Victoria Janssen's Blog, page 19

My March Reading Log

Fiction:
Mira’s Last Dance: Penric & Desdemona Book 5 by Lois McMaster Bujold was delightful to read, but it felt like it ended too soon, not just because it leaves the door open for the next story, but because it felt like less had happened overall. It’s a transitional story, all of it escaping from one place to another.

Leverage in Death (In Death, Book 47) by J.D. Robb was a bit more interesting than some of the recent entries, alas due to an overly-complex murder method that seemed a bit...

My February Reading Log

Fiction:
The City and The City by China Miéville is actually a mystery, though set in a bizarre speculative world. Two cities occupy the same space, and the inhabitants learn to “unsee” and “unhear” their counterparts. There is bureaucracy surrounding interactions between the two cities, which we see when the protagonist, a detective investigating a murder, needs information from both sides. As usual with Miéville, the world is densely built, especially politically; it’s subtly and meticulous...

My January Reading Log

Fiction:
The Ritual Bath by Faye Kellerman is first in the contemporary Decker/Lazarus mystery series. A violent rape and then a brutal murder take place in a tightknit yeshiva community in California; we get the pov of Rina Lazarus, the widow of one of the scholars, and Peter Decker, the police detective. The two protagonists develop a romantic interest in each other that I assume is further addressed as the series progresses. I will probably read the next one in the series, once I get throu...

My December Reading Log

Fiction:
Mile High Murder (A Hannah Ives Mystery) by Marcia Talley was a contemporary mystery centered around two women who take a fact-finding trip to Colorado to look at the marijuana industry, in preparation for creating legislation for Maryland. I was mildly entertained. The first person protagonist is an older woman, which was nice, but the overall tone felt, to me, a little coy and precious, possibly because the narrator abstained while those around her indulged, and maybe that made it...

My November Reading Log

Fiction:
Lies Sleeping by Ben Aaronovitch had some resolutions happen in the series! I shall not spoil which ones. The plot raised some new questions in Peter Grant’s quest to understand how magic works, because it’s always much more complicated than it appears. As usual, I loved the neep about how to facilitate the use of magic in police work (creating procedures for training, etc.). Peter’s parents only have a brief appearance, but Abigail appears in several scenes, and there was a fair amo...

“Still Marching,” a tale of our times

Best Lesbian Erotica of the Year, Volume 3, edited by Sacchi Green, is out, and it includes my story “Still Marching.”

On Saturday, December 8th, there will be a release event for the book on the Lesfic Reading Group Facebook page. A list of all author posts about the anthology is here at the editor’s blog: Commenters on any of these posts will be entered in a drawing to win an ebook copy of the anthology.

Though I wrote “Still Marching” in 2018, I conceived the idea in January 2017, shortly...

My October Reading Log

Fiction:
Exit Strategy: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells concludes the series, at least so far, and made me very happy, except I still want more. There is a lot more world out there to explore, and a lot more for Murderbot to learn about itself and struggle with. Once I was done reading it, and it really helped me a lot to have something like this to read last week, I re-read the whole series of four novellas in order, keeping in mind that this is a specfic escaped slave narrative.

This...

My 2018 Philcon Schedule

This weekend, I’ll be at Philcon, held in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. My panel schedule is below.

Saturday, November 17, 11:00 AM, Crystal Ballroom Three
“A Tribute to Ursula K. LeGuin”
Simone Zelitch [moderator], Victoria Janssen, Miriam Seidel, Susan Shwartz, Kim Kindya
A discussion of the life and works of this massively influential author, and a celebration of the 50th anniversary of her landmark Earthsea series

Saturday, November 17, 2:00 PM, Crystal Ballroom Three
“Marvel’s Next Phase”
Jay...

My September Reading Log

Fiction:
Hild by Nicola Griffith is a historical novel about a medieval woman who eventually became an abbess. There’s very little actual information about the woman, but Griffith did a ton of research and it shows, in a very very good way. The names of people and places, the social roles and constraints, and even the landscape all contribute to the feeling of reading about an alien culture. If you like writing about the natural world, Griffith excels at bringing medieval England to life in t...

My 2018 CapClave Schedule

I’ll be at CapClave this weekend, in Rockville, Maryland. The convention runs September 28-30; I’ll be there only on Saturday the 29th.

Saturday, 11:00 am – 11:55 am, Monroe
“Fan Fiction”
What we like to write; what we like to read. Honing one’s skills through writing fan fiction.
T. Eric Bakutis, Victoria Janssen [moderator], Steven H. Wilson, Alyssa Wong

Saturday, 1:00 pm – 1:55 pm, Monroe
“What Are the New Questions SF Should be Asking?”
SF in particular is meant to be a forward-looking ge...