A Curious Statistical Anomaly

The 47th Nebula Awards were present this evening, May 19th, 2012, at a ceremony held in the Hyatt Crystal City hotel in Arlington, VA. The Toastmaster was Walter Jon Williams.

Keynote speaker, E. Michael Fincke, Col. USAF (Ret) NASA Astronaut, gave an inspiring talk that thanks the science fiction and fantasy community for their imagination, because so many engineers believe that what they write is not only possible, but actually work to bring it to fruition. His talk was highlighted with pictures of the international space station and some outstanding film of Earth from space.

The Service to SFWA award was presented to Bud Webster for his work in tracking down the estates and heirs of writers who are no longer with us, to help protect their works.

Solstice Awards were presented to Octavia Butler and to John Clute.

The Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy went to Delia Sherman for her book The Freedom Maze.

The Ray Bradbury Award for Dramatic Presentation went to Dr. Who: The Doctor’s Wife written by Neil Gaiman and was directed by Richard Clark. (BBC Wales).

James Patrick Kelly presented the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award to Connie Willis, who gave a humorous and touching acceptance speech.

The short story award was presented to Ken Liu for “The Paper Menagerie” published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction March/April 2011.

The award for novelette was presented to Geoff Ryman for “What We Found” published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction September/October 2011.

The award for novella was presented to Kij Johnson for “The Man Who Bridged the Mist” published in Asimov’s Science Fiction October/November 2011.

The award for novel was presented to Jo Walton for Among Others published by Tor.

. Sourcebooks Landmark (March 1, 2012) ISBN: 978-1402259739. Trade Paperback. $14.99 (Amazon: $11.18 / Kindle: $9.99).

Jack Caldwell gives the men of Austen’s world a chance to shine. Napoleon is planning his escape from Elba. And we all know what that means — Waterloo is almost inevitable to be part of the story; after all there are three colonels in this story. Colonel Christopher Brandon of Sense and Sensibility, Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam of Pride and Prejudice, and Colonel John Buford for this story. With Napoleon’s escape they are all called upon to serve their country again.

This is a follow on story. Marianne and Christopher Brandon are now happily married with a daughter named Joy. The Darcy’s are also very happy in their marriage and have a son, Bennet. Many of the people from Sense and Sensibilities and Pride and Prejudice show up. All the Bennet daughters are married now. Carolyn Bingley is engaged to Colonel Buford when the story begins. Lady Catherine and her daughter, Anne, are also included.

Through flashbacks, Caldwell explains how Caroline has changed since loosing Darcy to Elizabeth. It also sets up how Colonel Buford fits into the scheme of things. There are multiple threads in this novel, one thread follows Anne de Bourgh’s transition from sickly daughter to a force to be reckoned with. A second thread follows Caroline Bingley’s rebuilding of her life after Pride and Prejudice. A third show the changes in the relationship between Colonel Brandon and Marianne with a few surprises. Next is a thread that follows up on Denny and Wickham. And, we must not forget the biggest plot line of all — the escape of Napoleon and the historical events that led to Waterloo, the battle, and the aftermath.

If you love the world and characters of Jane Austen’s creation but do not enjoy the nitty-gritty history of her time, give The Three Colonels a try. Caldwell, while he does cover the battle of Waterloo and the events leading up to it, brings it closer to home by covering it through the eyes and feelings of the characters that we’ve come to know well through books. Austen wrote of the daily life of the kind of people she knew and observed. Caldwell pulls the men of her fiction into the historical events of her lifetime. While the people of England were separated by the channel from the fighting, it still impacted them, especially if they had loved ones in the service.

We like to think of wars as being something that doesn’t effect us. We’re safe, and those stories in the news don’t effect us. But many of us, as in Austen’s time, have husbands, fathers, brothers, sisters, mothers, and relatives who have or are in wars being fought in faraway lands. Jack Caldwell uses the lives of characters we’re familiar with and care about to show that while times have changed and the technology may have changed, the destruction of war effects us all.

Read the The Three Colonels for the joy of seeing what’s happened in the lives of the characters we know through Austen’s works. Read it for the chance to see dry history, spread out before us, as history effects and impacts the people of the time. Or, simple read The Three Colonels for telling a darn good story and making Caroline Bingley a woman most of us would actually be glad to know.