Dragonsblood and What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew

Okay, I've fallen behind on the posting, but here are a few book reviews I've written.

Dragonsblood by Todd McCaffrey

This book is the first ever authorized Pern novel by another author, Anne McCaffrey's son. She says in the preface how this was difficult for her, but she wants to focus on other projects despite the many stories still waiting in the Pern universe. Is this book identical to the Pern novels we know and love? Not quite. The style is odd, working through a story simultaneously in the distant past and present, and the level of scientific material is greatly increased. Were this book the measure, no one would consider Pern science fantasy as it is now classified. Do any of these changes harm the book? I don't think so. It took me a bit to get used to the past and present thing as I couldn't see the ties between the two story lines at the beginning, but this is no different than a book that explores two POV characters whose stories later blend together. I was impressed by the way this novel retains the sense of Pern. I grew up on the Pern novels. They were among the first science fiction I ever read (and yes, they were science fiction back then, dragons notwithstanding) and formed part of the foundation that is what I love today. I often read shared universe novels, but Pern has never been open to that before. All I can say is this book has definitely not turned me off future novels by Todd McCaffrey or from Pern as a thriving universe with many tales to tell.

What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew by Daniel Pool

I told myself that I would not bother putting up a review of non-fiction texts and seeing as I am behind, it seems foolish to do so now. However, this book is a fabulous resource for those who want to understand 19th-century England whether as an avid reader or a writer. It is not definitive as no single book can ever cover everything there is to say about 100 years, but Pool offers the highlights version of the century, focusing not just on what went on in that time, but why. The notes extend from the workhouse of Oliver Twist to the drawing rooms of Pride and Prejudice, using period novels to inform the elements chosen. Nearly half the book is a glossary of terms that is interesting enough in and of itself to read straight through. I learned the original meaning of whip as in Senate Majority Whip while also finding out the difference between a taper and a tallow candle. Though clearly intended as a reference book rather than a good read, based on the amount of times relevant information repeats between sections, I enjoyed absorbing what Pool offers and found several details that will make a historical romance I wrote even more closely tied to the period. An extensive bibliography also offers resources to explore at greater detail. This book was recommended on the Forward Motion forums and, though I read it out of the library, I now have a copy for my shelves. If that doesn't speak to its value, I don't know what would.

The Books We Read

Okay, first the question: what is it that people see in characters who treat others in a nasty way for no real reason?

And now on to why I ask. I want to make it clear this is not why I left my book club, because honestly, when I only have time to read one or two books a month, I prefer for them to be my own choice. However, the dichotomy between my opinions and those of the other book club members did have a factor in this question bubbling to the top.

We most recently read The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. Several of the other readers adored this book while I found moments interesting, the overall well written and a main character that left me cold. This is the same reaction I had to The Kite Runner, another popular and much lauded book.

I started to suspect I had lost my taste for mainstream writing as the majority of my reading has been science fiction/fantasy and romance novels of late. And before anyone says that those are "fluffy" books, they should take on some of my favorite science fiction which explores the political, cultural and social ramifications of change, what I classify sociological science fiction. Anyway, I had a novel recommended to me as research for a character who is going feral. The novel, A Girl Named Disaster, is young adult mainstream fiction about a young girl from Zimbabwe and what happens in her life. Now, if my suspicions were true, this would hold no interest. Instead, I find myself extending the few reading periods I can carve out of my schedule and moving through the book at what, for me, is a good clip.

Being of an analytical frame of mind, I started asking questions about why one novel about a young girl in horrible circumstances who had lost her mother should enthrall me while another leaves me cold.

To add to the confusion, a show I've been watching called Ghost Whisperer had appeared to be changing formats based on the "next on" advertising. I'd been willing to give it one more chance, but if it went the creepy horror route, I would stop watching. As it turned out, the advertising was misleading and the show continues along the path of Dead Like Me or Touched by an Angel where a person with a gift or special ability goes out and helps those in need.

These bits and pieces of information led me to an answer of sorts and the question above. What I didn't like in both those mainstream novels was not that the novels had no fantastical elements, was not that they plodded through "normal" life, but that the characters were not nice. Now, I don't mean to come across as wanting goodie two shoes as the main characters. In A Girl Named Disaster, the MC has nasty thoughts and does things that are definitely not nice. But they are provoked. Not only that, but she feels guilty about it as well. In The Secret Life of Bees, the MC treats her housekeeper like an idiot, is scornful of the woman's lack of culture and rough ways. I was given the argument that she's a product of her times and her culture. I personally believe people have the opportunity when faced with direct interaction that proves them wrong to grow beyond their culture. While it doesn't always happen, I'm not interested in reading books about the people who failed to do so. I see enough people failing to grow and be open to new information and ideas in real life. I don't want to spend my rare reading time with the same narrow-mindedness.

And the same held true for The Kite Runner, where a boy raised by a man who saw beyond the bigotry of his people chose instead to follow the example of his culture, even when it meant lying, stealing and condemning another. This type of behavior is not what I want to hang out with in my friends or in my reading time. With my friends at least, I can point out another perspective. With a book, you have to accept the character as it is written.

Maybe this is why I read so many romances. Though the characters usually start out in opposition because of misinformation, misunderstandings or just unresolved conflicts, as the novel progresses, they grow and change until they can see beyond their prejudice to recognize the other person's value. Now that's something I'd like to see more of in real life as well.

I find my own writing getting darker and harsher as I go along. I am a product of my environment and this is not something that brings me pleasure. Instead, what calls to me are those few souls, both in real life and in fiction, who offer of themselves to make the world a better place. It can be something as simple as my son volunteering to help at the school all on his own or something as huge as Lazette Gifford taking on Forward Motion so writers wouldn't be turned away at the door. I have to wonder how many other people would take these steps if instead of always watching and reading about doom and gloom, their environment reminded them of the good things. Reminded them that sometimes it only takes a smile to make a bad day into a good one, that helping others gives as much if not more than it costs and can cost as little as a moment to help someone figure out a bus schedule. You won't find these self-centered, egotist characters reaching out to help others, but there are enough books out there with people who feel responsible for their failings and who enjoy offering a little bit to others. These leave me with a smile rather than a frown.

Okay, I've given my reasons for my reading choices. How about you? If you like the type of books I'm panning, what draws you to them? (I'm not being facetious. I'm doing market research ;) and trying to understand.) And if not, what kinds of characters do catch your eye?

Special Books

Though not as much now as I wish, I am an avid reader. I'll read almost anything recommended to me (with the exception of the "read this. It's so bad it'll make you cry." books my dear husband pushes in my direction ;)) and I'm just as happy to pass them on to the next person and spread the wealth. The few times I've tried to maintain a collection, fate has destroyed that hope as books ended up filed in different shelves and then passed on at yard sales and used book stores because I didn't have them all, only to find the others years later.

This has given me a sense of books as temporary pleasures, a sense supported by the weird tinge of photographic-like memory I inherited from my parents that allows me to pick up a book within 10 years and everything will come back to me with such clarity that I almost never get the sense of new discovery. I'm a slow, detailed reader. You drop me a clue and odds are I catch it at the first go through, no matter how subtle. The number of books I've enjoyed rereading, I can practically count on one hand and often I wait 10 or more years before rereading. (For the curious, the one that comes most easily to mind in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. I still love that book.)

Because of the above, my joy is much more in the passing on of books than collecting them. I figure the ones I want to reread are easily enough found again in libraries or used bookstores long after the publisher no longer has copies. This theory has taken hold of my mind despite the longing for a specific Harlequin romance published in the early '80s, but that's only a problem because I remember the story quite clearly to this day and yet the title and author didn't make it into my faulty memory banks. I want that book because the use of interpersonal tension was fantastic :D.

So, my reasons make sense, my logic (whatever you think of it) is logical. Why am I blathering on? Because all this has changed. I didn't really recognize that it had, or at least to such a great degree, until I went to the bookshelf where I'd placed a very special book and found its spot empty though I had no memory of lending the book out.

My very first special book came from Sheila, of StarDoc (as Sheila Viehl) and now vampire fantasy (as Lynn Viehl) fame (not to mention her romances that my sister just returned with a beg for more ;)). After not writing a book for many years, I was nearing the final 10k of my second novel in just over one year and I couldn't do it. I couldn't get past that end point and had no clue why. Sheila was running the Think Tanks over at Forward Motion at the time and helped me realize that half the problem was I didn't know what I would do next. I feared another chasm of no book writing opening up in front of me if I ever wrote "The End" on Heart's Promise. She told me when I got the book done, she'd give me a carrot...and then wouldn't say what it was. Sure enough, I raced through to the end and started into my next novel, The Queen's Return. I haven't stopped except to breathe since.

My carrot, when it arrived, was a signed copy of Blade Dancer (with a clever drawing of a carrot in the signature :)). This was my first signed copy ever and has extra significance because it gave me the push to keep going. If you want to see it, ask me some time when you are over here, but it is not leaving my library ever (Yes, I did find it a few days later, in a special place so it would not get lost ;)).

I have since received a few other signed copies including one from Holly Lisle in return for some coding work (the progress bar she uses on her site) and so my collection of special books is growing. My signed copies are unique. There is no way that I can simply replace them with a copy from elsewhere. The story would be the same, but the personal meaning would be lost. As much as I have enjoyed the stories, if I want to lend a copy out, I'm going to have to get a second :).

So, having just woken up to this new reality, I have to ask: do you have any special books? What makes them different from any other copy of the same? Or are they (like the romance I mentioned earlier) just too hard to find and so became precious by their very rarity?

Tagged (23rd Post)

From Holly. Thanks for my first tag.

Here's the gig.

1. Delve into your blog archive.

2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).

3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).

4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions. Ponder it for meaning, subtext or hidden agendas...

5. Tag five people to do the same.

Turns out that I have written more than 23 blog posts. I'm shocked! This is from New Feature on Friday, May 13, 2005. The below is actually my fifth sort of sentence and is quite appropriate considering who tagged me:

My current reads:
* Gods Old and Dark, the third in a Holly Lisle trilogy that I have been enjoying.

This entry was the start of a whole new world for my blog, it was the start of a beautiful profusion of new posts, it was a trick to keep me in line and the posts coming at more than one a month.... I glance over at the pile of books read but not blogged as of yet and echo Holly with:

Not.

Sadly, my last post was September 18th and it is already October 8th. I have 4 books that I've finished and plan to mention in the blog, notes for comments on three of them and nothing ready to go. I have at least two true stray thoughts written up that I am "planning" to edit before posting but which haven't made it to the to do list for fear of me curling up into a quivering ball of terror. I'm not a great blogger and lately, I haven't even managed to read the ones I like to follow, but thank you all you patient folks who still stop by :).

Oh, and in case you all are curious, the books are:

* Little Big by John Crowley
* Left Horse Black by S.J. Reisner
* Midnight Rain by Holly Lisle
* Ghosts in the Snow by Tamara Siler Jones

In each of them I found something to enjoy and only the Crowley is one I would not seek out more of because it is not to my taste though skillfully written. And no, I'm not counting that as the mention :).

And five people to tag? You mean more than five people read my blog? And who haven't already been tagged? And who blog? Oh okay, here goes :):

* Val
* Maripat
* Ann
* Bonnie
* Erin (who I'll link when I get the link from her :).)

And now to sit back and see if anyone notices. Or rather to scramble over to the pile of things still to do today :).

What Women Want (Not Quite a Book Review)

I titled this "What Women Want" because I believe that women are the target audience for my examples or at least the primary one. To me, that's a bit scary and you'll see why if you read a bit further.

Of my reading pile, this covers Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik and 2 Harlequin Next books (Riggs Park by Ellyn Bache and Old Boyfriends by Rexanne Becnel).

I'm putting these three books together though I did not read them in this order for a very simple reason: they are all about damaged women. Did I enjoy the books? Yes. I had some issues with them, but overall, they were good reads individually. What struck me most about them though, and this could be a proximity issue, was that the female characters almost all suffered from some kind of spousal abuse varying from being ignored and infidelity to physical violence. Those few that had good relationships got to suffer the death of their spouses or a fatal disease such as cancer, or both. Again, I might have thought it was a chance thing, except that I spent last year, at my husband's request ;), watching Desperate Housewives and now this year the new ShowTime program WEEDS. It shows the same pattern of broken women. The main character's husband died and the secondary female character not only has a husband who ignores her and who is sleeping with someone else, but she also has breast cancer that was discovered late.

Not really about the books at all, but this concept of what appeals to the American public and specifically the American woman is a little disturbing to me. What about Shirley Valentine where a woman who stagnated in her life went off to discover adventure? Oh, wait. I think that was a British author. Which leaves me with the grand impression that people are no longer interesting in and of themselves. It is the scars they have, the burdens they bear and how, if at all, they're surviving these things that appeals.

I look back over that last sentence and find myself agreeing with it in general. The problem I have is that the characters all have the same scars, the same burdens. Has spousal abuse became the common thread that connects us? Has it become so prevalent that what provoked responses of "try harder" or "you don't deserve him anyway" so recently is now an automatic sympathy call? Or are people still ignoring the cry for help under lame excuse after lame excuse from their next door neighbor in favor of devouring book after book where the main characters attempt to rediscover life after abuse or to survive it?

Sigh. Not quite a book review or reviews. More a rant. Whether because of this growing discomfort with the setup, or because they really weren't my type of book to start out with, this is the strongest impression I came away with. One of the Next books had a plot thread I really enjoyed and could have read a whole book about that relationship. The concept of a reluctant man being pursued by a persistent woman as a positive thing is rare enough in romance to feel fresh to me. And I liked the ending to another plot in that same book as well. Was the abuse necessary for either of these threads? No. Was it in fact necessary for any of them? Yes, but only the one where the wife believes her husband is cheating on her.

So why the whole abuse setup? Is it a free ticket to character sympathizing? Is it necessary for practically every character in the novel to be suffering some dramatic abuse or disease? Is someone wanting to change, to get their life in order, to recover what was lost no longer remotely interesting? And what does that say about us as an audience? My examples span prime time television, a mainstream novel and Harlequin's new romance/mainstream line.

Someone on Romancing the Blog mentioned how the basic Harlequin has become more and more graphic as time goes on to the point that they cannot be given to 13-14 year old girls with a clear conscience (I looked for the link but can't find it). I see the same trend with the thriller romance and now this.

Romances used to raise girls' expectations, give them hope and discourage settling for the first guy to smile at you. Now? They tell you the world is a crazy, dangerous place in which, if you're lucky enough to survive, you might still find someone who won't beat you, stalk you, or murder you. I have no answers. I just write it as I see it and I'm not happy with what I see.

Way Too Busy

Sorry folks. I've been thinking great thoughts but having no time to put them into pixels. I promise a post on Angry Housewives and another on Little Big will be forthcoming as soon as I can draw a breath.

In the meantime, if any of you are interested in the writing side of me, I've started posting to my livejournal with the life of my next novel. It's not a daily update, but is more frequent than this one. Of course no clever reviews or carefully constructed philosophical arguments either :). Just status, hints and process notes.

You can see it here:

Bring Out Your Dead

Addendum to the Robin Hobb Review

I recently read an entry on Romancing the Blog about how writers can't be readers. Elsewhere, the question came up about whether writers can produce a negative review of a book they've read and not have it considered just sour grapes.

My perspective on this is that I can read as either and only when the writing is truly awful will it interfere with my enjoyment of the story. I'm not planning to post negative reviews on my blog. If a book didn't appeal in any aspect, then why should I share it with you and encourage you to look at it as well? That said, I suppose if I run into a book that is so awful it would be a public service to denounce, I'd like to think I would be willing to take that step. However, I preselect most of what I read, so this is a highly unlikely circumstance.

Regarding Robin Hobb's Shaman's Crossing, the review I presented was from the reader's perspective. From a writer's perspective, I would add that the book started a little slow for me. There were clear points of engagement and then areas that I just read to get to the next point. The story offers up Nevare's childhood as a way to introduce the world and its contradictions between cultures and realities. Because of this, there are some points that skate on the edge of pure exposition about the world.

The only other technical aspect I noticed as jarring was a tendency to restate what had already been conveyed regarding the world. This either stopped entirely after about the first 100 pages or I no longer cared. As a copy editor, I would have highlighted those restatements and suggested reminding the reader rather than restating the exact information. Still, as you can tell from my review, these technical issues hardly prevented me from enjoying the book :).

It's not that I don't see the technique; it's that I accept it as necessary to convey the story. When the technique falls down in the beginning, I'm more likely to notice it regardless of how the story engages me. Otherwise, as long as the story is compelling and I'm neither editing nor critiquing, I read with a reader perspective. As much as I've always been a storyteller, I've also been a storylistener. I see nothing contradictory or multiple personality in holding on to both of these aspects nor do I have any difficulty separating reading for work or education from reading for fun. While I might enjoy something I also analyze, I do not pick apart books as I'm reading them.

So, what's your take on this issue? Can you read as a reader if you write? And should writers avoid writing honest book reviews for fear of being perceived as envious?

Shaman's Crossing by Robin Hobb

Sometime last year, I started signing up for publisher letters to see what they were publishing and get a feel for book blurbs. Then, I discovered the advance reader programs. Did you know that you can sign up to be an advance reader of books from all genres? In return for 100 or so words, you can read books both for free and before anyone else gets to see them. Needless to say, I've become an addict. It's a lottery-based program, so I don't get books every month, and occasionally I get caught with more than one coming in from different publishers with similar due dates, but overall, I love the program. I found Karen Traviss through it, learned what is published as horror is not anything like my impression of the genre and now I've joined my sister as a reader of Robin Hobb. I'll be tracking down her older books and looking forward to the rest of the series all because of the reader review program.

Even better, I now have a way to spread the joy further. I've included my reader review for Robin Hobb's Shaman's Crossing below. I really enjoyed this book, though writing about it without spoilers is difficult. If you like cultural fantasies, I think this one will please you.

My older sister has recommended Robin Hobb to me many times, but I never managed to give her books a try. Shaman's Crossing has changed all that. Enveloped in a rich and detailed world, I read this novel much faster than I normally would have, not because it was pure fluff, but because I found excuses for devoting more time than usual to reading. The characters are well drawn and appropriate for their environments; even when the attitudes they espouse run counter to my own, they fit so perfectly within this fictional world that any other approach would have been wrong. The main character starts out young and ignorant. Through the book, his eyes open wider and his world expands. A fascinating blend of magic and cultures, Shaman's Crossing shows both the prejudice between peoples and how it paints too simple a picture. Though matured by the end in comparison to his original state, I look forward to seeing how Nevare absorbs and reacts to the rest of his experiences as the trilogy continues. There is no question of whether I'll be reading the next two books. The characters were too fascinating and appealing for me not to learn what happened for the rest of their lives.

Crucible by Nancy Kress

Nancy Kress became one of my favorite authors with Beggars in Spain because she managed to write a story that was interesting on a plot level but also involved politics, psychology and a dozen deeper elements that made me think. I put her into the category of sociological SF even though there is not an alien in sight because she exposes the heart of people and how even the bigger institutions and greater purposes have roots in base human behavior. This makes them understandable when the layers of civilization are peeled back--understandable but not necessarily appreciated.

Anyway, she continued this in Crossfire but tucked in not one but two alien races as well, much to my delight. I read Crossfire some time ago and picked up Crucible solely as a Nancy Kress. To discover it was a sequel was a treat, though with the time between the two, I struggled a bit to remember the context. This book is half heavily dependent on the previous one and half completely free standing, an odd mix. There are two main plots, one involving the previous characters and what they set out to do at the end of the first novel and the other involving the colonists who remained on the planet. Though the threads do intersect and twist together by the end, the dependency on prior knowledge is only present in the thread about the previous characters. Having that knowledge, I cannot say whether someone coming in fresh would be dissatisfied, but I'd recommend reading Crossfire first.

Crucible is a strong novel peppered with the interesting characters and tangled motivations that have drawn me to Nancy Kress's work. There are both cross-species and human conflicts and not everything is as it seems. The clues as to what is really happening are there both for detailed readers like myself and for others to look back and say, "I understand how this happened." Even with recognizing the clues, though I found myself in the horror movie screaming, "Don't open that door," the other characters acted appropriately within their nature, never once making me wonder why they didn't see the clues I did. I'm just a suspicious type :).

Okay, I've said what I can without revealing anything (or much). If you enjoy complicated novels that make you think while pulling you into a fascinating story of human failing and success, that makes you look at the heart of human motivation, you should give both Crossfire and Crucible a try. I doubt you'll walk away disappointed.

Oh, and for Nancy Kress fans, there's an in joke from Beggars in Spain that I enjoyed getting :).

Appearances Can Be Deceiving

A Berenstain Bears children's book taught me the exact phrase of the title and it is amazing how often it comes up. You might wonder what this has to do with Dream Mountain by Gena Hale and the answer is a lot.

I'm not going to do a full review, but here's what I'll say. The things I enjoyed as well as the issues I had with Paradise Island continued in the sequel. To me, there were too many POV characters, too much plot and the romance came in too late, at page 126 of 248. That said, the characters were appealing, the romance, once it started, was strong and the story another rough and tumble intrigue with twists and tangles enough to please practically anyone. I suspect the third book will be much the same balance when I read it.

Now on to the title of this piece which is not actually a review, but a stray thought finally. I'm using Dream Mountain as an example, but remember that this part is out of the author's control and certainly not limited to these novels.

I am your typical Harlequin Presents romance reader. I don't read for the formula but rather for the emotions within the story. If the framework has similarities to other novels, as long as the characters are unique and their sorrows and passions make my gut clench, I'm happy. The trend toward mystery and thriller romances is one that honestly has left me behind. Romances are short and the more story that's taken up by things other than the relationship between the main characters the more pages taken from exactly why I read romances. If I want to read something with a world saving plot or a political intrigue, I'll pick up fantasy or science fiction. With romance, I'm looking for interpersonal conflict, relationship obstacles and emotional meltdowns.

That said, Sheila Kelly, besides being a friend (or so I think of her whatever she might consider me ;)), is a writer whose work generally pulls me in even though she doesn't write the types of books I seek out. Her SF is more space opera action thriller than my preference of sociological SF and her romances tend toward the thriller side. Therefore, when I picked up the Gena Hale romances, I thought I'd found a section of her writing (since she writes under so many names) that would not only pull me in, but actually fall into one of the types I seek out. As you can tell from my reviews, they were not of the type I prefer. So why would I think this, having read almost everything else she's written? Simple. That's what the marketing folks chose to convey.

Dream Mountain is written under a different pseudonym than the intrigues by Jessica Hall, the cover is in pastels and shows an isolated cabin on a blanket of snow with sheltering mountains behind, the title is in fancy script with shiny blue letters, and the teaser says: "Where two lost hearts find a love that dreams are made of...."

Step back and think about that description. Where do you see the mobster who buys the coal mine to sell the tailings to the Chinese Tong? Where is the hint that the lost hearts would be one abandoned by her uncle in a mountain cabin with no way to escape and the other is fighting for his life while contract killers try to eliminate him because of what he knows? What? You didn't expect that description? I can't say I did either, though I had a hint of the disconnect between the cover and what lay beneath because Paradise Island is the same way.

If you look at the bottom, there is a quote that does match the contents: "Nonstop adventure, gnarly intrigue, lots of laughs...and a hunk, what more could you ask? -- Catherine Coulter." Still, I have name recognition issues and how do I know Catherine Coulter shares my taste. I rarely read the reader blurbs for that reason, or at least the ones on the cover because by then I've usually made a decision to buy the book already.

I see this disconnect as a problem with expectations. When I read the Jessica Hall books, I knew they were thrillers; the covers made that much clear. With the right mindset going in, the Chinese Tong, family tradition and betrayal, the CIA and others didn't confuse or shock me, nor did they interfere with my enjoyment of the novels. I don't always read the backs of books, and never when I choose a book for the author. So, all I have to go on is the cover itself. In this case, the cover lied to me and affected how I read the book.

The story is good, if a little overloaded, but the lie of the cover made me spend the beginning thrown off and confused. I can't help wondering what the publisher was thinking in choosing to present this novel in this way. How many picked it up only to be disappointed when the relationship doesn't get top billing? How many looked away and toward the obvious thrillers because that's what they prefer, thinking this pastel beauty would be all about the internal conflicts?

This is a topic that comes up every once and a while among readers, but never have I personally experienced such an obvious case. Now I have to wonder how many books have I looked away from simply because of the cover when it could have been one of my favorites had I only given the author a chance? And how are we to judge when we can't trust the publisher to steer us the right way? With so many books published every year, there has to be something to narrow books down to the ones that get further consideration. Suddenly, I understand why word of mouth is more important than anything else.

So, what are your stories? What fantastic books have you almost passed up because of how they were marketed? What book confused you not because of the writing but because of the marketing? What book did you see vanish from the radar despite being a fantastic read because it was pushed in such a way to attract the wrong readers?

Paradise Island by Gena Hale

Paradise Island was published in 2001 and is the first Gena Hale romance novel. As a writer, I'm trained to notice some things that a normal reader does not and in the beginning, some of these types of slips caught my eye. However, soon enough, I was sucked into the story. People often accuse romances of being formulaic and it is true that there are certain elements that show up time and again. However, what makes the stories unique is the handling of specific themes or even events. I can't tell you how many times I've read a romance with either the hero or heroine having amnesia in the beginning, some good, some not. This definitely fell on the good side. The characters were unique and the heroine special in a way I can't reveal without spoiling, but which made the story more enjoyable for me.

I've read many of Sheila Kelly's novels in her other incarnations as S.L. Viehl and Jessica Hall, but this is the first Gena Hale for me. Paradise Island starts a series, but the two involvements that come up in this one are resolved properly, so I wonder who is up in the next. It was a good, enjoyable read with both a plausible plot and a hint of terror as the characters wind their way through international espionage and political maneuvering of which they are only tools, but critical ones. I don't really know what to say without spoiling it, because everyone knows the main story line since it's a romance. I can say that the emotions were realistic, drawing me to the characters and their tales. I had a little trouble with there being so many main characters, POVs and storylines, unusual in a romance, but they are handled well and resolve nicely despite being relatively rare in the genre.

Bottom line is that this is good entertainment. While I am drawn to complex, sociological novels, a permanent diet would be exhausting. I've always read romances as a good break and this one successfully served that purpose...so much so that I was going to jump back into a heavier book and instead found myself reaching for Dream Mountain, book 2 in the series. I don't think I'm ready for my break to be over yet :).

City of Pearl by Karen Traviss

My older sister is adamant about reading books in order, something I've never paid much attention to, but suddenly, I'm faced with exactly why she feels this way and it is very frustrating. I have just finished City of Pearl by Karen Traviss, a debut novel of exceptional quality that has the complexity of characters and themes that first drew me to sociological science fiction and keeps pulling me back. Now I swear only coincidence led the first two books I mention to include ecological themes, but while Gods Old and Dark touched on the theme, City of Pearl is steeped in it.

The story starts out with an EnHaz (Environmental Hazard Enforcement) officer ready to retire who is given an offer that she can't refuse--or remember thanks to a technology called Suppressed Briefing which is a chemical "need to know" memory suppressant. She agrees to travel 75 years in cold storage with a team of marines and scientists to find out what happened to a religious group that attempted to colonize a distant planet, taking with them a genetic storage of all the unique plants and animals on Earth with the intention of recolonizing Earth after Armageddon.

You learn most if not all of that in the first few chapters, a set up rife with enough conflict to keep anyone happy. Does Karen Traviss leave it there? Of course not. Not only are there multiple types of aliens on the planet each with very specific agendas and unique philosophies, but the humans are living happily in the equivalent of a zoo. And that's not telling it all, but I'm stopping here with the plot and story hints because I think I've said enough to pique your interest.

What I will say is that the characters are real, their backgrounds affect who they are and why they behave the way they do, and they're not always right. They have both fallibilities and a strength of purpose that drew me in. The planet is complex, the people are more so and the conflicts are all plausible. The enemy isn't always obvious either because of conflicts between perspectives and moments of weakness that have consequences I could both see and hope would not come about. In case my description didn't make it clear, this is not a pure entertainment, adrenalin-rush, 2-hour read. Her language is approachable and comprehension was never an issue, but I read this book slower even than my normal crawl because there was so much to absorb and I didn't want to miss a bit. This is my method of reading, but another equivalent would be to say this is the type of book that has enough depth to be read again and again. Each time you would find another telling phrase or something that you missed the first time through.

Oh, and in case you're curious, I read the second book first, Crossing the Line, because I was selected as an advanced reader. I've been signing up for the book lottery every month at several publishers. It's a good way to be exposed to new authors or genres you wouldn't normally read and though I haven't been chosen in a while, the effort led to Karen Traviss, making it definitely worth while. I read the second book, recognized the skill and how I enjoyed the way she writes. Took me a while, but then I picked up City of Pearl and, though her first novel-length published work, it has not disappointed me at all. The only disappointment I felt was that in coming to the end, I'd already read the next one. However, I just went to her website, http://www.karentraviss.com/ , and discovered she has a third coming soon :).

For those who are curious, here's my reader review:

Crossing the Line is an intensely complex novel told in a direct, approachable manner that drew me right in. It twines the lives of five different species, each with both unique and familiar traits, showing where common interests and desires can lead to conflict and disaster both within and between species. I've never read Karen Traviss before but I plan to find her first novel, City of Pearl, just to experience the history of these characters in her own words. That said, this novel stands alone, not requiring anything more than you'll find between the covers. It sparks a desire to know the past and future of those characters introduced in this book merely because they become real, each with their own desires, failings and needs. I will certainly put her on my list of authors I seek out and keep track of. It's a pleasure to find another author along the lines of C.J. Cherryh, who explores aliens neither as carbon copies of humans nor cardboard cutouts and who takes the time to generate a full philosophy and approach to life that is coherent, cohesive, and distinctive.

A Day in the Life Take 2

And for your pure enjoyment, another day in my life:

My kids had an interesting assignment a few years ago called unfortunately/fortunately. They have to write a story in which fortunate and unfortunate events happen that accelerate something simple into something excessive. That's what my morning felt like. Let's see if you agree.

I work until midnight or one every night/morning and require a ton more than 4 hours sleep. Fortunately, my boys are old enough and responsible enough to get themselves ready for school. I'm usually awake before they leave, but often just barely. After they leave, I go do my wash up, which I do in the altogether.

This morning, unfortunately, Jacob forgot his school backpack. Even more unfortunately, his backpack has the key to the house that the boys share. He pounds on the door and I finally connect that it's not the boys playing another silly door game. So, I throw on my knee-length, hot pink, washed-silk robe (looks like a smoking jacket and is really soft) and run for the door as he starts ringing the doorbell.

I open the door with a reasonable expectation that he's waiting on the other side. But no! Rather than waiting, they're trying to break into the back yard (how that would have helped I don't know since the house is still closed up in the morning). Anyway, into that wide open space, our indoor escape artist slipped, prompting me to say VERY loudly *SHIT* and run out in my pseudo-sexy robe and bare feet to chase after him. I glance across the way, and there's one of my neighbors and her daughter staring back at me. LUCKILY, I unlocked the door first or we would have been in a pretty, pink, pickle.

Yes, I got the cat back in. Yes, I got the boys off to school. And yes, I took my blushing self (now matching my robe) back into the house to finish washing up and facing the day.

At least no one almost died this time...other than of embarrassment that is.

My dear friends tell me I should put this is a novel, but I don't write chick lit and why would I torture a character like this? Wasn't it bad enough in real life? :)

Gods Old and Dark By Holly Lisle

A sort of lead in to this review:

I found Holly Lisle as I find many authors, through joint books with authors I already know and trust, in this case with Marion Zimmer Bradley and Mercedes Lackey. I'd been reading her books for a while before I found Forward Motion because I recognized Holly's name. I now consider her a friend, but that doesn't change the fact that for years I've known that I can turn to one of her books for a good read that absorbs me in Story with a capital "S". Therefore, when I hadn't been reading fiction for a while, which book do I choose from my to be read pile? One of Holly's. As usual, I was not disappointed.

So on with the review:

Those who know me well know the truth of this statement and those who don't will have to accept me at my word: I am a workaholic. I set push goals for myself and then move heaven and earth to achieve them. I give myself little leeway for basic needs like food and sleep and demand of myself that I earn every bit of pleasure, every break I take. Accept that as a given and then know that while on a writing marathon in a desperate scramble to meet the goals I set for myself, I stole 18 minutes, not much, but enough to count, just so I could read the end of Gods Old and Dark.

This book left me both satisfied because the arc is nicely resolved and frustrated because Holly has told me that, at least for right now, there will not be another in the World Gates series. I have enjoyed this world and see more tales waiting to be told. Maybe someday, a publisher will feel the same.

I think of all of the three World Gates, Gods Old and Dark is the strongest. The characters have a greater depth than they had in the earlier books because they went from driven, even if conflicted, to tottering on the other side, no matter which side of the battle they started on. I'm trying hard not to spoil anything here, and it is difficult, but I'll tell you all this: the series has characters you'll love and love to hate. The troubles they face are fantastical and at the same time so familiar to me, coming from a world torn between easy selfishness and the desperate need for people to take a stand for more than what they want to eat for dinner.

I know from her articles that Holly doesn't want to save the world with her writing, and the book certainly doesn't preach in any way, but there are messages there if you care to see them. A simple example is at one point a minor character says all technology must be evil and Molly replies that technology is not the problem but rather how we choose to use it. It may sound preachy, but it isn't. It is completely true to the characters and the moment. If they had reacted any other way, they would have seemed false. This is the strength of the characters, even the minor ones.

Holly uses this world, this time, this place as a jumping off point and blends it beautifully into a magical world. Her world building meets the requirements of keeping the explanation simple so well that you have to think twice before you say that it can't be so even though most people don't really believe in magic. And then, within the book there are some statements spoken by characters in appropriate times that just make me want to cry out in agreement, that encapsulate how I approach the world and the person I wish I could be. The above example on technology is only one of them.

I could tell you about the skilled world building that has a sentient creature who stands at the right hand of greatest evil and yet who cannot conquer his biological defense mechanism of upchucking his stomach even though it makes a fool of him. I could tell you how emotion lays down boundaries and barriers and at the same time sweeps them away. I don't know all I could tell you. Bottom line, I had other things to do and some still need doing because of how this story drew me in, which is not to say that I am unhappy with the time spent by any means. Reading a book that is good enough to absorb me, strong enough that I don't want to put it down, worth every spare minute I can pour into it brings back to me why I read and why I write. It's worth it. For those of you who read quickly, this book, this series is such a small time commitment, but if you're anything like me, the words, the worlds, the people will stick around for a lot longer than those few moments. Give yourself the right to enjoy something that may make you think, may make you hope, but for darn sure will keep you entertained and reading until the sad moment that you turn the final page to find nothing more.

New Feature

Okay, this is a little different than what I normally put up on this blog, but I'm playing with the concept of a new feature that will both encourage me to read and maybe expose you all to some new books for you to enjoy. I'll put what I'm reading in the side bar, and when I finish the various books, I'll drop a post in that will say how I reacted to the item in question. Now you can see just how long it takes me to finish a book :). The books/magazines are linked back to places where you can purchase them, taken from the author's website where possible.

My current reads:

* Gods Old and Dark, the third in a Holly Lisle trilogy that I have been enjoying. This is my first time reading it (I don't generally reread books) and I'm already having the "oh, I'll just read to the end of the scene" issue with hanging out on breaks longer than I should.

* Zeotrope - All Story, a mainstream fiction magazine that I've been considering for a market. I picked up an old issue at a book faire.

Beneath the Bridge

Sorry it has taken me so long to post this month. Nothing horrible happened; I've just been unbelievably swamped and am still working at dragging myself out from under the load. Anyway, this post has been percolating since my last one and you'll soon discover why.

First, a little history. I grew up in the diplomatic community overseas. This community is unique from what I've been able to tell because it absorbs both locals and diplomats from other countries. We shared company at parties, priests at mass and generally made a group of broad perspectives that came together at every opportunity. Add to that my parents, and this group of people ends up including wandering artists, poets, writers, a variety of expatriates from all over, and what have you that happens to cross their way.

It was a wonderful way to grow up. I had the opportunity of a liberal arts education spread before me as a banquet. All I had to do was learn how to act and sound like an adult and pretty soon they forgot who they spoke with (it helped that at ten I was the size of many adults in our Middle Eastern community ;)). I succeeded in this adaptation so well that my next door neighbor (25 years old?) came and asked my father about the fascinating woman he met at their party. It took some doing for my father to realize he meant me. I was 14, maybe?

Anyway, I took to a liberal arts college like a fish to water. I would spend hours just talking with people, starting with one topic and then following linked threads (sometimes barely linked) on to the next topic and the next, exploring philosophy, art, science, psychology, literature, what have you, much like I had with the poets, diplomats and foreign dignitaries whose company I had enjoyed in my younger years.

Since leaving college, I've missed that coffee house atmosphere. People around me now are too busy with life (as am I) to explore random thoughts just for the fun of seeing where they end up. There is something about unbridled intellectualism that gets eaten up by the real world, taken over by the need to pay rent, feed kids, hug your husband and crash exhausted in front of the television to get a desperately needed nap.

But, just because I didn't have the energy for unbridled intellectualism didn't mean the desire went away. I can't very well spend my time hanging out in college coffee houses. If I did, I'd probably bring my laptop and just ignore everyone. Without being a college student with a group of friends crafted by the classes I'm taking, I'm much too introverted to burst in to someone else's conversation. Besides, even the more outgoing of college students know they have to offer something before just bursting in on someone else's gathering, though of course not all understand the basic politeness that should govern civilized society.

So, in a sideways attempt to evict these thoughts without having to leave the comfort of my current life, I created Stray Thoughts. That's right. This blog was created out of the desire for uncontrolled, tangential discussion crossing philosophical and other boundaries for the pure enjoyment of considering those questions that we don't face in day-to-day life.

And thus I come to the meaning of this long trail through my history. When I asked about what we really need, I limited the scope to material needs because I was making a specific point. One of the replies expanded the discussion to non-material needs and referred to a controversial political and moral issue. I checked with a couple people who are more Internet savvy than I am and they confirmed these were the classic signs of a troll. Somehow, my little corner of the universe had garnered a troll.

Wait a minute. Expanding the topic beyond the original scope, following tangential threads, exploring political and moral questions. Doesn't this sound like something familiar? Maybe even what I described as what I missed?

Okay, that was just a teaser. Here's the full and complete story.

Despite having all the characteristics of a troll, my troll wasn't one. My troll was in fact my father...who just forgot to sign the post. I discovered this in a very awkward moment discussing the intrusion of my very first troll with, among others, my father. It actually took a day or two for my gut feeling to drive me to do some checking and that was the only answer. Just imagine the apology letter I had to send. My father, a relative innocent in this whole thing (similar to me), had no idea what a troll was. He'd forgotten the specifics of his post and so didn't even realize I had accused him so wrongly. I pointed out the same characteristics that I mentioned above...twice. Since then, the tangle has gnawed in the back of my head until I had to say something.

The World Wide Web has done so much to expand our universe, to allow for conversations on a variety of topics with people from all over the world. Along with this has come the unwelcome but familiar college student who chooses to intrude on others' conversations with out so much as a "may I?"

The sad part is that grand opportunities for fun discussions get lost. Those of us who enjoy such discussions for their own sake don't want to start up on the Web for fear of attracting the bottom feeders. So much is lost to those whose activities under the bridge have little to do with a fishing pole, a sandwich and good friends having a chat. Instead, they seek the rush that comes with scaring off anyone brave enough to walk across to see what might be fascinating on the other side.

This is not the only thing we've lost to those who cannot behave reasonably, but I for one will mourn it.

What Is Luxury?

The other day, my husband told me that he'd turned off the heat because the power bill had been higher than he'd prefer. To him, wandering around in a t-shirt and occasional sweatshirt, heat is a luxury. To me, in my turtleneck, sweatshirt, jacket, leggings, pants and lap blanket, it is not.

Okay, before you reach for the mouse, let me assure you this is not a rant against my husband. I was planning to rant to him personally, but I was in the middle of something that gave me time to think. What I came up with was this stray thought.

Bear with me. I don't normally give assignments, but I think this will be an interesting one.

Take a pen and paper, or computer notepad, and jot down the things you can't live without. And I'm not talking emotional, be materialistic please.

(Pause while you all do your assignment....)

Okay, pencils down :).

Now, how many of those lists contain three items? What? None?

The only thing you need is food, air and water. Anything else is a luxury.

Now those writers reading this will say: a pencil and paper must be on the list.

The readers: a light and a book.

The game players: a Game Boy or game board (depending on generation ;))

But stop for a moment. Do we really need anything but food, air, shelter and water? Need?

Assume you are on a desert island with a decent size group of people. The grace of God, or the local television producer, has provided basic food staples and potable water while air is self-evident--the basic necessities.

The writers want to write but don't have paper; the readers want to read but don't have books; the game players want to game but have no boards or game machines.

The writers can tell their stories to a captive audience; the readers can have tales told to them in the author's own voice and intonation; the game players can play word games and build scenarios with their imaginations (/me slaps the hand of the game player who reaches for a stick and rock to form a map).

Sure, would our lives be different stripped down to the bare essentials? Absolutely. If you look at the list produced by your significant other or your children, will many of the elements be different? Of course. But none of that changes the common thread that crosses all of us and brings us together. Though different, even in the direst circumstances, those differences would aid and support each other...if we only gave them the chance.

So, going back to the main question: what is luxury? Practically everything. Though I've never been in the depths of poverty, I can imagine human food seems a luxury when what's available is dog food or even rats. When you need a blanket to get warm, would you shy away because of filth, or because you had to share? If forced to tell your stories rather than write them, would you stay silent?

I guess this is a reflection piece, asking all of us to take a moment and count our blessings while at the same time to recognize our luxuries. If money gets tight, as it has for so many of us, there's a lot of space between where we are now (a grouping based purely on the fact that you're reading a blog on a computer ;)) and food, air and water.

Finally another stray thought!

I've got a couple thoughts I wrote up then put aside and, feeling guilty, I was going to post one just so I kept to at least one post every month, but my mind found a moment of peace in a chaos of largely self-imposed deadlines to throw out a bone.

So here's the question: Is it hypocritical, or at least contradictory, to aggrandize a culture that has little time or inclination for reading in, well, books?

Now as usual, providing an answer is just a bit too easy, so instead, I'm going to muse on the question.

First of all, though the original spark came from a comment about fantasy, I think it may relate to the majority of stories out there on some level or another. Do books support living vicariously, or do they actually encourage a life without reading? Here are a couple completely fictional scenarios, but who knows, they could happen.

Say a child grew up reading the Marguerite Henry horse books and absolutely fell in love with horses. Given the opportunity, would she choose to read more books, thus continuing the reading tradition? Or would she throw away her vicarious fantasies in favor of becoming a show rider, a master breeder or an equine conservationist?

Same with fantasy. What if some children grew up on fantasy, the medieval cultures, armor, swords, good mead, and then found out about the Society of Creative Anachronism? Would they give up the chance to wear armor, battle, and generally behave like the characters in their favorite stories to just curl up and read about them?

A similar question comes up with role playing. Does it provide what books can only imitate, that of a voice in the story?

While I'm definitely not suggesting writers should stop writing tales where the heroes and heroines do anything other than read (absolutely not!), it doesn't hurt to step back and consider the implications. The art of storytelling began as a teaching tool around the fire to pass on the wisdom of previous generations in the only way we knew how. Now, all pretensions aside, fiction has become just another form of entertainment along with the TV, video games, and actual outdoor activity (the last becoming even rarer than reading at least among the younger crowd).

I guess this thought is more stray than most, but it struck me as odd how fiction seeks to absorb people into activities, some of which they could experience in real life but which would take time away from the very reading that opened their eyes to that possibility. Now, with you all wishing I had posted one of the thoughts I have in my backlog, I'm going to go curl up with a book ;).

Out of the Box

Most people have run into the phrase thinking outside the box a time or two in their adult lives, usually in business situations where business as usual has failed to produce the desired effect. While I am an advocate for a more creative approach to problem solving, sometimes it feels like this has become less of a driven philosophy to seek out new and innovative ideas and more of a ploy to avoid rewarding hard work. Those who keep things running are rarely recognized, while those who come up with new shiny objects are rewarded whether or not those solutions have any grounding in reality.

This is never truer than when a company is in transition to a new system (computer or process). During the transition, who are the most important players? Those designing, implementing and training users on the new system or those working with outdated equipment and little to no support to keep product rolling out the door so the business doesn't collapse while making its leap into the future? For me, they both have critical roles to play and therefore equal importance, as do the users who provide crucial information and feedback to ensure the new system achieves even a portion of its goals.

However, most reward structures ignore those holding the business afloat and rarely recognize the users' contribution either. Once again, the business engine focuses on the bright future with little interest in the monotony of the present. Does the phrase been there, done that ring a bell?

So, the lesson learned in this experience is if we want our children to succeed, we must pass to them this elusive ability, opening up a life of rewarded innovation. Sounds easy, right? Teaching innovation and making your children stand out as models for all others to follow. How hard can it be?

Take a look around the world and see what kids are doing? Few bother to create their own worlds for fantasy play. Instead, they reenact scenarios from the latest video games, television shows, or if we're lucky, books they've read. Schools are forced to teach to the test to ensure their doors are kept open, training the students in bubbling and selecting between multiple choices rather than actual problem solving. Add that to subjective essay evaluation as part of the testing process and teachers throw up their hands, finding the last element of creativity crushed out of a grading system that has lost its context of learning. This does not seem like an environment to foster innovative thinking while efforts outside the school system are crushed by peer forces: bullying and exclusion make fools of those who try to step beyond the cookie cutter design.

But wait, before despair takes hold and the outlook becomes grim, let me tell you a story about my youngest son.

Gales of laughter drew me away from my work one afternoon, the sound too enticing for me not to investigate. I found my 10-year-old at the computer, playing yet another strategy game that teaches players, through a series of guided training scenarios, what strategies are effective and how to best employ the various pieces. While on the surface, this type of game may appear to teach critical thinking, it provides such a fixed set in which to enact constructed battles that the opportunities for innovation are limited. Often, if the player fails to make a required move, the scenario becomes unbeatable. Similar to chess, each piece has a role and particular movements. A player wins by thinking faster and farther into the future.

In chess, a player cannot innovate by declaring the queen can now turn corners. Everyone has to stay within the bindings of tradition. This rule system carries over into the design of strategy games. Every piece has a part to play and if you can figure out that part faster than the other player, you win.

So what caused the hilarity? Where had he found humor in this simple game where both players build up their forces then try to eliminate each other with a combination of tactics and numbers? He broke the rules. He made his queen turn a corner. This 10-year-old refused to accept the basic understandings. He thought outside of the box, even when the box penned him in on every side. Instead of building a foundation for military development with his initial peasant characters, he reenacted the American Civil War. His farmers and builders and miners took up their hammers, pickaxes and hoes, but did not start to mine, build and farm. Instead, they crept across the board and destroyed the other player's infrastructure and peasants, preventing the war from ever starting.

The laughter came as he watched supposedly ineffectual peasants slowly demolish a complete town, cutting off ability after ability until the computer player could do nothing but sit and be destroyed. Would this strategy have worked against a human player? Maybe, maybe not, but the cookie cutter world kids are offered failed to contain one 10-year-old and so maybe it will fail to contain others.

Though we might not be able to teach our children how to innovate, we can show them in our own refusal to "be like everyone else," and reward it when they show the same, whether with our laughter, hugs, or privileges. At the same time, remember who brought my son his victory. The peasants. Maybe our children will have a better understanding of the values in both those who maintain and those who innovate. For me, it is enough to hope.

A Truly Stray Thought

I've been sucked into signing up for a bunch of online sweepstakes. It started very simply with one little sweepstake that ended on Nov 30th and has blossomed into a 20-minute obsession each morning. I can't wait for the holiday season to end and half of them at least to go away. Or at least that's what I tell myself. We'll have to see where I am with this in March to know for sure.

However, this obsession is not why I'm writing. It certainly isn't in keeping with the meaning behind this blog to blather on about how I can waste time with the best of them. So, while you're wonder what on Earth I'm doing and if I've been hitting the eggnog early this year, let me put your mind at ease. I had a stray thought that might prove interesting as I went through my technique.

I copy my email so I don't have to type this long string with every different sweepstake, but I realized my street address is much more cumbersome. So why don't I copy my street address instead of my email, I asked myself? I don't know if you'll agree, but I found the answer fascinating.

The email address is interpreted by a computer. If I type even one letter wrong, transpose two characters as I have a habit of doing, I am doomed. There is no way the communication will ever find me. But, if I transpose two numbers, write circle as cirlce or do some other strange twist on my address (as long as the zip code is right because it's interpreted by a computer of course), I can usually trust that my mail carrier will figure it out and the message will still arrive safely, or a helpful neighbor will chuck it back out for another try at least.

Now I'm not usually the computer phobic type. If anything, I'm the complete opposite, but this moment of clarity gave me a connection to the doomsayers who condemn computers as the coming of the end. How will I manage without knowing a human hand will gently massage my errors into something still usable? I've developed tons of coping mechanisms. Yes, I use both grammar and spell check. I copy critical information from the one instance I know is correct to avoid introducing error. I try to avoid typing in long strings of numbers if I can help it. (You should see me trying to install an OS!) And I guess that's my answer. Without humans to interpret and work around human error, those of us who aren't perfect (most, if not all of humanity) will learn to cope or will slip through the cracks, going into the oblivion of misfiled emails and accidentally deleted or moved files.

And all this from filling out sweepstakes :).

Life as a Canary

Now, I don't usually use this blog for things of a more personal nature, but I wanted to share a little moment of realization with the lot of you.

Apparently, I'm suicidal! Umm, just kidding actually, but I did try to kill myself and my whole family the other day.

We have a gas stove because my husband swears they cook better. Anyway, before you start to wonder why this is relevant, I was cooking dinner the other night, a nice batch of spaghetti with red sauce. As I was serving, I noticed the burner was off. Frankly, dinner is often frantic so I figured I'd turned it off already and went about my business.

Some time later, I went back to the kitchen, boiled water for tea on the other front burner. Sitting down to work at my computer, my throat started tightening up and I started sneezing. My jacket had acquired the pervasive scent of gas. I ignored it for a while, but then went to investigate. Imagine my horror as the smell got stronger the closer I went to the kitchen.

I asked my husband if he could smell it, and he said no. I have a very sensitive nose, but it is tied to memory so I will actually smell things from other times and places. Smelling things that aren't there is not uncommon. However, the gas scent was really strong so I continued past my husband and to the stove.

What I discovered was terrifying. Apparently, I'd had the burner low enough under the sauce that the wind generated while I served dinner had blown the flame out. Without the flame, I'd assumed the burner was off. I'd even lit another burner right next to it.

I'd been lucky I hadn't burned down the house.

Frantic, I ran around turning on fans, ditched my jacket and took my inhalers so I could breathe.

That accomplished, I went back to normal life, had TV time with my hubby and then went to write until the wee hours of the morning. When I finally finished, I went sniffing about, acting the canary as I tried to decide whether to shut off the fans, satisfied disaster had been averted.

This was when I discovered my boys had closed their door before I'd turned the fans on. Their room reeked. I grabbed a flashlight and checked to make sure both were breathing, which they were thank goodness, and turned on their bathroom fan to draw the gas out.

Yipes. I'd almost lost both sons, not to fire but to gas inhalation. Then, I went into my bedroom and discovered the same problem. We keep our door shut as well and the gas had seeped in under the door and collected there. Well, our door swung wide, I checked my husband for signs of life, then spent the night fending off curious kitties who usually aren't allowed in our room with their sharp claws and our vulnerable waterbed.

By morning, things had settled back to normal, but I came away with a real sense of my mortality and how easy it was to risk not just myself but those I love. I also recognized the need to really listen to my body. It gave me warning long before I listened, acting the canary and telling me I couldn't breathe, this place wasn't safe for me or anyone else. My older son had also mentioned the scent to my husband with the same result. Now maybe we'll all be a little more cautious when something isn't right and I hope you all will too. It takes so little time just to check when something feels wrong and so much time to recover if it really is wrong and we ignore it.

I'm grateful that things turned out so well, and yet how easily they might not have. First the gas, then lighting a fire next to the gas leak, then having both husband and children sealed in rooms full of gas. If I didn't know it was my own life, I'd have suspected one of S.L. Viehl's novels had sideswiped me (http://www.sff.net/people/slviehl/index.htp). She says her plotting technique is to put characters in the worst possible place and then make it even nastier. Boy is it scary when life acts that way.

Epilogue: Not a week later, I tried to electrocute myself while installing a new dryer...I think life is telling me to slow down. Hah! Some other month :p.

Just the Facts? A Non-Binary Proposal

All my life I've been told humans are binary. Look, people say, there is man and woman, the most basic binary. However, as I've grown older, I've learned about hermaphrodites, who, though rare, deny the proposition of a binary nature.

How about straight or gay? Well, what about bisexuals?

And war and peace? How about truce states?

And finally computers: aren't they the ultimate binary?

Well, I've studied some computer history and here's what I've learned. Yes, the basis of a computer is small "switches" that are either on or off. However, a single switch is not a computer. It provides nothing but the limitations of binary. It is only when those on/off switches are combined into bigger groups, 8, 16, and 32, that they start to do something. They only find meaning when exceeding their binary nature by being grouped together. It's not if switch A is on or off but if switch A, C, D and F are off while the rest are on that makes a computer or program work.

Anyway, you might wonder where all this is going so let me explain. The concept of humans being binary by nature has supported the dualities of good/bad, right/wrong, and true/false in such a way that many, when presented with a fact they don't know, see only two possible options: it is true or it is a lie.

I, personally, think life is more complicated than that. One fact may be true within context while another, opposing, fact may also be true when its context is known.

That may sound obscure, but think about it in relation to some examples:

* A shirt is green. Seems simple, straightforward and factual. Either the person making the statement is right and you agree, or wrong and you disagree. However, take that same shirt to Afghanistan and the "correct" answer becomes the opposite one. Did the shirt change? No, but the context did. Afghans identify colors, most noticeably blues and greens, differently from the Western world.

* The situation that stimulated this thought also seemed simple on the surface. A person asked about submission manuscripts. One person provided an answer that contradicted the answer later provided by someone else who has credentials in the print industry. The "correct" answer prize was then given to the credentialed person while the other was slammed. But wait! The first answer is actually the standard for several online and academic publishers based on a guidelines search. So, does that make the first answer correct? No. Does it make the second answer incorrect? No. They are both correct within their contexts.

* Another binary is taking someone else's life. Americans, as a culture, accept murder is wrong. And yet, murder in a situation of self-defense is okay and even considered heroic. Similarly, a soldier sent to kill our enemies is not then sentenced to life or the chair, but is the person attacked any less dead?

A binary world is an easier one to live in. There isn't the need to ask questions or discover whether the fact, truth or evidence (whether your own or that provided by someone else) has a context within which it is true or false. In a binary world, one truth or fact can be legitimately battered over the heads of people who do not agree or who present a different perspective. In a binary world, such an act is approved of, encouraged and lauded.

I don't live in a binary world. When presented with information I don't know, even that which appears contradictory to what I know to be true, I try my best to avoid the "You're wrong" answer in favor of opening a dialogue. People are resources, not just because of their jobs or the fancy letters after their names, but also because they bring to the table unique experiences and have been exposed to concepts I might not have. Shutting down the discussion at the first sign that my own truths or facts might be called into question, slamming the evidence provided without taking the time to listen and explore, maybe even researching on my own, could take from me an opportunity I'm never likely to get again.

There's this golden tenet that crosses many religious and cultural boundaries. Do unto others as you wish them to do unto you. Take a moment to evaluate how you've reacted to someone else's opinion or knowledge and make sure you haven't slipped into a closed, binary world. "You're wrong" shuts down a dialogue forever and most likely on every topic rather than just the one you opposed.

When you run into something you cannot discuss, a simple "Let's agree to disagree" stops the conversation without severing the possibility of future exchanges. When you run into a fact you "know" is not true, keep the dialogue open, provide some information, but be just as willing to revise your understanding if the information the other person provides proves both facts true within context or even that your information is flawed. That's how people learn, grow and expand their knowledge.

A binary world is one computer switch clicking on and off in the darkness. Even Morse Code has long, short and pause because a true binary communicates nothing.

New Mailing List: An End to Guilt ;)

Hi everyone. I can't tell you how fun it is to know I have actual readers out there, but I keep running into difficulty posting with any consistency. Now, blogger doesn't seem to have any fancy features like mailing lists available to the basic customers, but I've come up with my own solution. You will see two new links on the left-hand side. It's a simple email you send to me if you want to be added to the Stray Thoughts mailing list. Whenever I make a new post, I'll send out a note alerting you to another stray thought. That way, you won't have to keep checking back and the thought of you all checking won't guilt trip me into posting not so stray thoughts :).

Just the standard disclaimer: I won't use this mailing list for any other purposes and you can leave at any time, just click the remove and send the email.

I hope this helps things. Thanks so much for sharing my mental moments :D.

Can I help?

Hmm, well, it is two days past the end of the month and no stray thoughts. I've had them, but I've been in too much of a mad scramble to write any down. Instead, I'm going to talk about fate, cats and doing the right thing.

I like to help people. It's part of my nature and always has been. I'm the type that sometimes comes across as nosy because when you express frustration, I jump right in with an offer to help. There are a lot of things and people in need in our world, and just as many people who ignore those needs. I may ignore the global, turn aside requests for money or even walk away from a homeless person a time or two because I can't trust them to use my help appropriately. For example, I very rarely give cash to street people. Food, drink (of the coffee type) maybe, but cash no. My reasoning is simple: How do I know they won't use my cash to make their situation worse?

However, all those confusions slip away when the simple question is: "Do you need some help?" This question frees me because what I can offer is my knowledge, my time, my personal effort. If I know something that might help you, I'm willing. This mostly happens with computers and the like, but also works when someone is lost in an area I know, when someone just needs to vent, or when I can help with my writing experience.

All people have something they can share if they'd like, moving us back in some ways to a bartering society but where the currency we barter with is help. Given a no strings situation, would you choose to offer some time to help another person? The concept of pay it forward has been around a lot longer than the movie sharing the same name, but it is one I truly believe in. It's the reason I moderate at www.fmwriters.com, and why I make a point of answering questions when I have some bit of knowledge to share.

Now, this open willingness has made me a victim before where I was sought out before people would try to do things on their own or they came back every time rather than actually learning how to do things. I've had to develop techniques where I encourage knowledge transfer rather than information, the difference being summed up in the old parable, "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day; teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime." Still, for the good we can each do, it seems a small enough risk.

Sometimes the help one person can give is a small thing with little impact and sometimes it's a huge thing, but the size doesn't matter. Whether it's one child sharing pinata candy with another who wasn't quick enough, a grown-up holding the hand of someone who just experienced a major loss, or someone listening to the frustration in another's voice long enough to stop and show how to display that image, each moment makes the world as a whole better.

So, what do you think? Is the life of a Good Samaritan limited to people like Mother Teresa or can all of us make a difference, make one other life a little brighter?

I guess Meep's story (fate and cats) will have to wait for another time. I found a stray thought to follow.

Official "I'm Not Dead Yet" Blog Entry

I started this entry to assure all those faithful readers who check back week after week to find I've posted absolutely nothing that I haven't given up. It's been a busy summer with a lot of trips and a scramble to get any work done on my writing goals. And then, being me, the title made me start to think about death and my odd relationship with it.

Okay, so I made you curious at least.

Does anyone remember what they thought when faced with the concept of death as a child? Oddly enough, raised an Irish Roman Catholic though in unusual circumstances, I developed a different concept that I never quite let go of even though I wasn't consciously aware I held on to it.

When I was little, I decided there existed a baby pool. This pool contained the souls of every living being that wasn't currently alive. And yes, this is rudimentary reincarnation. The concept was based on when babies were conceived, a soul came down to fill them and, if the baby didn't survive, the soul returned for another try later. The same is logically true of souls that manage a full and healthy life, but I was obsessed with babies, possibly because my mother had a miscarriage before my older sister was born.

If you've been reading this blog, you already know I'm a little strange, so having a concept like this when really young, probably around 5 or so, shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. Now scroll forward approximately 20 years (if you can figure out my age from that, more power to you...I certainly can't remember it), and imagine a first-time mother taking her 2-year-old son on "nature" walks through the heart of suburbia.

I can't remember how the conversation started, but I remember when it jumped past all appropriate discussions with a toddler. It was right around when I tried to explain rocks weren't alive and so couldn't die. Then, I'm explaining all living things die, plants, animals, even people. Uh oh.

"So what happens after death, Mommy," pipes a little voice.

I'm Catholic; my husband's Jewish. These are two diametrically opposed religions when it comes to death. There is no "after" for Jews, just hope for an eventual resurrection. Scrambling for my comparative religion class work, I give this 2-year-old some options, explaining I grew up believing in the Catholic Heaven. Oh no, that wasn't good enough. In desperation, I trot out the baby pool, only discovering then that I remembered it at all but reaffirming that it was what I thought when young, rather than what I think today.

That 2-year-old, in all seriousness, explained back to me the basics of reincarnation. "I believe when people die, they come back just exactly the same," he says. I fumble, stunned for a moment, then nod encouragingly. "Well, some people do believe that," I say. "I wasn't brought up to think that way, but some people do."

In the possibly eeriest moment in my history as a parent, my son turned to me and said, "You just wait and see, Mommy. You just wait and see."

Should we go to our children for the answers to the great deep dark? That place where none can tell us and we can only find out by crossing the ultimate line? Or is it ultimate at all? Should I trust in the words of a 2-year-old and my own fragments of memory?

To some, death is cut and dried. You're there and then you're not. But, to others, myself and my son included, death is a complex, layered concept with possibilities that should overwhelm and often do.

You know what? I'm curious. This concept has risen in some of my oldest writings with enough frequency to get me committed if I were still in high school in today's paranoid environment. And yet, for all of that, I'm planning on letting this question simmer, planning to explore it thoroughly through supposition, and take my own sweet time in following the scientific method and finding out the "truth" for myself.

Should Exploring Hard Questions Look Like Us?

I wrote a story about an alien with a nasty past, exploring a fragment of his time. I love the story and find it rather powerful, but I didn't recognize the theme until called on it. The theme considers the question of repenting. If someone who has committed deliberate, terrible crimes gives up their life of crime, are they still accountable for those crimes? Now, my tale doesn't give an answer and if I had to give one it probably would sound something like "It depends," but the philosophical point came when I was asked if using aliens to explore this message diminishes it.

That's a pretty big question, in my opinion. I see two sides to the argument:

1) The truly difficult questions shouldn't be explored in an alien environment because the impact of the decision is lessened to the point that the decision becomes random as opposed to a thinking choice.

2) Presenting difficult questions through an alien world allows us the distance to really explore our beliefs and the reasons for them without our thoughts being disrupted or undermined by emotion.

Remember what I said first. I wrote a story about an alien and I stand by his story. However, I have to ask myself if I'd started with the theme, would I have chosen an alien to bear this question?

Here are my thoughts.

1) Science fiction has a long-standing tradition of exploring issues considered untouchable in mainstream writing because it allows for that distance. Does it diminish the emotional impact? Absolutely. However, if I wrote a story about released sex offenders who had repented and fixed their ways, could I set aside my own fears about the reformed sex offenders in my neighborhood? I think I'd be charged with going on a soapbox and probably would provide an emotional answer as opposed to exploring the question as I did in the short story I mentioned.

2) This position, probably obvious from my earlier statements, is more in line with my thinking. I'd relate it to anthropologists who go out and study "alien" cultures only to learn more about their own. Very few people can look at their own lives with any sense of objectivity and that goes for anything that might touch their lives.

If you ask me if a sex offender should be allowed to live three blocks from where my children play in the park, my answer is no. It doesn't matter if they've reformed. It doesn't matter if they've served their time and swear up and down that part of their past is behind them. I don't want a person who ever did such a thing near my kids.

That statement is not reasoned. It is not objective. It has nothing to do with laws, rights or philosophy. As a mother, I cannot accept the risk.

However, within the context of an alien world far distant from my daily life, I am able to look at questions which otherwise would provoke solely an emotional response.

I think this is one of the successes of science fiction. Racial integration, mixed marriages, homosexuality and many other binding questions were addressed on Star Trek long before they could be touched on a mainstream show. If we are to explore those things that touch our lives, I feel this is a good way to gain the distance necessary to apply objectivity and really question our own assumptions. We may find the same answers for some questions, but others may have a complexity hidden by our fears.

Without that distance, the emotional response can overwhelm the reasoned one and, when we let our fears govern our actions, it is difficult to produce a society, legal or political system that protects the appropriate rights of all people, not just those who happen to sit on the top of the heap.

So, tell me what you think about exploring the bigger questions through the medium of "alien" societies. Does it promote objectivity and therefore reasoned responses or distance to the point that the question has no impact? Or is there a third answer?

My Brain's Gone Old Style

You may notice I've made some changes in my blog. Blogger has added a critical feature (that of comments with email notification) that made taking time out from my already overbooked schedule critical. The sad part about this change is the old post comments are lost to the blog. However, just so you know, I kept copies of everything and really appreciate the comments, even those I had no time to reply to.

Mariko said in response to the question of historical accuracy that might bend minds to accept something now inappropriate: Hogwash.

Okay, so I paraphrased ;). I just wanted to say, I agree with you entirely and disagree with you entirely. While in a perfect world understanding where we came from and that a human mind can indeed sink so low is important, the risk is there. Though many people can read about a killer and identify with the person without accepting killing as a moral and acceptable action, I'm not so sure the same holds true when faced with the logic of whole societies. There are enough splinter groups who currently believe in things I find repugnant to show that what was acceptable in the past has not entirely slipped off the human grid. While some would learn, others would find validation. Is that necessarily an argument to smooth the edges of the past with the beliefs of the present? No, I don't believe so. On the other hand, I think writers should be aware of the potential impact and make their choices consciously. Have that morally repugnant character serve a real purpose and don't target the book to those who are still forming their understanding of right and wrong and by all means I'd prefer an accurate portrayal. To paraphrase a little less liberally, I hope: Those who do not study the past are doomed to repeat it. In today's world, how many are willing to dive into dusty textbooks. And yet, that same information conveyed in a narrative form can enthrall millions.

Okay, enough. Apparently, the jury (my little mental one) is still out on this issue. Luckily, as of yet, I don't write historical fiction. Someday, I'll probably have to face this issue head on.

The Freedom of Strangers

Yesterday, I went to a dinner party at a friend's house. We didn't know most of the people there, including two families from Great Britain, one English, one half Welsh. At first, we trolled our way through the common topics, asking about their holiday, discussing the weather and other small talk. Then, the discussion gradually migrated to topics not usually raised in these sort of settings. Religion seemed a relatively obvious one seeing as two of the visitors were Anglican priests, but we also delved into politics and terrorism.

While these might not be traditionally acceptable topics and are ones most people veer away from in horror, the discussion fascinated me. We all seemed to be enjoying ourselves. Our hostess commented at one point that she was very impressed. We'd managed to discussion both politics and religion, the two taboo subjects, while remaining civil.

We were aided by our similar positions on both US and British politics, but still, there were moments when one or more stood out in opposition to the group. Despite some differences, the discussion never became aggressive.

Honestly, I'm rather awkward in social situations where dating, clubbing, shopping and the like are traditionally discussed because I have not had much experience with these things. Give me a good political or philosophical discussion though, and I fit right in.

What struck me later is the freedom we all had. Only our hosts knew everyone, and even then didn't know them for long. There was little need to ensure we could face each other over a desk in the morning or at the playground while our kids ran wild. We could say what we believed with no real repercussions. Oddly, this may have allowed us to explore each other's character in a way we normally cannot except with our true intimates. I walked away with a good sense of who people were and the understanding that they knew a bit of how I think. I may have made some true friends, though long distance ones, all because I didn't have to shield my words or thoughts for fear of consequences.

Have we reached a point where we can only be open with strangers? Has the kindness of strangers changed from physical to emotional care? We all wear masks because it is how we're trained to deal with different social situations. I'm an introvert and yet have held roles in life that require me to be very extroverted. The extroversion is a mask I don to handle situations, rarely revealing more than a caricature of myself because of the consequences an ill-favored opinion might have. So, I ask you, with who can you just be yourself? And how many of those strong friendships were forged because, at the beginning when meeting as strangers, you had nothing to lose?

Rock Golems or Robots?

Sorry for the long delay, folks, but I hope you'll enjoy my latest offering.

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What draws us to either science fiction or fantasy? I have an interesting take on this question because I'm observing its development in my own home. I grew up fascinated with Heinlein and Arthur C. Clark as well as Marion Zimmer Bradley and Anne McCaffrey. Despite my sister's efforts, I kept steady for years until MZB wrote a series of books with a talented author, Mercedes Lackey. I then went to find her books and they were fantasy. This started my slip into becoming the generalist I am today.

Fast forward to my maturing children. I have one who loves all things fantasy. He enjoys creating fantasy stories, is absorbed by Dungeons and Dragons, and cheerfully edits anything I write with a fantasy theme. My other wants science fiction and little else. He grudgingly read Harry Potter and prefers Animorphs, though the science there is questionable at best. He rarely reads my fantasy and begs me to write more science fiction stories, preferably with heavy, deadly machinery.

While it's obvious they made their choices, for now at least, I find it interesting how these choices show up in other areas. My sf son confronted me about the Tooth Fairy, asking not if she exists but why we pretend she does. He finally agreed to go along with the tradition to get his quarters but made sure I know he knows it's all bunk. In comparison, his brother never questioned the Tooth Fairy. Whatever he might believe, he's willing to accept a world imbued with mystical forces beyond our comprehension that make the mundane world a little more fascinating.

So then, is the preference of science fiction over fantasy a sign of grounding in the physical reality where things are defined by what you see and touch? Does a leaning toward fantasy show up in those more open to an indefinable world overlaying the physical one? And what about those like myself who enjoy both paths?

The Phoenix Arisen?

With the exception of some holdouts who reject all things electronic, most of us, and anyone reading this, have been sucked into the world of electronics. Like children, we approach our computers with the faith they will boot up in the morning and reveal all those things we depend on them to store. Some of us are more like foster kids on their third or fourth foster family. We want to hope, we want to trust, we want to have faith but at the same time, we squirrel away backup copies because we've had that trust crushed before and just can't manage to come up with blind faith. Yet, even with those backups, they are a precaution rather than a pattern. We might remember for a while after a crash or data loss and then slowly the backups stretch further and further apart as we forget, as we slip into the faith it won't happen again; it won't happen to us.

My computer has developed an odd, intermittent crash problem. I ignored it as long as I could, stiff in my denial, and then finally called in support. Of course, having been on the other end of the support calls in my professional life, I know the shiver of fear and horror they must have felt the minute I said the dreaded "intermittent." This word means no viable way to confirm the problem is resolved. It means no simple way of tracking down potential solutions. It means weeks, maybe months, of trying option after option, only to find out a month later it didn't actually resolve the problem. Hence my denial. I knew all too well what I'd face once I admitted to the problem and knew the loss in time would easily exceed the time I'd lost putting my data back together after yet another hard crash. And yet, what if it got worse?

I did everything asked, including rebuilding my OS, but nothing helped. The next step? To replace the hard drive. Now, I swear they gave this order just to put that shiver of fear back where it belonged--on my spine. There is no way to make sure every bit of data, every file I've tucked here or there, every customization I made on one of my software and every convenience I'd created over the past couple of years would make it to the backup. No matter how hard I tried, I knew I'd lose something in the transfer. I made lists, check off sheets, analyzed the various folders and finally, did the rebuild.

Yay! Yes, I lost some data along with my faith (temporarily) that my computer would always work. Yes, I had to redo all sorts of customizations and stamp out MS Word's special character replacements once again. But, when it came down to it, after the loss of only one full day, I was up and running on a new hard drive, problem solved and with minimal (no critical) files lost.

Then the new drive started ticking. Suddenly, I feel a lot of sympathy for Captain Hook.