Summer approaches

It was a beautiful weekend in our neck of the woods. Warm, sunny, just a touch of lingering coolness before summer moves in with relentless heat. In short, perfect weather for a lovely Easter weekend.

Which is funny, because that's May weather, not April weather. We've had warmer than usual weather this spring, and fewer storms, so I wouldn't be surprised if this summer becomes another drought.

Summer flowers are the upside. And nice beach weather.

Not that I didn't enjoy a perfect weekend. A lady takes full advantage of such things for hikes and bikes and all those outdoors activities.

Still, maybe it's time to start planning to use less water this summer. And make sure there's plenty of sunscreen and the water bottles are in good shape. If you have a magical solution to keeping cool, this would be a good time to break it out.

As long as we head north to Tortall and get ourselves out of the Great Southern Desert... no, wait, Song of the Lioness series. We'll need to send for the Bowl of Winds... no, wait Wheel of Time. Ask Corlath to use his kelar to... The Blue Sword, right. The Spice will flow, and maybe we can use the profit to hire some terraforming. Wait, no, that's Dune.

Looks like there's no magical or available sci-fi solution to this one; guess we'll have to ride it out, turn to long-term science-based solutions, and hope for better next decade. Until then, summer is coming, so prepare yourselves.

And if you're like me and enjoy summer weather, there's no point in not enjoying it while you start cutting back on water waste.

Daylight Saving Zombism-Fighting Tips

Chances are, if you're in a country that observes Daylight Saving Time, you're groggy this morning.

Fight the zombism with some interesting info:

A list of scientists born on March 13, and a few inventions/discoveries
Read up on the latest science news at Science News.
Myths and Truths about Daylight Savings Time from CNN (if you don't have AdBlock, this link makes noise)

Get some random facts at the Random Fact Site.

Or join me in pretending to be on the beaches
in Capri today, eating delicious Italian food.

And if you're not happy to be at work today, pretend you're somewhere else by browsing amazing travel adventures at places like G-Adventures or National Geographic Adventures. (Sure, I'm totally in shape enough to go sea kayaking, hiking, biking, and horseback riding in New Zealand, or climb Mount Kilimanjaro... And if you believe that, I'll pretend I can afford to do it, too.)

Colorful Nature

Feeling a bit dreary? How about some color?

Everyone expects pansies to be colorful. Rivers and
mountains? Not so much.

As in, check out the rainbow mountains of China's Danxia Landform Geological Park.

Have you ever seen a rainbow tree? There are eucalyptus trees that naturally grow in rainbow colors.

Or how about some rainbow animals?

And let's not forget the "River of Five Colors" in Columbia.

As weird and fantastic as fantasy is, sometimes the real world creates color so vibrant we'd never believe it in a movie. But it's fun to imagine putting some of these colorful plants, animals, and minerals into a book or a video game anyway.

Gardens

My wildest dreams.

Spring is around the corner, and I am again having delusions that maybe this year I'll have a decent garden.

Considering I live in an apartment and have no yard, nor the time to spend tending more than a couple of potted plants, nor the actual green thumb to help them survive hot summers, this is probably going to be quickly crushed again. In reality I'll probably settle for a potted tomato plant that produces a few dozen tomatoes and some basil.

Let's face it, even Victory Gardens were never intended for people living in apartments (at least not personal ones, and finding a place willing to let your and your neighbors share ground space isn't exactly easy these days), and it's not exactly like a full-time job plus writing leaves a lot of time for weeding. Nor is gardening an available hobby to most people, with it requiring so much labor and land space. So I'm certainly thankful for the local farmers market, and grocery stores!

But it doesn't mean I don't dream of one day having an actual garden. Somehow vegetables seem to taste better when you've seen them grown in the earth yourself.

Do you garden? What do you grow? And if you're short on actual dirt space, what sorts of potted plants do you grow?

Post-Voting Fun Things to Watch

This week is the election. Go vote if you haven't already, and you're an American!

If you have, or you're not an American, hurrah! Now relax and enjoy yourself and try to ignore the rest of the political ads. Here's some cool stuff to watch while you wait.

Have you seen the minisode for Infinity Train? Cartoon Network's new proposed series hasn't actually been picked up yet, but the mini-episode makes it look like an awesome possible show. Plus it's pretty cool on its own.

How about Dr. River-Song's entire timeline, in her order, as of 2016? Spoilers, of course...

And if you're a fan of Phineas and Ferb, you should check out Milo Murphy's Law, a new series by the same writers.

Sick

At least the cat is feeling better, and
snazzy in his new stitches-protecting shirt.

I have joined the ranks of the ill in my household. So, no real post today. Hope you all escape the throes of fall illness yourselves!

Politics in fantasy

Game of Thrones. The Farseer trilogy (Robin Hobb). The Mistborn trilogy (Brandon Sanderson). The Inheritance Trilogy (N.K. Jemisin). 

I could this as a modern palace...

All these books have a power void, a question of regal inheritance and who owns the right to the throne. Something about royalty intrigues us, secret princes and princesses and power struggles being a trope that never actually goes out of fashion. 

Which, from the viewpoint of living in a democracy with no acknowledged aristocracy or royalty, seems a bit strange. I suppose it's not much different from the Billionaire craze: there's that underlying desire to be incredibly wealthy, and incredibly important. And "Who should rule" isn't just limited to kings and queens, but also to political factions--the Rebellion in Star Wars, the Weyr leaders in McCaffrey's books, the rebels in the Hunger Games. 

I guess people just like politics in fantasy. It even shows up in stories I'd call epic fantasy instead of political fantasy. Lord of the Rings has Aragorn. The Belgariad has the rightful ruler Garion. 

Which political plotlines in fantasy stories have you enjoyed the most? What do you love about them?

Best time for scary movies?

When do you watch horror?

I'll admit it, as much as I enjoy horror movies, they scare me, and I often prefer the mid-day approach so I can sleep well at night. Nice bright sunlight for a few hours after, thanks, and I'll sleep much better.

Though if I'm with a group of people, a stormy night is good, too. As long as I can hang out with friends for a while afterward.

It's funny how we like to scare ourselves. And how people who like horror movies have different preferences for how they scare themselves. I'm a strictly psychological thriller, that's my thing--not into slasher movies at all. Yet that's not everyone's taste.

I like roller coasters.

Some people like sky-diving.

Others hate all of the above, but will sit for hours with a book of terrifying true crime stories.

People are weird. And we like to scare ourselves. So what's the best time to scare yourself? And what's your scare preference?

Healing in Fantasy

Fantasy stories often include either magical or herbal remedies for sickness and pain (often both, in fact). Pretty much every story I've read involves the hero being treated for wounds with poultices and bandages, or encountering some kind of magical healing that speeds her recovery from physical or magical illnesses.

Even Frodo Baggins had the elves to treat him, and if not for Aragorn's herb knowledge, he would have been tainted by darkness long before laying eyes on Mount Doom.

One of my favorite fantasy writers, Tamora Pierce, has a YA series centered around a group of youngsters living in a healing circle, learning to use their magic under the instruction and care of healing mages. They deal with pirates and plagues both, saving lives and finding each other.

The long-running classic Wheel of Time also has healers, a whole Ajah of women dedicated to using their powers for healing.  They also encounter and conflict with Wise Women, un-magical healers who use herbs and non-magic remedies to heal villagers.

And of course Healer Hall in Anne McCaffrey's world of Pern is a main location for the plot of several books, as dragonriders help find a cure for terrible plagues.

What are some of your favorite examples of healers in books?

Fantasy friendships

Friendship: When in sickness and in health, in D&D and in moving heavy furniture up and down stairs, in feasts and in cold pizza, in love and in heartbreak, we promise to stay by certain people and cheer them on.

Pictured: A loyal sidekick

Shared laughter, shared confidences, and shared experiences build the foundation of most friendships. Sometimes it feels like friendship takes second ship to romance in a lot of modern stories, but it's a theme that still shows up regularly. Where would Frodo be without Samwise, or Wilbur without Charlotte, or Cimorene without Kazul, or Kaylee without Inara? 

What are some of the best friendships in the science fiction and fantasy stories you've enjoyed? 

What's your best travel story?

Maybe my best travel story is the time my friends and I, in high school, set off to the beach (in the era before any of us had GPSs, let alone smart phones), and wound up turning a 3-hour straight drive into a 9-hour tour through the middle of South Carolina due to missing a few exits.

Or perhaps it was the trip to the International Youth League Conference in Prague (for which my brother and I did an impressive amount of local scholarship-gathering, me a senior in high school and he in college), wherein, accompanied by an international coterie of college-age students and following a couple of trips to pubs, my brother's roommate had been dared to knock on the first door in the girl's dorm and propose. Poor guy; to save his life from my big brother's wrath, I'm afraid I had to break his heart by turning him down. Also, my own roommate and the entirety of the coterie may have roused the hall with their laughter.

There was also the Thanksgiving at the beach in which we adopted one of my friends for the holiday. She and I decided to try the hot tub, but after having been joined by a rather creepy old man in the indoor one, relocated to the outdoor hot tub. As it was in the low 40sF, Creepy Guy did not attempt to follow. After warming up in the hot tub, we sprinted across the icy sand to plunge into the winter ocean water, and fled, shrieking, back to the hot tub. Several times.

Beautiful city, beautiful island,
and a wonderful trip, friendly
cults and all!

Or there was the time when, on a visit to my fiance's parents in Taiwan, they decided to take us to a new nearby temple over Chinese New Year. They'd thought it was very impressive-looking Buddhist temple, and taking me to experience some local culture was the perfect excuse to check it out. Oh boy, were they mortified when the giant laughing Buddha temple turned out to be a cult! We still laugh about it together. Although as the cult was devoted to happiness and members were required to cultivate friendliness, it was actually quite the fun tour for me!

What's your favorite travel story/misadventure?

Modern Travel and Fantasy

The world is a big place. But it isn't.

Airplanes make journeys that would be impossible a hundred years ago in under a day. Unless there's a huge layover, in which case it may take a couple of days.

Communication is instant. Unless the Internet is out or a message isn't delivered or you're out of signal, in which case, it isn't.

In a lot of books and stories, the same kinds of problems can be seen as plot devices: the struggle to light the beacons in Lord of the Rings (movie, not the book), for example, is a case of broken communications. Or the messenger gets shot. Or the signal crystals break.

Can you imagine a Star Trek where none of the ships could exceed the speed of light? The universe is big, but it also isn't. What if there were a time delay in communications? (Actually, didn't this happen in a couple of episodes...?)

A lot of this is simply that travel time is inconvenient. Nobody wants to spend sixteen hours on a layover, not unless the entire story takes place during the layover. But how do our modern travel experiences affect our fiction ones? We've taken out much of the waiting time in our fantasy and science fiction stories, most of the time during which little to nothing happens for characters, and not just in the "and then time passed" sense: if it interrupts the journey, more often than not, the characters themselves often just don't experience it. This creates a lack of downtime for the characters, which isn't unlike the "always-on" mentality of today's world. A lot of the older stories make reference to months and years passing, but it seems less common in modern works.

There are some exceptions, such as Dust (the one about the ship wherein many generations have passed on the ship), but for the most part it's rare to give characters downtime.

On the other hand, communication problems? They're everywhere. What was the last you story read written in the last ten years where the communication system worked reliably for the entire story?

How else has our modern life affected our fiction?

Perspective

Planetary acne, aka scenic vacation spot.

Perspective: It's how you change a 1000-foot sheer drop to certain doom into a sculpture of banded earth, carved over the course of millions of years and revealing tens of millions of years' worth of history.

It's how a hot, shadeless stretch of infertile, salted, granular rock becomes a tropical paradise. It's how the zits of the earth full of rocky and barren soil became beautiful retreats to scenic mountains.


And how a paycheck with the dignity of being treated like a professional, and the confidence of knowing you have health insurance becomes a rude awakening with a requisite dragging of self into a cold and faceless cubicle.

It's all perspective. So which are you going to choose to write from?

Fangirl subjects

Most people have a fangirl or fanboy subject: something they'll at least try to read or watch just because it's about that subject, regardless of how cheesy it looks or how mediocre the reviews.

Me? I'll usually try just where the dragon is on the hero's side.

What's yours?

Keeping the Mind Occupied

Where do you go when you're doing something tedious? Not literally; I mean, where do you go in your mind?

The benefit of two monitors at the day job is that when a task requires some less-than-inspiring work before the fun, challenging parts begin, I can put up pictures of vacations or places I'd like to go. I'm a traveler, so the pictures change frequently. In the morning I might be in Greece, in the afternoon, Taiwan.

The view from Taipei 101

Our office is super-quiet, so chatting with the coworkers isn't much of an option. Making up stories about what I'm doing on vacation, on the other hand, is perfectly allowable and keeps my mind occupied, and at least gives my imagination some exercise. (Which may or may not be related to how I wound up writer, actually...)

So how do you cope when you have similar work to do?

Modern twists on classic tropes

"The lie" trope shows up everywhere. A character pretends to be something she or he isn't, and keeps the act up, often falling in love in the way, only to have it disastrously revealed at the worst moment--and somehow things turn out okay.

Often it's a Prince and Pauper lie, where the protagonist is pretending to be wealthy, elite, amazing. Sometimes there's also a corresponding pretend pauper, who's inevitably learned a life lesson, but usually the focus is on the real pauper pretending to be a prince. Because let's face it, more people relate to the pauper over the prince.

Yes, of course I'm a real princess.
Why do you ask?

Of course, the pauper also ends up with a nice hefty bonus that leaves them no longer worrying about money, but hey, that's just how fiction goes.


In the age of identify theft, Facebook, social media, would a real prince-and-pauper story turn out so well? How much longer will this trope stay current--or will it always be a dream we have, as a society? I think it speaks to something universal, myself, that wish that everything were easy--and the realization that "easy" isn't always what it seems. But maybe the face of it will change.

What twists do you think we'll start seeing in Prince and Pauper tales in the future, as technology changes?

Flower Pics

Guess who forgot Friday again?

Well then, a few more pictures for public domain:

I took Good Friday off and had a long weekend, and must say I have no regrets. Chores crossed off the list, relaxing, Twilight Princess, and Jessica Jones.

How do you spend your long weekends (when you manage to get them)?

No post today

Still swamped with work.

Still loving my readers, too, so don't worry, I'll be back when the craziness is over.

You know how it is. Long hours, tired eyes, maximum effort (but not Deadpool style). Don't worry--it will pass.

No post

No post today--another long workweek.

Lost in the woods. Will the author ever find her way out?

Flowers and Butterflies

The thing about winter is the long, cold, dreary days where it's too frigid to turn your face to the sun and let the day warm you.

But if you're willing to drive a bit, you might find yourself by the Durham Museum of Life and Science. And if you wander in and out and into the cold, and then inside again, you may find yourself in a tropical paradise filled with flowers butterflies.

It'll be easy to find on the museum map, since it's called the butterfly house.

And once you've enjoyed the flowers and the butterflies, you can maybe climb the giant treehouse. Yes, it's still cold outside, but come on. Giant tree house.

Museums are often aimed at kids, but there's no reason adults can't drop in and enjoy the flowers, too. Makes a nice break from winter, at least.