Jane Lindskold's Blog, page 99

Quiet

Last week was particularly lovely in that it was quiet.  There were no emergencies.  I wasn’t required to go anywhere.

Kel Relaxes with Ruby

My week may have been quiet, but it was far from dull or unproductive.  I’d been struggling to find a way to describe.  Then my friend Sally gave me the word: “nourishing.”  That’s just it.  Instead of feeling depleted by the events of the week, I came out of it feeling more creative, whereas lately I’ve been feeling drained and wrung out.

The main focus of my week was reviewing the manuscript for an on-spec project I’ve been working on.  Because I’m trying to do the review slowly, so I can focus on detail, this left me with some spare time for other projects.

One of these was working on a Halloween costume.  In the process of putting the costume together, I also seem to be developing a story character.  I won’t be sure until I actually write the story, but I keep jotting down notes.  And even if the story doesn’t get written for a while, I hope to have an interesting costume for this Saturday’s party.

Another thing I did was take the scattered notes I’ve been writing for the role-playing game I run pretty much each week and put some of them in order.  As I did so, various elements that had been hazy began to fall into logical place.

Alan and I had some great discussions that will become future Thursday Tangents.  Since we’ve been talking about story tropes, our chats dropped some new elements to swirl in the pot where stories brew.

Jim gave me an atlatl for my birthday, and the darts finally arrived, so I’ve been learning to throw them.  For those of you who don’t know, an atlatl “dart” is six feet long.  Banish images of dart boards and a smoky corner of your local pub…  Bring on the mastodons.

Produce is ripening in the garden, with pomegranates and tomatoes in the lead, though the peppers are doing well enough that Jim pickled three or four quarts this past weekend.  There’s something heartening about going out to see if anything is ripe and coming in with an unexpected bucket of bounty.   (Or, as is often the case, the front of my untucked tee-shirt, which gets converted into a carrier.)

This week will be a little busier but, for now,I think I’ll go curl up with a good book.  Yeah.  It’s one I wrote, but that doesn’t make it less of an enjoyable read.  Sure, I’ll be reading it with a red pen in one hand.  But that doesn’t make the experience any less relaxing or – contrary as it might seem to say so – stimulating!

FF: Running Fast

For those of you just discovering this feature, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazine articles.

Ogapoge Wonders Which He’d Be

The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.

Recently Completed:

Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal.  Audiobook.

The Wicked + The Divine by Gillen McKelvie and Wilson Cowles.  Graphic novel, hardcover edition, volume one.  Mixes the tropes of immortals among us with the “live fast, die young” ethic of rock ‘n roll to interesting, sometimes provocative, effect.

In Progress:

Welcome to Golden by Rory McClannahan.  I sat next to Rory at the Albuquerque Museum Author Festival and heard him talk about this book.  Virtual reality meets retirement community.  Sounds like a good idea.

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater.  Audiobook.  I’ve read this before but now I can concentrate more on details, less on worry about the characters (human and otherwise) than I did the first time around.

Also:

Reading about masks has morphed into decorating one, which in turn has morphed into a possible new character for short fiction.  I love creative synergy!

TT: Alan Thinks About Themes

ALAN: I’ve been thinking…

JANE:  Uh, oh!

ALAN: There’s an apocryphal story that after Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, a reporter interviewed some SF authors and asked: What are you going to write about now that reality has caught up with you?

Exploration and Adventure!

JANE: Ah, the great fallacy rears its head once again.  I wonder when folks will stop thinking that SF is about predicting the future?

ALAN: Or the fallacy that SF is all about exploring the moon, and other planets. There is no doubt that the idea has always had a large role to play in the genre, but it’s by no means the only thing that SF concerns itself with. I think there are several fundamental themes that SF returns to time and time again, themes that define the framework that we hang our genre stories on. I think it might be useful if we tried to pin them down. Are you game to give it a go?

JANE: This sounds like fun.  It will be interesting to see which still seem vital and which (if any) have run their course.

ALAN: OK – let’s begin with the question raised by that apocryphal reporter. Stories that tell of a trip to another world and what we find there have been a staple of science fiction since long before there was any such thing as science fiction.

G. Wells wrote the story in 1901 (The First Men In The Moon) and Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote it again in 1912 (A Princess of Mars).

JANE: Let’s not forget Jules Verne!  His novel From the Earth to the Moon was first published in 1865.  The second part of the story Circling the Moon was first published in 1869.  These make Wells and Burroughs absolute latecomers to the theme.

However, according to my research, there’s a story that has them beat.

ALAN: Really? Tell me more.

JANE: Apparently, Lucian of Samosata’s True History written in 1827 includes a voyage to the Moon.  He was apparently writing in response to Antonius Diogenes’ (second century CE) The Wonders Beyond Thule, which features a report of a visit to the Moon.

However, as True History was satire, there is active debate as to whether it should be classified as SF or not.  Diogenes’ piece seems to have been rooted more in Pythagorean mysticism than in any sort of science, so I only include it out of a desire to be complete.

ALAN: Goodness me – the theme has more of a history than I realised. I’m sure that must be because the idea of exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations, and boldly going where no man has gone before is a story that appeals to absolutely everybody on a really visceral level. After all, the original series of Star Trek told the story in almost every episode and, probably as a direct result, Star Trek was hugely popular!

JANE:  Whoosh!  (Sorry, finishing the quote from the opening of Star Trek.  My brain always adds the sound effect when the Enterprise goes by.  I don’t care that spaceships don’t make a sound in the void.  It’s cool.)

But, momentarily being more serious…  Original Star Trek worked for me in large part because it told stories of frontiers and exploration.  Frontiers remain an integral element of the American mythos, long after the conclusion of the days of physical exploration.

(I’m speaking of the U.S. variant of “American.”  Maybe our Canadians can answer if the idea of the frontier has a pull for them as well.  I don’t know if we have any South or Central Americans reading this who can answer for the other Americas.)

I’m curious if that element works for you as an Old World transplant as well.

ALAN: I’m old and my palate is jaded but nevertheless the story of travelling to a new world and exploring it still gives me a tingle in my sense of wonder. I’m sure I’m not alone in that – it may be a very old story, but it is still being told today – Andy Weir’s excellent novel The Martian was recently made into an award-winning movie, and that’s by no means the only example of it in modern day SF.

JANE: Indeed not.  I’m currently reading a proof of a near future novel – I will tell you what it is when it’s released – that deals with an attempt to establish an in-system colony.  Part of what makes it such a good read is that it’s so firmly rooted in recognizable limitations, both scientific and social.

Two of my favorites in this theme are both by Heinlein: The Man Who Sold the Moon (1950) and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966).  The first envisions lunar exploration as it might have been if driven by private ambition and dreams, rather than as government-backed ventures.  The second focuses on what would happen after a colony was established and had a chance to build its own identity.

Do you have any favorite tales of space exploration?  Don’t feel you need to stay in our solar system!

ALAN: Despite its scientific inaccuracy, I absolutely love Arthur C. Clarke’s The Sands of Mars. It was first published in 1951 and it has long been overtaken by events. We know a lot more about conditions on Mars today than we did back then. The story is a thrilling tale of colonising the red planet. Mars has been surveyed from orbit, but not yet fully explored on the ground… Among other ideas, the novel speculates about techniques for terraforming the planet – a surprisingly sophisticated idea for 1951!

I’m also very fond of Brian W. Aldiss’ Helliconia trilogy. The novels chronicle the rise and fall of civilisation on an Earth-like planet over more than a thousand years. A space station orbiting Helliconia transmits details of the drama back to Earth.

JANE: Shamefacedly, I will admit I haven’t read either of these.  However, I think I may need to do so!

There’s no way we can list every good book about space exploration without inviting the dreaded TL/DR monster into our Tangent.  Perhaps some of our readers will help fill in the gaps by commenting on their personal “don’t miss” titles of planetary exploration.

Even without listing more titles, I think it’s obvious that neither of us think that SF built around planetary exploration and colonization is in the least played out.  However, it might be worth mentioning what is needed to make a new venture in that territory fresh and of good quality.

You first!

ALAN: Don’t pad the story with unnecessary events like meteorite collisions and avoid technical infodumps about spacecraft propulsion systems. I just read a trilogy which would have been amazingly good if the padding had been removed, and as a bonus it would only have been a single novel! In other words, stick to the straight storyline of planetary exploration.

JANE: I’ll add that attention needs to be paid to characterizations.  The days when characters can be “the pilot,” “the captain,” “the astronomer,” etcetera are gone.  Readers want to believe that real, three-dimensional humans with families, friends, even phobias, can achieve these goals.

Space travel is only one element among perennial SF themes.  Would you like to suggest another?

ALAN: I know! Let’s talk about time travel last week.

Cat in Costume

Last week, the WW featured a picture of my cat, Ogapoge, sleeping in one of the guinea pig tanks.  Through various ways and sundry, it ended up reaching a friend of ours.  She in turn sent us a picture of two of her foster kittens snuggling in her rabbit’s hutch.

Persephone in Costume

The rabbit apparently has free run of the house and only uses the hutch as place for his food and water, so was happy to share.

Anyhow, one of the kittens was a calico, and I have long had a not-so secret longing for a calico.  I mentioned this to my friend, and she told me that the litter had two calicos.  Jim and I had a thoughtful, semi-serious discussion as to whether we really wanted a kitten at this point –  especially whether it would be too stressful for Kwahe’e and Ogapoge, our two seniors.

Later that evening, one of those weird things happened that leave you wondering just how much cats (or indeed pets in general) understand what we say.

For several years now, we’ve jokingly called Persephone our “calico” because, although she is mostly white and light reddish/orange, she has two little spots of grey on her head, as well as a third one on one leg.  These are tiny, less than fingertip-sized markings, not the striking patches that characterize your standard calico.

When we were getting ready for bed, Persephone came in for her dinner.  As I turned to put her bowl down, I started.  She had apparently transformed into a proper calico, with a large dark patch between her ears and another on one flank.

What we realized almost immediately was that Persephone had pushed her way passed the fireplace screen and gotten soot on her.  But it sure looked as if she was telling us “You don’t need a calico kitten.  Look!  You have me!”

Jim promptly ran for his camera and took a couple of pictures, one of which is included with this Wandering.  Those of you who regularly read my Friday Fragments have seen numerous pictures of Persephone, sans make-up, and can testify that this is not her normal look.

In case you’re wondering, as tempting as a kitten would be, we don’t think we’ll get one.

Kwahe’e and Ogapoge are both doing as well as they are with early stages of kidney disease, in part because we are giving them a lot of attention in addition to the pills and fluids.  This means that Persephone and Kel want more attention, just because.

So, it’s not a good time for a new kitten at our house, no matter how cute, but we certainly had a good laugh out of what we’ve taken to calling Persephone’s Halloween costume.

And I am indeed left wondering if I’d better be more careful about what I say around her and the rest of the animals!

FF: Many Flavors of SF/F

For those of you just discovering this feature, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazine articles.

Kel Contemplates

The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.

Recently Completed:

Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater.  Audiobook.  I love “The Raven Cycle.”  Irrationally much.

The Savage Damsel and the Dwarf by Gerald Morris.  Enjoyed.  And the savage damsel is indeed fierce, the dwarf small, and the knight…  Well, neither as fierce as the damsel, and much smaller (souled) than the dwarf.

Interstellar Pig by William Sleator.  A chat with a friend reminded me I loved this insane novel, so I had to re-read.

In Progress:

Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal.  Audiobook.

Welcome to Golden by Rory McClannahan.  I sat next to Rory at the Albuquerque Museum Author Festival and heard him talk about this book.  Virtual reality meets retirement community.  Sounds like a good idea.

Also:

Reading about masks, because Halloween is coming.

TT: Delicious Intersection

JANE: Last time you mentioned that SF fans have published a lot of recipes over the years.  I’d love to hear more about this.

Considering Options

ALAN: Yes indeed. Mostly these are found only in obscure fanzines and similar out of the way places, but occasionally they find a wider audience. For example, Terry Pratchett has published Nanny Ogg’s Cookbook, which is a collection of surprisingly (im)practical recipes. In many respects, this work is best regarded as a censored version of the fictional The Joye Of Snackes which was also written by Nanny Ogg…

JANE: Can you give an example of a recipe you felt worked out particularly well?

ALAN: You can find a typical Nanny Ogg recipe (this one is for for Toffee Covered Rat Onna Stick) here.

I’ll let you decide how well the recipe works.

JANE: Okay.  Just went off and read it.  Interesting…  Sounds very sweet.  And reads as if not completely translated from the British measuring system.

What other samples do you have of fannish cooking?

ALAN: The 1987 World SF Convention (which was held in England) published a fannish cookbook for its attendees. It was called Fanfoodery and it was edited by Eve and John Harvey.

JANE: Do you have a copy?  What sort of recipes were offered?

ALAN: Unfortunately, my copy is no longer on my shelves, which means that either it is packed away in a box somewhere or else it was a victim of the Great Library Purge of 2014. I strongly suspect the latter.

However, I do know that Dave Langford contributed a recipe for Sinister Langford Apple Chutney which, he claimed, would “…clear blocked digestive systems, alarm and irritate neighbours, and help interested fans become TAFF delegates. Winner of the Borgia Award, 1987.”

TAFF, by the way, is the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund which sends British fan representatives to American conventions, and vice-versa.

JANE:  That sound ominous.

ALAN: There has long been a tradition of various fan organisations sending representatives to overseas conventions. One such is GUFF, which links European and Antipodean conventions in much the same way that TAFF links America and Britain. When European fans visit Australian conventions, GUFF stands for The Going Under Fan Fund. However when Australian fans visit European conventions the meaning changes, and the acronym becomes The Get Up and Over Fan Fund.

In 2015, the GUFF delegate appealed for recipes which would be published to help fund the GUFF trip. I contributed a recipe for Venusian Chilli (Finely dice one Venusian…). I pointed out at the end of the recipe that those of a nervous disposition may care to substitute Venison for the primary ingredient.

JANE: I’m sure the recipe is too long to include here, but I’d be curious as to what you included (other than Venusians).  Chilli cook-offs are perennially popular in the American West, and the arguments about what makes a good chili (typical American spelling) reach religious intensity.  They include such things as chopped meat rather than ground, types of meat, what sort or beans, and suchlike.

ALAN: I’ve used both minced and chopped Venusians and on balance I prefer the mince. I’ve used both borlotti beans and red kidney beans. I like them both and have no firm favourite, so I tend to alternate.

However, I think that I’d be a pariah at your chilli cook-offs because I do use what I suspect might be non-traditional ingredients. I fry up a lot of chopped celery and carrots with the onions. The spices and herbs I add are chilli, cumin and oregano (which I gather are traditional) and paprika and caraway seeds (which are probably controversial). I add a chopped green pepper for the last ten minutes of simmering because I find that the green colour adds a pleasing aesthetic contrast to the orange of the carrots – so does the celery to a certain extent, but I think it’s a bit too pale to properly succeed at that job. And finally I stir in a tablespoon of yoghurt just before serving.

JANE: That does sound non-traditional.  What’s a “borlotti bean” anyhow?

ALAN: It’s a light brown bean with red streaks. It’s also known as a cranberry bean or roman bean. I find the taste and texture similar to haricot beans, though a little less sweet.

JANE: Hmm… Here typically chile (“chile” is the correct spelling in New Mexico) is made with pinto beans or kidney beans.

As to the other ingredients…  I know some winners of chile cook-offs here  win precisely because they tease the jaded taste buds of the judges – those that haven’t been burned off, that is.  So, who knows?  You might do better than you think.

ALAN: I’ll bear that in mind if I ever enter a cook-off.

There used to be a British TV series called The Clangers. It was made for children, but it was also hugely popular with SF Fans because of its gentle, surreal humour. The Clangers themselves were aliens who lived on a remote planet where they had lots of wonderful adventures. Food was very important to the Clangers. They lived exclusively on soup and blue string pudding. Soup was obtained from soup wells which were supervised (soupervised??) by the Soup Dragon. The origin of blue string pudding was never clear, though there are suggestions that it is the fruit of the spaghetti tree.

I once gave a Clangers party at which I served soup and blue string pudding. Soup was easy, of course, and was well received. But blue string pudding was much more problematic. It was just spaghetti with added blue food colouring. However a surprisingly large number of people refused to eat it. There’s something very unnatural about blue food…

JANE: Blue or not, spaghetti seasoned only with food coloring wouldn’t appeal to me at all.  And isn’t “pudding” what you people call “dessert”?  Blue spaghetti doesn’t sound very desserty.

ALAN: Generally speaking puddings are desserts, but it’s not an invariable rule. Steak and kidney pudding, for example, is very much a main meal. Onions, stock, steak and kidney are surrounded by suet pastry and steamed for about four hours. It is generally served with mashed potato and vegetables such as carrots or broccoli. It’s very yummy, but quite artery-clogging.

JANE: Ah, so blue string pudding would fall into the non-dessert pudding category.  Got it!

In addition to the To Serve Man cookbook I mentioned a while back, I know the tradition of fannish cooking is alive and well here in the U.S.  In fact, our local SF club is attempting to put a cookbook of their own together.  SFWA, a professional organization for Science Fiction and Fantasy writers, also has a cookbook in the works.  If you’re interested in learning more about and maybe pre-ordering a copy, you can look here.

ALAN: By a strange coincidence, I have a pot of Venusian Chilli simmering on the stove at the moment. So if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and stir it. I’ll talk to you again next time.

Life As a Country Western Song

If I could write Country Western songs, the last three weeks would have given me ample fodder for one of those songs that consist of a string laments about the vicissitudes of life.

Ogapoge Takes Refuge

A friend had a sudden medical emergency which necessitated me taking care of his cats.  No problem with helping out with that and with other things.  He’s a good friend and his cats were very lonely – but going over to his house every day for nearly two weeks was a rupture in my routine that made it harder to settle into any particular writing project.

Nonetheless, I soldiered on and always made doing at least some work on my current project (additions to a weird book I’ve been writing on-spec) a priority.  This meant other things had to slide, of course…

I also had three speaking engagements within five days.  Two were for UNM Honors.  The classes were excellent, the questions thoughtful and intelligent.  The other was seven hours of a new Author Fest.  I sold a fair number of books, helped the Albuquerque Museum raise some money, gave a talk about writing SF/F, and met some nifty people.  But getting ready for these events, going back and forth, was a drain on my energy that made it harder to settle into any particular writing project.

Refrain: Nonetheless, I soldiered on and always made doing at least some work on my current project (additions to a weird book I’ve been writing on-spec) a priority.  This meant other things had to slide, of course…

My friend came home safely from the hospital, but peace was not to be mine.  A leak from our swamp cooler had created damage to our kitchen ceiling that really had to be dealt with.  We hired a fellow who did drywall work and, since the patch would need to be painted anyhow, arranged to have him paint the whole kitchen.  Then since the bookshelf in the kitchen (which also holds our guinea pigs’ tanks) had to be emptied out and washed anyhow, I painted that, too.  The dry-waller did excellent work and was about as nonintrusive as someone cutting a hole in your ceiling can be, but the noise and comings and goings (not to mention stressed cats) made it harder for me to settle into any particular writing project.

Refrain : Nonetheless, I soldiered on and always made doing at least some work on my current project (additions to a weird book I’ve been writing on-spec) a priority.  This meant other things had to slide, of course…

Then one of our elderly cats (who already suffers from kidney disease) got stressed by all the fuss (he is terrified of workmen, no matter how nice) and decided to stop eating.  We coaxed him back, but it wasn’t fun.  Then one of our guinea pigs got very sick and I had to rush him to the vet.  He’s still on antibiotics and whether he’ll get well is not certain.  So caring for him remains a drain on my time and creative energy.

Then, Sunday night, when I really should have been sleeping, a new character walked into my head and is now insisting that I write some new stories.  So, the next morning, I needed to find time to scribble notes, so I wouldn’t lose more than sleep – which refused to come until I had the character’s name and general description in my head.  Yes, I did consider getting up and scribbling thing down then, but it was cold and I was very, very tired.

So this new idea is going to be competing with my settling in on finishing what I’m working on but I won’t let it because, as I wrote a few weeks ago, if you let the Hot New Idea take over from the project you’re trying to finish, then you never get anything done

Refrain: Therefore, I soldiered on and always made doing at least some work on my current project (additions to a weird book I’ve been writing on-spec) a priority.  This meant other things had to slide of course….

Other forthcoming projects may include getting e-books together of some of my older titles including Marks of Our Brothers, Pipes of Orpheus, and When the Gods Are Silent.  I’m also meditating on a Kickstarter campaign as a way of testing the waters to see if folks might be interested in my self-publishing some of my current, odder projects, since right now publishers are a little chary about books that slide between categories…  Even SF/F publishers.  Weird, I know!

This week I hope to get caught up on some of the jobs that I’ve had to let slide (like filing and dealing with garden produce) while running hither and yon.  But you can be sure of one thing.  I’ll make sure I’m writing, because the stories keep clamoring to be told, and if I’m not writing, I find it much harder to sleep.

FF: Old Tales, New Stories

This week hasn’t been exactly peaceful, what with my kitchen ceiling being patched and the whole kitchen painted, but good stories have done a great deal to ease the strain.

Savage Damsel Persephone

For those of you just discovering this feature, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazine articles.

The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.

Recently Completed:

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater.  Audiobook.

The Squire, His Knight, and His Lady by Gerald Morris.  Standalone sequel to The Squire’s Tale, which I read a few weeks ago.  Who “His Lady” is an interesting question of pronoun reference.

In Progress:

Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater.  Audiobook.  Again, a book I read in print and am now enjoying in this alternate form.

The Savage Damsel and the Dwarf by Gerald Morris.  I remember reading Malory’s original version of this and wondering if the manuscript had been incomplete.  This is a great deal more comprehensible!

Also:

Still typing and reviewing my own recent additions to a manuscript. Still enjoying.

TT: Dealing with the Food Problem

JANE: When we ended last week, you said you had a question for me.  Go for it!

ALAN: OK. As you so rightly pointed out in our earlier discussions, it will be necessary for our space adventurers to carry their own provisions with them. They are very unlikely to be able to eat the native fauna and flora of whatever planet they are exploring and I doubt that they will really be carrying food pills and dehydrated water with them. Therefore, given that you think this way, how have you dealt with the problem in your own books?

Alien Chefs!

JANE: Well, when I was doing the background work for the “Artemis Awakening” novels, one reason I decided to have Artemis seeded with plants and animals from Earth was so that I wouldn’t need to write long passages about Griffin needing to figure out what he could and couldn’t eat, then spend a lot of my limited word count describing blue peanuts or something.

However, I did make clear that Griffin (and past visitors) had taken care not to bring invasive bacteria and suchlike down onto Artemis, so I didn’t skip the science part.

ALAN: That’s very cunning of you.

JANE: Thanks!  When David Weber asked me to write the Stephanie Harrington novels, one of the things we discussed was how much of the native Sphinxian plant and animal life humans could eat.  Weber had already established that Stephanie’s mother is a biologist who specializes in adapting indigenous species so that humans can eat them.

We also had to deal with what human food treecats can eat.  Along the way, we cleared up a long-time misunderstanding I’d had regarding treecats and celery.  It’s rather, uh, “earthy” but would you like me to tell you what I learned?

ALAN: Yes please. “Earthy” sounds intriguing.

JANE: All right.  From the first Honor Harrington novel (On Basilisk Station) forward it was established that Honor’s treecat, Nimitz, has a passion for celery.  Treecats are omnivores, but definitely lean toward the carnivore side of the spectrum, so Nimitz’s tendency to eat celery (a habit, we later learn, he shares with other treecats) is distinctly odd.

Eating celery gives Nimitz digestive difficulties.  I’d always assumed it gave him gas (not an uncommon digestive reaction to a high-fiber diet), because Honor’s nickname for him is “Stinker.”  In fact, my image of certain scenes was colored by the rather pungent image of Honor with a farting treecat on her shoulder.

When I told Weber this he was horrified.  Treecats get constipated, but they don’t get gas.

ALAN: Oh!  I love the image of a farting treecat on Honor’s shoulder! Perhaps it would add some extra jet-propelled velocity when fleeing from peril!

JANE: Oh, Nimitz doesn’t flee…  He’d be speeding toward danger!

From a writer’s point of view, food and dining habits are great ways to slip in some background about a world and its cultures without resorting to tedious infodumps.  For example, you can show cross cultural influences through food.  A while back, you mentioned that curry had more or less become a British national dish.

ALAN: Very much so – it’s one of the most long-lasting domestic effects of our colonial past. Indeed, the British have adopted curry so whole-heartedly that they have actually developed two new curries which they have exported to the world. Chicken Tikka Masala, and the Balti style of cooking are both British inventions.

JANE: That’s cool!

Well, you can show the same sort of cross cultural influences when writing SF by mixing in, if you wish, various elements taken from the planet on which the humans are now living for…  Okay, I can’t resist the pun, “spice.”

Hmm… If one take Frank Herbert’s Dune and sequels into account, that’s a multi-level pun.  But it’s a good example, too.  I recall a banquet scene in which the decadence was emphasized by highly expensive “melange” aka “spice” being sprinkled on the food.

ALAN: Feasts and banquets are staple items (pun intended) of the more fantasy-oriented novels as well. We are often regaled with luscious, mouth-watering descriptions of tables groaning with food. Jack Vance is particularly good at this (though it has to be said that he describes a lot of revolting meals as well).

Vance does have his idiosyncrasies, though. In meal after meal after meal, we are regaled with descriptions of dishes based on leeks. There’s actually a website

 http://pharesm.org/

where you can search the electronic texts of Vance’s books. So I went looking and discovered that he mentions leeks 27 times in 11 different books. That’s quite a leek fetish! I doubt if any other writer comes anywhere near that total!

JANE: I doubt it.  I wonder why leeks?

Tolkien did a great job of using food to provide swift brush strokes of the cultures of the various people in Middle Earth.  My favorite such scene is where the hobbits prepare to stop for second breakfast, much to the horror of Aragorn, who is aware of their great danger.  I think that the horror or missing second breakfast is what really brings home to the hobbits the danger they are in.

Tolkien also uses food and dining habits to demonstrate that the elves are not a monoculture.  The wild woodland banquets of Legolas’s people are a far cry from the elegant picnics of the High Elves.  I’m sure people have written entire articles on food in Middle Earth, so I’ll stop there, but you get the point.

ALAN: And if you ever visit Hobbiton here in New Zealand, you can buy a second breakfast at the cafe…

JANE: Yum!

Fantasy writers seem particularly fond of inventing new desserts.  Maggie Stiefvater created November Cakes for her excellent novel The Scorpio Races.  Anne McCaffery introduced “bubbly pies” in the Pern books.   A couple weeks ago, Jim looked up from reading Diana Wynne Jones’ A Tale of Time City to announce that he now had a craving for “Forty-Two Century butter-pies.”

The horrible thing about these desserts is since they don’t exist, the reader can never sample them.  This hasn’t kept fans from trying to invent recipes, though.

ALAN: Yes indeed. Publishing recipes, generally with exotic and science fictional names, has long been a fannish tradition. Perhaps we can talk about this intersection of fantasy and reality next time?

JANE: Absolutely…  My mouth is already watering.

Not Your Usual Research Tool

The other day, when I was chatting with a friend about the current fad of coloring books for adults, I said, “I’m not really into coloring, but even so, I have two coloring books and I quite like them.  When I was sick earlier this year, I found sitting down and coloring very restful.”

Some of My Collection

After my friend left, I realized that I don’t have just two coloring books.  I have something more like forty.  My collection pre-dates the current fad by more than a decade and began as research aids.

“What?!” saith you.  “Coloring books as research aids?  How could those be of any help?”

To me, line drawings show detail in a way even the best photos can’t.  Also, while photos are representative of individual items (leaving the question of Photoshopped montages out), drawings can be more representative than any photo.  There’s a reason why field guides to birds or plants or whatever usually include drawings as well as photos.  In fact, many such guides skip photos entirely in favor of drawings.

Does this mean I don’t use photos?  Of course I do!  I have pages of photos of wolves (and other animals) scavenged from everything from greeting cards to calendars to advertisements.  I use these as reference, especially when designing distinct individuals.

So what sort of coloring books do I have in my collection?  Well, I have a fair number devoted to attire, including Colonial and Early American, Ancient Egyptian, Medieval, Renaissance, Victorian, and both traditional Chinese and Japanese.  I have a bunch devoted to cultures such as Life in a Medieval Castle and Village and Life in Old Japan, both by John Green.  I have several on water craft, and on houses (including Victorian “painted ladies,” if you were wondering).  Oh, and of course I have a lot on animals, both real and mythological.  Some of the more off-beat coloring books on my research shelf include one that encourages you to design your own coat of arms, one depicting common weeds, and another on Japanese hiragana.

Many of these came from Dover Publications.  The pictures in Dover coloring books usually include captions, often providing date, color options, and some explanatory details.  Books on fashion almost always include a page or two focusing on specifics of footwear or head gear.  Dover also does an excellent line of books containing copyright free images, both in color and black and white.

While the first wave of adult coloring books (such as Johanna Basford’s Enchanted Forest) often focused on intricate designs, I’ve noticed branching out, especially in the area of fashion.  Among my birthday presents was David Bowie: Starman, a posthumous tribute in which the simple line drawings show more details of Bowie’s various stage costumes than could be garnered from any number of photos.

While the color book boom lasts, I certainly plan to add to my research collection.  I bet more than one picture will be the seed from which a story will grow!