Deborah J.
Ross: Tell us a little about
yourself. How did you come to be a writer?
Katharine
Kerr: From childhood on, I’ve
always loved to read. Somewhere around age 8 I realized that books did not just
magically appear – they were written by people! And I vowed that one day I’d be
one of them. I never lost sight of that goal, even when my life turned very
difficult in my 20’s. I just kept reading and kept writing for practice. When I
finally finished a novel, FLICKERS, that is, a family saga such as was popular
in the 1980s, I realized I’d need an agent. People ask me: how did you learn
how to get published without the internet? The answer always seems to surprise
them. I don’t know why. I went to the public library and looked up the subject
in the old-fashioned card catalog. Lo and behold! There was a whole shelf of
books on the subject. I read several and followed their advice.
DJR: What inspired your
book, Haze?
KK: For some time, several years really,
before I started work on it, I had a scene in my mind. A derelict, probably an
addict, was sitting on the sidewalk in a far future city when a military
officer came striding to offer him redemption . . . for something, I didn’t
know what. But they turned out to be Dan Brennan and Captain Evans. I started
writing from there.
DJR: How does it relate to your other hard
sf?
KK: When I wrote POLAR CITY BLUES, back in
the 1990s, I didn’t realize that it was the beginning of something longer.
After years of working on the Deverry Saga, I wanted to write a one-off,
something that ended! One of my friends, Kate Daniel, thought otherwise. She
wrote almost all of POLAR CITY NIGHTMARE even though my name’s on the cover –
commercial reasons, of course. In these two books, Humanity have settled only a
few exoplanets. The dominant species are the Kar-Li and the H’Allevae (known as
Hoppers), but the Leps are represented too, under the condescending name of
“lizzies”.
In a short story I wrote, “Its Own Reward,” another
sapient species appears, the Val Chiri Gan. This story takes place a long while
before the Polar City pair, when the Old Earth is dying. They may reappear in
ZYON. I’m not sure yet.
SNARE and PALACE are two books more closely linked to
HAZE. Both are victims of the sudden closing of the same interstellar
shunt. PALACE was another collaboration.
I had nothing to do with the sequel, however, and unlike PCN, my name certainly
belongs on the cover of PALACE itself.
Charlie seems like an average guy, having given up his career
as a journalist for substitute teaching that barely pays for groceries and cat
food. He’s kind and sweet, a sucker for a cute cat or two. His current dream is
to buy a landmark pub, although it’s unlikely the bank will approve the loan.
To make matters worse, his siblings want to sell the house they jointly own.Then his
long-lost Uncle Jake dies, and before Charlie realizes what’s going on, he
finds himself heir to a supervillain business and the target of his uncle’s
rivals, a cabal of rich, soulless multinational predators. Along the way,
Charlie discovers a knack for negotiating with wisecracking sentient dolphins
who threaten a strike if their demands for better working conditions aren’t
met, intelligent spy cats who communicate via typewriters, and a terrifyingly
competent henchwoman.
It's all brilliantly witty but with an undercurrent of thoughtfulness.
Again and again, Charlie demonstrates how logic, common sense, and an utter
lack of deference to bullies can and do prevail. The dialog is top-notch, as
are the reversals and plot twists. Having grown up in a union family, I
heartily cheered for dolphin workers’ rights.
Katharine Kerr is one of the most versatile writers of
speculative fiction. Although many readers know her best for her long-running “Deverry”
fantasy series, she also writes superb urban fantasy and hard science fiction,
with such works as Polar City Blues and Freeze Frames. Now she
returns to a far future when interstellar civilization depends on travel
through hyperspace stargate shunts. Kerr’s universe is richly detailed,
enormous in scope of space and history, replete with ancient grudges between
sapient races, current politics, and plots-within-plots. And a mystery: the shunts
are supposed to be permanent, anchored at each end to nearby planets, but
something—or some ONE—has accomplished the impossible and destroyed a shunt. Which
vital route will be the next target?
We are drawn into the story through Dan, an immensely
talented starship pilot capable of linking with a ship’s AI to navigate the
shunts. Like other pilots, he uses the drug Haze to blunt his craving for the
transcendent experience of hyperspace when he’s not working. But Haze is highly
addictive, and Dan’s use of it has gotten him cashiered out of Fleet, destitute,
and turning tricks on Nowhere Street on a backwater planet to feed his habit.
When Fleet offers him a way back to his old job, under the care of his former
lover, Devit, and enough Haze to keep him functional, Dan doesn’t have a
choice. There’s a reason he’s refused treatment for Haze addiction, a secret he
guards with his life. Disguised as merchant traders, he and his new crew begin
investigating the disappearance of the shunt. And that’s when things start to
go seriously wrong.
Kerr’s use of Dan as an initial viewpoint character who introduces
us to this world is brilliant. He’s at turns fallible, aggravating, and heart-breakingly
attractive. The offspring of a noted film beauty, he’s been genetically
modified to be sexually irresistible to both men and women, and to
unconsciously respond to their advances. Devit has been the only person in his
life to care about him as a person, but at a terrible cost. In this society,
both bisexuality and polyamory are widely accepted, but relationships like
theirs are fraught with challenges. Anyone who’s ever loved a person with
substance abuse issues knows how painful and impossibly difficult it can be. As
Devit grows closer to legendary cyberjock Jorja, their problems and the choices
both must face become more urgent.
As the mystery unfolds, with a nuanced pacing of plot
reversals and surprises, layers of both human and alien cultures emerge. One of
the more fascinating of these is the relationship—sometimes symbiotic, often sullenly
adversarial—between human pilots or cyberjocks and the AIs that run ships,
stations, archives, and more. Scholars find themselves at cross-purposes with
the military that is supposed to protect them. Old feuds between species simmer
just below the surface. The revelation at the end is highly satisfactory, meticulously
plotted, and a fresh surprise.
It's hard to list the strengths of this remarkable novel
because there are so many. They include exceptional world-building, social
systems and relationships, hardware and AIs, and most of all, the characters.
People find themselves trapped with no healthy way forward, like Dan and Devit.
They try new strategies and alliances, not always successful. As they confront
new situations or old ones come back to haunt them, they struggle to move
beyond the past. Wounded, recovering, and scarred, their lives can never be the
same. In other words, Kerr’s fully rounded characters change and grow in ways
that drive the story forward.
Award-worthy and highly recommended for lovers of space
science fiction.
I wrote this post in 2011. Still true, perhaps even more so now.
Some years ago - like maybe a decade - most of my jewelry was stolen. None of it was very valuable, although there were some pearls and jade and a little amber, and a lovely pair of moonstone stud earrings. But, as is the way of things, each piece had a story that was part of my life. That was the real value, and hence the deepest loss. I'd had some of them since my childhood, and some had been gifts from loved ones who've since died. Some of it was my mother's.
I went through the expected rage and frenzy, scouring local flea markets in the forlorn hope that I might spot a piece or two. Of course, I did not. When that stage had run its course, the police report filed (and, doubtless, forgotten), anger turned to grief, and grief to acceptance, and acceptance to looking in a new way at what I'd lost.
I wrote in my journal that the thieves had taken bits of minerals, crystals, shells, fossilized tree sap, but they could not steal:
the stories in my mind the books I've written my children the redwoods my dreams my friends their kindness and generosity to me my capacity for joy...
Is there such a thing as a cozy high fantasy with a female battle-orc
heroine? Elves, dwarves, enchanted swords, necromancers…and spicy romance
novels? Yes to all of this, because Travis Baldree has invented the subgenre!
Bookshops & Bonedust is a delightful prequel to Legends
and Lattes, although each works beautifully on its own.
Recuperating from wounds incurred in the hunt for a powerful
necromancer, battle-orc soldier-of-fortune Viv finds herself in the sleepy
beach town of Murk with nothing to do. In desperation born of overwhelming
boredom, she follows the literary suggestions of Fern, the ratkin owner of a
dying bookstore. Any fantasy reader worth their salt knows what comes next! Not
only is Viv drawn into the enchanted world of novels but she sets about
reviving the bookstore, complete with a surprise appearance by the elf author
of fabled romance adventures. Along the way, Viv encounters a gnome with a chip
on her shoulder, a retired mercenary turned baker extraordinaire, a mysterious traveler
in gray, and a talking bag of bones. All is not hunky-dory in Murk, however,
for the necromancer responsible for Viv’s injury is still on the loose…
These are not just devastating losses. When death is sudden, violent, or when a body is never recovered, grief gets tangled up with trauma.
In these situations, people don’t only grieve the death. They struggle with the terror of how it happened, the unanswered questions and the shock etched into their bodies.
I was widowed when I was 36. In July 2020, my husband, Brent, went missing after testing a small, flat-bottomed fishing boat called a Jon boat. His body was recovered two days later, but I never saw his remains.
Both my personal loss and professional work have shown me how trauma changes the grieving process and what kind of support actually helps.
To understand how trauma can complicate grief, it’s important to first understand how people typically respond to loss.
Grief isn’t a set of stages
Many people still think of grief through the lens of psychiatrist Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ five stages of grief, popularized in the early 1970s: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
But in fact, this model was originally designed for people facing their own deaths, not for mourners. In the absence of accessible grief research in the 1960s, it became a leading framework for understanding the grieving process – even though it wasn’t meant for that.
Despite this misapplication, the stages model has shaped cultural expectations: namely, that grief ends once people reach the “acceptance” stage. But research doesn’t support this idea. Trying to force grief into this model can cause real harm, leaving mourners feeling they’re grieving “wrong.”
In reality, mourning is often lifelong. Most people go through an acute period of overwhelming pain right after the loss. This is usually followed by integrated grief, where the pain softens but the loss is still part of everyday life, returning in waves.
She's a Ranger, a wild and savvy
knife-fighter, determined to get help in finding her partner who's lost on the
treacherous northern border. He's a scholar who sees visions, eager to escape
the confines of city life and the shadow of his charismatic mother. With the
assassination of a beloved leader and the city in turmoil, the two have only
each other to turn to. What begins as a rescue mission turns deadly as together
they unravel the secret that lies beneath Laurea's idyllic surface.
Reviews:
"A
beautifully constructed fantasy with characters who grow and mature before the
reader's eyes and who are engagingly human while being fantastically heroic.
Her writing flows and the point of view switches are interesting and exciting.
This book is a keeper." Rickey
Mallory, Affair de Coeur
"A
style and manner reminiscent of McCaffrey's Crystal Singer series." The
Bookwatch
"An
unusual saga that starts slowly but builds to a startling climax." Sherry
S. Hoy, Kliatt
"Solid
characters and a well-designed world make for good reading." Philadelphia
Press
"The
plot moves briskly from crisis in Laureal to capture by the Norther barbarians
to discovery of the true meaning of the Northlight of the title, with ample
foreshadowing from the mysterious spooky something in the air of the frontier.
And the culmination quite satisfactorily evokes the sense of wonder." Tom
Easton, Analog
Labyrinth's Heart completes the “Rook and Rose”
trilogy by M. A. Carrick (in real life, Marie Brennan and Alyc Helms). The
story began in the Venice-like city of Nadežra with the arrival of con-artist
Ren, bent on impersonating a long-lost cousin of an aristocratic family and
thereby worming her way into rank and riches. An uneasy peace between the
nobility and the natives they oppress barely holds in the city. Between the
Robin Hood-like Rook (which turns out to be not an individual person but a
vocation transmitted through a magical mask), gangs tussling for territory, and
the mind-controlling medallions left over from “the Tyrant,” Ren soon finds
herself acting several, mutually incompatible roles. One of them, by the way,
is a reader of special tarot-like cards, a “patterner.”
At the beginning of Labyrinth's Heart, Ren’s
precarious balancing act comes crashing down with the arrival of a scheming
social climber who knows her true story and will not stop at pressuring Ren to
get what she wants, even at the expense of Ren’s now beloved family. Ancient malice
awakens, the oppressed classes rise up against tyranny, and mystery piles upon
mystery.
The three volumes weave together old evils, cursed clans,
transcendent magic, political corruption, social upheaval, and a love story or
two. Together, they form a long, slow simmer of a story that shines with its
sympathetic characters and rich cultural setting. The cards used for
“patterning” divination are particularly vivid, with a cohesion and archetypal
resonance that makes them utterly believable. (The authors designed a deck of
these cards that will soon be available.)
I’m a huge fan of the work of the authors and I loved these
books. However, since this is a review, I must offer a few caveats. One is that
the volumes should be read fairly close together. It had been several years
since I read the middle book, and I found myself struggling to recall too many
events, characters, place names, and clan relationships.
Two, a corollary, is that Labyrinth's Heart is not
a stand-alone. There’s simply too much backstory for a book entire in itself,
although the authors make a valiant attempt to supply synopses of previous
books, character lists, glossary, etc.
Three is that one challenge of such a long, complex story
lies in the sheer number of characters, each with a backstory. The inevitable
result is that Ren, who was the front-and-center protagonist at the beginning,
fades from time to time into a lesser position when everyone else’s story comes
to a climax and resolution. Along with that complexity comes a multiplicity of
endings. It’s a bit like the final volume of The Lord of the Rings,
where the story does not end with the destruction of the One Ring or even with
the hobbits returning home. Indeed, it goes on for chapter after chapter, and
so, too, does the “Rook and Rose” saga. This is a good thing for readers who
are sad to say good-bye to this marvelous world and its people; not so much for
those who want a single, definitive “they lived happily ever after.”
A minor point is that Grey Serrado (Ren’s love interest,
among other roles) has grown up thinking he was cursed (what looks like
psychological child abuse turns out to have a basis in reality). How that came
about and how it’s resolved play out in Labyrinth's Heart. The problem
for me is that I never picked up on his being cursed in the first two books, so
I was a bit taken aback when it became an important secondary thread. All these
are minor quibbles, however, compared to the grand, sweeping scope of the
books.
I leave you with one
of the many beautiful, poetic lines from “Rook and Rose”:
Now, a new study that we conducted with a team of colleagues suggests that dogs might have a deeper and more biologically complex effect on humans than scientists previously believed. And this complexity may have profound implications for human health.
How stress works
The human response to stress is a finely tuned and coordinated set of various physiological pathways. Previous studies of the effects of dogs on human stress focused on just one pathway at a time. For our study, we zoomed out a bit and measured multiple biological indicators of the body’s state, or biomarkers, from both of the body’s major stress pathways. This allowed us to get a more complete picture of how a dog’s presence affects stress in the human body.
When a person experiences a stressful event, the SAM axis acts quickly, triggering a “fight or flight” response that includes a surge of adrenaline, leading to a burst of energy that helps us meet threats. This response can be measured through an enzyme called alpha-amylase.
At the same time, but a little more slowly, the HPA axis activates the adrenal glands to produce the hormone cortisol. This can help a person meet threats that might last for hours or even days. If everything goes well, when the danger ends, both axes settle down, and the body goes back to its calm state.
While stress can be an uncomfortable feeling, it has been important to human survival. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors had to respond effectively to acute stress events like an animal attack. In such instances, over-responding could be as ineffective as under-responding. Staying in an optimal stress response zone maximized humans’ chances of survival.
Imagine that you own a small, 20-acre farm in California’s Central Valley. You and your family have cultivated this land for decades, but drought, increasing costs and decreasing water availability are making each year more difficult.
Now imagine that a solar-electricity developer approaches you and presents three options:
You can lease the developer 10 acres of otherwise productive cropland, on which the developer will build an array of solar panels and sell electricity to the local power company.
You can select 1 or 2 acres of your land on which to build and operate your own solar array, using some electricity for your farm and selling the rest to the utility.
Or you can keep going as you have been, hoping your farm can somehow survive.
Thousands of farmers across the country, including in the Central Valley, are choosing one of the first two options. A 2022 survey by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that roughly 117,000 U.S. farm operations have some type of solar device. Our own work has identified over 6,500 solar arrays currently located on U.S. farmland.
Our study of nearly 1,000 solar arrays built on 10,000 acres of the Central Valley over the past two decades found that solar power and farming are complementing each other in farmers’ business operations. As a result, farmers are making and saving more money while using less water – helping them keep their land and livelihood.
A hotter, drier and more built-up future
Perhaps nowhere in the U.S. is farmland more valuable or more productive than California’s Central Valley. The region grows a vast array of crops, including nearly all of the nation’s production of almonds, olives and sweet rice. Using less than 1% of all farmland in the country, the Central Valley supplies a quarter of the nation’s food, including 40% of its fruits, nuts and other fresh foods.
The food, fuel and fiber that these farms produce are a bedrock of the nation’s economy, food system and way of life.
But decades of intense cultivation, urban development and climate change are squeezing farmers. Water is limited, and getting more so: A state law passed in 2014 requires farmers to further reduce their water usage by the mid-2040s.
The trade-offs of installing solar on agricultural land
When the solar arrays we studied were installed, California state solar energy policy and incentives gave farm landowners new ways to diversify their income by either leasing their land for solar arrays or building their own.
There was an obvious trade-off: Turning land used for crops to land used for solar usually means losing agricultural production. We estimated that over the 25-year life of the solar arrays, this land would have produced enough food to feed 86,000 people a year, assuming they eat 2,000 calories a day.
There was an obvious benefit, too, of clean energy: These arrays produced enough renewable electricity to power 470,000 U.S. households every year.
But the result we were hoping to identify and measure was the economic effect of shifting that land from agricultural farming to solar farming. We found that farmers who installed solar were dramatically better off than those who did not.
They were better off in two ways, the first being financially. All the farmers, whether they owned their own arrays or leased their land to others, saved money on seeds, fertilizer and other costs associated with growing and harvesting crops. They also earned money from leasing the land, offsetting farm energy bills, and selling their excess electricity.
Farmers who owned their own arrays had to pay for the panels, equipment and installation, and maintenance. But even after covering those costs, their savings and earnings added up to US$50,000 per acre of profits every year, 25 times the amount they would have earned by planting that acre.
Farmers who leased their land made much less money but still avoided costs for irrigation water and operations on that part of their farm, gaining $1,100 per acre per year – with no up-front costs.
The farmers also conserved water, which in turn supported compliance with the state’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act water use reduction requirements. Most of the solar arrays were installed on land that had previously been irrigated. We calculated that turning off irrigation on this land saved enough water every year to supply about 27 million people with drinking water or irrigate 7,500 acres of orchards. Following solar array installation, some farmers also fallowed surrounding land, perhaps enabled by the new stable income stream, which further reduced water use.
Irrigation is key to cropland productivity in California’s Central Valley. Covering some land with solar panels eliminates the need for irrigation of that area, saving water for other uses elsewhere.Citizen of the Planet/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Changes to food and energy production
Farmers in the Central Valley and elsewhere are now cultivating both food and energy. This shift can offer long-term security for farmland owners, particularly for those who install and run their own arrays.
Recent estimates suggest that converting between 1.1% and 2.4% of the country’s farmland to solar arrays would, along with other clean energy sources, generate enough electricity to eliminate the nation’s need for fossil fuel power plants.
Though many crops are part of a global market that can adjust to changes in supply, losing this farmland could affect the availability of some crops. Fortunately, farmers and landowners are finding new ways to protect farmland and food security while supporting clean energy.
Farms are much more than the land they occupy and the goods they produce. Farms are run by people with families, whose well-being depends on essential and variable resources such as water, fertilizer, fuel, electricity and crop sales. Farmers often borrow money during the planting season in hopes of making enough at harvest time to pay off the debt and keep a little profit.
Installing solar on their land can give farmers a diversified income, help them save water, and reduce the risk of bad years. That can make solar an asset to farming, not a threat to the food supply.
I'm often overwhelmed by the news these days. I take action, but I feel increasingly distressed. I came across this piece by Rabbi Irwin Keller. It's framed in terms of Jewish prayer but could easily be adapted to other traditions or none. I hope it's helpful to you.
Ultimately, the goal of this protective ritual frame is to come away from reading the news not incapacitated by dread and despair, but instead feeling moved, strong, loving, and resolute.
Before reading the news
Elohai neshamah shenatata bi tehorah hi.
My God, the soul you have placed in me is pure and vulnerable. I am afraid that looking at today’s news will be painful. Encircle me in a robe of light so that I can witness the wounds of the world without being wounded myself. Let me learn what I need to know in order to be of my greatest use, without being overwhelmed by despair. I feel your protective light now as I open myself to the world’s suffering and the world’s joys.
After reading the news
Ribono shel Olam, I am Yours, and all that is in this world is Yours. Today I have read stories and seen images, but my knowledge is incomplete. I don’t know how it all connects. But I know I am connected to everyone; I take joy in their joy; I suffer with their suffering. If there is no role for me to play today then let my learning leave me wiser and better prepared. If there is a role for me to play, let clarity rise up in me to see it, even if that role is a humble one. Uma’aseh yadeynu konenehu. Lift up the work of my hands, in anything they might do for peace, for justice, for the wholeness of our planet, or for the betterment of my community. Just as you turned the curse of Balaam into a blessing, so may all my actions accrue to the good.
[Add here a prayer for the healing of a specific suffering you read about.]
Barukh Atah Adonai, shomea tefilah. Blessed are You who receives my prayer.
Closing Action
The words above may be followed by a simple act: putting money in a tzedakah box, posting an encouragement to peacemakers on line, sitting with breath, walking, moving, cooking, journaling, collaging. This doesn’t need to be a major project, but a clearly defined moment of integration.
In the past,
my convention reports have included highlights of panels and other events, both
those I participated in and those I attended as an audience member. This report
will be different, for reasons that will soon become obvious.
Baycon is my
local speculative fiction convention (“speculative” encompasses science
fiction, fantasy, and horror), with programming that also includes fannish
pursuits, science, history, diversity, and other areas of interest, author
readings, and Regency dancing, crafts like knitting chain mail, and so forth. I’ve
been attending on a more-or-less regular basis since the mid-1990s. It’s not
only a fun convention but a chance to meet up with friends whom I don’t often
see.
This convention,
however, was different. For the past few years, Baycon programming has invited
potential panelists to write up topics and list folks they’d like to include,
then the entire proposal is either accepted or passed on (aka, rejected). This
means more work for anyone wanting to be on a panel since you need to not only write
a bang-up description but figure out who you know that would be at Baycon and
have juicy things to say. Hence, much less work for the programming committee.
Also, more predictable panels by restricting the pool of panelists. I’m not a
fan of the system, as you can tell. I’ve loved being assigned panels with folks
I don’t know who then turn out to have fascinating and often unexpected
things to say. I’ve also made some great writing friends that way.
It is an
understatement to say that this year, the process did not go smoothly. I was
invited, I submitted two panels with panelists, and I waited. I queried and was
told to be patient. Somehow, perhaps because I checked last year’s email
verifying that my proposals had been accepted, I arrived under the impression
that all was well and expecting to receive my schedule. Nope, no such schedule
existed. The poor volunteers at ProgOps (Programming Operations)! I asked if I
could be added to an existing panel. At this point, the head of programming
arrived and, after many apologies for the shortcomings of their software and
assurances that I was by far not the only author in my situation (hotel room booked,
reporting for schedule, etc.), offered to add one of my panels for the
following evening: Science Fiction as the Literature of Resistance, at
9:30 pm Saturday. Okay. They’ll try to contact the other panelists to make sure
they know it’s been added. Since I was planning on seeing most of them, I could
do this myself. In addition, they’d added genre luminary Larry Niven to the
panel. Oh, my. Talk about name recognition.
Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent, by Judi Dench and Brendan O'Hea; narrated by Barbara Flynn and Brendan O'Hea, with additional commentary by Judi Dench (Macmillan Audio)
This is a series of conversations between Judi Dench and her colleague, Brendan O'Hea, narrated by O'Hea and Barbara Flynn. Flynn does a marvelous job capturing the vocal qualities, cadence, and humor of Dench. I highly recommend listening to the audiobook.
Dench's long acting career began in 1957 with the Old Vic Company and later joined the Royal Shakespeare Company. Although most Americans know her work through film roles, she returned to the stage again and again. Over the decades, she acted almost every major female role in Shakespeare's plays. The book is structured around each of these plays, some well-known, others more obscure. Listening to her observations about each character, I was struck again and again by the depth of her emotional intelligence and keen insight. For example, the way she describes Lady Macbeth illuminated the personality and decisions of Macbeth himself in ways I'd never considered. Her observations about the structure of the plays and acting craft, such as the critical importance of what character's don't say, apply to prose narrative as well. It's wonderful to me how different forms of storytelling share the same principles.
Red in Tooth and Claw opens in an alt-Wild West setting that's close enough to historical to make the reader feel comfortable with conventions and expectations, yet just "off" enough to be creepy. Sensory descriptions and a truly marvelous POV character voice create a sympathetic protagonist (orphan Faolan, a girl masquerading as a boy whose grandfather guardian has just died) in a vivid, three-dimensional world. In a scheme to gain control of the grandfather's farm, the mayor concocts a scheme to ship Faolan off to "the Settlement" for their own good. Since Faolan is still a minor, she hasn't much choice. She stuffs the deed to the farm into her grandfather's watch, tucks the watch into the toe of an oversized boot, and pretends to be meekly obedient. I'm with her every step of the way at this point.
The Settlement is run by an eerily familiar-sounding cult that worships "the Shining God" and is run by the oily (as in snake-oil salesman) "HisBen" ("His Benevolence"). Despite their isolation, the Settlement is inordinately rich--behind its stockade, there's ample food, for example. Faolan is not the only kid who's been sent there to get them out of the way, and she soon makes friends and allies as well as enemies. She makes plans to escape, encounters a band of Rovers, falls in love, and gets catapulted into a horror mystery when people disappear and bodies appear. Something's out there, thirsting for blood.
For me, this is where the book loses the skillful evocation of the first part. The world is just enough askew from our own to make Faolan's predicament believable. When Faolan, who's finally gotten a decent meal when she arrives at the Settlement, thinks this place might not be so bad, I'm screaming, "Danger! Danger!" It's delicious, shivery stuff.
Then come the Rovers, who could have provided a counterpoint to the secretive Settlement leaders, with their bond with their horses and the natural world. But, and it's a huge but, the Rover culture is a slap-dash amalgam of generalized Native people cultures, Hollywood-style Roma, and Western Europeans. Many elements of their culture are poorly thought-out, often incongruous with each other. The Rovers, and especially Faolan's love interest, Tallis, lack the thoughtfulness and depth of the earlier settings.
By the time the monster makes an appearance through a trans-dimensional portal opened by HisBen's rituals, I was so disappointed, I no longer cared what happened. I knew that Faolan would get her very own sweetly tame monster, defeat HisBen, and live happily ever after with Tallis. (I was right.) What began as one type of story devolved into something quite inferior. I really, really wish the author had applied the same solid world-building and dramatic tension as in the opening to the rest of the book and not tried to switch genres.
Several Republican-led states have restricted transgender rights: Iowa has signed a law removing civil rights protection for transgender people; Wyoming has prohibited state agencies from requiring the use of preferred pronouns; and Alabama recently passed a law that only two sexes would be recognized. Hundreds of bills have been introduced in other state legislatures to curtail trans rights.
Earlier in the year, several White House executive orders pushed to deny trans identity. One of them, “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias,” claimed that gender-affirming policies of the Biden administration were “anti-Christian.” It accused the Biden Equal Employment Opportunity Commission of forcing “Christians to affirm radical transgender ideology against their faith.”
To be clear, not all Christians are anti-trans. And in my research of medieval history and literature, I found evidence of a long history in Christianity of what today could be called “transgender” saints. While such a term did not exist in medieval times, the idea of men living as women, or women living as men, was unquestionably present in the medieval period. Manyscholarshave suggested that usingthe modern term transgender creates valuable connections to understand the historical parallels.
There are at least 34 documented stories of transgender saints’ lives from the early centuries of Christianity. Originally appearing in Latin or Greek, several stories of transgender saints made their way into vernacular languages.
Transgender saints
Of the 34 original saints, at least three gained widespread popularity in medieval Europe: St. Eugenia, St. Euphrosyne and St. Marinos. All three were born as women but cut their hair and put on men’s clothes to live as men and join monasteries.
Eugenia, raised pagan, joined a monastery to learn more about Christianity and later became abbot. Euphrosyne joined a monastery to escape an unwanted suitor and spent the rest of his life there. Marinos, born Marina, decided to renounce womanhood and live with his father at the monastery as a man.
These were well-read stories. Eugenia’s story appeared in two of the most popular manuscripts of their day – Ælfric’s “Lives of Saints” and “The Golden Legend.” Ælfric was an English abbot who translated Latin saints’ lives into Old English in the 10th century, making them widely available to a lay audience. “The Golden Legend” was written in Latin and compiled in the 13th century; it is part of more than a thousand manuscripts.
Euphrosyne also appears in Ælfric’s saints’ lives, as well as in other texts in Latin, Middle English, and Old French. Marinos’ story is available in over a dozen manuscripts in at least 10 languages. For those who couldn’t read, Ælfric’s saints’ lives and other manuscripts were read aloud in churches during service on the saint’s day.
A small church in Paris built in the 10th century was dedicated to Marinos, and relics of his body were supposedly kept in Qannoubine monastery in Lebanon.
This is all to say, a lot of people were talking about these saints.
In today’s digital world, people routinely turn to the internet for health or medical information. In addition to actively searching online, they often come across health-related information on social media or receive it through emails or messages from family or friends.
It can be tempting to share such messages with loved ones – often with the best of intentions.
Although there is a fire hose of health-related content online, not all of it is factual. In fact, much of it is inaccurate or misleading, raising a serious health communication problem: Fake health information – whether shared unknowingly and innocently, or deliberately to mislead or cause harm – can be far more captivating than accurate information.
This makes it difficult for people to know which sources to trust and which content is worthy of sharing.
The allure of fake health information
Fake health information can take many forms. For example, it may be misleading content that distorts facts to frame an issue or individual in a certain context. Or it may be based on false connections, where headlines, visuals or captions don’t align with the content. Despite this variation, such content often shares a few common characteristics that make it seem believable and more shareable than facts.
The Ravening Deep (The Sanford Files), by Tim
Pratt (Aconyte)
I’m a long-time fan of Tim Pratt, from his imaginative science
fiction to his thoughtful, accessible novels set in gaming worlds. I quite understand
why he undertook an adventure that’s part of Aconyte’s Lovecraftian “Arkham Horror”
series—it’s a hoot! While it helps to have a superficial knowledge of the
mythos, it’s not necessary. Pratt guides us into this world of mysteries and
cults, the superficial normal, and the deeply horrific reality beneath.
Poor Abel Davenport! First, his fishing business dries up,
then in a drunken stupor he unwittingly becomes the chief priest of a long-dead
god (a gigantic, planet-devouring starfish, I kid you not), and before he knows
it, the spirit of the aforementioned god has cloned him into extremely not-nice
doppelgangers in its scheme to recover the last bit of its mortal flesh. Then
there’s Diana Stanley, a shopkeeper who joined Arkham’s Silver Twilight Lodge
in the mistaken belief it was a service club, only to learn, once it’s too late
to back out, that its rituals are far darker…and bloodier. Ruby Standish, cat
burglar par excellence, joins forces with Diana and Abel to pull off a
heist at the Silver Twilight Lodge. Now the three of them must convince Carl
Sanford, master of the Lodge, where the true danger lies. Part horror novel,
part thriller, and very much part tongue-in-cheek romp, The Ravening Deep
is a quick, delicious read that left me wishing for the next adventure…and just
a wee bit wary of my seafood.
Verdict: Great fun, even for those not familiar with
Lovecraft’s Arkham.
Misconceptions abound about Vikings. They are often depicted as bloodthirsty, unwashed warriors with winged helmets. But that's a poor picture based largely on Viking portrayals in the 19th century, when they featured in European art either as romantic heroes or exotic savages. The real Vikings, however, were not just the stuff of legend — and they didn't have wings or horns on their helmets.
This article sparked an online discussion about the myth that all Viking warriors were male. A friend posted:
A myth they didn't cover is the one that says all the Viking warriors were male. Archaeology is finally recognizing that finding weapons and even a horse skeleton in a grave cannot ensure that the buried person was a man. (It was a myth nurtured by XY archaeologists, convinced they knew it all.)
By sheer coincidence, I saw the article below and mentioned it to my friend. I imagined her grinning as she responded:
Yes - Birka shook everything up in the field, and is making them reevaluate conclusions about a number of earlier excavations.
In Birka, Sweden, there is a roughly 1,000-year-old Viking burial teeming with lethal weapons — a sword, an ax-head, spears, knives, shields and a quiver of arrows — as well as riding equipment and the skeletons of two warhorses. Nearly 150 years ago, when the grave was unearthed, archaeologists assumed they were looking at the burial of a male warrior. But a 2017 DNA analysis of the burial's skeletal remains revealed the individual was female.
Across Scandinavia, at least a few dozen women from the Viking Age (A.D. 793 to 1066) were buried with war-grade weapons. Collectively, these burials paint a picture that clashes violently with the hypermasculine image of the bearded, burly Viking warrior that has dominated the popular imagination for centuries. And it's possible that, due to gendered assumptions, archaeologists may be systematically undercounting the number of Viking women buried with weapons.
Archaeologists often guessed the deceased's sex based on grave goods, such as mirrors, weaving tools and brooches, which archaeologists assumed were typically buried with females, and battle-related weapons, which archaeologists thought were typically buried with males. If a Viking Age sword was the only item recovered, for example, it was nearly always assumed to be a male grave.
The Adventures of Mary Darling, by Pat Murphy (Tachyon)
Peter Pan: We’ve all read the book, seen the play, or
watched the animated film, so we know the drill: In Victorian London, three
children are swept away to Neverland by PeterPanSpiritOfYouth, where they have
many adventures battling pirates led by the dastardly Captain Hook. They leave
behind a frantic, ineffectual mother, a bombastic, equally ineffective father,
and a drooling dog nanny. Author Pat Murphy asks, Is that really what happened?
What if Mary Darling had once been spirited away to be a “Mother” to the Lost
Boys, despite her insistence that she is not a Mother? What if she
understands all too well the deception and peril of the place and its capricious
leader?
In Murphy’s retelling, after emerging from the first horrific
shock of finding her children missing, with only one place they could have gone,
Mary Darling determines to rescue them herself. Under the innocuous facade of a
Victorian wife lies a powerful woman who has fought her way free of Neverland with
considerable piratical skills. Of course, she encounters opposition, first in her
husband, George, who is loving but befuddled by her “independent ways.” A more
significant barrier comes from her uncle, Doctor John Watson, who enlists his
friend, Sherlock Holmes, in determining what ails her. Holmes decides that Mary
is the prime suspect in the disappearance of her children.
As Mary embarks on her quest to rescue her children before
they either starve to death in Neverland or fall prey to Pan’s careless
disregard for human life, her past reveals itself in layers. In past and
present, we meet old friends and allies, people whose lives have been forever
altered by their contact with Neverland. We also discover the reality behind J.
M. Barrie’s imperialistic misrepresentation of indigenous peoples, the role and
power of women, and the importance of memory.
The Adventures of Mary Darling is a brilliant re-imagining
of a familiar tale, laying bare its folly and portraying the ingenuity, skill,
and heroism of Mary and a host of other characters, invented and glossed-over. My
favorite was James, a sweet gay boy, one of a series of Pan’s “Toodles,” and who
later as Captain Hook proves to be one of Mary’s staunchest and most able supporters.
It should come as neither surprise nor spoiler that Mr. Holmes never appreciates
his loss in insisting that logic is the only reality.
A deliciously twisty Victorian detective thriller focusing
on a serial killer with a sinister signature targeting Florence Nightingale and
her valiant nurses, first in 1855 Crimea (“the Beast of the Crimean”) and twelve
years later in London.Nightingale
has dedicated her life to improving the wretched conditions in the British
military hospitals in Turkey, despite fierce objections from the male doctors
around her. When young women start turning up dead, their mouths sewn shut with
embroidered fabric roses, Inspector Charles Field (the real-life inspiration
for Charles Dickens’s Inspector Bucket in Bleak House) is dispatched from
England to Turkey’s famous Barrack Hospital to find the killer. The suspects abound:
doctors, military men, journalists, and others, most of whom would gladly see
Nightingale and her uppity women packed back to London. The death of the prime
suspect closes the case.
In the second timeline, the killings have begun again just
as a movement to enfranchise more voters—men for now but women in the future--is
getting underway. As Field gets drawn into the current investigation, he
wonders if he’d gotten the wrong suspect back in Crimea or are the new killings
the work of a demented copycat.
Along the way, Field encounters real figures of the day, from
Benjamin Disraeli and John Stuart Mill to novelist Wilkie Collins and, of
course, Florence Nightingale herself.
I found The Nightingale Affair to be a fast, absorbing
read. The story moves swiftly from present to past, past to present, with characters
I cared about, plot twists, chases, and intrigue.
Trigger warning for gore and misogyny-related violence.
Teachers and librarians are among those least likely to die by suicide − public health researchers offer insights on what this means for other professions
But on the flip side, some professions have very low rates of suicide. One of them is education. National and state data shows that educators in the U.S., including teachers, professors and librarians, are among the least likely to die by suicide.
We’re a team of researchers at the Center for Violence Prevention and Community Safety at Arizona State University. We manage Arizona’s Violent Death Reporting System, part of a surveillance system sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with counterparts in all 50 U.S. states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. We collect data on violent deaths, including suicide, thanks to agreements with local medical examiners and law enforcement.
When public health researchers like us look at suicide data, we often focus on high-risk populations to learn where intervention and prevention are most needed. But we can learn from low-risk populations such as educators too.
Why some professions have higher suicide rates
Over the past 25 years, the suicide rate in the U.S. has increased significantly.
The age-adjusted rate in 2022 was 14.2 suicides per 100,000 people, up from 10.9 a little over two decades earlier, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Epidemiologists often adjust data for age to allow for a fairer comparison of incidence rates across populations with different age distributions.
In short, some explanations are directly tied to one’s work, such as having low job security, little autonomy or agency, and an imbalance of work efforts and rewards. Other factors are more indirect, such as an occupation’s demographic makeup or the type of personality that chooses a profession. Together, factors like these help explain the rate of suicide across occupations.
.jpg){kind=link}