Deborah J. Ross's Blog

Reprint: Fighting Book Bans

 Federal judge overturns part of Florida’s book ban law, drawing on nearly 100 years of precedent protecting First Amendment access to ideas Some school librarians in Florida have found themselves in the midst of controversy over complaints of “obscene” titles in their libraries. Trish233/iStock via Getty Images James B. Blasingame, Arizona State University

When a junior at an Orange County public high school in Florida visited the school library to check out a copy of “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac, it wasn’t in its Dewey decimal system-assigned location.

It turns out the title had been removed from the library’s shelves because of a complaint, and in compliance with Florida House Bill 1069, it had been removed from the library indefinitely. Kerouac’s quintessential chronicle of the Beat Generation in the 1950s, along with hundreds of other titles, was not available for students to read.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill into law in July 2023. Under this law, if a parent or community member objected to a book on the grounds that it was obscene or pornographic, the school had to remove that title from the curriculum within five days and hold a public hearing with a special magistrate appointed by the state.

On Aug. 13, 2025, Judge Carlos Mendoza of the U.S. Middle District of Florida ruled in Penguin Random House v. Gibson that parts of Florida HB 1069 are unconstitutional and violate students’ First Amendment right of free access to ideas.

The plaintiffs who filed the suit included the five largest trade book publishing houses, a group of award-winning authors, the Authors Guild, which is a labor union for published professional authors with over 15,000 members, and the parents of a group of Florida students.

Though the state filed an appeal on Sept. 11, 2025, this is an important ruling on censorship in a time when many states are passing or debating similar laws.

I’ve spent the past 26 years training English language arts teachers at Arizona State University, and 24 years before that teaching high school English. I understand the importance of Mendoza’s ruling for keeping books in classrooms and school libraries. In my experience, every few years the books teachers have chosen to teach come under attack. I’ve tried to learn as much as I can about the history of censorship in this country and pass it to my students, in order to prepare them for what may lie ahead in their careers as English teachers.

Legal precedent

The August 2025 ruling is in keeping with legal precedent around censorship. Over the years, U.S. courts have established that obscenity can be a legitimate cause for removing a book from the public sphere, but only under limited circumstances.

In the 1933 case of United States v. One Book Called Ulysses, Judge John Munro Woolsey declared that James Joyce’s classic novel was not obscene, contradicting a lower court ruling. Woolsey emphasized that works must be considered as a whole, rather than judged by “selected excerpts,” and that reviewers should apply contemporary national standards and think about the effect on the average person.

In 1957, the Supreme Court further clarified First Amendment protections in Roth v. United States by rejecting the argument that obscenity lacks redeeming social importance. In this case, the court defined obscenity as material that, taken as a whole, appeals to a prurient – that is, lascivious – interest in sex in average readers.

The Supreme Court’s 1973 Miller v. California decision created the eponymous Miller test for jurors in obscenity cases. This test incorporates language from the Ulysses and Roth rulings, asking jurors to consider whether the average person, looking at the work as a whole and applying the contemporary standards in their community, would find it lascivious. It also adds the consideration of whether the material in question is of “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value” when deciding whether it is obscene.

Another decision that is particularly relevant for teachers and school librarians is 1982’s Island Trees School District v. Pico, a case brought by students against their school board. The Supreme Court ruled that removing books from a school library or curriculum is a violation of the First Amendment if it is an attempt to suppress ideas. Free access to ideas in books, the court wrote, is sacrosanct: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion.”

These 23 books were removed from Florida school libraries under Florida HB 1069. In his ruling in Penguin Random House v. Gibson, Judge Carlos Mendoza named them and stated, ‘None of these books are obscene.’ Illustration by The Conversation What this ruling clarifies

In his ruling in August 2025, Mendoza pointed out that many of the removed books are classics with no sexual content at all. This was made possible in part by the formulation of HB 1069. The law allows anyone from the community to challenge a book simply by filling out a form, at which point the school is mandated to remove that book within five days. In order to put a book back in circulation, however, the law requires a hearing to be held by the state’s appointed magistrate, and there is no specified deadline by which this hearing must take place.

Mendoza did not strike down the parts of HB 1069 that require school districts to follow a state policy for challenging books. In line with precedent, he also left in place challenges for obscenity using the Miller test and with reference to age-appropriateness for mature content.

The Florida Department of Education argued that HB 1069 is protected by Florida’s First Amendment right of government speech, a legal theory that the government has the right to prevent any opposing views to its own in schools or any government platform. Mendoza questioned this argument, suggesting that “slapping the label of government speech on book removals only serves to stifle the disfavored viewpoints.”

What this means for schools, in Florida and across the US

In the wake of Mendoza’s decision, Florida schools are unlikely to pull more books from the shelves, but they are also unlikely to immediately return them. Some school librarians have said that they are awaiting the outcome of the appeal before taking action.

States with similar laws on the books or in the works will also be watching the appeal.

Some of these laws in other states have also been challenged, with mixed outcomes. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit already struck down Texas’ appeal of a ruling against Texas House Bill 900. And parts of an Iowa bill currently are being challenged in court.

But the NAACP’s lawsuit against South Carolina Regulation 43-170 was dismissed On Sept. 8, 2025. And Utah’s House Bill 29 has not yet faced a challenge in court, though it could be affected by the outcomes of these lawsuits in other states.

James B. Blasingame, Professor of English, Arizona State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Book Review: Don't Mess With a Librarian!

 The VillageLibrary Demon-Hunting Society, by C. M. Waggoner (Ace)
I often dive into books withoutreading the description, and in the case of TheVillage Library Demon-Hunting Society by C.M. Waggoner, this yielded many delightful surprises and plot twists. I pickedit up thinking I’d find a cozy mystery, conveniently forgetting the “demon-hunting”part of the title. Indeed, the opening is very cozy: a small town, a quaintlibrary with older, single librarian sleuth (Sherry Pinkwhistle, great name!) witheccentric friends and a sweet beau, and a murder mystery. As she investigates, sherealizes something is not quite right. A suspect confesses but not all theevidence fits. Sherry wonders why her little town has a disproportionate numberof murders and why she is always the one to solve them, much to the annoyanceof the local sheriff. And why, at the peak of the chase, the town is cut offfrom the outside world.
At this point, things go seriouslydemon-pear-shaped. Supernatural forces are at work, creating the same Murder,She Wrote scenario over and over, while preying on Sherry’s private guilt.By the time the sheriff yells at her in an inhuman voice that she mustinvestigate another murder, all Sherry’s suspicions are in full play. It’s offto the library to do research!
Despite the demon-hunting weirdness,the cozy quality and Sherry’s intrepid librarian superpowers never failed todeliver a great read. The moral for demons and murderers alike: Never mess witha librarian.
 

Reprint: Blaming Health Problems on Personal Choice

 

How federal officials talk about health is shifting in troubling ways – and that change makes me worried for my autistic child Blaming poor health outcomes on lifestyle choices can obscure public health issues. Anadolu via Getty Images Megan Donelson, University of Dayton

The Make America Healthy Again movement has generated a lot of discussion about public health. But the language MAHA proponents use to describe health and disease has also raised concerns among the disability and chronic illness communities.

I’m a researcher studying the rhetoric of health and medicine – and, specifically, the rhetoric of risk. This means I analyze the language used by public officials, institutions, health care providers and other groups in discussing health risks to decode the underlying beliefs and assumptions that can affect both policy and public sentiment about health issues.

As a scholar of rhetoric and the mother of an autistic child, in the language of MAHA I hear a disregard for the humanity of people with disabilities and a shift from supporting them to blaming them for their needs.

Such language goes all the way up to the MAHA movement’s highest-level leader, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It is clearly evident in the report on children’s health published in May 2025 by the MAHA Commission, which was established by President Donald Trump and is led by Kennedy, as well as in the MAHA Commission’s follow-up draft recommendations, leaked on Aug. 15, 2025.

Like many people, I worry that the MAHA Commission’s rhetoric may signal a coming shift in how the federal government views the needs of people with disabilities – and its responsibilities for meeting them.

Personal choice in health

One key concept for understanding the MAHA movement’s rhetoric, introduced by a prominent sociologist named Ulrich Beck, is what sociologists now call individualization of risk. Beck argued that modern societies and governments frame almost all health risks as being about personal choice and responsibility. That approach obscures how policies made by large institutions – such as governments, for example – constrain the choices that people are able to make.

In other words, governments and other institutions tend to focus on the choices that individuals make to intentionally deflect from their own responsibility for the other risk factors. The consequence, in many cases, is that the institution is off the hook for any responsibility for negative outcomes.

Beck, writing in 1986, pointed to nuclear plants in the Soviet Union as an example. People who lived near them reported health issues that they suspected were caused by radiation. But the government denied the existence of any evidence linking their woes to radiation exposure, implying that lifestyle choices were to blame. Some scholars have identified a similar dynamic in the U.S. today, where the government emphasizes personal responsibility while downplaying the effects of public policy on health outcomes.

A shift in responsibility

Such a shift in responsibility is evident in how MAHA proponents, including Kennedy, discuss chronic illness and disabilities – in particular, autism.

In its May 2025 report on children’s health, the MAHA Commission describes the administration’s views on chronic diseases in children. The report notes that the increased prevalence in “obesity, diabetes, neurodevelopmental disorders, cancer, mental health, autoimmune disorders and allergies” are “preventable trends.” It also frames the “major drivers” of these trends as “the food children are eating, the chemicals they are exposed to, the medications they are taking, and various changes to their lifestyle and behavior, particularly those related to physical activity, sleep and the use of technology.”

Extensive research shows that genetics accounts for most of the risk of developing autism, but the MAHA Commission report discussed only lifestyle and environmental factors. Dusan Stankovic/E+ via Getty Images

Notably, it makes no mention of systemic problems, such as limited access to nutritious food, poor air quality and lack of access to health care, despite strong evidence for the enormous contributions these factors make to children’s health. And regarding neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism, it makes no mention of genetics, even though decades of research has found that genetics accounts for most of the risk of developing autism.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with studying the environmental factors that might contribute to autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders. In fact, many researchers believe that autism is caused by complex interactions between genes and environmental factors. But here’s where Beck’s concept of individualization becomes revealing: While the government is clearly not responsible for the genetic causes of chronic diseases, this narrow focus on lifestyle and environmental factors implies that autism can be prevented if these factors are altered or eliminated.

While this may sound like great news, there are a couple of problems. First, it’s simply not true. Second, the Trump administration and Kennedy have canceled tens of millions of dollars in research funding for autism – including on environmental causes – replacing it with an initiative with an unclear review process. This is an unusual move if the goal is to identify and mitigate environmental risk factors And finally, the government could use this claim to justify removing federally funded support systems that are essential for the well-being of autistic people and their families – and instead focus all its efforts on eliminating processed foods, toxins and vaccines.

People with autism and their families are already carrying a tremendous financial burden, even with the current sources of available support. Cuts to Medicaid and other funding could transfer the responsibility for therapies and other needs to individual families, leaving many of them to struggle with paying their medical bills. But it could also threaten the existence of an entire network of health care providers that people with disabilities rely on.

Even more worrisome is the implication that autism is a kind of damage caused by the environment rather than one of many normal variations in human neurological diversity – framing people with autism as a problem that society must solve.

How language encodes value judgments

Such logic sets off alarm bells for anyone familiar with the history of eugenics, a movement that began with the idea of improving America by making its people healthier and quickly evolved to make judgments about who is and is not fit to participate in society.

Kennedy’s explanation for the rise in autism diagnoses contradicts decades of research by independent researchers as well as assessments by the CDC.

Kennedy has espoused this view of autism throughout his career, even recently claiming that people with autism “will never pay taxes. They’ll never hold a job. They’ll never play baseball. They’ll never write a poem.”

Even if organic foods and a toxin-free household were the answer to reducing the prevalence of autism, the leaked MAHA Commission strategy report steers clear of recommending government regulation in industries such as food and agriculture, which would be needed to make these options affordable and widely available.

Instead, MAHA’s supposed interventions would remain lifestyle choices – and expensive ones, at that – left for individual families to make for themselves.

Just asking questions

Kennedy and other MAHA proponents also employ another powerful rhetorical tactic: raising questions about topics that have already reached a scientific consensus. This tactic frames such questions as pursuits of truth, but their purpose is actually to create doubt. This tactic, too, is evident in the MAHA Commission’s reports.

This practice of “just asking questions” while ignoring already established answers is widely referred to as “sealioning.” The tactic, named for a notorious sea lion in an online comic called Wondermark, is considered a form of harassment. Like much of the rhetoric of the anti-vaccine movement, itserves to undermine public trust in science and medicine. This is partly due to a widespread misunderstanding of scientific research – for example, understanding that scientific disagreement does not necessarily indicate that science as a process is flawed.

MAHA rhetoric thus continues a troubling trend in the anti-vaccine movement of calling all of science and Western medicine into question in order to further a specific agenda, regardless of the risks to public health.

The MAHA Commission’s goals are almost universally appealing – healthier food, healthier kids and a healthier environment for all Americans. But analyzing what is implied, minimized or left out entirely can illuminate a much more complex political and social agenda.

Megan Donelson, Lecturer in Health Rhetorics, University of Dayton

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Guest Post: Katharine Kerr on "Boys' Books"

Boys’ Books

by Katharine Kerr

I was lucky enough to grow up in afamily of readers.  Admittedly, on mymother’s side of the family, some of them mostly read the Bible or religiousworks.  Others, like my mother andgrandmother, loved the “sweet” Romances of the period.  My uncles loved Westerns and policethrillers.  My father’s parents, on theother hand, were serious Leftists and read serious Leftist books, like DASKAPITAL in the original German.  Bothsides, however, believed in reading aloud to children.  They also believed in public libraries.

From the time I was big enough towalk the ten blocks or so to our local branch, my grandmother and I made aweekly trip to the library.  She loadedup on genre reading for her, and I loaded up on books from the children’ssection, mostly animal stories, which I particularly loved.  As soon as I could read, I read a lot, wellbeyond that illusory category, “grade level”. That’s when the trouble started. Not from my grandparents, I hasten to add, but from the other adultsaround me.

When I was an older child and youngteen-ager, back in the 1950s, I began to hear entirely too often, “Youshouldn’t be reading that book.  It’s notfor you.”  No, I hadn’t picked out a bookwith too many big words or too much sex, nothing from the “Adult” section ofour public library, no Leftist tracts, either. I had committed the sin of liking Boys’ Books.

It may be hard to imagine now, butthere used to be fixed categories of Boys’ Books and Girls’ Books.  Boys got science fiction, adventure stories,historical stories of battles and exploration. Girls got junior Romances, stories of girls helping others or setting uptheir own homes, horse stories, and . . . well, I never found much else in thatsection of the library.  Some were wellwritten, like the “Anne of Green Gables” books or the “Flicka” horsestories.  Most struck me as utter crap,even at thirteen, particularly the junior Romances, such as the Rosamund deJardin “Marcy” series.  Oh yes, I can’tforget the forerunners of “self help” books. Those available for girls in the 1950s centered around “how to lookpretty and get a boyfriend.”  I nevernoticed any self help in the Boys’ section. They, apparently, didn’t need advice.

What I wanted were the adventures,the battles, and the science fiction. Among the Boys’ Books, I discovered Roy Chapman Andrews and RobertHeinlein’s YA novels, along with a lot of lesser writers whose names, alas, Ihave forgotten but whom I loved at the time. When I went to the library desk to check these books out, the voicesstarted.  “Are you getting those for yourbrother?  No?  Why do you want to read those?  They’re for boys.  You should look in the Girls’ section.”  No librarian actually prevented me fromtaking the books home, mind.  That wasreserved for my mother.  “Why are youreading that junk?” was one of her favorite phrases.  “It’s not for girls.  Take those back.  Get some good books.”

I read most of Heinlein’s YA bookswhile sitting in the library.  Why risktaking them home and getting nagged? When as a teen, I graduated to SF for grown-ups, the disapproval escalated,too.  My mother helpfully tried to get meto read proper female literature by checking out books for me.  I dutifully read them -- hell, I’d readanything at that age, from cereal boxes on up -- but I never liked them.  Finally, she gave up.

 But even the books I loved told me I shouldn’t be reading them.  Some had no female characters at all.  Some had a few females placed here and there,as servants or, back in the delicate ‘50s, “love objects.”  (Raw sex objects arrived in SF a bitlater.)  A few had horrible femalevillians, like THE STARS MY DESTINATION, where a bitter woman, trapped in ateleport-proof prison to protect her virtue, schemed against the hero.  There were exceptions, like Jirel ofJoiry.  The librarian let me check thoseout without comment.  But on the whole,the Boys’ Books had merely grown up -- or grown older.

            Reading alot of SF did make me profoundly interested in science.  I desperately wanted to be part of the spaceprogram.  In high school I took all thescience and math I could.  I got thehighest marks in those classes only to be told that no one would ever let meinto an all-male space program. And back in 1960, it was most definitelyall-male.   One of my teachers even jokedthat maybe I could be a receptionist at JPL. I realized at some point that reading the “wrong” books had given me the“wrong” dreams.  At 16, confused andvulnerable, I gave it all up.  I took nomore “hard” science courses.  I left themath classes to the boys, just like the boys wanted.  I read no science fiction at all for years,until I came across Ursula Le Guin in the late 1960s.

            I have beenknown to snark at writers and editors who question the need for including awide range of characters in their fiction. Why? I know first hand that it hurts. Had I been black or Asian or a member of some other minority group, itwould have hurt even worse.  People whoread a lot of fiction form judgments based on their reading about how the world works and how it should work.  Books cangive us dreams and ideals and goals. Saying to any group, “these dreams, these goals, are not for you” harmsnot just the individuals, but our culture. These days, the future needs all the help it can get.  Let’s not turn anyone away who wants to bepart of it.

Katharine Brahtin Kerr was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1944 to a family which considered itself British-in-exile far more than American--and Royalist to boot. Since she was taught to read on British books alone, these sentiments resulted in her inability to spell properly in either system, British or American, though fortunately there were no other lasting effects. Just to compound the culture shock, the family moved to Santa Barbara, California, when Katharine was a schoolgirl. She was horrified to realize that in Southern California, beaches are far more important than books. She vowed to leave as soon as possible, carrying out the threat in 1962, when she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. Since then, she has left it only to visit relatives in the British Isles and currently lives in San Francisco. Eventually she had the good fortune to meet up with an old friend from secondary school, Howard Kerr, who loved cats, books, and baseball as much as she does. They were married in 1973 and stayed that way until Howard’s death in 2020.


Buy Haze here:

Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/3abuz58z

Barnes and Noble: https://tinyurl.com/4nj67j2h

 

About the cover, Katharine says, "That’s Dan Brennan, drug addict, street hustler, but still the best damn star pilot in the interstellar Republic."

           

 

Short Book Review: Character-Driven Time Travel Romance

Death at a Highland Wedding (A Rip Through Time Novel)by Kelley Armstrong (St Martins)

Death at a Highland Wedding is the fourthinstallment in  Kelley Armstrong's “Rip Through Time” time-travel novelsthat feature modern-day homicide detective Mallory Atkinson, who has slipped150 years into the past to Victorian Scotland. By now, three books later, she'sdeveloped meaningful relationships with the people around her and is using hertraining as an assistant to undertaker Dr. Duncan Gray and Detective HughMcCreadie. That’s all the backstory a reader needs, since Armstrong skillfullyweaves in the relevant material as the plot unfolds. The important thing isthat Duncan and Hugh, along with Hugh’s independent-minded sister, Isla, know Mallory’strue identity and trust her investigatory skills.

Now the four are off to a beautiful highland hunting lodgefor the wedding of Hugh’s younger sister. All is not well, however. The new gamekeeperhas been laying traps that threaten not only local wildlife but the poor folkaccustomed to traveling freely over the estate. Soon, Mallory and her friendsare caught up in a series of increasingly bizarre mysteries that culminate inthe murder of one of the guests, for which the inexperienced young constablearrests the groom.

The combination of time travel and murder mystery would furnishan entertaining read, but Armstrong goes further. Her sensitivity to relationships,the vulnerability of women in the 1870s, especially those without rank ormoney, and Mallory’s compassion and quick insight all make for a deeper story.It’s not necessary to have read the preceding volumes to enjoy Death at aHighland Wedding, although you’ll likely want to gobble up as many of theadventures of Mallory and her friends as you can find.

Author Interview: Katharine Kerr

Deborah J.Ross: Tell us a little aboutyourself.  How did you come to be a writer?

KatharineKerr: From childhood on, I’vealways loved to read. Somewhere around age 8 I realized that books did not justmagically appear – they were written by people! And I vowed that one day I’d beone of them. I never lost sight of that goal, even when my life turned verydifficult in my 20’s. I just kept reading and kept writing for practice. When Ifinally finished a novel, FLICKERS, that is, a family saga such as was popularin the 1980s, I realized I’d need an agent. People ask me: how did you learnhow to get published without the internet? The answer always seems to surprisethem. I don’t know why. I went to the public library and looked up the subjectin the old-fashioned card catalog. Lo and behold! There was a whole shelf ofbooks on the subject. I read several and followed their advice.

 

DJR: What inspired yourbook, Haze? 

KK: For some time, several years really,before I started work on it, I had a scene in my mind. A derelict, probably anaddict, was sitting on the sidewalk in a far future city when a militaryofficer came striding to offer him redemption . . . for something, I didn’tknow what. But they turned out to be Dan Brennan and Captain Evans. I startedwriting from there.

 

DJR: How does it relate to your other hardsf?

KK: When I wrote POLAR CITY BLUES, back inthe 1990s, I didn’t realize that it was the beginning of something longer.After years of working on the Deverry Saga, I wanted to write a one-off,something that ended! One of my friends, Kate Daniel, thought otherwise. Shewrote almost all of POLAR CITY NIGHTMARE even though my name’s on the cover –commercial reasons, of course. In these two books, Humanity have settled only afew exoplanets. The dominant species are the Kar-Li and the H’Allevae (known asHoppers), but the Leps are represented too, under the condescending name of“lizzies”.

            In a short story I wrote, “Its Own Reward,” anothersapient species appears, the Val Chiri Gan. This story takes place a long whilebefore the Polar City pair, when the Old Earth is dying. They may reappear inZYON. I’m not sure yet.

            SNARE and PALACE are two books more closely linked toHAZE. Both are victims of the sudden closing of the same interstellarshunt.  PALACE was another collaboration.I had nothing to do with the sequel, however, and unlike PCN, my name certainlybelongs on the cover of PALACE itself.

            Since I wrote these books in between other series, thetimeline is pretty vague. I didn’t keep close track. If anyone reads the olderbooks, I suggest you just ignore the little notes that tell when they’re takingplace in relation to our present time. Here’s how things seem to have shakenout:

            PCB and PCN – 200 years from now. Yes, I was dreadfullyover-optomistic.

            HAZE – about 1500 years from now, more or less. By thattime the Republic has grown immensely strong, thanks to our species love ofviolence and general greed.

            ZYON follows directly on from HAZE.

            PALACE and SNARE take place at the same time, somehundreds of years after Haze and Zyon, that is. Not as far from our time astheir notes say.

By the way, FREEZEFRAMES isn’t part of this world or sequence. It probably can be thought of asfuture fantasy with nods toward real science.

 

DJR: What authors have most influenced yourwriting?

KK: Like all fantasy writers, I’d be lyingif I said Tolkien never influenced me. His books showed me that fantasy couldbreak out of the Conanesque or Ancient Evil stereotypes that seemed to dominatethe genre back in the 1950s and ‘60s. I devoured his books rather than merelyread them.

When it comes toscience fiction, Ursula LeGuin. I loved SF when I was a teenager, but as I grewup the relentlessly patriarchal, even misogynistic SF of the 1950s made me stopreading it. Not long after it was published, I rather randomly came across THELEFT HAND OF DARKNESS when I was working in a bookstore. I felt like she’dopened one of those magic doors that lead to a new alternate reality. Back Iwent to reading SF, and yes, mostly that written by women.

 

DJR: How does your work differ from othersin your genre?

KK: I honestly don’t know. I suspect thefollowing is true, however. Writers like Nora Jamisin or RF Kuang, just to nametwo of the many, break out of the usual patterns and subject matter to tellamazingly creative stories. I tend to take something familiar, such as a Celticbased fantasy, and dig in deep to explore it in new ways. New character types,new “plots”, new details that add the feeling of physical reality to thesetting. All of my work is character driven rather than depending on the storyline itself.

 

DJR: How does your writing process work?

KK: I always start with the characters.That is, I’ll get an image or small bit of action featuring a character. DanBrennan in HAZE was such a one. When I start writing,  I begin to see what happens next. I don’toutline, I don’t have a plot except in the vaguest way. I do create asituation, and the plot come out to ‘what are these people going to do aboutit?’

 

DJR: What have you written recently? Whatlies ahead?

KK: I’m currently working on a sequel toHAZE. While many of the same characters will return, there are new ones. And awhole new planet, Zyon, settled a long time ago by religious fanatics. Afterthat, I don’t know – at my age, it’s better to think one book at a time.

DJR: A sequel…oooh!

 

DJR: What advice would you give an aspiringwriter?

KK: Read widely. If you want to writefantasy, read mysteries and science fiction as well, and of course vice versa.Read literature as well as genre. Not necessarily modern litfic, but those“depressing” books you found boring in school. A book does not have to beentertaining to be worth reading.  Theclassics will show you many and different ways of writing a story.

Buy Haze here:

Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/3abuz58z

Barnes and Noble: https://tinyurl.com/4nj67j2h

 

Katharine Brahtin Kerr was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1944 to a family which considered itself British-in-exile far more than American--and Royalist to boot. Since she was taught to read on British books alone, these sentiments resulted in her inability to spell properly in either system, British or American, though fortunately there were no other lasting effects. Just to compound the culture shock, the family moved to Santa Barbara, California, when Katharine was a schoolgirl. She was horrified to realize that in Southern California, beaches are far more important than books. She vowed to leave as soon as possible, carrying out the threat in 1962, when she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. Since then, she has left it only to visit relatives in the British Isles and currently lives in San Francisco. Eventually she had the good fortune to meet up with an old friend from secondary school, Howard Kerr, who loved cats, books, and baseball as much as she does. They were married in 1973 and stayed that way until Howard’s death in 2020.
About the cover, Katharine says, "That’s Dan Brennan, drug addict, street hustler, but still the best damn star pilot in the interstellar Republic."

 

Aurhor Interview: Katharine Kerr

Deborah J.Ross: Tell us a little aboutyourself.  How did you come to be a writer?

KatharineKerr: From childhood on, I’vealways loved to read. Somewhere around age 8 I realized that books did not justmagically appear – they were written by people! And I vowed that one day I’d beone of them. I never lost sight of that goal, even when my life turned verydifficult in my 20’s. I just kept reading and kept writing for practice. When Ifinally finished a novel, FLICKERS, that is, a family saga such as was popularin the 1980s, I realized I’d need an agent. People ask me: how did you learnhow to get published without the internet? The answer always seems to surprisethem. I don’t know why. I went to the public library and looked up the subjectin the old-fashioned card catalog. Lo and behold! There was a whole shelf ofbooks on the subject. I read several and followed their advice.

 

DJR: What inspired yourbook, Haze? 

KK: For some time, several years really,before I started work on it, I had a scene in my mind. A derelict, probably anaddict, was sitting on the sidewalk in a far future city when a militaryofficer came striding to offer him redemption . . . for something, I didn’tknow what. But they turned out to be Dan Brennan and Captain Evans. I startedwriting from there.

 

DJR: How does it relate to your other hardsf?

KK: When I wrote POLAR CITY BLUES, back inthe 1990s, I didn’t realize that it was the beginning of something longer.After years of working on the Deverry Saga, I wanted to write a one-off,something that ended! One of my friends, Kate Daniel, thought otherwise. Shewrote almost all of POLAR CITY NIGHTMARE even though my name’s on the cover –commercial reasons, of course. In these two books, Humanity have settled only afew exoplanets. The dominant species are the Kar-Li and the H’Allevae (known asHoppers), but the Leps are represented too, under the condescending name of“lizzies”.

            In a short story I wrote, “Its Own Reward,” anothersapient species appears, the Val Chiri Gan. This story takes place a long whilebefore the Polar City pair, when the Old Earth is dying. They may reappear inZYON. I’m not sure yet.

            SNARE and PALACE are two books more closely linked toHAZE. Both are victims of the sudden closing of the same interstellarshunt.  PALACE was another collaboration.I had nothing to do with the sequel, however, and unlike PCN, my name certainlybelongs on the cover of PALACE itself.

            Since I wrote these books in between other series, thetimeline is pretty vague. I didn’t keep close track. If anyone reads the olderbooks, I suggest you just ignore the little notes that tell when they’re takingplace in relation to our present time. Here’s how things seem to have shakenout:

            PCB and PCN – 200 years from now. Yes, I was dreadfullyover-optomistic.

            HAZE – about 1500 years from now, more or less. By thattime the Republic has grown immensely strong, thanks to our species love ofviolence and general greed.

            ZYON follows directly on from HAZE.

            PALACE and SNARE take place at the same time, somehundreds of years after Haze and Zyon, that is. Not as far from our time astheir notes say.

By the way, FREEZEFRAMES isn’t part of this world or sequence. It probably can be thought of asfuture fantasy with nods toward real science.

 

DJR: What authors have most influenced yourwriting?

KK: Like all fantasy writers, I’d be lyingif I said Tolkien never influenced me. His books showed me that fantasy couldbreak out of the Conanesque or Ancient Evil stereotypes that seemed to dominatethe genre back in the 1950s and ‘60s. I devoured his books rather than merelyread them.

When it comes toscience fiction, Ursula LeGuin. I loved SF when I was a teenager, but as I grewup the relentlessly patriarchal, even misogynistic SF of the 1950s made me stopreading it. Not long after it was published, I rather randomly came across THELEFT HAND OF DARKNESS when I was working in a bookstore. I felt like she’dopened one of those magic doors that lead to a new alternate reality. Back Iwent to reading SF, and yes, mostly that written by women.

 

DJR: How does your work differ from othersin your genre?

KK: I honestly don’t know. I suspect thefollowing is true, however. Writers like Nora Jamisin or RF Kuang, just to nametwo of the many, break out of the usual patterns and subject matter to tellamazingly creative stories. I tend to take something familiar, such as a Celticbased fantasy, and dig in deep to explore it in new ways. New character types,new “plots”, new details that add the feeling of physical reality to thesetting. All of my work is character driven rather than depending on the storyline itself.

 

DJR: How does your writing process work?

KK: I always start with the characters.That is, I’ll get an image or small bit of action featuring a character. DanBrennan in HAZE was such a one. When I start writing,  I begin to see what happens next. I don’toutline, I don’t have a plot except in the vaguest way. I do create asituation, and the plot come out to ‘what are these people going to do aboutit?’

 

DJR: What have you written recently? Whatlies ahead?

KK: I’m currently working on a sequel toHAZE. While many of the same characters will return, there are new ones. And awhole new planet, Zyon, settled a long time ago by religious fanatics. Afterthat, I don’t know – at my age, it’s better to think one book at a time.

DJR: A sequel…oooh!

 

DJR: What advice would you give an aspiringwriter?

KK: Read widely. If you want to writefantasy, read mysteries and science fiction as well, and of course vice versa.Read literature as well as genre. Not necessarily modern litfic, but those“depressing” books you found boring in school. A book does not have to beentertaining to be worth reading.  Theclassics will show you many and different ways of writing a story.

Buy Haze here:

Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/3abuz58z

Barnes and Noble: https://tinyurl.com/4nj67j2h

 

Katharine Brahtin Kerr was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1944 to a family which considered itself British-in-exile far more than American--and Royalist to boot. Since she was taught to read on British books alone, these sentiments resulted in her inability to spell properly in either system, British or American, though fortunately there were no other lasting effects. Just to compound the culture shock, the family moved to Santa Barbara, California, when Katharine was a schoolgirl. She was horrified to realize that in Southern California, beaches are far more important than books. She vowed to leave as soon as possible, carrying out the threat in 1962, when she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. Since then, she has left it only to visit relatives in the British Isles and currently lives in San Francisco. Eventually she had the good fortune to meet up with an old friend from secondary school, Howard Kerr, who loved cats, books, and baseball as much as she does. They were married in 1973 and stayed that way until Howard’s death in 2020.
About the cover, Katharine says, "That’s Dan Brennan, drug addict, street hustler, but still the best damn star pilot in the interstellar Republic."

 

Short Book Review: If Cats Could Type

Starter Villain, by John Scalzi (Tor)

Charlie seems like an average guy, having given up his careeras a journalist for substitute teaching that barely pays for groceries and catfood. He’s kind and sweet, a sucker for a cute cat or two. His current dream isto buy a landmark pub, although it’s unlikely the bank will approve the loan.To make matters worse, his siblings want to sell the house they jointly own.Then hislong-lost Uncle Jake dies, and before Charlie realizes what’s going on, hefinds himself heir to a supervillain business and the target of his uncle’srivals, a cabal of rich, soulless multinational predators. Along the way,Charlie discovers a knack for negotiating with wisecracking sentient dolphinswho threaten a strike if their demands for better working conditions aren’tmet, intelligent spy cats who communicate via typewriters, and a terrifyinglycompetent henchwoman.

It's all brilliantly witty but with an undercurrent of thoughtfulness.Again and again, Charlie demonstrates how logic, common sense, and an utterlack of deference to bullies can and do prevail. The dialog is top-notch, asare the reversals and plot twists. Having grown up in a union family, Iheartily cheered for dolphin workers’ rights.

Fun reading for you and your cats.

Book Review: Superb Hard SF from Katharine Kerr

Haze, by Katharine Kerr (ARC Manor)

Katharine Kerr is one of the most versatile writers ofspeculative fiction. Although many readers know her best for her long-running “Deverry”fantasy series, she also writes superb urban fantasy and hard science fiction,with such works as Polar City Blues and Freeze Frames. Now shereturns to a far future when interstellar civilization depends on travelthrough hyperspace stargate shunts. Kerr’s universe is richly detailed,enormous in scope of space and history, replete with ancient grudges betweensapient races, current politics, and plots-within-plots. And a mystery: the shuntsare supposed to be permanent, anchored at each end to nearby planets, butsomething—or some ONE—has accomplished the impossible and destroyed a shunt. Whichvital route will be the next target?

We are drawn into the story through Dan, an immenselytalented starship pilot capable of linking with a ship’s AI to navigate theshunts. Like other pilots, he uses the drug Haze to blunt his craving for thetranscendent experience of hyperspace when he’s not working. But Haze is highlyaddictive, and Dan’s use of it has gotten him cashiered out of Fleet, destitute,and turning tricks on Nowhere Street on a backwater planet to feed his habit.When Fleet offers him a way back to his old job, under the care of his formerlover, Devit, and enough Haze to keep him functional, Dan doesn’t have achoice. There’s a reason he’s refused treatment for Haze addiction, a secret heguards with his life. Disguised as merchant traders, he and his new crew begininvestigating the disappearance of the shunt. And that’s when things start togo seriously wrong.

Kerr’s use of Dan as an initial viewpoint character who introducesus to this world is brilliant. He’s at turns fallible, aggravating, and heart-breakinglyattractive. The offspring of a noted film beauty, he’s been geneticallymodified to be sexually irresistible to both men and women, and tounconsciously respond to their advances. Devit has been the only person in hislife to care about him as a person, but at a terrible cost. In this society,both bisexuality and polyamory are widely accepted, but relationships liketheirs are fraught with challenges. Anyone who’s ever loved a person withsubstance abuse issues knows how painful and impossibly difficult it can be. AsDevit grows closer to legendary cyberjock Jorja, their problems and the choicesboth must face become more urgent.

As the mystery unfolds, with a nuanced pacing of plotreversals and surprises, layers of both human and alien cultures emerge. One ofthe more fascinating of these is the relationship—sometimes symbiotic, often sullenlyadversarial—between human pilots or cyberjocks and the AIs that run ships,stations, archives, and more. Scholars find themselves at cross-purposes withthe military that is supposed to protect them. Old feuds between species simmerjust below the surface. The revelation at the end is highly satisfactory, meticulouslyplotted, and a fresh surprise.

It's hard to list the strengths of this remarkable novelbecause there are so many. They include exceptional world-building, socialsystems and relationships, hardware and AIs, and most of all, the characters.People find themselves trapped with no healthy way forward, like Dan and Devit.They try new strategies and alliances, not always successful. As they confrontnew situations or old ones come back to haunt them, they struggle to movebeyond the past. Wounded, recovering, and scarred, their lives can never be thesame. In other words, Kerr’s fully rounded characters change and grow in waysthat drive the story forward.

Award-worthy and highly recommended for lovers of spacescience fiction.

What We Lose, What We Gain

Wright & Teague Delphi RingsI wrote this post in 2011. Still true, perhaps even more so now.
Some years ago - like maybe a decade - most of my jewelry was stolen. None of it was very valuable, although there were some pearls and jade and a little amber, and a lovely pair of moonstone stud earrings. But, as is the way of things, each piece had a story that was part of my life. That was the real value, and hence the deepest loss. I'd had some of them since my childhood, and some had been gifts from loved ones who've since died. Some of it was my mother's.

I went through the expected rage and frenzy, scouring local flea markets in the forlorn hope that I might spot a piece or two. Of course, I did not. When that stage had run its course, the police report filed (and, doubtless, forgotten), anger turned to grief, and grief to acceptance, and acceptance to looking in a new way at what I'd lost.

I wrote in my journal that the thieves had taken bits of minerals, crystals, shells, fossilized tree sap, but they could not steal:

the stories in my mind
the books I've written
my children
the redwoods
my dreams
my friends
their kindness and generosity to me
my capacity for joy...


Slowly, over the years, I have acquired a new collection. It's smaller and more suited to who I am now. I discovered a few things from my mother, tucked away in an old cigar box with some broken bits and things I didn't wear. Friends and family surprised me with simple, beautiful pieces: a strand of black pearls, an amber pendant, a necklace of silver and garnet dangles, tiny, amazingly delicate garnet earrings. I went through a period of needing "replacements," and then letting them go. My daughter and I have swapped a number of pairs of earrings. It's such a delight to pass them on. And to realize I don't truly need any of this.

What I need are the people I love, and who love me. What I need is to write the stories in my heart. What I need is to work for a better world for everyone.

I look at what I have, what I have lost, what cannot be taken from me, what I have gained. Yes, I enjoy beautiful things. But how much more precious are the memories that come with them.