Rachel Neumeier's Blog, page 61

Recent Reading: The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Okay, so first, The Egypt Game isn’t a fantasy novel. You might have known that already.

This is a MG story about a handful of kids, about eleven years old or so, who get deeply involved in playing an imagination-based game in which they pretend to be ancient Egyptians. It’s a story with lots of charm and, for an adult reader who can perhaps see the events coming rather far in advance, low tension. There’s a threat, but I hardly think any reader of any age is going to imagine that any of the named characters might actually get killed or anything, and, spoiler, they are indeed all fine.

However, I can help reduce the stress further. Ready?

Every time someone could be mean, they aren’t.

There you go, a charming MG story, showcasing the kind of imaginative game that possibly some of us can recall developing when we were that age, only more so, plus a plot that centers friendship and just skips over the potential of kids to be mean to each other.

April is a newcomer to this town; her mother, uninterested in raising a child, has just dumped her on her paternal grandmother. This is sad, of course, and April is upset. She rejects her grandmother’s tentative efforts to be friends, instead putting on lots of airs about her movie star mother who will soon come to take her back home. (Her mother is not a movie star.) April is therefore all set to be miserable, but right away, she meets Melanie.

Melanie is a sociable, friendly girl who happens to like imaginative games. So does April. They almost immediately become best friends. Having happened upon a fenced and abandoned back lot, with a bust of Nefertiti among the random abandoned junk in the lot, they start the Egypt game, making props to turn the lot into Egypt and a shed into a shrine to Nefertiti and it all goes on from there. But for me, the event that actually sets the tone for the story is that Melanie carefully plans how to prevent April from being ostracized at her new school, and yep, that works, and we just step neatly around a huge potential source of tension and unhappiness.

That kind of thing keeps happening. Also, the problem in the background, April being rejected by her mother and then rejecting her grandmother, constitutes one plot arc, and that comes to a satisfying conclusion. Nearly all the various subplots do wind up in good places. There is, warning in case you want zero tension, a murder in the neighborhood and this has a big effect on the plot and leads to the climax. Therefore there is a little tension. But all this is background for the actual story about friendship and the role of imaginative play in this particular friendship.

I liked the story a lot, though certainly not as much as Below the Root / And All Between. Wow, just typing the titles brings back memories! I read these two as a duology long before I read the third book, Until the Celebration, which to me seemed to unnecessarily re-tread old ground, reintroducing problems that were settled in a satisfying way at the end of the second book. I didn’t hate it, but I kind of prefer to treat this series as a duology plus an unnecessary extra. The first two stand out for me as close to my very favorite stories when I was a kid.

There’s a sequel to The Egypt Game called The Gypsy Game. Maybe I’ll read that one next.

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Update: Wow, stressful; also, an upcoming sale

So, the very first reviews and ratings are going up for Invictus: Crisis, and whew, off to a good start! 4.7 stars right now, and I hope it sits right there. I mean, up is okay. Down is okay as well, provided it doesn’t go too far down. I basically assume everything will settle between 4.5 and 4.7, but while I was VERY SURE almost all readers would love the ending of Tasmakat, I was not nearly that confident about either half of Invictus. Readers have been much more tolerant of the cliffhanger ending of the first book than I honestly expected, which was a huge relief; and now if most readers feel the ending is good and satisfying, that will also be a huge relief.

Small sale begins tomorrow: Invictus: Captive drops to $1.99 for a week. This is because I’m running a book launch promotion via Written Word Media. The reason is exactly the same as for No Foreign Sky: I think it’s urgent to make sure Invictus is shown to SF readers rather than fantasy readers. Also, KU pages read for NFS went higher than I expected and stayed up for a long time compared to other books, which I think is most likely because of the book launch, and it would be nice if that happened again. Not sure it will; for me, for two years now, all promotion in the spring has worked better for me than any promotion in the fall. But we’ll see.

Anyway, it’s a small price drop, but if you haven’t picked up the first book and might want to, this is the time. Sometime in November, I’ll raise the price of at least the second book, maybe the first, not sure.

***

Question nobody has asked me, as far as I can remember: How tense do you feel when a new book releases? Answer: generally speaking, very tense. I wasn’t sure readers would like Tano or No Foreign Sky or the Death’s Lady trilogy or, before that, the second book of the Griffin Mage trilogy (or the first book, or the third book, but the second was the one I was particularly tense about. So much traveling back and forth! I wasn’t sure that would work for readers).

Different reasons: Tano is such a character study, very little happens, it’s a simple plot, fairly predictable in broad strokes. NFS is so super-fast, but has relatively little character development compared to a lot of my stories, so character readers who loved Tano might not like it at all. Plus it’s my first SF, so what about that? The DL trilogy is just odd; starting with a short novel that is basically pure character study with almost no fantasy elements is just … so odd. I really had doubts about its reception.

Books I was sure about: The Floating Islands and Tasmakat. Those are the two I really did not worry about. Maybe Suelen. That’s a straightforward story, but anybody who reads it should pretty much expect exactly the story they got, so I wasn’t very tense about that one. What’s it’s rating? … yep, 4.6, right at expectations.

I do not, of course, expect all readers to love each and every book. It’s inevitable that somebody will dislike any given book (even Tasmakat!) even if they love other books of mine. This is fine. I’m pretty happy as long as the overall rating indicates that most readers are giving the story a thumbs up, which (so far) looks good for Invictus.

Now you’ll know who I’m talking about when I say I’m thinking of a sequel with Erec Chatham as one pov character and Ketsova or Desya as the other. Pretty likely I’ll go on with that. Next year is sure shaping up to be busy, mostly with drafts of new books, though there’s one manuscript I’ve got sitting around that I could in theory pick up and dust off. We’ll see.

***

Meanwhile, reasonable progress with Silver Circle. It’s slower than I’d like, but I’ve been busy and also I should have remembered that everything else is slow compared to anything in the Tuyo world. It’s going fine. The best news on this front is that I’m pretty sure I can integrate the material originally written from Grayson’s pov without too much trouble. I’ve figured out, I think, how to keep the important plot element almost intact. I’m pretty happy about that.

I’d call this draft half finished except I’m betting it will go quite long, so let’s say it’s about at the one-third mark. Not bad, and hopefully it will keep moving fairly smoothly. I have figured out how to get into the middle and move toward the end, which is helpful. This week, I will be scattering characters in various directions, which will make it easier to handle most scenes as I won’t be trying to handle a zillion characters at a time.

Four pov characters right now. I’m going to try to keep it to just those four.

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How to write a book review

Super appealing title for this book review: Marvellous, Numinous and Strange: The Pomegranate Gate by Ariel Kaplan

This review of The Pomegranate Gate is by Liz Bourke, who is indeed gifted at writing reviews. I didn’t realize “numinous” was a word that could specifically catch my attention, but it definitely is. This row of adjectives caught me at once. I’ve never heard of this book or this author, but I’m immediately interested.

This lush, vivid and atmospheric novel draws Guy Gavriel Kay to mind. … Kaplan’s world, like Kay’s, treads narrowly along the line between historical fantasy and fantastical imagination. For both, the history is recognisably ours, with the names lightly altered (if at all). But unlike most of Kay’s work, Kaplan’s includes real magic and its great and terrible effects.

Really? Now I’m even more interested, though for me the world “terrible” pushes me away a bit. I’d be fine with great and non-terrible. But let’s see where this is going …

Naftaly Cresques will never be a good tailor, for all that he’s a tailor’s son. He dreams every night of strange cities, and when waking often sees things that aren’t there. With his father’s death, he falls heir to a book that’s been in his family for ten generations, one he must never lose and never read.

Very neat!

Toba Peres is a frail young woman. She can walk but running makes her fall; speak but shouting makes her throat close and stops her breath. She can write in multiple languages with both hands at once: one for Latin, one for Arabic. She wears an amulet to protect her, one that’s been in her grandmother’s family from time out of mind: a valuable thing with a great flawed sapphire at its heart.

I’m still on board. Now we get a bit about how the plot unfolds. Then Bourke continues:

Kaplan weaves the strands of the narrative deftly together, with the solution to one mystery unfolding into the outlines of the next, each fresh revelation tightening the noose of tension around the characters and drawing the reader onwards. But tension and peril is balanced with wonder: The Pomegranate Gate is suffused with a sense of the numinous, with the marvelous and the strange. … Kaplan’s prose is lively, her imagery vivid and colourful. At times her register recalls that of fable or of poetry, but without sacrificing its readable accessibility. Even her minor characters come across as real, interesting people, and the main characters are compelling indeed.

I’m leaving out anything about the plot because plot summary by itself is seldom compelling — though Bourke does this part well. The key words in this review for me: marvelous, numinous, wonder, vivid, ‘register of fable or poetry,’ compelling. The comments about the characters and plot appeal because those comments evoke a dreamlike and wonderful feel. The setting draws upon the Jewish experience of medieval Iberia, says Bourke, and that’s appealing as well.

Now, other reviews. This book was just released, so there are just a few reviews at Amazon, many more at Goodreads, where readers can leave reviews long before a book is released. Here are some words from three-star reviews at Goodreads: Slow. Slow beginning. Complicated. Lacked any sense of urgency. Feels like a prequel. I’m picking words and phrases to illustrate something we probably already know: that readers are individuals and what is a problem for one reader can be a plus for another reader. I’m not saying that really slow pacing always works for me. But, if you add good prose and a sense of the numinous, it probably will.

Let’s take a look at the beginning …

Oh, that’s a pretty table of contents! Artwork in the ToC, I’ve never seen that before, it’s very nice. There’s a map. And a poem. And a Dramatis Personae — look, with ebooks, please put that in the back; what with one thing and another we’re 30% into the sample before we hit chapter one. I do like the prettiness, but there’s no need to have the ToC take up that much space.

Here’s the beginning:

Naftaly was dreaming again, in that strange dream-landscape where the stars whirled overhead like snow on the wind and the people he met all had square-pupiled eyes.

They were all strangers to him, the square-eyed people he dreamed of — all save one: his father. In Naftaly’s dreams, is father’s eyes were odd, too, though waking they were wholly ordinary. Naftaly did not know if his own dreaming face had the square-pupiled eyes as well, never having come upon a mirror in his dreams, but he assumed so. He wondered how that looked, if it made him seem strange, or handsome, or hideous. No one ever remarked on it. His eyes, awake, were the same dark brown as his father’s, round-pupiled and not particularly interesting.

In this dream, he’d come across his father eating oranges while sitting on a bridge Naftaly did not recognize, spanning what he supposed was meant to be the Guadalraman. They sat on the wall together, watching a swath of people traveling from one side of the river to the other, across the bridge, which was lit at intervals with lights that seemed to burn without flame. It was a busy night, Naftly thought. Probably he was dreaming of the end of a market day, though the people had no goods. He thought his subconscious could have come up with more interesting details: bolts of cloth or jugs of oil, or perhaps some sweets.

I like the first sentence a lot. The next couple of paragraphs don’t stand out particularly. Nevertheless, given Liz Bourke’s review, I’m definitely interested. No idea when I’ll actually get to it! Maybe by that time it’ll be a trilogy!

If any of you have read it, which would mean you sure pounced on it fast, what did you think?

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Let’s cut all adverbs and adjectives

Let’s cut all adverbs and adjectives, because who needs description if you use well-chosen nouns, right?

This post is inspired by this great post Rowan linked to yesterday at Patricia Wrede’s blog, about cutting adverbs and adjectives. You see stern advice about the evils of adverbs a lot more often than advice about cutting adjectives, but you do see advice to avoid adjectives as well, as for example here, here, and here. Also here and here and seriously, there’s no end to it. This kind of advice gets tedious, especially when advice like this is promulgated in a superior tone of voice. We great writers will explain How To Write. You aspiring writers should listen to Our Great Wisdom.

Anyway, here, let’s take a look at the first few paragraphs of Invictus: Crisis, because I’ve got it sitting right here.

***

The shuttle conveying Segohda’s representative to Invictus set down in the largest shipbay before Nalyn Ila arrived, with Sevastien one zero two four, at the entrance to the bay. She received the ping from Helm and returned an acknowledgment without comment, because there was nothing at all helpful to say about this somewhat fraught and decidedly inconvenient situation.

She would have preferred to arrive in the bay first. But sorting through the available options — all bad, many terrible — had taken unavoidable minutes of debate and decision, so the shuttle settled in the bay long minutes before Ila could get there. She tabbed on the camera views of the shipbay in her link and yes indeed, there it was, a gray and blue Ubezhishche shuttle with Torgarishhe ID markers across its sides. Ubez ship and shuttle design went for sleek more than blunt force, an aesthetic that Ila rather preferred to Elysian designs, though she would hardly say so out loud.

So far, no one had stepped out of that shuttle onto her deck. She had no idea who this representative was, what he or she might be like. She didn’t know what line this person might belong to, which made planning difficult. She would prefer an A or B line Ubez to K or T or V; she would prefer any line less inclined to aggression and more inclined to diplomacy. She would have much preferred Segohda himself to arrive than some representative—any representative. There had, alas, been no chance at all that Desovashidazhsha Segohda five one two would set foot on her deck himself. He was just too important.

Dazhsha was somewhat close to rear admiral; vashidazhsha somewhere in the neighborhood of full admiral, desovashidazhsha something like fleet admiral. The parallels weren’t exact, but they were close enough. Segohda stood third from the top of the entire Ubezhishche fleet.

***

Now, the sentences that are wholly destroyed by removing adjectives could be rephrased. Let’s try just removing all the adverbs and adjectives, rephrasing just a bit when that is absolutely necessary.

***

The shuttle conveying Segohda’s representative to Invictus set down in the shipbay before Nalyn Ila arrived, with Sevastien one zero two four, at the entrance to the bay. She received the ping from Helm and returned an acknowledgment, because there was nothing to say about this situation.

She would have preferred to arrive in the bay first. But sorting through the options had taken minutes of debate and decision, so the shuttle settled in the bay before Ila could get there. She tabbed on the camera views of the shipbay in her link and yes indeed, there it was, an Ubezhishche shuttle with Torgarishhe ID markers across its sides.

So far, no one had stepped out of that shuttle onto her deck. She had no idea who this representative was, what he or she might be like. She didn’t know what line this person might belong to. She would prefer an A or B line Ubez to K or T or V. She would have preferred Segohda himself to arrive than some representative—any representative. There had, alas, been no chance that Desovashidazhsha Segohda five one two would set foot on her deck himself.

Dazhsha was like the Elysian title rear admiral; vashidazhsha like full admiral, desovashidazhsha like fleet admiral. The parallels weren’t exact, but they were close. Segohda stood third from the top of the Ubezhishche fleet.

***

Raise your hand if you think this avoidance of two important components of the English language produced superior prose. Does anybody think the effort and time required to rephrase everything to improve the sentences and get them to flow reasonably smoothly would be worthwhile?

Okay, now raise your hand if you think “kill most adjectives and almost all adverbs” is great advice for writers who are working to write their first novel. Does focusing on sentences in this specific way seem likely to help? Anybody?

Removing adverbs and or adjectives might actually be a useful and interesting exercise in very small doses, particularly when combined with a genuine effort to write tight, lean, effective prose. This might be a justified use of time and effort as a specific writing exercise for one short (very short) story. Unless this exercises causes writers to freeze up and contributes to the rather common problem of writer paralysis: an inability to write anything because of fear that the story or the sentences won’t be perfect. It seems to me that might be a real risk. In that case, it’s a horrible exercise that should be avoided at all costs.

***

Whew! This was an interesting post to write. Now back to my normal style, rife with adjectives and adverbs. I’m not going to track down the hundred most recent post across the internet that declare adjectives are evil — adjectives! For heaven’s sake! — and post comments on all of them. But if I had infinite time, I’d be tempted.

A brief moment to add: Thanks to whoever it was who told me I’d gone overboard with “very” in Invictus, because sure, that can be a risk, particularly after losing my ability to see “very” because of writing over a million words in the Tuyo series. Advice to cut specific adverbs or, I don’t know, a quarter of all adverbs or whatever, that can be good advice! It’s not that I don’t think that can be good advice!

It’s the advice that adverbs should be “as rare as solar eclipses” and adjectives should be used “sparingly and only when they can’t be avoided” that drives me up the proverbial wall. Particularly when I’ve just seen someone on Twitter agonizing about maybe they need to avoid all adverbs, and I’m like, For heaven’s sake, quit worrying about this! You’ll drive yourself nuts, possibly destroy your ability to write, and there’s no need for it! Just disregard all proscriptive advice and write the story the way you want to write it!

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Live!

You know what? For the first time, it’s now possible to set the release date of a paperback book via KDP. I hope and expect that it will also soon be possible to put paperback and hardcovers up for preorder. I’ve never quite understood why that is impossible.

Anyway, I set the paperback edition of INVICTUS: CRISIS to go live today, so that anybody who happens to prefer a paper copy can get it at just about exactly the same time the ebook drops.

Here it is, and I sure hope you all love it!

Ebook drops this Sunday. Aargh! I hate waiting.

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DWJ: The Other Books

So, obviously, Diana Wynne Jones wrote a lot of books. Let me count. Looks like about forty, which is honestly not as many as I thought. But still, that’s a lot of books, and lots of them are strikingly good. I particularly love the first couple Chrestomanci books, which probably means I’m another sheep following the herd, as I think those must be among her most popular.

Some time ago, as you may recall, I listed out the books I currently have on my TBR shelves, and there on those shelves was one of DWJ’s books, Wilkin’s Tooth. That’s one of the few of hers I hadn’t read, so once I reminded myself it was there, I went ahead and read it. This kicked off a … a sort of slow-motion DWJ reading binge, as I started rereading various of her other books that I had read before, but didn’t remember all that well. I mean, the ones I read when I was a kid, I have re-read over and over. But a good handful, I picked up much later and have only read once. Some of those, I didn’t remember very well. These are what I mean when I say The Other Books.

So I’m re-reading them now. But slowly, because all this time I have been doing final tweaking and proofing for various books and also working on SILVER CIRCLE and ALSO working on this and that, PLUS reading a few contemporary rom-com novels.

Thus, as I say, a (very) slow-motion reading binge. But I’ve read a few! So, a few brief comments, here we go –

1. Wilkin’s Tooth

I liked it! I mean, I think it’s a minor work, but I still liked it.

Why is it minor? Well, the plot is simple, without a lot of surprises. We have the kids who start the Own Back company, which predictably does not go as expected, and the witch who isn’t pleased to have kids shoving into her revenge business. She looks unpleasant the first time we meet her and yep, she’s unpleasant. The way her backstory ties into the backstory of various other characters is … not entirely believable, I guess. This is the kind of MG story where the adults have to be particularly ineffectual in order for the kids to be put in the position of having to solve the problem.

Also, the solution to defeating the witch is simplistic to the point of being silly. I guess I don’t want to criticize it too specifically because that would require important spoilers, but I will just note that if the villain has to be ultra stupid to be defeated, the victory lacks a certain oomph. However, it’s still a charming story and I did like it. It made me want to revisit other DWJ novels, so I went on to read –

2. Enchanted Glass

This story is also surprisingly straightforward for one of DWJ’s novels, because wow, this is not always the case at all. But this time it is. I mean, there’s Oberon, and a lot of the magic kind of connects to that one truth – that Oberon is right there, an enemy; and that Andrew needs to oppose him, but doesn’t know enough about magic.

Basic lesson here: if you’re passing on powerful magic plus an important responsibility plus dangerous enemies to your grandson, be sure to explain everything well in advance. And possibly leave written notes. Not hidden. Right out where your heir will be certain to find them.

This story is longer, so there’s more room to develop the protagonists. This is largely the reason I liked it better than Wilkin’s Tooth. Plus the were-dog was charming. It’s still MG, so DWJ didn’t need to actually explain various important aspects of the worldbuilding – those doppelgangers, for example. Those are not exactly customary in fairy tales, so that’s an element that DWJ just threw in herself, and it did seem a little inexplicable.

The defeat of Oberon felt sort of like an afterthought, but since I wasn’t especially interested in Oberon, I didn’t care. I liked how everybody wound up in position to live happily ever after.

2. The Pinhoe Egg

This is a Chrestomanci story, so yay! because as I said, I love the Chrestomanci stories. My favorites are the early ones, but I did like this one. Once again, the adults, in this case the entire Pinhoe clan, had to be rendered ineffectual in order for Marianne Pinhoe and Cat Chant to take center stage. However, this time the explanation for why the adults were ineffectual was more believable. Except for Chrestomani himself, who should really not have needed help to solve various problems.

This story seems less aimed at young MG readers because the story is a bit more complex and also the villains are a lot less one-dimensional and unrealistic. They are bad people in a much more petty, stupid, realistic way, which I do not necessarily prefer. Poor Marianne! It’s not that she doesn’t wind up okay, but I’m sorry her father was not a better person.

I liked Syracuse, of course, and the griffin.

None of these are going to wind up as my favorite DWJ stories, but I did like them all and I certainly have been reminded of how great a writer DWJ was. I brought another few of hers upstairs and put them on the coffee table, so I will read them soon-ish.

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Stop being snarky about adverbs

I don’t want to make you all super sensitive to all adverbs by bringing this up every time I turn around, but here’s a post by James Scott Bell at Kill Zone Blog:

Elmore Leonard said, “Never use an adverb to modify the verb ‘said’ . . . he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange.”

While I’m not an absolutist on this, I think the use of adverbs should be as rare as a solar eclipse. Therefore, cut as many as possible. …

Yes, yes, I know, let’s all be grouchy about adverbs. (Bell’s next diatribe is about semicolons, and just stop, would you? Semicolons are fine.)

But right now, adverbs.

A) Dickens, Oliver Twist

Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born: on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of the business at all events: the item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter.

For a long time after it was ushered into this world of sorrow and trouble, by the parish surgeon, it remained a matter of considerable doubt whether the child would survive to bear any name at all; in which case it is somewhat more than probable that these memoirs would never have appeared; or, if they had, that being comprised within a couple of pages, they would have possessed the inestimable merit of being the most concise and faithful specimen of biography, extant in the literature of any age or country.

Although I am not disposed to maintain that the being born in a workhouse, is in itself the most fortunate and enviable circumstance that can possibly befal a human being, I do mean to say that in this particular instance, it was the best thing for Oliver Twist that could by possibility have occurred. The fact is, that there was considerable difficulty in inducing Oliver to take upon himself the office of respiration, –a troublesome practice, but one which custom has rendered necessary to our easy existence; and for some time he lay gasping on a little flock mattress, rather unequally poised between this world and the next: the balance being decidedly in favour of the latter. Now, if, during this brief period, Oliver had been surrounded by careful grandmothers, anxious aunts, experienced nurses, and doctors of profound wisdom, he would most inevitably and indubitably have been killed in no time. There being nobody by, however, but a pauper old woman, who was rendered rather misty by an unwonted allowance of beer; and a parish surgeon who did such matters by contract; Oliver and Nature fought out the point between them. The result was, that, after a few struggles, Oliver breathed, sneezed, and proceeded to advertise to the inmates of the workhouse the fact of a new burden having been imposed upon the parish, by setting up as loud a cry as could reasonably have been expected from a male infant who had not been possessed of that very useful appendage, a voice, for a much longer space of time than three minutes and a quarter.

As Oliver gave this first proof of the free and proper action of his lungs, the patchwork coverlet which was carelessly flung over the iron bedstead, rustled; the pale face of a young woman was raised feebly from the pillow; and a faint voice imperfectly articulated the words, “Let me see the child, and die.”

Of course, Dickens was writing a long time ago.

B) A Winter’s Tale by Helprin

Treading water, she looked at it carefully, and saw that it was a white horse twice as big as the draft animals that pulled ploughs in the potato fields, but with the lean look of a Southampton hunt horse. Though she had never seen either a cavalry mount or a battle, she knew from its motions that it thought it was in a fight. It was not drowning, but, rather, enmeshed in some sort of dream. Its front hooves left the water like leaping marlin, and smashed down into imagined opponents, cleaving the surface into angled geysers. It neighed the way horses do in a fight, in self-encouragement, and its legs never ceased flailing as it tried to trample down the brine.

If she were to approach it, she would surely be crushed, and if not, held in the vortex that it was slowly carving, and dragged under to drown. Even so, she swam into the ring.

The water there was far less substantial and less buoyant. Sometimes she went down in this rapids, and surfaced in a different quarter. But she kept swimming until she was literally upon him – half floating, half resting on his broad back. She put her arms around his neck as far as she could (which was not very far), and closed her eyes in anticipation of the detonation to come.

C) Under Heaven by GGK

The birds woke him from the far end of the lake.

He had attempted a formal six-line poem several nights ago, their strident morning noise compared to opening hour at the two markets in Xinan, but hadn’t been able to make the parallel construction hold in the final couplet. His technical skills as a poet were probably above average, good enough for the verse component of the examinations, but not likely, in his own judgment, to produce something enduring. …

Before drinking or eating, while the tea leaves were steeping, he stood at the eastern window and spoke the prayer to his father’s spirit in the direction of sunrise. Whenever he did this, he summoned and held a memory of Shen Gao feeding bread to the wild ducks in their stream. He didn’t know why that was his remembrance-image, but it was. Perhaps the tranquility of it, in a life that had not been tranquil.

He prepared and drank his tea, ate some salt-dried meat and milled grain in hot water sweetened with clover honey, then he claimed his peasant-farmer straw hat from a nail by the door and pulled on his boots. The summer boots were almost new, a gift from Iron Gate, replacing the worn-out pair he’d had.

They had noticed that. They observed him closely whenever they came, Tai had come to understand. He had also realized, during the first hard winter, that he’d almost certainly have died here without the help of the two forts. You could live entirely alone in some mountains in some seasons — it was a legend-dream of the hermit-poet — but not at Kuala Nor in winter, not this high up and remote when the snows came and the north wind came off the mountains.

The supplies, at new and full moon without fail, had kept him alive — and had arrived only through extreme effort several times, when wild storms had bowled down to blast the frozen meadow and lake.

He milked the two goats, took the pail inside and covered it for later. He claimed his two swords and went back out and did his Kanlin routines. He put the swords away and then, outside again, stood a moment in almost-summer sunshine listening to the shrieking racket of birds, watching them wheel and cry above the lake, which was blue and beautiful in morning light and gave no least hint at all of winter ice, or of how many dead were here around its shores. Until you looked away from birds and water to the tall grass of the meadow, and then you saw the bones in the clear light, everywhere. Tai could see his mounds, where he was burying them, west of the cabin, north against the pines. Three long rows of deep graves now.

He turned to claim his shovel and go to work. It was why he was here.

His eye was caught by a glint to the south: sunlight catching armour halfway along the last turning of the last slope down. Looking more narrowly he saw that the Tagurans were early today, or — he checked the sun again — that he was moving slowly himself, after a moon-white, waking night.

***

I’m sure you can pick anyone you think is a great stylist and do the same thing: Start at the beginning or pick a random scene and mark the adverbs and notice that (a) there are some, and (b) they aren’t as rare as an eclipse.

Also:

D) Can’t Stop Me by James Scott Bell

Sam Trask vaguely remembered the name at the end of the email. You remember guys named Nicky, even if you don’t think about them for twenty-five years.

Nicky Oberlin. That’s how he’d signed the email, along with a phone number.

The tightness in his chest, the clenching he’d been feeling for the last few weeks, returned. Why should that happen because of one random email? Because it presented a complication, a thing that called for response. He did not need that now, not with the way things were at home.

***

That’s the very first sentence of the book. I’m just saying.

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Recent Reading: Agnes and the Hitman

Okay, so Agnes and the Hitman, by Jennifer Cruisie and Bob Meyer, was a lot less purely charming than The Bodyguard. A lot less. I really loved this book, but I had to tolerate certain things in order to love it, and I sure see why Hanneke, for example, didn’t point to this one as a favorite.

1. I liked Agnes a lot. Cruisie seems to be remarkably good at coming up with unique protagonists and developing a romance in an unusual way that fits the specific protagonist. In this case, Agnes is a good cook with a regular cooking column and a few little anger management problems. I mean, she really does have anger management issues. But, I mean, if someone breaks into your home and tries to steal your dog and points a gun at you, bashing him with a frying pan does seem quite reasonable. And stabbing the ex with a meat fork, given the circumstances, it’s hard to blame her. Anyway, I liked her a lot.

2. I liked Shane a lot, and I was amused at how the authors make sure the reader sees that Shane is not a bad guy even though he really is a hitman. The very first time we see him, he’s on a job, and what does he immediately do? He lets a girl leave, even handing her a plane ticket so she can get out of danger. The authors also make it explicitly clear that Shane kills bad people for the government, not random people for money.

3. I like most of the other characters a lot – all the characters the reader is supposed to like. The romance is fun. The writing is absolutely top-notch. The dialogue is funny and sharp-witted. The plotting has many unexpected little twists. The wedding! The all-important wedding that has to take place on time or else Agnes loses the house! Despite all obstacles – wow, are there a lot of obstacles – the wedding is a success. I mean, spoiler, I guess, but this is a Rom-Com, sort of, more or less, and surely the reader cannot possibly doubt that Agnes will succeed in putting on that wedding for her best friend’s daughter no matter what. And she does.

And I loved how the wedding was actually handled when we finally got there, too.

So what didn’t I like?

Okay, so this wasn’t exactly a problem for me – not exactly – but I sure see why it would be a problem for some readers. This is a Rom-Com, pretty much, but along with wit, charm, and great characters the reader will love, the story is also filled right to the brim with betrayal, justified anger, a high body count, and the worst sorts of villains. Stupid bad guys who stagger into stupid bad actions? Check. Nasty hitmen who are fine with killing anybody they’re paid to kill? Check. Cold-hearted vicious bad guys who think they’re above the law? Check. Totally selfish guys who are happy to rip off someone who trusts them? Check. Genuine Mafia dons with grim pasts? Check. Worst of all, a mother from hell, who is just beyond awful.

Honestly, maybe this isn’t a Rom-Com? It sure is on the edge of being something else.

Yet this all worked for me. Everyone pretty much gets what they deserve, that’s probably why. That and the very sharp writing. Well, those things plus I really liked all the characters who weren’t bad guys. Plus …

Character types I happen to like:

a) Girl who disguises herself as a boy

b) Veterinarians, doctors

c) Cooks, chefs, bakers

d) Thieves

e) Bodyguards

f) And, yes, hitmen. I mean, the kind of competent hitmen who get civilians out of the way and only kill bad people, and rescue dogs as necessary. Or at least all those things are checkmarks on the good side of the ledger.

Agnes is a cook. Shane is the right sort of hitman. Given the excellent writing, I was destined to love this book, and I did.

Overall assessment: No wonder Jennifer Cruisie is so popular; she deserves to be.

I see why the books she writes with Bob Meyers, and the spinoff books Meyers writes on his own, may have too much of a dark edge for some readers. I totally get that. But I loved this book and I’m looking forward to reading more of Cruisie’s books. I bet her books would work to break me out of a reading slump, like those of Ilona Andrews. I think I might save a couple of the ones you all recommended most highly for later, to break slumps or just as treats. I can also see that I should probably just pick up her entire backlist, because I bet I read them all over the next year or so.

I tried a sample of the sequel to this book, Shane and the Hitwoman, which Bob Meyers wrote by himself, and I didn’t finish the sample. The problem for me was that in the very first scene, Shane is shown as incompetent. Sorry, author! If you want me to enjoy your hitman character, you have to make him competent right off the bat!

What Meyer is doing here, I’m pretty sure, is reducing Shane’s competence so the Perky Young Female Hitwoman can shine. Well, don’t do that! You can add a Perky Young Female Protagonist, but don’t try to make her seem more cool by making your previous protagonist seem less cool! That is not okay with me, and I’m sure many readers probably agree.

I have several more Cruisie samples and the full book for Lavender’s Blue. I’m certain to go on with more of Cruisie’s books this year.

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AI “New Art Styles”

I don’t know about the novelty, but via Astral Codex Ten, here is an AI artwork characterized as showing “hidden but obvious spirals.” I agree with the obvious, not with the hidden.

I have to admit, I quite like this image. I find it surreal in an appealing way. But why would anybody characterize the spirals as “hidden”?

Now, this next one is supposed to show “hidden but obvious text,” and this is really interesting because this time I’m like, it must be well hidden, because I can’t see it. So this time, I’m saying the text may be hidden, but it is not obvious — at least, not to me.

Can anybody see the text? What does it say? Can you tell me where to look? All I see is a capital “N” at the top, and I’m not sure about that.

I’m not as opposed to AI art as AI text, which is (I’m very aware) because I’m a text generator myself, not an art generator. But I’m pretty sure I will never use AI-generated cover art for a book because (a) AI text generation definitely plagiarizes, so I’m quite willing to assume that AI art generators plagiarize as well; and (b) KDP asks you to declare that your books are free of AI-generated content (they permit, at least for now, “AI-assisted content,” and here is where they describe what they mean by these terms). Given this requirement, I’m 100% for sure not at all remotely tempted to use any cover generated by AI, and not only that, I’m asking cover artists to tell me flatly that they aren’t generating covers using AI tools so that I have a paper trail if necessary.

I didn’t bother for the Invictus cover artist because after all, that video where he shows the creation of the cover is pretty conclusive. No AI tools in use there. I would bet that cover artists are all going to be getting this question and all the reputable ones will be putting statements on their websites about it. I mean, I sure would. You know what else? I would produce videos just like the artist who did the Invictus cover to prove that I was doing the art myself. Maybe not for every cover I made because that would be a headache, but for enough to make it clear that I was an actual artist for real.

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Update: Somewhat Illusory Progress

A pretty good week and weekend! Much less eventful than last weekend’s convention, much more ordinary.

Oh, except! This was eventful: my mother turns out NOT to have cancer for the third time this year, so whew! (!!!). I was seriously worried, but this time, no, not any kind of skin cancer, not even some relatively benign sort, it’s something I don’t remember the name of, but harmless.

That was important.

Less important but eventful: Tiny Boy Four came to stay with me for a couple of weeks. His name is actually Piolo. I knew Haydee would be delighted, and so she is. He’ll be here another full week. I will be sorry when she loses her new buddy. Actually, Piolo is her full brother, though a year older. No, dogs don’t seem able to tell. But they are buddies for sure.

Meanwhile! Progress, but not as much as it looks like. Silver Circle jumped from 40,000 words on Friday to poof! 56,000 words on Sunday. But not really. I got far enough in to decide this was a good time to drop Grayson’s partial novella into the file. Alas, ordinary to possibly heavy revision is necessary, so not nearly as much instant progress as I hoped. It’s not just switching pov. That’s tedious, but not difficult. It’s that a big element of the story plot is (a) not what I remembered, and (b) not consistent with my current idea about the plot of this section. Can I come up with a way to integrate the partial story into the new novel without just tearing it up and starting over? Magic Eight Ball says: Future Unclear, Ask Again Later.

By this time next week, I expect that will be sorted out one way or the other.

Meanwhile! It feels strange to have let go of Invictus: Crisis a week before the release date, two days before the preorder locks. But at this point, all I’m doing is watching the hours click down and fretting. I hope you all love the ending! Aargh, I hate waiting!

It’s going to be a long week, but hopefully a productive one, filled with nice weather and a complete lack of excitement, just what I prefer.

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