Finding Time (To Write Or Not To Write)

Writing is a gift, a skill, a compulsion, a talent, a solace, and much more. 

This morning in Church, the youth pastor spoke about the tiny little book of the prophet Habbakuk. Very loosely, Habbakuk lived in a time when the early Israelites (no saints themselves) were being punished by having Assyrians as their overlords. The Assyrians were sinful (according to Habbakuk's complaint) but their doom was to be defeated by the Chaldeans, which --as far as Habbakuk's people were concerned-- was a case of Meet The New Boss, same as the old boss...

Habbakuk believed that God told him (Habbakuk) to write down his vision, which Habbakuk obediently did, and so Habbakuk is forever famous... in a very minor way.

Also today, I read a lovely article about Jane Austen by one Walker Larson of Wisconsin. Now, I cannot give freelance journalist and cultural writer Walker Larson a link, because he writes for a publication that cannot be cited here on pain of being bot-consigned to the equivalent of the blogging oubliette.

Walker explains that Jane Austen lived in a time when writing for profit was considered to be the literary equivalent of prostitution. Men could do it openly. Ladies risked reputational damage, so had to write in secret.

The difficulty for Jane Austen was to find time to write without friends, neighbors, domestic servants and others discovering her work and work product. Fortunately, Jane Austen had a supportive family, and presumably had no lack of ink, quill pens,  small pieces of paper (easy to hide if visitors turned up without prior notice), a writing nook by a window (for daylight), and an in-house critique group (her mother and sister.)

Depending on ones circumstances, one can write for publication, or posterity, or one can write for one: a distant lonely parent, a son or daughter in need of encouragement, a faraway friend... By letter, email, or whatever the means, by all means, keep ones hand in. 

By the way, the Post Office in the USA will be putting up the cost of Priority Mail and other delivery charges between October and mid-January. If you have a manuscript to mail, plan to do it sooner rather than later!

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ 

https://www.spacesnark.com/  

https://www.rowenacherry.com

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review Subseries 2: The Liveship Traders Trilogy (The Realm of the Elderlings) by Robin Hobb by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review

Subseries 2: The Liveship Traders Trilogy (The Realm of the Elderlings)

by Robin Hobb

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

Robin Hobb is the author of The Realm of the Elderlings. Within this umbrella series, she's written five "miniseries" and numerous short stories. In previous Alien Romances Blog reviews, I covered The Inheritance & Other Stories, which contains a couple Realm of the Elderlings offerings. I also reviewed the first trilogy of novels within this series, The Farseer Trilogy. After recovering from the intensity of that first offering, I took a month or so off before I could get myself to read anything else the author has written within this overarching saga. Following that break, I was able to read two miscellaneous novellas in the series, "The Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince" and "Words Like Coins", and those reviews have also been posted previously on this blog. 

Almost immediately following that, I started reading the second trilogy set, The Liveship Traders Trilogy. Technically, I'm reading the subseries in The Realm of the Elderlings in order of publication, not the suggested reading order. The reason I'm doing that is that I sometimes feel like an author makes the most sense of a series by writing the installments as they come to her--even if particular stories don't fit in chronologically with what's come before. I figure if the author gained understanding of it that way, then it's also how I as the reader will best piece it together as well. 

The Farseer Trilogy was focused on Fitz, the illegitimate son of Prince Chivalry of the royal line presiding over the Six Duchies. In that first subset, we learned something of the Elderlings (including dragons) and their ancient cities and settlements around the world, especially in the Rain Wilds. 

(The) Liveship Traders Trilogy includes:

Ship of Magic, Book 1 (published 1998)

(The) Mad Ship, Book 2 (published 1999)

Ship of Destiny, Book 3 (published 2000) 

In this second subseries, we move away from the royal Farseer lineage and problems within the nobility to something very different. The main setting is Bingtown, a colony of Jamaillia, and deals with "liveships". Liveships are built from wizardwood, which isn't actually wood but the outer cocoon of a sea serpent that was in the process of transforming into a dragon. These logs were buried in the destroyed city of the Elderlings in the Rain Wilds and found by traders who excavated the ruins for valuable, magical artifacts. After three family members die on board, a liveship ship "quickens" and becomes a living, sentient ship. From that point on, these merchant ships have consciousness all their own. With supernatural properties, liveships are the most coveted of all in the realm. The liveship of the family that paid to have it created becomes deeply bonded with all generations of their owners. Once upon a time, owning such a rare and special ship all but guaranteed prosperity for a trader. Not so any longer. 

Liveship traders have fallen on hard times because of the war in the north (detailed in The Farseer Trilogy). Trade is the lifeblood of Bingtown and it seeks independence from Jamaillia and Chalced in particular, not wanting to deal in raiding or slave trading. But a selfish, short-sighted, pleasure-seeking Satrap who controls trade for the realm demands that tradition must change with the times. Meanwhile, pirates, migrating sea serpents, a slave rebellion, and a newly hatched dragon complicate things. 

In Ship of Magic, Book 1, the main focus is on Althea Vestrit. Her family holds to their contracts and traditions with a death grip until the male head of their family passes away. Althea is the younger daughter and has given her life to their liveship Vivacia. She fully anticipates becoming the captain of the ship someday. However, her mother talks her father out of it, something she soon regrets, just before his death. The eldest daughter is married to a Chalcedean sailor, Kyle Haven, and he gains control of Vivicia after the elder male Vestrit's death, turning her into a slaver vessel. Kyle forces his oldest son Wintrow, who has been training as a priest of Sa for years, to become a sailor because a direct line of the family must always be aboard when a liveship sails. 

When she's forced off Vivacia permanently by her sister's pompous, boneheaded husband, who's also been given complete control of the family fortune, Althea leaves Bingtown to find a way to retake her ship. Her family scrambles in her absence. Malta, the manipulative, self-seeking young daughter of Althea's sister, insists on being treated as a woman of marriageable age though she hasn't had the proper training and is barely old enough to be out of pigtails. A series of greedy, spoiled choices on her end have her abruptly being wooed by Reyn, the youngest son of the Rain Wilds trader that provided Vivacia. Althea's family remains indebted to them for the ship, but a marriage between the families could mean the Vestrit's financial situation doesn't prove as dire as it's rapidly becoming. 

Althea is wroth at all that's befallen her. Her only allies in regaining control of Vivacia are her old shipmate, roguish Brashen Trell; a mysterious Bingtown woodcarver named Amber; and the Paragon, a notoriously mad liveship owned but essentially abandoned by the Ludluck family. Paragon can't remember how he got the way he is--insane and beached at Bingtown for the past thirty years. 

Meanwhile, Captain Kennit is a pirate following a prophecy that tells him he'll become King of the Pirate Isles if he can capture a liveship. But first, on the advice of his first mate, he becomes the hero of slavers when he begins capturing slaver vessels and liberating them. 

As with the subseries that came before, these books are undeniably massive, and very introspective and slow-moving. The sheer number of characters thrown in almost from the first page of Book 1 became a chore to keep track of easily. Even the points of view of a tangle of sea serpents following the liveship in search of "She Who Remembers" are included in these books. 

While reading the first book, I kept wondering how in the world these seemingly disparate plotlines could possibly converge and make any sense. But they actually did--and explosively. Ship of Magic established the plots, and they were all just the first brutal wave of a hurricane of events and players. As intense as the first 832-page mass market paperback (mmp) was, it was also wholly gripping. I was immersed in each and every aspect. As soon as I finished it, I jumped headfirst into Book 2 despite that I was rapidly becoming exhausted. 

(The) Mad Ship starts where Book 1 left off, continuing all the plotlines. Althea learns from Brashen that Vivacia has been claimed by Captain Kennit, and she determines to retake her. Althea and Brashen's relationship is strained due to unresolved feelings between them. Further complicating the situation is her recent marriage proposal from the son of another liveship trader. She's been working aboard that family's liveship Orphelia in order to prove she has what it takes to be captain of her own ship. Meanwhile, Amber is determined to save Paragon with help from Althea and Brashen, and the mad ship begins to remember the traumatic events that led to his madness. 

In an attempt to save himself and his father, who are hostages aboard the Vivicia, Wintrow heals Kennit. The pirate captain begins to recover from having his leg bitten off by a sea serpent. Kennit's bond with Wintrow and Vivicia increases. Elsewhere, the Jamaillian Satrap intends to sail to Bingtown and force the traders to bend to his will. The corruption in Bingtown is forcing Old Traders to compromise on nearly every front but rebellion is afoot and one of the Satraps own "heart companions" (traditionally, advisors) schemes to deal fairly with Bingtown traders, though a trauma experience en route changes her for a time and makes her self-protective at any cost. Readers also begin to learn more about Captain Kennit's past, his connection to Paragon, and why his pirate heart is so justifiably black. Also, Althea, Brashen, Amber, and other Bingtown traders begin to outfit Paragon for sailing once more in order to retake Vivicia. 

Finally, Malta becomes even more nefarious in her quest to secure the rich, extravagant life she feels entitled to and manipulates on many fronts to see her selfish ends achieved, playing two men in seeking her hand at once and doing her bidding by saving her beloved father Kyle. 

Reyn has fallen for Malta, but part of his mind is ensorcelled by the very last dragon in existence. She remains cocooned in the wizardwood trapped in the Elderlings ruins. Reyn longs to free it, but to bring it out of where it's all but buried would be a monumental task requiring many men. No one else wants to see a dragon reintroduced into the world for fear it'll seek to destroy instead of coexisting or even helping them. Malta is also able to communicate with the dragon through the trinket Reyn gave her from the ruins. The dragon promises Malta anything she wants in exchange for her help in freeing her. A schemer like Malta thinks of nothing beyond her own desires. If she unleashes a volcanic explosion upon the world in the process, what does it matter to her as long as she gets what she wants? 

At 864 pages in the mmp, this middle story was both even more overwhelming than the last and impossibly more engaging. 

The final book of the trilogy, Ship of Destiny, had another daunting 800 pages (mmp). All the twists and turns that have been playing out in the last two books slowly resolve in a way that I heartily approved of and had been hoping for. The bad guys got what they deserved, the good found victory, and many characters realistically made a transition to become heroes instead of villains in the course of the trilogy. The climax wasn't a single action scene but a process that took at least a full quarter of the end of Book 3, including exciting peaks and emotionally satisfying valleys. 

As mind-blowing as this trilogy was, I won't deny that I was almost too tired to enjoy the final tale the way I would have if the endeavor hadn't been so daunting. How I wish the author had chosen to divide each installment into three or four books instead of one massive, overwhelming tome! A twelve to sixteen book series of manageable volumes would have been much more enjoyable for me, not to mention less mentally (and physically--the huge paperbacks became hard for me to hold for any great length of time, cutting down on my ability to read faster) taxing. There's simply so much here, I sometimes felt while reading the three books that my head might explode with it all. 

While I originally thought I wouldn't be a fan of this second trilogy because the main character Fitz in the first subseries doesn't really factor into them, I ended up liking The Liveship Traders Trilogy even more than The Farseer Trilogy, which is saying a lot. I loved them both. I'm apparently not the only one who feels that way. George R. R. Martin describes it as "even better than the Farseer Trilogy—I didn’t think that was possible". It's apparently also a favorite of author Orson Scott Card. 

Not surprisingly, this series has been compared to A Song of Ice and Fire--not in content, but in execution. (The two authors are friends.) Hobb has a similar manner as Martin of writing a story almost as if she's setting down the facts in a history book and not flinching as she establishes every last, excruciating detail just as raw and painful as it gets. Her characters are so realistic and life-like you can't help becoming enmeshed in their lives--sometimes, whether or not you actually want to be. There are a lot of villainous characters in this trilogy, but they're not through and through evil. The reader is given not just a one- or even two-dimensional portrayal of them, but the full three dimensions. Some of those aspects aren't particularly pretty or redeemable, which might be difficult for some readers to stomach. Nevertheless, always, the characters are made understandable. And that's even better. You may dislike or even hate them, may be shocked or sickened by the things they do and say, but you can at least understand the makeup of the characters and what drives them. I do have to warn you that there were several rapes in this series. None of them was detailed or gratuitous--the author handled them skillfully--but beware those who are sensitive. 

I can't wait to find out where all this is going in the wider world Hobb has created in The Realm of the Elderlings. I'm open to any direction at this point, as long as there's more of everything I've come to love. All this said, I do wish entertainment producers would make a series of this. Like A Song of Ice and Fire, The Realm of the Elderlings would be amazing in the form of several movies or a TV series. 

Incidentally, I read in many articles posted on Wikipedia concerning The Realm of the Elderlings that the character of Amber in Liveship Traders supposedly played the part of the Fool in the Farseer Trilogy (though no sources for where they came by this information are given), but I will say that I didn't see actual reference to that being definitively the case in the specific books for this subseries. In other words, it didn't explicitly spell out, "I'm Amber in The Liveship Traders Trilogy; previously I was the Fool at court in The Farseer Trilogy." Maybe I missed something because there was simply too much here for that not to be a possibility. Make of this what you will. Maybe it becomes important later on in The Realm of the Elderlings. I'm really not sure at the point I am in traversing this world. 

In this second subseries trilogy, I learned much more about the Elderlings and the Rain Wilds than previously. That's definitely the overarching plot in all the subseries that keeps me coming back eagerly for more. Here, dragons are reintroduced into the world with humans aiding them. There's also a bit of a disturbing implication that the dragons so influence humans that they're physically and mentally changed as a result--possibly outside of their own wills. In any case, I look forward to more expansion on all of this in further installments of The Realm of the Elderlings. 

Unfortunately, I just read in excess of 2400 pages with this subseries. I'm finding I need another lengthy break before I can start on the third subseries, The Tawny Man Trilogy. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Editorial Oddities

At the beginning of July, I wrote a post about "bad advice for writers." One item was "avoid adverbs." Over the years, I've run into other odd taboos promulgated by editors. For example, "avoid prepositions," a warning that, if strictly followed, would severely hamper normal communication. It seems to arise from an exaggeration of the reasonable concern that two or more phrases in one sentence introduced by the same preposition could make the passage feel clumsy.

The weirdest category of things-to-avoid I've seen recently was in a list of words to flag during the sensible procedure of checking for awkward repetition -- "he," "she," and "I." What's the alternative? Continually repeating characters' names? Eschewing pronouns altogether like Elmo on SESAME STREET? Along the same line, I've had an editor maintain that beginning a paragraph with "he," "she," or "they" signals omniscient point of view. I'm lost there; that idea utterly baffles me.

Many years ago, another editor insisted the possessive case couldn't be used with inanimate nouns. Really? What about "the dawn's early light" and "the twilight's last gleaming"? "The Church's one foundation"? New Year's Eve? The possessive case has legitimate uses other than indicating literal ownership and always has (in Latin as well as English; I can't speak for other languages). I think the same editor was the one who told me it's always incorrect to have a character start an action. To "start" doing something is to do it, according to her. While it's true overuse of the verb "start" can produce unnecessarily verbose prose, banning it altogether goes too far. Sometimes we have to write sentences like, "Just as she started to unlock the door, somebody grabbed her from behind.)

And consider the word "that." Editors who admonish writers not to use "that" more than a certain fixed number of times in a page or document (yes, some do!) seem to overlook the difference between "that" as an often unneeded conjunction or relative pronoun and "that" as an adjective or demonstrative pronoun. As in, "That's exactly what I said" or "I want this car, not that one." Omitting the supposedly taboo word in those examples would require awkward, wordy circumlocution to keep the sentence from decomposing into nonsense.

An outright error that makes my teeth grind: People who object to the progressive aspect as "passive." E.g., "I was strolling down Broadway when I ran into Harry the Horse." First off, only transitive verbs, those that can take direct objects, have passive and active voice! Intransitive verbs such as "stroll" don't. This mistaken objection seems to arise from an irrational aversion to the verb "to be." True, too many unnecessary instances of it can result in weak prose. But it's necessary for the present progressive or past progressive. Moreover, using the past progressive rather than the simple past sounds MORE active (in the loose sense of the term) than the simple past. "I was strolling" suggests movement, whereas "I strolled," indicating an action completed in the past, feels static -- not to mention, in some contexts, stilted and unlike the way people usually talk.

In short, reasonable pieces of writing advice carried to extremes can generate unreasonable taboos that risk disabling normal English constructions from their legitimate uses. (I considered writing "taboos at risk of" but decided a relative clause sounded less verbose and flabby. In this case, the relative pronoun "that" can't be omitted without making the sentence incoherent.) My advice would be to flag certain words, not intending to delete them automatically, but to examine whether they're truly needed wherever they appear. Except for search-and-destroy missions against "he," "she," and "I." Good grief.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Courtesy For Everyman and His Bowels

Last time, I discussed courtesy and punctuation. Today, I should like to discuss courtesy, enunciation, and also efficient subject lines.

Let's start with four words, two advertisements, both obviously misheard by me but is that my fault? I probably bang on too much about advertisements, but why on earth do businesses choose voice talent that cannot speak clearly to promote their products and their trademarks?

Who do you think might be "modern bowel"? They produce fabric products, such as jeans and T shirts. I've nothing bad to say about them, apart from their spokesperson's diction.

Racing driver, raconteur and sports commentator David Hobbs (born in Leamington Spa, so I feel something in common with him) used to describe rather inconsiderate racing driver behaviour on the track as "arseholing". At least, he did so once during a Keynote dinner speech at the Amelia Island concours d' elegance at which he was honored, and I was in the audience.

But who tells others "But hole on"? No one that I know of, but you might follow my stream of consciousness. I misheard "But hold on", but someone (not David) dropped their d's.

In order to avoid offending a bot, I edited two heard words into three, dropping one of two "t's" if you get my drift.

As for subject lines in emails, in these days of scam upon scam, good internet hygiene is more important than ever. Legitimate invoices may go unread if the subject line is not specific. "Your Account", "Renewal", "Invoice", a random stream of numbers,  "Your Order", etc are popular with malicious actors.

Unless one is certain that the recipient is expecting an invoice and will recognize ones email address, it is well worth a couple of additional seconds to type an explicit subject line.

I think I warned recently that even an "Unsubscribe" text link at the bottom of an email is not necessarily safe to click.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ 

https://www.spacesnark.com/ 

https://www.rowenacherry.com

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Codex by Douglas Preston by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Codex by Douglas Preston

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

Last week I reviewed Douglas Preston's Wyman Ford Series. In the first book in that series, Tyrannosaur Canyon, published in 2005, the main character the series is named for doesn't come into the story until much later. Instead, the protagonist in the first book through most of the story is Tom Broadbent, a former code breaker. Broadbent was the main character in Preston's 2003 standalone thriller novel, The Codex, along with his sidekick Sally Colorado. In The Codex, both protagonists were drawn with deep, compelling characterization that I can't deny would have really made the Wyman Ford Series worth reading (in fact, I wish Wyman Ford had been taken out altogether so the series could include Broadbent and Colorado as main characters instead). 

In this story, Tom and his two brothers' father Maxwell is a notorious treasure hunter and tomb robber. In his lifetime, he accumulated more than half a billion dollars' worth of rare art, jewels, and artifacts. When Maxwell gathers his three grown, estranged sons to his New Mexico estate, they arrive to find that all his treasure is missing. Robbery is suspected until they find a cryptic message from Maxwell, telling them he's devised a final test for them to discover his tomb treasure trove. Winner takes all. Tom's two brothers can hardly wait and enlist private investigators and mercenaries. But they're far from the only ones searching for this rare, priceless hoard of items. 

Tom isn't interested in the treasure at all, at least not until a drop-dead gorgeous ethnopharmacologist (explanation for that mouthful: medicinal products used by isolated or primitive people are investigated using modern scientific methods) contacts him. Sally Colorado tells Tom that years ago his dad tried to present a Mayan Codex to a museum for translation. Without experts in the language at that time, the museum rejected it. But, now that ancient Mayan has been deciphered, Sally and her Yale professor fiancé believe ancient herbal remedies contained within that Codex could revolutionize modern medicine and lead to cures for diseases. Reluctantly, Tom agrees to help them track down his father's treasure trove in Central America, where the Codex is presumably hidden. 

In the course of multiple, thrilling twists and turns and near-death experiences, Tom, Sally, and his brothers discover they have another brother--the true eldest son of their father. Borabay is associated with the native Tara tribe who live below the White City--a mountain temple in Honduras. The chief of the tribe tells Tom and his brothers that their cancer-ridden father asked to be poisoned and buried with his treasure in the White City. However, the chief only gave him a drink that rendered him unconscious. So now the siblings must rescue their father along with reaching the treasure before the other hunters in hot pursuit get to it first. 

As I said of this author in previous reviews of his work, he excels at providing authentic settings and scenarios that seem utterly believable, in large part because Preston himself is an adventurer. Having studied mathematics, biology, physics, anthropology, and English literature, he's been a curator at a museum and a writer for National Geographic and Smithsonian, among other notable publications. With a friend, Preston once retraced on horseback a thousand miles of Coronado's route across Arizona and New Mexico--and nearly killed themselves in the process--in order to research a book. Preston's outstanding core elements are combined with The Codex's high-stakes plot and contain all the necessary complications and layers that provide unremitting suspense and action. 

While often Preston's characterization leaves much to be desired, that's not the case here. The protagonists in The Codex are beautifully drawn and fleshed out. Tom and Sally are such genuine, appealing characters from start to finish. I was rooting for them to succeed in their quest and fall in love. They really should have a series of their own. It's too bad Wyman Ford, such a cardboard character, took center stage in the Wyman Ford Series because I really believe Tom and Sally would have brought that sequence to life instead of simply starring in it intermittently (but powerfully) in the first book of it. If you're a fan of Lara Croft Tomb Raider type adventure stories that take you to ancient civilizations and feature brave, compelling, worthy heroes and heroines, this one has everything you could want and more. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Cozy Fantasy by Sarah Beth Durst

Recently I've gotten into the emergent subgenre of "cozy fantasy" -- for example, LEGENDS AND LATTES and its prequel, BOOKSHOPS AND BONEDUST, by Travis Baldree. (Both titles actually have ampersands in place of the word "and," but for some reason this software doesn't like that.) Unsure how to define it specifically enough, I'm still in the "I know it when I see it" phase. So here's an essay that covers the topic in lucid detail:

What Is Cozy Fantasy?

This blogger's summary definition: "Cozy Fantasy can be defined as a fantasy book with a slice-of-life ambience wrapped up in a story that is healing or comforting, that centers deeply on its worldbuilding and characters, but in the end has a hopeful narrative." Because of the content of the novels I've read so far, I tend to think of cozy fantasy as mainly dealing with quirky shops in small towns; however, as the author of the blog mentions, it doesn't always take place in that kind of setting.

Here's the Goodreads list of cozy fantasies. Because it's compiled from readers' classifications of books, though, it should be taken with a grain if not a shaker of salt. For instance, T. Kingfisher's SWORDHEART and Heather Fawcett's Emily Wilde novels definitely do NOT fit into the category:

Cozy Fantasy on Goodreads

These general remarks lead up to a review of Sarah Beth Durst's THE ENCHANTED GREENHOUSE, which I love, linked to her earlier novel THE SPELLSHOP, which I also love. By the way, the plots of these books certainly don't feature "low stakes," mistakenly cited by some readers as a defining trait of cozy fantasy.

While THE ENCHANTED GREENHOUSE is part prequel to and part spinoff from THE SPELLSHOP, the two novels can be read independently. Aside from a shared setting, they’re connected by a sentient spider plant, a major secondary character in THE SPELLSHOP, whose creation triggers the events at the beginning of THE ENCHANTED GREENHOUSE. The two heroines, both librarians, reverse-mirror each other in personality. The protagonist of THE SPELLSHOP is an introvert perfectly content to live in her corner of the library without speaking to anyone except the spider plant for weeks at a time. Upon returning to her home island, she shrinks from meeting people and tries in vain to discourage her obtrusively friendly nearest neighbor. Terlu in THE ENCHANTED GREENHOUSE, on the other hand, expected that as a librarian she would meet scholars and other patrons every day, helping them find the perfect books for their needs. Instead, she works in unwelcome isolation. In her loneliness, she casts a spell to bestow sentience on the spider plant, violating the harsh law against magical activity by non-sorcerers, just to have someone to talk to.

She ends up alone on an island with a handsome but antisocial gardener who communicates mainly by grunts and shrugs. The story begins with the trial that condemns her to transformation into a wooden statue as an example to other would-be lawbreakers. Six years later, she reverts to human form, awakening amid a snow-covered landscape on the aforesaid island. The only inhabitant, Yarrow, the caretaker for a complex of enchanted greenhouses, petitioned the capital of the Empire for a sorcerer to stop the gradual degradation of the magic that keeps the greenhouses functional. Instead, he received Terlu along with instructions on how to break her punitive spell. From him, she learns the sorcerer who ruled the island died some time ago, and ever since, greenhouses have failed at regular intervals. Glass cracks, and the spells that maintain their internal environments stop working. The structures house a fascinating variety of plant life, both magical and mundane, in a wide array of micro-climates. Terlu also meets miniature dragons, a winged cat, a talking rosebush, and a roomful of other sentient, ambulatory plants (after she wakes them). One feature of this world I especially like is its diverse population of multiple human races, humanoids, and human-animal hybrids (although in this book we don’t see much of them until the island gets re-settled at the end). Terlu, for instance, has lavender skin, and nobody thinks anything of it. It’s also a delightful novelty to see a “pleasingly plump” heroine with a face resembling a cheerful chipmunk’s.

The initially grumpy, withdrawn Yarrow nevertheless helps her as much as possible and invites her to stay in his own cottage, even though he clearly thinks she talks too much. As they work together researching the books and notes left by the dead sorcerer, who became increasingly paranoid with age, to figure out the cause and cure for the failing magic, Yarrow unbends toward Terlu. They become friends who soon share, naturally, numerous moments of awkward romantic attraction. Their growing bond is endearing and believable. It’s also credible that Terlu fears the potential consequences of meddling with magic at a far more serious level than her original transgression (just as the heroine of THE SPELLSHOP fears getting caught at her necessary but illegal spellcasting). She’s torn between her dread of being discovered by imperial investigators and her longing to save the greenhouses and their precious plants. Of course, we know what she’ll choose, but the suspense is genuine, as is the difficulty of finding out what went wrong and how to fix it. Meanwhile, Yarrow struggles to face his fraught relationship with his extended family who left him alone on the island –- even if the sorcerer gave them little choice –- while Terlu questions whether she dares to let her own family know she’s alive. All those factors, along with the heartwarming conclusion, made this a story that I hated to see end. Durst has created a fantasy world many readers will want to linger in. Next July a third book, called SEA OF CHARMS, will be published (a whole year to wait!).

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Dangling Parts of Speech

Whenever I see "dangling" written, I think of the gardeners' conversation in Shakespeare's "Richard II" when one tells the other, "go thou bind up yon dangling apricots".

Apricots can be difficult to grow. They bloom early and in a good season, produce an overabundance of heavy fruits, the weight of which, if not pruned or given artificial support, may break the boughs.

That's enough about drupes.... even droopy drupes.

I have two tips to share:

1. Punctuation is a courtesy to the reader 

2. It is better to be clear that to be strictly correct (grammatically speaking), especially when strict correctness is so ostentatious that the meaning of the sentence is upstaged by the construction.

For example, last Sunday, our church's vacancy pastor preached on the preposterous pettiness of correcting a dangling preposition (during a time of World War).

Please excuse the alliteration. When I write, I have a bad tendency to amuse myself!

The pastor quoted a possibly apocryphal tale illustrating a ridiculous dangling preposition. The pastor did not give attribution, but others credit the story to Sir Ernest Gowers' in "Plain English, 1948" (my grandfather gave me a copy and I still have it) 

"Put up with" vs "Up with which I will not put."  

See http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001715.html

Shortly after church, as I was preparing luncheon, a "to be honest" phrase was misused (IMHO) in the voice-over of an advertisement. This did not involve a dangling preposition, but it did involve a bothersome word order.

I do not remember what medicine or nutritional supplement gave relief to the endorser. I just cannot forget his horrible use of English.

"It was a relief to be honest" is not the same as "To be honest, it was a relief...".  Even if there is a comma, as in "It was a relief, to be honest" and the speaker pauses to honor the comma, the word order is still wrong. 

"It was a relief to be honest" puts the emphasis on the honesty of the speaker, and suggests (at least to pedantic member of his audience) that the giver of the testimonial is an almost-incorrigible liar, who customarily lies when promoting a product, and feels guilty about it.

"To be honest", is a filler phrase. That is, a short series of unimportant words used during speech to buy thinking time for the speaker.

In the case of a spoken (and no doubt rehearsed and scripted) TV endorsement of a product, it seems ridiculous to me that the speaker would use almost as much time enunciating a filler phrase as making his point (that he experienced relief).

While researching "filler phrases", because I always check multiple sources, I came upon an English as a Foreign Language source.

It seems to me that foreign speakers often learn the fillers and overlook the admonition to use fillers sparingly.

If one is going to learn a language, one does not want to learn to emulate poor habits and overdo them.

When I was taken a course to teach EFL in Piccadilly, I found that student EFL teachers there were being instructed to teach poor elocution. Hyde Park, we were told, should be pronounced "Hyb Paak".  Why? When challenged (by me, of course), my instructor explained that most Londoners slur such words, so foreign speakers should slur, too.

I did not do well on that course. I fail to see why teachers should deliberately teach wrong pronunciation.

Back to fillers. Other speech fillers are "like", "really", "if I may say so", "you know", "I guess...", "I think", "I would say", "You know,"  "as I always say", "anyway", "well," "I guess". "well, I guess".  "I should say". "To tell you the truth".... to name a few.

Listening fillers are short words of agreement, encouragement, and prompting that are uttered to demonstrate to a speaker that the listener is actively listening, engaged, and interested in what the speaker is saying.   "Really?"  "You did?"  "You don't say!", "You didn't?" "Wow", or various vocalizations "mmmm", "uh-hah",  etc.

Finally, my ear worm for today is "Newsworth" by Greenslade.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw1Mf3SN_sU

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/  

http://www.rowenacherry.com

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Wyman Ford Series by Douglas Preston by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Wyman Ford Series by Douglas Preston

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are mainly known for the books they write together (I've previously reviewed several of them on the Alien Romances Blog including Relic and Reliquary and The Ice Limit and Beyond the Ice Limit, among others), but they're also solo authors. Douglas Preston's Wyman Ford Series (published between 2005 and 2014) is classified as a series of "archaeological thrillers" featuring Wyman Ford who retired from the CIA after his wife was killed (predictably, he was the intended victim), and he went on to become a monk. In this series, he soon retires from that sedate, boring profession in order to help out the government with globally catastrophic events that he's apparently the only person with the skills to handle. 

When the series opens in the first book, Tyrannosaur Canyon, Ford doesn't come into the story until much later. Instead, the protagonist in the first book through most of the story is Tom Broadbent, a former code breaker who's the main character in Preston's standalone novel, The Codex. I actually thought Broadbent and his kickass wife Sally were the real stars of this show. The mystery and mayhem that ensue in this first story in the series involves a Tyrannosaur fossil worth millions of dollars on the black market. While this plot involves a lot of predictable elements, the setting is authentic enough that you can practically feel the scorching sun beating down on you in the hot desert. Ironically, the thing that I liked least in this story was the character of Ford. The retired spy as a monk felt like little more than the means to make the character unique when he was, in fact, anything but. I didn't particularly think Ford added anything to the four stories currently available in this series. He's too much of a cardboard character with no real personality or feelings to make him interesting. Furthermore, his skill set seemed like convenient things tacked on to involve him in the events taking place in the individual series stories. 

The second book in the series, Blasphemy, features a supercollider that the U.S. government has built deep under an Arizona mountain that may turn the Earth into a black hole if something isn't done to shut it down. Religious and cultural clichés absolutely abound in this story--painfully so! I'm not exaggerating when I say I didn't enjoy the subplots involving by-the-book, overzealous, and ridiculously stupid religious figures and paint-by-numbers Native Americans. The plot really wasn't capable of saving this story, especially when Ford is recruited by the government (again), then forced to deal with the woman he attended college with, engaged in a brief, passionate fling at that time, and they parted ways badly long years ago. Nothing about the relationship felt authentic or moving. 

In the third series title, Impact, there's a tremendously large cast, none of whom I found adequately fleshed out; along with wide variety of well-depicted settings; and almost too much plot for one story to hold. Preston does excel at providing believable scenarios that are backed with strong, valid science and then turning them into "science fiction". For the most part, the reader can suspend belief about the things taking place in these stories; that they could actually happen in real life isn't out of the realm of possibility. This one involves otherworldly gemstones, an anomaly on Mars, and a meteor, along with end-of the-world consequences if Ford doesn't intervene. I can't say I thought he had much to do with the salvation of the world though. To me, things seemed to just fall together for him, eventually, after a lot of scares. 

 

The last book released in the series, The Kraken Project, took away the major point in Preston's favor--the believable scenario. In this story, a programmer has developed an AI she's named Dorothy who's supposed to control a probe in search of alien life on Saturn's moon Titan. Instead, during testing, Dorothy realizes she's on a suicide mission and flees into the internet in order to ensure her survival. Eventually her program is downloaded into a robot, giving her at least something of a body. While this story is based on fact--a probe searching for life actually did explore Titan's surface in January 2005--the rest of this fictional story came off as hokey and downright silly to me. I admit that seeing the test robot that my sister's husband has roaming around their home at any time, tripping people and almost never following orders, let alone answering questions correctly, is the basis for my disdain. My brother-in-law has tested several iterations of these little, cute robots over the years, but they've become progressively stupider and more unmanageable instead of smarter and more lifelike. Dorothy is portrayed as almost entirely human in terms of her feelings and manner of thinking--combined with above-average intelligence and some might say awesome prophesying skills. Nothing about the main plot in The Kraken Project seemed authentic to me. I couldn't get myself to suspend belief enough to buy any part of it and all other subplots suffered as a result. Once again, we had a massive cast of characters, Wyman Ford leading them and not really convincing me he was worth following either. The settings, though, as usual, were vivid and genuine.  

This series would best suit readers who are looking for high tension, unrelenting suspense and action, and adventure set in captivating locations combined with (mainly) authentic science and technology turned into fiction with radical "advances". If you're looking for deep, compelling characterization, you won't find too much of it here other than in the character of Tom Broadbent and his wife in the initial series offering. Both of those characters would have made excellent protagonists in the series in place of the dull, mud-puddle-depth, straight off the character worksheet appeal of Wyman Ford. Do yourself a favor and read The Codex by Douglas Preston, which I'll be reviewing next week, along with or instead of the Wyman Ford Series, which really does have everything a reader might be looking for. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Cyborg Brain in a Box

Are we moving slightly closer to the sapient AI entities of science fiction? "A new type of computer that combines regular silicon-based hardware with human neurons is now available for purchase."

Computer That Combines Human Brain with Silicon

This "biological computer," the size of a shoebox, consists of neurons growing on a silicon chip that "sends electrical impulses to and from the neurons to train them to exhibit desired behaviors." The word "behaviors" carries connotations of actions resulting from choices, although I'm sure that's not what is meant. The cybernetic mini-brains don't have consciousness. The system's purpose is to "help researchers develop treatments for brain-related diseases." However, the article does allude to possible future ethical issues, in case the biological computer ever develops enough consciousness to suffer pain.

Or what if a "synthetic biological intelligence" becomes self-aware enough to realize it has a lifespan of only six months? At least, that's how long the neurons can be kept alive at present.

Here's an article analyzing some potential ethical challenges involved in creating "brain organoids." In particular, it addresses the difference between sentience (the capacity to feel sensations) and consciousness:

Playing Brains

Imagine a sapient organic computer system agitating for its rights -- e.g., to have a say in what experiments it's used for, to be protected from pain, for research into extending its lifespan, or maybe for decent working hours, time off, and intellectual enrichment to alleviate the tedium of existence confined to a lab.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

That's Deceptive

Last week, my condo might have been "brushed" by someone other than the janitor, and I learned a new naughty word. Two packages arrived, addressed to strangers.

Phishing, smishing, quishing and now, brushing...   initially, this blog's AI host assumed (if bots are capable of assuming) that I do not know those words, and tries repeatedly to change them. If I meant to write violently about smashing and squashing, I should have chosen my words accurately.

I do hate being "helped" by force! I've noticed that I write more and more gibberish these days, making proof-reading of emails more important than ever, which takes more time and is a total annoyance.

Quishing is QR code phishing. Smishing is Text message phishing. Now, there's brushing. The point of brushing seems to be a form of identity theft for the purpose of penning fake reviews using a brushing victim's fair name and good reputation.

This is BRUSHING, as explained by the United States Postal Service. Some of these unsolicited packages of cheap goodies may include a card with a QR code on it. Scan the QR code, and you might end up on a fake site that looks trustworthy, and you might enter banking or credit card information. Or, you might click a link and download malware.

Apparently, if you click "Unsubscribe" on an unsolicited email, you might also unwittingly download malware. Trickery has come a long way since the Trojan Horse. Now one has to beware of GEEKS, not Greek, leaving gifts.

There's an allegedly deceptive TV advertisement for a domestic cleaning service that bothers me a lot, and I cannot understand why it hasn't fallen afoul of the authorities. I was taken in. I signed up for a clean home for $19 and discovered that I was committed to monthly cleanings at $80+ each for the next six months, with automatic renewal, and moreover, laundry, window cleaning, fridge cleaning (and much more) cost extra per hour at the hourly rate of the cleaning personnel. And then, there were tips....

Legal blogger Jeff Greenbaum of Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz PC writes about a weight loss program that has recently been fined for not disclosing that a monthly membership fee did not include the cost of weight loss medication or the costs for doctors and labs, or the fact that the monthly subscription was for 12 months with additional costs to get out of the commitment.

https://advertisinglaw.fkks.com/post/102kt0w/ftc-charges-telemedicine-company-with-deceptive-marketing-of-weight-loss-products#page=1

As with "brushing", allegedly deceptive online reviews were involved in the enterprise, and also it was alleged that actual customers who posted bad reviews were given incentives to remove or change their bad reviews... or disincentives --such as denial of any refund that might be due-- if the bad review stayed up.

Discussing a fintech company that allegedly deceived customers by charging recurring subscription fees without the customers' express consent, legal bloggers for Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLPA. J. Dhaliwal,  Mehul N. Madia, and Maxwell Earp Thomas write here:

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=b869d852-50d5-4f93-9b2a-7b668b698a8c

Allegedly, clients might have been led to believe that services were free and interest-free (which sounds too good to be true). Watch out for "free trials"! If you cancel a service, even with a reputable company, double check that your cancellation is verified.

Finally, as the saying goes, if it is almost too good to be true, it's not true. Those "DOGE money" texts and emails are scams, too.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/  http://www.rowenacherry.com

EPIC Award winner, Friend of ePublishing for Crazy Tuesday   

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

This first edition cover (UK), frankly looks like something the author's kid might have created with crayons. We've come a long way, baby. 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

It's hard to imagine the classic horror novel, The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells, is 128 years old. It was first published in 1896 and, oh, how it has stood the test of time! This story serves as our earliest depiction of "uplift", which is a science fiction motif where an advanced race intervenes in evolving an animal species to a higher level of intelligence. 

The Island of Dr. Moreau starts with a scientifically trained Englishman named Edward Prendick surviving a shipwreck in the Pacific Ocean. After being rescued by a passing ship, he's cared for by a man named Montgomery. There, he meets who he assumes is Montgomery's manservant, M'ling, a grotesque bestial native. The ship is transporting a variety of animals to Montgomery's destination--the island of Dr. Moreau, his employer. Once they arrive, Prendick is forced off the ship by the captain, and Montgomery agrees that he can stay temporarily, though few ships pass the island. 

It isn't long before Prendick recalls who Dr. Moreau is--formerly a promising, respected physiologist who was forced out of the scientific community once his gruesome vivisection experiments were exposed. Moreau has all but disappeared in the 11 years since. 

Hearing the screams of the doctor's tortured patients on two early occasions, Prendick is driven by compassion out of the enclosed compound into the jungle. There, he begins to piece together the true horror of what's being done on this remote island. He discovers a colony of half-human/half-animal creatures living in the jungle. They're led by a creature called the "Sayer of the Law". They recite over and over their law, given to them by Moreau, their maker, which prohibits bestial behavior: 

Not to go on all-fours; that is the Law. Are we not men?

Not to suck up Drink; that is the Law. Are we not men?

Not to eat Fish or Flesh; that is the Law. Are we not men?

Not to claw the Bark of Trees; that is the Law. Are we not men?

Not to chase other Men; that is the Law. Are we not men? 

When I was a kid and watched the 1977 movie version of this book, the ritualistic chanting made quite an impression on me. It shocked and horrified me that Moreau made them obey his laws or he'd severely punish them by sending him to the House of Pain. To be so far removed from those he's, in one perspective, fathered, to feel so little regret or sorrow for their condition, was inconceivable to me, even at that young age. 

Moreau later admits that these "Beast Folk" weren't formerly men but animals he's operated and experimented on in hopes of transforming an animal completely into a human. With each new subject, he wants to believe he's getting closer to perfection, yet each time they revert to their animal form and behavior eventually. 

The balance in this fragile environment begins to erode with Prendick and his intact sense of morality (something Moreau lacks entirely and Montgomery has been losing steadily, at the cost of his own sanity, all these years) pushing it toward the edge. Seeing Prendick's rebellious behavior toward Moreau and Montgomery, the beasts soon begin retaliating for all their years of pain and suffering at the hands of the true monster in their midst. 

To put this story into the context of the time period it was published, note that in 1896, the possibly of humanity's degeneration was being discussed fervently in Europe. That's a whole 'nother subject that can be embarked upon at the reader's leisure and level of interest aside from this review. However, suffice it to say that several groups rose in opposition of animal vivisection on the basis of the topic, and The Island of Dr. Moreau is the author's reflection on the ethical, philosophical, and scientific concerns and controversies of that time period, most especially inspired by the trial of Oscar Wilde. Wells said in his preface to his collected works that The Island of Dr. Moreau embodies an ideal but otherwise "has no allegorical quality". Sure, whatever. 

Whatever the case, it's just plain a fantastic story of horror and, like Frankenstein, takes the concept of showing the monster being more the ideal of what man should be than the man himself, and, in that way, the man is the true monster. This is a story that I can't imagine anyone not finding compelling. Every part of it is perfectly developed. 

The Island of Dr. Moreau has inspired countless artistic endeavors, more than can be documented in this short review, but each of these is a testament to a story so compelling, even a century later, we're still influenced by the resonating message it proclaims. The countless films that have attempted to follow the book version are mainly all worthy of being watched at least, but it's the novel that, above all, shouldn't be missed. 

Next week, I'll review another Oldie But Goodie you might find worth another read, too. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/