GARMENT OF SHADOWS by Laurie R. King.

  • 26 January 2013

Guest review by Jan Bishop. Hardcover, published Allison & Busby 2012. (Also contains a novella after main book.)

Like Lyn, I’ve collected this series since it began with The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, unhappily I’ve noticed that it has started sliding. The previous book, The Pirate King was still good but a bit weaker. This book is definitely weaker and if this had been the first one of Mary Russell I’d pass it on. As it is I like Mary and it’s a keeper. But if King slips further, I may not be keeping (or even buying) the next book. This book feels as if she’s got complacent, as in “the readers like Mary and will buy anything with her so I don’t have to make a real effort to have a solid plot plus I can use the very weary literary device of amnesia and they won’t mind.” Well, I did mind. I didn’t find the background as interesting as usual either. It read more as if the author had read several books about the period and people and had simply info-dumped.

And the other device, that of having a small boy with (apparently) elective mutism involved as an active conspirator I found rather twee. “Let’s add a disabled child, that’ll get readers.” The only thing it got me was annoyed. The kid is too clearly another plot device, I found the sudden revelation at the end that he’s related to another character (out of the blue, with no preparation, and why, if he has a relative who has a good job and influential friends, hasn’t the child been seen by doctor/s who may be able to say if his mutism is elective or something physical?) The initial part of the story, that of Mary waking to find herself in bed in a strange house, unable to remember who she is, or how she came there, and fleeing into the streets to escape she knows not what, is well, average. I mean, amnesia? Please! It all turns out to be political, but in a perfunctory way. The French Governor (a major character in the book and an actual person of his time in real life) is dropped into the plot as a distant relation of Holmes. One never mentioned in previous books although they’ve apparently met on a number of occasions before. Nor does their interaction feel genuine. In short, this book was a disappointment to me although Lyn liked it slightly better. As for me, I’ll look very hard at the next in the series before I spend my money on it.

What was a good thing about this volume, was the novella included at the end. Beekeeping for Beginners takes place during the events of the first book in the series. It is narrated by Sherlock himself, is well up to quality, believable, with an excellent background, and an engrossing plot. It is available as a standalone e-read in a number of venues and since in my opinion it’s the best part of this entire volume, you might prefer to buy it and skip the main book. This novella I can wholeheartedly recommend as I can’t do with Garment of Shadows..

 


 

HAVE YOU OVERLOOKED – MELISSA SCOTT MICHAELS?

  • 26 January 2013

Melisa C(orrina) Michaels was born in America in 1946 (yup, another of that fine vintage decade.) There isn’t much available on her, but what I do have is that at various times she worked as a Private Investigator, and a singer, backgrounds she uses to great effect in some of her books. I know she lived with her husband Richard in Hawaii for some twenty years, and they ran Embiid for many years. She’s a cat lover and I believe she and the cats later moved to somewhere in rural Pennsylvania. In 2007 she received the SFWA Service Award – and that’s about it.

Back in 1986 I picked up a secondhand copy of Skirmish, (a.k.a. Skyrider 1.) This is a good reason why writers shouldn’t fuss over their books ending up sold and resold as secondhand, because I loved the story, the plot, and the characters, and promptly shot out to my favorite bookshop see if there were other books available. There was, the second and third in the series were in the shop, I bought them on the spot, and put in an order for any more. Over the next couple of years I ended up with all five of the Skyrider series, plus an excellent stand-alone, Far Harbor, and then the author’s writing went into hiatus for some years.

Melacha Rendell, a.k.a. The Skyrider lives in the asteroid belt, delivering supplies to prospectors and others who live on the various rocks, and in between runs she’s kicking back and starting fights. She’s a great character, and the books can be classified as military SF since right through the series either there’s a war about to start or there’s a war or skirmish going on. The Skyrider has no illusions about people. She understands that the majority believe everything they hear/see from government sources, that they will follow the demands of anyone in authority, and, that while insisting they are individuals, they never want to stand out from the crowd and will follow each other like sheep to make sure of that. Thje Skyrider books are clever, amusing, and well-written and I only wish that there were more.

Far Harbor is a variation on the child raised by wolves, in this case an alien baby raised by humans on her world who teach her that she is ugly, clumsy, stupid, and a waste of food. She is starved, beaten, and overworked until she rebels and flees into the forest. There she finds that she can survive, that she isn’t as stupid or clumsy as she’s been taught, and when she rescues a kitten of the large wild cats she has a friend. The story ended neatly but with hooks that suggested if a publisher had asked, there could have been more books continuing the story and I’m sorry there wasn’t.

I’m even more sorry that the Skyrider series didn’t have the final three books that 10 years ago Melisa said she had originally planned. But the lack of any real advertising of the series meant that they didn’t sell as well as they should have and the publisher dropped them and her – after the fifth. A real shame but since they’re 20+ years old now, it could be that they will be picked up for reprint sometime and then maybe the other three can be added to the series – and the world of Emerald Starling of Far Harbor expanded as well perhaps.

However a decade later Michaels started a new series and managed to sell two of that. Cold Iron was the first, an excellent hard-hitting book that takes an urban fairy background and turns it feral. This world has elves, and the author never felt a need to go into long-winded explanations. The reader is just presented with the world and, this is how it is Many rock bands in this world are what is known as Magic metal and Cold Iron is one of this type of band that’s huge. Rose Lavine, a PI joins them at the request of a groupie who believes that someone plans to murder the front man (elf) and Rose becomes caught up in the glamour and hard-living that surrounds the band – the drugs, the sex, and the constant touring. The band background of this book was savage, brutal, and very very believable. There are several deaths, which are initially assumed to be accidents, but Rose is suspicious and rightly so as it turns out. But the outcome is not what she or the reader is expecting.

As a final note on Melisa Michaels books, she has not always been well-served by the covers used for her books, Cold Iron in particular, don’t be put off.

Bibliography

Skyrider books

Skirmish (1985) Tor Books

First Battle (1985) Tor Books

Last War (1986) Tor Books

Pirate Prince (1987)Tor Books

Floater Factor (1988) Tor Books

Rosie Lavine

Cold Iron (1997) Roc – Nebula Award Nominee in 1998, a year of very strong contenders including Jack McDevitt’s Moonfall, Connie’s Willis’s To Say Nothing of the Dog, and Harry Turtledove’s How Few Remain. It was actually won by Joe Haldeman’s Forever Peace. (Although IMHO Jack McDevitt’s Moonfall was better.)

Sister to the Rain (1998) Roc

Novels

Through the Eyes of the Dead (1988) Walker & Co Mystery

Far Harbor (1989) Tor Books

World-Walker (2004) Five Star

Anthologies containing stories by Melisa Michaels

The Best Science Fiction of the Year 9 (1980) Del Rey

Horrors (1986) Roc

Short stories

In the Country of the Blind, No One Can See (1979)

A Demon in My View (1981)

Going Conservative

  • 19 January 2013

Got the usual Christmas cards away in December and got the usual bunch back. And looking at one of them it occurred to me that in some areas I can be startlingly conservative. I’m not used to thinking of myself that way, and in most ways I’m not, but in this thing I am. One of the cards went to an old acquaintance. Originally he was married to someone I liked, a pleasant, intelligent woman who died some years back now. Originally my cards were always addressed to them both by name, but since her death I address them to him by name and add ‘and family’. Why, when he has remarried, don’t I include or use her name? Once I’d thought seriously about that I realised that it’s because I was never happy about the speed of his new relationship. He and his wife had been very happily married for several decades. But within what seemed to be only six months of her death, there he was with another woman. It made me vaguely uncomfortable, as if the many years of devotion had been a sham, as if his wife whom I’d liked had been cheated in some way. If he’d loved her so long and as much as he apparently had, then how could he forget her so quickly? It’s possible that if you have a very happy, very long relationship, then when you lose that you may want to find another as quickly as possible. But it still seems wrong to me, and I’m uncomfortable using his new partner’s name in place of his first wife’s. In fact it occurs to me too, that it was his wife I really liked and her to whom I sent the card. So maybe next year I just won’t send one and that’ll fix everything for me. But I’m not sure of it’s my getting older, or if feeling this way about the situation is reasonable, or maybe I really am getting more conservative as I age and if so, thinking about it, that bothers me too.

 

Sheepishly

  • 19 January 2013

2012 was the year in which I was twice thumped by a sheep. Once just before our National SF Convention, and again by that darned ram. (Both thumpers have now gone the way of all flesh. It does not pay to thump your shepherd.) But on New year’s day I opened my newspaper to see that I had actually been lucky. On the one day they had stories on: a man who drowned when the Waiohine River flash flooded. A woman whose car was hit by a train when she drove onto the tracks without looking – she was incredibly lucky and survived. A fisherman was left in agony on Riversdale Beach when he was stung by what was probably a stingray. It looks as if we’ve lost one tramper while finding another, a jockey died in a fall from her horse, one is dead, and two others badly hurt in different car crashes, and some incredibly low-life beat up an old lady for cash which she didn’t have and stole her car. Okay, I don’t go tramping, canoeing , fishing, or horse-riding (any more) but I do spend time being driven places and considering holiday traffic that’s always a risk. And anyone can open their door to find themselves attacked although to do that a would-be attacker has to get past Duke the pitbull next door (who loves me) and my five geese (who adore savaging intruders) and our local policeman who lives directly opposite my front gate – but it could easily happen. Considering all of which, I think I prefer being thumped by sheep, it’s less painful – and a lot less hazardous to my life and health.

THE GREAT DETECTIVE:His Further Adventures. Edited Gary Lovisi, an anthology.

  • 19 January 2013

A nice new anthology arrived from America over New Year, containing two of my Sherlock Holmes tales, The Fury and The Button-Box. Several years ago inspired by an idea I sat down and wrote 14 new SH stories… and then couldn’t find a publisher who wanted a short story collection. I kept being told that there was no market for short story collections. On the other hand since each story stands alone I finally decided to start selling them separately, and that’s two down, twelve to go. It’s a nice anthology too, cover is very well-done as fifties pulp, and (as I’d expect from Gary Lovisi of Gryphon Books) the editing is excellent. It’s out from Wildside Press and anyone who likes Sherlock Holmes stories should take a look. It’s also been reviewed on this site by a friend who borrows most of my ‘author copy’ anthologies, but repays that by often reviewing them.

 

THE GREAT DETECTIVE:His Further Adventures – edited by Gary Lovisi

  • 19 January 2013

softcover from the Borgo imprint of Wildside Press USA. 245 pages, 12 stories plus Introduction by the editor, with acknowledgments and About the authors at the end. Gvery good 50’s pulp-type cover.

 

Reviewed by Steve Johnson.

Not a bad anthology. I like Sherlock, read more of the SH pastiches than I keep, but still have a very re-readable few on my bookshelves. I’ve ordered a copy of this anthology from The Book Depositary because it’s one of those I’d like to have. Very sensibly too, the editor hasn’t limited himself to one story only from any contributor. Where he’s been offered two good stories, he’s accepted and published them. Lyn’s duo I found particularly excellent, right in period, solid plots, and the genuine feel of Conan Doyle’s tales. Magda Jozsa’s duo were also very good, The Dentist was clever and well-thought-out, as was Bad Habits, although I liked the former story better on a personal reader level. Gary’s Lovisi’s Sherlock Holmes–Stymied, was, I thought, clever but I didn’t like the character it imputed to Holmes. While Marvin Kaye’s A Memo From Inspector Lestrade is an excellent take on an old character. All up a convincing anthology, there was only one minor point that I disliked. That was Watson or Holmes referring to someone as “old boy.” This is Wodehousian. They would rather have used “Old man” or “Old fellow” and the ‘old boy’ grated each time I read it. But as I say, a minor quibble, and I hope that this publisher will produce another Holmes and Watson anthology in the near future because all in all, this was solid work.

 

Taking a Blog Break

  • 23 December 2012

Currently I’m flat out. The raspberries have gone slightly mad so I’m out there picking first thing in the morning and again in late afternoon most days. Short story plots have been breeding like rabbits, and I’ve written three new stories in the past week with another three to go which I hope to clear in the week between Xmas and New Year. Immediately after that my sister arrives to stay a few days, and once she departs I plan to start my new standalone disaster book while also working with a collaborator on a different project which may take up much of 2013. I have two articles for magazines that I want to write in the next two weeks as well and some farm work also requires my attention. So, I’m taking a break from blogging for a few weeks so that I can clear most of that lot without distraction. After which I’ll be back – probably around January the 18th. I hope you had a pleasant Christmas, a fun New year, and may 2013 be a productive and lucky year for us all.

A Surplus of Tea Caddies

  • 23 December 2012

It forcibly occurred to me the other week just how often surplus items are another person’s treasure. Back in 1978 I purchased my first home. It was a two-bedroomed cottage a block from the local beach and as partt of the purchase deal it was partly furnished. I moved in and discovered that three of the items I’d taken over were pretty but empty tea caddies. I shrugged, I could use them for loose tea, tea bags, and coffee, and I placed them in a line on top of the fridge where they sat for 10 years, being used for exactly that. What I hadn’t anticipated was that having three caddies would lead friends and acquaintances to assume that I collected tea caddies. From then on every so often I was given another. Some pretty but empty, some full. I didn’t mind having them, I just didn’t actually need twenty tea caddies.

I sold that house in 1988, moved to my farm, and occasionally I was still gifted with another caddy – twenty-seven by now. Then I saw an ad in our newspaper. It advertised a new Tea Museum and Art Gallery and asked for donations of suitable items. I phoned and offered some of the tea caddies. The owner’s very pleasant brother arrived and left with two bags full of tea caddies. I’m happily down to seven now – just the right number for loose tea, tea bags, coffee sachets, and a collection of small items I use on the farm and in the house – and the Tea Museum has had its display of tea caddies substantially expanded. (The museum is in Stratford in Hawkes bay, and if you’re passing I recommend a stopover for an hour or two there.) The nice thing is that I can see the caddies again any time that I wish by simply accessing the Tea Museum’s website at www.gypsyroseteashoppe.webs.com/

HAVE YOU OVERLOOKED – THE DREAM PARK trio?

  • 21 December 2012

Dream Park- 1981

The Barsoom Project- 1989

and Dream Park:The Voodoo Game 1991.

By Larry Niven and Steven Barnes.

Back in 1981 a brilliant book appeared. Dream Park was set decades into the future (the 2050s) when technology had enabled the creation of real-life role-playing games. It was a wish-fulfillment epic, because back then we were playing D&D on a table, rolling dice, and talking scenarios, and Dream Park took everything we’d ever wanted in this field and offered us a reality. In one way we now have that via computers and virtual reality on-line. But in another way we still don’t. Dream Park was physical. You went there, and in an enormous gaming area, complete with actors, holograms, stage settings, with a Lore Master, huge computer input, and companions, you live out an adventure in physical reality that was augmented by all the other things. In effect it was reality. You sweated, learned, shared the adventure and danger, and came back after 1-10 days, physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausted and exhilarated by your achievements. It was something many gamers in the book saved all year to do. That few days was the culmination of their year. And I can see why because if there was a real Dream Park and if I had two good legs I’d be saving my heart out. But the book wasn’t just as some others of this type were; a recounting of one of the D&D-type games. It told the story of a number of characters in depth. You liked some, didn’t much like others, and you shared the adventure with them. You understood why they did it, what they got out of it, and you wished with all your heart that a Dream Park really existed. I remember discussion at the time about how long it might take before we could have that reality. Some of us hoped for it in our life-time. But that was over 30 years ago and we aren’t there yet.

More of us hoped there would be a sequel to this book, and at least we had that because after a gap of 8 years the second one arrived in 1989 The Barsoom Project. This was the mix as before. SF, computers, gaming, and murder. In my opinion it wasn’t quite as good, but that still made it a terrific book. However they had the problem that sometimes happens with a series that’s spread out or long-running and where they’ve used a real background. In the original book it was stated that in 1985 there had been a massive quake in California and the damage was described. Problem was the book two was in the same setting, but now published four years after the claimed quake, and whoops, there hadn’t been one, so they upgraded the quake year in book two, to 1995. This book’s background is still in the 2050s, but it was still looking unlikely that in another 60+ years we’d have a real Dream Park.

Dream Park:The Voodoo Game was back to as good as book one. The mix as before, but with the competitive level ramped up with five teams of gamers competing in a dangerous environment, all of them highly experienced and combative. And back of that was one of the gamers with his/her own agenda – industrial espionage. To my delight there were a number of gamer characters back from book one when this third book was published in 1991. The action was fast, the characters convincing, and the background fascinating. The sad thing is that I’m now writing this at the end of 2012. The original book was written in a well-established setting that was 70+ years in the future but with clear indications that Dream park had been in existance already for a couple of decades.. It’s only another 40+ years to go now, and still no indications that we’ll have a Dream Park any day soon. Of course, California can be grateful that they haven’t had that quake either, but in other ways some of the Dream Park scenario has come true. We do have virtual reality in a number of the ways Niven and Barnes described years before they became (virtual) reality. Our computer wizardry and hologram technology is closing in on that of Dream Park. But I wonder, in the next 30-40 years, if a Dream park was established, would the young gamers of that future be interested in the very physical activity that gaming there entails? I think so, because LARPing (Live Action role-playing) is well established in some places, and I also hope, rather wistfully, that I’ll live to see a Dream Park established and gamers competing there. And if that doesn’t happen, at least there were these three books to show me what might have been and what could still be if someone keeps the Dream alive. I recommend all three books and suggest they be read in order although they can be read as standalones. Copies are still out there. Find them and enjoy.

 

 

ANY FOOL CAN BE A PIG FARMER by James Robertson.

  • 20 December 2012

 Hardcover published 1975. Farming Press Ltd. (UK)

A friend very kindly bought this book as a gift for me since she had an amazon account and I didn’t. I wanted it because a) it was the first in the series, and b) I already owned two of the author’s later books and they made me laugh every time I read them. To sum up, the author worked in advertising before he and his wife decided (like a lot of other people in Britain – perhaps influenced by The Good Life TV series) to buy a smallholding or larger farm and take up that lifestyle. And no, while I did love the TV series, it wasn’t why I bought my farm in 1989. James started with a pig farm and the story of how ‘any fool could be a pig farmer’ is rife with misunderstandings, mad pigs, odd events, even odder neighbours, and wildly funny outcomes. (He went on four years later to be a dairy farmer and can only be described as a glutton for punishment.)

The book started with an incredibly accommodating bank manager, moved on to learning about pigs by buying all of a local pig farmer’s livestock and gear, and – well, at this point I was chuckling loudly because James was planning to learn on the job since he’d begun the entire project knowing nothing about pigs, farming, or anything much else in that area. Having begun in a very similar way myself in 1989 I was aware of all the pitfalls he’d discover. After all, my own first book about this sort of thing (Farming Daze, published in 1993 and still selling with – currently – five sequels and a sixth due out in 2013) has some very similar descriptions. And I can say that three sorts of readers buy this sort of book. One is an experienced farmer with a large farm who reads this and howls at the idiot and his blunders. The next is the city person who reads this and howls at the idiot and his blunders while thinking that it would happen to him/her too under those circumstances. Then there’s the third, the person who has a smallholding/farmlet and nods sagely, yes, that’s exactly how it was for them and they’ve had many of same things happen to them too. Which, since that trio of reader types cover a wide area, may be why these books (including mine) continue to sell and I suggest you buy one of the books in this series and join the flock.