Cedar Sanderson's Blog, page 257

Review: Dual Fantasy

Two books I read this week…

I managed to read this week! So exciting. Of course, it was because I was traveling, and then I was sick, so it was the silver lining in the cloud of waiting and misery. But I was really grateful for the paper books I’d managed to accumulate during the writer’s workshop, because I didn’t have the kindle, and couldn’t risk letting my phone run down with reading on it, and an uncertain arrival time. Then at home, I was under the weather (literally, it was the weather making me sick) yesterday, and finally read the book that has been on my nightstand for many months. I had started it before I moved, but had to begin at the beginning as I had forgotten the prelude.

After having indulged in these books, both of which I have been looking forward to, by authors I know and love, I contemplated how very different they are. Even though both books are nominally Fantasy, that is such a broad genre these days. In the beginning, Fantasy was elves, and dwarves, and hobbitses. Now, we would call Tolkein’s work High Fantasy, or Epic Fantasy. One of the books I read is Contemporary Fantasy, and the other is Noir Fantasy… I think. I’m really not sure what else to call them.

Sarah A. Hoyt’s ">Noah’s Boy, the third in the Shape Shifter series, is a grand romp through Goldport, CO, the fictional home of the diner where all shifters pass through at one point ar another (it seems). It opens with the arrival, however reluctantly, of a new Shifter, a young woman who changes into a dragon. She is being ordered to do something that offends her American-raised spirit of freedom, but which all the other dragons think will save them. Namely, she must somehow persuade the heir to the Great Sky Dragon to marry her. Never mind that he is not at all inclined to consider this, being happily engaged to a lovely woman who changes into a panther. This sub-plot quickly takes a backseat to the far greater threat looming over all shifters on Earth, however, as something is coming for them… There are alligators, lions, and a dire wolf in store for those who decide they want to venture into Goldport. Although Noah’s Boy is the third of a series that begins with Draw One in the Dark, and continues with Gentleman Takes a Chance, Sarah Hoyt’s skillful weaving of story, character, and setting will draw in even a new reader. You will want to go back and read the others to begin, I guarantee you! Also, Draw One in the Dark is free, which makes it easy to start there.

Larry Correia’s Spellbound: Book II of the Grimnoir Chronicles, on the other hand, is a much darker work. Set in the grim years following the Great War, his world is bound to a different path than our history followed, one where magic is real, and Power can be a terrible thing. Robots, Buckminster Fuller, the Summoned, and a young woman who survived the Dust Bowl all meet, clash, and make difficult choices about how to handle the Power they were given in this Noir Fantasy. Spellbound is the sequel to Hard Magic, and the third in the Grimnoir series is Warbound, which I have on my nightstand to read next… His series is gritty, with dark emotions and an even darker world where it’s hard enough to survive, and heaven help those who fall into the hands of the ghastly Imperium. The underlying current in this series is the discrimination against those who fall outside the normal, both in all-to-familiar standards of skin color, and the weird ways of Actives, those who have magical powers.

Fantasy gives us a way to explore the boundaries of our imagination, but ultimately also to look at how human characters in fiction can be, even when they are verging on inhuman. Both books have strong characters who learn, grow, and ultimately triumph over that which is dark and evil. Plenty of action and great plots made them compelling reads even when I wasn’t feeling my best. But since both books were from Baen, even without knowing the authors, I could have been sure of that.  I look forward to hearing if you enjoyed them, too!

Reading, Riting, and Rithmatic

Writing isn’t a game where you have to follow the rules.

I never did understand how that was supposed to be the three R’s. They say you can’t teach spelling – or at least, not in English, the most rule-breaking language on the planet. We are the rebel speakers of the world! We enjoy breaking rules. Spelling, phonetics, grammar… you name it, we’ve left splinters in our wake.

I’ve read several articles on the rules of grammar recently, and had occasion to ponder the importance of typos in a website unrelated to the writing industry. How important is following the rules? If you try to make sure there is never an error, inevitably one will still slip through, so the consensus on the website typo was that it’s no big deal, until combined with some other issue. Then it’s an indicator of an amateurish approach to business.

But is being professional making no mistakes? Well, obviously not. I have seen many instances of traditionally published books with painful typos and errors in them. And in fiction, who cares if you get your facts straight, as long as there is action, plot, and likeable characters, right? But Indie authors must be held to a higher standard. We have to do this for ourselves, because those who disapprove of the way we are breaking the rules are constantly sniping, looking for any handle to tear us down with.

Don’t edit yourself. Find a friend to trade with, if you can’t afford to hire someone.

Do look at covers.  Pore through examples from the genre you are planning to put a book out in, until you have a grasp on what they look like and say to the potential reader. Do this even if you plan to hire someone to make the cover up for you, so you know if it looks right for your book.

Don’t listen to all the rules. Yes, you need to know what the general rules of writing are – so you can break them judiciously. Also, know that every writer has rules, but every writer is unique. What works for someone else might not work for you. And just because someone is published and you aren’t yet, does NOT mean that what they did will magically work for you.

Break past the gatekeepers. Make a run for it, and don’t look back. You can write, just make sure that what you put out is the best it can be, professional, and even then you never know. As a writer, the only guarantee is that you never stop learning your craft, and the business that makes you a pro. But it’s an exciting new world for writers, and it’s time to learn all the rules so you can break them.

Beautiful America: Small Things

When I take a walk, with camera in hand, I am usually looking for the little things. Bugs, bees, flowers… the tiny jewels, set into every landscape, no matter how urban.

Honeybee on sedum blossoms

Amid the brown, dead leaves, the bright jeweled berries of an arum.

Blackberries, beautiful, and delicious!

Autumn leaf under cold water.

The girls, hard at work – my Dad’s honeybees.

One of the earliest flowers, bees flock to them.

Tiny butterflies are irresistible to little people!

 

A pollinator wasp on solidago.

A tiny pollinator on an evening primrose in Kentucky.

A wild sunflower with pollinators: Ohio.

 

Interview with Archer Garrett

My weekly post at Amazing Stories Magazine is an interview with the very funny Archer Garrett. Enjoy, and then make sure you check out his books, I have the first one, but haven’t had time to open and read yet – I’ll let you all know how it is, but I expect it will be fun after getting to know him as a writer a little. Also, he is administering the Human Wave Daily, which you should check out if you haven’t already subscribed.

Archer Garrett’s Author Page

It’s Saturday, Right? Snippet up!

I had started out in Underhill, of course, safe at home, my feet propped on the hearth, a good pipe going, and book in my hand. All was right with my world. Then the summons had come, and dragged me all the way out to the end of the world. I knew, lying on that musty bed in a cold hotel room, alone and with danger closing in, that I’d never get back there. It had the force of a Sight, and I sat up with a growl.

“No, dammit. Not going to just lie down and let Fate walk all over me with her stiletto heels, the bitch!” I spoke a little louder than I’d planned, and someone banged on the wall.

I stared at the wall. It was a vanilla hotel room wall, something I knew better than I wanted to. I hadn’t been entirely truthful with them. I wasn’t just a messenger boy, although that was how it had started. Just not with me, but with my great-great grandfather.

The Pixie clans and the Fae who ruled Underhill had been at war since before humans started scratching down records on birch bark. We were peoples of a cold, wet land, scattered over islands, back then, even on the mainland of what would become France. There just weren’t enough resources for both of us, it was proclaimed, and the feud carried on cold and hot from generation to generation.

The rise of humans gave us something. The Fae preferred to use humans as tools, the pixies used them as well, but more as refuges. The legends of the brownies, knockers, and coblyns (which gave rise to the word goblin) all came from my ancestors. For the Pixie clans had fragmented by then, into several discrete groups which had their own codes of honor. Fae had remained united, but two-faced, as Summer Court and Winter. Only the Dark Hunt lay outside the Court’s rule, and they were a horror. I shuddered in the overly warm room as a touch of the cold hound’s breath lingered in my mind.

They had almost had me, that once. I’d been young and foolish, trying to do something heroic, of course. I wouldn’t do that again anytime soon. Now, I worked for duty, but nothing more than was necessary to fulfill the family debt.

My clan, a sept of the Brownies, had fallen on hard times somewhere around the reign of the human Queen Elizabeth. The Fae were in ascendance, and the feud had quietened. But my great-great had done the math, and had seen the population of his people plunging. Pixies are shorter-lived than the near-immortal fairies, and neither group reproduces like humans. He had done the unthinkable, trying to keep his family going.

I wondered what he’d been like, he had been long dead by the time I was born. The Family hated his guts, of course. With all our reverence for family and tradition, I had never seen the portrait of him that ought to be hanging in the tor along with the others. Rumor had that it existed, though. I had no sympathy for him, his bargain had cost me my life.

There are things worse than being dead. Some days, I wondered what would have been wrong with letting that Direhound close his jaws over me. That would have ended it. Well, except that then wee Devon would have been on the hook for the Debt. I grunted, a soft sound in the heavy silence of the room. Time to get over myself and get the job done.

It was lunchtime, but I wasn’t hungry after the hearty breakfast at the Northstar. I wondered if I dared venture back to her, if Bob had had the time to soften her up a little. Frankly, I was bored, sitting in an empty room. The television was a blank eye looking at me, but I didn’t feel up to that level of vapidity any more than sitting in silence.

I had looked it up, it would be dark in a couple of hours. Maybe it was time to look around town a little, see what was here, and who was from out of town. Bob and Dan couple probably do that far better than I, of course, but I might recognize one of the Folke. And it beat sitting here twiddling my thumbs.

I was mostly bundled back up when there was a loud knock at the door. I unzipped the parka to give me more flexibility of motion and cursed the modern air travel security as I went to the door. There were no peepholes on the wood door, and I had no illusions about the chain keeping someone from entering, even though I had engaged it. Without a weapon, there wasn’t much I could do about it.

I popped the door open and peered out and up into Bella’s eyes. You could have knocked me over with a feather. She was smiling.

“Er…” I really needed to regain some semblance of suave around this woman. “Hang on a sec.”

I shut the door in her face and popped the chain, then swung it back open. “Sorry.”

She chuckled. “I knew what you were doing. May I come in?”

I stepped back and she slid by me into the little room. I hesitated to shut the door, then shrugged. This wasn’t Court, where being alone with her would spawn whispers for a hundred years.

She plopped into the only chair. I opted to stand, which put me eye to eye with her.

We looked at each other for a long moment in silence. I was seeing her in better light, here. Her skin was a pale cream that looked shockingly pale contrasted with her black hair, and dark violet eyes. In appearance she was not a typical fairy, at all. I wondered what her father had looked like. The dossier had been more concerned with Lavendar and her mother Daisy. Fae bloodlines were matrilineal.

She looked very relaxed. This concerned me. She had gotten pretty big news today, and it didn’t seem to have affected her. Perhaps she wasn’t aware of the import of it.

“So, you came all this way to tell me that I am a fairy princess?”

Well, she knew. So why was she so at ease?

“Yes, sort of. I have a job to do, which was to bring you those papers, and get a signature.” I wanted to see how much she understood.

She nodded. “And when I sign, I bind myself to a life at Court. I must never again leave Underhill. My family here, my house, my work, I abandon it all.”

I nodded. She understood, all right.

“Come with me for a drive?” She invited abruptly, standing. I looked up at her, trying to follow what she was thinking. I shrugged, there was no reason not to, and I wanted some more time with her. Wear her down, maybe.

I followed her out to her little truck. She climbed in in silence and I got in the passenger side. At least it wasn’t so tall I needed a stepstool to get in. I noted the rifle case tucked behind the seat as I climbed in, and wondered what she was carrying. It didn’t surprise me to see the gun. Alaska has a certain reputation.

“Where are we going?” I didn’t figure she was going to take me out and make me disappear, Alaska is not that lawless. But at twenty-five below zero, I would be in trouble fast should she decide I was walking back to town.

“I thought I would show you my world, before I send you back with the bad news.” She turned her head briefly and grinned at me. My heart sank. She wasn’t going to make this easy.

 

I am a Mad Genius

Or at least, I now belong to their club… You can read my introductory post over at Mad Genius Club this morning. I’m off to another day of writing workshop, with homework in hand (or at least, on my hard drive). I’ll be back tomorrow with a little more, and Monday with a full report!

Review: Walls, Wires, Bars and Souls

I chose to read Peter Grant’s memoirs of his life as a prison chaplain even knowing it would be a difficult topic to read. I was right, on one level, and on another it is easier than I had ever expected.

His experiences, while set within the most starkly terrifying walls any of us can imagine, are leavened with his dry humor and skillful writing. I found it a smooth read, organized to keep a reader’s interest without becoming dry as dust. The prisoners are drawn with an empathetic hand, no matter how inhuman their behavior is.

I may use this as research material at some point in the future, as it is richly detailed, giving enough description to really imagine oneself in the prisons, walking alongside Peter at his tasks. it’s a whole different world, one Hollywood frequently gets wrong, and this book is a window into the forgotten realm, one that may disgust you and disturb you, but it exists and we need to be aware of it, and the people locked within it.

Links to Interesting Stuff

I captured an odd moment while trying to take a shot for today’s blog… ghost reader!

I don’t have time, with homework and the office phone ringing, to do a formal post. So I’m putting links up to some good blogs from the last few days, for you to explore.

First off, Sarah Hoyt asks the very good question, can you teach writing?

Peter Grant looks at the sales of his non-fiction book, versus his science fiction. I’ve started reading the new book, and it’s very good… but also a deeply challenging topic. Well worth your time, I believe.

This isn’t precisely new, but well worth the time to go through (or, if you’re in a hurry, buy the book!) Dean Wesley Smith’s posts on the new world of writing and publishing.

And in the science fictional realm of idea, I give you this… I noted it because we were talking about fusion in chemistry class earlier this week.

Beautiful America: Autumn

It’s growing cooler at nights, I didn’t want to leave my warm bed for the morning chill this morning! Even here in Ohio I am starting to see color on the trees, a splash of gold here, a glow of red there. I am curious to see what the fall color will look like in the end, whether it will be anything close to the New England leaves I have grown accustomed to.

Most of the photos I am including today were taken in Maine and New Hampshire, having spent something like twenty falls there, watching the leaves change. Some years, a capricious wind would strip them all in a night. Others, they would linger on into the first snowfall.

One of the things I am learning, working on this project – I really need to organize my photos. With almost 20K snaps to wade through on two computers, it’s a bit daunting. Some I can search, but only if I thought to label them at some point. Ah, well, it’s a good exercise for me, and I hope you are enjoying it!

It was the perfect day. The family took a trip up to Sandwich Fair, and on the way home I stopped and snapped this photo, a frozen moment of peace and beauty.

 

Fall on an Overcast Day (Sanbornton, NH)

 

Now, this is a scene outside the front door! Red white and blue all the way.

The pod of the Milkweed plant, all ready for the seeds to fly away on their silky strands.

A bright leaf in the stream.

Alaska: Forty-Mile Country, this moose browsed along the road right up until a couople days before hunting season, when he moseyed off into the Bush…

Punkins! This was such a neat display of varieties you rarely see

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kinetic Stories

I wrote teh piece for Amazing Stories Magazine today, Kinetic Stories, with a light dose of neuroscience and physics, so totally science fictional, right?