The BR Pile

Patricia Briggs, Moon Called

Moon Called is the first of the books I’ve been reading to get better acquainted with the contributors to Wolfsbane and Mistletoe, and there were two things that particularly stood out for me, in addition to the clean, compelling writing: Mercy (Mercedes) is a skin-walker outsider who is caught between her allegiances to two werewolf clans. As a protagonist, she’s neither a martyr nor a sap, and while she makes good use of her powers, she’s not a superhero or a preacher. This is incredibly hard to do with a character. The other thing that I thought was a cut above was Briggs' take on werewolf reproduction and its hazards—and why the world isn’t overrun with werewolves. I’ll be reading the next books in this series for sure.

Kirsten Holmstedt, Band of Sisters: American Women at War in Iraq

I grabbed a copy of Band of Sisters on my way to the cash register. I’d heard good things about it and knew that it was about women in the military in Iraq, but I didn’t realize it wasn’t a compilation of first-person narratives. My bad, I could have figured this out by flipping through the book, but Holmstedt’s flat writing style kept getting in the way of these accounts for me. What does work and what is important about the book is the stories of the women themselves, honest and moving accounts of soldiers, sailors, Marines, pilots, nurses, and reservists in Iraq. Like their male counterparts, their reasons for going were varied and personal; unlike the men, it seemed that these service members’ quest for excellence is made harder by gender-based prejudices. Read this alongside Love My Rife More Than You, by Kayla Williams.

A correction: I listed Barbara Schading and Richard Schading, A Civilian’s Guide to the U.S. Military on the TBR pile. I'm using that for reference, not so much a read-through kinda book. What I should have listed was War Reporting for Cowards, by Chris Ayers, which I was reading at the same time. I'll let you know what I think about both.

And a word about the music I list on my landing page. I tend to consume music by individual songs, organized to suit a particular book (or activity). So whatever you’re seeing on that front page is what is keeping my typing or keeping me going at the gym, and that’s why there may be some repetition. I’ll post more about my music consumption and my WIPs later.

But this never happened at the Tate

This weekend, I went into Boston with Mr. G for a much-needed break from the to-do list. One of our destinations was the recently opened ICA, Institute for Contemporary Art/Boston.

I like museums, and particularly art museums. I get recharged by them. And even if I prefer my art to predate 1900, I’ve had enough encounters with modern art to know it’s good for you. Shakes up the system, makes you look at the world anew. A tonic.

Alas, “shakes up the system” was the operative term.

There was an exhibit at the ICA called “The World as a Stage,” which was several pieces exploring how the audience and stage interact and create each other. Good stuff. But there was one installation, "Rotating Labyrinth," which was my undoing. It was concentric rings of angled mirrored posts, which reflected the outside of the ring, you (wherever you were), and the reflections of the reflections. It was a bit like being inside a zoetrope. I started cackling like mad and jogging around inside the rings, watching all of the reflections blur the “real world” and the “reflected world.” Wow! Cool!

Reflection. Recursion. Existentialism. Warped reality. Light and shadow.

Dizzy…

It all caught up with me: I might have been giggling like a demonic three-year-old, but I no longer have that childlike capacity to keep my head after prolonged twirling. I staggered out of the installation, and minutes later, was still light-headed. The problem was, most of the art, even the building itself (being located right on Boston Harbor), is geared toward light, movement, shadows, challenged perception. I imagined the security guards laughing as they watched security footage of other adult children careening around the room, banging into mirrors like sparrows into a bay window.

I lurched into another room and was confronted with what I believe was a twelve-foot tall bronze statue of spider.

An abrupt about-face didn’t help my wooziness, but it got me out of there. I hate spiders, Jock, I hate ‘em!

Thing is, if I hadn’t overdone it with the mirrors, I would have really had a great time. There was another piece, charcoal on wires, that was captivating. Ethereal. Audio visual art that was hysterical and challenging. I just have to manage how I interact with it all.

Lesson learned. It’s time to start treating art like the potent drug that it is. I know my limits.

Read Oline’s blog

If you’re not already following Oline Cogdill’s excellent blog, in which she reviews many mysteries and comments on the mystery world, you should be. Oline’s got a thoughtful take on every subgenre and has been a champion in reviewing paperback originals (including mine) when other reviewers won’t. She’s also a lovely person.

So please subscribe to her blog in the Sun-Sentinel or make a point to check in regularly. Spend some time there. You’ll be glad you did.

Thanks!

Dana, Emma, Amy, Gerry, Margaret, and Spooky versus the Zombies

My friend and fellow Femme Fatale Charlaine sent a copy of a quiz about surviving a zombie apocalypse to FafFF Toni and me. Being incapable of resisting anything resembling a standardized test, I took it. You can take it here.

Apparently I have a 41% chance of surviving a zombie attack. I admit it: I was miffed by this number, but that’s what you get for being honest about your abilities. And I probably would make decisions that were sentimental rather than geared to cold-blooded survival. But…still. I fancied my chances were better than 41%. I got really annoyed.

Eventually I realized I was taking a made-up test about a fictional situation altogether too seriously. Getting agitated over nothing, you might say. Sheepish me. Must cut down on that half cup of coffee I consume in a week.

But then it hit me—in this hypothetical situation, how would my fictional avatars do? I retook the test five times, trying to answer from the point of view of each of my protagonists (from books, short stories, and WIP). Here are their descriptions and the percentage chance they have against a full-on zombie assault.

Dana Cameron (mystery writer and archaeologist, Beverly, Massachusetts): 41%

Emma Fielding (archaeology professor, a small Massachusetts town): 43%.

Not surprisingly, Emma is most like me. She got a few points more because she’s probably better at stocking her emergency supplies than I am and lives in a much smaller community that I do. Zombies seem to prefer cities.

Amy Lindstrom (Washington Post reporter, outside Washington, D.C.): 32%.

Amy didn’t do as well as I thought she would, considering how smart and resourceful she is; she’s also in pretty good shape. I think what hurt her was living in a densely populated community and she would probably try to rescue more people. Altruism is not a quality respected by zombies.

Gerry Steuben (private investigator and werewolf, Salem, Massachusetts): 70%

This was an interesting one for me: is Gerry is changed or is he in human form? Who would win, a zombie or a werewolf? An astronaut or caveman? But since he’s pretty hard to kill , and is an ex-cop, he’d do okay. It’s just that damned inclination to heroics that brought his score lower.

Margaret Chandler (gentlewoman, a 1720s Massachusetts coastal town): 52%.

This took me by surprise, though it shouldn’t have. Margaret’s household would have been self-sufficient for a week or so at a time; longer, if she was at the farm. There would have been guns in the house, and she would be capable of learning to use one. There were no police or hospitals to run to. And no need to run far (in corsets?) to find her household, who would have been close by. Yay, Margaret! (Note to self: must explore concept of 18th-century zombies…)

Spooky (covert operative, outside Washington, D.C.): 90%

No surprise here: if Spooky were confronted with a zombie attack, she’d survive. More than that, she’d probably thrive, establish a post-apocalyptic settlement with herself at the helm, eventually taking over most of the mid-Atlantic region, with an eye to New York and Boston. Purely as a precautionary measure; she’s really a creature of simple needs. But I wouldn’t under any circumstances allow her to become a zombie…

Vampires in New England

Yeah, it caught my eye, too.

Although I no longer am active in the field, I try to watch out for local archaeology stories. This headline took me aback: “State Archaeologist to Lecture on Vampires.”

Huh wha—?

The announcement didn’t reveal much, but a description of an earlier lecture did. According to Connecticut State Archaeologist Nicholas Bellantoni and folklorist Michael Bell, there was a locally-held belief that certain corpses were supernaturally responsible for causing outbreaks of tuberculosis in the 18th and 19th century. The corpses were exhumed and mutilated; in some cases, the heads were removed, ribs broken, and femurs placed cross-wise over the chest. The term vampire wasn’t used to deal with these suspected corpses until the late 19th century (when, it seems to me, sensational literature would have prompted and provided the term). While the practice of grinding the bones of the exhumed and mixing it into a drink for other members of the family may strike us as purely superstitious, it might have been an imitation of how people learned to fend off smallpox by pricking the skin with a bit of diseased tissue. Logically, in the absence of modern scientific understanding of TB, that makes sense. Unfortunately, it didn’t work.

This article reminded me of a couple of things. One was a professor who commented on an early paper of mine. “Always be gentle with the past,” was her note for a remark I made criticizing 17th-century medical techniques. It was a quiet rebuke, but it made a huge impression on me: people in the past didn’t do things randomly, there was a belief and science structure involved. It’s also useful in looking at other modern cultures and subcultures. There are reasons for cultural behavior, even if we don’t see them immediately.

The other thing the story reminded me of was the power of fear. I think about those people two hundred years ago, feeling helpless in the face of an epidemic they didn’t fully understand, and how they chose to address it. Civility is such thin veneer, and the animal underneath is programmed for survival. I wonder what would make me behave similarly.

Well, that was cheery. I can’t provide chocolate, but books, books will help…

On the BR stack:

Nick Hornby, Slam

If you’re a fan of Hornby’s other work—About a Boy, High Fidelity, How to Be Good—and I am, check out Slam. The story is told from the POV of fifteen-year old Sam, who thinks he’s just about got life figured out when he gets, well, slammed with it. Slam deals with many of Hornby’s usual themes (avoidance, youth, popular culture, life’s conflicts); it’s a slow burn, but if you hang in there, by the end, you’ll be more than satisfied with the book’s quiet revelation.

Rumiko Takahashi, Inuyasha

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere in this blog and the Femmes Fatales’ blog, I’m a long-time fan of comics. I picked up the first volume of Inuyasha because one of the students I met in Alaska recommended the anime to me. I don’t know how faithful the ani-manga version is, but it’s got what you look for in manga: student Kagome is transported to another world where she discovers she possesses the power to overthrow the demons attacking villagers there. Pretty standard setup but I enjoyed the chaotic nature of the demons and the sheer weirdness of their abilities (the “net of hair” was my favorite). Plus, I love the translations of the sound effects: “dokun dokun” is a heartbeat and “shurururu” is a pear flying through the air.

It's beautiful!

Here's the preliminary cover art for Wolfsbane and Mistletoe--ain't it gorgeous? I love all the color and detail. The book is due out in October 2008, and I'll give you more details when I have them (trust me). A list of the authors contributing includes:

Donna Andrews, Keri Arthur, Patricia Briggs, Dana Cameron, Karen Chance, Alan Gordon, Simon Green, Charlaine Harris,
Toni L.P. Kelner, JA Konrath, Nancy Pickard, Kat Richardson, Dana Stabenow, Rob Thurman, and Carrie Vaughn.

I'm really looking forward to seeing these stories!