NaNoWriMo - What Now?

Lately a couple of stories have arrived in the form of characters. One is Laurel Finch, the little girl in this steampunk snippet, which is tentatively titled “Laurel Finch, Laurel Finch, Where Do You Wander?”. The other is this one, Cathay the Chaos Mage, who is wandering through a city that’s been in my head for a while now, Serendib.

Cathay was a Chaos Mage and didn’t care who knew it. Fear and envy were fine emotions to set someone spinning into a roil, and Cathay could sip from that cup as easily as any other. She dressed sometimes in blue and other times in green or silver or any other color except black. Her sleeves were sewn with opals and moonstones and within their glitter here and there another precious stone, set in no particular order, random as the stars.

A love of gambling was part of Cathay’s definition, and so she often wandered through the doorways of Serendib’s gaming houses, whether they were the high-tech machines of the Southern Quarter or the games of chance and piskie magic played in the alleys across town, in one of the neighborhoods where magic reigned.

Cathay stumbled into Serendib through a one-time doorway, like so many others. She was walking in a wood one moment, and then her foot came down and she was in a city. It made her laugh with delight, the unpredictability of it all, and she soon learned that she had come to the best possible place for a Chaos mage, the city of Serendib, which was made up of odd pockets and uncomfortable niches from other dimensions, a collision of cultures and technologies and economies like no other anywhere.

When she arrived in the city, she had three seeds in her pocket, and so she found an empty lot, precisely between a street where water magic ruled, in constant collision with the road made of fire and iron, so daily fierce sheets of steam arose, driving the delicate indoors and hissing furiously so it sounded as though a swarm of serpents was battling. She dug a hole with her little finger, and then one with her thumb, and a third by staring at the dirt until it moved. Into each she dropped a seed, and covered it up, and sat down to wait.

It was not long till the first inquisitive sprout poked through the dirt, followed by a second. She waited for the third, but it was, by all appearances, uninterested in making an appearance. She shrugged; two were enough for now.

I have been remiss about blogging, and I thought I’d like to share some of the stuff I’ve enjoyed lately. I do want to start by pointing out there’s just a couple days left on a Storybundle that includes my Nobeula-winning novelette, Carpe Glitter, as well as one of my favorite reads of 2019, The Traveling Triple-C Incorporeal Circus by Alanna McFail.

I finished Rin Chupeco’s The Bone Witch and The Heart Forger and really liked them both. The third volume in the trilogy, The Shadowglass, is queued up on my e-reader right now. An elegant, enjoyable series.

The screen play of Jordan Peel’s Get Out features an essay by Tananarive Due as well as plenty of deleted material and Peele talking about the script. Really lots of stuff that interested me and I’m really glad I picked it up. I will be going watch to watch the movie again.

Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women (1958-1963) is a terrific anthology with a lot of stories I hadn’t hit before. part of my self-directed reading this year (as with last year) is finding stuff written by women at the times when conventional wisdom says there weren’t a lot of women writing. Part of the fun of conducting the short story discussion group that’s part of the Chez Rambo community calendar is sharing and exploring some favorites. next up on our agenda, for example, is Kit Reed’s “The Food Farm.” Authors represented are Pauline Ashwell, Rosel George Brown, Doris Pitkin Buck, Otis Kidwell Burger, Sonya Hess Dorman, Joy Leache, Katherine MacLean, Judith Merril, Kit Reed, Jane Rice, Maria Russell, Sydney cvan Scyoc, Anne Walker

Alex Burcher’s alternative history As Ants to the Gods is dense but evocative prose that conveys the flavor of its world, where the Arab civilization has taken over Europe and is in the middle of its Industrial Revolution. The paperback comes out on the 10th and if the production values are as high as the e-book would imply, it will be a pretty book.

I hadn’t learned about the joy that is Rat Queens yet; currently on the 3rd book with the 4th on its way.

Since I love reading gaming supplements and systems, I was pleased to get the fulfillment for a Kickstarter I’d supported, the Monsters! Monsters! RPG Rules by Ken St. Andre along with a solitaire adventure, “Toughest Dungeon in the World.” Another system I picked up recently for reading is Tales from the Loop; I wasn’t entranced by the TV episode I watched, but I may be playing in a brief campaign of this so I wanted to check it out.

I’ve been watching season 2 of The Umbrella Academy (lots of fun but season 1 was better, IMO), Stargirl (so cheesy! so snappy and fun!), and Z Nation (halfway through season 3 and really enjoying it despite the fact I dislike zombies).