I'm Reading: Murder & Mayhem

Seems I'm reading several things at once, because, I mean, who's suffering from overstimulation these days? Anyway...

Reading # 1:

I feel scarred. Scarred, not scared. I just finished reading the short story "Shards" by Ian Rogers, which is included in Ellen Datlow's anthology Best Horror of the Year, Volume 14. I haven't been too impressed with Volume 14's offerings (I liked Volume 13 better), even though I've passed the 50% mark of the ebook. And then today I reached "Shards." Holy shit. I'm sick and disturbed and deliciously satisfied by it. 

I'd even argue that it's one of the best horror stories I've read to date. Even the ending did not disappoint, which I can rarely say about stories in this genre. "Shards" passed all my pet-peeve checks with flying colors.

The quick and easy summary: Five fast friends vacation in a remote cabin (classic) and discover a gramophone in the basement, then all hell breaks loose. 

Sounds simple, maybe even cliched, but it blew my socks off. And I'm still reeling with a queasy feeling in my gut and a creeped-out swooping sensation in my brain.

Reading #2:

Cain's Jawbone. Ever heard of it?

My nephew ran across it recently and bought me a copy (sweetest guy ever). I had heard the title in some remote past, but had no idea what it was nor what I was getting myself into. The 100-page "novel" is actually a whodunit puzzle: "the world's most fiendishly difficult literary puzzle," says the book's tagline. Since its publication in 1934, only 3 people have been able to solve it.

The first problem is that the mystery was published out of order. Literally like the author Torquemada had tossed all 100 of his neatly typed pages in the air a few times then gathered them up at random and handed them into the publisher as-is. The margins of the pages have that little "scissors" symbol inviting the reader to cut out all the pages and arrange them in the proper order -- if they can.

The second problem is that the different characters all tell their part in first person, so you're not sure whose point of view you're reading until you read enough to start putting clues together.

The third problem is that the characters are hardly ever named. You run across first names, nicknames, occasionally a whole name (used a single time), or career references ("the minerologist" for example), and it's up to the reader to figure out who is who -- and to separate the actual characters from random names tossed in to confuse things.

All that in addition to having to solve who killed whom.

At first, I thought it sacrilege to cut out a book's pages, but now, having acquainted myself with the puzzle on a first read-through, I'm eager to dig out my scissors and get chopping. Though, even if I figure out the pages' proper order, I doubt I'd be able to wade through all the obscure 1930s references, red herrings, and vague naming scheme to solve the murders.

I may spend the rest of my life puzzling it out…

Thanks, beloved nephew.

Choicest Possession

Image from my Facebook Author Page

Should a room be stripped of furniture, as long as the books remain, the room will still feel furnished, warm, inviting, and full. They provide the furniture of the mind, food for the imagination, and a necessary occupation.

I'm afraid my coffee tables are a little cluttered with books. Can't get enough of them around me. I hunger for their contents and their companionship. One feels a little less alone when surrounded by books. Their voices are there for the asking.

The Touch of a Book

from my Facebook Author page

I went to lunch with my mom this week, and after we ate, we 'just happened' to stroll through an aisle of books at a nearby department store. The books drew us like honey, like magnets, like gravity, like love. Mom picked up a book and said, "I miss the feel of a book." She's been reading quick and easy downloads on her reading device. She sighed and rifled the pages and commented on how lovely the jagged edges were. Watching her admire the bound treasure in her hands was a precious experience.

Of course, she bought the book.

Several, in fact.

We all did.

Old Books

Image from my Author Facebook page

From High School on, I've enjoyed exploring literature, not necessarily because I cared for the antiquated storytelling that made such reads a slog, but for the expertise and care with which words were used, the history of the times the books were authored, the lives of the authors themselves.

Finally, while conducting research for Blackbird, a story that takes place in the late 1800s, whose main character is a lover of fiction, I was forced to read a few of the books I had neglected on my shelf.

Jane Eyre: surely one of my "new" favorites. I've seen every movie version I could get my hands on, so I was surprised the book continued to hold my interest and win my heart.

Wuthering Heights: I tried. I really tried. So many people speak well of this novel and its characters, but I despised each person I read about. They are all deplorable humans. If there is a likable quality about any one of them, I did not find it. So, forgive me, I was unable to finish. Why do people speak of being in love with Heathcliff? He's an abusive bastard who deserves to be thrown in prison for beating dogs and women. (I will not debate this matter.)

Great Expectations: Who isn't fascinated with Miss Havisham? Again, I had seen as many movie versions as I could find (Helena Bonham-Carter was born to play Miss Havisham, just saying), and given my past experience with Dickens' novels (David Copperfield, ugh), I fully expected to make it halfway through and finally throw in the towel. Not so. I made it to the finish line and enjoyed each leg of the journey.

Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope: made it through two pages, decided the opening was a character-build that the author should've kept in his private notes and ditched the thing. Blech.

So, as I dive back into revisions of Blackbird, I must yet again inundate my brain with Victorian verbage. Books on my to-read list:

* Elizabeth Gaskill's work
* George Eliot's novels
* Hard Times by Dickens (read in college, need to read again)

And I guess there's no harm in going back a bit further and (re)reading some Jane Austen. She is my favorite, after all.

Pollinating the Mind

Image from my Facebook Author page

Currently reading The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. Loving it so far. Reading a well-crafted piece of literature feels like breathing in sunshine after a stifling rainy season. It stimulates the cells and opens the senses.

Midnight Companions

(images from my Facebook Author page)

May sleep never desert us

but if it does

may we never be found

empty-handed.

Lesson Learned

(image from my Facebook Author page)

To read and gain no depth, no new insight, no new wisdom makes for either a very poor book or a rather poor reader.

A few novels that have broadened my horizons:

To Kill a Mockingbird

The Help

The Joy Luck Club

The Book Thief

Angela's Ashes

The Woman Warrior

The Diary of Anne Frank

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Review: The Map of Time by Felix J. Palma

Blurb:

Characters real and imaginary come vividly to life in this whimsical triple play of intertwined plots, in which a skeptical H. G. Wells is called upon to investigate purported incidents of time travel and to save lives and literary classics, including Dracula and The Time Machine, from being wiped from existence.

—Amazon

Review:

This spring I was on a desperate hunt for new authors to explore and happened upon what looked like a Steampunk novel sitting on the literary fiction shelves. “What’s that doing here?” I asked and picked up a copy to examine (yes, I judged a book by its cover, and I’m glad I did). The ensuing adventure was more than I expected.

Several elements of this novel struck me as noteworthy. That “whimsical triple play of intertwined plots” is the first. One of the main reasons I have not attempted to write a time travel story is the complex plotting that must surely be involved. The Map of Time provides an intimidating example of exactly that.

Part 1 centers on Andrew Harrington, a wealthy young man who has fallen in love with a prostitute from Whitechapel. As the names of characters and setting were gradually revealed, I began to cringe. History recap: Victorian England + prostitute + Whitechapel = Jack the Ripper. “Oh, Lord,” I groaned, anticipating what must surely be coming, “is this a Jack the Ripper story?” I hadn’t bargained for this. I was expecting steam engines and, well, time travel, not a plot involving the most notorious serial killer of all time. Indeed, Andrew Harrington turns to H.G. Wells for help, hoping to travel back in time to save his beloved from the Ripper’s blades.

Part 2, fortunately, moves away from the gore, and brings us to Claire Haggerty, a proper lady who is wholly disgusted with her life and the stifling mores of Victorian society. When she hears of an opportunity to travel to the year 2000, she eagerly jumps on board. In the future, she finds the man of her dreams. But can she keep him without irreparably damaging the fabric of time? Only the author of The Time Machine, who must be an expert on the subject of the time continuum, can help the lovers find a solution.

In Part 3 … well, I won’t give spoilers. Suffice to say that in this gripping conclusion, H.G. Wells must make the most difficult decision imaginable. It involves a letter from his future self, three famous novelists, and a heat ray gun. Which thread in the time continuum will Wells choose? Or is choice ultimately irrelevant?

That brings us to the second aspect of the novel that impressed me: the science of time travel. This is another reason I haven’t attempted to write a time travel story. The possible loops in time and splits in universes are just too big for my brain to fully comprehend. Some of Palma’s explanations and theories I just had to swallow because puzzling them out in my head threatened to make me dizzy. There are far too many fans of time travel for Palma to explore the theories and problems in any way he chooses. Had Palma done so, those fans and theorists would be able to call him out. Given to my own limited education on the subject, there’s nothing to criticize him for, and therefore, the story and its conclusions remain believable.

The third noteworthy aspect might have made an impression on me merely because I write. Through his rendering of H.G. Wells, Palma beautifully expresses insights into a writer’s life and psyche:

“…no other pleasure Wells could think of gave him a greater sense of well-being than when he added the final full stop to a novel. This culminating act always filled him with a  sense of giddy satisfaction born of the certainty that nothing he could achieve in life could fulfill him more than writing a novel, no matter how tedious, difficult, and thankless he found the task, for Wells was one of those writers who detest writing but love ‘having written.’ … 

"… for Wells the act of writing was much like a struggle, a bloodthirsty battle with an idea that refuses to be seized.” (p. 534)

And:

“He was back at the point of departure, at the place that filled writers with dread and excitement, for this was where they must decide which new story to tackle… At that moment, before reverently committing the first word to paper, he could write anything he wanted, and this fired his blood with a powerful sense of freedom, as wonderful as it was fleeting, for he knew it would vanish the moment he chose one story and sacrificed all the others.” (p. 676)

“That’s it, exactly!” I kept saying. Never before have I read explanations of what it’s like to be a writer in such clear, powerful language.

The only drawback I was able to pinpoint in the novel was that the ending seemed a bit drawn-out. I can’t go into detail without spoiling things, but suffice to say that I understand the reason that the mundane must follow the extraordinary, and so there lies the ending’s redemption.

Conclusion:

People have been fascinated with the idea of time travel ever since it was explored in Wells’ novel over a century ago. Palma takes what has since become a common science fiction theme back to its literary source and winds a whole new adventure around it, turning H.G Wells himself into an unlikely hero. More, the novel is exquisitely translated from the Spanish. My standards of competent language are quite high, and this novel does not disappoint on that count either. Nick Caistor, the translator, and presumably Palma himself manage to present the story in language as it would have been written at the turn of the 19th Century.

And so, The Map of Time impresses me on many different levels. I recommend the book to anyone interested in time travel, adventure, and fine writing.

Rating:

5 of 5 magic wands

Find The Map of Time at Amazon, B&N, and many other booksellers.

The Map of Time, Book 1 of Victorian Trilogy (Trilogia Victoriana) by Felix J. Palma is published by Algaida Spain as El Mapa del Tiempo, 2009. English translation published by Simon and Schuster, 2011.

SONS OF THE FALCON now available!

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Hallelujah! It's done. A year of writing and feeling like the novel would never be finished, yet here it is. Finished already. Sons of the Falcon, Book 2 of the Falcons Saga, has been uploaded, approved, and is now available at Amazon and CreateSpace.

It feels amazing, like releasing lead balloons and seeing them fly weightlessly into the sky. And now? Do I ever need a vacation. My brain is shot, so I plan to spend the holiday months reading, refueling the brain cells, and maybe writing a couple of short stories if the inspiration strikes me. Then in January, I hope, work on the last book will begin. Fury of the Falcon is going to be quite a beast, let me tell you. Probably the longest of all the volumes, and the old draft is full of issues that must be fixed, which means lots of changes. Can you tell I'm trying not to be intimidated? But for now, I shall bask in the feeling of accomplishment...

Currently, the print edition of Sons is only available at CreateSpace. It will take a few more business days for it to become available at Amazon. It's priced competitively at $14.99. And like both volumes of Book 1, Sons is only .99 cents for a digital download. This weekend (Friday through Sunday), however, it will be available for FREE! So be sure to keep an eye out and an e-reader on hand, so you can download yours.
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EXPLORERS Available At Last!

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It was May of last year that I posted that my short story "A Mournful Rustling" had been accepted by Dead Robots' Society for inclusion in their  anthology. Well, Explorers: Beyond the Horizon is available at last! The collection features characters forever changed by their discovery of lands and worlds beyond their own. Whether it’s by charting new stars, trekking across fantastical realms, sailing new oceans, or traversing the wild and unknown spaces between dimensions, readers will find the unimaginable in the pages of Explorers. Authors contributing work to the anthology are:



J. Daniel Sawyer
Jeff Brackett
Lauren M. Roy
Colum Paget
Vincent Morgan
Ira Nayman
Jocelyn Adams
Court Ellyn
Jesse J. Summerson
Andrew Hawnt
Mark Mellon
Laura Givens
James Ebersole
Kurt H. Hyatt
Daniel Latham

So far, the anthology is available at the following venues:

CreateSpace

Amazon Print

Amazon Kindle

Barnes & Noble Nook

Smashwords

Now, the interesting part is, if you purchase a print version of this book from Amazon or CreateSpace and email a copy of the receipt  show(at)deadrobotssociety(dot)com, they will send you the ebook for FREE.

I'm so excited to see how this project turned out. I've been waiting on pins and needs since December 2010, when the call for submissions was extended. The results should arrive in my mailbox soon.

So, cheers! And happy reading!

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Birthday Surprise!

I am just thrilled. Expect nothing and you'll likely be pleased beyond measure.

My birthday is Sunday. I try to ignore the approach of my birthday and treat that day like any other. Having expectations about my birthday in the past have led to some very bad birthday experiences, so I refuse anymore to allow myself to expect anything at all from anyone. Usually, my mom and sister (and now niece) and I go out to eat and shop a bit (my mother insists she buys me the clothes I pick out) and that's usually about it. But this year I caught hints of my mother and my husband scheming behind my back. "Whatcha up to?" I'd ask. "None of your business!" he would reply. Then on Wednesday he came home with a huge box in the front seat of his pickup truck. My mother bought me a brand-new color laserjet printer. The old one, we'd had it for about a decade, had finally printed it's last novel draft this last winter and died with me cussing it till its last pathetic breath. Since then I've had to email every doc I've needed printed, so my husband could print them off at his office and bring them home to me in the evening.

So praises to my mother, the best Mom on earth!

Then last night, after our LifeGroup get-together, my husband took me to Carino's for Italian nachos and tiramisu. Junk food city! After that, he said, "I gotta run over here for something." Yeah, that's vague. But he's often vague, so I didn't question him, just rattled on about whatever we'd been discussing. Next thing I know we're at the bookstore. He says, "Go to the magazine aisle and don't look over the shelf. Stay there." I give him the "I know what you're up to" look. But I don't want to mess up his scheming, so I hide in the magazine aisle, ignoring covers of sexy half-dressed men and women and try to find a magazine of genre fiction. (Sadly, there is only one, the new Analog, which I don't read b/c it's only Sci-Fi, but I bought it anyway b/c I can't leave a bookstore empty-handed.) A little while later James comes back and says, "They didn't have what I needed. Let's go." We paid for the copy of Analog I'm likely to never read, then went to the truck. In my seat was a bag tucked around two items. I had to laugh. My husband found what he came for, paid out, ran to the truck, then ran back inside to get me, and I was so involved in looking for a fantasy fic magazine that I missed it all. He's so sneaky, and so sweet.

So what was in the bag? Why, George was in the bag. Not the curious monkey. My favorite author, rather. The Ice and Fire guy. I guess it was three posts ago that I worried that I'd not get back to a bookstore to buy that particular calendar until too late. Well, that calendar was in the bag. Strange to be excited over a calendar, I know, but the art of Westeros's castles is outstanding! I'm gonna frame the suckers when 2012 rolls around and hang them up in my writing room for inspiration. The other item was "Warriors," the collection of stories edited by GRRM and Gardner Dozois. I had been eyeing that too, last time I stopped in. Started the first story when we got home. Late, it was, and I fell asleep dreaming of vikings.

Art and Jon Snow

Well, it's almost Tuesday and I haven't even thought about my "art of the week" entry. I think I'm gonna have to rework my little idea, to post some strange-lovely-wonderful art whenever I can post other material. Well, I'm posting, so how about some art? -

CASTLE BLACK AND THE WALL
by Ted Nasmith
(courtesy of www.tednasmith.com)

I've never had cause to anticipate a calendar before, but I can't wait till the new year so I can stare at paintings of the settings of my favorite novels ever, all year long. This one depicts, as the title says, the massive wall made of ice that protects southern Westeros from all the baddies of the far north of the world in George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series. Now, personally, I'm not a huge fan of Nasmith. His human figures are stiff and unnatural, in my humble opinion, but his landscapes and cityscapes are really spectacular. I had imagined the buildings of Castle Black a little more rundown than depicted in this piece, but I suppose it might've looked like this a few centuries before Jon Snow signed up for the crows ... er, Night's Watch. So I can't complain. Anyhoo, I'm excited about this collection of art. Saw the calendar on the shelf yesterday and got to gawk at it before my husband rushed me out the bookstore door. He has to keep tabs on me when I'm in a bookstore or bad things will happen ... like weighing down the counter at the checkout and depleting a tiny bank account to nothing. I didn't have $16 in my purse so I had to put the calendar back on the shelf with a sigh -- and the slight terror that next time all these beauties will be bought up and I'll miss out. Please, please, please, someone save one for me.

Such wistful and powerful depictions (and the occasional reread of the previous novels) will tide me over until Dances With Dragons hits the shelves. *sigh* Ah, the waiting is exquisite.

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