New Guest Blog about Parallel Universes and the Elfyverse is Up

Folks, I have a new guest blog up at Stephanie Osborn’s blog, Comet Tales. It’s about parallel universes, and why I used this particular theory in AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE.

“But Barb,” I can hear you saying. “Why did you write this particular guest blog? Haven’t parallel universes been done to death in SF&F literature? What could you possibly say that’s new about that hoary old subject?”

Well, parallel universes have been used many times in science fiction. But they’ve only rarely been used in straight fantasy. And definitely not like this.

Here’s a bit from my guest blog that explains why I used parallel universes in this particular way:

I figured it’s much easier to have one world that’s split via the parallel universe theory than it is to send someone somewhere else where nothing is familiar whatsoever. I liked the idea that the supposedly familiar could also be intensely strange – as the Elfys, at first, know very little about us, the Humans, and we definitely know even less about them. And I really liked the idea that a magical being like a Dark Elf – that is, a being committed to violence and darkness and death for its own sake – would “pass” as Human because we’ve forgotten that Dark Elfs exist.

Please do take a gander at my guest blog over at Stephanie’s site, as I think you might find it interesting. Because really, very few fantasy novelists have used the parallel universe theory straight-up . . . and perhaps me using it gives you an idea just how unique AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE is compared to other fantasy novels.

(Plus, it’s funny. Have I mentioned that yet?)

Anyway, this guest blog explains why I decided to use the parallel universe theory — something you rarely see in fantasy — to good effect in AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE. I truly hope you will enjoy it.

Just Reviewed Osborn’s First Two “Displaced Detective” Novels at SBR

Tonight’s new review at Shiny Book Review is for Stephanie Osborn’s first two books in her Displaced Detective series about Sherlock Holmes as brought into the modern day via modern physics.  These are fun reads, but more to the point, they’re faithful to the spirit of Holmes in milieu and mythos.  Osborn came up with a great way to start her series by using modern-day physics along with the “World as Myth” concept as delineated by Robert A. Heinlein; the two together explain how Holmes could be a real person, and then how it came to be that Osborn’s hyperspatial physicist, Skye Chadwick, was able to rescue Holmes before he ended up dead at Reichenbach Falls.

These are really fun reads that make good sense in context.  The mysteries Holmes solves are appropriately complex (yes, I said that at SBR, too, but it’s a phrase I don’t get to use much, thus the repetition), Holmes’s abilities seem realistic (for him), and the halting romance that grows between Holmes and Chadwick is worth the price of admission all by itself.

But do expect there to be a romance, especially in the second book, and do expect it to be PG-13.  This makes sense in context, and it’s something I applauded in my review — but some Holmes-o-philes may not wish to see their hero in love.  (If so, the more fool, they.  Osborn does a great job showing how these two extremely brilliant people could and did fall in love, and it works, plot-wise.  To great effect.)

Seriously.  Go read my review of these two fine books, THE CASE OF THE DISPLACED DETECTIVE: THE ARRIVAL and THE CASE OF THE DISPLACED DETECTIVE: AT SPEED.  Then go buy the books already.