Deborah J. Ross's Blog, page 5

Audiobook Reviews: Kate Elliott's Court of Fives

 

Court of Fives trilogy (Court of Fives, ThePoisoned Blade, The Buried Heart) by Kate Elliott (audiobook)

I’ve been a fan of Kate Elliott for a long time, admiringher thoughtfulness and nuanced presentation of relatable characters wrestlingwith complex social issues. Plus great action sequences and world-building. Ifound this trilogy in audiobook format through my public library (hooray forlibraries!). It had been around for awhile, the first volume (Court of Fives)having been published in 2015.

After the patriarchal kingdom of Saro invades and conquersthe land of Efea, a colonial-style caste system perpetuates the resulting conquerer/conqueredelite/slave dichotomies. The fact that the aristocratic Saroese are light-skinnedand have straight hair and the Efeans are dark with “coiled” hair evokes echoesof British imperialism in Africa or the post-Civil War America. Here, as inElliott’s ficticious realm, people from different castes will inevitably meet,fall in love, and have children. Jessamy and her sisters have grown up in sucha family; their father is a common, untitled Saroese who has risen to military prominencedue to his extraordinary skill. His wife in all but name is a perceptive,generous Efean who excels at caring for everyone in her orbit.

Jessamy has a secret: she has been training to compete inthe Court of Fives, a sort of Olympic trial combinng strength, agility,quick-thinking, and speed—and she does so anonymously, against her father’swishes. He does his best to protect his mixed-race girl in the larger world of Saroesedominance. Jessamy’s secret rebellion and a chance encounter with Kalliarkos, (aSaroese prince in line for the throne) ignite vicious political infighting, simmeringEfean rebellion, betrayals within her own family, and a discovery that willtransform forever the relationship between the two peoples.

The result is a coming of age story fueled by Jessamy’sburgeoning insight, courage, and maturity, and the her (and the reader’s) step-by-stepdiscovery of the history of this world, the power of rebellion, and theemergence of the leadership this world needs so desperately to survive. Theresulting tale is neither a quick nor superficial, but rich, detailed, andultimately satisfying.

Highly recommended.

 

 

Book Reviews: A tale of two memoirs

I love to listen to audiobooks while I work in the garden,take a walk, or cook a meal. Recently, I borrowed two memoirs from my publiclibrary and was struck by the contrast. Both were written by famous people andnarrated by themselves. I was curious enough about each of them to listen totheir stories.

The first was Spare, by Prince Harry (Random House),mostly because it popped up on my screen. Okay, I thought, his perspective ongrowing up in the shadow of Princess Diana’s death should be be interesting.His life has been very different from (or, in Brit: to) mine.

Being in the public spotlight does not qualify a person towrite a compelling memoir, nor does belonging to a royal family confer theability to narrate with clarity and emotion. Spare fails on both counts.The charm of Harry’s accent lasted about five minutes, long enough for theemotional shallowness—a combination of the dry text and the manner in which itwas read aloud—and lack of awareness of his elite white privilege to wear thin.Since I know from my own experience what it’s like to lose a parent unexpectedly,I hoped I’d be able to connect with Harry’s loss. I found his denial of Diana’sdeath understandable as a child. The problem was that Harry, the adultlooking back, seemed to not have gained any insight or grown beyond denial as achildish survival strategy. I heard no understanding of how much he’d maturedthrough adversity, the pain he’d walked through. No connection between thatloss and the subsequent estrangements from other members of his family or themental health issues with which he struggled later in life. But there was lotsabout the privileged life where everything was provided without him having towork for it and which he accepted without question.

I finally gave up, so I never got to hear about his militaryservice or his courtship with Meghan Markle and how they made a life forthemselves apart from his royal relatives. I wish them well, but I found littlein this audiobook memoir to attract and hold my interest in who Harry is as aperson.

 

In contrast, Lovely One, A Memoir, by Ketanji BrownJackson (Random House) was a joy from start to finish. Jackson is the newestmember of the US Supreme Court and the first Black woman to be
confirmed tothat post. As a student, she excelled in public speaking and debate, tacklingchallenging topics with determination and extraordinary eloquence. Her facilitywith communicating complex ideas shines through her narrative, as does her lovefor her family, her capacity for enduring friendship, her passion for justice,and her unwavering courage. Whether she is talking about the African origin ofher name, the environment of racism and misogyny prevalent in here field eventoday, her and her husband’s struggles to maintain separate careers whileraising two daughters, one of whom is autistic, she speaks with unusual clarityand persuasiveness. I loved every minute of her story. In another life, I want to be her best friend.

Highly recommended.

 

 

Resources for Surviving #Felon47

I've been keeping a list of articles on how to survive the second term of #Felon47 and have gathered the links here. Please send others as you find them and I'll add to the list.

Please share this list!

Here's What You Can Do to Keep Democracy Alive During Trump's Second TermAuthoritarians thrive on fear and hopelessness. Here are 17 things you can do to not give into such negativity. 
The Authoritarian Regime Survival GuideThe text below, dubbed the “Authoritarian Regime Survival Guide”, was published in social media in January 2017 in a series of improvised, spontaneous tweets, which reached 3 million views within one month. Their common element was their trademark signature, “- With love, your Eastern European friends”, and the accompanying hashtag #LearnFromEurope.

Surviving the Next Four YearsA practical guide for coping with and getting through Trump 2.0

What can I do to fight this coup?
From Choose Democracy: Here are some starting points on how to orient and help fight the coup.
How to find climate data and science the Trump administration doesn’t want you to seePublic Environmental Data Partners and others are making sure that the climate science the public depends on is available forever.
Simple Sabotage Field Manual (CIA, 1944)

Refuse Consent!

 I refuse my consent to #fascism. I also refuse my consent to despair. I affirm that I will cling tenaciously – relentlessly – to #hope, and I invite you to do so, too.

Rebecca Solnit on "It Doesn't End Well For Them"

 I've recently begun following essayist Rebecca Solnit. She's a brilliant writer, full of fire and (com)passion. Here's a recent sample of her work:

No One Knows How This Will End (But I Do Not Think It Will End Well for Them)

These three horsemen of the MAGA-tech-bro apocalypse are in the position of penthouse dwellers who think their top floor apartment doesn't rest on all the floors underneath, or so it looks to me as they rush about wrecking things with an apparent conviction that they're immune to the impact, that they have a monopoly on power, that their power is not merely part of larger systems, that they have defeated everything including cause and effect. Trump just tweeted a quote from Napoleon Bonaparte, "He who saves his country violates no law," which is maybe supposed to justify the attacks on the Constitution and the outrageously illegal actions we've seen since the January 27th attempt to seize Congress's power of the purse.

But Napoleon didn't end his career as an emperor. He ended it as a prisoner of the British on a small volcanic island more than a thousand miles off the coast of southern Africa. I don't know where Trump, Musk, and Vance's story ends, but I know it doesn't end with them in power, and I don't think it will end particularly well for them, though my main concern--and yours, I presume--is trying to prevent damage along the way. And I'm convinced that if we take action, we get to write some of the chapters and maybe revise or erase some of what they're trying to impose.

(You can sign up at the bottom of her Home page.)

Author Interview: Dave Smeds on "The Wind's Kiss"

Dave Smeds has authored novels (including The Sorcery Within and X-Men: Law of the Jungle), screenplays, comic book scripts, and articles, but is best known for his short fiction. His work has graced the pages of Asimov's SF, F&SF, Realms of Fantasy, and a plethora of anthologies, including most particularly the Sword and Sorceress series and the Lace and Blade series. His wonderful short fiction piece, "The Wind's Kiss," first appeared in Lace and Blade 4. It's a marvelous story, exquisitely written, full of pitch-perfect heart. Now it's also available in Dave's collection Swords, Magic, and Heart (see the cover below). 
Deborah J. Ross: Tell us a little about yourself.  How did you come to be awriter?

Dave Smeds: Iloved fiction from an early age. I was particularly drawn to stories ofimaginary worlds, or at least by settings that were in effect imaginary, suchas Mars as depicted by Edgar Rice Burroughs. At age fifteen, it occurred to meI might be able to write a short story or two. I did that. The result was crap,of course, but every time I did another story or fragment of a novel, I could seehow to improve. (It was, as you might imagine, REALLY OBVIOUS how I couldimprove.) I felt driven to eventually write something at a level I’d want toread if someone else had written it.

DJR: Whatinspired your story in Lace and Blade 4?

DS: There is a great deal of me in “TheWind’s Kiss.” The fulfillment I feel in being a father. The contemplation ofthe pioneer life led by my ancestors as they moved westward, often literallydwelling right at the edge of civilization, first settlers on the scene. Thevital need in our hearts for passion between, and admiration of, one’s lover.However, there is also a more specific inspiration for this particular piece.In August, 2016, I was finally able to take a journey through Nebraska. For thefirst time in my life, and quite possibly for the last time, I visited thegrave of my great great grandmother, Marancy Alexander Warner. The land therehas a windswept, deeply conscious aspect. I wanted to install that presence inmy fiction as soon as possible, and as it happened, that sort of setting andmood was perfect for what I wanted to write for Lace and Blade 4. 

DJR: Whatauthors have most influenced your writing?  What about them do you findinspiring?

DS: In the early days, I never thought ofmyself as deeply influenced by any particular author, except perhaps in thesense that I loved to write sword-and-sorcery, and back then, anyone doing thatwas standing on the shoulders of Robert E. Howard and J.R.R. Tolkien. Inretrospect, I see L. Frank Baum’s influence upon the way I structure a story.Baum did not write The Hero’s Journey. He wrote The Heroine’s Journey. That isto say, he wrote books in which the protagonist — usually a girl — makesalliances, as opposed to the Campbell paradigm where a young man pulls himselfup by the bootstraps, stands alone, and takes sole credit for defeating anantagonist. I prefer the complexity and subtlety of The Heroine’s Journey.

DJR: Why doyou write what you do, and how does your work differ from others in your genre?

DS: At first I wrote to prove I could doit. Next I wrote to earn money. Both motivations, in my view, demanded that Iwrite the best work I could, so in that respect, I have no regrets. But I writenow with the awareness that an author of fiction has an obligation to injectmeaning into an essentially meaningless universe. That’s our job as humanbeings. We are creatures of pattern recognition. It’s our chief survival trait.But a fiction writer must do it better than anyone. Hard to do. However, atthis point in my life I’ve proven I can write many types of fiction and I’m ata point where I don’t need the money, really, so what keeps me putting thewords down on the chance it will move a reader in a way that would not havehappened otherwise. As said, hard to do. I try anyway.

DJR: How doesyour writing process work?

DS: My process would drive any other writernuts, I suspect. The ideas — whether it is for a scene, a character, a setting,a plot, a premise — bubble up and I go with what fascinates me at the moment. Isee the whole story as a piece and fill in the pieces almost randomly as ifassembling a jigsaw puzzle. I might write the ending first. I might write alittle bit that fits two-thirds of the way along. Often I will start at thebeginning, but it’s just about unheard of that I proceed from page one to theend in chronological order. I think that’s happened only three or four times inforty-seven years of writing, and only with very short pieces.

DJR: What haveyou written recently? What lies ahead?

DS: In terms of output, I’ve slowed downtremendously in the past fifteen years. Lately quite a bit of my creative work has been on the art side of my career, doing covers of other authors’ books. For example, I did the cover for Lace and Blade 4. Since 2006, aside from reprints andadaptations, my fiction has appeared in either the Lace and Blade seriesor the Sword and Sorceress series. Of those, I’ve been absent from onlytwo volumes, namely Lace andBlade 2 and Sword and Sorceress 30, and I did the cover for the latter. Iplan to get back to doing spec short fiction for a variety of markets now thatI’m at last on the verge of completing The Wizard’s Nemesis, thefinal volume of my War of the Dragons trilogy.

DJR: Whatadvice would you give an aspiring writer?

DS: Forget about it. Quit right now. I don’twant any more competition.

 Dave Smeds hasauthored novels, short fiction, comic book scripts, and screenplays in avariety of genres including science fiction, contemporary fantasy, superhero,martial arts, horror, and erotica, but he is particularly at home when writingimaginary-world fantasy, as in his books The Sorcery Within and TheSchemes of Dragons and his stories in over a dozen volumes of Swordand Sorceress. "The Wind's Kiss" is another such work, set entirelyin a world of its own; however, the premise and the themes and the images arevery much drawn from a personal wellspring, including his experience of being afather. The setting is directly inspired by a 2016 visit he made to the site ofthe pioneer homestead on the Nebraska prairie where his great greatgrandmother, Marancy Warner, finished her life. As he stood at her grave --unmarked, but Dave knew where it was -- a breeze stirred.

In Hopeful Times: Robert Reich on Optimism

 

At the beginning of Trump 1.0, I began a series entitled "In Troubled Times." With the onset of the war in Ukraine (aka The War of Russian Aggression), I shifted to "In Times of War." Today, Substackian Robert Reich offers reasons for cautious optimism. Let's feed that hope!

This is a very brief summary. Click on the link to read the whole thing and to subscribe.

Ten reasons for modest optimismFriends, If you are experiencing rage and despair about what is happening in America and the world right now because of the Trump-Vance-Musk regime, you are hardly alone. A groundswell of opposition is growing — not as loud and boisterous as the resistance to Tump 1.0, but just as, if not more, committed to ending the scourge. 1.Boycotts are taking hold.2. International resistance is rising.
3. Independent and alternative media are growing.
4. Musk’s popularity is plunging.
5. Musk’s Doge is losing credibility.
6. The federal courts are hitting back.
7. Demonstrations are on the rise.
8. Stock and bond markets are trembling.
9. Trump is overreaching — pretending to be “king” and abandoning Ukraine for Putin.
10. The Trump-Vance-Musk “shock and awe” plan is faltering.

In all these ways and for all of these reasons, the regime’s efforts to overwhelm us are failing.

Make no mistake: Trump, Vance, and Musk continue to be an indiscriminate wrecking ball that has already caused major destruction and will continue to weaken and isolate America. But their takeover has been slowed.

Their plan was based on doing so much, so fast that the rest of us would give in to negativity and despair. They want a dictatorship built on hopelessness and fear.

That may have been the case initially, but we can take courage from the green shoots of rebellion now appearing across America and the world.

As several of you have pointed out, successful resistance movements maintain hope and a positive vision of the future, no matter how dark the present.

Book Review: Mysterious Stone Circle

 Stone Certainty, by Simon R. Green (SevernHouse)

The stonecircle at Chipping Amesbury has been the subject of stories going backcenturies. It’s said to be a gateway to the Other Place, abode of monsters anddemons. When the stones were moved, the circle became quiet. Now the newlandowner is restoring them to their original gate-like configuration, and hewants to film a documentary about the re-placing of the last stone. Besides aproduction crew and two newscasters, he’s enlisted Alistair Kincaid, the youngest ever bishop of AllSouls Hollow, is an expert in Britain's ancient stone circles, andactress Diana Hunt. The twobecame notorious in their last encounter, when the pair of them hunted ghostsand solved a murder. Of course, spooky things happen: mysterious mists,bloodthirsty sounds…and a dead body, pinned to the ground in the center of thecircle with a pitchfork.

The story resembles a “haunted house” mystery, with a fixedlocation and a limited number of people who vary in their susceptibility tobelief in ghosts, demons, and the horrors of the Other Place.  But Alistair and Diana learned from theirprevious adventure that there is usually a rational explanation for weirdevents but murder is very real. Without giving away too much, Green masterfullycreates expectations, allows the reader to interpret events, and always playsfair with what he reveals. The result is a brilliant, nuanced exploration ofbelief, superstition, and persuasion.

[rant] In Troubled Times: Still Here, Still Holding on to Hope

I first posted this in August, 2019. I'm still here, still holding on to hope. We aren't all crazy or hopeless or overwhelmed on the same day. When events are too much, we can borrow a bit of courage from one another.
Following the 2016 election, I posted a series of essayscalled “In Troubled Times.” I wrote about despair, fear, anger, powerlessness,and determination. Then the initial fervor faded. Exhaustion set in for me aswell as for so many others. Emotional exhaustion. Spiritual exhaustion. But theconstant, increasingly vitriolic litany of hate and fear, as well as the assaultson democratic norms and civil liberties not only continued, it escalated.
What is to be done in the face of such viciousness, suchdisregard for human rights and dignity? Such an assault upon clean and airwater, endangered species, and the climate of planet we depend on for ourlives? How do we preserve what we value, so that in resisting we do not becomethe enemy?
I don’t know what the most effective strategy of resistanceis. Social media abounds in calls to action. I do know that there are manypossible paths forward and that not every one way is right for every person.Not everyone can organize a protest march (think of five million protesters infront of the White House; think of a national strike that brings the nation’sbusinesses to a halt). I find myself remembering activist times in my own past.
I came of age during the Civil Rights Movement and the VietNam war resistance (and, later, the women’s rights movement of the 1970s). Iwore my hair long, donned love beads, and marched in a gazillion rallies. Thosememories frequently rise to my mind now. In particular, I remember howfrustrated I got about ending the Viet Nam war. In 1967, I joined the crowd of100,000 protesters in San Francisco. I wrote letters, painted posters, and soforth. And for a time, it seemed nothing we did made any difference. My friendsstill got drafted and not all of them made it home, and those that did werewounded in ways I couldn’t understand. Others ended up as Canadians. I gave uphope that the senseless carnage would ever end.
But it did. And in retrospect, all that marching andchanting and singing and letter-writing turned out to be important. The enduringlesson for me is that I must do what I feel called to do at the moment, overand over again, different things at different times, never attempt to second-guesshistory, and especially never give in to despair. Enough tiny pebbles rolling downa slope create a landslide.
My first political memories date back to the 1950s, when Isaw my union-organizer father marching in a picket line. The 1950s were aterrifying time for a lot of folks. For my family, it was because my parentswere active in their respective unions, and both had been members of “the Party”in the 1930s. My father was fired from his job on a pretext and soon became thetarget of a formal Federal investigation. (He’d been under FBI surveillancesince 1942.) The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit to take away his naturalizedcitizenship. It was a time of incredible fear: people committed suicide or “wentunderground” (now we call it “off the grid”) by living in safe houses and usingonly cash. Some of our relatives did that, and our home became one of thosehavens. The DoJ suit was dismissed in 1961, although the FBI continued secretlywatching my father until his death in 1974. I should add that it is so odd tome to regard that bureau as protecting democracy in current times, after their 1984-like behavior in the 1950s and beyond.

The point of all this is not that my family had a hard time.Lots of families had a hard time. Lots more are having an unbelievably hard,terrifying, horrific time today. The point is that we got through it. Notunscarred -- it’s still excruciatingly difficult for me to call attention tomyself by political activism. My parents never stopped working for a better,more just and loving world. They never lost hope.

In college I used to have a hand-written quote from themid-60s on my door. I searched for it on the internet andcouldn’t find it, but it said something along the lines of this not being atime to give in to fear but to drink lots of orange juice, to love one another,and to bring all our joy and gusto to creating a world of peace, justice, andequality. The same holds true today. Since we live in a time when fear, selfishness,racism, and violence are proclaimed from the very highest levels of government,then we need our own turbo-charged, heavy-duty, loud and joyous commitment to the values we hold. And drinking your orange juice isn’t a bad thing either: weof the people’s resistance need to take good care of ourselves.
This is what I tell young people today. I remember what myparents told me when I was wigging out about some minor incident or anotherduring the Cold War:
Keep your eye on what you would like to bring about, notjust what new outrage is filling the news. Persevere with unstoppable steadfastness.Nourish yourself as an antidote to exhaustion. Pace your efforts. Keep balancein your life. Make music. Dance. Drink orange juice. Love fiercely.

Book Review: An Ambitious New Novel from Valerie Valdes

Where Peace Is Lost, by Valerie Valdes (HarperVoyager)

I am of two minds about this new space fantasy by ValerieValdes. On the one hand, I loved her previous novels, delightful,supersonic-paced space adventures with  fascinatingand occasionally romantic relationships between humans and aliens. Smooth proseand colorful characters teamed up with complex, long-view plots with actionreversals and quieter moments. Where Peace Is Lost is more ambitious,with higher stakes and deeper interpersonal and inner conflicts. The book openswith a sympathetic character with a mysterious past, one that is revealed intantalizing hints. Kel Garda appears to be just another refugee living on theedge of an isolated star system. Her secrecy breaks down with the arriveal of along-dormant war machine, suddenly reactivated. It is designed to carve a swathof devastation that will destroy an entire ecology and displace thousands ofpeople, possibly killing every sentient creature on the planet. Kel and a localfriend team up with a pair of fortune hunters who claim to be able to disable themachine. Of course, the strangers are not what they seem, either.

As Kel’s past comes to the surface, so does that of one ofthe strangers. At this point, the book veers from space adventure featuring a characterwith a conflicted past to an “enemies to lovers” romance. The transition isuneven, approaching and then retreating from the depth of reconciliation requirednot only between them but within each. Valdes handled interspecies romance inher previous novels so well, I found the retreat into formulaic “love conquersall” jarring.

For all my difficulties with the love story, Where PeaceIs Lost is a grand adventure with a huge canvas, a worthy addition toValdes’s bibliography. Perhaps the best part are the poetic lines from Kel’spast:

Where peace is lost, may wefind it.

Where peace is broken, maywe mend it.

Where we go, may peacefollow.

Where we fall, may peacerise.

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