Words by Friends

The nice thing is that friendship doesn't obscure critical judgement. I know this, because I have friends I love who have written books that frankly I think are just awful. This gives me an unwonted confidence, those occasional times I sally forth waving banners that cry "This is going to be fabulous!"

So: my to-be-read-immediately pile just got taller and more teetery, by virtue of:

From Whence You Came
A Lands Vin Novella by Laura Anne Gilman
Published by Book View Cafe $4.99 ISBN: 978-1-61138-177-1



Centuries before the Vineart War, massive sea-serpents roamed the seas, endangering the lives of all who sailed there. Only the greatest magic could keep them in check, and protect the coastlines from their depredations. And then...they disappeared. Legend credited Master Vineart Bradhai, and called him a hero.

Legend.... is not always accurate. And often, the truth is a better story.

And also:

The Grass King's Concubine
by Kari Sperring
Published by DAW $7.99 ISBN: 978-0756407551



When a wealthy young woman, obsessed with a childhood vision of a magical Shining Palace, sets out with her true love to search for a legendary land, she discovers the devastated WorldBelow - the realm of the Grass King - and the terrifying Cadre, who take her prisoner, and demand she either restore the king's concubine... or replace her.

And furthermore:

Love on the Run
By Katharine Kerr
Published by DAW $7.99 ISBN: 978-0756407629



Nola O’Grady is sick and tired of psychic squid-images following her everywhere, waving their tentacles and generally making nuisances of themselves. She and her partner, Ari Nathan, have a dangerous job on their hands, hunting down two criminals who have escaped into another level of the multiverse, the San Francisco of Terra Six.

Terrorists have turned parts of that city into a deathtrap—religious fanatics, yes, but from what religion? Nola suspects that the Peacock Angel Chaos cult lies behind the bombings and mass murders. As she gathers evidence, she finds herself face-to-face with part of her own personal past that she’d prefer to bury forever.

And by the way, just who is it that keeps trying to kill her?

Hee. My biggest problem is, which to read first...?

Shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies

So some days are not easy, as we know. In despite of sunshine and everything. Yesterday, f'rexample. Was not an easy day. I made it through, mostly by dint of things beginning with W - "wife" would be in that list, and "wine" too, plus of course whining and whimpering and other makeweights (I am a disgrace to my nation, in the matter of stiff-upper-lippery), plus a whole lot of watching-the-Olympics. I have even forgiven them beach volleyball: I still say it's silly, but hey.

Today I'm doing better, I think, by and large. Karen's working from home, which always helps; and I had a scary encounter with the immigration service, where they fingerprinted and photographed me and took my word for it about height and weight and eye-colour and hair ("bald" was rather pleasingly an option, but we decided to go with "gray"), so that's behind me now. And lunch involved a lot of chillies, which is kinda like self-medicating (on the whole, I have found hot foods here to be disappointingly not-hot; the stand-out exception so far is good Chinese, where they have a very liberal hand with the whole dried chillies: in this instance, Chef Yu's orange-peel beef, om nom). And any minute now I get to open my first beer, which is nothing like self-medicating at all, oh no, it's a purely professional act. I drink, therefore I work.

And. Of course I have strategies, evolved almost unconsciously over four decades and more. Little things, reminders. Perspective. I once made it through two tough years by reminding myself daily that Jeffrey Archer was still in jail. Totally put a skip in my step, every morning.

Today, perspective is even easier than that. Who needs sacrificial lordships, when you have Curiosity? I lovety-love-love the fact that we've dropped a small smart car onto Mars, to pootle about and discover stuff for us. If you catch me being gloomy any time these next years, just point me to the skies.

Today's factoid: Gale Crater is named after Walter Frederick Gale, an amateur astronomer from Australia who totally believed in canals on Mars. I love that too, and do not care whether he recanted in later life. (Steampunk Mars: of course it has canals. And airships. Has anyone written it yet?)

Ask him, he'll tell you: he's the Hero of the Hour

There was a cat! In our yard!

Actually, there quite often is a cat in our yard, but he's usually discreet: he skirts the fence, he maybe takes a dust-bath in the sun, he mostly keeps his distance. Once, he's offered to visit Karen in the clubhouse; once, he's let me scritch him under the chin.

This time, whoo. First I knew of it was Mac on the kitchen table, ears back, tail threshing, very very focused. His ears don't do that for a birdie, so I went to look: the trick is to sight between the ears, but I didn't really need to. He's quite a big cat, and he was right in the middle of the lawn, staring in at Mac. The window was open, so there was nothing but an insect-screen between them. Mac's indignance was immeasurable: a cat! In our yard! Where Mac is not allowed to go!!

And then the impertinent creature came strolling oh-so-casually forward, till he was right under Mac's window*. Oh, the outrage, the frustration, the distress! There were three of us to watch it, and it was very funny.

Then I spoke a heedless word, and the cat took that as fair warning and made off, quite unhurriedly, towards his hole in our fence. (I have blocked that hole with a lump of masonry, but it has been unblocked again; I suspect the Macchiavellian cat engaged the services of his friend the dog, to nose it out of the way. I don't believe their human would've done it, and I'm damn sure the cat didn't.)

EtA: how silly of me, I misunderstood. Mac totally scared the evil cat away. Totally.


*All our (open) windows r belong to Mac. That really didn't need saying, did it?