Te Karanga

New Zealanders are, in general, a fairly odd sort of folk. Of course I'm allowed to say these sorts of things, being that I am one, but it's relevant to the post because I'm actually trying to do something constructive and write a little review of a book I read just recently.

Now, although I've had vague intentions of reading this book for months I only got around to it because I heard mention of a competition run by the authors, and though I knew it was too late to get into that I went ahead and ordered the book in question anyway. It's called Phoenix Rising, and it's the first book in the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series by Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris. The second's out sometime this year, I believe, and yes I will be laying my hot little hands on it. But the other reason I wanted to have a read was because one of the protagonists is a New Zealander.

When you come from New Zealand, you tend to have...a weird relationship, with seeing your country or your people on television or in cinemas or in books. It's...not common. I mean, we have our little publishing houses and film/television studios, but it's not a huge thing. I mean, the first time I saw London I was a bit agog because the whole city's like a giant filmset come to life, in my mind. I presume I'd think the same of New York, if I ever get there (yes, I am still bitter about the hurricane, shut up). I mean, I go overseas and can't go three streets without tripping over a fellow Kiwi on their travels, but in terms of popular mass media...you don't see a lot of New Zealanders around the place. Or much of New Zealand, to be honest. (I still cackle about one of the few times I've seen Dunedin in print, it was named for its proximity to R'yleh. I always KNEW it was a hellhole, but come on!)

Still, although Phoenix Rising is set in ye olde londontown, in the late eighteen hundreds, one of the two protagonists is Eliza Braun, and she's a New Zealander. Actually, they name her by what proves to be both something of a descriptor and a perjorative -- she's a "colonialist." Which I found mildly hysterical for a couple of reasons, but mostly because my automatic reading of the word is in a Māori accent with a couple of added adjectives, as in "bloody thieving colonialists." Oh, dear. And before you look at me askew, by birth I myself am a Bloody Thieving Colonialist; my direct heritage is Scots and English, not to mention I have English ancestors who moved to Ulster at a time when the Irish didn't much care to have the English dropping by the neighbourhood. It's in my blood, obviously. With that said, as a Kiwi who has lived in the UK, it's far more common for us to be named as Antipodeans, which is also hysterical in that our true antipodes actually only make landfall in Spain. Er. I've also been asked if "Kiwi" is an insult, and been looked at truly askew for naming my ethnicity as Pākehā. God, I love being a New Zealander.

But yes, Eliza's a Kiwi, and you can tell by both her speech and her action. She's adorable, although she's also a femme fatale, as such. She has an armoured corset, for crying out loud. Although I was most charmed by her vanity pounamu pistols, set with hei-hei. It's such a lovely little detail that probably just sounds cool to non-Kiwis, but sets our little hearts a-flutter. I also enjoyed the fact that when Eliza got well and truly plonked she decided to sing the national anthem, much to Books's dismay. I personally have no idea when the thing was written, but it was a lovely little touch. Because honestly, drunk New Zealanders in London? Will reel around with their baffled British mates singing songs from the homeland no-one but us has ever heard of. Ha.

One thing I did have a giggle at, though, was the way Eliza's colleagues called her a "pepperpot." And while Eliza is indeed a fiery redhead with luscious curves, carries knives, and has explosive theory down pat, when English blokes talk about pepperpots I only get one mental image. Oops.

But instead of going on about my love for a countryman, I should talk about the actual story. It's a solid steampunk adventure, in which the odd couple are thrust together due to circumstance and forced to work together to save the Motherland from certain doom at the hands of a shadowy secret society (NO ROMANS ALLOWED...sorry, Rory). From that you can see it's a very straightforward story; this isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it's told well, but there weren't a lot of surprises. I still enjoyed the ride, though it was mostly for the characters we met along the way.

I've already extolled Eliza, so onto Books -- and you can guess from the name combination of Books and Braun that Books is the brains and Eliza the brawn. There is a bit of irony, too, in that Books's first name is Wellington; Eliza never mentions where she's from, from memory, but Wellington IS the capital of New Zealand. Or at least...it may have been, then? Our capital moved a bit in the early years (and considering some clever bint built Wellington on a major faultline, it's still a bit Howl's Moving Castle for some people). With that said, whether Wellington was the capital then or not, the steampunk history of the piece means it's an alternate reality to our own. I mean, Prince Albert died in some sort of crazy experiment, for starters. And there are AIRSHIPS. Everyone loves AIRSHIPS.

...and I'm shunting aside poor Welly here. Er. He's quite lovely in his own right; I have a softness for his kind of character, and he's basically Ianto Jones. Which dovetails neatly with the fact that I was expecting this to be all a bit Torchwood...which it was, and wasn't. (I'm not saying that it's aliens, but...actually, it wasn't aliens.) I'm not actually a fan of Torchwood, it was just...all flash and no pay-off, and went so hard on the fanservice that I imagine even Misato Katsuragi would have been "Dude, too far." Phoenix Rising did have a moment where I had to think Captain Jack would have been In Like Flynn, but overall it was far more solid and therefore a far more enjoyable read.

I'm trying not to be too spoilerish here, I guess, so I should probably get around to shutting my mouth. But it's safe to say that this was a fun read, for all it mostly kept to the tropes of the genre rather than subverting them. I'd like to see a little more of that, really; it would mix the pace up a bit, and keep me guessing. As it was, I knew where there book was going pretty much from the get-go, though I did have one surprise I won't mention just so I don't ruin it for anyone else. The writing style is also very easy to read, and is so strikingly visual I actually have to wonder if the book wouldn't be better as either a graphic novel or a film. Which isn't to say it doesn't work as a novel, because it does -- it's just that I have to think the personalities of Books and Braun would lend well to a more visual medium. (This series needs a massive fandom. IT NEEDS MASSES OF FANART, DAMMIT.)

So, this review has been utterly muddled and you probably wonder what on earth I actually thought about the book. I liked it. I really did. Despite the fact I found the story to have few true twists, the characters were compelling enough to keep my attention -- and it really is the characters I come for. Eliza was just a wonder from the start, and Wellington joined the party with some lovely character development over the novel that made it all worth it. So, I'd say if you want a nice steampunk read, give this one a whirl. I'm definitely waiting for the next one to make landfall soon. <3

"And good evening, Colin."

I haven't managed to do much of note the last week or so. I arrived back from Australia and between trying to get over jetlag, catching up with some fellow local writers, and going back to work a day and a half after getting back into the country...I'm exhausted. Not to mention I've got the most ridiculously fruit-stuffed Christmas cake in the oven this afternoon. I've never made a fruit cake before. I don't even like fruit cake. But as I'm well-known as the sort of madwoman who'll bake anything on a dare (yes, Oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookies, I'm looking at you) my mother told me to make one for her. So...we'll see how that turns out. Although with that said it's not like I have to eat it.

Otherwise, I spent Saturday most emphatically not writing, which was at least partially because I took a break from Dany and Tyrion and my other favourites to read the book that arrived in Saturday's post. The Scottish Prisoner. I've been dying for this book for months, and...finally. I did learn a lesson about checking release dates, mind you; I knew the UK date was later than the US one (or at least I thought it was) and when in Australia I ordered it from Amazon.com. And when I was at Whitcoulls last week hunting out A Storm of Swords for a laugh I checked the new release section and almost had an apopolexy when I saw that The Scottish Prisoner was there. Cheers, New Zealand. You suck, New Zealand. God, I love you, New Zealand.

Now, I'm a bit of a rabid Lord John Grey fangirl so of course instinct demanded I buy it, but my bank account is unhappy with me after so many weeks of not working, so I actually kept my cool and didn't buy another copy when I knew I had one coming in the post. I also got the next A Song of Ice and Fire to distract myself with anyway, but you know. [slaps hand] I'm a bad fangirl. (Actually, I still haven't read Lord John and the Plague of Zombies yet either, so I am a doubly bad fangirl.) But to make up for it I'm going to have a ramble here now anyway. I hesitate to call it a "review" because it's not like I have a clue what I'm talking about at the best of times, but I want to have a little SQUEE HANDFLAIL WHEEEEEEEE moment, so here we are. It's going to be filled with SPOILERS, so ye have been warned.

Like I said above, I've been waiting for this book for ages. Mostly it's because I love Lord John like the foaming-at-the-mouth idiot woman that I am, but it's also because it promised to give some real insight into John and Jamie's "friendship." Said friendship was utterly in tatters after Brotherhood of the Blade, and although we know from Voyager and beyond that the two of them managed to come to an understanding before John married Isobel, it was obviously not something that could be overcome with mere words. It needed action -- acta non verba, if I may be pretentious enough to pretend I know anything about Latin, ha ha ha (tip o' the hat to Herself there for teaching me the Latin in the first place) -- and fortunately for us, we got an entire book of action. In words. Oh god the irony, it burns. And you know I fucking love it.

I have to say first off that I have a copy of iTunes that is possessed by some sort of music demon. Or possibly a leprechaun. I already knew from having read various generous extracts that Jamie and John would be taking a trip to Ireland, and the moment I opened the book to the first page iTunes -- which was on random -- promptly brought up The Rocky Road To Dublin. Cue hysteria on my part. Incidentally I apologise for the leading photograph of this entry; that's not Ireland, it's the Highlands of Scotland. I've never been to Ireland myself; partly it's because I am a moron, but I also have this funny little thing about Ireland. By descent I'm English and Scottish -- although a Scotsman once told me I was Danish -- but my father has a family tree on his mother's side going back to the sixteenth century that he once told me proved we were Irish. I read it, then flipped out and emailed him back wailing DAAAAAAAAAAD WE MOVED TO ULSTER FROM ENGLAND and...yeah. I'm neither a Paddy nor a Mick, I'm a bloody Pom. Oops. (Although my great-grandmother was actually Scottish; apparently my English grandmother was terrified of her. Er.) So, yes, going to Ireland in books is about as far as I get right now. (And in my head, every Irishman sounds like Dara and Ed. Ha.)

So, to get back to the book. Overall I enjoyed it -- it's not my favourite of the supplementary material, I don't think, but Brotherhood is somehow hard to top for me. (And not just because through said book Lord John saved my life in Mexico. Long story.) But there is definitely a lot to recommend it. My only complaint is that I felt it could be longer, which is hilarious in hindsight because I've felt a few of the Lord John books have been a bit overlong in the tail. It wasn't even so much the story that I felt could be longer, I think I just wanted more detail. It's the richness of Gabaldon's writing that I always keep coming back for, and I didn't get as much of that here as I usually do -- though I might change my mind on a reread, because I was chewing through this thing like the word-glutton I am. I know I took my time over various extracts when they came to light and got far more satisfaction that way, so you know. Take that one with a grain of salt.

The characters, again, are what stood out for me. Naturally I adore Lord John, and even though I am not actually a huge fan of Jamie's, I do like his narrative voice. And yes, you heard that right; I am a full-blooded presumably straight female who wouldn't jump Jamie Fraser's bones at first opportunity. I'm not sure why that is; I find him to be a fascinating character, but he doesn't appeal to me the way I know he does to most other readers. I suspect it's just because my tastes are odd, but there you go. I do, however, love his narrative voice; Voyager is one of my favourite books in the series because we get to hear from Jamie. And considering the way this book deals with Jamie and John's friendship, I thought it was a very good idea for Gabaldon to have it told from both viewpoints rather than just John's. There's a running theme through the book about the two of them meeting as equals, and by sharing the narraitve rather than it being strictly from John's only really gave that a strong resonance. I enjoyed that. It also gave plenty of opportunity for warm fuzzies between Willie and Jamie, which considering the state of their relationship by the end of An Echo In The Bone...ooh, yeah, fluff is handy right now.

So, John and Jamie. Brilliant. But their supporting cast is wonderful -- Tom Byrd, I just want to squishle. And it says something for Diana's writing -- and perhaps my own gross stupidity -- that I fully thought Tom was going to die in Ireland. (I say "gross stupidity" because I've already read an extract of Plague of Zombies that says Tom is alive, and I know that happens after Prisoner.) I was very, very sad. And then very, very happy. I also have a thing for John's brother Hal, who is a stubborn son of bitch with an honourable streak a mile long; Jamie makes a comment towards the end of the book that he envies the brothers their company, and I can see why. Hal and Johnny are just...Hal and Johnny. As someone with two brothers and one sister, I can safely say that there is nothing in this world quite like a sibling who has your back. And though Jamie still has Jenny, it's...different. I love my brothers, but my sister is the one who knows me best. I imagine it to be much the same with men and their brothers and sisters.

Hal's wife, Minnie, is also a revelation in this book -- although I was fond of Minnie anyway. Harry Quarry is a force unto himself -- a very poetic force, albeit one best suited to the saucier imprints of Mills and Boon -- and I had a little snicker when John Hunter turned up again. Oh, that man is a prick and a half; when I was in London earlier this year I went to the Royal College of Surgeons and saw his collection. Tsk, tsk. I've seen "interesting" anatomical collections before, being that I spent so much time wandering in and out of the Lindo-Ferguson Building at Otago, but even I was taken aback by what the man had. (I was particularly revolted by the half-child's head, which says a lot as my previous "worst ever" was the conjoined twins who did not look to me like they'd died at birth; they seemed far too old in my admittedly limited experience.) But it was a nice touch to bring him back for the concluding duel of the story.

As to the story itself...it was actually a good deal easier to follow than some of John's other stories. That may be just because I'm an idiot, but there you go. It flowed like a river, picking up pace and flotsam along the way, and then hit a dam before spilling over into a very nice conclusion. I did have one complaint, but the more I consider it...well. A month or so back I made a smart-ass remark on the compuserve forum that my wilful brain has a happy-ever-after scenario that involves John running away to Germany to live with Stephan von Namtzen where they can raise sausages ever after. Said sausages referring to dackels (dachshunds), naturally, but only on the surface of the matter. Ha ha ha. I have a particular fondness for dachshunds, you see; ever since I was eleven or twelve I've been of a mind to acquire one and name it Colin. Which is entirely the fault of Prince George. ...ironically enough set in the same time period as this novel. Ha. So you can imagine I was overjoyed when Stephan reappeared.

Weirdly enough, I wasn't a hundred percent satisfied with it, but it may be because I am, in the words of Jamie Fraser, something of a "wee pervert" myself. I wasn't quite satisfied with the change in Stephan and John's relationship, and at first I thought I was just being a jerk because of a lack of detail. (I've been rereading the other stories in Red Velvet and Absinthe the last few days, you see; explicitness is the name of the game there!) I then realised that for all John was clearly over Percy, I was not getting the same sense of intimacy between John and Stephan that we were treated to with Percy and John in Brotherhood. And I don't mean in the sense of sex -- the emotional intimacy wasn't the same. And for a bit I couldn't decide if it was because John was pulling back, or if it said something else. From the lovely scene in Brotherhood it's very clear that John and Stephan are emotionally close, and the end of the book sorted it for me. Stephan sent John a dackel, and invited him hunting. And I grinned. Not just because I mentally named the poor creature "Colin," but also because I realised what it was. I love Stephan, and I love him with John, but they strike me as friends more than anything else now. And not in a bad way. Much as I wanted them to be something more, I think they are best as friends. Not that I'd object to being proved wrong, but it's all good. They're friends, but not exactly confidants in the way John was with Percy, or even with Jamie.

The relationship between Jamie and John was particularly lovely to watch develop anew. I was particularly struck by the ending, where Jamie, John and Willie are watching the horses and John opens with the Torremolinos Gambit. It was a wonderful callback to the first time their friendship went balls-to-the-wall in Voyager, and it also put John, Jamie and William together. I've always been fascinated by that triad, particularly as it is one of the things that I believe ties John and Claire together much much later. While John is no-one's "woman," neither is Claire -- they're both partners to Jamie in terms of his two children, and this lovely little scene almost has them as a peculiar little family. Yet they're all unaware of it, which gives it a nice echo we'll see later. I love that sort of thing; I think that's what makes both reading writing prequels and supplementary material so much fun.

Of course, I have the brain of an idiot and I was watching The Venture Bros. earlier yesterday, and for some reason as Jamie and John began to work together I started mentally picturing them as Brock Samson and Rusty Venture. Which is perhaps a bit of a disservice to John, because he's nothing like Rusty. It was just the juxtaposition of the huge guy ostensibly working for the much smaller man and yet the two of them having a laugh together as the relationship's more equal than that...although yes, I do have days when I mentally picture Jamie as a red-headed Brock. ...nice ass, Samson. But that's the heart of it; I absolutely adored how John and Jamie went from John's hilarious "I wouldn't piss on him were he burning in the fires of hell" comment to playing chess again by the end of it. And it was believeable. Though we already knew it was a given, they had to work for it. And they did. That's what I liked so much about this story; as I said above they came together as equals, and that was what allowed them to work through their issues with one another and part as something very much like friends. For being the one to set that up and make it possible, I wish Hal would take me on the hearth rug. Ha.

The particular stand-out moments to me were Jamie rescuing John from the castle, which was a lovely bit of irony considering there was some vague talk of Jack Randall through the whole thing. I've always wondered how much John knew, you see; I couldn't imagine Jamie ever telling him, but John does know something happened in Jamie's past and I can't help but wonder if he'll ever put it together. After all, John's not stupid -- and I liked how he came to realise why Jamie stayed at Helwater. I actually thought it was a bit cruel of Jamie to lead John to think it was for Betty, because while I harbour no belief that Jamie would ever want John the way John wants Jamie, I thought lying about something of that nature was a bit unfair. But John was a lot more magnanimous than I was, and it was a nice way to lead him to realise that Willie was Jamie's son. I also liked how Isobel, Jamie and John became connected through Wilberforce, as it says a lot to me about how John came to wed Isobel and why Jamie was a bit apprehensive about it considering the circumstances. Also, Lord Dunsany arranging for John to become Willie's guardian even before John weds Isobel was nicely done. These people are connected, in so many ways. One of my favourite Stephen King novels, Bag of Bones, talks about how the TR-90 (a "town" of a sort) is filled with people connected by "underground cables" you can't see but you feel, and that's what I got here. Heartstrings, strung out between them all. And even though you already know these people will be connected to one another long into the future, you can see why even now. I read the first book as Cross-Stitch rather than the US title of Outlander, and though I like the latter better for the series as a whole it feels like a callback to the former title to me. It's a tapestry, and the threads move in and out of the weaves of the others. I love that. That's why I read these books.

There are a lot of other things I could say, but my brain is dying this afternoon. And like I said, I need to reread the book anyway. But there's just...a richness to the story that I enjoyed. I must unashamedly admit that John is my favourite character, but I think it was because John finally got to do something with Jamie that was meaningful. Because they were equals. I liked John from the moment I first started reading from his POV in Voyager (I don't recall thinking much of him in Dragonfly In Amber), and I can assure you that I remember very well reading that book in Christchurch. I all but shrieked at him when he made his Torremolinos gambit after the chess game and reached out for Jamie. I knew it was not the time. It put them on an unequal footing that went beyond the standard governer/prisoner thing, and although we knew they worked through it we never knew how. And to finally see it, all these years later...I feel quite privileged, somehow. It's such a vital and strong part of John's character, this constant love for Jamie, and seeing how the two of them can deal with it to the point that they can be friends...

The duel struck me deeply. I loved how it was told through Jamie's eyes but with John's words in his mind; they were principle and second, and almost in a way they were one body in that moment. Considering they can never be one in the way John might wish -- and my heart broke for him when he heard Jamie calling for Claire and ached to be someone who could give him solace -- this did my poor bruised heart right in. There's a lot of things in this book, in terms of the different relationships between people and the reasons for it -- love, honour, duty, filial association, that sort of thing. John gets brotherhood from Hal and a more physical kind of love from Stephan, but from Jamie...it's an understanding. It's not romantic, but it's not platonic either. It's something else entirely. It acts, actually, as a very strong reasoning behind the oddity of John and Claire's consummated marriage, but that's entirely another discussion.

But yes, this is all getting very disjointed. I just loved the little details of this book, too; John's repeated motif of the master couplet said so much for the theme of equality, and I also had a good little snigger at the poem Jamie was reading early on about the woman scorned. I tended to read it as his quiet unease about John; as far back as my reading of Voyager I could see Jamie held a concern about John's intentions towards him for a long long time. And I mean that in the sense Jamie didn't realise for quite a while the nature of John's honour. Fair enough, considering his experience at the hand of Jack Randall; it was no wonder Jamie would believe John's fake impossible "love" (you can't hear my sarcasm in the written word, believe you me) could turn just as easily to resentment and hate. Which is why I loved how Jamie refused to let Quinn kill John. And I also understood the last bit with the names. I loved how John suddenly got annoyed and demanded that Jamie stop calling him "my lord." And the fact that Jamie wanted to but knew it was better not to...it was lovely and sad and made me think of their meeting all those years later in Jamaica. That was where the equality truly began. But it was there earlier, just...it was never quite the time.

So, I am looking forward to In My Own Heart's Blood in a couple of years. I love Jamie and John, and I love them together. Even though my slash fangirl self will always wish John could have what he wanted, I do love them as friends. It's such a rich and fascinating relationship, one once again in tatters, and seeing how it was between them the last time they patched it up...it gives me hope for this time. It also makes me slightly philosophical; much as I wanted Stephan and John together, I think they're better as friends. It's the same with John and Jamie. They have their own paths, but they're just...there are heartstrings, as I said. They stretch out between us and all the people that we love. And I particularly like how a Scot and a Pom had to go to Paddy-Land to become friends. Something about that just amuses me deeply.

In other news, I should probably go and do something like writing myself. I have LOTS OF FEELINGS about writing, mostly something between despair and hope, but that's for another day. In the meantime...just write. As they say.

If I Could Turn Back Time

The first time I walked into the Raphael room at the Victoria and Albert Museum in Kensington, I just about had a fit because it was huge, empty, and beautiful. I have a thing for grand stately rooms, particularly when I feel like I have it to myself (you may note in entry before this one, there is a picture of the larger temple at Abu Simbel with no people in front of it; I took that, and my good god it was amazing to be able to do so). The next time I saw the Raphael room I figured it wouldn't get any better than the first hit, so to speak. HOW WRONG I WAS. They'd installed what you see above: a giant couch. That's not even the half of it. You could walk into this room, kick off your shoes, and loll around in the presence of masterpieces.

There's a reason why I'm babbling on about this, believe it or not, but I'll get to it in a minute. The entry is really supposed to point out that I've "finished" NaNo, or at least I've achieved some of what I set out to do. I have first drafts of Hibernaculum and Greywater finished, I have a random beautiful and terrifying scene between Ryenn and Arosek written, I have a roughly 7k short story about SPARKLY EVIL BLOOD FAE, and as of today I have 50k on the manuscript of Kaverlen Falls, which I just started last week. I'm hoping to finish a draft of the 6k short story The Blacksmith's Daughter tomorrow, and...the official wordcount so far is 154,256.

I'm still having something of a crisis. I just don't know if I'm a good writer. It's a mental thing, as in I'm a complete mentalist, but now that I have spent almost six weeks in Australia writing my heart, eyes, and wrists out, I'm terrified there's nothing to show for it. Which is blatant lies judging by the prodigious output I've managed, but then I tend to bury my head in my hands and wail BUT IT'S ALL CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP an awful lot. [rolls eyes] I don't know.

Speaking of crap, my mother forced me to go see the latest Twilight movie with her the other day; I already felt ill before we got there, and the patented SPINNY CAMERA ANGLES OF DOOM meant halfway through the damn thing I had to dig into my purse and find two paracetamol and five mg of prochlorperazine. And I still felt so ill I had to keep my eyes closed for ten minutes. I didn't even eat my popcorn, and I have an eating disorder. (Maybe I should just spend my life locked in a room with Stephanie Meyer. I can almost guarantee I'd never want to eat again if all I had for stimulation was her books and those damn movies.) At one stage in the movie I even facepalmed. I literally facepalmed. Here, have a visual aid:

And I don't even like Star Trek, either. (DENNY CRANE!) I don't even remember what it was that made me do it. There were a lot of things that upset me about that movie. Principally, though, I was deeply disturbed by the power balance in Bella and Edward's relationship. I could only stomach it by entertaining the private theory that Bella is in fact an anguisette (thank you for the sanity switch, Jacqueline Carey). Because otherwise I'd just have to go with my initial gut feeling, which was that Bella is a good and dutiful housewife-to-be who marries at eighteen, justifies her husband's violence against her with "he can't help himself" and "it's proof of how much he loves me" and when her unborn baby threatens the mental health of her friends and family and also her own life, she justifies allowing herself to die by the thought her worth as a wife is only to act as a human incubator.

Also, there was a huge-ass fight between vampires and werewolves and NO BLOOD WAS SHED WHATSOEVER. I miss Alucard. I miss him a lot. ...I guess I just like my abominations Eldritch, not Edward.

The thing is, though, that I really ought to be careful what I complain about. I readily admit I can't and won't ever understand Twilight. But I will open myself to mockery by admitting the other day I noticed a movie about to play on FoxTel and promptly recorded it. And later watched it while kicking my feet in glee. I know most people pan the damn thing, but in my opinion it's so bad it's hilarious. ...sorry. ^_~

But I think I'm in a melancholy mood anyway because I finally finished reading the full text of the old story I had been writing all those years ago with an older friend, and...while I was wincing at the writing at the beginning, by the end I was utterly absorbed in the world we had created and the story we were weaving to the point I couldn't work out who wrote what. It's also been so long since I paid any lasting attention to the characters or the story that I'd forgotten so much of what we had written and what we had planned, and now that I am at the end of it...the sense of loss is immense. Not just for the story itself, but for the friendship that created it. I ache to read more of it, as much as I ache to write to my old friend and see where life has taken her now.

I thought of the V&A above for several reasons. I mean, museums are places of memory. You walk in the door and you are taken back to places that existed long ago -- so long ago, in some cases, that we can't even be quite sure they did exist. We can guess, but we're never going to know what those lives were like. There's a terrible sadness, in that. And I get a similar sadness from unfinished stories, especially one like this. So much potential, just rotting away on my harddrive. It feels like a betrayal, that even I forgot them. Part of me just wants to turn around and write to my old friend and beg her to tell me that she didn't forget, because if we both did...it seems so unfair.

But then, I also thought of the V&A because of that giant couch. It's not the first whimsical thing I've found in a London museum; I was most enchanted by the Super Fun Happy Slide! installation I discovered one dreary December at the Tate Modern, but then you expect that kind of malarkey at the Tate Modern. Not so at Victoria's digs. I love that museum for many reasons, and I walk in there feeling like it's one of the great and airy palaces of my imagination, stately and elegant and real. And then...I find a giant couch in my favourite room.

The emperor of the story I forgot, he came to his royal title at the age of eighteen after having been raised a commoner. It was always a running joke in the writing process that Dion would one day do something daft like fill the Emperor's Bathchambers with rainbow bubbles and a thousand rubber duckies, or that he'd draw a hopscotch grid on the approach to the Shining Throne and refuse to hold court unless all assembled gave him a round. He's the kind of person who'd insist on beanbags for state assemblies. TAnd this room, in this beautiful and elegant museum...had a giant couch specifically designed for lolling. Dion would have loved this room.

I wish I hadn't forgotten. In some ways, though, I almost wish I hadn't remembered.

And The Legend Lives On

When I first returned to London a few weeks back, I was wandering through one of the endless corridors of the Underground when I was hit by a wave of delight. …this isn’t really usual, for the Tube, and it was actually nothing to do with the system itself. It’s more that I suddenly remembered something that had always charmed me deeply about the UK’s public transport systems the last I lived here – the fact that they advertise books.

I’ve never been a Londoner – I used to live in Sheffield and then Oxfordshire – but I was a Yorkshire commuter and I loved walking through Sheffield’s train station and seeing the posters proclaiming the latest novel release. Even though these posters were always cheek by jowl with the usual suspects of movies, albums and West End shows, I’ve just never noticed this anywhere else. And in a lovely bit of coincidence, one of the first posters I noticed was for a novel by the name of The Song of Achilles. So, to end my little foray into SpecFicNZ’s blogging week, I thought I might go for a little bit of a review.

The urge to read this novel struck me so hard for a couple of reasons, but basically? I was just ripe for it. A couple of years back I really became fascinated by the history and legend of Alexander the Great, and ended up reading a lot about him. In the course of my reading I naturally ended up with The Iliad in hand because Alexander was reputed to adore the story, and being a science major both late high school and at university left a rather large gap in my classical history education. Not to mention a day or so before seeing this poster I was reading The Persian Boy, which was entirely thanks to the fact I found myself at Troy a couple of weeks ago.

Of course, I was part of a very…unique…tour group, and it was at Troy that our poor guide realised that we didn’t really understand the dark depths of history. Or the legend of Hector.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN, HE COULDN'T FLY?!

But whatever the reason, I felt a compulsion to obtain and read this book, and after the Waterstones at Trafalgar Square failed me dreadfully I picked up a copy from WHSmiths at Hammersmith. I then toddled off for another round at the Natural History Museum, where I settled in at the restaurant for the reading of the first few chapters over lunch.

I’ve got an odd relationship with historical novels. I claimed to hate them for the longest time, and the only time I did bother with them was through Danielle Steel and other authors of bodice rippers and/or family saga epics when I was thirteen, because somehow that made it all right. I think it was because the history was really a convenient backdrop and the ephemeral nature of that background didn’t really make me feel stupid for not knowing the details myself. Not that they dealt a lot in that sort of detail. But when I was working in Doncaster I was looking for a book to read one lunchtime, and I noticed that The Other Boleyn Girl was on sale. Being that I was already embarrassed about not knowing so much as a jot about anyone buried in Westminster, I thought “What the hell” and read it. And to my surprise, I enjoyed it. I have to admit I’ve not enjoyed a single Phillipa Gregory as much as that one ever again, but it opened my eyes quite a bit. It also set a few standards for me, although they’d already been helped along in development by my first reading in 2005 or so of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series.

But yes, my personal criteria for any historical novel is that it must make the world real and accessible to me. If it feels like a cardboard cut-out Hollywood set piece, I’m out. I got enough of that as a kid and it’s just not enough now. I’m curious and I’m cranky and I have developed a love for history that I’m still too lazy to indulge by actually reading a history text. I want to learn through story. Which is why the story, obviously, has to be fascinating. But the easiest way to my heart is through the characters.

Reading about Alexander the Great involved a fair bit of fiction, for me – and I found some very terrible books along the way. Mary Renault is basically the gold standard of Alexander fiction, but I also really enjoyed Judith Tarr’s Lord of Two Lands. And I think it’s due to many of the same reasons I ended up enjoying The Song of Achilles – both novels had strong first person narration, and neither lead character was the charismatic half-divine hero of the true story. I think, personally, that it’s very difficult to write a story about characters like Achilles or Alexander, real people or not. They were legendary even in their own time, and expecting the average reader to feel close to them, to emphasise with their thought processes and emotions and actions…it’s a huge ask, for both writer and reader. I won’t say it’s impossible. But the fact remains, they were extraordinary individuals who became mythical and legendary because they were so unlike those around them. It’s far easier to get to know them through the eyes of those around them (which is why I personally enjoy The Persian Boy and Funeral Games more than Fire From Heaven, when it comes to Renault’s trilogy).

Patrocles is the POV character in Song of Achilles, and he’s very imperfect – very mortal, in fact. I wondered a little about how very human he was, because it wasn’t just in contrast to Achilles. He was clumsy and “worthless” in the eyes of everyone. I didn’t think that was quite necessary, as I seem to recall Patrocles being a decent enough warrior in his own right, but it did end up putting Patrocles in an interesting position in Achilles’ life and legend. We’re all told from childhood that Achilles’ sole vulnerability was in his heel, but this novel teaches us that it was truly Patrocles. And the emotion woven into every word Patrocles gives us every reason why he deserves to be. It’s never going to be one of my favourite books, I don’t think. I don’t feel the urge to read it to shreds the way I do with other stories. But it’s very beautiful, and I was moved by the ending which dealt with the way Achilles commanded his ashes be mingled with those of Patrocles and that they be buried together. But their tomb only bore Achilles’ name, leaving Patrocles in limbo. And you know, I’m writing this entry in Word…a programme whose spellcheck recognises the name Achilles without issue yet gives Patrocles an ugly red squiggle. I think that says it all, really.

So, that’s the end of blogging week. I’m off to Egypt on Tuesday, but this little blogging exercise has brought up even more thoughts about my future and I have a little plot brewing in my head. I just have to work out how many universities I am still enrolled at. (…) I’m also flailing my hands fangirl-style because I discovered a fresh extract from The Scottish Prisoner over at CompuServe earlier this afternoon, and…wow. I’ve said before that it’s the characters who keep me reading, and Diana Gabaldon has just reminded me with an anvil to the head of how very, very much I adore both Lord John and Jamie Fraser and the intricacies of their very complicated friendship. I can’t wait for this book. God, I love reading. God, I love writing. And when I was staring through glass this afternoon at nineteenth century books in the endless corridor of the Enlightenment Galleries at the British Museum all I could think of was Belle’s delight when the Beast gave her the library as a gift. I wish I had a bison-man hybrid to do that for me. But then again, maybe my gift is that I get to have a library all of my own right here, in my head.

Now, if only I could get it all out to share… ^__^

Goals, Tries and Having Something To Score

 

At the start of the year I’m sure I made some sort of goal post in this blog, but I really have the memory of a goldfish. I’m not sure that it matters, anyway, but I was thinking that I should sit down and work out what I need to achieve over the next few months. I turn thirty in February, and aside from having a fit about where I want to spend my birthday – I’m leaning towards Peru, although I was having thoughts of camping in South Africa – I want to be seriously dedicated to my writing to a point I can see it as a viable part of my career. I don’t think I have the necessary talent or ability or pure dumb luck to make a living off writing, but I’d like to be able to go back to being a pharmacist but kick back my hours a bit. Four days a week instead of five, or something. But I’ll get to that part in a minute.

I am the queen of unfinished novels. But I do have two that are finished. I’m not really up for submitting either to an agent, however. The first, an urban fantasy romance, has a very solid and interesting first half and completely turns to lumpy scorched custard by the second chapter of the second half. Bollocks. I can rewrite it, and I know that at some point I will. I just don’t think it’s where I want to start my publishing career. The other novel was intended as a children’s book, then a young adult novella, and now…it’s still about thirteen year old kids, but it’s a kid’s book the way Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials is a kid’s series. Kids could read it, sure. I know I’d have read it. But then I was reading bodice rippers and Stephen King at the age of ten, so I don’t think I’m the best judge of reading material suited to age, here. So, I’ve set that aside for the meantime even though I am on and off working on its direct sequel.

This leaves me with four options for my first punt on an agent, none of which are fully complete. The first is Greywater, and this really is the best option save for the fact it’s straight-up fantasy. I think I’m going to have to go waaaaay outside the New Zealand channels here, though I am aware thanks to SpecFicNZ that I’m by no means alone here. It just depends on how hard I want to hit. I’m fairly certain I can get somewhere with this, but we’ll see. The current manuscript is at 112k and is maybe twenty or thirty thousand words off a first draft, after which I can tidy.

The other three options are more complicated. People In Looking-Glass Houses is easily the most marketable idea I’ve got – it’s also an urban fantasy romance – but while I wrote a good deal of it back in 2002/2003, the characters have changed a lot to suit the canon of the world it edges up against, and I’ve decided most of what was written ought to be scrapped or reappropriated. Writing it would take a lot of time over the next few months. I may have that time, but I’m not sure. I will write this story at some point, I’m just not sure how soon is now, or something to that effect. Ha.

Hibernaculum is a tricky one. I love these characters, and I love their story – two of the centrals are my first true OTP, and the novel is nearly finished. Maybe twenty thousand words out, too; I drag my heels with it because it’s a complex ending and I’m a moron. But not only is it also fantasy, it involves one of the other central characters getting into a very complicated relationship with another man and therefore might be hard to market. I’m not sure on that front; it would depend on the publisher. And I suppose I oughtn’t to care considering a) I won a competition last month with a short story with clear elements of homoeroticism and b) my first print publication was with a light erotica story, het or no, and…er. Yeah.

My other novel-in-progress is never going to be a publisher’s choice, mind you. But how much I want to finish it! ^_~ The Juniper Bones is my baby. And of everything I write and share, it’s the one that’s generated the most interest. But not only is it ungodly long in its current form, it just involves so many difficult things that I suspect a publisher would rather just shove me off into Charybdis with that barge pole rather than use it as a debut novel. Ha. Yet every time I open one of the associated files or look at some of the commissions I’ve had done, I end in hysterics. I love those characters, and I love that story. So hard. And I want to share it in its fullness with people, and not just because Morgan will one day give me that partial lobotomy she’s been promising if I don’t.

On the short story front, I want to keep poking away at various markets. Wily Writers has a call for submission for a young adult post-apocalyptic short story that I have a solid idea for; its due date is the end of October, so I can swing it. Yesterday I also ran across this blog fest that sounds fascinating, and I’m fairly certain I will be signing up later today because the fact the first submission sits so well with the dates of my trip to Egypt next week…it seems a sign, to me. So we’ll run with it. Besides, I’ve really got to get back to networking and sharing with other writers. One thing I regret about leaving New Zealand is the loss of my writing groups, and I’ve been really slack about spending time on the wonderful and wondrous CompuServe Readers and Writers forum. So, writing and reading stories for a joint Blog Fest universe sounds like a hell of a way to meet new writers…

Speaking of blogs, I have a few links that I got from CompuServe the other day, relevant to our interests. They’re about writing a query and then a synopsis, and even though I am not at that stage yet they’re actually very useful links for someone like me. Because I have problems with focus and structure. But I was so happy to see that Greywater fit very well into the basic synopsis template, and after writing a test query for the novel I feel that writing a synopsis in that format actually might help me a lot with finishing the novel. So, we’ll see? I would do it today, but I want to go to the Museum of London, and I have no idea how much longer I’ll be in town…

Which brings me to my next thought – I have an opportunity. It occurred to me last Friday as I was sitting in St. James Park that I could go back to Western Australia and just…write. I’m not Australian – GOD, I’m not Australian! – but my father is on a project near Perth and my parents live in a lovely seaview apartment with three bedrooms, one of which doubles as an office. I’ve been to see them twice there over the last year, and it’s a lovely place (which I’m not saying just because Margaret River has the best goddamned nougat IN THE ENTIRE WORLD, nuh-uh). I remember thinking the second time in particular how nice it would be, to marry an engineer and live a life where I could get up at six in the morning, have breakfast, do Zumba, go for a walk for an hour around the mangroves then return home for a day of writing. It struck me at the park that I could actually do this, if only for three or four weeks. I floated the idea to my mother, asking if I could stay in order to write if I contributed to the bills, and she green-lighted it. So…I’m not sure. I came to the UK with the intent of living and working here for a bit, but it’s not really as I’d thought it would be. I do love London; I had no real feelings towards the city the first time I saw it in 2006, but it’s grown on me. I’m just not sure I want to live here – or in the UK – after all. It feels like a step back, to the life that I both loved and hated four years ago. And I want to move forward as a writer, not go back to the world pharmacy. I can do my job, and do it well, but I need something more than that to keep me going. I have to be honest with myself about that, otherwise it's just not fair to any of us.

So, that’s my decision. It’s a bloody difficult one. I keep reminding myself that not every writer gets this sort of opportunity, and considering I have no real ties to anywhere, I should take it. And once I’ve had that sabbatical, I can return to New Zealand (maybe via Cambodia, ha) and move back to Wellington. There, I can get a full-time pharmacist position with my finished novel(s) tucked safely under my arm. Maybe then I can go back to the nine-to-five knowing I have a way of altering my own destiny, so to speak.

I’m scared as hell. I suppose that’s the way the cookie crumbles. But when I was looking something up about The Juniper Bones the other day I found a little file I’d made last year during NaNoWriMo in which I’d kept some of the feedback I’d received from the fantastic individuals at the CompuServe forum, and things like this just brought and still bring tears to my eyes:

When I read your writing, it makes me want more. I don't want to stop. And then I get to the end, and my brain is like a little puppy, all kind of like, where's the rest? What comes next? Huh? Huh? You have an absolutely stunning talent, you know. Your characters are beautifully put together, your story is compelling and mysterious- there's no question at all I'll be buying this off the shelf at a bookstore within a couple of years, and I'll just have to twitch impatiently and hang out for snippets until then.

I need to remind myself that I can write, and that I must write, if only for my own sanity. My sister keeps watching Dragon’s Den, and last night they were talking about how pitches need passion, because no company is going to succeed unless the person wants it enough to spend so much time with it. I could say the same of my writing. I love doing it. I want to do it. I just need to believe. And I was giddy yesterday to finally have run across a review of Red Velvet and Absinthe that mentioned me by name; while I’ve seen a lot of positive feedback about the collection as a whole, I’ve been craving something personal whether good or bad. And this…yes.

Tea For Two is a heart wrenching story that had this reader on the verge of tears. The poignancy of this love story and the loss that the two main characters suffer is so tenderly written, making the whole scenario come alive before your very eyes. Congratulations Ms. Buckingham for a truly tremendous and well thought out short story.

I can do this. I can, I can! So…here we go. Although as I said, it’s half-nine in the morning here in ol’ London Town and I might go out. I need to make the most of the city while I’m here, because I suspect I may have to leave her soon. We’ll see.