Very Short Book Reviews: In the world of Tim Powers, things go seriously pear-shaped

After Many A Summer, by Tim Powers (Subterranean)

Tim Powers is a master of turning an already weird tale five ways on its head, upside down, and inside out until it begs for mercy in ancient Akkadian. His new short novel, After Many A Summer, is no exception. It begins, as do many of his books, with a semblance of normality: a down-on-his-luck screenwriter, Conrad, accepts a too-good-to-be-true deal from a movie studio: they’ll produce his script for a fabulous sum if he drives a valise around LA, transferring it from one vehicle to another. What does he have to lose? He figures this is an elaborate scheme for delivering a ransom for a kidnapped heiress. He’s sort-of right and very, very wrong. The heiress is indeed being held captive, but the valise contains a centuries-old mummified skull that can talk, prophesize, and even alter the course of time itself, and is given to quoting the poet Tennyson. And that’s just the beginning of things going seriously pear-shaped.

I’ve loved the work of Tim Powers ever since I discovered The Anubis Gates in 1983, so I was prepared for superb storytelling and major revamping of reality. I was not disappointed on either count. The story, taking the reader further and further from expectations, requires a bit of patience, but the central character is sympathetic enough to act as a naïve if likeable guide. Highly enjoyable (and an object lesson).

Sleepy Mind, Great Ideas... Maybe

Why is it that juicy story ideas, as well as brilliant solutions to plot problems, pop into my mind when I'm dozing off? All right, that's a rhetorical question. We all know that as we drift into sleep, our brain activity changes. Logic and other constraints on creativity shut down and we make unusual and often wonderful connections between otherwise disparate bits of memory, thoughts, etc. The point of my question is not why this happens, but what to do about the inevitable waking up and being unable to remember.

Catherine Mintz playfully suggests that "it is a law of writing that wonderful things appear as soon as you are too tired to make notes."

Keeping a pen and paper at bedside is a logical remedy. I've done this for a dream journal, which has a slightly different objective, and I've done it for writing ideas at various times over the years. I don't any more, and here's why.

Very Short Book Reviews: An Angels and Demons Murder Mystery in the Weird West

Tread of Angels, by Rebecca Roanhorse

What a marvelous page-turner of an “Angels and Devils in the Weird West” murdeer mystery adventure! Rebecca Roanhorse does a brilliant job dropping the reader into an Old-West-That-Never-Was, a town that mines divinity as an energy-source mineral, populated by the Fallen descendants of demons and ruled by the snobbish ruling-class human Elects and their police arm, the Virtues.

In the late 1880s. a cardsharp named Celeste and her sister Mariel, an immensely talented singer, eke out a living. They’re both Fallen, although Celeste has managed to hide her outcast status. She’s also trying to forget an intensely passionate affair with a demonlord. Her world shatters when Mariel is arrested for the murder of a Virtue, and the only way to save her is for Celeste to become an untrained defense attorney, a “Devil’s Advocate” or advocatus diaboli. To make matters worse, she has only a short time, not nearly enough to investigate, and she’s managed to put herself in debt to her demon lover.

The story swept me up on the first page and didn’t let go until the surprising, ambivalent-but-satisfying conclusion. I especially admired how Roanhorse plomped me into her world without big chunks of exposition. Instead, she uses character, action, and nuanced detail to construct a world as seen through the eyes of an unreliable but highly sympathetic protagonist.

Highly recommended.

Writer's Round Table: Pros Give Advice on Writer's Block

A few years ago, a friend wrote poignantly about what it's like to be blocked. I asked some pro writer friends for words of encouragement.



This is from a well-known, NYTimes-best-selling author:

WRITER'S BLOCK

I am sitting here looking at a fic I have not touched since 2007.  I have 135K done, including the last scene...or, about 2/3 of the total fic.  I am ALSO sitting here looking at a novel that was due three years ago, for which I have something similar to an outline and the first 50K written (only 100K to go, right?) 

I've been writing fanfic and profic since the 80s, and dealing with blocked, derailed, and MIA stories for most of that time.  Here are some of the strategies that have worked for me.  (NOTE: some of these ideas are mutually-exclusive, because every writer writes differently.)

1. WELCOME TO THE GULAG: Block out a specific time and place where you do the same thing every day: sit in front of the screen and make words come.  Doesn't matter what you write, or even if you don't write.  Just be there doing nothing else (no shopping, no reading AO3, no social media) for that one or two hours (no more) each and every day (same Bat-time, same Bat-channel).  Eventually your brain gives up and you get to write what you want to write.

1A. If absolutely nothing else will come to your fingers, choose a favorite book (or longfic) and retype it. 

2. FACE THE MUSIC: Between day job and commute (long) I was really bushed when Writing Time arrived in the evening.  I just didn't have the energy—but I did have a deadline.  Solution?  ROCK'N'ROLL BAY-BEE!!!  I wrote two novels to "Bad To The Bone".  Just that one track.  On infinite repeat.  Loud.  So pick a piece of music, declare it your writing music, and hit "Repeat" on iTunes.

Very Short Book Review: Penric and Desdemona in "The Corpse Isn't Dead"

Knot of Shadows (A Penric & Desdemona Novella in the World of the Five Gods) by Lois McMaster Bujold (Subterranean)

Knot of Shadows (A Penric & Desdemona Novella in the World of the Five Gods) by Lois McMaster Bujold is not your ordinary murder mystery, but anything involving Temple sorcerer Penric and his chaos demon, Desdemona, is bound to be anything but ordinary. In this case, they’re called in to investigate when a drowning victim turns out to be not quite dead. The animated corpse houses two souls, sundered from the care of their gods, the result of vile and highly illegal death magic. But is the corpse the victim or the perpetrator, a person so desperate to avenge a wrong that they are willing to sacrifice their own soul?

As usual for these novellas, the story is intricately crafted, and full of snappy dialog, vivid characters, and profound emotions. I hope we’ll see many more of them.

[archives] Is Darkover Space Opera?

This post from a couple of years ago still gets viewers, so in case you missed it, I'm giving it another day of blog-glory. With the recent publication of The Children of Kings, which takes place entirely on Darkover, but does involve things going 'splody in space, it seems appropriate.


My husband, sf writer Dave Trowbridge, and I were discussing the appeal of space opera at breakfast, what it is and why it appeals. Basically, space opera is a type of science fiction set on a large scale, highly dramatic and sometimes melodramatic. It tends to have military elements -- huge battles upon which hinge the fate of galactic empires, that sort of thing. Although wikipedia says it has nothing to do with the musical form, I think that reflects their own ignorance. What space opera and musical opera have in common is being larger than life, or rather brighter and more intense than life. Opera was, after all, the epitome high-tech special-effects knock-your-socks-off entertainment for centuries. Music, lyrics, sets, and costumes, not to mention trap doors and wire harnesses, exotic animals and fireworks, all enhanced one another. But that's another topic.

We agreed that we love the grand scope of such tales, but that it needs to be balanced by emotionally intimate moments. The same is true, for me at least, in epic fantasy. Monstrous dark forces are threatening the entire world, volcanoes exploding by the thousands, rivers of fire and poison...and then a detail in the characters that's so human, it touches my heart, not just my things-go-boom adrenalin endorphins.

Which brings me to Darkover.

Short Book Reviews: Tarot untangles a murder mystery

 Play the Fool, by Lina Chern (Bantam)

Play the Fool, by Lina Chern is a murder mystery with more than one delicious twist. Katie True, whose ability to read tarot cards verges on (and plunges headlong into) the supernatural, is the classic underachiever in an upwardly mobile, hyperconventional middle-class family. Her world of one dead-end job after another takes a surprising turn with a new friendship. Marley is free-wheeling, mysterious, and absolutely comfortable in her own skin. Their burgeoning relationship gives Katie hope that she, too, can one day live an authentic, irreverent, and joyous life.

Then a hapless young man stumbles into the shop where Katie works, claiming to be the boyfriend Marley intends to break up with. Katie takes pity on his evident distress and agrees to do a tarot reading for him. She discovers a photo on his phone. It’s of Marley, murdered by a gunshot wound to her head.

Shocked and grief-stricken, Katie determines to find Marley’s killer. Even if it means taking reckless chances and ignoring the advice of the gorgeous, emotionally bottled-up cop to stay out of it.

Throughout the thriller whodunit that follows, Katie’s first-person voice shines through. In her quest to discover Marley’s killer, she must come to terms with her own lack of purpose, fend off her well-meaning but domineering family, and stay alive through one dark, dangerous plot twist after another.

Katie’s luminous voice elevates a well-written mystery to something more. I didn’t care whether or not she possesses supernatural clairvoyance or an exceptional ability to read people. What matters is her brilliant insight coupled with all-too-human vulnerability. The fact that she is both kind and hilariously funny adds to the delicious tone.

And I did not see the ending coming at all.