A Curious Statistical Anomaly

Today was one of those days that aren’t too bad  if you can ignore the constant ringing in the ears.  Yesterday, I managed to catch up on a lot of data entry and finished a project.  So, that meant today I could try to get some reading in — the truth is if you don’t make time for reading it’s difficult to write reviews.  So, reading is nice especially when the temps are a bit nicer and the living room isn’t an ice box — which means I get to curl up on my reading chair instead of having to sit in my office chair at the dining room table (because it’s the warmest room in the house in cold weather).  Managed to read a whole book today.

Luckily, I also managed a load of wash, feeding the birds, feeding the cats, and sweeping the floors — all of them.  Good thing I then sat to read because the sweeping nearly did in the back.  I stopped before the cramping twitches turned evil.

Managed to clear up some paper messes in the dining room/office.  Read some more.  Finally took a break just before Hyperion got home and went out and raked some leaves.  Really, you’d think trees would clean up after themselves or at the very least crumble into dirt in the spring so no one has to rake them all up — again to get the garden area ready.

Tomorrow I’ve got start seeds on my TODO list.  Hope to get to it because it’s March already.  Time to plan the garden and get it all cleared of leaves and weeds and crap so we can get things ready for planting in a month. I’m really looking forward to getting the garden in.

My problem is that I’m either to eager to start and everything is leggy by the time it’s nice enough to put them in the ground or I wait until it’s way too late to even start and we end up just buying a few plants (tomatos, peppers, cucumbers) and planting lettuce so we at least have salad stuff during the summer.

Spring is the time of year when hope springs eternal that dreams will come true — that the garden will grow vegetables and the weeds won’t even think of poking a leaf out of the ground.

The mystery genre has whole series of   books that have a knitting, crocheting, spinning, weaving, and other fiber arts mentioned in them.  In many, the amateur  detective/sleuth owns a yarn store or art gallery and so the characters use these skills — either to help them solve the crime or in the background as the story unfolds.   An example would be Miss Marple calmly knitting as she observes the people around her and listens to what’s going on and then puts it all together to solve the crime.

In talking with friends, I couldn’t really come up with anything  similar in SF/fantasy/horror (and all subgenres).

The closes I could come to that off the top of my head is the Pern series by McCaffrey where many characters weave, knit, or whatever as part of their household duties.  In the Harry Potter series, Mrs. Weasley knits the family and Harry sweaters and other item, Dobby knits socks,  Hermione  knits hats,  and Hagrid knits various items throughout the books.

I read another book YA retelling of Rumplestiltskin, Spinners  by Donna Jo Napoli and Richard Tchen where  they not only mention the spinning into gold but throughout go through the process of spinning wool (cleaning, carding, spinning, and plying).

I’m looking for the titles and authors of other books for children, YA, and adults that have  the fiber arts (spinning, weaving, knitting, crocheting, and other crafts)  as an integral part of the story line.

Are there others in the science fiction or fantasy category?  Comment with the author, title and how the craft is used…I’m really interested.

As readers of this blog may or may not know, we collect bears.  We also have a number of Tigers living in our house.  If any of you also have stuffed furry friends in their abodes, you may know just how often having a few critters about can be handy when things go wrong or are out of place — after all they’re home all day when you’re not.

So, did you ever wonder what they get up to when you’re not home?

Well, I work at home so I’m here most of the time.  But, I’ve noticed that things go missing.  Things are often not where I put them.  I swear I put things back after I use them but somehow I have to search the whole house to find what should have been on my table/desk or near my reading chair.

So, imagine my surprise last week when I went upstairs to get my phone (I’d left it on the shelf by the bed) to find this little scenario.

Well, this finally explains the missing knitting needles, yarn, and the occasional pattern book.  What I really can’t figure out is why I don’t have extra hand-knit (excuse me tigger-knit) socks in my drawer.

Sometimes I think I live in an alternate dimension — or the Twilight Zone without the weird music.

Recollections of Rosings by Rebecca Ann Collins is book 8 of The Pemberley Chronicles. (Published by Sourcebooks, ISBN: 978-1-4022-2450-8, 336 pages, $14.99 US/$17.99 CAN/£7.99 UK)

While this is book 8, I found it fairly easy to get into. This is only the second book in the series that I’ve read. I reviewed Postscripts from Pemberly back in December 2009. If you’ve read Pride and Prejudice, you’ve got an understanding of the major characters.  And while these characters have moved on, had children, had their children marry, lost loved ones — reading Collins’ work is like dropping in on a huge family reunion after being out of touch for a long while. The books, or at least the ones that I’ve read have an Appendix that lists the major characters and the relationships between them.

I’m starting by pointing this out because there’s a relaxed atmosphere about the stores in Postscripts… and now Recollections…. Collins has a way of presenting the stories partly through the type of narrative/interactive story you’d expect, but she also uses journal or diary entries and letters to help us get a deeper understanding of the characters that have a major part to play. This makes reading the books a lot like being asked to read someone’s personal journal when you know all the people involved (society pages without the cattiness).

Recollections of Rosings is, as you’ve probably guessed about Rosings, the major residence of Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Lady Catherine has been gone for sometime and the estate is run by a board of trustees on which Fitzwilliam Darcy serves. The story opens with the terrible news that there has been a fire at Rosings that has caused considerable damage. The current Vicar, Mr. Harrison, suffers a heart attack and his continuing illness causes some drastic changes to his situation for himself and his family. His wife Catherine, one of Charlotte and Mr. Collins’ daughters, is now caring for her husband and dealing with her grief over the damage done to Rosings where she lived when Lady Catherine took her in as a young child to be a companion for Anne.

The Rosings estate has recently hired a curator to deal with the historic artwork and others treasures of Rosings. Luckily he had done much of the work to catalog what was in the house and it will be useful to the board in determining their loss and what can and should be done to rebuild. That he is also someone who had worked at Rosings while Catherine lived with Lady Catherine helps to bring back many memories and releasing many emotions of her childhood and early adulthood before her marriage.

Meanwhile, Catherine’s daughter seems to be falling in love with a young man in the neighborhood that few people know anything about other than he’s a gentleman and very good at his job. Beck Tate, Catherine’s sister, is at loose ends as her husband has gone to America on business, leaving her behind. Unfortunately for Catherine, Becky feels it is her duty to watch out for her supposedly more naive and unsophisticated sister.

That sets out the parameters of the book, but the journey and the experience of reading it yourself is the frosting on the cake. Collins is not flamboyant — the writing is very reminiscent of sitting about with a best friend talking about family, friends, what is happening with the neighbors, what’s going on, what can be done to make life better for those around you — and yourself, of course.

That’s not to say that you won’t shed tears, laugh out loud, try to get characters to look before they leap, get angry about how some are treated, wonder why other won’t mind their own business, and smile because sometimes love does conquer all. And best of all, for some people there are second chances and, while they don’t come often, when they happen you should not stand and watch them pass you by but reach out for new dreams and a new life.

There’s a very comfortable feel to The Pemberly Chronicles. These are people most of us have spent a lot of time with. Austen created characters that still resonant with us so many years after she wrote her books. That Austen often left her characters just as the leave they church after their wedding, it’s no wonder that so many of us want to know what happened next. Rebecca Ann Collins gives us one possible future — it’s a comfortable one that we can relate too that differs only in degree from the future we see around us for our friends and family.

These are wonderful books for a rainy day — or any day — when you want to believe that people are good at heart and that families stand together in times of trouble. These are books that continue the story of some well loved characters but they are also books of hope and of dreams of communities that many of us would like to live in.

Finally, and in a blaze of stress and last minute finangling, the online magazine are up.

SFReuv: science fiction and fantasy books review along with a review of Skin Horse Volume 1, and some suggestions for Hugo Nominations for short form.

Gumshoe Review: Has an interview with Rhys Bowen and a review of her new book, The Last Illusion. There’s also an original work of fiction, “Negative Reaction” by Lee Hammerschmidt.  Then there’s the usual assortment of reviews.
Check them out and I hope you enjoy them.

Cowboy Trouble by Joanne Kennedy. ISBN: 978-1-4022-3668-6, 416 pages. $6.99 mass market paperback/ $4.79 Kindle edition. On sale March 2, 2010.

Libby Brown always wanted to have a farm. That was definitely impractical while working as a journalist in Atlanta — not much scope in farming on your balcony. However, when her love life goes up in flames, she decides “chickens will never break your heart” and buys a ranch and heads to Wyoming. She barely arrives before her next door (but miles away) neighbor show up to welcome her to the area. Luke Rawlins makes a fine first impression even though he’s decked out like a cliché movie cowboy. But she welcomes the help and the information and who wouldn’t want to spend time with those eyes and the dimples. There’s a lot to learn about running a ranch with a herd of chickens while holding down a job on the local paper.

She begins to meet the people of Lackaduck, Wyoming. There’s the handsome sheriff who seems very committed to his job and is definitely making an effort to get to know Libby. Luke seems to always be around and the tension between the sheriff and Luke is palpable. When Libby hears that there’s next to no crime in Lackaduck but there is an unsolved murder still on the books, her journalistic juices start to flow.

I’d never read anything by Joanne Kennedy before but she sure got my attention with Cowboy Trouble. The story moves at a snappy pace with the point of view shifting smoothly from Libby to Luke to fill in some background information and keep the reader in the information loop. The unsolved mystery drives the story as Libby uses all her skills to identify the killer or at least to turn up some new evidence in the case.

On the level of a mystery, the story is top notch. Kennedy plays fair with the reader and the clues are all there to be collected so that the reader should be able to figure out what’s going on. Of course, the fact that Libby is a bit slower than the reader just adds to the tension. We can guess what’s going to happen but no matter how much you yell at the page, Libby just does her own thing.

The book is billed as a romance and there’s definitely all the expected tropes of a romance. Kennedy has a light touch and even while ratcheting up the tension on the mystery, she keeps the romance boiling and the humor unexpected but appropriate and a welcome tension reliever. Though I must warn you that even though the sex is very low key and more vague innuendo than exactingly detail (vague is good, and Kennedy is great at this) some of those scenes sizzle so much I thought the book was going to spontaneously combust.

All in all this is one heck of a good book when you just want to put your cares on the back-burner and forget about your problems for a few hours. Libby is strong, independent, witty, and definitely not to be trifled with. Kennedy manages to write Libby as a fully developed character who doesn’t do dumb things just to move the plot along. She does occasionally do some real dumb things, but always with solid reasoning behind the acts — you could imagine if you were Libby you’d do something similar.

Reading Cowboy Trouble by Joanne Kennedy is like stepping into another world and being the proverbial fly on the wall. If you enjoy mystery, romance, or a bit of both — you’ll want to add this to your To Be Read stack (and maybe bump it to the top).

Okay, I’ve posted here a few times about the fact that I’m chairperson for Capclave 2010 which is the annual convention for WSFA, the Washington Science Fiction Association.  This year’s guests of honor are Connie Willis, Ann VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer.  The convention is being held at the Rockville Hilton in Rockville, Maryland from October 22 to 24.

Well, we’re trying to get the word out about our convention and we’ve been throwing a lot of ideas around — but there’s not a whole lot of feedback to go on.  So, I need some feedback.

Flyers or Rack Cards?

In the past, we’ve had flyers at all the science fiction conventions that members of WSFA were attending.  The flyers are 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper with information on one or both sides. You can click on the Flyers or Rack Cards links to see what I’m talking about. (The photo to the right is a reduced image of the full color Rack Card.)

Flyers are usually black print on colored or white paper. The Rack Cards are full color front and back. I’ve only showed the front to give you the idea of what they’re like.

The question is which one would be more likely to get you to read the information and maybe even think about going to the convention?

Please leave a comment, I really want to know what catches people’s interest.

As usual, as we near the end of a month, I’m gearing up to get the ezines on line for the next. SFRevu and Gumshoe Review go live with new content on March 1st. It means days are a bit longer and with a bit more stress to add spice.

Meanwhile, I’m also trying to finish the first sock of the first kit of my Rocking Sock Club. This year I joined and the first kit convinced me that I made the right decision. When we receive a package, we’re asked to not post photos of our projects for 30 days. So, sometime during the first week of March, I’ll get some photos up.

Then there’s all the other little projects I’ve been trying to get to. I’ve cleared up my office (once the dining room) a bit. Had to, we’ve got to get all the tax stuff together.

Anyway, since I was clearing some things up anyway, I’ve started trying to use “lists” again. Just writing down what I need to do helps to get me thinking about what’s in the queue and how to arrange those jobs to get them done in a timely manner.

Now if I could only find about a billion more spoons or canned energy or a package of fibro-be-gone, I’d be all set. We’ve finally got the basement floor cleared enough to set up the Wii again. I plan to do something on it every other day until I don’t feel like a wet noodle afterwards. The docs keep telling me exercise will help me deal with the pain and give me more energy. I didn’t see that the last time, but I did lose weight and my arthritis was better, so it’s back to the Wii. But, I do wonder why they coded that little guy with so much attitude — that little appliance can be very snarky.

Oh, well, back to work.