Sharing

  • 16 September 2011

A quick trip down to our village yesterday to pick up a few things and drop off lemons. I have a Meyer lemon tree, there’s only a short period around early spring where that fruits really prolifically, but for most of the year it fruits steadily. Far more than I could ever use unless I went mad making lemon honey, lemonade, and lemon-juice ice-blocks. So mine go to good causes. Just about all year – for about the past 12 years – I’ve kept a small basket filled with lemons in the waiting room of our local health clinic. Those attending with colds, sore throats or flu, anything where a nice hot drink of lemon and honey would make you feel better, are welcome to take a few of the lemons. And around September where the tree has the major burst of fruiting, I pick anywhere from 200 to 300 lemons over 3-4 weeks and they’re put out in a crate in front of our local dairy, which sells them for some good cause. They usually make about $60+ – painlessly for all concerned. That to me is far better than having a circle of rotting fruit under my tree. The only thing that puzzles me is why some people do seem to prefer that to sharing the unwanted fruit.

TAILS OF WONDER AND IMAGINATION edited by Ellen Datlow.

  • 16 September 2011

TAILS OF WONDER AND IMAGINATION edited by Ellen Datlow.
Trade paperback, Night Shade Books, 2010. A reprint anthology of 40 stories about felines. 464 pages.
Reviewed by Lyn McConchie.

To put this review in perspective. I grade theme anthologies in two ways. There are the stories, how many of them that, for that single story alone, I count my money well spent? Most theme anthologies will have 2-4 stories of that quality in a total of 15-20 stories. And the other way is where, while no single story quite reaches that level, all are good enough and blend into such a harmoniously chosen whole, that I still feel my money was well spent.
Tails falls into category one very solidly. Of the forty tales, I noted fifteen for which each alone would have sold me the book. That puts it into the excellently edited quality too. Editing an anthology is an art not a science. The very best anthologies are those that have a large number of wonderful tales, but which also have a sort of internal flow that leads you from tale to tale unable to put the book down. Such perfection is vanishingly rare, and I can think of only a handful of anthologies purchased over my 55 years of reading that would fall into that list – the S&S of MZB’s, most of Andre’s, and one or two from back in the 1950-60s.
“Tails” doesn’t quite make that level. I found that the stories didn’t seem to be more than 40 very good works on a theme. But I can say that I found no story that was not very well written, no story that did not have an interesting plot and intriguing characters. There were stories that I didn’t like, but that was personal preference rather than any lack in the writer and other readers will probably prefer different works.
The list of writers is a fine one, ranging from the very well-known, like Charles de Lint, Carole Nelson Douglas, Lucy Sussex, Peter S. Beagle, Nancy Springer and Neil Gaiman et al, to the lesser known who have still produced great stories. The lengths of the works too are well varied, making it easy to find something to read quickly, or a longer read when you have the time.
Of the stories that seized me by the throat as I read, I would mention A. R. Morlan’s “No Heaven Will Not Ever Heaven Be,” and Dennis Danvers’ “Healing Benjamin.” Both stories brought me to tears – yes, I’m a sentimentalist – from the sheer poignancy of the writing.
There are a number of horror or dark fantasy tales in the anthology. Some are really horrific like Graham Joyce’s “Candida”. The story of a man who finds himself in Candida, where he must stay, losing time in patches and wandering the streets drunken and unfed until he can strike a deal that will allow him to leave. Nancy Etchemendy’s “Cat in Glass’, an unpleasant psychological story of mental delusion and torment. And George R.R. Martin’s story “Guardians” where humans on a planet they have settled are informed by an outsider that they have been murdering sentient beings. That was one of the “Tuf” stories and while it is distressing, I like that series and found it a fine read.
The stories have come from such a wide range of sources that it is unlikely any reader will have seen more than a few of them before. (I’d previously read three.) The price of this anthology too – perhaps because it is an anthology of reprints – is surprisingly low. The trade paperback I received from a friend is listed as $15.95US, and to those reading this review I can say that it’s honestly worth the money.

Newspaper Articles

  • 13 September 2011

Some time ago a friend who had a website asked if I had any Handy Hints I could write for her to post. I did several and found it was quite fun writing them. To cut a long story short, I continued to write articles on ways to save money and offered them as well (on a one time only/to them only basis) to the small daily newspaper in my area. They must like them because when I opened my copy of the paper last night I see that they’ve published the twelfth thus far. Does this mean that, in addition to being a farmer and an author, I can claim to be a journalist as well?

HAVE YOU OVERLOOKED – RU EMERSON

  • 13 September 2011

Ru Emerson was born in 1944 and is the author of twenty-three novels, including the Nedao trilogy, the six-volume Night-Threads series, media tie-in novels based on Xena: Warrior Princess, and (as Roberta Cray) The Sword and the Lion.
Emerson’s first novel, Princess of Flames came out in 1986, I bought it the moment I saw it on the shelf and was struck all of a heap by the writing and characters. This is a standalone book, it starts with the four legitimate children of the king who are increasingly unhappy about his insistence in keeping Elfrid, his bastard daughter by his mistress, at court. They hatch a plot, the king is deposed – and injured during this event so that he becomes mentally impaired – and he and his bastard daughter are exiled – with an attempt to assassinate them on the road out of the kingdom. Eight years later Sedry, the king’s oldest son who had taken the throne needs assistance and calls in the well-known fighter, Archbishop Gespry, to lead a task force composed of locals and mercenaries against an enemy on his borders. But Elfrid has been waiting for the past eight years to return. This is her chance and the book is how and what she does to avenge herself on those who deposed the king and were responsible for her father’s death. The book was well rounded with a fleshed-out background that made it and the characters fascinating, and it was excellent militaristic fantasy.
When, the year after it, the first of a trilogy appeared, I grabbed To the Haunted Mountains eagerly. I subsequently seized the other two and more than twenty years later all four books are still in my library being re-read every few years and I still love them. The Nedao trilogy was again a well filled-out background, and I hoped that it might be only the first three books set within that and that there’d be more. Sadly it was only three books. I didn’t find the six Night-Threads books nearly so good. I read the first, held it until I’d bought and read the second, and then dropped both. It wasn’t that it was bad, but it just didn’t engage me. I found the characters unattractive, and they didn’t make me care whether they survived or not. Other readers may well feel differently but even within the books they couldn’t hold my attention let alone from one book to the next.
After that Emerson seemed to move into tie-ins or into other-author-series of some sort.
Her Xena books were of their kind, very well-written, a friend who has all of the Xena tie-ins agrees that Ru Emerson’s books were by far the best of them all. Her “Starbridge” book was very good, (I have almost all of that series and cherish it) and considering her Xena work I was surprised when in 2001, the anthology, Further Adventures of Xena: warrior Princess appeared and there wasn’t a story by Ru Emerson within. (I had my story “Horsing Around” in that.) And by 2003 Ru Emerson seemed to have vanished as an author.
I have no idea why, she wrote well, in many cases very well, but it may be that she felt she had no more to say and therefore stopped writing. There are a host of reasons why an author may stpp writing. But I do recommend her first four books in particular, and the Xena, Starbridge, and Grayhawk books to those who like such works. I only hope that one day Ru Emerson will decide to return to the worlds of her original four books and do more within those backgrounds.

Novels:
1986. Princess of Flames (Standalone)
1987. To the Haunted Mountains (Trilogy)
1988. In the Caves of Exile
1989. On the Seas of Destiny

1990. Masques (Beauty and the Beast)

1990. Spell Bound (Standalone)

1990. The Calling of the Three (Night-Threads series)
1991. The Two in Hiding
1992. One Land, One Duke
1993. The Craft of Light
1994. The Art of the Sword
1995. The Science of Power

1993. The Sword and the Lion (Epic fantasy – standalone) listed as written by “Roberta Cray”)

1993. Fortress of Frost and Fire (One of the Bard’s Tale series – see Mercedes Lackey bibliography anywhere)

1996. The Empty Throne (Xena- warrior Princess tie-in novels)
1997. The Huntress and the Sphinx
1997. The Thief of Hermes
1999. Go Quest, Young Man
2000. How the Quest Was Won
2000 Questward Ho

1998. Voices of Chaos (Ann Crispin and Ru Emerson This is actually
the seventh in the Starbridge series)
1999. Against the Giants (Greyhawk series – D&D)
2001. Keep on the Borderlands (as above)

Short Fiction: (And perhaps someone will gather these short stories into a collection for those of us who missed them in original markets. )
1987. A Golden Net for Silver Fishes
1988. The Werewolf’s Gift
1988. Two-Edged Choice
1990. Shapeshifter’s Duel
1993. Looking Forward: Excerpt from The Craft of Light
1996. Call Him By Name
1996. Miranda
1998. Three-Edged Choice
2003. Find a Pin

Abstract Art

  • 13 September 2011

I’m not sure if I’m a complete philistine or a bit too much of a realist. But when discussing abstract art recently I had to say that I had little or no appreciation for it. That black canvas with a small white triangle in the lower left corner, the work entitled Consideration of Infinity. And someone paying tens of thousands of dollars for it. I look at the item, the amount paid and feel that it’s a case of oneupsmanship. “I’m so much smarter that I understand and appreciate this form of art where you don’t.” I look at the item again, and shake my head. No, I just don’t get it. I’m not sure if I’m a complete philistine or a bit too much of a realist. But I do know one thing. If I had the money to buy something like that – I wouldn’t.

Hail!

  • 13 September 2011

and it did, on and off all yesterday. I’m not actually complaining since with that and showers we’ve had about 30mls of wet on the ground in the last 48 hours and we needed it. The hail did no damage – although the bombarded hens were annoyed – and, most conveniently the hail stopped for about ten minutes mid-afternoon, just long enough for my mailman to arrive, hand me the day’s newspaper and my mail, and drop off a sack of wheat for the hens without either of us being hailed on. That should counterbalance the hen protests, a month’s worth of their meals got through safely.

HAVE YOU OVERLOOKED – RICK RAPHAEL

  • 7 September 2011

Rick Raphael was born in 1919 and died in 1994. He wrote only a small amount of work but it’s quality and much of it is both clever and amusing. It’s surprising to note just how many older SF writers had a very wide spread of occupations – either that or unusual ones. They may turn to writing because these occupations allow them the time, or because in some way they spark interest in genre fiction. Raphael was a journalist, photographer, columnist and TV writer, as well as producing a small select amount of SF.
A lot of his stories are technologically oriented, The Thirst Quenchers is one of those and in the first two sections of that book he foresaw the problems that a growing megapolis could have with inadequate water available. It features the DivAg Hydrology section, a department that collects, conserves, and allocates precipitant water, (rain, hail, snow) and how the staff handles emergencies. The first section, the title piece, deals with an earthquake that cracks three main reservoirs where the loss of water will be catastrophic for the urban areas that reply on them. The second section (Guttersnipe) deals with the work of the sanitation water reclamation section, commonly known as guttersnipes. That section, while moderately graphic in places as to the work and how and why it is done, is also a very solid forerunner of work that is done now more than fifty years after Raphael wrote this book.
(The first section, the collection and use of precipitant moisture is already starting to be truth in a number of countries as well. Another instance where an SF writer has produced suggestions that have come true many years later.)
After those book sections Raphael moved on to postmen in space with The Mailman Cometh, a very funny space opera tale of man versus technology, the mail must go through, and the unexpected arrival of a Galactic Postal Service Inspector. And the last section is a provoking, biting, and poignant story about the Park Service in a massively overcrowded world – with several terrific one-liners.
All (but the final story) are based strongly on future technology and in a very effective and believable way. By the time that Raphael began selling his SF he would have been almost forty and between life experience and what he’d learned as a journalist, he clearly hadn’t wasted his time. I suspect that part of his journalism career he spent in writing stories on new technology and from these he extrapolated both future technology and increasing urbanization. But despite the solid technological backgrounds, people are still the focus of his work, the question being of how they deal with the technology around them, in what ways it impacts their lives, and if it is possible at times to make an end run around the technology or bureaucracy that can be stifling people’s lives. I particularly recommend The Third Quenchers.

Bibliography –

Books:
The Thirst Quenchers 1965 (Collection)
Code Three 1966 (possible collection)
The Defector 1980
The President Must Die 1981

Short Stories –
1959. A Filbert Is a Nut
1960. Make Mine… Homogenized
1963. Code Three
1963. Sonny
1963. The Thirst Quenchers
1964. Guttersnipe
1964. Identity Mistaken
1964. Once a Cop
1965. Odd Man In
1965. The Mailman Cometh
1981. False Scent
1981. Pelangus

His short story, Code Three was a Hugo Nominee in 1964, and Once a Cop was a Hugo nominee in 1965.
Many of the short stories listed ultimately became a ‘book’ and are listed as that although in effect they are collections. A fair amount of Raphael’s work is now available as free downloads from Gutenberg Press and other works from various free download sites.

Hawk and Hare.

  • 7 September 2011

I headed out on my electric scooter yesterday, a quick trip to the shops, and as I passed my hay paddock a movement caught my eyes. There was a young hare running for his life, while behind him about ten feet up and to the rear cruised a hawk in hungry pursuit. The hawk wasn’t exerting himself, he was gliding, apparently certain that he could get the hare without having to try too hard.
I was motionless, half obscured by the shelterbelt trees and neither noticed me. The hare suddenly jinked, crossing the hawk’s flight path and coming straight for me. The hawk almost visibly shrugged, He’d reach dinner before the dinner reached safety under the trees. They were closing in when he discovered how wrong he was.
Half a dozen White-Backed Magpies exploded from the shelterbelt. The hawk dropped a wing-tip, spun, and in about a body-length was going in the opposite direction at much higher acceleration. The magpies followed screaming – if I translate correctly – definitions of “territory,” “family protection,” and “general agreement on the definition of unwanted visitors.”
They came back a few minutes later, settled back into some of the many nests with which they fill my farm trees at this time of the year, and muttered quietly amongst themselves about hawks that don’t know their proper place in the scheme of thing. The hawk had vanished and didn’t appear to be returning – somehow I think he does know his place.
The idea that made me look thoughtful as I continued my ride to the shops was, just how aware had that hare been of the possibilies? When he jinked to run directly for the trees, was he merely hoping for shelter, or did he know that at this season the nesting white-backed magpies are very very territorial?
Perhaps the female hare that I’ve often seen in that paddock over some years is carefully teaching each new litter of babies that trees don’t just provide shelter from a hawk overhead, they can also produce a number of black and white fighter-bombers to drive a hawk right out of the area. If so, then it seems to be working.
(The white-backed “magpies” in my area are actually the Australian Currawong and described in my bird book as ‘voluntary migrants’. They are said to be aggressive although I’ve never had a problem and dozens live here. In fact a few years ago a wild juvenile approached me for help and I became his friend for a couple of years until he was killed. By then he’d grown up, found a mate, nested, and had fledgelings but still trusted me – and any of my friends. His story is in my book – Rural daze and (K)nights.)

Story Due Out

  • 4 September 2011

Another theme anthology has accepted one of my stories. Halloween Hell-o-ween from http://WhortleberryPress.com will be out very shortly and can be purchased from that site. It contains my ghost tale, Neither Brick Nor Stone.

WIZARDS AND WANDERERS by Crystalwizard, Published Cyberwizard productions. Softcover. Book 3 of the Sojourn Chronicles.

  • 2 September 2011

reviewed by Lyn McConchie.

I’ve been reading this series for a couple of years now and I’m looking forward to finding the cash to buy the next ones available in the series. The story is basically a quest stretching over a several years road trip with those involved travelling towards the quest’s achievement.
Dale is stranded on a planet where wizards have power. Once down on the planet he begins to accumulate a group who will follow him, some voluntarily, others not quite so willingly. Here and there one drops out, but numbers are usually made up by another who comes along and joins them.
At the start of this volume we have Dale, his friend Jarl, Aerline, a local girl Dale married who is also a sorceress, Kheri, a city thief who originally joined Dale unwillingly, his magically symbiotic twin, Kaowin, Farran, 27th son of a Baron, Sas an ex-trainee-assassin, and Rik, a city bully. In the course of this book they add Raven, a deposed godling, Pharcle, an alien, Thorgeld, a dwarf, Erran, a miniature demon, and a couple of imps. You can’t say that this group is bland.
At the beginning of the book the group has left the city of Villenspell and is heading for where King Yaybar – of the prophesy they received – may even now be fighting for his life against the Gorg invasion. They need to reach him in time to help but his kingdom is on the other side of the world and it isn’t going to be easy to reach the king at all, let alone in any reasonable time.
Again, throughout this book the companions are on the move, most stops of any length being when something goes wrong. The first of these episodes occurs when they cross into a land ruled by a godling, Raven, who calls Kaowin to him – possibly to cause him injury or death. Dale follows and fights the godling, winning the battle and afterwards one of the major gods appears and Raven’s powers and lands are taken from him. He chooses to join the group and travel on with them.
Raven, his character improving, saves a sprite from a spider’s-web, Aerline heals her, and the ruler of the Sprite Realm offers them help. They accept what is offered and after being taken by a difficult path back to their own world from that of the Sprites they travel on again.
They reach the mountain they need to pass, and the road takes them into deep tunnels and caves. This isn’t a path that is quick or easy, as in succession they fight a golum, discover a forgotten outpost of Dale and Jarl’s people where Pharcle, a stranded alien is freed to go with them, Aerline summons Erran, a very small demon, they meet Thorgeld, an old dwarf who elects to join them, a host of imps appear and cause real trouble while large portions of the cave’s roofs fall in trapping the horses which are killed or eaten by cave trolls.
Several of the group are developing dark suspicions now about the Villenspell wizard who helped them, and Kheri is shot while finding an escape route. It transpires that a man, under the command of another godling who is trying to murder Raven, has done this. Jarl tries to teleport to where he may find replacement mounts, but his ‘port’ is intercepted. Once again the group is stalled, in trouble, and all at sea in a wizard’s castle. There they find a trapped, enspelled dragon, whom they release. And thereafter things go wrong to an even greater degree – where this book ends.
Again, I enjoyed Wizards and Wanderers, good characters, great adventures, an intriguing mix of magic and science, and solid plotting.
I continue to buy and read the series and recommend it.