Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff's Blog: #42 Pencil: A Writer's Life, the Universe, and Everything, page 57

The Goblin Emperor and the female gaze

I am trying to get down some preliminary thoughts about something that occurred to me while I was rereading, and loving all over again, Katherine Addison’s recent release,The Goblin Emperor.

I was about three quarters of the way through, and during a complicated conversation between several key characters it occurred to me that one of the things I was loving about this book (and there is so very much to love) was that, though all the characters in the scene were male, who was noticing what, an...

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Tajji chills out while her monkeys clack away in front of the flicker boxes

When we began looking into ways to rehabilitate Tajji, at least one source noted a tendency for a dog to backslide for “three to seven days” in the relatively complex training required. Two weeks ago we noted something like this in a rebound in Tajji’s reactivity to other dogs, culminating a couple of days ago in her “going off” at an empty yard where she frequently sees a reactive GSD, then nowhere in evidence. About...

Vonda N. McIntyre on the Set of The Moon and the Sun

Here’s a picture of BVC’s own Vonda N. McIntyre sitting with Pierce Brosnan, who is playing Louis XIV in the movie version ofThe Moon and the Sun. The picture is from a French TV1 report on the movie being filmed at Versailles.

Legal Fictions: The End of Lawyers?

In a recent podcast of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy, Karl Schroeder opines that technology will replace lawyers.

Not only will this happen in the far future world he envisions in his novel Lockstep, but “we’re headed there in about six months in terms of contract law,” Schroeder says. He bases this in part on the platform and programming language ethereum , which is similar to the programming that underlies bitcoin.

According to Schroeder, contracts created under this technology will be “smar...

The Moon and the Sun on French TV1

French TV1 reported on the movie production of BVC founding member Vonda N. McIntyre’s The Moon and the Sun. Pierce Brosnan speaks about his role as Louis XIV, the Sun King. Kaya Scodelario (Marie-Josèphe) is entranced by working at Versailles, where the production received unprecedented access to the chateau. The production filmed scenes in the gardens, in the Hall of Mirrors, and in the Chapel.

To see the French TV1 segment, click here.

WWW Wednesday 4-16-2014

WWW Wednesday. This meme is from shouldbereading.

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

• What are you currently reading?

• What did you recently finish reading?

• What do you think you’ll read next?

• What are you currently reading?

I just finished rereading Bunker Bean and plan to reread Ruggles of Red Gap, both by Harry Leon Wilson, and I’m reading Tish by Mary Roberts Rhinehart. To my shock I have realized that these books are literally one hundred years old. My copies a...

Ozzie and Harriet: the dark side

No one sufficiently considers the barriers to love between ordinary married persons. I came to this conclusion after watching several romantic movies in a row. The truism we use to foist parenthood on young and unprepared millions claims that they owe it to themselves to possess another human being, and this is the only way to acquire one. It has as its corollary a blind trust in love. Love, the universal solvent, makes a jelly out of all things. Bah.

I don’t care for the problems of young lov...

New Story: “Codename: Delphi”

My newest story is now available to read online at

“Codename: Delphi” is near-future science fiction. It’s set in the story world of my Nebula-nominated novel, The Red: First Light — although it takes a look at things from a different perspective — that of a soldier’s handler, instead of the soldier in the field.

As a novelist who is constantly battling to keep word counts reasonable, this story is a triumph for me because it really is a SHORT story — it’s only 4,100 words...

Catching Hell, or: Knowing I’d Arrived

I’ve written earlier about how I came to love baseball (after coming to love my husband, who loves baseball.) Despite learning the rules of the game and following the win-loss records of various teams, though, I wasn’t a true baseball fan until I had a favorite player.

My first favorite player (and yes, there are many — these guys retire, after all, and a trufan should always have a favorite active player) was Jason Varitek. He played for the Boston Red Sox (the team most often watched in our...

Bad Attention

When you’re a kid, and later, if and when you’re a parent, you sometimes hear the term “bad attention.” As in, “We know you like attention, Lochinvar, but setting Mary Lou’s braids on fire will only get you bad attention.”

Bad attention: the sort of attention that goes down in your permanent record, that possibly keeps you out of a job or the college of your choice, the sort of attention that maybe comes with media attention and perhaps a lengthy jail sentence.

There are those, I know, who beli...