Muse du Jour

If You Lived Here: The Top 30 All Time Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Worlds....nominate now!!

2011-07-18T11:21:00.000-05:00

The project, authored and edited by Jeff VanderMeer, is called If You Lived Here: The Top 30 All Time Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Worlds. It's a compendium, of sorts, but also a travel guide to places like Dune, Ring World, Middle Earth, Lankhmar . . . and beyond . . . We've all lived in these places--in imagination if not in fact--and we're all united by our common experiences of them. We wanted to collect the worlds together in one place as both a walk down memory lane and a place to start new dreams.

Underland Press is reaching out to readers, writers, and booksellers to ask for nominations of worlds to include. They've set up a web form at www.ifyoulivedherebook.com, which takes the nominations and asks respondents to describe what they love about the world. (If things go according to plan, they'll include some of the responses in the book itself.) They're looking for as much community involvement as possible in this project. I've already nominated the three old favourites that I've been reading for decades and still make me feel warm and fuzzy. Many of you will like more recent offerings I haven't even caught up with yet. It will all be welcome. I'm looking forward to reading the book that comes of this survey, to revisit familiar settings and see if I get inspired by newer ones described therein.

To visit the Underland Press website: www.underlandpress.com/

Jeff VanderMeer: www.jeffvandermeer.com/

Cheers,
Marianne

LITTLE FUZZY/FUZZY NATION…A Comparative Review

2011-05-10T23:04:00.002-05:00

Little Fuzzy...and...Fuzzy Nation

BE WARNED - SPOILERS BELOW!!

LITTLE FUZZY

By H. Beam Piper

FUZZY NATION

TOR Books; Hardcover;

ISBN: 978-0-7653-2854-0;

301 Pages; USD $24.99

A book review and comparison by Marianne Plumridge

One thing about the works of H.Beam Piper, they have never been long neglected in print, especially the beloved LITTLE FUZZY books. Since the first book, LITTLE FUZZY, was published in 1962, it and its sequels have been resurrected, repackaged, and reprinted each decade for a new audience. However it was only a matter of time before another author decided to add his ideas to the pantheon in the new millennium. Ardath Mayhar had already done so with GOLDEN DREAM in 1983, so it wasn’t a great stretch when author John Scalzi decided to write his FUZZY NATION. The difference lies in the fact that FUZZY NATION isn’t so much an addition to the works of Piper, but a whole ‘re-imagining’ of the first Fuzzy book to bring it up to date nearly four decades after the first one was published.

I have reacquainted myself with H.Beam Piper’s LITTLE FUZZY books every few years or so because they are unapologetically a nostalgic, endearing, as well as a decidedly funny return to the golden age of science fiction. Sure, the technology is a little outmoded due to progress in recent decades, some of the characters perhaps a mite quaint, the slang largely outdated, and the lifestyle and mannerisms firmly fixed in the 1950/60s along with the once popular but now antiquated ‘cocktail hour’, but the story still holds its charm. Humans have expanded to other worlds to explore and mine and have rarely encountered sentient life. The appearance of a family of diminutive golden haired ‘animals’ that prove more human than some of the humans they meet up with throw a huge spanner in the main Corporate works. Are they sentient or not? A deadly struggle of proof ensues until a Colonial Court settles the matter once and for all. Above it all, in Piper’s book, the Fuzzies are front and center and have distinct personalities – completely coming alive as an innocent, childlike species within the story. They share the lead with the main human protagonist, Jack Holloway because the story is about both humans and Fuzzies and one of the warmest, funniest, first contact stories in the annals of science fiction. Even after all of these years, the arguments on sapience, the subplots and inter-character relationships are still strong and based on a solid plot. LITTLE FUZZY remains a captivating story.

In John Scalzi’s FUZZY NATION, the fundamentals are the same, but there is a narrower cast of characters and focus, where the Fuzzies almost appear to take second place to the human action. The character of Jack Holloway is very much the protagonist of this book as well as the ‘devil’s advocate’. He doesn’t believe that the Fuzzies are sentient: somewhat contrary to Piper’s Holloway. It does make for a more layered character though, that a modern audience will appreciate. Some may miss the extensive layered, engaging antics that Piper’s Fuzzies got up to, and their learning process as the plot of his book progresses. The Fuzzies ‘presence’ in FUZZY NATION isn’t quite the same and personally feels a bit lacking in ‘character presence’. In LITTLE FUZZY there are eighteen Fuzzies creating mayhem by the time the reader reaches the climax, in FUZZY NATION there is a constant of only five majorly interactive Fuzzies for most of the story. In LITTLE FUZZY, the Fuzzies are constantly learning and using what they learn: this creates the bonds between them and the humans that study them – or in some humans who have other agendas, an antithesis and antagonism. In FUZZY NATION, the Fuzzies who arrive at John Holloway’s treetop camp already have a secret that isn’t revealed until much later. Two of the major revelations, including the Fuzzies’ secret are revealed in sudden, almost unheralded ‘bombshells’, and I for one had to think about them a bit before continuing to read. The hearing range of humans doesn’t encompass the supersonic or subsonic, so they couldn’t hear speech until Scalzi’s Jack Holloway had an instant of enlightened perception, developed that idea ‘off camera’, and then suddenly presented it as a fait accompli at the preliminary ‘sapience/non-sapience’ hearing for the Fuzzies. Further to that, and adding another shock, was the Fuzzies extensive understanding of human speech: that had a few hints along the way, plus a puzzle for Scalzi’s Holloway to work out. He does, and presents it just as abruptly as the previous revelation. It underscores just how independent the Fuzzies are…and that in and of itself is very, very different to Piper’s original portrayal of those little people. It will be interesting to see how this is received by fans and readers of the original LITTLE FUZZY book.

Another addition to the character list in FUZZY NATION is Jack Holloway’s dog, Carl. That fact that most of the other characters in the novel like Carl better than they like Jack is a running joke throughout the story. Carl is also a furry plot device that the author uses as a link to connect Jack to other characters. So we read a lot of Carl’s reactions to a variety of his master’s actions as well as reacting to the Fuzzies. That interaction inevitably leads to Jack making some latent discoveries regarding his new found friends. I really like Carl as a character, even if he is only a dog. However, I fear that some of Carl’s cuteness and personality has detracted a little from the Fuzzies cuteness in the novel, or at least competes with it somewhat. Perhaps the author sought a combination of Carl/Fuzzy shared cuteness as a suitable counterpoint for the very cute original Fuzzies in Piper’s book. It does seem to work very well in the context of Scalzi’s book.

Meanwhile, I thoroughly enjoyed John Scalzi’s FUZZY NATION and consider it to be a wonderful addition to the Little Fuzzy canon. It is fast paced, witty, and cleverly plotted. Scalzi’s Jack Holloway is something of a complex antihero at times and the reader, let alone other characters are never quite sure what he’s going to do or say next. His actions are quite devastating in delivery and ultimately satisfying. This is a book very much worth reading.

Marianne Plumridge

A Woman of Mars: The Poems of an Early Homesteader...A Book Review

2011-05-06T14:36:00.003-05:00

A WOMAN OF MARS: The Poems of an Early Homesteader

by Helen Patrice

Stanza Press/PS Publishing

Grosvenor House,

1 New Road,

Hornsea HU18 1 PG, England;

Hardcover;
ISBN: 978-1-848631-32-8;
f14.00 GBP; 36 pages; 2011

Reviewed by Marianne Plumridge – May 2011

I had the good fortune to read “A Woman of Mars” in manuscript form two years ago. And upon rereading it now as a fully fledged anthology, I am still as riveted by the words and their vision as I was then. The author has written about a young woman who dreamed of the stars in childhood, only to step forward and volunteer as a colonist for the first push outwards to Mars. Never antiseptic, but with a bare minimum of prose, Ms Patrice vivifies the psychological pressures, the physical demands, and the emotional responses of her protagonist and the tiny colony as a whole. Risk, regret, hope, and more are washed with the very gritty red sands of Mars in this stark, but not bleak, telling. A first reading of this cycle of poems will leave the reader gripped by the story unfolding and the stories not told but sensed in between. Arrival, settlement, birth, death, psychosis, loss, living, existing, new myth and mysteries, survival, starvation, and testament to humanity all flow within these poems as humankind try to carve out a life for themselves and others on an unutterably alien world…where the word for green might almost be forgotten...

When Ray Bradbury read “A Woman of Mars: The Poems of an Early Homesteader” in manuscript form, he stated:

“Helen Patrice’s poems are little love letters not only to the Red Planet but also to the sense of alien wonder that is so often missing from imaginative fiction and poetry. Bravo to her! And bravo to Stanza Press for providing a platform for her work!”

A Woman of Mars is a slim volume of 34 poems told in chronological order about the first colony on Mars. The covers are Mars red augmented with drawings by Bob Eggleton. Upon opening the front cover, is found a gem of a watercolour painting acting as ‘Red Mars’ end papers. Inside the back cover is another, different painting depicting ‘Green Mars’ after the beginning of terra-forming. Eggleton’s drawing is nicely reused throughout as page edging and spot illustrations.

If I had one thing to contribute to a pioneer settlement reaching out for Mars, it would be this book. For each and every new venture has to have had an initial dream or vision to build upon to reach its goal. A Woman of Mars would be a very favourable start…

Marianne Plumridge

PS: Okay, there's a bit of nepotism here...my husband, Bob Eggleton, did the illustrations. :-D

"Hard Magic"....a Book Review

2011-01-19T17:06:00.002-05:00

HARD MAGIC

Book 1:

Paranormal Scene Investigations

By Laura Anne Gilman

May 2010; Luna Books
(www.luna-books.com).

Trade Paperback
(ISBN: 13:978-0-373-80313-2);
329 pages; Price $14.95

Reviewed by Marianne Plumridge – January 2011

Bonita Torres is a magic user, a Talent, born to an itinerant Lonejack father and brought up and mentored by a member of the Council. She is both and neither. One of Bonnie’s feet is still in the world of lone wolf magic users and their sense of wild justice, while the other is firmly within the community of ‘Council’ with all of their ambiguous elite rules and mores. It’s very easy to feel like an outsider. However, three months out from college graduation with a good resume and a bag full of mixed talent and some unusual experiences using such, isn’t getting her anywhere. J, her Mentor, had been paying for her studies and upkeep since she was 8 years old, but Bonnie is itching to prove herself, stand on her own two feet, and find her own life. Unfortunately, of all the resumes and interviews she’d sent out or been on, nobody else seemed to know what to do with her either. Frustrated, panicky and feeling out of sorts in the Big Apple, Bonnie receives a voicemail message that sounds…interesting. It wasn’t anyone she’d contacted about a job…but they firmly indicated that she should come for the interview anyway. Trying to scrye for some information about the forthcoming encounter leaves her with a pounding heart and shattered crystal all over her hotel bed, the loud ‘No Cheating’ rebuke still ringing in her skull.

Four disparate personalities await Bonnie at THE interview and she’s somewhat disappointed to find competition in the offing. But nothing is what it appears at first glance and neither are the Talented rivals. Pietr, a decorative young man who smells like trouble and can fade out at will; Sharon, an elegant, blond paralegal who can detect even the whiff of a lie and becomes the on the spot paramedic when needed; Nick “Nifty” Lawrence, a gifted footballer who would prefer to use his brains and Talent rather than brawn; and the other Nick, the one whose demeanor screams ‘nerd’ who has his own strange gift of ‘hacking’. All have personality issues and attitudes, all are far deeper and more complicated than their surface facades suggest. Working together is not going to be easy.

The interviewer is dead…and that is the first test. The five twenty-something kids are hired en masse as a unit for something called P.U.P.I – Private, Unaffiliated, Paranormal Investigations. A team of Talents using magic in a Forensic CSI fashion to collect evidence from death/crime scenes to determine if a crime was committed and if Talent was involved. There has never been anything like it in the recorded history of all mage talented communities, but it is direly needed in spite of denial and sometimes violent opposition. The Talented are dying in mysterious ways that look like suicides or accidents but leave a major question mark that no one – Null or Talent – can answer. Enter P.U.P.I – five fractious “puppies” with secrets and skills of their own, hired, shaped, and lead by two “Guys”: heavyweight Talents, Benjamin Venec and Ian Stoller who are also referred to as ‘the big dogs’ by their protégés. They are not enforcers of any kind, but the creed is to be true to the evidence found and present it to clients and Council alike to be dealt with. What follows for Bonnie, Nick, Nifty, Sharon, and Pietr is a strenuous rollercoaster ride of bootcamp magic learning and stretching that encompasses explosions, implosions, finicky electrical reactions, and blowups strangely reminiscent of ‘Mythbusters’ experimentalism, being shot at, a sibling tantrum of epic proportions, and a professional killer for hire who is as silent and slippery as silk. None of them will ever be the same afterward.

Bonnie hires on in spite of her Mentor’s horrified opposition, both as father figure and leading Council figure. Being a member of P.U.P.I is something that appeals to Bonnie’s sense of ‘making a difference’, hearkening back to the secret hunt for her father’s murderer: something that only she, her Mentor and a cave dragon up in the Adirondacks knows anything about – or so she has always assumed. Unable to see the search through to a natural conclusion of catching and revealing the killer, Bonnie instead had to bury her knowledge along with her frustration. All of the information and evidence of the crime she had gathered – culled inch by agonizing inch – came to naught. There was no way to act on it or take it to any existing enforcement authority that would believe her. The magic using community she belongs to, the Cosa Nostradamus, has no formal way of policing its society. It’s never needed to…till now. Bonnie’s tenacity, dual understanding of both Lonejack and Council sides of the Cosa Nostradamus and her own very real talents, coupled with a strong, innate need to know, working in harness with likeminded others might assuage some of the residual guilt and frustration. It might also fine tune some of those desperation-forged skills from her past and put them to good use. It isn’t easy, it’s bone wearying, mind numbingly hard. And there are consequences and disasters awaiting the missteps and personal mistakes of all of them. Add to that the effect Ben Venec has on Bonnie physically and mentally, and the complications just get weirder. His mental voice is familiar from past events and secrets, and she isn’t sure whether that is coloring her perception of him and the resultant upheavals inside her core and mind.

Bonnie has a remarkably tenacious Talent for detailed recall which is why she finds herself up front and center ‘recording’ things and people who are of interest and whilst investigating crime scenes and objects. Nick, Sharon, Nifty and Pietr have their own unique abilites – just as strong as hers – but it’s up to Ben and Ian to blend them into a coherent, fully integrated synergy. By the end of this story, that binding takes shape under extreme duress: a full on deadly attack from the assassin.

This is a brilliant book by veteran author, Laura Anne Gilman. It is tightly woven and fast paced with crisp, clean language that defines the characters and situations more so than overly-descriptive prose would. Ms Gilman inhabits the Cosa Nostradamus universe she has created with confident depth and wisdom and a creativity that some longtime authors might envy. The character of Bonnie Torres emerged as a secondary player in Ms Gilman’s other Cosa Nostradamus universe series ‘THE RETRIEVERS” only to be given a larger voice and place of her own in this powerful debut to a new series of novels. For a series, it is. The sequel to ‘HARD MAGIC’, ‘PACK OF LIES’, is now available. And I am very much looking forward to reading it. Very well done Ms Gilman…I couldn’t put this book down…

Cheers

Marianne

Murphy's Lore: Tales From Bulfinches Pub....A Book Review

2010-10-14T19:50:00.002-05:00

“MURPHY’S LORE: TALES FROM BULFINCHE’S PUB”

by Patrick Thomas

Padwolf Publishing; Trade paperback; ISBN: 1-890096-07-5; $14.00 US

293 pages; 2000

Reviewed by Marianne Plumridge – February 2005

First Published by www.infinityplus.co.uk - 2005

If ever you’re in Manhattan and see a rainbow, follow it to its end. There you will find a place called Bulfinche’s Pub and a sympathetic ear to hear your story – sometimes several. This might not sound so unusual or impressive, until you find out who the owner and employees of the premises really are, let alone the regular clientele. Then the magic begins…

The Murphy of the title is, initially, a lost soul himself who, in the very first story, finds his way to Bulfinche’s by way of a rainbow. Murphy has lost his soul-mate wife to cancer and his will to go on. At Bulfinche’s, he discovers that it is the magical place that his wife found during her last months on the mortal coil, that she could relax and paint and draw in while Murphy was at work. In the end, Murphy stumbles through the same pub door and finds the same thing his love did: a respite, hope, friends, and finally home. Owner and client alike stand in awe when they realize that Murphy’s wife’s last painting was of the very bar and occupants itself: entitled, Rainbow’s End. The painting stands now over the bar.

The subsequent stories in this anthology regale the reader about the Owner and patrons of Bulfinche’s and are narrated by Murphy. However, don’t ever think to presume that you know what’s coming next. The stories are funny, underwritten by a sly sense of humour that could be loosely termed ‘hard-boiled comicalness’ that’s definitely got a New York edge to it. And it’s very entertaining. Underpinning the humor is an intrinsically subtle, but solid psychiatric base. With that combination, I can only say that there are some really interesting twists in these stories. But don’t ever make the mistake that they are simple. These tales linger in the mind for ages after you’ve read them.

Urban fantasy doesn’t really appeal to me as a reader generally, and I began this book with just a little trepidation. There are no fairies – wicked or otherwise – tricking we bumbling humans around New York; no fantasitical warlords that bespeak Manga influences trying to invade the city; or dragons trying to pass as human and seeing us as fodder. No, the employees and patrons of Bulfinche’s Pub have a solid grounding in the multiplicity of history, religion and myth of the human race, but are bound by rules and sometimes curses. The rules and curses are suspended in Bulfinches however, except for the standing rule of ‘no powers to be used’ inside the pub, imposed by the premises’ immortal owner, Paddy Moran. Paddy is a Leprechaun, and only stands out because of his height – or lack of it. His employees include, besides Murphy behind the bar, Dionysus as head brewer and bartender, Hercules mans, or ‘gods’ the door as bouncer, while Demeter runs the kitchen. Other personnel change from time to time. Paddy bought the pub and the building that houses it one hundred years ago with his pot of gold, but he is still required to help people that need it. Therefore whenever a rainbow beacon leads a troubled soul to the door of Bulfinche’s, he, she or it will always find surcease and help.

The best thing about these stories is that they address social issues right along side the whimsical ones. Humankind has always invented Gods, demons, angels of various religions callings, and other spiritual beings over the eons, so it isn’t too surprising to find them a lot like us, with woes like ours, just with a lot more personal power and sometimes even less responsibility.

So come on down to Bulfinche’s Pub. The first drink is on the house…

I really enjoyed this book. Now I have to wait for the next ones to arrive. Didn’t I mention it? There are four more volumes in this series, and look every much as interesting as the first. Happy reading.

Marianne Plumridge

Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World... A Book Review

2010-10-03T10:38:00.001-05:00

DEWEY: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World

By Vicki Myron, with Bret Witter

Grand Central Publishing; Hardcover,

ISBN-10 0-446-40741-0; $19.99 US

277 pages.

Reviewed by Marianne Plumridge – October 2008

I like reading biographies now and then. I also like reading animal biographies once in a blue moon. Blame ‘The Wonderful World of Disney’ from when I was a kid.

I was reading comments on a mystery writers’ blog when one commenter quipped an aside that caught my attention. She said: “Hey, I just read an advance copy of DEWEY - about the famous library cat. It’s the new MARLEY AND ME.” Or words to that effect. ‘Library’ and ‘Cat’ stood out, so I looked it up. So I’m a sucker for things that happen in libraries…

Anyway, I obtained a copy of the book when it came out this week and read it the same day. The headache following that was well worth it.

Back in Spencer, Iowa, on 18 January 1988, the temperature had dropped to below 15 degrees. The wind made it seem much, much colder. When Public Librarian, Vicki Myron arrived at work that morning, she and a co-worker found something strange in the overnight drop box: a tiny bundle of near frozen fur containing a huge pair of hopeless eyes. Vicki and Jean rescued the poor little kitten and strived to warm it up, since it was too early to call the vet. A warm bath in the sink revealed that the little fellow was actually orange, not grey, and turned out to be a very young long-haired orange tabby cat. On his first hobble (his toes were a bit frostbitten) around the table to introduce himself to the rest of the library staff, the boy kitten melted the hearts of all he met. They called him Dewey and hoped that the Library could keep him.

That was the tricky bit - gaining acceptance of the Library Board of Directors as well as the Mayor, and the majority of the patrons. Things like allergies, asthma, and complaints had to be addressed, since the library was a public place. Vicki did her homework and got medical opinions about all of the health concerns. It turned out that the Spencer Public Library was perfectly built to house both Dewey and the allergy/asthma ridden visitors, so most people were assured. One woman though, whom the library staff never did meet all of the long years that Dewey lived there, wrote a letter of complaint that was pure “…fire and brimstone, full of images of children keeling over from sudden asthma attacks and pregnant mothers spontaneously miscarrying when exposed to kitty litter. According to the letter, I was a murderous madwoman who was not only threatening the health of every innocent child in town, born or unborn, but also destroying the very fabric of the community…” Sad, really.

Dewey himself was perfectly behaved. From kitten-hood onward, he was a calm, friendly people-loving, social cat who wove himself into the fabric of the Spencer community during both good times and bad. And there were bad times and crises. Despite personal problems of her own, Vicki Myron strived to make the Public Library a place for enjoyment as well as help to the many people who needed it. Economic downturn, loss of employment, bankruptcies, etcetera, all took their toll on the rural populace. Vicki created the Job Bank at the Library: a section that contained all the job listings, books on job skills, job descriptions, and technical training, a computer to create resumes and letters, and a caring staff to help them use it all. Dewey’s arrival seemed to help too, although “…Dewey didn’t put food on anyone’s table. He didn’t create jobs. He didn’t turn our economy around. But one of the worst things about bad times is the effect on you mind. Bad times drain you of energy. They occupy your thoughts. They taint everything in your life. Bad news is as poisonous as bad bread. At the very least, Dewey was a distraction…”

But he was so much more. His story resonated with the people of Spencer. His story of survival matched their own. After all, he survived his worst trial, so there was hope for theirs. Dewey’s personality reflected a trust and confidence, but never arrogance, and a sort of serenity that soothed many a burdened or case-hardened heart. A persistent lap sitter, Dewey wormed his furry backside into as many friendships as he did small boxes. The author’s large store of Dewey stories are funny, touching, but never cloying, and reach out to all readers alike. In fact, Vicki purposefully downplays many of Dewey’s antics in comparison to the many larger issues at hand, but his effect can’t help but leave a definitive impression anyway. He was that kind of special cat.

Whether sitting quietly with an autistic child during reading time, stalking laps, playing hide and seek after hours with the staff, volunteering to lend fluffy cuddles and purrs to someone needing comfort, hunting rubber bands to eat, or inspiring hearts, Dewey always gave his best. Some years into his library residence, people from far away were arriving to visit the Library Cat. He’d been the subject of newspaper articles, a few magazine articles, and radio commentary. Somehow, his existence reached beyond that small Iowa town and stretched all the way to Japan. A camera team and a director subsequently arrived and spent a whole day with Dewey, filming his every move. None of Dewey’s visitors or fans ever went away disappointed. And to some of them, his small furry attendance made a difference in their lives.

This is a lovely book. Something to read on a cold winter night snuggled under a warm rug with a cup of tea or hot chocolate beside you. Or read it at any other time of the year and still be warmed by Dewey’s story and those who loved him…

Marianne Plumridge

Eulogy For a Dream...

2009-07-15T09:17:00.006-05:00

(c) Marianne Plumridge, 1 February 2003

I am a child of the 1960s. Born into that turbulent decade which oversaw so many changes in the world. War, peace, civic awareness, the awakening of racial issues, the cold war, burgeoning freedoms on many levels, and personal freedoms formerly restrained by the overworked images of the previous decade: the American Dream; the perfect society; the unquestioning roles formed for us by government and church. Into all this turmoil though, came an idea whose seed was planted in the closing years of World War II: spaceflight. It started out as a whisper, and became a dream. The ‘what if we could put a man in space?’ became ‘what if we could put a man on the moon?’ Despite the personal troubles of the ‘everyman/woman’ around the globe, the world watched in awe and joy as humankind achieved its ultimate goal: flying a person to, and landing on, another cosmic body across the void of space vacuum, and then safely returning him home.

What happened to that dream?

The ‘everyman/woman’ got bored. They could not see where this ‘space travel’ would take them. After all, only a chosen few could go into space, and that didn’t include them or even their children. And NASA’s careful, methodical machinations for each flight, did little to ease the restlessness of an increasingly ‘instant gratification’ propelled populace. The funds spent on this expensive experiment were brought into question. The populace required that more important things closer to home, like health care, education, social issues, be addressed and the ‘wasted’ funds for the space program be redirected to them.

So it was, that following the near tragedy of Apollo 13, the Apollo space program was cancelled after only a few more flights. NASA concentrated the ensuing years of the 1970s into developing a reusable spacecraft: the Space Transportation System (STS), commonly called the ‘space shuttle’.

Whatever dreams still held by the few who still wanted to go into space, whose childhood heroes were astronauts instead of a transient celebrity, were redirected to the space shuttle. It would be several more years however before those dreamers realised that the shuttle was only ever going to be used for low-Earth-orbit flights, that we weren’t going back to the Moon, or any other planet, any time soon. But the space shuttle was an answer in itself. It wasn’t Star Trek’s USS Enterprise, although the test model was christened that, and it wasn’t the elegant pointy rocket ship that filled the pulps and movies in the past, but it was close. Sleek, white, majestic, powerful: it shone brilliantly in the Florida morning sunshine and it was ‘real’. To some, it must have felt like we were on the very verge of ‘going out there’.

Those children eventually grew up to become the normal, everyday ‘Joe’ or ‘Jane’ whose attention was now held by the day-to-day matters of a job, marriage, children, etcetera, while the space program learned to ‘walk’ using the space shuttle, following the 1960s headlong desperate ‘run’ to the Moon. An admirable trait really: learn what you need to know first before any more lives are lost or put at risk, and make it more inexpensive if you can. Learn to walk before you run.

Over the years, the shuttle flights seemed to lose their mysticism and most of us just followed them with half an eye or ear. We’d grown complacent yet again because lifestyles were becoming more complicated and technology more commonplace. I continued my life: joining the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) at seventeen so I could be part of the future in some small way. Life in an enclosed community in the coalfields north of my native Newcastle, NSW, wasn’t really going to do it for me, so I joined up. Learning and growing came next. Throughout it all, I continued to write my stories and poems, and start developing my artwork, and to dream.

One day in 1985, I wrote a line of words on a blank page in the middle of an almost empty exercise book, and then promptly forgot about it. In January of 1986, I went looking for some notes and found that line again. Everything else was forgotten while I gazed at that page: something in those words ‘spoke’ to me. For the next five days I feverishly worked that opening line into a four-stanza poem. On the last night, I copied the poem out onto a fresh sheet of paper, dedicated it to all the men and women who would inevitably lose their lives in our pursuance of life in space, then popped the sheet into an envelope and addressed it, sealed it and put a stamp on it - ready go out in the morning mail at work to a fanzine editor. Feeling pretty satisfied with my creative output, I went to bed. I awoke the next morning to the radio alarm blaring the news: ‘Shuttle Lost’. It was the 29th January 1986 (In America, it was still the 28th) and the space shuttle Challenger had exploded just after liftoff. My world reeled, and I looked at that sealed envelope in horror. The poem I had written was about space, and I had called it ‘Shipwreck’.

Like most, my days following the Challenger disaster were ones of shock. Endless questions arose over it, with one being topmost on everyone’s lips: “How could this happen?” Everyone assumed that because the flights seem effortless, NASA had somehow overcome all the problems from the past. The world found out that this wasn’t so. The erroneous thought was a mistake on the part of the public, not on NASA’s. Complacency had hit home again. We mourned. Found out what went wrong, fixed it, and moved on. But we never forgot. Those of us who dreamed for a better future for the human race never forgot.

The shuttle began to fly again in 1989.

It’s now the New Year in 2003. I have recently been corresponding with someone in the astronaut office at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. My husband and I promised that we’d find a teeny, tiny Godzilla figure for a member of the crew, who was a big fan, on an upcoming flight. The box we sent was acknowledged received late in the month. We exchanged emails a few times, and I shared some memories from 1986 about the Challenger. I also sent a copy of my prophetic poem, or thought I had. The piece I forwarded was the wrong one: it was one I’d written about the exhilaration of flight, called ‘Pilot’. It was a poem of freedom and hope, and thinking it was appropriate to a new year filled with new promise, I didn’t send the other. The circumstance got me to thinking though, about ‘Shipwreck’ until I was reciting it in the shower of a morning. In the end, I typed it up, along with a new dedication to the Challenger crew, and sent it the editor of our monthly newsletter for the Rhode Island Science Fiction Club. My tag line on the letter was “it seems appropriate, somehow.”

My husband and I woke this morning to the news regarding the space shuttle Columbia. After a sixteen-day flight, the shuttle re-entered Earth’s atmosphere on the return journey and exploded 200,000 feet above Dallas, Texas. The debris fell to earth in devastating finality. All aboard were killed. Another shuttle had been lost 17 years, almost to the day, after Challenger. The newsletter with my poem, ‘Shipwreck’, is issued today, and I am devastated.

The world around us is seething with massive threat and the impending war in the Middle East. People are scared. I am older now and the RAAF is many years behind me. The shock I felt along with so many others back in 1986 for the Challenger isn’t as intense with this current tragedy – even though I am still moved to tears. My husband points out that the horrific events of September 11, 2001, a scant 140 miles away, and more recent events have immured people against more tragedy. Perhaps too, back in 1986, my contemporaries and I were young and had many aspirations and hopes still before us. Losing Challenger back then was the first blow to the trek toward space within our generation, and probably the harder to bear.

How did it come to this?

Within hours of Columbia’s demise, I heard a television interview with former Apollo astronaut, Buzz Aldrin. I was disgusted and disbelieving when the anchorman asked Mr Aldrin if he “believed that the monies spent on the space program could be put to better use elsewhere, like healthcare and education and the economic crisis”. I couldn’t believe my ears. The self same argument that got the Apollo program cancelled nearly thirty years ago was being trotted out for inspection. Contrary to popular belief, the education system, healthcare and the economy didn’t visibly benefit back when Apollo was closed down – the money was just shuttled into other political agendas because narrow-minded officials couldn’t see past having won the race to the Moon. “Why should we continue? We beat the Russians.” As if that ended the argument. The opening up of the space program and other related industries like mineral and ore testing within our solar system would have brought many benefits back home to Earth. Not only that, but give the youth of all countries a goal to aim for: something higher to aspire to – together. The youth of today seems aimless as the world gets smaller every day and the choices of career and life become narrower. The opportunities for work and career in future space industries would be boundless. Also, the Russian space program hums with activity and successes with even less of a budget than that of its American counterpart. And the Russian economy is on a much worse footing than the US. Perhaps because the struggle is all the harder for them, the vision and opportunities of space are more clear. If America ever decided to abandon their program for space exploration, other countries would continue to leap forward. Air, or space, superiority would no longer be the domain of the United States of America. The people who lack vision and who suggest that America “should forget all this foolishness” must needs remember this. I don’t think I’ve met an American citizen yet, who liked to be classed as an ‘also ran’.

However, don’t despair. Shuttle Columbia is a tragic loss, but the American space program will endure: perhaps even stronger than before. The space societies of many countries of the world have been working in peaceful partnership for the last decade to go into space together. If only the troubled few would follow suit and raise their faces to the stars. We live in hope.

This hope will endure amidst the pages of the speculative writings of many authors, and the fantastical illustrations and paintings of artists who keep the trek toward space in focus for the rest of us who look up. They share the dream and will continue to inspire us.

As for the crews who crossed over without ever touching earth again, they are already home.

Apollo 1 - Challenger – Columbia
Per ardua, Ad astra
(Through adversity to the Stars)
Lest We Forget

SHIPWRECK

Once, upon a silent ship,
no sound of tread was heard.
life no longer strayed there,
through corridors obscured.

Past, upon this gloried ship,
a loyal crew once served.
Alive in pride and harmony
til tragedy occurred.

Struck a mortal blow without,
the valiant ship defied
the engulfing forces, crushing,
and in the darkness, died.

Nigh, ajar to starry space,
the static wreck appears,
a ghostly apparition
observed throughout the years.

PILOT

I have sought to sail an open sky
across the arc of blue
and harness the forces
which drive my craft
and bend them to my will.
I would soar the path of eagles
and shoot up far beyond
- till the starkness of the sun
would burn its fiery image
in the corners of my mind.
Or set a course in the ebb of night
on a tangent to a star
and skim the rim
of its bewitching light
and follow it’s path afar.

I've reposted this essay because this week it is relevant. The 20th July 2009 marks the 40th anniversary of mankind walking on the Moon in 1969. I watched it, I saw, I believed...

Jim, this is for you because you asked me to...
Hugs all 'round,
Marianne

Lighting the Way Home...

2008-12-25T22:47:00.003-05:00

The higher temperatures and the warm rain in the night washed away the majority of the snow and ice from the storm from last weekend. And today the trees raised their spindly dark fingers to a soft blue sky. Things sparkled in the glorious sun, and it could have been a breath of forthcoming spring. We basked in the sunlight as we ate our Christmas day roast and talked and laughed, and thought of friends and family spun away across the globe. Afterwards, we opened presents by the open fire. The rest of the afternoon was spent with cups of tea and dessert and vintage James Bond films on the tv. All of the stresses of previous days fell away and everything rose to mellow well being, as it should be.

One of the best Christmases we've had in recent years.

The universe has been good to us recently, so we made a conscious decision to share it this year. Bob and I happily shopped big for the community Food Bank and gave two sizeable baggies of toys and kiddies books to the Toys for Tots collection last week, and can hope we made a small difference to some families this holiday season. Odd dollars and change went to the various bell ringers and charities who asked as we passed them on the street.

Meanwhile, the lighted house pictured above has been a constant in our lives for many years. Its concentric three-tiered design makes it look like a beautiful birthday cake, and that's how we affectionately refer to it every December. The times we've had to fly somewhere in December, we usually fly home at night. Being near the airport, and under a flight path, we always look for our house as we come in low. As it is dark, we can't see it, but we always see 'the birthday cake'. And for many Decembers it has lit our way home... Just across the street and down a bit, it's the first thing we see... So I thought I'd share it with you all.

"To absent friends"

And to Uncle Keith, wherever you may be: Fair winds and following seas, Swabbie.

Merry Christmas, Happy Channukah, Blessed Be, Happy Solstice, a Cheery Kwanzaa, or whatever it is you choose to celebrate or cherish at this time of year. You are all in my thoughts.

Warmest wishes,
Marianne

Honourable Mention

2008-12-25T22:39:00.002-05:00

I got a lovely email this morning to say that my story, "Wormhole Magic" has won an Honourable Mention in the Spec the Halls contest. When I went and looked up the details, it seems that the only other prize was the winner. Yayyyy!!!

Thanks Santa and Abra.
Cheers,
Marianne

Spec the Halls - holiday fiction contest entry...

2008-11-18T11:31:00.002-05:00

This story is part of the Spec the Halls contest for speculative winter holiday-themed fiction, artwork, and poetry. You may find guidelines and links to other entries at http://www.aswiebe.com/specthehalls.html

WORMHOLE MAGIC

(First Published at www.infinityplus.co.uk 2003)

I’ve been here three months now, and I still haven’t decided what my Astrogation Thesis is going to be about. Prof. Jordan harrumphs about this every time he sends a data burst - which I thankfully receive only once a week. Whenever he prefaces a sentence with ‘Now then, William, it’s time to make a decision…” I know the usual lecture on my future, career, commitment, and profitability, is in the offing. I’ll get to it, I’ll get to it, but at the moment, it’s more fun just exploring the outpost and the Moon’s surface. So much junk is stored here - left behind no doubt by those who wanted to keep some of history intact for future use. I suppose the novelty will wear off soon enough, but I’m enjoying the freedom now. As long as I do my caretaker chores, the Foundation is happy.

I was having a great time in Section C one afternoon, going through some old plascrete crates full of something called ‘books’. At least that was what the label on the crate read. The contents were blocky and short, and stacked neatly inside. They smelled kind of musty though. Old, like the inside of well used space suits – only cleaner somehow. A moment of consideration and heavy thinking produced a solution to my puzzlement: these were paper products. I shivered in distaste, and nearly dropped the one I was holding. It fanned open. Bound sheets of fine white stuff, neatly covered with tiny text, flapped back at me. I fingered one in awe: these were once part of a living tree. Paper manufacture was one of a myriad of things that ultimately caused the creation of this outpost, Earthwatch Prime, in the first place. I felt like I was touching the distant chaotic past.

I must tell Jen about this, I thought. She’s a rapt audience when I wax lyrical about my ‘finds’: like most of us – craving for all things ‘Earth’. Besides, even with two light-years distance between us, I’d much rather talk to her than the Professor. She’s much prettier, and funnier than he. Jen’s also a lot smarter than I am, and knows exactly what she wants out of life. Professor Jordan adores her for that fact alone. I thought it was rather nice of him to assign her to be my tutor two years ago. And believe me, I’ve been availing myself of every opportunity to get ahead – one way or another.

As I carefully replaced the artifact in its receptacle, a splurge of color caught my eye. I gingerly plucked another blocky volume from the crate and inspected it. There was a small inset picture, but it didn’t look real. Painted perhaps? They did things like that back then, or so I’m told. The little ‘painting’ was primarily dark blue with white speckled all over it. Damage? Ash? I gently wiped a forefinger over it, but it didn’t come off, and the surface was not pitted. It must really be part of the picture, I surmised. There was a structure with a sharply inclined roof, all lit up from inside, and something long in the sky behind it. I looked at it for a long time, but couldn’t make believable sense of it, so I turned my attention to the label. The script was so ornate, that it was even more difficult to fathom. After some minutes, I managed to decipher “T’was The Night Before Christmas”.

“Who, or what, is Christmas?” I mused aloud.

I had my hand on the edge of the book ready to open the cover to find out, when a klaxon alarm sounded overhead. A very loud klaxon alarm. It nearly deafened me. The voice of the main computer was even louder still.

‘INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT! MAIN AIRLOCK! INTRUDER ALERT!

It took a bare second to put the book back into its crate and seal it in. Taking a deep breath, I yelled into the air. ‘Turn the alarm off, you stupid computer! I’m the only one here, for Earth’s sake! You’ve got my attention!” By then, I was running for the station control room, via the weapons locker, and to the main airlock. All the while, my mind was turning over worst-case scenarios. Had the supply ship turned up a month early? Was someone shipwrecked on the Moon’s surface outside the station? Raiders?

“Computer, scan occupants of airlock. Keep it sealed! Give me details.” I puffed out loud. Damn, I’ve gotta get more exercise.

“ONE HUMANOID BIPED AND NINE SMALLER QUADRAPEDS. THE VEHICLE OUTSIDE THE AIRLOCK IS OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN AND CONTAINS AN UNIDENTIFIABLE POWER SOURCE. THERE ARE INTER-DIMENSIONAL IRREGULARITIES.”

Oh, great! Pity the Computer couldn’t understand sarcasm, or I’d let fly with a few choice witticisms. Its description told me bloody little. Could it be Scumvrates - aliens from the Orion Sector? I was glad to have grabbed a plasma rifle instead of the skimpier stunner. Those reptilian rats were a bugger to knock out. The biped puzzled me, though: irony curled my lip, and I wondered if they’d brought an interpreter along with them. Sure, they like to be polite when they trash a place on a grab and run operation. Earthwatch was an official ‘ark’ site and protected by all the worlds in the commonwealth. Those Scumvrate bastards were just looking for trouble, and they were really, really going to find it.

I finally came to a slithering halt before the airlock door. Something big was blocking the window of the inner hatch, and an ominous pounding from the other side of it reached my ears.

“Okay, Computer. Close and seal the Ready Room behind me.” I hefted the rifle to the ready over a makeshift barricade. “Open the inner airlock door.”

Assorted hisses and clangs announced that my orders were being obeyed. Last of all, the airlock door ‘fzzzzzzzztd’ open.

A big red something snarled in the opening. “Well, it’s about time!” Nine small furry heads with sticks on top framed the doorway around it, bad-tempered curiosity written on every face. One seemed to be in ill health, as its nose was demonstrably red.

Well, they weren’t Scumvrates. Not even a close second. What filled the airlock was absolutely ludicrous. The giant in the red coat and trousers, and the silly hat – all trimmed in fluffy white stuff – was human. Tall, weighed about three hundred pounds, and grumpy as hell. Worse, he spotted me. I suppose he couldn’t help it really: I’d stupidly risen from the barricade and stood transfixed with my mouth hanging open. Was this some kind of joke?

“You!” The red and white individual bellowed, advancing on me. He brushed the barricade and my rifle aside, and grabbed me by the suit-front. I felt myself lifted up off the floor until I stood on tippy toes. Yes he was definitely human: an iron grip, burly hands, biceps of steel, chubby red cheeks, long white beard, blazing angry eyes, smelling of candy.

And he’d arrived without a spacesuit. So had his little friends. Damn. Something was way out of sync’, here.

The red-clad one was yelling again. Remotely, I thought I’d better pay attention.
“…Where are they? Where did they go?”

“Wh…who? I’m the only one supposed to be here.” Despite the shaking he was giving me, I thought I’d mastered that rather well.

“Not here, you blockhead! On Earth! The planet’s empty! Not one single soul is down there!” He shook me one more time, just to get the point across, then he let me go.

Rocking back and forward on my feet, trying to gain some balance, I just stared at him. He must be mad, or something. “Sir,” no sense in being disrespectful is there? “There hasn’t been a human living on Earth for the last two hundred years. Preservation policy forbids it.”

The intruder looked stricken. “Are you the only one left, then? You poor soul.” He then covered his eyes with his meaty hands and groaned. He appeared genuinely distressed. I ventured a wary hand to pat the broad red expanse of his shoulder.

“A question woke me. I’ve slept far too long.” He murmured from behind his hands. “Too long.”

Feeling bold, I patted his shoulder again. “Sir, who are you?” I asked quietly. I certainly didn’t want to rile him up again.

The old man, if that is what he was, stared into my eyes for a very long moment, then at his own attire, and at his creature companions. Finally he turned back to me with infinite sadness in his eyes, and whispered. “You don’t know?”

I slowly shook my head.

The intruder wiped a hand across his eyes, and his shoulders sagged in defeat. “There have been many names for me over the eons, but you can call me Kris. I’m sorry to have been such a boor, but the silence down there was nigh deafening when I awoke. All I heard was someone asking “who, or what is Christmas?”

I very nearly choked. No! It couldn’t be! It was impossible. Wasn’t it? So was a human not requiring a spacesuit on the surface of the Moon. I didn’t even want to think about the creatures he’d brought with him. I was flabbergasted. “Sir? I asked that self-same question only minutes ago.”

The old man brightened visibly. “At least my internal direction finder is still working.”

There was more mystery here than met the eye, and I found myself wanting more and more to hear his story. I smiled. “Perhaps you had better come inside, then. I guess I could use the company.”

It probably seemed a foolish move, inviting the old guy into the station like that, but curiosity had me by the scruff of the neck and wasn’t about to let go. Inexplicably, a part of me felt like a naughty child feeling the first thrill of the unknown, and another felt like I was rolling in cotton candy.

Kris beamed. “Well, thank you kindly, young man.” He reached back into the airlock and fetched out a rather large, lumpy red sack, and then shooed all the little creatures out into the spaciousness of the Ready Room proper. “Out you come, kiddies. It looks like we’ve been invited to supper. “

They didn’t look so fierce, now, in the full light. It seemed that what I’d taken to be sticks, were actually branching, pointy, bony structures attached to their furry heads. If you got too close though, it was possible to lose an eye. I fervently hoped that the computer could produce something for them to eat.

After I’d introduced myself, our little group proceeded up to the living areas on level two. As we strolled along, I noticed Kris admiring the walls of the corridors and the many technological fixtures with something akin to puzzled bewilderment. “You have an interesting…er, house…here, William.” He ventured finally. He appeared almost relieved when we reached the living quarters and oversized lounge area.

We took seats at the dining table, while the little creatures, or reindeer as he called them, went off to investigate the furnishings. I winced, and hoped they wouldn’t chew on anything important or needful, like life-support or gravity grids.

“Can I get you something to eat or drink? The food’s not great, but it’s edible.” I turned back to my guest and offered with a smile, spreading my hands.

Kris chuckled. “Well, I never leave home without a supply of vittles. What say I furnish the feast, to make up for my earlier misbehavior?”

This I had to see. “Sure.”

The old man took off his hat and tucked it into the pocket of his coat, which he then removed and hung over the back of his chair. Suspenders held up his red trousers, under which he wore a white, long-sleeved jersey. He looked like someone’s grandfather from any backwoods planet out in the galactic rim – though somewhat cleaner. Kris happily rubbed his hands together and rummaged in his sack. What emerged was a huge woven hamper, and the smells emanating from it instantly made my mouth water. Out of the sack, he also took a large red cloth and laid it over the table. From the hamper, he began to pull an almost endless progression of hot goods and platters, identifying them for me as he laid them on the table. After a moment, the memory of the computer’s assessment of ‘inter-dimensional irregularities’ began to take on a deeper meaning. Nearly as deep as the food hamper. I seriously entertained the thought that Kris had a tiny wormhole in there, feeding him. One that small could probably make several fortunes for the creator. I angled my head, trying to see inside it.

“Oww!”

I rubbed the back of my hand where Kris had smacked it with a metal spoon. I hadn’t realized I’d reached for the hamper at all, until that stinging thwack. How did one roast a pot anyway, I grumped, getting back to his culinary litany? Something stirred in the back of my mind, and I vaguely wondered what it would take to make Kris part with his hamper. If the Moon had a title deed of ownership, and I had access to it just then, I’d probably offer it to the old guy in exchange for that innocent looking basket. Not only would it be an answer to my career and success, but it would possibly feed me for the rest of my life, as well. Somehow though, I don’t think Kris would accept the offer – he didn’t seem to need or want anything at all, except maybe companionship.

I sighed and shook my head, as Kris finally brought out a steaming red jug and two red mugs. He appeared to really identify with that color. Each to his own, I guess.

“And at last, Eggnog.” He announced with a flourish. Filling both mugs, he presented one to me then appeared to think for a moment. “What’s the date?” He inquired.

“Hmm, GM 837 – 20th, I think.” I replied, sniffing cautiously at my mug. Then I caught him staring blankly at me. “Oh! Computer, what’s today’s date – old Earth calendar?”

ACCORDING TO OLD EARTH STANDARD CALENDAR, TODAY IS 24TH DECEMBER, OF THE YEAR 3604.

Kris seemed to beam, twinkle and sparkle all at once, he was so pleased. “Perfect!” He announced. “Merry Christmas, William!” And with that, the old man drained his mug.

I took a sip of mine, and then a deeper mouthful. Grief, that was good! I let him refill the mug again, before asking, “Is this it? Is this what Christmas is?” I indicated the laden table with an unoccupied hand.

“Ohh, ho, ho, no.” My companion chuckled. “It all began for humanity a very long time ago. Would you like to hear about it?”

I thought he’d never ask! I nodded eagerly, but had to wait while he fed the reindeer, before Kris settled back in his chair.

“Well, now. I’ve been around a mighty long time. I slept in the Earth with many other spirits of my kind, only going out into the world, now and then, between times. One event, or another would waken us, or humans would get too loud in their dealings, and we’d have to take steps. Well there came a time when a child was born. A very special child, on a very special night, a very long time ago in a small town called Bethlehem….”

I listened, totally entranced, while the old man wove an oral history of the human race. I was unashamed of the tears that laid silent tracks on my cheeks when he told of the death of that special child, and what it had portended for humanity. The journey had begun then, and was still in progress – only we didn’t know it. He made it sound real, and worthy, and mighty in spirit.
Kris went on to explain how Christmas came to be: “I woke one evening to find a man dying in the snow. His name was Kris Kringle, and he had a mighty errand to perform, but an accident made sure that this would never happen. He was crying out in despair with his body and soul – and that is why I heard him. He died there, while I held his hand, and I comforted him with the promise that I would finish his errand for him. So I became him for that night, and I delivered the items in his sack. It was a pitifully easy thing to do, but I distributed every wrapped package to every intended recipient, and then some. And I must say, that I enjoyed it so much that I got a bit creative with giving the humans in the village things to treasure: even if it was just a memory, or a smile, or enough to eat. Anyway, I listened in the next day – a day in celebration of the birth of that child I mentioned before, incidentally – and how they mourned when the body of the real Kris Kringle was discovered in the forest. I read in the minds of some of the people of how they vowed to see Kris’s sacrifice and compassion kept alive the next year, by doing the same thing in his honor. I was touched. They did it too, you know. I checked, and helped where I could, and whispered suggestions into specific ears. It became a habit after that, I suppose. One I really didn’t want to break. And I became stronger as the rumor of the event spread across the continent and the seas, and people helped keep it alive by giving to those they loved, and helping those in need.” Kris stopped briefly. “How’s the turkey, son?”

I looked down at my plate, at the inroads I’d made into the feast. Once I’d gotten past the anatomical resemblance the ‘turkey’ had to a semi-intelligent alien species on a planet in the Interior, I’d tucked in with gusto. Where did one get such food that tasted so good and looked so exotic? I finally looked back up and grinned. “Tastes like chicken.”

“I’m not surprised!” Kris rolled his eyes and harrumphed a bit.

I blinked a bit in shock. Did he really know what ‘chicken’ tasted like, let alone what it was? That old adage was a running joke where I came from, and usually alluded to ‘I don’t know for sure, but it tastes great.’ I gazed at my companion with new respect, as he got on with his story.

“It was fine for many years”, he said: then his voice grew more somber. “But progress shot forward in both technological, and spiritual senses. Over time, the meaning and spirit of what Christmas was really about, got lost.” Kris looked very tired and old just then. “When this happened, I slept longer and longer, and then didn’t wake up at all. Rapid change just took over, and people forgot in all the rush.” He looked up at me and smiled. “And then you asked your question, and I woke up and came looking for you.”

“Wow.” It was all I could manage just then. The magnitude of his story made me feel very small. I looked Kris over for a very long moment, absorbing his costume and accoutrements. Finally, I just had to ask: “Kris, have you always looked like you do now?”

The big guy chuckled his peculiar ho-ho-ho-ing laugh. “No, William. I change with people’s perceptions and with their fashionable trends. Thankfully, they’ve let me keep my beard, and sent me Rudolph to lead the reindeer team in recent years.” He averred fondly – the little creature with the ruddy nose wandered over and nuzzled his hand before bounding off again. Kris drew himself up to his full awesome height, and sniffed disdainfully. “What’s wrong with red anyway? I like it very much.”

I laughed. “It’s a grand color, Kris. And it suits you very well. Hmm, I guess I should tell you what happened while you slept.”

The old man sat forward with an eager expression on his red cheeks. “That would be most gratifying, William. Yes, please.”

“Well, probably several centuries after you went into your long sleep, the Earth was starting to really deteriorate physically. Overpopulation, pollution, and waste took its toll, and it started to die. Not as many children were born each year, species of animals and plants disappeared, and so on. The ecology couldn’t keep up under the onslaught of humanity’s foibles, no matter how much we tried to fix it. It was too little, much too late.”

A sudden bleakness crossed my companion’s features at these disclosures. I felt his discomfort enough to ask what was wrong.

“No wonder I had no energy and couldn’t wake up.” He noted broodingly. “If Earth was dying, then so were we.”

I took ’we’ to mean the fellow spirits he mentioned earlier. It was hard to swallow around the sudden lump in my throat. And I thought I knew helplessness. Now I knew better. Kris waved me to continue after a moment.

“Well, we’d managed to formulate wider ranging exploratory spaceflight by that stage, and the world government decided to try to co-opt everything into extending our reach by promoting colonial settlements on other worlds. The discovery of temporary wormholes in the space-time continuum, and the development of the Ellison Drive enabled us to travel farther and faster than we ever had before. Control was a bit wild at first, but the scientists eventually got it under control, under budget and viable. Short high energy bursts and a tame wormhole got the first interstellar spaceship out of the solar system, and to a planet in the Orion Belt. We called it Gaia – the rest is history. Worldgov’ evacuated the Earth, and put a satellite cordon around it, forbidding landing there. On the planet surface, teams spent twenty years replanting anything they could lay their hands on, and cloning animals to be released. Then the homeworld was left on its own to regenerate. That was nearly two hundred years ago. It’ll be another four hundred or so before the Commonwealth government lets anyone move back home again. This station, Earthwatch Prime, was built here on the Moon to house some of the artifacts from planetside, and to monitor the status of re-growth progress.” I tied up my nutshell version of Earth history, and smiled at my guest. I was startled to find Kris gazing at me in stunned amazement.

“You mean you’re not the only human left? That there’re more of you?” He demanded, echoing his earlier belligerence.

“No, no, no! Humans just moved out for the duration! The central seat of government is on Gaia – where I was born. There are at least 12 billion, or so, of us spread across twenty-nine worlds. I’m just on contracted assignment as Caretaker here for a year, so I can finish studying for my Astral Navigation degree.” I spread my hands in apology, for letting him think that humans had died out. Oh, grief!

“Well,” he mused thoughtfully, after a few calming breaths, “It explains why I can’t hear them, and maybe why Christmas has been forgotten.”

I had an inspiration about then. “But it’s such a beautiful story, and you have to tell it again: to anyone who will listen. Look, how do you feel about public speaking? My professor at Gaia Central University could help you reach people. Earth history and culture is very, very popular among the worlds - everyone dreams of one day going ‘home’, even though they never can. Humans aren’t as long lived as you obviously are. Maybe you could bring the story to them. Then you’d hear ‘them’ – the people - again.”

Kris appeared to be thinking it over, methodically stroking his beard while he did so. His blue eyes blazed with sharp speculation. “How far is it, to this Gaia?”

“If you had no problem getting here on the strength of a question, then I’d say that you’d have no problem getting there, or anywhere else. How do you navigate?” I pressed eagerly.

“By thoughts and feelings – the stronger the better. I believe that I find thoughts on Christmas to be the best pin-pointers. I sort of browse around when I get where-ever it is I arrive at.” Kris supplied, catching some of my excitement. “I’ll do it.” He finished firmly, grinning, and swatted me on the back with one of his meaty paws.

The impact nearly threw me off my feet. Rubbing the offended spot, I half grimaced, half grinned back at him. He’d be all right.

“Good, I’m going to send you to a friend who is a caretaker on another station, and then she will send you on to Gaia, and the Professor.” Plans ran wild in my head. Even the reindeer must have caught on to it, because they milled around us excitedly, butting gently with their horns, er, antlers.

Kris and I shook hands on it, beaming at each other.

“I will have to return to Earth periodically, to renew my energy with it, and to sleep.” He said gravely. “Would you mind if I dropped in to visit you now and then?”

I grinned. “Not at all. It would break up my study quite nicely. Besides, it gets to be too quiet here, some days. Please come, you’ll be very welcome.”

Kris half-turned and snapped a crisp command at the table. The hamper rose on four spindly legs, and stepped neatly over the debris of our feast. Its large handle split into two and became arms ending with hands and long dexterous fingers. They deftly shoved platters and things back into its open maw. I still couldn’t see the wormhole inside, and I wondered if it was because my eyes were bulging so hard they hurt. I tried very hard not to have hysterics just then.

While Kris oversaw this operation, I excused myself and quickly ducked down to the hydroponics dome. When I came back, I’d finally gotten my sanity under control, and I presented him with something. It was a transparent plastic tube filled with soil from Earth, some leaves and twigs and pebbles: a little bit of everything. I had tied a flower to it with a bit of long grass. I felt a bit awkward, and shuffled a bit in explanation. “It’s from Earth. So you can take a little bit of it with you, when you go away. Merry Christmas, Kris.”

He looked gobsmacked, and very touched. When he suddenly hugged me, I think he surprised both of us. I felt slightly ashamed of my earlier covetous thoughts about his food hamper.

“Merry Christmas, William. And thank you.”

“You get ready to go, and I’ll call Jen.” I wasn’t even going to try to explain all this to her. Let her find her own adventure. For the life of me, I couldn’t stop smiling.

Kris was soon back outside the airlock, settled into his vehicle, strange as is was, and all the little reindeer were nestled into their harness, with the red-nosed one in front. Funny, I could see his little nose glowing very brightly even from the control-room window.

I called Jen.

“Hi Will, how’re things?” Came her cheerful voice over the vid-com. “Studying hard?”

“Are you?” I grinned back. Aside from being my tutor, Jen was also a fellow classmate at Gaia U. - studying for her astrogation thesis. The only thing different was, she knew exactly what to write for hers. Jen’s current tenure away from Uni’ was a beacon point space station – hence the two-light-year distance. “Listen, I’m sending you a visitor. He’s really nice and quite harmless, but he’s got one hell of a story. I really think you’d get a kick out of hearing it.”

Jen’s face looked out at me with a quizzical expression that clearly said: “am I going to regret this?” Her puzzlement cleared, and her mouth made an ‘o’ shape when I added: “It’s about Earth.”

Then we got to the silly bit. I took a deep breath, and went on. “Okay, I need you to close your eyes and think hard about something you’ve always wanted, but never got. Now, say this: what is Christmas? Repeat it.” Taking my eyes off Jen parroting my words, I saw Kris give me a ‘thumbs up’.

His ‘ship’ swooped spaceward and disappeared in a flash of white light. What wouldn’t I give to write a thesis about that? I longed wistfully after the magic hamper for a moment, and then smiled, ever practical. I probably wouldn’t have been able to figure out how it worked on my own anyway. And I was still kind of dealing with its sudden sprouting of appendages.

When I looked back at the vid-screen, Jen’s image was gazing out at me in exasperation. I heard a sudden bang and clatter from her end of the line, and saw her duck.

“Crap! Something just landed on the control-room roof!” She frantically threw back at me. Then her gaze was drawn off to the side by something. Her control room window, I hazarded. Jen’s mouth dropped open. “Gack!! He’s not wearing a space-suit!”

“Jen! Jen!” I had to call her several times to get her attention. She finally responded, wide-eyed. “It’s okay, really.” I told her. “Send him on to Prof. Jordan when he wants to leave. Merry Christmas, love. Call me later.” With that, I smiled and ended the transmission.

Then I got quietly drunk - happy, but drunk.

When I staggered out into the dining area the next morning, I found a small pile of packages, a little tree with colored balls on it, and a hot jug of eggnog on the table. Sipping the eggnog from a familiar red mug, I opened the packages. There were a number of data chip texts with titles like “Wormholes for Dummies”, “Transdimensional Travel” and an “Inter-dimensional Irregularities and Wormhole Travel: Theory and Practice” by one Kris Kringle; a real book like the one down in Section C, labeled “A Christmas Carol”, and some music discs tagged ‘Christmas Carols’. Grinning to myself, I began thinking about my next data-burst to Professor Jordan, and my decision to write my thesis on ‘Inter-dimensional Irregularities and Travels As Used by a Christmas Spirit.” Prof. Jordan probably wouldn’t believe me at first, but changing that would only be a matter of time. I raised my mug and toasted the Earth rising over the Moon horizon in the dining room window.

“Merry Christmas, old girl. It seems that there’s hope for us yet.”

The End

Fault Line...a Book Review

2008-10-31T14:18:00.003-05:00

FAULT LINE
By Barry Eisler

A Ballantine Books Hardcover; ISBN 978-0-345-50508-8; $25.00 USD; 306 pages;

DUE FOR RELEASE - 24 FEBRUARY 2009.

Reviewed by Marianne Plumridge – October 2008

There’s nothing like misunderstandings, misassumptions, personal tragedy, and a whole bucketful of grudges to stir an already dangerous mix. Worse if it involves family.

Ben Treven, cold, cynical and a damn fine tool of an undercover operative for the USA is called home by his younger brother because someone is trying to kill him. Baby brother Alex, a brilliant young attorney and a typical yuppie is worried. His client is killed in a situation that just doesn’t ring right, and Alex’s contact at the Patents and Trademarks office in Virginia dies just a few hours later, then a home invasion attack on Alex himself rings major alarm bells in his mind. Virtually alone in the world and unsure who to trust, Alex calls his big brother whom he hasn’t spoken to in ten years. There are unresolved issues between them, a massive amount of anger and resentment, and a truckload of simmering grief. There were too many deaths and years between them to allow them to be comfortable around each other. But Ben had always saved his baby brother’s butt and worn the consequences. Why should now be any different? Add a beautiful woman that they both desire to the mix and things begin to smolder. Sarah Hosseini, a lovelyl Iranian/American who is a first year associate with the law firm Alex works for, assists him with the patenting of the Obsidian technology. The complex computer program that can disrupt networks is what everybody seems to want, and covert operatives are ready to kill innocent people just for knowing it exists. Ben, Alex, and Sarah don’t know who is behind it all, but events come to a head when the mole in the law firm Alex and Sarah work for lets slip one vital piece of information. The threat is more close to home than they suspected, and Alex must ransom the information he has for the lives of his brother and Sarah. Suspicions abound, trusts are broken, remade, and shifted again, and the pace is hot.

The familial strangeness between Ben and Alex goes back years to when their sister, Katie, was killed in an auto accident. She had been the loving lynch pin that held them all together, and with her tragic death, the family began a downward spiral of disintegration. Accusations of blame abounded at first, but the later retractions fell by the wayside as the damage had already been done. The difference in their ages and unspoken grief drove a wedge into Alex and Ben’s already rocky brotherly relationship that should have brought them closer together. Less than a year after Katie died, Ben dropped out of Stanford College and joined the army. Their father committed suicide one month later because he felt that Katie needed him where ever she was now. It was left to Alex to nurse their mother through her battle with cancer and the last years of her life.

Through the current story, those years and those deaths are still tearing Ben and Alex apart. If battling the enemy weren’t bad enough, and killing the Russian mob hoods that came after Alex, Ben must face down the constant insults and animosity from both Sarah and Alex. He can’t seem to make them understand that the bright lives they live are precarious things and the dark deeds that are done to keep them alive, whole, and free have to be done by someone able to do them. Someone very like him. And while information must be free…freedom comes with a price.

'Fault Line' is the first stand-alone thriller for Barry Eisler, a former CIA operative-turned-bestselling-novelist. Eisler has had major success with his John Rain book series for Signet, but this is his first Ballantine outing. The writing doesn’t lack anything though. The characterizations are deep, whether they be likeable or not, who ring deeply in the reader’s imagination. Well written ‘place’ and atmosphere carry the smart pace of the story, as well as the snappy, sure feel for dialog and scene set up. Eisler has written a great techno-based thriller with a lot of action and heart that won’t boggle the average reader. He is a pro at feeding the reader just enough technical details without derailing the story or dropping said reader out of the book, whether it be weapons or computer oriented. The transitions are very smooth.

Well done, Mr Eisler. I thoroughly enjoyed 'Fault Line', as I’m sure others will too.

Cheers,
Marianne

PS: I have the ARC (advanced Reading Copy) of Fault Line and am willing to send it to a Barry Eisler fan who can’t wait until the February 2009 release of the book. First in, first served with a name and address can have it.

SHORT NOTES FROM BOUCHERCON 2008

2008-10-16T10:03:00.002-05:00

I attended many panel discussions at Bouchercon, but these few are the ones I kept notes on. It doesn’t mean that the other panels weren’t notable, but I enjoyed listening to them rather than taking notes about subjects I already know a good bit about. It was nice to hear my theories confirmed or a fresh outlook on them. All of the panelists were knowledgeable and the Mediators took their jobs very seriously indeed, giving structure and coherent direction to the topic at hand. I must admit to ducking out of a couple of afternoon panels to fetch much needed coffee to offset the ‘mid-afternoon droopies’. I did take notes of authors’ works though, that I wanted to follow up later – the list is getting rather long. Meanwhile, here are the short notes…

STOP, I’M ALREADY DEAD! – Keeping a Series Interesting
(Friday, 10am Panel)

Perpetrators…er, panelists: Jeff Cohen, Mark de Castrique, Felicia Donovan, Jerry Healy, and Hope McIntyre.

Jerry Healy’s nutshell ideas:
- Include cutting edge/controversial topics that don’t date. Adding a non-fiction element that can lead to greater media promotions: ie, a topic that fills newspaper headlines rather than some tiny item buried in page nine of any given paper. Apparently the controversial and topical nature of one of Jerry’s recent novels was enough to make him an ‘expert’ and put him on the talk show circuit and major newspaper reviews.

- Work a ‘fish out of water’ or ‘stranger in a strange land’ scenario. It gives the reader a greater empathy with the protagonist or character undergoing said scenario.

- Conflicts throughout the plot, complicated protagonist and characters. If it doesn’t’ have conflict or complications, it’s going to be BORING.

Felicia Donovan:
- Remember to inject humour to balance seriousness. Unrelieved seriousness can be wearing on the reader.

- Keep characters REAL. Nothing irks a reader as much as unrealistic characters or characters who have a distinct ‘nature’ then do something completely ‘out of character’ just so the writer can fulfill a difficult plot point.

Mark de Castrique:
- Strong characters and settings will keep your reader riveted.

- Milk real situations, because sometimes reality is stranger than fiction. Collect memories, photos for physical appearance reference, and snip article clippings of newspaper/magazine stories that tweak your interest, or may make good fodder for future stories.

Hope McIntyre:
- Like your characters and know them well. Give them depth. You will be sharing your journey with them for some time.

- For characters, don’t give all details all at once in big gobs. Peel back layers as you would an onion or the petals on a rose – each should be revealing, and reveal something new as the story goes on.

THINGS TO REMEMBER:
- The passage of time between books varies for various reasons. Aging a character is up to the author, but if you’re planning a long series, age the protagonist only a couple of months at a time perhaps. Mind you, if you’re writing one book per year, time is spinning on for you, but not for your character – timelines would need adjusting in the books, one would think.

- Never kill a cat!!

WHO ARE YOU? – Making Your Characters Believable.
(Friday, 11:30am panel)

Perpetrators…er, panelists: Alison Jannsen, Libby Fischer Hellmann, Victoria Houston, Craig Johnson, Julia Pomeroy.

THINGS I LEARNED FROM THIS PANEL:
- Your own memories and perceptions can create great stories.

- Write what you know about – the breadth and depth might surprise you.

- A good character will write his/her own story and directs the plot in doing so.

- Suit the character to the appropriate setting, or the dissonance will jar the reader out of the story.

- Include flaws and idiosyncrasies that give each character depth.

- Make the characters grow with each successive book so that there is growth, maturity, yearning, fulfillment, new horizons, etc.

- Decide how to age or not to age your characters.

HARD NOT TO KILL: No Sidewalks Doesn’t Mean No Action
(Friday, 1:30pm, panel)

Perpetrators…er, panelists: Elsie (L.C.) Hayden, Craig Johnson, Deborah LeBlanc, Jon Talton, Rebecca Tope.

THINGS I LEARNED FROM THIS PANEL:
- Figure out your protagonist’s place in the community you are writing about, it will formulate how they behave, what they think, how they think, and their personality.

- Have your protagonist ‘seen’ by other characters, and describe him/her in their own words (voices). It compiles a more complete portrait of the protagonist, and informs the reader about the characters giving the description: ie, their prejudices, likes, dislikes, behaviour, affinities, loyalties, etc.

- If you have a strong protagonist, then you need to portray an equally strong antagonist. Both need to be well rounded to be believable.

- Write the full spectrum of human behaviour. Writing extremes in characters will most likely turf the reader out of the story, while the reader works hard to suspend disbelief.

Interesting, huh?
Cheers,
Marianne

BOUCHERCON 2008...a Convention Review!

2008-10-13T12:18:00.015-05:00

BOUCHERCON 2008 – CHARMED TO DEATH!

Well, I’ve been greatly anticipating this year’s Bouchercon in lovely Balitmore – as much for it being my first mystery convention as well as being my first Bouchercon. I’d only been reading about them for the last few years and dreaming wistfully. My husband and I hopped a train south and arrived early afternoon on the Thursday to find the convention in full swing. I was attending, while he was going to do a marathon tour of art galleries and museums in both Baltimore and Washington – he needs inspiration too!

I missed the panel with author Wendy Roberts on it, but managed to catch the one with my blog-buddy Cornelia Read on it. However: no Cornelia! According to some ladies in the audience, she had to cancel the con at the last moment due to a health problem. Dang: that was disappointing. I’d been really looking forward to swapping funny stories with her in the bar. Get well soon, Miss C. – I missed you! So, that being the case, I darted across to the Jungle Red Writers (mystery author blogsite) panel and really enjoyed that. At that stage, I was already boggled by the size of the panel audiences: some had standing room only! That rarely happens at the Science Fiction Conventions I usually attend. I was really tired about this time and starting to feel the inward despondency that I felt at my first American convention years ago: I didn’t know anybody. So I started reading lots of name badges and searching faces. And so spent two days looking for my friend Patty Smiley, whom I’d never met face to face before. You’d be surprised at just how many people no longer resemble their publicity photos! I was tooling down the main corridor to the book room on Friday when I happened past a trio of men talking. I gazed at them and did a double take. The middle guy had distinctive eyes that gave me pause. I excused myself and asked him if he was Jim Born (aka, James O. Born, Miami police procedural author). He looked down – he wasn’t wearing his name tag – and then up, surprised. “How did you know?” he said. I grinned “Your eyes and upper face bone structure, and your shirt”. We both looked down at his shirt which sported a Florida State logo. Come on, you gotta put clues together when you’re at a mystery con! We chatted for a few minutes, and he remembered me from my comments on the Naked Authors blog and also from having sent him some NASA info in the past. Jim is also a big science fiction fan and loves my hubby’s artwork. I promised to introduce them later. Jim has read all of John Scalzi’s SF books and my Bob paints the covers, so he was chuffed. After that, I ran into a couple of SF fans that I knew, and immediately felt much better.

Convention Baggie full of Goodies...

I didn’t spend much money at all in the Bookroom/Dealers Room all weekend. I felt that it would be like a bursting dam if I did. One book would be the beginning of a huge avalanche – and I didn’t fancy dragging it all home on the train. Books are HEAVY. The fabulous convention baggie with all of its book, magazine, and t-shirt contents already weighed a ton and would take days of mooching through the reading material when I got home. I did however, discover a vintage Baynard Kendrick “Duncan MacLain – Blind Detective” novel which I duly purchased and promptly read after a victory lap around the Bookroom. Kendrick’s novels are hard to find, but by gum, they’re a damned good read. Witness bleary-eyed me the next two days.

Patty and Me...
Saturday dawned and Bob tooled off to forage for breakfast and art, while I tootled on down to the lavishly food-appointed Hospitality suite. I was sitting with my coffee and yoghurt, people watching when a name tag on the balcony above caught my eye. I stood up and said “Patty! There you are.” She blinked and looked down, and then hurried down to say hi. Finally, I got to meet the lovely and talented Patricia Smiley face to face. She writes the Tucker Sinclair series and is blog-leader on the Naked Authors site. Patty also likes my recipes, and is, strangely enough, partial not only to making my fruitcake, but eating it. We had a great chat over breakfast, and then, full of enthusiasm, she dragged me off to meet people. I love this woman to death. Patty introduced me thus: “Oh, *** you must meet Marianne Plumridge. She’s working on her first mystery novel, and she is also a wonderful artist. Marianne also comments on Naked Authors.”…Or variations thereof. And then I got to mention about my book reviews, etc. Patty made everyone give me their business card, and I was mortified to have to admit that I’d already used up the four of mine that were in my card case. I somehow missed packing more. I spent the rest of the weekend scribbling my blog address for anyone who asked. They were all so good natured about it. These people were a lot of fun and so gracious. Patty had to disappear for her panel, and I cruised a bit more.

Remember what I said about people no longer resembling their publicity photos? Well, I’d been looking for a gorgeous red-head while trying to spot Patty, until Jim Born put me right by informing me she’d gone blonde. The heads up really helped, Jim, no pun intended.

Hank Phillippi Ryan and Me...

So, I got to meet the fabulous Hank Phillippi Ryan who is an investigative reporter out of of Boston as well as an Agatha Award winning author; Carolyn Hart, author of the Bailey Ruth mysteries; JoAnna Carl author of the Chocoholic mysteries; Louise Ure, whom I chat to on blog comments lists; Karen E. Olson; and Jerry Healey and a whole plethora of other people that morning. Thanks so much, Patty.

Reading passing name badges made me just a bit awestruck as there were so many I knew from browsing bookshelves and reading magazines and reviews. A very brilliant constellation of stars, to be sure.

Patty, Hank, and me....

Main corridor of the convention hall - which looks about a quarter busy than it actually was!

It was really, really crowded most of the time, but the orderly line you see here is everyone lining up to get books signed by Lawrence Block. Which brings me to...

Lawrence Block signing books for fans....

Jim Born got to talking to my hubby, Bob, and invited us both to the Berkley party on Saturday night in the bar. What a great party! I got to meet a few extra people, and we ran into some we already knew. Apparently Claire Eddy from TOR Books had already run into Bob and he’d told her I was writing a novel, bless his heart. So when I met her at the party she asked me about it. I gave her a short run down, and Claire must have heard something that tweaked her interest, as she asked to read the finished manuscript. I know Claire from the SF conventions and our many years working with TOR, and I know full well not to expect ANYTHING at this stage of my writing career, but WHOOHOO anyway. It was a nice boost to my otherwise humble ego.

Bob and Jim Born...

Claire Eddy and I...

Other things I did, saw, or people I met:

- I attended the huge opening reception on the Thursday night and got to see many awards presented. The Barry’s, the Macavity’s, and the Crimespree Magazine awards. Major author Laura Lippman and convention guest of honor welcomed us and gave a great speech. Toastmaster, Mark Billingham, who is an brilliant English mystery author as well as a leading professional standup comedian was a total hoot.

- I talked to several authors in passing, and lunched by chance with an absolutely lovely lady called Maggie Toussaint. Maggie writes across genres from romance to mystery and suspense. We traded information. I will be ordering at least one of her books this week, and am looking forward to reading it.

- I forced myself not to say perkily “I’m a writer!” at every given opportunity. Apparently this is what newbies and first time convention goers say when asked. Fully aware of my few pro publishing sales – in a totally different field – I tried to be diginified and say “I write”, and then proceed to tell briefly about my few articles, short stories, and my ongoing book reviews. I spent a lot of time scribbling my blogsite address. Curse the missing business cards!

- One thing I found was that everyone is eager to share news and information, laugh together over things, and genuinely enjoy each others company at this convention. I started as many conversations as were started with me and thoroughly enjoyed them all. It was really heartening.

- I have soooo many books to buy and read now, and have started bookmarking author websites and blogs to peruse on a regular basis – just from listening to people talk on panels or talking to them personally.

- I went to the Anthony Awards Brunch on the Sunday and chatted over lunch to two lovely English ladies. One was Natasha Cooper, author of the Trish Maguire novels. I scribbled down my blog address yet again and she did the same for her website as she too had run out of cards.

- Received a copy of a Lawrence Block novel with my lunch, and was given an ARC (advanced reading copy) of Barry Eisler’s new novel, FAULT LINE, on the way out of the brunch. I read Eisler’s on the way home on the train and it isn’t even due out till next February. Gotta figure out the book reviewing policies on that one, as I WILL review it, it was so good.

There is so much to digest. Most of all, though, I really want to get cracking on writing my own novel.

So, cheers for now,
Marianne

Metal Gear Solid...A Book Review

2008-07-09T15:45:00.005-05:00

METAL GEAR SOLID
The Official Novel of the Thrilling Konami Video Game Created by Hideo Kojima.

By Raymond Benson

A Del Rey Trade Paperback Original; ISBN-13: 978-0-345-50328-2 (pbk); 321 Pages; Price: $12.95

Reviewed by Marianne Plumridge

Two babies are cloned from the legendary soldier and dictator, Big Boss. One grows up to become a US black ops raider who takes out his ‘father’ as a member of FOXHOUND, before retiring to the Alaskan wilderness at the age of 33. The other is a renegade British spy who disappears in the Middle East, is rescued and then also joins FOXHOUND as an operative. Solid Snake is the American retiree called back to deal with his ‘brother’, Liquid Snake, when the latter glues together a terrorist team from the splintered remnants of FOXHOUND and an army of brainwashed genome soldiers, and threatens nuclear annihilation. Liquid’s lieutenants are formidable: Psycho Mantis – a Russian with powerful psychic abilities that keeps the genome troops under control, and distinct advantage in psychological warfare; Sniper Wolf – a Kurdish woman from Iraq who is sexy and lethal, and unparalleled with a sniper rifle, who can control the wolf and other canines; Decoy Octopus – is a Mexican master of disguise, a metamorph who can become anyone or anything and speak a dozen languages; Vulcan Raven – half Alaskan Indian and half Inuit Eskimo, is a veritable giant with Shamanist magic at his control; lastly, there is Revolver Ocelot – a Russian expert gunfighter and interrogator specialist. They have taken over the secret nuclear warfare facility on Shadow Moses Island in the Aleutians, and Solid Snake must go in and take them down. Alone.

Snake’s objective is to rescue DARPA Chief Donald Anderson and the President of ArmsTech, Kenneth Baker. A complication is that the niece of Snake’s controller/commander, Colonel Roy Campbell, is also a hostage on the island and may possibly be a loose canon that gets in Snake’s way. Injected with an anti-freezing agent and armed with only a 45 caliber Mark 23 SOCOM gun and a Codec communications device – that comes with a small Greek chorus of listening experts – Snake sneaks onto the island via submarine and gets ready to take down the bad guys, disarm the nukes, rescue the hostages, and save the world. Piece of cake…

And so begins possibly one of the longest, back and forth, to and fro, up and down, black ops rescues in fictional history.

The pace, of course, reflects video game play, with protagonist repeatedly ‘finding’ things that are helpful along the way; like ammunition for his gun, mines, several caches of Chaffee grenades, etcetera. Coincidental plot devices, like Solid Snake overhearing snatches of guards’ conversations that tell him exactly where his prey is located or things he needs to know right at that moment, abound. Meanwhile the men he is sent to rescue just happen to die of natural causes or results of their wounds right after they tell Snake everything he needs to know to continue his mission. Being dead, they don’t affect slowing Snake, nor the plot, down. Continuing the pattern of video game logic of acquiring talismans or ‘handy power items’, Snake manages to stock up on ammunition, pass keys, and valuable information from just about everyone he encounters and quite often defeats or kills.

The author’s extensive background in writing technical laden scenarios in ‘action hero fiction’ was made for writing this narrative. It positively wallows in superfluous expository technical dialog – usually supplied by the experts listening in to Snake’s activities on the Codec. Even if it is a prerequisite of the videogame itself, Benson supplies the details with aplomb and a nice touch of deft humor.

However, Snake is in the middle of it and isn’t being told everything he needs to know to complete his mission. Secrets abound on both sides of the equation, and not everything is as it seems – which probably accounts for a lot of the mis-directional toing and froing. To his surprise, there is at least one ‘mole’ with a personal agenda amongst his personal ‘Greek chorus’; and Snake isn’t sure about the rest. Throw a psychotically lethal stealth ninja into the mix on the island, intent on battling Snake to the death, and things get a whole lot more complicated.

Of course, the whole thing culminates in the deadly face off between Liquid and Solid (Snake) and the realization that our hero Snake has been manipulated all along by both sides – good and bad. And although there is a happy ending of sorts – the story doesn’t end there. You’ll just have to read it and find out.

The author has managed to create a likeable protagonist using the singular dimensional material he was given to work with. It’s a great romp with a touch of humor and actually manages to give the video game some fictional ballast that works. The novelization of ‘Metal Gear Solid’ isn’t something I’d recommend to serious readers of fiction, but those who play the game will find it a satisfactory and fun accessory to their gaming pleasure. Then again, serious readers who read Tom Clancy or Clive Cussler thrillers might get some fun out of this book too: it’s well written and a lot of fun.

Marianne

Personal Note: My husband reminds me that I was introduced to Hideo Kojima at the Toho Pictures after event party for the Premiere of ‘Godzilla: Final Wars’ movie in Hollywood in 2004. A very nice young man, as I remember.

The Art Corner - After the Fire and Grand Reopening

2008-06-15T14:01:00.022-05:00

In late April of this year, our dear friends Wendy and Charles "Chuck" Lang fell afoul of an aging electrical wire that finally gave way inside their charming framing store and gallery, The Art Corner, in Salem, Massacheussetts. At around 9pm, after the store closed, the slowly smouldering wire burst into flame and consumed the entire upstairs of the shop. It took a good hour for the Fire Dept to get it under control, but do so they did - even rescuing the goldfish which miraculously all survived, except two little ones. The store itself has been in business for 30 years, 18 of which Wendy was the manager there until she purchased it from the owner three years ago. She and Chuck, and their able assistants redecorated, held regular exhibits from local artists, exhibited photos from old Salem, and had artist friends around to 'paint in the window'. Bob and I are two of the regulars who do paint performances, so when Wendy asked us back to paint again on the new premises, we leapt at the chance to show our support and just have fun with two friends who've been through a lot this year...

This is the new shop that The Art Corner has moved into until it is finally decided what to do with the old premises.

Wendy, behind the counter serving a regular customer in the new store. A true creative is our Wendy, one of her own paintings sits in the top right hand corner of the photo below.

Looking over the top of my paintbox and resident cute panda painting, you can see the opposite corner of the shop where my husband, Bob, is painting. The gentleman off the right is a very patient customer. Through the door at the back, is the snug workshop. As lovely as the new/temporary premises are, the space is actually significantly smaller than the original store, but oh so light and airy...

Charles "Chuck" Lang working next to Bob on a painting of his own. Behind them are a lot of the antique frames that were saved from the nearly untouched basement of the original store.

My paint box, plus panda...

Bob near the main window of the store, showing the corner where I set up my paintbox. The little print rack and some of the prints it contained, were our gift to the store for the reopening.

I asked Wendy if she needed some paintings for the new blank walls and received a heartfelt YES. So Bob and I brought along some of our daily paintings for consignment. Chuck's paintings, including two of his unique banana ones, are in the top row; mine are in the middle; and four of Bob's landscapes are in the middle of the bottom row, flanked by two of Wendy's cats.

Bob painting...

The back wall of the new shop displayed photos of the fire, ones of better times of the staff, and newspaper articles about the fire... Chuck wanted to go and rub some of the ash behind each piece so people would look closely and say "wow, you can almost smell it!"

And while Wendy was showing visitors around the new store, Chuck gave others the '5 cent tour' of the burnt out old Art Corner building around the corner.

Right in front of the front entrance where the fish tank used to stand. I worried about that poor porcelain horse on the floor. All of his mates, small and large, were consumed, but he doesn't look too bad there. The pumpkin painting is one of Chuck's, and we joked that it had assumed a lot of appropriate character with its smoke and ash damage. It's still a sad loss though.

Looking to the right of the front door into the stock frames area and gallery exhibition wall. Sad to say the photo exhibit was lost. And you can still see the small frames I used to gleefully paw through during our visits.

A better view of the porcelain horsie...

As you stand in the door and face diagonally a bit to the left, this where the business bit took place. The lump in the centre is...was the laptop computer. All of the thin layers beneath the bench behind it are countless pieces of matting board. On the wall to the left, you can just make out the light areas where the molding corners were stacked hanging on the wall. Another one of Chuck's paintings rests against the front of the table. A box of his small works that used to adorn the front table was lost as well.

Facing from the front counter thru to the back of the shop where finishing epuipment once stood and all of the customers work for framing was filed. 10% was lost completely - some totally irreplacable; 40% had some varying damage from smoke or water, or both; and 50% were miraculously undamaged. Any loss is shocking, and my heart goes out to the people who lost a treasure - and give them thanks for their kind understanding.

This is one of Wendy's signature paintings that didn't quite make it. And behind that, I think, another one of Chuck's. There was also a really long, framed old photograph of the Great Salem Fire of June 25, 1914 in the old store. I spotted it in the backroom of the new shop: one end of the frame was pure charcoal, while the other end looked really good; the glass was smoke hazed and cracked, but the photo underneath didn't look too bad at first glance. I kidded Wendy that it now looked authentic, but glad that it survived.

Wendy and Chuck, and the people who work with them have been through a terrible experience and have fought upwards against the stream current to get their business back into shape. It has been a herioc effort, with the local businesses and regular customers pitching in to help.

The Salem Arts Association, in which Wendy was fundamental in helping recreate in recent years, is holding a "Toast"- to Benefit The Art Corner' on June 28. They can be contacted via their website at http://saa.onefireplace.org/

Meanwhile, the new location for The Art Corner is open for business and raring to go. Look for more news and photos at their blog http://www.theartcorner.blogspot.com/ Drop in for a look see and say Hi.

Over all, the Grand Reopening was a great success with many customers bringing things in to be framed, stopping to chat and have a nibble on the food spread, and look over our shoulders and watch us paint. Many thanks to the chap who thoughtfully brought in the bottles of champagne. The relaunch was off to a roaring start...

See you there,

Marianne

Bloodline...A Book Review

2008-05-31T14:45:00.004-05:00

BLOODLINE:
A Genealogical Mystery

By Fiona Mountain

Signet Mystery, an imprint of the Penguin Group (USA). Paperback ISBN: 978-0-451-22268-8;
296 pages; RRP $6.99.

A book review by Marianne Plumridge

Genealogy is often seen as a gentle hobby of enthusiasts who want to reconnect with their ancestors, the roots from whence they sprung. Not often is it referred to as dangerous or worth murdering someone over. However, the past often surprises us with its scandal, sordidness, criminal elements and radical inaccuracies, as well as the tedium of quiet life after quiet life. Beware of bestirring the dust of ages past, for there are those who don’t like the coverlet of anonymity lifted for all the world to see and judge.

And there are those who would kill to let sleeping secrets lie.

When Natasha Blake accepts a very well paid emergency commission to trace a young man’s family tree for his prospective grandfather in law, it seems mysterious only in the fact that her client wouldn’t do it himself. Wealthy magnate, Charles Seagrove is an accomplished genealogist of note, and quite able to trace his soon to be son in law’s antecedents for himself. Instead, he hires Natasha for a very tidy sum. Somehow, the results of the research have a profound affect on Seagrove and he moves to end his grand daughter’s betrothal to her beloved John. No one really understands why. When Seagrove is murdered the two days after a garden party at Shadwell Manor, and raving great row with his granddaughter over her fiancé, Natasha is branded the cause of it all. At least her commissioned research is, but she is made the butt of their anger. The remaining Seagroves: wife, son, and granddaughter all pour outrage, aggression and anger over Natasha and accuse her of deliberately interfering with the family and doing damage. I’m quite at a loss as to why they should do so, other than perhaps the misdirected blame of the bereaved. The son, Richard Seagrove, forces Natasha to continue her research into the Hellier family to find out why Charles Seagrove turned on his future son in law, and perhaps the truth of his own murder. In delving into the history of Charles Seagrove himself and the increasingly shadowy past of Shadwell manor, Natasha turns up more than she bargained for. Nothing is what it seems, and nor was the victim. The consequences of his actions and beliefs affect three generations of his family, destroys lives, and almost destroys the one about to be born. In amongst it all are a strange anonymous letter, the ghostly sounds of a baby crying, secrets, death, legacy, longing, and revenge, which Natasha’s questing fingers must tease into a semblance of order and truth.

The roots of the cause lay in the outcome of the First World War and its famed Christmas Truce, the rise of the Nazis in the new Germany, and the radical effects of genocide and breeding programs. And the resulting effect on one young, impressionable boy, Charles Seagrove, and his response to it. Though, how embracing the Nazi beliefs connects with the honor and dignity of the ‘Christmas Truce’ of 1914, as recounted in the novel, is never fully explained. The reader might benefit from the thought processes of Charles Seagrove, and how he made the journey from the former to the latter with such absolute conviction. But they are not fully aired or explored, mores the pity. There is a generalization of how Seagrove was one of many wealthy landowners in England, as well as the unemployed masses, who were “... disillusioned by what they saw as the useless slaughter of the First World War, harbored a sense of debt that needed to be paid to the dead, were angered by the failure of governments create a home fit for heroes and a society that adequately compensated for the horror of the trenches…” but it doesn’t quite cover the conversion of this charismatic Englishman into a traitor and a callous usurer of human life. The retelling of Seagrove’s time in Nazi Germany, towards the climax in the book, only really covers his indoctrination into the fanatical Nazi belief in racial bloodlines, bad and good, and the Lebensborn program it operated. In reality, the rise of Nazism and the youth organizations destroyed much of the family unit as a whole in Germany. Loyalty to the party and the Fuhrer were placed above familial loyalties, and children were encouraged to turn their parents, siblings, and other relatives in to the authorities for the slightest misdemeanor against the Nazi system. Not to mention that with luring the youth born to country ways and farming into the cities, many families lost valuable assistance in running their farms and maintaining harvests, etcetera. Community and familial infrastructure suffered accordingly and took decades to recover. While Nazism publicly lauded the perfect German family, its actions detrimentally undermined it. Like Charles Seagrove, the Nazis and any other closely involved, they couldn’t see the flaws in the process of selective breeding, or the inability of the human mind to accept rigid conditioning for long. Sadly, many of the Lebensborn babies were looked after in huge groups and so had no immediate input from a parent or sibling. They had a lower IQ in later years and sociological problems. Others actually adjusted and survived fairly well when taken into loving homes after the war. Such was the result of the great Nazi breeding program’s persistent pursuit to create the perfect ‘Aryan’ race. Ms. Mountain is quite correct in saying that influence and experience can shape a person just as much, if not more so, than genes and bloodlines.

Natasha Blake has her own demons to fight throughout this story. She is the adoptive child of loving parents, who doesn’t know who or where she came from. Perhaps this is why she is so good at tracing the genealogy of others. It helps nurture the belief that she might one day find her own family origins. Meanwhile, Natasha has difficulty with relationships. Her family has its own problems in the fact that her adoptive father, Steven, is something of a womanizer. Natasha is placed in a difficult position because she recognizes him for what he is, and can’t bear for her mother to be hurt. It’s a relief when Natasha’s mother, Ann, comes into her own – which brings its own comfort, as well as pain. Always feeling inadequate, and not really belonging, Natasha’s unrest manifests itself in dogged determination, constant insomnia and not looking after herself. It’s easier to fix other people’s needs than face her own and do something about them. Her vacillation on this lands her in hospital twice. Once, self inflicted, and second, as the result of her confronting the murderer and disarming a distraught young woman at the same time. Consequently, I rather liked this character.

Fiona Mountain is a great storyteller. And the few minor flaws that leapt off the page at me were more editorial than story related. All in all, Bloodline was a wonderfully entertaining read that more than filled a dreary day in winter. Who would have thought that genealogy could be so exciting? Though pursuing lines of research is so little different than pursuing murder and mystery clues. Well done.

Marianne Plumridge

Remains of the Dead...A Book Review

2008-04-09T14:37:00.004-05:00

THE REMAINS OF THE DEAD:

A Ghost Dusters Mystery.
By Wendy Roberts

A Mass Market Paperback Mystery from Obsidian Mystery, an imprint of the Penguin Group. ISBN: 978-0-451-22268-8.

A book review by Marianne Plumridge

‘The Remains of the Dead’ is the first book in a new series by mystery author Wendy Roberts. Sadie Novak is the protagonist of the story, who owns and operates Scene 2 Clean, a biohazard recovery team that cleans crime scenes once the police have finished with them. That in itself would be a complicated career, but Sadie has a few added disadvantages: she can’t keep new help for long, and she talks to the dead.

Five years previously, Sadie’s beloved older brother, Brian, took his own life with a shotgun. And when there was no service available to clean the scene, it fell to Sadie to accomplish herself, to save her family any more grief. Brian was a happy go lucky type who had a great relationship with his two sisters, and they loved him right back. There was no suicide note, no indication that he was unhappy, let alone depressed enough to take the ultimate ‘out’. And Sadie couldn’t see him when he’d gone. From the time she was little, she’d been able to see and easily communicate with the earthbound ghosts who didn’t know or wouldn’t admit they were dead. She continues to help them crossover when she can, and find their way ‘home’, but she can’t see the ghosts of suicide victims or those who’ve made it to the other side on their own as spirits. For five long years that intense grief of never knowing why Brian did it, nor be able to say goodbye to him, has gnawed at her heart and soul. Strong and feisty, Sadie found that she couldn’t stand the idea of other families losing loved ones and then facing up to cleaning up the remains of their mortal shells, so she formed her own cleaning company to do it for them. Her staunch belief that no friend or family should ever have to see what she’d seen, or do what she’d had to do after Brian went, keeps her going.

But sometimes the ghosts complicate things.

Three people know about Sadie’s ability: her employee, Zack, who is barely able to tolerate it; her sister, Dawn was still adjusting to the idea; and her best friend, Pam, who wants her to go on ‘Oprah’. So it gets that much more difficult when a ghost tries to tell her that the other half of a murder/suicide she’s cleaning up after didn’t commit the crime. Trying to discreetly handle the Police, the deceased’s distraught parent, and personal commitments gets rather trying for Sadie as her curiosity digs her deeper and deeper into the affairs of the real killer. Framed, shot at, nearly seduced by the too-damn-sexy-by-far chief suspect, as well as her unresolved attraction to Zack, leads her a dangerous dance on a knife edge, while simultaneously trying to keep Scene 2 Clean operating and in the black, despite rumours and bad publicity. And in the meantime, there are the ghosts: some desperate, some funny, and some too poignant for words. Sadie gets incredible satisfaction from helping them, and a feeling of momentary inner peace for doing good. Pity it couldn’t translate into the chaos of her own life and issues. Sadie seems relatively comfortable in her self-professed curse, until an encounter with a 'medium' of a different type forces her to confront her own issues about it and others' gifts. Sadie's antagonistic meeting and grudging friendship with the psychic, Maeva is at times both rambunctious and funny. And downright dangerous. This new friendship is probably what Sadie needs, as she and Maeva are two fiesty sides to the same coin.

Sadie’s professional and sometimes reluctant personal relationship with Zack is deftly written and leaves the reader wanting more. They both have pasts, troubles and issues, but they work well together - anger, friction, disagreements, blood, guts and gore, danger, and obvious attraction aside. Pam’s running commentary on Zack’s scrumptious butt is fun too.

Fascinating and bemusing, and written with great style and edgy cleverness, this fast paced book will have you unable to put it down. Trust me, I know. And far be it from me to cheat any reader of the punch-line ending that will leave you in tears.

All I have to do now is wait for the yet untitled sequel to come out in December of this year. Meanwhile, according to Ms. Roberts, she is busily working on the third installment of Ghost Dusters. Hallelujah.

Wendy Roberts blog is at: http://www.wendyroberts.blogspot.com/

And www.wendyroberts.com

Cheers,
Marianne

Library Lion...a Book Review

2008-01-25T16:58:00.001-05:00

Two dreams emerged from my childhood: one was to be a science fiction book-cover illustrator; while the second was to write and illustrate children’s picture books. The first dream I gave up on a few years back. It changed me in a lot of ways, including my perspective on genre fiction. I read a lot more mystery fiction than science fiction or fantasy; I read a bit more young adult fiction; and I always find that I am reading and buying new additions to my childrens picture book collection. The thing is - I don’t have kids. But that doesn’t stop me from liking their perspective on life, their unbridled imagination and ‘what if?’ way of seeing things. Books created for young children know no bounds when it comes to the imagination. Even rules are simple and uncomplicated by the adult world. This is an incredible gift, to re capture a sense of wonder in pictures and so few words - to make even a harried adult stop for the ten minutes it takes to read one of these books, and bring a goofy smile to his or her face. The Library Lion does exactly this. I received it for Christmas, and it appealed to not only the librarian in me, but the memory of hours I spent joyfully roaming our local library’s shelves when I was young. As ever, books have been my way of escaping the rat race, and this is no exception…

*********************************************************

LIBRARY LION

By Michelle Knudsen, Illustrated by Kevin Hawkes

A Picture Book from Candlewick Press, 2006.
Hardcover – ISBN: 978-0-7636-2262-6; 48 Pages; Dust Jacket.
For ages: 4-8

A book review by Marianne Plumridge.

I’ve never really given up my fascination for children’s picture books, even now being all grown up. Only now, I collect them – and on occasion, write them. Sometimes the artwork is gorgeous and artistic; sometimes the artwork is just too charming; sometimes the story is irresistible and fresh; or sometimes a book hits just the right place in the heart. But the best books are all of these things. Award winning, New York Times Bestseller, ‘Library Lion’ happens to be one of the best ones.

It’s a simple story. A lion walks into the library one day. Just like a child in a new place, he likes to look around. Then satisfied, he settles in for nap. A wondrous thing called ‘Story Hour’ wakes him up, and he sits just as entranced as the children and listens to each book the Story Lady reads aloud. People are a bit nervous and wary of this large furry visitor, but as he seems to be behaving himself, they go on with what they were doing. Mr McBee from Circulations is incensed. There are no rules about lions in the Library. He complains to the Librarian, Miss Merriweather. She asks if the lion is doing anything against the rules. Mr McBee says no, so Miss Merriweather tells her colleague to leave him be.

Things go well until Story Hour ends. The lion, upset, roars and roars, bringing Miss Merriweather from her office. She sternly tells the lion that if he can’t follow the rules, then he’ll have to leave, which makes the lion even more upset. Finally a child pipes up with an idea: if the lion is quiet, then he could come back tomorrow. The tension is palpable until Miss Merriweather graciously agrees.

The lion comes back the next day – early. Miss Merriweather gets him to help with a few things, and then ensuing days, the lion helps out on his own. People grow to love him and wonder what they ever did without him. Mr McBee is not happy: the Library did quite well without a lion in the past. One day, Miss Merriweather has an accident and sends the lion for help. Mr McBee ignores him and is cross with him until the lion ROARS in his face. Knowing he has done wrong, the lion slinks out the front door, while Mr McBee walks swiftly to Miss Merriweather’s office yelling about the lion breaking the rules. When he gets there and finds Miss Merriweather lying on the floor, she tells him that sometimes there are very good reasons to break the rules. The next day, things are back to normal – almost. Miss Merriweather was looking forward to her lion helping her with her work, because her arm is broken. However, there is no lion. He didn’t come back. Day after day, people look for him, and the children miss him, but Miss Merriweather is the saddest of all. She really misses her furry friend and helper. Mr McBee witnesses this. He is not an unkind or mean man, and so to make Miss Merriweather feel better, he goes looking for the lion. When he finds him sitting in the rain and looking woefully in through the library window, Mr McBee informs the lion of a new library rule: “no roaring allowed, unless there’s a very good reason…say, to help a friend who has been hurt.” The next day, Mr McBee reports to sad Miss Merriweather that there is a lion in the library. She ups and runs – breaking several library rules herself – to joyfully greet her friend. Everything is now happy in the Library.

The themes in this book are ostensibly about ‘rules’, and when to obey them, when you might not have to obey them, and when, most importantly, the rare times when they might be broken. This sets up behavioral patterns for children and adults alike – since Library rules apply to both. The fact that it is a LION, a very unusual visitor, that comes to the library, even the library staff are unsure what to do. In the end, they treat him just like all of the other library visitors – as long as he obeys the rules. One could very easily replace the lion with any new stranger-child and the story would still read true. Just not as interesting or fun.

Underlying the obvious theme, there are a couple of others whose subtlety places them under the ‘radar’. I refer to ‘acceptance’, ‘tolerance’, ‘jealousy’, ‘courage’ and ‘knowing when you’ve been wrong and doing something about it – another kind of courage’. All of these things are deftly woven into the fabric of the text: as much to underline the fact that there is more going on around you than meets the eye, as well as tell a story. The whole thing is very well rounded.

This is a wondrously positive book, and deserving of all its awards and large readership. The narrative is well paced and lively – for a library. The plot about a friendly lion volunteering in a library just to be allowed to listen to stories, and make friends along the way just tickles the funny bone. The accompanying illustrations by Kevin Hawkes are just as charming. Beautiful and so, so nostalgic, they engage the reader equally as much as the text does. And so it should be in a great picture book…

I highly recommend this to readers of all ages – but especially those who love libraries..

Marianne Plumridge

More about the illustrator can be found at: www.kevinhawkes.com
More about the writer can be found at: www.michelleknudsen.com

The Chase...A Book Review

2007-11-21T13:16:00.000-05:00

THE CHASE

by Clive Cussler

2007; G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
Hardcover, ISBN 13: 978-0-399-15438-6; 404 pages; Price $26.95

Reviewed by Marianne Plumridge – November 2007

It is unusual for Clive Cussler to deviate into a new lead character and timeline for a book, other than his usual, highly successful masculine leads: Dirk Pitt and Kurt Austin. However, the hero from ‘The Chase’, Isaac Bell, is tellingly cut from the same cloth. Born to wealth and privilege, able to call his own shots financially, romantically, and adventuristically, and something of a ladies man, Bell differs only in that he is an actual private detective working for the ‘famous’ Van Dorn Detective agency. He is, of course, a favourite with ‘the old man’ – Van Dorn, himself – and is the agency’s best agent. Like Pitt and Austin, Bell also has a passion for big boys’ toys: a unique fast car, an equally fast motorcycle, and trains. He likes to travel and reside expensively, but isn’t above getting his hands very dirty, or wading into danger. Exotically handsome, blonde, with mesmeric lavender-blue eyes, tall, lean, urbane, both playful and determined, Bell is the quintessential turn of the 19th century gentleman - one of the more exciting ones. With the current excesses of technology in today’s world, we live the future with a blasé acceptance and increasing lack of a sense of wonder about it all. Recent trends increasingly view the past as exotic and exciting, tinted with a rose-coloured romanticism: harking back to simpler times, when personal borders were not so blurred as they are today. Perhaps Mr. Cussler is trying to breathe new life into an overstressed literary field looking to excite its readers anew. This step back into the American past takes the reader to a time when the industrial age, and all of its knowledge and dreams were brand new, and there were still new frontiers to see and conquer.

‘The Chase’ begins enigmatically enough in 1950, with the raising of an antique train engine and its dead crew from the uttermost depths of a Montana lake. A mysterious stranger watches impassively and supplies background information about the locomotive and its fate. The scene then switches backward in time to 1906, to a bank robbery and murder. Enter the ‘Butcher Bandit’ a serial killer who robs banks of their payroll cash and cold-bloodedly executes any witnesses. He leaves no clues, and no-one to report his passing. His crimes are brilliantly thought out and meticulously rehearsed before being put into action. He seems un-locatable and unstoppable. In desperation, the government employs the Van Dorn agency to capture or kill the phantom-like robber/murderer, and Van Dorn calls in its best agent, Isaac Bell. Bell reviews the case file and like any good detective, sets out to revisit the scene of each of the most recent crimes. To talk to lawmen and anyone who might have unwittingly witnessed the passing of something, or someone strange. Foreshadowing in the text supplies the few ‘witnesses’ and their pitiable scraps of minute things seen or heard. From finding and questioning these people, Bell adroitly manipulates the few straws of information into a proverbial tapestry of a profile of the ‘Butcher Bandit’. It was a few of these ‘leaps of logic’ that left me frowning at the page and then going back to reread the previous pages, to find out how the character got from point A to point D in his assumptions. My curiosity wasn’t always satisfied. I winced at Bell’s declaration of “I know how the man thinks,” in his pursuit of Cromwell. A lot of the plot points seemed too convenient, and a few, too contrived.

The cat and mouse game that builds over the ensuing pages is quite fast paced. Bell compiles his profile on the killer and finds it points to a supposed pillar of the community, a wealthy banker in San Francisco named Jacob Cromwell. The prerequisite easy taunting banter between hunter and prey take place. There’s an attempt on Bell’s life by a paid assassin ‘heavy’, as well as two magnificently detailed hair-raising, cross-country chases: one in Bell’s fabled fast car, and one in a train engine unfettered by carriages. The mortality rate rises, and includes the death and presumed death of Bell’s two able and trusted assistant detectives in two different episodes. The climax of ‘The Chase’ becomes part of the great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. In fact, it is after Cromwell’s capture and internment in San Quentin jail, and his subsequent escape by easily bribing the professed upright prison warden that finds Cromwell at home during the quake and ensuing conflagration. He has already begun preparations to escape the country when it hits. While the confusion reigns, he and his sister Margaret flee in a Cromwell’s luxurious private Pulman car attached to a fast engine, with much of the Cromwell Bank’s hard currency. Finding out what his adversary has done, Bell commandeers a fast train engine and crew and sets off in pursuit. It ends dramatically and badly during a freak storm on a train ferry in the middle of Flathead Lake in Montana.

A ‘bookend’ return to present day 1950 ties up the last of the loose ends, including some of the life of Isaac Bell and his family.

This is a great read, especially if you haven’t read any of Clive Cussler’s earliest dozen or so works. While this novel has many trademarks of Cussler’s consummate storytelling abilities, including the usual lavish detail imbuing the technical aspects of the vintage cars, motorbikes and trains, there is an obvious ‘lacking’ in others. I haven’t re-read the early works of this author for some years, nor read any of his more recent works. I was a fan for an awfully long time, though, so some of the plotting and writing of this new novel left me a bit unsettled. The character portrayals were somewhat two-dimensional compared to characters in Mr. Cussler’s other works; and some of the plot points were just a little too obvious for an author who is known for his mastery of fluid narrative, plotting, and style. Even though there were plenty of historic details spread carefully throughout the text, so much so that they didn’t overwhelm the reader, I still found it difficult to feel a sense of ‘place’ or atmosphere within the story. One set up scene contrasting Bell’s two ‘love interests', the pure Marion, and the ‘evil’ wanton Margaret, left me with a big WHY? It was clumsy and not really worthy of Mr. Cussler’s talent. I have yet to figure out why Marion was in this scene to begin with, other than to show her off as ‘pure’ against her more ‘depraved’ companions, and to begin the process of weaning her from her previous loyalty to her boss - underlining the fact that she’s seeing his coldness and indifference toward everything for the first time. This is after working for him for nine years.

If this were a previously unpublished early novel of Clive Cussler’s, my recommendation to the author would be to have gone back over it with the same care and attention he did with his other earlier works before going to print. However, it still reads well, and contains the quintessential Cussler hallmarks: historical mystery, fast pace, action, adventure, romance, witty interaction, a daring, devil-may-care romantic hero, and a worthy adversary. As with Pitt and Austin, one also might lament that the character of Isaac Bell is too perfect. However, this is fiction and many of us really do like our heroes larger than life.

Marianne Plumridge

New Art Sale Page!

2007-10-05T16:05:00.000-05:00

Hello all,

Thanks for following my artistic endeavours this year, but I must apologise for the serious lack thereof in recent months. This is customarily our busiest time of the year, usually involving lots of travel, frantic working towards deadlines, conventions, and the subsequent getting ready for art shows. Well the majority of that has come to an end now, for the year, so I'll be getting back to some serious painting and writing real soon now. I have a hankering to continue my quirky still lifes-with-toys-and-pumpkins themes, but bigger.

Meanwhile, I thought about something a fan said to me recently in Japan. He said that although he loved my website, he didn't know what works were still available for sale, because there was no mention of price, availability, etcetera, mentioned there. So, being easier to update my blogsites than to update my website, I have now made up an ongoing blog page to list my works for sale. This includes older fantasy pieces as well as the more recent incarnations. Hopefully you'll drop by to look occasionally, and might even find something you might like. I'll be updating every week or two. When things are sold, they'll be marked as such, so there is no confusion.

The Sale Page can be found at http://artsalepage.blogspot.com/ or by clicking the link 'Marianne's ART Sale Page' at the left of this screen.

Thanks,
Marianne

The Story of Nick Paper

2007-09-11T05:02:00.000-05:00

Today, we've come full circle from those terrible events of the last Tuesday, September 11...2001. Here is how we found friendship and creativity helped us get through that day. Here is...

'THE STORY OF 'NICK PAPER'

In my husband, Bob’s previous books, ‘Dragonhenge’ and ‘Stardragons’, he has used hand-tinted drawing paper for some of the illustrations contained therein. As a drawing surface, it’s about average and takes charcoal or pencil work really well. However the incidental imperfections caused during the hand-tinting process makes for all kinds of wonderful serendipitous inspirations. We’ve since affectionately dubbed it ‘Nick Paper’, because it all began with our friend Nick Stathopoulos.

Go back to the late summer of 2001 and the World Science Fiction Convention held in Philadelphia. Our good friend Nick had come all the way from Sydney, Australia to attend the convention and display his beautiful artwork in the art show there. Some of the pieces were exquisite drawings on golden tinted paper. Like many convention goers, we gazed at them in open admiration – at the paper as much as at the drawings. Always restless for new drawing surfaces that inspire, Bob and I joked about how we could get our hands upon some to ‘play’ with.

As it was, Nick came to stay with us in Rhode Island for a few days following the convention. And like all good friends, we talked for hours on end about everything: books, music, art, artists, movies, life, the universe, and anything in between. Eventually we got around to art techniques, and it was then that he told us about his golden paper and his joy in it. What kind of paper and paint he used, and how he got such great results. It wasn’t long after this, and after having driven Nick all over New England in a whirlwind sightseeing tour, that we had to drive him to New Jersey. Nick was staying with mutual friends before flying back to the West Coast from there on the Sunday, prior to going home to Sydney.

Bob and I spent quality time with other good friends that same weekend, and felt an almost beatific contentment with the world at the beginning of the workweek. It was the calm before the storm.

Tuesday morning came, and we were getting ready to go out and have coffee and run some errands before settling into some serious painting. Then the phone rang. Our friend Jay was on the line. “Turn on the TV! Turn on the TV! The World Trade Center’s on fire. It’s world war three!” Bob and I tuned in just in time to see the second plane hit the other Trade Center tower. Then the attack on the Pentagon was announced. Bob told Jay that we’d call him back. I don’t know how long we watched after that. Finally, I took the phone from my husband’s hand and dialed Australia. We travel all over the world for business and for our art, and my parents didn’t often know where we were at any given time. I wanted to let them know we weren’t in New York.

The rest of the day passed in a haze. We got some errands done, spent a lot of time trying to contact friends, trying to talk it out. And we nervously waited for word from those we knew in New York City and the Pentagon, that they were safe. Meanwhile, our eyes were glued to the TV screen and the horror. My heart went cold when the first tower began to buckle and crumple from the heat. I had some rescue training in the Royal Australian Air Force many years ago, and my reaction was instinctive. “My God. The concussion. Run. Everybody run!” We were sickened. And the sight of the ghostly silent wrecks of rescue vehicles in the aftermath rocked me to the core. I turned away, unable to keep watching the endless repetitions of every scene that the networks replayed over and over again. I had to keep moving or be frozen there, caught in a morbid trap. It wasn’t so easy to move Bob. My husband is prone to anxiety from time to time, and this hit him deeply.

We ate, and to this day I don’t know what we had for lunch or dinner. I needed to turn Bob’s anxiety around, so I wracked my brains looking for a way to distract him. Then I had it! A frantic search of cupboards, a rummage around in the paints in the studio, and a massive clearing of counters in the kitchen, and I was ready. Stepping around Bob, I turned the TV off, put on some music and announced to my beloved: “We’re going to make ‘Nick Paper’!”

And we did. Bob did so reluctantly at first, but then he started to settle into it - to be doing something practical, mildly creative, soothing, and undemanding. It was a small respite during a time that was truly overwhelming, and gave us time to think. Others would not be so lucky.

Our first attempts at making Nick Paper were crude and overworked, but the batches we’ve made since then have achieved a sort of artistry. It ties Bob’s love of paper and his favourite colour, Quinacridone Gold, together quite satisfactorily. Even after experimenting with different colour tints like Burnt Sienna and Blue, we always come back to the gold. We love rifling through the sheets we have in storage and choosing a perfect piece to draw on. Every so often I’ll come across one of those first pieces we made and remember. That’s when I tell myself, and Bob that we should call Nick in Sydney and catch up.

Thanks for sharing Nick. It made a huge difference then, and still does.

Marianne

Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos...a book review

2007-08-02T10:34:00.000-05:00

TALES OF THE LOVECRAFT MYTHOS
Edited by Robert M. Price

October 2002 – Ballantine Books; ISBN 0-345-44408-6; A Del ReyTrade Paperback , 352 pages; Price $14.95

Reviewed by Marianne Plumridge –November 2003.
First Published by www.infinityplus.co.uk 2003

“Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos” was last published in 1992 by Ballantine Publishing Company. This current edition by Del Rey, sports a spiffy new cover and binding, but not much else. This does not diminish the content, though, by one iota. A well-rounded collection, it begins with a charming Preface by Robert Bloch. Following this, is a lengthy Introduction by Robert M. Price, in which Price discusses the history of Lovecraftian style literature; makes comparisons between the so-called heirs to H.P. Lovecraft’s legacy of dark terror fantasy fiction; and muses on the earnest rivalry between August Derleth and Dirk W. Mosig, and other writers, who contested Derleth’s interpretation of Lovecraft’s created mythos. Curiosity, fascination with the supernatural and ancient things left over from the Victorian and Edwardian eras, and great, all-encompassing horrors simply ooze from the pages that follow.

The first two entries in this anthology are by Robert E. Howard. ‘The Thing on the Roof’ dates from 1932, while the ‘Fires of Asshurbanipal’ was updated from its original form and re-published in 1972, and is now referred to as the ‘non-supernatural version’. It makes me want to go dig up the original short story just to find out what was missing. Anyway, as much as I do love the stories and Howard’s easy storytelling style, I find that the use of language is somewhat pale in comparison to Lovecraft’s rich tapestry of text. The atmosphere and setting (ie. Mood) are a tangible thing, almost a character in themselves, in the works of the master, but never quite as deep in Howard’s tales.

Clark Ashton Smith’s entry, ‘The Seven Geases’ is written in formal English and contains many words no longer in common usage today. The use of these words creates a picturesque feel to the text, as does the author-created names of peoples and places in the story. One tries not to trip over them during reading, but it is difficult as so many of the vowel sounds are similar. Anyway, I didn’t think that this was a fully well rounded story, despite the palpable ‘journey motif’ and the beautifully exotic grotesqueries described along the way. The opening pages might have been that of a novel, so much was related about the arrogant protagonist, but this gets lost on his geas-driven journey into the labyrinthine bowels of the Earth and its various gods and sorcerers. The journey itself is almost an allegorical study of the so-called pinnacle of human perfection forced to tread back through the steps of evolution, only to be pronounced that he is not a worthy heir to all that the creator god has given birth to throughout the ages. However, he is barely aware of it because of his utter exhaustion. When it would seem that the protagonist is to regain the outer world, and with it a profound humility and wisdom, he is summarily and inexplicably cast down a hole to his death - as if he were just so much waste and flotsam. Hmm. Then again, that might be a lesson in itself.

‘The Fane of the Black Pharaoh’ written by Robert Bloch, is an excellent inclusion in this anthology. This story opens slowly but grows more swiftly in terror until the ultimate realization of the protagonist. No, I won’t spoil it for you, but as in a movie, the watcher/reader wants to scream the proverbial “don’t go into the woods!” or in this case, “don’t go into the tomb!” at the protagonist. Nicely evocative of 1920-30s Egypt overall, coloured by the residual Victorian and Edwardian pre-occupation with the spiritual and the supernatural.

Henry Kuttner’s stories, ‘The Invaders’ and ‘Bells of Horror’, are two superb entries in this collection. They keep the terror levels in constant suspense. The reader and the protagonists never fully see the monsters: just the disturbed wake of their intrusion into the fabric of reality.

August Derleth’s “The Thing that Walked on the Wind” and “Ithaqua” are too much the same story and plot, let alone told in the same fashion, to properly stand out in this collection of tales. The following, sensationally titled, “The Lair of the Star-Spawn” co-authored by Mark Schorer fits much better. In this entry, the Old Ones are summoned to destroy the evil Elder Gods beneath the castle on Lake Dread.

I could go on about each story, but I won’t. Suffice it to say that there are several stories that follow a similar formula: of the narrator looking back over something horrible that has occurred and he has had to kill the protagonist to ‘save’ them, or such, or failed to ‘save’ them, as it were. Other stories that stand out from this are: the clever “Aquarium” by Carl Jacobi, uniquely told from a female point of view – at least in this anthology; Henry Hasse’s “The Guardian of the Book” is about one man’s battle with his own natural curiosity and the horror of what awaits him, should he give into it; the complicated “Lord of Illusion” by E. Hoffman Price; and the truly cosmic, ‘be careful what you wish for’ theme of Richard E. Searight’s ‘The Warder of Knowledge”.

The various references to Lovecraft’s creations, like the ‘Old Ones’, the ‘Necronomicon’, the Arabic sorcerer ‘Alhazred’, 'Cthulhu', and so on, are evident throughout the successive tales, reflecting the exchanges of ideas and characters between the correspondent authors and Lovecraft himself. Which is really what this collection is all about, and the subsequent growth of ideas from correspondence to full-fledged stories

All in all, this is a wonderful compendium of dark terrors, and I’m so glad that it is back in print. So pull the bed covers over your head, switch on the flashlight, and read away…

Marianne Plumridge

In the Country of the Blind...a Book Review

2007-07-08T08:34:00.000-05:00

IN THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND

by Michael Flynn.

TOR Science Fiction; Paperback; ISBN 0-765-34498-X; $7.99 US549 pages; Original Edition 1990 published by Baen Books; Updated for First Edition 2001 (TOR Books) and First Mass Market Edition March 2003.

Includes article: “Afterword: An Introduction to Cliology” (Copyright 1988)
Reviewed by Marianne Plumridge – February 2004

In this fast paced novel, an erudite, serious, young businesswoman, Sarah Beaumont, asks too many questions about a simple historic subject. She and her business partner are naïve enough to believe, much like the rest of us, that history lies in the dead past – or should do. Back in the 19th century, Charles Babbage conceived a theoretical ‘analytical engine’ that appears to Beaumont, to be the original design of the first computer. She believes that this will be a major selling point in a property she intends to buy and develop. An eagerly acquisitive learning curve and earnest curiosity lead her to innocently investigate – and subsequently to a series of dead bodies, one of which is nearly her own. It appears that two factions of the same antique ‘Babbage Society’ are fighting a very real war behind the scenes. Things get complicated from there on. It seems that the original members of the ‘Babbage Society’ weren’t the only ones interested in controlling history and historic events.

Michael Flynn has written an extremely likeable novel of deeply researched theories. His explanations about the Babbage Engine and its applications are in-depth and knowledgeable, however they run the big risk of bogging the reader down in exposition. I myself was neatly tripped up a few times during parts of the novel where a lot of action was happening.

The characters are engaging and charismatic, with a certain amount of depth that allows the reader to care about them. As the main protagonist, Sarah’s greatest flaw is not being able to let herself depend on anyone. However she is quite capable of handling just about anything else and saves her own fair share of ‘backsides’ – including her own – throughout the novel. Her storehouse of knowledge, and how to use it, is gleaned from an insatiable curiosity and a need to know, and also long history of taking short courses. Sarah also has the courage to put her money where her mouth is and use her knowledge - in self-defense, as a weapon, and to keep one step ahead of whoever is chasing her at any given time. All this, and her ability to remember practically everything she ever learned, makes the character of Sarah rather daunting and just a little too good to be true. It’s a marginal feeling, however. Her resilience as a ‘survivor of the East Chicago ghetto who got out’ depends on her being able to protect herself physically, mentally and financially. Mr Flynn’s text makes it believable. The other characters’ reaction to Sarah is intriguing and sometimes funny. The parallel protagonist, Jeremy, is a friend of Sarah’s, and is a more sympathetic character than she. The two have the same goals: stay alive and find their friend Dennis. They may take slightly different paths, and different variations of trial-by-fire danger, but Sarah and Dennis finally get linked up again in the end. Their respective romantic situations – hers just beginning, his irredeemable – form a satisfying conclusion, but a big question mark hovers around the whole situation. The societies will continue, but the shaky alliances makes one wonder what is going to happen next. This, after all, is but one dangerous episode in a long and sometimes very bloody history.

I’m kind of left wondering if there is going to be a sequel, and perhaps what would happen if this was applied to the space-age future.

For an urban fantastical drama, “In the Country of the Blind” makes brilliant use of the ‘what if’ principle and the ability of some things to survive, be it humans, ideas, or ideals. The author has achieved this without placing the technology too far beyond belief by using supercomputers or cyberspace. Human imagination and logic formed the base of Cliology and it’s historic beginnings, but its use and misuses remain solely in the realm of human foibles and flaws, heroism and sacrifice. Read the book and find out just how much.

I really liked this novel, and when I went back to reread scenes and characters, I felt myself drawn back into the story again – enough to lose a couple of hours. This doesn’t happen to me very often. Well done, Mr. Flynn. I’m looking forward to reading your next novel.

Marianne Plumridge

The Writer's Guide to Fantasy Literature...a Book Review

2007-06-27T10:24:00.000-05:00

“THE WRITER’S GUIDE TO FANTASY LITERATURE: FROM DRAGON’S LAIR TO HERO’S QUEST: How to Write Fantasy Stories of Lasting Value.”

Edited by Philip Martin.

The Writer Books, an imprint of Kalmbach Publishing Co., USA
Limpback; ISBN 0-87116-195-8; $16.95 USD240 pages; 2002; Cover Art – Greg and Tim Hildebrandt. Reviewed by Marianne Plumridge.

I found this book on the shelves of our local bookstore on a day when I was feeling rather despondent about revising one of my own manuscripts. I remember looking for information on how to write professional outlines, when I spotted “The Writer’s Guide to Fantasy Literature’ ”. It can’t hurt to have a look, I thought, and discovered in the text where this sort of thing was being discussed. Within minutes I was transported. I was delighted to find some of my favourite authors discussing their methods, and an answer to my question of preparing outlines. The answer was ‘that there is no right way to write a story’ or an outline. Every author, professionally published or not, wildly successful or not, beginner or seasoned writer, creates differently. I immediately felt much better, and bought the book.

“The Writer’s Guide’ “, upon further reading, is not so much of a general ‘how to’ tome, but more of a sharing of practical creativity. Certainly there are chapters about what actually goes into creating a good work of fantasy, but the essays, interviews and methods are far from being condescending. There are examples from authors’ experiences and also from written works that are pleasingly easy to relate to.

The first chapter is a study of “Pottermania”. An in-depth look at the Harry Potter books, written by J.K. Rowling, which have taken the world by storm. The study is concise and objective in a friendly way, and gives the reasons behind their success as stories, with more than a passing nod to the mythological reasoning of Joseph Campbell and J.R.R. Tolkien. There are quotations and comparisons with other writers and works along the way as well.

Following that are five articles, in either interview or essay form, on writing High Fantasy, Adventure Fantasy, Fairy-tale, Magic Realism, and Dark Fantasy. There are quotes and excerpts from some of the best know names in Fantasy fiction, interwoven with a wonderful dialogue of what defines the genre without actually boxing it in. I found that very refreshing.

The subsequent chapters offer two viewpoints a piece upon the themes of: Characters – Franny Billingsly and Kiji Johnson; Places – Jane Yolen and Ursula K. Le Guin; Patterns – Peter S. Beagle and Susan Cooper; and Plot/Purpose – by Midori Snyder and Gregory Maguire. These essays and interviews are full of a wealth of common sense and humour, and are, on the whole, inspiring. There was an accompanying challenge to my own self as a writer as well: when you write, sometimes the magic works and sometimes it doesn’t – the only way you’re going to find out is if you write, write, write.

Chapters Eight to Eleven cover the nuts and bolts of the technical aspects of Fantasy writing. Mr Martin has written an encouraging dialogue on Generating Ideas, Planning and Preparation, Start Writing, and Revising your work, again interspersed with quotes from Fantasy writers from throughout history.

Chapter Twelve begins with an introduction by Mr Martin that encompasses the more sobering facts of rejection slips, editors, agents and submitting your work. However, this monologue is followed by two items that really made me smile: an interview with Terry Pratchett and an essay written by the irrepressible Ray Bradbury. In fact this quote from Mr Bradbury stayed with me long after I finished reading his words:

“I wish for you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will

last a lifetime.
I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you.
May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories.

Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.”

How appropriate.

At the end of all of this comes another valuable section: Resources. In Part Five, you will find names and addresses of publishers who publish Fantasy fiction, on paper and also on-line. Resources for ‘how-to’ books and articles, and sources to find that elusive piece of information you were recently looking for. And also contact information for groups of creative people just like you. The index of authors quoted in the book and where to find them in the text is also quite extensive.

In short, "The Writer’s Guide to Fantasy Literature" is akin to putting the kettle on and calling up a writer friend and having a long conversation over coffee about philosophy, technique, ideas, and many other wondrous things. I found this book immensely satisfying and one that I will go back and read again and again.

Marianne

Reading Jacqueline Winspear...

2007-06-17T21:52:00.001-05:00

There are consequences of war: any war. It’s easy to say that ‘our’ army goes off to war to fight for ‘the great cause’ whatever it is at the time: and as a result, people die on both sides; there’s a general to-ing and fro-ing of ground lost or gained during one bloody struggle after another; and eventually one side capitulates and an armistice is signed. The ‘winner’ strong arms the loser into accepting punishing terms, and then everyone goes home. If only it were that easy.

World War I initiated the age of modern warfare: ushering in new inventions that had a greater capacity to kill the enemy in much greater numbers than ever before. To debilitate and mutilate the human mind and body to the ultimate extent: and still leave many of them living. Nearly a century after the close of WWI, we are still finding out about the horrible mistakes, misguided honour, unrealistic expectations, fear, terrible atrocities, unfulfilled promises, and battlefield loss, and learning to deal with it. Dying quickly on the battlefield was probably the most merciful and cleanest of deaths: preferably from a bullet. Bombs and ceaseless bombardment didn’t leave much of human remains to be buried. And if they did, sometimes they were found in time and sometimes they weren’t. Tens of thousands of soldiers died in France and never came home. Many are buried in marked graves or lost unmarked graves: but just as many are not, and exist now only as names on a memorial somewhere in Europe. In the bloody fields of Flanders, the Somme Valley, the Marne, Passchendale – names that would have reawakened horror in returned soldiers – the bodies of fighting men sank into the deep mud and were never seen again. For the soldiers who came home – whole or otherwise – their lives and their world were changed forever. Irreparably damaged lungs from mustard gas attacks that would frustrate and humble any previously able bodied man; endless nightmares that sent men screaming from their sleep to walk the London streets late of a night and early morning; lack of work and food in a post war economy that had once promised to create a land fit for heroes; friends gone forever; whole families and groups of friends wiped out because they ‘joined up together’, and often died together; shell-shock victims who never came out of their waking comas, only to live out a life in constant care if they were lucky, with the last thing they saw on the battlefield perhaps playing out in their minds; and then there were those whose wounds were too horrific for polite company.

In war, when weapons kill indiscriminately, they can also horrifically wound indiscriminately. Bombs of varying kinds took faces, jaws, and parts of skulls as well as the usual limb and still the victims miraculously lived. Some might have seen it as a never-ending curse. Of course, medical technology in the early 20th century did it’s best with rehabilitative surgery and therapy: flesh painted tin masks covered a lot of ravaged faces, but for many they did not work so well. Families of returned soldiers with such injuries did their best for them, but found themselves adrift without mental or physical skills to heal their wounded sons and husbands. The most severely physically damaged withdrew from society and lived at home away from prying eyes, but some found solace of a sort in communities with other like -wounded men. Their lives had all but ended on the battlefield, and forever after, they just existed. Any society likes its heroes whole and hearty, ready to be honoured and then put aside while the business of living is gotten on with. With the horrifically wounded, no matter how much they were heroes themselves, they had no place in genteel society. Their presence would be a constant reminder of war, and of great loss, enduring anguish, and horror, to a society that just wanted to move on. Remembering is one thing, but to be reminded of these things every day is akin to insanity.

In her books about her protagonist, ‘Maisie Dobbs’, Jacqueline Winspear skillfully weaves murder mysteries among the threads of the consequences arising out of WWI. Ms. Winspear does not write about overall revenge, or of winners and losers, of single-minded victories, or patriotic fervour. Her books contain a great deal of understanding, strength, compassion, and healing – sometimes through extraordinary means. The main underlying theme is ‘Truth – with harm to none’: a rocky road to be sure, but trodden carefully by the most extraordinary and complicated woman that is Maisie Dobbs. Maisie is herself a survivor of the battlefields of wartime France: a very young nurse with a remarkable history and fortitude of mind. A bomb exploding on the casualty clearing station she was working in, robbed her of her true love and many of her workmates, and left her with resulting shell-shock. She heals physically, returns to England to continue her nursing till the end of the war, then takes up her studies at Cambridge again and becomes the assistant to her mentor and teacher, Maurice Blanche. However, nothing in Maisie’s life could ever be so simply put. That is why Jacqueline Winspear’s books are so compelling.

“Maisie Dobbs” (2003)

This story opens in 1929, ten years after the close of World War I. Maisie Dobbs is a self possessed young woman of thirty years of age about to embark upon the adventure of opening her own business: that of discreet investigations and psychology. Her mentor and teacher, Maurice Blanche, has retired and Maisie has decided to step up from the role of his assistant and become the investigator herself - as if anything so momentous could ever be so tritely described. During episodic flashbacks to Maisie’s early life and the war, we find out that Maisie is the daughter of a costermonger – a man who sells vegetables door to door – and a much beloved mother who has died of a lingering illness. Beset with debts, Frankie, Maisie’s father, places his daughter in service at the only place he trusts: with the staff of Lord and Lady Compton at Ebury Place, London. The work is hard and long, but fair, and Maisie gets to continue her voracious reading via weekly visits to the lending library for the butler and cook, as well as see her father on Sunday afternoons. Maisie falls in love with the library in the Compton household, and gets up an hour earlier each morning for some quiet study time – endlessly making notes about what she reads. After a very late night out, Lady Rowan Compton, herself mentored by the mysterious Maurice Blanche, discovers Maisie during her nocturnal study in the library. Following initial astonishment of finding a maid in an out of bounds area, Lady Rowan becomes interested: she questions Maisie closely about what she has read, why she has read something, and what notes she has made. Terrified of being sacked and turned out on the street, Maisie endures an agonizing week before she is formally brought before Lady Rowan again. There, she is tested upon the breadth, depth and understanding of her knowledge and studies by Maurice Blanche. At the end of the session, satisfied that there is a degree of brilliance within Maisie’s mind, he declares that he is willing to teach and shape that mind over a period of time, with the full cooperation of the Comptons and their staff: however, the learning must be done on Maisie’s own time and must not interfere with her performance of household duties. So begins the extraordinary education of an extraordinary mind. It is far from easy as Maisie deals with social pressures, peer pressures, increasing disquiet in her relationship with her father, and trying to find her purpose and place in pre-wartime London. It is far from easy, walking such a precipitous line. Her education includes not only the usual grounding in literature and the arts, but in social studies, philosophy, logic, culture, psychology, religion, and the eastern principles of self discipline, meditation, and seeing more than what the eye sees. All this plays into Maisie’s natural intuitive side, and gives her a ‘grounding’ in her life’s work. She wants to become like Maurice – a healer of sorts, especially of the mind.

Maisie wins a scholarship to Cambridge University. It is what she has been shaped and educated to do. With cast off clothes from Lady Rowan, a few precious gifts from her father and the Compton’s staff, she ventures into the hallowed halls with a steely determination to succeed. It is 1914 and the shadow of war looms over all. Young men from all over the Commonwealth leave home and work to ‘join up’. This leaves the Compton’s country house, Chelstone Manor, short of staff. Desperate for a groom for her beloved horses, Lady Rowan asks Maisie’s father Frankie if he would like a home and work in the country. He accepts, and promptly endears himself to Lady Rowan by saving her precious horses from conscription by the War Office in order to be sent to the Front. Fellow maid and dear friend, Enid, joins the war effort by working in a munitions factory – her life complicated by her love affair with the Compton’s son, James, and her desire to be worthy of being accepted as James’ future bride. Unthinkable in a society still obsessed with class distinctions.

During her initial short period at Girton College at Cambridge, Maisie meets two people who affect her profoundly: college mate, down to earth aristocrat Priscilla Evernden; and the dashing young Doctor Simon Lynch, on his way to the Front. The first is to become a lifelong friend, and the second, the love of her own life.

After a chance encounter at Liverpool station with her friend, Enid, Maisie starts to question her role in life as the war and all its horrors starts to pervade everything. Enid is killed in an explosion at the munitions factory the same afternoon, Priscilla has already enlisted as an ambulance driver, and Maisie’s thoughts turn to how she can help. She enrolls as a nurse in the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) after lying about her age and forging a reference on Lord Julian’s stationery. She is approximately seventeen years old when the war started, and just over eighteen a year later when she is sent out to the Front. There, Maisie once more meets up with young Captain Lynch, and their friendship blossoms into young love amidst the setting of a bloody, muddy war and endless casualties. They are finally assigned to work together near the Front at Bailleul Casualty Clearing Station, but tragedy strikes soon after in the form of a misguided bombardment. Maisie is virtually a sole survivor with her own injuries – mental and physical – while Simon lingers in a waking coma, never to know her, or anything else, ever again.

At this point, the plot jumps back to 1929, where Maisie has taken on her first solo case: a gentleman of business is concerned that his beloved wife is having an affair. What seems to be a simple observation and reporting back to the husband, leads Maisie to investigate not only that, but also to delve into the mysterious deaths and lives of those returned soldiers who have been profoundly disfigured and injured during the Great War. Whilst helping those clients who have been affected by these situations, Maisie also helps herself. Truth is finding its way back into her own healing and long denial of what happened in France. Closer to home, James Compton, shell-shocked himself and still heart-sickened over the loss of Enid all those years ago, gets caught up peripherally in Maisie’s investigations. He is in danger, along with a lot of innocent men who must live like recluses because there is no place in normal society for them.

Other threads in the tapestry include Billy Beale who originally works as a janitor in the slightly dilapidated building housing Maisie’s new office. He is a returned soldier, injured in France and one of the last patients to be saved by Simon and Maisie at the Casualty Clearing Station during the war. He remembers Maisie’s distinctive midnight blue eyes, and recalls her care. A character unto himself – full of cockney charm and his own wartime afflictions - he eventually becomes her assistant in her practice.

At the climax to the story, there is one very moving scene as Maisie raises her voice to sing “The Rose of No Man’s Land” - the soldier’s wartime anthem to the Red Cross Nurse – to calm an audience of frightened, disfigured returned soldiers, whilst trying to disarm their insane leader, and rescue Billy from certain death. As well as the danger, there is a great deal of compassion, depth, and caring in this scene. The same could be said for the entirety of this very compelling book.

Ms. Winspear has captured a time and place with her writing that knows no current comparison. She tells the story of Maisie and her friends; England at war; Billy; and the wounded and their leader, without preaching, without benefit of false set up and plot devices. Ms. Winspear allows the stories to speak for themselves, and gives them voice and freedom at last – without rancour, finger pointing, or the black and white attributes of vindictive patriotism. That is a true gift.

(One of Publishers’ Weekly’s Best Mysteries of 2003; New York Times Notable Book of the Year 2003; Edgar Award nominee for Best Novel 2003; Agatha Award winner for Best First Novel 2003)

“Birds of a Feather” (2004)

In this second outing by Jacqueline Winspear, Maisie Dobbs has established her business as a Psychiatric Counselor and Investigator to a degree where there is a steady flow of new clients and work. Not overwhelming, but steady. She, and her assistant, Billy Beale perform their work with the same steadfast seriousness whether it be a simple case of investigating the background of a proposed fiancé or employee, compiling information, to finding missing articles or persons. It is the latter that involves our Maisie and Billy this time. Wealthy, self-made grocery mogul, Joseph Waite demands their attendance on him, in order for them to find and return his flighty daughter, Charlotte, who has run away from home. What initially appears to be a straightforward job, winds through many convolutions and three murders, which have their roots firmly lodged back in the Great War. Consequences of actions and subsequent shame; secrets; remembrance and reminders; penance and punishment; and poverty and wealth: contrasts that are all skillfully woven into a dramatic story with realistic characters, a solid plot, and climatic resolve. As always, the recreation of London’s social background – from the highest to the lowest – and the recreation of post war London herself is a remarkable and believable achievement by Ms. Winspear.

In ‘Birds of a Feather’, Maisie is forced to face several issues about her own life. Her previously growing estrangement from her beloved father Frankie comes to a head when he is injured during the foaling of a prize mare. Old issues that Maisie has long buried, and thought done with, must be healed. Father and daughter are brought closer together and Maisie personally learns the power of forgiveness, for it is forgiveness that permeates the conclusion of the case of the runaway socialite.

Closer to home, morphine addiction is another insidious consequence arising from the battlefields of France. As a pain medication, it was used unstintingly at casualty triage stations and throughout recovery at home in England. Its addictive powers were not recognized immediately, and many soldiers came home craving the stuff. When Billy Beale was injured and nearly lost his leg, he was one of the few that were difficult to medicate at all. The subsequent morphine addiction he returned from war with was not as great as some others, and he managed to loose its tempting grip. However, the craving rears its ugly head again during the story, when the pain in his leg becomes too great to bear unaided. Maisie must help Billy to face up to his problem and find a solution to both his rehabilitation and the healing of his leg.

The feathers of the title refer to the white feathers given to men assumed, or accused of being cowards. In the case of WWI, it was any man not in uniform that was perceived to be whole enough to serve his country. Women usually handed the feathers out to apparently able-bodied men – some only boys - as an act of shame. Although conscription would have taken many of these men when it was instituted in 1915(?), the practice of the white feathers was a far more personal act of sending a man or boy to his death or horrible maiming. The white feather scheme was eventually seen as something shameful in itself, but not soon enough to save thousands of youths from foolishly reacting to that call. War was still a great adventure at that stage, and knowledge of the horrors that pervaded the battlefields had yet to make it back to Britain – such was the wartime censorship. Charlotte Waite, it turns out, was one of these ‘harpies’ from the Order of the White Feather, and someone is killing her friends. Maisie must risk her own life to find out who and why.

Surprisingly, romance enters Maisie’s life during this time, in the form of Doctor Andrew Dene. He’s light hearted and funny, a veteran of the war, and of humble roots stemming from Bermondsey. He’s also a former student of Maisie’s mentor, Maurice Blanche. So Maisie’s loneliness is assuaged by his enthusiastic attendance on her, but the spectre of the long-sleeping, beloved Simon still haunts her. Also, the demands of her work, and her devotion to it, overshadow anything Maisie might personally desire. It is perhaps a haven for her to hide in sometimes.

“Birds of a Feather” is a heart-wrenching story, and no less compelling than its predecessor. The high quality of writing and storytelling is something I’ve come to expect from Jacqueline Winspear: in fact, to anticipate, really. As usual, the events unfold like flower petals, revealing the new petals secreted beneath, with even more intricacies beneath those – until the full pattern is unveiled. Such is the subtlety of Ms. Winspear’s work.

(Birds of a Feather is the winner of the Agatha Award for Best Novel)

“Pardonable Lies” (2005)

There are three plot lines which drive Jacqueline Winspear’s ‘Pardonable Lies’ – one involving a young girl charged with murder on circumstantial evidence; the second involving the proof that a courageous, but scandalous young airman actually died during the war in France; and the third is a search for the mortal remains of Peter Evernden, the brother of Maisie’s dearest friend, Priscilla. All three are deftly interwoven, propelling each other along towards resolution. As consequences go, it is Maisie who must ultimately face up to her own past, both from the war, and from her apprenticeship with Maurice. He tries to shield her from the obvious – the involvement of the French Secret Service – and the obscure, the re-emergence of her own shellshock when there are still loose ends that need to be urgently tied up.

The opening chapter of this novel introduces the character of Maisie through the perspective of a third party, a young ‘newly minted’ woman police officer watching over a young girl who is charged with murder. It’s a fascinating study of Maisie’s professional technique as she slowly but carefully draws the girl out of her shock and gets her to talk. The woman police officer is astounded that Maisie succeeds where the detectives have failed, and is almost mesmerized at how she accomplishes this feat, likening it to ‘like being in church’. There is power in this initial chapter as the author evokes the readers’ empathy and sets up the ‘domino’ reaction of the events yet to unfold.

In the turbulent times of the early 1930s, when the world is gripped by the early years of the Great Depression, and uneasy stirrings of cultural animosity along the Rhine in Germany, Maisie learns that some secrets still linger for a reason and some linger for far too long. For the first time, Maisie faces personal danger as several attempts are made to kill her. At one such time she is saved by a seeming ‘ghost’, that affects her profoundly. Although several suspects emerge from her investigations, the real culprit remains elusively out of reach until the very end. Meanwhile, Maisie’s own private crisis comes to a head when she visits the former site of the Bailleul Casualty Clearing Station where she nearly died twelve years before. And now where the terrible grief she spent so many years trying to build a wall against finally breaks through. This is a terribly moving scene, and possibly one of the best of its kind ever written in contemporary fiction.

During the course of her investigations, Maisie unravels the fate of the dead flier, and unearths the double-edged sword of Peter Evernden’s secrets. In doing so, she learns that she may have ultimately been responsible for his recruitment into a dangerous situation. Maisie also finds out that Maurice has, on occasion, not been fully truthful with her: has in fact ‘used’ her innocent knowledge to betray one of her friend’s trust. Maurice himself, reveals the demise of Peter and as many details as he can safely supply - for it appears that his role in the previous war is not over. These details cause an estrangement between them, as Maisie can’t help her feelings of betrayal. Under these stresses, plus a lack of proper eating and sleep, she insists on returning to Bailleul alone – as fully independent as she has been taught and brought up to be. She has never felt more alone, or the burden of her survivors guilt more, than when her ‘break’ forces its way through her defences.

Maurice is there when she wakes three days later, and shepherds her home to London with extracted promises for Maisie to rest. Of course, Maisie cannot do so for long – for the urgent questions she was charged to find answers for, are pressing. She must fulfill her promises – both to the living, and to the dead – and face death down one final time. And for the very first time in her life, she begins to fly free…

This is a powerful story of personal growth.

(Pardonable Lies wins the inaugural Macavity/Sue Feder Best Historical Mystery Award in (2006), and received a nomination for the Agatha Award for Best Novel, and the Bruce Alexander Award for Best Historical Mystery.)

“Messenger of Truth” (2006)

Following the extreme personal upheavals of Maisie’s mental state in ‘Pardonable Lies’ - the re-emergence of her own shellshock and former suppression and denial thereof - this new novel appears to be lighter in texture regarding Maisie’s ongoing story. Both mystery and plot are still as strong as Ms. Winspear’s earlier Maisie Dobbs stories, but this time Maisie is left to fend for herself and face life for herself. Indeed it is what she wants, and almost fears, the most – and equally fearing her loss of independence. The previously strong sub-characters that have surrounded and played large parts in Maisie’s story make only token appearance here. Her father, Frankie, is comfortably present when needed; Dame Constance only a spur to bring Maisie and her client together; Lady Rowan as a voice of caution; and Maurice Blanche conspicuously absent by way of a still raw personal rift with Maisie from the previous novel. Therefore Maisie flies on her own in ‘Messenger of Truth’, eventually losing Andrew Dene, and almost her faithful Billy Beale, along the way. But life never runs smoothly when change is in the air.
The mystery that involves Maisie’s professional services seems, at first, like a straightforward accident: innocent, tragic, the clear-cut misstep of an artist hanging his latest masterpieces in a gallery, alone and late at night. The artist’s twin sister is the only one who feels that something is not right. It’s her way of feeling it that moves Maisie to take the case. However, not all is as it appears. For the artist, always controversial in choice of themes and subjects, harboured secrets of his own: and this latest exhibition would definitely cause damage to someone. Would that someone commit murder to silence the artist’s vision to protect him or her self? This is what Maisie must discover, as well as the unknown whereabouts of the artworks in question. Suspects include the artist’s friends and fellow artists, an insistent wealthy American collector, Customs and Excise agents, smugglers, and of course, the family – a close collection of highly talented creatives, whose world revolves around colour, texture, words, and music.

Concurrently, it is the Great Depression in England, and queues line the streets daily, for work and for food. Everyone is feeling the pinch, particularly Maisie and her assistant, Billy Beale, and his family. Both find themselves shocked at the high price art will bring on the open market, as well as the large amounts of cash readily available to buy it. The inconsistency between the ‘have’ and ‘have nots’ is alarming. As a personal consequence of financial difficulties, the Beales face grief and bereavement in the death of their youngest child.

In the course of the story, Maisie’s romance with Doctor Andrew Dene hits rocky ground. He wants to marry Maisie but she finds it difficult to commit herself to him or the sacrifices she’d eventually have to make, to have a normal married life with him. In the long run, he has met someone else who is more sure of herself in these matters and sure of him. Maisie sees them together momentarily and senses only a fondness and a great relief. Such is the truth of her feelings. I’m not sure that Maisie will ever re-discover the deep love of her youth following its subsequent great loss. She’s not sure if she can ever sacrifice her desperately hard-won independence, nor suffer to bury her inquisitive mind beneath the roles of wife and mother. She needs someone who respects what she does and the personal achievements she has succeeded in, and will give her the space she needs to pursue them. And will love her for them, all the more. Maybe we will see someone like this appear in later novels. Meanwhile, the author has begun a deliberate but subtle reassessing of D.I. Richard Stratton, describing him as having a sort of cinema star resemblance and cutting an unobtrusively fine figure. I smiled at these references, and wondered if he was going to be a waxing beau to Andrew Dene’s waning, or if in fact Stratton is another red herring. Maisie does not give her heart lightly, or often. She’s a deep one, is our Maisie.

Themes in this story include: ‘truth’ in its aspect of brutal unvarnished honesty, and also in its gentle, tensile threads of subtlety; death and rebirth - the literal as well as the spiritual; and balance and atonement. The consequences of the war shockingly reveals itself in the paintings of the dead artist: uncovering the shameful practice of wartime soldiers shot at dawn – for ‘cowardice’, for ‘treason’, for addled behaviour resulting from shell-shock, for the simple mistake of falling asleep at a post, for being terrified. Actions and consequences, fear and shame, secrets and knowledge, all deftly unfold beneath the author’s usual finesse at combining compassion, character and drama.

No, I did not know ‘whodunnit’ – or could that possibly be ‘why it happened’ - until Maisie announced the murderer’s name at the climax. There were too many ripe characters with good reason to ‘off’ the artist. But Maisie used her cool and gentle fingers to separate the strands of a very tangled web, and to tease them into a semblance of order in her own mind. That, as usual, was handled extremely well.

Very well written as usual, however I sense that this is a transitory novel for Maisie’s character. Maisie is persuaded to dance a little and laugh a little, and she likes it. She is beginning to feel that there is light, colour and texture missing from her life and she can sense them at times, drawing her as a moth to a flame. The Bassington-Hopes being the abnormal, colourful flame, and the irrepressible Alex Courtman being a fun-loving satellite as well as a possible murder suspect. However, Maisie is as always: careful, weighing of self-analysis, and thoughtful of consequences. She slowly begins the enormous task of filling the emptiness in her newly purchased flat and thereby her life, even though her work will ever consume her.

I’m partial to murder mysteries involving old history or artists, or both. So, I’m going to place ‘Messenger of Truth’ up on the shelf next to my copy of Ngaio Marsh’s ‘Artists in Crime’ novel. They will keep good company.

(Messenger of Truth has been nominated for an Agatha Award for Best Novel.)

Late note: At the time of writing this, Jacqueline advises that she has completed final edits on the next Maisie Dobbs novel, and has handed it over to her publisher. I can’t wait to see the results…

To read excerpts from Jacqueline's novels, Maisie Dobb's world, and about Jacqueline Winspear herself, please visit www.jacquelinewinspear.com

Marianne

Stormbreaker...a book review

2007-05-30T13:39:00.001-05:00

STORMBREAKER
By Anthony Horowitz

SPEAK (An imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.); Paperback; ISBN 0-399-23620-1; 234 pages; 2004.

How would you like to read a nice juicy espionage novel – but meant for kids? I didn’t have many high expectations when I picked up young adult novel, ‘Stormbreaker’ to read on a long flight, but it’s nice to be pleasantly surprised.

The story opens at 3am with the ring of a doorbell at a house in West London, England. Never a good sign for anyone, let alone for fourteen-year old Alex Rider: not only is it an ominous portent but also a life-changing one. His uncle, Ian Rider, has been killed in a car accident. Or so Alex is told. During the flood of strange people in and out of Ian’s house, Alex soon realizes that he actually knows very little of whom Ian Rider really was. All is not what it seems. Ian Rider was all of the family Alex had: since Alex was orphaned at an early age and then been taken to live with his uncle.

So, Alex decides to find out what really happened to his uncle; and events, as well as MI-6, sweep him up into danger.

There is no way that the protagonist, Alex Rider, is a typical fourteen-year old kid. If you consider that most children of that age are generally self-absorbed, emotionally volatile, argumentative about restrictions and perceived rights and must-haves: narcissistic little darlings who don’t notice much outside of their own immediate universes. This may seem like an atypical response and judgement of today’s youth – particularly in America – but there are some two dimensional characters who exist like this in YA fiction, as well as unfortunately there are in real life. The character of Alex Rider is as far from this description as he is from even a normal child: his character has traits that belong to someone of more advanced years.

Alex is an enigma: portrayed as a young teen with a problem to solve, a truth to unearth, a death to presumably mourn and avenge, etcetera. However, Alex seems too adult in his behavior, and attitude; too good at too many things; and possessed of impeccable logic in one so young. There are a few token ‘teen’ things like forgetting his cover name at crucial moment when getting to know the villain Herod Sayle, allowing the evil genius an opening to become suspicious of Alex. It works as a convenient plot-device in context, and even allows Alex a human foible in accord with his age group, but the verbal slip is quite a glaring anomaly, given how Alex’s character is portrayed: careful, logical, and dogmatic even in his determination. This could be the result of the influence of Ian Rider on Alex’s life. From the initial moments of their life together, the elder Rider places Alex in a school where he can learn to hold his own, rather than a pampered existence in a more reputable institution. Alex learns karate, beginning at age six; he is taught orienteering, driving vehicles, athletics, hiking, mountain climbing, diving, and skiing; and from living abroad with his uncle, Alex speaks French, German and Spanish. Above it all, Alex has also picked up his uncle’s knack for observation and calculation. Blunt, the head of MI-6 muses and assumes that Ian Rider was training up his nephew to become a spy. Whether or not that is true, we’re not told, but figure that if anything happened to Ian, then he’d want Alex fully prepared to survive on his own – regardless if that were in a normal life, or the life of a spy. Alex uses all of his wits and skills in dealing with Mr Blunt of MI-6, in the face of Blunt’s blatant overt coercion of a minor (Alex) into dangerous duties as well as meeting and handling the missions he is forced to take on. Unfortunately, the hold that Blunt has over Alex smacks highly of ‘faganism’ and not a little of child abuse, in that Alex has to ‘earn his keep’ so to speak.

Alex is abnormally mature and well grounded for his years and makes an excellent junior spy. However, I think that Alex would benefit more as a character if the author could ‘show’ more than ‘tell’ what is going on in future novels.

‘Stormbreaker’ is an excellent read – even for adults. A refreshing plot and array of motives that steer a clear course around the usual clichés found in some young adult fiction. I’m sure that many young people will find this novel an exciting adventure, as from all reports, they already have.

‘Stormbreaker’ is the first of several Alex Rider adventures, and I very much look forward to reading the rest. Well written, well paced, and very well researched. Very well done Mr Horowitz.

Marianne Plumridge

I had planned on putting up another body of works review, however I got a bit sidetracked this week and haven't finished it. Still, I hope you enjoy this one...

Shadows Over Baker Street...A Book Review

2007-05-16T12:49:00.000-05:00

“SHADOWS OVER BAKER STREET: NEW TALES OF TERROR”
Edited by Michael Reaves and John Pelan

October 2003 – A Del Rey Hardcover/Ballantine Books, ISBN 0-345-45528-2, Hardcover, 464 pages, $23.95

“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

Sherlock Holmes, (Arthur Conan Doyle), 1890.

Was there ever a better set up for a more mystical Holmsian adventure than the above quote from Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective in ‘The Sign of Four’*? In this, and other stories by Conan Doyle, the mythical Holme’s uncanny abilities and knowledge appear almost supernatural in the setting of late Victorian London. With that antique society’s predilection for, and whole-hearted embracement of mystical and semi-occult tinkering, it is a very natural extension for the character of Sherlock Holmes to step forward into the realm of the Elder Gods and Old Ones as recounted by H.P.Lovecraft.

Indeed, in ‘Shadows Over Baker Street: New Tales of Terror’ a gathering of well known genre authors have attempted to produce a convincing marriage of these two equally well-known universes. And they’ve done very well indeed, dear reader.

This collection opens with the tremendous and disturbing contribution from Neil Gaiman, “A Study in Emerald” set in 1881. This story begins in a regular way, told in the first person by someone presumably recognizable as Doctor Watson. Things get a little iffy after that: the odd appears commonplace and the bizarre and unnatural, normal. Nothing appears what it seems to, or should be, in the regular Holmsian world. Evil is perceived as the conventional norm, and fighting against it has the feel of underground furtiveness. It is revealed at the end which personas have been switched, and who is actually who. I had to read this story twice to find all the foreshadowing elements that the author subtly fermented the text with.

It was nice to encounter the character of Irene Adler again in “Tiger! Tiger!” by Elizabeth Bear. Although, there is ample presence of Lovecraftian myth in this story, and plenty of adventure, the removal of it from the sordid backstreets and veiled drawing rooms of gaslit London, to the mores and dangers of the African bush smacks faintly of something from the pen of H. Rider Haggard, than that of Doyle. Still, it is smartly paced and well characterized enough to frame the era quite well. A nice read.
“The Case of the Wavy Black Dagger” by Steve Perry is set in New York of 1884, and introduces a characterization of Sherlock Holmes that I’m not wholly comfortable with. Holmes has always maintained a certain kind of cold arrogance of tone in his dealings with associates and clients, but always with an impeccable politeness. The interplay between Holmes and his nocturnal lady visitor implies a seduction as they verbally spar with each other in an intricate dance of intellect. Holmes appears arrogant, smarmy and sensually aroused by the intelligence and appearance of the lady. Other than his being impressed by Irene Adler in past adventures, I do not consciously remember Holmes being portrayed thus at all: unless of course it was a Hollywood screen treatment of the character. A good idea, but a difficult version of Holmes.

Steven-Elliot Altman spins another twist in the coupling of the Holmsian and Lovecraftian universes by adding a third: the presence of H.G. Wells as the narrator of the next Holmsian adventure, “A Case of Royal Blood”. Wells replaces Watson as the sidekick and point of view ‘voice’ as it were. He also picks up some inspiration for future stories along the way.

The excellent “The Weeping Masks” by James Lowder is set pre-Holmsian and is told in flashback style of Doctor Watson’s experiences as a subaltern physician newly arrived in the wilds of Afghanistan, and the war being waged there. The legendary Afghani caves are the setting for Watson’s encounters with the Weeping Mask deaths, and ultimately ‘the unspeakable one’, ‘The One Who Must Not Be Named’. Cthulhu, even?

There are a more tales in this excellent collection, some straightforward, some not: telling of curses upon men and women, involving supernatural transmutation and horrific metamorphosis; black arts revolving around the Necronomicon; human sacrifice and transplantation of evil spirits; and the odd megalomaniac or two. All of them make compelling reading for fans of Sherlock Holmes mysteries and of period drama, however, I’m not completely sure if purists of the works of H.P. Lovecraft will agree. I thoroughly enjoyed this anthology of supernatural Sherlock Holmes tales, enough to remind me that too many years have passed since I last read the works of Conan Doyle. An enjoyment well remembered. The frequency of Afghanistan being represented in some of these tales as a place where evil dwells, or hosting access to demonic dimensions, speaks eloquently of current events and world feeling. As much as Afghanistan is a part of Doctor Watson’s military past, I find that the literary associations contained in this anthology to be an interesting response to recent tragedies in the Middle East, also here, and abroad. I wonder if it was intentional.

All in all, I found the stories collected here a wonderful addition to the worlds of both Sherlock Holmes and H.P.Lovecraft. The authors have recreated a splendid mythical history that works in either universe, or both. This is a book that will remain on my shelves for years to come, to be taken down and read again from time to time, when winter creeps too close and the windows rattle on a windy night…

Marianne Plumridge

* On the page preceding the Contents page in this volume, the quote by Sherlock Holmes is incorrectly attributed to Doyle’s story, ‘A Study in Scarlet’. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations and the New International Dictionary of Quotations give the original reference as ‘The Sign of Four’.

Goodnight, Mr. Holmes...a Book Review

2007-05-06T18:57:00.000-05:00

GOOD NIGHT, MR. HOLMES
By Carole Nelson Douglas

1990, (This Edition – 2005); Forge. Massmarket Paperback, ISBN 0-765-34574-9; 407 pages; Price $7.99

It’s often a pinnacle of an author’s literary career, when the author’s publisher repackages, re-releases and beautifully redresses one’s entire series of novels – while the series is very much still in print. Popularity and accolades aside, the very well written Irene Adler mysteries by Carole Nelson Douglas are re-presented to us by Forge Books in elegant form and have lost none of the polish from their clever wit, daring adventures and swift pace interlaced with danger and murder.

One of the most enduring icons of the 20th Century remains the Great Detective, Sherlock Holmes; accordingly accompanied by a coterie of slightly lesser characters who also endure. Among these are Professor Moriarty, the good and faithful Doctor Watson, Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard, and also “The Woman" – the ‘incomparable’, mysterious Miss Irene Adler. Since the closing years of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s literary legacy, all of the above personages have gone on to appear in their own stories as pastiches of the Sherlock Holmes realm by other authors, or in cross over stories into other equally prestigious Victorian worlds. Some of these latter stories are well written, some are not; some portray amateur melodrama or shallow characterization, others tell subtle tales of well-evolved mystery and entertaining drama. Carole Nelson Douglas’ ‘Good Night, Mr. Holmes’ falls indubitably into the latter.

This is the first in a highly regarded series of books about Irene Adler: the only woman ever to reach the heady levels of intelligence that match the legendary Holmes, and to outwit him into the bargain. Their first and only original adventure, ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ is retold in this book to a much greater length and depth than ever before. The author skillfully interweaves the original story with credible character development and depth without once slipping into melodrama or treating Sherlock Holmes as a two-dimensional cut out. ALL of the characters have been given equal care and attention by the author. Even as Holmes has his Watson, Irene Adler has her foil in a ‘Watsonian’ counterpart, by the name of Penelope “Nell” Huxleigh, the orphaned daughter of a country parson.

It is from Nell’s point of view that we first encounter Irene in the flesh. And it is from Nell’s perspective that the reader becomes an unwitting partner in the unraveling of the complicated layers that constitute Miss Adler’s persona. Nell had moved to London from Shropshire, in search of respectable employment after her father’s death. It began well enough, but eventually ended up in dismissal for Nell, from a haberdashery shop of all things. Wrongly accused of a theft she did not commit, she was thrown on the street with no reference, money, food or accommodation. Nell was at her weakest, from hunger, and in the midst of having her belongings snatched by a street urchin when Miss Irene Adler took a hand and rescued her. A scandalous, to Nell’s eyes anyway, episode in a teashop, a ride in a hansom cab, and listening spellbound to the confession of a self-acknowledged murderer in his heartbroken tale of revenge immediately followed. In that first encounter, Irene was a confusing bundle of contradictions wrapped in fine swaddling to the eyes and dismay of poor befuddled Nell. But from then on, they moved forward together, and Nell began to learn something of the world around her and how to live in it. Throughout all, they skirt scandal and destitution as two independent women living in Victorian London, with as much dignity as they can muster. And encounter mystery and outrage, love and laughter, danger and betrayal in doing so – dealing with each situation as their very opposite personalities will allow.

Like Nell, we never fully plumb those depths of Irene, but a better understanding is achieved. For Miss Adler is a self-confessed adventuress and actress, albeit one who sings opera extremely well: able to walk away from any situation and material possessions as she pleases. Irene’s interests are aroused by mystery, puzzles, curiosity and intellect – and any chance to test herself against them. Her flair for the dramatic, risk-taking, and danger sees an equal only in Sherlock Holmes himself, or perhaps her new husband Godfrey Norton. Let there be no mistake, though, regarding Irene’s morals. Skewed as they are, Irene has a strict code of behavior and will not prostitute her person or her values by selling either for baubles from rich admirers or suitors, as other actresses have done. Her ‘word’ is inviolate according to King Willie of Bohemia, who accepts that she will do naught to compromise him after hearing her so swear. So aside from her budding career as a vocalist, Irene takes on small assignments of the mind by way of mysteries and puzzles for a consideration, to keep her from being bored and to feed her avid curiosity, not to mention feed herself. Although Irene can sometimes be as ruthless and high handed as her compelling rival, Sherlock Holmes, she has what he lacks: a fuller understanding perhaps of some kinds of people; and compassion and kindness. For Holmes has the all-consuming intellect of a scientist, including many of the blind spots that accompany such a personality. Although he has his own charm and magnetism, Holmes is arrogant, self-assured, occasionally pompous, and incurably dismissive of women. The last is probably his greatest failing in his encounter with Irene Adler, and the assumptions he makes about her. However, he rises to the moment when he realizes that not only has she outwitted him, but predicted his behavior as well. It is then that Holmes ultimately, and singularly, develops a burgeoning admiration and respect for a woman, Irene: as much for her intellect as for her talent and beauty. It rises somewhat higher when he learns of her code of ethics. Although the main story is predominantly Irene’s, it contains periodic welcome chapters of Holmes and Watson. Holmes and Adler never actually formally meet, in spite of distant sparring of intellect and talents, but pursue different avenues of the same problems they are engaged in: from years pursuit of Marie Antoinette’s famous missing belt of diamonds whose secret is steeped in antiquity, to opposite sides of the same scandal in Bohemia. Holmes ponders and calculates, while Irene sings, acts, inquires and darts her way through doors and company where a normal Victorian woman would fear to tread.

Nell and Irene, forced to find income without sacrificing self or values, are independent women in Victorian England – far ahead of their time. Both grow as they mature, but neither lose or endanger their self-respect and sense of purpose. Only Irene comes close in her dealings with the King of Bohemia, but she reacts of old when she realizes that her dream of a royal wedding have been but clouds in the sky.

Wonderful additions to the cast of Victorians include the energetic Godfrey Norton, who so proves equal to Irene’s sense of action and queer ethics that she eventually loves and marries him in most unorthodox circumstances. But there are reasons, dear reader. There are reasons. And so add Oscar Wilde, Lilli Langtree, Bram Stoker, and the artist James ‘Jimmy’ McNeill Whistler to the mix, a host of compelling lesser characters, as well as a foul-mouthed bird called Casanova, and things get definitely very interesting indeed.

This novel is an incredibly entertaining and diverting read, filled with adventures, danger, verbal sparring, train chases, hansom cabs, high society and fashion, as well as the lowest levels of the cultural divide, and is entirely deserving of its printed longevity. A sweeping tale that encompasses years and miles across England and the Continent, that is apt to still leave one breathless with anticipation even upon successive re-readings. ‘Good Night, Mr. Holmes’ is an enriching tale of Victorian England made palatable for modern readers, which is sometimes a difficult hurdle to accommodate. Ms. Douglas manages both with aplomb and panache.

However, dear reader, this is only the beginning…

Marianne Plumridge

Primary Ignition...a Book Review

2007-04-30T09:34:00.000-05:00

PRIMARY IGNITION :
Essays: 1997-2001
by Allen Steele

DNA Publications & Wildside Press; Hardcover; ISBN 1587153491;
Price $30.00 US for Hardcover; $15.00 US for Trade Paperback
252 pages; 2003; Cover Art – Bob Eggleton

An author of fiction draws on a lifetime of experience, knowledge, research (not to mention copious rewrites), imagination, and, yes, talent, to build a believable reality in his or her stories. However, it is usually only through interviews and memoir jottings that readers, and sometimes friends, get any kind of real view of the author as a person. Fortunately for those of us with a curious inclination to know, there are tomes like “Primary Ignition”. This book contains the entertaining musings and essays of Science Fiction author Allen Steele, published over a period of five years in magazines such as Absolute Magnitude, Artemis Magazine, and several public talks given by the author during that time.

Steele takes us from the adventure of his first adult tour of NASA’s Cape Canaveral as a college journalist in the amusing opening factual essay ‘Road Trip for Rockets ‘84’ to the speculations of science fiction writers over the decades, and the long held belief that we, as a population, are living the future now in ‘Deja Futura’. Not to mention an unbiased look at the future of the space shuttle fleet and its successors in ‘Leap of Faith’. The themes throughout many of the essays reflect Steele’s lifelong passion for the original NASA space programs, beginning with the Gemini space-shots, Apollo, the subsequent shuttle fleet hiccups, and prospective futures in space exploration. All of which make his near future space fiction breathe with plausibility as well as possibility.

In ‘The Merchants of Mars’ Steele plays devil’s advocate in opposition to the many professional scientists, space engineers and such who profess that we must go to Mars now! It’s not that Steele believes we shouldn’t go to the red planet at all, but that we should do everything to get there the right way. As he mentions, too many probes have been lost enroute to Mars over the decades to commit human lives to the equation before we know what we are doing. This is a very erudite and deftly handled objective discourse. Some of Steel’s marginal cynicism is carried over into the essays: ‘The Tourist Trap’ and ‘Long Time Coming’ – respectively dealing with a possible tourism-driven/commercial-application exploration and settling of space by private industry, and the International Space Station (ISS). He discusses the pros and cons of both and underscores his monologue with an ongoing theme: if we’re going to do this at all, then can we please do it right, for the right reasons, otherwise what’s the point?

Extreme destinations of this prodigious author include his account of the nerve-wracking address to the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, the Committee on Science, and the testimony he delivered there in support of space settlement and exploration using a future redesigned NASA in tandem with a new Commercial Space Administration, on April 3, 2001.

Beginning the Science Fiction section is an essay called ‘Artifacts of the Future’ expounding the theme of dreams and the imagination – without which, humanity would get absolutely nowhere. Steele uses a personally oft-frequented museum exhibit in St Louis Science Center on nostalgic science fiction toys, books and magazines to underline the ‘what if’ motif. In his own words:

“Of all the gifts humankind has, imagination is our greatest. We used this gift to build space shuttles and manufacture tin ray guns, map the genome and concoct board games, write swashbuckling novels set on Mars and launch probes to see if, by any chance, the ghosts of Tars Tarkas and Dejas Thoris may yet lurk those cold red sands. And then we take our old dreams, fulfilled or otherwise, and carefully put them on display behind glass walls, to remind an older generation where we’ve been and to give the youn’uns a clue as to where to go. If life has a better purpose than this, I don’t know what it is.
And that’s why science fiction matters. It doesn’t predict the future, but it lays the foundation. It shows us all our limitless possibilities, good, bad, or evil, and presents us them as plausible alternatives.”

There is an essay on writing science fiction and the hiccups, realities, disappointments and joys it entails; another on ‘first contact’ for the common person and what would probably occur as opposed to what should take place, and the psychological effects on all. In another alien sense, the essay called ‘Cognitive Dissonance in Las Vegas’ paints a revealing portrait of a manufactured city from the point of view of an outsider looking in.

On a more personal level sits the essay entitled ‘Jake’s Last Stand’. In a heart-wrenching study on the life and personality of Allen and Linda Steele’s four-legged companion, Jake, the reader will find it hard not to be moved to tears over the passing of the beloved friend, or the raw vividness of emotion of the author over his loss. The fact that the essay ends on a hopeful note of new beginnings and new life is a tribute to Steele’s writing and ongoing optimistic outlook for the future, and the hopes he holds therein.

‘The End of the Century’ deals with the September 11, 2001 tragedy. Steele begins with a last view of jewel-like nightscape of New York City when he passed through via train, on the way home from the World Science Fiction Convention, on Labor Day in 2001. He goes on to say how much promise that year had originally held for him, with all of its science and science fiction milestones – and how much of it is now eternally overshadowed by the tragic events eight days after that eventful trip. In his own opinion, Steele has come to believe that the events of September 11 signaled the world transition from a past now dead to a future re-imagined for years to come.

Fortunately, the final entry in this anthology is a positive one. As a counterbalance to the analysis of the ‘End of the Century’, the written testimony of Steele’s presentation to U.S. House of Representatives the same year rounds the collection off on a high note. Filled with possibility and the ‘what if ‘ principle, Steele offers a technical and well-researched outline of a possible future in commercially based space settlement and exploration that engenders the whisper: ‘If we upgrade our outlook and thinking, why can’t we do this?’ Indeed, why can’t we?

These collected essays of Allen Steele’s are a compelling read and give the impression that we do indeed live in ‘interesting times’. He handles the material and research in a balanced and knowledgeable manner, and sometimes the reader may get the impression that they’re hearing all these viewpoints from the author himself, over a beer in a quiet bar or sunset filled backyard. This is exactly what the author intends. So grab a beer, coffee, tea, whatever, pull up a comfy chair, and settle back for some interesting reflections on the future and on futures past.

Marianne Plumridge

ANZAC DAY

2007-04-25T14:44:00.000-05:00

Lest We Forget

At dawn on the 25 April 1915, massed Australian and New Zealand troops swarmed up the beach at Gallipoli and into the pages of history. Under heavy fire from the cliffs above, many didn’t make it out of the boats onto the sand, and of those that did waded through heat and sand and the bloody bodies of their fallen comrades to a tenuous foothold on a beach that they should never have been on.

These were the Australia and New Zealand Army Corp: known to one and all as the ANZACs. Their bravery and staunch humour in the face of incoming fire only added to the legend that still exists to this day. Every year, Australia mourns the loss of family and loved ones nearly eighty years on, to honour those who came home, to commemorate the day when a young country heeded the desperate call to arms and a cry for help. Their sacrifice is not forgotten. While their memories live, then so does the Australian spirit: ‘doing the right thing’, mateship, courage, honour, service, laughter and freedom. These are the rocks our country’s spirit was forged upon.

ANZAC Day has been commemorated since 1916, and traditionally begins with a dawn service:
“The Dawn Service observed on ANZAC Day has its origins in an operational routine which is still observed by the Australian Army today. The half-light of dawn plays tricks with soldiers' eyes and from the earliest times the half-hour or so before dawn, with all its grey, misty shadows, became one of the most favoured times for an attack. Soldiers in defensive positions were therefore woken up in the dark, before dawn, so that by the time the first dull grey light crept across the battlefield they were awake, alert and manning their weapons. This was, and still is, known as "Stand-to". It was also repeated at sunset.
After the First World War, returned soldiers sought the comradeship they felt in those quiet, peaceful moments before dawn. With symbolic links to the dawn landing at Gallipoli, a dawn stand-to or dawn ceremony became a common form of ANZAC Day remembrance during the 1920s; the first official dawn service was held at the Sydney Cenotaph in 1927. Dawn services were originally very simple and followed the operational ritual; in many cases they were restricted to veterans only. The daytime ceremony was for families and other well-wishers, the dawn service was for old soldiers to remember and reflect among the comrades with whom they shared a special bond. Before dawn the gathered veterans would be ordered to "stand to" and two minutes of silence would follow. At the end of this time a lone bugler would play the "Last Post" and then concluded the service with "Reveille". In more recent times the families and young people have been encouraged to take part in dawn services, and services in Australian capital cities have seen some of the largest turnouts ever. Reflecting this change, the ceremonies have become more elaborate, incorporating hymns, readings, pipers and rifle volleys. Others, though, have retained the simple format of the dawn stand-to, familiar to so many soldiers.”
Excerpt from the archives of The Australian War Memorial, Canberra, Australia.

…They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

From: ‘For The Fallen’ by Laurence Binyon, 1914

Poppies placed by descendants and families of loved ones lost during WWI and all succeeding conflicts, where their names are engraved on the Roll of Honour, in the Hall of Memory, at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, Australia.

LEST WE FORGET

Marianne

Reading Victoria Laurie...

2007-04-17T20:41:00.000-05:00

I have a headache… Not really surprising, since I’ve just finished reading the last three books – back to back within twenty-four hours - written by professional psychic and novelist, Victoria Laurie. No, not ‘how-to’ books, novels: crime fiction, to be precise. Her series protagonist is Abby Cooper, also a professional psychic, whose comfortable world of doing ‘readings’ for clients is about to be ripped apart. That would be from the first book, “Abby Cooper, Psychic Eye”.

Despite the human race’s long on/off love affair with ‘otherworldly influences’ – there are those who walk among us who truly have contact with the ‘other side’. Throughout time, these people have been either loved or hated, cosseted or burned, flocked to or shunned, ignored or persecuted, under any given set of circumstances. And in spite of the role of stereotypical charlatans that pop up during crises to proclaim they know what’s going on and what signs people must follow, there are a genuine few who bear the true gift of sight. And in saying that they ‘bear’ their gift, I mean just that. It can be the heaviest of burdens. But what they ‘see’ isn’t the problem, it’s how it’s received, perceived and dealt with by those the psychic ‘reads’ for. So no matter how loved and accepted they are (lucky few), a psychic can walk a very lonely road. This is what strikes me about Victoria Laurie’s ‘Abby’. She’s both vulnerable and tough, has a largish inferiority complex but can also be strong as steel, is feisty, karmic and morally responsible, a giver who’s constantly running to the frontline in anyone’s given battle. Karmic heroine? Possibly: but just as flawed a human being as the rest of us - seeing two worlds, not just one, and feeling responsible for both. So in this series of books, Abby finds that violence enters her life – much to the chagrin of those who love her most. Throughout successive books, Abby is nearly killed several times in her pursuit of truth, and brings about the demise of a mob boss who threatens her, as well as everyone around her, attempts to kill her, and fails in the end. She saves whom she can, and that is most, but there are the odd failures due to miscommunications or trying to find out what’s going on. In ‘Killer Insight’, Abby actually does die for a short time, in her efforts to find a deranged killer. Thinking she is insignificant and has nothing to live for, she wants to surrender to the ‘other side’, but her grandmother gently helps her to see for herself what the future should and must be. Abby comes back to those she loves and helps, grateful to find them there waiting, but there will be repercussions that she has to face in her own spirit and soul. However that is for future books, one of which is ‘Crime Seen’ released in September 2007. I for one can’t wait.

“Abby Cooper: Psychic Eye”
This is the first of Victoria Laurie’s novels involving professional psychic, Abby Cooper. In spite of a few close friends, a full time practice ‘reading’ for clients, and a loveable miniature dachshund named Eggy, Abby walks a lonely path. Her personal life is non-existent, she has defensive and anger issues regarding her work and how other people behave once they know that she has ‘connections’, and a cash flow problem – or lack thereof. On the flipside of her personality, Abby is caring, determined, has a steely will, and an impulsiveness that drives her where angels fear to tread. Most times she listens to her guides when they are trying to tell her something, but sometimes, through absolute physical or emotional exhaustion, she ignores them at her – or someone else’s – peril.

In this novel, Theresa, Abby’s best friend and mentor, is moving from the Royal Oak, Michigan office that they share, to California and a dream shot at doing her Medium stuff in front of a live audience. Feeling somewhat bereft, Abby decides to take hold of her destiny with both hands and signs up with a computer dating service. The resulting date is a passionate attraction of opposites – not only in points of view, but performance of duties. Innate shyness, anger, and several margaritas cause Abby to blurt out what she ‘sees’ surrounding her date. His shock is a balm, and he apologizes, but he is still an unbeliever. They walk around town getting to know each other while exchanging small confidences, and Abby is both alternately irritated by, and incredibly attracted to Dutch. It seems he is attracted to her too, and his kisses are a happy memory.

A week later, an angry and barely awake Abby opens her door to a formal Dutch and a stranger who has been tailing her. The two are cops and are only there to demand more information out of her regarding a case that Abby mentioned to Dutch on their date. All of Abby’s old horrors of being falsely accused of committing a crime seem to be coming home to roost. Until her guides inform her that they are lying to her and that she has nothing to worry about. If anything, Abby is in a towering rage and flings their lies back in their faces along with facts as to why they’re lies. She reluctantly answers their questions, repeats what she said to Dutch on their date, and then throws them out of her house with a few more personal home truths for them to chew on.

Then a last minute client of Abby’s is murdered, and things go downhill from there.

Both wanting to help her client and salve her own guilty conscience, Abby helps answer a few questions herself and then offers to help the police. In spite of their grudging earlier belief, they make her feel like she has nothing they can use or want. Abby begins to do things on her own, and her ‘relationship’ to Dutch gets even more complicated. Trust isn’t an easy thing to establish on either side, and both of them wind up hurt, angry, distrustful, or passionate, and each with a grudging growing respect for the other.

The killer is of a nasty, vindictive kind and thinks that Abby knows more than she does, so she is targeted too. A series of logic, intuition, puzzling clues and crossed live connections, lead to getting the killer and solving the crimes, but not before Abby is dreadfully wounded.
This is a compelling story, with compelling characters that have all too human quirks of their own. But not to be totally serious, there are some very gratifying fun moments and ‘gotchas!’ to keep this roller coaster ride of a novel chugging along nicely.

“Better Read Than Dead”
Abby is happily preparing for the homecoming of her boyfriend, Dutch, who is on his way back from his FBI rookie training. Then, out of the blue, she is dragooned into helping read Tarot cards – despite the fact that she doesn’t know how – at an expensive wedding on the night he’s due home. And when they do meet up, Dutch introduces Abby to his new partner, ‘Joe’: a stunning woman with all of the subtlety of a barracuda when it comes to men, and who smugly baits and taunts Abby while they wait for Dutch’s return from taking a phone-call. She reacts badly when he says that he and ‘Joe’ have to leave town on a mission.

The wedding turns out to be a mob one, as in mafia, and Abby reads for a hit man. Afterward, she and Kendal panic and leave. Subsequently, she and Kendal return early to his house and find his boyfriend in bed with a woman. Kendal races out, distraught. Abby returns home, unsuspecting that her life and the life of everyone she loves is now on the line. Kendal disappears – to Florida, it seems – and Abby is forcibly kidnapped to answer to the mob boss, Andros Kapordelis, for her and Kendal’s defection. He makes her repay the money – her share, Kendal’s, and then double for the inconvenience. She is now broke, but still has her attitude and anger to get her by. She defies Andros when he tries to strong-arm her into working for him. Alone, she is unprepared for the intimidation and threats in the days that follow. A further complication is when Milo, Dutch’s former detective partner, asks for Abby’s help in trying to nail a serial rapist.

She puts it all together in the end, after a wild ride through fear, leaps of faith, running for her life, and losing almost every personal possession she has. Her sister, Cat is attacked but saved; Dutch’s life is literally in her hands during a test by Andros; and her own life is saved by mistaken identity, but not her friend Mary Lou’s. It takes every shred of intuitive power, guidance from the other side, logic, guts, and shrewdness to get Abby through this and tie up all the loose ends to everyone’s satisfaction and safety, but hers. Her karmic balance now leans to the ‘debt’ side.

Compelling and harrowing, funny and dead serious at the same time: this is not a ride to miss.

“A Vision of Murder”
Abby has taken January off to take a passionate vacation with her boyfriend, FBI agent Dutch Rivers, and buy furniture for her new house, when the fates intervene. Dutch gets shot in the derriere and Abby has to nurse him for a month. Meanwhile, the investment property – dump, might be a better word – that she’s been dragooned into buying and renovating by her handyman, Dave, and her sister Cat, has major problems of its own: hefty violent ghostly ones, with a live violent agent. It takes Abby, a barely mobile Dutch, Milo and Dave to see it though. World War II betrayals, evil intent, murder, and jewels are all a part of this dark puzzle.

This is an almost straightforward poltergeist/historical mystery story, but Ms Laurie’s intrinsic fast pace, danger and excitement are still as palpable as they are in her earlier books. There are some genuinely funny moments as well as tense ones, and death surrounds all.

Read this to find out what Cat does with a bulldozer and what it costs her for her temper tantrum. Find out about Abby and Cat’s parents, and why Abby loathes them. And as argumentative as they are all through this story – scaring the bejeezus out of each other in the process – Dutch and Abby finally get to take their much needed vacation of passion.

“Killer Insight”
This novel is every bit as deadly serious as Abby’s situation in “Better Read Than Dead”. A rocky Valentine’s Day date at Abby’s house leads to a surmised rift between Dutch and Abby when he says he wants more space to concentrate on his work. She’s angry and hurt, and blames it on when Dutch came to her office to help clean up following its destruction in the previous novel. Unfortunately, the first thing he picks up is a file that affects him strangely. He makes excuses and leaves. She groans when she realizes that it’s her ages old ‘wedding file’: the file of clippings a girl keeps while she dreams of her ‘big day’. Things come to a head on Valentine’s Day, and the misunderstanding gets worse. She looks at Dutch’s energy and sees that her pattern is no longer a part of it. Abby is shocked, and concludes that he’s removing her from his life and is moving on: essentially breaking up with her. There are far more chilling reasons for it not being there, but it doesn’t occur to her to ask. She forces him to leave and then promptly falls to pieces.

Subsequent events take her to a dear friend’s wedding in Colorado, to nurse her wounds and get some fresh scenery. Pathetically, she takes the ‘on sale’ new cell phone that Dutch gave her for Valentine’s Day, and vainly waits for him to call. Before she’s even unpacked, however, local events surrounding the wedding turn dark when she discovers that one of the bridesmaids is somehow dead. The snowball search for her body and cause for her murder turns into a fast-paced avalanche that spells danger for women in the wedding party and Abby in particular.

There is a deeply tragic turning point for Abby near the end of this story. It gives her some answers, lets her ask some questions of her own, and gives her hope and resolve to go on with. Her turmoil will give any reader pause, who has gone through love and rejection, rebound and resolution, and strengthening of will. Compelling, fast paced, funny in parts, deadly in others, this story compares favorably to “Better Read Than Dead” for Abby at her most rebellious and resourceful, determined and brave. A damn good read.

I can’t wait until September when Ms Laurie’s new novel in the series, “Crime Seen” hits the bookstores.

Meanwhile, I’ve read…

“What’s a Ghoul to Do?”
This is a new series by Ms Laurie, surrounding the character of professional ghostbuster M.J. Holliday who was introduced in the Abby Cooper series in “A Vision of Murder”. M.J. is a Medium: that she can talk to dead people, in ways that Abby can’t. Although M.J. is somewhat lonely as far as relationships with men goes, her best friend and partner is an extrovert gay man called Gilley that she’s known since childhood. After that, M.J. and Abby differ greatly, in their respective talents as well as their approach to life. Both are determined and brave, but M.J. doesn’t seem to attract the same violence and trouble that finds Abby. However, this is just the first book about M.J.’s adventures, so things could get way more interesting as time goes on.

At first, M.J. turns down a ghostbusting job in northern Massachusetts, because the client insists on coming with her on the job. For good reasons, M.J. and Gilley work alone, but Dr. Steven Sable – or Doctor Delicious as M.J.’s african gray parrot, Doc, calls him – is skeptical and insists. They part ways, only to meet up again on a blind date set up by Mama Dell. An embarrassing mix up and a sharp taste of her talent later, Steven takes M.J. more seriously and apologizes. Meanwhile there is a heavy degree of electricity rebounding back forth between the two, in the mutual attraction stakes.

The job is to go to Steven’s grandfather’s fancy lodge and find if, and why he killed himself there. If it were only that easy… Old agreements, questionable paternity, old hatreds, and Steven’s sleazy, calculating father, Dr. Steven Sable Senior, make for a deadly raising of stakes. Wild TV sets, ghost lights, a very pushy specter, secrets, an exploding pool, and a shadowy would-be murderer create mayhem and danger for our team.

The story rollicks along at a standard Laurie pace: fast. There’s also the usual amount of passion and fun. And although, this isn’t quite as deep as the Abby Cooper novels, it only needs for the author to shrug her shoulders for the characters to fall into place, and for her to hit her stride with that particular end of the psychic universe. I, for one, can’t believe I’ve got to wait a whole year for the next installment.

Marianne

Daikaiju...a Book Review

2007-04-12T13:45:00.000-05:00

DAIKAIJU: Giant Monster Tales.
Edited by Robert Hood and Robin Pen.

March 2005 – Agog Press, PO Box U302, University of Wollongong, NSW 2522. ISBN 0-9580567-4-9; Trade Paperback; 352 pages; Price AUS $27.99 (Collins Booksellers – GST included). Available on Amazon.com in the USA.

For more about this book see:
http://www.roberthood.net/daikaiju-antho/index2.html

‘Kaiju’ is the Japanese word for monster and has come to be the catchphrase for the giant monsters that stride their way through myriad fantasy and science fiction tales today, whether they be purely literary or larger than life images on the big screen. The editors give an apt and detailed description in their introduction and it is well worth the read, to gauge the depth of enthusiastic response that writers and readers have had to this collection of short tales.

The entries in this remarkable anthology are, by and large, of excellent quality from authors all over the world. Style and content vary widely, from introspective ‘survivors’ tales to interaction with the giant beasts, from existing universes of giant ‘monsterisms’ to startlingly new and varied fresh responses to the theme.

Some of the stories that stand out include…

Stephen Mark Rainey’s ‘Transformer of Worlds’ combines the power of art and the power of dreams and a person’s ability to manipulate both. Only this time, the wrong person creates art for truly the wrong reason. Masterfully told story of a chase across time and dream realms to prevent the destruction of multitude worlds by art that releases…wait for it…giant monsters. Although that appears to be a trite summation, the monster aspects seem incidental to the story as the struggle between the protagonist and the insane scientist/artist create the framework and drive of the plot. This tale would make an interesting novel. Nice nod to the master of supernatural enquiry, Edgar Cayce, by naming the female lead for him.

‘Aspect Hunter’ by Anthony Fordham is a tale of danger, adventure, conflict and outrageous behavior, with a dose of time travel and unrequited romance. That’s about as close as it comes to a regular giant monster fantasy scenario. The kaiju in this story is a malevolent glacier that is gaining a swift advance on the city of Sydney, Australia following its growth and destruction of the towns west of the city. It sounds kind of like a fast ice-age until you find out that the glacier – like all of the other glaciers in existence – has a mind of its own, and thousands of ‘white demons’ to kill and destroy everything in their path. It is the job of the Aspect Hunter to ‘take it down’. Back from a time trip to 11,000 BC, the Aspect Hunter lands in a situation that has rapidly gone from bad to worse. He’s immortal, experienced in dealing with ‘ice’, and hangs with ‘the Yak’. Sorry, but you’re going to have to read the story for yourself if you want more information. I really enjoyed this one, and wouldn’t mind seeing the premise and characters developed in to a full-blown novel or series.

Paul Finch’s ‘Calibos’ is an adventure of note, as is Cody Goodfellow’s ‘Kungmin Horangi: The People’s Tiger’. Both encompass mankind’s struggle with itself to solve a dangerous problem, and not lose its humanity in the process. Well written, with only a slightly farcical, or should I say incredulous ending to ‘Kungmin’’.

‘Park Rot’ by Skip Peel is another oddity, but assuredly an amusing read if mildly cynical of big business greed.

On a more humorous note, Andrew Sullivan’s story, ‘Notes Concerning Events at the Ray Harryhausen Memorial Home For Retired Actors’ is a must read. It is a ‘take’ on how things would be if the monstrous giants of screen legend really were that size and actors to boot. What happens when they get past the height of their popularity, and grow old – some not so gracefully? This is the funniest ‘day-in-the-life-of’ I’ve ever read, as told by a giant ape who shall remain nameless.

Of Garth Nix ‘Read It In the Headlines’, it is a story told only in newspaper headlines and is also a great deal of fun.

I had a hard time comprehending the connections between the seemingly unconnected paragraphs of ‘Five Bells’ by Trent Jamieson.

The rest of the stories in this anthology are as well worth a read as the few mentioned above. Each of them has their own style and pace that makes them wholly individual and diverse. The editors have chosen well in their selection.

Concluding the anthology is a ‘must-read’ essay by Brian Thomas called “Wonders 8 Through 88: A Brief History of the Larger-Than-Life”. This is a witty and knowledgeable chronicle that doesn’t once get bogged down in too much reference or fan ‘gushiness’. The author shows a depth of knowledge of the human psych and what drives us to admire the huge heroes that touch our sense of awe and wonder, not to mention the inner child: reaching back into ancient archetypes and myth to find a basis for ‘why do we like them?’ A truly fun trip from the mythic past all the way to the mythic ‘future’ of big screen monsters, beginning with the original icon of 1933’s ‘King Kong’ to the most up to date entry from Japan, 2004’s ‘Godzilla: Final Wars’.

Also, reading the contributor’s biographies is almost as much fun as reading their contributions. Cute quips and cats…er, companion kaiju.

In summation, if you like big monsters, you’ll like this book. Even if you don’t, there is enough material to make a picky reader curious, perhaps enough to appreciate the diversity of imagination and what ‘larger-than-life’ means to each of us.

Meanwhile, the editors have announced the imminent production of a sequel anthology… In fact, two sequels will be launched on 1st June 2007 in Australia!

Marianne Plumridge

********************************************

Here are some photos from the Official Launch of "Daikaiju" at Conflux convention in Canberra, Australia in 2005:

Bob Eggleton (my husband) declaring the book 'Launched'!

Editor Rob Hood, writer Cat Sparks, and Bob at the launch.

Reading Justin Richards...

2007-03-21T11:52:00.000-05:00

The Invisible Detective and Friends...

I’ve been reading mysteries and murder mystery books almost exclusively in the last two years, aside from the odd biography or reference books. Sometimes I detour for a young adult novel or children’s book that catches my fancy: usually something to do with mystery, mystery/historical, mystery/paranormal, or mystery/time slip themes. My usual themes, I guess. Anyway, we spent a day in New York City the Monday before last, whilst my husband, Bob, did some business at a couple of publishing houses he works for. After that, the day was ours. We thought about going up to the Field Museum and surrounding shops, but opted to visit bookshops a little closer to the train station. We were pretty tired from the unearthly hour we’d gotten up that morning for the drive and train trip in. We wanted to be awake and able to enjoy a trip to see the dinosaurs at the Field Museum on another trip, so it was bookstores. For the longest time, Bob had been talking about taking me to Strand Books in the city – this time we got there. They had a huge children’s section that I could have spent all day in if I’d been feeling up to it. Still, I managed to pick up a delightful picture book called ‘Mik’s Mammoth’ by Roy Gerrard and discovered English writer, Justin Richards. To be exact, Richards’ ‘The Invisible Detective’ Series. On a whim, I bought all three that they had on display. Titles like ‘The Paranormal Puppet Show’ (released in this country under the pallid title of ‘Double Life’), ‘Ghost Soldiers’ and ‘Killing Time’, really piqued my interest.

I read Richards’ books in order, beginning with ‘The Paranormal Puppet Show’. In doing so, once started, I found that I couldn’t put it down. Now that is brilliant writing! Not only did the subject and time settings (contemporary as well as the 1930s) enthrall me, but the interweaving of the current mystery under investigation, plus intrinsic subplots and placements of information regarding further mysteries that are dealt with in future stories. When I was in my early teens, I would have thought these books were so cool to read, let alone keep. Even at my age, the writing captured my enthusiasm as well as my interest. Richards doesn’t talk down the reader in any way, but involves he or she in what ever is happening like a fellow conspirator. Yes, I did say conspirator. The situation involving the base set up of the Invisible Detective, Brandon Lake, is created and kept secret by four children: Art Drake, who plays the barely visible detective who gives audiences in a dark room, and is the leader of the little group; Meg Wallace, the suspicious, logical one who can uncannily tell if someone is lying; Jonny, the fastest thing on two legs; and Flinch, a little girl abandoned to the streets, and the reason for the subterfuge. The children, or Cannoniers as they call themselves, are trying to raise enough money to buy Flinch some warm clothes for the winter. So, everyone who comes to consult the Brandon Lake on a Monday evening by asking a question, must leave sixpence in return.
The children investigate things as simple as ‘is the publican at such and such a pub watering his beer?’ to a missing person under suspicious circumstances. All this is done between the serious problems of their own lives. Simple things lead the intrepid children into strange and dire circumstances, some way beyond their control. Sophisticated, imaginative, and very well thought out. The cases of the Invisible Detective are set to intrigue, and they do. I’m currently waiting to receive more of the novels…

Meantime, I read Justin Richards’ newest release ‘The Death Collector’. Set in another time with new characters in a new, but no less fascinating setting: The British Museum, in late Victorian England. The pace is fast, the dangers real, and the murders and mysteries just keep piling up. Even the dead walk – but not in the way you imagine. The opening lines from this book capture you from the start: “Four days after his own funeral, Albert Wilkes came home for tea…Even the dog knew there was something wrong.”

Justin Richards is a writer gifted with a brilliant imagination, a love of clockwork, history, mystery and all of the quirks that human history and pre-history has to offer. And he uses it all to fashion stories and people that intrigue the reader, and fascinate the mind – usually at a breathless pace.

He is the author of currently more than a dozen genre and sf novels, as well as non-fiction books, and audio and television scripts. He has moonlighted by editing anthologies of short stories, collaborated occasionally with well-known author, Jack Higgins, been a technical writer, founded and edited a media journal, and contributed articles to many mainstream magazines. Before all that he worked for a multinational computer company. At present, Justin is best known for his role as Creative Consultant to the BBC Books range of Doctor Who novels, as well as writing his own well-received novels for the series.

Marianne

A New Recipe...and it's healthy

2007-03-10T11:57:00.000-05:00

I created this one night when I was feeling creative in the kitchen and wanted to use up some ingredients lying around the place. Originally, I used a a brown rice and wild rice blend, and then baked the whole thing when it was made. The recipe is the one I use now, and the risotto tastes just as good with the sourcream/plain yoghurt mix mixed through it without baking it further. Give it a whirl, and see what your tastebuds think...

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Brown Rice Risotto

1 cup Brown rice
3 ¾ cups Chicken Broth or water )

2 stalks celery, finely chopped
1/3 green pepper (capsicum), finely chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon Olive oil
1-2 large links of lean Sweet Italian pork sausage, removed from casing OR 6-8 rashers of turkey bacon finely chopped.

(or even turkey or chicken sausage)
1 heaped teaspoon of Parsley flakes
1 teaspoon dried Thyme
1 teaspoon crushed garlic
½ - 1/3 cup of peanuts, or cashews or crushed Pecans

1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons sour cream or plain yoghurt
salt and pepper to taste
dash of paprika or, alternatively, dried mustard.

Small amount of butter (optional)
Seasoned Bread crumbs (optional)

In a large saucepan, place rice and chicken broth (or water, if using) and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer with lid on for further 40-45 minutes or until Brown rice is tender. Remove lid and let sit until remaining water is absorbed.

In a deep frying pan, place celery, green pepper, onion and olive oil, parsley flakes, Thyme, crushed garlic and peanuts. Cook on medium heat until all ingredients are tender and a bit browned. Drain, and add ingredients to rice mixture. In same frying pan, place sausage, and a little extra olive oil if sausage is really lean. Heat over medium heat until cooked through – crumble the sausage until fine. Add to rice mixture.

Add all remaining ingredients to rice mixture. Blend well!

If you would like a different texture and serving suggestion, then:

Grease, or spray lightly with oil, a large baking dish. Spoon rice mixture into baking dish and smooth the top of it with a spoon. Sprinkle breadcrumbs over top of rice mixture and dot with butter. If butter is hard, it can be grated over breadcrumbs to ensure an even spread. Bake in a 300 degree oven for 45 minutes to allow flavours to blend. The breadcrumb topping stops the rice from drying out in the oven.

Serves 4-6 people or lasts two people two meals.

NOTE: Highlighted ingredients are the ones I usually use when making this recipe.

Hope you like it,

Marianne

Abandon In Place...a book review

2007-02-16T11:12:00.000-05:00

At this time of world uncertainty, here is a review of Jerry Oltion's "Abandon in Place". It's whimisical, wistful, and at time joyful. If you like the review, you'll love the book. I did...

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“ABANDON IN PLACE”

by Jerry Oltion

TOR; Hardcover; ISBN 0-312-87264-X; $24.95 US; 365 pages; November 2000; Cover Art – Vincent Di Fate. Paperback Edition reportedly due in February 2003

Reviewed by Marianne Plumridge – November 2002

Were you a child of the Apollo space program years? Did you ever look up into the night sky back then and dream dreams of one day being able to walk in space like the then new astronauts: look up and imagine the places that humankind could go to? Did you mourn the loss of the deep space and moonshot programs when the Public lost interest in the dream, the vision, and the hope for the future back then? Do you sometimes imagine what might have been if we’d just kept going…maybe even reached Mars?

Then this is the book for you!

Imagine. The morning after famed astronaut Neil Armstrong dies and is buried at Arlington, a Saturn V rocket launches itself from Pad 34 at Cape Canaveral. Witnesses are stunned. They feel the thunder of the engines, smell the rocket fuel, are buffeted by the jet backwash and watch in awe as a 363-foot shining white rocket soars into the morning sky. But there hasn’t been a Saturn V rocket launched from American soil in 30 years: the technological know-how has been lost, and Pad 34 is a broken rusted derelict with the sign “Abandon in Place” posted there as its epitaph. However one did lift off that day and even sent back telemetry from Moon orbit before disappearing as suddenly as it had begun. Astronaut Rick Spencer was an eyewitness standing atop of Pad 39A during that first phantom launch. As a child, he lived, breathed, and consumed the Apollo flights. This was a ghost…or was it?

The story follows how Rick is trained to fly the Saturn V’s Apollo command module and how he actually climbs aboard the third vehicle to appear on Pad 34, and flies it to the Moon accompanied by two fellow astronauts picked up by EVA from the space shuttle in orbit around the Earth. Read the breathtaking account of the flight to the Moon, the world’s perception of it, and unravel the mystery of how the rocket, etc. came into being. There is a nicely entwined infrastructure of science and the supernatural that really comes down to one thing: massive willpower and a single point to focus it through. I won’t spoil it for you, but the ups and downs of our heroes as they struggle with beliefs, emotions, sheer will, personal responsibility, media circus’, real dangers, and the reshaping of the world in a newly awakened image is a non-stop ride of heart warming exhilaration. A breathtaking, tense, funny, scary ‘what if we could?’ Far-fetched events made plausible by the author in his attempt to meld science with the human will, dreams and hope.

In one instance, in an attempt to stop a vicious European war, our heroes try to ‘build’ a weapon that won’t be knocked out of the sky by a Foe of equal power. Unfortunately they just can’t get it right and end up dropping a stream of perfectly formed Luna Landing Modules on him instead. Laugh or cry it’s a brilliant moment – right up to what happened next.

In it’s original form, this story was published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction as a 7,000-word short story. The author was enthusiastically encouraged to expand the story into a novella which then went on to win a Nebula Award. This is the story in its final incarnation as a novel. Personally, I loved it. Some might not. But don’t pass up the chance to read it and find out. This novel is definitely the ‘Field of Dreams’ of the Space Program.

Marianne

Paint out in Salem, MA...

2007-02-11T14:22:00.000-05:00

Sandra's Gargoyle

(6x8", Oil) Price: $100.00

Bob and I went off to Salem, MA, yesterday to give a painting demonstration. Well, we painted and The Art Corner patrons, as well as shop staff peeked over our shoulders. The Art Corner is a framing shop and gallery which does a brisk business on Washington Street in Salem, and occasionally makes room for us to come up and paint in the window along with fellow artist, Charles (Chuck) Lang. We have a relaxing time and chat while we paint. We also consumed way too much chocolate and pizza, but never mind. This was a special day, because numerous businesses had wonderful ice sculptures out the front of their premises - and usually the lure of chocolate within - as a pre-Valentine's day art event. So, inevitably, we were the floor show. Mind you, we did chat a bit throughout - with each other as well as customers - and played guess that tune. The shop has a 200 cd jukebox style player that was in 'shuffle' mode, so it was a chance to see who could come up with what obscure song/movie soundtrack title first.

I'd spent all of Friday morning playing with Photoshop and making up mixed flyers for our painting a day blogsites to hand out. They looked really good up there next to the chocolates. I know, chocs again. I had way too many.

Anyway, above is the painting I did of Sandra Lira's gargoyle sculpture. Sandra is a friend as well as a fellow artist, and this is a breakthrough piece for her. It has been molded and cast in a variety of mediums and is sold via various catalogues and shops. This is one of the huge garden variety, and sits in another friends garden. I took photos there some years back, and always wanted to paint the gargoyle in situ. He doesn't look too bad - the painting either.

Meanwhile, here is Bob painting his first landscape of the day. Beautiful isn't it? He did another of a castle after that. God he's fast. Brilliant, but fast...

And here is Chuck working on his apples painting. It looked pretty darn good when he finished it. I was kind of hoping he'd call it 'Stop/Go' or somegthing similar, because of all the red and green... It was also Chuck's birthday. Happy Birthday again, Chuck...

And this is my brand new little painting box: a 6x8" Thumbox from the Guerilla Painter series. Cool, huh? Just my size! And there's the Gargoyle painting sitting up on it...

Well, we had a really great time and want to do it again soon. I'll let you know.

Cheers

Marianne

Telling It How It Is...

2007-02-07T19:11:00.000-05:00

About once a year, Bob and I go to local art college, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and give a talk and slideshow each - to the students of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Illustration class taught by fellow artist, Nick Jainschigg. That's what we did today. We did a show and tell with Bob's art first, and discussed the pros and cons of working for the publishing industry. There are both pitfalls and successes to be had, but negotiating the illustration road and remaining both solvent, healthy, and sane at the same time can be rough until you find your legs. Even then, there are potholes. Bob and I have had different experiences on different levels of the process, so we shared our anecdotes and warnings, with Nick chipping in with his from time to time. Nick and I took turns moderating the discussion.

Afterwards, we all trooped upstairs to present our slides. Bob had quite a few - illustrating (no pun intended) finished product as well as concept sketches and finished paintings side by side on the screen. Added to this years slideshow was a selection of Bob's concept art from the movie, 'The Antbully', and the previsualization art from 'Seahorse' from the same studio. It was well received. My slideshow encompasses my first serious beginnings in painting fantasy art from 1988 to the present day. The styles and mediums have changed over time, but I always came back to the freedom I feel when using oils. Acrylics, while I find them useful for illustration work, were difficult for me to master and I really felt that I'd literally painted myself into a corner, stylewise, with them. Also, painting in thin acrylic glazes can be time-consuming and tedious. Where was the fun in that? I included several new slides with montages of my 'painting a day' images from my 'Daub du Jour' blog, to show what I was currently trying to accomplish. Using thicker paint, painting from life, challenging myself to keep painting because I haven't been giving it the attention it deserves in recent years. They were appreciative, thankfully. Maybe I'm not doing too badly.

Anyway, that was today. On Saturday, Bob and I are going up to Salem, MA, to do a painting demo with our friend Charles Lang at The Art Corner on Washington Street. But more about that later...

See you then,
Marianne

Fabulous Fakes and Forgeries...an Artshow

2007-02-05T13:54:00.000-05:00

Madame K

(9x16", Oil) Price: $200.00

The sunday before last, Bob and I were frantically working on our entries for the '14th Annual Fakes and Forgeries' show at Spring Bull Gallery in Newport, RI. We thought we had another week to get them done, but the end of January crept up on us way too soon. As it was, I had a fair idea of what I wanted to do, the stumbling block - as it always is - was designing and drawing what I wanted to do first: turn John Singer Sargent's stunning portrait, 'Madame X' into a koala bear. Yes, I know, another koala bear...

The result is as you see above. She didn't turn out too badly, all the rushing considered. Bob whipped out an alla prima oil version of one of Albert Bierstadt's paintings of 'Seals on Rocks' in a 9x12" format. Copies of Bierstadt's must be kind of rare at this show, because Bob's painting sold on opening night and was one of the first to do so. We also eavesdropped on converstions while people were looking at it. They raved! We were quite chuffed. Mind you eavesdropping was impossible to avoid: the little gallery was packed to the rafters as usual, with people.

'Madame K' attracted comment as well. People thought she was funny and cute. And I had to explain to at least one woman what kind of critter she was supposed to be. She hasn't sold yet, but I'm hopeful...

After the mad dash to Newport for the opening this Saturday gone (3rd), we made an even madder dash all the way up to Woonsocket to meet friends at Chan's Eggroll and Jazz restaurant on Main Street. Great food, great company, and front table seats to see Johnny Hoy and the Bluefish play some great blues - some torchy - and jazz. It was a great night.

However, I'd better get back to painting, or I'll be behind in getting stuff together for the next show in two weeks: Boskone science fiction convention in Boston.

Cheers
Marianne

The Space Shuttle...Eulogy for a Dream

2007-01-28T09:53:00.000-05:00

I wrote this back when Shuttle Columbia tragically exploded on reentry to Earth's atmosphere. I don't have anything new on the subject, but these words are still as strong today as when I wrote them. I hope you like them...

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Eulogy for a Dream

By Marianne Plumridge, (c) 1 February 2003

I am a child of the 1960s. Born into that turbulent decade which oversaw so many changes in the world. War, peace, civic awareness, the awakening of racial issues, the cold war, burgeoning freedoms on many levels, and personal freedoms formerly restrained by the overworked images of the previous decade: the American Dream; the perfect society; the unquestioning roles formed for us by government and church. Into all this turmoil though, came an idea whose seed was planted in the closing years of World War II: spaceflight. It started out as a whisper, and became a dream. The ‘what if we could put a man in space?’ became ‘what if we could put a man on the moon?’ Despite the personal troubles of the ‘everyman/woman’ around the globe, the world watched in awe and joy as humankind achieved its ultimate goal: flying a person to, and landing on, another cosmic body across the void of space vacuum, and then safely returning him home.

What happened to that dream?

The ‘everyman/woman’ got bored. They could not see where this ‘space travel’ would take them. After all, only a chosen few could go into space, and that didn’t include them or even their children. And NASA’s careful, methodical machinations for each flight, did little to ease the restlessness of an increasingly ‘instant gratification’ propelled populace. The funds spent on this expensive experiment were brought into question. The populace required that more important things closer to home, like health care, education, social issues, be addressed and the ‘wasted’ funds for the space program be redirected to them.

So it was, that following the near tragedy of Apollo 13, the Apollo space program was cancelled after only a few more flights. NASA concentrated the ensuing years of the 1970s into developing a reusable spacecraft: the Space Transportation System (STS), commonly called the ‘space shuttle’.

Whatever dreams still held by the few who still wanted to go into space, whose childhood heroes were astronauts instead of a transient celebrity, were redirected to the space shuttle. It would be several more years however before those dreamers realised that the shuttle was only ever going to be used for low-Earth-orbit flights, that we weren’t going back to the Moon, or any other planet, any time soon. But the space shuttle was an answer in itself. It wasn’t Star Trek’s USS Enterprise, although the test model was christened that, and it wasn’t the elegant pointy rocket ship that filled the pulps and movies in the past, but it was close. Sleek, white, majestic, powerful: it shone brilliantly in the Florida morning sunshine and it was ‘real’. To some, it must have felt like we were on the very verge of ‘going out there’.

Those children eventually grew up to become the normal, everyday ‘Joe’ or ‘Jane’ whose attention was now held by the day-to-day matters of a job, marriage, children, etcetera, while the space program learned to ‘walk’ using the space shuttle, following the 1960s headlong desperate ‘run’ to the Moon. An admirable trait really: learn what you need to know first before any more lives are lost or put at risk, and make it more inexpensive if you can. Learn to walk before you run.

Over the years, the shuttle flights seemed to lose their mysticism and most of us just followed them with half an eye or ear. We’d grown complacent yet again because lifestyles were becoming more complicated and technology more commonplace. I continued my life: joining the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) at seventeen so I could be part of the future in some small way. Life in an enclosed community in the coalfields north of my native Newcastle, NSW, wasn’t really going to do it for me, so I joined up. Learning and growing came next. Throughout it all, I continued to write my stories and poems, and start developing my artwork, and to dream.

One day in 1985, I wrote a line of words on a blank page in the middle of an almost empty exercise book, and then promptly forgot about it. In January of 1986, I went looking for some notes and found that line again. Everything else was forgotten while I gazed at that page: something in those words ‘spoke’ to me. For the next five days I feverishly worked that opening line into a four-stanza poem. On the last night, I copied the poem out onto a fresh sheet of paper, dedicated it to all the men and women who would inevitably lose their lives in our pursuance of life in space, then popped the sheet into an envelope and addressed it, sealed it and put a stamp on it - ready go out in the morning mail at work to a fanzine editor. Feeling pretty satisfied with my creative output, I went to bed. I awoke the next morning to the radio alarm blaring the news: ‘Shuttle Lost’. It was the 29th January 1986 (In America, it was still the 28th) and the space shuttle Challenger had exploded just after liftoff. My world reeled, and I looked at that sealed envelope in horror. The poem I had written was about space, and I had called it ‘Shipwreck’.

Like most, my days following the Challenger disaster were ones of shock. Endless questions arose over it, with one being topmost on everyone’s lips: “How could this happen?” Everyone assumed that because the flights seem effortless, NASA had somehow overcome all the problems from the past. The world found out that this wasn’t so. The erroneous thought was a mistake on the part of the public, not on NASA’s. Complacency had hit home again. We mourned. Found out what went wrong, fixed it, and moved on. But we never forgot. Those of us who dreamed for a better future for the human race never forgot.

The shuttle began to fly again in 1989.

It’s now the New Year in 2003. I have recently been corresponding with someone in the astronaut office at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. My husband and I promised that we’d find a teeny, tiny Godzilla figure for a member of the crew, who was a big fan, on an upcoming flight. The box we sent was acknowledged received late in the month. We exchanged emails a few times, and I shared some memories from 1986 about the Challenger. I also sent a copy of my prophetic poem, or thought I had. The piece I forwarded was the wrong one: it was one I’d written about the exhilaration of flight, called ‘Pilot’. It was a poem of freedom and hope, and thinking it was appropriate to a new year filled with new promise, I didn’t send the other. The circumstance got me to thinking though, about ‘Shipwreck’ until I was reciting it in the shower of a morning. In the end, I typed it up, along with a new dedication to the Challenger crew, and sent it the editor of our monthly newsletter for the Rhode Island Science Fiction Club. My tag line on the letter was “it seems appropriate, somehow.”

My husband and I woke this morning to the news regarding the space shuttle Columbia. After a sixteen-day flight, the shuttle re-entered Earth’s atmosphere on the return journey and exploded 200,000 feet above Dallas, Texas. The debris fell to earth in devastating finality. All aboard were killed. Another shuttle had been lost 17 years, almost to the day, after Challenger. The newsletter with my poem, ‘Shipwreck’, is issued today, and I am devastated.

The world around us is seething with massive threat and the impending war in the Middle East. People are scared. I am older now and the RAAF is many years behind me. The shock I felt along with so many others back in 1986 for the Challenger isn’t as intense with this current tragedy – even though I am still moved to tears. My husband points out that the horrific events of September 11, 2001, a scant 140 miles away, and more recent events have immured people against more tragedy. Perhaps too, back in 1986, my contemporaries and I were young and had many aspirations and hopes still before us. Losing Challenger back then was the first blow to the trek toward space within our generation, and probably the harder to bear.

How did it come to this?

Within hours of Columbia’s demise, I heard a television interview with former Apollo astronaut, Buzz Aldrin. I was disgusted and disbelieving when the anchorman asked Mr Aldrin if he “believed that the monies spent on the space program could be put to better use elsewhere, like healthcare and education and the economic crisis”. I couldn’t believe my ears. The self same argument that got the Apollo program cancelled nearly thirty years ago was being trotted out for inspection. Contrary to popular belief, the education system, healthcare and the economy didn’t visibly benefit back when Apollo was closed down – the money was just shuttled into other political agendas because narrow-minded officials couldn’t see past having won the race to the Moon. “Why should we continue? We beat the Russians.” As if that ended the argument. The opening up of the space program and other related industries like mineral and ore testing within our solar system would have brought many benefits back home to Earth. Not only that, but give the youth of all countries a goal to aim for: something higher to aspire to – together. The youth of today seems aimless as the world gets smaller every day and the choices of career and life become narrower. The opportunities for work and career in future space industries would be boundless. Also, the Russian space program hums with activity and successes with even less of a budget than that of its American counterpart. And the Russian economy is on a much worse footing than the US. Perhaps because the struggle is all the harder for them, the vision and opportunities of space are more clear. If America ever decided to abandon their program for space exploration, other countries would continue to leap forward. Air, or space, superiority would no longer be the domain of the United States of America. The people who lack vision and who suggest that America “should forget all this foolishness” must needs remember this. I don’t think I’ve met an American citizen yet, who liked to be classed as an ‘also ran’.

However, don’t despair. Shuttle Columbia is a tragic loss, but the American space program will endure: perhaps even stronger than before. The space societies of many countries of the world have been working in peaceful partnership for the last decade to go into space together. If only the troubled few would follow suit and raise their faces to the stars. We live in hope.

This hope will endure amidst the pages of the speculative writings of many authors, and the fantastical illustrations and paintings of artists who keep the trek toward space in focus for the rest of us who look up. They share the dream and will continue to inspire us.

As for the crews who crossed over without ever touching earth again, they are already home.

Apollo 1 - Challenger – Columbia
Per ardua, Ad astra
(Through adversity to the Stars)
Lest We Forget

SHIPWRECK

Once, upon a silent ship,
no sound of tread was heard.
life no longer strayed there,
through corridors obscured.

Past, upon this gloried ship,
a loyal crew once served.
Alive in pride and harmony
til tragedy occurred.

Struck a mortal blow without,
the valiant ship defied
the engulfing forces, crushing,
and in the darkness, died.

Nigh, ajar to starry space,
the static wreck appears,
a ghostly apparition
observed throughout the years.

PILOT

I have sought to sail on open sky
across the arc of blue
and harness the forces
which drive my craft
and bend them to my will.
I would soar the path of eagles
and shoot up far beyond
- till the starkness of the sun
would burn its fiery image
in the corners of my mind.
Or set a course in the ebb of night
on a tangent to a star
and skim the rim
of its bewitching light
and follow it’s path afar.

Marianne

Field Guide to the Mesozoic Megafauna...a review

2007-01-21T20:45:00.000-05:00

“MICHAEL SWANWICK’S FIELD GUIDE TO THE MESOZOIC MEGAFAUNA”
by Michael Swanwick

Featuring the British Science Fiction Association Award-nominated “Five British Dinosaurs”

February 2004 – Tachyon Publications; ISBN 1-892391-13-9; 32 pages; Price $8.95
Available on Amazon.com

I first viewed this booklet – for booklet it is – when I received my very-well laden membership tote bag at the World Fantasy Convention in Washington, Halloween weekend in 2003. Initially, I had tossed it aside with the other booklets containing sample excerpts of novels and didn’t look at it again until I was packing to go home. A closer look proved that it was, in fact, a very short anthology of even shorter short stories. And such was my first introduction to reading Mr Swanwick’s prose. I chortled or smiled my way through every one of the eighteen stories: cameos of clever wit and imagination, mostly less than a page each in length. Better yet, they were about dinosaurs. So it was a very nice combination. Also, I managed to finish the book on the flight home. Considering that this was a forty-five minute flight, and I only spent thirty of those minutes reading…well, you do the math.

Anyway, to the meat of the matter: “ ‘ Mesozoic Megafauna” is a delightful collection of dinosaur stories exposing dinosaurs in a myriad of highly improbable, but entertaining situations. Michael Swanwick is an absolute master of extremely short fiction, who can pack quite a lot of story into just a few words, or even just a scene. Mr Swanwick is a multi-nominated award-winning author and I, for one, am looking forward to reading more of his works. In the meantime, why don’t you check out “ ‘ Mesozoic Megafauna” just to find out what the “…old theropod-in-a-rubber-tenontosaur-suit trick…” is; the dangers of dueling with Mosasaurs; how the west was really won; and that proving hypotheses can often be hazardous to health and machinery.

What I want to know is: What happened to the Woolly Mammoth stories? Maybe they’ll appear in the next short short-stories collection. I wish.

Marianne Plumridge

Cosmic Greenman...a new painting

2007-01-18T14:24:00.000-05:00

Cosmic Greenman

(11x14", Oil) Price: $750.00

About May of last year, I was hit with a burst of inspiration to return to my fantasy painting. A transition from my Celtic art series to my roots in marine fantasy painting. This clash of ideas resulted in something cosmic, hence the title of the painting. However, it took a long time to push aside the busy travel we did last year to finally getting around to finishing it. I achieved that two days ago, and here is the final product. I used up the left over paint on the palette to paint a little flamingo - you can see him over on my painting-a-day blogsite, 'Daub du Jour'. See the links in the sidebar.

Meanwhile, I have been working towards finishing another incomplete canvas of 'waverunners' - wavetops that look like horses heads. I'll put that up as soon as I get it done.

Thanks for stopping by.
Cheers
Marianne

Monstrous Regiment...a review

2007-01-14T19:03:00.000-05:00

And now for something completely different...but first, the painting of the day...

George and the Dragon

(9x12", Oil) Private Collection

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I've always loved Terry Prachett's universe. His writings always remind me of the British 'Carry On' movies of the 1950s and 60s. And being Australian, Britian has infused my upbringing with humour and the odd in-jokiness that I find most refreshing when faced with the current onslaught of bland American sitcoms and 'Reality Shows'. More honest, somehow. Anyway, these are my thoughts on 'Monstrous Regiment'...

“MONSTROUS REGIMENT”
By Terry Pratchett

2004; HarperCollins.
Massmarket Paperback, ISBN 0060013168; 461 pages; Price $7.99

Reviewed by Marianne Plumridge – (c) February 2006

In a slight detour from the normal shenanigans going on in, around, and sometimes as far from, his usual haunt in Ankh Morpork, author Terry Pratchett has gained new territory in the sublime. The novel in question is his ‘Monstrous Regiment’.

According to the known historical archive of many countries throughout the world, women participating in wars has been a known, but little spoken of, fact. For the last several thousand years, women of all walks of life have dressed in the garb of men – sometimes flouting strict social morals, religion, and laws to do so – and gone off to fight alongside their male brethren in armed conflicts. Their reasons are many and varied. Some have performed heroic feats or held posts of extreme responsibility; others have slogged along as foot soldiers and batmen beside husbands and brothers. Sometimes known, sometimes not; sometimes coming home, sometimes not. It’s a fascinating study.

The ‘Monstrous Regiment” of the title is taken from Protestant Reformer, John Knox’s treatise “The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women (1558), an effective Middle Ages rant and condemnation against governments run by women. There seemed to be a plethora of female rulers at that time in history; among them Bloody Mary (The Catholic Queen Mary 1 of England). In Scotland, the Roman Catholic regent of Scotland, Mary of Guise, ruled as regent for her infant daughter Mary, Queen of Scots. It appears that, being full of religious fervor and social outrage, the ire, and perhaps the fear of women, lead Knox to aim his written diatribe at the Queens Mary in his native country. “Women in control” has been a constant fear of the male half of humanity for many centuries, all over the world. One has long wondered why: perhaps they just ‘don’t like to share’ or are afraid of the unknown or what they don’t understand. Perhaps it’s all three. Mr Pratchett deals rather neatly with these occurrences in the novel – the ‘awkwardness’ of men in dealing with the ‘women dressed as men, bless their silly little hearts’ is palpable, and satirized nicely without being hurtful to the ‘image’ of men.

In ‘Monstrous Regiment’, Pratchett takes his usual good-humored prod at the whole situation. A girl cuts her hair very short, pulls on men’s trousers and runs off to find her brother Paul, something of an idiot-savant, and save a family situation and her future. All of this occurs with more than a passing nod to Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night, and the British comedy movie “Carry On Jack”, both in theme, misrepresentation, comedy, and bawdiness. It’s also very hard not to hear the strains of the standard from the ‘Pirates of Penzance’, “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General”, when reading about Lieutenant Blouse.

In the story, Polly, a barmaid in her father’s famous Duchess Inn, realizes that without her brother to inherit the inn after their father dies, Polly will be left to fend for herself and lose everything she is entitled to. Even if those entitlements only amount to running the family business and a roof over her head. The law states that women can’t own or inherit property or variations thereof. And since Paul has joined the army and disappeared, it’s up to the entirely capable Polly to go and find him and bring him back to hearth and home. After studying the soldiers frequenting the The Duchess’ bar, she masquerades as a young man in her brother’s borrowed clothes and joins the army as a private. She’s actually very good at it. Things get stickier from situation to situation as the novel progresses, tongue firmly in cheek, with Polly and her fellow ‘soldiers’ finding confidence and freedom they’d never previously known: saving the day, as well as their country, and standing up for its dignity. Whether they get found, out and how they deal with it is something you’ll have to find out for yourself. Far be it from me to spoil the ending for any reader or any of the fun along the way.

A reader might also detect a fine waft of relevance to the world’s situation of the conflicts, and their overwhelming imbalances, between powers fighting in the Middle East today. Not to mention every other political conflict that’s involved fighting or the promise of fighting over the centuries. A fine ‘waft’, mind you. It’s thin, but it’s there.

With all of Mr Pratchett’s usual cutting wit and elegant turn of comedy, the novel is still underlined with a subtle pathos that isn’t usually detected in the author’s previous works. One wonders if in his secret heart of hearts, Mr Pratchett is also secretly rooting for the ladies successes and subsequent confounding of the men that they encounter. His understanding and ready sympathy of the plight of women over the centuries is recognizable, no matter how subtle the subtext. Perhaps he prefers just fairness in answer to the world’s social imbalances, or making sure the underdog gets a voice.

Getting ‘kicked in the socks’, and ‘thinking with one’s socks’ has definitely taken on whole new volumes of meaning for this reader. “Monstrous Regiment” is definitely a great read from the pen of the brilliant Mr Pratchett. He hasn’t managed to disappoint this reader yet, over the many years of encounters with his undeniable savvy social commentary and facetious humor. “He’s a ‘wag’ is our Mister Pratchett…”

Very well done…

Marianne Plumridge

Chameleon Banana Bread

2007-01-10T23:17:00.000-05:00

And the painting of the day is...

Dragons in the Sink

(Oil, 2000)

I thought we might need a kitchen theme for this one!

*****************************************************

About 20 years or so ago, I clipped a recipe out of an Australian Magazine and pasted it in my recipe journal. A few years later, I began to extensively change the recipe to reflect a lighter, healthier lifestyle. The result is the final version below. However, I use this base recipe to make several different cakes as the occasion calls for, or using whatever I happen to have in the pantry or fridge. The basic straight Banana Bread can be varied by changing: the sugar from white to brown, or raw; or using a complementary flavour of yogurt, soy yogurt, or goats milk yogurt; or use crushed Macadamia nuts, pecans or pistachios for a different taste combination. I’m still experimenting with different fruits and flavours, but this is what I’ve documented so far…

Basic Recipe:

BANANA BREAD

2 medium-large sized bananas, mashed
1 6oz or 8oz (1 cup) tub of vanilla yoghurt (or any flavour, really)
2 1/3 cups Self Rising Flour
1 2/3 cups sugar (white, brown or raw)
1 teaspoon Bicarbonate of Soda (Baking Soda)
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup oil (I usually use Grapeola or Canola)
2 eggs (1/2 cup of Eggbeaters)
2/3 cups chopped walnuts (or other nuts) (you can even add raisins or chopped dates as
well)

In a bowl, mix all ingredients together with a wooden spoon. Beat well. Pour into two well-greased loaf tins. Bake in a 350-375 degree oven for 45-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into middle comes out clean.

This cake keeps well for about a week as long as it is in a sealed container. It freezes well too.

OPTIONAL ICING:
2 cups of Confectionary sugar
2-4 tablespoons of hot water
few drops of orange liqueur (optional)

Mix well together until reasonably runny. Add a little more water if not. Drizzle over cake and then let set for 20 minutes until not sticky anymore.

VARIATIONS ON A THEME:

Pumpkin Bread:

Replace the mashed banana with 1¼ cups of mashed pumpkin; use dark brown sugar instead of white; add, approximately 1 teaspoon of Pumpkin Pie Spice; add two tablespoons of Molasses; and replace the walnuts with raisins or chopped dates.

Mango-Banana Layer Cake:

Requires two tins of Mangoes in syrup (this also works with peaches).
Reduce the mashed banana to one banana; mash the flesh of one tin of mangoes, combine with the banana - reserve the mango juice in a small saucepan. Use white sugar. Cook cake as per instructions, but use two round sandwich tins instead of loaf tins.
While cake is cooking, add contents of second tin of mangoes to reserved mango juice in saucepan. Bring contents of saucepan to boil, while stirring and mashing mango flesh to pulp. In a glass, mix one heaped tablespoon of Cornstarch and two tablespoons of water and stir until smooth. Add to contents in saucepan, and let boil for one more minute or until mix thickens heavily. Let cool.
When cakes are cooked and cool, slice both cakes into two. Spread cooled mango pulp between four layers of cake. Top with drizzled Optional Icing (recipe above), or cover with cream cheese frosting.

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING:
¼ cup (2oz) cream cheese
¼ cup (2oz) butter
2 teaspoons Vanilla
1 cup Confectionary (icing) sugar

Combine all ingredients and beat for 5 minutes, or beat with an electric mixer on high until well combined.
Note: Double this quantity to cover layer cake.

Mystery and Aunt Dimity...

2007-01-08T13:14:00.000-05:00

I discovered a new author last month: Nancy Atherton. While running an eye over the bargain tables at the local bookstore, to see if there were any unknown authors (unknown to me, that is) that I could try without spending huge scads of money. My gaze came to rest on a red cover with inset artwork. Incongruously, the artwork had a little pink stuffed bunny in it. That made me smile - a tough prospect lately, what with numerous life situations causing difficulties. Then I looked at the title and groaned inwardly. "Aunt Dimity". It had to be one of those cute and fluffy 'cozies' that seemed to be churned out by the dozens. Curbing my criticism and admonishing myself not to judge before I looked at it, I picked it up to peruse anyway. Hmm. Set in England - great; puzzle and history involved - even better; and that pink bunny - so I'm a sucker for cute! I took it home - maybe I needed something fluffy and cozy in my life about then.

The book was called "Aunt Dimity and the Next of Kin". And it wasn't a murder mystery, which is a change for me. It's more of a puzzle - a quest if you please - with history and a hint of scandal and secrets. Nothing suits me better than digging through history conundrums; I was hooked.

The protagonist was a woman named Lori Shepherd who was not only flawed, but intriguingly so. Behind the strong-willed, curious Lori is a heap of the usual insecurities, underlined by an earlier life of hardship, deprivation, bitterness and desolation. In the first book, "Aunt Dimity's Death", Lori is more or less 'rescued' from her old life by the death of a beloved person whom she knew only as a character in a story. In a combined legacy left by her dead mother, Beth, and the disturbingly real Dimity, Lori undergoes a quest of sorts to solve a two-pronged mystery/tragedy that dates from World War II and intimately involved both Beth and Dimity. With the help of both junior and senior incarnations of the Willis & Willis law firm in Boston, Lori journeys to the village of Finch in England. With Willis Junior (Bill) in tow - he has a quest of his own - Lori has an unlimited expense account and someone to butt her stubborn head against. Constantly at loggerheads, the two discover the answers to the puzzle and an unlikely love. And Lori makes some realizations about herself along the way - and the two women who loved her, who reach beyond the grave to help her find redemption.

Oh, did I mention that being dead doesn't stop the inimitable Dimity from taking an active role in Lori's activities? Her spirit infuses the cottage she leaves to Lori, and she converses with Lori via the blank pages of a blue-covered journal. Oh, and the pink bunny is called Reginald - and he has his own history, not to mention the odd adventure of two. It's quite an achievement to instil personality into what amounts to an inanimate stuffed animal.

Throughout all eleven books (soon to be twelve), Lori is on a progressive journey. She has a huge heart, a loving husband, and eventually twin boys of her own. But before that gets too cloying in a 'cinderella' sense, you also find out that Lori also has "a wandering eye" when it comes to "wounded princes", the "patience of a gnat", and an indomitable spirit and enthusiastic curiosity that knows no bounds - or fear.

I fell in love with Lori's world. Enough to trot my coupons over to the bookstore and plonk down money for more of Ms. Atherton's books. I also received more for Christmas. I sat up until 3am of 26th December after hearing of the death of my Uncle Keith on Christmas night. The books brought me a comfort I didn't know I needed. So I read one every evening until after the funeral in Australia the following Friday morning. They stopped me from feeling too hollow and bereft because I couldn't be there. I found a little bit of me in Lori, and the funny things that happened to her - masking the very real tragedies that lay beneath the humour. I also found a fondness for the unforgettable characters that infuse her life. As she found her soulmate, so did I.

My wombat - ingenuously named Wombat - is no match for Reginald, but he's just as cuddly and comforting. So's my husband, Bob.

Thank you, Ms. Atherton, for sharing Dimity, Lori, Bill, Reginald and all of the rest. I have only one thing left to say..."Keep writing"!

Oh, did I mention that each book comes with a recipe that is mentioned in each narrative? I recommend "Lillian's Lemon Bars" and "Miss Beacham's Raisin Bread". Bob just LOVES the raisin bread. You can find more about Dimity, Lori and company at www.aunt-dimity.com . Recipes too.

So, dear reader, till nextime...
Marianne

Painting a Day!

2007-01-05T17:19:00.000-05:00

Sentinel Roses

(9x12", Oil)

No, no, I didn't paint this today! But the gargoyle figurine I used in this painting last year, now appears in another image I painted today. Talk about found objects! I was wondering what to paint today, when I spotted this little guy lurking behind my table easel - still there from the last time I used him.

Well, this is an announcement that I have joined the ranks of other artists who are taking up the challenge of doing a 'painting a day'. I'm currently on Day 5, so look for the gargoyle in a couple of days. Right now it's up on my 12" easel, drying. You'll be able to see that, and my other experimental images on my brand new little blog, called 'Daub du Jour'. It will showcase the good and the bad of my sketchy oil daubs. If you're interested, the link is off to the left, in the sidebar, of this page. Details of each painting can be found there on a daily basis, and the reasons why I'm doing this.

Cheers
Marianne

Happy New Year

2007-01-02T08:43:00.000-05:00

And the first painting of the New Year is...

'Flaming January'

(10x10", Oil)

There's been a delay in my postings this last seven days: I wanted the post about my Uncle Keith to reach family members and be available to them until after the funeral in Australia. The second delay was that I didn't want to risk posting anything new and then lose it whilst trying to change over from Blogger to Google. I'd rather cross over under my own steam and control, than let someone else do it for me and lose stuff.

Well, it's all done now. I've made a successful (I hope) transition.

Now, back to creating...

This painting was one I did last January for the 'Fabulous Fakes and Forgeries' exhibit at the 'Spring Bull Gallery' in Newport, RI. The premise was to copy an existing master work or paint a parody of one. I chose the parody line because I hate copying from anyone elses work - no matter who they are. Anyway, I decided to combine my koala fantasy paintings with one of those by Frederick, Lord Leighton. Considering how sleepy koala bears are, I thought that his 'Flaming June' painting was just the thing. However, since the seasons are reversed in Australia, I felt fully justified in calling my version 'Flaming January'.

This painting won the 'Best Humorous - 2006' award at the show. My first real gallery award ever. I was most impressed.

Meanwhile, I have to get cracking on working on my new entry for the same show next month...

Cheers
Marianne

Keith Plumridge...a celebration of a life.

2006-12-26T19:05:00.000-05:00

Petty Officer Keith Plumridge

(Early 1970s)

Last night, a light winked out in my universe. On Christmas night in Australia, my Uncle Keith Plumridge slipped quietly away. His wife and children surrounded him and gave of their love and strength. Six years ago he was diagnosed with a virulent form of bone cancer and given three years to live. He had those and three extra years to see his boys married, gaining daughters in the process, and grandchildren born. Each day of that time was a gift and he greeted it accordingly – with gusto and laughter. Even the bad days he was thankful for.

Cheeky larrikin, adventurer, storyteller, loving husband, father and father-in-law, brilliantly doting grandfather, mate, pal, buddy, brother, brother-in-law, brother-in-arms, and friend. To those he loved, and who loved him, he was all of the above. And so much more.

Keith appears in many good memories from my earliest years. He was still young enough then to be a playmate to a clingy toddler and suffer all manner of being climbed all over by his niece and nephew. He reckoned we made great aeroplanes when he swung us around or hurled us aloft, accompanied by the prerequisite squeals and giggles.

Our Keith joined the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) when he was approximately fifteen years old, at a time when a Naval forces apprenticeship ran to twelve years of service. He signed up in 1965, or there-abouts, and began to see something of the world. He sent lovely presents home for the family, from exotic places like Hawaii and Suva. I still remember the Christmas that my brother and I received identical transistor radios with our names engraved on them, that had traveled all over the Pacific in his shipboard footlocker, or the blue brocade Chinese jammies that I wore out before their time. Life wasn’t all a bed of roses though, as Keith’s time in the Navy encompassed the turbulent years of the Vietnam War, and he saw combat in those waters. What disturbed him more though was the fatal collision of Australian Naval ship HMAS Melbourne and the American Naval ship USS Frank. E. Evans while on a SEATO exercise in the South China Sea in 1969, when he was a Petty Officer. The ship he was serving on was the first on the scene and the resultant horrors haunted him for some years afterward.

In spite of the resulting trauma, Keith loved the camaraderie of his Naval years and missed them when he eventually left the RAN. He later found new brotherhood in the ranks of the Masonic Lodge. He told me only a year or so ago how much that meant to him.

Once when I was about four or five years old, I remember pestering Keith and giggling a lot while he was trying to hold a conversation with my parents in our living room. Without a mis-step in his conversation, he promptly threw me face down across his knee, hauled out a big black marker and drew a cartoon on my back. Mum reckons it took at least two weeks for it to wear off – with much scrubbing. When I reminded him of this last year, he laughed. He swore it was probably Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse he drew that day, because he was drawing them a lot back then.

Keith’s early 1970s wedding to his beloved Donna was the fairytale of my childhood. It was such a wonderful day, and I remember so well of feeling like a fairy princess in my white eyeleted lace, empire-style dress with the black velvet sash, as I preceded Donna and the other bridesmaids down the isle. I still remember so much of that day – and of the joy.

One of the best memories I have of Keith happened during my own years in the Military. For the last 100 years, one or another of each generation of Plumridges has served in the armed forces: through two world wars, and intervening conflicts. Keith carried the torch in his generation, and I was the first to take it up in mine by joining the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in 1982. His boys followed suit in joining not only the RAAF and the Royal Australian Army, but the Australian Police Force too. At my 21st birthday party up country in NSW, I had invited quite a few friends from the Air Force Base at Williamtown. While the party itself wasn’t the most successful of events, there was an oasis in it that I regret not partaking of. Late in the evening, my Uncle Keith was seated in amongst half a dozen of my male friends and was telling them stories. That little group didn’t move until dawn. He regaled them with tales from his Navy years and I heard laughter ring out more often than not. Later, the boys told me how wonderful they thought he was. I think he drank them under the table too, but of that I can’t be sure. These Navy swabbies always reckon they can outdrink the RAAFies.

In more recent years, my dad told me of the time that Keith took Donna and the three boys to visit his old ship, the Destroyer HMAS Vampire, when it was finally mothballed for good and turned into an exhibit at the Australian Maritime Museum in Darling Harbour, Sydney. Keith and family joined a tour of the old girl, and Keith was getting frustrated as the tour-guide got facts about the ship inadvertently incorrect. The guide ceded the floor and Keith gave his family, the guide, and the group the tour of their lives. He took them down many places that were not on the tour and told them operational details as well as many, many anecdotes. Like I said, Keith was a storyteller - a brilliant one. And I don’t think he’d enjoyed himself so much in ages, as he did that day.

So, Keith-ee, thank you for the stories, the love, and the memories: they’ll last a lifetime for all of us.

With love from Eric, Margaret, Andrew, and Mandy…

…and especially me,

The Brat.

Christmas Down Under…Plum Pudding and Gum trees.

2006-12-24T14:32:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas

Having snow for Christmas is very unseasonable for me. My Aussie homeland is usually hot, dry and dusty about this time of year, with huge bright, blue skies; and our brand of evergreens are usually gum trees (eucalypts) instead of the preferred pine or fir trees. One would wake up Christmas morning expecting to hear about a bushfire somewhere, along with the presents Santa had placed under our Christmas tree. My childhood memories always seem linked with long hot golden summers and rambles in the bush, either walking or riding my bike along the trails. Christmas would sometimes be away from home, either in a tent up at Lake Wangi Wangi, or on a beach somewhere up north, where the sand was white and the water was a clear as the proverbial crystal. There was always a Santa visiting the campsites in those days, doling out bulging bags of mixed lollies (candy) to all of the excited kids, while parents kept an eye on their rambling broods.

My earliest of memories was dinner or lunch at Grandma Plumridge’s or Nanna Beattie’s house. Both were excellent cooks, and used to cooking for a sizeable brood. Grandad Beattie was a pastry cook to boot. So while the main meals were often mouth watering, you just knew that the desserts would be worth waiting for. I know my dad still thinks wistfully of Grandma Plumridge’s huge traditional Christmas puddings. They would be enormous to my kiddie eyes. I used to spot it hanging ponderously from her kitchen ceiling when we’d visit through December. My Grandma Plum’ was the queen of the fruit puddings and cakes – and I do believe I’ve inherited her touch for them, but not her incredible icing skills.

Ah, Santa… Did you know that when Santa visits Australia, he gives the reindeer a break because of the heat? He harnesses up six snow-white kangaroos to do the job! Australian singer/songwriter, Rolf Harris immortalized them in his song “Six White Boomers”. See below…

Meanwhile, while you wait for the red-suited one to shimmy down your chimney or scoot across your threshold tonight, I wish you a magical Christmas Eve, and day. And may you be surrounded by the ones you hold dearest: enjoying peace and love within their company.

And to all those who can’t be with us, I’ll raise my glass to “Absent Friends”…

Peace be with you…

"Six White Boomers"
© Rolf Harris & John D. Brown 1965

(Introduction)
Early on one Christmas Day, a Joey Kanga-roo,
Was far from home and lost in a great big zoo.
Mummy, where's my mummy, they've taken her a-way,
We'll help you find your mummy son, hop on the sleigh.

Chorus:
Six white boomers, snow white boomers,
Racing Santa Claus through the blazing sun.
Six white boomers, snow white boomers, ..
On his Aus-tra-lian run.

Verse:
Up beside the bag of toys, little Joey hopped ,
But they had'nt gone far when Santa stopped.
Un-harnessed all the reindeer and Joey wondered why,
Then he heard a far off booming in the sky.

Chorus:
Six white boomers ...

Pretty soon old Santa began to feel the heat,
Took his fur-lined boots off to cool his feet.
Into one popped Joey, feeling quite OK,
While those old man kangaroos kept pulling on the sleigh.

Chorus:
Six white boomers ...
Joey said to Santa, Santa, what about the toys,
Aren't you giving some to these girls and boys.
They've all got their presents son, we were here last night,
This trip is an extra trip, Joey's special flight.

Chorus:
Six white boomers ...

Soon the sleigh was flashing past, right over Marble Bar,
Slow down there, cried Santa, it can't be far.
Come up on my lap son, and have a look around,
There she is, that's mummy, bounding up and down.

Chorus:
Six white boomers ...

Well that's the bestest Christmas treat that Joey ever had,
Curled up in mother's pouch all snug and glad.
The last they saw was Santa headed northward from the sun,
The only year the boomers worked a double run.

Chorus:
Six white boomers ...

'Tis the Season to....bust loose!

2006-12-22T15:56:00.000-05:00

And the painting of the day is...

'Sea Turtle Surfing'

(9x12", Acrylic on panel)

I braved the Christmas retail frenzy for one last time today to get a few last presents for family. Now it's done, all I want to do is 'bust loose' like the little mermaid in my painting. Hang out; read; paint; what have you... I'm a typical Cancerian who loves water, so you'll see as time goes by, that water is a focal point I keep coming back to. This was the absolute first of my mermaid paintings, and one of the few to be published. It is one of six greeting cards showcasing my art, produced by Milk And Honey Inc.

Acrylic paint is not something I've always been comfortable using - it dries too quickly and at times, can be unforgiving if you make a mistake. I've moved back to using oils almost exclusively this last few years, and only returning to acrylics for illustration purposes. More so, I've discovered the joys of Acrylic Gouache: a medium that remains malleable while there is water or medium still keeping the paint 'wet'. It allows for a slower painting process, and a less confident artist to gain momentum in said painting process.

This little work is painted on gessoed panel. I've never been quite satisfied with panel as a painting surface - particularly in acrylic. The board sort of feels naked without canvas or linen between the paint and the panel. But when you're doing fine detailed illustration, you can't go past it for flexible fine tuning.

Marianne

The Winter Solstice...and Green Men

2006-12-21T09:56:00.000-05:00

I wasn't considering posting two book reviews in a row, but it being the Winter Solstice today, I couldn't let it pass without involving the Green Man...

“The Green Man: Tales From the Mythic Forest.” Edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling.

November 2004 – Firebird, an imprint of Penguin. ISBN 0-14-240029-7; Trade Paperback; 388 pages; Price $8.99.

Reviewed by Marianne Plumridge (c) June 2005

This anthology was originally published by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers, back in 2002 for the young adult market. It might explain why the protagonists are generally youthful, and the stories resemble a ‘coming of age’ as well as the symbolic rebirth that is usually associated with the archetypical ‘Green Man’ of myth. It might also explain the broad range of contemporary styles of narrator ‘voices’, which in the onset, seems to jar the reader. One after all, usually associates the Green Man or Green Woman persona with the silent, brooding, scary depths of mystical deep forests of old and the mythical figures which populate them.

In this collection however, those prosaic assumptions have been given a very fresh and intriguing twist.

Kathe Koje’s REMNANTS is a contemporary, slightly ambiguous story, told from the point of view of someone moderately deranged. I’m not sure if the protagonist is really supposed to be a ‘green person’ lost in the flotsam and jetsam of civilization’s huge amount of rubbish remnants, but it initially appears to be the case. The presence of the ‘Green Figure’ is barely a whisper throughout, despite the forest made of plastic bags. I suppose the symbolism is intended to mean that humans have lost their instinctive intimacy with the forest and environment, and we’re trying to recreate it on our own terms, via the things we consume and discard each day. This story seems more of an environmental statement than an encounter with the ‘Green Man’. The protagonist does not undergo the traditional transformation associated with the ‘Green Figure’ archetype, but returns to what it was doing – making plastic trees; unless of course, the transformation took place before the story began. I liked it, but as a reader, the ‘jury’ is ‘out’ on this one.

THE BOY WHO WAS by Carolyn Dunn is mythical, almost shamanistic story, told from the point of view of a human woman – proud of bearing but crippled physically – who yearns after a warrior. The warrior returns her love, but is killed/transformed during a hunt because the woman, in breaking a taboo by stepping over a pond, inadvertently releases the ‘Green Figure’ spirit – in this case it is the Deer Woman. The Deer Woman transforms the warrior into a large water snake of sorts (?), and the human woman sacrifices herself to him so they can be together.

Carol Emshwiller’s entry, OVERLOOKING, was just a little too experimental to be completely comprehensive to the reader – or at least this reader. I’m not sure what the author intended or where the story was going. While I found this entry somewhat confusing, I’m sure that other readers will possibly find it meaningful. Insight always depends on your point of view, after all.

I found FEE, FIE, FOE, ET CETERA by Gregory Maguire to be a witty and intelligent retelling of the Jack and the Beanstalk tale, but aside from the beanstalk, I’m not sure what it has to do with the ‘Green Man’ unless the ‘Green Man’ was the giant at the top of the stalk.

Perhaps one of the most traditionally told stories in this anthology is JOSHUA TREE by Emma Bull. It is an insightful telling of a young woman’s realization of her ‘true’ self. She begins to ‘see’ the people around her for what they really are – callous, shallow, issue-ridden, and insecure - and the fact that she could end up like them if she lets herself. A distraught night in the desert finds her in a grove of Joshua Trees: there, a green tree-like figure gives of itself to nourish her and save her. With this, her transformation carries through but is by no means complete. This was the happenstance that allowed her to realize that she was worth saving. The acceptance of this moves the girl to start making a stand against the bullies who pester her, and to start making herself visible in class by answering as well as asking questions. The girl is determined to get out of the box that society has put her in – label and all. This is a great story, but I was disappointed a little that the ‘Green Man’ didn’t have more of a visible tenet throughout.

Another traditionally styled story, GROUNDED by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, weaves the mores of music and the natural forest together in a beautiful blend of growth and realization of transformation in the chief protagonist: a young girl. She is forced to deal with her mixed feelings about her mother’s job, her father’s failure to ‘be there’, and the aspects of encountering a prospective strange new stepfather and step-siblings. Themes recurrent throughout are of transformation, and life, death and rebirth, all wrapped around a Green Man sub-text and humankind’s relationship with nature.

All the stories in this Green Man anthology are of a high standard and I recommend them highly to young and old alike. Other stories that stood out and lingered in my mind were: GRAND CENTRAL PARK by Delia Sherman - a charming contemporary encounter with a ‘Green Man’ or in this case, a ‘Green Girl’. It’s a witty tale and also very funny. Charles De Lint’s SOMEWHERE IN MY MIND THERE IS A PAINTING BOX is a nicely told story about transformation, choices, and magic. A charming ‘period piece’ wrapped around a simple artists painting box, telling of how art can enslave as well as release the soul and spirit. DAPHNE by Michael Cadnum is an earthy retelling of the Greek myth of how a girl was turned into a tree to escape the lust of the god, Apollo. AMONG THE LEAVES SO GREEN by Tanith Lee is a pretty, mythical or fairy tale style story of two half sisters who have a similar wish, but find transformation in different ways. One becomes a fairy tale princess but whose descendants wither in grace; the other is a daughter of the ‘Green Man’ and endures like the trees and the forest – gaining brothers and sisters in the other sprites who dwell there. Very nicely told. Patricia A. Mckillip’s HUNTER’S MOON is a cautionary tale about ‘be careful what you hunt, lest it come hunting you’. I rather liked this one. The green spirits aren’t passive or romantically portrayed, but were envisaged more like the elemental spirits that inhabited the lands of Celtic Brittany and England before the French gentrification of the Arthurian legends in the middle ages. In a more contemporary portrayal, and perhaps more relevant to our troubled times, Midori Snyder’s CHARLIE’S AWAY tells of the influence of a ‘Green Figure’ – a woman this time – who affects a family. The themes of loss, grief, transformation, acceptance and understanding are perhaps the most meaningful of all these stories because these issues resonate continuously throughout our daily lives.

This is a wonderfully diverse anthology by some major fantasy talents of our time. Heartily I applaud the deft shaping of the fiction by the editors, Datlow and Windling, and look forward to what ever mythic realms they delve into next, and the stories told there.

Marianne Plumridge

The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana - a review

2006-12-19T09:23:00.000-05:00

"The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana"...
by Jess Nevins

MonkeyBrain Books; Hardcover; ISBN 1-932265-15-5; $50.00 US; 1009 pages.
A Review by Marianne Plumridge (c) 2006

The rise of the Victorian presence in current fiction of the fantastic – be it novel, film, television, graphic novel, etc. – over the last decade or so has become a reflection of the current state of social mind. Up till a quarter century ago, the reading and viewing public saw only the ‘future’ as something to be yearned after; something to strive towards, something exciting, thrilling, magnificent. However, in that last previous quarter-century we have begun to live that future of the fantastic: we have space-flight; walked upon another orbital body in space; built a space-station or two; fast produced technology which grows evermore microscopic, and available to the common person – ie. Cell phones, music players that fit in the palm of one’s hand, satellite tracking for cars, car computers that can transmit self-diagnostic data, email, the internet, fantastic gadgets for life and home, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Unfortunately, the modern world has become all a bit blasé and restricted as the using public tries to conform with so many conflicting signals at once, of what we should and shouldn’t do, wear, buy, prefer… Market research makes our decisions for us in a new kind of conformity that’s almost, hey, Victorian. But in looking back at that century, to that time of new industrialization, changing attitudes and manners, emerging technology and fantastic visions in a previously un-envisioned world, everything appears rosily simple and exotic. The rules were being re-written in the age of England’s Queen Victoria, and during that time, the sky wasn’t the limit. So, in more recent decades there have appeared tomes like ‘The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’, the Amelia Peabody murder mysteries, vintage adventure stories, a plethora of Sherlock Holmes pastiches in film and literary fiction, ‘Steamboy’ (Japanese anime), and a long list of current creative endeavors that reflect the times when invention and imagination knew no bounds. In his book, ‘The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana’, Jess Nevins lovingly and respectfully attempts to place the roots of some of these visions – two hundred years of genre and adventure writing – into perspective, where they belong. So saddle up, hail a hansom cab, put your pipe in your pocket along with the secret documents, your choice of pistol, rifle or elephant gun, swirl the cape and clap on a top hat or bonnet: the adventure is about to begin…

“The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana” looks, at first glance, exactly that: a series of encyclopedic entries describing various characters from Victorian fiction. However, this compilation is far more than that. Each entry – fully annotated – not only states who created a character, but an in-depth synopsis of where and when the character appeared, and in what environment he, she, or it existed, story, etc. Far and above this, each entry is supported by a vibrant and knowledgeable analysis by Mr. Nevins, regarding the character/story’s effect on society at the time of publishing and vice versa. The text brings to life many stories and personalities that have since been swallowed whole by time and history, and gives them new voice. Enough so, that the reader may just go hunt up some of these stories and personas to read them for him or herself. These efforts range from still popular heavyweights like Sherlock Holmes and associates to forgotten creations of brilliance in the vein of Ambrosio, the protagonist from M.G. Lewis’ original gothic novel ‘The Monk: A Romance’ (1796), and beyond. From the truly great efforts of literature down to the merely mediocre, authors across decades and borders spanning most nations of Europe, the United Kingdom, Russia, the Middle East and distant Orient are all exemplified within the copious pages of this Encyclopedia.

Other entries chronicle various stereotypes of the Victorian era, within fiction and without: their evolution and how they were treated by the society of the day. For example, one of these is an apt description of the ‘Adventuress’, both in fiction and real life, and how the meaning of the term changed irrevocably with the growing emancipation of women. Another, ‘Anarchists’ describes why terror-style and anarchy-style fiction became the vogue in the latter two decades of the 19th century as a response to the public’s general feeling of ‘unease’ in these matters. Many more entries cover topics like: Hero-Villain; The Gothic; The New Woman; The School Story; The Great Detective; Future War; The Hypnotist; Martians (I) and (II); The Lost Race Story; and so on – all meticulously and extensively cross-referenced throughout.

This type of book, with its insightful look at the Victorian era literature and social mores would make an excellent addition to any writer’s reference shelf, especially those writers who create modern fiction set in that age. Even readers who are admirers of fiction emanating from Victorian times, whether written then or written now, would find this encyclopedia compelling reading matter. The text and analysis are not only informative, but rather entertainingly so.

Marianne Plumridge

Dark Rum 'n' Raisin Chocolates....a recipe

2006-12-17T14:53:00.000-05:00

And the painting of the day is...

Chasing Butterflies (14x18", Alkyd)

Okay, now that I've got your attention...

I've spent the last week making homemade chocolates, christmas cakes (don't laugh until you've tasted mine), chocolate decadence pound cakes, and chocolate dipped dried fruits like ginger and papaya. Well, now that I'm coming to the end of it all, and all of the gift food boxes are wrapped and ready to send out, I'd thought I'd share some of the recipes with you. Today's recipe is a simple one that I threw together several Christmases ago in sheer desperation - and an abundance of left-over chocolate - to create gift-box fillers. So, please enjoy...

Dark Rum ‘n’ Raisin Chocolates

2 x 11.5oz bags of Ghiradelli (dark) Bittersweet Chocolate (or any equivalent good quality dark chocolate) chips.
1 cup (heaped) of dark seedless raisins.
Captain Morgan Spiced Rum – enough to cover raisins.
72-75 Wilton Foil Bon Bon Cups (mini foil patty papers) – your color of choice.

Place raisins in a small bowl and pour in enough of the Rum to cover them. Cover and set aside to allow raisins to absorb some of the rum. Can be left overnight if desired.

In a double boiler, melt half of one packet of the chocolate chips. Separate and place foil cups on a large cookie tray – one with sides so that the cups don’t slide off it when the tray is picked up.

Spoon approximately 1/3 teaspoon of the hot melted chocolate in to a cup/paper, then, using a toothpick or a Popsicle stick, gently push some of the chocolate half way up the inside of the cup. Repeat with each Bon Bon cup and allow all to set.

Drain raisins. With a teaspoon, gently place 2-5 raisins (depending on how plump they are) in each chocolate bowl. Melt rest of chocolate and spoon over raisins, making sure to cover each raisin well. Let set – refrigerate if needed.

The chocolates can be packed into plastic treat bags and twist-tied to seal. Approx. 8 chocolates to each bag is what I use.