Lois McMaster Bujold's Blog, page 58

Hooray for the IRS! (Phishing warning)

...which is a deeply weird thing for any American taxpayer to say. But anyway...

So, the other morning I was waked up by a recorded phone call with this voice intoning that the IRS was preparing to sue me if I did not call this number and make arrangements. Now, I am not at my best and brightest before my morning tea, but even I knew that when the IRS wants more money from you, they send a letter. (Life experience -- it adds up.) I nonetheless spent a certain amount of time in paranoid worry that one of my recent Medicare payments had somehow got screwed up, and that I was the target of some subcontracting collection agency, who do use such scare tactics. (Hey, I'm a writer. I have lots of practice making up arcane plots.)

Having ascertained that this was not the case, I stumbled, via a web search for the call-back number, onto one of those white pages sites that does reverse number lookups (which I had not before realized existed -- younger blog readers may now laugh.) There I found half a dozen other commenters reporting the same call, some of them more savvy than myself since they'd managed to capture both the call-back number and the originating number. I was reassured, and stood down my general paranoia. (And colonel and sergeant paranoia and all their squads.)

Being by this time deeply angry with these scammers who had cost me time and worry, I sent off a proper citizenly letter to the IRS fraud department in Fresno, documenting my experience to the very limited degree I could, and tried to forget my mini-trauma.

Rather to my surprise, I got a call-back yesterday from a very nice young lady in Fresno, following up. Apparently, the scam is widespread, and indeed some other people had fallen into the trap. She did say that the reporting was a real help, and thanked me for same. So they are on it, and I really hope they can nail the bastards.

The scammers are stealing twice: once from the poor people who fall into their trap, and the second time from all of us in paying for the time and resources that have to be spent trying to track them down.

While any theft is wrong, it seems to me on reflection that this kind of scam is especially cruel, because it's most likely to hurt the sort of persons least able to cope with life.

The reporting address for tax-related fraud is:

IRS
Fresno, CA
93888

Ta, L.

The Spirit Ring PoD is up!

This has been an exciting experiment.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-s...

http://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Ring-Loi...

Being an experiment, I have no idea how it will pan out. If anyone has a go at it, I would be very interested in a report here on your buying experience.

Besides Amazon and B&N, if you are armed with the ISBN the book may be ordered through any bookstore from the distributor Ingram's, Ingram having apparently bought out the print-on-demand company Lightning Source and redubbed the amalgam Ingram Spark. A test through my local SF store Uncle Hugo's revealed that the wholesale discount is not as favorable as indie stores are used to, so they may want to add a surcharge for handling, which may or may not be more or less than the shipping charges from the big online stores. Anyway, the book is out there and, in theory, obtainable.

The ISBN is: 978-1-62578-150-5

Back cover:



front cover:


Ta, L.

Carhartt roundup

As one may discover by perusing it and doing a bit of name-checking, my interest in this ad is entirely personal, although not utilitarian. My own job is sedentary in the extreme -- I could and sometimes do work in my pyjamas and, in this climate, really fuzzy slippers -- but that's not the case for many creative endeavors. Carhartt makes work clothes for women who actually move while working. And so, if only out of their own self-interest, here they help make such women more visible.

https://craftedincarhartt.wordpress.c...

Ta, L.

Mushi-Shi

So... we'd been talking in one thread about the dearth of science in science fiction (and mainstream lit, of course), and in another thread about my favorite anime, when it occurred to me that one of the several reasons I like Mushi-Shi was that the main character, Ginko, who is an itinerant medicine seller who goes around solving people's problems with semi-supernatural entities called "mushi", is that really, Ginko acts as a sort of magical scientist, or at least CDC agent. The series sits very interestingly on a borderline between F & SF.

It can be found here:

http://www.shopanimedvd.com/product_i...

and also on Amazon and Netflix.

http://www.amazon.com/Mushishi-Box-Se...

I was very pleased, in the course of the thread, to learn that a new season had been produced in 2014, which I now have on order. Highly recommended.

(The title, according to my Japanese translator, means "Bug Master". This apparently sounds just as odd in Japanese as English.)

Ta, L.

periodic repost and a question

For new readers -- my own Vorkosigan reading order recs can be found right here on Goodreads.

https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...

Feel free to pass the link along.

So -- what does it mean to be "following (a person's) reviews"? I get a steady stream of notes that people are doing so to mine, but I'm not sure what they are doing, why, and what they are getting from their ends.

Ta, L.

Foxglove Summer

I received, to my delight, a copy of Ben Aaronovitch's Foxglove Summer for Christmas, 5th book in his on-going Rivers of London series. Just finished burning through my first read -- very satisfying. I'll have more things to say in a proper review later.

The book has been out in the UK for some months, but isn't due to release in the US till January 6th. Happily, this will give folks who haven't yet caught up with this series a chance to get started, as it does need to be read in order.

Start here:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9...

My review of the first book is here:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Confusingly, the American edition of the first volume was retitled Midnight Riot for US sale, and packaged in a way to guarantee it would not come to the attention of the sorts of readers who would like it. Basically, aspiring readers need to just ignore the covers, the packaging, the blurbs, and probably the reviews as well, and cut straight to the text, where they will be in good hands thenceforth.

Note that the opening volume has the most horror/dark edge of any so far, a mode for which I have very limited endurance, so if you can get past certain incidents in its plot, the ensuing volumes will be easier, and the rewards of characterization, voice, and place will start to build.

Highly recommended, but don't start with book #5. Start with book #1, under whatever title and circumstances you can find it.

Ta, L.

Two days later: Which leads me to wonder, while cooking my breakfast -- would a suitcase nuke work in Faerie? Or white phosphorous grenades, for that matter. Given that the people who cross over don't drop dead on the spot, the physics and chemistry must work as usual, although I suppose the real answer is, as always, "If the writer says so." Peter would be geeky enough to think of this, but not evil enough to do it; the villains we've seen so far who are evil enough don't seem to be geeky enough, thankfully.

Which reminds me in turn of that old skiffy-minded question, "So why didn't the Eagles just carry Frodo to Mt. Doom?" to which the best answer I've seen so far is, "Because they are proud and powerful birds, and would have taken the Ring for themselves."

(Which leads in turn to the question, "So if the King of the Eagles took the One Ring, how would he reorder Middle-Earth to suit himself?" but that seems another job for Fanficwoman to answer. So undoubtedly someone already has.)

Ta, L.

Winter Solstice

It's been a gray, quiet, chilly and dank day here, suitable for the winding down of the year. And short, of course. In the world of Chalion, it would be the Father's Day.

I can't pass a winter solstice without being reminded of this poem by the late Mike Ford. I thought I had a copy of it when it was a Christmas card, but to my dismay I do not find it with the others of his that I have, just now. Happily, I do find it reposted on the Internet. Well; pixels may yet prove as immortal as stones. Or songs.


Winter Solstice, Camelot Station

John M. Ford


Camelot is served
By a sixteen-track stub terminal done in High Gothick Style,
The tracks covered by a single great barrel-vaulted glass roof framed upon iron,
At once looking back to the Romans and ahead to the Brunels.
Beneath its rotunda, just to the left of the ticket windows,
Is a mosaic floor depicting the Round Table
(Where all knights, regardless of their station of origin
Or class of accommodation, are equal),
And around it murals of knightly deeds in action
(Slaying dragons, righting wrongs, rescuing maidens tied to the tracks).
It is the only terminal, other than Gare d'Avalon in Paris,
To be hung with original tapestries,
And its lavatories rival those at the Great Gate of Kiev Central.
During a peak season such as this, some eighty trains a day pass through,
Five times the frequency at the old Londinium Terminus,
Ten times the number the Druid towermen knew.
(The Official Court Christmas Card this year displays
A crisp black-and-white Charles Clegg photograph from the King's own collection.
Showing a woad-blued hogger at the throttle of "Old XCVII,"
The Fast Mail overnight to Eboracum. Those were the days.)
The first of a line of wagons have arrived,
Spilling footmen and pages in Court livery,
And old thick Kay, stepping down from his Range Rover,
Tricked out in a bush coat from Swaine, Adeney, Brigg,
Leaning on his shooting stick as he marshalls his company,
Instructing the youngest how to behave in the station,
To help mature women that they may encounter,
Report pickpockets, gather up litter,
And of course no true Knight of the Table Round (even in training)
Would do a station porter out of Christmas tips.
He checks his list of arrival times, then his watch
(A moon-phase Breguet, gift from Merlin):
The seneschal is a practical man, who knows trains do run late,
And a stolid one, who sees no reason to be glad about it.
He dispatches pages to posts at the tracks,
Doling out pennies for platform tickets,
Then walks past the station buffet with a dyspeptic snort,
Goes into the bar, checks the time again, orders a pint.
The patrons half turn--it's the fella from Camelot, innit?
And Kay chuckles soft to himself, and the Court buys a round.
He's barely halfway when a page tumbles in,
Seems the knights are arriving, on time after all,
So he tips the glass back (people stare as he guzzles),
Then plonks it down hard with five quid for the barman,
And strides for the doorway (half Falstaff, half Hotspur)
To summon his liveried army of lads.

* * *

Bors arrives behind steam, riding the cab of a heavy Mikado.
He shakes the driver's hand, swings down from the footplate,
And is like a locomotive himself, his breath clouding white,
Dark oil sheen on his black iron mail,
Sword on his hip swinging like siderods at speed.
He stamps back to the baggage car, slams mailed fist on steel door
With a clang like jousters colliding.
The handler opens up and goes to rouse another knight.
Old Pellinore has been dozing with his back against a crate,
A cubical, chain-bound thing with FRAGILE tags and air holes,
BEAST says the label, QUESTING, 1 the bill of lading.
The porters look doubtful but ease the thing down.
It grumbles. It shifts. Someone shouts, and they drop it.
It cracks like an egg. There is nothing within.
Elayne embraces Bors on the platform, a pelican on a rock,
Silently they watch as Pelly shifts the splinters,
Supposing aloud that Gutman and Cairo have swindled him.

A high-drivered engine in Northern Lines green
Draws in with a string of side-corridor coaches,
All honey-toned wood with stained glass on their windows.
Gareth steps down from a compartment, then Gaheris and Aggravaine,
All warmly tucked up in Orkney sweaters;
Gawaine comes after in Shetland tweed.
Their Gladstones and steamers are neatly arranged,
With never a worry--their Mum does the packing.
A redcap brings forth a curious bundle, a rude shape in red paper--
The boys did that one themselves, you see, and how does one wrap a unicorn's head?
They bustle down the platform, past a chap all in green.
He hasn't the look of a trainman, but only Gawaine turns to look at his eyes,
And sees written there Sir, I shall speak with you later.

Over on the first track, surrounded by reporters,
All glossy dark iron and brass-bound mystery,
The Direct-Orient Express, ferried in from Calais and Points East.
Palomides appears. Smelling of patchouli and Russian leather,
Dripping Soubranie ash on his astrakhan collar,
Worry darkening his dark face, though his damascene armor shows no tarnish,
He pushes past the press like a broad-hulled icebreaker.
Flashbulbs pop. Heads turn. There's a woman in Chanel black,
A glint of diamonds, liquid movements, liquid eyes.
The newshawks converge, but suddenly there appears
A sharp young man in a crisp blue suit
From the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits,
That elegant, comfortable, decorous, close-mouthed firm;
He's good at his job, and they get not so much as a snapshot.
Tomorrow's editions will ask who she was, and whom with...

Now here's a silver train, stainless steel, Vista-Domed,
White-lighted grails on the engine (running no extra sections)
The Logres Limited, extra fare, extra fine,
(Stops on signal at Carbonek to receive passengers only).
She glides to a Timkin-borne halt (even her grease is clean),
Galahad already on the steps, flashing that winning smile,
Breeze mussing his golden hair, but not his Armani tailoring,
Just the sort of man you'd want finding your chalice.
He signs an autograph, he strikes a pose.
Someone says, loudly, "Gal! Who serves the Grail?"
He looks--no one he knows--and there's a silence,
A space in which he shifts like sun on water;
Look quick and you may see a different knight,
A knight who knows that meanings can be lies,
That things are done not knowing why they're done,
That bearings fail, and stainless steel corrodes.
A whistle blows. Snow shifts on the glass shed roof. That knight is gone.
This one remaining tosses his briefcase to one of Kay's pages,
And, golden, silken, careless, exits left.

Behind the carsheds, on the business-car track, alongside the private varnish
Of dukes and smallholders, Persian potentates and Cathay princes
(James J. Hill is here, invited to bid on a tunnel through the Pennines),
Waits a sleek car in royal blue, ex-B&O, its trucks and fittings chromed,
A black-gloved hand gripping its silver platform rail;
Mordred and his car are both upholstered in blue velvet and black leather.
He prefers to fly, but the weather was against it.
His DC-9, with its video system and Quotron and waterbed, sits grounded at Gatwick.
The premature lines in his face are a map of a hostile country,
The redness in his eyes a reminder that hollyberries are poison.
He goes inside to put on a look acceptable for Christmas Court;
As he slams the door it rattles like strafing jets.

Outside the Station proper, in the snow,
On a through track that's used for milk and mail,
A wheezing saddle-tanker stops for breath;
A way-freight mixed, eight freight cars and caboose,
Two great ugly men on the back platform, talking with a third on the ballast.
One, the conductor, parcels out the last of the coffee;
They drink. A joke about grails. They laugh.
When it's gone, the trainman pretends to kick the big hobo off,
But the farewell hug spoils the act.
Now two men stand on the dirty snow,
The conductor waves a lantern and the train grinds on.
The ugly men start walking, the new arrival behind,
Singing "Wenceslas" off-key till the other says stop.
There are two horses waiting for them. Rather plain horses,
Considering. The men mount up.
By the roundhouse they pause,
And look at the locos, the water, the sand, and the coal,
The look for a long time at the turntable,
Until the one who is King says "It all seemed so simple, once,"
And the best knight in the world says "It is. We make it hard."
They ride on, toward Camelot by the service road.

The sun is winter-low. Kay's caravan is rolling.
He may not run a railroad, but he runs a tight ship;
By the time they unload in the Camelot courtyard,
The wassail will be hot and the goose will be crackling,
Banners snapping from their towers, fir logs on the fire, drawbridge down,
And all that sackbut and psaltery stuff.
Blanchefleur is taking the children caroling tonight,
Percivale will lose to Merlin at chess,
The young knights will dally and the damsels dally back,
The old knights will play poker at a smaller Table Round.
And at the great glass station, motion goes on,
The extras, the milk trains, the varnish, the limiteds,
The Pindar of Wakefield, the Lady of the Lake,
The Broceliande Local, the Fast Flying Briton,
The nerves of the kingdom, the lines of exchange,
Running to a schedule as the world ought,
Ticking like a hot-fired hand-stoked heart,
The metal expression of the breaking of boundaries,
The boilers that turn raw fire into power,
The driving rods that put the power to use,
The turning wheels that make all places equal,
The knowledge that the train may stop but the line goes on;
The train may stop
But the line goes on.

~~~

The poem was reprinted several times, gracing several anthologies.

For another taste of Mike's work:

http://www.tor.com/stories/2011/04/so...

Mere facts can be found here (and a pretty good photo):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_M._...

Ta, L.

Uncle Hugo's has many books to sell you

...and all of mine are signed. I was over there today to catch up on their stock.

http://www.unclehugo.com/prod/index.s...

They do mail order to all seven continents.

Speaking of signed editions, I see B&N still has some of these...

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/capta...

Happy holiday shopping!

Ta, L.

sneak peek, cover of The Spirit Ring as PoD

This is something we've been working on for a while... a print-on-demand edition of The Spirit Ring. (For the six people on the planet who are still reading print books.)

I should have ordering information fairly soon.




This is very much an experiment -- it has been useful to have one not-series-connected book free to explore such options at relatively low risk. If it goes well, we may give Sidelines: Talks and Essays a whirl as well.

Ta, L.

Ivan in French

My actual for-real author's copies of Captain Vorpatril's Alliance in French arrived in today's mail --




and the back:




Unusual for the French publisher to use the American cover art. It really is an amazing painting when it's not all slathered over with print. (Most of the interesting detail is in the lower third.)

http://www.daveseeley.com/p78742369/h...

Ta, L.