Jane Lindskold's Blog, page 130

FF: Graves, Apples, and Dream Thieves

Welcome to my side of a book chat…

The Friday Fragments feature lists of what I’ve read over the past week.  They are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive list, you can look on my website.

This is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a few opinions tossed in.

Lilybett Reads

What are you reading?

Recently Completed:

Forerunner by Andre Norton.  Future archeology and cool characters.  I’d read this decades ago, but have never read the sequel, which I have waiting.

Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet by Darynda Jones.  Audiobook. Charley Davidson is the Grim Reaper…  Charley has PTSD from events in the previous book.  That only makes sense.  What makes less sense is why she continues to be turned on by violence on the part of her lovers.  Disconnect!  Very neat twist in one plotline.

Poison Apples: Poems for You My Pretty by Christine Heppermann.  Using free verse and fairy tale motifs, the author takes on the modern “beauty myth” and shows that what we all think of as a “new” problem maybe isn’t so new after all.  Very short volume.  Often punchy.

Notorious Nineteen by Janet Evanovich.  Audiobook.  After behaving very slutty (her own word) in the previous two books, Stephanie is back to thinking about who her actions might hurt – including herself.  I found myself wondering if Ms Evanovich got some negative reaction to the prior novels.

In Progress:

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater.  Sequel to the excellent The Raven Boys.  I’d put off reading this in hope our library would get the audio version, but couldn’t wait any longer.  Dark – but the good dark that comes from shutting your eyes and digging around in your soul.

Takedown Twenty by Janet Evanovich.  Right now my greatest interest is in where the giraffe is hiding and why no one  is talking about it.

Also:

This week was a mess of small jobs, so the short stories have been on hold.  Where does time go?

Folk, Folk Music!

JANE: So, Alan, when we were talking about the music we listen to in our cars, you mentioned you like folk music.  I must admit, I’m not all that knowledgeable about folk music, so none of the groups you listed meant anything to me.

Sing! Sing a Song!

ALAN: I wasn’t a complete folk music virgin when the folk boom happened. We’d always sung folk songs at school, and the fact that the songs often told a story appealed to me a lot.  Also, as I explored the world of folk music, I found that many of the songs involved the faerie folk, and this too rang bells with my inner Fantasy fan (“…for tonight is Halloween, and the fairy folk ride…”). And, an added bonus, many of the songs were quite bawdy (“…me ‘usband’s got no courage in ‘im…”). Folk music and I seemed to be made for each other.

JANE: The folk music boom was pretty much over by the time I was beginning to listen to music on my own.  Like you, we sang some folk music in school and I always enjoyed that.  The “Family Mass” at my church featured a folk group instead of the organ and choir.  I really enjoyed that, too.

However, even though my early tastes ran to what today would be called “soft” rock and/or “classic” rock (as well as whatever I heard on the radio), I never really got into folk.  Maybe if the songs I had encountered had been more about the Fey Folk, rather than “Puff the Magic Dragon,” I would have been won over.

Tell me about a group you particularly like.

ALAN: A group I go back to time and time again is Fairport Convention. They are a British group who reached the height of their popularity during the folk boom of the 1960s. They are still making records today. I bought one just a few months ago.

When I first came across them, their singer was a lady called Sandy Denny. Something about her voice just made my spine tingle. Her voice was a musical instrument in its own right and she used it beautifully. Probably the best album they ever made was the hugely influential (at the time) Leige and Lief. Every track on it was firmly based on traditional British and perhaps Celtic folk music and not only did it blow me away with the brilliance of its musicality, it also triggered a lifelong obsession with songs that derive from this tradition.

JANE: I love when voice becomes one of the instruments.  However, me and Celtic music…  I may be missing something in my genetic code or something but, although I’ve liked some, on the whole I want to run away.  This was a problem when I was in college because Fordham had a large Irish Catholic population and many of my friends were into groups like The Chieftains, Silly Wizard, and The Clancy Brothers.

Oddly, although I’m neutral toward most Celtic influenced music, one of my favorite Christmas albums is by The Clancy Brothers.  It’s not bawdy, but it has humor and some gorgeous lyrics that merge the pre-Christian traditions into the Christian with an ease few cultures outside of the Irish seem to manage.

ALAN: Oh, there’s a lot of humour in folk music. And a lot of drama and social comment as well.  All these elements have been present in the music for, quite literally, centuries. Modern artists continue to sing the old songs, of course, but the field is by no means static – new songs are constantly being written. A perfect example would be the music of Paul Simon (of Simon and Garfunkel fame). Not only is he a talented musician, he is an extraordinarily accomplished lyricist, and the sheer cleverness of the words of his songs (“…the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls…”) are magnificent.

JANE: I always liked Simon and Garfunkel.  In fact, one of the few live concerts I’ve seen (I don’t really like either crowds or loud noise) was the one they gave in Central Park in New York City.  That was memorable.  The place was packed, but a friend got there pre-dawn and staked out a location for our group.   He marked it with an Irish flag, so we could find it.

If anyone reading this has the album, you can see our flag in the huge crowd photo.  It’s near the middle, as I recall…

ALAN: Oooh! I’ve got the DVD of the concert. I’ll have to play it again and go looking for you.

JANE:  I had brown hair then…  All this silver is a more modern look.

So, tell me more about what draws you to folk music.

ALAN: I’ve always been in love with the written word and in my teens I spent a lot of time exploring Literature (with a capital LIT).  I very quickly became disillusioned with the formlessness and vagueness of contemporary poetry. It seemed to me that the discipline of the strict rhymes and rhythms imposed on the form by musical requirements produced much more valid poetry than that which restricted itself to the written word. I felt then, and I still feel now, that the true lyric poets of the time had actually abandoned the form, and turned to music instead.

JANE: Oh, I’m bouncing up and down in my chair!  You just brought me back in time to when a very serious English major, a junior in college, had just that discussion with her favorite professor – that lyric poetry, in particular, was alive and well in the realm of the better pop music lyrics.  I even brought along various bits so we could compare.

ALAN: Ah! So it’s not just me. That’s good to know.

JANE: We keep finding ways we’re alike, even in areas where you’d think we’d clash.

ALAN: I’m always very pleased when that happens. And it happens a lot!

I think the thing that really cemented the idea that song lyrics could also be poetry for me was a rather high-brow programme on BBC television. A panel of pundits would have fragments of poetry and prose read to them and they had to try and identify what they were listening to and then discuss it a bit. Points were awarded for correct identification. I vividly remember one programme where all the pundits utterly failed to identify a poem. Nevertheless they were hugely impressed by it. Such lyricism! Such emotion and depth of feeling! Such clever use of language!

Then the chairman revealed the source of the poem. It was a Beatles lyric – actually She’s Leaving Home, from the Sergeant Pepper album. Not surprisingly, the pundits changed their attitude when they found out what it was. Crude construction! Invalid rhythms! Pop music!

But I felt vindicated. Music really was more than just a catchy tune. It was the words that made the song stand out. Lyrics could indeed be poetry in every sense of the word.

JANE: As I said, I’m with you all the way…  And, darn it, I qualify as one of those literary experts, I have the letters after my name and everything.  (I even know the secret handshake.)

I’d like to return to folk music itself more specifically.  One thing I do know is that there are many, many forms, so that talking about “folk music” is a little like talking about “SF.”  Maybe we could take a look at some of the different flavors next time.

Whether You Live to Write or Write to Live

As I mentioned last week, Wanderings on Writing is now completed.  It’s available as an e-book in mobi and e-pub files on Amazon and Barnes and Noble’s websites.  I’ll let you know when it’s available as a POD.  We had a little trouble with the formatting, but that’s being straightened out even as you read this.

 The cover art is an original watercolor by my friend, Tori Hansen.  One of the most fun parts of this project was watching the art work evolve, including one memorable afternoon when Tori painted in the middle of my living room floor, assisted by cats who were sure they should be “painting,” too.

Cover: Back and Front

 So, what is Wanderings on Writing?  Well, the first thing I want to say is that it’s not a “how to write book” – or maybe I should say, it’s not only a “how to write” book.  It’s also a window into how one writer (me) has managed to deal with the complexities of both creating fiction and being a professional author.

 Although I’ve been a full-time writer since mid-1994, when I chucked a reliable job as an assistant professor of English to move to New Mexico, there was a time when I had to juggle both fiction writing and a demanding job.  Some of the tricks I learned then have served me well throughout my career.  I’ll share those tricks, some of which I adapted from what I heard other writers say they did.  Hopefully, you’ll be able to adapt some of these for yourself.

 A few words about the genesis of this book.  Back in 2010, I knuckled under to the increased pressure that a writer must have some sort of on-line presence (beyond the required webpage).  Since I wanted to make sure I had time to write fiction, I made some rules.  I would blog once a week.  (By the way, I hate the word “blog,” but it seems to have become firmly rooted in the language.)  My once-a-week entry would have some substance.  I wouldn’t write about my socks or my dinner plans or whatever.  And I promised myself that I wouldn’t feel required to write about writing.

 A funny thing happened along the way…  I discovered that even when I didn’t mean to do so, I often found myself writing about writing.  I don’t think I realized until I began writing the Wednesday Wanderings just how firmly creating stories is intertwined into just about everything I do.

 Eventually, people started saying to me, “You really should collect some of your pieces on writing.  They’re really interesting and you have a different perspective on a lot of things.”  Two friends, Bobbi Wolf and Paul Dellinger, were particularly persistent.  When I tentatively mentioned the possibility to my husband, Jim, he encouraged me.

 Although many of these pieces have their origins in my Wednesday Wanderings, I’ve frequently adapted the original essay, providing examples or further discussion of a point.  I’ve omitted specific references to the blog and comments.  (If you want to read these, they’re still available.)  However, critical readers may discern the shadows.

 One thing I did not omit were references to my own work at the time when the piece was written because, in many cases, doing so would have gutted the piece.  Although there is a sort of general organization, these pieces do not need to be read in order.  Instead, I encourage you to dip in here and there.  If a piece is dependent on another, that will be noted.  Even where I have several pieces on a related topic, I’ve chosen to keep them separate.  Feel free to read a little, digest the material, then come back for more.

 Finally, I will offer a warning.  There is no Golden Key to becoming a writer, no secret password, no arcane knowledge that will get you into the inner sanctum.  Why do I feel a need to say this?

 Years ago (I think it was 1996?), when I received my first invitation to speak at a writer’s conference, I consulted another professional writer who was speaking at the same event.

 “They’ve asked me to suggest a topic,” I said.  “I know how to teach, but I don’t really understand what the audience wants.”  My friend smiled cynically.  “They want the Golden Key.  They’re sure there’s one and they’ve paid this workshop a huge fee in the hope that we will reveal it.  All we can do is tell them there isn’t any such thing, that writing is hard work, and then share some thoughts about how we go about it.”

 I don’t quite agree with my friend.  There is a Golden Key.  However, no one can give the Golden Key to you.  You need to forge it yourself.  That doesn’t mean you need to start from nothing.  Pieces like the ones in this book can become your raw material.  They might save you from building your fire too hot or making your mold from inferior clay.

 However, in the end, you need to craft your own Golden Key.  One reason I’ve left the personal anecdotes in here is to show you how I met the challenge.

 (By the way, this was adapted from “No Golden Key,” the introduction to Wanderings on Writing.)

October Ends, Forerunner Begins

The Friday Fragments feature lists of what I’ve read over the past week.  They are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive list, you can look on my website.

This is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a few opinions tossed in.

Usagi Contemplates the End of October

I’d love to hear what you’re reading!  It’s fun to book chat…

Recently Completed:

A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny. Finished/will finish today – depending on when you check this list!  I’m sorry not to need to hold myself back…  I want more pages!

A Confusion of Princes by Garth Nix.  Audiobook. I liked this.  It’s very different from the “Old Kingdom” novels, but shows a similar enthusiasm for vivid characters in a well delineated universe – in this case SF, rather than Fantasy.

Coming Home by Jack McDevitt.  The latest Alex Benedict and Chase Kolpath.  McDevitt does a good job juggling two separate but equal plotlines.  Many authors would feel a need to force one of the two to provide a solution to the other, but McDevitt doesn’t and, consequently, makes each seem that much more real.  McDevitt is also a master of the sequel that doesn’t require a new reader to read a long list of novels before getting to the most current one.  But I bet more than one reader will be going back to read the earlier works, either for the first time or over again.

In Progress:

Forerunner by Andre Norton.  Future archeology and cool characters.  This one would make a great anime.

Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet by Darynda Jones.  Charley Davidson is the Grim Reaper…  While these books share a lot of similarities with other paranormal romances, I find that the author’s attention to consequences keeps me interested in these.

Also:

I’ve now re-read several more of my short stories and written afterpieces for them: “Jeff’s Best Joke,” “Keep the Dog Hence,” “Beneath the Eye of the Hawk,” and others…

TT: Personalized Ride

Breaking News!  As of yesterday, Wanderings on Writing is now available as an e-book.  POD will follow soon.  More details next Wednesday!

Now, back to our regularly scheduled Tangent…

JANE: Over the last few weeks, we’ve been talking about cars…  This time, I have some SF thoughts, but first…

I’m not denying that American culture – if not all Americans – has a love affair with vehicles.  Many of our cities – including Albuquerque – have poor mass transit so, if you want to get anywhere in anything like a timely fashion, you need a vehicle.

Wolfmobile

Some families spend so much time in their vehicles that they start personalizing them as if they’re mobile houses.  Stickers with outlines representing the number of members in the family have become common.  At a glance you can see Mother, Father, two boys, one girl, dog, and two cats.

An outgrowth of this has been stickers that also include some idea of the family’s interests.  The characters might wear mouse ears (Disney fans) or Star Wars outfits, carry sports equipment, or even, in one memorable occasion, be zombies.  (Presumably, these were horror fans, not actual zombies.)

Do you have anything like this?

ALAN: Yes – we have exactly the same phenomenon. Indeed, it’s become so much of a cliche now that people are starting to sneer at it and it’s falling out of fashion again.

JANE: Darn!   Jim and I had been considering getting some, but if they’re out of fashion…

Another way to customize a vehicle is by using bumper stickers.  You can learn about political preferences, sports teams, and club memberships.  Parking permit stickers give a hint where  people work and go to school.   You can even figure out other, less mainstream interests.  I’ve seen “My other car is a broom.” And, “Save the Earth.  It’s the only planet with chocolate.”

ALAN: We seldom have those – they do exist, but I don’t recall seeing any interesting ones, though the “My other car is a (something)” formula does ring bells. We’ve also had a trend for people to hang a sign saying “Baby on Board” in the back window, presumably to try and force drivers around them to take more care than normal. However, so many people who obviously don’t have a baby with them have taken to using the sign that it too is starting to disappear.

JANE:  Oh, wow…  The “baby on board” sign came and went here a long while back…  1990’s, maybe?  It morphed into “Dog on Board,” “Fill-in-the-blank Sports Team Fan on Board,” and other variations before, gratefully, slipping into oblivion.

We also have personalized license plates, where letters and numbers are used to spell out messages.  Now that texting has become common, lots of license plates read like texts.

ALAN: Ah! We are really big on personalised number plates. A science fiction fan friend of mine has the number plate SF. It cost her $300 to buy when personalised plates first became legal (I think she was at the head of the queue) and she was once offered $10,000 for it from an avid collector. She refused the offer. She claims, with some justification, that the plate is her retirement investment.

JANE: Uh, Alan.  Why do you call them “number plates” if they have letters?  Shouldn’t they be “number and letter plates”?

ALAN: I suppose they should, though until you mentioned it, that had never occurred to me. I’ve done a bit of digging and I’ve discovered that the first plates in the UK were issued in 1903. They consisted of an aphabetic prefix that identified the local council that issued them and an incrementing numeric suffix that identified the vehicle. So I presume they were “number” plates because the number was the only bit that varied – all the vehicles in the same geographic area would have the same prefix.

JANE: Now that’s cool…  I love hearing the history behind a term.  But I interrupted you.  Did you have any other customized plates you wanted to mention?

ALAN: Once, parked in a supermarket car park, I saw a most magnificent Rolls Royce (that aristocrat of cars) with the equally magnificent number plate STOLEN.

JANE: Oh!  That’s a good one!

Reminds me of another good bumper sticker, often seen on older cars.  It reads “Paid For.”  I like it, since so many of those people out there driving fancy cars are also driving piles of debt.

Do you folks have license – excuse me, “number” plates – on both the front and back of your vehicles or just in the back?

ALAN: We are required to have them on both the front and the back. Until you mentioned it, I’d never realised that any other convention was possible.

JANE: The reason I ask is that here it seems to vary from state to state.  In New Mexico, license plates are only required on the back, so ornamental plates on the front of the car have become another means of personalizing.

My godmother gave me a plate ornamented with the head and shoulders of a black wolf.  I’d never done anything to personalize a car before, but I put this on my sedan.  Now, to my amusement, friends will often pick my car out when we’re meeting somewhere because of that plate.  It’s a wolf.  It must be Jane.

ALAN: Well of course it must. I’d make the same assumption.

JANE: The American love affair with vehicles even has a skiffy tie-in.

ALAN: What’s that?

JANE: Roger Zelazny wrote at least two different “takes” on the futuristic car.  One appears in his novel The Dream Master (also published in a shorter form as the novella “He Who Shapes.”)

In this story, cars can be driven by autopilot.  Now, Roger was hardly the first SF novelist to come up with this idea.  Being Roger, however, he came up with a unique take: blindspinning.  In this, coordinates are randomly punched in and while the car does the driving, often the riders do… Uh, well…  Y’know… Um… Other sort of riding…

ALAN: (puzzled…) But wouldn’t that make the windows steam up so you couldn’t enjoy the scenery?

JANE: Oh…  I’m going to be good and go back to SF!

Roger also combined the American tendency to romanticize the wild horse and with the romance of the automobile in two short stories: “Last of the Wild Ones” and “Devil Car.”

ALAN: When I was a little boy, there was a TV series called Supercar! It was one of Gerry Anderson’s early puppet series (what did he call it? Supermarionation?). Anyway, I was enthralled by it and I watched it every week. The supercar itself was a combination car and aeroplane that was driven (perhaps flown would be a better word) by Mike Mercury who had lots of exciting adventures in it.

JANE: I never watched it, but I think there was an update of that idea in a television program called Knight Rider or something like that.

ALAN: And of course if there is any SF symbol that epitomises the future, it’s the symbol of the flying car even though I suspect it’s quite impractical. You can date it all the way back to Hugo Gernsback himself. In his novel Ralph 124C 41+  people commute in aeroflyers that can reach speeds of more than 600mph!

JANE: Ah, yes, flying cars.  I actually know a man who is working on one.  Seriously.  He’s a retired engineer and this is his dream project.

Clifford Simak extrapolated how flying cars would change settlement patterns in his novel City.  Sometimes the implications are as or more interesting than the vehicle would be.

In Gordon Dickson’s Necromancer, the private car is combined with mass transit, so that rather than taking a seat on a train, you go to the equivalent of a train station and pick up a vehicle that will take you to your individual destination.

I bet there are other good SF stories out there built around vehicles.  I wonder if our readers have any suggestions?

Remember the Cascade Effect

The other day, a friend sent me a link to a video about the impact of the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone Park and its surroundings.  The video does a really good job of condensing a complicated process into a few minutes.  I have a few quibbles – for example, most of the time the animals the narrator refers to as “deer” are actually elk, and the role coyotes played was oversimplified – but I think it’s worth watching, so here’s a link.

Part of a Wolf Junkie’s Stash

Because I’m a serious wolf junkie, I was already familiar with the impact of wolves on Yellowstone.  The cascade effect works on a smaller ecological scale, too.  When I moved into my house, the back yard was pretty much sand and weeds, prone to erosion when the winds blew, and supporting very little in the way of wildlife.

Over the last decade and a half, Jim and I have made a lot of changes, including encouraging native plants that provide food for birds, lizards, and insects.  We have two small water features (a tiny pond and a bird bath) and these have put us on the migration route for various birds.  The result is pretty cool.

As usual, this has gotten me thinking about writing, most particularly about the world-building that’s so important to SF and Fantasy.

As the piece about the wolves and Yellowstone demonstrates so superbly, make one change and you need to think about what other things might change.  This doesn’t only apply to what you take away – it applies to what you add in as well.

I’ve talked about dragons back in “So You Want Dragons” (WW 2-29-14), so I won’t repeat myself, but remember that many other typical fantasy “monsters” also fall into the peak predator category.

Here’s one example.  Traditionally, the favorite food of griffins is horses.   Don’t you think griffins might choose to live where horses are easy to get?  How would a society change when horses can’t simply be turned out to pasture because the griffins will fly in for an easy lunch?  Griffins are a lot more dangerous than wolves, so would the equivalent of shepherds be enough?  Would griffin patrol be a way to train young warriors?

The cascade effect applies to much more than predator/prey relationships.  In our modern world, people tend to forget that energy doesn’t come from flipping a switch.  That’s just the final stage of a complex delivery system, one that involves a power plant on the other end.  Electricity and gas are both often referred to as “clean” sources of heat and that’s certainly true when compared to burning wood in your fireplace – at least until you take a look at the process needed to produce and deliver this energy to your house.

What about solar energy?  Passive solar is certainly clean heat.  Because I live in a very sunny climate, my sunporch actually heats much of my small house, even during the coldest parts of winter – at least during daylight.  However, passive solar won’t run my computer.  From talking to a friend who relies on solar power, I’ve learned how complicated gathering and converting solar energy can be – especially if the person lives off the grid and needs to rely on batteries.

If you’re writing SF, a little technological hand-waving can get you past the difficulties of providing energy for even the biggest city or starship.  A breakthrough that makes safe fusion power practical is one of the most popular gimmicks.  Another is a quick sentence along the lines of “ever since Alice Seagull came up with the voo-voo panel that let solar power be more efficiently gathered and stored, most archaic forms of energy have fallen out of use.”

In a Fantasy setting, how to provide enough fuel for a large population can have a tremendous cascade effect.  The New England region of the United States was originally heavily forested.  However, twin demands for farmland and fuel led to a tremendous amount of clear- cutting.   If advances in technology had not created both easier ways to acquire food (grow it somewhere else, ship it in) and to deliver the means for providing heat, it’s likely that the area would have become unable to support its population, triggering a migration to unused (“unspoiled”?) wilderness, until that, too, became spoiled.

Today, New England is becoming reforested but what would happen if a true “locovore” movement became established?  Would it be able to sustain itself for longer than a couple of decades without providing a serious environmental impact?

What about these static Fantasy worlds where warriors clank around in steel armor (making steel takes a lot of fuel) and use steel weapons and have done so for centuries?  Where do the resources come from?  Why are there any forests left?

Well, historically, socially-enforced poverty for the majority of the population was one way to keep from exhausting all the resources.  The folks who mined the iron ore didn’t necessarily have iron tools and weapons.  The woodcutter didn’t have a blazing fire on his hearth.  The logs went to the gentry.  He felt lucky to have the scraps and twigs…  Most of his neighbors were burning cow patties.  (And that’s not hamburger, for you urban dwellers.  It’s cow shit and it stinks.)

I’ve quite enjoyed S.M. Stirling’s “Change” novels.  Salvage from the pre-Change world solves a lot of Stirling’s immediate supply problems, but for that economic/ecological system to persist, the humans had better keep having massive wars to provide population control.

But what about magic?  Can’t it solve all these problems in a Fantasy setting?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  After all, even magic needs to come from somewhere and be channeled into useful forms.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a gamer.  The adventure I’m currently running takes place in a world where magic is common and the dominant race is very ecologically sensitive.  What’s the major type of employment for these magically skilled people?  Creating the basic magical infrastructure that enables them to have magical light, heat, hot water, and all the rest.

My gamers assumed that finding the “cool” magical items would be as easy as walking into the magical equivalent of Walmart.  They figured they just needed to find a city larger than the small village in which they live.  They’re now learning that the cool stuff is, in fact, quite rare, because the magical resources are diverted into sustaining a fairly high standard of living for the majority of the population.

I find that, far from restricting my storytelling, the cascade effect stimulates it.  Whether you build a story around it or use little elements to provide a richer environment, it’s worth considering.

FF: Clariel, Hades, Utena, October

The Friday Fragments feature lists of what I’ve read over the past week.  They are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive list, you can look on my website.

This is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a few opinions tossed in.

Silver Wonders About Snakes

This week has been an interesting one…

Tell me what you’re reading!

Recently Completed:

Clariel by Garth Nix.  As I hoped, this novel stood well on its own.  I was particularly delighted with the world building.  Unlike far too many fantasy worlds, this one does not have a stagnant culure.  However, it does prove to have some interesting connections to the later books.  WARNING: The author’s note contains a spoiler.  Do not read first.

The House of Hades by Rick Riordan.  Audiobook.  Stronger than the previous book.  I particularly liked Nico’s encounter with Cupid, and the tension over Bob the Titan.

Land of Cinnamon Sun by John Nizalowski.  A collection of essays.  I particularly liked “Medea in America.”

Revolutionary Girl Utena the manga, by Chiho Saito and Be-Papas (the latter is a studio).  Jim gave me the updated anime DVD set for my birthday. This made me decide to re-read the manga for comparison/contrast purposes.  The DVD set included several essays and interviews that finally clarified how and why the two works were produced in parallel.  Fascinating, at least to me.

In Progress:

A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny.  Still trying to hold to one chapter a day for the Twitter book club at #LonesomeOctober.  The chapters are getting longer, the story more complex.

A Confusion of Princes by Garth Nix.  Audiobook.  Just started.

Coming Home by Jack McDevitt.  The latest Alex Benedict and Chase Kolpath.  Just started.

Also:

I’ve now re-read my first five short stories and written afterpieces for them.  Am about to start skipping around a bit more.

TT: Big Car, Little Car

ALAN: Having grown up with the British mini which really is very tiny indeed, I find it hilarious that Americans refer to what I consider to be stonking great big people movers as “minivans. “

Big Car, Little Car

JANE: You described the mini last Tangent, but I fear that your statement that you find “it hilarious that Americans refer to their stonking great big people movers as ‘minivans’” doesn’t make much sense.  Minivans aren’t really that big.  They are certainly not “great big people movers” – most don’t hold more than six or seven people, and those people had better like each other a lot and not have much in the way of luggage.

ALAN: Here, anything that holds “six or seven” people is absolutely huge. It’s the largest vehicle a person is allowed to drive on an ordinary license. Most cars hold four people. Perhaps five if the journey is short and you are all intimate friends…

JANE:  I still insist that minivans aren’t really huge.  They’ve just replaced the station wagon of my childhood and, honestly, seem to hold a lot less in the way of luggage.

ALAN: We have station wagons as well, but they are just cars with two seats in the back, and a larger than usual luggage area. So they still hold four people, but they let you carry a lot more junk than you could cram into a proper car.

JANE:  The station wagons of my childhood held six or seven people, three in front, three or four in back.  Sometimes, in those wild and woolly days before mandatory seat belts, kids would sprawl in the back cargo area.  I have fond memories of the summer we drove from D.C. to Omaha, Nebraska.  I was small enough that I could lie down in the back and read or color.  These days I can’t read in a moving vehicle – I get motion sick.

Returning to terminology, we never refer to “minivans” as “minis.”  It’s always a compound where minivan is a sub-class of van.

ALAN: We have minivans, but they are just a standard mini (the car) which has a van body and therefore only seats two people in the front. Everything else is empty space. They don’t really exist anymore – I haven’t seen one in decades. I suspect that my minivan would fit comfortably on the back seat of your minivan and still leave room for a passenger or two. It’s that incongruity which makes me laugh at the word.

JANE: I see…  Same word, different meaning entirely.  I might as well fill you in on the rest…

“Vans” hold more people and indeed might be called “people movers.”  Vans can hold between twelve and fifteen people.  Jim commuted in such a van for years. He requests that I clarify that if you squeeze fifteen people in, they’d better really like each other.

We call “stonking great people movers” “buses.”

ALAN: Here, anything that holds a dozen people or more is a bus, and it is never owned or driven by ordinary people – you need a special kind of license to drive anything that big.

JANE: I checked with Jim.  He regularly drove his commuter van and didn’t need any special license.

Now, to go the opposite direction, not all Americans drive huge vehicles.  My car is a sedan – a Mazda Protégé.  I think it’s about the same size as your car – comfortable for four, but with the option of squishing in a fifth.   There are many smaller models on the road, as well, two door sedans, hatchbacks…

One of the most peculiar small cars is the Smart Car.  These are so small that I, personally, wouldn’t take one onto a highway – especially out here in the wild West where there are a lot of big pickup trucks on the roads.  In many ways, they sound like a modern variation on your mini.

ALAN: Are the Smart Cars those things sponsored by Google that drive themselves? I’ve seen photos of those and they do indeed look very small.

JANE: I don’t think so…  They’re just really small cars with room for only two passengers, very little cargo space, and a very low profile.  They’re touted as “smart” because they have very low gas mileage.  I’ve only seen them, never driven one, but maybe our readers could tell you more.

ALAN: Ah, I see! That does sound really, really small.

JANE: I have a question for you…  Earlier you mentioned that “Most cars hold four people. Perhaps five if the journey is short and you are all intimate friends…”

What do families do?  When I was a kid, my family numbered two adults and four children.   No way we could all fit in a sedan.  These days, especially given that bulky car seats are now required for small children, many families drive minivans, SUVs (compact versions are common), or other larger vehicles.  They need to in order to fit!

ALAN: The problem seldom arises. Most families have only two children – larger families are the exception rather than the rule. Two adults in the front and two children’s car seats in the back and Robert is your avuncular relative. Of course, the rare families larger than this may well have a larger vehicle that holds half a dozen or so people. Actually, it’s the only real justification I can think of for driving one of these. They really do look quite out of place on our rather narrow roads.

JANE: Seriously, Jim and I have the Forester because there some of our hobbies – including our garden, landscaping, and such – benefit from the ability to haul material.  There have been times I’ve seriously missed our pickup truck.

ALAN: I think my view of American cars might have been much influenced by Eartha Kitt’s song An Old Fashioned Girl where she claimed to want “…a cerise Cadillac, big enough to put a bowling alley in the back…”

JANE:  Yes.  I can see that.  There’s also the blues hit, “Riding with the King,” as well as songs about low riders and other models where customization, not just size, are important.  But one must be careful.  Sometimes a car is not just a car…  It’s a metaphor.  Go look up Bruce Springsteen’s “Pink Cadillac” or Prince’s “Little Red Corvette,” if you want to figure that one out.

ALAN: Strange how we keep coming back to music. I think the Tangent Gods are dropping a very large hint here…

Do you think the fascination with cars is purely American?

JANE: Hey, the Beatles were the ones who sang, “Baby, You Can Drive My Car.”  And Lord Peter was devoted to his Daimlers.  I’m really not certain that it’s just an American thing to see a car—especially one that’s large and elaborate – as a status symbol.

ALAN:  You’re quite right. Nothing proclaims your status like a Rolls Royce and that’s about as British as it gets. And, if we are sticking to the music theme, Gary Numan (ex Tubeway Army) had a massive hit in the UK with a song called simply Cars.

JANE: And here in the U.S., we had a band called, the Cars.  You’re right.  One of these days, we’re going to need to discuss music…

A Scattering of Stuff

Last week was a busy swirl.  I can hardly sort day from day.  Still, if you join me in imagining these as sort of like Muppet News Flashes, I think I can get through.

Tomato Plants: This Will Make Sense by the End

News Flash: I’ve been invited to be Guest of Honor at the 2015 Conduit in Salt Lake City.  It’s over Memorial Day weekend, May 22 to 24.  We’re already planning some special events, so it should be a great time.  I hope some of you will be able to join us.

News Flash: The release date for Artemis Invaded has been finalized.  Look for it June 30, 2015.

News Flash: Wanderings on Writing is nearly done.  We’re messing around with fonts for page headers and looking for potential printer errors.  The cover looks great and I’m pleased with the contents, too.

News Flash: I’ve started constructing the manuscript for the book of short stories you folks requested several months back.   In addition to an introduction, each story will have its own afterpiece, talking a bit about what went into each story.  Writing these has been a real trip down Memory Lane for me since, in many cases, over twenty years have passed since the story was published.

I’m starting with some very early pieces, then will do some skipping around.  What’s been really fascinating is how many people have said, “Are you going to include such and such story?”  It’s interesting to find out which stories have remained vivid in reader’s minds.  So far “Jeff’s Best Joke,” “Keep the Dog Hence,” “The Travails of Princess Stephen,” and “Hunting the Unicorn” have been requested.  Any others?

I’ve been debating on whether to include previously published original stories set in the universes of my Firekeeper novels, The Buried Pyramid, and Changer.  Many fans of these novels never saw these stories.  What do you think?

In case you wondered, I’m not including any of the stories I wrote for someone else’s universe.  I’m debating including these in another collection.  I’m also not going to include any of my short stories with continuing characters (such as the “Albuquerque Adepts” or Andrasta).

News Flash: Remember you can download my most recent short story, “Born from Memory” for free from the Science and Fantasy Fiction website.

Since we recently acquired a bunch of new readers, let me mention a few projects related to my work that you can download for little or nothing.  Here’s a short list:

Thursday Tangents free ebook, with original introductions by me and Alan Robson.  Alan supplies a table of contents here or you can go to “My Books” for a free download.

What would you be if you lived on Artemis?” quiz.

“My Love is Like a Panther Swift,” an original song by Chad Merkley, based on and expanded from lyrics that appear in Artemis Awakening.

Various interviews, both audio only and film are available via my website.  Links here.

For less than a dollar you can download several original short stories, including “Hamlet Revisited” and “Servant of Death” from Snackreads.

And the Captain Allie stories, individually, or in the collection Star Messenger, available via my website bookstore, Barnes and Noble, or Amazon.com.

If you feel like spending a little more, my novels Changer and Changer’s Daughter (originally published as Legends Walking) are now available both as e-books and print on demand.  Want your book signed?  Go to my website bookstore and order from there.

News Flash: I’ve recently started Twittering @JaneLindskold.

Also, my author page on Facebook is a great place to go for reminders about contests or on-going projects like the A Night in the Lonesome October book club that’s still on-going (and getting really intense now) on Twitter.  #LonesomeOctober

Wow!  I believe I’m “newsed out”!  It’s a lovely autumn day here and, although the frosts at night have been nibbling at the leaves of my squash and basil, I still have a pretty nice garden.  I think I’ll step outside and pick tomatoes.

I forgot to buy bacon this week.  I really need to do so while we can still make BCR’s – bacon, Swiss chard, and Roma tomato sandwiches!

FF: Seriously Fragmented

The Friday Fragments feature lists of what I’ve read over the past week.  They are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive list, you can look on my website.

This is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a few opinions tossed in.

Snowdrop contemplates October

This week has been an interesting one…

What are you reading?

Recently Completed:

The Sphinx of the Ice Realm by Jules Verne, translated by Fredrick Paul Walter.  Looking for a stirring sea saga with bits of mystery, secret identities, and a neat twist at the end?  This Verne is for you.  I strongly suggest this translation for the notes and introduction.

Smoking Seventeen by Janet Evanovich.  Audiobook.

Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich.  Audiobook.

In Progress:

Clariel by Garth Nix.  A prequel of sorts to the “Abhorsen” books.  I’m enjoying, although the “action” at the start is mostly internal.

The House of Hades by Rick Riordan.  Audiobook.  Yet another reader!  I miss Leo’s accent.

A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny.  Still trying to hold to one chapter a day for the Twitter book club at #LonesomeOctober.  This is getting much, much harder as the plot gets more complex.

Land of Cinnamon Sun by John Nizalowski.  A collection of essays.  I’ve been reading an essay or so before bed.  Enjoying.

Also:

I’m starting to re-read my own short stories as part of putting together a collection.  Just read my first, published in 1990.