Welcome to 2018, the Year of Life, Dancing!

I've not posted in a while because there were a lot of things going on, not the least of which is I'm making the transition from senior scientist to full-time writer and it's taken me a while to get my feet back in the sidesaddle of the writing business again. By necessity and choice, I won't be writing sidesaddle any more, although my goal is to make that horse dance and prance to its best ability. The blog posts went by the wayside during all this as I didn't want to just post a fluff piece. I hate it when others do that so I don't want to do that either.


2017 was a tumultuous year. Ending my career as a scientist at the University of Cologne, some serious health issues, and lots of travel were pointy sticks in my brain and distracted me from my passion, which is writing and publishing. I succeeded in none of my publishing goals. On the other hand, I did do a lot of writing, it just didn't get to the finished stage that I had hoped before 2017 flounced right on out the door. My goal is to do better in 2018 Much much better. But to also enjoy life while doing it (hence, this year's name).

I also decided to change up my website (the new site will be at terraemotusbooks.com) and the basic design should be finished sometime soon. I'll be moving to WordPress and if everything goes well, all my posts from Blogger will go with me. Once I get it populated with my books and things, In the meantime, January will be a whirlwind month with several writing projects to finish and organize.

As soon as I have a more definite announcement about new releases and the website, I'll post it here.

Quick update: after writing this post, I saw that one of my short stories, A Gift from Fibonacci, is featured on The Wild Musette  this week. So hop on over and read it and also some of the other wonderful stories published by the journal. 

Here's hoping everyone will have plenty of room on the dance floor and lots of energy for the coming year. I'm calling it the Year of Life, Dancing. So let's put on our best dancing shoes and let loose.

photo credits:

Rusty Russ Electrifying Experience via photopin (license)

Dancing dolls, Klaus-G. Hinzen

The Truth Is Out There

This is one of my longer articles. I'm trying to do a few of them to break up the photo montages of archeoseismology travelogues and cute kitty and garden pictures. :-)

According to Wikipedia, the title of this article is a tagline (The X-Files) or an episode title (from the series Charmed and NCIS). The phrase is now so embedded in our consciousness that it might even qualify for a cultural meme.

But what is truth? Is it the same as fact? If it’s really ‘out there’, can we define it? How can we separate truth from truthiness, and why is this so important, both in the real world where we live and in the fictional world, where writers make a living telling lies and showing others how to do it (Telling Lies for Fun and Profit, by Lawrence Block, for example)?

At the Eurocon in Barcelona in November 2016, I participated in a panel about world-building. It was delightfully diverse in its make-up and in the opinions of the panelists about what constituted world-building. Without naming names, I’ll just summarize by saying that the ideas offered included making sure the cultural details included enough authority to be believable and draw the reader in, to constructing a fictional landscape that would be encountered in the scenes being written, to not having any care for world-building at all – i.e., the only thing that matters is story.

I can relate to the last sentiment. I live for story. But story (as in, A happens, then B happens, and so on) is not necessarily my first concern when I’m reading. To this (avid) reader, in the very beginning of a piece of fiction – or creative non-fiction – there are a couple of things
that always ensure I will keep reading. Character, yes. Setting, yes. What about Plot? Not so much, or at all, not at first. Action; please, no. I don’t need to be thrown down in media res. Oh, hell no. Ground me in the world. Make me care about someone. Anyone. And then you can lead me to action and plot all over the place.

My take on world-building as it pertains to a novel or even a piece of shorter fiction – in particular, the beginning – is that the world has to be presented to me, the reader, through the eyes of a character (or possibly a narrator who is not necessarily a character – think Lemony Snicket). I don’t care what kind of kick-ass Sensawunder setting is going on unless I am shown how the character thinks and feels about where she is. How does it smell? How does it taste? Is she happy here?  Is this her home or is she far away? That kind of thing.

To me, this has everything to do with world-building and relates to what the participants on the world-building panel were trying to say: culture, scenery, story. All these elements are valid interpretations of world-building, but by themselves, not enough.

Not to spare myself criticism, as a fellow panelist, I stammered through a short speech to give my take on world-building. I was imagining something similar to what I’ve begun to illustrate so far – but instead, I resorted to waving my hands (literally) and not making much sense. I resorted to using the word paradigm.

World-building is all about paradigm because paradigm is the basis for how we, as conscious beings, are able to create our selves as separate from the world around us. It is, essentially, on a personal or cultural basis, a model of the world. All people have a paradigm. I would go so far as to say that even non-people, members of the animal kingdom without a primate frontal lobe, also have a paradigm (see, for example, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal)
So, everyone has a different way of looking at the world. Big surprise (said in a Julia Roberts voice).

But I’m still hand-waving. We’re not getting much closer to defining what a paradigm is and what it has to do with world-building and what that has to do with truth (and truthiness).

According to the OED, the simplest interpretation, based on the Greek (and Latin) origins of the word, a paradigm is a pattern or a model. The OED also lists a (philosophical) definition: a mode of viewing the world which underlies the theories and methodology of science in a particular period of history. This definition is one that I particularly identify with because I’m a scientist. My personal paradigm is shaped, is defined, by my scientific background as a geoscientist. It doesn’t mean that my paradigm is any more valid (true) than a non-scientist’s worldview. But there are important differences.

What separates the general population from those with a scientific upbringing is not only their respective paradigms (because each branch of the sciences – hard and soft – has its own, sometimes complementary, paradigm), but how they process their data. Data are collected bits (and I’m using that term here descriptively rather than quantitatively) of information. I’ll even further quantify: Data are values measuring or reporting information about each individual in a group, including details of how the values go together and what they report. Values have units, depending on how the data were measured or collected (adapted from the excellent textbook Data Analysis with Excel: An Introduction for Physical Scientists by Les Kirkup). Another way to say it in laymen’s terms: data have to be about something, and that something is information.

Thanks to the polymath and pioneer Claude Shannon, often hailed as the ‘father of information theory’, the term information is now firmly embedded in the global human consciousness. Although defined by Shannon over three hundred years later, information, like many other terms (matter, force, motion) quantized in the Clockwork Universe phase near the start of the Scientific Revolution, Shannon reduced information to its basic unit, the bit. Because data is a collection of information, that implies that data, too, can be reduced to basic units. But that would be too simple a way to view such a complicated concept and to go further in that direction is not really necessary for the purposes of this article.

So how does data relate to paradigm? Data by itself – consisting of facts, measurements and other types of information – does not constitute knowledge. Knowledge (or wisdom) is the next step and a concept even more nebulous than data. By analyzing patterns in the data (and here we are getting closer to paradigm – remember the Greek origins of the word), knowledge can be gained, interpreted and passed on to others. Does knowledge imply truth? Open question.

Regardless of whether knowledge=truth, an interpretation of the data at hand based on analysis of the patterns (commonly achieved through classical statistical analysis, exploratory data analysis or some other kind of deterministic modeling) does reveal a version of truth consistent within a particular (scientific) paradigm.

Or not.

If the investigator (human or computer) reveals through their analysis a result that contradicts the prevailing paradigm, then a scientific revolution a lá Thomas Kuhn may be instigated (or propagated), and the paradigm may (eventually) be usurped or modified to include the new results (usually after repeated instances of such results – a clear argument in favor of the continuance of peer review, but that’s another discussion). This is the way Kuhn believes science works, and as far as it goes, it’s not a bad way to look at the idea of paradigms through the lens of scientific traditions and methodology.

On the surface, cultural or personal paradigms are not too different, but instead of being driven by data analysis and/or models, they’re driven by social norms. As summarized by anthropologists Frederick Errington and Deborah Gewertz in their essay, Excusing the Haves and Blaming the Have-Nots (in Questioning Collapse:  Human Resilience, Ecological Vulnerability, and the Aftermath of Empire, edited by Patricia A. McAnany and Norman Yoffee), “…what people want…is formed in the context of narratives: stories they are told and tell about the way the world works or might work, stories about what human beings might plausibly hope for.”

So social norms also represent a sort of collective knowledge or truth, based on cultural and/or religious traditions. Can a paradigmatic shift occur when we change the kinds of stories we tell? Are statements such as “Make (insert ‘your favorite nation’ here) Great Again” (implying that ‘your favorite nation’ is no longer great) or “Immigration is Bad for Us Because (‘reasons’)” or “Climate Change is a Hoax” examples of changing the story? Do they represent a revolution in the making? Or are these examples of mere truthiness?

Stephen Colbert (in his 2005 initial episode of The Wørd) lays claim to originating the word truthiness, defining it to be “a quality characterizing a ‘truth’ that a person making an argument or assertion claims to know intuitively ‘from the gut’ or because it ‘feels right’ without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination or facts.” In his well-reasoned and interesting book, Truth or Truthiness: Distinguishing Fact from Fiction by Learning to Think Like a Data Scientist, Howard Wainer discusses fracking, teacher tenure, and student testing by posing the question: what’s the evidence?

For the claims given above, we as writers can also ask the question, what’s the evidence supporting the statements?  Wainer suggests that non-scientists can also benefit from using the methods of science and don’t need detailed technical knowledge to move from truthiness to truth in such claims. He lists three essential parts to investigating a claim: 1) some carefully gathered data combined with, 2) clear thinking, and 3) graphical displays (can be simple and hand-drawn) to illustrate the results of 1) and 2).

Think like a scientist! It’s a worthy challenge for all of us, especially at this time in history, when everything suddenly seems complicated, when political factions are more opposed than ever, and sometimes there simply seems to be too much information. But how does this apply to us as writers, especially speculative fiction writers engaging in world-building?

World-building relies on writers supplying the reader with stories containing truth rather than truthiness. Readers know the difference.

1) The data that has to be gathered is either already within us or can be had with the click of a mouse or flipping through the pages (physically or electronically) of books or gained first-hand by traveling to the desired location (even if fictional, there may be a similar earth-based location that can be visited).

2) Clear thinking involves the use of character to reveal the truth of the world as seen through the character’s (or characters’) paradigm – culturally as well as scientific (if applicable). 
While exposition may be necessary in parts, to be effective, it will need to be made through the opinion and experiences of character. This seems to me to be one of the best ways to execute world-building, whether the world is pre-designed with careful planning or grows organically by, as Dean Wesley Smith terms it in his book of the same name, Writing in the Dark.

3) Make the graphical displays of the world with words and/or pictures (I can't draw worth a darn, so I use mental pictures and sometimes, lately, if I really need some external help, I collect pictures into a category on ,Pinterest), using all senses where possible as often as possible.  This helps me, helps my brain to reveal the truth of what the characters want, the stories they tell themselves. Their truths are out there.

The creative process involves a hefty portion of visualization. It’s one of the major muscles that needs to be developed when learning the craft of writing, and training that muscle never ends. As Ed Catmull, one of the founders of Pixar Studios, advises (in Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration), “Measure what you can, evaluate what you measure, and appreciate that you cannot measure the vast majority of what you do. And at least every once in a while, make time to take a step back and think about what you are doing.”

Practicing world-building is an excellent training method. And if a story develops out of it, so much the better. Maybe it will even be one that participates in changing or advancing our human paradigm.

photo credits:

Jens Rost TP150 "Fingers crossed" via photopin (license)

tantek IMG_0247.JPG via photopin (license)

Howdy, I'm H. Michael Karshis If you were looking for a sign this is it. via photopin (license)
 
Cowgirl111 Too Cute - kitten challenge via photopin (license)

Eurocon 2017 Dortmund

 

I'll be in attendance at the Eurocon starting some time later today.

My official schedule:

Panel: Refugees

 Friday, June 16, 18:00-19:00

Short Fiction Reading: Some Don't Like It Quite So Hot featuring Schattenreich characters Caitie and Hagen von der Lahn in one of a new series of time travel mysteries

Saturday, June 17, 14:00-15:00

Hope to see you there!

My 100 Favorite Novels, the May 2017 version

Greetings from sunny Sicily, to be more precise, Selinunte, where battles were fought and lost and earthquakes ravaged buildings. Maybe.

Thanks to Nathan Bransford for the challenge to create a top 100 novel list. He said it was hard. He was right. I have no doubt I've forgotten many that should be on this list - which is why I gave it a dated version. This is a little like forgetting to acknowledge people, which is why I have a slight feeling of anxiety for forgetting a novel I really loved. But, hey, I've read a crapload of books and not all of them have floated to the surface in trying to create this list.

There are also a lot of novels that I probably *should* have read but haven't yet and so aren't on the list or novels that others thought are in the 'best' category but didn't rank as my favorites.

I've only included novels in this list - no short story collections, no poetry, no plays, no anything but novels. The list is, for...reasons ('cause it's what I like to read most), top heavy with SFF and I don't think there are many non-genre favorites in there.

I listed novels that are a part of series separately, because sometimes there were only one or the other novel in a series that made it into the favorites list. In some cases (hello, Zelazny) this was not the case. I did include a few contemporary novels, but most of them are ones that made a strong impression on me during my impressionable years (ahem, Ayn Rand - that's why she made the list, and no, I'm not embarrassed about it).

I would have loved to include a couple by Dr. Seuss, but they don't fall under the category of novel. Another list, then, sometime, for Favorite Children's Books.

I have no links - maybe I'll add them later when I'm not so tired after a full day in the field or full of Sicilian wine and dust and ...

Alphabetical order. Hopefully, I haven't gotten that too far wrong.


1.    The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
2.    Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Douglas Adams
3.    I, Robot, Isaac Asimov
4.    The Robots of Dawn, Isaac Asimov
5.    Foundation, Isaac Asimov
6.    Foundation and Empire, Isaac Asimov
7.    Second Foundation, Isaac Asimov
8.    The Naked Sun, Isaac Asimov
9.    The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
10.    Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
11.    Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
12.    Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury
13.    Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury
14.    Sundiver, David Brin
15.    The Postman, David Brin
16.    Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
17.    Storm Front, Jim Butcher
18.    Stella Luna, Janell Cannon
19.    Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
20.    Alice Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll
21.    The Hunt for Red October, Tom Clancy
22.    Midnight at the Well of Souls, Jack Chalker
23.    2001, Arthur C. Clarke
24.    The Andromeda Strain, Michael Crichton
25.    David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
26.    A Study in Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle
27.    The Sign of Four, Arthur Conan Doyle
28.    Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
29.    The Game of Kings, Dorothy Dunnett
30.    Queen's Play, Dorothy Dunnett
31.    Disorderly Knights, Dorothy Dunnett
32.    Checkmate, Dorothy Dunnett
33.    Gardens of the Moon, Steven Erikson
34.    Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
35.    Eye of the Needle, Ken Follett
36.    The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
37.    The Day of the Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
38.    Cold Mountain, David Frazier
39.    Tintenherz (Inkheart), Cornelia Funke
40.    Outlander, Diana Gabaldon
41.    Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
42.    Sherwood, Parke Godwin
43.    Beloved Exile, Parke Godwin
44.    Firelord, Parke Godwin
45.    The Last Rainbow, Parke Godwin
46.    I, Claudius, Robert Graves
47.    Something from the Nightside, Simon Green
48.    The Anodyne Necklace, Martha Grimes
49.    The Old Contemptibles, Martha Grimes
50.    Help the Poor Struggler, Martha Grimes
51.    Pompeii, Robert Harris
52.    Enigma, Robert Harris
53.    Dune, Frank Herbert
54.    These Old Shades, Georgette Heyer
55.    The Corinthian, Georgette Heyer
56.    The World According to Garp, John Irving
57.    The Children of Men, P. D. James
58.    The Shining, Stephen King
59.    The Dead Zone, Stephen King
60.    Christine, Stephen King
61.    The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula K. LeGuin
62.    The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis
63.    The Call of the Wild, Jack London
64.    The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scotta Lynch
65.    The Crystal Singer, Anne McCaffrey
66.    China Mountain Zhang, Maureen F. McHugh
67.    Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
68.    Altered Carbon, Richard K. Morgan
69.    The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
70.    Sabriel, Garth Nix
71.    Crocodile on the Sandbank, Elizabeth Peters
72.    Gateway, Frederik Pohl
73.    The Cabinet of Curiosities, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
74.    The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
75.    The Disappeared, Kristin Kathryn Rusch
76.    Strong Poison, Dorothy Sayers
77.    Clouds of Witness, Dorothy Sayers
78.    Have His Carcase, Dorothy Sayers
79.    Gorky Park, Martin Cruz Smith
80.    Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
81.    Snowcrash, Neal Stephenson
82.    The Crystal Cave, Mary Stewart
83.    The Hollow Hills, Mary Stewart
84.    The Last Enchantment, Mary Stewart
85.    The Fellowship of the Ring, J. R. R. Tolkien
86.    The Two Towers, J. R. R. Tolkien
87.    The Return of the King, J. R. R: Tolkien
88.    Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow
89.    The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut
90.    The Time Machine, H. G. Wells
91.    The Once and Future King, T. H. White
92.    The Sword in the Stone, T. H. White
93.    Shadow and Claw, Gene Wolfe
94.    Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny
95.    The Guns of Avalon, Roger Zelazny
96.    Sign of the Unicorn, Roger Zelazny
97.    The Hand of Oberon, Roger Zelazny
98.    The Courts of Chaos, Roger Zelazny
99.    Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
100.  A Night in the Lonesome October, Roger Zelazny

The Looooooong Break

I'm back!

Sorry about the break, but I needed time to write, to read, to travel and time to think.

I know that's no excuse. I could have just popped in here and written something - what I'm writing, reading, thinking, etc.

But it was my alone time.

Everyone needs that. I am convinced I need a lot of it.

It's probably a delusion on my part, but spending time with myself has always been a big part of my life. When I was a kid it involved lugging tons of books home from the library and long bike rides and lone exploratory walks. As a teenager, it involved my record player and my bedroom and even more books from the library. I also took long walks. I wrote a lot of nonsense back then during those many hours in my room. But it was a good part of my life. Creative and positive as most things that include music and books tend to be. Those stolen bits of life were so good that now when I feel stressed or anxious or too many things from the outside world impinge on the inner world, I retreat to alone-space for a while.

Living with others means that alone-space has to be carved out of each day. But it's doable. I have headphones. And nighttime. And cats to share it with.

So now just a few pictures of our latest trip to one of the most breathtakingly beautiful landscapes on the planet - the American Southwest. America is still there in all her glory. But sometimes you have to look for her.

Our first night in Denver (just prior to the SSA 2017 meeting) included a tradition I almost never break when visiting the U.S. I need a real American-style burger. And, if possible, a margarita. Mission accomplished.

Here was the view of the Rockies from our hotel room in the Denver Downtown Sheraton. I've seen much much worse.










We walked from downtown through a quaint Denver suburb to the Denver Botanical Gardens. There's not much blooming in April (tulips!), but that's not the point. It's an immersion in plants and gardening styles. In arrangement of form and function, a welcome immersion in a gardening climate, or microclimate, not too different from my garden in far western Germany - between U.S. zone 5 and 6 - but considerably drier. But I was surprised at how many plants we had in common, the botanical garden and me in mine. Iceland poppies, violets, calla lillies and many more.

On the many paths through the garden, we discovered this artificial waterfall and our next garden project (even if ours might not be quite so grand and I doubt we will have koi - koi and tuxedo cats would not be good friends).

 

More margaritas after the meeting started. Of course there were.

At the 2017 Seismological Society of America Meeting, I was gratified and encouraged to learn that the spirit of science and the fight against science-deniers is very much alive in the U.S.A. from Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper's speech and very moving speeches from Frank Press Public Service Award Winner Professor Michael E. Wysession and Professor Gail Atkinson.

After the meeting, we followed Simon and Garfunkel's advice to Look for America and drove down to Mexican Hat, Utah for a quick two days to soak up the beauty and revel in that kind of alone-time that only comes with experiencing nature. We did it as best we could - by driving and that's not ideal - but it was what we could with the time we had.

We first picked up our rental car in Denver and headed down to Moab, our first overnight stop. We celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary at the same place we celebrated our 20th - at Miguel's Mexican Baja Grill on Main Street, a small but lovely Mexican restaurant in the middle of Moab. Reserve early or be prepared to wait for a table. We decided to eat early to beat the crowd.

Next we left Moab and headed down to Mexican Hat












We made photo shoot stops on the way at the Mexican Hat formation (left), Navajo Twins (right), and Gooseneck Canyon (bottom left).

Here at right we met one of the permanent residents of Gooseneck Canyon. He was only interested in our tortilla chips but was willing to pose for his lunch.








After a peaceful night in our hotel, The Hat Rock Inn (a very comfortable stay AND the view of the sandstone formations just above the San Juan River from the pool and hot tub is worth the price alone), we made the short drive down to the Utah-Arizona border, the Navajo Nation and Monument Valley.




These few photos cannot begin to capture its beauty that we, of course, shared with the many other motorists and tour vehicles. But it was April. I'd hate to see the traffic jams come June through August. I'd say April is a fantastic time to visit.

 

Our trip was complete on our last night in Mexican Hat when we treated ourselves to a Texas-style steak dinner eaten outside and cooked on a wood-burning swing grill. Perfect. 

On the return drive, we elected to drive through the Colorado National Monument - an area of geological transitions from Basin and Range to uplift and the Rocky Mountains. It's the land of free range cattle and other wildlife. We discovered that not only the mythology but the reality of the Marlboro Man (and Woman!) is still alive. We found a tiny slice of America here, intact and wonderful. No cell phones, no Walmarts, no distractions.

Our return to Denver consisted of a quick stop at Idaho Springs, with a restored gold mine (which we did not, unfortunately have time to visit) as a tourist attraction, before leaving the Rockies the next morning and heading to the Denver International Airport and home to Germany.

Photos: K.-G. Hinzen

January Sale and it's a tag team!

The first three books in the Schattenreich series will be FREE on KOBO (only on KOBO!) for part of January and extending into mid-February. The sales will be staggered and will also overlap, so note the dates. They are part of scheduled KOBO promotions and therefore the spread. So grab them when they go free (as of today, Primary Fault is already free). I've never done a sale like this before...and may not again for some time.

SO....

Primary Fault, Book 1 of the Schattenreich:
free on KOBO from January 9 - February 9, 2017

Shaky Ground, Book 2 of the Schattenreich:  

free on KOBO from January 16 - February 16, 2017

 

Double Couple, Book 3 of the Schattenreich: 

free on KOBO from January 23 - February 23, 2017

Ring in the New!

Wishing everyone lots of new books to read and health and happiness for 2017!

On a less than happy note: The sharonreamer.com website is down for a couple of days back up (currently - still haven't identified the problem) after encountering a problem with the server update. I apologize for the inconvenience, even though it's currently a static site. Just in case, I've posted universal links to my books below, you know, just in case you were looking for something to read. In the meantime. 

Just in case. And even better with  blep.

Primary Fault (The Schattenreich #1)

Shaky Ground (The Schattenreich #2)

Double Couple (The Schattenreich #3)

Shadow Zone (The Schattenreich #4)

Triple Junction (The Schattenreich #5)

Wings of the Guardian (Immortal Guardian #1)

Eye of the Sphinx (Immortal Guardian #2)

Die Schwingen des Wächters (Ewige Wächter #1)

Das Auge der Sphinx  (Ewige Wächter #2)

 

photo credit: 
mmariomm MMB_5496 via photopin (license)

Tambako the Jaguar Cute and happy Rialda lying in the grass via photopin (license)

My Ten Favorite Books of 2016

I have read over 100 books this year -- currently at 109 -- (my Goodreads goal was 100 and I finished that just after Thanksgiving - woohoo!). Only a few of those books were published in 2016. The rest were older and many of them were ebooks I checked out of my 'local' (U.S. library).

I enjoyed doing the Goodreads Reading Challenge (my second year - last year I committed to and finished  80 books, plus a few more) because it gives me a reference frame for viewing my addiction to books and also is - to me - interesting to see my reading journey over the course of a year. I'll definitely be doing another one next year. I may have missed cataloging a couple of books I read -- especially non-fiction since I don't always read those books linearly and extra especially don't for the ones I use for my novel researches. I also don't list the dnfs - the did-not-finish books -- for the obvious reason that I did not manage to finish them.

The books range from fiction to biographies, memoirs, writing craft, and fantasy to Regency romance (a recent but enduring addiction - I'd like to find more of these that are to my taste, i.e., clean -- I'm eager also to find some good gay Regencies -- recommendations are welcome), mystery, quantum physics and science fiction to self-help, U.S. history to Celto-Germanic history (gee, I wonder why I read that? hmmm....) and many historical novels (a recently rediscovered addiction).

This was the first year since 2012 that I personally did not publish a book. More about that -- no, I don't really want to dwell on it -- but the six-word, happy-for-now-ending short story is: I was sick. Now I'm better.

Barring any major life catastrophes, the lack of publishing will change in 2017. So, yes, I have plans to publish stuff next year.

Here are my top ten favorites of 2016, not necessarily in order, but who cares? It was hard enough just to pick ten, thank you very much. The links goes to the Goodreads page for the books because I don't want to influence your buying power. Some of these may also be available through your local library - I obtained many of them through mine.

Bertha's Thanksgiving Tale: A Triple Junction Excerpt

This Triple Junction excerpt contains a Thanksgiving tale from Bertha von der Lahn, the Burg Lahn storyteller, par excellence. It is a reworking of one of the Breton tales collected and retold by Anatole Le Braz and contained in the collection Celtic Legends of the Beyond: A Celtic Book of the Dead; this version has an introduction by Derek Bryce. It's available used in print and there might also be an older version downloadable from Gutenberg. As you might guess, Ankou, the Breton harvester of the dead appears more than once in these tales.

Bertha's tale focuses on the 99 inns along The Paths of the Dead and one of its travelers.

***

Gus and I leaned forward in anticipation. Bertha's eyes gleamed dark iron and cloudy nights. Her face lost the skepticism and impatience one usually saw when looking at my aunt. Instead, Bertha radiated wisdom and subtlety. She seemed to hold all of the secrets of the past and the future in her palms, pressed together in front of her.
 
She began her tale.

The man who used to be Haerviu trudged behind the others. The way was long, he heard the man before him say. But Haerviu didn't remember starting out on this path. He also didn't know why he was here, following behind a line of trudging people. It was dark, the way lit by a wan moon, not the harvest moon he remembered seeing last.

He stumbled as he tried to recall what he had last done before embarking on this journey. He remembered telling his wife he had to bring in the rest of the grain. He smelled rain. His wife Gael had begged him not to go out. It was already dark, and the dray horse was prone to be skittish at night.

He remembered hitching his horse to the wagon and setting out along the rows. And then… he only remembered hearing his horse whinny in fright.

And then he was here. Haerviu tugged on the tattered shirt of a man in front of him. "Do you know where we are going? Has his lordship called us to the castle?"

The man shook off his hand. Haerviu started to reach out again, thinking the man hadn't understood him, when a voice next to him, timid and gray said, "The Paths of the Dead, my good man. That's what we're traveling. The Ankou has collected us this very night."

Another spoke on his other side, "Here, it is always night."

Haerviu wanted to stop his beating heart. But he didn't feel his heart beating in his chest. He felt empty. And sad. He thought about his horse and his wife and his children. To be fair, he may not have thought of them in that particular order.

Gael had borne him ten children. Two of them he had buried before they reached their first year. Of the others, six remained to him. If it was true what the man had said, if he had died out there on his lonely field, then he only hoped his children would care for Gael. And for his horse. If she had spooked, then it was only her nature and not her fault. It was Haerviu's fault for not listening to his wife.

These thoughts kept him occupied for a time. Then he began to wonder just how long the Paths of the Dead were. He was already dead, so he couldn't die of boredom. But he would have liked to have a rest, to be able to come to terms with his lack of life. It seemed so unfair.

Could Ankou be bargained with? He'd return to give Death his due as soon as he made sure his wife was taken care of. That she had enough to get her through the winter. No reason she should suffer because of his foolishness.

The lights caught his attention. Before long, they came by a building. It looked like a traveler's inn, a

place where a man could put his feet up for a while and slake his thirst. Haerviu didn't think the Ankou would mind if he took a few minutes to do that on his way to whatever lay at the end of the Paths of the Dead.

He turned to go through the double doors leading into the wooden shack that, despite its shabbiness, looked inviting. A tug on his arm accompanied the gray voice, pleading, "Don't go in there, my good
man."

Haerviu could see no one. Then he looked down. A small man, a true dwarf, strode beside him.

"Why shouldn't I go in there?" he asked. "You could come with me. We could share a pint and talk about things. I have so many questions. And then I want to find the way back. There must be a way."

"Aye, 'tis said there is one," said the dwarf. "But this is not the place to while away your time. Answers ye may have, but they will not bring ye any joy." The man spoke with a northern accent, brisk and colorful and no longer timid.

"Well, then, maybe we'll see each other farther down the road," Haerviu said.

"Look for me in the halfway house," the man said.

Haerviu nodded his farewells and went in.

The tavern was full, and there didn't seem to be any place for him to sit. A shout from the back drew his attention. He saw a chair that was free and sat at a table with a half a dozen people. Three of them played musical spoons on the wooden planked table. The thump of the metal on the wood was deafening. Two others nursed their mugs of cider.

Haerviu felt a sudden deep thirst and called for the barkeep. Soon he had his own mug of cider. Before he took a drink, he chanced a look at the man sitting next to him. His skin was pale and thinner than Gael's Sunday crepes. The man had eyes the color of a storm-laden sky, but they were as lifeless as the man looked.

The man laid a bony hand on Haerviu's arm. "It's a little early on the journey to be drinking," he said.

Haerviu shrugged him off. Hopelessness settled over him. It seeped from all the corners of the room, weighing them all down like anchor stones. Like gravestones. "What's it to you. We're all dead. Whether we come to the end of the path sooner or later doesn't matter anymore." Tired and sore, the feeling permeated his ghostly body like a day and a night pulling his horse Soizig through the mud.

He couldn't accept the way things had turned out, and it made him just want to drown his sorrows.

"Stay your hand and go further," the man said. He rose. "I'll come with you so you won't be alone. The way is dusty and long, I'll not lie to you about that. But with two of us it will go quicker. At least let's make it to the halfway house together. Then we can have a drink. If you don't do that, you'll never end your journey."

"And what about you? Why are you sitting here still, a'takin' your ease?"

It seemed to Haerviu that a light flickered in the back of those cavernous eyes. "I've been waiting for someone like you. Someone with the strength to seek the path of return."

Haerviu put down his mug, and the two of them left the place. They rejoined the Path, but now there were no other dead ones. Just the two of them. The man pointed ahead. "Ninety nine inns line the way. At the halfway house, there we may talk."

"Why not here? It will ease the time."

The man shook his head. "Not here. Not now. The Paths of the Dead are long and untrustworthy. Think hard on the ones you left behind, on the things you left behind. Then, when we've got there, I'll tell you a story."

So Haerviu did what the man told him, his hopelessness shed as soon as they left the first tavern. He realized it was the place itself that had worn him down. He drew pictures in his mind of his life and his family and let that be his candle, brighter than the pale moon that tracked them. Haerviu counted the inns and lodges they passed, each one different; each one looked better than the last. A deep urge threatened each time: unshoulder his load and go in. Just one drink…

"One sip of cider can't hurt a man, can it? Not when our cares are behind us?"

"Listen to you, now. You're speaking from the desperateness of the dead."

"Aye," Haerviu said.

***

Haerviu and his gray companion reached the halfway house. Haerviu had lost count a ways back and had no concept of how long it had taken them. He didn't know they were there until his traveling companion pointed to it.

"That's it," he said. "Now we can go in."

"How do you know it?" Haerviu asked.

"I've been here before," the man said, but said no more.

This place was twice as big as the first tavern, furnished with wide benches, and an upper level - maybe more than one. Haerviu couldn't see past the gloom of the first couple of rickety steps. He didn't feel the need to go upstairs.

Many people about the place. Haerviu thought they look faded, as if they might not be there at all - just shadows that clung to the walls. The two men sat with their backs to the wall and faced the front door.

"Keep your eye on the door," the man said. "It's better that way."

"If you say so," Haerviu said. Mugs of mead appeared in front of them.

This time, the man raised his to Haerviu. "Drink, my friend, and let me tell you of the great forest, the forest of ancient priests. The one that marks the entrance to the Lands Beyond, to the Ankou's domain. And no man who passes within can return, lest he is one of Ankou's chosen."

The barley mead tasted heavy, good after the long trudge, and Haerviu felt that he could listen to this man's tale, maybe forever. It did his heart good -- the heart that no longer beat within his breast.
Haerviu nodded to the man to continue.

"Somewhere deep in the Lands Beyond, though, there is a way back. It has been traveled before, but not by any man among the living. It's said that there are demons and dragons and trials that no man whose heart is heavy with wrongdoing can surpass. It is said that the great Mirdan is imprisoned there."

Haerviu finished his mug and called out for another. It appeared in front of him before he had finished shouting for it. "Mirdan and Nyneve?" Haerviu snorted. "An old folk's tale for the superstitious ones. Them that still believe in korrigans and banshees. Mirdan ran off with one of the Fae, he did. That's what they tell. She imprisoned him on an island where a man may never return."

The gray man seemed to grow less substantial with each draught from his stone mug. His skin showed patches of bone and his face became more sunken and drawn. His voice took on a rattle. "There is an island. On that island is a cave. It is the cave that leads back to life. I know because I've seen it."

Haerviu put down his mug. "Then why didn't you go back? Why are you here? And how did you travel backwards on the Paths of the Dead?"

The gray man nodded at each of Haerviu's questions, as if he'd been expecting them. "My name is Bran. I was one of the Ankou's chosen. I followed him once to the Lands Beyond. But I am not dead. At least not in the waking world. Here, I might as well be dead. But until I am dead, Ankou will not put me in his great forest. That is my punishment. One of my punishments and the least one."

"Bran? From the tales?"

The man shook his head. "Not that Bran. I am human. At least I was. I don't know what I am now. Cursed, I'd say." He lifted his mug with a weary arm. It shook with the effort. A new mug appeared in front of him, filled to the brim. Bran took a sip and sighed, closing his eyes briefly. "Only the dead may pass through the cave. Since I am not dead, I cannot pass." He opened a malevolent eye at Haerviu. "And I should by rights be trapped there forever. But I escaped to return here." He shook his head. "'Tis not a better place to wait out eternity. But at least it isn't as dry." He tipped his mug again.

"And what would you have of me? Will you take me to this place and show me how to get through?"

Bran shook his head. "I may not."

"But I may." The timid voice of the dwarf spoke up from the side of the table. "I can take him to the island. For I'm not a man."

Bran looked at the tiny man. He laughed, and the effort split the skin next to his mouth, showing a bit of the skull that lay just beneath. "So you may. But will you?"
The man nodded. "Try my luck. 'Tis my death."

"Right you have it," Bran said. And he began to tell them the way of things and how they were to get through Ankou's Forest and navigate the Lands Beyond. But what became of them, no one knows, for when you traverse the Lands Beyond, if you manage to come back to the waking world, you are sworn never to tell anyone, for good or for ill. And it's a pact made in blood with a curse that goes beyond death, as Bran will tell you. Because he's been there.

***

Bertha paused and seemed to come back from a long way off. She cleared her throat. Sebastian refilled her Armagnac. She nodded to him and drank down a portion of it. "Sorry, Basti. I didn't mean to pick such a long one. It just came out that way."

I poured myself more coffee and gestured with the cafetiére to Hagen. He nodded, and took a cup for himself. Heinrich had been so rapt with Bertha's story, he had to shake himself to bring himself back to the present.

When Sebastian came back to us, he poured Heinrich an Armagnac and one for himself. "Where did you get that tale, Berti?"

Bertha shook her head. "Just a minute." She put a hand on the piano, her eyes faraway again. Then she finished her Armagnac and walked to us, setting her glass on the table.

"Do you want to sit?" I asked.

She shook her head. "No, Schätzchen. I need to stand awhile. Otherwise, the tale don't settle right. Down here." She smiled at me and put her hand on her stomach. And then bent her head for a few moments, her palms together.

We waited, each of us wrapped in our thoughts. Heinrich's song about Mirdan had obviously inspired Bertha to tell this tale. I wondered if she had made it up on the spot. But it sounded too real for her to have invented it.

"I've seen the other side of that cave," I said.

***

 

photo credits

PeterThoeny Leaving the circus behind, a new path opens up via photopin (license)

Wayne Stadler Photography Never is a Promise via photopin (license)

Big Grey Mare Happy Thanksgiving To All via photopin (license)

Back from Eurocon!

Returning from a pleasant 19 degrees C in Barcelona to, oh, about 3 degrees in Cologne, I am finally adjusting. I brought a mild head cold back, lots of memories, and some books (see below). Thanks to everyone who came to my panels and to my co-panelists - who were awesome and fun to listen to.

I particularly enjoyed talking about world-building with Aliette de Bodard, Charles Stross, Andrzej Sapkowski  ('the defense rests'),  Concha Perea and successfully moderated by Haralambi Markov. I thought of all kinds of things I could have (and should have) said after the panel. This happens to me every time. Even after nearly 20 years teaching at the University of Cologne, I sometimes get tongue-tied on panels and my brain freezes up. I'm sure this never happens to anyone else. So I would love to do a blog post or article on this one.  

The mythology panel was also informative since Kjartan Yngvi Bjórnsson and Snæbjörn Brynjarsson (who will hereafter always be known as The Iceland Guys) helpfully informed me that the Vikings will be returning to Cologne next year. So if you live here, make sure you've got your fire extinguishers and smoke alarms up-to-date by then. But if the Vikings show up around Karneval time, there's a very good chance no one will notice anything unusual (except perhaps the burning buildings).

The panel was beautifully moderated by Juliane Honisch whose insights into her work with Alpine folk tales were enlightening and makes me want to rush out and buy all her books.

Regina Kanyu Wang had some interesting and unexpected things to say about Chinese mythology and folk tales, the awareness of the Chinese people of foreign mythologies, and the differences between how people view mythological creatures and deities, East versus West.

It was lovely to meet so many people from so many countries and have so many tapas (with so much wine to wash them down with) in so short a time.

I was forced to change my suitcase packing ritual at the last minute due to the Gigamesh bookstore's dealers room sale on the last day (2 books for 1 euro), but I did restrain myself and only bought eight books. Shame on Gigamesh. I also snagged a copy of fellow Albedo One co-conspirator Dave Murphy's recently published Walking on Ripples, also available from the publisher, Liffey Press.

But I didn't exceed the weight limit and I got them all home. I'm now fighting with Finn MacCool over who gets to read what first. He wants the Tooth Fairy. Hmm. We shall see.

Finn has his paw on One-Eyed Jack but I know he's waiting to steal The Tooth Fairy and take it back to his kitty lair.

Heading Off to Eurocon 2016 in Barcelona

If you are attending, I'll be around most of the time and would love to chat.

I don't have any definite plans but will likely tag along with any happy group of people heading in the direction of nearby pubs and bars. Or a coffee shop if there's a good one near the Con.

I'm on two panels: Friday afternoon (How to Build a Fantasy World) and Sunday afternoon (Mythology into Fantasy) and hope to see you there.

Triple Junction excerpt: The Dance of the Dead

Just in time for Halloween, Samhain, or Kala Goañv in the Breton language, an excerpt* from Chapter 6 in book 5, the final book of The Schattenreich, Triple Junction

The meandering trail through gentle hills led us into a bowl-shaped dale. A single-file of forlorn souls marched downwards from the hills opposite us. Hagen called a halt when we reached a jumble of moss-covered boulders to the right of the path.

“Just find a place to sit comfortably. We won’t have long to wait,” Hagen said.

 Heinrich slung his binioú kozh in preparation for playing, and Sebastian sat next to me, taking my hand in his.

“Who are they, Tadig?”

“Those who’ve departed but have not yet found peace.”

“What are they doing here?”

“Celebrating. And remembering. Like us. Look. A few of the Tud join us.” My father pointed behind us, to the path we had just taken.

A line of about a dozen Tud, one of several races of beings who inhabited Ande-dubnos, came our way. These were the tall ones with fair skin and long silvery hair. They stood near a group of boulders to the left of the path. A couple of them nodded to us, and they watched Heinrich expectantly.

Then I saw Ankou. He stood where the path opened out to the grassy dale, where the dead had just passed. He wore his black cloak and wielded his iron-tipped staff, his legs spread. His hair blew behind him, his skin an unearthly white. He waited until the last of the dead passed by. When they were all gathered in the middle of the downs, Ankou rapped his staff on the ground three times.

The dead began to sing. Ankou rapped his staff three more times. Some danced, but mostly they
moved amongst each other in a grim Irish wheel, touching one other as they passed, many of them turning, gazing as if searching for someone or something, the short cropped grasses not even marked by their passing. Hagen gazed in the same way. He tapped Heinrich on the shoulder.

Out in the middle of the dale, Hagen and Heinrich’s mother Isabel glided past the other souls. Her face had none of the life and hope so visible in the pictures Heinrich had shown me in Dinard, but she was beautiful, with a kissed-by-moonlight paleness contrasting her long dark hair and slender form.

Beautiful and dead. So near but so far away.

Heinrich played a few notes on his bagpipe, then stopped to sing to her in Brezhoneg, not a funeral dirge, but a song that sounded both happy and sad. Heinrich’s clear voice conveyed respect and longing.

Isabel glanced once our way and then continued her search. Was she looking for Hagen’s father Theodor? One of the dead men took her hand and led her in a slow dance. She didn’t resist. The others joined them, swaying and turning to Heinrich’s song.

Ankou kept a close watch on his flock. When one of them strayed too far towards us, he would call them back with a commanding voice that touched me in the deep place where my fear of him still lived. But what could he possibly threaten the dead with?

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer to that question, but as I turned to ask Hagen, Ankou stood before us. He had moved across the dale in less time than it took me to open my mouth to speak, as quick as the dead men who had led us here. I turned my face away, unwilling to meet Ankou’s eyes.

His claim on me had not yet come to pass; he would have to wait. I was here with the man of my heart’s desire tonight and was still very much alive and a part of his life. Ankou bowed and reached out a hand to me. Was he asking me to dance?

I shrank back. Hagen reached me and took my hand in a tight grip. He held out a hand to ward off Ankou’s advance. “Your claim on Katarin is not yet due. What do you seek from the living?” A ring of light glowed a ghostly white on Hagen’s little finger.

Ankou bowed. “A dance to celebrate Kala Goañv and the day of your promising.”

Was tonight's joy to be the cause of hostility? Hagen couldn’t tell me about the unfinished business between them because of a geis. But if all Ankou wanted was a dance, then I could do that. I took my hand from Hagen’s and extended it to Ankou.

A light touch on my shoulder made me turn my head.

“May I have the pleasure of a dance with you, milady?” Brionne, the Tud I met at the Sea of Dreams, the night Heinrich and I made love for the first time, stood next to me. For the evening’s festivities, he wore a burgundy red suit featuring a double-breasted long-tail coat that went well with his platinum hair. Hagen smiled and nodded his head in approval.

Brionne bowed to Ankou and turned back to me. Ankou’s face betrayed no emotion, but a brief smile of acknowledgement appeared.

I gave Brionne my hand. “I’d be honored.”

The other Tud danced with us, their long arms and legs swirling, rising and falling. Ankou swiveled his head to watch us. Their enthusiasm pushed me into a frenzy, just like on Kala Hañv, the Maifest, when I ran with the Tud to honor Eduard’s passing. Here it had none of the urgency of the Wild Hunt I had fled.

I didn’t need to escape Death. Not tonight. Not yet.

Hagen joined Heinrich in his song, his voice higher but in harmony. I’d never heard him sing before. The words poured out evening a rich timbre; although I didn’t understand their meaning, the carefully contained emotion behind them seemed clear. Sebastian added his voice to the chorus, and put his arms across their shoulders. Heinrich ended the song with a few plaintive notes from his Breton bagpipe.

I curtsied low to Brionne and thanked him for the dance before turning again to the dead. The souls in the middle of the downs continued their own songs, voices strengthening and then fading away. Sobs and cries issued forth. They intensified their movements as if working up to a grand finale. At a signal from Ankou, they abruptly turned and began the climb back to where they had come from.

Hagen took a few steps closer to Ankou. They faced off, their words swallowed in a wind that swirled around them, a wind Ankou caused with a flourish of his iron rod, so that none of us were privy to their conversation. Heinrich held me around the waist.

Finished with what they had to say to each other, Druid and Death regarded each other across the short distance between them before Ankou turned and followed his flock, his long hair flowing around him. He turned once more and bowed to me before continuing on his way. Hagen started after him, a momentary sadness lingering in his expression, until Sebastian clasped him by the shoulder.

We began the trek back home.

*** 

Wishing everyone a safe and peaceful Kala Goañv

*redacted to minimize spoilers.

Illustration credits:
Spooky Forest, j. s. suley via istock
Pompeii bronze, K.-G. Hinzen
Dancing in the Moonlight, Demoncic via istock
2015 Pumpkin carved by K.-G. Hinzen