Guest Post: Katharine Kerr on "Boys' Books"

Boys’ Books

by Katharine Kerr

I was lucky enough to grow up in a family of readers.  Admittedly, on my mother’s side of the family, some of them mostly read the Bible or religious works.  Others, like my mother and grandmother, loved the “sweet” Romances of the period.  My uncles loved Westerns and police thrillers.  My father’s parents, on the other hand, were serious Leftists and read serious Leftist books, like DAS KAPITAL in the original German.  Both sides, however, believed in reading aloud to children.  They also believed in public libraries.

From the time I was big enough to walk the ten blocks or so to our local branch, my grandmother and I made a weekly trip to the library.  She loaded up on genre reading for her, and I loaded up on books from the children’s section, mostly animal stories, which I particularly loved.  As soon as I could read, I read a lot, well beyond that illusory category, “grade level”.  That’s when the trouble started.  Not from my grandparents, I hasten to add, but from the other adults around me.

When I was an older child and young teen-ager, back in the 1950s, I began to hear entirely too often, “You shouldn’t be reading that book.  It’s not for you.”  No, I hadn’t picked out a book with too many big words or too much sex, nothing from the “Adult” section of our public library, no Leftist tracts, either.  I had committed the sin of liking Boys’ Books.

It may be hard to imagine now, but there used to be fixed categories of Boys’ Books and Girls’ Books.  Boys got science fiction, adventure stories, historical stories of battles and exploration.  Girls got junior Romances, stories of girls helping others or setting up their own homes, horse stories, and . . . well, I never found much else in that section of the library.  Some were well written, like the “Anne of Green Gables” books or the “Flicka” horse stories.  Most struck me as utter crap, even at thirteen, particularly the junior Romances, such as the Rosamund de Jardin “Marcy” series.  Oh yes, I can’t forget the forerunners of “self help” books.  Those available for girls in the 1950s centered around “how to look pretty and get a boyfriend.”  I never noticed any self help in the Boys’ section.  They, apparently, didn’t need advice.

What I wanted were the adventures, the battles, and the science fiction.  Among the Boys’ Books, I discovered Roy Chapman Andrews and Robert Heinlein’s YA novels, along with a lot of lesser writers whose names, alas, I have forgotten but whom I loved at the time.  When I went to the library desk to check these books out, the voices started.  “Are you getting those for your brother?  No?  Why do you want to read those?  They’re for boys.  You should look in the Girls’ section.”  No librarian actually prevented me from taking the books home, mind.  That was reserved for my mother.  “Why are you reading that junk?” was one of her favorite phrases.  “It’s not for girls.  Take those back.  Get some good books.”

I read most of Heinlein’s YA books while sitting in the library.  Why risk taking them home and getting nagged?  When as a teen, I graduated to SF for grown-ups, the disapproval escalated, too.  My mother helpfully tried to get me to read proper female literature by checking out books for me.  I dutifully read them -- hell, I’d read anything at that age, from cereal boxes on up -- but I never liked them.  Finally, she gave up.

Book Review: Murder on a Jovian Colony

The Mimicking of Known Successes, by Malka Older (Tor)

I love the premise of this novella: a murder mystery set on a colony circling Jupiter, the last remnants of human civilization after the collapse of Earth’s ecology.  Against the backdrop of the storm-wracked gas giant, linked platforms grow crops, house communities, and provide nooks of academic research aimed at devising the perfect ecology once it is safe to re-seed Earth with life. Cool, huh?

When a man goes missing and it’s feared he has either jumped or been pushed off a platform, to fall endlessly in Jupiter’s atmosphere, the case falls to Investigator Mossa. This leads her to her old lover, Pleiti, a scholar of Earth’s pre-collapse ecosystems. The two of them are on the chase while exploring the resurrection of their old relationship. There are lots of plot twists and revelations along the way.

Despite the wildly exotic setting, I struggled to connect with the characters and their motivations.  Mossa is enigmatic and aloof, emotionally opaque; that’s supposed to be part of her character. The contrast with Pleiti, who is highly emotional, shows how their different strengths combine to solve the mystery. However, Mossa’s distant, intellectual approach is not limited to her own viewpoint and work. It’s hard to imagine her as having feelings about anything. This bleeds into the crux of Pleiti’s work, indeed the decision the entire Jovian colony must make: what is the best way to design a rejuvenated Earth ecology? Put together known species, available in platform zoos, and let adaptation create new species and relationships, taking the risk that the combinations will fail? This approach would save enormous amounts of time, hastening the return to Earth. Or meticulously craft a system that replicates what thrived on Earth (“the mimicking of known successes” in the title), even though you can never be certain you got it right? And that it would take far longer, risking the extinction of preserved samples?

It’s a fascinating question, and the division of opinions drives the murder plot. Or ought to, because it’s presented as a distant, academic discussion, as dry and dusty as the university chambers. Therein lies my issue with this book. There’s too much relative emotional weight on the will-they-won’t-they relationship and almost none on the question upon which rests the fate of a future return to Earth. Nevertheless, the setting is fresh and original, the prose is clear, and the plot moves right along.

 

Short Book Reviews: Walter Jon Williams's "Praxis" Homerun

 Imperium Restored (A Novel of the Praxis), by Walter Jon Williams (Harper Voyager)

This was my first “Praxis” novel, and it’s a tribute to the author that although I could not always follow the intricacies of the backstory, I was so caught up in the action that I simply didn’t care. Imperium Restored works on so many levels, each of them fascinating. Star-crossed lovers are separated by a colossal misunderstanding that spews forth confusion, mistrust, and crushing hurt (but does nothing to erase the fundamental attraction between them). There’s also a bang-up battle in space, one of the smartest and most inventive I’ve read, enough to convince me that any spacemil science fiction Williams writes will be superb. Life in a vast star-spanning spaceforce is filled with rivalries, jealousies, boredom, ill-fated sexual encounters, interspecies friction, and what-do-we-do-with-ourselves once the war is over. A lesser writer might have focused on the war itself. While the battle scenes are pure bravura, Williams keeps enlarging the lens to look at the ramifications, not just during the conflict but also afterward. The resulting peace offers as many opportunities for tension, betrayal, alliances made and broken, assassination attempts, revenge, and general chaos as the actual fighting did.

There’s also a mystery.

What more could a science fiction fan want?

Short Book Reviews: Composite Creatures, by Caroline Hardaker

 Composite Creatures, by Caroline Hardaker (Angry Robot)

This is a very strange book, but strange in the sense of mind-bending speculative fiction about a dystopian future, executed with great skill and, most of all, respect for the reader’s intelligence. In an era when all too many novels spoon-feed information, practically hammering the reader’s attention, Caroline Hardaker builds her world, characters, and mysteries layer by intricate, subtle layer. She invites us into a world that is grim but recognizable, one in which pollution and habitat destruction have resulted in the loss of most animals city dwellers might see, including pets. Governmental institutions are slowly being replaced by private ones, notably Easton Grove, and the author doesn’t tell us upfront what it does. Norah, the viewpoint character, has signed up with Easton Grove and has been matched with Arthur, a notable novelist. She’s understandably nervous about their first date in a bizarre courtship by corporate decree, but all goes well, they set up housekeeping together, and soon a cardboard box arrives. Inside is a creature that sounds awfully like a cat. A pet! I thought. They’ve gone through this rigorous process and qualified to parent a pet!

Little did I know that the strangeness was just beginning. As Norah becomes increasingly obsessed with “Nut,” as she has named the creature, Arthur grapples with crippling writer’s block and their network of friends gradually disappears. Then Nut’s fur falls out, Easton Grove increases its surveillance, and Arthur sports a new tooth, wrenched from Nut’s jaw.

In places, Composite Creatures wanders over the border into horror, but I don’t think it belongs properly to that genre. It’s edgy, complex, layered dystopian science fiction, with the emphasis on the inner lives of the people caught up in the Kafka-esque world. It isn’t an easy read or a pleasant one, but is nonetheless rewarding. Norah and Arthur are so much like ordinary people, and we are all vulnerable to the intense seductions and pressures they succumb to.

Short Book Reviews: The Collapse of All Worlds

 Driftwood, by Marie Brennan (Tachyon)

Consider a universe in which dying worlds slowly accrete together, colliding and compressing into a super-condensed Core. The aggregate is known as Driftwood, with the outer rings being less reduced in size, the inner ones mere fractions of their former selves. Each world operates according to its own rules; some have magic, others don’t; some have more than one sun, and so forth. No matter what the geography or culture, one constant remains: the desperate need to preserve memory and identity against the final, irreversible collapse.

This present volume comprises short fiction, some previously published, others original, loosely framed but eminently readable as stand-alone pieces. Overlapping worlds, occasional familiar place names, a historical timeline, and a charismatic recurring character enhance the cohesiveness of the collection. For me, though, the unifying factor was the shared experience, across cultures and personalities, of inevitable loss through change.

In “The Second Coming,” Yeats wrote, “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.” But in the world of Driftwood, things fall into a center from which nothing emerges, not even the memory of what was once vital and precious. Yet despite the sadness, in the skillful storyteller hands of Marie Brennan, the stories move through compassion to hope, with many memorable moments along the way.

Jaydium: Chapter 5 Free on Curious Fictions

Between the wildfires and evacuation, I've fallen behind in posting free chapters of Jaydium on Curious Fictions. With apologies, here's the next one!

Jaydium, Chapter 5

By Deborah J. Ross
Nov 6, 2020 · 1,761 words · 7 minutes

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Art by Vincent Di Fate.  Edit Art · Remove Art

From the author: Far in the future, an interplanetary civil conflict has ground to an uneasy halt. Kithri, abandoned on a desolate mining planet, meets Eril, shell-shocked pilot. A freak accident sends them back to a time when their desert world was lush and green, when an alien civilization stands on the brink of a war of total destruction. They must choose to remain outside the conflict or to stand up for what they believe

---

 An audio version is available for this chapter. Listen online →

JAYDIUM

Chapter 5

For a moment Eril considered telling her the truth, that he had as much chance of getting into the Corps without her as she had getting off Stayman without him. In the mood she was in, she'd probably tell him to stuff a comet up his pitouchee. The only thing to do was to keep his mouth shut and wait for another opening. He hoped he'd get one.

Kithri picked up the water bottle, took a long swallow and then dropped it, sputtering. She pointed down the tunnel.

As he followed her gesture, Eril's mouth went electrically dry. The last time he'd looked, the tunnel had been empty except for the two of them and the scrubjet. Now a man-shaped mist hovered in the middle of the 'hole, one moment diaphanous, then condensing into near solidity. In stark contrast to the rosy glow of the partly-sealed jaydium, it was a clear, untinted gray. Eril made out a bulbous head, two arms, and two splayed-out legs. He thought he saw markings on the head section, but they faded so quickly he could not be sure.

"What the hell is that?" Kithri whispered. "I've been running these tunnels for years, and I've never seen anything like it."

"Space ghost," he said, dredging his memory. "They're sighted along the old interstellar routes. There are only about six or seven documented cases known, never this close to a planet. By our best guess, they're relics of early attempts to exceed the speed of light. Residues of energy that just happen to be shaped like humans. They probably don't actually exist in three-space."

As he spoke, the figure descended until its feet seemed to touch the tunnel floor. For a moment it stood there, motionless. Then it began to move. First one leg and then the other stretched out and swung back as it drifted along in a mechanical parody of walking. 

Here's the link to the rest...

https://curiousfictions.com/stories/3051-deborah-j-ross-jaydium-chapter-5

New (Free) Chapter of Jaydium on Curious Fictions

The next chapter of Jaydium is up on Curious Fictions, and it's free (all the previous chapters are, too). If you love the story, the entire ebook is only $0.99 right now from all the usual vendors. (And subscribing to my Curious Fictions page for a small amount per month would be lovely, too.)

Jaydium, Chapter 4

By Deborah J. Ross
May 22, 2020 · 3,238 words · 12 minutes

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Art by Vincent Di Fate.  Edit Art · Remove Art

From the author: Far in the future, an interplanetary civil conflict has ground to an uneasy halt. Kithri, abandoned on a desolate mining planet, meets Eril, shell-shocked pilot. A freak accident sends them back to a time when their desert world was lush and green, when an alien civilization stands on the brink of a war of total destruction. They must choose to remain outside the conflict or to stand up for what they believe.

Short Book Reviews: Rogue Robots and Sentient Spacecraft

Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries), by Martha Wells (Tor)

I’m not sure what I can add to the comments of others about Martha Wells’s marvelous series of novellas about Murderbot, the security unit on a journey to humanity. This latest installment shows Murderbot posing as a human security consultant, coming into contact (and sometimes conflict) with military units and other automata, with humans both vile and admirable. I am reminded of a story I recently heard on NPR about how we humans tend to treat mechanical devices (even Roombas) as sentient. I suspect this benefits us more, through the practice of compassion, than it does our household appliances and automobiles. Slowly, Murderbot is learning to do the same.

I can’t wait for the next adventure!

The Spaceship Next Door, by Gene Doucette (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Three years ago, a spaceship landed in a sleepy Connecticut town called Sorrow Falls.

Despite being cordoned off by the US military and despite the concerted efforts of scientists and analysts, absolutely nothing has been learned about the ship, who made it, or why it is here. Well, not quite nothing: anyone attempting to approach the ship becomes obsessed with the pressing need to be somewhere else.

Just outside the boundaries of set up by the military, and encampment of RVs is populated by conspiracy theorists who use various kinds of equipment to observe the spaceship, and it is clear that everything they report is a product of their own imagination.

Annie Collins is about as normal a 16 year old girl as possible, considering that her mother is dying of cancer and her father is nowhere in sight. Annie has a gift for making friends, understanding people's motivations, accepting the weirdos conspiracy theorists in the RV camp, and pretty much knowing everything that's going on. So when a military analyst ineptly disguised as a reporter, arrives for yet another investigation of the spaceship, he hires Annie as his native guide. The adventure begins slowly but soon picks up steam when the spaceship starts turning locals and troops alike into zombies who go around asking “Are you her?”

The smoothly flowing prose style captures much of the charm of a small town filled with eccentric characters and a colorful if fictitious history. Annie herself is lovable in her complexity, her vulnerability, and her endless resourcefulness. A highly recommended read, full of inventiveness, humor, and surprising twists, and truly alien aliens.

The usual disclaimer: I received review copies of these books, but no one bribed me to say anything about them.

Short Book Reviews: The Last Man Alive

Relic, by Alan Dean Foster (Del Rey)

In the far future, humanity has managed to wipe itself out not only on Earth but on every other colonized planet. So far as he knows, Ruslan is the last human in existence. He’s not alone, though. A race of benign (seeming?) aliens, the Myssari, have taken him under their care. Their goal is to use his cells to clone a new generation of humans, thereby extending their knowledge of sapient races. His price for participating: their help in rediscovering Earth, birthplace of humanity. Of course, things go wrong, among them the appearance of a rival alien race who also want to form an alliance with him. And various other things that fall under the “spoiler” category.

This sounds like pure, classical Alan Dean Foster, full of action and imagination.  Alas, that is not the experience I had reading this book. I’ve loved Foster’s work for decades, and I don’t know if he ran out of ideas, got sedate in his prose, or simply tried something more thoughtful, but the result was a soporific, meandering narrative punctuated here and there with a bit of suspense or action. (I highly recommend it for insomniacs.) It felt like a perfectly respectable piece of short fiction padded out to novel length with emotionally distant, almost Victorian prose.

Here’s an example:

He had no doubt that the dedicated if diffident Wol’daeen and her colleagues would try their utmost to successfully revive some of the other cold-stored humans. It would be a scientific triumph for them if they could do so. But having seen what he had seen and heard what he had heard, he was not sanguine.

The ratio of prose to passage of time in the story varies from plodding and repetitious to the whiplash feeling that all the interesting parts got skimmed over and it’s months or years later.

In the end, the story elements came together well. I would expect no less from an author as seasoned as Foster, but on the whole I found it neither absorbing nor satisfying. Which was a pity, because I'd been so excited to read it.

Crossroads of Darkover Author Interview: Shariann Lewitt

Coming in May, an all-new Darkover anthology featuring tales of decisions, turning points, love lost and found, all in the beloved world of the Bloody Sun. Stories by Jenna Rhodes, Pat MacEwen, Gabrielle Harbowy, Evey Brett, Rosemary and India Edghill, Diana L. Paxson, and more!

Order yours today at: iBook, Kindle, Kobo, Nook. 

Table of Contents is here.

Deborah J. Ross: How did you discover Darkover?

Shariann Lewitt: Hmm, I don’t actually remember. It’s all back somewhere in the haze of nerdy girlhood along with Pern and Witchworld and everything else I read while I dreamed of a life in space.

DJR: What about the world drew you in?

SL: Pretty much everything. But I think what made it very different from all the others—and that kept me with it even as I grew up—was that it felt very real to my own experiences as a nerdy girl who wanted to do something with her life, but had to fight for it. In other worlds, women either were magic users or victims of the patriarchy. On Darkover—a world with the extreme gender roles that my mother insisted were my lot—women who were willing to fight for their dreams could have them. Yes, many of them had laran, but others didn’t. That inspired me and gave me a lot of hope when I was young.

DJR: What do you see as the future of Darkover? How has its readership changed over the decades? What book would you recommend for someone new to Darkover?

SL: I think it says a lot about the world that, unlike many of the other series I grew up reading, Darkover is still vibrant and alive, with new stories and characters. I think it will continue to grow, to expand, and to explore more within the expanse that Marion left. To recommend to someone new to the world, well, that would depend a lot on the person. Some people would prefer a book on the Renunciates, or maybe Hawkmistress to start. Maybe for someone who is more Science Fiction oriented, I’d possibly choose The Heritage of Hastur because of the Terran/Darkovan interaction. Though Thendara House would be good for that as well. But if it were someone who preferred fantasy with lots of politics, then I’d recommend The Fall of Neskaya. Really, it would depend a lot on the person.

DJR: What inspired your story in Crossroads of Darkover? How did you balance writing in someone else’s world and being true to your own creative imagination?

SL: Darkover is a big world and there’s room to go just about anywhere. But there are enough limits that it’s fun to play with them. This story, well—I was in the middle of writing another story, a story about a young Comyn woman with laran, and then Nyla showed up. I couldn’t put her down. Her situation really fascinated me because mostly on Darkover we think about people who are gifted as having laran. What about other gifts? We know there are musicians and poets. What about scientists and mathematicians? Is there a university? I realized in all the books I’ve read (which I think is all of them at this point) I’d never really noticed one. That kind of hit me over the head, so I had to explore what would happen. And, of course, Nyla was there to guide me.

Short Book Reviews: How Many Clones in a Murder?

Six Wakes, by Mur Lafferty (Orbit, 2017). A crew on a generational space ship wakes – or rather, their clones do, a standard procedure that usually involves downloading stored memories for continuity. The one remaining crew, the captain, is near-death, there is blood everywhere, and none of the clones can remember what happened. In an added twist, all of them are criminals whose paths have crossed in the past and who have reason to hate each other. 

Skillfully handled action and discovery of information lead to one plot twist after another. I especially liked how my initial assumptions about each character were turned inside out in a way that gave them depth and humanity, even the ship’s AI. 

Exceptionally well-done science fiction mystery.

Short Book Reviews: AI and Woman Explore Common Humanity

A Closed and Common Orbit, by Becky Chambers (Harper Voyager, 2017). Despite being a sequel to A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, this story stands beautifully on its own. Through alternating flashback and present points of view, two characters embark upon very different journeys with the same question: what does it mean to be a person? 

Sidra was once Lovelace, an AI controlling a space ship. Now she finds herself in an artificial body that in most ways mimics that of a human woman. She’s cut off from the multiple audio and visual inputs that have defined her world, besieged by physical sensations and social expectations, and at risk of exposure. 

Her guide and companion, Pepper, has a troubled and traumatic past as a cloned child-slave. Chance and luck freed her, then ten years old, from a factory where she sorted and repaired trashed equipment, then led her to a buried spaceship, whose AI provided her with the only loving parenting she had known. Pepper’s past struggles beautifully mirror and inform Sidra’s present quest. 

Sympathetic characters, fascinating alien cultures, nicely paced action, and understated depth mark this as a book to savor and re-read.

Short Book Reviews: Murder Mystery in a City Without Night

A Man of Shadows by Jeff Noon, Angry Robot, 2017. 

From the first page, I loved this surreal, hallucinatory world. The story centers on a city where eternal day is created by artificial lightning: every space is saturated with brilliance, and the entire society depends upon those with the never-ending task of replacing light bulbs as they burn out. Without natural night and day, the usual measurement of time becomes meaningless, giving the city’s inhabitants the choice of living by many calendars; some are the products of commerce (“Business Standard Time”) but others are whimsical and capricious. Sometimes it’s all a person can do to keep with the necessary changes to their wristwatch. Not surprisingly, many suffer disorders of time due to constant disruption of the body’s internal rhythms. The luscious prose and bizarre imagery perfectly reflect the disorientation of the characters.

Outside the city lies a treacherous region of Dusk, transversable only by special trains, and beyond it, Nocturna. (A few asides refer to regions outside the city’s influence, where crows grow and cows graze in unaltered days and nights, so we know the entire planet has not succumbed to artificial divisions of day and night.) Mysterious mists swirl through Dusk, and those who venture into them emerge changed or not at all. Not surprisingly, Dayzone is far from idyllic, beset by not only light-sickness but a serial killer and kidnappings. The protagonist, a private detective named Nyquist, is drawn into this dark side of light when he takes on the case of the missing daughter of a wealthy, powerful man. His search reveals not only dangerous connections but his own unresolved past.

Innovative world-building enhanced by a surreal and highly literate prose style offer both a challenge and a reward to the reader. My only complaint was that Nyquist is so perennially sleep-deprived, and the text is so reminiscent of the way thought fractures under disruptions of the normal circadian rhythm, that I kept wanting to curl up and nap. Recommended , especially for those who enjoy a hefty dose of weird in their fiction. 

Short Book Reviews: A Postapocalyptic Genderqueer Story

The Book of Etta, by Meg Elison (47 North, 2017). This novel is the sequel to the Philip K. Dick Award-winning The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, but can be easily read on its own. Generations ago, a plague swept the world, killing most of the women and leaving the survivors at grave risk in childbirth. The expected chaos resulted, social disintegration, and enslavement of the few remaining fertile women. 

Now various communities have evolved their own cultures with varying roles for the women, often in isolation and ignorance of one another. Etta lives in Nowhere, a fortified community in which women hold power as Mothers and Midwives. She frets against her mother’s expectations, keeps her lesbian love affair secret, and flees to the outside world under the guise of a scavenger of old technology and rescuer of enslaved women. In this role, she becomes Eddy, but the switch is not mere disguise for safety. The prose shifts to the male pronoun to emphasize the transformation in identity. As the story unfolds, it becomes more and more clear that Etta/Eddy flips back and forth from one persona to the other, and clues emerge as to the origin of the personality split. In his adventures, Eddy encounters underground havens, trading centers where transgender “horsewomen” live openly as women, and a vicious tyrant bent on conquest. 

Elison weaves together elements of dystopia and hope, tense action and inner anguish, into a compelling tale of survival and self-revelation. Highly recommended, although with a caution for younger readers.

Short Book Reviews: The Nigerian Space Program Saves the Day

After the Flare, by Deji Bryce Olukotun (Unnamed Press, 2017).  Non-Western-centered science fiction has found an eager audience in recent years, and this novel is a worthy addition. In the not-too-distant future, a gigantic solar flare paralyzes the electrical grid across the world. Among the many unfolding catastrophes are the marooning of a single astronaut on the International Space Station.  Because nations near the Equator are relatively spared, it’s up to the Nigerian space program to rescue her. From this remarkable premise, Olukotun spins a tale that is part thriller (will the astronaut be rescued in time? Will the terrorists drawing ever closer to the base take over before the rescue rocket can be launched? What ancient, possibly magical artifact have the desert women discovered?), part science fictional examination of the endless ingenuity of human beings, and part cultural drama. The richness of the African backdrop, from local customs to corrupt politics to wildlife to a vanished civilization, colors every aspect of Nigeria’s fast-paced space race. 

Short Book Reviews: Motorcycle Gangs on Dune

Hunger Makes the Wolf, by Alex Wells (Angry Robot, 2017). A colleague described this book as “Mad Max Meets Dune.” I’d amend that to “Mad Max: Fury Road Meets Dune,” because yes, there are wild motorcycle gangs, and yes, it’s set on a planet hauntingly reminiscent of Arrakis (spice mining and all), but what sets this apart is its heroine. Hob begins as one of many castaways who find their place in the mostly-lawless gangs. Like the gang’s leader, she has an ability that might be thought magical: she can generate fire from her fingertips. Not only that, she’s bold and just about fearless, and doesn’t take guff from anyone. She’s been slowly working her way back up the ranks after a near-disastrous lapse in judgment when the mining conglomerate that essentially rules the planet begins taking an unhealthy interest in its local inhabitants – and Hob. Working conditions for the miners and farmers become increasingly oppressive as the megacorp, TriRift, tightens its grip. Any attempt to emigrate to a more hospitable world leads to seizure and secret imprisonment, while TriRift scientists attempt to unravel the changes every inhabitant of the planet manifests. One of those being held and experimented on is Hob’s dearest friend. The plot moves briskly along, from one twist to the next, with nifty revelations at every turn and tension escalating to a satisfying climax. Once I got past the resemblance with other books I’d read, which took about two pages, I enjoyed this action adventure thoroughly.

A Special Sale Price on JAYDIUM

This month's specials at Book View Cafe include Jaydium for just $0.95. DRM-free, multiple formats (there's an audiobook, too, but it's not on special.)
Here's the newsletter for more offerings.

Hungry for “a wild and woolly journey through time and space,” some really cool aliens, and a touch of romance?

Far in the future, an interplanetary civil conflict has ground to an uneasy halt, leaving its human victims bitter and desperate: Kithri, the daughter of a scientist, abandoned on a desolate mining planet with no hope to use her talents, and Eril, shell-shocked pilot, finding adapting to peace more difficult than he dreamed. A freak accident sends them back to a time when their desert world was lush and green, when an alien civilization stands on the brink of a war of total destruction. Unexpectedly linked with Lennart, a spaceman from an earlier era in galactic history, and Brianna, an anthropologist from an alternate universe, they must choose to remain outside the conflict or to stand up for what they believe, even at the cost of never getting home again?

REVIEWS

“A wild and woolly journey through time and space that contains enough imagination and plotting for an entire shelf of books.”

— Don D’Ammassa in SCIENCE FICTION CHRONICLE

“Beautifully executed . . . marks Wheeler as a stellar new talent.”

— Catherine Asaro in MINDSPARKS

“There is an emphasis on the quest for peace that is unusual when so many novels focus on the quest for dominance and victory.”

— Tom Easton in ANALOG

“JAYDIUM sweeps the reader into a well-designed world populated with realistic people . . . a fast-paced and fun read.”

— Mary Rosenblum

“Excellent hard science-fiction!”

— Marion Zimmer Bradley

Rosemary Edghill on “Stormcrow” in REALMS OF DARKOVER

Realms of Darkover®, the newest Darkover anthology, will be released in May 2016. You can pre-order it at Amazon (and it will be available at other outlets soon). Here’s a contributor interview to whet your appetite!

Marion Zimmer Bradley’s beloved world of Darkover encompasses many realms, from glacier-shrouded mountains to arid wastelands, from ancient kingdoms to space-faring empires. Now this all-new anthology welcomes old friends and new fans to explore these landscapes of time and place, history and imagination.

Deborah J Ross: When and why did you begin writing? (And anything else you’d like to share about yourself and your life.)

Rosemary Edghill: I've always been a storyteller.  As a child (we're talking pre-K here), my favorite game was "Let Me Tell You A Story".  This never really changed.  As I got older I told myself Batman stories, and Man from U.N.C.L.E. stories, and Star Trek stories.  In my late twenties, it was Star Wars stories, and I started writing them down (in fact, my first professional SF sale was a revamped and expanded version of a story that appeared in the fanzine "Skywalker").  From then on, I wrote down my stories instead of telling them.

For me, writing is performing, a way to be actor, director, scriptwriter, and audience all in one.  If something doesn't resonate with me in my position as "audience", I know it isn't going to resonate with the reader, and it's back to the drawing board (or the rehearsal hall).  So while it's true, in one sense, that I spend most of my time alone in a small room staring into a computer screen, in another sense...I am extremely well-traveled.

DJR: Tell us about your introduction to Darkover. What about the world or its inhabitants drew you in?

RE: Back in the "olden days", there weren't a lot of people in SF books.  You've probably heard some version of the phrase "Science Fiction is a literature of ideas"--well, with very few exceptions, that was all it was: great ideas presented by cardboard story-people, and you couldn't really imagine any of them being embarrassed, or worried about the state of their love life, or drunk, or...well, pretty much anything except their role in the story.

If this sounds like I'm dissing old-school SF, I'm not.  I've read a lot of the Golden Age stuff, and I still do, and right on down to the present.  Stories about ideas are just fine, and--as a matter of fact--what else is a classic murder mystery but a story of ideas?

But it certainly did mean that the Darkover novels and stories stood out like a white peacock when they arrived on the scene.  They were all about people.  And, like Anne McCaffrey's "Pern", Darkover came with a thin veneer of SF to overlay things and give them respectability, since this was long LONG before Fantasy was a "respectable" publishing category--or even a visible genre.  But my point here is: Darkover was full of PEOPLE.  And other readers must have noticed--and liked--that too, because the books spawned one of the first modern fandoms based on a book series rather than a TV series, and that, in turn, gave rise to newsletters, fanzines, and even a Darkover convention.

So what drew me (and all the rest of us) in?  Darkover was exotic, mysterious, wonderful...and at the same time, the kind of place you could imaging yourself having adventures in.  It was filled both with people you'd like to meet, and people you'd like to be, and even better, the world of Darkover was designed in such a way that it wasn't a single circumscribed setting that the story, the characters, and the readers couldn't venture beyond, but part of a great big Empire of planets, many of which became settings for the stories.  In that sense, Darkover became the gateway into a universe that was not only broad and endless, but very very human.

The Price of Silence audiobook!

My novelette, "The Price of Silence," (F & SF 2009, Honorable Mention, Year's Best SF) is now available as an audiobook. You can listen to the first 5 minutes or so, most of the opening scene, free.


If text is your thing, the story is available from Book View Cafe. Amazon,  and Barnes & Noble.

Collaborators on the Tiptree "Long List"

Collaborators by Deborah Wheeler (that's me, writing under my former name) (Dragon Moon Press, 2013) has been honored by the James Tiptree Jr Award jury with inclusion on the "long list" of notable works. The awards are presented annually to works of science fiction or fantasy that explore and expand gender roles. Read more about them here.

The back cover copy reads:

When a crippled Terran spaceship makes landfall on an alien world...

The Terrans land, unaware that their advanced technology threatens the fragile balance of power for the native race. Aliens, for whom gender has a very different meaning and whose instincts can drive a crowd to madness.

Despite the Terrans best intentions, misunderstandings mount and violent retaliation escalates. Soon everyone — scientists and soldiers, rebels and lovers, patriots and opportunists — are swept up in a cycle of destruction.

Buy from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.