Francesca Forrest's Blog, page 170

other worlds

On a zero-degree Fahrenheit day, the snow, in proximity to wet air, grows feathers. If you crouch down, it's like you're on the back of a great white bird.



Strange crystal islands fluff up out of the ice--an alien landscape.





In this world, blades of grass become arrows, fletched with frost . . .



and stems become slim, velveted trees.

Story: The October Witch

Here it is, the second of January. Outside my window, there's snow on the ground and promise of very chill temperatures. What better time for a Halloween ghost story? (Is there ever not a good time for a Halloween ghost story? Well okay, yes, there probably are bad times... shhh....)

This one is called "The October Witch," and it's in the Winter 2013 issue of Kaleidotrope.

Cinnamon or Cassia?

I discovered from sovay that what I'd always been using as cinnamon was actually not true cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum) but cassia (Cinnamomum cassia). "How do they differ?" I asked her, and she said:

I have trouble describing the difference except to say that I think of the flavor of cassia as sharper, rawer, and slightly bitter; I am not one of the people who finds it completely unpalatable as a spice, but it stands out oddly in fruit or sweet dishes of any sort. (What feels most accurate is t...

Railsea's angels

Visually, some of the angels (guardians and maintainers of the tracks in the far reaches of the railsea) in Railsea are like the robots in Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky, and in character/action, they're a little reminiscent of the angels in Evangelion. But I love best this brief treatise on angels, which captures some of what I feel about the sharp mercilessness of purity and certainty:

Angels have a thousand jobs. For each job, a shape. For each task, celestial engineering in the factories of...

Cookies and other Christmas things

We did manage to make some of our painted Christmas cookies--before Christmas even--much to my amazement. They all disappeared into a cookie swap, but we will make more. We will make some New Years cookies. Lucky 2013 cookies. But I don't think I've shown these before on LJ? No, I take it back: probably I have. Well, you can't have too many painted Christmas cookies.








We made only stars this time because of having to make 60 for the cookie swap--stars are the easiest shape to guarantee there w...

Two silver roads, one with a footprint

Both magical.

A footprint on the rail. Faint sign. Tracks on the tracks, for trackers to track.



Silver only at a certain time of day. Travel is always time dependent, it turns out. Destinations and routes change with the hour.

Iridium disappointment--but maybe not

Today sartorias posted a link to this post by an adventurer. I've only glanced through it so far (thinking oooh! rhodolite! oooh! penguin!--yes, I go from picture to picture), but my eyes were caught by this line, from when the author is adventuring in Antactica:

then you can borrow the iridium phone

And I thought, iridium phone? what is? Iridium powered? Made of iridium? (what exactly does iridium do? what are its properties?)

And this being the Internet, it was easy to discover that while irid...

Not everyone who's called a pirate is a pirate, but some are

A moment of cultural sensitivity and then humor in Railsea:

"You know," Caldera said, "here are trainsfolk down south who get called 'pirate' all the time, & all they do is look after their coasts, 'cause for years trains of all the other places just dump junk there. Mum told me that. Loads of the people we call pirates aren't doing anything bad at all."

"These ones ain't them," Dero said, watching the progress of their pursuers.

"No," said Caldera. "These ones seem to be the other ones."

China M...

but it's an essence with two manifestations, right?

First, have a quote from Railsea

What, above all, about wood?

That is the key mystery. Wood makes trees trees. Wood is also what makes ties--those bars crosswise between railsea rails--ties. A thing can have only one essence. How can this, then, be?

Of all the philosophers' answers, three stand out as least unlikely.

--Wood & wood are, in fact, appearances not withstanding, different things.

--Trees are creations of the devil that delights in confusing us.

--Trees are the ghosts of ties, their gnar...

squirrel nest

High and safe



A swaying fortress of leaves and twigs




The squirrel parents are away; the squirrel children are climbing near and in and out. Maybe one of them has befriended you, maybe one of them permits you to scramble up that thin trunk and come to the entrance of the nest, where a sibling eyes you suspiciously. "Do you know the password?" he asks.

"There's no pa--owww!" says your host, cut off by a flying tackle from yet another sibling.

You might hesitate to enter, but you might also be so c...