. It’s doing a little better than seems strictly required. The whole-wheat zucchini chocolate chip bread I made was good, but you know what turned out to be actually fabulous? The zucchini coconut muffins. These are, not to put too fine a point on it, the best zucchini quick bread I’ve ever made.

If you, too, love coconut, and if you either grow zucchini or expect a friend or neighbor to force zucchini upon you, then you might want to try this recipe.

Zucchini-Coconut Muffins

2 eggs

1/3 C honey

½ C vegetable oil

1/3 C brown sugar

½ tsp coconut extract

1 C all-purpose flour

1 C white whole wheat flour

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp salt

½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

8 oz grated zucchini (about one small-medium; if it takes a third of one zucchini, then you know you let the zucchini get way too big before you picked it). There is no need to squeeze the zucchini dry after grating it; you actually want the moisture in the batter.

4 oz shredded sweetened coconut

Combine the eggs, honey, oil, brown sugar and coconut extract in a large bowl. Beat or whisk to combine. Combine the flour, white whole wheat flour, ginger, salt, baking powder and baking soda in a smaller bowl. Add to the sugar mixture and stir until partly combined. Add the zucchini and coconut and stir until pretty well combined; the batter will be a bit lumpy, especially with the zucchini in it.

Spray a 12-cup muffin pan with cooking spray. Spoon the batter into the muffin cups. Don’t worry if they are pretty full. The muffins rise some, but not so much that they will be a problem.

Bake at 350 degrees for 24-32 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in a muffin comes out clean and the tops are a shade of golden-brown that pleases you. Cool the whole pan on a rack for eight minutes, then gently lift out the muffins. I only had one muffin rip in half out of 24, so they’re not too hard to handle.

Okay, as a bonus, and because these zucchini muffins are very good but not the very best quickbread I’ve made this year:

King Arthur’s Flour’s Broonie

This recipe is from the King Arthur’s Flour WHOLE GRAIN BAKING. I made it almost like the recipe says, and it is just wonderful. It is like an oatmeal muffin crossed with gingerbread, and I don’t know if that sounds good to you, but trust me, it is great.

1 ½ C old-fashioned rolled oats

1 C barley flour — which I have handy, but if you don’t, you could probably substitute white whole wheat flour or whatever you have.

1 C all-purpose flour

½ C brown sugar

1 ½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda – which the recipe didn’t call for, but with buttermilk, it seemed like a good idea.

1 ½ tsp ground ginger – I used a generous 2 tsp

½ tsp salt

½ C butter

3 eggs

1 C buttermilk

¼ C molasses

½ C diced crystallized ginger

Combine the dry ingredients in a food processor and pulse to combine. Add the butter, in pieces, and pulse to cut in. (The recipe suggests a pastry cutter, which is fine, and I have a very nice pastry cutter, but there’s no question that cutting butter into flour is much, much easier with a food processor.)

Whisk or beat together the eggs, buttermilk, and molasses. Pour in the flour-butter mixture and stir until evenly moistened. Stir in the crystallized ginger.

Pour into a greased loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 50-55 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool eight minutes on a rack. Turn out of pan and cool completely. King Arthur’s Flour recommends that you cool this bread, wrap it well, and slice it the next day. Good for you if you have enough self-control to wait! I promise you, it is excellent sliced while still slightly warm.

Enjoy!