New Review is up at SBR; Chapter Excerpts up for “An Elfy on the Loose”

Folks, Saturday night was pretty eventful.

First, over at Shiny Book Review I reviewed Sharon Lee and Steve Miller’s NECESSITY’S CHILD, the sixteenth book in their long-running Liaden Universe series. I enjoyed this novel immensely; it’s a solid coming-of-age tale that should please readers new to the series as well as people who already salivate at the mere mention of a new Liaden Universe novel.

Next, I found out that the first five chapters of my novel, AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE, are now available via my publisher, Twilight Times Books. So if you’ve ever wanted to know a little more about Bruno the Elfy, much less his Human companion Sarah, now’s the time . . . or in other words, you now can try before you buy. (How about that?)

And if you’re a Wisconsin sports fan, as I am, tonight also was eventful for another reason, as the Wisconsin Badgers defeated the Arizona Wildcats. This means that the Badgers are in the Final Four — that is, they are part of the last four teams taking place in the NCAA Division 1 National Basketball Championship, commonly called the NCAA Tournament for short — and have actually done exactly as I predicted when I made out my bracket in making it this far. (Though I must admit that I had expected some of their opponents to be a bit different; for example, my bracket had Arizona going out in the second round.)

So that’s three interesting things of note. As three can be a theologically significant number for certain religions, maybe that will intensify the positive nature of it all? (I assuredly hope it will, anyway.)

Advance Reader Copy of “An Elfy on the Loose” Now Available at TTB

Folks, I hadn’t known this until tonight, but my book, AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE, has been available as an advance reader copy (or ARC) since early February.

Please follow this link to the ARC, directly available through the auspices of Twilight Times Books (my publisher), if you wish to support my writing . . . if you’re interesting in figuring out just what my favorite Elfy, Bruno, is up to these days . . . or if you’re just bored and in need of some reading material that might make you laugh.

Mind you, if you’re waiting for when AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE will officially be available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and all other e-book platforms, I’ve been told the date is June 1, 2014.

But right now, if you want to read AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE, this link is the only way to do it — it’ll take you right to Twilight Times Books and its e-ARC site, and you can order to your heart’s content.

Getting the ARC out officially is one step closer in the publication process, and I’m glad to see that everything is well in train. I just wish I’d have realized this sooner, so I could’ve made the announcement sooner, that’s all. (But “them’s the breaks,” and all that.)

Please spread the word widely that the ARC is available, OK? Because right now, almost no one knows it exists — and that is not good.

Time for a Milwaukee Brewers 2014 Season Preview

As the Milwaukee Brewers baseball season officially begins on March 31, 2014, it’s time for a season preview.

Last year, the Brewers had an underwhelming year, to put it mildly. While youngsters just up from AAA like Khris Davis and Caleb Gindl helped All-Stars Jean Segura and Carlos Gomez get to a 74-88 record, the season was marred because of slugger Ryan Braun’s 65-game suspension for performance-enhancing drugs. And the constantly rotating cast of characters over at first base due to Corey Hart’s double-knee surgery woes didn’t exactly help, either.

And must I remind you about the horrible month of May, considering it was historic for all the wrong reasons?

Thankfully, 2014 looks to be a different story entirely.

This year, Braun is back, and is hitting a ton in Spring Training. There are now only two people who will regularly be playing first base — Lyle Overbay and Mark Reynolds. All of the starting pitchers — Kyle Lohse, Matt Garza, Yovani Gallardo, Marco Estrada, and Wily Peralta — appear healthy and ready to go, while the bullpen features an interesting mix of youth and experience.

So, will the 2014 season be better than 2013? One would hope so . . . but then again, hope springs eternal and every team, coming out of Spring Training, thinks it’s going to be a world beater.

Here are my thoughts regarding the 2014 Brewers:

• Braun will have an excellent season both at the plate and in the field. He’ll be tested rigorously, and it’s highly unlikely he’ll fail another drug test any time soon. So his play should be a bright spot no matter what else happens.
• Garza has had a lousy Spring Training, to be charitable. But he’s one of those pitchers like former Brewer Ben Sheets — Garza doesn’t like to show anything of what he’s actually going to do in Spring Training, and because of that, it’s hard to gauge where he really is. My guess is that if he has enough stamina to get through six innings, he’s going to be fine.
• Lohse looks good. He’s fit, healthy, a good mentor to the younger pitchers . . . he’s not the titular ace of the staff (supposedly, that’s still Yovani Gallardo), but he sure looks an ace to me. I expect no problems from him at all, and think he’ll be one of the best pitchers in the National League, providing he stays healthy.
• Gallardo looks much better than he has since 2011. His curveball is sharp and his fastball seems to have recovered the movement it didn’t have during much of 2013. He had some off-the-field problems in ’13, including an arrest for DUI, but it seems like he’s gotten sober and is taking much better care of his health. This should mean that he’s going to be a better and more consistent pitcher, so this might be the year that Gallardo finally breaks out and shows he’s one of the top fifteen pitchers in the NL (along with Lohse).
• I don’t know what the Brewers are doing with Peralta. Every time I’ve seen Peralta pitch on TV (as I haven’t been able to get to Arizona, obviously, to see them live and in person), Peralta’s battery-mate has been Jonathan Lucroy. Lucroy hits well and is a good catcher, but he is not the right fit for Peralta as Peralta seems extremely uncomfortable whenever Lucroy catches for him.
• Speaking of Lucroy, I agree that the Brewers need him in the lineup as often as possible, as Lucroy is one of the Brewers’ best hitters. However, he should not catch Peralta, and he probably shouldn’t catch Estrada either, as both of them do much better with Martin Maldonado. The Brewers should instead put Lucroy at first base on those days, as it’s best for all concerned and they’ll get much better mileage out of Peralta and Estrada if they do.
• The biggest question mark, to my mind, remains at first base. Unless Lucroy does play over there two times every five days, there isn’t going to be much production coming from that position.The two first basemen, while better than Yuniesky Betancourt and a cast of thousands were last year, are still not very good. Overbay is now thirty-seven, and while his glove is still better than average — and while the Brewers infield needs all the help it can get, especially with Rickie Weeks being way under par defensively at second base (the only time Weeks has ever fielded well was when Willie Randolph was helping to coach the team and giving Weeks constant pointers; is there any way to get Randolph back?) — Overbay does not look like he can hit major league pitching consistently any longer. And Reynolds . . . well, he’s not been as bad a fielder as advertised at first base, I’ll give him that. He seems comfortable over there, and he hits better than Overbay. But he’s a strikeout machine on a team that already has Gomez and Weeks, and that doesn’t seem conducive to getting too many runs across no matter how much power potential Reynolds demonstrably has (he’s one of those guys who’s actually hit baseballs completely over scoreboards or completely out of stadiums, well over four hundred and fifty feet).

The remaining thoughts I have are mostly about the bullpen . . . but rather than put them in bullet points, I’m just going to say this:

They’re mostly young. They’re mostly unproven. But I like the mix . . . Tyler Thornburg can start or relieve, Zach Duke can spot start if he needs to, if closer Jim Henderson falters, Francisco Rodriguez is right there and can possibly help (K-Rod has looked especially sharp in Spring Training, especially considering his freak accident in Arizona where he stepped on a cactus while playing with one of his kids; the doctors are still getting cactus spines out of his feet ten days-plus later), and I’m particularly impressed with Brandon Kintzler’s fortitude and perseverance, as he actually made his way to the major leagues via the Independent Northern League.

So, will the Brewers be any better? Or won’t they?

Only time will tell . . . but I like their chances.

A Plea to the Media: Leave the Family Members of those Lost on Malaysian Airways Flight 370 Alone

For the past seventeen or eighteen days, depending on which side of the globe you’re on, it seems that every news person in the world has been covering the strange and sudden disappearance of Malaysian Airways flight 370, abbreviated as MH370 for short.

Every night, news organizations such as CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, BBC America, and others have breathlessly reported on any available lead as to where this plane went. Various theories have been expounded, some having to do with Visual Flight Rules and how they might apply (if you’re flying low, you’re on VFR), some having to do with why the pilots might have simulators in their houses, various scenarios about how the cockpit might have had a catastrophic accident, and many, many more.

During all this time, the various families of the passengers who’d boarded MH370 expecting a safe and sedate flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing have been inundated with all of this. They’ve had to try to remain calm, even as the reputations of the pilots have been besmirched over and over again; they’ve been told all sorts of conflicting information, as no one can even seemingly figure out exactly where the flight may have gone down.

Worst of all, the Malaysian Prime Minister, a man by the name of Najib Razak, seemingly says something different every single day. He can’t confirm anything, because the information is constantly changing, and the satellite data coming in from other countries seems to directly contradict anything he says anyway.

So when Mr. Razak said earlier today (as reported by Wolf Blitzer on CNN) that there is now “conclusive evidence” that MH370 went down in the Indian Ocean and that all passengers and crew must be accounted dead, who can blame the families for not believing him?

See, the families are in between a rock and a hard place. They want information; they have to know that it would be an increasingly long shot for anyone to survive in the cold ocean in choppy seas without land, even with floatation devices and possibly some food and a bit of water, after seventeen-plus days. But the information must be impeccable, must be comprehensible, and must be logical.

More to the point, every available authority should agree on it.

Because after all this time, with all of the information that’s been thrown at them day after day after day, the families of the passengers and crew of lost MH370 have to be completely shellshocked.

That being said, the families have reacted with dismay, frustration, loss, and a whole lot of screaming to the recent revelations by Prime Minister Razak. All of this is completely understandable.

What isn’t understandable is why the media insists on showing these poor people being carried out on stretchers, screaming at the top of their lungs while gesticulating wildly, or other scenes of pain, loss, and outright suffering.

Where is the decency of the media? Why aren’t they treating these poor families the way they, themselves, would wish to be treated if for some reason their family members and loved ones had gone down on MH370 instead?

Granted, not every media outlet is showing the screaming. MSNBC seems to have restrained itself, for the most part, especially in recent days, for which I thank them. Fox News has not shown a lot of that, either, during the past four or five days. I don’t think BBC America has shown much in the past few days (though it showed a lot more earlier), and that’s a good thing as well.

But CNN definitely has.

Worse, it keeps doing it, and shows no sign of stopping any time soon.

My view is simple: The media needs to leave these poor families alone. (Yes, CNN, I’m looking squarely at you.) They have suffered enough as it is.

And unfortunately, they will continue to suffer for a very, very long time, even if the current information is absolutely accurate and even if the bodies of their loved ones are eventually found and recovered.

The only thing CNN and other media outlets like them are doing at this point is to prolong the agony of the suffering families.

And that, my friends, is just wrong.

Figure Skater Johnny Weir and Victor Voronov Separate, on the Road to Divorce

Folks, a few years ago I was proud to congratulate figure skater Johnny Weir on the event of his marriage to Victor Voronov.

Now, I am saddened to hear of their impending divorce.

Media reports thus far have said that Victor Voronov feels blindsided by what’s happened (the link I cited above from US Weekly had a headline of “shocked by the abrupt ending of his marriage, dealing with trauma endured”), which saddens me even further.

Look. Divorce is no picnic. (I should know; before I finally found Michael, I was divorced.) It can come out of the blue, or a lot of little things can lead up to a dissolution that at the time seems abrupt . . . but after a healing distance seems inevitable.

I don’t know what happened in Johnny Weir and Victor Voronov’s marriage, mind you. But I can tell you that historically, in some marriages between two people who are otherwise well-suited — such as English mystery writer Dorothy L. Sayers and Scottish journalist Atherton Fleming — when one person succeeds more than the other, as Sayers did in a resounding fashion with her successful series of mysteries featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and his eventual wife, Harriet Vane, it can cause fissures that are nearly impossible to heal.

Granted, Ms. Sayers lived during a time where divorce for an observant Christian was not always the “done thing,” which is possibly why she did not divorce Mr. Fleming. (Divorce was possible, sure. But unless there were overpowering reasons for it, usually couples would suffer in silence.) But in most of the biographies I’ve read about Ms. Sayers, the reason for her marriage having enormous difficulty was given over and over again as one, simple thing: She was successful. And he wasn’t successful to the same degree.

Now, that doesn’t mean Atherton Fleming resented his wife or her success. But her overwhelming success still hurt the marriage, because he wanted to be equal to his wife, was a good writer in his own way, and just didn’t find the same success no matter what he did or how hard he tried.

Worse yet, it’s harder for a man sociologically in Western society when a male spouse in a partnership isn’t equal to his spouse. (Just because both spouses are male in the case of the Johnny Weir/Victor Voronov marriage doesn’t change that sociological fact.) It doesn’t seem to matter how much love there is, or how much empathy, or how much understanding if one spouse is more successful than the other — under those circumstances, unless both people are fully present in their marriage and are willing to see themselves as flawed people who need and love each other and see success as a relative thing as opposed to simply a status thing — and will throw one hundred percent of themselves into their marriage — their marriage ultimately has little chance of success.

Now, what do I mean by success being relative? Well, in this case, Victor Voronov is successful because he’s always fully supported his husband Johnny Weir. That isn’t always easy to do even for the most loving of spouses, especially when one person is in the public eye all the time and the other just isn’t.

Whereas Johnny Weir is successful for other reasons.

And both of them need to see each other as a success in his own way and on his own terms, or the marriage just hasn’t a prayer of working.

In this particular case, looking in from the outside, Johnny Weir has obviously been on an upswing in his professional life over the past year-plus. He’s just come off a well-received stint at the Sochi Olympics as a figure skating commentator, where he received largely favorable publicity. He and his figure skating commentator partner, Tara Lipinski, were both signed by Access Hollywood to provide coverage for all sorts of things, including the Oscars. And his own personal, rather flamboyant sense of style has been plastered across society pages from one end of the Internet to the other.

Whereas Victor Voronov has apparently been settling into a career as a lawyer. His job is full of stress and long hours for much lower pay than Weir has been receiving for Weir’s various duties. Voronov is trying to establish himself, which is incredibly stressful in its own right.

Having a globe-trotting husband who’s plastered across society pages is possibly not what Voronov had expected his marriage to look like, especially as he married an athlete, not a celebrity icon (though to be fair, Weir was already both things when he married Voronov in December of 2011).

This sets up a lot of inequality that would be tough for any couple to deal with. One member of the marriage — Weir — is often gone and away from the other. Even with all the love in the world and complete and utter fidelity to one another, that one thing has been the death of more marriages than almost anything else.

At any rate, Weir has announced his separation from Voronov on Twitter and apparently has filed for divorce. Weir will be talking with Access Hollywood (one of his employers) later today (Thursday, March 20, 2014) by most media accounts, so perhaps at that time more will come out about the dissolution of his marriage.

That being said, while I can see from the outside why there would be extra stress on the Weir-Voronov marriage, I still had hoped it would endure. Weir seemed to settle down quite a bit after his marriage, and had shown himself to be a more mature and sensible individual — perhaps he always was that way, granted, and the media just didn’t portray it overmuch because being colorful is always “good copy” — and by every account I’ve ever read, Voronov was deeply in love with Johnny and was an extremely supportive spouse.

That’s why I find this particular divorce between two men I have never met and don’t know to be incredibly sad.

* * * * *

Edited to add:

Since I first wrote about this, a number of particularly nasty things have come out regarding the split between Weir and Voronov, most particularly via the gossip magazines.

I feel badly for both of these men. Divorce is hard.

But divorcing in public in the age of Twitter and non-stop communication seems to be the height of insanity.

I don’t know what to make of some of the things that have come out, to be honest. But I still believe that people have the right to make their own choices, as well as their own mistakes; because of this, sometimes marriages don’t work no matter how much love there is between the two parties.

I wish both men well as they do their best to move forward from what all accounts have shown thus far to be an incredibly traumatic experience.

 

New Interview, Book Review Up at SBR Over the Weekend

Over the weekend, I put up two new things over at Shiny Book Review (SBR for short, as always). One is an interview with the incomparable Katharine Eliska Kimbriel, while the other is a book review for Vera Nazarian’s COBWEB FOREST, the third book in Ms. Nazarian’s Cobweb Bride series.

Now, you might be wondering why it is that I did two such labor-intensive things on the weekend. (Well, you’re probably not wondering that, for all I know. But take my word for it: Reviews take effort, and interviews also take effort, plus a goodly amount of pre-planning on the part of both me, the interviewer, and whoever the interviewee is, in this case Ms. Kimbriel.) Why not do them earlier in the week?

Well, like most people, I have all sorts of things going on during the week that tend to preclude me from doing things that take several hours apiece, no matter how much I might enjoy doing them. And as I tend to review romances on Saturday over at SBR for our Romance Saturday promotion, that’s why Ms. Nazarian’s book was reviewed then.

Note I’m not talking much about why my interview with Ms. Kimbriel went up on Sunday . . . that’s mostly because I ran out of time on Friday, and I also thought of a few last-minute questions late Thursday evening. Ms. Kimbriel answered them very quickly, bless her, but I was still in the process of figuring things out on Friday evening, so the interview did not get done until Sunday.

I don’t do a whole lot on Sunday at SBR, mostly because Jason Cordova tends to review on that day, Monday, Tuesday, and/or Wednesday. But he and I can arrange for me to review — or in this case, interview — on other days, and that’s what we did here.

I hope you enjoy both my interview with Ms. Kimbriel, as she had a great deal of insight to offer about writing, editing, and the whole publication process as she’s part of Book View Cafe, an author’s consortium that does well by its writers and editors, and the review of Ms. Nazarian’s COBWEB FOREST.

Now, as for my plans for this week’s blog posts? Some of it depends on what happens in the world, but I can say I do plan to do a Milwaukee Brewers pre-season report — what I’ve seen from the various Spring Training games that have been televised, what I’ve noticed among a few high-profile (and not-so-high-profile) players — later this week. So do stay tuned for that.

As far as reviews over at SBR, I hope to review three things: Stephen R. Donaldson’s THE LAST DARK, the concluding book of the entire Thomas Covenant series, is the main book of the three, with the other two being Grant Hallman’s well-received debut novel IRON STAR (a work of military science fiction that’s perfect for readers of Michael Z. Williamson or Ric Locke) and his prequel to IRON STAR, the novella UPFALL. Figure THE LAST DARK for Saturday, while if all goes well I should be able to review UPFALL, at least, on Friday — and perhaps IRON STAR as well. (Have I mentioned that I’m a big fan of IRON STAR yet?)

Now, speaking of “Mad Mike” Williamson, I do have a special treat in store in a few, short weeks, as his debut novel FREEHOLD has been re-released by his publisher, Baen Books, in hard cover. Because of that auspicious event — something that was a long time in coming — I’ve decided to review FREEHOLD over at SBR. I read FREEHOLD years ago but never reviewed it anywhere, partly because it came out in 2005 — and because of my husband Michael’s passing the year before, I really didn’t pay much attention to anything that happened then. (I think I actually read FREEHOLD in 2007, but don’t quote me.)

So is the world ready for me to review FREEHOLD?

I don’t know, but we’re all about to find out . . . :insert evil chuckle here:

Time to Forgive Mel Gibson?

Yesterday, journalist Allison Hope Weiner (writing for Deadline.com) asked an interesting question: Why won’t Hollywood forgive Mel Gibson?

Most of us remember Gibson’s rants during his split with ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva in 2010, as they were heavily publicized. He sounded demented, and there was no plea from Gibson for the media to back off that was ever publicized — something I found a bit odd at the time, but dismissed considering the state of the media, as  sometimes a Hollywood star’s denials are given but not publicized widely, depending on what other stories happen to be going on at the same time that might crowd out the denial(s).

And those weren’t the first of Gibson’s problems, as he made widely publicized anti-Semitic remarks once stopped by a Jewish policeman after driving while intoxicated back in 2006. Again, Gibson’s pleas for forgiveness were not widely covered, which in retrospect is very odd.

Consider, please, that Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears or any number of other Hollywood types have asked for forgiveness. This is something many celebrities do as a matter of course, often in as insincere of a manner as can be possibly imagined. And most of the time, the media is all over it.

Not necessarily the case back in 2006. But again, I dismissed the thought as irrelevant.

But to Ms. Weiner’s mind, that thought was and is very relevant. Which is why she’s made her plea to Hollywood that they should just forgive Mel Gibson and be done with it.

Ms. Weiner’s plea with regards to Mel Gibson is significant for more than one reason. She’d been harshly critical of him back in 2006 and again in 2010, and even now isn’t shy about saying so. His actions were reprehensible, she said so, and she hasn’t changed her mind about those actions.

What has changed, she says, is how she views Gibson’s actions now that she can put them into better context. Gibson is someone who’s helped many other actors, including Robert Downey, Jr., when they’ve been down and out, which is the sign of someone who cares. But he’s never wanted publicity for that, or most of his charitable pursuits, or most of the good things he’s done outside of the public eye, because as a moral person who believes in the Higher Power, you’re not supposed to do these things for any reason aside from wanting to glorify God/dess.

And it makes Ms. Weiner wonder about other Hollywood celebrities who’ve been vilified by the media for comments that seem off the wall or even flat-out wrong, too, such as Alec Baldwin and Tom Cruise: Could it be that we are not getting the full picture about these people?

As Ms. Weiner says:

It might sound naïve after 20 years writing about celebrities, but my friendship with Gibson made me reconsider other celebrities whose public images became tarnished by the media’s rush to judge and marginalize the rich and famous. Whether it’s Gibson, Tom Cruise or Alec Baldwin, the descent from media darling to pariah can happen quickly after they do something dumb. I was part of that pack of journalists paid to pounce, so I know. I consider myself intelligent, someone who makes up her own mind, but just like readers do, I have accepted some reports at face value. The press said that based on Gibson’s statements, he was a homophobe, a misogynist, a bully, an ant-Semite, so he must be. What he was, I discovered, was an alcoholic whose first outburst was captured after he fell off the wagon. What the later release of audiotapes showed was a man with a frightening temper, capable of saying whatever will most offend the target of his anger.

Later, Ms. Weiner discusses what Gibson has done quietly and outside of the public eye to try to redeem himself from such things:

In his second apology on the anti-Semitic statements, Gibson promised to reach out to Jewish leaders. Gibson followed up by meeting with a wide variety of them. He gave me their names when I asked, but Gibson asked me not to publish them because he didn’t want them dragged into public controversy or worse, think he was using them. The meetings were not some photo op to him, he told me, but rather his desire to understand Judaism and personally apologize for the unkind things he said. He has learned much about the Jewish religion, befriending a number of Rabbis and attending his share of Shabbat dinners, Passover Seders and Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur dinners. I believe that effort, along with our conversations, helped him understand why Jewish people reacted as they did to The Passion Of The Christ and why there was Jewish support for the Second Vatican Council. Gibson has quietly donated millions to charitable Jewish causes, in keeping with one of the highest forms of Tzedakah in the Jewish faith, giving when the recipient doesn’t know your identity.

In other words, Ms. Weiner is saying that Gibson basically has hurt himself in Hollywood because he’s not been the typical self-serving actor/director Hollywood generally sees. And because Gibson’s sense of responsibility is strong, but very quiet, Hollywood continues to feel good about its collective self because it continues to ostracize Gibson — one of the highest-grossing actors the world has ever seen, and one of its best directors and producers, too.

Her essay is an intriguing portrait of a difficult, yet vivid man. A sinner among sinners, perhaps, if you use the terminology of Christianity as seems appropriate during this time of Lent. Far from an altar boy, but much less than an unrepentant anti-Semite, Mel Gibson is a human being, with all the quirks and talents of any other human being.

But because Hollywood insists you must be perfect all the time — “fake it ’til you make it” — and Gibson is demonstrably not perfect, it’s OK to vilify him?

After reading Ms. Weiner’s essay, I came away with three thoughts:

• We are all human beings who make mistakes, sometimes bad ones.
• Most of us would not want those mistakes to be broadcast to millions upon millions of people due to the basis of some sort of international celebrity status.
• Why isn’t forgiveness viewed as essential any longer in contemporary American society?

Because make no mistake about it: if forgiveness was important in the United States, Mel Gibson would’ve been forgiven — or at least forgotten — long ago. And while Gibson didn’t publicly ask for forgiveness, he certainly did so privately.

And really, isn’t that more than enough?

Adam Lanza’s Father Finally Speaks . . .

In a new article in the New Yorker, writer Andrew Solomon discusses Adam Lanza with one of the very few people who knew him well — his father, Peter Lanza.

Now, why is this significant? Well, no one’s sure why Adam Lanza killed twenty-six children at Sandy Hook Elementary School to this day, and despite what we’ve learned about Adam Lanza over the past year-plus, we possibly never will know, either.

But at least Peter Lanza knew his son, Adam, and can discuss Adam’s mental illness and other issues . . . which is probably why Mr. Lanza consented to be interviewed by Andrew Solomon in the first place.

I wrote about the Sandy Hook school shooting back in December of 2012, and at that time asked the basic question: Why did this happen?

As I said at the time:

I normally have sympathy for the mentally ill, even severely mentally ill types like it sounds like the latest shooter, Adam Lanza, probably was. (And I’m decidedly not talking about his Asperger’s Syndrome; I’m talking about the behavioral issues he’d have likely had whether he had AS or not.) But in this case, I can find no mercy in my heart for him — far less mercy than one of the parents of the victims, Robbie Parker, who’s already expressed sympathy for the surviving family members of Adam Lanza.

Mr. Parker is a far better person than I.

My focus is elsewhere, because I just do not understand why any responsible parent, such as Nancy Lanza has been described, would ever allow a troubled young man like her son to get a hand on any of her guns.

Much less teach him to shoot them herself, as it appears she did.

What Peter Lanza has done by consenting to an interview by Mr. Solomon in the New Yorker is to answer that question — why did Nancy Lanza teach her son to shoot in the first place? And why did she seemingly enable her son to withdraw into his own violent fantasy world rather than get him treatment?

In addition, Mr. Lanza also discusses many, many other things. He believes that his son Adam would’ve gladly shot him, too, if Adam had had the chance . . . a tremendously sad thing for any father to say about his own son. And he discusses why he thinks Nancy Lanza, his ex-wife, took the odd approach of laissez-faire parenting on the one hand with over-the-top enablement on the other, too, and through writer Solomon comes to a somewhat healing conclusion that perhaps this was just the best Nancy Lanza knew how to do.

The eight-page article in the New Yorker is well worth reading, if you haven’t seen it already (again, the link is here), but it is unsettling.

I’m glad Peter Lanza, Adam’s father, has spoken. I’m glad he was able to shed some light on things from his perspective.

I know that speaking must’ve been difficult for Mr. Lanza. I applaud him for doing it, and hope it will help others in some way.

But it’s a sad, sad commentary when a father says of his own son, “I wish he’d never been born.”

Especially when it’s true.

Cover Art is in for “An Elfy on the Loose”

Folks, I’m excited. I have cover art for my book, AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE (book 1 of ELFY).

And here it is!

Cover art for AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE

Book Discussion: “Schooled in Magic,” “Kindred Rites,” and More

What makes a book interesting enough that you want to pick it up immediately and start reading? Or, for those of you who exclusively read e-books, what makes you willing to sit down and read the sample pages?

While no one’s quite sure of the answers to the above questions, one thing’s for certain: Books aren’t written in a vacuum, and it’s hard for them to gain traction if no one knows about them.

Even if you’re an author with a following, as is the case with Christopher G. “Chris” Nuttall, Katharine Eliska Kimbriel, and Rosemary Edghill, it’s unclear what makes someone decide to read one of your books as opposed to another. Sure, there’s genre preference and all — some people just enjoy reading, say, fantasy-romances, and if your book falls into that category, you’re more likely to be read. But a book that’s so good that people are willing to fall all over themselves recommending it is rare . . . unless you’re a regular book reviewer, as I am.

Then, perhaps, it’s not so rare.

At any rate, Chris Nuttall’s newest novel is SCHOOLED IN MAGIC, the first in a series about Emily, a girl from our Earth who’s transported to another world and finds she can do magic . . . but only if she can get away from the necromancer who transported her there, first.

I’ve read SCHOOLED IN MAGIC and found it to be an interesting take on the old “fish out of water” tale . . . what Emily does in this brand-new world is often life-affirming, but she can’t help but make mistake after mistake due to being unfamiliar with this world and its environs. (Note that this new world is never named; it’s simply “the world.” That’s done for a reason, as the people of this world are decidedly backward by Earthly standards, being roughly at a feudal level.)

A sample chapter is available here for your perusal . . . if you like what you see, please follow the links from that page (there are many) and get yourself your own copy (’cause I’m not sharing mine).

I recently reviewed two of Rosemary Edghill’s books over at Shiny Book Review, IDEALITY: VENGEANCE OF MASKS and FAILURE OF MOONLIGHT. The former is a dark fantasy with elements of SF and horror (tough to quantify, very interesting to read, and extremely thought provoking), while the latter is a series of short stories about Ms. Edghill’s popular character Bast, a Wiccan detective who has only her wits and her faith to help her solve crimes. Bast is extremely intelligent, makes many witty asides, and can be exceedingly trenchant in her opinions . . . which is one of the reasons I enjoy reading about her so much.

FAILURE OF MOONLIGHT is one of those books that you just can’t stop thinking about once you’ve finished reading it. While the one-liners are great and well worth the price of admission, it’s Bast’s mind, thoughts and opinions that call me back again and again. Bast is moral, ethical, and principled, and while she mostly walks apart from others due to her Wiccan faith being profoundly misunderstood (even by other NeoPagans), she’s someone many people would want to befriend if they ever met someone like her outside of a story.

Best of all, if you enjoy these stories, there are three excellent novels about Bast available in BELL, BOOK AND MURDER. These, too, are well worth reading, and are books I return to again and again as I ponder various thoughts and wonder just how Bast managed to come up with the answers this time . . .

Finally, what can I say about the incomparable Katharine Eliska Kimbriel that I haven’t said before? Her work in both hard science fiction with her Chronicles of Nuala series and now in dark fantasy/frontier fantasy with her Night Calls series is outstanding; best of all, she’s currently working on the third book of the latter series even as I write this.

Her most recent release is KINDRED RITES, book two in the Night Calls series; I reviewed it over at SBR back in January. It features Alfreda “Allie” Sorensson. Allie is now thirteen, a burgeoning magician with unusually strong powers, and is studying with her Aunt Marta as she must learn self-control. Fortunately, Allie is a good-hearted young lady who has no wish to coerce others; she only wishes to live her life unmolested, and help others as need be.

In other hands, Allie could easily have turned into a Mary Sue-type of character. Instead, Ms. Kimbriel wisely shows Allie struggling with the things any young girl struggles with — boys. How other girls treat boys. Puberty (or at least the fact of it, as inexorable as the sun coming up in the morning). Learning her craft, which includes birthing babies, digging for herbs in foul weather, and many other unpleasant things . . . and dealing with the effects of magical “hangovers” when too much magic is expended, no doubt. (This is more sketched than shown, but is there nonetheless.)

And, of course, because Allie is so powerful, other people want to steal her away before she can fully come into her own, magical birthright.

In other words, there’s many practical elements to both of Allie’s stories, NIGHT CALLS and KINDRED RITES, plus many speculative elements, and both add immeasurably to the richness of these tales. Allie’s innate goodness is refreshing, while her natural curiosity and wisdom also appeal . . . in short, if you’re looking for YA fantasy done right, look no further than Katharine Eliska Kimbriel.

So there you have it — three fine works of fiction by three disparate writers, all different, each with something interesting and special to offer. I consider all of them “comfort books” for different reasons, and enjoyed them all immensely.

Your next assignment, Dear Reader, is to figure out which one you want to devour first . . . then have at.