Life, Interrupted

Because you might want to know how to do this! Or I might. Here's how.

Who is she? Where were the pictures taken? A thrift store purchase has turned into a mystery, and the woman who bought the negatives is asking for help finding the photographer and the beautiful subject. From Atlas Obscura.

My friend artist Douglas Potter​ found this over at the Times. How many of you have similar ceremonies? I have old address books from the beginning of my career. I used to type on the back of old business cards and paper clip people's info into the book, because my handwriting is large, and people move a lot.

Enter digital address books, which never displayed all the data I wanted to keep together. Then my digital address books started dumping--or the programs became obsolete. This happened when I was ill, so getting things transferred over didn't happen. If I used to have your address? This is why you don't hear from me. I don't have it anymore.

But I can't bring myself to cut off dead Facebook accounts, or toss old phone number lists (I just tried to make myself do it. I think I tucked it back into a box.) I don't envy future scholars. We have made it much harder for them to figure out who the people of the late 20th-early 21st century were. Because we keep remaking ourselves, and corporations don't care if we can carry our past with us.

After many years of carefully crafting my panel attendance on this blog, I am simply putting up the link to the programming by names. There is also a programming grid. Life, Interrupted has seen the mountaintop.

Yes, there will be some books in the dealer's room, if Adventures in Crime & Space wants to sell them. I will be there at least Friday and Saturday. Give me incentive to show up Sunday!

During the convention there will be a sale on-line of Fires of Nuala. This precedes a Bookbub ad next week. Get your ebook for .99!

Some very nice things were said over at Auntie's Alcove:

"One of the things that most surprised me was how literary the book was. That adjective came to me while I was reading the story, and afterward, I read a thing on the author's Goodreads page about how she's been deemed too literary for regular readers and too regular to be classed as literature. (That's paraphrased.) Now, that could very well represent the views of the publishers, but I'd have to disagree with them. This author actually combines the best of both worlds into something that is artistic and enriching and amazingly entertaining all at once.

(Frankly, I think whoever does the marketing for her publisher ought to have his or her legs taken off at the knees. I devour fantasy, and even though the book has been around for nearly 20 years, I'd never heard of it or her. I feel cheated!)"

Stories of the Raksura, Volume 2: The Dead City & The Dark Earth Below by Martha Wells

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The lovely thing about this collection is that even if you have not yet discovered Wells’ magical fantasy adventures about the alien Raksura, you can fall in love with them here. Written with swift yet intricate grace, Wells gives you ground to stand on and open skies for unexpected adventure. The Raksura are shape shifting, flying sentients, their complex society matriarchal, their lives filled with danger around every turn. This world has dozens of disparate sentient peoples, most of them wary and interacting only for trade. The Raksura are among the few who are both cautious and yet open to alliances and even friendship with new peoples.

The collection includes two novellas as well as a scattering of short fiction. Both long stories feature Moon, the male protagonist of the Raksura trilogy; he’s a foundling who finally finds his place in the world. One novella, “The Dead City,” takes us back a few cycles when Moon is still very young, on the run, and has no idea what he is or what name his people use. In it we see him as he cannot see himself—curious, inventive, adaptable, strong. Also bitter, as winged he looks all too much like a species feared the length of his world. He can never stay anywhere for long.

In “The Dark Earth Below,” longtime readers finally get to see Moon handle impending fatherhood, as he is now consort to Jade, the Sister Queen of the Indigo Cloud court. We are given a many-layered tale that weaves together family, external threat, mystery, and claiming a home into one satisfying whole.

I highly recommend starting with the novel The Cloud Roads, but there’s no reason not to try a taste of The Three Worlds through this collection. Looking forward to more Raksura!




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Carousel Seas by Sharon Lee

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Return to Archers Beach, Maine, which is part of The Changing Land (last, and some say least, of the Six Worlds.) Sometimes magic works there and sometimes it doesn’t—but always, magic Changes things. Kate Archer is the current Guardian and also keeper of the carousel, which is the portal to the other worlds and until recently was also the prison for the worst of criminals. The Wise sentenced them in hopes of Changing them for the better. The swirl of magic that was packed into Carousel Sun broke those bindings, freeing the criminals to die, flee, or hide.

Now Kate and her friends and neighbors must deal with one of the hidden, a powerful sea goddess who has designs on Kate’s boyfriend Borgan, the Guardian of the Gulf of Maine, and also on the Gulf. But this plotting injures the Sea herself—and when the Sea grieves, everything is at risk. Once again Lee gives us her atmospheric, densely woven story filled with curious, quirky, and very believable creatures from Beyond. There are also slow-moving romances and swift dangers, cats with agency, and a lesson in just how strong and subtle the least of the magic worlds may be. Kate has made both powerful friends and dangerous enemies, and the bindings she has made must take her into the future.

Recommended. I think you can read this as a stand-alone, but I recommend starting with Carousel Tides. Why not take the entire journey?




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Eventually, I will have to send them take-down notices. Right now, I am in serious Life, Interrupted so it won't happen this week.

Remember that these sites exist to try and steal from you, or sell you an overpriced item they stole from someone else. Beware. The last one was a credit card scraper.

The Devil You Know by P.N. Elrod

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Perhaps the most important thing to say about this wonderful short novel by P.N. Elrod is that you do not need to know either of her vampire series (The Vampire Files or the Jonathan Barrett, Gentleman Vampire books) to enjoy this mystery laced with history, fantasy, and humor. Elrod makes you believe that journalist turned undead PI and nightclub owner Jack Fleming really does live in Depression Era Chicago, and really does head to a vampire funeral--where all hell breaks loose. It's up to Fleming and Barrett to solve their own attempted murders, as well as that of an inconvenient corpse found while Barrett was digging out a vampire crypt.

But things never go as you planned, or hoped.

The writing is clean and evocative, character speech rings true for class and era, and the mystery twists beautifully, making the title more appropriate than they could have imagined. Highly recommended.


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Lots of interesting stuff over at the Book View Café​ blog today. Madeleine Robins​ writes about balancing acts in writing. You're writing a period mystery...and some of the attitudes and actions of the people of the past are abhorrent to well-meaning, thoughtful people today. You don't want to erase the sufferings of people who were abused and marginalized, yet you don't want to stick 21st century mores and words into your characters. What is the line there? How do you balance the concerns?

I think about these things all the time, too. I'm writing what evolved into a period fantasy. I can change things in my magical world, but how much? Will there be a civil war? There will be a war of 1812, because too many people had something to gain from it. But I am not sure Andrew Jackson will get to be a hero in a battle that should never have been fought. I plan to take William Henry Harrison's "victory" away from him, because if I can save Tecumseh I will.

Mad just had the Romani show up in her story. And her balancing act just became more intricate.

So--which way do you go? Should history ring true? Do you deny your characters the right to grow and change, see The Other as people, too--even if some of the things they say and do (at least at first) are not heroic? How do you handle this?