Vale Harper Lee! Vale Umberto Eco!

Two authors of twentieth century classics have passed away on the same day, February 19, 2016. I confess I have never got around to reading anything by Umberto Eco; it may finally be time to do so.

                             

Umberto Eco in 2005, taken from Wikimedia Commons.

 If you haven't heard of his novel, The Name Of The Rose, you have probably been living under a rock. 

However, he wrote quite a lot of other books, including novels - one of them for children - non fiction, short stories and essays. Time to get reading, Sue! I will ask my Italian scholar friend Mirna for advice where to start.  

The other author who passed away yesterday was Harper Lee. 

Public domain photo by Eric Draper.

Harper Lee has been in the news a lot more recently than Umberto Eco, since the release of Go Set A Watchman, the "first draft" of To Kill A Mockingbird. If nobody had ever read anything of hers but Mockingbird she would still have been immortal. It is good, though, that she lived long enough to see the rejoicing(as well as trepidation) accompanying the release of her second published book. I recall that there was a huge celebration in her home town when it came out. 

She loved the film adaptation and became a good friend of Gregory Peck, who named his son Harper after her. And let's face it, the film was as much a classic in its own right as the book was. If you've ever seen the fantasy film Pleasantville, in which a modern brother and sister find themselves in a 1950s town based on a black and white TV series, you'll possibly have spotted the tribute to the film of To Kill A Mockingbird. There's a scene in a courtroom in which all the town inhabitants who have gone from black and white to colour are sitting upstairs watching the trial, based on that scene in Mockingbird where the African Americans("coloured", get it?) are seated upstairs watching the trial. I was teaching Pleasantville to my Year 11 students one year and had to explain, as the kids hadn't seen the original film. 

Mockingbird was, as is well known, semi autobiographical and the character Dill is based on author Truman Capote, who was a childhood friend. He said that even the bit about Boo Radley leaving small gifts in that tree for the children was based on something that really happened in their childhood; he was going to use it in one of his books, but didn't. 

The book has been banned in its time. Amazing what people object to! 

It's sad that we've lost two great writers on one day, so ... a toast to both of them! I'm off to drink to them in Cointreau. Cheers!

Currently Rereading... Guns Of The South by Harry Turtledove

This is one of the books that I found sticking out of my book shelves when I was selecting books to donate to the Continuum fundraising raffle. It's a favourite of mine.

In case you haven't heard of it, Guns Of The South is one of a number of "What if the South had won the Civil War?" novels. Unlike some others, it doesn't depend on a slight difference in a historical event, but begins with time travelling South African racists who give Robert E Lee AK 47 guns as well as warning him about certain future events. They do admit that once history has changed they won't be able to predict any more.

One interesting result of the South's victory in this novel is that a certain Abraham Lincoln isn't assassinated, though he isn't President any more.

The two viewpoints here are Robert E Lee himself  and Nate Caudell, a school teacher who has become a sergeant in the Confederate forces. We share the thoughts of these two men and, through Nate, see what life might have been like for ordinary soldiers. One of these soldiers, by the way, is a woman disguised as a man - something that was actually fairly common in that war. In this case, Molllie aka Melvin is a prostitute in her regular life, so the men in her unit are happy to keep her secret.

I enjoyed it first time around and am still enjoying.

Anyone out there read it? What do you think?

Coming Soon - An Interview With Jaclyn Moriarty!

                                               

   

Yesterday I received the replies to my questions for Jaclyn Moriarty's Tangle Of Gold blog tour. I've set up the post and saved it as draft till March 16, when you'll finally get to read what the author has to say about her three novels.

While you wait, why not read them? A Tangle Of Gold is being released on February 23, next week, but there's no reason not to check out the other two, A Corner Of White and The Cracks In The Kingdom.  Both have been nominated for, and won, several awards here in Australia, and deservedly so, in my opinion.

I will be promoting the books at school, to my book clubbers. I think there are some of our better readers who will enjoy them.

Off you go and read them! Let me know what you think.

If you have been reading this series, what do you think?

Geraldine Brooks On The Radio

I've spent today off work, resting my right arm, due to a trigger finger which was injected on Tuesday. I've tried to avoid using it, so have been reading... with one hand.

Now I'm listening to an interview with Geraldine Brooks, the Aussie historical novelist who now lives in the U.S., talking about her wonderful novels. I still haven't read The Secret Chord(King David) and my copy of Caleb's Crossing(17th century America, with the first Native American to graduate from Harvard) is lying around somewhere in the house, not sure where. But I loved the three I have read - Year Of Wonders, March and People Of The Book. I borrowed the last from my library, but have just downloaded my own copy. She was talking about the research she did, including asking a conservator how you could, say, tell the difference between kosher and non kosher wine stains and having him show her, and the bizarre but true story of the brave Muslim librarian who saved the Sarajevo Haggadah from the Nazis, who wanted it for a post war Jewish theme park, by smuggling it out under his coat and hiding it in a mosque.

March was about the story of Little Women as seen by Mr March, but really about Louisa May Alcott's over the top father. truth really can be weirder than fiction and Mr Alcott was quite a colourful character.

Year Of Wonders was set in a small village in England during the seventeenth century plague. Again, wonderful! I like how she can handle different eras in different countries.

People Of The Book was about the Sarajevo Haggadah, in a style that reminded me of James A Michener's The Source, with a present day frame and individual stories set in different centuries of the book's existence, explaining all the different stains found on it by the modern conservator who is the heroine.

I'm off to reread it now, before getting the King David book. 

Just Finished Reading... A Tangle Of Gold by Jaclyn Moriarty

Last night I finally completed the read I began on Saturday morning, when I picked up the book from the post office. I won't be reviewing it here, because the book comes out on February 23rd and the author will be answering some questions for you on March 16, as part of the book's blog tour. I had to rewrite my questions because after I had read this book, I realised there were some spoilers. I will be sending them on today to the delightful Clare Keighery, publicist, who will send them on to the author for me.

The only thing I will say is that you can't read this novel standalone so if you're interested go away and read the first two novels and come back for the interview on March 16. If you have read them it's definitely worth reading the last book. The first two books were seen from two viewpoints, Madeleine and Elliot, who wrote to each other across the universes. This one is also seen from the viewpoint of Keira, the young tech genius from the high tech province of Jagged Edge. There will be a lot of revelations made. I must admit, some of these made me say, "Oh, come on, now!" But there's no doubt the author had fun making them. 

Only a month till you hear it all from the author's own viewpoint.  Stay tuned!

Valentine's Day 2016: Some Productions of Much Ado(And Other Stuff)

Last year I did a fairly general post about Valentine's Day, which you can find here. Do check it out, it's a good post. Feel free to comment, as I get all comments by email to approve. I spoke about some of my favourite fictional lovers, including Shakespeare's mature lovers, Beatrice and Benedick. We don't find enough of those, IMO. Jane Austen did it with Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth, about a girl whose fancy relatives talked her out of marrying the guy she loved several years ago. Now he has come back, when they're both a bit older and her once wealthy family is broke and he has gone up in the world. It's not my favourite of Jane Austen's novels, but still...

Public domain image

      

There was an article in the (British, not Sydney)Telegraph about the "top ten" Beatrices and Benedicks, all stage productions none of us will ever see now, though there was a photo of Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson in the film version of his stage production, and a delightful film it was, too.

 Personally, if we're nominating stage productions I'd go for two I have seen performed by the Melbourne Theatre Company - Frederick Parslow and Jennifer Hagan, in a Regency costumed production, with music by Helen Gifford, and in more recent years, Hugo Weaving and Pamela Rabe in 1950s costume, and the Bell Shakespeare Company, set in a circus! John Bell himself and his Missus, Anna Volska, played as the lovers. I admit I haven't yet seen the Joss Whedon film version, though my niece Dezzy tells me it's excellent. And then there was a recording I had of Franco Zefirelli's stage production with a much younger, very, very much pre-Professor McGonagall Maggie Smith and her then-husband Robert Stephens, with a very young Derek Jacobi as Don John. That's one I would have loved to see! And I see Derek Jacobi eventually had his turn as Benedick.

I am amazed at who has played those two roles. One version really went for the "mature" thing and had the roles played by the not-so-young James Earl Jones and Vanessa Redgrave. He could certainly do the voice, as we know after his velvet-voiced Darth Vader, and she has plenty of experience, but Hero would be more like her granddaughter than her cousin, and you'd think he would be long retired from the army. Still, nice to know that once in a while an older woman, even if she has to be a Big Name, can play a Shakespeare role apart from Queen Margaret in Richard III or a Witch in The Scottish Play (Even Gertrude isn't all that old, early middle aged at most). And as a character in one of Kerry Greenwood's novels says, if you aren't playing the king you never get to sit down in Shakespeare, which is no fun for older actors with painful legs.

I was surprised and delighted to read of a production with the Doctor and Donna! Okay, with David Tennant and Catherine Tate. I know he's done a fair bit of Shakespeare - I'm still holding out for a DVD of his Hamlet - though it was her first time and the article says that she did it very well. They had such chemistry as the Doctor and Donna, I can imagine how well they did together in this play. 

I recall one of the Telegraph's top Beatrices was Judi Dench, whom I have seen in Shakespeare when I was in my teens and she was touring in The Winter's Tale; I'm sure she was a wonderful Beatrice. 

I am hoping to get hold of the BBC version(you can still buy them in boxed sets)with Robert Lindsay and Cherie Lunghi. Cherie Lunghi was a firm Beatrice who wouldn't take any nonsense from anyone. 

It feels strange to think that this mature Shakespeare heroine was originally played by a teenage boy. Was Shakespeare imagining women when he wrote his plays or was he thinking, "Now, let's see, young Nat can play this one brilliantly"? 

Something to think about. Happy Valentine's Day and don't eat too much chocolate!  

Found While Googling Myself

I was Googling myself, as you do, when I found the above. Apparently it came out last year, written by a university academic from Deakin uni, and it spent a couple of pages on my novel Wolfborn. Like other academic tomes it would cost $$$ to buy and even the ebook cost about the price of four paperbacks. So I decided to see if the State Library had a copy and take a look before deciding to order a copy for myself.

I went today, after work, and sat down in the Redmond Barry Reading Room with my prize. If I'd been there on a weekend I might have curled up with it in a corner and read the lot, but I was tired and had to go before the library closed, so I settled for a browse through the pages about my favourite writers - and, of course, the pages about me. 

I hadn't heard of all the authors, though, as a passionate children's/YA reader and librarian, I had heard of a fair few. And I must say, first, that I'm flattered to be one of only two local writers among those I did know. The other was Catherine Jinks, for her novel Pagan's Crusade - I didn't get around to checking the section on Saving Thanehaven, but it's an unusual choice, as the novel is set inside a computer game, some bits of it based on the author's own space horror novel. I would have thought that Anna Ciddor's Viking Magic novels would get a mention, and the Quentaris series, but  one can't read everything.

In fact, there may have been a few too many books crammed into a rather small volume as it was. 

And my book got two pages, while Tolkien got about two paragraphs and it wasn't The Hobbit, it was Lord Of The Rings. Susan Cooper was there, of course, but not for The Dark Is Rising, but for The Boggart. Now, The Boggart is a beautiful book, but The Dark Is Rising is her masterpiece, which will become a classic. And it had Merlin in it and many references to history and folklore, whereas the mediaeval connections in The Boggart were slight. 

The section about my book was in a chapter on monsters. There was a section in the same chapter on Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely and other urban fantasy. I suppose it fitted into the theme because the fairies it involves are traditional, the stuff of folklore. Melissa Marr is also a university academic, I believe, and her research for that series was thorough. I was just finishing Wolfborn when I read WL and was fascinated by her bibliography, which was similar to mine. 

So, what did she have to say about Wolfborn? I couldn't help feeling, by the wording, that there was a somewhat disapproving  sneer under the academic speak. More than once she reminded her readers that my characters were aristocratic and the character who was executed in the first scene was a peasant(and, it was implied, it was unfair, dammit!). Well, yes. But the boy who is executed in my prologue isn't killed for being a werewolf, which isn't illegal in the Kingdom of Armorique, but because in his wolf shape he had killed a child. He would have been executed if he'd done that in human shape. And my hero Etienne's father says it would never have happened if the boy's werewolf father, a wandering mercenary, had been around long enough to teach him and take him off to learn the trade. He regrets having to give this order, but feels he has no choice. 

Etienne had to be an aristocrat because if he was, say, a pot boy in the castle kitchen, he would never have got as close to his master as he did in this book and would certainly never have married his daughter. 

But the point I make in the novel is that most werewolves are aristocrats because they're more likely to be able to hide it and less likely to be murdered by a mob. For example, the heroine of The Sword And The Wolf, my WIP, is a peasant (born) werewolf who has managed to survive her childhood, though everyone knew about her father, because her mother was the local wise woman, too useful to annoy; soon after her mother's death, the girl has her first skin change during an attempted rape by village louts and has to flee. She is no longer welcome in the village. However, after living alone for a while, she accidentally releases a Merlin-like wizard from a tree with the earth magic she is practising and then gets involved with aristocratic things as she accompanies her new teacher on a quest to find the prince who went missing when the wizard's previous apprentice locked him away. Sorry, but you just can't do an exciting adventure purely centred around mediaeval peasants and their surroundings! Well, maybe you can. I offer this as a challenge for anyone who would like to try. 

The author of the academic tome says that the werewolf knight's wife is "packed off to a women's community". Wrong. She goes at her own request - conveniently, I admit, but the author of this book never says that - because she really doesn't feel that she can handle any longer being married to a man who frightens her because he isn't quite human. The women's community(read "convent") is run by a relative and is rather like Hildegard of Bingen's community, where she will finally be able to get an education. 

Still, anything on which academics get their hands is running the risk of being misinterpreted and it's quite exciting to have been mentioned in a non fiction book. I am still in two minds as to whether I will buy a copy. But I will certainly go back, perhaps during the next term break, and read the book in full at the library. It's a slender volume that I could read in about two hours. 

A Loathly Lady Story By Lois McMaster Bujold

Recently, I've been rereading all my LMB books, which I love as much as ever and it has occurred to me that the story of "Labyrinth", the Miles Vorkosigan novella, has definite connections to the Loathly Lady stories of the Middle Agrs.

In case you're not familiar with these, you'll find them in the story of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell and even in Chaucer in the Wife Of Bath's Tale. What it boils down to is this: the hero finds himself with a terrifying huge, ugly woman who makes certain demands of him, including marriage, in exchange for something he needs desperately. He grants them to her and in the morning finds himself beside a stunningly beautiful woman - by giving her what she wanted, he has broken a spell. (And when you think of it, even the Disney movie Shrek plays with it, except that the beautiful woman turns into an ogre and happily goes off with her fellow ogre)

But I was thinking of the Child Ballad King Henry, which I first heard plated by Steeleye Span on my favourite album Below The Salt. In it, King Henry(no specific King Henry, just the standard Everyknight with a crown) gets lost hunting and finds his way to a "haunted hall" to spend the night. There, he is confronted with a huge, ugly fanged woman who demands of him food(his horse, hounds and hawks) and drink(wine sewed up in his horse's hide). Then she demands he sleep with her. Trembling, he lies down with her. In the morning, she has turned into the beautiful woman of his dreams, and tells him that his knightly courtesy and giving her all she wanted has impressed her. That's where Steeleye Span leaves it, except for a last chorus/verse about having an open heart and full of charity. 

So, we return to the story of Miles Vorkosigan and his own Loathly Lady, who eventually becomes a master sergeant in his fleet. Miles has been contracted to rescue a scientist whose skills will be useful to Barrayar and who has been having second thoughts about his employment on the dreadful planet Jackson's Whole, where pretty much everything is okay as long as it fits in with things capitalist. Including horrible use of genetic engineering for sexual slavery.

The scientist insists that a vital part of his research is embedded in the left leg of a "creature" he'd been working on and won't go without it. Kill the creature and take the material, he tells Miles.

Then Miles finds himself in the basement with an eight foot high being with fangs... and discovers it is female - and human - in fact, a sixteen year old girl - under all the genetic engineering. She has been created for a super soldier program that no longer exists and been abandoned and sold into slavery. Seeing her killing and eating a rat - about all there is to eat in that place - he offers her a ration bar. After the food, she wants water, which she has been without since being locked up. He finds a water pipe and she has her drink. Then she demands that he lie with her to prove he accepts her as human. Miles is at first shocked, but manages to give her what she wanted. making her happy - and inviting her to join his mercenaries, telling her that he had been sent to slay a monster and instead found a hidden princess.

 After that, they escape, wiping out the villain's entire gene banks of potential slaves as they go. The Loathly Lady, now called Taura, never becomes beautiful in a regular sense, but she cleans up well, with the help of a female soldier, and becomes beautiful in her own way.

Can you see the resemblance to King Henry? He gives her food, drink and himself, in other words "all her will", which is usually the point of these stories. Sir Gawain and the unnamed knight of the Canterbury Tale both have to find out what women want - which is to get their own way. King Henry doesn't have that problem, but he gives her her own way anyhow.

I wouldn't put it past Lois McMaster Bujold to have had a Loathly Lady story in mind when writing this.

Australia's Favourite Authors 2016!

Just visited the Booktopia web site which published, a few days ago, this year's top ten list of Australia's (voted) favourite writers - link below:

http://blog.booktopia.com.au/2016/01/29/australias-favourite-author-2016-the-top-ten/

I am pleased to say that four of these on the top ten list are writers for young readers, and that some of the adult writers have also written for teens. Go check it out. And meanwhile, congratulations to this year's winner, Australia's favourite writer, the delightful Isobelle Carmody! Nice, too, to see that for the second year in a row the top writer on the list has been a children's/YA author. Does this tell you something about children's writers? I think they are just the best story tellers. My own opinion, of course. At least no one expects a child to love a book for its "beautiful writing".

Her novel Alyzon Whitestar will be republished this year by Ford Street publishing, so if you missed it the first time you'll have another chance.

Okay, Isobelle, now that you've finished Obernewtyn and become Australia's favourite writer,can you please,  please finish Legendsong? 

On Comfort Reading And Fairy Tales

I have trouble sleeping some nights. Like last night. I'm in bed early Saturday morning and haven't slept since before 5.00 am - well before.

The thing I do when I'm unable to sleep is to pull out something I've read and reread. It soothes and the fact that I know what's going to happen means that I don't get my brain buzzing when I want to get back to sleep.

If you've followed this blog for a while, you'll know some of my comfort reading choices. Tolkien. Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan saga. Kerry Greenwood's mysteries. Terry Pratchett's Discworld. Josephine Tey's Daughter Of Time. Harry Potter. (And this morning I've been following Tor.com's HP reread. It's fun to read other people's thoughts on your own favourite books and enter the discussion)

This morning I've been reading some Andrew Lang Fairy Books, on my iPad compliments of Project Gutenberg.

I love fairy tales - I follow a few fairy tale blogs, which are always good value. As a writer of spec fic, I appreciate having the resources.

The Lang books, written in the Victorian era,  are a mishmash of everything from Grimm to D'Aulnoy, from Anderson to Greek myth(one story, while not mentioning names, is clearly a juvenile retelling of the story of Perseus). They come in different "colours". Many of the most familiar stories are in the Blue Fairy Book - Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, etc. The Brown Fairy Book focuses on international stories, quite a few outside Europe. The Pink Fairy Book has a lot of stories I've never encountered before.

Interestingly, Andrew Lang, though best known for his fairy tale books, wrote some fiction of his own, which I had on my iPad before it was wrecked and I had to download again. I'm still downloading books which didn't make it back in my initial download, as I realise that this or that book hasn't returned.  His own fiction, I vaguely recall, was crime fiction, or some of it was.

But he really comes into his own with the fairy tales - and I loved one of his introductions in which he explains why he doesn't call them folk tales, saying that he just can't see some small child asking his grandmother for "another folk tale, Grandmother".

They're a valuable treasury of world fairy tales and it's wonderful to have access to so much good stuff on Gutenberg, because I don't remember ever seeing any of these fairy books in the shops.

And a good, comforting thing to read late at night/early morning when you can't sleep.

Anybody got some favourite reading for sleepless nights?

Just Finished Reading... The Colours Of Madeleine 1 and 2

In the last few weeks I've been reading volumes 1and 2 of Jaclyn Moriarty's YA trilogy The Colours Of Madeleine - A Corner Of White and The Cracks In The Kingdom.  The author will be doing part of her promotional blog tour here on March 16. I have yet to read the final volume, A Tangle Of Gold, the reason for the tour, but I am looking forward to it, as the second volume ended on a cliffhanger. Not sure when I'll get that as an email to the publicity department got me an automatic response saying that they only check it intermittently and if it's urgent, phone them. Hopefully it will be intermittently checked in the next day or so, as I have to send them interview questions for the author in the next two weeks. 

Meanwhile... What is The Colours Of Madeleine about? 

Madeleine and Elliot are pen pals. They write letters to each other about everything from science to their lives. Both of them are missing a father. His father has disappeared, possibly carried off to its caves by a rampaging Purple. She and her mother ran away from home individually and now live in a small squashy flat in Cambridge, England, while her father hasn't been answering her letters or email. 

The thing is, they live in different universes. He lives in the Kingdom of Cello, a country in a world where there are colours - or, rather Colours - that have physical form and can kill you or inspire you to dance and rejoice. Magic can be found in the Lake of Spells up north. The seasons aren't reliable - today might be summer, tomorrow there might be snow. The people in his kingdom know about our universe, which they call the World, but they haven't communicated since the seventeenth century, when someone brought back the plague from London. You can be executed for communicating with the World through cracks between the universes. But when Elliot finds a world crack in a sculpture in the high school's grounds and Madeleine sees a letter sticking out of a parking meter on a Cambridge street, a correspondence begins, and a possible inter-universe romance.

And Elliot's father isn't the only person missing from Cello ... 

I can't tell much more because of spoilers and you'll hopefully learn more on March 16, but I can say that it's a sweet and gentle story(you really can't read the second volume without the first, so yes, story, singular) with magic, mystery, adventure and teen angst. And baked goods, lots of baked goods, especially on Elliot's side of the barrier, but also in Cambridge tea shops. My mouth watered as I read! 

I think I have to agree with the author's friend Adam that it would be pretty hard to farm with unpredictable swinging seasons, even with greenhouses - and anyway, what did people in Cello do before greenhouses? 

I was fascinated by the science discussions, though. Madeleine is one of three teens being home schooled by several different people. Their science teacher is an Indian neighbour who uses her small daughters to demonstrate aspects of physics. Their history teacher is a porter at Cambridge university, who gives them the task of researching a historical figure who lived in Cambridge. Madeleine's historical figure is Isaac Newton, who seems to play a vital role in the background to these books. Learning about him definitely helps her to work out certain things Elliot needs to know. I'm just waiting to find out if Newton plays an even more important role in explaining what is going on in Elliot's universe. 

Let's see what the author has to say in my interview a few weeks from now! 

January 31 - On This Day

I really have to get on with preparing my classes for tomorrow, so I've kept it simple, with a date meme. 

Things that happened on this day! 

I haven't been able to find any literary events on January 31, so here are some space-related ones:

1862 – American astronomer Graham Clark discovers the white dwarf star Sirius B, a companion of Sirius. He was also a telescope-maker and apparently made the discovery while texting out a new 18 1/2 inch telescope which, according to Wikipedia, is still being used, after 153 years! 

1961 – Project Mercury: Mercury-Redstone 2:  Ham the Chimp is shot into outer space. I vaguely recall Michael Collins mentioning this in his history of the space program. The poor little thing did not enjoy his space flight, but he did live till the 1980s and had a funeral complete with eulogy. And what they learned from his flight, where he had to perform tasks, helped with the flight of Alan Shepard in Freedom 7. 

1971 - Apollo 14 shoots off to the moon. I have a soft spot for this one because the leader was Alan Shepard, who had missed out after the Mercury program due to health issues. He had recovered and finally got to go to the moon. 

There are more space-related stories, but these will do for now. 

If you want to read a bit more about the space program, you might like to check out my children's book Starwalkers: Explorers Of The Unknown. Unfortunately it's out of print(sold out, by the way) but you might be able to get a copy on ABE Books.

I will just add that on this day, in 1949, the world's first soap opera, These Are My Children, was broadcast. Think of all the soapies which might never have happened if not for this!

Authors Born On This Day

1872: Zane Grey, the author of all those Westerns! He took a while to get going, having a lot of rejection slips, including for Riders Of The Purple Sage, which became his all-time bestseller, but once he did  get going, he became a millionaire(For Riders, he went over the head of the editor who had turned him down)

1893 - Freya Stark - travel writer and memoirist. 

1923 - Norman Mailer, Pulitzer Prizewinner

1934 - Gene De Weese, author of a lot of Star Trek novels. I can't recall if I've read any of his, but they were popular. 

1980 - Kevin Maynard, author of the TV series Dexter.

This is the feast day of St John Bosco, a nineteenth century priest who did great things for kids. I mention him because he's also a patron saint of editors and publishers. (Maybe it's the name John, because THE St John is also the patron saint of publishers.)

Loss Of Followers Overnight!

Dear Readers,

I seem to have lost twenty followers overnight. As I don't really think twenty people have deleted me from their list of blogs all in one night, I can only assume it's due to the new Blogger policy of only allowing followers who sign in via their Google account. If you're reading this despite having lost me, can you please get a Google account? It's annoying, but can't be helped. Besides, I've found that Gmail is much better than other on line email services. There's less spam and it almost always goes straight into the spam folder. The only annoyance is the demand for your phone number - I understand the reason behind it, but it's an invasion of privacy, IMO. Still, if something goes wrong, hacking for example, you'd be glad.

If you prefer to get my posts by email, there is that option.

Cheers!
Sue

Just Finished Reading...

...a few books.

My latest in my Lois McMaster Bujold reread, Memory. In Memory, Miles Vorkosigan must start a new life, knowing that he is, sadly, finished with the Dendarii Mercenaries because of something that happened in the previous book. Miles being Miles, he takes well to his new job, and manages to save an old friend/boss at the same time. And the Emperor gets engaged...

Then I went back to Shards Of Honor, the novel in which Cordelia Naismith and Aral Vorkosigan, Miles's parents, meet. There are a lot of debates about this one. I loved it.

I've just finished Medieval Underpants And Other Blunders by Susanne Alleyn, a very enjoyable book about how NOT to write historical fiction. Considering how many anachronisms I've seen in historical fiction, it was a refreshing read. So many writers research the major events of history and get the little things about daily life and customs wrong. I have recently put down a book in which an eleventh century royal bride wears elegant lingerie to bed on her wedding night, to tempt her new husband. Urk.  The author knew his historical battles and politics, but not, it seems, what people wore to bed(usually nothing, but definitely not lingerie) or what wedding night customs were.  Frank Yerby's Saracen Blade, a delightful book that was made into a movie with a very young Ricardo Montalban, had a scene where a lively, energetic Renaissance dance is described as one where the characters bow and kiss each other's hands and talk as they dance...slowly. I forgave him for having it in a mediaeval setting - there aren't many mediaeval dances known - but not for getting the description wrong.

Yesterday I finished A Corner Of White, the first in Jaclyn Moriarty's Colours Of Madeleine trilogy so now I can finally read the sequel, Cracks InThe Kingdom, and understand it. The author is visiting this site on a blog tour in March and I have to have the interview questions written in the next couple of weeks.

Today I'm going back through the Indiana Jones trilogy - Temple Of Doom this morning - to decide which of the three I should teach Year 8 in English, as a film text. The film text theme for Year 8 English is Adventure. In past years I've done Up, which is a great film with lots of meat for class discussion, but last year, when I wasn't teaching English, everyone went over to Indiana Jones and while I'm allowed to do Up, I thought it might be best to do the same as everyone else. It will be a change for me. Last year, though, all three films were used by different classes. So, do I do the one with the Lost Ark, the one with the evil Kali worshippers or the one with the Holy Grail?

Any thoughts?

Guest Post - Aubrey Porter And Imaginary Elephants

I have to admire people who have a go at NaNoWriMo - 50,000 words in a month! It's one of those things I've never tried myself, though I'm generally good at meeting deadlines. Aubrey Porter, mother of two and handcrafter extraordinaire, did, and the novel is now available from Createspace and Amazon.

I'll let her tell you about it. Take it away, Aubrey!

Hi, I’m Aubrey.  Sue has graciously allowed me to write a guest post to let you know about myself and my debut novel, Tsavo Dreams.  So, I’m writing to you from Windy Wyoming where I have been trying to find enough hours in the day to get all the ideas rattling around in my head, down on paper, or wrapped around my knitting needles. 

I have been writing, here and there my whole life, but it wasn’t until I had my two children that something seemed to click.  My children are a huge source of inspiration to so many areas of my life.  My son in particular, was the one to spark the idea of Tsavo Dreams.  He came home one day when he was three with an invisible elephant.  He had found it in a picture at the bank.  He carried that elephant around with him for weeks, talking and playing with it.  His enthusiasm for his new friend led me to write a short story about the incident.  

It wasn’t until years later though when I found National Novel Writing Month (NaNo) that I pulled the story back out.  It called to me, wanted to be something more.  I wasn’t sure if it wanted to be a blog post, a children’s picture book, or something else entirely, but it wasn’t satisfied (and neither was I) with sitting unread in a file on my computer. With NaNo fast approaching I started researching elephants, and found out my silly little story wanted to become something so much bigger than a blog post or a picture book.  It wanted to be a novel.  

I made it through NaNo with a little over 50,000 words and took a much needed break from it for the holidays.  When I came back to it after the craziness of December I realized how much more work I had left to do.  I started back in, working on it wherever or whenever a spare moment presented itself.  I worked on it until it finally felt ready.  Then, I read it to my kids, who are five and seven.  Their reactions made all the hard work worth it.  They squealed with delight when something in the story reminded them of themselves.  Their emotions mirrored what I imagined my main character feeling throughout the story.  The most important thing though, they stopped me as I was reading to them to ask questions, or talk about what was going on.  The story seemed to open their eyes to things going on in the world, both close to home, and on the other side of the world.  

Writing this book has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. It’s made me laugh, cry, smile, and sometimes even weep, but it was worth it.  Tsavo Dreams is just the first story to make it out of my cluttered brain, but it definitely won’t be the last. 

If you'd like to buy the book, it's available as a paperback here and in ebook here.

Rejoicing For My Students(reposted from Livejournal)

Yesterday the results came out for university offers for Year 12 students, so I looked on line and found some of those whose names I remember, though not all of them. At least one of them should have been there, as I can't imagine her not getting an offer, so perhaps she didn't give permission.

Anyway, I was delighted with those I have found so far. A boy who had told me he messed up his exams got into a Chemical Engineering degree which required quite a high score, thank you very much! I like to think of the smile on his face this morning. Goodness knows, with his family troubles, he could do with some happy news.

Another boy, who said he hadn't applied for anything when I last saw him, will be studying Business at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. I hope they can keep his nose out of his Kindle long enough for him to focus on his studies. Personally, I think he'd be happier studying librarianship; he may learn that eventually. Besides, there are a lot of boring texts in that course before you get to the good stuff. ;-)

One of the girls from my book club is going to Latrobe University to learn to be a nutritionist. Another of my book loving students, her close friend, will be studying Psychology. My nutritionist student's delightful boyfriend will be studying communications technology.

And my dear Western Chances Scholar has made it into Arts at Melbourne University, not sure which subjects, must find out when I can. But I'm thrilled for her!

I will drink a toast to these terrific kids with work friends next week. They deserve their success! boy, who said he hadn't applied for anything when I last saw him, will be studying Business at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. He always had his nose in a book till he discovered the joys of ebooks. When we did Literature Circles, his group members pleaded that he go off and read something else till they caught up with him(he was only too happy to do that!). I hope the staff at RMIT can keep his nose out of his Kindle long enough for him to focus on his studies. Personally, I think he'd be happier studying librarianship; he may learn that eventually. Still, there are a lot of boring texts in that course before you get to the good stuff. ;-)

One of the girls from my book club is going to Latrobe University to learn to be a nutritionist. Another of my book loving students, her close friend, will be studying Psychology. My nutritionist student's delightful boyfriend will be studying communications technology.

And my dear Western Chances Scholar has made it into Arts at Melbourne University, not sure which subjects, must find out when I can. But I'm thrilled for her!

I will drink a toast to these terrific kids with work friends next week. They deserve their success!

In Which I Take The Mary Sue Test

I found this link  in a post on author Susan Price's 'Nennius' Blog. It's aimed at writers who can check it out to see if their main character is a Mary Sue, or the male equivalent which I call a Mark Sam, though who knows? I followed the link from the post - which you should also read, it's a delightful post, so here's the link:

http://susanpricesblog.blogspot.com.au/2016/01/take-mary-sue-test.html

The test only works if you're honest and if you're not, the results can pick it!  And very funny they are, too. I decided to see if my hero, Etienne, the protagonist of Wolfborn, was a Mark Sam. He wasn't, it seems. And as I'd answered honestly the results showed that, but were still funny.

The questions go through a hilarious bunch of YA fantasy fiction tropes you recognise, even to picking some of the books you've read that have them. In some ways, it's more than about Mary Sue, it's about cliches in fantasy fiction, especially YA.

Even if you're not a writer, you can have fun with analysing the characters in your favourite novels. Go on, follow the links and let me know what happened.

Currently Rereading... Brothers In Arms by Lois McMaster Bujold

The latest of my Bujold rereads is Brothers In Arms, the first one I ever read, the one that got me hooked on the series. My copy is a remainder with a slash mark across the pages and two ends of the cover cut off. There was to be no mistaking this for a full price copy! The cover is pretty awful, as are most of the covers of my copies of this series. It shows a smirking Miles Vorkosigan(it must be, he's short) sitting relaxed on a rather uncomfortable-looking chair and a woman who is presumably meant to be Miles's reliable - and beloved - Commander Elli Quinn sitting on the platform on which the chair is parked, in what looks like a painful position but is meant to be relaxed. And both of them are wearing a uniform that has no connection with the story. The Dendarii uniform is grey and white; this one is a sort of dark blue leather which looks suited to motorbike riding. I have to wonder if the artist had ever read it - or even was commissioned by someone who had. 

Ah, well. I really must do a post on book covers, but it's just as well I didn't judge this one by its cover, isn't it? The remainder price certainly helped, and it's not the first time I have discovered a favourite author via the remainders table, with a dreadful cover; Mack Reynolds comes to mind.

I remember the first time I read Brothers In Arms. I had never come across these characters before, or their universe. I had no idea who they were. It was in the middle of the series. And yet I loved it and its hyper hero, Miles Vorkosigan, and even his much-upon cousin Ivan enough to go and find more. Take note of this, publishers who think that if you end a book on a cliffhanger this will be enough to force readers to buy the next book in a loooong series! Publishers who think it's enough to start a mid-series novel with a "story so far". All you had to do was ask your writers to create a character who is so likeable the readers want to know more.

There is, mind you, a chronology at the back of the book so that you know where you are in the series. And admittedly the later novels do form a story arc. There's not much point reading, say, A Civil Campaign, in which the likeable Emperor Gregor gets married and  Miles is finally accepted by a woman he loves, without knowing what led up to it. But in the earlier books you can go back and catch up with the storyline - and you'll want to!

Brothers In Arms is the novel in which Miles, on Earth and trying desperately and unsuccessfully to get the much-needed payment for his mercenary fleet, tells a journalist who has unfortunately seen him in both his personae - as Admiral Naismith and Lord Vorkosigan -  that this is because he has a clone, only to find out that he does have a clone, who is part of a conspiracy against his father and homeworld. Reading it the first time, who would think this clone would become a regular character - Mark - in the later books? That he would find love and a niche  for himself?

And this is the thing about this series - the stories are exciting and entertaining, but in the end they're about the characters. And they're funny while making serious points. There are scenes that made me laugh out loud, scenes that were a bit sad - and always, always I cheered on the hero.

In Komarr, in which Miles is on his first investigation as an Imperial Auditor, Ekaterin, the woman he will eventually win in A Civil Campaign, asks him what has happened to his former girlfriends and she spots a pattern he hasn't and maybe never will: that all the women in his life went on to do great things, even if they had to be without him, but usually with his help. I've just reread this one - I seem to be rereading the series backwards and all over the place.

That's fine - this is comfort reading.

Anyone else have favourite comfort reading?

Katherine Hayton's Police Procedural!

Yesterday a Kiwi author called Katherine Hayton asked me via Twitter if I'd check out her new book on something called Kindle Scout and, if I liked it, vote for it. Huh? I asked. What's Kindle Scout? Katherine explained. 

It works like this: the author submits a manuscript to Amazon's publishing program. Amazon decides which MSS are worth going on a sort of short list. They design a cover and publish a five thousand word sample, which is up for thirty days. Readers who like a particular book vote for it and if the book they voted for is published they get a free ecopy if it. 

I don't have much to do with Amazon myself, for a number of personal reasons, but Katherine writes the sort of fiction that a Sister In Crime like me enjoys, so I said I would let my readers know about it, because there are only about three weeks left to read and vote. So below is the blurb and a link, and as I mentioned this was really, mostly, a blog about YA fiction, she also sent a blurb for a previously published novel with a fourteen year old heroine(who is actually dead, so a ghost story as well?). I include the blurb and link for that too. 

The Three Deaths of Magdalene Lynton 

https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/14OQDFXYPOZZI

Forty years ago Magdalene Lynton drowned in a slurry. She choked to death on animal excrement as her hands scrabbled for purchase on the smooth concrete walls. A farmhand discovered her bloated body three days later.

Except, Paul Worthington just confessed to her murder.

Forty years ago Magdalene Lynton died in a dirty shed. He smothered her life along with her cries for help as he tore the clothes from her body. He tossed her defiled corpse into a river when he was done.

Except, as Detective Ngaire Blakes investigates the death she discovers clues that won’t piece together with either version. Gaps, inconsistencies, lies. Forty years have eroded more than memories.

Is it possible to uncover the third death of Magdalene Lynton when time has eaten away at the evidence? And will the person responsible let her live long enough to try?

Skeletal

http://amzn.to/1ZCCtGC

Three months before she died Daina Harrow faced a bully at school.

Six weeks before she died Daina Harrow suffered an assault in the park.

One week before she died Daina Harrow stole a secret people had killed to hide.

That was ten years ago. Ten long years.

Now, her bones have been found on a building site. A coroner's inquest has been reopened. A parade of witnesses is about to start.

And Daina's here. Watching every day as her mother cries in the courtroom. Watching every day as her friends, and her enemies, and her killers lie about her on the stand.

Watching, and making sure that no matter what the coroner hears, you know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

So help you God.

A New Book...After Getting Rid Of Some Old Ones!

So, yesterday, the nice gent from the Continuum committee came to pick up the approximately hundred books I was donating to the con's fundraising raffle, and my shelves headed a sigh of relief, though I still have a couple of thousand left (Andrew, the committee member, told me he had come to Melbourne from Western Australian and had had to dispose of most of his own collection before he went and still had three large packing cases of books he couldn't bear to leave behind). 

And now I've acquired a new book. Here it is.

I wouldn't have dared before, but I thought what the heck, I've disposed of a hundred books, why not get one? 

Besides, I had what I thought was $25 on my Avenue bookshop loyalty card. This gorgeous book was $50. When I arrived at the counter, the seller told me that, in fact, I had $50! Somehow I had not used the credit from 2014. Not sure how that happened, because I've shopped there in 2015, you'd think they would have noticed, but never mind. The bookshop guy basically said, what the heck, and I had a beautiful new book, free!

And it is beautiful, too. There are breathtaking paintings of characters and places from the film, and a bit of discussion about what was in them. My sister said something about how it was not good to get another book at this stage and after I'd pointed out that with a hundred books off my shelves I could afford one, she looked at it and said, "Oh! How beautiful!" She understood why I wanted it. 

Off now to have a drool.